This "Veterinarian's Hospital" sketch from The Muppet Show contains a ton of puns and a nod to that BBC show.

Chinese kung-fu / prison / science fiction films reached their apex with 1991's Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky. It's got lots of blood, gore, and body parts being damaged. Yet, inexplicably, those same body parts are usually fine in the next shot. Ricky is a young man detained in a privatized prison where only the strongest survive. Luckily, he has advanced martial arts training . . . and a flute.

Hear our in-depth analysis on this month's Temple of Bad podcast.

Like all Temple of Bad podcasts, you can watch Ricky for free on Netflix Instant View. Check out our past bad-movie podcasts at the main website: TempleOfBad.com.

In Silicon Valley, back in the day, computer companies made cool t-shirts to mark special occasions. My wife worked part-time at Silicon Graphics, the company that made the computers that powered the special effects in Jurassic Park. (You can also see the Silicon Graphics logo on a couple of the machines seen in the film.) I still have the t-shirt.

Back in 1988 the Los Angeles Times Magazine published a 14-page story predicting what the life in L.A. would be like in 2013.

The AtlanticWire.com did a brief summation, including what the futurists got right and wrong . You can see that here.

The L.A. Times did it's own article on looking back 25 years here.

And, if you want to jump straight to a web archive of the article, can see the full article here.

I remember when this came out. "They're still watching Blade Runner?" I thought. Yep, we are.

Genre writer Greg Cox, author of many Star Trek tales, as well as adventures is many other shared universes, will be giving a talk in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress on March 14th at noon. Bound to be a great time. Be there or be a Herbert.

Steven Spielberg's E.T. was a great film. So when the folks behind Mac and Me decided to rip it off, naturally they chose only the best elements to lift: the sense of wonder, the humanity, the heart, and the sophisticated special effects. Just kidding. They did a lousy job, and this film is terrible. So bad that Dan Persons, Andrea K. Lipinski, and I had to study it. You can download the podcast here. And be sure to check out our past adventures in bad film at TempleOfBad.com.

Lay's has just released three new flavors of potato chips: Chicken & Waffles, Sriracha, and Cheesy Garlic Bread. This is a new flavor death match, with the public voting on their favorite, and that winner joining the permanent ranks of Lay's chips along-side Barbeque, Sour Cream & Onion, and a few others. I'm not a chip aficionado, but the prospect of three new flavors moved the adventurous spirit in me. I picked some up, and here are my notes.

Chicken & Waffles: What you taste is the syrup. If a combination of flavors can be boiled down to one flavor, in this case it's maple syrup. It tastes like a McDonald's McGriddle, which is a sausage sandwich, the “bread” of which is pancakes with syrup baked inside. I don't really taste the chicken. This is a waffle chip.

Sriracha: I am not a hot sauce guy. I keep a bottle of Gringo Bandito around for those things in life it can enhance (cheese souffles, scrambled eggs), but that's it. I was unaware of the rooster-logo chili sauce that is such an important part of Thai and other Asian cuisines. According to the note on the back of the bag, some people eat plain potato chips with a dab of Sriracha on them. So, here it's baked right in for you. This is a spicy chip. It's BBQ with a kick. I experimented with a dab of blue cheese dressing on each chip, and the result was a delightful Buffalo chicken chip (how did THAT flavor not end up as one of these choices?).

Cheesy Garlic Bread: A little cheese and a little garlic. At some cool movie theaters, you can put powdered flavorings on your popcorn. If you mixed White Cheddar with Garlic powders, you'd get this.

Verdict: No real favorite here. I like my potato chips tangy not sweet, so No to the Chicken & Waffles. Similarly, I've never dipped my chips in hot sauce. On those occasions when I dip, I like onion dip. (The world's greatest dip is guacamole, but that's for corn chips. Potato chips are too fragile.) Cheesy Garlic Bread was OK, but not a game-changer. Back to the drawing board Lay's. Let's see your take on Buffalo Chicken & Blue Cheese, Guacamole, and Corned Beef.

The latest episode of "It Has Come to My Attention" is out. Here, I talk about the most useful book in the history of the universe: Monty Python's Flying Circus: An Utterly Complete, Thoroughly Unillustrated, Absolutely Unauthorized Guide to Possibly All the References From Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson to Zambesi by Darl Larsen. Yes, annotations to every episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Here, I take the audio from the classic Australian "Bruces" sketch and prove the book's value by intercutting me reading the citations from the book.

Mars asked politely for volunteers, but The Man turned them down. Dan, Andrea, and I examine the Tommy Kirk/Yvonne Craig classic Mars Needs Women on this month's Temple of Bad. Download it here at The Chronic Rift's website. And be sure to check out our past endeavors -- including Xanadu -- here at TempleOfBad.com.

One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1989, my buddy John Brosio and I started out to go see the new, Tim Burton Batman movie. This was in Los Angeles, so were were blessed with multiplexes that had huge screens. As we were standing in line (after, according to my memory, having dodged protestors holding signs decrying The Last Temptation of Christ. Is that possible? TLToC was 1988.), we saw that on another screen the newly-restored, director's cut of Lawrence of Arabia was showing. “You know,” I said, “as film fans we should really see that.” We agreed that we could see Batman anytime, but Lawrence of Arabia was a rarity. We'd never seen it, though we knew of it. This was a film that George Lucas had mentioned in interviews we'd read, and we knew some of the desert scenes in Star Wars had been inspired by it. We had seen shots from it in books about filmmaking. But it was never on TV (unlike two other epics – The Ten Commandments, which was on every Easter Sunday, and Gone With The Wind, which was shown over two nights once a year on CBS.) I guess there wasn't a built-in audience for a film with no speaking roles for women and a lot of geopolitical history.

We bought our tickets and sat down. I impatiently sat through the overture. The music was vaguely familiar. Had I heard it on the Academy Awards? Then the film began with a lovely overhead, widescreen shot of the ill-fated motorcycle. Then Peter O'Toole racing through the countryside, great POV shots, and the crash, ending with his goggles hanging off a tree branch. Soon the desert. The slow (real-time?) sunrise changing the colors of the horizon. At the start of the intermission, I turned to John and said, “This is the greatest movie ever made.” And it is. I love Casablanca. I love Star Wars. I love Citizen Kane. But as pure cinema experience, Lawrence of Arabia outshines them all. Drama, humor, and pathos. It's all there as we follow T.E. Lawrence, a British army lieutenant who assists the Arabs in fighting the Ottoman empire, eventually going native and a little rogue. And the widescreen presentation makes full use of the natural beauty of the Middle East. This film is epic in every sense.

I say all this because I got the Blu-ray release for Christmas. I've had the Laserdisc version and the DVD version, but this blows them out of the . . . sand. The disc is gorgeous, but I can't say it's the best it has ever looked. That was a on 40-foot screen back in 1989. 1080p is lovely, but I'll never have a TV as big as a room. And it will never be the first time again.