The second week of President Barack Obama's (yeaaaaah, it feels good, doesn't it?) tenure in Washington left a few less casualties than usual in Hollywoodland. Unless you count Steven Adler, but his exploits on Sober House were technically filmed a few months back.
It was mostly a week for celebration, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie unveiled their finest work yet, two nauseatingly adorable children, to the entire graduating class of a Japanese photography school.
But it was also five days of serious social commentary, courtesy of Ashlee Simpson and Kim Kardashian.
So without further drawn-out teasing of content that will ultimately be more succinctly stated than its lead-in, here are the top five things we learned this week:
5. Whether Tyler Perry's films offer something unique for an underserved demographic or actually pandering nonsense is debatable. But what's not up for argument is that someone should raise Jim Varney from the dead and give him some of Medea's royalties.
4. Jennifer Aniston likes to pretend getting naked on the cover of a magazine that sophisticated men jerk off to is somehow more noble than displaying airbrushed areolas for a publication less discreetly aimed at teenage boys and male divorcees. Then, again, what do you expect from a woman who's first major film role was in Leprechaun?
As that gleaming behemoth Hollywood slouches towards irrelevance, the winds of change must begin to blow in from somewhere. And where better than the so-called blogosphere? Like the polit-o-blog revolution, the great pitches of tomorrow ain't going to flow from the bloated butthole of some Hollywood hack, but rather from the proletariat. So welcome to NCDSUV's newest feature, The Slow Pitch, where we play a little game of would-be screenwriter wish-fulfillment. And viva la revolución!
Gentlemints, today I have an idea for you that's so funbelievable, that's so fuckcredible that you'll be shitting your brains for a millennium. Now, this being tax season and all, I've been having my CPA look over the books. Here's the thing: Did you know that after you ignore all the creative accounting, the only flicks that made bank last year were all those Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer joints? You know, [Blank] Movie, and you can fill in the blank with whatever: Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, Date Movie, Meet The Spartans,uh, Movie. And so on.
When I got the news from the number freak, I flipped my lid collection. But right as I was about to pass out, an idea so monumental came to me that it can only be the product of divine intervention. Or a combination of orgasm and a lack of oxygen. But, you know, either or. And that idea is:
Here we go with another ridiculous Films From The Cable Afterlife. As usual, we scour the cable movie listings and turn up some diamonds, and lots of the rough. For best results, watch both. Your life may improve! 8. Mystery Of Monster Island (1981) Fox Movie Channel, Wednesday, February 3, 4am Unbelievable pile of crap by Juan Piquer Simon, one of the worst directors of the 20th century (he's also responsible for X-rated chainsaw slasher Pieces, MST3K fodder Pod People and K-Tel Films release The Supersonic Man). How a major studio found their way around distributing this one is anybody's guess (a series of blowjobs, perhaps), but you will never see Terence Stamp look more embarrassed. Watch if you dare.
7. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT Pumpkin Karver (2006) The Movie Channel, Saturday, January 31, 12am Pumpkinhead (1988) IFC, Saturday, January 31, 1:35am The stars have aligned: two pumpkin-related horror movies back-to-back on the same night. Different networks, but still, work with me here. Friday Night Lights' Minka Kelly stars in the serial killer/Juggalo-style horror dumper Pumpkin Karver, while Lance Henriksen conjures up a demon to kill bikers in Stan Winston's minor classic Pumpkinhead. It's "Pumpkininny!"
6. Booty Call (1997) Cinemax (@MAX), Sunday, February 1, 8:05pm; Cinemax (WMAX), Monday, February 2, 6:50pm; Cinemax, Tuesday, February 3, 8:30pm Boisterous, offensive and couthless, Booty Call is actually one of the funnier comedies of the late '90s, and deserves another look. Jamie Foxx and Vivica A. Fox (playing characters named Bunz and Lysterine, respectively), join Tommy Davidson, a fake Indian guy, a dog that barks "Nigga Please!" in subtitles (and one Gedde Watanabe, willing to take any role no matter the stereotype, saying "Nigga Preese" in a Chinese restaurant), some hilarious orange pants, an incident with Saran Wrap as dental dam and some dude named Ug Lee. There's no one who won't be upset in its 79 minute runtime, but I don't think it'd work any other way. Watch it and pick your jaw up off the floor.
5. Ladies And Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains (1981) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, January 31, 2am I hope that now this one has finally made it onto DVD, and not from some bootleg version that's been duped a thousand times from a Betamax that caught it on Showtime in the '80s, that we can see this legendary unreleased film for what it is: kind of a stinker. Still, there's never been anything like it before or since, and it's a fun time with a message. Teenagers Diane Lane and Laura Dern start a makeshift punk band that lands an opening spot for the fake real punk band The Looters, featuring Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, The Clash's Paul Simonon and fronted by actor Ray Winstone. They create a media circus and have it all collapse on them within days, but it's a good enough time, also starring Fee Waybill from The Tubes and a special (awesome) appearance from Black Randy and the Metrosquad. Join the professionals!
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Perhaps it's the prospect of facing the rest of a remarkably long, brutally cold winter and yet another tacktastic awards season; alternatively, a totally unexpected wave of good vibes is washing over me from the political changes in the air. Either way, instead of the nip of bitter grog I generally crave to counteract the effects celebrity fashion has on my parietal lobe, I'm in the mood for something more nourishing, gratifying and sustaining to get me through the inevitable nip slips, butt cleavage and exhausting razzle dazzle the Oscars and the Grammys will inevitably lay at my feet.
So in celebration of celebrities who could (and can) dress themselves, here's a round-up of the vampiest, sassiest, stylishist femme icons who have ever scaled the screen.
8. Mary Tyler Moore The style she brought to the role of working girl Mary Richards in the '70s, both on and offstage, helped make every career gal feel a little bit freer to balance her limitless ambition with her still-potent urge to primp. She made it okay, even sexy, to want to beat down the door to the boy's club at work with a polite smile without breaking a sweat in her sassy separates, vintage hats and quirky peacoats. No other female worker bee, no matter how beloved (not even Carrie Bradshaw or Peggy Olson) will ever give me the same kind of post-feminist, unconflicted case of warm fuzzies. That's right folks. She can turn the world on with her smile... take a nothin' day and make it all worthwhile! Sorry.
7. Katherine Hepburn Like most trailblazers, Kate The Great's singular road created quite a diversion for outraged onlookers from the roaring '20s onward. In a time when most women did a two-step simper, Katherine stridently strolled. When most women squeezed into oxygen-depriving undergarments under too-tight tailored dresses, she luxuriated in baggy, but impeccably tailored men's style pants, flowing shirts and combat-style boots. Even in her dotage, she tooled around on a bike, sat with her feet up and her legs splayed, wore little make-up and unpressed, drably colored clothes that lack any sort of definite shape... and still looked every inch the elegant, sexy, exquisite feminine beauty. She was the original Urbane Tomboy.
6. Brigitte Bardot Brigitte is that rare creature who can balance oooozing Hustler sex appeal with a degree of pre-Raphaelite restraint that renders it sensual, not slutty, even if she is crawling around on the floor in her undies or dancing on top of a bar in a dress that would make Paris Hilton blush. She single-handedly popularized the bikini, the beehive 'do, the bee-stung pout and general '60s-era sexy naif gear of all stripes. Unfortunately, her joie de vivre and stylishness is now less notable than her right-of-Rush Limbaugh political views.
5. Joan Crawford Unlike Katherine, Joan represented the pinnacle of idealized feminine fashion in the '20s and '30's, with wasp-waisted tailoring, exaggerated shoulder pads and breakneck-speed martini-fueled diamond-studded satin, vampy, gauzy glamour. A perpetual engine of reinvention, she sailed through 45 years onscreen portraying whatever America wanted to see in her: rebellious but innocent flapper; working girl/society girl with a heart of gold; psycho bitch; camp queen. Joan's innate ability to seamlessly morph personas paved the way for the tough, ever-changing broads we all have a soft spot who came after. But Joan never appeared to be as calculating or cynical about her image changaroos as, say, Madonna or Britney Spears do.
While this release week may bring more anticipated and notable efforts like the Dan Deacon /Adventure split 12" and The Whore Moans' Hello From The Radio Wasteland!, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 27, 2009.
6. The Guggenheim Grotto, Happy The Man If you prefer your music with a message and featured on poorly scripted family dramas about unwanted teen pregnancies and kids who can't live up to their parent's expectations (think One Tree Hill and Brothers And Sisters), then this second release by Dublin darlings, The Guggenheim Grotto, which teems with the mawkish smell of freshly disposed Kleenex, is sure to make even the unhappiest man happy, man.
5. The Toy Killers, The Unlistenable Years Every so often (let's call it chance), an album title comes along and practically guarantees an excruciating listening experience. Featuring an hour-long, monotonous cacophony of unbridled noise, unheard studio and live material from 1980-'84, The Unlistenable Years is, unbearably, just that.
Well, ladies and gents, we can now move ahead toward a time of economic prosperity and racial harmony, because Barack Obama has been sworn into office. What's that? You're still unemployed and your boss keeps referring to you by prejudiced terminology? Oh, bummer. Guess one man can't change everything.
But even if you haven't been swept up in Obama-as-Messiah fever (ironic given his presidency signals an end to high government as guise for holier-than-thou demagoguery), we can all agree it was pretty sweet to see George W. Bush (and don't call him Prez) sent off on that helicopter one last time.
Not as sweet as seeing the likes of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz get sliced and diced by the Razzies of course. So without any last-minute presidential pardoning, here are the top 5 things we learned this week.
5. Katy Perry may pretend she likes to kiss girls and is preciously cute when calling other people gay, but apparently she'll settle for nothing but the straight dish when tabloids report on her sex life, or lack thereof.
4. Britney Spears is somehow being raked over the coals for the suggestive phonetic pronunciation of her new single. Meanwhile, no one raised an ounce of cain over Van Halen's non-too-subliminal epithet placement within the titular acronym of their 1991 album. Guess parents were less afraid of Sammy Hagar gettin' their teenage tots in a heated lather.
As that gleaming behemoth Hollywood slouches towards irrelevance, the winds of change must begin to blow in from somewhere. And where better than the so-called blogosphere? Like the polit-o-blog revolution, the great pitches of tomorrow ain't going to flow from the bloated butthole of some Hollywood hack, but rather from the proletariat! So welcome to NCDSUV's newest feature, The Slow Pitch, where we play a little game of would-be screenwriter wish-fulfillment. And viva la revolución!
Wakey, wakey, time to makey some kwan, you slugabeds. Yeah, I dunno what that word means either, but my mistress got me one of those vocab calendars and I glanced at it before tossing it in the incinerator. Anyway, I got an idea for you that not just going to fill our coffer's to the overflow. Yeah, like Uncle Scrooge's money bin in Duck Tales. But it's also going to revolutionize movies. Wait, I mean money. It'll revolutionize money. Who gives a shit about movies?
So, I've noticed that show with Donny's son (yeah, Donald Sutherland... Christ, keep up) is getting a lot of column inches lately. Keifer! Ha! Keifer Sutherland! How much pot do you think D.S. smoked before thinking that one up. I remember on the set of S*P*Y*S, him and Elliott Gould used to huff gas just to stay interested in the film. Wait, maybe that was just what I did last week when I was trying to watch it. What a piece of shit.
More Cable Afterlife, because you demanded it. You beat down my door. You followed me home. You took my seat on the subway. You cut in front of me in line. You better watch ... these movies. On cable, this Friday through next Thursday, like always. (All times in EST.) 8. Shanghai Surprise (1986) Encore Love, Monday, January 26, 10:30am As Sean Penn gears up to possibly win an Oscar for one of his best performances (as the titular Harvey Milk), it's high time to see him in one of his worst, and I'm not talking about I Am Sam. No, this is the spectacular flop he made with Madonna while the two were married. I dare you to finish it. P.S. It's heavily steam. I've said too much. Or have I?
7. Bullet (1995) IFC, Tuesday, January 27th, 12am As for said Oscars, Mickey Rourke's on the ascent with his role in The Wrestler. Check him out as he was careening to the bottom, out-acted by Tupac Shakur in this ruff-n-tuff action thriller, directed by Julien Temple
.
6. Luv (1967) Turner Classic Movies, Thursday, January 29th, 8:15am Jack Lemmon's about to jump off a bridge when he meets old friend Peter Falk, who pawns off his wife (Elaine May) on him so that he can be with his girlfriend. You can't pass on that cast, nor will you want to miss this rarely-screened Clive Donner effort from the peace-n-love era. Expect awkwardness, and a cameo by a young Harrison Ford as a longhair.
5. Funny Games (2008) Cinemax, Saturday, January 24th, 10pm It hasn't yet been determined if Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot remake of his own cinematic paradigm---the movie so brutal and heartless, it dares you not to watch and in effect judges you for how far along you've endured it---fulfilled whatever sort of Hollywood traction he may have been going for... because nobody's seen it, really. Here's your chance to.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Beltway insiders seem to approach getting dressed as a way to: A. avoid indecency charges and B. To protect themselves from the elements. A "quirky" D.C. gal may be seen traipsing through Capitol Hill clad in a purple pinstripe suit from Anthropologie with some swingin' sky-high Prada pumps, instead of the de rigueur gray pinstripe suit from Ann Taylor Loft paired with Easy Spirit flats, much to the consternation, stifled envy and shock on the parts of the less stalwart.
But change is coming to Washington, along with (we hope) a new epoch for fashion forwardness. President Barack Hussein Obama's inauguration seemed to signal, among other weightier things, a much easier era for the eyes. Here's the eight fashion highlights from Tuesday's ceremonies.
8. Laura Bush The former First Lady's outfit epitomized what we all hope we'll be saying "farewell" to: frumpy grey pantsuits and boring heels; drab grey political horizons and boring heels (of the human variety).
7. Jill Biden After so recently thrusting her well-shod foot into her mouth on Oprah (Biden claimed that Obama had offered her husband a choice of jobs as either Veep or Secretary oO State, forcing his staff to go into spin mode), I expected Biden to slip on something decidedly understated. In stark contrast to everyone else's relatively muted swearing-in duds, she opted for a fiery orange-red jacket paired and a pair of hot-stepping black leather boots. It looks like we will be able to expect all manner of exciting fireworks from Biden. And just think: It was her husband everyone was worried about. Go, Jill, go: This administration has to give Saturday Night Live something to work with.
6. Aretha Franklin The Queen of Soul's rendition of "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" was almost as thrilling as the farcically bad, but oh so delectably good, massive, yodeling, rhinestone-studded bow plopped on top of a chirping church mouse of little grey hat. Sing it, lady!
5. Senator Ted Kennedy The senator, who has managed to continue his duties in recent months despite his bout with brain cancer, collapsed at the Capitol after suffering a seizure on the day of the inauguration. He's reportedly on the mend, and we hope as optimistic, jubilant and celebratory as he appeared to be at the inauguration in his jaunty fedora and dapper sky-blue silk scarf.
While this release week may bring anticipated and more notable efforts like the triumphant Airing Of Grievances by Titus Andronicus or Andrew Bird's Noble Beast, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial.
Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 20, 2009.
6. Combichrist, Today We Are All Demons While they assume a glut of dubiously, dizzying, dark descriptors like "Hellektro," Terror EBM" or "Harsh EBM," the electro/industrial rock by Norwegian sextet Combichrist, would have justifiably leave genre pioneers like Ministry with a wry discontent.
5. The Harvest Floor, Castle Decapitation This jarring juggernaut of relentlessly grinding blast beats features the ferociously horrifying vocals of Travis Ryan, who concocts something akin to Gollum from Lord Of The Rings and a demonic death rattle all hoped up on steroids. Enjoy.
As that gleaming behemoth Hollywood slouches towards irrelevance, the winds of change must begin to blow in from somewhere. And where better than the so-called blogosphere? Like the polit-o-blog revolution, the great pitches of tomorrow ain't going to flow from the bloated butthole of some Hollywood hack, but rather from the proletariat! So welcome to NCDSUV's newest feature, The Slow Pitch, which will interrupt your normally scheduled Sucks programming every Friday to play a little game of would-be screenwriter wish-fulfillment. Viva la revolución!
This week, I am going to make you freaks so much money that the concept of cost won't even make sense anymore. Now I know your ganglions are whispering inside, "How am I going to make that moolah materialize on your ledgers?" Two words: Bride Wars. Yeah, Anne Hathaway and, uh, the blonde. The one who used to be married to that living Giacometti statue from The Black Crowes. Kate Hudson. Yeah, her. With their latest film, those two opened a door to a void at the very center of humanity. A void that represents the negative end of the existence spectrum. And ladies and gentlemen, we are going to fuck that void in its black hole until it comes molten gold.
January seems to be the month where cable TV networks, short on original series yet aware of an audience that's probably staying out of the cold, seem to air out their most interesting slates of movies and film programming. Films From The Cable Afterlife recommends a handful of these each week: some to watch, some to avoid. Here's some more suggestions for your pleasure, or lack thereof...
8. Prey (2007) Cinemax, Tuesday, January 20, 4:50am (and On Demand) People have remarked on the bad fortunes of The Weinstein Company ever since their acrimonious split with Disney (who walked away with their Miramax brand), but I say let 'em go. We haven't had this good of an exploitation studio since New World shuttered in the late '80s. Continuing with man vs. nature gore a la last week'sRogue, here's a safari horror flick in which Bridget Moynihan and Peter Weller, along with their children, are stranded in Africa and become Lunchables for a pride of hungry lions. Ivan Tors, we hardly knew ye.
7. Strange Hostel Of Naked Pleasures (1975) IFC, Saturday, January 17, 1:30am It's a Coffin Joe movie and it's outside the cycle of the three originals (At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, etc.), but watch it anyway. It is loaded with the kind of brash, earthy shocks Mexico has staked its reputation on, and it likely will offend you. That title is no joke.
6. Assassination Tango (2002) Monday, January 19, 9:45pm; Tuesday, January 20, 4:20am My colleague Andrew Earles has been harping on this movie since its release, a bizarre, faux-seductive tale of hitman Robert Duvall (who also directed) stuck in South America, falling in love, and learning how to dance; a more ridiculous plot you couldn't ask for, and a more stilted, awkward performance by Duvall you won't find. Also starring the omnipresent Latin-American singer and actor Ruben Blades. This is a warning!
5. Bedazzled (1967) Cinemax (5STARMAX), Sunday, January 18, 2:40pm, 10:30pm; Cinemax (ActionMAX), Wednesday, January 21, 5am For the entire time I've been writing these weekly rundowns, I've been utterly frustrated at cable's propensity to air the forgettable remake of this soul-selling comic allegory instead of Stanley Donen's superior-in-every-way original. That wrong has been righted. You may have been stuck on an airplane or in a waiting room watching Brendan Fraser sell his soul to Liz Hurley, and yeah, that might have angered you. But you NEED to see the genuine article, starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, one of the funniest comedy teams ever to grace a stage. Everything about this movie is great. Go watch it now.
While this release week may be delivering notable efforts like Andrew W.K.'s greatest hits/covers collection and the re-release of The Lemonheads' It's A Shame About Ray on vinyl, we here at NCDSUV prefer to analyze more futile musical recordings. Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, a feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 13, 2009
7. Saxon, Into The Labyrinth These dinosaurs of British metal have been at for more than 30 years, ensconcing the headbanging world with well over 25 releases. But while their copious output illustrates a seemingly august career, Into The Labyrinth's first single, "Live to Rock," glaringly nods (and that's being nice) at AC/DC's anthem, "For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)."
6. Late Of The Pier, Fantasy Black Channel While it may have seemed like a good idea, this genre-bending debut from the U.K.'s Late Of The Pier, brimming with a hybrid of power chord-driven electro-punk, painfully resembles last year's obnoxious, release by Does It Offend You, Yeah? Which of course renders Fantasy Black Channel's glaringly disconnected tracks perfect for the gyrating hipster pining for mindless, sweaty, cockney tunes.
5. El Goodo, Coyote Phil Spector's celebrated "wall of sound," made famous for its lush textures, sunny harmonies and ringing Rickenbackers, paved the way for cult-fave power-pop bands like Big Star. Unfortunately, the Big Star reference in El Goodo's name is as close as these droning, stodgy sons of Resolven, Wales are going to get to "September Gurls." (In that respect, we figured you'd enjoy the below of Big Star performing "El Goodo" more than a track by the band themselves.)
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Flicking on the television or going online no longer offers a brief moment of respite from your hectic day, so when I tuned into red carpet portion of the Golden Globes I was hoping for an indulgent, preferably 24-carat-gold gilded respite from reality. I wanted a scene of shameless, tacky, hedonistic, materialistic display along the lines of (for the men) diamond-and-ruby encrusted boleros and (for the ladies) hot-pink, satin 10-inch-high stiletto heels that clash with the red carpet and light up when they strut. Was I expecting too much? Of course not. This is Hollywood, where dreams come true. Here's the eight most delightfully gaudy debutantes and dudes from last night's ceremony.
8. Lisa Rinna Never one to insinuate if she can noisily promulgate, the TVGuide' network's red carpet host (and soon-to-be-second-time-Playboy model) treated us to more than her usual heaping handful o' cleave. This year, we got to three inches of pectoriloquy to ogle as she giggled inanely, fumbled over her script and beat the brows of whichever celeb had somehow happened to fall into her arthritic clutches. Lisa captures many of the qualities cherished by profligate lovers of all things skin-deep: a laser-like commitment to superficiality that involves the excessive use of botox, facial fillers and Pilates machines; a love of all things low-cut and high-cut, preferably at the same time; a copious sprinkling of shiny things on and about her person; and silver sequins.
7. Olivia Wilde Olivia infused the red carpet with every starry-eyed 7-year-old girl's vision of elegance. She floated along in a strapless, floor-length pale lilac-pink Reem Acra confection that looked like it had been produced in a quiet forest glen by Cinderella's tweeting avian pals, with nothing but pink cotton candy, organza and buttercream frosting with which to toil. A giant pair of diamond snowflake earrings, an innocently smiley countenance and gleaming, shiny hair completed the nostalgic glance down princess lane.
6. Jennifer Lopez If a designer's producing a dress cut down to the navel, bless her heart, Jenny From the Block's gotta have it. J. Lo, with her trademark deer-in-headlights idiot savant pop enthusiasm, slathered on the razzle dazzle our quickly graying country is thirsting for. From her belly baring, elegantly draped gold Greek goddess Marchesa dress (which brings to mind the more innocent days of 2000. when she wore the infamous ab-flashing Versace) to her tasteful but still ridunkulously massive diamond drop earrings, J. Lo is La La Land. Calgon, take me away!
5. Debra Messing Her hair, pulled back into what at first glance appeared to be a smooth and elegant ponytail, but then ZOWIE! explodes like a hirsute B52 into a bloodshot tumble weed, is notable enough. But Big Red, as always, kicks up it up a notch, in the form of diamond and emerald teardrop (if Cyclops shed tears, they'd be about this size) earrings that threaten to unbalance her equilibrium and turn her dramatic sweep down the carpet into a slip n' slide. And let's not forget the chartreuse eye shadow applied with a trowel onto her entire lid. Her dress was the mottled color of a particularly painful bruise with an interesting set of pelvis-accentuating ruffles, which is perhaps an exciting and innovative new way to catch the boys' eyes.
Hey there, and how's your father? No, seriously, he wasn't doing so well the last time we made love and I'm genuinely curious if he's gotten over that horrible encounter with the Samoan princess.
Well, at least we've been able to competently take the temperature of Hollywoodland, and let me tell you, it is burning up. No pun intended in the case of still-rockin' and still-shirtless Travis Barker. And absolutely pun intended in terms of the rampant gonorrhea ravaging the Rock Of Love Bus.
But those were just a couple of the items exploding the zeitgeist since last weekend that have whetted our appetites for some good ol' pop-culture excess and voyeurism, and on that accord we triumphantly bring you the top five things NCDSUV learned this week:
5. Were we the only ones who read the news about Travis Barker getting back behind the drum kit, became momentarily inspired, then saw that he was still insistent on playing shirtless despite a burn-ravaged body and thought, "Man, he's still a skater douche, huh?"
4. Awww, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Patricia Arquette broke up with their boyyyyfweeeends. Someone call the waaaaaambulance. Now the remainder of Hollywood's single male population will have two more pairs of phenomenal, natural breasts to play comeptitive tourneys of backgammon over. Waaaaaa!
As that gleaming behemoth Hollywood slouches towards irrelevance, the winds of change must begin to blow in from somewhere. And where better than the so-called blogosphere? Like the polit-o-blog revolution, the great pitches of tomorrow ain't going to flow from the bloated butthole of some Hollywood hack, but rather from the proletariat! So welcome to NCDSUV's newest feature, The Slow Pitch, where we play a little game of would-be screenwriter wish-fulfillment, and viva la revolución!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Die Hard formula is a mathematical algorithm that goes back to the Greeks: Input a lone hero against a terrorist throng and output a golden colon of cash, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the days of idol worship. Just ask Homer. That blind bitch minted himself a fucking license to coin drachmas when he wrote The Odyssey. And now we too can get in on that action. Again. For the fifth time. In this series. Yippie-ki-yay, etc.
Now, let me say this straight: Just like the Harry Potter series (and fuck, that J.K. Rowling minted herself a machine that makes diamond dildos with that fucking franchise, although don't confuse that with David Bowie), the good Die Hards are the odd-numbered ones. And why are they good? The Gruber brothers: Simon and Hans. Hans, goddamn, that was Alan Rickman. That fucker plays Snap or Snip or whatever his name is in the HP franchise. Small world ain't it?
A couple months back, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers,
which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular
spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness
or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all
get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted
into a day of normal online programming.
So while the last installment of Just Because teased our upcoming presidential inauguration with some unforgettable footage from a recent mayorial swearing in, this week we zap you back to almost a decade ago, to a time when Howard Stern was at the peak of his powers and chose to zero them in on a helpless Magic Johnson.
Films from the Cable Afterlife soldiers on for yet another week, highlighting special movies from special people. Laugh, cry, feel something, even if that feeling is embarrassment for having spent 90 minutes of your lives watching people get eaten by a tree. You heard right. Read on for the dirty details. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Guardian (1990) Cinemax (WMAX), Friday, January 9, 4pm; Monday January 12, 7:40am; Thursday, January 15, 2:45pm We're gonna bookend today's list with works from director William Friedkin, at his absolute lowest and his most recent heights. Might as well start from the bottom with this confusing, absurd horror tale about a nanny (Jenny Seagrove) who may just be some manner of wolf-like creature, as well as a druid. She's gonna sacrifice another baby, and hikers are going to get chewed up by a stump. One of the worst of the '90s, and it kicked off a string of forgettable, tawdry features from this one-time great. It would take years for him to get his groove back, but at least he turned it around on his own terms. Miguel Ferrer and Brad Hall co-star. Try not to kick a hole in your TV afterwards as you wonder how any network could bring itself to show this one three times in the space of a week.
7. Sisters (1973) IFC, Friday, January 9, 8pm; Saturday, January 10, 4:30am
Early, suspenseful Brian DePalma, back in his hungrier days. It's no Phantom Of The Paradise, but really, nothing is. Margot Kidder stars as a demure French girl with a horrible secret: Her formerly conjoined twin sister, hiding in the closet with a knife. Reporter Jennifer Salt is unlucky enough to witness the murder, and her investigation robs her of her personality. The scene in the mental institution where she squares off with a germophobe is positively unnerving, and overall this thing is far, far better than what the genre deserved.
6. Old Dracula (1974) Retroplex, Tuesday, January 13, 6:20pm David Niven takes a turn as the count, desperately trying to revive his wife Vampira after centuries in the coffin. The blood transfusion she receives turns her into a African-American. Dracula is bummed and she's out gettin' her thing on in the clubs of an avocado-green London. Can't make this up; couldn't even try. Clive Donner directs, from a particularly low point in his career. Look for Linda Hayden, the knockout Sabbath fan from Blood on Satan's Claw, presumably naked... again.
5. Terror On The 40th Floor (1974) Fox Movie Channel, Friday, January 16, 2am Legendary made-for-TV stinker, in the footsteps of The Towering Inferno. Office revelers John Forsyth, Don Meredith and Joseph Campanella are among the B-list talent stranded in a burning skyscraper at Christmas Eve. Will they survive? Will you?
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
In the spirit of the reincarnation mojo that comes with each New Year, we decided to take the opportunity to (for a change) applaud some much-welcomed progress in the wardrobe department of some of our favorite Hollywoodland targets over in Hollywoodland.
8. Angelina Jolie Unlike most of the rest of the planet, I remain resolutely unimpressed with Angel Angie. Yes, she's adopted a bijillion babies and has accomplished truly superb things as a Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N. Refugee Agency. And that whole Academy Award thing is nothing to spit at. But everyone else (including Angie) is so busy showering praise on her frail little shoulders, there's hardly room for one more accolade from the peanut gallery. I'm saving my accolades for her closet. She somehow managed to go from fright-night horror (all big lips, vials of blood, vacant eyes, witchy black hair tied with an oversized leopard-patterned ribbon and hideous jean jackets) to polished mommy glamazon (all big lips, purposeful gazes, yummy mummy beautifully tailored, tasteful and flattering clothes and much better accessories, Brad Pitt being the penultimate of course).
7. Jessica Biel She has managed to evade two major H'wood facts of life: People who star in family friendly crapfests on the small screen (7th Heaven) will never make it to the big-budget big screen (The Illusionist, Blade: Trinity, etc.) and that women have to dress like prostitutes to be taken (ahem) seriously by major studios. Biel embraced her down-home, super-casual style a touch too fervently, however, and I'm relieved to see she's eschewed the shapeless girl-next-door bell-bottoms and the random, ill-fitting shiny tops obviously slapped on her by a desperate stylist in a last-ditch attempt at glam for the occasional elegantly slinky dress that bares her impressive booty.
6. Kirsten Dunst Sharing your first kiss onscreen at the tender age of 11 with a vampire and then being launched into a brutal, multiple movies a year schedule would warp anyone. And Kirsten, like most child stars, failed or was never given the opportunity to develop as an individual. Obvious and tragic symptoms aside, (stints in rehab, troubled relationships), the perfectly cute, and totally underrated, blond starlet drowned her sorrows in an unforgiving sea of chipped, noir nail-polish, poorly executed updos, Jessica McClintock-like formal wear and outfits that look as if they were produced by frazzled clerks during a hold-up of the Salvation Army. But girlfriend got her groove back from whence it was hiding, and while she'll probably never hit the dizzying heights of chic, she's finally come into her own with brushed and styled (hello!) golden tresses, offbeat takes on downtown prep and the proud display of legs that goes for miles and miles and miles and miles...
5. Nicole Richie Forget Madonna. Richie has reinvented reinvention. She went from a slightly pudgy (but consummately cute) Paris Hilton sidekick in The Simple Life to a cadaverous L.A. beach bum, club troll and inmate to trim, suburban wife and mother in less time than it takes some people to get through Madge's Sex book. But almost invariably, Nicole manages to effortlessly pull off aggressively casual West Coast refinement (face-eating sunglasses and hair don'ts notwithstanding) like no one else. The only thing threatening her reign over the Valley was her Skeletor stage, hopefully a problem rooted firmly in her past.
It may only be the first official week of the inaugural year, but the fruitless hits keep on comin'! Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, an NCDSUV feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of January 6, 2009
6. The Mongoloids, Assorted Music With a moniker that brings to mind indigenous peoples of Asia or chromosomal abnormality, The Mongoloids' Assorted Music is perfect for two-fisted vegans and New York Hardcore leftovers still pining for the days of Sheer Terror.
5. The Newleydeads, Dreams From A Dirt Nap This "greatest hits" collection by Goth/Industrial rockers The Newleydeads, featuring members of Faster Pussycat, is the ideal model for those who missed the cultural gap between early Marilyn Manson and the widely overstated ballyhoo that is director Rob Zombie's horror films.
Back for 2009, here's some more Films From The Cable Afterlife, properly hung over for the New Year. It's a short week, so let's just get this over with and celebrate the end of a stinker, and hope for change as well as variety in our cultural diets. (All listings in EST.)
8. The Dead One (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 4:30am It's not just your junk that's up for grabs when Wilmer Valderrama rolls up to your crew in this do-not-pass-DVD, go-directly-to-cable stinker. Fez puts on mariachi makeup by accident, then gets in an accident and sent to the Aztec god of death, to do HIS BIDDING. Oooooooooooh!
7. Skinwalkers (2007) TMC, Thursday, January 8, 6:10pm A product of a robust yet bloated market, Skinwalkers was yet another failure of a horror film, given theatrical release by Lionsgate. This one's about werewolves, and while the effects were decent, there's no buffing up the acting and the plot is nearly identical to that of Dane Cook's Employee Of The Month. Here' hoping the economic downturn keeps dog dirt like this out of production.
6. American Perfekt (1997) Showtime (SHO Beyond), Wednesday, January 7, 8:15pm A flip of a coin is all it takes for criminal psychiatrist Robert Forster to abandon all of his plans and go on a wild vacation with some psychotic women and a whole heap of trouble. Are Fairuza Balk, Amanda Plummer and Naked's David Thewlis interesting enough to get you to tune in? Flip a coin to find out!
5. Doomsday (2008) Cinemax, Monday, January 5, 10pm Last year, director Neil Marshall (The Descent) took a dump in the Thunderdome, and here it is, having baked in the sun for many months. Rhona Mitra leads a cast of Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell in a post-apocalyptic run 'n' gun of Scotland.
Ah, the innocent days of 2008. When recession, war and high-profile celebrity deaths became the glue to bond us together like societal Siamese siblings. But now it's 2009, a whole new era, a whole new ballgame. And not just for Washington, who will call Barack Obama their overlord, or the New York Yankees, who will take the field with C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texeira and still manage to lose the pennant to smaller-budgeted organizations.
It is the final stand for celebrity land in a decade that has alternately enthralled and repulsed us. It is a time for Hollywood to make its mark on culture and the planet at large, and really give 'em the good stuff we all cream for in the tabloids.
And we got off to an intermittently intriguing start, thanks largely to the birth of what could have been the First Granddaughter-in-waiting, and a certain wayward actress' parent who may love his share of his daughter's spotlight more than the woman herself. So without any pregnant pauses, here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week.
4. Paul McCartney may have had to navigate Heather Mills' body sexually despite her prosthetic leg, but at least he didn't have to stick around till midnight to ritualistically spray-tan the thing.
A couple months back, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers,
which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular
spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness
or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all
get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted
into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while the last installment of Just Because celebrated the late Estelle Getty's giddy inhabitation of wiseass Golden Girls matriarch Sophia Petrillo, today we hop in our pop-culture time machine to 1994, and in recognition of Barack Obama's impending inauguration, revisit an unforgettable moment in political-office swearing-in history, and its 14th anniversary.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which dissects different aspects of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Fashion trends generally reflect the time in which they're created, ergo cash means flash, recession means regression. So what can we expect when a full-blown depression is being forecast? As I turn my jaundiced eye to 2009, I predict that the (hopefully) temporary stumble of Western Civilization will lead to a number of unsightly trendlets among the glitterati. My predictions for who will wear what, below.
8. Rumpled Luxe Most Likely Victims: Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Sean Penn Much like Kathy Fuld's rather feeble attempt to hide her weekly $10,000 shopping sprees at Hermes (you know Kathy, wife of the disgraced Lehman Brothers Goliath, Tricky Dick Fuld) in unmarked bags to protect the great unwashed masses from the awareness of her continuing spendthrift ways, there are going to be gaggles of stars known for their cultural and political "sensitivity" who will attempt to downplay their own profligate spending with the Rumpled Luxe look. Because a Prada dress that's ill-fitting, baggy, wrinkled and strapped together with a series of creased ribbons (and just happens to cost thousands) totally says, "I relate to unkempt homeless people and the struggling working class."
7. Statement Headpieces Most Likely Victims: Nicole Richie, Mischa Barton, Christian Siriano Broke but still want to look a la mode? That's where "statement" headpieces come in. And in keeping with the bipolar mood the wild fluctuations of the market have inspired in the general populace, the message this season's "statements" are sending are decidedly crazypants. Take Blumarine, for example. The unwieldy beige contraptions strapped to models' heads are tied in various fanciful designs. The giant upside down Christmas-bow that threatens to take out a model's eyeball, or at the very least, her line of vision, is my personal favorite. It perfectly evokes the topsy turvy/helter skelter spirit of our times and chooses to join in the chaos and embrace the screwball and the scary, instead of run in the other direction, screaming. Which will most likely be the common reaction if you attempt to replicate this look.
6. Sleepwear As Outerwear Most Likely Victims: Britney Spears, Matthew McConaughey, Courtney Love Luxe lads and ladies too depressed, unemployed, drunk and/or insolvent to change out of their jammies can rest assured that they'll still totally be in style. Dolce & Gabbana has conveniently devoted its 2009 line to various pajama-inspired ensembles that will take you from the deli... to the couch. The dresses resemble Hugh Hefner-style silk smoking jackets and trench coats, shorts, flowy pants and button-downs that scream "naptime!" abound -- casual lolligag belting options included. Perhaps the idea here is to allow the still gainfully employed to stand in solidarity with their jobless brethren by unabashedly approaching their oh-so-urgent PowerPoint presentations and TPS reports with the same vigor their cohorts approach their glazy-eyed afternoon slumps on the couch, clicker in one hand, giant vat of soda in the other, bowl of popcorn precariously balanced on lap strewn with trashy magazines. Let's get this economy started!
5. Bike Shorts Most Likely Victims: Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna, Nicky Hilton Leggings' tacky redneck cousins have arrived. Brace yourselves, because bike shorts are "in." Nothing says "we give up as a society" like oversized cotton T's paired with plain black leather belts that are neither thin, thick, tight or loosely slung and bike shorts... posing as haute couture. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that Americans en masse don't pick up this style. We've lived through enough with the redoubtable muffin top/hipster jean/peekaboo thong triangle of terror, and I'm not sure we could withstand the kind of shock and horror that would surely entail if mall rats, Soap Opera Digest subscribers and soccer moms all started sporting short, tight, shiny Lycra pants.
Had your full of toothsome glazed meats oozing with holiday mirth? Is your skull still echoing from a blizzard of Christmastime music? Then welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, an NCDSUV feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of December 30, 2008.
6. Return To Forever, Romantic Warrior This week, jazz-rock savant and card-carrying Scientologist Chick Corea and Return To Forever re-release the 1976 progressive rock/jazz record Romantic Warrior, made famous for its technically rigorous playing and gold-charting status. Yet despite those accolades, we can't help but think that Romantic Warrior should return its dank, medieval, circus jazz-rock to forever they came from. (Eh?)
5. üNN, Exit Have a deep penchant for droning, ordinary ambience backed-up by a deathless dime-store techno-beat this coming new year? Then look no further; similar to the drip of intravenous therapy, üNN's Exit is the perfect resolve.
4. Alice In Videoland, She's A Machine There's nothing subtle on the third release from electro-punk outfit Alice In Videoland. On She's A Machine, this Swedish quartet builds upon early '80s new-wave disco à la synthpop acts like OMD and Alphaville, with a newfangled electro-punk rock swirl. But while the stomping aggrepo is a throwback to pioneers like Nitzer Ebb, the feigned vocals of vocalist Toril Lindqvist remind us of the squawking absurdity on Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl." "This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S."
While the rest of you lazy schlubs were spending the holiday week glugging down eggnog and making sexy eyes at that random third cousin whose bloodline connection feels tenuous at best, NCDSUV was still soaking in the pop culture rays.
Humorously enough, however, there was a conspicuous paucity of tabloid-friendly stories breaking over the last several days. This could lean one to hypothetsize that much of the entertainment world's daily headlines harbor hazy significance at best and are generated so the blogosphere merely has an excuse to catalyze conversation and ramp up page views.
But, of course, we're not that cynical. We are, however, newly educated on everything from Michael Jackson's supposedly deteriorating lung to Amy Winehouse's most certainly replenished bosom. Here are the top five things we learned for this final full week of 2008, in a very much specific order. 5. Despite our very keen eye for newly portly former sex symbols, Kathleen Turner's massive tumble into terrifyingly negative sex appeal slipped through a canyon-sized crack. She might portray a dog trainer in Marley & Me, but it appears her personal workout coach really screwed the pooch.
4. Just when we thought we were out.... Actually, it's Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt who are out... (wait for it, wait for it) of their minds! And in and out of matrimony, as they teased us with yet another wedding-related ratings booster on The Hills, only to hold off on an official ceremony as a presumed cocktease for their inevitable spinoff show. Hey, it's not like marriage has been a particularly sanctified concept in recent decades anyway, so these two nutballs may as well shit all over it to advance their careers.
A few weeks ago, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers,
which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular
spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness
or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all
get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted
into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while the last installment of Just Because celebrated the homoerotic curiosa of a broadcasted DIY Soloflex workout, today we provide you with the belated Christmas present of a recently deceased Golden Girl who will live on ion comedy heaven for eternity.
Here's the last Films From The Cable Afterlife of 2008. Looking back, there were some great movies shown that I hope I turned you onto, and hopefully some more that you found on your own. Overall, I gotta let it be known that cable as a medium for showing movies is starting to slip. Movie packages change hands and the more creative programmers out there fall to the wayside, buried in an avalanche of cheap-to-air space fillers, the kind of sub-direct-to-DVD garbage that's 10 times worse than the lousiest drive-in/grindhouse garbage it replaced.
Movies are also getting squeezed out of formerly great networks like Sundance and IFC in favor of original programming (thanks guys, I needed to be reminded to recycle) and the on-demand diaspora only pushes a tighter net of weak movies into a narrower frame. You'd think that the shrinking margins facing cable would cause these networks to step up, but the thrills that movie channels once provided are competing with all manner of media and piracy issues, and fighting a losing battle. Only Turner Classic Movies, and to a lesser extent Fox Movie Channel and IFC, are keeping it real, showing a tacit dedication to their implicit tasks at hand.
I challenge cable programmers to show a little more pride in their work come 2009, and that they rise to the expectations of their viewership, the lazy, unmotivated herd that deserves to have their realm shattered by unbelievable examples of cinema. This time we're going to look exclusively at IFC and Turner Classic Movies for an example of two networks who get it right. 8. Twentieth Century (1934) Turner Classic Movies, Thursday, January 1, 7:15am One of the rules of Cable Afterlife was "nothing before 1967, please" but you know what? WHO CARES. Howard Hawks' knock-down drag-out comedy deserves to be appreciated by a new generation. Fussy director John Barrymore and his even fussier protégé actress Carole Lombard, who he made a star for nothing in return, slug it out on a train ride. It's hilarious and bitchy and biting, and the best we can do today is crap like Bride Wars. Please, do yourself a favor and watch this.
7. Heaven's Gate (1981) Turner Classic Movies, Wednesday, December 31, 2am A few years back I found myself stranded in a condo with my family in Naples, Florida over Christmas vacation. It was raining, and I didn't have access to a rental car (not that there was anything to do anyway). In an ultimate act of masochism, I brought my GreenCine rentals with me, and decided to roll through the early oeuvre of Michael Cimino, from Magnum Force and Thunderbolt & Lightfoot to The Deer Hunter and this, the movie that bankrupted United Artists and sullied Cimino's career once and for all. TCM presents the long, restored version of this giant catastrophe, peppered with moments of unfettered brilliance and an extravagance that you don't see much in films anymore. It's hard to sympathize with anyone in this movie, the ultimate '70s downer and one so large it carried through to the '80s. Rich kid baron Kris Kristofferson shuns his Harvard graduating class and protects the interests of immigrants in this overblown retelling of the Johnson County War. Ugly, mean, bitter and melancholy, with great turns by Christopher Walken and Sam Waterston as the ultimate heel/coward. This year sucked anyway. Watch it run down the drain the right way.
6. Surf Movie Marathon Turner Classic Movies, Tuesday, December 30, 6:30am-8pm TCM is down to show surf movies without fail every few months, and it's always nice to get a massive dose of such irreverence thrown at you in such a manner as this; over 12 hours of beach action, slumber parties, Von Zipper chop-busting, very off-color race gags (an Asian guy named "Cholly"? Come on!), and killer musical appearances by garage and R&B bands of the '60s. Running top to bottom, we have the following:
• Pajama Party (some nonsense about an alien learning about girls, bound to be fun with Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello on board) • Winter A Go-Go (teen turns abandoned ski lodge into music venue) • For Those Who Think Young (teens fight developers who threaten to shut down a beachside hangout; starring Paul Lynde, Nancy Sinatra, Bob Denver and Tina Louise) • It's A Bikini World (rad drag-racing beach/surf monster with Deborah Walley, Sid Haig, The Animals, The Gentrys and The Castaways) • Ride The Wild Surf (more surf-oriented than most, with Fabian and Shelley Fabares hitting the waves in Hawaii) • Don't Make Waves (Tony Curtis and the late Sharon Tate mix it up with The Byrds out by the shore) • Beach Party (the original; Frankie and Annette battle Von Zipper, with Dick Dale shredding on guitar) • Muscle Beach Party (the kids fight the bodybuilders, featuring music by Brian Wilson, Little Stevie Wonder, and Dick Dale, with extra insults by Don Rickles)
These movies are where pop culture exploded into music, and provided some of the fuel to fire up the '60s youth rebellion. Must-watch, even if you think you're beyond this type of cheese.
5. Never Die Alone (2004) IFC, Saturday, January 2, 12am Chilling, violent modern film noir, based on street-hustler-turned-Iceberg Slim-protégé Donald Goines' novel. DMX's finest role, and David Arquette is no slouch either. You probably missed this joint when it hit theaters, so catch up now and feel the burn.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
This week we address the worst fashion moments of the year. Fashion faux pas are like a particularly virulent breed of bronchitis; a disgusting, unpleasant fact of life that certain celebrities catch once and toss off without missing a well-heeled step, while others seem to be permanently felled by a chronic case that sends bystanders scurrying for cover for fear of contracting the dread disease. Here's our votes for an octagon of the '08's most offensive.
8. Agyness Deyn It's chronic. There are flashes of delicious, savory brilliance in Agyness' fashion fruit n' nut grab bag. And yet, Agyness' insistence on cultivating a bleached, neglected, teased and abused Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia-Pet-style 'do, coupled with her penchant for dressing like Billy Idol circa 1983, an unreasonable devotion to bandanas and questionably tailored pants (that look uncomfortably tight in the crotch area) outnumber her waltzes with aesthetic resplendence. She's more fashion idiot than savant.
7. Blake Lively Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning. You're right, Blake: Fashion is all about fantasy. That's great, honey, because you embrace that concept. Especially when wearing short, sparkly postage stamps on the red carpet or fluttery white dresses and cowboy boots while flitting about Manhattan and flashing that toothy grin at the stalkerazzi. They love you, we love you, it's all good. But leave the more "conceptual" clothes to the darker, smarter, sassier indie crowd. No one wants to see you in a shiny, baggy pondscum-green, wrinkled jumpsuit and high heels. I know you were going for the insouciant sophisticate thing, but this makes you look like you belong in the pit at NASCAR, wiping the sweat from your fair brow and tinkering with a miter saw and mini-torch while muttering about "that durn Cletus. Tol' him ta plug that leak durn it anyway."
6. Sarah Jessica Parker It's (rather) chronic. Much like her alter-ego Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah definitely likes to take sartorial risks that would make less temerarious women blanch. And while she's more than likely to pass the Anna Wintour sniff test, Sarah's flops are unsurpassable. Like the time she decided to wear a green pillbox hat that resembles a large breast (nipple included!) and sprout a Brobdingnagian floral arrangement to the Sex And The City movie premiere (reminds me of the hideous bird Carrie strapped to her head to wear for her ill-fated fictional nuptials).
5. Anna Wintour Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning. Willful idiosyncrasy, clothing as wearable sculpture and high-brow reflections of the current social/economic/cultural climate are all expected, even necessary, components of haute couture. And few people people's names are as synonymous with couture as Anna's. So heads understandably turned when Nuclear Wintour showed up to the Met Costume Gala (her gala, the fashion gala to end all fashion galas) in an actively odd Karl Lagerfeld dress that appeared designed to make the already serpentine editrix resemble a horned lizard dipped in mercury. While I don't agree with Time about it being the biggest fashion faux pas of the year, considering Wintour's pedigree, it's certainly up there.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, an NCDSUV feature in which we highlight the week's most egregiously bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial.
Behold the obscure, the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of December 23, 2008, just in time for the holiday edition! 5. Stephanie A. Smith, Not Afraid We never thought we'd say this, but can we hear more Pink please? On Smith's debut, she mawkishly wangles bad love songs, supercharged with enough contrived rock/pop, um, hooks, to hold her audience of Kelly Clarkson spillovers captive.
4. Leng T'che & Fuck the Facts, Split What's better than having a metal grindcore band tear into your cochlea? Well, two grindcore bands of course. This split 7-inch from Canada's Fuck The Facts and the Belgium-based Leng T'che is perfect for those who prefer their brand of raw and abrasive metal violently regurgitated.
Ah, the last week before the Christmas-time blitz of abusive commercialism and schmaltzy, ceremonial sentimentality. A time for celebrities to get one last headline blast before the world pretends to care about religion and family more than the dogma of tabloid culture for a few days.
Fortunately for us, there was no shortage of boob-flashing, divorce scuttlebutt and rehab-hyjinks. So without further prolonged pause, here are the top five things we here at NCDSUV (and we hope you as well) have learned this week:
4. Tara Reid, not to be outdone by her more youthful underlings Lindsay Lohan et al, finally went into rehab for undisclosed reasons. We're guessing it's because she's been chronically addicted to an illicit co-dependent substance, but what the heckfire do we know?
Have yourself a cable-ridden Christmas. Watch your fill of crap. Every now and then a great movie falls in your lap. (All times in EST.) 8. Glow Ropes: The Rise And Fall Of A Bar Mitzvah Emcee (2007) TMC, Monday, December 22, 11:35pm Faux documentary regarding what the title implies. Piss-poor acting and pacing, but man, such a great idea. I should have copyrighted my concept for this movie when I came up with it. Someone's reading my thoughts!
7. Meatballs (1979) SHO Family, Sunday, December 21, 6:25pm Don't shower, don't shave, don't even bother changing out of your night clothes. Anytime Meatballs is on, it's totally chill to drop everything and vegetate. Bill Murray keeps it together through the loosest narrative possible, and Chris Makepeace all but defines emo as "Wudy The Wabbit."
6. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007) Cinemax, Monday, December 22, 12:45am Squick factor 10! Aliens, predators and "Pred-Aliens" land in Colorado, destroying humans and face-humping pregnant women and little kids. Features Fox TV stars from Rescue Me and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I dare you to tell me what's happening in the rubber-suit fight scenes. You can't sit far away enough from the screen.
5. Kuroneko (The Black Cat) (1968) IFC, Sunday December 21 8am Samurais murder two women, whose spirits live on to avenge their deaths. Fits in nicely with similar Japanese horror offerings Kwaidan and Onibaba. Get ready to get skeered.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed
& Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect
of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist
suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached
the contagious stage).
This week we address Bridesmaid Fug. Just when we thought it
was safe to peruse US Weekly again in
the checkout line at the Big K, safe from the wedding-related Hollywood terror of
2006 and beyond (Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise, Anna Nicole Smith & J. Howard Marhsall, Pam Anderson & Kid Rock,
Avril Lavigne & Deryck Whibley, Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban, etc.) the most wretched, the most
insidious and the most unavoidable component that crops up in every nuptial cocktail,
from Boise to Bel Air, is upon us.
For some utterly inconceivable reason, celebrity starlets have taken it upon
themselves to don bridesmaids' dresses to red carpet events. Was the trend
launched by a Machiavellian PR maven in a bid to surreptitiously lather us into
a matrimonial-obsessed frenzy right before the premiere of Bride Wars? (The stars of the movie, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway,
bless their hearts, have not embraced the fad.)
Can ossified updos sprinkled with baby's breath and
Diamonique clips be far away? A SWAT Team has been sent to the Hollywood
& Highland
mall to investigate and is expected to report back any moment now...
*(P.S.: Links to the below red-carpet nightmares are located, mercifully, with the commentary for each entrant.)
8. Scarlett Johansson Scene Of The Crime: The Spirit promo in Paris. ScarJo generally likes to sheath herself in princessy, fussy garments while prancing down the carpet, and when it's good, it's very, very good. But when it's bad, it's horrid. Cue this horrifying vision in black and white. We have the bridesmaid-tastic, delicately frayed tulip edged bodice, the figure-truncating cummerbund, cutesy keyhole embroidery detailing and a homely burst of white tulle peeking out from under the tragic mid-calf no-go zone of hemlines. Her priggish black satin shoes with giant toe bows complete the look.
7. Alicia Witt Scene Of The Crime: The Australia premiere in New York. Pale redheads the world over generally quake in fear when "invited" to participate in their friend's big day. One of the many unwritten rules of bridesmaid dress is that its material must be spun in an unworldly, blindingly bright hue that will sear retinas and make fair, and God forbid, fire-tressed maids look like anemic Raggedy Anns. But Alicia actually opted to wear this specimen. Is it possible that, upon dressing and gazing at her countenance in a mirror, she actually said to herself: "Yes. This beaming purple sateen get-up with a bizarre strip of ruffles where my boobs should be, a baggy cummerbund and a knee-length skirt that may or may not conceal a family of hedgehogs in its flouncing, mysteriously billowing canopy-like space, will help me look impossibly chic when standing next to perma-perfectly coiffed fellow redhead paleface Nicole Kidman"?
6. Beyonce Scene Of The Crime: The Kennedy Center Honors in New York. Perhaps the generally faux-pas-proof Beyonce was channeling her alter ego, Sasha. Only that fierce lady or a bride with a laser-like focus on "having a really classy wedding" (you know, the one who insists on entering her reception hall in some sort of mechanized snow globe mid-smooch with her husband while the strains of Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" are blared into traumatized guests' ear lobes) could be responsible for the multitude of sins slathered on Her Bodaciousness. A) The black lace top outfitted with not one, but two bows: one tulle number that resembles a Venus Flytrap and one satin ribbon that needs to meet an iron, STAT. B) The circulation-annihilating, floor-length satin black mermaid-style skirt. C) The 6-inch tall updo. D) The crazy "I'm trapped, SOS SOS" expression in Beyonce's eyes, trademark of all Bridezilla-victims.
5. Wendi Deng Scene Of The Crime: The Australia premiere in New York. This dress is a perfect example of too many chefs spoiling the soup, another pesky problem even the most opinionated bride faces when selecting the perfect(ly awful) bridesmaids dresses for her closest pals. Needy and vocal mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters and sisters-in- law are the most frequent saboteurs, and Deng's dress embodies the chaos that ensues when they all "just try to help!" Her bipolar outfit would be fine if the fun, bouncy black bottom half or the elegantly ruched, sleeveless satin top-half were allowed to rule the day. But together, and paired with granny-sheer tights, excessive bling and Payless-esque black pumps, it looks like the product of two mutually exclusive minds: the "I want you to be able to wear this dress again someday so just grab this LBD at J. Crew" school of thought and the "I want to pretend I'm the empress of the galaxy and you are my slaves for the day, suck up the damn the $600 price tag" mindset.
Welcome back to Unnecessary Album Releases, an NCDSUV feature where we highlight the week's most bizarre, dull and often unpleasant albums from the music industry's "left"er side of the dial. Behold the most fantastically superfluous musical curiosas for the week of December 16, 2008.
6. Electric Wizard, Let Us Prey Doom rockers space out on re-issue These doom/stoner metal makers have been at it since 1993, and this week, are apparently re-releasing what seems to be their entire catalog. But it's the would-be-cleverly titled Let Us Prey that caught our eye. This sludgy, aggressive record is the perfect for those who missed the stoner-rock boat when it was named KYUSS.
5. Mr. Children, Supermarket Fantasy J-Pop superstars realize fetish on new effort What's creepier than naming your band Mr. Children? Naming your 12th studio release Supermarket Fancy and adorning the cover art with two lovers embraced amidst an orbit of groceries. In all fairness to arguably the most successful Japanese pop act, it just might be that the title looses something in its translation, right?
As we gear up for the holidays, Hollywood has no intent on settling down its array of shenanigans. Particularly as it revs its self-promotional engine and rings in the start of awards season.
Yes, the big news this week (well, apart from that awful business surrounding Mark Ruffalo's brother, but let's not dwell on the morbid) involved Heath Ledger getting one last laugh after his tragic death, thanks to his work as The Joker in Dark Knight being recognized amidst the Golden Globe nominees.
But there was also the minor matter of Britney Spears' comeback, not to mention, Heather Chadwell getting the steel-toed stripper boot from Rock Of Love Charm School. So without further shenanigans of our own, here are the top five things we learned this week:
5. Apparently, there's a groundswell of second-generation punk fans just creaming their pants for the opportunity to revisit GG Allin's propensity for not wearing any.
4. Heather Chadwell, aka Heather from Charm School, may actually have less self-esteem than the people who read this site.
A few weeks ago, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers,
which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular
spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness
or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all
get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted
into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while the last installment of Just Because featured a classically, brutally hilarious Beavis And Butt-Head episode that provided a whole new use for tampons (see, they're not just for turkey-basting anymore), this week we bring a very special clip that combines outdated workout equipment, mystifying vanity, homoeroticism and shitty techno. Exciting, no?
Lost your job, did you? Enjoy the few weeks left in your cable subscription before it gets shut off. Films from the Cable Afterlife is like a drink to help you forget, Dean Martin-style, yet another plunge into the moldy basement of movies on TV. Do you care that this column is pay cable-centric? Want to know more about the seedy underside of basic cable as well? Let us know by e-mailing nudecelebritydeathsuv@gmail.com or leaving comments below! In the meantime, here's some films you would do well to watch. (All times in EST.)
8. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT: Beyond The Fog (1972) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, December 13, 2:15am Horror House (1969) Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, December 13, 3:45am Busty British women (Jill Haworth appears in both features), blood and a vengeful female god wait for you on Snape Island, while "teenager" Frankie Avalon waits out a long, dark, stabby night with other "teenagers" in an old house. Here's prime UHF fantasy fodder, drilling sex and death into the heads of the burnouts who might have crammed into a fleabag theater on the Deuce to cop drugs, and to the sugar-addled kids who would catch on via Saturday afternoon Suspense Theater matinees on TV. And with a major network repealing standard primetime hours, let's hole to see more desperation programming like this to counter the real schlock: reality TV.
7. The Ruins (2008) Cinemax, Sunday, December 13, 10pm, assorted times during the week, and On Demand Unless you catch Holocaust/white people-learning-'bout-life weepie The Boy In The Striped Pajamas, you may not find a worse feature film this year than this adaptation of Scott B. Smith's gripping horror novel. Prose turns to feces, an ill-gotten gift festers under idiocy and poor direction for all to see. Witless Yankee co-eds on spring break in Mexico run off, wholly unprepared, for an endless hike into the jungle to visit some ancient ruins. While there, they're assaulted by the natives when they try to escape, and are entwined by blood-sucking, viral vines that pick them off one by one. Only the brave and dulled of spirit will be able to make it past the point where the vines start "talking."
6. Pact With The Devil (aka Dorian) (2001) TMC Xtra, Tuesday, December 16, 2:05am Hey, howzabout a straight-to-video, "modern" update of The Picture Of Dorian Gray? No? Too bad. Malcolm McDowell chews on the set as the demon that keeps the painting in play. Not for the weak or listless.
5. Areola 51 (2008) Showtime (Showcase), Tuesday, December 16, 2:15am Normally I don't revert to Skinemax as a valid choice. Nor have I watched this heartwarming tale of a woman abducted and serviced by "fem-aliens" (though you might). I just wanted to address the fact that there's a movie called Areola 51. Proceed with your life.
Today marks the launch of NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
In this inaugural piece, we will explore the prevalent problem of personality disorders among the glitterati and their affect on our ability to surf the Web and flip through glossies without causing our eyes, nay, our very souls, to bleed. One in five adults has a personality disorder that can interfere with their ability to separate fact from fiction, zebras from zinnias and prettiness from pulchritude. And logic dictates that personality disorders would affect celebrities more than the rest of the species. Today, we're focusing on female offenders.
9. Madonna Diagnosis: Schizoid Personality Disorder Madge bears all of the unfortunate hallmarks of SPD: odd dress, beliefs and behavior; palpable discomfort with close relationships; inappropriate emotional responses; and "magical thinking," i.e. the belief that you can influence people and events with your thoughts alone. Her Madgesty's sartorial sins are really just drops in her shiny, black-latex crazypants bucket, but they are significant nonetheless. Since the dawn of the new millennium and (coincidentally?) middle age, the Material Girl lost her fashion touch. The heady days of drooling over a brash, grinning bleach-blond in cone bras, tacky-chic lace gloves, insanely poofy but totally cute taffeta skirts, (ironic) religious jewelry and an armful of black rubber bracelets are gone. Now we've got snaps of a snarling Ms. Ciccone flexing her pale, ropy limbs for the stalkerazzi in her skuzziest skull-emblazoned workout gear or sporting questionable couture. Worst of all, Marc Jacobs, generally brilliant but a total ditz when it comes to selecting his "muses," is perpetuating, under-writing and encouraging the fashion train wreck by signing Madonna as the new face of Louis Vuitton. The new, frozen, swollen, sullen, skin-tight skullface of Louis Vuitton.
8. Amy Winehouse Diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder There are a few things you can depend on with Wino: glittering eyes that perpetually burn with the spark of chaos and fashion choices that clearly reflect her BPD; impulsive and risky behavior (see: the shameless cultivation of her omnipresent beehive and frequent decisions to don bras as tops and sport see-through tank tops sans necessary supportive undergarments); lack of stability (see: repeated sidewalk spills due to a deadly cocktail and total inability to commit to either crackwhore chic or baglady chic); and volatile relationships (see: an apparent total disregard for her apparel, as expressed through repeated cutting, shredding and tearing of wife beaters and Daisy Dukes).
7. Winona Ryder Diagnosis: Antisocial Personality Disorder Ryder was the '90s rolled up into one gloomy, pale, listless (yet still strangely perky and idealistic) package, but since then her star has been eclipsed by the go-go Hollywood hussies of the aughts. During her Icarus-like flameout into B-status, the erstwhile drab packer threw off the oversized flannel but maintained her distinctly APD approach to clothing herself. Winona's condition is characterized by a disregard for others, a persistent streak of lying and stealing, recurring difficulties with the law and repeated violations of the rights of others. Like her career, her targets of thievery have spiraled downward; this year, she was accused of stealing make-up from CVS. Winona was never officially charged.
6. The Olsen Twins Diagnosis: Avoidant Personality Disorder The direful dyad has always worn APD (feelings of inadequacy, extreme shyness in social situations, timidity, social isolation, hypersensitivity to criticism or rejection) on its hyper-tailored sleeves. The reclusive, creepy-close genetic photocopies have never really been accepted by young Hollywood's reigning nightlife cabal (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole RIchioe, et al), likely perpetuating the Olsens' already gossamer grip on sanity. Currently, their increasingly pinched, pixie-like faces can rarely be spied poking through their cascading blond tresses and under their titanic shades as they clutch each other and shuffle on their reedy little stems in Grey Gardens-esque "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale gear (giant fur coats atop leggings and high-rise platform heels, paired with giant designer bags in exotic skins and ludicrous scarves) from one awkward press event to the next. When Ashley and Mary-Kate muster enough courage to emerge from Cousin It mode and smile for the cameras, the results are invariable cringetastic, their pasty, angular faces resembling kabuki masks suddenly coming to life.
Films From The Cable Afterlife empties out the traps of uncut cable movies, and sorts out all the irregular or otherwise remarkable movies that got left behind by the crush of time and popular favor, that defined the medium of modern television and fed into its cultural whims with both flash and zen. Write your thesis on any of these chestnuts. (All listings in EST.) 8. CQ (2001) IFC, Friday, December 12, 12:30am How do you make the European swinging '60s unbearable? Ask Roman Coppola about this abomination, his first (and last) feature film, starring a wimpy Jeremy Davies stranding his long-time girlfriend for an Italian actress once he gets asked to drop the douchebag at film school and come to the studio to do it for real. So pointless, it's like a void; other movies become terrible in its proximity.
7. Stealth Fighter (1999) Cinemax (OuterMAX), Saturday, December 6, 11:05am; Cinemax (More MAX), Thursday, December 11, 12:05pm Director Jim Wynorski is a late-era Roger Corman protege, having polished up turds like Chopping Mall and The Return Of Swamp Thing since the mid '80s (and sitting in the chair for Skinemax crud like The Witches Of Breastwick and The DaVinci Coed). He's a huge fan of stock footage, and crams it into just about all of his movies, regardless of how well it matches with the rest of the film. Stealth Fighter features Ice-T pulling a Broken Arrow and stealing military aircraft. Costas Mandylor, Erika Eleniak, Ernie Hudson and Tom "Tiny" Lister co-star. A career ender, except for Ice-T, whose revenue streams in the jiggling buttocks of his wife, CoCo, are so strong that they may pull us out of this recession.
6. We Jam Econo: The Story Of The Minutemen (2005) Sundance Channel, Thursday, December 11, 6:35am For the first half of the '80s, San Pedro's Minutemen traveled the U.S., dodging loogies and bumming out the punks waiting to see Black Flag with tense, jazzy punk rock rooted in the struggles of the working class. Tough guys hate this band and rock the Red Hot Chili Peppers instead, but as for the rest of us, their story is a bittersweet chronicle of life on the outside, and dreams dashed away (singer/guitarist D. Boon died in an auto accident at the end of 1985, promptly ending the group). Plenty of famous folks are on hand to reminisce about the greatness of this band, and if you don't know, now ya know.
5. Harry And Son Showtime (SHO Family Zone), Sunday, December 7, 9:30pm I'll just point you to Cintra Wilson's masterful take on the career of teen actor Robby Benson and let recent Hilarious Cable Info-Bar entrantHarry And Son do the head-scratching for you. "About as sexy as a pair of white socks" indeed, but all the same, a fascinating and bizarre cultural phenom from the days of Styrofoam McDonald's containers.
I know, I know: It's cold outside, you're dead broke and the holiday-shopping season six days away, and you forgot what it means to be funny after watching too many episodes of Frank TV.
Have no fear, however: The real-life foibles of celebrities are here. And thanks to everyone from Jean Claude Van Damme to Paris Hilton, the last several days have seen an abundant enough amount of Tinseltown tomfoolery to warm even the blackest of hardened hearts. So as always at this time (or maybe a bit earlier, depending on when our Sanka settles in), here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week:
5. Where was Sean Stewart, son of Rod (doesn't have quite the same ring as Son Of Jor-El, does it?), when Rodney King was beaten mercilessly by LAPD in 1991? Oh, right, opening that week's unnecessary luxury gift as compensation for his dad touring the world and ensuring him a life of comfort and endless opportunity. So how exactly are their situations parallel enough to warrant co-participation in Celebrity Rehab?
4. Sinbad cut his fade-top 'do and stopped dressing like the retarded kid in your sixth grade math class. Talk about losing your sense of humor in your old age.
A couple weeks, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as "Just Because", highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers, which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
You're only gonna watch A Christmas Story once this coming week. Here's what else is on. Films From the Cable Afterlife returns to bring you some respite from glad tidings this holiday season. Buyer beware! No refunds on these turkeys!. (And per usual, all listings in EST.)
8. Dead Silence (2007)
Cinemax, Saturday, November 22, 10am; Cinemax (OuterMAX), Sunday, November 23, 10:30pm; Cinemax (ThrillerMAX), Tuesday, November 25, 8:30pm Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell stepped gingerly into the major studio system with this throwback horror thriller, pitting young murder suspect Ryan Kwanten (now famous as Jason Stackhouse on HBO's True Blood) and the embarrassing Donnie Wahlberg against dolls that kill people. If dolls, dark houses and late-changing plot twists are things that terrify you, then line up. As such, this one isn't too terrible (Amber Valletta makes a good showing), but it's nothing you haven't seen outta Chucky.
7. Screwed (2000)
Starz Comedy, Wednesday, November 26, 5:45am, 12:35pm
This comedy stars Norm MacDonald, Dave Chappelle, Sarah Silverman, and Danny DeVito. Sherman Hemsley shows up in it as well. Why haven't you heard of it? Tune in to find out! Tailored for a long, slow death somewhere in the cable diaspora, this wintry comedy involves a kidnapped dog, a Jack Lord fanatic and some other things you may or may not look back on fondly. It's not as good as Norm's Dirty Work, but really, what is?
6. Zoo (2007)
Sundance Channel, Tuesday, November 25, 1am
You could drink a whole bottle of cough syrup and watch the notorious "Mr. Hands" video somewhere on the Internet, slobbering on your hands (please, do not try this), or you could simply watch this goofy, new age, bad touch documentary about it instead. You'll never think about bestiality the same way ever again. You will be so over bestiality from then on, because you didn't think anything sexual could ever be this boring.
5. Bigger Than Life (1956)
Fox Movie Channel, Sunday, November 23, 9:30am
And while we're on the subject of drugs, you really owe it to yourself to watch this intense, bizarre portrayal of addiction. James Mason tears the set down as an overworked dad who takes cortisone pills and hulks out into this tyrannical maniac who only Walter Matthau can subdue. All the ingredients work. Director Nicholas Ray pushes a thick candied Technicolor shell through Cinemascope, a man taking a bullet for the cinema. Cortisone pills!
We're finally getting over our election hangovers here at NCDSUV. It's amazing what a little Alka Seltzer Morning Relief and Barack Obama massage oil can do. (It's a homemade creation. We'll divulge the contents soon enough.)
But it certainly makes it easier to move on when Lindsay Lohan is making ignorant statements about our newly elected black president, Britney Spears is rushing her kid to backwoods hospitals and sex-on-a-stick has-been Tracy Scoggins turns old enough to be your mother's mother (depending on how solid sex education is in your area public schools).
So without further gesundheit, here are the top five things we learned this week (and yes, we couldn't resist having at least one of them be of the overtly politically oriented).
5. Finding out Tracy Scoggins, subject of innumerable moistened night visions, has turned 55 is a bit like waking up from a coma and discovering Biff Tannen is your stepdad and has stuffed your mother with breast implants and collagen.
4. Britney Spears' son, Jayden, may be a wee young tyke, but he knows that like his mother, he enjoys winding up in hospitals for no apparent reason.
3. John McCain may not be as good looking, capable or inspirational as Obama, but he's arguably funnier than Jay Leno.
Last week, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as "Just Because," highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers, which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness or having been as-yet-unearthd.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while "Just Because" debuted with a an expletive-exclusive mash-up of N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton, this week brings us to a program that provided endless reels of family friendly hilarity.
Beginning with today's clip, NCDSUV will occasionally broadcast a feature known as "Just Because," highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers, which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness or having been as-yet-unearthd.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So today, enjoy this little conceptual statement, courtesy of an N.W.A. fan with the mashup prowess of Girl Talk but an even giddier subversive streak. It's the entirety of the gangsta rap pioneers' Straight Outta Compton, except with all non-profane moments edited out. And while you can argue the artistic merits of the landmark hip-hop opus, there's no denying Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Eazy-E's prodigious propensity for spewing epithets.
So enjoy this clip for its artificially jaw-dropping relentlessness, intermittent moments of unintended hilarity, oddly pointed synopsis of the album's iconic menace and, well, just because.
Feel free to e-mail any stupendous Just Because ideas to nudecelebritydeathsuv@gmail.com. We will make sure to credit you and offer you millions of dollars in Arabian riches.
Here’s a truncated Cable Afterlife covering this week up through Thursday night, as last week’s usual installment was interrupted to memorialize the late Michael Crichton. Look for the next edition on Friday, unless somebody else dies.
8. Jaws 2 (1978)
Cinemax (OuterMAX), Wednesday, November 12, 6:50pm; Cinemax (ThrillerMAX), Thursday, November 13, 7am
One of the worst sequels ever produced in relation to the original (the last three Star Wars features notwithstanding), Jaws 2 brings Sheriff Brody (the late Roy Scheider) back to Amity Beach, where the offspring of the great white attacks anything that touches the water. A bunch of goofy teenagers help in luring Jaws Jr. to chomp down on an underwater high voltage line (what?) in a brief, cop-out ending; that one scene, looped together for two hours, tops anything else in this atrocity … but why wasn’t the rest of the cast electrocuted?
7. Lost In London (1985)
Starz InBlack, Wednesday, November 12, 12:10pm
Let’s face it: you have secretly been jonesing for a made-for-TV remake of Oliver Twist starring Emmanuel Lewis and Ben Vereen. Search no longer.
6. Downtown (1990)
Fox Movie Channel, Friday, November 14, 1am
Doughy Anthony Edwards and doughier Forest Whitaker team up as cops in the ‘hood, with a hip-hop attitude and some extraordinary pathos that threatens to blow the whole thing. It’s The Super for dummies, directed with wild abandon by Richard Benjamin. Case in point, there’s a scene where one of the film’s villains gets launched into a wood chipper and is converted into slurry. Don’t miss it!
5. The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1985)
IFC, Monday, November 10, 9:20am, 4pm
Wake up! It’s Monday morning. Time to watch W.A.S.P.’s Chris Holmes floating in an in-ground pool of despair, his mother sitting idly by, watching her son kill himself. Penelope Spheeris’ follow-up to her acclaimed “staged” punk documentary (c’mon, The Germs' Darby Crash with a girlfriend?) by covering the direct opposite of punk’s economy with the overblown desperation of heavy metal.
Yes, that's right. We're going to take one last chance to exploit the recent months' political fervor to bring some eyeballs to the NCDSUV annals. So sue us. Actually, don't do that, because we're already surviving on Ramen and working off converted Commodore 64s as it is.
But we'll tell ya one thing: The law of the land has taken a turn toward the left in the last five days, dominating the news and conquering cultural discourse. So while it's hard to believe that a week ago at this time we were still waiting to turn our clocks back and hoping John McCain and Sarah Palin wouldn't prevent Barack Obama from moving the nation forward, a new era has dawned on America. And on that entirely too poignant note, here's the top five things we learned this week, presidentially speaking:
5. There's a reason Sarah Palin wasn't running beside the election's black candidate. If she didn't realize Africa was a continent, lord only knows what her perception of Israel's geographical determination is.
4. Michelle Obama's dress may have resembled the exterior of a black widow spider on Election Night, but it's abundantly clear she's going to resurrect the notion of an empowered and individualistic First Lady.
3. The major news networks have officially faded themselves into a desperate irrelevance, as exemplified by hologram/digital-studio-nonsense that, oddly enough, mirrored the distracting gimmickry McCain tried to deploy (i.e. his VP nominee) during his transparently inferior campaign.
Rarely have the circumstances around Halloween and Election Day's convergence been so scary. But of course, one of the things we learned this week was that political bias is for grownups, and little kids occasionally need to remind us that we can vote however we like.
So with that, and heading into one of the tensest pre-Presidential-determining few days in American history, here's a largely lighthearted look at the top five things we learned this week from pop-culture land. See ya on Monday, and y'all come back now for a week of super-packed political coverage, ya hear?
5. If the media were half as vigilant on behalf of ordinary criminal tragedies as they were fumbling for tactful ways into covering the Jennifer Hudson nightmare, we might actually be able to spread out our police forces more effectively.
Of course there’s Halloween, when cable is meant to bring out its big guns with respect to weird, wild, uncut movies. But then what? Does cable TV shut itself down from holiday overload? Especially when there’s a ton of great movies to air, and an increasingly fickle public is getting more adept at finding ways to watch them elsewhere? We’ll find out in this week’s Films From The Cable Afterlife. (All showtimes listed in EST.)
8. Man’s Best Friend (1993)
The Movie Channel, Saturday, November 1, 12am, 4:30am
Why not? Killer dog movie from the early ‘90s is what passed for horror back in such happy times. Lance Henriksen and Ally Sheedy star opposite “Max,” a genetically-tweaked Rottweiler that eats a cat and a mailman whole. (Seeing an actor pushing himself into a giant dog-sock while screaming and covered in gore is why you pay for cable. Beware.)
7. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
HBO Comedy, Friday, October 31, 11:30am; Cinemax (@MAX), Saturday, November 1, 12:10pm; Cinemax, Friday, November 7, 3:40am
This is the most cynical of any Griswold adventure, released during our last recession. Clark, Ellen and the ageless Audrey and Rusty (here played by Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki) stay home and let the chaos come to them. Chevy Chase’s delivery is damn near venomous as he doles out charity to Cousin Eddie and his clan, camped out in a rusting RV, while in-laws ridicule and the tacky yuppie neighbors (including a pre-Seinfeld Julia-Louis Dreyfus) suffer these fools. Hey, the stores are already pushing Christmas, so why can’t cable?
6. Electra Glide In Blue (1973)
Encore Action, Monday, November 3, 8:15am
Comedian Paul Mooney called Robert Blake “the white O.J. Simpson” on Howard Stern this week. See him in his Napoleonic prime in this offbeat cop thriller, where the diminutive officer spins his wheels dispensing traffic violations across the desert. Backed by Chicago manager James William Guercio, who also directed, this is maverick filmmaking before the term “maverick” became synonymous with “scared idiot.” Watch as Peter Cetera and Terry Kath get hassled by the fuzz.
5. The Warriors (1979)
Turner Classic Movies, Friday, November 7, 3:15am
This one’s pretty commonplace, but you know what? A few years back, Walter Hill and the studio, high on the fumes of the video game and the still-MIA remake of this late ‘70s classic, decided to add new footage to The Warriors, and in the process delete the original version altogether. If you didn’t buy an earlier copy of the DVD, you might be S.O.L. … or you could settle for this uncut, letterboxed print from TCM. Unsettling even in its campier moments, this gritty tale of a Coney Island street gang’s difficult trek back home from the Bronx following a gangleader’s assassination still packs every bit of its initial punch, bolstered by intense performances by psycho-character actors James Remar (know of late as Richard Wright from Sex And The City) and David Patrick Kelly.
Oy vey, what a week. Color me pooped, verklempt and all out plotzed. Between the election still burning up to its final campaigning days, Axl Rose finally rising from the studio dead, the economy still being in the shitter and more VH1 reality spinoffs clogging up airwaves like diarrhea in a bidet, did somebody say thank god it's Shabbat?
No? Hm, yeah, I should have realized from our demographics research that NCDSUV somehow inspires a devoutly Protestant following.
Anyway, here are the top five things we learned this week, and hopefully you'll find them equally educating. Because if not, we can't refund your Web hits.
October winds things up well in the world of cable. The days leading up to Halloween typically makes for a veritable sweeps week for cable movie channels; a manic, senseless assault on the senses, top-loaded with horror, sci-fi and thrillers. They don't call it “SHOCKTOBER” for nothin’. Dig if you will these Films from the Cable Afterlife. (Listings in EST.)
8. End Of The Game (1975)
Fox Movie Channel, Thursday, October 30, 11pm
Suitably rare, this is the kind of thriller worthy of a cult revival. Director Maximillian Schell and screenwriter Friedrich Dürrenmatt (based on his novel The Judge and His Hangman) pit hard-nosed cop Jon Voight against murderous captain of industry Robert Shaw, with Jacqueline Bisset as the bait between their hooks. Ennio Morricone did the score. It’s nowhere to be seen on DVD. In fact, it's so obscure, the best representation we could find of it was this poster.
7. Money Train (1995)
HBO-Zone, Tuesday October 28, 7:05pm
The second teaming up of Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes found both actors on top of the world when this overblown actioner was released. As transit cops raised as brothers, they buck the system until the system bucks back, forcing them to carry out a daring robbery of the NYC Subway’s daily take. Robert Blake co-stars as a Satanic hamster/MTA superintendent, and Chris Cooper shows up as a psychopath who torches token clerks inside their own booths (which, incidentally, became a copycat crime in the city the weekend the film was released). J. Lo shows up and gets punched in the face by Snipes. Scenes were shot inside McHale’s on 46th and 8th, now long-gone. This was the home of my favorite burger in NYC. I miss it more than this movie, for sure.
6. The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962)
Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, October 25, 2am
This seldom-screened piece of anarchy will ring most true around Election Day, a self-made shit-stirrer by writer/actor/director/co-producer Timothy Carey. He plays the title role, a salesman who becomes bored with life, becomes a rock ‘n’ roll evangelist, renames himself “God” and starts the “Eternal Man” political party. You can imagine how this ends, but you won’t believe how it gets there. Featuring musical contributions from a very young Frank Zappa; you won’t see this one anywhere else anytime soon, so you’d best see it now. And for true Zappa fans (of which I am decidedly not), TCM’s showing 200 Motels right after this one.
5. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT: The Ghost Of Yotsuya (1959)
IFC, Sunday, October, 26 8am Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)
IFC, Sunday, October 26, 9:30am
Wake up! Japanese horror artifacts, bright and early on a Sunday morning. While they’re all heading out to church, you’re chillin’ with The Ghost Of Yotsuya, that time-honored story of the samurai’s wife whose spirit returns to avenge her death at her husband’s hands. And while they’re all lining up for breakfast, glue yourself to the icky Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell, concerning a silvery snot monster-cum-psychic vampire that looks like the Terminator’s load, and enters its victims through a vulva-like gash in the forehead.
Wow, talk about a whirlwind five days. You know it's a nutty week when David Duchovny and Tea Leoni's inevitable split finally makes the front pages, but not NCDSUV's Top 5 Things We Learned This Week.
But not to worry. All that means is we had plenty of revelations from the likes of other megastar couples, multi-billion-dollar fast-food chains and, of course, our neverendingly illuminating presidential candidates. So enjoy, and hopefully you've learned as much as we have this week. And ideally lessons of greater societal import.
Dust-covered, sun-faded, plastic-reinforced rental boxes perched on shelves of video stores have outlived their utility. Closeout vendors for these outlets have come and gone. You gotta get your weird, wild movie fix off the Internet, or the old-fashioned way: off of late-night cable. Films From The Cable Afterlife returns again this week to guide you through the maze of last year’s dross to find the good stuff. (All listings in EST.)
8. Black Book (2006)
Starz, Tuesday, October 21, 3:40am
The return of monster Dutch cult cinema maven Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct, Total Recall) landed a bit more quietly than some might have hoped, but them’s the breaks when you use subtitles. Pretty sure that Verhoeven could care less, though; his comeback feature is a more personal tale concerning a comely Jewish refugee (Carice van Houten) who leads a resistance effort against the Nazis near the end of the war. All of Verhoeven’s visceral filmmaking tricks are back in play, though this time they’re lashed to the trunk of an old-timey espionage thriller. That it’s a somewhat long story doesn’t help its fortunes, either, but there’s some very nearly Ilsa-level debasement going on within, and since the grand guignol filmmaking boom of a few years back (Hostel and the like) has gone bust, fans of the outrageous need to take it where they can get it.
7. Apocalypto (2005)
Encore, Tuesday, October 21, 4:05am, STARZ INBLACK, Friday, October 24, 2am
We can’t watch Mel Gibson with the same eyes anymore, but we all remember his intensity; even in comedies he seemed ready to shake the film loose from the sprockets. His last effort to date, Apocalypto, may never get the audience it might otherwise warrant. That’s all well and good, but if you do decide to jump in with this one, understand that it’s not too far removed from your jungle/cannibal massacre movies of the late '70s and early '80s. Take that as a recommendation or a warning.
6. The Driver (1978)
Fox Movie Channel, Wednesday, October 22, 4pm, Thursday, October 23, 4am
Walter Hill’s second feature is a stark, open affair with nameless characters chasing one another to justice. Ryan O’Neal is a getaway driver, and Bruce Dern the detective bent on stopping him. Hill has been one of the leading names in action and thriller cinema since the ‘70s, and most of his films have the same gut-punch as Samuel Fuller or Sam Peckinpah in their respective primes. Hill’s cooled-out style makes every instance where this one amps up that much more gripping, and the driving stunts can’t be beat.
5. The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976)
Turner Classic Movies, Saturday, October 18, 12:30am
Super-creepy thriller starring a young Jodie Foster (with a nude scene, doubled by her sister, Connie) as a teenage girl who lives with her father in a seaside rental. Thing is, nobody’s actually seen the father, and anyone who questions the arrangement is dispensed with. A taut, unnerving psychological thriller from Foster’s blossoming days as an actress, also starring Martin Sheen and Scott “Bad Ronald” Jacoby. Sleazier than you might think, with a smut pedigree that’s somewhat shocking now, but par for the course with the film’s drive-in roots.
What a week, what a week. I'm personally all verklempt. Between the election race warming up, the economy cooling and down, and celebrities still indulgently frolicking around, it's been tough for NCDSUV to keep its panties unbunched. Or maybe that's just the fabric softener we've been using.
Well, in any case, from fetishizing the Obamas to taking a piss on your favorite movies and DirecTV scaring us with their tasteless Poltergeist ad, here's the top five things we learned this week.
It's been quite a Sabbath-cycle in pop culture land, as the world of celebretards met in a head-on collision with some surreal political doings. We hope you've been as entertained as we have by the last seven days of shenanigans, but in case you're a Chicago Cubs fan and have spent the past 48 hours buried in a pile of your own tears (sorry, low blow, but I'm a bitter Mets loyalist), here are the top 5 things NCDSUV took out of the week in mass culture that was:
Back to the delirious well of cinematic by-products, culled with two hands out of this week’s cable TV listings. You haven’t seen this kind of action since your video store got rid of VHS tapes. Films from the Cable Afterlife enters Shocktober 2008 with a look at lurid scares and desperate dramas for a desperate time (and as always make sure to check your local listings).
8. The Rose (1979)
Fox Movie Channel, Sunday 10/5 10pm
This movie has been on my personal recommendation list for a while, and it’s not hard to tell why: It’s 101 percent insane. Like, bat-shit, pants-crapping insane, and if that sort of thing intrigues you, then treat yourself. Bette Midler cuts huge gashes in her psychic cloth, never to be repaired, in a go-for-broke portrayal of a Janis Joplin-esque rocker over the last few days of her life. You also get Alan Bates barking platitudes like “Welcome to rock and roll!” and a supremely creepy scene with Midler’s former lesbian flame. But really I shouldn’t reveal too much more if you haven’t seen it. It’s classic melodrama; stagey and tacky given its date, but so mind-searingly direct and painful that you will likely be changed after having seen it. Allegedly this was Johnny Carson’s favorite movie. Find out why.
7. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT DeepStar Six (1989)
Encore Action, Tuesday 10/7 10:20am Deep Rising (1998)
Encore Action, Tuesday 10/7 11:35pm
The first of a few underwater sci-fi movies to surface in the late ‘80s, along with Leviathan and The Abyss, Sean S. Cunningham’s DeepStar Six made no bones about what it had set out to do: introduce a squad of actors living in a model of a deep sea research center to a giant crustacean intent on eating them. While it could use a little more drawn butter (hunky lead Greg Evigan of My Two Dads fame doesn’t cut it), this is the most fun of any of its kind of film, ridiculous as it is watchable, in no small part thanks to great character actors like Miguel Ferrer as a backstabbing loudmouth whose skin splits open as he escapes the facility without decompressing. Then towel off with Deep Rising, as Treat Williams rides jet skis through a wrecked cruise ship besieged by hydrophilic squid creatures.
6. BLAXPLOITATION TRIPLE FEATURE ALERT Coffy (1973)
IFC, Wednesday 10/8 9pm, Thursday 10/9 12:15am Foxy Brown (1974)
IFC, Wednesday 10/8 10:35pm, Thursday 10/9 2am Brotherhood Of Death (1976)
IFC, Saturday 10/4 4:30am Trouble Man (1972)
Looks like a great week for blaxploitation on cable, with some of the genre’s finest joined by a handful of films rarely screened. Jack Hill made Coffy and Foxy Brown back-to-back with budding starlet Pam Grier, and they’re both among the greatest successes of early ‘70s action cinema. Both films depict a righteous, powerful firebrand in Grier, whether she’s kicking heroin and clawing some hick’s eyes out with coat hangers, or slipping razor blades into her afro and getting into a catfight. The action continues with the slopfest Brotherhood Of Death, an off-season bon mot for Washington Redskins Mike Thomas and Roy Jefferson as two Nam vets who drive the Klan out of suburban Maryland. And if you’ve never seen Trouble Man, with Robert Hooks sticking it to Papa Walton Ralph Waite, it’s worth at least one look, particularly due to its moody Marvin Gaye score.
5. LARRY CLARK TRIPLE FEATURE ALERT Another Day In Paradise (1997)
Showtime Extreme, Tuesday 10/7 8:05pm, Wednesday 10/8 3:15am Bully (2001)
IFC, Monday 10/6 12am Wassup Rockers (2005)
Sundance Channel, Wednesday 10/8 4pm, Thursday 10/9 1pm
Here’s a great triple feature, highlighting the best films of director Larry Clark. Famous first as a photographer, then as a director following Kids, the Tulsa-born visual artist hit a streak of passion projects that rank among the more significant American independent offerings of the last decade. Another Day In Paradise is Clark’s most traditionally Hollywood film in scope, and the small-time criminal story didn’t make a lot of waves. Still, it features top-notch performances from Melanie Griffith and a beaming, unruly James Woods as a junkie couple who teach their thieving, drug-dealing ways to young scrappers Natasha Gregson Wagner (where is she now?) and Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser. It’s a period film – some indeterminate ‘60s or ‘70s stretch of nowhere America – and the music and details are down cold. Bully might be Clark’s most successful film as pure cinema, but it’s every inch as lurid as his previous works would have you believe, anchored by brutal performances from Nick Stahl and the late Brad Renfro. Wassup Rockers was Clark’s last feature, and definitely his loosest, a loving romp with a group of Latino skater teens from the barrio to Beverly Hills. Almost conversational in its presence, Clark makes you care about these kids, no matter how absurd the situation.
It's been a wild week, both here in the NCDSUV chambers and in the jungle of pop culture. I think I speak for all of us when I say that, were it not for the last five days' admissions of homosexuality, a previously admitted homosexual's concession to crack-attacks, Emmy winners' self-righteous Republican-bashing and other momentarily news-making moments I'd be... well, I'd probably more or less be fine and move on with my weekend.
But anyhow, here's the top 5 things we learned this week:
Stuck to the bottom of the cable network floor, these unattended delicacies might otherwise have fallen through the cracks. Lucky for you we have a nose for crap. Films From The Cable Afterlife returns with the top seven mind-scrambling movie suggestions for the coming week. We’re also heading into October, aka Shocktober, so expect a dive into uncharted territory. But for now, read, watch and learn (and as always, check your local listings for proper airtimes).
7. DOUBLE FEATURE ALERT Night of the Lepus (1972)
TCM, Saturday 9/27 2am The Giant Claw (1957)
TCM, Saturday 9/27 3:30am
Bottom of the barrel creach-feach that you may want to see at least once, but probably not more than that. Lepus is a busted-sprockets classic about a little kid who tampers with an agricultural survey, resulting in a herd of giant rabbits that threatens to devour the Southwest. The rabbits smash miniatures, growl like lions and are accompanied by some of the most nauseating audio ever featured in a film, via an undulating carpet of synth imitating the sound of boiling whale fat. There’s one nightmarish scene where a screaming little girl watches a migrant worker get pulled into a hole by a rabbit with ketchup around its mouth, but the downtrodden tone and preposterous premise taken seriously by wooden actors like Stuart Whitman and Star Trek's DeForest Kelley keep everything in the gutter. Saddle-brown sets and flat cinematography make the movie look like a Sears. It’s so ludicrous that you wish they’d have simply dispensed with the story and went with whatever the filmmakers were trying to say. Afterwards, TCM features late ‘50s bird-dropping The Giant Claw, all about an enormous buzzard from outer space that destroys cities, fishes teens out of their hot rods and cannot be destroyed. It’s a big guilt-complex movie, a stern Catholic warning that some unbelievable, unknown force is going to kill you violently, for no reason, because you stole a pack of baseball cards once when you were a kid.
6. The Burning (1981)
IFC, Thursday 10/2 9pm, 1:45am
Mean-spirited upstate slasher from the time when such movies were a staple of the American movie industry. This one’s a little more notable than most, as it was the first Miramax production, and features a cast full of actors who later became something: Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander and Fisher Stevens all show up to summer camp, only to get cut up with lawn shears by a vengeful handyman, burned alive in a prank gone wrong years ago. Brian Backer (Mark Ratner from Fast Times At Ridgemont High) stars as the misunderstood pervert who is mistaken for the real killer. Bad vibes, bad for you.
5. Shooter (2007)
Showtime, Fri 9/26, 7pm
There’s a backstory in this long, classically modeled revenge film, but you needn’t concern yourself with it. Rather, tune in around 8 p.m., or fast forward an hour on your DVR, and just watch it from there. You’ll figure out everything that happened in the movie as it runs, and you’ll jump to all the crazy-insane Mark Wahlberg headshot sniper kill scenes. Ned Beatty is one of the villains, and Danny Glover too. Opposite day happens every time this movie is shown.
4. Hard Target (1993)
Encore, Wednesday 10/1, 4:15am
John Woo used to be so great. Sam Raimi, too. See them work together to wrassle firebrand Jean Claude Van Damme into Cajun territory, as a journeyman dockworker who plays The Most Dangerous Game against Lance Henriksen and a band of no-gooders. Ridiculous in every sense, Hard Target brings a wild, visceral, “anything goes” mindset to the standard Bayou action thriller. Plus, how many of these movies have Wilford Brimley with that accent? Van Damme was never better, unless you count Tsui Hark’s Knock Off (which I hope gets shown on cable soon … that is the one to watch).
You asked for it, and you got it: even more picks out of the clogged nose of cable television. These are the movies “they” don’t want you to watch, containing all the blood, guts, unintentional hilarity and genuine weirdness that the bowels of Hollywood have to offer this week. Set up your DVR and grab these top nine (and as usual, check your local listings for proper showtimes).
9. Joanna (1968)
Fox Movie Channel, Thurs 9/25 2:00 P.M.
Beyond-bizarre, high-camp melancholy starring Genevieve Paige (Bijou Phillips’ mom) in the title role of a well-meaning but clueless young mod pinballing through art school, London society, and a life of crime. Director Michael Sarne was a former pop singer, and if he didn’t necessarily have good taste, he certainly knew how to stage a scene─his next movie was Myra Breckinridge, a tremendous X-rated flop in which Rex Reed is turned into Raquel Welch. It’s hard to even sum up what’s going on in Joanna, but the amount of money spent making it happen is right up there on the screen. It also features a young Donald Sutherland, who plays dying royalty like he’s trying to win a Dewey Award, loads of dated film treatments and a huge dance number to close it all up. Scott Walker sings the movie’s theme song, right in the middle, in a sequence worth watching. It’s a massive trainwreck of a film, but gorgeous in so many moments.
8. Death Sentence (2007)
Cinemax, Fri 9/19 8:00 P.M., and OnDemand
Hockey dad Kevin Bacon retaliates against the multicultural South Carolina street gang that murdered his son in this recent revenge thriller, the kind that you just don’t see enough of anymore. This is prime Golan-Globus level material─senseless violence gutted by hilarious improbabilities in service of the story, based on source material by Death Wish author Brian Garfield and directed by Saw’s James Wan. Wan displays a sense of reverence to the material, with a gripping centerpiece scene that runs a foot race into a parking garage and culminates with Bacon tying up a guy in a car and pushing it off the roof. Co-starring Garrett Hedlund (who?), Kelly Preston and John Goodman in a really regrettable role as a Falling Down-style grease monkey who fences guns.
7. Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982)
Cinemax (ThrillerMax), Thu 9/25 3:15 A.M.
Sing along with me! “THREE MORE DAYS TIL HALLOWEEN! SILLLL-VERRRR SHAMROCK!” One of the worst-received sequels of all time─one which squashed plans to deliver a new, non-Michael Myers-involved Halloween movie every year─actually holds up as one of the more entertaining seasonal horror films you could hope to discover. Medical doctor and concerned dad Tom Atkins squares off against the warlock-run organization that plans to kill millions of children using special Halloween masks; each contains microchips made from Stonehenge, and will cause the tots’ heads to explode in a mass of bugs, worms and slime. It plays like a long episode of Tales From The Darkside, albeit way more enjoyable.
6. Joshua (2007)
Cinemax (MoreMax), Fri 9/19 5:45 P.M.;
Cinemax (OuterMax), Sat 9/20, 1:00 P.M;
Cinemax (WMax), Sun 9/21 11:00 A.M., Wed 9/24 9:50 A.M.
Overlooked at its initial release, here’s an unpleasant, unnerving thriller about a stockbroker (Sam Rockwell) whose life begins to come apart at the seams following the birth of his daughter. No sense in hiding it now─the culprit is likely nine-year-old prodigy Joshua (Jacob Kogan, one of the kids from Wonder Showzen), who’s moving up from killing his stuffed animals to his grandma. Vera Farmiga can’t find footing as the mom, who goes slowly insane, but Rockwell hangs on until the bitter end, director George Ratliff sticking it to his cool, rich-dad persona as hard as it can be stuck. This one’s down there with Bad Ronald and Bloody Birthday as a dark, miserable pit of child-induced anguish. Musical score provided by indie-classical crossover hotshot Nico Muhly, braying in glee at the most inopportune times.
There will always be at least a handful of movies on television during any given week with the power to warp your mind, plunge your head straight into the trash and have you asking for more. We document these cinematic rarities each week in Films From The Cable Afterlife.
Going back to last week, how many of you got it together enough to watch Together Brothers? That was pretty wild, man. Galveston, Texas looked like the most desolate place on earth, children were thrust into danger, and who expected the drag queens to show up? Outta hand, folks. Discuss amongst yourselves in the Comments section. But for now, enjoy this teaser of the next week's most watchable unwatchable cable obscurities. And remember to check your local listings for accurate showtimes.
5. Shopping (1994; d. Paul W.S. Anderson)
IFC, Sunday September 14th, 12:15 – 2:00 A.M.
Early Paul W.S. Anderson “appreciation” continues (see: last week's breakdown of Event Horizon) with his first feature, starring Jude Law and Sadie Frost as disaffected British teens who participate in “ram-riding,” or stealing expensive cars and driving them through shop windows, then stealing the goods inside. Banned in several London theaters for its suggestive violence, and issued by Roger Corman two years after its 1994 UK premiere, this mess at least has a great soundtrack going for it, featuring cuts by Sabres of Paradise, Smith and Mighty and Utah Saints (!). More interesting than that of his follow-up, Mortal Kombat. Still, it’s a crucial step in knowing your enemy, particularly if your enemy is a hack like Anderson.
4. Where Have All the People Gone? (1974; d. John Llwellyn Moxey)
Fox Movie Channel, Tuesday September 16th, 4:30 – 6:00 A.M.
Say you’re one of those kinds of people who decides to go out on a Monday night. You d stay out until 4 a.m. getting loaded with the handful of others who have adapted to this sort of life. You wind up going home and look to TV to help you to unwind. Not this time, pal. Where Have All The People Gone? is a sneak attack surprise, a made-for-TV science fiction movie designed to terrify and harass viewers into lifelong phobias. Peter Graves, Verna Bloom and a young Kathleen Quinlan star as a family trying to return to Malibu following the eruption of a solar flare that has turned most of humanity to dust, and made animals vicious and insane. Made on a tight budget, the film’s shocking imagery, like the remnants of a woman’s anguished face sitting atop a pile of white powder, serves as a ruiner, searing scarring memories into your consciousness that you may never be able to shake. And since it’s from the ‘70s, expect the downbeat ending, and for everything to be less OK in the end thank when it started.
I feel bad for cable television, a juggernaut slowly dying a death against streaming video, bit torrents, Netflix and whatever other avenues of content provision are out there, stealing its thunder. Cable is great in that there are still a handful of mavericks working hard to curate monthly programming schedules ranging from challenging to rare to obscurely absurd; the kind you’ll never forget, and sometimes the kind you wish you could.
Films Fom The Cable Afterlife will highlight a handful of these offerings every Friday─the weird, wild, rare, camp, gonzo and just plain stupid─including movies you can’t find on DVD or video. This week, we have overweight guys in superhero costumes, amateur actors in a bombed-out, real-life ghetto and one of the grisliest horror films made by a studio in the ‘90s. Read on, and set your DVR accordingly.
(Note: all times listed are for Eastern time zones, and we list the start of a new day at midnight, not six in the morning; cable channels have the right to change their programming decisions at any time; yadda yadda yadda. Less explain-y, more movie talk-y.)
5. TRIPLE FEATURE ALERT: The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964; d. Ray Dennis Steckler); Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966; d. Ray Dennis Steckler); Bride of the Monster”(1955, d. Edward D. Wood, Jr.)
Saturday, September 6, 2:00 – 6:00 a.m., Turner Classic Movies
Kind of boilerplate cult movies here, but as good a way as any to kick this feature off; you probably won’t find anything stranger on TV this week or next. TCM’s cult Undergroundseries, formerly hosted by Rob Zombie, runs along without him, largely repeating a schedule concocted earlier this year. Still, it’s no small feat to showcase a double feature by Steckler, a true Hollywood outsider who starred in many of his films under the name Cash Flagg (and looks uncomfortably like Nicolas Cage). Incredibly Strange Creatures has an overlong title and was sent up on MST3K back in the day, but stripped of comic narration, it’s a wild and somewhat unsettling tableau of amateur eroticism and romance-as-death metaphor, held together by the free and wild camerawork of a just-emigrated Vilmos Zsigmond. Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (they screwed up the title and didn’t bother to fix it) is even looser, pitting goofball rockabilly musicians Ronnie Haydock and Titus Moede against girl snatchers in ridiculous superhero costumes. Top it all off with Boris Karloff, Tor Johnson and a rubber octopus in Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster and you might not be able to form complete sentences by dawn.
4. Together Brothers
Sunday, September 7, 4:00 – 6:00 a.m., Fox Movie Channel
The ‘90s saw blaxploitation cinema’s stock rise, yet it’s still hard to see some of the genre’s many entries. Together Brothersm shot in downtown Houston and released in 1974, remains lost to time, and I’d guess that paying out the rights Barry White’s original soundtrack is a big reason why you can’t see this one on DVD. Rarely screened anywhere, this story of three young kids trying to find the man who killed a neighborhood cop might not blow your mind, but what if it does?
