And as anyone who knows me will tell you, I can't afford much dripping.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is two-and-a-half-hours long, two hours of which are spent watching cars and trucks transform into robots. These robots come from another planet where there's evidently some evolutionary advantage to driving on the right side of the road.

If you're going to send me a hero, I always say make it one with a built-in cup-holder, Michelins as hip-bling, and car doors for wings!

But what can you expect from a movie co-produced by the company that makes games which constitute obvious moviegoer warnings like "Risk" and "Sorry." Next up from Hasbro comes the action-adventure "Mr. Potato Head and the Crystal Skull of My Little Pony."

"Punk-ass Decepticon!" shouts one Transformer using language learned from watching some version of MTV that transformed into actual music videos.

Sadly, the Sci Fi channel was hoping to make their own version of the Transformers saga. "Unfortunately," said a spokesperson, "Erik Estrada and David Keith were unavailable."

The aptly named Megan Fox is the hottie-tron once again matching half-wits and quarter-shorts with Shia LeBeouf. She works in the kind of garage you only see in movies and imagine in Whitesnake videos featuring Tawny Kitaen splayed out on a hood.

Shia goes off to a college where the academics may be dubious but the student body is a perfect ten, and there's no shortage of majors in Advanced Nymphomania and Applied Bulimia. Forget the robots, let's get back to the dorm mixer! Why save the world when all the Optimus Prime is in class?

Reportedly, a frustrated Shia LeBeouf muttered "If I'm going to play opposite a robot, why not make it Scarlett Johansson?"

Get set for 150 minutes of dumb, vastly forgettable and redundant robot tussles, interspersed with coming-of-age chestnuts and commando strike forces. I ask you, what coming-of-age movie can't be improved by commando strike forces?

"Only a 'Prime' can defeat 'The Fallen,'" says one Decepticon inventing a mythology one script page at a time. "That means only a number divisible by itself and by '1'," he adds, quickly confusing that tiny part of the audience that wasn't absorbed by the character arc that is Megan Fox's cleavage.

Shia must find "the matrix of leadership" in order to stop the Decepticons from killing our sun, although by this point in the movie they have already killed our appetite, our soul, and our will to live.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is bound to be one of the biggest hits of the year, its box office grosses exceeded only by its overall air of crappiness.

Quality-bots, attack!

Imagine my surprise then when I discovered a horror movie! And one with a fractured twist of humor oh so characteristic of director/writer Sam Raimi, even if the marketing geniuses at Universal don't seem to know it.

Yes, Universal knows how to market anything with a roman numeral, but give them a subversively comic horror flick with no franchise precedent and you've got an orphan even Angelina Jolie wouldn't adopt.

Well, maybe she would. Along with my orphan socks.

The joke is on when Drag Me To Hell opens with folks speaking Spanish, which is almost a foreign language nowadays. From there, the ground opens and a boy is literally and aptly dragged to Hell.

"As dreadful as that sounds, it beats autoerotic asphyxiation," said Raimi, peering at his brother Ted, who has been holding his breath in the hope of something automatically erotic since 1994.

Enter the Mac guy and Alison Lohman, for whom "PC" means "perfectly cute."

Alson's task is to suffer every indignity dreamt up by Raimi and his special effects team, usually involving the ingestion of foul bodily fluids, scores of insects, or both in the same disgusting cocktail. Since when does a SAG card need to be accompanied by a SAG barf bag?

Alison meets a weird old lady whose personal hygiene ranks somewhere between Lilly Munster and the Swamp Thing. She removes her teeth to eat a candy - and it's too late for the candy to change its mind.

"You have staples in your head!" Alison screams at her.

"All the better to collate my thoughts!" sneers the old crone.

The elderly witch wants an extension on her mortgage payment because, surprisingly, being a horribly ugly and terrifying old biddy makes it tough to earn a living. But she is denied her wish and places a curse on Lohman, as if going wide opposite Pixar's Up weren't curse enough.

You know there's a curse on when a fly lands on Alison's face and strolls into one nostril and out the other - a level of access even TMZ can't boast.

Beware the Black Goat! He, the taker of souls. As well as the eater of grass and the giver of goat cheese! Beware! For this goat shall take you to Hell - or at least a very hot petting zoo!

Naturally, Alison doesn't want to lose her soul, marking a Hollywood first. "I don't want to burn in Hell for eternity," she said, "because in my profession eternity ends at age 40."

Alison seeks the help of an Indian fortune teller as grateful for the business as he is not to be playing an Arab terrorist.

Look out! A terrifying handkerchief is fluttering about, threatening Alison's visibility! And there it is again...and again! I don't know who this handkerchief's agent is, but Lou Diamond Phillips really wants to know.

Drag Me To Hell is a fun excursion into the kind of cult-comedy-horror that makes Raimi's Evil Dead pictures such a joy.

Even if it is more fun seeing Bruce Campbell get tortured than cutesy Alison Lohman.

Fresh from the new Henry Jaglom movie Irene in Time, star Tanna Frederick meets MovieJuice for a second interview, meaning that I didn't humiliate myself enough in the first one.

Hear Tanna chase her stuff down the street, explain what - if anything - is lurking under Henry Jaglom's trademark hat, and whether or not Tanna knows that Karen Black can pilot a 747 with a hole in the cockpit.

And check out Tanna's new movie, Irene in Time, coming to a theater near you.


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"We have destroyed your world!" said the Terminator.

"Ohhhhh, goooood for you. And how was it? I hope it was f**king good, because it's useless now, isn't it?"

The Terminator - like most machines who aren't relatives or employees of Christian Bale - was so stunned, the skull-shaped grin was wiped off its spit-shine polished face. "Aren't saviors supposed to be more even-tempered?" the T-600 anxiously asked, shooting a glance for support towards director McG.

"I want you off the f**king set you prick!"

And so rages the war against the machines - and the war against whoever is holding back the Xanax.

Wait, which prick was Christian talking to? This is Hollywood, which would be called Prickwood if only the term wasn't redundant. We have pricks who park other pricks' cars and fetch other pricks' drinks and shop other pricks' doctors to triple up on every prick's prescription meds. Prickwood r us, right down to the engineer who's recording this pricky outburst so he can leak it to that prick Perez Hilton so all his fan-pricks can enjoy a momentary sense of su-prick-eriority before collapsing back into the soupy, disappointing muck of their prick-filled lives.

What led the notoriously combustible Christian Bale to this role? "Who could pass up an artistic collaboration between Common and Jane Alexander and the bar brawl they're likely to inspire?" said Bale. "My next film features Lady Gaga and Ernest Borgnine and either club moves or Red Buttons stories - ideally both."

"Send in the Transformer-sized Terminators," said Skynet central, "and if you can find a flesh-covered Terminator who has lasted more than 45 minutes without losing the left side of his face, give him some kind of prize."

Bale is a leader of the resistance fighters, who are mostly resistant to ugliness, facial blemishes, a few extra pounds, roomy flight suits, and old age.

You can spot danger wherever you see glowing red eyes and the bottles of hooch which produce them. No wonder Christian Bale is alarmed! "The giant Transformer-sized Terminator has a cannon for a head - which makes him really hard to identify at an ATM!"

But what's this: A new bio-Terminator who believes he's human, thus making him the only cast member who can be so sure.

"Evasive maneuvers!" shouts Christian, as if the unlikely John Connor maturation pathway from Edward Furlong to Nick Stahl to Christian Bale wasn't evasive enough.

Suddenly, here comes Arnold Schwarzenegger, or at least a cartoon rendering of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's all ah-da-da-dah, like this in the background.

"It's the Manga-nator!" shouts a member of the resistance. "The Hanna-Barbera-nator!" said another. "The animated twin brother of Danny DeVito-nator," said Brice Dallas Howard, the only member of the cast who remembers any cinematic history older than Batman Begins.

Christian Bale must free captive humans, including one young boy with an Afro more expansive than the scope of human history itself. That's to block a future where a character gives his body to science much like Katie Holmes gave her body to Scientology.

Terminator Salvation isn't half bad, but even the good half is better suited to a battle with the machines than to a battle at the box office with Ben Stiller in a museum.

Listen in as Bill discusses whether or not he knew Sean Young was crazy when they were making Blade Runner. Marvel as he discloses a Blade Runner-era scoop: Daryl Hannah taking a shower in Rutger Hauer's dressing room (what?).

Hey, I'm sure it was the closest available shower.

And by all means check out True Blood on DVD and on HBO. One of my favorite shows, for sure.


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Back to the Academy we go. After years of watching our Star Trek heroes bloat into supernovas, now we finally have a chance to see them young enough to battle Heidi and Spencer from The Hills for control of the entertainment universe.

At what point did Winona Ryder warp drive from youthful love interest to Leonard Nimoy's mom - from Girl Interrupted to Klepto of Vulcan?

"I tried to boldly go where no Nieman Marcus security tag had gone before," she explained.

They actually aged Winona for this role. What, there aren't enough older actresses available in Hollywood? Yes, that sound you hear is not a photon torpedo blast, it's the sound of age-appropriate actors Meg Ryan and Sean Young banging their craniums against a bulkhead wall.

Trek auteur J.J. Abrams explained his choice this way: "Many actors wanted to be Spock's mom, but only one has actually gotten high on dilithium crystals."

Just an observation as I peer around the theater: The average Star Trek fan is fatter than a Mugatu. And I mean the kind of Mugatu that just ate a family of Mugatus.

Hey, fella, is that your mouth or the Doomsday Machine?

Earth to Rigel IV: Commander Decker would like one of his chins back!

Don't choke on the Klingon High Council! Here, wash it down with some Tranya!

Warning: Potato chips have a lock on us! Shields down! Avoid evasive maneuvers!

"Space in my refrigerator, the final frontier. These are the voyages of my ravenous appetite. Its ongoing mission: to explore strange new delicacies, to seek out barbecued life and assorted finger-foods from new civilizations; to boldly go where no decent sense of self-restraint has gone before."

So said one super-sized Trekkie, shortly before visiting the men's room to deposit the longest Captain's Log in Federation history.

Back to the movie:

Here we meet our Trek favorites in fresh-faced form. Before Jim Kirk grew to become Hammy McShatner. Before a fist-fight was never complete unless it climaxed in a trickle of blood at the corner of Kirk's mouth. And before Spock's terrible accident where his head was caught in a mechanical rice-picker (or so the story goes).

Our heroes must defeat a Romulan foe whose ship is conveniently festooned with precarious platforms surrounded by fatal drops. Romulan ship-builders need to learn the meaning of the term "deck."

There's red matter and supernovas and black holes and Winona Ryder possibly under the influence. What more could you want?

This movie is rich with inside references tastier than Quadrotriticale to a Tribble. It was fashioned with obvious affection for the source material, but is as up-to-the minute as Leonard Nimoy's new teeth.

Star Trek is absolutely stupendous from the very first frame to the closing musical note. I mean it.

For any child of the franchise, like yours truly - even those of us who have been less than delighted with Trek's recent TV outings - this is two hours of pure, unadulterated joy.

You'll boldly go, again and again.

Saurian brandy all around for the new Star Trek!

May it live long and prosper.

So Ali Larter actually believes she can steal Beyonce's man? Somebody hasn't reviewed the celebrity pecking order lately. And "somebody" means you, Ali!

"I know I should have tried for Jennifer Tilly's man first, but my reach exceeds my grasp," said Ali, who is best known for TV's Heroes but is looking for a fast track back to the big screen even if it means working opposite an actor who seems to be named for an ancient Egyptian spirit incantation.

"Idris Elba, Idris Elba, Imhotep, Anckesen-Amon, arise!"

Added Ali, "Yes, my reach exceeds my grasp. It's like when Apollo 13 was stuck in space and needed to construct a re-entry vehicle out of paper tissues and Power Bars. They proved it can be done!"

Here we are in a dead-serious asset management company. "I put the 'ass' in 'assets,'" said Ali who flutters around her man like Martha Stewart around a doily.

And look who's managing assets, it's Jerry O'Connell, a guy I wouldn't trust to manage shelves at the Costco. Jerry knows a thing or two about attracting beautiful women several notches above his star grade, but his job here is to be the goofy wingman. "It's a role I was born to play," said Jerry as began his daily regimen of calls to tabloids reminding them that his wife's name is no longer Rebecca Romijn Stamos.

"With a name like Jerry O'Connell, I knew my future would include either a business called "O'Connell Chevrolet" or being thrown out of a Boston bar. Probably both!" said Jerry, who was deep into his first sellathon of the season.

Ali Larter is a temp - and she flirts with Beyonce's man in the longest elevator ride in what must be the tallest building ever. And what does Beyonce's man do at work all day? Well, he goes there, he swings a golf club around the office, and goes home - or to parties or on retreat.

No wonder folks hate corporate America.

So the office hosts a Christmas party - the kind where spouses are not invited, alcohol is served, mistletoe hangs overhead, and bare asses sit on copiers faster than you can say "collate that, double-sided!" Hey, who's got the key to Jack Lemmon's apartment?

"I'm not your typical temp," said Ali, as she orders a dirty martini, which is a martini in a glass raised by wolves.

"I want you!" she tells Beyonce's man in his car as she rips off her coat to reveal that today was "Bring Only your Underwear to Work Day."

"She grabbed your package and flashed you in your car?!" asked a surprised Jerry O'Connell. "Rebecca grabbed my package once, but she was trying to return it to Nordstrom."

"Did they take it at Nordstrom?" asked Beyonce's man.

"Yeah, in Juniors."

Obsessed is one of those movies where the lead character is compelled to check his email at 3am on New Year's Day. I don't care if Susan Boyle herself is emailing me her latest video tune from Les Miserables, I'm not checking email at 3am on New Year's Day.

Besides, if I want to see an unattractive older woman sing showtunes, that's why God gave us Liza Minnelli.

Enter Christine Lahti as the least convincing cop this side of Tara Reid. And anyone separating me from Tara Reid is doing both of us a favor. You'll recognize Christine from her hairstyle, which evidently has been preserved in amber since the 1980's.

The main attraction to this movie is the opportunity for A-lister Beyonce to kick B-lister Ali Larter's butt. Then again, if you've seen the trailer you already know that.

In fact, if you're seen the trailer you already know everything.

Even if you haven't seen the trailer, the trajectory of this movie is so obvious it might as well be plotted down to street level on Google Maps.

There's lots of foreboding music in minor keys, and if ever a key were named appropriately for this movie, minor would be it.

In case you're wondering, not one second of Obsessed feels real, but plenty of those seconds feel real bad.

There are worse things than watching Beyonce kick butt. Unfortunately those worse things populate the first 90 minutes of Obsessed.

Parental discretion is advised.

"Somebody, put a rock on my lap," asked Sara Paxton, the star of Last House on the Left. "Quick!"

"Just grab the boom if you start blowing away, Sara," advised director Dennis Iliadis, bracing for complaints from the crew that anchoring flying actors was a clear violation of union rules.

"It's called the Katie Holmes clause, read it!" said a disgruntled dolly grip with the kind of snarl that can only come by negotiating a clause named after Mrs. Tom Cruise and can only come from someone whose screen credit has the word "dolly" in it.

Sara's the girl who gets in too deep and may not emerge with her life. She's also the girl who never lets a fork get too deep into her mouth before spitting out whatever foul substance might be on it. No wonder her tshirt says "Mischa Barton is a fat pig" and her license plate frame reads "Food is a four-letter word."

Will she escape her good-looking scumbag captors and return to her diet of Jamba Juice and cud? Or will Maureen McCormick slide up alongside her, begging you to sponsor her for just 32 cents a day.

Yes, it's the last house on the left of eating disorder lane - coincidentally also the home of the last Botox on the left.

Here's where you can find the finest noses money can buy and kitchens modeled after places where anthropologists suggest people once consumed food.

Into this scene wafts trouble - and the stench of somebody's latest purge.

"Sara still wears a training bra," says director Iliadis, "although what's the point of training if you never have to compete?"

I had an interview with Sara all set to go, when a wind gust blew her out towards Catalina and the Coast Guard scrambled in hot pursuit.

Welcome to that alternative universe where cute and perky girls go to a weirdo's dumpy motel room because he says his drugs are just that good. Listen, when a motel's sign spells "HBO" phonetically, get your drugs somewhere else.

Yes, that alternate universe where creepy, dangerous strangers knock on your door in the middle of the night - and you put them up in your guesthouse!

Sara and her gal-pal are kidnapped by the bad guys, but not before she brands one with an auto cigarette lighter to the head.

"That will scar!" the victim shouts. "And it is also likely to spark some ideas!"

Last House on the Left is hardly for all tastes, although it pales in comparison to the sadistic indignities of the original. Still, it's uncomfortable to watch - and if I want to watch something uncomfortable I usually watch CNBC.

That said, if you want to see bad guys get their comeuppance (which only happens in the movies nowadays) then look no further than the Last House on the Left.

And direct donations of food to Sara Paxton's agent courtesy of Maureen McCormick.

Dr. Manhattan is referred to as a "walking nuclear deterrent."

"Yes, I carry a big stick," said Dr. Manhattan, so named because his schlong is the size of an island.

Big blue penis in the lab, big blue penis on Mars, big blue penis about town. If exhibitionism is a super power, then VH1's Rock of Love is the new Heroes.

This movie disappointed at the box office and I'll give you a big flaccid blue reason why.

It's all thanks to a horrible science accident which gave Dr. Manhattan the powers of a God. "And I used them primarily to build a gigantic moving sculpture on Mars," he says. "One day, Cher and I will call this our home."

Evidently, Dr. Manhattan was a tremendous asset to the U.S. in Vietnam where his blue schlong sprayed napalm at the hapless Viet Cong in some sort of Apocalypenis Now. "And," added Manhattan, "my penis harvested the rice paddies and carried baskets on its head."

Hey, big flaccid blue penis, what was it like to be in one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year?

"I loved posing for the cast photo. I'd swing my head to the right, I'd dangle my head to the left. I'd scoop up dust bunnies from the floor between photos. I'd stretch around corners to scare production assistants."

Where are the powers?! There's one hero whose primary power is the ability to hold a match in front of a spray can and shoot flame. Another has the super power to give crooks the finger. Most of these costumed heroes have the same kinds of super powers possessed by the costumed revelers on Halloween in the Castro.

"Here's a blue-headed salute to Halloween in the Castro!" said Dr. Manhattan as she decorated her lab with a fabulous show of colored light and mirror balls.

I must say my favorite Watchman was The Comedian, who evidently even lacked the super power of being funny. Listen, if it's a comedian you want, then put a dickie on Bruce Vilanch, who at least can punch lines like nobody's business. If I had a dime for every crack about The Comedian "getting the last laugh" i'd pocket the entire opening weekend gross.

Here we have heroes who have sex together, which is the kind of heroism I tried and failed to achieve for years. The girls always go for the guy in the bird outfit - this must be what I did wrong in high school.

"John, the TV said you were on Mars," said one hero to Naked Blue Man.

"I'm taking a break before Hugh Jackman and I headline a show in Vegas," said Dr. Manhattan. "It'll be called Jackman and Johnson, and there will actually be a negative number of straight guys in the audience."

So by the end of the movie you realize that Armageddon is a good thing, and life goes on quite nicely a few months later. That's almost as comforting as the feeling of wearing my blue penis to work.

"Nothing ends, nothing ever ends" go the final words of this movie. And after nearly four hours, I was fully prepared to agree.

The opening credit sequence alone is worth the price of admission - it's masterful. But then begins a three hour and forty-three minute hang to the left. The Watchmen starts erect and gets increasingly flaccid and blue.

And certainly not enough double-D's.

Maybe that was my problem with Jonas Brothers - the 3D Concert Experience. Then again, all the dimensions in this or any other universe may not be enough for me to channel my inner tweenage girl.

"This movie's not aimed at you," you might say, and you'd be right. Unless it's aiming to stop my heart mid-beat and siphon my life force into a puddle on the theater floor next to a sticky splotch of dried Coke, which, by the way, sounds like you're clapping along when you step on it to the off-beat.

Thanks to 3D, you feel like you can almost reach out and touch the Jonas Brothers, grab them by the neck, and strangle the everlasting life out of them.

The Jonas Brother, that's Kevin, Joe, and Nick. Unfortunately I was here for Indiana Jonas and he was nowhere to be found. But forget discovering the Ark of the Covenant - the only heroic and adventurous thing these boys did was spray their screaming and crying fans with water hoses during the climax to their new hit, "Girl, you've given me a Metaphorical Orgasm."

Ah, the joys of 3D! Does Nick's guitar pick fly off the screen? And can I climb aboard and ride it to a different theater?

It's a good thing I was wearing those 3D glasses because I'm that much less likely to be recognized. Too bad they couldn't whip up a 3D mustache and wig, too. Next time I'll just skip the glasses and go for the blindfold, since what I don't see can't hurt me, which is more than I can say for this movie.

This concert experience is brought to your good friends at Kraft. Online you can actually purchase Kraft Singles and get a free Jonas Brothers song, thus marking the first time you had to buy cheese before you could listen to it.

Now lest you think this movie is nothing more than a stage show, there's also "behind the scenes" footage, because the best way to escape the scenes is to go behind them. Ideally a few miles behind them, but no such luck here.

It turns out the brothers themselves are making "surprise theater invasions" across the US, but what's most surprising about this is that I thought these invasions were cut from the Defense Department budget.

So the tweenagers are screaming and yelling and crying and practicing signing their last names "Jonas." I was the only person in the audience who hasn't placed a tooth beneath their pillow in the previous six months, but I did place my 401k under my pillow and was thrilled to wake up and find a quarter.

The Jonas Brothers are a confection whipped up in the Disney lab between the Hannah Montana strawberry-flavored anthrax and the High School Musical laced with sugar-sweetened cyanide.

No wonder one of those D's will always be "disappointing."

MovieJuice's Mark Ramsey chats up Hollywood Publicist Richard Laermer with ridiculous observations about the 2009 Academy Awards.

Now we can put this show - and our top hat and tails - to bed for once and for all.


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On the bright side, this show was better written than in years past, and God knows that's not saying much. The story-driven nominations for the major awards were worth watching for.

But what about the lowlights? They were legion.

1. Was it just me or was the audio permanently out of sync with the video? On my HDTV I felt like I was watching a Quentin Tarantino-produced Martial Arts version of the Oscars. I know there's a seven second delay here but does it have to be between the talking and the hearing?

2. Anne Hathaway must be told by a handler or a trainer that nobody is falling for her "gosh, little old me?" act. Her life has yet to have a "real" moment so don't be surprised when the first one doesn't emerge in an interview with Barbara Walters.

3. Somebody should tell Sophia Loren that propping her arm on her side for the entirety of her nominating speech isn't sexy for a woman her age unless she's trying to hold her bits and pieces together lest they crumble onto the Kodak Theatre stage. And even then it's not sexy, just functional.

4. What compelled Oscar to decide that the route to relevance was in overstuffed production numbers? So now America knows heartthrob Hugh Jackman can sing and dance. Is that a good thing? How am I supposed to go see a Wolverine movie when I can't banish the image of its star in top hat and tails climbing a stairway to paradise? The only way this would have worked is if Simon, Randy, Kara, and Paula had been critiquing the numbers between segments. Then we'd ALL watch. If Hugh Jackman is going to sing and dance does that mean Olivia Newton-John can do comic book movies?

5. Note to the musical director: Mashing up the song from Slumdog with the tune from Wall-E is a train wreck. You might want to listen to both songs before you merge them. This isn't chocolate and peanut butter, it's oil and water.

6. Twilight star Robert Pattinson should be told that "glamouring" us with his patented downward sexy gaze at the camera while he's delivering nominations is not a turn-on. Are you trying to communicate with me or seduce me, fella?

In case you're in a bubble somewhere, here are the big winners:

BEST PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ACTOR
Sean Penn, Milk

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

And to the producers of the Oscars, here's to your inspiration!

The great thing about Valentine's movies is that they bring out stars who aim to prove that if they can they barely act on a big GREEN screen, they can also barely act on a 50 foot SILVER one.

Yes, it's the season for love - and movies that only materialize near February 14 and immediately dematerialize thereafter.

He's Just Not That Into You features not exactly an all-star cast, more like an all-stars-who-have-been-in-better-movies cast.

You know Jennifer Aniston has a movie coming out when she pops up naked on a magazine cover. I actually set my clock by it. Hey, Jennifer's booty says it's time to adjust to daylight savings! Why not just sell tickets to the naked magazine covers instead of the movies?

In He's Just Not That Into You, Jen's living with Ben Affleck. Now I don't mean "Leading Man Ben," I'm talking about the more recent vintage "Ensemble Player Ben." Because "Leading Man Ben" is now "Box-Office Poison Ben."

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first collaboration between Affleck and the Mac guy, and Affleck enjoyed every minute, except when the Mac guy addressed him as "hey, PC...."

When it comes to relationships, it's the Mac guy who - ironically - has the compatibility problems.

You have Scarlett Johansson in all her radiant Johanssonness. Watching Scarlett work is almost like being abducted by aliens. All the "missing time" but none of the inappropriate prodding.

Drew Barrymore is here, meaning America's sweetheart Drew and America's sweetheart Jen team with America's sweetheart Scarlett, magnifying the sweetness exponentially and placing the audience at serious risk of diabetes.

How did Reese Witherspoon miss this casting call?

Enter Luis Guzman - the only actor I can think of who was born to play an unlicensed contractor.

Throw in Jennifer Connelly and Kris Kristofferson and you have enough intertwined stories to braid hair. In other words, it's just like the movie Crash, but with fewer complicated ethical and moral dilemmas and more quizzes from Cosmo.

Kristofferson plays Jennifer Aniston's dad. "And a case of Corona plays her mom," Kris adds, reflecting wistfully on better days.

Personally I didn't see the family resemblance until Jen wedged a lime in her neck.

He's Just Not That Into You is better than a kick in the head, but not necessarily better than a lonely Saturday night and a pint of Haagen-Dazs.

It's like Friends - but without benefits.