RNC Goes Black (Will They Ever Go Back?)

Michael Steele has been named the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Steele is the first African-American chairman of the RNC, or as the GOP likes to call him, Steele is their HNIC (Head Nigger In Charge). At first glance it might seem that this is progressive move for the GOP, but keep in mind these are the same dumb fucks that had McCain running with Sarah Palin, and touted that stupid broad as some sort of breath of fresh air for the Republican Party. But just as I compared the vice presidential nomination of Palin to the classic Hammer horror film Frankenstein Created Woman (read it here), I must now compare Steele’s position to one of the worst films of all time, a piece of shit blaxploitation film called Blackenstein.

dvd review: CONFESSIONS OF AN ACTION STAR

Back in 2005, while at the Slamdance Film Festival, I happened to catch a film called Sledge: The Untold Story. A sharp, witty spoof of the action genre, Sledge was a mockumentary about Frank Sledge, a celebrated action star from the 1980s, who had fallen on hard times, and was looking to make a comeback. I thoroughly enjoyed Sledge, and have been awaiting its release on DVD for four years. But now that it is out, under the title Confessions of an Action Star, I find myself a bit conflicted, and find it difficult to look at the film with any objectivity.

Great Article About the Economy

Earlier this week I was on The Rick Emerson Show, and I mentioned Keith Boykin’s article, “Four Things the Republicans Don’t Want You to Know About the Economy.” Since then, I have had several people ask me about the article, so here is a link.

dvd review: SUPERCOP

Jackie Chan’s first attempts to make a name for himself with American audiences in the early 1980s were less than spectacular. He starred in The Big Brawl, both of the Cannonball Run movies, and The Protector, none of which conveyed the charisma and talent that had established him as a star in Asia with such films as Drunken Master and Snake in Eagle Shadow. About the only thing those early American films did for Chan was introduce him to a dedicated fan base who sought out his Hong Kong films, and were then able to gloat knowingly about him when he finally made a huge splash in America with Rumble in the Bronx. The success of Rumble in the Bronx made Chan a viable draw with audiences in the United States, and in an effort to make a buck, many of his films were re-packaged for release in America. Between 1995 and 2000, some of Chan’s best Hong Kong films were released in the United States, often under different names, and frequently edited from their original version, as was the case with Police Story 3, a 1992 film released in America as Supercop in 1996.

dvd review: MAX PAYNE

It is mind boggling and just down right impossible to believe that anyone could have read the screenplay for Max Payne and thought it was good. And even if, for the sake of argument, there was a draft of the script that wasn’t a poorly written jumbled mess of confusing clichés and hackneyed storytelling, it is pretty obvious that that version was not the one used to make Max Payne. The script used for the version of Max Payne that stunk up theaters last year, and is now stinking up DVD shelves, is bad. Really bad. Really f***ing bad. Which raises the very valid question of who read this steaming pile of fetid crap and thought it was worth making into a movie?

dvd review: CONTRACT KILLERS

There are movies that you watch that you don’t see in theaters or buy on DVD, but instead either catch late at night on cable or perhaps rent for a few dollars from your local video store. These aren’t the best movies by any stretch of the imagination, but when you can’t sleep and there’s nothing else on, or when you seem to have rented everything else on the shelves, these are the films that we turn to. Honestly, many of these films are terrible and not worth watching no mater how much you can’t sleep. But every now and then one of these films, while not being the greatest achievement in cinematic history, still manages to be effectively entertaining.

The Rick Emerson Show, today at noon!!!

I will be a guest on The Rick Emerson Show today at noon. You can listen to the show on the web at 970.am, or check out the podcast later.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King.

Once again, I must apologize for taking too long in between posts. And to be honest, if today was not the holiday celebrating the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I would probably still be slacking. And to be even more honest, between the holiday today and tomorrow’s inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States, I’m so overcome with emotion that I’m having trouble thinking straight. So, I’m not going to write much (at least not right this very moment), but am going to post this video from the mid-1980s in honor of Dr. King. Bonus points to anyone who can name all the performers.