I'm trying something new with my movie reviews. Sometimes I'll read through an extra long post at my favorite movie review website, "Pajiba", and half way through I'll realize that all I really wanted was a brief synopsis of some of the better and worse happenings in the movie, how the plot and pacing came out, and whether or not I should go see it. So I came up with the "Dude Review"; in a nutshell, it's the kind of review you would get if you ran into someone you knew coming out of the movie you were going to see. It's highly opinionated, sprinkled with spoilers, but most importantly, it's concise, to the point, and not too flowery. It may seem a little too "live-blog" or "new games journalism", but it's not half as lame as either. So dude...

...you should totally go see Monster House. The first time I saw the trailer I thought the characters were a little creepy, but I have to admit they grew on me. They have this Norman Rockwell-meets-Stand by Me-meets-the Goonies thing going on. Even though they used motion capture for just about every part of the movie, it helps with subtle facial expressions and body language to the point you sometimes forget it's CGI. Monster House definitely has the best CGI rendering of human beings since the Incredibles. The story is kind of shallow, but it's certainly more entertaining than Over the Hedge or Cars. Seriously, I couldn't stay awake through either. The characters have fitting voices to go with them. Steve "woodchipper" Buscemi plays the old man who takes every ball that falls into his yard, Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the babysitter, Jason Lee plays her boyfriend, Kevin James plays the bumbling oaf Sheriff, and Nick Cannon somehow does a decent job as his rookie moron partner. In the words of Dave Chappelle, "Fuck Nick Cannon." If this movie doesn't remind you of your childhood, you probably wouldn't want to remember it anyway.

What? You and your buds are thinking of heading into "Lady in the Water"? Sure, there's a cute half naked redhead in it, but I'll save you the trouble of waiting for the crappy twist: M Night Shymalamander's character is the savior of the little water people. Now you don't have to ask yourself why you just saw another one of his overhyped steaming piles of twistership. Clerks 2 is a whole lot more interesting, and even though it features a homosexual donkey show, ass to mouth references, hobbit blow jobs, and Jay tucking it back and doing the Buffalo Bill dance from 'Lambs, it's nowhere near as gay as Joel Siegel's mustache. I didn't think Clerks needed a sequel, but I enjoy Kevin Smith's work and the Animated series was one of the funniest things on ABC ever, so I gave it a shot. It's funny as shit, at times is kind of sweet and touching, and Randall gets to rip into Lord of the Rings and Transformers. For the perverts and sexual deviants there's a see through bra on Kevin Smith's wife and a very jiggly rooftop dance scene with Rosario Dawson that is both arousing and hilarious.