“When good smores go bad….real bad.”

How intelligent can snack food get? I often pondered this question while staring blankly into my nearly empty refrigerator late at night. A small cup of vanilla pudding mockingly stares back at me as the only remaining item that’s edible. Fortunately not only is vanilla pudding delicious and packed with sugar, it’s also not an alien life form that oozed up from the earth’s center to take over my mind…. or is that just what the pudding wants me to think?

In “The Stuff”people aren’t so lucky to have passive desert snacks. Instead some backwoods hillsman decided to taste something he sees bubbling up from the ground…because when you can’t identify something it’s always a good idea to taste it! Before you can say mass marketing, the yogurt like substance is on every shelf and in every refrigerator in America and appearing in lots of bad 80’s commercials.

Not everyone is not hooked on it though. Our pint size protagonists, Jason, in the obligatory “annoying kid who can’t get killed” role first realizes the sinister nature of the snack when he sees it crawling in the fridge. His family is hooked on The Stuff trying to get him to join their new diet plan but Jason thinks fast and fools them by eating some shaving cream instead. Jason is really the McGuiver of his time. Meanwhile A coalition of ice cream executives decide to hire an industrial spy, David “Mo” Rutherford…where the Mo stands for “needs mo acting lessons.” David’s southern charms his way into the corporate headquarters of the Stuff to try to find out how it’s made. Things are not as they appear though. The townsfolks are always eating cups of The stuff, have apparent gastoral problems and constantly spray yogurt out of their faces. That eventually makes David a tad suspicious. The laid back way Dave just matter-of-factly reacts to the horrifying events around him is pretty hilarious to watch. It’s like southern charm and witty southern banter are his only defense.

We also have some militia army guys hiding out in an abandoned renaissance festival castle just itching for the opportunity to fight vicious snack-food. David and his girlfriend enlist them to help fight “the Stuffies” and let the rest of the world know the truth. but as you well know fighting alien yogurt with bullets is like trying to nail jello to a tree.

There’s a special cameo of The Chocolate Chip Cookie King who steels the show among the various annoying standout characters most of which we find out have creamy nugget centers and there’s lots of blob-like marshmallowy evilness trying to stop our heroes fight to save humanity. All in all, a fun time so I’d say check it out. You really can’t make attacking yogurt very scary, but you can often make it hilarious.

Keep an eye out for…
- human smores
- way too southern southerners
- toasting marshmallows with no campfires
- grocery market snackfood vandals
- attack of the albino blob
- the ice cream mafia
- the evil land of dairy queen…a gravel pit of non-fat yogurt
- shaving cream eating
- The Chocolate Chip cookie King

“Come ‘n listen to my story ’bout a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed
And then one day, he was shootin’ at some fools
And up through the ground come a bubblin’ food.
The Stuff that is. alien yogurt, evil ice cream”

rated 8.4 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Stuff

“I hope my car rental insurance covers this.”

Take note geeks on love patrol, if you want to get the ladies you simply need to wear a pink tu-tu and accidentally fall into a barrel of toxic waste thereby become hideously deformed. It will give you super hero strength, motivate you to fight evil, and change your voice to a someone who sounds like they should do Viagra commercial. This is what our leading man Melvin, the soon to be Toxic Avenger, demonstrates to his helpless viewing audience.

Melvin , a local mop boy nerd, works at the Tromaville Health club where all the brain vacuous jocks and bimbos like to hang and out collect new community diseases in the jacuzzi. A group of these dumb teens decide to play a prank on extreme-nerd Melvin which causes him to jump through a window landing in a passing by truck of toxic waste. And as all us comic book geeks know toxic waste gives you super powers.

Melvin turns into the Toxic Avenger…look out Batman and Superman…Toxic avenger has unregulated EPA laws on his side. Eesh at least Aquaman could control fish with his mind. Toxie is inexplicably drawn to fighting evil and starts his crusade to literally mop up the town (leaving behind a mop on each of his criminal victims…. and the fresh scent of pine.)

The victims range from cross dressing muggers to gun touting pro wrestling rejects which Toxie equally serves up like a fast food value pack. After beating a criminal with his own arm Toxie’s tender side is revealed when he finds love in a blind girl (dumb, blonde, and blind..a toxic mutant’s perfect soul mate). She decides to move in with toxie, they make passionate toxie love, she redecorates, throws away his cool stuff then forces him to go camping. Pretty typical relationship stuff.

Toxie is a busy guy though with his own revenge hit list as he systematically wipes out the kids who made fun of him at night while his day job is being a good samaritan mutant helping grandmas cross the street and opening jars for limp wristed town folk. I could see politics in the future for the Toxic Avenger with that sort of mass appeal. Overall a great introduction the movies of Troma Entertainment where if it ain’t weird and degrading then it ain’t on film. So check it out now and decontaminate your DVD player later.

Troma Films…..aren’t those the same guys making a movie about a zombie chicken?

Keep an eye out for…
- man beaten with his own arm
- deep fried finger food
- biker road kill
- toxic redneck haulers
- pink poka-dotted tu-tu’s
- charcoal roasting
- toxic home decoration tips
- sundae ala mode bad guys
- defective gym equipment
- blind girls with extreme guide cane collections
- midget dry cleaning
- braille mirrors
- bikini camping

rated 7.9 out of 10 for the movie

Learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Toxic Avenger

“Dude, you’re like a giant Q-tip!”

Before Johnny Depp stole the show with his drunken Keith Richards impersonation, there was the original great Pirate movie of the 80’s called Ice Pirates. In a galaxy gone dry where water has become the only thing of value, we can always count on watered down actors like Robert “made for tv acting” Urich to save the day. Mr. Urich plays Jason, the swash buckling leader of the ice pirates that also include Ron Perlman and Angelica Houston (both of which must have accidentally wandered onto the wrong movie set.) Ice pirates are not a Canadian hockey team, nor is it a musical on ice, but is a gang of rebels who steal frozen water from the government to sell to the locals. They’re not really all that intimidating as pirates looking more like rejects from the local renaissance festival equipped with laser pistols and swords. They mostly rely on the swords for their pure swash buckeling-ness.

The crew attacks a local ice carrying government ship and yes the ship even looks like a giant ice cube tray. I swear my 7 year old kid could do these special effects better himself. While stealing the ice blocks they accidentally encounter a frozen princess named Karina who Jason immediately falls in love with. He attempts to steal her from the ship like she’s the last Swasons TV dinner left in the fridge but is captured by the ruthless overlord Zorn. We know Zorn is very evil and very stupid because he says things like “Killing you would be too easy. I have something better in mind for you!” ugh..typical dumb bad guy move.

So he delays their execution by sending them to the planet Mirtha to be castrated and lobotomized and used as slaves. Instead of the traditional years of marriage that would normally take to incur such a punishment for a man, they’re put on a assembly line given a shave and almost have their twigs and berries chomped off by an vicious looking crotch claw (Yikes!). Luckily the princess decides to help them escape before that can happen and uses them to find her father who supposedly knows the secret location of a lost water planet. Hmmm…what planet could that be? give you a clue It rhymes with girth.

Jason and his Crew arrive at yet another pit-stop planet, this one covered in fog to hide the fact the movie was probably running out of budget and is inhabited by Amazonian woman who ride magical white unicorns. I think had that dream once……anyways, princess Karina doesn’t find her father but does find an annoying body-less head that looks like the guy from tv hollywood squares who whines a lot. He reluctantly helps them find the time warp after a nose tickling Guantanamo-style torture. As Jason and the crew travel through the time warp they start to age rapidly. Old people turn to skeleteons, young couples get busy and have babies, guys grow big afros and long beards, it’s like Woodstock all over again man. Will they survive and find Girth? Will they have unlimited supplies of snow cones? Will they be able to clear up a vicious case of space herpies? Check it out for yourself. You’ll be glad you did.

Keep an eye out for…

- robot kung-fu
- unicorn riding amazon woman
- extreme afros
- jive speaking robot pimps
- crotch claws
- gopher shootin’
- frog-women who drink too much
- freshness sealed princesses
- space herpies
- robot family drive-bys

I always wondered how many people can you fit on a motorcycle…this movie dares to answer such an age old question.

rated 7.9 out of 10 for the movie.

learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Ice Pirates

“How much would you pay for this stainless steel Ginsu carving machete!? But wait there’s more!”

When I first saw the trailer for this movie about 5 months ago I was nearly in shock at it’s oozing coolness. This looked like it could possibly be the next great b-movie. Could this be the triumphant return of the great exploitation horror films from the 70’s and early 80’s that I watched with my buddies on our old beat up top loading VCR? How could it possibly fail? It has zombies, guns, babes, explosions, muscle cars, and the return of Kurt Russel back to his bad ass original persona. Oh did I mention there’s a go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg? Could it live up to my hype or simply fail me like a Phantom Menace sized let down? Well I’m happy to say that not only did it live up to my expectations, it surpassed them.

The movie is like racing 200 mph with no headlights drinking 10 cans of Red Bull while playing Quiet Riot at full volume and getting hit by a giant hammer to the forehead then doing it all over again. This movie bites, kicks, slugs, and blasts your senses with buckets of blood and mayhem in a over the top b-movie nostalgia extravaganza. Actually 2 separate movies helmed by two different legendary directors taken together in one sitting give you a a total taste of what makes a great b-movie film. Complete with fake trailers between the main features and even a fake advertisement for a unappetizing restaurant near the theater there even a vintage scratched film quality that makes nostalgia freaks like me salivate.

The first movie is Planet Terror directed by Rob Rodriguez and it’s a blood soaked zombie infestation that takes no prisoners. A small town is infected with a deadly military experiment that causing the residents to break out with the worse acne cases you’ll ever see turning them into giant walking puss bucket zombies. A small band of survivors try to flee the town with help of a one legged stripper and a knife wielding rebel. After a brief intermission of some truly creatively hilarious and disturbing fake trailers the next film starts it’s engines.

Death Proof Directed by Tarantino is a a race car extravaganza psycho fueled talk fest. A much more deliberatively paced film that Terror Planet with great dialog and character building leading to some unexpected pay off moments and one of the greatest car chase sequences ever filmed. Tarantino does his typical Tarantino-izing approach to his film as we have to endure some overly long dialog to payoff to some amazing action sequences. Of course I’m not entirely convinced that this wasn’t also a deliberate reflection of those original exploitation films from the 70’s that were heavy on the talking and light on the action due to budgets. Kurt Russell plays a murderous stunt car driver taking his victims for a ride to their end in his beefed up street machine that is death proof only for the driver. Stuntman Mike meets the competition when he terrorizes a group of movie studio girls who also happen to have a couple of stunt drivers of their own.

I don’t want to divulge too much about the plots as this is simply a movie you need to experience in the theater with a group of other film fans. Check it out and please come back and post your reviews here.

Keep an eye out for…

- eye splinters
- projectile medicine
- bar-b-q secret recipe
- Terrorizing Tarantinto
- delicious Fergalicious victim
- one legged go-go dancers
- disgruntled babysitters with garden tools
- pizza faced zombies
- gun safety tips
- hood riding stunt women
- Kurt Russell smack downs
- extremely explosive parked cars

I will never look at a Thanksgiving turkey in the same way now.

rated 10 out of 10 for the movie. Yes it’s that good
learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Grindhouse

“I just can’t make sense out of these pumpkin carving instructions!”

You know you’re watching some special when you have a giant demonic bunny and Patrick Swayze as a cheesy motivational speaker both in the same film. I was half expecting spouts of Roadhouse wisdoms like “pain don’t hurt” or “Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Oh poor Patrick how far you have fallen. But fortunately he’s only a minor character in the tangled time travel web of Donnie Darko.

Jake “I’m not the same guy that plays spiderman” Gylenhall stars the title role of Donnie, a troubled teen who likes to sleep at golf courses and on roadside corners. Is Donnie just a secret binge drinker who can’t get a cab? Hard to tell, but when he starts hallucinating giant bunny rabbits who tell him the world is ending you’ve got to wonder. Donnie gets more words of wisdom from this demonic Bugs Bunny telling him to do warm fuzzy things like setting Patrick Swayze’s house on fire and flooding the local highschool. The only thing I’d think a flood in a school would do was to cut into their snow days, but it’s all part of a master plan of the creepy bunny to set thing right in the universe. Donnie’s new girlfriend Gretchen (not her real German name) is about as messed up as he is so it’s not surprising she is inadvertently killed off by a Trans-Am towards the end of the film. (sorry major plot point….Death by Pontiac.)

A breach in the fabric of time and space occurs potentially causing the universe to implode much like Sanjaya Malakar winning American Idol would do. Donnie’s only course of action is to load up his dead girlfriend in the car and take her to look-out mountain for a better view of the end of the world. Makes sense? No? Well fortunately Drew Barrrymore and Noah Wyle who play teachers at the school try to explain things but it only further confuses the viewer.

Lots of heavy time travel mumbo-jumbo-jet engine falling Donnie crushing excitement. If John Hughes was hooked on crack and was lying in the gutter somewhere in the 80’s he would have thought of this convoluted plot line. A fantastic movie to stretch out your brain muscles to along with some great vintage 80’s music make it one of the top cult films of the decade. I’d recommend watching this movie at least two or three times. It makes even more sense when you’re sober so put the beer down and give it a try.

Keep an eye out for…

- Hulk-a-mania
- pyromania
- gratuitous use of the term “Sparkle Motion”
- Trans-Am mayhem
- obsessive mailbox checking
- tramp-o-leans
- indulgent pumpkin carving
- poor jetliner quality control
- demonic giant bunnies

“Cellar door” is not the most beautiful combination of words in the english language…I like the words “free buffet”

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie
learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Donnie Darko