First of all, welcome to everyone who is new to my realm. Subscriptions have been up, up, up lately, and I am touched, yes touched, by so many people joining my cult. In fact, it makes me feel like a giveaway.

My mailing list is currently very, very close to hitting 1,000 members. True, about 50 or so are dead email addresses and another 25 or 30 are personal aliases, but the fact is, numbers don't lie, and I am close to a very important threshold. But why should I be the only one to benefit from my fourth digit? Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I will get my 1,000th subscriber. That person will win a free Brunching Shuttlecocks T-shirt. I will also award a free Brunching Shuttlecocks T-shirt to whoever referred the 1,000th subscriber to my list.

So there ya go, get your friends and relatives to join up, and you could soon be sporting a groovy new B.S. T-shirt! Game On!!!

OK. Now to the review.

In order to give all the new folks a good idea of what we do here, I'm gonna review two movies together. Both of these movies opened over Thanksgiving, both of them are about ordinary characters with hearts of gold who go that extra mile in order to preserve something pure, both use computer-enhanced effects to bring us something we don't see everyday.

Yes, I'm gonna to review A Bug's Life and Very Bad Things.

Story:

Bug's Life -- A forward-thinking ant decides that the only way to save his colony from some mean grasshoppers is to hire a bunch of warrior bugs to help defend the colony. When he accidentally hires circus bugs instead, hilarity ensues.

Very Bad Things -- Five friends go to Vegas for a drug-filled Bachelor party. When one of them accidentally impales a hooker's head on a towel hook, hilarity ensues.

Hero With the Heart of Gold:

Bug -- Flik the ant, voiced admirably by NewsRadio's Dave Foley, is a wacky, yet wholesome hero who falls in love with the princess and overcomes his own feelings of inadequacy to come up with a brilliant plan to save the colony.

VBT - Kyle Fisher the groom, played admirably by Swinger's Jon Favreau, is a hero who helps whack some people while overcoming his fear of disappointing his obsessed fiancée and coming up with a rather sick plan to save his wedding.

Supporting Characters:

Bug -- Phyllis Diller as The Queen Ant, Denis Leary as a Ladybug, David Hyde Pierce as a Stick Bug.

VBT -- Christian Slater as the power-thinking psychopath who knows how to use a corkscrew, Cameron Diaz as the wedding-crazed bride-to-be, Daniel Stern as the paranoid husband with the gimp son.

Computer Effects:

Bug -- The entire movie is computer generated, and it looks great. The magicians at Disney and Pixar have created a fascinating world for their various bugs to inhabit. As amazing as Toy Story looked, A Bug's Life blows it away.

VBT -- Some people lose some body parts. It's pretty funny.

Prospects for a Sequel:

Bug -- Hello? This is Disney! They make sequels to everything! OF COURSE THERE'LL BE A SEQUEL!!!

VBT -- God Help Us if they make another one.

Movie This Most Reminded Me Of:

Bug -- Antz. Not to knock either Bug's Life or Antz, both are good movies, and both are very different in many ways. But the stories of each can boiled down to "Ant who no-one likes journeys into the unknown to find some way to save the colony."

VBT -- I don't know. Maybe one of those documentaries about the Manson murders.

Overall Rating:

A Bug's Life -- I liked it. It's really good. I'm giving it 4 Babylons. You should take your kids to it. You'll have a great time.

Very Bad Things -- I Loved it. It's really sick. I'm giving it 4 1/3 Babylons. You should under no circumstances take your kids to it. Don't give the little terrors any ideas.

Editors Note:

Here's still more evidence that the SMC is a complete social retard - he took his girlfriend to see Very Bad Things, and his DAD to see A Bug's Life.

Talk about skewed logic. I happen to know that the SMC's girlfriend was completely horrified at the heinous displays of immorality in Very Bad Things, once again proving that the SMC's girlfriend needs a new boyfriend.

A Bug's Life
Rated: G
Directed By: John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton
Starring: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Hyde Pierce, Denis Leary, and anyone else in Hollywood who didn't get cast in Antz.

Very Bad Things
Rated: R
Directed By: Peter Berg
Starring: Jon Favreau, Christian Slater, Cameron Diaz, Daneil Stern and some severed body parts.