Film Shorts: Valley Cinemas, Streaming, The Worx

Valley Cinemas is holding over its two popular films, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 and the kids-oriented The Good Dinosaur. So if you've already got these two works under your belt, it's time to hit the small screen.

First, try the Glasgow City-County Library (408 Third Ave S, 228-2731). There you'll find the second season of Elementary. When did America suddenly become so Sherlock Holmes crazy? We watch the wittily modernized BBC show with Benedict Cumberbatch, and the athletic movie version with Robert Downey, Jr. Also in the mix is this CBS show, set in the modern world and with Dr. Watson as a woman – not an entirely original idea, as there was a pastiche novel back in the 1980s by Margaret Park that in the course of the story revealed the real gender of Watson. What Elementary has going for it is the presence of Jonny Lee Miller as a modern day, recovery-class "consultant" to the NYPD. Mr. Miller rarely had to chance to show his skills consistently in his earlier work; in this show, though, he proves to be one of the great gesture actors on the screen. The things he does with his hands are both unique, and fully expressive of the Holmes character: impatient, imperious, independent. It's unfortunate that the mysteries themselves in Elementary aren't usually particularly clever, but that turns out to be true of other prime time detective shows, from Bones to Castle, which coast on the charisma of their couplings.

Among the new DVDs coming to The Worx, the video shop at 700 1/2 1st Ave N (228-4474), are Cooties, a horror-comedy about grade school kids turned monsters; Some Kind of Beautiful, a Pierce Brosnan rom-com about a college professor surrounded by hot chicks (Jessica Alba, Salma Hayak); 90 Minutes in Heaven, a "faith-based" tale about a pastor who survives a near death experience; and Lost in the Sun, a crime story that allies a veteran crook with a kid. Among this week's standouts is Mississippi Grind, a gambling story set in the south. As usual with this genre, which only has about two stories to tell, and in this case the film is about Gerry (Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn), the traditional addict down on his luck, who hooks up with poker player Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) to see if he can change his streak. The story may remind viewers of the Robert Altman movie California Split, another good look at the gambling mentality, and these gambling larks are always in danger of being depressing, with their predictable rounds of being roughed up, getting down with some game girls, and the tension of the big score. What sets apart this film is the gripping performances by Messrs. Mendelsohn and Reynolds. Ben Mendelsohn is an intense, somewhat= self-absorbed actor, but good in sleazy roles. The Canadian Mr. Reynolds is an underappreciated thespian, who has been good in little-seen indie type productions and certain disparaged shoot 'em ups, such as the clever Smokin' Aces. Mississippi Grind is another solid actorial turn that received little of the attention it deserved.

If you are an HBO subscriber, this month you can add the Mel Brooks sci-fi satire Spaceballs (Dec. 1) to the queue, in anticipation of the new Star Wars movie, the older film's original target. If you haven't had your fill of vampire chronicles, there is also the hilarious New Zealand comedy What We Do In the Shadows (Dec. 11).

Also coming to HBO are Annie Hall, one of Woody Allen's best comedies, Brokeback Mountain, in its celebratory year, Disturbia, a Rear Window pastiche with teens, the fun rom-com Mystic Pizza, with an early Julia Roberts, and the first Robocop and its two sequels, Robocop 2 and Robocop 3. Robocop is a great American movie, and though it was an original script, it proved to be the best "adaptation" of a comic book, or at least the spirit of the Marvel comics from the '60s and '70s, just as the Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow is the only film to replicate what it feels like to play a video game – despite or maybe because of its not being based on a game.