Cameron H.

I have to agree with you, babyoilbandit. I finished watching it this morning and it never really reaches the heights of "so bad/crazy it's good." I'm not sure what this says about me, and I'm not saying I liked it, but I "got it." It's a "fine" movie, which is almost the worst thing it can be. It's a solid D+. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill story, just poorly directed. Like I do have to agree with Paul, though. The end credits are a thing of beauty. I'm not sure, since the tone of it is so inconsistent with the rest of the movie, if the insanity of this moment can be felt without watching the whole movie, but it was the only part of the movie I was like, "this is crazy." I only wish the rest of the movie had more moments like it... The quality of this video is pretty bad, but if anyone doesn't want to watch the movie, but wants to see what Paul is talking about, here you go! ETA: Berlin's "Masquerade" is both the most 80's thing I've ever heard and the most awesome!

Hey all! Since we are officially into the final quarter of 2015, I thought I'd take a minute to do an informal HDTGM forums "State of the Union" post. I've no real purpose for doing this except that I probably interact with you all way more than I interact with those weird-o "real" people in my life, and as such, I'm invested in how you all are doing. I genuinely hope everything is going well for you all in your day-to-day lives. Anyway, today I was reflecting on all the episodes that have dropped this year and how great they have been, and I was wondering what everyone's top five favorite episodes of HDTGM have been for the year so far? And, if different, what were everyone's favorite HDTGM films this year? Additionally, if you've had any favorite moments, guests, or whatever, please feel free to share those as well! Think of this as a kind of unofficial "Howdies." To save you all the time of looking them up, I took the liberty of listing all the episodes that have dropped thus far: 101 Xanadu 102 Tango and Cash 103 and 104 Zardoz 105 Safe Haven 106 Deep Blue Sea 107 Lake Placid 108 Con Air 109 Face Off 110 The Island of Dr. Moreau 111 Hercules in New York 112 Jupiter Ascending 113 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze 114 Runaway 115 Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! 116 Top Dog 117 Theodore Rex 118 Furious 7 119 Maximum Overdrive 120 Masters of the Universe My Top 5 Episodes for the Year 1) Furious 7 2) Masters of the Universe 3) Deep Blue Sea 4) Runaway 5) Face Off Top Movies Covered This Year 1) Furious 7 2) Jupiter Ascending 3) Safe Haven 4) Tango and Cash 5) Xanadu Thanks everyone for giving me a fun place fuck around, be stupid, and forget about work and all of life's other bullshit for a little bit every day. Also, I'd like to say thank you to all the engineers, moderators, and interns that help make this show possible. You guys are the best! And finally, a huge thank you to Paul, Jason, and June for delivering an incredible show every two weeks (every week in Paul's case)! I subscribe to a ton of podcasts, but I honestly look forward to this one more than any other. I just want you all to know that I recognize that a lot of work goes into making HDTGM what it is, and I just wanted to let you all know that it's appreciated!

I'm about halfway through as of this morning. I tried watching this weekend, but my son wasn't having it. Sure--we can sit and watch episode after episode of The Octonauts, but as soon as Daddy wants to watch something, it's crawl all over him with noisy toys in his face time. Anyway, I'm not going to say don't watch it, but I am finding it pretty boring so far. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of meat on the bones. I would be surprised if they can't cover it all in an hour and a half. It has it's moments, but I'm not finding it to be particularly crazy or anything. The craziest bits seem to be the five minute straight aerobic scenes, and we've pretty much mined that with our gifs on the board. It's basically your standard, "reporter researching a story and may have gotten too close to his source" kind of tale. In fact, it's a better movie then I would have guessed, but really, not my cup of tea. I'm interested in what they have to say about it, because, so far at least, I'm not really getting much out of it. But, then again, they are really good of catching things that I miss. I just hope it's not just an hour of them talking about Travolta gyrating his hips, because, much like it is in the film, that will get old pretty quick. But, like I said, I'm only halfway through, maybe it goes off the rails in the second half. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Maybe we should all just move to Canada...We could all get a place in Cabbagetown, and could spend all day being polite to one another, drinking Labatt Blue, eating Tim Horton's donuts, and watching crappy movies on Canadian Netflix. What do you say guys? You in? Just a reminder, in about a year, Donald Trump is going to be the United States' president, so now would be a good time to for us all to start considering emigration...

Aww man, why'd you have to go and say that? I would move back to Canada right now if this were true...

Well...you can't argue with that.

For Jason! Living in a Box's "Living in a Box" from Masters of the Universe.

Oh, please don't do that to yourself. It's still a bad movie, I was just trying to say--comparatively--it's not that bad. It's still pretty bad. I guess, for some weird reason, I've decided that this would be the week I'd jump on the forums and champion movies that I could not possibly give less of a crap about.

Here's my experience with this movie: I bought it at Target for 5 bucks with no prior knowledge of the film. I often have the attitude, "If it's good or bad, it's only a couple of bucks. Even if I just watch it once, I'm still getting my money's worth." I'm also one of those types of people who, every so often, just craves to see something "different." So, full disclosure, I didn't hate this movie. I'm not saying it's a good movie, and I have only watched it once, but for what it was, it entertained me. My biggest gripe was the dinner party scene, which I felt was tonally out of place from the rest of the movie. I liked that the male lead was a literature nerd who was desperate to get out of his small minded, hick town, and I felt that the girl's angst (unlike Bella's) was earned. For the most part, I felt they were treated as equals, unlike in Twilight where there is this pervading desperation that exudes from Bella in every fawning word she thinks about Edward. I also disagree with Taylor Anne that the message was, "inherently all women are evil." She was really neither good nor bad, she's just like any other teenager trying to figure out who she is going to be. She's asking herself, "Am I a good person or a bad person? Do I have any choice? How much of who I am is predicated on the people who raised me or whose blood is running through my veins? Is my life predestined or--even when it doesn't feel like it--do I have a choice? As it turns out, it's all of these things. The funny postscript I have to this is, when I was checking out, the cashier told me how much she liked the movie and that the book was even better. (Another thing about me is that I absorb books like I absorb movies--good and bad.) So after I watched the movie, I went and bought the book. Holy crap! Now that thing is garbage--and I've read all four of the Twilight books! When you think back on this movie, if you can think of any moment that you thought to yourself, "Yeah, that part was alright..." forget it! It's not in the book. Literature nerd who wants to get out of his small town and see the world? Gone. Nope--in the book, he's just a Bella who just pines over this weird girl that just treats him like human garbage. It's also terribly written--and this cannot be stressed enough, that's coming from someone who voluntarily read four Twilight books! Bottom line--although it is by no means a good movie, and is certainly worthy of the HDTGM treatment, I don't really think it's much worse than the other YA tripe that we're force fed. In fact, my theory as to why the movie didn't go so well is because it veered so far from the source material. I'm assuming it was already a successful book series with a ready built audience, and even though I would argue that the changes they made to the story vastly improved it, I'm sure people who liked the books were left scratching their heads.

Oh--it needs it. He also defines "stylin'" as a "consciousness razor."

(So I read all of blackacre's post, agreed with it, went on to write a response post, made (what I felt were all valid points), found a YouTube video, finished my post, and was just about to submit it, when I took a second re-read what blackacre wrote. I then realized I had pretty much restated everything he/she already said in my own long winded and wordier fashion. I'm an idiot. However, if you want to go ahead and waste your time reading my post expressing the exact same sentiment as blackacre, here you go! Sorry, blackacre--I didn't mean to intellectually plagiarize you) Yeah, that was my impression as well. I think it is pretty telling that the movie isn't called He-Man and the Masters of the Universe like the toy line or the cartoon, it's just Masters of the Universe. In fact you could argue that by the end of the movie, both Julie and Kevin are themselves Masters of the Universe--or at least, the masters of their own universes/lives. From what I gather from the Slashfilm article, the intent was always for the kid "to have the power," so to some extent, "The Masters of the Universe" was always meant to refer to the children making pretend with their toys, not the characters themselves. When a kid is playing with a He-man action figure (or any other toy for that matter) the child is essentially playing God for that period of time. For example, as far as my son is concerned Thomas the Train is a high flying, death defying, super rocket train--and that's totally cool. I'm not going to tell him that trains have to stay on the tracks. He needs to play however things make sense in the world he is creating. So I think it was very deliberate to make He-Man almost ancillary to the plot of the movie. His character is just a toy on the screen that the audience got to play with for an hour and a half. In many ways, it reminded me of the Captain N cartoon (Is anyone else familiar with that show? Just me? Okay, cool). Here's the intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyoUecpe_wU Ostensibly, Captain N is the story of a kid from our world that is sucked into the realm of Nintendo video games and gets to have adventures with Mega Man, Simon Belmont, Kid Icarus, etc. The key to remember though is that the show is about the kid, not the video game characters themselves. It's "Wouldn't it be cool if I could hang out and go on adventures with Link and Zelda?" I really feel that this is what they were going for with this movie--except in this case it's my really cool toy that's come to life, he's come to my crappy little town, and now I get to have an adventure with him. We (the 4-8 year old audience) are not supposed to identify with He-Man, we're supposed to identify with Kevin and Julie. To a child, He-Man is He-Man. He-Man's their friend, and as much as we may like our friends, nobody actually wants to be their friend. You want to still be you. You just might want to hang out and go on adventures with your friend. Because of all this, He-Man had to be a cipher in this movie. Except for some rough outlines regarding his story and look, He-Man needed to be a blank slate so that the 6-year-old kids in the audience could project their own personal version of He-Man onto Dolph Lundgren. In other words, since He-Man was based on toy and not an existing IP with decades of character development and back history, his entire personality and modus operandi was primarily based on whatever a particular child wanted him to be. For instance, Taylorannephoto, Cam Bert, Fister Roboto, Blackacre, and I may all own the same He-Man figure, but each one would be "different" based on our individual personalities. So the real challenge this movie faced, was to somehow present an image on the screen that jibbed, not only with the minimal mythology presented in the cartoon, but also with the various "head canons" of millions of kids around the world. Now, the big question is: does that work in a movie? Can you film what is essentially a child's playtime fantasy with his/her toys and somehow make that something everyone will want to see? Judging by the results of the movie, I'd say "no." However, I do feel like it to even attempt such a feat was wildly ambitious and everyone involved should feel proud of what they were able to accomplish.

Cam Bert, I just want you to know that I got as far as, "It's 2005 and Chad Kroeger is sitting in his studio in Vancouver" before I had to "Like" your post. That's such a strong opener. There are world famous authors out there right now that wish they could grab their reader's attention like that in their first sentence. It was the forum posting equivalent of the first note of "Far From Over" being played in Staying Alive--once you hear it, you know that you're going to be 100% on board for whatever comes next.

Dear God, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I think I'm going to have to make an argument in defense of the movie's logic regarding her parents dying on an airplane. First of all, isn't Catalina an island that's only accessible by boat or airplane? So the takeaway really shouldn't be "they were going to go to the beach, but decided to go to the beach instead," but rather "they were going to go to a local beach as a family outing, but since Julie opted out, the mother and father are going to have some alone time on Catalina Island instead." However this doesn't explain why the writer(s) felt her parents had to die in a plane crash--maybe a car crash was too prosaic. All I can figure is the writer felt her parents had to be dead and this was simply a scenario where both her parents could be dead without getting so dark as to suggest they were both murdered or something. Sure the family could have just as easily owned a boat that sinks, but I don't think the writer really wanted the audience dwelling on her parents slowly drowning to death either. When you say "died in an airplane crash," I think most people think of it as a "quick" death, that is to say, not painful or lingering. So to sum up: the parents needed to die together, it had to be in a fashion where Julie could feel some guilt about it, and it had to be presented in such a way that wouldn't completely bum out the viewer for the rest of the movie. Whether these were "good" choices for the writer to make is really up to the greater viewing audience, but I think it works for the sake of the story. As for the point regarding the affordability of an airplane to people of modest means...well, maybe that's why they lived so modestly. Maybe that's just where her parents liked to spend their money. It's like in the Fast & Furious movies where Dom and his crew live in a relatively modest home, obviously having spent most of their money on their cars. People spend money on dumb shit all the time. Who's to say that the plane he's flying isn't tricked the fuck out with chrome rims and shit? Sure, maybe it's not the most responsible use of their money, and personally, not the choice I would make as a father, but who am I to judge? Her father's a free spirit, man! And sometimes a bro just has to spread his wings and fly! However, I do agree with June's macro point of keeping those poor people out of the sky. Ugh...just the thought of it makes me throw up in my mouth a little...

While I agree that the opening score is very John Williams-esque, I felt the opening was more of a Superman (1979) ripoff. Although, you could argue that that in itself was a Star Wars ripoff.

Brilliant! Poor Sammy, if only there were some sort of liquid he could drink to make those pills go down easier... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPvyq_KmXhc

Shit guys, I'm sorry. This will be my fourth post on this page. I really hate doing that. I don't mean to hijack the thread. I think I might just be making up for lost time. My apologies. Anyway... Gwildor’s line about the entire universe being made up of music got me thinking. It seems like the music that opens these portals act almost like a passageway to various interdimensional zipcodes. If this is true, not only does it reinforce Cam Bert and my earlier theory that Gwildor has used that musical combination to travel to Kevin and Julie’s small town before and possibly caused the deaths of Julie’s mom and dad, it also means that, provided one has access to one of Gwildor's keys, every combination of notes must lead to somewhere. I mean, yes, the number of permutations with which one can arrange notes might seem like you have an infinite number of possibilities, but mathematically, there is still only a set number of ways notes can be strung together to make a melody. And when you consider that each melody opens, not just a portal to anywhere within the Eternian universe, but also all other possible universes—with the additional benefit of any when in all of these universes--the number of musical combinations has to correlate pretty damn closely to the number of--also nearly infinite--places in space and time one can go.* So, my question is: is this what is happening in a-ha’s “Take On Me” video? I would also like to propose a challenge to everyone here. Given my hypothesis above, please provide a song by a notable “song maker,” that when connected to Gwildor’s key, would create a space/time rift and then tell us where said portal would take us. *I will concede that Gwildor makes a big deal about a person being a “song maker,” and maybe that has something to do with how well you can open these portals, but given the definition given in the movie of what a “song maker” is, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that many people can be considered “song makers.” According to the movie, a “song maker” is simply a person who can recall a catchy melody, and maybe, also has “perfect pitch”—which I admit is a rare ability, but not all that uncommon.

LOL! Yeah, didn't it go something like: Friend: I got you a present! Julie: Awesome! You didn't have to do that! Friend: It's not wrapped... Julie: That's cool! Friend: It's advice. Julie: Oh...great... Look, you narcissistic asshole--I don't care how sage-like you feel your opinions are; advice is just advice, not a gift you bestow upon people! Now wash your goddamn hands!

I hate to post movie trailers in two successive post, but I've just had the chance to re-listen to this episode without interruption, and I cannot believe that while discussing Dolph Lundgren's filmography, they failed to bring up his role in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Universal Soldier! Wasn't that sort of a big movie? Granted, I've only seen it once and that was years ago, but judging by the trailer, I would think it would be right up HDTGM's alley. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYQVr1PamlY

First of all, an apology. I've been on vacation for the past week, so most of things I've been posting has been whenever I could a spare moment to log on, but it occurs to me that I never joined my voice in the chorus of praise for of this episode. That was rude of me-- especially when you consider that this episode is, in my opinion, one of the top ten episodes HDTGM has ever done! Tatiana Maslany was a fantastic guest and I hope they can get her to come on again soon! If I had one complaint, and I really don't, it's that the film neglected to include stalwart Masters of the Universe characters, Fisto and Ram Man. It's like the film makers knew thirty years ago that HDTGM would one day be a thing and they were deliberately trying to make Paul, Jason, and June's job more difficult. Also, on an unrelated note, I believe one of my first posts on the forums ever was--like many other posters--a list of movies I'd like to see them tackle. While I don't stand by that post as much as I did when I wrote it (I've since edited it to take out my stupid jokes and real clunkers), I am happy to say Deep Blue Sea (my number one pick!) and Masters of the Universe (#9) have both been covered this year! I know I'm not the only one to recommend these movies, but I feel somewhat justified that two of my picks have delivered such stellar (Skateboard?) episodes. With that in mind, I would be a happy man indeed if we could get Airborne (#4) done sometime soon. Maybe with Seth Green as the guest... Thanks again for all the fun! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz2CMDCD3WQ

I recognize that the last romantic bone in my body withered and died long ago, but am I the only one who was a bit weirded out that Kevin and Julie have apparently been dating since they were twelve years old? As Julie is leaving the diner where she works, her friend implores her to not break up with Kevin before moving to New Jersey.* In reply, Julie says, "[it's] not the seventh grade anymore! Kevin's changed. I've changed!" Um...you're seniors in High School now, I should bloody well hope you've both changed some since Middle School! Is it possible that the proposed Masters of the Universe sequel would've just gone ahead and omitted He-Man entirely and instead focused on Kevin and Julie moving to the big city where he would pursue his true passion of running a small, local pharmacy while she gets more and more wrapped up in the dark underbelly of the marriage counseling racket--sinking inexorably downward into a quagmire of drugs and illicit sex? *New Jersey? Really? Okay...

Dude! We Fucking Nailed it!

Oh shit! Now that you mention it... You don't think, like, Gwildor killed her parents, do you? Like he was screwing around with the key prototype or something and it opened a portal to our world that ripped her parents' modest (let's be honest) airplane in twain. At the end of the movie, we are being led to assume that he is sending Julie back in time to save her parents, but in actuality, he is destroying the evidence of the double manslaughter he committed by culpable negligence. That's how he knew when to send her back! We're on to you, Gwildor!!!!

Here's my problem with the ending of the film--Gwildor doesn't just return them to a alternate present where Julie's parents survived, he returns them to the past where she has the opportunity to alter the future. It's not explicitly stated in the film, but based on her level of grieving (not crying inconsolably, but still in a period of raw pain), I would guess that at the beginning of the movie, her parents have been dead for about a year. So Gwildor sends them about one year into the past, to the very morning her parents were to die,* and she saves her parents--which is great. The problem is, Julie and Kevin are thrown back into the past, but they retain all of their memories. Are we just supposed to trust that once the relief of her parents being alive has subsided, Julie and Kevin aren't going to exploit this precognition to their advantage? How can they not? They have to repeat their senior year of high school, don't they? How are they not going to use the education they have already attained to get better grades? And, once they get a taste of these advantages, how long until they start to really abuse their new found power? Sure, they could maybe use this knowledge to help the world by warning of tragedies before they occur, but isn't it just as likely that they could use it for their own nefarious purposes? And Gwildor knows this is what they can do!! In fact, by sending her to the day her parents died, he is basically encouraging her to disrupt and mold the time stream in any manner she sees fit. So basically, Julie and Kevin spent one evening running around with He-man and pals, and in the return, they are granted a full year of near omniscience. That's a great deal for them, but I can think of at least one scientist who would have a serious problem with that... *How come time travel movies never give people more time to correct a mistake? They always send them to, like, moments before whatever is supposed to happen is going to occur. Shit guys, give yourselves some breathing room.

This scene also shows just how shoddy Eternian magic tech is. They place the truth collar on Kevin and he says that the key has been taken from him by the cop and doesn't know where it is. Then, just a little while later when Julie and team He-man arrive, they remove the truth collar and suddenly he is a regular fount of information. "The key? Yeah, the cop took it. He said he was going to Charlie's--you know, the music place in the mall. The address is..." I also loved how this scene contrasted with Julie's first encounter with He-man. When they free Kevin from Evil-Lynn's thrall, his first reaction is to freak out, tell Julie to run, and threaten them with a wooden chair. Considering the circumstances, I think this is a fair reaction to the situation. Julie, on the other hand, meets He-man as she's running through a shady warehouse district in the middle of the night after been chased by a gang of monsters. Suddenly, a man in a cape and leather fetish gear steps out of the shadows and grabs her. Her response to this is to mildly protest, rub her cheek all over his oily chest, and allow this strange man to carry her away. That is straight up bananas!

Oh my God! The amount of times the actors looked directly to camera was insane! It was as if at any moment they were just going to stop the action and say, "Oh! I didn't see you come in..." And then--if the movie followed in the footsteps of the cartoon--after they formally addressed their viewers, they could launch into a PSA about the value of friendship or the dangers of downed power lines.