TheDenizen talks Big Muscles and Body Slams

Early Happy New Year, fellow ninjas.

It's been a few months but TheDenizen is back from the wilderness to serve up the goods on some more awesomely bad flicks.

Today I'm going to review a selection of wrestling movies. Pro wrestling is something that most of us like, even if it isn't really accepted by mainstream culture (I know it has had it's heydays, but it's definitely on a long downswing at the moment). Wrestling is generally seen as a niche interest of rednecks and trailer trash, and any references to it are usually mocking in tone. It's considered low brow, low budget entertainment.

It's not surprising then, that most wrestling films are cheap, low budget affairs made for the grindhouse market. They're also usually from Mexico or Japan (where the purists know the best pro wrestling is anyways)...there were dozens of movies starring Mexican luchador Santo in the 60s and 70s. Anyways, here's a handful of capsule reviews for some of my favorite wrestling flicks.

Calamari Wrestler - Cheesy wrasslin action from Japan, this one is a pretty formulaic underdog/sports movie kinda like Rocky, with the catch that the main character is a guy in a big, fake looking rubber squid costume. All the other actors treat him as though he were a real giant squid, and ignore the inherent strangeness of it. Very dry humor as the whole cast just plays every scene completely straight faced opposite a massive cephalopod. Hilarious.

Enter Zombie King - Gloriously campy lucha libre flick from Canada that features a group of technicos led by Ulysses fighting against evil rudo Zombie King and his undead hordes. Pretty much everyone in the movie wears a wrestling mask at all times, and Ulysses is constantly spouting ridiculous nonsense philosophies. It's got hot chicks, a great surf soundtrack, a Jim Neidhart cameo, and tons of dudes beating up zombies with snapmares and huracanranas. You could do a lot worse.

The Wrestler - Despite being a low budget indy film, this movie is the exception in that it's a serious drama about a washed up pro wrestler, and not just some schlocky junk. This is a really great flick and Mickey Rourke gives an amazing performance as the pathetic and broken down Randy the Ram. It won awards and deservedly revitalized his career. Some of the overwrought emotional stuff with the daughter came off as a little hokey, but it's just a crushing experience. Every pro wrestling fan should see it.

Oh! My Zombie Mermaid - Real life grappler Shinya Hashimoto stars as a pro wrestler whose wife is severely injured in an explosion and begins to transform into a mermaid. Unable to pay the medical bills, he is forced to accept a big money death match against a faction of rogue killer wrestlers called DDD. The first half hour or so is just set up but the last hour is solid insanely over the top wrestling action in a series of escalating battles. It's like a bad anime come to life, in a good way.

3 Dev Adam - Granted, this film is only tangentially related to wrestling, but it's such a great flick I relish any opportunity to talk about it. It's a Turkish superhero film in which knockoff versions of Captain America and the famous luchador Santo are brought in by Turkish police to help them stop evil knockoff Spiderman who is on a terrible crime spree. It's seriously insane watching a paunchy Spiderman climb up a drainpipe and stab a woman to death in the shower. Spidey terrorizes people with hungry gerbils. A woman gets killed with an outboard motor in the first minute. If you haven't seen this flick, find it. It's gold.

There's a bunch of other wrestling flicks to be had as well...I've got a few of the authentic Santo films on my "to-watch" pile. Plus there's a Japanese film called Rikidozan, a biopic about pioneering Korean wrestling star of the same name that is excellent by most accounts. And if you can stomach Jack Black's particular brand of "humor", I suppose Nacho Libre is a technically a lucha film too. Of course there's also Hulk Hogan's terrible movies, but other than No Holds Barred, his movies weren't really about wrestling anyways.

Happy viewing.

Whoops

I posted this by accident.

Use the comment section to call me nasty names.

Great Week for Cartoons

So the last week was great for Cartoons. There was not one, but two really good animated features on Cartoon Network. Firebreather and Young Justice.

Firebreather was a very solid program. It's loosely based on the comic book by Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn. The basic premise is a high school kid who is the son of a dragon and a human. The only real negatives about the entire feature was that in the not so action oriented scenes, the animation is weird. The move like the old animatronic band at Chuck E Cheese. This also was not an issue during the fight scenes. The other negative was an extremely out of place parkour scene which was stupid and unnecessary (like every Parkour scene in every movie ever). Those two things aside, Firebreather was very entertaining. I don't know if they have any future plans for it, but I would certainly hope so.

The other new cartoon was Young Justice. This got a little bit of noise a while back when they revealed the black Aqualad. He still looks goofy as hell, but at least he looks cooler than the Aqualad from the Teen Titans cartoon. This was only the pilot for the series that is planned, and the show really knocked it out of the park. Every character has a great introduction to the viewer (which is important in a show about several characters). It was bound to ruffle nerd feathers when they didn't follow the old Young Justice series (which is an amazing comic in it's own right), but it was really great. Everything was executed perfectly and there was nothing to change. Well except for Aqualad's blond hair. Sisqo looked stupid 13 years ago, and it looks just as dumb today as it did back then.

Both of these can be found fairly easily online (although when I was looking for Young Justice, I came across quite a few scame sites so don't go to a website you don't trust while looking for it) and I would recommend watching both of these if you have some time to spare (both are less than an hour each).

XBOX Indie Game Worth Buying: ZP2KX

If you haven't played the $1 XBOX Live Indie Game, ZP2K9, you're a doofus. There's a sequel coming. That's the trailer. It has online multiplayer and radical suits that give you powers. It's like Soldat... if Soldat wasn't so fucking bland.

This game is going to rock, and it's going to be worth your money.

EYE GAIRAWNTEE

I made another commercial.

Random Thoughts about tons of stuff.

I haven't written anything for here in a long time. Not because I was busy because some prick named Mark Isdell broke into my house and stole all my electronics because he doesn't want to go and get an actual job. So that sucked. The worst part was that I had a lot of stuff on the computer that was irreplaceable, mainly the manuscript I was writing, which I've started rewriting again but my heart is isn't in the same place about it.

So here is what I've been thinking about over the past 4 months or so.

Red, The Werewolf Hunter was one of the worst SyFy movies I've ever seen. I've watched a lot of them lately, and it was just awful. I'd put it barely a notch of The Phantom. First of all, can internerds (I just made that up) please stop pretending that Felicia Day is attractive. Because she really isn't. She's also a terrible actress. Which means SyFy had to get her in the title role of a movie about Little Red Riding Hood's descendants fighting Werewolves (sounds awesome). Then the movie hits every cliche you could think of. The werewolves looked a little cool though.

World of Warcraft is my main videogame right now (I play a hunter named Aksana on Korialstrasz if you want to play with someone as cool as me). As much as I like the actual game, I find the community seems to get worse as the new expansion looms in (Cataclysm, and it looks like it will be awesome). I've never seen a group of nerds who despise nerd culture as much as WoW players. Anything new in the game sucks, because things were always better before YOU played. There is an elitist problem where people think that they are the ULTIMATE player of the game. The one who knows all and everyone else is a moron. It doesn't matter how bad they play, it's YOUR fault because they have been playing for 5 years so it couldn't possible be their fault. Other than the D-Bags, the game is a blast, and one hell of a time killer.

Why the hell havent' we gotten a good SOCOM game on next gen consoles yet? I've been playing some SOCOM 3 lately (great game even though it looks like ass nowadays) and I can't believe how bad Confrontation was. There are so many things that SOCOM does right that other developers haven't even bothered to try out. Like intergrated Clan systems. Not just some silly initials before your name, but there is a Clan Menu where you can view members. It really isn't the same thing as a friend's list and several games could benefit from this feature.

Jackass 3D was such a good experience. When people make a movie and they are having fun, it really makes that much of a difference. Also there was a lot less penii (that's the plural of Penis) in this movie than in number 2. Which is a plus for some.

Avengers Cartoon: I think it's subtitled Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but who cares, it's the only Avengers cartoon on Disney XD. This is the best superhero cartoon I've ever seen. It's amazing. If you're a fan of The Avengers you have to watch this cartoon (and get over how stupid the Wasp looks, she had worse costumes in the comics several times).

I can't wait for the Christmas Special for Doctor Who this year. Matt Smith was even better than David Tennant and you're doing yourself a disservice if you haven't watched the last season of Doctor Who.

The Captain America movie pictures from a few weeks ago, made the movie look 100 times better than I originally thought. I like Chris Evans, but I didn't think he was a good choice for Cap. This is why I'm not a casting director, because he looked exactly like Captain America should. Hopefully the movie has a good story because I don't just want a movie that looks cool. Learn the lessons that Iron Man taught comic book movies. People like pretty action movies, but they love pretty action movies with likable characters and a plot that actually plots.

Batman: Under the Red Hood was the best comic book movie I've ever seen. I don't even like Batman that much but this was awesome. DC has been on a roll with their animated movies (Marvel not so much).

The Losers was the second best comic book movie. Seriously. It didn't do anything new for an action movie, but everything it did was great. The elements combined like Captain Planet only instead of fighting shitty eco terrorists he made a good movie.

Pay Per Channel TV

by SonnyBone
------------

I'm thinking about canceling my cable TV subscription because I pay TOO MUCH for what I actually watch. With NETFLIX and HULU becoming more readily available by the day, I think satellite and cable tv providers need to find a solution and find it fast.

MY SOLUTION: Let me pay for the channels I want and nothing more.

Right now I'm paying a ridiculous amount of money for access to hundreds of channels when I seriously only watch 10. Charge me a buck twenty five per channel per month and you've got a deal that's on par with my HD Netflix subscription.

Then if I see something that I want to watch that's not on my subscription service, make me pay a dollar to watch it. That'll bring you some extra income and may force me to think about adding it to my monthly lineup.

Either way, these network and cable stations need to suck it up and realize that their shit is OLD and SUCKY.

Cop Drama

So my group has been working on a new project. The group is down to four people to be honest, but I think this turned out entertaining. It's called "Cop Drama" and is about two cops on the beat. Two episodes are finished and on Youtube, and we have scripts for three more that are ready to be filmed. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Dental Hygiene

I swear, bamboo toothpicks are absolutely AWESOME.

The only things better for the whole "food between your teeth" situation are FLOSS...

...and just not having anything between your teeth at all.

Bamboo toothpicks. Seriously. Just raid your local Chinese restaurant for 'em next time. It's totally worth it.

Shameless Whoring

So the last couple of months every post I've made has been whoring of my work. I think that's unfair to this blog. In fact I did a teaser for an upcoming movie last month that I've declined to post here cause I don't want to just throw my stuff up on here with no content. It's shameless whoring.




Alright, moving on. I got a few things I do want to post about. I saw some movies the past month I want to sorta review.


Piranha 3D

What a good time at the movies. It starts off with an AMAZING cameo by Richard Dreyfuss, and ends with Christopher Lloyd being cartoonishly overly dramatic. This film had tension, comedy, gore, nudity, and characters that I cared about at the end. James Cameron talked some crap about Piranha, but this movie needed to be in 3D more than Avatar. My favorite 3D part is either the dead Piranha's flying up towards the camera as Michael Clark Duncan hams it up, or the two naked chicks swimming underwater. Overall I think it was one of the best movies of the summer and far from the disappointment it could have been.


Machete

This is where I'm sorta gonna review The Expendables as well as Machete. The Expendables feels like Stallone didn't try. Replace the cast and get rid of a few explosions and you can watch this movie on straight-to-DVD...well, you don't have to replace Dolph Lundgren. Not enough action, plot, tension, or much of anything. Just kind of a nice payday for the lot of them. All the talk about cumming and getting pregnant was all hype.

Machete, on the other hand, delivers a movie I didn't expect. It had all the cool action and awesome shit that was shown in the trailers, but I thought the plot, acting, and characters were fantastic. Everything was developed nicely and you got good quiet scenes with all the characters to learn about their motivations and such. Expendables was just very generic and hollow. Machete is the action flick of the summer in my humble opinion.


Devil

A very good horror/thriller/mystery. Not a scene feels unnecessary, it's inventive enough, has a great pace at 80 minutes, and in the end the tension of this movie makes it feel twice as long. That's a very good thing when you're on the edge of your seat. I'm not saying it's mind-blowing, but it's good & worth the 9 dollar ticket. I'm anxiously awaiting the other Night Chronicles.

I am a teacher again

This time dealing with In School Suspension only. Expect a lot more out of the WD.

So let's start it back up with "WHAT I ATE"

Last night the lady and I went to the grocery, in a torrential downpour mind you, and got the makings for veggie lasagna. I don't know how you feel about cooked meat in the oven, but I hate it. I also hate beef. It's the grossest thing since egg farts. So she made the lasagna, I made the salad and corn, and we made some garlic bread.

Was it good?

Yes! It looked like Scars child vomited on my plate after her fed her grass again, but it was really good. The salad was superb, and the corn was amazing as usual.

I think this is going to turn into a recipe sharing area. Ninjas Eat? Help me with a name.

WD

Sergeant Sludge

This is a movie we made years ago. Early 2006. It was a total tribute to the Toxic Avenger and Troma in general. This one was never finished and if you notice only two people from "Of Dice and Men" were in this one. I was also a lot skinnier back then...

This is also only 6 minutes so give it a watch. I imagine most people gave up on the other movie I posted long before the rape scene, but this goes by pretty quick and is interesting enough in my opinion.

I made a commercial.

Did a commercial for our friends over at www.karatemart.com. They needed an authentic ninja such as myself, so I was happy to oblige.

I love WMAC Masters

Well, WMAC Masters, the ENTIRE SERIES, is up on http://www.4kidstv.com/wmac-masters

I *love* this show. Seriously.

Watching it again, it holds up really well, but is also horrible. HORRIBLY AWESOME. On the rad/sucks scale, it's rad, for sure.

So yeah, I'm going to start reviewing episodes. You can watch every episode online and follow along with me.

Headninja Tromataker

The New Phantom Movie Sucks

The Phantom (2010)

To sum up this movie, it's a symphony of stupid. From almost the opening scene to the end, the movie just scoffs at intelligence. There are going to be some spoilers ahead, so if you care about the integrity of a SyFy movie, you might want to stop reading.

Lets get the good things out of the way before I begin to just insult every single thing about this movie that they made for SyFy. The acting isn't that bad, and for the most part, the camera work is good.

Now comes the shit that just destroys every positive thing there could be about this movie.

-A very poor car chase. Nothing positive about this, because it just flashes between a woman and her kid, named Kit, being chased by some dudes in another vehicle. Then the bad guys start shooting at them with automatic weapons and manage to hit nobody, but then the mom drives the car into a river. At which time, the bad guys use a cell phone to declare that they are dead.to whoever their boss is.

-An evil Cable company. Seriously. An evil cable company that has mind control technology. FUCK. YOU.


-Parkour. This is the worst thing to hit movies. It looks silly, and it's fucking stupid. I can understand people who like to DO it, but if you enjoy watching it, you're a moron and I hope you get sterilized before your mouth breathing mongoloid children join the world's population.

-Oh I'm sorry, they aren't an evil cable company, they're an evil Hindu terrorist group consisting of some Indian dude, and a bunch of white people who seem like they think that he is going to rape them.

-So when the police arrest you for misdemeanors (and going as far as arresting you for crimes without any evidence or indication of the crime even happening), they enter your DNA into a computer system. I know that this is bullshit, because I got arrested for an actual crime and they didn't check my DNA. BECAUSE THAT ISN'T LEGAL.

-But it gets worse. Not only did they check his DNA illegaly, but apparently people just sit around monitoring DNA checks and then compare them to the DNA of a guy that has been dead for 20 years to see if they're related. This wasn't even the Evil Cable Company doing this retarded shit, this was the Good Guy secret organization.

-Ah, but the bad guys know the same information and sent ASSASSINS!!!!!! OH SHIT, THESE ASSASSINS KNOW PARKOUR. THIS SHIT JUST GOT EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEME.

-Again, Parkour is fucking stupid. Just fucking stupid.

-OH. A suit that gets signals from your brain (without being connected to your brain in any way) that becomes invincible when you think about it. It also gives super strength through the magic power of imaginary science.

-Ah the old I rechamber my .45s to shoot bigger bullets even though I never use guns to kill trick.

-Oh! Now I understand. The bad guys want to keep the Middle East unstable because they are EEEEEVIIIIIIL.

-MORE PARKOUR.

And that was The Phantom.

TheDenizen's TV Movie of the Century

Howdy, ninja gang...I'm back from my vision quest in the desert.

I've been caught in the swirling undertow of the time sink that is Read Dead Redemption for the last several weeks (too soon to declare GOTY?), but I've finally finished that up and gotten back into the swing of watching the crappiest movies I can find. I've got a backlog of shit to watch that would stagger a proctologist, so I soldier on.

One of the unexpected joys of mining the depths of lesser known world cinema is the occasional unearthing of an absolute gem. I recently watched the 1984 British made-for-TV nuclear holocaust film Threads, and not only was it the best film I've seen in ages, it gets my nod as the best TV movie I've ever encountered. I thought it would be a bit of a laugh, but I was dead wrong.

There are a couple of types of post-holocaust film: the predominant Mad Max action type, with outlaws and raiders racing around the wasteland and blowing each other up over resources, and the rarer scaremongering type which try to frighten people with dramatizations of how horrible the aftermath of nuclear war would truly be. Probably the best known American example of the latter is "The Day After", another TV movie from the same Cold War era as Threads. However, The Day After was full of melodrama and Hollywood heroics, and painted a cheesily unrealistic picture. The blunt realism of Threads is shocking in comparison.

Threads focuses on two working class families in Sheffield, England, which is the country's fourth largest city and one of the main centers of industry. The film slowly builds up the characters of Ruth and Jimmy, a young couple expecting a child, as well as their parents and siblings. In the beginning, there are news reports of tensions in the Middle East that everyone ignores. But as Jimmy and Ruth find an apartment and begin building their lives together, the tensions suddenly escalate into a very real threat of war between America and the USSR.

As panic gradually builds, people begin hoarding food and building bomb shelters according to government issued instructions. Contingency plans are put into motion, but suddenly 200 megatons falls on England and fucks up everything. Millions are killed in the initial blasts, and the survivors quickly discover that their shelters are woefully inadequate. Weakened by radiation sickness, hunger and disease, many millions more don't survive the first weeks. The film then continues on to tell the story of some of the few people remaining in England over the course of the next 13 years, struggling to cope with the reality of a world where everything left is irradiated.

The brilliance of Threads is twofold. One, it is disturbingly realistic looking. The filmmakers employed the expert knowledge of many scientists and nuclear theorists in writing the script, and filmed in a documentary style. The direction is flat, there is a monotone voiceover filling in necessary details, and almost no music to speak of. It feels real. Two, it doesn't flinch away from the horrific truth of the effects of nuclear explosions and fallout at all. Burning corpses, dead children, desperate and violent looters, radiation burns and projectile vomiting, completely ineffective government measures, mutations, it's all here. The only thing that Threads shies away from is cannibalism, which is never mentioned...although we do see survivors reduced to eating rats and raw animal carcasses.

Even without the cannibalism, Threads is relentlessly bleak and joyless, grisly horror piled upon horror, and the ending ruthlessly snatches away the one tiny shred of hope that exists. Threads aired on British TV in an era when most people only had 4 TV channels...millions of people saw this and it must've scared the bejesus out of Thatcher's England. It scared the bejesus out of me. And I loved it.

I do enjoy a good downer movie, and Threads is the granddaddy downer. It forces you to recognize the futility of trying to think or plan what you would do in the same situation. There's nothing you could do and there's nothing the survivors can do except keep going. Everyone should see this, especially horror buffs...it really is frightening. Powerful and affecting, seek Threads out and watch it.

Until next time...

Things are looking up for Mad Magazine

Mad Magazine switched to a quarterly format last year, which immediately started rumors that the magazine was on its last legs. They canceled Mad Classics and Mad Kids on top of all of this, so they were significantly cutting back, and four times a year just wasn't enough for Mad fans.

Well, some good news just hit. Mad is now going to be BIMONTHLY, giving everybody two more issues a year. While this is a sign of good fortune coming Mad's way, that's not even the huge news.

Mad Magazine is getting its own animated series on the Cartoon Network.

More details on the deal are going to be published in the next issue of Mad which hits stands August 15th.

I would LIKE to make a movie as well...

I am jealous of my fellow Kidnappers having such ready access to willing co-stars and camera-people...and pro-style movie cameras (I have a cheap non-HD vid-cam and a point-and-shoot non-HD with rounded anamorphic lens, neither of which are conducive to good even-amateur on-the-spot movies).

Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who inspires rousing loyalty from my friends and acquaintances, so I'm SOL.
:(

(I DO have some experience, having had camera-work experience thanks to my Freshman year--my only year, by the way--at Allegheny College, and having done more than a little of the principal photography, as well as having a nice little bit part, in the DEE fan film "Final Fantasy v. Kaiju Big Battel"...which is officially endorsed by KBB's own Dr. Cube!)

Anyone here in the New York City area need a dependable cameraperson/writer/actor? I'm available...

I Also Made a Movie...

(Tagline) "Tonight there is going to be a murder" says Dr. Marlowe in the opening scene of Christyanity Studios debut picture. This sets a precedent for what is to come; bone-chilling horror, mind-blowing terror, and heart breaking tragedy. Only one man can stop the madness, and his name is Gumshoe.

(Plot) Dr. Marlowe and his cronies take to the streets of Clearfield in the name of murder; Detective Gumshoe takes to the streets in the name of justice. Which side will prevail in this classic tale of good versus evil? Why don't you roll the dice and find out...this one is a crap shoot.


It was called "Of Dice and Men". We filmed it over a year ago, and while it's pretty shitty there are a lot of scenes I'm very proud of like the head smash and the rape.

In case you are wondering I'm "Dr. Marlowe" or aka the dude in the black hate and 2 sizes too small coat. All of the music was done on a Casio from 1988..the ending credits song is by my band "Beforehead" which is just fantastic work. It was filmed on my buddy's cousin's handheld camera.

This is a monster at 40 minutes with 4 10 minute parts.

HOPE YOU ENJOY

So, I Made A Movie And Stuff.

Machinery Making Modern Music (in association with a group a couple of my friends made, GIHAGI Studios, and the MV94 News team) made a movie. A freaking movie, dude. Well, a short film...that honestly isn't awesome as I'd hoped, but still. Freaking wewt.

It's called "Espuniage: Aldo Giovanni vs Chuck and Taylor". We were assigned to do a video about some new security measures that the school instituted. Pretty lame pitch, honestly, but nonetheless, we got to work. What came out was a hilariously bad 1940s crime drama mixed with an 80s B cop movie, with 2000s stupidity and sensibilities. It's supposed to be a campy spy vs spy kinda deal, and was mainly inspired by the Homestar Runner cartoon Dangeresque. I wrote, directed, and edited this, with rewrites and other type things coming from my class colleagues. Even though they helped, this was pretty much my baby, and I think the people in my group would probably concur with that. It was also made on a shoestring budget on 3 different cameras, all of which weren't that awesome. If we had filmed the whole thing on one of the cameras, it wouldve been in widescreen but, alas, quality is not our friend. Also, I had to edit part of it in Windows Movie Maker, which honestly makes me gag. Oh well, I have new editing software now, rock.

Here it is...




Let me know what you think. Comments, critiques, etc. are very welcome.

- FishHook

Trash and Treasure: Gaming on a Budget RETURNS! Featuring Brutal Legend!

Hello, kidnappers and kidnapees, and welcome to the return of Trash and Treasure: Gaming on a Budget! I am your long-time absentee host, FishHook. I truly do apologize for the lack of writing for this column, but I honestly stopped buying games for awhile, or at least games that would fit into this budget gamer category. Also, I've been doing some rad stuff for preparation for college and getting something of a "production company" together called Machinery Making Modern Music Productions (or 4M for short), which will be the banner I will post any of my future projects under. I had a blogpost about that earlier though, so I won't waste time talking about it here. I'll just get right into the rating scale explanation!

I use a simple scale that will take into account not only the quality of the game with the standard measures of Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, and Replay Value, but also the fifth value of Affordability, how well the game stacks up at its current price point. The final rating of a game is not an average of these individual ratings, but a subjective rating that falls within one of three categories. The categories are as follows...

Pawn Shop Paraphernalia (The Low End)
- These are games that are either simply horrendous games that aren't worth any amount of currency no matter what or games that are hideously overpriced for their value. As the budget gamer, these are titles to avoid.

Decent Value Deal (Middle Of The Road)
- These are either merely OK games at a great value or great games at a value that may not be affordable to the budget gamer. These are games that the budget gamer should consider, but they aren't completely must-buy titles.

Tremendous Gaming Treasure (The High End)
- These are great games at great values. Tons of fun to be had at a low price point, these are the budget gamer's Nirvana and should be picked up at any cost. Even the gamer with a ton of expendable income should look into these high-class titles.

Now then, let’s move things along to our next review, Double Fine Productions’ latest work, the action RTS Brutal Legend!

---

The boys at Double Fine Productions have created another underappreciated work of gaming art. After 2006’s phenomenal Psychonauts (which, if you’re wondering, is totally a Tremendous Gaming Treasure), Tim Schafer’s company began work on something very near and dear to Schafer’s heart: metal! The end result is a very unique action/RTS game that will give you neck cramps from the amount of headbanging you’ll be doing.

In Brutal Legend, you play as Eddie Riggs, rock and roll roadie caught in the wrong generation of pop rock. After some idiocy from the band that leads to the set falling on Eddie and trailing blood on supposedly magical belt buckle, the set comes to life, rips the band apart, and sends Eddie into a world made of heavy metal album cover motifs: car parts growing from the ground like flowers, grandiose pillars of amps, and guitars that fire lightning and literally melt faces. In this mystic world, the roadie is a commander of battle, the organizer of combat. Eddie finds his calling with Stonehenge, a rebellious human group fighting against devilish creatures and glam-head humans that sold out to the dark overlords. In fighting for the Stonehenge resistance, you’ll guide Riggs through a twisting story based in (of all things) love, loyalty, and vengeance. The story, while not seemingly as good as some of Schafer’s other works, is still very funny and engrossing and the characters really come to life.

Speaking of engrossing, Brutal Legend’s free roaming world is an absolute wonder to play around in. Animals freely roam through the country-side (and by animals, I mean boars with chrome wheels and flaming tailpipes and hedgehogs with steel quills), majestic mountains with rock gods carved into the face, garages that go straight into the depths of hell, and headbangers moshing around abandoned sets, just waiting for the next show. The world is beautifully crafted. It may not be the most technically wondrous as far as graphics goes, but it’s one of the best when it comes to style and feel. The characters are creative and ooze metal motifs and enemies really feel like enemies of metal, and when you actually take control of Eddie, you’ll quickly find death is indeed their reward.

The gameplay is very different from what people expected from Brutal Legend…and I’m failing to see why that’s a bad thing. People just expected God of War with a guitar and the game was actually bashed in reviews for having RTS elements. I just don’t understand it. The ‘Stage Battles’ as they’re called are an absolute blast to play. Setting up your stage, assaulting fan geysers with merchandise to take control of them to gather more troops for your metal crusade, they’re all done incredibly intuitively through the in-game mechanics. You never feel like you’re never in control of your legions, as the complexities of RTS gameplay have been simplified to 4 main controls: hold position, defend, attack, and follow the leader. It works well despite its simplicity. The only problem, in my opinion, with the game is what you get to do in between the Stage Battles. While these battles of the bands are extremely fulfilling, you don’t get much in the side-missions. Race the same guy in your bad-ass street rod; defend a position with a mounted machine gun; blow some shit up, wash, rinse, repeat. Don’t get me wrong, the action sections are fun, it’s hard to feel unfulfilled when you’re slicing Poision-style glam rockers in half with an ax while powersliding into dozens of unruly minions and blowing them up with the sheer force of your rock, but it’s simply repetitive. Another problem with the gameplay is the difficulty. It’s nearly non-existent throughout most of the game, but as soon as you get to the last couple of Stage Battles, it gets unbelievably hard. That gap in difficulty is off-putting, and led me to some very frustrating moments where I wanted to smash my 360 controller like a Les Paul.

The thing that kept me from doing so was the incredible sound design. The soundtrack is a perfect set piece to the game, with legendary riffs and powerful drums creating the perfect atmosphere. Music is integral to every mission, with the metal setting the mood for every single one of your exploits. The music is also an awesome distraction: if you get frustrated with those last few Stage Battles like I did, just hop in the Druid Plow and listen to "The Mob Rules" while smashing into everything in your path for a little while. I guarantee it will keep you playing. The voice acting is top-notch as well. Stars like Jack Black, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lemmy Kilmeister lend surprising depth to their characters. Topping the charts in voice acting is Ozzy Osbourne's depiction of the demonic master of the Metal Forge where you buy upgrades; the Prince of Darkness never fails to force a smile upon your face. And while enemies and allies have repetitive voice samples (you'll hear Headbangers say "We're on patrol!" more times than you'd ever want to hear), nothing every feels annoying or takes you out of the universe the game creates.

In terms of replayability, Brutal Legend offers one major victory: online Stage Battles! These are incredibly fun and keep the good times rolling for quite awhile in this game. There's little incentive to play through the single player mode again though, all you really get is a harder difficulty level. And, of course, it is an Xbox 360 game, so you will get some replayability if you are an achievements whore. Other than that though, the game struggles to recapture your attention if you aren't Live-enabled.

So how does this package come presented to the budget gamer? Despite a much heavier advertising campaign than Double Fine's last work, the backing of Electronic Arts, and a superstar voice acting crew, Brutal Legend still didn't sell that well. While this is disappointing for the industry, it's great news for the budget gamer, as you can pick up the game for a mere $20 new, and around the $17 range used. That is an incredible deal for the amount of enjoyment you'll get out of this game.

So, where does it fall in the ratings scale? If you've been reading, it's pretty obvious that I view this as a Tremendous Gaming Treasure. The game simply exudes charisma and charm from the second the opening video with Jack Black walking into a record store and finding the mysterious Brutal Legend record that leads you into the main menu. It's simply a creative masterpiece, and while the side-missions can be repetitve, the difficulty is out of whack and the lack of replayability if you're not an online gamer is concerning, it's all worth it to come to this mystical world of rock and roll.

---

That'll do it for me this time. Tune in next time for more of the trash and treasure from the bottom of the bargain bin barrel!

- FishHook

Teh Wrasslin Newzwire

Or, holy crap OR actually posted here.

For you ZOMGers (because, lets face it, nobody outside of ZOMG and FPC are ever going to read this blog) who don't know, I'm doing a kinda-comical mostly-psuedo wrestling news blog now.

In an unrelated matter, Deadliest Warrior is awesome. If you disagree, let me ask you this: What other show features a dude literally disemboweling a pig carcass with katars?

Exactly.

Go watch the movie Lo right now.

So last night all my friends had gotten off of Modern Warfare 2 and I didn't feel like playing all alone. So I turned off the game and opened up the Olde Tyme Netflix Instant Queue. I've got tons of stuff in there, some of it I'm really never going to watch but I don't want to remove because "Hey, you never know." I've had this little movie named Lo in there for a while now. I put it in there because it has a cool looking picture and it's about a dude summoning a demon (I pretty much adore Satanic Ritual movies).

So I slap on the movie and it starts off good. By good I mean that they used a decent camera. I absolutely HATE a movie that looks like a home movie or looks like it was filmed as a soap opera. In fact I tried a different movie before Lo, but it had such awful film quality, I turned it off in less than 5 minutes (that movie was called Pusher by the way. I proceeded to remove it and its two sequels from my queue).

It jumps right into the demon summoning. The guy summons a demon named Lo because he wants the demon to find his girlfriend who was kidnapped by a demon. Lo responds with a simple question "Where the fuck am I?"

The movie is basically the interactions between Lo and Justin. Their conversation is where most of the exposition comes from. The dialogue is good so it doesn't sound like the end of a Scooby Doo cartoon while they're explaining motives and all that. Also helping this are the actors who do an excellent job at everything that they're trying to do.

Lo does something that I haven't seen in a movie (and to tell the truth I don't watch many independent movies because most of them look like dog shit). The entire movie takes place in a single room. While this sounds like a handicap, it isn't, and it works around this in a creative way. I don't want to spoil it but it is just so different from what I usually watch that it was quite refreshing.

So with all that verbal fellatio I just heaped onto this movie, you should go watch it immediately. Rent it, buy it (probably not very expensive on Amazon but I don't feel like looking).

Also there is a documentary series on youtube from the creator that is pretty cool as well. There's also the official trailer on there (which I'm gonna post a link to just below this line).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhFsK7e8wUo

Friday the 13th Part 2 "Review"

First things first - I never realized they killed Crazy Ralph this early in the series. I swear he is warning those kids before getting on the cruise in Jason Goes to Manhattan. But yeah, I did remember the death scene, but I never noticed he was strangled with barbed wire. EC-DUB! EC-DUB!

On to some actual reviewing...I think this is a lot better than Friday the 13th 1. As a kid I never thought much of this sequel cause Jason didn't have his hockey mask yet, but as an "adult" I really enjoyed the pacing of this one, especially the chase/showdown at the end. The scene where the lead girl puts on Pamela's sweater is really good stuff.

Jason is totally human in almost to a fault. For instance, he breaks a chair while standing on it and falls down like a goon. Then he cowers like a little bitch when confronted with a chainsaw (though it isn't really fair. He wasn't using machinery. Keep it clean)

The skinny dipping scene is a good stuff even now. From the first scene with that girl you knew you wanted to see those tight shorts displaced in favor of nudity, and you get a good bit of it. And, while we're on the subject of that chick, I liked the fake-out through the movie of her dog being dead. Muffin showing up in the end and Jason jumping through the window is classic.

The only big flaw of this movie is that nerdy guy surviving. I couldn't remember if he was killed or not when I popped this in, and the whole movie I'm just waiting to see that idiot get slaughtered. I was less than pleased with his shenanigans throughout. Hopefully that character crashed on the way back from the bar.

Part 3 has been my favorite for years so I hope to put it under the microscope soon. This weekend I'm going to watch some shit like Legion, Pandorum, and probably obscure stuff on Netflix. I may post "reviews" for all of those before I get to Part 3 (which could be a bit cause of Red Dead Redemption among other things).

Friday the 13th Part 1 Review

The film starts with camp songs inside of a cabin followed by two young people getting murdered by a mystery assailant after fooling around. To me this is a great way to start a franchise here. You basically get promised sex and death within the first five minutes. Anyways, since that scene takes place only a year after Jason is dead is should be obvious for anyone watching this for the first time that it isn't going to be Jason doing the killing. I watched this with someone who had never seen it before, and it didn't dawn on him until Pamela Voorhees showed up that "oh yeah, his mother is the killer in this one".

After that first scene we are following a young girl who we think is going to be the lead, but within 10 minutes her throat is slit in the woods. All she did was hitchhike. I just touch on this slightly: horror movie rules. Yeah, it was cool and funny when Wes Craven did it in Scream, but every jackass who watches a horror movie spouts these "rules" off as gospel. As if they are smarter than the material.

Well fuck you. These "rules" were a joke in Scream making fun of cliches. Most of the Friday the 13th movies don't even follow these rules. For instance, the fat kid in Part 3 gets murdered for no reason as does the girl near the lake. In fact, Alice Hardy drinks alcohol in this movie and doesn't die (she does get killed in the second movie, but that is irrelevant). I never want to hear anybody say these "rules" out loud again. You're not funny and you have ruined the joke in Scream.

Back to the movie. I feel that Steve Christy, the guy who is re-opening the camp, was creepy in his few scenes. There was almost an undertone of him being a pervert, but it is never rightly explored. I think had he raped someone or been peeping it would have added another dynamic, almost another villain, to this movie. Perhaps he could have been killed while peeping, or been a plot device as the suspected killer? They planted those seeds by having him drive the same looking jeep as Mrs. Voorhees and such, but again I feel they either dropped the plot line or didn't even realize it.

Ralph in this movie is incredible. If you're seeing this for the first time he could easily be suspected as the killer, especially after he pops out of the closet. That scene is actually quite hilarious looking back. He's says all this ominous stuff, and then rides a bicycle with a little basket on the front of it in to the woods.

Speaking of hilarious, watching this again that cop on the motorcycle is really funny. The motorcycle sound effect they used was way too loud for a bike just moving two feet down the road at 2 miles an hour, and add that with the actor almost losing control of it and I thought it was as goofy as Ralph. I can't tell if this was intentional or not because of the way Kevin Bacon and the other kids mess with the cop, but I'll just pretend it wasn't and enjoy it.

One more thing: since I was a kid I always though Pamela gave Alice the bird after getting her head chopped off. If you had asked me before I watched this again I would have swore to god that it played out like that...perhaps I was watching a different cut on the movie as a kid? I know some uncut version is out on DVD and Blu-Ray, but I don't think that was the version I watched on VHS as a kid. The version I watched yesterday was from the boxet. If anyone has any information about that I'd like to know.

So anyway, yeah. This isn't much of a review but more of a collection of misc thoughts I had while watching the movie. I like this style a little better than a full on review, because a lot of re-hashing of plot details and fluff aren't interesting to read for a 30 year old movie.

Now I'm off to re-watch Part 2.

LUCHA LIBRE ON MTV2

Well, MTV2 is trying to broaden its horizons by adding some more sports stuff to their network, and they chose lucha libre.

Which is apparently filming somewhere in Vegas over Memorial Day weekend.

Allow me to over-analyze the situation.

Now, I love lucha and I fucking can't wait for this show. A bunch of people probably feel exactly the opposite because they're afraid it'll become WS-Mex or something, but man, I loved WSX. Now, I've loved a lot of things MTV did that got canceled pretty quickly, so I have to say my optimism has been pretty clouded by a big fat dose of history.

How do I think the show is going to be? Well, I think it's going to be pretty heavy on comedy, but comedy has always been a pretty big part of lucha, and it's also going to be pretty heavy on holy-shit highspots. I really don't think we will see any of the overlooked technical aspects of lucha libre, aka "Wacky Mexican Submissions" which I fucking love in lucha...but you'd have to educate an audience on why they're awesome and man, that's fucking hard. I don't think I've done that in any of my Lucha Libre for Gringos vids yet, because the majority of my stuff is AAA and they kind of stay away from that stuff for the most part as well. You see plenty of that in CMLL and IWRG though.

How would I run the promotion if I was doing it?

MIDGETS OUT THE ASS DUDE. I'd have Mascarita Dorada and build the whole fucking show around him, or at least a VERY significant portion. The guy makes fans wherever he goes, and if I truly feel that ONE luchador could be a breakout, crossover star that could be popular in the US(I'm not talking about being in some telenovelas and Dancing with the Stars or some shit), it's him.

HIRE CASSANDRO. USE HIM ALL THE TIME. Nuff said, really.

FUCKING CRAZY GIMMICKS. Shit like the Psycho Circus and Soccer Goats and Monsther and Chucky need to be on every show. I'm not saying every guy needs to have that over the top of a gimmick, but you need something that will draw people in while flipping around the channels- because if regular lucha was already doing that, people would just be watching it on the Spanish channel instead.


LUCHADORAS- Hey, why not?

THE ESTELLAR MOMENTS REELS- Highlights of dives and crazy moves from around the lucha world. This is always a highlight to see on Mexican TV, and MTV needs to steal the fuck out of this.

SUBTITLED INTERVIEWS- Don't do a MXC on this shit and don't try to force everyone to speak English, and don't get a bunch of non-luchadores on the show. Make it ALL LUCHA, ALL THE TIME. If I wanted to see a bunch of Americans wrestle I'd just watch AAA.

BURN.

HAVE A BUNCH OF SIX MAN TAGS- Seriously, these are important in lucha, but I have a feeling they're going to go one-on-one with this shit for some reason. Just a gut feeling, I guess. Explain the wacky lucha rules to the fans. I can do it on a fucking youtube video, so they can do it on a TV show.

I hope it's not a half hour long, too. Yet, I feel it will be.

I really hope this is something that not only is something different on TV, but changes the way that wrestling matches are presented, because right now you have WWE being WWE, and TNA trying to be WWE, and AAA trying to be WWE, and CMLL waaaaay off in the distance when it comes to production values. Speaking of which, do that instant replay where you can see the guys' skeletons. That was the shit.

TheDenizen talks boobs and bars

Alright kids, time for some more trash cinema.

TheDenizen is back and I've got celluoid cells on the agenda. Jail cells, that is.

A prison makes a great setting for a movie. Two opposing uniformed gangs (prisoners and guards) have to coexist in a tightly controlled, institutionalized environment. Dramatic tension is always high and the potential for violence is ever present. Not to mention the fact that filming in concrete rooms and plain grey hallways can be done pretty fucking cheap. Make it a women's prison and cast a bunch of babes and you've got yourself box office gold. Today I'm going to discuss a selection of Women In Prison films.

WIP movies go back to the 40's and 50's, but the films from that era were generally chaste morailty plays designed to scare young women away from a life of crime. It wasn't until Spanish sleaze merchant Jess Franco came along in 1969 with his shocker 99 Women that WIP films became about exploitation, reveling in lurid displays of flesh and sexual sadism. 99 Women was a hit, and established the formula that the vast majority of subsequent WIP movies adhered to.

A wide eyed, naive young woman is brought to a prison to begin serving her sentence (she's sometimes guilty of a crime of passion but usually completely innocent). She's introduced to the sadistic warden, is forced into a shower and given a revealing prison uniform, and then mixed in with the general population. She encounters tough lesbians, gains the respect of other prisoners by winning some catfights, endures torture or rape at the hands of the warden and ultimately leads a jailbreak attempt. The escape often fails with the prisoners being killed or returned to their cells.

It seems like kind of a downer, but dozens of profitable films have been made using pretty much that exact outline. Of course, the appeal lies not in the riveting storytelling, but in the pervasive nudity and the BDSM fantasy of the (usually fairly tame) torture sequences. It's not everyone's cup of tea to be sure, but if you can enjoy this type of thing, there are some great flicks out there to be seen. Anyways, enough rambling, here's some quick reviews.

99 Women - the first, but not really the best. I already mostly described this one, so let me mention this: As with many European WIP movies, 99 Women exists in both R and X rated versions. The X rated stuff is most often (as in this case) cheap looking hardcore insert shots filmed by someone else, making no effort to match the sets or the actors to the people in the real movie. Be preapred for that if you plan to delve into the X rated or Unrated cuts of WIP flicks.

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion - Meiko Kaji plays Sasori, a woman falsely imprisoned after being betrayed and framed by a former lover and his gang. Sasori is not just tough, she's incredibly bright and determined, and after enduring the standard WIP trials (including a very sexy lesbian scene with an undercover cop posing as a fellow prisoner), Sasori actually escapes the prison and exacts bloody revenge on all the men who put her there. A classic that spawned three sequels.

The Big Dollhouse - Mmmm, Pam Grier. A bunch of other hot chicks, too, but mmmm...Pammy. Also Sid Haig. This one was directed by Jack Hill, who made a handful of blaxploitation films with Grier. An all female prison in the Phillipines somehow has mostly hot American girls as prisoners, who get into the usual trouble and catfights. One of the best produced WIP films.

Virgins from Hell - super campy stuff from Thailand, about an all girl motorcycle gang who commit violent robberies to fund an assault on a criminal compound. The plot is ridiculous and convoluted, but basically these chicks fail utterly and get captured by the criminals, who keep them locked up in an underground cave to test their aphrodesiac drugs on (seriously). Thai film laws forbid nudity, so part of the appeal of this one is how retarded it is seeing two chicks in evening gowns having a catfight in a tub, or lesbian sex scenes that consist of fully clothed soft kissing and sultry looks. Hilarious crap, and full of crazy action and stunts.

Lost Souls - this variation on the WIP theme involves a large group of illegal immigrants from mainland China who are captured for ransom by a sadistic gang outside of Hong Kong. The prisoners, men and women alike, are stripped naked and kept in a filthy barn and are subjected to all manner of abuse. Some are tortured, some are raped and they all end up dead or deported. This was actually quite grim and unpleasant; genuinely sadistic instead of camp-sadistic and none of the nudity was titillating at all. This flick is hard to recommend, and it's probably one of the strangest things ever produced by Shaw Brothers, much better known for their kung fu epics.

Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS - The prison this time is actually a WWII concentration camp, run by a female S&M Nazi with huge boobs. All the prisoners are Jewish, but thankfully the film veers away from any overt racism, merely fetishizing the Nazi trappings. Lots of sex in this one, even the torture scenes have a slant of kink to them, like one with an electrified dildo. This flick is notorious for good reason and well worth a look.

There are many other examples of the type, like the three Ilsa squels (Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, Wicked Warden, and Tigress of Siberia), Barbed Wire Dolls, Escape from Hell, Women in Cages, Bare Behind Bars, Caged Heat, The Big Bird Cage, etc. etc. Sadly, as the exploitation grindhouses of the 70's gave way to the VCR boom of the 80's, the demand for this type of fare nosedived as a glut of hardcore porn became available to watch in the comfort of your own home. WIP movies have pretty much remained the exclusive domain of porno (and direct to video crap) ever since.

Perhaps with Rodriguez and Tarantino's recent renewal of the exploitation cycles, we may see a proper WIP movie in the theaters again in the near future. The closest thing we've had in years has been Black Snake Moan, with half naked Christina Ricci in chains for most of the running time.

More of that shit, please.

I also saw Nightmare on Elmstreet

Since I'm the head ninja, which either means I'm the boss or I give everyone head or both, I can't stand by and have an Elm Street debate on my site without commenting, but the comment section is for Chinese spammers only, so I figured I'd do a post instead.

Let me set a bit of a scene for you guys.

Imagine being six years old. I know, some of you might be that are reading this. Shit fuck dick diarrhea. Still, imagine DVDs not existing, and magical little plastic devices called VIDEOTAPES just starting to get noticed.

Man, I feel so fucking old right now you guys.

Anyway, some of you might be too young, legit, all joking aside, to remember the big VHS boom. VCRs finally became popular- and video rental places were the shit, son. It isn't like Blockbuster now, which is to say video stores back then didn't suck like ten kinds of fat cocks. Video stores would put a HUGE variety of shit out because video was so hot that no matter what you had, someone would probably rent it. The place I went, Video Valley in Chatsworth, CA, had SO MUCH SHIT DUDE. They had these big fucking scary video boxes with the horror movies on them and they even had shit in BETA.

So anyway, Nightmare on Elm Street was there and we rented it and I loved it and I was six and my parents were cool and fuck commas and where was I going with this?

Uhhhhh...yeah so I was six, and a Freddy fan. By the time I was seven, it was time for Halloween, and I was FREDDY and I didn't have the shitty licensed Freddy mask that they were selling at the stores, I had this fucking crazy ass one that I bought at a magic shop that I think they made themselves, because I haven't seen ONE since. I'll post a pic sometime.

I had my hat, my glove, my sweater, and my fucking badass mask, and noticed something.

EVERY FUCKING KID WAS DRESSED AS FREDDY.

But talking to them about it, man, these fucks were normal kids whose parents didn't let them watch R rated movies and just heard about them from older kids and shit.

FUCKING POSERS

Anyway, saw the new flick. It wasn't bad, but Freddy as melty Voldemort wasn't a great look, but he had a creepy smile that was pretty awesome. I thought it was passable. I mean, it wasn't as good as the first one, or Dream Warriors which was one of my favorite movies growing up, but it was the fuck of a lot better than the shittier sequels like Dream Child or Freddy's Dead.

Fuck Dream Child.

So yeah, I'm a lifelong Elmstreet fan and didn't fucking hate the remake, but the remakes for Halloween and Friday the 13th can SUCK MY BALLS.

Thanks Head Ninja

I now have better fine art hanging in my dining area:



I do plan on getting this framed, just not soon. I also need to cut the white off.

So my girlfriend works at a copy shop...

Until August, and recently we've been making these badass posters and just hanging them around town. However I kept one! ELI MANNING DRUNK!



So I want more images, they must be high quality so they don't look shitty, to hang in my home or around town.

A picture says a thousand words.

This one says three. "Fuck yeah, motherfucker."

We've been approved as 80stees.com affiliates.

TheDenizen reviews Nightmare on Elm Street

Hey what the hell, jzbadblood mentions the movie I just saw tonight. So here's my take on the Freddy remake:

Jackie Earle Haley is pretty good as the creepy-as-fuck pedo Freddy, and there's a couple of cool visual concepts and novel kills...but it's not scary at all, and it's not funny at all....it's just kinda there, and it's boring watching the two protagonists slowly and painfully piecing together Freddy's backstory since pretty much everyone in the theater already knew what the story was. Too many weak jump-scares, not enough Freddy cracking jokes.

It was a decent enough movie I guess, just kinda unnecessary.

And jz also posed the question 'why do we like horror movies'? Well, I can only speak for myself, but it's totally about the blood-lust.

Coming Soon from jzbadblood

Last week "A Nightmare on Elm Street" came out to harsh criticism from across the board. Professional critics like Roger Ebert panned the film:

" The movie consists of a series of teenagers who are introduced, haunted by nightmares and then slashed to death by Freddy. So what? Are we supposed to be scared?"

Fans of the series hated the movie before it even came out. It is a remake after all, and no matter what haters will be hating. Me, personally, I enjoyed it a lot. I try to go in to every movie without any bias or pre-conventions. Of course that's impossible, but the point is I make an effort, and with "A Nightmare on Elm Street" I wasn't really able to do that. I am ashamed to admit that. As a fan of the series I had very low expectations, and thus I liked the movie a lot. Perhaps if I had went in level-headed I may have hated it? Who knows. That's the tricky thing about the brain; a lot depends on your mood.

Anyways, I'm rambling. The thinking about my mood and expectations and the Ebert quote got me to thinking about why I like horror movies.. It's not about being scared (although Halloween 1 still creeps me out alone at 3:am). It's not about blood-lust, because I tend to let flies out of the window instead of smashing them..

And then I came to a conclusion which kind of makes everything before this pointless: I don't know. I can humbly admit that. I don't know why I like horror movies, and that's fine with me. I accept that.

So now you're asking yourself: What's the point of all this? Well, let me explain. After wasting my time thinking about all this psychobabble I got a huge urge to watch all of the Friday the 13th movies so Friday night I bought the 3 pack of New Line movies, and today I received the F13 collection in the mail...

How does this effect this blog you ask? Well.....Starting some day near the weekend my "review/analysis" of Friday the 13th Part 1 will be up, and after that Part 2 will follow, and etc. etc. etc.

Until then I ask you to pray with me for a "Salute Your Shorts" DVD release

Reading assessments

No names will be given due to some legality I have signed. However at the school I worked with, 1st graders, they took three reading assessments this year to judge growth. Students took one the first part of the year, another before christmas, and now one as the school year is ending.

My students showed TOO MUCH GROWTH. I asked the principal, is this not what you want? Her response was it was too high. So they retested all of first grade. Guess what, my students scored HIGHER. So now they think I have the test and shit. Like I am making my students read the test only, and they are memorizing each passage. So they retested Friday with completely new readings they bought, and....THEY SCORED HIGHER. Finally she admitted I was just a good teacher, and thanked me for preparing nineteen 7 year olds for second grade properly.

School administration is almost stupid.

SAVEUS.333

THE SECRET CODE IS

Confirmation Code: GHDVCVX23428689

CAN YOU BREAK THE CODE?

Probably not it's for our advertisers to verify the site.

Carry on.

These are not the droids you're looking for.

Salute Your Shorts

Well, JZBadblood made the above. You know why?

Salute Your Shorts is on iTunes. We're holding out HOPE for a DVD release, you see.

But yeah, I think I saw every episode of that 1000 times, because, well, they barely had any episodes. Love that shit though, because you know, I never went to camp as a kid, and them showing camp as something you suffer through instead of having fun made me feel a lot better about that, and man, you'd expect all the kids from that to be on more shit as adults today.

The thing that bothered me about the show is that Budnick was into the metal and shit, but whenever he mentioned cool bands he'd always throw Whitesnake in there. Come on, dude, nobody listens to Whitesnake. I guess I could let this go though.

The best episode was ZEKE THE PLUMBER, a great variation of the Cropsy urban legend that went around camps and also brought us the movie THE BURNING. I also learned giraffes have black tongues from Salute Your Shorts, and man they're totally right. Television is educational.

It didn't make sense that Ug was the councilor for both the girls and the boys so he was probably some kind of creepy pervert, or the female councilor was eaten by a bear or murdered by Zeke the Plumber. Either way, Ug probably has some statch charges.

In This Blog: FishHook Explains Absences and Advertises a Production Group on the Blog of Another Production Group

Hello, Kidnappers and Kidnappees! I do apologize for the long absence from the KBN network, but I just haven't had anything to write about. I really haven't bought a ton of budget games recently (or any games, to be honest), but that has recently changed as my local video rental shop is holding a closing sale and I've gotten a ton of good and not so good stuff from there on a budget. So, until that dries up, I should have a semi-decent amount of material to write Trash and Treasure on. I've got three that I'm looking at right now in particular, the first one should be up in a manner of days, maybe a week.

Anyways, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because we have new sponsors and if I blog enough, HeadNinja will give me Highspots' money...OK, not really, but do visit our new sponsors Highspots.com so that KBN can make money and stay afloat. I'm actually here because I want to advertise my new Youtube page and "production company", Machinery Making Modern Music Productions. I realize it's a long title (which is why I usually shorten it to 4M when I discuss it), but anything that's a reference to Tenacious D when they reference Rush is certainly great success. For those out of the loop, watch the concert on Tenacious D's Complete Masterworks Volume 2, specifically the song The Metal. It's just a little comment Jack Black makes, but I think it's pretty hilarious.

The long and short of it is that as a future telecommunications major in college, I'm very interested in the creation of media: television, radio, short film, etc. 4M will basically be the banner that I will post all of my various class projects and all of the other stuff I do under. The first of these are the videos from the class that inspired me to be a telecommunications major: the Mass Media class at my high school, which is basically a loosely organized class made pretty much just to produce the announcements you hear every morning at school over the PA, except we do them on closed circuit television over the school. Although that's our primary goal, we've also produced a couple of commericals for class projects and for other purposes, such as advertising sign-ups for the Mass Media class next year and various school plays and whatnot. These videos will be going up under the 4M banner on the Youtube page I created.

And now, I present to you...the MV94 News Team videos. There's only 3 thus far, and I'll post 2 of them here. First of all, there's the intro for the news show, which features the entire team and gratuitous use of STAN HANSEN THEME SONG (which I selected as our theme, conveniently forgetting to mention it was a pro wrestler's theme):



Secondly, there's the commerical/skit made to advertise signups for the Mass Media class. This one may not make sense to the masses, as there's a lot of inside jokes:



Well, that's basically it for now. If I have any more stuff, I'll let you guys know and show it off here. We're working on a short film about high school security, that'll probably be next to be posted. I'm very open to praise, criticism, suggestions, and anything else you'd like to add. Also, if you wish to subscribe, please do so at youtube.com/MachMakModMus (and trust me, there will be more than school projects on here eventually, so don't be offput by my first two offerings). By the by, that URL is VERY screwed up, as I needed to shorten Machinery Making Modern Music and I hadn't thought of the very simple "4M" shortening, so I shortened each individual word. "MachMakModMus" sounds like machs (like robots or something) making a modified moose. Which sounds...awesome, and may or may not be the logo.

- FishHook

Hola!

So the past month has been wild for myself, and Mrs. Deli. We both finished up the last of our LEARNIN' and are both on the prowl for jobs. Money is short, time seems to be passing at a pace people from Kenya can't keep up with (cause they run). However a new chapter is opening. So I would like to publicly address some stuff.

1. When I die, cremate me. Then plant my ashes with a tree, and each year come tell me how big I have gotten.

2. To my unborn child(s), I hope you like stupid shit as much as I do. When we meet, I hope you don't call me a nerd and beat me up.

3. School lunches suck, and they always will suck.

I hope all ninjas are enjoying life. I hope to have something real to contribute to this blog soon. Unless you want to learn about my students fluency rates, and how my class scored too high on their final reading assessments then I have nothing to talk about.

WD

Fuck that adsense shit.

No more google adsense. It wasn't doing anything, and man, I'd rather schill for advertisers I actually buy shit from.


For example-



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Too much good shit

This year is going to be pretty nuts for video games, you guys.

Fucking check this shit out-

We get RED DEAD REDEMPTION. It looks amazing- pretty much what I just hope it has the fucking badass Spaghetti Western soundtrack the first game had, because it really enhanced the experience.

We get UFC 2010. Though KBN homey Biff told me that the PS3 version gets Dan Severn, Royce Gracie, and Jens Pulver and the 360 doesn't and that makes me sad. Dan Severn's majestic mustache must be experienced by all. Fuck bipartisan gaming. Notice I didn't say tripartisan, sorry Nintendo.

We also get FALLOUT NEW VEGAS. I loved Fallout 3, and man, moving it to a place I've actually been can only make me love it more. Plus, robots with TVs in their stomach are pretty sweet but I don't even have a HDTV yet, let alone a robot TV.

Dead Rising 2 is coming out too. More Vegas shit but they say it's not Vegas but it's totally Vegas you guys. The trailers make it appear that you can Macguyver weapons together but it's probably just scripted events and cinemas. Mulitplayer looks like American Gladiators with zombies, which just feels so, so right.

There's that game with the cars that you blow up shit. Uh...Split Second? That's a fucking shitty game for a racing game. They should just call it THAT GAME WITH CARS WHERE YOU BLOW UP SHIT. I'm not a huge fan of racing games, but I love mayhem, and this seems to have lots of it. I love the Burnout series, but unless I'm recreating the opening scene of Final Destination 2, I'm not really interested.

I'm sure there's some huge title I'm forgetting that I don't give a shit about that everyone will talk shit about me not mentioning here, so fuck you. THESE ARE THE GAMES I CARE ABOUT.

TheDenizen talks violence of the Pink persuasion...

Hello again, ninja minions.

TheDenizen is back and about to tackle a subject that's near and dear to my heart: half-naked Japanese girls kicking ass.

The Japanese film industry was pretty austere and serious during the 50's and 60's with only a few exceptions (Seijun Suzuki's 1967 mindfuck Tokyo Drifter springs to mind)...the most popular films of the era were stately dramas and rousing action adventure films. But by the time the 70's rolled around, pretty much everyone in the country had a TV set at home and movie theater revenues were plummeting. In order to coax patrons back into the movie houses, filmmakers often took the tasty bits that couldn't be shown on TV and cranked them up to 11. Mainly, the sex and violence quota skyrocketed.

Masterfully written and acted samurai films gave way to gory and over the top swordplay flicks. As the market for exploitation fare soared, one subgenre of chambara and yakuza films carved out a niche for itself by telling the lurid stories of female gangsters: Pinky Violence. Packed with wall to wall swordfights, brawls, nudity and sex, these flicks certainly weren't innocent, but they usually lacked the meanness of a lot of contemporary American exploitation fare. They were just more fun.

Here's a quick look at a few of the series from the 1970's I enjoy the most.



Rica - Rica is a half Japanese, half American teenager who runs an all girl gang in modern day Yokohama. After a huge battle with a rival gang, Rica is carted off to juvenile hall and her gang is captured and sold to slavers who intend to ship them to Vietnam as rape fodder for American GIs. Rica busts out of detention and goes on the warpath, facing off against one tough male gang boss after another, trying to get back her girls. There is more plot in the first 20 minutes of this movie than most complete films, and it just moves at a breakneck pace the whole way. There's an extended scene where Rica sings in a strip club, and her dance moves are some of the worst stuff you've ever seen, but her outfits are amazing. In practically every scene, Rica is wearing a new cape or midriff-baring pantsuit with incredibly detailed and colorful patterns. Very kitschy. Tons of knife scraps, kung fu catfighting and bouncing boobs.

Rica was followed by two sequels. Rica 2: Lonely Wanderer is about Rica trying to unravel the story of one of the reform school girls from the first film, who has somehow ended up in a mental institution in Misawa. The plot was much more coherent and conventionally paced, but there was almost no nudity and too much use of guns. Rica 3: Junvenile Lullaby features Rica using a fucking spear gun to bust up a pornography ring that was exploiting girls from the Juvenile Prison. Much better.


Sex & Fury - Reiko Ike plays a fearless swordswoman, pickpocket and gambler named Ocho who is on the trail of her father's killers. She plays some poker and gets whipped naked by Swedish nymphette Christiana Lindberg along the way, and ends up slashing her way to the top of the yakuza syndicate responsible for her father's death. The first major set piece of the movie is a swordfight in a bath house, in which Reiko takes on a dozen or so men completely nude. She also fights the final battle topless, but by the end she is so soaked in gore that you can't even tell. Nice.

Sex & Fury had only one sequel, the ludicrously titled Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture, in which Ocho solves the equally ludicrously named "Crotch Gouge Murders" while doing battle with a bunch of opium smugglers. The story is kinda confusing and some of the sex scenes are just creepy, but there's lots of cool visuals and and swordplay.


Lady Snowblood - Meiko Kaji plays Yuki, a woman who was born in a prison to a widow who died in childbirth. She was then raised and trained as an instrument of vengeance, possessing deadly skills and a concealed sword. This is probably best known as the flick that Quentin Tarantino used as the basis for Kill Bill, even reusing Lady Snowblood's theme song. Meiko Kaji is beautiful, and has a fierce glare that could bore a hole through titanium. She uses that glare to stunning effect as she smoothly dispatches her enemies. Plenty of splashy blood, but this flick also asks some serious questions as Yuki continually ponders the point of avenging the family she never met.

Lady Snowblood was followed by Love Song of Vengeance a year later, a less interesting film in which Yuki gets mixed up a political scheme. It still has no shortage of swordplay, and fans of Meiko Kaji will want to check it out. Meiko Kaji was also famous for playing Sasori (aka Scorpion) in the Female Prisoner 701 series, a woman who breaks out of prison to exact revenge on the men who wrongfully put here there. Maybe for my next blog I'll review those, or some other Women In Prison flicks.

Other notable Pinky Violence films from the era include Stray Cat Rock, Girl Boss Guerilla, Girl Boss Revenge, and Terrifying Girls' High School.

The Pinky Violence genre still exists today in a slightly altered form, way down on the low budget end of the filmmaking spectrum in Japan. Recent efforts use less sex but WAY more bloody gore, often for comedic effect. Movies like Machine Girl, Zombie Hunter Rika, Oneechanbara, Samurai Princess and Tokyo Gore Police all show off sexy female leads unleashing copious amounts of ultraviolence.

I love that shit, it never goes out of style...

Do you play Adam Ryland's TEW?

If you do, then you know that the default belt graphics are basically dog turds. You got Adobe/Macromedia Fireworks and you wanna make your OWN belts for it? Here's a helpful tutorial video, made by yours truly.
Have fun listening to my douchey voice. :)

Oscar Picks

Best Actor - Jeff Bridges

Jeremy Renner is the only other contestant I feel, but since he's young and Jeff Bridges deserves an Oscar I'm leaning towards him.


Best Actress - Sandra Bullock

Too much hype has been made about her "comeback" for her to lose this race. I'll be shocked if she doesn't get the statue.


Best Supporting Actress - Monique

I liked Precious and thought she was fantastic. There really isn't any competition here in my opinion.


Best Picture - The Hurt Locker

I haven't seen it, but it's been getting all the talk latey. Avatar was good, but I just don't see the academy going for a big budget special effects movie with a weak cliche story. Precious was hyped to hell for months, but I haven't seen any buzz about it recently. So this is my pick.


Best Director - James Cameron

It's either him or Katheryn Bigelow. I'm banking on Bigelow being a woman not being a factor in this....but that is really short-sighted of me. We'll see.


Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz

Yeah, nobody would be risky enough to pick against him. There's just no way he's not going to win this.


Best Animated Film - Up

Lock. It's Pixar and it was fantastic. I'd honestly love to see this win best picture.


Cinematography, Art Direction, and Visual Effects - Avatar

Yep


Film Editing- The Hurt Locker

I hear it's a movie that relys on precision for a lot of the scenes, and is very tension filled so I'm going with this.


The rest are pretty much a crap-shoot for me.

COPOUT

Yeah, I fucking liked it, yo.

Hey Man, Cool Shirt - Volume One

Man, the internet is full of cool shirts.

Since KBN is pretty fucking cool itself, I'm going to show you cool shirts. We're not getting kickbacks or free shirts or advertising for doing this but maannnnn I would so welcome that if someone wanted to. Call me a sellout all you want, I want free stuff or money as much as the next guy.

Here's the first in a series-

HEY MAN COOL SHIRT

The Jack Burton



The tank top from Big Trouble in Little China, motherfucker.

This was for sale once before- but it was some company only doing expensive limited editions of the shirt. It's 20 bucks here.

While I personally avoid tank tops because I keep these pythons under wraps, brother, I figure some of you mofos would like to check this shit out.

Available at 80s Tees

XBOX Live Indie Games Spotlight #1

by SonnyBone
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So I'm making an XBOX Live Indie Game called Souplobstar. Before I get too deep into development, I want to scour the service to find the VERY BEST games available. I want to know what's possible, and I want to know what I'm up against. I've already tried out 50 or so Indie Games, and I'll be doing a periodic 'spotlight' on the games that I feel are worth the free trial, and I'll let you know which ones are worth purchasing.

SO HERE WE GO!

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ZP2K9
by Ska Studios



This is one of those games where screen shots and videos DO NOT convey the incredible amount of FUN to be had. It's a 2D side-scrolling multiplayer shooter with tons of guns, grenades, and powerups. And when I say multiplayer, I don't mean split screen. ZP2K9 has online multiplayer support for up to 10 people. You can also play against AI bots if you're all alone.

Here's what sets ZP2K9 apart from similar games.

1) You can walk on walls and ceilings. Yes. At all times. It doesn't make any sense, but it's totally rad and makes for some incredibly fun moments.

2) You can do this weird Matrix-style slo-mo mid-air floaty thingy. Again, it makes no sense, but it's fun to jump off a cliff, only to do a Matrix float and fire a few shots back at your enemy before free falling to the ground below.

3) POWERUP SUITS. Ok, this is my favorite feature. You can grab suits from the occasional crate that will change the powers and appearance of your player. There is a bat suit that lets you become invisible when hanging from the ceiling, a bee suit that lets you fly, a cyborg suit that gives you faster firing and reload times, a tesla suit that lets you fire electricity along with your bullets, a cat suit that lets you dash super fast and leap farther, a hedgehog suit that doubles your attack power, and MANY MORE.

4) Swords. There are two swords in the game: a katana, and a huge sword that looks like something out of Final Fantasy. These are fun because they knock your opponent back and you can slice in any direction, even while jumping. Combining the sword with the bee suit or bat suit creates some amazing moments.

5) THE BITCH KICK. By performing the bitch kick, you can boot an enemy into a chasm or to the bottom of the ocean for a satisfying "HA HA" kill. I love it.

There are several game type options: Deathmatch, team deathmatch, king of the hill, and capture the flag. We've all seen these before, but that doesn't mean they aren't totally awesome. The stages can become a bit repetitive, as they all look very similar, but once you learn them, you'll begin to appreciate their unique subtleties. There are plenty of rad weapons available, and you can even dual wield certain guns. There are several grenade types as well, so you can certainly develop a unique strategy. You can carry 4 different guns and 2 different grenades at any given time. Certain guns have unlimited ammo, and others do not. You can also swap weapons out if you've already filled all 4 gun slots. There is also an option to edit your character. There are 2 races (human and zombie) with several variations of each.

There is a LOT crammed into this little game for the price.

So what's the price?

80 points.

That's a DOLLAR, folks. This is easily the best dollar I've ever spent on a video game, and I encourage EVERY XBOX 360 owner to buy this. It was developed by Ska Studios, the guys behind Dishwasher and I MADE A GAME WITH ZOMBIES IN IT, so you know it's gonna be good. But the beauty of this service is that you don't have to make a blind purchase. You can try a free demo, and there is no reason not to.

This is by far my favorite XBOX Live Indie Game at the moment, but I have MANY MORE to play through. I'll see you suckaz next time with the XBOX Live Indie Games Spotlight #2, where I'll focus on a game that's all about being as RAD as possible.

BEWARE OF!