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The Legend of Ron Burgandy (2004): Anchorman is routinely funny and many a times I laughed out loud. Will Ferrell carries the movie on his broad shoulders, nailing the character perfectly. He becomes Ron: the shallow-but-photogenic anchorman whose back-stage pettiness contradicts his on-screen friendliness. And, even though Ron is a chauvinist, Ferrell brings out his likeability. Christina Applegate is an effective foil. The comedic centerpiece of Anchorman is a no-holds-barred rumble between San Diego's various anchor teams. With cameos by Vince Vaughn, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller, and Luke Wilson, this is as funny and memorable a scene as any in Anchorman. Anchorman is a very funny motion picture, but it also has a good sense of the time (the 1970s) and how the medium of TV news was changing. Like Network and Broadcast News, the film turns a satirical eye towards the behind-the-scenes goings-on at a station. Great entertainment.

This is a forgotten film from the mid 80s starring Tom Berenger and Ellen Barkin. Although Michael Paré's dramatic performance leaves something to be desired, he captures the intensity and charisma of a rock singer and combines it with a near-perfect "look." The only time Eddie and the Crusiers shines is when the band is playing, which unfortunately represents a distinct minority of the running time. Eddie and the Cruisers gets the '80s right (one would hope this would be the case since that's when it was filmed), it mostly botches the '60s, at least insofar as the music is concerned. Pretty much every song played by The Cruisers sounds like it was written in the 1980s. The film isn't completely without merit. The music sequences are well-made and there's an energy evident when The Cruisers are playing that's absent from the rest of the production. Some of the material echo real-life aspects of the music business. But most of the other stuff is bad soap opera.

The Halloween saga continues and as is usually the case with sequels each is worse than its predecessor, however having said this Halloween 4 is considered by many to be a better sequel than the others. Halloween 4 is a better movie than Halloween II, if only because it opens up the setting rather than restricting the action to a dimly-lit, nearly empty hospital. Michael is more frightening when he's on the loose in the outdoors. And there are some effectively chilling moments, such as an early dream sequence where Jamie comes face-to-mask with her uncle and the ending, which is, in a word, inspired - or at least as inspired as anything in any of the Halloween sequels. Provided you aren't averse to the formula, the film actually provides about 90 minutes of reasonable, slasher-based entertainment - nothing deep or momentous to be sure, but enough shocks, scares, and campy fun to make it worth a rental.