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 10, 2003
Greetings, potential moviegoers, and welcome back to another week of Roland McShyster's Entertainment Police. We're back with our usual look at what Hollywood's hit with the car this week, and will do our best to jot down the license plate numbers... (11/10/03)

October 27, 2003
Hello America, how've you been? Those shingles clearing up all right? Solid. As you might have guessed, we're back for another installment of the column that cares, Entertainment Police. Prepare to have your heart and other tender anatomical... (10/27/03)

October 13, 2003
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... (10/13/03)

September 29, 2003
Welcome back to me, America! Roland McShyster here, after the hiatus to end all hiatuses… hiati… hiya-hyacinth… uh, all multiples of hiatus! I'm back and on the attack, feeling refreshed after six weeks of boxin' and detoxin', as the saying... (9/29/03)

September 15, 2003
Hello commune readers, and welcome to mile three of the Orson Welch movie-review marathon. Can we make it to the finish line? Nobody knows, and even fewer care, but still we trek bravely onward. Not even the howls of derisive mockery, nor the... (9/15/03)