The Americans have announced plans to build a base on the moon, which they will then use to prepare for a trip to Mars.

Haven't they learned their lesson yet? They're already stuck here in Iraq with absolutely no prospect of getting out, and yet they're still thinking about going to other planets?!?! I mean, Iraqi insurgents are bad enough, but at least ours don't go around laying eggs in your chest cavities the way those Martian insurgents do.

The Americans have announced plans to build a base on the moon, which they will then use to prepare for a trip to Mars.

Haven't they learned their lesson yet? They're already stuck here in Iraq with absolutely no prospect of getting out, and yet they're still thinking about going to other planets?!?! I mean, Iraqi insurgents are bad enough, but at least ours don't go around laying eggs in your chest cavities the way those Martian insurgents do.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm really looking forward to that new movie about the Bush administration.

I saw King Kong today, and I have to highly recommend it to all of my stinkin' infidel readers.

Uh, Saddam? How is that possible? Aren't you in prison? Besides, the movie only opened today in the U.S. and New Zealand. How could you have seen it already?

Hey, I have friends in Hollywood. Remember Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, and that whole bunch? Remember how opposed they were to the war? Well, let's just say I called in a few favors, and thanks to some fortunate timing, I was able to sneak into the wheel well of a C117 transport plane. That's all you need to know. Now shut up and keep reading.

I saw the 1976 version with Jessica Lang shortly after it came out and thought it sucked big time. And as for the original 1933 version, well, I only vaguely remember watching it as a kid on Saturday afternoons in Tikrit on my family's black & white TV. I do recall feeling quite unimpressed by it.

This new version, however, is breathtaking on a number of levels. First of all, the photography is wonderful. I had to close my eyes several times near the end when Kong was at the top of the Empire State Building. Then there's the action, at least once things get rolling. While the first hour or so is a bit on the slow side, the movie REALLY grabs you when they get to Skull Island. And since it's a three hour movie, that will be your last chance to hit the head. After that, you're not going to want to take your eyes off the screen. Finally, the characters are great. You really end up caring about what happens to them.

Kong himself is the product of computer-generated imagery (CGI), yet he is incredibly lifelike. Remember Jar-Jar Binks from Phantom Menace, who was also computer generated? Well, forget him. Kong puts him to shame. The technology of CGI has obviously come a long way in just the last few years.

In fact, that brings up another important difference between (Kong director) Peter Jackson and George Lucas. In the recent Star Wars movies, Lucas used his CGI characters to show off his special effects. But in the end, that's all you really ended up with: A series of pretty pictures. Beyond the wow factor, you really don't give a crap about the people on the screen.

Jackson, on the other hand, is able to use Kong to connect with his audience. You're not just looking at a big ape on that screen, but a creature with real feelings. As a result you identify with him an emotional level. Add to that a terrific performance by Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow, and you're left with one of the most memorable on-screen romances in years. And most importantly, you end up with a real story with real heart. The end result of all this is that by the end of the movie, as Kong makes his last stand on top of the Empire State Building, you find yourself being reduced to tears.

Er, I mean most people would be reduced to tears. Not me, though. I'm too much of a manly man to cry.... Or at least admit to it.

But even before returning to New York--which only constitutes maybe 30 minutes at the end--there are a number of memorable scenes. One in particular was the fight between Kong and a trio of T-Rexes. It puts to shame anything the World Wrestling Federation has ever come up with. Another wonderful scene is after the fight when Kong takes Darrow back to his lair and they watch the sunrise.

Then there's the ice skating scene. Yes, Kong goes ice skating in Central Park after he makes his big escape and is reunited with Darrow. Not only is the sequence amusing, it's genuinely touching.

Of course, it's also too good to last. The American military soon shows up and everything quickly goes to hell. How typical is that? I guess some things never change, eh?

Of course, we all know how it will end. And as Kong slowly slips off the top of the Empire State Building while Darrow caresses his paw, I was reminded of the final goodbye between Jack and Rose in Titanic.... Especially when Kong says "Grow old, Ann, and make lots of babies."

Needless to say, that was somewhat unexpected.

---------------Dana Summers, Orlando Sentinel

Rumsfeld paid a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday, supposedly to discuss the status of the country's security forces with that so-called prime minister guy. The real reason for his trip, however, was to attempt to personally deliver a new TiVo unit for my cell.

Yes, I know it sounds like a surprisingly sweet gesture on his part, but I'm not fooled. He's trying to soften me up before trying to negotiate the United States' surrender.

Anyway, the first thing I plan to record is that new show on FX called Over There.It's about a group of infidel soldiers serving here in Iraq. So far they haven't asked me to appear in it, but when they do, I'll be sure to wink at all of you.

Just don't expect me to stand around signing stinkin' autographs.

The show has been getting pretty good advance reviews. It's from Steven Bochco, who has in the past produced shows such as Hill Street Blues, LA Law, NYPD Blue, and my personal favorite, the immortal Cop Rock.

Hmmmm.... Actually, I just had a brainstorm: A gritty military action/drama/musical series in which soldiers from both sides suddenly burst into song in the middle of firefights.

Just remember you heard it here first.

I wanted to take a few minutes out of my busy schedule of sitting around in my underwear to tell you about a new DVD that came out a few days ago. It's called Gunner Palace and tells the story of an American brigade stationed in Iraq (Read the review here or click the image to order).

The director of the film, an infidel named Michael Tucker, spent two months with the unit, relaxing with the soldiers and going on patrol with them. The movie seeks to capture their thoughts, emotions, and frustrations during their unit's deployments to Baghdad and Najaf. A portion of each sale goes to help the families of wounded soldiers.

Now some of you may wonder why I'm plugging this film. Well, first off, it's for a good cause. And I certainly wouldn't want any Americans to get stuck here because they don't have enough money for airfare. Secondly, their website linked to me almost a year ago and has since generated a fair amount of traffic in my direction.

Selfish on my part? Well, of course, you ninny! You didn't actually think I'd do anything out of the goodness of my heart, did you?.

Well, it wasn't easy, but I was finally able to sneak out of here and catch a matinee of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: A Preponderance of Colons. And it had to be a matinee, of course. Since the Americans have taken most of my looted money--er, I mean my, um, "privatized retirement funds"--I can't afford to be shelling out extra dough for an evening showing.

My little outing almost met with disaster, however. While I was standing in line to buy my bucket of outrageously overpriced popcorn with extra butter, and a small diet coke, a suicide bomber walked into the lobby!! Blew up the guy who tears the tickets in two. But I think he was a Kurd, so who cares.

Then there was a brief disruption just as the goody-goody Jedi Knights start getting bumped off. Someone's cellphone rang! Can you believe that crap? In a movie theater, in the middle of one of the most important scenes of one of the most heavily anticipated movies in 25 years, some idiot decides to start yakking about goat futures or something. Needless to say, I had to go strangle the moron with my bare hands. He turned out to be a Shiite, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Then the predominantly Sunni audience broke into applause.

Anakin (Hayden Christensen, who can't act worth crap) battles the sissy Obi-Wan (Ewan
McGregor)in a noble attempt to make the galaxy safe for tyranny and despotism

Let me start off my review by saying that Lucas has redeemed himself.... Mostly. But more on my sole complaint later.

Sith starts off gangbusters from the very beginning with a wild chase scene as Anakin and Obi-Wan race to save Senator Palpatine. At his point I'm thinking, what's the point? He's a senator! That's one of them democracy things! But Palpatine soon shows his true colors as he begins to lure the young Skywalker over to the dark side. And as the movie progresses further, you begin to see how horribly evil that man is. Needless to say, he's my favorite character!

Things do slow down briefly while Luke and his true love, Padme, have a couple of gooey kissy-face scenes. But things quickly pick up again when Skywalker slaughters a roomful of children and completes his seduction by the dark side. And in the end, evil triumphs over good, so it has a happy ending. It was all very moving.

The film naturally has a lot of special effects, and is still much more dependent on computer generated characters than the original trilogy. On the other hand, the balance between live actors and the CGI ones is much better than in Episodes I & II.

There was a final confrontation between Anakin and Padme, but I'm not sure exactly what was said. There was a brief commotion in the back of the theater with some yelling and a couple of volleys of gunshots. Turned out it was a group of insurgents kidnapping a government minister who was in the audience. But since the distraction was for a good cause, I decided not to get involved.

The movie's most powerful scene actually occurs at the very end as Obi-Wan hands the infant Luke to the child's Aunt Baru and Uncle Owen. Between the music and the setting, it suddenly hits you that the entire Star Wars saga has come full circle. I don't mind saying that I began bawling at that point. I even turned to the American soldier sitting next to me and blew my nose on his kevlar flack jacket. Fortunately he didn't recognize me since his own eyes were welling up with tears.

And to think that a few days ago I mocked Steve Spielberg for crying when he saw the movie.... I probably should apologize to him for that, but he's a Jew, so forget it.

There has also been some talk about whether Lucas was trying to make some sort of political statement about Bush and the Iraq war. Specifically, Anakin says to Obi-Wan, "If you're not with me, you're my enemy." Some conservative nutcases view that as a snide reference to Bush's own "If you're not with us, you're against us" remark. Lucas insists, however, that the movie was written will before the invasion of my peace loving nation.

Besides, much of what happens in this movie has been preordained for the last 28 years, ever since the orginal came out

At the beginning I mentioned that I had only one complaint about Sith. It actually came to me as Obi-Wan was cradling the newly born Luke Skywalker in his arms. I realized at that very moment that this expressionless baby, who was just lying there, helplessly flailing his arms, totally without emotion, and unable to show even the most rudimentary communication skills, was a far better actor than Hayden Christensen.

You'd think that with all those fancy computer generated special effects, Lucas could have given Anaken an occasional facial expression or two.

The moment of truth arrives next Thursday: Has Lucas screwed up yet another Star Wars movie, or will this one live up to the glory of the first three? Advance word on the film has certainly been promising. In fact, I have heard that Steve Spielberg actually wept like a baby when he saw a screening of the film.

Personally, I have no plans to behave like a damn sissy. I am too much of a man to cry at movies.... Unless I'm on a date, of course, and think it might impress the chick enough to get me laid.

Well, okay, there have been a couple of exceptions. I did weep like a baby at Terms of Endearment, but give me a break on that one. Debra Winger ends up with cancer, for crying out loud!! I had to go out and gas some Kurds to regain my composure afterwards.

The other film that moved me was the third installment of Matrix. It's not that I found the plot all that moving or anything; it's just that I couldn't believe I wasted my money on that piece of crap.

But I digress....

I am still trying to devise a way to sneak out of here for a few hours and get to a theater to see Revenge of the Sith. Of course, I'll have to be careful on several levels: First, obviously I don't want to get caught. If that happens, the guards may cut off my conjugal visits from the Dixie Chicks. Second and most importantly, I certainly don't want to end up in a theater targeted for wholesale destruction by the insurgents. That would be REALLY embarrassing!

However, I suppose getting blown up wouldn't be quite as bad as, say, waiting in line at the wrong theater!! Did you hear about these guys in Los Angeles? They began lining up a month ago to see the new Star Wars, and turns out they were at the wrong theater!!

You gotta be careful. Bad intelligence will get you in trouble every time!

For the last two years now I have been warning the world about what I would do if Lucas screws up the last Star Wars movie. I don't want to get into specifics, but let's just say it involved the removal of toenails and testicles.

Well, it would appear that word of my threats has gotten back to Lucas and he has taken my words to heart.

The stinkin' infidel movie director Kevin "Silent Bob" Smith has seen an advance screening of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and has proclaimed it to be "f*cking awesome." I should warn you, however, that if you read his review, Smith gives away quite a few spoilers about the movie.

Unfortunately he failed to begin his post with a disclaimer about the spoilers, and for his insolence I shall be forced to remove his toenails and testicles.

The infidel Steve H. at Hog on Ice has weighed in the movie as well. However, he is basing his opinions on a series of clips without having seen the entire film. This is not surprising, since Steve H. is a rabid Republican. Everyone knows Republicans are famous for jumping to conclusions without having all the facts in.

Previous Lucas/Star Wars related posts:

August 21, 2003----July 26, 2004----August 12, 2004

For several weeks now supporters of Bush's rude, crude, and socially unacceptable invasion of my peace loving country (the occasional unprovoked attack on our neighbors notwithstanding) had been pointing to the falling number of insurgent attacks as proof that they were winning.

Nonsense.

What happened is that the second anniversary of the (alleged) Fall of Baghdad was approaching, along with the second anniversary of the official beginning of the insurgency. For purposes of record keeping, our personnel department had been treating that as the official date of hire for the fighters. Since they had been working so hard, most had not yet had a chance to take time off, except for the occasional funeral of coworkers.

But as their anniversary dates neared, they were faced with a dilemma: Use up their accumulated vacation time or lose it. Many of them opted to take a break from the fighting, so naturally the overall level of productivity of the insurgency suffered.

But now that April 19th has come and gone, the insurgents are back on the job and stepping up their attacks.

More importantly, the level of sophistication of the attacks has gone up as well. For example, the infidels were quite impressed by the insurgents' assault on the Abu Ghraib prison earlier this month. It would have been big news back when it happened, except that the world was mesmerized at the time by the Pope's impending death.

More recently, insurgents launched a well orchestrated attack on a Marine base near the Syrian border, nearly overrunning it.

I'd love to go on, but I have to run. My favorite all-time movie is on TV in a few minutes: Guerrillas in the Mist.

Remember when I was complaining about all the different editions of Star Wars that have come out over the years? Well, George Lucas isn't the only one who is after the contents of my genuine camel hide wallet. Now comes word that there is a new, "double-secret probation" edition of Animal House coming out! Of course, like all special editions, it has never before seen footage and remastered 5.1 digital dolby THX stereo crap.

Digital dolby, my ass. If you want realistic sound effects, try having a 1,000 pound JDAM bomb go off in the next room. Now THAT'S some kick-ass digital 5.1 whatever the hell.

And of course I'll have to buy it, because my existing copy will now be obsolete. Plus, Animal House IS one of my favorite movies. Reminds me of my wild college days at UIM (University of Iraq at Mosul).

I remember this wild toga party we had one night.... We got so totally wasted, we started firing rocket propelled grenades at the other frat houses. Then campus police showed up and told us to keep it down, and we ended up taking them hostage!

So the next day, the Dean finds out about all the shenanigans, and tries to suspend us. So what do we do? We blow up his office!!!

Ah, to be young again.....

Fervent loyalist and faithfull follower Tung Yin writes: Hey Saddamaster, not that you need my approval, but I totally approve of your figuring out how the monstrosity that is Episodes 1 and 2 came about. However, have you given thought also to the bastardized "Special Edition" movies? I mean, if that's legit, why can't you go back and put out a "Special Edition" of Gulf War 2 that "fixes" the . . . uh . . . mistakes(?) that were made?

Don't EVEN get me started on that special edition crap!!! Uh-oh, too late.....

Do you have any idea How many different versions of the three original Star Wars movies I have? Four!!! Like I don't have enough stuff to haul around in my non-descript 1973 Chevy Vega, I gotta drag twelve different slightly different versions of the same damn movies around with me! And the whole thing is just a scam perpetrated by Hollywood to get more money out of the poor saps that keep buying the stupid things. Hell, they may as well just stick a vacuum cleaner into my back pocket and suck the cash directly out of my wallet!! Actually, that might not be too bad if they would occasionally move the hose around to the front of my pants....

I'm not even sure what different ones I have. I know I have the original trilogy individually. Then I bought them as "deluxe" boxed sets (one pan & scan, the other wide-screen). THEN they came out with the Special Editions, which were digitally remastered AND had "never before seen" additional footage.

It's no wonder George Lucas can afford the taxes on that Skywalker Ranch of his.

And while we're on the subject, what is the deal with that Jar-Jar Binks? How did George Lucas go from creating the very macho Han Solo, to coming up with the inane Jar-Jar!?!?! He reminds me of some Episcopalian bishops I know.

As far as rewriting history, who do you think I am? Arnold Schwarzenegger? I can't just hop into a time machine and transport myself back naked into the middle of a desert. And then what would I do? Warn my younger self not to f*ck with anyone named President Bush?

Besides, standing around naked in the middle of a desert can get you sunburned on some VERY important parts!