6/22/07:  "Adapting a classic TV show for the big screen required filmmakers to navigate a minefield of seemingly conflicting goals.  Be true to what people loved about the original, but update the story for a modern audience.  Fill the movie with references and in-jokes for the fans but tell a story you don't need to know the source material to enjoy.  Cast actors who'll personify the iconic roles, but get full-bodied performances rather than mere imitations.  I'm hard-pressed to think of a movie that satisfies every item on this checklist better than Peter Segal's Get Smart, which updates the greatest of all spy spoofs with the loving attention of a maniacal Smart fanboy but with a limber willingness to go outside of cannon that makes it a grand action comedy all its' own.  Steve Carell extends his recent streak of brilliant comic performances as a Maxwell Smart who both embodies the comic genius of the late Don Adams and stands on his own as another of his patented late bloomer underdogs.  Jam-packed with both laughs and excitement, Get Smart is a summer entertainment machine that will make fans of the classic series (like me) absolutely giddy.

Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) has labored for years as an analyst for the top-secret government intelligence agency CONTROL.  He's always dreamed of becoming a field agent but was held back by his weight." MORE

2/17/07:  "It cost a reported one hundred twenty million dollars and didn't screen for critics.  Its' production and release dates have danced around the calendar for years. Editing was still going on just weeks ago.  Despite a super-cool trailer, there were many reasons to fear that Ghost Rider, the latest Marvel Comics  movie adaptation would prove to be a turkey.  It does have its' issues, and shows signs of substantial editing and reshooting, but Daredevil writer/director Mark Steven Johnson has set out to make a fun crowd-pleaser about a flaming, leather jacket-clad skeleton who fights evil, and for the most part, he's succeeded.

The movie begins Years Ago, when young Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) joins his father (Brett Cullen) in a motorcycle daredevil act.  He plans to run away with his girlfriend Roxanne (Raquel Alessi) until he learns that his father suffers from terminal cancer.  A mysterious visitor (Peter Fonda) offers a chance for his father to be healthy again in exchange for Johnny's soul.  Mephistopheles keeps that deal, only to ensure that an accident kills Mr. Blaze shortly thereafter.  He promises to call in his marker someday and leaves an adult Johnny (Nicolas Cage) to a life of ever-increasing risk taking.  He runs into Roxanne (Eva Mendes) again just around the time that Old Scratch comes calling.  It seems that his son, Blackheart (Wes Bentley) is out to retrieve a legendary scroll that will permit him to Rule the World, and he needs the Ghost Rider to stop him.  " MORE

12/2/07:  "We live in an entertainment age of anticipation, when spoilers are as important as the TV shows whose progress they predict, speculation about what films might be made makes headlines over those currently in theaters and you're more likely to see a teaser trailer for one of next summer's movies than the ones coming out next week.  So it should come as no surprise that our entertainment itself is increasingly serialized, forever laying out breadcrumbs of information to debate and promises of future closure which (as X-Files and Sopranos fans can tell you) are rarely realized.  But when they are, it can be magic, as in the Lord of the Rings trilogy or that sensational TV/movie hybrid that was Firefly/Serenity.  So we keep coming back to TV Losts and would-be movie trilogies hoping they ultimately deliver the goods.  But like trying to review a movie after its' first 40 minutes, how is one to accurately judge the likes of The Golden Compass, the new Chris Weitz film version of the first book from Phillip Pullman's beloved His Dark Materials trilogy (unread by me; memo to self:  make New Year's Resolution to read more)?  Sit back and enjoy the ride, I suppose, a ride which at this point is a bit overcrowded and a tad mechanical, but at its' heart, intriguing as all get-out.

There are, we're told, an endless series of parallel universes, separated yet linked by something called “Dust”.."  MORE

10/29/07:  "I'd rather not go to Boston right now.  It's got nothing to do with the Red Sox World Championship or the coming winter, but the fact that Gone Baby Gone, the directorial debut of Local Kid Made Good Ben Affleck, makes Beantown look like one of Dante's Circles of Hell.  Gut-wrenching almost beyond emotional endurance, this adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel proves that even as a Really Big Celebrity, Affleck's Oscar-winning screenwriting chops remain intact.  It also demonstrates that he's a gifted director with a great eye for gritty local color, and that his little brother Casey is one hell of an actor.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) have a nice life, both as a couple and as partners in a modest Missing Persons Detective Agency.  The “Missing Persons” in question tend to be the kind who're only missing from their creditors, but one day something bigger turns up on their doorstep.  Little Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien) has vanished from her home, and while her drug addicted mother Helene (Amy Ryan) doesn't seem to care and grandfather Lionel (Titus Welliver) wants to tread lightly, grandmother Beatrice (Amy Madigan) has left no stone unturned."  MORE

12/30/07:  "It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because our society hasn't overcome any of its' problems or injustices since, say, August, that “Nothing Ever Changes”.  But things do change:  look at the slow but steady progress we've made on race relations over the last century.  I can remember a time (when I was but a wee lad) when there were basically no African Americans in leadership roles in the Government or Business, and you could count the grand total of black movie stars, Oscar winners, baseball managers and head coaches on just one hand.  Rewind another 45 years, to the 1930's setting of The Great Debaters, and you'd find a South filled with relentless segregation, Jim Crow laws, and regular lynchings.  Denzel Washington (who also directed) and Forest Whitaker star in this solid, inspirational drama about how hard it was to live in those times, and the amazing ways people like Melvin Tolson broke down barriers just by getting black and white students on the same stage to prove just how equal they were.

At Wiley College, Melvin Tolson (Denzel Washington) is assembling his Debate Team for another season."  MORE