People

By Rebecca Winters Keegan

IN THE FORECAST: A BLACK SPELL OF WEATHER Al Roker in a windbreaker is no longer the height of meteorological comedy. Funnyman LEWIS BLACK is upping the ante, as the Daily Show correspondent becomes the first celebrity to deliver the forecast on the Weather Channel this week. "I'll just be doing what I do best, yelling and screaming about something no one has any control over," says Black, who appears on the cable network's Evening Edition. Black notes that David Letterman started as a weatherman in Indiana. "Both jobs," he says, "are about making palatable the fact that the next five days are going to be miserable." Luckily, the comedian already has plenty of weather jokes in his act: "In Arizona they have monsoons, a wall of sand followed by water. That's not weather, that's pottery."

LOVE, NEW JERSEY STYLE Is it the parkway fumes? Just Friends, with AMY SMART and RYAN REYNOLDS, is the latest romantic comedy in which a city slicker goes home to Jersey and finds the perfect girl.

In last year's Garden State, ZACH BRAFF, a depressed L.A. actor home for his mom's funeral, found love with NATALIE PORTMAN, an eccentric girl from his hometown. She wasn't classic Jersey though: she hardly used any hair spray.

Jersey Girl had widowed New York City publicist BEN AFFLECK hitting it off with video-store clerk LIV TYLER, and in The Family Man, Nic Cage's true love also turned out to be from New Jersey. Somehow, this all feels like Bruce Springsteen's fault.

THE SON ALSO RISES Life equipped newcomer Max Minghella well for his line of work. The 20-year-old plays the son of Richard Gere's distracted Kabbalist in Bee Season and of George Clooney's deceptive CIA operative in Syriana. The Columbia University student's real dad is the sort of man given to thinking deep thoughts and fabricating tales. He's Cold Mountain director Anthony Minghella. "I don't feel I've lived enough to write or direct, but acting is suited to an unformed self," says Max. And it also suits cute boys who summer on film sets.

Q&A JON FAVREAU

Swingers' Jon Favreau directs Zathura, opening Nov. 11.

First Elf, now a kids' monster movie. Has fatherhood made you soft? I've been exposed to a lot of family entertainment. When you watch so much of a genre, you get inspired. I don't think standards are as high for family movies, which is nice as a filmmaker 'cause you can take more chances. So little is expected of you, the studios tend to leave you alone.

You're 39. What accounts for the old-school taste? There's a bittersweet quality to the past that I find very accessible emotionally. Of course, most of the things I look back on fondly I never actually experienced.

Describe Favreau family holidays. Halloween is like Burning Man for tweens here. I live in Santa Monica. If you don't dump a few hundred dollars out in some bags, you're the exception. I grew up in a high-rise in Queens. You'd hit a few floors and call it a night.

You recently picked up some big directing gigs. Are you done acting? I get the best out of acting. I get my butt powdered, get chauffeured. I'm not out there trying to get a gig to pay the bills.

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston are your friends in real life and your co-stars in The Break Up. Spill it. Everybody is rooting for them to be a big item, and that's a nice reflection on their work. But thanks to the scrutiny around them, I've come to appreciate that I live a fairly normal suburban life.