Drama
Phil Bacharach
Colin Firth is extraordinary as the stutterer who would be king in ‘The King’s Speech.’

Thriller
Rod Lott
For very different reasons, I'll watch any movie with Vincent Price, Bill Murray, Jackie Chan or Carla Gugino. Falling into the first category is 1962's Confessions of an Opium Eater, a rare Price vehicle rare no more, thanks to a DVD debut from Warner Archive.

Music
Joshua Boydston
Defining Times with Dead Sea Choir
10 p.m. Saturday
VZD’s Restaurant & Club
4200 N. Western
vzds.com
524-4203
$7-$10

Comedy
Phil Bacharach
Judd Apatow has given us some hilariously raunchy comedies, but This Is 40 finds the writer-director in his grown-up mode, at least in intent, extracting the funny from the advent of middle age. But his understanding of life in the 40s isn’t necessarily the universal kind.

Television series
Rod Lott
I think the best way to review a box set of Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be to list all the references made by and/or targets of the Satellite of Love crew in those episodes, to demonstrate their true depth and breadth.

But that’d also be the worst, because we’d be here all day.

Horror
Rod Lott
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air is really Albert Pyun’s Cool Air. The notorious director of the aborted Captain America and the should’ve-been-aborted Kathy Ireland vehicle known as Alien from L.A. is up to his usual inert tricks. It shows from the start, which forces viewers to read six title cards in two long minutes.

Action
Rod Lott
Not long after Batman changed Hollywood in the summer of 1989, every studio wanted to have the next comics-based blockbuster. I remember visiting Penn Square Mall’s multiplex (as I did often back then) and seeing a poster for Captain America. The one-sheet was comprised of little more than a close-up of Cap’s iconic shield and a promise to arrive next summer.