…it’d probably look a lot like HARDWARE WARS, the 1978 short spoof by Ernie Fosselius. Set to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie”, this trailer-styled parody features Mad Magazine type character names like Princess Anne Droid, Augie Ben Dogie, Ham Salad, and 4Q2. Narrated by none other than Paul Frees, even George Lucas is said to like it! “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss three bucks goodbye” but mostly you’ll laugh at the hilarious HARDWARE WARS:
Tag Archives: parody
Gloriously Insane Action That Is Kung Fury
The Insanely Glorious Action That Is Kung Fury
I grew up during the 1980’s and I do remember how it was a decade dominated by martial arts films and cop action films. Even looking back through rose-tinted goggles, I will admit that for a majority of films released under those two genres most were quite bad. Yet, they were bad and enjoyable in their own clumsy and low-budget way.
The short comedy action film Kung Fury arrives on the web today. Why a short film and not a full-length? Well, while it’s kickstarter campaign more than passed it’s goal of $200,000 dollars it failed to reach a stretch goal of $1,000,000 to turn the film into a full-length feature film. While I believe a full-length film would’ve been nice to see, I think this film works best in it’s short film format.
Kung Fury (written, directed and starring David Sandberg) is a pastiche of all the over-the-top action beats action film fans love about the genre during the 1980’s. It throws everything it could think of onto the screen and blends them together with no thought in mind of how ridiculous and insane it turned out. It’s a film that’s a homage and a parody of those very 80’s action and martial arts films that we know and love so much.
Yet, for all the insanity that occurs in the film there’s actually a weird logic to the film’s narrative that reaches a nice pay-off in the end that screams and begs for a sequel. What better way to end a film that’s a love letter to all things 1980’s action than making sure it ends in a blatant cliffhanger that screams sequel and franchise building.
If there’s one film you should see this weekend that doesn’t involve costumed superheroes, post-apocalyptic marauders, acapella throwdowns, and the next disaster porn then it should be the 30-minutes of insane martial arts, time-traveling, police action film called Kung Fury.
Scenes I Love: South Park Makes Handjobs Fun Again
I was first introduced to the Shake Weight by my friend Shaista (who, by the way, is not only really funny and smart but like totally and completely gorgeous too). At the time, I was telling her about how much I love the Broadview Security Commercial where A.J. attempts to break into a house while the homeowner goes, “A.J? A.J?” And while Shaista agreed with me that A.J. was indeed an enigmatic bad boy who played by his own set of rules, she still claimed that the Shake Weight commercial was far more memorable.
When I actually did see the Shake Weight commercial, I found myself staring dumbfounded at the screen. Finally, I think I managed to say, “Uhmm, don’t they realize that they all look like they’re…” Well, anyway — instead of me going into all the details, let’s just watch one of the commercials:
Well, yes…other than mentioning that my arms must have been in really great shape back in high school, what can I say about that? Luckily, I don’t have to say anything about that because last week, South Park said it for me. Here’s the actual “scene that I love,” the Shake Weight commercial from Creme Fraiche episode of South Park:
By the way, just to keep things fair, I’d just like to point out that there’s a Shake Weight for Men too.
Through the Shattered Lens 