I noticed that Lloyd Kaufman's Poultrygeist (subtitled Night of the Chicken Dead) has finally emerged in theaters (currently playing on 1 screen). Kaufman is the president of Troma, a production company and distributor that has survived as an indie for over 30 years, mainly due to salesmanship. By any count, they have been responsible for at least 150 movies, and Kaufman himself has over 200 on his resume. Anyone who has ever frequented a video store has probably come across titles like Blondes Have More Guns (1995), Cannibal! The Musical (1996), Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1991), Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV (2000) (and, indeed, the entire Toxic Avenger series), Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986), Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the C.I.A. (1994), Killer Condom (1996), A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1991), Rabid Grannies (1988), Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1991), Surf Nazis Must Die! (1987) and Tromeo and Juliet (1996). They have also distributed such nuggets as Brian De Palma's The Wedding Party (1969), Samuel Fuller's Shark! (1969) and Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (1996).

You want to start a movie off right? Hire Morgan Freeman as your star and then open the flick with some smooth Freeman voice-over. In this particular case, the film doesn't really need the narration, but there's just something so comfortable about Mr. Freeman's vocal chords. So obviously we're off to the right foot here: The Bucket List stars the endlessly cool Morgan Freeman -- as well as the famously entertaining Jack Nicholson. Already this movie is entertaining by default ... but we have two more very important components to check on before we get rolling.

The director is Rob Reiner, a man who definitely knows how to make good movies -- even if he hasn't really done it in over a decade. And the screenwriter is a relative newcomer ... so that's where I choose to focus. After all, The Bucket List is a movie about two terminally ill cancer patients who decide to hit the road, travel the world, and check all the items off their "bucket list" before the reaper finally comes calling. In the hands of a hacky screenwriter, this movie could easily become Grumpy Old Men 3, complete with oh-so-hilarious profanity, a bunch of Viagra gags, and a tacked-on and completely unearned emotional "payoff."

So what a pleasant surprise it is to learn that A) The Bucket List is Mr. Reiner's most satisfying film in a very long time, B) Justin Zackham's canny screenplay avoids schmaltz and artifice at (almost) every turn, and C) that Freeman and Nicholson strike an on-screen chemistry that's simply joyous to behold. I knew I'd enjoy the leads, but the movie's got a few more assets than that...

Opening only in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas Day, Rob Reiner's The Bucket List has drawn a split decision from the critics, according to Rotten Tomatoes, though 65% of the "cream of the crop" really don't like it. (Look for Cinematical's review on Friday, when it opens wide.) Still, it's been a popular success, perhaps in part because it teams Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman for the first time, and perhaps because the premise has struck a chord.

If you've somehow missed the pervasive television ad campaign, Jack and Morgan play two cancer patients. Facing death, they decide to break out of the hospital and do all the crazy things they always meant to do before they -- dramatic pause -- kick the bucket. Cue choir singing uplifting song. My favorite line in the trailer comes when Morgan is skydiving and screaming at Jack: "I ... hate ... your ... guts!!"

My local paper, the Dallas Morning News, says that the movie is "leading more people to share their lists on the web." Because I'm a film lover and this is a movie site, naturally my thoughts lean in that direction. (Besides, there are several books on the subject.) If I was terminally ill, catching up with all the movies I always meant to see would not be at the top of my list, but I'd try and squeeze in as many as possible before the end credits rolled.

Of course, the idea is probably to get out into the great outdoors and skydive and travel and ski and river raft, but if you've done all those things, what movies would you want to see before you die? With so many to choose from, what would be your criteria? Would you stick with the classics, try some avant garde, explore documentaries, watch more world cinema, or try and keep up with Hollywood blockbusters? Please tell us in the comments section.

The Bucket List stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward determined to complete everything on their "Bucket List" -- a list of things to do before they "kick the bucket." The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was just named one of the Ten Best of the Year by the National Board of Review. Cinematical spoke with the film's screenwriter, Justin Zackham.

Cinematical: You sit down to write The Bucket List, do you ever dream that you're going to get Rob Reiner to direct, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman to star...

JZ: Of course not! I'd have to be an idiot! Not even close. I wrote it with Morgan Freeman's voice in mind, somehow thinking maybe I'd find a way to get it to him. But no, nothing like this.

Cinematical: And how did you get it to these huge names? What were the steps that brought this movie to the screen?

JZ: I went to film school at NYU. I did a TV pilot that I wrote and executive produced in New York with Paul Sorvino years ago. And then I came out here (Los Angeles) and was dicking around for a while. I made Going Greek, which was a very sort of crappy fraternity comedy that I did back in 2000. I wrote, produced, and directed, and that took so much out of me that I spent another couple years dicking around. And then I just sat down one day and wrote my own "Bucket List" just to kind of get my head organized. On that list was like "Get a movie made by a major studio, marry the perfect woman," all that kind of stuff. A lot of the stuff on there wound up in the movie. I had always fantasized about going to the Pyramids, the Great Wall, I've always been sort of obsessed with the whole notion of Everest. All those things were on it, and I just stuck it on a bulletin board.

About a year later, I just came up with this quote one day, a line that's actually in the film -- "You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you." Stuck that up on the bulletin board. And then another year went by before I had the idea "What about making this into a script?" And I thought if it were about me, at the time I was about 34, it wouldn't be that interesting. So I decided to make it about two guys who had lived a full life, and they only have a few months left, and suddenly there's a ticking clock, and the things that do have real importance, at least in their minds. The story really became about the one thing neither of these guys puts on their list but is the thing they most want. And that's a best friend. I have this ridiculous process, and I wrote the actual script really quickly, in about two weeks.

Slant Magazine has put out its twin top ten lists for this year, and while I have some serious concerns about those lists -- they couldn't find room for Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece even in the honorable mention category! -- their superlatives boxes are some of the funniest I've seen anywhere. Here's a few of my favorites from their list: Most Homoerotic Use of a Computer goes to 300. Worst Performance By an Inanimate Object goes to Titus Welliver's mustache in Gone, Baby, Gone. I have to agree with that one. Worst Use of CGI goes to Jack Nicholson's skydiving scene in The Bucket List. And my absolute personal favorite of them all: Dramatic Climax Best Suited for a WWE Storyline goes to The Kite Runner. If you haven't seen it, you'll know exactly what that means when you do.

By the way, I've noticed that Slant has also jumped on the bandwagon of delivering high, if left-handed praise for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. In his original review, Ed Gonzalez said the movie was "so completely and violently divorced from any normal concept of narrative thinking it becomes Dadaesque." Now, the Slant duo have given the film a prominent mention in their year-end wrap-up for its "avant-garde insanity." I recently heard about another well-known critic who is seriously mulling the possibility of including Aqua Teen in his top ten list for the year. When he told me, I honestly thought he was joking but now I see it's not just him. Although it never occurred to me before, now I think I actually have to see this movie. It sounds like I'm missing out on something.

There are a lot of things that will make me want to see a movie. Maybe the effects look cool, it's based on a book I liked or the trailer made me laugh. The films we're talking about today are ones that caught my attention because of a name involved, someone whose presence in front of or behind the camera makes me think this flick might have something going for it. It's Star Power week on Trailer Park.

The Bucket List
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play terminal cancer patients who create a list of things they want to do in life before they kick the bucket (hence the title). Neither actor seems to be straying far from what we've come to expect of them. Nicholson is blustery but still kind of suave while Freeman is more thoughtful and fatherly, but these are roles they play well. Oddly enough, the dynamic between the two actors reminds me a bit of the one between Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis in Bubba Ho-tep. Will and Grace's Sean Hayes is here too and Rob Reiner is directing, so I suspect this will be one worth catching. Martha Fischer first blogged about this on Cinematical here.

Finishing the Game
The star in question here is actually the star of the film being made within the film. At the time of Bruce Lee's sudden death in 1973 at the age of thirty-two, his film The Game of Death remained unfinished. Finishing the Game is a comedy about the completion of the film in the wake of Lee's death and finding an actor who can finish the late martial arts star's scenes. Several actors vie for the role, one of them hilariously Caucasian. The costumes and hair styles capture the 70s feel nicely, as do the clips of faux period martial arts flicks, which kind of remind me of the fake trailers in Grindhouse. This looks awesome.