An evening update

Since I'll get so much email tomorrow.

The Cards play the New York Mets for the last time in Busch Stadium this week. Since June 14th, Chris Carpenter has gone undefeated for 15 straight starts. He is the first play since Gaylord Perry went 15 straight for the 1974 Cleveland Indians.

The Boston Red Sox will conclude their longest homestand tonight against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as Matt Clement faces Louisville native Paul Byrd.

Eugene Levy is in the last of a dying breed.

We may never see another like him, especially because the incubators that created such well-rounded comics as Levy have fallen out of favor. He was trained in Chicago's Second City Theatre performing before live audiences.

"It's improvisation, you're learning to think on your feet, you're learning to write, you're doing a different kind of character in every scene you're doing on the stage," says Levy, who's starring with Samuel L. Jackson in The Man, a buddy comedy about a tough cop (Jackson) who forces a dental-supply salesman (Levy) to help him locate some stolen guns.

"(Second City) is more an actors-training tool than it is, let's say, (a tool for a) stand-up comedian."

Unlike in the heyday of SCTV and Saturday Night Live, today's TV executives aren't interested in skit shows. They're searching comedy clubs for the next Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen or Ray Romano.

"I don't know whether (comics) have the opportunity to be as well-rounded, necessarily," Levy says. "The way things work now, I think stand-up comedy, more than anything, is a way for a comic to find his own sitcom.

"In the early days, it was like Second City, or National Lampoon, that kind of created Saturday Night Live, and it seems now, for the most part, there are stand-ups who are hired and brought into the show because they have the ability to come up with the one-liner."

The career of Levy, a Canadian known for his bushy eyebrows and trademark black-framed glasses, reaches back to the late '70s, when he played thickheaded newscaster Earl Camembert on SCTV, along with many other roles.

The visual effects supervisor has blasted Warner Brothers. It's all because of the London bombings as to why the movie is being postponed a year.

"I've spoken to Warner Bros who say that whatever the reasons may have been to postpone the release of V For Vendetta, it has nothing to do with late delivery of VFX (visual effects).

"On the contrary, Warners have been more than happy with the quality, creativity and delivery schedule they have received from Cinesite."

The Guardian reviews Sir Paul McCartney's latest album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard

Obviously the unimaginable wealth, rapturous reception at Glastonbury and Live8 and official title as the Most Successful Songwriter in the History of Popular Music must make life a smidge easier, but none of it answers the question: now what? Over the past 20 years, he has tried virtually everything, embarking on projects that presumably whiled away the time between world tours pleasantly enough, but that only the bona fide nutjobs would listen to twice: ambient techno, classical music, old rock'n'roll covers, fitful attempts to reignite the spark with new collaborators, even a compilation of his late wife Linda's musical efforts.

This album is being called a classic already and was just released in Japan already. The Japanese version contains a track called "She's So Beautiful."

The Independent can kiss my rear.

The Jews have done well at the Toronto film fest.