This post is dedicated to the St. Patty's Day celebration tomorrow in Hoboken, within which I'll be stumbling around drunk starting at precisely 9am. Wish me luck.
Give me anything that's mint-flavored and you'll forever be a friend of mine. Chocolate chip mint ice cream, the greatest of all time. Those mint cookies sold by the Girl Scouts, absolutely divine. You get the drift.
So somebody please explain how in the fuck I've never heard of the enigmatic "Shamrock Shake" prior to this afternoon, when a friend at work put me on? And if anybody knows where I can find one of these, hit me immediately. I'm not playing around here. It's regarded as the Loch Ness monster of the fast food universe, which is mind-blowing in its ridiculousness. Yet, cool.
This has the makings of the perfect dessert, and I'm now determined to find some. I mean, the Shamrock Shake even had its own mascot at one point, Grimace's Irish cousin. That's just wonderful:
Again, if anybody has some insider tracks on the whereabouts of the Shamrock Shake, I'm standing by. It's time for some recon.
......with, first, this, the new Star Trek trailer. Tons to do today so I'm unable to offer much opinion here, but I think it says a lot that I'm really excited about this flick despite haven't ever really given two shits about the Trek franchise prior. Makes me part of the new audience that Trekkies will no doubt hate for being so late to the party and having arrived on J.J. Abrams' bandwagon, but so be it. The man is great at what he does:
This second trailer is one I wasn't expecting to see so soon, but am glad for it. It's a new comedy called The Hangover that's hitting this summer, and my "intel" (as if I actually have legit intel; it's really just colleagues fortunate enough to catch early screenings mixed with online reactions) says that it's pretty hilarious. A potential Summer sleeper hit on our hands. From the dude behind Old School and Road Trip, so you know it's good. The scene with Iron Mike alone shows promise of being a showstopper:
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And, before I go off about my busy day, one final item: this amazing "Saturday morning cartoon spoof of Watchmen" made by some wiz guy named Harry Partridge. It's egghead material, and the best piece of pre-release Watchmen insanity yet. Since the movie finally streets today, I figured this was a nice parting gift for the "pre-release express."
Thinking about making "Show Your Face" a re-appearing column here, assuming this first one doesn't come off too stalkerish/loser-like. Very well could. Fuck it, 'tis what 'tis.
When I tell people that I rarely fall asleep before 1am on weeknights, I'm usually met with either screwfaces or rants about how unhealthy that is or how I need to stop watching bullshit television and get some rest. Both valid points, facts that I consider every night as I sit in bed flipping through cable looking a flick to captivate me long enough for my eyes to grow too-heavy. it's a terrible routine, but one I'm a bit too weak-minded to conquer.
The other night, at around 1:30am, I was met with the throwaway teen comedy Whatever It Takes (2000), which is one of the many lowest-common-denominator "nerdy teen wins over popular looker" flicks that hit in the wake of She's All That's success. Perhaps the one redeeming quality for those flicks was that virtually every one co-starred a young on-the-riser who'd go on to bigger, more credible things: Entourage's Adrian Grenier was in the god-awful Drive Me Crazy, for instance. In Whatever It Takes, James Franco (whose career is hotter than Paris Hilton's fire-crotch these days) played the douchebag jock, and he actually exuded "moronic masculinity" much better than the film deserved.
"Why would you put myself at the mercy of only five hours of sleep just to watch Whatever It Takes in its wholeness?," you may ask. Two excuses: 1) shamefully, I'm a fan. For my cheddar, it's actually the best of its kind, full of enough asinine sight gags, occasionally snappy dialogue, and young character actors with talent to win me over without much effort. But 2), and this brings me to the "essence" of this post, seeing it on the tube the other night reignited my once-potent eyes for Marla Sokoloff, who steams up the screen with her half smiles, gaze-into-us-baby eyes, and utterly underrated frame.
And now, the true point to all of this: where in the hell is Marla Sokoloff? Somebody get me a milk carton, because she's been missing in action for far too long.
To give a full picture of my longtime love for this chick, I have to confess one of my darkest secrets, one that I've foolishly shared with a select few over the years.....I'm a closet Full House junkie. Actually own one of the season sets on DVD, which I conveniently bury under stacks so it's left unseen by the naked eye. Will watch from start to finish whenever a rerun airs. Have been the butt of endless insults spewed by my parents and brother as a result. Couldn't give a fuck less that Blender magazine once rated it as the "gayest" show ever, or some shit like that. It was, and remains, the ultimate guilty pleasure.
Full House was a show I watched religiously back when it was first airing, so I was around the same age as Stephanie Tanner, grew up alongside her. Initially had a thing for her, Miss "Future Druggie" Jodie Sweetin, but that all evaporated the moment badass Gia, played by---you guessed it---Marla Sokoloff, stepped foot on the screen to coax Stephanie into doing drugs in the girl's bathroom. Love struck, and was thankfully allowed to grow as her character hung around, given an expanded presence as Stephanie's best friend in later seasons.
So when I first saw Sokoloff in Whatever It Takes back in 2000, you can imagine the joy. She'd grown up into one of the more intriguingly attractive actresses in the game, and I was pleased. Shit, I even tuned into a few episodes of The Practice just to check her in action, and I loathe hourlong lawyer shows. She dated James Franco for a short time, I recall, but other than that she kept a low profile, making it that much tougher to stay abreast. No surprise that she stayed out of the lights; her most recognizable facial expression was that disinterested, cold, you-gotta-work-for-this scowl.
Perhaps I should've watched more of The Practice, though, because that's pretty much the last notable thing she did, and that ish ended in 2004. So, again, I'll lather the question into pop culture: where the hell is Marla Sokoloff, and why isn't she working? It's most likely a voluntary decision to exile herself from the entertainment industry. Whatever the case, I demand answers.
....without as much as using a script or paying attention to production design or cinematography. Of course not really, but the only ways this one could be a total waste of time are if they decide to go the animated route or try some new "avant-garde" all-black screen technique.
Some obscure British thriller from 1970 called And Soon The Darkness is being remade, which centers on "two American girls on a bike-riding trip in a remote part of the country. When one of them goes missing, the other must find her before darkness falls and her worst fears are realized. The original was set in France and tackled the idea of how vulnerable a stranger in a strange land can be." [Bloody-Disgusting.com] I've already tossed the '70 flick high up into the Netflix, so I'll see how worthy of a revisit it truly is soon enough. The reason why this new spin has the potential to be the best-looking piece of cinema this side of an The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (narrative faults and sentimentality overload aside, that film does look absolutely stunning), though, is the casting of the two female leads:
Amber Heard
Odette Yustman
Yustman is lacking in acting, sure. Heard is positioning herself as a credible Scream Queen but has yet to prove her thespian chops, indeed. You know what, though? I'm a sheep, so chances are super-likely that I'll adore this And Soon The Darkness redo even if it plays out worse than Yustman's The Unborn.
Jesus, Watchmen really is the big kahuna in Hollywood right now, huh? Every day of this week has seen a huge new trailer hit, with a fresh Star Trek one still on deck. Here's the latest, a longer, more detailed, slightly confusing look at X-Men Origins: Wolverine:
In Best Buy the other day, I nearly dropped coin on this, the first season of Tales from the Darkside:
As I walked toward the register, some cold, hard facts began trickling into the thought box. Wait, dumbass....Tales from the Darkside's episodes are terrible overall. Why waste cash? Sure, I love television genre anthologies more than anything, but why I own every other one, so why fuck with this crap?" Common sense got the best of me, fortunately, and I set it back on the shelf, where it seemed like every single copy was available (not exactly a hot seller, I suppose).
Even the fact that the great George Romero's name was listed as a producer on the series couldn't save it from the pits. Can't say I've seen every episode, but I have watched a great deal, enough to make an educated assessment that the show was wildly uneven. For every semi-creepy horror entry there'd be a painfully-unfunny horror-comedy tale; for every bootleg special effect there'd be piss-poor acting by C-listers and other faces you'd recognize from random movies ("Hey, isn't that the Italian dude from Fast Times from Ridgemont High?).
What pains me the most about my distaste for Tales is that its "father" is Creepshow, a flick that I adore in vast ways. Imagine that, directly resulting from The Dark Knight's mondo success, a new CW channel series starring Frankie Muniz as Batman premieres and gathers enough viewers to sustain a five-year run, gradually and mercilessly beating down your affinity for the flick that started it all. That's how the truly-shitty episodes of Tales from the Darkside treat my Jordy Verrill-loving heart.
Thanks to the Chiller network, I've been able to catch up on Tales from the Darkside, which originally aired from 1983 to 1988, more than I should ever want to, and over time I've grown to appreciate the show's camp value, at least. It's never less than pretty-entertaining, even when an episode's quality leaves you wishing you were watching The New York Ripper instead. If I had to single out one problem area that pisses me off most about Tales from the Darkside than any other, it's be the elegraphed plot twists that jump the shark within the first five minutes of every fucking episode. I'd say I've watched about 40-or-so episodes thus far, and I'm not joshing when I say that I've called 40-or-so impending twists. No one man should possess such Nostradamus-esque foresight. A clear sign that the writers behind the show were either full-fledged hacks or just lazy as sin.
The only redeeming quality that deserves recognition and praise: the show's opening title sequence. A rather disorienting, haunting, sticks-in-your-head score layered with Paul Sparer's voiceover that places second after Rod Serling in the pantheon of genre anthology preambles:
If not for ever-so-generous Youtube, I might have submitted to temptation and purchased the Tales DVD just so I could rewind and re-watch that opening sequence at will. Unnecessary now, thankfully. Youtube is even gracious enough to offer some of the show's best moments for ogling consumption, such as this, from "Inside the Closet," a terribly-dated yet still cool monster-in-my-room entry directed by the giant-in-my-mind Tom Savini:
If that scared you, then you'd love Tales from the Darkside. You'd also be a pussy, but that's neither here nor there.
Wanna know the sad part? If somebody were kind enough to give me this Season One set as a gift, I'd be happier than a cat in litter. Just because something is crap doesn't make unworthy of my DVD collection. I see you, Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
On the heels of yesterday's Public Enemies riff, it feels only right that I post this just-dropped trailer.
I'm actually really digging Michael Mann's choice of using the same naturalistic camera-capture he employed for the Jamie Foxx/Colin Farrell Miami Vice flick. Gives this period piece a whole new aesthetic that I didn't see coming.
The trailer hasn't enhanced my excitement much, though. Hasn't lessened either, but I can't find anything particularly awe-inspiring about it. The best I can say "It finally shows me what we're in for exactly," and the fact that it seems we're in for something proficient and quality bodes well.
Over at the KING site, a next-morning reactions piece I've written about Watchmen has gone up, so rather than repeat opinions or overwrite here, I'm just going to supply the link. Just in case anybody cares about my Watchmen feelings (in short: largely positive).
Per usual with my online stuff, I approached it with no real outline, or sense of "proper structure." Just freestyled, for better or worse.
I look forward to the day when I'll be able to treat such ramblings with a finer "re-read and touch-up" comb. Because the way I've been doing things totally leaves me susceptible to error. I'm aware.
Woke up this morning, and found myself bombarded with great-sounding news coming from Hollywood. One of those pre-noon sensations that reminds me just how much I love this movie world ish. Let's run down the highlights briefly, shall we? Without getting two wordy, or at least trying not to. No promises there.
1) Leonardo Dicaprio has just signed on to star in Christopher Nolan's next film. No, that doesn't mean that Dicaprio is playing The Riddler, or replacing Aaron Eckhart as "Harvey Dent" in some resurrected character arch. Nolan's next isn't a third Batman flick, sadly, but what it is is a mysterious sci-fi project called Inception, that's said to take place in the "architecture of the mind," or something to that effect. Whatever, it's already sounding pretty top-shelf. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer Nolan's non-Batman stuff over his Gotham City exploits, which are amazing in themselves (**ducking from The Joker action figures being hurled at my head**). Memento and The Prestige are undeniably brilliant and flawless (go 'head, try to deny that). Inception will hopefully be no different, and it's good to see Nolan giving Christian Bale a break and moving over to another great modern-day star.
2) Guess what I was lucky enough to see last night? Fuck it, I'll just tell you since I'm still reeling from excitement: Watchmen. I'm going to write something up on it for the KING site, so I'll link that here once its posted, but I'll just say, for now, that, while flawed, its still an astonishing piece of otherworldly work that does the book justice (for all). In the midst of Watchmen fever overdrive, director Zack Snyder (also of 300) has announced the cast of his next project, the all-female "Alice In Wonderland with machine guns" action flick Sucker Punch, which sounds pretty wild: "Set in the 1950s, Babydoll [is] a girl confined to a mental institution by her evil stepfather, plans to have her lobotomised in five days. Fellow inmates would include Blondie, Sweet Pea, Rocket, and Amber. To escape the pain, Babydoll retreats into a fantasy world (along with her companions) and there begins planning her escape before a "vile man" can rape her. [Sucker Punch] will apparently include dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels, an interesting mix."
How's that for a plot description. As Watchmen proves, Snyder is a beast with his visuals, so this one will at least look great. A fact only aided by the young ladies he's tapped to star in it, all lookers (four talented actresses and one High School Musical alum): Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia!, Alpha Dog) will play "Babydoll," and her fellow inmates will come in the forms of Abbie Cornish, Vanessa Hudgens, Emma Stone (Superbad), and Evan Rachel Wood (amazing and underrated in The Wrestler).
clockwise from top left: Amanda Seyfried, Vanessa Hudgens, Emma Stone, director Zack Snyder, Evan Rachel Wood, Abbie Cornish
a bonus shot of Amanda Seyfried from Vanity Fair that I've always been fond of:
and, um, yeah.....Vanessa Hudgens, in a bikini:
Well, Hudgens is sexy as hell. That's a start. Btw, she recently turned 21, so don't give me any of that "you pedophile" bullshit.
3) Rather than drop more unoriginal, everybody-with-a-penis-is-doing-it praise for one Megan Fox, I'll just keep this next one brief: she's signed on to play the female lead in this western fantasy comic book adaptation Jonah Hex, starring "the man" Josh Brolin, and co-starring John Malkovich as the villain. I've yet to read the comic series (though I plan on doing so soon), but hearing that Fox will play "Leila, a gun-wielding beauty" gives me visions of sex and violence, and I like it. In further Fox news, she's also officially attached to play the title character in Fathom, another reason for comic book nerds to beat the meat to her pictures, since Fathom is a comic book adaptation about "a sexy marine biologist who discovers she has incredible water-based abilities" (Joblo.com).
Comic cons are about to fill up with never-gonna-get-it hormones. Like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visiting that Star Wars movie line all over again.
As on-the-surface and/or obvious as this may sound, I'm so infinitely happy that I've never had the urge to fuss around with hard drugs. I've kicked it with Mary Jane a few times, granted, but I'm talking the truly-damaging junk. The hard white. Crack attacks. The such. One part "having hung around a solid group of straight-and-narrow" friends and another dose "having common sense," my drug-free life has been a good one, and the mere thought of what a drug-happy existence could be like scares the piss out of my sack. Nothing going right, family hating me and crying at my sight. Not being able to be around Gianna and my man Nick, probably stealing paper from my pops in order to score. In some fucked-up alternate Twilight Zone, it'd be the "Strung Out In a Desolate Modern Wasteland" episode, based on true events.
Having recently seen The Panic In Needle Park in its entirety, I can't help but revel in my own no-drugs world. What a bleak, road-to-nowhere existence that its two protagonists, Bobby (played by a young Al Pacino, in his breakout performance) and Helen (played by Kitty Winn, a phenomenal actress who I can't seem to place from any other films without IMDB's assistance), trap themselves within. The setting for such a hellhole being Manhattan's Upper West Side, W.72nd and Broadway, known back in the '70s as "Needle Park" by its large heroin addict population. The Panic In Needle Park is, essentially, a drug ballad, a love story following two lost souls in search of an exit that they can only seem to navigate while strung out. Through a mutual friend, Helen, a painter from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, meets Bobby, a degenerate ex-con/heroin addict going nowhere in life yet getting by on basic sweet-talk. They quickly fall in love, and we ride third-seat as their lives disintegrate into deeper fixes, prostitution, snitching, jailtime, and overdoses.
Not exactly a romance to watch any time near Valentine's Day. Shot in grainy, almost-documentary-like fashion and using no underlying soundtrack, The Panic In Needle Park is brutally frank. Raw like ground chuck. Visceral without trying hard at all. The scenes where the camera closes in on arms' veins being injected with the heroin are hard to sit through, since they look painfully authentic. Figures, then, that, after some research, I've learned that the director, Jerry Schatzberg, reportledly cast 'actual' heroin "Fuck no" if it were today, but considering that this was a no-dollars-spent indie made in 1971 it could've been possible.
The voyeuristic feeling given off here is one amazing thing, but the acting delivered by the two leads is something else entirely. No wonder Pacino went on to snag some meaty roles back in the mid-1970s---he's dynamite here. Like he's not even "acting," but being himself in front of some dude with a camera. Not saying that the guy was a heroin addict (as far I know), though; he's just so believable in Bobby's back-and-forth from sympathetic and loving to animalistic and cunning. In one of Pacino's best moments here, Bobby learns that Helen (who he plans on marrying) was having sex for drugs while he was away on a brief prison stint. The ravenous force that he confronts her with is rough enough to leave Tony Montana shaking.
And then there's Kitty Winn, who, again, never even existed in my "mental actress rolodex" until The Panic In Needle Park's opening credits rolled, and I haven't the foggiest as to why. She's even more unforgettable than Pacino here, in my opinion, and that's saying a bucketful. Before Helen submits to the drugs all around her, she's a clean, innocent, lonely dreamer clinging to the affections that Bobby, and only Bobby, shows. During this portion of the character's development, Winn had me wishing I could meet such a cute ride-or-die chick, a girl able to look past a man's crystal clear faults and focus on her love for dude. Of course, at her own peril, which this film never lets Helen get away with, at all. Once she's gotten her first fix, Helen becomes even more erratic and unstable than Bobby, and its in this latter section that Winn had me wondering if she'd received an Oscar nod for this performance (she didn't, though she did rightfully win Best Actress at '71's Cannes Film Festival).
One scene where Winn really broke my heart was also one that was a bit tough to watch for a dog lover such as myself. Deep into the story, when both Bobby and Helen routinely "get off" on their fix of choice, there's a momentary lapse of stupidity, and they flirt with the idea of living a better, wiser life. Their first step is to buy a cute puppy, which Bobby names "Rocky." On their way home from getting Rocky, they're on a ferry, petting the new dog and generally feeling good. Dumbass Bobby, unfortunately, forces Helen to get high with him in the men's bathroom, during which she leaves Rocky out on the wing of the ferry. As Helen stumbles out of the shitter higher than a kite riding wind, she sees Rocky run off the edge of the ferry, into a choppy water grave. Tears flow, disbelief sets in, and sadness cracks through a drug-clouded mind. It's a small scene within the film's larger context, but it totally wiped me out.
Dog scene included in this Youtube-available portion, if you want to test your heart's stamina with it:
The Panic In Needle Park is easily right up there next to films like Requiem for a Dream in the "watch this if you're ever tempted to start down a drug path, you weak-minded fool." It wouldn't be too risky of a guess to say that filmmakers hailing from New York City must love this flick; without even trying, it drops you smack-dab in the heart of Manhattan. I wasn't even a thought in Anne Barone's head back in 1971, so I can't say that The Panic In Needle Park is an "accurate depiction of NYC at that time." I can say, though, that the film felt totally real in relation to the NYC of 2003-and-beyond that I do know firsthand. Which is quite a testament to director Schatzberg's work here.
Before closing.....I can't help but wish I could chat with We Own The Night's writer/director James Gray about this flick. There's a scene here that has Pacino's Bobby acting as a spectator in an apartment's living room "cocaine factory," and like the similar moment in We Own The Night, its a quiet, paranoid nervewracker. Almost as if Gray directly lifted it for his own film nearly 20-some-odd years later.
If you're not an avid horror person, you've most likely never seen Adam Green's Hatchet, a little slasher-film-that-could that scored a limited, brief theatrical run back in the September 2007. Like Eli Roth, Green is one of these walking-horror-encyclopedia filmmakers who gives welcomely-candid, highly-referential interviews to all the horror websites, which are always appreciated. As for Hatchet, I can't call myself a huge fan; it revels a bit too much in its own homage-paying irony, and the jokes don't always connect. The gore scenes are admittedly first-rate, though, and its killer, Victor Crowley, is well-handled. In all, Hatchet is fun-enough times.
Two obvious excuses to see Hatchet, on the right: actresses Mercedes McNabb and Joleigh Fioreavanti. The knowledgeable slasher fan that he, Green wisely cast a pair of wowzers in the flick, who surprisingly play their characters better than expected, or even needed.
Green, right (obviously), and one of the two ladies seen above, Fioreavanti (who needs more work, or at least some photo shoots)
What's most intriguing about Green is that he's, on several occasions, stated a devotion to make more than just horror films. A romantic comedy is in the works, while his debut, Spiral, is a pretty slick little psychological thriller in itself. His next project, Frozen, sounds like it'll walk the fine line between horror and survival-action: it's about three youngsters (two guys and a girl) who are left stranded in the bitterly-frosty outdoors after shit goes haywire on a skiing trip, and then shit goes even more haywire.
This behind-the-scenes clip shows just how insanely rigorous Frozen's production is going to be, and it's pretty wild. Just imagine having to shoot an entire film in these conditions.....fuck all that. Green is a better man than I, it seems. Even if the film ends up sucking story-wise, it's practically guaranteed that the look and feel will be authentically "chilling" (See what I did there, I went for the obvious adjective. Pathetic).
For some frustrating, pain-in-my-rear reason, I can't embed the video here. So if you want to see what all my fuss is about, check the clip out over here: Dread Central
[Assuming you've just watched that] The man has balls. Can't deny that. As for the actors (one being Shawn Ashmore, from X-Men and The Ruins), they must've really loved the script, because this ish is indie, meaning miniscule paychecks in exchange for frost-bite and hypothermia. Method acting, becomes Delusional acting. Says tons about the possible quality of Green's story, though, which is pretty enigmatic.
In the course of all my excitable hyping of Inglourious Basterds and The Wolfman, I've totally neglected to state my nearly-equally-high hopes for Michael Mann's summer gangster epic Public Enemies. Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, Christian Bale as the man hot on his trail. Mann's snap-crackle-pop action sensibilities and dramatic command. It'll take either a horrendous script or a cataclysmic filmmaking folly on the parts of all involved for this one to under-satisfy.
The first poster for Public Enemies made its way online today, and, while nothing mind-blowing, it features a nicely iconic shot of Depp in gangster mode. Score one for this flick. Now let's get a trailer, mofos.
Lot29 recently dropped this hoodie, for losers and uber-nerds to wear with "pride."
Seriously, if I ever see anybody I know wearing this in public, expect me to go that way. Apparently this thing is sold out online everywhere you look....there better not be any of you to blame.
Sure, I bought one of those old Scooby Doo shirts made by Iceberg off of Ebay back in college, for like $40, but did I ever actually wear it out? Hell no, Gina. Waste of money, of course. But sometimes, you gotta Doo what it Doo. In this Dark Knight case, however, I advise against such closet enhancement. Imagine if a pretty-young-or-old-thing comes over, slinks into your bedroom, and before getting it in she opens your closet doors to get a better peek at your style, and sees that mess. She'd scram with haste, and you'd be left alone with Palmela and Handgela. Sad, sad.
Venture to say that, so far, this looks better than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? Think so. This one seems to have some plot, at least, and I'm loving the Mad Max-on-GHB look, feel.
Yup, this just usurped Transformers as the can't-wait-for flick of the summer. Let us all find out that McG has been sick with it all along but just hasn't had the right material.....
Last weekend, by chance, or divine intervention if you're like me and view such things as positive, I basked in the sheer awfulness of a forgotten '80s piece-of-shit film, Ghoulies 2 (1987). Yes, that much-needed, plothole-filling sequel to 1985's Ghoulies, that for some odd reason took place at some cheap-ass local carnival and neglected the cardinal rule of a horror film: at least attempt to create some tension.
Never before, or after, has a movie's poster image been so metaphorical.
My friends who were also watching knew all about the film, yet ironically enough I, Mr. Movie Junkie, knew nothing other than a basic knowledge gained by having seen its predecessor. As Ghoulies 2 plodded forward, though, I realized just how fortunate I'd been. Truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. One of those flicks that has me wondering throughout, "How in all that's mighty did this even get made?" Of course, the bar was set much lower for genre cinema back in the glorious 1980s, but still. I wish Youtube had the entire carnival-set climax, one of the most overlong, tension-free, all-around-botches setpieces imaginable, 15 minutes of the ghoulies (who are more cuddly than creepy) causing little more than slapsticky mischief throughout the premises. Making people fall off of rides, have refreshments splatter all over their clothes. Stuff that'd make you laugh, not shriek. It turns into a Farrelly Brothers horror film, and, yes, that's as horrible as it sounds written out.
That hungover afternoon, Ghoulies 2 was a total fuck-off of time. An hour and a half I shouldve dedicated to reading, or eating, or bashing my head into a wall. Now, though, a full two weeks removed from that debacle, I see the fateful purpose of that viewing nightmare. Earlier today at work, I brought Ghoulies 2 up to a co-worker who also appreciates a good piece of schlock moviemaking, in hopes that he'd share my angry sentiment. Much to my shock, he actually sang the film's praises; apparently, he has a higher tolerance for feces than I. But right as I was about to toss insults and bile his way for such an unjustifiable opinion, he hit me with the nostalgic A-bomb: "That reminds me, have you ever seen Muchies, or Munchie Strikes Back?"
My mind was blown. No, I thought, I've never even heard of those. Do tell. Rather than depending on his gift of gab to do his dude Munchie justice, he kept it at, "The first one was a Gremlins ripoff, but then the sequel brought it into some shitty E.T. ripoff territory for no apparent rhyme or reason. But the sequel is awesome." He then expressed his love of all things Gremlins-esque, meaning those Ghoulies flicks, the Critters series, and the Munch. "Those movies are all great, but Munchie is still the ultimate badass."
And then he advised that I consult Youtube for some clips of Munchie in action. After watching these following two clips, I realized the divine reason behind that Ghoulies 2 experience:
Leather jacket and a varsity sweater? Munchie had style, son. How was he not a bigger genre icon back in the '90s? Oh, right, because his movies were atrocious abortions. Yet, I can't deny the power of Munchie, and how badly I need to see Munchie Strikes Back (1994) while drunk and/or stoned. Do they even sell it on DVD? If so, should I buy it right now, or wait 'til tomorrow?
After meeting Munchie, I figured I'd try putting my co-working friend on to another E.T. jackoff that I watched whenever on cable back in the day: Meathead, that Big Mac-loving alien who charmed his way through Meatballs 2 (1984), another sequel that, like Munchie Strikes Back, totally diregarded anything and everything about its namesake original.
Check Meathead out in live action, and decide which extraterrestrial/creature BFF you'd rather chase some tail with....Munchie, or this guy---Meathead:
The Arrival and Discovery of Meathead
I'm going with Munchie, only because he'd be much better for my rap. Meathead is more the dude you confide in after Munchie's arrogant, smooth-talking ways grind your gears thin.
In conclusion ..... Munchie > Meathead (but only by a slim margin)
Before pulling the trigger on a post such as this one, I, like a broken record playing Dilated Peoples' "Clockwork," hesitate. Several times. Am I just pandering to my meatheaded inner teenager? Should I be elevating past such hollow, kneejerk perversions?
But then I look at the pictures, and register the coolness, and all self-questioning is abandoned for sheer indulgence. Sue me. Insult my intelligence. All good with me.
So, last year, when McG's Terminator Salvation was first announced, the word was that it'd be rated PG-13, news that rightfully sent panicky shivers down the franchise's collective fan-spine. Any series that revels in bodycounts, heavy firepower, and homicidal robots must be R, and a hard-R at that. PG-13 is for pussies. Well, turns out that director McG never intended the film to be PG-13 and the jury is still out on its ultimate rating. Some fanboys rejoiced, of course. Others could care less.
At Cali's Wonder Con recently, there was a Terminator Salvation panel, where McG dropped some insider nuggets about the indecisive rating. He revealed that there'll be a topless scene featuring the film's hottest piece, Moon Bloodgood, that is meant to pay homage to the original Terminator film or some shit. And said nudity, more so than the violence and nihilistic anarchy, is a major reason why R may end up being seen at the poster's bottom.
And what did I take most out of this tidbit? A juicy reveal about one of the film's scenes? Some sort of plot wonderment? Nope.....all my eyes and ears felt was stimulation at this fact: Moon Bloodgood will be topless. Meaning, this woman will be topless:
Not sure which I am at this present moment: Beavis, or Butthead? You decide.
As they frequently do, Vanity Fair has another creative, amazing-looking multiple-actor photoshoot coming out in their next issue, this time celebrating 2009's new class of comedy royalty, or something to that effect. I guess it doesn't matter that every one of these actor-comedians was around last year, too, making this just an extension of 2008 rather than some sort of prediction/speculation statement. When the shoot is this awesome overall, though, small details like that are frivolous.
Included in the shoot are: Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Danny McBride, Jason Bateman, Anna Faris, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, and Leslie Mann.
All are deserving choices....even Jonah Hill, who hunch tells me will soon prove himself to be much more than that little fat dude who scores big-deal projects by simply making Judd Apatow laugh off-camera. Seems he has some screenplays sold all of his own storytelling abilities, which says something. Russell Brand is one that I've yet to fully converted on; he was pretty funny in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but that MTV Awards hosting gig was way too awkward, fish-terribly-out-of-water. The choices of Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, and Leslie Mann, however, are cash-money. Especially Mann, who deserves to headline her own romantic comedy already, fuck a Katherine Heigl. Mann owned Heigl in Knocked Up.
And then there's Danny McBride, who is currently proving on HBO's Eastbound & Down what I've felt since I ho-hum-ly watched that Foot Fist Way screener last year and became a fan: while type-casting as the "arrogant, caveman-like slob who hates everybody but himself" is possible, he's still looking at one hell of a "comedy giant" future. The fact that Vanity Fair shot him a la Jack in The Shining just makes me like the guy even more:
Here's the dude who could be considered my "man crush" if somebody put a gun to my head and asked me who mine would be: Paul Rudd, getting his Young Frankenstein on....
Finally, the funniest shot of the bunch: Sir Man Crush as Tom Ford, and Rogen, Hill, and Segel as Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley (three as two....use your imagination), poking fun at that 2006 Vanity Fair cover:
And they say that magazines are dead. Name me one website that could pull off a shoot such as this. All you'd get from these bloggers/websites would be disses and potshots thrown at these folks, possibly a Q&A paired with some seen-that-before publicity shot. So not cool.
I've yet to actually watch this one, plan on giving it a go later tonight. But I can already tell that analysis will be futile, serious and/or comical musings obsolete. This one is pure, trashy-tasting cheese, in the strictest sense. All I know about Umberto Lenzi's Nightmare City is that its structure gives the impression that Robert Rodriguez used it as one his many influenes while conceptualizing Planet Terror, and that its a mutant-zombie flick that includes some of the worst makeup effects imaginable.
Something to do with a news reporter tracking a sudden mutant-zombie apocalypse, one that leaves its victims-turned-assailants' faces into spreads of boils, zits, fungi, and Spencers'-gag-quality Halloween accessories. And these creeps are real perverts, copping feels on sexy ladies before slicing their nipples off, sometimes even licking a breast or two for kicks. Yeah, it's that kind of movie.
At the very least, I'm hoping for some cheap laughs and good times. Anything resembling a "good film" will probably send me into shock, but I need not worry. Just check this clip out, it pretty much sets the stage as convincingly as any scene could:
Should come as no surprise that Quentin Tarantino seems to be a fan. One of the characters in Inglourious Basterds is named "Hugo Stiglitz," also the name of Nightmare's City lead actor. Some nerd trivia for that ass, free of cost.
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