Continuing movies seen in February:

25. (332.) Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
I'm not going to lie: I chose to watch this movie because it is homaged by a Knight Rider episode. I never quite got a handle on the character Spencer Tracy was playing, but I enjoyed the film anyway.

26. (333.) Hop (2011)
Yee-ouch. Imagine if the executives at Universal became determined to make a multi-million dollar Easter movie they could merchandise to kids, and they just didn't care if they didn't have a script worth shooting. Yeah. Sorry, Russell Brand, but if you want to go over big in America, you'll have to do better than this dreck.

27. (334.) Another Earth (2011)
I watched the first half of this "sci-fi" movie back in, what, October? I finished it in February, and it is emphatically not a sci-fi movie, but a figurative allegory for an unanswerable metaphysical question. Think of Donnie Darko without the evil bunny or Patrick Swayze, and you'll begin to realize just how much having a Patrick Swayze in your movie can add to the slow but necessary bits of exposition.

28. (335.) My Life as a Dog (1985)
Christmas Story meets Wes Anderson. Films tend to mythologize the coming-of-age stories of young boys as simultaneously tragic and magical. I really don't have a good handle on my own formative years, but I don't remember an over-abundance of either tragedy or magic. There is just no way that shit like this happens in real life.

29. (336.) Welcome to Mooseport (2004)
I did not know this as I was watching it, but this was the last movie made by Gene Hackman, who has officially retired from acting. (Oh, Gene, you're still young at heart. Come back to us!) It's a simple, unencumbered comedy that I found very enjoyable despite my dislike for Ray Romano.

30. (337.) Imagine That (2009)
I didn't know this movie existed before I watched it. If I told you that it is exactly the kind of uninspired by-the-numbers movie that Eddie Murphy makes these days, I think you'll know what I'm talking about. At least it was better than A Thousand Words (watched last month).

31. (338.) The Deer Hunter (1978)
This has been on my "watch this if you get a chance" list since I first learned of its existence in high school. For years I wondered how a movie with De Niro, STreep, and Walken, a movie that won 5 Academy Awards, could consistently fail to cross my path. Now I know that there were 3 reasons it is so elusive: A) It is 3+ hours long, far too long for broadcast television. B) There are ample graphic scenes of games of Russian roulette that are, frankly, strongly unpalatable. C) This is probably as dark a movie Hollywood could ever make, about America's loss of innocence in the Vietnam era as illustrated by the lives that were damaged by the experience. It's really a very good film, probably forever assigned to that mental category labeled "good films I never need to see again" alongside the like of Natural Born Killers and Birth of a Nation.

32. (339.) Hesher (2010)
Remember up above where I said "films tend to mythologize the coming-of-age stories of young boys as simultaneously tragic and magical"? Ditto here, too. Gordon-Levitt never fails to impress, this time as a heavy-metal Jesus.

That's not all! One more February movie post to come.

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Through complete happenstance while searching modern history for a cartoon as stupid as Marvel's truly wretched animated Iron Man series from 1994, today I discovered a cartoon from 1967 about a super-powered President of the United States straight-forwardly titled Super President. The premise of this cartoon was that President James Norcross was bombarded by cosmic radiation and granted the fantastic ability to modify his body chemistry. Like all good public servants granted amazing powers, President Norcross donned a costume and fought super-villains as Super President. (Calling himself "Super President" may seem like a really bad way to maintain his secret identity, but what would you expect from someone whose job prerequisite depended on name recognition?)

You can't tell it from the clip above, but Super President was voiced by Paul Frees. You may recognize his voice as the narrator of the animated Disney educational film Donald in Mathmagic Land. Or maybe as the voice of the immoral K.A.R.R. on television's Knight Rider. Or maybe as the voice of the sentient supercomputer in the sci-fi feature film Colossus, the Forbin Project. (I think those pretty much sum up my personal stages of development via popular entertainment.) For those of you who prefer your entertainment less math/science oriented, maybe you know Mr. Frees' voice as that of Boris Badenov, the nemesis of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Anyway, what got me most about Super President is that an acting, elected head-of-state is acting as costumed crime-fighter. Presumably, he can authorize himself to do this, but who's running the country while he's battling space aliens? I would think his term would suffer from a lot of pocket vetoes. And fund-raising would be especially difficult, as, in true comic book fashion, villains would always be stealing from the donated funds, requiring an embarrassing unexplained absence while the candidate looks for an empty bathroom stall to don his tights.

I always figured that despite his moral perfection and unerring ability to make the right choice, Superman could do more good as a freelance policeman rather than a politician because of his unique abilities. Surely, I figured, all that bureaucratic red tape could keep Superman's hands tied. Being a politician means negotiations and diplomacy, two things that I had previously seen as obstacles to getting a job done the Kryptonian way: with super speed. Just being elected requires the super ability to compromise your own beliefs to appease the electorate and the political machines. How can Superman, who is always right and honest, make the necessary campaign promises that will enable his own election? (I don't think the phrase, "never mind that now, Jimmy," is going to work in those confrontational televised debates.)

But maybe I'm wrong; maybe he could do both. If Super President Norcross can pull it off, it should be a walk in the park for Clark "doesn't he look a lot like Superman with glasses" Kent.

(And just in case you're wondering, while Super President may be a bad cartoon, it's still better than Iron Man.)

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I just watched the new Knight Rider television show on NBC. Finally, someone got a remake of a previous show right. What made the original Knight Rider so popular? Cool talking car, straightforward crime drama, kickass intro theme, and David Hassellhoff. The producers of this show got all of those elements just right. ("Will I see you again?" "I hope so." Me too, Hoff!)

Of course, the Executive Producer of this show is Glen Larson, who just so also happened to be the producer of the original, and I suspect that had something to do with it. Pay homage to the original series (or in this case, act as though you're the rightful heir of said series) and you'll have an automatic audience of crusty, die-hard old-timers like me chomping at the bit for your product. Glad to see that NBC didn't make the same mistake here as they did with the rightfully-canceled-after-one-season Bionic Woman remake.

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Yesterday, I watched TNT's pregame for the NBA Skills Challenge during the NBA All-Star weekend festivities. At one point, Charles Barkley jokingly called David Hasselhoff "Dan Marino." My first reaction was to blow it off as an offhand comment. But then I really thought about it....

And damn if Charles isn't right.

When you put the two side-by-side, they do look very similar. (Both are even the same height -- 6' 4" -- according to the internet. And the internet can't lie.) Of course, the first thing I thought was: are they the same person, or twins separated at birth? Have they ever met or played in a celebrity golf tournament together? Has one ever slept with the other's wife while pretending to actually be her husband?

Why hadn't I noticed this before? I'm a huge fan of Marino (I went to his Hall of Fame induction, for Pete's sake), and I've seen every episode of Knight Rider, Baywatch, the first season of Baywatch Nights, and Nick Fury: Agent of Shield (which is awesome in the same sort of way as The Anna Nicole Show and NASCAR crashes).

I wonder how well Hasselhoff throws a football? (I know how well Marino acts. He's every bit as good as Hasselhoff.)

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Sometimes, when I'm driving alone, I like to talk to myself. But I pretend that its not me talking; I pretend that my car is really K.I.T.T.

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