Not by the Hairs of my Chingy Ching Ching

The Chinese Connection/Jing wu men (1972)
Dir: Wei Lo
***

My first kung-fu film as an adult. Pretty standard fare. A teacher is killed when a rival Japanese school decides to have it out for those pesky Chinese dissidents. Bruce Lee vows revenge, kicks much ass and finds redemption. The female lead in this made my heart melt with hotness!

Won't You Please be my Neighbor?

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Arlington Road (1999)
Dir: Mark Pellington
*

What a load of pretentious garbage. Terrorist neighbors? I almost bought it until the flashback when the wife gets blown away by the redneck housewife with a baby in one arm and a shotgun in the other. Sad filmmaking at it's worst. It's a funny time capsule in a way because this was pre-911 paranoia... of course Tim Robbins does look a little like Osama Bin Laden if you squint REAL hard, but then Joan Cusack ends up looking like Rosie O'Donnell.

The Idiots Guide to T.V.

Battlestar Galactica (the new one)

I just finished a mega marathon of two seasons and I can't say enough good things about this great sci-fi crack! I have Season 3, Razor, then a patient wait till the DVD release of Season 4. So say we all...Frak!!!!!!

An Early Grave

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Grave of the Fireflies/Hotaru no haka (1988)
Dir: Isao Takahata
****

A remarkable anime achievement of one families tale of demise at the close of WWII. Damn depressing and you can be sure the grave reality is a much harsher picture than what this gives you. God bless the Human race, eh?

S&M Mart

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Secretary (2002)
Dir: Steven Shainberg
***1/2

Having once dated a cutter, I immediately had a soft spot for Lee and her mindset. A modern day fairy tale with an s&m twist...sure, why not? Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader come off as a very endearing characters and I loved the concept. However, I thought there was a wealth of material with the side characters that wasn't touched upon.

A Town Not Called Mayberry

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Elizabethtown (2005)
Dir: Cameron Crowe
**


This movie makes Four Weddings and a Funeral look like the Queen's gems. It hurt just to type that but "oy vey"... Just an awful mix of formulaic dysentery. Let's have a romance-drama- comedy...travelogue? Whaaaaat?!! Not to mention that every supporting role, even the most minor, seemed more fleshed out than the lead. Did you know that Orlando phoned this performance in from a remote hole in Asia? What was so likable about this character anyway? He smiled a lot and knows how to drive? The non chemistry romance was sickening cute-sweet, though a total rip off of Garden State, which was probably a rip off of something else.

What Happens in Reno Stays in Reno?

Reno 911!: Miami (2007)
Dir: Robert Ben Garant

***

Step aside 'Police Academy'... there's a new Sheriff in town and his name is... Dangle? It's as fun as the show but I think it's a stretch to label it as groundbreaking or genius comedy. Just entertaining enough to not go postal on the housewives who give out five stars like there's a bake sale in town and I'm the cookie. The bad chocolate cookie with nuts and coconut flakes. Bad cookie...here's some milk!!!!

The Idiots Guide to T.V.

Upright Citizens Brigade
Season 1

**

"Thee cant tou furly for thou posty tere soun."..... Seventeenth Century bawd humor might tickle ones fancy but the majority of us don't have the knack to appreciate the witty styles of a man in his thirties who looks in his sixties with a stink of pig urine and festering lesions on his unkempt cowl. So goes this