Roger Ebert, you bedevil me. I’ve always admired America’s most popular film critic; get past the two thumbs up thing and you’ll find he’s one of the finest non-fiction writers working regularly today (his blog, at blogs.suntimes.com/ebert, is highly recommended). He’s thrown himself even more into his writing since illness robbed him of his ability to speak, and his recollections of Chicago newspaper life are truly valuable.

That said, dude is as erratic and weird as ever when it comes to what he chooses to champion, and his support for Alex Proyas’s truly dismal Knowing baffles me. I know he’s been a Proyas booster since Dark City, but this apocalyptic thriller, out on DVD this week, is almost comically shrill and inept, with a hysterical Nic Cage performance on par with his spectacularly goofy work in the remake of The Wicker Man. In what seems like a transparent attempt by the studios to reach out to the religious right, the movie is basically Left Behind with aliens—a simplistic and belaboured allegory. As I said in my original review, it’s basically a modern-day Ed Wood production—almost worth seeing for laughs alone. I hope Ebert takes a fresh look at it on video and realizes what silliness he’s been championing.

MTV’s sketch comedy show The State was never on my radar when it originally aired in the ’90s, but I got acquainted with its veteran performers when they moved on to stuff like Wet Hot American Summer, Reno 911! and Party Down. Now the entire series is available and it might be worth picking up if you were ever a fan of the show. Flipping through it, I can’t say I was blown away, despite some laughs here and there, but I’ve always felt that sketch comedy, even non-topical stuff, dates worse than any other kind of humour for some reason, and this seems to be no different.