Bill Up Close

Time may fade away, but Neil Young hasn't

2011-02-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

In 1972, Neil Young achieved his greatest commercial success with Harvest, a flavorful country rock album that still remains his sole #1 album and his most purchased album with over 4 milion copies sold in the US alone. (In England, it sold over 2 million copies.) Fresh off such a major success, Young embarked on his largest tour ever. Young also decided that a live album would be a good idea, so a mobile recording unit called "His Master's Wheels" tagged along.

The tour ended up being a complete nightmare. Young had recorded Harvest with a backing band dubbed The Stray Gators, but had also invited Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten to join the tour. Whitten was a promising young talent who had a crippling drug addiction. At one point during rehearsals, Whitten was so out of it that other band members had to place his hands on the guitar and try to shake him awake. Young became fed up and firedWhitten, sending him home with $50 and a plane ticket. Within hours of his dismissal, Whitten would die from a heroin overdose. Young felt responsible and guilty over Whitten's death, casting a dark pall over the upcoming tour. Young premiered a batch of new songs, which didn't sit well with audiences expecting a reprise of Harvest. Drummer Kenny Buttrey copped a major attitude over money, resulting in Young firing him mid-tour. Former Turtles and CSNY drummer Johnny Barbata flew in as a last-minute replacement, but things still didn't improve. Young's relationship with actress Carrie Snodgrass (Diary ofa Mad Housewife, The Fury) was starting to become very rocky. Young took to drinking excessively at times, wreaking havoc on his vocal cords and causing his voice to even disappear temporarily. David Crosby and Graham Nash accepted an invitation to join the tour, but soon butted heads with Jack Nitzsche, the pianist of the Stray Gators. Endless bickering over money and technical hassles soon broke out.

In 1973, Young compiled a live album of highlights from the tour from Hell, titled Time Fades Away. Comprised of all new songs, the album actually sold quite well, peaking at #22 on the Billboard charts and earning a Gold record certification from the RIAA a month after its' release. Unfortunately, the album was withdrawn per Young's request one year later. Young has been resistant towards any kind of reissue, so it remains the only Neil Young album to not be issued on CD. My guess is the bad memories still hurt him badly enough that he'd rather pretend it doesn't exist. Young himself dismissed the album in the liner notes for his 1977 compliation album Decade:

Time Fades Away. No songs from this album are included here. It was recorded on my biggest tour ever, 65 shows in 90 days. Money hassles among everyone concerned ruined this tour and record for me but I released it anyway so you folks could see what could happen if you lose it for a while. I was becoming more interested in an audio verite approach than satisfying the public demands for a repetition of Harvest.

For many, Time Fades Away is the Holy Grail of Neil Young albums. However, it is a widely bootlegged album and can be found if one roots around a little. Considering Young's constant resistance towards giving us ANY kind of official release, this may be the only route for those fans desperate to hear it. They should by all means seek this album out by any means necessary because the truth is, Time Fades Away is a masterpiece that serves as a perfect introduction to the time period known as "The Ditch". That was when Young's music became darker and more serious in tone, giving birth to the classic albums On the Beach and Tonight's The Night.

The tour alternated between a Young solo set and a full band set. The album reflects that, alternating between solo and band tunes. The first side begins with the title track, an energetic country rock exercise. This track may have been recorded when Young lost his voice, since the liner notes credit steel pedal guitarist Ben Keith as the vocalist. Keith does an eerie imitation of Young, sounding so much like him that I kept wondering if the notes were in error. Next is a solo tune titled "Journey Through the Past", named after but not included in the film of the same name that was written and directed by Young. Young pounds on the piano and sings of regrets in such an earnest way that one can openly identify with. The harmonies of David Crosby and Graham Nash first pop up with "Yonder Lies the Sinner", a catchy tune that would have been at home on a CSNY album, had the quartet managed to stay together long enough without fighting. "LA" is hardly a love letter to Los Angeles; with biting remarks about earthquakes, smog and crime, you wouldn't want to visit for long. Young overdubbed bass under the pseudonym Joe Yankee. "Love in Mind" is the beginning of the Snodgrass-inspired tunes that would crop up throughout Young's next three or four studio albums; a mournful and haunting ballad performed solely by Young on piano. The second side contains only three songs. "Don't Be Denied" is the only song from this album that Young has bothered performing live lately. It's a great rocker with excellent guitar work and a killer hook. This should have been released as a single instead of the title track. Another Snodgrass-inspired ballad "The Bridge" is one of Young's very best piano-based songs. Using a drawbridge as a metaphor for a rocky relationship, Young's heartfelt performance is both inspirational and moving even in the smallest details. Crosby and Nash return for the rocking "Last Dance", an eight minute epic that is in the same league as other sprawling guitar epics as "Like a Hurricane", "Down by the River" and "Cortez the Killer", if only it could be heard by more people.

The bootleg CD often contains an extra track culled from various 45 RPM single releases of the title track. Some contain a live take of "Last Trip to Tulsa", a track from his solo debut album. Mine contains "Borrowed Tune", which later appeared on Tonight's the Night but premiered on the Time Fades Away tour.

By the way, Neil Young has announced that he plans to release a new live compilation titled Time Fades Away II, featuring performances with the original Stray Gators group intact before Buttrey was fired. How about a proper reissue of Time Fades Away too, Neil?

Always Proofread before Publishing

2011-02-11T13:25:00.001-08:00

especially when the product in question is a children's book. If you don't, you'll end up with something like this book that is an ACTUAL kid's book that can be found for sale:

I can't help but wonder if this book was in the library inside Neverland Ranch.

2010's Ten Best Films And Something Extra

2011-02-10T13:23:00.000-08:00

1. Shutter Island

The advance word on Martin Scorsese's film wasn't good. Paramount canceled the planned October 2009 release date (take a look at the poster above..it clearly states OCTOBER) and dumped it in February 2010 with little fanfare. Yet it found an audience that made the film Scorsese's highest grossing film to date. After watching the film, it is easy to see why. This is such an engrossing film that I felt like I was floating on clouds for days after seeing it. Here is the polar opposite of Inception- a movie that definitely plays around with your mind, but actually leads somewhere concrete towards the end. Scorsese is at the top of his form here, guiding the production with a firm grip. Leonardo DiCaprio gives his best performance to date and should have been nominated for the Oscar.

2. The American

A movie that divided the few people who saw it in theaters last September. Some found it spellbinding, others found it a chore to sit through. I'm in the former camp and I suspect that those who didn't like it were expecting a traditional actioner instead of an evocative moodpiece. George Clooney gave a fine, subdued and brilliant performance as a career assassin who finds himself in a game of who can he trust. There are some good action scenes, but not catered to those who find huge explosions thrilling. Think The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Ipcress File rather than James Bond, folks.

3. The Fighter

David O. Russell rebounds from his previous picture, the dreadful I Heart Huckabees, with a great, old-fashioned melodrama based upon the true story of Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a promising young boxer floundering on the boxing circuit. His half-brother Dicky Edlund (Christian Bale) re-enters Micky's life, complete with the albatross of drug addiction. Then there's Micky and Dicky's dominating mother (Melissa Leo), who favors the drug addict over the dutiful son and the proverbial diamond in the rough girlfriend of Micky (Amy Adams). The neat thing about Russell's film is how it seems like a collection of cliches, yet it doesn't feel like we've seen it all before.

4. The Kids Are All Right

Atonement for past failures seems to be a running theme in 2010 for some filmmakers. Lisa Cholodenko's last film was a real clunker (2002's Laurel Canyon), so it was great to see her rebound with her third feature. I found it refreshing to FINALLY see a movie in which same-sex parents aren't treated like a mere gimmick, but as a normal, functional unit that goes through the same ups and downs as everyone else. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are perfect as the parental unit, whose kids go searching for their biological father (Mark Ruffalo- also terrific). Once Ruffalo enters the picture, the film goes off in some interesting and refreshingly different situations that one would expect from a dramatic comedy these days.

5. The Tillman Story

Pat Tillman was an NFL athlete who decided to quit pro football and join the army to fight in the War on Terror for the country he desperately loved. His death on April 22, 2004 during an exercise led to a firestorm. Filmmaker Amir Ben-Lev digs deeply to try and uncover the truth about Tillman's death and the subsequent exploitation by the Bush Administration. This was the best documentary of 2010: not only do we get to good insight into Tillman himself, but we also get a fair and balanced, warts-and-all look at the events that unspooled after his untimely death and the shameful selling of a soldier for political gain. There are many reasons why George W. Bush was the worst President in America's history- this movie tells us one of those reasons in depth.

6. The Neil Young Trunk Show

Rock legend Neil Young and director Jonathan Demme first teamed up for a concert film five years ago: Heart of Gold. Focusing on his unique brand of country rock, the movie was so outstanding that it placed second on my Ten Best list for 2006. It was also a surprise box office and home video success, so a sequel was inevitable. That sequel, titled The Neil Young Trunk Show, concentrated on pure Young style rock music. Filmed during his tour in support of his 2007 album Chrome Dreams II, this film is a different film in a different style: while Heart of Gold was sunny and bright, Trunk Show is appropriately gritty and in-your-face. Young and his band are in top form throughout. The highlights include a 25 minute version of "No Hidden Path" that is spellbinding and never boring; definitive takes of Young classics "Like a Hurricane" and "Cinnamon Girl" among others and even a few new songs. Trunk Show has yet to be released on DVD, but hopefully that will be rectified sometime this year.

7. Secretariat

In 2003, we had an extraordinary biopic about the legendary racing horse Seabiscuit. Seven years later, Hollywood gave us another extraordinary biopic about another legendary racing horse: the 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat. Randall Wallace's film accomplishes the same feat Gary Ross did with Seabiscuit: balancing the excitement of horse racing along with a highly involving story about the people behind the horse. Diane Lane stars as Penny Chenery, a woman who inherits her father's horse stables, only to be stymied by the rampant misogyny and sexism within the male dominated racing world. It's an inspirational movie that is perfect for the entire family and remains engrossing even with repeat viewings.

8. Blue Valentine

The anatomy of a marriage in freefall is the subject of this daring and harrowing drama. Derek Cianfrance's debut feature stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in the two best acting performances I saw in all of 2010. Cianfrance's film reminded me a lot of Sergio Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America and Harold Pinter's underseen film Betrayed (both 1984), especially since in all three films, time is fractured and scenes play out of conventional order. Like those other dramas, this one is enriched by the fractured time, making scenes that would play happily in chronological order, have a deeper meaning and darker tone. Williams was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar (but sadly will not win) while the Academy overlooked Gosling's low-key acting in favor of Jeff Bridges' pathetic overacting in the overrated True Grit.

9. Hereafter

Clint Eastwood makes his return to my Ten Best list for the first time in four years with this striking and most unusual film. Death is the subject that links three distinctive and different stories together, but the script by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) refreshingly doesn't wallow in the usual depression or cliches most death-centric movies usually do. Eastwood shows once again why he is one of the most interesting directors working today. Eastwood skillfully weaves these stories together without having to resort to phony gimmickry as some other directors would be tempted to do. Eastwood takes his time, using a very languid pace. His handling of actors is exceptional as always. I also applaud his use of special effects: he uses just enough to augment and enrich Morgan's story and doesn't let the effects overwhelm everything else.

10. Red

Admittedly, here was a movie I wasn't expecting much from. Despite a name cast that included Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Ernest Borgnine, the reviews were practically withering. It was based on a DC Comics graphic novel that was not only unread by myself but practically unheard of. To my surprise, I loved it. It's a subversely hilarious black comedy mixed with mind-boggling action to create the best pure entertainment experience of 2010. I have a feeling that this film will be held in higher regard twenty years from now- just as some other superhero/comic book adaptations (Richard Donner's Superman films, the Tim Burton Batmans) have lately.

Something Extra

George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead

Despite receiving some of the most singularly wrongheaded reviews, Romero once again delivers a brilliant zombie movie that puts to shame every other pretender. The beauty of Romero's zombie films is that each one is different from the previous installment, reflective of the time it was made in. For his latest twist, Romero plants his zombies into a Western milieu, targeting his unique brand of social commentary against the phenomenon known as in-fighting between family over a senseless issue. Some have cried that the film isn't scary, but Romero's zombie movies are often more substantial than the typical frightfest and there ARE moments of sheer terror present, not to mention plenty of gore.

Pleasant Surprises

She's Out of My League

Critics constantly bitch that romantic comedies tend to emphasize hunky perfect Alpha males instead of a regular Joe. Hilarious how when Hollywood finally gives us a rom-com featuring a regular guy, they trash it and wonder why Hollywood didn't give them the Alpha male instead. She's Out of My League is no masterpiece, but it is a smart and funny comedy with a likable male lead (Jay Baruchel from Tropic Thunder) and a smoking hot Alice Eve as the She of the title. Definitely worth watching.

Knucklehead

The Godfather and I actually went to the Quad Cinema in Union Square to see this film during its' three day limited engagement. We attended figuring it was going to be one of those movies that turns out to be so bad and so funny. We were both pleasantly surprised at this sunny and very funny comedy starring pro wrestler The Big Show (Paul Wight) as a giant, klutzy orphan who attempts to save his home by becoming an MMA fighter. I know it sounds awful, but believe me when I tell you it isn't a bad film at all. There are some big laughs (especially a synagogue doubling as a makeshift arena, replete with fans waving giant Stars of David to cheer on their fighter of choice). A fairly big name cast (Mark Feuerstein, Dennis Farina, Wendie Malick and Melora Hardin) lend good support to Wight, who could actually have a future in the movies on the basis of this debut feature.

The Wolfman

This remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney, Jr. classic turned out to be a great monster movie in its' own right. Benicio Del Toro is excellent as Lawrence Talbot, an actor who returns home after his brother is killed by a beast, only to end up afflicted himself. The Unrated Director's Cut restores 24 minutes of footage that was edited by Universal to avoid a two hour plus running time. The added footage enriches the film, adding back many character moments that help explain important actions left unexplained in the theatrical edit. There is blood and gore, but director Joe Johnston wisely confines his bloody effects to a few select scenes. What Johnston doesn't skimp on is atmosphere and dread, both of which heavily contribute to the scare factor of the film. A must-see for all.

Restoration of the Year: The Complete Metropolis

Fritz Lang's 1927 silent feature is one of those undisputed masterpieces. However, his complete director's cut was considered lost, thanks to a myriad number of shorter versions created over the years. A 2001 restoration reconstructed the film to a seemingly uncut 120 minutes. However, it turned out to be incomplete after the discovery of 16mm negatives that contained an additional 27 minutes of footage. After careful restoration, the missing scenes were restored as best as possible and reintegrated back into the film. The result is a great film that has become even greater. The restored footage is easy to spot- it is still rough looking. But it is great to have the complete film at long last.

The Stinkers of 2010

2011-01-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

2010 was not a good year for the movies. I must admit that I skipped many movies that looked like junk, preferring to use my time in more constructive avenues. So that meant, no Friedberg/Seltzer (Vampires Suck), no M. Night Shyamalan (The Last Airbender, Devil), no Saw, nothing with Miley Cyrus and other teenybopper heroes and few of the reboots and remakes. But there was no shortage of dreck for the Stinkers list, as you'll see from these ten selections below (and I do mean BELOW!)

1. Inception

I know this is going to be an EXTREMELY unpopular choice with many of you out there. This movie seems to be split into two camps: those who adore it and those who despise it. What I can safely say is that no one in either camp truly understands it. Christopher Nolan specializes in twisty intrigue, but he simply goes too far with Inception. I didn't understand a damn thing that Nolan was throwing at me. I don't mind having my brain toyed with in a movie- I loved Shutter Island and even Nolan's own Memento. I also don't mind a free-form, anarchic movie- if I didn't, I certainly wouldn't own a DVD-R copy of Frank Zappa's off-the-wall 200 Motels. What I do mind is coming up with an intriguing idea about dream states, but becoming too reliant on visual effects to avoid digging deep enough to come up with an entertainment that is concrete and interesting. There is no real story present; just a series of set-pieces that fail to add up to anything concrete. The paper-thin characters sink under the heavy weight of the visual effects.A name cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Caine, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon Levitt are all set to sail adrift in 2 1/2 hours of frosting and no actual cake to speak of.

2. Extraordinary Measures

The story of Dr. Robert Stonehill, the man whose courage and brilliance led to a viable treatment for Pompe's Disease. What's that? You've never heard of Robert Stonehill? Well, that's because he doesn't exist! No, the real hero is a Chinese-American scientist named Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen, but why cast an Asian actor when Hollywood can just recast the role as a Caucasian and cast Harrison Ford instead? Some sources have claimed the Ford character is based on a Caucasian man named William Canfield, but I suspect that only spread to ease tensions over dropping Dr. Chen from the story. Ford is also one of the movie's producers, so he likely even suggested the race change. Tsk, tsk, tsk! The movie itself is bland and formless, going through the motions but with not one ounce of genuine human emotion. Even the Lifetime Channel would have made a better film that this dreck!

3. The Human Centipede

Why do so many promising young filmmakers believe that modern horror movies must disgust in order to horrify? Dutch filmmaker Tom Six came up with the single most disgusting horror film of 2010 and the worst time I've had at a horror movie in years. A mad scientist drugs and kidnaps two American women and one Japanese man and sews them together anus-to-mouth to create a new kind of creature. This is a cynical exercise in repulsion- the scene in which one third of the creature defecates into the second's mouth, forcing her to swallow it made me wonder if perhaps Six had gone too far from humanity and onto a Netherworld where pessimism exists.

4. Remember Me

Or how Robert Pattinson continues to try to convince the world that he can actually act. He can't. This pathetic excuse of a romantic dramedy is made all the more appalling by the fact that- SPOILER WARNING- it uses 9/11 for a cheap plot twist. The thing is the lightweight script by Will Fetters didn't EARN the right to use such a serious tragedy as a plot twist. I'm surprised that people didn't stand up and cheer after Pattinson's character was incinerated! I know I was!

5. Waiting for Superman

Davis Guggenheim's documentary received hoards of critical acclaim, but I found it to be dubious, manipulative and trite. So manipulative that I kept wondering if Davis Guggenheim was a pseudonym for Michael Moore. (I know they're different people, but..) I suppose there are good points to be made about the broken education system, but I found myself with far more questions than any kind of well researched and presented answers. Plus it's practically a love letter to the charter school system, which has been proven to be anything but an efficient solution to the serious problems that still plague the system. Many were predicting it'd be an easy Best Documentary Oscar nominee, but I suspect the Academy voters had the same misgivings I had.

6. Date Night

2010 had no shortage of bad comedies, but this one got inexplicably good reviews in most critical circles. Watching it at home, you might rightly wonder what all the fuss was about. Steve Carell and Tina Fey are funny, talented people but you wouldn't know it from this miguided attempt at cashing on what I call the Comedy of Errors genre. Shawn Levy's film ends up delving into some very unpleasant waters, none of which sparked any shred of viable comic inspiration or humor.

7. I Spit on Your Grave

The original 1978 production is one of the most distasteful and disgusting pieces of shit I have ever seen, a violent, misogynistic bloodbath masquerading as a backwoods revenge thriller. Yet when I heard it was being remade, I had some hope that writer Jeffrey Reddick and director Steven Monroe would take a good, long look at the original and improve upon it. Sadly, the duo apparently decided to up the ante and make it even MORE depraved, violent and disgusting. Anyone who would get a thrill out of seeing a woman raped, tortured and beaten to oblivion and then cheer on as she exacts her blood soaked revenge is a person I would cross the street, even in high traffic, to avoid. This garbage makes the Saw franchise seem like the classic Universal monster movies by comparison.

8. Youth in Revolt

On last year's Stinkers list, I wrote the following about Michael Cera:

Someone must to tell Michael Cera that he desperately needs acting lessons pronto. He's unconvincing even as himself. Not to mention his meek boy shtick is getting tiresome with each new movie. I have a feeling Mr. Cera will be making a repeat appearance in next year's Stinkers list with Youth in Revolt.

Call me Nostradamus, then. This woefully unfunny adaptation of a fairly funny novel completely sinks due to Cera's lack of acting talent.

9. Carlos

After Steven Soderbergh had a major success with his multi-part epic film about Che Guevera three years ago, IFC Films decided to import a 5 1/2 hour biopic about Venezulan terrorist/cult hero Carlos the Jackal. Alas, director Olivier Assayas is no Steven Soderbergh. Carlos is a deathly slow, ass-numbing trek through intriguing subject matter, but offers us no real idea of who Carlos the Jackal really was. The real Carlos the Jackal has even taken legal action against this film, citing major inaccuracies and even defamation. He has a very, very strong case, I'm afraid.

10. Case 39

This major studio film was completed way back in 2006, but after taking one look at the final cut, Paramount left it on the shelf until October 2010. A five year shelving is NEVER a good sign and sure enough, Christian Alvart's film stinks worse than the Staten Island Landfill during a hot August heatwave. It's yet another one of those Creepy Kids With Secrets movies as child psychologist Renee Zellweger tries to decipher a mystery after strange things start happening to the children she's trying to help. At first it wants us to think this is another Sixth Sense or The Omen, but it ends up being little more than The Good Son rehashed even worse than that Macaulay Culkin stinker. Too bad the negative of this movie wasn't burned in a vault fire somewhere in L.A.

National Un-friend Day

2010-11-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

Last month, late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel suggested that a national day of observation should be taken to de-clutter ones Facebook accounts of friends who one doesn't talk to or want to communicate with. Dubbed National Un-friend Day, November 17th was designated as the day this event would take place.

However, suppose you WERE recently un-friended? And found that you weren't upset or depressed? Does such a feeling qualify for celebrating National Un-friend Day? Well, I'm here to say YES!

Last month, I was un-friended by someone who used to be a close friend. Things hadn't been going too well over the last year or so and it all came to a head early Wednesday morning on October 13, 2010. I woke up and logged on to check any messages when I received this one from the soon-to-be ex-friend:

You are an insensitive douchebag who cares more about being clever and getting validation than people's feelings. I hope your passive-aggressive rant on your status thread was worth losing a friendship over. I'm done being hurt by you. Just be a man and tell me directly. If you can't understand, with everything I'm going through, why it would upset me for you to knock something that has been there for me a hell of a lot more than you have, especially over the past few months, then you certainly don't know me at all, and my life will be better off without you in it. I certainly wouldn't want you to "grovel," but you're a stubborn ass, and you're going to be very lonely because of that. Stop pushing away the people who know you and care about you. I'm sick of it. I'm glad Glee was worth losing me. You couldn't have just bit your tongue? You're not as funny or clever as you think. As your friend (on the way out), you should know that. I can't deal with seeing your statuses about me, so I'm de-friending you. You enjoy your 15 minutes and the attention your "stand" is getting you. I'm so fucking sick of being hurt by you for the sake of your "comedy." Grow the fuck up. You think you're so much better than everyone else, and it's obvious. Thanks for ruining my morning. I'm done with you. And I won't be groveling or apologizing either.

The event that caused this outburst: a status message I made in which I said I'd rather listen to Yoko Ono's Greatest Hits instead of watching 1 minute of Glee. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the winner of the 2010 Zelda Fitzgerald Emotional Maturity Award.

If she was expecting me to beg for forgiveness, little did she know that upon receiving her de-friending rant, I calmly arose from my seat, flipped out a binder of CD-Rs I have and yanked out a CD titled The Free Mix. It was the same disc I created and played when I was let go from my tumultuous tenure at DVD Verdict. It starts with Cream's "I Feel Free", seques into Chicago's "Free" and concludes with The Beatles' "Free as a Bird". Because that is what I felt. Free. Free from having to put up with her hissyfits, depressing outbursts and other assorted attention seeking devices.

This wasn't the first time she took one of my remarks personally. She was always trying to find some kind of hidden meaning in everything I wrote on FB. Once she thought a wrestling update was somehow about her. Unless her name is John Cena or Wade Barrett, it wasn't.

I take issue with calling me a douchebag. A douchebag is a very useful item. She should have been more creative and thought of something worthless to insult me with, such as a hemorrhoid or Pauly Shore.
I find it hilarious how she believes I seek validation. If it was validation I seeked, I certainly wouldn't be doing so on Facebook or even this blog. What I write here, FB or anywhere else is primarily for my own satisfaction. I've grown beyond the point of needing nurturing approval, unlike the ex-friend in question, who begged people to read her Dark Knight review to the point of nauseousness. Yeah, I'M the one who needs validation!

She claims I'm going to be very lonely, but she should be the last person to talk about loneliness. She constantly lamented about being lonely herself! While I am single, it is by choice. With her, it is by default. I remember one conversation in which she mentioned that her then-boyfriend said she was "driving him fucking insane". Back then, I thought he was a rude jerk. Now, I feel nothing but sympathy for the guy. If she could get on my nerves 700 miles away, I can't imagine what it's like for those who have to spend more than 5 minutes with her in the same vicinity! And at least, my parents don't show open contempt towards me! I have a small circle of good friends both in and out of New York and solid family ties, too, so am I lonely? Not at all.

I never thought I was better than anyone else before, but now that I think about it, I am better than you, ex-friend! At least I don't spend every waking moment of my life tweeting away on Twitter and doing nothing. I also don't stay up all night and sleep all day either. And at least I'm actually working on a novel and successfully putting it down on paper, unlike you who is always talking about the books floating around in your brain but are too lazy to pick up a fucking pencil and actually write!

No one else has ever complained about my comedy bits. In fact, the only person who ever bitched was you, ex-friend! By the way, you don't have to thank me for ruining your morning since you do a perfectly respectable job of ruining your own mornings! Thank you for un-friending me since it was the best early Christmas gift I could ever get. Goodbye, farewell and good riddance!

Unintentionally Funny Items for Sale

2010-11-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes for fun, I sift through the popular bidding site eBay to see what truly strange, unintentionally funny stuff can be found for sale within the various wares offered. Here are three such items I found.

Sesame Street was extremely popular once upon a time. So, naturally, the imitators would come out in droves to fool a few unsuspecting suckers out there and pass off an inferior product as the genuine article. Tons of Sesame Street cover albums were released in the 1970s and early 80s, but the strangest one may be this 1980 Peter Pan Records effort titled Irwin Sings Sesame Street Hits:

I do not know what's funnier: the flamboyantly gay duck flittering down the street, the green thing residing in the trash can in a lame attempt to echo Oscar the Grouch and Kermit the Frog or the fact that the cover illustrator's name is George PEED. On who, what or where George peed, I do not want to know.

With Michael Jackson's death, lots of unique Jackson related merchandise has popped up for sale on-line, none stranger than this album for children titled The Happy Hamsters Sing Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits:

I don't believe the people who cooked up this idea and executed this album were aware that the word hamster also happens to be a derogatory term for black people.(I still think some people are in the dark in regards to hamster being derogatory; a popular commercial from 2010 substitutes hamsters for urban black youth).

Speaking of Michael Jackson, this next item could have been served at Neverland Ranch. It isn't just entertainment items that one can purchase off eBay. Now one can buy food and snacks too. However, even food can be unintentionally funny, such as this item that is extremely popular in England:

To soon be followed up by that other popular desert, Zigzagged Pussy.

The Rev. Al and Charlie Show

2010-11-15T12:43:00.000-08:00

About 11 years ago, the NY Daily News published a story about the wonderful time when the Rev. Al Sharpton and his cronies accused NYPD officer Steven Pagones of raping and kidnapping chronic liar Tawana Brawley. They included a photo of Sharpton and Brawley, circa 1987. Sharpton's hair looked strange, which made my mother laugh out loud and shout "He has Patty Duke's hair-do from The Patty Duke Show!"

During the summer, a new digital TV network titled THIS debuted. A co-venture between WPIX NY and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a mix of vintage TV shows and movies from the MGM library have been airing, including The Patty Duke Show. I had been trying to come up with a spoof of the Patty Duke Show Theme Song, using a pair of Sharpton twins. It never went anywhere, mainly because Sharpton doesn't have a twin. Finally, my mother suggested that perhaps corrupt NY House Rep. Charles Rangel could work as the second twin. After all, both he and Sharpton are crooked and corrupt! It all came together after that suggestion, so now I'm excited to present the theme song to a potential new sitcom about two crooked creeps I detest.

THE REV. AL AND CHARLIE SHOW THEME SONG (sung to the beat of the Patty Duke Show theme song)

Rev. Al's been arrested everywhere
from P.R. to Times Square
But Charlie's always beat the rap
from Washington to Harlem fair
What a crazy pair!

Cause their NITWITS!
Corruptable nitwits all the time!
One pair of corrupt scumbags
Crooked in every way!

Rev. Al adores an argument
accusing people of racist quips
Charlie hoards that rent control
Ethics charges make him lose it all
What a crooked pair!

Cause their NITWITS!
Corruptable nitwits all the time!
They cheat a lot, they bitch a lot,
They never pay the IRS
Nitwits in every way!

They're NITWITS..two of a kind!

From the Brain of Bill Treadway

2010-10-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Only in America could voters say that they would be MORE inclined to vote for a candidate because he lied about serving in Vietnam.

I don't think I'm so much better than everyone else. Just 50% of the world's population.

Sammy "The Bull" Gravano. Vertical static on VHS tape. Lady L. Name a snitch, a glitch and a bitch.

Heath Ledger was a reckless junkie, not the martyr his rabid, obsessed fans have made him out to be. Ditto Michael Jackson.

Disgraced California state senator Gary Condit is planning to testify in the upcoming Chandra Levy murder trial. He shouldn't be too cocky. His last name practically screams I DID IT!

The news reported that President Obama has hired a record number of gay people to government jobs. I guess he's fine with gay people so long as they don't want to get married or serve our country.

Tea Party Senate candidates Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle have claimed that God gave them the personal go-ahead to run for the Senate. I say God has better things to do with his time than to personally appear to people whose IQs are lower than the dirt they walk on.

Isn't it ironic that people who claim others are going to be very lonely are often the lonely ones?

The political lesson learned over the past 15 years: all politicians are liars. Some just hide it better than others.

Political candidates who do not know the Constitution by heart should not be voted into office.

Isn't it funny how some people who accuse others of being passive aggressive are usually the ones who are in the first place?

The bass player on Dave Brubeck's album Dave Digs Disney was named Norman Bates. I guess Brubeck had to replace him once Mother went on her killing spree.

It's not just Death Proof..it's also fun proof and quality proof.

2010-10-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This is a stand-alone, revised version of my half of a He Said, She Said review posted April 9, 2008.

DEATH PROOF * (out of ****)

2005/111 mins/R/Dimension Films

After experiencing the highs of Planet Terror, I couldn’t wait to see Death Proof. After all, it was proclaimed the superior of the two movies by both critics and friends alike. So with that kind of buildup, I was expecting this movie to be nothing short of terrific. What a shock it was to discover that Death Proof is a shallow, muddled bore. It’s hard to believe Quentin Tarantino made this movie. It lacks every ingredient that made his other films so good: the quirky, brusque dialogue; the offbeat characters and more importantly, a good story. Woody Allen once said that a relationship is like a shark; it has to constantly keep moving or it dies. Death Proof is just like the punchline of that joke: what we have on our hands is a dead shark. This movie is a sexist piece of crap masquerading as a hip exploitation flick.

SPOILER WARNING: If you haven’t seen Death Proof, you might want to wait until after seeing the film before reading on because it is Spoiler City..

Arlene, Shanna and Jungle Julia are celebrating the latter’s birthday by consuming more alcohol than humanly possible (unless they’re secretly Kennedys) at a small, dim bar in Texas. Then there’s that mysterious looking stranger, later known as Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell). He seems cool and friendly, but unbeknownst to the women, he’s been following them. And when he offers the town loner (Rose McGowan in a cameo) a ride in his death proof car, little does she suspect that the death proofing doesn’t apply to her. Or to the trio either. Then there is a second group of women who don’t know what they are in for.

So why do I think Death Proof is sexist? Because it has such a dim, shallow view of women in general! I liken these characters to those paper dolls one played with as a child- pretty but flat and lifeless. I concede that women like those dingbats may exist, but most women I've encountered in life have soul, real feeling and are fairly intelligent. As for those women who have such qualities but are also beyond fucking nuts, that's another story entirely. Tarantino's characters are an insult- oversexed, over drugged and without any real feeling or thoughts. Now I’m no naïve prude, but I doubt most women are this blue tongued or shallow in real life. Tarantino likely isn’t a misogynist, but these tissue thin female characters sure make a strong case to believe otherwise.

Tarantino’s writing, usually razor sharp, is so sloppy and formless here. For a tribute to old grindhouse exploitation, it's awfully talky. Seemingly endless drivel is spackled onto the screen. The Godfather and I picked up a 12 movie set of grindhouse biker flicks. All of those movies combined don't have 1/3 the dialogue of Death Proof. It feels as if he came up with three great scenes and then rooted around the bottom drawer for anything to fill up his screenplay for feature length. He came up with an interesting concept but didn’t come up with much of substance to back it up. There are whole stretches where nothing happens. And I mean nothing. Then there is the issue of his obsession with bare feet. Was I watching an exploitation movie or a DVD of Foot World?

His dialogue doesn’t have the feel or rhythm it usually does, either. It’s all so cheesy and dumb. Take for example the following exchange:

Arlene: Who do you want to hear?
Jungle Julia: Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.
Arlene: Who?
Jungle Julia: Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch and Tich.
Arlene: Who the fuck are they?
Jungle Julia: For your information, Pete Townsend, at one point, almost quit The Who. And if he had, he would have ended up in this group, thus making it Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, Tich and Pete. And if you ask me, he should have.
[flips on the radio to hear "Hold Tight" by Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch & Tich]
Jungle Julia: That's my boy!

Did your teeth grate, too? Mine just did. (Ouch.) And it doesn’t get much better.

Those aforementioned three scenes do work: there is that car chase, which is exciting, even thrilling once the old gray matter is put in neutral. It’s almost in the same league as those great chases in William Friedkin’s The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A., although at least Friedkin didn’t forget to surround them with such little things as believable characters, good dialogue and a story. The death/murder scene is also effective, making me cringe and squirm (although I shamefully admit to cheering). Then there is Vanessa Ferlito’s lap dance, so smolderingly sexy and erotic that I found myself going along with it despite my tendency not to enjoy such things (I’m no prude, but there are other things about a woman that are sexier to me besides a lap dance. Sorry.) If only Lindsay Lohan had watched this scene before her lame attempt at doing such activities in I Know Who Killed Me.

Kurt Russell gives a fine, cool performance as Stuntman Mike, but couldn’t Tarantino have given him more to do? He’s only in it for 15 or so minutes! Mike is the most intriguing character- give us some back story: I kept wanting to know more about what made this man do the things he does. He’s an enigma, which is fine for maybe half of a movie not an entire one. Originally Tarantino offered the role to Sylvester Stallone, who took one look at the script and said thanks, but no thanks. A wise decision indeed, Sly. The acting in general ranges from serviceable to atrocious. Ferlito and Rosario Dawson fare the best- they manage to do what they can with the thin soup Tarantino serves them. But then there’s Sydney Poitier-the daughter of the legendary Oscar winning actor. She’s awful in every scene she’s in- the performance is so shrill and irritating that I actually cheered when she bit the dust. A wise man once told me that nepotism is fine as long as the person doesn't suck. Nepotism sucks big time here. While Zoe Bell may be a good stuntwoman, she’s beyond horrible as an actress; a bit like casting Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist..oh wait, they did do that.

Like much of his work, Tarantino has fun quoting from other movies he admires. He has stuntwoman Zoe Bell mention the 1971 cult classic Vanishing Point and there are echoes of Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974) present. Funny thing is, I’ve seen both of those movies and Death Proof just doesn’t come close to comparing to them. Those movies had heroes and villains with equally shadowy motives but they had a certain charm and suspense to them that kept us intrigued throughout. Death Proof leaves us baffled over the numerous tangents and useless bits of information just thrown there with no real explanation. For starters, mention is made of Rosario Dawson’s character being a mother. So what? It's not as if it has any bearing on this grade zilch plot. There's also the fate of the actress character played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, which I’ll leave you to discover, but I'll just say is mishandled confusingly.

In the end, I really wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn’t. It was too self indulgent and unfocused to succeed. Since he has since rebounded with the uneven but intriguing Inglorious Basterds just something Tarantino had to get out of his system before moving onto more ambitious fare.

A Planet Worth Exploring

2010-10-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This was originally posted on April 9, 2008 as part of a He Said, She Said review about Grindhouse. Since both He Said, She Said and my friendship with She I Do Not Speak Of are dead due to nuttiness (hers, not mine) beyond my control, here is a revised version of my take of Planet Terror, available as a stand alone piece for those interested in just reading about this film (and who don't give a rat's ass about what She Said..)

PLANET TERROR **** (out of ****)
2005/105 mins/R/Dimension Films

I confess that I had really low expectations prior to viewing Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez’s output so far has been wildly uneven; for every good film like Sin City and El Mariachi, there was an unwatchable stinker (From Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids 3D). Plus there was the nagging fact that most zombie movies tend to suck. In fact, my unofficial rule of thumb is that unless George Romero’s name is attached, it’s going to be awful.

The non-Romero zombie movies are terrible because they are often little more than a string of expensive, disgusting gore scenes grafted onto the flimsiest of storylines and populated with cardboard characters. My biggest fear about Planet Terror was that it would be as bad as Resident Evil and the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. Luckily, that wasn’t the case. So I popped the disc into my player and crossed my fingers, hoping for the best and expecting the worst. 105 minutes later, I was literally walking on air. Not since the original 1978 Dawn have I had such a good time with a zombie movie.

I don’t want to play spoiler since so much is reliant upon surprise, so I’ll tread carefully. A small Texas town is plagued by a terrible problem: an experimental gas has been unleashed thanks to a showdown between black marketers and special police. The problem is that this gas zombifies people into stalking, flesh mad creatures. Only one person will be the savior: one legged stripper Cherry Darling.

Planet Terror is so wonderfully entertaining. It’s the kind of movie Roger Corman would have had a ball making during his black comedy/horror movie cycle in the early sixties, although Rodriguez has the benefits of advanced technology and better resources. Rodriguez directs with such energy and vigor that even I felt wound up after watching it. The nice thing is how he not only spoofs the standard zombie clichés but he transcends it. For example, this movie has bloody gore, but like Romero, he uses it merely as punctuation instead of the main event.

The action scenes are breathtaking to watch unfold. The final climatic battle between a gun-legged Cherry against the ever growing zombie army is well shot and well staged. Rodriguez sometimes tended to let his action become a messy blur. Here everything is right, crisp and clear.

Rodriguez also comes up with something I never thought he could: an airtight script. Even in his good films such as Spy Kids and Desperado, he tends to meander and go off on tangents. Sin City suggested a more disciplined storyteller was buried within his madness, but with Planet Terror, the chrysalis finally cracks to expose a solid storyteller now in full bloom. Rodriguez actually comes up with a good premise, makes sure that his plot makes actual sense, wraps up all running plot threads and stocks it with some of the most intriguing, fully dimensional characters he's ever created.

There's one character I instantly fell for: Cherry Darling. Critics thought that Death Proof was the movie that featured a fully empowered female lead? HA! (I will elaborate further in my upcoming revised review of Death Proof). Cherry is the opposite of the standard damsel in distress. This damsel doesn't stand around cowering in fear. She takes things into her own hands and makes a strong, inspirational heroine- gun leg and all.

Rose McGowan has made 24 movies since 1995, some of them with their merits (Scream, Going All the Way) but mostly forgettable tripe (The Doom Generation, Ready to Rumble, Phantoms among other duds). Planet Terror is a game changer, the breakout performance for McGowan that suggests better things to come. It is really the performance of a lifetime. Who knew McGowan could be so good in a movie before? Cherry Darling is a real gem of a performance- fully three dimensional, smart and funny when necessary yet tough and assured at all the right moments. She deserved a Best Actress Oscar nomination. The performances are all excellent for this material- Josh Brolin makes a perfect villainous doctor; Bruce Willis is fun as the military leader partially responsible for this mess; Marley Shelton also surprises with a career best performance that is both comic and sad.

Planet Terror is a rollicking good time for horror fans and proof that a zombie movie doesn't have to be a nonstop, grim parade of blood and guts and no humor. Rodriguez can proudly take his place alongside George Romero as a master of the zombie movie.

POST NOTE: Theatrically, Grindhouse featured fake trailers not only Rodriguez, but also Rob Zombie (Werewolf Women of the S.S., which Zombie plans to film), Edgar Wright (Stop!) and Eli Roth (Thanksgiving Day). All but Machete were omitted from the DVD release- thank God Rodriguez left his on because it makes a nifty curtain raiser. Grizzled character actor Danny Trejo stars as Machete, an assassin for hire who is double and triple crossed and desires revenge. The sight of Cheech Marin as a heat packing priest is hysterical and I really hope they make this picture.

The Thinking Man's Thriller

2010-10-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Since my friendship with Lisa Draski is now officially deader than the occupants of the city morgue, I am offering my portion of the He Said, She Said review of Michael Clayton that appeared on her blog as a stand-alone review on mine.

MICHAEL CLAYTON **** (out of ****)

2007/119 minutes/R/Warner Bros.

Ah, the thinking man’s thriller. Where have you gone? All we get these days are the same, by-the-number jobs in which thrills and suspense have been supplanted by gore galore and uncreative plots. That is why a thriller such as Michael Clayton is such a joy. Here at last is a thriller that doesn’t insult my intelligence and manages to pack in some real thrills I couldn’t see coming.

This is the kind of film I keep hoping for from those John Grisham adaptations but never get. Veteran screenwriter Tony Gilroy, making his directorial debut, gets things started literally with a bang. Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is on his way from a poker game to meet with a client when he pulls over and gets out to take a look over a hill. His car promptly blows sky high. (Don’t worry- we do discover the reasons why- like Casino, it’s told in flashback). After that, my mind was racing to discover what other goodies Gilroy had up his sleeve.

He doesn’t disappoint. I don’t want to spoil too many of Gilroy’s nice surprises, so I’ll tread carefully here. Clayton is a Mr. Fix-It for a top law firm in New York City- a man who makes problems go away when they arise. One day, he receives a call: attorney Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) has flipped out in court and is in a Milwaukee jail. Clayton flies out and frees Arthur, but Arthur escapes before Clayton has a chance to properly escort him to a mental institution. What Clayton uncovers is only the beginning of a labyrinth of double crosses, deceit and revenge.

Pay close attention through all 119 minutes of this movie- blink and you’ll be lost. Gilroy doesn’t spoon feed his plot, instead forcing us to connect the dots on our own. What a relief and a pleasure it was to tax my brain instead of groaning through another predictable, easy to figure out plot.

Michael Clayton has been touted as a completely original thriller. Well, not quite- it does haul out some vintage chestnuts of the thinking man thriller- the evil corporate entity willing to do whatever it takes to get what it wants, the flawed hero who has enough problems for three people and the villain who isn’t as one dimensional as we think. But rarely has all of these elements worked so well in tandem and in such challenging, thoughtful fashion. That’s why I think most people think of Michael Clayton as an original- most thrillers are about as challenging as a child’s first rattle.

The cinematography is a major plus- nicely antiseptic yet a beauty to behold. Robert Elswit has done another award worthy job- he may have won for There Will Be Blood (deservedly so) but it was just as much for Michael Clayton. Elswit has that gift of making drab look so good- he did it in such films as 8MM and Hard Eight- and he reprises that accomplishment with the gritty, grayish tones here.

George Clooney may be the Sexiest Man Alive according to People Magazine, but he’s actually quite an underrated actor. Yeah, I know- he did win an Oscar, for his supporting turn in Syriana, but I don’t think many people realize what an effective actor he can be. After coasting along in junk like Batman and Robin and One Fine Day, Clooney took an about face and went after more interesting roles. (Hey, not everyone can survive a debacle like Return of the Killer Tomatoes and emerge with a career.)

Clooney’s performance in Michael Clayton is his best to date- worthy of the Oscar nomination it received. In fact, I think he should have won the damn award. Some will undoubtedly expect the Clooney charm at work here-with the exception of the final shot they’re going to be disappointed. Clooney keeps things very restrained and low-key. Clayton is a burned-out character with some serious flaws- his gambling addiction is one, not to mention the aforementioned family issues (if there’s a flaw, the movie lays this on a bit too thick). Having felt as burnt out and down as Clayton myself at times, I totally bought into his performance. It’s completely believable and real from start to finish.

Tilda Swinton DID manage to win an Oscar for her work here and deservedly so, in my opinion. It’s a challenging performance- to play a villain who has some shades of gray. It could have been over the top camp or cardboard villainy, but Swinton makes the character an interesting, quirky adversary. Tom Wilkinson was nominated for his supporting turn as Arthur Edens, the “is he or isn’t he crazy” attorney and was also nominated. I likely would have voted for him since his wonderfully loopy and heartfelt performance is the grenade that sets everything else in motion. It’s another great Wilkinson portrayal, but when’s the last bad Wilkinson performance? Oh wait-Martin Lawrence’s 2001 “comedy” Black Knight.

Then there’s the ending, which has stirred much debate. Without giving away too much, I will say that at least it didn’t involve yet another boring shoot-out or car chase. It’s a variation of the double cross- similar to the twist finish of another thinking man’s thriller- Charley Varrick (1973), but just as satisfying. I particularly loved the final shot of the film, which had the same wink-in-the-eye feeling that The Sting (1973) had. Wow, two 1973 references in one paragraph. And I wonder why people think I’m older than my 28 years.

When going to purchase or rent the DVD, make sure to pick up the widescreen edition. This movie's soul is in the scope photography. Also included as extras are three deleted scenes- two of which would qualify as big time spoilers and a third which introduces an entirely new character- Clayton’s lawyer girlfriend (Jennifer Ehle). From what I have read online and in the papers, Ehle had a much larger presence originally aside from this one scene but all of her scenes were deleted for time purposes. I wonder why we only get the one scene here. Would it have hurt to include ALL of this material?

Michael Clayton made my Top 10 list for 2007 (it ranked at number 7) and rewatching it on DVD confirmed my initial thoughts about the film. It’s a superb return to the thinking man’s thriller, a genre that had gotten lost amid the brainless bloodbaths we are beaten over the head with each year. It deserved to fare better on Oscar night, but to be sure, that is a matter of debate. Rent the DVD and see if you agree with me.

Bad Movie Year: I never thought I'd see a movie that would give slasher films a really bad name..

2010-10-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

PUNK ROCK HOLOCAUST No stars (out of ****)
2004/96 mins/Not Rated/Springman Records

Slasher films aren't my favorite kind of horror movie, but Punk Rock Holocaust is definitely the worst slasher film I have ever seen. While I have no love for Friday the 13th, the Halloween sequels and various other mad slasher flicks, at least those films were well made with craftsmanship and skill. Punk Rock Holocaust is a no-rent, no-frills and no-skill entry made by amateurish clods who have not a shred of talent or competency. It isn't scary and it isn't funny either. I owe Jenny McCarthy a second apology: here is another movie worse than her Dirty Love.

At the 2003 Vans Warped Tour, someone is committing a series of random murders against the punk rock bands participating in the tour and the fans attending. Reporter Heather Vandress (playing herself, I guess) senses that something strange is going on and sets out to investigate. What she uncovers is that the killings may be the work of a band Warped Tour leader Kevin Lyman rejected years before. And that the band may have made a deal with the devil for revenge.

Punk Rock Holocaust is a cheap production. Director Doug Sakmann shot his feature on standard VHS. He only shows his inability to handle the format; other VHS-shot features (FART The Movie) at least know how to use the camera. The camerawork is sloppy and poorly proportioned, resulting in a choppy look.
The makeup effects are laughable at best. Blood spurts are so obviously done with a hose hidden behind a face or limb. Human entrails are little more than condoms packed with peanut butter and jelly, but Sakmann and his effects people forget to coat the condoms in stage blood to make them look like they were ripped from the abdomen. A man is hit on the head and plunges to his death, only for us to see the stunt dummy deflate on impact.

The screenplay, by Sakmann and Nick Esposito is chock full of incredible stupidity. Maybe I'm applying too much logic to a cheap slasher film, but there are some glaring questions I was left with once this movie was over and I recovered from the trauma of having sat through it. Would anyone with half a brain:

1) Stick around after noticing that there are an incredible number of murders occurring?
2) Not pack a gun to just shoot these killers dead on sight, deal with the devil or not?
3) Not cancel the tour once the first ten bodies surfaced?
4) Once you discover who the culprits are, just go UNACCOMPANIED AND UNPROTECTED to their lair?

Punk Rock Holocaust is loaded with wall-to-wall kills. That is not a superfluous statement- there are at least two hundred on-screen murders within the 96 minute running time. Apparently Sakmann has never heard of the adage that Less is More. After a half-hour of repetitive, senseless killing, it quickly becomes boring and monotonous. At least Friday the 13th took a break in between kills. Some have defended the movie as a goofy parody of slasher films. Sorry, folks. The only laughs in this movie are of the unintentional kind. Sakmann and Esposito's script is utterly devoid of anything resembling wit and comic innovation.

One of the most offensive scenes in this so-called movie involves the murder of a group of special needs people with poisoned punch. First off, I highly doubt these poor special needs kids even had a clue as to what has happening in the scene, so it reeks of exploitation. Second, prior to the death scene, the camera lingers as the group badly butchers an incomprehensible song while on-lookers laugh with gusto. Was there no one with a conscience behind-the-scenes? Other inexplicable scenes in this trash include an ice pick murder in which no blood is splashing all over the place; poisoned coleslaw that causes people to vomit out their intestines; a cook who prepares the dead corpses for dinner; the cannibal diners becoming undead zombies; decapitations that just use bare hands; victims holding the objects that killed them to their bodies and a scene evoking Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, only without any proper setup or appropriate subtext. Nothing in Punk Rock Holocaust makes any kind of sense.

For a film that is supposed to showcase punk rock, we don't even get good music. Seeing such acts as Andrew WK, Simple Plan, Less than Jake among others made me long for the days when the Ramones, the Clash and the Sex Pistols reigned supreme. None of the music on display in Punk Rock Holocaust is particularly memorable or remotely interesting. It all kind of sounds the same, if you ask me.

Is there anything good I can say about this movie? Two things, in fact. Heather Vandress is incredibly cute. Also, the movie ended. That's it. By the way, there is a Punk Rock Holocaust II. That means that this movie MADE MONEY. As Marlon Brando said at the end of Apocalypse Now, "Oh, the horror...the horror.."

How Do You Sleep 2010

2010-10-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I was de-friended by a person I'll call Little Miss Laser Disc. She used to be a good friend, but over the past year, things have been going downhill. The shit hit the fan when I made mention on Facebook and Twitter that I'd rather sit through Yoko Ono's Greatest Hits than ten minutes of the hit TV show Glee. One of her punctuating remarks she made in her farewell message was "I'm glad Glee was worth losing me."

The utter craziness of the above statement reminded me of when John Lennon was obliquely attacked by Paul McCartney in a song called "Too Many People" on his 1971 album Ram. John made his rebuttal on his 1971 album Imagine, with a tune called "How Do You Sleep?" Lennon's music has been looming large on my mind since I've been playing quite a bit of it in celebration of what would have been his 70th birthday. I decided to do my own version of "How Do You Sleep?", with new lyrics as a way of providing closure to a turbulent situation. If set to music, it'd be double length since the Lennon original had only three verses while my version has six.

How Do You Sleep 2010

So you call me an insensitive douchebag
Well, I say you're an oversensitive bitch
Those freaks were right when they said you were nuts
The mistakes you made are in your head
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You think every comment I make is directly about you
All you do is jump to the wrong conclusion
You dare say that I'll be very lonely in life
Yet I'm not the one Tweeting about loneliness night after night
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You say that I push away the ones who love me
But you're the one who can't keep any lovers and friends
At least my parents don't hate me and my friends stick around
Your best friend of 20 years kicked you to the curb
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You claim I'm passive aggressive but isn't that what YOU are?
Your nickname could be Sweet N'Sour
You say I'm not funny or clever
Yet you think Conan O'Brien is the height of comic genius
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

You say that I'm an ass who needs to grow up;
I say look in the mirror,
Pretty soon your other friends will see you for what you are
A clingy, overbearing and psychotic nut
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

I don't feel depressed that you defriended me
I only feel blissful relief
No more will I hear your endless complaints
Neuroses, bitching and pointless drivel anymore
Ah, how do you sleep?
Ah, how do you sleep at night?

Bad Movie Year: The Tea&A Party

2010-10-09T08:08:00.000-07:00

LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT *1/2 (out of ****)
1976/95 mins/X/Dark Sky Films

Linda Lovelace for President was made to cash in on both the upcoming 1976 Presidential election and the then-popular sexploitation comedy genre, made popular by the surprise hits Flesh Gordon (1974) and Alice in Wonderland (1975). It was also likely a bid to turn porno star Linda Lovelace into a mainstream movie star. After seeing this film, I can understand why this bid was a failure.

Set with the 1976 Presidential Election in mind, this fringe effort is about how a group of disgruntled Americans wish to buck the two party system and nominate a worthy Third Party candidate. After rejecting the likes of Wolfman Jack and Egg McMuffin (I swear I'm not making this up.), everyone finally agrees that Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace would make the ideal candidate. With a campaign slogan promising that a vote for Lovelace is a blow for democracy (literally), Linda and her campaign staff travel America looking to suck up for as many votes as they can muster.

In 1965, MGM promoted the black comedy The Loved One as "The Motion Picture with Something to Offend Everyone!" The producers of Linda Lovelace for President must have had The Loved One in mind because their movie opens with the screed "This picture is intended to offend everybody- regardless of race, or creed or color." Boy, does it ever. Each and every minority group is poked fun at in this movie. Lovelace's campaign staff is a collection of stereotypes. There is the swishy homosexual, militant black, laundry-loving Chinese guy, a turban clad Hindu and a blond haired, blue eyed German. During the opening convention sequence, there is a party comprised of Polish voters who spell their country's name as Polund, the joke being the tired cliche that Polish people are idiots. If this movie had been made during the AIDS scare, I shudder to think at what stupid jokes there would have been. The problem in Linda Lovelace for President is that while the movie is an equal opportunity offender, the filmmakers do not bother to take the opportunity to comment on racism in a humorous way, as South Park brilliantly does. They just think the old cliched joke is the joke and don't elaborate or defuse it. The result is that the movie only garners laughs on shock value rather than comic ingenuity.

Originally, Linda Lovelace for President was offered to Richard Donner. Yes- THE Richard Donner of Superman and Lethal Weapon fame. At this time, Donner was just another struggling director. Apparently, Donner took one look at the script and passed. Donner chose to make The Omen instead, which established him as a top director and ended up netting him Superman. Claudio Guzman, a sitcom journeyman, ended up directing until he quit in frustration. It is not known who took over afterward, but since Guzman is the credited director, I imagine he filmed most of the footage. Either way, this film isn't very well directed. Guzman knew how to direct sitcoms, but he seems lost helming a feature film. The low budget may have been an issue as with dealing with a non-actress in the lead, but Guzman just doesn't know what to do.

Linda Lovelace isn't much of an actress admittedly, but she does have a likable charm and is fairly pretty. Too bad the material surrounding her is so terrible. The filmmakers did have the right idea: surround her with some established talent. The cast includes ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz, Scatman Crothers (The Shining), Joe E. Ross (Car 54 Where Are You?), Vaughn Meader (The First Family) and TV stalwarts Joey Forman, Chuck McCann, Monte Landis and Danny Goldman (the voice of Brainy Smurf on The Smurfs). They all contribute some genuinely funny moments. Dolenz is especially funny as a bus driver with a fetish for toy cars, culminating in him using the curves of a woman to drive his toy cars off of. Meader appears as an evangelistic preacher with a yen for Lovelace that turns out to be a neat spoof of these perverted preachers. Goldman's swishy gay is a stereotype, but he gets in some funny one liners.

Of course, with Linda Lovelace in a movie, there has to be the prerequisite sex scenes. There is plenty of nudity, but the sex is more the softcore variety than the hardcore stuff Lovelace became infamous for with Deep Throat. The film does try to have some fun with this. Lovelace's campaign slogan is that a vote for Linda is a blow for democracy. She makes a tent to tent campaign stop, only to bang each and every male voter along the way. A strange sex scene involving Lovelace and Meader abruptly ends with premature end credits. A knock on premature ejaculation? Or a 31 year old reviewer grasping a straws? You decide. Plus it's hard to hate any movie in which a reporter announces that he is inside Linda Lovelace.

Linda Lovelace for President was distributed in three versions: the uncut X rated release (the one used for DVD), an edited R version and a PG cut that has to be barely a short subject. After seeing the movie, you wonder why they even bothered with a PG version.

Bad Movie Year: These Girls Put on a Really Bad Show

2010-10-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

SHOWGIRLS 1/2*(out of ****)
1995/131 mins/NC-17/United Artists

TV Announcer: We now return to Showgirls..

Peter Griffin: YEA-A-A-H!!!

TV Announcer:..on TBS.

Prior to its' release date of September 22, 1995, Showgirls was the talk of the town. If there was one movie that had must-see status amongst my friends and acquaintances during my junior year at Msgr. McClancy Memorial High School, it was Showgirls. Much publicity and headlines emphasized that it was the first NC-17 rated film to earn a wide release from a major studio (United Artists). Not that I or my friends could go see it. But home video would be the oasis in the proverbial desert, or so we thought. In January 1996, MGM/UA Home Video made the decision to release a neutered, R-rated version, due to the inane "no NC-17 titles for rental" policy Blockbuster and Hollywood Video chains initiated. Alas, most other video stores also carried the edited release. The few mom and pop video rental stores that did carry the complete version enforced the NC-17 rating.

Little did my friends know that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. My godfather had access to pay-per-view cable and in February 1996, he obligingly taped the NC-17 version of Showgirls for me. After trading the tape with one friend over a weekend, word spread that I had the Holy Grail for Horny Teenagers. After being offered money to "rent" the tape, I proceeded to do just that. Charging a mere $2 for a Double Feature (the second movie was the Cindy Crawford time waster Fair Game), I must have cleared between 100 and 150 bucks. All I know is that it financed my entire summer of video rentals.

Showgirls turned out to be a major flop at the box office, barely grossing $20 million against a $45 million production budget. Naturally, the NC-17 rating was made the scapegoat, conveniently overlooking the fact that this movie SUCKS. I hadn't seen the picture in 14 years as the tape was lost during a move and it wasn't until recently that I found a DVD for Bad Movie Day VII. Watching it now, I honestly don't know why this movie was rated NC-17 in the first place. I've seen R rated movies both before and after Showgirls that were far more explicit. For a movie that was designed from the start for the adult rating, writer Joe Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven don't push the envelope hard enough. Showgirls is little more than an 131 minute tease and not a very sexy one, at that.

The plot, as if I or anyone truly gave a shit about it, concerns a drifter named Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley), who is hitchhiking her way across the country. After hitching a ride to Vegas, she is unceremoniously dumped there without her possessions. She quickly finds work at a cheap strip club but she has higher goals: becoming a dancer in a topless revue titled Goddess. The star of the show is Crystal Conners (Gina Gershon), who may or may not have sexual designs on Nomi. Nomi does find herself in Goddess, but she finds herself wanting to be the star, not a scrub.

The one thing I noticed most about Showgirls fourteen years later is how boring it really is. The Godfather remarked that it was a 2 1/4 hour movie that felt more like eight. Director Paul Verhoeven is known primarily for action extravaganzas (Robocop, Total Recall) but he was also an expert at sexually intense melodrama (Basic Instinct, Soldier of Orange). He should have been the perfect director for this material, but he's defeated by a half-assed script by Joe Ezsterhas. I'd normally call Ezsterhas' script a colossal train wreck, but train wrecks are usually brisk and exciting to watch unfold. Showgirls is slow, plodding and lacks an certain energy that trash usually needs to be involving.

I mentioned earlier that Showgirls doesn't push the envelope hard enough. For example, there are strong hints of lesbianism, not just between Nomi and Crystal but also between Nomi and her BFF Molly (Gina Rivera). But it never goes anywhere, save for an on-screen kiss between Berkley and Gershon in the end of the film. Eszterhas and Verhoeven are too timid to truly go for it; very surprising from Verhoeven considering how his earlier films showcased sexually explicit acts. If the movie was always intended as an NC-17 showcase, they should have just gone for it. What did they have to lose? As Showgirls stands now, it's just a tease and an unsatisfying one at that. They also fail to truly showcase the stripping scenes. We get a brief flash of full frontal nudity, but then the filmmakers cut away or obscure the background action. There are plenty of tits on display but not enough ass.

Wags love to make the joke that Showgirls destroyed Elizabeth Berkley's acting career, punctuating that she won the 1995 Razzie for Worst Actress. While it is true that her starring career ended after Showgirls tanked and that she is pretty awful in it, I daresay, in her defense, that it really isn't her fault. It's not like Eszterhas wrote a fully formed, three dimensional character. In his autobiography, Eszterhas made the claim that Berkley and director Verhoeven had an affair during the movie's production, but usually such affairs result in good performances, not bad. Her acting is stiff and one-dimensional, never really drawing us into what makes her character tick. Her She is unbelievably hot once the clothes come off, however.

The acting in general is pretty bad. Kyle MacLachlan sports a weird hairdo that covers half of his face, as if he didn't want his friends and family to recognize him in a turkey such as this. He seems embarrassed to be in this turkey and I don't blame him. Gina Gershon is smoldering sexuality, but seems hamstrung by the screenplay. Her character is a bitch with no dimensions. Ho-hum. And is anyone surprised to see perennial villain Robert Davi as a slimeball by now? It's more shocking when he plays a good guy these days.

Showgirls has gained a reputation as a camp comedy in the ensuing years. I admit there are some big unintentional laughs here. A scene in which Berkley and Gershon discover that they both enjoyed eating dog food was hysterical. Another gem is a scene in which a stripper wonders aloud whether her boobs look bigger or not. Her co-workers remark that she must have missed her period again. Berkley's
dancing leaves a lot to be desired. Seeing her clomp along like a Clydesdale on stage induces major laughs. A sex scene set in a pool gives a new meaning to the term "A Hard Day's Night." A dancer injures her knee, only for the doctor to make her diagnosis by squeezing the bad knee with gusto and shouting out "It's her knee!" Alas, most of these idiotic moments are surrounded by such tedium that in the end, Showgirls really isn't worth repeat viewings.

What's He Thinking?

2010-10-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the New York Daily News published a photo taken from the opening ceremony of the prestigious Ryder Cup golf tournament. I normally wouldn't pay attention to such photos, except this one inspired a double take:

Now what is Tiger thinking? Probably something like this:

Dear God, you don't know how much I want to fuck her. She's my type, too! A blonde, white woman! Please help me keep Little Tiger in my pants!

Even funnier is the man sitting next to Tiger. I bet you he's thinking something like this:

Tiger wants to snog and bang that blonde, doesn't he?

Bad Movie Year: Sometimes two heads ARENT better than one..

2010-10-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

AUTHOR'S NOTE: From this point on, the previously named Bad Movie Summer series will now be referred to as Bad Movie Year.

In the span of a single year, American International Pictures released two similar yet different takes on the two headed monster theme. Both movies faded into obscurity until August 2004 when MGM took the long awaited step of pairing both The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant and The Thing with Two Heads on a single DVD double feature. Flash forward six years when the DVD became the headliner for Bad Movie Day V.

THE INCREDIBLE TWO-HEADED TRANSPLANT 1/2* (out of ****)
1971/90 mins/R/American International Pictures

Somewhere in the middle of Nowhere lives Roger Gerard (Bruce Dern) and his wife Linda (Pat Priest of The Munsters). Gerard is experimenting with the idea of transplanting a severed head onto a different host body. He had been experimenting with animals, but he wants to attempt such a grafting onto a human subject. He finally gets his chance when serial murderer Cass (Albert Cole) is killed following a fracas involving Gerard's wife. Using retarded caretaker Danny (John Bloom, who would appear as the Monster in the Al Adamson timewaster Dracula Vs. Frankenstein the very same year) as the host, Girard grafts the killer's head to Danny's body. The problem is: Cass can outwit Danny and manipulate the body into doing his evil bidding.

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant is certainly incredible. Incredibly stupid! The screenplay by John Lawrence and James Gordon White is astonishing in its' stupidity. I don't know about you, but would anyone with the slightest modicum of intelligence:

1) Use the now-severed head of the serial killer/rapist who just tried to rape and kill your wife?
2) Graft the killer head onto the body of the retarded caretaker who cannot think for himself?
3) Leave the resultant creature unattended and unchained in a laboratory with a balsa wood door?
4) Leave your hysterical, traumatized wife alone in the house after something had just attacked her?
5) Not put two and two together knowing full well that your best friend's husband has been experimenting with two headed creatures and there happens to be one on the loose?
6) Lure the creature into an abandoned mineshaft?
7) Just STAND there when a two-headed creature attempts to ATTACK you?
8) Goad the creature into a fistfight when there's a gun nearby and all you have to do is plant a few bullets in the chest?

Then again, if any of the above thoughts ever occurred to a single character in this movie, there would be no film. The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant is as shabby a piece of goods as AIP put out during the 1970s. This film is wretchedly made on all levels.

Director Anthony M. Lanza has no clue how to competently stage action. He is too much in love with the zoom lens on the camera, using it abusively with no feeling or aptitude for the format. I guess in his mind, zooming in would equate human feeling. Not in his hands it is! His handling of actors seems to have been hands off. He lacks the skill to come up with competent, eye-catching screen compositions. It's basically sit the camera down and just zoom whenever he feels like doing so. Ho-hum.

The special effects suck. For long shots involving the creature, a papiermache head is quite obviously placed on actor John Bloom's shoulders and there are moments in which he clutches the head to keep it in place. Close-ups just have Albert Cole placing his head on Bloom's shoulder. Either way, it looks like shit. The fake blood is tinted hot pink, rather than bright red or maroon. Wounds are non-existent. The climatic fight in the abandoned mineshaft is especially bad: they merely shake baby powder in front of the camera lens to suggest debris falling downward.

The acting is either excruciatingly over-the-top or quietly ham-fisted. Bruce Dern is usually a very good actor, but something tells me he knew this script was junk and proceeded to play it as such. As the Creature, Albert Cole plays the killer head as a manic maniac while John Bloom plays the retarded schlub so low-key that he's practically non-existent. Casey Kasem makes a brief appearance in the beginning as the best friend and disappears for an entire hour until he's needed at the climax. It's especially funny how he practically listens to himself on the car radio in one scene since his character tunes in to a station in which the lead deejay is..Casey Kasem. As for Pat Priest, well, you'd think she'd be used to strange looking creatures by now.

THE THING WITH TWO HEADS ** (out of ****)
1972/90 mins/PG/American International Pictures

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant must have been profitable, since AIP decided to make another movie about a human being with two heads. Give them a little credit, though. They didn't merely rehash the first movie. While they share the same concept, The Thing with Two Heads is a black comedy rather than a straight horror flick. While it is far superior to the miserable Transplant, that's not to say it's all that good a movie.

Dr. Maxwell Kirschner (Ray Milland-yes-Ray Milland) is a brilliant white scientist who has pioneered a new surgical technique. A head can be transplanted from a dying body to a healthy one successfully. Good news for Kirschner, since he's dying. (From what, the movie never makes clear.) Bad news for Jack Moss (Rosey Grier-yes-Rosey Grier), an innocent black prisoner who volunteers for a scientific experiment in hopes of getting an early parole. Little does he know that when he awakes, he'll have the head of an old white racist right next to his own. Once Grier discovers Milland's plan to chop off the extra head once he gains control of the body, Rosey decides to force a sympathetic doctor (Don Marshall) to help him escape and go on the lam.

The main problem with The Thing with Two Heads lies in the screenplay. It is credited to director Lee Frost, Wes Bishop and James Gordon White, the latter of whom scripted The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant. While I do give the trio credit for coming up with a better storyline, they fail to cull all these differing ingredients into a coherent whole. Frost and Co. attempt to evoke The Defiant Ones, but fail to really delve into the more serious racial issues that were and still are pertinent. I imagine it would be quite an eye-opener to be a white bigot whose head is transplanted on a black man's body. Alas, the movie barely scratches the surface with the possibilities such a premise could deliver.

There are also some baffling holes in the plot. For example, mention is made that the Grier character is an innocent man and that he vows to find the real culprit. All well and good, but it is abruptly forgotten about for whole stretches of the movie. By the time the ending, which comes out of nowhere, arrives, it is an abrupt conclusion with no set-up or dramatic payoff. The nature of Milland's illness fluxes. Is he dying of cancer or does he have a case of extreme arthritis? Not clear. It is also never explained how the prison officials managed to convince Grier that a two-headed transplant experiment would be a good idea for beating the death penalty. Strikes me that most convicts would rather die than have a bigot's head attached to his shoulders.

The Thing with Two Heads contains more padding than a teenage girl's bra. After Grier and Milland "kidnap" Marshall and go on the lam, there is a lengthy chase sequence with several police cars chasing the two and a half men across the countryside. You might ask yourself why would there be a such a long chase sequence in this B-movie, the answer is The French Connection. A vivid chase scene in that movie electrified audiences, so AIP decided to cash in on a movie they had the opportunity to make but chose not to. The problem is that director Frost is no William Friedkin behind the camera. Friedkin and his editors added a certain rhythm and pace to their chase. Frost's chase plods along slowly, hoarding 25 minutes of screentime for no good reason other than to pad out the running time. Cars careen and crash all over the place repeatedly, making for very tedious viewing. There is also no suspense, no heart-in-the-mouth thrills that all good chases should have. Frost is just marking time with car crash upon car crash.

I must admit there are some solid laughs in this mess. An earlier experiment of Milland's involving a two headed gorilla raiding a supermarket for some bananas is hysterical. A dinner scene in which Milland questions Grier's girlfriend about no watermelon for dessert garners a laugh on shock value alone. Ditto the scene in which Grier propositions his lover much to Milland's disgust. There is a nice streak of satire regarding the fake Milland head in some shots of the picture. Rather than try to hide it, the filmmakers flaunt the hokiness directly, which was a very nice touch indeed. Milland and Grier do have a good comic chemistry that isn't explored enough in this picture. Their bantering is spry and often very funny. Too bad that Frost and his co-writers failed to leave the faux chase behind and really follow these two characters as they each adjust to suddenly having unwanted company upon those broad, dark shoulders. Talk about wasted potential.

Bad Movie Summer: One Beast equals a Thousand Laughs

2010-09-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS **** (out of ****)
1961/53 mins/Not Rated/Cinema Associates

A woman has just gotten out of the shower. While toweling herself dry, she notices a hulking figure approaching. He reaches out and grabs her throat, strangling her to death. Afterward, he calmly picks up her dangling legs and proceeds to mount the corpse. Just don't expect any kind of explanation as to who, what, when, where or why this happened. It's promptly forgotten about after the opening credits.

The Beast of Yucca Flats is far and away the funniest bad movie I've seen to date. Here is a movie so inept, hilarious and compellingly stupid that it achieves must-see status, a la Glen or Glenda. (My four-star rating refers to the fact that it's awesomely bad, not that it's a great work.) In fact, The Beast of Yucca Flats is mistakenly believed to have been directed by Ed Wood, likely due to the participation of Tor Johnson. This movie was actually written and directed by Coleman Francis, whose inept filmmaking and lack of talent make the Wood oeuvre look like that of Orson Welles.

Johnson stars as Josef Javorsky, a Russian scientist newly defected to the United States. While on his way to a top secret meeting with American FBI officials, Kremlin spies confront Javorsky. They kill the FBI agents and chasing Javorsky to a secret atomic testing site in Yucca Flats. Big mistake as Javorsky is caught right in the middle of an atomic bomb test. The radiation transforms the kindly scientist into a savage hulking beast that kills at first sight.

The Beast of Yucca Flats is a real howler. The story is nonexistent- basically scenes of Johnson waddling along the desert, innocent people hanging about unaware of this killer beast and the authorities chasing after the monster. Not surprisingly, Francis fails to keep track of what is happening at any given moment. Characters fade in and out with no explaination, only to reappear whenever Francis feels like dropping them back in. For example, the Kremlin spies who try to kill Javorsky. Never seen again. Police officers investigating the killings of the FBI agents? Gone for a good 30 minutes until the ending.

For all the talk of Ed Wood being the worst director of all time, I daresay not enough have seen Coleman Francis at work. He doesn't manage to do a single thing right in 53 minutes. Not only did he fail to shoot proper sound on location, Francis shot all dialogue scenes in total darkness, with actors turning their backs to the camera or with mouths obscured by shadow or a convenient object. Why? Because he didn't feel like taking the time to perfectly sync sound effects and dialogue in post-production. The result is a film whose sound feels canned and out of place.

Like Wood, Francis loves to insert stock footage to pad out his running time. Here, he takes the art to a whole new low. There's a scene in which an innocent man is mistaken for the Beast by an airplane sniper. Francis intercuts footage of the man running with stock shots of an airplane in which the skies fail to properly match. He also uses a stock shot of an atom bomb explosion that couldn't possibly match Yucca Flats. You see, Yucca Flats has no trees.

Francis makes plenty of howlingly funny goofs and fuck-ups. Among my favorites: the hero is alternatingly referred to as Randy and Andy, sometimes even in the same scene; during a tire-changing sequence, you can see the shadows of Francis and his cinematographer reflected in the light; Dawn and dusk change with alarming frequency; his airplane sniper forgets to take the lens cap off of the scope on his gun; the Beast dies, yet is visibly breathing and moves his head. The rest I'll leave you to discover.

As for acting, what acting? Tor Johnson is his usual stiff self. He was paid a miserable $300 for his performance here. He must have really needed the money. The rest of the cast is neglible- there are no standouts in a Coleman Francis picture. Before any of you wrestling fans send me e-mails asking, the John Morrison credited in the cast is NOT the professional wrestler from the WWE. If it was, then there's a painting somewhere rapidly aging.

Bad Movie Summer: The Hottie IS the Nottie

2010-09-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE No Stars (out of ****)
2008/91 mins/PG-13/Regent Releasing

Last month, Paris Hilton was arrested yet again. Police noticed that her car was emanating enough marijuana smoke to make Cheech and Chong shake their heads in disbelief, resulting in a motorcycle cop stopping them. A speedy search of her pocketbook revealed eight grams of cocaine among its contents. Although Paris remains in denial, even feigning her belief that the coke was really gum, I think she should own up to it. I have the ideal defense for Little Miss Dimwit. She should approach the bench and ask, in a meek fashion, "Your honor, did you ever see The Hottie and the Nottie?"

It is pretty much agreed that the romantic comedy has been in freefall lately. Endlessly predictable plots are usually combined with witless humor and miscasting. However, never before has the romantic comedy scraped beyond the bottom of the barrel as The Hottie and the Nottie does. Although Heidi Ferrer and Tom Putnam are credited respectively as screenwriter and director, the word on the street is that executive producer and financier Paris Hilton took control of both duties for the most part. It would certainly explain plenty about what went wrong. This movie is so lamebrained and so poorly made that I had a hard time believing it received a major theatrical release from a major studio in the winter of 2008.

Nate Cooper (Joel David Moore) has had horrible luck when it comes to relationships. Little wonder: he has been hung up on his childhood crush for over 20 years. By chance occurrence, he finds himself face-to-face with that crush: Christabel Abbott (Paris Hilton). Rekindling his friendship, he admits to her that he wants to go out with her. Alas, she refuses to date anyone unless her BFF June Phigg (Christine Lakin) finds a date first. The problem is that June gives new meaning to the word buttugly.

The Hottie and the Nottie should be called Count the Cliches. Ferrer's (and allegedly Hilton's) screenplay is cluttered with them. Read no further if you haven't ever heard of such tidbits as these choice ones:

1) Christabel the hottie turns out to be not so hot after all.
2) June the nottie cleans up pretty well to become smoking hot.
3) Nate will discover that his childhood crush is just that. A crush.
4) Nate will also discover that he has a lot more in common with June.
5) June will prove to be temporarily unavailable.
6) But June's would be lover turns out to be an empty vessel, proving that
7) true love will conquer all and everything ends happily ever after.

BARF!!!!

The biggest mistake The Hottie and the Nottie makes is the assumption that Paris Hilton could possibly be the hottie. She is far from it. From my perspective, she is not attractive. She is not hot. Paris repulses me. The very sight of her makes my skin crawl. If I had my choice of sticking my dick inside either Paris or a working garbage disposal, the garbage disposal would win every time. I would normally apologize for offending anyone over the above statement, but to do so would imply that I'm sorry I said it. Although she is cast as the titular nottie, in real life Christine Lakin (Step by Step) is very hot. For the first hour or so, she is made up to look like the ugly nottie. Replete with caked up snot, fake yellow teeth, massive acne, a mole, harelip and enough black eye makeup to make Alice Cooper look awfully conservative, the scariest thing is that even with all that excess, Lakin is STILL hot.

The issue may be that Lakin can, you know, act while Paris Hilton couldn't even if her very life depended on it. Although the script says that Christabel is supposed to be sweet and demure, Hilton fails to project any kind of personality on screen. She seems to have studied at the Helen Hunt School of Acting, in which relentless eye squinting equals emotional feeling. Hilton also does not bother to show us any reason why the Joel David Moore character would even WANT to make her his beloved, even as the screenplay gives an ample amount of dialogue to explain why. She just stands there, squinting her eyes and spouting out words without any sort of meaning, genuine human emotion or flavor. It's an acting dead zone.

Joel David Moore is irritating and flat here to say the least, but that may be simply how the character was written since he has shown genuine acting talent in such films as Avatar, Art School Confidential and Dodgeball. Lakin does show the makings of a good actress here. If there was ever a case in which a good performance could be inside a really horrible movie, this is it. She exudes personality, charisma and a likable charm that eludes Hilton. It's a shame that she didn't have a good script, director and proper vehicle for her talent.

The direction is beyond amateur night. No matter whether the person in charge was Putnam or Hilton, this is astonishingly inept stuff. All of Hilton's scenes are shot in loving soft focus, while the rest of the cast is filmed in harsh light. There are continuity goofs galore. For starters, the Lakin character has brown eyes as a child, yet they suddenly become blue when she's an adult with no explanation why. At least the script could have said she got colored contact lenses or something! Facial moles move with an alarming suddenness. Hilton's scenes alternate between slow and normal motion, often cross-cutting with little to no transitions in between. Props disappear and reappear so often in single scenes that you wonder if David Copperfield was the property manager on the picture.

I could forgive such mistakes if this picture were funny. Alas, it is not. At least not in the way intended.

Political Bullshit Hunting

2010-09-13T06:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so the time seemed right to revive that popular sport of the bullshit hunt.

Last week, President Obama finally decided to answer questions from the press at a White House press conference. WH spokesman Robert Gibbs had this to say:

I think it's as good a time as any for the President to talk about the economy, talk about what's at stake in the upcoming election.

But here is what Gibbs certainly meant to say:

The President better say something really good and convincing or else we're FUCKED come the midterm elections.

House Republican leader and overall scumbag John Boehner took offense to criticism that he is responsible for the inaction in the House:

Instead of focusing on me, the President should work with the GOP to cut spending and stop the tax hikes to help create jobs.

Here's what he really meant:

It doesn't matter what you say or do. I'm NEVER going to work WITH you, shoeshine boy!

In New York, Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is set to coast his way to yet another term of complete inaction. Silver has taken heat for being unwilling to commit to major Legislative reform, leading to this remark:

The Assembly is open to exploring ways to improve redistricting.

What this corrupt douche really meant to say:

The Assembly is open to exploring ways to help me keep my Assembly seat for life, not to mention those of my corrupt cronies.

New York House Rep. Carolyn McCarthy was revealed to have accepted illegal donations from the PMA Group, whose leaders were recently indicted for fraud and money laundering. McCarthy's pathetic excuse:

I work with a lot of defense companies. Long Island has a lot of defense.

What she meant to add after that but conveniently forgot to:

There IS too plenty of defense in Long Island! After all, Junior Gotti is going on trial again.

Several months ago, longtime Washington press corps member Helen Thomas pretty much forced her own retirement by making Anti-Semitic remarks at a press conference. Her half-hearted apology was as follows:

I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and Palestinians.

What she certainly meant to say:

I deeply regret getting caught. Heil Hitler!

Last and certainly least is a quote from NY State Senate Majority "Leader" Pedro Espada. Espada is the poster boy for the dysfunction in Albany. Having helped stage a coup to hand the Republicans power in June 2009, he ended up going back to the Democrats after being promised the Majority Leader post. Espada has proven to be a cancer to the legislature, even threatening to shut down the state government for a second time:

I served notice I can not continue to honor my oath of office and vote for these unilateral actions in this manner because they hurt the people of the State of New York and they hurt my district.

Too bad TV's don't have bullshit detectors because it would have been ringing off the charts. Here's what this snake oil salesman certainly intended to say:

I cannot vote for these unilateral actions in this manner because they hurt my bottom line: my wallet.

Bad Movie Summer: See Arnold Run

2010-09-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

SEE ARNOLD RUN 1/2* (out of ****)
2005/88 mins/R/Paramount

See Arnold Run.

See Arnold win recall election.

See Arnold become Governor of Kal-ee-forn- ya.

See screenwriter Matt Dorff and director J.B. Rogers.

See Matt and J.B. cash in on this sudden turn of events.

See See Arnold Run, their sorry attempt at blending comedy and biography.

Such a sorry, sorry attempt.

This is a bad, bad movie.

See Jurgen Prochnow.

See this distinguished actor of Das Boot fame make a really poor Arnold substitute.

See Prochnow stumble over trying to imitate the Ahnuld accent.

See Roland Kickinger.

See Kickinger bear absolutely no resemblance to the Arnold of Pumping Iron lore.

See Matt the writer and J.B. the director go back and forth in time, cutting between the 1973 and 2005 Arnolds with no clear transitions that make any kind of sense.

See them paint young Arnold as incredibly wise and old Arnold as incredibly naive.

See, no one buys the "fact" that 2005 Arnold is as naive and stupid about what he's getting into with this recall election.

See how their jokes just aren't funny.

See how funny it is to show how Arnold's father was a real bastard who favored his older son over the future Governator.

See how the filmmakers attempt to attach importance to these scenes by filming them in black and white.

See audiences tear their hair out trying to make sense out of this gobbledygook.

See Mariel Hemingway.

See how you forgot she was in this movie because she's hardly in it.

See DVD release of See Arnold Run.

See curious fans of Arnold Schwarzenegger purchase DVD.

See See Arnold Run make a quick dive to the bargain bins.

See The Godfather purchase DVD for a mere 75 cents.

See The Godfather and godson wince in pain for 88 minutes.

See wiseass godson write this review.

Now you can read it for yourself.

Bad Movie Summer: A Fart That Doesn't Completely Stink

2010-09-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

FART: THE MOVIE *** (out of ****)
1991/86 mins/Not Rated/SRS Cinema, LLC

Nineteen years ago when I was in the sixth grade, I had a problem with passing gas. Aside from the fact that it may be the only time in my schooling that I learned nothing of value, I was also being bullied constantly, so sixth grade was no picnic to live through. I have a feeling my intense farting had something to do with my nervousness. My entry into extreme farting began one day when I accidentally dropped my books. Bending over to pick them up, what should rip but a long, loud fart. Standing right behind me on line were the class wiseasses. Big mistake. Whenever I farted thereafter, they'd sing out loud "Willy farted! Whoa-o-a-oa!"

The lowpoint came when my science teacher noticed that report cards were coming awfully close, so she decided to do actual work for once. (We only got up to Chapter 6 in a 26 chapter textbook.) Loading all seven blackboards chock full of notes, we were allowed to move around to write them all down. I felt a fart coming on, but figured it would be a silent one. It turned out to be loud enough to register a 4.8 on the Richter scale. It also cleared out the classroom.

My sixth grade report card is probably the only one in history in which farts are mentioned.

What does all this have to do with Fart: the Movie? Nothing, except that the credits sequence ended up bringing all these memories flooding back. It may seem difficult to believe, but yes, there is a film titled Fart: The Movie. Although it was made way back in 1991, it seems to have only surfaced recently with this DVD release.

When I discovered that there this movie not only existed but was available on DVD, I immediately e-mailed The Godfather about it. He responded with a simple question: "where the fuck did you find out about this?" Neither of us were expecting Fart to be a good movie, so it seemed a natural to headline Bad Movie Day VII. Fart is not what I'd call a great movie, but it is a lot better than anyone could possibly expect from a movie with such a title.

Fart is a series of comic vignettes strung together by the barest of bare-bones plots. Russell (Joel Weiss, a character actor whose face you'll recognize) is a man who lives to fart. He loves nothing more than to just let one rip wherever he is standing. His wife Heather despises his fart habit. She wants to go out for New Year's Eve, but he wants to bring in the new year by loading up on gassy food, watching TV and farting his brains out. She storms out of the house, screaming at him that if TV adapted fart-based programming, he'd be in high heaven. Guess what'll be on the telly tonight!

Yes, I know. This is lowbrow humor. The movie makes no bones about it. While it is true that some of the sketches don't work (particularly several stand-up comedy bits titled The Rude Dudes that just aren't very funny), the sketches that do work are a riot! Among my favorites include: a spoof of TV evangelists, in which the preacher attempts to divulge the true reason why Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden; a TV game show cheerfully titled Who Cut the Cheese?; a new rap album from rip n'tootin rapper MC Gaseous; an African-American Andy Rooney with a golf-ball booger sticking out of his schnozz, recalling the history of farting; a New Year's celebration that has to be seen to be believed and I'll leave you to discover the rest. Yes, this is all silly stuff, but it left me grinning and laughing all the way through the 86 minute running time. I laughed a lot.

Some of the verbal humor works better than expected, too. Early in the film, Russell's wife screams out that "If George Bush knew about you, there would be no energy crisis!". Russell's response: "Dan Quayle could clear out the Senate Chamber in less than a minute!". Silly, yes. But it's also fairly clever for a micro-budget movie such as this.

Speaking of micro-budget, Fart is so low budget, it was shot on standard VHS tape rather than on film. However, director Ray Etheridge knows how to use his limited resources to create a good looking movie that was made with competence and real skill. Considering some of the truly awful films I've seen this summer involving bigger budgets and higher resources, it was a pleasant surprise to see a director who took some care to make sure there were no major blunders or continuity errors in his finished product.

I don't know how to judge the acting in this movie. You can't expect Olivier or Newman from a movie about farting, but the performances are competent for this material. Star Joel Weiss is delightfully over-the-top as the fartmeister. Most of the performances are over-the-top actually, but that seems appropriate in a silly sketch comedy such as this. Even Conrad Brooks, a veteran of Ed Wood, is better than usual during the brief bits he appears in.

What else can I say about Fart: the Movie? Well, this is one fart that doesn't completely stink.

More Random Observations

2010-09-04T06:16:00.000-07:00

They're always advertising the latest in "smart phone" technology. I'd hate to see what stupid phone technology is.

Wouldn't it be hell to curb after Clifford the Big Red Dog whenever he took a dump? How much newspaper would his owner need? Just imagine the flash flooding that would occur every time he urinated.

Ping is the latest social networking sensation, so I have decided to jump on the bandwagon and create my own social network site: I call it Pong.

Why do few take the Golden Globes seriously? I have two words for you: Pia Zadora.

Someone actually told me once that the 1933 King Kong was "too black and white" for him. He deserves to get bitchslapped for that one.

ABC should have gotten Paris Hilton to be on Dancing with the Stars since she knows a thing or two about dancing around the law.

Speaking of Dancing with the Stars, I didn't know that getting knocked up as an unwed teenager while your mother is running for VP of the USA made one a star.

And speaking of idiot ex-governors, isn't it funny how the Restoring Honor movement is being led by two jackasses (Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin) who are anything but honorable?

Dan Quayle's idiot son won the Republican primary for the US Senate two weeks ago. Stupidity rains, uh, reigns once again.

Democratic assemblyman Sheldon Silver refuses to disclose his financial investments. A variation of the "Old Shel Game", isn't it?

It's funny how WWE wrestling promotes a PG product, yet my recaps of their TV for the Wrestling Roundtable are definitely R rated.

Bad Movie Summer: Wash Those Dirty Hands

2010-09-02T00:56:00.000-07:00

MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE No Stars (out of ****)
1966/70 mins/R/Alpha Video Classics

If you recall, back in March 2008, I posted my personal 10 Worst Movies of All Time list. Two and a half years later, I make a surprise rapprochement. Jenny McCarthy, I owe you an apology. Although Dirty Love is a complete piece of total shit with no redeeming value, I was a fool to call your film the worst ever made. Not until I had the misfortune of seeing Manos: The Hands of Fate. Yeah, yeah, I KNEW what I was getting myself into. I purposely chose to watch this as part of the Bad Movie Summer series the Godfather and I have been enjoying this summer.

Upon watching this crap, it's fitting that writer/producer/director/star Harold P. Warren was a fertilizer salesman for a living, especially considering what a piece of shit this film is. Manos: The Hands of Fate is completely incomprehensible. I had to look up reviews on the Internet Movie Database to try and piece together what the hell this thing was all about. I like ambiguity in movies, but not when the ENTIRE movie is! As best as I could tell, here's the story. A family of three are on their way to a travel lodge for a weekend of fun. They get lost along the way, so they stop at this creepy house on the side of the road. Torgo, the caretaker of this place, is a bearded dude who walks funny. He tries to discourage the trio from sticking around, but the patriarch of this family is a naive idiot, so they spend the night. Little do they know that lurking around is the leader of a Satanic cult that worships some god named Manos. Little do they know of his evil plans for them.

Warren's screenplay lacks serious details. Torgo the Caretaker is supposed to be a satyr (a half man-half horse combo), but he has no hooves or makeup to indicate this. Nor is any mention made in the dialogue. He just walks like he has been constipated for a year. We have little clue as to what or whom Manos actually is. I guess he's some sort of god, but who the hell knows? Some business about his coven of wives is shown but no explanation as to why or how they came to be is ever offered.

The other major problem is the shoddy production value. Manos was made with a tiny $19,000 budget, but that is no excuse for the poor craftsmanship on display here. Warren rented a non-sync, non-sound 16mm camera, which could only film for 32 seconds at a time unless continuously hand cranked. Even worse, he rushed through filming, using the amount of time he had rented the camera for as a schedule! There was no compensation for the lack of light as dusk approached, so many scenes look dark and murky. Warren boasted to his worried crew that the lab could fix it in post-production. They could not.

For all the talk of Ed Wood being the worst director of all time, those people should take a good, strong whiff of Harold Warren's directing here. Or lack of it. He shot without sound, deciding to dub in the dialogue and effects later. He does a lousy job of it- the words seldom match the mouth movements and are often out of sync. At least when Francis Coppola, Curtis Harrington and Peter Bogdanovich were dubbing those Russian movies Roger Corman assigned to them (see Corny Russian Rehash for more details), they had the excuse of trying to match English dialogue to foreign mouths. The voices all sound pretty much the same and no wonder- only TWO people dubbed this junk. Would it surprise you to discover that they were Warren and his wife providing the voices? Nah, I wasn't surprised either.

Speaking of dialogue, Manos is chock full of incredible idiocy. Here are some samples:

The woman is all we want! The others must die! They ALL must die! We do not even want the woman!

He has left this world, but he is with us always. No matter where he go he is with us.

Well, whatever it is you're "not"doing, go don't do it somewhere else!

Okay, okay, but I know that I can't be wrong! Look, the sign pointed this way!

Manos, God of primal darkness. As thou has decreed so have I done. The hands of fate have doomed this man. Thy will is done.

O Manos... thou of primal darkness! Thou who dwelleth in the depths of the universe in the black casims of night! Thou who bestoweth the mother darkness upon thy faithful to live internally by her keeping! Thou dost make him most blessed forever! And thou who dost cursed with eternal burning life those whom transrest against thee! Holy art thou, holy art thou, holy art thou! Manos' will be done! Thy priest whoeth remains stead-fast, thy priest whoeth remains constant, thy priest whoeth remains righteous! Thou hast taught us, O Manos, and we hath listened. Give ear to our words, O Manos, and hear us! Hear us! Hear us for we are faithful and thou art our God!

See what I mean?

Let us not forget the continuity errors and assorted blunders. There is a scene early on of a couple kissing in a car that has no bearing on the main story. The director's clapboard is visible during that same scene. The shadows of some kind of bug flying can be easily seen during some scenes in which lights are present on-screen. He used only available light during some scenes, so people walk only a few inches before walking back to where they started. A nighttime snake attack is intercut with stock footage filmed in broad daylight. Props disappear and reappear with such frequency that you'd think Criss Angel was in the vicinity.

There is one creepy aspect to Manos: constant panty shots of the little 4 year old girl. Later on, the child is turned into a bride of the Satanist leader. Was Warren a closet pedophile? Given the haphazard production, I guess one or two such shots could be chalked up to a continuity error. Once it surpassed seven, I had the feeling this was no mistake. How creepy and distasteful.

Manos: The Hands of Fate is worth seeing, despite being beyond terrible. Anything you watch immediately afterward will seem sensational by comparison. All those who still believe Plan 9 from Outer Space is the worst movie ever made, well, take a look at these hands.

Bad Movie Summer: Corny Russian Rehash

2010-08-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

In 1962, Roger Corman purchased two Russian science fiction films, Planet of Storms and Nebo Zovyot, for American distribution. There was a problem- foreign films in their original language and augmented with English subtitles had yet to find a niche in the American box office. So his solution: dub both pictures into English, edit (or as Corman called it, tightening) them way down and add newly filmed inserts with some local actors in L.A. The result: not one, not two, but FOUR different movies- three of which are the case study for today.

BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN No stars (out of ****)
1963/66 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures

The Russian sci-fi film was very ideological and symbolic in its conflicts. Roger's thinking was that there was a fortune in special effects and he could jazz it up for American audiences. I had to translate the images into an English storyline that fit the mouth movements. He told me to put in a scene where an astronaut has a vision of two moon monsters, one male, the other female, are battling it out. I shot that for him and cut it into the film. I don't think I ever saw the final version of Battle Beyond the Sun. -Francis Ford Coppola, recalling the film's origin in Roger Corman's autobiography

Yes, you read that right. Francis Ford Coppola. THE same Coppola who made such classics as The Godfather I and II, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, but in 1963, he was just another hungry young man trying to make it in Hollywood. The funny thing is that one would be hard pressed to believe Coppola had any talent on the basis of this movie. Maybe he was still learning the mechanics of filmmaking and he wasn't working with source material that was all that great to begin with, but he seems out to sea trying to make a coherent movie out of this gobbledygook. Although Coppola is credited as Associate Producer, he decided not to put his name down as the director of this folly, hiding out under the pseudonym Thomas Colchart.

The "plot", Americanized by Corman and Coppola (under fake names, natch) deals with the dazzling future world of 1997. There is this great space race between the US and the USSR. (Well, in this Americanized stew, the two sides are called North Hemi and South Hemi.) Both sides are trying to become the first group to colonize Mars. The South Hemi have developed a new rocket that will get them to Mars in record time. Upon learning this, the North decide to rush out into the space to beat their enemy there. As usual, haste makes waste.

Battle Beyond the Sun is a dreadful 66 minutes. The special effects may have been state of the art in 1963, but in 2010, they are stilted and hokey looking. I have no idea how this film played in its' original Russian version, but this English version is like watching paint dry. It has an interesting concept but it is so talky and boring that I found myself yawning far too much at four P.M. on a Sunday afternoon. Speaking of talking, Coppola's dub job is atrocious. The words seldom match the mouth movements, creating some unintentional giggles. Not that his dialogue is anything to cry home about. Coppola became known as a really good writer, but he seems out to sea trying to come up with a story that makes sense. Some of the dialogue on display here is such ear-bleeding nonsense that I had to keep chanting Coppola's credits over and over just to remind myself that he did become a good screenwriter.

The funniest scene in the film involves the original footage Coppola shot for the Americanization. Towards the end of the film, an astronaut ends up disturbed by a dream in which two monsters battle on the surface of the moon. Wasn't this movie about Mars, not the Moon? Regardless, the monster battle is absolutely hysterical. Corman asked for male and female creatures, but Coppola took him far too literally. The female monster is a giant vagina with teeth:

Kind of gives a new meaning to the term vagina dentata, doesn't it?

This, uh, unique creature battles with an equally unique creature that resembles a giant scrotum with eyeball laden penis arms.

If I didn't post pictures, no one would ever believe me.

The ensuing battle between the Dick Creature and Pussy Monster ends up being a real laugh riot since it doesn't mesh AT ALL with the Russian-shot footage of a cosmonaut shaking about.

VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF THE PREHISTORIC WOMEN *1/2 (out of ****)
1968/79 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures

In late 1966, Corman approached his then assistant, a young writer and would-be director trying to make a name for himself in Hollywood. His name: Peter Bogdanovich. After completing his duties on The Wild Angels, Corman made Bogdanovich an offer he couldn't refuse: Bogdanovich would have the chance to write and direct his first movie, which turned out to be Boris Karloff's final movie of note, Targets. Before he started work on that picture, Corman had a starter assignment in mind, as Bogdanovich recalled in Corman's autobiography:

In the meantime, Roger asked me to work on one of those Russian sci-fi films he acquired, Planet of Storms. "It's got spectacular effects and we're dubbing it into English for AIP. But there are no women. So run down to Leo Carrillo Beach. It'll match the Black Sea but it's really supposed to be Venus. Shoot women. We'll cut it all together." I hired the Gill-Women of Venus- just a bunch of stoned kids walking around Carrillo Beach dressed like mermaids with seashells covering their breasts. Tackiest fucking costumes I've ever seen! And now they were praying to a pterodactyl or something and telepathically to Mamie Van Doren or something. This was hell.

It was certainly hell sitting there and watching this crap. Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women is another case where you'd be hard pressed to find any talent from a future great filmmaker on the basis of this debut feature. Bogdanovich apparently doesn't think much of this film. Not only did he hide out under the pseudonyms Henry Ney (for the screenplay) and Derek Thomas (for his "direction"), he turned down the opportunity to record a commentary track for the DVD release. I will say this in his defense: it's a hell of a lot better than At Long Last Love (his misguided 1975 production in which Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd among others rape, murder and bury the Cole Porter songbook). Anyone who feels compelled to trash Daisy Miller should be sentenced to watching this turd on an endless repeat cycle.

Narrated by a surviving member of the expedition, the story is set in 1998. Earth sends a spaceship of three astronauts to Venus for an expedition to find life there. Do they ever- it turns out that Venus is ruled by a group of prehistoric females who communicate telepathically. The women are upset that a group of strangers have invaded their planet and killed their god Terra- a giant rubber pterodactyl- so they pray to their fallen god and vow revenge.

Voyage to the Planet of the Prehistoric Women is the funniest of the three features under review here. The Godfather and I laughed a lot during this pathetic 79 minutes. The film opens by cribbing the same exact prologue from Battle Beyond the Sun. It isn't any better the second time around. The crappy special effects, lame rubber suited creatures and cheesy, ear-splitting dialogue practically induced a laughing coma between the two of us.

Especially funny are the newly shot scenes featuring Grade Z-movie queen Mamie Van Doren. I have a feeling that the prehistoric women communicate telepathically because Bogdanovich couldn't afford to shoot sound on location. Van Doren's followers all have that glazed look as if they smoked a bit too much weed or hash prior to filming. The sight of the women carrying a giant rubber pterodactyl and praying heedlessly to it is one I won't soon forget.

VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET ** (out of ****)
1966/72 mins/Not Rated/American International Pictures

Battle Beyond the Sun must have made a decent profit at the box office since three years later, Corman decided the time was ripe for another rehash of the same material. Coppola had moved onto bigger things at Warner Bros., so Corman had to find another young director trying to make a name for himself. Curtis Harrington had recently made a small splash with Night Tide, an eerie 1963 thriller, so Corman approached Harrington with an offer he couldn't refuse. Harrington ended up making two films out of the Russian material: Queen of Blood and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet.

While Harrington was satisfied enough with Queen of Blood to put his name on it (and tellingly, it is the only one of the four films that was copyrighted by Corman and AIP), he hides behind the pseudonym John Sebastian for the latter picture. I wonder how many people believed that the leader of the pop group The Lovin' Spoonful had directed a feature. I also wonder if this picture is the primary reason that Sebastian the Musician decided to start billing himself as John B. Sebastian shortly after. Although it's still a bad movie, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet manages to be the most competent of the three rehashes under review here.

In a lunar Mission Control, Professor Hartman (Basil Rathbone in his next-to-last feature) supervises the first manned space flight to the planet Venus. The spaceship Sirius lands on Venus, only to discover that the planet is ravaged by changing weather (lots of rain and fog, mainly to hide the cheap production design), prehistoric creatures long thought to be extinct anywhere and a creepy caveperson lurking about behind shadows at our heroes. With the aid of a super bionic robot named John, our heroes try to navigate this terrain and make it back home safely.

The one problem with watching all three of these films in a row: there is a constant twinge of deja vu, especially when footage begins repeating. Upon seeing the SAME exact shot of an international space station with astronauts walking about for the third time, the Godfather began to laugh uncontrollably, shouting out "This is the third fucking time!!!!" The majority of the footage in this Voyage appeared in the previous one. Only the dialogue and the length of certain shots differ.

Harrington does the best job of linking together his newly shot footage with the original Russian material. It actually makes sense to have Sirius communicating with mission control and of course, Rathbone adds a touch of class to the proceedings even if he only appears fleetingly. Harrington noticed that there was a cosmonaut named Masha in the original Russian film, so he decided to turn her into an American astronaut named Marsha and shot new inserts featuring Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) in the role. The Domergue inserts actually mesh fairly well with the Russian footage, especially since Harrington made an actual attempt to make the set resemble something similar to the Russian spaceship set in Planet of Storms.

Harrington also comes up with a more coherent storyline than either Coppola or Bogdanovich. However, there are just some things that cannot be fixed. The dubbing is still pretty bad, although Harrington's dialogue is better than anything his contemporaries came up with. I guess it's just too difficult to come up with English dialogue that will fit Russian mouth movements. Harrington is also hamstrung by the cheesy special effects. The prehistoric creatures are merely men in rubber suits flitting around like they had Mexican jumping beans inserted anally. As I stated before, the special effects were state of the art in 1966, but are clunkers by today's standards. At least we don't have Mamie Van Doren and a bunch of stoned chicks praying to a rubber pterodactyl this time around.

Bad Movie Summer: Seagal of the Dead

2010-08-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

AGAINST THE DARK **1/2 (out of ****)
2008/94 mins/R/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Mad Doctor: Who the fuck are you?

Tao (Steven Seagal): I'm the motherfucker that's going to do to you what you've been doing to everyone else!

Once upon a time, Steven Seagal was a good action movie star. After making a strong debut with 1988's Above the Law, he made a series of fun, exciting flicks. Then it all came crashing down with 1994's On Deadly Ground, which led all those who had seen it to try and come up with new synonyms for awful. Ever since, Seagal the Movie Star has been the proverbial rollercoaster: a few decent films amid a whole lot of trash.

Against the Dark didn't give me much hope, I must confess. Seagal hadn't made a good movie since 2001's surpisingly entertaining Exit Wounds. He also entered new territory here: the zombie movie. If you know me at all, you'll know of my Zombie Rule: if the name George Romero is nowhere on the packaging, avoid it. Then there's Seagal himself. You see, ol' Steve's literally gotten soft in his old age. In other words, fat. And slow. And not so limber. This movie had all the makings of a classic bad movie. Against the Dark didn't disappoint.

The premise is interesting: a section of the country has been ravaged by a disease known as Infect. Basically, it has killed many, spared a few lucky survivors and some of the dead have become zombie vampires whose bite can turn their victims into the same. These aren't the slow, silent zombies of old- they can talk and think the same as they did when alive. The military's solution is to bomb the ravaged area. But there are survivors hiding out in an abandoned hospital. And help is on the way in the form of Tao (Seagal) and his band of Hunters, walking along the city looking for survivors and dispatching zombie vamps.

Part of the fun is counting all the ways Seagal attempts to hide his weight gain. The standard long black coat is present as usual, but there are some new creative ways he hides the fact that he's no longer the svelte figure he was in the 1990s. Some shots are merely of his feet walking towards their destination. His double chin is hidden by shadows and darkness during closeups. He holds his sword with his arms crossed in an X position in the most hilarious attempt to hide his gut. The kicker is that Seagal isn't really all that fat. He's thicker than his heyday but far from Orson Welles territory.

There are some absolutely hilarious moments. Before Steve showed us how, I never knew that you could kill a zombie with a swift kick to the balls before. He also has no qualms about putting his katana right through the head of a zombie child. One zombie attack clearly shows that the actor is holding onto a prothesis, not an actual human arm. The end credits reveal that Seagal was dubbed by another actor. Was he too busy making another direct-to-DVD movie to bother coming back and relooping his own dialogue? There is also the hilarious sight of a zombie sharpening her teeth with a nail file.

The biggest howler is in the finale, when after the military has nuked the hospital and surrounding area, there is no visible damage. Not to mention that the survivors are just walking about as if nothing happened. Seagal waddles away after bidding his farewell, presumably towards the inevitable sequel.

Bad Movie Summer: Would these aliens be rounded up in Arizona?

2010-08-28T07:22:00.000-07:00

All Bad Movie Day reviews will be listed under the byline Bad Movie Summer from this point on.

ILLEGAL ALIENS **1/2 (out of ****)
2007/96 mins/R/MTI Home Video

During the inaugural Bad Movie Day on Memorial Day weekend, the Godfather and I were watching Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy when Joanie Laurer (formerly known as Chyna in the WWE) made her cameo appearance. I made a passing remark that she had made a movie with Anna Nicole Smith. The Godfather got up and practically ran to the computer, so he could order it for the next Bad Movie Day. That movie was Illegal Aliens.

Illegal Aliens is intended to be a spoof of the 2003 dud Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. How so? Let us count the ways:

1) There are three aliens, who in human form are named Lucy, Cameron and Drew.
2) They have a boss named Syntax, whose nickname is......Charlie.
3) The three angels, er, aliens have to protect the world from a villain who was a former colleague that has since gone rogue.
4) The climatic final battle is set on an isolated island away from civilization.

Director David Giancola practically pats himself on the back in his audio commentary on the DVD and thinks he made a first rate comedy. Well, Dave- it's a first rate BAD comedy. I admit I laughed more with and at this movie than I have with some of these so called comedies this year. Illegal Aliens is a strange movie to be sure. Amid the junk there are some nuggets of comic inspiration that surface from time to time. Did you know that the Anna Nicole Smith that appeared in that dreadful E! reality series was in fact an alien masquerading as the titular star? Or that alien bladders can hold ten times the urine that human bladders? More often than not, a lot of the jokes made me roll my eyes.

It may seem hard to believe, but Anna Nicole Smith isn't half bad in this. She showed some comic potential in The Naked Gun 33 1/3 way back in 1994 and her performance here shows that she could have had a decent career as a screen comedienne had drugs not become such an issue.
I can't say the same for Joanie "Chyna Doll" Laurer, who passes through this movie channeling Bela Lugosi at every turn. She decides to go for over-the-top screeching whenever she has to speak on-screen. Her acting garners major laughs, but for the wrong reasons.

Illegal Aliens boasts some of the worst production value this side of Al Adamson. The special effects are laughable. Likely because they didn't have any money to spend on an elaborate origin tale, the backstory of how the aliens came to Earth is told through fifth-rate stick figure animation. The opening titles are a cheap rip-off of the main titles in Richard Donner's Superman, right down to the blue letters floating in outer space. The climatic explosions were obviously done with scale buildings made out of milk cartons. Gunshots lack blood gushing out or even staining on the actors' clothing.

Giancola and screenwriter Ben Coello make some serious blunders. Although the story is set between 1987 and 1990, there are references to events that took place around 1999-2005. Justin Timberlake was still a Mouseketeer in 1990, not yet a pop star. Reality shows had yet to infest television. 9/11 and the resultant repressive government rule was still in the realm of pulp fiction in the minds of most people. The clothing style is too provocative. Even the GUNS are the wrong make and model for 1987-90. Plus anyone who misspells Cary Grant as KARI Grant deserves to be smacked.

Attempts at self-conscious humor also falls flat. Words such as "Oscar Moment" flash during certain scenes. Things are labeled in bargain basement terms in an attempt to get laughs, such as "Villain's Hideout". While that may have been funny in the Looney Tunes shorts, it just gets a groan in live-action. Actors frequently break character and the fourth wall by shouting directly to the camera.

Despite all this crap, Illegal Aliens left me smiling and laughing all the way through it. Sure, it's terrible, but there's kind of a goofy charm to this movie. I just can't hate any movie in which Anna Nicole Smith transforms into a giant white Cadillac with two gigantic headlights.

Random Observations

2010-08-27T21:50:00.001-07:00

I was wondering..would it be improper to serve Swedish Fish to a guest who has a phobia to fish?

With all this talk about the Tea Party, how come there isn't any Coffee Party? Or for those who don't like coffee and tea, a Soda Party.

How you can tell 2010 is a really bad year for the movies: M.Night Shyamalan has not one, but TWO movies coming to theaters.

Dilemmas, dilemmas..how many times can one say "this show really sucked" without sounding monotonous?

Illustrated memoirs. For when you're either too young or not interesting enough to fill out a proper autobiography.

Mel Gibson did a movie called What Women Want. I'm pretty sure that women don't want to be punched in the face while being called a cunt and a gold digging bitch.

Speaking of Mel Gibson, I say he needs to be beaten up by a woman. How about THIS woman:

Awesome Kong- the best female wrestler in the US today.

So George W. Bush is coming out with a new book about how he made decisions as President. I believe it will be called "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe".

You know you're in a shitload of trouble when you're changing your mantra of Change is Going to Come to Things Could Be Worse..

I'm extremely tired of hearing that tired catchphrase "if women ruled the world, there'd be no war". Bullshit. I have two words: Sarah Palin.

Doesn't the iPad sound like some sort of do it yourself feminine hygiene product?

Not Playing at a Theater Near You Anytime Soon

2010-08-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

The latest word from Hollywood is that remakes and sequels have lost their charm at the box office. After shunning original ideas and screenplays to merely remake what worked before, 2010 is shaping up to be a poor year in cinema. But if Hollywood needs original ideas, why don't they just turn to me? So as a public service, I offer up two truly offbeat concepts that would make for an interesting night at the movies.

With bedbug infestation plaguing the country, I feel it is time to strike while the iron is hot. What we need is a new 3-D horror film. If junk like Piranha 3-D can make money, just imagine what Bedbugs 3-D could do at the box office. Point of view shots of the bugs casing out potential victims. How about a scene in which the bedbugs invade a nearby movie theater? And said movie theater happened to be showing a horror movie about killer bugs? Just imagine the audience reaction: "Honey! This 3-D is great! I swear I can feel those bugs crawling on my body and biting me!" To give it an extra kitschy touch, the producers could take a page out of the William Castle gimmick box. Castle was a showman who cooked up outlandish gimmicks to attract audiences to his horror fare. For his 1959 chiller The Tingler, he wired certain seats with an electric buzzer to feign the idea that the titular creature had invaded the theater. The same could be done for Bedbugs 3-D: unleash some pretend bedbugs onto the audience from the ceiling. Providing that real ones haven't infested the theater just like they did in an AMC theater here in New York. Oh, what the hell-that's exploitation!

Two years ago, Cartoon Network canceled a truly original animated series. Assy McGee was a short (12 minutes per episode) sitcom about a unique kind of detective: a pair of buttocks on legs.

I feel that people weren't ready for the irreverent humor and satirical aspects of the show in 2008. But I think people will be ready for it now, so I envision a live-action version titled Assy McGee: The Motion Picture.

With CGI and green screen technology, it would be a cinch to a realistic looking Assy for the movie. One of the funniest in-jokes of the series was that Assy sounded an awful lot like Sylvester Stallone. So who better to play Assy in the movie than...

That's right..Stallone himself. Stallone is coming off three major hits in a row (Rocky Balboa, Rambo IV and The Expendables), so he's still a proven draw at the box office. Plus he has enough self-depreciating humor that I'm sure he'd be willing to do it. Also, the movie should be a throwback to the violent 80s' style actioners that made Stallone so popular. (The TV series was a spoof of such actioners, so it's only natural.)

The Bill Treadway Voter Handbook

2010-08-24T00:54:00.000-07:00

Confused? Disenfranchised? Can't make up your mind at the polls? The Bill Treadway Voter Handbook is now here! Just follow these simple tips, and I guarantee your vote will not be wasted!

DON'T vote for someone simply because mom and dad and all your friends are.

DO be your own person and vote for the candidate whom YOU think is the right one!

DON'T vote for a particular party or family name simply because it's a family tradition to do so. This is how we end up with more Kennedys and Bushes in power than any country needs.

DON'T vote for any candidate who claims that God told them to run for public office. God has better things to do than to appear to such morons and demand they run.

DON'T vote for or take seriously any candidate and/or public figure whose I.Q. is lower than the total number of members of the Magnificent Seven. Sarah Palin is the prime example here amid the countless morons in the political eye.

DO vote for someone because they're smart and fully qualified, not because they play on fear and spew phony rhetoric and wild lies.

DON'T vote for any candidate who is in serious denial about the theory of evolution.

DON'T believe that change is going to come quickly. It never does.

DON'T vote for any candidate because your clergyman says you'll go to Hell if you do not. You're already in it!

DON'T fall for the "flip-flop" line of bullshit that many candidates like to resort to. They ALL flip-flop on most issues.

DO remember this: candidates will say ANYTHING to get elected.

DON'T vote for any candidate who lies about serving in Vietnam or any major war. If he is lying about that, who knows what else he's fabricating.

DO keep this in mind: campaign promises are made to be broken.

DON'T vote for someone because he or she is the same race and/or faith as you are. This is how the Sheldon Silvers and Pedro Espadas and Charlie Rangels stay in power despite their blatant criminality and disregard for ethics and rules.

DON'T vote for anyone who promises to lower taxes. If there is any group who will have lower taxes, it's the rich and never the poor or middle class.

While we're on the subject of taxes, DON'T vote for anyone who promises to abolish taxes. The Tea Party is making a big deal about abolishing all taxes. Taxes are necessary to run the country. Without them, how the hell will anything get paid for or accomplished?

DON'T vote for anyone who has a bad hairdo. If they can't get something as simple as hair down pat, how can you expect him or her to run the government?

DON'T vote for any candidate who resorts to insulting the child of his or her opponent.

DON'T vote for any candidate who is legally blind. Trust me on this one. And if you don't believe me, read all about NY Governor David Paterson.

DON'T believe any candidate who says he or she isn't beholden to the special interests. They ALL are!

DON'T vote for anyone who thinks Snooki from the Jersey Shore is attractive. Now I know John McCain has cataracts.

DO follow all of the tips you have just read and you won't be like the millions who regret voting for the person they did.

Bad Movie Day III: When Wrestlers Turn Bad

2010-08-18T00:10:00.000-07:00

WRESTLEMANIAC No stars (out of ****)
2007/75 mins/R/Anchor Bay-Starz

Say you're a young producer who wants to make a splash in the movie industry. Horror movies tend to be a fail-safe genre, so your first movie will be a horror flick. Shopping in the Standard Store of Horror Movie Ingredients, you select a group of horny young people, a deserted location, senseless murder, bloody gore and a masked killer. Now with these standard ingredients, you'd have Friday the 13th. However, if you decide to make the masked killer a crazy luchador (masked Mexican pro wrestler), then you'd have Wrestlemaniac.

Wrestlemaniac is the kind of horror movie that gives slasher flicks a really bad name. The story, as if such a thing matters in crap like this, is set in Mexico. A group of horny young idiots travel to Mexico to make a low-rent porn film. Choosing a deserted ghost town (Mistake #1 in a slasher flick such as this), they are picked off one by one by El Mascarado (Rey Misterio Sr.- uncle of WWE superstar Rey Mysterio), a legendary and maniacal ex-luchador who was the result of an experiment gone wrong. You see, the Mexican government badly wanted to win an Olympic Gold medal in the 1968 games, so they had El Mascarado built in a laboratory out of the parts of dead luchadors. Things went wrong when their creation proved to be psychotic. Can these youngsters defeat this psycho wrestler? Are you kidding me?

Writer/director Jesse Baget believes he's made a good, scary movie in his commentary track. Sorry, Jesse, but your movie is anything but scary. It is disgusting, with disembowelings and bloody faces galore. But disgusting gore does not equal scares. True scares are built up through suspense and tension, two things missing in this movie. The basic story is taken right out of Friday the 13th but Baget doesn't do anything new or attempt to improve upon the concept. Lord knows that concept could use a shot in the arm. Well, truth be told, there is one novel aspect in this movie. One of the victims comes up with the idea of unmasking the evil luchador monster to get him to stop. So he sets up a makeshift wrestling ring out of oil barrels and rope. The very sight ends up being unintentionally funny.

I am no fan of the Friday the 13th franchise but I recall those movies having decent production value. Not in this dud! It was filmed on the cheap in Mexico, replete with such poor lighting and shaky camera work that it gives the impression that this was filmed on the fly and with no permits. The make-up effects are pretty bad. The face ripping scenes are done on the cheap and with very little care. In the one face ripping scene we do get to see in loving closeup, the face is removed, only to see a beard, eyelids and lips underneath the stage blood. I daresay that when you rip a bearded guy's face, the beard and lips would most certainly go along with it. (The eyelids are questionable, although I lean towards ripped off..) In fact, all the filmmakers do is simply paint stage blood over the actor's faces. At least Friday the 13th's makeup effects were aimed for some kind of reality.

I know that it is often foolish to expect good acting in slasher flicks, but perfectly capable performances are possible: Halloween (both 1978 and 2008) and the Nightmare on Elm Street series are prime examples. Wrestlemaniac doesn't even TRY to aim for passable performances. Each and every performance is set in one mode: over-the-top. Rey Misterio Sr. basically growls and grimaces before clotheslining his way through another victim's face. Busy character actor Irwin Keyes makes a brief appearance 10 minutes in and then disappears, likely on his way back to the States to see if the check will clear. The rest of the cast consists of no-names and there is an excellent chance they will remain so.

One might be tempted to check out Wrestlemaniac anyway. I say spend your money on a slasher film made with style and flair. Rent Dressed to Kill or Halloween. Forget this tripe.

Bouquet Bandit Revealed

2010-08-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

WE TAKE YOU NOW TO KERMIT THE FROG WITH ANOTHER FAST BREAKING NEWS STORY!!!!

Hi ho! This is Kermit the Frog, reporting to you right on Sesame Street. A rash of peculiar robberies has been happening all over New York City. A bald black guy has been holding up banks by handing tellers a large bouquet of flowers that contain a note demanding money. They call this man the Bouquet Bandit. Here is a picture of the Bandit captured by a surveillance camera:

Sesame Street News has learned that the police are operating on a theory that the elusive Bouquet Bandit may in fact be beloved schoolteacher and neighborhood icon Gordon Robinson, pictured below:

This is very shocking since Gordon is a beloved citizen of Sesame Street who is admired by many. As the neighborhood Frog on the Street, let's get some reaction from fellow citizens. Excuse me, sir?

Yeah, man?

This is Kermit the Frog from Sesame Street News..

Right, you're that green guy who usually ends up scrunching up his face at the end of your reports.

Uh..um..yes. (scrunches up face)

Like that, man!

Uh, right. Anyway, sir. What do you think about the idea that Gordon Robinson may be the Bouquet Bandit?

It's so sad, man. But I can't say I'm surprised.

Well, why, sir?

The guy is a teacher in the New York City school system!

So what?

Those teachers don't make much in the way of money, baby!

But what does that have to do with anything?

You've seen the price of birdseed, these days, frog? The man takes care of an 8 foot bird! You know how much birdseed that giant canary eats, dude?

I can see your point.

There is one good thing though.

What's that, sir?

At least he isn't working for the Catholic school system. Then he'd be robbing Fort Knox, baby!

Thank you, sir.

Let's see who else we can ask. Oh, here's a line full of people. Surely one of those people will talk to us. Er, excuse me, ma'am!

Why, hello! You're that tall, green and handsome frog I watch on the news every night.

Ha, ha, well, that's kind of you to say, ma'am. I'm on the street asking people their thoughts about the idea that Gordon Robinson may be the Bouquet Bandit. What do you think?

I just can't believe it. He was such a nice guy!

He certainly was, ma'am.

Isn't that typical of most criminals, though?

What do you mean?

They're always the guy you least suspect!

True!

My gal friends and I were gossiping about this just the other day.

Oh, really, ma'am? What did you gals think?

The word on the street is that Susan is high maintenance.

For those of you who don't know, Susan is Gordon's wife.

And there's all those trinkets! She has a monster fur coat! Who can afford a monster fur coat on a teacher's salary!

Uh, yeah..

And she's always making all those unique snacks and projects! The kinds most parents couldn't afford to do!

And why is that?

Who can afford all those ingredients and supplies on a teacher's salary?

Well, thank you ma'am. This was most enlightening.

RIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGG!

Hark! That sounds like an alarm ringing. Oh no! The Sesame Street Savings and Loan has been robbed! There's a bald black guy holding a bouquet of flowers! Hey wait! Gordon, you're ARE the Bouquet Bandit!

That's right, frog! Those cops will never catch me! And for extra insurance, you're coming with me!

Hey let go! AGGHHH!

Susan, start the car! We're getting out of this town!

Yellow Volkswagen car begins driving away. Window rolls down while Kermit sticks his head out the window..

This is Kermit the Frog, returning you to your regular programm...YAHHHH!!!

Just the coins, ma'am.

2010-07-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

In 2005, then-President George W. Bush signed a bill that he felt was a top priority for the American economy: the Presidential $1 Coin Act. Dollar gold coins featuring all deceased Presidents would be minted and distributed over nine years. Among the provisions in the act included redesigns of the backs of other currency, including nickels, quarters and the penny.

The reason given for the redesign was that they wanted to honor certain events, landmarks and people important to American history.

Want to know the real reason? Currency has been proclaimed boring by some people out there who have nothing to do but bitch about nonsense, so the government figures they can jazz things up by changing the backs and creating a collector's frenzy.

A few days ago, I finally got my hands on the new 2010 penny. (New currency is VERY SLOW coming to a small town like Astoria, NY.) Here is an image of the new redesigned back of the 2010 penny:

After looking at that design, a certain theme song from a classic police drama came to mind immediately. DUM DE DUM DUM! DUM DE DUM DUM DUM!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, the coin you're about to see is true. The back has been changed to protect the innocent.

Speaking of Dragnet, the ending features a logo that could demonstrate exactly how this coin was minted

Channel Surfing on a Quiet Wednesday Evening

2010-07-29T09:16:00.000-07:00

Ever spent an evening flicking through channels trying to find something to watch? Well, join me as I spend Wednesday evening doing just that while snarkily commenting on some of the things I caught in passing.

A clip from the reality time waster Holly's World. Playboy playmate Holly Madison says that big boobs were her destiny. Considering she has implants, did she mean destiny or density?

Crabfest. I think this was an annual event at 42nd Street Times Square in the pre-Guiliani cleanup years.

Turkey Hill Iced Tea commercial. If iced tea could produce great sheets of ice upon consumption, then I must be Mr. Freeze.

What's the bigger ass- Kim Kardashian's posterior or Conan O'Brien himself?

On the Food Network, you can practically see Alton Brown's weight wildly fluctuate in the span of five minutes. Chunky Alton on a vintage Good Eats episode. Moderate Alton in an Iron Chef America promo. Dangerously skinny Alton in a Welch's Grape Juice commercial. The Incredible Shrinking Man lives!

There is no shortage of unintentional chuckles during the evening news. For instance, there's a story about rats running rampant in Central Park. One could say that members of the New York legislature were going for a leisurely stroll after a long day of accomplishing nothing.

Doctor at Rikers Island arrested for sexually assaulting a female inmate. At least all they have to do is transfer this doctor from his office right to Cell Block A without having to waste fuel and time.

A female anchor pronounced LeBron James as LEE BRONE James. I'd hate to see her pronounce something difficult, like say, GEORGE WHISTLEFINGER.

There's something about a live camera report that brings out the inner asshole in passersby.

I'd like to create an interactive news program. It's filmed live before a studio audience. Whenever an anchorperson makes a dumb remark, the entire audience shouts out "NO SHIT!!!!" or "DUH!!!".

Isn't it funny how Fox 5 News at 10 chose Miles Davis' classic tune Freddie Freeloader as background music for a story about illegal immigrants?

And speaking of appropriate background music for news reports, I have a few suggestions:

1) Old Dirty Bastard tunes as background music for a piece about disgraced House Rep Charlie Rangel.

2) Seals and Crofts' classic song "King of Nothing" for ANY story featuring NY Governor David Paterson

3) Elton John's "The Bitch is Back" whenever Cindy Adams does her gossip pieces.

I Write Like WHO????

2010-07-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The newest internet phenomenon is a website titled I Write Like. The gimmick is simple: you take a sample of your writing-length doesn't matter-and paste it into a box provided on the site. You click on a button and a computer analyzer will analyze your writing and tell you what famous author your work echoes.

I came across this site through The Onion A.V. Club. Curious, I decided to take some of my various writings and see what this was all about.

First, I pasted in one of my comic observations from Bill Up Close into the analyzer:

Here's something that has bothered me for sometime. People wishing dead people a Happy Birthday. Friends have done it, family have done it. How can you wish a Happy Birthday to a dead person? He or she isn't around to enjoy it! And what's there to be happy about? They're DEAD! If you want to mark someone's birthday who isn't around anymore, say today would have been so-and-so's __ birthday Let us commemorate the occasion.

The analyzer's analysis? I write like J.K. Rowling. I guess the analyzer thought so and so was referring to Lord Voldemort.

I next pasted in part of my Wrestlemania XV review, in particular this passage:

Now was the grudge match everyone was waiting to see. WWF Champion The Rock against Stone Cold Steve Austin in a No DQ match. This was one of the best matches of 1999- a fast paced, exciting slugfest between two top workers. They just beat the crap out of each other for 17 minutes. The psychology was through the roof. Austin kicks out of The Rock Bottom/People's Elbow. The Rock kicks out of the Stone Cold Stunner. Vince McMahon tries to butt in to keep his hated rival Austin from winning. He fails. Rock spits water on Austin. Austin retaliates with beer. The Spanish announce table is destroyed (a very popular high spot in the WWF/E). One referee is taken out. Another is wiped out. And another. Finally Mankind comes out and maintains law and order. Austin hits his third stunner. He gets the pin. Champ for a third time. *****

The computer said: I write like William Shakespeare. I guess I forgot all about that climactic wrestling match between Hamlet and Claudius at the end of Hamlet. Or Romeo defending his Intergender Heavyweight Championship against Juliet somewhere in Verona.

My next attempt with I Write Like saw me paste in my classic award winning song spoof The Wreck of the Conan O'Brien.

The computer said:I write like David Foster Wallace. While Wallace wrote works that were long and strange, they certainly weren't funny. And I am not suicidal by any means.

The most controversial post in the history of this blog was when I made the argument that dead people shouldn't win competitive Oscars. I took the following snippet from that piece and sent it to the analyzer:

I do have a question: would the Oscar statuette be placed in a small casket should a deceased person win one in the future? Or what if the person in question had been cremated? Do we do the same with the statuette? (And to those who will undoubtedly write me to complain that these comments are in bad taste..sorry for offending you.)

The result: Raymond Chandler. I guess this is a case for Philip Marlowe.

I once began a novel titled When Saint Comes Marching In. I lost faith in myself and never finished it. But I was curious to see what this analyzer would think, so I pasted in the first four paragraphs.

Touring the United States for the first time in forty years was perhaps the most valuable jewel collection in the world: the Jenkins-Smythe Collection. This collection was made up of hundreds of rare jewels, descended from royalty for centuries. Some say the collection was worth millions, if not billions, although some jewelers would take issue with that.

New York was chosen as the first stop on this major fifty-state tour.Madison Square Garden was near capacity. After all, these weren’t the rinky dink stones that passed for jewels in the stores. Where else could you see diamonds as big as a human eye? The biggest attraction was the most valuable jewel in the collection: a sapphire nicknamed the Blue Wasp. Most had only heard of the Blue Wasp- seeing it was almost impossible. Now it would be seen at long last. It was the major society event of the year, one in which a person would trade their mother in order to get their hands on a ticket.

Only H.G. Saint wanted to be somewhere else- anywhere else. “What the hell am I doing here?” was the one phrase Saint constantly thought to himself. A fancy jewel exhibit was the last place a sports writer wanted to be. If Saint had his way, he’d be on the couch watching the Knicks choke their latest lead away or John Morrison and the Miz wipe the floor with Cryme Time on Monday Night Raw. But as it was, The Astoria Chronicle happened to be short staffed and needed someone to cover it. That mattered little to Saint. “Seen one jewel, seen them all,” Saint muttered as he passed by yet another display case.

Although his last name implied virtue, H.G. Saint was anything but. He was only in his late twenties, but most thought he looked older. He dressed sloppily, like he got out of the wrong side of the bed. He spoke his mind- even if it meant offending someone. He wore thin rimmed sunglasses that barely contained his boredom. What was the difference between this ruby and that sapphire anyway? To Saint, jewels were little more than shiny rocks. At first, Saint found it hard to believe that jewels could outdraw the Knicks at the Garden, but after four years of Isiah Thomas in charge, that wasn’t as hard to believe after all.

At first the analyzer said I wrote like Stephen King. This kind of made sense: King is one of my writing idols (he's a brilliant writer who is often overlooked because he writes popular fiction, usually horror, which gets little respect from the establishment.) and it did sort of remind me of his non-horror stuff. But the analyzer than changed its' mind. Who did I write like now? Stephenie Meyer. The creator of Twilight. Goodbye, confidence.

Each week, I write a recap column for the Wrestling Roundtable. I give a recap of what happens on WWE Monday Night Raw and throw in my own sarcastic digs. I took a snippet from this week's recap:

Ted DiBiase Jr. and Maryse walked to the ring for a promo. DiBiase described the Million Dollar Couple : the red MITB briefcase and himself. Maryse began to look pissed off, but DiBiase quelled her anger by promising to shower her with everything she ever wanted. Before he could say more John Morrison interrupted. He then made jokes about French people never showering. I thought those jokes went out with the guillotine. Maryse cursed at him in French, with Morrison translating with more insults in English. Anyway, the point of this idiocy was for DiBiase to attack him, which he did. Morrison countered and laid out the Fortunate Son, setting him up for the Starship Pain before Maryse dragged Ted Jr out of the ring.

The analyzer compared it to British satirist Douglas Adams. Well, Adams WAS often sarcastic, so this isn't too bad so far.

Another segment from the same recap:

The Miz cut another great promo, bragging about how be put R-Truth on the shelf last week. The Magical Mystery GM sent another e-mail. Must Michael Cole announce that there is an e-mail when people by now know the cheesy chime and flickering lights means the GM has sent one? Anyway, the Magical Mystery GM announced how he doesn’t have any answers, he only changes the questions. They’re teasing Rowdy Roddy Piper now. It can’t be Piper since he’s busy making bad Harry Potter rip-offs in Canada. (The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens and a sequel, Secret of the Runes, are available on DVD and five more installments are promised.)

The analyzer apparently changed its' mind as David Foster Wallace reappared again. Strange.

One more snippet, this one about the John Cena vs Nexus handicap match:

This was a very bad main event, but through no fault of John Cena’s. Some of these guys really should be in developmental, not the main roster. I may be in the minority, but I feel the NXT Season 2 rookies are an overall better lot than the Nexus. Without Bryan Danielson, there is no workhorse, so the remaining workers' range goes from decent to really bad. Michael Tarver started the match. He wasn’t good at all, so after Cena dominated with a suplex, he tagged out. Justin Gabriel was next and didn’t do anything of note. After Cena took him down with a fisherman suplex, he tagged in Skip Sheffield. Sheffield is the worst of the lot and his reversals left a lot to be desired. Heath Slater tagged in and looked pretty bad. Hard punches aren’t his forte. David Otunga tagged in and did some good work with Cena, including some nice looking clotheslines. I think he has great potential considering he’s only been in the wrestling business for one year. Otunga hit a great looking suplex but had to tag in Wade Barrett. Barrett looked decent in the brief time he was in the match. Since Barrett possesses a background in bare knuckle fighting, why not have him incorporate some of that into his wrestling instead of limiting him to the usual big man crap? Barrett hit some good looking punches and attempted to take Cena out with his finisher, but Cena broke free. Cena took down Barrett with a shoulder block and then hit You Can’t See Me. He went for the Attitude Adjustment, but Sheffield dragged Barrett off of Cena’s shoulders. With the referee distracted, Heath Slater snuck from behind and weakly kicked Cena in the back. The Nexus was now in full control. Sheffield hit his clothesline - the only thing he can do competently in the ring. Otunga tagged in and gave Cena a really good looking spinebuster. Gabriel tagged in and hit the 450 Splash for the win. Barrett then attempted to add insult to injury but Cena snapped and decked him. Cena went outside and grabbed a chair. Slater tried to stop him, but Cena whacked him with a chair full force in the back. Cena ran into the ring and the remaining Nexus surrounded him. Sheamus then ran to the ring with a chair of his own and scared off the SOS with Cena to end the show.

Wallace again? Is this analyzer being run by Wallace's widow?

Anyone who takes I Write Like seriously needs Prozac or Xanax or something.

Bad Movie Day II: Bevare!

2010-07-15T09:01:00.000-07:00

GLEN OR GLENDA? **** (out of ****)
72 mins/No MPAA Rating/1953/Screen Classics

It just wouldn't be a Bad Movie Day without an entry from the canon of Edward D. Wood, Jr, the man considered by many to be the Worst Director of All Time. While Plan 9 from Outer Space is widely considered his worst effort (and the Worst Movie of All Time), after viewing his debut feature Glen or Glenda?, I find it difficult to believe that. Sure, Plan 9 is bad, but it does have some decent special effects and tells a complete story (an idiotic one, to be sure) all the way through. Glen or Glenda? is far worse a movie. You'd have a hard time finding a student movie more recklessly incompetent or ham handed than this. Or one as hysterically funny.

Initially Glen or Glenda? was intended to be a quickie biopic about Christine Jorgensen, who had recently made major waves by having the first high-profile male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. However, depending on who you ask, either Jorgensen didn't want the movie made (highly unlikely considering a biopic did indeed get made in 1970) or wanted too much money (more likely since George Weiss was a poverty-row film producer). Failing to get the rights seldom stopped the exploitation film machine, so a fictionalized version titled I Changed My Sex was planned. Wood apparently had something else in mind.

Before you think I've lost my mind, my four star rating for Wood's debut feature is not because it's a great movie. Trust me, it isn't. What Wood made was what I like to call the Awesome Bad Movie: a movie so inept and so hilarious that it achieves a kind of grandeur that sets it apart from the pit most bad movies congregate. The Godfather and I were laughing our asses off counting the blunders, continuity errors and cornball earnestness of Glen or Glenda?

The story, if you could call it that, begins with a mysterious figure played by Bela Lugosi. Functioning as God on Morphine, Bela presides over the main story. A man clad in womens clothing has been found dead- an apparent suicide. Stymied, a police inspector (Lyle Talbot, who apparently was in everything that decade) visits a psychiatrist (Timothy Farrell) to try and find out why. The psychiatrist then tells the tale of Glen (Wood, credited as Daniel Davis. I wonder how many people out there are convinced this is Niles from The Nanny..), an ordinary man who happens to be a transvestite. Wood doesn't forget about the sex change aspect- he briefly touches on such a case- mainly because he had stock footage of a real operation.

Glen or Glenda? contains more padding than a teenage girl's bra. Wood didn't like to waste good stock footage, so he generously spliced it in whenever he had a space to fill. For instance, Wood makes a transsexual a WWII veteran so he can splice in extensive stock footage from D-Day. Endless footage of cars driving along a freeway punctuate the film, mostly to use as a backdrop for Farrell's narration. Let's not forget the legendary scene in which Lugosi shouts out about pulling strings while buffalo stampede in the background. And don't get me started about that bizarre S&M striptease sequence featuring hideous looking women intercut with random staring shots of Lugosi to pass this crud off as a nightmare scene. Accounts differ as to how this sequence made the film. Some say Weiss cut it in after Wood handed in his final cut. Others say Wood spliced it in on his own accord. Considering the sloppy, let's-throw-shit-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks nature of this film, an excellent case can be made for the latter argument.

Don't get me wrong- Wood has his heart in the right place. Glen or Glenda? pleads tolerance towards people who may act different than what accepted by society as "proper" behavior. That is an honorable, worthy message that is indeed important (and still relevant today.) Too bad that Wood forgets his own message by the final ten minutes. In an attempt to provide a satisfactory happy ending, he has ****SPOILER WARNING****Glen cured of his transvestism. To me, that flies right in the face of the message of tolerance Wood spent 60 minutes badly preaching. If dressing up in angora makes Glen a happy man, why does he HAVE to stop doing so? Because we need a happy ending, that's why! I highly doubt marrying your girlfriend would cure transvestism, by the way.

The psychiatry is pretty wonky also. He throws out terms such as pseudohermaphodite, transsexual, homosexual and even transvestite, but clearly has no clue what these terms actually mean. Would it have killed you to visit a real psychiatrist or read a good book, Ed? I'm sure even in the close minded atmosphere of 1953 some scholarly material had to exist. One of the biggest howlers is how Wood implies that a mere facial massage will transform male features into those of a female. Unless it's Merlin the Magnificent doing the massaging, I don't think so.

Wood's direction is, needless to say, terrible. At this point in time, Wood had no clue how to properly transition between scenes. The stock footage sticks out like a sore thumb. His handling of actors is abysmal. Established actors Lyle Talbot and Timothy Farrell are left out to dry. Bela Lugosi is in another universe altogether. Wood was a bad director and bad writer, but he's even worse as an actor. Flat, lifeless and hammy, he can't even get a decent performance out of himself. But Dolores Fuller- his then-girlfriend playing his character's girlfriend- is so stiff and unnatural in front of the camera that it's a mystery why she wanted to be an actress. Her performance is hysterical to watch unfold, only topped by Lugosi.

Speaking of Lugosi, there was one question that the Godfather constantly asked while watching this movie : "What the fuck does Lugosi have to do with a picture about transvestites?" The answer is: not a whole hell of a lot. Cast as some kind of God, Lugosi sits in his armchair, spouting out thickly accented gibberish about pulling the string and men and women or something like that I guess. It's kind of sad to see a once great star appearing in gobbledygook like this. I don't blame Wood for helping an old man. Just give him something worthy to do.

The most common version of Glen or Glenda? is the Rhino DVD release that runs 65 minutes. If you're lucky enough to find the Double Feature DVD from Catcom Home Video (paired with another Wood opus, Jail Bait), you'll get the seldom seen 72 minute director's cut that has many scenes that most home video or TV prints lack. Most of it is padding, but here's a howlingly funny sequence about homosexuals, whom Wood, very naively, believed pick each other up by lighting each others' cigarettes underneath a lamppost. One of them attempts to pick up Glen, only to be turned down.

Bad Movie Day II: Labor isn't supposed to be THIS painful..

2010-07-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

LABOR PAINS 1/2* (out of ****)
88 mins/2009/PG-13/Millennium

Last week, Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in prison as a result of failing to maintain the terms of her probation after a 2007 DUI arrest. Although Lohan has been complaining about a harsh and unfair punishment, it could have been worse. The judge could have tacked on an additional five years for atrocities against cinema. Labor Pains would have been Exhibit C along side such other time-losers as I Know Who Killed Me and Chapter 27.

Labor Pains was supposed to have a high profile Spring 2009 theatrical release through Columbia Pictures, who financed it. One look at the final cut not only canceled said release, but resulted in Columbia selling the film to basic cable network ABC Family at a loss. The film ended up premiering in lackluster fashion on commercial cable July 2009, with a DVD release two weeks later. It is easy to see why: Labor Pains is a contrived and tedious mess masquerading as a comedy.

Lohan plays Thea, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while supporting her younger orphaned sister (Bridgit Mendler from Disney's The Clique). Thea is fired from her job at a publishing firm, but she manages to be rehired after bluffing that she's pregnant. Much to the chagrin of her best friend (Cheryl Hines), Thea finds herself having to maintain the masquerade. She also finds herself falling for Nick (Luke Kirby), one of her superiors at the publishing house.

I admit that a fake pregnancy angle is an interesting premise that could have made a decent comedy. Sadly the screenplay by Stacey Kramer and first time director Lara Shapiro fails to take advantage of it. They seem content to let it boil down to the standard, predictable romantic comedy that Hollywood insists on churning out. A smart comedy would have forgotten the romantic angle between Lohan and Kirby, who have zero chemistry between them. It would have pulled out the knives and satirized how people are always unwilling to rock the boat when it comes to a sudden pregnancy, the kiss-ass nature of the workplace and how far will one person go to maintain the deception. But no, it's just a long slog towards the predictable romantic pairing at the end, with no surprises.

This movie's stupidity is galling. A mere day after Lohan announces her pregnancy, she is seen with a big bump that is physically impossible to get in 24 hours time. There is one moment when she loses her fake bump and has to improvise on the spot. So what does this script have her do? It has her run into the living room loaded with guests, grab a balloon from the decorations and IN PLAIN SIGHT stuff it down her dress! There's a scene where the Hines character is smoking. It cuts to a close-up of a door opening, then it cuts to Lohan, holding the cigarette. Not only does Shapiro fail to make it clear that the friends are sharing the ciggy, it's surprising that she didn't add any dialogue for the person who opened the door and having him question why a pregnant woman is SMOKING!!!And let's not forget the vomiting scene in which it becomes abundantly clear that the vomit isn't coming from Lohan's mouth. I'm getting really tired of bodily fluids being mistaken for rich humor.

I guess one could forgive such blunders if the movie was funny. It isn't. Oh wait-there is one laugh in this movie, during a scene set at a LaMaze class in which the instructor takes positions to a bizarre new level. Other than that, Labor Pains is so devoid of any imagination or humor that I was wondering who exactly thought this script was a laugh riot.

Lindsay Lohan once showed great promise as an actress. Seven years ago when Freaky Friday came out on DVD and I reviewed it for DVD Verdict, I wrote "Lohan is a natural beauty, but unlike many others, she has talent, which will go a long way in the future." and "Lindsay Lohan has the most potential to cross over into adult roles.". Well, they say no good deed goes unpunished. Lohan seems hellbent on proving me wrong. Her performance in Labor Pains reeks of disinterest. The making of featurette on the DVD release brags about her ability to do only one take. I guess it occurred to no one that the one-take process was the problem. My guess: she just ambled through a single take so she could finish early in order to go partying.

Bad Movie Day II: When Models Try to Act

2010-07-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

BRENDA STARR * (out of ****)
94 mins/PG/1986, 1992/New World Pictures/Sony

This adaptation of the classic 1940s Dale Messick comic strip was completed in 1986 by New World Pictures, but shelved until 1992, when Sony Pictures bought distribution rights and dumped it on the marketplace. I suspect the only reason Brenda Starr saw the light of day was due to the box office success of Warren Beatty's 1990 comic strip adaptation Dick Tracy. The difference was that while Dick Tracy was a good film, Brenda Starr is a certifiable turkey.

Dick Tracy worked because Beatty took the material seriously and treated it with respect. The makers of Brenda Starr made the tragic decision to treat their material as one long, unfunny joke. The idiotic premise concerns Mike Randall (Tony Peck, son of Gregory), a cartoonist who discovers one day that Brenda Starr (Brooke Shields-yes- Brooke Shields) has had enough of being in his strip, so she quits. Of course, this doesn't mean she comes into the real world, but rather Mike draws himself into the strip to try and convince her to come back. As if that wasn't enough, Mike tags along when Brenda goes to a Banana Republic to get the scoop about a new rocket fuel and finds himself falling for his subject. Then there's man of danger Basil St. John, who is also smitten with Brenda. There are also some comical Russians who want that fuel for themselves. And Brenda's rival Libby (Diana Scarwid), who wants the scoop for herself.

According to the Godfather, Brenda Starr didn't even last a week. He had planned to see it following the first week of release, only to discover that while it opened on a Friday, it was gone before the following Thursday. And yes, he only wanted to see this film because he knew it was going to be bad. It did get a brief release on VHS in 1992, fell quickly out of print, received a VHS reissue in 1998, a DVD edition in 2000, both of which fell even more quickly OOP. The DVD commands 30 dollars or more on the used market, while the VHS versions sell for a mere 75 cents. Guess which format we saw this turd on.

For a $22 million production, I can safely say the money certainly doesn't show on screen. Maybe all the money went towards Brooke Shields' wardrobe since little was spent on competent special effects and props. Early in the film, Brenda Starr falls off a ledge with a gangster holding her at gunpoint. Just how they fall to the ground is absolutely hysterical- you can tell they're standing on a soundstage in front of a bluescreen with the camera turned on its' side. When Brenda is taken to the ambulance via stretcher, the paramedics took care to have her bangs cover the bandage wrapped around her head. Later this is replaced by two butterfly stitches that make a ridiculous looking X on her forehead. A later scene in the Tropics shows Brenda waterskiing on two crocodiles. Two plastic, obviously fake crocodiles. Those same crocodiles make repeat appearances and look even worse each time they re-emerge. It comes as a surprise that the normally competent director Robert Ellis Miller (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Reuben Reuben) could make such blunders and even worse, let them make the final cut.

The screenplay, by James D. Buchanan, Noreen Stone and Jenny Wolkind, makes several fatal mistakes. It came as a real shock since Stone and Buchanan were usually good writers. It has wooden dialogue that tries to be funny but fails to. The story is idiotic and trite. But the biggest crime this screenplay commits is that it fails to treat the source material with any kind of respect. One prime example is making the cartoonist a man. No man has ever drawn the Brenda Starr comic strip- it has been exclusively drawn by women since Dale Messick began the strip in 1940. That is only to force a love triangle storyline that doesn't really belong. I also take issue with how the cartoonist draws himself into the strip. Would he really draw himself standing on a ledge about to fall off? Wouldn't he draw himself on safe ground? I also take issue that Brenda Starr herself isn't as plucky or resourceful as she was in the strip.

Brooke Shields was never a very good actress (The Blue Lagoon and Endless Love comprise four hours of my life I'll never get back) but with good material (Pretty Baby, Wanda Nevada, Suddenly Susan), she could be fairly decent. In the time since Brenda Starr, she has improved, if no threat to the likes of Meryl Streep. But here she is in the throes of her awfulness. Woefully miscast here, a then 21-year old Shields confuses shouting for spunk. Her delivery is hilariously stiff and out of place with the period setting. Shields wasn't even the first choice. Jessica Lange, Anjelica Huston and Melanie Griffith all turned it down first, citing the script as a major reason. Someone didn't pay any mind there. (Shields' mother is also listed as a creative consultant. Hmm...)

Most of the acting is pretty awful here. Tony Peck may be the son of a great actor, but the apple fell really far from the tree on the basis of his awful, stiff performance here. As Brenda's hated rival Libby Lipscomb, Diana Scarwid spends the entire movie auditioning for the Joan Crawford role in the remake of Mommie Dearest. Charles Durning plays Brenda's boss and sports a dual-toned hairdo that looks like it was done by Pepe of LePew's. There are some surprising cameos- Eddie Albert as a police chief, Henry Gibson as the inventor of the fuel Brenda and the Russians fight over. The only cast member who emerges from his train wreck unscathed is Timothy Dalton, who is actually quite good as Basil. He's dashing, funny and debonair. Too bad he didn't have a better cast and script to work with.

The end credits mention that this was produced in association with Tribune Comic Entertainment. To their everlasting regret, I bet.

Bad Movie Day II: The Abominable Adventures of a Harry Potter Rip Off

2010-07-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote about Bad Movie Day, a day at the Godfather's devoted to watching some of the worst films ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden unintentionally hysterical gem. By the end of that day, he had already ordered several more DVDs to comprise Bad Movie Day II.
This is the first of a series of entries chronicling those cinematic turds we watched that day.

THE MYSTICAL ADVENTURES OF BILLY OWENS 1/2* (out of ****)
86 mins/PG/2008

J.K. Rowling created an enduring legacy with the Harry Potter series, but you knew sooner or later that the imitators and rip-offs would come a-rising. Few of those imitations capture the spirit and imagination of Rowling's work, but The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens gives such rip-offs a really bad name. Here is a movie so low-rent and so inept that it inspires great peals of laughter from anyone watching.

How does this movie rip-off Harry Potter? Let us count the ways:

1) There is a group of three friends- two boys and one girl.
2) Billy Owens (Dalton Mudridge), our hero is an 11 year old boy born on the 11th day of the 11th month who is predicted to achieve greatness but has no clue as to why.
3) His female pal Mandy (Ciara O'Hanlon)is a know-it-all fountain of information.
4) His best friend Devon (Christopher Fazio) is a goofy, good hearted misfit who steps up when the situation needs it.
5) Eccentric wizard William Thurgood (Roddy Piper) who wears funny hats and imparts wisdom to the young hero.
6) Our hero is attracted to and becomes owner of a magic wand.
7) There is a school bully/asshole who tries to stop our hero.
8) There is an evil wizard who wants to destroy our hero and harm humanity.
9) Our hero refuses to let his mentor die during a key moment.
10) There are magic objects and ancient texts, all forming a prophecy of a major event our hero will have to face in the unforeseen future..
11) This is the first in a series of seven installments.

Hmm, I don't know where I have seen all that before. Have you?

The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens is so poorly made and so unintentionally funny that it left me wondering whether or not director Mark McNabb is the reincarnation of Edward D. Wood, Jr. His movie features a has-been star in a major supporting role (Wood had Bela Lugosi; McNabb has wrestling legend Rowdy Roddy Piper. In fact, Piper is one of the producers of this dreck), a story that makes little sense, stiff acting and woefully inept filmmaking. You're probably asking yourself just how inept this movie could possibly be to earn such a comparison. Well, I'll tell you how. For starters, there are several shots in which shiny glass objects in the foreground reveal the cameraman and camera . A professional cinematographer would have checked for that prior to going for a take. The special effects are dismal. Magic wand effects are laughable- a plate of glass is placed in front of the camera and the effects are badly added via cheap CGI. Speaking of cheap, hokey CGI- there's that dragon. Animated so ineptly that even Ed Wood would have shaken his head and said "I don't think so.", it is awful even by Commodore 64 or Atari standards.

There are other howlers. A main plot point is how the town has been overtaken by magic vines. How do they show this in the movie? They merely place a few vines on the stairway of the library. That's it. The girl is supposed to be a so-called Tai-Chi expert, yet the filmmakers didn't even bother to research exactly what Tai-Chi is. Instead of the leisurely paced exercise it is, they just have the girl flail her arms and legs in a rapid fire reminiscent of Jackie Chan. The bad guy has a red glow about him, as if we didn't get the hint that he's the villain from his actions alone. A gym scene features that old stalwart of school comedy, climbing the rope as an exercise. Yet the rope is so flimsy and light that one gets the feeling that the creative team was either too cheap or too stupid to get the proper gym rope. Oh yeah- this movie barely clocks in at 73 minutes, so they created a lengthy 13 minute end credits sequence, replete with unfunny bloopers and the slowest credit crawl I've ever seen. Not even Wood had the balls to do that.

If you ever wanted to see a movie in which too many writers spoiled the creative brew, this is a top candidate. The end credits list one screenwriter. The DVD case lists two different screenwriters. The Internet Movie Database lists four additional writers. That's seven people who between them couldn't come up with a coherent story or anything original. I have the feeling they rented the four or five Harry Potter movies on the market and just tried to pluck certain elements from each into a screenplay that often makes little sense upon further thought.

I would say the acting is pure amateur night, but that would be an insult to amateurs. Roddy Piper is no actor, but he has been good before, especially in action flicks such as They Live and Tough and Deadly. Does he echo Bela Lugosi in this movie- wildly overacting and spouting incomprehensible dialogue that often makes little sense with the main story. As for Mudridge, Fazio and O'Hanlon, needless to say they are no Radcliffe, Grunt and Watson to be sure. Not only do they lack the considerable acting ability of the Potter trio, but they lack chemistry, affinity with or natural demeanor towards each other or the camera. O'Hanlon especially tries to ape Watson's rapid-fire Hermione delivery, failing miserably. The funniest moments involve their eyes often betraying the fact that they're reading off cue cards and badly at that.

Before you all say how the hell would I know, believe me, I KNOW. In high school, as part of a high school English class project, we were divided into groups and asked to perform short one-act plays that we wrote. After much begging from my classmates, Brother Brian- our teacher-agreed that we could videotape them during our free time and present them to the class. Well, out of my group of seven people, only one guy and myself came with our lines memorized. The rest had to read off cue cards that were strategically taped all over the room. In that video, you saw guys squinting to read cards too far away and eyes moving in all sorts of directions and in one case staring right up at the ceiling since the cue card was taped right above him. Just studying the actors' eye movements in Billy Owens shows that McNabb employed the same techniques.

The MPAA actually rated this film PG for "scary moments". Does this refer to the action in the film or the fact that this movie was even submitted for a rating at all?

Treadway's Dictionary of Bullshit: Words and Phrases

2010-07-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Back in May, I wrote the first entry of Treadway's Dictionary of Bullshit. It was intended to be the first in a series of invaluable guides about the misuse of the English language. Now at long last is the second entry in this ongoing series. Today we'll be tackling some more words that are completely misused along with some phrases that one hears on a daily basis.

First we have organic. This word has become especially popular among environmental nitwits out there. You always see this word in supermarkets these days, particularly in special sections loaded with such products. It's suppose to mean any product that was grown not using chemical pesticides, drugs, hormones or synthetic chemicals. You know what it really means? It means that whatever the label is applied to, they'll charge you double or triple the price of the non-organic version. Plums that cost you 99 cents per pound will cost you $2.99 per pound in the organic version. Organic eggs will cost you 4 bucks a dozen compared to 2 bucks a dozen for regular eggs. It's a money trip, nothing more.

Take a leak. You know the saying. You or a friend has to visit the restroom and urinate. So they announce with fanfare that they have to take a leak. What we should be saying is that we have to leave a leak. I don't know who on earth would actually want to take urine with them. And if you do, please don't tell me.

I hear you. This one is popular in phone conversations. There's always someone who says it at least fifteen times in a five minute conversation. Of course you can hear me! You're on the fucking phone! I say it's awfully rare for deaf people to be using a telephone, don't you?

Here's one you've heard a lot of: we. You know, when a family member or friend goes up to you and says "We have to fix this" or "We have to take this out" or "We have to scrub the flesh off this frog, glue the bones together and mount it on a wooden board". When that individual says we, you know what they're really saying: "You have to fix this". "You have the scrub, glue and mount that frog." "You have to take this out". We we we we we really means you you you you you.

If you are a grandparent and your grandchild has children of their own, those children are your great-grandchildren. Suppose they're a bunch of little brats. Wouldn't that make them your not-so-great grandchildren? Now suppose you are a great-grandparent who isn't thrilled about having great-grandkids. That would make you an ingrate-grandparent, right?

Here's another phrase that's completely full of shit. If women ruled the world, there would be no war. Bullshit. Gender doesn't matter when it comes to warmongering. And if you don't believe me, I have two words for you: Sarah Palin. Think if she was President, there would be no war?

Wrestlemania XV

2010-07-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Recently, I managed to pull off a coup. Wrestlemania XV, a classic WWF pay-per-view from 1999, happened to be in the second hand store for a mere buck. Considering this has been out of print since 2002 as a single title (it is available as part of an expensive multi-disc Wrestlemania DVD anthology), this was sheer luck. But would the show hold up after eleven years? I remembered it for having a classic main event, a few good undercard matches and an abortion of a women's match. It turned out that it was just as I remembered it.

1. Opening the show was a Triple Threat match for the Hardcore title. Champion Mr. Ass Billy Gunn defended against Al Snow (with Head) and Hardcore Holly. Hardcore wrestling became extremely popular in the 1990s when ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) evolved from an underground independent into the third major promotion in the United States. As a result, both the WWF and WCW created (ripped off) their own Hardcore divisions. The only problem is that their version of hardcore was far too tame and silly to be taken seriously. This triple threat match is OK, but nothing more. Who ever heard of a hardcore match with no blood or extreme violence? There was some good action, but when you've seen ECW live as I have, this doesn't even come close. Hardcore Holly regained the title, taking advantage of Al Snow being knocked out with Gunn's Fame-Ass-er finisher. **1/2

2. WWF Tag Team champions Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett were to defend against the winners of a pre-show Battle Royal. D-Lo Brown and Test ended up winning that match and became very reluctant partners. As for the title match, when D-Lo was in it was very good. When Test was in, not so much. The match was a brief 3:58, with the champs retaining after D-Lo and Test began arguing yet again and the champs took advantage. ***

3. Next was the Brawl-for-All finals. Brawl-for-All was intended to be a legitimate tough guy boxing contest featuring WWF wrestlers and a few professional boxers. The finals of the year long tournament pitted pro boxer Butterbean against wrestler Bart Gunn. Among the ringside judges was a very thin and frail looking Gorilla Monsoon, saying what would be his goodbye to the WWF before his death months later from heart failure and diabetes. There wasn't much to the fight as Butterball ended up knocking Gunn out 18 seconds into the first round. DUD

4. A big splash was made in February when the WWF managed to lure Paul Wight, best known as The Giant, away from WCW with a big money deal. Rechristened The Big Show, he was immediately put into a main event spot by joining Mr. McMahon's evil Corporation. But there was a thorn in the Corporation's side: Mankind. Once a member, he was double-crossed out of the WWF title at Survivor Series 1998. Vowing revenge, he had been trading the WWF World title with the Rock since then. The Big Show had interfered in Mankind's ladder match with The Rock, costing him the title. Now they were set to face off at Wrestlemania. This was a surprisingly bad match. The Big Show was still rather thin in 1999, so you can't blame it on weight gain. Mankind was starting to have bad knee problems, so that may have played a part. I think it was mainly the booking that was the culprit here. A lot of stalling, a truly bizarre finish and haphazard logic do this one in. 3/4*

5. The Intercontinental Championship would be decided in a Fatal 4-Way match between champion Road Dogg and former champs Ken Shamrock, Val Venis and Goldust. Once upon a time, Fatal 4-Way matches were elimination matches such as this one was. This was a very good match built around the fact that the title had changed hands among all four very recently. Shamrock and Venis were eliminated first after brawling outside the ring and getting themselves counted out. Goldust threw Dogg towards the ropes with the intention of Ryan Shamrock (Ken's kayfabe, i.e. fake, sister) tripping him. It backfired when Dogg reversed it, causing Goldust to be the one who was tripped, allowing Dogg to hit the power slam for the win. ***1/2

6. Triple H vs Kane was next. The Corporation and D-Generation X had been feuding for several months after D-X played a role in costing The Rock the WWF title against Mankind at the end of 1998. Chyna had turned on Triple H and joined forces with Kane a few weeks earlier, so it was only natural that the two men would face off. This was another strong match. Funny how Triple H managed to get better matches out of Kane than the Undertaker ever could. Plus it had a great finish: Chyna turned on Kane and established that it was all a ruse to mess with Kane's head! It's been done to death in the eleven years since, but it was such a fresh concept then. ***1/2

7. For all the complaining I do about the state of the women's division in WWE today, I always remind myself that it was once a whole lot worse. At least in 2010, there are a few good female workers (they may be underused, but they are there). In 1999, there was not one good female worker in the WWF. WWF Women's Champion Sable was the then-wife of a pro wrestler (Marc Mero, who was known as Johnny B. Badd in WCW), so someone in creative thought she could be a wrestler. Big mistake. They should have called her Joanie B. Badd because she was one of the worst wrestlers in the company. Her opponent Tori was once a decent wrestler but her prime was long past. This was one of the worst matches of 1999, a collection of blown spots, missed steps and cluttered workrate. To top it all off, Nicole Bass, the ugliest white woman in the history of the United States and perhaps even the world, interfered in the finish with a clumsy power press. Just awful in every aspect. -*****

8. The short-lived European Championship was defended. X-Pac had been a strong champion but he ended up losing the title to Shane McMahon, son of owner Vince. Considering Shane was not a fully trained, full time wrestler, he was actually a pretty damn good worker. The two had an extremely good match. Shane was more than able to keep up with X-Pac in the ring. Although I don't like constant interference, it made sense for this match. The Corporation were the top heels, D-Generation X were top babyfaces. Why wouldn't they try to protect their own interests.
But it did have a shocking double-turn: Triple H turned heel and joined the Corporation while Kane came out to save X-Pac! ***3/4

9. The only Hell in a Cell match to appear on a Wrestlemania card featured The Undertaker taking on the Big Boss Man. This match is considered one of the worst Cell matches, but I thought it was a good match. True, it's on the short side (9:46; most Cell matches easily top the 25 minute mark) but it had good action, stiff punches and work from both men, intense psychology (the Undertaker was in his Satanic variation at this point and the gimmick was how he was able to tap into his opponent's psyche by playing intense mind games) and it had an unforgettable finish. Unfortunately, it is this finish (the Big Boss Man is hanged by a noose from the top of the Cell) that caused this match to be omitted from the Hell in a Cell anthology DVD and from any mention on TV. Can't remind people of Chris Benoit, you know. ***1/4

10. Now was the grudge match everyone was waiting to see. WWF Champion The Rock against Stone Cold Steve Austin in a No DQ match. This was one of the best matches of 1999- a fast paced, exciting slugfest between two top workers. They just beat the crap out of each other for 17 minutes. The psychology was through the roof. Austin kicks out of The Rock Bottom/People's Elbow. The Rock kicks out of the Stone Cold Stunner. Vince McMahon tries to butt in to keep his hated rival Austin from winning. He fails. Rock spits water on Austin. Austin retaliates with beer. The Spanish announce table is destroyed (a very popular high spot in the WWF/E). One referee is taken out. Another is wiped out. And another. Finally Mankind comes out and maintains law and order. Austin hits his third stunner. He gets the pin. Champ for a third time. *****

Bad Movie Day: There are just some towns you don't return to

2010-07-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

RETURN TO FROGTOWN 1/2* (out of ****)
1992/90 mins/PG/New World Pictures

Return to Frogtown is a film that would make Ed Wood and Al Adamson proud. This film is so inept, idiotic and silly that it almost cries out to be seen.

I vaguely recall the first film, Hell Comes to Frogtown, but I remember it having to something do with a post-nuclear war Earth in which 99% of men have become sterile. Pro wrestler Roddy Piper played Sam Hell, one of the 1% still fertile. His mission: impregnate enough surviving women to restore the human population. There were these mutant frog people who tried to stop him. Other than the Hell character and the frogmen, don't expect any kind of coherent follow-up here. It is more of a rip-off of the Commando Cody serials of the early 1950s, particularly Radar Men from the Moon (1952). Piper sat this sequel out, so he's been replaced by B-movie stalwart Robert Z'Dar. The name may not be familiar, but the face certainly is since he has the most enormous chin this side of Jay Leno. Z'Dar's performance is the only competent thing in this movie; a solid action actor at the service of an appallingly bad movie.

The Texas Rocket Rangers are mankind's sole weapon against the mutants who occupy Frogtown. Ranger John Jones (Lou Ferrigno) is captured by the enemy, who plan to transform him into a Frogman via a series of injections. The only man who can rescue him is Sam Hell (Z'Dar), now a Rocket Ranger himself.

Almost everything about this movie is inept. The make-up looks atrocious. The leader is seen wearing what appears to be a giant diaphragm on his head (birth control for an entire nation at once!). The frogmen faces are just bad latex masks that move awkwardly, as if someone is maneuvering them by hand. The dialogue is out-of-sync with the mouth movements, making for some unintentionally funny moments. Ferrigno turns big and green in this movie, but unfortunately, he ain't the Incredible Hulk this time. All they do is slap green make-up on his face and arms, but you can see the make-up lines. There are moments when they forget to paint his ears green. Very Ed Wood, ain't it?

The script, by director Donald G. Jackson, is a real mess. There is no explanation as to how Sam Hell is now a Texas Rocket Ranger, never mind how Texas fit into this mess when there was supposedly no United States to speak of in the first film. Characters flow in and out with no explanation as to what they're doing or why they are present at any given time. The attempts at comedy relief aren't funny while the attempts at seriousness are absolutely hysterical.

Lou Ferrigno does nothing of note, not that they've given him anything to work with. What are Charles Napier and Don Stroud doing in this mess? Very little and presumably well paid, that's what. Brion James (Leon the replicant in Blade Runner) is unintentionally funny as a mad scientist that sounds like Nicolas Cage on helium.

Next: Bad Movie Day II...

Bad Movie Day: Wrestling and Romance Just Don't Mix

2010-07-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

JUST ANOTHER ROMANTIC WRESTLING COMEDY * (out of ****)
2007/105 mins/PG-13/Highspots.com

Ten years ago, I once took a creative writing class that was a nightmare. The instructor had just published a novel and as a result, his ego became monstrous. Other than a few select pets (who were the worst writers in the class), he tore apart our work. He especially hated my stuff. My writing hero was (and still is) Woody Allen, so most of my submitted writing was in the comedy genre. One week, the class assignment was to write an outline for a movie. Sounded good, so I proceeded to piece together an outline for a multi-character comedy. I worked hard on it and felt I did some good work. Not Teacher though. He proceeded to go on a tirade about how I had no clue of what comedy is all about. He felt that comedy shouldn't be rooted in any kind of reality. Dialogue should not be realistic at all. The biggest insult was how he objected to my characterizations. He felt that in comedies, all characters should be some kind of caricature. He especially took issue with how I treated a gay character I had created. I treated him as a normal person. Teach felt that gay characters in a comedy should be the over-the-top and always swishy and flamboyant.

His words reverberated in my head while watching Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy. This was a script he would have praised and given an A to. It's loaded with the same caricatures, stereotypes, impossible situations and inane dialogue that he felt all movie comedies should not be without. This movie is an insult to both romantic comedies and professional wrestling. Certainly a good romantic comedy could be done within the wrestling world. This amateurish mess sure isn't. While I don't believe I laughed once, I do remember groaning on several occasions.

Each and every character is some kind of stereotype. For example, this movie contains 1) the pretty girl who can't tell when Mr. Right is in front of her nose, 2) her flamboyantly gay BFF (best friend forever), 3) her musclehead idiot boyfriend who happens to be 4) the town bully and 5) cheating on her. Then you have her 6) overprotective father, 7) understanding mother and 8) Mr. Right, who is 9) a nerd and 10) Jewish which means that 11) he has lots of money. Did I mention that the gay best friend is 12) black and that he's 13) a token? Oh yeah, I forgot 14) the town slut who orally rapes the gay BFF and 15) the wacky Chinese obstetrician who speaks in 16) broken English or 17) not.

That's 17, count em, 17 stereotypes. And that's just scratching the surface. Is your brain hurting yet? These stereotypical caricatures are performed by a mix of unknown professional actors and actual figures from the wrestling world. Most of the performances are pretty bad (would you expect a GOOD performance from the likes of Chyna?) but

Just Another Wrestling Romantic Comedy tries to be a cross between gross-out humor and Woody Allen-style romantic comedy, only without Allen's wit or considerable skills behind the camera and on the typewriter. There's one scene in which a little boy repeatedly picks his nose, only that the boogers look like chewed up Doublemint gum. Ho ho. The Chinese obstetrician makes lame jokes about speaking Broken English and eating wontons before revealing that she can indeed speak proper unaccented English. Ha ha. Then there's the "rape" scene which is mined for comedy at first, only for the filmmakers to try and wring poignancy out of it. The thing is, like the finale of The Pink Angels, this movie didn't earn the right to get such poignancy out of such a situation. It just comes off as desperate. And speaking of desperate,
as most romantic comedies often do these days, they resort to a big wedding for the climax replete with false endings and wacky restarts. Just once I'd like to see a romantic comedy in which the wedding is merely a backdrop, not a plot destination.

And yes-there are wrestling scenes right in the middle of this muck. They are not very well staged. I don't know what it is with filmmakers, but why do wrestling scenes in the movies need have rapid-fire cuts and flashy editing using a single camera to capture the footage? Even the independent pro wrestling videos don't resort to these methods. Everything is a blur here instead of the clarity of the traditional multi-camera set up (and don't give me the excuse that it is due to the movie's low budget- even on the indie wrestling scene, they use multiple DV cameras.)

Did I mention it drones on for 107 minutes? Feels closer to 242.

Bad Movie Day : Does that leather come in pink?

2010-07-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing the Godfather and I love it's a good bad movie. There is something about watching a really bad movie that turns out to be unintentionally funny, either through sheer ineptitude or ignorance (or in the case of one of the movies featured in this review, political incorrectness) that makes for a great time. Recently, we've begun a series of mini-festivals featuring some of our discoveries..it's bad, it's giggle-inducing, it's Bad Movie Day.

THE PINK ANGELS ** (out of ****)
1971/81 mins/R/Crown International Pictures

A lonely hitchhiker is picked up along the road by a sextet of rough looking but sympathetic bikers. Soon they stop at an A&W roadside diner to have lunch. Everything seems normal at first, but soon some peculiar stuff begins to happen. One biker calls another a "fickle pringle". Another mouths the words "I love you" to the shocked hitchhiker. The leader of the gang remarks about how it's so lonely at the top. Then they have a condiment fight, giggling and prancing all over the place. "Jesus Christ, you're ALL FAGGOTS!", the hitchhiker screams in terror as he runs far, far away.

A gang of flaming gay bikers. No, this isn't your typical biker flick. This is The Pink Angels, one of the all time great bad movies. What's truly astonishing about this movie is how it makes no secret that it is a low-rent ripoff of Easy Rider, right down to the lengthy panoramic shots of the open road, pop songs on the soundtrack and the tragic ending.

I guess The Pink Angels was intended to be a comedy. There are moments that indicate we aren't supposed to take this seriously. Here is a sampling of the dialogue that induced big time laughs:

A response from one of the Angels when a motorcycle cop searches the compartment of his bike and asks what it is: "It's a maiden form brassiere. And it's MINE!!!"

Another response to same cop: "You cops think you run the world. Well, this is one red-blooded American faggot you can't scare!"

Two Angels argue over soup. "How about some Cream of Celery soup?"

Drink orders at a hotel: "I don't care what drink it is as long as it's stiff and stimulating to my throat."

Leader of a straight biker gang of whom the Pink Angels vandalized with makeup and hair ribbons: "I'm going to kill those..... BANANAS!!!"

The Angels visit a bar: "Bartender! Whiskey for me. And beer for my queers!"

Yes, gang. This is VERY politically incorrect to say the least. It certainly is funny. I laughed a lot, mainly out of shock. There's a hysterical scene in which one Angel can't decide which restroom to use: the mens or ladies. One Angel is clad with Granny glasses and a bad Liverpool accent, spoofing John Lennon. A gang of prostitutes bear a strong resemblance to Mrs. Garrett and the girls from The Facts of Life. The Pink Angels are stopped by some motorcycle cops with hysterical results. And let's not forget the shopping spree in town. There's also a very odd interlude featuring a "party" between the Pink Angels, the Facts of Life prosties and a straight biker gang led by Dan Haggerty (yes, Grizzly Adams) and Michael Pataki (perhaps best known as the police captain on the 70s' Spider-Man TV series), set to one of the strangest songs ever heard in a biker flick. Good times. Or would be bad good times?

Not content to rip-off Easy Rider, they also shoehorn a General character into this movie so they can spoof the then-box office smash Patton. He stands in front of an American flag and makes off-the-wall speeches about the beauty of America and how these "hippies and faggots" are ruining it. His scenes punctuate the movie at the most peculiar times and often have little relation to a story about gay bikers.

There lies the problem with this movie. There is no real plot to speak of and it's constructed haphazardly. We get some really long stretches of the Pink Angels riding their bikes while crappy pop tunes punctuate the soundtrack. The General scenes stick out like a sore thumb. Continuity errors are a-plenty. But let's face it, who is going to watch a film called The Pink Angels for good, PC filmmaking? No, we're in it to laugh at the mistakes and awful humor.

Then there's the ending. The Pink Angels meet a sad end, which is like a thumb in the eye after 78 minutes of lighthearted badness. This movie didn't earn such a tragic finale and it exists solely to ape Easy Rider. For shame.

Random Observations

2010-06-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

I think that major newspapers should really proofread their headlines before publication. Sunday's Daily News featured a story about Tiger Woods' comeback at a golf tournament. The headline: COMING ON STRONG.

New York Governor David Paterson outlined his vision for the remainder of New York's fiscal year. How can a legally blind man have any vision?

Today marks the one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death. There are TV specials and newspaper articles galore titled Remembering Michael Jackson. How can one remember Michael Jackson when for the past year we weren't allowed to forget about him?

Here's something that has bothered me for sometime. People wishing dead people a Happy Birthday. Friends have done it, family have done it. How can you wish a Happy Birthday to a dead person? He or she isn't around to enjoy it! And what's there to be happy about? They're DEAD! If you want to mark someone's birthday who isn't around anymore, say today would have been so-and-so's __ birthday Let us commemorate the occasion.

Is it irony to call the CEO of British Petroleum oily since his company caused the largest oil spill in history?

Sarah Palin is the most useless bimbo since Baywatch was on the air.

If a known movie pirateer dies suddenly, does the RIP on his headstone stand for Record in Peace?

I think there should be a new kind of Breathalyzer test. Instead of using numerical measurements, they should use famous drunken celebrities. Will you score a Mel Gibson (moderately drunk), a Lindsay Lohan (extremely drunk) or will you rank a Ted Kennedy and make the testing device completely explode?

Anne Hathaway sure can pick 'em. First an embezzler. Now her new boyfriend was busted for stealing paintings from an art exhibit. For her next boyfriend, I hear OJ and Charles Manson are available..

Channel Surfing on a Lazy Saturday Afternoon

2010-06-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, Saturday. As The Godfather would say, "Such fuckin' shit on!". This is the day you look forward to most after a long week, only to spend your afternoon channel surfing through 300 channels of nothing. Well, one Saturday I was partaking in that well worn ritual. Here are some observations I made about some of the things I came across:

-Hmm. Alex Trebek is doing a commercial for Colonial Penn Life Insurance. The only problem is that they're doing it wrong. They should have Trebek spouting out random figures and facts while the other actors answer in the form of a question:

$6,000.

What is the cost of an average funeral, Alex?

Correct!

59%

What you'll be saving each year if you sign with Colonial Penn, Alex?

Correct!

-Lifetime is airing a movie featuring a predominantly African American cast titled Sins of the Mother. If it would have been on BET, it would have been called Sins of the Motherf***er.

-One infomercial in which they tell you that if you order now, it'll only cost you 2 easy payments of $29.95 instead of the standard three payments. Know what that means? They have a warehouse full of this crap and they need to unload it pronto.

-Alex Trebek again, this time with a PSA (public service announcement) regarding prostate cancer screenings. Again, this would be more fun if in the form of Jeopardy:

One in nine.

What is the number of men in America who have prostate cancer, Alex?

Correct!

-The Magic Bullet is boasting of creating meals in seconds. Wouldn't it take more than 16 seconds to make chicken salad when you take into account 1) the time to set up the machine, 2) the time consumed gathering the ingredients, 3) time taken by preparing said ingredients, 4) using the machine and5) clean-up? More like a 16 minute lunch.

-Another PSA, this time featuring the announcer from WCBS 2 news. He mentions that he's having a colonoscopy right now. Now I'm no expert on colonoscopies, but I highly doubt that you're allowed to wear your three piece suit and stand up while the test is being administered. And I especially don't think you're going to be SMILING!

-Since when is God Bless America the national anthem? It's been so overplayed since 9/11 that I imagine even God bristles whenever he hears that song.

-Then there's America the Beautiful. "From sea to shining sea" is about to be changed to "From sea to oily sea"...

-Marathons. When station programmers get really lazy.

-Healthy McDonald's salads. Nice crisp lettuce, heart healthy tomatoes, carrots that are loaded with beta carotene. And for flavor, melted chicken fat. There's no such thing as healthy eating at Mickey D's.

-Ever notice how the local news programs hype a major story but make you wait 15 or more minutes until they get to it?

-The TV Guide lists Major League Baseball as taking place from 4 to 7. At the Movies follows at 7. If I were to bet a nickel for every time the game goes overtime and At the Movies is preempted or cancelled, I'd be richer than Bill Gates.

-It's 6:50. The ball game is in the 7th inning. Ca-ching!

-Commercial for birth control pills. Who says you have to have a period every month? God, that's who!

Fatal 4-Way

2010-06-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

Despite some wacko booking that made little sense at times, WWE delivered a very good pay-per-view in Fatal 4-Way on Sunday. Of the seven matches, only one could be called poor. Three were excellent. The others were good matches, including one (Drew McIntyre-Kofi Kingston) which was better than could be humanly expected since it went close to 20 minutes and featured a worker charitably classified as awful. The NXT Invasion angle continues to go to hell as WWE Creative is content to merely rehash the same shit over and over again instead of pushing ahead to the next level. Not to mention that this pay-per-view was over by 10:35 instead of the standard 11 PM end time.

Vince McMahon came out and revealed that Raw GM Bret Hart is not here tonight. He also mentioned that he'll be meeting with Bret and his representatives about his future as GM. I guess Bret's GM run is over. Too bad.

1. Kofi Kingston retained the Intercontinental title over Drew McIntyre. This match went about 19 minutes, which was a major risk since Drew McIntyre sucks as a worker. It ended up being a surprisingly good match since Kofi did a good job of carrying him. I guess Kofi is to Rick Rude as McIntyre is to Ultimate Warrior. It wasn't as good as their fast paced match at Over the Limit, but it was good enough. McIntyre finally had some good heel heat from the crowd for once. Weird finish, though. The referee was knocked out, so McIntyre dragged former Smackdown GM Teddy Long to the ring to take the ref's place. Long started to count, but stopped at 2. McIntyre arose to strangle Long, but Matt Hardy came out and saved Long, allowing Kofi to hit the Trouble in Paradise for the win. ***

2. Fatal 4-Way: Eve vs Gail Kim vs Maryse vs Alicia Fox. Not as bad as I was expecting considering Maryse and Alicia Fox are the very definition of drizzling shit. Eve and Gail tried their best but it was still a bad match. Gail did show how to properly do a flying headscissors compared to the trainwreck version Alicia did last week on Raw. Eve continues to make a strong case for winning Most Improved Wrestler this year. Maryse and Alicia did some of the worst wrestling I've ever seen when facing each other at the midway point. The finish came when Eve gave Maryse a great looking moonsault from the top rope, but Alicia threw Eve over the ropes and got the pin. Funny, didn't I see this finish on Raw last week in the US title change? Naturally, the worst worker of the bunch wins the title and now we have NO WWE women's champs to be proud of. *3/4

3. Next was an impromptu grudge match between Evan Bourne and Chris Jericho. This was a Match of the Year caliber contender. It started slow, but built into an incredible match. It was almost Japanese in style and execution. The only debit was that it was only 12 minutes long and considering who was involved, it could have easily gone 20 minutes+. Jericho lost again, so he must REALLY be in the doghouse. (He has an upcoming game show that ABC has picked up for a full series. WWE owner Vince McMahon okayed the project, but is angry that it has gone to series. Jericho's contract runs out in September. Do the math.) ****1/2

4. Fatal 4-Way: World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger defended against The Big Show, CM Punk and Rey Mysterio. I had some misgivings about this match, but it turned out to be all for naught- the four had an excellent match. Lots of good action and work by all four. It was a thrilling ten minutes. Big Show worked surprisingly well with the much smaller Mysterio, which shocked the hell out of me. Show was actually in good form tonight. Usually he's OK, but his weight makes him slower than the rest. My big issue was that the match was marred by Kane's interference. He came and grabbed CM Punk who was about to win the match. Kane chokeslammed Punk into a casket and wheeled it away. This allowed Mysterio to hit the 619 and splash off the top to win the title, ending an uneventful three month Swagger title reign. I like Mysterio a great deal, but why give him a second title reign? His first reign was ruined by booking him as an underdog who won by the skin of his teeth instead of using his strengths (high flying abilities, his speed and agility) to make him a different kind of dominant champ. My preference would have been Punk. ****1/4

5. US Championship: The Miz vs R-Truth. Wow, has the Miz become a really good worker. The fans weren't into this match at all, but I loved it. Miz and Truth had a solid thirteen minute match, which was also Japanese style in execution. They started slow, but it built into a frenzy of high spots and near falls, with Miz retaining the title pinning Truth clean with a reversed roll-up. I loved that Miz won clean, but not so definitively that the feud could continue. ****

6. Hart Dynasty (David Hart Smith, Tyson Kidd & Natalya Neidhart) vs The Uso Brothers & Tamina Snuka. This was another impromptu match. The fans didn't give this a chance as they could visibly care less. Too bad since this was a very good six-person tag match. Natalya was incredible. How this woman doesn't have the Divas title but the Tyra Banks wannabe does is a total disgrace. Tamina is a bit green, but she has a ton of potential and is already leagues ahead of most of the Divas on the roster. They traded some nice back and forth action before Tamina tagged in Uso #1. The Usos impressed me with some solid work in the ring. It only went nine minutes, which was madness considering the show had over 70 minutes to go when the match started. This also had the wrong finish as the Harts won when Natalya pinned Tamina after the latter missed the Snuka Splash off the top rope. The Samoan Trio should have won this initial face-off but since the announcers kept hyping that the Harts dedicated the match to Uncle Bret, I'm not surprised they went over instead. Dumb. ***1/2

7. Fatal 4-Way: WWE Champion John Cena defending against Sheamus, Edge & Randy Orton. Very good match marred by a crap finish. It was a solid main event, a notch or so below the earlier one for the Big Gold Belt, but still extremely good. Where everything went to hell was in the final few minutes. The match came to a complete halt at the 14 minute mark as the NXT Gang, a group of seven disgruntled rookies, vandalized the backstage area and beat up the Hart Dynasty, Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne before coming to the ring and interfering in the match. They left Edge and Randy Orton for dead at ringside, knocked down Sheamus and then laid Cena out. After they left the ring, Sheamus crawled over and pinned Cena to win his second WWE Championship. Afterwards, the NXT Gang came back and REPEATED the SAME beatdown that they gave Cena two weeks ago MOVE FOR MOVE. This Invasion angle is hanging on via life support since they have really dropped the ball on it. The vandalism thing is getting really tiresome and is beyond reprehensible for a family show. (The WWE hypes that they are a PG rated family program. Bullshit.) But since 95% of internet fans raved about the vandalism Week 1, WWE is repeating it week after week. Bad! Did they really have to rehash the NXT beatdown from Raw two weeks ago? They could have come up with a better finish by having the rookies distract Cena causing him to lose the title to Sheamus. I like the idea of a second Sheamus title reign, though. ***3/4

BMZ

2010-06-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

One of the hottest TV programs is TMZ, a program in which a crack team of "reporters" (i.e. paparazzi) stalk celebrities in the hope of something juicy. Well, I got to thinking, TMZ can't be everywhere and that there are some moments out there that are being overlooked. So I assembled my own group of photographers all over the country for a blog segment I call BMZ.

Earlier this week, Harrison Ford eloped with his decades-younger girlfriend Calista Flockheart. In this web exclusive, BMZ has the inside track on the "something old" the bride was carrying below:

A mini-brouhaha occurred earlier this week at Michael Jordan's press conference. You see, some people believe that he is growing an Adolf Hitler style mustache. The bit of mustache also made an appearance in a new Hanes commerical with Larry Bird.

Personally, with the bald head and earring I think he's auditioning to be the new Mr. Clean but that's just me. In Jordan's defense, he could be growing an Oliver Hardy style mustache. Or perhaps he's aping Charlie Chaplin's classic 'stache.

And now here's an incredible candid photo shot by one of our crack photographers. It's Conan O'Brien spending some time with his daughter:

Did I mention just how skilled my BMZ photographers are? One of them managed to get this exclusive photo of Katherine Heigl preparing for an upcoming interview with Parade magazine:

But BMZ isn't just about celebrities. We cover serious news too. BMZ was there when BP CEO Tony Hayward and fellow BP executives were entering the Capitol for their meeting with Congress:

Speaking of BP CEO Tony Hayward, he had to rush back to England for an emergency. It turned out that the emergency was a yacht race in which he was participating. There was one awkward moment. I don't think some people in England are too happy with how he's handling the oil spill. Luckily BMZ was there to capture that moment on film:

Last but not least, this one is a bit ghoulish for the faint of heart. This week will be the one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death. Even though he died, I don't think his spirit has left this Earth yet. One of our California photographers was driving home with his girlfriend late one night when they came across this in a graveyard:

Cause this is THRILLER! Thriller night!

Adventures at a Theater Near Me

2010-05-29T12:24:00.000-07:00

I used to go to the movies a lot more than I currently do now. For starters, I'm a cheap bastard. I get the hankering to go to a movie but then I start thinking that instead of spending $12-17 bucks on one trip to the theater, I could just go to the second hand store and walk out with several used DVDs instead. When I was at the height of my movie going, it only cost about 5 bucks to get in. I never bought concessions (I am perfectly fine just watching the movie without having to eat or drink anything.)

With this piece, I'm just reminiscing about the moviegoing moments I've had in the past. It's all random and scattershot, but 100% real.

Earliest movie going experience: Superman II. Fell asleep halfway through. Woke up to see a 20 foot high Superman flying right at me. Needless to say, I was scared of Supes for a while.

Most physically uncomfortable: X-Men (2000). Got there late, so the only seat left was the front row. Big mistake. My neck was stiff for hours afterward.

Creepiest: Dinosaur (2000). Not the movie itself, but the two teenagers playing tonsil hockey two rows in front of me. Why pay 10 bucks to get in if you're not going to see the movie? I don't know what was creepier: the dinosaurs speaking in plain English or how the two managed to survive snogging each other for 2 hours without surfacing for air.

The greatest big screen experience I ever had was the re-release of Apocalypse Now in the summer of 2001. This movie was made for the big wide screen, with such lush color and deafening surround sound. The DVD oddly changes the aspect ratio from 2.35:1 to 2.00:1. I still don't know why that is.

The worst movie going experience I ever had was in the fall of 2000. The Exorcist had just been restored with additional footage reintegrated back into the film. This film was a favorite of mine and a chance to see it on the big screen was irresistible. So on a bright Saturday afternoon, I went to the local theater. Too bad that the theater was loaded with young dopes my own age who proceeded to laugh all the way through it. There is nothing remotely funny about The Exorcist, so at first baffled me. Then I slowly became enraged as their constant laughter and asinine riffing spoiled the experience for me. It remains the only time I demanded- and got- a refund. I ended up going back during one of my off-days during the week, a time when no dopes my age would be in a theater. A great time was had in peace.

One of the strangest movie going experiences I ever had was in April of 1997. My friend and I went to see Private Parts (1997), the Howard Stern movie. Not that there was anything in the movie that was weird. No, the strange part occurred about 20 minutes into the movie. This fat black woman came with her four kids, all under the age of 6. The kids were restless, never staying still or quiet for long. When things got too loud, this woman would shout at the top of her lungs "You motherfuckers keep quiet now!" or "Shut up and sit down, motherfuckers!". I think it was at the point that she shouted that she wouldn't get her motherfuckers some motherfucking candy unless they sat their little asses down that someone got up and got an usher to toss her and her brood of creatures out.

I used to wonder who would actually go to a theater on Christmas Day. Sure enough, Christmas 2002 was the day I found out the answer: plenty. My father decided that since the weather was too tough for a trip to Rockefeller Center, we'd go to the movies instead. We ended up seeing Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio. It was a miserable movie to match the miserable weather. The one thing I do remember, aside from the mind-numbing dreck on screen, was silently cracking jokes with my youngest brother (the actor playing Geppetto had a wig that made him look like Andy Warhol). Yeah, I know. I just took to task the assholes who ruined that Exorcist screening and here I was riffing. The difference was I wasn't disrupting the ENTIRE audience in the process.

Bad movies have a way of creating a certain awkward reaction. In February 2004, the Godfather and myself went to see Lost in Translation. It was widely proclaimed a masterpiece and having been nominated for several Oscars, we wanted to see what the fuss was about. After the film ended, the Godfather turned to me, looking bewildered, and calmly asked "Was it me, or was that a fucking bad movie?". I promptly responded that it wasn't just him. That movie was so boring and pointless that I wonder if most of its' champions are just afraid of upsetting the bandwagon.

I vividly remember one February afternoon in 1997. I was in high school and the Spanish Club decided that we would take a trip to see Evita in the theater. Excused from classes for an entire afternoon- good. The movie- very bad. The highlight was when my friend Anthony poked me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear "Mrs. Farry's asleep!". Sure enough, the movie was so boring it put her to sleep.

There was one time in which I was the only person inside the theater. I went to see Town and Country opening day. After the film ended, I immediately went to the library to go online and post my review on the Internet Movie Database. I loved the picture (I think I'm the only one on Earth who did..) and wrote a rave review. I was promptly accused by other imdb users as being bought off by New Line Cinema. Sorry to disappoint those nutjobs, but the opinions of one Bill Treadway are not and never were for sale.

Some movies really need the audience to come alive. I laughed my ass off with Shallow Hal. At home on DVD, it just wasn't as funny. Then there was The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I've never seen in a theater but I did catch on Fox Movie Channel. I still don't know what all the fuss is about. I guess it must play better inside a theater packed with fanatics than watching it alone on DVD at home.

Treadway's Dictionary of Bullshit, 1st Edition

2010-05-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read the newspaper or watched television and noticed how certain words are either misused or just don't make any sense in the context in which they are used? If you're like me and bristle at these words that just won't go away or are completely misused, then you need Treadway's Dictionary of Bullshit, 1st Edition. In this post, we'll take a look at some words, especially pop culture terms, that have been completely abused in this thing we call the English language.

Here's a word that has been completely misused: hero. You always read and hear about someone being labeled a hero. The most flagrant misuse of the word came after 9/11. No, I'm not talking about the police and firefighters who lost their lives that horrible day. What I'm talking about is the misconception that just living in New York when 9/11 took place makes one a hero. You wouldn't believe how many times I was called a hero just because I was a New Yorker. Folks, just living in a state that withstood a terrorist attack does NOT make one a hero. I didn't go to Ground Zero to help out and rescue survivors. I didn't risk my life doing anything that day. I was home when it happened. That's where I stayed the entire day. I'm no hero. You want to know who is a hero? Someone who was on their way home but turned back around to offer help. That's a hero.

Same goes for the Times Square bombing attempt earlier this month. The vendors who saw the smoking car and went for help- heroes. The cop who was proclaimed as a hero despite doing what he was supposed to do normally as part of his job- not a hero.

Here's another full-of-shit pop culture word: bromance. This is one of those words that some cretin out there thought sounded cute and trendy. It is used to define a close friendship between two men. Is it so wrong to just say you have strong admiration for a fellow man? Because that's all a bromance really is: strong admiration. But no, we have to make everything sound trendy these days. Same goes for girl crush. I want to puke whenever I hear those words together. It means the same thing as bromance, except for women. What is wrong with saying the words "really solid friends" or "best friends" instead of all this cutesy shit?

Then there's mutual. As in "our break-up was mutual". Not true! One person always wants to break up more than the other in a failing relationship. And someone always initiates it. So how the hell could it be mutual?

Here's a word we've heard too much of. Change. Especially when it comes to politics. Believe me, if you hear a politician say the word change, your inner bullshit meter should be ringing off the charts. Change to them means changing the curtains at the State Capitol or raising their base salaries.

Metrosexual. It means a man who is straight but likes to keep a neat appearance with style and fashion. In other words, a guy who doesn't look like a slob when he goes out. Actually, metrosexual should be used to describe slobs since most metro areas around here are cluttered, sloppy and loaded with litter.

Going forward. What exactly does this mean? I think it's a euphemism for "If I use this, it'll sound like I want to change things for the better". This is especially popular with politicians, for whom bullshitting is second nature.

What'choo talkin 'bout, Willis?

2010-05-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Earlier this afternoon, Gary Coleman, forever known for playing wisecracking kid Arnold on the hit TV sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, passed away at age 42. Apparently he had taken a nasty fall in his home near Salt Lake City, Utah. The blow to the head must have been pretty severe as he soon suffered an intracranial hemorrhage, lost consciousness and was placed on life support this morning. He had a life filled with controversy, but beneath the issues, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy with a good sense of humor and self-depreciation (some of his comic appearances on Jay Leno were hysterical, including one where he was oblivious that his security co-worker at the Mall of America was Osama Bin Laden and another where he and other former TV sitcom stars spoofed Survivor)

I do have one thing to say: God, you took the wrong midget today. THIS is the one you should have taken from this planet:

WWE half-wrestler Hornswoggle. The bane of every wrestling fan's existence.

Bits & Pieces

2010-05-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through the channels the other day and noticed a TV show featuring evangelist Creflo A. Dollar. I don't know about you, but I'd have a hard time giving money to any preacher named DOLLAR.

I think that Jay Leno should have gotten the Rolling Stones as the musical guest for Thursday so they could have played their song BITCH. After all, Katherine Heigl is on the show that day.

BP stands for Bullshitting Pricks, not British Petroleum.

Lindsay Lohan is bitching that the ankle bracelet she is forced to wear will clash with her outfits. How about trading them in for a pair of silver cuffs linked by an attractive, shiny chain? They can be worn front and back!

What do you call a hypocrite who praises the NYPD and Mayor for their quick work in dismantling a Times Square SUV bomb, yet slashes NY's share of homeland security funding? Mr. President.

I wonder if there will ever be a mental hospital called the Planters Health Facility.

I have heard of the term Fair Weather Friend, but what about those friends who only talk to you when there's a problem? Would you call those people Foul Weather Friends?

How about this for a new football team? Sign Pacman Jones, Michael Vick, Ray Lewis and Lawrence Taylor and call the team the Criminals.

I'm tired of hearing all these cheaters proclaiming that they had married the love of their life. If that was so true, then how come you were fucking everything in a skirt?

Will Rogers once said "I have never yet met a man that I didn't like". That's because he never met Dick Cheney or the Pope.

Mug Shot Idol

2010-05-25T20:19:00.001-07:00

To absolutely no ones surprise, pro wrestler Scott Hall was arrested for drunken disorderly misconduct on May 14th. Hall has had serious problems with alcohol and drugs, dating back to 1996 or so. There had been talk that he was taking his latest run with Total Nonstop Action (TNA) seriously, but has he fallen off the wagon big time. Here is the mugshot that was released to the public over the weekend:

After getting over the shock and incessant giggling, I realized that it reminded me of another famous celebrity mugshot:

Look at both pictures. Same wild hair, same glazed look. Both look so old. Wouldn't it be fun if there was a show called Mug Shot Idol in which the public could vote on which mugshots are the funniest? I have a feeling I know who would be in the finals!

Squeaking By the President

2010-05-25T13:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, President Obama was holding a press conference on the White House lawn. The subject was financial reform, but a mini-brouhaha occurred when a rat was visibly running away underneath the podium. Here is a picture taken from the front page of last Friday's New York Daily News:

Many were quick to cry out about the fact that a rat was scurrying away, but I don't know why people were in such an uproar. It was only House Speaker Nancy Pelosi running back to the Capitol.

DVD Review- The Ladder Match

2010-05-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

The origins of the ladder match are disputed. Some historians say the match was created by British wrestler Peter Thornley (best known as the first Kendo Nagasaki) on the sports program World of Sport in 1971, while most others credit Canadian wrestler Dan Kroffat (NOT the same Kroffat who wrestled in Japan and the WWF in the 90s, for those wondering) during his booking tenure for the Stampede Wrestling promotion that same year. No matter who came up with the concept, it turned out to be an incredibly durable one. So durable that it became a staple of modern wrestling.

And as with most staples, a DVD collection was in the cards. This three disc collection is hosted by announcer Todd Grisham. Alas, someone decided that humor had to be injected into his intros. The result is a lot of ham-handed comedy that just falls flat. It makes me wonder exactly who thought Grisham pretending to grab at a non-existent belt while on top of a ladder was the height of hilarity. Grisham is a capable host and could have just introduced each match from a historical perspective as he has on other WWE DVD collections.

As for the matches themselves, it’s a pretty good selection overall. You get most of the confirmed classics of the genre (although the first Shawn Michaels-Razor Ramon ladder match is absent here, odd considering it was the match that put the ladder match on the map), including nine that are just sheer perfection. Only one match stinks out the joint (Chris Jericho vs Christian) and it is nice to get some real rarities, including one from the defunct Stampede promotion and several strong TV matches that have been seldom seen since their initial airing. It would have been nice to have a ladder match from ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling), but since ECW ladder matches only ended via pinfall, it may have been too out of place with the rest of the matches in this set.

When rating matches, I use the star system perfected by Dave Meltzer for his Wrestling Observer Newsletter. A five star match is simply phenomenal. A four star match is excellent. A three star match is good. A two star match is average which can be good or bad depending on the circumstances. A one-star match is bad. A match that receives a DUD (or zero stars) is really bad. Any match that gets a minus star rating is patently unwatchable. Increments of ¼, ½, and ¾ are allowed.

Jake Roberts vs Big Daddy Ritter- Stampede Wrestling July 1979

The ladder match of the 1970s was a far different match than it would become in the 90s and beyond. No championship belts were hung from the rafters. Instead a bag of money or some kind of object would be hung there. A single ladder was used instead of the far more familiar double ladder. There would be a second referee to hold up the ladder for extra support. As for daredevil high spots using the ladder, just forget about it.

This first match features a young pre-Snake Jake Roberts against Big Daddy Ritter, later known as the Junkyard Dog. The Stampede North American Heavyweight Championship was on the line as well as $10,000 hung up in the rafters. Most of the match is shown here, culled from 16mm camera footage. The two had a very good match, with no wild stunts emanating from the ladder, but lots of stiff brawling. I was surprised at how good Ritter was here; especially since he was pretty awful in the WWF (I would blame drugs and weight gain). Roberts was normally a superb worker until, alas, hard drugs and massive weight gain became an issue. How far the mighty trees can fall...***1/2

Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- Smack Em Whack Em 7/21/1992

In 1992, Bret Hart thought that the ladder match format pioneered in his father’s Stampede Wrestling promotion had potential to become an attraction on a national platform. He pitched the idea to Vince McMahon, who felt it was a good idea to try. So the very first WWF ladder match was booked. Bret Hart would defend the Intercontinental title against his regular opponent then: Shawn Michaels.

Michaels had just turned heel in January after kicking his tag team partner Marty Jannetty through Beefcake’s barbershop window. He was on his way towards becoming the hottest heel in the company. Bret Hart was nearing the end of his second Intercontinental title reign. Their rivalry made for strong matches, culminating in the Montreal Screwjob in November 1997.

Although this was the first ladder match from a major promotion, it wasn’t widely seen until March 1993, when it was featured on a Coliseum Video release titled Smack Em’ Whack Em. The format still had some kinks that needed to be ironed out. Therefore, it is a bit tame compared to what comes later in this set. A double ladder was used, mainly for spots in which both wrestlers could be on the ladder. The belt was hung on a wire and ascended above the ring. The first half of the match is the typical Hart-Michaels bout of the time, with the ladder only being introduced midway. There are some stiff spots using the ladder as a weapon, but not as many as one would come to expect. Still, what is here is solid enough to make for a fine match. ****

Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- SummerSlam 8/27/1995

Shawn Michaels had those matches with the ladder. Scott Hall was just in the vicinity.- Ric Flair

SummerSlam 1995 was shaping up to be a real stinker of a pay-per-view. Aside from the none-too-promising main event of Diesel (Kevin Nash) defending the WWF title against King Mabel (later Viscera, Big Vis and Big Daddy V), Shawn Michaels was to defend his Intercontinental title against Sid. Although Michaels was a brilliant performer, Sid was a colossal piece of shit. It was questionable as to whether Michaels could carry him to a good enough match.

So the decision was made to change the match. On a late July 1995 episode of WWF Superstars, WWF figurehead President Gorilla Monsoon made an announcement: Michaels would not be defending against Sid, but instead Razor Ramon would be getting the title shot. Not only that, but the rematch would be a ladder match. The re-match of the century was about to take place. The first Michaels-Ramon ladder match at Wrestlemania X was an all-time classic. Now the question was whether lightning could strike twice.

They came close, but some sloppiness and missed spots keep Michaels-Ramon II one notch below its’ predecessor. It is interesting to note that both wrestlers were babyfaces in August 1995, so it introduces a different dynamic from the original. Michaels was simply great as usual and Ramon, aka Scott Hall, more than held up his end. It is shocking how he was once in great shape and a really good worker. Now he’s literally wasted 24 hours a day and in horrific shape. Michaels took some brutal shots to the knee that had me wincing. Both men absorbed vicious and hard punishment with repeated ladder shots. ****3/4

The Rock vs Triple H for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- SummerSlam 8/30/1998

“Triple H would win the title the following month in a good ladder match, but it was their 2 out of 3 falls match that still lingers in the memory”- from my review of The History of the Intercontinental Championship

I admit it, I didn’t really think much of this ladder match when I first saw it on Thanksgiving weekend of 1998. Sure, it was still a good match, but most of my friends raved about it being an all time classic and it also got a rave review from Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer. Maybe it was the hype that did it in for me. Maybe it was the fact that the two Michaels-Ramon ladder matches plus the numerous ECW ladder bouts (especially Sabu & RVD vs The Eliminators) still loomed large in my mind. Poor Rock and HHH had two strikes against them from the start.

I gave it ***1/2 then. But a funny thing happened in the 12 years since I first saw their ladder match. I began to realize I seriously underrated this match in 1998. This was actually a classic masterpiece. It just took time for me to realize it. Triple H and the Rock had one of the most entertaining feuds in the WWF that year. Both had improved tremendously as workers and characters, making for compelling television that year. Their 2 out of 3 falls match at Fully Loaded was a real classic.

This ladder match was something different. They just beat the living crap out of each other for 26 minutes. One moment was especially wincing when the Rock used the ladder as a sandwich featuring Triple H as the filling. Triple H injured his knee during the bout, but he kept going and wrestled as if nothing had happened. Both men took some of the hardest chair shots this side of ECW. It also had intense psychology: two hated rivals each trying to literally kill the other for the sake of winning the IC title. What a fool I was to underrate this match in 1998! *****

Edge & Christian vs The Hardy Boyz- No Mercy 10/17/1999

1999 was the year four young men broke out of the doldrums called the bottom of the card. The Hardys were periodic TV jobbers dating back to 1994 while Edge & Christian had been mired in the mid-card and not doing a whole hell of a lot. That all changed in 1999, when the two teams began a long feud against each other. They had several good matches, but had yet to have that show stealing breakout match. That match would finally happen in October, when the two teams had the final match in the Terri Invitational Tournament (abbreviated TIT, get it? What rich humor the WWF offered!) The winners had to retrieve a bag filled with $100,000 in small bills. They would also get the managerial services of Terri Runnels, ex-wife of Goldust.

To make things even more exciting, this would be the very first tag team ladder match in the WWF. Some say it was the first of its kind, but ECW did feature several tag team ladder matches featuring Sabu and Rob Van Dam against The Eliminators a few years earlier. Regardless of who came first, this ladder match was simply sensational. The previous WWF ladder matches were brutal, but this match introduced a more rapid paced, daredevil aspect to it. All four were just wildmen, using the ladder as a starting point for stunts that just got crazier and crazier. The Hardys won the match and stardom alongside the $100,000. ****1/2

TLC 1: Edge & Christian vs the Hardy Boyz vs The Dudley Boyz for the WWF Tag Team Championship-SummerSlam 8/27/2000

The Hardys and Edge & Christian continued their feud after that career defining ladder match. Shortly afterward, a third tag team entered the mix. The Dudley Boyz was the staple tag team of ECW for the last three years, but they jumped ship in the fall of 1999. As heels, they began feuding with both tag teams and added a new weapon to the mix: tables. The feud continued into the new decade and as the Dudleys captured the tag titles in February 2000, now those championships were thrown into the mix.

At Wrestlemania 16, these three teams stole what was a very lackluster show with their triple threat ladder match. Tables played a part in the finish (Edge and Christian placed a table on top of two ladders and made a makeshift scaffold to grab the tag team titles), so that set off a brainstorm: why not create a match in which tables, ladders and chairs were legal weapons? At SummerSlam 2000, the three teams met in the first Tables, Ladders and Chairs match: TLC 1.

This was the best match of 2000. It’s been done to death in the ten years since, but at the time, this was such a fresh concept. They managed to top their previous ladder match and the key was one word: survival. This was an extremely brutal match. It may have set new standards for brutality then. They broke so many tables, mangled so many ladders and dented so many chairs that I hope the WWE owned stock in the manufacturers of those weapons. It was also a very well worked and executed match, with no blown spots or sloppiness that is sometimes common in such matches. Edge and Christian retained their tag team titles, but as you’ll read on later, this feud was far from over. *****

3 Count (Shane Helms & Shannon Moore) vs Jung Dragons (Jimmy Yang & Kaz Hayashi) vs Jamie Noble & Evan Karagias- Starrcade ’99 12/17/2000

The only WCW match featured in this collection. By December 2000, WCW was in the doldrums. Halloween Havoc 2000 was the worst PPV of not only the year, but a strong contender for the worst card of the decade. A revolving door of bookers (Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Terry Taylor) didn’t help matters. TV ratings were in the toilet – there was just no comparison to the red-hot WWF at the time. Yet in spite of all the turmoil, there were still good matches (very few, I admit) and occasionally a truly great one would emerge from the muck. Starrcade 2000 was a mainly forgettable card, but this match has become one of those classic matches that few even remember today. It’s really a bloody shame. WCW did attempt to create new stars, but by the time they finally did it, it was far too late to regain the momentum in the wrestling war.

The Cruiserweight title had been a top title in WCW, but lame booking had all but destroyed credibility. They even went as far as having Ed Ferrara, a member of the booking team, hold the title as “Oklahoma” ( a putdown of announcing legend Jim Ross). Then you had the backstory of Jamie Noble, who had been a masked member of the Jung Dragons, but was booted out after he was unmasked. Of course, little of this was ever mentioned on TV to build up the feud, a common WCW problem.

This ladder match opened the show and naturally nothing else could come close to matching it in terms of quality and excitement. This is one of the most brutal ladder matches I’ve ever seen- and I’ve seen plenty. It tells a fairly good backstory (six young guys, all hungry for the Cruiserweight title and will do anything to get that title shot) and has some truly sickening bumps. *****

Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- Royal Rumble 1/21/2001

On January 31, 2000, the wrestling world was literally rocked when WCW wrestlers Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn all made a shock appearance on the WWF’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw. They were all fed up with the half-assed atmosphere of WCW and had jumped to the WWF. They weren’t the only ones who jumped- I literally jumped off the couch with great excitement when I saw four of my favorite wrestlers on WWF TV.

Chris Jericho was a fellow jumpee from WCW, having made his escape in the spring of 1999. He managed to get in the WWF what he never did in WCW: a serious push. He captured the Intercontinental title from Chyna in December 1999 (and turned babyface quite by accident in the process) and had been feuding off-and-on with Benoit, sometimes over the IC belt, in 2000. It all came to a head at the Royal Rumble 2001 where this ladder match would settle the feud.

This match is really difficult to watch nine years later. Now that we know Benoit had severe brain damage (consistent with an 85 year old man with Alzheimer’s) and that brutal blows to his head were part of the cause, you just can’t help but wince as you watch Benoit take sickening blows to the head with ladders and chairs. I have tried to separate Benoit the brilliant performer from the insane murderer who soullessly killed his wife and son in late June of 2007, but many still will not.

However, what we have here is still a great, hard-hitting match. Royal Rumble 2001 was a strong show, but this ladder match was the highlight. It is easily one of the two or three greatest ladder matches of all time. Benoit and Jericho were at the peak of their wrestling ability, so everything they attempted looked great. It had excellent psychology: two equally matched rivals trying to prove who the better man was. Their match was also loaded with lots of fast paced, exciting action, including some really sickening bumps off the ladder. A must-see classic match. *****

TLC II: Dudley Boyz vs Hardy Boyz vs Edge & Christian for the WWF Tag Team Championship- Wrestlemania X-7 4/1/2001

The official word on sequels is that they rarely top or better the original. We are familiar with the story and rarely do they do more than rehash what worked the first time. The first TLC match was an enormous success, both creatively and financially, so the WWF decided to do a second TLC match on their biggest card of the year, Wrestlemania X-7. But with sequels, there are rare exceptions: for example, The Godfather Part II managed to be better than the first. Well, TLC II is the Godfather II of wrestling matches.

The Dudleys, Hardys and Edge & Christian don’t merely repeat what made the first TLC match so good; they top it. For starters, each team has a third member: Spike Dudley has joined his “brothers”, woman wrestler Lita had aligned herself with the Hardys and new signee Rhino has joined Edge & Christian. They all play a part in the match, yet their interference doesn’t detract from it. The action is even more brutal than TLC 1: it reaches new levels of insanity. Jeff Hardy does the Swanton Bomb off the top of a 20 foot ladder onto a table on which Rhino and Spike Dudley are laying. Jeff attempts to grab the belts, only to have the ladder kicked out from under him, leaving him dangling mid-air for several minutes. Edge gives Jeff a spear from the top of a ladder onto the tables waiting below. Buh Buh Ray Dudley gives one of the Hardys the Dudley Death Drop from the ladder. And that’s only a tiny fraction of what happens in this match. *****

TLC III: Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho vs Dudley Boyz vs Hardy Boyz vs Edge & Christian for the WWF Tag Team Championship- Smackdown 5/22/2001 (aired 5/24/2001)

On the May 21, 2001 episode of Monday Night Raw, former rivals Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit teamed together and won the tag titles from Steve Austin and Triple H. The next night at the Smackdown tapings, Jericho and Benoit were “forced” to defend their newly won tag team titles against three teams: Edge & Christian, the Hardy Boyz and the Dudley Boyz. Even worse, it would be in a match that the champions had zero experience in but was kid stuff to their challengers: Tables, Ladders and Chairs.

TLC III is the forgotten TLC match, largely because the match was a last minute affair. It wasn’t built up weeks or months in advance like the first two were. It was also on free TV, airing on the Smackdown TV show rather than pay-per-view. However, this match was no rush job- they were given more than enough TV time to put on a really good match. It’s no classic because it’s not quite as intense or as perfect as the first two TLC bouts. First, eight men are just too many participants, at least in this match since there are moments when the action literally becomes a blur. The camerawork is scattershot, missing some key moments that should have been seen. Then there’s the moment where Benoit suffers a severe injury, is taken to the back but he comes back to finish the match. A foolish decision as it turned out since 1) he was disoriented, woozy and off; 2) it was the genesis of the broken neck that would keep him out of action for over a year. Still, TLC III has enough action and wild high spots to make this an excellent bout despite those concerns. ****

Christian vs Edge for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- No Mercy 10/21/2001

Edge & Christian were a formidable tag team and it was initially planned for the two to split up and feud with each other in mid-2000. However, they were so over and so good as a tag team that the split was postponed. In 2001, Edge was being groomed as a major singles wrestler. He won the King of the Ring tournament, defeating Kurt Angle in the finals. He then won the Intercontinental title from Lance Storm at SummerSlam, prompting Christian to turn on his kayfabe brother. The postponed singles feud was now on.

At Unforgiven, Edge defended his IC title against Christian, which the latter won after giving his brother a low blow with a chair. Naturally a rematch was in order, so a ladder match was booked. This was the best match in a feud that never really got much of a chance to develop. They were still playing up the brothers angle, so you had the drama of two brothers bitterly divided fighting over a championship each desperately wanted. Each man was on opposite sides in the InVasion storyline: Edge in the WWF and Christian in the WCW/ECW Alliance. The match had everything you’d want to see in an Edge & Christian ladder match: fast paced action and wild stunts. Plus the match had a great finish: Edge giving Christian a solo Conchairto (mashing your opponent’s head between two chairs) on the top of the ladder, allowing him to regain the title. ****1/2

Eddie Guerrero vs Rob Van Dam for the WWE Intercontinental Championship- Monday Night Raw 5/27/2002

Once upon a time, the Intercontinental Championship actually meant something in the WWE. It was often used as a stepping stone belt, meant to see who could potentially be the next main event player in the promotion. In 2002, two wrestlers began trading the title back and forth who would years later make a splash in the main event scene: Rob Van Dam and Eddie Guerrero. RVD won the title from William Regal in a ***1/2 match at Wrestlemania X8. Weeks later, Eddie Guerrero made his return to the WWE, attacking RVD on an episode of Monday Night Raw. This led to a match at Backlash 2002, in which Guerrero captured the title. Their rematches ended inconclusively, so to settle the feud once and for all, a special no DQ ladder match was booked for the May 27th Raw show.

It’s amazing looking back at how good the WWE was in 2002. Consistently excellent TV, quality pay-per-views, booking that made sense. What the hell happened? (Don’t answer..the question is merely rhetorical.) Raw was a consistently strong TV show in 2002 and strong main events were the norm then. This ladder match was one of those highlights. Eddie Guerrero was back in the top of his form, having vanquished the various demons that plagued him in years past. Rob Van Dam was also in top form, fully committed to delivering great matches. These two went all out to deliver the greatest ladder match they possibly could. They succeeded. It was 20 minutes of absolute insanity and intense psychology rolled up into one of 2002’s best matches. RVD regained the title, marking his second reign. *****

The Undertaker vs Jeff Hardy for the WWE Undisputed Championship- Monday Night Raw 7/1/2002

On December 17, 2001, the WWF and WCW world titles were unified into a singular world championship known as the Undisputed title. Chris Jericho defeated Steve Austin to become the first of six men to hold that title. The others were Triple H, Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, The Rock and Brock Lesnar. It was a great idea, but a mere nine months later, the Undisputed title became very disputed. Son-in-law and overall scumbag Triple H demanded a world title but the powers that be didn’t want to take the Undisputed title off Lesnar a mere three weeks after he won it. So, now there were two world titles in the WWE once again.

Meanwhile, Jeff Hardy was making the transition from tag team specialist to singles wrestler. He briefly held the Intercontinental title in 2001, not to mention several reigns in the clusterfuck of a hardcore division. Hardy was incredibly over with fans, but the question remained as to whether he could handle the main event scene. On July 2, 2002, Hardy would get a chance to answer that question when he challenged then Undisputed champion The Undertaker in a ladder match for the title.

This was a sensational match considering it was on free TV. You would think the size difference would hurt the match, but one of the Undertaker’s gifts is the ability to adapt himself to whatever opponent he was wrestling. Thus, he is able to have a good match with just about anyone unless his opponent is a colossal piece of shit like Giant Gonzalez, Heidenreich or The Great Khali, that is. Hardy wasn’t merely squashed, but rather allowed to get a fair amount of offense in. There was also incredible suspense each time Hardy came closer and closer to grabbing the belt and becoming Undisputed champion. It also planted the seeds for the Undertaker’s face turn later in the summer. ****1/2

TLC IV: Kane & The Hurricane vs Rob Van Dam & Jeff Hardy vs Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley vs Chris Jericho & Christian for the WWE Tag Team Championship- Monday Night Raw 10/7/2002

One of the dumbest angles of the WWE in 2002 was this idiotic Un-Americans angle. It was comprised of four Canadian wrestlers (Chris Jericho, Test, Christian and Lance Storm) and one British wrestler (William Regal). I liked all but one of the five (never did like Test..) but I hated the anti-America stuff, which was being used for cheap heat. Anyway, the Un-Americans had won the WWE tag titles in July and were defending them under Freebirds rules (any two of the five could defend it at any given moment). The thrown-together odd couple tag team of Kane and The Hurricane ended up defeating the Un-Americans for the tag titles in late September.

The Hurricane doesn’t appear at all in this match; I don’t exactly remember how he was written out, but it was an injury angle. So it would be Kane solo against the other three teams. I was expecting a good match, but I was pleasantly surprised that it ended up being one of the three best matches of 2002 instead. It went about 25 minutes- more than enough time to deliver a great match. Everybody worked their tails off, but then again, six of the seven wrestlers were old hands at this sort of thing. Kane, in his first ladder match, did pretty well. I guess contrary to what I said about TLC III, eight men CAN work in a TLC match. It had enough crazy stunts and high action to keep one on the edge of their seat- Jeff Hardy and RVD were practically kamikaze here. Whoever was responsible for putting together this match really learned from the mistakes of TLC III, so the action was more measured and better organized. It was also much better shot by the cameramen. In a surprise, Kane grabbed both belts to retain the titles. Everyone was expecting a title change, especially with the face saving excuse of the Hurricane being taken out prior. *****

Chris Jericho vs Christian for the WWF Intercontinental Championship- Unforgiven 9/12/2004

Edge had defeated Randy Orton for the Intercontinental title in July 2004 in a ***** masterpiece, but in late August, he suffered a torn groin muscle that would force him to be on the shelf for about two months. As a result, he relinquished the title. The decision was made for a new champion to be crowned at the September PPV, Unforgiven. Chris Jericho would take on Christian in a match both men were intimately familiar with: a ladder match.

Based on their track record, you would expect this match to be nothing short of terrific. Alas, that was not the case this breezy September evening. What a slow, plodding bore! It lacked the brisk pace most ladder matches usually have, not to mention the wild stunts and high spots that are also a staple of such matches. The crowd was also very subdued, sitting there looking bored. Both men seemed to be holding back, as if resting nagging injuries. After 23 minutes of a painfully slow death, Jericho climbed the ladder and won the vacant belt. ½*

Money in the Bank: Edge vs Chris Benoit vs Chris Jericho vs Shelton Benjamin vs Kane vs Christian- Wrestlemania 21 4/3/2005

Wrestlemania is the biggest show of the year for the WWE. Following their 20th Anniversary show the year before, there was the urge to try something new. One of the most involving storylines of the new year was the war over who should be a top contender for the Big Gold Belt. Edge and Chris Benoit’s tag team partnership came to an ugly end over that. Then there were the mid-carders looking to break out: Shelton Benjamin and Christian. Add to that some veterans, Kane and Chris Jericho, who had the gold once and wanted it again. What better way to solve all those problems than to create a new kind of ladder match: the Money in the Bank ladder match. A briefcase containing a guaranteed title shot was suspended over the ring. Whoever grabbed said briefcase had their opportunity good for a full year.

Money in the Bank really should be called a Holy Shit match. That is due to the fact that you’ll leap out of your seat and shout out Holy Shit! at least six or seven times while watching it. Shelton Benjamin gives Chris Jericho the T-Bone suplex off the top of the ladder. Holy Shit! Jericho takes the ladder and uses it to dive over the top rope onto his opponents. Holy Shit! Benoit gives Kane the Flying Headbutt off of a 20 foot ladder. Holy Shit! Benjamin jumps onto the ladder by diving off the top rope. Holy Shit! Benjamin takes a ladder, makes it a ramp and runs up it to give Christian a flying clothesline. Holy Shit! Kane himself got into the action, using the ladder to propel himself and his clothesline to even deadlier heights. Holy Shit! This match had enough briskly paced, exciting action for ten ladder matches.

There is one thing that bugged me about this match though. Some of the participants, especially Benoit, break out the submission moves. Since submissions don’t win ladder matches, why have them at all here? Still, this was breathtaking stuff in 2005 and it still holds up five years later. To no one’s surprise, the MITB match would became an annual Mania event and in July 2010 will be the focus of its’ own pay-per-view. ****3/4

Custody match: Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio- SummerSlam 8/21/2005

One of the dumbest WWE storylines of 2005 was the custody battle between former tag team champs Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio. Their rivalry began when they wrestled in a **** “Partner against Partner” match at Wrestlemania 21, which Rey won. Mysterio kept getting the upper hand in their feud, but Eddie would reveal that Rey’s son Dominick was actually his biological son. This was utter nonsense, especially when you consider that Dominick looks EXACTLY like a little Rey Mysterio, so no one believed this storyline from the start.

All of this was to lead to a Custody ladder match at SummerSlam. Whoever grabbed the briefcase containing custody papers would have custody of Dominick. What a stupid excuse to have a ladder match. At least they put on a hell of a show. Hulk Hogan may have had the main event, but these two stole a relatively weak (although still good) SummerSlam card. Highlights include Mysterio dangling off the briefcase after Eddie kicks out the ladder, Rey giving Eddie a sunset flip off the top of the ladder and both men using the bottom rung to pin the other underneath the weight to win the match. ****1/4

Loser Leaves Raw: Edge vs Matt Hardy- Monday Night Raw 10/3/2005

In the summer of 2005, a real life soap opera manifested in the WWE. WWE Diva Lita cheated on her real-life boyfriend Matt Hardy with his real-life best friend Edge. After Hardy, the wronged party in this mess, spoke out in anger over what happened, the WWE made a move logical ONLY to them: they fired Matt. Fans were outraged to say the least. Lita was booed and heckled out of each and every building, leading to a heel turn. Edge became even more hated than he already was. And after several online petitions and protests, Matt Hardy was rehired in early August.

You figure the WWE would have been thrilled to have such a natural feud with enormous heat. A man is betrayed by his best friend and his girlfriend and wants revenge. Who can’t relate to that? Sadly, the WWE failed to take advantage of this gift from heaven, treating the Edge-Hardy feud as a throwaway feud. With the exception of a phenomenal cage match at Unforgiven 2005, most of their matches were rushed disappointments.

The feud came to a premature end barely two months into it, with a Loser Leaves Raw ladder match on a special three hour edition of Monday Night Raw. Given that Raw was THREE hours and fifteen minutes long that night, why only give these two thirteen minutes of TV time? As was the case with most of their matches, this one had the word rushed written all over it. What they did was good and intense, but there could have been more of it. The finish also came as no great surprise either. Edge put his Money in the Bank title shot on the line in addition and we all knew Matt Hardy wasn’t going to be elevated to the world title picture any time soon. ***

TLC V: Edge vs Ric Flair for the WWE Championship- Monday Night Raw 1/16/2006

At New Years Revolution, John Cena had just finished defending the WWE Championship in a grueling Elimination Chamber match when Edge decided to cash in his Money in the Bank title shot. He quickly squashed Cena in two minutes to win his first world title. However, Edge had unfinished business with the man he had been feuding with over the past month: Nature Boy Ric Flair.

Flair had been a thorn in Edge’s side ever since the younger wrestler kept berating the legend during his Cutting Edge “talk show” on Raw. Flair also received a brutal beatdown from Edge during their Intercontinental title match at New Year’s Revolution. So with vengeance in mind, Flair interrupted Edge and Lita’s in-ring sex celebration on Raw the night after. All of this led to Flair getting a shot at Edge’s WWE title. The stipulation: it would be a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match.

I don’t know why this match wasn’t featured on the Royal Rumble card rather than for free on Monday Night Raw. It was far better than anything on that pay-per-view. Both men were given 22 minutes- more than enough TV time to deliver a classic match. Who would have thought Flair could adapt so easily to a match that wasn’t part of the vocabulary when he was making his name in wrestling? Flair bled like a stuffed pig, which is exactly what you want to see in a hard-hitting, brutal match such as TLC. Edge did his usual strong work whenever ladders are involved. Of course Edge won since they were building to the return match with Cena at the Rumble. That match was average. Edge-Flair was spectacular. ****1/2

TLC VI: Edge vs John Cena for the WWE Championship- Unforgiven 9/17/2006

Cena regained the title from Edge at the Royal Rumble in a very disappointing match. Rob Van Dam would go on to cash in his Money in the Bank title shot at the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view, defeating Cena to win the title in a ***3/4 match. He would promptly smoke away the title after getting himself arrested when a motorcycle cop caught RVD doing an incredibly stupid thing: smoking pot while driving his car. As a result, Edge ended up getting a second WWE title reign within a single year, pinning RVD in a ***1/4 triple threat match on Raw.

When people ask me to pinpoint the exact moment when John Cena transitioned from decent to great worker, this is the match I always choose. Cena was an abysmal worker when he debuted in the spring of 2002, but he had been making progress over the years. However, working a program with Edge seemed to instill a confidence in Cena that wasn’t quite there before. As a result, his workrate made a dramatic turnaround. He had several strong matches with Edge in the summer of 2006 and the feud would culminate with a Tables Ladders and Chairs match at Unforgiven.

This match was off-the-charts. The psychology was intense. TLC was built up as a match that Edge had yet to lose. I guess they all forgot about TLC III, which was won by Jericho & Benoit. They were wrestling in Edge’s old stomping ground of Toronto, which made him the hometown favorite. Cena had come up short in rematches lately, either losing or barely winning by DQ. All of that added such drama to the match. Then there was the action itself. You can describe it in two words: sheer brutality. Both go through their fair share of tables, ladders are busted into bits and both men take really hard, painful shots to the body with the chairs. Then there is the finish, which was the damnedest thing I had seen since the glory days of ECW. Cena regained the title and would have an incredible 14 month reign as WWE Champion that ended due to injury. *****

Jeff Hardy vs Johnny Nitro for the WWE Intercontinental Championship- Monday Night Raw 11/20/2006

Nitro had captured the title in a ****1/4 Triple Threat match against Carlito and Shelton Benjamin at the Vengeance pay-per-view. In August 2006, Jeff Hardy made a surprise welcome return to the WWE. He had been fired in 2003 over drug issues, made one disastrous appearance for Ring of Honor and had toiled around in TNA for a few years coasting along before being given a second chance in the WWE. Hardy began a feud with Nitro over the IC title, winning the title on October 2, 2006. The two men would trade the title back and forth over the fall of 2006, leading to a match that came quite naturally to both: this ladder match.

Considering this was a TV match, this was an excellent bout. They were given about 20 minutes, more than enough time to pull off a good match. It started out fast and never let up, always a good thing for ladder matches. There was lots of give-and-take action, another essential ingredient. If there was a caveat, it was that since it was free TV, they didn’t go that extra mile to make it really, really brutal. With rare exceptions (Flair vs Edge, TLC III), the really brutal stuff is saved for pay-per-view. The match is still very memorable, with Hardy retaining the belt and ending the singles feud. ****1/4

Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs William Regal & Dave Taylor vs MNM vs the Hardys for the WWE Tag Team Championship- Armageddon 12/17/2006

Initially, this was a standard tag team match featuring champions London & Kendrick defending against the seriously underrated Regal & Taylor. However, like other matches in this collection, the match would undergo a format change. It was literally a last-minute decision made to jazz up a card that looked good but not great. The first change: two recently reunited and feuding teams-MNM (Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury) and the Hardy Boyz- were added to the match, making it a Fatal 4-Way. The second change: it would now be a ladder match.

London & Kendrick vs Regal & Taylor would have been a very good match. The additions ended up turning the bout into a masterpiece. It was just a great collection of completely insane action. About halfway through the match, Joey Mercury busted up his face when a spot featuring Jeff Hardy jumping onto one end of the ladder and catapulting the other end into MNM went wrong. He bled puddles, leading to Nitro having to compete alone. There were all sorts of great innovative moments: the Sliced Bread #2 off the top of the ladder, all sorts of Jeff Hardy daredevil stuff amid other craziness. Even Regal and Taylor, neither one experienced in the ladder match get into the action. London and Kendrick retained, continuing their year long title reign when the tag titles actually meant something. *****

Easy Reader

2010-05-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

My mother, bless her heart, wasn't the kind of parent who would just dump the kid in front of the TV or leave him alone in his room all by himself. No, she was a very hands on parent. She taught me the alphabet and reading at a very early age. I had a lot of books when I was little- lots of Dr. Seuss, Sesame Street and the assorted one-shots, which included my favorite book Robert the Rose Horse.

She also bought a neat toy for me- it was in the shape of a child's desk, but it had magnetic letters in which you could spell out words that came written on little cards. I loved that toy, although the W piece had to be replaced after one of the family dogs decided to chew on it.

Sesame Street and The Electric Company were must see-TV.

By the time I was 3, I could read and understand my books. I could also spell most words. One time, Da Godfather decided to give me a real test. Spell the word xylophone, he asked me. I proceeded to spell it quickly and correctly. He proceeded to laugh and loudly shout out "That's great! Not even I can spell the fucking word!". He was genuinely impressed.

When I was four, my parents bought our first VCR. With all the digital media of today it's often taken for granted, but the VCR was a neat thing to a young boy who discovered that he could record his favorite cartoons and watch them whenever he wished. Even better was when we got our first video store membership. With over 300 children's tapes to choose from, it was a real adventure to rent stuff. Plus I could actually read the titles, which made it even better.

We normally rented two children's tapes and two movies. But on occasion, we would load up for a full weekend of movies and cartoons. On one such weekend, the following incident occurred. One night, I had wandered into the living room. I was going to bed and wanted to say good night after watching a few of my cartoons. I walked into the living room and saw the following image(from the movie If You Don't Stop It, You'll Go Blind)

My five year old self took one look at the above image and proceeded to SPELL out the letters aloud:

F-U-C-K. That spells fuck!

My father proceeded to laugh so loudly and so hard that he was turning beet red. My mother's eyes bugged out at first, but she too soon joined in on the laughter. As was her wont, she calmly explained that while I did a good job of spelling the word, fuck was a naughty word and shouldn't be used by little boys. That was the great thing about my mother- for innocent situations such as this, she calmly explained things instead of resorting to a smack.

Years later, my mother told me that my five-year-old self spelling out the word fuck was funnier than anything in the movie.

Schist Happens

2010-05-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

My entire educational life took place within the Catholic school system. In my elementary school years (kindergarten through 8th Grade), every May would mark the celebration known throughout the Catholic religion as the May Crowning. Basically a symbolic ceremony in which a statue of the Virgin Mary would be crowned with a wreath made out of flowers, it was the one school-wide celebration I absolutely hated.

First off, the celebration lasted about 70 or so minutes. That was bad enough, but it got worse. Barring a rainstorm, it took place outdoors in the church garden. There were NO seats to sit in. We all stood for over an hour. You see, the celebration was really an excuse to do an extra long mass. The crowning itself barely took five minutes. The rest was occupied by endless singing and an extra long homily. Yearly, I would pray for rain as the celebration would be moved inside the church instead, which meant I could sit down. Sadly, that only occurred once in the nine May Crownings I endured.

Before the break for the crowning, class went on as normal. I remember vividly the last May Crowning I attended in 1993. Right before the ceremony, my class was in Earth Science. Mr. Barulich taught us that day about metamorphic rock. Mr. Barulich had a way about making rocks sound interesting, so we all sat there absorbing information about such rocks as phyllite, igneous and schist. Keep in mind the name of that last rock.

The conditions for that year's crowning couldn't be worse. The sun was a scorching 90 degrees that day. The humidity was high, even more intolerable since we still had to wear long sleeve shirts along with ties until June. Mele the custodian had just spread fertilizer on the lawn of the church garden. Sun + Manure=Major Stink.

One of my friends and fellow classmates was a guy named Keith. Keith was a witty wiseass whose blunt and often clever remarks were always hilarious. He enjoyed substituting words to craft a joke. It was very hard to keep a straight face after a Keith remark. Anyway, as we assembled on the lawn, Keith took notice of the intense stench of manure flying through the air and calmly turned to Mr. Barulich and said out loud:

"It smells like schist out here, Mr. Barulich!"

My classmates and I all turned into a bunch of laughing hyenas. Mr. Barulich gave Keith a mild look and calmly said "Keith..". But you could tell that he was laughing inside. His eyes gave him away.

I don't remember much else about that May Crowning, but I'll always remember Keith's little remark. It still brings a smile to my face right now.