Oh, the places you’ll blow up!

It’s tough being a parent because, no matter how much you drug your kids, they just won’t stop asking questions. This will be no different about the death of Osama bin Laden.

This is a complicated topic, especially with your hangover from last night’s grave-dancing, so The Guys put together a few ways to explain:

  • “Osama’s on a terror farm upstate, where he can bomb and bomb and bomb.”
  • “He was a bad man, and bad men are punished by the government. Now, did you do your homework?”
  • “Did your friends tell you he was dead? Because that’s just what they want you to think!”

Or, you could just wait for the movie to explain it to them.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘American Ninja 4’

Your eyes do not deceive you: we’re reviewing American Ninja 4: The Annihilation before American Ninja 3. See, there’s a logic for that-Our Lord Dudikoff never made an appearance in the third movie of the great American movie series. Luckily, he showed up to the franchise for THE GREATEST NINJA FILM EVER.

Don’t let my words fool you. This movie isn’t filed under the movie morts for no reason. It’s bad. Oh, it’s bad. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘American Ninja 4’

MORTAL LAWSUUU-IT!

Someone gimme my techno music.

A Hollywood production company has filed suit against Warner Bros., claiming the media giant has frozen it out of developing a Mortal Kombat movie after buying up the franchise in last year’s sell off of Midway.

It’s being reported that Threshold Entertainment filed the suit on Tuesday in Los Angeles. It was the original development partner with Midway of the 1995 film adaptation of Mortal Kombat, and in 2006 signed a contract with Midway to develop another film. While Midway went bankrupt and Warner successfully bid on its properties, Threshold says federal bankruptcy proceedings upheld the agreements it had signed with Midway, passing them on to Warner.

Last month word surfaced that Warner was interested in doing a reboot of the 1995 movie, having already hired a screenwriter to the project. Meantime, Threshold said Warner had avoided communications with them, and the screenwriter news? The last straw.

LEGALITY.

The internet is not ready for Avatar

Are you feeling down? Has life just kicked you around like you wouldn’t believe? Did you get that girl knocked up, only to get fired from your job for being late too often? Is your completely bullsh*t and not a real totally real disease of Asperger Syndrome keeping you from being a productive member of society (which is totally not your own fault at all)?

Then we, repeat, cannot stress enough that YOU NOT SEE JAMES CAMERON’S MOVIE AVATAR. Because you will kill yourself.

Oh, not because it’s a bad movie. The plot is far from mind-blowing, but the graphical aspects of the movie alone are a technological achievement for the ages (not out of the norm for the director [Editor’s note: stop editorializing out of your column, Chug]). No, we say that you shouldn’t see the movie because the internet tells us that. And, as always, if it’s on the internet, then it must be true.

Recent posts on Avatar fansites have seen a slightly less than positive view toward our world. It would seem that fans of the movie are becoming depressed because the world of the movie totally outshines our own tangible world. How utterly cruel of Cameron to do such an act. Some of the posts include wonderful passages like:

“That’s all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about ‘Avatar.’ I guess that helps. It’s so hard I can’t force myself to think that it’s just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na’vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie,”

and

“Ever since I went to see Avatar I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na’vi made me want to be one of them. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it,” Mike posted. “I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in ‘Avatar.’ “

Congratulations emo kids of the internet. You’ve now made my day.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘End of Days’

It’s now 7 days into the new year of 2010, and all seems well. There have been no tentacle monsters, no winged demonic congressmen and a severe lack of cyborg dinosaurs. However, 11 years ago, that was almost a different story. Oh yes, you see, the world nearly ended as the onset of the new millennium approached. That was what we called the End of Days. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘End of Days’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘A Christmas Story’

Congratulations. If you’ve made it this far, you’re now reading about what is my absolute favorite Christmas movie of all time. And speaking of reading, let’s get on with the review.

For the uninitiated, A Christmas Story ranks as the best holiday movie ever, better than Scrooged, better than A Christmas Carol (pick a variety), better even than It’s a Wonderful Life. Based on the book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd, it’s a period piece set in roughly 1940, telling a series of vignettes about a young boy that’s 9 years old in the weeks leading up to Christmas. He faces down bullies, witnesses a dare match over whether a tongue will stick to a frozen metal pole, gets his mouth washed out with soap, and sees the holiday turkey devoured by dogs… and all he wants is a BB gun! But as everyone tells him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”

And with that line, the movie went down into the annals of pop culture. But, there’s more to the film than just quotable dialogue. What makes this film so good? Hit the jump to find out why.  Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘A Christmas Story’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Shaolin Soccer’

While movie stars such as Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li and Jackie Chan have become household names in North America, one of the biggest names in Hong Kong cinema is, for the most part, still relatively unknown. Funnyman Stephen Chow has built his career on absurdist humor and Jim Carrey-style shenanigans in films such as The King of Comedy, From Beijing with Love, and The God of Cookery (which was slated to be remade into a Jim Carrey vehicle before falling into development hell). Unfortunately, because of his penchant for Cantonese wordplay and in-references to Chinese culture, it has been difficult for his films to find audiences outside of his native Hong Kong and China. Last week, we explored his most recent foray into American cinema, Kung Fu Hustle. This week, we take a look at his debut trek into foreign waters, Shaolin Soccer-the good version, that is. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Shaolin Soccer’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Pineapple Express’

For the final bit in our Apatow retrospective, we take a look at his most recent movie, one that hits one of the easiest genre types of all: the buddy comedy. Yes, I’m talking about Pineapple Express, a stoner comedy that partakes of a gentle indie vibe before hitting the hard stuff for a major Shane Black-style blowup and meltdown.

If you think you’ve seen this movie before, well, that’s probably because you caught one of its multiple inspirations. It was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who turned their adolescent agonies into Superbad, a charming smutfest about three hormonally freaked-out teenage boys. The two screenwriters have become major since then, in particular Rogen, who also starred in Judd Apatow’s family-values comedy Knocked Up and has recently lent his voice to one too many children’s movies. In some respects Pineapple Express plays out like a louder, nastier, more violent and ostensibly adult follow-up to Superbad, except that Rogen, who had a supporting part in the first film as a slacker cop, has moved far enough up the studio food chain to now take a starring role.  Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Pineapple Express’

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Superbad’

Yes, the teen sex comedy has been done to death. No, there is hardly a need for another movie with horny teenagers looking for a big score. Yet, Superbad is easily the new American Pie, and fully justifies its existence.

It takes one sequence for Superbad, directed by Greg Mottola but produced by Judd Apatow, to solidify itself as the new king of teenage sex embarrassment, and it happens to involve far more than man-playing-teenager-on-pie fornication. This is unquestionably crude, obnoxious, and flat-out offensive from the first words spoken in the movie. It’s targeting a specific crowd, and it simply nails the demographic flawlessly. Isn’t it just grand? Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Superbad’

Marvel is officially Un-American

Captain America still refuses to give us a quote.Non-American? Unamerican?

Whatever, Marvel is no longer a good American company.

It’s been a little more than a year since Marvel killed off Captain America, cowardly shooting him in the back with a sniper rifle. You’d think they’d treat the guy with some respect now that he’s dead right? We mean, even Nixon got the golden boy treatment when he kicked off.

But no! They’ve also editted his cameo out of the new Incredible Hulk film!

For shame, Marvel! What happened to loving your country and countrymen who stop bullets with flag-colored shields? Now say 10 Pledge of Allegiances and all will be forgiven.