Buzzard (2014)



Buzzard is dark drama/comedy character study. It's not a horror film by any means, but I believe it would be of great interest to many horror fans. Our main guy Marty is a dickhead slacker, and possible sociopath, who scams his way through life. When some of his scams start to catch up with him he has to take off into the city with nothing but the clothes on his back and his homemade Freddy Krueger Nintendo Power Glove. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. 9/10

The House That Jack Built (Lars Von Trier Serial Killer Movie)

Film Critics at Cannes aren't pleased with Lars Von Trier's serial killer film.

https://www.thewrap.com/house-that-jack-built-lars-von-trier-cannes-first-reactions-vomitive-torturous/

Emojis piss me off

So there I am, grabbing the news feeds from wherever it is that I get them, and then I see it. In the title of one of the feed articles, I see I goddamn balloon. A colorful balloon is NOT a letter! Or a number! Or a textual symbol! How these things caught on it beyond me, but I think they're fucking dumb.

How do you even type emojis, without using some sort of special character submenu? I see this in the shoutbox sometimes, too. Actual images, which surely aren't text.

I think this is one of the contributing factors to the destruction of the English language. Instead of typing out words and sentences, people are all about emojis and hashtags. Tweet-sized micro thoughts that generally don't convey valid thoughts, but rather how lazy people are.


Plus, that Emoji Movie was regarded as one of the worst movies of all time. It bombed hard, because emojis should have never caught on.

I'm kind of in the mindset of stripping these "characters" out of posts, and I think it's even stupid that I have to do that, considering how these dumb little things are becoming a standard.

Emojis. Good or bad?

Question about B Movies

Ok, this may be a stupid question, but what exactly qualifies a movie to be considered a B movie? Is it if it's just bad? Or does it need to have a very low budget? Can a B movie ever have a large budget? Can it be a mainstream movie?

I know The Room has a reported budget of 6 million and it's now launched into cult status, so is it still a B movie?

Mainstream Movies and their B Movie Equivalents

Let's say you are up for a double feature viewing and you get to pick a mainstream movie and a B movie. The catch is both movies have to be an equivalent to each other story-wise. For example, Jaws would be the mainstream and Mako: The Jaws of Death would be it's equivalent.

Which two movies would you pick?

Avengers: Infinity War - What do you make of it?

I'll try not to spoil anything here, so here goes...


In 2008, Iron Man kicked off this "Marvel Cinematic Universe" aka the MCU, and it's gone in phases. Some of this was natural, some of this was modified when Disney would acquire the rights to certain characters down the line, like Spider-Man most notably. Shame he couldn't have been there since the beginning.

Most of these movies have been pretty fun over the years. I still haven't seen Black Panther, but I wasn't lost. I guess that means his story was rather throwaway, but I couldn't say.

So this movie begins right about when Thor Ragnarok ends, and Thanos kicks ass and takes names. He shows us he isn't fucking around, because he wants those stones. He'll come to earth to get 'em, and that's where these characters start coming together. Provided, there's never one ultimate fight with everybody, as they're divided in groups for the most part:


Iron Man, Spider Man, Dr. Strange

Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy

Captain America, War Machine, Black Panther, Bucky, Hulk Bruce Banner, Black Widow

Vision, Scarlet Witch



Seem a little empty to you? Yeah, that's right. Nowhere in this movie will you find Ant-Man or Hawkeye. They just ain't there, for some odd reason.

Bucky is pretty pointless, as is War Machine (like always), Black Widow, and Black Panther. Hulk is barely in the movie, because Bruce Banner had a hard time getting angry. Hulk was wimping out after Thanos kicked his ass, and wouldn't come out to help anyone. There's a scene with Hulk running with Captain America, Bucky, and Black Panther that isn't in the movie. Hulk is barely in the movie, and when he is, it's mostly Bruce Banner in the Hulkbuster suit. Kind of a jip, but okay.

Otherwise, everyone did great with their material. I think Vision is a stupid character, so his scenes and Scarlet Witch's were pretty meh to me. Otherwise, this movie didn't have any room for filler. There are a lot of fights and mindless action scenes, and Josh Brolin is more ominous as Thanos than what's-his-face as Apocalypse in X-Men. Thanos is actually a be-all-end-all villain, for a change, and if there's one reason for any of you fans of grim cinema to watch, it's because the ending of this movie is really bleak. I love it.

Texas Frightmare, 2018 edition!

This is my 7th year going to this convention, and it's always been fun. Over the years, there are less people I need to meet, but there's always someone interesting there.

So this is for Sunday, May 6th. I usually go Saturday, but scheduling conflicts put me on this date. Some people are only available for certain days, but for the most part, I met most of the people I wanted to meet, and then a few others.

To start it off, I met Phil Fondacaro. My friend wanted to meet him because of "Troll" and Full Moon movies. I know of him from Land of the Dead. He's gotten a bit older, but he was happy to have anyone at his table.



My pal wanted to meet Diamond Dallas Page, so I got to meet him too. No pics though, just an autograph. We talked about Devils Rejects. I asked him if he'd be in the new movie, and he told me RZ said there wasn't room enough for him, but he later found out that Trejo was cast to return. He seemed in good spirits about it though, and praised RZ nonetheless. Nice guy.

Next up is Robert 'Bronzi' Kovacs, from "Death Kiss", which apparently got released already. Still waiting to see that one, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet a guy who'll basically be playing Charles Bronson.



I also met Don Mancini, the mastermind behind all the Childs Play movies. I'm talking writer of ALL of them, and director of the last three movies. A lot of the Childs Play cast was there, and they were getting all the attention. I was surprised that he had no line, but he didn't have a banner, and it was his first con, apparently. Nice dude. Made mention of the upcoming tv series, too.



Now, for a scream queen, I met 80s icon Adrienne Barbeau. I didn't have much to say to her, but she was an essential for me.



I wanted to meet Claudio Fragasso, director of Troll 2, but his table was kinda weird. He didn't have any 8x10s to sign, and no prices listed. That threw me off, so I didn't know how to go about it. I doubt he speaks well, so I don't think I'd accomplish much in talking to him.

My pal wanted to meet Ethan Embry, though I'm not familiar with a lot of his movies. Just his 90s "Can't Hardly Wait", but he was a chill guy.



They had a bunch of Jason actors there, including Steve Dash (2), Ted White (4), Tom Morga (5), CJ Graham (6), Kane Hodder (7-10 + the game), and Ken Kirzinger (FvJ). Since everybody likes bag-head Jason (the first real Jason), I gave it a go.



I wanted to meet Charles Band again, so I could talk to him about Trancers, but he left rather quickly this day. Clive Barker was nowhere to be seen (off, in a separate room), and there weren't as many busty ladies this time around. We came in on the last day of it, so they were all there on Friday and Saturday I guess.

Really fun time. I'll end it with this great picture I got of Ron Perlman. He was charging $100, so no way was I going to pay that, so we just took a pic anyway.

McKamey Manor

Has anyone ever been brave (or thoughtless) enough to visit this "haunted house" attraction in San Diego, California?

From wiki:

McKamey Manor is a nonprofit haunted house or "extreme haunt," which was founded by San Diego, California resident Russ McKamey and originally located on his property. It is regarded by some as the "scariest haunted house in America" and is known for its violence and cruelty towards its guests, who must sign a liability waiver to get in. The Manor may give its patrons unwanted haircuts, drench them in fake blood, submerge them in water, force them to eat and drink unknown substances, have them bound and gagged or engage in other forms of emotional or psychological torture.

The house permits just a handful of patrons to enter each weekend and guests are not required to pay an entrance fee. Instead, McKamey accepts payment only in dog food for his pet dogs. The tour can last anywhere from four to eight hours and no guest has made it all the way through, despite there being no "safe word" that allows guests to leave prematurely.
The house operates year round, and there is a waiting list of over 24,000 people. As of November 22, 2014, a woman named Sarah P. held the record time at McKamey Manor, enduring six hours.

I actually first heard about it through one of the Facebook groups I'm currently in, and everyone has their own opinion on it. Personally I could never do it - and I honestly don't understand how anyone could actually •want• to sign on for something like that. I guess it definitely provides an entirely different kind of scare but .. no, not my thing. :/ I'll just stick to the haunted hayrides. 😛

Why didn't they make Pat Morita-sploitation movies?

Get a guy that looks like Pat Morita, cast him as a similar character to Mr. Miyagi.

Boom!, you've got your Morita-sploitation movie genre.

Could have rivaled the actor who had the moniker Bruce Le to make Bruce Lee Bruce-sploitation movies.

Cobra Kai

So we've moved on from Pat Morita-Sploitation and onto William Zabka-sploitation as a middle age man.

Anyway, had a ball watching Cobra Kai.

Even though The Karate Kid is the laughing stock of martial art connoisseurs with it's highly telegraphed crane kick. It was the kind of movie that made kids interested in martial arts so it served it's purpose.

Quite well done and I like that it deconstructed the original movie. There is a video out there trying to point out that Daniel was the real bully of The Karate Kid and it's like they took that idea and turned it into a TV series. Very enjoyable so far.

A much better way to modernize The Karate Kid than 'The Kung Fu Kid' (You know what I mean by that ) Big fan of Jackie Chan. Not so much Jaden Smith.