Fat Guys On ...: A fresh start

The Fat Guys apologize for not making regular entries. I'd say we'll lop off a pound of flesh as punishment, but that would only help us get healthy — hardly a proper way to pay. Anyway, we'll definitely do better.

The Bank Job: Another movie about bankrobbing by people with funny accents.

Faulk: Count me as a movie critic fully in support of movies about robbing banks, but given what I’d read by other critics about this movie, I left the theater thoroughly disappointed.

It was just another remake of so many other “bank job” movies. It was funny at times, and it had elements that made it a kind of political thriller, but overall there was nothing original in this movie to recommend it above so many others of this abused genre.

Other critics said it was “well-cast and crisply directed,” according to RottenTomatoes.com. I can’t disagree, but never once in the two-hour-long movie did I get the old tingle up the spine telling me this was a fine piece of cinema. Instead, my left leg went numb and I knew I was either having a stroke or this movie froze the blood in my veins with boring and recycled material.

Rating: Large, but only barely

Horton Hears a Who: Why Jim Carrey is only good in movies written by Dr. Suess.

Faulk: I’m a mid-level Dr. Suess fan.

I’d read and re-read (I am a father, after all) “Green Eggs and Ham,” “Hop on Pop,” “The Cat in the Hat,” “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

But “Horton Hears a Who” was one I missed in the shuffle of brightly colored books lining my kids’ bookshelf.

Not having the experience of the book, I was able to go into the movie theater with an open mind. The typical frustration I have with movies adapted from the book would be a non-factor.

This was a great kids’ movie. My three-year-old, a child often overwhelmed by tension and conflict in movies, only had a short moment of panic when he cried out in one scene — “When is this movie going to be over with??!!”

He got past those initial fears and walked out excited and tripping over his own tongue to say how much he loved Horton and all the Whos.

It was good for kids and it was good for adults — but it wasn’t so good for Jim Carrey. The man, once on top of the world with all his wacky bodily distortions, has been typecast as a freak suitable only for the twisted imagination of Dr. Suess.

Not that we needed any further proof, but the horror that was the movie “23” proves that Carrey is good only in animated films, or while on cocaine.

Rating: XL

Boob Tube Reviews

HBO’s John Adams Part I: A multi-part series on HBO covering ... uh ... the brewing of John Adams beer. What? The other Adams? The vice president of George Washington, and second president of United States? Oh.

Faulk: Paul Giametti can do no wrong. He’s even managed to make American history — the ultimate in forgettable high school curriculi — interesting.

And this new miniseries goes on to prove that HBO’s dung doesn’t reek. They make it seems like everyone else in television is bathing with electronics.

Rating: XL

DVDs

Rendition: A two-hour long exposition on why terrorism sucks, and how it’s made us all suck.

Faulk: A great movie that was exceedingly hard to watch.

While not getting overly political, this movie makes you realize how far this country has come since the Sept. 11 attacks. Yes, the story line is fictional. And yes, none of the characters are real. But things of this nature are happening, and the president of the United States is even now fighting hard to preserve this country’s right to act as the villains in this movie are acting.

And that’s a hard thing to swallow.

Rating: XL

Jericho Season 1: I don’t know enough about it yet to write a summary, There’s some bombs and some people and things are happening.

Durant: So with “The Sopranos” done and I’m all caught up with “The Wire” until season five comes out on DVD and I’m lost with “Lost” and “Entourage” gets repetitive and so on and so forth, I needed to find a new TV show on DVD to watch.

My man, no not MY man but you know like My friend, Marshall said I had to check out “Jericho.”

Now I’ve heard of the show and was intrigued when I first saw the previews on TV and was even more intrigued when I heard the show was cancelled and the fans demanded it be returned and CBS obliged, kind of like Fox with “Family Guy.”

So I rented it from Fig’s and watched the first four episodes of the first season right off the bat.

Initial reaction is cautionary.

First, I can really do without the cheesy music during the sentimental parts and the closing scenes.

Second, I get the feeling the execs at CBS watched the success of ABC’s “Lost” and said to their stable of writers, "Give us something like ‘Lost’ but different.” It’s got the mysterious circumstances that only come out trickle by trickle per episode all the while developing the characters.

Third, Sometimes great ideas get squashed by network TV.

That being said, I’m going to finish out the season.

There’s something there. I mean there’s got to be if the fans were able to circumvent the “experts” at the networks.

So I’ll let you all know what I think at season’s end, which for me will probably be tomorrow.

(Sorry to come through with a review only halfway through a season, but I only wrote it because I was on death's doorstep all week with some sort of flu. I survive the plague of ‘08 up here but one day in Sacramento and I return with the monkey pox, bird flu and platypus itis all rolled into one)

Listen to the Fat Guys radio segment, as recorded for KSLG, here

Fat Guys On ...

Getting free tickets — and milking press privileges — in the name of journalism.

A fresh start

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