01.16.11

Gome of the Week
It's about time Statham did a flick where he's a hitman running around shooting dudes and beating the shit out of everyone.

Way to play against type!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Week's Link That's Probably Not That Great
The Splinter - That is one sweet wooden car.

 

This Week's Movie You've Probably Never Seen
Dollman (1991)

I've been sitting on this one for a while, because I'm aware of its cult status. So, I was expecting big things from it. About fifteen minutes in, I was ready to declare it the greatest movie of all time. Things went downhill quickly after that amazing opening sequence, but it still ended up being extremely entertaining.

I actually find the concept a fairly novel one: what if aliens are just a little bit smaller than we are? In most movies, they're roughly the same size as us, or waaaay bigger. Here, they're - you guessed it - doll sized.

Brick Bardo (best name ever) is a space cop who's been put on suspension. After he foils a robbery when he's not authorized to do so, he gets pulled out of hiding by the henchman of a guy who he's been battling for years - so much so that all that's left of the dude is his head. The guy's noggin just floats on a little platform. Awesome. Anyway, they end up in a wild space chase, run into some black hole or something, and end up smack-dab in the worst neighborhood in the Bronx. Before they know it, they're embroiled in a turf war, where Jackie Earle Haley is the leader of a gang. Nice.

Brick saves the life of a local single mother (he's small, but his gun still blows holes through dudes), and she takes him and his action-figure-sized spaceship back to her apartment. When the turf war escalates (with the no-bodied guy he was chasing teaming up with the gangs), it's up to him to save the neighborhood. In one scene, a scraggly Jackie Earle Haley steals his tiny gun and tries to shoot him with it. It is hilariously sweet.

It's always rough when a low-budget flick attempts a storyline that is entirely based on something that would demand a large special-effects budget to properly pull off, but then it becomes more about seeing how they make it work with limited resources, and I enjoy that. And I enjoyed this. Brick has some sweeeeet one-liners, and when he made some crack in the very last scene, asking the woman if she still thinks size matters, I was able to breathe easy. I had been waiting for that joke for 80 minutes.

Watch the foul-language-heavy trailer and marvel at its mere existence.

 

 

This Week's Record You're Probably Not Listening To
Willie Tyson - Full Count (1974)

I wa so confused by this for a while. Who's this Willie guy and why is there a picture of an all-female softball team on the cover of his record? Does he sponsor them?

Turns out, even though the photos of Willie on the back don't make this abundantly clear, that Willie is a lady. Ah! Now the softball makes sense (that's her in the back row in the middle), and now the protest-ish songs that make up this record make sense.

They are very folky, and kind of pissed-off. Nothing wrong with that. You get 'em, Willie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Week's Hip New Slang Word or Phrase
gristleami - A sweet thing to call unidentifiable meat.

Origin - Letterman, mid-80's.

Usage - "Oh, dude. That sandwich you are inhaling looks mad greasy."

"Dude, this is definitely a slippery 'wich."

"Dude, whattya got there? Gristleami?"

"Dude, your guess is as good as mine. There are certainly a lot of hard white pieces in it. What is that? Bone?"

 

 

This Week's Top Ten List

The Top Ten Signs Your Son Is In A Fake Gang:

10. Has to redraw his tattoos on every morning with a hand mirror and a Sharpie
09. You caught him spray-painting his Super Soaker black and writing "Looger" on it
08. Bragging about how he got kicked out of the local pharmacy because they were trying to close
07. Always pissed because his homies participate in like a ton of extracurricular activities and never have time to rep the cause with him
06. Claiming Southside when it's really, if you want to get technical, South-Southeast
05. His initiation: throwing water balloons at himself
04. Always talking about the "mean streets," but constantly has to append it with, "you know, down by the Supercuts"
03. Ever since he's been hanging around those punks, he's been going through two packs of Big League Chew a day
02. After church, always claims he's going "bangin'"
01. Though you're not sure, you think their gang name is an obscure Dreamcast reference

 

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