THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES ARE AFFECTED BY IDENTITY THEFT A YEAR

Will Ferrell double whammy - Anchorman + 300 + Chihuahuas

Well done. I don't know how it ranks compared to the Pokemon one, but I think I'd rather see either than the real 300.

Also, this

Hunter S. Thompson + Conan O'Brien + Whiskey + Heavy Weapons

Hunter S. Thompson refused to come into the studio for Conan O'Brien to interview him about his book. He did, however, agree to meet at a remote farm, get liquored up, and unload a lot of lead on a few copies.

Movie Madness

I can't even remember how many movies I've seen in the last few weeks..

I'm finishing Poseidon right now, which fits the "ok to rent and watch on my own while Lauren does real work and she'll never want to see." It was surprisingly graphic and seemed a damn sight more watchable than the original. Now I just need them to remake the Towering Inferno.. Good popcorn action and good effects - aside from that unredeemable.

Stranger Than Fiction - Will Ferrell does a good job as the straight man(a good Arthur Dent type character) in a ridiculous situation. Ferrell is the character in a book, but he doesn't realize it until he starts hearing the voice of his narrator. Unfortunately his author only writes novels in which the protagonists suffer horrible deaths. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie until the end, which was probably about as satisfying as the end of the novel Ferrell's character was in - Death & Taxes. Excellent graphical touches in the first half. Also, Maggie Gyllenhal is cute as hell.

I pulled the theater double feature with Blades of Glory and 300.

-Blades of Glory didn't feel quite as hilarious as Talladega Nights, but I also wasn't a pitcher of beer deep when I saw it. Surprisingly less gay innuendo than Talladega. You'd think it'd be the other way 'round. Good fun, not necessary to see in the theater.

- 300 was graphically impressive, but it ended up being kind of boring and you only once got the impression there were actually 300 Spartans. That'll happen when you stretch a 4 issue comic to 2 hours or so. Very nice slo-mo action, though. Best since the lobby scene of the original Matrix.

- Between those two, the most enjoyable thing of the night was the first trailer for Spider-Man 3 I had seen. I think I wet myself with excitement. So impressed with just a few minutes of movie..

School for Scoundrels was just a little bit better than Dodgeball. Translated - It sucked a lot, but there are things that suck more. Jon Heder falls into the Ricky Gervais school of acting - which is to say they don't act, they just get in front of the camera and act like themselves. Once again, the "Lauren really doesn't mind missing this movie" law.

The Descent - Spelunking Horror. Just didn't feel this movie. It was a little like Cube in that I didn't care about any of the characters dying. Picture the filmmakers saying "what if we did Blair Witch meets Gollum except there's a hundred Gollums?" That's pretty much it. It's kind of cool to view it thinking that one of the characters is insane and actually killing off the rest herself because she snapped. Otherwise, I had every reason to have a hard time getting through this in one sitting. In fact, I would pause it pretty often to play Puzzle Quest - that took me up through a 4am night.

The Departed - Nice stuff. It was pretty convoluted and I would probably benefit from watching it a second time. I wouldn't mind watching it again, but it lost my mom and we kept having to pause to get her up to speed. While watching I kept wondering how the hell you could do a sequel and the closest I could come was guessing that they'd combine the Departed series and the Bourne Identity series to get.. wait for it.. Bourne Irish. I was slightly disappointed to find that it's a remake of one movie from an asian trilogy. It remade the middle one, there will be a sequel involving Mark Wahlberg's character, and if that does well enough, they'll go ahead and remake the prequel.

Oh, I also repurchased Anchorman(sold at my last yard sale). There is some absolute genius in that movie, but it feels like it's padded out by too much nonsense. I consider Talladega Nights superior to Anchorman in that the whole movie is much smoother instead of leaving you waiting for the next blast of insanity. Also, the cougar gets me every time.

Current movies on hand - Moog, Inside Man, and Animal House(for teh edification of teh beta unit).

Next five in queue - Rope, Inconvenient Truth, Little Miss Sunshine, Finding Nemo(my students never believed I hadn't seen it), and Idiocracy.

Total movies in queue? 103.