LATEST ADDITIONS

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: You want to buy a DVD-Video player to impress your friends with your techo-hipness (and besides, you're tired of watching fuzzy VHS rentals). You have a digital surround receiver, so the player doesn't need a Dolby Digital or DTS decoder.

<I>Jimmy Cliff, Janet Bartley, Earl Bradshaw, Ras Daniel Hartman. Directed by Perry Henzell. Aspect ratio: 1.66:1. Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono). 103 minutes. 1973. The Criterion Collection 83. R. $35.99.</I>

There won't be any end to the blitz of new movies and television shows, thanks to an agreement reached late July 3 between members of the <A HREF="http://www.sag.org">Screen Actors Guild</A> (SAG), the <A HREF="http://www.aftra.org">American Federation of Television and Radio Artists</A> (AFTRA), and Hollywood film studios. Actors agreed to keep working beyond the expiration date of their old contract on June 30; discussions were said to be "amicable" and "low-key."

Movie tickets worth approximately $3.89 <I>billion</I> were sold in the United States during the first six months of 2001. That number is a 10% increase over the same period in the previous year, according to a report from Exhibitor Relations Company, which tracks business trends for the theater industry.