EDGE OF DARKNESS

For better and/or worse, Mel Gibson hasn't exactly vanished from the public eye since his last starring role on-screen, in 2002's Signs. Yet even if, like me, you've spent an inordinate amount of time bemoaning the Crazy Mel antics - both public and directorial - of recent years, you might find it hard to resist his turn in director Martin Campbell's Edge of Darkness: Gibson's back, and, happily, he's pissed. The movie is a frequently ludicrous and borderline incoherent revenge thriller, but its leading man, busting heads and blasting weaponry, is in excellent form, lending his bereaved-dad role considerable passion and emotional urgency. Between the mid-'80s and late-'90s, no one delivered anguished-and-wrathful acting better than Gibson. Ten-plus years later, there's still no one who does.

TOOTH FAIRY

With his cartoonishly buff physique, his unwavering sincerity and geniality, and his happy willingness to play the goofball, it's easy to see why young audiences love Dwayne Johnson, aka The Artist Formerly Known as The Rock. What's less fathomable, especially considering Johnson's continually questionable taste in material, is why I still love the guy.

THE LOVELY BONES

The Lovely Bones, director Peter Jackson's long-awaited take on Alice Sebold's beloved novel, is a stupefyingly bad movie, the kind of big-screen debacle that makes you wonder if its entire creative team wasn't suffering through some hideous, collective blockage of talent all throughout filming. You can feel it going wrong in the first minutes, when a car's quick swerve results in an unconvincing and inappropriately comedic loss of a hubcap, but the shock of Jackson's endeavor is that practically nothing in it goes right. Tonally, just about every scene here feels a little bit off, and the rest feel way, way off; it's almost as if Jackson, screenwriting collaborators Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and a (usually) wildly gifted cast purposely set out to make the absolute worst Lovely Bones adaptation possible.

Theatre

Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse

Wednesday, January 13 through Saturday, March 20

Like the swallows to Capistrano, you can count on Ann Nieman to make an annual return to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, as the Texas-based director has helmed each of the venue's January productions since 2005. And 2010 finds her returning for one of Circa '21's most popular titles in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which Nieman last staged for the theatre five years ago, and which was noteworthy for being the last Circa '21 production to feature a certain local Arts Editor amongst its cast. Modesty forbids mentioning who that is, exactly, but ... .

Oh, screw it. It was me. I was in it. It was awesome.