If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you crossed “Network” with “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and the entire soundtrack to “Working Girl” (and I’m sure many of you haven’t), then you want to check out “Little Black Book”. This bland, formulaic and mostly predictable “romantic comedy” (and I use that term loosely) actually has a few interesting qualities about it. You’ll be sitting there wondering how two Oscar winning actresses wound up in something like this (Holly Hunter and Kathy Bates). And when you finally get to the scenes that will show what attracted these women to the film (it’s about an hour and fifteen minutes in), you’ll be wondering why the film wasn’t more like these scenes.

The generically boring Brittany Murphy (whose best work is as the voice of Luanne Platter on “King of the Hill”) stars as a young woman who wants to work with Diane Sawyer. She winds up working on a local TV daytime talk show in her attempt at “getting in”. At the same time she discovers her boyfriend (Ron Livingston) has an entire secret life that he’s been keeping from her. So she uses her resources at the show to find out more about him by interviewing his ex-girlfriends. Oh…and just so we’re clear…the “little black book” of the title is her boyfriend’s Palm Pilot (though I’m not really sure it’s that brand, they just keep referring to it as a Palm…kind of like Xerox or Band-Aid).

Anyway, while it was nice to hear many Carly Simon songs, by the time the film actually got to the big “Let the River Run” moment, we had passed the interesting part of the film and given up all hope that the creators would follow through. Why should they, the scenes before the interesting part showed no promise either.

“The Clearing” is a taught little slow boil thriller starring Robert Redford, Willem Dafoe and Helen Mirren. Dafoe stars as a mild mannered kidnapper who drags wealthy car rental king Redford onto a trip to a cabin to meet up with the guys who paid him. Meanwhile, wife Mirren tries to cope with her husband’s disappearance and possible ransom demands. This is one of the rare times where you look at the cast and go “that’s gonna be some movie” and it doesn’t disappoint. The hows and whys of what is really going on will keep you riveted to your seat and it’s all propelled by the actors taking good writing and making it better. This would have wound up on my Top 25 list of 2004 had I seen it in time. Not sure where.

Meanwhile, over on the boob tube…

NBC’s new sitcom “Committed” at first glance seemed like every other sitcom the network has tried to wedge in the slots between “Friends” and “Seinfeld”. But with those shows gone and the curse of that 8:30 Thursday slot somewhat diminished, this show actually has a bit of juice going for it (let’s say more than “Union Square” and maybe about as much as “The Single Guy”).

When neurotic Nate (Josh Cooke) and upbeat Marni (Jennifer Finnegan) meet it’s not quite love at first sight, yet there’s something that attracts them to each other. And it all starts off via a mistaken blind date (he was supposed to pick up someone at her building, she was meeting someone at her building…they got it wrong, but hit it off). Toss in an angry African-American record shop clerk, a disabled African-American cobbler, a semi-independent and reckless nanny and a dying clown who lives in Marni’s closet (he came with the lease and is played by Tom Poston) and you’ve got an interesting blend of the weird and the clichéd. We’ll see how it goes. Between her cell phone ring – it’s “Manah Manah” – and the clown’s ongoing pie fight via the postal service with an ex-roommate – played by Bob Newhart in a brief cameo – so far it makes me laugh.

One of my favorite TV writer/creators is Glenn Gordon Carron. I’ve loved both “Moonlighting” and “Now and Again” and have looked forward to what he would cook up next. So I was a bit surprised to discover just before the pilot was broadcast that “Medium” is actually his latest work. The advertising made it out to be a cross between “The Sixth Sense” and “CSI” and quite honestly I wasn’t very interested in watching that. But once I knew it was from the brain of Glenn Gordon Carron, I was going to watch. All I’ll say after one episode is that I’m interested in seeing where he takes this. His other two shows were genre defying and well written. I’m hoping this one will show those colors also. The pilot episode was well done and interesting…but we’ll see where he takes it.

There’s been a few interesting things going on with one of my other favorite TV writers, so I thought I’d share a bit.

J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of “Babylon 5”, has been writing for Marvel Comics for about 5 years now. He’s done some amazing work on “The Amazing Spider-Man” and it’s always fun to read his take on one of my favorite Marvel characters Doctor Strange. Since he started working at Marvel, JMS has put Strange into a number of issues of Spidey and commented on how he’d love to write a Strange comic…he even apparently did a film script for the good doctor that never got made.

Well…JMS finally got what he wanted, a chance at giving Doctor Strange a new lease on life…and while I’m going to reserve full judgment until this six issue miniseries is over, at the half-way point all I can say about “Strange” is “what was this man thinking??”

For those of you who don’t know his story…Stephen Strange is a top surgeon who’s just a bit full of himself. When he injures his hands in a drunk driving accident, he winds up on a quest to gain some insight into the petty and shallow life he’s been living. He winds up in Asia learning many things, mostly of the supernatural type, from a mystery man known only as The Ancient One and not only discovers what life is all about, but also about what lies beyond as he eventually inherits the titles of “Sorcerer Supreme” and “Master of the Mystic Arts”.

In interviews before the first issue’s release, JMS stated that Strange’s origins were heavily rooted in the 1960s (when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created the character) and came very much out of the stage magic traditions of the time. JMS wanted to update him and make him more relevant. His handling of the character during appearances in “The Amazing Spider-Man” would lead one to believe he was on the right track…but this mini-series, so far, shows us that the track for re-inventing Stephen Strange runs parallel to “The Matrix”…so parallel that they may as well be the same story. Three issues in, I’m disappointed because there is no drunken car accident (it’s now a skiing accident) and Strange has become Neo in all but name (with The Ancient One essentially becomes Morpheus and Clea becoming Trinity). Yuck.

It’s just been revealed that JMS will be taking over Marvel’s flagship title, “Fantastic Four” this summer. Hopefully, he won’t fuck it up as bad. I don’t think Marvel would let him, mind you…Doctor Strange has always been a bit of a fringe book that seems to stop and start every 90 issues or so…”FF” has been going pretty strong since 1960 and is up to the mid 500s now.

The last bit of JMS news involves some rumors about the long awaited “Babylon 5” feature film. Supposedly, Warner Brothers is pushing to recast the characters with big name stars. While there isn’t a lot of info out there and JMS has been mysteriously quiet and cryptic, it looks like this may be true. More on it as the film develops. Personally, if not having Brad Pitt play Captain Sheridan (just to throw out a crazy notion) meant no movie, I’m happy for it.

What Warner should do is hold off on making any final decisions until October 2005. Then we can see just how successful a “thought-dead TV series” can be brought to the big screen with a no name cast in tact and the series creator at the helm (I’m talking about “Serenity”, the Joss Whedon written-directed movie version of his cancelled TV series “Firefly”…and all early reviews from test screenings, from fans and newcomers alike, seem to say the film kicks ass…can’t wait…it’s one of five films that I’ve already got a babysitter lined up for…more on that comment next time).

And lastly for today because I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, I’m giving a big kudos to Fox Home Video for their upcoming release of “The X-Files” spin-off “The Lone Gunmen” on DVD. Arriving on March 29, this box set will include all 13 episodes of the show as well as “Jump the Shark” the Season 9 “The X-Files” episode that wrapped up any dangling plot lines from the show before it was abruptly cancelled. Most importantly, this set will include the unedited version of the pilot. For those of you who don’t know, care or are likely to get angered and incensed, the pilot episode of “The Lone Gunmen” which aired on March 4, 2001 featured a plot involving Byers trying to stop terrorists from flying an airplane into the World Trade Center. I’m sure that Fox is going to get flack for it from various groups (although it is a cancelled show that the general public won’t remember anyway), but editing or removing it entirely would be more of a disservice in my opinion.

Anyway…that’s all for today…I’ll be back next time with an update Fugue…the house, Tash & I, the baby and a few other things all wrapped up in one neat package…

Until then…be seeing you.

Spleenless Joel