Inqlings: 'Mighty Macs' moves to 4th quarter

The Mighty Macs

, the underdog story about the 1972 Immaculata College championship basketball squad, has been bounced around so much, it should be renamed

Rawlings

.

The family-friendly film, shot in the suburbs during summer 2007, had been scheduled to open in theaters this month to mark March Madness, but it is now up for a red-carpet premiere Oct. 21 to coincide with celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of women's basketball's first championship season.

Since The Mighty Macs' festival debut, director/writer Tim Chambers has racked up awards for his film, which stars Carla Gugino, David Boreanaz, Ellen Burstyn, Marley Shelton, and locals including Joe Conklin, Kathy Romano, Michael Smerconish, and Tony Luke Jr. Bill Ross, the conductor at the Academy Awards last weekend, created the score.

Hoops crowds will get a taste of it, as the NCAA plans to show the trailer during this month's tournaments. Immaculata will throw a black-tie gala March 29 at the Franklin Institute.

Luke Bracey

(who's been linked to

Leighton Meester

, his costar in the forthcoming

Monte Carlo

) and

Lydia Hearst

(heiress

Patty Hearst

's daughter) just wrapped a two-week local shoot of

Crimson Tear

, an indie suspenser in which a hard-drinking college student (

Isabella McNally

), who suffers from nightmares and hallucinations, may or may not have killed the fellow she had a fling with (Bracey). Writer/producer

Chris Robert

, a Villanova grad, says cast and crew got great mileage out of the decommissioned wing of Abington Health Center's Warminster campus, used for wild hospital scenes under director

Bill Birrell

.

Terry Gross, host of the WHYY-based Fresh Air, gets a cameo in The Beaver, a dramedy directed by and costarring Jodie Foster. Mel Gibson stars as an executive crippled by depression until he uses a hand puppet (a beaver) to do his talking. Foster plays his wife. Gross, who is among talkers Jon Stewart, Larry King, and Matt Lauer interviewing the sudden celeb, says she and Gibson ad-libbed the scene. Gibson's character would speak only through his puppet, a conceit that Gross said wouldn't fly on Fresh Air. "I told him something like, 'You're on radio. People can't even see your puppet, so why don't you just talk to me?' " The Beaver is up for a screening March 16 at the South by Southwest festival, and is due in theaters in May. Hear Dave Davies interview Gross for WHYY's NewsWorks at www.philly.com/beaver

Expect wall-to-wall Bradley Cooper media coverage over the next two weeks, because the Rydal-reared actor's shot-in-Philly thriller, Limitless, opens March 18.

Not surprising that the most misunderstood former Phillie,

Lenny Dykstra

, has been spending much time with similarly misunderstood actor

Charlie Sheen

and his "goddesses" in Beverly Hills. "He's clean and sober now. He's looking me in the eyes," Dykstra told NBC10's

John Clark

in a long interview to air at 11:30 p.m. Sunday on

Sports Final

. Dykstra told Clark that he was still sore at 1993 teammate

Mitch Williams

because "he lost us the World Series" and believed that JPMorgan Chase & Co., which took possession of his mansion after his bankruptcy, wanted to "assassinate" him.

Two Eagles are putting the

sports

in

sports bar.

Todd Herremans

and

Brent Celek

are attached to 879, operating at 110 Chestnut St. in Old City. It replaced the short-lived Crocodile Philly last week. The name is a contraction of the players' uniform numbers, 87 (Celek) and 79 (Herremans). Food will be handled by

Michael Lane

, who owns the Steak 'Em Up shops in South Philly and Collingdale. The flat screens are operating now, while the bulk of the changeover (a new kitchen and a lounge upstairs) should be completed in about a month, said

Bill Morrin

, the project's lawyer.

Harlem Globetrotters

Big Easy Lofton

and

Buckets Blakes

will attempt to sink four-point shots at 11 a.m. Tuesday in front of Famous 4th Street Deli at Fourth and Bainbridge Streets. (The Globetrotters' four-point shot is 35 feet from the basket, or about 12 feet beyond the NBA three-point arc.) The Globies will play at the Liacouras Center on Friday, the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton on Saturday, and the Wells Fargo Center next Sunday.

Comcast Spotlight, the cabler's ad-sales division, booked a room at R2L restaurant on the 37th floor of Two Liberty Place on Wednesday for a

Jersey Shore

beach party. MTV reality-TV stars

Vinny Guadagnino

,

Sammi Giancola

, and

Deena Cortese

showed up to impress advertisers. Also in the

Jersey Shore

realm: Parx Casino in Bensalem will throw an April 1 public party in its 360 nightclub featuring

Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

and Devotion vodka, for which he shills. Sorrentino is expected at 9 p.m.

Friday afternoon saw a gathering of Hooters and other rock-and-rollers at Elm Street Studio in Conshohocken to remake the Dovells' hit "You Can't Sit Down." Standing up for the creative process were Eric Bazilian, Graham Alexander (who plays Paul McCartney in Rain on Broadway), Rob Hyman, Tommy Conwell, David Uosikkinen, Jay Davidson, and Jerry Blavat (characteristically ad-libbing). The single, part of Uosikkinen's project known as "In the Pocket: Essential Songs of Philadelphia," will be available for downloading next month at songsinthepocket.com . A portion of the proceeds will benefit Settlement Music Schools.