Variety

No, not that dumb little newspaper that claims to be some big muckety muck when it comes to entertainment news. No, I'm talking about today's post which covers--drumroll please--a Variety of subjects. Don't be surprised if the word "Variety" is someday associated with me.

Oh yeah, this is the way to get the kids to watch your show. What, were Cloris Leachman and Frank Sinatra Jr. unavailable?

Mel Gibson says he has no interest in doing another Lethal Weapon movie which, upon hearing that, caused me to renounce any and all agnostic leanings I may have had and fully embrace that dude who died for my sins 2000 years ago. It's nice to see Mel having the good sense to at least learn from the mistakes that Stallone, Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford made before him. Just because the movie going public enjoyed something twenty years ago doesn't mean they were clamoring for said film to become a Neverending Story. Hell, even The Neverending Story stopped after one sequel. Mel, this totally makes up for you being a crazy drunken anti-Semitic Holocaust denier. One way in which this could all be ruined, though, is that when Gibson says, "No way will I ever do another one," it is merely Hollywood-speak for, "The check they wrote me wasn't big enough. Fill up an 18-wheeler with money and I'll do it."

Hey, remember that time back in the long, long ago when I wrote the sentence, "Hell, even The Neverending Story stopped after one sequel"? I suddenly had a nagging feeling that maybe some fool would be throwing together a remake of The Neverending Story so I looked it up. No remake plans currently (phew) but it turns out there was a third film. It's rare that IMDB commenters all agree with each other but, in this case, they're all using phrases like, "Worst Movie Ever!" and no one is stepping in to say they at least kind of liked it. It had Jack Black before he got famous. Oddly, I've never heard him tell charming stories about having done this.

It's sad that, as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles becomes more interesting to watch, it's ratings are plummeting. Maybe they should have it suck again like it did the first season and it's ratings will climb back up. Try doing an episode where Summer Glau's hot girl robot character is sentenced by a judge to become somebody's butler or maybe add a dog and a precocious kid to the cast. That should get it back up above a 3.0 share. One piece of advice I'd give is stop making it so damn depressing. Every week I have to watch as these clinically depressed characters glumly try to prevent the global nuclear catastrophe they know is coming. I realize that premise doesn't easily lend itself to laugh-a-minute hijinks but I've seen some of the darkest premises treated with a light touch that keeps you watching without wanting to slash your wrists, something one of Terminator's characters actually did this week.

I almost wrote, "I bet Joss Whedon could have given it a great deal of humor," but, having seen Dollhouse, that's no longer necessarily true. From what I hear, it takes a few episodes for Dollhouse to take off because Fox executives kept trying to screw around with Whedon's concept which makes me wonder why they didn't just make their own damn show and save themselves the price of hiring Joss Whedon if they think they know so much. On the plus side, if it gets canceled maybe Whedon will just say, "The hell with movies and television," and do a couple Dr. Horrible type internet projects every year. Somehow, Whedon managed to gain not only critical but commercial success on that without the help of the Fox network.

Boy, I sure am glad we have such an awesome slate of movie releases this week that we didn't need an intelligent, innovative fantasy film from England.



I have no idea if Franklyn is any good though this guy seemed to like it. Whether it's good or bad, I find it hard to believe it's any worse than Fired Up, a movie that studios had no problem inflicting on the public. If nothing else, it's more visually imaginative than anything currently in theaters. Damn Hollywood, you really do hate America.