Movie Review #27: Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (2006)

 

The worst thing of the 2000s, the absolute worst thing from that decade was Larry the fucking shit ass Cable Guy. A terrible stand up comedian who got to make several terrible movies. He was popular enough to get put into a fucking Pixar movie. I will never get how people thought he was amusing or fun or likeable. You might be asking yourself "Mikey, if you hate Larry the Cable Guy so much why did you waste your precious time watching this movie" and I'll say "I'm trying to find the worlds worst movie. This isn't the worst movie but holy hell it's the worst movie of 2006 by far. I'd watch Grandma's Boy 32 times in a row before even thinking about this movie.

Larry The Cable Guy is obnoxious right down to the core. The jokes he tells. The way he tells the jokes. Everything is TERRIBLE with him. TERRIBLE. Not to mention about 98% of the jokes are very lazy. The one joke I laughed at was ruined by Larry actually enjoying being insulted by the lady he was trying to bones mom. Another thing is that this is a buddy movie, a sub-genre within the comedy genre that had by far outlasted its time by 2006. I think the last good buddy comedy movie was Die Hard with A Vengeance with Sam Jackson and that rascal Bruce Willis. It was also the last time Bruce Willis gave a shit about being in a movie. So it's not just Larry this movie would have been bland and outdated had anyone starred in it.

Speaking of which everyone who starred in this movie deserved better (except Larry). The lady who played his partner. The lady who played his love interest. Lisa Lampanelli. Tony Hale. Biff from Back to the Future. Joey Pants. Beaver from Leave it to Beaver. The ladies who played the bad guys. FUCKING KID ROCK. That's right even KID ROCK deserved better than this lazy played out garbage.

I hope the next time I review a movie I enjoy it, but I'm sure it can't be worse than this.

The Final Episode #28: Duck Tales (1987 - 1990)

 

Early in this blog's history I wrote some articles on the Disney Afternoon and One Saturday Morning. They will not be finished because well these shows deserve more than a paragraph I gave them in those articles. The articles feel incredibly lazy now. If I can write enough words to choke an elephant on things like RadioActive and Goldie Gold and Action Jack. Two shows I never watched as a kid (one because it was bad and one because it was a short lived show made before I was born and no channel in Canada was gonna get an American show to rerun when it had like 13 episodes) The Disney Afternoon and One Saturday Morning deserve better than those articles. Even the shows that weren't very good like Quack Pack  or The Mighty Ducks. I'll probably talk about each one of those shows in some manner because well they were cool and good and should get something I put at least a half assed amount of attention too. Except The Wuzzles because fuck The Wuzzles.

DuckTales was the third Disney cartoon made for TV, behind The Wuzzles (stupid assholes) and The Adventures of Gummi Bears (anything with Lorenzo Music in it is automatically good). It was based around the comic book stories of Carl Barks made between the 1940s and the 1960s. Those comics are hilarious, incredibly well drawn and full of creativity. The only things that hamper them is that they have some outdated stuff in them because well everything ends up outdating itself really. I still recommend the hell out of those comics and think they are really great, especially if you enjoyed DuckTales. I know there are some purists out there who probably can't stand this but I realize that not a single adaptation will ever be the same. I'm sorry people in Norway and Sweden (where the comics are super popular) I like Glomgold being a Scottish dude instead of some dude from Africa. We wouldn't get him voiced by that drunken guy from The Andy Griffith Show if they went with the comics!

The show and comics were about the richest duck in the world, Scrooge McDuck (voiced by Wilbur from Mister Ed. this show is filled with 60s sitcom stars!) and his nephews Huey Dewey and Louie. Sometimes Donald Duck would show up (one thing I gotta say I don't like is that he seems to show up in like two episodes. You give me more Donald content than that you jerks!) They would go on adventures go get more money for Scrooge. Scrooge already owns like seven quadrillion dollars and wants to make more. I think Scrooge is really funny which is why I like him more than any real billionaire. Like Jeff Bezos, who should really go fuck himself right in the asshole. Damn asshole. 

My memories of DuckTales don't actually come from the Disney Afternoon. I don't know if I actually watched any of the shows on the Disney Afternoon block, just on different channels. I don't think YTV ever showed any of these shows, DuckTales would be shown on reruns on channels that we didn't get except for like some free weeks or weekends during my childhood in the 1990s. The channels were TBS and the Family Channel, which was like the Disney Channel just for Canada. I'm sure the actual Disney Channel is now in Canada but in my day we didn't seem to be so lax on Canadian Content, which is something all channels in Canada needed to post some Canadian shows, most of which are awful, awful shows. I don't remember the third channel but I know that I would never forget to check out those channels to see if they showed up. They would end up becoming a part of basic cable and I couldn't be happier on that day. I was a very sad child.

The Final Episode of DuckTales came out on November 27th and November 28th. Yep! It's a two parter. I honestly believe that shows should be a two parter. The adventure should be grander for the fans. If any plots are unfinished do them in the finale, unless it's totally not possible. The Final Episode should be a little bigger than just your usual episode, even if it's a good story. The story feels like Season 1 of Duck Tales to me. No mentions of GizmoDuck or Bubba, two characters that were brought in for earlier episodes. The only characters that don't appear in the original comics are Launchpad and the two dog guys (named Dijon and Poupon) Yes, they are named after mustards. Dijon is a hilarious character voiced by the guy who played Fletch's boss in the Fletch films. 

The Final Episode was entitled The Golden Goose and was well about a Golden Goose with the power to turn things into gold. You only have to touch its nose on something and say GOLD. Dijon meets up with Poupon after trying to run away from Scrooge after trying to steal stuff. He is brought into the Brotherhood of the Goose who are individuals who dedicate their lives to making sure the Goose is kept on a fountain. Dijon is shown what the Goose can do and escapes with it in an amusing scene with the Beagle Boys (who are also after it for Flintheart Glomgold.). He ends up dropping it into a case being put in Scrooge's airplane which ends up going to Duckberg. Flintheart tries to get the Goose which makes Scrooge realize it's worth something and he finds out about the GOLD changing ablilities. He ends up going nuts over it until the Beagle Boys go into his house and turn Huey Dewey and Louie into gold statues. 

Dijon and Poupon show up and Poupon tells Scrooge about the transformations of the Goose. One transformation has it becoming real and will just start turning things into gold, and the second one will cause the Goose to shed its golden shell which will end up turning everything on the earth into gold. They end up missing the first transformation due to Dijon not being able to not steal stuff and Flintheart is turned into a gold statue. They catch the goose but before they can put some of the mystical fountain water on the Goose, the Beagle Boys show up and one of them shoots the fucking bottle with a damn gun. You ain't seein no guns in todays cartoons made for babies! This doesn't work out for them as the second transformation happens and everything is turning into gold, including them. Launchpad, Scrooge and Poupon get to the plane but Launchpad forgot about the thingamajigs that hold the Planes in place. I know less about planes than Launchpad does. They remove them and the plane takes off. Scrooge catches up with it but Poupon gets turned into gold. They find Dijon who found the Goose and get him on the plane. They get to the fountain and the spell is reversed, every one goes back to normal again! The show ends with Scrooge chasing after Dijon who has stolen stuff from him, yet again.

FINAL VERDICT: This is definitely one of the best episodes of the show. A really big threat for the characters to overcome. A lot of fun comedy. A weird mention of the Ducks eating Golden Fried Chicken...Weird. All the good stuff that you want to see in a Final Episode. The only way it could have been better is if they somehow put in GizmoDuck and Magical De Spell, but I guess that would have made the series finale more episodes. Anyway this is high up on the list of Great DuckTales episodes and Great Final Episodes overall.

The Final Episode #27: Passions (1999 - 2008)

 

The American Daytime Soap Opera has its roots in radio, with the first one being Guiding Light which has been a thing since 1937. That's 84 years of soap operas. It transitioned to television in 1952. It was canceled in 2009. That's one long ass time for a TV show. If I can ever find some episodes and the last one I will probably talk about it because damn that's a good life for a show. That's gotta be the longest lasting TV show period.  Anyway Guiding Light may have had a long ass life but it sure as hell wasn't the greatest soap opera because that honor goes to our show today Passions. One of the greatest tv shows ever, maybe even one of the greatest things ever. 

Passions was absolutely insane. I'm sure every other soap opera went over the top and crazy but Passions made insanity the name of the game. Okay here's one example. There's a witch named Tabitha and her doll who comes to life Timmy (they are the BEST characters on the show along with Julian Crane but I will get to how great they are later) they have to leave town because I guess people are getting antsy and wondering if she's a witch and that's probably gonna get her up on a pole being set on fire or something. They go to a motel which is ran by Norma Bates in a Psycho parody. Norma Bates became a reoccurring character from time to time. I believe she ends up marrying a 70 year old character who was the mother of another character named Beth. I think Beth ended up dead but that means dick all in a soap opera. Or the story where Chad who was in love with Whitney Russell but ends up having an insane amount of gay sex with a man named Vincent who well became one of the bad guys on the show. I loved how he was all like "I'M NOT GAY I JUST WANT TO FUCK HIS ASS". Dude that makes you at LEAST bisexual. This show was insane and I loved it. Oh and Norma Bates was played by the FIRST Sarah Conner you see in The Terminator. Clearly the greatest actor who ever lived.

The characters on Passions were great. They were one of two things, actually genuinely likeable characters that you wanted to see win or crazy off the wall lunatics. I loved the evil mother-daughter duo of Gwen and Rebecca. I loved Tabitha and Timmy. I loved Julian Crane. The actor who played Julian Crane was wonderful, Ben Masters I believe his name was. That man should have been on every single solitary tv show and movie ever. Watching him be a saucy sleazy drunk is literally the greatest thing you will EVER see. I love him and I hope his marriage to a co-star who played Eve Russell is going great. I also loved the guy who played Vincent, holy moly that dude was dedicated to his crazy ass performance in this insanity.

I would watch this show daily for a good amount of time. I can't tell you how fucking happy I was when I found that a channel showed an episode a day earlier than it should have. THEY WERE A DAY AHEAD! Holy shit! That was great! Sadly NBC cancelled this show in 2007 and it moved to Direct TV The 101 Network for like one year between 2007 and 2008. The show ended sadly in 2008 and as of 2019 it's the last original soap opera made for daytime television. Personally I think that's pretty sad but I guess that's how it is. Everything ends sometime man.

Uh with that depressing note out of the way, let's get to the Final Episode of Passions... entitled episode 2,231. Yeah It didn't actually get a name just a number. I wonder how many damn episodes Guiding Light had. The Final Episode is exciting and wild. Rebecca and Gwen are finally found out after like a decade of being behind all of the shit. They had sent the proof that Ethan wasn't really a part of the Crane family but really the son of Sam Bennett, and got it blamed on Teresa. They also worked with a damn Mexican mob member to keep Teresa away from Ethan. Juanita was gonna kill the damn Lopez-Fitzgerald family. They stupidly didn't realize a tape was playing when talking about all of there schemes. When in a soap opera you REALLY need to check for that kinda shit ladies.

Oh and that's not it, Tabitha needs to be baptized or Harmony will be destroyed by a Volcano. Yes the Dark Ones want Harmony destroyed and I guess it was built around a Volcano. Damn that's good for them. Uh, Father Lonigan doesn't want to baptize her until he finds out that she's gave up her witchy powers to save everyone from the poisoned mushroom soup made by Vincent and Vicki. I'm not sure who Vicki was but damn if she's working with Vincent I want too. She gets baptized which saves Harmony for some reason. I guess God wants another good witch on Passions (Passions if I didn't mention had a lot of magical stuff within it). Everything ends up happy for everyone. Julian gets his penis back from when someone cut it off and reattached it... I don't know the whole story there but damn it's gotta be a doozy. Even Gwen and Rebecca get something. Some prison guard says he's big on bad girls gone good and to talk to him after she gets out on bail. The show finally ends with balloons being dropped on all of the cast and crew. It was a sweet way to end this wild adventure. I liked it.

FINAL VERDICT: I don't care about Breaking Bad. or Mad Men. or Lost or any of the massively popular streaming shows but if NBC starts streaming Passions on their little Peacock channel I will get it and binge watch Passions until I pass out. I will totally check out some of the soap operas left on the air (all 4 of them) and talk about them in some kind of thing because man I should have done that years ago. How can I say Passions was the best if I've never seen All My Children or Days of Our Lives

Movie Review #26: Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)

 

Direct to Video stuff had a big part in my childhood and teenage years of renting stuff at the video store, I just didn't know it. I enjoyed looking at the new arrivals shelves to see the new movies that totally didn't go to theatre. I would usually rent a sequel to a horror movie that had just stopped making enough money to make a theatrical release but enough to make a Direct to Video sequel. They started in the 1980s and I don't know if he was the first one to do it but Charles Band made several DTV movies. Like Robot Holocaust, Mutant Hunt and Dreamaniac.

Direct To Video movies usually had casts of nobodies, maybe a character actor in it if they really wanted to spend a little extra. If they wanted to spend even a little more they'd get someone who was in the earlier movies to return, like in Hellraiser 6 and yes I'm too lazy to find the actual full name of that movie because it really doesn't deserve it. That movie brought back Ashley Laurence I think thats her name from the first two movies (the only good ones in the franchise). They sometimes featured people who became new stars. The Superman from the new DC movies was in Hellraiser 8: No I'm Not Looking This Up Either.  Kate Mara who's been in a bunch of stuff starred in this movie in 2005.

For the people who don't know horror fans are weird picky people but a lot of them will end up watching stupid movies (like this one). Still I can't forget how many arguments I got into about "new" horror not being the best. This was during the Slasher Renaissance. Like the Scream era. Me I like those movies quite a bit. I did then and I do now. I liked Scream. I liked Urban Legend. Rewatching Urban Legend: Final Cut and Valentine made me realize those were better than I had remembered. They were slick and sleek and there own animal then an 80s slasher. I dunno I just never got the angry at Scream and the rest of them bug.

 Urban Legends: Bloody Mary is uh... a pretty stupid movie. It starts out with some girls being pranked using a date rape drug and one of them ends up dead. She comes back to kill the children (who did a similar prank) and you've seen this movie about forty two times in your life, even if you aren't a horror fan. The acting is not very good and I'm surprised that was Kate Mara, well I actually shouldn't be surprised because the only other movie I ever saw her in was Fantastic Four. You know the really stupid one where they put the letter 4 in the title, but I refuse to do that because it's fucking stupid.

So yeah I still liked this movie. It had some hilariously bad lines in it and I love me a hilariously bad line "As real as your mothers tit!" is one of them. It made me wonder did her mother just get one tit enhanced or what? Also after one guy dies a man exclaims "holy shit this guy's dick is smoking" because he pissed on the electrical fence. He didn't listen to Ren and Stimpy. This movie also had foolish as hell death scenes like the one lady who had spiders crawl out of her face. Like thousands of them. Yeah I know that's an Urban Legend but still it's really damn silly. Oh and the fact someone died from pissing on an electrical fence. What a world we live in where that's a death in a slasher film.

FINAL VERDICT: Not in any way a good movie. I don't even know how they got the lady who did Pet Semetary to do this. She really didn't seem to try very hard here, probably knew she was just being used as "MADE BY THIS PERSON" advertising and didn't really try at all. Still it's a fun "so bad it's good" movie and SO not the worst Direct to Video movie..

The Final Episode #26: Lassie (1954 - 1973)

 

I've decided to take a little break from the Let Facebook/Discord decide what to pick, because those HOOLIGANS on Discord were all like comedy men being "LOLOLOL SUPERMAN TAS... TOOL ASSISTED SPEEDRUN LOL REVIEW THAT CLAW" "YEAH REVIEW THAT WE KNOW THIS BLOG IS THE ONLY THING YOU ENJOY DOING ON THE INTERNET SO WE WANT TO SHIT ON IT!!!" "REVIEW THE TAS IT'LL BE FUNY LOL" and I think Facebook got bored of my blog. Not gonna shit on them because really most people can only read so many posts about things like Lassie before they give up and do something else. Only portnoyd has the stomach to comment on my blog and I thank him for that. Even if his comments are wrong.

Now that I'm doing being a shaming asshole and shaming you let's discuss Lassie. Lassie has roots back to 1938. 83 years of dog rescuing fun. That's a damn lot of Lassie. The first time she appeared was in a magazine story that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post that came out on December 17th, 1938. So I guess that's Lassie's birthday. She was created by Eric Knight an English writer. He took the short story and turned it into a full length novel in 1940 called Lassie Come Home.  It was made into a movie in 1943, which spawned six sequels. One of them was apparently on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Now that's a wild crossover! Which is the only Lassie movie in the public domain. I'm gonna put it on VHS and make millions! See you later LOSERS!

In 1954, Lassie was brought to the smaller screen where she lasted for 19 years. That's how popular this show was. It lasted for 591 episodes and is the fifth longest running television show in American history... right behind The Simpsons, Gunsmoke, and two versions of Law and Order. I don't know about you but I'd watch Lassie before 3 of those shows and it's a 50/50 chance if I'd watch Lassie over the Simpsons. Honestly at this point it's probably way more than 50 percent chance I'd watch Lassie over the Simpsons. Seasons 11 to 33 of the Simpsons are totally worse than Lassie.

Even the show Lassie has a lot of history. The first few seasons she was owned by Jeff. Then it was Timmy. Then in the 11th season she left to go with some Park Rangers. Then she was on her own for a season. THEN in the last two syndicated seasons she appeared at Holden Ranch. Another fact that's only interesting to me is that the little girl who voiced Lucy Van Pelt in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown played a deaf little girl in the final two seasons. She also appeared in The Toolbox Murders and Charlotte's Web, that's a very interesting career resume. I'd love to talk to her about all of those things. I'm weird.

The Final Episode of Lassie entitled The Dawning was aired in Syndication on March 24th, 1973. It was about Lassie doing what Lassie does best, saving a complete moron from death. The moron in this episode was a cute little calf who got out of the barn. It actually just kept hitting the door until the door unlocked, so I guess the calf wasn't that stupid. The Calf ends up meeting a wolf and Lassie has to kick some motherfucking ass, which she does. Lassie is a feminist hero even if she was mostly played by male dogs. The episode was very nice and calm except for that one scene of excitement but hey sometimes you just want a nice calm show where you see animals do tricks and some nice nature shots. I dunno, I enjoyed watching it more than Grandma's Boy that's for sure.

Lassie didn't really stop there to be fair. Just 5 years later she was in a musical called The Magic of Lassie and yes, I do plan on reviewing it. Who doesn't want to see Jimmy Stewart sing?!?...I guess I'm the only person. Then in the late 1980s they made The New Lassie, reuniting some of the old cast. In 1994 another movie was made. Then yet ANOTHER Lassie show that appeared on YTV here in Canada. Even the fact that you can get anything you want streaming hasn't slowed Lassie down as just last year someone remade Lassie Come Home.

FINAL VERDICT: Jesus is there a topic I can't talk about on this blog? Let's see if I can find it because damn that's a lot of words about Lassie, and I stick by the fact that I'd rather watch Lassie get someone out of a well for the 38th time than watch a new 2021 episode of The Simpsons.

Movie Review #25: House on Haunted Hill (1999) (Rewatch #5)

 

William Castle was totally the coolest damn film director of all time. Quentin Tarantino doesn't deserve to lick his feet (even if he'd probably like that, damn foot weirdo). He would do all kinds of crazy gimmicks, like in the film Homicidal . If you were too afraid to see the ending you could leave AND get a refund but you had to go stand in the COWARDS CORNER. Or making people think the bug creature from The Tingler was in the theatre with them. He was responsible for 18 very entertaining horror/scifi/comedy films. At least I would say they were entertaining, I mean people slag on his comedy films but one of them has Donatello the Ninja Turtle in it as a 17 year old! What do today's comedies have? Not that for sure. They have that terrible asshole Allen Covert who can't act and is terrible (hi port)

I mention Mr. Castle for two reasons, one.) This movie is a remake of one of his films and two.) it was made by a studio that intended to remake all of his films. His daughter Terry is even a producer! How cool is that? Sadly they only remade two of his films. This and 13 Ghosts. I say sadly because this movie is very well made and if they had been just as good as this one I'd have loved to see what they would have done with stuff like Bug or Let's Kill Uncle. Seeing as this movie is a rewatch it's time to tell you the boring story of how I came to see it in 1999. I think my parents actually rented this one and we watched it together. There. Very exciting. I decided to rewatch it because I couldn't find another horror movie to watch today and I was like eh fuck it! I haven't seen this one in 22 years (wow that makes me feel like I'm a bazillion and one years old now).

I remember enjoying it then but I think I enjoy it even more now. It's a simple story, an abandoned falling apart insane asylum is haunted by ghosts that died there in the 1930s. It gets rented out by a rich man named Stephen Price who well he and his wife are kinda not happy with each other. She would divorce him but there's that little pre-nuputial thing. They bicker and I'm pretty sure she's tried to kill him a few times. I think Steve enjoys the thrill of it all, the weirdo does own several amusement parks where he makes crazy rides. THE EVIL HOUSE sends for several people that neither Steve or Evelyn know (well except one but I won't spoil who!), but offers them a million dollars each to stay the night. They pretty much have too when the House locks them in!

This was a great little movie. I enjoyed Steve and Evelyn so fucking much. They were totally the best part. The rest of the actors are pretty good, except Chris Kattan, who is terrible in everything he's ever been in. Very obnoxious most of the time but thanks to William Malone's directing he's only semi-obnoxious in this movie. Damn good job there, Bill! Jeffrey Combs is great and I don't even think he says a word as the evil Ghost doctor. It would be hard for him to out do his obnoxiousness in Corky Romano which I have seen because of course I've fucking seen that shitty garbage! The special effects are pretty awesome for the most part except for one big CGI ghost that has NOT aged well in the last 22 years. The direction is pretty neat too, he puts scenes out of order to make it look like the movie itself is even haunted. I dunno that might not work for everyone but it put me on edge and I think it's kind of a neat thing to do for a Haunted house movie. Those are really supposed to mess with your head.

FINAL VERDICT: This is a very well done fun Haunted House movie. I really don't know what else to say execept that. It doesn't beat the original because well one of the complete rules of cinema is A movie that stars Chris Kattan can NEVER be as good as one that stars Vincent Price. I don't make the rules, I just abide by them!

Comic Review #21: Unstoppable Wasp Vol. 2 #5

This is probably going to be a long one folks so buckle in! I can't say that I've always loved Ant-Man and the Wasp. I don't think I had but one comic as a kid with them in it. I probably considered them lame for some reason. I was very harsh on a lot of comics as a kid for some reason. I was also harsh on a lot of stuff that didn't deserve it because of my OH HEY STEAL SEANBABY/MADDOX'S NEGATIVE EVERYTHING SUCKS COMEDY. That's what my old websites and blogs were like. Very negative and I don't like them. I like things. I like genuinely goofy things. I don't like anything ironically. I'm glad in the years after that I've read tons of stories with Ant-Man and the Wasp and I have to say they are a fun bunch of characters. The original Ant-Man, Hank Pym is one of the first Marvel Superheroes. I'm pretty sure he even predates Thor, Spider Man and The Hulk. I'm not really sure on the dates but I dig the character and am glad that he somehow got his own movie of all things.

The stuff I'm gonna end up talking about involves mental health, so if you do not want to discuss these things or see them discussed I'm going to give a warning here. I know this stuff is serious and not to be made into bad jokes by dickholes on the internet. I don't do this for a lot of things but I feel I must here. Anyway we start alllllllllllllll the way back in December of 1968. Yes, This series has that much history that I feel like discussing because I want too. In Avengers #59, Hank Pym has a mental breakdown and starts thinking he is another person by the name of Yellowjacket. It was also the two parter where he and the Wasp finally got married. Now during a storyline in the Avengers in 1981 Hank Pym goes under such stress and awful stuff that he hits Janet. This is the big thing that people know about the character. It gets brought up a lot (which I uh think it should but everyone forgets the time Spider-Man hit Mary Jane.) He ends up stopping the people causing the stress that caused all his troubles and then leaves for a while. I think most appearances of Ant Man were of Scott Lang at that point.

He shows up again in West Coast Avengers sometime in like 1987 I believe. He's just Hank Pym. Not Ant Man. Not Giant Man. Not Yellowjacket. Just Hank Pym. We go through an entire story where he contemplates suicide. I remember it being done very well and that another character helps him out of it. He becomes superhero Dr. Hank Pym! Using all kinds of powers. It's a weird but enjoyable era for the character. It's weird to use the term enjoyable and suicide in the same paragraph. Anyway, we jump far far forward to 2018. I don't know these issues all that well or what happened to the Ant-Man/Wasp/Big people/shrinky people in the Marvel universe because my collection peters out on most characters around 1991. I do have most Hulk comics from the 1990s but that's for an entirely different discussion.

You see Hank Pym with his first wife Maria had a child who was taken and made to live in the Red Room. You know the same place The Black Widow was raised in the movies. I don't know if they just retconned the Red Room into comics or what. I don't remember everything about these characters, I'm not Mark Gruenwald. He was the only person who could remember all of the continuity. Anyway Nadia (the daughter) escaped from The Red Room and got to the states. In the first series she tries to create a science lab called G.I.R.L. and tries to recruit all kinds of scientific women to help run it. There's also people from the Red Room who want her back and she has to get a bomb out of her friends head for the superhero action but this comic wants to be cute and fun too. I think it does both really well and that brings us to this series.

This is a pretty serious look at least  I believe to bipolar disorder. I don't have bipolar disorder so I can't say for sure but people were congratulating Jeremey Whitley (the writer of the story) for doing a great story about mental health so I'm going to assume he did a good job. This story has her hurting her friends during a manic episode and wanting to go stay in her mini lab (remember she can shrink and all that). Her friend Priya comes in to talk to her and save her, talking her through it and how her brother ended his own life. It's all very serious well done stuff. 

FINAL VERDICT: This is one of my favorite newer series and characters. I like Nadia and her friends in G.I.R.L. a lot. I liked the art from the first series, the issue sof the second series done by Girihuru and the ones not done by them. I like them being friends. I like when Superheroes are friends. Batman and Superman should be pals. I don't care if you all want to hump super loner Batman when Batman with pals and a family is way better. Anyway this is a really great fun little comic that I enjoyed immensely. 

Comic Review #20: Captain America #28 (2021)

 

There's a bad hot take that goes around twitter and sometimes facebook where people go "WHY DOESNT BATMAN SPEND HIS BILLIONS HELPING GOTHAMS INFASTRUCTURE AND PEOPLE?' It's bad for two reasons. One, if you've read a Batman comic before you'd know he already does that. Here's the second and most important reason why thats not the main plot of a Batman story: it would be fucking boring as fucking hell. I think you can do a story about Bruce Wayne losing his money, sure. See how that effects stuff, but him giving money to create charities and libraries and all that stuff would be a boring fucking story even if wasn't a superhero story. I'm up for new ways to tackle characters but I'm gonna call a boring pile of shit a boring pile of shit in the end.

I bring this up because this is another hot take that most sane rational people think: MRA/Comicsgate/Gamergate/Jordan Petersen/Anti-SJW/Anti-Last Jedi are all fucking stupid assholes being grifted and manipulated by people on YouTube and podcasts who are just saying what you want to hear. If people who watch those videos somehow find my rinky dink shitty little blog I have but one point to tell you: Get help. You need therapy because normal rational people even if they are conservatives don't fall into these sad little groups of angry douchebags. The people making these videos do not care about you. They want you mad so you will throw money at them. To the people making these videos: Fuck you. You just make it harder to discuss any kind of political ideas anywhere with your hate and venom. You can shove all of your ill gotten grifted money right up your fucking assholes and then sit on it. 

Sorry but this story has The Red Skull becoming a YouTube/Jordan Petersen type who makes videos like Feminist SJWS get WRECKED by FACTS #3959 and what do you know the story is boring and hell and does not work with the characters. The Red Skull always wanted POWER and to take over the entire damn world. It was with giant Nazi robots or the cosmic cube. Sure the man schemed behind the scenes from time to time but it was always a grand Superhero scheme. This is him sitting behind a computer making YouTube videos about how Captain America is a soyboy SJW cuck because he let a woman save him. 

It doesn't work for Captain America because he's always been shown as a guy who doesn't give a damn about race or sex and welcomes help from anyone and everyone whos willing to give it. He doesn't care who saves him. It's also a well known damn fact about him. I'm pretty sure everyone in the Marvel Universe no matter who it is knows this about Captain America, and definitely the people with in the America in the Marvel Universe know this. 

It also doesn't work because it's boring as hell. I'm not one to tell people not to put politics in a story (most people who are like this get like this because a lady or a gay person is doing something and it's really transparent. It's like these people exist and there existence shouldn't be seen as fucking political) I don't want to see the Red Skull try to rile up some sad losers. It's not interesting. It's not bombastic. It's not fun.

FINAL VERDICT:  I do not want people to think I agree with these crumb bums usually but man this is a bad use of politics in a story. If you must do something with these goofballs than make it comedic because that's what they really are, a fucking joke.

Movie Review #24: Crazy Safari (1991)

 

I watch a lot of movies. Sometimes there will be a lull within Movie Reviews as I'm not watching as many but when I get on a movie kick you better believe your sweet bippy I'm watching a lot. I also like to write about movies but honestly only when they are interesting. Like me picking up for a trashed upon movie I like, or talking about one I love, or hate. I mean yeah sure I could review Road Trip: Beer Pong but that movie isn't interesting to watch or talk about. it's a bad sequel made years later by people trying to cash in on the name. Very rarely do you have a sequel like that work, especially as a comedy sequel. I try to talk about things that I feel would make good articles/columns/whatever the hell you wanna call this shit. I think I found something wild and weird to discuss today so let's do it.

I have a fond spot in my memory for The Gods Must Be Crazy. It was the end of junior high and the beginning of high school when I rented this from Jumbo Video, so about the year 2000. I was 15. I just felt like watching every single movie from the 1980s I could get my hands on. I actually think this might have been my first foreign film, as it was made in South Africa. Either that or Pieces or The Gates of Hell. Knowing me I probably rented all three at the same time. Some people rush to rent Fellini. I go with Bushmen and Lucio Fulci.

I remember thinking the movie was very silly, goofy but I laughed my ass off. I enjoyed it enough to go back and pick up The Gods Must Be Crazy Part II the next weekend. That movie was terrible. I just remember it being cheaper and less amusing. People just all running around in a very small area trying to catch each other. It was a huge disappointment. Now most people who even know about The Gods Must Be Crazy probably feel like the movie series ends there. Not me though! I used the internet for one thing back then and it was to find as many weird and wild movies that existed thanks to IMDb. I have a list as long as my arm that I'm still going through 20 years later. I might finish that list sometime when I'm 60 years old. Hopefully.

What I'm getting at is that it didn't end in 1987, No sir. It ended in the 1990s as the Bushman Xixo (played by Namibia's most famous actor N!xau) enjoyed some success in Hong Kong of all places. Yep, today we step into discussion of a movie thats a co-production between Hong Kong AND South Africa. What a wild time to be alive. I finally after years of having it on my list sat down and watched this movie at 5:30 in the morning. This is the best definition of a 5:30 movie. That's for sure.

This movie starts off with two men buying back A Chinese Vampire. You know the ones that hop around and you cant use garlic to kill. Yeah those. This Vampire is the Ancestor to the man and he wants to bury him in the family graveyard or something. However during the plane ride they get all mixed up and end up in Africa. The plane crashes and they have to escape. They get lost from the Vampire Ancestor and he gets found by Xixo. All kinds of zany antics happen between both the Asian guys and Xixo and his tribe until they finally meet up. Then they have to fight a diamond smuggler who wants to know where diamond mines are. She appeared in two scenes earlier in the film. I almost forgot she was even in it. Also why do I get the feeling someone somewhere is probably going YES QUEEN to a female diamond smuggler.

The Chinese Vampire goes up against A Voodoo African Zombie and the Zombie gets his ASS KICKED. Holy shit I would not fuck with a Chinese Vampire, that's for damn sure. Oh and Xixo is given the power of BRUCE LEE to fight off diamond smugglers and a rival tribe working for them. That's clearly the highlight of the movie. Some people get excited to see Batman and Superman in the same movie. I get excited to see the Bushman from The Gods Must Be Crazy get the powers of Bruce Lee. 

FINAL VERDICT: This was a very silly but enjoyable movie. Some of the comedy works and some of it doesn't. The copy I watched had a weird narration in a different language in it. I come to find that there's TWO versions with TWO different narrations in TWO different languages. One of the narrators was Stephen Chow who well came to make some cool shit I'm told. His movies are on the big ass list of movies I want to watch before my eyes fall out and I die. Maybe we will do them soon. If you aren't into goofiness but are into seeing bushman ass this movies got you covered there too! See! Everyone's happy!

The Final Episode #25: Webster (1983 - 1989)

 

I bet you didn't expect to see two Final Episodes to be put up in the same day but well on Facebook this show got 3 votes and on Discord, Looney Tunes got 4 votes. So I said To hell with it! I'm gonna give the people what they want and give em both! Plus I really really want to talk about this final episode because it's one of the strangest. Anyway Let's talk a bit about Webster.

Webster was a sitcom that ran from 1983 to 1989. It ran from 1983 to 1987 on ABC and then in Syndication from 1987 to 1989. It wasn't one of the shows I watched as a kid, at least I don't remember it in reruns or anything. I'm pretty sure this was one of the many sitcoms from the 1980s that I had heard of thanks to the internet and in particular the website Jump the Shark. A fun website where very salty people would argue about when just about any TV show Jumped the Shark. Now I've seen a few episodes of Webster and well it's a corny silly family sitcom. I don't know if this is true but apparently it was just a show for Alex Karras (Mongo from Blazing Saddles. He was also good at throwing balls in sports ball around too.) and his then wife Susan Clark (star of such films as Airplane 1975 and They Call Him Willie Boy) and them falling in love. I don't think that would have worked as well if they didn't cast that little rascal Emmanuel Lewis even if he did become the whole point of the show.

Emmanuel Lewis was like Gary Coleman. No, not because they were both black. And no not because this shows premise and that shows presmise were about the same damn thing. No they both looked like kids even when they were adults. Like no joke Emmanuel was 18 when he starred in this final episode and he looks to be about 8. It's something else isn't it? Oh I don't know where else to put this in this article or whatnot but Emmanuel Lewis knows taekwondo. Imagine him beating your sweet ass. That would be hilarious to see, even if it was me whos ass he was kicking. I hope that was true more than anything else. Ever.

So I mentioned that this final episode was strange. Boy howdy is it, yes this last episode is a crossover. No it's not a crossover with The Facts of Life or Diff'rent Strokes or any show that would make a little bit of sense. No this show crosses over with Star Trek. To be specific Star Trek: The Next Generation. I know Trekkies or Trekkers or Trek-lovers will probably get angry if you just call any of the shows just Star Trek. Of course they probably get mad if you tell them speaking in Klingon is really lame and not cool. It really isn't though and this is coming from a guy who's talking about Webster.

Yes this episode is also a clipshow so this column will be shorter than most (probably not I can talk anyones ear off about any dumb thing you can imagine because I'm so lonely uhhh... back to Webster) This episode has Webster playing some computer game. Probably King's Quest V because the King's Quest and Space Quest games are the only PC games from the 1980s I can think of. Well those and Commander Keen but wasn't that 90s? I really don't know. I just like Commander Keen and felt like mentioning it. He pulls on the joystick and it instantly brings him to the Starship Enterprise and he has to talk to that wonderful grump Worf. He's a klingon. I learned that from this episode of Webster. Yes I learned that from Webster and not Star Trek. He and Worf go over some clips because Webster wants Worf to know what Fun is. This episode wasn't rocket science. It was someone at Paramount wanting to have some fun and probably annoy some Star Trek nerds by making Webster canon to the Star Trek universe. Some guy fixes the Joystick and Webster can send himself back. He sends himself back and ends up asleep in his bed. He then looks at the Joystick in his hand and sees "FIXED BY NUMBER SIX ON THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE" and then gives THIS look:

If a giant smug smirk isn't the way to end a tv show than I don't know what is. 

The Final Episode #24: Looney Tunes "Injun Trouble"

 

The Golden Age of Animation lasted from the 1920s to the 1960s. Felix the Cat. Mickey Mouse. Donald Duck. Heckle and Jeckle. Tom and Jerry. Woody Woodpecker. All of that stuff was great then and most of it still great today in 2021. I loved all that stuff and more as a kid, I had a VHS tape of Chip N Dale cartoons that I must have watched 32,000 times. I lost the tape sleeve. It had no tag on it anymore, but it still worked until I stupidly got rid of it. It was given to me by my uncle when I was a kid. It was great. These were all shown on TV because they were cheap to produce shows of and the kids loved them.

The absolute best of the best of them was Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies. The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (WE KNOW EVERY PART BY HEART!!!) was something I HAD to see as a child on saturday. It was mandatory viewing. Mother didn't dare tell me I had to go somewhere with her when Bugs Bunny was blowing up Yosemite Sam's face.  Hell Looney Tunes has such a history within America that one of it's compilations shows lasted 39 years and like 11 months. That's right The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show lasted almost 4 fucking decades on television. It started in 1960 and ended in 2000. It changed names over time and changed tv channels from ABC to CBS to ABC to CBS to ABC again. It was a constant on Saturday Morning for several decades of children. Your mom watched it. The old Generation X guy who thought he was hardcore and cool but now sold it out to the man by voting Donald Trump watched it. I was born in 1985 and I watched it. I'm sure some Gen Z kids watched it. How we name Generations is stupid. The whole concept is dumb I say. Fuck Generations. Except The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation that is safe.

The entire history of Looney Tunes would take up a blog within itself. This youtube really goes into great detail and is a recommended watch. The first Looney Tunes star was a guy named Bosko. I think he looks like a teddy bear to me but the people who created him considerd him a black kid. It was 1929 when he first debut in theatres after all. Anyway I uh. don't think I've ever seen a Bosko cartoon. Hell there are Bugs Bunny cartoons I'm sure I've never seen. They made a thousand Looney Tunes shorts during the Golden Age of Animation. I'm bringing up Bosko to tell you it didn't just start with Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck or even Porky Pig and it didn't end with them either. Yes, that smiling cat up there was the star of the final Looney Tunes short made in 1969 Injun Trouble. A very bad cartoon that starred Cool Cat, voiced by Larry Storch (famous because of F Troop and uh... F Troop) 

This cartoon really doesn't have a plot at all. Not that Looney Tunes had the most amazing plots but they usually set one character up against others. It doesn't work that way. It's just some hacky jokes about Native Americans that were old and outdated during the days of vaudeville. One joke did make me laugh was when Cool Cat stops his Dune Buggy (hey it was 1969 after all the one and only time Dune Buggies were considered cool) and this sexy Native American lady says "Wanna Indian Wrestle?" and then some giant ass dude grabs him. The animation is also notably cheaper and more limited than usual. Oh and I laughed at another joke where someone was banging on a door a sign that said HORSE DOCTOR and a literal Horse Doctor came out. Two laughs is not very good. There's a reason these are considered unmemorable, even Robert McKimson who did lots of great Looney Tunes wasn't much of a help here. Cool Cat really has no character except being cool which I dunno, I thought Bugs Bunny was cool himself. 

Injun Trouble is lazy as hell. It's a really sad send off for the Looney Tunes. I'd call it racist but honestly the majority of these jokes were so lazy they don't even deserve that honor. It's that bad. It's a really sad sight to see that this is how the Golden Age of Looney Tunes ended. I'm sure even Space Jam 2 will be better than this.

Movie Review #23: Creepshow 3 (2006)

 

So I figure I gotta start this off by praising two movies that people with talent made. Creepshow and Creepshow 2 are very well done films. I've always really liked anthology horror movies man. You always got at least one stand out story. I mean in about 99% of them you did. Anyway Creepshow had George A Romero and Steven King doing a love letter to the old EC Comics of the 1950s. I believe Creepshow 2 had one story written by King and George A Romero was a producer on it. I would actually check to see if that were true if this were a review of Creepshow 2 because that's a movie that deserves effort put into a review. Creepshow 3 deserves a fucking kick to the gonads.

Creepshow 3 was made by some people that George A. Romero apparently knew. They ran Taurus Movies or some shitty fucking Movie company. He just let them use Day of the Dead and Creepshow. Yes, these are the same people who made Day of the Dead 2: Contagion which I haven't seen but after seeing this I am putting that off for a very long time. I don't believe this is true because the only way anyone ever would let these talentless stupid assholes have the okay to do movies this bad is if they had pictures of you beating an busload of nuns, orphans, kittens, and puppies with your bare hands. I don't want to think that Georgie did something like that but man it's the only way I can see how anyone would let these fuckers do this.

You see this shitty fucking garbage up there. Yes, that's the animated sequence in Creepshow 3. Yes, that crude horse shit done by someone who has never used a computer before and was probably done in 15 minutes before they had to edit the whole movie together. It's the ugliest fucking animation I've ever seen. Clutch Cargo gets to make fun of these people. That's not something that should be able to be ever typed but it is. This movie makes that shit look like it was animated by Disney or some shit. Now I'll talk about all five stories and why they are shitty garbage because I want to yell at this movie for the longest time.

Story 1:  This story is about the bitchest bitch that ever bitched. It's literally the only thing any human being will be thinking of when watching this story. You can be a 98 year old Grandma who hates cursing with all her heart and the only thing you will think after this story is "FUCK HER". She is annoying as fuck. Her dad gets some kind of universal remote and it causes all kinds of havoc. At the end this guy everyone calls the Professor turns her into a rabbit. I think he might have created the universal remote but I don't give a shit. This story is meandering and pointless.

Story 2: This story is about an evil radio that causes some poor schmuck to become an evil murderer. He kills like two people AFTER stealing tons of money. It turns out that some black pimp also has a evil radio that he uses to kill this guy and the "ho" he was running away with. She was running away from him.    

Story 3: A Lady of the Night likes to kill people. A man is a monster who eats people. The monster man eats the Call Girl Killer. That's it. That's the story. They don't team up or anything. She just gets killed by him.

Story 4: This is the movies best story. Not that I'm saying it's good. No it's fucking shit coming out of my dickhole. I'm just saying it's probably the best because it's about the Professor guy. He and his wife are literally the only two actors who seem to be having any kind of fun with their roles and have ANY kind of acting talent. Not saying they are amazing actors that YOU have to see perform or anything but they at least seemed to be the only people who cared about anything within this damn shit movie. This story has two stupid assholes think the Professor has created a robotic woman whos hes gonna marry because she doesn't remember how they met and acts weird. Yeah they end up killing her in a scene that I think was supposed to be darkly humorous but just ended up being annoying.  

Story 5: This was the worst fucking story in the movie. Holy shit did they save the worst for the last. A doctor whos a sexist, racist dirt fucker of a human being gives a homeless man a dirty hot dog that he ends up eating and dying. That's why they called the story Haunted Dog. Yes. Wonderful. This guy is a terrible actor but not even Laurence Olivier could make you want to not punch this guy. He acts like a complete shit bag to a teenager girl with cancer. Like holy shit was that scene hard as fuck to watch. Fucking hell. You think the ghost of the homeless man was going to make him care about people or something. Like a horror film A Christmas Carol or something. You'd think that but he just randomly dies out of nowhere. All of these stories end randomly. It's really bad.

Ending: The Professor guy gets a voodoo book and brings his fiancé back from the dead. That poor woman was cut up in to seventy trillion little bits and he should probably just let her rest in peace. Oh and the woman from Story 1 is going insane because no one believes her when she talks about her daughter Alice. Also the fucking Creeper sells hot dogs now or some shit. Fucking hell.

This movie is a turd. Not a regular turd, but one of those really gross disgusting turds that scare you into calling a doctor. It's got food in it that you haven't eaten in months and some parts of it are black and red and all colors you don't want a turd to be. It also looks weirdly misshapen. That's the kind of turd this movie is.

FINAL VERDICT: The worst thing I've reviewed for this blog. It literally made me angry watching it but I have to give credit for one thing, stories all took place in the same town. One character from Story 2 would be in Story 3. That was a neat idea but I don't think they really did the execution of said idea all that well (does that surprise you? It shouldn't.) This is an ugly awful annoying movie that no one ever should watch. If you watch this movie I will kick you in the head. I don't care who you are. Do not watch this steaming pile of fuck.

Comic Review #19: Daredevil: Father #1-6 (2006)

 

I think Daredevil is a really great character and the vast majority of his stories are fun as hell to read. I'm even talking about the Silver Age and Bronze Age Daredevil stories that people always seem to not talk about and if they do they bad mouth them. A lot of them were incredibly fun I though. There's a good chance that if you pick up a Daredevil comic you'll have fun with it. For the people who don't know Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and Bill Everett in 1964. He was blinded while saving an blind old man from being hit with a truck. He lost his eye sight but he gained a radar sense and heightened the other four senses. With these powers he became a super hero. A very unique take on the superhero honestly, and he's one of two superheroes that I can think of that are lawyers, the other being She-Hulk. Maybe that's why his stories are usually at least fun to read there's a lot of ways to take the story.

Anyway, you'd be thinking to yourself, Oh hey, a positive comic review, well no. This story falls under what I call "LOOK THIS IS GRIM AND GRITTY AND SERIOUS DAD COMIC BOOKS AREN'T JUST FOR KIDS DAD LOOK IM SERIOUS". I'm not bad mouthing dark stories. Chris Claremont's X-Men were usually fantastic for 17 years and they had some dark ass stories within them. I'm just talking about stories that feel like they were written by edgy teenagers and not adult men. Daredevil: Father is a story about a woman coming to Daredevil for legal services. Some industry in New Jersey (hi Damien) gave her cancer and now she wants to sue them. There's also a serial killer going around and killing people and plucking their eyes out. And a new group of heroes that I honestly felt would have probably worked better in a different story. Just me though. Oh I'm going to ruin the story for you now so if you still want to read it run away fast! 

You know the blind old man who Daredevil saved. The plot device, you know not even a character, just a damn plot device that no one really cared about. Yes, that guy. Well it turns out that Joe Quesada loved him and made him a part of this story 42 years later! Yes! You wanna know why he's in here and why it feels like a IM EDGY AND COOL AND GRIM AND AWESOME AND THEY JUST RIPPED OUT A GUYS HEART FOR NO REASON AND THATS JUST COOL. The old blind guy is the father of the woman with cancer. And he molested her. Oh and she was the serial killer because she wanted to kill Matt Murdock for saving him. Yep. That's a character point we all needed to hear about. We all needed to know the man that helped give the hero his powers is a fucking child molester. Wonderful. Not depressing in the least.

FINAL VERDICT: Despite some nice art (some of it looks wonky) this is just a story that's not really worth telling. You can tell a much better story about how Daredevil's father Battlin' Jack Murdock had an impact on him, other people in the Marvel Comics world have. This one is just lame. Buy it for the art if you gotta but not for any kind of story.

Movie Review #22: Grandma's Boy (2006)

 

I'm going to start this off talking about Happy Madison and how they make terrible terrible movies. It started after Adam Sandler made a bazillion and one dollars from Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison in the 1990s. He then made every stupid movie he and his friends wanted to make. They made 46 movies thus far and I'm going to go out on a limb and say none of them are good. I mean I have fond memories of the first few Adam Sandler movies but I was 14. I'm going to assume they have not aged well and I don't think I'm rushing to revisit them. I've been watching movies made by them lately and they are all terrible comedies. At best they have like 3 or 4 laughs within. I'm not counting the Monkey as a laugh as monkeys are always funny. Innately so. It's one of the gifts God gave them. You can never not laugh at a Monkey. Unless you have a soul as cold as Satan.

So what is Grandma's Boy about? Oh it's about an unlikeable asshole (the protagonist of most Happy Madison movies) Alex who loses his apartment and has to move in with his WACKY GRANDMA and her WACKY FRIENDS. They just forget you have to make jokes with these characters and they just can't be off beat and weird. He works for a game company. The main guy who made the most popular game series for them when he was 13. GUESS WHAT? He's weird! WOAH! WEIRDNESS IS TOTALLY FULL OF COMEDY!!!! I JUST SHIT MY PANTS! IN FACT I JUST SHIT MY ASSHOLE OFF! WOAH! This movie also has the least funny person I've ever seen in Nick Swardson.  He seems bored to be in all of these movies, playing the annoying guy (the protagonist of the other half of Happy Madison movies). I do not like him and I hope he never shows up in another one of these movies. Of course being Adam Sandler's friend he gets to be in them.

I really have nothing else to say about this movie except I found it really boring and incredibly painful to watch. I hate acting like a snooty critic because I laugh at dumb fart shit comedy all the time. I'm not some Siskel or Ebert who goes into this movie expecting a high art cinema. I just wanted some damn laughs and I didn't get any. And yes, of the 46 movies they have apparently made I've seen 26 and yes, I'm sure I will force my way through the next 20 because 1.) I never learn and 2.) I still kinda want to see if I can find a movie that tops Night of Horror. Grandma's Boy is fucking terrible but at least things happened in it. I mean the movies entire plot pretty much takes up 15 percent of the whole movie but it still has things happen. Annoying and awful things but still.

FINAL VERDICT: Don't watch this movie. Unless you like garbage comedy then enjoy a heaping helpful of this shit.

The Final Episode #23: The Facts of Life (1979 - 1988)

 

This show has been on my Facebook group poll posts for what show should I talk about on The Final Episode for like weeks now. Maybe two! Okay that's not much but still it would stay in second or third place for the LONGEST time. So People liked Edna Garrett and the girls. I can see why after seeing these episodes, it's a very likeable and fun 1980s sitcom. Another show I can't wait to jump in and watch more as I've to the best of my knowledge only seen a few episodes all together throughout my life. Wouldn't surprise me if I learned that I watched a ton of this show in like 1993 or something. What I'm saying is expect probably another article discussing something related to this show.

The Facts of Life was a spinoff of Diff'rent Strokes, as the character of Ms. Garett comes from there. It was an incredibly last longing spinoff too as it went on for nine seasons from 1979 to 1988. Nine seasons of goofy 80s greatness! The show took place in a school for girls called Eastland where several girls learn to grow and love and learn. You know it's one of those sappy sitcoms where everyone learns a lesson at the end of the episode. I like learning lessons so I like these sitcoms. In the seventh season Ms. Garrett is replaced by Cloris Leachman. I like Cloris, she was a wild woman. They also brought in Mackenzie Astin and I was going to make a joke about how The Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie was better than Lord of the Rings because I thought he was in both, but it was his brother who was in Lord of the Rings. Anyway The Garbage Pail Kids: The Movie is still better than Lord of the Rings which is something I clearly love and respect.

The Last Episode of The Facts of Life appeared on television screens on May 7th, 1988. It revolved around Blair one of the girls, the rich saucy one buying the Eastland school which is going to be closed. Boy howdy is this episode filled with guest stars. It has the Nun from The Blues Brothers in it (also one of the bad guys in The Naked Gun 33 1/3). You know here from a lot of stuff. She was a tough older lady who was saucy (I like the word saucy) and apparently she was a lesbian. Neat-o. Sadly she passed away in the year 2001. I'm sure I'll mention her again sometime. The episode ALSO has Seth Green who tries to pretend to be a girl to get into the school, which gives Blair the idea to let boys in the school to save it. Seth Green looks like he did in 1988, and that's not as good as say looking like Paul Rudd. I'm saying I don't think Seth Green left puberty. It also has the weirdo teacher Mr. Dewey from Saved by the Bell. Yes, this is what I consider a great star studded finale!

So now that Blair has found a way to save the school by letting boys in. She in the second part of this two parter has to deal with a girl named Terri who wants to get kicked out of school because her parents are divorcing and she feels like she should be there to help them. Blair gives her the classic THIS IS A LESSON EVERYBODY ENDING by saying that she needs to realize that she can't help everyone and sometimes has to help herself, because she'd be fucked seven ways from Sunday if she doesn't get her schooling. Which is not a terrible lesson really. It's fine to try to help people but sometimes something can't be done. 

FINAL VERDICT: Anyway this was a pretty fun little last episode. I laughed several times. I like Blair and I think if a 10th season was gonna happen (they were planning it!) it would probably have taken place in this school, but Tootie and Natalie's actors did not want to join in for season 10 so they scrapped it. Those two and Jo get like 32 seconds of screen time to figure everything up for them so that's not very good, this is a very Blair-esque Final Episode which I feel wasn't really intended as a finale. Despite that this was a still fun time that I recommend people watch.

Movie Review #21: The Beasts are on The Streets (1978)

 

I should have watched this right after 2012 because this 43 year old Disaster television movie is streets and avenues ahead of 2012. It's tense and exciting, the actors feel like they should be in the movie (unlike John Cusack who is not an action lead. I don't know if I mentioned that in the 2012 review but I will mention it here. He's not an action hero and never will be. No one ever will believe he is a tough guy.) This movie also doesn't feel like its 22 hours long. Anyway let's actually discuss The Beasts are on the Streets instead of shitting on Roland Emmerich again.

This movie was produced by Joe Barbera (among other people), Yes. Joe Barbera of Hanna-Barbera, the animation studio popular for remaking the same 8 cartoons over and over for about 60 years, and I say this as a fan. They made fun cartoons but they totally ran an idea into the ground. There are at LEAST 20 Scooby Doo ripoffs that appeared on 1970s TV. Anyway yes they made live action movies too. They worked on another movie I've seen called C.H.O.M.P.S. A silly kids movie from the 1970s about a robotic dog. I don't know how many live action movies they did but I enjoyed both movies I've seen that they worked on. Even Joe's son Neal got in on the action making two slasher films The Prowler (one of the best slashers ever) and Too Scared to Scream (one I don't really remember at all!)

This movie was directed by Peter Hunt, who got his job working editing films like Dr. No. The first movie he ever directed was also a James Bond picture On Her Majesty's Secret Service, you know the George Lazenby one. He also directed Charles Bronson not once but TWICE. Death Hunt and Assassination. Death Hunt was one of Charlie's best! Peter does a good job at keeping scenes tense but also making funny scenes too. I enjoyed the goofy scene with the ostrich and the little kid. 

The Beasts on the Streets is about well a bunch of African animals have escaped from a zoo or some shit. The lions, and tigers, and bears all run off. Yes I know bears aren't African but they call the place an African animal sanctuary, but that bear looks like a damn Grizzly! You even see Elephants, Zebras, Alpacas, Camels and all kinds of fun shit. You even get a lion cub and a baby camel. The baby camel dies. That's the one thing I don't like about this movie, still didn't depress me as bad as 2012 did though. The Park Rangers have to get all the animals back while worrying about dumbass hunters and stuff.

The acting in this movie is pretty stellar. Carol Lynley from the Poseidon Adventure plays a veterinarian whos in a relationship with the main Park Ranger. The guy who wasn't Don Johnson in Miami Vice plays a Park Ranger. It even has one of the main racist guys from Blazing Saddles in it. The guy who goes 'Dock that chink a day's pay for napping on the job!". I'm sure he's been in a lot of movies but I'll always remember him for that. Oh, and there's a little girl who has to be THE worst child actor I've ever seen in ANY movie. EVER. Holy shit she seems bored as fuck to be in a movie.  She also has THE most 70s hair I've ever seen ever. It would make Farrah Fawcett weep.

I enjoyed watching this movie. I liked the characters. I liked seeing weirdo animals like Ostriches, Alpacas, and Camels pop up in an Animals Attack film. Oh, and there's a scene where a Tiger and a Bear fight. Now if that isn't cinema than I do not know what is.

Movie Review #20: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

 

I do believe that this is the first time I've talked about comic book movies on here. I have to say that for the most part I do enjoy watching them but I must say I like comic books better. The ongoing lore of the stories works better there. I just like that better. Also it seems the tropes of action movies makes it hard for villains to return. Seeing as in most of these movies the villains die. I mean I'd like to see Angle Man and Dr. Psycho to show up but there's only a limited number of bad guys that work well on screen. I mean for most people who aren't sad nerds. Anyway I will probably end up watching every comic book movie that comes until they stop making them. I do like most of them but I don't get excited as I once did for them coming out. 

I must say that for the most part DC movies since Man of Steel have been pretty good. I did not like Man of Steel or Batman Vs Superman. I didn't like the Joss Whedon version of Justice League and you'd have to pay me an insane amount of money to watch the Zack Snyder version of Justice League. I have more important things to do like watch The Facts of Life. I liked Shazam a lot. Fun movie. I haven't seen Aquaman but it looks like a bunch of fun.  I also liked Birds of Prey that people on the internet who care way too much about angering woke people wanted to make sure everyone knows it was a failure at the box office. Jokes on them, I like Nothing But Trouble and Hudson Hawk and those movies made about 5 dollars in the box office. Stupid jerks.

I think the Wonder Woman movie from 2017 is my favorite of the more recent DC films. I liked the World War I setting, I dig it a lot when they put superheroes into different genres. I liked pretty much all of the characters and thought they worked well together. I felt the comedic scenes were fun and the dramatic scenes were well done. I even liked the last act that most people complained about. It was probably the most well made movie out of them. It's a shame that I really did not like Wonder Woman 1984.

This movie is pretty unremarkable and feels like a mish mash of a lot of other movies. The Cheetah is clearly Catwoman from Batman Returns or The Riddler from Batman Forever or Electro from The Amazing Spider Man 2. You know the weak meek person who as weak and meek loves the hero but becomes POWERFUL and then wants to smash the heroes face in. I guess these characters had more fun and creative comic book origins and it's sad to see them just get a boring origin like that. I dunno. That's just me. I also don't like when a lot of these movies use two or more villains. One of them just gets lost in the whole thing. Like In The Amazing Spider Man 2, Harry Osborn just becomes the Green Goblin in the last like 10 minutes. No joke. It's done a bit better here but it still feels like you could have removed The Cheetah from this entire film and nothing would have been missed.

The whole plot of this movie involves a magical wishing rock thing that Maxwell Lord gets and then becomes the rock and then at the end Wonder Woman gives off a whole Care Bears like speech about truth and Maxwell Lord gives up his wish which is something the evil bad guy God should have not made possible. I'm like did this stuff happen? Will people forget about all of this because he renounced his wish? They must because they forgot about Wonder Woman when she returned in like Batman V. Superman and they'd have too because she was a big part of this whole thing and people would remember the warrior lady who SAVED PEOPLE FROM NUCLEAR WAR.

I wouldn't have cared about any of these plot holes or tropes if I was amused by this movie but I really was not. I liked some of the action scenes but for the most part this film was a slog to watch. Also body swapping works in goofy comedy movies and becomes weirdly creepy when you put it in a more serious film. Like to be serious did Wonder Woman like sexually assault that guy who Steve Trevor's body was in... It's weird and creepy. Leave body swapping to the 8th Freaky Friday remake. It will be more fun to watch.

FINAL VERDICT: A poor slog of a sequel to a pretty good film. I watched both back to back and it would probably been more enjoyable to just watch the first movie two times in a row.

Comic Review #18: The Flash (1984) #338-340

 

It's time to get back to this column of comic book reviews. I really should put a review order in place because this ain't Random Reviews or anything! That's my friend Dom's blog. You should check it out! It's good! Anyway I really should keep at least an order of what I do things in so I can know "This is time for you to find some weird comic book like Mighty Morphin Rump Rangers, a weird parody porn comic of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Yes, I'm sure I will get to it. I just remembered this story within the pages of the Flash that I have to talk about because it's really bad. 

Anyway I will start the review off honestly saying that while I did not enjoy this story I did like a good majority of the stories done by Cary Bates. He started working for DC more or less when he was a teenager. He would create story ideas and covers for them. I believe his first was Superman #164 in 1964. You know the cover with Brainiac and Luthor looking at a  Superman whos now tiny and stuck in a bird cage. It's a great cover. I don't know how the story within is but it's gotta be at least more fun than this. 

Cary worked for DC for almost 3 decades. I believe his last comics were written around 1991 (until a return in like 2010 for an Elseworlds story), which he did with Greg Wiseman. He worked on Superman, Justice League, Flash (every issue from 218 to 350 was written by him.) He had some clunkers (like this story) but he genuinely wrote fun and entertaining Superhero comics and most of the time I was pleased with the story done by him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Carmine Infantino was a big name in comics for decades. He worked during the Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age. At DC and at Marvel. He was even the EIC of DC Comics during the 1970s. The man was an really great artist in his day. He had lost a little spark during this time but I'll get to that during the review. Sadly he passed away at the age of 88 in 2013, but his legacy lives on in probably the saddest place, comic book facebook groups. Sorry Carmine...

Now before I really get into this story I have to talk about the entire Trial of the Flash storyline. In one issue it looks as if The Reverse Flash (you know the guy in the yellow costume) was killed by the Flash. He was trying to kill the Flash' girlfriend and you know that sounds like a great story. Really great, even could have been a classic of the Bronze age. The problem was that the Reverse Flash died in issue 326 or so. This is a discussion of issues 339-340. It doesn't stop until issue 350. I believe I read somewhere, so I do not know if this is the God's honest truth or what, that they were already planning Crisis and Flash's death.  It makes sense because The Monitor whos a big name in that story is mentioned in this one.  DC Comics had him keep this Trial story going for 24 issues so they could get to number 350 and then cancel the book. Probably to get an extra 75 cents by upping the price for an anniversary issue or something. I don't know I don't own the issue.

That to be completely fair is all hearsay. I do not know a single person who worked at DC Comics at that time period or any other time period. I cannot speak for them, I can just read what's on the page and what the page says is that holy shit this was dragged out to hell and back because you can tell Cary would have liked to see this end at issue 340. Issue 338 continues from 338 where The Flash was fighting The Pied Piper. All you need to know about that issue is that the Flash defeats the Pied Piper and drives the Piper crazy. It's really forced even if later they were all like "oh hey the Piper was on the brink of insanity for months!"

Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master try to break him out of the looney bin and get really mad that The Flash drove him bonkers that they pick up a man named Dufus Ratchet (yes that's the guys name) and put him in a specially made suit to fight the Flash.  This is what makes me remember this story you see, this guy Dufus, has the mental capacity of a child. Yes, they decided it was okay to have the Flash fight a mentally disabled man. Sure the fight isn't much but still it's in really bad taste to be like "Yeah let's have our hero fight this guy with the mind of an 8 year old". They get him to fight the Flash by saying he killed a mouse. Big Sir (Dufus' supervillain name) is shown that the Flash is a hero and he was duped when the Flash saves a bear cub. This takes place over 3 issues. It's totally maybe a 2 parter made into a 3 parter because they needed to keep the Trial story from ending.

The art in most places is really good. Carmine was almost 60 years old at this point and was still doing really good work. Most people seem to not like it but I like this cartoony style of his art at this point. Some stuff doesn't work as well but I assume he didn't have the time to fix it. Most of my issue is this weird splash page that just looks weird to me. I'm no art scholar but I don't think it works well. I dunno. I liked most of his stuff.

FINAL VERDICT: This is not a very good story.  It feels like they are just pushing an overall story arc (the stuff that's interesting in this story is trial story arc stuff that's in the background and all). I also think that having the Flash fight a mentally disabled man even for a second is a bad idea. Just a comic to be avoided. Thankfully Cary Bates actually probably did the best work of his career with Greg Wiseman in the Captain Atom book. They would also go to work on episodes of Gargoyles too. As for Big Sir, they actually used him again but turned him into your regular Dumb guy for the Justice League International of the late 1980s. A good decision by the people behind that classic stuff, being seen as a comedic dumb guy is streets and avenues ahead of being a literally mentally disabled man. I still don't know what they were thinking.

TV Review #11: Radio Active (1998 - 2001)

 

I think I will take this time to sing praises upon YTV. It was a really great little channel. It has a lot of variety in shows. Shows for little 3-5 year old kids. Shows for kids 6-12. Shows for teens. Animated shows. Comedy shows. Live action shows. Game shows (yes we will get to that one day). Even stuff like Dr. Who for sad nerds still up at 3 in the morning to watch. They would show movies, in my day YTV AT THE MOVIES or whatever the hell they called it would show stuff like Moby Dick. I think my absolute favorite thing about them were the Program Jockeys or PJs. They would have these little segments in between shows talking about stuff and the upcoming show. The ones who appeared on YTV during the time I would watch it the most were the best. PJ Phil is still the coolest guy in the world. Also puppets. Lots of puppets. I like puppets. 

You think with a opening review like that I would be discussing an underrated Canadian gem of a television show and well you'd be completely fucking wrong. I just wanted to mention some positivity because this show is really bad and I'm going to yell at it a lot. Radio Active is a Canadian sitcom made for kids. It takes place in a school radio station and the hijinks that happen within. This was a show I didn't like when it was on. Always preferred Student Bodies for my Canadian tv show comedy involving high school students.

Radio Active was based around a French comedy show called Radio Enfer. I'm assuming the original show was also terrible because as my review of The Wacky World of Tex Avery showed was that French people are never funny. White men can be funny. white women ladies too. Black people. Transgender people. Homosexuals. Iranians. I'm not going to be boring and do the thing where I post every group of human beings I can think of because there are a lot of groups of human beings and I think I've played that bit out. The point is that everyone, ever is funnier than the French. I don't hate the French but I would keep them all away from comedy as far as humanly possible.

A lot of comedy bits, especially in goofy situational comedy comes from really good acting and a whole hell of a lot of charisma. The people in this show do not have either. I could only just barely make it through one terrible episode of this show so I can't talk about the entire cast but everyone here is terrible. Another really awful thing in this show is the fact I wasn't sure about the characters archetypes. Like you know, The goofball, the jock, the wimpy kid, the angry woman, the wimpy man. Like Some of these come off as yeah I can tell that guy is a wimp. But THAT  guy was the Jock character? I haven't had a fight since I was 5 years old and I ran at the guy with my fist extended because he wouldn't give back my TMNT plush and I'm sure I could beat this guy and no he wasn't a teenager at the time I don't think. He apparently appeared in Good Will Hunting. He did not scream I AM A SPORTS LOVING JOCK. A good sitcom lets you know about the characters in every episode, this is not a good one.

FINAL VERDICT: This is just cheap junk. The goofy character just tries way too hard. The principal guy who I assume is a wimpy guy tries very little. It's very hard to watch honestly. They also spend way too long on some bits in this show. Yes I get it the goofy guy made a silly game maybe if the actor had any charisma I would care. I'm worried about how well Student Bodies holds up because I didn't even like this stupid garbage as a kid and I hate this shit now.

Movie Review #19: The Return of the Shaggy Dog (1987)

 

It's time for another review! I picked todays movie for a few reasons... it was the last movie I watched so it's still pretty fresh in the old memory. I don't want to go more than a few days without updating and I like to review different things so I didn't want to jump into another Final Episode. I like to keep some variety going, so expect maybe another review of something else before we go back to Final Episodes. I also wanted to see if I could blab on about something like The Return of the Shaggy Dog. (the answer is probably yes, I could blab on about pet rocks for way too much time if someone gave me the chance)

The Return of the Shaggy Dog has a lot of history behind it. It's one of the movies in the Shaggy Dog series of films. It even dates back to 1923 in GERMANY of all places. It was loosely based on the German novel The Hound of Florence. In 1959, the Walt Disney Company made the movie The Shaggy Dog. It was followed by a sequel in 1976. Then a remake in the 1990s, which starred Steve from Full House and Ed Begley Jr. If that isn't a great cast than I don't know what is! (Disney remade several movies for TV. Freaky Friday, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Escape to Witch Mountain, and the only one I can't find a copy of The Absent Minded Professor between the years of 1987 and 1997) It was also remade AGAIN with Tim Allen. The less said about that movie is better. In fact the less said about anything Tim Allen has made that isn't Toy Story is a good idea. He's good in that but I believe he's been taking away from Tom Hank's charisma. 

The Return of the Shaggy Dog is a mid-qel. Yes, Not a sequel or a prequel but a movie that takes place between two other previously released movies. I don't even know who made up that term but I think they are a big nerd and I want to give them a wedgie. I think worrying about the continuity of a franchise like The Shaggy Dog is taking away from the fun of these movies. Anyway this movie takes place between The Shaggy Dog from 1959 and The Shaggy D.A. which was the sequel made in 1976. It has one of my favorite scenes of cheesy effects. The Shaggy Dog has to punch the King of Druida in the face and its a quick scene but it's hilarious to me. It's so cheesy and cheap that I love it. The rest of the movie is a lot of fun too but man I will never tire of seeing some guy in a Dog suit punch the dad from Eight is Enough. I'm a simple man and I have simple pleasures.

The Return of the Shaggy Dog is one of the many many MANY made for TV movies that Disney has done in the last 38 years. In October of 1983 they released some movie called Tiger Town that I don't believe anyone has seen since 1983. Don't tell me you have because I won't believe it.  It was made for the Disney Channel and that's where the majority of their made for TV movies go. The Return of the Shaggy Dog was for the people who couldn't afford the Disney Channel. It was a part of the short lived Disney Sunday Movie that was on ABC. I could have easily not mentioned Disney Channel at all but I just had to talk about Tiger Town. WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THAT?

The Return of the Shaggy Dog starts off with the Professor who had the ring that turned Wilby into a dog in the first place is dying. He has two shady people working for him who want to rob him of everything he has. Of course the enchanting words that turn Wilby into a dog get spoken and it's all kinds of wacky hijinx that happen. Moochie (Wilby's brother) has to get a dog for his dog food commercial and well it ends up being Wilby. His fiancé Betty thinks he is cheating because he doesn't want to tell her about his turning into a Dog sometimes thing. I can't really blame him because that's some weird shit. Of course the thieves find out how the ring works and try to turn Wilby into a dog and keep him that way to make money. Of course everything goes back to normal at the end but it does end in the way all great films should, with a zany car chase.

I uh, had no idea who anybody except for one person was in this film. Apparently the guy who played Wilby (Gary Kroeger) was on Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985 but 1.) I've never watched much SNL and 2.) No one watched those seasons so anyone could have been on it then. You can easily say you were on SNL at that point and no one will try to argue with you. In fact, I was a featured player in the 1984 season, which was even before I was born. Don't argue with it, you don't want to admit to having seen any of those seasons. In fact the only person from this movie who was in anything else was actually in two of the most iconic films of the 1980s, Caddyshack and Tron. She played Laci Underhill. She's very pretty. I like her. Despite the fact I haven't seen anyone except Laci ever before the cast does well. I liked the guy who played Moochie. This movie was also directed by the same guy who did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III and Rocket Man. I just want people to remember Rocket Man.

FINAL VERDICT: This was a fun entertaining movie. The comedy works well, the cast works well. It's just a likeable silly movie that you can enjoy watching. I'm in a big likeable silly movie kinda mood right now so this fit in really well. Probably not even the best movie in The Shaggy Dog franchise but did anyone who's reading this even realize it was a franchise?? I bet not, it also proved that I really can blather on about anything. I think that's pretty cool!