I'll stand by this until my dying day—or until I forget that I ever saw it: Alien 3 is the best of the series.

And a great call on Gone Baby Gone, a movie that has a number of terrific set pieces, all of which establish Casey Affleck as much harder than his looks and age suggest.

Apologies to the legions of Glen Hansard haters, but . . .
The piano shop scene ("Falling Slowly") from Once is a transcendent scene of two people connecting for the first time.

I like TV, I really do, but . . .
I have been really disappointed with the witlessness and over-familiar sitcom-iness all of the new shows that I've managed to see so far, including the critically-acclaimed ones like "Modern Family" and "Community." The dramatic show I was most intrigued by, "Flashforward" turns out…

Mike Scott (The Waterboys)?
Although many of his albums with The Waterboys had a spiritual aspect, his first solo album, "Bring 'Em All In," is all about his search for—and discovery of—Christian spirituality (with one song, "Long Way to the Light," explicitly about his journey).

"Give 'em hell, 54!" gets me every single time I see Glory. I'm tearing up now just typing it . . . .

Jackson Browne's "Song for Adam"?
I always find this haunting mediation on the aftermath of an acquaintance's suicide both utterly despairing and, ultimately—if tenuously—hopeful.

Superman Returns? Easily one of the worst (i.e. boring, pointless, flaccid, intelligence-lowering) major studio releases on the decade (alongside X-Men 3, oddly enough). But Valkyrie? I thought it was a well-made, intelligent, and rather gripping WW II action film (particularly given the fact that the outcome is…

Robin Hood (with Patrick Bergin) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (with Costner)

Umberto Eco and "The Name of the Rose"
Umberto Eco refused to sell the films rights to his books after "The Name of the Rose" because of what the filmmakers did to that book. (I find the movie diverting, but it does miss the point of the book.) Which is a shame, because as a necessarily dumbed-down conspiracy…

A mild disappointment . . .
TS: The Movie couldn't live up to TS: The Trailer, which promised a grim epic, a thought-provoking and visually arresting reworking of the Terminator mythos. Instead, McG and Co. delivered a diverting but ultimately forgettable film that either ignored or ineptly handled the more…

Warlock (1959)
Despite being a sweeping Western epic with a large cast of complex, morally ambiguous characters (played by Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, and DeForest Kelley) and an intricate narrative based on an almost surreal novel by Oakley Hall (which itself is a critical retelling of the legend of…

Really? Better than Wolverine?
So according to the AV Club, this "brutal, pandering, unpalatable train wreck of glib, hateful, unfunny comedy" was better, by a +, than Wolverine? Now I saw the ungainly titled X-MO:W, undeterred by critics and Weapon X purists, and would give it a solid B—or maybe a B+/A- if I'm…