DAMAGED 2.0

DAMAGED Goods: MARKY RAMONE’S BROOKLYN’S OWN PASTA SAUCE!

2011-07-28T23:55:00.005-06:00

Years ago, when I was writing for an upstart alt-weekly in Oklahoma City called OKAY! MAGAZINE, I had the pleasure to interview erstwhile Ramones drummer Marky (née Marc Bell) in the dingy upstairs dressing room of VZD’s (still my favorite live-music venue) as he was eating, if I remember correctly, a surprisingly healthy dinner for a rock legend. No drugs, no groupies, none of the expected rock trappings—just excited talk of monster movies and punk music as, if I remember correctly, freshly prepared salads and bottled waters were enjoyed. He was (and, I guess, still is) an extremely awesome dude.

Because of that memorable interaction, I’ve always tried to support whatever Marky’s got going on, be it a new album, tour or, as I found the other day while shopping at Denver’s Twist & Shout record store, pasta sauce. Yep, Marky Ramone’s Brooklyn’s Own Pasta Sauce. My taste buds were hanging upside down!

I’m not sure if it’s made from Marky’s own recipe or just something he signed off on, but it’s a surprisingly top-notch pasta-topper. Made from “imported Italian plum tomatoes”, I can easily say that it’s a damn find spaghetti sauce. Thoroughly thick and chunky with a tarty 1-2-3-4 bop that you don’t get from, say, a cheap jug of Ragu.

When I bought it, I had grand plans on how I was going to use it. Maybe something called “Gabba-Gabbagool”? Or how about some “Carbonara (Not Glue)”? Tired of the jar just staring at me as I tried to come up with a suitably Ramones-inspired dish, I ended up making a simple dinner of whole wheat spaghetti and, lacking the ground beef for meatballs, some spicy Italian sausage I had in the back of the freezer, topped off with a healthy helping of some freshly shredded Parmesan cheese.

Turns out, like the best tunes of the Ramones, I didn’t need anything fancy, just the basics. A simple spaghetti dinner did the job perfectly, giving me one of the best homemade Italian meals I’ve had in a long time. It didn’t overtake the food—it just purely complimented it, as a sauce should. It gave me something to believe in, at least pasta-wise.

Probably the only thing that would keep me from using it with every pasta dinner I make—as much as I would love to, mind you—is the price. I paid about $8 for a 24 ounce jar at a record store in Denver. Factor in the gas and all and I’ve paid about as much as a meal at a local Italian eatery. However, according to the website, 10% of each jar goes to the Autism Speaks charity, so maybe it’d be worth it to just buy a whole case and write it off on my taxes. I can do that, right? Or would the IRS take my baby away?

To order Marky Ramone’s Brooklyn’s Own Pasta Sauce, click here.

GOLD / APHRODISIAC!: THE SEXUAL SECRET OF MARIJUANA: A Damn Dirty Hippie Double-Feature!

2011-06-25T00:39:00.004-06:00

GOLD : 40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Starring Del Close, Garry Goodrow, Caroline Parr
Directed by Bob Levis and Bill Desloge
Wild Eye Releasing

APHRODISIAC!: THE SEXUAL SECRET OF MARIJUANA
Starring Harry J. Anslinger, Fiorello Laguardia, John Holmes
Directed by Dennis Van Zak
Impulse Pictures

Review by Louis Fowler

Watching, absorbing and trying to stay awake during GOLD, you not only realize why Kent State happened, but why it was also fully justified. As a matter of fact, I was so charged up after viewing this musty 1968 relic that I went down to my local college campus and shot three kids playing hacky-sack.

OK, not really, but I did kick their sack down a sewer-hole just to spite them, and to spite this movie.

Like many lost-movie obsessives, when word hit that GOLD was going to get a proper DVD release, I was excited, picturing a Jodorowsky-lite countercultural epic, possibly a pre-indie free-love take on the well-documented lost American Dream of the 60s, complete with multi-colored acid trips, psych-rock freak-outs and plenty of flower-power pubic-hair. At least that's what I was promised, dammit.

Instead, I got a fifth-rate group of stoned community theater rejects/draft dodgers—led by "comedian" Del Close—rolling around in the mud while espousing anti-war sentiments and aimlessly driving sputtering jalopies while dressed as famed mass-murderer Che Guevara. Improvised elections are also held on a train. The MC5 mostly blare on the soundtrack and everyone remains happily unemployable. If this is what the young people were doing while our Boys were dying face-down in the Vietnamese jungles, then sign me up to the Ohio National Guard and hand me a bayonet!

With no rhyme, no reason and no proper editing techniques, it's as if the school from BILLY JACK made a movie and decided to actually write the screenplay after the thing was already in theaters. Never clever, never funny and never enlightening, GOLD is just a total unwatchable mess, from start to finish. It's the Altamont of free-love flicks with every frame a pool-cue to Meredith Hunter’s skull.

And this Del Close guy...in every book written about comedy, every tastemaker to come out of Second City or the Groundlings will rave on and on about this dude as the "father of improvisational comedy", "the funniest man who you've never heard of", and so on. If GOLD is any inclination of his talents, there's a reason why you've never heard of him.

GOLD...you blew it, man.

On the other hand, APHRODISIAC!: THE SEXUAL SECRET OF MARIJUANA, manages to blow everything in sight.

Is marijuana an aphrodisiac? While I know some women who would easily fellate you for a dime-sack of high quality hydroponic sticky-icky with no hesitation, I have a feeling that has more to do with low self-esteem and the lack of a positive male role model growing up than it does any type of magically seductive ingredient laced within those tenderly pungent pot-buds.

Sadly, I personally have never been privy to such THSleazy doings--though it hasn’t been for a lack of trying--nor have I ever been to a swanky cocktail party wherein a joint is casually passed around and eventual inhalation of the demon weed leads to a spontaneously nude encounter group session wherein pock-faced, fully-bushed cuties are told to stare at your bathing-suit area and gently caress your mons pubis, as I am repeatedly promised in this 1971 sexploitation relic.

Sorry, APHRODISIAC!: THE SEXUAL SECRET OF MARIJUANA, but while you dubiously proclaim that cannabis is an ancient sexual enticer, a natural Spanish Fly of sorts that will lead even the most frigid broad to drop trou and let you plow, in my experience, it’s typically just two or three dudes chafing it up on a Goodwill couch, barely watching AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE and, almost ritualistically, going to sleep, alone, with a belly full of Salsa Verde Doritos, depressed that in their Maui Wowie haze that they can’t even maintain the most pathetic of erections for some tearful self-stimulation before passing out to side one of Jefferson Starship’s RED OCTOPUS.

Your visual dissertation just doesn’t hold (bong) water, APHRODISIAC! It does, however, hold other, thicker, fluids. While I’m sure in their heart-of-hearts the makers of this movie thought they were presenting a strong case for the use of marijuana as a sexual aide, all that hard work and scientific research is pretty much lost entirely the first moment unapologetic on-screen penetration occurs between two of the saddest, most unphotogenic low-rent porn actors the Bowery-based modeling agency could rustle up.

And, you know, I kinda liked that. The idea of a director trotting out to the nearest homeless shelter, paying a belligerent morphine-addict $10 to mime the most reptilian of sexual encounters with an equally uninterested, possibly dead hooker, using every diseased thrust as an opportunity to feel something other than the lifetime of mind-numbing regret and stomach-growling hunger...well that’s some sexy shit. It makes me feel like a shadowy Italian businessman who just paid $5000 to sit in a hotel room with other equally shadowy businessman--mostly Japanese--to watch a Bolivian snuff flick. I’m sure we can all relate.

APHRODISIAC! is a resin-crusted treasure of timeless misinformation and counter-culture propaganda, making the viewer not only never want to smoke reefer, but never procreate either. That’s a hell of a lot more effective than anything Nancy Reagan ever did, unless there’s a topless “Just Say No” PSA of hers floating around out there somewhere that I don’t know about. And I hope there is.

THE CRIPPLED MASTERS 2: TWO CRIPPLED HEROES / THE CRIPPLED MASTERS 3: FIGHTING LIFE: Enter the Crippled Dragons!

2011-06-02T21:40:00.004-06:00

THE CRIPPLED MASTERS 2: TWO CRIPPLED HEROES / THE CRIPPLED MASTERS 3: FIGHTING LIFE
Starring Frank Shum and Jack Conn
Apprehensive Films
Reviews by Louis Fowler

I like films that inspire me to be a better person. Films that inspire me to overcome adversity, be it physical or mental. I like films that inspire me to stand up and defend the downtrodden, bring justice to the forgotten and, in the end, still have mercy on the wicked. If I happen to learn a little something about myself, well, all the better.

Unfortunately, I also like movies where pissed-off masters of ancient Asian fighting-arts violently slam their well-trained iron foot into an enemy's waiting and well-deserved face. Is it possible to combine heart-warming inspiration with well-choreographed Kung-Fu fight scenes? I'm sure PRECIOUS is a fine film, but I'm also willing to bet my last HIV-positive inner-city teen-mom that it's not gonna really have the type of beautifully violent inspiration that I’m looking for, no matter how many television sets Monique throws down a flight of stairs in a well-deserved Oscar performance.

Enter the Crippled Dragons!

Does it get more inspirational than Frank Shum and Jack Conn? I'm gonna go ahead and pre-empt you and say “no”. First introduced in the martial-arts exploitation classic THE CRIPPLED MASTERS (1978), this disabled dynamic duo—one has tiny little nubs for arms, the other atrophied, withered legs—unleashed the handi-capable dogs of Hell on anyone who ably stood in their path, teaming up to bring down an unjust Empire that refused to allow them their God-given right to live a happy, fulfilled life. It’s so damned inspirational that I almost expected Sandra Bullock to show up at the end and adopt them both.

Others must have agreed with me, because they were brought back for two more equally exploitative films: TWO CRIPPLED HEROES (1980) and FIGHTING LIFE (1981), both released recently by upstart Apprehensive Films, to a world in need of true hope and, possibly, a little more social change.

HEROES is more of the same good stuff that was seen in MASTERS: a simple farmer with useless legs, just trying to make his way in the world, armed only with gumption and a pre-Vision skateboard-like apparatus that shoots hooks at would be assailants, takes in an armless wanderer who’s best friend just happens a terrified chimpanzee led around by a chain. They have a very Riggs-Murtaugh relationship, one based on respectful bickering, and that works for them until a local girl, temporarily blinded by local thugs, finds them and teaches them that all you truly need is love. It’s the first Kung-Fu rom-com.

Also, the chimp gets murdered. It’s pretty heartbreaking. No one wants to see that.

FIGHTING LIFE, however, moves the action from the rural past to the semi-modern day, taking Shum and Conn’s bumpkin asses to the big city of Taipei, all via their foot-controlled rickshaw. While one brother makes a living doing tricks for the gawking passersby, the other one quits his job as an apprentice at a lumberyard to train for the big upcoming Kung-Fu Championship. Gangsters and thieves try to get all up in their shit, as usual. (I don’t know about you, but I am really starting to dislike gangsters and thieves!)

But the physical fighting in FIGHTING LIFE—which is awesome, mind you—is nothing compared to the civil rights battling the brothers do to earn and maintain their dignity from a cold, uncaring city that looks at them not as people, but, because of their deformities, as possible demons, spit forth from Hell, sent to curse their crops and eat their children. That’s just discrimination, pure and simple, and FIGHTING LIFE goes out of its way to not only dispel these myths, but to also show that the disabled can—and should—be treated valuable members of society. Especially when they can totally kick your ass.

Apprehensive Films’ transfers, by the way, are horrible. They feel like they were duped directly from a fifth-generation VHS tape. That being said, I honestly loved it and it made me feel like I was kid again, buying bootlegs from the back of ‘zines for $25 a pop. I applaud Apprehensive for not bothering to do any of this remastering-from-the-original-negatives crap. This is exactly how cult martial arts movies should be viewed and it makes the CRIPPLED experience all the more palpable, no matter what your disability is.

THOR / ALMIGHTY THOR: This is why we can’t have nice things! / This summer's biggest mockbuster!

2011-05-30T02:04:00.005-06:00

THOR
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Paramount Pictures

ALMIGHTY THOR
Starring Patricia Velasquez, Kevin Nash, Richard Grieco
Directed by Christopher Douglas-Olen Ray
The Asylum

Reviews by Louis Fowler

For years, comic book nerds, such as myself, have been clamoring for an all-encompassing, all-inclusive series of cinematic adaptations of our favorite superheroes, leading up to a Traveling Wilburys-like super-movie that has never been attempted before. And, for once, Hollywood listened. IRON MAN, THE INCREDIBLE HULK, IRON MAN 2, the recently released THOR and the upcoming CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. We, the teeming, overweight masses of graphic fandom, are finally getting our way! We should be rejoicing in the aisles!

But we’re not. Or, rather, you’re not. No, instead, like everything else that’s comic-related these day, you’re bitching about it. Bitching about how the S.H.I.E.L.D. elements are unnecessary, bitching about how Nick Fury’s segments feel “thrown in”, bitching about other characters having only a one-minute cameo. Just bitching. No wonder why Hollywood has refused to listen to you for so long. It’s a prime example of why we can’t have nice things.

It seems to have reached an apex with THOR, a movie that, for all intents and purposes, is a total blast, making me a total fan out of a character I’ve never even cared about before. The movie made THOR accessible for once, but what’s the first thing I hear coming out of the theater? A group of 40-somethings griping that they “should’ve done the Beta Ray Bill saga instead”. Yep, one of the stupidest stories in the entire THOR mythos, wherein an alien space-horse assumes the mantle of the Thunder God, as the first movie in a THOR series. I’m actually surprised I didn’t hear anyone say they wanted an adaptation of the time Loki turned Thor into a frog.

With eternal apologies to Walt Simonson, those stories are exact reason I never got into THOR. It just seemed like a total reach of storytelling that, even as a kid, I just didn’t want to deal with. Director Kenneth (DEAD AGAIN) Branagh and his team of screenwriters made the character of Thor, normally an unlikable jerk in the comics, into a wholly likable human one and, even more so, the perpetually scheming Loki into a classically tragic figure that, horned helmet and all, elicited actual pathos and reasoning for who he is and what he does. It was a grounded, fun take on the almost 50-year-old hero, one that I didn’t expect. One that I wanted to follow and become a fan of.

But, even more than that, I love how seamlessly Marvel is inserting this whole covert massive S.H.I.E.L.D./ Avengers storyline into the proceedings, creating a big-budget mini-series of sorts. It’s getting you involved, getting you pumped and making you actually pay attention to what’s going on, a step above the typical summer popcorn fare. Maybe that’s why it’s hated on so much? I loved seeing Samuel L. (DEF BY TEMPTATION) Jackson showing up as Nick Fury and, in THOR, it was awesome to see Jeremy (NATIONAL LAMPOON’S SENIOR TRIP) Renner’s cameo as Hawkeye. Think about it: we live in a period of filmed entertainment where a D-lister like Hawkeye is actually in a big-budget summer movie. I never expected that, let alone an event movie like THOR, to ever honestly be made with care and forethought. We should appreciate that, not spit on it.

The Asgardian scenes were handled realistically enough to not be silly, with an epic scope that remained true to the comics. The earth-bound scenes, filled with mostly fish-out-of-water-style humor, kept me smiling the whole time. Chris (THE SADDLE CLUB) Hemsworth is Thor. I can’t even imagine anyone else could’ve done a better job. Tom (Um…THOR) Hiddleston’s Loki is an even bigger surprise, going straight to subtle over bombastic. And Sir Anthony (FREEJACK) Hopkins? Great as Odin. Great.

One more thing, one other complaint people have had about the movie I’d like to address, is the “forced” romance between Thor and Dr. Jane Foster, played with typical cardboard wide-eyeness by Natalie (MR. MAGORIUM’S WONDER EMPORIUM) Portman. Sure, these two quickly fall in love and are given no real reason to, but, then again, they don’t need to. It’s actually an extremely real type of relationship: Thor is an impossibly attractive man, with a perfect, chiseled body and a sweetly rakish demeanor. Given the chance, ANY woman will choose a man like that over, say, a chubby nerd with a good sense of humor wearing a GUNDAM shirt three sizes too small. Because that’s what, when given the chance, women will always want. He’s a God and he likes her—of course she’s going to like him! Any woman would! The critical anger about their relationship comes, I feel, from the pangs of knowing that you, the typical genre fan, would never, ever have a chance with a woman over a guy like him, imagined character or not. Either put the burritos down and do some sit-ups or learn to deal with it.

THOR is a fantastic flick, a good time that we really should appreciate more because, let me tell you, these good times ain’t gonna last forever. Comic book adaptations aren’t going to be the genre du jour too much longer, so enjoy them while you can. Quit taking them for granted.

As fun as THOR is, however, you can always rely on The Asylum to make an even more fun movie, even if it is for all the wrong reasons. For a few years now, these straight-to-video kingpins have been churning out what’s called “mockbusters”, suspiciously similar low-budget rip-offs (for lack of a better word) of current blockbuster theatrical releases. Did you like TRANSFORMERS? You’ll love TRANSMORPHERS! Did PARANORMAL ACTIVITY give you the shivers? PARANORMAL ENTITY will make you crap your pants! And, as great a movie THOR is, the Asylum’s ALMIGHTY THOR is possibly better, at least in terms of sheer cinematic insanity.

Filmed on the cheap and even going as far as to premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to call it, ugh, “SyFy”), this mind-numbingly loco version of the classic Norse myths features a pale, menacing Richard (IF LOOKS COULD KILL) Grieco as Loki and, in the world’s biggest middle finger to classically-trained actors like Hopkins, former wrestler Kevin (TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: THE SECRET OF THE OOZE) Nash as Odin.

The Thor depicted here is far from the muscle-bound hero we all know and love; instead he’s a whiny, petulant wannabe-warrior who is prone to crying jags. Lots of them. Every time anything goes the slightest bit wrong, Thor starts to weep and emote and hang his head low, usually forcing the bo-staff flinging Jarnsaxa (Patricia (MINDHUNTERS) Velasquez) to take up the slack and dispatch of whatever CGI-baddies come their way.

Loki escapes from Hell with a handful of dragon-dogs and heads up to Asgard, which, awesomely enough, looks a lot like the lush forests of Southern California. He wants the “Hammer of Invincibility”—which is basically a sharp rock tied to a stick—so he can rule the world, or at least a minorly cost-effective portion of it. Odin gets his ass slayed and the Hammer is sent to another dimension.

Thor must man up and find the Hammer in modern-day California, or at least the Los Angeles alleyways thereof. He’s taught how to use a Uzi and...well, that’s something I’ve always wanted to see my entire life. God bless you, the Asylum. Monsters attack the city, Thor forges a new Hammer and Richard Grieco gets to eat for another week.

Cody (LAFFAPALOOZA!) Deal manages to be the greatest and worst Thor of all-time, giving such an emotionally chaotic performance that is should be studied by drama students for years to come. But, then again, you’d need such a stirring performance like that for a movie like this; it plays like a pre-teen’s creative writing assignment, a piece of THOR fan-fiction that is so wildly creative and so tonally manic that, if given to a school counselor to read, the kid would surely be prescribed some sort of ADHD drug.

Oh yeah: it’s directed by Christopher (MEGA SHARK VS. CROCOSAURUS) Douglas-Olen Ray, the son of legendary director Fred (CYCLONE) Olen Ray. There’s gotta be something in the genes, because dude’s every bit the mad genius his dad is. Maybe together they can make their own low-budget mockbuster superhero crossover? I look forward to seeing Metal-Head, Gamma-Beast, Sgt. Patriot and the Almighty Thor coming together in VINDICATOR FORCE 3000. Don’t let me down, the Asylum!

INSIDIOUS: 2011 ain't over yet, but we can safely assume this is the scariest movie of the year. Possibly any year.

2011-04-12T11:11:00.007-06:00

INSIDIOUS
Starring Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson, Lin Shaye
Directed by James Wan
Alliance Films/Film District
Review by Louis Fowler

If there's one thing that I will always be indebted to my parents (in particular, my mother) for, it's raising me in a highly superstitious Mexican-Catholic atmosphere that taught me to not only believe in evil, but in the fact that it surrounds us at all times, laying in wait to possess us and ultimately do it's bidding. Demons are real, devils are real and, if you want to go there, Satan is real.

Now I know this isn't a kosher attitude to have in today's "do what thou wilt" climate, where it's easier to profess a belief in nothing as a way to fully exonerate ourselves from any and all physical and spiritual wrongdoing, but, throughout my relatively short life, personal experiences with demonic forces have led me to eschew this popular line of rejectional thought and truly see that the dark side of life and death, heaven and hell, redemption and torture does exist and manifests itself when we are at our weakest. I have dealt, head-on, with otherworldly evil and it has dealt with me right back. Take that as you will.

But try talking to self-proclaimed skeptics about all that and, well, all of a sudden their loudly advertised "open-mind" is sealed tighter than Fort Knox on lockdown. Maybe that's why I completely identified and remained utterly enthralled with INSIDIOUS. It's like having a friend who you can tell your unbelievable experiences to and they actually understand, nodding in approval and breathlessly waiting to commiserate with their own story. I don't know director James Wan or writer Leigh Whannell's actual thoughts on the matter of evil and it's regards to the afterlife are, but these guys seem to, at least subconsciously, "get it", managing to put every single fear and shiver that runs through your mind as you're laying in a bed, in the extreme dark, unable to sleep and absolutely sure that someone or something is staring at you, studying you and waiting for you to fall asleep, right there on the screen.

The basic story is nothing new: family moves into house, gets terrorized by ghosts, needs to get rid of them. But what is new is how Wan and Whannell use this plot as a device for a study in total anticipatory fear, to see how far they can go--and it works. INSIDIOUS is pure terror, pure fear, pure tension, but also pure entertainment. Think of the movie like a Jack-in-the-Box: you turn the crank, "Pop Goes the Weasel" chimes and you know, you just know, that any minute that damn clown is going to pop out, and even though you know this, you still can't help but build up that internal fear and tension. You done this a million times, but, when it does happen, when that evil little harlequin springs up and out, you still let out a surprised shriek, followed by an uncomfortable giggle, ashamed that it got you. Again. This is how INSIDIOUS works, and works in spades.

Married couple Renai and Josh (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson, respectively) move into a new house with their three children and, while things might go bump here and there, nothing too ominous really happens until their middle child, Dalton, falls off a ladder in the attic and, eventually, winds up in a quasi-coma that can't be explained.

It's here where the proverbial shit hits the fan and Wan and Whannell unleash a torrent of ghostly scares, one right after another with almost no time to breathe as the parents try to deal not only with the depression and helplessness of having a child in such a sickly state, but also the unseen forces toying with them as well. It's during these scenes where INSIDIOUS is at it's most viscerally effective, leading me to jump and scream and white-knuckle my theater chair for a good hour. I hadn't done that since 2002's SIGNS, and that was only twice. Here, I was truly scared a record six times. Six. Proof-positive that I'm not the jaded horror fan I like to think I am.

In the final third of the movie, the parents call in a paranormal investigator (Lin Shaye) and her two bumbling assistants (I know this addition might have lost a few people, but, believe me, I needed the comic relief. It was completely welcome as far as I'm concerned, or else it might have been fright-overkill.) to prove their haunting and get to the bottom of why they are being haunted. Astral projection, demonic possession, and a brilliant twist ending all figure into it, creating a totally solid, structurally sound, absolutely perfect horror film.

But, even more than that, it's a thesis on what makes us truly afraid as a culture: the afterlife and what's waiting for us there. Sure, I'm afraid to be walking down the street and get stabbed, but, to be honest, I am even more afraid of what's waiting for me after I bleed out and die there on the sidewalk. Is there a Heaven, a Hell or do we wander the world, alone and unseen, filled with regret and constantly reliving our torturous demises? No matter how coolly atheistic we want to play it off as, deep down, inside each and everyone of us is a total fear of the great darkness that lies in waiting because, no matter how much science and reason we want to throw at it, we simply don't know for sure.

And what about those, the spirits and specters, that do know for sure? The ones watching us as we go about our daily lives, unknowing and unaware? The ones watching me as I type these words right now, waiting for that moment when I let my spiritual guard down? This is what scares me every minute of everyday and Wan and Whannell have perfectly and adeptly exploited those fears in a true masterpiece of horror cinema, cementing their reputation as the premier, if woefully underrated, genre filmmakers working today.

INSIDIOUS will scare you, will disturb you, will question you and, best of all, will thoroughly entertain you. Just get ready to sleep with one eye open for the rest of the week.

(This review originally appeared at BloodyGoodHorror.com)

DAMAGED Reading: HELLCITY: THE WHOLE DAMNED THING: A damned good read!

2011-04-11T22:49:00.004-06:00

HELLCITY: THE WHOLE DAMNED THING
Macon Blair and Joe Flood
Image Comics
Review by Louis Fowler

I think about Hell. A lot. I know that, in our feel-good, no consequences society, it's no longer Kosher to believe in God, let alone the idea of eternal punishment for infractions against him, but, as I continually face my own mortality, I can't help but to dwell on it, the idea and the reasonings behind it and the need for it to keep our society in check.

If there is a Hell, then what is it exactly? An endless sea of fire and brimstone and tormented souls? A desolate, lonely wasteland where your pleas for forgiveness from God fall on deaf ears? A horrific final hallucination as the brain dies? Or, even worse and more apropos, the life we're living at this very moment?

I like Macon Blair and Joe Flood's take on the whole matter. In their finally-concluded masterpiece HELLCITY: THE WHOLE DAMNED THING (the first part of which was reviewed here a few years back), Hell is depicted as a modern-day demonically-possessed view of our own world, teeming with cruel demons doling out punishment on a whim while humans are the lowest rung on the societal ladder. The flies on the feces.

It makes sense when you think about it. Wouldn't Hell be a place where you can never live a normal life again? Surrounded by skewed versions of the world you once knew, walking around in a living nightmare? HELLCITY, written by Blair, is a brilliantly reasonable, fantastically realistic depiction of Hell, with artist Flood thisclose to being a latter-day Hieronymus Bosch—every Satanically-detailed panel is worthy of a magnifying glass inspection.

It's all viewed through the eyes of a hard-boiled private eye, sent to Hell for his Earthly suicide. He's hired by the upper echelons of Hellcity's government to keep tabs on Satan as he goes through an embarrassing mental breakdown. As the Devil goes off the rails on the crazy train, the political coups for power mount in the boardroom as the humans revolt against their oppressors on the streets. God even makes a not-so-benevolent cameo, offering a slight bit of comical hope.

HELLCITY: THE WHOLE DAMNED THING is the most original graphic novel to come along in years, a DANTE'S INFERNO for a pop-culture obsessed generation with no religious upbringing. It's diabolically cinematic and fully fleshed-out, well worth the three-year wait which, at the time, did seem like an eternity without any anticipation of salvation. Maybe sometimes prayers do get answered.

(This review originally appeared at Bookgasm.com)

DAMAGED Goods: Tapatío Doritos? Tapatío Doritos!

2011-03-31T22:38:00.008-06:00

Some people enjoy dipping their Doritos in bean dip, others in guacamole, and a few in sour cream. Hey, to each their own, no matter how morally wrong and mentally deficient it is.

I, on the other hand, have always enjoyed splashing half a bottle of Tapatío Salsa Picante Hot Sauce deep into my well-worn bag of classic Nacho Cheese Doritos, shaking it up and enjoying the mouth-watering spiciness mingling with the powdery, rich nacho cheese dust like some sort of South of the Border, Mescaline-induced variation of Shake-N-Bake. I love and, for far too long, lived, for that lip-burning heat that comes from downing such an inventive mixture, one that I was sure no one would ever remotely understand, let alone duplicate. It reminded me of why I've admired Goth culture for so long.

For Doritos to make these, other people must want them, unless they got tired of all my letters and phone-calls. And that's probably what makes the discovery of new Tapatío Doritos so devastatingly mind-blowing: the realization that there are other people out there like me, people that can honestly relate and have probably cried alone on a Saturday night, lying in their bed, cramming the spicy food-stuffs deep into their gob, asking God why they must suffer through this life alone, woefully falling asleep before the Lords of the New Church record even finishes. I sincerely hope someone starts a Facebook group for us.

Now, to be fair, the pre-Tapatíoed Tapatío Doritos aren't as spicy or as satisfying as the real thing, but, you know, I dig 'em. They are cheesier than my own concoction (the Tapatío seems to be powdered and mixes fantastically with the omnipresent nacho cheese powdering), and it's certainly dryer--it's definitely a tasty snack-treat that manages to minorly improve on the already proven Doritos formula. If this is your first time even hearing about the Tapatío/Doritos configuration, this is a perfect starting point. As for me, however, after a couple of handfuls, I got the idea and ended up still shaking half a bottle of my own Tapatío into the bag as always. I'm pretty sure it's what God serves at his Super Bowl party. Praise be!

MONDO SASQUATCH: The Latest News, Happenings and Personal Internal Fears!

2011-03-31T22:02:00.004-06:00

Remember MONDO SASQUATCH? It's the Bigfoot trash-fiction anthology that Bookgasm, Cinema Fromage and I have been putting together, hopefully for a May, June or July 2011 release. Definitely by August. September at the latest.

When we undertook this endeavour, I gotta be honest with you: I had no idea how much work this was gonna be! I thought it was going to be all collect some stories, read some stories and, in a stroke of luck, get Harper-Collins to put it out, saving us a good lot of the job. Sadly, that last part hasn't worked out the way I hoped. But, hopefully, when the final product rolls off the print-on-demand factory line, you'll buy a copy, enjoy it and then, you know, it'll all be worth it. We've got a cover--designed by the incomparable Jim (THE GUILD, THE PLAIN JANES) Rugg--and I think it's a total work of art. You'd probably buy the book based on it. I'm kinda hoping you would.

As for the stories themselves, we received 50 or so entries and had to narrow it down to about ten. I honestly wish we had room for all of them, so picking out the ten best was insanely difficult and, often times, a maddeningly repetitive process of hand-written checklists and red-ink, but, in the end, I think I--and we--did a great job and picked all the right, most appropriate ones for this introductory volume. So, with that, the final selections for MONDO SASQUATCH are as follows:

• “I Have Always Wondered What Bigfoot Meat Tastes Like: An Introduction” by Louis Fowler
• “Arlo Felling Exists” by Richard Tiernan
• “Bigfoot and the Bone Face Murders” by Michael May
• “Bigfoot Must Die” by Frankie Marino
• “From Hell’s Heart” by Desmond Reddick
• “Incident at Crater Lake” by Casey Criswell
• “Roadside Attraction” by Matthew P. Mayo
• “Sacrifice” by Shawn Gilbreath
• “Sasquatch vs. El Chupacabra” by Douglas Waltz
• “Strike” by Michael D. Winkle
• “The Ballad of the Skunk Ape” by Jarret Keene
• “The Encounter” by Mike White
• “The Tale of Peter Rabbit and the Sasquatch” by Beatrix Potter and Rod Lott
• “The Tragic Hazing of Bryan Igfoot” by Eric Dimbleby
• “Theodore Roosevelt and the Great American Anthropoid” by Bill Adcock

Now, it's time to really get my ass in gear and work on the layouts. I gotta admit that this is the part where I feel like I am really in over my head! I want it to look not only good, but professional. I don't want it to be confused with every other carelessly designed self-published tome that seems to continually cross my path--as a book reviewer, at least once a week there's a new contender for the new worst book design I've ever seen and, sorry to say it, but people do judge books by their covers. I know I do. This type of extreme self-awareness make designing pretty hard to do, especially when self-publishing for the first time with few real resources. If you have any experience and want to help do layouts, by all means, please, e-mail me at damagedhearing@gmail.com. After all, we're all in this together, right bro? Right?

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 03.21.11

2011-03-21T11:08:00.007-06:00

Another entry in my continuing series of spectacular DVD finds at national closeout chain Big Lots, where DVDs are not some paltry public domain affair. No, the Lots gets major movies from major studios, often times selling them for under $5. In today's economy, that's cheaper than a night at the movies--and you could probably even pick up a guitar-shaped canister of cheddar Elvis Presley popcorn while you're there. Why even go out? Here's my collective haul from the past few weeks--feel free to post yours in the comments!

The last time I posted a Big Lots update was a little before Christmas, so, as you could guess, my pile of priceless finds has become rather unwieldy, begging me to brag on this, my only forum. More than three-fourths of this entry's DVDs are from Paramount and New Line Cinema, who I guess they're liquidating their back-stock, probably after losing so much money on the belief that people are clamoring for copies of THE ICE PIRATES. Which brings me to...

* THE ICE PIRATES - A mid-80s HBO classic, this sci-fi comedy never really caught on with the general public who, at the time, refused to buy VEGA$ star Robert Urich as a swashbuckling intergalactic buccaneer. Their loss. But, just think: somewhere, in an alternate universe, this was a huge hit and SPENSER: FOR HIRE never existed. I want to live in that world.

* THE FILTH AND THE FURY - The best music documentary ever made, and I say that without any hyperbole. Even if you can't stand the Sex Pistols, Julien Temple's take on their story is McLaren-level mesmerizing.

* LIPSTICK - Another late-night HBO classic, Margaux Hemingway is a high-fashion model who gets raped. Quite a bit. It would be horrible and unnerving if the movie wasn't so, you know...exploitative and trashy.

* RESURRECTION BLVD.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON and PRICE OF GLORY - 90% of movies and television shows based around Latino families seem to focus on generations of failed boxers and their last great brown hope for redemption. Even though I am Latino myself, I can't identify with the boxing stuff because my family was more into getting good grades--which, now that I think about it, I probably would've been better off training in a ring of some sort. However, if these movies are to be believed, my little brother would've been shot by gang-members eventually. It's quite the double-edged sword that should probably only be experienced vicariously through media.

* LA BAMBA - 10% of movies and television shows based around Latino families seem to focus on dead Hispanic singers and songwriters who were their family's last great brown hope for redemption. Even though I am Latino myself, I can't identify with the singing stuff because my family was more into getting good grades--which, now that I think about it, I probably would've been better off training my vocal cords or learning an instrument of some sort. However, if these movies are to be believed, my little brother would've been shot by gang-members eventually. It's quite the double-edged sword that should probably only be experienced vicariously through media.

* THE ANDY MILONAKIS SHOW: SEASONS ONE and TWO - You know what, you can hate on me all you like, but I found this show funny when it was first on MTV, and dammit, I find it funny now on discarded close-out DVDs. To quote Tupac, "Only God can judge me."

* NORBIT - I had always derided and ridiculed Eddie Murphy's NORBIT. But, with a seemingly full pallet on display right in the aisle, something called out to me in that Big Lots bin, begging me to take a copy home. For $3, I thought, what could I truly lose? Long story short, I identified with NORBIT to the point of tears. TEARS.

* NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON 1 - The last great spoof, the last great National Lampoon's movie, the last great Emilio Estvez performance. Please come back, Gene Quintano, the parody-genre needs you more than ever.

* PERFECT / STAYING ALIVE - Two of the three movies that ruined John Travolta's career (c'mon Big Lots, get in TWO OF A KIND so I can make it a hat trick!). So, of course, I'm gonna buy them on sight. STAYING ALIVE is the Sylvester Stallone (!) directed sequel to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and is embarrassingly fun. PERFECT, however, is not as fun, especially if you're not a fan of a scantly-clad Travolta doing aerobicized pelvic-thrusts in your general direction. Of which, sadly, I am not.

* THE WENDELL BAKER STORY - One of my favorite discoveries of the past few years, I remember reading about this Luke Wilson-directed comedy, but it disappeared, only to be unceremoniously dumped on DVD and, almost de-ceremoniously, dumped in the waiting, gaping Big Lots bins. It's an extremely charming deadpan, low-key 70s-esque movie, all with a welcome and warm Texas-twang. And, you know, Eve Mendes. So, yeah.

* JUICE - "You got the Juice now, grandma..." I really wish Big Lots would get some copies of DON'T BE A MENACE in. That movie's the bomb.

* MOST WANTED - Remember that period of cinematic history, in the early-to-mid 90s, when Keenan Ivory Wayans headlined just about every other action movie released? I was such an IN LIVING COLOR fan that I saw A LOW DOWN DIRTY SHAME, THE GLIMMER MAN and this, MOST WANTED, in the theaters. And you know what? I thought he made a pretty darn good action hero. But, most of America disagreed because they enjoy keeping a brother down. A--holes.

And, finally, it's not a DVD, but I did find Don DeLuise's EAT THIS TOO! cookbook, featuring numerous low-fat recipes and is endorsed by Angie Dickinson, Burt Reynolds and Dennis Franz. And if it's good enough for them, then by God, it's good enough for me.

DAMAGED 2.0 PRESENTS LOUIS'S (BELATED) FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2010!

2011-02-17T15:35:00.007-07:00

I was originally not going to run this because on my radio show, DAMAGED Hearing (Tuesdays at 1 PM on KRFC-FM!), I felt that over three consecutive shows detailing and playing cuts from my favorite albums of 2010, I said all that I needed to say.

And then the Grammys happened.

All the social media networks were ablaze with the typical complaints and praises, ranging from well-regulated gushing of the faux-shock superficial-feminism of Lady Gaga to the knuckle-dragging idiotic wishes that someone like Danzig (they're still popular, right?) should win “Album of the Year”. And let's not forget the Great Bieber Debates and the Arcade Fire fans who finally felt like, for the first time in their life, they had some semblance of self-esteem.

The best music of 2010—according to me, natch—was in no way manipulated and fellated by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. And that's something I respect. Awards are, for the most point, pointless. A moment of glory for a fleeting trend, a badge of honor for something that will be regarded as dated and hokey in six months. The best music has staying power and replaying power and, to me, that's better than any recycled hunk of bronze.

Because of DAMAGED Hearing, I am inundated with new music on a constant, almost overwhelming basis. Most of it, true enough, is crap that goes right into the re-sell bin, but those treasures you come across...those are the things you want to turn other people on to in the hopes that, maybe too, they'll see what you see, especially of singers and bands they're unaware even exist. Does it work? Sometimes. And it for those “sometimes” that I live for.

The two albums that I became most obsessed with in 2010 were Shooter Jennings & Hierophant's BLACK RIBBONS and Texas Tornados' ESTA BUENO. Everyone who came in contact with me was probably given a Gospel of sorts about these records.

After a string of fantastic neo-outlaw country albums, Shooter Jennings did a complete 180º, releasing BLACK RIBBONS, a powerful, hallucinogenic, not-so-paranoid treatise on New World Order censorship, with angry, grinding industrial guitars (“Wake Up!”, “Don't Feed the Animals”, “Lights in the Sky”) willfully mingling with melancholy, dark ballads (“Black Ribbons”, “All of This Could Have Been Yours”, “When the Radio Goes Dead”) about the loss of all our American freedoms. Stephen King acts as a narrator of sorts, a COAST2COAST-esque DJ named Will O' the Wisp, who, on the last night before the government commandeers the airwaves, plays the apocalyptic tunes of his favorite band, Hierophant. It's a true, out-of-left-field masterpiece that is equal parts scary and moving, prophetic and heart-breaking.

On a lighter note is the return of Tex-Mex rockers the Texas Tornados. With original members Freddy Fender and Doug Sahm long gone, Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez heroically soldier on (with Doug's equally-talented son Shawn in tow), creating an album that is impossible not to completely and totally fall in love with. Their latest is ESTA BUENO and it's filled with the clever, get-up-out-your-chair-and-bailar Tejano-tunes that is like the best Mexican dinner you've ever had: wholly satisfying and filling and tomorrow, you'll want it all over again. “Who's to Blame, Senorita?” and “My Sugar Blue” should've been the top country hits of 2010, while “They Don't Make 'Em Like I Like” has become a personal anthem of sorts. Pure, unironic fun that goes down smooth like a six-pack of cold Lone Star. In bottles.

Other albums I spun quite a bit: The Bad Plus-NEVER STOP / The Bird and the Bee-INTERPRETING THE MASTERS, VOL. 1: A TRIBUTE TO DARYL HALL AND JOHN OATES / Calibro 35-RITORNANO QUELLI DI... / Neil Diamond-DREAMS / Jeff Finlin-THE TAO OF MOTOR OIL / John Francis-THE BETTER ANGELS / Tom Jones-BLAME & PRAISE / Toby Keith-BULLETS IN THE GUN / Jerry Lee Lewis-MEAN OLD MAN / Raul Malo-SINNERS & SAINTS / Eli “Paperboy” Reed-COME AND GET IT / Sade-SOLDIER OF LOVE / Ringo Starr-Y NOT / Zac Brown Band-YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE

Honorable mentions: Cee-Lo Green-THE LADY KILLER / Chromeo-BUSINESS CASUAL / The Flaming Lips-DARK SIDE OF THE MOON / David Hidalgo and Louis Perez-THE LONG GOODBYE / Scissor Sisters-NIGHT WORK / Rob Zombie-HELLBILLY DELUXE 2

Best compilations, reissues and remasters of 2010: Bronco-MIS FAVORITAS / Freddy Fender-GREATEST HITS / Alan Jackson-34 NUMBER ONES / John Lennon & Yoko Ono-DOUBLE FANTASY: STRIPPED DOWN / Paul McCartney & Wings-BAND ON THE RUN / The Rolling Stones-EXILE ON MAIN STREET / Various Artists-COME AND GET IT: THE BEST OF APPLE RECORDS / Various Artists-SWEET HOME ALABAMA: THE COUNTRY MUSIC TRIBUTE TO LYNYRD SKYNYRD

Best ultra-indie releases of 2010:

The Burt Bacharak Fight Club-KILL POPULAR EP: Out of Nottingham, UK, The Burt Bacharak Fight Club is poppy and acerbic, with the stellar “In the Miso Soup” leading the charge. This song is impossibly catchy and bouncy, a bit different than the other songs on the EP, but it sets the tone and immediately alerts you that these guys ain't f*cking around. Download KILL POPULAR for free here.

Dead Neon-DEAD NEON: The literal, absolute soundtrack to the upcoming Apocalypse. Grinding, growling and radiation-scarred beyond recognition, Dead Neon is the last remaining band in a decimated Las Vegas, an ear-boxing doom-n-sludge travelogue that still manages to eschew typical harder rock cliches by always finding an irrepressible melody throughout. Download DEAD NEON for free here.

Feel Spectres-FEEL SPECTRES: From the ashes of American Boyfriends, the finest b-movie-infused power-pop band to come out of Oklahoma City, comes the Feel Spectres. This go round, there's less power and more trash (let's just go ahead and coin the sub-genre now: trash-pop!), keeping the grindhouse vibe proudly going with tunes like “Vampire Bop” and “13 Dead Cats”, but with the sweetest harmonies this side of a Raspberries LP. Listen to FEEL SPECTRES here.

Just As Good As Ezra-POLITICS, VOL. 1: As an alternative-conservative, as I consider myself to politically be, I'll be the first to admit that most “art” created by typical conservatives is woefully lame and hilariously heavy-handed. We can mostly thank 9/11 for that. But, as these “young gun” alt-cons with an actual fandom (and understanding) of pop-culture start to replace the stodgy old regime, thankfully the art created by (and for) us is actually getting good. Let's go ahead and refer to the one-man band Just As Good as Ezra as the “Rocket '88” of this new sub-genre, the originator and the emancipator, writing and producing ear-drum candy that is heavy, introspective and, most importantly, accessible. Actually, the most important thing, now that I think about it, is that it's just plain f*cking good. Sorry, terrorists! Listen to POLITICS, VOL. 1 here.

Ben Prytherch-SONGS TO MAKE LOVE TO YOUR BOYFRIEND BY: Ben is a close, personal friend of mine. And, when a friend of yours releases an album, as many of mine are wont to do, it can become a slippery-slope of bitter resentment and hurt feelings. I mean, what if it's not very good? Even worse, what if it just totally sucks? With Ben, however, I never worry about that because he consistently delivers the goods. On his first solo record, Ben, minimally armed with a guitar, is at his bitingly self-deprecating best, but unlike the typical Fort Collins singer-songwriter who puts on the mask of a sensitive guy in a cheap ploy to score hippie-trim, he actually has a fun point with his album, like an heir to the throne of Randy Newman. Classic Randy Newman, not “I Love to See You Smile” Randy Newman. Listen to SONGS TO MAKE LOVE TO YOUR BOYFRIEND BY here.

DAMAGED 2.0 PRESENTS LOUIS'S (BELATED) FAVORITE MOVIES - THEATRICAL OR OTHERWISE - OF 2010!

2011-01-27T00:12:00.015-07:00

INCEPTION? That's just the Little Rascals putting on an elementary school production of DREAMSCAPE. THE SOCIAL NETWORK? I need an “unlike” button for that one. BLACK SWAN? It's called a sandwich, Portman. Look into it. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT? Since when did Lifetime start making theatrical movies? TRUE GRIT? Yeah, you heard my two-cents on that already.

Many of my favorite movies released in 2010—nine out of twelve, to be precise—were either sent packing straight-to-DVD or, if they were given the blissful opportunity to actually show in a theater, didn't bother to play anywhere in my locale. That's fine and dandy as far as I'm concerned; I used to love going to the movies, there was a real thrill and wonderment, as CINEMA PARADISO as it sounds, to taking in fresh entertainment on an immersive silver screen. But, as people get ruder, cellphones get brighter and movies get dumber, I'd just rather wait for it on DVD, in the comfort of my EZ-Boy, with my own reasonably priced snacks and beloved dog sitting right beside me. Why bother risking it anymore? The whole world has become a 42nd Street grindhouse, except now, the movies are all CGI-animated fiascoes from Dream works. This is progress, right?

These probably aren't the “best” movies of 2010, but they are my favorites, the ones I enjoyed the most, the ones that stuck with me and the ones that, if we lived in a perfect world, I would have camped out a week before, in front of the theater, making sure that I was first in line on opening day, instead of just walking the dog up to the Redbox.

LOUIS FOWLER'S (BELATED) FAVORITE MOVIES—THEATRICAL OR OTHERWISE—OF 2010 (In alphabetical order.)

THE A-TEAM (20th Century Fox): Definitely the most fun movie of 2010. Based, as you very well know, on the 80s TV show—one that, to be honest with you, I remember more for the merchandising than the actual show—this adaption should be the blueprint, now and forever, on how to do the perfect big summer action flick. Director Joe Carnahan—a more likable Brett Ratner, if you will—brings the same restraint that he showed with SMOKIN' ACES, which is to say, absolutely none. I mean, c'mon: how can you hate a movie that uses a free-falling tank as a weapon of mass destruction?

BITCH SLAP (20th Century Fox): Looking for some utterly reprehensible, socially irresponsible, comically adolescent, balls-to-the-wall, Russ Meyer-worshiping, girl-on-girl-versus-girl action? Then BITCH SLAP will knock you on your ass in no time! This is the movie that Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF should have been. Three tough, buxom, Sapphic ladies gun-fighting, cat-fighting and, um, waterhose-fighting, in the desert for 90 blissfully trashy minutes. XENA veteran Rick Jacobson directs with a witty, gratuitous lens that understands and lovingly cradles all the exploitation clichés of T&A-drenched sex and violence, without ever having to rationalize it.

EDGE OF DARKNESS (Warner Bros.): If we can forgive child-rapist Roman Polanski for his “misdeeds”, than surely we can let Mel Gibson get away with a mere slap on the wrist. Wife-beating and racial slurs? Sorry, but I'm from Oklahoma—you'll have to do better than that to get me to stop seeing your movies, Mel! Especially when they are as enthralling as EDGE OF DARKNESS. A mercilessly gritty Gibson is a Boston cop investigating the death of his liberal activist daughter and the corporate agenda behind it. It sounds rote, but between Gibson's conviction and Martin Campbell's brutally shock-worthy direction—seriously, there's two scenes in particular, that, if you don't jump ten feet out of your chair, you're already dead or being gang-raped by minorities because you were provocatively dressed—this was a movie that sadly missed too many must-see lists, simply because of the hilariously stupid behind-the-scenes drama.

THE EXPENDABLES (Lionsgate): THE EXPENDABLES is a fun guy's movie, but is it great? No, not really—the badly-shot fight scenes really hurt it—but it makes my list for what it stands for: a return to old-school mature action film movie-making, starring real men and loaded with even more testosterone than bullets. Not to mention it beating out such celluloid emasculations EAT PRAY LOVE and, even more so, SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD, in it's opening weekend. Stallone says that a re-cut special edition DVD is on the way later this year, and I'm pretty excited to see what went wrong be made so right.

EYEBORGS (Image Entertainment): If you can get past the made-for-SyFy title, EYEBORGS is actually one of the best science-fiction films of the past ten years, and I say that with zero irony. While the story of robots gaining sentience and turning on their human creators is old hat, EYEBORGS takes the idea and mixes in a truly prophetic, anti-government stance, revealing a future that could be only days away. In an effort to curb terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security institutes the all-seeing Optical Defense Intelligence Network, wherein every American is monitored at all times — for their own good, of course, by mobile cameras, nicknamed "eyeborgs" in a plot to instill fear in US citizens and help the government overthrow oil-rich countries. Sound familiar? It should—you're living in it! (Duhn-duhn-DOUHHHHN!)

HACHI: A DOG'S TALE (Sony Pictures): I like action and horror flicks just fine, but, you know, the older I get, the more at the end of the day I just want to see movies about dogs and the bonds they have with their humans. It's probably why I liked MARMADUKE more than anyone else in America. And while I did find MARMADUKE likably funny, no other movie touched my heart and soul in 2010 the way HACHI: A DOG'S TALE did. Even though it boasts a top-notch cast—Richard Gere and Joan Allen—and is directed by Lasse Hallström, for some reason it totally skipped theaters and went straight to DVD, something I still don't get. (Please, Hollywood, explain that to me in the comments section!) It's adapted from a legendary Japanese story about a lovable Akita who, after the passing of his owner, sits and waits for him everyday at the train station where they would meet after work. It moved me to uncontrollable tears numerous times—even as I write this, I am getting choked up—and makes me wish the Academy had a special Oscar for “Best Animal Performance”. I loved this movie so much. I need a moment...

HARRY BROWN (Sony Pictures): Clint Eastwood's GRAN TORINO is a fantastic movie that, sadly, crapped out in the last fifteen minutes, offering inner-city hope and forgiveness instead of bullet-riddled gang-members. HARRY BROWN beautifully rectifies that, with a stoic Michael Caine—who, even at 77, continues to be THE EFFIN' MAN—pumping round after round into the English wigger-youths terrorizing his apartment complex. It's the best case for my pro-stance on vigilantism since the first DEATH WISH. Or the second DEATH WISH. Or definitely the third DEATH WISH.

LOST BOYS: THE THIRST (Warner Home Entertainment): The best horror movie of 2010, straight-to-DVD or otherwise. As our society continues it's downward spiral into a living Jack Chick tract (they get read!), vampires, evil creatures that should be feared are continually made into too cool ironic anti-heroes and asexual panty-wetting teen icons. After a truly mediocre first outing, the makers of LOST BOYS: THE THIRST must've gotten my memo, because they get it absolutely f-cking right this time, making a horror-comedy that puts bloodsuckers back where they belong: in Hell with a big fat stake through their heart. Even more so, THE THIRST is a brutally sly commentary on the current trend of romanticized TWILIGHT-esque vamps, with star Corey Feldman going out of his way to remind us that they're not supposed to be sexy, they're supposed to be undead Satanic scumbags who rape and kill everything that gets in their path of world domination. Too bad no one is listening.

MACHETE (20th Century Fox): ¡Viva Machete! Mexploitation hits the big time, about twenty years too late, but hey, it's here now, so that's something, right? Danny Trejo—the Hispanic Charles Bronson if there ever was one—is a one-man ass-kicking ex-Federale who slices and dices anyone who gets in his way, from racist politicians to overweight drug-lords. Robert Rodriguez, as always, delivers, but even more fun than the movie itself—oh, and it is a total blast—was watching my white friends squirm when they were telling me why they didn't like it, desperately coming up with words and euphemisms as not to appear racist themselves. Whites are so adorable when they're trying to be PC. It's how Obama got elected, after all!

MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE (First Look): Werner Herzog and David Lynch? Working together on a film? The only way I know this isn't a dream is because there isn't a dancing little person whispering "garmonbozia" in my ear. A fevered Michael Shannon stars as an unstable fella who, while whitewater rafting in Peru, begins to hear voices he later believes belong to God, speaking from an oatmeal container. I've been there, brother! Not helping matters: he's already in a manic state, constantly hounded by an oppressive mother, and obsessed with a Greek tragedy where a son slays his mother with a sword. Inspired by a true story, MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE is a taunting, haunting, well-paced psychological fable that even goes so far as to cast Willem Dafoe in the most likable role of his career. Actually, maybe the only likable role of his career.

PIGHUNT (Phase 4 Films): When it comes to monster movies, I want fun, dirty, sleazy little horror flicks that can guarantee me something I've never seen before, or, if I have seen it before, makes it so G-ddamned exaggerated that it circles back and becomes wholly original again. And, if you could, please, make it from the director of JASON X. Enter PIG HUNT. Managing to rip-off every horror movie of the past few years and still be excruciatingly original, it's got everything you could ever want in a horror movie: a-hole teens with soldier complexes, inbred backwoods rednecks, three-thousand pound mutant pigs, murderous cult-leaders with samurai swords...it's all here and it's a helluva good time.

UNTHINKABLE (Sony Pictures): Do you enjoy the torture scenes in movies like SAW or HOSTEL but wish they had a point? Even better, do you wish they'd spark a heated political debate among your friends or co-workers? OK, then here's UNTHINKABLE. An Islamic extremist has placed three nuclear devices in three cities. The government captures him and has 72 hours to find the locations. Do they offer him a Coke and a smile? Hell no! They bring in master interrogator Samuel L. Jackson, who, if you know Samuel L. Jackson, will extricate the information out of this muthaf-cka by any means necessary. And boy does he ever! UNTHINKABLE offers up an intriguing moral question without ever answering it for you: if millions of people are going to die tomorrow, is it OK to torture a man to death to save them? (The answer, of course, is yes. Sweet Lord, yes.)

Honorable mentions: THE FIGHTER, THE KARATE KID, KICK-ASS, THE LAST AIRBENDER, TRASH HUMPERS

Movies that weren't the best, but I definitely enjoyed the Hell out of them: 44 INCH CHEST, CENTURION, COP OUT, CYRUS, DEVIL, DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM, IRON MAN 2, THE LOSERS, MARMADUKE, PREDATORS, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, WINNEBAGO MAN

And, finally, movies that I'm sure would have made some sort of list if they hadn't been released in G-ddamned 3D: JACKASS 3D, PIRANHA 3D, RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE, SAW 3D

DAMAGED 2.0 Presents Louis's Belated Favorite Digital Video Discs of 2010!

2011-01-24T19:44:00.008-07:00

I hate making best of lists, especially end of the year ones. Oh, don't get me wrong: I am completely egotistical enough to think that you actually care what media I thought was top of the pops for any given year--I just hate having to go back through my collection of DVDs and DVD reviews, making huge piles of both, trying to mentally discern what was okay, what was good and what truly moved me, for better or worse.

Like last year, I was able to pair down two sets: my five favorite reissues, repackagings and reduxs, while the next five are my favorite, well, I can't say straight-to-DVD, but, more like promo screeners of independent movies that might have had a theatrical festival screening, but aren't on...I don't know how to really explain how and what I consider these movies--let's just say they’re my five favorite indie screeners I got sent that I think need to be seen by a bigger audience. Does that make sense? No? OK, well, screw it then.

LOUIS FOWLER'S FIVE FAVORITE 2010 DVD REISSUES / REPACKAGINGS / REDUXS / ETC. (In alphabetical order.)

AMERICATHON (Warner Archive): Who would have guessed that the most timely movie of 2010 would be a 30-year-old comedy starring John Ritter? Definitely not me. But thank God for Warner Archive having the wherewithal to dig the lost 1979 should-be-a-classic AMERICATHON out of the vaults. Ahead of its time and ignored when originally released, it's a brutally hilarious Nostradamus quatrain that is well worth your hope and change.

ANTICHRIST and HOUSE (HAUSU) (Both Criterion): Proof once again that nobody is the cinephile's best friend like Criterion. 1977's HOUSE is every insane, incomprehensible, indecipherable Japanese pudding commercial on YouTube rolled into one fantastically bizarre 90-minute movie, while ANTICHRIST, Lars von Trier's recent, audience-dividing masterpiece of pure animalistic hate is as soul-n-psyche eviscerating as a motion picture has ever dared to get. Is it weird I consider that a good “popcorn” movie?

STARCRASH (Shout! Factory): STAR WARS, when you get right down to it, is pretty uninspired sci-fi that coasts along purely on the arrested-development nostalgia of fanboys. On the other hand, all the rip-offs STAR WARS inspired—especially the long-time-coming and well-worth-the-wait Luigi Cozzi disasterpiece STARCRASH—now those are the flicks we should be celebrating and holding conventions for! Who wouldn't want to see a hundred fanboys dressed like Count Zarth standing in line to get a $50 autograph from Marjoe Gortner?

T.A.M.I. SHOW: COLLECTOR'S EDITION (Shout! Factory): Widely regarded as the greatest concert film of all time, 1964's T.A.M.I. SHOW is a mind-blowing collection of the most stellar talent that rock ever produced, all on one stage in a non-stop set that rivals—surpasses—Woodstock. The slick swagger of Chuck Berry, the smooth sounds of Marvin Gaye, the sweet cheater anthems of Lesley Gore, the delightful wanna-Beatles songs of Gerry and the Pacemakers, the gleeful sand-in-my-shorts tunes of the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean and, best of all, a heart-stopping, show-stealing appearance by James Brown. With talent like that, it's easy to see why America forgave him for beating his wife. Four times.

LOUIS FOWLER'S FIVE FAVORITE 2010 DVD INDIES (OR UNRELEASED SCREENERS I LOVED) FLICKS (In alphabetical order.)

HUNGRY YEARS (Last Ditch Pictures): Just as the hack-filled behind-the-scenes world of reality television was mercilessly skewered in 2006's SPECIAL NEEDS, the brother-sister duo of Isaak and Eva James are back with HUNGRY YEARS, an insanely hilarious and just as damnifying look at the empty-souled, empty-headed and empty-gestured lives of various NYC activists who are so obsessive about their causes that it does more harm than good. Following the adventures of an neurotic “restricted calorie nutritionist” as she journeys outside her numerous self-imposed comfort zones, the James' create a scathingly comical and brutally honest portrayal of people desperate to find some sort of meaning in their lives without any type of self-awareness to go with it. And, just like SPECIAL NEEDS was upon it's release, HUNGRY YEARS is the funniest movie I've seen this year and further proof that the James' are this country's greatest untapped comedy resource. And that's something I truly do believe in.

POPATOPOLIS (Imaginaut): The excruciatingly entertaining warts-and-all indie documentary POPATOPOLIS chronicles the making of legendary b-director Jim Wynorski's latest opus, THE WITCHES OF BREASTWICK. This ranks right up there with other dreamers-with-a-camera docs like AMERICAN MOVIE and AUDIENCE OF ONE, but with one main difference: Wynorski is not some deluded jerk-off trying to avoid getting a real job! He is actually mega-talented and super-driven and, if given the chance, could be one of the biggest directors working today. It's a real tragedy to see the director of such fun, entertaining movies like RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING and CHOPPING MALL wallowing in the world of these mediocre T-and-A quickies. But not tragic enough to quit watching, natch.

SATAN HATES YOU (Glass Eye Pix): I know that the whole point of James (AUTOMATONS) McKenney's SATAN HATES YOU is a parody of 60s/70s Christian scare films, but I think it works even better than that because the wit here is so razor-sharp that you could show it to a local youth group and they'd be scared straight, no questions asked. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to wager my soul that McKenney, if he ever does get tired of the low-budget grind, could churn out some of the best faith-based horror movies for reals—maybe a movie version of the famed Hell House attraction? Or an anthology based on the works of Jack Chick?

SLOW TORTURE PUKE CHAMBER (Unearthed): Speaking of Satan, here's Lucifer Valentine's latest (and, apparently, last) entry into his notorious VOMIT GORE series, SLOW TORTURE PUKE CHAMBER. Finishing up the boldly fluid bodily-fluid-drenched tale of anorexic Angela Aberdeen and the consequences of her pact with Satan, Valentine tops himself in ways that, even after two previous films that have emotionally scarred me, I never thought possible. You can go ahead and cry and spew faux vitriol over pseudo-puke poseur-pieces like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE or A SERBIAN FILM, but while you pretend to be shocked over staged depravity, Valentine is capturing it and documenting it all with the eye of a demonically-possessed voyeur. Ever wonder what they watch for pornography in Hell? Then pop this in and pop one out.

THE TAINT (Bolson Media Alliance): Looking for this year's BLACK DEVIL DOLL? Then you gotta check out THE TAINT, a defiantly un-PC genre-comedy that wants to destroy every sense of decency and morals that a viewer might be holding onto in these Last Days. An untested penile-enlargement drug gets into the water-supply, turning normal Joes into cock-crazed violent rapists who spew strings of bloody baby-batter in-between sessions of gleefully smashing female heads in with large rocks. Is it brutal feminist-minded satire or male wish-fulfillment masturbation fantasy? I'm still trying to figure that out for myself.

TRUE GRIT: That didn't pan out, did it?

2011-01-14T19:37:00.008-07:00

TRUE GRIT
Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Paramount
Review by Louis Fowler

Walking rather despondently out of TRUE GRIT, I was stopped dead in my tracks when a cold, brutal realization finally hit me: I just don't like the Coen Brothers. And, the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that I don't think I honestly ever had.

Oh, in conversations with other film-inclined friends with more assertive opinions I'd say things like “THE HUDSUCKER PROXY is a really underrated movie!” or “Hey, that guy over there didn't like BARTON FINK, let's beat the crap out of him!” or, and this I am truly ashamed of, “Yeah, I'd love to attend your BIG LEBOWSKI party! I'll bring the Kahlua!”, but it was really just a plea for pathetic acceptance from indie video-store clerks or a shortcut to impressing dumb alternative-girls who thought that I actually cared about their opinions when the whole time I was just imagining what it would be like to make-out with a girl who had tongue-ring.

I have patronized their movies out of a sense of imagined cinematic duty. With every release, I have mindlessly marched straight to the theater, laughed at all the arranged moments I was supposed to and, yet...even though there was this total sense of audience camaraderie, one where we were all on the same imagined level, I couldn't help but always be disappointed. Is this all there is to it? Why bother? But I couldn't ask those questions out loud, so I just kept it in, feeling quasi-depressed because I knew, deep down, I should like it. Everyone else likes it. Why can't I like it? After all, a million Coen Brothers fans can't be wrong, right?

FARGO? An over-acted mess. MILLER'S CROSSING? A snooze-fest. THE BIG LEBOWSKI? Tries way too hard. INTOLERABLE CRUELTY? Is that even a real movie? RAISING ARIZONA? I'll wait for the inevitable remake. THE LADYKILLERS? What's that again? O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Take a shower, hippie! BLOOD SIMPLE? Couldn't make it twenty minutes, flipped over to a rerun of THREE'S COMPANY, had a great time!

We only like the Coens because we feel like we “have” to, lest we be called out by that guy at the water-cooler who can spout off three or four quick key-phrases from Owen Gliberman's ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY review. The Coen Brothers makes us feel cinematically smarter than we really are, so we keep this ruse going. By seeing a Coen Brothers movie, that is more than enough proper personal penance for choosing a, say, Adam Sandler fart-movie over the latest Gaspar Noe art-house atrocity. It's accessible cinephilia for the masses! And none of those pesky subtitles either! Ain't I classy, ma?

Once you look past the incessant critical coddling and non-stop audience fellating, it becomes eerily easy to see that there is really nothing there except just really well-staged smoke and mirrors. The Coens are exceedingly talented technical directors, and can paint a mighty pretty picture to look at. But it's the type of picture you'd hang on the wall of a Ruby Tuesday's. It's a fantastic forgery of the real thing. They have a good eye, but no soul to make it matter.

TRUE GRIT is the film where not only have I proved myself internally right all along, but am at a point where I can say it out loud externally without fear of a social retribution—I've been a video store clerk and I've had a girl with a tongue-ring and both were sorely disappointing and not worth the effort.

Like every other movie the Coens have done, TRUE GRIT is visually stunning, but it's also cold and detached and unknowingly reptilian. Never once are they able to convey any type of “real” human emotion, even with the most talented of actors at their disposal. It's robotic, Aspergerian filmmaking at it's finest. They've got a steely, textbook knowledge of film history and design, but they can't put to use in a way that will ever emotionally connect. But, it looks so good that, when you're walking out, you think you've seen something that matters, something that is better than it really is.

That sums up TRUE GRIT.

A few hours before watching the remake, I sat down and took in the original 1969 John Wayne version. I probably wasn't supposed to do that, but I had never cognizantly seen it and felt like I should and...dammit, is it a good movie. A great movie. Old-school high-adventure, with a real story and real heart and, something that's lost these days, a real hero to carry it all. There was no darkness, no cynicism, no pandering to the turtleneckers—only the most pure of long-dead stoicism that needed no dime-store rationale for it's blatant masculinity.

With the weight of the original and the excitement I felt while watching it heavy on my mind, it became completely clear as I was watching the remake that the Coens' version just doesn't matter. It has no reason for it's existence other than to prove that they could do it and, cynically enough, do it better. Like I said, it all looks great, but it's not great. It's defenselessly mediocre. It could've been a Hallmark TV movie of the week and had just about the same amount of impact and at a fraction of the cost.

The only one with enough sense to try something different is Jeff Bridges' interpretation of drunken US Marshall Rooster Cogburn. Knowing that he can't live up to the Duke, Bridges is twice as grizzled and three times as drunk, too bad it's just Bad Blake all over again, a hundred or so years earlier. Which, when you think about, kinda makes the movie a bit more watchable.

Am I still, however, interested in what the Coens do next? Of course. I honestly wanted to like TRUE GRIT and, even though I was let down again, you know...maybe next time will be the time these boys finally get it right. If they do, I'll be the first to admit it. Especially if you've got a toungue-ring and want to make out.

(This review actually goes double for David Fincher's interminable THE SOCIAL NETWORK.)

DAMAGED Eating: FATSO'S DINER!

2011-01-03T22:06:00.004-07:00

I have been to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. Twice. I have the t-shirt to prove it. And while,yes, their food is mighty tasty, mostly they are known for their ghetto-kitsch value. They are an industry of pop-culture, as well they should be. And, because of that, when you actually go to Roscoe's, you need to mentally prepare for a nice-sized chunk of disappointment on all levels: the extreme time of waiting for your food, the comically prohibitive pricing, the chintzy portions and, worst of all, no John Cusack and Tim Robbins making a music-video to fund their Swanky Modes reunion.

But get a shirt to let everyone know you went.

You won't find shirts at Fatso's Diner in Loveland. And I'm pretty sure it will never be name-checked by a rapper. But what you will get is the best diner food that this fatso has ever had. Corned beef hash, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, Rocky Mountain oysters...it's difficult to decide exactly what you want. Then you see “chicken and waffle” and your mind is clearly made up.

These chicken and waffles put Roscoe's to shame. A big ol' deep-fried chicken breast smothered in sausage gravy, that would be good enough. But then there's the lightly-dusted-with-powdered-sugar waffle, which is amazingly delicious and especially surprising considering I honestly don't even like waffles all that much. Too much of that Eggo crap growing up. Most people enjoy lacquering syrup on their waffles, but I didn't want that gravy to go to waste and the waffle acts as the perfect utensil to sop it up with. Add a side of thick steak fries and it's a meal that will stick with you until tomorrow. It'll stick with you for life.

The décor is an unironic faux-fifties thing and the clientele is mostly old dudes. I like that, I enjoy that. It's got an old-school vibe that hasn't been polluted yet—the hipsters don't know about it and haven't stumbled in a PBR-haze to “experience” and trivialize the place. You couldn't have a place like this in Fort Collins; in a day, you'd see a hundred Twitter update proclaiming either they were the “Mayor of Fatso's” or decrying that they were having heart-attacks just looking at the food.

When I return next time, however, I might have to forgo the chicken and waffles for something even more intriguing—as I was leaving, I noticed on the specials board that they are now offering a food challenge: eat 14 of their cheeseburger patties and an order of fries and get...well, I don't know what you get. But I know I want to do it. If their fried chicken is any indicator, then their burgers are probably just as, if not more so, phenomenal. Wish me luck.

Fatso's Diner is located at 1606 W. Eisenhower Blvd. in Loveland, Colorado.

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 12.06.10

2010-12-06T14:40:00.007-07:00

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!

The title of this posting is really a bit misleading: I've actually had this last batch of Big Lots buys sitting on my desk for a few weeks now. I was wanting to do one big post after checking out what Black Friday new additions BL had--they were supposed to get a few handfuls of recent television seasons for around $6 each, mostly of the CBS/Paramount/Showtime variety--but I never made it there and still haven't had a chance to peek in even though the store is only about ten or so blocks away and I need to pick up some dog food. Best laid plans and all that.

Either way, I need to clear this junk off my desk, so here's my most recent Big Lots purchases for kinda 12.06.10:

* PSYCHO II/PSYCHO III/PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING - Having recently watched the workmanlike extended DVD special-feature THE PSYCHO LEGACY, it utterly pained me to come to the realization that, even though I had seen the PSYCHO sequels, I had no memory whatsoever of their plots. I was considering going out and buying each entry individually when I happened upon this triple feature set at the Lots and, well, problem solved. Sadly, I still haven't found the time to watch any of them, which sucks, because I kinda remember Olivia Hussey being a total nutcase proto-MILF in PSYCHO IV and that might have influenced my choice in women about three time in my life.

* THE SPECIALIST - Here's another Stallone movie from that awkward mid-90s period of his where he was trying to find some sort of resonance in a cinematic world that was ultimately leaving action stalwarts like him and Schwarzenegger behind. It was the Nirvana/hair metal thing all over again, but with a bigger budget. Still, THE SPECIALIST is not really all that good, with Sly as ex-CIA explosives expert Ray Quick, hired to help empty-headed siren Sharon Stone (who is trying to get away with playing, I think, 21) get revenge on some hilariously over-Latinized mobsters. Thank goodness for Eric Roberts and James Woods, who obviously are having fun hamming it up. No thank goodness for the brutally explicit Stallone/Stone sex romp on a shower floor. Keep that ham to yourself, please.

* BODY AND SOUL - My number one rule of Big Lottin'? If you see a movie starring Leon Isaac Kennedy, you pick that sucker up, no questions asked.

* EL CANTANTE - Look: I'm a total sucker for music biopics. I don't care who it is or what type of music they did, I'll always watch it without reservation. I was never really familiar with salsa legend Hector Lavoe, but, knowing the typical biopic blueprint, I knew that I would be in store for the following: overwrought drug-usage, vases being thrown at a wall during a dramatic moment, sleazy adultery that would be rationalized by claiming that's what "life on the road" is like and fiery greatest hits musical numbers designed to showcase the soundtrack tie-in. And EL CANTANTE delivers all of that in the most entertainingly awful way possible! God bless you, agents and producers, for not knowing when to tell Jennifer Lopez "no"!

* CRUISING - Al Pacino infiltrates the highly stylized gay NYC leather-daddy scene--seriously, the whole thing looks like a still from a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition--to find a serial killer. Here's another film that has been on my list for years, having cloudy memories of watching it as a kid, and I was super-excited to find it, but still haven't been able to muster the time to watch the damn thing again. I noticed that it co-stars Paul Sorvino--him and Pacino don't fuck, right? OH GOD PAINFUL CHILDHOOD MEMORIES FLOODING BACK!

* UNDER THE CHERRY MOON - Much like the works of Steven Seagal, Big Lots has gone out of it's way to stock the complete filmography of His Royal Badness, Prince, for me. So far I've picked up PURPLE RAIN, GRAFFITI BRIDGE and, now, UNDER THE CHERRY MOON. All I need is SIGN "☮" THE TIMES to complete my collection...I'm waiting, Big Lots. * looks at watch, taps foot, humps a guitar *

* EVERY WHICH WAY BUT/ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN/HONKYTONK MAN and SPACE COWBOYS - You know, I just realized how many Clint Eastwood flicks I've picked up at Big Lots over the past few months. Here's a few of his best, including the two greatest redneck comedies this side of whatever Burt Reynolds was doing at the time. Which actually makes me wish that, instead of doing CITY HEAT, Clint and Burt teamed up for a Bandit/Beddoe crossover--Clyde the orangutan could've rode shotgun with the Snowman. There even could've been a hilarious scene where Clyde flips off Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who would in return make a mercilessly foul racial joke.

* CANNONBALL RUN II - Speaking of Burt Reynolds vehicles (and, I guess, Burt Reynolds in vehicles), I finally found a copy of the seminal CANNONBALL RUN II, starring number three on my list of youthful crushes, Marilu Henner. Between this and JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY, she was it for me the summer of '85 thanks to constant HBO replays and an early-developed interest in redheads with large breasts. Also, hey Criterion: when can the CANNONBALL flicks and the BANDIT movies get their proper due from you guys? I'd love to write the liner notes. I'd do it for free.

THE BEYOND: Not Another THE BEYOND Review!

2010-11-29T22:04:00.005-07:00

THE BEYOND
Starring Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Al Cliver
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Grindhouse Releasing
Review by Louis Fowler

It seems that, since just about everyone in the world of horror is so well aware of THE BEYOND, and, even more appropriately for me, everyone in the world of horror has already written their own opinions about it, that to add mine just seems, well, totally redundant. You might as well title this “Not Another THE BEYOND Review”.

Keeping that in mind and having just watched Grindhouse Releasing's reissue, once again it strikes me just how—I need to capitalize this—TOTALLY FUCKING SCARY this movie actually is. I am a thirty-two year old man and it's one in the morning and I wish I could go sleep in my parents' bed. With the hall light on. With the night-lite on. With a gun, just in case.

Go ahead and laugh. I know that I'm supposed to be jaded and I know that, for most people, there's been scarier stuff released before and since, but, you know, serial killers and slashers and the like have never scared me. No—it's Hell that scares me. A Hell on earth; demons breaking through to our world, slaughtering us on an unholy rampage. Maybe it's the Catholic in me, but Satan, Hell, whatever, is really the only thing in film that truly terrifies me.

But you just can't throw the Devil on the screen and expect me to be scared, otherwise THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN would have made me urinating my shorts. Again. No, a truly scary, truly demonic film needs to have an aura, an atmosphere of evil, a sense of unholy dread, surrounding it to accomplish that. An otherworldly feel that has ideas and sequences that give off the impression that you are watching something wholly diabolical unfold on-screen, something that wasn't meant for human eyes. A feeling of ominousness and pure fear that shadows the room when you watch it, causing you to turn the lights on half-way through and jump to any sound your house might make.

THE BEYOND is such a film. This is not some Italian cheese-fest; this isn't a Spaghetti joke. The images that Fulci puts on screen are nightmares—and I'm not talking about the gore. Gore is nothing special. It's the lovingly perverse way that he uses that gore, expelling all hope for the characters embroiled in it, that makes it all work. THE BEYOND is an extraordinarily hopeless film. It's a film that takes place in a world without God's mercy. It's a world that has forgotten God, allowing Hell to encroach and take root.

This loneliness from God and his salvation is pounded home in the final image when our main characters are left alone in a barren eternal wasteland, that I think is supposed to be Hell. It's the most shocking scene in the film and it doesn't have a drop of blood in it. It's the ultimate downer ending: the good guys have not only lost the battle but their souls as well and, because of their failure, have allowed Hell to claim the Earth. Cue credits.

I think the thing that really scares me is the way that Fulci, before I had even seen this film, had accurately captured so many images from my own nightmares in this film. The desolate road with water on both sides and no land on the horizon; the way that even though there's light outside the inside of the house is very dark; eyes with no pigment; and a Hell that isn't made up of flame, but dust. Are these common dream images? I've had these images in my head for as long as I can remember; I dreamt them when I was as young as five. To me, this makes the film all the more foreboding.

This is part of Fulci's “Gates of Hell” trilogy, which included THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY and CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD. All three are so totally different than anything Fulci had really done, filled with such a sacrilegious fervor that you get the feeling that something must have had possessed him to create this trilogy, these pitch-perfect visions of Hell that capture damnation so perfectly. Were these the films of a demonic madman with a warning, or merely a vessel of dark visions, like say, a Hieronymus Bosch woodcut put to celluloid? Or, even worse, was it just the work of a guy trying to collect a paycheck?

In the end, we'll probably never know what made Fulci tick. We'll probably never know what was going on in his head to make his celluloid nightmares so potent. But, maybe the more we use them to interpret our own fears, the closer we'll get to an answer. Either way, it's probably time to get my ass to church.

(This review originally appeared in a slightly altered version at Dan Taylor's seminal website Exploitation Retrospect.)

FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE: El ojo del tigre!

2010-11-29T21:39:00.003-07:00

FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE
Starring Kuno Becker, Steven Bauer, Stephen Lang
Directed by Jimmy Nickerson
Lionsgate
Review by Louis Fowler

I don't like sports. Never have, probably never will. Everytime I've ever been in the bleachers at, say, a football game, I always feel like it's one step away from a Nuremberg Rally, only these Nazis are far more simplistic degenerates, entire bodies mindlessly painted in orange and blue. I don't see how “rooting” for a bunch of shaved apes chasing a ball around in a homoerotic contest of wills is entertaining. Sorry. I'm a fat jerk, I know. Here's my underwear, I'm ready for my wedgie.

But, given that info, I gotta admit that I love sports movies. That's kinda weird, right? For example, I hate high school football, but will watch FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS over and over again. I have never even seen a boxing match, but the ROCKY flicks will always be in my all-time top 25. And don't even get me started with my obsessive love of STROKER ACE, just know that I'll “stand on it” everytime.

That being said, FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE is my new second favorite Latino boxing movie—the first is still THE PRICE OF GLORY, starring Jimmy Smits—but second place ain't so bad, right? It's how you play the game, right guys?

While, as a Mexican myself, I'd rather see a movie about a Hispanic migrant worker going to school and making something of himself, becoming a doctor, maybe, we have to take what we can get and just be happy that, for once, we're not relegated to the side-role of a sassy cleaning-lady or bald multi-tatted gang-banger. FROM MEXICO is a, thankfully, positive film about Hector, a scrappy migrant farm-worker who wants to become a prizefighter, but can't really ever commit due to his sick mother and her constant need for expensive medicines. He's got a bit of a chip on his shoulder and this doesn't help when, after a run-in with the snotty white land-owners, lands him back across the border. Mom dies, freeing up his sched, allowing for him to train full-time to take on, I'll be darned, the snotty white land-owner's frat-boy date-rapist son! Viva la Raza and vaya con Dios!

Is FROM MEXICO WITH LOVE predicable? Of course, and that's why I loved it so much. You know that Hector is gonna win the big match, but, still, that sense of fear that he might lose wells through you because you so desperately want him to win. He deserves to win. Far too many times in sports movies these days they have the guys that you've sided with for two hours lose the big game, usually to make some sort of point about the “beauty of the game”. Fuck that! I want my team to win! I want my guys to kick the asses of the other guys! Where's that orange and blue body-paint???

So, I guess the big question is this: why can I root for fictional athletes but so easily spit on real-life ones? I think it's because I get to see the complete journey of the character, the underdog making good. He's a real hero, someone with virtue that plays fair, fights to the finish and everything else in a Survivor song. That doesn't happen in real-life. Real athletes are spoiled imbeciles snorting coke off a stripper's pubic mound while just waiting to get capped in the parking lot of a night-club. You can't “believe” in real people anymore. Wasn't it a “real” athlete who proudly boasted that he's no role model a few years back? Isn't that the new rallying cry of these overpaid assholes?

Sports heroes? Only in fiction, hombre. Only in fiction...

DUE DATE: Cinematic hair of the dog!

2010-11-29T21:25:00.004-07:00

DUE DATE
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan
Directed by Todd Phillips
Warner Bros. Pictures
Review by Louis Fowler

Having spent the past few weeks reading consistently middling reviews of Todd Phillips' latest bro-com DUE DATE, I went into it with pretty low expectations, thinking I was going to get a few laughs here and there, all the while testing my newly-imagined tolerance for a reaching-Jack-Black-over-saturation Zach Galifianakis. The critics, whom all seem to believe that THE HANGOVER was a second coming of comedy for the most part, have been thoroughly disappointed by DUE DATE, giving solid C+'s all around, with the phrases “forced”, “maudlin” and “tedious” being thrown around a bit.

Were we watching the same movie, guys?

Here's a news flash: THE HANGOVER? That huge comedy hit from a year or so ago? Eh, well, it's not really holding up so well. It really shows it's cracks upon each successive viewing and, while it definitely has some high-points, it's still basically a remake of Phillip's earlier road trip movie ROAD TRIP, but with overgrown frat-boys instead of college kids and, of course, Galifianakis instead of Tom Green. Phillips has a formula and, for each place and time in our history, he updates it and it works, but it doesn't age the way you'd like a comedy to. In retrospect, THE HANGOVER isn't really a “funny”movie as much as it is a “fun” movie, but the wires get crossed and we just don't know any better.

I feel like DUE DATE changes that because, while he's still keeping the same damned ROAD TRIP formula, he's finally allowing for some better fleshed out characters to move the jokes along, casting naturally funny adult actors instead of cool young dudes. Think of when John Hughes ditched the proto-emo teen-angst BS and hit two out of the park with SHE'S HAVING A BABY and PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES—both of which, here, Phillips nobly and maturely injects into the proceedings.

The plot is as basic as it gets: a straight-laced architect, a no-censor-button buffoon and a masturbating dog have to road trip across country to make it in time for the birth of the architect’s baby. You've seen it a million times. Probably this year alone. And all directed by Todd Phillips.

Why DUE DATE works is all because of the aforementioned casting: Bradley Cooper might be the good-looking GQ flavor of the month, but he in no way has the gravitas of Robert Downey Jr., who, even at his most dickish, is still a guy you want to root for. You just plain like Downey and, you can relate to him and his everyman character's idiosyncrasies and foibles. You could give a fuck as to whether Bradley succeeds or not—that guy's gonna get laid whether he makes it or not. And, really, how is that funny unless you're Bradley Cooper?

And, you know, the more I think about it, I'm not tired of Galifianakis. Not at all. Why did I start to feel like I was? With the exception of a scene-stealing Danny McBride cameo that had me coughing blood, Galifianakis earns every single laugh in every single scene for a constant self-humiliating fearlessness that is completely uncontrived. He's so unnaturally natural in his character—which is obviously not too far at all from his one in THE HANGOVER, let's be honest—that it never gets old or feels like he's putting on a show. Ahem, Tom Green.

(Speaking of the actors, however, I am getting sick and tired of Hollywood's insistence on pushing the brutally shrill (and probably hungry) Michelle Monaghan on us at every possible turn. Enough, I say! America has spoken loudly and they reject her as an actress. Can't we just move on to the next doe-eyed waif on the list already?)

DUE DATE is a hilarious autumnal programmer that will more than likely have a healthier life on DVD where, knowing me, I'll probably start finding things wrong with it and complaining about that too the next time I review another Todd Phillips flick. This is probably why I can't ever have nice things. Sigh.

42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 5: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA: Remember the Alamo!

2010-11-15T22:33:00.004-07:00

42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 5: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA
Synapse Films
Review by Louis Fowler

Sure, I may be a little late in getting to the most recent installment of Synapse's stellar 42ND STREET FOREVER line—sorry, I had things to do—but don't think that it hasn't been there, in the back of my mind all this time. Because it has. I've kept it on my desk, looking at it at least once day and gently telling myself “Someday...someday...”, with one lone tear streaming down my cheek.

And when I finally did get a chance to sit down and actually watch it? Like a woman you've been corresponding with online in hopes of starting a long-term, mutually beneficial, sexually-positive relationship, it was well worth the wait! Teaming up with my fellow Texans down at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse, volume five is the best yet, packed with two-minute slices of genre heaven, an overabundance of cinematic riches ranging from martial arts and kids' movies to sexploitation and counterculture satires. Here's some of the highlights:

● Kids' movies in Asia will always be better than ours because, well, they just don't give a rip about stupid things like the welfare or safety of their child actors. Good for them, I say! I truly wish that more film industries—I'm looking at you, America!—would take all that wasted money spent on on-set teachers and harnesses and the like and put it to bigger, badder, more dangerous stunts and explosions, all involving kids. It's a change that might actually make movies like DUNSTON CHECKS IN the bad-ass romps you knew they always could be! The makers of LUCKY SEVEN agree with me, featuring seven adorable tweens, all decked out like the various superstars of Hong Kong cinema past, getting their asses routinely handed to them via kicks in the most important of developing areas such as the kidneys, the heart and the skull. Starring Little Chilli, Little Fatty, Bumpkin, Little Elf and everyone's favorite, Rocky!

● Yes, there was once a time where a full-on, completely authoritative documentary like BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, would not only be green-lit by a major studio, but also released to a theater near you. Because who doesn't want to see a movie with wall-to-wall animal intercourse? The trailer encourages us to see it with your kids, but, sorry, David L. Wolper: in my house sex will be taught as something that is dirty and shameful and should only be learned about through dangerous third-party information found only in the streets. The way I learned it.

● Directed by stunt-master Hal Needham and co-starring a then-foxy Persis Khambatta, 1982's MEGAFORCE had everything going for it: motorcycles, missiles and Henry Silva. But, then, Barry Bostwick, apparently fresh off the set of Olivia Newton-John's “Physical” music video, had to go and show up on time and, sorry, but it's pretty hard to have an undying patriotic belief in a top-secret underground government organization that allows it's well-trained agents to ride around on bulky super-charged motorcycles while dressed in power-blue jumpsuits and proudly displaying feathered hair. Even the Navy wouldn't allow that shit.

● Speaking of sexual shame, here's LET'S DO IT!, advertised as the “one sex comedy that let's you be the juggs”, whatever that means. All-American protagonist Freddy is obsessed with breasts—female breasts, if you must know. That's pretty normal, I guess. What's not normal, however, is that his stacked-n-steady girlfriend wants to go all the way with him, constantly begging to be entered vaginally and he keeps pushing her away, saying in firm and calm voice, “No!”. Is he trying to hold on to his virginity? Waiting for marriage? Have too much respect for the poor girl? Nope! Turns out he just wants to get in some extra practice with a few local slatterns so that, when the big day finally does come, he'll be able to give her the best three minutes of her life. In the 80s, this was actually considered quite respectful! Directed by Bert I. Gordon, because who knew tits better than the director of EMPIRE OF THE ANTS?

● Ever notice how movies with talking penises never really capture the public's imagination? Yet, every few years, someone always gets the bright idea to make another one and, every few years, another comes crashing and burning head-first into obscurity. Maybe they're aiming a little too high and to the left, what with half the country owning vaginas and whatnot. I say go back to the source material and remake the original talking junk flick, CHATTERBOX. You know, for the ladies. Co-starring, as you'd hope it would, Rip Taylor and Prof. Irwin Corey, 'BOX finds Candice Rialson's lower-lips doing most of the talking, launching a singing career and becoming a national sensation in the process. Not available on DVD yet, mostly because of socialism.

● Italy finally(?) has their own super-spy and, true to form, they must've spent a good five, maybe ten, minutes coming up with him. Tont, JAMES TONT, is his name and being derivatively greasy is his game! Tont cruises around in his fine Italian sports-car, fighting off an Odd-Job-like henchman and a bevy of gun-toting buxom broads, all to the tune of “Gold Singer”, who is the man, the man with the “golden voice”. This might be a spy-spoof, but, knowing the Italians, it's probably completely for real. I'm actually surprised a small rodent wasn't butchered on-screen.

● In NORMAN, IS THAT YOU?, Redd Foxx tries to deal with having a gay son in an interracial relationship, which, from the looks of this trailer, is actually not as bad as the time that Puerto Rican dude with the goat moved in across the street from the junkyard. And who hasn't wanted to see Fred Sanford meet Waylon Flowers and Madam? It's been a recurring dream I've had since childhood and am actually surprised it never happened before this. Also, Tamara Dobson shows up as a hooker, and then so does my erection.

● And, finally, the award for the lamest kid's movie of all time goes to THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE. Looking like a clandestine 50s porn loop shot by Abraham Zapruder in his backyard, TREE has a lonely kid befriending a magical, talking Christmas tree. He just stands there and talks to a tree that makes Charlie Brown's look pumped and primed for Rockefeller Center. The last known footage of Santa Claus also makes it's way into the proceedings, as does a perfectly seasonal “happy witch”, a festive “greedy giant” and, perhaps the most Christmasy thing I can think of, a “runaway lawnmower”. Happy birthday, Jesus! (Followed by the little-known sequel THE MAGIC EASTER BUCKET, which is basically the same kid talking to a rusty pail for 70-minutes. Special appearance by Cosmo, the Easter Turtle!)

42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 3 review!
42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 4 review!
GRINDHOUSE UNIVERSE review!

DISORDERLIES: Filmed in 3-D, only the "D" stands for “diabetes”.

2010-11-12T23:29:00.011-07:00

DISORDERLIES
Starring The Fat Boys, Ralph Bellamy, Anthony Geary
Directed by Michael Schultz
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

As someone who is doing his damnedest to lose over three decades of weight gain, it has taken years of self-inflicted embarrassment to fully realize that “all-you-can-eat” isn't a challenge, it's a curse. And while I know that most of it is entirely my fault, I also like to take comfort in the fully-liberal idea that I was doomed from the get-go: blame a depression-era father who forced me to clean my plate though shame and guilt, blame a public school free-lunch system that taught gravy as a side-dish, blame cable television for being so much better than going outside to play. But, most of all, blame old-school hip-hoppers the Fat Boys for having the time of their lives, getting laid while getting paid and making fat look, well, phat.

And their hit “All You Can Eat”? For far too long that was a personal anthem. Just ask that manager of Golden Corral who asked me to leave once.

Seriously, though: what is the deal with America's long-time obsession with portly rappers? It's an odd musical fetish that, with the exception of John Popper and maybe the dude from Crowbar, you never really see in any other genre. Hip-hop has always had a home for MCs with weight problems, from that guy in the Sugarhill Gang who called Superman a “fairy” to Heavy D, Chunky A, Big Pun, and, may he rest in piece of pie, Notorious BIG, who recently even had a big-time biopic made about his life which, crazily enough, didn't end with him having a coronary on the toilet.

When it comes down to it, however, none of those rotund rappers really made a cultural, mainstream impact the way the Fat Boys did. Comprised of Prince Markie Dee, Kool Rock Ski, and the late Human Beat-Box Buff Love, this tubby trio were all about the good times, with the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST.-inspired “Are You Ready for Freddy?” being about as hardcore street as they got. They were three, confident, enterprising young men who wouldn't let something like a couple of pounds get in the way of their domination of the charts...until you look into their bloodshot eyes, that is.

Take a good look at any random promotional still: behind all the laughs, behind all those good times, I suspect there had to have been massive amounts of sadness, depression and self-loathing. When the concert was over, when the groupies were gone and there you are, lying on the floor, chili in your hair, using a Big Mac wrapper as a blanket, struggling to breathe...you kinda realize that the only way out of this prison of lard is with a handful of pills, the same ones you use to dull the pain. But sadly, those aren't pills, they're SweeTarts and you just end up substituting this want and need to die and finally be at peace with another fucking calzone, another fucking Thirstbuster Pepsi and another fucking faceful of streaming tears. It's the story of my life and I'm willing to bet it's the story of theirs. Cue strings.

But, hey: at least they gotta a movie out of it, right? That's something! A comedic documentation of their sorrows for all the world to enjoy! Clowns gotta eat too, you know...

The Titans of Thickness (I just made that nickname up—I should write for WORD-UP! magazine.) basically play very unsubtle versions of themselves: three grossly obese inner-city ne'er-do-wells who share not only a common, downright dangerous, obsession with mass-gorging, but also an interest in late-term elder-care. It's just too bad that this obvious love is overshadowed by the fact they are the worst orderlies in the history of medicine—that's actually how they are described in the film, by the way.

Now before I go any further, I can't help but wonder: how did these guys actually get through the schooling necessary in order to get jobs in such a specialized medical industry? They not only show a total lack of medical knowledge, but also a lack of the attention and seriousness that you would need to even get to class on time, let alone pass the tests required to become a health-care professional. But, still, for the sake of enjoying the film, in order to help create a nice bit of suspension of disbelief to help me move forward, I mentally fabricated a little back-story that they made it through school with a mixture of pulling multiple pranks on an over-worked scheming stodgy professor who just wanted them and their offbeat ways kicked off campus and, probably more than the latter, a little good ol' affirmative action. (Those early years in college would actually be a great idea for a straight-to-video prequel: DISORDERLIES: THE FIRST COURSE!)

That being said, the Fat Boys are hired by scheming villain Anthony Geary—who desperately wants to be Rene Auberjonois—to take care of his ailing millionaire uncle (Ralph Bellamy) because, as any rational thinking human could easily see, a few hours in the care of these bulging buffoons and that poor old man's heart-rate would be flatter than the week-old Meatlover's Pizza in the backseat of my car. But, miraculously, after a trip to a roller-rink where, after a skate-train and a barely-dressed chanteuse sings a song called, I think, “Work Me Down There”, the gruff old-timer gets a total boner (complete with a”boing!” sound effect) and his joie de vivre returns. He doesn't want to die. He refuses to die. He wants to live life to it's fullest and do all the things that have been passing him by! It's like THE BUCKET LIST, only this bucket is filled with original recipe. And boners.

This, as you would guess, complicates the sniveling Geary's plan, which, of course, was to have his then-feeble uncle die and then leave him his entire fortune, all of which would be used to cover his mounting gambling debts. Plots are foiled, schemes brought to light and the Miami elite drop their collective monocles into champagne glasses while exclaiming in unison “I never!” as Uncle Gramps and his corpulent crew turn the upper-crust into the stuffed-crust, showing those starched shirts how to get fresh and/or def. It's the snobs vs. the blobs and there is never any doubt what the outcome would be, besides diabetes and heart disease, of course.

DISORDERLIES is essentially one 90-minute long fat joke, but it's a funny 90-minute long fat joke. Directed by Michael Schultz, the guy behind KRUSH GROOVE, THE LAST DRAGON and SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, and, like those films, as entertaining as they are, there's absolutely no artistic style present and, most times, just seems like it was made up on the fly. For example: in a scene where two of the Fat Boys dress up like cops to commandeer a car, their hit song “Wipeout”, which featured the bastardized Beach Boys, is playing in the background. Now, when they stop the car and pull out the driver, you know there's gonna be a cameo. Probably Mike Love or Al Jardine, right? Nope! It's Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick fame. Was he just there on the set and they threw him on camera? (To be fair though, the Beach Boys do make a cameo at the very end. As does Helen Reddy. Why? I don't know.) But, really, when you think about it, with an already thread-bare premise, maybe making it up on the fly was really the only way to go to make a more entertaining flick? Either way, it worked.

And, please, let's not forget the music: the centerpiece is a fantastic rap cover of the Beatles' “Baby You're a Rich Man” that, sure, misses the entire point of the original song but, still, manages to be funky as fuck-all. Listening to the fun, frivolous music of the Fat Boys is both uplifting and disheartening: uplifting because it's a positive, fun, simple good time and disheartening because they may never get the respect they so richly deserve. Let's come out and admit it right now: how many of us were turned on to hip-hop because of these guys? Yeah, you can be cool and say it was Public Enemy or something equally pretentious, but that cassette tape of CRUSHIN' you've got stored in the closet will tell a different story. The truth shall set you free, son.

Almost 25 years later(!), DISORDERLIES is a total relic of it's time, one that would—could—never be duplicated today. The fat rappers of today are all Puerto Rican and sullen and have to really up the macho facade in order to blanket their serious self-esteem issues. Am I right, Fat Joe? Just once I'd like that dude to spit out a tune about how many tacos he can eat in one sitting. I'm betting at least twelve.

So, with no one willing to reclaim that mantle, I guess it's really a job left to the original Fat Boys, isn't it? I know that Buff Love (RIP) has sadly passed away, but how about a search for the newest Fat Boy? A reality show maybe? Like CELEBRITY FIT CLUB, only, you know, the opposite! And how about a comeback album produced by Diddy? I've even got a song call “Strokin' It” that would be great for you guys! C'mon, Fat Boys...this country needs you more than ever!

Let's talk it out over lunch. You're buying.

Louis Con Huevos!: Grab a copy of THE BREAKFAST TACO BOOK! For FREE! Right NOW!

2010-11-11T20:30:00.006-07:00

It was only a matter of time until my legendary obsession with all things "taco" would be immortalized in print. Or, more specifically, e-print! The absolutely enchanting Hilah Johnson, host of the Austin-based cooking show HILAH COOKING!, had the wherewithal to ask me my opinion about the largely misunderstood and mainly maligned art of the Breakfast Taco. From the official press release...

We are excited to announce the first Hilah Cooking e-Book is now available. We decided to put together this book because so many of our friends live in places where breakfast tacos are not readily available. Even worse: some of them didn’t know the difference between a breakfast taco and a breakfast burrito! Something had to be done. So we decided to publish a book about it. And it’s totally FREE! We need you to help us spread the gospel of breakfast tacos all over the world.

THE BREAKFAST TACO BOOK by Hilah Johnson is 50-pages packed with everything you need to know about breakfast tacos – including how to make them at home. Some highlights include:

* Hilah goes on a Breakfast Taco tour of Austin and eats WAY too many tacos.
* Hard-hitting investigative journalism reveals that Breakfast Tacos were actually invented by… COWBOYS?
* How to make all kinds of “taco guts” – even the kind with cactus!
* Why you should never mix breakfast tacos with handjobs!

And there are tons of pictures for those of you who don’t have time for the written word. So, it’s awesome and it’s free and you don’t even have to kill any trees to read it. It’s an eBook. Just download and read it at your job when you’re supposed to be working. Or you can easily throw it on your iPad and take it with you to spread the Breakfast Taco gospel from coffeehouses, streetcorners or wherever else you like to go. Just enter your information here and get your FREE copy of THE BREAKFAST TACO BOOK!

GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE / SLOGAN: Naked under leather, naked little homewrecker.

2010-10-31T18:07:00.007-06:00

GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE
Starring Marianne Faithfull, Alain Delon, Roger Mutton
Directed by Jack Cardiff
Redemption USA

SLOGAN
Starring Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin, Andrea Parisy
Directed by Pierre Grimblat
Cult Epics

Reviews by Louis Fowler

60s chanteuse (and 70s junkie) Marianne Faithfull goes full-on sleazy rider in this motorcycle mama flick about a woman in search of...uh...um, yeah, I don't really know. Maybe herself. That's what most rebellious women on the prowl did in movies like this back then, right? Can the cast of ZABRISKIE POINT back me up here?

So, for an hour and a half, Faithfull speeds along the European countryside, eschewing all motor-vehicle safety laws by continually closing her eyes and grimacing to the wind like a drooling moron, reciting vapid internal monologues about the need for societal rebellion and the want for her lover to be inside her as the camera occasionally oversaturates colors. Because the 60s were, like, totally trippy, man.

Yeah, I'm being a bit facetious, but, as irritating as it all could (and can) be, GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE it still a very intoxicating movie to take in, so why fight it?

Faithfull became a bit of sex symbol for wearing only a (wool-lined) leather bodysuit throughout this thing—I can only imagine how stinky that thing must have gotten by the time filming wrapped, not to mention the numerous chaffing heat-ashes she must have endured—been there, done that, sister. That being said, it's a cinematically attractive body odor that wafts off the screen, arousing so much untapped wanton curiosity that has been dormant since, hell, at least college. While we all may melodramatically pretend to vomit when the idea is even brought up, surely all of us do have a secret desire to bed an unwashed homely pseudo-hippie free-spirit with no consequences or qualms, right? GIRL ON A MOTORCYLE lets you live out that perpetual daydream from the comfort of your well-Febrezed Lazy-Boy. No more Rainbow Family Reunions for your dangerous sexual double-life, pal!

Plus, untapped lusts aside, can you really dislike any movie that has a jaunty fondue-eating sequence?

The cast is B-level 60s manufactured cool. Marianne Faithfull—who contributes no songs, seriously—is better in theory than in practice. French Oliver Reed-a-like Alain Delon really tries to amp up the proceeding with a bit of an edgy personality, but, no go. It's Faithfull's show.

Serge Gainsbourg, however...he'd never let himself be upstaged by a starlet. Unless, of course, it was all part his marketing strategy. Which it usually was.

Very few people have ever really just pissed cool right off the screen the way Gainsbourg did. Here was this goblin-like Lothario that managed to seduce and Svengali starlets left and right with all the panache of a cult leader. He punished them, he rationed them, he took them for granted and damned if they didn't have a continual flow of cream in their jeans for him. So, of course, he's a personal hero of mine.

SLOGAN is little-seen yet best-known for being the cinematic mirror to Gainsbourg and nymph co-star Jane Birkin's real-life romance, and, really, that's honestly too bad. SLOGAN is a brilliantly cool, undeniably nihilistic, fantastically aloof tribute to the power and glory of completely self-defeating behaviors. The kind of behaviors that tend to make life interesting, mostly if you're a Frenchman with an inferiority complex.

Gainsbourg is a successful ad-man with a pregnant wife who is totally cool with him having affairs. Progressive! While she's on bed-rest, he's on head-rest, tearing up the countryside with his 18-year-old conquest whom, at parties, he blatantly refers to as his “little house-wrecker” in an effort to exude power over her through degradation. Thankfully, she doesn't mind as she's massively bi-polar (before this was even a diagnosis, obviously—back then it was simply called “quirky”) and fabulously fickle.

Unlike Faithfull, who's GIRL character is irritating because of her constant need to express opinions and thoughts, Birkin is refreshingly sexy because she plays a character (or does she?) that has none of her own. She's a sex-pot puppet and Gainsbourg has definitely got his hand way up her ass. That's sexist to say, sure, but it's nothing Gainsbourg didn't sing about or act on or believe in himself. He was an emotional enigma, but he was no self-serving hypocrite.

GIRL ON A MOTORCYCLE, for all it's faults, and SLOGAN, for all it's triumphs, make for a classy, stylized Euro-counterculture double-feature, the kind where you'll want to chain-smoke fondue-dipped Gitanes to capture a true swingin' 60s holy experience.

I AM VIRGIN: I am virgin, hear me snore!

2010-10-07T22:49:00.005-06:00

I AM VIRGIN: UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT
Starring Adam Davis, Melinda Ausserer, Ron Jeremy
Directed by Sean Skelding
IMD/Cheezy Flicks
Review by Louis Fowler

I can totally identify with the protagonist of I AM VIRGIN: I'm not worried about finding food or shelter if a pandemic kills off most of humanity; I'm worried about finding recreational intercourse. Straight up, I'm not even gonna BS you people. It'll be easy enough to find food and shelter, but what about feminine fallout companionship? Will I ever again get some of that strange that I bitterly remember as I roam the wastelands? And if I do, will it be of the whore-rifically mutated variety? Or will I have to resort to found blow-up dolls of Alexis Amore with real hair--that's fallen out due to the grotesque radiation levels, natch—just to even have the slightest of non-nuclear related dingle-tingles again?

It makes me cry at night just thinking about it.

But, sadly, and as much as I'd like to, I just can't identify with the filmmakers behind I AM VIRGIN, because, instead of running with the brilliant idea of looking for love in all the bombed places—something that could have been a most hilarious ribald teen-sex apocalypti-comedy—they eschew all cleverness in favor of sub-par Seduction Cinema-esque simulated dry-humping from skanky tatted-up slatterns who have probably been rejected from Suicide Girls numerous times, and you know how them nasty chicks ain't picky.

Young Robby has been taught by his parents that sex will kill you. No matter what. While they were alive, this was just fine—it was easy to deal with being a nerdy virgin when you had a support system. But, when a plague turns the remaining survivors into insatiable silicone-based sex-vampires, it becomes harder and harder, ahem, to keep his burgeouning boner buried deep in his dungarees. Every building he breaks into, there are at least three-to-five post-consumer recycled alterna-lesbians scissoring emotionlessly, hands practically outstretched for that $50 paycheck. Every grocery store he shops at, muscular dudes who resemble the greasy sax-player from THE LOST BOYS feign heterosexuality and grind themselves deep into these feminine personifications of daddy issues. Does Robby give into his mortal lust and become a member of the undead just to make his own member finally get head?

I fast-forwarded through each of the brutally de-rotic sex scenes, making the total real running time of I AM VIRGIN around, oh, thirty minutes. And the whole thing is 90 minutes. It's so depressing. Why would the filmmakers waste all this time, money and energy to make a below-average, above-the-waist soft-core waste of time? Hasn't the internet put a stake through the heart of these cock-teasing no-penetration straight-to-DVD flicks yet? And, even worse, why didn't they just actually try to make a real movie? Did they just have the idea, but nowhere near enough talent to actually do anything with it? Did they leave the only copy of the screenplay on top of their car and a heavy wind came along, blowing white sheets of paper everywhere and they were only able to recover around ten or twelve pages? I wish we were given some sort of justification!

Oops, I almost forgot: my sans dong doppelganger, Ron Jeremy, makes a very funny cameo, resulting in around eleven inches of laughs. And that's really ten more than I AM VIRGIN deserved.

TRANSYLMANIA: Dracula: Dumb and Loving It!

2010-10-07T22:28:00.004-06:00

TRANSYLMANIA: UNRATED EDITION
Starring Patrick Cavanaugh, James DeBello, Jennifer Lyons
Directed by David and Scott Hillenbrand
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

Why do scabs like Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer get to have their brutally unimaginative pop-trend rip-off riffs, like the recently excreted TWILIGHT make-em-up VAMPIRES SUCK, put into every Goddamned theater in America, yet the Hillenbrand Brother's latest opus, TRANSYLMANIA, was relegated to a few small dollar movie runs and a bland straight-to-DVD premiere a week later? I'm willing to bet—and, yes, this would be the saddest wager in the history of gambling—that TRANSYLMANIA is a far funnier, far more engaging and, definitely a far more creative take on the current cinematic vampire trend than the aforementioned VAMPIRES SUCK. It would have to be.

The reason I say that is because while TRANSYLMANIA is utterly idiotic—and oh boy, is it—at least it tries in it's little heart to be somewhat original. It desperately wants to give you a bit of a fresh story, no matter how stupid that story might be. At least it is a story. The Hillenbrands know that any ol' hacks can do a scene-by-scene Xerox parody of TWILIGHT—all you gotta do is have a couple of scenes where, say, Paris Hilton gets hit with a car driven by a fat Edward Cullen who just punched a werewolf in the nuts that shat out an Oompa Loompa that immediately started singing “Who Let the Dogs Out”. See how easy that was? Let me do that half a dozen more times. Where's my twelve picture deal, assholes?

When it comes to goofy horror parodies, I definitely fall on the Mel Brooks side of things, and, no, TRANSYLMANIA is no YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, but it sure is a good as DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT. And I liked DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT. Make fun of the conventions, make fun of the cliches, make fun of the idea of horror movies. TRANSYLMANIA does that like clockwork. It doesn't do a great job of it, sure, but at least it shows up to work on time.

Best described as NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 3: MY VACATION WITH DRACULA AND BONGS AND LESBIANS, because, well, that's what it is, the characters you've grown to know and love from the previous DORM DAZE movies get accepted to partake in an exchange program in, wait for it, Transylvania. In the first five minutes, multiple lubed bags of weed are shoved deep inside rectums, a dick gets slammed in a laptop computer and, most imaginatively, a Yakuza fucks a bootleg inflatable doll. Humpbacked hotties get humped, a nubile airhead sexpot gets possessed by a long-dead sorceress, one of the gang is mistaken for a vampire lord and, God bless 'em, a midget shows up. Of course there's a midget. There's always gotta be a midget.

And I appreciated it. I really did. I had a good time and I laughed more than I probably should have. Does that make me a bad person? Maybe. But keep this in mind: VAMPIRES SUCK has, so far, made over $30 million at the box office. No part of that money came from me. You tell me: who's the real evil?

Mull that over while I wait for TRANSYLMANIA 2, or NATIONAL LAMPOON'S DORM DAZE 4 or...hmmm...wait, what's this? According to IMDB, a little seen American movie called, awkwardly enough, THE AMERICAN POOP MOVIE, is known in Thailand as DORM DAZE 4. Now that I really want to see!

MARMADUKE: Spoiler alert: The dog doesn't die in the end.

2010-09-20T23:01:00.005-06:00

MARMADUKE
Starring Owen Wilson, George Lopez, Judy Greer
Directed by Tom Dey
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

I absolutely enjoyed MARMADUKE. Sue me. But, before you call a lawyer that might actually take that case, let me give you some background...

After sitting through—and embarrassingly bawling my rotten eyes out during—a screening of MARLEY AND ME in a packed-house shoebox dollar-theater, as I wiped sour tears on my sleeve, right there in the middle of the audience, I stood up, raising my fists and screaming defiantly to the heavens that I would write and produce my own dog-comedy, a movie that right there and then I decided to call NAUGHTY PUPPY.

As the first-draft screenplay for NAUGHTY PUPPY currently stands, it's about a hilariously mischievous canine rascal that gets into all kinds of trouble, played for laughs, of course. Naughty Puppy will track mud on a wealthy dowager's white carpet, hump a Persian cat named Chauncey, take a dump in a sandbox full of children, win a skateboarding competition, wreak havoc in a Golden Corral, go electric at the Newport Folk Festival, take a down 'n' out minor league baseball team to the World Series, inspire a classroom of ESL students to pass the SAT and possibly even solve a rape/murder/rape with the help of his human pal, Luis Flower (oddly enough, not based on me).

So, even though you've got all that, I'd still have to say that the best thing about NAUGHTY PUPPY is that, even though towards the end, just when you think that Naughty Puppy is about to perish in a dramatic recreation of 9/11, Angels descend upon the Earth and the Glorious St. Michael, flaming sword and all, lets Luis know that only those who looked past their puppy's foibles with laughter and mirth will be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven. To which Naughty Puppy, voiced by Chris Tucker, of course, gives the camera a “thumbs up” and says his lovable catchphrase, “Sweet Sassy Moe-lassie!”

Cue big Latino-themed musical finale with Smashmouth doing a blisteringly funky ska-cover of “Low Rider”. Santana even shows up to provide some sweet South of the Border axe-licks.

You don't need to teach the audience about the importance of life by having man's best friend die in the end. You don't! How dare you make us guffaw at a dog's misbehavior for two hours, only to off 'em in the last fifteen minutes! That's so unfair; most dog-owners have learned to dig deep into their own humanity throughout the course of the animal's life. If you do it only fifteen minutes before he dies, then you should've gotten a cat, asshole. And that is the lesson that NAUGHTY PUPPY will try to teach children of all ages, especially since, as it stands, it will have at the least a hard-R rating.

But, until I can get the $200 million I need to make my movie—not to mention the 3-D technology that needs to be invented—MARMADUKE will have to do. And, you know, it does do. It does do very well. Based on the long-running comic strip located in the Sunday Funnies, this live-action adaptation does an utterly commendable job of giving me all the hilarious dog misadventures I can handle—including dog-surfing!—and none of the agonizing mortality. Voiced by Owen Wilson—also in MARLEY AND ME, but as a human, BORING!—MARMADUKE is a sassy cut-up who, after moving to California, learns that popularity isn't all it's cut-out to be. Don't I know it, brother!

And it has dog-surfing! As a matter of fact, this scene also contains the best line of dialogue from any movie released so far this year: “It's a beautiful day here in Southern California for dog-surfing!”

(I have been trying to use that anytime I'm taking to anyone about the weather. For example, today at the post office, a hippie gent that I was standing next to in line said “Fall's coming. It's getting cooler.” To which I replied, “Yeah, it's the perfect type of weather for dog-surfing.” He looked at me awkwardly and continued to not bathe.)

So, Capt. Litigious, go ahead, dial that lawyer now. I presented a strong case, I think. MARMADUKE is a fun movie that I actually had a real fun time watching, with plenty of actually funny dog-based jokes that are totally easy to personalize and place on your own beloved four-legged furry best friends.

And, most importantly, it will satiate your need for this sub-genre of movie until NAUGHTY PUPPY comes along and accidentally knocks you off your cinematic high horse. Because he's a total klutz. It's probably a good idea to get some renter's insurance.

DAMAGED Reading: AND PARTY EVERY DAY: THE INSIDE STORY OF CASABLANCA RECORDS: Love to love them baby!

2010-09-20T15:11:00.007-06:00

AND PARTY EVERY DAY: THE INSIDE STORY OF CASABLANCA RECORDS
By Larry Harris
Backbeat Books
Review by Louis Fowler

I love cocaine.

Well, let me rephrase that: I love the idea of cocaine. If said pop-culture has taught me anything about Sweet Lady Nose-Toot, it's that it is always a great way to get any party started; a couple of quick lines off the floor of a rest area toilet-lid and in no time at all you'll be spinning an endless number of Giorgio Moroder 12-inch white label promos in ass-less leather chaps while a 12-year-old Thai lady-boy wearing only angel-wings gets a nosebleed and passes out under Truman Capote's ball-sack.

And, even more tempting, don't forget all that unwashed disco-trim you'll be soaking in! Hedonistic honeys in humid hot-pants will do the most unspeakable of sexual acts for just a little snort off of your flaccid shaft. Talk about a “blow” job!

This all still happens, right? Like, in New York? Please don't let me be the only jerk-off standing around in ass-less leather chaps here...

OK. So even if it doesn't happen too much these days, I can at least take it for granted that the 70s were a guaranteed winter wonderland! Please, don't take that from me too, because if a time machine ever gets invented, I'm bringing a stack of twenties, a jar of penicillin and, as my own personal tour-guide, AND PARTY EVERY DAY, written by Larry Harris, one of the founders of the notorious Casablanca Records.

For those that don't know, Casablanca Records was greatest record label of all-time, releasing music from such era-defining acts as the aforementioned Moroder, as well as Donna Summer, Village People, Parliament, Angel, KISS and Meadowlark Lemon. They were the ultimate pop-music hit-making factory, fueled completely by a neverending supply of pussy 'n' blow, usually in that order. Of course, the fact that Harris and partner Neil Bogart had a mystical sixth-sense for upcoming pop-culture fads and catchy pop-hooks, well, maybe that had a little bit more to do with it...but I'm sure the coke did it's job.

Even though Harris does a good job of protecting his completely honest, nice Jewish boy persona, he's also shockingly cavalier about his entire run at Casablanca, from pants-throb-inducing nights at Studio 54 to bribing disc jockeys with a little China White, all the way down to the ego-driven collapse of the disco empire that Casablanca so painstakingly built, seized brick by seized brick. Harris lays it all down on the line as he does another line; that's why this is one of the best music industry books I've read in quite a while—everything you thought that went on behind the doors of Casablanca is finally confirmed and it's a satisfying realization of all your beats-per-minute dance-fever daydreams.

So you can see why I need to take this book with me. I've got my plan all worked out: travel back to 1976 L.A., make friends with Larry, work my way into the inner circle, write a song called “Stonewallin'” for the Village People, overdose on the Sunset Strip while face-down in Bianca Jagger, be forced into a scream-therapy psychiatric rehab clinic by my employers, become a follower of Baba Ram Dass, sell out and go to work producing whatever Don Henley is excreting and, finally, write an autobiography of my debaucherous life and times called JUS' A TASTE OF THE KID: THE DOWN 'N' DIRTY WORLD OF LOUIS FOWLER, MUSIC BIZ SURVIVOR.

Sorry, alternate time-line Larry Harris...looks like you'll just have to find something else to write about.

DAMAGED Reading: BRONSON'S LOOSE: THE MAKING OF THE DEATH WISH FILMS and MONDO MANDINGO: THE FALCONHURST BOOKS AND FILMS

2010-08-15T01:43:00.008-06:00

BRONSON'S LOOSE: THE MAKING OF THE DEATH WISH FILMS and MONDO MANDINGO: THE FALCONHURST BOOKS AND FILMS
both by Paul Talbot
iUniverse
Review by Louis Fowler

It’s hard to believe there was a time when a guy like Charles Bronson could be a headlining, name-above-the-title box-office draw — an action hero to the men and a heartthrob to the ladies. With his salt-and-pepper hair, weathered face and perpetual pissed-off squint, Bronson was the ultimate silent bad-ass, relying on pure brute force to take out anyone who done him or his loved ones wrong. In other words: he was no pussy.

Action films today are, for the most part, a sad, dismal affair. Peppered with pretty boys like Paul Walker who look like they just came fresh off the set of the latest Falcon Studios twink fuck-fest flick and mince around, barely able to carry a gun, you gotta sit back and ask yourself: What happened to actors of the Bronson mold? Where are the men?

Like everything else that exudes alpha-male fortitude in this society, these guys — these action heroes — have been relegated to the barbaric past, with history constantly being rewritten and retold so that these dinosaurs and their films are the products of a bygone era of brawn-over-brains, above-the-law, shoot-first-ask-questions-later cinema that was only enjoyed by the most stupid of fly-over country Neanderthals, the most unenlightened of misogynistic assholes.

And just look where that thinking has gotten men today: They can’t change a tire. They eat tempeh burgers. They go to the doctor when get a little cough. They cry after sex. They vote Democrat.

All. Thanks. To. Fucking. Paul. Walker.

Paul Talbot knows this is all bullshit. Paul Talbot knows that a steady diet of ultraviolent Bronson flicks are important for a well-regulated, well-maintained masculine movie diet, so much so that he has written a bible of sorts on the subject, the insanely seminal BRONSON’S LOOSE!: THE MAKING OF THE DEATH WISH FILMS.

Loosely based on the novels by Brian Garfield — who apparently disavowed the movie adaptations for their violence — DEATH WISH is the story of Paul Kersey, a pacifist liberal architect who goes shithouse when his wife is raped and murdered, and his daughter just plain raped. Does he sit back and let the cops try to solve the case? Does he try to track down the criminals to have a discussion with them about their abusive childhoods? Fuck, no! He grabs some firearms and makes like a human street-sweeper, clearing them of criminals and thugs, one bullet at a time. And he gets away with it.

Talbot thoroughly recounts how the movie got made, from the numerous script rewrites to how it was written with Jack Lemmon (!) and Dustin Hoffman (!!) in mind as Kersey, to its runaway blockbuster success, public wish-fulfillment and media backlash from all the typical watchdog culprits. Talbot goes just as in-depth — if not more — in chapters based around each of the sequels. He treats each one with authoritative respect, never belying it as lesser or with fewer words because it’s not as well-known or didn’t do as well, money-wise. He’s got a real love and admiration for these movies and it shows. (But it’s a manly, tough love, natch.)

In his newest book, Talbot brings that same authoritative respect to an even slipperier slope than vigilantism: pre-Civil War-era slave/interracial-sex fantasies that are filled with grotesque brutal violence for fun. MONDO MANDINGO: THE FALCONHURST BOOKS AND FILMS delves even deeper into the most outre of pop-culture recesses than BRONSON’S LOOSE; the touchy ground that MONDO treads on truly awards Talbot with being a pop-culture documentarian where no sacred cow is left unboiled alive in oil.

We all know about the notorious 1975 potboiler MANDINGO and, to a lesser extent, its scummier sequel, DRUM, but apparently, they were based on a series of novels — 14 “official” titles, plus numerous rip-offs. I had no idea about any of this, but, as Talbot goes through each and every book with critical detail worthy of a Chaucer dissertation, they becoming tempting reads that I would wholly invest in if they weren’t so damn hard to track down. Just think how down and dirty the movies were; the books amp up the masturbatory sleaze not seen since the comedic works of de Sade. Who do I gotta horsewhip to get an omnibus of this junk put out?

Granted, both of these books are extremely niche in their appeal, but to those who find the subjects of Bronson revenge thrillers or lusty tales of overseer debauchery dreadfully undertaught by today’s school system, here are your new textbooks, fully approved by the state of Texas.

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 08.01.10, PART TWO!!!

2010-08-15T00:24:00.006-06:00

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!

TO READ PART ONE, CLICK HERE...

* FAIR GAME - Remember when Cindy Crawford used to be considered the hottest chick in America? I vaguely do, but then again, around that time I was listening to a lot of Amy Grant so my hormones were elsewhere. Thusly, I completely missed out on FAIR GAME, widely considered one of the best-worst movies of the 90s. Luckily, Big Lots has rectified that for me, and at about the same price of a first-run ticket back then.

* THE COWBOYS - John Wayne died with twelve pounds of undigested beef in his colon. And he had cancer. And he was punching a McGovern supporter in the jaw. And he made an insanely necessary western about a grizzled rancher who adopts eleven kids and puts them immediately to work on a 400 mile cattle-drive. It's like the BAD NEWS BEARS if the ragtag baseball team grabbed pistols and gunned down the dude who murdered Buttermaker. Which would've been a helluva better movie, if you ask me.

* COBRA - The Stallone franchise that never was but should've been. One of his top five movies, disagree with me all you want. Sly is Lt. Marion "Cobra" Cobretti--that's a lucky coincidence--who, according to the back of the DVD, is a "one-man assault force whose laser-mount submachine gun and pearl-handled Colt .45 spit pure crimestopping venom". Hell yeah. I want that chiseled on my tombstone: "Here lies Louis Fowler. While he was alive, he spit pure crimestopping venom."

* UP THE ACADEMY - Mad Magazine's attempt to copy the success of STRIPES and MEATBALLS, adding one necessary element: COMPLETELY SUCKING.

* ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS - One of my favorite SNL skits of all-time was when Nick Cage hosted and they did something called "Tiny Elvis". In "Tiny Elvis", when driving though a nuclear testing facility, Elvis is accidentally exposed to radiation and is shrunk to about two or three inches tall. It mostly consisted of him saying "Hey man, lookit that there steerin' wheel! That's huuuuuge, man!" and his cronies agreeing with "That's why they call you 'the man', Tiny E!". This documentary is a lot like that, only with a full-size Elvis.

* THE SHEPHERD: BORDER PATROL - My Big Lots partner-in-crime John G. swears that Isaac Florentine is the best-yet-wholly-unheralded American martial arts director working today. I haven't watched this yet, so I can't confirm. But, you know, even if the fighting ain't all that great, how bad can a movie that stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as a border patrol agent named Jack Robideaux be all that bad? Don't answer that.

* SPIES LIKE US - Here's one of those movies that, whenever it comes on TV--even regular network TV--I'll stop what I'm doing and watch it to the end. Why did I never pick it up on DVD? As far as I can remember, it has always been a cheap DVD, usually around five bucks, still in that cheap Warner Bros. cardboard flip-case. What's really messed up is that now, and I'm pretty sure of this, WB is going to release a super-special edition with the Paul McCartney title-song video as a special feature. Sons-a-bitches.

FISTS OF VENGEANCE: 16 FILM MARTIAL ARTS COLLECTION - Yeah, this is one of those cheap Mill Creek box-sets, often with sub-par prints and public domain titles. But so what? Get the eff over it. You really gonna complain for $3? Seriously? I mean, you get 16 movies here. Really? Still? You, sir, are a scumbag.

THE ESSENTIALS DIRECTOR SERIES: JEAN-LUC GODARD - I'm not gonna lie to you: I'm not the world's biggest fan of Godard. (I am, however, the world's biggest Yakov Smirnoff fan, but I'll save that for another day.) I tend to like his more surreal flicks: WEEK END, ALPHAVILLE, HAIL MARY--you know, no big deal, I can name-drop his shit when I have to--but this set contains his more accessible works: BREATHLESS, LE PETIT SOLDAT, LES CARABINIERS and NOTRE MUSIQUE. Which I'm sure are good. Right? Even if I find any of these totally boring, when I see a Jean-Luc Godard box-set at a Big Lots for $5, I feel like I kinda have to pick it up, completely without question. I would have to be a serious piece of illiterate human waste if I left a Jean-Luc Godard box-set sitting there next to copies of NATIONAL LAMPOON'S REPLI-KATE and THE GUMBALL RALLY. Even if those movies are far more entertaining.

PREDATORS: Catch a falling Brody, put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day.

2010-08-09T00:15:00.008-06:00

PREDATORS
Starring Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace
Directed by Nimrod Amtal
20th Century Fox
Review by Louis Fowler

I wish I could sit down with the High Council of Predators, or, at the very least, their Parks and Rec representatives, and just let them know that they aren't the best of hunters. Yeah, I'll probably get my spine ripped out for the efforts, but these dreadlocked jokers need to know that they are probably the lamest killers in the universe. With their invisibility, sonic hearing, laser cannons, extending pikes and, when they especially feel like throwing a temper tantrum, a wrist-based nuclear device, where's the skill? Where's the thrill of the hunt? Where's the challenge?

Disagree if you want, but Predators are the galactic equivalent of throwing a stick of dynamite into a lake to catch a couple of fish. They are the interstellar version of shooting wolves from a helicopter. They are the old rich white men of the galaxy, laying down their fat cash to spend a week in a private resort that brings the game to you, making doubly sure that you never once break a sweat as you sit in an air-conditioned watchtower that routinely spits out feed to draw the unknowing deer in for a quick, clean kill.

I'm actually willing to bet that, strip a Predator of all his goodies, leave him with only a somewhat pointed stick and a loin cloth, within minutes he'll be in the fetal position on the jungle floor, crying for daddy to come pick him up and give him a vanilla cone from McDonald's on the way home, slowly pushing the buttons of his atomic wristwatch as the Ecto-Cooler-like tears stream-down his vagina-esque face.

That brings us to PREDATORS, the latest in the franchise and the only one to really reclaim the spinal-cord laced mantle laid neatly before us in the woefully underrated PREDATOR 2, but not by much. Produced by Robert Rodriguez and directed by Nimrod Amtal, PREDATORS opens with Adrien (SOLO) Brody free-falling and panicking, reminding me of many a nightmare I've had, only at least Brody's wearing pants. And not fucking Abraham Lincoln.

Now having a dude free-fall from the very first frame is probably one of the top ten most kick-ass ways to open a movie. So then why is the next thirty or so minutes so damn interminable? You'd think that the thing would hit the ground running—literally—but there is so much needless character and plot development that it brings the movie to a grinding halt. It's thirty minutes of Brody and company wandering around a vaguely familiar landscape, asking repeatedly “Where are we?” while each character—ranging from a Chechnyan mercenary with kids to a well-dressed Yakuza—all give background info on who they are, why they're there and what their special talent for killing is. Apparently the filmmakers were on the hunt for dialogue filler, and found a whole horde of it in this first act. Forget the chopper—get to an editor!

Don't get me wrong: I am all for character development and all that crap. Especially if I am watching, say, EAT PRAY LOVE. (Please, EAT PRAY LOVE, slather on the character development!) But, sadly, I am not watching EAT PRAY LOVE, I am watching PREDATORS and I know all I need to know about this movie and whatever plot it is supposed to have right there in the title. I know that there are going to be some Predators that are going to mow some unlucky fuckers down and...well, that's all I need. Guys, feel free to make the hunted humans as cardboard and two-dimensional as you want. Trust me: you will not, in any way, hurt this film.

After a gulag-like slog for the captives, the Predators—and, by Predators, I mean two or three, thanks, guys—show up and kinda-sorta wreak some havoc, unleashing some wild boar-dogs on the troupe and, you know, walking around all invisible and sneaking up behind people and gutting them, like total pussies are wont to do.

You expect the film to carry itself nicely down this path for the next hour, but, then, the ever-expanding Laurence (OSMOSIS JONES) Fishburne comes out of nowhere with an unnecessary cameo as a crazy feller who lives in an abandoned Predator ship and needs to exfoliate ASAP. We all chuckle heartily as he does his best impersonation of “crazy”, talking to imaginary best-friends while giving little snippets of not really important plot info here and there. And then he blows the Hell up. Hopefully his paycheck didn't get singed on the way out.

By the last act, things pick up and it truly becomes the PREDATOR movie that we all knew it could be—well, should be—and finally does what it is supposed to do. But is it a case of too little, too late? Almost. Should it stop you watching it? Of course not, especially when it's a nice, sunshiny day out and there are so many books to be read. We all fully understand what the filmmakers were trying to do: replicate the feel and pace of the original PREDATOR and give it the ol' sideways flippy-floppy—but c'mon, man: we've already seen that. Hundreds and hundreds of times. Do. Something. New. Was the original this tedious?

Massive story problems aside, PREDATORS still has a lot going for it. For example, after two spin-off sequels completely bereft of any type of lighting or camera operator whatsoever, the filmmakers not only invested in some lights, but a tripod. Go team. It was nice to actually be able to see a PREDATOR movie again, what with me dropping all that skrilla on a ticket and all.

Also, let's hear it for the casting, especially Brody. When Nicolas Cage entered the “Nicolas Cage”-era of his career, it kinda happened overnight and took everyone by surprise. We didn't know how to react because we, as a country, were fully unprepared. However, between this, SPLICE and GIALLO, we are the witnesses to history, seeing the building blocks to Brody's own “Nicolas Cage”-era. It is unfolding right before our eyes! Don't you dare turn away, either! I look forward to each and every thing Brody does from here on out and treating it with a slack-jawed respect and eye-popping aplomb that is worthy of such critic-deriding and culture-creating choices.

With all that being said though, it doesn't change the fact that the PREDATORS series needs something new, something formidable. The Predators need a human force of nature that can actually present a real challenge...

OK.: I was going to save this as pitch to whoever does those mass-market PREDATOR novelizations—Dark Horse, I think—but, like my dad used to say, “if nobody else can do it right, do it your damn self”. So, Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Amtal, please take the time to hear my brilliant pitch:

For as long as man can remember, they've come from the skies, landing and hiding, hunting and killing, using us as wasteful sport. But, when a Predator ship crash-lands on a ranch in rural Texas, this time...we're prepared. HE'S prepared. The Predators are gonna find out they've fucked with the wrong man. The wrong madman. The Motor City Madman. Ted Nugent.

PREDATORS: FREE-FOR-ALL. Coming Summer 2012.

Mull it over, fellas. I'll wait for your call.

DAMAGED Reading: PAUL IS UNDEAD: THE BRITISH ZOMBIE INVASION!

2010-08-02T00:33:00.003-06:00

PAUL IS UNDEAD: THE BRITISH ZOMBIE INVASION
By Alan Goldsher
Gallery Books

Paperback Zombies! (Paperback Zombies!)

Dear sir or madam, will you read this book?
It took me a week to finish, will you take a look?
It's a zombie novel by a guy named Goldsher,
It stars the Beatles and he does a good job for a non-horror writer...

Non-horror writer!

It's the bloody story of a zombie band,
And a zombie plague nobody understands...
Led by John Lennon, they want to raise Hell,
With a steady supply of fresh brains loaded into their concert rider...

Their concert rider!

It's 300 pages, give or take a few,
Ringo Starr is a ninja and so is Yoko too...
Mick Jagger shows up as a zombie slayer,
And my favorite part is the shooting of the infamous butcher cover...

Infamous butcher cover!

Yeah, I really liked it, it's very clever and tight,
I'm pretty sure Goldsher's sold off the movie rights...
It's very cinematic and should be worth a few laughs,
So c'mon give it a break and please hire a decent screenwriter...

A decent screenwriter!

Paperback Zombies! (Paperback Zombies!)
Paperback Zombies! (Paperback Zombies!)
Paperback Zombies! (Paperback Zombies!)

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 08.01.10, PART ONE!!!

2010-08-01T20:32:00.007-06:00

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!

I used to think nothing about buying stacks and stacks of $3 DVDs from Big Lots in one sitting, spending God knows how much inbetween great deals on out of date Capri Suns and Shania Twain cologne, but, recently, I've been leaving with maybe only two or three titles at a time. Not because of financial troubles, mind you, but because the Lots are getting the most mainstream titles possible from Columbia, Paramount and Warner Bros., leaving behind those real cult rarities that made them so awesome to begin with. Gone are the copies of THE HOWLING 3 and LEGEND OF THE CHUPACABRA, replaced with pallets of MUST LOVE DOGS and MONA LISA SMILE. And, while for most people three-buck copies of pseudo-feminist Julia Roberts flicks are a shower-nozzle masturbation fantasy unto itself, but, for me, it's just more money in my pocket to spend elsewhere. Like on tacos. Delicious tacos.

Still, over the past couple of months, I've been able to, on occasion when no one is looking, sink to the bottom of the neatly-packed stacks like a fat kid in a McDonald's Playplace ball-pit, finding a few real treasures, as few and far between as they are. I've bought enough to make a two-part posting, although I doubt most of them will make you all that jealous, like in the past...

* THE 6TH DAY - A fine-enough latter-day Schwarzenegger effort from 2000, made around the time when you could tell that Arnold just kinda gave up on this whole acting thing. END OF DAYS, people? THE 6TH DAY is entertaining but also instantly forgettable. As a matter of fact, I saw this in the theaters and for ten years, erased its existence from my memory, right until I saw this in the BL stacks, when all those memories came rushing back, causing a slight nosebleed. I'm holding it in my hands right this very minute and am still not sure if this is real.

* THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE - Surprisingly, I didn't own this comedy classic--and, yes, it really is a comedy classic. Some of it is pretty dated, mostly for all the ill-advised grunge-rock music and fashions, but the massage remains the same: by tattling on your friends, you're really just tattling on yourself. And by tattling on your friends, you're just telling them that you're a tattletale. Now is that the tale you want to tell?

* WATERMELON MAN - I miss the old days when race was dealt with head-on, with real humor that wasn't afraid to offend. Try getting SANFORD AND SON on the air today; the NAACP would probably call it a subversive "Tea Party hate-crime" plot! Someone from the Ministry of Entertainment is gonna get fired for that shit! Aside from Redd Foxx, Godfrey Cambridge did a damn good job at making light of whitey in this tripped-out 60s comedy about a stodgy white businessman who wakes up to find himself a total soul brother. The hypocrisy of liberal attitudes are utterly destroyed here, in a way that seems more important today than then. Of course, if it were to be remade today, it would probably be by Tyler Perry and would star Zac Efron. And instead of a black man, he'd be turned into the Easter Bunny. And it would be brought to you by Disney. Soundtrack by Soulja Boy.

* 48 HRS. - Has Nick Nolte always been 65? And drunk? I feel like I need to buy him a fresh pack of Hanes.

* NICOLAS CAGE TRIPLE FEATURE: FACE/OFF / SNAKE EYES / BRINGING OUT THE DEAD - Three of Nick Cage's best works, although, really, how does one honestly choose the "best"? FACE/OFF is a total action classic, SNAKE EYES is a Brian De Palma curiosity that is pretty good, and BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is Scorsese's hilarious attempt at being Oliver Stone, circa U-TURN. CAGE IS FREAKIN' AND TWEAKIN' BRO!

* HEARTBEEPS - Oh, HEARTBEEPS. So maligned, so forgotten. Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters "star" as robots finding love and then building a baby robot. I had not seen this since the glory-days of early 80s HBO, and, you know...it's really not all that bad. I actually teared up at one point towards the end. But, yeah, it's also pretty stupid too. So, whatever. Asshole.

* HALF PAST DEAD - Hard to believe, but there was a time when Steven Seagal was a past-his-prime joke. I know. Then, in the early aughts, he released the back-to-back action hits HALF PAST DEAD and EXIT WOUNDS, both of which I saw with Bookgasm's Rod Lott at half-past-filled premiere screenings in the "urban" part of town and had a blast. No, really: there was a drive-by. (For those keeping count, by the way, this is the tenth Seagal flick I've picked up at Big Lots. It's my own private Seagal Superstore!)

* BLACK SNAKE MOAN - Christina Ricci plays half-naked nympho white trash so good that, when you're masturbating to this, you kinda almost forget that she just got raped. Kinda.

* THE NAKED GUN - I think that Big Lots might have gotten this from Canada. Half of everything on the packaging is in French. For example, "Supplements Non Classes" means "Special Features Not Rated" in French. In other words, USA #1!

* STILL CRAZY - One of the finest, yet totally overlooked, rock movies of the past 25 years, made in the wake of the tedious overload of British underdog comedies like THE FULL MONTY. STILL CRAZY got lost and forgotten over the years, which is a shame because this is a fun, funny and touching look at past-their-prime classic rockers, with a killer soundtrack that I need to track down as well. Most of you would probably hate this though.

TO BE CONTINUED...

DAMAGED Reading: HELLBENT FOR COOKING: THE HEAVY METAL COOKBOOK: 101 BASIC RECIPIES BY METAL BANDS FROM 32 COUNTRIES

2010-07-01T22:53:00.002-06:00

HELLBENT FOR COOKING: THE HEAVY METAL COOKBOOK: 101 BASIC RECIPIES BY METAL BANDS FROM 32 COUNTRIES
by Annick “Morbid Chef” Giroux
Bazillion Points

I'm kind of a pussy. Well, at least when it comes to metal, I'm kind of a pussy.

You see, when I think of metal, I think of Guns 'N' Roses or Motley Crue or, god forbid, Poison. Melodic paeans to debauchery, wherein the songwriter's idea of romance is pouring a fifth of Jack all over a groupie's well-worn tits. It's something I can fully identify with.

But, as I have learned from my numerous years in the music business, like I said, I am a total fucking pussy. True metal comes from bands with names like Grimorium Verum, Funerot and Faustcoven. And don't forget Necrosadist! As a matter of fact, I have already prepped myself for the scads of metal-heads with Google Alerts based around their fave bands, commenting on auto-pilot with things like “YoU Thimnk POISoN is Metal??..RoTTTING CHRIST for LIFE< FAGIT!!!”

That being said, who knew that bands with indecipherable logos and such obvious issues with Christianity would have such discernible taste-buds? Downright adorable Canadian chef Annick Giroux did, and she's compiled 101 unholy recipes from only the scrungiest of guttural bands, ranging from Pentagram's “Delicious Oriental Chicken Casserole” to Autopsy's “Mummified Jalapeño Bacon Bombs” in a cookbook that manages to eschew it's would-be novelty implications because, well, the food is actually good.

For example, the other night I made “Frijoles Borrachos”, sent in by the Colombian group Witchtrap. It's a recipe for beer-soaked beans, basically, and served with guacamole and fried plantains. The recipes are written very concise and simple enough for even the most mongoloid of metal-heads to follow. From trashy comfort food to complex lamb dishes, Giroux manages to invite everyone to the paint-sniffing party with a helpful, conversational tone that will have that old JOY OF COOKING book carving an upside-down cross into it's forearm.

But, as good as HELLBENT FOR COOKING is (I plan on doing a JULIE & JULIA like experiment with it), I can only look forward to volume two, where we get recipes from REAL metal-stars, such as Sebastian Bach's “Eggplant Pizza Gone Wild”, Tommy Lee's “Foot-Long Frank Sandwich” and Jani Lane's “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich Chocolate Eclairs”.

I bet you thought I was going to make a “Cherry Pie” reference with that last one. Who's the poseur now?

DAMAGED Goods: BK's BBQ Ribs!

2010-06-12T14:44:00.003-06:00

Burger King. Has. Ribs.

Let that sink in for a moment...Burger King...has ribs.

I didn't know really what to expect as I heard the news; so many things were going through my mind: were they going to be actual bone-in ribs or those processed rib-meat patties akin to a McRib sandwich? Would it be dry-rubbed with spices or slathered in a tomato-y sauce? And, most important, would they be flame-broiled right there on the spot or pre-cooked with drawn-on burn-marks and kept under a heat-lamp for hours on end, satisfying any rube with a hankering for pseudo-BBQ? I must've spent close to two weeks wishing and hoping and thinking and praying about all the different scenarios that might transpire when I got my hands on that little cardboard box of hope and wonder.

It's easy to see why Burger King has gotten off their collective asses and added such a drastically different and out-of-place item on their stagnant (but reliable) menu: their past three or four latest promotional burgers have all been nothing more than variations of two patties covered with either A-1 steak sauce, jalapenos or both. I didn't even bother to try their latest, the IRON MAN 2-inspired Whiplash burger, and you know how much I love food based on Marvel Comic adaptations. It was just more of the same! Oh, I'm sure it would have been OK, but I'm a little tired of “OK” from these guys. They can do better. They have done better.

And, once again, they ARE doing better. The BK Ribs (Is that what we're calling these? I have no idea what the “official” name is.) are phenomenally good. Good in a way that you wouldn't—shouldn't-expect from a fast-food place.

First of all, these are perfectly seasoned, perfectly seared bone-in mini half-ribs, like something you'd find at, maybe, an Applebee's on the apps menu. They aren't huge, and, for the most part, not filling...but they work! Don't get me wrong: they aren't as good as, say, some South Texas joint with a big ol' black dude manning the smoker, but, for ribs watched over by pimply 16-years-olds named Austin, they are delightfully husband-pleasing. Juicy, meaty and perfectly smokey, with the sauce thankfully served on the side. They're best ordered with onion rings and a Dr. Pepper, so as to at least have some sort of authentic BBQ air about them. You don't wanna sell out all the way, Elton John.

The price is a bit steep: $10 for the full meal and, as much as I like them, it's really a bit too cost-prohibitive to eat on a regular basis, especially for the amount. I really guess it all depends on availability of immediate ribs in your area when you get that craving. If you have a local BBQ-rib place that serves a quick and easy lunch at a reasonable price, then, by all means, go there first. But, if that rib hankering sets in about 11:30 and your work is right next door to a BK, then, by all means, order a eight piece. Hell, double and go for sixteen. You've been good, you deserve it.

Hopefully BK will keep experimenting with BBQ and, who knows, maybe even make a bigger, better rib sandwich to compete with McDonald's. Lord knows someone's got to...

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: One, two, Freddy's gonna bore you...

2010-05-27T19:10:00.006-06:00

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner
Directed by Samuel Bayer
New Line Cinema
Review by Louis Fowler

I am not one of these critics that feels the immediate need to poo-poo remakes, reduxs or reimaginings. For the record, I tend to honestly like remakes; they excite and interest me. I want to see another artist's take on an established piece of pop culture history, especially in the genre film arena. You can go ahead and lament about the lack of “original ideas in Hollywood”, but, when Hollywood hands you lemons, you snort coke. And these remakes, love them or hate them, are pure uncut Colombian these days. The street value has gotta be in the millions.

Sometimes, you get better-than-the-original results, like in the cases of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN, Chuck Russell's THE BLOB, Neil LaBute's THE WICKER MAN or David Cronenberg's THE FLY. Not only were they bold, brave and ballsy variations, they were also inspired enough to deride audiences straight down the middle, creating the sweatiest factions of geekdom not seen since, well, whatever George Lucas did last week.

But, most times, the results are so lacklusterly bad that they inspire all the warring clans to come together and convene around the fire, passing the peace pipe and breeding a new generation of hatred and backlash that, like an wonderfully thick oceanic oil-spill, is a mess that will take years for the studios to clean up. See Roland Emmerich's GODZILLA, the CGI-nonsense that was the FOG and pretty much anything Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes touches.

That brings us to sheer indifference. While, yes, the “Dunes” (as the fans call them) did produce the remake of 1984's horror classic A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, they've gone ahead and done the absolute worst thing possible: they just gave up. It's not a good movie, it's not a bad movie, it's just...a movie. A generic, faceless, reprehensibly boring movie that has absolutely no purpose for it's existence other than to make a couple of bucks and, possibly, keep copyrights from expiring. No one cared about this movie whatsoever.

Honestly: how hard is it to screw up a Freddy Krueger movie? The makers of the original series have run the entire gamut of a cinematic Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief, twice over, and always maintained a fresh, appealing sense of fun to the whole thing, even if they weren't fully appreciated back then. There were no rules, no limits, no sense of having to pander to anyone. Not even the fans. With every entry, a new filmmaker with different tastes and ideas was brought in and they were allowed to run wild, with proudly varying results. In retrospect, it was an amazingly creative and philosophically freeing franchise.

But those days are long gone. Those days of wine and roses have been replaced by Red Bull and a stock portfolio. If you want to experiment, get an 8-millimeter camera and go fuck yourself, nerd. You don't belong in this game. Get on the assembly line, don't make waves and collect your gold watch. That's the way Hollywood produces most of these slick horror remakes. Businessmen wanting a return on investment, not fans, are the target demographic.

Assembly line. Yeah, that's the best way to describe A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. It's nowhere near as aggressively bad as Dunes' prior act of blasphemy, FRIDAY THE 13TH, but, instead, it just opts out and cops out to an even greater sin: laziness. Screenwriters Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer don't have total disdain for the material, they just don't care. And why should they? In this age of GOSSIP GIRL and TWILIGHT, these studios just bring in failed tween dramedy script-writers and give them a case of Monster energy drink and a stick of guyliner. The new ELM STREET feels like it was a recycled pilot for a CW project that was passed on and just had the words “Freddy Krueger” interchangeably replaced with the previous villain's name.

There's are no actual characters in this movie, just caricatures of how 40-year-olds think “cool” emo kids act. Everyone is interchangeably sullen, reacting with drama club pathos under the constantly flickering fluorescent lights, make-up girl on hand to make those cheekbones shallower and shallower. The two main “characters” are Quentin and Nancy, played by utterly charisma-less Kyle Gallner and Rooney...ugh...Mara.

Kyle Gallner is the rosebud-lipped mouth-rape baby offspring of Robert Pattinson, skin sickly-white and Joy Division shirt permanently in check, because, you know, he's a sensitive outsider. He skulks around, always on the verge of tears, threatening to burn a hole on the screen with a “no-one-gets-me” stammering intensity that gives fellow walking coagulation Jesse Eisenberg a run for his money.

And Nancy? Oh, Lord, sweet Nancy...what did they do to you?

Rooney...ugh...Mara's Nancy is no longer a strong, pretty, likable girl-next-door that you root for, but a raccoon-eyed sullen “artist” who sums up her own persona by saying, simply, “I don't fit in.” She's Rachael Leigh Cook in the first half-hour of SHE'S ALL THAT, with about half the life-threatening drama to make it all worthwhile. Rooney. Ugh.

Together on the screen...well, let's just say that the next time scientists discover a new black hole, I propose the name Gallner-Mara 2010-B. Their dialogue consists of entirely of finishing each other's
sentences:

“There's a man in my dreams with these...”

“...knives on his hand. I've seen him too!”

“That means we're both having the...”

“...same dream. But that's....”

“...impossible...I know!”

In-between all of this low-rent emoting, there are nightmares, of course. And, just so you know that you are in one and you don't have to waste precious time wallowing in suspense, every time a kid's eyelids shut, one second later, they are on the abandoned set of the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video, complete with rusty walls and dolls with burnt faces. But that makes sense: the thing was directed by Samuel Bayer, an affected “artist” who has directed the same video multiple times for imbeciles like the Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson and, yes, Nirvana. Did Jonas Akurlund have a prior commitment? Was Mark Pellington out of town and missed the phone call?

The one saving grace of NIGHTMARE? That would be Jackie Earle Haley. After such creepy turns in LITTLE CHILDREN and WATCHMEN, he's the sociopath du jour and does a great job in making Freddy scary again. Too bad that every time he opens his mouth he has to dribble out the words of Strick and Heisserer, who feed him jokey asides that would even have Robert Englund asking for massive rewrites. And that's the guy who directed 976-EVIL. He obviously doesn't know better.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is the cinematic equivalent of a hot summer afternoon's nap on a lumpy vinyl couch while flipping channels only to find that womens' golf is on. It's uncomfortable and boring and your sweaty thigh-skin will probably get a minor rash, but, hey, at least you caught a couple of sound Zs, right?

Welcome to nap-time, bitch.

NEW BIGFOOT PRINT ANTHOLOGY “MONDO SASQUATCH” CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONS!

2010-05-14T08:41:00.003-06:00

Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Skunkape. Whatever you call him, this cryptozoological American legend has entertained and befuddled us for generations. From grainy Zapruder-like film to family fare such as “Harry and the Hendersons”, the Bigfoot is an ingrained part of our culture. And, now, we're gonna tell the other side of his story...the further adventures of Bigfoot!

Conceived in a fever pitch this past Horrorhound Weekend, Louis Fowler, editor of DAMAGED 2.0 and Casey Criswell, editor of “Cinema Fromage”, are teaming up with Rod Lott at BOOKGASM for MONDO SASQUATCH: The Bigfoot Anthology, to be published under the new “BOOKGASM PRESENTS” banner. And, as with any anthology worth it's salt, we need quality writers wanting to tell their own version of the Sasquatch myth!

Think that you've got an unique story to tell? We want it! Anyone can do a typical Bigfoot-scares-teen-campers tale...we want something different. Stories can put the creature in anytime or anyplace or any situation, as long as it is entertaining! Think your story is too “B-movie”? Chances are we'll like it even better. Think your “take” is too insane? We want to read it!

Short story submissions need to be at least 1500 words, but feel free to go longer to tell the story that you need to. Additionally, flash fiction of at least 250 words will also be considered, but, please tell a story.

NO POETRY.

All submissions should be sent as a .doc file, in 12 point Times New Roman font. No crazy fonts, please. Number all pages and please include name, mailing address, phone number and e-mail address in the top left corner of the first page.

For work accepted, authors will receive a complimentary copy of the anthology in which their work appears.

We will be accepting submissions from now until AUGUST 15TH. Authors will be notified of acceptance shortly thereafter by email.

Send all submissions to damagedhearing@gmail.com with the subject “BIGFOOT SUBMISSION”.

Thanks, and we look forward to seeing your stuff!

LAST BUY: A breakup letter to my 20-year media paramour, Best Buy.

2010-04-16T22:18:00.007-06:00

LAST BUY: A breakup letter to my 20-year media paramour, Best Buy.
By Louis Fowler

I still remember when Best Buy first came to Oklahoma City. It was the early-90s and my chubby middle school self was into British Invasion-era music pretty hardcore. My obsession with all things Beatles was reaching an embarrassing zenith, having just discovered that their Capitol releases, from album art to track-listings, were almost always different than that of their original UK Parlophone-released counterparts. I was scouring everywhere within my limited walking distance to find the recently released in America UK versions. It was adorably sad and, ultimately, sexually regressive. I would go throughout middle school with nary a squeeze of under-developed female titty.

Up until that point, most of my music purchases were made at the Target two blocks from my house, and they were of the cassette variety, having not fully saved up the $100 needed to purchase that CD stereo system I had my eye on in my dad's Fingerhut catalogs. And, while shopping at Target I discovered quite a few cool, seminal albums there, their selection was at best pathetic and always kinda pricey. I usually ended up sticking to “Nice Price” or “Pricebusters” tapes in the bin where they didn't even bother with those long plastic anti-theft devices. No one steals a “Nice Price” tape, right?

1992 comes around and the big buzz, at least among myself, is all about this new electronics store, Best Buy. Not only would they have smartly priced electronics, but apparently the lowest prices on cassettes, CDs and VHS tapes. And, good God Almighty, did they ever!

The first time I stepped in there, the week they opened, I believe, I felt like I was in my own personal wonderland. (Okay, I was 12 or 13—what did I know about real record stores? Cut me a break, jerk!) They had aisles of reasonably priced cassettes and, HOLY CRAP! They had the Beatles! They had their stuff on Parlophone! I had enough money to buy two tapes—REVOLVER and BEATLES FOR SALE! On cassette! My life as a consumer had changed forever, teaching me what the word “loyalty” is all about.

From that point on, I was a LOYAL customer. Every week, I would walk from NW 47th to NW 59th, I believe, across the busy expressway and underpasses, past the frontage roads and empty parking lots, often with my younger brother in tow. We'd trek up there most Sunday afternoons, spending hours looking around, even if we left with only a purchase of a Crystal Pepsi. Man, when I think of all the tapes I bought in that time period...tapes I still own somewhere around here: Bob Dylan-AS GOOD AS I BEEN TO YOU, Tom Petty-FULL MOON FEVER, Mick Jagger-WANDERING SPIRIT and, um, Sting-TEN SUMMONER'S TALES... Needless to say, everytime I got some cash, I'd buy a new tape from there. My CD player would be held off for another summer.

As I got older though, I began to explore past my neighborhood more often. I soon discovered records stores like the (sadly) defunct Sound Warehouse and CD Warehouse, and the more indie ones on OKC like Music Dimensions. Whenever there was a hard-to-find CD that was made to sound intriguing in trendy slacker-mags like PULSE, HUH? or RAYGUN, those would be the places I would go to first. The indies. They'd always have that stuff. But, if it was a new release that I knew EVERYONE and their adoptive mother would carry, and I wanted it at a low price, Best Buy was my first and only stop.

This LOYAL fandom of Best Buy has continued with me for a little under twenty years now. Twenty. Years. For two decades I have given this corporation my hard-earned and bitterly won money on a regular, damn-near weekly basis. I would meet up with friends there on Tuesdays for new release day. I would get up early on Sunday to be the first to see the circular and, then first in line to take advantage of the sales. It was my Black Friday camp-out store of choice. And, whenever anybody was going to get me a gift, I would ask them to just take me to Best Buy and let me go wild. I was that simple to please.

The past few years for the media collector slash obsessive have been especially sweet, as most Best Buys had a Circuit City right down the street from them and the two would routinely duel it out for entertainment supremacy, offering all types of deals, markdowns and exclusives. Best Buy had the real advantage though: if ever Circuit City did get the drop on them, BB had a brutally overpowering price-match guarantee. There was almost no reason to really ever step foot in Circuit City, except to plunder their corpse as the fetid store lay dying and foreclosed upon in their final days.

(For more on this boot-stealing of the dead, read “Circuit Breaker: The Final Days of Circuit City”.)

Because I felt like I had this personal connection with Best Buy, I turned a deaf-ear on all those cynics who decried that BB would change everything I loved about them now that they had no real competition. No way. They'd never do that to a LOYAL customer. Just take a look at my Reward Zone card, guys! BB will take care of me, nurture me and pat my bottom with baby powder whenever I got a little rash.

So...what's got two thumbs and believed that a corporation actually gave a damn about them like a total moron? ^ THIS GUY. ^

Like everything that I've ever loved in my life, Best Buy did change, and not for the better. Quite the opposite, actually. They started to raise their prices. Started to have less media sales. Started carrying less product. Started getting smug: “We know you got no other place to go, fat boy! You got no choice but to pay $29.99 for a Blu-Ray of STAR TREK! HAHAHAHAHAHA!” * crushes kitten's head *

I started going to their store less and less. Once a week turned into once every couple of weeks, then once a month, then only whenever a sale caught my eye. They changed their whole Reward Zone program. I'd either never get my $5 certificate in the mail or I'd look at my balance and see all my points gone. Points weren't rolling over anymore. Even worse, when I'd ask an employee about it, they not only didn't know...they didn't care. No one cared. My LOYALTY wasn't worth even a measly $5 certificate. And when you ain't worth five dollars, you ain't worth shit, son.

This finally came to a head the past week when, after a couple of movies I wanted that were listed as being available in the store on their website, weren't in stock. OK, fine. I'll just ask them to do one of those store-pickups that the kids talk so much about. It was more trouble than it was worth. A simple ask of whether or not I could have a couple of DVDs ordered and sent to the store for pick-up became a huge, embarrassing mess, quagmired in one roll of red tape after another. After ten or fifteen minutes of one employee after another staring blankly at a computer...I gave up. I was done. I said “Look, I appreciate the help, but I'll just get it off Amazon. Thanks though.”

And I walked through those electric-eye double-doors for the very last time.

I know exactly what my problem is: when I find a product or business I like, I'm too LOYAL. I'm a consumer wet-dream. But, now, they have to wake up and realize their pants are all sticky and need to hide them on the bottom of the hamper so mom doesn't find them. Loyalty isn't rewarded anymore, it's expected! No one cares about you and your purchase power! Get in line and buy, buy, buy, don't ask any questions!

Best Buy, we had a great run. But you're like the ex-girlfriend who I've lavished expensive gifts on, clearing out my bank account just to get one sweet drop of your sweet sweetness of, only to have you break up with me when a bigger, better deal comes along. You're a lying, cheating, manipulative bitch and I hope to compose a twelve-song album full of biting Elvis Costello-lite lyrics about the whole situation.

It's funny: more and more people that I talk to about Best Buy are feeling the exact same way. Most don't even bother going into stores anymore, not with Amazon.com right at their fingertips! And I don't blame them. I mean, if you are going to deal with cold, impersonal, robotic service, it might as well be with your own computer. And you might as well get the lowest price. And you might as well get it shipped to your house, no questions asked.

In this climate, businesses are failing left and right. You'd think that, because of that intense fear of losing everything they've ever worked for, stores like Best Buy would try harder to beat down the Internet behemoths that are quietly flaying them. You'd think they would try to offer that personal touch. You'd think...well, you'd think they'd value your LOYALTY.

So that takes me right back to the beginning. I've been wanting these new Beatles remasters for a while now. Keeping my eye out for a great price on the whole set. Amazon's got the complete Beatles stereo box set for $179.98, marked down from $258.98. And with free shipping. On the Amazon Marketplace, however, it's even cheaper at $130.00. Sorry, but to me, that's not just a better buy, that's the real best buy.

DAMAGED Goods: THE KFC DOUBLE-DOWN SANDWICH!

2010-04-14T00:30:00.006-06:00

Why do people, when they hear about a new food product that might be outside the norm — especially of the fast food variety — they always have to do that fake, fraudulent gasp of disgust?

“Ugh...you're not really gonna eat that, are you?” they say as they hypocritically puff on their cigarette, but it's okay because they're American Spirits, right?

The latest victim of this “do as I say, don't do as I do” culinary condescension is the KFC “Double-Down” sandwich, a comically grotesque evolutionary marvel that replaces bread with fried chicken while simultaneously taking Jamie Oliver out back and raping him in the tool-shed. Preferably with a drumstick.

Alright. The Double-Down. Not only has lame, boring bread been replaced with original recipe fried chicken, the actual chicken part that would normally go in the middle has been replaced with multiple slices of Goddamn cheese and bacon, slathered in what I think is a mayonnaise-like product of some sort. It could be congealed fat for all I know.

And, yes, it's a good as it sounds.

It's a heavy, greasy, utterly mouth-watering novelty sandwich, like a McDLT with balls. It's truffles stuffed with caviar for the working class of America, and probably the greatest fast food reinvention since, well, I guess the KFC Famous Bowl. You guys are doing some fantastic work in those top secret labs, keep it up.

Look: you'd have to be a complete imbecile not to know that such a sandwich is bad for you. That's the whole point of it's existence! No one in their right mind is going to take a look at the Double-Down and think it's a good, nutritional, wholesome meal choice. This sandwich is a joke, something to laugh at and try once! Maybe twice, but only if it's two in the morning and you're coming down off shrooms. It's edible performance art meant to get a rise out of this nation of overprotective pussies!

OK, bloggers and Twitterers, we get it! If you eat a Double-Down every day for the next couple of days, weeks, months, YOU WILL DIE OF A HEART ATTACK! Maybe. The science isn't all the way in yet. But most people aren't realistically going to do that and the ones that would, well, if it wasn't a Double-Down, it would be a new Cheesy Volcano Gordita Wrap or a sackful of Quarter-Pounder Big Macs. Nothing you can say or do is gonna change that. Let them live their lives and let nature take it's course!

Besides: why do you give a fuck anymore? We got free health-care now! Let's rob this bitch for all it's worth! Yeeeeeee-haw!

* shoots six-shooters into the air, starts wheezing, falls asleep *

Try the Double-Down once. It's worth it. Get it out of your system by getting it into your system. It's a once in a lifetime event that needs to be tried only once, preferably in your short lifetime. If you feel bad about it, walk to the KFC and back. You could use the exercise anyway.

HALLOWEEN II: UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT: More of the night you went home and cried into your pillow.

2010-03-22T15:16:00.004-06:00

HALLOWEEN II: UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT
Starring Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Mane, Scout Taylor-Compton
Directed by Rob Zombie
Dimension Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

Every so often—and by so often, I mean continually—mindless bandwagon trends within the horror and/or genre communities break out and it becomes like high school all over again, only with an added air of patheticness for all parties involved because, well, they obviously haven't looked in a mirror recently.

It's a testament to the fact that, for a group of people who pride themselves on being outcasts to the point of making their Facebook quote “You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same!”—which was a great t-shirt at Hot Topic, wasn't it?—they all want the same thing that the people they so desperately hate want: a wonderfully comforting sense of conformity that will lead them to acceptance. Everyone will love me, everyone will want to be my friend, everyone will invite me to the party. Hell, even my dad might return my calls, black nail-polish and boys' athletic cut “Team Jacob” shirt be damned!

Let me make this very clear: horror-fans are just as big of frauds as everyone else out there, needing love, validation and affirmation. Need proof? Look no further than the recent Two Minutes Hate that is not only the continual work of director Rob Zombie, but, more specifically, his recent exercise in post-traumatic stress disorder, HALLOWEEN 2, or, H2 as the marketing materials wanted us to call it.

Now, for all intent and purposes, H2 is everything that an intelligent, self-sufficient, free-thinking horror fan would want in a genre movie: heart-wrenching character depth, numerous unexpected twists and bizarre psychological tangents that should leave one puzzled, requiring another watch. Zombie is what Lars Von Trier would have been if raised on a diet of cheap beer, late night b-movies and a complete Diamond Head discography.

But, if I may bite the hand that feeds me for a moment, most horror-fans aren't intelligent, self-sufficient, free-thinkers. No, they want everything telegraphed out to them in such great detail that they might as well have written it themselves—though, of course, that would never happen. They don't want new ideas...they want small tits and fake blood and good-looking moonlighting GOSSIP GIRLS cast-members and they want them now!

HALLOWEEN 2 doesn't, at all, want to give that to you and, brilliantly enough, Zombie refuses to give it to you. He won't budge, you can't change his mind. Zombie's H2 is the most anarchic, punk-ethos-drenched horror-flick to be released by a mainstream studio since, well, in as long as I can remember. It is literally as though Zombie took all the cry-baby reviews of his first installment and said “OK, you didn't like that? Well, fuck it! You ain't gonna like this either!” He's the anti-Platinum Dunes and you hate him for it! Get in line and goose-step like a good minion of Michael Bay!

How badly is Zombie wanting to push your nose into the filth that you left on the floor? He starts off spectacularly by giving you a big sit-n-spin in the first fifteen minutes, teasing the audience with a direct remake of the original HALLOWEEN 2's hospital sequence, only to laugh and point as you squirm angrily in your chair because it was all a dream. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Too late, you already forked over your $12.75, dip-shits!

Probably the best thing about H2 is that it isn't about Myers at all, really. No, instead it's about victim-hood, trauma and the bitter realities of “the day after”. While yes, Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode was able to go toe-to-toe and knife-to-knife with Myers, often-times Ripley-style, it always rang false with me. I always have to ask myself: just how damaged would a 15-year-old girl's psyche be after something as horrific as not only being stalked and slashed by a hulking bogeyman, but discovering that everyone around, every rock you've ever known, was mowed down and butchered because of you and who you are?

In our desensitized culture, as much as we like to spill our most superficial of feelings on the various social networking sites available to us, no one really says what they truly feel. People nowadays go inward. They become insular. It's their excuse to change their entire life, in Laurie's case becoming a total punk rock brat or, in Annie's case, a reclusive put-upon wannabe mom-figure. You're gonna rebel against everything or you're gonna become a recluse. Ask me sometime about what I did when my dad died, maybe I'll tell you the truth.

But we don't want victimhood in our horror, do we? Those politically correct cultural taboos (that we claim to rebel against, natch) says that a random “final girl” needs to man up and stand stoic, stand strong, stand alone, against the unstoppable evil, vanquishing it just as the police arrive moments too late. Bullshit. That's nothing more than masturbatory fantasies for the Joss Whedon crowd. Real life very rarely works out like that and, in the universe of Zombie's HALLOWEEN, there are serious psychic retributions for every action and reaction. No one gets away clean. Especially the audience.

And while all that is well and good, perhaps my favorite personality change in H2 is what Zombie did to the character of Dr. Loomis. He did the unthinkable: he gave the erstwhile nemesis of Michael a new heaping helping—and deliciously self-serving—case of inflated self-esteem. It can be argued that, sure, that's his defense mechanism—I'll buy it—but, to me, it's the most realistic character change in the whole movie. Malcolm McDowell's Loomis started off as a do-gooder hippie doc, complete with pony-tail and feel-good rhetoric, who spent his whole life making his name off of young Michael and, with the generous wealth of publicity that came from the first film's murders, he capitalizes off of it, selling-out like all former hippies eventually do.

We live in a culture that prides celebrity above ALL things. It's a culture where a mother of eight appears on a dancing show because her husband cheats on her. It's a culture where a man fakes the possible death of his small child who might be tied to a runaway hot-air balloon. And what about those sex-tapes, huh? Knowing who I am and not having to really do anything for that notoriety is the main goal of just about everyone in this country, so why should Loomis be different? He has the chance to be the hero of his own story and he runs with that ball. It's honest. Scathing, sure, but honest. No one really wants to be the self-less hero anymore. No one has to be when there are TV cameras in your face and money to be made.

When HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH came out, it was just a reviled. But, look now: it's got a decent, healthy cult following and his heralded as a smart attempt to do something different with a well-worn franchise. Give H2 twenty or so years and those same hypocritical nimrods will be saying the same thing, loudly proclaiming to anyone within earshot that they “always loved it” and knew even then that it was “ahead of it's time”.

But, that's still twenty years away. Today? Mediocrity reigns supreme and it will have a long, healthy life. Give the people what they want, I say. But let's be honest about one thing: no matter how many hateful, red-eyed missives against Zombie you screed in your blog or podcasts, he'll always have the last laugh when, once again, you plunk down your said hard-earned $12.75 to see whatever he does next. If you're so abused by what he does, why do you go back? Because you're a hypocrite in need of an identity and that of a battered woman works oh-so-well for you. Don't worry, fella: a little concealer will cover up that shiner nicely.

DAMAGED Lists: TOP TEN BEST BUMPER STICKERS YOU CAN PURCHASE TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT OF ASIAN LADYBOYS!

2010-03-22T14:11:00.002-06:00

(A top ten list based entirely on an in-joke between NOTLP's Andy and I over the course of a weekend.)

1. My Other Car is an Asian Ladyboy

2. Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Asian Ladyboys

3. The Day They Outlaw Asian Ladyboys, Only Outlaws Will Have Asian Ladyboys

4. Proud Parent of an Asian Ladyboy

5. An Asian Ladyboy is My Co-pilot

6. Ask Me About My Asian Ladyboy

7. These Asian Ladyboys Don't Run

8. You Can't Hug an Asian Ladyboy With Nuclear Arms

9. I'd Rather Be Asian Ladyboyin'

10. Asian Ladyboard on Board

Dream a Little Dream: My Horrorhound Weekend Brush With Corey Haim

2010-03-22T13:57:00.003-06:00

Dream a Little Dream: My Horrorhound Weekend Brush With Corey Haim
By Louis Fowler

(This originally appeared over at BloodyGoodHorror.com.)

There were plenty of celebrities at the 2009 March Horrorhound Weekend. Many whose work I have loved for so many years: the leathery and grumpy gramps that is John Saxon; the still-boobtacular Adrienne Barbeau; the “must've ate some bad food and is feeling sick, wink wink” Jason Mewes; that one really fat guy who thinks he can pull off a Freddy costume...they were all there. And as much as I'd like to meet them all, to do so at a convention just feels so, well, informal. Professional. Impersonal.

But none of that mattered to Corey Haim.

No, Mr. Haim, in his own blissfully tragic way, made sure that everyone knew he was there and that his presence would be felt by all who dared to stand in his path. From “losing” his wallet to bumming smokes, Corey was the most personable celebrity there, and, in a way, became a legend among those that remembered him, gaining a whole new fan-base among that HHW crowd.

Hell, I had a whole new respect for him. I was, dare I say, a fan again?

As the BGH Crew and I were hanging around the lobby bar at the Horrorhound after-hours party, we noticed that Corey kept zipping around the room, as if he was looking for something. I think that something was attention.

As people talked to him, he gave off the vibe that he was in a “hurry”, but obviously craved the love and adoration he was getting. Sure, he was being cool and aloof in that indomitable Corey Haim way that we all know and love, but he was obviously eating the scene up. And, in a moment of ballsiness, it was during these lobby zig-zaggings that I was able to get a quick word and picture. He put his arm around me and I shivered. Yes, the star of “Prayer of the Rollerboys” was buddying up to me.

I made a little more small-talk, he said something unintelligible and went back to his mission to find whatever it was he was looking for. I was happy enough to get a few moments, sure, but it was not more than ten minutes later when word was passing through that, in the atrium area, G. Tom Mac, the dude who sang “Cry Little Sister” from “The Lost Boys”, that one guy who played the little vampire kid in “The Lost Boys” and Corey Haim were doing an impromptu “unplugged” set.

Let that sink in: impromptu unplugged set. To me, that was like someone saying “Hey Lou—Corey Feldman and Michael Damien are in the lobby reciting scenes from “Equus”!” It was, needless to say, a dream come true.

When we got there, they were doing the aforementioned “Cry Little Sister”... for the third time. (And, as soon as that was over, Mac played the song again, this time with the intro that this is how the song is “really supposed to sound”.)

You'd think that hearing “Cry Little Sister” for the third or fourth time, that it would lose its impact and get boring, but you'd be wrong. You're also eating maggots, Michael. We were all singing the children's chorus of the “Thou nots...” and whatnots, a whole lobby full of horror-geeks joined together in unison. This was followed by Haim's performance of the Doors' “People Are Strange” which, if you ask me, outshone the original. And, as fun as all that was, it was nothing compared to what happened next...

In my life, I have seen the grandiose emotional concerts of U2 three times. I have had Iggy Pop use me as a crutch to get lifted into a crowd, with his shoe kicking me in the face. I have been in a bar, watching Jonathan Richman play for only five other people. I have seen small children play the music of AC/DC. When it comes to music... I. Have. Seen. Some. Shit. Man.

But the greatest feat of music, live or recorded, that I have ever witnessed was Corey Haim busting out the freestyle raps. As Mac played a “funky” riff on his guitar, Corey spit flows about being a “funky white boy” like he was a pre-Death's door ODB, and bitch, you better have his money! I think that he might have even worked in a plea for Middle East Peace in his rhymes, which I obviously respect. That was socially conscious and it had a great rhyme scheme!

As his rap started to peter out, I knew that I had to keep it going. I didn't want this to end. Ever. I cupped my hands to my mouth, megaphone style, and started the chant: “When I say Corey, you say Haim!”

And the crowd responded, en masse and in ecstasy.

“When I say Corey, you say Haim! Corey..”

“HAIM!”

“Corey!”

“HAIM!”

The look on Corey's face was... well, it was the face of an accomplished man. His face, tired and filled with only the memories of glories past, returned to its youthful state, as a smile beamed across his face. Corey knew that he had rocked us. Corey knew that he had rolled us.

As we were leaving, Corey was happily taking pictures, flashing the peace sign and basking in the afterglow. “I want to take pictures, but I need everyone to step ten feet back!” was the last thing I heard him say. The old superstar Corey was back and we were merely lucky enough to be allowed to bask in his soon-to-be-a-memory luminescence.

I sometimes wonder if Corey knew how much he entertained us that night. I wonder if Corey knew how much more memorable he had made an already memorable weekend. Make all the jokes you want. Corey gave me one of the best nights of my life. Whether you believed it or not, you'll be missed, Dinger.

DAMAGED Cooking: SANTO STEW (CON PUERCO)!!!

2010-02-24T21:08:00.011-07:00

Every time a gringo makes a big batch of chile verde--um, excuse me, I mean "green chile"--I'm always the first guy they come to for approval. It's actually quite precious and totally endearing to see them, Walter Keane-eyes widening in glazed anticipation as to whether or not it passes my stringent Mexican guidelines.

And, typically, it doesn't. Ever.

Oh, of course I say it's "good", because, well, I'm not a total jerk. But I know and, especially, they know, that it's pretty bottom of the barrel but, bless this white little hearts, they try. And I can't fault them for that! Usually, they all fall prey to one big problem: they get a recipe off the Internet and make it comically hot, almost to the point where you can't even taste the flavors of the chiles and spices because you're desperately gasping for air as you run to the nearest bucket of ice water like an extra in a Tex Avery cartoon. Look, guys: HOT does not equal MEXICAN FOOD. The only thing it equals is TRYING TOO HARD.

But, still, when made right, I absolutely love love LOVE a good chile verde and, per usual, if you want something done right, you just gotta do it yourself (that's really becoming my culinary mantra, isn't it?). Of course, I put my own little twist on it, turning it into more of a stew, filling it with, in addition to the cuts of pork, a handful of cans of Ro-Tel (with lime!) and the like, plenty of corn, white onions, green onions, pinto beans, black beans and, for best effect, about three or four fistfuls of roasted green chiles, preferably made and bought off the back of a beat-up Ford F-150 in the Mexican part of town.

OK, so it's all been cut up and dumped in your pot, you got it cooking on medium...what's next? Nothing. You sit your ass down and wait SEVEN HOURS for it to cook properly. You can read ATLAS SHRUGGED, knit your dog a wool-cap or, as I did, lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling while silently crying over all the irrevocable mistakes you've made in your life. Regret!

Also, stir occasionally.

Seven or so hours later, you've got a spicy, insanely flavorful chile verde stew--SANTO STEW, as I have been known to call it--that will amaze all your white friends, except for that one friend-of-a-friend douchebag with the backwards ball-cap who says "Um...this is good bro, but I would have added, like, twenty habañeros because I can take the heat, you freakin' gaywad!" (Seriously, man--why do you always invite that guy???)

I served this with fresh crumbly queso fresco (made with a combination of cow AND goat milk), some fat-free sour cream and a couple of warm tortillas, fresh from the Mexican store.

Now you're probably wondering why I call it "Santo Stew". You know how, according to commercials, that professional football players apparently eat multiple bowlfuls of Chunky Soup while resting on the sidelines? I'd like to think that luchadors, whether in-between sparring or fighting Aztec mummies, would like to kick back and enjoy a nice, steaming bowl of my chile verde. It's provides all the energy they need to perform a triple-suplex on a werewolf, and it would make for a helluva commercial. Suck on that, Donovan McNabb!

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 02.24.10!!!

2010-02-24T15:29:00.005-07:00

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!

I took a couple of months off from Tha Lotz, as I had gotten my quotient of $1.00 tin-buckets of cheddar cheese Elvis-brand popcorn over the holidays, ignoring even the various nerdy message-boards I frequent where they were going on and on about all the new closeouts and cut-outs that the world-famous last hope for merchandise general store were getting in. Like a battered wife, I went crawling back a few weeks ago when my pal (and fellow Lots Plotzer) John G. came up from Denver. Lately, I've been spending all my "bargain dollars" on $5 Hank Williams, Jr. CDs from Wal-Mart's bargain bin area, so I told myself that I'd spend, oh, let's say, about ten or twelve bucks, promising not to go crazy.

I effed up, big time.

I ended up spending over $30, even putting back a handful of titles like Andy Kaufman's HEARTBEEPS and the in-name-only-sequel ROADHOUSE 2: STILL BOUNCIN'. I can justify it though: many of the titles I picked up have been on my wish-list for forever now, but couldn't bring myself to pay $19.99 or more for most of them. Three bucks each, however...time to dig out the Player's Club Card!

* CAT PEOPLE - I try to collect anything with Malcolm McDowell, who, if you don't know, is my favorite actor of all-time. This 1982 hyper-erotic remake, directed by Paul Schrader, is pretty dirty, what with all the brother-sister fucking, but I've loved it ever since I saw it on HBO as a child, even leading to a young crush on Annette O'Toole, who I think was much more of a looker than star Nastassia Kinski.

* SHAFT / SHAFT'S BIG SCORE / SHAFT IN AFRICA - Everyone who owns a DVD player owns a flip-case copy of the original SHAFT. When the players first came out, those Warner titles were always the cheapest, going for only a few bucks, making the investment no question when cornered with the absolute excitement at enjoying this new format on your new player. Right? Sadly, I never picked up the two sequels, so, thanks to Big Lots, my life is now justified. It's a dollar a SHAFT!

* THE GLIMMER MAN - I never owned a single Steven Seagal movie until Big Lots. So, with THE GLIMMER MAN, starring Seagal and a then-career-having Keenan Ivory Wayans, I bring my bargain Seagal collection up to ten. Ten Seagal movies, all of them brutally entertaining.

* THE HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS - Fresh from NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, the whacked-out Australian sequel that, literally, has to be seen to be believed, and you know how much I hate that term.

* THE NEW KIDS - "From the director of FRIDAY THE 13TH!" High-schooler Lori Loughlin takes on neighborhood bully James Spader...with bats and axes! (I think. I still haven't watched it yet. The box promises so much!)

* LOST HIGHWAY - I forgot how much of Patricia Arquette's rack you see in this movie! I mean, she's naked throughout 95% of it. The other five? Bill Pullman playing jazz, Balthazar Getty brooding, Robert Blake asking people to talk on his comically large cell-phone and Robert Loggia screaming about safe highway driving. All in all, it's one of David Lynch's best!

* THE SPIRIT OF '76 - Remember in the early 90s when we had that short-lived nostalgic love of all things 70s? No? Well, we did and this was the sum-total of those efforts: a time-travel comedy starring David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Devo and power-poppers Redd Kross. Believe me--it played a lot funnier in '91.

* JABBERWOCKY - Starring Michael Palin and directed by Terry Gilliam, JABBERWOCKY is like the first Wings album, compared to Monty Python's full Beatles discography; you can see flashes of brilliance here and there, but, until BAND ON THE RUN comes out, it's still a pale imitation. (Gilliam's BAND ON THE RUN, by the way, is TIME BANDITS.)

* HEAVY METAL 2000 - Never before have I wanted my money back on a $3 bargain-bin movie. Until now.

* I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS - One of my cheap-movie rules? If you find a Peter Sellers flick, buy it! A wonderfully dated relic of the peace 'n' love generation, here we find Sellers' uptight lawyer-life changed after ingesting pot brownies. He immediately dumps his stereotypically social-climbing fiancee, hooks up with a stinky-yet-clean-cut slutty hippie-chick and becomes a total parody of the brain-dead love-beaded imbeciles of the time. I was kinda hoping that his character would've been shipped off to 'Nam, but, instead, he discovers his true self. LAME!

* THE ILLUSTRATED MAN - Every wanted to see Rod Steiger's naked, plump, glistening body? Me too! An anthology movie based on three stories from Ray Bradbury's collection of the same name, this is pretty hit-or-miss, with a slow, languid pace that would never work today. Also, has Steiger always looked 65-years-old?

* IT'S ALIVE - This classic mutant baby flick looks like an ugly snuff film. (But it's not, Charlie Sheen. Calm down.)

* JULIEN DONKEY-BOY - Somehow, a Harmony Korine "movie" in a Big Lots bargain-bin seems extremely apropos. No one supports the Dogme 95 movement like a closeouts superstore!

DAMAGED Cooking: Tex-Mex Chicken-Fried Steak (with Creamy Jalapeno Gravy)!!!

2010-02-08T22:29:00.011-07:00

If there is one thing in the kitchen that has drastically changed my life, it's the cast iron skillet. And by change my life, I mean will probably be the ultimate death of me. But, mortality aside, if you have to fry anything, use a cast iron skillet. And it's the cast iron skillet that has reaffirmed my love with the chicken-fried steak.

I've been craving it for over five years now, at least since I left Oklahoma. You can't get a good chicken-fried steak in Fort Collins, even at the Goddamned Cracker Barrel! Used to be, the CB was synonymous with incredible CFS, but, somehow, even FC managed to suck the JZ out of that too. As a matter of fact, the only worthwhile one I've had has been at a Flying J Truck-Stop outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, a few weeks ago. Not being able to get what I truly want, once again, I gotta just do it myself. Like a Mexican has to.

I picked up some nice 'n' tender cube steaks at the local carniceria. I wanted to pick up a couple of plate-sized cuts, but all they had were smaller, palm-sized ones. Maybe next time. Sigh.

Flour, eggs, milk and my secret blend of Mexican herbs and spices, dipped, sifted, dipped again and dusted heavily. The smell of red pepper was strong enough to make me sneeze, but, as soon as the meat hit that melted lard--yes, rendered animal fat, for Hispanic authenticity, mind you--that mas incredible smell wafted up and it smelled like childhood. A fat, Texas-based childhood that, sadly, was long dead thanks to the brutal murder of my culinary innocence due to heart disease, polycystic kidneys and a genetic predisposition to subdural hematomas. In other words, reality.

Cooking each side for a 5-8 minutes, getting a nice golden brown with speckles of mouth-watering red chili seeds peeking through the coating. When done, I put them on a plate with paper towels to soak up the excess grease. The grease left in the pan, however? Well, that for the gravy. Sweet, creamy, delicious, heart-clogging gravy.

On low-heat, mixing in some milk, water, more flour and the rest of the aforementioned secret herbs and spices, I toss in a handful of jalapenos for that extra kick in the teeth. Serve it liberally on top of the Tex-Mex Chicken-Fried Steak and a big helping of mashed potatoes--sadly, here they aren't homemade, but made from a crappy powder. The more gravy on these fake potatoes, the better!

Now this isn't something I can eat everyday, even though I wish I could. This is one of those rare treats nowadays that I have to savor, taking slow bites and enjoying it like it was my last meal. Some people treat themselves to a Sonic banana-split or a decadent slice of chocolate cake. Other people are lucky enough to get anal. This is my one treat. For the rest of the week? Miso soup tomorrow with tofu tomorrow, brown rice and steamed broccoli the next. But, man...it was worth it.

I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL: Where's Valerie Solanas when you need her?

2010-02-03T14:31:00.011-07:00

I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL
Starring Matt Czurchry, Geoff Stults, Jesse Bradford
Directed by Bob Gosse
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

Even though most of I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL takes place in bars, no one, at any point in the movie, smashes a beer bottle and shoves the jagged glass in Tucker Max's neck, unleashing a well-deserved torrent of grue on the floor. He doesn't even really come into any danger for his actions. Not when he tells a woman that “fat girls aren't real people”, not when he pays an elderly Mexican woman to clean up his supposedly-comical shit and, best of all, not when his buddy tells some chick “I will gut you and grind you into pig fodder.” No one gets in his face and physically punishes him for his actions. Quite the contrary: he's rewarded with sex from numerous drunk mid-level sorority skanks to little person porn actress Bridget Powerz.

But, perhaps the worst crime Max is guilty of is his sense of humor, or total lack thereof. He's got as much comedic depth as an Axe Body-Spray ad in the middle of a copy of MAXIM, yet, by the Aryan frat-boy crowd, he's heralded as a god of hooking up, an unabashed, unashamed asshole who will always get by on his crass charm and come-hither twink-wink. He's the Ferris Bueller of date-rapists. He's today's modern man.

Today's. Modern. Man. He's who most men want to be. Hell, even writing this now, it feels like sour grapes. I look at him—and by him I mean smarmy actor Matt Czurchry, who is probably one step away from a contract as a day-player for Falcon Video—and I know that with my frame, face, whatever, that I'll never achieve what Max does, be it with women, blogging, books...fuck, multi-million dollar movies! I make a misogynistic joke and I'm strung up and beaten like a pinata full of day-old meat. He does it and they hand him a blank check.

It reminds me of that Chris Rock joke about Clarence Thomas: if Thomas looked like Denzel, it would have been nothing but coy, flirty giggles over Coca-Cola pubes. Because Max is a good—no, GREAT-looking fella, the whole would will always be his oyster and that oyster is filled with a neverending supply of pearls. If I was that guy in the bar, talking such explosive rectum-speak, I'd have that aforementioned broken bottle jabbed so far into my neck that I'd be shitting shards for a year. I guess that kinda leaves me in a quandary: who do I hate more? Max or the vapid women who think of it as some sort of conquest they can later use feminist revisionism to justify? Can I hate them both?

I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL is so ultimately depressing, in that regard. It makes you hate everything about the current state of your generation. It's a manifesto for the next level of the white ruling class, the Skull and Bones secret hand-shakers of tomorrow. The WINNERS! It's enough to make you want to go Chuckie Whitman in a bar with a name like the Hynotiq Martini 360 Lounge. But then again, that's what they expect from an ugly fuck like you, right?

It makes me wonder: if I had all the opportunities laid at my feet the way he does--money, women--would I feel the same way? If I could get away with it, would I be the same way? Would all men? Honestly...probably. Oh, to be able to harness the seductive power of washboard abs and a gift card to American Apparel!

Come to think of it, if most women could get away with it, I'm sure they'd fuck him too. Don't kid yourself. We're all reprehensible people when it comes right down to it, I guess. It's all a matter of opportunity to express that reprehensibleness.

We're all eugenicists, only very few are ever granted a license to actually practice.

I guess you could say that it's a plus that BEER was a total box office disaster, making a little over a million. But this isn't a theatrical film anyway. It's a tepid, bar-lowering retelling of THE HANGOVER that will be eaten up by the Sigma Pi crowd on movie night. It will be their CITIZEN KANE. It will be their tome, passed from pledge to pledge before they even have a chance to wipe the semen from their upper lip. Keep that hand firmly over the mouth of your drinks, ladies.

It makes me tear up a little that Valerie Solanas, the writer of THE SCUM MANIFESTO, is dead. Who am I kidding: it makes me tear up a lot! She was the Anti-Max (or maybe he's the Anti-Solanas?), someone who we need more than ever right now. Someone with conviction to put her bullets where her mouth is! If drunken slobs in a bar won't confront him, maybe she would have... Wouldn't you have loved to of seen a debate between these two? Maybe on a college campus with lax conceal 'n' carry guidelines?

Fuck pumping a load of buckshot into Andy Warhol--that proved nothing, Val. Here's the guy you SCUM followers should have your cross-hairs on.

DAMAGED Goods: Doritos Late Night -- ALL NIGHTER CHEESEBURGER!!!

2010-01-27T13:54:00.006-07:00

You know how, sometimes when you're in a crowd of people, and someone starts smoking, there's always that one attention-seeking creep who starts fake-coughing really loud to let you know that they don't appreciate the carcinogens infiltrating their airspace? That's nothing compared to the jerks who scorn and scoff whenever even the slightest morsel of junk food is brought into their eyeline. "UGH! I CAN FEEL THE MSG RACING THROUGH MY VEINS JUST BY LOOKING AT THAT! CHEESEBURGERS? GROSS! YOU SHOULDN'T EAT JUNK FOOD!" they scream as they swig their sixth microbrew that evening.

Look, we're not idiots. We know stuff like this is bad for you. If you don't, you're either an imbecile or Precious' mom. Or both. I applaud the ability you have to stave off the temptation of putting additives and preservatives in your body via a steady diet of hops and barley stirred by a guy in Crocs, but let others be. I'm looking at you, you frail albino douchebag hippie who had to publicly state his distaste when I purchased these to review. (A few minutes later, he was outside smoking! Liberal goose/ganderism wins again!)

Anyway, I love what Doritos is doing with their "Late Night" chip-line--aptly named because they are perfect to snack on at one in the morning after a rather furious bout of masturbating and cutting yourself. I previously reviewed Tacos at Midnight was amazed at how, yes, they tasted exactly like a taco. And here's their latest concoction, All Nighter Cheeseburger and, by gum, does it ever taste exactly like a cheeseburger! No foolin'!

The first thing you taste is ketchup and pickles. It's very slight and in no way off-putting. Then, a bit of cheese and a real smoky, meaty taste pops up.It's amazing how they are able to pack this much realistic hamburger flavor into every chip, but, then again, it's also scary: what if this is the test market for those futuristic food-capsule pills that sci-fi movies of the 1950s tried to warn us about?

Oh well...you win again, Doritos.

CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE: Where's my government to protect me from this filth???

2010-01-27T13:36:00.005-07:00

CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Bai Ling
Directed by Neveldine/Taylor
Lionsgate
Review by Louis Fowler

The more socially irresponsible and irredeemable a movie, the more I'll probably like it. And, let's be honest: it doesn't get more socially irresponsible or irredeemable than CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE. It's got wanton drug use, hilarious racism, bone-cracking misogyny, rampant use of the f-word...it's everything that an impressionable youngster, such as I, needs and wants to give him the courage to commit arson, rape or a hate crime.

CRANK 2 is so extreme that you gotta ask just how was this ultra-un-PC affair not only bankrolled by a Hollywood studio, but how are Neveldine/Taylor not blacklisted and booted out of the town? How is Obama not coming out against these guys? Where's the Senate bill to protect us from such utter filth and garbage? I demand to be protected!

But, given the balls on N/T, I'm sure that they'd just go on to become cinematic outlaws, making underground action flicks and distributing them via some sort of clandestine bootlegging outlet, probably with ads in the back of 'zines. And maybe that's why I love everything these guys do so much: they aren't fakes or frauds. Their insanely intense love of not filmmaking, but ENTERTAINING, comes through in every single frame of whatever they do. Especially here. CRANK 2, is, quite honestly, the most entertaining movie you could watch, ever. And I say that with total disregard for hyperbole!

Chev “Fuck You” Chelios miraculously survives his drop out of a helicopter, pounding the pavement, only to be immediately shoveled—literally—off the road and thrown into the back of a van filled with Triads who then go as far as to carve out his ticker, give it to a dude named Poon Dong, and replace it with an artificial one that, per the movie's subtitle, needs constant jolts of electricity to keep it running. He then goes through a labyrinthine puzzle of villains and thugs to get it back, and, yeah, just from that line right there, I can see how you'd think it would be just like the first CRANK, and, story-wise, it sure is.

But the original feels so restrained in comparison—N/T use every style possible to get Chelios from point A to point B, one homage or rip-off thrown in with no rhyme or reason. Mexican spastics, Thai hookers, black leather-daddies, picketing porn stars, Ginger Spice, a recreated scene from KING KONG VS. GODZILLA and a race-horse's massive cock...and I'm still missing things. Outside of a Troma movie, or maybe a Bolivian snuff film, I can even think of another movie that not really pushes the boundaries, but defecates on them with retard-strength glee, especially in a mainstream flick, the way CRANK 2 does.

CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE will make you want to actually try crank. Actually load up a syringe with chemical-based homemade drugs and shoot it into the space between your fingers. It's a gateway film to harder, rougher things that'll have you prostitute your own Asian mother for cash to get more. And, for that, I wish you a long career in Hollywood, Neveldine/Taylor. Me love you long time.

MY LIFE IN RUINS: Doin' it Greek-style!

2010-01-15T13:35:00.003-07:00

MY LIFE IN RUINS
Starring Nia Vardalos, Alexis Georgoulis, Richard Dreyfuss
Directed by Donald Petrie
Fox Searchlight
Review by Louis Fowler

The older I get, the more I start to have cinematic crushes on women like Nia Vardalos. I'd like to just chock it up to maturity, but, I feel it's more the fact that, when you have to sit through these ultra-female marketed movies, and that's the only woman shoved in your face for two hours, you start to develop tastes that, in your younger days, you'd have scoffed off. When the movie's done, it sticks with you. Equal parts spunky personality and well-aged curvy body, a total mash-up of big head and little head coming together in solidarity. Right now, at this point in my life, I'd take a night with Vardalos anytime over, say, some current teen pop-tart that's on the cover of MAXIM.

And, too, because I am getting to be an old man.

I bring this up because, while watching MY LIFE IN RUINS, a movie that, for all intents and purposes I should absolutely hate, but couldn't bring myself to do it because of the rock-hard marble pillar that Vardalos gave me throughout the damn thing. Sorry to be crass, but that element is an important part of my review, letting you know right off the bat that my missive is probably clouded and in no way really reflects the quality of the actual movie. I actually got aroused at the idea of licking her bleached-yet-obvious mustache. That's where my mind is about this thing.

Vardalos, the cinematic one-hit wonder behind MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, is, in case you don't know, of Greek heritage and fiercely proud of it. So fiercely proud that we are beaten over the head with the fact in RUINS to the point where I'm surprised it didn't come with an Athens timeshare. She's Georgia, a lonely, cynical tour-guide stuck giving bus tours around various Greek landmarks to the most lovable hodgepodge of international stereotypes, from loud, tacky Americans to Japanese tourists who need to photograph everything and rowdy Aussies who are constantly chugging Foster's in the most unlikely of places. It's like the producers were so busy trying to get Greece just right they forgot to give personalities to any other nationality.

The funny thing is that even Greece is one big Pantheon of postcard pastiches, wherein on every corner is swarthy bouzouki players who watch ZORBA THE GREEK on repeat while snacking on gyros and yogurt sauce, breaking to a plate-smashing “Oompah!” chorus at a moment's notice. I'm pretty sure the producers did all their research at Epcot center while referencing Wikipedia for authenticity.

So, anyway, the different bus-riders, led by a doughy, mincing, thoroughly embarrassing Richard Dreyfuss who seems to be doing everything in his power to make you forget his multiple decades of quality work, a la DeNiro, all teach her to live life to it's fullest, accept the love that's right in front of her face, live her dreams...you know the drill.

So is MY LIFE IN RUINS a stupid movie? Oh God, you bet. But is it watchable? Yeah, of course. Will it make great, makeshift masturbatory material? Without a doubt, for men, women and couples alike. Please tell Vardalos I said that.

DAMAGED Reading: BECOMING BATMAN: THE POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERHERO

2010-01-15T13:21:00.002-07:00

BECOMING BATMAN: THE POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERHERO
by E. Paul Zehr
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Review by Louis Fowler

I hated school. Hated it. I admittedly just did the bare minimum to get out of there, but, luckily enough, my bare minimum was at least a B+ average, so no one really noticed. I looked at school as a necessary evil and I played the game inside the hallowed halls, but focused most of my time on my non-sanctioned extracurricular activities, such as 'zine publishing or bootlegging videotapes. I also had quite the lucrative PLAYBOY resell franchise going on inside my backpack.

When I look back, I have to ask myself, why? Why did I feel that way? Was it because I felt like I had no connection with any of my classmates? Sure, we can say that. Was it because I felt bored all the time and completely unchallenged? OK, sounds good. Or what about the fact that I had no teachers that, well, inspired me? That's probably the closest thing to the truth.

Most of my teachers were, for lack of a better term, jerk-offs.

As much as I can't stand the ethnic-based, treacly feel-good teachers of STAND AND DELIVER, DANGEROUS MINDS, etc., if only I had a paid, career educator who found the time to inspire me and make me WANT to learn, instead of, say, chastising me for picking up my soon-be-dissected frog, putting a quickly made top hat on him and having him sing “Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal...”. If they had said “Louis, I love your creative use of classic Warner Brothers cartoon references! Let's try to work it into the curriculum!”, I probably would have cared. I would probably be a scientist or something right now.

E. Paul Zehr, a professor of neuro-science and kinesiology at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, seems like the kind of “cool” teacher who likes to inspire and ignite his student's need for learning through pop culture references, as witnessed in his highly entertaining, super-educational BECOMING BATMAN. Most of it is Greek to me, sure, but I wish I had had this as a textbook in high school. As a matter of fact, if you care at all about your kid's education, purchase this book for them for Christmas or whatever other Holiday sentiment you choose to express.

Zehr goes deep into the ideas of what type of training and diet that Bruce Wayne would have had to prescribe to in order to become the highly-trained Dark Knight Detective we all know and fear. Needless to say, it's an insane, wholly unattainable regiment that only a billionaire with endless resources and no need for a day job could handle. There's no hope for any of us to ever reach those physical heights—you'd have better luck getting bit by a radioactive spider.

With equal parts nerdy humor and serious, in-depth study, BECOMING BATMAN takes the escapism of the Caped Crusader and puts it in real world, grounded scientific terms that is not only extremely entertaining and interesting, but, if you're not careful, you might learn something.

DAMAGED 2.0 Presents Louis's Favorite Theatrical Releases of 2009! (In which I make many concessions due to region placement.)

2010-01-10T18:56:00.009-07:00

2009 was a great year for movies!

Well, it was if you lived anywhere else besides Fort Collins, like, say, New York or L.A. Even my former cinema mater, Oklahoma City, looks like arthouse central in comparison to what we get out here in Northern Colorado. All of you moviegoers out there with good, diverse movie-houses, thank your God and/or lucky stars every time you fork over that cash and buy a ticket. You have CHOICE. You have a virtual buffet of entertainment...AND YET YOU STILL CHOOSE TO SEE TRANSFORMERS 2! What is that all about???

You should have your eyeballs revoked.

The movies I really wanted to see...I didn't, through no fault of my own, of course. They simply skip this little granola-berg in favor of some Warren Miller snowboarding J/O material. Some are finally starting to trickle out on DVD, others, well...will someone teach me how to use this newfangled torrent thing? I had a definite list of what I loved this year, my ultimate favorites, my toppermost of the poppermost:

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
OBSERVE AND REPORT
CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE
BLACK DYNAMITE
H2 (HALLOWEEN 2)
DISTRICT 9
WORLD'S GREATEST DAD

And now here are the movies that I liked just fine and was enormously entertained by, for the most part:

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
STAR TREK
THE HANGOVER
NINJA ASSASSIN
GAMER
I LOVE YOU, MAN
BRUNO
EXTRACT

There is one movie in particular that I am still on the fence about: FUNNY PEOPLE. I am a big fan of Judd Apatow, but here it seemed that he got a little to big for his britches, branching out into a James L. Brooks-esque drama that he's just not ready, maturity-wise, to fully accomplish yet. It has a lot of great moments, but so much maudlin.

OK, so we got through everything I loved and liked. But I guarantee that, if I had seen, for example, Lars Von Trier's ANTICHRIST, I probably would have had a new number one. No, probably two--it's hard to beat BASTERDS. But I am a huge fan of Von Trier and Charlotte Gainsbourg and rampant misogyny and most movies that get booed off the stage, so I know that it would have been fascinatingly loved by me.

Same goes for PRECIOUS. One critic, Armond White (who is probably my favorite critic, second only Debbie Schlussel, but for all the wrong reasons, mind you), I believe, described the movie as a "John Waters film for black folks." That sounds like a dream flick to me! Now, to be fair, this did play in Fort Collins, at our little Old Town two-screener, but have you ever seen a black drama with white Fort Collins residents? Constant self-important head-shaking at a culture they will never, ever, know anything about. I'm sure my Divine-inspired guffaws would routinely have me ousted by the patchy-bearded male-feminist atheist-wiccan vegan-burrito noshers who seem to constantly stink up the joint. Or at least a minor, utterly-useless, bike-related protest outside my residence.

Besides ANTICHRIST and PRECIOUS, here's what else I'm sure was bad-ass but bad-passed us up:

THE HURT LOCKER, BIG FAN, BRONSON, GOOD HAIR, ONG-BAK 2, GENTLEMAN BRONCOS, BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, BROKEN EMBRACES, THE ROAD

We're about two weeks into 2010 now, and I don't think I've seen a movie in a theater since, well...at least early December. Nothing has excited me, intrigued me. SHERLOCK HOLMES? Eh, maybe on DVD. UP IN THE AIR? The recent embarrassingly fraudulent cover story in ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY nixed that idea. And AVATAR? I will never, ever see AVATAR. Why? Just ask these douchebags:

On second thought, I'm glad I don't live in New York or L.A...

DAMAGED Goods: The Mac Snack Wrap!

2010-01-07T22:22:00.003-07:00

Let's be perfectly clear about one thing: only white people refer to something in a tortilla as a "wrap". I don't know why--maybe it has something to do with your fear of us banging your women--but if you put something in a tortilla and roll it up, it is a burrito. Plain and simple. This is a Big Mac Burrito. A Grande Mac?

And I like it!

There's not much to it: the ad-wizards at McD's took the filling of a Big Mac--meat, cheese, onions, pickles, lettuce and secret sauce--and just stuck it all hurdy-gurdy in a tortilla. And it works well. And it tastes really good. And it's cheap--usually two for three bucks. It's very filling and really goes to show you just how much filler those hamburger buns really take up.

It kinda makes me wonder how long it'll be before other fast food eateries will be dumping their wares into a factory-direct flour tortilla. The BK Flame Broiled A-1 Angry Wrap? The Arby's Roast Beef 'n' Cheddar Snack Attack Horseradish Wrap? The Taco Bell Volcano Nacho Cheese Potato Wrap?

Oh, how about this: the McRib Snack Wrap??? A McRib patty, spicy BBQ sauce, pickles and onions on a tortilla! I'll take two! Let's get on this, Ray Kroc, you brilliant dead bastard, you!

DAMAGED 2.0 Presents Louis's Favorite 5/6 Digital Video Discs of 2009! (Why do I have to go and complicate things?)

2010-01-06T21:30:00.010-07:00

Around this time, I always get asked by various newspapers and websites to come up with top ten favorite DVDs of the year. Usually, around December, I go through my collection and try to pick through the scads of movies sent to me by studios, distributors and homegrown filmmakers. This time though, it hit me: I really need to start differentiating between what I like. I can't compare a reissue to a straight-to-DVD flick, just like I can compare either of those to a theatrical film released on DVD. So, in order to just be difficult and make things harder for the people who actually want my work, I gotta go and make all these different sub-categories and then, I don't even bother to do a traditional top ten.

I'm a dick. No wonder why I have no friends. :(

LOUIS'S FIVE FAVORITE DVD REISSUES/REPACKAGINGS/REDUXS/ETC. (In alphabetical order.)

ANYTHING RELEASED BY VIDEOASIA. ANYTHING AT ALL. (VideoAsia): I know that a lot of hardcore DVD nerds hate VideoAsia for a multitude of reasons, but most of all for their typically not-very-good prints. That honestly doesn't bother me. Having grown up in the era of fifth-generation, badly-dubbed VHS bootlegs recorded off of Paraguayan television, sans subtitles, I don't mind if the look of these movies aren't pristine. I don't care if the sound drops out or weird splices appear suddenly. I just don't care because the movies these guys are putting out are fun, cheap flicks at an even cheaper price. In the past few months I've enjoyed NINJA: LEGENDARY ASSASSINS 4 FILM COLLECTION, GORDON LIU FOUR FILM COLLECTION: HUNG KUEN VS. WING CHUN, INGLORIOUS BASTARDS 2: HELL'S HEROES 4 INGLORIOUS FILMS COLLECTION and two volumes of their stellar SPAGHETTI WESTERN BIBLE series.

BOLLYWOOD HORROR COLLECTION, VOL. 3: MAHAKAAL THE MONSTER (Mondo Macabro): Leave it to Bollywood to take a (mildly overrated yet beloved) American genre classic and, well, make it better. It's a total rip-off of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, sure, but add in catchy, fun musical numbers (one about having a picnic!) and a 145 minute(!) running time and I'd much rather see Platinum Dunes remake this.

THE COMPLETE BILLY JACK COLLECTION (Image Entertainment): I'm pretty sure this has been released and re-released time and time again, but, you know, it's freaking BILLY JACK. This 2009 set from Image contains BORN LOSERS, BILLY JACK, THE TRIAL OF BILLY JACK and the little-seen BILLY JACK GOES TO WASHINGTON, which replaces Hapkido with filibustering! If only we had him to debate health care reform...

HARDBODIES COLLECTION (Anchor Bay) / SPRING BREAK (Anchor Bay)/ SCREWBALLS (Severin): I'm going to go ahead and lump all three of these hilariously ribald 80s teen sex-comedies into one whole pick. It's truly a case of united they stand, divided they fall. It was so good to finally see these on any type of format, bringing back those memories of staying up late as a little kid, catching HARDBODIES 2 at 1:15 in the morning, hoping to sneak the slightest glance of boob and bush. The comedy in all of these still hold up and, even better, just goes to show how much John Hughes ruined these movies by adding pathos and emotion. Pussy.

SLIME CITY GRINDHOUSE COLLECTION (Shock-O-Rama): One of the first screeners I ever received was the original release of Greg Lamberson's SLIME CITY. Oh, those wistful, good ol' days... A true, old-school, scummy DIY effort that, for my money, is better than STREET TRASH. Sorry. Not only did this DVD set have the original feature, but Lamberson's other films, NAKED FEAR, UNDYING LOVE and JOHNNY GRUESOME.

LOUIS'S SIX FAVORITE NEW STRAIGHT-TO-DVD (OR SKIPPED THEATERS IN MY LOCALE SO THEY ARE NEW TO ME) FLICKS (In alphabetical order.)

BLACK DEVIL DOLL (Lowest Common Denominator Entertainment): Since receiving this DVD screener, I have watched the hilariously daring and viciously offensive low-budget blaxploitation-horror-comedy BLACK DEVL DOLL about ten times. I can easily say, without reservation, this is my favorite straight-to-DVD indie film of the year. It's a new trash classic that will, I promise, become the ultimate party film and will not leave a dry seat in the house. Mixing the darkest political humor of today's heated racial climate with scads of low-down, dirty puppet fucking, director Jonathan Lewis has created a comedy masterpiece for those of us who still consider Rudy Ray Moore and Blowfly geniuses. See BLACK DEVIL DOLL by any means necessary! (Full review here. And here.)

DARK MIRROR (IFC Films): Honestly scary moments with one truly unpredictable twist after another. Director Pablo Proenza excels in the type of classic filmmaking Polanski did in the 60s—the kind you wish Polanski himself return to, if he wasn't busy diddling little girls, of course. (Full review here.)

THE LANDLORD (Massive Ego): The slacker comedy meets the demon real estate possession comedy to create one of the funniest comedies of the year. I actually did have a chance to catch this on the big-ish screen at HorrorHound Cincinnati last November and, a month or two later, it holds up even better. (Full review here.)

MIRAGEMAN (Magnolia Home Entertainment): I just caught this under the 2009 wire, and, man, this is how you do a superhero movie! Made in Chile on an ultra-low-budget, it's exciting and new and so pure in it's love of the superhero genre that it gives you hope for the future. I'll take this over any BATMAN movie anyday. Even a Christopher Nolan one. I am not lying.

MUTANT CHRONICLES (Magnolia Home Entertainment): At a horror convention last April, I picked up a bootleg copy of MUTANT CHRONICLES, a film that I had been excited about since I first read of it two years ago. It had languished so long that I was sure it was never going to be released stateside. Luckily, Magnolia Home Entertainment took the reins and finally released a special director's cut, and my opinion holds: it's one of the best movies of the year! Maj. Mitch Hunter (Thomas Jane) leads a crew of soldiers, in the year 2707, against a plague of evil, mutated humans mindlessly bent on killing everything in sight. The set, characters and vehicle designs, with their steam-punk look, make this rise above the typical sci-fi dreck of the day.

NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION (Magnolia Home Entertainment): This movie, about the history of 70s/80s Australian exploitation movies is the most important documentary ever made. EVER. Sorry, orphans in Darfur!

DAMAGED 2.0 Presents Louis's Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2009! (Even though you'll probably just ignore this, listening to the same crap you always do.)

2010-01-06T00:34:00.005-07:00

I'm pretty much on the verge of quitting the act of buying new music altogether. I barely bought any new music this year (most of these here were promos I received), instead preferring to buy Steely Dan reissues and out-of-print Ringo Starr CDs. And don't even get me started on my current love affair with Jimmy Buffett!

Of course, occasionally, I was pleasantly surprised by some form of new music that came across my desk, but most of the time I just ended up trashing half of them, or giving them to pals who might enjoy them more, using them as tests to see if they are worthy, on a pop-cultural level, of my friendship. Most fail. I get so many albums from these crappy indie-rock wussies who are desperately trying to be the next little big thing. A Fine Frenzy, Fleet Foxes, Wilco, The Mountain Goats, Neko Case...it all sounds the same and appeals to only the most base of hipster morons who use SPIN magazine as a jerk-off rag.

I loathe most modern “rock” music these days, with my tastes over the past couple of years starting to swing to decidedly pro-America country (not AMERICANA, you public radio d-bags, but COUNTRY!), catchy Top 40 bubblegum pop from yesterday AND today, 90s-era Amy Grant and Carmen, classic ultra-fey synthpop and whatever Ennio Morricone records I can find. I don't want to hear Brooklyn-based NYU-educated scarf-clad art-rock collectives pluck dirges about the plight of black 1870s sharecroppers! I want to hear sing-a-long songs about quitting your job and living a laid-back life on the beach, drinking Carte Blancas and hitting on spicy senoritas who admire your lovable, broken-down catamaran! Is that so wrong? WHERE ARE MY CONTEMPORARIES???

So, after much debate, I was able to narrow them down. I was able to find a stack of what I liked and listened to quite a bit. Some surprised the Hell out of me, and those were the records I cherished the most this year. Some, I enjoyed the singles off of. Some, I bought out of loyalty...

LOUIS'S TOP TEN FAVORITE RECORDS OF 2009 (In alphabetical order according to artist.)

THE BOXMASTERS-MODBILLY (Vanguard): Lead-singer Billy Bob Thornton became a much-maligned joke after his bizarre standoffish behavior to some Canadian DJ when being interviewed with his band, the Boxmasters. They were quickly written off as just some pompous actor's vanity project but, boy, are “they” wrong. This is fun, ribald 60s country-meets-60s British Invasion pop that will surprise those willing to give it a chance, making you even forget that Billy Bob is in the band. Which is what I think he wants. Download: “Reasons for Livin'”, “That's Why Tammy Has My Car”

JIMMY BUFFETT-BUFFET HOTEL (Mailboat): Jimmy Buffett is like a laid-back AC/DC: he follows the same formula each album, but dammit if it ain't a formula that works! If you've ever enjoyed any Buffett album at all, you'll probably like this one. That's just how it works. Download: “Wings”, “Summerzcool”

KELLY CLARKSON-ALL I EVER WANTED (RCA): I'll always be in love with Kelly Clarkson. She seems so...nice. So...normal. Of course that may be the persona approved by her record label and she could very well be a horrible shrew in real life, but why destroy the dream? Too bad the image-obsessed media focused on her weight-gain (which, to me, only makes her hotter) instead of this amazingly fantastic album, an upbeat return to form after her previous, the depressingly insightful MY DECEMBER. Download: “I Do Not Hook Up”, “All I Ever Wanted”

EMPIRE OF THE SUN-WALKING ON A DREAM (Astralwerks): An Australian synth-pop duo that has a real 80s feel to 'em. While this was pretty under the radar, I'm pretty sure that if Astralwerks had released this in their heyday, around, oh, circa 2000, WALKING would have been a nice-sized cult hit. Download: “Walking On a Dream”

LYNYRD SKYNYRD-GOD & GUNS (Roadrunner): I make no bones about it: I love America. No, I take that back... I FUCKING LOVE AMERICA. And, apparently, so do Southern rock stalwarts Lynyrd Skynyrd. God, I don't even know the last “new” Skynyrd album I own...STREET SURVIVORS, probably. Who would have thought that, in 2009, they'd make one of the most relevant albums not only of their career, but of the year? It's so brazen in it's incendiaryness, it's almost like it was specifically crafted to piss off all those fraudulent alt-country, Obama-sucking, Prius-chugging, NPR-chortling sycophants. I mean, what ticks those people off more than, you know, God or guns? Actually, if I can do away with the alphabeticalness of this list and rate these records for a moment, GOD & GUNS is probably my favorite CD of the year. It goes great with my new NRA membership. Download: “That Ain't My America”, “Southern Ways”, “God & Guns”

SHAKIRA-SHE WOLF (Epic): I was late on this one, but it is a sultry, sleek, grinding, utterly sexual album, but not in that dirty, whorish, Christina Aguilera way, where she tries too hard to flaunt the “open for business” sign that resides permanently over her mons pubis. Shakira always holds herself up to an actual semblance of artistry and musicianship that her pop contemporaries are unable to do without a cadre of studio Svengalis, and even then still failing quite miserably. I'm still absorbing the album as a whole, but, man, is the title cut pure pop perfection! And it's even better in Spanish! Download: “Loba”

TINTED WINDOWS-TINTED WINDOWS (S-Curve): Smashing Pumpkin's James Iha, Hanson's Taylor Hanson, Cheap Trick's Bun E. Carlos and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne come together, like an ultra-melodic Voltron, to form the most important hard-rockin' power-pop band since the Rubinoos. Maybe Redd Kross. Download: “Kind of a Girl”, “Doncha Wanna”

U2-NO LINE ON THE HORIZON (Interscope): It's U2. They'll always have the number one spot in my heart and, of course, I am totally impartial in my love for it and them. No matter what they do, I'll probably always love it. Always. Would it be a falsehood for me to say that they are the most important band in the world? Because I'm pretty sure they are and always will be. Who's with me??? Download: “Moment of Surrender”, “I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight”, “Stand Up Comedy”

HANK WILLIAMS JR.-127 ROSE AVENUE (Curb): Yeah, Hank's voice is shot and warbly, but it's got a real weathered strength to it that most musicians will ever know. I'd put this up there with that Skynyrd album, a real slice of America that both coasts wish would just fuck off and die. Pure classic country, through and through. Download: “Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues”, “Sounds Like Justice”, “Farm Song”

ZAC BROWN BAND-THE FOUNDATION (Atlantic): This came out in 2008, but, you know, it's my list, so I'll add it if I want. Fun, catchy Georgia-based country music that has not one, but two songs about living on the beach and, even better, not one, but two songs about eating chicken! And, holy cow, a Ray LaMontagne cover! I played this on my show and the calls of “Who is that???” were plentiful. This was my best discovery of 2009. Download: “Where the Boat Leaves From”, “Chicken Fried”

Honorable Mentions:

WEEZER-RADITUDE (Interscope): Even after all these years--over fifteen, when I bought the "Blue Album" in ninth grade--Weezer still delivers. Sure, it's kinda sad at time to see these aging guys play the same love-lorn teen-dream proto-emo tunes, but, hey, when you make it catchy like that, who am I to turn it down? Turn it up! Download: “(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”

MIKA-THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (Casablanca): Don't get me wrong: this is a great pop album. Problem is that, especially on the heels of his certified classic debut, LIFE IN CARTOON MOTION, the thrill is gone and what was once new and exciting is seriously in danger of becoming utterly routine. How do you solve a problem like that? Download: “Blame It On the Girls”

PET SHOP BOYS-YES (Astralwerks): A more subdued, sullen Pet Shop Boys than were used to. I listened to it a couple of times, but always found myself going back to VERY or DISCO. Pop some amyl nitrate and pep it up a bit, lads! Download: “Love, Etc.”

FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK: INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (Warner Bros.):

FAVORITE BOX-SET: ERASURE-TOTAL POP! DELUXE BOX 40 HITS (Rhino)

FAVORITE REISSUE: U2-THE UNFORGETTABLE FIRE: DELUXE EDITION (Interscope)

FAVORITE DISAPPOINTMENT: THE FLAMING LIPS-EMBRYONIC (Warner Bros.)

DAMAGED 2.0 Presents the Top 25 Best Horror Films of the Aughts! (Well... at least according to me. And who am I, right?)

2010-01-04T23:22:00.007-07:00

In case you don't know, I write for the horror website Bloody Good Horror. And by write, I mean donate a weekly dose of off-color, often offensive news tidbits, as well as the occasional review. (The real reason why I associate with them? To get into Horrorhound Weekend on their coat-tails, but that's an explanation for another time.)

Like many other websites this time of the year--well, decade--we were asked to turn in our top 25 horror flicks of the decade and, true to form, everyone thought that mine was a joke. WELL IT WASN'T, ASSHOLES. Either way, they published each contributors top five (as well as their five worst) and resident statistician Schnaars put each contributor's 25 picks into his magic adding machine and came up with the definitive Best of the Aughts list. As you can see, only eight or nine of my choices made the list, so I take the term "definitive" to task...where be THE WICKER MAN remake, fellas?

So, by popular demand, here's my full list, what I consider to be the 25 best horror films of the 2000s. Eat 'em and smile!

1. SLITHER – Horror-comedy is probably the hardest sub-genre to get right: you gotta bring the laughs while still piling on the terror, making sure that one doesn't trump the other. It's a total thin-ass line, and it's one that James Gunn's SLITHER treads masterfully. It's a total shame this was a box office bomb...

2. THE MIST – Frank Darabont's adaptation of the Stephen King novella is great old-school monster-movie horror and Hitchcockian, tight-space suspense spray-painted with a brilliantly nihilistic mean-streak running through the whole thing. The black and white version on the DVD is a true revelation!

3. H2 – I absolutely loved Rob Zombie's remake of the original HALLOWEEN, going as far as to say that it is light years better than the original. But even that couldn't prepare me for the visceral thrust of his sequel, H2. Universally derided, I loved it for it's pure, anarchic punk spirit of absolutely shitting on all the pre-conceived notions of what the Michael Myers mythos should be. The greasy cries of fanboy derision was well worth the admission price alone.

4. JASON X – When you've exhausted all possible plot-lines, shoot your monster into space. I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but JASON X was not only a perfect and logical extension to the character, but was so awash in cartoony violence and gallows humor that I wish they had continued this story and pretty much plan on avoiding any Jason movie until he's back in space.

5. FRAILTY – Probably the most underrated, unappreciated horror movie of the aughts, a crazed Bill Paxton surprised the Hell out of me with this dark, Southern Gothic quasi-spiritual thriller that was wonderfully pro-God, especially in a time when He's constantly made to be the enemy. If you want to piss off horror-doofs, make God your hero! Praise be!

6. FEAST
7. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS
8. FINAL DESTINATION 2
9. POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD
10. THE HAPPENING
11. SNAKES ON A PLANE
12. GRINDHOUSE: PLANET TERROR
13. REPO: THE GENETIC OPERA
14. SHAUN OF THE DEAD
15. THE ORPHANAGE
16. MOTHER OF TEARS
17. CABIN FEVER
18. MAY
19. WILLARD
20. THE WICKER MAN
21. BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2
22. SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
23. BLACK DEVIL DOLL
24. DREAMCATCHER
25. UNDEAD

Agree? Disagree? Wanna post a few of yours? Go ahead and make an ass out of yourself in the comments!

FOOD, INC.: You are what they eat!

2009-12-23T23:01:00.004-07:00

FOOD, INC.
Directed by Robert Kenner
Magnolia Home Entertainment
Review by Louis Fowler

I purposefully, and on a regular basis, ingest foods with E. coli or salmonella. Whether it be undercooked pork or unwashed spinach, raw egg or questionable beef, I will eat it, daring the dread disease to infest my body and throwing my fists up to Heaven in defiance!

And you know what? With the exception of a few minor cases of diarrhea when I first started this wholly abhorrent practice, I have never gotten sick. Like our pioneer forefathers did, I have trained my body to adapt to the changes in the molecular make-up of the current state of our food products and I am a better man for it. We could all be better for it!

Everyday, our nation's best, smartest food scientists are constantly finding new ways to make food last longer, repel more bugs, taste better than ever and, best of all, have fewer natural ingredients. Before you know it, a whole nourishing meal will come complete as a tiny, flat cracker, man-made and, thanks to artificial flavors and preservatives, utterly delicious. You call this tampering in God's domain, I call it progress!

The makers of the documentary FOOD, INC. (touted with the dubious selling-point as being “from the company that brought you AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH”) would probably brand me a deluded monster, spreading misinformation as sick joke of some sort, and they would be right. Especially after watching the damn thing, I'm actually more inclined to start my own chicken-slaughtering business, complete with aberrant living conditions, uncountable illegal alien workers and a big ol' subsidy from my good friends in the Bush, uh, I mean Obama, Administration.

Don't get me wrong: I wanted to like FOOD, INC. I wanted to be enthralled and educated, but, like so many docs of its politically-leaning ilk, it falls prey to the usual ruiner of such things: its own constant self-congratulatory back-pats. These docs, with their proudly unsheathed lib agenda, don't care about giving you facts or informing you; they emotionally manipulate and play on your worst fears. It's important to know about food safety and food handling procedures and the like, but, when it's done with such wank-off arrogance, what's the point of putting the time, effort and energy behind a movie like this? All you're doing is preaching to the converted! (But maybe that's why you do it? Maybe you knew you had a built-in fan-base so your return on investment was guaranteed? Egotism for a better tomorrow!)

I will say this, though: presented in the second-half is an expose of Monsanto's devious practices against soybean farmers. This was shocking and, when you learn the government is in cahoots with them, you wonder if our civil liberties are really dead. In Colorado, where I live, it is actually against the law to besmirch any agricultural product publicly, lest you want a hefty fine and possible jail time. This news angers me juuuuuuust enough when...

Yep, there we go. FOOD, INC. once again manages to lose sight of its purpose and goes back into playing the same-old blame game, pointing fingers, offering absolutely no answers. Smug jerk-off Eric Schlosser shows up eating a hamburger (Do as I say, don't do as I do, right?). Poor overweight Mexicans-American are exploited as they are buying some Burger King. And, worst of all, director Robert Kenner stoops low and does the unthinkable: he uses that ol' Michael Moore ploy of a crying mom talking about her dead kid in order to gain sympathy for his agenda.

Too bad that, for many viewers smart enough to see through this heavy cloying mist of DDT, all it really does is reinforce that growing, ever-present cynicism. You realize just how empty and hollow the whole thing is. You realize that the purpose of the movie was nothing more than a masturbatory soapbox based on the lone fact that Kenner just must love to hear the sound of his own voice, eyes shut, nose in the air, Prius fully recharged!

Special features include deleted scenes, an episode of Nightline, tips for eating healthy and, best of all, horrifically hilarious and awesomely embarrassing “Celebrity Public Service Announcements”, some of which star Alyssa Milano, who's nude breasts I have seen in various erotic thrillers, so, of course, I have no respect for her opinion.

Do food laws and regulations need to change? Yes! Should people know what they're putting into their bodies? Without a doubt! Is education on the facts the answer? You bet! But let's be honest: no one is going to honestly listen to these guys. Sure, upon theatrical release FOOD, INC. might have been a minor darling with the hippie-indie-lib crowd, but we all know it'll soon be long-forgotten and, eventually, most of the science proven wrong, just like that other political-agenda doc, oh, what was it called...that's right, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Or, you know what? Why not cut out the middle-man? Why don't you get into the spirit of self-preservation and self-efficiency? Why not just quit your non-stop whining, grow a pair and have a bite of my homemade sushi tar-tar casserole, now with extra Velveeta! It's Monsan-tasty!