August | 2012 | Cavalcade of Awesome

Archive for August, 2012

Movie Manathon: Freddy Krueger, Crystal Meth and high tech space prisons

Posted in movies, reviews with tags Freddy Krueger, Movie Manathon, movies, reviews, TV shows on August 20, 2012 by Paxton

Steph went to visit her parents last week, so I took the time to watch several movies and TV shows she wants nothing to do with. I’ve done this several times before, check out some previous movie manathons here.

The wife’s away, so Pax will play. Let’s start with the movies I watched.

Lockout (2012) – Starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Good action, quick dialogue. Pearce is wonderfully sarcastic. Loved it. My only issue is that Maggie Grace is terrible. I just do not like her and she continues proving to me that she can’t act with every movie she’s in.

Chronicle (2012) – I think of this as “that super hero Facebook movie” because it was advertised so heavily on “the book”. I was well aware of it but I hadn’t really heard a lot about it specificially. But the premise sounded great and I knew my wife would never watch it so I got the Blu-Ray from Netflix and popped it in the PS3. And it’s AWESOME. Wow, I didn’t expect it to be this good. This is how I imagine it would actually happen if teens received super powers. And the movie gets pretty dark at the end. I also like that it’s essentially a “found footage” movie which adds a bit of realism. If you like super hero movies, this is definitely a different take on them. Give it a shot, I think you’ll like it.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – Starring Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy. For some reason I keep thinking of this movie receiving a lot of hate from fans. I’m not sure why. Is the movie perfect? No. But neither is 9/10 of the entire Nightmare franchise. This movie is good and I like Haley’s performance. I like how they fleshed out Freddy a little more and made him less jokey with only 1 one-liner. The effects were spectacular as well. The movie looked gorgeous.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) – Saw the first one and loved it, so I decided to check out the second one since Steph doesn’t like horror movies. And it’s good. These “found footage” movies I really love. I do. They are actually pretty scary. I think they are scarier than something like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th because they feel more “real”. Screw that torture porn crap like Saw and Hostel, these movies like Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch and Fourth Kind really creep me out (Blair Witch not so much any more). I started watching it one evening and actually had to turn it off to watch it the next afternoon. It’s pretty creepy. The “found footage” genre gets a lot of crap for some reason probably because it’s more of a creepy factor than out and out gore and kills. It’s a slow, suspenseful burn. I’ve even heard The Atomic Geeks say the genre is played out which is retarded because there are way more superhero, time travel or fantasy movies than there are “found footage” movies and none of those other genres are considered played out. I thought this movie was well done.

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I listen to one of my old mixtapes from 1996

Posted in music, rap with tags mixtape, music, pop culture, rap on August 16, 2012 by Paxton

The assignment for the League this week wants us to talk about mixtapes. Specifically our own mixtapes.

What songs were forever being looped on your car’s stereo [tape deck] back in high school?

I loved mixtapes. I made dozens of them over the years. Mostly for myself, but some for friends and some for “the ladies”. I would make the mixtape and listen to it on my portable headphones whenever I would go somewhere. I could be seen bobbing my head while walking along listening, most likely, to my current crop of hardcore rap songs.

My mixtapes usually weren’t random. I tended to theme them by genre. I had rap/hip-hop tapes, Disney soundtrack tapes, oldies/Motown tapes and novelty song tapes (ie Weird Al and Dr Demento). However, most of my tapes back in the day were hardcore rap because that’s what I listened to. And when I labeled the tape, I usually used a lyric from one of the songs on the tape.

Well, as for today’s assignment, I don’t need to recreate a mixtape because I still have a box of my old mixtapes in my basement. So, I just pulled out one of those mixtapes, popped it in my tape player and gave it a listen.

Below is Side 1 of today’s mixtape. I labeled it “I Think You Better Recognize”, but that’s hard to see because the ink has faded over time. That is actually the title of a song by Sam Sneed, but that song for some reason doesn’t appear on this mixtape. You may be wondering how I know this is from 1996, which the easy answer is that the newest song on the tape is from 1996. Which may not be entirely correct. But that was around my last year in college, so that sounds about right for these songs.

So let’s take a look at the song list for Side 1.

Mixtape Side A
1. N-Trance – Stayin’ Alive
2. Run DMC – Rock Box
3. Quad City DJs – C’mon ‘N Ride It (The Train)
4. MC Lyte (feat Xscape) – (Keep On) Keepin’ On
5. DJ Quik (feat AMG, 2nd II None, Hi-C) – Skanless
6. Ice Cube – When Will They Shoot?
7. 2Pac (feat Stretch) – Pain
8. MC Ren – Bitch Made N***a Killa
9. D-Nice – Time to Flow
10. Eazy-E (feat Knocc Out and Dresta) – Real Muthaf’n G’s
11. Coolio (feat WC) – U Know Hoo?
12. Too $hort – Hoes

This first side had a bunch of good songs. I had a lot of fun listening to them again. Surprisingly, I remember nothing about that Coolio song, U Know Hoo? I don’t remember it and I don’t know why it’s on the tape. That’s just odd. You’ll notice lots of NWA/Ruthless Records influence with Eazy-E, MC Ren, DJ Quik and 2nd II None. I also always enjoy Bee-Gees influenced rap songs like the #1 track in this list as well as Wyclef Jean’s We Tryin’ to Stay Alive (which I know was on other mixtapes I’ve done).

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Nerd Lunch Episode 50 EXTRAVAGANZA!!: Ask Us Anything

Posted in podcast, pop culture with tags Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, pop culture on August 14, 2012 by Paxton

We are finally here. Episode #50. We have reached the 1 yr anniversary of doing this podcast (well, close enough) and the end of what can be considered “Season 1” of the Nerd Lunch Podcast. Yay!

Episode 50

It has been so much fun. We took this week to answer some questions that were submitted by our listeners. Probing questions. Stuff they wanted to know about the three of us that we haven’t already covered in one of our previous 49 episodes. Most disappointing movie? We discuss. Favorite Starfleet captain? Oh yes, we discuss. The first thing we think about when we think of Australia? Yep. It’s all in there. We lay ourselves bare for you, our listeners. So download and enjoy.

After this momentous occasion, the three of us are going to take two weeks off to chillax and get our heads back in the game. We’ll be back in two weeks with our next chaotic, out of control run to 100. See you then.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner. And yes, we are still on the Zune Marketplace.

OR, listen to this episode online right here.

12 completely awesome movie posters featuring sharks

Posted in movies, pop culture with tags movie posters, movies, pop culture, sharks on August 13, 2012 by Paxton

This week begins Discovery Channel’s 25th anniversary celebration of Shark Week. Shark Week has become an institution unto itself. I love it and I try to watch as much of it as I can every year. So, to help celebrate the 25th Anniversary, I decided to take a look at movies featuring sharks. More specifically, movie posters featuring sharks.

There are lots of ridiculously bad ass posters out there for shark movies. Some of the movies may even be complete ass, but the posters are awesome. So, let’s take a look at 10 of the most awesome.

I normally don’t do these lists in any order, but I’m going to put these posters in chronological order for you.

Let’s “dive” in.

The Sharkfighters (1956) – Man against Tiger Shark with just a knife and his wits. What a great poster. The title evokes images of men in actual fist fights with sharks. Like street boxing matches.

She Gods of Shark Reef (1958) – Directed by the great Roger Corman. Don’t get me wrong, because I love the sh*t out of this movie’s title, but I don’t think the title nor the blurb has anything to do with the actual story. The movie makes no mention of “HIDEOUS STONE GODS”.

Jaws (1975) – Still one of the greatest. I love this poster.

Sharks’ Treasure (1975) – This one has two great posters! I love how they make the “sharks” in the title possessive, as if the treasure belongs to ALL sharks. And that first poster, the frogman is fighting that shark WITH A KNIFE. Awesome. The second poster actually put lips on the shark. LIPS. That’s weird.

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My dream cast for a Clue: The Movie reboot

Posted in movies, pop culture with tags Clue, LEB, movies, pop culture on August 10, 2012 by Paxton

Another great assignment for The League this week. Probably the best one we’ve had. I might have to say that this is the single greatest topic ever conceived in the history of blogging, the Internet, or probably in anything. EVER. And I think the person who suggested said topic is probably as handsome as he his distinguished in his bad assness. The topic?

Remake one of your favorite movies with a cast of current Hollywood stars.

The person who suggested it? The Man-God known as…me. Yes, this is my topic suggestion for the week. I think it’s pretty awesome, hopefully the rest of the League does as well (how could they not?). Anyway, on to this week’s topic. Hollywood loves remakes and reboots. Most recently Hollywood also loves movies based on board games. Why not combine the two? I thought that this was the “perfect storm” of events I needed to beat Hollywood to the punch and cast a reboot of a popular 80s movie based on a board game. And the movie I chose is one of my favorite comedies of all time, Clue: The Movie (which just hit Blu-Ray on Tues).

There has been talk for years of remaking this movie and currently Gore Verbinski is attached (director of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies). Who knows how that’s going to turn out, so let’s take a look at my own personal “dream cast” for a new Clue movie. Now just note, I view this reboot as a true, “hard” reboot. It would stay true to the spirit and look of the original movie to a point, but it would not be “in continuity” with the original. It would truly stand on its own.

Here we go. You can click the card images of the new cast to see them bigger.

Clue card back
Wadsworth – Michael Sheen – Originally played by the great Tim Curry. In my eyes there is no better casting for this role than Michael Sheen. You’ve seen him in the Underworld movies as well as Tron: Legacy and Frost/Nixon.

Clue card back
Miss Scarlet – Scarlett Johansson – Originally played by Lesley Ann Warren. Warren was good and funny, but she was not my favorite of the original ensemble. I think ScarJo would be an upgrade. Plus, she has proven that she can do comedy pretty well. And, she’s rather attractive, as Miss Scarlet is supposed to be (not to say that Warren wasn’t attractive).

Clue card back
Col Mustard – This was the hardest role to cast. I am a huge fan of Martin Mull. Just watch him in Mr Mom. He almost steals the movie. Anyway, I was going to put Ed Helms here, and he’d probably be great, but I don’t buy him as a former Army colonel. So, I decided there are two ways to go here, I can go with a more conventional pick that I think fits really well or I can go with an “out of the box” pick. I think I’m leaning towards my “conventional pick”, John C Reilly. Reilly is really funny and I do buy him as a former colonel. As for my unconventional pick, I also really like Bob De Niro. The last decade or so De Niro has shown he has an affinity for comedies and I totally think he’d work. However, as part of this “comedy all star” ensemble I’m building, De Niro sticks out like a sore thumb.

Clue card back
Mrs Peacock – Kristen Wiig – Originally played by the great Eileen Brennan. Wiig is perfect for this part because not only does she look a bit like Brennan (check out the images for comparison), she is funny and quirky and weird. Exactly how Brennan played Mrs Peacock.