MasterChugs Theater: ‘Cheap Thrills’

If you desperately needed money, what would you be willing to do in order to get your hands on a lot of it quickly?

Living to its title, Cheap Thrills poses a version of this question, setting up a game in which a pair of wealthy sadists offer two hungry guys wads of cash in exchange for escalating acts of humiliation and violence. Provocative but not so extreme as to keep it out of mainstream theaters, the film has commercial potential and should also connect with arthouse admirers of such cruel auteurs as Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke. It’s definitely not for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good movie. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Cheap Thrills’

Meet the androgenous gingerbread person cookie

The War on Christmas starts earlier every year.

A bakery in Melbourne, Australia is kicking things off by offering a genderless, vegan gingerbread person cookie. And it’s not even Halloween. Is this really necessary? It’s not like gingerbread men are waving around their gingerbread penises (unless you’re at a bachelorette party around the holidays), so why can’t we just let these men have their dignity? At least make them non-vegan, it’s inhumane not to.

And doesn’t Australia celebrate Christmas in the June or something?