Tom Hardy, Chris Pine, and Reese Witherspoon in This Means WarTHIS MEANS WAR

The latest instantly disposable, cinematic-junk-food entertainment by Charlie's Angels and Terminator Salvation director McG is the romantic-comedy action thriller This Means War, and it should be said that the first half of the movie isn't bad. It's closer to excruciating.

Jeremy Piven and James Brolin in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell HardTHE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD

Assuming his talents haven't waned in the current, sixth season of Entourage, Jeremy Piven's bile-spewing Hollywood agent Ari Gold remains (as of season five) as corrosively entertaining as ever, and the Neal Brennan comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard suggests that Piven's Gold routine could be just as enjoyable on big screens as small ones. It would certainly help, though, if the actor were given a few funny scripts to work with, or at least funnier than this shapeless, scattershot comedy about used-car hucksters trying to unload 211 vehicles over a long Fourth of July weekend.

Vicki Lawrence as Thelma HarperFor more than 30 years, Emmy-winning performer Vicki Lawrence has been best known for her signature character of Thelma "Mama" Harper, the snippy, drawling, and incredibly lovable matriarch she played opposite Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, and Tim Conway on the long-running variety series The Carol Burnett Show. She subsequently revived the role for seven seasons on the sitcom Mama's Family, and both shows - to say nothing of the role itself - have proven so enduringly popular that Lawrence has a pretty fair idea of what age group Mama most appeals to nowadays: All of them.

"She's really never been off the air since she went on the air," says Lawrence. "I mean, [Mama's Family] has run and run in reruns like the little Energizer Bunny. So the demographic of my audience is just incredible. I mean, it can be 90-year-old men and it can be 20-year-old college kids."

On February 12, this comedic Energizer Bunny - and the Emmy-winning star who plays her - will perform at Bettendorf's Quad-Cities Waterfront Convention Center in Vicki Lawrence & Mama: A Two-Woman Show, and during our recent phone interview, Lawrence discussed Thelma Harper's ceaseless popularity, the influence of late co-star Korman, and the abandonment of Lawrence's youthful dream of one day marrying a rich dentist.

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!DR. SEUSS' HORTON HEARS A WHO!

If you can separate your memories of Dr. Seuss' books from the experience of the computer-animated Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, you can have a reasonably good time at the film. You'll likely have a reasonably good time anyway, but for maximum enjoyment, it's best to ignore any prior knowledge of the kindly elephant and his microscopic speck-dwellers and simply accept this antic entertainment for the disposable blockbuster it is. Horton looks like a Dr. Seuss adaptation; it just doesn't much sound like one.