#Godzilla fans might remember the girl group she was in as she was one of the Star Sisters members who made that decades old hit

[tetsunabouquet]

I feel like this post should also clarify that islands should count because aside from having visited 4 countries I also did stuff like visiting my aunt at the Dutch Carribean who lives there. (I was that one European kid in class who has relatives scattered on almost every continent, people like my old racist teacher when I was 14 would make salty remarks like, 'well it must be nice to have a place to stay almost everywhere you go.' )

*can be niece/nephew through sibling or cousin

**parents and siblings

[ckret2]

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

[diloph]

I have seen the film Diloph, so if you want, could you please tell me more spoilery bits?

Oh! Well, good, hopeyou enjoyed it.

Spoilers under the cut!Big ones!

So, starting off,Madison is given a TRUCKLOAD more to do, more lines, more relevanceetc. She’s great, easily my favourite part of the novelisation. Sheacts like a smart, compassionate kid who’s been conned by her motherinto joining the ecoterrorists and is appropriately horrified andresistant when she needs to be. She takes action like she does in thefilm, but there’s a bigger obstacle (and possibly in-joke for thefans of Mr Danse’s host show) which she deals with, again, in a wayI’d have liked to see in the film. Madison has lots of great parts toread about, not just the ORCA distraction. This kid has guts.

God, I hope she comesback.

I think that this sortof expanded role (POV seems to be split between her and herfather/mother, leaning more towards her father) was either cut fromthe film for time, assuming people would want to see more of Sad MadDad or hastily added into the book when they realised that she wasn’tjust a familiar face from a popular TV show when Stranger Things hitits second season and tried to do damage control, hoping not torepeat the Bryan Cranston backlash. Maybe a combination of the two. Iknow that some people were hyped when they first saw her, thendisappointed when she wasn’t the character of focus, but what she gotin both the book and the novel made me very happy with the characterherself, though I too longed for more of the girl who saved the worldand screamed defiance in King Ghidorah’s faces.

The same goes for therest of the characters. Jonah and Emma’s villainy is a lot morefleshed out; their motives are explained in greater detail, not tomention their attitudes towards those goals when Ghidorah rears hisugly heads. The friction between them goes a lot further than justJonah mocking Emma’s reluctance to commit a horrible atrocity infront of her child like he was a schoolyard bully. He’s still a dick,but we know why he’s a dick and why he’s doing this. Like a certainpurple bugger also still on our screens at the time of writing, hethinks he knows better and doesn’t care if he’s wrong. He’s going tobe fine. Emma’s doubts are focused on, she regrets releasingGhidorah’s Motley Menagerie and her part in “killing” Godzillaas, despite Mark blaming him for their son’s death, she believes thesame as Serizawa in that Godzilla serves a greater purpose and isfairly noble about it.

Speaking of, Serizawais given a greater focus and actually mourns for Vivienne (which isin my opinion, horribly glossed over in favour of Rick “Wubba LubbaDub Dub” Stanton andVerizon-Guy-Who-I-Don’t-Know-Because-I-Live-In-The-Desolate-Wastes-Of-Glasgow-Scotland),with even Mark expressing regret. Even she gets some perspective,some lines, some warm thoughts before her untimely death. VivienneGraham might not survive the film, but she’s well-remembered here atleast. Again, this makes me think of what I thought for Madison,because the Shape Of Water turned out to be a hit and given that shedidn’t survive, lead me to believe the whole finalised script thingwas rolled out and filmed before the two pieces of media hit andsuddenly their popularity skyrocketed.

Or maybe all that wascut for the monsters, I dunno.

So, yeah, Serizawa isgiven just as much gravitas in the book as in the film, but thistime, we actually get to hear thoughts and feelings and so on. Itmakes his character a lot more fleshed out and realistic, realisingthat while Emma had followed this dangerous path, he had not been ascareful as he had wished to be. His sacrifice and devotion to the bigguy is pretty touching, even if the “an innocent and well meaningman sacrifices himself to use a nuke to revive Godzilla and save theworld” thing is a little more… pro-nuke than the “an innocentand well-meaning man damaged by war must sacrifice himself to end thelife of a sentient creature equally damaged by war and mankind’snuclear abuse in order to save the world, while still causing a massdeath/pollution of the environment” that we got in 1954, but hey,he didn’t write the script and I think most audiences focus only onthe Bomb as a big booming explosive, not a corrupter and polluter.It’s a “problem solver” rather than a last resort/weapon ofterrible consequence. Sort of how the Oxygen Destroyer is alsoglossed over and not given nearly enough impact, considering what itis and what the consequences might be.

War is bad.

Dr Chen also gets more,which is good, because she’s certainly my favourite of the “new”Monarch crew (excluding Huston Brooks because of hisblink-and-you’ll-miss-it role and his presence in Skull Island). Howshe and her family ties into Mothra and how she and Vivenne were notonly good friends, but practically aunts to Madison and her deceasedbrother; this kid was brought up in Monarch long before the MUTOsmade their presence known. Chen’s the perfect bridging point betweenSerizawa’s knowhow and reverence, Vivienne’s enthusiasm and awe andthe other morons’ humour (again, better jokes and lines by far. Icould swap the three characters that died on screen with three othersor just write them out and assimilate their lines and knowledge intothe good ones and the film would lose nothing. NOTHING.)

Even Mark has hischaracter expanded upon. He’s still the man we get in the film, butat least we know him a little better. Same with Rick and Sam. Eventhe soldiers get lines that better reflect them as people, ratherthan props.

Of other things, theTitans get an introductory paragraph each (well, a lot of them).Mokele-Mbembe is given sort of its own contained mini story (andcontrary to popular belief, it’s not a Sauropod, if I’m correct it’smore akin to a Deinotherium), and how much damage Jonah’s group hasdone via infiltration.

Did we ever get a namefor Jonah’s group? It’d be easy to remember them as the ANTI-MONARCHor something. I could call them S.C.A.L.E but that’s been taken.

Additionally, the newTitans get some words put to them, but of the familiar faces, onlyGodzilla loses out. King Ghidorah and Rodan go up against themilitary in Washington DC for a bit longer, Mothra’s benevolence isechoed by everybody who speaks about her, another familiar face getsa few words in during the big monster breakout and the final sceneduring moments closer to the end of the film, which I described inthe earlier ask, I won’t spoil. It’s a big character moment andactually made me punch the air for said character’s involvement.Because of course they’d do that. That’s who they are.

All in all, a prettywell-made adaptation of a big film. Improvement on the first two wegot (older scripts), certainly better than the graphic novels (somany problems and all of them were easily preventable) and fairlybrisk to read through.

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 11

Zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

"Groove On Fight" --Sega Saturn-- (Atlus) -1997- *Imagine a Japanese pretty boy version of Christopher Walken with a neo biker / leather cowboy fetish. Now imagine an entire, -wealthy & powerful- "Game of Thrones style" inbred family of them all with some peculiar fetish. They fight it out for control of the family. The matriarchy of the family is two grannies tied back to back like Siamese bondage twins. One fight takes place on the back of an American type bomber plane up above the clouds. That last sentence pretty much speaks to the disturbed nature of a lot of Japanese art after World War 2.* close to 3 stars

Godfrey Ho's "Ninja Commandments" (1987) *Who knew that honky moral issues like pre-marital sex were such problems for Ninjas, or that they liked to party with skanky groupies, and that pretty much all ninjas are not-so-secretly middle age white men.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst --------

*Deadly Prey: Ice T's "The Game"(?), a movie where a guy gets kidnapped by army dudes and hunted for sport only to fight back, this time with a hero who's a Patrick Swayze type bohunk Rambo.* 2 1/2 stars

*Hard Ticket To Hawaii: Skinemax classic about blonde bimbos trying to stop criminal smuggling in an exotic locale. Also, killer, "infectious," cancer-ridden, huge snake.* 2 1/2 stars

*Miami Connection: Lost & found gem of a movie with nearly as many awkwardly awesome moments as Tommy Wiseau's "The Room."* 3 stars

Red Letter agrees that Miami Connection is "The Best of the Worst."

---------------------------------

"Red Earth" aka "Warzard" (Capcom) *A wizard summons up a bunch of kaiju monsters, in scattered epic sites, that only a big lion-man and several other heroes can vanquish from the earth. Typical wizard being a total dickhead, to the rest of magic-impaired mankind, behavior.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Bushido Blade 2" (Playstation 1) *Bloodthirsty Japanese clans have kept up the honor of warring over territory for power for centuries up into modern times, in this game. It's a nice mixture of both old and new worlds, and the music and dialogue is well done, and even the setting and characters (though limited by the blocky polygon look of early 3D). It keeps with "realism" too with one good killing stroke, with a warrior's sword, doing the job. It even has thrills like bikini girls with machine guns.* 2 1/2 stars

"The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 4" (Dark Horse Manga) *Morbid and eccentric tales of a group of Buddhist college students with unique gifts of communicating with corpses littered in strange locations around Japan. They help fill the odd requests of these bodies to be put at peace usually in some morbid way or involving some morbid mystery. Instead of trash "reality" entertainment like Long Island Medium, this much better "talking with the deceased" fiction should be turned into tv entertainment for western audiences. It's so much more interesting and entertaining.* 3 stars

"Savage Reign" (SNK) *This is the Kris Kross of fighters. Kriss Kross being a pair of 12 year old rappers whose record company realized their talent was lacking so they came up with the bright idea to have the duo dress with their clothes backwards. The gimmicks in Savage Reign are plenty. There's a clown who fights with roller skates. A valley-girl swinging around a pink bowling ball. His name is Joker, and she looks like a cleaned up Harley Quinn, come to think of it now. A Vanilla Ice look-a-like sports a Captain America' Canadian tuxedo of denim and stars and stripes. The Ryu style hero, of the game, fights without fireballs but instead a silly boomerang. The big boss is a fancier "cock of the walk" Shao Kahn throwing his punches with fists covered in boxing gloves. Sickly serene backgrounds include a generic Disneyland theme park and an underground cow milking gang hideout that is almost as weird as something out of "Naked Lunch."* 2 stars

The Spoony Experiment: Clones of Bruce Lee *When Bruce Lee tragically died during the height of his career, movie producing jerks didn't let it stop them from abusing his legacy. Tons of Bruce Lee impersonators popped up and a sub-genre of exploitation movies was born. They were called Brucesploitation flicks. In this one, it's about as shameless as it gets with a plot about cloning Bruce Lee before his body has even grown cold and using the clones for nefarious purposes.* close to 2 stars for the sleazy, cheesy movie and 3 stars for Spoony's review

"Fight For Life" (The Last Official Atari Jaguar Game) --1996-- *Show a kid, today, an Atari 2600 game and they'll think you're giving them something like an ink blot test. Having witnessed an Atari 2600 game, back in the day, it felt like I was standing on the edge of the digital future. The Atari Jaguar promised that brave, new, digital future with their doomed Jaguar gaming machine. I remember the first time I saw Sega's Virtua Fighter in an arcade. I did get that "tomorrow feeling." I couldn't wait to take these blocky 3D characters and make them my sandbox toys tossing them around with their ragdoll physics. It was mind blowing. Atari's Fight For Life wanted to be like Virtua Fighter, only it comes off more like a 2600 ink blot test for the imagination, and really painful to the senses. Man, is it ugly and clunky. It's definitely not "epic," but I can compare it to something else that is "epic." The Faith No More "Epic" music video where the fish out of water is flopping its death throes. It's more like that fish than a jaguar.* between 1 and 1 1/2 stars

The Cinema Snob: Karate Girl *Rape revenge exploitation "thriller" circa 1970s about a mute girl from a Turkish village. The kind of movie that Tarantino would rip off elements from and be called a genius later. Also featuring an infamous over-the-top death scene that's become an internet meme.* close to 2 stars for the movie & close to 3 stars for the review

"The Blonde Fury" (1989) *Cynthia Rothrock is the greatest female action star. It had to be said, because it's true. This is a Hong Kong action flick about crazy counterfeiters and quirky investigators. The English dubbing is extra entertaining and the comedy is quite clever.* 3 stars

Black Sails: Season 1 Episode 5 *Finally, a bloody battle, at sea, to go along with the pirate base politics and prostitute abuse.* 3 stars

Hot Package: Pilot (Adult Swim) --2013-- *Spoof of insipid celebrity obsessed shows like E!NEWS and Entertainment Tonight, but with a weird EverythingIsTerrible style obscure internet clip twist. Featuring "hot phone sex" Pat from Access Hollywood and produced by Tim & Eric from Adult Swim.* close to 2 1/2 stars

"Slap Happy Rhythm Busters" (Playstation One) *Filled with quirky characters who use supermoves similar to a Marvel Versus series game & graphics as brightly colored as 'Viewtiful Joe' 'Katamari Damacy' & 'Legend of Zelda Windwaker', Slap Happy will slap you silly with enjoyment.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Slaughter Sport" aka "Tongue of the Fatman" (Razorsoft) Sega Genesis 1991 *Another barbaric battle of death, in a palace pit, hosted by a Jabba the Hutt style freak boss who also looks like a shirtless Eric Cartman, in his underwear, with a hideous face and tongue on his fat rolls of a belly. Tech-abominations like a cybernetic chicken, fierce sex slave warrior chicks, gassy gargoyles, spider-women, bad boy white rappers, and other mutated freaks of the wasteland compete for the hunger and amusement of Mondu, the fatman. His pet sand-shark finishes off the losers.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star

"Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters: Melee" (x-Box) *This has almost everything a fan of kaiju destruction could want. Just about every Tokyo stomping monster is in it, and playable. Only thing missing is frightened citizens running about pointing at "Gojira." Plus, I think the voices over the airwaves should sound Asian. Points for the quirky bits like a UFO hovering over attacking and Mothra getting in on the action.* close to 3 stars

"Rakuga Kids" *Some brats battle their stuffed animals around their playrooms and neighborhood that look like they're out of a pop-up storybook. It's sort of Street Fighter 2 meets Toy Story 2. Animated similar to Rugrats and Adult Swim's Home Movies.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Dragoon Might" -Arcade- (Konami) --1995-- *The fancy presentation of this game reminds me of 2009's 3D spectacle, Avatar. It makes me wanna reach out and pick a low hanging piece of pretty fruit and bite into it. Yet, there's a pit. The artistry and poetry looks at times like it's coming from a Crouching Tiger, but hidden in the bushes, ready to pounce, is a shirtless guy in torn jeans and brandishing a butcher knife. It's just goodtime trash stealing your quarters.* 2 1/2 stars

"Kaiser Knucle" (Arcade) *This is the Vanilla Ice "Cool As Ice" of Street Fighter 2 rip offs. You can play as Fred Flinstone's daughter or "Barts" Yes with an S (teen biker Bart Simpson?) & Ryu w/ flowing mullet, or even "Boggy" who is a MC Hammer wannabe. "Don't hurt 'em!"* 2 stars

Nostalgia Critic: Rise of the Commercials *A look back on when silly advertising really RULED! "Don't put it in your mouth." That is unless it's been properly branded by corporate America and parent approved.* 3 stars

Double Dare: Super Sloppiest Moments *Kids, and their mostly whitebread families, get covered in green slime.* 2 1/2 stars

Jack & Triumph: Commercial *It starts off funny with making fun of Dennis Leary for stealing Bill Hicks' comedy act. Then it gets typical with the whole Alan Thicke showing up and we're supposed to accept that he's now "ironically funny" because he's a square former celebrity acting in an offensive way that we never saw on his old tv show. That's the same kind of lame shit that media is always trying to do in a hipster way with all these former celebrities from the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Robert Smigel can do so much better, see TV Funhouse for example.* close to 2 1/2 stars

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Master Ninja 1 *Lee Van Cleef makes a convincing wild west badass. Surrounded by 70s style slacker dude in a muscle van, mousey & young Demi Moore, hicksploitation villains, and obvious kung fu stuntman doing his action work -Lee struggles to make a convincing martial arts badass.* 2 stars with riffing between 1 1/2 and 2 stars without riffing

"Project Justice" --Sega Dreamcast-- (Capcom) *I believe it was the 70s, that era of great television, that first introduced the novelty of students teaming up with a teacher in the classic "Welcome Back, Kotter." The 80s went further, with this, having society's school aged misfits solving problems of gangs of bullies terrorizing the halls of school or jerks who wanted to close down the local youth center and even the retro cheese staple of ski slope jerks challenging our youthful heroes to a race for control of the ski slope club's mountain. This game is similar, in nature, and has the extra benefit of featuring quirky Japanese style characters and aesthetics.* close to 3 stars

"Last Bronx" (Sega Model 2 Arcade) *Consumer electronics have always been trendy with yuppies. When home entertainment centers became hot, everybody had to have one. Digital watches were on every wrist. A Sony walkman around every neck and in every pocket. Still, there was always a stigma about technology, whenever it was new or in development. At the turn of the 21st century, few would have imagined people lining up around the streets to get each new Apple computer product. Same with gaming, it was a kids novelty, and didn't have the online social media culture that it enjoyed after their was a broadband connection and a Sony Playstation 2 in most every living room across the globe. In the 90s testing stage for high end electronics and gaming, Japan was the tech giant. This game says "Last Bronx" but it's more like "Neo Tokyo." It had to have been pretty revolutionary for the time, and yet it looks very much like some thing most of us western yuppies would turn away at.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop, the series: Officer Missing *"Winter is coming".... Land of the Dead... The Purge.... A Christmas Carol (Well, maybe not that one), Robocop did it first.* close to 2 1/2 stars

The Gong Show with Dave Attell: Season 1 Episode 8 *This show yips off into the sunset (cancelled, deservingly, I'm guessing) like a balloon animal dog from the sphincter of a sword swallower. It was riding a flaming pogo stick. The straw that broke the camel's back was heavy metal cookie monster or large man in diaper strip tease.* 2 stars

Robert Crumb: Despair *"You may not think it's funny, but I've got a morbid sense of humor."* close to 3 stars

"Power Instinct: Matrimelee" (Atlus) --Neo Geo-- *The creepy family members, from "Groove On Fight," are back. This time they're fighting it out, on a televised American Idol type stage, Jerry Springer style. The prize is a hand in marriage. Given its pedigree, and Japanese setting, it's weird as fuck, yet very surprisingly charming.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Kill Or Be Killed" (1980) *Our villain: an escaped Nazi seeking vague revenge by hosting a "Enter the Dragon" type death tournament. Our hero: a mullet-headed, shirtless, karate badass in a tight pair of bell-bottom jeans. He's out to save his girlfriend from the Nazi. Our wildcard: a Game of Thrones type scheming dwarf helping out our karate hero. Our story: pure grindhouse chop sockey cinema.* close to 3 stars

"Rabbit" (Sega Saturn) *Presentation of this game is nice. It reminds me of the new HD Rayman games' colorful eye candy and whimsy joined together with a clever Cartoon Network cartoon like Regular Show or Adventure Time. The fighters each have a beast or spirit animal. It reminds me of sports fanatics and their team mascots. If so many animals weren't endangered, sports fans would be worse than an old school Ruskie with a dancing bear. There would be a stadium full of Eagles fans each with their own personal bald eagle to show off. Dolphins fans would have a kids swimming pool, in the living room beneath the big screen, sporting a live dolphin who they'd feed anchovies off of their pizza to. Another thing about these fighting games, why are all the people in the background so unaffected by the brawls? They're always nicely eating a bowl of noodles in an outdoor cafe or riding a bicycle with a monkey or.....* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Waku Waku 7" (Sunsoft) -1996- *While watching lemmings hop around musically, on this game, I had an epiphany. Fellas we are never gonna get around to building those war robots out of our spare lawnmower and washing machine parts. Ladies, our obese house cats aren't gonna magically start talking and giving us humorous life advice to share on social media. Don't fret, we'll always have the Japanese to create our crazy dreams. That is unless a giant, radiated salamander, with a taste for human sushi, crawls up on the sands of some south Pacific beach.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Streets of Rage 3" (SEGA) *It's a typical beat 'em up story. The evil Mr. X is controlling the city with his band of street punks. Our heroes: Dr. Zan (the bald fu-manchu sporting head of a martial arts sensei badass on top of a cyborg body riding around on rocket skates), this ninja chick in a short minskirt, a blonde Ken Masters look-a-like kung fu street fighter, and a token 90s black kid who loves basketball so much he won't put down his b'ball. They have to battle through wave after wave of mercs and pick up turkey dinner power ups.* 2 1/2 stars

Red Letter Media: Best of the Worst --------

Russian Terminator: *"that's what friends ARE! for" also an Anna Nicole look-a-like, a Kenny Rogers look-a-like, and a ninja.* 2 very awkward stars

Ninja Vengeance: *"Ninja" (a horrible one) John Tesh look-a-like on the run from the Klan in the backwoods of a hicksploitation town.* 1 1/2 stars

Never Too Young To Die: *Heart-throb John Stamos, sexy "Vanity" who's a Prince protege, and chick with a dick Gene Simmons is the rockstar who plays the over the top villain.* 2 stars

Red Letter Media ranks them best to worst as Russian T., Never Too Y., and Ninja V.*

---------------------------------

Freddy Krueger in "Mortal Kombat" (2011) *Freddy mocked the rising popularity of video games in "Freddy's Dead." Two decades later, he returns to the mockery. Released a couple years after the toothless remake, this tongueless appearance by Freddy is sorely missing Robert Englund's macabre wordplay.* 1 1/2 stars

Freddy's Nightmares: Identity Crisis ----

*Jeff Conaway, and the sheriff from Friday the 13th: Part 6, give this episode a level of Tales from the Crypt "star power." The story is the 'Family Ties' zeitgeist of the its time period. The spirit of the 60s (hippies) versus the spirit of the 80s (yuppies).* close to 3 stars

*Teenage pound puppies. Emo pound puppies.* 1 1/2 stars for most of the episode 2 1/2 stars for the Freddy dreamhouse sequences

---------------------------

Forensic Files: Postal Mortem *Radioshack enthusiast who's a 'Hercules Bullseye Bomber' and master forger of Mormon historical documents.* 2 1/2 stars

Wizards and Warriors: Skies of Death *Doomsday cannon on the cliffs of doom.* 3 stars

Attack On Titan: Episode 2 *Giving a new meaning to "in your face." A term that I don't care for, but here it comes to represent humongous, naked, grinning humans stomping up in one's personal space to chow down on that person like a corndog. The emotions of the kids, and the dread of the situation for them, keeps everything from getting too out of hand as a spectacle.* 3 stars

The Cinema Snob: The Pierre Kirby Saga *A more-than-competent action badass from a handful of less-than-competent Hong Kong action exploitation "movies."* 3 stars for Snob's retrospect and close to 2 stars for the "movies"

Look Around You: Iron *Point point zero point, ring the bell and the experiment can begin within the twinkling of an eye that is hidden behind a metal face shackle.* 2 1/2 stars

VH1 Classics --- Pop Up Video --- (The Big 80's) -------

a-ha - "Take On Me": Few Americans stuck around to notice that this internationally popular Swedish band lasted long after their early 1980s one hit wonder and only broke up after the 1994 Winter Olypics in which they were featured European band.* 3 plus stars for the pop ups and 3 classic MTV stars for the original video

Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield": 30 year old Pat portrayed a 16 year old runaway "too controversial for MTV prostitute" in this video.* 3 plus stars with pop ups and close to 3 stars MTV classic without

John Cougar - "Jack & Diane": One guy lived in a coma for 37 years. He wasn't doing a lot of handclapping and air drumming like Johnny Cougar was doing in this video.* 3 stars with pop ups between 2 1/2 and 3 stars without

Lionel Richie - "Hello": Lionel loves for all of his video vixens to have the same hairstyle as he does.* 3 stars with pop ups 2 1/2 stars, cheesy stars, without pop ups

Van Halen - "Hot For Teacher": This unruly music video caused the child stars to eventually become unruly like the real life Van Halen.* 3 plus stars with pop ups 3 sleazy stars without pop ups

--------------------------

Viper: Mind Games *A sleeper saboteur, a vixen viper, and a truckload of disease.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Twisted Tales #10 ----------------- (Bruce Jones, Bernie Wrightson, Bill Wray, Rick Geary)

Beer: A story of ribbing greenhorns up where the tree-line ends and the green turns to white snowy mountains, and there be yeti's who drive a hard bargain and a sled.* 3 stars

One For The Money: A cat-burglar gets caught and commits murder. He assumes a bear-suit disguise and flees to the woods where he gets gunned down by hunters.* 2 1/2 stars

Hatchet Job: Scientists go back and time and bumble trying to solve the Lizzie Borden murders. ha.* 2 1/2 stars

Two For The Show: A retelling of the earlier cat-burglar tale. This time the party guest kills the intruder, then takes the jewels for himself. Instead of getting shot by a pair of hunters, he gets mauled by a mother grizzly bear. The irony.* close to 3 stars

A haggard man buys a bed from a used store for his sick daughter to rest on her deathbed as she gets out of the hospital. That night, he's visited by the ghost of a girl haunting the bed that died in it, years earlier, in a torn down orphanage fire.* 3 stars, I guess...

Poison in the Pantry: A miserable and mistreated wife and stepmother puts rat poison in the family's soup. She dreams of even better days, from behind bars.* 3 stars

-------------------------------

Hill Street Blues: Life. Death. Eternity... *Etcetera.* 3 stars

X Files: Tooms *Skinner, the Smoking Man, and one of the best "monster" villains ever on the show.* 3 stars

Twitch City: I'm Fat and I'm Proud *Every episode of every tv show ever on tape. And almost everything else a slacker could ever want, for all seasons, except love? And the ability to exit comfortably into society.* 3 stars

Real Pulp Comics #1 *Perverse and humorous tales of skid row lowlifestyle in the babyboom generation's peak.* 2 1/2 stars

Max Headroom: Neurostim *Football, Fast-Food, Fantasy. counter-Fucking-revolutionary.* 3 stars

Farscape: Nerve *Infiltrating a Peacekeeper base, and meeting the Peacekeeper's Darth Vader (Scorpius).* 3 stars

Look Around You: Brain *"Pretty smart for something that looks like a common garden cauliflower."* close 3 stars

Forensic Files: Micro Clues *Tiny communities of freshwater creatures ring out truth and justice from the lungs of a drowned boy of a Swiss village.* 2 stars

Kingdom Hospital: Season 1 Episode 10 *Call the doctor, call the nurse, these guys (King and Lars) are goofy and getting worse.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

---Animal Planet--- I Was Bitten: The Walker County Incident *"Animal Planet, surprisingly human." Unsurprisingly stupid. Far more entertaining than the usual (Finding Bigfoot) cryptozoology reality tv whore idiots. Points for the twist ending prank gotcha moment.* either 1 star or close to 2 1/2 stars

======= Trash TV ---- Seasons Finale ------ Marathon ===================

Forensic Files: Something's Fishy *The cyanide tainted Excederin pain reliever panic of the early 90s.* 2 1/2 stars

Forensic Files: Sealed With A Kiss *Psycho teacher stalks herself and then frames a rival faculty member.* close to 3 stars

Forensic Files: Deadly Parasites *Shit leaked into Lake Michigan contaminates the Milwaukee water supply and kills over a hundred people.* 2 1/2 stars

American Horror Story --- Murder House: Afterbirth *The "Murder House" is back on the market at a reduced prices. Also, ghosts can slit other ghosts' throats and they bleed ghost blood. Who knew? They even like to celebrate the season of giving (Christmas) with all the trimmings of the living.* either 1 star or 3 stars for a balls out finale

American Horror Story --- Asylum: Madness Ends *Lana Winters (the reporter from AHS: Asylum) is no Edison Carter (the reporter from Max Headroom). And so concludes this chapter of American Melodrama. Horror's end is supposed to be wrapped up in neat little bows of tenderness... EH? No? Ok.* 2 1/2 stars, I guess

American Horror Story --- Coven: Go To Hell *"I made you die those little deaths." Hell is a fried chicken shack. Ghosts need passports for travel. Who knew? Paula Deen isn't really sorry. She's just sorry that she was caught.* close to 3 stars

American Horror Story --- Coven: The Seven Wonders

*Welcome to the World Series of witchcraft. Let the Harry Potter games begin.

I especially got a chuckle out of the girls just wanna have fun teleportation game of tag that happened right after the hippie witch got stuck in her own personal "8th grade biology dissection of a frog" hell.

It would seem like black humor, but I think it's not meant to be. It's just poor writing.

Take for instance how the redheaded hag/nag says that the new supreme witch can't have a "Whitewater scandal" to be a blemish on her new leadership.

So, she demands to be burned alive in the most soap opera dramatic and laughable way possible to the Stevie Nicks music that's playing throughout the show (the show even begins like a Stevie Nicks music video. *rolls eyes*).

Since the new Coven is going public (kind of like a corporation joining the New York Stock exchange and opening all their books up, or whatever), one would think that committing an act of murder (the witch burning) might somehow leak out and be frowned upon eventually leading to scandal.  

Anyway, that aside, "The Axe Man" and "Fiona" carry the show with their charisma and moody moments together, as usual.

We get another feel good ending, for some reason, because that's horror, according to the producers of this show and the Fox musical GLEE.

Why are these guys pretending to do horror?

I did appreciate Fiona's return from the dead, before dying again (Ha), reminding me of Interview With A Vampire's scene where Tom Cruise crawls out of the swamp after being gatorbait left for dead by his gloomy boyfriend and porcelain doll daughter.

Also, in closing, Fiona's version of hell was quite fitting and moody compared to the pretentious and childish versions of hell for all the other characters.

For example; the annoying good teenager chick's hell beat out the annoying bad teenager chick's hell for level of awfulness.

And that was an accomplishment.

The bad chick's hell was being stuck on a Hollywood musical that she didn't like. *Snot*

The good chick's hell was having her James Dean wannabe boyfriend breaking up with her every day. *Vomit*

I guess hell is happening here on earth for every emo 16 year old all the time.

I have already wasted too many words on most of this pile stinky fish guts.*

running from around 1 1/2 stars a lot of the time up to 2 1/2 stars at different moments

==========================================================================

"Sacred Cow Halloween Special" circa 1993 (All Hallow's Eve? Why not? It's June) *Early 1990s public access tv special featuring a lot of low-fi indie music videos from bands who don't give a shit and live call in guests to the hosts and Bill Hicks in hell. Plus the legend, Bill Hicks, pulls out the home video footage of where he stood in the neighboring cow pasture, and ranted about the government, while Janet Reno rolled tanks with flamethrowers through the walls of a crazy cult so that they could charbroil children. Yep, have a happy trick r' Summer treat and roast in the heat.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"Beyond Belief" =================================

*Early 90s Nickelodeon took time to educate kids, where modern Nick tries to sell them tweeny bopper pop star insipid kid sitcoms.

Stories here include:

The City of the Dead that lies beneath Paris.

History lesson about how the Greeks burned half the Roman, enemy, fleet using solar energized shields.

Sadly poetic tale of The Elephant Man and his time in a London hospital.

Important message about conservation and protecting endangered animals. "Don't cut down the rainforest." Man, I have fond memories of "earth friendly" science lessons during my childhood school years. A really hopeful, positive time.

We visit the Cabaret Mechanical Theater featuring robotic dolls & toys (creepy and cool).

Some funny laws, around the world, are discussed like the illegal carrying of ice cream cones in your pocket in Kentucky and so on.

Cursed opera causes God to smite anyone the opera singer looks at while singing, "Oh, God smash him!"

We meet a 17 year old autistic genius artist who can draw any London monument or building. Autism was still misunderstood, greatly, during this time.

A visit to an old magician's backyard where he displays to us a new, old trick.

Finally, it's a history lesson about Westerners reluctance at first and then being sold on the idea and practice of embalming the corpses of their loved ones for funeral display.

Great stuff.

-Classic commercials include:

Scram Ball, "the hot new game."

Bubble tape, the bubble gum that's hard for grandma to eat.

Murray mountain bikes are so rugged that they can help a 10 year old outrun his 16 year old bro's pickup truck on rocky terrain.

A Fresh Prince of Bel'Air kid is tired of being told "no" so he eats Raisin Bran for some reason....

A gang of 90s tv kids have a video cam corder scavenger hunt thanks to McDonalds.*

close to 3 stars

=======================================================

Police Squad: A Substantial Gift (WLS7-Chicago) 3 - 4 - 1982 =============

*First we get a commercial for a home electronics and appliance store. Man, the 70s and early 80s had such an ugly color decor thing going on. Putrid greens, tans, yellows, and dingy greys going on everything from fridges to stoves to dishwashers to carpet to vaccuumcleaners. Some nice pics of walls of the very popular, at the time, ghetto blaster boom boxes (nice).

 "Blast From The Past," Saturday at 6:30 featuring a dapper dude brushing his wavy hair and a go go chick hula hooping. The 80s were really nostalgic for the 50s.

And, now with a flashing red siren we're told we'll be watching Police Squad "In Color."  The show starts out with a woman who's being stuck for cash by a crooked orthodonist. Ha. She kills her loan clerk boyfriend and frames a poor sap trying to get the loan in a double homicide.

A hazy looking Loren cosmetics commercial

followed by a movie trailer for the insipid Oscar bait movie "On Golden Pond."

Leslie Nielsen shows up to the crime, knocking over trash cans with his cop car. Funny sight gag of the meat wagon boys taking out an extra, extra long body on an extra, extra long stretcher. They find a way to work in the old type "Who's on first!?" joke to her formal statement of the crime.

The forensic lab guy is a wacko.

A visit to the victim's wife, and Nielsen rambles on about himself (ha) during her grief.

The killer dame shows up to give her official statement looking like an obvious fink in a new fur coat and feathered boa.

We get a funny scene where one cop's so tall his head is off camera.

"Crisp and clean" "No Caffeine" "Never had it, never will." "Feelin' up with 7 'Up."

A pretty model girl walks around fields of amber grains waving while sporting a "Cover Girl Face."

 Benson & Open All Night are part of the ABC Friday Night line up.

Lieutenant Nielsen re-enacts the crime by actually shoothing his fellow officers, leaving a pile of bodies while he ponders the crime. Ha.

Cops and Priests (What do you know about life after death? *hands over a 20$*) seek confidential information from a shoe shine man.

Medieval orthodontist gear is highlighted via willingly happy kids wearing headgear. Leslie does some dental exam physical comedy.

Some oblivious cops sight gags in an elevator. Clever stuff.

Showdown with the dirty dame featuring bad wigs and a bullet filled Mexican standoff from a couple feet away from each other behind trash cans and a sidewalk bus bench. Bullhorn "Give it up!" warning from just as close a length.

New Aim mint is the talk of the whiteboy locker room..

Sexy as heck, and wet in a pool, Lynda Carter likes her lips "wet." Mmmmmm

Stay Tuned for Bossom Budies and "Night of 100 Stars"

Old school, syndicated television. Can't beat it.*

3 stars

=========================================================================

MTV's Ridiculousness with special guest Dr. Drew Pinsky *Normally this poor kid's America's Funniest Home Videos for skateboard wiggers, hosted by a skateboard wigger & his black friend & his airheaded blonde friend, would get zero stars for its unfunny commentary on outdated extreme sports accident videos and mishap/ prank videos.... but since quack pop-psychiatry tv celebrity "doctor" Drew is on here and giving insight into the social problems many of these fools, in these foolish videos, do happen to supposedly have... Well, it's more absurd and tolerable.* close to 2 stars

"Five Fingers Of Death" *It's the formula tale of bullies terrorizing a town, and the heroes finally standing up to them. It could be a western, an 80s surfing/ski resort movie, but here it's a Shaw brothers kung fu flick. Many hipsters will recognize the Kill Bill music that Tarantino stole from this film.* 3 stars

Tom Green's Subway Monkey Hour --2002-- *Tom Green will probably always be infamous for the terrible "Freddy Got Fingered," and he deserves it. This hour long MTV special featuring Tom being the weirdest Westerner possibly ever in Japan is way better than that awful Hollywood mistake of a "movie." In fact, it's a dozen times more interesting than the Jackass movies that borrow the skit after skit format of this special. Add an extra thirty minutes of footage from this trip to Japan, which I'm sure they had, and it would have been a better choice to be released in movie theaters instead of "Freddy Got Fingered."* close to 3 stars

Tales From The Crypt: Lover Come Hack To Me *Car trouble on a desolate road on the honeymoon night. The couple seeks shelter in an old-dark-house. There's a cozy fireplace with a big, medieval axe hanging above it. A storm is raging outside. The bride is a strange, little virgin. The groom is a sleazy bohunk acting surprised to have found a 45 magnum in his glove box. She wonders if he married her for the money (no surprise, he did). Bloody memories haunt the place same as their "romance." It's the perfect setting for mur-der (*Thunder & Lightning!*)...* 3 stars

Six Feet Under: The Will *Diving board death. Pyramid scheme. Backstreet Boy look-a-like douchey boyfriend. Meeting of gay firemen. Breaking up with Ed Begley Jr. Blackmail from beyond the grave. Selling a slightly used coffin at a discount rate. Burning someone's name into your flesh. Buyout offer. Emotional breakdown on the bus that killed the father. Toe suck.* close to 3 stars

100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective (Vertigo Comics) *Piano bar without a piano player. A private dick wrapped up like the Invisible Man. Stolen art with codes from one's past. A damaging echo.* between 2 1/2 & 3 stars

Justified: Season 1 Episode 5 *The cowboy's pa is an outlaw.* 3 stars

American Gothic: Resurrector *Going away presents for a ghost and a sacrifice to the devil.* close to 3 stars

Kung Fu: Nine Lives *"Find a cat or be a tramp all your life." "Dark and vain are the ways of lust, the poet said." or something of that nature...* 3 stars

"Master of the Flying Guillotine" *A bloody martial arts tournament, where every fighter has a unique gimmick or style, is interrupted by a badass villain using his flying guillotine to pull the heads off of every one armed boxer that he finds until he gets his revenge. He finds out that he's not as badass as the real one armed boxer. This flick had to have had a huge influence on both Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat.* 3 stars

Doctor Who: The Satan Pit *A claustrophobic, high stakes sci fi story similar to The Thing, Leviathan, and Alien.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

"Horror Express" (Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing) *It's about time, some cryptozoology monster goodness. Finding Bigfoot type nonsense has almost killed the fun in this fantasy genre. It helps that this movie is Hammer horror style and has Lovecraftian-dread overtones.* 3 stars

Gerhard's America: Gerhard at NASCAR *Gerhard finds he has a lot in common with effeminate racer Michael Waltrip.* close to 2 1/2 stars

------ TV Carnage:

*A Lot Of Men Collect Barbie Dolls: "It's a professional hobby, now." Nothing weird, at all here.* 2 stars

*A Woman's Guide To Guns and Hallucinating: Learn about your weapon, instead of fantasizing about it.* close to 2 stars

*Aids = Hump Day Poison!: The 80s were all about high risk behavior.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Child Actor Failures: Are you being rigid enough or in some cases too rigid with your little gold-mine?* close to 3 stars

*Damn Shame: It's a shame that white boy thugs get gunned down every day. Call America's Most Wanted or Yo! MTV Raps with any info on the possible killer.* 2 1/2 stars

---------------------------------------

Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Big Trouble In Little China

*Joe Bob pokes fun at the culture of addiction.

We learn about Carter Wong, the martial arts expert who stars in the movie. Amazing credits to his kung fu game.

Preview for TNT's new classic "The Golden Child" starring Eddie Murphy

quirky KIA suv car commercial from 1998 featuring cliche gator hunting / swamp loving Cajuns who'd be the type in reality shows more than a decade later. It's funny here, sort of, but tiresome if you live in this era of bad reality tv "real folk" like this.

preview for Jacki Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx" and its American cable tv debut on TNT

a yuppy mom tries to stuff a pizza into her toaster, but doesn't have to anymore because some processed junk food company invented toaster pizza snacks. "White lady/mom problems"

Kim Cattral is gorgeous, in this movie, and not an old whore who'd make you swear off women like she would after her Sex in the City days

SNL's Weekend Update anchor Kevin Nealon sells out for a collect call "so 90s it hurts" advertisement. One good thing about cell phones is that these ads disappeared

Joe Bob's Drive In Totals for this flick: 57 dead bodies... One kidnapping... Four motor vehicle chases... One wheelchair chase... One White-Slavery Ring... Yellow-Slavery Ring... One Machine Gun Massacre... One Machete Battle... Multiple Blue Finger-Flame... One Zombie-fied Levitating 2,000-Year-Old Man With Really Bad Fingernails... Exploding Building...Exploding Temple... Knife To The Forehead... One Ocean of Chained Skeletons... One Palace Of Golden Buddhas... Poison Gas... Nine Kung Fu Scenes...

Racquelle Welch in One Million BC, another drive in classic, next week on Monstervision

Some Hollywood stunt-men cowboys beat the shit out of each other for a Pontiac "Montana" minivan. Sure, why not?

Soulful 70s singer-songwriter Aflac family insurance ad, family station wagon Tru Value helpful employee kidnapping ad, Home Depot helpful employees..., some bruthas turn a stranger's need for directions into a roadtrip down the road for some McDonalds.... 90s commercials tried to be really feel good, but come off very insipid

"Tired of Phony Psychics?" Generic graphics of lightning strikes and huge yellow background typed letters plus a doe eyed weirdo lady claiming to have certified psychics for her phone network.... "Guaranteed Authentic by the U.S. Govt." HAAAA.... wow! what a claim!

Joe Bob pines about how there aren't perfect women in the world, and how guys give up women over nail color, comparing it to the plot of the movie being about the search for a perfect, green eyed Chinese chick

Then, Joe Bob skewers the politically correct critics, of this movie, who said that Big Trouble re-enforced Asian stereotypes.

Kitschy style Miller Lite commercial where four old ladies try to contact the spirit of one lady's dead husband. He's a slab, of course, and comes back to life, possessing the body of one of her friends, raiding the fridge for beer and scratching his (her) ass. She's overjoyed.

Kellog's Breakfast Mates... A commercial that's basically saying, "Let corporate America continue to "raise" your children." It's convenient.

Joe Bob teaches us about Kurt Russell's ties to Elvis and Disney and John Carpenter

TNT updates its Monstervision website "once a week." Current people and websites, of the internet(s), update every second of the day. Waiting a week for something new is almost as painful as the information (nonsense) overload of right now.

Dennis Miller is in line at a hipster coffe shop complaining about the price of "a cup of Joe" and the price of collect calls. If he sounds like a cranky and out of touch old man here, wait til a decade later where he's rambling incoherently to his best pal Mr.Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

Two 90s alterna-chicks having a conversation: "One day we'll meet, marry, and have cyber sex with the man of our dreams online." Robert Englud cameo in Dee Snider's Strangeland

Joe Bob points out that there's a "not so incognito" Penthouse Pet in this flick

TNT Mail Girl Reno gets asked to how much it would take to "get nekkid" by Joe Bob, and then he reads an angry letter from an upset liberal who loves freedom so much that he wants to ban free speech that he doesn't like by calling it "hatred." Ha. Joe Bob made a joke about "killing liberals" or something and this guy got his feelings hurt. Boo hoo.

Joe Bob rips TNT a new asshole for taking an awful commercial break, featuring about 14 insipid 90s "feel good" commercials, during the EPIC kung fu finale. Being on TNT, and not too late in the night unlike TNT's 100% Weird, Monstervision suffered some really lame commercials. USA UP All Night usually had more lame B movies instead of good B movies, yet they featured a lot more entertaining and sleazy commercials compared to Monstervision Other, late night basic cable and UHF B movies had better commercials than TNT as well. Fucking TNT. So schmaltzy and sickening. You watch a weird, late night movie, you want weird late night commercials, and you want them not to interrupt the best part of the movie. You don't want a great kung fu scene stopped to have five minutes of sepia toned artsy cinematography of elderly couples slow dancing in the shadow of the Brooklyn bridge while romantic piano music plays and there's a warm feeling about life insurance or some crap.

Roll Credits.*

3 stars for Big Trouble (For fun and memorable characters, it's to the 80s what A New Hope was to the 70s) 3 stars for Joe Bob and 1 star for TNT's bullstuff

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--- Found Footage Fest:

*Caught In The Web, Staying Safe in Cyberspace: Surfin' with a cyber sleuth and stopping smut and sickos both online and in the real world. If any of this is actually real.* close to 3 stars

*Check It Out _ Acne Video: "Hip" teen talk show infomercial about bogus zits.* 2 1/2 stars

*Chef Keith _ Fake Chef Pranks Morning TV Shows: You can make one of those creepy smiling talking head news morning show hosts believe that "The average person eats around a pound and a half of feces a year." HA! Most of the feces comes from morning talks shows.* 3 stars

*Christian Rock Video Showdown: We're all a wiener slash loser with these bands that are a even more soft rock cross between Journey, Foreigner, Kenny Loggins, and a hairy butt.* close to 3 stars

*John and Johnny and Earrings: Homeshopping host is giddy about seashell earrings.* close to 2 stars

--------------------------------

Fargo: The Six Ungraspables *There are no saints in the animal kingdom, only breakfast... lunch.. and dinner.* 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Burlington, Vermont *Home of laidback liberals and Lochness lizards.* 2 1/2 stars

Vanity Fair, Confidential: Mad About the Boys *Lou Pearlman loved to hear singing from voices that hadn't yet gone through puberty. He also loved hot air balloons and ponzi schemes. No surprise that the super-rich sponsor of a creepy cult of child entertainers was not-so-secretly a pig-man spawn of Satan himself.* 2 1/2 stars

X Files: Born Again *Mustache'd cop working Chinatown. He gets killed by some shady colleagues. Years later, he returns as a very gloomy little-girl with special powers and vengeance on her(his) mind.* close to 3 stars

The Prisoner: Checkmate *On a wing and a prayer and unfortunately an air of authority.* 3 stars

----- TV Carnage:

*Dr. Drew and MTV Got Cold Feet: Could be worse. Could be dead like Corey Haim and his girlfriend. Killed by Brigette Nielsen, Stallone and Flava Flav's ex.* close to 2 stars

*TV Carnage: Dixie Carter Death Trip: Designing women to be strangely obnoxious.* 2 stars

*Even His Scream Is Bad Acting: Bohunk (Dumb goodlooking American guy. Not the dictionary definition which insults someone from Europe.) slasher victim.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Give Head Responsibly: Consult your doctor before giving or receiving.* 2 1/2 stars

*God Gives A Second Chance To Anyone. It's In His Book: Especially to those with a Pat Boone singing style and a new book coming out about second chances.* close to 2 1/2 stars

-----------------------------------------

Hannibal: Sorbet *Hannibal has a stalker/fan/wannabe BFF who compares him to Michael Jackson. Meanwhile, Hannibal keeps recipes of people on their business cards.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Look Around You: Music (season 2) *The show's format has completely changed to an in studio info / variety presentation, and while it's no longer the mock science docu-series that it started out as, it's still silly and clever. Plus, it's longer at a half hour.* 2 1/2 stars

Game of Thrones: Season 3 Episode 9 *This show is good and shockingly heavy, as usual, but I watch it in a way that would more than frustrate diehard fans. I'm seasons behind where everyone else is, and I have no concern as to when I see the next chapter.* 3 stars

Shaw Brothers: Executioners from Shaolin *At the heart of this movie is a dysfunctional kung fu family. On the wedding night, the groom can't get the bride's legs open because her crane style is too strong. Mother teaches son crane style kung fu and they playfully use it even when she's trying to wash the family's clothes. Dad can't even sit down to a good meal, because son wants to test dad's tiger style kung fu.* 3 stars

[screenandcinema]

Coming Attractions - May 2019

Five years ago today, here on the S&C, we presented for the first time a list of the movies what would be hitting your local cinemas that month. That initial list included The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Chef, Godzilla, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Every month since then over the course of five years we have done the same rundown of movies coming soon and you have been there to read them all along the way. Thank you for that. We thought this was a special day to reflect on in the history of the S&C.

With that said, here are what movies are coming out this month:

May 3rd

Long Shot - Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron star as an odd-couple in this upcoming comedy, him an unemployed journalist and her a candidate for President of the United States. Long Shot premiered to great reviews at South by Southwest in March and I for one can’t wait to see it.

UglyDolls - Quick! Is UglyDolls an original film or one based on existing IP? Do you know the answer? I don’t. (Well I do now, cause I looked it up, but I didn’t know when I asked it.)

The Intruder - Meagan Good and Michael Ealy star in this thriller as a couple who buys a house from Dennis Quaid’s character, and he refuses to let go off his long-term home. The film hails from the same screenwriter as 2009′s Obsessed and 2008′s Lakeview Terrance, so audiences should know what they are getting into with The Intruder.

Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile - If you are keeping score at home, it is now Ted Bundy: 1, Oxford Comma: 0. Zac Efron stars as the notorious serial killer in this new film coming to Netflix this month. Reviews of the film have been fairly solid since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. 

May 10th

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu - Though I have never been a fan of Pokémon in the least, Detective Pikachu looks to me like the film I wanted The Happytime Murders to be, a noir-ish fantasy mystery made in the same vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And while I have no interest in the film, I do have an 8-year nephew who does.

The Hustle - Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson take the lead in this comedy film that is a remake of 1988′s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine, which is itself a remake of 1964′s Bedtime Story starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. Still one remake shy of a full A Star is Born.

Poms - In this comedy, Diane Keaton starts a cheerleading squad at her retirement community and her friends played by Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, and Rhea Perlman, join up!

Tolkien - Nicholas Hoult is J.R.R. Tolkien in this biography of the famous author. Like similar more recent works Finding Neverland, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Becoming Jane, and half of Saving Mr. Banks, audiences will surely seeing Tolkien’s future works come alive in his life experiences through his time as school and World War I.

May 17th

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum - John Wick is back for installment number 3. The John Wick film series has been a surprising revelation and it is always good to see Keanu Reeves back on the big screen. Prepare for war.

A Dog’s Journey - This is a sequel to 2017′s A Dog’s Purpose. Did you see that one? Oh, you didn’t. Then my job is done.

The Sun is Also A Star - It is a race against time for two young students hoping to fall in love before one of them is forced to leave with her family forever. My prediction? She is an alien.

May 24th

Aladdin - Disney’s 1992 beloved animated classic is back with a live action version directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Will Smith as the Genie. As a kid, I remember seeing Aladdin in theaters five times and it was a personal favorite. Unlike some of the recent and forthcoming Disney remakes, Aladdin doesn’t appear to be a scene-for-scene rehash of the original, which is extremely refreshing.

Brightburn - James Gunn produces this superhero horror film written by his cousins Mark and Brian Gunn. “Superhero horror” might be the best genre name imaginable. Essentially, Brightburn is a twist on the familiar Superman story - what if a child gave from space with amazing abilities and instead of trying to save us all, he tried to kill us all. Count me in!

Booksmart - Olivia Wilde makes her feature film directorial debut with the coming-of-age comedy in Booksmart. In the film, two smart good girls try to make four years worth bad dumb decisions over the course of the night before high school graduation. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March to fantastic reviews.

May 31st

Godzilla: King of the Monsters - On the surface, it is hard to tell how much of King of the Monsters is a sequel to 2014′s Godzilla and how much of it is set-up for 2020′s Godzilla vs. Kong as Legendary Entertainment continues to build their MonsterVerse. As much as I enjoyed Godzilla and 2017′s Kong: Skull Island, nothing about King of the Monsters is really exciting me at this point, which in itself is disappointing.

Rocketman - The music biopic craze continues with Rocketman starring Taron Egerton as Elton John. The film is directed by Dexter Fletcher, who you may or may not know as the guy who came in and finished directing Bohemian Rhapsody after Brian Singer was fired. Rocketman looks to be everything Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t, including an actor who sings throughout the movie and a historically accurate portrayal of the musician's life and times. Fans of music who were disappointed by Bohemian Rhapsody should be eager to take a ride with Rocketman.

Ma - Octavia Spencer stars a lonely woman who befriends a group of mischievous teenagers only to viciously turn on them in this upcoming thriller from Blumhouse. Watch this one with the lights on.

Now for a quick look ahead to June, my top picks for next month are Dark Phoenix, Men in Black: International, and Toy Story 4.

-MB-