Shitty Movie Sundays: Mazes and Monsters

This isn’t the trailer. This is the climax. Go ahead and watch it. You will have missed nothing of consequence in the rest of the film.

I enjoy seeing movies from the early days of a star’s career. Not all stars were fortunate enough to burst onto the scene out of nowhere, but rather had to put in the low level, unglamorous grunt work that us normal people must endure when starting out. That’s how we got such historic performances from George Clooney in Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Kevin Bacon in Friday the 13th, and Jennifer Aniston in Leprechaun. Watching these films, there is no indication at all that these were future stars. I can now add another film to the Shitty Movie Sundays athenaeum featuring a then-unknown star. Continue readingShitty Movie Sundays: Mazes and Monsters”

Cocksuckers Ball: Turnabout Is Fair Play

In all the news this week, including a late-breaking story from CNN last night that said, in their carefully chosen words, “The FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” it’s easy to forget that there were confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court nominee. Continue readingCocksuckers Ball: Turnabout Is Fair Play”

Trumpland Day 60: And the Beat Goes On

How much of a disaster is the Turdpol Kakistocracy? The Senate Judiciary Committee begins its hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch today. This is a nomination that was stolen from President Obama by obstructionist Senate Republicans, led by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. The refusal by Senate Republicans last year to give Obama’s pick for Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacated seat, Merrick Garland, so much as a hearing, much less a vote, stands as one of the most frightening actions the GOP has taken to undermine American democracy since the party went extremist. Yet, it feels like battling over the Gorsuch nomination is near the bottom of the list of priorities for the Democrats in opposition. Normally that would be because the Democrats loathe confrontation. But President Trump has turned that all upside down. This is where we are. A Supreme Court pick was stolen from a sitting president, and that is less of a crisis for the republic than all the other stories dominating political news. Continue readingTrumpland Day 60: And the Beat Goes On”

Empty Balcony: Hacksaw Ridge

Is it okay to watch a Mel Gibson film again? Has he paid enough Hollywood penance for being a drunken, anti-Semitic, Catholic fundamentalist? Because, let’s not forget, the man is an Oscar-winning filmmaker. Gibson’s personal travails matter little to this reviewer. If the idea of watching a film helmed by Mel Gibson still leaves a viewer with a bad taste in their mouth, even though Gibson spent the better part of a decade in the weeds, then just don’t watch it. Continue readingEmpty Balcony: Hacksaw Ridge”

2017 Shitty Movie Sunday Awards

Last week I published my awards for the best in film that I saw from 2016. Now it’s time for the worst. This is the Shitty Movie Sunday Awards. Unlike with the Empty Balcony Awards, a film doesn’t have to be released in 2016 to be eligible. I just have to have seen it sometime in the past year. This is more loosely constructed than my more serious awards, as well. I take these Shitty Movie Sunday Awards about as seriously as shitty filmmakers take their movies. Hell, last year I never even got around to writing this companion to the Empty Balcony Awards. These are shitty awards for shitty movies. Continue reading “2017 Shitty Movie Sunday Awards”

Cocksuckers Ball: My Experience With Obamacare

The GOP released its long-awaited Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) replacement, and the general consensus is that the new bill stinks. It has been met with such a lack of enthusiasm from the right that there is a very real possibility that the American Health Care Act (AHCA), as it has been named, is dead on arrival. The Democrats will never support this bill, and a large portion of the Republicans in Congress will not do so either, as the bill is currently written. Continue readingCocksuckers Ball: My Experience With Obamacare”

The Fifth Annual Empty Balcony Awards for Movies I Saw From Last Year

The Oscars were last week. The Academy Awards are Hollywood pageantry at its most narcissistic, really. Perhaps there was a time when the awards show was good entertainment, or maybe, as the years go by, I’ve just become less interested in celebrities patting each other on the back for a job well done. Continue reading “The Fifth Annual Empty Balcony Awards for Movies I Saw From Last Year”