Quasar Sniffer

In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Mickey Rooney plays a reprehensible Japanese stereotype that is not only offensive, but so comically broad and out-of-step in tone from the rest of the movie, that it brings the film to a crashing halt whenever he appears. Despite how much I adore Audrey Hepburn, I just never want to watch that movie again. (I'm not even gonna post the picture, rather I will just link to Rooney done-up in yellow-face because it's just gross, you guys) https://cbsnews1.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2016/01/29/47522b7f-6906-4921-9e35-f78b0f42325b/resize/620x465/a96a9e907823263ea00e484e9e297aae/1372883021mickey-rooney.jpg

Yeah, the movie could never decide if Elvis was playing a character named Chad or basically just playing Elvis. I know Elvis' handlers were obviously trying to cash in on his persona and popularity, but if they were going to go that route, they might as well have cast him as a famous rock star returning to Hawaii from the army (maybe with parents wanting to cash in on his celebrity in order to benefit their company, which would lead to the resentment we see from him in the film), rather than trying to have it both ways. He could still be named Chad, but it could at least explain why the whole island is obsessed with him.

When Queen of the Damned came out, I was definitely a Teen Who Thought Korn Was a Good Band, therefore my self-hatred is strong when it comes to this movie. I would wholeheartedly welcome the chance to make fun of it for all its terribleness, as it would placate my desire for emotional self-flagellation, at least when it comes to my own past opinions.

Exact. Same. Thought. Process. What really disturbed me is that we saw the girl partake in a suicide attempt (or at the very least, some sort of panic or anxiety attack), and the film basically dismisses this as a cry for attention, the we witness Chad commit sexual assault on a teenage girl and her mental illness is CURED! The girl, at several points, expresses frustration with her own alienation, she lashes out because she is desperate to feel anything else. This is at the root of why she has to open herself up sexually to men (i.e. to get their attention). It's a very disturbed pathology, but it's dismissed here with rolled eyes and played for laughs. And this is all after a whole herd of teenage girls broke into Chad's room desperate to fuck him, a guy who thought a good idea for a joke would be to make out with a stewardess he just met in full view of his girlfriend of, presumably, several years. Blue Hawaii needs a god damn psychoanalyst. Me at the end of every scene in this movie:

I just started watching this and within the first fifteen minutes there are teenagers worpshipping at the stinky alcoholic altar of Charles Bukowski, even once referring to him as "a god." I feel like this movie needs a trigger warning.

Now I just want to start checking out Geostorm or Beautiful Creatures from my public library on a weekly basis just so the staff there thinks I am some unstable lunatic, even if I exhibit no other signs of instability.

Per New Om's family, I think one of my favorite moments was when New Om was talking to his dad at the afterparty for the awards show and just took his dad aside and said, "I'm sorry for coasting on celebrity and privilege. From now on I will try to be a better actor and, more importantly, a better son." Or something to that effect. Plus, I'm a sucker for Somber Father-Son stuff. Do you know how many times I've seen Field of Dreams? Because I don't. I lost count by, like, age 10. And my favorite Indiana Jones movie is Last Crusade. I WONDER WHY?!?!

I'm the same. With a lot of bad movies, I do get a kick out of them, but for maybe five to ten minutes. After that, I keep thinking, "isn't there an Akira Kurosawa movie I haven't seen that I could be watching? Or just, I dunno, Indiana Jones?" So I usually watch these HDTGM movies in discrete bits. With RIfftrax though, especially with something like Birdemic, I can withstand the full frontal badness assault much better.

Congrats on the new job! I know I've been MIA on the musical boards, but I have been lurking and liking! I do need to catch that new JCS though...

But I guess this is all why it lacks the ability to engage the viewer, at least to me. The stakes are so low, the relationships so underdevloped and uninteresting, that I'm constantly thinking, "why should I care about these people?" At least with a Byronic Romantic hero, or even a more nihilistic one like in Lermontov's 'A Hero of Our Time' and some bits of other Russian novels that followed, those protagonists are wild in their actions, proposing deep philosophical questions in the other characters and the readers. Their actions may be reprehensible, and their responses to them are those of sociopaths, but at least we can filter and interpret and contextualize those actions through other characters. Here, everyone is universally superfluous emotionally, except maybe the wives of the boys, but they are given less character development that the salads eaten by Robin Wright and Naomi Watts. Hell, if they were willing to marry these emotionally stunted Australian Tourism Board commercial background actors, they're probably pretty naive themselves. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the film fails to engage with them on any meaningful level, so we can barely sympathize with these women who had the misfortune of loving these boys who have been under the sexual spell of their Godmothers since they were 18.

I still love you, though.

I have definitely noticed, as your site points out, the large grouping of 90s movies that HDTGM has covered. Do you think this is a generational thing? That people between the ages of 20ish and 40ish, the demographic for listeners to this podcast and the people creating it, just remember those movies from their childhood more easily? Is there something about the 90s that makes the movies produced in that decade more conducive to mockery now? I have NERD QUESTIONS! Great work, all around!

What's always puzzled me about the Alice story is how we're managed to graft our own cultural perspective on to the events and the symbolism for the story. Looking at it now, and especially since the 1960s at least, the growing larger/shrinking because of pills or potions Alice take seems like a drug reference, but it's obviously not something 18th Century British writers were interested in. It's all about consuming and things going through "doors" in Alice the way she is traveling through other portals. Or the fact that the painting the White Roses red bit, or even the existence of the Red court and the White, are references to the War of the Roses between the Houses of York (symbolized by the white rose) and Lancaster (symbolized by the red rose). So these symbols are so far beyond our horizon of perspective now, they seem so scattershot and random and meaningless, no wonder they are disturbing. This is even more disturbing because Carroll was also obsessed with math, so part of the story is motivated by cold logic, so the cognitive dissonance created by juxtaposing semantic or mathematical philosophy (ex. "you might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see'") against stuff that makes no sense to us anymore is all the more severe. Like, this is a book for... children?

Man, that would be amazing. And in a case of casting being so meta it's perfect, Shia LaBeouf is playing a talented, but niche, cultural icon now best remember for his outburst and strange personal behavior rather than his passionate commitment to his chosen profession, John McEnroe

I think the easiest change would be to the ending. It's the exact same set-up, with Rodney and Mr. Mullen on the bus with an athletic team... but instead it's the same girls from the soccer team. However, they are STILL traveling to play baseball, only it's to compete in the boy's baseball league. The final shot is the girls running off the bus with their hair tucked up in their hats to look like boys, EXCITED to play and beat the boys at their own game. So you still get the gag of Rodney perpetually breaking the rules, but you show how much faith he has in the Ladybugs by sticking with them, no matter what the situation might be, no matter the sport, no matter the gender politics. MORE BONDING!

As uncomfortable and just plain bad as this movie is, I think the script is just another draft from being a passable kids movie. Obviously replace the fucking pedophilia jokes because, holy shit, that's disgusting and not something you should portray as HILARIOUS to CHILDREN. You could just, for example, replace that business in the clothing store changing room by having Matthew having to do quick changes from Martha to Matthew while Rodney changes into that weird, unconvincing woman costume to try and convince the fainting old lady that they are actually two pairs of different people, each entering the changing room separately. They change into each other's cloths by accident, Matthew walks up to the cashier wearing Rodney's dress but no wig. Rodney has both wigs on but his wallet is missing. Matthew has his wallet. HI-JINKS! Maybe buys some actual nice flowers that he intends to give to Kimberly, but instead, in a fit of pity, gives those flowers to Rodney so Rodney can give those flowers to his (Matthew's) mom to get out of hot water. BOOM! Bonding moment.

Maybe that's part of why I like Metal so much? When you ask Metal musicians what they did when they were younger, it's always stuff like, "I dunno... I stayed in because I was depressed and played guitar between sessions of smoking weed while listening to Black Sabbath." But really though, that's also why I prefer hip-hop artists that don't buy into or participate into that narrative (see Beastie Boys, P.O.S., Astronautalis, Common)* or who confront it and comment in it rather than glorify it. *I AM SUCH A FUCKING WHITE PERSON.

Hmm... I definitely don't think the film is trying to portray Djay as aspirational, but definitely sympathetic and maybe even someone the audience is supposed to be rooting for. Like Cam Bert said, the ending seems to vindicate him in the filmmakers' eyes, especially considering how all the other characters seem to be stronger for having known him. As if his flow was so magical, he passion for music so uplifting, it was ok for him to be a pimp and exploit these women. I feel like the movie would have functioned better if he was a villain and Key, Nola, and Shug were able to profit from his song while Djay rots in jail (or dies). He wasn't even able to keep it together in the club, lost control, and assaulted Skinny Black that got him arrested.... but also got him street cred I guess? Is that a win for this character? Is that supposed to be inspiring? I still don't get how it's hard out here for him; he's the character who is making the easiest choices. He's not a prostitute, he's not pregnant destined to raise that child alone, hell, even DJ Qualls made the choice to have a bullshit vending machine job that doesn't pay well and leavings him stinking of junk food rather than become a pimp (or some other such criminal path). It's hard out here for THEM.

Ah, ok. When I first saw that scene, I thought he was referring to himself in the third person, as in, "nobody even know where he at" because he, Djay, is in prison. But I was wrong because he would not have referred to himself as a "trick." Thanks for your alert ears!

Despite my unnecessary griping in the Picking Thread, I did end up watching this, but it sort of confirmed my worst fears. I find Terrence Howard totally unappealing and uncharismatic as a performer. DJay is, to me, an utterly detestable character, someone who, like many abusers, takes his own frustrations of his own broken life and broken dreams out on the vulnerable people around him. He's just been able to turn this emotional and physical abuse (as well as financial manipulation) into a way to make a profit, i.e. Pimping. I can sympathize with a character who has done terrible things, especially someone striving to be better or seeking redemption, but I don't really get any of that from Djay. He's not running away from pimping, he's just using that as fodder for his music, music in which he whines about how hard his life is when he's constantly terrorizing the woman pregnant with his child and forcing a woman to have sex in cars on a daily basis because, hey, those cars might have air conditioning. I don't feel that this was intentional by the filmmakers, either. Maybe partly, but it felt like the movie expected me to sympathize with this dirtbag and I was just not having it. There were some things interesting about his character, yes, but definitely not enough to keep me from rolling my eyes in disdain every time he talked. I mean, this movie has the balls to have Taraji P. Henson break down in tears and thank Djay for "letting" her sing on his song? Motherfucker, he should be on his knees thanking her. And I find Ludacris equally unappealing as an actor, but Skinny Black was at least only naive about his talents and the people around him, not exploitative of the weakest of them (unless you count the groupies he surrounds himself with, I guess).

Aaaaand, I am watching Hustle & Flow right now and it's reminding me how much I just can't fucking stand Terrence Howard. I might have to sit this one out. I will see how it goes

I'm pretty agnostic on Zakk Wylde, mostly because I find Black Label Society pretty boring (he's an amazing guitarist, but I am just not a fan of that band). This song, however, is still incredibly badass. It came out right at the time I was taking over programming duties for hard rock/heavy metal at my college radio station, so I will always remember giving it plenty of airplay during that time.

Happy Belated Birthday to EvRobert. Sorry for not being more timely with my birthday wishes. And the further I get from Greatest Showman, the more I like it. That movie took my unkillable cynicism and smothered it in sugary-coated doughy musical nonsense. And I love it for doing so.

Want to be a total dirtbag like Mark Wahlberg? Well, you too can own a 1966 Batmobile!* https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/batmobile/unspecified/2019029.html *Note: The status of Mark Wahlberg as a Dirtbag Garbage Homunculus is in no way a reflection on the wonders of the 1966 Batman TV show, Adam West, anyone involved in the TV show's production, or even Batman the character.