The Birthday Massacre
I've become obsessed with this band recently, I listen to them pretty much daily. Hopefully I can turn at least one other person onto them. They have a bit of a gothy, poppy, new wavey kinda sound that I really enjoy. The vocals in the verse for this song are a bit unusual, but the chorus is awesome. Enjoy!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
The Marine - A Retrospective
What the hell, I’m bored, I just saw The Marine, like 3 weeks ago. I meant to write this several weeks ago. Anyway, review time? Keep in mind, I, The Phelpster, have no actual experience in the field of movie critiquing. However poorly written this might be, there has to be a review out there somewhere worse than this. So here we go.
It’s time for another popular WWE (where the hell is the “E” in the WWE logo, by the way?) wrestler to make his feature film debut. First it was Kane in See No Evil. Now it’s Grandmaster John Cena in The Marine. He raps, you know.
John plays a constantly dumbfounded looking beefcake who kind of resembles a really huge steroid injected version of what the love-child of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck might look like. John plays a character named…wait for it…John. A very brief plot summary: John Triton (Cena) is an ex-Marine who was kicked out for being just too much of a badass. Shouldn’t the movie be called The Ex-Marine? John’s wife, (Kelly Carlson) is kidnapped by Rome (Robert Patrick) and his unprofessional band of nitwit goons. John hunts down said goons to save his wife. If your wife looked like Kelly Carlson you’d do a little goon bounty hunting yourself.
In the first few minutes of the movie John is demoted from Marine to regular-ass guy. For some reason having to be stuck at home with his perfect looking wife just burns this guy’s ass. He immediately takes and is subsequently fired from a security job. Again, for being just too much of a bad ass. In short, this guy is a badass. So finally after much nagging from his wife, the two set off on a trip to…somewhere in South Carolina, apparently. They never really say where, or hell, maybe they did and I just wasn’t listening. I just know it wasn’t the beach as a zinger later in the movie clues us in on.
Meanwhile, somewhere nearby the plot is being set into motion. Rome (the guy, not the city) and his gang pull off some kind of elaborate diamond heist. They completely blow it like 2 minutes later by blowing up a police car. Hey, we’re walking to our car after stealing millions in diamonds, but the cops don’t have a description of any of us yet, let’s blow up a squad car in the middle of the street in broad daylight. That’ll help. The next day while Rome is filling up their stolen car with gas (which I assume they also intended to steal) and the gang is inside getting snacks for the trip, a couple of suspicious cops driving some kind of weird-ass abundantly-sirened Cop-Vette pull up. Rome and his half-assed posse aren’t too suave. They kinda have a way of drawing attention to themselves. Usually while blowing something up or killing officers of the law. By the way, aside from Robert Patrick , this gang consist of his hot girlfriend and a stereotypical trio of wacky black guy, hunky foreign guy and nerdy white guy. These dumb bastards end up killing the cops, then steal the car with The Marine’s wife since theirs was damaged in the shootout, and manage to blow up the entire gas station with The Marine himself lying unconscious inside. John, of course lives through the first of many huge explosions he’s in the midst of. He hops in the Copvette (which I could’ve sworn had tires blown out moments earlier) and the heat is on.
John and his raging nipples of fury will stop at nothing to get his lovely and equally dumbfounded looking wife out of T-1000’s diabolical clutches. He’ll operate any vehicle, kick any ass, dive out of any exploding building. By my count, there were no less than 4 scenes featuring ridiculously over the top building explosions with Cena jumping slow motion out of harm’s way and screaming. You know, screaming in a manly way, he’s not some kinda pussy. That’s pretty much the movie, after that it’s just John on a mission to save his woman. Some people will live, some people will die (you’ll know the outcome before the previews before the actual movie end). It’s very loud and dumb, but it’s not trying to be anything but.
The whole thing was a learning experience for me really. I learned if I’m ever driving a car while under heavy fire coming from numerous machine guns I’ll be okay if I just duck. I learned just because a couple tires on a car get shot out doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way the whole time. I learned that stories involving rock candy and pubescent summer camp rape can be humorous.
Complaints aside, it’s just the right combination of completely retarded and really loud to be pretty damn entertaining. At least once. Don’t think this is a DVD purchase situation, but I wasn’t asking for my money back afterwards. You will completely forget almost everything the second it’s over, but it’s fun while it lasts. It’s pretty much Commando, John Cena even wears face paint similar to Schwarzenegger’s in Commando. So if you are a fan of the big dumb, highly illogical and unrealistic action films of the 80’s give this one a look. For me it was 9 dollars….spent.
On a side note, this was the second WWE film (they make films now, you know) I’ve seen. The first being See No Evil. One thing WWE Films seems to have down, they both contain one standout spectacular death scene with one of the female characters being brutally, savagely, yet hilariously killed. They seem to be onto something I guess.
It’s time for another popular WWE (where the hell is the “E” in the WWE logo, by the way?) wrestler to make his feature film debut. First it was Kane in See No Evil. Now it’s Grandmaster John Cena in The Marine. He raps, you know.
John plays a constantly dumbfounded looking beefcake who kind of resembles a really huge steroid injected version of what the love-child of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck might look like. John plays a character named…wait for it…John. A very brief plot summary: John Triton (Cena) is an ex-Marine who was kicked out for being just too much of a badass. Shouldn’t the movie be called The Ex-Marine? John’s wife, (Kelly Carlson) is kidnapped by Rome (Robert Patrick) and his unprofessional band of nitwit goons. John hunts down said goons to save his wife. If your wife looked like Kelly Carlson you’d do a little goon bounty hunting yourself.
In the first few minutes of the movie John is demoted from Marine to regular-ass guy. For some reason having to be stuck at home with his perfect looking wife just burns this guy’s ass. He immediately takes and is subsequently fired from a security job. Again, for being just too much of a bad ass. In short, this guy is a badass. So finally after much nagging from his wife, the two set off on a trip to…somewhere in South Carolina, apparently. They never really say where, or hell, maybe they did and I just wasn’t listening. I just know it wasn’t the beach as a zinger later in the movie clues us in on.
Meanwhile, somewhere nearby the plot is being set into motion. Rome (the guy, not the city) and his gang pull off some kind of elaborate diamond heist. They completely blow it like 2 minutes later by blowing up a police car. Hey, we’re walking to our car after stealing millions in diamonds, but the cops don’t have a description of any of us yet, let’s blow up a squad car in the middle of the street in broad daylight. That’ll help. The next day while Rome is filling up their stolen car with gas (which I assume they also intended to steal) and the gang is inside getting snacks for the trip, a couple of suspicious cops driving some kind of weird-ass abundantly-sirened Cop-Vette pull up. Rome and his half-assed posse aren’t too suave. They kinda have a way of drawing attention to themselves. Usually while blowing something up or killing officers of the law. By the way, aside from Robert Patrick , this gang consist of his hot girlfriend and a stereotypical trio of wacky black guy, hunky foreign guy and nerdy white guy. These dumb bastards end up killing the cops, then steal the car with The Marine’s wife since theirs was damaged in the shootout, and manage to blow up the entire gas station with The Marine himself lying unconscious inside. John, of course lives through the first of many huge explosions he’s in the midst of. He hops in the Copvette (which I could’ve sworn had tires blown out moments earlier) and the heat is on.
John and his raging nipples of fury will stop at nothing to get his lovely and equally dumbfounded looking wife out of T-1000’s diabolical clutches. He’ll operate any vehicle, kick any ass, dive out of any exploding building. By my count, there were no less than 4 scenes featuring ridiculously over the top building explosions with Cena jumping slow motion out of harm’s way and screaming. You know, screaming in a manly way, he’s not some kinda pussy. That’s pretty much the movie, after that it’s just John on a mission to save his woman. Some people will live, some people will die (you’ll know the outcome before the previews before the actual movie end). It’s very loud and dumb, but it’s not trying to be anything but.
The whole thing was a learning experience for me really. I learned if I’m ever driving a car while under heavy fire coming from numerous machine guns I’ll be okay if I just duck. I learned just because a couple tires on a car get shot out doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way the whole time. I learned that stories involving rock candy and pubescent summer camp rape can be humorous.
Complaints aside, it’s just the right combination of completely retarded and really loud to be pretty damn entertaining. At least once. Don’t think this is a DVD purchase situation, but I wasn’t asking for my money back afterwards. You will completely forget almost everything the second it’s over, but it’s fun while it lasts. It’s pretty much Commando, John Cena even wears face paint similar to Schwarzenegger’s in Commando. So if you are a fan of the big dumb, highly illogical and unrealistic action films of the 80’s give this one a look. For me it was 9 dollars….spent.
On a side note, this was the second WWE film (they make films now, you know) I’ve seen. The first being See No Evil. One thing WWE Films seems to have down, they both contain one standout spectacular death scene with one of the female characters being brutally, savagely, yet hilariously killed. They seem to be onto something I guess.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Rejected Hellraiser Music by Coil
This is kind of a weird one. Clive Barker and the band Coil were friends and they did a few tracks for Hellraiser. These were later rejected for being “too scary” according to someone, but I don’t think they are any more frightening than what they used in the actual movie. Less so actually.
To prevent any photos of threeway action being posted on my site for “stealing” from another site, like with the H.G. Lewis picture, I will say now that this description is swiped from brainwash.com:
“The first 3 tracks (Side A) are taken from Coil's soundtrack to the Clive Barker film "Hellraiser" which was rejected by the film studio. The remainder of the tracks (side B) are a selection of short peices that were commissioned for use as music for advertisements on British television. They also appear on the anthology release Unnatural History III under the group title of "Music For Commercials”
So it’s really only 3 actual tracks rejected from Hellraiser. The rest is just other stuff, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. I prefer the Christopher Young score, it’s very epic sounding, but the rejected music is still pretty cool to hear.
To prevent any photos of threeway action being posted on my site for “stealing” from another site, like with the H.G. Lewis picture, I will say now that this description is swiped from brainwash.com:
“The first 3 tracks (Side A) are taken from Coil's soundtrack to the Clive Barker film "Hellraiser" which was rejected by the film studio. The remainder of the tracks (side B) are a selection of short peices that were commissioned for use as music for advertisements on British television. They also appear on the anthology release Unnatural History III under the group title of "Music For Commercials”
So it’s really only 3 actual tracks rejected from Hellraiser. The rest is just other stuff, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. I prefer the Christopher Young score, it’s very epic sounding, but the rejected music is still pretty cool to hear.
Hellraiser
Box Theme
Main Title
Airline 1
Liqueur
Perfume
Video Recorder
Airline 2
Natural Gas
Cosmetic 1
Cosmetic 2
Analgesic
Road Surface
Accident Insurance
Box Theme
Main Title
Airline 1
Liqueur
Perfume
Video Recorder
Airline 2
Natural Gas
Cosmetic 1
Cosmetic 2
Analgesic
Road Surface
Accident Insurance
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?
Daniel Licht's score to Hellraiser: Bloodline. From the director of Hellraiser IV: Bloodline, comes Hellraiser IV: Bloodline. One of the many "Villain in Space for no reason" films. Other smash hits to utilize the space angle being Leprechaun in Space, Jason X and uh, Critters 4. If nothing else Bloodline is at least ambitious and gruesome. Kinda like the Back to the Future trilogy, out of order in one movie with demons and some kinda Black Metal dog.The film features two actors with Seinfeld appearances on their resumes. Pam from The Soul Mate episode and Phil from The Strongbox episode. If you watch the movie look out for them and be mildly amused for a moment before you realize "Holy shit, I'm watching Hellraiser: Bloodline." Seriously, what the hell was the deal with that dog? If Demonaz from Immortal had a dog....
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them.
Here's another of the Nightmare soundtracks. My personal favorite, Angelo Badalamenti's score to Chuck Russel's Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. Starring Patricia Arquette and Larry Fishburne among a bunch of other people, including one guy who looks like Bill Maher. Oh, and of course, John Saxon. In this one Freddy morphs into a huge snake, a year later a similar scene takes place in Beetlejuice. Coincidence? Probably. Freddy also morphs into a TV, a bathroom sink, a puppet and a hot topless nurse, so needless to say the man likes to mix things up a bit.
1. Opening (01:50)
2. Puppet Walk (03:18)
3. Save The Children (01:25)
4. Taryn's Deepest Fear (03:05)
5. Deceptive Romance (01:45)
6. Snake Attack (01:56)
7. Magic Butterfly (01:20)
Last track of side 1 of LP
8. The Embrace (00:42)
9. Quiet Room / Wheelchair / Icy Bones (02:41)
10. Rumbling Room (01:15)
11. Dreamspace (00:46)
12. The Dream House (01:50)
13. Is Freddy Gone? / Trouble Starting / Prime Time TV / Icy Window (04:32)
14. Grave Walk (01:11)
15. Nursery Theme (01:55)
16. Lights Out (01:00)
2. Puppet Walk (03:18)
3. Save The Children (01:25)
4. Taryn's Deepest Fear (03:05)
5. Deceptive Romance (01:45)
6. Snake Attack (01:56)
7. Magic Butterfly (01:20)
Last track of side 1 of LP
8. The Embrace (00:42)
9. Quiet Room / Wheelchair / Icy Bones (02:41)
10. Rumbling Room (01:15)
11. Dreamspace (00:46)
12. The Dream House (01:50)
13. Is Freddy Gone? / Trouble Starting / Prime Time TV / Icy Window (04:32)
14. Grave Walk (01:11)
15. Nursery Theme (01:55)
16. Lights Out (01:00)
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
MST3K The Beast of Yucca Flats - Review
Another out by Shout Factory, links gone
It's MST3K time again. I went with the Tor Johnson epic The Beast of Yucca Flats. Because the only thing worse than a Tor Johnson on the loose, is an Atomic Tor Johnson on the loose. I think The Atomic Tor Johnson is actually a name for one of those weird sexual acts, like Abe Lincoln, or Dirty Sanchez. If it's not, I call dibs on the name and I get to come up with the position and ground rules. Moving on. This is one of the three of Francis Coleman's "films" featured on the show over the years. They also did Red Zone Cuba and The Skydivers, which pretty much sums up his entire craptacular Directorial career. If nothing else, the man was consistent. In the film Tor Johnson, who I think is supposed to be Russian since his name is Javorsky, gets transformed into an "Atomic Superman"! No, wait. Wrong movie. He's just a big atomic, kind of melted guy who kills people on and around Coleman Francis Mountain. That's more or less it. Oh, some girl gets strangled at the beginning by...someone. Your guess is as good as mine regarding who exactly performed this strangulation and why.
This episode features two of my favorite shorts ever; MONEY TALKS! and PROGRESS ISLAND, U.S.A. I hope they’ll become two of yours as well. If not, well, not my fault. I tried. But seriously the 2nd short, the one on "Puerto Rico", is brilliant. Puerto Rico which, of course loosly translated (if translated completely incorrectly) means "Progress Island". Hence the title. Or something.
If anyone has any decent quality images, or screenshots or whatever from the movie I'd appreciate it, I want to do a cover for this one but I can't find anything decent to use for the front cover. Even a decent Tor Johnson in non monster-form photo will work since he's a non-monster briefly in this.
Flag on the moon....
Saturday, October 14, 2006
I Was A Teenage Zombie
Here's the soundtrack to the 1987 film I Was A Teenage Zombie - starring Allen Rickman! Okay, not the Die Hard guy, but I am sure I made at least 3 of you stop and try and remember Alan Rickman's part in the movie before realizing Die Hard Rickman spells his name differently. IWATZ is certainly on the lower end of the zombie spectrum, however it does have a zombie so it has that going for it. Sometimes that's all it takes. It was clearly made on a painfully low budget, however the soundtrack is actually pretty good and has real bands like The Smithereens, Violent Femmes and Los Lobos.
1. i was a teenage zombie theme (02:20)
performed by: the Fleshtones
2. have you forgotten (03:52)
performed by: the Del Fuegos
3. neverland (02:04)
performed by: the Db's
4. halloween (06:29)
performed by: the Dream Syndicate
5. good feeling (03:49)
performed by: Violent Femmes
6. i know what boys like (03:11)
performed by: the Waitresses
7. time and time again (03:04)
performed by: the Smithereens
8. why do you do (02:17)
performed by: Los Lobos
9. stuff (04:56)
performed by: Alex Chilton
10. vibrato in the grotto (02:34)
performed by: Ben Vaughn Group
11. nobody knows where loves goes (04:10)
performed by: Bob Pfeifer
performed by: the Fleshtones
2. have you forgotten (03:52)
performed by: the Del Fuegos
3. neverland (02:04)
performed by: the Db's
4. halloween (06:29)
performed by: the Dream Syndicate
5. good feeling (03:49)
performed by: Violent Femmes
6. i know what boys like (03:11)
performed by: the Waitresses
7. time and time again (03:04)
performed by: the Smithereens
8. why do you do (02:17)
performed by: Los Lobos
9. stuff (04:56)
performed by: Alex Chilton
10. vibrato in the grotto (02:34)
performed by: Ben Vaughn Group
11. nobody knows where loves goes (04:10)
performed by: Bob Pfeifer
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Now I'm playing with power!
This came out back when The Goo Goo Dolls were on Metal Blade records. Always kinda confused me. Yep, Cannibal Corpse, Mercyful Fate, uh, The Goo Goo Dolls. Anyway, I think this is up there with Part 2 as the most disliked of the Nightmare films. I personally like it. It's a bad movie, sure, but it's so bizarre I find it hard not to like. It had some very cool stuff randomly throughout the movie if you toughed it out and paid attention. Like the audio going out when the guy gets his hearing aide ripped off, the Johnny Depp drug commercial, Alice Cooper as Freddy's father, and of course, the highpoint, Breckin Meyer dying. Those elements are a recipe for sucess in my book. Hell, if Garfield had Breckin involved in an unfortunate chainsaw related accident or if he fell victim to a zombie attack I might've even bought a copy. But I digress...
1. I'm Awake Now - Goo Goo Dolls
2. Everything Remains The Same - Junk Monkeys
3. You Know What I Mean - Goo Goo Dolls
4. Remember The Night - Johnny Law
5. Treat 'Em Right - Chubb Rock
6. Why Was I Born? (Freddy's Dead) - Iggy Pop
7. Hold Me Down - Johnny Law
8. Two Days In February - Goo Goo Dolls
9. Give Me A Beat - Young Lords
10. Nothing Left To Say - Fates Warning
2. Everything Remains The Same - Junk Monkeys
3. You Know What I Mean - Goo Goo Dolls
4. Remember The Night - Johnny Law
5. Treat 'Em Right - Chubb Rock
6. Why Was I Born? (Freddy's Dead) - Iggy Pop
7. Hold Me Down - Johnny Law
8. Two Days In February - Goo Goo Dolls
9. Give Me A Beat - Young Lords
10. Nothing Left To Say - Fates Warning
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The Fat Boys - All Meat, No Filler
While listening to this and giggling I noticed it's actually not half bad. Although one could argue the cover for this thing should be on some kind of "Worst Ever" list. It's kinda sloppy looking. Also, shouldn't The Fat Boys be bigger than that TV dinner? Looks like it should be called "Honey, I Shrunk The Fat Boys".