Another Monday, and another week of reviews for CouchMunky! Before we start, I’ll remind you of a few rules here... I don’t usually review CD’s, concerts, anything on the Speed channel or off the dollar menu at McDonalds. What I will review is anything that catches my interest, sticking to mainly these four topics:

We’ll start with Movies. For you Munkys who don’t get out much, here are the top ten movies for the July 20th weekend. As usual, I’m not giving any detailed plot synopsis, you can get that out of your local newspaper, through Entertainment Weekly, or Wikipedia, ok? If you lazy Munkys haven’t yet seen the movies, I don’t want you flinging your poo at my direction because I ruined the movie for you. You want plot details, you can look elsewhere, then come back here. Really, I’ll wait. I don’t have anything scheduled until 11:15 anyway.

Ready? Let’s go:

1. The Dark Knight – the movie made close to $156M last weekend, so you’ve already seen it. But for the three or four of you who spent the weekend doing yard work instead, you really missed something. The movie is heavy on plot, has a two and a half hour running time, and will get Heath Ledger nominated for best actor for his role as the Joker at Oscar time.

A couple of small things nagged me about the movie… what happened to the Scarecrow? And why does Batman need to cover for Two-Face for the people he killed? I wasn’t aware that anyone knew that Two-Face killed anyone. (Quit yer cryin’, I didn’t ruin anything for you… yet!)

This movie is an event, and lives up to every bit of expectations held up to it. If you haven’t seen it, how dare you call yourself a Munky!!!

2. Momma Mia - sorry, can’t see any movie that features Pierce Brosnan singing the song “S.O.S.” from Abba. Won’t be seeing this anytime soon, unless someone slips me an illegal download and a six pack of Old Style.

Not reviewed

And coming up this weekend:

X-Files: I Want to Believe – I really want to believe that this will be good enough to take second place. I liked the series and the first movie, but I think the audiences have forgotten who Scully and Mulder are. Didn’t the series have an ending already?

Step Brothers – Will Farrell and John C. Reilly, the boys who brought you “Talladega Nights: The Ricky Bobby Story”. Aren’t these guys a little old to be playing siblings who still live with their parents? Think I’ll pass, so don’t get your hopes up for any kind of a review.

Skipping to books:

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu – There is a reason most of your comic books used to have a little seal on the upper right hand corner that said “Approved by the Comics Code Authority”, and now, for the first time, you’ll know why. You see, a long time ago, in the 1940’s and early 1950’s, lived a psychiatrist who happened to think that Batman was gay and a pedophile, and well… one thing led to another, and when the whole controversy was made a political platform for Joseph McCarthy in the mid 50’s (when he wasn’t hunting communists), parents determined that comics were bad for you, and most comic publishers went out of business.

I liked this book. It’s very informative, and doesn’t read like a textbook. And this book even has pictures, like a real comic book!

Munky Si!

Let’s try some current DVD releases:

Beowulf – from the same people who brought you the animated “The Polar Express” a few years ago, now comes an animated feature for grown ups, features a naked Angelina Jolie! Beowulf is a monster killer, who may have met his match in Angelina. Lots of gore and action in this one, but the DVD extras aren’t much to look at.

Munky Si!

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters – the true story of the high score record holder of Donkey Kong, and the man who tried to beat that score, and how it changed their lives forever. An entertaining documentary and well worth a look at its 85 minute running time.

Munky Si!

Wasn’t able to see any television this week. Sorry, nothing looked interesting. Instead, how about:

Website of the week – I like keeping up on newest electronic stuff, but I can’t always afford it, especially on what these Munky’s are paying me. But here’s something I can usually afford, and it’s here at www.woot.com. Every day, a new item is posted, from flashlights to big screen television sets, all at bargain prices with only $5 shipping. I recently bought a portable Delphi satellite radio system, complete with satellite receiver, AM/FM radio and a CD player, for $40! And it also came with a free Roady satellite system for my car!

Movie trailers – Sometimes, the best part about going to the movie is watching the trailers for upcoming movies. And some of the best, which you may not even know about are here:

Warner Brother’s next big superhero movie, “The Watchmen”. Who watches the Watchmen?

Max Payne was one of the first Xbox games I’ve every played. And now it’s a new movie starring Mark Wahlberg!

And that ends another week of Munky Si, Monkey Doo. Don’t forget, we need your help! There are way too many movies out there, way too many books to read, too many television shows and too many DVDs (and now… websites and movie trailers!) for one Munky to review. I won’t always be able to review this much in one week, so that where you come in, to pick up some slack. Reviews aren’t limited to just these topics. If you have something interesting which you would like to review, put it in writing and submit it, including the items on the dollar menu at McDonalds.

Again, let me know if you agree or disagree with my reviews. Comments are especially welcome, and I’ll try to get you a response to every comment/submission. You can contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Thanks for your time this week! Now you gotta get out of here, I have some real work to do!