Buenos Aires, America. Hope you're all doing as well today as I was yesterday. Today? Not so much. But I wouldn't kick yesterday out of bed for eating crackers. While in it. Bed, that is. Because you can get a lot of crumbs on the sheets and then you're sleeping all night with cracker crumbs poking you in the ass, unless you sleep in pajamas. But still, even this would not sour me on yesterday. Good day.

Today, however, I've got to review the latest ugly orphans Hollywood has dropped off on our Entertainment Policing doorstep in the black of night. You notice they keep the cute ones for themselves. Cute babies referring to good movies, in this in-depth analogy of my creation. Nope, we get the uglies, and the thrill of giving them a quick once-over before selling them to the Chinese. So on to the movies!

In Theaters Now:

The Boogeyman
You ever have a friend who always wants to go dancing? Isn't that terrifying? I'm actually surprised that nobody thought to make a horror flick out of that concept before now, I guess Hollywood's horror elite have been too enamored with the horrors of Japanese consumer electronics lately to notice when a good idea crawls up their ass and opens a lemonade stand. But somebody finally got around to it this year, probably after a harrowing night out hitting the clubs with some self-described "dancing-machinery" or "funk-robot," as they tend to prefer to be known. Unlike most of us who save dancing for extremely inebriated wedding receptions or the funerals of particularly delicious enemies, there is a small subset of the population that will latch onto any excuse to dance: 80's night, PTA meetings, bar fights, spring, or even the opening of a new Blockbuster. I for one find these "boogeymen" to be at least twelve times as scary as Freddy Krueger or Martha Stewart.

So they definitely started with a good idea, but then they funked it up by casting the guy from that TV show about those sneaker-wearing comet cult boneheads in the main role. Sure, I believe that guy could be a dancing asshole, but I'd never buy that anybody would see enough redeeming value to keep him around as a friend regardless of the dancing thing. He would have boogied his way right out of my address book with the first few convulsions of his mashed potato.

Itch
Will Smith is back, and not a moment too soon. Audiences have been clamoring for his "just black enough" attitude for months, and don't think that animated Card Sharks movie came anywhere near yanging their yin. I've heard tell that some have even resorted to watching reruns of Smith's 1980's sitcom The French Prince of Belfast, which I can only hope was a wild exaggeration. Either way, Smith is black (that's a combination of "back" and "black," FYI) as the world's greatest lothario, who nevertheless can never get a date because he's scratching his balls all the time. Can a new miracle cream change his crotch-handling ways, and his luck with the ladies? Can an orangutan play the trumpet using a hand-held vacuum cleaner? I don't know the answer to either of those questions, thanks to an extremely long men's room line at the theater and a recent infomercial with an unprecedented cliffhanger ending.

Pooh's Hemp Movie
Everybody's favorite pot smoking bear is back for another slow-witted adventure in what was probably the most poorly animated film I've seen since Pearl Harbor. But since the animators were probably stoned at the time as well, I can pretty easily forgive their lazy scribbles and the indiscriminately psychedelic watercolor work that pervades this film.

What I can't forgive is Pooh's latest turn as an incessant hemp advocate, spending the entire movie trying to get everyone in the hundred acre woods to buy his shitty homemade hemp rope, writing paper and ponchos. Their patience already stretched thin by Pooh's candle-making phase, the entire menagerie of Pooh's dope-head buddies spend the majority of this film sitting at home with the lights out, hoping to fool Pooh into thinking they're not home. Although the movie's politics are likely to offend some, kids will just be thrilled to see that the studio's contract negotiations with all the main stars were successful, and piglet, rabbit and Owl all came back to appear in this latest Pooh vehicle.

The Wedding Date
If you thought a blind date was a lot of pressure (unless you're dating a blind girl, which would probably be less pressure than normal, but that's rarely the lucky card you pull on a "blind" date), try the wedding date: a strange practice that apparently exists somewhere, where you get to know someone new through the process of marrying them. If you think about it, it makes sense. Unless you think about it too much, then it stops making sense again and wraps back around to stupid. But the movie doesn't last that long, so it only seems really stupid on the drive home, by which time it's probably too late for a refund. Nice trick, Hollyweird. They must've learnt that one from the guys who made that Illegal Alien Vs. Sexual Predator movie.

Anyway, this movie's got that girl from the show where the girl's got the gay guy living in her closet, which is something to say about it. I have to admit I liked the idea of a blind date where everybody's throwing you a party and you get dressed up all snazzy and there's a priest, sure beats the usual disappointing night at the Sizzler where you remember half-way through that the last time you wore those pants, you spilled a whole bottle of Ranch dressing right on the crotch, and that shit doesn't come all the way out, even if you had remembered to use the stain stick. So I give this movie three stars, out of forty.

And that's a wrap America, and the curiously large contingent of Swedes who read the commune. Don't start your bawling, you got your fair dose of Entertainment Policery, and barring a back-alley run-in with Smokey Robinson I'll be back in two weeks with more smoldering pap. Plus you'll have a dose of my unwilling protégé Orson "Sunshine" Welch next week to tide you over. Until then, don't fear the reaper, unless he wants to go dancing.

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January 24, 2005
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January 17, 2005
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January 10, 2005
Look out below, America, Roland McShyster just honked and as usual, it looks like gravity will have its way. We're sicker than a Nine Inch Nails video here at Entertainment Police, and all bets are off within a fifty foot radius of yours truly.... (1/10/05)

December 20, 2004
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