AP - "Chronicle" is working its mind-bending powers on critics, earning some of the best reviews in a crowded weekend of new releases.

AP - In an era of overthinking directors, intricate stage movements and concept productions that transport operas through time and locale, there is an argument for Verdi the way it used to be.

AP - Super Bowl Sunday is upon us, a special, heartwarming time to gather with friends, eat too much queso and make ridiculous side bets on how long the national anthem will last and who will be forced to punt first.

AP - We Americans may have thought we created the Angry Young Man. You know, that volcanic, vital, articulate stud who howls a lot. We've got tons of them, from James Dean and Marlon Brando, to Sean Penn and Holden Caufield.

AP - A fanatically-worshipped leader is eventually revealed to be headless. A pair of clowns singing about hanging onto reality suddenly realize they may have already slipped out of it. An enthusiastic song titled "The Best is Yet To Be," performed with confidence and glee, eventually collapses into whimpering doubt.

AP - "Big Miracle" — If a movie is cheesy and knows it's cheesy — if it embraces the soft, gooey texture and pungent aroma of its own fromage — does that make it any more palatable as a meal?

AP - The trappings may look familiar, but "The Innkeepers" is a new twist on the good, old-fashioned ghost story: It's the bored-slacker horror movie.

AP - It owes a great debt to the found-footage concept behind "The Blair Witch Project," has some of the aesthetic and tonal touches of "Cloverfield" and probes the same sorts of philosophical notions about the burden of power that serve as the basis for the "X-Men" series.

AP - "The Accidental Feminist" (Walker & Co.), by M.G.