Happy Festivus!
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Monday is Christmas. But today is a Festivus for the Rest of Us! How will you celebrate Festivus? Will you air your grievances or participate in the feats of strength? Festivus may not be for everyone but, for some of us, it’s our heritage.
If you need a reminder about what Festivus is all about, allow Frank Costanza to explain:
Here’s wishing you a merry little festivus!
“As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
With those words, the Turkeys Away episode of WKRP in Cincinnati takes it place as a holiday classic, a rare Thanksgiving episode in a genre dominated by Christmas. In this episode, Arthur Carlson — the station manager of the perpetually low-rated and eponymous radio station — incorrectly assumes that turkeys can fly, turning his plans for the greatest radio promotion in history into something very different.
As with many of WKRP‘s wildest stories, this episode was based on something actually happened.. A radio station in Atlanta tried a similar promotion, with the station manager tossed the turkeys out of the back of a moving truck. Turkey still couldn’t fly or get out of the road fast enough. It’s not easy being a turkey in November.
While celebrating the holiday tomorrow, take a moment to enjoy this classic TV moment. Happy Thanksgiving!
You can’t always get what you want.
Last night, almost every true fight fan wanted to see Mike Tyson knock out Jake Paul. It didn’t happen, because Tyson is 58 years old and Jake Paul is 31 years younger. Tyson started out strong but, after the third round, it was obvious that he was exhausted and it even looked like Jake Paul was going easy on him as things reached their conclusion. Mike made it 8 rounds without collapsing, which was a personal victory considering how tired he looked by the end of the fight. Jake and Mike both got paid and I imagine that was their main concern.
Last night was hardly the worst thing that I’ve ever seen as far as boxing is concerned. I lived through the 90s and the era when Don King would shove any fighter, regardless of how mentally unstable or drug-addicted, into the ring. I am old enough that I can remember Oliver McCall having a nervous breakdown in the ring and refusing to defend himself against Lennox Lewis. I can remember Andrew Golota throwing away two certain victories because he just couldn’t stop hitting Riddick Bowe below the belt. I can remember Mike Tyson biting off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear. I can even remember Montell “Ice” Griffin. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot worse that Paul vs. Tyson. But watching Iron Mike lose to a YouTube star, that’s definitely the type of thing that will hurt the soul of any 90s kid. The new generation has arrived and the man who was once the greatest boxer in the world lost to a former Disney star.
The biggest loser last night was not Netflix, despite all of the technical difficulties that they had trying to broadcast a live event. The biggest losers were the people who purchased a Netflix subscription just to watch the fight and instead spent most of the night staring at error messages and a buffering image. Did the Netflix engineer not consider that Mike Tyson coming out retirement to fight a YouTube star would put added stress on their servers? Netflix still made their money, though. They got what they wanted, even if fight fans didn’t.
I have no problem acknowledging that, even past his prime and two years away from sixty, Mike Tyson could easily beat me up. But now I have to live with the knowledge that Jake Paul could beat me up too. That’s the real tragedy of Paul vs. Tyson.
I’ve managed to avoid most of the hype surrounding tonight’s boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. That was intentional on my part because I found the whole idea to be incredibly depressing.
When I was growing up, there was no athlete more fearsome than Mike Tyson. At the peak of his career, he was the best boxer of all time. You can count me in as one of the people who believes that Tyson, at his best, could have easily defeated Mohammed Ali. What Tyson lacked in finesse, he made up for in pure power. As Tyson got older, he got slower and was no longer as impressive as he used to be but that happens to almost every boxer. Even after he retired, Tyson remained a boxing icon. I don’t care how old he is or how slowly he might now move, I would not want to get on Mike Tyson’s bad side.
And then there’s Jake Paul. I had to ask Lisa who Jake Paul was. Apparently, he’s a YouTube star who has decided that he’s a boxer and who has won a few sketchy fights. Paul vs. Tyson is going to be his debut as a heavyweight.
Friends and fellow readers, let me just be blunt.
If “Iron Mike” Tyson loses to Jake Paul tonight, my childhood will be over. If Mike Tyson, the most fearsome boxer of my lifetime, loses to a YouTube star, I am just going to give up on everything and start my mid-life crisis. It would be one thing if this was an exhibition match. Everyone knows that an exhibition doesn’t mean anything. This is an officially sanctioned boxing match. This fight will forever be a part of Mike Tyson’s record. If Mike Tyson officially ends his career losing to Jake Paul, what’s the point?
And it could happen. Mike Tyson is 58 years old and Jake Paul is 27. There’s a big difference between 58 and 27. By his own admission, Mike Tyson also doesn’t like to train. In Tyson’s last officially sanctioned match, he lost to Kevin McBride. Remember that? Tyson quit the fight after the sixth round. And after he lost, Tyson said “I’m not going to disrespect the sport anymore by losing to this caliber of fighter.” Mike’s looking for a payday and so is Jake Paul. If Jake beats Mike Tyson, that’ll mean that anyone could beat Mike Tyson if they pay him enough. That would be the ultimate disrespect to the sport that Tyson says he loves.
I have faith in Iron Mike, though. I think Tyson will let the fight go to the end but I think he’ll win on points. I think that the universe or karma or whatever you want to call it will cut all of us fight fans a break.
At least, I hope it will.
In 18th century Romania, Rayne (Kristanna Loken) is a vampire/human hybrid who is being forced to work in a freakshow by Leonid (Meat Loaf). After Rayne escapes, she meets a fortune teller (Geraldine Chaplin) who informs her that her father is the feared king of the vampires, Kagan (Ben Kingsley), and that he raped her mother. Rayne teams up with a group of vampire hunters (Matthew Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, and Michael Madsen) and sets out to destroy her father once and for all.
BloodRayne is perhaps not the worst film ever made about a vampire/human hybrid in Romania but it’s also nowhere near the best. Instead, it’s another one of Uwe Boll’s cheap-looking video game adaptations where a group of talented actors slum it as action stars. (Michael Pare, Udo Kier, and Billy Zane also appear in the movie.) The movie is full of bad wigs and big swords. Michael Madsen and Michelle Rodriguez are neither convincing as Russians or people who lived in the 18th Century. Geraldine Chaplin tries to keep things interesting, Ben Kingsley doesn’t. Kristanna Loken is actually a good choice for Rayne, in that she’s hot and she’s convincing in the action scenes. This is an easy film to laugh at but it features enough blood and nudity to keep its target audience happy. Don’t try to follow the plot, though. You’ll get a headache.
While we were watching the movie last night, Lisa suggested that Ben Kingsley was using his Gandhi Oscar as a stake. Now that would have been something worth seeing!
The fraternity is throwing their “Winter Luau,” the biggest and wildest party of the year. It’s a night of drugs, drink, sex, and pranks. It’s just too bad that the members of fraternity ripped open a hole to another world in their basement and now an evil spirit is offing every last one of them.
Shot on a camcorder to give it that Blair Witch feel, Haunting on Fraternity Row‘s budget is low and the members of the cast are convincingly obnoxious. One member of the fraternity puts on a bunny suit and I could not wait for him to hurry up and meet the evil in the basement. It takes forever to get to the supernatural part of the story. Instead, most of the movie is the fraternity setting up for the party and then throwing the party. I think the people behind the film just wanted to throw a rager and they came up with all of the supernatural stuff as a way to convince people to give them money. Good for them. The party looks fun. Why didn’t my college ever throw any parties like that?
Don’t watch if you’re expecting sympathetic or even likable characters. Don’t watch if you want a plot that makes sense. Don’t watch if you’re expecting to see anything like the picture to the left. Do watch if you just can’t get enough beer pong.
Peter Brock (Michael Bryant) is the leader of a team of researchers who work for an electronics company that is trying to come up with a new recording technique to keep up with their Japanese competitors. Peter and his team move into an old Victorian mansion that is said to be haunted. After Jill Greeley (Jane Asher) thinks that she’s seen a ghost, Peter theorizes that the stone walls of the mansion have actually recorded everything that has happened at the location over the years, like a security tape. Some people, like Jill, are sensitive enough to pick up on the images of the past. Other people, like Peter, are so determined to use what he calls The Stone Tape to his own advantage that it leads to tragedy.
The script for The Stone Tape was written by Nigel Kneale, who was also responsible for creating Quatermass. As he did with his Quatermass stories, Kneale took an otherwise standard horror story and added an interesting scientific twist. Peter is a classic villain who makes the mistake of thinking that he can control that which he does not understand. Ghosts and spirits may just be recordings of past events but that doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you. There’s a lot of screaming in The Stone Tape but there’s also some very interesting ideas, good acting, and intelligent directing from Peter Sasdy. First broadcast by the BBC in 1972, The Stone Tape is a classic ghost story, creepy and clever with a killer ending.
A group of college students on holiday stay at an abandoned house, little knowing that it was once the sight of a Satanic ceremony. After one of the women gets upset over a game of spin the bottle, she steps outside and finds a doll. She gets possessed and goes on to stalk her friends.
A standard slasher/possession film, Babydoll would have worked better if the doll didn’t look like some demented version of Raggedy Anne. It would have also helped if the characters had been memorable or at least likeable. The possession scene is effective and it didn’t bother me that the movie left some questions unanswered at the end. It’s a horror movie so it doesn’t have to wrap everything up in a neat package. But I just couldn’t get past that stupid doll. Truly evil dolls don’t look like something you would order as a joke from Etsy.
A group of hikers decide to take a walk through the hills of Ireland. Things do not go well. First, one hiker is injured in an accident. Then the other hikers ignore a “No Trespassing” sign while looking for help and end up being stalked and targeted by a the people living on the land. The hikers have no one to blame but themselves. If you look through your binoculars and see someone wearing a skull mask and carrying a rifle, that should be enough to make you turn around.
The story is basic and the characters are poorly drawn but the Irish landscape is stunning, even when people are fighting for their lives. The budget is low and there are more than a few scenes where you can see the blood squibs under everyone’s clothes before their shot. If you can overlook or forgive that, Hillwalkers is occasionally suspenseful and it has enough action to appeal to thriller fans. This is a standard city folks vs country folks movie and there’s nothing surprising about it but it does a good job of showing why it’s best to stay on the approved path while hiking. Pay attention to those warning signs. They’re there for a reason!
Intergalactic vampire Vlad Tepes (The Who’s Roger Daltrey) has come to Earth and is performing in Las Vegas under the name Jamie Blood. Though most vampires now drink synthetic blood, Vlad is a purist who prefers to drink straight from the veins of others. Vlad wants to unleash a horde of vampires on Earth. Trying to stop him is Vampirella (Talisa Soto), another intergalactic vampire who wears a revealing red bodysuit and little else.
Jim Wynorski says this is the only film that he regrets directing. Think about that. This is a film that even Jim Wynorski regrets! It’s easy to understand why. Talisa Soto is attractive and convincing in the action scenes but she’s still miscast of Vampirella, a character who was as known for her voluptuous figure as for her status as one of the first vampire super heroes. The movie has none of the subversive humor of the original Vampirella comic book and the special effects look cheap even by 1996 standards. With the exception of Roger Daltrey’s devilish portrayal of Vlad, Vampirella is an anemic take on a vampire legend.
Of course, in 1996, almost all comic book movies were as bad as Vampirella. While there were exceptions like the Batman movies, most comic book films were low-budget affairs that were made for nice audiences and which no one put much effort into. Comic books movies were not expected to be blockbusters or huge cultural events and most of them, like Vampirella, were released with very little fanfare. Things have certainly changed.
Through the Shattered Lens 