• THE THING: This movie: X2, which was subtitled as "X-Men United" when they were promoting, I seem to remember...
  
• THE HAIKU REVIEW:
        Some new characters,
            and more about the old ones.
                Action, surprises.
  
• THE FULL REVIEW:
  X2 was a pretty fun movie. It started out with a pretty good 'grabber' sequence. Then it let the characters flow a little more than in the first. You didn't need to see the first X-Men movie, but I'm guessing it made the characters easier to relate to... it's hard to tell with the tragic knowledge I have of movie #1.
  
  I must admit that I am relatively unfamiliar with the comic book series. I have seen the cartoon on TV once or twice, but I am not a wild X-Men fan. Still, I enjoyed it immensely. I just can't speak to how well it adhered to X-Men proper. I can say: It wasn't childish; they didn't hold back on the violence or language, and there is just some angry butt-kicking all around. A bunch of things blow up, which is always nifty to see. There are some pretty tight scenes with unexpected endings, at least for me. So, if the comics had some nifty stories, and tense moments, it probably did just fine.
  
  I do have a few problems with it, but I am afraid they might be spoilers. [Ignore the rest of this paragraph if you are worried about knowing a thing or two that I, at least, didn't know going into it.] They might have killed off a major character! But I'm not sure. I didn't really quite get the ambiguity at the end. Also, for those fo you who have seen both, is it just me, or is Professor X just the biggest liability there is? He got all brain-poisoned in the first one, and was really the main problem, causing some serious bad news for the whole stinking planet, in this one.
  
  I did enjoy it, and will llikely pick it up as one to own when it comes out on DVD. I'm quite certain I'll check out the third one...
  

Final Score on the Chris Worth Scale: $8.25. That's not an amazing score, since I did pay nine bucks to see it. I'm still having trouble with that -- although if you sit through the credits, there is a LOT of people who need to get paid. There was about 2 full screens just of stunt people.

• THE THING: This show: Hey Monie
  
• THE HAIKU REVIEW:
        Terrific writing,
            Great timing, delivery
                in squigglevision!
  
• THE FULL REVIEW:
  "Dr. Katz" was a show that changed my life. Poor quality cartoons, and the writing and timing and humor of David Mamet. Amazing. Nothing could beat it. But then there was "Home Movies"; a show about little kids making movies. And that is brilliant (it's still on the Adult Swim collection on Cartoon Network). It had the pacing and style of Dr. Katz, and many of the same actors, but somehow was even better.
  
  And even Science Court, a Squigglevision show for kids, was tremendous.
  
  Now there is Hey Monie, which is a show on BET. I have to be honest, I've never watched much on BET. But after one episode, I am hooked. It is pretty hilarious. It still has all the natural-spoken-style writing, with overlapping dialog that you somehow manage to catch all of, that Dr. Katz and Home Movies made famous. The style is certainly similar -- the animation, the transitions, the pacing -- but it has a bunch of elements in character and setting that push it apart a bit.
  
  It follows Simone, who works for a PR firm, and how she manages in an urban setting. The people she works with seem to run with a more upscale crowd. She's managing to make her way in an environment that seems a little tricky to keep up with, but somehow she copes.
  
  I'm not sure why I like it. Apparently it is a co-venture between BET and Oxygen. There's two genres that are generally NOT working hard to cater to my tastes. Somehow it works... I'm still laughing about some of the stuff on last night, 18 hours later. I'd try to quote some of the funny parts, but it would be completely lost in text -- the whole show is about delivery. And writing. And timing. And smart references. But mostly, it's the delivery.