"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

THE DAY I KNEW WHO DEEP THROAT WAS

Yesterday I was talking to a guy – I don’t want to say his name, so we’ll just call him BARELY LEGAL ALL STARS #3. And he asks me if I’ve heard “the rumor about Deep Throat.”

You might assume he was talking about a rumor that the landmark pornographical work DEEP THROAT was getting an arthouse re-release to tie in with the already released documentary on its making and cultural impact, INSIDE DEEP THROAT. But I knew that was not a rumor, it was an actual fact, so it could not be what he was talking about. So I figured it was that rumor about that other Deep Throat, the mysterious whistleblower who gave Woodward and Bernstein the tips about Watergate, changing our country’s view of government forever and creating an annoying suffix for all future government scandals. (Just wait until there’s a scandal involving fences, so that every wiseass in the world will think they’re the first one to call it Gategate.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern sees the alleged sequel to John Carpenter’s THE VAMPIRES called VAMPIRES: THE TURNING!

Hey folks, Harry here with another wondrous piece from the mangod we collectively worship named Vern. This time, he’s tracked down a sequel to John Carpenter’s VAMPIRES. Now I love that film. That came out back in Europe back when I had crazy PLANET HOLLYWOOD writing money – and I flew to Paris just to see it cuz it looked as if it was going to end up butchered in the U.S. Great trip, and had a wonderful time with the film. “That’s it padre, FUCK WITH EM!” Heh. Let’s see what Vern thinks of the sequel…

ATT.: HARRY DEPT.

RE: VAMPIRES: THE TURNING

Warning: this is a long and overly detailed review of a straight to video sequel to VAMPIRES. Do not read.

It all started in 1998, in the Mexican desert. A Vatican sanctioned SWAT team of ultra-macho, leather jacket wearing vampire slayers faced down a Euro-trash “master vampire,” wiped out his nest and shut down a prophecy. Much shit was talked, at least one innocent naked woman was degraded, many many heads were cut off, and quite a few vampires were dragged screaming by tow cables into the desert sun. JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES is a sleazy, amoral good time, maybe his most underrated, and definitely his most successful mix of western and horror. And gorey. I remember one scene, the master vampire crashed a hotel party full of drunken vampire slayers and jiggling whores, walked right up to Mark Boone Junior and tore him in half using one hand. Much fun was had by all. (read the rest of this shit…)

Maria Full of Grace

This is a movie about a beautiful teenage girl from Colombia who works a shitty job dethorning roses, gets in an argument with her boss, one thing leads to another and suddenly she’s pursuing other opportunities. Around the same time she finds out she’s pregnant, gets in an argument with her boyfriend and they announce they don’t love each other and begin a new journey of life travelling on separate paths. (A convenient way for the guy to avoid responsibility. Well played, deadbeat. Well played.) Also she meets a new guy and this guy has some connections with drug traffickers. Which leads to an exciting new moneymaking opportunity.

You probaly already heard of this movie so you know what it is. She becomes a drug mule. She swallows something like a dozen balloons of heroin, has to carry them on a plane to New York. She’s part of what they call “shotgunning” where they send a bunch of mules at the same time, figuring if one of them gets caught it will create a distraction for the others to get through. She knows some of the other mules (one of them is her whiny, pouty best friend) so it puts them in sort of an uneasy alliance/competition. (read the rest of this shit…)

LAY OFF CHRISTO, YOU ASSHOLES

“So motherfucker, can’t you see
I pity the sonofabitch that fucks with [Christo]”
–Rudy Ray Moore

Dear America,

I am Writing to inform you that I am at my last straw with you assholes making fun of Christo. It would be fine if you knew what you were talking about and were just giving him some shit, some snaps, some good natured ribbing and what not. But I’m afraid that ain’t the case.

Don’t give me that dumb look like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Christo, the legendary/infamous “environmental artist” whose work is usually described as “wrapping things in plastic.” Throughout the last several decades this dude and his wife/partner Jeanne-Claude (who never gets made fun of because the people who make fun of Christo don’t even know the basic facts of his work) have performed such epic feats as building a giant curtain through a valley, building a giant fence through Sonoma county, turning several islands into giant pink lilly pads, and wrapping up the Pont Neuf bridge over there in France. This week they finally unveiled a project in Central Park that they’ve been trying to do forever. Since it’s a big deal in New York and most of the American media is based there, now we gotta deal with a bunch of ignorant fuckers making fun of him on all the TV shows. (read the rest of this shit…)

Vern snuggles with CONSTANTINE!

Hey folks, Harry here in my geek recovery ward. Been getting a lot of reviews of CONSTANTINE in and it seems the more familiar with the comic the reviewer is, the more they dislike the film. Personally – other than seeing a lot of the covers, I’ve never been a big HELLBLAZER reader, and I found myself liking the film quite a bit. Almost exacly like Vern here, only less literate. Here he is…. on your knees, for he speaks…

Dear Harry,

Here is a review of a movie I saw starring Keanu Reeves (guy from the Matrixes)

Okay, first I got a warning for some of you comic strip wise guys out there. If you like the comic strip this movie is based on, DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE. It’s just not worth it, man. You’re gonna be mad because, according to my sources, in the comic strip the dude is British, and even if he wasn’t British, he wouldn’t be Keanu Reeves. Hey man I’m a purist too sometimes, I understand this. I’d be pissed if they made DIE HARD into a comic strip, but they got John McClane wearing shoes or something. Or playing a guitar. It’s gonna be hard to get past what they did here so forget it man, save your time, save the stress. Go get a massage or something. (read the rest of this shit…)

The Born Losers

I always dug the Billy Jack pictures. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re low budget independent movies about a half white/half native ex green beret badass with hippie values. He and his wife (the director and producer of the movies, respectively) run “The Freedom School” where they teach kids to be themselves and stand up for minorities and strum guitars and crap. Billy Jack lives one of those lives where, you know, he’s always out trying to ride a horse or a jeep or something, just minding his own business, but inevitably he’s gonna see some racist assholes picking on an indian or some rapist assholes picking on a girl or something along those lines. And he’s gonna walk over quietly and interject himself into the situation. This sometimes means beating some ass, but also sometimes means getting his own ass beaten and ending up in jail. But the important thing is he stands up for the downtrodden. That’s his primary interest and hobby, I guess. He stands up to rich kids, corrupt cops, even the energy industry in the last one, Billy Jack Goes to Washington, where he becomes Senator Billy Jack and makes his stand in an exciting filibuster climax.

(if you REALLY haven’t heard of Billy Jack you probaly assumed that last part was a joke, so I should make it clear that it is not.) (read the rest of this shit…)

Outlaw Vern launches a review of THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT dvd

Hey folks, Harry here with a review of a pretty darn fun movie. I haven’t seen the dvd yet, that’s why it isn’t on my list. But by all means, Vern is right about the film, this is one I must pick up!

Dear Harry,

Congratulations on the robot leg, bud. I never thought of getting one of those. Sounds like a good gimmick though, hope it’s working out there.

that’s all bud,

Vern

On second thought, shit, as long as I’m writing you I might as well review this movie THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT that I just saw on a convenient DVD type format. It officially comes out on February 22nd (or 15th if you wanna order it from the web sight). What this is is a very independent low budget absurdist comedy deal that was made in 2000 and has been touring the land ever since. You ran one glowing review of it years ago and a couple other minor references, but since it’s a real good one that will probaly get almost no advertising, I thought maybe it was worth revisiting as it comes to DVD and therefore within reach of your average citizen. (read the rest of this shit…)

Stone Cold

As you know I have a professional interest in the old B-action pictures. I like your Seagals, your Swayzes, and your etceteras. That’s why somebody asked me Vern, do you know about this guy Brian Bosworth though. I said are you kidding me? Let me answer your question with a question. Did I live in Seattle in the year 1987? Of course I know who the damn Boz is. He was on the Seahawks and the local media acted like he was Jesus Christ Hisself, coming down from Heaven with a sacramental football and a new haircut. The haircut of course was a bleach blond mullet with designs shaved on the side, sometimes a full color Seahawks logo. It was called the Boz cut. I guess you could say he was the Dennis Rodman of his time. Known for his calculated outrageous fashion and In Your Face Attitude, he was a phenomenon with the kids. The white Mr. T. People copied the haircut, they had pro and anti Boz t-shirts, they even had this poster that said “Land of Boz” and showed him going down the yellow brick road with a bunch of kids dressed as him (Bozkins, probaly). He was a real big fuckin deal for all us retards here in Seattle.

Only one problem was, he never played that good. He kept getting injured and retired after three seasons. But his career was insured so he got rich off it all. After that score he figured, what the hell, maybe you can pull this same shit off in movies. Moved to L.A. and made STONE COLD. And it should’ve been obvious just from that background that this was gonna be a real good bad action movie. (read the rest of this shit…)

Finding Neverland

FINDING NEVERLAND is one of those movies that feels kind of like a remedial imagination class they force you to take on Saturdays because you fucked up. You may not know this, it tells you, but it turns out imagination is important and magical and all that kind of crap. Johnny Depp plays J.M. Barrie, the writer of Peter Pan. The movie starts the same as ED WOOD, he’s the writer of some flop play that the audience already hates literally about 2 seconds after it starts. It’s the first line of dialogue and a dude is already asleep.

So J.M. needs to imagination up his life somehow to inspire him to write Peter Pan, and luckily he runs into a widow (Kate Winslet) and her spunky kids (a bunch of kids) while he’s walking his novelty oversized dog. Next thing you know he’s hanging out with the kids, dressing up in silly costumes and imagining stuff with them. They’re still pretty bummed about their dad dying so he has to teach them to have a childlike sense of wonder, etc. (read the rest of this shit…)

2004 Oscar nominations

Alot of us movie fans, we got this problem called “the Oscars.” Every year we’re pissed off by who they neglect or who they give it to. Akiva Goldsman?! Bitch, are you for real? But then we get involved in it anyway, rooting for the ones we like, against the ones we hate, fuming over how bad those assholes in the academy fucked up this year.

We say we don’t care about the Oscars, because they’re always wrong. Then we spend half an hour complaining about how wrong they are. Because of how much we don’t care. So here’s my thoughts on this year’s nominations.

This year though especially, I think somebody needs to have a talk with that academy, because they seem to be confused about a few things. I mean for example did you know that a fictional movie about a camel counts as a documentary? (THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL was nominated for best documentary feature.) Listen up academicians, if you’re gonna bump CONTROL ROOM that’s your prerogative, but at least bump it for a fuckin documentary if the category’s supposed to be documentary. Or if it doesn’t have to be a documentary, why not just throw anything in there? How bout PUNISHER? That was a pretty good documentary I thought. (read the rest of this shit…)