Tell Me Lies.

Okay America's political leaders, we need to talk. You guys have been caught with your pants down a lot lately. Literally in Anthony Weiner's case.

Every six months or so we get some new political sex scandal. Studio 54 didn't see as much action as the Senate cloakroom has gotten over the last couple of years. Which poses one very troubling question:

Why are you guys so bad at not getting caught?

Follow-up question: At the very least, shouldn't women have better taste?

Sex scandals are bad for America, because they distract the public from more important political issues and they mar the careers of otherwise effective leaders. Every time one of you guys gets caught propositioning a mannequin or cruising for furries in a Tigger costume, you're contributing to the slow asphyxiation of reasonable discourse.

In a perfect world I would ask you all to please fuck responsibly, and if possible to only fuck those prescribed individuals you are supposed to (if you're having trouble remembering exactly who that is, it's probably the woman who you're always telling: "Going to the store hon, back in four hours. Don't call."). But we all know that that's not going to happen, and there's virtually no historical precedent for it, so who are we kidding?

In a slightly less perfect world, I would ask the public to simply be more mature and stop obsessing over politician's sex lives and to instead obsess over important policy matters that effect our everyday lives and the future of our country. But I would probably have an easier time with that first option of keeping all of the congressional dicks on leashes. We have to work within the framework that's been provided us.

Harry Reid will be having his requisite sex scandal as soon as his blood returns to a liquid state.

It seems that the only thing left for me to do is to remind our elected officers that they have a sacred duty and responsibility to the American people, and that that duty is to lie more convincingly about their indiscretions. It's the only way we're going to get anything done around here.

You know once upon a time people knew that American politicians were the greatest liars in the world. And I wonder, whatever happened to that? Has the world changed? Or did you just stop caring? If we can't trust you to maintain the basic lies that keep your families and marriages together, how can we trust you to tell the lies that bind our nation together? You've undermined our faith in the entire institution of public falsehood!

It starts with "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," and then before you know it it's "Major combat operations have ceased." It's gotten to the point where these lies mean nothing anymore, and soon we're not going to believe a single lie that comes out of your mouths!

Remember, this guy kept it under wraps for two hundred years! Now there's a true American.

So please, Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris Lee, Mark Souder, Erica Massa, Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Tim Mahoney, John Edwards, David Patterson, Randy Tobias, Rudy Giuliani, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Brian Doyle, Jack Ryan, Ed Schrock, Eliot Spitzer, Steven LaTourette, Don Sherwood, David Vitter, Vito Fossella, Kwame Kilpatrick, Gary Condit, Gavin Newsom, Paul Patton, Bob Wise, Jim McGreevey, Neil Goldschmidt, and of course, Bubba, I implore you all:

If you can't be honest with us, get better at not being honest with us. Because believe it or not, you've got work to do.

Summer Mockbusters: X-Men-First Class.

Originally titled "X-Men: Coach" and then "X-Men: Business Class" before the studio finally coughed up the extra money to upgrade everyone's seating.

Okay, I'm really sorry about that joke, I just had to get it out of my system. The rest will be better, I promise.

It's been two years since the last X-Men movie, five years since the last one dealing with the X-Men as a team, and eight years since the last one that was any damn good. Which poses a fascinating question going into this newest installment: do I actually care?

Consider that this is the fifth movie in the franchise and the second prequel. How would you even number that? Negative two?

X-Men: First Class

Directed by: A kick ass director. No, wait, that should be "The director of Kick Ass." Actually, both work.

Starring: The weenie guy from "Wanted", the British guy from "Inglourious Basterds", a gal from a movie about beaver, Betty Draper's lingerie, and last but not least, Kevin Bacon (because really, why the hell not?).

Basics:

Kevin Bacon wants to play six degrees of Armageddon (yeah, I totally lied when I said the jokes would get better) and instigates the Cuban Missile Crisis. Young Magneto and Charles Xavier can stop him, but only if they quit flirting for long enough (seriously guys, get a room).

The Good:

The first thing you need to know is that “First Class” is not really a superhero movie. Rather, it’s a James Bond movie. But not a modern Bond movie; instead it’s a intentionally retro, kitschy, 60s-style Bond flick.

Confused? Well, let me put it to you this way: In this movie, Kevin Bacon travels around the world in a private nuclear submarine with a built-in martini bar, wearing a purple leisure suit and plotting nuclear war while January Jones stands around kitted up like Honor Blackman. Just so we’re clear, these scenes are without question the greatest thing I’ve seen all year.

"You know baby, sleeping with me is six steps away from sleeping with every guy in Hollywood."

“First Class” allows itself to have fun in a way that no movie in this franchise ever has, and in doing so it’s lifted a tremendous burden off of the entire property. Did you ever think you’d see Charles Xavier in a bar chugging drinks and picking up on girls?

James McAvoy has a kind of impish, foppish charm about everything he does. He’s like a cross between Ewan McGregor and the Lucky Charms leprechaun. And I mean that in the most positive way possible...whatsoever that way may be.

Opposite McAcoy is Michael Fassbender, playing a young Magneto who spends the first act of the movie hunting Nazi war criminals across two continents. Let me repeat that so that it can sink in: Magneto is a globe-hopping Nazi hunter who bumps off former SS men while obsessively plotting to kill Kevin Bacon. I’m surprised the movie can bear the weight of an idea that cool without collapsing into a neutron star.

The film works better as an origin for Magneto than for the X-Men, as we watch him transition from a tunnel-vision revenge machine into the big picture grand mastermind villain of the rest of the franchise.

It’s really refreshing to see a superhero origin movie where people DO things. Most of these movies feature characters who sit around and placidly wait for the plot to catch up to them, then laboriously explain each and every little thing about what’s happening to the audience.

“X-Men: First Class”, on the other hand, has a very brisk first and second act full of characters who can’t be fucked to explain themselves to the audience because they’re too damn busy getting on with cool spy shit. Don’t mind me fellas, just keep doing what you’re doing.

Damn it Hicox, that's not the German three either! You've blown your cover again!

Being a prequel, the flick does open up some inconsistencies with the other films. I list this as a good thing because the movies it most often undermines are “X-Men 3” and “Wolverine”, and fuck all that noise. If Matt Vaughn wanted to kick those movies in the balls and throw them down some stairs I’d probably build the staircase myself from scratch.

The Bad:

The first hour of this movie is phenomenal, and watching it was like strapping into what you think is a taxi cab but turns out to be a tilt-a-whirl. But then the second hour almost completely runs aground, and my interest started to decline faster than Scott Cousins’ chances of being declared Man of the Year in the Bay Area (hang in there Scotty, it wasn’t really your fault).

It really can’t be a good sign that in a movie titled “X-Men” the thing I was the least interested in was the X-Men. If this movie has been just about James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, and Jennifer Lawrence, I would have been happy camper (except I hate camping, so I guess in my case I‘d have been a happy urban dweller who hates the smell of pine). Those are the actors whose characters I gave a crap about.

The rest of the cast, though, is comprised mostly of people who could walk into an empty room and still not be the most interesting person there. Even January Jones seemed just plain disinterested in being in this movie (maybe she realized that there were exactly two reasons she was cast?). The more the movie focused on the young mutants, the more interested I became in excavating the last of the nacho cheese from the bottom of the cup.

"Yes Ms. Frost, I'm perfectly aware of where your eyes are, but the question you should be worrying about is where my tail is."

On that note; Beast, buddy, the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, okay, your feet look a little weird, but get over it already. I’ve seen toenail fungus that’s uglier than that. Put on some socks every now and then if it bothers you so much. Or, um, two socks sewed together, I guess would probably do the trick.

Even worse, the big action finale is kind of a let-down. There’s really nothing to see here, unless the idea of Lenny Kravtiz’s daughter flying around with a set of butterfly wings bolted to her back while hocking flaming loogies at battleships appeals to you (it’s not as great as it sounds).

In fact, the entire movie nearly lost me at the end, but luckily it got its act together for the emotional climax in the last fifteen minutes, which was more important. Still, it shouldn’t have been that close.

The Ugly:

How bad was “X-Men 3”? So bad that it significantly mars my enjoyment of every better X-Men movie.

Even now, five years later while watching the much, much, MUCH better “X-Men: First Class”, I could not get that other damnable film out of my mind. It’s impossible to become fully invested in any of these character conflicts when you keep thinking about the incredibly asinine conclusion that they’ll eventually be brought to.

Watching “X-Men: First Class” or even “X-Men” and “X-Men 2” after watching “X-Men 3” is like driving a really cool car that smells like a fart. No matter how smooth the ride is, you can never completely ignore that smell. “X-Men 3” is the fart in the air conditioning of this entire property.

Brett Ratner, I hate you. How much do I hate you? Well, if we ever meet, I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to move the coin...

"For the last time, no, I am not interested in making this round strip chess."

Bottom Line:

“X-Men: First Class” is frustrating, because it feels like a potentially great movie that borrowed trouble and instead simply became an alright movie. Laden with extraneous characters we didn’t need and the story baggage that comes with them, the awesome super-powered spy flick that we were originally watching grinds to a halt and is replaced by lukewarm mush.

Still, there’s a lot to love here. “First Class” took chances with the material and in the process pulled a worn-out franchise back from the edge of irrelevance. And it taught us all an important lesson: do NOT fuck with Michael Fassbender, ever! The movie fails at a lot, but the things it succeeds are the things that are most important. Eleven years after the original, these movies are finally back on track.

Trailer Park:

Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQHqNxyEaws

Every time I thought this trailer couldn’t get more dumb, it topped itself a second later. It’s like the Donald Trump of movie previews.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHRf01Gjosk

Wait, what does that say? I’ve been calling it “Dark Side of the Moon”, but apparently it’s just “Dark of the Moon”? What’s a dark of the moon? I don’t think that’s even a thing? Sounds like a Scandinavian metal band.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yUwXwrR35U

Speaking of which.

Michael Nyqvist was the male lead in the 2009 Swedish version of this movie, and Daniel Craig looks like what would happen if you left Nyqvist in the microwave for about seven hours.

In any case, watching this trailer in a theater is like being blasted through a wind tunnel full of equal parts Karen O and adrenaline, so points to the marketing team.

Next Week: The Cult of JJ Abrams brings us “Super 8”, but I will in all likelihood be seeing “Troll Hunter” instead. Because there should be someone on hand for that who knows to use fire on them.

These boots are NOT made for walking.

I take advertising very personally.

Sometimes I take it so personally that I stay up late and write threatening letters to the GEICO Gecko and the Energizer Bunny. Some nights they write back.

The doctors tell me this is just a paranoid delusion, but of course, they're all out to get me.

Advertisers claim to have a certain degree of insight about how the buying public thinks and feels. They think they know me.

So when I see advertising that just completely rubs me the wrong way, I have to conclude that whoever was behind it has grossly misjudged me. It's like slander. I feel like that billboard is talking shit about me. Not in the paranoid way this time.

The worst offender is ALDO shoes. Their ads are pasted all over BART stations (already terrifying locales as it is), and if their goal is to make me feel mildly ill for reasons I'm almost scared to consider in any depth, then they've done a masterful job.

I see this one a lot:

That's it. That's the whole thing. I didn't crop or alter it at all. That's the free-standing, intact image as it is seen on the subway wall. It doesn't even have the company name on it, so I suppose I'm almost guessing that it's an ALDO, but really, it could scarcely be anything else.

What are we looking at? Plainly, it is a young woman who has been crushed by a giant beach ball. I have no idea if she's survived the trauma, but I don't doubt that she'll need immediate and extensive medical attention just as soon as that thing rolls off of her.

Does this image make you want to buy something? It sure does me. I really want to buy a giant beach ball for crushing people with. Because I think we've all needed someone crushed from time to time. But ALDO does not sell giant crushing beach balls. I checked. Extensively. The sales staff have filed several injunctions against me.

In any case, not really feeling the shoes, so let's move on.

What in the-? Um, okay?

What do you think of when you see this? Me, I think of sushi. And then I think of sex. And I'm not at all comfortable with the proximity of those two subjects. Those are separate wants, and they should remain separate, and I don't appreciate the way this ad is...confusing me.

And now I'm thinking about that story about Led Zeppelin and the red snapper. And I do NOT want to think about Led Zeppelin and the red snapper. But you know what I'm not thinking about? Shoes! Never crossed my mind.

We've got one last item, hopefully it'll be something less unsettling, and perhaps even related to the product in a understandable way.

Oh sweet leaping Jesus on a lily pad, what is going on here? Save me David Lynch, save me from the nightmare. I'm sorry about what I said about your movies. I had not yet known true horror.

What are these people doing? And why? And what bizarre fetish site was this image originally commissioned for, and what dark deeds had to be committed to convince ALDO to take it off their hands and perpetrate it on the public?

I feel violated. I feel like I should have to use a doll to show the policeman where ALDO improperly touched my mind.

I suppose the fact that I am talking about the ads and have now showcased them to an audience that might otherwise never have been tormented by such unspeakable nether-regions of commercialism means that the ad campaign was effective. If you asked them, they would probably say that I had played right into their hands.

And then you would say: "What's that? Can't hear you with that mackerel head on."

Degrees of responsibility.

I don't like to think of myself as a hero. I would prefer to just let all of you think that, and then play it off as graciously and modestly as I can while still reaping the considerable social benefits. Seems less crass that way.

Of course, we're not born heroes (with the obvious exception of that kid who foiled a bank robbery by breaking Mom's water in the middle of it), but rather, we remain vigilant for the call of duty and then we answer it. Possibly around the third or fourth ring, but even so.

For example, today I'm at work, minding my own business, never suspecting that at a moment's notice the lives of any number of bystanders will be put in my hands (although it should be noted that my hands are an excellent place for bystander lives, as well as for large bank notes and anything else of supreme importance that you might want me to hang onto). Minding my own business, I picked up a seemingly innocuous container lid, much like any other:

And if not for my keen eye I might never have noticed that there was something amiss about this lid. This lid was not a lid at all but a ticking timebomb. Metaphorically. Observe, this lid came with a warning label, and what did it say?

That's right! Do not exceed one hundred and eighty degrees. And yet, as you can tell from the first photo, the manufacturers recklessly disregarded their own guidelines and crafted this lid into a circle, a shape which has, if my memory serves me, no less than three hundred and sixty degrees, DOUBLE the number of degrees designated as safe!

I realized that this lid might be structurally unstable. I confess I don't know what happens when you go over the degree limit with this type of plastic, but I knew for sure that I didn't want to find out. Fortunately, I knew just what to do, and at a moment's notice, I sprang into action.

I don't like to boast, but if I say so myself, my solution was as elegant in its simplicity as it was ingenious in its efficacy. But you don't have to take my word for it, as I had the presence of mind to document the results.

Crisis averted.

There's no need to thank me. I was just doing my job. Anyone would have done the same in my position. Probably not as well, and they certainly wouldn't have looked as devastatingly handsome while they did it, but that's alright. Not everyone can have it all.

I've got something in my eye of the beholder.

I'm going to show you two pictures of ostensibly the same person. First, here's model Raquel Zimmermann as she looks without any make-up, airbrushing, or calculated lighting:

Barring the fact that she is apparently vacationing in an early print of "Eraserhead", I'd say she's a fetching lass.

Now, here's Raquel Zimmermann as she appears on the runway, assisted by make-up, body paint, lighting, and possibly duct tape:

Or perhaps I've made a mistake and that is, in fact, a picture of an escaped nuclear mannequin from the year 3000 here to subjugate the human race and harvest our brain stems? Or maybe the poster for "Black Swan" come to horrifying life? Or a stray banshee blown in off of some windy Irish moors, here to portend our doom?

Or maybe the beauty industry has forgotten where the line between "beauty" and "ghastly, bloodless, inhuman succubus" is, exactly. If so, let me be of service: it's there. It's RIGHT there.

Nation shocked by first of its kind infidelity scandal.

The world is still reeling from the revelation that former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child outside of his marriage.

The news is particularly surprising considering Schwarzenegger's background as an athlete, an actor, and a politician; three types of people traditionally known for scrupulous observance of their wedding vows.

"I was shocked at the very idea," said former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. "For an American politician to be having an ongoing affair while in office, it might be unprecedented."

"I'm not sure I even completely understand the concept," said former House Speaker and presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, furrowing his brow and tripping over his words as he tried to come to terms with the news. "I never even stopped to think that it was possible to have sex with someone other than your wife. What kind of American office-holder does that?"

"This could shake people's basic sense of confidence in their elected officials," said former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. "It's the kind of blow that the public might never recover from. And I know a thing or two about unusual blows."

Spitzer vainly struggles to understand infidelity concept. "Like a riddle wrapped in an enigma," he said.

Schwarzenegger's backers have expressed confusion and outrage for weeks; an understandable reaction given the first-of-its-kind nature of his transgression. The news threatens to derail his return to acting, as prominent figures from all over Hollywood joined the chorus expressing consternation at his behavior.

"He might never recover from this," said Jude Law. "Maybe in some professions you can get caught red handed at that kind of thing and still find work, but not here."

"There really are some things that you do that just never go away," said legendary director Roman Polanski. "People won't go to your movies if they're always thinking about that one terrible thing that you did that everyone knows about that's been hanging over your head ever since. Even thirty, thirty four years later, you'll just never get your career back."

"Easily the most sordid Hollywood story I've ever heard," said Polanski. "Ever."

Given his background as a bodybuilder, one would hope that Schwarzenegger would have kept the basic moral integrity that competitive athletes are known for.

"It's a damn shame," said golf star Tiger Woods, who declined to comment any further on the grounds that virtually everything funny about him has already been said three times.

"This is almost as bad as if he had been caught using steroids," added Lance Armstrong.

Americans will continue to long for the halcyon days of a few weeks ago when they could trust their public figures to behave like Quaker elders, but the former governor's behavior has forever ravaged the tender, naive sensibilities of this young nation.

Pictured: Former governor not diddling house staff. Public assumed that such images accounted for 100% of Schwarzenegger's activities.

Fans and supporters can only look back on Schwarzenegger's fifty years of international fame and wonder where it all went wrong.

Summer Mockbusters: Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Since the world did not end as scheduled, it's back to the theatre to me, following the inexorable summons of nature, much the same way that the noble salmon swims upstream through various and sundry obstacles as part of the eventual culmination of its lifespan.

So to review: I am a salmon. Or something like that.

This week brings yet another "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Wow. I can understand how someone might want to make this movie, the same way that you might want to tell your sister's husband that you think he's a complete asshole and that his buzzcut makes him look like a date rapist, but in both of those cases I would assume that everyone has a kind of mental filter that stops them from actually going through with such tempting but ill-conceived ideas.

Live and learn.

Pirates of the Caribbean: A Meaningless Subtitle.

Directed by: Not Gore Verbinski.

Starring: Not Orlando Bloom, Not Keira Knightley, Not Jonathon Pryce, Not Jack Davenport, Not Bill Nighy, Not Tom Hollander, Not Lee Arenberg, Not Mackenzie Crook, Not Naomi Harris, Not Stellan Skarsgard. But still Damian O’Hare, of all people. Oh, and the mascara guy, of course.

Basics:

Do you really need me to tell you what this movie is about? What are these movies always about? It’s always everyone chasing a magic something or other.

In the first movie, everyone wanted a ship, or an amulet, or whatever was in Keira Knightley’s corset. In the second movie everyone wanted “the chest”, which, amazingly, was not another reference to Keira Knightley’s goods. And the third movie was about...what, a heart, I think? I didn't pay enough attention.

This time it’s the Fountain of Youth. Although why Johnny Depp would be keen on that when he hasn't visibly aged in at least fifteen years is anyone's guess.

The Good:

Clearly these movies have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, as evidenced by the fact that no one has yet tried to knock them off. You would have thought that with the success of the original film in 2003 that some two dollar an hour hack would have pushed a similar but inferior swashbuckling action comedy onto a producer with a room temperature IQ, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

So instead it's here; big stunts, big performances, whacky humor, and that incredibly catchy Hans Zimmer score, and yes, in fairness, there is still a bit of new car smell to the whole thing, on account of the surprising dearth of imitators.

Depp and Cruz do their best to sneak back onto the set without looking like they were totally doing it in those bushes.

Since only a handful of the original cast members return, newly conscripted actors and characters must fill out the cast, giving us Ian McShane, who looks an awful lot like a Halloween mask of himself, and Penelope Cruz, who uses the word "chalices" a lot, invariably causing you to think about her rack (and she says it at least twice more than is explicitly necessary). Though technically antagonists, they’re our best written characters, and their ambiguous relationship is surprisingly complex.

And then there are the mermaids. Yes, mermaids. Let me ask you, you remember those other Disney mermaid movies? Well, this is NOT like that! No more night swimming for me, ever. What's that, beautiful half-French half-Spanish mermaid girl played by an actress named Astrid? You want me to come swim with you? Well, last week I would have kicked a nun down some stairs for an offer like that, but now I say fuck you devil woman, you swim one foot closer to me and I will club your scaly ass with an oar!

See, one of the things that made that original 2003 flick great was that it was a PG-rated Disney movie that still adopted certain horror movie sensibilities, and did so very effectively. Only now, in the third bleeding sequel, has anyone managed to reproduce that effect with this mermaid scene, which is beautifully shot, is accompanied by a rich Hans Zimmer-score, and is scary enough to probably make me piss my pants next time I watch "Splash", not that that's likely to happen anytime soon.

I'm starting to miss the days when you just found dolphins caught in your tuna nets.

The Bad:

Sigh.

Look, if you're one of those people who really, really likes these movies, then you'll like this. It's not really a good movie, but it's good enough that most people won't care.

What am I going to say that will dissuade you? And for that matter, why would I want to dissuade you? Go, run, prance and frolic in the fields, know a greater joy than an embittered curmudgeon like me can possibly know! Go!

Alright, now that they're gone, the rest of us can talk turkey; this movie's got fucking problems. This movie is like that friend you have who's really nice and well-intentioned but can't hold down a job or stay in an apartment and keeps going back to that guy who doesn't treat her right and let me tell you girl the good Lord know I stuck by you through thick and thin but you gotta wise up now and get on the right path because the day be comin' when...we're getting off topic.

This whole franchise is built around Johnny Depp, but his character really, really, really cannot carry a movie on his own, much less four movies. Captain Jack wasn't the main character of the original "Pirates", he was the whacky sidekick. Making him into the main character is like filling a swimming pool with cement; you can't really ever succeed, because even if you do it, a swimming pool full of cement is not a swimming pool full of cement, it's a sidewalk.

The movie was originally not in 3D, but it turns out Ian McShane is so badass that 2D images of him just become 3D spontaneously.

No one in "Pirates 4" can ever just do anything, they've gotta talk about it first, and then they've gotta drop some exposition, and then they have to make some sort of clandestine agreement, and then they have to do three or four other things, and then they have to switch sides at least once, and then they have to pretty much discard the reason they wanted to do the first thing but still go ahead and do it anyway.

Imagine if I was out of milk, so first I went to a friend of mine and we talked for a bit about the nature of milk and how it comes from cows and how the best cows in the world come from Wisconsin, and then I need to go chat up someone else so that I can get the shoes I need to go to the store to buy the milk, but first I have to do something for her so that she'll give me the shoes and then even after I have the shoes she's following me because she wants milk too and now I need to get my keys but first I have to have a chase scene across the clothelines and fences of my neighbor's back yard and then I drop the keys into the bed of a truck and then we have to chase the truck in a taxi and then we get the keys but we don't need them anymore because the taxi already took us to the store but then the store is being robbed and WILL SOMEONE JUST GET ME SOME MILK ALREADY?

Which might not be so bad if this weren't the fourth time in eight years that that or something very much like it had happened.

Wow, this alternate ending to "Volver" went in a really, really weird direction.

The Ugly:

For a franchise about pirates, there's surprisingly little piracy in these movies. Does Johnny Depp ever actually rob ships? I've pirated more shit with this computer in the last hour than his character has in four movies. I don't know why but this really bothers me.

Being a pirate in this movie seems to consist mostly of chasing Indiana Jones-style treasure while intermittently acting like an asshole in an amusing way. I guess "Assholes of the Caribbean" is a less marketable title, but I'd still see it.

Bottom Line:

Going in, I was of the opinion that there’s no reason for this movie to have been made. Coming out, I was forced to agree with myself.

Look, “Pirates 4” is really not a bad movie. But it’s certainly not a good movie either. Huge fans will be happy. No one else should bother showing up. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go install mermaid-repelling screens in all of my drains. I'm pretty sure they can't swim up through the plumbing, but "pretty sure" just doesn't cut it for me.

Trailer Park

Real Steel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T75j9CoBVzE&feature=relmfu

My desire to play Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots with Hugh Jackman exceeds what anyone would probably consider a healthy level. But my desire to watch other people play Rock-Em Sock-Em Robots with Hugh Jackman is next to nil.

Harry Potter and the Towering Box Office-Part 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_kDb-pRCds

We’re not going to have to watch ghostly Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson make out again, are we? Because I’m still not done feeling uncomfortable after the last movie.

Next Week: I get a hangover. No, that's not right. I get a hangover twice? Still not quite right. I see "The Hangover 2"? Maybe I should go back to the first way.