Tom Norton

Another sports flick about a new coach, a team down on its luck, and a player struggling to succeed. But the variations on that theme are seemingly endless. In the Hollywood vernacular, this one was "inspired by the true story" of a 30-year old substitute teacher/bartender who never played college football but won a shot at a spot on the Philadelphia Eagles roster thanks to an open tryout held by the NFL team's new coach. The tryout was little more than a publicity stunt, but for the player, die-hard Eagles fan Vince Papale, it was a chance to prove himself.

There's nothing like a great dragon movie. And, as the old saying goes, this is nothing like a great dragon movie. But it is an interesting one.

I'm not sure how you write a screenplay designed to show the origins if the CIA and its operations up to and including the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. But I'm reasonably certain that no one in Hollywood has an inside track to the straight story, despite research into volumes full of speculation and unverifiable leaks. The true history of the CIA and the details of its operation are not exactly found in the public library or on the Internet, and for good reasons.

Thanks to two remarkable films, I've learned more about penguins in the past few weeks than I ever thought I needed to know. The first, <I>March of the Penguins</I> was a surprising hit when it played theatrically in 2005, winning an Oscar that year as the best documentary feature. The second, <I>Happy Feet</I> (review following), won an Oscar as the best animated feature of 2006.