Suffering succotash and other unfortunate vegetables, America! Roland McShyster here and we’re back for another hermetically sealed bag of entertainment goodness. What has Hollywood got under the heat lamps for us this week? As usual, it’s their dry rubbery best and we’re here to sort out the inedible from the kinda okay. Let’s take a look at the movies:

In Theaters

The House of the Dead
I’m going to go ahead and go out on a limb here to say this is hands-down the scariest and most accurate Grateful Dead documentary to date. Focusing mainly on the scary butt-funk chateau the band lived in communally until Jerry Garcia’s death, the film also serves as a haunting overview of the band’s career. The filmmakers use extensive archive footage to chilling effect, including clips from when the Dead played the same song for three terrifying hours during a concert in Montreal in 1988. Also of interest to Dead fans and horror fans alike is the extremely early footage of the band as teens, jamming on “Polly Wolly Doodle” for a day and a half.

Intolerable Cruelty
When the original Cruel Intentions was released in 1999, few thought it would spawn a franchise that has included over twenty films. But moviegoers have kept coming back for more emotionally hurtful antics over the years, making hits of Cruel Intentions 2, Be Cruel to Your School, Back to Cruel, Cruel Hand Luke, and Cruel Runnings. The latest installment in the franchise offers more of the same, the bitter mayhem skewing a bit older with George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the lead roles as the filmmakers hope to tap into the lucrative “deceitful 32 to 51-year-old” demographic.

Kill Bill Vol. 1
As usual, Quentin Tarantino has his cock on the pulse of the zeitgeist with his latest film, a jazzy mix of karate, technology, and Snapple commercial antics. This time around, Uma Thurman loses it while downloading the 10,000th patch for Windows XP, thanks to the discovery of a security weakness that allows hackers to use your PC to enter your womb and steal your eggs. As we all have at one time or another, she decides to kill Bill Gates and sets out on a cross-country karate rampage to bring the trillionaire nerd some street justice. Does she succeed? What are you, a gimp? The guy weighs like ninety pounds, I’m only surprised the movie was so long.

Miss Tick River
This heart-rendering drama from director Clint Eastwood is something like a cross between Deliverance and Straw Dogs, a combo like peanut butter and applesauce that nobody was asking for. Big-city smoothie Sean Penn marries a small town beauty queen from some awful redneck backwoods, only to discover that all her neighbors and most of her family like guys with a purty mouth. The plot makes a Peanuts comic strip look unpredictable, but Oscar nominations are still expected since Penn plays a character who isn’t afraid to show his feminine (ass) side.

Runaway Jury
Plausibility gets smacked around like a redheaded stepchild in this Runaway Bride knock-off, which takes the crown from The Lion King as the worst film ever to show Gene Hackman’s bare ass cheeks. Runaway Jury starts out amicably enough, with the story of a trial that’s been dragging on for years with no explanation. Then comes the rub: Every time the moment comes for them to read the verdict, the jury gets cold feet and splits from the courthouse in a hurry, usually piling onto a trolley that pulls away right before the judges and reporters can run out into the street and wave their fists. It’s a good idea, but after the third trial you get kind of tired of hearing that Beatles song again and again and start to hope the jury will run out in front of a bus.

And that’s all the salami they’re selling this week, gents and lady-types. Hope to see you back for more the next time our Entertainment Police truck comes “Farmer and the Dell”-ing its way through your neighborhood!

September 29, 2003
Duplex, Out of Time, School of Rock, Shit Creek Manor, Wonderland

September 15, 2003
Cabin Fever, Matchstick Men, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Secondhand Lions, Underworld

September 1, 2003
The Backyard, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, Jeepers Creepers 2, The Order, Party Monster

August 18, 2003
American Splendor, Freddy vs. Jason, Grind, Open Range, Shaolin Soccer, Uptown Girls

July 21, 2003
Bed Boys II, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Rock the Cradle of Love, Seabiscuit, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

July 7, 2003
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde, Pirates of the Caribbean The Ride The Movie: The Curse of the Black Pearl Harbor, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Sequel, Terminator 3: Rise of the Meatheads

June 23, 2003
28 Days Later, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Jet Lag, When Harry Met Lloyd: Dumb and Dumberer

June 9, 2003
2 Fast 2 Furious, Daniel Day-Car, Hollywood Homicide, The In-Laws, The Italian Job, Love the Hard Way, Rugrats Gone Wild

May 26, 2003
The Matrix Rebooted, Finding Remo, Bruised Almighty, The Hoke, Downey with Love

May 12, 2003
The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Owning Mahowny, The Real Cancun, Whale Rider, X2: X-Men United

April 28, 2003
Anger Management, Bulletproof Monkey, Holes, House of 1000 Islands, Identity