Special Coverage 2008 Fall Movie PreviewThe Must List2008 Fall TV PreviewSound Bites
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SOUND BITESNext time you shoot a music video, here's a way to save money on catering: Tell the extras to bring their own food and drink. That's what Kid Rock did on Saturday, at a free concert he staged at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit, which was also a shoot for his new song, ''Forever.'' Encouraged to dress in red, white, and blue and to bring their own coolers to the tailgate party/video shoot, fans showed their appreciation for their host (and his special guest, paramour Pamela Anderson) by pelting the stage with beer cans. The rap/rocker is turning the video around quickly; it's scheduled to debut on MTV on Nov. 5. His album ''Cocky'' will hit stores two weeks later....

Roger Clemens has pitched for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, but not for both teams at the same time. That's the equivalent of what's happening in the classical world, where conductor James Levine is taking the music director job at the Boston Symphony Orchestra even as he keeps his post as artistic director of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Levine, 58, will become the first American-born director in the BSO's 121-year history, replacing Seiji Ozawa, who will leave the orchestra after 29 years to run the Vienna State Opera in 2002. Levine has spent 30 years at the Met, conducting some 2,000 opera performances, and is contracted there through 2008. Plus, he's also conducting the Munich Philharmonic, where he's currently in his third season, through 2004. That's one busy baton.

HEALTH WATCH In her first interview since her near fatal car crash in April, Niki Taylor tells Us magazine that she's still in constant pain, will require more surgery, and has been permanently scarred, but she's grateful to be alive and reunited with her 6-year-old twin sons. The supermodel, who suffered life-threatening liver damage when she was a passenger in a single-car crash in Atlanta, endured some 40 operations, with the result that ''I now have scars all over my stomach -- it looks like I have a 16 pack.'' More than two months of bed rest in the hospital resulted in curvature of the spine that will take more surgery to correct, as well as numbness in her legs from nerve damage. Also, antibiotics made her hair fall out, though that is temporary. She says she was touched by the thousands of letters sent by well-wishers, including one overly generous man who offered her his own liver. ''I am just so grateful right now that I can move my arms and legs, that I can breathe, that I came out of this nightmare alive, that I'm with my boys,'' says the 26-year-old. ''I definitely think the big man upstairs is saying, 'You've gotta live. It's not your time yet.'''

REEL DEALS Connie Nielsen, who played Emperor Joaquin Phoenix's scheming sister in ''Gladiator,'' is in talks to costar with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in ''Basic.'' It's not clear what Nielsen's role would entail, but presumably not discussing European hamburger names with the former ''Pulp Fiction'' costars, who will share little screen time. John McTiernan (''The Thomas Crown Affair'') is directing the thriller, about a Drug Enforcement agent (Travolta) investigating the disappearance of an Army Ranger instructor (Jackson). Shooting begins November 26 at a Navy air station in Jacksonville, Fla....


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