Well, I guess you have to admire a gal who has relatively 'meager' talents, but has managed to survive long enough to actually maintain a movie career. Although, when your movie is made by T&A monthly (A.K.A Maxim), I guess it's not like you will be headed for that Oscar podium any time soon. Variety reports that Carmen Electra is set to star in Maxim's Mardi Gras. The ensemble comedy also stars Nicholas D'Agosto (Rocket Science), Josh Gad, Brett Harrison, Arielle Kebbel, Danneel Haris, Regina Hall, and Becky and Jessica O'Donohue. Phil Dornfeld will direct Josh Heald's script about three best friends on vacation in the Big Easy, and are on the hunt for the ultimate party. Of course they find it, and then plenty of wackiness and gratuitous nudity will ensue.

The magazine for men who are too embarrassed to go buy real pornography first announced its intentions to get into the movie business back in July. There were three projects in the deal between the magazine and Sony Screen Gems, and Mardi Gras was the third title they had announced (some of their other jaw-droppingly crappy titles include Maxim's Virginity Rocks and Fired Up). I guess Mardi Gras will now go to the top of the pile; it is set to begin filming on location in New Orleans starting April 29th. If you can't get enough of Electra, you can always go catch Meet the Spartans -- although you might want to hurry, since that film is probably headed for the discount DVD bin any minute now.

See the expression on Ice Cube's face in this photograph? I wore that same expression for the entire running time of First Sunday. The transition of the holiday movie season into the barren movie wasteland of January is always a jarring one. For the past three months, it seems like I've seen nothing but Oscar-caliber movies -- masterful films by outstanding filmmakers working from amazing scripts. So maybe First Sunday just pales in comparison...

But I don't think so.

No, this is not yet another sequel to that terrific Ice Cube comedy Friday, as many have suspected. Sunday tells the story of "new" characters Durell (Cube) and LeeJohn (Tracy Morgan). As the movie opens, the boys are picked up by the cops for their involvement with some stolen wheelchairs. They are sentenced to 5,000 hours of community service, the owner of the wheelchairs comes to collect, and Durell finds himself broke. Things get even more desperate when Durell's ex-girlfriend (Regina Hall) tells him she intends to move to another state with his son...unless he can come up with $17,000 to pay off a debt. So Durell and LeeJohn do what anyone in their shoes would do -- they decide to rob a church. And of course, after a night amongst good Christian folk, they learn that crime is bad and God is good and blah blah blah.