Downtime

By Barbara Kiviat, By Richard Corliss, James Poniewozik, Josh Tyrangiel, Richard Zoglin

5 Things That Want to Entertain You.

What to seek out and what to avoid, from Heidi Klum to Frankenstein

MOVIES

Fred Claus Directed by David Dobkin; screenplay by Dan Fogelman; rated PG; opens Nov. 9

Paul Giamatti as Santa Claus and Vince Vaughn as his loser brother Fred, in a holiday jape from the director of Wedding Crashers and one of the writers of Cars: that should be funny. Except, no. The laughs come too rarely, the sentiment is tricked up, and this attempt at a Christmas perennial wilts faster than a cheap balsam choked with tinsel. D

MUSIC

Heaven, Heartache and the Power of Love Trisha Yearwood; out Nov. 13

Mrs. Garth Brooks doesn't have her husband's ability to spin average material into commercial gold, and here her material is below average. The up-tempo title track barrels at you with the charm of a truck ad, while the lamely worded ballads float away without carrying any real emotion. Yearwood sings with brassy heft, but she can't lift this. C-

TELEVISION

Project Runway Bravo; Wednesdays, 10 p.m. E.T.

Fashions may come and go, but the metrosexual's American Idol sticks to its proven pattern as Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum and 15 promising artists and oddballs return for a fourth season of stitchin' and bitchin'. It may take a few episodes for fan favorites to emerge from the crowd, but so far Runway doesn't seem too big for its size-0 britches. B+

John and Jane Toll-Free Cinemax; first airing Nov. 13, 7 p.m. E.T.

In the fluorescent-lit cubicles of a Mumbai call center, the young Indians in this documentary sell Americans cell phones and novelty pancake molds, and in turn they are sold a dream: lose your accent, gain prosperity. A fascinating snapshot of globalization in which East meets West a few seconds at a time, half a globe and a few numbers away. A-

THEATER

Young Frankenstein Broadway's Hilton Theatre; opened Nov. 8Can lightning strike twice? Plenty of sparks fly in Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks' follow-up to his big hit The Producers. But this time the gags are lamer, the songs (again by Brooks) more generic, and there's no Nathan Lane--though the monster's big moment, doing Puttin' on the Ritz in top hat and wails, almost saves the show. Almost. C+

60-SECOND SYNOPSIS

A Problem Of Progress

Life is supposed to get easier with new technology. Donald Norman wishes it were really so. Instead, he says, as devices evolve, people wind up befuddled and annoyed. The culprit: bad design, a longtime target of the Northwestern University professor. In his seminal 1990 book, The Design of Everyday Things, Norman explained why, for example, people so often switch on the wrong burner of an oven range--in a person's mind, a straight row of control knobs doesn't logically map onto a square stove top.

In THE DESIGN OF FUTURE THINGS, he turns to technology on the cusp of invention--smart homes, cars that drive themselves--and finds big problems brewing. Making machines ever quieter may seem wise, for instance, but then they lack audible cues to help people know something is happening. Faced with silence, we often grow frustrated and start over. Better to use natural and intuitive signals. Consider vibrations in a car seat instead of yet another blinking light on the dash to let you know you're drifting across lanes. It's technology that gets psychology.