Max Headroom was a science-fiction show I adored at 15. Aside from Matt Frewer’s stammering titular talking head, there was weirdness aplenty in every episode. A small nebula of minor characters fleshed out the dystopian setting, as they went about their bleak lives. One couple would make a permanent impression on this young viewer: Blank Reg and Dominique.
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“Great minds think alike.”
That and coincidence are the reasons why in 1984, This Is Spinal Tap had a counterpart from the UK, Bad News.
The runner-up in the pants-stuffing joke competition of 1980s mockumentaries.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Late To The Party, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Worst Of All
In 1994, a severely truncated version of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers was released to theaters nationwide, after a long and brutal production. It grossed about half its budget on opening weekend, and broke even in 2007. It was based on a story written by Quentin Tarantino, who was currently ablaze in Tinseltown thanks to Pulp Fiction. It starred former sitcom bartender Woody Harrelson, and Geoffrey Lewis’ daughter Juliette (the nymph in Scorcese’s Cape Fear remake), as mass-murdering marrieds Mickey and Mallory Knox.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
A harsh truth of reality: not every movie gets a sequel, and this isn’t a bad thing. Only one thing grants a movie a sequel; money.
Money and passion are often confused by consumers. They feel the same, in many ways, and they produce similar results. But for creative people, money and passion are completely different creatures. The latter is fuel, and the former is a means to an end. You can possess a passion; money, you can only hold. Continue reading
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Suspension of disbelief is when you silence the internal critics of your mind, and make concessions in order to increase your enjoyment of something, typically movies. For instance;
For the 2012 version of Dredd, I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief. At all.
It was the home run of that year, and for some weird reason, everyone missed it.
Look how mad he is!!
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Fruit is a humorous word, as is fruity; “fruitiness” is inherently funny. I’ve never been called a fruit, but I don’t think this affects my judgment of it; I’ve been called a “faggot”, and I still laugh at that word. How can you not crack up at words that rhyme with “agate” and “toot”, particularly when they’re barked in anger? “Agate” is funny-sounding. “Faggot” is just “agate” with a funny hat. See what I mean?
Okay, I know it’s a fine line. What isn’t these days, when it comes to sharing dialogue? My point is, “fruity” used to be a thing. One needn’t necessarily be gay to be fruity, or even queer. Fruity is a sort of indefinable mien, typically the product of societal constraints, resulting in a general state of fruitiness. Like weirdos, fruits don’t refer to themselves as such, but are so named by the more ignorant of the species. To the unknowing, it’s like calling someone a “chair”, or a “table”.
As entertainment continues to move away from “hurting feelings”, a load-bearing pillar of basic comedy, another flavor of humor has been lost.
Fruit flavor.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
In the second issue of Bands I Useta Like, I drew a retrospective entitled “Thrills”, wherein I delineated the major moments of excitement from a lifetime of moviegoing. Thrills come in varying qualities and intensities, from “cheap” to “absolute”. A milder one, that is no less desirable, is the “pleasant surprise“.
One of the first pleasant surprises I took notice of was during the documentary Citizen Shane, from 2004. It tells the true story of Shane Ballard, a rotund, porn-loving oddball who ran for sheriff of his hometown of Lowndes County, Mississippi at 22. Ballard was a talented audiophile whose mother was murdered under mysterious circumstances when he was a baby. Not long after the documentary’s release, Shane Ballard and director Ron Tibbett would also be deceased, under mysterious circumstances. Subcin, the site where I saw the film, is not currently active. Continue reading
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Freedy Johnston is a New York-based singer/songwriter who was born in Kansas. His lyrics are articulate and literary, and of a quality not heard since the days of Gordon Lightfoot and Laura Nyro. He has been called “a songwriter’s songwriter”, and his work has been featured in movie soundtracks, most notably Kingpin(1996).
Sweet merciful mother of god, his songs are sad.
Not pictured: Freedy Johnston.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
From 1991 to 1995, the animated femme fatale Æon Flux appeared on MTV (of all places), at first in shorts that appeared on the variety program Liquid Television. She was created by Korean animator Peter Chung, storyboard artist for Transformers: The Movie (1986), and veteran of cartoon shows like Rugrats and Ring Raiders.
Rob Liefeld learned everything he knows about female anatomy from this single image.
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee
BIG BOOK OF COMICS (SIGNED)
Original price was: $15.00.$10.00Current price is: $10.00.
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