Dude Movie Round-Up

I realize I've been neglecting my dudely duties of late, so here's a round-up of the latest in Dude Movie watching:

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D.O.A.: Dead or Alive

What's it about?
CHICK FIGHTS! More specifically, different chicks (and dudes) gather on an island to compete for something or other, which involves plenty of kicking, punching and gouging with the occassional break for scantily-clad volleyball.

Any chicks in the movie?
Well, duh. Jaime Pressley is the redneck cowgirl, Devon Aoki is the sultry Asian Princess, Holly Valance is some girl I never heard of, Sarah Carter is the perky daughter of the bad guy, and the crazy-hot Natassia Malthe is a purple-haired shinobi. Take that, Fox Force Five!

Awesomeness factor?
Way higher than it has any right to be. Now keep in mind, this is the kind of movie that when you're watching it you think to yourself "You know what this movie is missing? Eric Roberts." when BAM! Eric Roberts shows up. And considering that the D.O.A. fighting game upon which this movie rests* is based almost entirely on the giddiness males of a certain age receive from watching large, digitized boobs bounce gracefully across a television screen, what little story they do manage to squeeze in amidst the skimpily-wardrobed boob-heavy slapfests serves to hustle things along at the requisite speed. Corey Yuen (who did future Dude Movie pick New Legends Of Shaolin, my very favouritest Jet Li movie) covers up the relative sloppiness of his cast's martial arts ability with vigourous Raimi-esque camerawork, wisely choosing to keep the fights short but upping the frequency to one fight approximately every twelve seconds.

Mitigated by?
Still waiting for The Warriors: The Game: The Movie.

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Meatballs

What's it about?
Proto-slacker template Bill Murray leads sad-sack underdog campers on a series of self-esteem exercises.

Any chicks in the movie?
Can't have a summer camp movie without chicks, but nobody famous.

Awesomeness factor?
Ramshackle. Much like the camp in which the movie was filmed, Meatballs is low on budget but manages to coast most of the way home on charm. Part of the wave of slob-coms that came out in the wake of Animal House, Meatballs plays like that movie's sex-obsessed fourteen-year-old cousin. What little conflict there is centres around the Meatballers perennial losing streak against the rich kids camp from across the lake as Murray rallies the troops in an attempt to game the system. Taken to it's logical extreme, the movie hides a radical political agenda: if the system treats you like a loser, then it's okay to fuck that system's shit up. One day you're pulling down the pants of the rich kids basketball team and the next day you're voting Green. This will all be explained in my upcoming series entitled "Meatballs: Gateway Drug To Anarchy."

Mitigated by?
The title is mysteriously never explained.

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Eraserhead

What's it about?
Holy fool Jack Nance fathers a monster baby. Hijinks ensue.

Any chicks in the movie?
Well, let's see: There's the shrewish mother of the monster baby, there's the lady with the fucked-up cheeks who lives inside Nance's radiator, and there's the sultry neighbour that Nance has sex with in a bed made of milk. PAGING DR. FREUD!

Awesomeness factor?
Trippy. Existing in that mysterious place between total genius and complete garbage, Eraserhead isn't a movie in the traditional (read: entertaining) sense of the word. Lynch plunges straight into his subconscious to dredge up a series of dream narratives that has something to do with the fear of fatherhood. Or maybe not. The thing that's so maddening about Lynch is that his images always seem like they're rich with meaning, but they probably aren't. In that sense, Eraserhead is like a cinematic ink-blot test, in that your experience with it probably says more about you than it does about him.

Mitigated by?
Probably the worst movie to watch under the influence ever made.


* Like an elephant atop a much smaller elephant.**

** The preceding simile was brought to you by the Extremely Lazy Writer Foundation of America.***

*** Slogan: "We'll think of something later."

Droooooooooooooone!

Yet another fine song for you folks. Not a cover this time - an original piece of stoner/shoegaze/noise rock. Strummy really went to town on this one. Play loud.

CLICK HERE FOR DROOOOOOOOOONE!

P.S.: I'll give somebody a nickel if they tell me what movie that picture is from.

P.P.S.: Same downloading instructions as before - email me if you can't figure it out.

P.P.P.S.: Thanks for all the very nice birthday wishes, gang. I'm sorry I'm such a downer on my birthday. I'll be in a better mood soon.

Happy Fucking Birthday

So, tomorrow I turn 37 and, true to my usual pattern, I'm totally fucking bummed about it. I hate birthdays.

I'm creeping out Shorty with it, too, because she's not used to the (as she put it) "glum" Sloth. Ironically for somebody who spent a childhood listening to The Cure, Joy Division and The Smiths, I am not usually in a bad mood. This is because I have an awesome life full of toys, books, movies, games and liquor, all of which exist to draw my attention away from my IMPENDING DEATH. Which, normally, is enough, but not on birthday week.

It's not the getting older part that bugs me, although certainly that's no fun. The Short One and I got bikes a couple of weeks ago because, believe it or not, even I was feeling too slothful lately. You know it's gotta be bad if I, who am able to sit in front of a television for literally days without moving, was feeling a mite low energy. Shorty, of course, got an awesome bike as befits her innate sense of style and beauty. I, on the other hand, went for the cheapest possible bike at Canadian Tire, because I'm like that. Cheap, I mean.

Anyway, I haven't had a bike for about ten years. Since then - and those of you who know me may have noticed this - I have gained approximately fifteen thousand pounds. Because I am now married, I didn't really care about the weight gain because, honestly, who am I am I trying to impress? But even I draw the line at having to buy pants at "special" stores, which I'm damn close to having to do. So I figured the bike might help, right? My goal is to lose either two pant sizes or one cup size - if you know what I mean and I think you do. However, the relative size of my man boobs* isn't the point - the point is that when I got on the bike for the first time, after I rode about oh let's say ten meters or so I thought my HEART WAS GOING TO FUCKING EXPLODE. Also, I noticed that riding a bike entails lifting your knees, which normally isn't a problem unless it makes your haunches RAM THEMSELVES INTO YOUR MASSIVE GUT THAT WASN'T THERE TEN YEARS AGO.

So, yes, getting older sucks. But that's not why I'm depressed.

See, I assume most people deal with getting older better than me because they believe in some sort of an afterlife, whether it's the traditional Christian playing-harp-next-God-in-white-linen boring ass Heaven, or some hippie crap about your soul transmuting into the Great Unknown Agnostic Cosmic Thingy.** Either way, most people believe that death isn't really the end, because your consciousness will survive somehow in the aether.

Sadly, that shit doesn't wash with me. I'm a serious, no foolin', no kiddin' atheist. I'm not an atheist because I want to piss off my parents or because I want to hang with the cool kids. I'm an atheist because I simply cannot believe in some moronic spiritual nonsense just because it makes me fear death less. It sucks, but there it is.

So what are birthdays, then? Just another tick on the inevitable march towards death, which will mean the absolute cessation of my consciousness. That, to put it mildly, sucks wang. I don't know about you all, but I like my consciousness. I like being me, and I would like to continue to be me forever. Like Woody Allen said: "I don't want to attain immortality by creating a great work of art. I want to attain immortality by not dying." But unless science comes up with something in the next fifty years (and let's be serious here: fifty years if I'm lucky) where I can download my memories into an indestructible fission-reactor powered killbot, then I'm pretty much boned.

On the plus side, though, I guess I won't have to spend eternity in Heaven trying to make small talk with Mormons. "Gee, that's some extremely elaborate underwear you have on there, Mr. Romney."

So in conclusion: Fuck birthdays.

* Or "moobs", as I like to call them.

** That's TOTALLY going to the name of my new prog rock band.

Don't Question This. Just Click On It

Seriously. Just do it.

Sloth's Three Rules Of Life

Today, Pete - sorry, I mean Peet - chatted to me about some gel squeeze ball thing he bought because he was apparently that bored. (His crushing boredom is unimportant to the story - I just like bringing it up.) Anyway, like everything else in the world, the gel ball came with a warning sticker that read, verbatim:

Caution: Not for pets or young children. Product is designed for normal squeezing. Puncturing, stretching, twisting the gel ball may cause the product to leak, or burst. Do not leave in a parked car.

There are three things that immediately come to mind about this warning. The first is: I'd totally buy a shirt that said PRODUCT IS DESIGNED FOR NORMAL SQUEEZING on it. Heck, I'd buy ten.

The second: Really, that caution could apply to anything. You could affix that label to a toothpaste tube, a puppy or a small child and it would still apply.

Third (well, 2.5 really): I believe that contained within the oddly-phrased caution sticker are three inviolate rules for my life, which I would state as follows:

1. Sloth is designed for normal squeezing.
2. Do not twist, puncture or stretch Sloth's balls.
3. Don't leave me in a parked car.

That last one isn't for my safety - mostly, it's for yours. I get bored and I like to play with emergency brakes.

The Last Action Hero

What's it about?
Po-mo shoot 'em up where Jack Slater, an action hero played by Arnold Schwartzenegger, comes into the real world via a magic ticket stub - The Purple Rose of Cairo with guns, basically.

Any chicks in the movie?
A few, but it's an action movie so they just get in the way.

Awesomeness factor?
A bomb upon release, The Last Action Hero is a pretty funny tongue-in-cheek parody of action movies of the type that director John "Die Hard" McTiernan was famous for. It's convoluted and overlong, and the whole conceit of a movie where the characters know they can't get hurt because they know they're in a movie is somewhat distancing, but there's some nifty stuff in here nonetheless. Everything blows up with the fine gloss of professional competence, some of the action movie in-jokes are awesome, and the cast (including Charles Dance and Tom "Silence Of The Lambs" Noonan as bad guys) is character actor heaven. Gets waaaaaaaaaay too Spielberg-esque schmaltzy at the end, though, which prevents it from reaching true greatness.

Mitigated by?
Ian McKellan plays Death from The Seventh Seal - don't ask - which is almost worth the price of admission.

Dude Movie Saturdays, Part 20

Anatomy Of A Murder

What's it about?
Semi-retired lawyer Jimmy Stewart defends John Cassavettes for murdering the man who may or may not have raped his wife.

Any chicks in the movie?
A couple, but Cassavettes' wife - a classic fifties Bad Girl who, as the plot takes great pleasure in pointing out, often doesn't wear panties - gets most of the screen time.

Awesomeness factor?
Dude Movies aren't just about space vampires and ninjas, you know. Sometimes, they're about talking. A whole lot of talking. Thankfully, Otto Preminger's no-nonsense direction never gets in the way of this epic gabfest, which features Jimmy Stewart going up against prosecutor George C. Scott in a battle of movie legalese that is to oration what Tony Lau is to getting kicked in the chest. Backed by a snappy Duke Ellington score and customarily brilliant Saul Bass credit sequence, the real fun of Anatomy Of A Murder is watching Preminger's obvious glee in trying to shatter the Hayes Code on a mound of filthy (for 1959) words like "bitch", "contraceptive", "panties", "penetration", "rape", "slut" and "sperm", most of which had never been uttered in an American movie before. Nifty fun fact: Joseph Welch, who plays the judge, was a real-life lawyer who defended the Army in the 1954 McCarthy hearings - he's the dude who famously asked McCarthy "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" on television.

Mitigated by?
Best movie poster EVER.