Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker in Smart PeopleSMART PEOPLE

This past Friday, a couple of friends and I were discussing the long-delayed return of new episodes of NBC's Thursday-night comedies - the unfailingly hysterical 30 Rock and The Office, the shrill, irritating My Name Is Earl, and Scrubs, a show I've occasionally endured when I was feeling too lazy to change the channel. One of my friends admitted that Scrubs has been off its game for quite a while, but said he sticks with it because, after seven seasons, he's become too invested in the actors and their characters to stop watching. I felt the same way during director Noam Murro's Smart People.

Tyler Mane in HalloweenHALLOWEEN

On the list of 1970s horror films that absolutely, positively did not demand a remake, John Carpenter's spare, suggestive, and deeply frightening Halloween would have to place right near the top. If, however, a 21st Century revamp was inevitable (and, Hollywood being Hollywood, it was), I would have thought Rob Zombie the ideal choice for the task, as the director's House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects were relentless, darkly funny, and unapologetically nasty entertainments with a low-rent style that captured the spirit of '70s exploitation terror to perfection. Who better suited to bring Michael Myers back to life?

Having seen Zombie's offering, I'm thinking the answer might be: just about anyone else.

Richard Burgi in Hostel: Part IIHOSTEL: PART II

(Spoiler Alert: If it matters, details of Hostel: Part II's plot will - sorry - spill out.)

Upon returning to the office after seeing Hostel: Part II, my editor asked me what I thought of Eli Roth's horror sequel, and my immediate reply was, "Oh, it's crap." There was no anger or disappointment in my tone; having intensely disliked the first Hostel, I expected its follow-up to be awful, and it was awful. Yet four days after viewing the movie, I still can't get it out of my head, and I'm forced to admit that while my initial, gut response may have been honest, it wasn't entirely fair.

Josh Lucas in Glory RoadGLORY ROAD

Is it just a coincidence, or do you think there's an annual meeting wherein Disney shareholders tell the studio's executives, "Bring us this year's feel-good, triumph-of-the-underdog sports flick, and if you can find one that's more formulaic, clichéd, and shameless than last year's, all the better!" A couple of years back, we endured Kurt Russell guiding a bunch of interchangeable skaters to Olympic victory in the hockey drama Miracle, and my head is still reeling from the moribund sentimentality - and beyond-obnoxious miniature caddie - of The Greatest Game Ever Played, which managed to make golf look about five times less exciting than the sport's reputation would suggest.