It seems that Ghost Rider is now officially part of Marvel Knights, which is the division that contains all the comics that deal with more mature themes. I get what they mean; it is about demonic possession, good and evil, and all that, but on the other hand, given the level of humor, "mature" doesn't quite seem like the right word. Most of the jokes seem to have been supplied by a 13-year-old boy. Since one of the main characters is a 13-year-old boy, though, maybe they were.

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I feel a little like I just watched Super 8 again, even down to the fact that I knew almost nothing about this movie going in. Also as with Super 8, I suspect it's better to know as little as possible going in, since that way you can discover things right along with the characters. It doesn't quite make for an even playing field, of course, since the audience knows way before they do that they're going to end up in deep, deep trouble, but I still think it's more fun that way.

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These days, all you really have to do to get your proverbial fifteen minutes of fame is to go out on a high ledge. That doesn't do me any good, since I'm scared of heights and also sometimes get dizzy spells, so I can't actually use that as my next attempt to get myself some more site traffic. It would probably be super-effective, though, at least if I did it in New York. Just ask Sam Worthington, formerly of Clash of the Titans and soon to be also of Wrath of the Titans.

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It's that time again, when we look back on the ups, downs, and events of the past year and start making plans and dreaming dreams for the year to come. For me, that means it's time for yet another semi-random selection of some of the films that made 2011 good, bad, or ugly, in their own unique and sometimes slightly terrifying ways. (And also time to start hoping for a good crop of movies in 2012, of course.) May you and yours have a bright and shining new year.

The Good:

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Books get optioned by movie studios constantly. Anytime anything looks like it's selling decently, some studio somewhere will jump on it, just in case it becomes the next huge sleeper hit. However, as I learned a while back, sometimes all that means is that the studios made a bad investment, since the odds of a book that's been optioned actually making it to the screen are slim. Estimates range between 2 and 10 percent managing that leap, in fact. Many times those that do are unrecognizable anyway.

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The other day as I was entering a friend's house, someone was watching Sherlock Holmes. This is the Sherlock Holmes, mind you, the Jeremy Brett version that shall never be surpassed. It was a scene where he explains to Watson how he produces such startling effects with his deductions -- namely, by describing the first link in his impeccably logical chain of reasoning, then the last link, and not mentioning any of the links in between.

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This is a reboot. I really can't emphasize that enough. This is not your father's Star Trek. The writers here took all the main characters you remember from the original series, many of the most famous lines, various alien races (most humanoid, a few very much not humanoid), and a few little in-jokes referring back to previous movies and shows, threw them all into a blender, mixed them up for a while, and served up something that's almost Star Trek, but different.

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I always stay to watch the credits. Well, 99% of the time. I do occasionally bolt early when the movie was particularly vile, but that's only happened once or twice in five years. The point is, I often see unusual job titles going by as the credits roll, and I make note of them when I can. Now, I don't think these jobs are actually quite as weird as the titles suggest, but it's difficult to find anything online about them, so I felt able to let my imagination roam a little. Who knows? Maybe they're even weirder than I think. See what you can make of these Top 5 Strangest Job Titles:

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I admit, historical goofs bother me more than they should. Imagine if I'd majored in history instead of English literature. At least sometimes I can watch in mostly blissful ignorance and not know until afterwards, when I can no longer resist the urge to research, how wrong that script really was. This list doesn't consider movies like Immortals, where they clearly aren't trying to be accurate in any sense of the word; but it is otherwise the Top Five Movies that sent me scrambling for the history books.

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Ever wonder what would happen if a bunch of very non-human-looking alien refugees showed up on Earth? Wonder no longer, because I'm pretty sure this movie predicts that very accurately. You know, aside from the particularly weird stuff that happens to the main character, because I'm not sure those exact details would ever happen, but the general outline is probably just about perfect.

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