The Man from Earth (2007)

At his going away party, this cat decides to reveal to his friends and co-workers that he is, in fact, 14,000 years old. This, of course, raises multiple historical and philosophical questions, all of which have already been answered more intelligently in two issues of the comic book The Sandman that told the exact same story. One guy in this movie is especially offended by the idea though, and pulls a gun on Mr. 14,000 Years! "His wife died yesterday," somebody later explains. So what is he doing hanging out with you people? Shouldn't he be handling her affairs or whatever? Maybe he just left her body laying on the floor to be dealt with later in the week, after he's attended all the parties he committed himself to.

"Mr. Smarty-Pants Senior-Discount-Trumping Asshole!"

Anyway, gangsta theatrics notwithstanding, this movie's pretty blah, at least until the part where the main guy reveals that -- yup -- he was Jesus. This, needless to say, is highly offensive, and... What? No, not because I'm religious - because it's so goddamned obvious and lazy. Really, if they had to go this idiot route couldn't they rein it in a little bit and just settle for him being John the Baptist? Or one of the Apostles? How about Simon? Simon never gets any props; this could be his chance to shine. Don't get me wrong, a super interesting movie could be made by ripping off The Sandman by breaking out a 14,000-year-old dude and just letting him talk about his experiences, but it would definitely play a lot better without introducing a gun into the mix or having the dude in question claim to have met and/or been tons of famous people in history. Think about it, how many famous people have you actually met in your life? And I don't mean like the bass player from Cinderella, I mean people so famous that they'll be common knowledge even two hundred years from now. Well, even if you multiply that by 500 I guarantee you'll have a number pretty close to zero, which is how many names our main guy should realistically be able to drop. But of course he's apparently met Christopher Columbus, Vincent "Van" Gogh, and so on and so forth. Give me a fucking break. Just once I wanna see an immortal dude in a movie or comic book who hasn't done anything since the dawn of time except get drunk and fuck bitches. Hey, it may not be deep, but at least it's realistic.

A "smart" movie for people who aren't very smart.

At Risk, By Patricia Cornwell (2006)

Most stories about other people are written as if they already happened, like this:

Patricia read her credit card statement again. She couldn't believe it, but the truth was undeniable. The man she loved was a con artist. She balled the statement up and threw it across the room. Then she fixed herself a drink, cried for a while, and finally called the police. They were lucky this time; he was still in town, and they quickly apprehended him. "Seducing Patricia Cornwell just to steal her credit card number, was it really worth it?" the detective asked. "No," said Mr. Satanism, and puked.
Pretty basic, right? Every once in a while though, you'll run across one that's written as if it's happening right this second, like this:

Patricia reads her credit card statement again. She can't believe it, but the truth is undeniable. The man she loves is a con artist. She balls the statement up and throws it across the room. Then she fixes herself a drink, cries for a while, and finally calls the police. They are lucky this time; he's still in town, and they quickly apprehend him. "Seducing Patricia Cornwell just to steal her credit card number, was it really worth it?" the detective asks. "No," says Mr. Satanism, and pukes.

As you can see, this is super annoying and distracting, and there's really only two reasons to do it: 1) to be pretentious, or 2) to hide the fact that you can't write for shit.

Guess which category Patricia Cornwell falls under?

The story is your basic CSI type crap about solving some old crone's murder (no, not Patricia Cornwell, some other old crone). Here's the main cop's three major personality traits:

1. He's a bully. It's okay though, because he only pushes around the sort of people that the middle-aged women who read these books would hate and/or be afraid of, like punk rock kids and foreigners.

2. He hates women. If a chick is more successful than him, he gives her a demeaning nickname. If she isn't, he totally takes advantage of her. Not sexual advantage, I'm talking like getting her to run his errands and shit.

3. He flaunts all these designer clothes and all this expensive furniture, then brags about how he got it all off eBay or at Big Lots or something. So he's materialistic and a cheapskate.

Obviously this guy is a raging piece of shit, but for some fucked-up reason the book acts like we're supposed to like him. As for the story, it's complete garbage. Most of the "action" is people sorting through file folders; the murder they're supposed to be working on barely even comes up until the very end, at which point they suddenly solve it in two seconds Encyclopedia Brown style; and, just to make things extra fucking stupid, the main cop's mom has ESP, because as we all know ESP is totally real and everybody knows somebody who has it.

The cover of my copy says that this was a "#1 New York Times Bestseller". Seriously, America, you suck.

Addendum: Astoundingly, this piece of crap was actually made into a movie. To read my review of that, check out my book Lifetime Movies... for Men, available on Amazon. It's part of the free preview, so if you're too damn cheap to download the entire book, just click on "Look Inside!" and scroll down until you come to "At Risk (2010)".

Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape - Supplemental

I reviewed Reckless Behavior in my latest book, Lifetime Movies... for Men, and in the course of that review I singled out the character "Lorraine" and sort of casually mentioned that her ass was my new god. Well, for those of you who are curious, this is Lorriane:

And here (lower left) is her ass:

Any questions? Didn't think so. For more on Lorriane's ass, pick up a copy of Lifetime Movies... for Men, available on Amazon. Oh, and if your ass looks anything like Lorraine's, e-mail me immediately. I've got nothing important going in August. I'm more than willing to drive to wherever you are.

Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)

Nineteen fifty-six? How many UFOs sightings had there even been by 1956? Like ten? Actually it turns out there were quite a few; apparently it was a pretty big fad back then, like almost, but not quite, managing to shoot the Chupacabras is today. I was trying to figure out how I missed it, but truth be told my life immediately after World War Part 2 was pretty chaotic. I mostly [CLASSIFIED] while [CLASSIFIED] Project Paperclip [CLASSIFIED] with those idiots from [CLASSIFIED] until eventually they realized that [CLASSIFIED]. When [CLASSIFIED] finally [CLASSIFIED] he thought he was so fucking smart but that didn't stop us from [CLASSIFIED] and naturally he ended up puking everywhere! He even threw up on one of the [CLASSIFIED]! Ha ha! So, needless to say, UFOs were the last thing on my mind.

So anyway, this flick is based on "true cases", but to give it some structure it mostly follows this reporter guy around for months or possibly years, during which he learns less about UFOs than you could glean from one day in front of the History Channel. It's all hopelessly factual and boring, and the acting is shitty beyond words. Hell, even the real-life UFO witnesses they interview at various points sound like bad actors.* And what is with the endless, mind-numbing scene where they show the main guy how they use radar to help planes land:

Wow, before he was all front-lit like that, his ears really didn't look that big.

Trust me, even if you always kind of wondered how radar works, this part will bore you dickless. "Heading 2-1-4 has you lined up with the center line. Range: two miles. Holding fifteen feet low on the flight path, bring it up slightly. Ten. Five. Now on flight path..." Seriously, it just goes on and on like that for a good five minutes, in full-on bad actor monotone. (If you ask me, the actor playing this radar dude should've delivered his lines like he was doing play-by-play for an especially exciting baseball game. That would've been hilarious.) They also show the main guy some "real" UFO footage, but it literally goes by so fast that it might as well be a subliminal message that says "Buy Coke!" or "UFOs aren't real, dumbass." Seriously, who breaks out their movie camera during an honest-to-fuck UFO fly-by then only films it for 0.7 seconds? (Yes, I timed it.) At the end of the movie they do give us a longer look at this footage, but even then it just looks like some white specks, specking around in the distance. It could be anything from a flock of seagulls, to a bunch of balloons a grade school class released with the kids' addresses on them,** to some leftover jizz on the camera lens. They spent the whole movie pimping this footage like crazy but dammit, there's nothing of substance there. And that, my friends, perfectly sums up the "true story of flying saucers". Case closed. Fuck off.

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*This is sometimes caused by "lying".

**Remember when teachers would actually assign kids to do this? The idea was that the person who found the balloon might drop you a line and tell you where it ultimately ended up ("In Corky the dolphin's digestive system..."), but in practice it was more like giving every child molester in the state directions right to your house.

Lifetime Movies... for Men

After several delays caused by the July holiday, an unplanned bender, and other difficulties, my fourth book, Lifetime Movies... for Men, is finally available, exclusively on Amazon. Even better, all day tomorrow it's 100% FREE. That's right, in celebration of Friday the 13th (my second favorite day of the year), you can download the Kindle version absolutely free of charge. So, you know, do that. Here's the link:

Lifetime Movies... for Men

Don't have a Kindle? That's okay - Amazon has a FREE Kindle app that allows you to read the book right on your computer. Download that here. See, everything's free tomorrow. Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky?

The Perfect Tenant (1999)

My latest book, Lifetime Movies... for Men will be available soon, only on Amazon. As a little bonus, here's a review that didn't end up making the final edit:

Wow, the guy in this movie isn't the perfect tenant at all. Talk about ironic. First he murders his landlady's old man, then he shoots her fine-ass daughter's snoopy boyfriend, and finally he kidnaps the daughter herself, who, if I haven't mentioned this already, is toe-suckingly hot. Oh, and he also bumps off a few randoms who happen to get in the way. The best is when he breaks up with/kills his girlfriend: I kid you not, she's still trying to "fix" the relationship while he's caving her skull in with a telephone! That's such a brilliant statement about chicks, on so many levels, that I don't even know where to begin. There's also a twist at the end that almost makes sense, and, best of all, the hottie daughter in bondage. It would've been a much better film if the daughter got naked (or at least dressed like more of a slut), but other than that this isn't half bad. You know, for a man-bashing stalker movie.

Short-haired hottie, bondage, erotic asphyxia... Looks more like the perfect date to me.