Warehouse 13

Did anybody here watch this show regularly? I remember it, and I know I saw at least a few episodes. I don't think I was really paying attention though. I probably just had it on as a distraction, while I was making sandwiches, or something along those lines.

Anyway, in the US, the SyFy channel appears to be showing some kind of Warehouse 13 marathon this weekend.

So anyway, Joanne Kelly is amazing!! I'm probably just noticing this because she's such a babe, but, she seriously kicks ass. Literally! She beats the living crap out of characters who give her character shit. I wasn't expecting it, so the first time it caught me off guard. And now I see that, at least in the first few episodes, it appears to be a consistent theme, that she is a street fighter to be reckoned with. I can't decide if it's supposed to be funny or awesome... possibly both. I'm just gonna stick with awqesome. It's amazing to watch.

Another strong point of this show: it seems to be loosely based on the old Canadian show Friday the Thirteenth, that they used to show in the US on the USA network, I think. That makes a lot of sense, ha ha. Anyway, it shares with that show the idea of a couple of people who have to go semi-undercover on missions to retrieve items with some kind of super-powers, usually supernatural powers, although I think there is more of a science fiction element to Warehouse 13.... Also, both shows have a non-romantic couple, a male and a female agent working together, who have chemistry but not a relationship, at least in the first season. I think the old show Friday the Thirteenth introduced a third agent at some point, and things might have gotten romantic between the woman and one of them... I'd have to double check on that. Anyway, whatever, the value of not having things get romantic is that it keep things light in that way, and fun, and... I don't know, it makes me think of Beverly Hills Cop, with the relationship between Axel Foley and Jenny "Hairdo" Summers. They never got romantic,and watching them was like watching your male and female friends from your childhood neighborhood group of friends hanging out, and goofing around. It just makes the whole show more fun somehow.

Anyway, great show, I recommend the living daylights out of it, and it's on SyFy right now, as I'm typing this.

future TV shows mentioned in the Running Man (1987)

Yikes. This blogger makes the point that several of them are basically already here. https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/the-running-man-tv-how-dystopian-ics-programming-compares-to-whats-on-now/

Private Resort

Fresh off of the first Nightmare movie, Johnny Depp found himself next in the midst of a buddy sex comedy at private resort, ripe for all sorts of unjustified shennanigans. I find it amusing that there is no prologue as to why they are at the resort, nor is there an epilogue of what happens when they leave. The story exists solely in the Private Resort.



Ben (Rob Morrow) and Jack (Johnny Depp) play our swindlers^protagonists. All they want to do is get laid, and they're not above lying about their identities and drugging girls to get it. Through misunderstandings and contrived circumstances, Ben and Jack find themselves in various predicaments that have them narrowly missing out on sexual escapades as they flee from murderous guests and inept management.

Seriously, all the manager wants to do is keep his resort respectable, but as soon as these two show up, sexual hijinks galore. The "villains" are repeatedly humiliated by our duo's tenure as the "heroes" of this eccentric 80s rom-com. He's a square for trying to do his job, and the other guy is the asshole for wanting revenge against the guys who shaved his head and tried to bang his wife? Our villains are entirely sympathetic. Or rather, they would be, if this was a real-world situation. But no, this is a private resort, baby. Anything goes apparently.

This movie glorifies bikinis, and that's always a wonderful thing. But this movie also delivers the boobies. Hell, the first of many subplots has Johnny Depp trying to bone Leslie Easterbrook (fresh off of Police Academy), and she's always been known for hers.

Jack and Ben run amok of the place. Making enemies at every corner, they never seem to get laid, and they have a blast (not) doing it. If you've seen an 80s movie before, you can figure out how this one ends, but it's all about the ride^girls.

Objectifying women is bad.^{This movie had some hot sluts in it.}


Want to see her take off her clothes?
What? "Not really?"
Yeah... I know what you mean. She looks weird.
She's a weirdo character, but come on.

https://junkepics.com/post/dump-file.php?file=file/1/image/private_resort_unclothed.jpg

#Review

Pizza

I eat a lot of pizza. Sometimes, I think the pizza is eating me. After work, I always check for pizza on clearance. I recently discovered Detroit style pizza and it's fucking good eh. And breakfast pizza is my SHIT. But I'll eat any pizza, so the more toppings, the better. Supreme is good because it tricks the pizza into being a bit more healthy since it has veggies.

Are you a ninja turtle like I am? What's your favorite pizza type/place?

Crime Challenge 2022

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/60cf295e0062cf15c4901f7280d6c98233353df7/0_10_2293_1375/master/2293.jpg?width=465&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=3ba066208d3b7fb20b17db44c099da7f

Welcome to the 2022 Crime Challenge. It's been 3 years since the last one so it's about time we got our hands dirty.

You can watch any movie or TV show involving crime. If in doubt, please use IMDb or any other major movie database to check if a movie is tagged with "crime". However, certain superhero or slasher movies will be allowed but crime must be an integral part of the plot i.e. if it's a slasher then the police investigation must be a major feature of the movie (e.g. giallo), not just a masked killer going around butchering people. Documentaries are also allowed.

You get one point per minute watched.

This challenge runs from 00:00 on June 1st to 23:59 on June 30th.

Please use the shoutbox for any questions, I will not be posting a separate discussion thread.

Make your spot below!

Fireworks

OK, no sane person would call fireworks a sport, but it's a spectator activity, soooo... well, whatever, just keep reading if you want to read my comment.

I am usually too scared to go out to large public gatherings these days, for various reasons you can easily guess. But, there is a hill near where I live, and from the top of the hill you can watch multiple towns having their foreworks displays, all at once, at this time of year. It's pretty cool.

This year I could see at least eight towns having their fireworks displays, all along the horizon. I'm making it sound better than it is, because trees do block some of the fireworks, and also because the fireworks appear very close to the horizon, at a distance. I think some of the towns whose fireworks I was watching are probably fifteen or twenty miles away. I still think it's pretty cool though... you can see at least some bursts of color all along the horizon, and you can even hear the booms from some of the closer displays.

I say that I could see "at least" eight towns, because in one direction I think I might have been seeing two towns, lined up, one in front of the other. It's hard to tell, at a distance.

The two closest displays, and therefore the most impressive, were Boston's Esplanade fireworks, and also the... um... well, another fairly local display, somewhere in or near Brighton, MA. (That's the same Brighton as the Michael Harvey novel called Brighton, if there are any Michael Harvey fans reading this). I'm not sure exactly which display that was, there have been a few of them scheduled in that area, and sometimes they change their schedules a little, so it's hard to figure out online what the hell I was looking at.

Anyway, I wasn't the only one up there, but luckily there weren't enough people present to attract any mass shooter maniacs. Whew. So, I didn't get shot, and I didn't get Covid, as far as I know, and I got to see a shitload of fireworks. So, all in all, a pretty fun night. Had to share.

Which cities need more stories set there?

Box, please feel free to edit my subject line if you want, so it says movies or books instead of stories, or put this post in a better category, or whatever you want... I am just rambling here, I'm not sure where to put this.

I was just thinking about this... I have probably posted this general idea here before, but not for a while, I don't think. Anyways, what US cities do you think need, deserve, or whatever, to have more films, TV shows, and/or books set there? It can be your own home city or place of birth, of course.

I can remember, when I was a kid, thinking that it sucked that everything in any movie or TV show was always taking place in New York or Los Angeles, but never where I lived (Boston area, various towns). But in this century... Jesus, there have been shitloads of Boston movies and movie stars. Some other place needs to get some attention paid to it.

Ready Player One was supposed to be somewhere in Ohio... so, OK, that's a start. The Wire was in Baltimore... Georgia (and later Virginia) had The Walking Dead... Or, I keep thinking St. Louis, Missouri is massively under-recognized. It was a really important place in the 19th century, but... well, whatever. Or even any small town or city anywhere out there that has some kind of significance that gets ignored, for whatever reason.

Does any place leap to mind for anybody, any place that just makes you say "why in the name of all that's holy is this place NEVER in the news, never a place that is presented to the world as being suitable for millions of people to daydream about?" I know, I know, that was an absolutely beautifully constructed sentence... it's a gift.

Crime challenge 2022 - results

Not for the first time and probably not for the last, Ballz has wiped the floor with everyone (well kudos to Box who also put in a stunning effort). So congrats to Ballz for managing to watch every crime movie in existence. Give or take.

1. Ballz - 7190
2. Box - 5594
3. Markus - 1770
4. zed - 901
5. Zombie - 547
6. Troma - 401

Oh, Hi, Unmarked!



Ok, I wasn't really in the mood to write anything this week, but I gotta say something about this. The other night, I watched this movie on the Tubi that I wasn't particularly excited about, but ended up pleasantly surprised, dare I say a bit shocked. Shocked by the unbelievable level of schlock that the IMDb synopsis didn't even begin to prepare me for. A pretty ordinary-sounding movie by what I read. However, it all plays out in the most rushed, most unrealistic, ridiculous way imaginable. It almost feels like some sort of Lifetime movie, especially with the unnecessarily suspenseful score, making everything sound much more crucial and meaningful than it is. Meanwhile, nobody manages to come off like they give a fuck about anything that is happening. Way too low budget of a production to be a Lifetime movie, but it gives off those vibes nonetheless. Something about it also reminds me of legendary 2000's slasher sequel, Return To Sleepaway Camp... which is fun.

In the first five minutes of the movie, we have two 13/14 (?) year olds hanging out in the rich kid's room. Temptation is too much for poor kid as he sneaks and steals a few bucks from rich kid's drawer when nobody's looking. Next day at school, rich kid passive aggressively calls poor kid out on the stealing, who more or less admits to it for some reason. Poor kid DID come off normal enough, but is now an obnoxious dickhead who hates rich kid. We quickly cut to poor kid at home pretending to cry to his mother about how rich kid has been bullying him and accusing him of stealing. For some reason, he throws in an extra lie about the much smaller rich kid body slamming him at lunch. Poor kid's mother, who is no longer taking her medication, flips out and unfollows rich kid on "all social media". And as we now head into minute six, we then cut to the next day at school where, at lunch, poor kid attacks rich kid and slams his face into some food while threatening and berating him. Actor portraying rich kid does a below average job of appearing displeased.

Later on, rich kid texts poor kid in Spanish for some reason. He's all like 'really?", but in Spanish. Poor kid, once again, runs to his mother, this time insisting that not only is he being cyber-bullied but in SPANISH, "and he KNOWS I don't speak Spanish". Unmedicated mother has had enough and heads over to rich kid's house to have it out with rich kid and his mother. Rich kid and his mother seem to get through to unmedicated mother as she seems somewhat convinced of her son's guilt, but quickly freaks out and starts ranting about how this is going to ruin his life, so, she threatens to ruin rich kid's life instead. Now hysterical, unmedicated mother heads to the school and easily convinces member of the faculty that rich kid is a problem that must be dealt with. And that's it. Case closed. Despite being soft spoken and more polite than most kids, rich kid is officially guilty and at no point does anyone at any point in the movie budge from this belief. Every teacher, councilor, even the principal are all like "fuck this kid".

It appears to be rich kid's word against poor kid's, but apparently not. Rich kid is immediately declared guilty because poor kid's mother bitched first and was crying and not one person working at this school listens to a thing rich kid or his mom says from this point forward. Even though poor kid has no proof of anything, the faculty demands proof from rich kid, which he easily gets by recording some shit talking by poor kid with his phone. After this being brought to their attention, unreasonable faculty then accuses rich kid of invading poor kid's privacy, putting him in even more hot water. The more poor kid bullies rich kid, the more unhinged unmedicated mother becomes after poor kid cries about rich kid's reactions. And the more unmedicated mother complains to the faculty, the more angered and unfair they become, bringing them to the point of bullying rich kid themselves. It's almost like somebody who works at this school is related to unmedicated mother and her asshole kid. However, if that's the case, they forgot to mention it.

I love how out of all the times poor kid bullies and harasses rich kid, it's in front of like a dozen other kids, yet no one ever says a word, despite most reactions appearing to be that of disapproval. No faculty member asks if anyone has seen anything, and come to think of it, rich kid seemingly never even considers asking one of his peers to come forward on his behalf. Not sure what that's about. Eventually, I start wondering "ok, are they fucking with us, here?" Is this REALLY a serious movie? Everyone is WAY too unreasonable for this to be a real attempt at something. Maybe that's where I get the Return To Sleepaway Camp vibe from. Never mind the acting that would make Tommy Wiseau cringe. Seriously, it's like The Room. Unmarked is a so bad, it's good classic just waiting to be discovered. 4/10... And that's where I would normally end the write up. However, one minor detail has now come to my attention: The child actor who portrayed rich kid also directed this abomination, which I'm pretty sure makes this far less of an abomination and more of a legit accomplishment. Color me impressed, little fella! But seriously. That was hilarious! 5/10



#Review

What Streaming Services do you have?

Or more accurately, which do you have access to? And are they worth it? Would you pay for them? No, but you would gladly mooch off of someone else's account, right?

Tubi is an exploitation fan's wet dream. We spent hours tracking down these movies in our youths, and here they are on "Tubi"? For free? Call me crazy, but the ads help simulate the experience of watching broadcast tv with those little intermissions. Suffice to say, it's well worth the cost. Tubi is probably the best streaming service ever.

I'll need to jump on HBO Max for some DC catch-up, and I'll need the Paramount+ FREE TRIAL to watch the new Beavis and Butthead. Then I'll probably cancel them. Too many expenses to keep track of. Before you know it, I'll have to get Shudder again for October.

To wrap this up, I don't find any of these streaming platforms to be "essential". I do appreciate that I can pay for what I choose to, and cancel whenever I want. Imagine how our parents had to deal with cable TV subscriptions that cost that much extra, and with long-term "plans"? Ew. All we need today is wifi and a monthly charge. It's a beautiful improvement.