Vacation-at-Home #2 Day 0:

I decided to get started early this time out. No reason to wait for your vacation to officially start when you work from home, and The Missus and The Man Cub have been safely put on an airplane for the in-laws for a few days.

First order of priority: SLEEEEEP! Sleep, and lots of it.

After that, it’s all about reading comic books, watching TV and walking the dog. And catching up on email and about six months’ worth of news and entertainment magazines.

Seriously, between The Missus’ dissertation, The Man Cub just being his infant self and the demands of my 9-5 gig, I haven’t had much of a life at all this past year. Everybody promises Year Two will be easier and they’d better goddamn well be right.

Meanwhile…

The first movie of my week off, “The Sentinel” with Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland and the hot young chick from “Desperate Housewives,” turned out to be a big disappointment. Douglas tends to have a pretty keen eye for scripts, and I’ll usually enjoy any feature he selects to star in.

This one, though, was just a re-hash of plot elements from superior efforts (the original “Manchurian Candidate,” “In the Line of Fire,” etc.) without any ideas to call its own to justify its existence. Douglas plays the ‘agent out of control’ role usually essayed by Sutherland on “24,” leaving Sutherland to play a less-caffeinated, but equally terse and grim variation on his Jack Bauer character, a government cipher with a gun and a mandate. The comparison to the knuckle-biting intrigue and pacing of the far-superior “24” made this effort seem even lamer.

The “Housewife” chick had some lines and carried a gun, but brought absolutely nothing to her role as some government chick with a few lines and a gat. Haven’t seen her TV show – I assume she acquits herself more honorably there. Frankly, in “The Sentinel,” she didn’t even bring on the sexy.

What was most telling was the list of special features on the disc, which included a sneak-peek at either the last or next season of “24.” Apparently this movie does have a reason for existing after all, which would be to move more units of “24” on DVD. Sorry, mission not accomplished. (Bless you, Netflix.)

A far, far better production is HBO’s “The Wire,” any season. I just watched Season Three (newly out on DVD) and it blew me away. It takes an episode or two to get rolling (large cast of characters and many, many intersecting plotlines), but the back-end payoff is huge. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it in the couple days since I finished the season.

For some reason, “The Sopranos” (and “Deadwood” for that matter) gets all the love and critical acclaim, but any season of “The Wire” is better than any season of the Sopranos, with the possible exception of Sopranos season one which I remember really liking.

“The Wire” is a cop drama that takes place in Baltimore and features more black faces than you’ve seen on your TV screen since Katrina coverage last summer. Intricately plotted, brilliantly acted, measuredly paced and smart without being ‘good for you,’ this is TV as good as it currently gets. And DVD is definitely the way to catch it. I can’t imagine having to wait a week between episodes.

Also excellent from HBO and also recently out on DVD is “Big Love.” Any plot synopsis I could muster would make it seem like a niche soap-opera and would thus not do it justice. See what I mean: Bill Paxton plays a nice-guy polygamist with three wives, a boatload of kids, a hardware store empire and Harry Dean Stanton as the whack-job father-in-law from hell. I started watching this show just to spend some time with The Missus and ended up a huge fan. Considering it debuted at a time we were struggling with first-time parenthood and the considerable headaches (and attendant self-pity) that brings with it, once a week we settled in and enjoyed the travails of a guy with real family problems. Recommended without reservation, even for guys like me who prefer flicks with hot babes and big explosions over dramas exploring other peoples’ relationships.

As long as I’m doing catch-up reviews of great movies I’ve seen recently, I have to mention two more. “Running Scared” (not the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines flick of the same name from 1986) grabbed me by the throat in the first 60 seconds and didn’t let go till the end credits rolled two hours later. The DVD’s cover blurb enthused “Makes Kill Bill look like Sesame Street” and by God that’s not an exaggeration. Written and directed by somebody named Wayne Kramer whom I’d never heard of before, his style is Tarantino meets Scorsese meets Jolt Cola. I’m loathe to discuss plot details; let’s just leave it at this: It’s a cops vs crooks action flick that delivers on every level – seat-of-your-pants direction, innovative camera-work and scene-staging, a plot that kept me guessing and involved throughout, a little kid (Cameron Bright) who can actually act, and more bad motherfuckers and betrayals than you can shake a stick at. I love this fucking movie! Buy it, don’t rent it. You’ll want to watch it over and over.

[Sidebar: I also really like the 1986 “Running Scared.” Must have been before Billy Crystal had total creative control over his projects because it is genuinely, consistently enjoyable throughout, with the exception of a young Jimmy Smits paying his Hollywood dues by portraying a drug-crazed murdering Hispanic drug dealer. Other than that casting bad karma, both flicks of this name are worthy additions to any man’s DVD collection.]

Finally, the last movie I need to give props to is Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center.” I can’t remember another time I’ve walked out after an Oliver Stone movie feeling good about the human race – let alone America, but this one did just that. It’s less about the attacks of 9/11 (Did I just say 9/11? Somewhere, Bush’s poll numbers just jumped 2%) than about the durability and fragility of the human condition. It’s like “Towering Inferno” meets “Earthquake” meets “Emergency.” It’s a rescue flick that cuts back and forth between a couple of Average Joes hopelessly trapped under tons of WTC rubble and the impact their absence has on their families. Maria Bello as one of the wives is not only hot (that’s a given), but turns in another Oscar-caliber performance (after last year’s “A History of Violence,” also excellent). Nick Cage dials back his usual gimmicky, eye-rolling scenery-chewing and delivers an impressive performance using pretty much just his voice – I had no idea he could do Restraint. That Stone and Cage both chose this movie to exercise artistic restraint makes it an even more remarkable accomplishment.

In the end, though, for me, this movie is owned by a bit player, a guy with maybe a dozen lines throughout. William Mapother plays a retired Marine who watches the unfolding carnage on TV and decides to do something about it. He gets his Marine uniform out of the closet, puts it on and bullshits his way through Ground Zero security and commences searching for survivors. He’s the one who locates Cage and his associate and sticks around till both are pulled alive from their entombment. Every line of dialogue he has is like a recruitment poster for the US Marines. When one of the trapped cops begs him not to leave after he’s found them, he replies cooly, “We’re the United States Marines, son – we’re not going anywhere.” When the rescuers arrive and ask him who the hell he is, he says “Staff Sergeant blabitty blabbitty so-and-so.” The fireman asks him, “Well, what can we call you for short?” After a brief pause, the Marine answers, “Staff Sergeant.” It’s that kind of performance, and that kind of movie. Oliver Stone does the heroes of 9/11 – and America in general – proud.