With special guest critic
Orson Welch

Welcome back readers, Orson Welch here again. Hope you haven’t had to sit through anything horrible since the last time we met. To answer the common question in the reader emails I received this week, yes, Roland McShyster is still on hiatus and from what I’ve heard and smelled he’s still drunk as an ox in a garter belt. Though he is doing well enough to have egged my house last week, so fear not for his strength, fair readers. One thing I have to say is boy, commune readers really know how to give a guy a warm welcome. Your ironic faux-hate mail has warmed my heart, and I promise you all I’ll impale myself on a rusty robot’s dong quite soon, wink wink. Now let’s check out the movies!

In Theaters

The Backyard
Backyard wrestling on the big screen? I haven’t seen this many nimrods get hurt since they plugged the glory hole in the men’s room down at Skinflint’s. I know it’s a blow against high culture to say I loved this film, but come on. If reveling in the self-inflicted pain and humiliation of the kinds of guys who made my high school life a living hell is petty, then christen me Petty Officer Orson Welch, First Class. See it with a friend, or an enemy you think it might inspire.

Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
Wow, the guy who directed D2: The Mighty Ducks and The Out-of-Towners is working again. Shouldn’t he have to go door-to-door like a sex offender or something, so we know to keep our kids away from his movies? There ought to be a law, I’d say. I suppose the film was okay, in the sense that nobody was killed during the making, though after seeing it I’m not entirely sure that is a good thing. A good number of these people could use a wake-up call.

Jeepers Creepers 2
I won’t glorify the first film by using the word “original” to denote that this is the second time they’ve dragged this lame idea out onto the highway and let it flop around for a while. Director Victor Salva, of such noted horror flicks as Clownhouse, Nature of the Beast and Powder, came back for some unknown reason to do the sequel. Perhaps it was out of fear that the studio might send some kind of hokey flesh-eating bat person to crawl up his ass if he refused. The resulting film, well, resulted, and no one can argue that he didn’t finish the movie. Hey, fuck off; I’m trying to be nice here.

The Order
The best thing about this upcoming crap cake is that it was originally titled The Sin Eater. How that embarrassing tidbit ever made it out of Brian Helgeland’s bedroom in the first place is a testament to the fact that Hollywood couldn’t find a clue even if it were drenched in bimbo musk. The funniest part is that they never even figured out that the title was a terrible idea, they had to change the name because it was too close to that of the unfinished Wes Craven project, The Skin Eater. You may remember Helgeland from the last time he spit up in your lap, 2001’s A Knight’s Tale, or from when he directed Mel Gibson’s uberflop Payback back in 1999, a film Gibson made solely to punish his fans who thought he looked a little fat in Lethal Weapon 3. Oh, and he also wrote The Postman. Merry fuckin’ Christmas.

Party Monster
The gals who brought you The Eyes of Tammy Faye chime in again with this look at a killer gay club boy who was cute until he hit his teenage years and then killed his roommate. No, it’s not about Macaulay Culkin, though he does happen to star. The film itself was only mid-level putrid, but really the thing I kept wondering was how can a film like this get the support of the gay community when Basic Instinct didn’t? So you’re telling me gay folks can make homo-slasher films until the cows come home but a straight director tosses a murderous fuzzbumper or two into the mix and suddenly it’s a major crime? Was it because she was bi? I hear that kind of stuff pisses some people off, which I understand. The last thing I need is to come home to find my girl in bed with my best friend’s girlfriend, who used to be mine. Talk about getting the shit end of the stick on both ends. God that would piss me off.

That’s what we’ve got for you this week, readers, hope it saved you from having to leave the house unnecessarily. I’ll be back in two weeks, and you keep that hilarious faux-hate mail coming, okay?

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

August 4, 2003
American Wedding, Fucking Friday, Gigli, The Secret Lives of Dennis, S.W.A.T.

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

April 14, 2003
Bend it Like Beck’s Ham, The Core, Head of State, A Man Apartment, Phone Booth

March 31, 2003
Ass! Ass! National Tango!, Bringing Down the House, Dreamcatcher, The Hunted, Piglet’s Big Movement, Tears of the Sun, Willard

2003 Oscars Special!
Oscar fever is upon us, ladies and gentlemen, and fear not: that puss-like discharge is a completely normal symptom.

March 3, 2003
Dark Blue, Old School, Spider, Studyhall Junkies, The Time-Life Christmas of David Gale