For three years, we’ve been hearing the same refrain: As of midnight tonight, all television stations in the country will begin digital broadcasting only. Except all won’t. Only some will.

Confessions of a Shopaholic” is bright, peppy and effervescent. It’s everything a comedy should be, except funny. Watching it is like watching a comedy in another language—Finnish, to use one of the film’s running gags. The pace, tone and overall look are intended to be comedic. But we never laugh. “Confessions of a Shopaholic” looks better than it is. It follows all the formulas perfectly (and we mean all the formulas).

The timing couldn’t be better.  The script to “The International” was probably written three or four years ago or more. At the time, the writer chose for his villain a symbol of heartless greed: a giant bank.  Back then, banks were flying high, and using one as a villain might have seemed a risky move. But now, everyone hates banks.

player, Florida gogetter switch places   One LARPs, the other doesn’t.  Grace Linkins, 54, of Mechanicsville is a LARPer, a Live Action Role Player. Dressed as a dwarf, a fortune teller or a noblewoman, Linkins and her costumed family are active participants in role-playing games; they go to parks and spend a weekend or longer as characters in a well-ordered, medieval world of magic and fantasy.

If the food weren’t so good at City Diner, the most notable aspect of the place would be the service. If the service weren’t so good at City Diner, the most notable aspect would be the food. Nestled across from the Department of Motor Vehicles on Broad Street, City Diner serves up large breakfasts, traditional lunches and friendly attitude from the wisecracking wait staff.

Take a whole bunch of movie stars, throw them into a film about relationships, and the results are bound to be uneven. “He’s Just Not That Into You” looks at men and women—and men looking at women, and women looking at men. It’s one of those movies in which everyone is somehow related to everyone else as friends, colleagues or business associates. They all slide through various permutations of the stages of relationships. The only question is whether all the characters will be happily paired off at the end or whether some will wind up single and looking for love.

The best part of “The Pink Panther 2” is the Henry Mancini theme song, still cool after all these years. But the rest of the movie is almost a total loss. The idea behind “The Pink Panther 2” and the 2006 “The Pink Panther” is to introduce a new audience to a classic character and style of comedy.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Dan Neman and Mike Ward duke it out over their favorite romantic movies.  Dan picks classic films, while Mike opts for more modern fare.

Oh, I get it. The rerelease of “Betty Crocker’s Guide to Easy Entertaining” isn’t meant to be a cookbook at all. It’s meant to be a novelty. Fifty years have passed since this once-invaluable book was first printed, and now the fun-loving folks at General Mills have brought it out again for a snickeringly nostalgic look at life in 1959.

One hates to get philosophical about a shoot-‘em-up action film, but “Taken” essentially asks the question itself: Do the ends justify the means? Is it acceptable to exceed the bounds of human decency for the sake of justice? Can you take 30 lives to save one? How about if the 30 are engaged in criminal activities while the one is pure?

Even Garrison Keillor could not make a good Garrison Keillor movie—the film version of “A Prairie Home Companion” was a disappointment. So people who have apparently read only a few Lake Wobegon books really can’t make one. But the folks behind “New In Town” can, apparently, make a romantic comedy. So while the film’s depiction of small-town Minnesota life falls dreadfully flat, the rest of the film manages a certain appealing vibrance. It even offers a bonus (if unintended) message of hope in these difficult economic times.

By the end of March, the Richmond area will be a less funny place.  Comedy Sportz Improv Theatre, the godfather of Richmond’s various improvisation troupes, will shut its doors March 28.  Owner and director Christine Walters cited the faltering econ-  omy for the decision to close the Henrico County theater.