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Holy Shit, this movie is unbelieveable. The following line reading was possibly paraphrased by me:

[Said during "totally kickass" "rock" "concert"] "Hey, like, that A Minor chord totally did not rock ass. I specifically outlined this shortcoming in our January 5th meeting, don't you remember? Perhaps you should fix it in this next refrain."

It's a whole movie-within-a-movie thing, and takes place in Paris in the 70's. About the time Jason Schwartzbaum's character gets into a ridiculously funny car accident, I'd finished my first bottle of champagne and had moved on the Jim Beam, so goddamn if I remember anything else that happened in this flick.

The $2.50 rental fee was better spent on this than on two tickets to Daredevil.

Don't do it. You'll never forgive yourself for watching this.

::ring ring::

"Hello. Gabriel Byrne speaking."

"Hey, Gabe, it's your agent. Look, I know this assistant casting director for some thing with FOX, I think it was 'Paradise Hotel', but maybe it was 'Married By A Midget' or 'Bowling for Coffee' or something..."

"I don't want to be on 'Married By A Midget.'"

"AH! Here's her number. Say the word, buddy, and I'll get you some quality reality show screen time."

"NO GOOD! I HATE MIDGETS! What else have you got for me?"

"A Stallone flick. About poker. It's bound to be good, Melanie Griffith is already on board as the love interest."

"Fine, whatever. No midgets."

Do not take giant Marvel comic book fans to see this movie. At one point, I swear to God I could hear a friend of mine masturbating. Or, at the very least, he was making noises that I associate with pleasuring oneself.

Babes, Boobs, Bikinis. `Splosions, Guns, Demi Moore.

Man. Demi fuckin' Moore. She was kind of hot, until the unflattering closeups on her lack of an upper lip.

Reese Witherspoon's yap never closed and there was something about dogs. There was also enough pink to choke a horse. This was no Legally Blonde 1, I'll tell you that. Damn sequels.

Brrrrinnnng! Brrrrinnnng!

"Hello?"

"Good afternoon! Welcome to MovieCall!, where the movies come to you!"

"Uhm, what?"

"MovieCall! calls YOU to let YOU know about ALL the NEWEST MOVIES coming SOON to a theater near YOU!"

"Uh, okay. So, what's n---"

"MovieCall! is excited to let YOU know of the NEWEST ADVENTURE in historical literature!! The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!!"

"Oh. That sounds neat. What's it a---"

"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! brings some of the MOST FAMOUS names in fiction together on ONE screen, for a rip-roaring, sword rattling, guns blazing, action-packed SEXTRAVAGANZA!"

"Famous names in fiction? Like Huckleberry Fi---"

"That's, right, THE LEAGUE is DR. JEKYLL! TOM SAWYER! THE INVISIBLE MAN! DRACULA'S BRIDE! DORIAN GRAY!"

"What? Who? Dracula's what? I don't understand how they all could be---"

"SIT at the EDGE of your seats as THE LEAGUE battles beasts of UNIMAGINEABLE HORROR, in daring fights of FURY and RAGE! Machine guns BLASTING, super race cars REVVING---"

"If Tom Sawyer is in it, how are there machine guns and super cars---"

"Then watch as SEAN CONNERY leads them all to VICTORY and SAVES THE WORL---"

Click.

"....Hello? Hello? MovieCall is insulted! Hello?..."

You must go see it, if only for purely Frances McDormand and Keanu Reeves reasons. There's a lot of blah-blah old people talk, but seriously, Keanu Reeves is hot.

Dear Keanu:

I don't know that ANYONE could convincingly play Buddha, but certainly you couldn't. I'll accept that you're the devil's son, that you're the computer Jesus, and even that you're a machinist who helps build water powered cars or some shit. But Buddha is a stretch, even for me.

It was truly an exercise in futility trying to watch this movie. The bad hair, the terrible "blackface," and let us not overlook your struggle with accents. Holy hell, let us not forget.

Save your $9.50 and rent Ocean's Twelve when it comes out on video, if you feel you must see it at all. Halfway through this piece of celluloidal waste, Dan turned to me and said "So... I guess Steven Soderberg didn't direct this." At about two hours, I looked at Dan and told him that I was bored and asked him "How much longer?"

His response was "Only three more plot twists."

Last night we watched the documentary Gigantic, about uber cool band They Might Be Giants. It was good, but not in the way you'd expect from a band like They Might Be Giants.

After it was over, I told Dan: "You're my favorite rock star that I have sex with."

I couldn't hear what he mumbled back, but it sounded like "Thank you." (It better have been "Thank you.") (Maybe I should say these things when he's awake.)

After the forty third hour into the epic that is "Brazil," I just wanted to throw something at the television, but was too tired. Then I just wanted to watch "Pirates of the Carribbean."

I settled on making jokes about Pink Floyd's "The Wall" instead, because of the similarities I found between the two movies. Particularly funny was when I shouted "You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat" during one of the thousand scenes where someone is dragged away by a S.W.A.T. team wearing shoulder pads.

Or maybe it was just funny in my head. Dan was not amused.

"You just don't like this movie because there aren't any breasts, or things getting blown up."

"On the contrary, there have been many random explosions in this movie, one of them right at the beginning, and oh look! There's a tit now!"

My fulfilled prerequisites for boobs and fire still did not sway my opinion of "Brazil" in the positive direction, however.

Thrills! Chills! Hot Topless Men! Excitement!

If you enjoy witty, clever, things-blowing-up popcorn movies, and can stomach Penelope Cruz for two hours (even if you, like me, can't -- I assure you she doesn't talk much,) Sahara is pretty kickass. It has Steve Zahn, first of all. That should be the only thing I have to say. Everyone loves Steve Zahn.

Of course, I did have to get past the first twenty minutes, where all I could hear was my brain screaming "WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE SAYING? I swear, I cannot understand a GODDAMN WORD that comes out of her mouth. SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Then she gets captured and smacked around a bit, so she doesn't talk much. And Steve Zahn blows some stuff up. And the creepy guy from Six Feet Under who's now on The American Version of The Office is funny, and did I mention Matthew McConaughey walks around without his shirt a lot?

What a terrible waste of talent. I mean it. And it's no one's fault by Robert Rodriguez's. He's gone all George Lucas. Too busy worrying about how to make the effects look super cool, without giving any attention to the actors. ACTORS, people! They're actors. Most of them can't even think up something clever to say on their own, let alone walk and emote at the same time. DAMN YOU, CGI! It's all your fault! You are a cruel temptress! You've ruined all who have trusted you! Lucas, the Wachowskis, Spielberg, Raimi, and now my beloved Robert Rodriguez. WHO'S NEXT?

I never realized I could care so much for professional Scrabble players. I never realized I would be using the term "professional Scrabble players" in reference to actual events.

Brassed Off - Oooh, vintage Ewan MacGregor. The movie is great. And a tear-jerker. And funny. Did I mention great?*

Whale Rider - It made me cry like, 4.85 times harder than Brassed Off, but it was still SO GOOD.

Both movies include people speaking with accents, which is always a plus, and that indie-movie feel. Probably because they were indie movies. But whatever, they were great.

Aside from starring Hank Azaria, Bill Murray, Cherry Jones, both John and Joan Cusack, Susan Sarandon, John Turturro, Emily Watson, Cary Elwes, Jack Black and Kyle Gass (AKA, Tenacious D,) and Vanessa Redgrave (with a hilarious Paul Giamatti playing her sidekick,) it was written and directed by Tim Robbins. So I have no idea why the sheer star power alone in this thing didn't help get it off the ground, box-office sales-wise, let alone win it at least three Oscars. Some jerks at the IMDB message boards are claiming the movie was "boring" for the first hour, but those people don't count. Mostly because they probably can't sit still more than twenty minutes when people are talking, and therefore don't deserve to be counted.

The other night I watched a documentary on PBS that blew my fucking mind. It was called "Alone In The Wilderness", about a guy who decided to plunk down on the side of a mountain for 51 years.

The first year he spent building a log cabin from scratch -- and when I say "from scratch," I mean, all he brought with him were the metal ends for his tools. He got up in the woods, whittled out a few axe handles, some sawhorses, and then built a log cabin entirely on his own. I mean, he was hauling HUGE logs down a mountainside all by himself.

About half way through, Dan looked at me and said: "I bet this guy could kick Norm Abram's ass."

I mean, this dude carved his own spoons and bowls. We're not just talking about planting a little garden and doing a little fishing... he built his outhouse by himself, carved out hinges for the doors, and had a kitchen that makes mine look like it was built by a retarded four year old. I was in awe.

I actually had to turn on the closed captions for this one. It ranks up there with The Full Monty and Lock, Stock in the English Accents I Can't Understand category.

Once you get past the accents, the fact that I just watched Homegrown last month and this is the same exact movie except Homegrown has Hank Azaria, successfully getting your girlfriend to stop saying "Dumbledore. Dumbledore. Dumbledore. What a fun word to say!" when Michael Gambon walks into a scene, Layer Cake is not half bad. Definitely worth the rental.

I haven't actually seen this movie, but Joe Rogan has, and his take on it is pretty funny.

While waiting in the dark for our showing of "The Aristocrats" to start, there was a trailer for this documentary, which won some sort of award at Sundance, or Cannes, or whatever other fucking pretentious film festival is posing as the second coming of Jesus On Film. I'd never even heard of this Bear Guy, but as the preview continued on, I became confused. Why was a gay hippie running around with grizzly bears? Was he a scientist? A Bearologist? Who the fuck was this guy?

"Who the fuck is this guy?" I asked.

"He's that dude that lived with bears and then they ate him."

"Did he live with bears because he's gay?"

"No, the bears mauled him because he's gay."

"You sure they didn't maul him because he's nuttier than a shithouse rat?"

I gathered a few observations from the preview:

(1) This man clearly has no formal training in how to live with bears.
(2) This movie looks hilarious, but only in a "Trekkies", "let's make fun of the crazies" way.

All these things Mr. Rogan confirms, if you read his post first. It makes me want to rent the movie even more. Notice, if you will, that I said "rent." That's because I'm pretty sure my laughing hysterically in the theater is not going to go over well with the serious bear documentary loving community. Also, you can check out the halfwits at the IMDb getting beligerent over the whole "gay as a room full of dicks" thing.

I think what I can assume to be true from this information, without even having to see the movie, is that Bears Are Easily Annoyed. But it takes thirteen years of latent homosexual tomfoolery before the bears eat you. The end.

Don't let the title fool you. This is not about wacky Chinese college students getting stuck out in the woods and having to kick some zombie ass with a chainsaw. This is about vampires, and eggs, and small boys peeing, and rice, and talking about peeing.

I originally picked this movie off of Netflix because it has Gordon Liu in it, and I like Gordon Liu. (This is where your Poser Detector should go off: "What movies," you should ask,"have you seen starring Gordon Liu, other than Kill Bill?" I would respond: "Shut up." Followed by: "The reason I'm renting more Gordon Liu movies is because I liked him in Kill Bill -- is doing research a crime? No? Shut up again.")

This movie looked like it was shot by the Power Rangers director, while the Power Rangers television show was on summer hiatus. Only instead of cool matching spandex biker uniforms, there's a lot more talk of pee. The audio options were: a dub in Mandarin Chinese, a dub in English, and a dub in "Simple Chinese." None of these audio dubs matched up to what the actor's lips were doing. Even though I watched it with the English subtitles, it still bothers me when the lips don't match up.

Other than that, it would have been a good movie, except for the constant talk about peeing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against scatalogical humor -- I just don't want exploding bathrooms in my kung fu films. I especially don't want to watch a ten year old boy give birth to a baby vampire. That's just bizarre.

By the end credit roll, I was left with many questions. My first question was: "Where's the rest of the movie?" My second question was: "Why is there a bunch of really cool shit happening during the credits that wasn't in the movie?" And my third question was: "No really -- is there more movie? Am I missing something? Like the rest of the movie?"

Some research let me know that Shaolin Vs. Evil Dead was just released last year, and apparently a Kill-Bill-Style part two is in the works. Well, hooray. You could have maybe warned me ahead of time, by, oh, I dunno, naming it "Shaolin Vs. Evil Dead Part One"? Give me a break, I'm American, okay? I can't figure this out for myself. I just get angry.

Aside from satiating my Keanu lust, this was actually quite a good film. I've heard it compared to American Beauty about nine hundred thousand times. Let me tell you why this is not American Beauty (a movie I like and own on DVD,) and in fact, is nothing like American Beauty: The characters in Thumbsucker were fucked up, but in a way I found to be refreshingly realistic. The characters in American Beauty were just fucked.

For instance, who do you know that would stand around for an hour, filming garbage floating down the street? American Beauty was great and all, but I would never want to make friends with any of the crazies in that film. But I'd love to have Vince Vaughn and Benjamin Bratt and Keanu Reeves as quirky little supporting character roles in the story of my life.

"Why are they running away, again?"

"They're not running away, they're trying to get to a party."

"So what's Jerry Reed doing with the semi truck? Is he with them?"

"Yes. The truck is full of beer."

"Full of beer? Did they steal it? Is that why they're trying to outrun the Smokeys?"

"Yes. No. I don't know if they stole it. And don't use the term 'smokeys'."

"Why don't they want anyone looking at the beer?"

"Because it's Coors."

"Is Coors a magical beer?"

"No, Coors can't be transported east of the Mississippi."

"...because it's magical?"

"What? NO. Because when this movie was shot, Coors wasn't allowed to be sold in the... you know what? Just be quiet."

"I still don't understand about the beer. Why do they need Coors? What's wrong with Budweiser? And how come they have to bring the beer to the party?"

"There's nothing wrong with Budweiser, they just wanted to steal the Coors."

"So they DID steal it!"

"Look, I don't know. All I know is, they want to drink Coors at a party in Georgia or somewhere, and so they have to smuggle the beer. Because it's Coors."

"Because it's magical."

"Yes, because it's magical."

"....where is the ambulance? And Dom DeLuise?"

"The... Oh my God. You're retarded."

"No I'm not! Where's Sammy Davis, Jr.?"

"That's CANNONBALL RUN!"

"Isn't that what we're watching?"

"Next time we rent a movie, you have to watch it by yourself first."

I did not understand a goddamn thing in this movie. All I kept thinking was: "Take a shower, Jake Gyllenhaal!"

WARNING: If you rent this while on your period, you'll spend the last part of it sobbing like a little bitch.

It's puppets, and they don't pretend like it's not puppets, which mean it's even more funny that it's puppets.

Wow. Watching a bunch of rich kids knife fight. I've never been so bored.

(The Kiera Knightly Goes Brunette edition)

How many more times can I watch this movie in one week? There are no explosions, no gratuitous violence, no sex -- not even any hand holding. Are there subliminal messages in this thing? I can't look away. It's like a chaste train wreck.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Andrew Lloyd Webber stopped writing horrible pop operas and started slicing people up in bullet time? Now you don't have to.

I never read the comic book, but I know Alan Moore has a penchant for angst, and apparently doesn't own a razor. But the movie is a little like a narcotic if you're watching it while on your period. I feel as though my hormones have been carbonated.

It's not every day you 'ship a vigilante burn unit victim and the 12 year old boy he keeps as a girlfriend. It's also not every day you weep for the fictional death of Stephen Fry, I don't imagine.

So... Thomas Jane takes his shirt off. Like, a lot. And some stuff blows up and some other stuff happens and Thomas Jane takes his shirt off.

I could've done without John Travolta's alarmingly expanding head filling up the screen for some of the time, but... Thomas Jane takes his shirt off. Like, almost more than he does in Deep Blue Sea. And that's something.

For some reason this movie was only released in negative five cities and 20th Century Fox can bite me. I mean, uh, 20th Century Fox didn't bother to promote its own fucking film, and if you lived in L.A. or New York for ten minutes last summer and decided to catch a flick, you may have seen this movie on the marquee. More likely, because the ball-less pussified wieners people at Fox failed to stand by this film, most of you probably not only haven't seen it, but have no idea what I'm talking about.

It's a Mike Judge movie. It's just as good as Office Space. It stars Luke Wilson pre-Me-Wanting-To-Smack-Him. It stars Maya Rudolph whom I love. Everyone is funny. Everything is satirical and therefore brilliant. For some reason this was not acceptable to Fox. COMEDY IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!! ESPECIALLY COMEDY THAT MAKES FUN OF AMERICANS!!

You should see this movie because it's more gooder than Wild Hogs. (I assume.) Netflix it immediately.

Why did it take me so long to finally see this movie?

Oh yeah, because I'm an asshole.

If you're a fan of Things That Don't Suck, then you'll like this flick.

Have I seen this movie yet? No. Yes!

Am I going to? What, are you kidding? Four words for you: greased up naked Gerard Butler. (Wait... that's five words. Oh, who has time to COUNT? For God's sake, there's half-naked men in capes going on!)

It doesn't even have to have a plot. It could just be a bunch of dudes yelling to techno music and I would still post "OMG BEST MOVIE EVER!" to as many dorky message boards as I can find.

I mean, I liked TROY. Who am I trying to fool by playing it coy?

And since [SPOILER!] historically, all 300 soldiers died, and I'm assuming that's the ending here, too, I'm going to go ahead and propose a sequel. It takes place in hell with their reanimated souls dancing around in fire and screaming "YEAH, GET SOME!!" (And no, that doesn't even have to make sense, either. As long as they still have those abs and their facial hair is all kempt.) In hell they would be even sweatier, too, so, bonus!

Projected box office take on "300 Again: This Time, Satan's Got The Problem": 300 billionty gajillion.

UPDATE: I can't really post coherent thoughts about a movie I only half-comprehended. I was a bit distracted. In addiction to pectoral overload there were a lot of boobies, too. But don't take a guy who enjoys historical accuracy. If you do, it's all "Where did the giant elephants come from? How did they saddle a rhinocerous? Why are they fighting in their underwear? THIS MOVIE IS DUMB!"

There are two types of people in this world: People who barely stayed awake during this movie, and fucking liars.

(Alternate Review: This film does NOT go to 11.)

At first the startling low-quality production on this mockumentary will make you weep. And then Rob Corddry shows up and you cry some more for Correspondents of Daily Shows Past.

Then Rob Riggle shows up and kicks out the mother fucking jams, man. I mean, he saves the whole movie. Then you weep for how brilliant it was even though it appeared to have been shot on that handi-cam your mother had back when you were in the fifth grade, you know, the one that weighed eleven hundred pounds and had a two bit resolution. (And the only sound the built in microphone ever picked up was wind.)

I like movies where things blow up, people get killed, stuff happens rapidly, and Dwight Yoakam gets all the hilarious and understated roles. I also like pornos.

This movie pretty much had all of that.

By the way, Amy Smart: Do you even have an agent? Remember when you did Scotland, PA and Varsity Blues and those movies were great and you got paid to be in them, too? Remember that?

This movie started out all awesome, with people looking awesome and awesome little animations and funky stuff, and awesome Ving Rhames. And I thought to myself: "THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME. LOOK AT THE SWING DANCING TO OUTKAST MUSIC... AWESOME!"

And then somewhere around the hour fifteen mark, I woke up and asked myself: "Why were the first twenty minutes so awesome? Oh yeah: Ving Rhames."

Spoiler: Ving Rhames eats it after the first twenty minutes. Also, all my favorite songs that were supposedly "Idlewild" soundtrack songs that came out before the movie WEREN'T EVEN IN THE MOVIE.

For the record, I have not seen either of the previous "Fast Yet Furious" movies. And for the record -- because they do not have Lucas Black, adorable growds up Bow-Wow, or a plethora of hot Japanese gangster dudes -- I probably never will.

Someone once said this movie had a plot, but that person was obviously having a bad day that day. (A bad day in the sense that they forgot what a plot was.)

Just in case you're blind and can't see the title card, or you're wondering "Who made this piece of crap?", Gus Van Sant puts his name in the title. Convenience, people. It's the name of the game when you're making crappy movies.

That said, if you like mumbling ambiguity, try watching "Last Days"! If muttering and really lengthy shots of things like plants or the side of a building fascinate you, this is a flick you gotta rent!

Seriously, what is going on, someone tell me what I just watched. I kept thinking I rolled over on to the remote and hit the "mute" button. Then, just to fuck with me and the relative volume I'm listening at, Ricky Jay and Kim Gordon appear for fifteen seconds with some interesting, non-sequiter dialogue spoken in totally normal voices. And then they disappear. And something about the yellow pages and mormons? And Lukas Haas was a dick.

I was completely confused.

Save yourself the trouble and just download "Death to Birth" from Myspace or Itunes or wherever it is you kids are stealing your music from these days. Because that was the only scene worth the price of admission.

I can't remember what channel this was airing on or why we DVR'd it, but I'm glad it happened. It was unexpectedly sweet and very funny.

It starred the Mac kid and Lewis Black and that redhaired girl from the Strangers With Candy movie and the fat kid from The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. It also had Columbus Short, who is cute with or without nerdy glasses.

I mostly enjoyed the movie because it was full of "reject" type characters, but unlike every "geeks fight back!" movie in history, the kids were not painfully geeky. They were adorable geeky. It wasn't a cut-and-paste college humor movie, is what I'm saying. (Though I still love "PCU.")

Two things.

1. I really love Radha Mitchell.
2. The Crazies remake was really good. I dunno if the original was any good or not.

I saw this movie for the first time on F/X last night, and all I could think was "My God, Mark Ruffalo really wants that BLT."

"This doesn't even make any sense."

"It doesn't have to, it's a Michael Bay movie."

"They didn't go to the dark side of the moon on Apollo 11."

"I know, but it's a Michael Bay movie."

"But it doesn't make any sense!"

"THE LAST ONE HAD ROBOT JESUSES IN IT, OKAY?"

I like how Ellen Page's friend is almost constantly drunk, but when she gets arrested for underage drinking, it's all Ellen's fault. I BLAME CISCO.