Cliff Curtis

CHICAGO – I’m right on the critical median with ABC’s “Missing.” On one hand, it’s inconsistent, poorly written, and kind of just silly. It’s tempting to dismiss like an overheated Lifetime movie. On the other hand, Ashley Judd is better than most Lifetime leads, the action is actually pretty tight, and I like the creative potential of a show that’s promised viewers that it will wrap up its first story in ten episodes. Which hand wins out? You decide.

CHICAGO – The movie business is a funny thing in that EVERYONE involved with “A Thousand Words” has moved on and yet there are studio executives who still want you to care enough to open your wallet.

CHICAGO – Only the director of “The Transporter 3” could make a movie in which the gorgeous Zoe Saldana changes outfits as often as she speaks lines of dialogue as dull as the tedious, illogical, useless “Colombiana.” Sure, the final showdown has some damn cool action but it takes a hundred often-unbearable minutes to get there.

CHICAGO – It must have been rough to be on the NBC drama team in the fall of 2010. The network brass made it crystal clear that they cared little about scripted drama when they handed over five nights a week to Jay Leno, but the producers of the network’s two new medical dramas “Mercy” and “Trauma” had to push forward with their programs despite the diminishing reputation of their home. Both series made it through the first year but neither graduated to a second season. See what you probably missed with “Mercy: The Complete Series” and “Trauma: Season 1.”

CHICAGO – The choices that M. Night Shyamalan makes in the progress of his filmography have become as perplexing as his early mysteries. “The Last Airbender,” featuring Dev Patel from “Slumdog Millionaire,” is an adaptation of a previous animated series, and although aimed at kids in the end seems tentative and…aimless.

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Aang (Noah Ringer) Makes his Escape in The Last Airbender

CHICAGO – The ancient martial arts get a workout with M. Night Shyamalan’s live action version of the anime “The Last Airbender.” Featuring Dev Patel – the contestant in the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” – and Aasif Mandvi of “The Daily Show,” Airbender uses special effects and action to tell its story.

CHICAGO – The head-on collision with “The Jay Leno Show” has decimated nearly everything on NBC and it’s going to be a long, uphill climb for it to return to ratings respectability. Even relatively acclaimed new shows like “Parenthood” are struggling as viewers left the peacock net and seem unwilling to return. The already ratings-challenged “Trauma” returns tonight, March 15th, 2010, in an effort to stop the bleeding.

CHICAGO – The wave of new fall shows is coming to an end this week with so many shows having debuted to date that we’ve already had our first cancellation of the season (The CW’s horrible “The Beautiful Life). But NBC has saved one of the best for last in “Trauma,” an expertly produced and acted series that stands as the most promising of the three new medical series this season and arguably the show with the most long-term potential, period.

CHICAGO – Paramount Pictures has just released the HD teaser trailer for the new M. Night Shyamalan film “The Last Airbender,” which stars Jackson Rathbone, Nicola Peltz, Cliff Curtis, Dev Patel (from the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire”), Noah Ringer, Jessica Andres, Seychelle Gabriel, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi and Keong Sim.