Sometimes, there’s a lot to be said for keeping it simple. As undemanding as Steven Gould’s 1992 novel JUMPER is, it’s certainly memorable. Picking it up five years after first reading it, details came flooding back with ease.

While watching director Doug Liman’s big-budget adaptation starring STAR WARS prequel vet Hayden Christensen, I was forgetting plot points minutes after they were introduced – its can’t-miss conceit complicated by a need to muddle something so straightforward.

Both tell the story of a young man – Davy in the book, David in the movie – who suddenly and inexplicably acquires the gift of teleportation. As Gould conceived it, Davy’s power allowed him to escape an abusive father and a would-be rapist trucker before getting the bright idea to “borrow” considerable cash sums from bank vaults.

From there, Davy eludes police and NSA questioning while also thwarting terrorist acts for the feds and romancing a headstrong college student named Millie (but only after he’s devirginized by another girl, perhaps prompting some of the controversy this young-adult novel has courted in its history). He performs a lot of jumping between New York and Oklahoma.

But the movie diverges considerably after the phrase “bank vaults.” Oh, there’s Millie, alright; she’s now a childhood crush grown up to be a clueless barmaid played by THE O.C.’s Rachel Bilson. Most of the book is condensed into 15 or 20 minutes, then Liman and company exercise free reign, with more visually appealing but less interesting results.

David is chased not by the cops, but by the Paladins, a shadowy organization for whom Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) – sporting white hair that makes him look like a Fisher-Price toy, not to mention a knife he uses to kill David’s kind – works. Yes, that’s right: David is not the only “jumper,” as he learns when he meets the cocky Brit named Griffin (Jamie Bell of BILLY ELLIOT).

Neither Roland nor Griffin appears as characters in Gould’s book, but they take center stage in the film. (Gould has, however, smartly taken advantage of the loads of exposure the movie will afford his work by writing an original tie-in called JUMPER: GRIFFIN’S STORY, which serves as that character’s origin, continuity be damned.)

The joy of Gould’s source material stems from its childlike view of an amazing power. With Davy greeting his newfound skills with equal guilt and glee, it’s not unreasonable to view it as a thinly veiled tale of hitting puberty and discovering the magic of erections.

Liman, a gifted filmmaker (SWINGERS, GO, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) reduces Davy’s story to a mere special effect. Although mildly diverting, there’s nothing all that innocent – or human – about it. –Rod Lott

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It’s nice to see a Stephen King adaptation at an actual movie theater again, where they belong, instead of the watered-down, overlong miniseries that play several nights on network TV and basic cable. It’s also nice to see it contain actual scares, which helps when your source material does the same.

1408 comes from King’s most recent short-story collection, 1992’s EVERYTHING’S EVENTUAL: 14 DARK TALES. As King notes in his introduction, it was never meant to be an actual story, but an example of how writing progresses from draft to draft. For whatever reason, he finished it, and it’s one of EVENTUAL’s many highlights. It’s easy to see why it’s been handpicked for big-screen treatment, and here’s hoping its success helps usher in another wave of quality King films.

John Cusack stars as Mike Enslin, a writer of several midlist books on haunted places. He’s working on one for hotels, rating each on a scare scale of one to 10 skulls. In his research, he’s found that supposed ghost-infested bed-and-breakfasts are just a way to drum up business. That will all change with his stay in room 1408 at New York’s Dolphin Hotel – a room that is kept unoccupied for a reason: 56 occupants have died in it, none lasting for more than an hour.

Or, as Dolphin manager Samuel L. Jackson puts it, the room is “fucking evil.”

Once inside, Mike’s stay starts off innocently enough: unexplained mints on the pillow, blared Karen Carpenter from the clock radio. But soon, actual bodily harm comes to him, and the clock starts providing a handy 60-minute countdown toward his apparent doom. With a barrage of spirits and phenomena and other things that go bump in the dark, it’s like THE SHINING compressed into one compact suite.

King’s original story of the same name is structured roughly into thirds – before, during and after Mike’s stay – whereas most all of the film is concerned with the during. Granting the tale an ominous touch, King relates the goings-on in the room not as they happen, but only afterward, via whatever details Mike left on his voice recorder.

What he doesn’t say makes our imagination run wild. But movies being visual, 1408 shows all, and some of it is very creepy. For more or less being confined to one space, the filmmakers do a great job of concocting more and more things to make Mike’s night a living hell. Although it includes all of the shocks of the story, it has to expand upon it in order to hit feature-length, and adds a subplot about Mike’s ex-wife and dead daughter to help fulfill that.

Hope you like Cusack, because the entire movie is on his shoulders. If he weren’t such a great actor, we’d want to check out of 1408 early. But he makes the skeptic Mike likable, believeable and sympathetic. As much as the moviegoer in us likes to see him go through the ringer, we feel bad for him all the same. In fact, parts of the film are real downers, but that just means it works.

The movie’s not perfect, mostly because of maybe two too many false endings. But it’s a smart and stylish chiller/thriller – everything that director Mikael Håfström’s previous film DERAILED was not. –Rod Lott

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Damn, that’s one bleak, morose motherfucker.

Finally, the most eagerly awaited film of the year – judging by Internet hype, not by actual box-office returns – is here: SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Plot? The title almost says it all. A Hawaiian surfer kid witnesses a mob hit and is asked to testify against the bad guy in L.A. Protecting him on the flight will be FBI Agent Neville (Samuel L. Jackson). The mob intends to make the flight hell by planting crates of deadly reptiles from the world over on the plane. Once in the air, snakes ensue.

SNAKES never made any promise beyond being a B-movie, and on that level, this horror/disaster thriller delivers. The promise of the title is fully realized, as there are a lot of snakes, and they bite the shit outta people. Not literally, although there is plenty of other graphic carnage to witness, as they sink their fangs into a bare breast and a urinating penis, as well as burrow their way through someone’s eye socket. I didn’t find any of SNAKES scary – every jump is pretty much telegraphed – but I didn’t expect how horrifically the stock characters would die. ‘Tis good gory fun.

It has a good cast, and everyone contributes something. Jackson gives it his resident bad-assness; as the flight attendant, erstwhile ERer Julianna Marguiles lends it some class; pilot David Koechner, some humor; SPECIES III hottie Sunny Mabrey, a little cleavage. It’s delightfully, intentionally cheeseball, out for nothing else than to be a fun ride. But don’t take that to mean it’s lazy or not well-made; instead, director David Ellis (now 3-for-3 after FINAL DESTINATION 2 and the woefully underrated CELLULAR) keeps the tension steady, the body count high and the pace quickening. If you’re disappointed by it, seriously, what were you expecting? –Rod Lott

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• Because I think it is the worst movie I have seen in theaters since the turn of the millennium.

• Because it is not funny. There was not a single laugh to be found in its entire 83 minutes. Seriously, not a one. Therefore, if Oliver Stone’s WORLD TRADE CENTER has even a slight chuckle in the pre-explosion scenes as people are going about their daily lives, then WORLD TRADE CENTER is a funnier movie than ZOOM.

• Because those 83 minutes felt double. And probably took three times that off my life.

• Because Tim Allen – though prone to the occasional good project (i.e. GALAXY QUEST) – is a comedy vacuum.

• Because supporting actor Chevy Chase is now so old and fat looking, it’s downright sad. In this one, he looks like THE NUTTY PROFESSOR. Part of you wants to think, “I’ve missed seeing Chevy Chase on screen.” And then one minute in, when you realize he’s forgotten how to be funny, you no longer miss him. But you feel sorry for him. It’s like hanging out with a grandfather who no longer knows your name because his synapses don’t fire correctly.

• Because it has no idea how to set up a joke. Not that there is a punchline there worth setting up.

• Because it goes out of its way to Jon Benet up a 6-year-old girl, shaking butt and all.

• Because it has a robot named Mr. Pibb.

• Because it has a skeleton named Courteney Cox.

• Because the opening credits read “Songs by Smash Mouth.”

• Because after trying to kill all the kid heroes and being defeated, the villain immediately shakes everyone’s hand and joins the family.

• Because even the end-credit bloopers – sometimes a saving grace of so-so comedies – is also as laughless as everything before it. When you can’t even do bloopers right, you’re screwed.

• Because it was already released last summer, when it was called SKY HIGH and was watchable.

• Because it’s not based on the ’70s PBS TV show. That would be so much better.

• Because I’ve only been able to see six movies this summer – and this had to be one of them instead of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III, THE DA VINCI CODE or other things I missed.

• Because, because, because, because, because – because of the horrible things it does.

I don’t care who knows it: I love horror movies. I’m willing to overlook story problems, amateurish performances and heavy-metal soundtracks because I simply find them to be a load of fun – 90-minute doses of catharsis. I especially enjoy them if they don’t wuss out and go all PG-13 and WB on us; the harder the R – SAW II, HOSTEL, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, FINAL DESTINATION 3 – the better. That’s why I actually looked forward with genuine glee to SEE NO EVIL, despite being a World Wrestling Entertainment production.

But all the chaos in my life for the past couple of months prevented me from seeing it (as well as everything else; I’ve seen a grand total of three movies this summer in theaters), until the heavens opened last night and I made it to the second-run cinema to catch it for a mere 50 cents. My verdict: SEE NO EVIL has lots of evil, so it’s worth a whole roll of quarters to me, warts and all.

I know zip about wrestling, but WWE star Kane is the bald, hulking, mostly mute killer of this formula thriller. But geez, what a formula! Lock eight annoying juvenile delinquents in an abandoned, labyrinthian hotel for the night, and let the bloodletting begin from He Who Lurks Within Its Walls. Kane likes to pop out of mirrors and drywall, and swing his hooked chains around and stuff cellphones down blond bitches’ throats, and it’s no-brain fun from start to finish. The screenplay is by-the-numbers, but effective for what this is (and strangely, the screenwriter’s own novel of his script is a great trash read in my opinion and much better than the movie).

Former porn auteur Gregory Dark (he of numerous hardcore titles and softcore Shannon Whirry vehicles) makes his mainstream debut, with the occasional misguided angle and choppy visuals. But he’s not a bad director; in fact, I’ve seen his Whirry-led ANIMAL INSTINCTS about 24 times. (Well, one two-minute scene of it, anyway.) But this is low-budget horror, and I can forgive all that because of all the gore; it certainly doesn’t skimp on the horror. And that’s the way I like it: not over easy.

Fun fact: My wife asked, “Are they going to make it a trilogy and call the others HEAR NO EVIL and SMELL NO EVIL?”
Me: “If they did, the third one would be called SPEAK NO EVIL. That’s how the saying goes.”
My wife: “Oh, yeah.”

Although I would pay to see SMELL NO EVIL, too. –Rod Lott

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BONUS! 5 THINGS UTTERED DURING THE FILM BY THE WOMAN SITTING BEHIND ME
• “Ooh, ooh, he done met his match!”
• “Why you goin’ in there? Damn, girl!”
• “This sucker don’t die!”
• ”This shit crazy!”
• ”Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout!”

This is Luc Besson’s first film as director since AmazonTHE MESSENGER: JOAN OF ARC in 1999. But he hasn’t been missing in action. No, he’s been producing a massive amount of films since then, including the TAXI series, THE TRANSPORTER franchise, Jet Li vehicles, ONG-BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR and CRIMSON RIVERS 2, to name a few. But now he breaks his silence and put on the director’s cap for the first time in almost 10 years. The result is a film filled with Besson elements, but isn’t as romantic as one can wish for.

The story is simple. It’s Besson’s favorite: a boy-meets-girl story. Andre (Jamel Debbouze) is an incompetent crook who owes a large amount of money to a local kingpin (Gilbert Melki), and Angela (Rie Rasmussen) is an extremely hot prostitute whom he saves from a suicidal act. Or did he?

The film is much talkier than his others. They spend much of the time discussing inner beauty, self-esteem and other issues, but the conversations are cute and it actually charms you rather than bores you. The rest of the film is typical of Besson. Just as they were in Besson’s other works (THE FIFTH ELEMENT, THE PROFESSIONAL and LA FEMME NIKITA), our female lead is young and dynamite-hot with strong physical attributes (meaning she can kick ass).

But the lead performances aren’t as crackling as Besson’s previous screen couplings (Leon/Matilda and Leeloo/Dallas), because they lack the chemistry. Debbouze isn’t quite as comical as he wants to be and Rasmussen isn’t as angelic as she wants to be. It feels like they are trying so hard to play what they are not and to keep their contrast onscreen together, but their performances don’t convey what they are feeling or saying much. The romance between them is established and builds up, but you just can’t ever quite believe their emotions start making a connection; it is very forced.

So is romance dead in this romantic film? No, because what does work is another main character of the film, that of Paris, the city of lights. The images photographed by Besson’s usual DP, Thierry Arbogast, are very striking. The black-and-white images of Paris certainly capture and provide that feeling of romance.

ANGEL-A could have been magnificently romantic if it weren’t for the two leads, who almost destroy the romance. It is a major miscast by Besson. One can only suspect he cast them to keep the film’s profile small, but it sure backfired. It isn’t a failure, but from such an established director, it is weak. –Shogo

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To answer the burning question up front, yes, this third X-MEN movie is the weakest in the trilogy. But yes, it’s still quite good. Most – but not all – of your worries about hacky Brett Ratner taking over the franchise from Bryan Singer are largely unwarranted. The look, the feel, the characters – they’re all the same. The only notable difference is when Singer’s subtle touch is missed, lending some scenes (mostly with Angel) an air of silliness.

Oh, and I think I heard bowling-alley sound effects when Juggernaut plows through a crowd of foes.

In X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, a pharmaceutical company based in the former Alcatraz prison off the coast of San Francisco has developed a cure for mutants. But Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and his X-Men feel there’s nothing to be cured, because there’s nothing “wrong” with them; they are who they are. For once, arch-rival Magneto (Ian McKellen) shares their views, but he uses the situation to his own dictorial advantage, rounding up a rowdy mutant army to overthrow the authorities.

Thus begins a “hate triangle” of sorts, with man vs. mutant vs. mutant. And when Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) pulls out the metal claws, all is good. I’ll say no more about the plot, because – especially for a second sequel – there are some big surprises in this one. You can’t say it doesn’t take risks.

All the X-Men are back, with the exception of Alan Cummings’ Nightcrawler (a highlight of X2: X-MEN UNITED), and several new faces are introduced as well, most notably the aforementioned Angel (Ben Foster) and a very furry Kelsey Grammer as Beast. I figured Grammer was miscast, but he really does disappear behind the makeup.

The film hits a slump midway through when not a whole helluva lot happens, but it redeems itself with the expected all-out action finale. Something tells me LAST STAND’s scaled-downness (it’s not the epic X2 was) will play better at home and with repeated viewings, but as a summer superhero flick, it definitely delivers. See it, and stick around for the end credits for a peek at X-MEN to come.

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The Da Silva family has a problem: Their daughter – cute but creepy, in true horror film fashion – has strange visions while she sleepwalks, and awakes screaming of “Silent Hill.” When the poor girl’s crazy meds fail to kick in, Mom (Radha Mitchell) looks Silent Hill up on the Internet, discovers it’s a ghost town and decides it’d be a good thing to tote her tot there and not tell her hubbie (Sean Bean).

The girls arrive at the town, seemingly abandoned and forever raining ash. But wouldn’t you know it? The daughter is gone faster than you can say “shoulda stayed home, bitch,” and Mom spends the rest of the movie looking for her, sometimes with the aid of a shapely, leather-panted female motorcycle cop. This task would be so much simpler if Silent Hill weren’t full of strange and deadly creatures, like screaming burnt babies and some sword-handed thing with a pyramid for a head.

For about the first 45 minutes or so, SILENT HILL is terrific – full of mystery and atmosphere. But the remainder of it brings it down, as a witch subplot bubbles forth and the screenplay makes a valiant (but utterly muddled) attempt at explaining everything away. Strangely, the less people speak in SILENT HILL, the better it is. That opening half has stretches void of any dialogue, and these make for its most compelling moments.

Though I didn’t know this going in, SILENT HILL is based on a videogame. That’s not unusual for a horror flick these days, but approaching it with an arty, Euro edge is. Thanks to talent director Christophe Gans (BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF), that’s exactly what you get, so it’s a marvel to look at even when your ears wish for it to shut up. So far, I’ve liked everything Gans has ever put his hands on, and likewise, I’ve liked Mitchell in everything I’ve seen her in. Those continue here, although the film is seriously flawed and – sorry, folks – not scary.

If the current theatrical crop of shaggy dogs and black men in drag leaves you thinking, “Geez, how I’d like to see the Australian girl from LOST getting dry-humped by Sloth from THE GOONIES,” have I got a movie for you!

It’s THE HILLS HAVE EYES, a slick but dirty remake of the 1977 Wes Craven classic, now overseen by HIGH TENSION’s Alexandre Aja. The setup is standard splatter fare: All-American family on a trip takes the back roads, and takes a hard right turn into a full-on nightmare when their vehicle crashes and leaves them stranded in the desert. Excuse me, did I say desert? I meant to say in the redneck cannibal mutant desert. Because them there hills are simply crawling with hideous, radioactive, bloodthirsty freaks of nature.

While Dad goes looking for help one way and the pussy son-in-law goes another, Mom and the kids are left (pretty much for dead, as these things go) in the trailer to fend for themselves. When night falls, the crazies attack. People scream. Some die. And one gets suckled. Mutant breastfeeding – now there’s something I haven’t seen before.

Those who remain after this harrowing encounter plot revenge, and that’s when the film gets really bloody. It was already disturbing; then things get ugly. As horror films go, it’s effective and I liked it, but I’m not sure I can say I enjoyed it. Aja has a nice sense of style and knows how to keep things moving, but the mutants look more silly than scary. That may be HILLS’ biggest liability, but those not accustomed to fright flicks will be freaked out nonetheless. While it’s nice to see a major-studio horror film not afraid to shy away from a hard-R rating, this one has a bit of a drive to reach the likes of the recent DAWN OF THE DEAD (which, judging from its opening, it wants desperately to be).

Well, I don’t remember at the first, but here it goes: Okay, in the middle of the movie, the mermaid was stuck in the tower and they went shopping, and I saw dolphins in it. And when she is in the water at the day, then that means it turns into night. And then at the very end, though, she got pushed into the water by a mean girl and this boy said, “What’s wrong with you?” and then he comeded to go see the mermaid. There’s kissing. They about kissed on the lips, then they kissed on the lips at the very end.

Hold on. There was fireworks, and she saw some cotton candy and she likes cotton candy and then someone paid for it for her and she was hugging it on her cheek, until they said, “No, eat it,” and she said, “Huh?” and they said, “Eat it,” and so she ate it. I don’t remember the whole lot of it, but this is the last part I remember: They were dancing and it was so funny. She didn’t know how to dance, and then water squirted out to her and squirted on another person. And she drinks water with salt.

I thought it was really good. And I likeded the whole movie and I like mermaids. Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot one part: A girl fell in the water and that’s when she saw the mermaid, but she didn’t know what it was. But it had hair. At the very night, they were trying to see what it was, so they brung food and so they dropped it in the water, and see if it would come up and eat the food, and so it was a good movie. –Audrey Lott

With FINAL DESTINATION 3, the filmmakers haven’t built a better mousetrap, but at least the mousetrap still snaps, breaks necks and draws blood. Lots of blood.

By now, the setup should be rote: Teenager has a preminition of a tragic event surrounding a (insert mode of transportation here), so he/she declines the ride, along with a few others. The tragedy does indeed occur, and since the youngsters cheated death’s plan, death comes back to claim them, in increasingly elaborate, Rube Goldbergian setups that prove the Grim Reaper must have majored in engineering. In the original film, the vehicle in question was an airplane. In the second film, it was a car. For this third entry, it was either a rollercoaster or a scooter, so they smartly went with the coaster.

SKY HIGH’s Mary Elizabeth Winstead has the starring role of a high school senior taking pictures for the yearbook at the amusement park on the night of the rollercoaster accident. Lucky for her, she had snapped photos of everyone who had gotten off the ride with her, because those pictures contain clues about how they’re going to die, thus giving her a chance to save them. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn’t.

And it’s when she fails miserably that the film is most entertaining, because no one goes to a FINAL DESTINATION movie to not see deaths. You get to see some great, really gory scenes involving death by tanning bed, nailgun and weight machine, among others, but they’re shot and edited in a way that makes it difficult to tell just what exactly is going on. You also have to suspend that disbelief in a major way and not ask questions like, “What would two real swords be doing on the wall over a benchpress, anyway?”

The acting is pretty bad (Winstead excepted), the dialogue unrealistic, but FINAL DESTINATION 3 does deliver as a horror-thriller, and that’s all that counts. Director/co-writer James Wong, who helmed the original but sat out the sequel, returns for another go-round and the result definitely earns its R rating and secures the life of the franchise. You have to appreciate grim humor – especially during such gratuitous sequences as the salon, with the topless chicks gyrating to “Love Rollercoaster” seconds before they get toasted extra-crispy – and disposable characters meeting gory fates. And I certainly do, although I felt a little guilty enjoying the grisly carnage hours after someone I know got hit by a car. FINAL DESTINATION 2 is still my favorite of the three, but this is still a pleasantly unpleasant diversion and I look forward to the next one.

Johnny Knoxville is an actor of limited range, but he definitely exudes a goofy charm. Lucky for him, he has little more to do in THE RINGER than fall down a lot and act retarded. And if you’ve ever seen him on JACKASS, you know he does this quite well.

On paper, THE RINGER sounds like it merits serious contention in the category of Most Offensive Movie Ever Made: To make some quick dough, Knoxville and his uncle plot to fix the Special Olympics; they’ll succeed by having Knoxville play mentally handicapped and compete in the games, where it is assumed he will blow away the competition. But the joke’s on you! Produced by the Farrelly Brothers – masters of the tasteless comedy with heart – the film is actually more subversive by turning those expectations on their head. The retarded are not the butt of the jokes, but the instigators. It’s Knoxville who takes all the humiliation. This feat would prove most difficult if all the actors playing mentally handicapped actually were mentally handicapped. But most of the prinicipal ones are not, and they’re so good at doing it, they had me fooled.

If only the movie were a little funnier. It’s alright and better than you’d expect, but more as a pleasant time-killer than an outright knee-slapper. The love story between Knoxville and Special Olympics volunteer Katherine Heigl is forced, and the ending is the most abrupt and confused I’ve seen in quite some time. But the movie is harmless, and any flick that features not one but two live performances by the real-life retarded band Kids of Widney High isn’t your average, everyday comedy, which automatically merits a viewing.

MOVIES
Having been thrown a curveball early in the year with the birth of a third child, I saw fewer movies in 2005 than I have since before I got my driver’s license. So I haven’t seen all the indie flicks or year-end Oscar hopefuls. So bear in mind my lists are not all-inclusive. Plus, I probably forgot something; I don’t write this crap down throughout the year.

Here are the five movies I loved the most:
• THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN – Watched it again just the other night. Totally held up for me.
• MURDERBALL – I’ve been telling everybody about this documentary. They all look at me like I’m crazy. They’re the crazy ones.
• BATMAN BEGINS – Easily the best Batman movie ever made. Angry Batman should always be the way to go.
• WEDDING CRASHERS – The year’s other great comedy, equally as filthy and charming. Vince Vaughn is a comedy god (BE COOL notwithstanding).
• FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY – So visually groundbreaking that the Academy just had to ignore it when compiling their shortlist for Best Visual Effects. Their loss.

And here are the eight I liked the least:
• BEWITCHED – There are some movies so bad, even Steve Carell can’t save them.
• KING KONG – I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m sticking to my guns. And the more time passes, the more I think that even if Peter Jackson had trimmed his movie by a full hour, it would still lack a soul.
• THE DUKES OF HAZZARD – Completely laughless for the 20 minutes I could stomach. But I still feel like I saw the whole thing.
• THE ISLAND – I love Scarlett Johansson. But geez Louise, not this much.
• THE RING TWO – The first one: “Boo!” This one: “Boo-hoo!”
• STEALTH – Inexplicably, Rob Cohen out-Michael-Bays Michael Bay.
• THE AMITYVILLE HORROR – This tired remake makes the formerly just-okay original look like a mansion.
• THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY – For me, “British humor” is the new “jumbo shrimp.”

TELEVISION
I don’t watch all that much TV, but what I do, I really like:
• THE OFFICE – If you’re still comparing it to the UK original, shut up already. This has broken out on its own, and if Ricky Gervais can call it better than his, you can, too.
• MY NAME IS EARL – What sounded stupid on paper is white-trash comedy gold. With a heart. Sometimes too much heart, but still pretty un-PC for network television.
• ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT – Its third and final season isn’t quite as good as the other two, but it’s still going out without having made a single bad episode. Jason Bateman = very funny. Who knew?
• PRISON BREAK – This completely filled 24’s absence for weekly escapist action-adventure. Logically preposterous, but so much fun. Can’t wait ’til March for it to pick back up.
• 30 DAYS – If only Morgan Spurlock’s documentary series would be shown to everyone in America, the world would be a better place, and that is not hyperbole.
• SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE’s “Lazy Sunday” – Now a bonafide Internet phenomenon (now free on iTunes!), and quite possibly the most clever 2.5 minutes TV has seen all year. The more SNL yields to the new guys (and the new girl), the better it’s getting.

As for the worst, I tend not to waste my time, but BRITNEY & KEVIN: CHAOTIC remains the most insufferable 30 minutes I spent this year, followed closely by BEING BOBBY BROWN and its crazy crack-ho antics.

MUSIC
I’ve been pretty down on music for the last year, not finding nearly as much enjoyment from it as I used to, quite possibly because the number of bad CDs I heard just wore me down. However, sometimes something clicks with me, and when it does, it clicks big. Like:
• The New Pornographers: TWIN CINEMA – Their last one hooked me so much it literally played in my dreams. So did this.
• The Go! Team: THUNDER LIGHTNING STRIKE – The best pep rally ever.
• Doves: SOME CITIES – Better than Coldplay, minus the gayness.
• The Killers: HOT FUSS – This is kind of cheating since it came out in 2004, but 2005 is the year it really broke out, deservedly.

It’s hard to pick out any albums as being the worst, but Dave Matthews Band’s STAND UP sticks out. It’s the one that totally has them buying their own frat-boy press.

BOOKS
Our sister site Bookgasm has lots of year-end coverage, including the best and worst books, eight great sci-fi books and 10 anticipated books of 2006, among other articles of interest.

So what about you? In these and other categories, discuss away!

Say what you will about the original 1933 KING KONG. You can call it outdated, primitive and clunky-looking by today’s standards. But the one thing you can’t call it is boring, and that’s what a good half of Peter Jackson’s needlessly three-hours-long remake is.

We all know the story: Filmmaker Carl Denham (a miscast Jack Black) hires a ship to take him and his film crew to the uncharted Skull Island (though how Carl came into possession of the map goes unexplained). They arrive only to find a prehistoric world (which no one ever questions) and Ann Darrow, their lead actress (Naomi Watts, all 82 lbs. of her), is kidnapped by Kong, the giant gorilla. Unlikely hero Jack Driscoll (a miscast Adrian Brody) leads the charge to rescue her, while Denham plots to bring Kong back to New York City so he can showcase the big ape for a mint. In mad monkey love with Ann, Kong goes nuts all over the Big Apple, taking his little lady up the Empire State Building so he can make himself an easy target and get shot down by planes. The end.

KONG is and has always been a simple story, rendering it timeless. But a simple story can only go so long in the time department before its limitations are reached, which is where Jackson’s version fails. The voyage to Skull Island is fairly lumbering, making it feel as if it were unfolding in real time. The arrival is exciting, as are the crew’s initial dealings with the unfriendly natives and the reveal of Kong himself, who shakes Ann around like the infant of a drunken stepfather. But once you’ve seen one encounter with an oversized creature or one Kong vs. dinosaur smackdown, you’ve seen them all. However, Ann literally runs from one type of dino to the next, to the point where it grows absurd. Similarly, the guys do battle with big bugs, vagina dentata worms and nasty-looking spiders, to equally numbing effect.

Though a marvel of visual effects, Kong is not as commanding a presence as you’d expect. He’s a spoiled bully and I felt zero empathy for him. Nor did I care for Watts’ character, whose shift from horrified out of her mind to Kong protector was so abrupt it was lost on me. Why, because they shared a sunset together? Thus, KING KONG is largely free of real emotion, because the emotions that are there ring false and manipulative – Kodak moments that may make for a nice montage on Oscar night, but prove a detriment to the overall film.

It’s obvious Jackson holds love for the original KONG, setting his version in the same time period, but perhaps his love is so strong, he viewed the project through rose-colored glasses. It’s self-indulgent, entangled in its own vines of confusion. If the material is straight, why are half the cast members drawn in broad caricatures, hamming it up? If audiences were supposed to cry at the end, why were some snickering? If Jackson’s movie would have been twice as good at half the length, why couldn’t he recognize that? Because he’s presumably safe with the idea of making three-hour epics, whether or not it’s good for the story. I don’t hate KONG with every fiber of my being like I did his LORD OF THE RINGS, but it’s not the end-all, be-all event picture of the decade, much less the year. It’s mediocre, like a pizza where only half the toppings are appetizing. Critics are tripping over themselves like mad right now to praise it, but mark my words: The raves of perfection are unwarranted, and in time, positions will be reversed.

Fox and photographer Nels Israelson have released this composite shot of all the mutants – both good and bad – from the upcoming X-MEN 3, or X3, or whatever they’re choosing to call it.

Check out Frasier in the blue! Strangely, that’s what Kelsey Grammer used to look like after a weekend-long coke bender.

Harrison, age 8: Narrated by Howie Mandel.
Audrey, age 5: This isn’t telling me anything!
Harrison: Oh, no. Aaah! Look how big that thing is!
Audrey: I do not want to see this.
Harrison: Aaah! That hair! Gross!
Audrey: Is that water?
Harrison: No, they said it’s white, sticky stuff. My teacher doesn’t have a baby yet, so she must’ve not done that yet.
Audrey: When the doctor cuts the cord, does it hurt?
Harrison: So why does the penis get solid?
Audrey: Does it? When the doctor cuts the cord?
Harrison: I thought it was buh-gina.

Indeed, SAW II is a little better than the just-okay original, the surprise breakout hit from last Halloween. This one extends the playing field a bit while giving audiences more of the elements they liked so much last time around and setting up the franchise for a secure and lucrative future.

Instead of two guys waking up captive in a filthy bathroom, SAW II ups the ante with eight people waking up in a filthy house. A prerecorded message from their captor – cancer-ridden serial killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) – informs them they’ve been breathing a deadly nerve gas and have about an hour to find the antidote and make their escape. The house, however, is more booby-trapped than a confined space full of Playmates, so our thinly drawn victims – more characterizations than actual characters – aren’t going to have an easy time with it. When you’re talking razor blades, gunshots to the head and – most squirmingly –  a pit full of rusty syringes, things just never are.

On a time crunch to rescue them are the cops, albeit erstwhile New Kid Donnie Wahlberg and former STARSHIP TROOPER Dina Meyer. In other words, our friends are sooo screwed.

SAW II plays like an unrated, high-stakes game of FEAR FACTOR, and does manage to make you feel uneasy, though not frightened. I give it points for occasional peaks of tension and for not quite delivering the same old thing (as well as for the year’s best tagline: “Oh yes, there will be blood”), but I also deduct some for the amateurish acting and anyone-could-do-it direction, full of jittery sweeps, 360˙ turns and jarring edits as it is. The ending isn’t the outright, outta-left-field cheat as the first one was, but it’s still a bit of a copout.

Jigsaw is the type of movie killer that is scary enough to be any of us. Me, you, the guy sitting at the bus stop. Diagnosed with cancer and not afraid to die, he dedicates his life to teaching others, albeit through pain and torture, how to reexamine the shallow emptiness of their lives within a minute.

Why a minute? Because that’s how long you have before the steel trap around your neck springs shut, crushing your head. It’s a bloody lesson, indeed.

Not since THE GODFATHER PART II, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or even TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE has a sequel surpassed its predecessor the way SAW II does. It’s that good.

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