PEDRO ALMODOVAR is as good as his word. His new movie, Volver, meaning 'to return', has put him back at the top of the Spanish charts, grossing $4.7m in its opening 10 days, which already put it ahead of his 2002 Oscar-winning Talk To Her, and well on the way to surpassing Bad Education and All About My Mother. The movie itself is a return to the small town in La Mancha where he grew up, and also marks a return to his movies for Carmen Maura, the star of his 1988 breakthrough Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown.

Back too in an Almodovar movie is Penelope Cruz, in the role of a working mother returning to her home town with her daughter to see the aunt who raised her in the absence of her mother. As a homage to motherhood, Volver is regarded as a likely selection for Cannes Film Festival, which opens on 17 May with The Da Vinci Code.

McTiernan connected to eavesdropping in LA REAL life and fantasy have come together for Die Hard director John McTiernan, who has been charged in Los Angeles by federal prosecutors with lying to the FBI about having a private investigator Anthony Pellicano eavesdrop on producer Charles Roven. He's the 14th person charged in connection with Pellicano, who is accused of phone-tapping on behalf of clients.

McTiernan denied all knowledge of any wiretapping. Roven produced McTiernan's 2002 flop Rollerball, as well as Three Kings, Twelve Monkeys and Batman Begins.

Lopez and MacLaine to head 'Dallas' on screen GURINDER CHADHA, director of Bend It Like Beckham, is lined up to direct the screen version of the TV series Dallas. Jennifer Lopez, Shirley MacLaine and John Travolta head the likely cast.

Jiri Menzel to create a record for comebacks CZECH director Jiri Menzel is set to create a record for comebacks.

Since his 1968 Oscar-winning Closely Observed Trains, he has been side-tracked as a director, first by the communist regime that black-listed him and then by a failure to raise finance for projects after the Iron Curtain came down.

Now he's shooting I Served The King Of England, which is based on a novel by the late Bohumil Hrabal, who also wrote Closely Observed Trains.

IRELAND'S TOP FIVE (weekend 14-17 April)
1 (-) Scary Movie 4 (David Zucker) 559,476(-)
2 (1) Ice Age 2 (Carlos Saldanha) 394,383 (2,213,730 to date)
3 (2) Inside Man (Spike Lee) 149,712 (1,263,718 to date)
4 (3) Failure to Launch 80,828 (578,621 to date)
5 (4) Shaggy Dog (Brian Gibson) 64,890 (G450,881 to date)

Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources

US TOP FIVE (weekend 14-16 April)
1 (-) Scary Movie 4 (David Zucker) $41m (-)
2 (1) Ice Age 2 (Carlos Saldanha) $20m ($147.2m to date)
3 (2) The Benchwarmers (Dennis Dugan) $10m ($35.9m to date)
4 (-) The Wild (Steve Williams) $9.6m (-)
5 (3) Take the Lead (Liz Friedlander) $6.7m ($22.5m)