Papa's Basement » Entertainment

Review-Sons of Anarchy-”So”

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:03:34 +0000

Such a great logo. Hopefully I'm not warped by the fact I wore nothing but Metallica t-shirts until I was 20 and most people share this opinion.

I’ve made no secret of my love for Sons of Anarchy (my previous thoughts on the show can be found here), the Kurt Sutter’s show on FX about an outlaw biker gang and the family behind it that struggles to keep things together. Think of it as a mix of The Sopranos, Easy Rider and Dallas…in other words, pulpy fun that makes you feel like a bit more of a badass for watching it than it should. Well, the show was back for it’s third season last night. Here’s my quick take.

Props to Ally Walker for keeping it reasonably together at age 49, but honey, lay off the lip injections before you reach Meg Ryanville.

This episode was, for the most part, slow as balls, which I don’t really begrudge it, given it’s the season premiere and it has to take the majority of its time just to establish things. Jax, heir apparent to the throne of the Sons of Anarchy, spends much of the episode drunk and shirtless, pining over his abducted son Abel. Reminds me of my average day except replace the word “abducted son Abel” with “failure of a radio career.” Oh, and my abs make Charlie Hunnam look like Tommy Lasorda, natch. Gemma (Katey Sagal), matriarch of the crew, is on the lam, forced to hole up from the law in a seedy motel in the wake of a frameup by federal agent June Stahl (Ally Walker). By episode’s end, she makes a break for it, unable to cope with life in a small room with nothing but a bed and cable tv for entertainment (which depressed the hell out of me because, if you throw a laptop, jar of lube and living at home into the mix, that’s the entirety of my existence).

Thankfully, the episode’s ending redeems it by throwing some fantastic action and bloodshed into the equation that will no doubt shape the trajectory of the majority of the season (Sutter’s use of violence to set a plot in motion ranks right up there with David Chase’s). If you haven’t seen Sons of Anarchy yet, you won’t regret watching it, and it’s still very easy to pick up one episode into the mix. If you have, well, I want to close this week’s review as I will close every week’s review: By forcing you to hum the show’s theme “This Life” for the rest of your work day by linking you to a video for the song.

True Blood‘s One Taboo

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:38:22 +0000

HBO’s True Blood has garnered a reputation as one of television’s raciest shows, and rightfully so: It’s rife with copious amounts of sex graphically depicted on screen (that last line almost sounds more at home in a letter written by an angry mom to the network). Not just any old sex, either: There’s chicks screwing vampires, guys screwing vampires, vampires screwing each other (this scene of Vampire Bill banging another vampire is possibly the most unintentionally funny thing ever put to film), dudes banging dudes, dude vampires banging dude vampires…you get my point.

The one place the show has played things strangely conservatively, however, is with the various shape-shifters that inhabit the show. There are werewolves, werepanthers, weredogs (I’m still holding my breath for a werewhale), yet any time they’re shown getting it on, it is invariably in human form. As the French say, “Le WTF!” You’re telling me that, if you had the power to turn into a wolf at will, you wouldn’t morph into one mid-coitus as a joke to freak out a girlfriend you were about to dump? Any time I see the shape-shifting Sam Merlotte getting some, the thought of him delivering the line “How about some real doggiestyle?” with a straight face right before he morphs into a canine consumes me. So how about it, HBO? You ready to give me my 15-dollars-a-month’s worth? Ya stinkin’ puritans…

Bow chica wow wow...

Review-Dinner for Schmucks

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:09:46 +0000

Steve Carell and Paull Rudd in Dinner for Schmucks. Admitting you have a crush on Paul Rudd doesn't make you gay. Only honest.

Clan Papageorgiou has a very specific ritual for the birthday of its matriarch: Dinner at The Cheesecake Factory followed by a trip to the movies for a comedy and then cake and ice cream back at Papageorgiou Estates (that sounds so much nicer than “single-floor gerbil cage that I grew up in.”) My family loves one another, but madre’s birthday usually translates to a bloodbath every year: There’s typically a fight in the car because she’s screaming that my driving will result in our flaming demise followed by smoldering resentment at the dinner table that invariably erupts before the entrees arrive. The promise of a comedy that will make us laugh away our urge to bury cutlery in one-another’s aortas is the social lubricant that gets us through the evening. This year, that duty fell to Jay Roach’s Dinner for Schmucks.

I’ll keep the plot details simple because anyone going to see this movie is simply a fan of Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and/or Zach Galifianakis and would watch a remake of Leprechaun in the Hood if it featured them. Rudd plays Tim, an ambitious company man who wants to secure a promotion and fit in with upper management to woo his girlfriend Julie (the classily porkable Stephanie Szostak) by securing the biggest oddball he can for the company’s annual “dinner for winners,” where guys try to one-up each other by seeing whose weirdo guest is the weirdest. Enter Carell as Barry, a sweet but strange guy who winds up Tim’s choice for the aforementioned dinner, and Galifianakis as Thurman, Barry’s vindictive boss and a fellow dinner guest.

Everyone knows how this type of story pans out: Tim’s corporate ambitions, geared toward winning Julie’s heart, only serve to drive her away and potentially into the arms of another (played in this case by Flight of the Conchord‘s Jemaine Clement who is the film’s highlight). Meanwhile, Barry, who honestly thinks he’s become friends with Tim, learns the evil truth of Tim’s intentions and rebukes him, causing Tim to question the person he’s recently become. Luckily, Tim comes to his senses in the film’s climax, gets the girl, proves to Barry he’s actually a nice person and, for good measure, Barry gets revenge on his asshole boss. There it is, the most original plot ever conceived by mortal minds. I feel like I just explained Memento. Whew.

So, is Dinner for Schmucks worth your time this weekend? Not according to Mother Papageorgiou, aka Mamageorgiou, who could only walk out of the theater shaking her head. “What an undisciplined script. Those writers must have smoked too much pot. That was just not funny.” And, in spite of the difference in our ages and my knowledge that one puff of a joint does not cause your brain to melt out of your ears, I have to agree with the old gal. Rudd is used as the straight man, meaning all he brings to the table is the labyrinth of his smokey eyes and 90 minutes of questioning your heterosexuality (forgive me, my finger slipped and accidentally hit the “Homo Lock” key). Carell is his usual engaging self, and you certainly smile as he works his magic on screen, but there aren’t many big laughs to be had. In fact, the only thing that got me laughing hard throughout the film were a series of props used by Carell’s character that I won’t mention to avoid spoiling the goods. Leave Dinner for Schmucks for a lazy, HBO-watching Saturday night. Maybe go and watch The Other Guys (which I haven’t seen yet because that would be timely and relevant of me), instead. Or just save your loot for The Expendables which comes out August 13 and will win the Oscar for “Best Everything, Ever.”

Screw it, you're not going to watch the movie anyhow, so here are the props that Carell knocks out of the park: Dioramas featuring stuffed mice. Pictured here are Evel Knievel mouse, Ben Franklin mouse, Louis Pasteur mouse and Earl of Sandwich mouse. I'm laughing just looking at them.

Kenny Motherfucking Powers

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:46:52 +0000

Kenny Powers Gets Signed By K-Swiss – watch more funny videos

Last month, I coughed up for HBO in order to watch True Blood without the hassles of tracking down each episode online the day after it broadcast. (Incidentally, who are these guys that record and immediately upload shows to the net? You do the Lord’s work, but damn, get out of the house and touch a titty once in a while.) True Blood quickly proved itself to be lackluster this season, and I was about to shut off HBO until my brother came upon Eastbound and Down being offered as an on-demand selection. We were both immediately hooked.

Eastbound tells the tale of Kenny Powers, a washed-up MLB pitcher who returns home but still acts like, to quote Mr. Show, “King Shit of Fuck Mountain.” It’s dirty as hell, extremely funny and contains a surprising amount of pathos that have made it one of my favorite comedies. Sadly, the new season isn’t due out for another few months (Kenny flees south and starts playing ball for a Mexican team. Sounds great already), but Funny or Die has seen fit to release this short of Kenny Powers landing an endorsement deal to tide fans over in the meantime. Enjoy!

Review – Inception

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:22:05 +0000

Inception looks like M.C. Escher had sex with Enter the Dragon.

Continuing in the Papa’s Basement tradition of reviewing movies weeks after their release date, I’ve decided to bang out a few words regarding Inception, the latest achievement from Christopher Nolan of Memento and The Dark Knight fame. Here goes:

1. After exiting the theater, please stop acting like you just saw The Godfather.

Inception is a great flick, and I was thoroughly entertained during every moment of it, but an all-time classic it ain’t. This may come as shocking news, given the fact that it currently holds the number three slot on The Internet Movie Database’s Top 250 Movies list, voted upon by the site’s readers. (As an aside, I’d like to take a moment to defecate upon the IMDB’s Top 250. Currently, 11 of the top 20 films of all-time were released in 1990 or later. The Dark Knight is listed as the 12th greatest film of all-time, Fight Club the 18th. We should all give thanks for living during such a cinematic renaissance! The summer of 2010 alone has seen both the 3rd greatest movie (Inception) and 10th greatest movie (Toy Story 3) released during its span. See? Democracy doesn’t work.) So, while I encourage you to watch and enjoy the fine piece of cinema that Inception is, if it takes you more than a few days to shut the fuck up about it afterward, I’m probably going to punch you in the trachea.

2. Just because you kept up with Inception‘s plot doesn’t mean you belong in Mensa.

Has there ever been a finer album for making love to?

The film centers around the conceit that you can enter a shared dream-state with other people and, while in this state, get them to reveal their secrets to you. Simple, right? Well, sometimes the targets of these attempted dream thefts have been trained to detect intrusions into their minds, and the only way around their defenses is to suck them into a dream within a dream. By the movie’s end, there are scenes taking place in a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. “How labyrinthian!,” you exclaim! Not really. Yesterday I ripped Judas Priest’s British Steel to my computer (keepin’ it current) and wanted to listen to “Breaking the Law.” To do so, I clicked on the little Windows button in the corner of my desktop. Then, I clicked on the “music” directory. Then I clicked on the “Screaming for Vengeance” directory, which was located in the “music” directory. Then, I clicked on the “Breaking the Law.mp3,” which was located in the “Screaming for Vengeance” directory, located within the “music” directory. Heady stuff.

3. Why Does Joseph Gordon-Levitt have Chinaman eyes?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured to the left doing everything short of posing with Jake Gyllenhaal’s cock in his mouth to evoke the memory of Heath Ledger) is a fine actor and does a great job in Inception. I did leave the theater, however, thoroughly confused about his ethnic background. I mean, I’ve seen wider eyes in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips. After a lengthy inquiry (which consisted of typing the name “Joseph Gordon-Levitt” into Wikipedia), I learned he’s Jewish. I’m still convinced his mom must be a goddamn Eskimo, but I’m putting an end to my search into his racial heritage before it crosses into Josef Mengele-ville. If any of you guys reading have an idea what the hell the story is with 3rd Rock, leave a comment.

4. Ellen Page gives me an erection times negative one.

I initially had a picture of Ellen Page in a bra here to drive home the point, but hell with that, I need to keep every reader I've got. Say hi to Sofia Vergara.

Not much to say here other than wonder why Christopher Nolan didn’t go with an actress who doesn’t require computer effects to look like she’s gone through puberty. As I said about Rotsa Ruck Revitt above, she’s a great actress and does just fine in the film, but the exchange where he kisses her because his lustful passions supposedly got the better of him is the least-plausible part in the entire thing…and this is a flick that features things like floating, upside-down skyscrapers that bend to your very thoughts. I’d rather run the words “Proteus Syndrome” through Google Images and masturbate to the results than spend another moment on Juno. Next time you’re in bed, try thinking about her instead of baseball to last longer.

So go ahead and rip me apart in the comments section for not walking out of Inception with such a massive erection that I had to hold my popcorn in front of me to hide it. It’s the best flick I’ve seen this summer, but if I could somehow make incarnate and then fingerbang The Godfather, Inception wouldn’t be fit to sniff the scent of that fine film’s juices off of my digits.

Movie Review: Cyrus

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:03:27 +0000

Sorry, ladies: I should have posted a 'squirt alert' before springing a picture of such fine studs upon you. It probably looks like Slimer flew through your panties now. Forgive me?

This was supposed to be a review of Predators. Ever since the co-host of Papa’s Basement, Rachel Oehring, issued a scathing review of that film on my radio show last week, I had been champing at the bit to see it, love it and wave my appreciation of it in her face like a piece of dog shit on a stick. I also figured a review of a popular film that was only a week late wouldn’t exactly hurt traffic to my site.

For reference: Allison.

The big day was supposed to be Wednesday. I had contacted a few male friends (and only male friends) because bringing a woman to Predators would have been asking for an awful time. They’d have either grimaced their way through it and halfheartedly pretended it wasn’t so bad afterward or vocally expressed their displeasure every five seconds throughout. In retrospect, that sounded eerily similar to me describing a girl’s reaction to anal. An hour before Predators‘ showtime, however, I got a call from my brother that he and our friend Allison were going to go see Cyrus in a few minutes and I was invited if I wanted to join them. Usually I’d have said “piss off” and continued with my plans, but Allison is a close friend of the family that we don’t see often. Plus, she’s had some health issues recently, so I’d feel pretty guilty if she kicked the bucket in a few weeks and I had skipped seeing her one last time to watch a sequel. I called my friends, told them we’d see Predators soon and girded myself for Cyrus.

Oh, you sweet guinea treat.

The premise of Cyrus is fertile comedic ground: John C. Reilly plays John (clever), a divorcee who leads a life of paralyzing loneliness. At a party he meets Molly (the still-überporkable Marisa Tomei) who sees past his depression and falls for him. Everything seems to be going great for John until he encounters Molly’s son Cyrus (Jonah Hill Feldstein. Yep, that’s Jonah Hill’s real name), who displays an unhealthy, almost Oedipal level of attachment to his mother. The rest of the movie plays out as a standard romantic comedy involving lovers dueling for a woman’s heart…except one of those dueling is the woman’s son.

It all sounds so promising, doesn’t it? John C. Reilly in the throes of depression. Jonah Feldstein in an almost-incestuous relationship. Marisa Tomei repeatedly checking herself for lumps on camera (I made that one up). Sadly, the movie never makes up its mind what direction it wants to take its premise in. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a futon: A shitty, uncomfortable comedy that unfolds into a shitty, uncomfortable drama. And please, don’t think I feel this way just because it was a subdued, indie film: Nothing gives me a bigger hardon than being a titanic prick about “understanding” a film that was too refined for other people. For example, my appreciation of Freddy Got Fingered is legendary.

So skip Cyrus this weekend, which you were probably going to do anyway because you’d never heard of the goddamn thing to begin with and Inception looks amazing. It’ll be there waiting for you on Netflix in two months (and hopefully streaming, because I couldn’t tell you in good conscience to use a DVD delivery slot on it). In the meantime, if you want a laugh from John C. Reilly, check out this clip of him in Talladega Nights. Now that’s entertainment fit for my refined palate.

I’m Not Gay for Watching True Blood (But You Are)

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:55:15 +0000

(And the fact you stared at this picture for 27 seconds isn't helping your case.)

Twilight. The Vampire Diaries. The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. Team Edward. Team Jacob. Team Coco. If you’re anything like me, you, too, are having a hard time keeping track of all the weird, vampire-centric shit that’s hit the market the past few years. I’m here today to make the case that you give one of these what-does-it-say-about-me-that-women-fantasize-about-getting-the-blood-sucked-out-of-them-by-Robert-Pattinson-yet-I-can’t-get-one-to-agree-to-a-run-of-the-mill-threesome shows a try, though: HBO’s True Blood.

The hottest Anna Paquin's ever looked. I sure Siskel's happy that one of his last reviews was a thumbs 'way up' for Fly Away Home.

I wanted to be above True Blood. God, how I wanted that. An ex of mine was way into the show, to the point of dressing as its protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse (played by the gap-toothed and generally weird-faced Anna Paquin), for Halloween. There’s nothing I relish more than despising, or at least being ignorant of, the things that people close to me love most, and getting to post “Who are you supposed to be, again?” under each picture of her in costume on Facebook is a memory I will treasure forever. Months passed. The relationship eventually ended (thus freeing me to watch the show) and, about the same time, a friend, who had downloaded True Blood illega…er, purchased the show’s first two seasons on DVD from the good, Christian folk over at HBO.com gave them to me to view. By the end of the first, episode, I was hooked.

True Blood‘s premise is intriguing: The Japanese have invented a synthetic blood they brand “True Blood,” which frees vampires from relying on humans for sustenance, allowing them to “come out of the closet,” so to speak. Now openly living in society, vampires serve as a metaphor for several minority groups, ranging from blacks (vamps are considered dynamite in bed, though those that sleep with them are stigmatized as “fang bangers”) to gays (there are dedicated vampire bars and the right for vampires to marry humans is a hotly debated issue) to…well, okay, they pretty much parallel the blacks and the gays. I mean no one accuses them of stealing our jobs, eating cats or having big noses and controlling the entertainment industry.

I usually go for chicks that look like they could be wanted by INS or blow something up in the name of Allah, but I have a soft spot for gingers.

Thankfully, the show doesn’t get by on a cute premise alone: The writing, character development and pacing are all top-notch. Oh, and there’s non-stop fucking, too. Unfortunately, a lot of said fucking involves Anna Paquin, but if you squint hard enough, you can imagine the face of one of the show’s more attractive actresses on her decent body (like Deborah Ann Woll, the redhead on your left).

“So John,” you might be asking, “the show’s third season is currently on HBO. Should I immediately subscribe in order to get in on the action because I emulate you on every conceivable level?” Not so fast, sparky. Remember when I mentioned things like “character development” and “top-notch writing and pacing” that characterized the shows first two seasons? Yeah, not so much this time around. It’s like they replaced the writing staff with a bunch of second-graders who rattled off a list of things they’d thought would look cool on a tv show and built around that. “So, you want the vampires to eat blood ice cream and drink blood soda? Check. And you want werewolves added to the show, and the vampires fight the werewolves? And add 10 new characters, but don’t focus on any of them for more than 20 seconds because things would get boring? Sounds good!”

If you want to give True Blood a shot, check out the show’s first season and move on from there. I suppose I could also tell you to read the books the show is based on (The Southern Vampire Mysteries) but: 1. I haven’t read them 2. They have shitty cover art according to what I just saw on Wikipedia and 3. Telling someone to read a book feels as modern to me as advising them to cure a fever by getting some leeches to “suck out the devils that inhabit their bloodstream.” Maybe this season of True Blood will right itself and end up awesome. I give it the same odds as me finally getting that threesome.

More Movie Reviews-MacGruber

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:23:40 +0000

If you look closely, you can see the outline of Kristen Wiig's shaft. God she's grody.

Poor bastard's got a mouth like a sex doll's pussy. An ultra-lifelike model at that.

My last three articles have been movie reviews. Is watching movies all I do with my life lately? At least Roger Ebert has the excuse that half his jaw has been removed and he now eats through a tube and talks through a Speak & Spell. I’m 90% sure every one of Ebert’s reviews now ends with “This movie managed to take my mind off the fact that I’m halfway to Johnny Got His Gun-ville for 90 minutes. Thumbs up!” Well, I can eat solid food and my mouth in no way resembles a vagina (well, since I grew a beard, maybe that of some Italian broad in a 50s stag film), so here’s my unbiased review of MacGruber.

I’ve caught one or two MacGruber sketches on SNL, and don’t recall them being anything outstanding. In each one, the painfully unfunny Will Forte just yaps a lot to people far more amusing than him in that weird, affected voice of his instead of disarming a bomb and then everyone explodes. (As an aside, seriously, fuck Will Forte. There are very few people in this world I know I’m funnier than and thus should be enjoying the success of, but he’s one of them. He almost manages to ruin this masterpiece which depicts a falcon snorting blow and then double-teaming an octogenarian with Alec Baldwin. How? Animals doing drugs is always hilarious and Alec Baldwin is one of the funniest guys on the planet. Yet Forte almost manages to Sammy Hagar the situation.)

Bands like this are one of many, many reasons I didn't lose my virginity in high school.

The only reason I wanted to watch MacGruber was, up until the Thursday before its release, it was enjoying an astounding 92% approval rating over at Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it had to be doing something right. I went to bed confident that I’d take my mom and brother out to see it over the weekend and, once again, they’d lavish praise upon me for my choice in films (and overlook the fact that I make a paperboy’s salary at age 29 and it’d probably be my mom treating the three of us to the movie even though it was my idea to go see it). Come Friday morning, however. MacGruber‘s lofty 92% rating had plummeted to 51%, something I’d never seen happen to a movie before. If someone had replaced the film’s last reel with footage of baby seals being clubbed as Napalm Death blared in the background, it’d still have only gone down to 65%, tops. Now I had to go just to find out how bad this piece of shit was.

On Sunday, I decided the time had come. I rounded up m’lady (note: “M’lady” is a super-classy way to address a broad. You’d be amazed what you can get away with in bed if you simply request it in a fake British accent and and toss a “m’lady” on the end of things) and we shelled out the $18 for two matinee tickets to MacGruber. And, after all the buildup, how was the film? Meh. It had some solid (and surprisingly dirty) jokes, but any time I wasn’t laughing, I was actively despising the flick. Will Forte was as weak as I figured he’d be and Kristen Wiig’s recurring gimmick throughout the film was getting dressed up like a man, which only confirmed my suspicions that she’s hiding a schlong that would put John Holmes‘ to shame. Ryan Phillippe was serviceable as MacGruber’s young apprentice, but you know what? Spelling “Phillippe” is a real pain in the ass and I had to do it multiple times when writing this, so f him, too. At least Val Kilmer was great in his role as MacGruber’s arch-nemesis Dieter von Cunth (get it? Almost sounds like “cunt.” Ha.), but I’m pretty sure I’d have rooted for John Wayne Gacy had he been hell-bent on killing Will Forte, so maybe Kilmer wasn’t that amazing, after all.

Do yourself a favor and skip MacGruber, at least in the theaters. It’s the perfect movie to catch on HBO some Sunday afternoon when you’ve got a debilitating hangover and anything that would make you laugh too hard would only make your head feel even worse. And if anyone makes the obvious joke that this article is also so unfunny that it is safe for hangovers in the comments section, I promise to hunt them down and shove a Capri Sun straw up their prick.

Iron Man 2-It Doesn’t Suck

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:29:20 +0000

The scowl of Iron Man. I'd be mad too if my work suit was an airtight Dutch oven just waiting to happen.

Handsome cast, that MacGruber film has.

Sure, this article is a touch late: Iron Man 2 was released two weeks ago. But what else are you going to watch this weekend? MacGruber? (Actually, I probably am. So help me God, it’s getting good reviews, and I’m over the fact that Val Kilmer now looks like the long-lost little brother of those two fat twins on motorcycles and Kristen Wiig’s smile creeps the living hell out of me. Have you ever seen a woman look more uncomfortable on screen? It’s like she’s perpetually in the middle of a colonic.) For those of you that haven’t seen Iron Man 2, though, I’m here to tell you that, while it’s no masterpiece…well, it doesn’t suck, either.

Let’s get this out of the way: While I enjoyed the first Iron Man well enough, I don’t think I got nearly as much out of it as most people did. If memory serves, Robert Downey, Jr., fucks Ricky Bobby’s wife, gets abducted by terrorists, escapes and then ends up fighting The Big Lebowski, who seems a lot more Walter than Dude in his old age. I literally recall nothing beyond that. Maybe it’s not the film’s fault, because I had to scream at a bunch of kids every five minutes to shut up during the damn thing in the theater (I’m actually really confrontational…when my opponents are under 12 years old and white) and (paging Dr. Freud) I only seem to enjoy super hero flicks when the protagonist’s father figure meets an untimely end. I just couldn’t feel too much pathos for a character that was a rich, brilliant, charismatic and fucking everything on two legs. Is it too much to ask that the same incident that required Iron Man to live with the aid of a robot heart also left him using colostomy bags? I’d feel a lot more empathy for a guy who had to save the world while pooping into a sack taped to his chest. Just sayin’.

Whips? What is this, Castlevania?

Iron Man 2 works because it manages to keep to a minimum the two problems that plague all super hero movie sequels: Multiple new villains and spending roughly seven hours of the film’s run time setting up a second sequel. IM2 does contain a few scenes with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury to set the groundwork for a tie-in film (The Avengers), but come on: It’s godddamn Samuel L. Jackson. Had he told Iron Man to “strike down with great vengeance those who attempt to poison and destroy you,” I’d be nominating him for the Oscar. Mickey Rourke also does a very good job as Whiplash, the film’s (predominant) big bad. My only complaint there is, well…he built a suit with two electric whips to take on Iron Man. There should have been no Iron Man 2. Instead, there should have been an eight minute short where we see a montage of Whiplash building his suit, then Whiplash attacks Iron Man, Iron Man laughs and fires a missile into Whiplash’s unprotected, un-iron head and it explodes like in Scanners. The end.

The film’s most disappointing aspect isn’t even director Jon Favreau’s fault: It’s Scarlett Johansson’s. I don’t know if Van Wilder‘s semen has magical weight loss properties (…or do I?), but what the hell happened to this broad’s figure? She used to be awesome because she was the one chick with an ass the size of a dump truck that the average cracker-ass-cracker white guy would openly admit to wanting to bang. Not only that, but…look at those lungs! As I’m typing this, I’m trying to find out if there’s a state in this country that will allow me to marry a picture. Now she’s all bony and her rack is more atrophied and depressing than Detroit’s economy. I sure wish her tits and ass would grow back so I could remember what an interesting, intelligent person with a good heart she is.

So if you’re one of the three people left who hasn’t seen Iron Man 2 since it came out four years ago, give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed. Except by Scarlett Johansson’s decimated chest, which is a bigger national tragedy than that oil spill in the Gulf.

Heat-The Best Movie Ever

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 03:58:32 +0000

Cause she got a great ass! And you got your head all the way up it!

There are a few movies that I will watch every single time I catch them on tv: The first two Godfather films. Goodfellas. Scarface. (Though I always turn it off right after Tony shoots Sosa’s hitman Alberto in the car and things start to go downhill. I just can’t bear to see my Montana-bear face down in that bloody “The World is Yours” pool.) Heat is on that list as well, and, as far as I’m concerned, is the king of the bunch. For, you might not know it yet, but…Heat is the best movie ever made.

How, you ask? How can it not be! It pits the two Italian alphas of acting, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, in a life-or-death struggle of silverback dominance as they spout off shit like “Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat” and “I’m alone. I am not lonely.” (Coincidentally, I’ve been known to mutter both statements over and over under my breath as I jerk off to my old yearbooks. But that’s an article unto itself.) The rest of the cast is similarly superb, and, on top of all that, it contains the single-most amazing (non-pornographic) scene ever put on film: A 10-minute bank robbery that is so manly I still refuse to let any girlfriends watch it out of a fear it might impregnate them. Let the celebration of Heat‘s greatness begin.

The Cast

Before he was asking men named Gaylord to milk him.

Let’s not bullshit ourselves: Heat‘s selling point is that it gets two of the greatest actors ever and veterans of countless guy films, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, on screen together. (You may notice I keep putting Al’s name ahead of Bobby D’s despite in the fact that “De Niro” is ahead of “Pacino” alphabetically. This is due to the fact that Al Pacino is of pure Sicilian ancestry while De Niro is a mongrel of partially-French, Irish and Dutch descent, a fact that disturbs me greatly to this day. I mean it’s goddamn Robert De Niro. The guy should be so Italian that he cums olive oil and shits fist-sized meatballs in a light Bolognese sauce.) Thankfully, both of their performances are top-notch: De Niro plays Neil McCauley, a zen thief, a dangerous man of few words who lives by an impossibly strict code of conduct. In other words, he’s everything I’d aspire to be if 80% of my life weren’t dedicated to eating fast food at every meal and staring at the countless Bang Bros. Network websites for hours on end.

Pacino channeling Linda Lovelace.

Pacino, conversely, plays Vincent Hanna, the skilled detective out to bring De Niro and his crew down. In contrast to the samurai-like calm De Niro brings to his character, Pacino’s detective behaves like an autistic child who is one viewing of a tv commercial for Chuck E. Cheese away from repeatedly punching himself in his genitals. Here are some of his more-restrained exchanges in the film:

TONE LOC: (Yes, the Tone Loc. I told you the cast was great.) I can get killed for telling you this shit!

PACINO: You can get killed WALKING YOUR DOGGIE!

Such a dipshit line, yet he delivers it so well you can’t help but love it. Here’s another snippet of godlike dialogue between Pacino and the gentleman of color playing Tone Loc’s brother (I’m too lazy to look up his name, but, to narrow it down, he was a black guy with a shaven head):

BLACK GUY WITH SHAVEN HEAD: Vincent…

PACINO: (slamming table with his fists so hard that the dishes on it go flying) GIMMIE ALL YA GOT!

BLACK GUY WITH SHAVEN HEAD: Vincent…

PACINO: (more fist slamming) GIMMIE ALL YA GOT!

Oscar-worthy.

The rest of the cast is similarly top notch: Val Kilmer. Ashley Judd. Henry Rollins. Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Bubba from Forrest Gump. Natalie Portman before she grew breasts. (Or the approximation thereof. I still don’t get the fuss about that broad. She’s got a body like a 12-year-old Vietnamese boy. And yet somehow isn’t sexy. Hiyo!) Every actor in the film was of the utmost pedigree. I’d believe it if you told me Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando were used as uncredited extras.

The Robbery

The film’s centerpiece is a bank robbery that is without a doubt the most amazing action sequence you will ever witness. Before I continue, I’d just like to say I’m aware of the Dane Cook bit about how the heist scene in Heat makes him want to go out and commit armed robbery. I’d like to add that Dane Cook even speaking the name of my beloved Heat makes me want to bury him up to his neck in the sand and get the rest of the village to help me stone him to death. You know, the same way I’d handle things if I had to restore honor to my family after I caught my Afghani daughter not wearing her veil around a Westerner. Whore.

There is nothing the written word can do to convey the greatness of the scene, so I’ll just spit out some facts: The cast received months of weapons training prior to shooting the scene so they wouldn’t look like a bunch of short bus passengers when handling their guns. It is still shown to Marine Corps recruits as an example of both how to properly load a weapon mid-combat and how to retreat while under fire. The gunfire in the scene is so loud that, to this day, playing it will immediately cause my cat to defecate in fear wherever she’s standing. Finally, due to the detailed nature of the scene and the fact that 95% of the general population is mentally retarded and will ape anything they see on television, the Heat robbery is credited with countless copycat crimes, chief among them the famous North Hollywood Shootout, in which two guys in heavy body armor took on hundreds of cops before finally being put down. (Not to sound too Columbine-y, but I always did think that was a badass story.)

So do yourself a favor and watch (or re-watch) Heat. It’s currently streaming on Netflix. (Oh, Netflix…had you existed 15 years ago, I’d have never graduated high school.) You’ll thank me. Just remember: Don’t watch that robbery scene if you’re ovulating. Lest your family be forced to stone you to death. Whore.

I still choke up like a bitch during the ending...which I may have just given away with this picture. He, uh, fell asleep because he ate too much strawberry jam, some of which is smeared on his shirt. There we go.