CHICAGO – The coming-of-age comedy “The Wackness” with Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Olivia Thirlby, Mary-Kate Olsen, Method Man, and Famke Janssen may feature a bouncing hip-hop soundtrack and be about joyful things like first love, but it’s an oddly inert, haze-filled film, as if the regular marijuana usage in the film cast a haze over the entire project.

CHICAGO – The world has changed significantly since Kiefer Sutherland and the rest of the team behind Fox’s “24” were forced to save it repeatedly over the first six seasons of one of the most popular shows of the last decade. Will “24” still be relevant with controversy over real-life torture dominating the headlines and a new regime getting ready to take office?