Over the last several years, Patrick Wilson has had quite a bit of success in both smaller, more intimate film such as Hard Candy and larger, more special effects driven movies such as Watchmen. Not to take anything away from his earlier work (which I have loved) but Barry Munday is Wilson’s finest hour.

Barry Munday begins with Wilson playing the title character as a selfish, sex-obsessed slob with a personality that is a cross between Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy and Clerks’ Randal Graves. With a coat of sleaze three-inches thick, Barry slinks through life in a series of one-night-stands and downward gazes into women’s blouses.

Barry’s sex-drive experiences an extreme change, however, after Barry looses his testicles during a scuffle with the trumpet-wielding father of a teenage girl he was macking on during an afternoon matinee at a movie theater.

Now half the man he used to be, Barry’s life manages to sink even further down the proverbial shower drain — spending his days hobbling around his apartment and playing video games as his mother waits on him hand and foot.

Not long after his accident, Barry experiences another life-changing catalyst when a former one-night-stand named Ginger Farley, played superbly by Judy Greer, files a paternity lawsuit.

Ginger, a frizzy-haired, acidic-tempered virgin (well, at least until she was deflowered by Barry), has given Wilson’s character a newfound purpose in his testicle-free life.

Now, with a new addition to the Munday lineage quickly approaching, it’s time for Barry Munday to finally grow up and take charge of his life. But first, he has to win back the affections of his baby’s mother, a woman who would rather see Barry drop dead then for him to be any part of her child’s life.

Besides Wilson and Greer, Barry Munday has the benefit of an amazing supporting cast including Chloe Sevigny, Cybill Shepherd and Malcolm McDowell as Ginger’s family; Jean Smart as Barry’s mother; and Billy Dee Williams as Barry’s DeLorean-driving boss.

With a top-notch script, an amazing soundtrack and great performances all-around, Barry Munday is a highly recommended comedy from writer/director Chris D’Arienzo. The script is adapted from a novel by Frank Turner Hollon.

At times, the film is tonally a grown-up version of Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up yet is still prone to its moments of extreme silliness and raunchiness.

Wilson’s performance as an idiot man-child proves that the talented actor has a gift for comedy. Hopefully it won’t be too long until we get the chance to see Wilson try his hand at making audiences laugh again.

Category: Spotlight Premieres

Director: Chris D’Arienzo

Showtimes: Tuesday, March 16 at 6:56 PM at Alamo Lamar and Wednesday, March 17 at 7:15 PM at Alamo Lamar

Inside Pulse — Movies will be on the ground at SXSW! For live coverage from the event, follow Robert Saucedo and Travis Leamons on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500 and @skipkassidy.

The South by Southwest film festival will be held in Austin from March 12 through the 20th. For more information about attending the festival and the films being shown, visit www.sxsw.com/film.

At the risk of treading the same ground as every other hack movie critic come this time in April, Kick-Ass is just plain kick ass.

I’m sorry, but there is just no better way to sum up the general attitude, atmosphere and execution of Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s comic book.

While liberties were had with the storyline and some changes are better executed then others, the movie, as a stand-alone project, succeeds in what it set out to do: tell an off-beat superhero story about a loser who finds fame and nookie after putting on a superhero costume and getting his ass kicked.

Aaron Johnson plays Dave Lizewski, a high school geek who, in an attempt to provide meaning for his life, decides to become a superhero. Ordering a wet suit off the Internet and arming himself with a pair of batons, Dave takes to the streets as Kick-Ass — the world’s first official superhero (even if he doesn’t officially have superpowers).

Along for the journey are a trio of fellow vigilantes: Hit Girl, a cute-as-a-button pre-teen girl played by Chloe Moretz who will gladly rip your head off and show it to you; Big Daddy, a former cop and Hit Girl’s father played by Nic Cage in a weird amalgam of Greg Brady and Adam West’s Batman; and Red Mist, an even bigger dork then Lizewski with a dark past played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Like I mentioned above, the move takes massive liberties with the source material — especially in the film’s climax. Fortunately, much like Vaughn’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust managed to build upon a great book to make an amazing movie, the changes in Kick-Ass don’t stick out like a sore thumb and actually lead to a pretty satisfying ending — though I do miss one particular twist about Cage’s Big Daddy character that was left out of the movie.

If you are thinking of taking your kids to see the movie because of the colorful costumes and peppy tween superhero — think again! The movie is as violent as a Charles Manson slumber party and four-letter words are thrown around more then feces at a chimpanzee retirement home.

Kick-Ass is like a cross between Quentin Tarantino and Richard Donner — a big, sweeping epic film that’s not afraid to get down and dirty with blood, guts and dismemberment.

In one particularly QT-move, the soundtrack almost exclusively of a lot of pop songs and score music ripped straight from other films. Much like it does in Tarantino’s films, this musical choice helps to build a sense of familiarity with the subject matter and makes it easier for audiences to associate with the fantastical violence being perpetrated on screen by a 12-year-old girl with a butterfly knife. Moments where 3 Doors Down’s Kryptonite blends seamlessly into Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation help to create a pop culture pastiche that easily sells a world where a teenage kid can associate so much with fiction that he decides to become a four-color crime fighter.

The movie is a blast, through and through. Hopefully it will open big when it hits theaters on April 16. The buzz that will erupt around the movie after SXSW should help in that regard.

If you’re at SXSW this weekend, watch the movie. If not, brace yourself for a very long month until you get your own chance to have your ass kicked.

Category: Headliners
Director: Matthew Vaughan
Showtimes: Friday, March 12 at 7 PM at Paramount

Inside Pulse — Movies will be on the ground at SXSW! For live coverage from the event, follow Robert Saucedo and Travis Leamons on Twitter at @robsaucedo2500 and @skipkassidy.

The South by Southwest film festival will be held in Austin from March 12 through the 20th. For more information about attending the festival and the films being shown, visit www.sxsw.com/film.

God bless the Japanese. As a country, they might enjoy technical advancements, social prosperity and a lovely education system but when it comes to monsters, they are shit out of luck.

Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay, or Battle Girl as I will refer to it from now on, is a 1991 Japanese zombie movie scheduled for release on DVD in February from Synapse films.

Japanese female wrestler Cutie Suzuki plays the titular (huh huh) Battle Girl, a woman sent on a rescue mission to help the survivors of a deadly zombie outbreak that has overtaken Tokyo.

To help her combat the horde of deadly zombies swarming the city streets, K-ko, the Battle Girl, is armed with a Battle Suit — a body-armor get-up that comes with all kinds of essential features: bullet-proof pads, hidden blades and retractable sunglasses. Now the epitome of cool, K-ko is ready to kick some zombie tail.

Unfortunately for our heroine, zombies are not the only threat she has to contend with. An evil military genius has gone rouge and is using the zombies in an experiment designed to further his goal of world conquest. Using a version of the very bacteria that causes zombification (a mixture equal parts meteor goop and ocean water sludge), the general is creating an army of unstoppable zombie solders — brain-eating killers that can not only repair any wound but are proficient at using military weapons.

Even worse, K-ko must combat the general’s elite task squad of soldiers — The Monsters. These fools are a group of androgynous football pad-clad warriors with ridiculous looking face paint that leaves them looking like KISS castoffs.

When she’s not kicking in the soft, green goo-filled faces of zombies and evil solders alike, K-ko must gather up survivors and lead them to safety.

Trouble comes, though, due to an invisible shield that was put up immediately after the zombie outbreak. This barrier has not only turned Tokyo into a dark dreary post-apocalyptic wasteland, it fries anybody who tries to cross it — including a poor hapless pooch who finds death at the hands of the granddaddy of all invisible fences.

To the tune of a cheesy synth soundtrack, K-ko uses a variety of weapons to dispatch both zombies and solders with extreme prejudice.

Using all the various early ‘90s gore special effects at his disposal, director Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu showers the screen with all the bright green zombie blood he can afford.

Battle Girl is a bad movie — of that there is no question. What’s debatable, though, is whether or not it’s a fun movie.

While I can appreciate a cheesy Japanese zombie movie as much as the next guy (a bit more then the next guy, some might argue), there was just something missing from Battle Girl that was needed to get my nether-regions all wet with excitement.

Maybe it was the lack of a tongue-in-check attitude or the extremely slow progression of the story, but the film was just not the cheesy exploitation gorefest I had hoped it would be.

It certainly has tone and atmosphere — that’s not in debate. Komizu does an excellent job of building a dark and foggy Tokyo that could be right out of a Ridley Scott film. But that’s about where the comparisons to Blade Runner end.

Not insightful or original enough to be considered a classic for its quality, Battle Girl is also not terrible enough to recommend for its campiness.

If you are a huge fan of Japanese zombie movies or the thought of a live-action anime staring a female wrestler who has body armor designed to accentuate her breasts sounds like your idea of a wet dream, then by all means check out Battle Girl. Otherwise, there is absolutely no need to break down the doors of your video store in an attempt to pick this flick up.

Robert Saucedo is also neither insightful nor original enough to be considered a classic. Follow him on Twitter anyway @robsaucedo2500.

Once you witness the majesty contained within the film’s all-to-fleeting 82 minutes, all other movies will diminish when seen in US:TR’s grandiose shadow.

This is the reason why movies are made.

Nah… I’m just bullshitting you.

Universal Solder: The Return is one bad movie. The good news, though, is that it’s a bad movie that, under the right state of inebriation, can be a joy to watch.

I can’t say I’m much of a scholar when it comes to the fabled Universal Solder franchise. Being a male child in the ‘90s, I was, of course, aware of the films’ existence and possibly, maybe watched one or two of the made-for-television sequels to the original 1992 film.

I vaguely remembered Universal Solder: The Return being released in 1999 — mostly due to the Megadeth song Crush ‘Em, from the US:TR soundtrack, that played non-stop on the rock radio station of my hometown in the summer of ’99.

When a mix-up occurred and I was sent Universal Solder: The Return instead of Universal Solder: Regeneration, the recently released fourth sequel in the series, I decided to just go with the flow and watch the Blu-ray copy of Universal Solder: The Return.

What little I knew about the series turned out to be just enough to understand the plot of Universal Solder: The Return, which apparently ignored the two made-for-TV sequels that had come before.

Jean-Cluade Van Damme returns as Luc Deveraux, a Vietnam solder who, after being killed in combat, was resurrected as a computer chip-enhanced killing machine.

In The Return, Luc has forsaken his heritage as a cyborg and is now just an ordinary G.I. Joe, lending his expertise to the U.S. Government and helping them train and evaluate the new generation of universal solders.

These solders are supervised by the watchful robotic eye of S.E.T.H., a computer program with dreams of world conquest. When S.E.T.H., voiced by Michael Jai White, overhears news that the universal solder program is about to be shut down, he resorts to that old robot trick and kills his human masters and recruits an army of Universal Solders to take over the world.

Well, as you might of guessed, it’s up to the Muscles from Brussels to put a stop to S.E.T.H. and the cyborg corpses. Unfortunately for JCVD, S.E.T.H. has implanted his programming into the body of a genetically modified super solder (also played by Jai White).

Universal Solder: The Return is the type of bad movie that revels in its awfulness.

Full of bad lines, even worse plot contrivances and enough male body builder posturing to make happy any gay man or fan of wrestling (but really, what’s the difference?).

But before you think this movie is nothing more then shirtless muscle-bound dudes punching each other, there’s also a brief bar fight in a strip club. So if you’ve ever wanted to see a topless, big-breasted perform a high kick into a man’s head — this is the movie for you.

I can’t, in any right mind, recommend Universal Solder: The Revenge to anybody with a taste for good movies. I can, though, whole-heartedly recommend the film to anybody and everyone who loves bad movies.

Unfortunately, the film’s Blu-ray is nothing to crow about. I’ve seen Blu-ray transfers of 40-year-old movies that look better then this fuzzy re-master of the 1999 action movie. The disc does come with a few featurettes: a five-minute making-of, a four-minute spot on Michael Jai White’s training regime and a 12-minute retrospective of JCVD’s career.

I’ve seen a lot of bad movies in the last year and Universal Solder: The Return was, without a doubt, one of the most fun.

It’s big and stupid in the kind of way that made me kind of see why pretty girls go for the dumb jocks in high school.

The film is ballsy in its awfulness — almost like it was trying to be the worst possible movie it could be.

Between JCVD’s drunken-slur-like delivery of lines (I know he has an accent but surely he doesn’t always sound like he’s just had a stroke) and Bill Goldberg’s cartoon-like role as Romeo, the Yosemite Sam of killer robot movies, US:TR is a lot of fun — in a bad way.

Robert Saucedo is the Yosemite Sam of bad movie fans. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

I’ve taken a lot of flack in the past for my love of musicals.

While I’ll admit that I was self-conscious at first from the constant ribbing I would get from friends who discovered I dug on movies that featured song-and-dance, I’m proud to say I’m finally comfortable with who I am: a straight man who loves him some showtunes.

No longer prone to retagging musical soundtracks on my iPod and disguising them as tunes from Megadeth or AC/DC, I proudly blare songs from musicals such as Avenue Q, Reefer Madness or Little Shop of Horrors from my car speakers as I navigate the streets of Houston.

For the last few days, though, one soundtrack has dominated my iPod’s playlist — living in a state of perpetual repeat. Since watching Bugsy Malone for the first time last week, I must have listened to the 1976 British film’s soundtrack over a hundred times.

Bugsy Malone is, without question, a strange movie. Written and directed by Alan Parker, the film is an homage to the gangster film genre — with a cast consisting solely of pre-pubescent kids.

Perhaps because the movie takes place on a world that is an extreme version of Logan’s Run, a child actor plays every single character — from nightclub dancers to mustache-twirling bad guys.

Scott Baio (pre-Happy Days) stars as Bugsy Malone, a smooth talking con-artist who finds himself tangled up in a mob war between two warring fractions of the cutest little hoodlums this side of those Homies and Los Mijos toys that cholos love so much.

Fat Sam (John Cassisi) and Dandy Dan (Martin Lev) are two leaders of rival gangs that each seek to wipe the other out. Being a kids’ movie filled with child actors, though, the gangs don’t off each other with bullets or switchblades to the gut.

A pie in the face apparently has the power to turn the lights out for any character in the film.

When Dandy Dan and his gang appear on the scene with a powerful new weapon — a splurge gun that shoots a steady stream of cream pies at its victims — Fat Sam’s gang is in trouble and Bugsy is caught in the middle.

Besides being stuck in wrong end of a gang war, Bugsy is also torn between the feminine wiles of two training-bra sporting damsels: Blousey Brown (Florrie Dugger) and Tallulah (an unbelievably young Jodie Foster).

The movie’s plot, though, is just a flimsy excuse to move the story from song to song — a fact that I am A-OK with.

The movie’s songs were written and partially record by Paul “Rainbow Connection” Williams. The filmmakers made the odd choice of using adult singers to perform the songs and having the film’s child actors merely lip sync.

While the decision is pretty weird and may or may not have been the best choice — there is no denying the music is catchy to the extreme.

Bugsy Malone is not a film easy to define — but it’s one that hard to deny an attraction to. Bizarre production choices by Parker ultimately add to the movie’s charm — giving the film a unique quality that separates it from most everything else in its genre.

A toe-tapping pop music score from Williams is really the icing on the cake. Even without the music (which is definitely the film’s strong point), the movie would still be enjoyable for its offbeat humor and witty script.

Do yourself a favor and check this movie out.

Robert Saucedo could have been anything that he wanted to be. He became the best at writing about bad movies. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

I went into Nun of That with more then my fair share of trepidation.

Having seen more super-low budget, ultra-violent action comedies in the last year then I would care to, the novelty of watching low-rent thespians crack groan-worthy one-liners while attempting to remember poorly-choreographed fight scenes and prancing around in gallons of jarringly fake-looking blood has lost its novelty.

I can appreciate the ingenuity of independent filmmakers cranking out movies purely out of the love for cinema, but that doesn’t stop me from pausing in fear before popping in another movie with a title that’s bound to be a million times more entertaining then the film itself.

Nun of That, with its admittedly very clever title, took me by surprise. Not just because it was a fun movie but also because it caused me to laugh out loud — something I very rarely do when watching a movie alone.

Richard Griffin and the Scorpio Film Releasing production company bring fans of cheesy exploitation films a modern throwback to the classic nunsplotation genre.

Sarah Nicklin stars as Sister Wrath, a nun with a temper problem who, after being shot down by an order of habit-wearing vigilantes, is resurrected to join that same order and rid the world of mafia dons, pimps, drug dealers and other assorted scum of the Earth.

Chief among the villains Sister Wrath must put down with extreme prejudice is Momma Rizzo, played by a crossdressing Rich Tretheway.

Rizzo is not alone, though. Along with her gang consisting of the usual Italian caricatures, she is joined by Viper Goldstein, a Jewish hitman played by David Lavallee Jr. This murderous mohel is armed with razor-tipped yamakas and a love for torturing nuns.

Luckily Sister Wrath is not alone either. Alexandra Cipolla, Shanette Wilson and Ruth Sullivan all play fellow members of the Order of the Black Habit.

Sexy, sleek and all-too prone to desires of the flesh, these nuns more then happy to give nun fetishists what they are looking for in their entertainment — erotic nuns doing all kinds of sexual acts with each other.

The action may not be of professional caliber but it’s still a lot of fun.

Computer-enhanced gunplay leads to shoddy-looking special effects but it sure helped the filmmakers ensure that they could make the bloodiest bang for their buck. Heads are dismembered and gangsters are pumped full of more bullets then the cast and crew of the film are going to need to say Hail Mary’s.

The cast, made largely of amateur actors, is quite apt at delivering co-writers Richard Griffen and Ted Marr’s clever dialogue. Full of all the corny puns and eye-roll-educing punch lines you’ve grown to love in your low-budget action movies, the film sets itself apart from the unwatchable with its sheer determination to take itself as serious as humanly possible.

While it’s not above having an electroinca-inspired musical number by a bigamist Jesus Christ, the film still retains a tone that is, for the most part, straight faced.

This attitude helps sell some of the more zany aspects of the film — something constant winking and nudging to the audience would not have been able to accomplish.

One of my favorite bits in the movie has to do with Oscar, Sister Wrath’s obnoxious guardian angel played by Luis Brandon Aponte. Instead of offering the bits of soul-touching insight and heavenly guidance that guardian angels are prone to dispensing, Oscar is more apt to wonder around completely nude like some blitzed frat boy or a castoff of MTV’s Jersey Shore.

Look for cameos in the film from Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman — staples of the independent horror scene.

Extras on the DVD include a making-of feature, two audio commentaries, the original short film that inspired the making of the movie and a collection of trailers for similar micro-budget horror films.

Nun of That may be a bad film — but it’s one of those bad movies that so entertaining it becomes a joy to watch.

Robert Saucedo hopes nun of his readers were offended by today’s review. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

FarCry is the latest film from Dr. Uwe Boll, one of the busiest directors working today and the undisputed king of video game-to-movie adaptations (with nearly ten movies based on video games to his name).

Now, I’ll admit up front that I’m a little afraid of Dr. Boll (hence, my referring to him as a doctor even though he has only received a doctorate in literature and is not, in fact, a medical physician).

The filmmaker is not a fan of his critics — once even challenging a few of them to a boxing match in which he put the proverbial smackdown on a collection of pudgy writers with no athletic ability. I’m a pudgy writer with no athletic ability. The man frightens me.

That said, FarCry was not that bad of a movie — honestly.

It’s not a great movie and it’s not even that good of a movie — but by the Raging Boll’s standards, it wasn’t insultingly bad.

Based on the popular 2004 first-person-shooter, the movie stars Til Schweiger (Inglorious Basterds) as Jack Carver, a former German solder who is happily retired and living as a boat captain in a small coastal community.

Meanwhile, Valerie Cardinal (played by modern-day scream queen Emmanuelle Vaugier) is a reporter hoping to uncover the dark secret of a mad doctor (Udo Kier) and the island he uses to perform experiments in genetic manipulation.

Kier, no stranger to the role of villainous sleezeball, is attempting to create the perfect super solder. Unfortunately, while he has created bulletproof skin and increased the solders’ strength, speed and endurance, he still has a little problem with being able to control his test subjects.

Naturally, action movie logic dictates that the ex-solder boat captain gets pulled into the machinations of the mad doctor through the help of the enterprising journalist’s insistence to follow the story — even into the mouth of certain danger.

From there, things go pretty much as expected. There are pithy one-liners, exploding helicopters and even a wisecracking sidekick in the form of Emlio, a chubby caterer played by Chris Coppola.

Also, look for a cameo from chief extraordinaire Anthony Bourdain.

Schweiger is not bad as an action hero. While his part in FarCry doesn’t rank up there with my favorite roll Schweiger has ever played (which would be SLC Punk’s Mark, the crazy gun-toting rich friend of Matthew Lillard’s Stevo), the Austrian-born actor manages to be charming and charismatic — requisites of any likable action star.

Unfortunately, Schweiger’s charm isn’t enough to save the movie from its siller elements — such as genetically-modified super solders covered in white body paint that look less like Captain America and more like the human statues that clog up street corners with their panhandling.

In the end, it comes down to the fact that Uwe Boll does not stretch his talents with this film. Thanks to the cookie-cutter nature of the story, FarCry is a bland, mediocre movie that barely manages to rise above Saturday-night Syfy Channel made-for-TV movie status.

Filmmaker Sam Rami has been caught up in Spider-Man’s web since he began directing the superhero’s films in the early part of the decade.

Nine years and three web-slinging movies later, though, Rami is finally returning to the genre he cut his teeth in: horror.

Drag Me To Hell, Sam Rami’s first no-apologies, gore-filled horror comedy since 1992’s Army of Darkness, is a true return to form for the director of the Evil Dead series of movies. Despite its PG-13 rating, Drag Me To Hell is full-on, gory fun, a perfect throwback to the days when Rami was still making movies that featured a man cutting off his own hand and replacing it with a chain saw.

From dancing ghouls to projectile cat vomiting, Drag Me To Hell has everything a horror enthusiast wants in a movie — including timeliness.

In the film, Alison Lohman stars as a bank loan officer who, after denying a decrepit Gypsy woman an extension on a house loan, is cursed by the Gypsy to be cast down to hell after three days of earthly torture. Lohman’s character, a sickly sweet girl with self-esteem issues, must then find a way to break the curse, all the while being tormented by a sinister demon.

With house evictions at an all-time high, audiences will be torn on whom to root for: the film’s hero, a bank loan officer responsible for evicting an old woman from her home, or the goat-like demon who’s giving her hell.

From John Carpenter’s take on The Thing, which featured an alien killer who spread from victim to victim much like AIDS, to the post-9/11 fear of biological weapons exploited by neo-zombie movies such as 28 Days Later, horror movies have a history of taking fears that are currently plaguing the population and twisting the knife — causing audiences to face hot topics with a supernatural twist.

A good many people enjoy being scared. Just ask Stephen King as he dives, Scrooge McDuck-style, into his giant pool filled with gold coins.

The reason why artists such as King are so successful, though, has a lot to do with people’s fondness for the lesser of two evils. Horror movie-scared, after all, is always preferable to real world problem-scared.

In a world where there are literally millions of things that can kill you at any particular minute of the day, it’s a lot easier to close your eyes and tell yourself that there are no werewolves under your bed than to convince yourself that swine flu isn’t waiting for you around every corner.

By going to horror movies and watching exaggerated scares centered around real-world issues such as home eviction, sexually transmitted diseases and terrorism, it’s easier to swallow the fears that are less escapable.

There are always going to be bad things in the world to be afraid of. Being bankrupt and losing your job is a horrible thing to happen to a person, but at least one of Satan’s lackeys isn’t dragging you to hell by the tips of your toes. As they say, things could always be worse.

Robert Saucedo wants to thank Sam Rami for making him afraid of gypsies again. Follow him on twitter @robsaucedo2500.

This weekend, Quentin Tarantino gives history books a giant raspberry with his new World War II film, Inglorious Basterds.

Calling the Brad Pitt-starring film about a band of Jewish-American solders on a path of destruction through Nazi-occupied France historically inaccurate is like saying The Flintstones fudged a few details about prehistory.

With his film, Tarantino has made a darkly comic fantasy that plays fast and loose with historical details — focusing more on the iconography of the war than on minor details such as how it actually ended. That being said, the film is a suspenseful, action-packed ride that almost always is a whole lot of fun.

What I came away with the most after watching the film, though, is the impression that if Hollywood ever decides to make a movie based on the life and legend of Texas A&M mascot Old Sarge, Brad Pitt is the perfect choice.

As Lt. Aldo Raine in Inglorious Basterds, Pitt is a tight-jawed, wily hillbilly who comes off as a cross between Popeye the Sailor and John Wayne. With his raspy pronunciation of Nazi as “naazee,” his dexterous use of a terrifyingly long knife and his steely-eyed calmness when faced with certain torture by a German psychopath, Pitt proves he has the chops to play every Aggie’s favorite mascot with the mutant chin.

And why shouldn’t Old Sarge get his own movie? Texas A&M is long overdue for another shot at Hollywood stardom. Sure, we have a World War II movie of our own, but anyone who has ever seen We’ve Never Been Licked will have to admit that it’s about as believable as Inglorious Basterds.

We need a movie that’s fresh and will appeal to the ever-growing number of disenfranchised youth. We need something that celebrates the iconography of Texas A&M’s long-held traditions while not being afraid to dip its toes into the waters of blatant commercialization, pop culture trends and other proven recipes for success. In other words, we need Quentin Tarantino’s version of a Texas A&M film.

Well, maybe not QT’s specific vision of our — we might have a hard time recruiting tomorrow’s youth with a film in which a co-ed college cutie uses a Corps of Cadets saber to slice and dice her way through 88 domino mask-wearing agriculture students while a pop song from the ’70s plays ironically over the carnage.

On the other hand, that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea for a film.

We need something hip — you know, for the kids. I propose a talking-animal film. From Babe the pig to that duck from the Aflac commercials, everybody loves a talking animal. Luckily, we have an animal who’s just waiting to be given a voice: the first lady of Texas A&M, Reveille.

Imagine a movie staring Robert Pattinson as a cocky young Corps of Cadets member who hates dogs. In an ironic twist of fate, he finds himself the mascot corporal and is forced to take care of the sassy socialite herself, Reveille. As the semester progresses, the cadet begins to bond with his new charge, discovering in the process a little something about himself and the school he attends. It’s Turner and Hooch meets Taps.

Who would voice Reveille? In the interest of Texas A&M’s commitment toward diversity, I’ve got my fingers crossed for Rosie Perez.

* Robert Saucedo isn’t in the prisoner-taking business, he’s in the Nazi-killing business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’. Follow him at Twitter @robsaucedo2500.

“AMERICAN DREAMZ” attempts to satirize America’s obsession for bland commercial drivel in lieu of real political issues. Unfortunately, writer and director Paul Weitz has created an hour and a half of more bland, commercial drivel. Pretty faces and mildly amusing performances help make this silly ensemble comedy easier to swallow, but biting observational humor this is not. “Dreamz” is political satire for dummies.

Hugh Grant plays Martin Tweed, the host of “American Dreamz,” a televised singing competition. A fountain of self-loathing and jerkitude, Tweed represents the other half of Grant’s acting range. While nobody has ever accused Grant of being a versatile actor, his role in “Dreamz” is a phone-in performance.

Mandy Moore plays Sally Kendoo, an ambitious Southern girl who fills the empty hole in her soul with dreams of superstardom. Used mostly for her celebrity status and singing ability, Moore’s performance may not be anything special, but at least she knows how to deliver a joke – kinda.

Utilizing the wide-eyed, good ol’ boy charm that made him semi-famous in the late ’90s, Chris Klein plays Sally’s punching bag of a boyfriend who is dragged along Sally’s rise to fame in order to capitalize on his injured Iraq-veteran status.

Meanwhile, Omer (Sam Golzari) is an inept terrorist who is transferred to America as a sleeper agent after bumbling through terrorist camp. Omer’s hidden dreams of Broadway music eventually get him noticed by Tweed’s production crew and earn him a spot on the new season of “American Dreamz.”

Omer’s interaction with his fellow terrorists are laugh-out-loud funny in their larger-than-life presentation of American stereotypes and assumptions of the Middle East. Using the classic “fish out of water” formula, Weitz creates spot-on situational comedy for Golzari to bounce off of Omer. From his overtly Americanized host family, of which Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo plays the matriarch, to the silliness transposed onto Omer’s terrorist superiors, the scenes featuring Omer would be considered instant classics on “Saturday Night Live.” This, though, is not “SNL.”

Rounding out the main cast is Dennis Quaid as President Staton, a clear reflection of President Bush. While Quaid does an admirable job channeling our current president, he isn’t given much to work with as far as material goes. Besides some cheap shots at the administration, there is nary an original joke made that hasn’t already been done to death by other more talented comedians. Willem Dafoe’s performance as the Cheney-esque Vice President Sutter suffers the same mistreatment. Dafoe throws himself into a character that isn’t given proper space to develop into anything larger then a simple caricature.

There is a real need for smart political satire in today’s world. Jon Stewart and “The Onion” consistently deliver edgy material that finds humor in the truth. It’s a real shame then that Paul Weitz, a genuinely talented filmmaker, could not produce something more special than cast-off opening monologue jokes with his bigger budget and supposedly more talented workforce. The movie does have its funny moments and isn’t a total waste of time, but watching it, one can’t help but wonder what could have been.