If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all - at least I laughed at “Scary Movie” a bit.

A spoof on “Scream”, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and other teen horror flicks of the late nineties. It comes across more often like a satirical review of the hit movies of 1998-99, eg “The Sixth Sense”, “The Matrix”, Shakespeare In Love” (I did like the trailer for “Amistad II” though). What it is really derivative of is, of course, 1980’s “Airplane” (”Flying High” to us Australians) and every other film in the genre spoof line since.

There’s not much else I want to dwell on here. It’s not the sort of movie I would have ever paid money to go see, so I can’t comment on its impact inside a cinema. The fact that Dianne and I laughed quite a lot is enough to give “Scary Movie” a rating as high as I have given it.

My IMdb rating (out of 10): 6. I saw “Scary Movie” on Movie One (Optus Television) on Monday, December 23, 2002.

This is the film where Louis Armstrong sings “Jeepers Creepers” to a racehorse of the same name. Ah, great moments in movie history…

“Going Places” is a silly, lightweight, nonsensical comedy-musical from Warner Brothers. Certainly not to be seen for its profundity, or for its insights into the racing industry. Dick Powell as the salesman who poses as a jockey and finds he has to actually ride a horse in a race. Ronald Reagan has fourth billing in this film, and proves yet again that his acting improved after he was elected to the White House.

Louis Armstrong’s love song to a horse was bizarre enough (though undoubtedly classier than Michael Jackson with Ben the mouse), but the comic highlight of the film is the scene where the song “What A Horse Was Charley” comes together. It reminded me a lot of the Ritz Brothers, who were of course big at around the same time. The question: Dick Powell is Jimmy, Harry or Al? Same question for Allen Jenkins et al…

It would be remiss, however, not to mention that the prevailing racial stereotypes of the era are there. Even Louis Armstrong plays a stablehand in this film.

“Going Places” was, apparently, the fourth screen adaptation of a play by Victor Mapes and William Collier called “The Hottentot”. The fourth. Makes you wonder about the other three.

My rating on IMDb (out of 10): 6. I saw this film on “Turner Classic Movies” on December 12, 2002.

I found “Shrek” to be a quite charmless movie - in many ways the antithesis of everything a good animated fairy tale should be.

The whole film had a smugness and self-consciousness that made me feel rather uneasy. Eddie Murphy as the voice of the ass was, well, just an ass. The choices of contemporary music didn’t gel, as far as I was concerned. The animation was OK, although I am from the Old School and like seeing black borders on all my cartoon characters…

I’m not going to waste time being too nice here. At least it was short. After the movie was finished I felt like watching “The Princess Bride” as an antidote.

My IMDb rating (out of 10): 6. I saw “Shrek” on Movie One on Optus Television on November 17, 2002.