Everyone I love Goes Away...

Nirvana. Stone Temple Pilots. Soundgarden. Great bands, eh? Yep. Some of my favorites too...and they're all gone. GONE. Just like most of my favorite bands. You could, for five years or so, add the Smashing Pumpkins to this list as well. They were dead too. They're back! And now, WEEZER may be gone.

I know they do this between albums. They always claim that "this album will be our last"...well this time I'm not believing it...but it raises a question.

WHY DO ALL MY FAVORITE BANDS TEND TO TEASE ME WITH THE "WE'RE BREAKING UP" CRAP?!!!

I really can't take this. I love these guys. Is it too much for me to ask that all of my favorite bands stay together, FOREVER, and that nothing in the world would ever interfere with the status quo?!

You wont' need opposable thumbs when you can just blow them away with your arms

Ok so the new images of the Transformers have been up for a while over at Filmstalker.com and for the most part i'm pensively ecstatic. Sure, none of them look anything like what I expected them to, but they also look like they'll make for some really kick ass toys. And they even put the demo models of the toy figures up online for Starscream, Scorpinok and a few others ( I didn't like Megatron at all but that's just me )...

Starscream was the one that made me the most wet. Wet like femenine hygene gone wrong wet. And I'll tell you why. To most people the image they put up, which was all grey, looked just like one of those plastic model battleships that every one of us put together as a kid. No flash. No flare. Well, to me It was something different...a canvas. A digital canvas.

I used Photoshop and a bit of free time to sit back and pretend I was painting a model of Starscream. I took liberty with the color scheme, keeping it old school with the red and white while mixing it up a bit on what portions of his chassis would be which color, and then did some reflective surfaces on the gun turrets...( I coudln't get the decepticon logo on his pretty little wings but maybe someone else can do that ) ...so here we are: STARSCREAM....or at least, the closest we're gonna get right this moment:

Snakes on Snakes on a Plane

People are being really negative about our favorite little film. I'm here to say "Shut the @#$% up about the mothafuckin snakes on the plane!!!"

Let's be fair. First off, were we really expecting this film to break any records? No. Were we expecting even one critic to say it deserved anything at all? No.

So where do people get off being negative on it NOW? For the record, I know about 20 people who went to see it and walked out feeling great. Most recomend it to others, one of them walked out because she is deathly afraid of snakes. All in all, I think that's pretty damned good.

There are sites everywhere coming out of the woodwork to blast this movie on the fact that it only made 15 mil it's opening weekend. Well, hey. It cost 50 mil to make WITH advertising. It's topped both the U.S. and the U.K. box office. That gives Sam Jackson ammo to say "@#$% ya all@!!@" and as well I wish he would.

This movie did well to come in first. If you look at how many dollars have been spent the past 2 months at the movies, it's no wonder it performed a tad bit under it's expected take, especially when not being screened for critics.

The word of mouth is positive. It will give this film legs ( pun completely intended. ) and while It may or may not reach 50 mill before leveling off ( i'm betting it wont but I could be wrong ) you always have the DVD market. And take it from me, that is where this film is going to CLEAN up.

I've not seen this flick. If I see it and it's crap, rest assured I'll come clean and come out swinging. But for now, people, try and stay positive. It IS only a movie. And we're not looking for a sequel, so who cares what it made! THE ONLY thing that should MATTER to ANYONE is whether or not they ENJOYED the movie.

Grunthos goes to the Movies! Session one: Clerks 2 Reviewed

Well as the title implies, i went and saw Clerks 2. Is it worth it? oh God yes. It surprisingly captured the style of the first movie and even though there have been four other movies that have dealt in the same universe with some of the same characters it still feels like you never left them after the first Clerks.

The reason i liked the first Clerks was i could relate. I have worked at a bunch of crap low paying customer service jobs like McDonalds growing up and there was a movie that showed how dumb/annoying customers can be in those jobs. And Dante and Randal had a dynamic that was similar than the ones i have had with friends before. Having fun talking shit and just 'wasting their life away'. Still remained my favorite Kevin Smith movie because the others just never seemed to have the same kind of movie magic to me.

Clerks 2 is a evolution that makes sense. The characters age and they handle a sort of 'mid life crisis' without turning you off or seeming to be overdone.

The pop culture references? Better than ever. Alot of stuff in geekdom has changed in the last 12 years, with Star Wars special edition, a whole new trilogy that is looked down upon, and Lord of the Rings. And yes it was a series all about walking.

The cast is pretty enjoyable. Brian O' Halloran and Jeff Anderson play Dante and Randal like they never left the roles for a moment, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith himself do Jay and Silent Bob like you expect it. New additions Trevor Fehrmen and Rosario Dawson play their parts and never seem to overdo it with the other characters. One low point is Smith casting his wife in the very ironic role of the bitchy and controlling girlfriend. She just doesn't look hot at all and has to play a 'hotty'. The kissing scene was very awkward.

Oh ya and the raunchiness is as good or as 'bad' as ever! The Pillowpants conversation will have you laughing like nothing else for the longest time. Only topped by maybe the donkey scene. Which the whole beastiality thing is never directly seen and done in a way that works because it all happens at the worst possible time with Dante and just adds another layer of WTF at key moments.

I could relate even more to this movie because i worked fast food on and off for five years. First movie this summer i walked out of and didn't feel ripped off at all

4/5 stars

-GRUNTHOS

The Smashing Pumpkins are BACK!!!

That's right. You guys and gals out there may just not care. But this is huge for me. The Smashing Pumpkins were this really great band that didn't really fit into Grunge, Metal, Pop or anything else back in the early to late '90s (my favorite decade, BTW)...but they were plagued with problems.

From heroine overdoses ( come on...tell me no one saw that coming besides me ) to bassists thinking they could leave the band to open up an antique store ( good on you, D'arcy...D'oh! ), this band just reeked of stomache ulcers.

Their sound, however was a sonic euphoria of power and emotion. Anyone who got into their music 10% could get into it 110%. But if you didn't like them, trust me, you were missing out.
They faded away after a greatest hits record around 5 years ago and then there was silence.

Now, word has come from the band's official site itself (Smashing Pumpkins official site) that the Pumpk's are in the studio recording their new album! Holy cow!!!

Now if only Weezer and Radiohead would only do the same.

Disney will distribute Apocalypto

OH HELL YEAH!!! MEL GIBSON'S MOVIE APOCALYPTO IS STILL GONNA BE DISTRIBUTED BY DISNEY!!!

This is wonderous news for two reasons:

1: I realy really want Apocalypto to succeed. We don't have enough Aztec shit in movies these days. And heck, man. It just looks different. With Disney backing it with it's corporate muscle, this film will do wonderfully at the box office, which, of course, will give even more power to Mr. Mel.

2: Disney's been making some great decisions since buying out/being turned into a butt puppet by Pixar, and I really couldnt' wrap my mind around how the type of mistake they made back when the Passion of the Christ came out could happen agian. Disney lost their shirts on that one.

Ok. So there you have it. Something good and just happened in the world.

Superman Returns: our first review

Howdy folks. I'm here today with "That @#$% Entertainment Blog's" first review, and what better movie to begin it with, than the incredible SUPERMAN RETURNS!!!.

Now, I probably wont' have many reviews of films as soon as they come out, and that being said, my nature of being easilly pleased and overly positive for nearly every movie I see short of the Spy Kids trillogy, will probably not offend you. I find nowadays that most critics are looking for anything negative to tell you so you won't think they're biased. Well i'm letting you know before you go any further in this short, to the point review, that I am biased toward this movie. I loved it.

Throughout the entire movie, there wasn't one point where I was bored or wanted something big to happen. I found that it flowed very nicely, straddled the line of being a sequel/it's own movie quite nicely, that the cast worked brilliantly (even Kate Bosworth, whom many are flaming all over the net) and that even the kid was likeable ( thank god, though, we didn't see too aweful much of him. )

The opening almost made me tear up. It was done magnificently. The first action sequence was perfect and white knuckle inducing. Heck. I knew he'd save the day but I had no IDEA how he was going to pull it off.

In all, my favorite part was the final sequence where superman lifted the largest object you could possibly imagine to save the day. Yeah. I was on the tip of my seat wondering if even Superman was going to pull that one off.

Hats off to Bryan Singer for pulling the project out of the gutter and giving us something worth watchig out of this dead and buried franchise.

The ONLY negative thing I could dig out was the leap in logic that you had to buy that Lex Luthor's GREATEST SCHEME EVER just happened to come to fruition at the exact time that Supes just by CHANCE came back to earth. Yeah. I was scratching my head there.

But all in all, I give it the highest regards. And I'd go see it again if I thought it'd be on for another week.

Next movie on my must see list: Pirates of the Carribean 2.

And people, take it from me:
You can find something not to like in ANYTHING. And many these days on the internet have refined this art quite efficiently. But if you truely want to enjoy your life, find something to like in what you're doing. ESPECIALLY if you've paid ten bucks to get the ticket to see it. Your life will be much more fulfilled and you'll find yourself smiling a hell of a lot more.

-mogulus

Disney practices ANTI AZTEC business ethics

Mel Gibson was pulled over the other week on a DUI offense and apparently, in a drunken stupor, said that Jews were responsible for all of the wars of the earth and that the cop, if he was a Jew, was going down.

The collective world has descended upon him, our minds made up that this man is an anti semite.

Fair enough. Now it's my turn to accuse.

Disney is looking, once again, to scrap Mels' new movie, APOCALYPTO, citing this offensive behavior as their reasons. I don't buy it. They scrapped their backing of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST on different reasons.

I propose the real motive behind Disney's actions is no less than ANTI AZTEC business ethics. That's right. And they're also against Jesus.
Disney funds Miramax films, which gave us such nuggets of social responsibility as KIDS, PULP FICTION, EXOTICA and JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. These films go farther toward destroying the fabric of our ways of live than Mel Gibsons' outburst. So the only reasoning I can fathom for this is, quite frankly, that DISNEY HAS SOMETHING AGAINST MIDDLE AMERICAN CULTURE.

This post is purely sarcastic, I hope you realize. But good lord. When Disney makes a bone headed move, they take their flying leaps of logic with pride.

Where was this outrage when Roman Polanski did what he did? Nowhere.
What is it about being Anti Semitic that is such a hot button issue? I mean, good lord. It's just a religion.

Disney doesnt even believe religion has a place in the world. They even go so far as have Gay Pride Parades in their child oriented fun park where any child can see Donald Duck kissing and making out with Mickey.

So where, again, I ask you, is the logic in this move?
Mark my words, Disney, you will rue the day you chose to fuck with Mel.

Orson Wells is still dead.

Now that I have your attention, I'd like to bring to light one of the worlds' most forgotten and most influential film makers. Mr. Orson Wells. I know he's not been completely forgotten. But I do feel that he's not getting credit where he's due. Namely in shaping what we have come to expect from a director in a movie.

Orson Wells made movies back in a day when there were next to no special effects. When the script and screenplay were more important than nearly everything. And he DID nearly everything. In many of his films he starred, produced, directed and wrote. In any film school anyone will tell you the man is well remembered and respected. Outside such institutions, it's quite a different story.

I was introduced to his work when I recieved a VHS 2 pack of "The Tenth Man" and "Confidential Report" from my elder aunt for christmas... Both movies were shot in black and white, and were severely dated when compared to the films of Hitchcock. But still, you could see how far ahead of Hitchcock this man was in some arenas for the time.

Most of you puny humans are unfamiliar with this man's work. He was a pioneer. He used camera angles to play up scenes in ways that no other director at the time had ever thought of doing. He practically re-invented the art of the suspense flick. His ability to manipulate and use shadows in his films make him my complete and indisputed FAVORITE black and white film director. And you know what? He surely knew how to make a twist.

Most people in this day and age compare M. Knight Shaymalon to Hitchcock. I believe he's more like Wells. And I would surely like to get my hands on a DVD collection of his works.

Check out his library. You will NOT regret it if you're into thrillers.

Heath Ledger as The Joker...loving it more every day.

When I first heard this news that the pretty boy from "A Knight's Tale" would be playing none other than the JOKER, I was floored. I had my money on either Johnny Depp or Hugo Weaving myself...but all that's history now.

Playing the Joker in the upcoming "Dark Knight" movie is going to be a double edged sword for nearly anyone stepping into the role. Purists of the comic book will, as they ALWAYS do, hammer whomever steps into the role and will accuse him of "taking the role and making it his." And everyone else will accuse him of not being Jack Nicholsen. Neither of these views are really fair, if you ask me.

The Joker is supposed to be something of a one of a kind character. Kevin Nolan knows this. And he knows that his version of Batman is completely different from any other version that has ever been. So what does he do? He signs up someone whom you really would never have expected to play a role that you really shouldn't know what to expect from.

If you ask me, that's a great great strategy.

And the more I think about it, having a version of the Joker even REMOTELY like any other version that's existed on screen before, would be a mistake.

I'm very excited. And I'm imagining that watching Christian Bale ( Whom I have more and more respect for every day ) up against Ledger ( whom in my opinion, even saved A KNIGHT'S TALE into a watchable movie ), well, heck...you just have to expect good things.


I'm looking forward to seeing this onscreen dynamic. Hope I'm not getting exasperated for nothing.

From the Editor:

I know it's kinda lame to call myself an editor at this point in the game, but hey.
This looks like it would be a good place to tell you what you can expect from this blog.

I started this as part of my plan to have a website to host and share all of my work on. I do pretty much everything from music, to art, to video games, to works of Literature. I've even just recently become a published author...but that's another story.

I'm a frequenter of a great deal of movie forums, blogs and the like. I love movie news and also watch a fair bit of television. I have very discriminating music tastes and, while I dont' really play video games as much as I used to, I've a good grasp of the medium and am an avid fan of this type of entertainment.

That being said, this blog will be about ALL of these mediums. But I'm not going to focus on breaking any news stories. There are way better places out there for that. THIS place is a place for me to post my editorials. Opinions of what I see and how messed up or great they are. If something comes along that I feel I want to say about actors, directors, film projects, artists or anything else having to do with entertainment at large, It will end up here.

Hope you find something worth reading here. If you agree, disagree or just think I'm a nutcase, don't be afraid to comment. Let me know. I love discussing differences with others over a bottle of Jack Daniels, and promise to ALWAYS have a pint at hand.

-mogulus

Lindsay Lohan is not attractive

Dont' get me wrong, folks, the chick is cute. I even remember when she was in Freaky Friday and I had no idea who she was, I remarked to my friend something that I shant repeat here. She was a pretty swell little chick back then.

Imagine my surprise, being a 25 year old guy at the time, to find out that she was only what...14? 15? whatever. She was ILLEGAL. JAILBAIT. But man. She was hot.

THAT was THEN, and which is what brings me to the Lindsay Lohan Conundrum.

When she was ILLEGAL, man, was she not one of the hottest things on the planet?! Absolutely. But hey. I couldn't admit it then, because liking underaged girls is WRONG.

Now, she's of age. And what happened? She went skeletal. She's anorexic. She's blonde. She's a drug addict, party animal, and her breath stinks of Taurizine. She writes dirty things about Scarlet Johansen on bathroom walls ( alledgedly ) calling her names we wouldnt' even call our dogs ( unless you're just that way ) and still gets more work than perfectly capable and genuinely gifted young starlets, many of whom have NOT made anorexia a way of life.

The point of this post is basically to bash Lilo. But also to point out to women out there that when Lindsay was hot, she was hot because she was the girl next door. And the girl next door is not a drug addict, has curves, is at least partially natural looking and doesnt' behave like a diva.

If she continues this course, I forsee one of yesterdays' hottest teen stars becoming tomorrows' next big jokes. The public doesnt' need any more bitch divas...what we need is a REAL role model for our young daughters. And NO, HILLARY DUFF, that's not YOU either.

Oh and one last thing...Lindsay's music sucks ass.

-that is all.

What reality TV has done for you and me.

It was the summer of our discontent. I believe the year was 2000 and the world had not yet changed. 9/11 had not happened. Children were innocent. My parents were still convinced the internet was the devil. And my favorite show, X-Files, was in the final thralls of its 9 season run.

What I had tried avoiding for the longest time was now scratching at my door. Reality television. Survivor was big. Big Brother was everywhere. Nowhere, could an honest man turn to find a DECENT sitcom. And the X-Files were all I had.

The reason I loved the show was its MYTHOLOGY. The fact that, for a few sacred episodes per season, you were treated to this grand unfolding drama. A sweeping story of Black Oil and mysterious old men conspiring to keep Aliens from taking over the world. And of Bees.

One thing that frustrated me about this show, though, was the fact that to find this story out, you were forced to sift through shows that didn't fit into this overall story. These "stand alone" stories basically wasted my time with tales of werewolves, vampires, latrine flukeworms and enigmas. It was, for the lack of a better word, tripe. But since it was the smartest thing on TV outside of "grown up" and boring shows like ER and Law and Order ( to a teenager, Law and Order is the second level of hell, you know ), I watched every week.

When the X-Files ended, American Idol took it's place. I thought all was lost. Reality Television, with it's dumbed down "feel THIS way at THIS time" editing and hand holding way of insulting it's viewers, had taken over this last vestige of freedom on the airwaves. All was lost.

THEN CAME 24.

24 was a high concept show and a huge gamble for the network at the time. Sleek. Smart. Brainy. And if you missed even one minute of the season, you were DEAD in the water. Executives were at first hesitant to sign it up, for fear of it going straight over the audience's heads. But you know what? It did the unthinkable. It caught hold of an audience and never truely let go.

The reason 24 succeeded, and the reason that subsequent shows such as LOST, Prisonbreak and many others have succeeded, is, quite frankly from my opinion, because reality shows had insulted the viewers for so damned long that we were completely ready for something that would challenge our thought process. Something that would keep us going...and drive us CRAZY week after week.

Before the year of 2000, shows like these would never have been thought of. And now they're commonplace. Some are complete duds, like "Invasion" and "Surface"...but most shows that respect the audience's ability to suspend disbelief and be entertained succeed nowadays.

You may disagree, but I thank the Reality Show.

Without it, we would have been locked into an eternity of cheap-to-produce sitcoms and made for tv movies starring washed up, over the hill starlets, and would have missed out on these brainy, surprising shows.

seven years ago, I wouldn't be caught DEAD watching television, other than X Files.

Nowadays, thanks to shows like House M.D. , Grey's Anatomy, Bones, Criminal Minds and, yes, yes, YES, LAW AND ORDER ( I grew up ), I don't even miss the X-Files any more.

Rob Schneider bashes Mel Gibson/Gibson responds by eating a newborn child

Well, folks, looks like that kooky little runt that gets his laughs from exposing his own nipple, crude fart jokes and obnoxiously offensive comedy, ROB SCHNEIDER, wants absolutely nothing at all to do with oscar winning director/actor/producer Mel Gibson.

Schneider took out a full page ad in Variety magazine which read, in part:

"I, Rob Schneider, a 1/2 Jew, pledge from this day forward to never work with Mel Gibson, actor-director-producer and anti-Semite,"

He went on to write...

"Even if Mr. Gibson offered me the lead role in Passion of the Christ 2, I, like Bernie Brillstein, would have to say 'NO!',"

Wow. Let's just sit back and analyze the situation...Mel Gibson is pulled over for drunk driving, says some crude anti jew type stuff, then apologizes for it, and vows to make amends for his actions, and he gets this kind of treatment from the media at large.

Then Schneider, whom, let's face it, wasn't in "The Bench Warmers" because of it's stirring social commentary, decides to take it upon himself to cast aspirations on one of the greatest actor/producers since Orson Wells. Just to point something out here, this is not the first time that Schneider has taken out an ad like this in Variety. And i'm also betting this won't be his last.

Why he's decided to enter the fray here is anybody's guess. But I can't stop laughing at the surreality of it all. I mean, come on. When was the last time you ever thought of the name "Rob Schneider" and the term "culturally responsible" in the same frame of time before?

My only guess as to make sense of this situation is that this is either a joke on Schneider's part ( since he HAS to know Gibson wouldn't even wipe his ass with the likes of his acting talent ), or it's his sarcastic way of showing us all that we're over reacting to the situation by over reacting himself, thereby showing the rest of the "anti mel" movement just how stupid they look. Either way, the latter possibility is the way it's actually playing out.

I would like to believe this is a very shrewd social commentary on Schneider's part, meant to get us thinking, and that Schneider is sitting back somewhere drinking a mug o' beer with Mel and laughing about how funny the kneejerk reactions have been from the media and public at large. But in my heart, I know the truth...

Why has Star Trek Stalled?

Hey all. I figured since we here at "that @#$% entertainment blog" are geeks at heart, what better to write about in our first news post, than an editorial from my perspective on WHAT KILLED STAR TREK?

Many people have wondered and jabbed about this and come up with many different reasons, ranging from "sterility of the future vision" to "a grand dying out of trekkies, leaving the series with no fans." I propose something quite different.

I watched in awe as Captain Kirk boldly went where no MAN had gone before.
Then reveled in pure escapist fantasy as Picard went where no ONE had.

That is where the problem started, I believe.
Public correct bull$#!^.

The original series had BALLS. Kirk would hit on the chicks. He was a MAN's MAN. Picard, much to a lesser extent, was much the same, though on a slightly more liberal level. The orignal show was about exploring and finding out what the hell was out there so we could use it. The subsequent series became more and more diplomatic until it was more about finding new and more interesting reasons to let the federation get screwed over by the alien race of the week, justifying it through ideology instead of logic.


It wasn't so apparent with the Next Generation. THEY still boldly WENT. It was still fun to watch. I can't remember a bad episode of the Next Generation. The problem became MORE of a problem as the subsequent series began to come out. It seems every new series had a more "PC" captain than the last. And i'm not talking about their personalities, but rather their ethnicity and sex.

Deep Space Nine had an african american. Voyager had a female captain and a black vulcan. Oh yeah. A black vulcan. I'll repeat that. A BLACK VULCAN.


I'm not trying to say I would like to see an all white Star Trek cast. Heck. The original series was diverse and that is part of what made it so great. I'm just saying that I feel the collective inteligence of Trekkies everywhere began to be insulted as these casting decisions were made. It also seems that, perhapse, there were movies and Series being introduced when there weren't stories or inspiration to back them up.


In short, I'm hopeful for the new project, headed up by J.J. Abrams. I'm sure he can find something worth telling in this universe of hope and prosperity.

But please oh please resist the urge to have a culturally groundbreaking captain. I mean, what the heck else is left? A Jewish Navaho Indian Captain with an Italian name, and a penchant for wearing leprechaun hats?

RENDEVOUZ

Hey all!!! Figured I'd step back up on that chopping block that some call "that @#$% entertainment blog" and post this video for you.

Enjoy. : )

-mogulus

Sometimes we MAKE crap movies too

APEpocalypse-WOW

VIDEO NOT AVAILABLE UNTIL MOGULUS GETS THUMB OUT OF ASS AND HOSTS IT ON OTHER SOURCE. GOOD DAY

This blog is not only for crap movie opinions, which haven't come yet becuase the owner of the site it's attatched to is lazy as hell, but sometimes he'll make movies with the Lionhead game. There are 3 more I'm going to post someday but I dont' know when. Until then, choke on this one. It's crap. Yeah, I know..but hey. It's an experiment in embedded video. And it seems that my first real post in this blog should definitely give something other than just another editorial opinion.

See you all soon! And hope you're enjoying the site!!!

In the Beginning

In the beginning there were movies.
Then some bastards decided to get their heads together and start forcing their opinions down your throat.

That's where we come in...