PECKS AND PANS

Film Reviews
by Hollywood Hen House Legend Roger Eggbert

“The Dark Knight”

Now a lot of you folks have been clucking about this movie for a while now, and some even think it should have been nominated for best picture, but I for one have a major problem with it. Sure, it has fantastic special effects, cool explosions, and nobody whispers like Christian Bale—what range he has!

But there was one glaring omission: I did not see one chicken in this entire excuse for a film.

There was one scene in which Batman and some girl (who was no spring chicken, by the way) and some other guy are having dinner, and I was hoping that perhaps one of them was at least eating chicken, just so we could get some sort of representation. Yes, I know that of course it would be a dead chicken, but that would be preferable to the Hollywood conspiracy of pretending that chickens simply do not exist. But unless these beady little eyes are failing me, there was no chicken dinner to be found.

I did award “The Dark Knight” extra points, however, because human actor Heath Ledger’s facial makeup did include some red, yellow and white, which are all chicken-related colors.

For that, I give “The Dark Knight” two hard-boiled eggs.


“Underworld: Rise of the Lycans”

This movie left the theaters so fast, if you stopped to lay an egg, you may have missed it. Nonetheless, I still feel compelled to write about this cinematic travesty. In a year in which we saw the outstanding film “Yolk,” which starred human actor Sean Penn in a true story about a poultry rights activist, we still have chicken feed like this.

But here’s what really bothers me.

Those of you who have read my Pecks and Pans column over the past 20 years know all about me and my family history, especially if you read my memoir, “My Life as a Young Cluck.”

As a mere peep, I was on my own from a very early age, due to a certain fox, Henrich, who raided our hen house and plucked my mother clean. I still have a recurring nightmare in which I lay an egg, only to have a fox emerge from the shell and bite my pecker off. An owl psychiatrist has been helping me come to terms with this childhood event for many years.

But now here comes “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans,” which features several lycans, which is a fancy way of saying werewolves. And when I see wolves, I think foxes, and we all know what foxes do, don’t we? They raid hen houses! I think every motherclucker out there has family members who went to that giant coop in the sky because of some vicious fox, and this film just brings back those awful memories for all of us.

For the unwelcome return of my night terrors, I give “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans” one rotten egg.