Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Moviesucktastic Episode #66: The Shrimp on the Barbie
Moviesucktastic forges ahead into new realms of visibility as co-hosts Joey and Scot strut their stuff across your computer screen while reviewing Cheech Marin's uninspiring 1990 romantic comedy The Shrimp on the Barbie! Tune and watch us work!
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Coming Attractions: Action Jackson (1988)
Image via WikipediaComing up in episode #51 of Moviesucktastic, Joey and Scott weather the Carl Weathers vehicle Action Jackson, a sad and futile attempt of late 1980s filmmakers to recreate the gritty, hardcore magic of black exploitation cinema classics such as Richard Roundtree's Shaft, and make Carl "Expendable Co-Star" Weathers a leading man.Don't let the carbon-copy James Bond movie poster fool you: Sgt. Jericho "Action" Jackson is no 007. No sir, this tough as nails Detroit cop doesn't play Blackjack and sip martinis, he plays dominoes and cracks open big cans of whoop-ass, all while spending as much time shirtless as humanly possible. The future city of Detroit might need a Robocop to protect it, but the only thing this modern day Motor City needs to stop the evil plans of Auto Magnate Craig T. Nelson (and do you really need a reason to want to see someone beat the living snot out of Craig T. Nelson?) is an Oh-No Cop, as in Oh No You Didn't! Or, as Action Jackson would say: "How do you like your ribs?"
On a positive note, this is probably one of the few films in which Carl Weathers doesn't die. (Does that qualify as a spoiler?)
Friday, February 18, 2011
Spring Cleaning!
As spring approaches, warmer weather rapidly approaches, and with it cooler website designs. That's right, Joey (the more technically advanced and level headed of the Movie Guys) has revamped the Moviesucktastic website. Not only is it way more snazzier than before (You can't deny the snazzy of that!), but he's also installed a brand-new podcast player with expanded room for future episodes. Is he cool or what? Head on over and take a look at all the shiny newness and let us know what you think. And don't forget, our live Oscar show is coming up next weekend (just like last year's, only with the inclusion of alcohol), so start your Oscar pools now!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Movie Review: The A-Team
Image by Daniel Semper via FlickrSo when do the studios get it right? Not very often, I'm afraid. But in the case of The A-Team, a generation's favorite soldiers of fortune have escaped the land of fond childhood memories unscathed. Of course, if anybody could do it, it would have to be these guys. Hell, they escaped a federal prison using garbage bags and hair dryers. Take that, MacGyver.
From the opening scene, you know you are in good hands with this modern revision of America's favorite wrongfully imprisoned special forces soldiers turned vigilantes on the run. The film's (and main character's) introduction is stylistic, endearing, and undeniably cool. There is no attempt to mimic or mock the original show's style, which keeps it from falling into the realm of intentional camp, but it still manages to convey that childish joy and wonder that went along with watching the A-Team improvise their way through adventure after adventure. This is just as much an achievement of the actors as it is the filmmakers; much like J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, the emphasis isn't on mimicking the original actors, but making the characters their own. This is especially an achievement for Quinton Jackson, who wound up with the task of filling Mr. T's combat boots as B.A. Baracus. The end result is that you don't feel like you are watching actors reprising old characters, but the characters themselves, and that's the hardest part of this kind of cultural adaptation. They even manage to squeeze the original theme-song in without making it feel campy. Now that's an achievement.
Size and scope are the most noticeable difference between the movie and the original TV show. Like any low-budget prime-time series, The A-Team filled most of its action sequences with air mortars, car flips, and stunt men pinwheeling through the air from fake explosions. Compare that to the film's budget of $110 Million, and suddenly you go from air mortars to exploding CGI tankers and high-speed chase sequences with helicopters and fighter drones. This kind of over-the-top spectacle threatens to overwhelm the film's modest origins at times (especially during the climactic ending), but the superb acting and sharp dialogue help anchor the film in its nostalgic roots. Combining nostalgia with modernization is hard, especially when dealing with a show as iconic as The A-Team. Let's face it, how many TV shows can you name from just hearing someone hum the first four notes of the theme song?
It also helps that the screenwriters know how to do a proper villain. A lot of action films these days (since the 90s, actually) make it a habit of presenting dark, foreboding bad guys who smirk maliciously and kill puppies every ten minutes just to remind everyone how evil they are. This is far from the case with The A-Team; Patrick Wilson and Brian Bloom are given dark characters with personalities that make them as entertaining and fun to watch as the heroes. They do just as much wisecracking as the good guys, and manage to keep plot-forwarding scenes from feeling like mere pauses between action sequences. They're so fun and colorful, you wouldn't mind seeing them team up in a spin-off show (maybe they could run a day-care center together and solve crimes at night?). The rapid-fire banter throughout the film elevates this feeling, and often the dialogue actually increases the tempo of an action sequence instead of slowing it down.
The real kick in the pants is that The A-Team hit the screens only a month or so after the abysmal MacGruber. Side-by-side, these are the perfect Goofus and Gallant of adapting 80s TV shows. On one hand, you have people unwilling to seriously tackle an iconic prime-time show, so the instead do a mock-parody-spoof and tank the whole thing. On the other hand, The A-Team is modernized, taken seriously enough to not mock itself self-consciously, and manages to make an entertaining action film that retains the charm and appeal of the original series. You see, that's how it's done.
The biggest complaint I probably have regarding the film is the lack of a Mr. T cameo. An after-credits sequence features Bradley Cooper and Shartlo Copley bumping into Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz (the original Face and Murdock), but Mr. T and George Peppard were conspicuously absent. Peppard's reluctance to appear is understandable, considering he'e been dead for fifteen years now. So what's Mr. T's excuse? Seems he doesn't approve of the show being remade into a violent, racier PG-13 action film. It is usually comforting to know that some things never change, but I don't know how comforting it is that Mr. T still conducts his personal and business life in the same cartoonish black-and-white moralistic grandstanding that predominated his act when he appointed himself Protector and Mentor of All Children in the 80s. I could understand if he simply didn't want anything to do with the movie, but then he has to throw out the rationalization that he was afraid that if made a cameo, the filmmakers would try to use his name to sell the film. The last time I checked, the only thing his image was being used to hawk was Snickers Bars and Video Games, which is a far leap from the moral Mr. T of the 80s that preached the importance of eating healthy and outdoor activities to children.
But that little bit of unpleasantness aside, The A-Team is a resounding success. Sure, some people might feel the need to nitpick some of the action sequences as unrealistic and far-fetched (This Summer, you will believe a man can fly a tank...), but those that do are missing the big picture. Remember the garbage bags and hair dryers? That's right. It isn't about the realism or probability, it's all about the plan. In this case, the plan truly came together, and (sorry, but I must) I love it when a plan comes together.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
This Valentine's Day, Give the Gift of Penis
Or, to be more precise, give the gift of MovieSucktastic Episode #11, the Valentine's Day Special. The focus of this episode? Full frontal male nudity in film.
In their last episode, Joey and Scott spent a fair amount of time discussing the lengthy nude wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in the Ken Russel film Women in Love. As much as they tried to put it behind them, this flagrant display of thespian penises left a taste in their mouths that they simply couldn't ignore. The idea of full frontal male nudity in films kept growing in their minds, until it was far too hard to keep down. Finally, the decision was made: A Penis Episode must be recorded.
Here it is, just in time for Valentine's Day, an episode sure to fully satisfy the hopeless romantic residing deep inside you. In this special Valentine Day Penis Episode, Joey and Scott take a long, hard look at the films in which they have been exposed to male genitalia in their cinematic past, stretching from the recent viewing of Women in Love all the way back to their first traumatic childhood glimpses of nude actors in film.
So, join the proudly erect co-hosts of MovieSucktastic as they pay homage to the male actor's package this Valentine's Day. Download it from iTunes, Podcast Alley or Podcast.com, and give it to that special someone who makes you throb whenever they are near. They will thank you in the end.
Have a Penis Film that you think was unfairly overlooked? Share your soreness with Joey and Scott at themovieguys@moviesucktastic.com, and they'll do what they can to stroke your ego during the next podcast.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sEbLdn-7sVwRxqq-QQqHxeiLZJpMITmOFh0SCGmVXeRM6C81KC4LTBMl-XdRfVUYXLxVY5zp7bQ8N9aRXA6FrlvYjqEFn_0jd3VkMT2e5En0fnVwwsIqd4ubGcb2b12ZrXxVmTZ_XeZG_Z7H-7J6sY=s0-d)
Here it is, just in time for Valentine's Day, an episode sure to fully satisfy the hopeless romantic residing deep inside you. In this special Valentine Day Penis Episode, Joey and Scott take a long, hard look at the films in which they have been exposed to male genitalia in their cinematic past, stretching from the recent viewing of Women in Love all the way back to their first traumatic childhood glimpses of nude actors in film.
So, join the proudly erect co-hosts of MovieSucktastic as they pay homage to the male actor's package this Valentine's Day. Download it from iTunes, Podcast Alley or Podcast.com, and give it to that special someone who makes you throb whenever they are near. They will thank you in the end.
Have a Penis Film that you think was unfairly overlooked? Share your soreness with Joey and Scott at themovieguys@moviesucktastic.com, and they'll do what they can to stroke your ego during the next podcast.
Monday, January 18, 2010
District 9 vs. Avatar
At the risk of boring with yet another Avatar themed blog post, attention and kudos must be granted in equally sizable amounts to Tiffany Vogt, columnist for Airlock Alpha, for her recent article "Avatar vs. District 9 – In a deeply divisive race, an argument as to why “District 9” deserves the Oscar for Best Picture more than “Avatar” (part 1)." Tiffany takes a comparison made in recent Moviesucktastic podcasts and guides her readers through the argument with great precision and attention to detail:
Check out her full article over at The TV Watchtower and hear yet another rational voice speak out against the blind idolatry that Avatar has been inspiring in so many delusional souls.
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Posing this very controversial argument, I want to share why “District 9” is more Oscar-worthy than the mega-hit “Avatar.” Surely, the virtually unknown sci-fi film that was one of the few films to cross over the $200 million mark this past summer deserves a little attention – and as the Producers Guild’s nomination for Best Picture has proven, it is a worthy contender to watch out for during this award season.
Check out her full article over at The TV Watchtower and hear yet another rational voice speak out against the blind idolatry that Avatar has been inspiring in so many delusional souls.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Bad TV: Remember AUTOMAN?
Growing up in the 80's invariably meant watching a lot of television. This was a time when VCR's and Cable Television were still fairly new and nowhere close as competitive with broadcast TV as they are now. Prime Time television was still king, and this meant that the fight for the hearts and minds of America's young viewers was still going strong.
The big difference between then and now, of course, is that Prime Time in the 80's was usually geared towards kids. While TV shows at 8:00 these days are either game shows or reality shows that do their best to keep the adult material down to a minimum, the eighties Prime Time was at least fifty percent kid's shows disguised as hard-hitting action or mystery series.
A perfect example of this? AUTOMAN!
I remember watching Automan as a kid, and yes, I remember loving the Hell out of it. With computer technology slowly emerging as the dominant talking point of the time period, it was becoming more and more popular for films and tv shows to play on the country's love (or paranoia - this was the same year that WarGames hit the big screen) of everything computer related.
In a time when home computers were slowly becoming affordable for commercial sale, yet were still less widespread than home swimming pools, ABC decided that their younger audience members would jump on board if they could somehow turn the cold, impersonal world of electronic data into a handsome hero with a cute little sidekick. Automan was thus born.
The cast of Automan is pure 80's. You've got Desi Arnaz, Jr as the geeky computer expert who works for the police department and designs video games on the side.
His passion for crime fighting and DOS leads to the creation of Automan, played by the hunky Chuck Wagner, who spends most of the show acting naive and looking handsome in a glowing suit blatantly ripped off from Tron, which had taken over the box office the previous year.
Filling out the cast are Robert Lansing as the actual cop who tags along, Gerald S. O'Loughlin as the computer-hating Captain, and Heather McNair as the designated female sidekick/love interest.
Combined, the careers of these actors is a complete cross-section of 80's television. Name a TV show you remember from back then, and odds are one of them starred on an episode.
But they aren't why you remember Automan. You remember Automan as the quintessential 80's TV show with big-budget ideas yet no real money for special effects. Much like the original Battlestar Galactica in it's waning years, later episodes are almost always guaranteed to reuse special effects scenes from the pilot, which actually had a budget. Combined with off-screen happenings, the special effects ratio would invariably end up being one costly effect per show.
The concept might have been big-budget, but that doesn't necessarily mean high-concept. For example, look at the name of the show. Automan is supposed to be a reference to the Automated age of
computers, yet for kids watching a show about a glowing guy driving around town in a cool car, the Auto just stands for Cool Car. I'm not saying Electroman would have been a better name, but maybe they could have tried a bit harder.
The show's hero, the Automated Man himself, is a perfect example of the world's view of computers back then. Bright and shiny, likable and desirable, he could have been the Dell Dude of his time. Created from a computer program years before the geeks of Weird Science, Automan was able to do everything that computers could do; talk to other computers, crunch huge amounts of data, and shoot lightening bolts out of his hands.
Automan's cute little sidekick, Cursor, followed him out of the computer world to give him a hand. Unlike the typical square dot you would normally see on your computer screen, Automan's Cursor was a pulsing star-shaped apparition that made cute noises, also blatantly ripped of from Tron. Like Automan, Cursor was able to do in the real world what he did in the computer realm; create vehicles out of thin air, scare strange women, and make audiences go "Awwwwwwwww".
Of course, Automan fell into the same trap that most of these shows did. Armed with a catchy gimmick and passable special effects, they now had to write original episodes that incorporated all of the gimmicks and special effects, and make them interesting enough to hold the viewers when the gimmicks lose their appeal.
Yes, I remember loving this show as a kid. But, as audiences tend to do, I soon became bored with the gimmick, and looked for the next shiny object that would temporarily captivate me during the Prime Time viewing hours.
That next wonderful distraction, of course, was Manimal!
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The big difference between then and now, of course, is that Prime Time in the 80's was usually geared towards kids. While TV shows at 8:00 these days are either game shows or reality shows that do their best to keep the adult material down to a minimum, the eighties Prime Time was at least fifty percent kid's shows disguised as hard-hitting action or mystery series.
A perfect example of this? AUTOMAN!
I remember watching Automan as a kid, and yes, I remember loving the Hell out of it. With computer technology slowly emerging as the dominant talking point of the time period, it was becoming more and more popular for films and tv shows to play on the country's love (or paranoia - this was the same year that WarGames hit the big screen) of everything computer related.
In a time when home computers were slowly becoming affordable for commercial sale, yet were still less widespread than home swimming pools, ABC decided that their younger audience members would jump on board if they could somehow turn the cold, impersonal world of electronic data into a handsome hero with a cute little sidekick. Automan was thus born.
The cast of Automan is pure 80's. You've got Desi Arnaz, Jr as the geeky computer expert who works for the police department and designs video games on the side.His passion for crime fighting and DOS leads to the creation of Automan, played by the hunky Chuck Wagner, who spends most of the show acting naive and looking handsome in a glowing suit blatantly ripped off from Tron, which had taken over the box office the previous year.
Filling out the cast are Robert Lansing as the actual cop who tags along, Gerald S. O'Loughlin as the computer-hating Captain, and Heather McNair as the designated female sidekick/love interest.
Combined, the careers of these actors is a complete cross-section of 80's television. Name a TV show you remember from back then, and odds are one of them starred on an episode.
But they aren't why you remember Automan. You remember Automan as the quintessential 80's TV show with big-budget ideas yet no real money for special effects. Much like the original Battlestar Galactica in it's waning years, later episodes are almost always guaranteed to reuse special effects scenes from the pilot, which actually had a budget. Combined with off-screen happenings, the special effects ratio would invariably end up being one costly effect per show.
The concept might have been big-budget, but that doesn't necessarily mean high-concept. For example, look at the name of the show. Automan is supposed to be a reference to the Automated age of
computers, yet for kids watching a show about a glowing guy driving around town in a cool car, the Auto just stands for Cool Car. I'm not saying Electroman would have been a better name, but maybe they could have tried a bit harder.The show's hero, the Automated Man himself, is a perfect example of the world's view of computers back then. Bright and shiny, likable and desirable, he could have been the Dell Dude of his time. Created from a computer program years before the geeks of Weird Science, Automan was able to do everything that computers could do; talk to other computers, crunch huge amounts of data, and shoot lightening bolts out of his hands.
Automan's cute little sidekick, Cursor, followed him out of the computer world to give him a hand. Unlike the typical square dot you would normally see on your computer screen, Automan's Cursor was a pulsing star-shaped apparition that made cute noises, also blatantly ripped of from Tron. Like Automan, Cursor was able to do in the real world what he did in the computer realm; create vehicles out of thin air, scare strange women, and make audiences go "Awwwwwwwww".
Of course, Automan fell into the same trap that most of these shows did. Armed with a catchy gimmick and passable special effects, they now had to write original episodes that incorporated all of the gimmicks and special effects, and make them interesting enough to hold the viewers when the gimmicks lose their appeal.
Yes, I remember loving this show as a kid. But, as audiences tend to do, I soon became bored with the gimmick, and looked for the next shiny object that would temporarily captivate me during the Prime Time viewing hours.
That next wonderful distraction, of course, was Manimal!
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