The James Logan Courier

By Mike Hughlett
Chicago Tribune (MCT)

CHICAGO — Food safety experts generally say that zapping spinach and iceberg lettuce with a tiny shot of radiation is the best way to vanquish deadly outbreaks of E. coli. It's safe, too, they say and the federal government officially agreed Thursday, allowing so-called irradiation of our leading leafy greens.

But whether irradiation ever takes hold is in the hands of consumers, and they've shown resistance to a process whose very name has a glow-in-the-dark ring to it. Federal regulators years ago declared irradiation of red meat as safe, but beef producers have hardly flocked to the technology.

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel
(MCT)

"Dead Poets Society," "Dangerous Minds," "Mr. Holland's Opus," all "great" movies about "great" teachers inspiring their students to achieve great things — all movies referenced lovingly by Steve Coogan's "inspiring" teacher in "Hamlet 2." All are slandered mercilessly in this demented profanity of a comedy from South Park writer Pam Brady.

"Hamlet 2" doesn't fall "trippingly" off the tongue. A leaden third act almost kills it. But "the play's the thing" in this spoof of "inspiring" teacher films, this satire of Red State attitudes toward the arts.

The brilliant Brit-comic Coogan pulls out all the stops and drops all the trousers as Dana Marschz, a frustrated never-was whom we meet in a montage of TV herpes commercials and Xena bit parts in the film's introduction. Dana has moved to Tucson, "where dreams go to die," intones the master thespian narrator (Jeremy Irons).

By Roger Moore
The Orlando Sentinel (MCT)

"The Longshots" is a certifiable crowd pleaser, an agreeable variation on the kid sports movie formula whose family-friendly messages outweigh its corny over familiarity.

It's set in the world of Pop Warner (pre-high school) football and the first girl to play in the Pop Warner version of the Super Bowl. Of course it's fictionalized. Of course, it hits the usual sports formula — adversities to overcome, tragedy to forget, accepting "the new kid," and life lessons learned.

But this kid-friendly dramedy from the musician-turned-filmmaker Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit) hits its marks and tugs its strings. It works. Especially if you've never seen a formula sports dramedy before, something most of its audience will be able to say.

By Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (MCT)

Forty-something wannabe rock star worms his way into his teenage nephew's band. How many times do you think Will Ferrell and Jack Black have turned down that pitch? I'm guessing approximately eleventy billion.

Rainn Wilson (of TV's "The Office") can't afford to be so choosy. Playing a paunchy workaday drone chasing one last shot at rock 'n' roll glory is the kind of dues you gotta pay when you're working your way up from cameo player to feature film star.

Not that "The Rocker" is a major feature. Lightweight as cotton candy and nearly as beneficial for your brain, it is a banal concoction of hair-band gags and unconvincing romantic comedy. Wilson plays Fish Fishman, a has-been drummer from Vesuvius, an '80s rock band that dumped him the very day it hit the big time. (Metallica's lawyers, take note.)