Arts & Entertainment, film, television, books, music, people and celebrities, arts

"The Pacific" isn't as vast as you might think.

HBO's "The Pacific" is based in part on these books:

"Helmet For My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific" ($16, Bantam Books) by Robert Leckie: Originally published in 1957, this reissue tells the story of the war from the point of view of Leckie, played in the miniseries by James Badge Dale ("24").

PASADENA, Calif. - Viewers of HBO's "The Pacific" may or may not recognize actor Joe Mazzello, but odds are good they've seen him before: At age 9, he starred as the grandson of the founder of "Jurassic Park" in that 1993 hit movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, who is also an executive producer on "The Pacific."

PASADENA, Calif. - Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have gone to war together before: On the 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan" and on HBO's 2001 World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers."

LOS ANGELES - It's 4:30 a.m., and I'm standing on Beverly Boulevard in a long line of desperados waiting for their luck to change.

Spot No. 1 is occupied by a guy snoring inside a sleeping bag, who arrived from Ohio two hours ago. Behind me, three recent high-school graduates who found baby sitters for their newborns are doing football cheers to stay warm.

Think "March Madness" is all about basketball?

Think again.

A smart, brown-haired hunk, his adorable flannel-wearing blond sister and a mad scientist are trapped in a strange land. They spend every episode running back and forth through the jungle, constantly crossing paths with hidden temples, caves, native inhabitants, scary monsters and a dime-store assortment of mystical powers. But darn it all, they just can't find their way home.

Utterly unpleasant and unfunny, Fox's dispiriting "Sons of Tucson" (9:30 p.m. EDT Sunday) may be the worst comedy series of a generally winning 2009-10 TV season.

HBO's latest World War II epic, "The Pacific," arrives in the shadow of the network's much-admired 2001 WWII miniseries, "Band of Brothers," and there will be inevitable comparisons.

If you're a fan of nuanced, character-driven storytelling, there's no question "The Pacific" is the superior effort. The show premieres 9 p.m. EDT Sunday and runs Sundays through May 16.

Before the Na'vi in James Cameron's "Avatar" and Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" took on another dimension -- and an extra few bucks for each ticket sold -- movie-theater owners spent between $65,000 to $125,000 per auditorium to retrofit screens and projectors to show the reach-out-and-touch-air effects in 3-D films.