I finally saw Mean Girls and Shrek 2 -- I can't remember the last airplane round trip where I wanted to see both movies. Enjoyed Mean Girls more than I was expecting (I'm on record as a sucker for the sudden plow-down-by-vehicle gag), and Shrek 2 a bit less. I do prefer the original, but I think it would have been better served with a bigger screen, better audio, or at least fewer distractions. I do feel the need for an side-joke list.

I'm a bit leery of the last two cast members, but the rest strikes me as amazingly cute.

Sir Ian McKellen ("Lord of the Rings") has signed to voice the spring-loaded character Zebedee in a computer-animated version of the kids television classic "The Magic Roundabout."

McKellen joins a voice cast including Jim Broadbent ("Iris"), who will play Brian the Snail, and Joanna Lumley ("Ella Enchanted"), who is set as Ermintrude the pink cow. Pop stars Robbie Williams (news) and Kylie Minogue (news) will play Dougal the shaggy dog and Florence the girl, respectively.

Cute enough for 90 minutes, though?

Robbie Williams as Dougal? Robbie fucking Williams as fucking Dougal? Jesus, way to rape my childhood...

OK - all you movie-geniuses - I need to find the name of an old movie. I want to say it came out in the late 70's, early 80's. It was a horror-satire. The main thing I remember is that it kept an on-screen body count. I know, not much to go on, but hopefully it will ring a bell for someone.

I don't know if Student Bodies was what you were looking for Lexine, but this description also sounds like it could possibly be Death Race 2000.

Ah, I remember Death Race 2000. But it was Student Bodies. Once I googled the movie by name and read some of the reviews, the rest of the movie came flooding back. The goloshes, the heavy breathing, the rubber chicken...

Because I'm one of those fuckers that likes to rank things...
Top Five Movies of 2004 so far in my humble (but correct!) opinion:

1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2) Kill Bill, Volume 2
3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4) Saved!
5) A three-way tie between Spider-Man 2, Shrek 2, and Mean Girls. But I'll probably put Mean Girls above the other two in my final, end-of-the-year top ten list.

Sadly I don't think I've seen enough good movies this year to fill out a 5 Best list. Hellboy is the only one I can remember really liking after the fact, if you discount the Surviving Christmas trailer.

Sadly I don't think I've seen enough good movies this year to fill out a 5 Best list. Hellboy is the only one I can remember really liking after the fact, if you discount the Surviving Christmas trailer.

My list is pretty sad.

1. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
2. Dodgeball
3. Hellboy
4. You know, I can't remember seeing anything else in the theatre this year that was released this year, even though I'm pretty certain I did.

Oh yeah, I saw Harry Potter, as well.

You didn't see Eternal Sunshine, Plei? That would make my list for sure, and HP3. Don't know about the rest.

I saw Dr. Strangelove on the big screen on Monday, at a local arthouse cinema. I'd never seen it before, and I howled with laughter through the whole thing. That is one funny movie. My friend told me afterwards that he'd once seen someone cite the opening scene, with the planes refueling, as the best sex scene on film. And here I'd thought that was just me and my dirty mind!

You people not loving this year's movies? I'm kind of impressed that I've enjoyed them so much, actually. This time last year, I only liked Finding Nemo and X2 with any seriousness. Whereas I clearly had issues coming up with only five movies for this year.