Let me preface by saying that the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Friday performance of Always ... Patsy Cline received a hearty standing ovation, which, based on the happy audience murmurs that circulated whenever the band began one of the country singer's signature numbers, appeared largely composed of Cline admirers.

I'm tempted to say that the high point of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Oklahoma! comes in the show's first minute, when Adam Clough's Curly enters singing "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" in a thrillingly rich, powerful baritone. Such a statement, however, might indicate that the rest of the actor's performance is somehow less of a thrill. Put simply - and with no disrespect meant to director Jay Berkow or the show's other participants - this Oklahoma! works because of Clough.

KNOCKED UP

A few hours before I saw the film, a friend asked if I was looking forward to Knocked Up, and as a devoted fan of writer/director Judd Apatow, I responded, only half-jokingly, that I was because "Judd Apatow is going to save movie comedy." After seeing the movie, I'm not sure there was reason to even half-joke: Judd Apatow just might save movie comedy. Over the past 10 years, there are only a handful of TV series that hold a candle to Apatow's Freaks & Greeks and Undeclared, and his directorial debut The 40-Year-Old Virgin is pretty much the current dirty/sweet-comedy standard-bearer; Knocked Up suggests that beyond being a sensational entertainer, Apatow may be that rare comic pioneer who is also (gasp!) a comedic artist.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END

Roughly 30 minutes into Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow makes an entrance that perhaps only Johnny Depp, being directed by Gore Verbinski, would be permitted to make: All we see is Depp's nose, in enormous close-up, as it hungrily sniffs out a peanut. Eventually we're treated to a full view of the sloshed swashbuckler we've been waiting a half hour to see, yet before Sparrow can pop the peanut in his mouth, he's shot dead. By Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.