New Poll, Yo!

This started as a conversation with Felicia, which made me feel like a weird freak and a bad movie guy, but now I'm listening to the Cinema Diabolica guys mention this and I don't feel weird anymore.

So tell me where do you sit when you see a movie in a theater.

For the record:
1-Felicia said she and her sisters like to sit in the front rows cause (and I quote) "I like to be engulfed by the screen, almost to the point where you literally have to turn you head left/right to see the whole screen. It's fun to watch movies with a lot of action that way."
2-I like to sit anywhere in the center section but near the isle so I can easily run to the bathroom (I tend to have bladder problems. Sorry for the TMI)
3-The Cinema Diabolica guys more or less agree with me, but it sounded like they like the center part but in the back.

I like the center cause you get a clear view of the screen without having to move your head too much and you can take everything in. So anyway...if I left something out in the options post in the comments, please!
-Jason

Help Me Help You...er No...Just Help Me

There's something that I've always wondered about so maybe my readers (all four of you) can help me out.

For years now I've noticed on video covers and movie posters, during the little part on the bottom that lists the credits, that one of the actors names would have a box around it.

For example, here's the poster for John Carpenter's "The Fog":


So if you look at the credit part:


You'll see that Janet Leigh's name is boxed in. Now, I figured maybe it was to highlight this particular person was in this movie for some strange reason, but then I noticed it on other movies, and the people in the box were people I never heard of. Sorry, can't provide an example of that, I can't think of any right now and all my movies are in boxes right now.

So my question is: What up, yo? Why the boxing in names? Does it mean something? Did that particular person in the box do something special or something? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
-Jason

Five For Friday: August 22nd, 2008

This Five for Friday is bought to you by The Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon which ended it's ten day run on Wednesday. It was a huge success thanks to everyone that participated. So if you're one of those people, thank you so so much.

1. Kid Free Cinemas-
I read this article earlier this week, which I think was written in England, about how very young children should be banned from movie theaters. I hate to sound all anti-children but I have to agree with this. You don't know how many times I've been to the movie theaters and there were children that shouldn't be there to begin with. Like when I went to see "Prom Night", I swear a whole friggin family came to see that thing. I mean why would you do that? Granted, it's a shitty PG-13 horror movie but still. Kids shouldn't be there in the first place. So maybe some reasonable age limit should be imposed. Like maybe no one under the age of...oh....6? 7? That sounds reasonable.

2. "The Dark Knight" Kicks Ass And Takes Names-
How many weeks was "The Dark Knight" number one? 4? And interesting that the one film that took it down to number two was "Tropic Thunder". Now I really wanna see this.

3. "Death Race" Hate-
What's with all the hate on the Jason Statham film "Death Race"? I personally think it looks cool. Yeah it's a remake to a cult movie and the plot is probably nothing like it (original was about a cross country race where the participates had to kill as many people on the road as possible) but still. Seems cool to me. But there was tons of hate on "Stepbrothers" and I loved that freakin movie, so I dunno. I suddenly feel alone.

4. Speaking Of The Dark Knight:


And



5. LL Cool J IS...Dolemite?-
Another article I stumbled across was from Cracked.com, where the listed 6 movies that ALMOST got made. It's a very interesting read cause if you think movies are in a sad state now, you should thank your lucky stars.

That's it for this week! Any suggestions on what should be on The Five, email me at invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com .
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #10: Masters of the Universe

Lemme get this out of the way right now.

I HAVE THE POWER!!!!

Ok, it's out of my system.

I was a kid in the early 80's when He-Man was out and about and me being a typical boy in America I of course was obsessed. I had everything He-Man. The toys, the bedsheets, even curtains. And I had all the toys, including Castle Greyskull! Fuck yeah!!

I remember this being the first movie my dad took me to see in the theaters when I was a kid and I don't remember what I thought of it back then (I probably crapped my pants a few times) but now, I must admit, this movie is really cheesy.

Then again it was made by Golan-Globus, the Michael Bay of the 80's, so what do you expect?

First thing I notice is how similar parts of this movie is to "Star Wars". The start has Skeletor marching down a hallway and a dark ominus song is playing. He's taken over Castle Greyskull and managed to lock up this Sorceress chick, who more or less runs the universe or something. But He-Man (Dolph Lundgren) and his rag tag group including Duncan, the man-at-arms and Teela, Duncan's daughter lead the resistance and fight off Skeletor's army.


They meet Gwildor (Billy Barty), some keymaker that made what he calls a Cosmic Key that can open a doorway to any planet in any dimension. Skeletor stole this Key and used it to take over the Castle (This happened before our story starts so we don't see this happening) but Gwildor has a proto-type, which He-Man wants to use to sneak into the Castle.

But they could just use the backdoor of the Castle instead, which they do. When Skeletor's army attacks He-Man & The Gang, Gwildor opens a door to some random place and they all jump in, "Sliders" style.

I know this pre-dates "Sliders" by probably 7 or 8 years, but still.


Gosh, where could He-Man and his friends possibly go? Mars? Jupiter? The Restaurant At The End of the Universe? Well...

No. They land on Earth. Good ol' Earth. How come every movie version of a cartoon from the 80's has all the action happening on Earth? Like the stupid recent "Transformers" movie (hey speaking of Michael Bay...) the Transformers JUST HAD TO come to Earth. And here. He-Man and the gang HAD TO COME to Earth. I dunno. I'm guessing it's so little kids like me in the 80's would go "OOH! COOL!! He-Man could land in MY neighborhood!"

So on Earth, we meet Julie (Courtney Cox...seriously) who's leaving whatever city we're in to go to New Jersey. Jeez, why Julie? Whereever you're at now seems really nice, why go to Jersey? Gonna join the mob or something?


(No offense to any readers from New Jersey.)

Julie's leaving cause her parents died (remember this) in a horrible plane crash (remember this) about a year ago (remember this). She and her boyfriend Kevin plan on spending one final night together. But then Kevin finds the Key, which somehow flew 100 miles away from where He-Man and his Junkyard Gang landed. Kevin, cause he's a moron, thinks it's a Japanese synthesizer and starts pressing the keys.

All this key pressing sends signals to Skeletor and he sends a group of "his best killers" to get He-Man and this other key. The Best Killers arrive at a high school where Kevin's band is gonna play the prom and chase after Julie. He-Man hears her pleas for help and comes to the rescue. I put "best killers" in quotes cause Julie literally threw random crap at them and they got all terrified of it and practically wet themselves. Jeez, I'd make a more effeciant killer and I'm a movie blogger.

(No offense to my fellow movie bloggers reading this.)

Anyway, the "best killers" trash the school and the cops show up, lead by the dude who played Strickland in the "Back to the Future" series. He's given a name but I think he's more well-known as Strickland so I'll just call him that. Anyway, Strickland finds Kevin and thinks he and Julie trashed the school, so they go to Julie's to wait for her.


Meanwhile Skeletor kills one of his "best killers" cause they all really suck, but gives the other three another chance to redeem themselves.

Eventually, everyone in the cast meets up at a music store where Strickland is confused by He-Man and The Pips. A big gigantic war happens in the music store between He-man and Skeletor's army. This chick that works for Skeletor seriously named EVIL-LYN (I guess Evil-Ann or Evil-Emily was taken?) tricks Julie by pretending to be HER DEAD MOTHER! Julie stupidly falls for this (Yeah her and Kevin were meant for each other) and Julie gives her the key.

Another fight ensues and He-Man chases after some guys on a cool flying platform thingy then Skeletor shows up! On Earth!! The 5 year old inside me is squealing in terror!! Skeletor can show up IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!! BOO!!! He destroys the key and takes He-Man back to Eternia (their home planet) as his slave, while Duncan and Teela and Gwildor stay on Earth to die.

Gwildor says he can take everyone back to Eternia if they could play the right notes to open the door. Kevin remembers the notes and they set up this thing that looks like the thing E.T used to phone home to open the doorway. I should mention quickly that Skeletor shot Julie's leg with some poison and "only the sorceress can save her" blah blah blah. Oh and Strickland has had enough and is about to throw everyone into prison when the key is activated and everyone lands in Castle Greyskull.

At the Castle, Skeletor managed to soak up some powers of the universe cause something was aligning with something else and well...nah I won't say it. But all looks lost until our musical doorway opening A-Team shows up and starts kicking ass. Soon enough He-Man breaks free and he grabs his sword and...damn I said I wasn't gonna say it anymore. So I won't.



There.

Now the 5-year-old in me is squealling in delight cause now it's the final epic battle between He-Man and Skeletor. Well, come on now. Who do you think wins? Yeah, He-Man. He throws Skeletor down some abyss that's just there and with one transistion, Julie is ok, everyone is decked out in gold (Hey! Like the ending of "Star Wars"!) and for some weird ass fucking reason Strickland is staying behind cause somewhere he found a woman. Ooook.

Gwildor tells Julie that suddenly this key can also send people back in time and so he sends Julie and Kevin back a year before Julie's parents died. She stops them from getting on that plane and...just leaves the house. He runs outside and meets Kevin who also went back in time. They hug and kiss, He-Man says you-know-what one more time and the end.

Ok wait.

(WARNING! TIME TRAVEL GEEKERY AHEAD! TURN BACK NOW OR JUMP AHEAD A PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR HEAD TO EXPLODE!!)

Ok. Gwildor sent Julie and Kevin back in time a year. A year ago Strickland was there, on Earth, being a cop. So...what? Now there's two Strickland's? One Strickland is on Eternia getting serviced by an Eternian babe while the other one is a prick? Or did the Strickland that stayed behind at Eternia cancel out? UGH! Forget it.

I really hate to love this movie but god damn it I can't help myself. It's He-Man!! HE HAS THE POWER!! (Sorry sorry) But did it need to be so damn cheap lookin' and cheesy? I would've been happy with a cartoon movie version, mainly cause it meant I didn't have to look at Dolph Lundgren's beefy nipples the entire time. And I won't get into the whole gay undertones cause I think it's been talked to death. Oh and I should mention that both the opening and closing credits rip off the "Superman" credits. Even the music sounds similar. Weird.


Oh and I know I complained yesterday about people who nitpick movies to death and how movies don't have to always make sense, but this did go a bit too far. All the time Skeletor and his army is on Earth, they're riding around these suburban streets in big ass loud machines with literally ten thousand army dudes all with guns and lasers and flamethrowers and stuff and not one single person in this city is out and about, noticing this or whatever. It's like everyone in this town is on vacation and the only people left were Julie, Kevin, Strickland, and the guy at the music shop. Or maybe the Langoliers took em.

In other words, if the makers of "12:01" made this, the instant Skeletor showed up, he would've been shot to death by the army, the navy, the coast guard, the national guard, and for good measure have the C.I.A erase everyone's memories.

(Pictured: Not A Single Person On This Block)

And with this, "Masters of the Universe" is my tenth and final guilty pleasure on this list. I quite enjoyed this week and will possibly be visiting it again in the future. I wanna take this time to thank every single person that wrote out lists on their blog, sent me their lists through the email, and everyone reading these posts and supporting it.

I must say you guys definately have the power!

-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #9: 12:01

"12:01" is bascially a bad ripoff of "Groundhog Day". It's kind of interesting that the makers of "12:01" thought the whole "day repeating thing" was a "fresh" idea and decided to do their own damn version. But this version, while I like it, is very annoying.

Jonathan Silverman is Barry, a typical guy who works in personell of some science place. He's constantly getting threatened to be fired and has to deal with stupid pranks done by his friend Howard (Jeremy Piven). Barry is in love with this scienitist chick named Lisa (Helen Slater) but can never find the right thing to say to her. Later that day, he and Howard watch her get gunned down in front of work. After drinking his sorrows away, he goes home and gets electrocuted.


Right at 12:01 AM.

When he wakes up he finds that it's the same day he just had and he goes through the whole thing again, but totally confused. He gets yelled at for the same crap, he falls for the same pranks, and Lisa is alive.

So what's going on? Well the science place Barry works at is working on some accelerator thingy where if misused can cause what this movie calls "A time bounce" which means the days will repeat. Barry figures this out so now he has to convince everyone around him that it's happening to him and that Lisa will get murdered.

When Lisa is murdered again, Barry's arrested cause he kept telling everyone about it. But no matter, at 12:01 he goes back to repeat the day again. This time he sneaks around, trying to stop the time bounce from happening and save Lisa. He uncovers a bunch of crazy shit going on between the lead scientist Dr. Huxley (Martin Landu) and Lisa.

Barry is finally able to convice Lisa that he is repeating the day and that she will get shot. He saves her and a cool car chase ensues, cause a day repeating movies NEEDS a car chase. They find saftey at Barry's parents cabin where they proceed to get it on. Before 12:01 hits, he finds out as much as he can about Lisa and suddenly we're back.

Barry keeps on convincing Lisa, even getting killed a couple of times in the process (does any of this sound like maybe they were watching "Groundhog Day" a BIT too much?), and they discover that Dr. Huxley is running the time thingy illegally cause the government wants it shut down.

Finally, Barry and Lisa goes to the science lab and tries to stop Huxley and the machine. Right at 12:01 instead of the time beam going out to the world, it hits Huxley and he blows up, causing the time bounce to stop. Everyone's happy! Yay!!

So here's what annoying about this movie (besides being a blatant rip off). You know how a lot of people like to nitpick stuff that happens in movies, like a character would sneak into an office to get information and get away scott free, so your typical watcher is like "Oh he couldn't do that without getting caught". Well in this movie, Barry gets caught REPEATEDLY!

He sneaks into an office, he's caught.
He hacks into a computer and is caught.
He breaks into places he's not suppose to be and is caught and fired.
And at the end, when Huxley explodes, cops show up cause Barry and Lisa basically broke into the place. So the cops show up and Barry and Lisa is like "Dr. Huxley ran the machine illegally! We had to stop him! He was gonna kill us!!" Instead of the usual "Oh ok. Glad you're ok" and the police move on, our two lead characters, THE HEROES mind you, GET ARRESTED! It's the final shot!! How many movies has the balls to have their final scene with the heroes being put in handcuffs for breaking and entering and blowing up a man? NONE!!!

So pretty much if you're one of those annoying nitpickers (I'm sorta guilty of this but I'm able to let a movie be a movie) this should be your favorite movie ever! And yes, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis (Director of Groundhog Day) did it way better with funnier results, no argument there. But I like this movie. It's not very well known (I don't think) and if I recall correctly, it was made-for-TV. At least that's where I saw it back in 1993, a good few months after "Groundhog Day" hit theaters. Despite all the annoying problems and being a rip off, "12:01" is my ninth guilty pleasure.


Guilty Pleasure Reviewed Already (This Time On The Blog):
THE WOLFMAN'S GOT NARDS!!!

Slayton over at PUXZKKX wrote out his ten guilty pleasures. He even included one of mine!

Well tomorrow's the last day to send in your list or link. See how easy it is? And fun? You like easy and fun? Right?
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #8: Idle Hands

I think "Idle Hands" is possibly the first, and maybe only (?) stoner horror movie. Which is why I think it wasn't accepted too well.

It tells the story of Anton (Devon Sawa, the dude from "Final Destination" and "Stan" from the Eminem video), a high school stoner who doesn't really go to school. He gets high with his friends Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub. There's a serial killer loose in the town and it's latest victims is Anton's parents.

Soon, Anton discovers that his right hand is possessed by some evil spirit and is the one doing all the murders. His hand kills his friends, but they come back as zombies, or the undead, take your pick. So now Anton must fight off his hand and try to keep it from his new hot girlfriend, Molly (Jessica Alba).




Eventually, Anton decides to cut the hand in question off, which was a bad idea, cause now the hand is free to do what it pleases. Anton and the undead friends follow it to the high school halloween dance, where The Offspring is performing. (Man, I wanna know how schools in movies get these real bands to play their prom. I mean it took Marcia Brady HOW many tries to get Davy Jones?)

The hand kills everyone from Dexter Holland (The leader singer of The Offspring) to the principal played by Dick Dietrich (Tell me you remember that show. PLEASE tell me you remember that show!). Vivica A. Fox shows up with the only thing that can stop the evil hand and they threw in Jack Noseworthy just for good measure. (You all remember Jack Noseworthy, right?)




Despite having dead parents and dead friends, everything sorta turns out alright. The hand is stopped, the friends go to heaven, and Anton hooks up with Jessica Alba. Not a bad deal after all. Thanks satanic hand!

I'm guessing the main problem about "Idle Hands" is it's not totally explain what's going on. Vivica A. Fox sorta mentions that this spirit looks for a shiftless loser with no direction in his (or her) life and posseses his hand for some reason. The hand thing isn't explained though, which was probably a turn off to people "who want every freakin' thing explained"!

Like I said, it's a stoner horror movie. The three main guys get stoned and there's fucked up scary shit happening, along with good amounts of gore. I think it's up to Seth Rogan and his band of friends to make the next stoner horror movie. That'd be awesome.

With that said, "Idle Hands" is my eighth guilty pleasure.

Oh..right. You want a rating. I mean isn't Jessica Alba's boobs enough of a rating? Obviously I mean 5 stars. Come on!!

Guilty Pleasure Already Reviewed:
Deadly Weapons

Some OTHER guy named Jason, over at YDKS Movies made out his list of ten guilty pleasures. You should check it out and support fellow Jason's.

This other Jason guy is the last blogger to send me a link. There's still time to write up a thing on your blog and send me a link if you haven't already. The final day of the blog-a-thon is Wednesday. Don't be shy, I swear I won't bite.
Hard.
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #7: Dude, Where's My Car?

"Dude, Where's My Car?" gets a lot of flack for being a totally stupid silly movie. Yes, it is a stupid silly movie, but the hatred for this movie doesn't make sense. If you are not a fan of stupid silly movies, then don't watch it. Plain and simple.

"But Jason! I'm a movie fan! And I want to watch ALL KINDS of movies! You can't tell me NOT to watch something!!"

That is true. But before going into it, you should've realized what you were getting yourself into. How you may ask?

The FUCKING title is DUDE! WHERE'S MY CAR?!!! It has the word DUDE!! It's asking a question!! ABOUT A CAR!!! I mean come on!!!!

Jesse (Ashton Kutcher, another sign right there) and Chester (Seann William Scott, sign number 3) wake up after a night of heavy drinking and partying. They can't remember anything they did the night before and in the process, they lose Jesse's car.

So they go on a whirlwind adventure looking for the car. Along the way they meet:
Two sets of aliens, one group a bunch of hot chicks, the other group two Austrian fellows, looking for this thing called the continum transfunctioner.
A transvestite stripper who gave them a suitcase full of money the night before.
A group of cult space alien nerds who want to go to space with the aliens.
Some stupid jocks who want to beat them up for no reason.
A crazy ostrich farmer
And pissed off girlfriends and bosses.

And this movie is loaded with weird stars and cameos like:

Fabio


Chole from "24" fame


Andy Dick (kinda hard to tell in this photo but it's him, trust me)


And the loveable Hal Sparks.



Eventually everyone meets up, they find the continum transfunctioner, the alien chicks turn into one giant alien chick and the universe is saved. The Austrian aliens (Say that 5 times fast) erase everyone's memories and Jesse and Chester find their car at long last. The girlfriends (one of whom is Jennifer Gardner) get bigger boobs and the movie comes to an end.


There's a lot of stupid childish humor, along with catchphrases the makers were hoping would catch on (What the hell does Shibby suppose to mean?), but dammit! I love this movie! It makes me laugh and why does every single movie need to be so damn serious all the damn time?? Seriously! This is why "Dude, Where's My Car?" is my 7th guilty pleasure.


Guilty Pleasures I Already Reviewed:
The Reanimator

Mass Invader Maria sent me her list of ten guilty pleasures and here they are:
1. Batman and Robin, by far the greatest batman movie ever. I don't get everyone's problem with it.
2. Uncle Buck, pure hilarity.
3. Slap Shot 2 I didn't like the original but this is the best!
4. Shark Boy and Lava Girl, I'm a sucker for anything 3D
5. All the Shrek movies. I thought I was too cool for Shrek, boy was I wrong.
6. Winnie the Pooh, I've seen it 1000 times... since I turned 27.
7. Dungeons and Dragons. Don't bother me while I'm watching this! I'll hurt you!
8. Terms of Endearment Oh so sad it broke my heart into a billion pieces.
9. Nicholas Cage stars in The Wicker Man. Why didn't this win the best picture Oscar?
10. Mannequin, Nothing's gonna stop us now!

Joesph at Cinexcellence posted up his ten guilty pleasures. Check it out, dude!

Don't Give Your Hopes Up Like I Did

Cool huh?

Well, I said don't give your hopes up cause it's not real. Apparently some rather talented fanboys (girls?) made this. I must admit it's really well done. Click on the pic to see every little detail put into this.

Last time, it's fake.

Guilty post coming up in a bit.
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #6: Where The Heart Is

Whoa whoa whoa! Before you delete me from your bookmarks, hear me out! I mean, this is what this week has been about, hasn't it?

Seriously "Where The Heart Is" is WAAYYY different than you're typical romantic drama sap sob fest whatever. It's literally the most fucked up Lifetime-like movie ever, which is saying a lot cause Lifetime movies can be fucked up in their own way.

Natalie Portman is Novalee, a pregnant chick from Tennesee who's leaving with her baby daddy to California. They have a broke down car with a hole in the floor and baby daddy is a major asshole. Novalee loses her shoes in the car hole and makes asshole stop at a Wal-Mart to get more. Novalee is very superstitious about the number 5 (To be ironic I should've made this #5 yesterday. Oh well...) and when her change is 5.55 she finds out that asshole left her.





Then the real fun starts. She lives in the Wal-Mart, makes some fast friends, and even meets a "cute" guy, who looks like Joanquin Phoenix's younger brother with a 'fro. Eventually, she goes into labor and the cute guy, a libraian named Thorny, literally JUMPS THROUGH THE WINDOW to save Novalee!

Well, she's a national superstar now! Everyone sends her money and well wishes, except some wacko religious people from Missouri or Mississipi, whatever. Sally Fields makes a cameo as Novalee's mom who scams her own daughter. Novalee becomes friends with the nurse, played by Ashley Judd, who has a billion kids and names them all after snacks. (Brownie, Praline, Snickers, Junior Mint, and of course Starburst...ok I'm making some of those up)

Novalee moves in with "Sister", played by Stockard Channing. Sister and this repairman constantly fuck on the kitchen table. Now tell me, when's the last romantic drama you saw where two character, old enough to be your parents, fuck on the kitchen table, and ASK GOD TO FORGIVE THEM FOR DOING SO??? Tell me now!

Didn't think so.

What happened to Asshole Baby Daddy? He picked up a 14-year-old girl who robbed a liquor store and since the cops picked them up while in a compromising position, he goes to prison. There, he writes a country song and gets beaten up for singin every day. When he gets out, he tries to make a living has a singer and meets with Joan Cusack, a talent agent. Joan changes Asshole's image and name and soon he has the number one country song in the country. Of course Novalee can't stand the song, but doesn't know he's asshole!

And more fucked up shit happens. A tornado hits and Novalee does battle with it! FUCK YEAH!!! But Sister died as a result. And every now and then the wacko religious people show up and kidnap Novalee's daughter, whom she named Americus. I could explain why but...it'd be complicated.


So you're probably thinking to yourself "Jeez, a lot happens in this movie. What's the time span?" Well good question. One of the jarring things about this film is it's jump in time. One scene it's a certain day in 1996. The very next scene it's Christmas 1998. Everybody's kids is suddenly way older, Novalee is suddenly mature and not so naive. Asshole went from a ex-con to superstar. And Ashley Judd goes through men like a cronic masturbator goes through kleenex.

For awhile I considered this next part the most fucked up part ever, but then after watching a few Lifetime movies (hey I watch bad movies, what do you expect?) I realize this is part of the norm and must be some contractual obligation to have in every "Make women cry" movie.

More or less, Ashley Judd meets a guy who turns out to be a child molester and she walked in on the dude doing it to the kid and he damn near killed her and took off. For some reason, as a result to this, she loses her apartment. Yeah, no idea either but whatever it's fucked up and it makes women cry, just go with it.

Novalee becomes a photographer and Asshole is now getting sued by his former prison cell mate cause he claims he wrote the number 1 country song in America. So the label drops him and now he's a washout, taking pills and drinkin whiskey.(That sounds like a country song!) He stumbles around a train yard and ends up GETTING HIS FUCKIN LEGS CUT OFF!! See? See?? Isn't THAT messed up?

Novalee finds Asshole, visits him, and there's closure there. It's painfully obviously that Thorny (remember? The "cute" librarian guy) has the hots for Novalee and she back to him, but he's more or less the Duckie of the film. They eventually get it on but she admits she doesn't love him, so he leaves town after his sister dies.

(Jesus there's a lot going on in this movie. And I skipped a lot of shit to keep this short. Sheesh.)

Ok so, Novalee regrets this, gets Thorny from college, and I swear to fucking God they get married IN A WAL MART!!! All the stuff I left out could fill up another blog post.

So yes. This is my typical "movie a guy shouldn't like" entry in the guilty pleasure realm. Underneath all the fucked up shit happening, it's your typical by-the-books romantic drama to make women cry movie. But I just like it for some strange reason. I really can't explain why "Where The Heart Is" is my #6 guilty pleasure.


Guilty Pleasure Already Reviewed:
Hard Rock Zombies

The dude over at He-Shot-Cyrus (seriously a cool blog name), wrote out his ten guilty pleasures.
-Jason

(PS: I know yesterday's post I said I was gonna do another action film. The one I had planned couldn't be done cause the DVD wouldn't work and I hadn't seen it in awhile, and I wanted to get the facts right. So it'll just have to be put on hold for now.)

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #5: Crank

(Side note: Five For Friday is taking a week off. It shall return next Friday.)


Pretty much any film where Jason Statham is the lead can be considered a Guilty Pleasure, but I think "Crank" is probably his least popular film, which is surprising cause it's very slick looking film. Describing the entire thing is a bit hard to do. A lot of the imagry looks almost video game like, but there's weird images and scenes being played in the background, so it's like "Natural Born Killers: The Video Game" or something.

Jason Statham plays Chev, a hitman who wakes up finding himself poisoned. The poison is some special stuff that attacks the adgrenal gland, making his body slowly shut down. The only way to stay alive is to keep his adrenaline going so he has to do everything possible to keep it going.

So he starts taking cocaine, and drinking Red Bull by the gallons, and his doctor (Played by Dwight Yoakam...seriously) tells him to get some epinephrine, which he practically overdoses on.

So Chev is running around L.A like a maniac keeping his adrenaline pumping and pretty much just causing chaos. On top of this, he wants revenge on the guys that did this to him, so he's going around killing them one by one while they kill some of his posse (including a gay Pedro from "Napoleon Dynamite").


He meets up with his girlfriend, played by Amy Smart (What's happened to her lately?) and decides to fuck her in public to get his blood pumping. But unforuntuately there's no anti-dote so he just has to face facts and just die somewhere.


But this is Jason Fucking Statham we're talking about here! He just doesn't curl up and die! Nuh-uh! He's taking some motherfuckers with him! And take some motherfuckers with him he does. The ending leaves things a bit ambigous, but not so much anymore cause there is a sequel in the works, which should be interesting.

This is seriously one crazy ass movie and I totally love it. Any action movie that's just totally in your face is personally a favorite of mine. It's really a shame this movie isn't as popular as the "Transporter" series, which could be considered guilty pleasures on their own. "Crank" has gratutious nudity, violence, and all together wackyness, which is why it's my number five guilty pleasure.


Guilty Pleasure That I Reviewed:
Slugs

Mass Invader Bobbie lists off her ten favorite guilty pleasures:
Vamp
Masque of the Red Death (Vincent is so delightfully evil in that!)
the Dr. Phibes movies (two)
Who's Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
Blacula
I Was A Teenage Frankenstein
The Tingler
Strait-Jacket
and last but not least...Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

Most likely these movies are all on her website, which I helped design.

Colleen over at 353review.com posted her ten guilty pleasures. She's got a neat site, all of her reviews are done in haiku form, which isn't easy to say the least.

I'll just say this right now. Tomorrow's film is gonna be another super crazy mindless action flick. Can you guess which one?
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #4: Snakes On A Plane

Sorry this post is a bit late. Since I'm moving in two weeks (ack!) I have to spend as much time as possible with friends and family. But I'm here to tweak out a post before midnight hits.

"Snakes On A Plane" is possibly the granddaddy of Guilty Pleasures. If I was in fact doing these in order from most to least, SOAP would be number 1 hands down. Anytime I tell ANYONE I like this movie, I get weird looks, heavy sighing, and people shaking their heads at me. But how could you not love a movie titled "Snakes on a Plane". Literally, people, even friends I've known for a long time, didn't understand it and why those words grouped together make the most awesome sentence ever.

There's not much to the story at all. A kid witnesses a murder done by a gangster. Samuel L. Jackson is an F.B.I agent sent to protect the kid until he testifies at a trial. They have to fly from Hawaii to L.A for the trial. The gangster set up a trap full of snakes on the plane to kill the kid, and all the goofy ass characters on this flight. The snakes let loose and hilarity and fucked up shit ensues.

That's all you need to know plot wise. I'm fully aware how goofy the entire thing is and how cheesy the dialouge is. But it's part of it's charm I think. You literally have everything in this movie. Mobsters, surfers, newlyweds, boobs, penises (penii?) being bit off by a snake, stuck up asshole British guys, annoying blonde chicks with yappy dogs, a germaphobic rapper, and Kenan Thompson who knows how to fly planes. What the fuck else do you need, man??

I'm kinda glad I'm not posting images to this post cause there'd literally be a thousand cause every scene in this movie is just awesome. So if you haven't seen it, I hope you do sometime soon so you too can see why "Snakes on a Plane" is my fourth guilty pleasure.



And yes, I'm giving this movie


A Guilty Pleasure Already Reviewed:
Blood Freak

And Nick over at Random Ramblings of a Demented Doorknob posted his ten guilty pleasures, and he came up with a very cool theme!
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #3: Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows

In August 2008 a movie blogger watched all of his guilty pleasures in a week and vanished. A year later, his blog was found.

"Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows" is just one of many many sequels that didn't really need to be made, but hell the first one did so well, let's just milk this thing to death. I was a bit appreshensive about the sequel cause it wasn't done in a fake documentary style like the first (well, not completely anyway) and it was just a straight up horror movie.

In Blair Witch 2, "The Blair Witch Project" was just indeed a film, but it inspired many wannabe filmmakers to trek over to Burkittsville, Maryland, sleep in the woods, and try to find some spooky shit happening. Among those filmmakers are people who give guided tours through all the sights found in Blair Witch.


One of these people is Jeff. We're not too clear on what his story is exactly. At some point in time he was in a mental institution for some reason not given. We're even show a scene of some doctor pouring what looks like tapioca pudding down his nose, while smoking. I couldn't make that up if I tried.

Now it's...sometime after the pudding in the nose and Jeff is leading a tour of Blair Witch fans. They all go to the woods and set up camp. They get drunk and high and talk about the Blair Witch, the movie and the actual witch, which need I remind you in this universe we're in, does not really exist.

So who's on this tour with Jeff? Glad you asked.

There's the goth chick Kim, the wiccan Erica, and a couple Stephen and Tristian. Tristian is pregnant but doesn't want the kid. I should also point out that Kim is psychic. All of these things will come into play at various points in the movie.

At one point a rival tour group shows up but Jeff gets rid of them. Suddenly it's the next morning and it's snowing paper. Stephen finds out it's research he's done for a book he's writing about mass hysteria. Jeff finds his camera equipment trashed. Tristian finds that she's having a miscarriage.

After treating Tristian at the hospital, they go to Jeff's place to look at the tapes that got saved. And here at Jeff's is where the rest of the movie takes place, more or less. I only mention it cause after awhile it gets mildly claustrophobic.

What happens at Jeff's is hard to put into words. Well I can use these words: fucked up shit happens. Owls fly through windows and end up dead. Everyone starts having weird hallucinations. They have odd markings on their bodies.

Kim goes out to get some beer and is treated less than hospitable. She ends up bagging her own beer and throwing money at the bitchy clerk and leaving. At Jeff's he's found some weird hidden shit on the tapes that can only be played backwards. Tristian starts acting weirder and weird and Erica vanishes.

When they play the tapes backwards they all see themselves doing weird and freaky ritualistic shit, like bowing to Tristian and practically having an orgy. Eventually they strip naked and run off into the woods with knives.


Nobody remembers that happening and figure out they're under the powers of the witch, who seemed to possess Tristian, which explains the miscarriage cause the witch don't like children (You gotta see the first film to figure out why). So they literally have a witch hunt against Tristian and she ends up hanging herself.

So the cops show up and arrest Kim, Stephen, and Jeff for the murders of Tristian, Erica, who showed up dead in Jeff's closet, and the rival tour group in the forest. Oh and the bitchy clerk at the beer store.

Now everything believes they're innocent cause they didn't murder anyone. But the cops put on all the taped footage and like Jeff said earlier in the movie "video don't lie".

We see Tristian begging for her life instead of acting bat shit insane while the group puts the rope around her neck. We also see Kim stabbing the shit out of the bitchy clerk. Everyone claims that what they're watching didn't happen at all! It was a possessed Tristian acting like the Blair Witch! She told them to kill! And she killed herself!! WHAT'S GOING ON???

The first 87 minutes really does suck, but the atmosphere is really creepy and I can't help but like this movie. Plus the ending is such a mindfuck, I just love it. A lot of people hate this movie and I guess I can understand why, what with the acting. (By the way, much like in the first movie, all the main characters are using their real names, so a guy named Jeff is playing Jeff, a guy named Stephen is playing Stephen and so on...) And no, I don't know what Book of Shadows means.

Oh before I wrap this up, there is a cool feature. You're suppose to watch the movie in reverse and while rewinding it you're suppose to look out for a secret message. I did this a long time ago on VHS but I forget what it was and I'll be damned if anyone else on the internet could figure it out.

So what's left to say? Blair Witch 2 is unwanted but still pretty freaky and the people behind the movie found a way to make people watch it in a unique fashion. And that's why "Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows" is my third guilty pleasure.


A Guilty Pleasure That I Reviewed Already:
Death Bed

Mass Invader Sean lists his ten guilty pleasures:
10. Beastmaster
9. Maximum Overdrive
8. Beavis and Butthead Do America
7. Mazes and Monsters
6. Troll 2
5. Demolition Man
4. Batman The Movie (1966)
3. The Hobbit (1977)
2. Willow
1. The Toxic Avenger

Fun Fact: Willow is my favorite drinking movie. It's just so magical!

And our first link! Good ol' Fletch wrote a lil' something which you can check out over at Blog Cabins.

That's it for now. See ya tomorrow for another pleasue I'm guilty of...or something.
-Jason

And The Winner Is...

Gah! I almost forgot! I been caught up in this guilty pleasure thing I forgot to pick a winner for the third anniversary extravaganza contest whatever whatever.

I know I said I was gonna film myself picking the name but honestly my camera is packed away right now and I just worked a 12 hours shift and I'm too damn tired to hook the thing up, so just take my word for it. I put all the names (10 to be exact) into a dish, shuffled them up as best as I could and picked a name.

And that name is...

*Drum rol-eh fuck it you probably scrolled down by now and not even reading this*

Fletch from Blog Cabins, come on down!!!

You are the winner of a bunch of cool crap, including a DVD copy of Dead Alive! A DVD copy of my movie "Birthday Present"! The screener copy of "Murder Set Pieces"! And last but certainly not least, a T-shirt from my own personal warerobe!! KICKASS!!

Congratulations Mr. Fletch. You have 24 hours to acknowledge this post either by emailing me saying "yay" then telling me where you'd like me to send your prizes!

Thank you everyone for playing! I'll probably do it again next year, so if you didn't win this time, better luck tomorrow, er, next year.
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon #2: Tenacious D In The Pick of Destiny

There is probably a very fine line between guilty pleasure and cult cinema. I believe "Pick of Destiny" straddles both lines, throwing caution and lord only knows what else to the wind. People who don't understand "The D" won't understand this movie, but people who do understand "The D" possibly wasn't too impressed with this movie. Maybe they were expecting more. More what I dunno but even in "The D" circles this movie isn't talked about too often.

The film is basically the fictional account of how Tenacious D formed. It starts in Kickapoo, Missouri where a young JB lives with his super religious family. All JB wants to do is rock out with his young cock out, but Dad (Meatloaf) won't allow him. So after getting some magical advice from Ronnie James Dio, he runs away to Hollywood.


We meet an adult JB (Jack Black) roaming Hollywood when he meets Kyle Gass (Kyle Gass), a long haired guitar maestro. KG takes JB in when he "saves" him from a gang that looks like the gang from "A Clockwork Orange".

In KG's "sweet" apartment, he teaches JB how to rock and learns the essentals like the power slide and cock pushups. Eventually, JB discovers that Kyle is living a lie and they're forced to move out of the apartment cause they can't pay rent. When Jack sees the guitar Kyle got him, he has a change of heart and they decide to pay the rent WITH THEIR ROCK!!

They come with the name when they join asses together to form the words TENACIOUS D. That night they play their first gig at an open mic and they do ok. They wanna perform at a contest coming up that week that has a cash prize. JB is determined to get that money and rock everyone's socks off!

But how? Kyle notices that all the legends (Eddie Van Halen, Pete Townsende and dude from AC/DC) all used the same guitar pick. They dig deep and find a dude (Ben Stiller) who knows a lot about the pick, the Pick of Destiny.

Short version: some dude called Satan to battle him, Satan was kicking dude's ass, a blacksmith saves dude by chipping Satan's tooth, cause Satan isn't complete, he's ordered back to hell, dude turns tooth into a guitar pick, years later all the guitar legends we know now used the pick to become super famous. The end.

So if The D can get this pick, they can rock out and win the contest! But the pick is in The Rock & Roll Hall, er, "History Museum". So now the movie switches gears and becomes a road/adventure movie.

They stop in a diner where Kyle meets some hot chicks. The chicks wanna take them to their sorority and have them play but Jack only wants the pick. Jack meets a weird gimpy dude who I think is Tim Robbins, or at least Tim Robbin's Uncle or something, that tells Jack how to get into the museum. Since Kyle is only thinking with his cock, the band breaks up.

Jack ends up in a forest and starts eating mushrooms, where he instantly has a psychedelic trip and thinks he's hanging out with a sasquatch. Kyle meanwhile realizes he needs Jack to perform songs since the only lyrics he knows are the back up vocals. He's boo'd out of the sorority and realizes he needs Jack.

Jack snaps out of his trip and manages to break in the museum. Kyle is there and they reconsile and decide to get this pick once and for all! IN THE NAME OF ROCK!!

They find the pick but there's these lasers that'll cut your limbs off, so Jack uses his sweet robot moves to maneuver around them. He finds the button that turns them off but he can't reach. But one thing can: His cock!

With the lasers turned off, they grab the pick, but they make such a racket they're discovered. The only way out: mega sweet power slide. This is possibly my favorite part of the movie.

Then for no reason, Kyle decides to have a car chase with some cops, totally wrecking the car they borrowed from their only fan/roadie Lee. This is my other favorite part.

They make it back to the bar where the contest is held but while fighting over who gets the pick, they break it. After the Open Mic Host (Paul F. Tompkins, the guy who wears the suits on "Best Week Ever") talks them into playing without the pic, it's revealed that he's Satan in disguise and now he is complete. He wants to take over the world, so it's up to Tenacious D to stop Satan! And the only way to do that: have a sweet rock off!

And a sweet rock off it is. Eventually, Satan loses his horn and he's sent back to Hell cause he's not complete and The D wins. They turned the horn into a Bong of Destiny and are currently trying to write their masterpiece. Which I believe might be "Tribute".


To be honest, I wasn't too thrilled with this movie when I saw it in theaters, but some part of me couldn't resist it. It's totally a stoner movie and as I stated earlier, it's really not for everyone. And so that's why "Tenacious D In The Pick of Destiny" is my second Guilty Pleasure.


A Guilty Pleasure That I Reviewed:
Sleepaway Camp
-Jason

Guilty Pleasures Blog-A-Thon Day #1: Cellular

I personally consider "Cellular" a guilty pleasure because it's your typical mediocre action flick that came out around the same time as other mindless action flicks, like "The Bourne Identity" and "The Italian Job".

The plot is as follows. Kim Basinger is Jessica Martin, a high school science teacher who's home one morning when some bad guys show up, bust into her house, and kidnap her. They take her to an undisclosed location and lock her in an attic. The bad guys immedately smash a telephone nearby so Jessica won't call for help. AH! But she's a science teacher!! And as you know, all high school science teachers know how to fix a broken telephone to make an outgoing phonecall!


She dials a number at random and get connected to Ryan, played by Chris Evans (The Jock from "Not Another Teen Movie"). Ryan has a hot girlfriend played by Jessica Biel but they're kind of on the outs right now. In order to get back in her good graces, he agrees to hand out some fliers about saving the planet or some crap like that.




Ryan thinks Jessica's call is a prank until he hears the bad guys threatening Jessica. She's confused and thinks it's a case of mistaken identity. Ryan decides to go to the police with the phone. At the police station, it's Sgt. Mooney's (William H. Macy) last day before he retires and open up some spa/salon thingy with his wife. It's more or less like Robert Duvall's character in "Falling Down", even down to the mustache.


After getting the run around at the police station, Jessica tells Ryan that the bad guys is gonna meet up with her husband Craig at a bar in LAX and Ryan has to get to him before the bad guys. So a funny chase persues.

First he steals the car of a complete asshole (Played by That Guy Rick Hoffman, he's the same guy that was in "Hostel" towards the end), then realizes he needs a charger so he causes a big scene in a cell phone store where it's like he's robbing them but he paid for the charger.

Finally, he shows up at LAX and tries to stop the bad guys there BUT GUESS WHAT??? The bad guys...ARE COPS!!! GASP!!!!

So now everybody's like "WTF?" and before Ryan can find Craig, the bad cops (one of whom is played by Jason Statham) find him and kidnap him as well.

Since Ryan screwed that up royally, Jessica tells him to get their son Ricky. I should point out this family's last name is Martin, so the kid's name is Ricky Martin. This is a pretty hilarious scene with Ryan shouting RICKY MARTIN! RICKY MARTIN! ANYONE HERE KNOW RICKY MARTIN!!! in a school. But of course Ryan fucked this up too and the kid is kidnapped as well. Damn it Ryan.

Eventually Jessica finds out the bad cops are heading to the family's secret deposit box in a bank so hopefully Ryan can't fuck this up. He manages to get there and get the thing in the deposit box but...he drops his phone. Aw crap!

So now Jessica and her family's life is on the line and the bad cops are aware of Ryan beating them to the safe deposit box. So what was inside and why is LAPD's un-finest (See what I did there?) kidnapping a typical family?

Craig is a real estate salesman and he was videotaping a piece of property early that morning when he noticed something weird nearby. Apparently some of the bad cops were shaking down some scumbag on the streets for something and they end up killing the scumbag. The cops saw that Craig filmed this and they "just want the videotape".

And of course Sgt. Mooney's superior is involved with this as well. Mooney, in between setting things up with the spa/salon, is getting to the bottom of that strange kid with the cell phone. He already paid one visit to the house and met a chick pretending to be Jessica, but something didn't sit well with him so he went back and this time something really doesn't sit well cause Fake Jessica shoots him. To distract Fake Jessica, Mooney tips over a fish bowl! NO!!! NOT THE FISH!! YOU BASTARD!!!

With Fake Jessica dead, the superior involved with the bad cops show up and brings Mooney into everything in hopes to keep him shushed. Meanwhile Ryan has to steal back the asshole lawyer's car cause he ended up using asshole lawyer's phone to store the number Jessica was calling from. So with the car and the phone, Ryan calls the number and talks to Jason Statham. They make an agreement to meet at a pier to exchange the family for the videotape. Of course it's never that easy.

The ending is a big whirlwind of double crosses, triple crosses, and single crosses when Mooney refuses to be in on the bad cops side. And the most hilarious match up in movie history happens when William H. Macy fights Jason Statham under the pier. It's just grand.

vs

Of course during everything, the tape gets destroyed but hey what's a medicore action flick without a twist? Turns out Ryan had the time to upload the footage to his phone. Har-har-har.

So all the bad cops are dead, all the good ones retire, and Jessica and her family are safe. And it wouldn't be a medicore action flick without some sound bites for the trailer.

Jason Statham: How did you get involved anyway?
Ryan: I just answered my phone.

Jessica: If there's ANYTHING I can do for you for saving my life and my family's life...
Ryan: There's one thing. Don't call me.

This movie's pretty cheesy which is why it's a guilty pleasure of mine. I'm sure if anyone were to ask you what your favorite William H. Macy film was, they'd probably say "Fargo", or if they ask what your favorite Jason Statham film is, they'd probably say "Snatch" or maybe even "The Transporter" (Which could be considered a guilty pleasure as well). So for a cheesy good time, check out "Cellular", my first Guilty Pleasure pick.


A Guilty Pleasure That I Reviewed:
Dead Alive

Finally, I asked my fellow Mass Invaders (AKA my friends who help out with reviews on the site) to list their 10 guilty pleasures.
To start things off, here's Adam:

Guilty pleasures might be different for me than most people. The way I understand the guilty pleasures concept is that you like something, but you're a little embarrassed that you like it. But my preferred movie viewing consists of smut, crap, and/or gore. So what are my guilty pleasures? Here are my top ten.

10. Karate Kid III: I legitimately like the first Karate Kid. Part 3 is like the bastard offspring of the original movie and Carrie. It's cynical, vengeful and fairly stupid. And I love it.

9. Cat's Eye: Horror anthologies are usually awful. Really, this one is too. But I never remember that when the digital cable guide tells me that Cat's Eye will be on in 3 hours. Instead, I wait anxiously and work myself into a frenzy. Then it starts. And I'm bored to tears. But I never turn away. Why is that?

8. Brainscan: If America had to make a time capsule and could only put one thing from the 90's in it, I think I cold make a case that a VHS copy of Brainscan sums up the decade perfectly. White Zombie, Edward Furlong, CD-ROM based video games, virtual reality, chicks in combat boots & dresses, and angst. This isn't a good movie, but it sums up the popular culture at the beginning of my teenage years so perfectly that I'll always have a soft spot for it.

7. Contact: Have you ever done something really stupid once and vow you'll never do it again, but then you do? That's Contact. People can be forgiven for seeing it once. But nobody should watch it after that, nor should they want to. So why do I watch this movie when I can? I'm like a battered wife who is married to this movie. I don't know why I always run back to it, but I do. Maybe someday I'll be strong enough to let it go.

6. Kindergarten Cop: No matter what Arnold says, this movie is a tumor. It crept into my brain and started to attack my healthy obsession with movies that aren't this fucking stupid. Arnold is an undercover cop doing a stint as a kindergarten teacher after his partner gets food poisoning or something. He's trying to capture a drug dealer or murderer or whatever whose son is in the class. And somehow he falls for that boy's mother, who is this pristine virginal woman who was at one time married to the aforementioned drug dealer/murderer. She also happens to be a teacher at the school. The many ethical questions about police tactics and procedures are ignored completely. And a vicious ferret is the hero. 95% of the movie feels like a schmaltzy family movie, but the other 5% snaps you out of that sense of security. That's the beauty of Kindergarten Cop.

5. Karate Kid II: While the first Karate Kid movie is a good movie, part 2 plain old sucks! Daniel-san goes to Okinawa with Mr. Miyagi. While in Japan, he falls in love, saves children, and reunites a community while somehow finding time to ostracize the antagonist to the point where he becomes a knife-wielding maniac.

4. Big: Yes, Big. I grew up with this one and have seen at least 30 times. But it's such a stupid fucking movie! And god, can you imagine if this movie was about a 10 year old girl who made a wish, became 30 and had sex with a male co-worker? Actually, that would be a great movie! She'd get knocked up and then she'd go back to being 10 and she'd be preggers and that guy would go to jail and be like, "I thought she was 30!" Also, I think this movie single-handedly ruined my entire generation. We all want to be 30 year olds who live like 10 year olds. Fuck you, Big! And fuck me for watching it every time it's on basic cable.

3. Vision Quest: The most inspirational piece of shit ever. A high school wrestler decides to become state champ and fucks a hot drifter-type chick along the way to achieving his Vision Quest. And because that description makes it sound like a total guy movie, the filmmakers decided to fill the soundtrack with more early soft pop Madonna songs than you can possibly stomach. Vision Quest, I'm crazy for you!

2. American History X: Some people think this is a legitimately good movie. Those people are idiots. This is the most simplistic take on race relations ever. The script is a giant cliché. And the running time could probably be shortened by an hour if all the unnecessary slow-motion moments were removed. It's completely asinine. I'd like to tell you that we're all going to be laughing at this movie in another 10 years, but this movie has already been getting midnight screenings. Fuck Rocky Horror. I want to see audience participation for this movie. So why do I like it? Despite its incalculable number of flaws, it still manages to be compelling. Kinda like a retard telling you a joke. You might laugh because the joke is funny, or you might laugh because it's being told by a retard. But no matter why you're laughing, you have to give them props for trying.

1. Rocky IV: The guiltiest of my guilty pleasures. I will stop everything I'm doing and watch this movie if it is on T.V. I've honestly watched this movie on Telemundo before, and I don't speak Spanish. It's so formulaic. Cold War-era patriotism + boxing + everything tacky about the 80's = Rocky IV. This movie has James Brown, Dolph Lundgren, a robot, the Queen Mother of all movie montages, and an ending that's visible from space. (Hint: Rocky beats the evil Russian!)

Come back tomorrow for another so bad it's good film. And if you have a blog and want to participate, write your list on your blog and either post the link in the comment section of this post, or email it to me at invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com.
-Jason

Updated Review: Sleepaway Camp

Finally got around to updating this and adding images.

Boy did I ever add images.

Sleepaway Camp

Enjoy!
-Jason

Five For Friday: August 8th

Hey! It's 8/8/08! What a lucky day or something? I dunno. I just know the olympics start tonight which means TV is gonna suck for the next two weeks. Guess what I'll be doing with my nights? No besides that. Yes. That. Anyway, onto the Five for this week.

1. Now the REAL Trilogy Is Complete-
Released this week on DVD is Starship Troopers 3. I haven't seen the first two. I know, I haven't seen one of the classic bad movies out there, I'm working on it, ok? Usually when I ask why another sequel was made to some crap movie, the usual answer is "cause of money". But did Starship Troopers AND it's sequel really make that much? Let's go see.
According to IMDb.com, Starship Troopers made $22,058,773 opening weekend, with a gross of $54,700,065 in the U.S. There's no info on it's sequel cause it was direct to video (unless Google is a piece of shit and can't find the info for me. Grr Google.) So let's just say that out of all the people that paid all that money to see it in theaters, maybe half liked it enough to check out the sequel so...doing some math...carry the one...add for pi...eat some pie...and I get, oh lets say, 500,000 dollars U.S. Compare THAT to The Dark Knight which is at 393,751,065 only after three weeks, and still getting larger...I'm gonna say my final answer is:
No. This sequel did NOT need to be made.

2. The One Girl In Japan You DON'T Wanna Fuck With-
Just watch this:

And tell me that is NOT the coolest thing ever in the entire fucking world. Just go ahead and try to tell me it's not. I dare you. I double dog dare you, mothafucker! Oops, sorry, turned into Samuel L. Jackson for a minute. My bad.

3. DAMMIT!-
I saw some previews for the upcoming movie "Mirrors" and was shocked to see Keifer Sutherland is in it. I really hate to say this but I can't picture Keifer as anything BUT Jack Bauer now. Especially since he acts the same in every movie since "24". Like that one movie "The Sentinal" where he was more or less Jack Bauer in movie format, which is funny cause a "24" movie is in the making.
So pretty much "Mirrors" is gonna be Jack Bauer in a horror situation. "DAMMIT! Ghost! Give me my son back!! Or I'll have to shoot you in the kneecaps! DAMMIT!!!"
Oh and how much money you wanna bet this was originally a Japanese/Chinese/whatever else film?
Place your bets! Place your bets! And...oh sorry. You lose. It totally is. Dammit.

4. Spooky LAMB-
Over at the LAMB, everyone picked their top ten horror films and the final ten is listed here. My list is as follows:
The Exorcist
The Thing
Poltergeist
Evil Dead 2
Feast
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (The Original Tobe Hooper Version)
Hatchet
Sleepaway Camp
House
Bubba Ho-Tep
I had a hard time with this one cause I didn't know which ones to put where and stuff. Someone listed Basket Case, which I've yet to see. I've heard so much about it so now I just HAVE to check it out. Dammit!

5. Stoners Vs Sisters-
I love that Pineapple Express and Sisterhood of the Yo-Yo Pants Crying In Kleenx 2: This Time They're On The Same Cycle is opening up on the same weekend. Even though I'm sure Dark Knight is still gonna be number one, probably damn near until it's pulled from theaters (in 8 months), it'll still be interesting to see who wins this weekend: stoners or women. Much like a few months back when it was Wanted vs WALL-E (I believe) and WALL-E won that match. I should think to look ahead to see when two completely different films open up and set up a death match to see who comes out on top. That'd be funny.
By the way, screw crying women while eating ice cream! Go see Pineapple Express! Woot!

That's all I wrote. Peace!
-Jason

Meta 2: The Wrath of Post!

I could wait to put this in the Five for Friday, but I'm gonna mention this real quickly here.

You know that podcast I been listening to, Cinema Diabolica? Well I called in to their show last week and my voicemail got played! Both of them! Yes...I left two. I wasn't gonna leave two but I had to.

The first one I kinda regret doing now, cause it was just me saying how much I liked their show and that was pretty much it. Then I listened to a particular episode where they talked about guilty pleasures (Hey! That SOUNDS familar...) and Blair Witch 2 came up and I had to come to it's defense. So here is my phone call. And special thanks to G.D for ripping the audio for me. I was gonna record it all ghetto style.



And two, count em TWO reminders!

1. You only have 4 days to enter in my three year anniversary contest and so far I only have 9 people in. One more and the contest happens. So if you're reading this, and you haven't entered, well, gosh darn it, do it! Do it now!


2. Next Monday I start my Guilty Pleasure Blog-A-Thon where each day for the next ten days I talk about ten guilty pleasures of mine. Along with that, I asked the Mass Invaders and my fellow LAMB's to participate, so if you're one of those two and you're reading this, all lists have to be in to me between August 11th and August 20th. If you have your own blog, you can post your list of ten movies on your blog and I'll link to yours. Simple? Simple.

That'll do her.
-Jason

Sorta-Meta: Stepbrothers & Radiohead

Hey folks, I'm writing this out on the road. My bus don't come for another three hours so I got some down time and thought I'd write a post now before I get home and get too tired to do it there.

On Friday I saw "Stepbrothers" and as usual every post I've read was wrong. It's-fuckin-hilarious!! Seriously!! Probably the best Will Ferrell film yet. I was laughing the entire time. Those of you into comedies should check this out, it's definately worth it.

Yesterday, we went to see Radiohead in concert. I'm a casual fan, only knowing a handful of songs, outside the singles that get played on the radio even. But I gotta say they put on a hell of a show. The songs I did know were played excellently and the stage was all light up and bright and just cool looking. I totally dug them. I would fa-sho check them out again whenever they come around this way.

To make this somewhat movie related, here's a review I did for FNVR back in 2004 of the Radiohead documentary "Meeting People Is Easy".

Thanks and see you in Northwest Indiana
-Jason

Five For Friday: August 1st, 2008

OOoooo...I'm typing this...with my mind!! Cause I'm not home right now! Isn't that weird? Yep, I'm presently on my way to Indianapolis as this gets posted so I can rock out to the sweet sounds of Radiohead in concert. Fa-sho I'll have stories or whatever when I get back. Until then, here's your Five!

1. Inside "Inside"-
Earlier this week I watched the French horror film "Inside". Quick plot summary with hopefully no spoilers.
Sarah is a photographer who's pregnant. She got in a car accident which killed her husband/baby daddy. Four months later, she's about to pop any minute now. While at home, waiting it out by herself cause she's all emo now, a weird mysterious woman shows up and demands to be let in. 5-0 is called but they see nothing. After popping some (safe) sleeping pills, Sarah falls asleep and weirdo lady breaks in. From that point on, it's literally one fucked up moment to the next.
I'm gonna stop there cause you should see it at least once. Unless you can't handle a lot of stabbing and blood and just overall crazy fucked up shit happening to a pregnant lady. From the instant Sarah wakes up till the end, it's all in real time (from what I recall). Basically, if you've seen "High Tension" you kinda know what to expect (without the twist ending...well there was KIND of a twist to "Inside" but overall not really).
But if you like/love cats, avoid this movie at all costs.

2. Jason Is Completely Out of The Loop: Part 3-
After discovering what "Dexter" and "The Watchmen" is, I just learned there's a popular book series about vampires, the first one being "Twilight". Apparently a movie is being made of this:

The movie looks "meh" but apparently there's a huge nerd following to this series, so I'm sure they're all excited. Me? Give me Harry Potter.
The only reason I'm mentioning this is in my paper on Thursday there was a mention about all of this and they had a picture of the chick that wrote the series and all I can say is Yamina-yamina-yamina:

Although, she looks like a vampire herself. Hmm...either way I'd like to stab her with my wooden stake. HI-OH!!!

3. I Find You Guilty!-
Coming up in about two weeks, I'm gonna devote ten days talking about my guilty pleasure films and talk about each film individually on each day. Also in that ten days, I'm gonna post lists my friends/mass invaders made up, ON TOP OF links to other people's blogs (Still down with OPB?) from my fellow LAMB's to their blog posts about their guilty pleasures. All of that is gonna start on Monday, August 11th, which is going to come right after...

4. The Three Year Anniversary Special!-
Yes! Starting today, and going all the way till August 10th, I will be celebrating the site's three year anniversary. I'll make number 5 the story on all the dates involved in creating the site three years ago so it makes sense. In case you didn't see the post earlier, I'm running a contest and I hope lots of people enter. I don't see why not, it's easy as pie. Well...no. Pie's kinda hard to make. It's easy...like Sunday morning? Whatever, it's easy. One quick email, shouldn't take no more than 10-15 seconds, and taa-da! You're in like...Ok enough of these similes.

5. In The Beginning...-
Ok, so here's the convoluted story on how the site you all know and love came to be. Way back in Summer of 2005 I was simultaniously reading two B-Movie/Bad movie sites:
Badmovies.org and The Agony Booth. (Links found to the right) I was obsessed and read everything in both sites archives. I got done with Badmovies.org's and was like "Hm...". Then I thought back to my current movie watching project that I was running then, called Friday Night Video Review. What FNVR was, I would go to the video store each Friday, and pick a movie that I've never seen before and watch it, then write about that movie and my thoughts. It was a proto-type to Invasion of the B Movies, but I did good movies as well. Soon enough I started to realize that my reviews on bad movies were way better and possibly funnier than my good movie reviews, which were just me talking about what happened in the movie and then me going "It was awesome. Four stars" the end. BORING!
Then on August 1st, 2005, my friend Bobbie sent me a little movie called "Dead Alive" which I watched and added to FNVR. Later that week, on August 7th, I would finally get the idea to just go ahead and abandon FNVR and start up a bad movie review site. After spending hours thinking up a name (I honestly don't know where it came from. I guess I was drawing inspiration on old sci-fi movies or something) I created it. The next day, on payday, I bought the .com name and the rest, as they say, is history.
So from August 8th till August 12th (or so) I pretty much uploaded all my b-movie reviews from FNVR to what I now call "the site". This included "Dead Alive", "Rodentz", "Gigli", "Swept Away", "House of the Dead", "Cabin Fever", and "Tomie", among others I'm sure I'm forgetting, while at the same time I was watching every bad movie I could get my hands on and reviewing it for this brand spankin' new site. Those reviews ended up being "Warrior of the Lost World", "Inflated", "Frogs", and "Sleepaway Camp", also among others I'm sure I forgot right now.
So now here I am three years later with a cult following (how ironic), and the biggest recognition I've gotten since then was the webmaster at Badmovies.org, Andrew, posted a link to my site in his link section. Then of course the LAMB thing happened, so I think the minor following I got is from one of the two sites, which I am grateful for. Woot and such.
So that was the long boring history of Invasion of the B Movies. And now I'm off for my annual viewing of "Dead Alive".

Invasion of the B Movies:
Kicking Ass For the Lord Since 2005
-Jason

The Three Year Anniversary Extravaganza!

Hey! Do YOU like Invasion of the B Movies?

Then you should join in on the Invasion of the B Movies Three Year Anniversary Extravaganza!

Here's how:
-Send in a email with the subject heading "3 Year Anniversary Extravaganza!" (! Optional)*
-You can say whatever you want in the actual email such as "You rule!" "You suck!" "Why did you hate April Fool's Day? Don't you know that's SUCH A CLASSIC! I HOPE YOU DIE!!" Anything!
-Send the email to invasionofthebmovies at gmail dot com.
-Do this between August 1 and August 11th.

So now you know the how, here's the what! What is the point to all of this?

Well, I feel that I wouldn't haven't lasted 3 years if you guys, dear reader, didn't keep coming back to read it. So I feel like I should give something back (besides kickass reviews) so I wanna run a contest where you win stuff!! Isn't that neat??

Yeah I think so.

Ok so what am I giving away? This is all mainly stuff having to do with the site, with me personally, or whatever. Like:
-A DVD copy of "Dead Alive", the first film to be featured on the site!
-The screener DVD copy of "Murder Set Pieces"
-A VHS copy of a movie I won for free at B-Fest called "Skinned Alive"
-A DVD copy of MY short film "Birthday Present", including bonus stuff! (Note to Radiohead: Don't sue, I'm not selling it for money or profit, I swear!)
-And finally: I was gonna make a T-Shirt with the Invasion of the B Movies logo on it, but since I'm saving money for my move, I couldn't afford to do that, so instead I'll give you a random shirt, picked at random, from my clothes rack!! Yes, an actual shirt actually worn by Jason himself. Isn't that awesome??

And as with any offical contest, there are some rules. Yeah, yeah boo me all you want.

1. The contest will only happen if I get a minimum of ten (10) email from 10 different people. If I don't set this rule up, I'll only get two emails from close friends and the fun will get sucked out of this. I want as many people to participate in this as possible, so I think 10 is a good minimal number.
2. Yes, only one (1) email per person.
3. I don't know if I have people from other countries reading my site/blog but just in case, this is only open to people in the United States, cause sending stuff to other countries would probably cost too damn much. I think Canada would be fine, but after an incident that happened last year, I think I'm pretty much hated by Canadians, so we'll see.
4. On August 12th I will write down all the names on a piece of paper and video tape me pulling the name from the hat and post the video online, then I will email that person back. If that person doesn't email me back with their address within 24 hours, I will draw another name.
5. Void where prohibited. Many will enter, few will win. Send all UPC codes to General Mills-no wait.

And that's it. Thank you all so much for rocking as hard as you do and let's make it four years, huh?
-Jason