I take it back ... things CAN get better as time goes by

That more than anything sums up the trio of movies below. Saw these over the last few weeks, before heading out of town last Thursday for a long holiday weekend. The only movie I saw while gone? About 45 minutes of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," which -- to use a technical term -- blows. Eminently watchable, yes. But blows chunks something fierce.

Enough of that. Onto other bad-to-mediocre-to-good movies.

You coulda a been a pretendah: "The Chase"

Classic example of seeing a dynamite cast and being sucked -- or rather, suckered -- into watching a movie that really isn't any good. "The Chase" has Marlon Brando as the sheriff of a Texas town to which an escaped convict (R0bert Redford) apparently is heading home. This throws the town into a tizzy, from the convict's wife (Jane Fonda) to her lover (James Fox) to the lover's dad (E.G. Marshall) -- the resident rich guy -- to a loan officer at the local bank (Robert Duvall).

There are some other characters -- quite a few actually -- thrown by the potential return of Bubber (yeah, not "Bubba") Reeves. Really, it's quite the big deal. What's bigger, however, is how crappy this movie is with all this talent.

Director Arthur Penn would go onto "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Little Big Man" (and maybe his piece de resistance, "Penn and Teller Get Killed"). This movie is a mess. Brando is all wrong as the sheriff. He basically does the Brando thing, which is fine in many other roles but totally off here. Same thing with Redford, who is too pretty to be a bad-ass criminal whose name strikes fear in townsfolk. I mean, dude's hair stays in place no matter what muck he wades through while on the lam.

Others aren't quite as bad a fit but still are saddled with a weak plot and script. The only bright spot: The women all are pretty hot. Fonda is saucy, and Angie Dickinson as Brando's wife isn't bad. Best, though, was Janice Rule as Duvall's straying wife. Never seen her before, but she had just the right amount of naughty to help me through the slow spots.

I guess Mr. Hand didn't set him straight after all: "State of Grace"

I vaguely recall this movie coming out way back in 1990; hey, I was 17 and had many things on my mind other than Sean Penn's ongoing bid for Serious Actor status. Then "State of Grace" showed up on either IFC or Fox Movie Channel a few weeks ago. OK, I thought, let's give it a shot.

Verdict? Eh. Our story has Penn as some kind of punk coming back to Hell's Kitchen, NYC, to hook up with his Irish buddy Gary Oldman and Oldman's brother and crime boss, Ed Harris. Meanwhile, Oldman-Harris's sister, Robin Wright soon-to-be-Penn, welcomes Sean back with open arms and open bathrobe. That's right ... Princess Buttercup shows her goodies. Didn't look like a body double to me, either. Nice work by her.

Anyway, Penn gets in with the gang, which is having a hard time working out a deal with the Italian mob. But -- dun-dun-dahhhhh! -- Penn actually is a cop. That should help an already tense situation, right? At least the Irish won't exacerbate things by drinking heavily ...

It's definitely interesting to see the three above actors -- especially Oldman -- in younger days, as well as solid supporting players John C. Reilly and John Turturro before they got a little bit bigger. Still, this movie is mostly defined by its fake gravitas. Everything oozes "We're telling an artistic, emotional story here," yet the actual story doesn't really deliver much. By the time we get to the climax, I was thoroughly nonplussed. There's something you'd like to see on a movie poster:

"THOROUGHLY NONPLUSSED!" Movievangelist

I kid, but you know, that would be kind of awesome.

What he really needed was a good old-fashioned a$$-kicking: "The Squid and the Whale"

Was thinking about the older son when I typed that, but this applies to the dad as well.

I recall enjoying this artsy-fartsy movie set in 1980s Brooklyn when it came out. I did NOT recall it being so short -- essentially 75 minutes, not counting credits. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel that short, maybe because most of the scenes aren't that long, given the appearance that the family's implosion is actually kind of long and drawn-out. Or something like that.

Our story has Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels as a snotty academic couple breaking up, leaving their two sons (Jesse "Rodger Dodger" Eisenberg and Owen "Judge Reinhold jerked off to my mom" Kline) adrift in different ways. Jesse is all about his dad, taking Daniel's pompous musings as God's truth, often to hilarious effect. Kline is a mama's boy dealing with puberty issues but still manages to be less annoying than Big Brother.

Meanwhile, the parents are insufferable in their own ways, although Daniels is much more obvious and entertaining. He's really pretty good and should have gotten an Oscar nom for this, even if 2006 had a strong field. Seriously, I love how he called people philistines and referred to something as "the filet of" its whatever -- neighborhood, genre, etc. I mean, what a pr!ck.

Billy Baldwin and Anna Paquin show up in supporting roles, but the story really is about this twisted foursome -- from the opening tennis match to the older son's break from his dad. Like I said, not a long movie, but still a lot to see. Definitely held up well the second time around. Not sure there will be a third. I mean, I can handle seeing Kevin Kline's kid get off on a library bookshelf only so many times.