Here's the problem in a nutshell: M. Night Shyamalan moves heaven and earth to create the scariest corridor in the spookiest haunted house in the world. Shadows throw strange and disturbing shapes on the wall, while the creak of every floorboard sends unseen things scuttling across the corners of our vision. We're drawn through the terrifying atmosphere by an irresistible fascination, for at the end of the corridor stands a door, and on the other side lies The Scariest Thing We Will Ever See. What is it? We have to open the door to find out. We inch forward with trembling hands, edging slowly closer.

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It takes more than a clever ad campaign to turn a second-tier superhero into a first-tier hit. Until this movie came along, Marvel Comics' Iron Man never had the springboard to launch himself into the elites. Spider-Man had better villains, the X-Men had a better hook, and both of them dripped with character and personality that he never quite found. He made a nice also-ran with the Avengers and his fatal flaw -- alcoholism -- gave him some distinction, but when push came to shove, he didn't have the right amount of snazziness to hit the big time.

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I don't pretend to be an expert on Speed Racer, the 40-year-old manga/import cartoon about a plucky young race-car driver and his supremely annoying family. But by all accounts, directors Andy and Larry Wachowski are deeply steeped in the minutia of his world and their new big-screen adaptation of his adventures is true to that ethos. I have no reason to doubt the film's authenticity or ability to meet the expectations of any die-hard fans out there. It certainly looks appropriately cartoonish and the corny jokes they pass off with a straight face could only stem from early-'70s Saturday-morning filler.

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It's hard criticizing an effort like Leatherheads because it so clearly adores its subject matter. Positing the early days of professional football as a screwball comedy of the Cary Grant/Irene Dunne variety requires passion both for the game itself and for that particular style of filmmaking -- a style which director/star George Clooney at first seems tailor made. Comparisons to Grant come very easily and previous work -- especially with the Coen brothers, who have an excellent sense of slapstick -- has put his comic proclivities to good use.

flipside's review | DVD at amazon.com

A wise man once noted that the caliber of a movie star (as opposed to just an actor) doesn't come with his or her best work, but in the mediocre films beneath them. Does a star keep you watching when you know exactly where the movie is headed? Does he hold your interest while navigating otherwise unremarkable plot twists? Does he take an utterly formulaic run-of-the-mill piece of genre filler and convince you -- if only for 90-odd minutes -- that something more is going on? If so, then please allow Run Fatboy Run to present Simon Pegg: movie star.

flipside's review | DVD at amazon.com

You don't normally think of David Mamet as a martial arts enthusiast, and yet the subject does have some cross-over with his body of work. Notions of masculinity, duplicity, honor, and corruption work well within its tenets, especially since Ultimate Fighting and similar endeavors have become such a huge business. How does a tradition steeped in a warrior's code react to the pressures of millions of dollars? How easy is it to dupe someone whose actions adhere so predictably to notions thousands of years old?

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While no one will mistake Street Kings for the most original motion picture ever made, it demonstrates the value of commitment to a project. Yes, we've all seen the notion of corrupt cops who run their operations like just another gang before. Indeed, one of the best purveyors of such mayhem is Street Kings co-screenwriter James Ellroy, whose novels delved deep into the concept long before Steven Bochco and his ilk gussied it up for mass consumption. The man knows evil-with-a-badge like few others, which tempers his psychotic excess into hypnotic studies of well-intentioned men struggling against systematic monstrosity.

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The central flaws in The Forbidden Kingdom actually boil down to conceptual decisions rather than subpar filmmaking. As such, they are more subject to the vagaries of opinion than, say, an Uwe Boll film, whose stinkiness can be objectively quantified. In the case of The Forbidden Kingdom, the problem stems from screenwriter John Fusco's stated purpose of showing a Chinese wuxia epic from the perspective of a 21st-century white kid. Why? What does a piece of mythic Asian storytelling need with a contemporary American in the mix?

flipside's review | DVD at amazon.com

Morgan Spurlock deserves all the credit in the world for good intentions. His new documentary, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? has its heart firmly in the right place, and delivers a message that maybe a few more people need to hear. If it has anything near the cultural impact that Super Size Me did, no amount of criticism from the peanut gallery will matter: the good it does will far outweigh our petty sniping. Kudos to Spurlock for endeavoring to make the world a better place while most of the rest of us are happy just lying on the couch.

flipside's review | DVD at amazon.com

America exhibits a fundamental distrust of intellectuals. They're an elite, after all, and this country despises elites of any sort. One of the reasons why George Bush took the White House in 2000 (besides, you know, the naked fraud) is because his aw-shucks media persona connected with a number of voters. And on some level, many of them just didn't want snooty egghead Al Gore staring down his nose at us like a disapproving homeroom teacher. Those roots stretch back to the foundation of American culture -- when Washington Irving ran off Ichabod Crane courtesy of the town bully -- and haven't diminished in the slightest with time.

flipside's review | DVD at amazon.com