Blast Hardcheese

Posting this recent review of Money Plane because I love these Red Letter Media dopes: Every birthday cake should have fire crackers on them.

My wife and I were at this show, too, and we've been waiting for it to air. But, it is completely understandable that they would keep episodes in reserve. We were beginning to think they weren't airing this episode because this movie is so, so bad.

Bumping this one for Weaver making that over-the-shoulder, no look basket. Can your Clippers do that, Tall John? (P.S. Go Blazers!) But yeah, this movie sucks in a big, dumb fun way.

At first I got this movie mixed up with Romeo Is Bleeding, a Tarantino "inspired" indie crime caper starring Gary Oldman with an ending that just goes on and on... ...and on.

If we've learned anything about hackers from these movies, it's that they are ridiculously attractive people with oversized egos and sky beam plans who love nothing more than clubbing and shooting automatic weapons.

Or, if the collar bombs are on the same channel on the detonator and some rando stumbles upon that channel ...kaboom? The first time I saw this movie in the Aughts (yes, I watched Swordfish of my own volition twice now -- it was part of a doubleheader that also included Resident Evil), I remember feeling kind of sick in my soul during the helicopter/bus scene when a hostage falls out the window and his collar goes off taking out the side of an office building in the process. I know this was done to dispatch Vinnie Jones, but the whole thing just seemed so callous and fuckin' gross. This movie is like drinking Mountain Dew mixed with Drakkar Noir while someone smashes you over the head with a Zima bottle (just all the most egregious fluids).

This is the third hacker-based movie featured on HDTGM after Johnny Mnemonic and Hackers, and I'm noticing a trend with these films: high-adrenaline techno music. As enjoyable and absolutely timeless as these soundtracks are, maybe next time can we get a movie about hacking set against ragtime music? "Hello my baby/Hello my darlin'/Hackin' the mainframe... !" For a scene that netted Halle Berry an additional $500,000, the reveal of her breast (triumphant as they are) seems a bit... gratuitous? They aren't revealed during a sex scene or even when Stan stumbles in on Ginger wearing the wire, but rather while she's sitting poolside reading a book. Stan walks up to Ginger, she lowers her books and is just like, "Yep, these are my tits." And good for her. But in this scene, the director might as well have added arrows pointing to Berry's breasts and boinging noises. Much was made about Travolta's Tarantino-esque movie trivia monologue at the beginning of the movie, but I'm surprised no one mentioned his character's obvious Vince Vega haircut à la Pulp Fiction. After discovering his ex-wife and her husband dead in their home while looking for his daughter, how did Stan know to go to the World Banc? It seems like there's a beat missing between these scenes. So, Travolta's plan here is to steal money to combat terrorism. Sounds simple and noble enough, I guess. But in the course of doing so, he and his mercenaries (which includes cuddly freedom fighter Vinnie Jones) excessively cause the same level of terrorism, chaos and mayhem they are supposedly fighting against. They take hostages, load them up with collar-bombs, use a lift helicopter to ferry a passenger bus over a city, have access to Stinger missiles and rocket launchers, etc. At one point during the movie, Travolta swings around a Rambo machine gun in a downtown setting, killing and maiming dozens. It would have saved time, money and especially lives if the CIA simple gave Travolta the Swordfish cash and wished him luck in his anti-terrorism endeavors. And I have to point this out because I'm a Psyche fan: the cop taking his time telling the chief that the bus they're chasing is airborne is Timothy Omundson. Omundson, a recent stroke survivor, played Carlton Lassiter on Psyche and was even once a guest on April Richardson's podcast, Go Bayside! He's a funny dude and reportedly incredibly nice.

If you're a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., I have some unfortunate news for you:

Really? I feel that Rushmore is one of Anderson's strongest films, and the one that all of his films since have followed the narrative framework of (parental issues, self-destruction, redemption, etc). It's easily one of his more relatable, less precious movies, as it doesn't feel like it's taking place in a dollhouse but rather in a real world setting. Also, this film features one of the director's best film soundtracks. Isle of Dogs has to be, in my opinion, Anderson's weakest work. It feels like he phoned it in by retreading Fantastic Mr. Fox's stop motion technique (the culturally-appropriated film takes place in a futuristic Japan, but he didn't think to go with Manga style animation, instead?)

I absolutely agree with you that a John Hughes film should be considered. While The Breakfast Club does indeed take place in a high school, consider Ferris Bueller's Day Off as the ultimate expression of high school-ness in the director's oeuvre: the right of passage of ditching the confines of school and making the ultimate day of it.

Okay, so this explains why the 2:22 live episode hasn't been released yet. Or possibly that movie was a really bad experience all around. Maybe this was addressed in Money Plane and also by the gang, but a huge oversight of playing Russian roulette on an airplane is the potential for a bullet to exit the player's skull, go through the plane's fuselage and depressurize the cabin while in flight. This episode features yet another great #howdidwegetscheer story to add to the Howdies. Getting MJH to sign Paul's failed math homework was diabolically genius. These stories absolutely need to be catalogued. Like Paul, I too have fallen under the spell of matte black finishes on cars. I'm not a car guy by any means, but I have to admit matte black paint jobs on most cars (especially of the classic muscle variety) look pretty damn cool. And, since it was also brought up by Jason (and it's one of my favorite films of all time), the story behind why the police cars in RoboCop are painted matte black is a happy accident. In this movie, RoboCop is supposed to have his own, Batman-like vehicle called the "Robo-Mobile" (or the "Turbo-Car"). However, when the final product arrived on set, it was met with laughter and abject ridicule from the crew. As the film's director and producers panicked and weighed their options, a then-brand new Ford Taurus drove by. Noting the sedan's rounded features (most car's silhouettes in the 1980's were square and boxy), the Taurus, they felt, looked bold and futuristic enough (again, for the era). They went to a rental car agency to rent a Taurus and dressed for the movie using--you guessed it--matte black paint. The OCP patrol car they created fit the bill, so the production secured a couple more Tauruses for the film. The OCP patrol car has gone on to become a pretty iconic part of this franchise, having appeared in all three original movies. There have been toy cars, model kits of this vehicle and even fan-produced replicas ("cars-players?"--sorry).

In yet another gripping episode of How Did We Get Scheer? : Horses!!!

I only watched RoboCop 3 once, but I seem remember, at the beginning of the film, he attaches a Super Soaker to his arm and shoots his way out of his patrol car's roof in order to come to the rescue of his fellow police officers. Of course, he could have easily shaved a couple of seconds off that time by simply opening the car's door and stepping out.

Taking a break for the tumult to post yet another 2020 mixtape. This one features Car Seat Headrest, Built To Spill, X, Perfume Genius, The Magnetic Fields, and more!

I've been meaning to corral an online playlist/mixtape group thread here on the forum for a while, but never got around to it for one reason or another (re: laziness). Thanks to the on-going pandemic, however, this is about as good a time as any to share and listen to compilations of music (just like those good ol' homemade mix cassettes and CDR's of recent yore!) The inspiration for this thread came from both Zouk's recommending the phenomenal band Mannequin Pussy a couple of episodes back (thank you!) and his Amoeba Records What's in My Bag video. I figure that our HDTGM community, likewise, has amazing taste in music and want this thread to serve as a forum for all of us to share our online mixes and playlists (via Spotify, Soundcloud, YouTube, etc.) I made this mix last year (but never got around to posting) for Jason, June and John called A Politcal Song for Jason Mantzoukas to Sing: Anyone else have online music mixes that they would like to share?

1. Showgirls - It's time. And if it's not, Exit To Eden. 2. Waterworld or The Postman - Either one of these Kevin Costner's bloated, self-important apocalypse circle jerk series. 3. Plan 9 From Outer Space - Because it pretty much started this whole "so bad it's good" cinematic trend. Also, it would be the oldest movie on the podcast. 4. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever - What the hell do any of these words even mean? 5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Give Alan Moore yet another reason to hate everything.

Chris' teetering stacks of manga and Sailor Moon cosplay outfits would have blown her doctor's mind.

Is it at all possible that Chris was actually trying to turn Billy off by pouring V8 on herself? After hitting on her at the police station, not taking her very terse "no" for an answer, stalking her at her second job, standing on the sidelines as she is attacked by the gang of gym rat rapists/purse snatchers, threatening to "haul her in" after she handily defends herself from them, whisking her away in his Fletch-mobile against her will, petulantly negging her over her stance about not dating cops, and threatening to dump her in the neighborhood Axel Foley conned his way into in Beverly Hills Cop II, it's possible that Chris thought her best, last-ditch option for getting rid of this hairy-backed creep was to take him back to her junk-artist loft, don her blousiest pair of parachute panties, douse herself in sticky vegetable juice, and hopefully freak his shit out enough for him to want to finally leave her alone. Sadly, it didn't work. This episode featured one of the absolute best entries in what I hope will soon become a supercut compilation of Paul's misadventures which I lovingly refer to as "How Did We Get Scheer?" Virgin bloody marys and after school toy gun time?!? Please tell me a two sizes too big smoking jacket was also involved!

The pacing of this movie was very stilted in spots. It felt like some scenes and cuts were just allowed to linger a little too long and it undercut the momentum of the film. It felt like Barry Bostwick would say a line of quippy dialog and then the cut would linger long enough so that his smug grin would eventually flatten out. Like Jason, Megaforce also reminded me of the toy and cartoon series from the 1980's like G.I. Joe (which premiered in it's 3 & 3/4" version the same year Megaforce came out), M.A.S.K., Centurions, Captain Power, Chuck Norris and His Karate Commandos, Rambo (yes, that Rambo!), and every other property wherein a specialized, state sanctioned militaristic force for freedom is designated specifically to take on their centralized polar-opposite evil adversary. The opening info dump at the beginning of Megaforce even sounds like the voice-over from the G.I. Joe cartoon: "G.I. Joe is the codename for America's highly trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against COBRA; a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world." More to Jason's point, "Ace" and "Duke" are also G.I. Joe code names (Ace piloted the Skystriker jet, and Duke was G.I. Joe's second in command). To further tie this movie in with children's toy and entertainment properties, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers also had a Super "Megaforce" designation at some point during their run. The Power Rangers, like Megaforce, also had a member named Zachary "Zach" Taylor (according to the movie's IMDB page, Megaforce's Zac Taylor forewent the "h" at the end of his name, however). Speaking of Zac Taylor, when Punky Brewster's Dad (PBD) first meets him, Zac is wearing a pair of headphones to which PBD asks him if he's listening to Gladys Night and the Pips, even though he and we can clearly hear the classical music coming Zac's headphones. Zac replies that he's actually listening to Vivaldi, to which PBD then asks which season Zac is listening to: "Winter?" "Spring," Zac clarifies. Soon after, Zac quotes Macbeth, which PBD keys into. Yet, instead of finding commonality, PBD bristles with resentment, doubling down on his simmering colonial-ish racism. Here PBD is, a stranger in a strange land, and he's alienating the one person he has any kind of cultural relationship with because they're black. After the mission goes south (somehow), PBD and Zara fly in to the war zone (in a helicopter Ace destroys at the end of the film for no inexplicable reason, yet everyone seems cool with, nonetheless) and tells Ace and his team that they can't cross the border for risk of igniting a full-scale war. Okay, so why not fly all--or at least some--of the team out in the very long, two-prop helicopter PBD and Zara just flew in on? We see at the end of the ensuing battle that Megaforce's equipment is essentially disposable anyway, so why risk the lives of his crew when Ace can load up as many Megaforcees as he can on the PBD's helicopter instead?

Ah, The Go! Team. What an amazing and wonderful band. My wife and I saw them play about two years ago and we had so, so, so much fun. You can't not move while listening to any of their songs. I have two mixes posted on my Mixcloud page that have The Go! Team songs on 'em:

Okay, NOW I know what I'm doing with me day. Thanks for these recommendations, TWB!

Decided to compile and post a collection of some of my favorite instrumental soundtrack songs:

Graham, this playlist is awesome! So many great choices here: Spoon, Tribe, Pixies, Beasties, Ghostface, etc, etc. This is my job search playlist for today. Thank you so much.

Aw, man. You just made my day! Of course I'll be your mommy!!! I brought nothing in return... EXCEPT FOR THIS! Enjoy!

Thanks, Graham. Yeah, it sucks, but it is what it is. While I was grateful to have that job while I did, being laid-off has essentially afforded me a new opportunity to pursue a career in what I actually went to school for: creative writing (articles, reviews (record and film), interviews, etc.) Despite the current pandemic, I'm going to remain optimistic in forging a new career path that utilizes the 15 years' worth of creative writing, editing and story planning experience I've built up. Three weeks of being out of work is depressing and demoralizing enough; I'm ready and motivated to get back on my feet.