If all of the film adaptations of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” have left your brain numb, this one may really kill you … in a good way.

Natalie Portman has signed on to produce and star in the movie version of the best-selling book “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” written by Seth Grahame-Smith and, uh, Jane Austen.

This expanded version of the Austen classic adds a twist on the well-known love story when the outbreak of a deadly virus begins to turn townsfolk into killers. Elizabeth Bennet struggles to balance her blossoming love for Mr. Darcy with her obligation to kick some zombie butt.

And who better to bring the right combination of elegance, wit, and edginess to the role of Elizabeth Bennet than Portman? She certainly has the chops to convince us to embrace this version of Elizabeth — a woman who at long last will have a proper outlet for her sense of purpose.

Sure, zombies may seem like a peculiar addition to the original text, but there is something about the outbreak of the undead in 19th-century England that somehow makes the story more accessible.

The idea that love can blossom in spite of treacherous, external forces is really a modern concept. Besides, who hasn’t had to slay a couple of zombies to land Mr. Right?

When Woody Harrelson escapes the living dead in “Zombieland,” a new movie opening this Friday, should he head for the hills or the mall? A recently published research paper suggests that he’s probably better off hiding in the mall to save his delicious brain.

The world is full of things that move in zombie-like fashion, such as particles flowing through a turbulent fluid or the unpredictable price changes of the stock market, so physicists seek insight into this behavior by creating so called “random walking” models.

Physicist Davide Cassi at the Università di Parma in Italy looked at how long an entity hiding in a complex structure could survive if being pursued by predatory random walkers. Cassi’s paper, recently published in the journal Physical Review E, is the first to describe a general principle of a prey’s likelihood to survive over time while hiding in an irregular structure.

Though the paper itself does not specifically refer to fleeing from zombies, it describes “the survival probability of immobile targets annihilated by random walkers.” The conclusions suggest that the people trapped in a mall in “Dawn of the Dead” may be better off than the folks stuck in a farmhouse in “Night of the Living Dead.”

Cassi found that the likelihood of survival when threatened by predatory random walkers is closely related to how complex the prey’s hideout is. The more twists and turns, the safer you’ll be. In structures that are highly complex and irregular, the chances of the predator coming into contact with its target shrinks down to almost zero.

Cassi formulates a model to describe the behavior of randomly moving particles as they travel through maze-like networks. He said that his work could apply to a wide variety of situations including the distribution of information through the internet and medicine spreading through the human body.”

There are a lot of applications of these results in a lot of fields of sciences,” Cassi said. “The most amazing field of applications of these results are in biology, biochemistry and other organisms

.

“So remember, when the zombies come, flee to the biggest shopping mall you can find and remember that, using zombie movies as a guide, the undead often win.

As the nation continues to struggle in one of the worst economies in history Americans will require a bit more to actually feel fear this Halloween season. In response, Hauntworld Magazine (www.hauntworld.com), the Halloween and haunt industry’s leading trade publication, has announced listings of the most terrifying locations in America, including: the Top 31 Haunted Attractions (one for each day in October), the Top 10 Amusement Park Halloween events and more. These attractions are being recognized for their attention to detail, high-quality special effects, and overall “scare factor”.

The haunted houses and attractions on these lists aren’t your average neighborhood decorations. Each haunted attraction costs up to $1 million to construct, uses professionally trained actors, Hollywood make-up artists and the latest technology in order to transport people into an insane, realistic and horrific environment that rivals any horror movie set. The result is an industry that has grown to generate over $1 BILLION each season, redefining the way people celebrate Halloween.

“Americans have an intrinsic urge to conquer fear and the haunted attractions on these lists are as close as many can get to literally coming face-to-face with true terror,” said Larry Kirchner, Editor-in-Chief of Hauntworld Magazine. “Scary movies and roller coasters are great for a cheap thrill but what these attractions provide their visitors is a sense of exhilaration and an adrenaline rush that can only be felt from live action. These locations are examples of those places in the country you’ll be telling your friends you
survived, not visited.”

Top Professional Haunted Attractions: 2009

The Top 13 Haunted Attractions:
• 1. 13th Gate Haunted House – Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
• 2. Netherworld Haunted House – Atlanta, Georgia
• 3. The Beast – Kansas City, Missouri
• 4. The Darkness Haunted House – St. Louis, Missouri
• 5. House of Torment – Austin, Texas
• 6. Dent Schoolhouse – Cincinnati, Ohio
• 7. Bates Motel – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 8. Haunted Schoolhouse – Akron, Ohio
• 9. Bayville Screampark – Long Island, New York
• 10. House of Shock – New Orleans, Louisiana
• 11. Dead Acres – Columbus, Ohio
• 12. Headless Horseman – Ulster Park, New York
• 13. Graystone Manor – Killen, Alabama

And to visit a haunted attraction for each day of October, the list continues
to include:

• 1. Cutting Edge Haunted House, Dallas, Texas
• 2. Erebus Haunted House, Pontiac, Michigan
• 3. Edge of Hell, Kansas City, Missouri
• 4. Scarehouse, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 5. Creepyworld, St. Louis, Missouri
• 6. Haunted Overload, Lee, NH
• 7. Atrox Factory, Leeds, Alabama
• 8. Fright World, Buffalo, New York
• 9. Dreamreapers, Melrose Park, Illinois
• 10. Haunted Hotel, San Diego, California
• 11. Fright Kingdom, Nashua, NH
• 12. Asylum Haunted House, Denver, Colorado
• 13. Spookywoods, High Point, North Carolina
• 14. Pirates of Emerson, Fremont, California
• 15. The Asylum, Las Vegas, Nevada
• 16. Field of Screams, Mountville, PA
• 17. Bennett’s Curse, Baltimore, Maryland
• 18. Land of Illusion, Middletown, Ohio

Top 10 Amusement Park Halloween Events: 2009
• 1. Universal Studios Horror Nights, Orlando, FL
• 2. Knott’s Scary Farm, Los Angeles, CA
• 3. Tampa Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL
• 4. Universal Studios Horror Nights, Hollywood, CA
• 5. Kennywood Amusement Park, Pittsburgh, PA
• 6. Busch Gardens, Williamsburg, PA
• 7. King’s Island Haunt, Cincinnati, OH
• 8. Cedar Point Haunt, Sandusky, OH
• 9. Six Flags Fright Fest, NJ
• 10. Old Tucson Studios Nightfall, Tucson, AZ

Best Screamparks/Haunted Hayrides: 2009
• 1. Headless Horseman, Ulster Park, New York
• 2. Bates Motel, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania
• 3. Shocktoberfest, Reading, Pennsylvania
• 4. Field of Screams, Mountville, PA
• 5. Creepyworld, St. Louis, MO
• 6. Spookywoods, High Point, North Carolina
• 7. Bayville Screampark, Long Island, New York
• 8. Jason’s Woods, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• 9. Halloween Park, Strinestown, Pennsylvania
• 10. 7 Floors of Hell, Cleveland, Ohio

Top 5 Places to get Scared in America: 2009
• 1. Salem, Massachusetts
• 2. Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
• 3. Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California
• 4. The Mortuary Haunted House, New Orleans, Louisiana
• 5. Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky

Writer-director John Hughes, Hollywood’s youth impresario of the 1980s and ’90s who captured and cornered the teen and pre-teen market with such favorites as “Home Alone,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” died Thursday, a spokeswoman said. He was 59.

Hughes died of a heart attack during a morning walk in Manhattan, Michelle Bega said. He was in New York to visit family.

A native of Lansing, Mich., who later moved to suburban Chicago and set much of his work there, Hughes rose from ad writer to comedy writer to silver screen champ with his affectionate and idealized portraits of teens, whether the romantic and sexual insecurity of “Sixteen Candles,” or the J.D. Salinger-esque rebellion against conformity in “The Breakfast Club.”

Hughes’ ensemble comedies helped make stars out of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and many other young performers. He also scripted the phenomenally popular “Home Alone,” which made little-known Macaulay Culkin a sensation as the 8-year-old accidentally abandoned by his vacationing family, and wrote or directed such hits as “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” and “Uncle Buck.”

Other actors who got early breaks from Hughes included John Cusack (“Sixteen Candles”), Judd Nelson (“The Breakfast Club”), Steve Carrell (“Curly Sue”) and Lili Taylor (“She’s Having a Baby”).

As Hughes advanced into middle age, his commercial touch faded and, in Salinger style, he increasingly withdrew from public life. His last directing credit was in 1991, for “Curly Sue,” and he wrote just a handful of scripts over the past decade. He was rarely interviewed or photographed.

Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt believes that she is the perfect choice to play Amazonian superhero ‘Wonder Woman’ because she has the requisite physique for the part.

The ‘Ghost Whisperer’ actress wants to reprise the role made famous by ‘Lynda Carter’ in the cult 70s TV series, Contactmusic reported.

“I want to play Wonder Woman really badly. I want them to make the movie of ‘Wonder Woman’, and I want to play Wonder Woman so bad. That’d be really fun.

“I’m curvaceous. Gold bracelets! Look at these wrists… tell me gold bracelets would not look good! And I love little tiaras, and Wonder Woman got to wear one of those. I’m very athletic,” the actress said.

However the actress faces tough competition to land her dream role.

Singer-and-actress Beyonce Knowles, ‘High School Musical’ star Vanessa Hudgens and actress Jessica Biel are among those who have recently said they would love the chance to take on the title role in the much-speculated movie.

Television viewers knew him as the OxiClean guy: the bearded, boisterous pitchman on commercials airing hundreds of times a week nationwide. “Hi. Billy Mays here,” he would begin, before showing off his latest cleaning product or gadget.

Family, friends and colleagues mourned Mays, 50, who was found unresponsive in his Tampa home Sunday, and awaited an autopsy to determine the cause of his sudden death.

Police said Mays told his wife he didn’t feel well when he went to bed Saturday night. Earlier in the day, he said he was hit on the head when his airliner had a rough landing at Tampa Bay’s airport.

But the airline said no passengers reported any serious injuries, and Mays himself cheerfully recounted the landing for a local TV station. His wife, Deborah, found him unresponsive Sunday morning.

Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said linking Mays’ death to the landing would “purely be speculation.” She said Mays’ family members didn’t report any health issues with the pitchman, but said he was due to have hip replacement surgery in coming weeks.

“Although Billy lived a public life, we don’t anticipate making any public statements over the next couple of days,” Deborah Mays said in a statement. “Our family asks that you respect our privacy during these difficult times.”

Billy Mays’ face was easily recognizable, pitching OxiClean, that he said got out even the toughest of stains, and Orange Glo, which he said shined up any wood around your home. “I love beautiful wood,” he tells customers.

There were no signs of a break-in at the home, and investigators do not suspect foul play, said Lt. Brian Dugan of the Tampa Police Department, who wouldn’t answer questions about how Mays’ body was found because of the ongoing investigation.

U.S. Airways confirmed that Mays was among the passengers on a flight that made a rough landing on Saturday afternoon at Tampa International Airport, leaving debris on the runway after apparently blowing its front tires.

Tampa Bay’s Fox television affiliate, WTVT-TV, interviewed Mays afterward.

“All of a sudden as we hit you know it was just the hardest hit, all the things from the ceiling started dropping,” MyFox Tampa Bay quoted him as saying. “It hit me on the head, but I got a hard head.”

Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she did not know if Mays was wearing his seat belt on the flight because the FAA was not investigating his death.

U.S. Airways spokesman Jim Olson said there were no reports of serious injury due to the landing. “If local authorities have any questions for us about yesterday’s flight, we’ll cooperate fully with them,” he said.

Born William Mays in McKees Rocks, Pa., on July 20, 1958, Mays developed his style demonstrating knives, mops and other “As Seen on TV” gadgets on Atlantic City’s boardwalk. For years he worked as a hired gun on the state fair and home show circuits, attracting crowds with his booming voice and genial manner.

AJ Khubani, founder and CEO of “As Seen on TV,” said he first met Mays in the early 1990s when Mays was still pitching one of his early products, the Shammy absorbent cloth, at a trade fair. He said he most recently worked with Mays on the reality TV show “Pitchmen” on the Discovery Channel, which follows Mays and Anthony Sullivan in their marketing jobs.

“His innovative role and impact on the growth and wide acceptance of direct response television cannot be overestimated or easily replaced; he was truly one of a kind,” Khubani said in a statement.

After meeting Orange Glo International founder Max Appel at a home show in Pittsburgh in the mid-1990s, Mays was recruited to demonstrate the environmentally friendly line of cleaning products on the St. Petersburg-based Home Shopping Network.

Commercials and informercials followed, anchored by the high-energy Mays using them while tossing out kitschy phrases like, “Long live your laundry!”

Sarah Ellerstein worked closely with Mays when she was a buyer for the Home Shopping Network in the 1990s and he was pitching Orange Glo products.

“Billy was such a sweet guy, very lovable, very nice, always smiling, just a great, great guy,” she said, adding that Mays met his future wife at the network. “Everybody thinks because he’s loud and boisterous on the air that that’s the way he is, but I always found him to be a quiet, down-to-earth person.”

His ubiquitousness and thumbs-up, in-your-face pitches won Mays plenty of fans for his commercials on a wide variety of products. People lined up at his personal appearances for autographed color glossies, and strangers stopped him in airports to chat about the products.

“I enjoy what I do,” Mays told The Associated Press in a 2002 interview. “I think it shows.”

Mays liked to tell the story of giving bottles of OxiClean to the 300 guests at his wedding, and doing his ad spiel (“powered by the air we breathe!”) on the dance floor at the reception. Visitors to his house typically got bottles of cleaner and housekeeping tips.

His former wife, Dolores “Dee Dee” Mays, of McKees Rocks, recalled that the first product he sold was the Wash-matik, a device for pumping water from a bucket to wash cars.

“I knew him since he was 15, and I always knew he had it in him,” she said of Mays’ success. “He’ll live on forever because he always had the biggest heart in the world. He loved his friends and family and would do anything for them. He was a generous soul and a great father.”

Besides his wife, Mays is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and a stepson in his 20s, police said.

CBS has announced the premiere dates for its fall lineup, which will mostly launch during the week of Sept. 20, the official start of the 2009-2010 season.

In addition, the network announced that “Survivor: Samoa,” the 19th installment of the reality series, will start Sept. 17, a week prior to the formal launch of the season.

CBS’ new season will kick off Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. with the return of “How I Met Your Mother” and the premiere of the comedy “Accidentally on Purpose,” followed by “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory” and “CSI: Miami.”

Tuesday’s block will feature “NCIS,” followed by its spinoff, “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and the debut of the new drama “The Good Wife.”

Wednesday’s lineup will be “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “Gary Unmarried,” “Criminal Minds” and “”CSI: NY.”

Thursday’s schedule will be “Survivor: Samoa,” followed by “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “The Mentalist” in its new 10 p.m. slot.

The move of NBC’s “Medium” to CBS will debut Sept. 25 at 9 p.m., preceded by “Ghost Whisperer” and followed by “Numb3rs.”

Saturday’s slate will be two hours of drama repeats, “Crimetime Saturday” followed by “48 Hours Mystery.” Sundays will mark the return of “60 Minutes” at 7 p.m., followed by “The Amazing Race” at 8 p.m. and “Cold Case” at 10 p.m. CBS’ new medical drama “Three Rivers” will premiere Oct. 4 at 9 p.m.