Film Threat Forecaster

Every week, Americans face a menace terrifying enough to confine them to their homes even when they'd like to go out and have a good time: the dreck, dross, and bilge that Hollywood puts up on movie screens, all of which perversely distracts them from the films they might actually find entertaining. That's where Film Threat Forecaster comes in. Each week (except when I am off fighting other threats of some kind), I will analyze relevant data about the films that are opening and answer key film threat assessment queries like the following: Are any of the characters genetically enhanced superwarriors? Is it a romantic comedy set in New York City featuring two extremely attractive people who are unlucky in love? Will there be words at the bottom of the screen that you have to read because the characters are jabbering in some kind of nonsense language? Did Dominic Sena direct it? Based on the answers to these and other such queries, I will describe and assess the threat, if any, that the new films possess, and issue a final qualitative evaluation based on the five-level scale at the right. A key part of the Film Threat Forecast is endless joking about random irrelevant stuff; the endless random joking will eventually communicate a message on how to achieve world peace if you analyze it properly. I'm sure.

This feature used to be called Weekly Movie Preview before Robert Kahn and Mark Knoblauch renamed it and inspired me to create the five-level scale, which is not in any way based on a more famous five-level qualitative risk assessment scale that happens to use the same colors and some of the same words.

The newest Film Threat Forecast is linked to on the Spam-O-Matic homepage; it and older Film Threat Forecasts are also available below.

February 13, 2004: Love-Hate Potential

"50 First Dates," "Welcome to Mooseport," "The Dreamers."

January 16, 2004: The Titular Draw

"Along Came Polly," "Teacher's Pet," "Torque," "Bubba Ho-Tep."

January 9, 2004: Restrain Yourself

"Girl with a Pearl Earring," "Chasing Liberty," "My Baby's Daddy," "Monster."

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