Archive for pop culture

Movie Board: The Worst Movies I Saw in 2013

Posted in movies, pop culture with tags , , , on January 15, 2014 by Paxton

Movie Board

I gave you the best movies I saw in 2013, now it’s time for the worst movies.


Battleship (2012) – I thought this movie was going to be awesome. And some of the alien tech is pretty awesome.  But Taylor Kitsch can’t carry a movie.  Plus his character in this is terrible.  How did a f**k up go from being almost arrested for breaking and entering to being forced into joining the Navy instead of going to jail (what? they do that?)  to becoming a COMMANDING OFFICER on a nuclear battleship only 2 years later?  Does the career path of the Navy work that way? Retarded. This movie is BAD. And not in a good way.  Liam Neeson is WASTED and Brooklyn Decker is HOT.  This movie would have been so much better if they had let Kitch’s character’s brother be the lead.  Well, it would have been slightly better.


Rock of Ages (2012) – On paper, this movie was tailor-made for me. A movie based on a hit Broadway show? Check, I’m in.  An awesome soundtrack with 80s era rock and metal? Touche. Tom Cruise? Alec Baldwin? Julianne Hough? Paul Giamatti? Malin Ackerman? BRYAN CRANSTON?! Well played, Rock of Ages.  Well played.  You’ve pretty much hit most of my buttons.  Too bad you squandered all that good will with a terrible goddam movie.  And I LIKE musicals.  Performances were bad on both sides (acting/singing). Story was dumb and weird. I really had a tough time making it through this movie. Check out the horribly awkward Alec Baldwin/Russell Brand number that completely redefines REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling”.  I really wanted to like this.  I thought I was going to LOVE it.  I was wrong.  Sooooooo wrong.


Alex Cross (2012) – I’m not what one would call “a fan” of Mr Perry. However, the idea of Matthew Fox as the bad guy is excellent and I thought the trailer looked REALLY good. Again, I was wrong (becoming a pattern). Holy sh*t this movie is a f**king mess.  First of all, Perry doesn’t convincingly play “tough” or “bad ass”, which he needs to do by the end of the movie.  Matthew Fox’s villain is shown in the movie to be this bad ass, ruthless MMA fighter.  He enjoys inflicting pain and he seems to be very good at it.  I’m supposed to believe that puffy Tyler Perry is going to go toe-to-toe with Matthew Fox in a fistfight…AND WIN?!  No, no I don’t think so.  And F**K YOU movie for thinking that is a even remotely plausible.


Escape Plan (2013) – I went back and forth with this one. Honestly, this is a bad movie. The dialogue is terrible and the acting is as well. Curtis Jackson (50 Cent) is embarrassingly bad in his 2 or 3 scenes. However, this movie, for me, is in the “so bad it’s good” category for 1 reason; Arnie and Sly. The fact these two guys are in it, together, make it worth the price of admission. Even though the movie is garbage. Just watch the scene where Sly and Arnie’s characters first meet in the prison. The dialogue is incomprehensible. It’s like they just started filming and told them to “say stuff”.  This movie would be great to get all your buddies together with some pizza, beer and cocktails and just do nothing but make fun of the action onscreen.  It’s terrible, yes, but fun.  Something I can’t say about the other three movies on this list.

Nerd Lunch Episode 114: Nerdstradamus 2014

Posted in movies, podcast, pop culture, soda, TV shows with tags , , , , , on January 14, 2014 by Paxton

Nerd Lunch Podcast

It’s a new year. 2013 is behind us. 2014 lays in front of us. It’s that time for us on the podcast to reconvene and talk about pop culture predictions. First, CT, Jeeg and I sit down and go over all the predictions we made last year for Nerdstradamus 2013.

Nostradamus

We count up the ones we got right, subtract the ones we got wrong and pick out a winner (because Carlin insists that there always be a winner). After we pick the winner of the 2013 predictions, the group is joined by Rob Graham in the fourth chair to make all new predictions for 2014.  We predict events in movies, TV, fast food and celebrity news.  It’s a fun time had by all and I expect to do this again next year and see that all my predictions were not only wrong, but embarrassingly wrong.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online here.

Nerd Lunch Episode 113 – Movie Menus II

Posted in fast food, food, movies, podcast, pop culture with tags , , , on December 24, 2013 by Paxton

Nerd Lunch Podcast

Episode 113 of the podcast has dropped. This week we are joined again by food blogger extraordinaire Jasmin Fine from 1 Fine Cooke.com. And this week, with the return of the Denny’s The Hobbit menu, we are also returning to a topic inspired by that menu, Movie Menus. Which we did back in episode 83.

hobbit_menu4

We all assign other people the restaurants and movies and then we create the menus and themes found within. Expect to see the movies Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Princess Bride as well as the restaurants PF Chang’s and In-n-Out Burger. Lots of awesome stuff lies within.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to it online here.

A review of L Frank Baum’s The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)

Posted in books with tags , , , , , , on December 23, 2013 by Paxton

Following the Yellow Brick Road

In 1902, just two years after writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but 2 years before the first Oz sequel, L Frank Baum wrote The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. It was illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark.

Life and Adv of Santa Claus cover

This was Baum’s attempt to tell the origin of Santa Claus and explain the beginnings and reasons for all of our different beliefs and practices around Christmas time. It was a very ambitious undertaking.  But Baum does it in his usual dreamy, fairy tale-like manner and, for the most part, it works.

Baum sets up the world by describing all the magical immortal creatures that oversee various aspects of Nature.  We see creatures such as Fairies who watch over humans, Wood Nymphs who watch over forests, Gnomes who watch over the rocks and Ryls and Knooks who watch over the flowers and animals, respectively (along with many other creatures I’ll not name).  All of these creatures are presided over by the Great Woodsman, Ak.

One day Ak stumbles upon a lost child and allows a Wood Nymph, Necile, to adopt him.  Necile names him Neclaus (Nicolas).  Santa is raised by these magical, immortal creatures in the forest until Ak decided Claus must learn more about his own people and takes him on a trip into the human world.  Santa is shocked and frustrated by the wars, greed, child neglect and child abuse he witnesses.  Ak encourages him to not forsake the mortals as he is one of them.  Santa decides to do something about what he’s seen.

Santa moves to the nearby Laughing Valley where all the magical creatures help him build a workshop and get him started making toys.  The idea Baum posits here is that toys don’t currently exist.  Santa invents them when he makes his first toy which then transfixes the children.  So he continues to do it and his operation becomes bigger and bigger as he tries to help more and more children.

Continue reading

Nerd Lunch Episode 112: Secret Santa Gunpoint Review

Posted in Christmas, holiday, movies, nostalgia, podcast, pop culture, Santa Claus with tags , , , , , , , on December 18, 2013 by Paxton

Nerd Lunch Podcast

Welcome to our annual TAG Christmas crossover. CT, Jeeg and I are visited by The Atomic Geeks; Digio, Downs and Christian, for a friendly round of Gunpoint Reviews.

Secret Santa Gunpoint Review

For this week’s show, the Geeks assigned us a secret Christmas movie and we assigned them a secret Christmas movie. We both watched the movies and had to review them to each other on the show.  We assigned the Geeks the Mexican holiday movie classic Santa Claus (1959-60) and they assigned us Santa Claus vs The Martians (1964).  Much fun is had trying to describe the absolute lunacy of the movie plots to the other members of the show.  Come on over a take a listen to some holiday hijinx courtesy of the TAG network.

The closing song in this episode was done by none other than former Atomic Geek Andrew Bloom!

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or listen to this train wreck online here.