The 4 Most-Inspiring Females of My Childhood

#4

Karen Allen

Marion Ravenwood was the OG of Indiana Jones girls... and in the end Indy chose to marry her. Marion was the kind of gal who was tender and loving, but could also outdrink a farmer from Nepal with quadruple her body mass. Marion isn't exactly the 'Damsel in Distress' type either - she's quick to pick up a frying pan and lend her man a hand during an Egyptian street fight. And even though Marion does seem to get captured pretty frequently throughout her years, she never goes cooperatively... her ability to constantly yell and call her captors rude names is unequaled.

 

It is truly a crying shame how badly Spielberg gave Karen Allen the shaft with the Indy sequel. Sure, she made it back for the 4th installment of the Indy movies, but by that point who gives a fuck? Harrison Ford is older than dinosaur shit and for some reason that douche from Transformers is now part of the cast. Karen’s full body of theatrical work is pretty unimpressive, unfortunately. She debuted in Animal House, which was a classic, and played alongside Bill Murray in Scrooged, which is the only watchable Christmas movie (A Christmas Story is dumb and not funny at all, period).

 

#3

Samus Aran

The first Metroid was a total bitch to ever even get close to completing. But with the invention of cheat codes, everybody eventually got to experience the twist of an ending: the hero removes their space suit to reveal an alien girl in a bikini! Then you get the option of RE-playing this fucking game as an under-dressed alien hooker. Great!

 

Metroid Prime for the Nintendo Gamecube was one of IGN's first games to get a Perfect 10/10 review - even if that game was impossibly hard, you got to see thing from Samus' first-person POV! There is no situation that our gal Samus can't shoot, bomb, flip or roller-ball her way out of! Samus basically kicked an entire planet's ass in the original Metroid, and then managed to out-run the planet-wide explosion safely. Bad ass! Samus has been taking on similar space missions such as her first, except now she is a blonde. And she has more badass gear too.

 

#2

Linda Hamilton

Had Linda Hamilton possessed more of a body of work when it comes to her roles, she would definitely have taken the top spot. However, aside from Terminator 1, Terminator 2 and Children of The Corn, Hamilton's other on-screen appearances aren't even worth mentioning. 'Sarah Connor' began as a simple diner waitress with a scooter and a really terrible haircut. But like most of the citizens of LA, there comes a day in Sarah's when a smelly homeless guy comes back in time to protect you from a motorcycle-riding Cyborg, then gets you pregnant, your kid turns out to be Edward Furlong. After crushing her first Austrian robot in a factory, Sarah ends up in a mental hospital for trying to blow up a CPU company. Anyway, after Apple somehow survived her attack and she gets locked up, she manages to free herself from her room and beats up a bunch of the hospital staff. What a resourceful, methodical woman you are, Linda. I can’t count on all 75 feet and hands how many times I’ve watched the Terminator movies.

 

Sarah Conner is a beast in Terminator 2: she gets slashed, stabbed through the chest, gets stitches, shoots a guy in front of his family, has a gun-fight with an entire swat team, then lowers the only father-figure her son ever had into hot molten lava… she is just a plain beast.

 

#1

Sigourney Weaver

Alas, we come to the top spot… and a well-deserved candidate indeed! Ridley Scott discovered Sigourney while searching for a main character for his upcoming film Alien. And boy did he hit the bullseye on this pick! Weaver’s next main on-screen appearance was as Dana/Zuul in Ghostbusters. Aside from the obvious classic elements of this genius Comedy, Weaver’s acting was the most notable of performances in Ghostbusters. Dana begins as a normal chick in 1980s New York City, who discovers she has demons in her refrigerator, becomes possessed by a malevolent demonic lord called Zuul, then bangs Rick Moranis, gets struck by lightning and turns into a giant demon dog/bear gargoyle-monster in order to summon Gozer. Fucking Rad!! Weaver next appeared in Aliens, the James Cameron sequel to Alien. Ellen Ripley goes through some very drastic changes since her last movie. She is no longer a naïve, simple space pilot. Ripley is now haunted by nightmares of her experience and decides to join the space Marines in returning to the planet where Ripley previously found the alien species who killed her entire crew… both to face her fears and see that the Marines wipe out the entire infested tera-formed colony.

 

We see Ripley undergo a number of terrifying experiences on LB426 (planet name), which leads up to Ripley single-handedly taking on the Queen and her alien hive-guards with nothing but a Pulse Rifle, Flame Thrower, a strip of grenades and her wits. The climax of the film comes where Ripley faces off with the ferocious Queen inside a walking robot-forklift machine… where she manages to, yet again, flush the creature out into space and save the day (and this time save THE SHIP TOO)! Aside from Goonies and Predator, Aliens is definitely the film I’ve watched most in my lifetime. Even to this day, I can put this on and enjoy the whole thing start to finish. And it is solely due to Sigourney’s work… and Bill Paxton. Anyway, Sigourney Weaver has done a wide range of on-screen work: comedy, drama… even cartoon voices! Most notably was her return to the employment of James Cameron for the hit movie Avatar, where she played a largely integral role. I could go on and on about how inspiring and powerful Weaver is, and why she deserves to be at the top of my list… and I feel like I already did that.

Movies That Suck That Rule - Ladyhawke

I first caught this odd movie around 3am during a long stretch of Unemployment, World of Warcraft and Insomnia. Regardless of how obscure this movie really is, Ladyhawke was actually nominated for 2 Oscars. Don't worry though, this movie is still chock full of dumb shit well worth making fun of.

Our tale of mideval heroes and shapeshifting B-List actors starts out with Matthew Broderick escaping from the sewers, where his career would end up again anyway after making the Godzilla remake in the mid 90's. His character is called 'Mouse' due to his abilities as a thief and an escape artist. The main antogonist of this movie is the Bishop of the church.

Mouse is the first person to escape the Bishop's prisons and has a handful of angry knights hot on his tail. The Bishop's men catch up to Mouse, but are foiled by 'Navarre,' a stately knight dressed in black.

Yes that's right - Rutger Hauer has a hawk that obeys him. Bad-ass! This is one of those rare films where Rutger Hauer isn't a crazy robot chasing Harrison Ford in his underwear or a homeless guy shooting people. He actually plays the hero for once. This movie is pretty much a total stinker, but Hauer's performance is still worth watching (at least once). Anyhow, Navarre used to be the leader of the evil Bishop's guards. Amazed that the Mouse was able to escape from the castle, Navarre implores Mouse to help him sneak BACK IN to the castle in order to kill the Bishop. Broderick begrudgingly accepts, much like I'm sure he did when saying "I do" to that donkey-faced hooker from Sex in The City.

As if Matthew Broderick's life as a thief with a terrible haircut wasn't already difficult enough, things get really weird during his trek with his knight friend; at night, Navarre turns into a scary wolf... and his hawk turns into a young Michelle Pfieffer.

"Meoww!... Oh I mean.. CA-CAWWW!!"

 

According to some unbathed crazy guy in the mountains, the Bishop fell in love with Michelle Pfieffer, but she was already in love with... you guessed it! MATTHEW BRODERICK! (Rutger Hauer, duh)

I kid, I kid. Anyway, the Bishop decides that the best course of action to take is making a pact with Satan to curse Isabeau (Pfieffer) and Navarre (Hauer), causing Isabeau to live as a Hawk during the day and Navarre as a Wolf during the evening... forcing them to always be unavailable to both take human form at the same time. Furthermore, neither can remember what they do during their hours in their animal form. Yeah... that definitely seems like alot of extra, unnecessary work, don't you think? Why didn't the Bishop just have them executed? Or poison them or something? Why make a pact with freaking Satan? That shit never works out!

So as I'm sure you probably already figured out, this movie inevitably concludes with Rutger Hauer making his way to the Bishop and slaying him. As expected, this lifts the curse between Navarre and Isabeau - finally allowing them both to stop banging their partner in Hawk / Wolf form. Love prevails again. It's good that this film only ever comes on in the middle of the night... because I wouldn't want to be caught watching this thing by someone during the daytime.

THE END.

5 Things White People Invented That Should Be Apologized For

Dressing Animals In Outfits

If you are a black person who dresses their dog or cat up as such, i apologize; for You, my good friend, have adopted one of the most damnable of 'white people' ways. It's frightening to think that there are children in some countries without clothing (that is, factory-made/store-bought clothing), but there are rich girls pimping their dogs out and carrying them in pricey purses. Most dogs and cats, in their lifetime, will struggle to master the concept of which place is the correct place to urinate/defacate and whether or not to eat it when finished... do you really need a diamond-studded collar and designer clothing for a four-legged piss-and-shit factory? If God wanted my Boston Terrier to wear a shirt and boots, he wouldn't have given him fur and padded-feet with fucking claws.



　

　

The Electric Slide

This song and dance is neither electrical, nor does it contain any manner of sliding in it. What were we thinking with this one, White people? The Electric Slide is like a police field-sobriety test with a shitty 80's song behind it. And they even made a second Electric Slide! The only fun part about being forced to do this in school Phys Ed was trying to knock the unhappy kid next to you down. I may be white... and not particularly good at dancing, but no song bosses me around, God damn it! I'll make up my OWN embarassing dance moves, thank you very much. Walking sideways, clapping a few times and rocking back and forth doesn't constitute a 'dance' in my book.




　

Carriage Rides Through Urban Areas

I know what you're thinking when it comes to transportation; why own a convenient means such as a car, truck or motorcycle when you could have a means that travels 5 miles an hour through the crowded streets of the city, holding up traffic and pedestrians during all hours of the day? Who needs a radio and climate control when you could have an open-topped carriage pulled unwillingly by a beast (who probably wishes it was dead or free) that occasionally takes a 15-pound shit in a bag that hangs a few meters from your nostrils? Okay that will do it for the sarcasm portion of this one. Look... White people already have enough opportunities in each day to make asses out of themselves - is it absolutely necessary to be courted around the busy city in a fucking Horse & Buggy in front of all the frantic people whose schedule for the day does NOT include a fairytale with horsies and picnics? Even as a passenger it seems stupid to do this. I mean why not just take a carriage ride somewhere that's actually romantic? A place maybe with scenery not consisting entirely of concrete and less automobile fumes and less constant, erratic noise and less homeless people willing to stab you for your valuables? But that's just me, I guess.






The Keytar

Somewhere along the course of Rock history, there was a feeble attempt made at trying to make a keyboard player look exciting, instead of just standing in one place while playing. Like most of what went dreadfully wrong with Rock and Roll music, this abomination occured during the 1980's. And it was called the KEYTAR. As a person who has played a variety of instruments on stage I can honestly tell you that there is NO way to make a keyboard player look bad-ass. The only way a keyboard player to kick-ass is to BE a kick ass keyboard player! The Keytar has been out of production since the early 90s, which would be my guess as to why every Keytar still in existence is usually neon pink or some other tastless shade of the 1980s. All Keytars have a handful of settings and all of them generally sound like fucking shit. With that being said - Keytar is definetely the least sucky of the five on this list.

　



Vajazzling

Normally, I'm not opposed to anything Jennifer Love Hewitt does to her nether-regions, but putting jewels and diamonds down THERE is just fucking stupid. Unless a big corporation is renting that space out for good money, what's the point? Bedazzling hats and backpacks never became wholly popular... and to be fair, you can only up-sell a vagina to a certain point. A man doesn't need jewels or decorations - he just needs a VAGINA! I mean, I could understand having your Taint plated in Bronze... but not this. No.

Movies That Suck That Rule - House (1986)

Ah yes, I remember my day bringing this home when I was roughly 5 years old. Though the film is self-described as a 'Comedy Horror,' I can't think of one instance where I found myself ever laughing during this movie as a child. There is some seriously stupid shit in this movie, but also some pretty creepy shit too. Sure it's a little hokey watching it today, but the imagery and creepiness of House still works on a number of levels for me.

The story begins with a crazy old woman living in a haunted house. When she's not busy being tormented by angry, floating gardening tools, she enjoys painting her terrible experiences within her home on canvas. She decides to hang herself, as many people during the 1980's were driven to do, and she leaves her entire inheritance (which is basically just the house) to her Nephew, Roger.

Roger seems like the perfect candidate for a large inheritance; he's a hallucinating, half-crazy Vietnam veteran who is a broke, failing author, half-assed father, his marriage is in shambles... you get the idea. The most hilariouos part about Roger is the fact that he actually LOST his son; not lost as in his son DIED, his son actually went missing during a visit to Roger's now-dead Aunt... inside the HOUSE!

As it turns out, living in Roger's house isn't ALL bad - his next door neighboor turns out to be Norm from Cheers (the character's actual name isn't important, so we shall just call him Norm from Cheers).

"Hey gang, we thwartin' some ghosts?"

Norm politely, but judgementally, befriends Roger in the most sensible way a fat guy could a hallucinating Nam veteran; he brings him snacks late at night and listens awkwardly to his fucked up stories.

The shit hits the fans pretty quick in this movie. One night Roger decides to blow a couple grand on high tech 80's cameras and dress up in army gear in an attempt to photograph a giant monster that previously appeared from the closet in his late Aunt's bedroom and scratched his chest.

Roger sees his Aunt's ghost, who goes on to hang herself as a ghost (sucks!).

A giant mounted swordfish comes to life and makes baby sounds?

The garden tools in the shed levitate and try to stab Roger.

One night his ex-wife shows up and turns into a giant, fat lady-monster (ohhh-kay?) who gets a lickin' from Roger's 12-guage. He then proceeds to dismember the bloated, rubbery corpse and buries in the safest, most well-hidden spot imaginable - his back yard.

As if Roger's life wasn't already hellish enough, his OTHER neighbor (a hot blonde) comes over and pretty much tells him that she'll pay him back in sexual favors if he babysits her son for a few hours. Roger, brimming with the confidence of a father who hasn't already lost his own child, agrees to let the son spend a few hours in his house filled with monsters and angry gardening tools and giant, fanged fat chicks. Well as one could imagine, a few more things go haywire for Roger and the dumb 80s slut's son; One of the hands of the dismembered woman-monster crawls its way back into the house and tries to get the boy. A bunch of freaky, cartoonish, giant-faced ghoul-children try to shove the kid up the chimney (creepy!).

Roger and his pal Norm team up to confront and photograph the monster in Roger's closet one night and Roger is accidentally pulled into the closet by the beast. For some reason, Vietnam is inside Roger's closet. He revisits his most terrible war memory; deciding not to kill his mortally wounded friend "Big Ben" who ends up being taken alive by the enemy and tortured to death.

Now I know what you're thinking - "This movie is great so far, but no true adventure is complete without a trip through the bathroom medicine cabinet." Well... fear not, good movie fans! Roger manages to repell himself (using just a plain, white rope, mind you!) down into the um... the abyss inside the medicine cabinet, where he meets a very unfriendly, claymation skeleton-bat-monster (i apologize for these terrible-sounding creature names, I assure you I'm shooting for accuracy and not just making up words). The skeleton-bat-monster steals Rogers trusty shotgun, shoots Roger's rope and sends him falling into the darkness.

Roger lands safely (and mysteriously) in water. He sees bubbles below the surface and swims down to investigate the source. When he resurfaces for breath, Roger finds himself... back in Vietnam? What the... Okay whatever. Roger finds his son in a cage on the shore and frees him. A man in the darkness is firing a machine at Roger as he rescues his son and goes back underwater to 1986 in America... you can probably imagine who Roger's final encounter of the film is by now.

"Hey dumbass, thanks for not killing me. Also, I found your fucking son."

Big Ben (undead version) follows Roger to his house and starts shooting the entire place up. In the end, Roger just tells Ben that he's not afraid of him or the House anymore, which magically renders Ben completely harmless somehow. Roger pulls a grenade from Big Ben's belt and shoves it into his guts. With the grenade blowing up Ben doing no exterior damage to the house, Roger and his family are re-united. I guess. Maybe he died right after the movie stopped, who knows?

5 Things I Wish I Could Change In Film / TV

1 and 2. Switch Ian McKellar and Christopher Lee as Magneto and Count Dooku

Don't get me wrong, these two both did stellar jobs at these roles, and much like the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings; Lee BARELY missed out on the role of Magneto as a result of the craze for Ian McKellar in the late 90s when he landed the two roles. Aside from missing those two projects, Lee missed out on the role of the main villian in the first Harry Potter movie... due to his overexposure as already being the main bad guy in both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Which is complete bullshit, if you ask me. Lee played dracula 7 times... SEVEN. Some of the Dracula movies were complete turds, none of which were a result of Lee's protrayal as Dracula. Christopher Lee was born to portray the ultimate bad guy. Unfortunately, Lee was quite a bit older than McKellar. He could do the arm work for the lightsaber duels, but not very much with his legs. Lee is a few inches away from 7 feet tall... and his stunt man is 6 foot at BEST. Ian McKellar, as seen in LOTR, had no problem running, climbing a bit, spinning during fights etc. Lee should have been cast as Magneto, who did little-to-no strenuous leg movements whatsoever. Lee's stature and voice would have made a hell of a better Magneto. And in casting Ian McKellar as Count Dooku, you eliminate the need for stunt doubles and tireless hours of CGI'ing Lee's face during the battles! Maybe I'm just being a Purist with this one, but that'd be a damn good switch in my eyes.

　

3. Take Keanu Reeves and Winonah Ryder OUT of Bram Stoker's Dracula. And replace them... with ANYBODY!

Much like toilet water and sardines, Winonah Ryder is an acquired taste... and that acquired taste is a rich person who steals coats from the Mall. She was perfect in Beetlejuice because her character was a depressed weirdo. Her female pal, Lucy, in the film is played by Sadie Frost, a lowly tv actress who brings down the house with her portrayal of Lucy's character. Aside from Gary Oldman's brilliant re-vamping(drumroll! cymbal!) of Dracula himself, I'd dare say that Sadie Frost makes this movie for me. Why couldn't they just pick some other random up-and-coming actress who actually has a REAL European accent? Why pay Winonah Ryder a couple million to butcher one of the most integral roles of a literary classic? Speaking of shitty fake accents, why is the guy from Wild Stallions playing John Harker?

 

Dracula duuude... your baby-eating vampire brides are most excellent!

Here's a better idea! Let Gary Oldman switch his role from Dracula to Harker and get... I dunno, Nick Nolte to play Dracula? That would be better than watching Keanu Reeves for any reason. In my eyes, Keanu Reeves was dead to me after the movie 'Speed.'  He could barely figure out how to act like he was eating a Turkey dinner when he first arrived at Dracula's castle. And that stupid hairstyle with the part down the middle... come on F.F. Coppolla! You're kill' us! What did you do, roll a dice for these actor/actress choices?



4. Stop giving Zoey Deschanell the same role of the quirky, 'breaking-the-mold girl' who sings mediocrely.

We get it, you sing. You sing in a bunch of your movies. You have your own show where you sing the theme song, You're a bubbly, goofy, edgy girl. We get it. Now please play A DIFFERENT role! Know what movie would have been classic for you to sing in? The Happening. That movie was already complete bar-none stupidity. Maybe if Zoey starting singing, the grass and trees would all stop attacking... or just lose interest... or die, like I do a little inside every time my wife puts on one of your movies. If you want to continue to make your mp3s, that's fantastic! Just keep it off the big screen. You may not be jumping the shark yet Zoey... but you're definitely on the motorbike with the engine started.




5. Take Cameron Diaz OUT of Gangs of New York

This is another one similar to my Dracula argument. One or two shitty pieces ruins the whole pie! Leonardo Dicaprio and Daniel Day Lewis are great in the film, but I almost find myself wanting to skip all the scenes with Cameron Diaz altogether. What is it about this woman that makes her watchable to people? Her looks are mediocre on a normal day, in this movie she's even more boring to look at than usual. Her character is painfully unimportant in this movie; aside from setting up Johnny betraying Young Vallon out of jealousy. A hack like Diaz should never even be penned in as a consideration for a movie as grand as classic as this. Ever.

　

Movies That Suck That Rule - Orca

We all know there are more than a handful of Shark-based movies, most of which turn out to be comedy movies by accident. Thankfully, there are only a few movies about Whales; which are all friendly, kiddy-type films like Free Willy. But there's always ONE guy who breaks the mold, blazes his own path and exclaims to the world of film, "WHALES ARE FUCKING EVIL!"

To be fair, Orca came out in 1977. It was the first Whale-based movie... and should have been the last, to be sure. So it's not as though someone took Free Willy and turned it into something violent and fucked up - although you never know what Michael Bay is going to dig up and ruin next! This may seem pretty surprising, but this film is basically the same as Jaws. I find that this film gives the viewer more of an uneasy feeling than when watching Jaws. A cop, oceanographer and a drunken pirate doing 90 minutes of battle with a giant Great White shark is just plain epic. A whale is supposed to be something cute and normally harmless to humans. This movie is the complete opposite of epic. It's actually pretty damn sad.

We start out with Captain Nolan and a cast of complete nobodies - when Bo Derek is the most famed participant in a movie, you know you're in for a steamy pile of a movie. Nolan is trying to catch a Great White Shark in the local area for the nearby Aquarium. One of his crew, Ken's, life is endangered by the Shark, but his life is saved when a pair of killer Whales come along and deal with the shark. As a token of thanks, Captain Nolan attempts to capture the male Orca. But being the drunken Irish prick that he is, Nolan accidentally harpoons the female who proceeds to have a big nasty miscarriage on the ships deck... then dies. The male Orca cries out in complete and utter agony at the sight of his dead mate and child. This traumatic scene is just the first bite of your shit sandwich. There's more to come! Come on, fucking seriously, a whale having a miscarriage? I want to be scared, not scarred for life!!

Your boat name sucks ass by the way.

 



As you can probably guess, the male Orca is pretty unhappy about this. He starts sinking boats and killing people in the local area. The Orca is basically a genius. The fucking whale breaks through the fuel lines and causes an explosion in the fuel reserve on land.  Seems like a perfect time for ol' Captain Nolan to toddle off to another port. Nope, the townsfolk force him to stay and 'deal with' the whale problem that he created.

Apparently Orca ups the ante when it comes to how much shit a giant fish can break. The killer whale literally fucking destroys an entire house... A WHOLE HOUSE! Not just that, the angry whale bites off Bo Dereck's leg. Put that in your French-braid and smoke it, hippy!

 

 

 

 



And so the hunt begins, following close suit to Jaws. Captain Nolan is not only half as good of a Captain as Quint from Jaws, he's also twice as fucking crazy. Nolan, his breathy English lady companion and a few other hired hands follow the orca into an icy death trap of a place.



 

This seems like a nice place to die... er- do battle with a whale. Whatever.



As if the ability to wreck a whole house wasn't impressive enough, the orca pushes an ENTIRE ICEBERG into Nolan's boat. He and Dr. Bedford (breathy English woman) each somehow make it onto the iceberg. The whale causes it to tilt, sending his nemesis, the evil Captain Nolan, into the water. The whale then proceeds to smash him and leave him to drown in his icy grave.

A helicopter comes to save Dr. Bedford. Whales are scary. The end.

Kevin Bacon's Top 3 Creepiest Movies

(In No Order)

SLEEPERS

Plot

 

 A handful of young kids from Hell's Kitchen decide to steal a hot dog cart and kill a guy with it. They all go to Juvenile Jail and give Kevin Bacon blowjobs and get tag teamed by the other drunken sleazy guards. Later in life, two of the group (who grow up to become criminals and druggies) see Kevin Bacon in a pub and kill him (not with hot dogs). With the aid of their priest, they spring a fast one on the courts: two of the kids became lawyers and represent both sides, rigging the case to save their guilty friends' asses. This movie teaches a very wholesome lesson: when the going gets tough, the tough convince a member of the Catholic Church to lie under oath in court to protect the lives of their murdering, coked out childhood pals.

HOLLOW MAN

Plot

 

This movie starts out starring normal Kevin Bacon who becomes invisible, creepy Kevin Bacon. He fondles a girl in her sleep. He murders people, including most of his friends. He molests one of his neighbors and drives around scaring children in a freaky mask. He drowns a guy smoking a pipe... I dunno, seems like Kevin Bacon at his finest.

 

 

 WHITE WATER SUMMER

 

Plot

 

Kevin Bacon goes white water rafting with a bunch of kids and almost gets them all killed. Altough devoid of rape altogether, this movie is head-above-oar the creepiest of the three. Okay, maybe not... but it's definitely the fucking stupidest.

Movies That Suck That Rule - Mio In The Land of Faraway

Mio In The Land Of Faraway is one of those super-obscure movies that left bits and pieces upon my memories. It is primarily a movie for kids, but like most things created in the 80s it turned out to be creepy and confusing.

This film starts out foreshadowing the life of a typical English child: it rains 6 days a week, one parent is dead and the other abandoned you because you suck, your fostering Auntie and Uncle cant stand the sight of you, the kids at school pick on you and steal your hat for no reason, all the adults around you are full of hate (and probably shitty food) and you basically have only one friend... who will grow up to become Batman. That's right, the co-main character is a 7 year old Christian Bale (the one on the RIGHT)

After taking a big verbal beating from his grumpy guardians, Mio (who is names Bosse in the real world), runs away from home. He stops into a shop containing the only living person in England who doesnt treat him like a doormat; a nice woman who gives him an apple and asks him to drop a letter into the nearby mailbox. The English boy does, on his trip to the mailbox, what we American's like to call a 'Federal Offense' and gives the nice woman's personal mail a look-see. Nosey little bastard! After dropping the mail off, his apple somehow turns to gold... apparently one of the UK's secrets to Dental greatness is feeding children things plated in solid metal. Mio... er, Bosse I mean, then stumbles across a lamp containing a genie (i guess...).

The next scene serves as a teacher for a very important lesson to children about how to deal with potential pedophiles: If a strange man appears out of thin air and tells you to '"grab onto his beard and let him take you for a ride," you say YES!

The genie is just a giant head, who tells the boy that the king is expecting him in the Land of Faraway. Thus ensues the beard-ride to the magical, yet creepy place. As it turns out, the boy's father is actually the king (not such a loser after all?) who tell him that his name is Mio. His old pal, now called Yum-Yum (or Jum-Jum), turns out to be living in TLOF(The Land of Faraway) as well. Mio meets his dad, who tells him that he is destined to travel to 'The Land Outside' and slay the evil wizard-knight Kato.

Before undertaking their great task, Mio and Yum-Yum decide it necessary to travel by horseback to the countryside and spend a pointless sequence learning how to play Panflutes. The fellow children tell Mio that many of the children in TLOF are being kidnapped by Kato's servants. Mio is taken to a magical Well that basically just re-iterates what Mio has to do: Kill Kato.

Kato was part of some Knightly order and has lived for thousands of years. His heart is made out of impenetrable stone and his left arm is replaced by a sweet metal claw-hand. He captures young children and generally does 1 of 3 unkind things to them:

1. Rip out their hearts and bound them to his eternal service working as a spy or a guard to his castle
2. Turn any children who refuse choice #1 into birds, who are forced to fly in circles around his castle for eternity
3. Throw them into the dungeon, in which it only takes ONE full night to starve.

Christopher Lee, as usual, makes this movie worth watching entirely. Kato scared the shit out of me as a kid, the few times I saw this in the late 80s. I won't speak at length of Lee's greatness (not this time anyway).

After Mio and his pal are done jaggin' around the countryside, they meet a nice lady who turns Mio's normal cloak into one that can turn him invisible when worn inside-out. Christian Bale doesn't get one... what a bitch!

Next on the list of weird fuckin' people they meet is a crazy old guy who tells to 'the darkest hole in the darkest mountain' and locate his friend, called 'the Forger of Swords.' At this point in the film, I know what you're asking yourself - I wonder what that character is going to do? Think hard.

The Forger of Swords makes Mio... A SWORD! WOW! M.N. Shaymalan-a-ding-DONG!
He gives Mio a magical sword and just to be fair, gives Yum-Yum a normal, shitty sword. What a one-sided friendship, English people are weird.

 

"I LIKE COOL TOYS TOO, FUCKING JERKS!"

Mio's sword is the only sword in existence capable of piercing the stone heart of Kato. This sword is so classic due to the fact that it can slice an entire blacksmith's anvil in half when wielded by a 6 or 7 year old kid, but a pair of seagulls are able to pick it up by the blade with their feet and not get a cut.

Mio and Yum-Yum are forced to leg-it to Kato's big scary castle, seeing as though Kato's spies captured Miramus, Mio's horse. It just goes to reinforce one of the most redundant things taught to young English children since the dawn of horseback-riding - If you go into a sketchy, imaginary low-income neighborhood late at night, you'd better lock all four doors on your horse. And just like the horse, they too get captured and imprisoned in the castle. Kato's mood apparently was one of laziness, as he elected to let them starve so he could "look upon a little pile of white bones." Kato takes Mio's blade, which he says is the most dangerous weapon he had ever held, and throws it out his castle window. And that should just about wrap up a victory for Kato... unless there is some sort of multitude of flying animals flapping about somewhere nearby. Hah! Not very likely...

So then there's two of the birds flapping about (mind you, these are actually children morphed into birds) picking up Mio's sword from the bank of the water near Kato's castle. What a dumbass. You mean to tell me Kato can turn people in birds and live for centuries but can't throw a fucking sword successfully into a lake directly outside his window? Makes sense to me. The birds fly the weapon into the holding cell of Mio. Mio takes the sword, escapes from his prison, sneaks past 'seven times seven' guards using his invisible cloak... and confronts Kato!

After breaking half own his shit in the room, shattering two swords and failing to kill a second-grader with giant Wind spells and a crudely animated ball of floating fire, Kato surrenders. And by surrenders I mean he gets impaled through his torso. It's Kato's most unlucky day ever. First he gets killed by a child after spending thousands of years in comfortable tyranny... then his castle quakes, gets electrocuted and set on fire (??) before finally crumbling to ruin.

Mio frees Yum-Yum, Miramus and return all the recently-kidnapped-children-turned-birds to their weird English forms. And all is happy, apparently by this picture.

Mio returns to see his father and decides that he will stay within the Land of Faraway and not England. The End.

Movies That Suck That Rule - The Return To Oz

 

The original Wizard of Oz is easily one of the most gigantic movies in all of human history. What could possibly go wrong if Disney was to crank out a high-budget sequel?

 

Holy shit. Apparently alot could go wrong. Here goes!

 

Like all child-appropriate movies, the story starts out with the main character, Dorothy Gale, being admitted to a mental hospital. And not the streamlined, modern day kind. The late 1800's / early 1900's kind where everything is treated with electo-shock and water torture. See the picture I've already painted in your head for you? Yeah, dont forget this is a Disney movie.

 

Right before she is about to receive Shock Treatment, the power at the Hospital goes out. Ozma appears and frees Dorothy from her binds. Apparently there's some magical power that allows characters from the previous Oz movie to age backwards. To be fair, Dorothy's backward-aging wasnt that bad but Ozma managed to shed a good 20-30 years.

 

 

 

Anyway, the two escape the Hospital and decide the smartest thing to do during a massive hurricane is to scream alot and jump into a river. Dorothy wakes up (doesnt drown) in the land of Oz, accompanied by her talking Chicken "Billina."

 

The land of Oz is basically a complete shit-hole now since the Scarecrow became king. The Emerald city is a disaster area, all the citizens of Oz have been turned to stone, the rocks on the ground have faces on them sometimes... times are tough. Dorothy's main mission is to find the dumb ass Scarecrow and fix everything wrong with Oz. Seriously, how incompetant are the people of Oz if a half-wit from Kansas has to come save them over and over? She already melted the Wicked Witch and took care of her flying monkeys for the folks of Oz! I'm unsure of the time frame between Dorothy's trip in this movie and her trip in the original is, mainly due to the fact that she aged BACKWARDS. But without the help of Dorothy, the entire population of Oz managed to:

1. Elect a king made of straw-filled potato sacks... who failed miserably
2. Lose every single last emerald of Emerald City
3. Turn Emerald City into a Section 8 housing district
4. Somehow turn every living thing into stone

 

After Dorothy and her talking Chicken grab a lunchbox from one of the trees (yes you heard that right), they meet the Wheelers. The Wheelers are responsible for dishing out more childhood nightmares during the 1980s than Freddy Kruger. The Wheelers are mortifying. What the hell was Disney thinking? The Wheelers are apparently pissed off that Dorothy stole one of the Lunchboxes and even more so that she is carrying a Chicken, which is strictly forbidden by the 'Nome King.' For a minute or so, they chase Dorothy around to a goofy sounding piece of music, which just adds to the creepiness of it all.





 

 

 

Dorothy gets cornered in a room where she finds Tik-Tok, a big golden 'military' sort of robot. Tik-Tok is basically the only one of Dorothy's companions who isn't a completely useless dipshit. His only problem is that he needs to frequently be re-wound up (like an old clock), which Dorothy will forget to do a bunch of times in the next 90 minutes or so of this weird ass movie. Tik-Tok marches his fat gold ass outside and beats some Wheeler ass. They manage to capture one and muscle a little information out of him. The Wheeler tells Dorothy and her slowly growing band of morons of how the Nome King kidnapped the Scarecrow, took over Oz and destroyed it. The only one who knows where the Scarecrow resides is Princess Mombi.

 

 

 

 

Princess Mombi is head-and-shoulders above all others - the most nightmarish aspect of this movie. . Princess Mombi is a sorceress who spends her time playing her weird stringed contraption within her castle that is 90% made of mirrors... and alternating between wearing her 30 heads. Yes, she has a hallway filled with decapitated heads that are still alive and are inter-changeable with her current head. Not creepy at all. On a personal note, Dorothy's initial encounter with Mombi is one of my favorite movie sequences of all time. The amount of time, money and construction put into building Princess Mombi's castle was bombastic (i wish i lived in this dwelling). After spending 5 minutes with Mombi, the sorceress decides to drop the pleasantries and imprisons Dorothy in her tower so that she may take her head (when she gets older). Tik Tok attempts to save Dorothy and her talking bird, but his gears end up winding down and he just freezes in place. Nice job dickface.

All right, ready for the two stupidest, most worthless characters in the movie? Well strap yourselves in! First there is Jack Pumpkinhead. At first you might be like, "Hey! The Scarecrow! Dorothy found him!" Nope, different Scarecrow. That's right, there's TWO Scarecrows in this movie. Jack's only difference is that he has a Pumpkin for a head, because mounting a gigantic pumpkin on a body made of straw and sticks is definetely possible, yes? Also, despite his larger head, Jack trumps the original Scarecrow's level of stupidity.

 

 

At this point in the film, Disney was obviously completely out of ideas for additional characters. This is evident due to the fact that the character of "The Gump" is 'created' by mashing together random items found in Mombi's tower. The Gump is literally an Elk head mounted on the wall as the head, a SOFA as a body (yes, a piece of furniture) and a fern plant as wings/rudders (yes, this piece of shit can fly somehow). To bring the Gump to life, Dorothy escapes her prison to retrieve Mombi's "Powder Of Life." Which is how Mombi is able to cut off young girl's heads and bring them back to life. With that being said, I think I will let the child-appropriateness of the scene speak for itself.

 

 

 

Was this scene seriously written by one person? Imagine going to pitch this scene (for a kids movie) to the executives at Disney today.

"Ok so basically the princess is going to be sleeping without her head. To make this scene more comfortable for children, lets have the headless, sleeping witch make a dry, gurgled, choking sound when she snores through the hole in the top of her headless neck. Dorothy will grab the pretty red key from Mombi's wrist and aquire the magic Powder. But then... Oops! She will accidentally awaken the original head of Princess Mombi within the same case, who in turn will talk in a scary, manly voice. Then we're gonna make all 30 of the heads within their cases start yelling and freaking out as Dorothy runs terrified down the corridor. That's not going to be enough though. What we need to do is show the headless body of Mombi rise from her bed and walk around flailing her arms trying kill Dorothy and find her original head."

What the hell? Someone actually approved this scene for a children's movie? I wonder if the London Symphonic Orchestra knew that one of their best musical scores was going to be paired with this twisted, train wreck of a movie?

 

So then, like in all good Disney films, the main character finally makes her dead animal head/magical couch with ferns attacted learn to FLYYYY! Dorothy and her band of assholes make their way over the Deadly Desert and land upon the Nome Kings mountain (by the way, I'm not misspelling Nome/Gnome in the case of this movie). They speak briefly to the Nome King, who appears as a large face upon the mountain-side. Dorothy demands to see the Scarecrow and the Nome king begings to laugh uncontrollably, which shakes the entire mountain and causes Dorothy and her pals to fall into his throne room.

So incase you havent already noticed, all the bad guys in Oz are just recycled characters from Dorothy's whopping 5-10 minute scene in the Mental Hospital back in Kansas. The Nome King is the same guy who plays the doctor with the scary electro-shock machine. Princess Mombi is the mean head nurse who loses Dorothy and Ozma in the river after they escape the hospital. The Wheelers are the guys in the hospital who 'wheel' around the beds and wheelchairs.

The Nome King is pretty much a giant douche. He tries to make Dorothy drink melted silver... and eat Limestone. I guess a tinted out van and a bag of candy isnt good enough, ya pervert? Hot melted silver, seriously? In retrospect, at this point in the movie you're probably hoping for Dorothy to drink the smelted metal so the main character kicks the bucket and this movie would just end. The Nome King tricks Dorothy into playing a game to free her friend, the Scarecrow; who has been turned into one of many 'ornaments' in the Nome King's gallery. Each person/robot/flying moose-sofa may go in one-at-a-time and take three guesses as to which of his trinkets is actually the Scarecrow. He fails to explain however, that once you guess three times incorrectly... you yourself become an ornament. Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump go first and second... and both fail completely, becoming ornaments themselves. Tik-Tok is next to go in.

Now we are left with Dorothy and the Nome King alone. The perfect time for the Nome King to reveal his cross-dressing secret

 



 

 

"I GOT YO RUBY SLIPPAZ BITCH! HAH!"

 

As a gesture of kindness to offset the fact that he's turning all of her friends to stone as well as trying to make a 9 year old girl drink smelted silver, the Nome King tells Dorothy that if she wishes, he will send her back to Kansas using the Ruby Slippers. She will remember none of what happened. She will be cured of her 'bad dreams' and will never ever think of Oz again. Of course, like most people from Kansas, Dorothy chooses to remain in her twisted world full of talking chickens, mutant wheel-men and headless sorceresses. During Tik-Tok's time within the gallery, his gears wind down again and he is, yet again, frozen in place.

 

 

"Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... whatever, I'm a piece of shit."

 

Dorothy is allowed to go inside, wind him up to make his last guess, then take 3 of her own. Tik-tok naturally blows his last guess, becoming an ornament himself. After failing 2 of her own guesses, Dorothy figures out which ornaments are her friends and which one is the Scarecrow. Naturally, the Nome king isnt real happy about this. The Nome King's evil claymation self basically sunk the entire claymation franchise, dooming everything claymation after this to look nightmarishly creepy. Sorry, California Raisins... you guys are finished.

"BOOKS... CHECK 'EM OUT!"

(No thanks)

 

The giant angry Nome King starts out by eating the sofa, used by the mounted head and fern plants as a body. He then proceeds to eat the 2nd most worthless sack of shit, Jack Pumpinkhead. Know who I haven't mentioned in awhile? The talking chicken. Billina is stuffed inside Jack's clothing. Before the Nome king eats Jack, the chicken lays an egg in the giant rock monster's mouth... killing him and all the other Nomes (rocks with faces on them).

Insert typical Disney ending. Say hello to your scarred inner-child. The End.