Commentary
Mike Brake
The renewed push to legalize the medical use of marijuana in Oklahoma takes the same misguided approach used by other states, including California. If, indeed, there is legitimate therapeutic value in pot — a contention with limited anecdotal evidence — setting up an ad hoc network of authorized growers and dispensers is the wrong way to go. Medical pot, if it’s ever legalized, should undergo rigorous clinical trials and be carefully regulated like every other drug

Horror
Rod Lott
Horror fanatics making horror movies is the worst thing about today’s horror movies — worse than remakes, The CW casts and the PG-13 rating. And I say that as a critic who loves the genre.

Comedy
Rod Lott
It’s kind of amazing how far $5,000 can get filmmakers these days, especially when Dustin Mills is in charge of the cash. Having helmed the inventive Puppet Monster Massacre and, less effectively, Zombie A-Hole, he now sets his deranged sights on designer drugs in Bath Salt Zombies. As one could surmise, it, too, sits squarely in the DIY horror-comedy realm.

Television series
Rod Lott
On the basis of Eastbound & Down’s first two seasons, if Kenny Powers were a real person, I’d advise readers to lock up their daughters. After watching the third season, I’d add infants and toddlers to that list.

Drama
Rod Lott
Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is my least favorite of the director’s half-dozen films. That said, he has yet to make a bad one.

Thriller
Rod Lott
And just like that, director Frédéric Jardin leaps onto my ongoing radar for his work on Sleepless Night, a powerhouse French-language thriller. The crime film begins with action and rarely lets up during its 98-minute sprint.

Drama
Rod Lott
In a short career largely dominated with genre films — from Final Destination 3 to this past summer’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter — Mary Elizabeth Winstead always has exuded a certain something. But nothing that ever suggested the level of performance she delivers in Smashed.

Letters to the Editor
Paul Walker
Mike Brake is too old to be writing about medicinal cannabinol use (Commentary, "Be cautious with a dopey idea," Feb. 13, Oklahoma Gazette).

Thriller
Rod Lott
It’s not difficult to see what Martin Scorsese saw in Easy Money to lend his name to it as presenter to American audiences: a lot of himself. The 2010 Swedish film is a crime epic cast in the mold of Goodfellas or Casino, yet still its own thing. A smash as Snabba Cash in its native land, where it’s already spawned two sequels, the movie now arrives on DVD.

Television series
Rod Lott
Earlier this week, HBO announced the cancellation of Enlightened, which just completed its second season. It’s a damn shame, because in her four-decade career as an actress, Laura Dern never has been better.