QUICK SHOUT OUTS

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse (as reported by Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated)
In October, a Texas six-man high school football coach told his team the game was cancelled and that he needed their uniforms for "cleaning", then he proceeded to use college and post-grad ringers to compete in the next game. He still lost. Texas athletic officials are trying to determine what to do next.

Mini-Reviews

Walk the Line (Fox), A- : Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. He may not look much like The Man In Black, but something in the way Joaquin Phoenix carries himself suggests all of Johnny Cash's demons and charms in this arresting biopic. Truthfully, Reese Witherspoon (normally I'm not a fan but she's tremendous here) practically steals the movie as Cash's long time unrequited love and later wife, June Carter Cash. Both do their own singing. Both are terrific. Even if you don't know much or care much about Cash's music, this movie hits most of the right notes and is one of the best so far of the "prestige" movie season.

Serenity (Universal), B+ : Stars Nathan Filion, Gina Torres, Adam Baldwin, Chiwetel Ojiofor. OK, OK, I know it's based on the cult hit, cancelled-too-soon "sci-fi/Western hybrid" TV series called "Firefly", but Serenity actually stood up on it's own as solid B-movie entertainment. Set about 500 years in the future far from Mother Earth, Serenity is basically about a ship full of ragtag bounty hunters/bank robbers who play hide and seek with a ruthless agent (Ejiofor) looking for a freaky girl who's part of their crew and who is actually a government weapon. Without pretension, filled with convincing action sequences and laced with it's own unique "period" dialogue that is as poetic as it is sometimes confounding, Serenity is that rarity, a perfect matinee movie, not trying too hard, but not some simple-minded toss off either. Made me wish the show was still on the air.

And a DVD pick--The Machinist, B+, starring Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Bale is one of our top young actors (see Batman Begins), but here he is both mesmerizing and somewhat despicable as an anorexic machinst tortured by visions he can't control and imagining himself the target of a vast conspiracy which may or may not exist. You might be able to guess the "twist" in this dank, atmospheric thriller, but it will be hard to forget Bale's performance or to shake the mood of queasy dread that this movie evokes. Actually, it probably works better on the more claustrophobic small screen than it did on the big.

Coming fairly soon: Reviews of Syriana, Jarhead and North Country.

My Final Thought

I'm not surprised that high profile engagments/marriages by Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Kimberly Stewart, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey are either over or nearly on the rocks. I'm just surprised that anybody thought most of these relationships were really about "true love" in the first place. And would somebody please run the clock out on Richie and Hilton's 15 minutes of fame already?

Peace...