Our friend and sometimes co-host Ryan Magnuson has started a new original web series called “The Sports Buddaye” and although episode two was released last Friday, I just found out about it today. Oops.

Here is episode two, which covers week one of the NFL and the continuing woes of Kansas City sports organizations. Only you won’t find any traditional TV news commentary here. As usual, it’s all presented with Magno’s unique visual style and quick-cut editing. This episode even features Scooter Jones, a “Sports Buddaye” spin-off character that’s destined for great things.

It even has a short cameo by me (because I’m such a sports expert–ha). Enjoy!

Tags: 2, episode, funny, jones, magnuson, ryan, scooter, series, Sports Buddaye, The Sports Buddaye, two, web

J.D. is back again with Eric to review the sixth Harry Potter movie. This series has been a contentious one in the past, with Eric being consistently disappointed and J.D., who has read all the books, wondering what the hell is wrong with him. But wait, there’s more! For Eric’s more detailed print review of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” click here.

Tags: 2009, 6, clips, Half-Blood Prince, harry potter, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, on-camera, review, series, six, sixth, video

We all know Hollywood has a shortage of new ideas, which is why consistently popular franchises become so valuable. It’s not even the end of May yet, and already this year has produced sequels and reboots “The Pink Panther 2,” “Friday the 13th,” “The Last House on the Left,” “Crank: High Voltage,” “Angels & Demons,” and “Star Trek.” The sequel opening this weekend is “Terminator Salvation,” and it’s the fourth movie in the Terminator franchise. If history is any indication, don’t expect much from it, because the fourth movie almost always sucks. Already this year, we’ve had such fourth-in-franchise treats like “Madea Goes to Jail,” “Fast & Furious,” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Ugh.

In fact, fourth films are typically so bad that I can barely recommend any of the movies on this list wholeheartedly. In other words, this list—for the most part—sucks. These are the best fourth-in-a-series films I could dig up. The rest are even worse. Why bother with a list of paltry returns, you may ask? Let’s just say it was to prove a point. Here then, are the Top 10 Best Fourth Movies in a Franchise. If you have your own idea for a Top 10 list, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com.

10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

With a little hindsight, I may be able to say now that the worst movie of the Harry Potter series suffered more than a little bit from having to follow the best (“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”). Even at a long 157 minutes, it still feels incomplete. It’s too episodic and clunky, and the three leads are mired in much teenage angst but without any of the details to make the audience feel it. Whereas “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” had the ingenuity to elevate teenage insecurity literally to the end of the world, “Goblet of Fire” throws in a couple sullen faces and lightning-fast character turnarounds that don’t make sense. For the first time, you get the feeling that characters are doing things only because that’s what they did in the book, and that’s a bad sign.

9. Sudden Impact (1983)

Most people probably assume that Clint Eastwood’s badass detective Harry Callahan uttered his catch phrase “Go ahead, make my day” during his first onscreen appearance in 1971’s “Dirty Harry.” Not true. It was in this fourth franchise pic—the first one in seven years and the highest grossing one ever—that Harry shot three young black men holding up a diner and stopped a fourth from taking a hostage with those famous words. By 1983, the formerly conflicted cop of the first three 70s films had given way to a Reagan-era conservatism that saw the audience rooting for Harry and his one-man fight against crime without any reservations. The phrase was such a hit that T.G. Sheppard recorded a country song called “Make My Day” featuring Eastwood samples and President Reagan used the line in a speech threatening to veto tax-raising legislation. What a cad. This movie makes the list on cultural impact only, even if it was a sad comment on where the country stood at the time.

8. Bride of Chucky (1998)

“Bride of Chucky” is here to represent all of the horror series that keep going into production because people keep renting crappy scary movies at video stores and these cheap-o franchises are the first ones they grab. (I know because I worked at one.) Like “Sudden Impact,” this film was the most financially successful of any in the series and it had been many years (eight to be exact) since the last movie in the franchise (“Child’s Play 3”). “Bride of Chucky” was as apt to make fun of itself as Chucky the evil doll was to stab someone repeatedly in the chest. That’s why it’s on the list. That and Jennifer Tilly. “Bride of Chucky” is a winking tribute to tons of other horror films, and a pretty sardonically funny one at that. In that respect alone, it towers over yawner fourth franchise films like “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master,” “Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering,” “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers,” “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter,” “Saw IV,” and “Tremors 4: The Legend Begins.”

7. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Although it involves puppetry, this is about as far from Chucky as it gets. Muppets creator Jim Henson died unexpectedly in 1990, so it was his son Brian Henson who directed this musical retelling of the classic Charles Dickens novel. The Muppets are their usual charming selves, even if they don’t do anything too different or exciting with this familiar story. Kermit the Frog (no longer voiced by Jim Henson and, dammit, it’s just not the same!) is Bob Cratchit and Michael Caine is Scrooge. Originally it was to be a made-for-TV event in 1991, but the budget and script grew bigger, so the Walt Disney Company released it in theaters the following Christmas holiday to little fanfare. Disney eventually bought The Muppets in 2004, and “I Love You, Man” star Jason Segel (who sang with his own Dracula puppet in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) is currently writing a new Muppet adventure for the studio as you read this. Sweet.

6. Thunderball (1965)

Did somebody ask for an overly long action film with groan-inducing dialogue? Good, because I’m skipping the anti-Communist propaganda of “Rocky IV” and the fetishized violence of 2008’s fourth “Rambo” movie (both of which fit that bill perfectly) in favor of this silly British import, which found Sean Connery’s James Bond at the height of his popularity. You couldn’t get much bigger than Bond in 1965 (only “The Sound of Music” and “Doctor Zhivago” topped it at the box office that year), and “Thunderball” took the British spy underwater for many protracted fight scenes and one particularly bad standout one-liner, which Connery delivered after shooting a bad guy with a spear gun: “I believe he got the point.” Oh yeah, and did I mention the jet pack?

5. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

We’re halfway through the list of the BEST fourth movies in a franchise, and we’re merely cracking the tip of movies I’d recommend with reservations. That’s how disappointing fourth films can be. The hype was unbelievable. There was no way George Lucas could approach the greatness of a series beloved by young fans and overgrown boys everywhere. So he didn’t. Lucas’ fourth “Star Wars” film (I don’t care that it’s the first one chronologically in the timeline, it’s still the fourth one to hit theaters, and that’s the whole point of this list!) was a crushing disappointment, featuring everything from pesky midi-chlorians that take all the fun out of the Force to weirdly obvious racial stereotypes in alien characters (Watto the hook-nosed “Jewish” miser, a Stepin Fetchit-like Jar Jar Binks whose Gungun tribe throws spears). Even much-hyped Time magazine coverboy Darth Maul was only in the film for about fifteen minutes! On the other hand, as Kevin Smith’s animated “Clerks” series declared during a Lucas trial for offenses against the “Star Wars” community: “The pod race was pretty cool.”

4. Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

What made the first “Die Hard” such a great action movie is that we rooted for Bruce Willis’ underdog detective John McClane with every fiber of our being. After getting in an unresolved argument with his estranged wife, he spent the next two hours wise-cracking his way through hostage situations, gun fights, explosions, and running on broken glass with bare feet. We liked this guy. Well, he’s more than a bit crotchety 19 years later, and although the suspense isn’t nearly as tightly managed as it is in the original, the story is personal again, coming down to McClane having to save his daughter from a hostage situation. Between the setup and the climax, however, are all manner of ridiculously fun action scenes like McClane sending a police car zooming over a tollbooth to destroy a helicopter, fighting a beautiful female assassin while hanging precariously in an elevator shaft, and dismantling a moving military jet with his bare hands. Just typing that last sentence makes me laugh.

3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I’ll admit it took a little time for the nostalgic sheen to wear off of this one. Even with all it’s flaws, it’s still good enough to place at #3. (Guess there’s not a lot of competition.) The fourth Lucas-Spielberg Indiana Jones collaboration reunites Harrison Ford and Karen Allen but forgets the chemistry. It also puts Indy on another far-out supernatural journey but forgets the suspense. The plot is all over the place, and although the idea of the crystal skull and an ancient alien race was cool in theory, it was handled about as poorly as you can get. Also, any movie that wastes the talents of Cate Blanchett is suspect as well. (I’m looking at you too, “Button”!) Regardless, it’s a more watchable affair than the mostly sedate “Phantom Menace” and some of its set pieces (the atomic testing scene, the library chase) are absolute screams. Isn’t it funny how we’re in the Top 3 now and I still can’t even recommend one of these films without some serious reservations? Yikes.

2. Land of the Dead (2005)

Zombie master George Romero took 10 years between 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead,” seven years between that and 1985’s “Day of the Dead,” and a whopping 20 years between that and 2005’s “Land of the Dead.” The timing was right, after zombie successes “28 Days Later,” Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” remake, and the comedic tribute “Shaun of the Dead,” for the writer/director to return to the genre he pioneered. Romero chose that moment to make his most overtly political film, criticizing the Bush administration’s growing isolationism both abroad and within the our own borders by featuring a hopped-up Dennis Hopper (who doesn’t negotiate with terrorists) in a glass-encased “city of the privileged” called Fiddler’s Green. Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s not Sidney Poitier, ha! Romero also continued the slow evolution of zombies that has been consistent throughout the series, giving them the ability to learn from mistakes and have a little somewhat advanced thought. It’s not a perfect movie, with some stagey moments and corny dialogue, but it’s a hell of a lot better than 2008’s disappointing and desperate-to-be-relevant “Diary of the Dead.” Let’s hope the one he’s making now (currently in postproduction) brings back the biting satire of the first four.

1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Wow, what a coincidence. This series is a bit in the news right now, isn’t it? While “Leprechaun 4: In Space” went spaceward with its characters, director Leonard Nimoy’s “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” brought Spock (Nimoy), Captain Kirk (William Shatner), and the rest of the starship Enterprise from outer space back home to Earth—in 1986 San Francisco. What this movie has in common with its 2009 reboot is a seriously funny sense of humor. After the dreary “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” Nimoy took the franchise in a different direction completely, fitting in an environmentally friendly message (the crew is trying to save the humpback whales!) and using the longtime actors and their beloved characters to their fullest fish-out-of-water (no pun intended) capacity. As silly as it is, it’s well-intentioned, efficiently plotted, and—did I mention?—pretty damn funny. That’s more than I can say for the unfortunate fourth Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) film, 1997’s “Vegas Vacation.”

Well, that’s it—that’s as good as fourth movies get. What a fine legacy “Terminator Salvation” has to live up to. What do you think? Coming up with 10 good ones was rough. Did I miss any?

Tags: 10 fourth, best, films, list, movies, series, ten, top, Top 10 Best Fourth Movies in a Franchise, Top Ten Best Fourth Movies in a Franchise, Worst

Warren J. Cantrell is a writer based out of Seattle, WA. In his email to us, he listed his interests/likes as skydiving, boat racing, bull fighting, midget wrestling, and generally staying as extreme as possible. He described himself (seriously) as “a long-gone-daddy standing seven and a half feet tall with a chin as mighty as any on Rushmore, calves like cinder blocks, with ten feet of #*&@, and two buckets of *@#&.” (Censored for effect in the intro here, but Warren’s story is censor-free! Read on.) He is also the first Scene-Stealers sitegoer to write a Top 10 list about ONE MOVIE, a 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger-less sequel at that. This Top 10 is also notable for its creation of the past-tense word “wad-shot.” Love it.

Here’s Warren with the Top 10 Reasons “Predator 2” Is the Best of the “Predator” Franchise:

10. Danny Glover

While many might maintain (and with little argument from the majority) that this film was but a diversification attempt at a resume which had, up to this point, disgustingly few “Alien”-themed roles: look deeper. Not only is D. Glove ripped as shit for this role (an obvious sign of Arnold-like commitment to some serious other-world ethnic cleansing) his mere presence in the film is enough to draw out the Captain from “Lethal Weapon” in a bit part as the SWAT Team Commando (check the credits, yeah, that’s Steve Kahan). In short, Danny Glover and the script were so awesome that people obviously had a line forming to the left to get in on “Predator 2”—this miracle of cinema.

9. The Setting

While a group of commandos gone missing in Central America has its charms, let’s be honest: We all wanted to see ol’ pussy-face go crazy in South Central, raising indiscriminate hell with both the bloods and crips. While the script goes a bit off-course with a curious cartel war between the Jamaicans and Columbians (ah, the 90s!), the fact remains that the possibilities were endless. What if we want to break the tension by inserting Final Jeopardy music and an old woman stalking the antagonist with a broom? No problem. What if we want to introduce a spurious car-chase scene to prep the finale? Check. What if we want to use that bad-ass trumpet music to underscore another death, yet need an urban cemetery to set up the shot? Piece of cake. That every “Predator” movie since has not taken place in a bustling metropolis is a tragic crime.

8. Lack of Creativity

Nothing ruins a movie like a plot that’s too damn creative for its own good. In a Predator film, there’s only a few necessary ingredients—all other contributions are a threat to a perfect formula. These necessities are: a generous body count, an impeccably masculine lead, and few if any breaks in the action (which should remain human v. alien-based). That’s it. No need to earnestly delve into secondary characters or get creative with the deeper meaning or context of who is right, wrong, evil, or good (seriously, I mean, they actually teamed the Predator up WITH the hero in “Alien vs. Predator”? What the crap?). Let’s keep it simple: a badass runs afoul of an alien during an intergalactic slaughter-vacation—violence ensues. Don’t fix things that aren’t broken.

7. The Final Showdown

While Arnold gets extra points in his column for his monstrous, mud-covered, torch-in-hand battle-cry prior to the final duel in 1987’s “Predator,” D. Glove once again takes it a step further. If observed from a distance, few can argue that the finale of “Predator 2” takes its predecessor’s best intentions and accomplishments, and absolutely beats them into a fever. Arnold covered all of 100 square yards from end-to-end in his battle while the sequel takes extra advantage of roughly 40 city blocks, including a slaughterhouse (extra awesome points for that alone), and ending at last in an underground subway/hobo sanctuary. Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, all of the greats learned a valuable lesson from this film: If given the chance to chase an alien, use as much real-estate as possible!

6. The Subway

While already mentioned in regards to setting, this particular sequence deserves its own discussion, as there’s too much awesome to reign in with this category. Not only does this section of the film kick off the ensuing climax (pretty much the last half of the movie), it houses probably the greatest killing in film history. What do you do after you and every other armed patron of the underground-long-bus unloads all 47 dozen rounds to no effect? I’ll tell you what, you pick up a 2 ft. machete (who cares why it’s there, it is!), squint into the coming darkness, and repeat Bill Paxton’s greatest line of the film: “Come on, motherfucker! Let’s dance!” I still weep every time I watch this scene; the purity of manliness simply too much to bear.

5. Conspicuous Lack of Important Female Characters

Just because Ridley Scott and James Cameron miraculously pulled it off doesn’t mean it’s a formula for success. “Predator 2” keeps the camera and the action rooted in what invariably puts movies in the “awesome” column: Male, no-nonsense hot-heads that play by their own rules and the bloodthirsty seven-plus-ft.-tall space creatures they are chasing. Period. End of story. No sideplots about deeper emotional involvement or budding romantic chemistry. The one female character with more than two minutes of screen time is utilized as an ancillary plot-filler to keep the audience busy while D. Glove’s crew is slowly reduced to naught. The moment her character is given even the slightest depth (we find out Maria Conchita Alonso is pregnant), she is immediately crammed into a waiting ambulance, never to be seen again. After I’m done writing this, I’m penning a note to the producers of “Predator 2” thanking them for their courage and foresight, and will forward a copy to every piece-of-shit Hollywood hack that force-feeds romantic involvement and R-to-PG-13 editing adjustments.

4. Increased Violence Levels

While credit should be given where due (The first “Predator” was violent as fuck), “Predator 2” takes murder, mutilation, and torture to new heights. The assault on the prison camp at the beginning of “Predator” certainly deserves a nod for a sustained orgy of automatic gunfire and death, yet like so many to have come before and since, the movie finds itself wad-shot and out of spooge for the remainder of the picture. Sure, over 60 seconds of jungle blind-firing and a one-armed Apollo Creed spice things up later, but the body count is suspiciously low for the second half of 1987’s “Predator.” In “Predator 2,” we get an open-air police v. cartel gunfight, drug kingpin torture and mutilation, a subway holocaust, and special government ops dudes in a veritable frozen limb pile. This is all aside from the fact that D. Glove finishes the goddamned Predator off in #2 with a spinning dagger-blade-thing as opposed to letting the slimy space-cunt finish the job off itself. That each new Predator installment should incrementally increase the violence level ought to be written into the franchise contract, something this film took to heart. [Special note/evidence: “Predator 2” had to re-edit roughly 20 times to get an R rating, as it was originally slapped with an NC-17.]

3. A Promise of Good Things To Come
Never has a film said so much with so little. As many noticed in the years between “Predator 2” and the abortion that would come to fruition as “Alien Vs. Predator,” once Glover’s character is aboard the Predator’s vessel near the end of the movie, an Alien skull is visible on the trophy mantle. With this second or two of screen time, endless possibilities grew into realistic promise. And not in an amateur “the movie is over, but here’s a quick teaser clip” moment either, but with a subtle, silent image that opened up a universe of awesome sequel/prequel scenarios. It would be over a decade until this promise was ruined by an absolute shit-storm of bad leads and even worse acting. Personally, when I go to sleep at night, I like to pretend that “Predator 2” really was the last film in the franchise thus far, and that if one waits long enough, the true promise of “Alien vs. Predator” will be fulfilled.

2. The Perfect Storm of Awesome: Busey and Paxton

Let’s face it, Christmas only comes once a year, and while birthdays, the Fourth of July, and St. Patty’s provide wonderfully reliable excuses to drink and celebrate the awesomeness of awesome, the best gifts always come at the end of December. That this movie provided the union of two of the greatest forces on the planet is—to use a tired expression—the gift that keeps giving. Gary Busey and Bill Paxton in the same movie: What took so long? The inclusion of either is usually enough to elevate a mediocre movie into Oscar-contention, that this film threw two extra logs on the fire makes this one of the biggest award snubs in all of history. Academy: For shame!

1. A Moment of Honor

Who saw this coming? In the original, the villainous creature is so disgusted with the dishonor of miserable defeat, it kills itself rather than further advance humiliation. This is understandable, and worthy of a man-nod (it would be like you getting out-thought and killed by the scheming deer you were hunting, and all of your friends finding out later because the news made it large as a humorous aside on Letterman). In the glorious sequel, the Predator attempts the seppuku-like maneuver, yet can’t even get THIS right, losing an arm in the attempt. I’d like to think that it was this kind of dumb-fuckery that convinced the Predator Council at the end to spare D. Glove rather than exacting vengeance for butchering one of their own. Surely, had a puny 20th century human bushwhacked a Predator heavy, the ending would have been drastically different, our proud hero losing his skull and skin in a Hollywood minute in a reflexive act of revenge. Yet somehow the good lieutenant found the sweet spot, killing a sturdy Predator (yet obviously one not well-liked by its peers, as it seems enough respect got conveyed that the Predators understood killing a man as rock-solid as D. Glove would be a tragedy in any universe). As if signaling to the audience that a worthy installment had just entered the holy lexicon, the Predator Council lets the hero walk, even tossing a stupid human weapon/keepsake as if to state, “Good job on this one. Take this for later: You’ve earned a return visit.” Indeed D. Glove and company did. This cannot be said, however, for those who would follow.

Tags: 10, Alien, aliens, best, film, franchise, list, movie, predator, reasons, series, ten, top, Top 10 Lists, Top 10 Reasons Predator 2 Is the Best of the “Predator”, top ten, vs. predators, Worst