Star Trek

I watched the latest Star Trek last night and naturally had to give my review, as there just aren’t enough reviews of it on the Internet.

Good Things:

The plot was decent and easy to follow, I was kind of worried about that after seeing “Lost” and “Brisco County Jr” but it was less convoluted than some of the other Trek movies.

Action scenes, lots of them. Some of the Trek movies seem to forget that Star Trek is a Sci-Fi Action series and try to be a Sci-Fi Drama. This one did not make that mistake.

The Villain: Nero had a legitimate reason for being a prick, and going after young Kirk and Spock. Star Trek needs dramatic Villains in order for the heroes to “give it their all” with Nero you could see the reason for him being an evil bastard unlike some of the Star Trek villains whose reasons for being a villain were pretty lame. See my post on the 10 lamest Star Trek villains.

Eric Bana played it a lot lower key than any other Star Trek villain, I’m not sure if I like that, on the one hand it made it more believable like someone whose rage has so overwhelmed them that they dare not voice it out loud, but I have to wonder if it would have made it more Star Trekish if he played it all out over-dramatic like Malcolm McDowell, or if it would have made it cartoonish. I guess we’ll never know.

How it fits in the Trek Continuum; it doesn’t. They made sure to say over and over time travel destroyed the old Trek Continuum (It was Trek and JJ Abrams, it had to have time travel).

Casting: When I read who the cast was my first reaction was, “You’re kidding me right?” Then I read in some review how the cast really tried to imitate the originals and I thought “Oh no, I don’t want to see them do bad imitations of the originals.” So my expectations on the cast was pretty low.

Luckily the actors really tried to make the characters they were playing their own, with only a couple points of reference to the originals. The only exception was Kirk who had absolutely no Shat what so ever, but that was sort of explained in the plot.

What I didn’t like about it.

Camera Work from Hell: If done right a moving camera with quick edits can really add to the feeling of action. Abrams decided that he would get the crew from MTV Jams to film and put in more edits than an entire episode of “Lost” into a 30 second scene. And that was just when crewmembers were walking down the corridor, when heavy action scenes came up it really got confusing.

Nostalgia (Present Day) to cover lack of imagination:
The scene of Kirk racing in the Corvette was better than Picard four wheeling on an alien planet (That was just totally out of place) but still a more futurish way of showing that young Kirk was a trouble-maker wouldn’t be hard to pull off.

Characters talking over each other:
It was meant to show conflict, but it really made all of them seem ruder than I would stand for in real life, and in Star Trek I’ve gotten used to everyone being more polite than the present. They will destroy the galaxy to get what they want, but they won’t be impolite about it.

Overall, I liked the newest addition to Star Trek and hope they make a few sequels based on it. It wasn’t “Wrath of Khan” or “First Contact” but at least it wasn’t “TMP” or “Insurrection”.

A new twist to reality TV shows.

Ever since Survivor first aired dozens of “Reality TV” shows have sprung up using the same formula; Contestants are placed in to two teams and made to compete, the losing team has to vote off one of their members. The teams get narrowed down until they merge and start competing individually.

The drama in these shows comes in watching the group decide how to vote. It was a great concept when Survivor first did it but it has been repeated so many times that it is now just putting new faces into the same roles. All the “Reality TV” shows have tried to throw little twists into the game to add variety but none have tried to change the basic formula so the psychology remains the same, which is why these shows have gotten stale.

A new twist to these shows would be to add a forfeit vote. Any member could forfeit their vote at the cost of half their earnings. If every member on the team forfeits their vote no one gets sent home that week.

In the extreme example if there are 18 contestants divided into teams of 9 and one team totally dominated the other for the first 8 challenges before they merged and they all voted to forfeit each time, the winning team’s members would be competing for $1,000,000 and the losing team’s members would take home $7,875 if someone from that team won. If the first person voted off once they merged was from the winning team they would take home $2,000 but if they were from the losing team they’d make a whopping $15.62.

Of course it would never come to that, human nature wouldn’t allow 9 individuals to sacrifice a fortune in order to save someone they just met, but it would add a little spice in the otherwise boring middle section of the game.

When a team is down to four, it would be in everyone’s best interest to all forfeit the vote and still have numbers to compete for the $500,000. But if one sneaky bastard decided to vote off his biggest competitor on his team he would gain an advantage in cutting down the number of competitors he would be going up against in the individual rounds.

Throwing this curve in would really make the people who say, “I’m not here for the money just the experience” have a chance to show the world if they really mean it.

There would also be some great moments when everyone tells every one else that they will forfeit and no one does, and everyone votes individually showing people their true rankings in the team.

If a “Reality TV” show were to add this twist, it would throw in a whole new level to the stale formula for a couple of seasons, until it got stale as well.

Better off Ted

I don’t get a lot of the new “comedy” shows on TV. I’ve tried to sit through “The Office” and “30 Rock” and was left with the feeling of what the heck did I just watch. I could see the set up to jokes, I could see where the joke was supposed to be placed, but the “jokes” just seemed never to arrive.

So when “Better off Ted” came on after “Scrubs” I groaned, thinking it would be another humorless comedy.

Then I watched the set-up. A guy in charge of the research and development department at a huge corporation. I thought cool, that’s my idea of a dream job (Yes I’m a geek) all the benefits of being a mad scientist without having to do the hard work.

Then they introduced “the kid”. Kids in comedies are really a hit or miss thing. It is very easy for a kid’s performance to be technically perfect, but fall completely flat. The actress they got was spot on and delivered a great performance and was given just enough airtime to shine without getting annoying.

Then came the love triangle. Portia de Rossi was fantastic as the emotionless boss. She played the unsocial and unapproachable woman so well it comes off sexy as hell. That’s not an easy thing to do.

Andrea Anders does a good job as the quirky Linda. It’s a tough role being quirky without being all out insane, right now I think she (and the writers) are playing it a little too safe and not letting the character really let loose, but if the network lets the show continue I’m sure they can have a great deal of fun with her character and Anders does show the potential to run with it.

The researchers Lem and Phil have great chemistry right off the bat, you really get the feeling that these two have worked together so long that they have that weird non-gay long-term relationship that develops between people who have to spend years together.

Altogether I love this new show, I haven’t wanted a comedy show to succeed this much since I first saw “Scrubs”.

Unfortunately, my batting average for comedies is pretty bad. Almost every new show that I like gets canceled immediately. Hopefully this will change once ABC sees that “Better off Ted” has the full support of the vast “Project Savior” blog network behind it.

“Better off Ted” airs Wed 8:30 EST on ABC.

24 Day 8. A look at what’s in store for Jack Bauer next season.

Spoiler Alert

Since 2001 the writers of Fox’s 24 have been giving us bigger and more elaborate conspiracies that Jack needs to stop within one day; Season 8 will be no exception.

In season 8 Jack must deal with eco-terrorists who have taken over the Federal Reserve with the help rogue penguins disguised as NBA players. The penguins demand that all man-made CO2 emissions must end or they will convert the economy from being based on the US Dollar to being based on pilot fish.

President Allison Taylor is told by her cabinet that if she doesn’t take strong action she could lose the election to her rival, the war-hawk Governor Saddam Hitler Bush. She reluctantly decides that if the penguins can’t be defeated she will launch a nuclear strike against Antarctica, even though the resulting melt off will flood most coastal cities.

Meanwhile Jack has learned that the Chinese government secretly revived both his ex-wife and former co-worker Nina, they performed a brain swap and put Nina’s brain into Jack’s ex-wife’s body. Nina then became Audrey Raines’ nurse and is holding her hostage.

Jack manages to free Audrey and stop the rogue penguins with the help of Former President Abraham Lincoln who survived the John Wilkes Booth’s assassination attempt and has been secretly working for the CIA as an undercover agent posing as a Japanese Businessman.

Only after he foils these two plots does Jack find out that this was all a diversion to keep government agents from stopping the evil plot by the Atheist-Gay alliance to allow everyone to have Civil Unions.

Jack must fight against that in the second episode.

Star Trek XI: My prediction on its suck factor.

In case you haven’t noticed by my other posts, I’m a huge Star Trek Fan. I’ve got all the series except the original on DVD, and until recently all the movies except, of course, The Motion Picture and V.

I’ve noticed a pattern in which movies suck and which don’t.

The more I want to see one the worse it is, the ones I think will suck turn out great.

I was in high school when The Motion Picture came out, I was waiting for it, I spent my hard earned money on any magazine that mentioned it. I became super trekie in the months before its release.

I don’t think I need to say how bad that turd was, but I will anyway.

It was so bad I refused to watch Wrath of Khan. I switched the channel when it was on HBO and it wasn’t until it was on regular TV that I watched it. I thought it was awesome and kicked myself for not seeing it in the theater.

Search for Spock came out and I rented it, I didn’t have high hopes for it but I wasn’t expecting a turd and that’s exactly what I got. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t a turd. (That’s one hell of a marketing slogan.)

I didn’t rent “The Voyage Home” because I knew it was the wrap up of the last two and I hate wrap up movies. My Father in Law knew I was a Star Trek fan and recorded it for me. I thought it was the funniest and the quirkiest of the series.

I was really looking forward to “The Final Frontier” a new beginning for the series and bigger budget than the shoestring the last 3 had. It ended up sucking the sweat off a dead donkey.

“The Final Frontier” was so bad I avoided the “Undiscovered Country”. When I rented it later it rocked.

After the horrible last season of TNG and the even number curse I dreaded seeing “Generations” but it gave me an excuse to take my wife out to dinner and a movie. I figured if it sucked we could fool around like we used to. They crashed the Enterprise-D, Malcolm McDowell was over the top and Brett Spiner didn’t sing. I loved it.

I knew in “First Contact” they traveled back in time, I personally have never liked it when TNG traveled back in time, TOS handled it well and later Voyager did a great job but I never liked TNG’s time travel shows. So I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it.

I loved it.

With “Insurrection” I thought, the TNG was hitting on all cylinders and a title like Insurrection implies oh, I don’t know, maybe an Insurrection. I was expecting a huge inter-federation war maybe even the Enterprise-E on one side and Wolf commanding the Defiant on the other.

Instead I got guys in bad make-up with mommy issues.

For “Nemesis” I put “Insurrection” out of my mind and went to see Picard vs The Romulans. Instead I got too many Brett Spiners singing and a Picard clone that didn’t look like Picard and was 6” shorter.

When I saw the trailers for “Star Trek” they looked cool and I started to think that it could be a really great new take on the series. Then I remembered that every time I thought a Star Trek movie would be great it sucked. So now I don’t want to see it because I know it will suck, but every time I think a Star Trek movie will suck it turns out great. So now I really want to see it. But every time I think…you get the point.

Beowulf: Old English Bait and Switch

I saw the ads on TV and the badly lit pictures on the box advertising Beowulf, and I assumed what most people did, that it would feature Angelina Jolie as the villain that would prepare for battling the English countryside by doing naked jumping-jacks then jump on her hang-glider, still naked, and kill all the males in the town and then mud-wrestle the town’s women into submission.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

First off Beowulf wasn’t a movie, it was a damn cartoon. The animators spent long hours making sure they got all the actors cheekbones, noses and eyebrows perfect then gave them blank unmoving eyes. The result looked like the cast was channeling Jessica Alba’s “acting” style.

Second, the body they used was Rachel Bernstein’s. She’s got a fine body and if a movie advertised that she would be nude in it I would be fine watching it, but Beowulf went out of its way to imply Angelina Joie would be the naked main character.

Why they went through a got a body double at all in a mystery as the animation of the body was so poor it could have been anyone’s body on screen making me feel double icky watching the scenes with Jolie’s character as it could be a drawing of a sexy babe like Angelina or Rachel, or it could be a drawing of a ken doll with man-boobs there was no way of telling.

Approximation of the animated Jolie/Bernstein

Finally, in order to make room for the Special Effects (Special like some Education classes) they hacked away at the original story and got rid of a few things, most notably why we should give a crap about what happens to Beowulf. Instead of a tortured hero they wrote him as an arrogant, selfish, bastard that was worse than the monster the village hired him to protect them against.

If you must watch this cartoon make sure you get the Rifftrack to go along with it. It is totally unwatchable without it.

The 5 Worst Star Trek Villains (so far).

The Star Trek Universe is known for the Grand Shakespearian style of larger than life heroes, and in order to have larger than life heroes you need great villains. And sometimes you don’t get them.

#5 V’ger


The Voyager Probe traveled to the other side of the Galaxy, became Super-powerful returned to Earth to meet its creator and kills anything that gets in its way, then plugged its electronic ears and said “1000101010101010” which translated from binary means. “La-La-La-La I can’t hear you.”

A computer that will kill anything that gets in the way of its mission and develops a religion about its creator? Wasn’t that the plot of 2001? It didn’t translate to the big screen very well either so this Star Trek rip-off was even worse.

Most fans don’t notice how incredibly lame the villain was due to the incredibly bad direction and pacing. (I don’t mean the slow pace of the movie, I mean their own pacing back and forth waiting for something to happen).

#4 Ad'har


F. Murray Abraham's acting almost made fans forget how lame his character was. His motivation was to kill his mommy because she let him leave home to see the universe.

It would be like spending your entire working life plotting to kill your mom because you wanted to move back in to your old room after college, but were too proud to ask.

I moved back into my mom’s house once. I didn’t have to raise a fleet of Space ships, create a weapon that would destroy that part of the Galaxy or make an elaborate plan to have the Government turn its back on its most sacred principals. Good thing too, I had to borrow the money from her (I still haven’t paid her back).

This doesn’t really make me a bad enough villain to make an entire movie about.


#3 Japanese Fishing Boat


Star Trek 4 gave us the most mismatched battle ever, a fishing boat vs. a Klingon Bird of Prey.

The original movies went counter to how most series go with the villains getting bigger and bader as the series went on. With Star Trek they got smaller. In The Motion Picture V’ger was the size of Jupiter, then Khan stole a Federation Ship smaller than the Enterprise but newer to make it an even match, In ST3 Enterprise took on a Klingon Scout Ship, then in ST4 the Klingon Scout Ship took on a fishing boat. To keep up with this pattern they would have to have the Enterprise-A take on a guy who wanders around in the desert.

#2 Sybok

Spock’s half-brother wandered around in the desert then takes over the Enterprise-A in search of God. Takes them to a guy and gets killed.

#1 Praetor Shinzon


Great concept for a villain Picard’s clone but the real villain was the casting director. Shinzon didn’t look like Picard was 6 inches shorter and 20 lbs lighter. I tried to suspend my disbelief but couldn’t.

If they had done a Van Damn and had Patrick Stewart play both roles it could have been cool. That would have made the overacting by Brett Spiner tolerable.

Honorable Mention

Soran


Soran could have been the end to the franchise, his motivation was to get his drug called the Nexus.

Malcolm McDowell pulled it off and made it watchable, but imagine Keanu Reeve in that role.

“Like I need to get back to the Nexus, Dude. Bummer that I need to like totally blow up a planet to do it.”

The Greatest Review of why Superman III sucked ever written.

I usually don’t post about other people’s posts but this review of Superman III was right on the money.

I thought that Superman III sucked because Richard Pryor was miscast and still out acted everyone else on the set (I’m not a fan of Richard Pryor’s acting BTW).

But Bad News From Outer Space peels back that top layer of suck to reveal the next layer of suck, then peels that one back getting to the core of suck.

My Psychic Nutritionist Put Me Back On The Couch
Superman III – Review Redux

I know now why I hate this movie so much. I’ve watched it so many times over the years and just accepted that it sucked. It sucked because Richard Pryor was sadly miscast. It sucked because the humor was aimed at the pre-school level. It sucked because the villain is a lame retread of Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor. It sucked. It sucked. It sucked.

But most of all, it sucked because it wasn't about anything. It had NO story to tell. It had a lot of plot. It had several action scenes. But when you add them all together, they meant absolutely nothing.

(Read the whole review here)

BTW: the rest of his site is hilarious as well.

Wereroach (A movie Review)

A garbage collector played by Dirk Squarejaw, is bitten by a wereroach while working the graveyard shift, under the full moon.

One month later he is having sex with his girl friend (Ima E.Z. Fucgue) and starts to change.

Even the monotone pleadings from Ima of, “Oh, stop.” And “Don’t, I’m serious, if you turn into a roach I’m leaving you.” Can’t stop the transformation.

For the next week he continues to change into a roach at night and live as a human during the day. Until Orkin Van Hellsing appears and kills him with a silver roach hotel.
Ima falls into Orkin’s arms and declares, “I loved him with all my heart, but ick, I mean really, ick” then adds, “I’m sure you know how to use your power nozzle.”

The movie fades out with images of Orkin’s power nozzle sliding into crack in the wall moving in and out until it blows it’s bug goo. (At least that’s what I think that was.)

Opinion:
Oddly enough the Roaches out acted the humans in this fine piece of cinema. The production number of the roaches tap dancing in front of the full moon was fantastic.

Brutal Cop II The Revenge

Brutal Cop II starts were Brutal Cop 1: The Beginning left off, with brutal cop pummeling several guys. As the fight progresses he pulls one of the thugs arms off (In a splendid digital recreation of the famous scene from Cat People) and proceeds to beat the remaining thugs to a bloody pulp with it.

After the fight is over we are treated to a flashback of the scene in Brutal Cop 1 where BC’s wife was killed when the Evil Rapper and his thugs broke into Brutal Cop’s bedroom while he was having sex with his wife.

The enraged Brutal Cop quickly dispatches the Evil Rapper’s men, one by reaching into the guys gut, pulling out his gall stone and throwing it into his eye, blinding him and causing him to fall out the window. Unfortunately while Brutal Cop is busy with the henchmen the Evil Rapper pulls out a giant dildo and impales Brutal Cop’s wife.

The Evil Rapper escapes and Brutal Cop vows to hunt him down.
After the flashback the movie proceeds with the Evil Rapper devising schemes to defeat Brutal Cop’s relentless attacks.

In one fight Brutal Cop is fighting the henchmen in a drained swimming pool, naturally as Brutal Cop pummels the henchmen the pool fills up with their blood. Not able to swim Brutal Cop outsmarts the Evil Rapper by pulling apart one of his opponent’s ribcage and using the thug’s lungs as floaties.

In another fight Brutal Cop is trapped in a pit with some of the Evil Rapper’s men, so he reaches in and grabs their intestines, uses the man’s head as a counter weight, wraps it around a beam and climbs to safety.

Then for the final fight things really get gore filled.

If you are looking for a movie with blood, guts, and flying body parts, this is the movie to see.

Who will save us from “The Re-Boot”?

I am a huge horror film
fan; I am also a huge Comic Book fan. One thing both these films have in common is the need for sequels. In the horror film realm these follow a predictable pattern.

The first film: This is a the low budget nightmare brought to film that some writer worked years on and lost friends and family to make, it has little pieces of insanity that only the writer knows the meaning of. The raw emotions of the actors are on display not because it was originally written that way, but because the set department had $14.63 to build the set where the characters motivation is discussed. It has a dark edgy feel because budget limitations force it to be shot in the dark after the actors have been up for 18 hours.

The first film either is a smash hit or total dud, if it’s a hit the sequel is made.

The Second Film: This one goes one of two ways, the remake or new storyline.

The remake: bigger budget, flasher scenes, less interesting plot. They look at a the ideas that the writer started to include but didn’t have a budget for and strip them out of the movie. The horror scenes are flashier but less imaginative. These normally end up as a dud watched only by the fans of the series later.

The New Storyline: This is when magic is sometimes made. They grab an idea that was born in the first movie and run with it. When it works like in Friday the 13th Part 2 which introduced Jason coming back to life to seek revenge on the Camp Counselors who killed his mother while she was trying to kill them for letting him die. This odd little loop of illogic made the fact that he was unkillable easier to follow.

This New Storyline idea also brought us Amanda, the greatest female slasher ever, from the Sleepaway Camp Series.

The Third Film: The final (blank).

In the third film the original crew is back and they are going to kill off the maniac for good, once and for all. They find something previously unknown about the maniac that is his greatest weakness. They kill him off in a way that is final and he is never coming back.

The Fourth Film: After being killed in a way that prevents him from ever being resurrected, he comes back to life. There is no plot to this one just going from one scene of teenager hacking to the next.

The Series: Odd little trivia is thrown in to explain the maniac but it’s mostly just more teenager hacking.

The WTF: About the 7th or 8th outing a director
trying to make a name for himself will take the series and twist it around so bad that you wonder if the series personally harmed his family in some way and this is his form of revenge.

With the Halloween series we got Michael Myers vs the Ninjas, starring Donald Pleasance long after he had been dead. I don’t mean flashbacks, they actually tried to take scenes and out takes from the other movies and act like he was part of the action.

With the Howling series we got Line-Dancing. I’m serious there was a Howling movie that was 90% line-dancing.

With Nightmare on Elm St, we got Freddy’s Dead. Where it’s revealed that Freddy wasn’t getting revenge on the people who killed him by killing their kids. He was seeking revenge on any kid who grew up on Elm St anywhere.

After the WTF installment the original writers and producers take a sudden cut in revenue from royalties as their older films aren’t in demand anymore.

To remedy this they bring back the original cast and make homage to what they thought was great about the series.

Halloween got Halloween H2O.
Nightmare on Elm St got New Nightmare
The Living Dead got Return of the Living Dead.

The idea of the is not to make a blockbuster film, but one that will bring back some respect to the good films of the series because this is where the series should end.

Unfortunately, Hollywood can’t let a great idea die with some dignity. They steal a page from the comic book films and do a reboot with the idea of starting the series over.

But it just never works.

Dawn of the Dead was quaint, Rob Zombie’s Halloween wasn’t as good as the poorly produced original, Texas Chainsaw Massacre was worse than the bad rip offs of the original.

So now Hollywood is releasing a reboot of the one series that didn’t need to be rebooted. Friday the 13th. In the series it was shown that Jason is unkillable, the only thing you can do to him immobilize him in some way, then run like hell.

All he is now is a killing machine with a mask and a machete, he can fit in anywhere. In Space like in Jason X, on Times Square in Jason takes Manhattan (I was disappointed that he didn’t go on Broadway in that one, I would have loved to see him in a chorus line).

All they need for a Friday the 13th film is to put him in an original setting (I’d like to see Jason in King Arthur’s Court) and have him be who he is: The Unstoppable force of Evil that can’t be conquered by a greater force. He can only be slowed down through great courage and trickery.

My Favorite Christmas Movies

I absolutely love cross-genre films. Sci-Fi/ Horror, Coming of Age/ Slasher, Romantic Comedy/ Maniac Killer on the loose, ect… So Naturally I my favorite Christmas Movies are the ones that push the boundaries and cross over into other Genres. Here are my favorite Christmas Movies and I hope some of them will warm your heart as well.

Maniac Elf on 5th Ave
tis a December to Dismember.
Will Ferrell goes Feral as an Elf who gets laid off due to the downturn. To exact his revenge he hunts down the Wall St executives who got huge sums of money from the bailout and didn’t spend anything on toys for poor kids. (All of them.)

Bloody Reindeer War Games.
aka Saving Private Rudolph
Reindeer War games turn deadly when Rudolph is captured by terrorists and Santa must lead the other Reindeers to save him and get back to the workshop in time to save Christmas.

Mrs Santa's Toys
Starring Jenna Jameson
While Santa is out delivering presents, Mrs Claus and some female Elves play with their own toys.
Best Line: “I may not play well with others, but I sure know how to play with my Elf.”

Santa’s Slay Ride of Terror
the last ride of your life.
3 little kids get their wish, to ride in Santa’s sled. Little do they realize that in order to deliver every child’s present in under 24 hours he needs to accelerate faster than the Space Shuttle and avoid unfriendly countries anti aircraft missiles, and when Lance Hendrickson and the Chinese Mafia show up things get really ugly.

A massacre on 42nd St
Gun toteing Elves, Shoppers at Macys being impaled by Reindeer horns, People getting Candy Kaned and I won’t mention what is done with the ornaments. A good time for the whole family.

Yule time Yule Die
AKA Bloody Christmas Tree - Manatree's Revenge
Manatree is reawakened for Christmas, and this is one Yule Log that won’t go down without a fight.

Deadly Ornaments - Made in China
A documentary about the high levels of lead found in Ornaments made in China.

Dradle Killer
Portrait of The Chanukah CHacker
A Jewish kid gets his revenge on those who picked on him for not celebrating Christmas.

Season's Beatings.
‘Tis the Season to Die as Uncle Fred drinks too much Egg Nog and gets violent.

Silent but Deadly Night
After the Fruitcake
Terrorists attempt mass murder by putting deadly Sarin Gas capsules, that will only release the gas after they’ve been eaten, in all the fruitcake sold this season. Total Death Count 3.

5 Upcoming Documentaries.

Hollywood has ruined all the fiction genres and the audiences are starting to revolt. With documentary makers like Michael Moore and Spurlock carving a niche in that genre it’s only a matter of time before the geniuses in Hollywood begin using their marketing “skills” to give recycled names to documentaries.
Here are some upcoming Documentaries to avoid.

Recall of the Killer Tomatoes
George Clooney and Teri Weigel investigate the 2008 outbreak of salmonella tainted tomatoes.

China Syndrome II
Michael Douglas talks about the effects of Lead paint on children's toys.

Presidency of the Living Dead.
By Michael Moore and George Romero. A look at George W Bush’s years in office, and the effects it had on the nation.

Final Destination
The end of the Airlines due to high fuel costs and the impact it has on stranded passengers.

Batman Begins taking Steroids
The Barry Bonds Story. How he went from a 3rd rate player to the home run King.

Mama Mia (A straight guy’s review.)

Years ago I ran a movie review web site, but for some unknown reason everyone who hosted it got complaints leading them to shut it down. Who knew some people would get offended by a picture of Jesus on the cross with the caption “Hamme(red)” on my review of “The Passion of the Christ”?

I recently felt the urge to write another review. “Dark Knight” was still not out on DVD, so I thought I’d watch “Mama Mia” and review it.

As my wife and I left my house to head to the Video Store a blindingly bright light appeared on my lawn and an older version of myself materialized naked in front of us. He was obviously weakened by his travels and used all his energy to give me this speech.

“I don’t have much time, I was able to use all the energy on Earth in order to bend the timeline back on itself so that I could give you this warning.
“Don’t rent ‘Mama Mai.’

“I’ll be dragged back to my own time now, which has nearly destroyed by my using this machine to get you this message. And I will probably be executed for causing its destruction… but it is worth it as long as you don’t see that movie.”

The older version of me popped out of existence before I could ask him pressing questions about the future like, “Does Ewe Boll ever win an Oscar?”

I thought about the advise that my older self gave me, and decided to ignore it. It was probably just a practical joke, I’ve been known to do things like that. Also I didn’t like how my wife stared at his naked package.

In my fit of jealousy, we continued on to our car.

As I drove to the Video Store, several mid-sized cars surrounded us then cut us off bringing so to halt. I rolled down the window to yell at them but a redheaded guy jumped out of the lead car and ran over to us.

“We are the Molly Maguires, We’ve come oot of our 200 year hiding to warn ye aboot seeing that movie: ‘Mama Mia’”

Before I could think of a suitable reply, several black sedans pulled up and started shooting at them.

“Aye Shite, It’s the Illuminati! Our cover’s blown.” The man screamed. “But if it keeps ye from seeing that Movie, it’s worth it.”

Luckily having the forces of evil shooting at them made them clear the road so we could proceed to the video store.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the video store, Jack Bauer from the series “24” approached us and said. “I’ve no time to explain, but it is critical that you don’t watch ‘Mamma Mia’. The fate of the free world depends on it!”

“Ah, aren’t you a fictional character?” I asked.

Jack looked sheepishly at the ground, then disappeared.

“Maybe we should take his advise.” My wife said.

“Yeah, there could be bomb in the store.” I said. “We should go to the one across town.”

So we got in the car and left.

Driving across town, hundreds of flying cows landed in front of the car and refused to leave no matter how much I honked the horn.

The lead cow came up to my window and said. “The beings that you know as cows are actually aliens sent by the Galactic Council to keep the Reptile Race in check. We needed to break our cover in order to warn you not to see ‘Mamma Mia’”

As I took her words in, the by-standers transformed from people into Reptiles and started attacking the alien cows. An incredible battle broke out between the Reptiles and the Alien Cows leaving scores dead and demolishing a good portion of the city.

A few blocks from the video store we were stopped once again. This time by a gang of penguins. We were approached by the lead penguin.

“I like pilot fish.” He said. “And as leader of the penguin mob, I shall do everything in my power to make sure you do not see ‘Mamma Mia’”

He then turned to face the rest of the penguins and yelled. “Hit it.”

The penguin mob did a lovely chorus line production of “Putting on the Ritz”.

Halfway through their production a mob of horny seals showed up and the penguins broke formation and started running away. The lead penguin turned to us and said. “Everything but be raped by a seal.” And he waddled off at full speed.

This cleared the road and we were able to make it to the video store.

As we went from our car to the store we passed an alley where two adorable kittens were playing. They were so cute we had to go over and get a closer look. Not far from the kittens were two pieces of string so we grabbed them and used them to play with the kittens.

Eventually the kittens mother showed up and they pranced off. We noticed that it was now to late to see the movie.

So unfortunately I will not be able to give you a review of “Mamma Mia”. Next week, If I don’t get distracted by more kittens, I will bring you a review of “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2”.