Twitter accounts for large American companies apparently have the security measures of a tissue. Earlier this week, Burger King was hacked. Then, Cadillac was hacked. Now, Denny’s has been hacked.
From within.
Ugh. Oh Denny’s, your attempt to make fun of the mainstream reeks of desperation. And calories, which normally have no scent at all, and yet your menu has somehow managed to give them an actual odor.
It takes longer than you might initially hope to see how The Stuff is going to tackle the business of selling the public junk food that may be lethal, but that’s okay. The movie, a horror film spoof written and directed by Larry Cohen plays itself as comedy, such straight comedy that at moments it is in danger of becoming absurd.
Which is also okay. It’s almost pop art. This is not an animated film but nearly a reversal, behaving like a cartoon strip, down to its purposefully stilted dialogue and the stylized poses, which also mimic the happy look of actors in a television commercial.
Satire can be a great tool. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘The Stuff’
Love is in the air here at SG. Well, not really, as we tend to be more broke than flush with money, but we at least try to make an effort. Bryan McBournie loves a nice walk on a moonlit beach, and truthfully, we do enjoy the chocolates.
Okay, so it’s more of I definitely do, but if they’re connected to mint flavoring, then we’re through, you hear me? Anyways, all this month, we’ll be taking a look at some movies that have love as a theme, as we’ve done in previous years past, and along the way, we’ll be bringing back a much requested side feature. The first one up is Harold and Maude, a black comedy hailing from the long ago and far away year of 1971. Hit the jump to find out why you should watch it, especially during this month of looooove. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Harold and Maude’
Would Charles Dickens have written the movie Scrooge? No. Would he have written The Muppet Christmas Carol? Good lord no, and stab your eyes for even suggesting as such. Truth told, he probably would have written something like Scrooged, an 80s, greed-isn’t-good update of the Dickens classic. The wittiest satire of television since Network, Scrooged gives us Frank Cross, the “youngest president in the history of television,” a man who also happens to be the completely maniacal head of the IBC TV network. IBC’s holiday programming runs toward action flicks like The Night the Reindeer Died and cheesy variety shows like Bob Goulet’s Old-Fashioned Cajun Christmas. But Frank’s pièce de résistance is Scrooge, a live-from-around-the-world Christmas Eve special, featuring Buddy Hackett as the old skinflint, Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim, and a bevy of scantily clad, oh-so 80s Solid Gold Dancers.
“We’ll own Christmas,” Frank announces gleefully.
But will it own your heart? Hit the cut, true believers, to find out the answer to that question, along with why it’s the second of three traditional Christmas-time movies for me. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Scrooged’
You will never view pygmy sex the same way ever again.
Like many other dangerous and controversial comedians, the role-playing guerrilla satirist Sacha Baron Cohen knows how to draw an audience into a conspiratorial relationship with him — and then make you squirm anyway. Bruno, his newest quasi-documentary stunt comedy, is, if anything, a crazier, funnier, and even pricklier pincushion of a movie than Borat, his 2006 tweak of all things dumb, bigoted, and American. Teaming up again with director Larry Charles, Baron Cohen once more wanders the U.S. landscape in the put-on guise of an egomaniacally doltish yet weirdly resonant pest. This time he’s Bruno, a cretinous and very, very gay Austrian fashion-celebrity-fame whore in skintight hot pants and a frosted mop of Eurotrash hair that spills over his forehead like the tail of a dead squirrel. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Bruno’
If you’re a regular reader of “Take it from Snee,” then you’re probably expecting some satire. Well, not this week and never again.
You see, I’ve learned something this week: satire isn’t funny unless everyone agrees it is. In fact, the only successful satire ever written was A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, and that’s only because people don’t read it until high school after a teacher explains the joke. (Spoiler alert: British people love to eat Irish babies.)
I could go ahead and just explain every TifS, but I’m still a lazy man even when I’m no longer satirical. Instead, I’ve chosen to denounce Rick Snee’s most inflammatory statements, which I find offensive and wholly inappropriate. Continue reading Take it from Snee: No more satire
