Well, I’m skipping ahead in the Spike Lee chronology I’ve been ever-so-slowly crawling my way through, but I thought a movie about a march on Washington would be a good thing to revisit on the Martin Luther King Day starting the week that, as far as we know, will end with the inauguration of the first American president to be 2 degrees of separation from Steven Seagal (they have a mutual friend, a Russian guy named Vladimir something) and subsequent protest march.
GET ON THE BUS is a road trip movie, but it could almost be a play, because the vast majority of it is about conversations taking place inside a charter bus. Around fifteen African American men, most of them meeting for the first time, are headed from a church parking lot in South Central Los Angeles to the Million Man March in Washington DC. If you’re too young to remember, that was the October 16, 1995 gathering of black men organized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Kid, you look different since Part 2. Did you lose weight or something?
Okay, I’m not saying it’s very good, but I gotta admit, HOUSE PARTY 3 wasn’t as bad as I expected. Actually I was kinda impressed that each installment covers a different part of Kid’s life. Part 1 he’s (improbably) in high school maintaining friendships, bonding with his dad, starting his first serious relationship. Part 2 he’s going to college, learning about his heritage, facing challenges in keeping his girlfriend, dealing with loss. Now, for part 3, he says goodbye to childish things. He’s lost the fade and is thinking about cutting his hair altogether. He must decide how much he believes in his future as a rapper, accept that his parts 1-2 girlfriend Sidney wasn’t who he was meant to be with, and trust that his woman Veda (Angela Means) loves him even when she’s around naked dudes. All this because he’s about to get married. In HOUSE PARTY 3, Kid becomes Man.
You know how nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin to say, but nothin comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish, and motherfuckers act like they forgot about Dre? And this despite the widespread recognition of Dre Day, and everybody’s celebratin? Well, that must be tough for Dre, but it’s even worse for Dré.
Dr. Dre – title abbreviated, name spelled with an ‘e’, not an ‘é’ – is the famous producer/rapper, the genius behind NWA, discoverer of Snoop and Eminem, headphone consultant, Dr. Pepper advocate. He still produces, is still highly respected despite unleashing 50 Cent, appears on commercials all the time but somehow still has a mystique about him. He recently released a song from the album he’s been working on for ten years, so he’s on the cover of magazines and people are really believing it’ll come out in February. And plan to buy it. Most rap careers don’t last as long as just the time people have been anticipating this one album by Dre.
Meanwhile Doctor Dré – title spelled out in full, name spelled with a little wavy thing above the ‘e’ – you could definitely make a strong argument that motherfuckers weren’t acting, they sincerely had forgotten about that particular Dré. (read the rest of this shit…)
Well I seen this picture a while back when it was in a theater. I remembered it was pretty good so I wanted to watch it again for Christmas. Because it’s about Christmas. It’s called Bad Santa. (I mentioned that above so you probaly know that already)
Well I watched it about a week too late so this review is not very timely. But since this review will still be here to read next christmas I feel this bad timing should not count against my 2005 New year’s Resolution, A Commitment To Excellence. If you disagree take it up with the magic new year baby.
Anyway what this BAD SANTA one is about is Billy Bob Thornton is a character called Willie, a self loathing alcoholic safecracker who every year gets a job as a department store Santa. His partner Marcus (Tony Cox from FRIDAY) is a dwarf who is his elf. Then after closing time on christmas eve Marcus will be disguised as a snowman decoration or something, he runs and turns the alarm off and they rob the place. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hi, everyone. “Moriarty” here with some Rumblings From The Lab…
No, seriously. The one and only Vern has returned with a new review of the seemingly in-limbo animated film, LI’L PIMP. Dig in:
Howdy boys,
Dark days have descended upon the Vern compound here in the bright blue upper left corner of the American map, and they hit me like a basketball to the nose. Just sitting here naively preparing for one of them ewok celebrations they used to have. Fireworks shootin off everywhere, a bunch of little dudes dancing around playing drums on Homeland Security helmets. I was high off publishing my first book and was feeling real optimistic. I felt the world was gonna change for the better and I looked fondly forward to the future, to a day when my fellow countrymen and women could hold their heads high and swell their chests with pride. Also to BLADE 3 next month.
Then, not sure what happened, somewhere around November 2nd or 3rd I just plunged into a bottomless funk. Not the good Clyde Stubblefield kind. The bad kind, where you’re sad and crap. The kind where you stumble around aimlessly and start behaving strangely. Maybe you watch GARFIELD and write a bizarre, rambling essay about it, to name one example. Who knows what could happen while you are in this state of the blues. (read the rest of this shit…)
Chris Rock is kind of a weird dude in my opinion. Remember when he was first on Saturday Night Live? The guy didn’t seem funny at all, and they would just bring him out whenever they needed a black guy. It took a while but eventually he started to get better material and he really broke out, and when he left the show people really started to realize what a smart guy he was. His standup specials are great, his Chris Rock Show was great and he produced that movie POOTIE TANG which is one of the more madly brilliant cult hits of the past such and such period of time.
But despite all this his movie career is only a level or two above David Spade’s. His heart is in the right place but he ends up making corny shit like CB4. When he tries for more credibility he instead ends up in a god damn Kevin Smith movie. I guess NURSE BETTY was okay but still, the guy is obviously capable of so much more. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is a new comedy concert movie directed by Spike Lee. Instead of having somebody good like Richard Pryor as the star, the gimmick here is that it’s Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac.
Just kidding bud the truth is these guys aren’t bad. I never even heard of the motherfuckers but apparently that’s what all the white people say. Sorry boys. They are popular enough to fill up a god damn stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina so they must be pretty popular there, in my opinion. Unless they just let everybody in for free but I don’t think they did.
Apparently a couple of these motherfuckers have shows on pbs or one of those type of stations that nobody watches. One is called the steve harvey show, the other is called d.l. Hughley presents The Hughleys. Now one thing I wanna know, if these motherfuckers are so funny why they can’t come up with a real name for a show. No, it’s gotta be The Steve Harvey Show. The Hughleys. The Wayans Brothers. The Jamie Foxx show. Martin. the Drew Carey Show. Seinfeld. Ellen. Roseanne. The Cosby Show. Norm. Titus. The Jeff Foxworthy Show. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Skani on The Accountant 2: “I was a big fan of the first one, but this one just kind of pissed me off for a…” Aug 7, 18:17
RBatty024 on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “Didn’t this one get chopped down to size by the studio? I haven’t seen it, so who knows if that’s…” Aug 7, 09:33
MaggieMayPie on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “I pretty much agree with everything Vern said and yet I still like the movie. This might be the case…” Aug 7, 09:31
Dtroyt on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “This is one of those rare times when I pretty much have the exact opposite opinion to Vern. And that’s…” Aug 7, 07:40
Peter Campbell on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “I saw it and felt it was fine but nothing great. My biggest problem with it is that they don’t…” Aug 7, 03:05
Timo on Superman (2025): “Superman inspired me to rewatch Carter. I read somewhere that Gunn is a big fan of director Jung Byung-gil and…” Aug 7, 02:43
CJ Holden on Sky High: “He was apparently very good at faking superstrength. In the first scene we see his dad walking into his room,…” Aug 7, 01:45
Franchise Fred on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “agree with Vern. I’m especially surprised people are finding Sue the heart of the movie. She spends most of the…” Aug 7, 01:05
Jules on Sky High: “I’ve always had a soft spot for this one. My kids were the perfect age for it and I fondly…” Aug 6, 23:14
jojo on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “I’ll see this… eventually. As a kid, the closest news stand carried no DC. So young jojo had no Superman…” Aug 6, 17:01
Bill Reed on The Fantastic 4: First Steps: “I sense I’ll be in the minority here, but I adored this one. I’m surprised and delighted to say it’s…” Aug 6, 16:19
wmjahn on The Predator: “I did … regnet it. PREY is great, but this one sucks: poor cast, some of the dumbest dialogue ever…” Aug 6, 05:50
Kit on 28 Years Later: “already seemed crazy to me before I read that British people understand it as a reference to a famous child…” Aug 6, 01:52
Johnny Cake on Fantastic Four (2005): “I remember liking this movie because the characters were ones I knew well. Seeing them brought to life was exciting.…” Aug 6, 00:54
Wandering on Sky High: “Wow, this movie has famed Tolstoy biographer Warren Peace? (Author of Leo Tolstoy by Warren Peace)” Aug 5, 17:40