“Jesus, Jack. Why 88 minutes?”

That’s a very good question. One to which, quite frankly, I simply do not have a remotely positive answer. Let me put it another way: There are good movies, there are bad movies and there are even movies that transcend bad to become good again.

And then, there is 88 Minutes.

The elements are all there. We have the swaggering, older gentleman who has everything he wants in life, except the girl. There’s the strong-willed, driven career woman who has risen to the top of a man’s world but still does not have a man.

I’ll begin by stating it outright: there is nothing particularly remarkable about 21, directed by Robert Luketic. However, that did not stop me from enjoying myself for the entire two hours I was watching it. This movie is far from perfect, to be sure, but it is certainly a well-built piece of entertainment.

I must admit that after two decades of life, I have yet to make a trip across the pond to Europe, much to my disappointment. Despite this, I have familiarized myself with many potential sights to visit in preparation for my eventual journey over there.

The story of Beowulf is an epic in the finest tradition of the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, and subsequently the Aeneid of Virgil. It has managed to survive to the present day slightly incomplete, but no less great, and is enjoyed (or reviled) by high school English classes across the country. After several film versions that few seem to know or care about, Hollywood has delivered Robert

With Hollywood’s recent bankruptcy of creativity, studios have been going back to the well, resurrecting old successes with new sequels.

Nine years after the release of Elizabeth, a modestly successful costume drama that earned seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of the title character, the world has been given Elizabeth: The Golden Age, the next chapter in the life of England’s Virgin Queen.

The best meal is only as good as the ingredients that it’s composed of. However, the ingredients must also be used in the proper amounts and proportions. Forget an ingredient, and the meal usually suffers.

The same can be said for film, particularly Robert Benton’s Feast of Love: An almost total absence of humor drags down a film that could have been wonderful, but instead achieves only a level of mediocrity.

“Only the most ridiculous parts of this movie are true.”

I laughed out loud when that was on the screen. After watching Richard Shepard’s The Hunting Party and reading the Esquire article upon which it is based (“What I Did on My Summer Vacation” by Scott Anderson), I can only marvel at how appropriate the film’s witty opening statement is. Fortunately, the film has much more to offer than this initial display of whimsy, delivering a solid and engaging, if not somewhat flawed, thriller.

Once the reigning queen of network television, the sitcom as an art form fell into a permanent decline along with the end of classics “Friends” and “Frasier.” TV comedy has struck out in new directions.

The newest entry in the field, TBS’s “10 Items or Less” has taken its cues from shows like the prematurely cancelled “Arrested Development,” and HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The show is filmed, laugh-track free, in a documentary style and relies on improvisation rather than fully written scripts. Though “10 Items or Less” tries hard to imitate its critically successful predecessors, it does not quite live up to their high standards.