Category Archives: Film Fodder

What would Jesus do? Probably make a much better film than “Left Behind”

When you go into a movie knowing it has an agenda of some sort, it can be hard to watch with an open mind. That’s probably why I’ve never gotten around to watching the Left Behind trilogy starring Kirk Cameron. Based on a series of Christian propaganda books, Left Behind is an evangelical story about the Rapture, one of Christianity’s most misconstrued stories that is hardly even mentioned in the Bible. During a recent press conference to promote the Left Behind reboot, however, writer/producer Paul LaLonde stressed that even though this movie is rooted in Christian scare tactics, it is not an evangelical tool to lure in new followers.

Chloe Steele (Cassi Thomson) and Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray) prepare for da Rapture, I mean departure, in “Left Behind”.

“You’re not going to get in there and get a thinly disguised sermon,” LaLonde says. “I know a lot of people have concerns as soon as you hear it’s based on Bible prophecy, ‘I’m going to go in there and get preached at.’ And that’s simply not the case. We worked very hard to make sure that this movie was accessible to everybody because everybody can be fascinated by Bible prophecy even if they don’t know it yet. In and of itself there are some wonderful stories and I don’t like to see those great stories not being told simply because they seem to always be packaged with so much in‐your‐face preaching and finger shaking that really doesn’t need to take place and doesn’t really need to be part of it. So I think that’s what Left Behind achieves and allows everybody to enjoy this story.”

He does admit, however, that the reason for the reboot and the added star power of Nicolas Cage is to spread the Left Behind message to a larger audience than the straight-to-video releases from a decade or so ago reached.

“I wanted to create a movie – to write and produce a movie – that could go out to a much broader audience and nobody’s going to walk out of there thinking, ‘Wow, I just got preached at for two hours.’ It’s not going to be like that,” LaLonde claims. “That was the main reason for wanting to do this was wanting to tell this really cool story but to tell it outside of, you know, just the walls of the church. To reach out to everybody and share this really cool story.”

Hattie Durham (Nickey Whelan) and Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage) prepare for the Rapture in "Left Behind".

Hattie Durham (Nickey Whelan) and Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage) didn’t think their adulterous plans would be so apocalyptic.

So basically he’s saying he doesn’t want to just preach to the choir this time. He wants to use a well-known actor in hopes of reaching a much larger theatrical congregation. Considering the movie starts out with a Jesus freak perusing the Christian section of an airport bookstore before accosting famous journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray) to warn him about the trials and tribulations to come, it’s immediately clear that LaLonde is wrong about the preachiness of this movie. Then we’re introduced to Chloe Steele (Cassi Thomson) who is flying in to visit her mother Irene (Lea Thompson) and father Rayford (Cage). Irene has recently taken a fanatical religious turn that has pushed Rayford, a jumbo jet pilot, into the arms of a buxom young flight attendant named Hattie (Nickey Whelan). At least that’s the direction things appear to be going as he removes his wedding ring before captaining a flight to London (with Hattie in tow) that departs just after Chloe’s arrival. The fact that Rayford has forgotten that his daughter is coming to visit is incredibly inconsiderate. And the fact that he likely plans on having an extramarital affair does not make him look any better. But those buttons on Hattie’s blouse look like they’re constantly about to pop, so who can blame him?

Given LaLonde’s claims that this version of Left Behind would be more like an episode of The Twilight Zone than an after school special about the dangers of sin, I tried desperately to overlook the religious messages that bombarded me from the outset of the film. He was right about one thing, though. This movie is not a “thinly disguised sermon” at all. It’s about as heavy-handed as a Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on your door on a Saturday morning.

Irene Steele (Lea Thompson) uses faith, not a DeLorean, to see the future this time.

Looking past the religious overtones, Left Behind is still just a terrible movie. It’s obvious that a majority of the movie’s budget was spent on getting established stars like Cage and Thompson, as well as the ensemble of attractive younger actors. And the rest of the movie suffers for it. Vic Armstrong is known for his impressive resume as a stuntman. As a director, however, he’s done very little of note. Left Behind is no exception. When chaos erupts as people start vanishing, the crashing planes and other special effects are comically unconvincing. The score is terribly distracting and rarely, if ever, matches up with what’s going on in the movie. And don’t even get me started on the finer details, such as a cheesy family photo of the Steele’s that looks like it was Photoshopped by a fourth grader.

Perhaps the worst part of Left Behind is the fact that the major Christian characters are portrayed as crazy people whose religious influence on those around them is mostly negative. Most of the people, ahem, left behind after the Rapture are, in turn, portrayed as compassionate people who care about the welfare of those around them, even if they’ve just met them. But maybe I’m just looking at this the wrong way. I mean, a lot of meaningful relationships are being established in the wake of the Rapture. And those who didn’t disappear no longer have to worry about being confronted by strangers at the airport or by fanatical family members at home. Am I supposed to believe these survivors are going to start their own utopia now that everyone else is gone and they have nothing left to lose? I’m sure the two planned sequels will prove otherwise, but that conclusion is just as logical as the one LaLonde intended. If you want to see an incredible movie (with an equally good soundtrack) about a vanishing person, go see Gone Girl instead (and read my review here).

“Innocence” is guilty of nonsensical storytelling and predictability

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Beckett (Sophie Curtis) has this same expression for most of “Innnocence”. Unfortunately it’s not because she is under any sort of spell.

A fresh take on an old formula is typically a good thing. And that’s what I thought I was getting with Innocence, a teenage horror drama based on the book of the same name. The film jolts us right into tragedy as Beckett (Sophie Curtis) and her father Miles (Linus Roache) watch as Beckett’s mother is swept away by the ocean’s undercurrent while surfing. It seems like Innocence is off to a splendidly horrific start as this must be the horror Beckett has to deal with throughout the rest of the film. Nope.

In order to cope with their loss, Beckett and her father move to Manhattan where Beckett is enrolled in a preparatory school filled with every high school cliché you can imagine (a popular and pretty group of mean girls, a somewhat goth-y outcast to bond with, etc.). Beckett befriends Jen, the goth girl (Sarah Sutherland). One of the mean girls leaps from a campus window to her demise. Am I supposed to think death is somehow following Beckett? I don’t know, but she does some research and discovers there have been other suicides at this same school over the years.

Meanwhile, school nurse Pamela (Kelly Reilly) takes a particular interest in Beckett, and an even stronger interest in her father, basically shacking up with them as soon as they arrive. I have to say Reilly is one of the better parts of this movie, just as she was recently in Calvary and a couple of years ago in Flight. Reilly has a seductive nature that lends itself to her role here as a member of a coven of Desperate Housewives-looking women who run the school. So I certainly don’t blame Miles for accepting Pam’s advances so quickly. But wait a second. Didn’t he just lose his wife? Shouldn’t he and Beckett still be grieving a little more than they are, which is hardly at all? Sure, Beckett starts having nightmares and visions, but those don’t really have anything to do with her recently-deceased mother.

Kelly Reilly as Pam, the seductive witch, is the best part of “Innocence”.

OK. So, after the one girl kills herself, Beckett starts seeing the ghosts of other girls who have committed suicide at the school. These ghosts lead her to dark alleys and other secret locations, where she soon discovers that Jen’s mom, Pam and others are part of this coven that runs the school. And the school has basically served as a farm system that supplies the coven with the virgin blood they need to maintain their power and beauty. This is all going to come back to Beckett’s mother’s death, right? I mean, she must have been involved with this coven in some way. Or maybe she was a student at the same school when she was a teenager and witnessed something this coven didn’t want exposed. Nope.

Anyway, Beckett comes to realize that these suicides haven’t been voluntary at all. Instead, these girls have been under some sort of spell cast by the coven that causes them to unwillfully commit suicide so the coven can drink their blood without committing obvious murders. And it looks like Beckett is next in line, which is why Pam has been spending so much time with Beckett’s dad. (Maybe that explains Curtis’ trance-like acting, but probably not.) To thwart the coven’s plan, Beckett calls her boyfriend Tobey (Graham Phillips), whose mom (Stephanie March) is one of the more beautiful members of the coven, and does some seducing of her own. By the time the coven kidnaps Beckett and Pam ritualistically drinks her blood, it is no longer virgin blood and is of no use to the coven.

Beckett is invited by Pam to join the coven.

Naturally, Pam instead offers to let Beckett drink her blood so Beckett can become part of the coven. Beckett spits the blood onto Pam’s face, which makes for a nice visual. Then Tobey comes to the rescue and, well, the movie ends in such a way that even a novice soothsayer could have seen it coming. Still, none of it ever relates to the loss of Beckett’s mother. So I guess that was simply an unnecessarily tragic impetus for Beckett to move to Manhattan and enroll in this witchy school. Meaning that what started out with the promise of being a new twist on an old idea ends up more like an extended episode of Charmed (or maybe even Charmed: The Next Generation). Actually, that comparison is doing Charmed a huge disservice. I haven’t seen the Twilight movies, but I imagine Innocence is (at least trying to be) to witches what Twilight is to vampires. Hence this sparkling review.

www.innocencethemovie.com

“Code Black” puts us in the middle of the chaos of America’s busiest ER

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A chaotic scene in C-Booth from “Code Black”.

To say that being an emergency room doctor comes with a unique set of stressful circumstances would be one of the biggest understatements in history. While treating life-threatening injuries and illnesses is obviously a major concern, there are countless other factors that make working in an ER one of the most complicated jobs around. In the award-winning documentary Code Black Ryan McGarry, M.D. shows us why the current healthcare crisis is a particularly challenging time for those training to be doctors, especially at Los Angeles County+University of Southern California Medical Center.

As veteran physician William “Billy” Mallon, M.D. notes in this documentary, L.A. County hospital is home to America’s busiest ER and “more people have died and more people have been saved than in an other square footage in the United States” in it’s trauma bay (known as C-Booth). The film begins at the hospital’s former location, an antiquated facility where doctors-in-training crowd around as emergency operations are done to treat potentially fatal ailments. To the viewer, these scenes are pure chaos. But to the doctors and trainees, it’s an oddly comfortable scenario, perhaps only because it is the only one they know. Even after a new hospital is built, however, the more spacious and up-to-date facility proves to have an entirely new set of obstacles to overcome despite its improvements.

“Code Black” writer/director Ryan McGarry, M.D.

Considering the current state of America’s healthcare system, and the fact that L.A. County is one of the largest of only a handful of public hospitals in the country, Code Black illustrates the discouraging extremes aspiring doctors are facing. Driven by a variety of factors ranging from personal loss to professional challenge, however, the doctors featured in this film are motivated to learn, adapt and do whatever it takes to overcome bureaucratic setbacks, uncontrollable challenges and the seemingly impossible times when the ER reaches Code Black, a discouraging situation where all these obstacles come to a head while the ER is overcrowded and there is no solution in sight.

It’s a particularly troubling time for those driven by a desire to help every patient that comes in, regardless of what has brought them to the ER. It’s this desire that motivates the doctors in Code Black to remain calm during the most trying times, get together outside of work to discuss solutions and work towards making L.A. County the hospital they want and need it to be. The film puts us right in the middle of it all, invoking emotions ranging from heartache to rage to occasional hope. Though it does little to offer a solution to any of the problems it reveals, Code Black definitely brings awareness to many of the hardships faced by aspiring doctors that we otherwise wouldn’t likely ever consider. And by humanizing the doctors with emotional backstories, Code Black succeeds in creating a sympathetic scenario for its audience.

www.codeblackmovie.com

Times are hard, which is just the way we like them in “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”

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It’s been a long time since filmgoers got to visit the dirty and dangerous streets of Sin City. Too long, some might say. We’re talking about a city so corrupt that only the most brokenhearted bad guys, scandalous politicians and seductively sinister streetwalkers would want to call it home. And those are the flawed characters we want to see fall for the wrong women, seek vengeance upon the untouchable and otherwise bestow tragedy upon themselves and those around them once again in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Like so much of his other work, Frank Miller‘s Sin City books are basically storyboards waiting to come to life. After he and co-director Robert Rodriguez so deftly adapted some of these tales to the big screen in 2005’s Sin City, they finally bring us another collection of loosely-linked stories, some familiar to fans of the books, some never before told. As was the case with its predecessor, A Dame to Kill For is presented in a black-and-white film noir style, with only certain elements (the bright red lips of a vixen, the golden eye of a brute) in color for dramatic effect. This stylistic tool not only gives the film a retro feel (as do the vintage car styles, outfits, etc.), it also makes it truly feel like it’s jumping right off the pages of the original stories.

The namesake centerpiece of this film features Josh Brolin as Dwight McCarthy, a Sin City antihero who can’t help but be lured back to former flame Ava Lord, a femme fatale if ever there was one played brilliantly by Eva Green. After topping her own over-the-top sex scene from Dark Shadows with an even racier performance in 300: Rise of an Empire (another Miller adaptation), Green manages to outdo herself yet again here, appearing nude and/or copulating probably just as much as (if not more than) she does clothed. So there’s that. Luckily for Dwight, he’s the one who gets to benefit the most from Ava’s nudity. Well, “benefit” may not be the best way to describe the power Ava holds over Dwight, and just about every other male she comes in contact with. In exchange for the sexual gratification, Dwight gets the beating of his life from Ava’s manservant Manute (Dennis Haysbert replacing the late Michael Clarke Duncan), is framed for the death of Ava’s rich husband (Marton Csokas) and eventually has to undergo reconstructive facial surgery at the hands of a prostitute played by Rosario Dawson (which sort of explains why he doesn’t look like Clive Owen, who played the same character in the previous film).

Meanwhile, Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) decides to take the biggest gamble of his life by betting against Sin City’s most dangerous villain Senator Rourke (Powers Boothe). The cocky and charismatic young risk-taker proves to be an impressive poker player, but Rourke is a sore loser and, after allowing Johnny and his new gal pal Marcy (Julia Garner) to celebrate their winnings, has his goons disfigure Johnny. After a $40 surgery by a back-alley doctor (Christopher Lloyd) who resets his broken fingers with popsicle sticks (you get what you pay for), Johnny defines insanity by returning to challenge Rourke to another game of poker, where winning has already resulted in significant loses.

But Johnny’s not the only one seeking revenge against Rourke. Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), a stripper at Rourke’s own club, has sunken to a depressing state since losing John Hartigan (Bruce Willis). And Rourke is clearly to blame for her loss. Guided by Hartigan’s ghost and assisted by Marv (Mickey Rourke), the brutish bad boy who is the common (and heavily-frayed) thread that runs through each story, a disheveled and determined Nancy decides to take Rourke down once and for all. But Rourke always has another trick up his sleeve, so it’s not going to be an easy task.

These stories are intermingled with one another, sometimes taking place concurrently, other times flashing back or forward, and taking place both before and after the events of the first film. A Dame to Kill For incorporates enough style and humor to make the gruesome violence easier to swallow. And with Miller and Rodriguez at the helm, there’s no reason for it not to stay true to the source material, even expanding upon the original mythos with Johnny and Nancy’s stories. While detractors can argue that the characters lack dimension, the sex is gratuitous and the violence is overt, these are also the very elements around which Sin City is built. Without the caricatures, sexually empowered females and barbaric bloodshed, Sin City wouldn’t be such an interesting place for us to visit.

www.sincity-2.com

Reptile heroes re-emerge from their shells in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”

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Raphael (Alan Ritchson), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), Leonardo (Pete Ploszek/Johnny Knoxville), and Donatello (Jeremy Howard) are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Photo by Industrial Light & Magic / Paramount.

I’ve found that it’s always best to have incredibly low expectations when going into a film that is in any way affiliated with Michael Bay. This approach has definitely helped me appreciate most of the Transformers movies a little more (that second one is still pretty terrible, though), as well as other Bay movies like Pain & Gain. But there seems to be a big difference in movies Bay directs and movies he produces. Some of the horror remakes he’s produced in recent years have been superior to the originals in many ways, and The Purge movies are, if nothing else, a unique approach to suspense.

I know quite a few longtime Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans who have retreated into their proverbial shells at every tidbit of news and rumor regarding the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. These hard-shelled heroes have always been just as much about comedy and camp as action and adventure (all of Bay’s strong points), so I actually thought this might turn out OK, even if the rumors about Bay’s Turtles being aliens rather than mutants were true (they’re not, and there’s even a line of dialogue in the movie that pokes fun at this rumor). And with Bay listed as a producer (Jonathan Liebesman directs), my low expectations were likely to be exceeded. And they were.

Megan Fox as April O’Neil in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Photo by David Lee.

I’ve never been an avid fan of the Turtles, but I have followed the comics, cartoons and previous films closely enough to be familiar with how a giant rat named Splinter (played by Danny Woodburn, voiced by Tony Shalhoub) ends up raising four pizza-loving Ninja Turtles in the sewers of New York City. Not only is that still the origin story here, but the sequence in which Splinter and the Turtles mutate into their humanoid states is done remarkably well, looking more like a stop-motion ode to the original Eastman and Laird comics than CGI (though I’m guessing it is probably computer animation). And once they emerge from the sewers as vigilantes, thwarting the Foot Clan’s criminal activities, these Turtles retain that gritty comic book look.

It’s during one of these heists on a rainy night that TV news reporter April O’Neil (Megan Fox) stumbles onto the story she hopes will take her away from vapid fluff stories to the legitimate news she wants to be reporting (somehow without getting a single drop of rain on her despite the downpour). The deeper she digs, the more outrageous her findings become. When she explains her discoveries to her roommate and coworkers, she sounds crazy, hindering her career rather tun helping it. Cameraman Vernon Fenwick (played with the perfect amount of comical sleaze by Will Arnett) remains supportive, however, mostly under the deluded pretense of April being romantically interested in him.

Speaking of romantic interests, Leonardo (portrayed by Pete Ploszek, voiced by Johnny Knoxville), Donatello (Jeremy Howard), Raphael (Alan Ritchson) and especially Michelangelo (Noel Fisher), with their teenage libidos and sheltered upbringing, take a particular liking to April after she discovers their existence. So in between battling an amazing-looking Shredder (Tohoru Masamune this time, not Kevin Nash), uncovering secrets about who is responsible for their own existence and eating pizza, the Turtles still have time to flirt. Of course, it’s the battles with Shredder and the rest of the Foot Clan that we all want to see, and these fight scenes do not disappoint. The most entertaining of these scenes involves the Turtles sledding on their shells down a snow-covered mountainside while working in tandem to fight off the pursuing Foot Soldiers and trying to prevent April and Vernon from careening over a cliff in a semi truck. In much the same way that April proves to be rain proof earlier in the movie, the Turtles are inexplicably (and conveniently) bulletproof upon being hopped up on adrenaline and escaping Shredder’s capture. The rain thing isn’t so bad because I understand that the attractive female star needs to remain attractive (though a rain-drenched Megan Fox certainly doesn’t sound all that bad). But the fact that the Turtles become bulletproof (going so far as to flex their muscles to make all the bullets embedded in their flesh pop out) for no apparent reason (did I miss something?) at just the right time is an inexcusably lazy moment of storytelling.

The massively-armored Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) attacks Splinter (Danny Woodburn/Tony Shalhoub) in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Photo by Industrial Light & Magic / Paramount.

But one or two flaws aren’t enough to keep me from enjoying Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean, it’s an outlandish concept to begin with and I’m willing to overlook a couple of things for the sake of such a comical adventure. Is it as good as some of this year’s other sci-fi action films like Godzilla, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes or Guardians of the Galaxy? Absolutely not. But it is kid friendly (it’s rated PG-13, but I don’t recall a single bit of profanity), with a few lines of sexual innuendo and a lot of cartoonish violence. So unless you’re just looking for a reason to not enjoy this movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a great mix of science fiction, action, comedy and martial arts.

www.teenagemutantninjaturtlesmovie.com

Phantom Troublemaker tells us what the EFF is going on at Dragon Con

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Photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots.

Phantom Troublemaker runs a blog called Needless Things that covers wrestling, movies and other aspects of pop culture. He also hosts a Needless Things Podcast (as part of The Earth Station One Network) in which he interviews puppeteers, wrestlers and other interesting people in the entertainment industry. Wrestling fans may recognize him as a member of the DCW Hooligans, a rambunctious group of fans who have found unity in their love of Dragon Con Wrestling, or as the ring announcer for Monstrosity Championship Wrestling, where he’s able to make the otherwise laborious task of raffling off prizes a fun endeavor. Considering my love of DCW and MCW, the fact that I cover many of the same aspects of pop culture with Wrestling with Pop Culture and that I interview wrestlers each week on Georgia Wrestling Now, one might even question if Phantom Troublemaker and I are the same person, especially since we are rarely seen together and he only appears in public while wearing his signature luchador masks. The fact that we both have been avid Dragon Con fans and attendees for a number of years might only strengthen such a claim. But I can assure you we are not the same person and to prove it I’m going to talk to him on the Aug. 4 edition of Georgia Wrestling Now about the numerous Dragon Con panels he will be part of this year (most of which I will also be attending, as further proof that we are just two guys that wear a lot of similar hats, or in his case masks). And with Dragon Con only a few weeks away, I decided to find out more about what the EFF he will be doing this year.

You’ve been attending Dragon Con for many years and have made the transition from attendee to panelist in recent years. But this year marks your first year being officially involved with Dragon Con. Explain this transition from being a fan to being involved with the event.

Ever since I’ve been going I’ve been covering it in one way or another. It started like anybody else, just taking a bunch of pictures and showing them to everybody you know. To an extent, that’s how journalism starts, I think. You just want to share information. That’s what it was for me. I went down there and took a ton of pictures of all the cosplayers, which back then “cosplayers” wasn’t a term. A few years ago, when I started Needless Things and started writing about it, I’d do full recaps afterwards and eventually got to the point where I started doing pre-coverage where I’d write things leading up to Dragon Con. I’d try to interview people involved with the show and, as I got involved with The ESO Network, I started making more connections to the point where I started to know people who actually worked with Dragon Con. Last year I was granted media access and covered it in a professional capacity (I don’t like to use the word professional in relation to myself).

This year, thanks in part to my involvement with MCW, in part to all the work I’ve done on panels for various conventions and in part to people just knowing who I am a little bit more, I’m an attending professional, which is not a guest. I don’t sit in the famous-people room, I don’t necessarily sign things – although if a titty is presented, I will sign it. Or if you want to throw your dong out there, I’ll sign that. I’ve got no standards. Attending professional, which means if somebody says, “Hey, I need a masked dork on my Swamp Thing panel,” I am at their disposal. Currently I’m scheduled for eight panels, including the two late-night specialty panels I’m running.

Before we get to that, when did you first become officially involved with Dragon Con panels?

Photo by Jay Hornsby/Belligerent Monkey.

My first panel was in 2012. I sat in on 1982: Best Movie Year Ever for the American Sci-Fi Classics track. I’d never done anything like it before. I love talking and I love talking about nerd stuff. When I do a good job at something, I’m not shy about saying it. And I did a great job. I blew everybody away. After the panel everybody was like, “Hey. That was fantastic. What else can you do? Come back next year and do more stuff.” Aside from the first real MCW show I did, it’s probably one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever been through in my life.

How did you get to do panels before becoming an attending professional?

This is something a lot of people don’t know. If you go to a panel, the people that are sitting up there talking are also fans. All you have to do is go talk to those guys and be like, “Hey. I love this thing you just talked about. What else are you talking about?” If you go to Dragon Con this year and you see a panel you’d want to speak about, you can go talk to somebody and get on that panel. It happens all the time where they’ll have three or four panelists scheduled and somebody gets too drunk, somebody gets double scheduled on panels, all kinds of things can happen and they may need somebody and that somebody could be you. If you’re a fan and you’re good at talking, you can be on a panel. You just have to have personality and knowledge. You don’t have to have any special connections. Granted, I was with the ESO Network at the time, so I did have kind of an in. But now I know if you’ve got charisma and are at least a little bit entertaining, get in there and ask. Like I say with everything in life, if you don’t ask you don’t know.

You’re doing eight panels this year, one of which can be previewed on Aug. 5 at the Red Light Cafe. What the EFF are you doing this year at Dragon Con?

Until four or five years ago, I was unfamiliar with the concept of erotic fan fiction. Call me naive. I just didn’t know there were such depths to our society. But if you go online you can find stories that fans have written about Wolverine and Jean Grey getting it on – graphic depictions of Wolverine butt sex. But it gets worse than that. There’s stuff out there like Lucius Malfoy skull-fucking his son Draco. There’s a whole spectrum of thoroughly disturbing fiction that fans of different levels of mental sickness have produced on the Internet, usually under false names. I wouldn’t know anything about writing under a false name.

When I first discovered this, I thought it would be really fun to get together at Dragon Con one night with some friends and everybody bring their own selections of fan fiction – whether it was Batman and Robocop having sex or Watson giving Sherlock Holmes an enema – and we read them out loud. It’s challenging to read these without laughing because a lot of the people that write these don’t have the best grammar. They’re not skilled writers, obviously, or they wouldn’t be writing Snorks porn. So I thought it would be fun to just sit around with pals, read these and maybe have an adult beverage or two. After working with the American Sci-Fi Classics track for a couple of years, I pitched the idea to Gary [Mitchel] almost as a joke. “Hey. We should do a game show where people have to read erotic fan fiction.” I figured at best the response would be, “Oh, that’s kind of funny. But we couldn’t do anything like that. That’s gross.” Instead, Gary said, “That’s fucking amazing. Done!” I still kind of didn’t believe it was going to happen. Then Joe [Crowe], who runs the American Sci-Fi Classics track with Gary, said, “Here’s the deal. You want to do your game show. You want to show your movie (I’ll get to that in a moment). Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. the room is yours. Whatever you want to do.” That blew my mind. They’re putting a tremendous amount of faith in me to draw people in and run the room.

So I’m doing a game show called Whose EFF Is It Anyway?, co-hosted by Miss Lady Flex of Le Sexoflex, the sexiest band in the mother-fucking world, straight out of Buttlanta, Georgia. Please visit www.lesexoflex.com and download everything you can. They are incredible and they are the band that brought you the eponymous Dragon Con theme song “Marriott Cock Squat”. So it’s basically like The Gong Show: we’re going to bring people up out of the audience. We want it to be right, so we’re doing a dry run of the game show Aug. 5 here in Buttlanta at the Red Light Cafe. Doors open at 7:30, the show begins at 8. Myself and Miss Lady Flex will be on stage, we’ll have three judges and we’ll be drawing members of the audience up on stage to read selections of erotic fan fiction. This event is sponsored by Inserection and Stardust, which are adult-themed stores that have tobacco products, dildos and sexy lingerie of many different forms. We’ll have prizes from Stardust and Belligerent Monkey, my friend Jay Hornsby who is fantastic and does a lot of pop culture stuff, but does not paint penises. The art provided by Belligerent Monkey will be family friendly. We’ll have lots of prizes, we’ll have lots of fun and if you come out on Aug. 5 you’ll get to see the formation of something that I think is going to be pretty spectacular.

Before we started this interview, you told me about some wrestling erotic fan fiction you had come across. What else can you tell me about that?

This is something I’ve been peripherally aware of since I discovered erotic fan fiction. There is a community of folks who write fan fiction about wrestling. There’s the standard portion of this community that just does stories about maybe AJ Lee and John Cena having a romantic relationship and their struggles behind the scenes working for WWE and maybe a love triangle develops with Roman Reigns or something along those lines. There are a lot of female writers of that stuff and they’re just really expanding on the soap opera aspect of professional wrestling.

So this is completely different from fantasy booking?

No, it’s not even fantasy booking. This is like fantasy backstage booking. They barely even cover matches. They’re worried about the drama aspect. It almost makes sense that this kind of thing would be out there. Of course, like anything else, there is a seedy underbelly of wrestling fan fiction and that is wrestling slash fiction, which I found out today, nine out of ten wrestling slash fiction stories star Randy Orton. It’s just a thing. I didn’t even look for Randy Orton stories. My big goal is to find something with Mick Foley and The Rock. Although Hulk Hogan would be good, Macho Man would be good, a pairing of the two would be great. But Randy Orton came up time and time again. My favorite story that I found today, and I’m still in the midst of research, is one where John Cena gets Roman Reigns pregnant. It was enlightening, really. The reason I’m looking for wrestling-oriented fan fiction is for a very special surprise that I don’t want to announce here, but I can tell you if you’re a fan of Georgia Wrestling Now you know these guys and you’ll be very excited when they show up Saturday night at Dragon Con. We have surprises planned for the Aug. 5 show as well, but the Dragon Con show is the one where we’re going to blow it the fuck out of the water.

Well, I’ll let you wait until the Aug. 4 edition of Georgia Wrestling Now to reveal some of those secrets. Tell me more about the movie screening that will follow your gameshow.

This is the second portion of my Saturday-night activities at Dragon Con. Honestly I think I’m going to be spent after Whose Eff Is It Anyway?. But I will struggle through in order to share one of my most beloved movies of all time. It’s a Canadian masterpiece called THINGS. No, not The Thing. THINGS: All caps, all red, always. It is a very, very low-budget movie. It’s the most incompetently-produced movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Your life will literally be changed after you see it. I know a lot of movies make that claim. Citizen Kane, supposedly the greatest movie of all time. It will change the way you look a the world; Schindler’s List, enlightening and will show you a whole different side of things; The Passion of the Christ. I will put THINGS up against any of those movies as a life-altering experience. I’ve shown THINGS to people over the last 15 years time and again and I’ve had people leave the room, I’ve had people leave my home, because of watching THINGS. It’s an experience like nothing else and Joe and Gary, sweet, innocent fellows that they are, are letting me expose Dragon Con to THINGS. I’m very excited about the possibility of ruining so many lives in one night. First is going to be the fan fiction, which I guarantee people are going to be upset about that, then THINGS afterwards. I might put myself out of business, quite frankly. It’s going to be interesting to see if Phantom Troublemaker has to make a heel turn after Dragon Con.

Before all that, of course, is Dragon Con Wrestling and the DCW Hooligans.

The DCW Hooligans will be in full effect once again at Dragon Con Wrestling Friday night at 7 o’clock in the Hyatt Centennial Ballroom. We will be representing in our purple T-shirts. You will see all 430 of us now. Something like that.

Are you a founding member of the DCW Hooligans?

This has never been stated before. Technically I am not. While I had been enjoying Dragon Con Wrestling for a couple of years, it wasn’t until I hooked up with my buddies Ryan, Jay and Pete – they had been attending together for a while and I reconnected with those guys. While I am certainly the catalyst for us becoming the group that we are now, those guys were watching DCW as a group for a couple of years before I was around. Then I started writing my recaps of it and we started really making a concerted effort and making the T-shirts and everything. I put the name on it, but those guys were the heart of it. We take up a whole section now. You’ve been there with us the last couple of years, you’ve seen how ridiculous it is. And you’ve seen that the guys that actually run the DCW show fucking love us. It’s a great experience.

When does your official Dragon Con attending professional experience begin?

Saturday is the beginning of my official panel presence. I don’t have my full schedule, but I can tell you right now – and this is the first time that this has been announced – Saturday morning (and this is probably a terrible mistake) I’m going to be part of a panel called D20. What that is is the American Sci-Fi Classics track is creating an enormous pair of 20-sided dice. One die will have topics on it, the other one will have panelists on it. All of the panelists that work with the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics track are going to be in the room, they’re going to roll the dice and pick panelists and topics. Then we’re going to do five-minute speed panels. It’s going to be ridiculous because chances are most of us are going to be hungover and it’s entirely possible that I’m going to get a topic that I don’t know jack shit about and have to talk about it. So this is one of those random chance things and this is what makes the Sci-Fi Classics track so great is that they’re willing to take chances like that. This could be terrible. It may not be entertaining at all. But at the same time it could be an entertaining train wreck. It’s going to be memorable regardless of the quality. These guys are willing to take chances like that and Whose EFF Is It Anyway and they’re letting me show THINGS. They’re willing to do things for the sake of fun and that’s what makes the track so great.

Immediately after that I’m doing a Transformers panel where we’re going to be talking about the 1984 movie and the toy line in general. Then I’m doing a She-Ra panel because this is, in some weird way, the 30th anniversary of She-Ra even though She-Ra didn’t come out until 1985. Mattel is calling this the 30th anniversary. I don’t get it, but Mattel owns her so I guess that’s what they’re going to do. So I’ve got three panels in a row in that room right after my biggest night of drinking. It’s going to be rough. Whose EFF Is It Anyway? is Saturday night in the same room, then we’ll start the showing of THINGS. Sunday morning is my big panel on ’80s toys where I’m going to be discussing how important gimmicks were to toys in the ’80s. I’ll be sponsored by Billy’s Toys and we’ll have a shit ton of toys there not only for display but for sale. So if you’re looking for Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Air Raiders, StarCom, Inhumanoids, we’re going to have all that stuff sitting there on the panel table for you to look at. We’re going to have a great time. Last year it was one of the highest-rated panels at Dragon Con, five out of five stars. It was a really, really great time, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Last year I hosted a panel about Masters of the Universe, the 1987 live-action film and the guys kind of surprised me by having William Stout on the panel, who is a very well-renowned artist who did design on the movie. He was absolutely fantastic, a wonderful talker and had lots of great stories about the movie. You can find the podcast of that and my other panels if you go to www.needlessthingssite.com and search for Dragon Con. William Stout is coming back this year and I get to work with him again on Sunday night. We’re going to be sitting down and talking about Conan the Destroyer, which he worked on in the same capacity as he did on Masters of the Universe as a production designer. Just like Masters of the Universe, lots of people malign Conan the Destroyer as being inferior, but the production design is beautiful. The castles, the sets, everything is just gorgeous. William Stout is a fascinating guy and this is another panel that was a surprise to me. I guess he had a good time last year and wanted to work with me again, which is very rewarding.

www.needlessthingssite.com

“Guardians of the Galaxy” soars to summer sci-fi success

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WWE’s Batista as Drax the Destroyer. Photo courtesy of Film Frame.

For the second week in a row a blockbuster action flick starring a professional wrestler hits theaters. Last week it was The Rock in Hercules (read my review here). This week it’s the latest Marvel big screen adaptation Guardians of the Galaxy co-starring Batista as Drax the Destroyer. And since we like to talk wrestling so much around here, let’s go ahead and get something out of the way. Despite the negative reception he received from fans during his recent return to WWE, Batista is one of many reasons that Guardians is likely to become this summer’s biggest hit.

Unlike most Marvel movies, Guardians is not an immediately recognizable name to many. Sure, the die-hard comic fans and Marvel devotees are probably going into this movie with a vast knowledge of who the green-skinned heroine Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the overgrown talking raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and the cybernetically sexy supervillain Nebula (Karen Gillan) are. For the rest of us, a slimmed-down Chris Pratt is the unlikely hero Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord), Michael Rooker is the blue-skinned baddie Yondu and Vin Diesel is Groot, a towering anthropomorphic tree similar to The Lord of the Rings‘ Ents. (Actually, one of the oft-used moments of comic relief in Guardians is Diesel uttering the phrase, “I am Groot,” the only three words in his vocabulary.)

Photo courtesy of Film Frame.

Lack of familiarity does little to hinder Guardians, however. In fact, I think it actually benefits the film as it offers the same kind of excitement that movies like Star Wars and The Fifth Element did the first time around. This mystery (as well as the action and comedy) are what keep the audience guessing with Guardians. Why is Quill snatched up by a spaceship at the most tragic moment of his childhood? Why does he constantly listen to hits from the ’70s on his cherished cassette player while fighting aliens? How does he end up teaming with a ragtag group of prisoners, all of which coincidentally have their own issues with Thanos (Josh Brolin) and Ronan (Lee Pace)? How is Rocket able to understand what Groot says even though everyone else just hears, “I am Groot”? Figuring it all out is a huge part of the appeal here.

Karen Gillan as Nebula. Photo by Jay Maidment.

Great characters are often the driving force behind a good story, especially ones set in fantastical lands in faraway galaxies. While it obviously has awesome effects, impressive space battles and all sorts of cool creature costumes, Guardians is filled with amazing character development. Pratt’s comedic timing and sarcasm quickly establish Quill as a lovably womanizing space bandit with natural charisma despite his adolescent demeanor. Saldana’s cold delivery shows us that Gamora is a no-nonsense warrior whose only concern is preventing Thanos and Ronan from carrying out their evil plans. Batista obviously has the physical attributes of the musclebound Drax, but he’s also able to bring out the unintentional comedy of Drax’s literalism (he’s unable to pick up on jokes and metaphors, making for some hilarious confusion), as well as his emotional pain, the driving force in him seeking revenge against Thanos. And that’s not even mentioning the depth of secondary characters portrayed by John C. Reilly, Glenn Close and Benicio del Toro.

In short, despite not being as popular as the X-Men or The Avengers, Guardians will easily become another part of the Marvel film franchise. The casting is impeccable, the character development is great and the action is amazing. It’s great to see somewhat obscure comic book characters getting the same treatment as the bigger superheroes, and the fact that Guardians ties in to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe means we will likely see even more of these characters on the big screen.

www.marvel.com/guardians