"Stuttering" John Melendez Movies
Season two of the brutally satirical CGI sci-fi series Tripping the Rift follows the same pattern as Season One, with one major change: Carmen Electra replaces Gina Gershon in the role of Six of One, the oversexed second-in command of Jupiter 42 skipper Chode. In the season opener, Chode's pimply nephew Whip takes charge of his uncle's starship, ultimately ending up a celebrity on the planet Kraven. Later, Chode tries to unload an unwanted cargo on the all-gay Fabulous Planet; deadly-but-dumb space villain Darph Bobo takes a horrible revenge when Chode steals his credit card; the Jupiter 42 crew confronts their innermost fears and some substandard animation on a ghost ship; and Chode's Grandpa Benito wants to get even with Darph for a past slight, hiring Joey No-Balls for that purpose. Also: the mystery of Roswell New Mexico is finally solved when Chode passes through a time warp while escaping the victims of his latest scam; Darph Bobo tries to be "cool" at his high school reunion (villains need reassurance sometimes). Confederatin leader Captain Adam disappears on the hostile planet Creaturepalooza; and in the season finale, Six of One's past comes back to bite her where the moon don't shine, in an episode featuring Patty Hearst as the voice of Haffa Dozen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Root, Maurice LaMarche, (more)
Introduced in 2002 with a 5-minute "pilot", the savagely satirical CGI science-fiction series Tripping the Rift offers thirteen half-hour episodes in its first season. The opener sets the tone for all to come, as Chode, the larcenous purple-skinned commander of the starship Jupiter 42, links up with the incompetent cyborg Gus to solve the mystery of their existence--and end up killing God in the process. Things don't get much better in subsequent episodes, wherein the Confederation of Chode and the Dark Clowns of arch-enemy Darph Bobo square off in the Mutilation Ball Championship; Chode's sexy second in command Six of One enters the Miss Galaxy 5000 Pageant, which is clearly rigged in favor of Darph Bobo's homicidal daughter Babette; the crew end up on a planet where polluting is a capital offence, and where Chode signs his own death warrant for spitting out a gum; and a deal between Chode and the Devil yields only a widescreen plasma TV. Later, android Gus is recalled and replaced by an even more clumsy "upgrade"; Darph Bobo tries to corrupt "2001 Space Idiocies" on a faraway planet; the Bush-Kerry presidential race is skewered when the crew lands on Floridia 7 during a hotly contested political campaign; a trip to Muldavia 5 finds Chode confronting his identical twin, King Regis Philbrick; Chode's nerdish nephew Whip is kidnapped, resulting in a symbolic castration at the hands of Darph Bobo; and in the season finale, Six of One meets an old android boyfriend at an intergalactic male strip bar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stephen Root, Maurice LaMarche, (more)
Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, the impish impresarios of gross-out comedy, take their body function-inspired humor to new extremes in this mixture of live action and animation. Bill Murray stars as Frank, a zoo worker suffering from the effects of an unknown malady he contracted after eating an egg contaminated with simian saliva. Unknown to Frank, the inside of his body is actually a city (the City of Frank) teeming with cellular life, where the mysterious illness he's fighting is an invading enemy that must be defeated at all costs. It's up to Osmosis Jones (voice of Chris Rock), a white blood cell cop, and Drix (voice of David Hyde Pierce), a rookie over-the-counter medication, to hunt down and stop a lethal virus (Laurence Fishburne) who's got an inferiority complex. Along the way, the partners visit Frank's runny nostrils (Booger Dam) and a bar called, appropriately enough, the Zit. Osmosis Jones costars Molly Shannon and Chris Elliott, and features the vocal talents of William Shatner, producer Joel Silver, and singer Brandy Norwood. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Murray, Molly Shannon, (more)
