A couple of nights ago, I had this dream:

I was hanging out with my good friend, the actor who played the title role in Robert Altman's movie Popeye. No, not Robin Williams, the guy who actually looked like Popeye. (This is a dream, remember. It all made sense at the time.)

Anyway, me and my friend who looked like Popeye had joined the cast of a reality television show similar to VH1's Surreal Life. There were about a dozen minor celebrities present, including an unidentified comic book artist and some mixed martial artists who I didn't know. I don't watch that stuff. I don't know why these guys were, but they seemed to think that I should know them. I was polite to them even though they were really stupid and boorish, because I didn't want them to kick my ass.

After shooting the breeze for some time in the den, all the while surrounded by television cameras, we were escorted to dinner in the expansive kitchen/dining room. This room had a tiki theme, which made perfect sense because we were on an island. The kitchen was open, separated from the large table only by space, allowing the production crew -- which was at least as numerous as the guests -- plenty of room for movement. This is when things got weird.

Show host Jeff Probst announced that we would now have our first challenge, and the loser would be kicked off the show. A male, grass-skirted handler was brought in to show off the island's native insect, a large centipede. Except that this centipede looked not like the familiar exotic insect, but more like the centipede from the arcade game Centipede: it was made primarily of 6-12 large brightly colored circles strung together. This species of centipede came in two colors: maraschino red and radioactive green. The 24-inch centipede was dangled wiggling in front of the camera. The challenge would be to eat these insects.

Most of the cast objected instantly and vehemently, but the chef, a large, tattooed Samoan, merely chuckled as he quickly and effortlessly cut the exoskeleton off the centipedes with with 6 swipes of his very large knife. The centipedes were served raw, stacked high on silver platters delivered to the assembled diners. Probst gave the signal, and the game started.

I distinctly remember holding one of the green centipedes up to get a good look at it and seeing the overhead light through it's moist, translucent body. The creature had no innards, but looked like a candied cucumber. The only organ visible was about the size of a gum-ball located in the head. Rationally, this must have been the creature's surprisingly large brain. It looked, however, more like a cell nucleus. Or a Tootsie Roll Pop.

The rest of the table was already chowing down on the centipedes with very little complaint. So I put it in my mouth and bit down. I was instantly revolted. It tasted like... fruit. I hate fruit! I tried to chew, but each bite was more and more like eating a sweet, juicy apple. Finally I could take no more, and I spit out the masticated fruit centipede. I was told that I would lose the contest if I quit, to which I replied that I didn't want any part of their contest anyway. And I woke up.

I learned a valuable lesson that night: I'd rather eat insects than fruit. Fruit is gross.

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Tonight was the final episode of MTV's TRL (aka Total Request Live), a show that, I must admit, I was already too old for when it debuted a decade ago. While I wasted a lot of time on shows like Ken Ober's Remote Control, Alex Winter's The Idiot Box, and Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head, for years whenever I thought of MTV, I thought of the personality-challenged Carson Daly-hosted TRL. Now it seems that I'll be thinking of The Real World and The Hills instead.

Funny, isn't it, that in a world where each cable channel has a shot at success if it can grab even a tiny sliver of a niche market, a channel named Music Television is abandoning it's once genre-defining successful music format (less than 20 hours of music per week on MTV these days -- and that's before the cancellation of TRL!) for the same sort of scripted "reality" programming found on E!, VH1, Spike, and dozens of others? Perhaps it's time to simply rechristen the network "More of the Same" Television.

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Yesterday I found myself wondering whatever became of Scott Baio. Mainly this was because I was thinking about the theme song to Baio's "Charles in Charge" television show. I've always thought that Shandi Sinnamon's vocals gave the song a strongly sexual overtone which was mostly inappropriate, seeing as Baio's Charles character was supposed to be supervising minors, including Nicole Eggert (better known as T.J. Hooker's daughter. Or maybe not.).

And tonight I see a commercial for "Scott Baio is 45... and Single," a new reality show coming to VH1. Thank you, VH1, for reminding me that old celebrities never die, they just agree to appear on your celeb-reality programming.

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Bill Clinton recently lamented the country's fixation on Britney Spears as "wrong." To whom did Bill make this candid assessment? TV Land advertisers and executives. TV Land is owned by MTV Networks/Viacom, and is a sister network to VH1, the all-celebrities-all-the-time channel. Careful, Bill. "Integrity" and "Family Values" have never exactly been in your personal platform, don't start changing sides now. Stick with "feeling her pain," and it will all work out okay: Hillary will head back to the white house and you'll get a second shot at interns.

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I just remembered that the world was supposed to end today. Maybe it did and I just wasn't paying attention.

The remake of Richard Donner's film The Omen was released today. I really liked the original and find it completely unnecessary to remake the film. (In fact, I'm opposed to remakes on general principle, though I can see the validity if the remake were to improve on an overlooked or poorly funded original. No one needs to remake Citizen Kane, but maybe we could do with a new Quatermass Xperiment (a precursor to the fundamentally similar John Carpenter's The Thing which was itself a remake) or Kingdom of the Spiders (though I would insist that this remake must feature Shatner in a prominent role, maybe even a reprisal of his role as the charming Dr. Rack Hansen).

On a related note, about this time of year, my friends begin demanding my presence at the movie theater for the blockbuster summer releases. As a loud-mouth sour-puss, they like to bring me along as the honorary Mikey of Life cereal fame. Since I hate everything, if I enjoy a movie, it's got to be good. (And if I don't like a movie, at least they get an entertaining ear-full of why it stunk.)

Since everyone loves lists, at least so far as VH1, E, and Bravo are apparently concerned, may I present my chronological 15 Worst Films of the Past 15 Years list. Please note that these films are not bad in the pedestrian I-don't-know-how-to-make-a-film way. (This, therefore, disqualifies all Roger Corman and Ed Wood films from the list.) I'm also disqualifying sequels, because they are intrinsically bad: they are unimaginative, restrained remakes of earlier films made purely to capitalize on previous films' characters and premises. The following films are bad in the I-know-better-than-to-make-this-movie-but-I-did-it-anyway category. (In other words, they are were big-budget, major studio, national release movies that sucked.)

• Oscar (1991) - Sylvester Stallone as a comic gangster. Most people will tell you that Stallone's Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is worse. It's not. Estelle Getty has some funny lines in that one.

• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) - What a bit of inspired casting! Alan Rickman plays a bad guy. Morgan Freeman plays a sidekick. And Kevin Costner plays a long-winded American pretending to be English nobility turned hero of the common man. Couldn't Kevin Costner just hire a hooker to give him a hand-job so that we don't have to watch his films anymore?

• The Good Son (1993) - I knew when I saw this film that one day Elijah Wood would be a star. I also knew that Macaulay Culkin wouldn't be one for much longer. Theoretically, this film would be a stirring psychological thriller, but I find that the really plodding pace and horrible acting makes it a good cure for insomnia.

• The Firm (1993) - What do you get when you take a script based on a best selling novel, add box office gold with Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, and Gary Busey and let Sydney Pollack direct them? You get a cliched legal drama that lasts for 2 and a half painful hours and a cop-out ending. Thanks!

• Greedy (1994) - This is a movie that proves that an ensemble cast of talented actors (yes, it includes Ed Bagley, Jr. -- I said it was an ensemble cast, didn't I?) aren't necessarily greater than the sum of its parts. Though filmed before Kirk Douglas's stroke and Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease, you'll never be able to tell the difference.

• Pocahontas (1995) - This film is mind-blowing in its mediocrity. That's saying something for a Disney "Masterpiece" film. This film won an Oscar for best song, but you probably can't tell what that song was anymore, can you? Nothing about this film is memorable. Fiction dressed as history, this sleep-inducing bore-fest marked the end of the second renaissance of Disney animation. Can you believe that someone wasted their time to make this crap one painting at a time? (And now Disney is reduced to Bambi II.)

• Independence Day (1996) - There is nothing that this movie does that many other better movies before it didn't do better. (Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers had saucers blowing up Washington D.C., Alien had scary aliens, and Spaceballs had Bill Pullman.) In fact, this movie can definitively be said to be the end of Randy Quaid's career as a film actor. He now exclusively plays parodies of his character in this film: a stupid, fat slob.

• Air Force One (1997) - I'm often accused of failing to suspend my disbelief during a movie. Sure, I can accept Harrison Ford as the president of the United States. Sure, I can accept that Air Force One is like an office building in the sky. Sure, I can even accept mid-air rescue from a flying 747. But I totally have to draw the line at a female Vice President. "Get off my plane!"

• Titanic (1997) - "Wait, that's a good movie," you say? No, it's not. If you don't immediately fall for the overly-sappy love story between a bratty street punk and the spoiled bitch, you're left with a very, very long wait to see a large, animated boat sink. This movie is about James Cameron's love affair with a sunken wreck, nothing more.

• Godzilla (1998) - Americans love foreign films. Wait, no we don't. We love remaking foreign films, replacing the inspired bits with tried and true cliches. Which is exactly what Godzilla is. Gone is the classic and beloved man in a rubber suit terrorizing a model town. Now we get ugly CGI that makes the monster look more like a constipated t-rex than an electrified monitor lizard. Have I mentioned the really horrible casting on this film, yet? Really, this is just an excuse to destroy New York City on film, again. We americans are also a bit masochistic.

• Armageddon (1998) - While this movie might suck, at least it should get credit for being appropriately named. Who says that there is no truth in advertising? Another ensemble picture that totally blows. It's movies like this that make Michael Bay a running joke. (Note that J.J. Abrams, brainchild of Lost, wrote the screenplay for this trash. And now I'm supposed to be excited that he's attached to the new Star Trek movie?) Though I'm ranking these movies in chronological order, this film should get a special commendation, as I do believe that it is the absolute worst film ever made.

• Planet of the Apes (2001) - Not really a remake as much as it is a pile of crap. I used to like Tim Burton (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is a spectacular film), but based on this film, I refuse to watch anything Burton does anymore. Sorry, Tim, this is too bad for words. The action merely crawls along without any real suspense or plot since we all saw the much superior Heston film years ago. And the deus ex machina twist at the climax only adds insult to injury. Remember, kids, nuclear power is forever.

• Minority Report (2002) - Once upon a time, Steven Speilberg could do no wrong: Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Jurassic Park, The Color Purple, Schindler's List... damn, that's an impressive list. But then, sometime around Saving Private Ryan, Mr. Spielberg lost touch with the rest of the human race. His movies became a series of incredibly unnecessary visceral moments that no longer have any cohesive narrative use. And then he gave us AI. Just like AI, this film poses as insightful and thought-provoking in the same way that Fox News poses as fair and balanced. There is a lost eyeball sequence in this film that would make Vincent Price proud. Plus, this movie features Tom Cruise as a holier-than-thou super-cop with fatherhood issues and an addiction to fantasy. Quite the stretch for you, eh, Tom?

• The Core (2003) - I almost didn't include this movie here, because so far as I'm concerned, it's really just a spiritual sequel to Armageddon. But it is bad. Very, very bad. In yet another masculine role, Hillary Swank tries to drive a phallus-like drill into the "core" of the world in order to trigger an explosion that will make the world move. (Lets see, she's been the next Karate Kid, a teenaged boy, a police detective, an attorney, a space shuttle pilot, a boxer.... Is no man's role safe from the manly grip of Ms. Swank?)

• The Day After Tomorrow (2004) - From Roland Emmerich, the director who brought you Godzilla and Independence Day (see above), comes a(nother) tale of the destruction of New York City! With Ice! I think that the FBI should be investigating Mr. Emmerich for terrorist activity based on the number of times that the has destroyed New York on film. There oughta be a law against Roland Emmerich.

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