If you thought Pauline Kael was capable of grand critical contortions for mediocre directors, take a gander at this fascinating re-evaluation of uberhack Tony Scott over at Cinema Scope, which argues for Scott as a genuine auteur.

It’s a great read, even if you don’t buy into its central premise his latest film, “Deja Vu”, can be interpreted as his “Vertigo” … which I certainly don’t.

So, um, “Ghost Rider“.

Huge, huge hit.

Wow.

I mean, I admit I kinda enjoyed it; it may be very, very silly and pretty lame overall, but Nicolas Cage makes it worth watching through force of will alone.

But … really? People went to see it in droves?

Seriously, I figured “Music and Lyrics” would clobber it with Valentine’s Day afterglow alone. Or maybe there’s a lot of lonely, desperate comic-book geeks out there.

Actually, scratch that. Of course there’s a lot of lonely, desperate comic-book geeks out there. I just didn’t think they’d turn out for “Ghost Rider”. Especially once they factored “From the Director of ‘Daredevil’ ” into the equation.

Maybe they were all showing up for the “Spider-Man 3” trailer? I mean, I have to admit that one looks pretty awesome. And nobody’s head is on fire … that we know of.

This week’s Sympatico/MSN movie column — it’s a direct link now — is about the Genies. Did you know they were held this past Tuesday? I almost didn’t, and I blame the media.

Also, it’s Friday! Movies are opening! Specifically:

“Breach“: Billy Ray follows “Shattered Glass” with another movie about guys in ties who argue about lies. This one’s pretty gripping, too.

“Breaking and Entering“: Anthony Minghella is a charming and intelligent man, who has made the mistake of writing his own script.

“Bridge to Terabithia“: Or, what happens when marketing makes promises a movie can’t keep. And Walden Media — already overdoing the Christian thing after “Narnia” and “Charlotte’s Web” — really has to throttle back on the piety.

“Ghost Rider”: Screened too late for opening-day coverage; my Metro review will run on Monday. Yeah, it’s silly and incoherent and ridiculous and dumb as a box of rocks. But someday, they will write songs about Nicolas Cage’s magnificent, magnificent performance.

Rock on, Nicolas Cage, you spectacular comic-book bastard.

If you missed it on BoingBoing earlier this week, here’s the link to a brilliant discussion of the physiological impossibility of Godzilla. It’s the expected pronouncement: He’d be too big to support his own weight, the reactor burning inside him would kill him, yadda yadda yadda. Sigh.

But read the comments for some intriguing explanations as to how a giant radioactive dinosaur- lizard-thingie might be able to exist in our world. (A nuclear process that suffuses his blood with helium would allow him to stand on city streets without collapsing into the subway below, for example.)

And here’s a fascinating Writer’s Guild magazine interview with the “Borat” writers, including Sacha Baron Cohen (via car phone, as he looks for a parking space in Los Angeles). Turns out there’s more screenwriting to it than one might initially believe.

And yes, this post is a subtle push for the ultimate crossover sequel: “Borat Meets Godzilla”. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

Metro hasn’t put my review of “Music and Lyrics” online — the web guys are probably stuck in snow traffic on their way to work — but you can find it in the PDF version of the paper, if you’re willing to endure the 6MB download.

UPDATE: Here’s the review.

Bottom line? Grant and Barrymore have exceptional chemistry, and the songs — courtesy Fountains of Wayne power-pop savant Adam Schlesinger — are catchy and clever. But the script and direction are sub-par at best; characters speak exclusively in exposition, the plot assembles itself in front of us like a bad sitcom, and every single beat of the action is so clumsily telegraphed that there’s no pleasure to be had in the experience of watching it unfold.

And yet, somehow, it’s okay. Grant and Barrymore make it work by just powering through whatever’s in front of them, tossing off silly little moments in the corners of the action and generally refusing to acknowledge they’re trapped in a real-life version of “Love is Fun”, the banal Richard Gere-Julia Roberts romcom from that “Simpsons” episode where Homer gets the crayon removed from his brain and realizes he can no longer tolerate the banality of his favorite crowd-pleasing entertainments.

Marc Lawrence — the Sandra Bullock crony who gave us “Forces of Nature”, “Miss Congeniality” and “Two Weeks Notice” — has to be stopped. But Grant and Barrymore should be given their own franchise.

Come to think of it, they’d be perfect for a period revival of the “Thin Man” movies. Can we get somebody on that?

In this weekend’s battle of the big-screen fiends, Eddie Murphy’s “Norbit” is the clear winner, having outgrossed “Hannibal Rising” by a cool twenty million.

I use “outgrossed” in the financial sense, although it’s also true that “Norbit” is far more sickening, disturbing and just plain evil than the movie about the guy who kills people and eats their faces.

You can’t fault “Hannibal Rising” for being what it is. It’s just a dumb animal — a brand extension, an attempt to milk a franchise that’s long since lost its relevance and its urgency. In an age of constant media-hyped terror, how can a courtly, erudite European compete with suitcase nukes and Mooninites? Even Sylar on “Heroes” is a creepier brain-eater than the good doctor Lecter, though his cannibalism is still strictly theoretical.

Nah, people were bound to be drawn to “Norbit“, which arrives in a perfect storm of buzz. Eddie Murphy’s the front-runner for an Oscar, Martin Lawrence and Tyler Perry have made it okay to laugh at morbidly obese black women, and the trailer — in which Murphy can clearly be seen playing multiple grotesqueries, rather than a cheerful suburban patriarch — assures his fans that, at the very least, that this won’t be another “Daddy Day Care”.

Well, it isn’t. After the longish prologue, there’s not an adorable tyke to be found, and there are no bed-wetting jokes. But it’s just as torturous, and you leave the theater feeling dirty.

I know, I know. It’s just a comedy. People just want to laugh when they go to the movies.

But why are they laughing at this?

Check out my debut movie column for Sympatico/MSN, in which I consider “Hannibal Rising” in the context of shameless brand extensions.

And try not to think of the way I appear to be positioned as something of a brand, myself.

It’s the little things that get you, isn’t it?

Oh, Friday. How I love you, with your relaxing lack of deadlines, because I spent all of Thursday working to meet them …

“Factory Girl“: Sienna Miller is Edie Sedgwick, and Guy Pearce her pale little artist friend, and George Hickenlooper is out of his depth as a filmmaker. The sets and costumes are great, but nothing happens inside that perfectly re-created frame; it’s less a movie than a series of mod dresses strung out on a clothesline.

“Hannibal Rising“: Just weeks after “Perfume”, here’s another movie built about an intense, thin European fellow who has the unfortunate habit of killing people. At least this one is well-groomed. It’s entirely unnecessary from start to finish, but you know it’ll open at number one. How critic-proof is it? Read this.

“The Lives of Others“: After months of raves on the festival circuit, and that much-deserved Oscar nomination Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s excellent, excellent movie finally gets the chance to make a little money. And the first person who says he doesn’t like subtitles gets a smack in the mouth.

“Norbit“: Monstrous fat women, simpering weak men and elderly, obnoxious Chinese caricatures: This is what Eddie Murphy thinks is funny. It’ll probably make a fortune, but in a just and decent world, it would be chased out of theaters by angry mobs.

“Sk8 Life“: Local director S. Wyeth Clarkson (“Deadend.com”) makes another run at quasi-verite digital introspection, this time among some skate punks in Vancouver. The camerawork is pretty good. The acting? Not so much.

And I thought the root canal left a bad taste in my mouth.

What are the procedural rules on the Academy rescinding an Oscar nomination? Have the final ballots come back yet?

Maybe this is the thing that tips the vote to Wahlberg in “The Departed” … which, curiously, would have been a perfect role for Eddie Murphy about 15 years ago.