Movies:

WALKING TALL: Well, The Rock is certainly becoming the new all-time B-movie champ after the enjoyable RUNDOWN and now this "coming home and kicking ass" flick. I never saw the original with everyone's favorite actor, Joe Don Baker, so I have no comparison here. Just enjoy a very brisk film where ass is getting beat everywhere and that's most of the story.

HELLBOY: I find most comic book movies generally unenjoyable. There has been much praise for the X-MEN series and I just can't join in on it. Here, we have a good movie with unfortunate minor reminders of last year's UNDERWORLD. Ron Perlman is as good a choice for a comic book hero than almost anyone--he's a natural charismatic actor, but he is fed some very mundane "comic-y" one-liners that make him look stupid at times. However, there's some pretty good action here, and vicious monsters to fight, and it leaves you wanting a little bit more (within the movie itself...most of the time that is a line where people just want the movie to keep going. Here, we have a good length, but more could have been done within that timeframe). Guillermo Del Toro of BLADE 2 fame (one critic I know called it an orgiastic gorefest...and for you Mike that was Jonathan in his write-in review to "Fangoria") directed this. He's been hit-or-miss. He did the aforementioned B2, but he also did MIMIC which was terrible and THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE which was a very nearly sleep-inducing thriller that critics creamed over.