25 Things We Learn From The AIRPORT Franchise

I DON'T KNOW IF WE CAN SAVE THE
PASSENGERS, BUT WE SHOULD GET SOME
FIRECRACKERS AND BLOW THIS MODEL UP
ANYWAY.

1. Except for the first film, none of them really take place at an airport.

2. Airport’s casting director had an ironic sense of humor, hiring Dean Martin to play an airline pilot.

3. Linda Blair would be more endearing as the sickly girl in Airport 1975 if she was still possessed by Satan.

4. Concorde jets aren’t as fast as we think, because you can slide open a window and stick out your arm to fire a gun without getting it torn off at the shoulder.

20 Scenes NOBODY Saw Coming

BEING KIND OF A DRAMA QUEEN,
AREN'T YOU, SON?

As filmgoers, we love surprises. The more movies which follow tried-and-true formulas or rehash cliches, the more we learn to appreciate those which defy our expectations, if even for a single scene. Truly-creative plot-twists, surprising climaxes, revelations, or simply shocking, sudden scenes which alter the entire film, are becoming fewer and farther between, mainly because we seldom ever go into a movie “cold” anymore.

Some of the scenes on this list are now so iconic that only those lucky enough to have seen the movies on opening night enjoyed their full impact. Other movies, both good and bad, contain that one scene which you couldn’t have predicted, no matter how jaded you are.

By the way...spoilers abound!

1. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK - Sure, we all know Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s dad now. Imagine being there on opening night in 1980, like I was. Vader’s revelation hit the entire audience like a ton of bricks.

2. PSYCHO - The death of Marion Crane is a huge shock, because the film dupes us into thinking she’s the main character, only to kill her a third of the way through the movie.

3. PSYCHO - And how can we not include the climactic scene when we finally see who “mother” really is?

THE SILENCE OF THE HAMS

4. DEEP BLUE SEA - A ridiculous-but-fun movie about genetically-altered sharks. Samuel L. Jackson’s untimely death-by-shark-attack, immediately after giving the most inspirational monologue in the film, is both shocking and hilarious. Shocking because the attack is swift, sudden and violent; funny because of its perfect timing.

5. THE USUAL SUSPECTS - Anyone who tells you they figured out who Keyser Soze was before the end of the film is likely lying their ass off to make themselves feel superior.

OH, HEY...COOKIES!

6. SEVEN - The horrifying answer to “What’s in the box?”, a scene which almost didn’t happen.

7. RETURN OF THE JEDI - The revelation which makes Luke realize he once sucked-face with his twin sister, and made Star Wars geeks worldwide go ‘eeew!’ This scene is also the main reason I don’t believe for one second that George Lucas had his entire saga planned-out from the get-go.

8. EXECUTIVE DECISION - At the time this was made, Steven Seagall was still a big action star, so the decision to kill him in the first 45 minutes was not only a big surprise, those of us who couldn’t stand Seagall perked up and collectively thought this may not be such a crappy movie after all. And it wasn’t.

9. LAW ABIDING CITIZEN - A passive judge is killed by an explosive cell phone. We’re lulled into thinking this is yet-another scene of expositional dialogue (which this movie has a lot of). We know the judge is a target and will most-likely die by the end of the film, but just not here in the comfort of her own office.

10. ZOMBIELAND - Bill Murray shows up...playing himself. I was lucky enough to check it out with no prior knowledge other than it was a horror comedy. So when Murray appeared, I laughed so hard my side hurt...and that was before he uttered a single line. This is one reason the internet kinda sucks, because most knew this scene is coming before we went to see it, though there is the added surprise when Murray is killed not-even ten minutes later.

BACK THE FUCK OFF! I'M ACTING!

11. PLANET OF THE APES - The final scene is now so iconic - and parodied - that it’s hard to imagine the impact it had on audiences in 1968. We can thank none-other than co-screenwriter Rod Serling for that, who practically invented the modern twist-ending. Yeah, seeing the movie today, there are many previous, not-so-subtle clues making the climax obvious. But when Planet of the Apes came out, sci-fi was seldom taken seriously as social commentary, so nobody expected such the film to suddenly and swiftly change our perception of who the true villains are.

12. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN - The movie starts off with two sleazy criminals on the run with a family of hostages in-tow. Then, with no warning whatsoever, it stops on a dime and becomes a gory, splatstick fight for survival against bloodthirsty vampires. It’s as though the projectionist, while changing reels, spooled an entire different movie that had the exact same cast.

HEY, THIS IS ICY HOT! YOU SAID IT WAS
PREPARATION H!

13. THE MIST - I didn’t see the end coming, and I read the damn book.

14. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - The first time we get a good look at the alien ships, as they roar along a highway with cops in pursuit, was easily the most awesome and unexpected special effects scene any of us had ever seen up to that point (and, yes, this was after Star Wars). Even more amazing is the film topped that scene during the climax.

15. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION - Anyone who didn’t read Stephen King’s novella had no idea that Andy had been planning his escape the entire time.

16. SAW - Of all the movies on this list, the twist ending is the most polarizing. Half thought it was a shocking revelation, half thought it was a tacked-on, far-fetched, easy way out (I’m one of the latter). Regardless, the ending was unexpected.

17. THE SIXTH SENSE - Though hard to imagine today, there was a brief time when director M. Night Shyamalan was a critical darling whose films were massively popular with anyone who never heard of The Twilight Zone. With The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan almost single-handedly brought back the twist ending, which was so clever it forced nearly everyone to watch the film again, just so they could look for subtle clues that were always right there in plain sight, but none of us caught the first time.

18. FIGHT CLUB - That moment when we learn the film’s narrator and Tyler Durden are actually the same guy, thus explaining the importance of nearly every previous scene in the entire film. How awesome was that?

19. THE MATRIX - How would you feel if you suddenly discovered your entire life never really happened, and you were just one of millions of incubated bodies kept alive to keep machines powered? That scene in the original Matrix was as shocking to viewers as it was to Neo himself.

I'M ANGELINA JOLIE'S DAD. THAT'S KINDA
COOL, ISN'T IT?

20. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - Anyone who fondly remembers, or grew-up with, the original TV show must have been stunned - not-to-mention a bit pissed-off - that the character of Jim Phelps turns out to be the bad guy. Mission: Impossible is a popular Tom Cruise franchise now, but this plot development in the first film angered a lot of purists, including original series cast members (Peter Graves, who played Phelps in the series, refused a lucrative offer to reprise his role after learning he’d be playing the villain).

20 Awesome Bad Guys

Sure, we love the heroes, but playing the bad guy always looks like a lot more fun. The following is a list of some awesome ones (in no particular order).

1. CLARENCE BODDICKER (Robocop) - For everyone who knows Kurtwood Smith best as the dad on That 70s Show, you should check him out here. He looks more like a college professor than a gang leader, but not only is he cruel, ruthless and violent, he appears to truly enjoy being so.

2. “ANGEL EYES” (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) - Lee Van Cleef was always a great bad guy, but never badder than he is in this classic. His entrance is still one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

3. CAPTAIN RHODES (Day of the Dead) - Played with wild-eyed fury by Joe Pilato, he’s one vicious mother who deserves a slow, agonizing, nasty-ass death...and gets it.

4. HANS GRUBER (Die Hard) - The quintessential Euro-accented criminal mastermind, played by Alan Rickman. Smooth, cold-blooded, overconfident and dies a great death.

5. MR. BLUE (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three) - In the original, Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) is smart, ruthless and virtually unemotional, which is what makes him so cool. Too bad John Travolta goes the opposite direction in the remake, screaming every line like he has Turrets Syndrome.

6. KHAN NOONIEN SINGH (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) - Ricardo Montalban’s greatest role, and the best villain the Star Trek franchise ever had. And yes, that’s his real chest.

7. JOHN KRAMER a.k.a. “JIGSAW” (Saw II; Saw III) - Kramer isn’t really in the first film too much, and it isn’t until Saw II that we understand who he is and what his motives are. What’s cool about Kramer is he doesn’t see himself as a villain. And quite often, neither do we.

8. DARK HELMET (Spaceballs) - All the best moments in Mel Brooks’ last decent movie belong to Rick Moranis, the funniest ones being when he discovers he’s surrounded by assholes, and when he’s playing with his own action figure. According to IMDB, the latter scene was improvised.

9. RAMSES (The Ten Commandments) - Yul Brynner and his chest play foil to Charlton Heston’s Moses. He treats his women badly and Moses even worse.

10. THE JOKER (The Dark Knight) - What more can be said about Heath Ledger’s performance that hasn’t been said a million times? It’s a revelation, considering most of us thought Jack Nicholson would always be the definitive Joker.

11. DARTH VADER (The Empire Strikes Back) - He was little-more than a powerful henchman in the first movie. Here, he’s the big cheese who has zero-tolerance for failure (just ask his underlings).

12. FRANK (Once Upon a Time in the West) - Not only is it shocking to see Henry Fonda totally nail-it as a ruthless killer, he also guns down children.

13. KEYSER SOZE (The Usual Suspects) - Keyser guns down children, too...his own! Jesus Christ!

14. JACK TORRENCE (The Shining) - As a horror film, The Shining is phenomenally overrated, and I truly believe watching Jack Nicholson going apeshit is the primary reason it remains beloved by so many.

15. MICHAEL CORLEONE (The Godfather, Part II) - Michael wasn’t really a villain in the original, but by Part II, he's become so cold and ruthless that he orders the death of his own brother. Man, that’s just mean. It’s kinda weird that we all root for him, anyway.

16. HANS LANDA (Inglorious Basterds) - Played by Christoph Waltz, Hans is so outwardly congenial that, even when he turns violent, we still like him. And how can you not love the scenes involving Hans and food?

17. TODD (Hostel, Part II) - A financially successful douchebag, Todd is overly-macho, snorts coke, treats hookers like shit and gung-ho at the idea of paying to torture and kill a complete stranger. At least, until the moment arises, when he tries to back out, turns into a sniveling little weasel and ends up as dog food.

18. HANNIBAL LECTER (The Silence of the Lambs; Hannibal) - Sure, he’s a serial killer. Sure, he’s a cannibal. But we love the guy, especially when he performs his awful deeds on the assholes who have it coming.

19. OTTO WEST (A Fish Called Wanda) - A dumbass who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. Kevin Kline won an Oscar for this, and he deserved it.

20. THE T-800 (The Terminator) - It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop...until you are dead. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Why SAW Is The Greatest Movie Franchise Of All Time

Starring Tobin Bell, Danny Glover, Cary Elwes, Shawnee Smith, Leigh Wannell, Betsy Russell, Costas Mandylor. Various Directors. (2004-2010).

Before I got married for the second time, a bunch of my friends threw me a bachelor party. It must have been a great one, because I don't remember much about it, including some Polaroids of me & the guys standing with drinks-in-hand and our dorks hanging out. One asshole co-worker (who wasn’t even invited) decided to pass them around at work the next day. It was one of the more humiliating experiences of my adult life, especially after receiving a few comments like, "Hey, Dave, was it cold in your apartment? Haw-Haw-Haw!"

Anyway, there was a lot of liquor & drugs at this party but no women (probably a good thing). None of us had money falling out of our asses back then, so rather than strippers, my best man brought a stack of VHS porn videos from his own collection. They pretty-much played non-stop that night...at least until everyone was too wasted to change the tapes.

I haven’t watched any porn since that night, so I couldn’t tell you what it’s like in this day & age of downloading anything your sick mind can think of. But back then, some of the movies had “plots,” so to speak; threadbare - almost pointless - stories which did little more than pad out the running time in-between endless sex scenes. I would imagine, since the advent of DVD, when you can simply skip to the good parts, the job of an adult film “screenwriter” is as thankless as being a bass player for Metallica.

But whether or not you are a fan of adult films, you have to admit that the genre, no matter how artful, acrobatic or amatuerish, nearly always delivers what it promises. In that sense, porn is a lot like McDonald’s. No, you aren’t going to get fine cuisine, nor are you ever going discuss with others the succulence of the Quarter Pounder you grabbed from the drive-thru two weeks ago. And if you absolutely love Quarter Pounders, there isn’t a single McDonald’s on the entire planet that cannot provide you with another one which tastes exactly the same. Like porn, McDonald’s is a safe investment, because you know what you’re gonna get.

Porn stars may come and go, but the industry carries on, providing the same erotic entertainment for bachelor parties, sex addicts, voyeurs and lonely guys since time began. McDonald’s employees may come and go, but the franchise keeps pumping out the same quick, convenient and somewhat-edible burgers since Ray Kroc built it into franchise starting in 1954.

In a way, the Saw franchise, a horror film series which started in 2004, is just like porn and McDonald’s. It has since become a brand-name itself, mainly by stripping-away any initial pretences and giving viewers exactly what they want.


The original Saw is similar in tone and intensity to Seven, in which there is a serial killer who goes to extreme measures to make his morally-questionable victims see the errors of their ways. But unlike Seven, Jigsaw himself doesn’t kill anyone outright, nor does he attack the innocent. Every victim has a dark secret. He targets drug-addicts, sleazy opportunists and heartless bureaucrats who either don’t appreciate the life given to them, or care how their actions affect others. Jigsaw then places them in elaborate, painful and potentially lethal traps through which they must take extreme measures in order to survive. The traps themselves reflect the immorality of their own lives, the most famous being a reverse-bear-trap attached to a young addict’s head, and she must cut-open someone else to retrieve the key which will unlock the trap.

For the first two movies at least, the concept of forcing the morally-questionable to partake in these twisted games make Jigsaw a not-entirely-unsympathetic antagonist. In a morbid way, we can sort-of understand his motives.

But of course, the primary appeal of the Saw films is similar to porn. Yes, there is a story, so to speak, but the lethal mechanical traps by which the victims live or die is what draws audiences. There was an actual plot to Deep Throat, too, but it was still just a hard-core sex film. Ultimately, we didn’t really care about Linda Lovelace‘s sexual peculiarities. Nor do we ultimately care about Jigsaw’s agenda.

Subsequent Saw sequels took this and ran with it, to the point where, beginning with Saw III, even people who don’t deserve an agonizing death meet horrible fates. By now, any creativity from the filmmakers was geared more toward devising clever traps to amp up the gore.

Jigsaw himself dies in Saw III, but there are seven films in the series, and through sometimes-genius, sometimes-ridiculous developments, the increasingly-elaborate torture continues. In fact, traps in later movies are such engineering monstrosities that the viewer knows they couldn’t possibly be constructed within the time frame established, let-alone by one individual. But plausibility ceased to be a factor long before the franchise played itself out. Despite all of the myriad plot-twists & flashbacks attempting to, not only explain how Jigsaw could continue to kill, but influence others to do his work, the bottom line is that those responsible for these films know most viewers simply want to see how creatively someone can be killed.

Remember the old Road Runner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote tries to come up with creative ways to kill his prey, only it never works out in his favor? The Saw movies are kind-of like that, except Wile E. Coyote’s traps never work and Jigsaw’s always do. We know Wile E. Coyote will fail...the amusing part is seeing how creatively he fails. Dozens of Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons were made in the 40s, 50s and 60s. They may have different titles, but all have the exact same plot, and even a die-hard Looney Tunes fan would have trouble citing which gag appeared in which title. Similarly, the Saw films are virtually interchangeable, and only a real Fan-tard could accurately tell you which traps appear in which movies.

I have all seven Saw movies on DVD, and I watch them back-to-back about once a year. Not because they are masterpieces. I like them because of their purity of purpose. Like porn, McDonald’s and Road Runner cartoons, you know exactly what you’re gonna get with a Saw movie. In fact, when I truck out my discs, I simply start with whatever film is at the top of the stack and work my way down; seeing them in sequence is not really necessary. Do you really think there is a guy alive who ever refused to watch Behind the Green Door 2 because they hadn’t seen the original first? As a horror fan, as much as I hate to admit, sometimes I just like watching people die, just like porn fans like watching other people fornicate.

Which is why the Saw series is arguably the greatest movie franchise of all time. Unlike Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Alien, James Bond, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Lethal Weapon or The Godfather (all of which had one-or-more shitty sequels), we walk away from every Saw film thinking the exact same thing...“Wow, that was really fucking gross.” The films promise nasty-ass death, and deliver every single time. As a gorehound, you could randomly select any of the Saw films and, despite all of the intrusive plot points, be satisfied with your choice. Even then, those plot points could be considered the pickles you pick off of your Quarter Pounder; you’ll still love the burger and not miss the pickles.

It’s this unwavering cruel streak in every film which arguably makes Saw the most consistent franchise ever made. These movies are not works of art, but at the same time, they never raised fan expectations on the level of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, two movies so polarizing that entire websites are dedicated to fans’ hatred of them. You don’t see any websites spewing their hatred of Saw V or Saw VI, because they are essentially the same fucking movie. In fact, if you are truly a Saw fan, choosing one film over another is almost an exercise in hypocrisy. Saying you hate one film is like saying you hate them all, at least if you’re being truly honest about why you enjoy such sadistic entertainment in the first place.

10 Things We Learn From Watching SCARFACE (1983)

Starring Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Robert Loggia, F. Murray Abraham. Directed by Brian DePalma. (1983, 170 min).


1. You can make an entire movie about the Cuban criminal underworld with only one actual Cuban in the cast (Steven Bauer).

2. “Fuck” can be used as an adjective, a noun or a verb...226 times!

3. Cranking up the volume on a tiny hotel TV will effectively mask the noise made by a roaring chainsaw.
4. Nothing dates a movie from the 1980s quite like a synthesized, pop music score.

5. Miami has relatively few police patrolmen, allowing you to wage massive gunfights on the streets, in a nightclub or a high-end residential neighborhood whenever you need to.

6. Unlike The Godfather, which needed two movies and six hours to chronicle a gangster's rise to power, one can easily go from hired thug to criminal kingpin during a single five-minute musical montage.

7. All these current would-be gangstas who think Tony Montana is so cool should dress more like him, because even a wide-collared leisure suit looks less ridiculous than belting your pants under your ass cheeks.

8. Law & Order: SVU star Richard Belzer was once a stand-up comic, though not a very good one.

9. People love epic movies where the main character starts off as a vicious, sociopathic, incestuous, greedy, conniving, drug-addled asshole, and three hours later, he’s still the same vicious, sociopathic, incestuous, greedy, conniving, drug-addled asshole.

10. If all he has is his balls and his word, then Tony Montana needs to protect his balls better, because throughout the movie he breaks his word to damn-near everybody.

EEEEEW!: 20 Nasty Movie Moments

THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAT COULD
BURST FROM YOUR ASS THAN
EXPLOSIVE DIARRHEA

You know those scenes. Not necessarily the goriest, but the ones which make you wince, hide your eyes, dig your nails into the armrest, pucker your ass or fight a gag reflex. Sure, being disassembled by zombies or birthing aliens through one’s chest is gross, but far removed from any true human experience. But needles? Broken bones? Violated orifices? Swallowing something awful? We can relate on some level.

I don’t think any of us are truly worried about alien slugs squirting from our own asses (as in Dreamcatcher), but the idea of any weird thing squirting from (or up) our asses is likely to make said-ass pucker hard. Sometimes the nastiest scenes in movies don’t even use special effects, but they tap into that weird place in our heads, where we can kind-of imagine the same agony being inflicted on our own selves.

The following is a list (in no particular order) of some nasty-ass scenes that made me wince, gag or want to turn away.


1. AMERICAN HISTORY X - Edward Norton forces a man to place his open mouth on a curb, then stomps the back of his head. Eeeew!

2. MISERY - The hobbling scene. Eeeew!

3. ARACHNOPHOBIA - A spider crawls from a corpse’s nose. Eeeew!

4. THE THING - For all of its slime and gore, the ickiest scene is arguably the ‘blood test’ conducted to determine who is The Thing. Eeeew!

5. INVASION U.S.A. - In this otherwise-worthless Chuck Norris flick, there’s a scene where a woman is snorting coke from a table using a metal straw. That’s when our villain slams her head onto the table. Eeeew!

6. THE DARK KNIGHT - Similarly, The Joker does this to a gangster, only with a pencil. Eeeew!

7. PULP FICTION - Travolta’s adrenaline shot to Uma Thurman’s chest. Eeeew!

8. BAD TASTE - Peter Jackson’s first film is a low-budget gorefest, but the grossest part is when one of our alien hunters is slurping green vomit from a bowl...the added sound effects make this scene truly nauseating. Eeeew!

9. THE EXORCIST - Not the projectile vomit or the violating crucifix, but the nasty tests performed on Regan in the hospital. Eeeew!

10. GRINDHOUSE - Eli Roth’s faux-trailer, “Thanksgiving,” which involves a cheerleader, a trampoline and a really big knife. Eeeew!

11. SAW 3-D (aka SAW: THE FINAL CHAPTER) - In a series which revels in nastiness, one of the ickiest traps involves a guy trying to remove a fishing line strung down a woman’s throat. Oh yeah...attached to the end of this line are fish hooks. Eeeew!

12. PAYBACK - In an effort to make Porter cooperate, the mafia commences smashing his toes with a hammer one at a time. Eeeew!

13. DREAMCATCHER - The “Shitweasals.” Aptly named and...Eeeew!

14. STAND BY ME - There’s a leech on my balls! Eeeew!

15. THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION - A hilariously-bad cheesefest, save for the scene when a woman unwittingly includes a large tarantula in her blended breakfast drink. Eeeew!

16. MARATHON MAN - Impromptu dentistry...without anesthesia. Classic Eeeew!

17. JACKASS NUMBER TWO - There are countless, bile-stirring gags in all of the films, but the sickest has to be when Chris Pontious pounds-back a cup of horse semen. Eeeew!

18. THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006) - The father of a hapless vacationing family is the first to die when he’s tied to a post and burned alive...a scene which goes on, and on, and on. And the dad is bubbling and screaming in agony the whole time. Eeeew!

19. HOSTEL, PART 2 - Being eaten is bad enough. Being eaten alive is even worse. But watching yourself being eaten alive, one slice at a time, by the sick bastard who directed Cannibal Holocaust? Eeeew!

20. THE FLY (1986) - The bathroom scene when Seth Brundle begins to notice some peculiar changes in his body, such as pus squirting from appendages and being able to remove his own fingernails with sickening ease. Eeeew!

What about you? What twisted scene from a film gave you the willies, made your butt pucker or triggered a gag reflex?

MISERY: An Apology To My Mother-In-Law

Starring James Caan, Kathy Bates, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen. Directed by Rob Reiner. (1990, 107 min).

I'm one of the few married guys (that I know, anyway) who actually likes his mother-in-law. We get along pretty well. During the past 24 years I've been married to her daughter, Francie, she's always been gracious, caring and loving. And considering when she met me I was jobless, partied a lot, had no car and dressed like one of the guys from Whitesnake, she was able to overlook my many faults simply because I made her daughter happy. In ensuing years after Francie and I got married, I've done her the same solid by overlooking her tendency to clean our house whenever she visits.

But back in 1987, after being kicked out of college for smoking dope on campus, I was living in a tiny one bedroom apartment by night, looking for a job - any job - by day. During this time, I started dating Francie, probably the hottest girl to ever express interest in me, which even-then struck me as strange, considering she looked and acted like someone who'd gravitate toward college jocks and studs. I was neither, but she later informed me her initial attraction was because I seemed different & dangerous compared to guys she usually dated. She was also under the impression that I was a rebellious rich kid.

Different? Yeah. Dangerous? Hah! Rich? My parents had already had enough of my bullshit and stopped sending me money. A perpetually-stoned loser? Without a doubt. But we got along really great and laughed a lot when we were together.

Although I was able to land a cooking job shortly after being kicked out of school, my income was only enough to pay my rent and buy food. In order to continue dating Francie, I often shoplifted VHS movies and sold them to a pawn shop, continuing the facade that I was rolling in money. But even after that whole ruse fell apart, Francie still loved me.

Anyway, between paying rent and dating Francie, I had very little discretionary income, and spent a lot of my nights reading, my only affordable entertainment (and yes, I shoplifted most of the books I read...there was nothing on Earth easier to steal back then). One of the books I read during those dark times was Stephen King's Misery, the story of a popular romance writer, Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a violent car crash by Annie Wilkes, a psychotic fan of his novels. She starts nursing him back to health, but upon discovering that he kills her favorite character in his most recent book, she keeps him captive and demands that he brings her back by writing a new novel.

It's a riveting book, one of King's most suspenseful, and I read it all in a single evening. I also made the mistake of telling Francie about it.

Have you ever read a story and, despite the author's description of a character, you picture someone you know in that role? I'd been dating Francie for about a month and had met her mother (Fran) one or two times. For some reason, when I first read Misery, I pictured Fran as Annie Wilkes.

I told Francie about the book and that I pictured her mother as Annie. Francie didn't take offense. In fact, she laughed hysterically after taking my copy and reading it herself, which she then passed to her mom.

As much as I love Francie, one of her true fallacies was not always keeping things to herself. Francie promptly told her mom I envisioned as her Annie Wilkes.

By this time, I was starting to take my relationship with Francie seriously, and couldn't think of a worse bit of info for her to share with her mom, considering I hadn't been leaving the greatest of impressions thus far.

Fortunately for me, Fran has a great sense of humor. After reading the book herself, she jokingly started calling me "Mr. Man" (how Annie addressed Paul Sheldon when she was upset). I don't know if Fran remembers this now, but it was at this time I knew she was an awesome lady.

Like nearly all Stephen King stories, Misery was later adapted into a movie by Rob Reiner. As a huge fan of King, I'm as critical as everyone else regarding movies based on his books, and have to say, along with The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist, Misery is one of the better ones.

SPIDER!  I'LL GET 'IM!

In fact, Reiner's version actually improves on the book, most notably during the always-hard-to-watch hobbling scene. In the book, Annie simply chops off Paul's foot. But since bloody gore isn't nearly as effective as showing body parts distorted into impossible angles, watching Wilkes hammer both ankles into submission remains one of the all-time nastiest moments in movie history.

Still, because of the baggage I carried from the original story, it was difficult to separate Annie Wilkes from my mother-in-law. Sure, Kathy Bates nailed it and totally deserved her Oscar for the role. But for me, based on what I was thinking as I read the original novel, Fran was Annie. As far as I know, Fran was never an actor, not even in high school theater. Too bad, because she would have been as awesome as Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates.

Today, the rest of the world cannot picture anyone else besides Kathy Bates in this iconic role, and I’m probably the only one who once thought his mother-in-law would have been better.

20 Things We Learn From Watching INDEPENDENCE DAY

Starring Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Margaret Colin, Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, James Rebhorn, Adam Baldwin. Directed by Roland Emmerich. (1996, 145 min).

1. Dogs are able to outrun massive, rolling fireballs.

2. When someone informs you she is a dancer, it is natural to assume she means ballet.

3. Even though they traveled "90 billion miles to get all rowdy,"  aliens will still rely on our clunky little statellites to wage their attack.

4. Jet fighters can bank on a fucking dime. Well, at least Will Smith can. Harry Connick, Jr...not so lucky.

5. Even though these creatures are wearing protective bio-mechanical suits, it is possible to knock them unconscious with a single punch without breaking every bone in your hand.

6. The United States is a much smaller country than we were taught in school, because even though most of these characters are separated by thousands of miles, they are all able to converge at one strategic spot within just a few hours.

7. Smoking cigars makes you cool.

8. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin must have watched the original V television series when they were younger. (see below)

 

V - The Original Series

Independence Day

9. It is possible for a human being (Will Smith, at least) to expertly fly an alien fighter simply because he's “seen these things in action” one time (I guess that means Smith can race in the next Daytona 500 if he wants).

10. The rest of the world will wait around helplessly for Americans come up with a plan to defeat the invaders, because America knows how to handle this shit.

11. Along with Air Force One, this is the kind of movie that Bill O’Reilly probably masturbates to.

12. An alien race, which has mastered interstellar travel and developed technology to commit worldwide genocide, but apparently has never heard of virus protection software, can be rendered defenseless by a single nerd with a laptop...

13. ...said-laptop is an Apple computer, which is so versatile you can plug it right into the dashboard of an alien ship.

14. It is impossible to set timers on nuclear weapons past thirty seconds...

15. ...but that’s okay, because thirty seconds takes a hell of a lot longer to elapse in outer space than it does on Earth.

16. You can destroy every major city on Earth, wipe out 90% of the military and kill millions of people, but still have a happy ending.

17. You can make a huge, dumb, audience-rousing blockbuster that isn't mostly CGI.

18. Jeff Goldblum, simply by being Jeff Goldblum, makes every movie funnier.

19. Idiotic doesn't always mean bad.

20. Not every blockbuster needs to be a franchise. Of the 50 top grossing movies of all time, Independence Day is one of only nine movies which didn’t launch a franchise or isn’t a sequel itself * (the others are Titanic **, The Passion of the Christ, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Finding Nemo, Forrest Gump ***, The Sixth Sense, Up and E.T. ***).

* However, Dean & Emmerich have recently been threatening to make, not one, but two sequels, shot back-to-back.
** Titanic II, by mockbuster kings, The Asylum, doesn’t count.
*** A sequel was planned at one time, but later abandoned.

ZOMBIE: A Review In Verse

Starring Tisa Farrow (Woody's ex-sister-in-law), Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson. Directed by Lucio Fulci. (1979, 91 min).

Once upon a time in a land across the sea
There lived an old man who hailed from Italy;
Lucio was his first name, Fulci was his last.
And he liked to make movies quick, cheap and fast.

The job of directing, he thought he understood,
But the truth of the matter is he was never very good;
He tried making comedies and westerns and such,
But none of them boosted his income too much.

For a brief bit of time, he wallowed in despair,
Because he truly loved his directorial chair;
"I need a big hit to establish my name,
But all of my movies are so silly and lame!"

Then one day it hit him like a truckload of bricks...
"If I can't make them laugh, I can sure them real sick!
I'll load-up my movies with violence and gore,
And if I go way too far, I'll throw in some more!"

There was cash to be had in making filmgoers ill,
And required a minimum of directorial skill,
So he drilled, disemboweled and beheaded his actors
Whose thespian skills were secondary factors.

It became Fulci's mission to always provide
Bleak brutal carnage for gorehounds worldwide;
His movies became international hits;
It didn't seem to matter they were celluloid shit.

When Fulci made Zombie, it left little doubt
Of the power of gore to one's filmmaking clout;
A rip-off of Romero, many critics have said,
It's oft-hyped as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead.

But the movie itself really offers no such parity
Because Zombie is mostly unintentional hilarity;
The acting is shitty, the dubbed voices a joke,
And just what was the shit the film's editor smoked?

The music sounds like it was composed in a day
On a cheap toy keyboard, with which my kids once played;
There's gratuitous boobies - Yay, boobies! That's great! -
But those who bare boobies meet a nasty-ass fate.

Zombie is a film in which talent is replaced
By split-open skulls and an eye-punctured face;
And though the entire tone of the movie is dark,
There's more comic relief when a ghoul fights a shark.

This is the film that made Fulci a star,
And this was, at the time, his goriest by far;
He's since been called the "Godfather of Gore,"
Though Hershell Gordon Lewis held that title before.

He's got lots of fans who oft-sing all his praises
But there is one vital point that this platitude raises...
The guy had no talent of his own, to be told;
Just a lot of disembowelings for the public to behold.

Fulci’s later films made even less coherent sense;
"My horror is surreal!" was his usual defense.
Folks call him a genius of this type of movie,
But his effects crew are who makes them so groovy.

Fanboys worldwide might be screaming for my head;
To them, I propose another question instead:
If you think he’s so awesome and my opinion stinks,
Then how come the eye-victim in Zombie never blinks?

TWO-MINUTE WARNING: The Pros & Cons Of Dollar Tree Sunglasses

Starring Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Marilyn Hassett, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon. Directed by Larry Peerce. (1976, 115 min).

I love Dollar Tree. My family and I go there at least once a week because we can cruise the aisles and fill our shopping cart with shit we generally don’t need. And there isn’t a better place in the world to get snacks...all kinds of craptastic stuff, like pizza-flavored potato chips, honey-mustard puffs and gobs weird-ass candy...you know, things no sane person would normally buy at Safeway...but hey, for a buck?

There’s a lot of useful stuff at Dollar Tree, too. That’s where we buy all our holiday decorations, birthday cards and wrapping paper. Why not? Spending five bucks on a roll of wrapping paper only makes sense if you’re gonna reuse it, and I defy you to name a single person in your life who really gives a damn about your effort to find the perfect, clever birthday card.

We also buy all our sandwich bags, dog toys, school supplies, stocking stuffers and cleaning products from Dollar Tree. If you have little ones, it’s the perfect place to pick that last-minute gift when he/she is invited to a birthday party. After all, why clean out your wallet for a kid you hardly know?

There are, however, some things you should never buy from Dollar Tree. Their deodorant is like applying grease under your arms, the main ingredient to their shampoos is water and a pack of AAA batteries will power your Wii remote long enough for one or two games of bowling. And whatever you do, do NOT buy Dollar Tree light bulbs. We bought a pack of six, and the first bulb exploded the second we flipped on the living room light switch, catching our curtains on fire and permanently frying the lamp we screwed it into.

Another thing I eventually discovered not to buy is sunglasses. Sure, a buck is a great deal for such an item, especially considering my luck with them. Cheap or expensive, designer or generic, I tend to lose or break them within a few weeks. We do a lot of boating in the summer, and I must have at least a dozen pair sitting at the bottom of the Columbia River by now. At first, Dollar Tree seemed like the perfect solution; racks of cheap shades which, if lost, no big deal. The problem is that Dollar Tree sunglasses only fit right the first couple of times you wear them. After that, they tend to sit on your face crooked. Since how my sunglasses look is at least as important as any practical purpose they might serve, I have an office drawer full of shades that no longer make me look as cool as I often assume I am.

What does a drawer of discarded Dollar Tree sunglasses have to do with Two-Minute Warning, a 1976 disaster thriller about a crazed sniper picking off football fans in a packed stadium? Almost nothing, save for way I watch that movie now.

Two-Minute Warning isn’t exactly a disaster movie in the purest sense, but it looks and feels like a disaster movie, with a lot of the same qualities...simple story, huge cast, needless sub-plots, spectacular deaths, scenes of mass panic, Charlton Heston. Disaster was, and still is, my favorite genre, so of course I wanted to see it when my thirteenth birthday rolled around. Since it was rated R, Dad graciously offered to take me.

This was actually a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, I’m pretty sure this was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater (I was still a few months away gathering the courage to sneak into them on my own). But even if it wasn’t, I’m 100% positive it’s the first and only one either of my parents took me to because I wanted to see it. I remember strutting around in middle school the week before, crowing to anyone who’d listen that I was gonna see an R-rated movie...a grown-up movie. Everyone stop, behold and bask in the presence of Dave...the boy about to became a man through such manly activities as watching a manly movie.

Second, it was Dad who took me. I always had a decent relationship with him and, and for the most part, we got along just fine. But aside from soccer (he coached the team I played on), we never had a lot of common ground, and almost never did anything involving just the two of us. For all I knew, Mom was the one who volunteered Dad to take me to the movie, but it was a huge deal. This was my adolescent version of a guys’ night out! And although movies have never been Dad’s first choice of entertainment, because the plot of Two-Minute Warning centered around football, it was he who provided the first bit of useless-but-fascinating movie trivia I ever heard: Joe Kapp, who plays an aging quarterback in the film, was a once a real-life QB for the Minnesota Vikings.

The movie itself is about a psychotic sniper who manages to perch himself behind the scoreboard at LA’s Memorial Coliseum during the championship game. We’re supposed to assume it is the Super Bowl, but since the filmmakers received no cooperation from the NFL, it is called ‘Championship X.’ Similarly, both teams playing are not real NFL franchises, either (long-range shots used for the film consists of footage from a college match between Stanford and USC). I’m still not sure why the NFL refused to cooperate with Universal in the making of this one, yet allowed Paramount to film the climax of Black Sunday during the actual Super Bowl. I guess it depends on who a producer knows.

In Two-Minute Warning, we never actually see the sniper until the end, though we are provided shitloads of POV shots, from his initial practice kill (taking out a bicyclist from a hotel window), his long drive to the Coliseum, his trip through the stadium turnstyle, to finally sneaking past a couple of guard dogs (bad dogs indeed) in order to get up behind the scoreboard where he’ll eventually start picking-off the cast.

Meanwhile, the game commences, during which time we are introduced to characters whose only purpose is to die, like Jack Klugman as a gambler whose life depends on the game‘s outcome, Beau Bridges as a family man who smacks one of his kids when they mention he’s unemployed, Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket who utters only one line in the whole movie, and David Janssen & Gene Rowland as a bickering couple. None of these characters have any baring on the plot whatsoever, but without them, like most disaster films, Two-Minute Warning would be thirty minutes long.

Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes star as a police captain and SWAT commander brought in to prevent the sniper from opening-fire. Heston has been in more disaster movies than anyone else I can think of, so he's gotten pretty damned good at phoning-it-in. Cassavetes was always respected in the 70s, but only showed up in audience pictures like this to finance his own quirky little film projects. So even though these two provide the star power, both of their characters are equally useless because, if they were truly good at their jobs, there would be no movie. Who the hell wants to watch a movie about a sniper who’s prevented from sniping?

So, yeah, at the game’s two-minute warning, our sniper starts blowing secondary cast members away. Even though there’s almost no action for most of the film, the last fifteen minutes are pretty wild, and the blood flies like it's exploding from water balloons. This really is a violent movie, and maybe even a bit more disturbing today, since it seems like some nut is blasting random people every week. The killer’s motives are never explained (we don’t even get a look at him until he has been taken down after shooting dozens of innocent people).

There are, however, some bits of unintentional hilarity. For example, once the sniper starts shooting, panic ensues throughout the entire stadium, which is understandable. We see numerous scenes of the terrified crowd scrambling for the exits, fighting, crushing and stepping all over each other in the time-honored tradition of self-preservation. But this chaotic melee continues outside the stadium, with hundreds still screaming, fighting and shoving long after any rationally-behaving person would realize they are already well-out-of harm’s way.

Then there are the sunglasses. Most of the manliest cast members (Heston and Cassavetes included) are wearing sunglasses through much of the movie. No problem there because, unless you are a total douche bag, sunglasses make most people look cooler than they really are.

That is, if they fit right.

I’ll be the first to admit that Two-Minute Warning is gratuitously violent, melodramatic, overacted and just-a-tad nihilistic, and critics generally hated it those all those reasons. Still, I have fond memories of the film because it was one of those father-son moments. But even personal nostalgia couldn’t keep me from eventually noticing that, upon later viewings, when Heston shows up at the stadium, his sunglasses don’t fit his face right; one lens is obviously higher up his forehead than the other. And it isn’t just one scene; it's throughout the whole movie. Didn’t anyone behind the camera notice this...even once?

Then I noticed a few characters in the background who had ill-fitting eyewear as well. It got to the point that, whenever a character appeared in a scene wearing glasses, I focused more on whether or not the shades were crooked than what he or she added to the plot.

But it gets worse. When Cassavetes shows up, at first his shades fit perfectly. But later, they are so askew that he looks like he’d just been in a bar fight, and I fought the compelling urge to scream, “Hey, fix your fucking glasses!” I can’t believe nobody, not even the director, noticed how stupid Cassavetes looked during the final scenes, just because of his glasses. One would think, with the millions it costs to make a film, that somebody, even the caterer, would have noticed this.

I dunno...did they have Dollar Tree stores back then? Did the costume designer stop by a store, scoop up all the cheap shades and slap them on the actors’ faces just to shave the budget a bit? Didn’t they know that wearing Dollar Tree sunglasses is far less cool than wearing none at all?

Two-Minute Warning is another one of those movies that’s forgotten by most people, and never-seen by even more. For me, it’s still a lot of dumb, disreputable fun, even with all the ill-fitting eyewear. I suppose, in this post 9/11 era, like Black Sunday, its once-silly premise might be taken a tad more seriously, but I don’t want to go there.