Recently in After the kids go to bed Category

If you live in New York or Los Angeles, go see Spike Lee's latest movie in the theater. It is a film version of the Tony Award-winning musical autobiography, something between a concert and a play, about, by, and starring the one-named musician named Stew. He heads up the on-stage band, which functions somewhere between an orchestra and a Greek chorus, in this story based on his experiences leaving home to move to Europe and find himself.

Stew and his collaborator, Heidi Rodewald have put together a show that is very specific and autobiographical but also archetypal. It has a terrific script that perfectly captures the tug of home, the lure of away, the hunger for art, and the vulnerability of relationships. The main character's only name is Youth to emphasize his Candide-ish qualities. The show is genre-crossing, with music that shows the influence of rock, pop, funk, gospel, and more. It explodes with electrifying performances by Daniel Breaker as Youth and a top-notch cast that instantly creates a range of international characters. Lee's camera takes us into the heart of the action, even back-stage, seamlessly integrating three different performances. It is available now on pay per view, which gives you a chance to see one of the best films of the year without leaving the house.

Another unexpected pleasure I came across on cable recently is a light romantic comedy with some shrewd and audacious commentary on race and gender, whose full title is "I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks)." Anthony Montgomery (Ensign Mayweather on "Enterprise") plays an African-American man who creates graphic novels and uses a cigarette holder. After a series of bad experiences dating white girls (they break up with him and berate him for being inconsiderate), he decides that he should date an African-American girl, calling his quest "Operation Brown Sugar." The first group of contestants don't seem right. And then he meets Catherng (Lia Johnson), a writer with magnificent dreds who turns out to be "Halfrican-Canadian."

What makes the usual romantic comedy complications so fresh and engaging here is the way all of the characters subvert stereotypes. Though Catherine's book is very successful due to her voice as an author, her literal voice, which she describes as sounding like a Valley Girl, especially when she is nervous, makes her afraid of promoting the book at readings. Jay creates graphic novels (he keeps correcting people who refer to them as comic books), a field with few African-Americans. Meanwhile, his white roommate has to pretend to be (and then become) an expert in hip-hop in order to impress the girl he likes.

Johnson (who co-produced) and Montgomery are enormously appealing performers with real romantic spark. The conventional structure and understated tone help the racial and gender issues a part of the story rather than a political statement. But both the romance and the themes make this a neglected gem, well worth watching.

Parents should know that this movie has some mature material including sexual references and non-explicit situations.

I am a huge fan of advice columnist Dan Savage and his essays for "This American Life." His recent commentary on the death of his mother brought me to tears. And I am very impressed with his thoughtful assessment of the Disney Channel series "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody." As a gay man, he remembers the feeling of disconnection he had as a child who never saw on television characters who reflected his view of the world, how he felt, who he wanted to be. And now as a father, he sees his son watching the ostensibly wholesome "Suite Life" and finds it as disturbing a portrayal of heterosexuality as the over-the-top stereotypes of gays he saw when he was growing up. Ten-year-old Zach's fascination with a pretty teenage girl, his advice about how to get "babes" by lying to them, his creepy come-ons, comments like "I'd better practice my kissing" -- Savage says that his son has a "look of concentration" when he watches as though he is "filing things away for future reference." Savage wants his son, a straight boy growing up with gay parents, to see positive models of heterosexual behavior in the media. But "stereotypes are patient," says Savage. "They'll wear you down."

Michael J. Nelson is the former host and writer of the Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award-winning Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the author of the hilarious Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese. His witty commentary on movies is wildly funny but also very clever and perceptive. He spoke to me about his website, RiffTrax, where you can download his commentary to play along with your own or rented DVDs and upload your own to share with everyone else. He was every bit as much fun to talk to as I hoped.

How did you got started being snarky?

It came from watching movies. Midwestern people are almost by their nature snarky. And I came from a snarky family. My brothers and I always did that kind of thing, making smart-alecky comments about what we were watching. A lot of people do that but it falls away as you grow up and mature. My parents were very strict about bedtime, but they would put us to bed and then my dad would wake us up to watch some late night movie. My mom just rolled her eyes.

Did you get in trouble as a kid?

Well, someone once said, "Do you think you can make a living watching TV?" And I did!

What makes a movie a good candidate for comic riffing?

It has to take itself seriously. And it should probably have Keanu Reeves in it!

The main thing is that it is not boring. A lot of people don't realize that truly bad movies are really boring and no one wants to watch them. There's only so much that you can elevate with your comments. The baseline of entertainment has to be there. We're enhancing and hopefully improving what is already there. I would have thought that sci-fi uniquely lends itself to what we do but if you carefully write something and work on it, it can be done on many different kinds of films. There's subject matter that you can't do but we've done dramas and other genres.

Are there actors you especially enjoy making fun of?

We're big Patrick Swayze fans. We also give a lot of grief to Hayden Christienson -- he didn't take to the green screen acting very well.

Is there a movie that has such a devoted following that it can't be riffed?

We did "Twilight!" That has both passionate fans and passionate detractors. A bunch of guys were dragged to it and wanted revenge on it in some way, to have us rescue it for them. The slow pace, and mopey, gothic overtones made it work -- it became one of our fan favorites.

Tell me about RiffTrax.

It's a full service comedy commentary site. We sell separate commentaries, video on demand, and shorts. People are constantly doing it themselves and wanted an outlet so we let people make their own and post them and compete with each other. That makes it possible for us to check out things we'd never do because the movie is too obscure for us. There are people out there who think we're just picking on the mainstream and so they do films we'll never get to.

We've been doing it for three years and it is growing. It has exceeded my expectations, and I'm especially happy to see so many younger people on the site. A goal would be to get a team of writers, people who want to do this. It is so much work. It takes so much time, we can't quite keep up with the releases. A goal is to look at the uploaded tracks to see if there are people we can use, maybe get us close to doing all major releases.

I so enjoyed the sneak preview of the new fall series, "Glee." The characters are immediately engaging and the music is inspired.

You can watch the entire pilot episode of "Glee" on Hulu and listen to an interview with the creator, Ryan Murphy (of "Nip/Tuck"), on Fresh Air. The series begins this fall.

It's wonderful to watch young people falling in love for the first time. That's why we get to see it so often in the movies. But it is even more wonderful to see people falling in love for the last...

Usually when a movie has a limited release with no ad support it means that test audiences hated it and the studio has decided to cut their losses. But once in a while it has nothing whatsoever to do with...

I am a bit of a softie when it comes to those movies about diverse groups of people who come together to learn something new like tap dancing ("Stepping Out" with Liza Minnelli) or ballroom dancing ("Shall We Dance" with...