Drunken Arts and Crippled Fist - Insubstantial, but entertaining Drunken Master clone about a kung fu "expert" (the character claims that he can't hit people because he's an expert) who teams up with a pretty pickpocket to fight a school run by a charlatan (Wei Ping-Ao, the effeminate bad guy from Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon). Simon Yuen shows up as a hunchbacked old master who teaches a myriad of styles to lead Lee I-Min, including monkey kung fu, drunken boxing, and the crippled fist technique.

EDIT: According to the opening credits, the name of the film's director is Tong Dick.

Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2 - Well, the CGI surfing scenes weren't bad. The English-language voice of one of Barbie's friends (I think) was supplied by Nakia Burrise (who once played a Power Ranger named Tanya), who's not only from my hometown, but her brother was a close friend of my brother for a long time.

Super 8 - I actually liked it a lot. The adolescent characters were endearing enough that I'm able to forgive not getting a good look at the giant alien space monster. I also like that, apart from the EVIL MILITARY OFFICER, all of the adult characters had at least one redeeming quality to them, including the stoner who works at the photo shop. I also like that each of the kids gets to make some contribution to the resolution and that the movie plays fair with putting them in complete mortal danger. I think the scene that got me the most was when Joe was teaching the girl how to be a zombie. It was just perfect in terms showing the chemistry between two adolescents that like each other but haven't expressed it yet.

I think you might be giving Kurt Wimmer too much credit.

Remember that joke that some kids used to play (and perhaps still do) on their more naïve counterparts in school where they'd tell them to hit their own chest while trying to bite their ear?

I have never, ever heard of this behavior, and I'm having a difficult time figuring out how it's even supposed to be biomechanically possible.

Drive: Watched it with the GF who hadn't seen it. First off, it improves on a second viewing. I can see serious cult status for this one. But mainly posting to share an observation she had. She noted so much of the film is in shades of orange and teal, calling it the new black and white. I realized as I watched it she was right. This is absolutely shot like a b&w film. So great.

I wonder who's genius idea it was to NOT go to Mars in the remake?

That was one of the reasons I though that the director, Refn, drew from Michael Mann as his inspiration because Mann was a good one for using shades of color in his filming, especially in the 80s. In Mann's case, he was among the directors who used the blue and pink tints.

Someone who read the Philip K. Dick short story would be my guess.

Ah, so it's not a remake of Total Recall, it's a re-adaptation of the Dick story that uses the original movie's name for branding purposes. Got it.

But they have thrown in some references to the earlier movie, like a three-breasted woman, and a reference to Arnold's fat woman disguise that he used to try to get through security. ("Two weeks...").

For those of you who NEED a mouse-sized aliens fix after no less than two Total Recall movies fail to deliver the goods.