I've been reading up on Jenny McCarthy's "defense" of her cousin Melissa McCarthy, regarding Rex Reed's recent, much vilified review of "The Identity Thief." Herein he refers to the actress as "hippo-sized," among other negative things. Here's my open letter to Jenny and everyone else that's jumped on the "Kill Rex Reed" bandwagon:

It's easy to understand your anger, but with all due respect, it stems from a lack of knowledge about Rex Reed, who HAS in fact called out smokers, drug users, fat men and just about anybody else who irritates him onscreen, and he's been doing it for years--In fact, it's made him famous!

Also, though I agree with everything you've said about MM, she's partly to blame here. Her roles in both IDENTITY THIEF and the upcoming film with Sandra Bullock play off her weight, and reinforce the stereotype that because she's obese, she's a knockabout (how many times is she involved in a punch-up?) bull-in-a-China-shop with a foul mouth and a tendency towards grossness. This is a real shame, considering the quality work she did in "Bridesmaids" and on TV in "Mike & Molly."

On one hand, you can blame Hollywood, who refuses to think of big women any other way (you'll find that overweight men are generally cast the same way) and on the other hand, you must place some blame on MM for taking these movie projects instead of holding out for better--She is, after all an Oscar nominee with a hit TV show; it's not like she takes these roles or perishes. Think about it.

Finally, Jenny: you put a point on your scorn by telling Reed to "go to hell," but he can quite easily (and justifiably) hit back with: "Hell is pretty much any movie featuring Jenny McCarthy!" Live by the sword, die by the sword! ;)

Here's what I posted on Twitter as I made my way through the madness known as TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON:

* OK, Michael Bay, try to impress me.

* I love that Hasbro is the first name in the credits. That tells you just what kind of movie this is going to be.

* We get a glimpse of Cybertron and... it looks like Zion from the Matrix sequels. Shaking my head.

* Alterna-NASA sci-fi stories have never excited me. Real NASA is already cool enough.

* Hot girlfriend, hangs out at the White House... Sam isn't exactly the "guy next door" anymore, is he?

* Great, more Michael Bay "comedy." Just because you can have wacky sidekicks doesn't mean you should.

* This was originally released in 3-D, right? That's why a lot of these scenes are all grey and colorless?

* Shockwave was the first Transformer I ever owned. That thing with the tentacles is NOT Shockwave.

* It's a BURN AFTER READING reunion.

* Too... many... silly... accents...

* Subplot about Sam, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's boss seems pointless. It better be going somewhere.

* On the positive side, Megatron's finally showing a little bit of personality for once in these movies.

* Michael Bay, even with Ken Jeong in your movie, you still can't do comedy. Just STOP.

* The movie is spinning its wheels, so to speak. A lot of talk, exposition, forced conflict, forced comedy. I'm bored.

* Suddenly, it's a gangster flick. Why aren't the transformers in this Transformers movie?

* It's Spider-Man's landlord!

* Robot fightin'! But the robots all look alike, so I can't tell which is which. I should be pumped, but I'm confused.

* What? Optimus just stands there and lets the villain walk away? And now we're at a fancy dinner party? Ugh.

* What should be a suspenseful twist is instead an excuse for Sam to do slapstick shtick. Ugh again.

* Didn't the second movie also do the "Oh, no, Optimus is dead for real" fake-out? Why do it again?

* What's with all the cuts to a black screen, and then back to the action? It's like they're still editing the trailer.

* Suddenly I'm watching BATTLE: L.A. Why can't this movie make up its mind what it wants to be?

* The Decepticons don't have phones? They communicate only by yelling at each other?

* "Boomsticks?" Seriously? Now I'm wishing I was watching ARMY OF DARKNESS instead.

* Now someone just yelled, "Shoot the glass," and suddenly I wish I was watching DIE HARD.

* "The needs of the many..." OK, that one HAD to be on purpose.

* Nothing says "Hollywood blockbuster" like the single-tear-falls-down-the-hero's-face shot.

* Sam has parkour moves now? Since when?

* "You'll have to go through me." That's it, keep the action cliches coming, movie.

* The final confrontation started with, "Holy crap!" but quickly sank back down to "Oh, brother."

* Movie's over and... it's almost 2 a.m.? I have to go to work tomorrow.

Just wanted to make public my extreme pleasure at being invited to contribute to DVD VERDICT, and share chambers with such esteemed colleagues...

I don't know how or why, but Empire of Assassins continues to be something a lot of people want to check out, at least until they read my review (I hope). It has been the top read review on the Verdict site for the past three days (although 39 Assassins is going to pass it very soon). My theory is that my review is the only one in existence right now so anyone interested in reading about it has nowhere else to go.

In the meantime, both the Max Manus and Orgasm Inc. reviews popped this past week. They were both a bit disappointing, but for different reasons. Max is about a saboteur but spends all his time moping instead of saboteuring. And there was nothing at all orgasmic about Orgasm Inc..

Just to clear any confusion about the latter, though, I didn't necessarily disagree with the conclusions drawn by Liz. I agree that a lot of what is considered to be "dysfunctions" in modern-day America aren't really medical conditions, and that isn't limited to sexual dysfunction. I think, for instance, that ADD and ADHD are way over diagnosed because parents just don't want to deal with excitable children. That being said, there's no question that some men have sexual dysfunctions, so it stands to reason that some women would as well.

Also, the end of Orgasm Inc. wants the viewer to be outraged because the patch that got shot down by the FDA got approved in Europe. However, the reason it didn't make it in the US was because it needed to be taken with Estrogen, which added all of Estrogen's problems to its problems. It got approved in Europe only in patients who were already on Estrogen, so that entire part of the argument was effectively removed from the equation and I see no problems with it being approved on that basis.

Just sayin'.

Apparently Empire of Assassins was a more highly anticipated release than I ever would have suspected; my review of it got a "special commendation" by being #11 in the "14 Day Most Popular" group. It also netted my first official feedback; someone clicked "no" on the "Did we give it a fair trial" link. Unfortunately whoever it was didn't email me or go to the forums, so I can only guess at their reasons for liking the film. All I can come up with is that the person was, perhaps, the mother of one of the actors. As an edit, I looked at IMDB's fan ratings and found one person voted it a 10 out of 10. It was a 30-something female, so it must have been a sister or wife, not a mother.

Conversely, there are 9 "Likes" connected to the "Facebook" link. I don't know what that means, exactly, but it sounds positive.

I probably should have worded the Closing Statement a little differently, since I don't have actual evidence that the film was made from cutting-room floor material. I hope it was, though, 'cause if not, the TV series must have left a lot to be desired.

Also, Land Girls popped today. There's not a lot to say about the show, except that I was pretty disappointed in it. It seemed like it could have been much better than it ended up being. I probably would have liked it even less, but I watched it with Anna and, since everything is always better when she's involved, it made the show enjoyable.

The next list came out and I told Michael to send me whatever he needed again. He sent me two movies and an entire season of a TV series. I'll have to manufacture a lot of time for that much viewing.

In other news, the back speakers of my surround sound system didn't work all (or even most) of the time so I called Sony and spent a couple hours doing all the things I had tried myself before I called. Finally they told me to send them in for repair, so I sent them yesterday. No word on how long the repairs will take.