Who is Watching "The Watchmen"? Apparently No One.

The Watchmen: Reviewed by A Guy Who Never Even Saw The Flick.

The Watchmen is the movie adaptation of a graphic novel by the same name created by in 1986 by Alan Moore. Known for other dystopian works of pure escapism and light-hearted fun, Alan “Sunshine” Moore obviously hates any adaptation of his own work. As demonstrated by his hearty criticism of the films, “V for Vendetta” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, it was obvious from the start that Moore would never, never, ever like this movie. So why would I spend my hard-earned bucks on a film that even the author who inspired it couldn’t stand? The answer is, “I didn’t”. But, after a bit of background research on the trailers released just before the film debuted, plus a bit of study on the comic-book universe and cast of characters, I think I’ll be able to encapsulate this so-called cultural phenomena into a few, well-chosen words.

The Watchman takes place in an alternate universe...similar to the alternate universe we’ve been living in for nearly a decade now, but I digress. A race of Watchers have been quietly observing the Earth for decades and are making bets on when the curtain is finally going to come down on this developmentally challenged race of “humans” struggling to make ends meet. Uatu, one of the Watchers who has selected May 2012 in the office pool as the date of Earth’s final trip down Doe-Doe Alley, slips down to earth to get the fix in, when he accidentally sends the entire world back to an alternate history in the 1980s. So using a time-traveling plot point from the LOST playbook, thus begin the fun, games and confusion. In this reality, the U.S. won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still President and the Blue Man Group has been outlawed with the exception of a giant, naked Dr. Manhattan. After seriously tea-bagging the VC into surrender, the U.S. remains the most feared and powerful nation on the planet thanks to the Big Blue Dude.

The film starts with the murder of a retired superhero by the name of the Comedian whom, it appears, wasn’t really that funny enough to SOMEONE. Taking on the case is yet another masked hero going by the name Rorschach whose mask looks like…like…well, it looked like a dead dog to me, but my brother thought it looked more like Alice Cooper. I’m not sure what the hell that pattern was supposed to be, but regardless, this crazy bastard spends the rest of the movie pursuing the perpetrator of this heinous crime. Incorporating other “outlawed” heroes, Rorschach rushes headlong to his appointment with destiny without even bothering to shower.

The first washed up ex-superhero teaming up is the second Night Owl, whose main super-power appears to be the ability to turn his head completely around. Not a bad trick when you can't trust your teammates. Joining him is the second Silk Spectre, who has the ability to turn men to stone…or at least certain critical components from what I’ve seen from the stills. And what team of ex-superheroes without superpowers would be complete without an indifferent, naked blue guy with the only superpowers to speak of? So before you can say “Dude, put some pants on”, the team is breaking bones in bars, breaking people out of prison and breaking bad, all in the name of justice.

I’m not going to give the ending away (the butler did it, in the penthouse, with a big ass lamp pole), but it does merit mentioning that the fifth Watchman, Ozymandias was absolutely no help at all. In fact, I’m not even sure why the character was even written into the story. This calamari eating, tea-sipping, sissy-boy has no right donning the tights of a superhero, but I suppose that’s the point Moore was trying to make. Not everybody is cut out for the rigors of protecting society against itself. And not to give the plot away, but as a general rule of thumb, when a naked, blue guy walks up behind you...look over your shoulder.

I give this movie 5 out of five stars for its effort to take a multi-part series and condense it into only half a day. The visuals were stunning, the story remained true to the comic (dark AND depressing) and though the slight change of the ending may have made more logical sense...but certainly didn’t solve the film’s economic problems. Grossing considerably less than the $150 million budget, The Watchmen merits bail-out consideration. But, who’s going to watch how The Watchmen spend the dough? Maybe a big, blue, naked guy who sees the past, present and future simultaneously? That would be nice, but unfortunately, we ain’t got one of those...

But, hey look, a Black Freighter’s pulling into port. Maybe someone there can help us out of this ghoulish oversight dilemma?

Cheech and Chong: Roasted, Rolled and Smoked

Cheech and Chong Roast Reviewed By a Guy Who Never Even Saw The Roast.

Recently resurrected and reunited for a new comedy tour, aging dopers Cheech and Chong tolerated a tepid roast by a bucket brigade of washed up entertainers without once looking even mildly amused. That’s what happens when you quit pot. You didn’t have to be stoned to enjoy the roast because it really didn’t…I mean wouldn’t have helped anyway. With the likes of Tom “Throw Me-a-Bone” Arnold and Greg ‘Can-You-Hear-Me-Now” Giraldo, Geraldo Rivera ended up being relevant and funny. Sure, it’s that gay porn mustache, but he actually did say a few funny things, too. OK, nothing memorable, but with the level of the room teetering between the brain-dead “Still Smoking” and the undead “Corsican Brothers” even Bill O’Reilly would have been a laugh machine at this gig.

Rev. Al Sharpton was originally in this hack line-up, but a no-show, replaced at the last minute by a black guy with a sign around his neck like a piece of “Plug-and-Play” hardware without a soundcard. A notable video appearance by Martha Stewart failed to legitimize Cheech and Chong but did create a lot of speculation about what bad habits she may have picked up in prison. Shelby Chong was present primarily as eye-candy, in a well-preserved candy corn kind of way, but also served to raise the question: “Hey, where’s Cheech’s wife?” They could have put a box of pop tarts in a chair along with a Yoko Ono soundtrack and no one would have noticed, really.

One confusing set of participants were Penn and Teller. Not known for comedy as much as magic, Teller apparently tossed the rabbit in favor of pulling a bong out of his ass. Even the jokes made at their expense by the other roasters barely got above the “you guys are gay” level. Putting those two in this forum was like putting the Olsen Twins in Snoop Dogg’s “Girls Gone Wild.” Yeah, you can hear Snoop now:” Aw, HELL naw! Somebody rub those skinny bitches together and make me a fire so I can light this blunt.”

Greg Giraldo would have had more laughs if he quit trying to yell a joke like a carnival barker. Seriously, dude, Sam Kinison still owns that gig, dead or not, so there’s no need to wake him up. The surprise of the evening was Andy Dick on good behavior. For once, his routine was topical and not rabid, proof positive that Cheech and Chong really do bring the “good stuff”. Steve Carrell, meanwhile, was self-serving and someone you WISHED would get stoned enough to see the banality of his entire shtick outside of “The Office”. But, at least he was recognizable….Wilmer “Who Dat” Valderrama from “That 70’s Show” appeared to be either in the middle of an image make-over from hell, or an episode of Ashton Kutcher’s “Punk’d”.

Host Brad “Please-Kill-Me” Garrett was serviceable in his role and sufficiently large as not to invite TOO many jokes at his expense. He had some good lines, but it was all too plain to see that without his “’Till Death” co-star Joely Fisher’s ubiquitous knockers to act as his straight men, his timing was waaaay off. I suppose in lieu of Fisher’s boobs, Penn and Teller could have sat in since their act is starting to sag with age anyway.

But the surprise of the evening was the nonchalant manner in which Cheech and Chong dispassionately endured this menagerie of schlock without killing each other. Sometimes resembling two men preparing to enter the Thunderdome, it wasn’t difficult to discern the absence of camaraderie between these two newly “reunited” stoner icons. Tommy Chong was not only the more glib of the former duo, but also the most restrained. Doing time will do that to you. Cheech, on the other hand, looked bored with the entire spectacle, simply going through the motions for the free advertising. A successful TV series will do that to you. He was lucky he didn’t get shanked. Needless to say, if the chemistry between these two doesn’t improve, not only is Dave not here, he won’t be coming back.

Righteous Kill: Reviewed by A Guy Who Never Even Saw the Flick

I don’t know what the big deal is with all the hype surrounding the pairing of these two former screen tough guys. Both were pretty young when they were in the “Godfather II” together, long before they developed the kind of bad habits that landed them in a film like this. They generated marginally more heat than two wet sticks being rubbed together when they appeared in “Heat”, but this time, they couldn’t even get a fire going with a BIC lighter and a gallon of gasoline. I could see this ending coming a mile away…and I didn’t even SEE the flick. But, I’ve seen the trailers, listened to the voice-overs and recall the catch phrase: “Some people respect the law, but everyone respects the gun.” Yeah, well nobody respects a rip-off.

What we have here are two jaded, veteran actors playing two jaded, veteran cops who just won’t retire. Sound familiar? Well, it should, and if you insert original names like “Turk” and “Rooster”, you’ve got a regurgitated script that tries to pass itself off as original. The plot? Well, I don’t know if you can really call it a “plot”, but the premise is Turk is under investigation for going all Death-Wish-Charles- Bronson-Style on some street scum that have escaped the justice system. Meanwhile, Rooster is misdirecting the audience under the guise of backing up his long-time partner. But, you can see the butler did it before you’re halfway through this Robitussin fueled thriller. At first I thought it was Curtis Jackson a.k.a. 50 Cent, but they didn’t use give him near enough to do in this flick for that to be the case. So by the process of elimination, it became obvious the real shooter was…aw, come on, you already know.

I love these guys, but rather than being dragged through a by-the-numbers plot, punctuated by standard misdirection and false leads, I think I’d rather watch one of their old flicks instead. If you can imagine what a botched up mess a script for “A Taxi Driver Named Serpico” would have been back in the 70’s, do not walk, but RUN away from any theater showing this unholy union. We’re not talking “The Usual Suspects” here, and after the “Dark Knight”, you couldn’t destroy enough sets for this movie to jack up our endorphins past, “mundane”. I suppose at the end, you could discover that Turk was really dead, or that Soylent Green was people, but somehow I doubt it. Not only do I not know whodunit, but I don’t give a f**k. That’s why I didn’t even bother to see the flick. Still, I give it two bug-squishing thumbs down on general principle and the remote possibility that it might contain scenes of nudity involving one or both of the stars. And that just ain’t right.

OPRAH DEFIES BOYCOTT: Reviewed By A Guy Who's Never Even Watched Oprah

The Florida Federation of Republican women plan on boycotting the Oprah Winfrey show for refusing to have Sarah Palin on her show until after the election. Already a pariah for supporting Obama over Hillary during the primaries, Oprah finds her female fan-base rapidly diminishing. Consequently, Oprah has plans to replace her core demographics with male viewers.

When asked how she intends to attract men to her afternoon show, the television Queen smiled demurely and said, “I have a couple of ideas that have been bouncing around. I asked myself what men want to see and I plopped a couple of those ideas on the table. One or two may fall out of favor with a handful of women, but I’m sure the men will continue to tune in. I think they’ll be pleased when they see the hefty set of issues I’ve got for them.”

When asked if he intended to start watching Oprah, one male remarked, “Well I have to say she made a couple of huge points with me. I never watched Oprah before, but given her unabashed support for Obama plus a very nice pair of humanitarian projects, I’m more than willing to give her a chance.”

Some women’s groups see Oprah as pandering to her male fan-base, which is ironic considering she is being boycotted for NOT pandering to them. However they point to Oprah’s association with a political action group called Barack Obama and Oprah Block Sarah (BOOBS) as the undermining force behind the ostracizing of Sarah Palin. But a BOOBS spokesman read from a prepared statement. “Oprah Winfrey overcame tremendous challenges to become one of the most successful women ever in the world of media. Her charitable projects are too numerous to list. To boycott her show for refusal to have Sarah Palin as a guest will ring as hollow as the boycott she endured for not having rappers on her show. Until Rush Limbaugh consents to have Ice Cube on to discuss his NWA days, we will consider Oprah’s refusal to be politically bullied something we can relate to.”

The BOOBS spokesman hoped that as a confident, liberated woman with a great sense of humor, the ultra-wealthy Ms. Winfrey wouldn't have him hunted down and killed like the others who have displeased the Queen. He added that Oprah is an icon, not only among women but all people. The fact that she has a nice pair of howitzers just makes her “all that and a bag of chips.”

Star Wars: The Clown Wars. Reviewed by A Guy Who Didn’t Even See the Flick (But Heard About it in Line at the Dairy Queen)

At first, I thought I’d unintentionally walked in on an advertisement for animation courses being given at the community college. Later I was wishing I had, because the writing would have probably been better. It begs the question, just how much freaking money does Lucas need before he’ll stop this madness? Not only was Lucas’ depiction of the Clown Wars factually incorrect, it also took great liberties with Anakin’s first padawan Ahsoka Tano.

As we all know, Ahsoka Tano disappeared mysteriously mid-way through the Clown Wars, leaving behind only a bucket of confetti and a Oogah Horn. The only verbal account of the circumstances surrounding her disappearance was a gibberish filled diatribe by a clearly intoxicated Yoda shortly afterwards where he expresses the opinion, “Snotty, unfunny little twit she was.”

For those of you that not familiar with the Star Wars mythos, this animated subcutaneous lesion takes place between “Attack of the Clowns’ and “Revenge of the Syphilis.” A trade war has broken out between the Republic and the Trade Federation, severely curtailing shipment of over-sized shoes and small clown cars to Count Dooku’s breakaway republic.

Throwing billons of pissed off clowns out of jobs is a sure formula for anarchy, so Dooku takes action by kidnapping his arch-enemy Jabba The Hutt’s son. As Dooku lies in wait, the storyline bogs down while Obi Wan and Anakin play a game of “What’s that smell", frequently checking their shoes to determine the source of that Stinky odor. They discover about halfway through this septic system of a plot that it’s the writing!

Furthermore, Lucas tried to pay homage to everything and everyone in this flick. A scene reminiscent of “Brokeback Mountain” was designed to show us how close Anakin and Obi Wan had become over the years, but the intimacy of that scene falls flat after Yoda staggers in drunk, with a holo-recorder. Obviously, Lucas has no reverence for his characters, preferring to prostitute them shamelessly for a quick buck.

Although the scene of Anakin and Obi Wan trying to infiltrate Dooku’s stronghold disguised as clowns and walking in on a mime convention was hilarious, it still never rose to the level of Hans Solo’s, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” They did use that same line countless times, including during the film credits at the beginning the film, however it seemed to lose its effect after a while. Other lame attempts at humor such as, “I smell Dooku,” and the retort, “Well, I didn’t step in it,” left a lot to be desired.

The Clown Wars shamelessly rips off other animated documentaries chronicling the cosmic clown conflict, such as “Tripping the Rift” and “Futurama”…but I usually like that in a film. All in all, I felt this film was simply an hour and half long advertisement for the animated television series coming this fall. While I do not expect it to last the entire three-year run of the actual Clown War, it may find a niche in a time-slot opposite “Lost”. Otherwise, unless the actors lose their “big heads” and the director lets Samuel L. Jackson’s character cuss up a storm, this series has about as much chance as an Ewok in Wookietown.

Coming Attractions of a Flick I Probably Won’t See

Oh great. Another horror flick.

"Meet Dave": Reviewed By A Guy Who Never Even Saw the Flick


Famed vampire hunter Gabriel Van Helsing has come out of retirement to end Eddie Murphy’s reign of terror at the box office. It was revealed this week that Eddie Murphy, humanely "put down" shortly after the release of "Norbit" last year, has been mysteriously reanimated and is continuing to make movies. In declining comedic health since his near-fatal accident with "Pluto Nash", Murphy freakishly returns like a zombie in search of brains in "Meet Dave". Paying subtle homage to "Weekend at Bernie’s", Murphy shuns the sophomoric, manual corpse manipulation for more sophisticated "tiny human technology" using Dave as a vehicle to elicit more laughs than a celebrity picking up a transvestite.

Joining Mike Myers’ still-born brain-child, "The Love Guru" and Adam Sandler’s messed up "Don’t Mess with the Zohan", Murphy’s latest offering proves that there’s still plenty of room at the bottom for former SNL cast members. "There’s obviously an expiration date on post-SNL success", said David "The Shill" Spade, whose cinema career only marginally exceeds Murphy’s latest marriage. However, Martin "Will-Work-For-Food" Short, currently working on an Ed Grimly script, still believes "you can do it" if you purge yourself of absolutely all shame. Fortunately, as Van Helsing’s crossbow bolt to Short’s chest suggests, some dark secrets are best left unknown.

Even dead, Murphy still shuns singular roles and deftly plays a human sized ship as well as its captain. Bug-eyed and jerky, Murphy digs deep and brings his undead experiences to the screen for mobs of zombie fans, still looking for brains but failing to find them here. Wandering aimlessly from theater to theater, most eventually gorged themselves at "Iron Man". But genetically prone to over-eating and sluggish digestive systems, the multitudes of undead soon required a laxative and were observed later at "Sex in the City." In an interview last week, Van Helsing emphasized that part of the reason he came out of retirement was prevent, "movie hacks of the night from ruling cinema. Ooooo, look Angelina Jolie!" he exclaimed as he loaded his crossbow.

Part of the promotional gimmick for "Meet Dave" included a giant head resembling Murphy parked in Times Square. But according to director Brian Robbins, "That’s the REAL SIZE of Murphy’s head…maybe a little smaller, really." Some have suggested they bury the head at a cross-roads in hope of stopping Murphy’s self-destructive, living-dead movie making career. "Maybe he can finally rest in peace," said Chris Rock, direct recipient of Murphy’s early 80’s stand-up comedy style. "If I ever become a cinema zombie like that, somebody just shoot me," said the star of "I Think I Love My Wife". Rock’s funeral will be Thursday.

Dave Chappelle: Alive and Translated (by a Guy Who Never Even Saw the Show)

Dave Chappelle got the biggest contract in Comedy Central history then went missing in action. What's up with that dude?

Dave Chappelle: I'm not crazy; I'm not smoking crack.

Translation: Contrary to popular conjecture, I am much too rich to risk my sanity with mundane drugs like that.

Chappelle: I'm definitely stressed out.
Translation: BUGS! BUGS!! EVERYWHERE!!! ALL OVER ME!!!!!!!!

Chappelle: There were things that overwhelmed me. But not in the way that people are saying.
Translation: No, I was much more f**ked up than that.

Chappelle: I haven't spent any of the money. All that stuff about partying and taking crack is not true.
Translation: The only crack I’ve seen in the last month is a picture of Jennifer Lopez in a swimsuit.

Chappelle: Why do I live on a farm in Ohio? To support my partying lifestyle?
Translation: Have I introduced you to Hannah, my favorite sheep?

Chappelle: Let me tell you the things I can do here which I can't at home: think, eat, sleep, laugh.
Translation: I can also get cholera, diphtheria, and malaria plus be eaten by a lion. DAMN, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Chappelle: I'm an introspective dude. I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes. And I've been doing a lot of thinking here.
Translation: Where…where the hell am I?

Chappelle: You hear so many voices jockeying for position in your mind that you want to make sure that you hear your own voice.
Translation: Hello? Hello? Anybody home?

Chappelle: So I figured, let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone — stop a speeding car by using my bare feet as the brakes.
Translation: So guess what I used to shift gears?

Chappelle: If you don't have the right people around you, and you're moving at a million miles an hour, you can lose yourself.
Translation: You can also experience time dilation and a corresponding increase in mass and….um…..damn, I lost my train of thought.

Chappelle: Everyone around me says, 'You're a genius, you're great, that's your voice,' but I'm not sure that they're right. ... You got to be careful of the company you keep.
Translation: Lately, I’ve been getting all of Michael Jackson’s hangers on.

Chappelle: One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.
Translation: Funny how your friends’ tastes increase proportionally to YOUR income.

Chappelle: I want to make sure I'm dancing and not shuffling.
Translation: And those Amos and Andy reruns I was watching started f**king with my head.

Chappelle: Whatever decisions I make right now I'm going to have to live with. Your soul is priceless.
Translation: MY soul, on the other hand, is worth $50 million dollars, suckers!

Chappelle: I have trust issues. I saw some stuff in myself that I just didn't dig. ... There were some things about myself that I didn't like.
Translation: In retrospect, I suppose my humor has been just demeaning and crass. I’m cool with that, but when I ran out of Richard Pryor material to rip off, I just panicked.

Chappelle: When I get back, [I hope] everything will be up and running, or we'll make other arrangements.
Translation: But, I’m keeping the money…BITCH!

2005’s Most Over-Exposed People

Dave Chappelle: Not only was Dave Chappelle crowned a comedy genius by borrowing Flip Wilson's act, but he also borrowed from Chris Rock who borrowed from Eddie Murphy who stole it from Richard Pryor in the first place. One can justifiably say that rather than listen to Chappelle rehash old routines overdone three times over, it would be a lot funnier getting Pryor on the Ouija Board.

Then, ironically, Chappelle had the chance to might make more money this year than all three of the others put together. And I'm talking about the major news anchors. The least he could do was look less bored himself while he’s making a mint. But, as it turned out, he failed to deliver the new season on time back in February and by May, he was hiding out in South Africa somewhere. Leaving millions behind to flee to South Africa? OK, that's either crazy or stone cold serious!

Jennifer Lopez: First she hooked up with a record producer to jumpstart her music career, then a choreographer to help her live act, then an actor to help her entry into film. She eventually had to settle for a singer whose best days went out with the 1990’s. Just what else can J. Lo possibly use to hold us hostage? Unfortunately, her butt became as morbidly fascinating as train wreck when she wore that dress missing the material in the back a few years ago. Admittedly, there was a time when it was interesting to watch her deconstruct the lives and careers of the men in her life, but unless Mark Anthony plans on doing an adaptation of “Julius Caesar,” he’s probably safe for the moment.

Bill Clinton: Just three words for you Bill: Not President Anymore. You’re like a date that won’t go home. Dinner is over, and hey, thanks to Monica even the sex is over. Now GO HOME! It’s not that we don’t like you, but let’s put it this way: you were the class of ’92 and we’re the class of ’05. We’ve seen your trophies in the trophy case and they’ve even retired your jersey number. But, you can’t lead us to state anymore. So quit hanging around outside the gym and sucking up to the camera. It’s starting to creep us all out.

Saddam Hussein: After a year of captivity, a word of advice to Saddam’s handlers: put him back in the spider hole. At least when he was on the loose, there was this illusion of menace. If the U.S. Army would practice ‘catch and release’ tactics, at least we’d still have the chase. As it stands, we’ve got a sociopath who just won’t play along with the “broken man” script like he’s supposed to. Without menace or relevant defiance, he’s just another convict, and face it: crazy Charles Manson is still more interesting in a sick sort of way.

Dan Rather: Most people were bored with Dan all the way back in the 80’s. OK, there was that incident where he got pummeled to the tune of “what’s the frequency, Kenneth”. Nobody really believed that, but Dan Rather getting beat up for any reason was amusing for a while. But, waiting in vain for the inevitable fistfight between Dan and Geraldo Rivera to manifest, we’ve grown weary of waiting and bid Dan, adieu.

The Olsen Twins: Well, the jokes about them coming of ‘age’ are old now and the truth of the matter is, who in their right mind would care about these two coming of age? The entire spectator sport of watching the Olsen Twins age was about as exciting as watching the ball drop in Times Square. Once it happens….then what? If we actually expected their expressions to change, then we certainly got ripped on that. There’s nothing more boring than celebrities that bore themselves. Even Bulimia and drug addiction are boring now that everybody’s been in rehab in Hollywood. Only the spectacle of a murder trial will liven the Olsen Twins up and only if one of them is a serial killer.

Hostage: Review By Some Guy Who Slept Through The Flick

It’s been so long since anyone last heard from Bruce Willis, Hollywood put his picture on a milk carton as a missing person. Bruce’s last quasi-successful feature, “Unbreakable”, broke the back of his string of box office blockbusters and left him at the mercy of snoozers like “The Whole Ten Yards” and…others we’ve mercifully forgotten. In the past five years, Willis’ career as an action star has died hard, and it doesn’t take a sixth sense to see he needed an action hit and fast to pull a quick U-turn on his career path.

The premise of “Hostage” involves three delinquent teenagers following a family home intending to steal their SUV. Naturally, that would take about three minutes of movie time, so it’s obvious something…goes…wrong. We’re led to believe the teens end up trapped in a multi-million dollar compound on the outskirts of town with no way to escape, panicking and taking the family hostage. So, who you gonna call?

Well, as luck would have it, Jeff Talley (Willis) is a former L.A. hostage negotiator acting as chief of police in this backwater town in California. And as with most of Willis’ characters, he’s got some major mental malfunctions. In this case, he’s living with the devastation of a hostage negotiation gone bad, leaving a woman and her child dead. OK, that’s certainly a downer, but former videogame director Floret Emilio Siri apparently ascribes to the tried and true tactic of loading Willis’ character with angst and a bad marriage while dumping him in the middle of well choreographed chaos.

So the remainder of the movie takes us through the standard question of, “Can Willis save the day before he falls to pieces?” Not to mention, “Did too many hours of playing ‘Splinter Cell’ make ‘Mars’ (played by Ben Foster) such a freaking psycho?” Everything else you already know the answer to. When the Hitchcock suspense finally plays out, you won’t even ask about the sudden increase in the “gore” ratio. After all, you’ve seen all the “Die Hard” movies, so why ask why? While the flick has a video game feel to it, that’s not all bad when you’re trying to bilk big bucks using word of mouth advertising from the 18-25 year old demographics. As for the older demographics….well, hey, at least one of us is still employed!

Be Cool : Reviewed by A Guy Who Never Even Bothered to See The Flick

If you’re going to “Be Cool” expecting an encore of the well-crafted and directed “Get Shorty” from 1995, then you’d better rent “Battlefield Earth” first. Just to get some perspective. No, it’s not THAT bad, but seeing it first might make “Be Cool” seem a lot better. An adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s book, this film lacks most of the charm and all of the humor that director Sonnenfeld brought to the original film. The title is more likely a plea for the plethora of guest stars to somehow extract any measure of “coolness” they can from this watered-down-Kool-Aid flavored film featuring icon John Travolta.

Rather than list who is in this film, perhaps a list of who ISN’T is more appropriate. There hasn’t been a bigger waste of good characters with hackneyed one-liners since the Russian mob forced studios to quit making “Naked Gun” movies. Travolta’s Chili Palmer character is hip as always but the train wreck of a script around him makes even that egg-laying Godzilla plot seem plausible. And it’s still undecided if director L. Gary Gray or screenwriter Peter Steinfeld should be given the concrete goulashes on this one.

The premise of “Be Cool” has Chili branching out into the music industry after the president of a record company is murdered. Anyone who’s seen the music charts recently knows that’s a losing proposition, but it gets even more preposterous. Chili is out to make real life recording artist Christina Milian into a star and seeks out the record president’s widow for help. And as cinema fate would have it, the guy’s widow is Uma Thurman! Naturally, you get the obligatory Travolta and Uma dance scene…cut and hacked to pieces. You even get a Cedric The Entertainer dance scene….hammed up, over inflated and blown to bits. How can you possibly screw all of that up? Well, not having Tarantino directing for one. Gray’s attention-deficit style of film editing created more lack of continuity carnage than “Kill Bill”. Or maybe having the terminally “unhip” directing a hip story about hip characters doing hip things just isn’t wise.

Regardless to where the fault lies, the film is not a complete loss. Where it fits in the larger scheme of the Travolta’s character development is plain to see. “Be Cool” is both a sequel and a prequel. The “Get Shorty” sequel reveals “Chili” to actually be “Vincent Vega” from “Pulp Fiction”, before he went to France and became a humorless heroin addict. But if we’re lucky, we won’t have to suffer through all that anytime soon. That would “be cruel”.

The Ring 2 : Reviewed By Some Guy Who Was Smart Enough Not To View The Flick

Following in the fatal footsteps of “The Blair Witch Project”, we find “The Ring” testing the prevailing notion that highly acclaimed original movies often push their luck with highly anticipated and hollow sequels. Score another one for prevailing notions. After watching “The Ring 2”, you’ll realize very quickly that there’s likely not going to be a “Ring 3”. And if you receive any anonymous, unlabeled tape in the mail, you’ll know not to open it. It’s probably this movie.

The tale begins six months after the previous film with the terrorized woman (Naomi Watts) and her son (David Dorfman) fleeing to Oregon to escape the evil Samara and her plan of terror and death. And, uh, that’s about it. No, seriously, it’s the same movie all over again. You know the drill: a crime scene, an unmarked videotape and accusations of mental instability and child abuse.

We leave this plot point to Sissy Spacek, who plays Dr. Temple and during some of the slower passages, some may find themselves reliving 30-year-old scenes from “Carrie”. Why? Because what’s happening in your mind at this juncture is better than what’s happening on the screen. It’s so slow it even puts one of the main characters into a coma, along with half of the audience.

There are a quite a few gaps in logic that remain unresolved. First, nobody ever believes the protagonist, so why try? Second, people in horror movies apparently expect evil entities to lack reliable transportation from the netherworld, and think that simply moving away solves everything. As exemplified by the sheer existence of this aimless sequel, this is clearly not the case. Spirits not only travel widely but can obviously use maps, too.

There are two keys to enjoying this flick. First, recount what you do and do not know about Samara up to this point. Second, care. If either step is missing, repeat until totally absorbed in the mundane enough to take a second trip down the well. With the previous weeks’ collection of schlock and banality still on the box office charts, “The Ring 2” would have to really, really suck not to finish in the top five. But, I have complete confidence that it will successfully do both.

Spoilers From Revenge of the Sith By A Guy Who Will Never, Ever See The Flick

Anakin becomes Darth Vader after exposure to sulfur fumes and an adverse reaction to his asthma medication.

Chancellor Palpatine is evil but nobody knows it but him.

Amidala gets knocked up with twins but Obi Wan is the real father.

The Jedis remain clueless to the Sith’s corporate take-over threat until it is too late to save their dental plan.

Samuel L. Jackson has fewer lines than Lando Calrissian had 20 years ago but more screentime

To no one’s surprise, C-3-P O reveals he is gay.

Lots of things get blown up.

Yoda’s long standing problems with dyslexia are solely responsible for a series of miscommunications which lead the Jedi to utter destruction.

The Sith plan a chain of Death Star Drive-Ins throughout the galaxy.

R2D2 confesses he is afflicted by Tourette’s Syndrome.

Wookies do shit in the woods.

Count Dooku’s reckless real estate speculation leads to Tatooine’s housing market collapse.

Trump Killed By Mob; Resurrected By Satan

Enraged at Donald Trump’s recent reorganization of his casino business, scores of angry investors screwed out of millions of dollars converged on Trump’s limo outside a district court, pulled him from the vehicle and strangled him to death with his own comb-over. However, mere hours after his untimely demise, Donald Trump was resurrected from Hell and sent to ABC to pitch Satan’s newest reality show concept, The Devil’s Apprentice. ABC executives agreed in principle to a limited run of The Devil’s Apprentice and sent Trump to roam the earth in search of a select group of self-centered contestants evil enough to make this spin-off of The Apprentice franchise equally as successful.

Using ultra-high-technology available only to the super-rich and supernatural powers spawned in Hell itself, Trump disappeared in thick, black smoke, returning mere seconds later with contestants harkening from assorted black arts and willing to sign their soul away to The Devil for the opportunity to appear on television. The 12 contestants were split into two teams that will clash in weekly competitions for the possibility of being named the “Devil’s Apprentice” and ruling a minor backwater Domain in Hell. The losers are simply fired and cast into a bottomless pit to face an eternity of torment.

And the show appears to be off to a Hell of a start. Using his vast power over time and space, Trump abbreviated a week long shooting schedule to a few hours and delivered the finished product even before the first promos were outlined. “This show is going to be awesome! Believe it or not, the new, demonic Trump is less arrogant than before. But he makes up for that with a newly developed wicked sense of humor, ” said the show’s producer Mark Burnett. “When Trump fires somebody now, they REALLY get fired, you know what I mean? And it’s not everyday you can go from concept to pilot episode in less than a week. All hail Satan!”

The premiere episode introduced the team members and announced their first task: name their respective teams. Team 1 opted for the confident sounding “We Got Baals”, while Team 2 chose the less obnoxious and more succulently sinister “Hades, Inc.” Their second task was to plan and pitch a satanic commercial designed to harvest as many souls as possible during the coming professional basketball playoffs. “We Got Baals” selected Jennifer Lopez for a live Diet Coke with Lime commercial and plotted a wardrobe malfunction involving a daring derrière display that was calculated to bring the largest proportion of the viewers to the Dark Side.

“Hades, Inc”, meanwhile, employed a much subtler ploy, pitching an ad highlighting a speaking appearance by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at the Silverton Casino in Las Vegas…sandwiched in between performances by Twisted Sister and Steppenwolf. “If THAT doesn’t shake a lot of core conservative convictions to their very foundations, I don’t know what will,” said Project Manager Annakiya Duvalier, a High Voodoo Priestess from Haiti.

After both teams pitched their ideas to a panel of evil network executives, the ad by “Hades, Inc.” was declared the most diabolical, while “We Got Baals’ was called into the Boardroom to determine who would be the first soul cast into the fiery Pit. After a brief but futile defense, dark warlock and Project Manager Tim Llewellyn was selected for sacrifice. Set afire by a horned and hoofed Trump as The Pit opened beneath his chair, Tim fell in flames, screaming in torment and disappearing into the Darkness below as Trump laughed maniacally.

“Except for the ‘special effects’ this show went pretty much like the previous three Apprentice shows,” said Mark Burnett. The first episode garnered 25.1 million viewers overall and 10.9 rating/25 share in the adults 18-49 demographic at 9 p.m. However, some ABC executives are worried about possibly litigation from injuries and mental anguish incurred by the show’s participants. But, Trump countered those fears by pointing out, “They all signed waivers, so we can do any damned thing we want to them. Besides, who’s going to sue the patron saint of all lawyers anyway?”

Constantine: Reviewed By A Guy Who Never Even Bothered To See The Flick

After a sneak preview of the movie Constantine, I find myself personally depressed, spiritually cynical and glad I didn’t have to pay for it. This flick stars Keanu Reeves as a California-style supernatural private eye who helps a police detective (Rachel Weisz) after the strange suicide of her twin sister. Besides dual screen credits, you might not be too sure what this has to do with anything. But, when you come to realize that Constantine was reputedly born with the ability to recognize the half-breed angels and demons that walk among Mankind, and committed suicide because of it…you’ll STILL be confused. And twenty minutes into this dark, depressing tale of the blurred lines between good and evil, you might find yourself wishing “Constantine” had just opted for a “Do Not Resuscitate” bracelet.

The film can be summed up as a series of twists and turns in the dark that don’t mislead anyone old enough to legally be in this gangrenous, R-rated, head wound of a movie. Director Francis Lawrence appears to have accidentally wandered onto the set dazed and confused, thinking it was an Aerosmith video. Reportedly based on an obscure comic about an English magician/con man, one can’t help but wonder if changing the character from an English bloke to a California dude was the reason this movie’s plot got lost in translation.

If you’re paying good money to see this movie because you’re expecting a “Matrix” like film with extraordinary special effects, there’s good news and bad news. Good news: you get the same Neo style dialog and a plotline about as muddled as the final Matrix installment. And the bad news: you get special effects resembling the unholy love child of “The Exorcist” and “Tron”. This results in creatures a lot worst than monkeys flying out of Reeves’ butt. The movie itself will probably disappoint lovers of the comic as well as any unsuspecting dupe that wanders in off the street. Makes you wonder, if this movie is THIS bad, just how bad can hell possibly be?

Boogeyman:

Reviewed By

A Guy Who

Never Even Bothered to See The Flick

If the title alone doesn’t conjure up bad memories of KC and the Sunshine band a year after they ran out of any more ways to use that same chord progression, you deserve to get cheated out of $10. This move was so bad they didn’t even let the movie reviewers see it. I had to go to a movie-pirating site in Amsterdam. Trying to download it, even the site threw me a load error-message: “Like, why waste the bandwidth, Dude?”

I finally located an accessible copy of it on a backwater site in the Honduras. This horrific direct-to-video-wannabe is directed by Stephen T. Kay and actually has Lucy Lawless in a role that’ll make you nostalgic for the good ole days of Xena. Are you sure you really want to know about it?

The official story is, “A man traumatized by the memories of terrible events he experienced in his childhood bedroom is forced to return home several years later to face his fears.” Exactly how that happens apparently wasn’t a big plot point, sufficiently glossed over to make time for the special effects that all take place…in the dark. Even Riddick, that ‘I-can-see-in-total-darkness’ anti-hero from “Pitch Black” (and another movie which shall remain unnamed) wouldn’t be able to make out what was happening in this film. If you’ve seen the trailers, you notice right off that you don’t see squat in the kinetic, quick edit clips of shadows, things jumping out of shadows, scared looking people running into shadows and general shadow mayhem. And then there’s that awful soundtrack of demented children from Hell singing nursery rhymes. Got it? Well, imagine 76 minutes of just that and you can save your time for something more enjoyable like plucking your own eyes from your skull.

Seriously, this movie makes you wish that Jason, Michael Myers and Freddy were real so they could just walk into the theater and put you all out of your misery. This film reminded me of “The Omen”. No, not that it was genuinely creepy and a good value for the money, but in that every time something Evil was going to happen to any of the characters, the chanting started. Most people hate Gregorian chants to this day because of that movie. But, in THIS case, if you’re even thinking about shelling out good money to see a film that even the studios are ashamed to let people preview…you should hear that chanting about now.

The most horrific thing about this movie is it left itself open for a sequel. And if that’s not the most terrifying thought you’ve ever had, after you sit through this monstrosity, it will be.

THE AVIATOR

Reviewed by: “A Guy Who Didn't Even Watch The Flick On A Long Flight"

“The Aviator” stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is directed by Martin Scorsese, which pretty much portends that somebody’s going to die in this film. Badly. Continuing their “Gangs of New York” relationship, the DiCaprio/Scorsese team returns to depress an entirely new audience with the real life story of eccentric millionaire, Howard Hughes. And if you haven’t figured it out yet,’ eccentric’ means’ crazy’ if you’re not a billionaire.

After dozens of biographies on Howard Hughes’ life, it ‘s going to be pretty hard to tell most people something they didn’t already know. Plus, at $10 a pop, it takes more than an Oscar nomination to get people in the theater. Especially when they can catch “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” at the dollar show. So, to save everybody time and money, how about a film review outlining how the film PROBABLY went?

Residing in the Slums of Five Point, New York, Amsterdam Vallon (Hughes) barely scrapped by after emigrating to the U.S. from Ireland. The film explores Hughes’ early days as a petty pickpocket who ran astray notorious street gang leader Bill The Butcher and was forced to flee the slum he called his home. Securing passage on the Titanic dressed as one of the ship’s crew, he adopts the name Howard Hughes and romances the rich, lonely women on-board, while passing himself off as a wealthy businessman from New York. All was going well until the ‘ship hit the fan’ and Hughes was forced to call upon the intellectual reserves he was known for. Disguising himself as a woman in order to secure passage aboard a lifeboat, Howard gets away with a tidy sum from the jewelry he snatched during the ensuing chaos.

Keeping the name Howard Hughes, he spends several years running more intricate cons. He learns to fly by dressing like an aviator and hanging out in aviator bars, learning the tricks of the trade. Before long, he is piloting and even building planes in an effort to launder his increasing stash of cash, legitimizing himself as a billionaire industrialist and eventually moving into the motion picture industry. Being a billionaire industrialist and Hollywood film mogul, of course he dated the most beautiful women in the world. In fact, his obsession with boobies inspires him to patent the world’s first, “lift and separate” bra, earning him billions more in royalties. But, then things start to go bad.

A tenacious G-Man (played by Tom Hanks) has been on Hughes’ tail for many years now, and is closing in, causing Hughes to become more and more reclusive. His increasing eccentricity and sudden obsession with the bones of the Elephant Man takes its toll; in an effort to hold off his encroaching insanity, Hughes develops an unhealthy attachment to his fingernails before dying in 1976 of a septic infection. Despite persistent rumors of Hughes being afflicted by a severe case of vampirism, these allegations are never fully explored or substantiated in the movie, leaving the story behind the legend of Howard Hughes incomplete in this reviewer’s opinion.

Finding Neverland

Reviewed by a Guy Who Couldn't Find A Theater Showing The Flick

Despite first impressions, this movie has nothing to do with Michael Jackson’s ranch or search warrants. Directed by Marc Foster of “Monster Ball” fame, this film promises none of the angst nor an open-ended monolog by Oscar winner Halle Berry. Set in London in the early 1900’s, the film features Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie in search of Peter Pan. And with no guest appearances by Robin Williams, you’re just going to have to revisit the Peter Pan mythos straight up. The good news is even though Depp’s character spends a lot of time around…uh…children… and doesn’t want to grow up, it’s all proper. But, it’s still going to take some time to get that Jackson stench off of Peter Pan.

Barrie is a man who never wanted to grow up, but after a disastrous play review, he finds himself blaming a childhood trauma for his failure as a playwright. The sheer madness of this circular reasoning makes Norman Bates look like a slightly eccentric handyman. A man ahead of his time in his deft ability to shield himself from criticism by making himself a victim, we get a rare glimpse into the psyche of a mad genius and the inner storms that compel a grown man to concoct a tale about children who never grow old.

Barrie’s wife detaches from their loveless marriage as Barrie feigns affection for the four children of a recent widow (Kate Winslet borrowing heavily on the good genes she got from her mother) in order to get close to her. As Depp/Barrie drifts deeper and deeper into his madness, his obsession with pirates grows. Fearing the social mores of the time might not accept a ‘pirate’ as a hero, Barrie temporarily shelves his latest work, “Pirates of the Caribbean” for being unworkable, but connives to subtly expose the audience to the pirate concept in a more sinister way: using children.

Working feverishly long into the night, Barrie creates the character of Peter Pan, a maniacal man-child with designs on conquering the world using the black arts. Gathering together a vampire army of Lost Boys, only the wise and noble Captain Hook stands in the way of his total world domination. However, the children (John, Paul, George and Ringo) whom he uses to obscure his true carnal intentions with Sylvia, shatter his mind-numbing obsession with pirates as protagonists by pointing out that no one in their right mind would buy that load of crap. In an epiphany of rational thought, he realizes they are right and enlists their aid in constructing a children’s tale that might become a classic for all time.

The children create a masterpiece, which Barrie absconds with, while giving absolutely no writing credits to the children. His play opens amid rave reviews; however, late one night, he finds his success threatened when a stranger shows up on his doorstep, accusing him of plagiarizing HIS play and demanding satisfaction. Lapsing into a funk of biblical proportions, Barrie fights off visions of demons with scissors for hands and headless horsemen, weighing the costs of giving the boys their proper credit versus keeping the credit all to himself, but living a life of madness. The climatic three-way showdown between the threatening stranger, Barrie and the children is a cinematic work of art that would have Sam Peckinpah salivating. When you leave this film you’ll never look at Peter Pan the same way.

Million Dollar Baby

Reviewed by a Guy Who Never Even Saw The Flick


Boxing movies just don’t seem to be as big a staple in Hollywood as teen horror flicks, so leave it to director Clint Eastwood to tackle this underrepresented sector of film-making. Going up against such “heavyweights” as “The Great White Hope”, “Raging Bull” and “Rocky”, this movie certainly has it’s work cut out for it. Especially with that image of Burgess Meredith as “Mick” in the Rocky films screaming, “You’re gonna to eat lightning and you’re gonna to crap thunder”. Just how’re you going to top “thunder-crapping”? “Every Which Way But Loose” came close because you just can’t beat primates when it comes to crap. But, if you throw in Hilary Swank to go for the body, Morgan Freeman to go for the head and Clint Eastwood to count them out, now you’ve got a triple threat of cinema terror. And what you get is a tightly constructed boxing film that fails to imitate any of its predecessors. Feature an ex-fighter who runs a gym in Los Angeles along with a fellow former boxer being approached by a young woman determined to beat the hell out of the next person calling her a hillbilly and THAT’S pay-for-view worth watching.


The movie begins with trainer (Frankie/Eastwood) lamenting the loss of his star fighter to big time boxing promoter Don King. Adhering to his life long credo that “Big Boys Don’t Cry”, his life is further complicated when he refuses to train another young boxer (Maggie/Hilary) once he realizes she is just pretending to be guy. Conditioned to consider the phrase “you hit like a girl” an insult, Frankie finds his entire value system turned on its ear as “one-eyed” Eddie/Morgan consents to train Maggie and discovers her potent right-hook and devastating ear-biting skills. After observing Maggie in action, Frankie sees the same “Eye-of-the Tiger” in her as he once saw in Eddie, and agrees to train her, too.

Out of his remaining “good” eye, Eddie can see her dogged determination and is mutually motivated to help her overcome her stereotypical image as just one more piece of societal rubbish. But failing to be able to see anything out of his other eye leads to him (as well as the entire audience) into being blindsided by the hard left hook this movie delivers in the end, pummeling everyone as every unpredictable twist possible manifests itself. In fact the only thing that DOESN’T happen are monkeys flying out of Eastwood’s butt, but that’s only because they probably couldn’t get out his hiked up waistband.

Despite the emotional maze this film leads the audience through, Eastwood blows away the competition like Dirty Harry on crack, taking his rightful place as one the most influential directors of our time. And even though he’ll remain forever unforgiven for that “Firefox” fiasco, this film represents the good, the bad and the ugly surrounding the sport of boxing.

Looking For Something Old to Rent? Don't Get “URBAN LEGEND”

Reviewed By A Guy Who Actually Saw This Flick

What if a serial killer decided to use common urban legends as their mode of killing, and selected a small, quiet college campus as their homicidal playground? This tale takes place at a fictitious New England college where, according to legend, 25 years before (almost to the day) a professor killed an entire dorm (save one) with a hunting knife. As if that wasn’t enough to cut into your study time, a modern day student returning to campus has just been killed by an axe-welding maniac in the backseat of her vehicle. Sound vaguely familiar?

This movie runs erratically through a lot of very familiar territory. Whereas any normal, sane college-aged kid would have transferred to another school five minutes into this trite attempt at suspense, the students at this third-tier school force us to follow them through this 98 minute exercise in untimely death and misdirection. Not only has this been done before, endless times, but it borrows heavily from other movies. This is not always a bad thing…. yes, in THIS case it is….but paying homage to other movie scenarios has been done quite successfully in movies like Scream. But, this isn’t Scream. And it’s not entertaining, humorous, amusing or even scary in any way. What we have with Urban Legend is an attempt to put a fresh spin on the same tired and overdone horror special effects left over from the sequels of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street a decade ago.

The movie revolves around a group of stereotypical college kids who look a little too old to be sophomores, live in spacious dorms, visit empty campus libraries (the concept of an empty campus library is an urban legend in itself) and die on cue in some fashion that emulates a specific well-known urban legend. The cast of characters includes Paul, a pushy, cynical school newspaper reporter (Jared Leto doing his Rob Lowe at community college imitation), a self-centered party animal named Parker (played by Michael Rosenbaum who does a pretty good job of making the audience wish he were already dead), a campus cop named Reese (played by Loretta Devine doing the best she can with the ubiquitous, yet insubstantial role) and of course, our strange attractor for all this murderous mayhem, Natalie (played by Alicia Witt in a performance that alternates between Dana Scully’s deadpan performance in the X-Files, and a freaked out pinball running from dark location to dark location). The similarity? Inanimate objects.

Honorable mention goes to Robert Englund as Professor Wexler, obviously cast to try and bring some sort of cinematic credibility to this jumbled mess of a script and to Joshua Jackson from Dawson’s Creek who had the good professional sense to get himself killed early, after managing to create more than a 2D character. But even good screen presence by these two actors was futile when faced with the enormous task of actually trying raise this flick above the mundane.

Dialog is weak, pacing is slow, and frankly, we don’t give a damn about any of the characters. In fact, a couple of characters were so thinly fleshed out, they were dead almost as soon as they were introduced. Unlike most successful movies of this genre, the audience never had enough time to observe the character flaws that always mark you for death in these types of films. There was one notable exception.

As far as amusing scenes go, pickings are pretty slim with emphasis being on the grotesque. Parker, the party animal, managed one of the best ‘set-ups’ in the film, trying to guess the killer’s next urban legend. With a few exceptions other than the very first scene, the movie pretty much plays out like the 2000th rerun of any number of other ‘slasher’ flicks: killer kills all girl’s friends, girl suspects everyone, girl runs to and fro in the dark. In an effort to try and generate any semblance of suspense, the story throws misleading clues and false leads like rice at a wedding.

Even the deaths are more grisly than scary. By the time this movie grinds to an halt (mercifully), the audience has lost all sense of concern about the main character’s safety, waiting around only to see ‘who did it’. And of course, by the time that revelation occurs, the audience has already figured out that there is no way in hell that they could have ever guessed the totally contrived motive and twisted ending. Actually, faster than you can say, ‘Enny, Meany, Minny, Moe’, you’ll have the false resolution figured out; but just give up there while you’re ahead. Because just when you think it’s all over…aw, you know!