As always, this appears in Friday's edition of the Guide.

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Our brain works in tangents. We start at point A and end up at point G, but we don’t go sequentially through the alphabet. We go from A to J to R to S to G, like a mental patient with ADD. It’s one of the reasons we’re both brilliant and not that successful.

Anyway, this week, we were listening to Howard Stern on SIRIUS Satellite Radio, and he mentioned Alanis Morissette, which led us to YouTube to look up her videos, which made us think of the old Nickelodeon show “You Can’t Do That on Television” that she was on for a season. From there, we started watching episodes of “YCDTOT” posted on YouTube, which lead us to a Web site all about old garbage most people have already forgotten called retrojunk.com. Two hours later, we went back to work. Now we’re here. End of prologue.




Retrojunk.com is a good waste of a few hours. Want to see that Diet Coke commercial you liked in 1984? Longing for the trailer to “Crocodile Dundee II”? Have a hankering to sing along to the “Great Space Coaster” intro? (You know you want to. It’s a place where dreams fly fast and free.) Retrojunk.com has them all.

The categories include commercials, TV shows, movies, people and articles, which are mainly user generated and consist of topics like “15 greatest Sega Genesis games ever.” Under each category, there is a sub-category that lets you explore the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. You can register and comment under each category, just in case you really want to express your love for Max Headroom.

One complaint, after you click on the subcategory — say, movies from 1980 — you get a listing of hundreds of movies NOT IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER. We really want to wade through a hundred titles just to find more info on “Critters”? OK, so, you can search, and it will take you right to your movie, but they had the alphabet in 1983. It’s not that hard to put them in order.

Wow, all this anger is harshing my mellow. We need more Great Space Coaster.

For more information, visit retrojunk.com.

New PopCast!

If you haven’t downloaded this week’s PopCast, you are missing out. We trash Kanye West. And Will Smith. Rock Hill gets it, too. But we love the drive-in.

You can listen to it live or download it here or on the PopPulse front page. You can also subscribe to it through iTunes. Do a search for the Beaufort Gazette.

The Hulk

We saw the Incredible Hulk this week. Very underrated movie. Already. Even though it made a ton of money, it was quietly dismissed as "good, but not as good as Iron Man." We don't get that. We loved Iron Man, but we really liked the Hulk. It's leaps and bounds above the last Hulk movie, and more online with the TV show.

The effects, too, were great. There were few moments when we thought we were watching a big, green cartoon character. The director used a lot of un-CGI camera angles (back in the day, all CGI was usually center screen, in focus, the center of the frame.) Hulk uses a lot of steady cam shots and angles behind foreground objects, so that the special effects look more natural, and the film, at times, looks more like a documentary.

But, more importantly, the Hulk, the character, has grit and texture and, more importantly, heart and depth. As good as Edward Norton was as Bruce Banner, we felt more for him as the Hulk. The director and writers went to great length to humanize him into more than just a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde clone.

Add in all the fanboy shout outs — the Bill Bixby cameo in the beginning, the nod to reporter Jack McGee, the cameos by Samuel Stearns and Doc Samson (not to mention another famous Marvel super hero) and the joke about the purple pants — and the Hulk is a fun two hours that pads out the promise of the first movie. Seriously, what's not to like?

Most Underrated Super Hero Movies Ever

Anyway, thanks to the lackluster reaction to the flick, here are the Five Most Underrated Super Hero Movies ever. We have no criteria of what is an underrated movie, other than how we feel it has generally been received. Enjoy.

5. The Rocketeer

Disney's nod to 1930s serials, the Rocketeer told the story of a dude with a jet pack. But it also married modern special effects with 1930s Hollywood elegance, Howard Hughes and Nazis! You have to love Nazis as bad guys.




We included this, since it was based on a comic book, and the Rocketeer is more of a traditional super hero, but for a similar movie, that is similarly underrated, check out Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. Criminally overlooked.

4. Dick Tracy

1989's Batman revived super hero movies for a short while (until Batman & Robin killed them again), and the first post-Batman flick to capitalize on the success was Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy.

This isn't a perfect movie. For one, it's full of plastic-faced freaks, yet Tracy is missing his trademark square jaw and beak nose. Also, Beatty is about 10-20 years too old to playing the classic crimefighter. Plus, Madonna is in it. And even though she doesn't completely stink, it's hard to root for her in anything.

But did we mention how great the movie LOOKS. The colors are straight from the funny pages. And the villains, Beatty gets all of the classic Tracy villains right. The movie features cameos from Hoffman and Pacino and Caan and others, all under layers of latex, all hamming it up.

(Especially Pacino, who is both brilliant and foreshadowing the next 20 years of performances with his over the top portrayal of Big Boy Caprice.

It's really a fun movie.

3. Unbreakable

This is the most overlooked M. Night Shyamalan movie, but this second teamup with Bruce Willis is quiet brilliance. Not your typical super hero movie, no, but it's a quiet, slow burn to a great ending. We just remember feeling tense for two hours watching this flick. Everything feels so real, with such consequences, rare for a movie about someone with extraordinary powers.

Willis is great as a quiet hero struggling with the weight of his gift.

2. Batman Forever

Batman Returns was the best Batman movie. Batman & Robin is easily the worst. But overlooked was the middle child. Are we the only ones that thought Val Kilmer was actually a pretty great Batman? Or that the scenes between he and Nicole Kidman sparkled in a way almost as good as between Keaton and Pheiffer? Or that Jim Carrey was perfectly cast as the Riddler? Or even that, for one brief, slight moment, Chris O'Donnell seemed the perfect Robin?




And, OK, Tommy Lee Jones kind of stinks. He's just Jack Nicholson with bad makeup. But other than that, we loved the movie. You also have to give it some perspective, at the time, Kidman, Kilmer, Carrey, Jones and even O'Donnell were all big stars, but not huge, and it was the perfect summer flick that utilized all of their talents.

We really think it's great. Really. Although we still don't no what "Batman Forever" actually means, as a title.

1. Superman Returns

This is just 2 years old, but we already think it is underrated. We just don't get people who were disappointed with this movie. What were they wanting? For our money, it's the PERFECT Superman movie. And, yes, we'll say it: Better than Superman 2, which doesn't hold up nearly as well you might think (despite the great General Zod).




We'll take Singer's real world take on the man of steel any day. You really get a sense of how, well, alien he feels in a world of mortals. The script moves us. Singer marrying the Superman of the 1970s (that brilliant score and the quasi 70s/80s costumes) with his modern vision really touched us. People panned the movie for being TOO reliant on the original film, but that's what we LOVED about it.




Plus, the special effects are way awesome. Superman has weight. He flies with purpose. The little kid isn't that annoying. We think Brandon Routh is as perfect as you might want as both Kent and Supes. And Kevin Spacey ... well, OK, we weren't blown away with Lex Luthor. But, honestly, we've never loved Luthor. He always comes across as a petulant child. But, as far as Luthors go, he was fine.

(By the way, this has nothing to do with Superman Returns, but it is BRILLIANT. Really, watch it.)

What do you think about our list? What super hero movie do you love that you don't think gets enough credit?