Word on the street is gamers were crashing their cars through the doors of Best Buys, etc. last night to nab a copy of the video game of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV. (Note to all bosses: Your employee is not really sick today.)

The last time a game this big came out was when Halo 3 hit stores last September. The media types said that the box office suffered, down big time from the previous year and killing any chance the Farley Brothers’ The Heartbreak Kid (released a weekend later) had of making any money.

Now, I know this weekend is different. First, it’s the official opening of the summer movie season with Iron Man hitting theaters. Second, The Heartbreak Kid sucked. Still, with Grand Theft Auto IV ready to crush sales records, many (Nikki Finke) think Iron Man should be shaking like the Tin Man in the haunted forest.

I’d like to make a plea to all the gamers out there to take two hours out of your weekend to see Iron Man. Early reaction is very positive, and if there’s any chance of quality pictures being made, you have to see the good ones. Sure, Grand Theft Auto has drug-dealing, organized crime, ultra-violence, strippers, prostitutes…wait. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Big guy in a tin can. But he fights Afghan insurgents! If you don’t see Iron Man, then you are with the terrorists. Now, think about that.

After totally destroying (in a bad way) The Beatles and Elton John by way of Moulin Rouge at funky Chinese karaoke Saturday night, I thought I would look back on my biggest accomplishment of last week: day job bowling champion.

That’s right. All those years in youth bowling leagues finally paid off. I have not one, but two trophies adorning my cubicle. One is for highest individual score (215) and the other, for first place team. (Great work Ryan, Dan, and Jessy.)

I couldn’t have done it without my mom, who introduced me to the blue collar battle royale that is 10 pin bowling and paid for that new ball return after “the incident.” (Thank God juvi records are sealed when you turn 18.) I’d also like to thank Walter Sobchak for the enduring wisdom that guides me every time I lace up my fragrant, tri-colored alley shoes.

These trophies are for you, Mom and Walter

Baby Mama (2008)–*1/2

Let’s take a cue from Amy Poehler’s SNL Weekend Update bit titled Really?

Really, Amy? Really? You thought this gig in a tepid, tedious comedy was right for your first starring role? Really? That’s like saying heroin is the choice painkiller for you first experience with child birth. And really, Tina Fey? Really? Baby Mama, a second-rate little comedy about a 37-year-old business woman looking to be a mom, is really the film you want to make after lampooning the same character on 30 Rock for two years? Really?

From Fey, a Saturday Night Live alumna, and Poehler, the sketch comedy show’s current leading lady, comes a comedy that is unacceptably unfunny. Oh, true, like any mainstream comedy, Baby Mama has its moments of unsatisfying laughter, but there’s this suspicion that we’ve been hoodwinked. How can two comediennes the caliber of Fey and Poehler end up in a film that’s as edgy and smart as a JC Penny clothing model?

Fey plays Kate Holbrook, a business woman in her late-30s who has spent her life climbing the corporate ladder and not having babies. Her legacy is in the mega health food stores she helped develop in trendy neighborhoods across the country. One day she wakes up and decides to have a baby. Adoption isn’t an option. Her fertility doctor says he doesn’t like her uterus. Kate’s only real option is surrogacy.

The best jokes in Baby Mama come when Kate meets with Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), the head of the surrogacy planning agency. “Chaffee Bicknell? I thought that was two people,” says Kate upon entering Chaffee’s office. It’s worth a solid chuckle. When Kate asks Chaffee if she’s going to outsource her pregnancy to a poor woman in the third world, and Chaffee writes down a note, we get a laugh line worthy of both Fey and Weaver.

Then Poehler enters the picture. Poehler plays Angie, the lower-class white woman from…ahem…a less affluent part of town. She’ll carry Kate’s baby. Poehler never really settles on making Angie a 100 percent comedic role or even a wholly sympathetic character, resulting in some terribly uneven comedic moments.

Fey, too, has trouble fitting into her role as Kate. She strains to be restrained and misses out on comedic gold. Moments where the class conflict could result in insightful belly laughs are turned into lines that are just, well, mean. Kate and Angie aren’t simply another odd couple, but the film settles on letting them be a mediocre Felix and Oscar.

By the end of the film, you kind of feel bad for Poehler and Fey. Instead of being in a film that was made for comedy fans, they’re stuck in a film made for the folks who watch Oprah. Sure, it may get the pair a wider audience then either one has ever seen, but the cost, losing comedic clout, may end up outweighing the benefit.

Baby Mama, starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear, Steve Martin, Romany Malco and Dax Shepard, directed by Michael McCullers, is in theaters now.  

Are you excited for John C. Lyons’ schism? nextel ringtones software download free ringtones cell phone download free ringtones sprint free cellular phone ringtones caller ringtones cell cricket free phone ringtones free samsung ringtones sitemap polyphonic ringtones cricket download free ringtones cricket ringtones cell cingular free phone ringtones cricket free ringtones cingular ringtones download new ringtones free free composer ringtones 3 free ringtones sidekick totally free ringtones free real music ringtones for nextel free yahoo ringtones I know I am. Okay, I already saw it, but I’m still pumped to see this Erie, Pa.-produced independent feature film with an audience. I want to see the reactions. I want to see it affect people.

If you’re looking for info on schism, you can check out my series In the Lyons Den. If you want to watch it, the film is screening at Edinboro University in Edinboro, Pa. tonight at 8 p.m. I’ll be the co-emcee for the post-screening Q&A, along with Eerie Horror Film Festival President Greg Ropp.

I was at the first day of casting, which was so long ago I can’t even remember when it happened. It’s a different feeling watching a movie that you know somewhat intimately. Part of me eagerly awaited some of the scenes I watched being filmed. Yet, schism still made me forget that I was watching a movie that was filmed so close to home. And those last 10 minutes. Freakin’ intense. Lyons has a little Aronofsky in him. Congrats to John, and a special congrats to Michael Best and Dorota Swies for the look of the film. And to Andy Flatley for his score. Well done.

Chris Carter, apparently taking a page out of George Lucas’ handbook “How to Piss Off You Fan Base: Episode I - The Revenge of the Phantom Subtitle,” revealed that “The X Files” sequel is going to be titled “The X Files: I Want to Believe.” You know that feeling you get when you’re about to make out with someone really hot only to find out they’re your second cousin. That’s what this feels like. Thanks Chris.

I was really looking forward to seeing something like “The X Files: Mulder and Scully Vs. The Werewolf.” Apparently the camp factor that helped the show in the early seasons, and disappeared with the conspiracy plot in the later seasons, is totally gone.  So much for high hopes.

I posted an entry on a little site formerly known as TheFilmChair.com saying that blog entries would cease. And they did. And it was good.

What can I say, though? I gots to write. I just threw on this little Wordpress theme and decided to come out once again. Note to readers: I know that most of you are my friends and family. (And friends and family LOVE to click on the Google ads above to fund this little venture.) I’m over droning on about movies and how wonderful they are and how they change your life and how Norbit should have won an Oscar. This will now be a normal everyday journal of my thoughts and reactions to the world around me.

Of course, my media intoxicated mind will most likely force me to ramble about movies and TV and, possibly, books on tape (because reading is hard). Yet, I feel compelled to not want to hate movies as much as this site started to make me hate them. Introducing TFC Journal. Yes, that’s TFC, which most of you assume stands for TheFilmChair because I’m too lazy and/or cheap to buy a new domain name and move to a new hosting company.  TFC goes back to a childhood playground of mine known as The Fun Closet. (Thanks, Father Pete.)

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