Created by OnePlusYou

Some people think I'm too cynical and irreverant. They're probably right, but it's more fun than writing boring reviews about something as stupid as movies. Still, it's not like I'm vulgar or anything. I just rate a 'Darn-It', not even an 'Asshole' - something I've been called numerous times.

Of course, this doesn't make me a saint. It just means that there are a lot of filthy people on the Internet and that I'm a wus compared to some of the jerk-offs here.

Wall.E - 5 Tubs

When someone says to me, "I've got good news and bad news, which do you want first?" I'll always say, "Give me the bad news first." I like happy endings. So let me start this review by giving you the bad news first.

Wall.E is a story about an Earth that has been destroyed by humans who have all left to live on a space platform, leaving behind a single robot to clean it up before the humans can return. Wall.E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth class) goes around and sweeps up all the trash and debris and stores it in huge landfills. Useful items he warehouses for later use. Basically, Wall.E assumes the stewardship of the Earth that God created man to perform. The bad news is that the brats and sperm and egg donors who created them didn't learn anything from watching the movie. They treated my theater the way the humans treated the Earth. Like Wall.E, I clean up behind human pigs disguised as movie goers. Unlike Wall.E who does his job without complaining, I take upon myself the huge burden of being the conscience of humankind. Despite many claims to the contrary, I've found that most movie goers are not only slovenly, they're liars too. Everyone I've met says that they always take their trash with them: blacks, whites, Asians, maybe Hispanics - I can't tell because they don't speak English. But somebody is leaving the mountains of trash I have to haul out of the theater after every showing. So, as your conscience, stop lying, stop sneaking in outside food and drink because you're cheap and dishonest, and take your stinking trash to the trash receptacles located by the door through which you entered the auditorium.

Now on to the good news. Wall.E is a movie about relationships. Despite being a robot, Wall.E develops a character and personality. He's lonely, inquisitive, nostalgic, romantic. His only companion is a cockroach; one of those creations we wish God had left off the Ark. When another robot lands unexpectedly on Earth, Wall.E falls in love at first sight. Her name is, appropriately, Eve; and Eve at first plays hard to get. Wall.E tries to win the other robot's attention by showing off all the treasures he's salvaged. One of those treasures is a small plant that Wall.E has saved and nurtured in an old boot. When Eve accepts the plant, her systems appear to shut down and Wall.E begins to think that he's the reason she's taken ill. Wall.E uses umbrellas and trash cans to protect Eve from the elements. He puts her in the front of his cart as he paddles through the muck and mire, trying to show show her the grandeur of what used to be. He dresses her with lights at Christmas and sits by her side pining away, longing for the chance to hold her hand.

When a spaceship arrives and loads Eve into the ship, Wall.E rushes to be with her. Unable to get onboard before blast off, Wall.E clings to the outside of the ship, refusing to let go despite being pelted by satellites and other space debris floating in Earth's orbit. Once beyond our gravitational pull, Wall.E marvels at the beauty of Creation in the cosmos. And when the ship arrives at the space station, occupied by obese, spoiled humans, who are pampered and taken care of by armies of robots, Wall.E follows Eve to protect her and to be with her. When Eve is thought to be defective and sent to robot rehab, Wall.E follows and meets other rejects and in his own humanity shows them that they are each special and that they have something to contribute still. This is a movie about selflessness, friendship and love and going to the ends of the universe to be with the person you care about. It's what being human is all about...but we've somehow forgotten as we've learned to put ourselves first rather than others and this beautiful planet we've been given to take care of.

Is there a happy ending? Will the humans get back to Earth and do a better job taking care of her than they did in the beginning? You'll have to watch the movie to find out. And while you're at it, how about having some respect for yourself by not buying more than you can consume; and respect for the ushers who clean up after you by disposing of your trash when you leave the movie?

The Happening - 3 Tubs

I'm not too disappointed at the condition of the theater after this movie, but I'm very disappointed at the movie itself. The previews looked great; the movie, a waste of nine bucks. After The Village and Lady in the Water, I'd hoped that M. Night Shyamalan would return to his roots and give us a great story with a twist. There was no twist, and the story was boring. The only evil you see is wind blowing through the trees and bushes. People jumping off buildings or laying down in front of lawn mowers, or landscapers hanging from street lights isn't terrifying. The Happening is as much a disappointment as The Strangers - a movie I won't even comment on since no one is coming to see it; and rightfully so.

Shyamalan usually tries to bring out faith and humanity in his movies. Mark Walburg did OK showing emotion in this movie, but his co-star Zooey Deschanel looked straight out of the silent movie era with her forced facial expressions. I suspect that Shyamalan has a thing for her because he loved doing closeups of her face. Night also does his cameo as a dinner date with Zooey's character. Anyway, whatever Shyamalan was trying to accomplish, it didn't work. I wasn't the only one disappointed in the film; most of the people I overhead exiting the auditorium expressed their disappointment as well.

On the positive side, the theater was easy to clean after the movie, except for a couple of fat ladies who struggled but failed at shoving handfulls of popcorn into their mouths. I've seen babboons do the same thing with food. They'll try to get everything in their hands into their mouths. The cheeks will bulge like Jiffy Pop bags about to explode. The babboons do this because they're afraid somethings going to steal their food if they don't consume it immediately. These women each had a tub of popcorn and were in no danger of being poached upon by other movie goers. If they had eaten like humans, there would have been more popcorn in their bellies than on the floor.

The Incredible Hulk - 4 Tubs

This is an adult children's movie, thus the trash is like that you'd find at a Disney movie, with the addition of wine and vodka bottles. As with Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk attracts freaks, geeks, and rednecks; many of whom have to raise the arm rests on either side of their seats in order to park their oversized butts...or to make room for the tub of popcorn, which will usually tip over and spill behind the seats providing a feast for the roaches and ants that frequent our fine theater. Here's a hint - there are no sneak previews at the end of the credits in this movie like there was in Iron Man. The sneak peak comes at the end of the movie where it belongs where Tony Stark approaches a drunken William Hurt to discuss putting a team together.
It is pitiful that grown children will sit watching credits and seriously discuss fiction disguised as science, like the Hulk's regenerative DNA and the effect of gamma radiation in his blood when it comes in contact with the DNA of a foreign host. Folks, the stuff you read in those comic books isn't science, it's fiction! That's the beauty of fiction - you can write what you want and it doesn't have to be believable or even make sense.

Along the same lines, there are no rogue generals in our military who is capable of building a tactical team with the latest and greatest toys and who can work outside the sytem in order to create chaos and mayhem on our citizens. As a 24 year member of the military, I can assure you that all that manpower and equipment comes at a cost and that the purse strings are controlled by civilians. A general might get a $400 toilet seat or a $2,000 wrench through the logistical system, but not futuristic equipment like sound cannons and some of the other military equipment you see in the movie. Remember, this stuff was built by Stark Industries, another Marvel enterprise. The military hasn't perfected an armored flying suit for their soldiers either.

Come on, if your education in science comes from a comic book - you're pitiful. Put down the comics and spend the time at your local community college getting a reality check. Watch Fox news and intelligently discuss politics with your liberal friends. Heck, take your wife out to dinner and try having an intelligent conversation with her for a change.

I enjoyed The Hulk - much better than the last one. It's great to see Marvel include the original stars in their movies: Lou Ferigno - who again plays a security guard and provides the voice of The Hulk; and Bill Bixby who appears in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father". I wasn't paying enough attention to notice where Stan Lee was in the movie. Ed Norton did a great job as David Banner. I did a fantastic job taking my trash out when the movie ended...and I didn't stay to watch the stupid credits - wait for the DVD if you really need to know that information.

Another Look at Horton Hears a Who

I didn't particularly care for this movie, especially because the kids trashed my theater and took years off the usefulness of my poor aching feet. However, there is a sort of spiritual side to the movie that deserves another look.

Here is the synopsis of the movie: "An imaginative elephant named Horton hears a faint cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Although Horton doesn’t know it yet, that speck houses an entire city named Who-ville, inhabited by the microscopic Whos, led by the Mayor. Despite being ridiculed and threatened by his neighbors, who think he has lost his mind, Horton is determined to save the particle--because “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Horton’s eight-word explanation for his actions embodies an idea both simple and profound, and which means so much, to so many. Horton explains to his skeptical friends: “If you were way out in space, and you looked down at where we live, we would look like a speck.” Then there’s Horton’s code--his motto--that, “an elephant’s faithful 100 percent”--pointing to his honesty and determination to never abandon his mission to find a new home for the speck that houses the incredible world of Who-ville." (taken from Hollywood.com)

Imagine if the Earth were that speck of dust, trapped inside a solar system which is a tiny part of a galaxy of stars, one of hundreds of billions of stars in the cosmos. That is our reality. We live on a beautiful blue marble, the only inhabited rock in our solar system. We're not the center of Creation. We're not even the center of our solar system. If we were able to look at the Milky Way, the Earth would be a tiny speck in one of the outer bands of the swirling mass. Scientists tell us that the universe - the millions of galaxies in the entire cosmos is 10 billion lightyears in radius. But even then this is only an estimation based on how long it takes for the light to reach us from the oldest known stars. To give you a perspective of how tiny we are in the universe we live in, it would take 980,000 earths to fit inside our sun. The light from our sun only takes 8 minutes to reach us. The Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. If we were going to drive to the sun, we'd have to drive at 93 miles per hour for one million hours (about 115 years factoring in bathroom breaks). Now imagine our solar system about 80% away from the center of our galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light years in diameter and about 1,000 light years thick. There are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone. This gives you a perspective as to how similar the Earth is to Who-ville!

We're really impressed with the vastness and the beauty of Creation. In fact, man devotes a lot of research and money at understanding our place in the cosmos. But most of us spend our time looking down at the earth beneath our feet. We're focussed on our own dreams and challenges. We worry about our future and expend most of our energy attempting to control our own little portion of our world.

I'm not trying to make you think we're small. We are small. We are but a mote of dust in all of God's Creation. The thing is, we matter to Him. But unlike Horton who can only hear the cries of help from the citizens of Who-ville, God is with us. The star-breathing God who created everything that is, took the time to knit each and every one of us so that no two of us are exactly alike. He talks to us, if we will listen. He shows us how much He loves us in the beauty of nature. He will even live inside us if we ask Him. But most of the time we're only interested in His helping hand to get us out of our messes.

Only by viewing ourselves in the vastness of Creation can we truly understand our need for someone who's big enough to handle things that are beyond our control. Thank God there is a God we can depend on 100% of the time, who is willing to go to extraordinary lengths on our behalf. We should all be as appreciative of God as the citizens of Who-ville were of Horton once they learned there was someone bigger than they were.

Sluts And the City - 5 Tubs

Did I say that? OK, I get it that millions of SATC fans are going to get mad at me, but this is my blog and I'm just reporting the facts; this chick flick attracts pigs and - according to my theater manager, bitches. I didn't personally run into any bitches, but I did bitch about the mess the women made in my theater.

The funny thing about SATC is that it attracted groups of women - a girls-night-out kind of thing. And these girls came dressed to party. Each woman had to look better than the rest of the girls she was coming with. And they brought their cute little wine bottles and sipped from theater courtesy cups...and left the bottles under their seats. There were 25 bottles under seven seats. I hope they brought a designated driver.

Like the women in the movie, most of the women coming to see SATC are less than attractive and only sexy because men will sleep with anything that will lie still long enough. None of the actresses in this movie are sexy - least of all Sarah Jessica Parker. She bears a strong resemblance to the witch that was crushed under the house in the Wizard of Oz. But Hollywood is great at creating fiction and getting people to accept it as fact. What is a fact is that the SATC fans left a lot of trash in my theater, on purpose of course. It used to be that 'chick-flicks' were relatively clean because women would only buy a small popcorn and a bottle of water. Now they're buying the large combos and supplementing them with a little wine and a bag of candy from Target next door.

One of the managers, a devout Muslim, shook his head in disgust upon seeing so many women lined up at the concession stand. "These women," he whispered to me, 'these women - they are liberal women! They don't care how they look in public! They dress like sluts! They should name this movie "Sluts And the City"." When he helped us clean the theater after these liberal women left, his opinion was only reinforced. "Why are American women such bitches!?" I laughed and told him that he ought to have to clean the women's bathroom. The mere thought of sanitary napkins overflowing the trash cans caused him to pull out his prayer mat.

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

I don't know how Harrison Ford does it. He's certainly looking his age in the movie; a far cry from the sexy Han Solo in Star Wars. It is said that Ford did a lot of his own stunts in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I doubt he really made that trip in the refrigerator thrown miles by a nuclear blast. I even doubt that he swung on that whip and ended up in the front seat of the deuce-in-half. I suspect that he spent more time in a cast chair with his name on it. At least that's how I would do it if I were the star of this movie.

Despite Indy falling short of Hollywood's expectations over the weekend, lots of people still came out to trash my theater. Opening the movie on Memorial Day weekend may not have been the brightest idea with so many people traveling, but for those of us who couldn't afford the rising gas costs and stayed close to home, coming to a theater must have seemed like a good way to avoid working around the house. The film grossed $126M opening on May 22nd for the extended holiday weekend.

Three people called in last night, making me the only usher. Fortunately for the theater I am the best usher they have. Still, my feet hurt so much by the time I got off last night that I had to walk on the sides of my feet from the car to my house. They hurt this morning. Getting old sucks! Forget about running down steps that are collapsing around you, I had trouble walking down the steps with five soda cups and two tubs of uneaten popcorn in my arms.

According to my odometer, I walked the equivalent of 5 miles at work last night. I remember when I could run 5 miles. I wonder if Harrison needed to put his feet up for a few days after making Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He probably had someone to massage his feet. Maybe I'll suggest the theater hire feet massagers at this Saturday's employee meeting. It will be dismissed like my last suggestion to purchase plastic bags that won't leak all over the carpets. Rumor has it that Ford is reprising his Jack Ryan role, much like Sylvester Stallone came back with another Rocky (which was good) and Rambo (which wasn't) movie. Perhaps they're going through male menopause. If so, I'll join them. I'm thinking of going back into the Army so I can march twenty miles a day.

Stars of Hope

This past week we started our annual Stars of Hope campaign to raise money for four charities, including the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. We're asking movie goers to contribute $1 towards these charities. The corporate goal is a minimum of 1 percent of gross ticket sales, something very attainable. We ask donors to write their names on these stars and then we place them on the walls down both ends of our theater. It would be nice to line both hallways on both sides with red, white, and gold (corporate sponsors) stars. Here are my observations from working the box office over the weekend:

Most people say no when asked if they'd like to contribute a dollar to the Stars for Hope campaign. Probably 95% of the people asked say no. Of those who said yes, most were young and middle aged couples. The ones who said no most often were senior citizens and college students. High school kids said yes more than college students, which is understandable if they were using their parents money to go to the movies and college students might actually have to work their way through college.

Military gets the highest marks. Every person that showed a military ID card to me said yes when asked. Maybe it's something to do with giving back to the nation. I was very proud of my fellow active duty and retired veterans this weekend.:)

People who bought multiple tickets tended to donate where single movie goers tended not to.

A handful of people complained about being asked to donate a dollar when they'd already paid $9 to get into the movie. Some told us to take it out of the cost of the ticket. These are people you'd just as soon God didn't bless anymore until they learn a lesson in humility. It's perfectly fine to say no. You're not forced to give, it's just something the theater is trying to do to help the community. It's another thing to complain about actually doing something that will benefit someone other than yourself. You see, going to a movie is not a necessity. You can go your whole life and never need to see a movie. Going to a theater is about entertainment. It's a treat you give yourself; it's a two hour escape from reality.

Going to movies is a self-serving act. Charity is about serving someone else. You're paying at least $9 on yourself, but you're not willing to spend a dollar to help someone else. That's selfish. Sure, you might give to your church or to the Red Cross or the spotted-owl protection fund. You'll give the government up to half of your income in taxes (grudgingly of course). You'll pay almost $4.o0 for a gallon of gas and drive just as much as you did when it was $2.00 per gallon. It's all choices.

Maybe $1 is too much. Maybe 95% of the people come to the conclusion that they've given enough and what they have left they're going to give to people who can do something for them - like entertain them. And that's fine. I don't expect everyone to donate; I'm just asking that you don't complain because we asked you to give a little more. Just say 'no thanks' if you've given your fair share. If everyone gives their fair share, there won't be hungry children living in trash dumps in Iraq and Africa and China. If everyone gives their fair share than there won't be poverty and inner city kids will have a camp they can go to to escape the concrete jungles we build around them.

I have no strong feelings about any of the charities that Stars of Hope benefit, but I had a couple of dollars in my pocket that weren't needed, so there's a star in the name of my daughter and one in the name of my fiance because these are the people I work two jobs for. I honor them by giving a little bit to help someone else. It's not like I could have bought anything at the theater with the dollar anyway.

Speed Racer - 4 Tubs

Save your money, watch the cartoon on TV. The studios blew $100 million on this loser. Hollywood has set the graphics and special effects bar way too high for people to be satisfied with this animae film. Wait for the DVD. Save your $9 bucks and the $20 for candy and popcorn. Enough said.

Red Belt - 0 Tubs

Many years ago, I was very much into the martial arts. I studied Tae Kwon Do while stationed in Asmara, Ethiopia; though I only earned a yellow belt before moving on to more exciting things like hanging out at the club at night. The first night in class the instructor had the new guys punching the concrete walls. If you did it right, it hurt; if you did it wrong, you broke your hand. We did that for a couple of weeks before he started teaching us how to fall when struck. Our sensei struck us often. We learned how to fall for about a month before he decided it was time to start teaching us how to defend ourselves. By this time I was disenchanted with my skinny body and lack of upper body strength. Forget knuckle pushups, I was lucky to do them the normal way. Simultaneously with learning Tae Kwon Do, I started taking fencing classes because they were on alternating nights. After a few weeks my TKD instructor found out that I was doing both martial arts and told me I'd have to choose. Fencing develops the leg muscles differently than what is needed in TKD. Rather than lunging, TKD required flexibility and the ability to do high spinning back kicks. I decided to give up fencing because there wasn't much liklihood I'd be attacked by someone with a sword. The odds were much greater that I'd be attacked by a gang of Ethiopian street thugs on the way home at night, so TKD it was.

I saw the best of the best back then: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Joe Lewis - the US kick-boxing champ, Ed Parker, Dan Inosanto, Jhoon Rhee, and others. Of course most people have never heard of some of these fighters. The reason I enjoyed Red Belt is because it is the most realistic martial arts film I've ever seen. There are no floating kicks or punching someone through walls or getting back up when you're hit in the head with numchucks. Other than Bruce Lee, who was one of a kind, most martial arts fights I witnessed were more grappling and feinting, where one fighter wasn't able to strike whenever and wherever he wished. Often it is hard to keep up with the struggle and to determine why one opponent receives a point for striking the other opponent.

Red Belt is about a martial arts instructor who refuses to compete. He believes that competition weakens a person. He taught students to become fighters, not competitors. Although some of the scenes fail to connect to the plot of the story, and while it's obvious that this was a low budget film, even with stars like Tim Allen, Max Martini (from The Unit on CBS), Chiwetel Ejiofor - the jiu-jitsu master, and other recognizable character actors; the authenticity of this film is what makes it work. Even the filming of the fight scene at the end of the movie leaves the viewer wondering who is hitting whom. In the end, Ejiofor (Mike Terry) remains a fighter, not a competitor, and receives the highest honor from his mentor - the Professor.

I gave Red Belt zero tubs because no one is coming to see the movie; and that's unfortunate. I was the only person in the auditorium last night. Of course, it was Tuesday night and our week nights are very slow. At least the usher didn't have to clean up behind me. I took my trash, including any popcorn that had fallen onto the floor with me when I left the theater. I am Theater Usher.

Made of Honor - 4 Tubs

I know I'm going to get hate-mail, but IMHO the reason that Made of Honor deserves its 4-tub rating is because most of the women coming to see Patrick Dempsey are porkers. The same thing happened with that Natalie Portman period piece about Henry Vth or the 8th or whatever it was. Although Dempsey portrayed a 'player' in the movie, he wouldn't give these fans a second glance.

Enough about the trash: Made of Honor is a decent movie. What makes it good is that Dempsey's character, when faced with losing someone he's taken for granted, realizes that she's the best thing in his life. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), who's used to Tom's one-night flings finally finds herself in love and gets engaged to Irish royalty. In the process of Tom trying to sabotage the wedding, Hannah realizes that Tom is more than her best friend and MOH, but also in love with him.

It's a fun movie to watch, a bitch to clean up. Could be worse: the guys over in Iron Man would like Made of Honor too if they saw it.

Iron Man - 4 Tubs

What can I say? You'd think that a movie that has attracted mostly adults, albeit - males, would not look as though the auditorium had just gone through several kid's birthday pinata parties all at the same time. It's embarrassing to be a man!

What's more embarrassing is the number of men who're still reading comic books and know who Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. are; and not only that, but to get as excited over the sequel as they are over their Winston Cup driver winning the Daytona 500. Being a careful observer of movie-goers, Iron Man attracts geeks, freaks, dykes, and red-necks. If you're one of those, you'll enjoy the movie. If you read above an 8th grade level you'll get more from Harold & Kumar - Escape from Guantanemo (not really - it's a stupid movie; but you get my point).

My biggest peeve about Iron Man is the 30 second clip at the very end of the movie. As my pastor pointed out, Hollywood doesn't have a clue as to what theaters need. Putting this clip after 8 minutes of credits is not only a disservice to the Iron Man fans, but it means that the ushers can't start cleaning the theater until these adult children have vacated the auditorium. Opening weekend saw lines forming outside the three auditoriums before the credits started. Fans that arrive early for a good seat have to wait an additional 15-20 minutes while we clean up after the pigs who came to the earlier showing. The wait, had Hollywood cared, would have been much less if they had inserted the Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) clip at the end of the movie rather than at the end of the credits. Here's where I save you fans 12 minutes of wasted time: Tony Stark arrives home to find an intruder (Nick Fury) standing at his window. Fury says, "I am Iron Man!"...do you think that you're the only super hero out there?" Who the hell are you, Stark asks. Fury steps into the light so you can see Samuel L Jackson with eye patch and says, "Nick Fury. I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger initiative.", thus setting up the sequel.

Iron Man is a pretty good action movie to kick off the summer blockbuster season. It scored big at the box office with over $100M opening weekend. Coming next are: Narnia - Prince Caspian, Speed Racer, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Hancock, and not least - Batman - The Dark Knight starring Heath Ledger and setting up for Batman vs Superman. Just think of the landfills we're going to fill this summer!

Baby Mama - 2 Tubs

Baby Mama is a hard title to say. People ask for Baby's Mama, My Baby's Mama, Mama Baby, etc. Why they chose to go with Ebonics to choose a title when there's only one black actor in the movie is beyond me. Surprisingly, this is a pretty good movie. My daughter and I laughed our butts off on Friday night; then on Saturday when I had to clean the theater I was pleasantly surprised that only a handful of people had left their trash in their seats. This is even more surprising because the movie has attracted all sorts of people: white, black, young, old, women, men, singles & couples. It's not an Oscar's qualifier (not that the stuff that does get nominated are deserving) but it's entertaining; and that's what going to a movie is all about. My favorite line was from the biological mom on her way to the delivery room responding to a stupid question about how she was doing; her response: "It feels like I'm shitting knives!". I think that sums it up pretty descriptively for most mothers.

What does this movie say about our culture today? Well, it tackles surrogate parenting and designer babies. Should couples, or single women for that matter, be able to choose donor traits to custom design their babies? This is a big deal for those in the gay community and infertile couples who would like to raise their own children. One California surrogacy and egg donation center has helped over 400 couples and individuals since 2003 realize their dream of becoming a parent. There are 55 babies due some time this year from this one clinic alone.

It's a profitable business too. The agency may require a retainer from $9-12K, plus $25K compensation for the surrogage mom, plus $5K for pharmacy, plus c-section and delivery costs, $250 per week for bed rest, $250 per week for a low income surrogate mom (I don't understand this one when you're giving them $25,000 to carry your baby. The fees go on and on. In Baby Mama, the agency fees were $100K; and as the mother-to-be pointed out, "It costs more to have someone born than it does to have them killed!" It takes longer too.

My last wife and I did pretty good turning out my youngest daughter. Not only does she have our DNA, or rather in spite of having our DNA, she's both beautiful and intelligent. It only cost us $5,000 and the insurance paid half of that. Of course, I've been pretty fertile myself, sireing five children. For those who can't have children biologically and who don't want to consider adopting some one else's children, designer babies might be the way to go. On the other hand it sounds a little like what Hitler tried to do when he wanted to create the ultimate race. Hollywood, as usual, provides a shallow Utopian viewpoint, but the full implications might not be realized in our lifetimes....now if we could extract the gene that causes slovenliness and irresponsibility, we might end up with a better world.

Too Busy!!!!!

I've been so busy at my 'real' job that I haven't had time to post any reviews lately. That, and I was gone for awhile to visit my fiance in Omaha. That was way more fun than cleaning theaters.

Another reason that I haven't written in awhile is that there hasn't been anything worth you paying $9-12 to go see. Weekdays we only sell between 200-300 tickets for the entire day. Weekends we're somewhere around 1500-2000 per day. Normally a weekend would net 3,000 and up per Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Even before the writer's strike Hollywood was struggling to get people to the movies; things are not improving with time.

The movies to watch out for this summer are: Iron Man, Narnia - Prince Caspian, Batman, Wall-E, and the new Indiana Jones movies. It may not be a big hit, but M Night Shyamalan, The Happening is a movie I'm looking forwards to. The theater is already gearing up to hire an additional 20 employees to help with the summer traffic.

As for now, here's a run-down of how current movies are trashed:

21 - 4 Tubs
The Forbidden Kingdom - 4 Tubs
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - 4 Tubs (this is a really stupid movie - save your money unless you enjoy looking at a man's genitals).
88 Minutes - 3 Tubs
Prom Night - 3 Tubs (great for me - teenagers' baggy pants continue to spill coins under the seats)
Horton Hears a Who - 3 Tubs - down from 5 tubs, but near the end of the run
Smart People - 2 Tubs
Shutter - 1 Tub (another waste of money)
Street Kings - 4 Tubs
Leatherheads - 2 Tubs
Nim's Island - 4 Tubs (Jodie Foster sucks at comedy)
Meet The Browns - down to 3 Tubs near the end of the theater run

Sorry I've been out of pocket for so long. I'll try to find something worth writing about in a couple of weeks:).

DMC

Stop-Loss - 4 Tubs

As you might expect from MTV, this is a political movie; another anti-war waste of $9 bucks. I had high hopes for this movie; and in some ways it does justice to the characters. The emphasis on sticking by your team mates is very much a part of being a soldier. What isn't realistic though is to portray the majority of soldiers caught up in a stop-loss as being anti-establishment. A soldier learns early on that the mission is more important than a soldier. We're taught to always complete the mission, regardless of whether it's popular with the folks back home.

As for the condition of the theater auditorium after viewers have left, there must be a mindset to those who are attracted to this sort of movie to protest anything and everything. These patrons pony up the bucks to get in, but they complain the whole time and then leave their trash as a way of getting out of personal responsibilty. The movie attracts mostly white viewers, both male and female; mostly middle-aged or younger. These viewers grew up hearing about how their parents burned their bras and draft cards when they were young and this is the way the Busters (post-Boomers) choose to protest: by being irresponsible. Unlike the Hippies of the Sixties, this generation doesn't know what it's protesting against. Could be anything: George Bush, capitalism, corporate greed, Christianity, democracy, God, family values, etc. They come and watch a work of fiction and believe it's the way the world is.

You might notice that I'm not trying to be funny lately. After months of cleaning up behind people, I don't find it funny anymore. It's depressing. Every cup left in the seat, every popcorn tub spilled on the floor; all that buttery topping to cause you to slip and fall, all the salt on the seats, the McDonald's wrappers, the chicken bones, the vodka bottles, the occasional messy diaper or condom - it ain't funny any more. It's pitiful.

I think Michael Moore, that fat, rich sorry excuse for a human that he is, should make a documentary about theater goers. If he spins it right, G.W. Bush could be blamed for all the popcorn and soda containers filling our landfills.

OK, I've vented. Now I'm getting out of here so I can think about good and positive things - like my fiance:) Save your money and don't buy the DVD - you're too smart for the propaganda.