Every few months, when Michael Jackson hasn’t been in the news for a while and I’ve seen one too many commercials for movies based on comic books, I embark on the magical and wonderful voyage that is writing a column that forces me to ask everyone I know: “Quick, I’m writing another movie column; what’s a body organ, a power tool and a small mammal with powerful jaws?”

Everybody enjoys going to the movies, and that’s why the film critic is the most respected and dignified profession in the entire galaxy. Unlike other film critics’ “methods of rate,” which typically involve only a single thumb, my rating system may involve numerous other body parts, such as my pancreas, fingers, eyeballs or torso, for example.

You see, I rate films with the absolute worst thing I would rather do than ever watch them, which, because it wouldn’t be funny if I didn’t only review bad movies, usually involves hooks and my skin. While this may seem odd, keep in mind that every time I see a commercial for a live-action “Garfield” movie, the only thing I can think about are hooks and their sweet release.

Oh, but what’s that, you say? How could I review “Garfield,” when it hasn’t even been released yet? Well, shut up, stupid; that’s actually the best part! You see, I have this awesome ability to evaluate movies without ever actually seeing the movie, basing my analysis of the entire thing on commercials, hearsay, merchandise tie-ins and my assumptions. I call it my “prejudice.”

Garfield I’m not entirely against the idea of making movies out of comic strips. I mean, “Saving Private Ryan” is based on Beatle Bailey and “Under the Tuscan Sun” is based on Haggar the Horrible, and those are pretty good I guess. But come on; this is Garfield. How good could a movie possibly be when it’s based on a cartoon cat who says two to three sentences per day to tell jokes like “polka is bad music” or “hey wow isn’t Garfield a lazy cat?”

Why couldn’t they have made a movie based on a good comic strip, like the Family Circus? They could have made it like “The Puppet Master” and it would have been hysterical. Or how about a movie based on Marmaduke and his family’s tragic and difficult decision to put him to sleep because he’s too bad? Or a snuff film starring Charlie Brown?

Rating: I’d rather be put in a small box and U.S. mailed to Abu Dhabi than ever even look at a computer-animated Garfield.

Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed

This movie is the sequel to a movie update of the beloved ‘70s cartoon about a gang of peyote-addicted acid freaks who force a starving and confused Great Dane to drive around aimlessly in a van, stopping only to seek shelter at miniature golf courses or malls closed for the night so that they can consume near-lethal amounts of LSD until they think they see Tim Robbins, Mama Cass or the Harlem Globetrotters being chased by farmers dressed as Frankensteins.

Of course, a modern, updated version of the old cartoon series would have Scooby and the gang seeing violent hallucinations of the modern-day equivalents of such notable celebrities as Don Knotts or Batman and Robin, and since this is a sequel to what I just said, the part of the celebrity hallucination is played by American Idol’s Ruben Studdard.

Unless somebody realizes that there isn’t a demand for live-action Scooby Doo movies soon, then Scooby Doo is going to be running from a farmer in a ghost costume alongside Tonya Harding and William Hung before too long.

Rating: I’d rather be forced to attend a McDonald’s convention and sit next to the outspoken assistant manager from a franchise in Tulsa who keeps raising his hand to give his opinions about different methods of playland maintenance at a roundtable discussion workshop than watch this movie.

The Punisher Dolph Lundgren is most known for his portrayal of Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV,” which won an Oscar for being the greatest movie ever in the history of time. Dolph also portrayed He-Man in the movie “Masters of the Universe,” which was nominated for that best movie ever Oscar but didn’t win. Well, Dolph also played the title role in a 1989 movie based on the comic book “The Punisher.” Can the 2004 version even hope to come close with Dolph’s?

Of course not! The 1989 version was ridiculously successful and catapulted Dolph’s career into the stratosphere. Since starring in “The Punisher,” Dolph has starred in movies with names like “Hidden Assassin,” “Silent Trigger,” “Storm Catcher” and “Direct Action.” Dolph’s movies are so amazing, or “awesometastic,” that Hollywood doesn’t even waste time releasing them in theaters; instead, in an attempt to quench the public’s insatiable thirst for Dolph, his movies are released directly to video. I highly doubt that the stars of this new “The Punisher,” like John Travolta or Rebecca Romijn-Stamos-Saget, will ever achieve the high level of stardom that Dolph has achieved.

Rating: I’d rather stand naked in a kiddie pool full of water moccasins with my thighs, buttocks and genitals slathered with rat blood than watch this movie. Not the one with Dolph; the other one.

The Alamo

Billy Bob Thornton plays a guy with a dead rodent on his head and Dennis Quaid plays an opium addict with a city named after him in “The Alamo,” a very boring and slow-paced documentary with a distinct lack of adult situations and exciting footage of cannonballs crashing into brick walls so that characters with names like “Cowboy 6, Cowboy 11 and Cowboy 13” who just happened to be standing on that wall can take exciting dives off of it.

This movie is bull crap because it disguises itself as entertainment so it can teach you history. If I actually wanted to learn something, I think I would actually go to my classes that I’m already paying for instead of paying an additional nine bucks to attend a two-hour history lecture, which is book-ended by commercials for soft drinks and reminders that, especially for cell phones, silence is golden.

Rating: I’d rather have my mouth hot-glued around the searing-hot exhaust pipe of a Volkswagen van so that I can inhale a steady stream of carbon monoxide as I’m dragged 600 miles than watch a true-to-life war documentary.

Van Helsing

“Van Helsing” is a touching tale of heart and heroism about a mysterious and misunderstood figure who traverses generic Romanian-looking countrysides looking for assorted Universal monsters to slaughter with, oh I don’t know, I think I’ll go out on a limb here and say he kills them with a crossbow, a shotgun, an oversized sword, some holy water and maybe a whip.

According to IMDb.com, NBC had plans to make a television series based on “Van Helsing” not only before the movie actually was released, but immediately following the release last September of “Underworld,” a similarly themed movie which is also about a mysterious and misunderstood person who wears all black and kills werewolves. So there you have it; spin-offs of rip-offs are being made before the actual rip-offs can be made.

Rating: I’d rather have my urethra melted shut with a soldering iron and then go on to become an alcoholic than watch this movie.

New York Minute

This movie stars former baby actresses Mary Kate and Ashley Olson, who partake in several wacky and zany adventures (or more like “misadventures!”) while being chased by truancy officer Eugene Levy, who despite working for over 30 years as an actor and being an integral part of such monumental projects as SCTV or the animated-classic “Camp Candy,” will be most remembered for his role in a series of movies about a kid who humped a pie. Also, he’ll be remembered for having one huge eyebrow.

Even though the film has the family-friendly rating of PG (which is, of course, an abbreviation for “pig”), don’t be fooled; any movie in which the majority of theater patrons watching it are wearing rain coats with no pants and all reek of Noxzema can not possibly be appropriate for anybody to let their teenage daughter go see, no matter how many Jason Mraz or Simple Plan songs are on the soundtrack.

Rating: I’d rather have highly illegal surgery so that a tarantula can lay its eggs in my kidneys as I’m being anesthetized with paint fumes than watch this movie.