Panel of the Week

From Dr. Horrible #1:

Tales From the Netflix Crypt

This month's reviews: Hollywood Kills, Late Fee, and Train.



Hollywood Kills (2006)
Directed by Sven Pape

Plot: An aspiring actress, an aspiring screenwriter, and the latter's brother and cousin, end up in the home of a demented filmmaker who's a big fan of the ol' snuff film.

Comments: Oddly enough, this film is better before all the torture and killing and maiming begins. I kind of dug the brief bit in the beginning involving Chantelle and Sarah (the two aspirings) struggling to break into their respective fields, and the reaction of the brother and cousin who are visiting from Small Town, USA, and think Los Angles is absurd and that Sarah should move back home. This actually would have made a great movie all on its own.

But since this is a horror movie, before too long, all four of them are drugged and tied up and facing certain death at the hands of an insane film producer, played by Dominic Keating, who was the weak link in Enterprise and is the weak link here, as well. Fortunately, it's not a bad horror movie. Sure, one could accuse it of being a Hostel rip-off, but then, a lot of horror films that have come out in the past few years could be accused of being a Hostel rip-off even if they're not.

One of the things I really dug about Hollywood Kills is that it's really not afraid to put its characters through the wringer. Unlike a lot of films of this type, there's a very real sense of danger for all involved. (Having said that, there is a...slight differential in how the characters are treated. Both women get physically brutalized, while one of the guys is just locked up in a room for a while and then released, and the other one is forced into a death trap that involves having sex with a beautiful woman. So I guess read into that what you will.)

It's not a great movie, and you'll feel like you've seen it a few dozen times, but for a low-budget film the gore is well-done, and the story takes a couple of twists I didn't see coming. The last 30 seconds alone bumped the film up a half-grade.

Script: C+
Acting: C-
Gore: B+
Overall: C+




Late Fee (2009)
Directed by John Carchietta and Carl Morano

Plot: A couple rents two horror movies on Halloween from a man dressed up as Satan, with the understanding that they need to be returned to the store by midnight.

Comments: Are two segments and a wrap-around enough to count as an anthology? If so, I guess this is an anthology. Which is a shame, because the wrap-around, featuring the couple and the video store, is both a more original and better executed idea than either of the two movies-within-the-movie.

The first segment is easily the weakest part of a film. A guy picks up a weird prostitute. They go to a motel room. She turns into a monster and kills him. Yawn.

The second one is slightly more interesting. A woman is pulled over and arrested by a crazy woman pretending to be a cop, and taken before a crazy man pretending to be a judge, and locked up to await torture at the hands of a crazy man pretending to be a doctor. It really never goes anywhere, but it's entertaining, and it does feature one of the all time sickest scenes I've ever seen in my life: A pregnant woman is strapped to a table, at which point a crazy cannibal woman enters and pulls the baby out of her and eats it. I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for this shit, but Jesus.

But really, the story of the couple who disregard the warning to have the films back by midnight is the most interesting part of the film, and it's a shame it gets the short shrift. Horror anthologies typically suck because the filmmakers only have one great idea, and a few lousy ones. If they'd just concentrate on the great one and forget the anthology idea, horror cinema would be better off for it.

Script: C+
Acting: C-
Gore: A+
Overall: C+




Train (2009)
Directed by Gideon Raff

Plot: A college wrestling team competing in Eastern Europe hop on the wrong train. A terror train, if you will.

Comments: Do American college wrestling teams actually compete in Eastern Europe? Seems unrealistic somehow. Anyway, speaking of Hostel rip-offs, as we were a few minutes ago, remember Turistas? One of the few Hostel rip-offs to get a theatrical release? Someone apparently came up with the idea to rip-off both Hostel and Turistas, and Train is the result.

It's actually not a bad film. Certainly better than Turistas. For a bunch of wrestlers, all the kids go down surprisingly easily. Which is fine, because it wouldn't be much of a film if they were able to pin their captors, who--like in Turistas--want to harvest their body parts for medical purposes, but also--like in Hostel--want to torture them for the hell of it. At one point, this torture involves a man eating the wrestling coach's intestines out of his stomach while he's still alive. Also, one of the wrestlers gets castrated for no particular reason. Another gets her leg cut off below the knee. Fun stuff like that.

It is weird seeing Thora Birch in this kind of role. She's actually not that much younger than me, but the first thing I ever saw her in was All I Want for Christmas, where she played an impossibly adorable little girl who tries to get her two estranged parents to get back together on Christmas, and then went on to be the impossibly adorable little girl in Hocus Pocus and the Jack Ryan films. Now she's wrestling and having sex with her boyfriend and getting into fistfights with European organ smugglers. Not quite so adorable, but a lot more interesting.

Script: C+
Acting: B
Gore: A
Overall: B

Week Eleven NFL Picks

8-7 last week; 72-72 for the season

Miami at Carolina (-3.5): Miami

Indianapolis at Baltimore (+1): Indianapolis

Washington at Dallas (-11): Washington

Cleveland at Detroit (-3.5): Detroit

San Francisco at Green Bay (-6.5): San Francisco

Buffalo at Jacksonville (-9): Buffalo

Pittsburgh at Kansas City (+10): Pittsburgh

Seattle at Minnesota (-11): Minnesota

Atlanta at New York Giants (-6.5): Atlanta

New Orleans at Tampa Bay (+11.5): Tampa Bay

Arizona at St. Louis (+9): Arizona

San Diego at Denver (+3): San Diego

New York Jets at New England (-10.5): New England

Cincinnati at Oakland (+9.5): Cincinnati

Philadelphia at Chicago (+3): Chicago

Tennessee at Houston (-4.5): Tennessee

Ninjas!

Do me a favor. Say "ninja."

No, no, don't just think it. Come on. Actually say it out loud: "Ninja."

Felt good, huh? Now pretend you're an 8 year-old boy and say it again. "Ninja!" Wasn't that, like, a hundred times cooler?

When I was an 8 year-old boy, there was nothing...and I mean nothing...better than ninjas. My friends and I were obsessed with them. We talked about ninjas. We went as ninjas for Halloween. We considered how we might go about becoming ninjas ourselves. My then-best friend thought we should take Hapkido classes to help accomplish this goal. Not really wild about that sort of time and physical commitment, I explained that I just wanted to be the kind of ninja who killed people with throwing stars from a distance, or maybe snuck up behind them and cut their throats, not the hitting/kicking/back-flipping sort of ninja. So we didn't.

Of course, the first ninjas my friends and I were exposed to were Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Who had about as much in common with real ninjas as G.I. Joes did to real soldiers, but we didn't care. It's not like real ninjas had awesome code names and got into fights on a moving subway.

Over the next few years, I watched many of the ninja movies that were released in the 80s. And there were a lot of ninja movies released in the 80s: American Ninja and American Ninja 2. (There was a time I considered Michael Dudikoff the world's greatest actor.) Enter the Ninja. Revenge of the Ninja. Big Trouble in Little China. (Not technically a ninja film, but it had tons of guys in costumes doing wild martial arts shit, so close enough.) The Octagon. Ninja Hunter. And several more, long since forgotten.

There was also no shortage of ninja-related video games, like Bruce Lee, Shinobi, Mortal Kombat, and Ninja Gaiden. This was even better than being the throwing star-type of ninja, as you got all the thrills of being a ninja, with none of the physical training involved.

Then, fairly suddenly, I grew out of ninjas. Which was good for two reasons: First, teenagers and grown-ups who are obsessed with ninjas are weird. A lot of them are the kind of guys who have replica swords mounted on their wall. Or this idiot. Second, and more importantly, ninjas became really, really lame in this country.

After all, since 1990, this has been the image of the ninja in American pop culture.

So, yeah, today's ninjas suck. But a few weeks ago, I saw the trailer for this:

On the surface, it seems to have everything the old school ninja fan could possibly want: Ninjas, assassins, ninja assassins, punching, kicking, back-flipping, blades flying everywhere, little kids with lots of scars beating the shit out of each other... It even has a title with such a remarkable 80s vibe to it, that I'm shocked no one used it until now.

And my reaction to it? Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Everyone else seems jazzed for it. I've seen more than a few tweets from people who have similar interests as me, who announce their sexual arousal whenever a Ninja Assassin commercial comes on. But I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to see it. I suspect my reaction to this film is what it feels like to be a gay dude when a hot woman walks by. Sure, I can look at it and find things to admire. But in no way am I interested in tapping that ass, and frankly, even the thought of doing so is a little off-putting.

There's still a chance I'll go see it. Thanksgiving Day is always a good time to see a movie, and it's not like the football games will be worth staying home for. And who knows, maybe it'll change my mind on ninja films. But I kind of doubt it. Once you've seen Chris Farley make a complete mockery of your childhood passion in one of the unfunniest films of the past century, there's really no going back.

My First Blog (Part 3)

More insightful thoughts and/or inane ramblings from the 1987 version of me! (And even though you can't see it, they're all written in really bad cursive, which I probably haven't used since 1987. It's a worthless thing to teach kids.)

October 19, 1987

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Natural History. I especelly liked the Gem and mineral display. I bought a rock since I have a rock collection. The rock I bought is called, "Iceland Spar." As soon as I get home I will label it.

Yeah, I collected rocks as a kid. Want to make something of it?

For what it's worth, though, when I say "rock collection," I really just meant that if I saw a rock that intrigued me for whatever reason, I would pick it up and drop it in a box or something until I either lost it or got bored with it and threw it away. I know for goddamn sure I never actually "labeled" any of them, whatever the hell that even means. Knowing myself as I do, I'm going to say that was just a blatant attempt to sound vaguely scientific for the purpose of sucking up to my teacher.

Oct. 30, 1987

Am I mad! Today while I was talking Chris came up and hit me in the shoulder. I don't know if I should turn him in.

Dude, what the hell did you think you were doing by writing a journal entry about it, knowing full well your teacher would read it? Listen to Carmelo Anthony. No one likes a snitch.

I'm trying my best to remember Chris, and drawing a blank. Given that I'm one of those people who holds onto grudges forever, and I have no idea who he was, it was probably just some kid I knew who caught me off-guard with a playful slug, and embarrassed me a bit in front of the other kids. As both a child and adult, when I'm really upset about something, I just brood quietly. So the fact that I was all melodramatic about it ("Am I mad!" God, that's embarrassing...) and put it in the journal, means I couldn't have been too bothered by it.

Nov. 1, 1987

On Haloween I was a mummy. Some people thought I was a wounded person. I got a lot of candy, and a few fake spiders. After I got home I wached Search For Houdinni. Unfortionitly, their Seaence was a failure.

Ah, 80s television. Remember that time Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault on live TV, and it was empty? Good times.

In case you're wondering, Search for Houdini was a special on Halloween hosted by William Shatner in which they tried to contact Houdini's ghost on the anniversary of his death. I was going through this phase where I was really into reading about ghosts and monsters and supernatural stuff, so I made a point to watch it. It was terrible, but you want to see Shatner at his absolute hammiest, you can see it here, here, and here.

Semi-related story: While going through this phase, I was reading a book on witchcraft or voodoo or something one day in the school library. One of the elderly librarians came by, saw what I was reading, and asked me if I believed in that stuff. I thought she meant it as in, did I believe it existed? So I said yeah. She actually gasped, and took two steps backward in fear. It was a few years later before I realized that she thought I was declaring my loyalty to Satan.

Nov. 9, 1987

Yesterday I played soccer with a few friends. My team won with the score of 20 to 17.

20 to 17! Holy shit! Either we were the greatest bunch of kid soccer phenoms this side of Freddy Adu, or none of us cared about playing defense. I tend to suspect it was the latter, but you never know.

Nov. 11, 1987

Today I got a surprise when I looked out the window. When I saw it was snowing, I got dressed and threw snowballs at my dad. I hit him in the face most of the time. If the snow is still there, I will go sledding after school.

Nov. 16, 1987

On the eleventh, we got a dissmisel at 1:15 but most of us didnt get home till 3:15. I am sort of glad that the snow is melting first because I don't want to be snowed in. Second, Im tired of my socks getting wet all the time.

Sigh. Heavy snow in November. We're never going to see that again around here. But hey, keep making snide comments about global warming, Matt Drudge, you dick.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure why they made us go into school on the 11th since it was evidently already snowing that morning. But by the time they did decide to close school, it was too late, and there were several inches on the ground. The buses couldn't even get to the school, so they eventually just moved all of us into the cafeteria until our parents could come and get us.

Nov. 30, 1987

I enjoyed my vacation immensly. We went to varrious locations in the area. I also went to the Bullets game on Saturday. The bullets won. I also added a nutcracker to my collection.

Yeah, I collected nutcrackers as a kid. Want to make something...okay, fine, that's pretty lame. But again, just like with the rocks, I'm using the word "collection" in the loosest possible sense. I think I only had about three or four of them, and they're currently in the same landfill as that printer from last week.

I'm not sure why I was being so mysterious in this entry. I mean, "We went to varrious locations"? Although, now that I think about it, I have these faint recollections of my parents deciding that Thanksgiving would be a great day to drive around Virginia sightseeing for hours on end. So maybe it's not that I was trying to be vague, it's just that I'd been bored out of my fucking mind, and honestly couldn't even remember where all I'd been dragged to that day.

On a different topic, it was fun to type "went to the Bullets game" just now. (I used to be pro-Wizards, but now that D.C. is no longer a demilitarized zone, they should change it back to the Bullets.) This would have been at the Capital Centre, so going to see a game back then was a pain. Nowadays, you can just hop on the Metro to go see the team get its ass kicked. In 1987, you actually had to work for it.

Next week: The final few entries, as well as a page of what's either random gibberish, or my first attempt at free form poetry.

Panel of the Week

From R.E.B.E.L.S. #10:

Broken Lizard Live at Lisner

I'll get to the Broken Lizard show in a moment. But first...I was in a room (technically an auditorium) with Lynda Carter!

Lynda Carter! From the Wonder Woman reruns that conveniently came on TV just when I got home from kindergarten! Lynda Carter! Who confirmed that I was straight long before I even knew there was an alternative! Lynda Carter! Who, according to the IMDB, turned 58 this year, but still looks awesome. Sigh. It's not often you get to see your childhood TV crush in person. Now I just need to run into Dana Plato, and my life will be complete!

Hmm? What's that? Oh.

Anyway, Broken Lizard. I would say I'm a fan, but not a huge one. In regards to their films, I always thought Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review of Super Troopers: "There is a plot, which somehow arrives at a conclusion, but the movie doesn't tell a story so much as move from one skit to another..." The same can pretty much be said of Club Dread and Beerfest, and just like with Super Troopers, some of those skits are better than others.

And that's essentially what their live show is. The format goes like this: Sketch, stand-up routine by one of the guys, sketch, stand-up routine by one of the guys, etc.

Steve Lemme was by far the best at stand-up. His routine was entirely--and I mean entirely--about masturbation. Reflections on it, and details of his own habits, as well as those of his fellow Broken Lizard members. In fact, this is how we found out Lynda Carter was in the audience, as Lemme pointed her out, and then told everyone what Jay Chandrasekhar used to do to her Wonder Woman poster as a teenager.

Kevin Heffernan was also really good, discussing the ramifications of doing his full-frontal nude scene in Super Troopers. Paul Soter and Jay Chandrasekhar were okay, but not great. Erik Stolhanske...well, any time a comedian brings a guitar with him on stage, you should expect the worst.

The sketches fared a bit better. They proved Susan Boyle jokes can still be funny, told a great story about meeting Patrick Swayze, and did a pretty decent twist on the old "Who's on First?" routine. They also trotted out their Super Troopers and Beerfest characters. The former worked well. The latter, not so much, until they had a drinking contest with three of the audience members.

And then, kind of abruptly, it was over. They said goodnight, and walked off-stage in their Beerfest jumpsuits, taking Lynda Carter with them. Which might be for the best, because God only knows how many psycho obsessed fans were planning on making a beeline straight towards her. (Answer: At least one.)

All in all, the show's something of a mixed bag, but if you get the chance to catch Broken Lizard Live, take it. I can't say it's quite as good as I'd hoped it would be, but considering tickets are only around $30, it's well worth it. Even if your performance doesn't come with a Lynda Carter cameo.

Week Ten NFL Picks

5-8 last week; 64-65 for the season

 

Chicago at San Francisco (-3): San Francisco

 

Atlanta at Carolina (+1.5): Atlanta

 

Tampa Bay at Miami (-10): Tampa Bay

 

Detroit at Minnesota (-17): Minnesota

 

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (-7): Pittsburgh

 

Buffalo at Tennessee (-6.5): Tennessee

 

Denver at Washington (+3.5): Washington

 

New Orleans at St. Louis (+13.5): New Orleans

 

Jacksonville at New York Jets (-6.5): Jacksonville

 

Kansas City at Oakland (-2): Oakland

 

Seattle at Arizona (-1.5): Arizona

 

Philadelphia at San Diego (-2): San Diego

 

Dallas at Green Bay (+3): Dallas

 

New England at Indianapolis (-3): Indianapolis

 

Baltimore at Cleveland (+10.5): Baltimore

My First Blog (Part 2)

Last week, I posted some entries from the teacher-mandated journal I kept in elementary school. Here are a few more.

Sept. 28, 1987

On the 25, I went to a restraunt named Cauldwells. I got a whole lobster for only $10.00. It was educational. I got to see the brain of the lobster.

I'm not sure why I cared about the price tag so much. After all, it's not like I was reaching for the check or anything. Even in 1987, I somehow doubt $10 got you much of a lobster, but it was my first one, so I was probably just easily impressed. Also, this might have been the first time I realized that you could make almost anything better by dipping it in butter. That was fucking educational!

Sept. 29, '87

One day when I went to my friends house In the window I saw a reflection of a man. I ignored him. Later two police men came. They asked me if If I had seen anyone.

I must have been in desperate need of a journal entry that day and had nothing to write about, hence why I decided to drop in this random anecdote that really had no bearing on anything that was currently going on in my life. Not entirely unlike how I write this blog, now that I think about it.

Since I'm guessing you can't make heads or tails of the above entry, I'll translate: About a year before I moved to D.C., I went over to a friend's house, rang his doorbell, and got no answer. It was one of those houses with small windows right by the door, so like the rude little kid I was, I tried peering through them to see if anyone was home. As I did so, in the reflection of the glass, I saw a man walking into the woods behind me, carrying a large bag.

It turned out to be a burglar who had just hit a nearby home. When the cops came by to question people in the neighborhood, I told them what I'd seen, and partially based on my description, they were able to catch him. I got a framed certificate with a picture of McGruff on it, signed by the chief of police. This was the high point of my life until I kissed a girl.

Sept. 30, 1987

Yesterday my mom and I went to Cameron Station and Sears. We got cloths and a catalog. When we got home, I had a lot of trouble with the printer.

That fucking printer. I guess it's at the bottom of a landfill somewhere, and we're all better off for it. Being 1987, it was one of those incredibly slow dot matrix things we had for our Apple IIc, and it was always jamming up. I hated it, and had Office Space come out when I was a kid, I probably would have reenacted that scene with the baseball bats.

The Sears in question was the one at Landmark Mall, which, defying all understanding, is still open. There was a great City Paper article about Landmark a few years ago, and it seemed to hint that there were plans to revitalize it, but so far, nothing. It's maybe the worst place in the world. That includes prison and Iraq.

Oct. 6, 1987

Over the last few days my sinuses have been very annoying. I have been sneezing and coughing all week, and I must have used a hundred tissues. I hope all the pills I am taking works soon.

And...we're back to me being sick again. I doubt I even knew what sinuses were. I probably just wanted to use a big word.

I am somewhat alarmed at the "all the pills" part. My parents weren't the overmedicating types, so it's possible I might have raided their medicine cabinet looking for something that would make me feel better. Where the hell was G.I. Joe when I needed them?

I guess we're not supposed to wonder why Doc was lurking outside that family's bathroom.

Oct. 9, 1987

Yesterday we had lobster tails for dinner. They were horrible. From now on I'm going to stick to fresh lobster.

Oh, well, la-de-dah. Look at the fucking little prince.

Look, I don't want you to think my family dined on lobster on a regular basis or anything. It's just a testament to how dull my childhood was that this was about as exciting as my life got, and I had to write about something. And now that I think about it, it's hard to imagine that lobster tails weren't good. I probably just missed being able to eat the claw meat. Or maybe I wanted to see more brains.

Oct. 13, 1987

Over the weekend my parents got ready for a garage sale. There was some stuff I didnt want to part with so I bought them

Yes, my parents made their own son pay for things at their own garage sale out of his own allowance. This may sound harsh, but it actually worked well on two levels.

First, it officially made their property my property. Had they just agreed not to sell the stuff, it still would have been theirs, and they probably would have found some way to get rid of it when I wasn't looking. Second, at our next garage sale a couple of years later, I sold a lot of that stuff for more than I'd paid for it, and turned a decent profit. (That was also the garage sale where I sold most of my Transformers and Super Powers figures, a decision that still haunts me to this day.)

Oct. 14, 1987

Nothing happened today or yesterday. But over the weekend I played a lot of soccer with my dad.

I have nothing to add. I just figured I'd go out with a nice one.

Come back next week, when the Blizzard of '87 hits! Also, I get sick again.