I mooch Showtime off of family, friends, and strangers so it wasn’t until earlier this week that I was able to finagle my way into someone’s home to watch the Dexter finale. This is less of a personal confession and more of a warning. Yes, I will be breaking in to your house this Christmas/Hanukkah to jack cable TV from you but more importantly, if you don’t always watch Dexter finales when they originally air and still haven’t seen the shocking yet, in many ways, inevitable conclusion to season 6, then I suggest that you stop reading this right now. Though, before we address those last couple of minutes, let’s look at the season as a whole, which was the most ambitious, heavy-handed, and ultimately weirdest to date.

There are a lot of movie called Lucky. In fact, there are at least 2 coming out in 2011 alone, and there’s now a trailer for the one that doesn’t involve a stolen dog. The Colin Hanks-starring film features blood, blondes and a Bluth. Writer/Director Gil Cates Jr. doesn’t like the conventional, and it looks like he’s playing around with more black romantic comedy here. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got the unassuming Hanks in a murderous lead role alongside Ari Graynor, Ann-Margaret and Jeffrey Tambor. But honestly, why give him such a big knife to cut the cake with?

After last Tuesday’s TV news bombshell that consisted of FOX obliterating pretty much every under-performing show on their schedule, many wondered what could be next from the networks in terms of picks-ups and cancellations. Well, NBC has decided to answer that question with a slew of pick-ups, none of which involve the words “wonder” or “woman.” At the moment the fourth place network has called for series orders from four pilots including Whitney a sitcom based on the stand-up comedy and starring Whitney Cummings. The Steven Spielberg produced, Gleeish musical-comedy Smash. The U.S. adaptation of the British series Prime Suspect and the Christina Applegate starring Up All Night. But that’s not all. It appears that NBC decided to have a little heart yet again as reports are filing in from all across the internet saying that spy-comedy CHUCK has indeed been renewed for a fifth season. This is by far the best news I’ve heard all day.

Let’s face it, we exist as a generation that has grown up on stoner comedies. There have been drugs in our movies since before we were off the teet. So we should have seen it all by now, right? Not exactly.

When it comes to the movies I see every year at Sundance I have only one complaint — some of them take a very, very long time to make their theatrical release.

With the exception of The Wackness, I have allowed quite a few of my Sundance ’08 favorites to dangle in oblivion, without much recognition beyond the positive reviews that I wrote in January. The Great Buck Howard will not be one of them.

John Malkovich stars as a washed up mentalist trying to get back into the spotlight in this very enjoyable comedy from Writer/Director Sean McGinly and Producer Tom Hanks.