ST 3: Marauder, POTC: Dead Man's Chest, Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone, & Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder was terrible. There was gratuitous nudity. But as per usual, no frontals, so sorry. That some nudity thing made me think it would just be a fleeting thing, but nope. Anyway, the film was horrible. Vagina dentata up the wazoo though, along with ridiculously stupid religious symbolism. Actually the nudity and the fact that the black guy doesn't die are about the only things to recommend it. Well, it depends on whether you actually liked the book. The return (I haven't seen the second, and both Tweaks and Meat have warned me of just how terrible it is) of the Nazi propaganda films made it somewhat enjoyable. Jolene Blalock's horribly puffed up lips detracted from that. Oh, and the main protester being named Gonif was a little bit of Yiddish humor. Gonif's hard to describe, but sort of a good-for-nothing who does things that are sort of illegal, but not really a crook.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is 2.5 hours long. For those of you keeping track, that's at least an hour too long. It just kept going and going and going. And Depp wasn't nearly as fun, and basically everything wasn't nearly as fun. The first one didn't feel like it had to live up to anything, and my expectations were pretty low. I did see it in a packed theater with a very enthusiastic audience, and this one I saw on blu-ray on my HDTV, but alone on a Sunday morning. I sort of regretted it, although now I can complain about the most important thing that the Pirates of the Caribbean films brought to light: a zombie pirate monkey. This was such a great thing in the first movie with lots of zombie pirates and then a reveal of a zombie pirate monkey at the end, and then this just shunts him off to a couple of jokes, and focuses on sea creature pirates. Which fail miserably. I like cute furry creatures, not starfish. So few films really need sequels, and most that get them screw up the expectations created by earlier films that it's just painful to see them even try.

Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone was a short documentary about Larry Flynt. And while I've never actually read/held a Hustler in my hands (as far as I can remember, it has been pretty hard to find a Hustler in Cincinnati for most of my life), I like Larry Flynt's continual fight for its right to exist. And this was a much more accurate version of the movie than The People Vs. Larry Flynt. About my only complaint (besides brief length) was that intercut with the archival footage and talking heads was a scene from a photoshoot for Hustler. This was unnecessary. I don't care what the photoshoot looks like, except in the context of what is acceptable and not within a variety of censorship laws throughout the country. I mean, is it acceptable to show nipple? Because I have this feeling that it isn't in Malaysia. Silly Muslims, nips are for kids. And yes, I just hurt everyone's brain with that. Yay!

Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House is a big love letter to the White House press corps. And it's too short. I wanted more of a press corps that cared and asked tough questions like that. Maybe less singing from Helen Thomas though. It's a good use of 40 minutes.

Also, this was the colon update. It's complicated.