nateslice

A bad comedy that still manages to be really funny. If that description confuses you, just watch it and you'll see what I mean. Bobcat Goldthwait plays a clown, in a city of clowns. He's accused of murder, and goes into hiding; at one point as a mime, and at another point as a rodeo clown. It also has Julie Brown (the white one who sang The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun, not the black one from MTV) as his love interest, plus Robin Williams as mime trainer Marty Fromage, plus Adam Sandler, Kathy Griffin, Jack Gallagher, Joel Murray... Oh, and Florence Henderson, Mrs. Brady herself, in a disturbing but funny cameo. Here's the opening scene...

I'm a little surprised that Paul got to talking about zombies being turned into Borg, and he never called the resulting creatures Zomborg.

Here's an awesome example of a comedian insulting his audience, and the audience loving it... Bill Burr, in Philadelphia. NSFW, unless you work at the studio where South Park is made or someplace like that...

Hey, TaylorAnnePhoto, I was just poking around on the wikipedia page for this movie, and I noticed that the character "Hooker at Bar" was played by Anne-Marie Martin, who married Michael Crichton a few years later. And they had one child, a daughter named Taylor-Anne. Based on your stated location, I'm guessing that's not you, but how's that for a crazy coincidence?

Based on a British serial with the same title, Robert Downey Jr. plays a mystery novelist who's hospitalized with severe psoriasis. This reality intertwines with hallucinations about his most popular character and flashbacks to his kinda fucked-up childhood. I can't exactly call it good or bad; it's just... weird. I want to like it, based on a cast that includes the aforementioned RDJ, plus Robin Wright-Penn, Jeremy Northam, Katie Holmes, Mel Gibson, Adrien Brody, Carla Gugino, Saul Rubinek, and Alfre Woodard, but it's just so busy trying to be something (I'm not sure what), and it just never quite seems to get there. Here's what Wikipedia says in the "Reception" portion of its article on the film... The film scored a 39% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being 'Delightful performance from Robert Downey Jr. can't save The Singing Detective's transition from TV to the big screen.' While some critics, such as Roger Ebert, liked the film, others, like Joe Baltake at the Sacramento Bee, considered it an "interesting failure". Oh, and as you'd expect of a movie with "Singing" right there in the title, it does have a great soundtrack. Here's a trailer for it... I think I'd really like to hear what Paul, Jason and June think of this movie.

Well! It looks like you and I share an attraction to the heroine. Perhaps we should get together sometime for a hamburger and a chocolate malt with two straws.

The main thing I remember about this movie is when the star ripped open her shirt to show everyone that, yep, she was indeed a chick. It happened so suddenly, my parents didn't even have a chance to say "Nate, cover your eyes" before I got to see some boobage. This movie will always have a place in my heart because of that.

The MST3K gang had to pay licensing fees to do their old show. Rifftrax is how they get away with continuing to do their schtick on teh intarwebs without having a network to cover those fees. Basically, they record themselves poking fun at a movie while watching it, but now you have to get your hands on the movie yourself to follow along. It's a really smart decision on their part.

It's a shame Aaliyah died when she did. I was just waiting for that restraining order to expire so she and I could finally be married.

I just remembered this movie today, and I have to second the recommendation. It's a bad but fun horror movie based on a Bram Stoker novel that isn't Dracula. Also, Amanda Donohoe (who you might remember from L.A. Law) spends most of her screen time either in a distinctive and cool outfit or naked. I think this detail alone would make it appeal to June for the fashions, to Jason for the nudity, and to Paul for both.

Not quite as depressing as real life, where Pretzie is now the Senate Majority Leader...

Paul and June were wondering why it's "bad" for the animal-people to rebel over wanting to be "what they are". I think I have an answer for that. The animal-people can't continue to be what they are without frequent treatment. Without this treatment, they'll revert back to being plain ol' animals. To continue to be animal-people and have freedom, they'd basically have to enslave humans who have the knowledge of how to maintain their status. They couldn't trust other animal-people with this duty, even if they had the knowledge themselves, because, well, ask any nurse... doctors are the worst patients. An animal-person entrusted with the duty of keeping other animal-people stable would probably eventually forget to keep up his own treatments, and he'd lose the necessary knowledge as a result. The animal-people would thus be forced to enslave human scientists to keep them as they are, because humans are naturally stable in their specialized skill levels, and so evolutionary regression would not be a concern. "Freed" animal-people would therefore be forced to bring back slavery in order to maintain their sentience.

I think the dress is worth a look, because I've always enjoyed that optical illusion stuff. And this is one that actually exists in three dimensions. It looks white and gold to me, but then I squint at the picture and it turns black and blue. I have to respect the artistry involved. I mean, sure, now I've seen it and I'm over it, but it was interesting to me nonetheless. Oh, and back on topic... Did anyone else hear the name Josh Duhamel and get him mixed up with Jay Baruchel, and wonder what the hell he'd be doing in this movie?

Yeah, it seems weird at first glance, but it does make some sense. Zeus is a philanderer with a jealous, vengeful, and insanely powerful wife. This particular victim of Zeus's wandering pee-pee just figured, "Hey, if I name my god-bastard in a way that honors Hera, maybe she'll take some pity and leave the two of us alone. Please? Let this work?"

I know you guys have talked about maybe going outside the L.A. area at some undefined point in the future, and I know you really enjoy doing shows with guests who were involved in making the movie being discussed. So, here's what I'm suggesting. Go visit towns where someone involved in making a movie is living, and invite them to join you in discussing their own movies in front of a hometown crowd. For example, you could come here to Denver to do a live show talking about, say, Foxy Brown or Cleopatra Jones, and have local gal Pam Grier (who starred in both films) as your guest. I would totally buy some tickets for that.

Heracles's mother actually gave him that name in the hopes that Hera wouldn't fuck with him. She knew what she was dealing with. Heracles literally means "Hera's son". I apologize if I'm missing some sarcasm here, as it can be hard to get that across in writing, but "Arnold Strong" is actually a Hollywood legend who's better known by a different name. He's been in a ton of movies, and served a couple of terms as the governor of Cahleefohnya. Not Ronald Reagan; the other actor/governor of that state. Ahnuld may be hard to recognize in that movie partly because his voice was dubbed over.

Judy Collins was in this movie, too, wasn't she? Or maybe she was in Twins. Either way, it seems to me the casting director has a real soft spot for female jazz/sub-jazz vocalists, and I won't throw rocks at him for that.

It's a shame, too, because Thunderball both introduced Bond's arch-villain and had the greatest theme song of any Bond movie. Here's that theme song...

I was actually totally okay with Nicolas Cage playing Ghost Rider. Several of my friends hated the idea both in theory and in practice, but I just viewed it as the price we paid for not having him play Superman. The thing I hated about that Ghost Rider movie was, "300 feet! Johnny Blaze jumped his motorcycle from goalpost to goalpost on a football field! That's 300 feet!" Lines like this seemed to account for roughly 38% of the film's dialogue. Did these dipshits not have anyone with the slightest interest in sports working on this film? It's not 300 feet; it's 360 feet. It's 100 yards (300 feet) from goal line to goal line. The goalpost is at the back of the endzone, which adds another ten yards on each end. 100+10+10=120 yards, or 360 feet.

Please tell me Ahh-nuld gives birth by C-section. I... don't think my brain could handle the alternative.

My Bond Girl name... Silky Burrows.

Are they Eskimo brothers?

Sorry; you're right, I was mistaken. Not on the Tia vs. Asia thing, but the scene I found was... A. Soft-core, so not exactly the "full-on porn" I mistakenly described last night. ... and... B. Not Tia Carrere; the person who posted the video was mistaken, according to a comment I didn't see last night (even though it was right there in the search results summary). He said it was, IIRC, Jeannie Miller or something like that. I apologize for the misinformation.

Ooh, I didn't know about that. Thanks for letting me know, PlanB! I'm off to google those pics now. Edit: Whoa... she actually had a full-on porn career. Also something I didn't know.

I also loved this movie when I was just a little slice. I saw it in the theater with a friend and we were both still laughing about it weeks later. Looking back on it, Anjelica Huston is strangely hot in this movie! If you liked her in this movie as much as I did, here's a related recommendation... The Postman Always Rings Twice, the remake with Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. It's mostly a forgettable movie; the only thing I really remember is Huston playing a lion-tamer and getting naked.