COMING UP - Along with Blue Crush and My Big Fat Greek Wedding (no really, I'm finally going to see it), I'll have reviews up next week of two of the most critically-acclaimed films of the year so far, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, and John Sayles' The Sunshine State. Both movies are currently playing in select cities.

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REVIEW: AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER - I realize any comments about Goldmember are probably irrelevant since it was released three weeks ago [When would my comments actually be relevant? Good question], but I promised a reaction so here goes. I was surprisingly entertained by this third installment in the spy-spoof series. I say surprisingly because I wasn't expecting much after The Spy Who Shagged Me, which I thought was almost completely incoherent and lacking in humor. It didn't help that Heather Graham, an actress who I usually like from movies such as Drugstore Cowboy, Boogie Nights and a small part in Twin Peaks, had such terrible comic timing as Austin's love interest/co-spy Felicity Shagwell that she made Liz Hurley in the original look like Katharine Hepburn. It may be the most obviously phoned-in performance since Michael Caine graced the screen in 1987's Jaws: The Revenge (more on Caine in a moment). Either that or Graham was simply trying to prove the old adage that comedy is harder to play than drama. Taking over for Graham in Goldmember is the "bootylicious" pop singer Beyonce Knowles. She plays a spy named Foxxy Cleopatra -- an amalgam of Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones from the 70s blaxploitation flicks -- who teams up with Austin when Dr. Evil kidnaps his famous spy father (Caine) and takes him back to 1975. Knowles shows some genuine talent in front of the camera, despite having very little to do. She's not a co-star so much as a model whose job it is to look sexy in skimpy outfits, which I suppose makes Goldmember the most accurate James Bond imitation in the series. Myers' smartest casting choice, though, was undoubtedly the addition of Caine as the charming Nigel Powers. When three of Dr. Evil's henchman attack him, Nigel quickly disposes the first two with his fists, then gets the third to surrender simply by insulting him -- "Look at you, you don't even have a name tag." What easily could have been a throwaway scene was probably my favorite joke in the whole movie thanks to Caine's deadpan wit. Another perfectly delivered bit occurs when Austin comes to rescue him from the title villain, a disco fanatic from Holland whose private parts were covered in gold after a smelting accident. "There are only two things I hate; those who are intolerant of other people's cultures...and the Dutch," Nigel tells Austin. In addition to Caine's scene stealing, I got a kick out of the opening credit sequence -- well, most of it anyway -- featuring a bunch of big-name stars in cameo roles. Slate's David Edelstein loathed it: "The director, Jay Roach, can't give these showstoppers any momentum, and the fun palls quickly: Scattershot but thudding, it made me want to bolt after 15 minutes." The first five minutes were hilarious; once Britney Spears appeared on screen, however, I had the exact same reaction as Edelstein. I sat there stupefied wondering, "Does Myers really think this is funny, or is he simply content with the fact that Pepsi gave him a load of cash to include Spears in the movie?"

Ultimately, Myers isn't breaking any new ground with Goldmember -- most of the jokes are just variations on gags from the previous two movies, and for every joke that works there are two that flop around on the screen and die (When Austin meets the Asian twins "Fook Mi" and "Fook Yu," for example). And while Roger Ebert is certainly correct to suggest that "maybe the original inspiration has run its course," I laughed enough to make it worth my time.

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THIS WEEKEND - Two new movies opening wide tomorrow -- one has generated waves of positive buzz; the other hasn't produced even a trickle of buzz period. In fact, I've heard so little about Eddie Murphy's new movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash that I can't even give you a one-sentence plot summary. According to its web page, Pluto Nash is "an action/adventure comedy set on the moon in the year 2087." Apparently, Murphy plays a successful nightclub owner who gets into trouble with a "lunar gangster" played by Joe Pantoliano. Paging Quentin Tarantino...Formerly huge movie star and pop culture luminary in desperate need of career resuscitation. Seriously, who is helping Murphy pick roles these days? The last decent "adult" movie he made was Bowfinger in 1999. Since Shrek (2001), his credits include Dr. Dolittle 2, Showtime, and now Pluto Nash. I actually have the option of attending a sneak screening tonight, which would allow me to have a review up tomorrow morning. But I'm guessing I can find something less painful to do with my evening.

Blue Crush could be a classic summer popcorn movie -- formulaic and trifling, but without the pre-packaged lameness of MIB 2, or the overcooked thrills of XXX. Directed by crazy/beautiful's John Stockwell, Crush is about a female surfer (Kate Bosworth) out to prove her worth on the waves of Oahu's North Shore. Guys will like the eye-candy of Bosworth and company in bikinis; girls will dig the sandals-are-gonna-walk-all-over-you-attitude. Throw in a love story with a hunky quarterback (Matt Davis), a slick soundtrack, and some awe-inspiring (if computer-generated) waves, and you've got a hit. Of course, I could be wrong. I just asked three female co-workers, all in their early- to mid-20s, whether they plan to see it. One had never heard of it; one was embarrassed to admit she'd probably go see it; and the other felt it wasn't worth her hard-earned cash, saying, "You mean Coyote Ugly Hits the Beach"? Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman could probably use a towel after writing this review: "Powered by Blestenation's hip-hop remix of Bananarama's great ''Cruel Summer,'' the movie has a purely sense-orama dimension, yet John Stockwell, who cowrote and directed it, proves that it's more than possible to use thrill-ride techniques in a supple, nonbombastic way. His interweaving of digital effects, rapid-fire downshifts to slow motion and back, and whooshing, crashing, in-your-ears sound creates a foam peak momentum of exhilaration laced with anxiety."

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ANNOUNCING THE CINEMASCOPED CRITICS & READERS POLL - With summer almost over and the "serious" movie season approaching, I think now is the perfect time to take a look back at the year in movies, and look ahead to what the rest of the year has to offer. To this end, CS has e-mailed more than 40 newspaper, magazine, and online film critics requesting their votes for: 1) Best Movie of the Year (So Far) and 2) Movie You Are Most Looking Forward To Seeing.

But this poll isn't just for the critics...CS wants your votes as well. What movie had you gushing to all of your friends -- Signs? Road to Perdition? Scooby Doo, perhaps? (Check out Greg's Previews if you need to refresh your memory.) What upcoming movie are you most excited to see -- The Two Towers; P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, with Adam Sandler? Red Dragon? 8 Mile with Eminem? Scorsese's long-awaited Gangs of New York; maybe Steven Soderbergh's Solaris remake? (Click here for Jeffrey Wells' Fall Preview.)

E-mail your votes now to: CinemaScoped@hotmail.com. I'll post the results of both the Critics' and Readers' Polls in the next few weeks.

In other news, I finally saw Goldmember -- I know, it's been out for three weeks, I'm lame. I'll have a few comments posted later today. Also, CNN.com today has this story about My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which I wrote about here last Thursday (scroll down), and shamefully still have yet to see. The sleeper hit added 66 theaters last weekend and saw its box office take increase 4.4% ($3.1 million, good enough for 8th place).

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ONLY A MATTER OF TIME - Kevin Smith recently launched a new movie site called -- you guessed it! -- Movie Poop Shoot. (Incidentally, Smith is looking for extras for his next film, Jersey Girl, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Click here to become a movie star, or to stand next to movie stars anyway.) Those familiar with Smith's hilarious Hollywood send-up, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, will recognize Movie Poop Shoot as the site Holden (Affleck, reprising his Chasing Amy role) clicks on to show Jay and Silent Bob that Miramax is planning to make a movie about them. The two become enraged when they read message board comments dissing them mercilessly, including one from "Magnolia Fan." (Click here to get the joke.) As far as I can tell, the site officially began flushing in June.

Even if the Smith "brand" doesn't mean anything to you, Movie Poop Shoot will be a must-read for movie fans since Jeffrey Wells announced today he will move his "Hollywood Confidential" column from Reel.com to MPS beginning September 3. "I'll be joining a team of feisty, tip-top malcontents over there and the whole endeavor is going to whup ass, I swear … in fact, it already does," Wells says in today's column, which provides a tidy look at the most promising movies slated for the rest of the year.

As regular CS readers know, I refer to Wells quite often in my posts because he has consistently been one of the shrewdest, most perceptive film columnists (part reporter, part critic) around for many years now -- with Reel since August '99; Mr. Showbiz and various others before that). In fact, if I was restricted to one movie article per day, "Hollywood Confidential" would easily be my choice. Full disclosure: I became an even bigger fan of Wells when I was working on an article for The Daily Iowan about a year-and-a-half ago. I e-mailed him to see if he had any comment on the news that Loews had raised its prices for a movie ticket to $10 in New York City. Of course, I didn't expect a response. I not only got an e-mail back -- the same day, no less -- but Wells gave me what we journalists like to refer to as a "killer" quote.

"New York City movie theaters have always been slightly higher, so it's no surprise they're the first to hit the $10 mark. [Loews is] basically charging moviegoers to help pay its bank loans that it took out to pay for its huge expansions. It used to be $9.50 in certain NYC theaters; now it's $10. Big deal."

"Instead of an average evening at the movies with a date costing $33 -- two tickets for $19 plus $15 on popcorn and drinks for two, not counting parking -- it'll now cost $34. Compare that with renting a DVD and watching it at home with your girlfriend and microwave popcorn, which maybe costs $8 or $9 altogether. Why do people continue to pay $33 and $34? Because it's more fun to see a movie in a theater, and guys have a better shot at getting laid if they take their girlfriends out (to dinner, before or after the movie) than if they just invite them over to their place.

Amen. Wells' last column for Reel will run this Friday. If you're completely bored, below is a re-print of my original review of Jay & Silent Bob (published 8/27/01).

* I like Kevin Smith's films, but even I'll admit to some skepticism when I first heard he was making a movie centered on the vulgar antics of Jay and Silent Bob.

The dimwitted duo, played by Smith and Jason Mewes, has appeared in all four of Smith's previous films, usually with hilarious results. Arguably the funniest scenes in Clerks, Smith's low-budget debut, were those featuring Jay and Silent Bob assaulting customers outside the Quick Stop with their politically incorrect spewings. Nevertheless, as good as they were as supporting characters in Smith's View Askew universe, one had to wonder how their act would play out over 90 minutes. Let's face it, giving Jay and Silent Bob their own movie is akin to "Norm" and "Cliff" getting their own sitcoms after "Cheers" was canceled, and we all know how that turned out.

Fortunately for us -- and Smith -- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back might just be his funniest film yet, even if it does at times feel like one big in-joke.

After taking heat from the Catholic Church for Dogma, Smith sets his satirical sights here on a less-esteemed, but perhaps equally powerful, institution -- Hollywood. The story follows Jay and Silent Bob as they trek from Jersey to L.A. to stop Miramax from making a movie based on the Bluntman & Chronic comic book for which they were the inspiration. If you're already a little confused, go rent Chasing Amy, and it'll start to make some sense.

Admittedly, it helps to be a fan of -- or at least to have seen -- the bulk of Smith's past work to truly appreciate this movie. And even when he isn't referencing his own movies, he is usually catering his humor to movie geeks much like himself.

Perhaps the funniest example is when Jay and Silent Bob finally make it to Hollywood, only to stumble onto the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season. While Miramax golden boys Matt Damon and Ben Affleck -- a Smith regular who appears here as himself and his Chasing Amy character -- rip each other for some of their less-inspired movie choices, director Gus Van Sant sits quietly in a corner counting a huge pile of cash. Van Sant was known for edgy, indie pics such as My Own Private Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy before going mainstream with Hunting, which was followed by his disastrous remake of Psycho and the saccharine Finding Forrester.

Like Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob does lose some momentum because of its convoluted plot. There's a mostly boring, unnecessary sequence in the middle in which our heroes are persuaded by a gorgeous gang of international jewel thieves, featuring Bring It On's Eliza Dushku and American Pie's Shannon Elizabeth, to steal a monkey from a pharmaceutical lab (don't ask). Smith spends way too much time showing the Charlie's Angels wannabes doing Matrix-like backflips as they steal a loot of diamonds from a nearby bank (again, don't ask). Fortunately, this plot distraction is salvaged when "Saturday Night Live's" Will Ferrell shows up as a bumbling federal wildlife marshal trying to reclaim the stolen monkey.

I read one critic who blasted Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, remarking that it will be "mostly incomprehensible in 50 years." I'm not sure he's right, but even if he is, maybe that isn't such a bad thing. You've got to give credit to Smith for producing a film that so perfectly captures the time in which it was made. You might miss some of the movie references, but unless you've been sleeping through the past 20 years of pop culture, Smith's irreverent brand of humor should ring true. *

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GLENGARRY CLARIFICATION - In my last post I referred to Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet's acerbic indictment of the Reagan era, as "darkly comic." Let me be clear: Glengarry cannot, by any reasonable criteria, be called a comedy. But if hearing Kevin Spacey implore Alan Arkin,"Will you get out of here. Will you get out of here. Will you? I’m trying to run an office here. Now will you go to lunch. Go to lunch. Will you go to lunch," or Alec Baldwin deliver his How To Win Friends and Motivate Salesmen Speech: "A, I, D, A. Attention, interest, decision, action. Attention: do I have your attention? Interest: are you interested? I know you are 'cause it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks. Decision: have you made your decision for Christ? And action. A, I, D, A," isn't comic gold, I don't know what is.

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RANDOM MUSINGS - During my trip to Pennsylvania last weekend I had the pleasure of eating breakfast with a man named Sheldon Levine. And here's the best part -- he's a salesman. Shelley Levene, of course, is Jack Lemmon's desperate real estate salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross, the David Mamet-penned film based on his Pulitzer Prize winning play. When our waitress handed him a cup of coffee I wanted so badly to shout, "Put that coffee down! Coffee's for closers only!" a la Alec Baldwin in the movie. Fortunately, I was able to restrain myself. If you haven't seen it, Glengarry is one of the saddest, most frustrating, darkly comic -- not to mention most quotable -- films of the 90s. The cast -- Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, pre-movie star Kevin Spacey, and Baldwin (in a small but memorable role) -- is phenomenal, and handles Mamet's idiosyncratic dialogue better than any other cast before or since. Visit The Unofficial Glengarry Glen Ross Site, which provides the complete dialogue from Baldwin's hilariously abusive "Sales Conference." First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

Reel's Jeffrey Wells reports today on the script of an upcoming film called 21 Grams. Wells describes it as a "dark, intensely emotional piece about guilt, betrayal, death and random fate." It marks the first English language film for Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose similarly-themed Amores Perros was one of the best films of last year. It begins shooting in December. I'd be excited about this movie just based on my affection for Amores Perros...but it gets even better when I read that 21 Grams will feature Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Naomi Watts. So you're saying it stars two of the most provocative actors working today and the actress who gave hands-down the best performance of last year -- male or female -- in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive? Yeah, I think I'll pay to see it. About Guillermo Arriago's screenplay, Wells writes: "I was blown away by the script. As soon as I finished reading it I said out loud to no one in particular (even though there were people in the room), "Whoa!"

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WHERE'S TOMMY BOY ON THAT LIST? - For those of you looking for something to do this weekend, write down all the films you've never seen from these lists -- or maybe never even heard of -- then get down to your best local video store or library and prepare to join the cultural elite. (No, I'm not including myself in this group since I, too, have my own list to compile.)

The British film magazine Sight & Sound just announced the results of its Critics' and Directors' Top Ten Polls for 2002. As their Web site explains:

"In 1952 Sight & Sound polled the world’s leading film critics to compile a list of the best films of all time. The magazine has repeated this poll every ten years, to show which films stand the test of time in the face of shifting critical opinion. In 1992 we added a poll of directors asking them for their personal choices."

For the 2002 edition, 108 filmmakers and 145 critics from around the world participated in the voting.

Critics Top Ten Poll 2002
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
Kane has been #1 on every Critics' poll except the first -- Bicycle Thieves was #1 in '52 -- and has topped both Directors' polls.
2. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
3. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (Renoir)
4. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
5. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
7. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7. Sunrise (Murnau)
9. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
10. Singin' In the Rain (Kelly, Donen)

Films that dropped off the list from 1992:
The Searchers (Ford)
L'Atalante (Vigo)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
Pather Panchali (S. Ray)

The Directors' Poll, which actually lists 11 movies, shares 5 with the Critics'...
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
3. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
6. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
9. La Règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (Renoir)

...but adds...
4. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
5. Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
6. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
6. Raging Bull (Scorsese)

...and two Kurosawa films, Rashomon and Seven Samurai, which both tied for 9th with Rules of the Game.

Films that dropped off the list from 1992:
La strada (Fellini)
L'Atalante (Vigo)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)

In evaluating the two lists, I have to side with the directors. I refuse to hail Vertigo as the 2nd greatest film of all-time, especially when the two Godfather movies are 4th. I also love the inclusion of the two Kurosawa films; De Sica's heartbreaking neorealist masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (aka The Bicycle Thief); and Kubrick's nuclear war farce Dr. Strangelove over his groundbreaking but cumbersome 2001: A Space Odyssey. Most importantly, the directors rightfully include Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), the youngest film on either list.

For the complete results of both polls with comments, click here. You can also check past poll results, see which critics and directors participated and how they voted, and compare their lists of the best directors of all-time.

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MORE X-RATED THOUGHTS - I wasn't able to check out what other critics were saying about XXX before posting my review Friday morning. A look at the Tomatometer shows that it's almost an even split - 49% positive reviews, or 52 out of 107. Of course, that leaves 55 negative, including my own unfavorable reaction to the Vin Diesel-powered spy vehicle, which easily topped the box office over the weekend with $46 million. Signs dropped to second but faired well with $30 million.

L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan correctly diagnoses the movie as, "More busy than exciting, more frantic than involving, more chaotic than entertaining." Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum writes, "Even in the summertime, the most restless young audience deserves the dignity of an action hero motivated by something more than franchise possibilities."

Most critics who recommend XXX praise its muscular star: "The racially ambiguous Diesel cuts a fine action figure. He has the glacial swagger left over from his bouncer days and looks as if he's been bench-pressing Sylvester Stallone since he was 12," writes Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe. And Salon's Stephanie Zacharek calls Diesel "that rare creature -- an action hero with table manners, and one who proves that elegance is more than tattoo deep."

Easily the most surprising response has to be Roger Ebert's gushing 3 1/2 star review in the Chicago Sun-Times -- not just because he liked it that much, but because he liked it for the exact same reasons I started thinking about balancing my checkbook roughly 30 minutes in. He writes: "Director Rob Cohen and producer Neal H. Mortiz, who also made "The Fast and the Furious," follow the Bond formula so carefully this would be a satire if it weren't intended as a homage."

Ebert then proceeds to approvingly tick off the various ways XXX steals from Bond: (1) Villain in lair hidden within mountain, with faceless minions busily going about tasks; (2) a beautiful girl, former KGB, named Yelena (Asia Argento), who seems to be Yorgi's girlfriend but falls for Xander; (3) a techno-geek who supplies Xander with a trick gun and a customized GTO that has an arsenal on board; (4) stunts involving parachuting, mountains, avalanches and explosions; (5) a chase at the end to save the world, and (6), my favorite, the obligatory final scene where the hero basks in Bora Bora with the beautiful girl in a bikini, while his boss tries to persuade him to take another job.

I think calling XXX an homage to Bond gives Cohen and screenwriter Rich Wilkes too much credit. Isn't it more likely that they were simply too lazy/uninspired/unoriginal to give their "new kind of action hero," as Cohen described him in last month's Premiere, an action movie that was befitting such a new character? I'm guessing it was a lot easier to just crib from old Bond flicks, replace the Monty Norman score with Rammstein, then claim to have invented something radically different.

The fact is, save for a few poorly choreographed action sequences involving various extreme sports, XXX doesn't give us anything we haven't seen before. Perhaps if Cohen and company had been clever enough to go the satirical route and flat-out rebuke the Bond franchise -- the opening scene, where Diesel's tuxedo-clad predecessor is easily picked off by a sniper when he tries to blend in with the crowd at a hardcore industrial concert, effectively teases us with this possibility -- XXX would have been more entertaining.

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HORROR WEEKEND FOLLOW-UP/BUBBA HO-TEP REVIEW - Ain't It Cool News grandmaster Harry Knowles had this to say recently in an introduction to a series of reviews from his Chicago correspondent Capone: "And don't hate Capone too much when you read what all he did last weekend...tell me, which body part would you give to see the original EVIL DEAD cast reenact live on stage the original EVIL DEAD from the original script? Tell me you wouldn't need rubber pants and a spray hose for clean up."

Take a moment to expunge that image from your mind. Now, you might recall last Monday's (8/5) post about my friends Scott and Chris who, like Capone, attended the Flashback Horror Weekend and Sci-Fi Convention that was held August 2-4 in Chicago.

Curiously, while Knowles makes it abundantly clear how jealous he is about not being able to see the original cast reenact The Evil Dead live, he doesn't mention how cool it would have been to be the random guy from the audience selected to play the role of "Scotty," played in the movie by Hal Delrich. As devout CS readers know, that random guy was Chris, who provided a detailed account on Monday of how he got to perform with Bruce Campbell and the Ladies of Evil Dead, despite being one of only three in a theater full of 1,200 people who admitted to never actually having seen the movie!

Here's how Capone explains the event: "After that, Bruce returned to the stage with the Ladies of Evil Dead for an almost complete reenactment of EVIL DEAD. With Tom Sullivan doing sound effects and an audience member playing Scottie, this reminded me of some radio plays I’d seen done years ago. Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that good, but boy was it a scream. I nearly pissed myself when “Ash” and “Linda” are having their big romantic scene together and Bruce whipped out a full-sized magnifying glass on a chain for her to wear. Since they were reading from the original script, they even acted out scenes that weren’t in the final film, which was screened immediately after."

Chris e-mailed Harry after seeing the article and said, "Hey, that was me. I was the audience member!" No response from Harry yet...

Meanwhile, Scott writes in with this review of Bubba Ho-Tep, which had its Midwest premiere earlier that same night with star Bruce Campbell in attendance. This is a little movie only a handful of you will probably ever get the opportunity to see -- or even want to see -- but Campbell has developed enough of a devoted following over the years that surely a few readers must be curious about his current film. Here's what Scott had to say:

As Campbell strode onto the stage to introduce the movie, he claimed that it was the most bizarre film he had ever acted in. Whoa! Now, before I go any further, let me just say that I'm a bizarre film connoisseur and Bruce Campbell has been in some really crazy-ass films.

So anyway, his bold declaration had me giddy as a little schoolgirl for Bubba Ho-Tep to start. My anticipation increased even further when the credits rolled and the words, "Directed By Don Coscarelli" flashed on the screen. This guy has helmed some of the weirdest genre flicks ever made. Coscarelli's imagery has featured giant alien morticians, living dead dwarves, killer flying balls, and the great actor Mark "Beastmaster" Singer running around in a loincloth letting women pet his ferret.

However high my expectations now were, Bubba Ho-Tep exceeded them. This is one of the coolest "what if" movies I have seen in a long time.You know what I mean by "what if"? What if Shakespeare fell in love while writing Romeo and Juliet? What if a mentally challenged man named Forrest unknowingly influenced historical events? What if this loser movie reviewer had some balls and lived out his Evil Dead fantasies on stage with the entire cast of the movie instead of passing the opportunity to his undeserving friend....aaaaaahhhhh damn you o' missed opportunity...

Anyway, what if Elvis Presley decided during the prime of his career to step out of the limelight and switch places with an Elvis impersonator? And what if present day Elvis was in an elderly home wishing he could return to his past glory? This is the premise Bubba Ho-Tep starts out with, and trust me when I say they take this story into places you would never predict. I don't want to ruin any surprises the movie presents so I'll keep plot developments to a minimum. However, to understand just how bizarre this film gets, I will say that Ossie "Da Mayor" Davis portrays President John F. Kennedy. Those of you who know that Davis is black can begin to see why this movie is whacked!

Bubba Ho-Tep contains Campbell's greatest performance to date. You're probably thinking all he ever accomplished up to this point in his career was getting his ass kicked in the three Evil Dead movies. Maybe. But he shows more range and humor as Elvis Presley than any actor that has played the part. Yes, he's even better than Kurt Russell as Elvis. Coscarelli deftly mixes comedy and suspense, never lets the pace drag, and makes the production value seem way higher than the budget probably was. Oh, did I mention that Bubba Ho-Tep is the name of an undead soul stealing mummy? This is a crazy bad-ass movie.

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