No time for chatter this week. I have a full stock of Don Cheadle movies to review (they're Cheadle-icious) and them I'm off to see Sin City for the third time. I'm convinced this time I'll be able to make it to the end of the film, or at least through the first hour. On to my Cheadle stock.

Now on DVD:

Ocean's Twelve
It's a lot like Ocean's Eleven. In fact, I can't prove they didn't just keep the cameras rolling at the end of the first movie and call the footage a second movie. Cheadle is only a minor player in this one, but what a bizarre accent he sports. Cockney, I think, or something with cock in it. The major players here are George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Julia Roberts in a dual role as herself and someone not herself. All of them are more famous for being their pretty selves rather than any performance anyone can remember. Still, it doesn't pretend to be anything other than famous people having fun together, which is at least admirable for lacking pretension.

Hotel Rwanda
More Cheadle for your dollar. It's like a black Schindler's List, and is at least far better than the black Odd Couple of years ago. I think Cheadle's accent is French this time. A great sort of film all your liberal friends will urge you to see. Guaranteed to make white people feel like an heir to a throne of blood. It's too bad they couldn't include a sub-plot about feminism to make me feel ashamed of my penis as well. But it's all based on fact, so you can't much argue with reality. I just don't want to be exposed to it for two relentless hours.

Meet the Fockers
Now here's gruesome reality. Acting virtuoso Barbra Streisand returns to the big screen in her most challenging role yet, as someone who's so annoying she makes you want to slit your throat. Or wait… how is that acting? Dustin Hoffman continues his schlubby role marathon, thirty years running now, while Robert De Niro continues to bury his respectable career in another movie with the daring concept, "What if Robert De Niro was your father-in-law?" Ben Stiller is not the zany, half-insane character he usually plays; this time he's the other one, the neurotic stuttering put-upon idiot. Fock off, indeed.

House of Flying Daggers
An epic that follows in the tradition of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, because it's also Chinese. Jumping, kicking, swordplay, and more melodrama than a high school play. Except it has the added fun of reading awful dialogue in subtitles.

Never before has so much Cheadle filled one single column. Alright… it may only be two movies, but it's still more Cheadle than you'll get anywhere else. Maybe next edition I'll make good on my previous promise, "More DiCaprio than you can shake a stick at."

April 4, 2005
El Vita Loca, commune readers! Whatever that means, it's time for some more Entertainment Police fun. And nobody needs a translator to know what that means! Unless they've never heard of Entertainment Police before. But even then a translator... (4/4/05)

March 28, 2005
I'm shocked into a rare non-sweating state by the wealth of first-run movies hitting DVD shelves in the next two weeks. So as much as I'd rather banter to fill dreadful column inches, I'm afraid I have actual reviews to get to this week. Lucky me…... (3/28/05)

March 21, 2005
Shazam, America! We're back and there's not a goddamned thing the Swiss can do about it. It's been a long two weeks and I don't know about you, but Roland McShyster is ready to get back to the viewing and re-viewing. So bring out the clowns! ... (3/21/05)