AMC LOCKS UP THE PRISONER
     AMC will air a remake of the trippy 1968 TV series The Prisoner, with a storyline similar to that of the original series, which starred Patrick McGoohan, who also was creator, producer, writer and director. The original series aired on CBS 1967-'68. 
     The new series will follow a man who finds himself inexplicably trapped in "the Village," with no memory of how he arrived. All of the inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of a previous existence or outside civilization and are under constant surveillance. The man, Number Six, sets out to discover the truth behind the Village, why he's there and how he can escape. 
     Production on the hourlong series is scheduled to begin in the spring for a worldwide premiere targeted for January 2008. The number of episodes is yet to be determined, but it will be a minimum of six or eight. 
     AMC also has acquired rights to the original Prisoner and will air those episodes around the time of the new series' launch, along with films in the same genre as the show.

LOST’S END
     “Personally speaking, from the word 'go,' it always felt to me somewhere in the neighborhood between 90 and 100 episodes was going to be a version of Lost where we never had to do the bad season," Damon Lindelof, co-creator and executive producer of ABC's hit show Lost, said that 100 episodes is the magic number for the series, and that he would like to see it end in the fifth season. 
     Lindelof said, "We knew season one was going to be introduction, season two was going to be into the hatch, season three was going to be the others. I don't want to tell you what season four is going to be. And then there was a wrap-up season, a shortened version, that would put you somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 episodes. At the end of season four we'll have produced 93 hours of the show. And I would imagine that would be very close to where it would end, ideally." 
     Lindelof and co-producer Carlton Cuse created a stir when they announced that they are in discussions with the network about finding an end point to the show. "We all looked at each other at the very beginning and said, 'By the grace of God will this show even survive 13 episodes,'" he said. 
    "So Carlton and I are able to now sit down with the network and say, 'Remember in the very beginning when you were having us convince you that this thing could go on for years and years and years and we all agreed it couldn't? Well, now, just because it's successful doesn't mean that that's changed.' 
     “The reality is, they can produce a sixth or seventh or eighth season, but would anybody be watching? Because the show will be so miserable by that time. Was it really The X-Files anymore when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson weren't on the show? For me, The X-Files wasn't about, 'Have aliens invaded?' It was about Mulder and Scully—a skeptic and a believer—and once that element of the show was gone, the show was over. So we don't want to produce those episodes of Lost, and in fact, we're not going to produce those episodes of Lost." 
     As for what Lost is about, Lindelof has a clear idea, and a specific plan about what needs to happen to the characters before the story concludes. "This show is about people who are metaphorically lost in their lives, who get on an airplane and crash on an island and become physically lost on the planet Earth," he said. "And once they are able to metaphorically find themselves in their lives again, they will be able to physically find themselves in the world again. When you look at the entire show, that's what it will look like. That's what it's always been about." 
    Lost returns with the first of an uninterrupted run of episodes on Feb. 7. It will still air on Wednesdays, but in a later timeslot, at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. 

CHILLER, A NETWORK FOR US
     In an unexpected move, NBC Universal plans to roll out Chiller, a new digital cable network devoted to horror-themed programming.
    Jeff Gaspin, NBC Universal's president of cable entertainment, digital content and cross-network strategy, is expected to announce the network on Jan. 12 at the TV Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif. Dan Harrison, senior vice president of emerging networks for NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, will be in charge of the channel.
     The cable network will launch March 1 and initially be seen in 12 million homes via a carriage deal with DirecTV. The channel also will be offered on DirecTV's new tier of 100 HD channels slated to roll out later this year,. 
      NBC U has already started pitching other cable operators on the channel and is hoping to land carriage agreement on other systems. 
      Chiller will take advantage of NBC U's deep reservoir of horror-related TV shows (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) and films (The Shining, Psycho), many of them from the old MCA library. But Gaspin said the cabler also has acquired programming from other companies, including 20th Century Fox TV, Sony, Warner Brothers TV and Lionsgate. 
     Other programming assets include Twin Peaks, Tales From the Crypt, Freddy's Nightmares and Friday the 13th: The Series. 

BIONIC WOMAN TO BE RIVIVED? 
     Not Zombie Bionic woman, though that may be fun, but rather a remake. NBC has given a cast-contingent pilot order to a reimagined version of the 1970s TV series The Bionic Woman, from Battlestar Galactica producer David Eick. Eick is co-writing and co-producing the project with Laeta Kalogridis (The Dive). 
     Eick has said that he's been combing through the library at Universal, where his production company is based, to find another title to revive following Battlestar. The original version of The Bionic Woman—a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man— starred Lindsay Wagner as a woman whose body is mechanically enhanced to save her life. 

OKA REVEALS HEROES FUTURE 
     Masi Oka, who stars as Hiro Nakamura on Heroes, said that his character will find love and a sword in future episodes. "Let's put it this way, I heard from series creator Tim Kring somewhere down the line—I'm not gonna say when—somewhere down the line there will be another love interest with Hiro," Oka said. "From what I understand it's gonna be a new character. But who knows? You never know what's gonna happen in the minds of the writers." 
     In the last few episodes before the mid-season finale, Hiro fell in love with a Texas waitress named Charlie (played by Jayma Mays), but was unable to save her from the serial killer known as Sylar (Zachary Quinto). According to Oka, the experience will have a profound affect on Hiro in the last half of the season. "The death of Charlie has definitely put a certain devastation and a realization of reality into his power," he said. "He's definitely come to realize he can't change the past. Fate is fate and he can't change that. Same with destiny. He believed in that and he realizes that that's something not to be messed with. But Hiro's still on his pure journey, but he's gone through a lot of tragedy and obstacles, so it's going to be hard for him to sort of balance that." 
     Hiro will also begin a quest for the sword he saw himself using in a picture drawn by the character of Isaac (Santiago Cabrera), who has the ability to paint the future. "The next seven episodes are definitely focused about Hiro and his quest for his sword, which he believes will let him focus his power and get back the control over his powers," Oka said. "But we'll see some very interesting, new kind of effects, because of his lack of control of his powers and how they are tied to his emotions." 
     And what of the dinosaur also seen in the painting? Oka, who also has a career in special effects, said that it will be explained, and possibly even seen, in the next new episode. "Our show has always realized Isaac's paintings," he said. "So we know it comes to fruition in one form or another. And all I can say is I do work for Industrial Light & Magic, and we've worked on a great film called Jurassic Park."

HALLSTROM’S NEW AT FOX
Lasse Halstrom is set to direct and executive-produce the SF pilot New Amsterdam for Fox,. The project is the first foray into American television for the Oscar-nominated director. 
    The series, written by Allan Loeb and Christian Taylor, centers on a man cursed with immortality who works as a homicide detective in New York. "I was really intrigued by the writing," Hallstrom. "I find it emotionally very strong, with a very interesting lead character and a recognizable observation of human behavior." 
     Hallstrom, who worked in television in his native Sweden for 10 years before coming to the U.S. in 1989, said he had been toying with the idea of venturing into U.S. television for years but that his feature schedule never permitted him to do a pilot.

movie news movie news  Silver Screen  movie news movie news

NEXT SUPERMAN HAS MORE BUDDIES? 
     Michael Dougherty, co-writer of last year's Superman Returns, said that the upcoming sequel will feature at least one villain drawn from the DC Comics franchise. Or more than one? "Maybe," Dougherty said "It's [Mr.] Myxyzptlk," he added, with tongue in cheek. 
     Dougherty said that it's likely he and his Superman Returns writing partner Dan Harris will again work with Singer on the sequel. "We're talking," Dougherty said. "We're bouncing ideas around with Bryan. Big ideas. Action-packed ideas." 
Singer has said the next installment will be along the lines of the second Star Trek film, and Dougherty said the comparison is apt. "I think it's going to be a more action-oriented film," he said. "Again, the easy comparison to make was X-Men to X2, or Star Trek -The Motion Picture to Star Trek II. I mean, I know that Bryan has said he's going to Wrath of Khan it, and by that he means, 'Let's take what we've already established—we've gotten that out of the way—and let's just make it shorter, tighter and more action-packed."

JOHN CARTER OF MARS
     Disney is optioning rights to the Edgar Rice Burroughs SF series John Carter of Mars as a potential franchise for the studio. The story centers on a Civil War veteran who retreats into a cave to avoid capture by Apache Indians and finds himself transported to the planet of Barsoom and taken prisoner by 12-foot-tall green men. Burroughs wrote 11 volumes of Carter's adventures. Disney is hoping the film will launch its next major film franchise. 

 GHOST ALMOST READY TO RIDE
     Mark Steven Johnson, director of the upcoming Ghost Rider, said that he's still working on the film's visual effects and editing with only one month to go before its Feb. 14 release. "I literally came from the Sony mixing stage, but I wanted to give a good introduction to the fans," Johnson said. 
     Johnson and one of the movie's stars, Eva Mendes, were at a convention to show nine minutes of new footage from the movie, based on the Marvel Comics superhero with a blazing skull and flaming motorcycle. An appreciative audience of about 200 whooped and applauded after seeing the footage. 
     "I'm still working on it," Johnson said. "There's still some rough stuff. There's some old footage on the Internet with some early effects, and this is a huge step up." 
Mendes admitted that she wasn't a comic-book fan, like her co-star Nicolas Cage, but became a fan after reading the script. "I want to thank Mark for not making me just the 'chick.' I think she's a modern-day powerful female role who still shows that she's vulnerable," she said. 
     Mendes added: "I think there's a superhero in me. I would watch Nic and say, 'Aw, why can't I be on fire?' I would like to be a superhero."

DEAD SILENCE RELEASED
     A March 23 release date is set for its supernatural thriller Dead Silence, starring Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg and Bob Gunton. The film, directed by James Wan (Saw), tells the story of newlyweds Jamie (Kwanten) and Lisa Ashen, who have established a new life for themselves far from their hometown of Ravens Fair. When his wife is gruesomely murdered, Jamie reluctantly returns to Ravens Fair for the funeral, where he reunites with his ill father (Gunton) and his father's new young bride (Valletta). Jamie begins to explore the creepy town and encounters the legend of Mary Shaw, a famous murdered ventriloquist whose presence still casts a pall over Ravens Fair. 

TINGLER TO RETURN IN REMAKE 
     Columbia Pictures is developing a remake of Vincent Price's 1959 horror classic The Tingler. The studio, along with Neal Moritz's Original Pictures, has hired screenwriting team Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan to update the script. The pair is best known for writing the horror film Feast, which was chosen as the focus of the third season of Project Greenlight. 
     In the original Tingler, Price plays a mad scientist who discovers a creature that attacks people from inside when they are afraid. He uses the creature to literally scare people to death. Columbia and Moritz started developing the remake in 2003, with Greg Pace on board as screenwriter. But the project stalled and was inactive before Melton and Dunstan were brought on board. 

TEEN HEADED FOR BIG SCREEN
     Cartoon Network's animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force will be the first original show of the channel's late-night Adult Swim programming block to be turned into a feature film. The 86-minute film was written, produced and directed by co-creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis. 
     The film centers on the origins of Hunger Force characters Meatwad, Frylock and Master Shake and an immortal piece of exercise equipment threatening the balance of galactic peace, the trade paper reported. "It was too big a story to do in 11 minutes," Willis told Variety. "It's based on our fear of exercise equipment." 
. 
KELLER GETS NIGHTMARES
     Fred Keller—whose television directing credits include SF dramas Day Break and the upcoming Raines—will direct the independent horror thriller Worst Nightmares. Keller has also done a rewrite of the script, originally written by Australian writer-actor Shane Briant. The story follows the ordeal of people killed in the manner of their own worst nightmares. Nightmares, which marks Keller's first major feature as a director, is due to start production this summer in Los Angeles. 

MOVIE MEANDERINGS

Movie Meanderings
By Dava Sentz
    The pre and post Christmas season is always filled with cinematic choices; some of it good, some of it bad, some of it strictly for the kiddies, and some of it very ugly. I wasn't able to fully indulge my movie wish list this season, but somehow I still managed to see a movie that, in one way or another, fit into every category described above...a happy little tale about a happy tap dancing penguin appropriately titled Happy Feet.
    Though I have certainly never had anything against penguins and have always found them quite cute, my affections for them have never stretched into a desire to watch them sing and dance for two hours on the silver screen. But, there was just something about Mumble. Was it his sweet personality? Was it the fact that he was an underdog? Was it his adorable feet? On the surface, yes, but there was something else at work...something in his voice...something familiar. 
   The main reason I was attracted to Mumble and his happy feet was because, underneath the fat belly and feathered wings lurked the body of Elijah Wood, a former blue-eyed hobbit who, over the years won the respect and admiration of Middle Earth as well as myself. This, along with a storyline that resembled Rudolph: The Red-Nosed Reindeer, was more than enough to get me into the holiday spirit.
     Over all, I enjoyed spending time with Mumble and his friends in their arctic world. EG Daily was adorably charming as Baby Mumble and, true to form, Robin Williams turned out a rather humorous performance, doubling as the voices of head "Amigo" Romon and penguin psychic Lovelace. 
     While it is cute and somewhat amusing to watch penguins sing and dance on the big screen, recent criticisms by the media were right to suggest that it was overdone. After all, what sets Mumble apart from his, to use the term loosely, friends and family is his lack of singing ability; the absence of a beautiful "heart song" that is supposed to attract the female penguin for mating. 
     What Mumble lacks in a voice he makes up for in feet, tap-dancing happy feet that beats its audience over the head with a message of hope; a message that says "I'm different and that's okay." I got the point immediately. There was no need to drag it out. 
      However, prior to seeing the film, I read another review denouncing the penguins for providing another message; Be kind to your planet. When excessive pollution begins to ruin his home, and the food supply to the penguin population, Mumble goes off in search of answers, using his tap dancing abilities to draw attention to us, the human race. 
     Attacking this movie for an overuse of singing and dancing is one thing, but now we're attacking a children's movie for expressing an environmental concern? Am I the only one who finds that unsettling? Shouldn't a message like that be viewed as positive? No matter how misguided or right on, the films drawbacks might be, this is still a cute and cuddly movie experience; one that I think children and adults alike will enjoy.

IMAGINATIVE CINEMA COMING SOON
MUST SEE MOVIES FOR YOU!

IMAGINATIVE CINEMA - COMING SOON to a Theater near you!

JAN 26th       DEAD SILENCE 
Cast: Leigh Whannell, Amber Valletta, Ryan Kwanten, Donnie Wahlberg
Premise:  A man is called home by his dying father, but tongueless corpses begin piling up all around the young man, who enlists a female friend from his high school days to figure out who's doing the gruesome killings.

 JAN 26th         BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE 
Cast: Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Oliver Martinex, Katja Rieman
Premise: With the Five on her tail, a young beautiful werewolf named Vivian seeks peace in the arms of Aiden while escaping the never-ending infatuation Gabriel has on her. But when a string of accidental murders happen, this threatens to rip and expose her pack apart.

JAN 26th    THE INVISIBLE 
Cast: Justin Chatwin, Margarita Levieva, Marcia Gay Harden, 
Premise: Nick, a high school senior is brutally attacked and left for dead. Now in limbo, not quite dead but invisible to the living, his spirit can only watch as his mother and 
the police search frantically for him, unaware that he is only hours away from truly perishing. A remake.

FEB 2nd          THE MESSENGER 
Cast:: Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett
Premise:  A family moves into a run-down sunflower farm. As the farm begins to revive after years of disrepair, the family begins to notice uncomfortable and alarming changes in their father's behavior.

FEB 9th           HANNIBAL RISING
Cast: Gaspard Ulliel, Gong Li, Rhys Ifans, Richard Brake, Kevin McKidd
Premise: In "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs" we learned who he was and how he thought. Now comes the elusive chapter in the life of Hannibal Lecter – the one that explains what we have asked – WHY did he do it? This is the story of the monster Hannibal Lecter's formative years. These experiences as a child and young adult led to his remarkable contribution to the fields of medicine, music, painting and forensics. 

FEB 16th              GHOST RIDER
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott
Premise: Long ago, superstar motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze made a deal with the devil to protect the ones he loved most. Now, the devil has come for his due. By day, Johnny is a die-hard stunt rider... but at night, in the presence of evil, he becomes the Ghost Rider, a bounty hunter of rogue demons. Forced to do the devil's bidding, Johnny is determined to confront his fate and use his curse and powers to defend the innocent

farewellsfarewellsfarewells Good bye farewellsfarewellsfarewells

Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in The Ten Commandments but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's The Munsters, has died. She was 84. 
De Carlo died of natural causes Jan. 8 at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said.. 
De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. 
But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-'66 slapstick horror-movie spoof The Munsters. 
Lily, vampire-like in a black gown, presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster). 
The show lasted only two years, but had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, Munster Go Home! (1966) and The Munsters' Revenge (1981, for TV). 
Before that, Cecil B. DeMille chose De Carlo to play Sephora, wife to Charlton Heston's Moses in The Ten Commandments. The following year she co-starred with Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in Band of Angels as Gable's upper-class sweetheart who learns of her black forebears. 
De Carlo, who was born Peggy Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, B.C., lived in semiretirement near Solvang, north of Santa Barbara. Her son Michael died in 1997, and she suffered a stroke the following year. 
Lois Hall, a veteran character actress and former leading lady to B-movie western stars Johnny Mack Brown, Charles Starrett and Whip Wilson, has died. She was 80 years old.
During her B-movie heyday, Hall appeared in westerns such as HORSEMEN OF THE SIERRAS with Starrett, COLORADO AMBUSH with Brown and NIGHT RAIDERS with Whip Wilson. 
She also starred in Republic Pictures' 1949 adventure tale DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE, played the Lady of the Lake in the 1949 Columbia serial THE ADVENTURES OF SIR GALAHAD, starring George Reeves; and appeared opposite Buster Crabbe in Columbia's 1950 serial PIRATES OF THE HIGH SEAS.
Her scores of television credits began in the 1950s with DICK TRACY, STUDIO ONE, THE RANGE RIDER, THE LONE RANGER, ANNIE OAKLEY and THE CISCO KID and include genre series THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, THE UNEXPECTED, STAR TREK:TNG and extend to more recent series such as SIX FEET UNDER, COLD CASE and LOST. She also had a recurring role in SONS & DAUGHTERS.
 
 

 Martin Nodell, the creator of Green Lantern, the comic book superhero who uses his magical ring to help him fight crime, has died. 
Nodell was looking for a new idea for a comic book in 1940 when he was waiting for a New York subway and saw a train operator waving a lantern displaying a green light. Nodell imagined a young engineer, Alan Scott, a train crash survivor who discovers in the debris an ancient lantern forged from a green meteor. Scott constructs a ring from the lamp that gives him super powers, and becomes a crime fighter. He brought his drawings and story lines to All-American Publications, which later became a part of National Periodical Publications, the company that was to become DC Comics.
The first Green Lantern appearance came in July 1940, in an eight-page story in a comic book also featuring other characters. The character then got his own series, and Nodell drew it until 1947 under the name Mart Dellon.
After its cancellation in 1949, the series was reborn in 1959 with a revised story line, and it has been revived several times. Meanwhile, Nodell left the comics field for an advertising career. In the 1960s, he was on a design team that helped develop the Pillsbury Doughboy.
He was 91.

Iwao Takamoto, the animator who designed the cartoon canine Scooby-Doo as well as characters on such shows as The Flintstones and The Jetsons, died Jan. 8 after suffering a massive coronary. He was 81. 
Takamoto died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for respiratory problems, said Gary Miereanu, a spokesman for Warner Brothers Animation. 
He designed Scooby-Doo, his equally famished and cowardly master Shaggy, and their pals Velma, Daphne and Fred in the late 1960s while working at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. The Great Dane's name was inspired by an improvised line at the end of Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night." 
He also designed the snickering dog Muttley, who was featured in a number of productions, and Astro, the family dog on The Jetsons. For The Flintstones, he created the Great Gazoo, a green alien. 
Takamoto's death comes exactly three weeks after that of Hanna-Barbera co-founder Joseph Barbera, who was 95; Barbera's business partner, William Hanna, died in 2001.

THE LAST WARD . . .

THE LAST WARD
by John Ward

 2006 was not a very spectacular year at the movies.  Warmed-over sequels carried the day, with pirates, mutants, animated cars, and dancing penguins scoring at the box office.  What can you say about a year when the biggest hits had numbers in the titles?  Around here, you call it business as usual.  I was pleased to note only one film in my Top 10 with a number in the title, and it most definitely was not a sequel.  I call that progress.
 For the past several years, I’ve averaged about 40 trips annually to the old multiplex.  I think that’s about normal for me these days.  Now that we’ve become a Netflix family, it’s a lot more convenient to stay home and watch what I want.  It’s the same old story:  prices keep going up, and I keep getting pickier.  I’m not ready to give up on the pleasures of the theater-going experience, but I admit it’s becoming easier to pass films by.  I used to see every piece of dreck that crawled into town; nowadays, I can’t afford it.  Which means a film I see in the theater is less likely to be a dog, and more likely to be worth my time.  But I was still able to award an “Allie” this year, thanks to No. 1 Son.  There’s quite a gap between my no. 1 film of the year and my “Allie,” although I have a suspicion that several of my top picks will not make most other lists.  But isn’t that the point?
 Enjoy…

10. BRICK
 This one was a complete surprise.  It played Bawlmer for a short time earlier in the year, but I didn’t catch it until it hit video in the fall.  BRICK is an amazingly sure-footed film noir, with a tired gumshoe looking for the people responsible for the death of his ex-girlfriend.  There’s a mysterious mastermind, a femme fatale, thug henchmen, double crosses, and a situation that just seems to get bleaker and bleaker for our nominal hero.  Oh – did I mention that the whole thing is set in a suburban high school?  Joseph Gordon Leavitt, whose previous claim to fame was his role on the TV show Third Rock From the Sun, plays Brendan, a quiet slacker, trying to figure out why his ex-girlfriend was found dead in a drainage culvert.  Leavitt never once takes a false step as he navigates the murky world beyond the school, looking for answers, taking beatings, getting slammed around, yet never giving up.

9. SLITHER
 Horror made a strong showing on my list this year, beginning with this hilariously profane collection of gruesome scares, or as the hero sheriff nonchalantly put it, “That’s some pretty f$%ked-up s$%#t.”   If the ‘80s can be considered “old school,” then this is an old school creature feature, starring Firefly’s Nathan Fillion as Sheriff Bill Pardy, struggling to save his small Southern town from – well, there’s no other way to say it – slugs from outer space.  Said slugs are nasty little devils, fond of entering their human hosts’ bodies and taking them over, turning them into bloodthirsty crazies.  James Gunn, who wrote the well-received DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, made his directing debut here, and the results were a lot of fun.  If you haven’t seen it, I recommend the DVD, with some of the most laid-back behind-the-scenes features I’ve seen.

8. THE GOOD SHEPHERD
 Robert De Niro’s second directorial feature was sober-minded and leisurely paced, but incredibly engrossing – the history of the CIA, as seen through the eyes of one of its young members.  Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, recruited from Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones Society to join the ranks of a fledgling “foreign service agency” at the dawn of World War II.  De Niro has a small role as the general who recruits Damon, and many top names play supporting roles, including Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Michael Gambon, and Alec Baldwin.  Even De Niro buddy Joe Pesci shows up for one scene.  Damon plays the part in a very buttoned down, closed-off manner, and we watch as he sacrifices everything – a regular schedule, a family, a connection with his son – for the good of the agency.  Most of the action is told through flashbacks as Damon, deep into the Cuban Missile Crisis, thinks back over his career.  THE GOOD SHEPHERD is one of those movies that you can sink into, but you better be willing to pay attention.

7. HOSTEL
 This movie was released on the very first weekend of the year, only a few days after I wrote my last Top Ten column; I didn’t expect it to still be on my list, yet here it is.  Eli Roth’s follow-up to his gross-out flick CABIN FEVER is just as gruesome, but tighter, more intense.  I thought it was the best of a relatively thin sub-genre of horror films known for their sleazy, sordid tone, like THE HILLS HAVE EYES, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, and the SAW movies.  It opens like a cheap sex comedy, with a couple of American students looking for girls while backpacking around Europe.  They’re lured to Bratislava on the pretext that the women are easy, but become victims of a nightmarish torture club.  This is definitely not the sort of film that wins awards, but within its genre, there was none better.

6. SNAKES ON A PLANE
 The Internet made this movie, and the Internet effectively killed it, too.  What began life as a second-tier action thriller took on an entirely different meaning when bloggers, fanboys, and other assorted movie geeks made the film’s ingeniously obvious title a sensation.  Things got crazier when word leaked that the studio suits had demanded a recut that would actually make the film an even harder R, including star Samuel L. Jackson’s infamous dialogue about – umm – incestuous reptiles.  What got lost in the translation was the fact that the film achived exactly what it was meant to do:  deliver thrills in abundance.  SNAKES was a disaster movie for the new millennium, with FBI agent Jackson battling a planeload of poisonous snakes while trying to protect his charge, a witness to a Mob murder.  It died a fairly quick death at the box office, chiefly because it coldn’t live up to its own Internet hype.  But folks who stayed away missed out on a real roller coaster ride.

5. APOCALYPTO
 I guess you could call this Mel Gibson’s comeback film, even though his previous directing gig netted hundreds of millions of dollars.  Then again, before this movie came out, ol’ Mel had a pretty crummy year.  APOCALYPTO saved it for him.  Like THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, Gibson’s new film used gorgeous photography, subtitles, and an unstintingly violent eye to memorably evoke another time and place.  This time, Gibson used a cast of unknowns to tell his exciting story.  Rudy Youngblood played Jaguar Paw, a young Mayan Indian separated from his pregnant wife and child and kidnapped by a more warlike tribe.  He escapes, the warriors give pursuit, and the last 45 minutes of the film were as suspenseful as anything else in the theaters this year.  The ending (which I will not give away, so relax) puts Jaguar Paw’s story into historical perspective.  Very well made.

4. THE DESCENT
 For the first time, I’ve included the same movie on my Top Ten list two years in a row.  Technically, THE DESCENT followed my primary listing rule, which states a film must be seen in the year it was released.  I saw Neil Marshall’s horror thriller during its initial release in London during the summer of 2005.  The film got great reviews in England, but had the misfortune of premiering right after the subway bombings.  People weren’t exactly in the mood for this kind of scare show.  Marshall fiddled with the ending a bit and released it stateside last summer; it still managed to top all other releases as the best horror film of the year.  Six women, all extreme sports enthusiasts, go caving in the Appalachians.  After a cave-in traps them a mile underground, the women realize they’re not alone; a race of subhuman creatures have targeted them for dinner.  THE DESCENT was unrelentingly grim and claustrophobic, definitely not for everyone’s tastes.  But horror fans couldn’t find a better time at the movies in 2006.

3. UNITED 93
 I thought long and hard about including this one on the list, but in the end, solid filmmaking won the day.  Director Paul Greenglass told his 9/11 story without taking a side, and his objective point-of-view proved to be a real advantage.  The story of the flight that went down in Pennsylvania didn’t need any fictitious embellishment to make it one of the most gripping of the year; its ending was a stark, sudden commentary on the events of the day, and viewers were left shaken.  Greenglass populated his film with a mix of no-names and real-life participants, and that  made the scenes even more believable.  I thought UNITED 93 did a better job than Oliver Stone’s perfectly acceptable WORLD TRADE CENTER of capturing the immediacy of the story, and no film last year was better at showcasing the inherent courage of the human spirit.

2. CASINO ROYALE
 From a film geek’s point of view, CASINO ROYALE had to be the year’s happiest miracle: a complete reinvention of the James Bond franchise, with almost unanimous worldwide acclaim.  (Nope, I didn’t see that coming.)  Daniel Craig put all fears to rest and made the Bond character his own, a simply incredible piece of acting that put him on a very small pedestal next to Sean Connery.  Longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson decided to go back to basics, a decision that many of us had been demanding for years, and the results were electric: the creation of Bond as 007, licensed to kill, falling in love, losing at love and at the poker table (but not for long), butting heads with M (superbly played by Dame Judi Dench, the lone holdover from the Brosnan days), and keeping the thrills on an entirely human level.  Craig’s Bond no longer has to save the free world; he simply has to save himself.  One of the two purest film pleasures of the year…

1. THE DEPARTED
 …and here’s the other.  Martin Scorsese returns to what he knows best: the human tragedy of organized crime.  THE DEPARTED is a remake of the Hong Kong crime thriller INFERNAL AFFAIRS, but Scorsese has made the story his own, setting it in Boston, telling the tale of two men on opposite sides of a cops-and-crime war, both of them undercover.  Leonardo DiCaprio plays a rookie cop infiltrating mob boss Jack Nicholson’s gang, while Matt Damon plays Nicholson’s protégé, already a cop, and reporting back to boss Jack.  Both men are assigned an impossible task: smoke out the informant (in other words, each other).  They don’t really meet until the final act, but for most of the film, they circle warily around each other, coming closer and closer to the truth, until the audience is left gasping at Scorsese’s filmmaking wizardry.  I feel exactly the same way about Scorsese that I felt about Peter Jackson in 2003 – if the man doesn’t finally win his Oscar, there really is no justice.

ELEVENTH PLACE
 Once again, a number of films fought hard to be included in my final ten, and when the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the following movies just missed the cut:  V FOR VENDETTA, INSIDE MAN, MONSTER HOUSE IN 3-D, WORLD TRADE CENTER, and even ROCKY BALBOA!

ALIVE AND KICKING
 Like I said before, it’s getting harder and harder to find a movie on my big list that qualifies as an unadulterated piece of crap.  For the most part, I’m usually able to find something good about almost anything, simply to justify the expense of the ticket.  These films made it easier to do just that.  I found something to like in GLORY ROAD, FINAL DESTINATION 3, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, THE SENTINEL, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: III, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, CARS, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST, TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY, INVINCIBLE, THE PRESTIGE, BORAT, and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM.

THE ALLIES
 I think I’m going to start my own list of criteria for bad movies, and one rule that should be high on my list will be, “Movies that focus on dragons will almost always be bad.”  I wasn’t planning to see ERAGON, but No. 1 Son tugged at the ol’ guilt chain by saying, “Dad, I don’t want to see this movie with my friends; I want to see it with you.”  I had no defense for that, and I basically had no defense for the movie, either, a derivative mess that plenty of folks said ripped off THE LORD OF THE RINGS, but nothing could be further from the truth.  The movie that ERAGON really ripped off was STAR WARS.  A young orphan boy, raised by his uncle, spends his evenings looking at the sunset and pondering his destiny.  His uncle is killed by the bad guys, the kid falls in with a mentor who teaches him that he is the last in a long line of…oh, hell, if you can’t see STAR WARS through the trees, then you really are reading the wrong newsletter. And ERAGON was as wrong as a movie can be, the worst film I saw in theaters last year.

THE TOP TEN DVDs OF THE YEAR

1. SEVEN SAMURAI 3-DISC SPECIAL EDITION (CRITERION COLLECTION)
2. SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
3. THE SEARCHERS: ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S EDITION
4. SAM PECKINPAH: THE LEGENDARY WESTERNS (THE WILD BUNCH, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY)
5. THE WILD WILD WEST: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON
6. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN: 2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION
7. FINAL DESTINATION 3: 2-DISC INTERACTIVE THRILL RIDE EDITION
8. 24: SEASON FIVE
9. THE DESCENT: ORIGINAL DIRECTOR’S CUT
10. LOST: SEASON 2
 

TEN THINGS I LOVED ABOUT TELEVISION THIS YEAR

1. 24
2. HEROES
3. JERICHO
4. Everything on LOST except for the flashbacks
5. The “Final Days” of THE WEST WING
6. Watching the Ravens destroy the Steelers twice in five weeks
7. The “Mac Vs. PC” commercial ads
8. PRISON BREAK
9. The Emmy Awards (but mainly because of 24)
10. The reaction when Three 6 Mafia won the Best Song Oscar for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp”

ICS CALENDER OF EVENTS