A few movie reviews:

SHATTERED GLASS: The story of New Republic writer Stephen Glass, who forged 27 of his 41 articles while employed there. He's played here by Hayden Christensen, who we know mostly as Anakin Skywalker from the latest STAR WARS trilogy. And after seeing him in that, it's amazing to watch him in something good. He's the perfect compulsive liar, and at some point you nearly feel sorry for him. Nearly, because Peter Sarsgaard as editor Chuck Lane steals the movie and wins us over to his side--which is clearly the right side. I don't know what the hell is going on with the Academy and the free screeners and whatnot, or if this movie will get attention, but at least Sarsgaard should get nominated. He's so good that during a scene with Chloe Sevigny in which he must convince her that his firing of Glass is justified, there's no way that she as an actor could have convincingly stayed mad at him. It's a good movie that's just a bit thin, but enjoyable nonetheless.

TIMELINE: This movie isn't very good, but it could have been made more bearable had Paul Walker not been in it. It does seem that Richard Donner figures this out, leaves him out of the movie for great stretches of time, and makes the better actor, Gerard Butler, the real star. Billy Connelly plays a Scottish professor who gets lost in time, and for some reason his son is played by the American Walker instead of the Scot Butler--there's studio muscle for you. There are many lapses of how time travelling to the past would affect the future, the fact that it is never addressed is a big problem for me. And though accents play a fair role in some of the plot points, no one from the 13th Century bothers to ask Walker about his. Not terrible, not good.

BAD SANTA: You're going to see terrible reviews of this, but here's a movie you can actually take for what it is: Billy Bob Thornton cussing a storm in front of a blank kid for an hour and a half. It's just plain funny to see Thornton play a character like this, which we as an audience don't have to believe he strained too hard to create. It's not witty and it's not a laugh-a-minute movie, but you can appreciate some crassness along the way.

GOTHIKA: Halle Berry sure is hot. But this is a movie where you have a perfectly alright ghost story that turns into a murder mystery, and then the ghost starts doing things that make you want to say, "Fuck her," and a seen-it-a-mile-away ending. Would have been fine to just stick Berry in a mental institution with ghosts and an occasional shower scene and it would have been at least a camp classic. But today's spoon-fed audiences need answers, dammit!

THE CAT IN THE HAT: How many times have I written, "Worst of the Year" and meant it? It might have escaped had it not raped the Dr. Seuss book so raw. Mike Myers turns in his worst performance ever, and almost every one of his intentionally bad lines is punctuated with an awful laugh. Also, Myers gets drilled in the balls again, which keeps the streak going--I swear it's become a trademark much like Hitchcock putting himself in his own movies.