Hello, America! Curious about what Hollywood’s been hoarding in their vaults, waiting to spring on an unsuspecting public this fine Thanksgiving season? I hear ya squawking big chicken. Let’s take a look and see if we can’t separate the gobble from the sound turkeys make when they’re not happy. On to the movies!


In Theaters

21 Grams of Fat
Cuban heartthrob Mauricio Del Toro sweats up the screen opposite sniveling wiener Sean Penn in this harrowing tale of a Subway sandwich gone wrong. Fans have been clamoring for years to know the juicy background story on how mumbling hunk Del Toro got so goddamned sloppy fat for his role of Big Fat Slob Lawyer #1 in the 1960’s classic Feral Loving in Las Vegas, and this year they finally get their wish. 21 Grams of Fat tells the true story of Del Toro’s innocent stop at a roadside Subway franchise and the Caramelized Gyro-Meat Sub that freakishly ballooned his ass up to Limbaughian proportions within minutes. Penn plays the pencil-necked counter jockey who sold him the sub, and the resulting tale or revenge and recrimination will leave you popping your heart medication and reaching for a thesaurus. If you’ve ever followed a fast food worker home and cut down the door to his mom’s house with a skill saw in a berserk, flabby rage, then this is the movie for you. Unless that brings up some unpleasant memories, which is understandable. So maybe it’s better if you’ve never done such a think and can just enjoy the film vicariously.

Battlestar Gothica
It has always struck me that Halle Berry missed her true calling by never starring in a bad Sci-Fi series, so it’s comforting to see her finally correct fate’s oversight. Answering the never-before-addressed question of what would happen if somebody went crazy in space, Battlestar Gothica also proves that while Halle Barry’s increasingly public assets can spice up a routine action flick or a dull party, they do little to lend credibility to an ill-conceived space drama.

Black Santa
In what may possibly go down as the most offensive holiday movie ever filmed (notching in ahead of even Elvis’ Dead Blue Christmas, Rudolph Giuliani in Red-Nosed Rehab and the chairman of the board, Santa Claus Cocksucks the Martians), Black Santa features redneck delight Billy Bob Thornton in riot-inducing blackface, stealing a role that probably should have gone to Eddie Murphy, DMX, or Whoopie Goldberg with a sock in her jockeys. Instead it’s Thornton creeping down chimneys to deliver presents, only to be chased screaming out of the house and gunpoint in a world that’s not ready to accept the fact that Santa is actually a black man. It’s not easy being a black Santa in a white world, and it’s really not easy sneaking your white ass out of the theater after watching two hours of white folks chasing a bag-toting black man across their lawn with a shotgun. I thought I was going to get some reparations stamped into the back of my skull for sure. Luckily for me there weren’t any black people at the screening, though I’m not sure how eager other racial groups are for a sympathy riot. The two Korean women who were in the theater when I saw this one didn’t seem too upset, at least not violently so, but I think I may have just caught them unprepared when I hit that fire door full tilt just before the credits rolled.

Dr. Seuss Shat in a Hat
At least they weren’t pretending that the latest Dr. Seuss grave-robbery is anything but a crime against humanity when they named this cinematic turd du jour so fittingly. Mike Meyers picks up the grave-pissing-oning where fellow maladjusted Canadian Jim Carrey left off in this colorful assault on all that is decent and holy, striking a blow for the forces of shit everywhere. Learning a lesson from Now the Grinch Stole Christmas!, a film that made decent bank but alienated a generation of Dr. Seuss fans who remembered the book actually being good, this time around the filmmakers have chosen a title that suggests Seuss’s original book sucked anyway, to give the impression that the film doesn’t really ruin anything and you can buy your Shat in a Hat-themed tie-in pacemakers, burp rags, shotgun ammunition, prostate medication and other assorted shwag free of guilt. Thanks for freeing me from this burdensome faith in humanity, fellas.

The Haunted Manson
Apparently Eddie Murphy was unavailable for Black Santa because he had a prior commitment to keeping his cold streak going with The Haunted Manson, the first in what promises to be a long line of uninspired Being John Malkovich knock-offs. With all of that film’s stoned reasoning and none of its charm, The Haunted Manson saddles Murphy and his cereal-commercial family with a distant cousin visiting from out of town, who seems at first to be a run-of-the-mill former cult leader and serial-killing ex-con, but turns out—just their luck!—to be haunted. Murphy’s pretty funny as the stuffed shirt dealing with Manson’s unexpected quirks and celebrity-murdering eccentricities, and Sean William Scott is loveably batshit as the baked noodle Manson. The CGI could have been better, as several of the dismembered bodies in the film are obvious fakes, but the picture is aimed squarely at a family audience that rarely scrutinizes such details.

Timeline
Don’t you hate it when your dad accidentally goes back in time a thousand years and all he brings you back is a lousy pair of woolen undershorts? Such is the lament of whoever the nameless dweeb is that they stuck in the lead role of this painfully average paean to teenage lament. Apparently not only is it dangerously uncool to have a scientist for a dad, but if he doesn’t bring you an awesome sword or golden goose or something back from medieval times, you might as well just curl up and die somewhere, gawd.



It just occurred to me indeed, that I forgot to heed, Universal’s demand that all reviews, and all accounts in the news, of Dr. Seuss Shat in a Hat be written in verse, so they might to nurse, the last bit of magic from that tit, before we all come to despise it, so here it goes: the movie blows. You’re welcome.

November 11, 2003
Bastard Commander: The Far Side of the World, Brother Bear, Good Boy!, Looney Tunes: Back Door Action, The Matrix Restitutions, The Texas Chain Store Massacre

October 27, 2003
In the Cute, The Human Stain, Radio, Scary Movie 3, The Swinging Detective

October 13, 2003
The House of the Dead, Intolerable Cruelty, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Miss Tick River, Runaway Jury

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