Seth Green

When the power goes off in their home, the Griffin clan ask dad Peter to regale them with a story (the talking dog Brian had suggested they all read). What he offers is a note for note ripoff of the original Star Wars film, with various figures from the Family Guy universe filling the roles from the 1977 blockbuster. Horny neighbor Glen Quagmire is C-3PO, deli owner Cleveland Brown in R2D2, megalomaniacal baby Stewie is evil Darth Vadar, Quahog mayor Adam West is Grand Moff Tarkin, mom Lois is Princess Leia, and son Chris is Luke Skywalker. With Peter playing Han Solo, Brian as Chewbacca, and old pervert Herbert as Obi-Wan, we get all the sci-fi operatics -- stolen plans, the daring rescue by our heroes, and the last act stand-off against the Death Star.

Continue reading: Family Guy Blue Harvest Review

Devon Sawa stars as Anton, a slacker who sits around his house all day, smoking weed, and watching television. When Anton's parents are killed, a mysterious force takes over Anton's hand. He unwillingly kills his two best friends (Seth Green and Eldon Henson) and doesn't seem that phased by it. I mean, he's worried what more damage he could do, but it doesn't really bother him. His friends refused to go to heaven (too far) and walk around as zombies for the rest of the film, helping Anton control the hand, and save his girlfriend (Jessica Alba, who I wouldn't mind saving).

Continue reading: Idle Hands Review

Instead of Bond, it's super-groovy spy Austin Powers (Myers) making his triumphant return to the silver screen, the British secret agent frozen in the 60's and thawed in the 90's, where/when he returned to active duty. The Spy Who Shagged Me picks up right where the original left off, with Dr. Evil (also Myers) banished to space in his Big Boy statue/spaceship, and Austin settling down with new wife Vanessa (Elizabeth Hurley, in a cameo re-appearance).

Continue reading: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Review

Scooby and Shaggy save the day in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed" -- or to be more precise, they save the movie. The scaredy-cat dog and his whimpering stoner sidekick get all the laughs (and all the "eeewww!" gags), with such disparity that it's as if a different screenwriter (with half the wit) wrote the balance of the movie.

Alas, James Gunn (who wrote the first "Scooby" movie and last week's clever but dumbed-down "Dawn of the Dead" remake) penned the whole thing -- even the paid product placements for Burger King and the 15-minutes-of-fame sing-along cameo by "American Idol" winner Ruben Studdard.

Sigh.

Continue reading: Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed Review

After a generation on hiatus, the crazy, ensemble-cast chase comedy is back with an MTV vengeance in "Rat Race," a cornball marathon between a dozen second-tier stars vying for a $2 million booty.

The gimmick: To entertain his high-rolling clientele, a Las Vegas hotelier -- played by John Cleese with a slightly insane, toothy-dentured grin -- recruits an oddball assortment of zealous casino tourists to dash across the desert to New Mexico in search of a bus station locker where the loot has been stashed. The runners think it's all a zany promotion for Cleese's resort, but in the penthouse billionaires from all over the world are placing high-stakes bets on who will get there first, just for rich-guy kicks.

The players: Jon Lovitz is an chintzy, unemployed soccer dad who red-lines his minivan while dragging his family along, on the pretense of a job offer so he doesn't get chewed out for ruining their vacation. He catches hell anyway when the car breaks down outside a "white power" roadside attraction and they steal Hitler's limo to complete the pilgrimage.

Continue reading: Rat Race Review

A threesome of comedy second-bananas star in "Without a Paddle" as childhood pals (and Central Casting clichés) who reunite after the funeral of an adventurous friend (he died in a parachuting accident) for one "last chance to do something incredibly stupid together" -- they get lost in the Oregon woods while hunting for the missing loot of legendary skyjacker D.B. Cooper.

One guy is an over-achieving pantywaist physician (Seth Green, Scott Evil in "Austin Powers"), one's a slacker stuck in a responsibility-ducking rut (Matthew Lillard, Shaggy from the "Scooby-Doo" flicks), and one's a wisecracking lout (Ashton Kutcher's talent-deficient "Punk'd" sidekick Dax Shepard) who is rapidly approaching an age at which arrested development becomes inescapably pathetic.

But on this boating trip, all of them will overcome their hang-ups and discover that "being alive is the treasure" by way of predictable misadventures: going over waterfalls and having run-ins with bears, a redneck sheriff, heavy-set and heavily-armed hillbilly pot farmers, a mysterious mountain man (wild-bearded Burt Reynolds) and a pair of sexy tree-sitting flower children with shaved pits but hairy legs.

Continue reading: Without A Paddle Review

If you were to take the 1998 Spice Girls movie called "Spice World," then remove all the self-deprecation, all the homages to "Hard Day's Night," and all the surprising wit that made it such a great guilty pleasure, what you'd be left with would closely resemble the new "Josie and the Pussycats" movie -- although the results would still be less formulaic.

A live-action revival of the girlie rock band from the Archie comics and Saturday Morning cartoons, "Josie" is a hypocritical satire of MTV conformity that carefully tippy-toes around its mockery of the fickle pop music market so as not to rock the boat with its target audience -- those very same conformist teenagers at whom it pokes fun.

As the movie opens, the private plane carrying a boy band called Dejour (ha ha, very funny) has just been crashed on the command of their evil manager Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming), who had to get rid of the boys after they discovered the record company's subliminal messages planted in their songs.

Continue reading: Josie & The Pussycats Review