14 summer movies we want to see

It's already been established that 1984 was the greatest movie summer ever.  But what about 2012?  Here's the movies we're interested in seeing:

1. Prometheus (June 8) - Let everyone else clamor for the new Batman movie.  We're among the contrarians waiting for the new Alien movie.  Yeah yeah, it's not a sequel or a prequel.  Whatever, Ridley Scott.  If you've seen any of the half dozen trailers that 20th Century Fox has been doling out like free crack samples these last few months, then you know this looks like one extremely badass movie, sequel/prequel or not.  How eagerly you want to see it depends on whether the term "space jockey" means anything to you.

2. The Bourne Legacy (August 3) - Some complain that it'll be the same plot only with a different lead character (Jeremy Renner replaces Matt Damon).  To us, that's the only reason to go.  The first three Bourne movies, with their kinetic, loosely-framed, fists-flying, car-racing, psuedo-documetary realism, completely changed for the better how Hollywood envisions action movies (see also: Casino Royale and Taken).  We hope this one is as half as good as those.

3. Dark Shadows (May 11) - This has long been a dream project for Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.  When we'd hear updates about this from time to time, we'd sort of scratch our heads.  Why adapt into film some weirdo 1970s TV soap opera enjoyed by a tiny group of fans?  It'd be like turning Fox's "MANTIS" into a movie in 2022.  Odd.  But this is Johnny Depp and Tim Burton we're talking about here.  They do odd.  And then we saw the trailers with its screwball 1970s fashion and wry fish-out-of-water vibe for Depp's vampire character.  We think we get it now.

4. Rock of Ages (June 15) - We know this isn't an accurate representation of 1980s Sunset Strip's gritty dive clubs (it's not Whiskey-a-Go-Go, it's the Bourbon Room, get it?).  But who needs reality when you get this kind of sleek, bubble-gum gloss?  The Cheese Fry came of age during the height of hair bands, which means we really, really want to like this.  Tom Cruise is singing Bon Jovi, people.  If that doesn't attract the rubberneckers, what will?

5. Battleship (May 18) - We hate the Transformers movies.  And we recognize that this seems like Transformers on the water.  But there's also something Independence Day cool about a war between aliens and the U.S. military, don't you think?  So it could go either way.  But we'd follow director Peter Berg anywhere.  He gave the world the exemplary (aside from the 2nd season, if you what we mean) television show "Friday Night Lights" and for that deserves respect from all of us.  (We're also curious to know if anyone in the movie utters the immortal phrase "You sank my battleship!")

6. The Dark Knight Rises (July 20) - There are those who believe writer-director Christopher Nolan can do no wrong.  We are not among those.  We found both Inception (what a middle-finger of an ending) and The Dark Knight (way, way too much plot for one movie) stylish and cinematic but way overrated.  But there is no denying that Nolan is a master at infusing dumb pop culture archetypes like Batman with complex themes and somber mood.  We want to see this, but we'll do so with our arms crossed.

7. Men in Black 3 (May 25) - One of those sequels that no one really much wanted outside of the Sony accounting office.  Men in Black 2 came out ten years ago, during the second year of George W. Bush's first term.  In entertainment, ten years is an eternity.  Then you hear stories about production problems, how they started shooting without a script, then had to put everything on hold while they worked out the storyline.  These are not good signs.  These point to a train wreck of a movie.  But then we saw Josh Brolin doing a Tommy Lee Jones impression.  They got us.

8. The Avengers (May 4) - This is our homework movie.  We feel an obligation to see it, even if we really don't care.  We're probably more DC than Marvel.  We loved Iron Man, hated Iron Man 2.  We liked Hulk better than most, but never saw The Incredible Hulk.  And with a toddler, Captain America and Thor last summer didn't make the cut like Super 8 and X Men First Class.  While we appreciate that fanboy director Joss Whedon will do a good job and there's no denying the powerhouse cast, there's something unseemly with the way Marvel has so carefully laid the groundwork for this movie starting way back in 2008.  This isn't so much a sequel as an inevitability, it seems.  The Avengers wasn't contingent on how we reacted to Iron Man and its Sam Jackson cameo in the tag.  This movie was going to happen.  In fact, we resent how the first round of stand-alone Avenger movies kind of feel like placeholders, obligatory teasers that existed solely to get us to this superhero-team movie.  We're also dubious of the logistics in cramming in so many big characters.  Too many villains is what killed the pre-reboot Batman and Spiderman franchises.  Could too many heroes kill this one?

9. Safety Not Guaranteed (June 8) - This is our kind of movie: a quirky little independent film with a hip cast of up-and-comers.  You know, the kind that hits big at Sundance and gets a lot of critical acclaim.  The kind that makes you feel oh-so-discerning and sophisticated when you pay money to see it in a half-empty theater.  It has a clever premise - what if the crazy person who claims he's from the future isn't really crazy? - and could be a sleeper hit.  But more than likely it'll come and go in theaters in just a couple of weekends, then get released on DVD in September.  And then one day you'll stumble onto it and really like it and ask your significant other, "Was this in theaters?"  Yes.  Yes, it was.

10. The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3) - 2007's Spiderman 3 sucked.  On that, we can all surely agree.  But the Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi team did more good than harm overall.  Spiderman 2 ranks among the best movies ever, not just best among comic book movies.  That crew deserved another shot, a chance to wash the bad taste of Spiderman 3 out of our mouths.  But the budget for their proposed Spiderman 4 got too high, so Sony fired everyone and decided to reboot a franchise that was booted for the first time just ten years ago in 2002.  (What is it with Sony and its obsession with 2002 comic book movies?)  So now we have to sit through another origin story about Spiderman and again learn about "with great power comes great responsibility" and oh, but it's Gwen in this one, not Mary Jane.  Whatever, Peter Parker.  Whatever.  It'll probably be good, but it just seems so tedious going in.

11. Ted (July 13) - We may not watch the show as religiously as some, but we have enormous respect for underrated "Family Guy" which even today hasn't gotten its due thanks to the large shadow cast by the comparatively upscale satire on "The Simpsons."  Seth McFarlane's first feature film Ted is therefore worth a look, especially given the premise of a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking teddy bear (voiced by McFarlane himself) causing trouble for his owner who's now a grown-up Mark Wahlberg.  Genius.

12. The Chernobyl Diaries (May 25) - The "found footage" phenomenon - in which a fictional horror film pretends that it's all a documentary to better goose the audience into suspending disbelief - fascinates us.  When done well, as in Paranormal Activity, the effect is terrifying in its simplicity because the real scares comes not from what you see but fron what you don't see or what you think you see or what you imagine the characters are seeing just out of the frame.  So we're always curious to see these kinds of movies (in this one, our hapless heroes find scares near the Chernobyl nuclear accident site) to find out how well they succeed.  Please note, however, that we never said we'd see it in theaters.  That'd be too scary.  We'll wait for home video.  
UPDATE: Okay, it looks this isn't a "found footage" movie, though it does seem to have a few sequences filmed from the POV of a video camera.  The Cheese Fry regrets the error.  But the movie still looks scary as hell.

13. GI Joe: Retaliation (June 29) - Look, we have to be honest here.  We have a crush on Adrianne Palicki.  She's in this.  We want to see it.  The end.  Bruce Willis and Dwayne Johnson are just icing on the cake.  The first GI Joe was good, not great.

14. Savages (July 6) - Oliver Stone hasn't had a slam-dunk mainstream success since probably 1999's Any Given Sunday.  As we all know, his movies tend to be political in story and inflammatory by design.  Admirable and noble, perhaps, but not always able to attract wide audiences.  But Savages would seem to be just what Stone needs, a sweaty, down-and-dirty thriller about Mexican cartels, marijuana growers, and kidnapping plots.  America also gets it's third Taylor Kitsch movie in three months, whether you want them or not.

For the record, we won't be seeing these two movies: another apparent comedic misfire from Adam Sandler called That's My Boy and the completely unnecessary (bordering on sacrilegious) sequel to Total Recall.

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Knee-jerk review: "The Hunger Games"

1. We liked the book. We also liked the movie. And we'll defend either with extreme prejudice.
2. True, lead actress Jennifer Lawrence is more woman than girl. But she brings the sort of dramatic gravitas that poor sourpuss Kristen Stewart can't ever really muster in Twilight.
3. And did you see what just happened? We already succumbed to the culture's rather sexist need to compare The Hunger Games with Twilight. Because all young-adult fiction geared to tween girls is the same, right?
4. So let's go with it. But whereas Twilight, at its heart, is about a girl who wants to be with the Bad Boy, The Hunger Games has much bigger thematic aspirations involving class and media and politics. In other words, we don't think Bella Swan would be the type to foster rebellion. (There are also those who say that Bella's pursuit of Edward involves Mormon issues about the dangers of sex, but that starts to get a little too Womens Studies for us.)
5. Our admiration for Woody Harrelson continues to grow. He is amazing. We recommend The Messenger.
6. There's no denying the "99%" element in the plot where the wealthy elite dine on delicacies, wear ridiculously fancy clothes, and do what they can to pretend that the working masses don't have it so bad. And may not be aware that they're about to face some real retribution, French Revolution-style.
7. We wonder why the producers couldn't have spent another $1 million or so to fix the awful special effects of the parade sequence. It's really bad. Like, SyFy bad. What should have been a triumphant moment of awe is instead rather silly and goofy-looking. This won't happen with the next movie, not with $262 million and counting pouring into the Lionsgate coffers.
8. "I volunteer as tribute." Powerful moment.
9. We love how the movie's boffo success at the box office surprised so many. Plenty of studios bigger than Lionsgate passed on the chance to make it, while too-cool-for-school bloggers loved to snark about the growing buzz. If you read the books, however, you had a sense of how big it could be. We suspect The Hunger Games will eventually pass Twilight and wind up second only to the Harry Potter franchise. This shows how out of touch Hollywood can be when it comes to grass-roots pop culture. "The Hunger Games" book gained popularity not because it was a comic book or some overhyped TV show fueled by millions in marketing dollars. Something called word-of-mouth made it catch fire, with able assists from Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer, both early fans of the book. If you read it, you got it. If you only read the logline "Kids fight to the death on live TV" then maybe you roll your eyes. In a way, this same thing happened with Twilight, which is how little indie studio Summit snapped up the rights and made a mint. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with outliers like this, properties that don't come from the A-listers.
10. Much was also made about the film's PG-13 rating. "How can they show the brutality of murder without an R?" Relax, people. The movie is plenty violent. The kid-on-kid bloodbath that begins the games is uncomfortable to watch. Plus, why would the producers be so dumb as to adapt a young-adult book and then earn a rating that cuts out young adults?
11. The arrow through the apple. Awesome. "Thank you for your consideration."
12. We're also sick of hearing it compared to Battle Royale and The Running Man. It's the sort of lazy, smug comment that invariably comes from someone unfamiliar with the details of The Hunger Games. For the record, Battle Royale is a deliciously crazy, over-the-top movie and The Running Man is a very dated, very lame 1980s satire. Read instead the Stephen King book.
13. Trackerjackers and mockingjays.
14. Still not big fans of the giant dog animals at the end, but we do appreciate that the movie omitted one dog-related detail from the book that was probably its most ridiculous element.
15. Proof that casting is king. What a strange story. But Donald Sutherland, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci... they can sell anything.
16. Poor Seneca Crane. He didn't contain it, did he?
17. Should we incorporate Katniss' three-finger kiss salute in our everyday life? That's not nerdy, is it?
18. Probably just shy of being a great movie, but definitely a very good movie. Worth your $8.

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We don't want to hate "Dora the Explorer"

Li'l Fry loves "Dora the Explorer." We sometimes think she'd be happy watching six uninterrupted hours of back-to-back episodes. "Can I watch Dora?" But while we've learned to embrace the subtle charms of "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" and "Team Umizoomi" and "Elmo's World" and, yes, even "Barney and Friends," we cannot keep from repeatedly rolling our eyes and making sour faces at "Dora the Explorer."

1. Her voice - The screechy, sing-song, uptalk voice of Dora is incredibly annoying and grows only moreso over time. "Can YOU help us FIND the singing GARDENS?" We're told small children respond well to this sort of speech pattern, but our response involves a desire to shove sharpened pencils into our ears.

2. Crude animation - Many contemporary children's shows involve sophisticated, slick animation. Not this one. It's like what you saw on Saturday morning cartoon back in 1982, but NBC's "The Smurfs" probably had more polish. The movements are jerky, the designs simple and dull, and the whole thing looks incredibly cheap, which is rather insulting given the goldmine this character has become. The producers clearly aren't putting their profits back into the show.

3. Unreality - We know it's not Ibsen, but we would like some sort of dramatic realism. It's like the producers don't even try to maintain any sort of internal story logic. Even "Sesame Street" creates a clear set of rules (puppets and people living in New York City) and sticks to them. But here Dora flies into outer space, turns into a mermaid, visits the Old West, talks to dinosaurs, goes on a medieval Arthurian quest, in addition to the usual silliness involving looking for wrecked ice cream trucks or returning lost frogs to their frog families. We don't think there's anything these people won't turn into an episode. It's like a preschool fever dream of bridge trolls and swimming bears and go-cart races. We'd probably have an easier time swallowing it all if we just had one question answered: are we supposed to think this is all really happening? The little cursor-arrow-clicks (also irritating) suggest this is all a video game, which could work. And there's also the possibility that this is happening in her imagination. But it's left very vague. The producers are seemingly too lazy to even clarify the show's basic premise. They'd rather make an entire episode about picking blueberries. And count their money.

4. Everything has a face - In Dora's world, there is not a single object - not one - that doesn't have a face and speak in that same childlike grating monotone.

5. The map - If you've seen him in action, you understand. Could he be more whiny?

6. The other characters - We like Boots. Really. There's a childlike innocence to him, but also an intelligence and a sense of fun. He rarely comes off as simple-minded and humorless as Dora. But the same cannot be said for the other animal characters* like Benny the Bull or that ridiculous squirrel who wears the rainbow serape. Each one is more annoying and dim-witted than the next. It really does seem like the producers think the only way to make a children's show is to dumb it down enough to make it completely unpalatable for adults. What a formula.

* Our favorite part of the show is the three-piece insect marachi band that plays the fanfare once each stage of Dora's journey is complete. Those guys need their own show. Just don't let "Dora's" producers make it.

7. Swiper the Fox - Every story needs a good villain, but Swiper is so inept and hopeless that he's practically a joke. Even Wile E. Coyote had an edge to him. If you don't know, Swiper is a a thief who can be thwarted by simply asking him to not steal. "Swiper no swiping!" We can appreciate the need for this kind of incantation. But the producers always cut it so close. Swiper is literally inches away from grabbing the item he wants (instead of waggling your fingers, Swiper, lunge in and grab it already!) when he suddenly understands that he's been told no and backs off. What kind of thief is this? Again, we want to accept this quirk because it's a stupid animated show for kids and life is too short, but we cannot accept it because it's just so completely implausible and illogical. Why does he care what people tell him? Surely there's another way, a more logical way, for Swiper to be repelled.

Adding to the irritation of the entire Swiper nonsense is that when told Swiper is close by, Dora and Boots freeze and stare into the camera rather than turn around and look for Swiper themselves. Yes yes, we know this is for the kids at home so they can be a part of the action. But even those kids must wonder in the back of their heads why Dora doesn't also exert some effort looking for Swiper. Why do the kids have to do all of the work?

8. The vines - There's a lot of Tarzan-style vine swinging in this show, but in keeping with the show's crude and lazy animation style, the laws of physics do not apply. Not even a little. In Dora's world, if you see a vine hanging down, just jump up and grab it and you'll be instantly catapulted sideways in a long graceful vine arc. Ridiculous.

9. Her shirt - Can't Dora's parents buy her a shirt that covers her belly? They seem to have money living in that fancy adobe-looking Spanish-revival-style house. Buy her a shirt!

Will there come a time when we look back on this era with wistful nostalgia and wish Li'l Fry still watched "Dora"? Unlikely.

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Now this is a bracket we're happy to fill out

The good people at Esquire have again put together a field of 64 hot women for creepy bloggers like us to objectify and grade. And we thank them for it.

Regular Cheese Fry readers (and we know there's at least four of you) may recall Olivia Wilde winning this exercise last year and Christina Hendricks winning in 2010. So proud they must be to have the Cheese Fry in their corner.

So will win this year?

This year, the 64 women are divided by Esquire into "Movies," "TV," "Royals," and "Models and Music."

Here's how our bracket shaped up.

Emerging from "Movies" into the Sweet 16:

* Charlize Theron (1 seed)

* Kate Winslet (12)

* Felicity Jones (14)

* Emma Stone (2)

The 1 and the 2 advance as expected, no question there. The 3-seed was Jennifer Lawrence, who we feel the Selection Committee seeded much too high. Mila Kunis was 4, which seems right, but she still lost in what Esquire might consider an update to Kate Winslet, ranked at a rather absurdly low 12.

Coming out of the "TV" division into the Sweet 16:

* Sofia Vergara (1)

* Kristen Bell (4)

* Amber Heard (6)

* Maria Menounos (15)

More low seeds advance. Not making the cut: someone named Gugu Mbatha-Raw (2) and the "30 Rock" intern Katrina Bowden (3). We don't really get Kristen Bell, but she's definitely hotter than Elizabeth Olsen (14), whom she beat to get here. We saw Maria Menounos in person once and cannot adequately describe to you how incredibly beautiful she is - it's like she's been CGI'd or something.

From the "Royals" division, we get these for the Sweet 16:

* Helen Mirren (16)

* Kim Kardashian (4)

* Stacy Keibler (3)

* Beyonce (7)

Helen Mirren as a 16? Seriously? It's certainly hip to call Dame Helen attractive, but that doesn't make it any less true. In a fight against #1 seed Duchess Katherine, it's not even close. Kim and Stacy are empty vessels, really, advancing in the most perfunctory way possible. This is surely the easiest division. It's the NFC West of the brackets.

And entering the Sweet 16 from the "Models and Music" group:

* Kate Upton (1)

* Katy Perry (4)

* Brooklyn Decker (3)

* Bar Refaeli (7)

Carrie Underwood (2) missed the cut, or else it would be a favorites-only bracket. Despite how annoying the Maria Menounos anecdote may have been, we must also note that we once sat behind Bar Refaeli at a Lakers game. We didn't recognize her right away, but even with a baseball cap on and no makeup, it was clear she was, as they say, smoking hot.

The Sweet 16 shook out like this:

* Kate Winslet defeats Charlize Theron - Charlize is regal and statuesque, yes, but she wouldn't ever talk to you, but we like to think we could have a beer with Kate

* Emma Stone defeats Felicity Jones - Emma may have been the best thing about last month's Oscar show

* Sofia Vergara defats Kristen Bell - like killing a fly with a shotgun

* Amber Heard defeats Maria Menounous - Maria is the cute girl next door, but Amber is the gorgeous woman across town

* Helen Mirren defeats Kim Kardashian - we protest that Kim was even in these brackets

* Beyonce defeats Stacy Kiebler - cannon fodder for the next rounds

* Kate Upton defeats Katy Perry - we can't believe the stories we hear about how the fashion industry is so unimpressed with Kate

* Bar Rafeli defeats Brooklyn Decker - photo finish, it was so close

And here's who's going to the Final Four:

* Kate Winslet (12) beats Emma Stone (2)

* Amber Heard (6) beats Sofia Vergara (1)

* Helen Mirren (16) beats Beyonce (7)

* Kate Upton (1) beats Bar Refaeli (7)

Upsets, upsets, upsets. Kate Upton advances without breaking a sweat, but underdogs fill out the rest of the Final Four.

And the championship rounds:

* Kate Winslet beats Amber Heard

* Kate Upton beats Helen Mirren

Which means that Kate Winslet beats Kate Upton in a Battle of the Short Names for Catherine. A truly worthy victor, don't you think?

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Knee-jerk review: "21 Jump Street"

1. It's really, really good. Yeah, we're just as surprised as you.

2. Sure, we watched a few episodes of the Fox TV show back in the late 1980s, but we weren't what you'd call fans. We remember best the episode where Johnny Depp's girlfriend got shot dead in a convenience store and he became obsessed with the fact that he could have done more to stop it.

3. Man, there are a lot of penis jokes in this movie. And most of them are funny.

4. Brie Larson. Like, wow.

5. Jonah Hill's bumbling goofball act is wearing a little thin at this point. It's probably a good thing that he's branching out into more dramatic roles like Moneyball.

6. Korean Jesus.

7. Comedies don't get much respect at all from the cineaste film snobs out there, but this script is smart, tight, and well-executed in such a way that it would still work if you took out all of the jokes. What could have been a lame, lazy, cash-in project was taken seriously by everyone involved.

8. We finally understand what the fuss is all about regarding Channing Tatum. He's solid.

9. Yes, you do hear the theme song.

10. And yes, Johnny Depp makes a cameo. We'd heard about that in advance. But we were surprised to see Holly Robinson (Peete) and Peter DeLuise. Why didn't Dustin Nguyen make it?

11. The easy thing would be to send the nerd back to high school to relive his nerd past and the jock to relive his jock past. The genius here is that it's flipped: the nerd goes back and experiences popularity, while the jock goes back and experiences social ostracism.

12. We'd probably watch Ice Cube do anything. He has charisma to burn. This Coors Light commercial was one of our favorites from last fall. "Did you just snow on me?"

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Don't Worry, Do Brackets

The Cheese Fry isn't a big NCAA fan. Considering the time we waste on NFL and NBA games, it's probably a good thing we're immune to March Madness. But we can always appreciate the absurdity of a good pop-culture alternative bracket, like one that something called Mix107.7 created. It pits 1980s one-hit wonders against one another.

Here's how our brackets worked out.

The Sweet 16
"Catch Me I'm Falling" (Pretty Poison - you surely know it's from the Jon Cryer movie Hiding Out)
"Maniac" (Michael Sembello - whatever happened to him? who was he?)
"Cars" (Gary Numan)
"Relax" (Frankie Goes to Hollywood - which we actually quite hate)
"Puttin' on the Ritz" (Taco)
"Toy Soldiers" (Martika - sublime pop classic)
"99 Luft Balloons" (Nena)
"I Melt with You" (Modern English)
"Der Kommissar" (After the Fire - chh-chh ch-ch-chh ch-ch-chh)
"Heart and Soul" (T'Pau)
"In a Big Country" (Big Country - it's the name of our band and our hit song)
"Break My Stride" (Matthew Wilder - a roller rink standard at North Dallas' Starlight rink circa 1982)
"Funkytown" (Lipps, Inc. - another roller rink standard)
"Under the Milky Way" (The Church)
"Somebody's Watching Me" (Rockwell)
"Buffalo Stance" (Neneh Cherry)

The only number 1 seed to advance the the field of 16? "I Melt with You" The other three #1s fall early in shocking upsets - "867-5309," "Come On Eileen," and "Tainted Love."

Likewise, "Relax" is the only number 2 seed, advancing where other, seemingly stronger 2s ("Mickey," "I Want Candy," and "Too Shy") cannot.

The threes fare a little better - "Cars" and "In a Big Country" make it to the Sweet 16 while the insufferable "Whip It" and "She Blinded Me with Science" rightly fall.

So it's a bracket full of late-80s FM radio Cinderellas that get to the championship rounds.

The Final Four
"Toy Soldiers" (11) beats "Catch Me I'm Falling" (8)
"Buffalo Stance" (9) beats "Heart and Soul" (12)

And in the championship match:
"Buffalo Stance" (9) beats "Toy Soldiers" (11)

Vindication: "Buffalo Stance" is indeed one of our most favorite songs from the 1980s, though it came out late 1989 and almost counts as a 90s song.

That's one way to waste 20 minutes.

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Knee-jerk review: "Chronicle"

1. The last 15-20 minutes are dynamite. Cloverfield meets Hancock. The Seattle Needle bit is five-star. You'll know it when you see it.

2. The trouble is that it takes so long to get there. You'll know where all of this is going and likely grow impatient waiting for the movie to deliver the goods. The first hour or so - even though the story moves pretty fast with a surprising number of leaps in time - can get very tedious.

3. Michael B. Jordan will always be Vince Howard to us.

4. A lot of people like to criticize this ongoing handheld "found footage" style. We love it. Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project remain two of our very favorite movies and work as well as they do because of that urgent, you-are-there format.

5. Zero strong female characters except for a dying mom and a lame love half-hearted interest that turned into a damsel in need of saving? You can do better, Hollywood.

6. 20th Century Fox leaked a lot of superpower scenes from the movie to generate buzz. It definitely stoked our interest, but it also undermined our attention in the theater when we saw familiar bits. Then again, how else would we expect Fox to market a film with no movie stars?

7. Impossible not to think of the famous Spiderman quote: "With great power comes great responsibility." Don't give superpowers to someone with personality issues.

8. The showtime we picked for this was $4 per-ticket extra for something called AMC's ETX. Call it what you want, AMC. We call it a rip-off. Shouldn't your theaters already have superior sound and projection? Why are you making me pay extra for something we'd been expecting you were already delivering for the last 30 years of our time spent in your theaters? Are you admitting now your business model had previously allowed for substandard quality? Got it. At the very least, make it clear in your Moviefone.com listing which showtimes involve this sort of shakedown. We never liked AMC. Smart companies in the business of entertainment shouldn't create a annoying character like this (apparently this thing is called "Clip"):

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"Stay tuned for Monday Night Soccer..."

As much as we love football, growing statistical evidence about the negative impact the sport has on some athletes' brains has given us pause. Would we allow a son to play the game in high school? Probably, but maybe not. As a born-and-bred North Texan with a devotion to the Dallas Cowboys embedded in our DNA, the fact that we would even consider saying "no" perhaps says a lot about the future of football in general and the NFL in particular.

Grantland.com recently took this a step further and tried to imagine how football might wither in the U.S. and become a second-class sport like boxing. On one hand, this is crazy talk. On the other hand, it certainly seems possible.

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Knee-jerk review: "Haywire"

1. Far be it from us to second-guess Steven Soderbergh. He's our favorite director and is mostly above reproach.
2. Look at this five-movie run: Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean's 11. Every one's a masterpiece. He's a genius.
3. A lot of critical chatter about the lack of acting chops for star Gina Carano (she's an MMA fighter by trade, not an actress). It didn't bother us. Whatever robotic, flat affect is present in her performance works for her character.
4. One of the coldest of cold-blooded murders we've ever seen.
5. The deer surprise is a bit much, agreed.
6. Like so many of Soderbergh's films, this one offers a master class in montage editing. So much is clearly conveyed through visuals, including some rather complex action sequences. Reminds us of the Billy Wilder bit about letting your audience connect the dots rather than spoon-feeding them.
7. Carano is pretty hot, but we're far too scared of her to ever say so.
8. So many people commit ruthless double-crosses that it's something of a surprise when some characters don't backstab one another.
9. We've been looking forward to this movie for a very long time, which is often a recipe for disappointment. We were not disappointed. It's essentially a Bourne movie with a pretty girl as Jason Bourne. And honestly, we think she could take Bourne out.

10. Strangely, we don't get a bad guy falling to his death. We thought that was a requirement of any reputable A-list action movie.

11. We still don't understand the appeal of Channing Tatum, but we figure Hollywood will keep pushing him.

12. Michael Douglas, silky smooth as always.

13. Got to love how Soderbergh casts his movies with these kinds of whimsical, "screw it" notions. He hires a porn star to be his lead in The Girlfriend Experience, then plucks from relative obscurity this MMA fighter to be his lead here. Dude has confidence.

14. Loved it.

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"Air raid, freshmen!"

Any in-depth examination of Richard Linklater's 1993 classic Dazed and Confused is a Cheese Fry must-read. A brilliant, criminally underrated movie. And according to Flickchart, it's our favorite movie of all time.

Thank you, AV Club, for this essay.

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"One adult, one child for Airplane 2."

We recently realized that all of the movie theaters of our youth, the ones attended on a regular basis by us and our father, are all long gone, torn down or reconfigured into some other kind of building. Northpark I and II, demolished. United Artists' Walnut Hill 6, now a pool hall. The General Cinema's Valley View, now a radio recording studio. Prestonwood 5, demolished. Northtown 6, reconfigured into something else.

Not that any of these were untouchable jewels. Back then, there was no such thing as stadium seating so the most you could hope for was a gentle sloping hill. And forget about aisles on the sides - most of those old theaters ran the aisle right down the middle, using up valuable audience real estate. THX sound systems were cutting-edge technology, the sort of thing you can now buy for your living room. As for fancy visuals, the big tentpole releases might come out in 70mm "at select theaters," as they say. Concessions were the big three: candy, popcorn, soda.

Thanks to the strange website Cinema Treasures, we stumbled upon the below movie ad newspaper clippings. Fascinating stuff if you're nostalgic 1980s nerds like us.

First, here's the Dallas AMC theaters. Judging by the movies, this is the late December 1982. Back then, movies played for a long, long time. Annie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and E.T. were all summer 1982 releases. We can't imagine a scenario today where a summer movie was still playing at Christmas time. Note the Peter Pan re-release. The home video era was only then starting to dawn - Disney's practice was to re-release its catalog of films every few years to take advantage of the new generation of kids.

The AMC Northtown 6 - no more than 10 minutes away from our ancestral home - plays a special role in Cheese Fry history. That's where we first saw Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. The theaters were small and boxy, stuck in a back corner of a rather lame 1970s mall anchored by a Woolworth's of all things and boasting those little pay booths were you could watch an old Woody Woodpecker cartoon for 25 cents. It's also the last theater that we can remember seeing the old-style skinny horizontal coming attraction movie posters.

Click on the image for a closer look.

And now here's a similar clipping for General Cinema theaters. This also looks to be late December 1982, though note the summer holdover An Officer and a Gentleman. Note also the lack of a PG-13 rating, which was still two years away.

The Valley View theaters were unusual in that they were downstairs. You'd buy your popcorn on the mall level, then walk down some (probably shag-carpeted) stairs to get to the auditoriums below. This was the mall the Cheese Fry grew up with, anchored by Sanger-Harris and Sears. It's in foreclosure now. You can't go home again, people.

Click on the image for a closer look.

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Ask the Fry

For our six or seven regular readers out there, here's an opportunity to get involved and create some of that, you know, interactivity they always talk about. We want to hear from you. Have a question? A post idea? A complaint? Let us know.

E-mail us at: thecheesefry@gmail.com.

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Sundancing

This year's version of the Sundance Film Festival, considered by Hollywood to be among the three or four most influential and important international film festivals, started this weekend. We've been lucky enough to attend the festival several times over the years and found it to be as memorable and surreal as you might imagine.

Our ruminations:

1. It can be bitterly cold in Utah, especially when walking the streets pre-dawn to go score tickets. We'd never before (or since) had the snot in our nose freeze into sharp little snot-crystals.

2. We'd also never seen snow so deep. What seemed to be level ground was actually, when we stepped onto it, a snow drift. We sank into right to our knees.

3. The desperate self-promoters and Hollywood wannabes come out in full force at Sundance, which can be especially amusing in the long ticket lines. Sundance releases a small reserve of tickets each morning, which is why you have to line up very very early at the box office. The characters you meet in that line would have you believe that are the Next Big Thing and know everyone who's everyone. But, of course, if they were truly connected they wouldn't be in line with you at 5:30am.

4. You could usually tell which people in line should not be told that we worked in the industry. The next thing you know, you'd be given a business plan for a Leonardo DiCaprio project that DiCaprio had probably never heard of and only needed 85% of the financing.

5. We tried to attend the infamous Sundance parties. Even with our name on the list, one party was so packed we couldn't even get up the steps to the front door. The other was so crowded, the bar was literally wall-to-wall people, crammed in elbow to elbow, each with a drink in their head. We think we had a small panic attack.

6. It's true. Everyone wears black.

7. Celebrity sightings are indeed very common, though we don't count the Q&A after movies when the actors and directors take the stage. We prefer seeing famous people in their natural habitat just out there walking around.

8. For some reason, the most memorable celebrity sighting: 1990s Lolita ingenue sex kitten Dominique Swain posing for fan pictures on the sidewalk.

9. No, we never saw Redford, though we heard he was in a theater we were in.

10. We saw The Blair Witch Project in the front row of a packed auditorium. Remember this was before the hype and the hype backlash. In 1999, it was the hot ticket - everyone was talking about this weird, creepy little movie. It was the scariest thing we'd ever seen.

11. If you plan it right, on a good day you can see five movies.

12. Foreign-langauge movies at Sundance invariably put us to sleep. Not sure why.

13. If you're looking for cheap fast food on a budget, Park City isn't the place to go. There's maybe one Subway and one Burger King.

14. We didn't know that ski resorts would illuminate the slopes so people could ski at night. Is that common? The whole side of a mountain was lit up bright as day.

15. Good luck making a meal reservation for your little indie production company. The stress level was off the charts. We don't miss that part of the job.

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A-one and a-two

We hate ourselves for having this song stuck in our heads for 30 years thanks to the long-agoritual weekend viewing of this show by our grandmother. But then again, there is something soothing about it, in a 1970s Velveeta sort of way, don't you think? Life was simpler for the Cheese Fry when the biggest worry involved multiplication homework and deciding whether to pretend to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo.

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10 thoughts on the 69th Annual Golden Globes Awards

1. Meryl Streep? Seriously?

2. That whole move where the winner has to wind through the tables and chairs to get to the stage and keeps getting interrupted by someone who wants a hug or a kiss or a handshake has nothing to do with the winner and everything to do with the interrupter trying to steal some of the spotlight and look important and connected.

3. Is it us or did Ricky Gervais dial it back a little this year? He seemed a lot tamer. Pity.

4. What happened to Madonna's British accent?

5. Hollywood keeps trying to push Jessica Beil on us.

6. Dudes we wish we looked like (in no particular order): George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Eawn McGregor, Clive Owen.

7. That's not playing fair to Melissa McCarthy, sticking her next to Paula Patton.

8. Quote of evening, delivered by Mrs. Cheese Fry: "Please do not fast-forward George Clooney."

9. Interesting how some women age so gracefully and continue to look radiant, while others fight age tooth and nail and wind up looking so plastic and brittle. You know which is which.

10. Morgan Freeman will always be Easy Reader to us.

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Cheese Fry posts you won't be seeing in 2012

2011 was a banner year for the Cheese Fry, with a whopping 80 posts. It was by far our most prolific year, thanks mostly to a very active September that involved numerous knee-jerks to the new fall TV shows (New Girl and Person of Interest, yes, we're still watching).

We're hoping for an equally prodigious 2012. We're not sure what pop culture ephemera will catch our eye, but we can guarantee it won't include these topics:

"The prequels are way better than the original trilogy"

"Hipsters taught us a valuable lesson about great music"

"Why we love the Kardashians"

"The joys of traffic gridlock"

"The day we won the Powerball $78 million lottery"

"Dallas Cowboys: undefeated"

"Knee-jerk review: the Twilight franchise DVD box set"

"We wish more people talked in movie theaters"

"Live blogging the People's Choice Awards"

"Justin Bieber is underrated"

"How 'Hawaii Five-O' accurately portrays genuine police work"

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And the Oscar goes to

Ever wonder what an Oscar ballot looks like? Wonder no more. Thanks to GoldDerby.com

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Post-yuletide malaise

You'd think a grown adult would grow jaded about Christmas, develop an immunity to yuletide cheer. Not us. The run-up to December 25 remains our favorite time of the year (some might call it that most wonderful time of the year), which means December 26 leads to a calendar sugar crash of immense proportions.

No more anticipation regarding the presents - gifts are suddenly open and what was a pile of mysterious packages is now just a pile of wadded-up paper. No more stop-motion 1960s holiday TV specials. No more of that infectious holiday buzz at malls and grocery stores as everyone rushes to get everything done on time. No more "A Christmas Story" marathons. No more lines to get a picture with Santa. No more holiday-themed TV episodes or commercials where everyone's looking out a snowy window or presenting perfect snacks on candlelit suburban tables. No more countdowns of shopping days. No more turkey and dressing leftovers. No more over-the-top set decorations on the network morning shows that are all snowflakes and aluminum trees. No more reason to stay in town to see family and old friends, not when the real world and your job awaits back home. No more uttering of "Happy holidays" or "Merry Christmas" to strangers. No more wink-wink "scientific" discussions of tracking Santa's progress on Christmas Eve. No more "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses on your local radio station. No more relevance to the many artifacts that remain until January 2, things like rooftop Christmas lights, your living room tree, or that mistletoe-scented candle, things that are now instantly obsolete and serve only to cruelly remind us that it's all over.

See you next December.

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Knee-jerk review: "My Week with Marilyn"

1. Finally, a legitimate indie arthouse drama. Call it a palate cleanser after the in-your-face pyrotechnics and sequel theatrics of Mission Impossible 4 and Sherlock Holmes 2.

2. Michelle Williams dazzles. She doesn't look at all like Marilyn, yet at the same time looks exactly like her, if that makes sense. She seems to somehow capture Marilyn's essence (as if any of us even know what that might be). And she completely nails the voice.

3. But she nearly gets the movie stolen out from under her by Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench, both at the top of their game.

4. Marilyn may have suffered under the invasive scrutiny of her fans, but she would have been miserable without their attention. If you buy what this film is selling, she simply had to have the adoration. She was desperate for approval and love.

5. What red-blooded American male wouldn't have wilted at the phrase "Call me Marilyn"? Gulp.

6. We were very engaged by the backstage drama involving the making of The Prince and the Showgirl, especially the arguments over Method Acting and the delicate politics of handling a temperamental star. The sycophantic hand-holding, the chronic tardiness, the ineffective self-medication that does more harm than good, the crippling self-doubt of fragile egos... is this a period piece or a modern-day documentary? On-set problems with A-list movie stars all remain the same.

7. Marilyn refers to her persona at one point in the third-person "her" - suggesting she turns on that charm and performs as Marilyn when she thinks that's what required. Fascinating.

8. We were trying to imagine what sort of modern-day movie star might be Marilyn's equal. That is, if you're a first-time employee of a big Hollywood production and you wind up in a strange romance with the leading lady, spending a weekend with her, sharing both kisses and a bed, what sexy contemporary star (i.e. someone every man wants) would it have to be to rival the ridiculous situation our young hero finds himself in? Angelina Jolie probably wins the "sexy" scale, but is she an A-list movie star? Maybe. We also considered Julia Roberts in her early 1990s prime, but as huge as she was, Julia was never sexy and desirable like Marilyn, was she? The landscape has changed.

9. Emma Watson probably shot her scenes in three days.

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2011 movies we wished we'd seen

The 2009 arrival of Li'l Fry has put a crimp in our habit of seeing one or two new releases in theaters every weekend. That sort of social-life spontaneity is now a completely alien concept. The list of movies we have seen in theaters can be counted on two hands (The King's Speech, Hanna, Bridesmaids, X Men First Class, Super 8, Moneyball, The Muppets, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows).

The movies we wanted to see, but didn't, are legion:

30 Minutes or Less

The Adjustment Bureau

Another Earth

Apollo 18

The Artist

Captain America

Cars 2

Cedar Rapids

The Change-Up

Colombiana

Contagion

The Descendants

Dream House

Drive

Fast Five

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Green Hornet

Green Lantern

Hall Pass

The Hangover Part II

Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows Part 2

The Help

Horrible Bosses

The Ides of March

Insidious

In Time

Like Crazy

Limitless

The Lincoln Lawyer

Margin Call

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Melancholia

Midnight in Paris

My Week with Marilyn

Our Idiot Brother

Prom

Real Steel

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Scream 4

The Skin I Live In

Sucker Punch

Super

Take Me Home Tonight

Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon

The Thing

Thor

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Unknown

Young Adult

In a perfect world, all of these would have clever, pithy knee-jerk reviews that would amuse and dazzle you.

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Knee-jerk review: "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"

1. Like the first movie, the plot can be impossible to follow. Sure, you'll understand the broad strokes of the story. But connecting the dots in a he's-doing-that-because-of-this way is often impossible. The action will shift locations, a new character will pop up, something important will happen and you'll hear an ominous music cue, and you won't understand any of it. So you'll just sort of have to go with the flow.

2. Not happy at all with the first act turn that does something dastardly to a character played by a Future Ex-Mrs. Cheese Fry.

3. Some pretty good action bits, especially the train sequence. But this is a movie that likes to chop up the fight scenes into little staccato chunks (perhaps the better to hide the fact that it's stuntmen doing the hard work rather than our actors). It's exciting and energetic, but also disorienting and confusing in a Michael Bay sort of way.

4. There is a certain novelty to an action movie set in 1891. Take this same story and put it in contemporary times and it wouldn't be as interesting.

5. Also a big help: the wry British humor.

6. The first 40 minutes or so is a tedious drag. The exposition and chit-chat goes on and on. Things perk up once Holmes meets his match in Professor Moriarty. Always good to have a villian who is the equal of the hero.

7. We don't think it's going to happen, Noomi Rapace. Sorry.

8. Lame Pulp Fiction ripoff. Points deducted.

9. We do like the bits in which Holmes uses his deductive reasoning.

10. But we hate the inclusion of Holmes' daffy brother. A big distraction who doesn't fit the rest of the movie.

11. Interesting theme involving the way technology is intertwined with war. For a story set at the turn of the century, but still many years away from the meat grinder of World War I, it makes perfect sense that so much is made of the growing war-making industries, especially a running gag in which the characters find bigger and bigger guns to use against one another. The days of knife fights and fist fights are coming to an end.

12. Robert Downey Jr's zippy chemistry with Jude Law remains the reason these films work as well as they do.

13. Unlike the first movie, this movie's climax doesn't feel like a cheat. Good fun, especially the final scene.

14. Tough decision as to whether it's really worth paying a movie admission or waiting to make it a DVD rental.

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Knee-jerk review: "Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol"

1. Grade immediately after the lights came on in the theater: A+.

2. Grade on the drive home, thinking about the plot: B+.

3. It's that kind of movie. It moves so fast and with such relentless energy that you happily swallow all of the convoluted plot turns and glossed-over implausibilities. But there's a lot of "How come?" questions once you start analyzing it all.

4. As cool as this movie is, "Ghost Protocol" could not be more cheesy. It's like something an 8th grader thought up because it sounds cool.

5. Always good to see Tom Wilkinson.

6. We like to watch Tom Cruise run. He's got that look of sweaty panic that suggests if he doesn't get to where he's going as fast as he possibly can, sprinting rather than running, he'll be completely screwed and the world will not be saved. You buy it 100%.

7. The middle section of the movie that takes place in a monster Dubai high-rise (you've seen clips in all of the trailers and TV spots), is a crackerjack set piece. Best part of the movie and arguably among the best action-suspense scenes ever made. Some ingenious moments.

8. Too bad the climax in India never quite reaches those same heights, though the business with the steel suitcase is pretty exciting.

9. The director, Brad Bird, also directed Pixar's The Incredibles, which was packed full of intricately-choreographed action sequences where everything that can go wrong does go wrong and the heroes must endlessly improvise. Same kind of vibe at work in Ghost Protocol.

10. Paula Patton is undeniably hot, but the real surprise here is how deep a character she gets to play. She's grappling with the loss of a boyfriend, the question of whether vengeance will make her feel better, and professional self-doubt in a job where confidence is everything. She's not just the eye candy.

11. Spy movies got a bit boring once they became all about stealing passwords and passcodes.

12. The hallway hologram thing? Way cool.

13. Extra points for the Sawyer cameo.

14. It's not an action movie without someone falling to his/her death, is it?

15. Where does it rank among the Mission Impossible movies? Probably right at the top. The only thing we remember about the first one is the CIA white room bit and the offensive plot twist in which Jim Phelps turned out to be a traitor. The second one was John Woo gunfights and motorcycles and the sourpuss that is Thandie Newton. We liked the last one with snide villain Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the rabbit's foot (whatever that was), and Tom Cruise getting a love interest. But this one seems stronger. More epic, tighter and more complex plotting, more ingenious "Mission Impossible" gimmicks.

16. Way too many kick-ass moments to count. Cars flying, guns pointing, buildings exploding, martial-art moves moving, fireballs roiling. A real roller coaster.

17. Go see it, people. You'll really love it until the car ride home. And even then, you'll like it a lot.

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Best #1 songs of 2011

The following fourteen songs all placed in the number one spot on Billboard's singles chart during 2011. We figured it was worth a look to see which ones still stick in our heads and seem the most worthy and which ones we don't remember and seem like big mistakes.

1 "Party Rock Anthem" LMFAO - We thought this group was a Black Eyed Peas ripoff (two weird dudes, one hot girl) when we first saw them on some TV show. Then we heard the song. The zippy backbeat and tweaky synth melody got our vote for song of the year.

2 "Last Friday Night" Katy Perry - We heard about parties like this in high school but never attended one in person. Catchy and memorable. Great twist also in that the disastrous, black-out events of last Friday will soon be repeated this Friday. The stubborn, reckless stupidity of youth.

3 "We Found Love" Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris - No idea what the verses say, but that soaring chorus is nothing short of amazing. "We found love in a hopeless place." Evocative.

4 "Give Me Everything" Pitbull - Another of those techno hip-hop songs (with yet another LMFAO-style earworm synth hook) that we know we shouldn't like, but then can't help ourselves. Pitbull was everywhere this year - you couldn't turn on a music program without seeing him hamming it up.

5 "Firework" Katy Perry - A cheesy, transparent, overly earnest attempt to create an empowerment anthem. We know. But we still like it. For those very reasons.

6 "E.T." Katy Perry featuring Katy Perry - Gee, we really must like Katy Perry. So be it. This one isn't her usual peppy, polished pop music jewel. It's weird and dark and oddly robotic. "Infect me with your love and fill me with your poison." What do you suppose that means?

7 "Rolling in the Deep" Adele - Objectively, this should probably be the song of the year. Nothing else was as ubiquitous or beloved. But despite the hook and Adele's big-belted vocals, it's not exactly the kind of thing you can sing along to. And it was way overplayed. We heard it everywhere to the point of diminishing returns.

8 "Born This Way" Lady Gaga - There are better Gaga songs, but it's solid and hooky. Plus, we found this one unfairly attacked for sounding too Madonna. Strange, since Madonna hasn't sounded like Madonna since 1998.

9 "Grenade" Bruno Mars - The Bruno Mars phenomenon is a curious one. He's talented and silky smooth, sure, but we can't quite connect. Lil' Fry did love the "Lazy Song" video, however, with the dancers in monkey masks. So bonus points for that.

10 "Someone Like You" Adele - Powerful and poignant. But we ask you: would you really pay to see her sing this live on stage in concert? It's soooo slow... and soooo dreary.

11 "Moves Like Jagger" Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera - We're big fans of Maroon 5. How can you not love the whistling? But we have to take away points for invoking the image of a rock star 30 years past his prime.

12 "Hold It Against Me" Britney Spears - Wouldn't know it if we heard it. And proud to say so.

13 "Black and Yellow" Wiz Khalifa - All we know is that it was maybe inspired by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

14 "S&M" Rihanna featuring Britney Spears - Huh?

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Happy holidays circa 1960s

Nothing says Christmas like the rerunning of animated holiday specials first aired back in the 1960s and 70s. We've knee-jerked three of the most popular in past years:

"A Charlie Brown Christmas"

"Santa Claus is Comin' to Town"

"The Year Without Santa Claus"

And to all a good night!

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Observations from an NFL stadium

The Cheese Fry was in attendance at the Christmas Eve game at Cowboys Stadium in which the Cowboys again prove that they're just good enough to disappoint their fans time and again.

* If you think getting to the game two hours before kickoff is "early," about 10,000 other fans think so, too.

* People sometimes joke that their Sunday religion is the NFL. If so, then the steel and glass monstrosity that is Cowboys Stadium is surely their church. It is enormous.

* 16 ounces of beer is $8.50. We will admit, however, that it was ice cold.

* It's hard to not watch the infamous 60-yards-long HD screen as if you're still in your living room. You have force yourself to watch the action down on the actual field.

* You don't have to have a screw loose to go to a game in face paint, but it probably helps, don't you think? Especially for those who go shirtless and apply face paint to their pasty white pudgy torsos.

* The video packages displayed on the in-stadium screens are incredibly sophisticated and polished. And remarkably effective in stirring emotion. They play you like a cheap violin. You will laugh... here. You will get fired up... here.

* We're glad we brought binoculars. All the better to see Tony Romo huddle up with Steven McGee on the sideline to try and figure just what in the hell is wrong with the Dallas offense.

* We have new respect for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The most we usually ever see of them involves mugging for the Fox Sports cameras as the games go to commercial, but at the stadium, they're working hard between quarters and during TV timeouts. The halftime routine was easily ten minutes of choreography.

* Nachos are $9. And it's the exact same kind of nachos you'd pay $4 for at your local cineplex.

* Not many things more miserable than watching your team flail and stumble while the opposing team racks up yards and touchdowns. Well, there is one thing more miserable: having the opposing team's fans cheer and holler. Who knew there were any actual Eagles fans outside of Pennsylvania?

* In person, NFL game day is like a one-day, PG-13-rated house party. Wall to wall people, loud music, crazy clothes, lots of food and alcohol. Plus Santa Claus.

* If there's a way to honor the military, the NFL will do so. Not passing judgment on the questionable pandering that hasn't ebbed since 2001, just making an observation.

* Some of the players in pre-game stretching exercises look like they could perform with Cirque de Soleil the way they contort and bend.

* Plastic bucket of slightly stale popcorn is $10. But you get to keep the souvenir bucket.

* There's always one or two jackasses who won't take off their hat for the national anthem. What is their malfunction?

* It's such a big operation that the stadium has something of an in-house TV show going on, with a host setting up videoclips, interviewing guests, and announcing promotions. All of it coming to you live from the concourse.

* Looking at all of the corporate signage, the mind reels in thinking how much Jerry Jones is paid for the privilege. Dr Pepper, AT&T, Miller Lite, Ford. The list goes on and on.

* Are we old or is the stadium audio turned up about two notches too loud?

* We hate not sitting on the aisle. There's no graceful way to shuffle down the row without getting intimate with the people you're passing.

* Bottle of water is $5. Bargain of the day.

* You surely can't find a more enjoyable way to drop $200 or so, spend an entire day standing in line in the cold, then sitting in a hard plastic seat, all to watch your team get dropped like a JV squad.

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Knee-jerk review: "The Muppets"

1. We were the only person in the theater not seeing it with a small child.

2. We were also the only person in the theater seeing it alone.

3. We probably looked creepy.

4. Sweet and charming. And for Generation Xers who remember watching "The Muppet Show" in syndication back in the late 1970s, also a bittersweet nostalgia trip.

5. Which connects nicely to one of the movie's unexpectedly dark themes: a worry that one's glory days can never be recaptured or bettered.

6. We'd follow Jason Segel anywhere. Dude's way underrated. A minor genius.

7. Watching a re-enactment of "The Muppet Show" opening number? Goosebumps.

8. In a way, all you really need to know about this movie is that the arch villain played by Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper raps. If that idea amuses you in any way, this movie is for you.

9. We always liked Kermit, sure (though we still can't accept his new, non-Jim Henson voice) but mostly just tolerated Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear. Real fans know it's Animal and Beaker that deserve our full attention.

10. It's a Disney movie, so it stands to reason that the film's "Muppet Theater" is really the Disney-owned El Capitan theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

11. We sometimes wish we could travel by map.

12. Strong original songs here, some tender and poignant, others goofy and ridiculous. None will be noticed by the Oscars.

13. As much as we enjoyed it, we probably liked the Pixar "Toy Story" short that preceded it even better, especially the way it cleverly skewers something that so richly deserves skewering: the cheesy, cheap, one-gimmick plastic toys that come with fast food meals.

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He won the lottery and died the next day

Does Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic" provide actual examples of irony or just bad luck? We've heard this argument before many times, but it's still interesting to think about and the L.A. Weekly offers a fairly in-depth look at the lyrics.

Is this the worst song of the 1990s as Ben Westhoff suggests? That's a whole other question. We vote for "Macarena" and "All Star."

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Kung-fu Kirk

The nerds at io9 compiled a hilarious list of Captain Kirk's best fight moves. Seems like hand-to-hand combat will become a lost art in the 23rd century. We've always been a fan of the strange karate "hi-ya!" chop to the opponent's neck.

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Don't let the Dodger Stadium door hit you

Dodger fans rejoiced when news emerged last week that shamelessly stubborn slimeball Frank McCourt finally saw the writing on the wall (e.g. that Bud Selig would never, ever let him keep the team and, in fact, wished he could find a DeLorean to go back in time and prevent himself from ever allowing McCourt to come within 1000 feet of the team, much less buy it with what was essentially a maxed-out Visa credit card). McCourt, you see, agreed to sell the team.

Good things (if you don't count Game 6, also known as the Ninth Inning We Don't Talk About) happened to the Texas Rangers with new ownership. Maybe the Dodgers are in for some sunnier times as well.

Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness catalogs the many crimes and misdeeds of Frank and his blowsy wannabe-Real Housewife of Beverly Hills wife Jamie. They came to Los Angeles wanting to be loved and respected power players, they leave hated and reviled and listed among the city's most infamous figures.

Nicely played, losers.

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Not-so-knee-jerk review: "Moneyball"

1. We saw it a few weeks ago. So it's not exactly fresh in our minds.

2. A fairly riveting look at the inner workings of a baseball team front office: scouting players, riding the ups and lows of a season grind, wheeling and dealing for trades on the phone, cutting players.

3. Make no mistake. Brad Pitt is a Movie Star. And he has his charisma cranked way up here. The perfect part for him.

4. Too bad the story didn't build to a stronger ending. No World Series run. Just a win streak. Sometimes the truth isn't as compelling as fiction.

5. It's a Columbia movie so all of the electronic gadgets have a very prominent Sony logo.

6. Loved the power-struggle between GM and manager. You won't start the players I want, then I'll trade your players away so you have to start my players. Ruthless.

7. Major League was a lot of fun and Field of Dreams certainly captures the romance and nostalgia of baseball, but Bull Durham remains the undisputed best baseball movie. We also have a soft spot for the underrated For Love of the Game and The Rookie.

8. No, we didn't read the book either.

9. We know someone who knows the player Brad Pitt cuts. A little detail the movie didn't mention: that player was cut just a few days shy of a contractual benchmark that would have granted him a full pension from Major League Baseball. He's now a high school teacher.

10. Always fun to watch stubborn old-timers get told off, isn't it? They just Don't Get It.

11. A guy with an ugly girlfriend has no confidence. Funny. And kind of true, if you think about it.

12. Worth seeing.

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Knee-jerk review: FX's "American Horror Story"

1. Well that was certainly disturbing.

2. Yeah yeah, it's been on the air a while now. We just watched the pilot. Thank you, DirecTV DVR.

3. If we didn't know the two showrunners also created the narrative-train-wreck that is "Glee," we would never have believed it.

4. Only in movies and TV shows do people have no problem buying a creepy house in which someone was killed. How often do you think that happens in the real world?

5. Connie Britton. So amazing. But we feel like she's cheating on Kyle Chandler when we see her with a new TV husband.

6. The credit sequence gave us goosebumps. And not in a good way. Few things more unsettling than old turn-of-the-century black-and-white photos where the people just sort of stare dead-eyed into the camera. We almost stopped watching.

7. Dylan McDermott's character is a complete jerk, but he's Dylan McDermott so you still kind of like him.

8. "You're going to die in there."

9. Pilots are supposed to clearly sketch out the main characters and provide a clear indication of future subplots and storylines. No lack of possibilities here. A brilliant, efficient introduction into a fairly complicated situation.

10. Genius: wife sees housekeeper as dowdy and wrinkled, husband sees housekeeper as young and sexy. Shades of The Shining.

11. The producers sure do like to take advantage of FX's willingness to let a certain s-word fly free. A little much, if you ask us.

12. Jessica Lange seems to be enjoying herself.

13. Great stuff. We may even like it better than our favorite other new show, "Person of Interest."

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