Three movies, two tv shows

Taking them in the order I watched them:

The Bourne Identity:

I Tivod this, and watched it on Thursday after getting home from the server upgrade. Not a great movie, but a really (surprisingly) fun piece of brain candy. Nicely cut from the Hitchcock North by Northwest cloth (man caught up in something he doesn't understand). Good acting (Matt Damon, Clive Owen, Chris Cooper, a surprising supporting role for Julia Stiles), and just a good sense of fun. Definitely worth renting.

(note: North by Northwest is still a much, much better movie -- don't expect anything nearly that good)

Next, I watched the third ep of Celebrity Poker Showdown:
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Next was the unrated Eurotrip, which I watched right before I went out of town.

I should be ashamed of myself. I really liked this movie. Dumb? Sure. Offensive? Hell yes. But it was also damned well done. Much less stereotyping that I expected (I mean, they go to France, and the only things they make fun of are mimes, nude beaches, and the line at the Louvre?), and much more, well, humor. Not sure how much was in the "rated" version, but this had some truly wonderful moments (including Lucy Lawless as a bondage queen in a scene that involved a laser-sighted four-way dildo, something I couldn't make up if I wanted to). It also had, as far as I can tell, much more male nudity than any other raunchy comedy has ever had. And Hasselhoff (not naked). What more could any movie fan ask for?

I was too tired when I got back on Sunday to do anything, but I caught the season finale of Deadwood yesterday morning.

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Finally, I grabbed House of 1000 Corpses on Tivo.

Worst. Movie. Ever.

If Dee Snyder's Strangeland had unprotected sex with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, and the resulting baby movie was dropped on its head a few times, it would still be ten times better than House of 1000 Corpses.

Ugh. Seeing Sherie Moon in assless chaps isn't enough to save this movie. Nor is Sid Haig, who gives the best performance (and has the best character, by far). It's not even MST3Kable.

DSL

Well, their phone techs may fuck and suck pigs instead of providing service, but once I got a field tech out here, Bellsouth got their act together. Took him about three minutes to agree that the line was the problem, and about forty seconds more to replace the ancient wires at the NID with good ones. Lo and behold, we're online!

Hasselhoff makes any comedy better

I'm so ashamed. We saw a sneak preview of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, and I loved it. Photognome and I were actually howling with laughter at times.

My new rule for Ben Stiller movies is that I'll see them only if his wife stars in them, too, as this is his funniest film since Zoolander. The cast is a huge factor, of course -- Alan Tudyk as a man who thinks he's a pirate, Gary Cole and Jason Bateman as ESPN8 ("The Ocho") announcers, Hank Azaria and Rip Torn as the young and old versions of the same character, the great Stephen Root (no stapler jokes, alas), and, of course, Vince Vaughn.

But the movie itself is just funnier than it has a right to be. It'll bomb miserably at the box office, but it'll gain a following like Josie and the Pussycats on DVD.

Incidentally, they showed a trailer for I, Robot before the movie (presumably because Tudyk's in both?). And I swear you could hear a faint hissing sound during the entire thing, as Asimov is clearly still spinning in his grave.