Movies Movies Movies!

The following kicks ass and should be a part of your life:

• Hoodwinked, starring Patrick Warburton, Glenn Close, Andy Dick and Anne Hathaway. It doesn't matter that it's an animated film, there are more pop culture references and over-the-heads-of-the-kids jokes than anything else. I almost hesitate to say this, just because it give something away, but...Triple G. I kid you not. Go see this movie. Go marry this movie.
• Serenity, starring all those people from Firefly. Having never seen the show, I wasn't quite sure how I'd like this movie, if it was something I'd wouldn't understand without the background, what have you. I need not have worried. This show kicked. Major. Ass! It was frickin' hilarious, and yet had great action, and yet was a sci-fi. How many ways do I have to say it? If you don't marry Hoodwinked, you should marry Serenity instead. (Also: it totally made me want to buy the show's season one on DVD.)
• Tortilla Soup, starring Hector Elizondo and Jaqueline Obradors. The story is good, the actors are fantastic, and best of all, it makes me hungry! Better yet, it makes me want to cook. It doesn't matter if you don't speak Spanish: that's what the subtitles are for, and most of the movie is in English anyway. Watch this movie. And then eat it.

The following things suck donkey butt, and should be extricated from our culture as soon as possible:

• Blockbuster Online, who are such a bunch of incompetent dillholes that I've asked Bizarro Dad to cancel our account before the free two-week trial is over. They can't send the right movie to save their lives, and they are just so full of crap. I'm taking my business to Netflix.
• Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III, starring Natalie Portman, Ewan MacGregor, Hayden Somethingorother, and a bunch of other people. I did sit through them all. I did try to like them. But seriously? The dialogue bites, and Hayden Whatshisface could not deliver a line without looking like something had crawled up his back end and died. I think it was the script, actually. And Natalie? She had her good moments, but mostly she kind of looked like she couldn't believe she'd been roped into a ten-year contract spewing this kind of crap. Her delivery was very wooden in some parts, and downright lazy in others. Or wait. Was it Hayden that was lazy? I don't know. The whole set was dumb. Cheesy in a way that suggests somebody screwed up.
• Aladdin and it's many cartoon sequels. I was all impressed with this animated feature when I was, like, 13, and thought the songs were all romantic and stuff. But the thing is, it was no Beauty and the Beast. Jasmine didn't make any sense: she's strong and independent, so she sneaks out to the market (without taking money, even though she knows what money is), and as soon as somebody starts to get upset with her, she's all "We can go to the Sultan, we can go to the Sultan!" WTF? And then, after she and Aladdin are caught and she's told that he's been executed because of her, she feels all guilty that her bid for independence cost an innocent man his life, so she doesn't run away, but she's still all, "I am not a prize to be won!" Then tell me, girl, what are you? Are you a functioning member of society? Do you scatter largess to the poor? Do you encourage education? No. You sit around all day in your halter top, combing your hair and playing with your tiger and pet birds. It takes meeting a street rat to bring out the cleverness in you, and you only seem to possess it when he's around. When he's not there, you're Daddy's little girl, which is fine and all, but stop whining about being treated like something more if you're not going to ACT like something more. Also: the animation get less and less impressive with each sequel, as does the script. It was like after a while, they decided the main plot of the third movie was just whatever Robin Williams came up with during his ad-libbing.
• Final Destination and all its sequels. Because, seriously? Three movies with the word "final" in them makes me think that somebody needs to just come up with a different title altogether. (And don't e-mail me trying to explain what they mean by "final destination." I already know. My husband loves these movies.) More to the point, why is it entertaining for a screenwriter and filmmaker to sit there and invent new and more creative ways to die, then film them for an audience? I do not understand this. If 15 kids die on a freak roller coaster accident in real life, we all go, "Gasp! How awful!" But put it in a horror movie and everyone's supposed to love it? Something is wrong with the people on this planet. Seriously.