Underrated Films Vol. 1

Cabin Boy

Almost every weekend as a kid my Mom and I would see a movie at the theater. Out of all the movies that we saw only there were only two that I can remember where we were essentially the only people in the theater...Timecode (which was a pretty awful movie shot in real time on four separate screens shown at the same time) and Cabin Boy. Cabin Boy was one of those movies that was only in town for a couple of weeks before it disappeared completely. Which is a shame because even though a movie like Cabin Boy isn't going to win any awards, it is a charmingly goofy comedy that comes off as completely original.

The main plot of Cabin Boy involves one Nathaniel Merriweather (Chris Elliot) a rude clueless man child (before Will Ferrel perfected the art of the clueless man child) who is looking to go on a yacht to go to Hawaii, but instead winds up on a fishing boat called The Filthy Whore. The crew of foul mouthed sailors take him in as the Cabin Boy and what follows is a bizarre adventure that involves a half man half shark (Chocki!), an iceberg monster, a multi-limbed goddess who is sexually frustrated due to martial trouble with her husband who is a giant and a giant talking cupcake that spits tobacco.

After all that it really is pretty obvious why most movie goers would veer away from such a weird film, along with the fact that the main character doesn't really learn anything at the end (except for his love of the sea). Despite all this Cabin Boy really does standout as a great surreal comedy with some really awesome comedic writing and excellent cameos (David Lettermen, Andy Richter, Alfred Molina) that seems to be snubbing traditional Hollywood story telling with a sly wink at the audience through the sheer absurd goofiness of it all.





-Astroboy

How Bad Is The Recession?

Obviously the past couple of months have been financially tough for a lot of people. Of course amid all the anxiety of money issues many advertisers have begun rolling out commercials that are both understanding about the many financial burdens that face Americans, along with giving them a great deal at the same time. A good bulk of these commercials have been car companies, since the auto industry is also feeling the pinch of these tight economic times.

Last night however I saw the following commercial that really put the recession into perspective and gave me hope:

Ahhh, the power of humorous sexual innuendos that refer to our current economic struggles and hardships! I would expect nothing less from America's #1 condom...

-Astroboy

The Saddest Thing You'll See All Day

The the late 80's/early 90's were a golden age of 1-900 numbers and commercials littered the TV landscape. Most of them involved either two things: cheesy phone sex or promises to kids that they could talk to/learn secrets/get information about their favorite band/TV show/video games. Of course the catch was that it cost 2 to 5 bucks...a minute. Obviously most of them were pretty pathetic, but they all pale in comparison to the following:

Wait a minute I'm confused...are you supposed to call that number if you're depressed and feel like crying or to hear other people crying and make you feel better? I guess either way it's a pretty ridiculous way to spend $2 a minute. I mean I'd be sad too if I wasted money on a phone service that involved crying. Though now that I think about it during these tough economic times perhaps this phone service from the early 90's is just what we need to let it all out. In fact after calling this number you might as well order this to make yourself feel better and complete the cycle of stupidity.

-Astroboy

Please Stand By...

As you can see with my lack of posting over the past few days my modem has been on the fritz, which means pretty much no goofing off on the intertubes. Instead of ranting about how recockulously stupid my Internet service provider is making me wait an entire day to simply give me a new modem and then standing me up as if I'm a prom date with the clap (seriously not even a call!?), when I could have went and got it myself without wasting all this time....

You see I could spend an entire post on their sheer lazy stupidity...but I won't. Instead I leave you with the majestic annoying beautiful weirdness that is...

...David Hasselhoff singing Hooked On A Feeling!

-Astroboy

Words That Don't Need To Exist

Over the past month or so Snickers has bombarded us with an ad campaign that features words in *sigh* Snacklish. As you can see above it involves taking two previously existing words and combining them to make a bastardized Frankenstein word to...make us laugh...I guess. Honestly I didn't see what was so wrong with Snickers last ad campaign ...but whatever. Anyway seeing these plastered all over the city (Patrick Chewing...really!?) made me think of actual stupid words that need to become extinct.

Sick: Not in the, "I'm feeling under the weather" way, but as a replacement for when something is awesome, cool, sweet etc. You see we already have words to point out how cool something is, we don't need to replace that word with a preexisting word that already has its own meaning because it is unnecessary and confusing.

Tweeting: I'm convinced that only celebrities and news shows use Twitter and that it's some sort of conspiracy that I am unable to prove...yet. Anyway when someone is using Twitter they are tweeting, which is a dumbed down buzz word for "writing small things that popped up in my head just now online". Of course I am complaining about this on a blog...but tomato, tomatoe...right?

Drinkability: Bud Light's big thing now is how it is drinkability. Which is retarded because anything that can be drank or drunk and doesn't kill or paralyze you has drinkability, it really is nothing special. Don't try to say that it means quality, refreshing, great taste because it doesn't...it means that it is suitable or fit for drinking.*

Bromance: Okay I looked the other way a couple years ago when Metrosexual was all the rage. I got used to using the term Bro, but somewhere I need to cross a line in the sand. Bromance is essentially saying that you like a guy, but don't want to french kiss him or profess your undying love to him. Which is also technically a friend.

Hella: At sometime, somewhere, someone thought it would be a good idea to jazz up the word totally. You know grungify it up...to the extreme! So all of sudden something wasn't totally lame, but hella lame...which to this day makes little to no sense to me whatsoever.

-Astroboy

*Which is a stretch for Bud Light...

#31 Howard The Duck

#31: Howard The Duck

Some concepts just don't translate well on screen and Howard The Duck is a prime example of this. In the 70's Howard The Duck was a comic character that was a wise talking anthropomorphic cigar smoking duck from space who had landed to earth and often got into weird situations that were sly critiques/parodies on everything from pop culture to society in general. On paper this kind of over the top zaniness was okay, however on celluloid it was pretty laughable. The fact of the matter is I'm almost 99.9% sure that Howard The Duck would have never ever been made if it hadn't been executive produced by George Lucas. At the time Lucas was a cash cow who could do no wrong and could get a Ziggy movie green lighted if he wanted to.

So the plot revolves around Howard living on Duck World (like our world, but with walking talking ducks) and gets zapped by a laser beam only to wind up in Cleveland. After getting into some painfully unfunny shenanigans he meets a singer of a rock band who is not in the slightest amazed that she is interacting with an alien duck who talks. The rest of the movie involves Howard trying to get back to his home world with the help of said female singer, while unbeknownst to them they are being hunted by a dude called the Dark Overlord who can take over peoples bodies.

In between hokey slapstick one liners (Howard beats some guys up using Quack-Fu and gets his revenge on some duck hunters) and the inevitable 80's music dance montage, there are scenes that are trying to be serious. Which is pretty much impossible when the serious scene involves a guy in a duck costume. Oh also Lea Thompson (the rock star) and Howard (the duck) have a scene where they almost get it on...by which I mean have sex. Which I think technically would be beastiality and really should probably not be in a film targeted towards kids. Overall there is really no way to make a Howard The Duck movie good because it is such a cheesy, goofy premise that if you make it slap sticky it's awful and if you make it serious it's awful. Also if you combine the two...still awful. It's like a cinematic catch 22.

-Astroboy

A Dissertation (Of Sorts) On The Cosby Show

Over the past few months before we go to sleep my girlfriend and I have gotten into the habit of watching an episode or two of The Cosby Show. It started off harmless enough in that watching it was like the equivalent of eating grapes; in that it was good, sweet and you could stop eating at any time. Now it may seem odd that someone as myself could enjoy or even relate to The Huxtables in that:

1. I am not African American
2. I was not raised upper middle class in New York
3. I can often come off as a cynical bastard (as you may have noticed reading various posts)

While all of these are true (except No. 3 is only kind of true because while I give various pop culture things lots of shit because they are weird/stupid/bizarre, I believe that I probably unconsciously enjoy the sheer dumbness to some extent because I wouldn't write about it...) I can still relate to The Cosby Show. It's sort of like a guilty pleasure, but kind of makes sense. Part of it is no doubt because I watched it with my family as a kid, but the other is because it focused on simple everyday things that are relatable to any family. Whether Vanessa snuck out to see her boyfriend or Theo flunked the big Algebra test, you always knew that by the end of the 30 minutes a simple lesson would be learned without banging you over the head or treading into "very special episode" territory.

It's the fact that these life lessons are presented in a non-complex (often times pretty PC), charming and yes funny way that looking back as a kid no doubt instilled some kind of lesson into you (the viewer). Essentially most everyone wants the Huxatables as parents because they were people that helped their kids learn life lessons with what looked like great ease. My parents did the same thing in that they answered any questions or concerns I had, and while it may not have wrapped up in 30 minute increments, they did it to the best of their ability. So at first watching stray episodes of The Cosby Show was sort of like a guilty pleasure, the first part has sort of disappeared. In fact my girlfriend purchased the entire run of The Cosby Show on DVD, so anytime we want to we can catch up with the Huxtables.

Sure some of the wardrobe styles (a rat tail Theo?) or music may seem a tad dated, but ultimately the message is something that is timeless.

-Astroboy

Yet More Awful Metal Album Covers

It's been a few months since I've subjected myself to the mental torture of cheesy/awful/over the top/ hilarious/ WTF world that is metal albums. So here I present 5 more...with not a dragon in sight!

Riot

I've already covered a Riot album cover already, but I mean just look at that...WTF!? If anyone can tell me why the monkey headed sumo wrestler with a battle axe standing on top of skulls is about to get hit by an airplane, please explain it to me because I have no clue.

Metal Ballads

If you actually place your hand over the top cover of this album it looks just like the romance paperback novels my grandma reads. In fact the only way this album could be cheesier and cliched is if there was a Trans-Am parked next to them.

Stryper

Stryper is the premier christian metal band and if that's not confusing enough then take a look at this here album cover. I do believe that it is depicting God sending missiles down from the heavens to blow up the earth or perhaps the missiles are some sort of metaphor or christian symbol of some sorts...eh, it doesn't matter that much because I just stopped caring.

Budgie

Budgie is considered one of the first metal bands and while they've got the hard to read band font down to a T, I'm not really sure that I would consider futuristic parrot men riding on horses with guns to be all that threatening. I mean maybe if they had snake heads or shark heads or something. What's that? A Budgie is a type of parakeet. Huh, that's not metal at all...but it does explain the cover...sort of.

Rainbow

You know what's less menacing and evil than a small parakeet...RAINBOWS! Seriously if you are trying to think of a metal name for your band and all you can think of is Rainbow, then YOU ARE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. Here look it's easy...metal name for my band: Zombie Death March. See that wasn't hard at all! It took me less than one second to think of that. Rainbow is something that a 3 year old names their imaginary pony.

-Astroboy

Martial Arts Movies Vol.5

Master Of The Flying Guillotine

The first time I saw a VHS bootlegged copy of Master of the Flying Guillotine I had to purchase it sight unseen. While a good chunk of kung fu flicks from the 70's and 80's involve similar scenarios when it comes to plot, they still have some semblance (and I use this loosely) of being grounded in some sort of reality. However Master of the Flying Guillotine has none of that. It best resembles a 2-D fighting game from the early 90's where opponents have insane weapons and or some sort of crazy fighting ability battling in some sort of tournament. In fact video games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter have characters that could easily be homages to Master of the Flying Guillotine.

The story continues where the first film left off (the first film being the no so good Flying Guillotine) and follows the One-Armed Boxer (Jimmy Wang Yu) who is being stalked by a blind assassin. Attempting to lay low he joins a martial arts tournament (of course!) and fights everyone from a yoga master to a Thai boxer who has the ability to make his arms grow comically long. Of course the assassin tracks him down and uses the dreaded flying guillotine, which is a weapon that looks sort of like a bee keepers hat which is thrown and falls on the victims head. When the string is yanked back two blades cleanly cut off the opponents head.

Obviously the plot takes a back seat to the fighting, but the fight scenes are actually very impressive for a mid-70's kung fu flick. In fact one of the best scenes involves the One-Armed Boxer being tracked in a bamboo forest by the blind assassin with him listening for his opponent so he can use the guillotine. All in all Master of the Flying Guillotine is a wholly original campy (but still impressive) cult classic that's right up there with 5 Deadly Venoms and Snake In Eagles Claw as being one of the more memorable early martial arts flicks, along with being one of my personal favorites.

-Astroboy

Underrated Albums Vol. 24

Handsome Boy Modeling School

So...How's Your Girl?

Handsome Boy Modeling School's debut comes off as a musical variety show with special guests galore. The bizarre brain child of Dan the Automater and Prince Paul it's essentially a concept album based on an episode of the short lived Chris Elliot sitcom Get A Life (the episode in question is also the basis of their name). As if that doesn't sound surreally weird each track has it's own guest that run the gamut of old school MC's (Del, members of The Black Sheep) to DJ's (DJ Shadow, Kid Koala) to relatively odd cameos (Sean Lennon, Father Guido Sarducci).

With all the cameos both Dan the Automater and Prince Paul construct it so that each song not only stands on it's own, but also integrates the track to fit the guest. Magnetizing is Del free flowing and could easily be a Deltron 3030 B-side. Metaphysical is a track that creates a trance like operatic banshee moan over trip hop as Miho Hatori (Cibo Matto) simply talks in a sort of hazy broken English beat poetry. Ultimately the charm of So...How's Your Girl is the ability to mix tracks that are straight forward hip hop with tracks that come off as more experimental to instrumental DJ cuts.

Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II) is a frantic DJ battle with DJ Shadow and DJ Quest, which is then followed by the silly track Calling The Biz featuring Prince Paul trying to get the Biz to guest on the album over the phone and then moves on a straight forward head nodding hip hop track The Projects featuring Del and some of the guys from De La Soul. Having the daring to take chances track by track keeps it not only interesting, but shows that the Handsome Boys aren't afraid to try new things. This is especially true with the throw back soul of both The Truth and Sunshine, two stand out tracks that all but slink along with tickling pianos, sampled horns, sexy vocals, spoken word, scratches and even a quick rap thrown in the mix to create a pastiche of musical genres yet still make two cohesive tracks that can more than stand on their own. Essentially that's what So...How's Your Girl? is, a quirky amalgamation of various musical styles pieced together to create a pretty slick album.

Essential Tracks: Metaphysical, Look At This Face (Oh My God They're Gorgeous), The Truth, Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II), Sunshine

Just for the hell of it here's a Handsome Boy Modeling School Promo for the first album, which is both cheesy and hilarious all rolled into one!

-Astroboy

Sad Moments In Comic Book History: Villains

There's nothing better than reading a comic book with a truly awesome terrifying villain to match wits and/or brute strength with a hero! However sometimes there are villains that are the opposite of all that and can range from the laughable to the absurd. Here are but a few of the latter:

Rainbow Raider

What's more terrifying than rainbows? How about ANYTHING! So Rainbow Raider was born color blind (traumatic I know) and his father being an optometrist created special goggles that he gave him that solidified light so he could slide down rainbows and use them as...um weapons I guess. A failed artist RR decided to turn to a life of crime by stealing paintings as a confusing revenge for being a shitty artist. Instead he went from shitty artist to shittier super villain.

Egg-Fu

Egg-Fu combines the two R's: ridiculousness and racism! Egg-Fu was a giant talking Chinese communist egg who used his mustache as a weapon...no really! As if a gigantic commie egg with a deadly mustache who was an embarrassing caricature of Asian culture wasn't over the top enough DC decided to really go for broke and have him talk in broken English (replacing R's with L's). Wow...just wow!

The Calculator

The Calculator is a super genius, but you really wouldn't know it by looking at him. I mean the dude is basically a giant walking spandex calculator. So what could possibly be threatening when it comes to calculators? Well that thing on his head made hard light constructs when he punches on his comical chest keyboard, which makes little to no sense at all.

The Fiddler

Much like our friend The Calculator up above, The Fiddler takes something that isn't really all that super villainy and attempts to make it dangerous. The Fiddlers main weapon is...a violin!? Hold on, let me get this straight...this dude is named after an instrument that he doesn't even play?* Whatever. The Fiddler would then play his not fiddle to hypnotize people, shatter objects and create an instant hoedown at any time. Okay I made that last one up.

Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man

Not only does poor AVMM have one of the most obvious names in comics, but his power is pretty self explanatory. He can turn into an animal, vegetable or mineral and also all three at the same time. He could turn into hay, rubies, and a cheetah or half rhino, half celery and half quartz! Really the possibilities are endless...and also pretty lame.

*Note: My girlfriend explained to me that fiddling is a style played on a violin, so basically I am wrong in that respect. She did however agree that The Fiddler is a lame idea for a villian.

-Astroboy

Cry Baby

I'm not really much of a "cryer". I mean it happens sometimes, but all in all for me it is a rarity that the waterworks well up. That's not to say that I'm some sort of emotionless half cyborg from the future that has had his tear ducks removed...I'm not. Honestly. However last week I stumbled across this here article. Apparently ABC decided to focus their hard hitting news style on a timely topic. Of course I'm talking about is it okay for men to cry?

Now let me point out that there are two types of crying when it comes to males. Regular crying and "man tears". Obviously regular crying is reserved for truly sad moments that overwhelm an individual (be they man or woman). However "man tears" are a different form of crying. Say I'm watching a movie that is sad. This may cause "man tears" to form, which is where the eyes get wet or glazed over but no actual tears fall. Also there is no snotty nose or uncontrollable sobbing that involves hiccuping and shortness of breath. ABC also forgot some other instances when it's OK for men to cry:

-After eating something really spicy.

-If you've been maced.

-Any time you are kicked or hit in the balls.

-When you start thinking about all the missed opportunities in life and how you're not getting any younger...

-If you are in an eye poking contest.

-When you lose your last 10 dollars at the track.

-Drunk at 3 am in the fetal position listening to Love Hurts by Nazareth.

-When you're chopping onions and then you accidentally rub your eyes, but your fingers have onion juice on them and it just makes it worse. So then you wash your hands and try to wash out your eyes, but you forgot that you still have some soap on your hands. So now you have onion juice AND soap in your stinging blood shot eyes...man I hate when that happens!

-If you are a scientist and you get some sort of chemicals in your eye.

-That episode of Gilmore Girls when Luke breaks up with Lorelai.

-Astroboy

WTF Wednesday

Time for a little middle of the week weirdness! This is like an early 90's animated shit sandwich and is living proof that children will watch any cartoon no matter what happens. It also features a new term that I have just now coined "performer placement", which is just like product placement but featuring any artist/actor/actress etc.

Holy mother of God was that like a surreal animated time capsule from the early 90's or what! Since I know there are those of you who are actually wondering where King Koopa is taking Mill Vanilli and how the Mario Brothers are going to save them (come on admit it deep in your heart you're sort of curious) I present part deuce:

-Astroboy

Worst Of The Worst: Video Game Mascots

Mascots are a strange staple of video game culture, often comprised of hip anthropomorphic animals that collect various things for little to no reason at all. However for every Mario or Sonic there seem to be at least five or ten Awesome Possums (I excluded Awesome Possum off the following list because he was technically not "mascot" material, though he was pretty lame). Here are a few of the worst offenders:

Gex

Gex is the perfect example of the early to mid-90's typical game mascot: he's a wise talking animal, he has attitude (I mean he's wearing sun glasses for Christ sake!) and he needs to collect stuff ( in this case TV remotes). The odd thing is the depth of the storyline which I can't even begin to try to describe here, just check out the wikipedia page . Jesus tap dancing Christ that's like a roomful of 8 year olds on crack wrote a story and crammed it into a kids game? Also Gex is teaching the kids how important watching TV is (or something) since he is trapped in a TV collecting remote controls and taking on Rez the overlord of the Media Dimension. Would it surprise you that they made two sequels?

Blinx

In the early days of the Xbox (ie before Halo) Microsoft was looking for a mascot and came up with Blinx. A Doc Martens wearing cat with a futuristic vacuum guitar thing-a-ma-bob who must sweep time with already mentioned thingy. Seeing as in your face furry inspired mascots had already had their hey day Blinx wasn't really all that well received.

Air Zonk

When Turbo Grafx 16 came out the closest thing they had to a mascot was Bonk who was a caveman with an abnormally large head who hit things with his ginormous skull. He wasn't really that good or bad as mascots go. Towards the end of TG 16's run they decided to reboot Bonk, you know make him hipper. Apparently hipper meant making him a cyborg with sunglasses and a lightning bolt glued to his gigantic forehead. Oh, and why not put a Z in his name somewhere...kids love Z's and X's! Surprising pretty much no one TG 16 became a casualty of the 16 bit wars and Air Zonk went the way of Poochie.

Bubsy

When it comes to video game mascots there a A-listers (Sonic, Mario, Donkey Kong), B-listers (Crash Bandicoot, Yoshi) and even C-listers (um...see below) so that makes Bubsy the equivalent of Kathy Griffin. Due to the popularity of Sonic, Bubsy was poised to be the next smart alecky video game mascot based on an odd animal to hit the market...according to the video game industry. Bubsy's zany charm (he's wearing an ! on his T-shirt) was practically force fed down gamers throats as the next big thing and when that didn't work very well there was always the cartoon! For some reason or another Bubsy never really caught on...maybe he needed sunglasses.

James Pond

James Pond is like something you'd read on the inside of a Laffy Taffy wrapper: kind of amusing for a second and then easily forgotten. It was also HEAVY on the puns, besides the obvious name (you see he's a secret agent, but a fish!) most of the levels parodied James Bond movies in groan worthy results (Leak and Let Die, A View to Spill etc.). Needless to say you probably only need one pun based fish that is a secret agent video game right? Nope, somehow James Pond spawned (god I am so sorry for that) two sequels with equally punny names.

-Astroboy

Yet Even More Advice From The 50's

Leisure Time

What We Learned:

-Laying on your bed hallucinating how much people worked 100 years ago is not a good use of leisure time.

-When you can't find other people to do things with it's usually because they are keeping busy...or they don't like you and are avoiding being around you.

-The key to using leisure time wisely is doing things or stuff.

Surviving Radioactive Fallout

What We Learned:

-Radioactive fallout consists of tiny invisible rays that could KILL YOU WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING IT!

-Radiation is measured in Roentgens. Once you go past 300 Roentgens there is a possibility of death. Keeping that in mind 300 Roentgens would make a pretty wicked heavy metal band name.

-Your fallout shelter should include: bunk beds, garbage cans, some books, a radio, and an axe to fend off radioactive zombies.

-It's okay to eat food that has been exposed by radioactive fallout, just rinse it with some water. The worst thing that could happen to you is it unlocking some latent super power.

Good Table Manners

What We Learned:

-If a strange man wearing the same awful sweater as you comes into your house when your parents have left and tells you that he is a future version of you...just go with it.

-Proper table manners could get you a job or even laid if done right.

-Use the standard American method of holding a knife and fork, but don't worry about the European method since it is stupid and unpatriotic.

-Finally when at a supper party don't see how much or how fast you can eat because that's what professional eating competitions are for!

-Astroboy

Lazy Friday

Seeing as it's gorgeous outside combined with my day off to run errands and do chores (I'm looking at you 10 pounds of laundry that has been vomited out of my closet) I'm keeping it short, sweet and to the point today.

I got to see The Watchmen last night at midnight! Being a huge nerdy fanboy I must say I enjoyed it immensely. The way I see it if you are a nerdy fanboy you will enjoy it (though may be somewhat critical at times) and if you don't know what a 'Watchman' is then it will come as a pleasant (albeit rather violent) surprise from all the other comic movies or big budget cookie cutter actiony movies.

Anyway some genius of a fan lovingly made the following as an awesome tribute to both Watchmen and 80's cartoons!

Reminded me of this...

-Astroboy

#32 Gymkata

#32: Gymkata

Gymkata is one of those movies where I'm amazed that at no point in time during pre-production, production or even post production someone (anyone, a grip or something) at some point didn't look around and go, "This is fucking ridiculous". You see everything down to it's title to it's premise screams bad movie. Yet here we are. Gymkata dares to ask the question that nobody dared ask or for that matter cared about, "What would happen if you combine the athletic grace of gymnastics with deadly martial arts"?

The plot focuses on John Cabot (Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas) who enters a brutal athletic race/competition called The Game. The winner of The Game gets to continue living and...wait for it...A WISH! So the secret shady government wants Cabot to win The Game so he can use his wish. For what though? A kagillion dollars? Lifetime membership to the Playboy mansion? A million more wishes? No way, this being the height of the Cold War they want his wish to be for a U.S. satellite that can track all other satellites in case of a nuclear attack. As an extra incentive (and also an obvious plot point) Cabots father tried to play The Game, but was never heard from since. So he enters the game that involves being chased/attacked by pretty much everyone: ninjas, villagers that look like they came out of the 18th century, guys in turtle necks...you name it! Of course a lot of kicking, flipping, and cartwheels ensue.

While some bad movies knowingly wink at you when they have an obviously bad premise Gymkata takes itself as seriously as a heart attack at an insurance convention. In fact the ludicrousness of the plot combined with the dead pan delivery of the lines is one of the charms of Gymkata. It's unintentionally funny because it's trying so hard to be taken seriously. Whether it be the training montage that includes Cabot walking up some stairs on his hands to the surreal fight scenes in broken down remains of castles that inexplicably have gymnastics equipment so he can use his Gymkata to win the day. In fact this scene sums up Gymkata to a tee.

-Astroboy

Middle Of The Week Music

Brian Eno-Everything Merges With The Night: The spareness of the instruments on this simple track comes off as both reflective and ethereal. I'm not a huge fan of Eno the performer, but Another Green World is quite a good album for when you're feeling mellow.

Dilated Peoples-Live On Stage: A lot of Dilated Peoples songs sound sort of samey, but always make me nod my head to the beat at least. Also DJ Babu does their cuts, so they have that going for them.

Creedence Clearwater Revival-Fortunate Son: Last week I was listening to some Creedence and forgot how many great songs they put out in a relatively short time. The thing about them is the bulk of them sound so simple, but are sung in such a heartfelt way that you can't help but enjoy it.

Rage Against The Machine-Down Rodeo: Out of all the Rage albums I tend to like Evil Empire over everything else. This song in particular has a nice beefy bass line with a sort of synth like guitar noodling that marches along in a weird hybrid funk metal and by the end it erupts into musical chaos.

The Chemical Brothers-Where Do I Begin: There's something about the vocals on the beginning this track that are simply mesmerizing. However the ending is like nails on a chalk board to me.

Ween-Sarah: What's a random shuffle without some Ween (seriously I do believe that 1 out of 10 songs on my ipod come up Ween)! Anyway this is a quick little love song that sounds like they are playing under water.

The Avalanches-Frontier Psychiatrist: A crazy mish mash of samples that go through everything from John Waters Polyester to ghostly howling to horses whinnying to I have no idea what. Really the entire album this is off of is utterly brilliant (for a more in depth analysis along with the video for Frontier Psychiatrist go here), but this is hands down the stand out track. Just an amazing 4 1/2 minutes of sampling.

The Beastie Boys-Tough Guy: Personally I like the Beasties more as goofy awesome rappers, not really as punk rockers. But at under a minute this song isn't that bad.

Violent Femmes-Lies: The weirdest part about this track is that it switches from the studio recording to a live recording, which is pretty noticeable when you hear it transition. There's also a really long jam, which I usually skip because I'm not really into overtly long jammy stuff...even if it is the Femmes.

Ramones-Judy Is A Punk: You can never go wrong with The Ramones...ever!

-Astroboy

Worst Of The Worst: 80's Cartoons

Denver The Last Dinosaur

So some kids are totally BMX biking and fall on an egg which hatches into a friendly dinosaur who can totally wail on a guitar. What else is popular with 80's kids? Oh, and he can also thrash out on a skateboard! Did I mention that he also wears sunglasses? Isn't that extreme to the max and totally in your face radical! Christ, Denver is like the dinosaur equivalent of Poochie.

Kidd Video

Kidd Video was about a group of kids who play in a band and go to a warehouse (which is obviously a warehouse look at all those boxes!) to jam out. Unfortunately there is a magical mirror in said practice space and they get sucked into it only to become painful 80's cartoon caricatures of themselves. Unfortunately there's a bad guy who wants to make them "musical slaves", which I imagine is only slightly better than regular slaves. However they befriend a pixie who is like a cross between Debbie Gibson and Tinkerbell who helps them. After all that explanation my head hurts.

Gilligan's Planet

I'm usually pretty good when it comes to suspension of disbelief, however when it comes to Gilligan's Planet...Okay so the castaways build a rocket ship on the island (never mind the whole needing jet fuel, space suits and the fact that if they could build a functional rocket that they could probably build a boat to get off said island) and blast off into space only to (irony of ironies) get stranded on a planet! This makes Rubik The Amazing Cube look poetic.

The Gary Coleman Show

The Gary Coleman Show revolved around Gary Coleman as a dead kid...uh I mean angel who comes down to earth to help kids resolve problems. Unfortunately there is a bad guy named Hornswoggle who likes to cause mischief. If the name didn't tip you off that he was a bad guy then might I point you to the fact that he has not only a cane, but an evil looking goatee (why not just give him a mustache to twirl?). Not surprisingly kids weren't that interested in watching a cartoon that featured a dead Gary Coleman doing good deeds. Go figure!

Turbo Teen

What could be worse than a prehistoric Spuds MacKenzie or a space age Gilligan's Island you may ask? Well let me direct you to Turbo Teen, a cartoon about a boy who can transform into a car. Which leads to a great deal of questions that don't really matter like:

What happens to his internal organs when he becomes a car?

Isn't it sort of disgusting when his friends drive him?

What happens when he gets a boner as a car?

And so on and so forth...

-Astroboy

Alternative Vegetable Names

According to this article kids hate vegetables, but not vegetables with awesome names. Which makes sense because let's face it most vegetable names are completely and utterly boring with a capital B. So may I submit the following cool name alternatives to get your kids to eat those veggies*:

Carrots: XXtreme Power Sticks

Celery: Ultimate Spine Crackers

Brussel Sprouts: Alien Pods

Cauliflower: Edible Princess Flowers

Broccoli: The Jonas Brothers Present: Broccoli

Peas: Peaz

Green Beans: Intergalactic Laser Beans

Corn: Corn The Hunger Annihilator

Beets: Biits

Cucumbers: Natures Light Saber

Lettuce: Amazing Pony Food

Spinach: Ass Kicking Leaves Of Awesomeness

*Note: All of these titles may have one to multiple exclamation points after them, so as to make them more exciting to children.

-Astroboy