CLONES REVIEW OF THE DAY: Patrick Sauriol has his up. He approaches it with the persepctive of a Star Wars fan, but not an obsessed, Lucas-worshipping one, and judges it just short of thumbs up:

Still, some of the old problems with Menace remain. The dialogue by Lucas and Hales is hit-or-miss, and it could have used another rewrite from a wordsmith who's an expert at writing natural sounding dialogue. No one will argue that Lucas hires the world's best people to create his imaginary environments...but why then doesn't he hire someone like Frank Darabont, Scott Frank, John August, M. Night Shyamalan or another accomplished screenwriter to polish up his scripts? George, you don't have to do everything!

Attack of the Clones has been skewered by the mainstream critics, and I think that's unfortunate. It's not a bad movie but neither is it a good movie; the more I think about it, the more I believe greatness slipped by Clones by just a hairlength. Lucas, while certainly an innovator and a man of incredible cinematic ingenuity, needs to also realize his limitations as a filmmaker. I believe the savaging he took from the most vocal critics of The Phantom Menace helped make Attack of the Clones a better Star Wars film, but his journey towards being a better director isn't over yet. Here's hoping that Episode III will finally see Lucas come into full bloom as a master storyteller.

Patrick's right about Lucas needing to realize his limitations; it's no coincidence that the best Star Wars movie --Empire-- had old-time professional Hollywood types like Leigh Brackett and Irvin Kershner prominently involved.

Coming Attractions also has a link to a USA Today story on the Daredevil movie. Ben Affleck is Daredevil. Jennifer Garner is Elektra. The two main villains are the Kingpin and Bullseye. We'll see how that goes.