Whabang! And as simple as that we’re back, America, for more of the movie review taste adults have grown to tolerate. It’s grrrrrrrrr-decent! I’m your host, captain, and father figure Roland McShyster, here once again to brave the torrent of flops and crocks Hollywood keeps flinging at us unthinkingly, like a blind man cleaning out his garage. Who knows when we might find a diamond in the proverbial rough? That’s not a rhetorical question, if you know the answer please write in because I’m getting really tired of waiting. On to the reviews!

In Theaters Now:

The Chronicles of Ritter
It’s unusual that Hollywood makes us wait nine long months after the funeral before memorializing a marginal TV star with a shoddily made biography picture, but such was the fate of John B. Ritter, late of Hooterman and Clifford the Big Commie Dog. In a brilliant ploy to distract us from the tardiness of their response, they’ve stunt-cast racially ambiguous meathead Vin Diesel in the starring role, a move that has paralyzed the bowels of filmgoers nationwide. Though I’d normally be tearing into Hollywood for this stunning show of hubris, this particular insult to audience intelligence is unintentionally hilarious and I loved it. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Ritter is recording the Three’s Company theme song with Suzanne Sommers (played brilliantly by Suzanne Sommers in a fat suit), since Diesel’s singing voice sounds like Henry Kissinger on Valium. If there’s anyone intelligent left in Hollywood they’ll sign Diesel to do a whole series of similar films, playing historical greats ranging from Albert Einstein to Mother Theresa, because that would be funnier than a sick dog on an airplane.

Garfield
When I first heard this project was in development deep within the bowels of 20th Century Fox, beneath the earth’s crust where only the damned do dwell, my first thought was this: Only Bill Murray stands a chance of making the former president exciting, and they’d better not cast that fat guy from The Drew Carrey Show. Thankfully they followed my advice, and did it one better. I wasn’t watching this film for more than fifteen minutes before my keen eye realized, “Holy shit! They CGI-ed him? Brilliant!” The bane of all previous Garfield flicks has been the failure of actors to accurately capture the sublime fatassedness of James Garfield, the colossal ennui that made the man move like he was wading through wet cement. Garfield was concerned with only two things during his four years as President of the United States: sleeping in and getting his meals on time. Don’t ever let anybody tell you that being president isn’t a cush job. While some have argued that the CGI wizards at Fox went over the top in committing the former president to pixels, I was impressed that they got his orange stripes right and bravely refused to bow to revisionist historians who claim the head of state didn’t have a tail. Sure he didn’t. Sleep tight, girls.

Susan Powter and the Prisoner of Azkican
Raise your hand if you didn’t think spiky-haired fitness smurf Susan Powter had some poor schmuck tied up in her basement somewhere, kept handy for beatings and pep-talks depending on the swing of her manic-depressive pendulum. That’s a hunk of news that should shock exactly no one. Anybody who saw her screaming “Stop the insanity!” on her infomercial years back knew she was talking to people the rest of us couldn’t see. We didn’t know, however, who the poor bastard was strapped to her radiator with surgical ties; his face caked in garish New Orleans whore makeup and a shameful giant piss-stain on the front of his flowery dress. Sure, we all had our candidates. I figured it was either Joe Piscopo or Caspar Weinberger. Those guys had to go somewhere. Turns out I was wrong, and Warner Bros. is betting you’ll cough up $9 to see who it was. I’m thinking they’re wrong about that one, since I just told you it was Bronson Pinchot.

And with a bang and a zip and a whiff of Nair, that’s it! We’re done for this installment of America’s third favorite horse racing weekly, which is quite a bragging point around here since I’ve never even mentioned horses in this column. God bless the search engines. And for those of you hearing this column read aloud on late night Cuban radio, “¡coma la mierda!” I’m not sure what that means, but it’s probably something.