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20 Year Anniversary: Back to the Future Part III

Posted in 80s, Back to the Future, movies, pop culture with tags anniversary, Back to the Future, movies, pop culture, Time Travelogues on May 24, 2010 by Paxton

If you follow this blog at all you know that Back to the Future is one of my favorite movie series of all time. I talk about it constantly. Well, today, Monday, May 24th, the second sequel in the trilogy, Back to the Future Part III turned 20 years old. Check out the newspaper clipping above. It was clipped from the Birmingham News on May 24th, 1990.

So, since this is a momentous occasion (lots of classic movie birthdays this year), I’ll have a few Back to the Future related articles this week in celebration.

Stay tuned and Happy Birthday, Back to the Future Part III.

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Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back turns 30 years old today

Posted in 80s, Empire Strikes Back, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags anniversary, Empire Strikes Back, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on May 21, 2010 by Paxton

(via coografik)

The Empire Strikes Back, the first Star Wars sequel, was released on May 21, 1980, 30 years ago, today. Empire was probably the best and most iconic movie in the entire Star Wars trilogy. From this movie we get Yoda, Boba Fett and the bounty hunters, Lando Calrissian, Obi-Wan’s ghost, Vader is Luke’s father, Luke gets his hand chopped off, Han says “I know” when Leia says “I love you”, Han gets frozen in carbonite and, in a throw away line by Yoda, revelation that there is another Skywalker (breathe!). It’s hard to believe that there is so much in this movie that defines the entire Star Wars saga and is what many fans identify with the series. All in one movie, possibly the greatest sequel in cinema history.

Here’s the original trailer for Empire. Notice how everyone does the famous “turn to the camera” when their character name is called.

Here’s an awesome fan made trailer for Empire as if it would have been made in 1950 (via Official Star Wars Blog)

Star Wars.com is all gussied up for celebrating Empire’s 30th anniversary by skinning itself with a bad ass Hoth Vader image.

While at the official site, you can see a bunch of cool candid photos from the set of Empire, see rare poster artwork and read about the 30th anniversary Empire screening which included Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew and Billy Dee Williams.

On October 12, Random House will release the long awaited book The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. It’s a sequel to the popular The Making of Star Wars released back in 2007. The book is chock full of rare photos and stories about the actual filming of Empire Strikes back in 1979. I haven’t bought the Star Wars one, but I would love to because it is awesome ($50 is a bit high for a hardback photo book, though). I would love to thumb through this Empire book to see some of the pics (and eventually buy it on the cheap).

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The Cavalcade of Awesome watches Twilight New Moon

Posted in monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves with tags monsters, movies, reviews, Twilight, vampires, werewolf, werewolves on May 7, 2010 by Paxton

For regular readers, if you recall, I watched the first Twilight movie last March and was not a fan.

However, thinking back on it, as much as I hated what Stephanie Meyer and Twilight has done to vampires (and literature in general), there were things in the movie that I didn’t hate. Vampire baseball being one of those. The “evil” vampires being another. But I did hate EVERYTHING about Bella and Edward. EVERYTHING. The dialogue, the look, the language, the way they acted with each other. HATED IT. It was a bad Harlequin romance novel, horrible dialogue and all, gussied up with non-threatening “vegetarian vampires”, a weak willed heroine and an angsty, emo pretty boy (who doesn’t wash his hair) as the anti-hero.

Harlequin Twilight book

So, being the pop culture guru that I am, I felt I needed to continue the series and watch Twilight: New Moon, the first sequel, especially if I’m going to continue talking about how much Twilight is ruining vampires for everyone. So I got the movie from Netflix and my wife and I sat down to watch it this past Saturday. Now, to be honest, I wasn’t exactly dreading it. I was totally expecting not to like the movie, but I thought I could enjoy how completely ridiculous it’ll be and laugh the majority of it off. Like watching Battlefield Earth after several shots of Jagermeister and Red Bull. I was wrong.

This movie is so f’n bad that I am ashamed I even watched it. I’m ashamed for the majority of the actors in the movie. This movie makes the first Twilight look like Citizen Kane. It almost makes Battlefield Earth look like Citizen Kane. It is horrible in the same way that someone kicking a kitten is horrible. And I don’t know if I should blame the director, writer, author, actors or just curse God for releasing this upon the Earth.

First of all, I was actually kind of excited to see werewolves get thrown into the mix. The last movie was entirely too full of gay-ass vampires. We needed some thing more awesome, like big bad ass wolves. Well, there were werewolves in this movie. And the wolves were big and bad ass, but look at the guys that turned into the wolves.

Tell me this doesn’t look like the cast of the floor show at San Francisco’s popular nightclub, The Manhole. Are werewolves forbidden from wearing shirts, because these guys don’t wear shirts throughout the entire movie. And why do they all have to wear jorts (jean shorts)? These werewolves are less gay than the vampires in the movie, but that’s like saying Elton John is less gay than Liberace. They are both still GAY. I don’t feel like these guys want to wolf out and murder me, I feel like they want to give me a lap dance. So now Stephanie Meyer is ruining werewolves. Great.

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10 Awesomely ridiculous ’80s songs sung by characters in a movie

Posted in 80s, movies, music, pop culture with tags movies, music, pop culture on May 5, 2010 by Paxton

If you are like me you treasure ’80s movies and how wonderfully horrible they are. One of my favorite movie devices studios used a lot was have the characters in the movie sing a song that could then be promoted on the radio to boost awareness of the movie. This, of course, led to some horribly bad music sung by actors while “in character” that really had very little or nothing to do with the movie. Some of them worked, most of them didn’t.

I say they were horribly bad, but the reason I remember a lot of these is because I owned them either on the movie soundtrack or on an audio tape that I recorded from the TV.

Here are ten of my favorite ridiculously awesome ’80s songs sung by movie characters.

The Nerds Song by the Tri-Lambdas – From 1984’s epic Revenge of the Nerds. The Tri-Lambs put on quite a show for the final carnival. Lamar rapping while wearing the ’80s obligatory Beat It jacket (bonus points for no sleeves) along with Poindexter’s electric violin and Tashi the Korean dressed as an American Indian banging a gong. Classic.

No on 15 by the Tri-Lambdas – From Revenge of the Nerds Part II in 1987. The nerd gang gets back together and puts on a rockin’ show to vote down Proposition 15. If I’m not mistaken, I thought Prop 15 was voted on by the International Greek Council of Fraternities so I’m not sure how any of these random party people can vote “No on 15”. Anyway, Lamar is back rapping again and this time he’s joined by Barry Sobel doing a very Beastie Boys-esque rap. This one is more fun than the last song, but the first movie was a better movie.

Are You Ready for Freddy? by Fat Boys featuring Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) – In 1988, the Fat Boys were asked to record the “theme” for Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4. This was the result, which included Robert Englund actually doing a rap as Freddy at the end. Yes, the quality is a bit questionable, however I was a huge Fat Boys fan in the ’80s so I loved it. Surprisingly, even though this was released as a single promoting the movie, it was not included on the official soundtrack. I got it off the Fat Boys album “Coming Back Hard Again”, which I still have on audio cassette.

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Review of Clash of the Titans: Old vs New

Posted in movies, pop culture, reviews with tags movies, Mythology, pop culture, reviews on April 16, 2010 by Paxton

I saw the new remake of Clash of the Titans with my buddy Dr Mike last week. After watching it I got jazzed to watch the original 1981 version, so I queued it up on Netflix streaming and watched it this past weekend. Here is a review and comparison of the two movies.

Clash of the Titans (1981) – I loved this movie when I was a kid. I also hadn’t watched it since I was a kid, so, as happens very often, it’s entirely possible that my 7 year old self didn’t know what the hell he was talking about so I decided to watch this classic again. How does it stand up? Not bad. I was surprised how much of the movie I actually remembered. Like in the new remake, the Gods are played by awesome and well respected actors; Sir Lawrence Olivier, Ursula Andress and Maggie Smith. There’s also an awesome role played by Burgess Meredith, and Julie Bowker, who plays Andromeda, is gorgeous. So the casting, so far was great. Except for Harry Hamlin. I’ve never been a huge fan of him, and this movie did nothing to change that perception, but the movie worked despite me not really even liking the actor (I didn’t mind Perseus as a character). And I love the Harryhausen stop motion effects. Medusa, Calibos and the Kraken just rule in this movie. I don’t know what it is, but the stop motion just works for me in a throwback/vintage way. And the whole “hero’s journey” that is setup for Perseus to save Andromeda really works as a story. There were some slow parts yes, but on the whole the movie rocks. Calibos, the giant scorpions, the battle with Medusa, Bubo, the Stygian Witches. It all just worked. I really enjoyed it. This is one movie that really could have aged and been terrible on a modern viewing, but it is fun, the effects are great and the story is interesting.

Clash of the Titans (2010) – Okay, now let’s talk about the remake. On paper, this looks to be very similar experience for me. Lots of mythology and the Gods are played by awesome and well-respected actors. Alexa Davalos as Andromeda is gorgeous and, again, I’m not a big fan of the actor playing Perseus. However, I didn’t like Hamlin in the original either, and it worked, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. First, the good things in the movie. EVERYTHING with the Gods. Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades work on every conceivable level. They came with their game faces on and everything with them and the entire design of Olympus just works…period. I’m a little confused that they cast the great Danny Huston as Poseidon and he only gets one line. ONE LINE!? Anyway, all of the action scenes and effects are exciting and visually spectacular. The Kraken looks awesome as do the Stygian Witches, giant scorpions, Medusa and Calibos. Actually, Jason Flemyng as Calibos is FANTASTIC. He’s not used enough and is dispatched way too easily. But when he’s there, he’s bad ass. The set design for this movie is ridiculous. They really went nuts with the environments.

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