Like any familiar franchise entry, Star Trek Into Darkness comes ready-equipped with quotes and familiar touchstones so critics can nudge readers with them and avoid creativity. I wonder how many variations we'll see on "to boldly go," for example?

“To boldly go where a Star Trek film has gone before. That’s my main beef…” – Paul Chambers, Movie Chambers

“It doesn't boldly go where Star Trek has gone before. The story slips out of warp drive and into impulse power…” – Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald

“Abrams boldly goes into Star Trek Into Darkness, and crushes it again.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“While not marking as significant a step to boldly go where few science fiction sequels have gone before, Abrams makes a very entertaining one…” – Jeffrey Lyles, Lyles’ Movie Files

“Star Trek is still boldly going its own way …” – Roger Moore, Movie Nation

“Expecting a Star Trek sequel to boldly go where no movie has gone before would be highly illogical.” – Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Star Trek Into Darkness is a first-class ticket into outer space. If you feel the urge, rocket yourself into blockbuster happiness. … This movie boldly goes.” – Bruce Kirkland, Jam! Movies

“Star Trek Into Darkness may be going not so boldly back to the archives, but it serves up an exhilarating spectacle …” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

“[I]t does go — albeit more cautiously than boldly — where his previous film hadn’t gone before…” – Mike Scott, Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

“Star Trek Into Darkness is a giddy homage to what’s come before it, but it also at least tries to go boldly where ... well, you know.” – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

By comparison, then, other reference points seem almost imaginative:

“Set your thrusters on maximum for this swashbuckling sci-fi action-adventure … Live long and prosper!” – Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate

“…fast and fun, zipping along on all thrusters…” – Rafer Guzman, Newsday

“Star Trek Into Darkness moves at warp speed … Abrams and his ace editing team set their phasers to stun in a series of exciting and slick set pieces.” – Jason Buchanan, TV Guide

“Star Trek Into Darkness is out of this world. … Beam yourself up for this one.” – Tom Long, Detroit News

Let's all now set our phasers on "oh, for the love of God, please stop."

If you’re headed out to the movies this weekend, you’ll be paying more for your ticket. And not all of the theaters want it to be that way. ---

Yesterday, the Salt Lake Film Society—the nonprofit umbrella organization that operates the Broadway Centre and Tower theaters—tweeted that it was raising its regular evening ticket prices to $9.25 per person, up from $8.75. Accompanying the announcement was the hashtag, "#thankthemegaplex."

The relationship might not be obvious between one theater’s decision to raise prices and the de facto obligation of other theaters to do the same. But according to SLFS executive director Tori Baker, there’s a ripple effect when Larry H. Miller Group’s Megaplex Theaters chooses to raise its prices, as it did this week in advance of the opening of the summer’s first expected blockbuster, Iron Man 3. [A representative for LHM Group had not responded to a request for comment at deadline.]

Baker said that theaters competing for bookings are faced with studios looking at the total gross figures that the venue can deliver. And while the SLFS isn’t often competing with the Megaplex Theaters for bookings, it can be facing off against Cinemark’s Century 16 location in South Salt Lake, which occasionally books independent-leaning features like Mud and The Company You Keep, in addition to multiplex Hollywood fare. An increase in ticket prices at Megaplex forces Cinemark to do the same in this market to be able to compete in terms of the numbers it will report. And that in turn forces SLFS’s hand.

“We tend to have larger audience numbers [than Century 16],” Baker says, “but we can only beat them on a competitive level in terms of raw numbers [by raising our own prices.]”

That makes theatrical distribution a different sort of business than others, where in theory you could attract a larger market share by lowering your cost to the consumer, and make up the difference in volume. “People tend to go to their neighborhood theater, wherever their closest venue is,” Baker says, rather than shopping around for the best ticket price. And while SLFS draws from a larger radius than many other theaters as a result of its unique independent film bookings, it wouldn’t necessarily be enough to have studios give it the crucial “Oscar bait” bookings SLFS relies on during the winter awards season.

Baker notes that membership in SLFS still gives members a discount on all admissions—a discount that the organization itself absorbs while reporting the full ticket price to studios.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, May 1), the Salt Lake Film Society's Tower Theatre once again serves as venue for Local Open Screen Night, a chance to get new short works in front of an audience. If you've got a 15-minute-or-shorter piece you'd like to have on the bill, just show up at the Tower (876 E. 900 South) between 6 and 6:30 p.m. with your submission on DVD, with a $5-per-submission entry fee. The films start at 9., with audience, staff and (occasionally) critic judges selecting winners from the entries.

Admission is free for visitors, so drop by for a look at some of Utah's next-generation filmmaking talent. For a flavor of what the locals can serve up, check out the SLFS YouTube channel for examples of recent winners.

April 21 marked the release of Tim DeChristopher from prison after serving nearly two years for his highly publicized act of civil disobedience sabotaging the leasing of oil-drilling rights on Utah public lands. Bidder 70 chronicles more than two years between that action and his conviction, exploring the context for DeChristohper's activism, his preparations for the possible legal repercussions and the ripple effect of his principles on others.

Tonight's screening begins at 7, with a scheduled post-screening Q&A with DeChristopher and filmmakers Beth and George Gage; tickets are $15. The discussion will be streamed live to screenings taking place in approximately 50 other cities, with DeChristopher and the Gages also taking questions via social media.

A regular theatrical run of the film is currently scheduled to open locally on May 10.

It's baseball-movie time, but our favorite lazy critics aren't gonna sneak their cliche-filled fastballs past The Hack Stamp. ---

Perhaps because they used up many of their preferred sports metaphors on Trouble With the Curve recently, critics weren't filling their reviews of 42 with baseball jargon. But that doesn't mean at least a few didn't step up to the plate.

“Mr. Helgeland's ponderously reverential biopic is a string of unearned runs.” – Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

“The movie is a home run, and Ford is a grand ham.” – Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times

“42 is a fine drama which throws no curves, allowing for an easy hit.” – Justin Craig, FoxNews.com

“The inspirational movie … is too dignified to throw audiences a curveball, let alone a knockdown pitch, but its solid fundamentals make it a winner.” – Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Even if it isn't a home run, 42 easily hits a triple, and, like Robinson, could probably steal home. (Sorry, had to fit a sports metaphor in there eventually.)” – Matthew Razak, Flixist *Note: Apologizing makes it only slightly better.

But this week's Hack Champ is Gary Wolcott of the Tri-City Herald, a regular visitor to this space, who seemingly decided that if he was gonna go baseball metaphor, he was going to swing for the fences and simply never stop using them.

“…after fouling off a series of pitches, the subject matter and Harrison Ford's acting eventually help 42 win the game.”

"The film’s grand slam is the acting, and clearing the bases best is Ford. He patiently waits on curve balls and hits line drives with ease. ... Instead of hitting bloop singles, Helgeland should have given the rest of the cast the opportunity to go for the fences and have as much fun as Ford."

"Helgeland comes to bat in each inning with the intention of hitting one out of the park, and while never getting the home run, he does manage to go three for five.”

While the film world continues to mourn the passing of Roger Ebert, you can celebrate his unique sensibility with a movie he actually wrote. ---

This weekend -- Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13--the Tower Theatre presents midnight screenings of Russ Meyer's 1970 sexploitation tale Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Featuring the Roger Ebert screenplay that included the legendary, Austin Powers-tributed line "This is my happening, and it freaks me out!", the NC-17-rated Dolls finds the goofy movie love that was as much a part of Ebert's critical writing as his deep knowledge of classic film history.

Both screenings are free to the public on a space-available basis.

Celebrated experimental filmmaker James Benning visits Salt Lake City next week for two special screenings of recent feature-length works. ---

On Monday, April 15, Benning will introduce screenings of 2012's the war and 2007's Casting a Glance at two separate events. The former -- a compilation of videos shot by the Russian activist group Voina chronicling their activities (pictured) -- will be screened at 2:15 p.m. at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts; the latter -- a meditation on changes over the years at Robert Smithson's famed Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake -- will be screened at the University of Utah Fine Arts Auditorium at 7 p.m.

Both screenings will include comments and Q&A by Benning, and are free and open to the public on a space-available basis. The screenings are presented by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the University of Utah Department of Film and Media Studies, the Dia Art Foundation and the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College.

UPDATED 4/10: According to a representative for James Benning, the press release from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts was in error. Screenings of the war are not taking place due to an agreement with Voina; an alternate Benning film still to be determined will take its place for the 2:15 p.m. screening.

UPDATED 4/12: The replacement screening has been identified as two cabins.]]> By Scott Renshaw

Shot in March 2008, then slowly trickled into international markets starting in 2010, 6 Souls casts Julianne Moore as a widowed, grieving psychiatrist who encounters a strange patient with apparent multiple-personality disorder -- and whose other personalities appear to be murder victims. It opens locally on Friday at the Cinemark Valley Fair in West Valley.

At the time of this posting, 6 Souls was batting an impressive .000 at Rotten Tomatoes, having earned not a single "Fresh" review out of 14 posted. Keith Phipps of Time Out New York described it as "ill-conceived in ways unimagined even in the loopy extremes of similarly head-scratching, head-shrinking films;" Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine opines, "You'll wish that a demon would just hurry up and displace [Moore]'s soul already, if only to put an end to all the phony theological bickering."

If you're feeling brave enough to see it anyway, share with us whether you think the five-year wait for 6 Souls was worth it.

It was thanks to the Internet-based film critic James Berardinelli -- whom Ebert had been corresponding with for a while -- that I got that chance for a dinner with Roger Ebert at Sundance '99. Ebert had been an early adapter to the significance of the online world, and had made it a point in his annual Movie Yearbook beginning in the late 1990s to single out the Internet-based film critics he considered worthwhile. Mr. Berardinelli was one of those -- and, in Mr. Ebert's opinion circa 1998, so was I.

I was fairly dumbfounded when an online acquaintance made me aware that I'd made the cut in Ebert's Yearbook. After all, I'd been watching since his PBS Sneak Previews show with Gene Siskel in the early 1980s; he was a Pulitzer Prize-winner at a craft I'd barely begun to feel competent at; he was The Man. A thumbs-up from Roger Ebert was the most astonishing indication I'd yet received that maybe there was a shot for me at this crazy film-criticism thing. And I don't think it hurt my bona fides when I walked into the City Weekly offices in spring 1999 and showed Publisher John Saltas a copy of those words of praise from Roger Ebert.

So in January of 1999, I was able to thank Roger Ebert in person for that kindness. I wish I could remember more of that dinner conversation; I think I was too awestruck for it to feel casual. I do remember his casual jests about Gene Siskel, who would pass away himself only a couple of months later. And I remember that he picked up the check.

In subsequent years, I'd see him periodically, and while there's no way of knowing whether he'd have remembered my name without those ever-present press badges, he always greeted me and was willing to chat. That seems to be the memory of so many people today: That someone who had reached the top of his profession, instead of becoming a standoffish jerk, was instead kind and inviting.

Rest in peace in the greatest balcony seat, Mr. Ebert. And thanks again.

The Central Park Five explores the infamous April 1989 assault that left a woman near death, and five minority youths convicted until another man’s confession ultimately exonerated them. Present-day interviews and news footage from the time of the crime and trials paints a vivid portrait of a city that responded to this crime with fear and panic; it’s equally chilling in capturing interrogation methods that make getting a confession more important than getting the truth. Police and prosecutors refused to participate in the film, but it’s still potent as the personal story of the five convicted scapegoats—-now adults, trying to piece shattered, partially lost lives back together—-told in their own voices.

The Utah Film Center free screening is scheduled for Wednesday, April 3, 7 p.m. at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center (138 W. 300 South). Legendary documentary director Ken Burns co-directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and Sarah's husband, David McMahon. Stay after the film for a live Q&A with Sarah Burns and David McMahon.

You didn't have to look up your sleeve to find the word "magic" used in a whole bunch of reviews:

“ … you may walk away not feeling any of the magic.” – Amy Curtis, We Got This Covered

“Though not exactly magic, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is certainly no cinematic disappearing act either.” – Katerina Sakkas, FILMLINK (Australia)

“Not particularly magical.” – Joanna Langfield, The Movie Minute

“… not exactly magical, but it does have enough tricks up its sleeve to make it worth the price of admission.” – Matthew DeKinder, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“What this movie is missing is -- magic.” – Nell Minow, Beliefnet

“Steve Carell, Steve Buscemi and Jim Carrey find that magic touch. … Yes, it’s silly and goofy, but it does the trick if you’re looking for a laugh.” – Jeffrey Lyles, Lyles Movie Files

“You would think that a film about magicians would have some magic to it … if you are looking for something truly magical, you will come away disappointed.” – Charlie McCollum, San Jose Mercury News

A few more at least reached for a more specific reference than mere "magic":

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone works hard to create the illusion that it’s hilarious.” – Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press

“Perhaps it’s a magical disappearing-humor act that afflicts this throwaway.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

“I wish I could make it disappear. Forever.” – Drew Taylor, The Playlist

For many, the obvious choice was poking at the title's choice of adjectives:

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone isn’t incredible …” – Tom Long, Detroit News

“The Incredible Burt Wonderstone just isn’t.” – Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald

But special congratulations to those who went for the "magic" gag and the "incredible" gag:

“…leans on its stars to conjure laughs out of thin air …[E]nough comic haymakers land to make Burt Wonderstone credible, if not exactly ‘incredible.’” – Roger Moore, Movie Nation

“There’s not much cinematic magic in this tale. … It may be more The Merely Okay Burt Wonderstone…” – Frank Swietek, One Guy’s Opinion

“For my first trick, allow me to write off an entire picture by merely affixing to the title a one-word contraction: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone isn’t.” – Rick Groen, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“The only incredible thing about The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is that way it makes Steve Carell so thoroughly and irreparably unlikable. … And after it's over, poof! You'll forget you ever watched it in the first place.” – Christy Lemire, Associated Press

Some of them reach at least a little bit in their reference points:

“Somewhere over the rainbow there may be a more magical movie, but this will certainly do.” – Tom Long, Detroit News

“...you draw back the curtain and realize this is a really a Blunder-full Blizzard of Blahs.” – Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail

Plenty opt for one of the more obvious brain/heart/courage combos:

“...it could use more heart, courage and brains.” – Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Daily News

“If Oz the Great and Powerful only had a brain. And heart. And courage.” – Matt Pais, Red Eye

“It took brains to create such a sumptuous fantasia with pixels and keyboard swipes. Now, if it only had a heart.” – Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times

“Making a prequel to The Wizard of Oz takes courage and brains. This one's got a little of both, but most of all it has heart.” – Joe Lozito, Big Picture Big Sound

“It may not have much courage in its adherence to the 1939 classic, [but] the film still manages to find both a brain and heart somewhere along the way.” – Matt Looker, The Shiznit.co.uk

Even if you manage to avoid Wizard of Oz puns, there's still that title sitting there, daring you not to notice:

“Oz the Great and Powerful isn't great, nor is it powerful, but it is competent and entertaining.” – Jordan Riefe, Boston Phoenix

“What we get here is Oz the Amiable and Unthreatening.” – Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer

“The new spinoff ... may not be great, exactly, but it is powerfully entertaining.” – Claudia Puig, USA Today

“Great and powerful? More like merely good and enjoyable.” – James Croot, Flicks.co.nz

“A few adjectives shy of great and powerful.” – Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

This week's winner, for managing to kill two Hack-birds with one review:

“If it only had a brain. Or a heart. Or nerve. … There is nothing here that is great, or powerful.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

If you guessed that the new fantasy Jack the Giant Slayer would generate an epic collection of fee fi foe fumbles, you've "bean" paying attention to the Hack Stamp. ---

There's something about familiar stories that has film critics cranking up the lazy meter, and they brought out clunky references to the old beanstalk fairy tale by the score. How many variations on "fee fi foe fum" could there be? Not enough to make any of them clever.

“Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the stink of a horrible bomb! … won't be slaying any box office records.” – Willie Waffle, WaffleMovies.com

“Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell a hit with the little ones!” – Kam Williams, AALBC.com

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, this fairy-tale retread is pretty dumb.” – Justin Chang, Variety

“For everyone…, including cynical grown-up critics who didn't think they’d ever give a Fee, a Fi, a Fo or a Fum about this movie, it's a terrific adventure.” – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the hot blood of a big hit.” – Bruce Kirkland, Jam!

One version of the reference in particular seemed almost too painfully obvious -- which naturally meant a handful of Hack Stamp-ers would all use it.

“Fee fi, ho hum.” – Robert Denerstein, Movie Habit

“Fee Fie Ho-Hum.” – Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

“More ‘ho-hum’ than ‘fee-fye-foe-fum.’” – James Verniere, Boston Herald

"Not awful, not wonderful, Jack the Giant Slayer is a midrange fairy tale epic that's a lot more ho-hum than fee-fi-fo-fum." – Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

But what if you somehow dodged the fee fi foe fumm-ing? Well, there are always bean references...

“… a gentle giant, a short and sweet climb that’s fun all the way up the bean stalk.” – Justin Craig, Fox News

“… this sprightly fairy tale reworking is full of beans.” – Linda Barnard, Toronto Star

“Finally… a movie where the problems of three little people actually amount to a hill of beans.” – William Bibbiani, Crave Online

“If Jack the Giant Slayer isn’t in line for technical wizardry awards in 2014, it would be a bigger injustice than trading a horse for a handful of beans.” – David Kaplan, Kaplan vs. Kaplan

“There’s no magic in this beanstalk, and viewers foolish enough to spend money on tickets are likely to feel as cheated as Jack when told he’s been swindled out of a horse and cart for a few worthless beans.” – Steve Bidrowski, Cinefantastique

This week's winner, though, managed to pull it all together in one big pile of cliche:

“Fee fi ho hum … not worth a hill of beans, magic or otherwise.” – Steve Persall, Tampa Bay Times

It's impossible to resist them. They suck all the air from the movie-talk room. It's Oscar weekend. And here's who's gonna win (maybe). ---

I already addressed a few of the more obscure categories in a column this week, so I'll simply summarize my picks in Sound Mixing (Les Miserables), Sound Editing (Skyfall), Documentary Short (Mondays at Racine), Costume Design (Anna Karenina) and Cinematography (Skyfall). Onward, with the caveat that a year in which I score 75% feels like a win for me, historically:

The Mortal Locks: Not very many this year, but the consensus seems to be that you can take Daniel-Day Lewis (Best Actor for Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Best Supporting Actress for Les Miserables), Adele (Original Song for "Skyfall"), Amour (for Best Foreign Language Film) and Les Miserables (for Makeup/Hairstyling) to the bank.

The Safe-ish Bets: Lincoln seems like it's going to beat out Anna Karenina for Production Design, while Tony Kushner's adapted screenplay for Lincoln is also considered the front-runner. Meanwhile, Life of Pi seems to have the inside track for both Visual Effects and Original Score. Searching for Sugar Man has been out front in the Documentary Feature category for what seems like forever (which perhaps should make us nervous). And yes, Argo continues to look like it's going to sweep toward the Best Picture award, taking Editing along with it.

Toss-Ups: With Ben Affleck not in the mix -- where, curiously, he'd probably be the favorite right now -- Steven Spielberg emerged as the popular choice for Lincoln. But I'm going with Ang Lee for Life of Pi, a technically demanding film, also taking into account people who think Lincoln was all about Day-Lewis' performance. Pixar's Paperman was a much-loved pick for Animated Short, but Adam and Dog feels like the stronger pick now. Original Screenplay could go to Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained, but I'm betting that it turned off enough Academy voters that Amour will sneak in; I'm also taking a gamble on Emmanuelle Riva from Amour getting the "never-honored-veteran pick" over the younger, we'll-make-it-up-to-her-down-the-road Jennifer Lawrence or Jessica Chastain. Meanwhile, Wreck-It Ralph will sneak ahead of Disney-sibling Brave for Animated Feature.

Pure Guesswork: Literally anyone could take Supporting Actor (well, except maybe Alan Arkin), a category full of former winners. Christoph Waltz and Tommy Lee Jones certainly have a better-than-decent shot, but I'll play my hunch that Robert DeNiro wins for reminding everyone that when he's not just doing paycheck work, he's still pretty great. And Live-Action Short? What the hell, I'll ride with the conventional wisdom that Curfew is the one to beat.

On this Presidents' Day -- just a few days before Daniel Day-Lewis likely will win an Oscar for playing a president -- let's ponder some of film history's actor-as-president curiosities. ---

Over the years, many actors have turned in indelible portraits of American presidents, though none has yet earned Oscar glory. Philip Baker Hall was a magnificent Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's Secret Honor; Frank Langella nearly matched him in Frost/Nixon; Bruce Greenwood wonderfully embodied John F. Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis drama Thirteen Days; and Paul Giamatti got an amazing showcase in the HBO miniseries John Adams.

Yet there have also been some far-less-successful choices in presidential portrayals. Jefferson in Paris cast Nick Nolte as the Founding Father, his performance as sluggish as the Merchant Ivory production turned out to be. Fred Ward made for a distracting Ronald Reagan in the Soviet/U.S. espionage thriller L'affaire Farewell. And Kevin Kline as Ulysses S. Grant was just one of the many frustrating things about Wild Wild West; he was more convincing as the fictional president in Dave.

At times, actors have made something of a specialized career out of parlaying their resemblance to a given president into multiple films. In the silent era, Joseph Kilgour was the go-to George Washington in a series of Revolutionary War stories. In the 1930s, Fred McGlynn, Sr. played Abraham Lincoln in three consecutive films: 1934's anti-Nazi propaganda piece Are We Civilized?, 1935's Shirley Temple vehicle The Littlest Rebel and 1936's Cecil B. DeMille production The Plainsman. Edward Herrmann played Franklin D. Roosevelt in a pair of 1970s made-for-TV movies, then later played FDR again in the 1982 film version of the musical Annie; he continues the tradition by doing FDR's voice-over in the upcoming Ken Burns PBS documentary, The Roosevelts. And Timothy Bottoms became as ubiquitous a George W. Bush as Will Ferrell, playing the president in the 2002 Crocodile Hunter film Collision Course, a 2003 TV movie about 9/11 and the controversial, short-lived Comedy Central sitcom That's My Bush! from South Park/Book of Mormon creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

But if you want to see versatility, how about actors who have managed to be cast as more than one different president? Jason Robards' presidential bearing landed him the role of three different presidents: as Franklin Roosevelt in the 1980 TV-movie F.D.R.: The Last Year; as Ulysses S. Grant in 1981's The Legend of the Lone Ranger and as Abraham Lincoln in the 1991 Gettysburg-themed TV movie The Perfect Tribute. Robin Williams will join the club with this year's release of The Butler, playing Dwight Eisenhower in the story of a long-time White House servant; he previously played Teddy Roosevelt in the two Night at the Museum films. Special notice, though, to Anthony Hopkins, who managed not just to play two different presidents -- Nixon in Oliver Stone's 1995 Nixon, and John Quincy Adams in Steven Spielberg's 1997 Amistad -- but to earn Academy Award nominations for both of them.

Kindly share your favorite, least favorite or most oddball presidential portrayals in movies. And Happy Presidents' Day.

Just when it looked like The Hack Stamp might be lost forever, pun-wielding critics come yippee-ki-yay-ing to the rescue . ---

Bruce Willis' latest John McClane offering, A Good Day to Die Hard, has generally been receiving savage take-downs in reviews. But those who loathe it, those who merely dislike it and those who actually kinda tolerate it appear unified in their desire to play off obvious puns in their write-ups -- mostly snarking about the title.

“It’s not so much a good day to die hard, as it is a good day to retire this franchise.” – Teddy Durgin, Screen It!

“A Good Day to Die Hard signals that it may be a better day for John McClane to retire.” – Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

“Give [Jai] Courtney the lead role in a spin-off and call it a good day to wrap up.” – Steve Newall, Flicks.co.nz

“Franchise-wise, it’d be a good day to call it a day.” – Elliot Noble, Sky Movies

“More like A Good Day to End This Series.” – Dustin Putman, Dustin Putman.com

“Not a good day exactly, but not a goodnight to Die Hard, either.” – Ali Gray, The Shiznit

Others chose a simpler, classic approach:

“The only thing that has died hard is the integrity of this franchise.” – Joe Lozito, Big Picture Big Sound

It's the only new offering in discount theaters this week. It wasn't worth full price on the first run, and isn't much better at a discount. ---

Playing for Keeps brings us Gerard Butler attempting once again to ingratiate audiences into his romantic-leading-man charms, even if the only function of the movie is really to make sure we find him pleasant enough that we'll consider seeing his next movie as a romantic leading man. He plays an ex-pro-soccer player and divorced dad named George Dryer, who moves back to be near his ex-wife (Jessica Biel) and son, eventually coaching his son's soccer team. What follows is a setup that has nowhere to take George as a character, throwing plenty of soggy farce at him until it all finally dribbles to a conclusion. But hey, at least we don't have to listen to Butler chewing on his consonants in an attempt to simulate an American accent.

Heading into the final festival weekend, Salt Lake City Sundancers have a chance to see a couple of the best films in both the U.S. Dramatic and U.S. Documentary competition. ---

Upstream Color -- writer/director/star Shane Carruth's fascinating follow-up to his 2004 Sundance film Primer -- may be nothing more than its fascinating surface-level story, about a woman whose life is shattered when she's subjected to a strange substance that renders her intensely suggestible. The plot, bizarre though it may be, isn't hard to follow; the only question is whether it adds up to something even more profound than its utterly singular narrative and Carruth's elliptical visual style.

The documentary Life According to Sam may have a somewhat misleading title, in that it's less about Sam Berns -- a 13-year-old boy among the few people living with the rare, rapid-aging disease progeria -- than about his mother and her research project to come up with a treatment. But it's pretty terrific as a profile not just of this particular woman and her determination, but as a case study in what it's like to be a parent told that your child is doomed, and what you do with your life then.

Sundance is drawing to a close, but second-run theaters give you a chance to catch up with one of 2012's highest-profile blockbusters. ---

The latest adventure for Daniel Craig as James Bond, Skyfall, makes its dollar-theater debut this Friday, following agent 007 as he gets back in the game after a serious brush with death to face a cyber-terrorist (Javier Bardem) with a grudge. In keeping with the direction Craig brought to the series, this is a more down-to-earth Bond, yet there are echoes of his more high-flying past in director Sam Mendes' adventure. And while Skyfall acknowledges the history of the character, it also doesn't take for granted that the brand alone is sufficient to warrant our attention. With breathtaking cinematography, solid action and an effectively human story, it makes the case that Bond still matters.

It's an icy Salt Lake City day, but the shows go one for local Sundancers. ---

Tonight's Ogden offering is one of the festival's best: the delightful coming-of-age comedy The Way, Way Back. The only thing that doesn't make it the obvious choice for absolutely everyone with a Locals Express Pass is the fact that it's not possible to see both that film and the flat-out best of the fest, Before Midnight. I think I may have written a few words about that one already.

If you've been lucky enough to catch those already, consider some of the promising documentaries, including a look at orcas in captivity in Blackfish, and director Alex Gibney's exploration of WikiLeaks in We Steal Secrets.