The name of the character may be Ted Crawford, but Anthony Hopkins is really back playing Hannibal Lecter again in Fracture, many critics suggest. "There's that same hissing arrogance, that same cunning squint, the same dare to all listeners: Catch me if you can," writes Michael Booth in the Denver Post.That's not necessarily a bad thing, some critics indicate. And (together with costar Ryan Gosling), Hopkins is garnering some of his most laudatory reviews since The Silence of the Lambs. As Elizabeth Weitzman writes in the New York Daily News: "Although Hopkins could surely portray a charismatic killer in his sleep by now, he's clearly having a ball, while Gosling, gliding through every scene with deceptively casual confidence, seems determined to prove himself the best actor of his generation. Together, these two turn a mediocre movie into a must-see." Likewise, Lou Lumenick concludes in the New York Post: "Fracture breaks no new ground, but with these two around, you'll never be bored." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel says that Fracture "gives us Anthony Hopkins the way we like him: cunning, arrogant, sinister, a killer playing games with the lesser mortals who would trap him." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution expresses surprise that the studio is releasing "a smart thriller, and it isn't even fall."

The British action-movie spoof Hot Fuzz comes from Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the creators of the 2004 zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. For those who saw the earlier film, s'nuff said. "Hot Fuzz is one of the cleverest movie parodies to come along in some while," writes Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News, adding, "In fact, the last satire of this ilk that was nearly as good was Shaun of the Dead." Claudia Puig in USA Today remarks that the film has "some of the same engaging nuttiness" as the earlier one. Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times notes that the filmmakers don't simply string gags together as their American counterparts did with such films as the Scary Movie series. Instead, he says, they're "storytellers who weave their naughty bits into genuine characters and a plot. It's a ridiculous plot, but one that's absolutely in the spirit of the films they're satirizing." But Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post suggests that the movie may be ill-timed. "Blacksburg is still numb. The rest of us are still reeling. And Hot Fuzz, which pokes fun at America's fetishistic gun culture while deliriously wallowing in it, now arrives on screens striking a tone of antic overkill that, from its giddy lock-and-load sight gags to its climactic shootout on a placid village green, right this minute seems oddly tone-deaf and tasteless."

Horror films rarely receive much praise from critics. Vacancy, starring Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson, is getting quite a lot of it. Gene Seymour in Newsday writes: "The movie executes its every borrowed, nerve-bruising plot twist with such gruesome efficiency that it makes you feel as grimy, wasted and worked-over as its prospective victims." Scott Bowles in USA Today comments that "it's welcome to see another movie that relies more on apprehension and suspense than torture chambers." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post concedes that the film may appeal more to his fellow critics than it will to the target audience for such movies. "The filmmakers don't linger over the nasty stuff anywhere near long enough to satisfy gorehounds, but for the first time in quite a while you actually care about the victims -- who are not, as usual, horny teenagers," he observes. "Vacancy feels like it was made by people who love movies and perhaps have seen a lot of them," Ty Burr concludes in the Boston Globe.But Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News remarks that the film isn't much of anything. "Its main virtue is modesty, but that's also its downfall." And Manohla Dargis in the New York Times dismisses it as a "banal horror retread."

The critics don't hold out much hope for In the Land of Women, starring Adam Brody and Meg Ryan. Writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News: "Despite its desperate attempts to appeal to every possible age group, there is no obvious audience for this movie." Evan Henerson begins his review in the Los Angeles Daily News this way: "Stupid title, misleading poster, unmarketable premise despite the presence of an O.C. heartthrob. We're talking a movie that stands to gross about 50 cents." Nevertheless, he advises his readers to see it anyway. So does Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer, who calls it "fresh, funny and perceptive." Susan Walker in the Toronto Star, remarks, "This potentially saccharine weepy has an authentic ring."

Although some TV viewers expressed outrage at NBC News's decision to broadcast the tapes that Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-hui sent to it on the day of his attacks, the network's NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams surged well ahead of its rivals Wednesday, according to Nielsen Research. After trailing ABC's World News With Charles Gibson for weeks, the NBC newscast drew a 7.5 rating and a 15 share, 23 percent above ABC's 6.1/12 and 79 percent ahead of the 4.2/8 for the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric. Nevertheless, the use of the killer's tapes was being roundly condemned on some websites -- particularly those that have frequently attacked what they refer to as the MSM (mainstream media). On NewsBusters.org, operated by the conservative Media Research Center, contributing editor Noel Sheppard wrote, "What kind of a world do we live in where a bloodbath such as this can happen, and within 48 hours, the assailant can have a video played on national television like the debut of a new Madonna tune?" Cliff Kincaid, editor of the watchdog group Accuracy in Media, wrote, "NBC is playing into the cold, dead hands of a mass murderer, exploiting his paranoid delusions for ratings and profit." But NBC was taken to task even on the liberal Huffington Post blog. Harry Shearer warned, "a hundred thousand self-pitying mentally ill young men (and women?) have just been shown the road to glory one more time." On NBC's Today show co-host Meredith Vieira said that family members of the VT victims had "canceled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images" of the killer. Her colleague Matt Lauer then indicated that there were "some big differences of opinion right within this news division as to whether we should be airing this stuff at all." On ABC's competing Good Morning America forensic psychologist Michael Welner appealed to all media outlets to "stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. ... Showing the video is a social catastrophe." In Roanoke, VA, near Virginia Tech, the NBC affiliate said it would not air the video locally. "To do so would only cause further pain to an already suffering community," it said. Fox News Channel also decided to cease broadcasting the tapes.

On the other hand, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, told the New York Times, "While reasonable people may disagree, it was clear [NBC News executives] were trying to exercise restraint." A writer to the TVNewser website commented, "If we allow the caretakers of the news ... to self-censor themselves worrying about the feelings of a viewer, that's a slippery slope that this DEMOCRACY ... does not want to go down." Bob Steele, who teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the video "provided one more lens into who the killer was and what motivated him to carry out that slaughter." Andrew Tyndall, whose Tyndall Report monitors the nightly newscasts, commented, "Of course it was correct to show the tape. It was a vivid and informative demonstration of the young man's despair, rage, anguish and humiliation." And even at Fox News, analyst Eric Burns acknowledged that had the news media refused to air the tapes, they would have been attacked for that instead. On his Daily Nightly blog, NBC anchor Brian Williams wrote "there was no joy" in being the recipient of the tapes. "To the contrary: opening each computer video snippet for the first time was a sickening and harrowing experience -- and it's good to know that the worst of them -- all now in the hands of investigators -- will never see the light of day."

The return of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS next Wednesday will feature a deadly appraisal of the news media's performance in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Editor & Publisher, which received a preview DVD of the broadcast, said that Moyers concludes that "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses." In only rare instances did the media display enterprising journalism in appraising the assertions by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the U.S., Moyers indicates. Former CNN head Walter Isaacson credits reporters for Knight Ridder with busily calling the military and the CIA "and finding out that the intelligence is not very good." Isaacson adds: "We should've all been doing that." He blames a "patriotism police" that arose after the 9/11 events for CNN's lack of aggressive reporting on Iraq. And former CBS anchor Dan Rather admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war. ... We didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way."