Despite a pushy MTV ad campaign and hunk stars Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum (see photo), Stop-Loss became the latest in a series of war movies to provoke audience indifference. To quote the Hollywood Reporter, "a $4.5 million opening, though good enough for eighth place on the frame, is unlikely to stop red ink from flowing on yet another Iraq War misfire." Here's the thing. Stop-Loss isn't a misfire where it counts—as human drama. Kimberly Peirce's movie digs deep into the bruised psyches of its enlisted men. Some of these soldiers are stop-lossed or pulled back into battle after serving their tour of duty in Iraq, others feel they have no choice but to go AWOL and live underground.

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It's a busy week at the box office with plenty of options, but Peter Travers has all the cinematic bases covered. Click above for the Rolling Stone film critic's take on the Iraq war drama Stop-Loss, the Vegas caper flick 21, the Michael Caine/Demi Moore diamond heist movie Flawless and the David Schwimmer-directed comedy Run, Fatboy, Run. Plus: Read Peter Travers' Stop-Loss review, 21 review, and Run, Fatboy, Run review.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Get this: Over the next five years, Village Roadshow will open 50 Gold Class Cinemas nationwide at the cost of $200 million. Each theater will feature 40 reclining armchair seats with footrests (see photo), digital projection and the capacity to show even 3-D movies. And all it's going to cost you is $35 a seat. Cocktails and appetizers will also be served—each seat has a buzzer to summon a waiter—but that stuff will cost you extra. It's not true that the Emperor's Club will offer escort service and blowjobs. But, hey, are we that far away from such shenanigans? Hollywood is clearly desperate to get us away from out home theaters, but is Drillbit Taylor going to play any better if viewed from a cushy recliner? Chicago and Seattle are the first American cities getting Gold Class Cinemas, which are already successful in Australia, Singapore and Greece. So my questions today are:

--Would you pay $35 to see a movie under these plush circumstances?

--If not, what else would you demand for your money, besides a good movie? No ads and no talking might be a big incentive for me. Got any other ideas?

With the opening this weekend of 21, about six MIT mathletes who broke the Vegas blackjack bank in the 1990s through savvy card counting, I can't help but think of the great gambling movies—21 is entertaining but too much of a fact stretcher to qualify—and how most of them get dealt a losing hand at the box office. Am I alone out here, people? Are none of you jazzed by the idea of placing a bet, at least at the movies? Cards on the table: My favorite poker movie ever is Rounders (see photo), which I've

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DVD TO THE RESCUE: THE MIST

When The Mist opened last year I wasn't much impressed. The version of the movie on the Two-Disc Special Edition DVD is way better and I'll tell you why. Disc 2 presents the movie in black-and-white, the way director Frank Darabont originally intended it, like a 1950s horror flick. Listen to Darabont's intro on the disc and you'll learn that studio beancounters freaked out over the idea that the blood would not run red. Have these idiots never seen The Thing (1951) or Them! (1954) or Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)?

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His name is Tyler Perry — that's him above in drag. He's a writer, director and actor. And if you've never heard of him, you better get busy. His plays, videos, books, TV shows and movies have made him a one-man industry. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns came in at No. 2 at the box office over the weekend, behind the family flick Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who. Dr. Seuss took in $25 million on 4000 screens, while Dr. Perry grabbed $20 million on only half the number of screens. You do the math. Perry, 38, is kicking major ass.

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In this week's video review, Peter Travers encourages you to avoid the cinema this weekend (where all you'll find is the dopey Owen Wilson "comedy" Drillbit Taylor and yet another tepid Japanese horror remake in Shutter) so you can stay home and watch HBO's John Adams, an excellent mini-series starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. Click above for all of the Rolling Stone film critic's views.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Some casting possibilities just screw entertainingly with your head. For a day now I've been chewing on the news that Spider-man director Sam Raimi—Mr. Evil Dead—will head a franchise revival of Jack Ryan, the CIA agent created by author Tom Clancy and played by three actors in four different movies. Alec Baldwin played Ryan first in 1990's The Hunt for Red October. Harrison Ford, sixteen years older than Baldwin, replaced him in 1992's Patriot Games and 1994's A Clear and Present Danger. Then Ben Affleck, thirty years younger than Ford and fourteen years younger than Baldwin, stepped into the breach for 2002's The Sum of All Fears. Confused? Not me, as long as the movies hit the sweet spot. They mostly did, grossing nearly $800 million worldwide. My fave is A Clear and Present Danger, especially the scene in which Ford's Ryan dresses down the President. The Hunt for Red October is also a goodie, but Baldwin is upstaged by Sean Connery—it's hard to resist a Russian submarine captain with a Scottish accent. And Affleck basically got lost in the pyrotechnics of The Sum of All Fears. Which leaves me with two critical questions:

1. Who is your favorite Jack Ryan so far? I'm going with Ford, then Baldwin, then Affleck

2. Who is your pick to play Ryan in the new, younger-skewing franchise? (Hell, they're doing it with Daniel Craig as James Bond, why not here?) I wouldn't kick if Ryan Gosling took a shot at the role. He's immensely talented and hasn't done a franchise film character as yet. That lets out Matt Damon, who is the once and forever Jason Bourne. Christian Bale is Batman. Jake Gyllenhall, maybe. Or Joaquin Phoenix? Could Casey Affleck pull it off and show up his older brother? Or how about Terrence Howard in the age of Obama? Or even Cate Blanchett, in the age of Hillary, and she can play it as either sex? Suggestions, please.

The sudden death yesterday in London of Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella is, of course, a grievous loss to the film world. At 54, with only seven features to his credit, including The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain, Minghella had so much more to show us about ourselves and the curves life throws at us. But the loss is greater for his family and friends. Minghella, to paraphrase the author John O’Hara, was “a gentleman in a world that has no more use for gentleman.” To know him was to be in the presence of a man with an elegant regard for the romance of film. Talking to me, a critic, he’d want to know what I didn’t like about a movie, his or someone else’s. His arguments, fiery but never hostile, were filled with joy in the discussion. Joy, however, was the last thing he was feeling on the day we first met. It was the first New York screening of The English Patient

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Want a DVD worth arguing about this week? It's got to be I Am Legend. Until the woman and the kid show up in the final third and interrupt Will Smith and his dog Sam in the act of warding off the Darkseekers, I was hooked. And the image and sound on this disc are demonstration quality. This is one of Big Willie's career best performances, as he spends his days alone roaming a deserted Manhattan (gangbusters CGI) and looking for survivors of a virus that

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