The Smarmy Carny

Here are some movies that are the third of three in its series:

• Austin Powers in Goldmember: B+ Again, there was a drop in quality by the time they reached the third episode of Austin Powers. The movie kept trying to play on the jokes that caught on in the first two movies, and it came across as desperate instead of funny. This was a funny movie, though, but if it had come first, there wouldn't have been any sequels.
• Friday After Next: C+ They lost Chris Tucker and Tony Cox after the original but picked up Mike Epps and Terry Crews. The writing was still as solid as the original, but the constant change in cast threw each sequel off pace a bit.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: A This movie kept the great pacing of the first two movies, with the exception that it had to tie up all the plots by the credits. For once, I can say that it was a good thing that a movie was not true to the book. Despite the 12 conclusions at the end of the movie, we didn't have to sit through the ridiculous ending the book offered us.
• Spider-Man 3: B+ This probably won't be a trilogy for long. Spider-Man 3 was at least better than Spider-Man 2, the movie I like to call "Tell Everyone I'm Peter Parker".
• Red: A Krzysztof Kieslowski is my favorite director, so the final installment of the Three Colors trilogy is a shoe-in! A beautiful story and a wonderful plot. So long as you don't mind subtitled, check it out.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which items do you wish were included that I didn't cover here?

While I was waiting for Blades of Glory to start in the theatre, three of the trailers were for "third" sequel movies:

• Shrek the Third
• Spider-Man 3
• Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End

Is the day of the lousy "second sequel" over? All three of these movies promise to be big hits this year.

Back in the day, even The Godfather couldn't put out a decent third movie. 2007 seems to have something different in store!

The Spider-Man 3 teaser is out now, and it's clear that the third installment will deal with the Venom plot line. I highly doubt they'll get into the Secret Wars plot simply to introduce Venom, so that development will be interesting to watch. My guess is that they'll stick with yet another lab experiment gone awry. Expect to see SM3 in May 2007.

Topher Grace is slated to play Eddie Brock, which should be fun. You may or may not have noticed the Eddie Brock reference in the original Spider-Man: J. J. Jameson mentions that Eddie couldn't get a decent photo of Spider-Man.

In the comics, Venom knows Spider-Man's secret identity, but since Spider-Man 2 seemed to be titled "Hey everyone, I'm Peter Parker!", the Venom plot line will hopefully be a good distraction from that mess.

If you're not a fan of Spider-Man, however, you can always watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teaser. Based solely on the teaser, the movie looks pretty good. At first, I was worried that they might have dropped the lighter side of TMNT, but you'll notice that's not the case. One thing, though: I can't yet verify that Corey Feldman is not slated to voice Donatello. Once I can confirm that, I will be much more excited about the movie. TNMT is slated to be released on March 30, 2007.

Spider-Mike

It looks like Jackson now has some competition from Tyson in the "Stupidest Lines Uttered by a Michael" category this month.

Tyson apparently approached a "suspicious-acting man" near his home recently and yelled at the man, asking him what he was doing. Of course, the man was startled and scared upon seeing Tyson. My guess is that it's not because Tyson is a professional boxer, but instead because the guy knows that Mike Tyson is a nutcase. When he ran away, he was probably covering his ears to keep them safe.

I mostly just wanted to note what Tyson said about himself in light of this confrontation, according to the Seattle Times:

"The guy was scared to death," the mercurial Tyson told Newsday. "He was saying, 'Oh my God, Mr. Tyson, I'm sorry, I dropped my wallet somewhere on this block and I was looking for it.' "

Unlike Charles Bronson, Tyson said he momentarily felt "a little guilty" about his actions — until several frightened neighbors, who'd also seen the man lurking about, came up and thanked him.

"You believe that?" Tyson said. "Now I'm the neighborhood watch!

"I'm Spider-man!"

Yikes. I'm thinking that, when Wesley Willis died, his spirit passed on into Mike Tyson's body.

Rock over London, rock on Phoenix.