We’re a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we once wrote a magazine piece that seriously examined the physiological feasibility of Godzilla. We called various eggheads and asked them to assess whether a lizard-like creature as massive as Tokyo’s favorite monster could ever exist in the real world. The universal answer, of course, was nyet—Godzilla’s [...]
Entries Tagged as 'movies'
“An Alligator Half That Size Would Starve in a Week”
March 12th, 2010 · No Comments
Tags:Alligator·Bad Movie Friday·Godzilla·Japan·John Sayles·movies·reptiles
The Danites Are Coming
March 9th, 2010 · 2 Comments
While we’ve always been vaguely aware of the Mormon film industry, we never realized that its history could be traced back to the very dawn of popular cinema. Nor were we particularly familiar with the brief silent-era vogue for movies that cast Mormons as archvillains, which BYU film historian Gideon Burton identifies as part of [...]
The Nollywood Math
March 8th, 2010 · 2 Comments
As the late Art Buchwald would have been happy to tell you, Hollywood’s accounting practices tend to be garbled at best, and borderline criminal at worst. Studio bean counters are masters of obfuscation and misdirection, with a knack for making blockbusters seem like middling hits, and profitable B-movies appear like money losers. Figuring out how [...]
A Smirking Humanoid Named Sherman
March 5th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Ttaubotneanauayean for your patience this week, as we eased up on the posting in order to tackle our crushing Wired gig. All will resume to normal on Tuesday, after we’ve hit our deadline.
To reward your steadfastness, we’d like to offer up a very special Bad Movie Friday entry: 1989’s Millennium, starring the truly mismatched pair [...]
That’s What You Get for Not Hailing to the Chimp
February 26th, 2010 · No Comments
We have never attempted to conceal our fascination with movies starring non-human primates. That quirk of our character shines through yet again in this week’s Bad Movie Friday installment, featuring the 1951 Ronald Regan vehicle Bedtime for Bonzo. Suffice to say that the trailer above makes us weep for the scientific literacy of Eisenhower Era [...]
Tags:animals·Bad Movie Friday·chimpanzees·movies·primates·Ronald Reagan·Tamba
A Hive of Scum and Villainy
February 1st, 2010 · 8 Comments
The recent passing of J.D. Salinger got us thinking about the small role The Catcher in the Rye played in our decision to wield the (figurative) pen for a living. While we’re pretty sure the book wouldn’t hold up should we crack it again today, it wowed us during junior high. It was, in fact, [...]
Tags:Billy Ocean·books·J.D. Salinger·movies·music·Now the Hell Will Start·Star War·The Catcher in the Rye
The Midnight Rider on Sobriety
January 29th, 2010 · No Comments
No Bad Movie Friday this week, in part because we had a change of heart about calling out the 1993 Bruce Willis vehicle Striking Distance. Yes, it was almost certainly pitched to the producers as “Die Hard meets Serpico…on the water!” And we’ll never, ever buy Sarah Jessica Parker as a Pittsburgh cop. But watching [...]
Tags:addiction·alcohol·Bruce Willis·drugs·Gregg Allman·movies·music·Striking Distance
Self-Publishing for Legends
January 25th, 2010 · 8 Comments
We’ve recently been toying with the idea of self-publishing a book, but can’t quite seem to get over the feeling that such a maneuver will result in a disastrous labor-to-pay ratio. That said, we’ve been heartened to learn that putting out one’s own book is no longer the sole domain of conspiracy theorists and frustrated [...]
Tags:1980s·books·James Bond·Kill Bond·Live and Let Die·Midnight Run·movies·Philippines·Yaphet Kotto
The Genius of Robert Vince
January 20th, 2010 · 3 Comments
When we were just a few years older than Microkhan Jr. is now, we developed a serious fascination with the Pippi Longstocking movies. At the time, it didn’t occur to us that the characters’ voices were dubbed, or that Pippi’s Popeye-liked strength defied logical explanation. All we cared about was the special bond that “the [...]
Tags:chimpanzees·monkeys·Most Valuable Primate·movies·primates·Robert Vince
The Absolute Nadir of Animation
January 15th, 2010 · 11 Comments
One of the greatest movie-review slams we’ve come across in recent months is Nathan Rabin’s brutal takedown of I Hate Valentine’s Day, the latest project from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding mastermind Nia Vardalos. The whole pan is full of choice insults, but the apex comes in the kicker: “If the comic strip character Cathy [...]
Dolph on a Mission
January 8th, 2010 · 2 Comments
We here at Microkhan headquarters have been been shy about expressing our love for modern pentathlon, by far the most underrated sport in the Summer Olympics. And so we were recently overjoyed to discover that none other than Dolph Lundgren, one of the finest actors of the past half century, shares our affinity for the [...]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Dolph Lundgren·Hard Ticket to Hawaii·Invasion U.S.A.·modern pentathlon·movies·Olympics·Pentathlon·sports
A Bitter Price Tag
January 7th, 2010 · 2 Comments
Last night while cooking dinner, we decided to rev up a documentary that’s been languishing on our Netflix Instant queue for ages: Witch Hunt. Suffice to say that we weren’t anywhere near prepared for the ensuing 90 minutes, in which the filmmakers unwind a completely devastating J’accuse regarding the Kern County child-abuse panic of the [...]
Tags:California·crime·economics·John Stoll·law·movies·South Korea·Witch Hunt
Best of Oh Nine: Movies*
December 28th, 2009 · 16 Comments
Before the film geeks among you point out that the photo above is from a movie released in 2005, please note the asterisk. See, our deal is that we didn’t really get out to the theater much this year—blame Microkhan Jr. and the economic decline, both of which conspired to keep us at home much [...]
Tags:Best of Oh Nine·movies
The Redemption of Snively
December 24th, 2009 · No Comments
We’re winding it down for Christmas, but not before we leave you with a minor token of our Yuletide gratitude: a clip from Yogi’s First Christmas, undoubtedly the best animated ursine-themed holiday film in existence. We’ve spent years trying to convince the world of this flick’s unheralded magnificence, a crusade which led us to write [...]
Farewell, Dynamite
December 21st, 2009 · No Comments
Sad news out of Moscow, as word comes that Vladimir “Dynamite” Turchinsky has passed on. For those unfamiliar with the realm of Russian bodybuilding and/or action films, Turchinsky could legitimately lay claim to the title of “The Schwarzenegger of the East,” having transitioned from a successful athletic career to cinematic stardom. He also had an [...]
Tags:bodybuilding·medical science·movies·plasmapheresis·Russia·sports·Vladimir Turchinsky
Stallone in Full McBain Mode
December 18th, 2009 · 7 Comments
We have a complicated relationship with Cobra, and thus hesitated for a beat before deciding to honor it with this week’s Bad Movie Friday showcase spot. To its credit, the movie does a fine job of conjuring up a psycho murder cult, the members of which gather in warehouses to bang together axes in rhythmic [...]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Cobra·movies·Sylvester Stallone·The New York Times·vigilantism
Watch for Falling Rocks
December 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments
We’re more than a little ashamed to admit we remember the brief Ewok craze of the mid-1980s, when two made-for-TV follow-ups to Return of the Jedi hit the tube. While we realize now that the Ewoks were a harbinger of the soul-crushing awfulness of Jar-Jar Binks, we were suckers for the furry critters back in [...]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Ewoks·movies·Star Wars·The Ewok Adventure
The Loss of Mike Figgis
December 4th, 2009 · 4 Comments
On one of our first-ever dates with the Grand Empress, we were smitten by the depth of her hostility toward The Loss of Sexual Innocence, arguably the most annoying, self-consciously bizarre film ever committed to celluloid—and thus prime fodder for the return of our semi-beloved Bad Movie Friday feature.
Now, don’t get us wrong—we sorta love [...]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Mike Figgis·movies·The Loss of Sexual Innocence
Child of the Raves
December 1st, 2009 · 2 Comments
We’ve been thoroughly enjoying The A.V. Club’s week-long “Best of the ’00s” series, including today’s installment on top cinematic performances. The site’s writers certainly did the right thing by including Samantha Morton’s star turn in Morvern Callar, one of our favorite movies of all time. The ending sequence, shown above, never ceases to create a [...]
Tags:Lynne Ramsay·Morvern Callar·movies·music·Samantha Morton
Stoned and Dethroned
November 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments
We can honestly say we’ve never once been tempted to try phencyclidine. Nothing about the drug seems enjoyable in the slightest, starting with the fact that it tends to make grown men strip off all their clothes and rant like lunatics. (Exhibit A: Steve.) That said, it’s always nice to have cinematic confirmation that our [...]
Hippo on the Make
November 18th, 2009 · 3 Comments
The recent dearth of posts has been due to a confluence of factors: a hectic sked of writing FOIA requests, the petty frustrations of trying to get the next Wired feature going, and the sheer agony of checking out potential preschools for Microkhan Jr. We’re almost through the worst of it, though, and we’ll be [...]
“Thrillingly Embarrassing”
November 13th, 2009 · 5 Comments
After a week’s hiatus, Bad Movie Friday returns with a vengeance, in the form of the made-for-TV Rosie O’Donnell vehicle Riding the Bus with My Sister. Perhaps Ms. O’Donnell reckoned that her star turn as a mentally handicapped woman would be critic proof, as no one wants to be accused of insensitivity. But she didn’t [...]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·movies·New York Times·Riding the Bus with My Sister·Rosie O'Donnell
“Be Cool, or Be Cooled”
November 4th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Earlier this year, we rescued several heaping armfuls of vinyl from a building on our blocks that’s undergoing a gut renovation. Many of the platters were too damaged to be of use, but there were gems amidst the trash—most notably an original pressing of the soundtrack for Three Tough Guys (aka Tough Guys). The lead [...]
Tags:Geto Boys·hip-hop·Isaac Hayes·movies·music·Three Tough Guys
“They Shall Take Up Serpents…”
November 3rd, 2009 · 5 Comments
Yesterday’s quick mention of religious snake handling set us off on a minor research tangent. We’re accustomed to witnessing the practice via cheesy TV segments, which have always struck us as a tad too overproduced to convey the emotional appeal of grasping serpents in the name of the Lord. Fortunately, The Tubes now contain a [...]
Tags:Holy Ghost People·Jimmy Swaggert·movies·religion·reptiles·snake handling·snakes
The Last 3,000 Miles
October 23rd, 2009 · 4 Comments
After a tremendous week of work, contemplation, and gorging on fish tacos out here in Palo Alto, we’re heading back to Microkhan headquarters this evening. Not much time for blogging today, alas, as we try to suck a last few moments of enjoyment out of this trip. So we’re skipping right ahead to Bad Movie [...]
Tags:Arnold Schwarzenegger·Bad Movie Friday·California·Commando·McBain·movies
Sunsets in Outer Space?
October 20th, 2009 · No Comments
We’re off taking advantage of our Stanford library privileges, in order to flesh out a few big-picture ideas. The wannabe emperor in the clip above, by contrast, could certainly do a better job of paying attention to the small picture—say, for example, by noticing that there are no sunsets in space. (Unless he has a [...]
A State That’s Untouchable, Like Eliot Ness
October 16th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Instead of hitting you with our weekly Bad Movie Friday entry, we’ve decided to round out our cough-syrup trilogy with a classic ad: Oddjob shilling for Vicks Formula 44. Good thing there’s no narcotic in there to slow him down. And the phenylpropanolamine should make him a much more energetic opponent for Mr. Bond.
We’re also [...]
Tags:advertising·James Bond·medicine·movies·Oddjob·TV·Vicks Formula 44
A Ninja’s Flighty Ideas
October 13th, 2009 · 2 Comments
In response to our recent placeholder extolling the virtues of Stan Bush’s work on Bloodsport, one of our faithful Virginia correspondents turned us on to this 1988 exposé, which argues that the film’s biographical subject is a huckster. The piece is behind a subscription wall, so those without a ProQuest account will have to make [...]
Blue Screen Blues
October 9th, 2009 · No Comments
A quick Bad Movie Friday this week, as we’re absorbed in the game of narrative non-fiction writing (i.e. the gig that pays the bills ’round here). Let’s just say that we probably owe Krull another look; we saw it at a grade-school birthday party back when it came out, and probably didn’t yet have the [...]
