Universal

CHICAGO – Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens” with Daniel Craig & Harrison Ford is a depressing snooze, a film with so many of the right elements but none of the personality to connect them into something memorable. With so many revisions from a number of writers, it feels like everyone added their own color to the piece until it all faded to gray.

CHICAGO – Two of the funniest movies ever made hit Blu-ray next week in the John Belushi flicks “The Blues Brothers” and “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” Both are rich with special features but they’re of material that has been available before. The fact is that these two films have been released and re-released a hundred times and most people probably own them by now. If you don’t, get to it.

CHICAGO – “The Adjustment Bureau” was a surprising success in a season full of them (“Hanna,” “Source Code,” “Win Win,” more), earning strong reviews and breaking $100 million worldwide. That may not seem like a blockbuster for Matt Damon but when one considers that this is an existential, sci-fi, noir, romantic action movie, it doesn’t exactly scream obvious financial success. And it’s the kind of film that I suspect will grow in esteem over the years as its fans share it with their friends. A great Blu-ray release with excellent supplemental material doesn’t hurt.

CHICAGO – USA has a proven formula for success and they show no sign of slowing down in that department, adding new hits like “Covert Affairs” and “Fairly Legal” to a line-up of proven successes like “Burn Notice” and “Psych.” The first season of the very hit-and-miss “Affairs” and the second season of the more-consistent “Royal Pains” recently hit DVD from Universal and they’re both sets designed for fans of the network.

CHICAGO – It’s easy to write off bad romantic comedies like “Something Borrowed” or “Valentine’s Day” but Ron Howard’s “The Dilemma” lives up to its title for this critic. There are elements that truly work but the film is tonally inconsistent and features a few near-awful supporting performances. Ultimately, it’s a marginally successful film, an unusual movie that passes the time without being truly memorable.

CHICAGO – Maybe director Justin Lin learned how to have fun directing the now-classic paintball episode of “Community.” Wherever he figured out that his movies need not be so damn self-serious or wordy, he took that knowledge to the set of “Fast Five,” a movie that this critic who hated “Fast & Furious” absolutely dreaded when it was first announced. Now I can’t wait for the inevitable sixth movie in the most unexpected mega-franchise of the new millennium.

CHICAGO – “Little Fockers” would have been high on my “Worst of 2010” list if I had written one or suffered through it in theaters. It’s an awful disaster of a movie, completely devoid of laughs and downright embarrassing for everyone involved, including some incredibly talented actors. There should be some sort of atonement or movie prison for forcing this junk on families at the holiday season. It’s like getting coal for Christmas. Actually, it’s worse than coal.

CHICAGO – Even diehard fans of the show have to be stunned that “Friday Night Lights” made it five seasons. And perhaps the program’s most enduring legacy will be that it changes the delivery model. The fifth and final season has already aired on DirecTV’s 101 and starts playing tonight, April 15th, 2011 on NBC, but is also already available on DVD. Yes, the shows haven’t even aired on network TV but they’re already at the DVD store. Times are changing.

CHICAGO – “Your Highness” just makes me sad. Rarely have so many talented people been sucked into such an unfunny disaster as what will surely be one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

CHICAGO – When did they start releasing SyFy Channel Original Movies in theaters? Seriously, we can accept bad writing and cheap production values on a Saturday night on basic cable but “Skyline” was a national theatrical release and the thing just looks goofy. After the massive success of “District 9,” cheap sci-fi seems to be the trend of the day, but we’re likely to see more junk than Best Picture nominees if “Skyline” is any example.