Stardust - A Film Preview By Tommy*

Every so often, something comes along that you just know will fail. Celebrity Dog School on Channel Ten... Pirate Master on Channel Ten... Yasmine's Getting Married on Channel Ten.... Daddy Day Care 2, starring Cuba Gooding Jr (Coming soon to Channel Ten).

But never have I been so sure of a movie's inevitable demise and total box office implosion than the upcoming Stardust.



Stardust is about a young inhabitant of a small countryside town, bordering on a magical land, who discovers a shooting star that is actually Claire Danes. That's about it. There's also a big ship, and Michelle Phfifiefier plays an evil witch.

Immediately, you're thinking 'good god no'. But what if I were to tell you that Robert De Niro was in this movie? Would that something you'd be interested in?

What about legendary comedian Ricky Gervais, or legendary drunk Peter O'Toole?

What about god damned Magneto, Ian McKellen?

More importantly, what about the eighteen pounds of cocaine these actor's agents were high on when they signed up to this piece of trash? Fancy a few lines of that?

No, seriously, it's actually Robert De Niro

The film's main character is Tristan, and is played by unknown Charlie Cox. Think of Orlando Bloom, if he was homeless and shit. But don't take my word for it, here's Charlie's IMDb Trivia:


Wow, what a fucking superhero. Unless that sentence is followed by 'to blow movie studio executives', I don't understand. Can anybody get into a De Niro film these days? Can I?



Yes.









*2 jokes by matt

Optimus Prime Rides A Girly Bike

So, I saw Transformers last night. Top movie. Explosions, robots and Shia LaBeouf being really Jewish. How can you go wrong?

Oh.

Well, anyway.. Transformers good. I wasn't particularly hyped for it, for the sole reason that aside from generally liking giant robots fighting other giant robots, I was never really into Transformers as a kid. I preferred M.A.S.K, or Hulk Hogan's Rock'N'Wrestling. I thought about it a little, and I've managed to come up with a list. So here it is...


Tommy's Top 4 Reasons Why He Doesn't Get Transformers




1. Latent hostility to the Japanese


2. I don't buy it.

They live on a robot planet, have a robot war, crash land on Earth and.. transform into cars? Can they only pick one thing? What use does transforming into a Mack Truck or a Volkswagon or a freaking cassette player do on your robot homeworld?

HAI GUYZ DONT WORRY I TOTALLY RECORDED THAT CONVERSATION

3. The Names

Optimus Prime is a wicked name. So is Starscream. Even Ironhide is pretty cool. But... Bumblebee? Presumably, Bumblebee got named that on his home planet, so... are their many types of bees on you robot homeworld? Let alone enough to warrant an entire genus?

And you, Bonecrusher. Just a question for you - how many robots have bones? Fuckin' retard.

4. Decepticons?

I know they're the bad guys. I know it's a pretty sweet name for bad guys. But how is Megatron going to recruit new members when his faction's name has a synonym for 'betray' in the first few letters?

Hey

Oh hey Meggy

You wanna join my team?

Hmm...

What's wrong? Is it Starscream? I know he can be a little handsy...

No, it's not that...

You sure, because I can tell him to stop?

No, it's just the name. I mean... won't you like... deceive me, or something?


No.

But it's in your nam-

No.

I think I might join the Autobots instead.

Fuck you, Bonecrusher.




And so ends the list.





I had a crush on Jazz.

Hey, Spider-Man, let's have a chat

What were you thinking, Spider-Man?

tobey maguire is not this tan

You start off your film career with Spider-Man 1, a good movie. The Green Goblin is a little too 'bad guy from Power Rangers', but everything clicks. You even let us see Mary-Jane's nipples.

And then you follow that up with Spider-Man 2, a fantastic movie. Doctor Octopus is so well-done, it ends on a nice cliffhanger and the stuff with you and Mary-Jane is great. No MJ nippleage, but I guess that's to be expected.

And then.... you give us Spider-Man 3, and my whole world falls apart. I mean, Harry Osbourne as the Hobgoblin, built up for two movies, wicked. Ned from Ned and Stacy as The Sandman, awesome. And Forman from That 70's Show as Venom? Brilliant. If you had Balky from Perfect Strangers playing The Vulture, the villain line-up would have been off the charts.




But then, you ruin it. Hobgoblin gets like ten minutes. The Sandman turns into Sand King Kong. Venom gets about five minutes. You introduce Gwen Stacy, but no nipples?

And the villain's back-stories. Spidey. Come on now. Look at Batman. Batman villains are good because they're just evil psychos. You don't feel sympathy for The Joker, you don't want him to turn good, you just like it when he pulls out that really long handgun and shoots the Batwing. And then Batman kills him, and all is good.

But Spidey, you just don't know how to make a bad guy. They have to have sick daughters or be in freak octopus-arm-melding-accidents, or have their fathers killed, and then right at the end of the movie they get their redemption. You know what Batman does to redeem his bad guys at the end of movies?


Drops them off a fuckin' building.


And let's see Spidey, an alien symbiote falls from the sky, attaches itself to your body and you turn into this?




You think this is funny? You think we're entertained? No. We're weirded out. We laughed at you in the cinema, but not a 'lol parker you so crazy', a 'lol i wish we'd seen this movie on a tuesday night so our ticket was $3 cheaper'.


Make better movies, Spider-Man. And get rid of the hyphon in your name. You're not fooling anybody.

Tommy Presents - 'Completely Unrelated Headlines'

So, I did my usual daily check of Halle Berry news, and stumbled upon this...




Shocking.

Why would someone so successful, so well-respected and so hot as Halle Berry want to off themselves?







This has been the first hilarious installment of Tommy's highly successful 'Completely Unrelated Headlines' comedy bit. 'Completely Unrelated Headlines' is filmed infront of a live, studio audience.

The Great Movies You’re Not Watching (Unless You’re a Time-Travelling Bootlegger)

If Tommy can get a blog entry out of a few minutes of flicking through a TV guide and posting about random stuff he finds, you can be damn sure that’s a bandwagon I’m going to be jumping on. Now, back in the day, I used to be head entertainment reported for a high-powered Internet portal site. I’m not going to tell you which one, but rest assured, you would have been there before. My editor, Mr Quentin Bollix, quit over a feud with a publisher Charlie Tango and, because I was loyal to ‘Boll’, as we called him, I quit too. And I ended up here. Funny how life turns out, isn’t it? Funny how it just makes you want to hang yourself.

Q. Bollix as a young man.

Anyway, here we go, with a whole bunch of movies that haven’t come out yet that you really want to see because they’re totally going to rule and it will help you take your mind off the fact that you had a totally awesome writing career on the cards and then it all blew up in your face.

Isn’t it funny how, as we go along, we all become like Tommy in the end?

Anyway, read this stuff, and make sure you click on the titles to view trailers:

- 300 -



300 is a story about the last 300 Spartans in Sparta who totally kicked some ass at Thermopylae in like 400 B.C. It is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller, just as Sin City was. In the tradition of Sin City, a lot of focus has gone into the visual style of the film but, where Sin City went comic-book, 300 is going ‘blow your load in your seat fucking awesome’ and seriously just overcranking the shit out of everything.

Pros:

This fucking film will look gorgeous.

With actors they've chosen they've gone for ability over noteriety, so you won't know who the shit anyone is but you won't care.

Just watch the trailer and pretend this movie isn't going to be filled with 'fuck yeah' moments. Just try it, I dare you. I bet you can't.

Further, I am predicting the best psych-up-an-army speech since ‘never take our freedom’.

Cons:

Another fucking big battle and old-timey combat movie. I mean, seriously, Hollywood, can we please just let this fucking fetish go? Yes, Lord of the Rings made a buttload of money, but this is very close the the thin edge of the wedge. But anyway, 300 is still going to rule.



- Stranger Than Fiction -



In this movie, Will Ferrell realises that a voice that only he can hear is narrating his life. When this voice tells him that he will shortly be meeting an untimely demise, he is suitably disturbed and goes to Dustin Hoffman for help. Hell, who wouldn't?

Do you remember Will Ferrell? Remember how Anchorman made us laugh until selected internal organs began to liquify? Remember how that one Woody Allen comedy he made was completely a comedy apart from the fact that none of it was funny? This movie will be funny. Remember how you left Talladega Nights feeling vaguely insulted? This movie is like, the anti-Talladega. If anything, you're going to leave this movie feeling stupider. Pajiba wrote a way wicked review of this movie that's better than I can do, so read that.

Pros:

Will Ferrell is normally a damn funny guy, as long as he's not working with a completely retarded script.

If the movie starts to suck I can just flashback to that episode of Family Guy where Peter got his own theme music and it will be pretty much the same thing.

Cons:

Sometimes I like to laugh at Will Ferrell movies without thinking so much that blood drips out my ears.


- The Simpsons Movie -



The Simpsons has been going for eighteen fucking seasons. And it's about 10 seasons more than it ever should have gone for. This fucking show started when I was in kindergarten. It's nearly as old as I am. Lord knows everyone keeps telling me that I stopped being funny a while ago, I think it's the same for the Simpsons. But the Simpsons doesn't have sex appeal and a two-foot penis to compensate.

Pros:

It's the Simpsons. I mean, I know that, somewhere, it has it in itself to be funny and original for an hour and a half, even if it hasn't been funny or original for a decade.

Think about it, if this movie can go back to basics for the Simpsons, it can be a triumphant return. Then maybe they'll stop the syndication and we can all remember the series fondly and my petition to Channel 10 to only do repeats of series 3-8 will be accepted and hot naked women will fall from the sky like rain.

Cons:

If the movie spends more than eight minutes and eleven seconds on Marge and/or Lisa, it will be awful. This has been proven by science.

If this movie sucks, it will be the final nail in a huge freakin' coffin.


- Grind House -



Quentin Tarantino wants to make movies like the movies he grew up on. So he and Robert Rodriguez got together to make Planet Terror and Death Proof and, combined, they make Grind House. It's all tits, blood, violence, fucking and rock and roll. And I for one am looking forward to it. To quote Tarantino, 'I call them 'boner movies' cause they get you so excited'. Right on, brother.

Pros:

Tits

Violence

Rock and Roll

Tits

Tits

Cons:

In this movie Rose McGowan is a stripper and later they replace her leg with a fucking assault rifle. This is a con because by simply writing that sentence I may have blown an awesomeness fuse or two.

Unfortunately, there may be some shots in the film where there are no tits.


- Hot Fuzz -



Those funny fucks who brought you Shaun of the Dead are now moving from the zombie genre to the cop genre. I'm not sure if 'zombie' and 'cop' are actually classified as genres, but work with me here, OK? Anyway, if it's anything like Shaun of the Dead it's going to walk the line between parody and serious attempt by having some scenes there for laughs and some scenes that are just downright badass. And if it's anything like Shaun of the Dead it's going to make you laugh so hard in the cinema that people will get annoyed at you but won't say anything because you have such a weird-sounding laugh that they'll confuse you with a Downs Syndrome guy.

Pros:

Looks funny.

Guns.

Cons:

May have just been greenlit on the back of SotD, is the first movie from a comedy production group on the heels of a critically-successful movie. Read: may suck donkey balls.


So there you go. That's my eleven-dollars-seventy on some up coming movies (it would normally have been 'my two cents' but take into consideration that I wrote a lot there, my time is worth significantly more than yours and also there's inflation and the recession we had to have etcetera) which I hope has taken your mind off your life for a while, given you a bit of excitement for some good films in your future and helped me get through an entire blog post without uploading a picture of something completely useless and unfunny.



Dammit, better luck next time, I guess.

Why Tommy Is Smarter Than 80% Of Australian Filmmakers

You'd think my last blog on the Aussie film industry might have changed a few minds. I mean, I'm not so modest as to think that the Who's Who of the Australian entertainment industry don't read my blog. Why, just last week I got an e-mail from Molly Meldrum asking me if I was free on a Saturday night. What a nice man. What a nice, unmarried man.

Anyway, I must have thought wrong, cause they're still doing the same shit. This week, the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) approved $54m bucks of funding for five new Aussie films, which is kind of like lending a box of tissues to a 15-year old boy - you ain't going to get much back. In fact, by my calculations, only one of these movies is going to be worth watching. Let's take a look at them, and see if you can pick it.

The first is called The Black Balloon, and to my disappointment, has nothing to do with the Goo Goo Dolls best song. Instead, it's a, wait for it, 'coming of age' film starring Toni Collette. Because that's the problem with the Australian film industry. Not enough 'coming of age' films. Toni plays a heavily-pregnant mother of two kids, one of whom is autistic. Semi-hotty model Gemma Ward plays a hotty, the only part of the film that makes any financial sense. Oh, but wait, it gets better. It's based on the life of its director! Now, all we need to do is murder the director and replace them with someone who isn't an uninteresting, pompous tosspot, and we got ourselves a movie, see.

I love you Gemma, even if you look like the Martian equivalent of Kate Hudson

The second film is called The Children Of Huang Shi. Let me repeat, the second Australian film that just got $10 million from the Film Finance Corporation of Australia is called The Children Of Huang Shi. It's about a British journalist and an Australian nurse who save orphans during Japan's invasion of China in 1937. It will be shot in China and Melbourne, and post-produced in Australia and Germany. Flaming blazes, chuck another Alf Stewart on the barbie, cause that movie just can't get anymore bloody Australian, crikey.

The cast and crew of The Children Of Huang Shi.
Mega awesoma Crocodile Hunter-domo!

The third film is a thriller called Acolytes, by a guy named Jon Hewitt. I don't know anything about this movie, but he spells his name 'Jon' without an H, so I'm going to assume the movie is going to be shit.

The fourth film is a drama called September. According to the article, it's "about the friendship between two 15-year-olds - one white and one black - in Australia's wheatbelt in the late 1960s." Woah. Hold your horses, director Peter Carstairs. Friendship? Late 1960's? Wheatbelt? Could such an exciting combination of things exist?! If this is a coming-of-age story too, I think I might just shit myself in anticipation, and then make a coming of age story about said shit.

But... what lies BEYOND the wheat?


(More wheat)

The fifth and final film, Daybreakers, is by the creators of the critical and financial success Undead. It's being financed by successful American film company Lion's Gate, and is a 'big budget vampire movie'. In case you couldn't tell by how I used the words 'success', 'successful' and 'big budget vampire movie', this is the one I think will actually, you know, have people watch it.

And just a tip, people who make shitty movies - maybe if you made more films like Undead, and Wolf Creek, and The Castle, and Lantana, and Crackerjack, and less 'coming of age' stories about a "struggling inner-city writer and the Phillipino manboy she meets while visiting an art gallery run by her troubled executive best friend only to discover that her salvation lies within herself following a battle with depression and drugs", maybe then you wouldn't have to rely on $54 million bucks from the FFC to make SHIT MOVIES THAT NOBODY WANTS TO WATCH!@#


WHY DO I KEEP HAVING TO REPEAT MYSELF, AUSTRALIAN FILM INDUSTRY PEOPLE

GOSH!~

I know the blog is called Tommy Is Cool and I know my site is like, totally the 3rd coolest site on the net behind InTheMix.com.au and WWE.com, but sometimes you just have to geek it up.

Superman Returns came out yesterday. I haven't seen it yet, but it's on my to-do list, along with getting a job and Elisha Cuthbert.

And as you've probably already gathered from either talking to me in person, or reading my blog about X-Men 3 where I listed both The Beast's birthplace and the first names of his parents, I'm a comic book fanboy. Especially ever since I found out you could just download them for free, rather than paying a few bucks for something you read in about 2 minutes (like the Daily Telegraph lolololo). So a movie like Superman Returns, which has a guy who can fly, shoot beams from his eyes and manage to convince people he's a bumbling reporter just by changing the direction of his fringe, gets a thumbs up in my book.

But Superman came very, very close to getting a thumbs down. If you thought X-Men 3 was dissapointing, you're lucky Warner Brothers never made the Superman movies they wanted to during the 1990's and early 00's. Yes, it's time to bust out the pocket protectors and the calculators, it's all systems geek as we take a faster-than-a-speeding-bullet trip through...


NICOLAS CAGE IS SUPERMAN?!
- Tommy's Guide To The Cursed Superman Movies


Superman I, II, III and... well, let's not talk about IV, were awesome movies. Well... actually III was pretty crap too. But Gene Hackman was a sweet Lex Luthor, and Christopher Reeve was an even better Superman. Lois Lane was a little fugly, but hey, it was the 80's. And aside from some weird scenes where Superman straightens the Leaning Tower of Pisa (because that was was the most important problem facing the world at the time), they were pretty true to the basic elements of the Superman mythos.

Holy shit, I just said mythos.

And we all know them - there's the red cape, the S, Krypton, flying, heat vision, completely ridiculous scenarios involving Kryptonite and some more flying. It's what everyone knows about Superman, what everyone likes about Superman and what anybody in their right mind making a Superman movie would include.

Except the people who were... making the Superman movies.

We start our tale with Kevin Smith, the writer/director of Clerks and Chasing Amy. His other big film, Mallrats, was loaded with comic references (mainly to do with superheroes cocks), so Warner Bros brought him on board to write a script for 'Superman Lives', a movie that would deal with the 'death' of Superman, as done in the comics to lots of $$$.

Smith has given lots of interviews about his experience working on Superman Lives, but he reserved most of his criticism for the film's then-producer Jon Peters. Peters was Barbara Streisand's hair stylist before becoming a movie maker. If that's not bad enough, he's also the guy who made Wild Wild West. As Smith said about Peters - 'in Hollywood, you fail up.'

When he met with Peters, Smith was told his script had to comply with three things.

• Superman would not fly
• Superman would not wear his costume because it was too 'faggy'
• Superman had to fight a giant spider in the third act

I'm not making that up. Other Peters ideas included Braniac, a Superman villain, having a robot sidekick with a 'gay black' voice, Superman having armed guards at his Fortress of Solitude, Braniac fighting polar bears, and did I mention he'd be fighting a giant spider?

Luckily, after Smith had written a few drafts, Tim Burton and Nicolas Cage were signed to direct and star, and Peters ideas were thrown away. Though surprisingly enough, Peters' film Wild Wild West included a giant spid-

Wait

Wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwait


Nicolas Cage?


As you may know, I think Nicolas Cage is a tool. But that's not why he'd be a horrible Superman. This is why Nicolas Cage would be a horrible Superman.

"It's you, you're The Rocketman"

Seriously, he looks like THAT and he wants to play James Bond and Superman? Why not just cast the daft old bitch from The Golden Girls to play Wonder Woman?

(Of course, saying 'daft old bitch from The Golden Girls' doesn't really narrow the field down much. I meant the really old one. Not the slutty one, the retarded one or the one that looked like a man.)

Anyway, Tim Burton rocks! He made Batman! And Batman Returns! And that had Christopher Walken in it! And his movies always look really unique, so his Superman would look awesome, right?


Right?

Hey, look, it's Edward Scissor-Hands-Man.

So after a few dozen MILLION DOLLARS were spent on pre-production and Burton and Cage's salary, they canned Superman for another few years, but as always - Superman LIVED!

In 2002, Superman was back in production, and J.J Abrams was going to write the script! He's the guy who made Alias, and Lost! And FELICITY! Hell yes! And McG, the guy who directed Charlies Angels 2: Full Throttle was going to direct! ..................... Shit.

Well, at least J.J would write a cool script!


J.J Abrams Superman script included:

• Lex Luthor being changed from a meglomaniacal businessman into a Government Agent who was secretly from Krypton, Superman's home world, with the same powers as Superman
• A Matrix-style kung-fu fight between Superman and... Super Lex
• Jimmy Olsen, Clark Kent's photo-taking good buddy being gay
• Superman's home planet Krypton doesn't explode, unlike every other Superman story ever. This is the equivalent of having Batman's parents alive and baking him cookies.
  
• Superman dies, but his father on Krypton 'argues him out' of dying
• A steaming pile of shit

Who would have thought that the man who gave the world Felicity could write something so crap. Anyway, the director's reins on Superman changed hands more than an amputee with a prosthetic arm before finally settling on Bryan Singer, who made the pretty swank looking Superman Returns.

And so ends our guide. If you'll excuse me, I have to go get changed in a phone booth. Not because I'm a superhero, I just like people watching me.

I've watched plenty of dodgy movies in my time (not that kind) (ok maybe a few) (ok a bit more than that) (just guess a number and then double it), from American Ninja to Suburban Commando to every single generic 80's action movie ever. The first movie I remember seeing is Robocop when I was about 6, thanks to my brother insisting I get a healthy dose of ultra-violence to counteract all the Care Bears I was watching.

However, I'm not exactly a movie buff. I've never seen The Godfather II, or the second half of Pulp Fiction, or Casablanca, or the Lord Of The Rings, or Titanic, or You Got Served. But like everyone else, I've seen hundreds of movies. And that's the only requirement you need for my next blog.


Wasn't That The Guy In The Thing?

Tommy's Guide To Those Guys In Movies All The Time That You Don't Know The Names Of But Man I Swear I've Seen Him Someplace Before... Maybe He's The Guy From Terminator 2?


Everyone has favourite actors. Some people even have favourite actresses if you ask them to really think. But there is a breed of actors who don't get their names on movie posters, who don't get their own action figures or signing bonuses. They are the character actors, the people who make the stars look like stars. Their faces are instantly recognisable, yet... You don't know what from. They are the Joint Chiefs in military thrillers, the bad guy mobsters, the evil martial arts bad guy, the crooked businessman, or the wise old guy.

They're not Jean Reno, or Brian Denehey, they're the guys who work for Jean Reno and Brian Denehey. But, there was a time when a well-known supporting actor like Jean Reno was one of these men, these chosen few, this... Band of Brothers.

Now, I could drop some names, but as I said - you wouldn't know them. Nobody does. That's the gimmick. Instead, take a look at these guys.



I'll tell you their names, just in case the curiosity is getting to you. In the top row, the first guy you might know because he has a unique name. That's Rip Torn. Next to him is Bob Gunton. The last guy on the top row is Charles Napier. In the bottom row, that's James Rebhorn, Michael Rooker and David Paymer.

Now, let's try that again. The top row is, from left to right

• The Guy From Men In Black And Artie From The Larry Sanders Show
• Wasn't He The Evil Sick Dude From Desperate Housewives and HOLY SHIT THAT'S THE WARDEN FROM SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION!@
• The Lead 'Good Old Boy' from The Blues Brothers and... Wait, He Wasn't In Rambo Was He?

And the second row

• That Guy Who Always Plays Crooked Politicians and Generals
• The Bad Ass Guy Who Is Always A Cop Or The Henchman That Goes After The Good Guy
  
• Not Even This Guy Knows What We Remember Him From

Now, these guys are all terrific actors. Especially Charles Napier, who based on that photo has looked exactly the same for the last thirty years. If they didn't look like bad guys, cops and smarmy lawyers, they probably would have made it huge because of their ability. There's still a chance for them too, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who just a few years ago was That Dicky Guy From Patch Adams won an OSCAR.

But there is a character actor who surpasses every single one of them. He is in a field of his own. You will know him as The Guy Who Always Plays The Bad Asian Guy. But now you will know and respect him for his real name. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...

James Hong.

Hah, Foolish American. You dare try to escape?

He was in Hero with Jet Li, The Art Of War with Wesley Snipes, Blade Runner, Tango and Cash and he was General Trau in the Chuck Norris masterpiece Missing In Action. He's acted in pretty much every successful television series ever - The X-Files, Taxi, Alias, Hawaii Five-O, The West Wing, Friends, even shows you've never heard of like Airwolf, Manimal and The Wackiest Ship In The Army.

Basically, he's the guy who Hollywood calls when they need an Asian. To prove this point, Hong was in four episodes of the series MacGyver, playing THREE different characters - Chu, Lee and Kuang. He played EIGHT different characters in the 70's action series Kung Fu.

You think Morgan Freeman can get away with that?

You think Brad Pitt, or Joaquin Phoenix has that range?

You think Marlon Brando could have played an Asian?

Hell no.

James Hong is a legend. He is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote the title to this blog. Come award season, this guy should get an honourary Oscar for his work.

So next time you watch a film, don't think of the pooncy star getting paid millions to pretend to run away from an explosion, think of the guys who truly make the movie. The character actor. James Hong, Bruce Davison, Michael O'Neill, The Dicky Guy From Ghostbusters With The Red Beard Who Shuts Down Their Ghost Containment Machine, for they are the true stars of Hollywood.

And none of them have vaginas.

There's been a lot said about the Da Vinci Code and the whole Opus Dei deal and the missing gospels and Jesus' reputation as a pants man and what not, all stemming from the popularity of the book and the recent release of the Da Vinci Code movie, starring Tom Hank's hair extensions. So, I thought I'd show those Catholics who was the boss and plonk down $8.50 to see what all the fuss was about. I also bought a bottle of water and a Cadbury Mint Crisp bar, so that probably pushed the total up to about $11. Take that, Pope.

The movie itself was pretty good, if you've read the book there'll be a few scenes where you're convinced Ron Howard was stealing your thoughts because they're just exactly how you pictured it. Well, except the scene where you saw the albino killer Silas' ass cheeks, I didn't get much of a porno vibe when I read the book.

Anyway, it got me thinking. If Leonardo Da Vinci hid secret messages in his art that led to the unravelling of a biblical mystery, what secrets are other artists hiding? Maybe there are secrets in Australian art! I could find my very own conspiracy, then post about it on my blog and get RICH! Or, at the very least, get on TEN NEWS FIRST AT FIVE! So I visited the nearest Art Gallery, brought a C.S.I blue light to check for clues and dried semen, and found something that shocked me to the core.

I give you....


Da Ken Done Code.


I know what you're saying to yourself. How could you, an unemployed porn star from Baulkham Hills who has never studied art in his life manage to unravel mysterious meanings in complicated art works such as these?



Well, let's just say I've got good eyesight. And the blue light came in pretty handy. Especially when I was choosing a seat on the bus.

And what secrets DID you find Tommy? What deep, dark earth-shattering truth is Ken Done hiding? Let me show you. The first clue was hidden deep within the piece titled 'White Tiled Opera House'.



Can you see it?

Look closer. See with your own eyes what I saw with my wicked blue light.



It's the Opera House. The first clue. Enthused with the thrill of the hunt, and knowing that I would soon unravel the truth behind this liar's facade, I continued searching. This time in a 1994 piece entitled 'Magpie Morning'. Why Done named it so is a mystery that baffles historians to this day.



Can't see it? Perhaps if we zoom in. And by zoom in, I mean zoom in ON THE TRUTH.



Yes. If you get rid of the two green lines and look at it funny, you can find a CROSS. And we all know what a CROSS signifies.

Yes.

Bar Cha Ba Chewy Cha, Ba Chewy Cha.

Ryan Cross, a centre for the Sydney Roosters. No coincidence that he plays for a team based near the SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE?

And who does Ryan Cross resemble?

The kid from the film 'Mask'.

Joey, I can't believe you and Pacey started dating behind my back

And wait, I hear you tell yourself. Wasn't CHER in that film, playing the mother of the disfigured boy?

That's not a necklace, it's her voice box

You know Cher, one of the DIVAS of pop music? And isn't "DIVA" a term originally derived from OPERA? It's all coming together now, isn't it?

With all these clues, my conclusion was simple.


Ken Done is part of a centuries-old artistic sect, including luminaries such as Pro Hart and Pablo Picasso, which meet in the bowels of the Sydney Opera House and attempt to create ugly, ugly people (see Ryan Cross, Cher) in order to make their shitty, kindergarten artwork look respectable by comparison.



That's how you solve a mystery, Hanks.

Because I'd like my Sunday free to perform my usual ritual of taking photos of children at the beach, I thought I'd write my review of the motion picture X-Men 3 today, 6 hours before I see it. You're probably asking yourself how that's possible, how can Tommy write a review of a film he hasn't seen. Actually, you're probably not asking yourself anything, because that would require a degree of emotional involvement that to be honest, my blog fails to generate.

Anyway, onto the review!

*whip*

X-Men 3: The Last Stand
A film review by Tommy, X-Man


The third in the X-Men series of films, and the fourth in the series of films starring Hugh Jackman as a cybernetically-enhanced killing machine (Kate and Leopold was a prequel), X3 is possibly the final chapter in the X-Men story, which is what they said about the third James Bond movie too. But, unlike James Bond, Halle Berry fucked X-Men up before the series hit number 20.

The premise of X3 is that a 'cure' for mutant....ism is developed, generating all sorts of controversy and yelling and explosions. Some mutants, such as the evil Magneto, see the cure as mankind's attempt to exterminate mutantkind. Others see it as a challenge to be overcome peacefully. Some mutants, such as Angel, are forced into taking the cure by evil fathers, while others accept it themselves.

I'd say this mutant would probably go for the cure.

X3 sees the return of all of your childhood favourites, like Professor Xavier, Wolverine, Cyclops, Collossus, and Mystique. It also has Storm. The movie also sees the film debuts of some new mutants such as Shadowcat, Angel, The Dark Phoenix, Callisto and Spyke.

Oh, and someone or other named BEAST


OH YEAH BITCHES


OHHHH YEAAHHH


FRESH FROM DUNFEE, ILLINOIS, NORTON AND EDNA MCCOY'S BABY BOY, THE BIG BLUE FURRY MCDADDY OF FUNK, HENRY "HANK" PHILLIP MCCOY THE MOTHERFUCKING BEAST!@


YOOOOO CHECK IT


NIGGA DON'T NEED NO FLOOR, NIGGA CLIMB ON PIPES!@



LOOK AT THOSE TRAPS AND THOSE ABS, YOU COULD CUT A SHOE WITH THOSE ABS



OH, I THINK I'VE SAVED THE WORLD SO MUCH CAUSE I'M THE MOTHERF'ING BEAST THAT I'LL SIT AND DRINK SOME COFFEE AND READ TIME, CAUSE THAT'S HOW SUPERHEROES GET THEIR SHIT DONE

Now where were we.

Beast is played by Kelsey Grammar, television's Frasier. Which gives me hope for David Hyde Pierce to be cast in X-Men 4 as Beast's snooty younger brother. Hilarity ensues when Beast invites Storm over for a hot date at the X-Mansion, only for his brother to schedule a meeting of their mutant wine club that same night! And wait till grumpy old Professor Xavier finds out his housekeeper forgot to take Wolverine out for a walk! It's X4, Thursdays at 8 on NBC.

The X-Men series has done a pretty good job of giving fanboys like me what we expect (Beast, Wolverine hacking people, Mystique doing one of those roundhouse kicks where you kinda see her cooch) and satisfying normal people at the same time with action and cool monologues by old British actors, and X3 looks like no exception.


I give it 3 Claws Up. LOL~!



X-Men 3 was released worldwide on the 26th, except in Kellyville.