Why did The Lone Ranger wind up on Boot Hill?

According to Johnny Depp and Jerry Bruckheimer, The Lone Ranger was ambushed by those mean and nasty film critics. No, really: Audiences stayed away in droves because -- are you ready for this? are you sitting down? -- potential ticketbuyers read bad reviews of their revisionist Western. Read all about it here.

The Lone Ranger rides again

After reviving the swashbuckler with his fabulously successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, producer Jerry Bruckheimer aims to reintroduce a classic Western franchise, The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp -- whose maternal grandfather, not incidentally, was Cherokee -- as Tonto, and, reportedly, George Clooney as the guy with the black mask and the silver bullets. Man, I am so there on opening day. My only question is, will they have someone as cool as Jason Robards to ask: "Who is that masked man?"

The Lone Ranger rides again?

After reviving the swashbuckler with his fabulously successful Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, producer Jerry Bruckheimer may be setting his sights on reintroducing a classic Western hero, The Lone Ranger. Does this mean Johnny Depp -- or Nicolas Cage, star of Bruckheimer's National Treasure franchise -- might be donning the mask? Or will they go with an unknown like they did back in 1981 when... oh, wait, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

Film of infamy?

To commemorate this historic day, I'm going to come out of the closet and admit that I rather liked the near-universally panned Pearl Harbor. Indeed, the more I go back and review Hollywood war dramas that were produced just before and during WWII, the more I appreciate what director Michael Bay (and, yes, producer Jerry Bruckheimer) accomplished with what I described in 2001 as "an unabashedly old-fashioned and irony-free wartime romance infused with gee-whiz pyrotechnics and rah-rah patriotism." (A random thought: I wonder how much more -- or less – Pearl Harbor might have scored at the box-office had it opened a few months later, after 9/11.)

In the spirit of openness and honesty, I ask readers and fellow bloggers: Do you have a similarly guilty pleasure in your closet? Do you secretly (or not-so-secretly) embrace a movie scorned by all but you?