Tuesday is the one day of the week that I can actually afford to go to the movies, thanks to cheap ticket day at my local moving picture projection house. So on Tuesday I tend to go a little nuts, which is surprising considering the fact that most movies these days suck inordinate quantities of dick. Still, it's the only way that I can find to escape my day to day life, which is on average considerably worse.

That's good news for you however! Because thanks to the magic of the internet I can warn you ahead of time so that you don't make the same mistakes that I frequently do. So without further ado, here's the list of all the shit I subjected myself to this week.

I'm going to come out and say it: I'm fucking sick of Shrek. I'm sick of hearing about it, I'm sick of seeing it. I'm sick of Shrek advertising every single product on television. I'm sick of Shrek's voice. I'm sick of Shrek's face. I'm sick of the word Shrek. I'm sick of that stupid fucking donkey voiced by Eddie Murphy. I'm sick of that Mexican cat. I'm sick of the puppet with the shrieky voice. I'm sick of hearing every ten fucking seconds how great Shrek is. I'm sick of seeing previews for Shrek at the movies every time I go to the cinema, even if there isn't a Shrek movie coming out. I want Shrek to be real just so that I could give him a beatdown the likes of which he's never imagined. Fuck Shrek.

So today when I went to the movies to see what was new, imagine my angst when I discovered that really the only thing on I hadn't seen yet was the new Shrek movie. Unfortunately, my hatred for Shrek is exceeded only by my stubbournness. I didn't want to turn around and go home just because Shrek was exercising a monopoly over the film industry. I theorised that it would have been a win for Shrek if I didn't see his damn movie. And I wasn't about to let that fucker have the satisfaction.

"A ticket for... Shrek... please," I said to the girl behind the counter, and with a horrified wail, I immediately delivered a powerful double-fisted blow to my own crotch as self-punishment for the words that just came out of my mouth. The girl appeared mildly agitated and I was worried she might call the police, but she printed out a ticket anyway in the hope that it would goad me into leaving.

As soon as the title sequence came up, the full impact of what I had done finally hit me. I tried to scream but no words came out. I was forced only to watch in horror as the computer animated ogre and his ogre wife lay in bed - naked - trading jest in a horrible Scottish voice with a sass-talking negro donkey. Again I pummeled my crotch, harder this time, but the pain failed to surpass that which was being delivered to me through the movie screen.

I knew what I had to do. Using my extensive knowledge in the field of theoretical physics, I manipulated various items of cinema refuse as makeshift materials to engineer an automatic crotch-punching machine. The device strapped to my waist and automatically delivered impacts of increasing intensity to my groin region. "The pain cleanses me!" I shrieked over the nightmarish soundtrack, "It relieves me of the sins I have committed in this life! Observe! My torture is testement to the downfall of humanity that this film represents!"

I give Shrek the Third a 7/10. Hehehe, Justin Timberlake sounds like a thirteen year old girl.

True to the new law in Hollywood that states that all films must be followed up with a sequel even if there wasn't even enough story to make the first worthwhile, Hostel Part 2 is the second movie in the universally derided Hostel series.

The original film took the long-standing backpacker tradition of horny rich kids and formed a horror premise out of it, and although most backpackers in the real world seem to wind up murdered one way or another, and that makes it already terrifying in its own right, something about Hostel just wasn't scary. And this one less so.

I think the problem boils down to Eli Roth. The quirky indy horror director has a habit of stuffing his movies full of ham-handed comedy. Although that's pretty typical of the slasher genre, something about Roth's projects makes them a little unbalanced toward the comedy end in a way that utterly demolishes any genuine tension or malice that the film tries to establish. Thus the idea of a clandestine European backpackers' hostel that traps young travellers and auctions them off to rich people who feel the need to sadistically torture people without repercussions is rendered utterly ridiculous by the unnecessary sub-plot that follows two goofy American blokes who come to Europe to kill people and act wacky.

This would actually be a better movie if there was some mystery surrounding the bad guys. That's actually been a well established tradition in the slasher genre as a whole. Not in this case. Eli Roth shines a powerful spotlight on his boogeymen and reduces them to ridiculous clowns who fail to convince me why I should fear them or even give a shit. All that's left in the end is ninety minutes or so of violence porn. Even if that's your thing, there are lots of movies out at the moment that do that more effectively.

If I asked you, theoretically, to come up with the cheesiest, most ridiculously childish, incompetant, ham-handed and insipid movie plot that you could possibly invent, you might come up with something like this: The citizens of a Utopian Buddhist future become overwhelmed by the intense pollution of our modern society, which chokes them nearly to extinction. Their only hope is to send a robot emissary back in time in the shape of an adorable bunny rabbit, using advanced technology and Eastern mysticism to gather the one thing that can save humanity from oblivion: The tears of a young child.

You would then be dismayed to learn that you just summed up the exact storyline to this year's feel-good science fiction family bonanza, The Last Mimzy. I can't even begin to describe how I felt during every plot development in this Hallmark-esque pile of horseshit movie. It's like somebody actually set out to deliberately create the most contrived story in history - one is almost forced to believe that the entire thing is actually a deliberate parody. Its cheesiness is too perfect, too pure, to be accidental.

If you can get past the concept that the people of the future achieve world peace - and the ability to leviate - by harnessing Buddhism, and that child tears hold healing properties to combat genetic defects caused by pollution, then it's possible that you might actually be able to vegetate through most of this movie and actually have an okay time with it. If you're going to take your kids, however, make sure that you can restrain yourself from screaming profanity at the screen whenever you're asked to swallow some trite, pseudoscientific political ideology.