Movie Mon. - Studio 60 Syndrome Strikes Set

The TV Set: Indie film about the struggles of a TV producer (David Duchovny) to bring his dream project to life despite the meddling of TV executives (Ioan Gruffudd sporting his own accent for once and a very funny Sigourney Weaver) who absolutely "love" the script, but keep wanting to change it ("Does the brother have to commit suicide? It's just such a downer.") Some funny stuff here and there, but this is one of those films that will probably best be appreciated by those with some knowledge of the inner workings of TV shows and pilot seasons. Plus, it sort of suffers from what I shall be calling Studio 60 syndrome, i.e. everyone constantly talks about how awesome and funny the show within the show is, but every time it's on-screen it only makes you cringe, not laugh. So-so film that falls in the "not sorry I watched but not going to really recommend either" category, despite great performances by the always spectacular Sigourney Weaver and Judy Greer.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Sequel that manages to improve on the original in some aspects (mainly in having the team utilize their powers) while still falling into several of the same traps (why oh why did they decide to have Doom make bad puns? WHY?!?!?!?!?!) Galactus-as-space-cloud didn't bother me all that much, since I was too busy being bothered by all of the lame jokes. But, all the stuff with the Surfer was cool, and while I question the decision to have Johnny go all Super-Skrull at the end, I have to admit that seeing him wield all of the powers at once yielded some nice visuals. All in all, glad I waited to rent it.

The Film Crew Series: For those of you unaware, Mystery Science Theater 3000 veterans Mike Nelson, Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy, and Bill "Crow T. Robot" Corbet are up to their old movie-mocking ways again, this time in a series of straight-to-DVD productions under the title of The Film Crew. So far I've watched two productions: Hollywood After Dark (featuring Golden Girl Rue Mclanahan as a stripper) and Killers From Space (featuring some of the dorkiest aliens you've ever seen on film. Oh, and Peter Graves). The silhouettes of Mike and the bots may be missing from the screen, but the snarky comments are flying as fast and furious as ever. If you were ever a fan of MST3K be sure to keep an eye out for The Film Crew; it'll be worth your while.

Yours, Mine, and Ours: Caught most of this remake on cable this weekend; not nearly as bad as I'd feared it would be, although I could have done without all of the "Dennis Quaid slips on something, windmills his arms for 30 seconds before landing face first in messy stuff" scenes. As far as family films go, not too bad; sure, it was occasionally hackneyed and always highly predictable, but it had a good cast and some pretty funny scenes with some of the kids.

Solarbabies: Okay, so I only saw a small portion of this late 80s SF non-classic on one of our movie channels this weekend, but I just had to comment on the fact that it not only starred 80s icons Jason Patric (the older brother in Lost Boys) and Jami Gertz (his vampire girlfriend in same), but also a young Lukas Haas (Witness, Lady in White, Mars Attacks, and the excellent Brick) , James LeGros (Ally McBeal, Scotland PA, Enemy of the State and the excellent Living in Oblivion), Peter DeLuise (son of Dom DeLuise and producer of the Stargate TV series), and, last but not least, Adrian Pasdar (the titular character of Profit and Nathan Petrelli on Heroes) sporting a bit of a Road Warrior-esque mullet.