The Smarmy Carny

With the Simpsons Movie out now, I might as well toss in something movie-related. Here are a small assortment of some minor characters from The Simpsons:

• Barney Gumble: B Barney is the town drunk who makes Homer look sober. He has a good line now and then but rarely carries a scene. Favorite line: "Aaah! Natural light! Get it off me! Get it off me!"
• Comic Book Guy: C+ Jeff Albertson is the owner of The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop. His character is intentionally annoying, but often not to a comic effect. Favorite line: "Worst episode ever."
• Disco Stu: C It's always fun to see Disco Stu enter the frame, but in comparison to the other characters on the show, Disco Stu just doesn't shine through. Favorite line: "Disco Stu loves disco music!"
• Dr. Nick Riviera: B+ The graduate of Hollywood Upstairs Medical College always makes me laugh. Favorite line: "Hi, everybody!"
• Nelson Muntz: A- Ha ha! Need I say more? Nelson needn't, that's for sure.
• Ralph Wiggum: A Everyone embraces the lovable dumb kid. Until he turns into a prepubescent. Ralph is lucky that time stands still in the Simpsons universe. Favorite line: "Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

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?

Here is the last batch of movies that are the third of three in its series:

• Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles: D Didn't we already see this movie? In the original, he goes to NYC and says the "That's not a knife" line. This time he goes to the west coast, where the jokes are exactly the same.
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: A+ This was a great sequel with stellar perfoemances from Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
• Ocean's Thirteen B- This is a sequel of a sequel of a remake. It's more or less the same plot as before. But as long as it makes money, we'll keep seeing it.
• Star Wars—Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: B I enjoyed watching this dark chapter to the Star Wars saga, despite Hayden Christensen who seemed to be fresh out of the Keanu Reeves acting school when he showed up for Episode II.
• Star Wars—Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: B+ This movie tied up the entire plot, and Vader was taken care of in a semi-respectable manner. On the other hand, Ewoks abound in this movie. There was a huge uproar over Jar Jar with Episode I, but he paled in comparison to the annoying Ewoks.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which third in a trilogy movies do you wish were included that I didn't cover in these four posts?

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?

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

• Back to the Future Part III: C+ A decent film, but not nearly as good as the first two. Though the plot picks up right from the end of BTTF2, it seems like a completely disconnected storyline.
• Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult: A- Leslie Neilsen could keep pumping this stuff out until he is 110 at the same quality.
• Look Who's Talking Now: D The two original movies were different from all those stupid talking animal movies because it featured talking babies After running out of material for that gag through two movies, they apparently decided to fall back on the standard talking animals.
• The Matrix Revolutions: B- The original Matrix was a truly great movie and left us wanting more. Sometimes it's best if that's the end of the story. The plot did get to play its One/Jesus analogy out in this final film, but after this one, we weren't wanting more.
• The NeverEnding Story III: B- There's a little more leniency with children's movies. (After all, they've made twelve The Land Before Time videos!) You could probably keep telling stories from this fantasy universe for decades to come . . . but just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why?

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

• Godfather Part III: D- This is the classic "ruining a classic series by making one too many". The Godfather Part II was a great sequel and even won six Oscars . . . and then they had to go and make this.
• Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves: F Execs knew this was a lousy idea, I think, so that's probably why it went straight to video. They did shrinking, then they did enlargening. And now we're back to shrinking again? Been there, done that.
• Major League: Back to the Minors: C+ This one isn't up there with the original, but it really wasn't that bad a movie for its genre. The only real problem is the oxy moron between the title and the subtitle.
• Naqoyqatsi: A- If you enjoyed Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, this one lives up to the same standards.
• Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over: C- This one really played like a direct-to-video film. It lacked the luster of the first two Spy Kids movies.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why?

• Call Waiting: B+ Call waiting is a great feature because you don't have to worry if being on the phone is blocking someone else from calling. This is especially handy if you have a teenage girl in your house. Coupled with caller ID, this feature is even better because you know if it's worth the while to switch over or not. Coupled with Caller ID on TV, I can see an incoming call and who it's from, even if my wife is talking on the phone already.
• Caller ID: A (Caller ID on TV: A+) Caller ID is great. Unlike *69, you get to know who it is before you answer the phone. We no longer had to screen calls via the answering machine message. Plus, it seems that anyone I wanted to talk to never left messages on the machine, so I just never talked to anyone. With the advent of Caller ID on TV, I'm in heaven. When the phone rings, all I have to do is look at the TV (assuming it's on) to see who is calling. No more jumping off the couch to see who's calling!
• Last Call Return (*69): D This may have been useful in the days before caller ID was widely available. Now, it's just outdated.
• Three-Way Calling: C- Three-way calling is overrated. Its only practical use is at work for conference calls, and I'm not even sure if those are considered three-way calling. Outside that, the feature is reserved for teenagers with nothing better to do. If you really did want to use three-way calling to talk to two people, you spend five minutes just trying to make sure you got the person on the line without dropping the initial caller.
• Voice mail: B Voice mail on its own would probably score much better, but we already had the answering machine. The pros and cons between the two really just balance each other 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?

Why and how Scooby Doo got so many guest stars is beyond me. Just to clarify: Technically, the show in question here is The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Here are five guests who appeared on Scooby Doo:

• Batman and Robin: D When you're bringing on other fictional characters from another television series, you know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel for guest stars. Perhaps it made for good entertainment for the kids, but it's just a lousy match-up. A superhero millionaire hanging out with a bunch of hippie kids? Ack.
• Don Knotts: B Don Knotts appeared as his usual bumbling character, being comical in a butt-of-the-joke manner. It worked out well enough, though I thought Don was always drawn more realistically than the rest of the characters on the show.
• Harlem Globetrotters: A- The Harlem Globetrotters were a treat. There were so many of them, you really only knew Curly. They kept the action going and provided a bunch of laughs. The only problem is that their whole shtick is basketball tricks. In the cartoons, Scooby can perform those same tricks!
• Sonny and Cher: C+ I was never a fan of Cher, and I'm not sure the duo came across all that well in Scooby Doo, either.
• The Three Stooges: B+ Somehow, the Three Stooges' slapstick carried over to animation when they appeared on the show. It wasn't quite as edgy as the Three Stooges episodes, but they got the job done.

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