Chris Rock fucked up my favorite classic Chloe in the Afternoon from Eric Rohmer with his newest film, I Think I Love My Wife, a remake in which he wrote (with Louis C. K.), directed, and starred. Unlike the original character played by Bernard Verley, whose performance came natural, Chris has done his best to look bored, but coming from a standup comedian is hard to believe. In addition, Chris can’t act.

Kerry Washington (who is supposed to be Chloe) is very sexy, but she was not convincing either. I watched the original about five or six years ago and the European-voluptuous Chloe still hovers in my mind when the film was mentioned. There was something about the European lifestyle, the romantic language of France, and unfamiliarity of European women (elegant but have a wild side to them) makes the film seem to be exotic. And that is something Chris has failed to transcend.

I love Manhattan, but it is not a romantic place like Paris. Even though I have never been to Paris, the original movie has captured its mellow vibe. Manhattan is more like a hustling place; therefore, a lunch break in NYC is not an ideal place to fantasize about every woman who happened to walk by like Paris.

The huge flaw in the film is that Chris couldn’t tap into the mind of the married man like what Eric Rohmer had done. In the original, men can relate to what the guy goes through. Every woman on the street is much more interesting than his wife. What if I were married to her (the one with big boobs or the one with luscious lips)? Would my life be any different? Would I still be bored out of my fucking mind?

If nothing else, Christina Ricci is the reason to watch Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan. She’s hot, wild and eighty-five percent naked throughout the film. Ricci’s character, Rae, struggles with some kind of sex spell that would lead her to jump on any dicks available when her boyfriend Ronnie (not bad performance from Justin Timberlake) isn’t around. Of course, how could any man resist a sex fiend with body like her?

Thank goodness for Lazarus (plays by the incredible Samuel L. Jackson) who is the only exception. Even when Rae tries to hop on him, he runs off with the Bible in his hand. To rescue Rae from her uncontrollable sexual craves, Lazarus chains her to a radiator in his house. Rae’s still “off the chain” even when she’s on the chain. He feeds her, baths her, and sings her the blues (Jackson has that gruff old voice that is perfect for that soulful country blues), but never touches her. Through their own dramas, the two develop a mutual respect for each other like father and daughter.

Even though the heart of Black Snake Moan is an inspiring story, the film pushes race straight in your face. “Nigger’s whore” is what Ronnie calls Rae when he busts into Lazarus house. But then again, Jackson’s role has shifted from A Time to Kill to a time to heal, and he is convincing on both counts.

George Lopez made his solo debut, America’s Mexican, on HBO last night. He was hilarious, but mi hombre used way too much Spanglish that you don’t get some of the inside jokes unless you know Spanish. He also refurbished some of his old materials including his previous appearance on Comic Relief 2006. Lopez’s weakest point was that didn’t delve deep into a certain topics like Chris Rock. He only touched on the surface and moved on. The coldest part was when he imitated the way governor Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks English. Fuck That Puto!

Richard Eyre’s dark, lustful Notes on a Scandal is a film about teachers that parents wouldn’t approve but kids would love. Imagine being fifteen and being blown by a teacher who is hot as Cate Blanchett. But that’s only one juicy part of the story. The main one is the fatal lesbian attraction between the young and sweet Sheba Hart who screws her student under the train track and the creepy, old Barbara Covett (Judi Dench) who is a conservative homosexual and a well-respected teacher.

What drives the film is the superb interaction between Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Dench is like the female version of Jack Nicholson whose facial expression tells it. Whether she’s angry, disturbed, or betrayed, Dench remains unsympathetic and unapologetic, even when she blows the secret. Blanchett, on the other hand, is vulnerable, eye-catcher, and forgivable. Even her husband (a great role by Bill Nighy) who was cheated on admits that she’s a good mother, but a lousy wife.

While Cate’s milkshake brings all the boys and girls to the yard, Dench wants it all to herself. Narrated by Babara’s insensitive, heartless tone, she feeds us the inner thoughts of a dark, secretive woman. It’s fascinating to see how she brings the one she loves to her by taking her away from the boy and her own family.

I had exactly what the the title of the movie is: a Déjà Vu. Denzel Washington sure had wasted his talent with the type of Hollywood’s action crap that you still know what goes on when you wake up twenty minutes before the film ends. The hero character is not even a Denzel role, but more like a Bruce Willis or Sylvester Stallone. I should have known better than to pick a film based on my favorite actor without taking a sneak peak at the preview.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is both ridiculously funny and ridiculously sad. Two guys (one skinny, one fat) wrestle naked against each other in homosexual-suggested positions is ridiculously funny. Get recommendation from a gun shop owner on which weapon to best kill the Jews is ridiculously sad. Support Bush’s War on Terror and yearning for the president to “drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq” is ridiculously funny. Eat cheese made from a woman’s tittie is ridiculously sad. Or should it be the other way around? Bush is sad and tittie is funny. Love it or hate it, Sacha Baron Cohen’s shameless humiliation will make you laugh, even when he washes his face with toilet water—the kind of stupidity that only comedian could pull off. Then again, humiliation should not be in your dictionary if you’re a comedian.

Caught Wanda Sykes’s Sick and Tired on HBO the other night, and she cracks me the hell up. Lesser profanity and lighter-handed on racism than Chris Rock, but she is on point with her comic reliefs as a stand-up comedian, especially on her sarcastic references. For example, check out a clip of “Men Aren’t Dog.” Further on men, she wishes that she could rip our eyeballs out and shove them up our butt to let us see for ourselves what an asshole we are. I have to give that one to her, but her view on “getting old” that still stuck in my mind. As we’re aging, we just “don’t give a fuck.” And “‘I don’t give a fuck’ just flies out of my mouth,” she continues, “Even if I don’t say it, I think about it.” As for her presentational skill, she is calm, cool, and effortless throughout the show. I’ll definitely looking forward for more of her work.

It’s about time Martin Scorsese takes us back to the mean street. The Departed, a remake of Hong-Kong Infernal Affairs, is bloody enjoyable. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were giving their fine performances as lead roles; Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin were superb as supporters. Jack Nicholson is my man, but when it comes to gangster’s boss, I have to go with Robert De Niro. Nicholson has his versatility and beastivity (The Shining), but he’s too much of a lovable man to play a top-dog character. The man’s facial expression, however, is still on the money, especially when he imitates the rat. With top-notch acting, brain-blowing glory, and foul-mouthing language, Scorsese has created an entertaining gangsta shit since Goodfellas.

Hans Petter Moland’s The Beautiful Country recaptures the heart-wrecking experience of the boat-fleeing Vietnamese. With his understated charisma, Damien Nguyen—who plays an Amerasian escaping Viet Nam to find his American G.I. father—takes us on a boat ride that would leave our soul shattered, especially for those that had been through it. The hardest scene to watch is when Binh drops the body of his little brother Tam—plays by Tran Dang Quoc Thinh, an adorable little boy—into the sea. With the support of sexy Bai Ling, badass Tim Roth, and compassionate Nick Nolte, The Beautiful Country is a magnificent epic filled with bone-crushing emotions and striking visuals.

In Laurent Cantet’s Heading South, Albert (Lys Ambriose), a waiter at a tourist hotel in Haiti, confesses what his grandfather used to tell him: “the white man was an animal.” And today (1970 is when the film took place) their dollars is even more poisonous than their weapons. He went on, “Everything they touch turns garbage.” If Viet Nam is the white men’s “heaven on earth” (as I have been told), Haiti is the white women’s paradise. Single, old, white female can throw their dollars around and get the best sex from young, handsome, black Haitian—the exoticness they can’t get from the black Harlem brothers, according to one of the characters in the film.

Heading South revolves around the love triangle between two old white females and a young gigolo. Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) is a 55-year-old, French-literature teacher at Wellesley who spend her summer time at the hotel pimping young boys. Brenda (Karen Young)—a forty-eight-year-old, divorced, woman—returns to the hotel three years after she got her first orgasm from a fifteen-year-old Legba (Ménothy Cesar). She is obsessed with him not because she loves him, but she loves the way he looks at her. Something that no else, not even her ex-husband, had looked at her the same way. And of course, Legba is the sexy guy that made these old women falling head over hill for him. He got the pimp juice, the six-pack, and the seductive smile.

With Haitian’s gorgeous beach, well-crafted story, and convincing performances, Heading South is emotional, erotic, and political as well—not to mention both the soul- and physical- baring scenes. After all, money can’t buy love. You can only get what you paid for. But then again, money still rules. If you have cash, why need love?