Angry Puppy

Have you ever wondered what John Barrowman would be doing if he hadn’t been cast in Doctor Who (and subsequently in Torchwood)? In our next episode, we talk about his role in 2002’s direct-to-dvd Shark Attack 3: Megalodon

From the CGI to the script, this movie is 100% awful, but it’s worth seeing just for this unexpected line from John Barrowman. [NSFW unless you're wearing headphones.]

Embedding for that video was “disabled by request”, but not from John Barrowman. He proudly displays the movie on his official site:

Filmed in Bulgaria in 2001, Megalodon has become a B-movie cult classic and features an ad-lib from John that has achieved legendary status among the movie’s fans.

The story is that he just made that line up on the spot as a joke on his co-star, but they left it in the movie. My guess is that no one noticed. Watch these clips, and you’ll understand how easily that could have happened: Read the rest of this entry »

Our NY Comic-Con spectacular-palooza-thon episode is now up at AfterElton.com. We recorded it last week, so adjust the temporal references accordingly!

In this episode:

• Headlines: Gay Metalheads Rejoice; Superheroes’ Domestic Partners, Whedon Alumni Update; Manazons
• NY Comic-Con: The Sexual Orientation Game; Tim Fish; Sticky Pages panel on gays in comics
• Stuff We Read: (Young Bottoms in Love; Justice Society of America)
• Stuff We Watch: (Battlestar Galactica: “The Ties That Bind”; Torchwood: “Exit Wounds”; Reaper: “Rebellion”)
• Review: Milo Ventimiglia plays gay in Cursed
• New addition to the Gallery of Gay Action Figure

Be sure to read Marc’s review on AfterElton. We also posted some of our photos on our Facebook page. If you were at Comic-Con, post your photos too!

We know, we know. The Angry Puppy vlog has the best opening of anything you’ve seen online or off, but we thought we’d open up the race for some lesser known works.

#10 - The Sarah Silverman Program
OK, so it’s not sci-fi, horror or any of those other things in our tagline. But it has everyone’s favorite gay geeks Brian and Steve. What really makes it special is Sarah Silverman’s unique brand of ego-centrism. “People call me on the phone, my parents are dead, I like cookies, why are we doing this?”

#9 - Firefly
This also makes the future list of Ten Shows That Didn’t Have Soundtracks But Really Should Have. The open beautifully sets the tone for the curious half-western/half-science-fiction series. And I can’t get that damned song out of my head.

#8 - The Simpsons
I like the one with the dancing elephants! And the one with the Flintstones! And the bizarre 1930’s one! The fax machine open! The whack-a-mole open! The Monty Python open! The Time Bandits one! The Powers of Ten one! The one with the AOL slow screen load! The awesome monster couches eating the neighborhood! Remember the one where Homer peels off the FOX network bug and stomps on it? The one where Homer evolves from a single-cell organism? And, of course, the staggering genius of the live-action recreation!

#7 - Tales from the Darkside
“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But… there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit… a Darkside.” I always wanted the announcer to replace the last two words with “Delaware” for comedic value, but then that would have ruined the moment. Granted, nobody was impressed with either the cheap title graphic or the stock footage flipping to a negative before spinning off the screen in a cheesy wipe. Look, creepy announcer dude with his scary words made for excellent TV in 1985. Just think about what it was up against. Anyone remember the theme song to Misfits of Science? (Yes, with Courtney Cox as telekinesis girl). Nope.

#6 - Doctor Who
If nothing else the Doctor Who show open wins the prize for consistency. The show launched in 1963 with an awesome jaunty theme song and a psychedelic background interrupted only by the show title, and has pretty much remained unchanged in the four or five decades since. Both the theme song and the background have evolved through various iterations, with the modern version taking the most orchestral approach to the track, while the title emerges on a nifty surfboard-like graphic. Long-time fans of the series get the added bonus of feeling like they’re really traveling through time as they sit down today to re-experience the series they grew up on.

#5 - The Tick (the animated series)
Dub dwee, dub dub dub dwee dow! We love The Tick because it’s a spot-on parody of the superhero genre. Sometimes subtle and sometimes… well, not so much. The show open nails it from the beginning with a mix of overstated sequences demonstrating action scenes and The Tick’s general ineptitude, all overlaid with a fast-paced theme song sung through with nonsense lyrics.

#4 - Dexter
This feels more like a work of art than a show open. It’s a gorgeous cinematic sequence of our anti-hero waking up on a typical morning and getting ready for a long day of examining blood splatters, hangin’ with sis and carrying out vigilante justice. We’re especially fond of any show open that can pack in so many direct and indirect references to blood. Yay blood!

#3 - Lost
Anything we write here will be longer than the Lost intro. Click to see how easily it could have gone wrong.

#2 - Battlestar Galactica
In the face of shrinking attention spans, a lot of shows these days are forgoing opening credits and theme songs altogether. Battlestar Galactica, however, has two!

You don’t care that they have a plan? OK, here’s some pretty music, awesome space fight scenes and that ever-decreasing count of the entire human population.

#1 - Cowboy Bebop
Three, two, one, let’s jam! What’s not to love about the fantastic open to this super-cool anime series that celebrates modern music against a background fusion of western and sci fi genres. The intro looks like what Roy Lichtenstein might see if he dropped acid while reading pulp novels in a really excellent jazz club. The art is incredible, the action, guns, and dancing chicks rival the best Bond opens, and that bit at the end where the trumpet freaks out is pure genius. See you space cowboy…

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I’m sure you’ve heard of the upcoming Robert Englund / Jenna Jameson movie Zombie Strippers. Unfortunately, it’s not a Freddy Krueger skinflick. Wait, did I just… Nevermind.

What you may not have known is that the movie is supposed to be an adaptation of Eugéne Ionesco’s absurdist play Rhinocéros. I never saw it performed, but I did read it in college. The funny thing is that I don’t remember any zombie strippers or stripper zombies, so I figured the zombie strippers must be metaphors for the rhinos.

I don’t have time to read it again, so I looked up the synopsis in Wikipedia. I decided to find/replace the words “rhino” and “rhinoceros” with “zombie strippers” so that I would get more of a feel for the adaptation. Sounds pretty good, actually.

Zombie Strippers begins in a small town square where Jean, an efficient, refined young man, meets his semi-alcoholic and fully apathetic friend, Berenger, for a drink. Jean upbraids Berenger for his drinking habits and his aimlessness. Soon, a zombie stripper runs through the square (off-stage), shocking all the townspeople with the exception of the indifferent Berenger. Jean lectures Berenger about will-power while a rational Logician explains the concept of a syllogism to an old man. Berenger concedes that he has a crush on Daisy, a typist at his office, but worries that she favors Dudard, an up-and-coming co-worker. Jean recommends will-power and cultural self- improvement to garner Daisy’s affections, and to improve his life in general. Another zombie stripper rushes by and tramples a cat. The townspeople debate whether or not it was the same zombie stripper and what breed it was. Berenger and Jean get in a fight over the physical specifics of the zombie stripper, and Jean storms off after calling Berenger a drunkard. The townspeople ask the Logician to clear up confusion, but his lengthy analysis makes no progress. The townspeople vow to stop the zombie strippers. Berenger expresses remorse for fighting with Jean, then says he’s too upset to culture himself as planned and instead drinks. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a kid, we had to drive a lo-o-ong way to get to the movies - 1 indoor theater at the mall and 1 drive-in. Man, I miss the drive-in.

Now, I’m lucky enough to have a dozen theaters in walking distance, from independents to multiplexes. My top pick for this weekend:

Other screenings available around these parts:

A Boy and His Dog

Director L.Q. Jones’ 1975 cult favorite is set in post-World War IV America, where one young scavenger named Vic (Don Johnson of “Miami Vice” and “Nash Bridges” fame, in a key early role) has an advantage on survival through the telepathic bond he has with his dog. However, when they come across a mysterious female (Susanne Benton), their friendship and survival are threatened as Vic chooses to follow her underground, where old society has been preserved. Or has it? Based on a Nebula Award-winning novella by acclaimed author Harlan Ellison. Also starring Jason Robards, Alvy Moore and the voice of Tim McIntire.

CJ7

This homage to E.T. is not getting great reviews, but one of my favorite movies in recent times was Korean sci-fi (The Host. See it.), so I’ll give it a chance.

10,000 BC

Saw it, don’t recommend it (unless you’re at least three sheets to the wind).

Shutter

A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident. Fearing the manifestations may be connected, they investigate and learn that some mysteries are better left unsolved. (Cast: Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor, Megumi Okina, David Denman, John Hensley; Director: Masayuki Ochiai)

Run, Fat Boy, Run

Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) is fat?

Vantage Point

With Dennis Quaid, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt and Matthew Fox (Jack, from Lost - sorry Christine!).

Superhero Movie

This is getting panned by a lot of people, but if it makes fun of Halle Berry as Storm, I’m there.

Doomsday

THIS… IS… SPAR…er …OUR CITY!

Are you going to the lobby this weekend? What looks good?