From KCRW in Santa Monica, I'm Claude Brodesser Ackner, and this is The Business.

So you still want to do the show business, and you think that you got what it takes.

I mean, you really got a rap and be all at.

And prepare yourself for the breaks. Check it out.

NBC fired its entertainment president last weekend.

So this week on The Business, we ask another former programming

chief about the upside of getting canned from a high-profile, high-pressure job. Plus, would-be presidents

come to Hollywood in search of dead presidents. But first, it's the Hollywood News Caravan. Low in

greenhouse gas emissions, high in mileage. It's the business from NPR.

We begin this week's caravan with news that Mike Figgis, the director of leaving Las Vegas, had some trouble arriving in Los Angeles.

After landing at LAX, our ever-vigilant TSA folks asked Figgis the reason for his visit.

I'm here to shoot a pilot, Figgis replied, whereupon he was detained for five hours.

Figgas, of course, had come to the States to shoot a TV pilot, something evidently lost on the TSA.

Sadly, we're not making this up.

Speaking of national security, the cable channel Comedy Central has greenlit the pilot for The Watch List.

The series will showcase the talents of young Middle Eastern American comedians.

Arab American comic Dean Obadala and former S&L writer Max Brooks are producing the comedy,

much of which will turn on Americans' reaction to Middle Eastern folks in a post-9-11 world.

We're already putting the show on our must-watch list.

Meanwhile, attention obstreperous moviegoers.

The days of your yacking away on your cell phone while spitting ju-ju-bees into someone's hair and illegally camcording the film are officially over. Big Brother isn't just watching. He's sitting next to you.

Last week, Regal Cinemas, one of the largest movie theater chains in America, announced

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