beersandbmovies

[beersandbmovies]

Sharknado and Old Chub

Well, if this isn't the most inevitable thing ever.

The Beer.

My buddy Dave had been talking this beer up to me, and he works at one of those bars that serve beers in branded goblets, so I was inclined to take him at his word when he said it was good.  Here's what it looks like.

The pour is pretty much Coke brown.  Not much to it.  And it smells exactly like Coke tastes.  Imagine you're screaming in pain, molten caramel being poured over your head by a buff shirtless dude while your hot sister watches and mutters something about how you're not a real dragon.  That's how this beer smells.

The mouthfeel is nothing special, and neither is the taste, at least, at first.  I was left wondering when the kick would come.  You know that feeling you get when, in one bite, you eat a Twinkie you deep-fried in rendered whale fat?  That's kinda what drinking this beer is like.

But then the aftertaste comes, and I can't even come up with a clever metaphor.  The aftertaste just tastes like scotch.  Not, like, scotch beer, just plain scotch.

So I guess what I'm saying is that unless you like Twinkies deep-fried in rendered whale fat and scotch, you should probably avoid this beer.

But if you don't like Twinkies deep-fried in rendered whale fat and scotch, you should probably take a long look at your life and the decisions that led you to this point.

Verdict: Recommended.

The B-Movie

It's funny that my first post in 6 months is a review of a movie that SyFy heavily promoted as viewership dwindled, trying to reclaim the demographic that watched MegaShark Versus Giant Octopus those long years ago. 

Let's see if I can ride this gravy train along with them.  (Like, reblog, and share this post on all your favorite social media sites!  #beersandbmovies #omg #killmenow)

So, Sharknado.

You've seen the trailer, you know it's dumb.  I'm assuming your question is the same as mine as I started to watch: Will it be fun?

And to be honest, I don't have a solid answer for you.  The past two days for me have involved, in addition to this movie, drunken Pictionary, watching a soccer match, dungeons and dragons, and this one time I had to wear another dude's pants around my waist like a towel or skirt or something.

If I'm being honest, Sharknado was the low point of my weekend.

That's not to say the movie doesn't have its redeeming qualities.  I'm going to blow my load early and say that, yes, this movie is fun.  It's very fun.

See?  Fun!

There's lots of scenes with sharks and chainsaws, and to the movie's credit, unlike MegaShark Versus Giant Octopus, there's a pretty decent amount of action.  People get crushed by the Hollywood sign, sharks get shotgunned in the face at least 3 times, and there's this one time a child has her dad eaten right in front of her, and as the room fills with blood, someone remarks "must be that time of the month".

Watching the first bit of this movie with friends was great.  We all laughed alternately with, and at, the movie, waiting for the Sharknami that begins the movie to turn into the Sharknado that ends it.  It was...fun. 

But I have a couple of problems with the movie, and they kind of killed it a little for me.  The actors themselves didn't seem to want to be there.  It's not like Snakes on a Plane, where everyone is just there to have fun and be ridiculous, and it's not like 2-Headed Shark Attack, where the fun comes from the actors really trying hard to, you know, act.  Tara Reid is just there for her check, and makes it clear with every line she delivers.  The rest don't fare much better, except for this one dude from New Zealand who actually seems to be having fun. 

Of course, he dies two-thirds of the way through the movie.

The other, bigger problem here, is the whole thing...

It's a full-length YouTube video.  And not even, like, a good one.  It's like, a full-length smosh video.  Or Ray William Johnson.

It's focus grouped and designed, frame by frame, as a social media campaign.  Tweets flew up on screen in the middle of the movie-- people were suggesting titles for the already-announced sequel.

The movie wasn't made to be seen, or even to make a quick buck.  It was made to be talked about.  To go viral. 

And it makes me sick that it worked.  I enjoyed this movie.  Not, like, a lot, but there were some awesome scenes of sharks falling on people and sharks eating people and people shooting sharks. Again, it was fun.  Fun to watch.  Like an episode of Seinfeld that you kind of remember seeing half of one time.  But it's a #trap.  There's no #soul.

But I was suckered in.  I'm no better than the people that tweeted in @SyFy #Sharknado 2: Sharknado Harder.  Hell, for all intents and purposes, I'm worse.  I'm writing a fucking review of the damn thing. 

Maybe it'll get me trending on twitter.

Verdict: Watch it.

#sharknado #beersandbmovies #scotch ale #beer #old chub

[beersandbmovies]

Hibernation Ale and Snakes on a Train

I wish I had a story for you.  A story of hardship, triumph, and learning.  A story that justifies my prolonged absence better than the three words "hard drive failure" and the further five words "but I have no money". 

Cause honestly, it'd make it a lot easier to segue into this review.  This week is actually kind of a big one.  This is the movie that rocketed Asylum Films, unwelcome, into the homes of millions of innocent and unsuspecting viewers like a Russian asteroid.

So I spent 20 dollars on on-sale boxes of Valentine's Day candy and hoped the sugar rush would get me through at least most of this movie.

The Beer.

I'm actually not super familiar with Great Divide.  But damn if they don't make a good first impression.

It pours a lovely Coke caramel, with a healthy reddish head.  It's really pretty.  The nose is a bit rough, though.  It's dry, and very hoppy.  If you don't like IPAs, wait a bit after you pour to drink this one.

When you drink this, the malts kind of sucker punch you from the start.  This is a heavy and robust beer.  Drinking it on a 40 degree Chicago night is really nice, though.  The malts are just dark enough that you get this comforting embrace of warmth without too much intensity.  The hops follow, a dry mix of spice that is a very good finish to this very good beer.  It's the kind of beer that gives off a homey feeling- like you're siting in your couch where you grew up, family dog brushing against your leg, as you're surrounded by your friends, family and loved ones.

Then I looked around and noticed that I was alone, save for at least 10 scattered empty boxes of Sweethearts candies I had purchased on sale after Valentines day.  And that kind of ruined the moment for me.

Verdict: Highly Recommended.

The B-Movie

As much as I repeat my own jokes, my heavy drinking hasn' completely demolished my pattern recognition yet.  This is Asylum Films.  This movie will over-promise, under-deliver, and generally make the audience feel sorry for everybody involved.  So it's kind of funny that the whole plot of the movie revolves around the characters traveling to the home of the Lakers. 

The movie starts with a couple of immigrants ducking some barbed wire to cross the US border.  Then they proceed to lean against a beat up truck for a while as the girl, like, convulses all over the place complaining about snakes. 

Okay, here's the deal.  I don't like this movie, but I came away from it very impressed.  In literally every scene, the director pretty obviously told her to convulse and seize all over the place, every second she's on screen.  It honestly looks very exhausting.  Imagine that across a whole film shoot.  It's amazing.

Not to mention the fact that the directors made her throw up snakes and green Jell-o in every other scene.

Yeah. 

So that's our plot. 

This girl is throwing up snakes because of a family curse, and our dashing bearded Mexican hero has to take her to his uncle in LA for some reason instead of, you know, pumping her stomach or something. 

Oh and also our dashing bearded hero is keeping all the snakes she's throwing up, too.  Because why not, I guess?

Okay, so our heroes hop a train and have a mild run-in wih some other angry stow-aways.  We cut away from them for a bit to meet the people in the train, who are also the most boring people ever.  There's a family, some stoners, two divorcees, and some assorted others, including some dude who looks uncomfortably like a young Brad Pitt.

There's also a young pair of actresses heading to LA to make their fame in Hollywood, hoping to score their big break on a tv show or film.  Given, you know, the movie we're dealing with, there's something just insanely sad about that.  Good thing they're both horrible people, so I don't feel bad for them.

This is one of those movies that follows a very predictable cycle.  Cut to main characters, cut to characters we don't care about, cut to uh oh snakes escaping!  Repeat for 90 minutes.  Boom.

Suffice it to say I zoned out for a while.  When I started paying attention again, I realized I didn't miss much other than a few people getting thrown off a train in a bad fight scene, and some of the people nobody cared about getting bitten.  Though I did rewind to watch the cute family's adorable daughter get eaten by a bad CGI snake and seem very nonplussed about the whole thing.  That was fun.

Okay so at this point the directors are trying really hard to press home the fact that this girl is having issues, yo.  The way they do this is by putting pulled pork barbecue on her arms and having grass snakes writhe around in it.  One of the other stowaways has been bitten, and is also coughing up snakes now, so you know things are serious.  Sidenote, there's like 10 minutes left in this movie now and nothing has progressed, other than, you know, pulled pork on arms.  They're still going to LA, the passengers are mildly freaked out at best by the snakes, and everything else that happened, up to and including Not Brad Pitt getting incredibly creepy with one of the horrible actresses, is completely ancillary to the story.

Then the girl eats a bunch of snakes and this happens.

When I started this movie, one of my close friends told me that it ends with the movie being sucked into a plothole.  Like, literally.  A visually represented plothole.  I didn't believe him.  I was like, what, does the train run off a cliff?  That doesn't really count. 

Then I watched that scene up there, stood up very slowly, took off my glasses, and muttered "my god, he's right". 

So here's the deal with this movie.  It's obviously a ripoff of Snakes on a Plane.  Goes without saying.  But in making a carbon copy, Asylum forgot what made Snakes on a Plane fun.  As weird as it is to say, Snakes on a Plane didn't take itself as seriously as this low-budget movie made by the same people who fucking made Big Money Rustlas (starring the Insane Clown Posse).  And yet, one could still follow the story.  Usually with these movies, you can get some sense that the directors are winking at you from behind the camera.  Not so here.  It's as serious as a fucking serial killer showing you slides of his victims.  And with a cast that visibly does not care about acting (save for the girl, who honestly does her damnedest with what she gets) it's kind of a bad match.  Again, this isn't like, entertaining bad.  It's just bad.

Unless you put that scene where the little girl gets eaten by a bad CGI snake on repeat.

But I can't find that clip on YouTube.

So here's the conductor of the train saying "wrong".

Verdict: HAHAHA THAT'S NOT HOW YOU SAY THAT WORD.

[beersandbmovies]

Kingpin and Galaxina

I want to start off a bit differently here.

These past few weeks, a whole lot of change found me all at the same time.  I've been dealing with it the best I can, but change is difficult, and it's more difficult when a whole lot changes at once.

Things I was used to and took for granted flitted away like scraps of confetti on the wind, leaving behind sweet memories, bitter uncertainty, and true fear.  And all you can do is put a record on and hope you're strong, you're mature, you've learned from every single one of these twenty three years you've spent here.

But hope only goes so far, because hope necessarily comes from a place of desperation.  You hope for something because something has been taken away. 

And when I failed to find that strength, I found out how truly fortunate I was.  I'm so incredibly lucky to be in a city of millions, surrounded by people who love me and whom I love.  

This is a long-winded way of saying thanks.

Thanks, Kaitlyn, for suffering through that goddamned movie with me.

The Beer.

"Bridgeport".  Of fucking course there would be a craft brewery in fucking Portland, Oregon called "Bridgeport". 

So here's Kingpin Triple Hopped Double Red Ale.  The pour is very nice- it's a pleasant burnt caramel color that complements the subtle sweet notes in the beer's aroma.  The rest of the aroma is jam-packed with bitter hops.

It's one of those beers you steel yourself for, expecting a huge amount of bitterness- they even advertise as much on the back of the label.  But drinking it is another story.  Yeah, it's hoppy, but subtle, dark, stout-y notes of caramel really mitigate its bitterness and offset that weird aftertaste super-hoppy beers can sometimes have.  It's like when two celebrities have a baby, and the baby grows up, somehow having only kept the attractive parts of both parents and left all the crazy behind. And yet, somehow, she's still down to earth, will talk to you at parties, and always kind of seem like she might be into dating you even though she's way out of your league and then you put your own love life on hold on the off chance something will happen but of course it never does.

So I guess I can only rank this beer so high.

Verdict: Recommended.

The B-Movie

The description of this movie promised space boobs.  And I guess, technically, it delivered. 

I mean, there's that convenient Power Girl style cleav-window on Galaxina's space dress. 

So here's the story, as told by a shameless Star Wars rip off text crawl.  We get to follow a bunch of space traffic cops as they tour around the universe with their hot android Galaxina.  As we pan over to our gigantic dick-shaped spacecraft that houses the characters, Captain Cornelius "Yes This Is His Actual Name" Butt rips off Star Trek by offering us a Captain's Log, starting with an exasperated sigh and the sarcastic use of the phrase "joy and yummies". 

I could stop this review right here, and you wouldn't miss much.  An exasperated sigh and the sarcastic use of the phrase "joy and yummies" is pretty much the best, most concise review of Galaxina that I'd be able to manage.

After a few shots of Galaxina rotating her glowy chair around

we launch into, uh, plot, I guess.  An unidentified ship flies by, and an evil dude contacts the ship.  This kicks off the most boring space battle I've ever seen.  Literally, half of it is a still shot of the two ship models.  The special effects team just added lasers into it.

After that, we forget about the bad guy for a while.  He just, like, flies away.  We then get the not-at-all-unexpected news that Sergeant "Yeah, That's My Real Name Too" Thor is in love with Galaxina even though when they kiss, he gets electrocuted and probably robot HPV too. 

But love knows no bounds.  So Thor and Galaxina get back together.

Just not before Thor and Private "Jesus, Really?" Buzz (who is also a cowboy) get a holographic message that consists of fuzzy blue boobs that somehow Thor and Buzz can touch and also the lady on the other side can like, feel them touching.  It'd be vaguely sexy if you could actually make out any boob.  Oh, and also not before the crew gets sent on a 54-year space mission before which they sing a song about porn and go to a brothel.

Yeah.  I can guarantee you that this is neither funny, nor is it sexy.  It's like, what if Spaceballs, but terrible and written by someone who is not funny.  There are glimmers of comedy, of what used to be there.  But all the terrible, nonsensical shit that surrounds it just makes everything sadder.

So after 27 years in cryosleep or whatever, the crew awakens to find that whoa, Galaxina can talk now and she's also gotten rid of her robot HPV that like, electrocutes everyone she touches.  This movie gets a whole lot worse now that Galaxina is talking, even though it does cut down on all of the bad jokes that Captain Butt tells.  It's awful.  And the fact that he kind of looks like Captain Lou Albano doesn't help at all. 

Well, they send Galaxina down to retrieve the maguffin or whatever from the evil dude from earlier

Yeah, him.  The obviously evil one.

After she dispatches the evil dude and takes back the maguffin, a bunch of motorcycle freaks capture her and tie her up because of course they do. Thor and Buzz save her, and they all head back to the ship, where the evil dude is waiting for them, apparently still alive.

I should mention that the name of the maguffin is The Blue Star.  I say this because every time somebody says "The Blue Star", orchestral fanfare plays.  It sounds cute.  I can promise you it's not.

So, a creature birthed from Captain Butt (don't even start with me.  I don't want to get into it.) kills the evil guy, everyone high fives until the alien they have aboard eats the blue star.  Galaxina and Thor talk about how they're going to pool their money to buy mail order genitals from a catalog so they can bone, and everyone else, fuck if I care.

There's really no plot to this movie.  Or at least, the movie takes many, many, many extended breaks from the plot so we can have unfunny scenes of people eating humans or three-boobed women who aren't as awesome as the one in Total Recall.

Verdict: Jeez... not unless you're like, really really drunk.

#bridgeport #galaxina #sci-fi #red ale #kingpin #robot

[beersandbmovies]

Mexican Logger and Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge

Back in action, baby.

It's fall, guys.  Like it or not.  It's raining, the leaves are turning, and every morning is underscored by the subtle percussion of dress shoes sweeping over and crunching leaves.  The wind rustles the trees, making a sound like paper against a fan.  It's beautiful, peaceful, and active all at once, somehow.

But my favorite part of fall is all the chainsaws.

The Beer.

Ska Brewing Company, for better or for worse, is a brewer that I've kind of always shied away from.  I found their can designs kitchy, and they never really showed me a beer variety I felt strongly about drinking.  I've also never been a fan of checkered Vans slip-ons, fedoras, skinny ties, or trumpets. 

But they do deserve a fair shake, so here's Mexican Logger.

It pours a pretty standard pale lager color, something you'll definitely be used to if you're one of those crazy fuckers that pour Budweiser into a beer glass.  Thoroughly unremarkable.  The nose was malty and bready- there are a couple pleasant earth tones too.   Then I tasted it.

For a beer with a goddamned chainsaw on the can, this beer is fucking boring.  It seriously just tastes like a cheap domestic lager, except with a slight touch of spicy hops at the finish.  I will completely forget about this beer by tomorrow, and it won't even be because I've been seriously nursing a bottle of Polish "rectified spirits" all night.  Despite my best efforts, I am surprisingly lucid.  No, this beer is so boring that it actually sobers you up as you drink it.

Verdict: Not Recommended.

The B-Movie

I wanted to do a chainsaw movie.  And it was either this, or some shitty documentary about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake.  So my choice was clear.  And to be fair, things started out pretty well.

The movie begins with Leatherface up there flying down from the moon to menace a ninja girl.  There's a quick fight, punctuated by scenes of throwing knives cutting snowflakes in half, and also by said throwing knives being knocked around like tennis balls by a chainsaw.  Also there's this random-ass dude who's standing there, being generally useless and almost getting himself killed.  And before we get any fucking sense of what the fuck is going on, we cut to the title screen, and then to a high school, like none of that shit just happened.

Okay, sure.

So we follow our hero, Captain Bob Dylan Hair, as he makes his way through a butcher shop and steals a thing of premium beef.  This is punctuated by disgusting close-up shots of people chopping up pig livers for some reason. 

See, even he’s is confused.  

Soon, he meets Ninja Girl for the first time (apparently the first scene was a flash-forward.  Okay.) and immediately falls in love and then is attacked by Leatherface.  He throws the prime beef at Leatherface, then Ninja Girl throws knives at him, and then he swoops away back to the moon.

It was a disappointing fight, all told.  I mean, remember how the movie started with an exciting fight scene?  Well, don't get used to that shit.  We spend the next, like 30 minutes learning about our hero, learning about how he's got this shitty roommate, about his shitty fucking friend who died because he was shitty at riding his shitty fucking motorcycle, shitty backstory about Leatherface while Bob Dylan Hair is on a shitty date with Ninja Girl (all we get is apparently Ninja Girl just has to kill Leatherface.  That's it) and about 5 encounters with Leatherface that cut away from the action just as it's starting.

I mean, no shit, they tease the fuck out of you.  They set up for an awesome underwater fight, then cut away to Captain Bob Dylan Hair and Ninja Girl talking about their feelings.  Ditto at the aquarium.  And then the carnival.  They see fit to cut away from the fucking roller coaster Ferris wheel fight to show Captain Bob Dylan Hair offering Ninja Girl tea.

Yeah, I know.

In between all of this nothing happening, I realize that this movie was like if you took Buffy, turned it into a Wes Anderson-directed movie, and then took out all of the interesting parts, this is what you'd get.  It's a bunch of fucking high school kids talking about fucking high school problems amidst beautifully picturesque-and-almost-painting-like scenery.  And there just happens to be a chainsaw murderer about.  

Our hero talks about how he's failing all his classes, how he's pissed at his artist roommate for never finishing anything, and how he's hell-bent on dying to save this Ninja Girl from Leatherface because it'd somehow let him one-up his fucking dead friend.  Classy.

Then they talk about cabbage for five goddamn minutes of my life that I could have spent watching the Bears game.

At this point, my brain's crawling out my ear, gasping for air, for action, for anything novel or interesting.  And that's when Leatherface shows up for what looks like The Final Battle.  

Okay, cool.

Captain Bob Dylan Hair steps aside while Ninja Girl unsheathes her weapon.

No, it's never explained why she uses a 7-iron.  It's usually recommended among golfers to use either a sand or approach wedge when battling off chainsaw-wielding maniacs.  But hey, whatever works.

This fight actually lasts for longer than fifteen seconds, and is decent.  Leatherface grazes both the hero and Ninja Girl a couple times, and things get tense.  Ninja Girl gets knocked out, and Captain Bob Dylan Hair moves in to make his ultimate sacrifice. 

And no shit, right then, at the climax of the fight, we cut to five minutes later.  Leatherface is gone, Ninja Girl and the hero are alive, and we learn that Ninja Girl kicked him out of the way of Leatherface's attack.  I don't think I've ever been blue balls-ed this much by one movie.

We get another, like 45 minutes of whining about bullshit before anything starts happening again.  The hero’s parents want him to move, even though he and Ninja Girl are in love.  So he starts packing.  Ninja Girl gets sad.  His shitty artist roommate finishes a song and they all reminisce over their shitty dead friend. 

I'm just going to skip ahead to the last fight.  The only thing worth mentioning here is the ending, because everything else (besides some more throwing-knife tennis) is worthless.

Captain Bob Dylan Hair finally gets the chance to make his sacrifice- he crashes a motorcycle into Leatherface, killing him as its chain swings around his neck and decapitates him.  Unfortunately, the hero survives. 

And he seems pretty pissed off about this, despite the fact that he's not moving and instead staying with his friends, not to mention the fact that he found love, a relative purpose in life, and the motivation to finally excel in his schoolwork and artistic endeavors.  #firstworldproblems

Then the movie ends.

Here's where I usually do a wrap-up, letting you know my general opinions on the movie.  But I think, by the number of times I said "shitty", that you understand in a pretty deep way how I feel about Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge.

Verdict: Not Recommended, at least, not if you're into chainsaw action.

#mexican lager #ska brewing company #mexican logger #japanese #negative happy chainsaw edge #chainsaw

[beersandbmovies]

Summerbright Ale and 2-Headed Shark Attack

Like it or not, it's September, and summer is officially over.  It won't be long until the leaves start falling gently to the ground, making a satisfying crunch as they pass underfoot, until shorts and flip-flops are replaced with scarves and jackets, until warm weather is replaced by a rolling, pleasant coolness for the next few months.  It's all very beautiful.  Personally I love the fall.  But not for any of those asshole reasons. 

I love the fall because nobody can make me feel bad about my life and my choices for spending all day inside watching reruns of Knight Rider when it's 50 degrees and rainy outside. 

That said, I will miss summer, especially when Chicago becomes an uninhabitable, icy wasteland in a month or so.  So here's to summer.  Let's watch a shark movie.

The Beer.

So here's the deal with me and Breckenridge Brewery.  They make this vanilla porter that I would kill a man for.  I fell in love, and decided, hey, let's try some of their other brews.  And I mean, they're all good, but none really lived up to my expectations. 

I'm still looking for another Breckenridge beer that would justify murder.

The nose was nice- it smelled like if you zested a whole bunch of oranges and lemons into a glass, then filled it with lemonade.  I was, however, a bit worried that, well, it wouldn't taste like beer.  The pour is okay, but that cloudy yellow color always turns me off.  "Golden" beers like this one are some of the few drinks that looks almost exactly the same coming in as it does going out.

I really liked this beer.  It was insanely malty, and not bitter at all - new for me, at least in terms of a nice, light-ish summery ale.  It's clear that you're drinking beer too.  This isn't a shandy.  The malts give the beer much-needed body, and the lemon and orange peel flavoring comes through just enough to be noticeable.  It's good, and it's refreshing at the end of the day. 

But, you know, I've been doing some thinking.  Life in general is very fleeting.  Tragedy can strike at any time, and there's no way to be prepared for everything.

So, even though this beer is very good, I probably couldn't live with myself if I killed a man for it.  And I'm reconsidering my stance on their Vanilla Porter.  Maybe I'll start, you know, just buying beer from the store like everyone else.  Seems easier.

Verdict: Highly Recommended.

The B-Movie

Oooh man.  We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel today.  What do you get when you combine the daughter of a washed-up wrestler, Carmen Electra, CGI, and Asylum Films?

The movie starts innocently enough, given all the shit that Asylum Films put in a blender to create this pile.  There are a bunch of terrible, terrible people wakeboarding.  And then a two-headed shark eats all of them.  Sometimes it eats two of them at the same time.

I feel the need to stop here for a second, though.  I am going to spend the rest of this article trashing this movie.  It's deserved.  That said, nothing I say about this movie can change the simple fact that there are multiple scenes in this movie where a two-headed shark eats two different people at the same time.  And it's something magical, primal, and wonderful.  Just keep that in mind.

After the first scene, we meet up with Carmen Electra.  We also meet some other girl, as well as Not Aaron Eckhart.

They're carting along a whole bunch of, just, completely awful college students on a boat for a semester of class.  Seems standard enough.  But then we meet the leads.  Introducing, in this corner, Brooke Hogan!

And then there's some nerdy asshole too. 

We get introduced to all the students by way of them all ripping on each other, drawing convenient attention to every student's one character trait.  There's the stoner, the asshole, and the most annoying woman in the world.

Literally all she does is scream rhetorical questions why everyone around her is dying.

The first sign of trouble happens when the ship hits a bad CGI fish.  Which attracts a bad CGI two-headed shark.  So you know how movies like Cloverfield do a decent job of hiding the all-powerful monster, building it up all movie until you finally get a good look at how imposing it actually is?  Doesn't really work when the monster looks like this.

Either way, the movie's actually better for it, because instead of things like pacing and tension, we just have shots of two headed sharks ripping people apart.  In fact, more movies could take this lesson from this one.

The shark shows up and rips a hole in the hull of the ship, forcing the students to take a smaller boat over to a nearby atoll, while Carmen Electra who is actually not really in this movie all that much and the other teacher lady stay behind to fix the ship.  Well, the other teacher lady stays to fix the ship.  Carmen Electra lays out on a towel and poses for the camera.  The other teacher lady goes underwater to weld the hull shut, because underwater welding is a feasible thing that can happen, and promptly gets eaten by a two-headed shark.

Back at the atoll where Not Aaron Eckhart and the students are hanging out, things are getting awful.  The only passable actor is the nerdy lead, everybody else makes me want to vomit all over my tv, and Jesus Christ this movie was made in 2012 and they just made a "that's what she said joke" but oh, here we go.  A dude goes off to a beach, alone, with two girls.  Obviously, they don’t come back.

By the way, nobody notices that these people are missing until the very end of the film.

At this point, apparently the atoll they're on is beginning to collapse, because whatever is supporting it is crumbling away.  And here's where everything really slows down.  There's a joke a lot of unfunny bloggers make about The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers- it's always some variation of "hey, this movie is three hours of walking".  Besides the odd shark attack, that's what this movie is as well.  Which is actually pretty impressive, given the fact that the movietakes place on a very small atoll and a couple of boats.

Not Aaron Eckhart hurts his widdle weg, and has to be shipped back to the (still broken) main boat so Carmen Electra can kiss it and make it better.  The remaining students fix up a couple boats and decide to race back to the main boat.  But, uh-oh, someone goes overboard.

Well, at least his inevitable death is an awesome one.  The two headed shark, in a move Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings would be proud of, bops him up above the surface, smacks him up into the air, and spikes him back down.  And by that I mean the shark ate him.  If that wasn't clear.

Fucking awesome.

So now everyone knows it's safe to shit their pants with fear because there's a goddamn two-headed shark in the water.  The shark eats a couple more assholes, and everybody leaves the boat for the sinking atoll.  Seems like a lateral move if you ask me.

Now it's plan time.  The atoll is collapsing, the boat is still broken, and, oh yeah, shark with two heads.  That's still a consideration.  Of course, the nerdy kid comes up with a totally ridiculous plan to distract the shark with bad CGI electricity while Brooke Hogan fucking underwater welds the ship back together.

Things work fine at first- too bad the jock douchebag character steals the boat right when Hogan is done fixing it up.  And he dies too, because he's an idiot.  Also the ship sinks.  So pretty much everyone's fucked.  Oh, and now the atoll is, like, actually collapsed.

Not Aaron Eckhart and Carmen Electra make out on the shoreline before being killed by a two-headed-shark-tidal-wave.

Everyone else takes cover in a flooded church, where the Coolest Guy Ever proceeds to beat the shit out of the shark with a fucking cross.

He and all the other incidental characters die right there, while the leads and some random girl who will most definitely sacrifice herself so the other two can live escape.  They try to blow the shark up with a gas can, but that ends like this.

Whoops.  It's not all in vain, though- random girl was able to light the gas can and blow the fuck out of one of the shark's two heads.  Somehow.

So at this point, it's a one-headed shark attack, and our two leads have a boat, so they're good to go, yeah?  Yeah.

Except Hogan has the brilliant idea to start the motor and use their only escape method as a decoy to fool the shark.  By some stroke of luck, and because The Hulkster wouldn't approve of his daughter dying in the movie, this works.  The shark tries to eat the motor because it's apparently not that intelligent, and blows up.  A helicopter shows up to take the leads to safety.  End.

So okay, here's the deal.  This movie is painful.  Very painful, in fact.  But the gore is awesome, the shark scenes are great, and there's a great sense of karmic balance when this one fucking character that's been annoying you for the whole fucking movie just dies.  It's almost worth it.

Luckily, some fucker on youtube collected all the death scenes, so you don't have to watch the worthless parts of the movie.  Enjoy!

Verdict: Watch it, like, REALLY drunk, and with friends.

#summer #summerbright #breckenridge #shark #two headed shark attack

[beersandbmovies]

Boom! and The Expendables 2

Around this time a year ago, I went on a journey, a journey of friendship, self-discovery, and also Steven Seagal.

It's about time I do it again, with a little help from some asshole named Dave who has this delusion that he's a dude named Pierre Menard that nobody has never heard of.

But he's pretty cool, and he fills out my bar trivia team. 

So we saw The Expendables 2 together and wrote about it.  At least after we stopped giggling like schoolgirls at the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger is back.

The Beer.

Well, it can't all be good news.

Full disclosure: I bought this beer because it looks silly as fuck.  My favorite part, even over the clip-art explosion in the background of the label is the unexplained "2011" on the neck of the beer.

That was pretty much the extent of my enjoyment with the whole experience.

The nose wasn't bad, but it smelled like bitter cocoa grounds, and not in an appetizing way.  Like, the bitter cocoa grounds had been sitting in your pantry since the previous owners of your building moved out, and then you find them and decide to open the tin up.  Like that.

Tasting it wasn't awful- there were some pleasant chocolate and caramel notes, but everything about the beer was just off in some way.  I don't know if it was old or skunked, but the bitter bite at the end was odd, and left a real unpleasant taste in my mouth. 

Maybe the 2011 refers to when the beer was bottled.  That would explain a lot.

Oh, and Dave didn't like it either.

Verdict: Not Recommended.

The B-Movie

Be forewarned: There are some minor spoilers here.  I'm not going to ruin the movie for you by going through it beat by beat like I usually do, but if you don't want one-liners or awesome fight sequences ruined before you see the movie, be warned that it's kind of hard to talk about this movie without mentioning one-liners or awesome fight sequences.  Because without those, all you have left is a questionably talented Asian actress.

I'll let Dave go first.

SUPER COLLABORATION POWER ENGAGE! 

I guess I should start by saying that I went into seeing Expendables 2 expecting to see a pretty crappy movie. I haven't seen the first Expendables, and seeing the second before I saw the first is certainly some kind of film heresy, but that's what I did, and now I have to live with the consequences. 

How about we start with a checklist of things I expected? Extended action sequences, check. Explosions, check. More action stars than I knew what to do with, check. Plot holes, check. Yes, I expected plot holes, and they were there. But, since I expected them, they didn't really ruin the film for me. If you're going to see Expendables 2 and demand a beautifully constructed story, go see something else.

So...yeah, it lived up to expectations very well. That's not saying that everything was 100% brilliant. I missed Jet Li, especially after he takes out a dude by throwing a gun at his face. I thought the actress playing Maggie (Nan Yu) was pretty painful, which is saying something up against Sly Stallone, who was remarkably better than I remember him being. 

But there were some fantastically entertaining moments that made everything better. Chuck Norris makes a Chuck Norris joke. Dolph Lundgren is hilarious as a genius Fulbright Scholar turned action hero meathead. And, in a turn of subtlety not normally seen in movies like this, JCVD's bad guy is named "Villain" [Editor's note- it's actually "Vilain".  Much subtler.], pronounced "vil-lane", but clearly named as the film's...well, villain. 

Final verdict? Deep and emotionally moving? Not at all. Intensely entertaining in just about any way you could want? Hits the nail on the head. Go see it for pure enjoyment. 

-Dave

Oh, would you look at that, here's Dave's blog that you all should read!

Anyway.

I should preface my review this way.  I saw The Expendables, because of course I did.  And I liked it.  It was everything I expected it to be.  But it was also kind of disappointing.  The movie took itself too seriously, and that was its fatal flaw.  It got bogged down in plot, somehow.  There were no real one-liners.  The sense of fun that an action movie needs to have to go above and beyond was all but absent.  But, again, I liked it well enough.

The Expendables 2 took any sense of seriousness the first movie had, strapped it to a cruise missile (along with Mickey Rourke) and fired it off, never to be seen again.

And the movie is so much better for it.

I'm not going to rehash everything Dave said, because I pretty much agree with all of it.  Here's what I will say.  When you have a massive group of action stars together in one movie, things get dicey.  Everyone needs screen time.  The Avengers did this very well, and so does this movie.

In the first five minutes, each of the main Expendables crew from the first movie gets a decent amount of time to showcase how they, individually would break somebody's face.  In Jet Li's case, it's with frying pans.  In another case, it's by ramping a motorcycle into a helicopter.  It takes all kinds.

It is disappointing that Jet Li vanishes in the first scene, but soon after, we’re introduced to a young hacker type, presumably to make fun of all these old people.  At this point I thought two things.  You know that part in Goldeneye where you have to like, protect Natalya, but she's an idiot and gets her dumb ass shot a lot, and it almost ruins the whole game?  I thought of that.  And got scared.

Fortunately, she can hold her own in a fight, and the movie doesn't turn into a gigantic escort mission. 

Of course, where this movie really shines is in the fights, and the one-liners that go with them.  Terry Crews doesn't disappoint as The Old Spice Guy Who Isn't The Actual Old Spice Guy, and shouts things as you would expect him to, but the real star of the show is Arnie.

I don't want to ruin the actual lines, because if I do, you'll be deprived of that sense of childlike joy that I felt when he said them, but in this movie, he makes references to the Terminator films, Die Hard, and Rambo.  Which is just fucking perfect. 

And I really mean perfect.

And later on, he rips the door off of a Smart Car.

Bruce Willis does it too.

But honestly, that's not even the best part of the scene.  The best part of the scene is watching two large, muscly men cram themselves into a Smart Car, and shoot, like, everybody from it.  It's like if slapstick had a baby with a serial killer.

Anyway, the story in a nutshell is Jean-Claude Van Damme is trying to sell weapons grade nuke stuff to people so that they can, well, nuke stuff.  Standard.  The genius of the plot is it is so standard that every fight actually feels justified, because with such a standard, sparse plot, justification for a rocket launcher airport fight can come from "a need for information".  The plot never gets in the way of the awesomeness.  Which is good, especially in contrast with Expendables 1.

At this point, I would like to real quick, run off a list of things that happen in this movie that made me insanely happy.  Not counting the trailer before the movie for an upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger film where he plays a sheriff in small-town America.

Which you will probably also see reviewed on this blog because of course you will.

Anyway.  Things from Expendables 2 that I liked that weren't the trailers before the movie:

Jason Statham says "I now pronounce you man and knife".  Then stabs a dude.  By the way, this happens after an awesome fight scene in a church where Statham is dressed as a priest.  So the line works on two levels.  See, he's a priest, and priests usually preside over marriages.  Also, he's stabbing a dude.  So, yeah.  Man and knife.

The first time you see Jean-Claude Van Damme in the movie, you'll flip.  Personally, I was worried- JCVD is one of my favorite action stars, and I dreaded rooting against him.  But he's awesome enough, and honestly, a good enough villain, that I didn't mind.  Also, every time he roundhouse kicks anything in this movie, an angel gets its wings. 

That thing Dave said about Chuck Norris.  By the way, before you see this movie, I'd highly recommend forgetting Chuck Norris has a cameo in it.  Somehow, I had- I blame the fucking return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the innocent surprise and wonder I felt when he was first introduced is a beautiful feeling that should be shared. 

Dolph goddamned Lundgren somehow manages to steal the show. 

In a blatant Total Recall reference, Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a giant drill car.  He doesn't say "screw you", though.  So that kind of sucks.

This one time, Jean-Claude Van Damme roundhouse kicks a knife into a dude.

It made me very happy to realize that Sly Stallone had actually learned from the first Expendables movie.  The sequel is less confused-feeling, and the movie really works on all the levels it should.  There are plenty of pleasant surprises, some awesome gore, and it really is worth the price of admission to see a newly-in-shape Ahnuld just wreck a whole bunch of shit. 

So those are pretty much my thoughts on the movie.

Fucking see it.

Verdict: I just goddamn said "fucking see it."  Listen the first time.

#i am pierre menard #arnold schwarzenegger #Jean-Claude Van Damme #sylvester stallone #jet li #Jason Statham #goddamn #expendables #chuck norris

[beersandbmovies]

Brekle's Brown and Bullet in the Face

This week, we're doing something different.  Again.  

To the types among you that watch shows like Portlandia and Comedy Bang! Bang!- first of all, take a good long look at yourself in the mirror and try to convince yourself in vain that you're not a terrible person and that your friends appreciate what you contribute to the relationships you build.  Like I do every evening before bed.  Then drink until you forget how awful you are.  Like I do every evening before bed.

Second of all, you may have seen commercials for IFC's new(ish) show Bullet in the Face. 

So that's what we're doing this week.

The Beer.

I have to say, expectations were very, very tempered for this one.  Brekle's Brown is an offering from San Fran's Anchor Brewing Company.  Not that I have a problem with that- I love Anchor Steam, but I've never really had a brown ale that I didn't totally forget about afterwards.

So okay, the pour is beautiful.  The picture doesn't really capture it all that well, but this beer's head is a great cocoa color, so, you know, there's that.

The nose is malty, and a bit coffee-y and bitter.  Have you ever drank black coffee, and there's that slightly citrusy bitterness that lingers a bit after you sip?  It smells kind of like that.  Which is weird when it's late at night on a Monday.

It tastes that way too.  Which is weird when it's late at night on a Monday.  I mean, it's a beer, it's malty, it's bitter, but the best way I can describe this to you is to tell you Brekle's Brown Ale tastes like black coffee.  I don't even have to do that thing I normally do where I compare the beer to a paramour I may or may not have been involved with at some point in life.  It tastes like black coffee.

It's nice, though.  I personally dig black coffee.  It's nice and light too, which is fairly surprising given its opacity.  So yeah, this is another breakfast beer.  Put your Wheaties in it or some shit.

Verdict: Recommended.

The B-Movie TV Show?

In order to avoid spoiling the series for any of you folks who are waiting for it to hit Netflix because you have Dish and not DirecTV, we're just going to go over the first episode.

Okay, this is different for me.

Here's my difficulty.  I'm not that smart.  I've never claimed to be that smart.  I get bored easily, and my brain hurts when people on my TV screen aren't either fighting or playing sports because it means I have to pay attention to, like, subtlety.

So if this show is brilliant, it's going way, way over my head.  I just like the pew pew boom bang kapow.

The backstory is neatly wrapped up in the first few minutes of the film.  Our main character, some NIN-looking guy that spends too much time dying his hair, is an insane killer in love with another insane killer, and they're both working for an insane killer played by Eddie Izzard.

Simple enough to start.

His lover is pregnant, though- which is a problem, apparently, because this insane killer somehow doesn't think he's father material. 

Anyway.

His boss gives him the order to knock over a jewelry store manned by a bunch of Mossad agents, a gunfight ensues, our main character guy shoots a cop, then gets a Bullet in the Face care of his lover.

Fast forward three months, and we're in a hospital with some woman and some grizzled cop type, as they cut the bandages off of our main character guy.  And oh, wait, what?  Hold on.

Okay.  So, he has the face of the cop he killed now.  Because he had to have a face transplant.  Because that's what happens when you get a Bullet in the Face.  And now he kind of looks like David Bowie.

Kinda.

We get more exposition from the lady and the cop, who explain that there's a gang war brewing in Brüteville.  Which is probably the best name for a city ever.  So they want Not David Bowie to be a cop now, because hell, he has that cop he killed's face now.  Plus, he has all these connections with insane killers, so it's pretty damn convenient for the po-po. 

I'm glad I've seen Face/Off, otherwise I'd be a lot more confused.

This all happens while the grizzled cop is crying a LOT.  To be fair, he actually has a perfectly good reason for crying.  The cop our main character killed, whose face he is now wearing, was the grizzled cop's partner and best friend. 

Heavy.

Well, it is, until Not David Bowie throws a syringe at him. 

We get a hilarious scene where Not David Bowie gets his gun in front of the rest of the cops, while the woman explains to the force that due to his Bullet in the Face, he's got memory loss and now has a German accent.  The force seems to buy it, until Not David Bowie starts waving his gun around, laughing and screaming "I'm a cop!"

Any nitpicking I can do is preempted by this show- I try and find faults, but then something hilarious happens and I'm laughing because Eddie Izzard's leprechaun snowglobe broke, and he's freaking out about it, or something similar.

We then get one of my favorite scenes of the whole episode- Not David Bowie and his new cop partner Grizzled Cop go to a strip club to track down Not David Bowie's former boss Eddie Izzard.  The best part of this scene isn't the part where Not David Bowie punches a dude in the face with a nail and then somehow survives getting another Bullet in the Face.  

No.

It's watching Grizzled Cop get a lapdance while crying uncontrollably.  This scene.  It's so good.

He...he shows the dancer a picture, says "these are my wife and kids", and then breaks down and just, weeps into her breast.  It's brilliant.

The rest of the episode revolves around Not David Bowie infiltrating the other gang in the city, as he's just been made aware of a rat in that gang.  

Naturally, he just goes ahead and tells the gang boss that, hey guys, one of your loyal associates is selling you out.  A good 30 seconds pass without incident, then the boss starts coolly squeezing rounds into all of his men- looking to Not David Bowie for confirmation that the guy he killed is the rat.  He never gets it, so he has his surviving guys take Not David Bowie into a beautiful glen right out of the set of Lord of the Rings to make sure he gets a Bullet in the Face.

Then, out of nowhere, shots ring out, and guess who comes along to save the day?  Grizzled Cop!  He's stopped crying!  Yaaaaaay!

He and Not David Bowie have a pretty serious heart to heart- Not David Bowie seems legitimately ready to open up to this guy.

Not David Bowie: "I'm not a fucking lobster[...]"

Grizzled Cop: "The shell you inhabit was not for a crustacean."

Brilliant.

The episode ends, and it's revealed that Not David Bowie's ex-lover is the rat, as she is catfishing pretty much all the gang bosses ever.  So yeah, okay, cool.

I'm really into this, guys.  The fights are awesome, the gunplay is inspired, and the booms are boom zap pow pew zing p'tchew.

I am, however, a bit miffed.  There are obviously layers upon layers upon layers of irony going on here, and I can only navigate through maybe one or two.  So I feel like I'm kind of missing out.

But then something goes pew pew and I giggle and clap my hands together.

Verdict: Watch it.

#anchor #brekle's brown #brown ale #ifc #bullet in the face #cop

[beersandbmovies]

Hyve and The Wasp Woman

Thank you for bearing with me while I was on vacation.  I had a great time in the woods fighting bears and building log cabins while watching the Olympics and drinking scotch.

Today, I got to celebrate my return to Chicago by watching another Roger Corman movie.

Feels like home.

Shitty, boring, terrible home.

The Beer.

Hyve is a honey ale, because of course it is you idiot, and it comes out of Salt Lake City.

I was a bit nervous about this one going in, especially after it poured that nice, thick-looking honeyed color.  My expectations were high, because on paper, honey beer sounds awesome.  That said, I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment, because there seemed to be a high chance the honey would wash out all the, well, manly-beery flavors.  And we can't have that.

Luckily, this beer is a winner.  It smells like any other ale, but drinking it is an unique experience.  It hits the palate like any other hoppy, slightly bitter ale - it's a bit on the pale side - but then, something changes.  As you sip, the honey hits as an undertone after the hops hit and before the pleasantly bitter aftertaste hits.  This gives the whole thing a honeyed tint that flavors and elevates the other elements in the beer rather than washing everything out.  Remember how in like, tenth grade, every time you kissed someone, there was always that hint of Jelly Belly lip gloss or whatever?  It's like that.

Except your mouth won't also taste like jelly beans for the rest of the day.  So if you were looking forward to that, sorry.

Verdict: Highly Recommended.

The B-Movie.

Guuuuuuuuuuuhhhh.

No matter the movie, no matter whether or not I actually like it or not, I always look forward to writing up a review.  It lets me express myself.  And even if the movie itself is a slog to get through, I can at least look forward to tearing it apart in a blog read by literally tens of twos or threes of people.

But I'm not looking forward to this.

First of all, let me tell you that the poster up there is a total lie.  That's not what the wasp woman looks like, she doesn't turn into a monster at night, and she doesn't lust after anybody.  Oh, by the way, spoiler alert, I don't like this movie.

Okay, let's rip this band-aid off and just dive right in.

Ugh.

So we start off just watching footage of beekeepers collecting wasps for what seems like a really long time, especially when the movie's only like an hour and fifteen minutes long.  The first character we meet is obviously the Mad Scientist, and not fifteen minutes after the movie starts, we learn that he has perfected a formula made from "wasp enzymes" that can reverse aging.  This is demonstrated in the film by placing a large dog next to a small dog, and explaining that the small dog was given the formula, and the large one was not.  Fair enough, I guess. 

The Mad Scientist's boss comes along, and seeing that he has found an elegant solution to a problem the best minds in science have devoted their lives to in vain, fires him on the spot. 

We then cut to a boardroom in a cosmetics company, where Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman is briefing her employees on the company's recent losses.

Now, I can understand an immortality serum, but a woman running a business in 1959?  That's just WACKY!

It becomes clear that the problem with the company is, no shit, that Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman is becoming too old to appear on the company's ads.  And there you are, The Unescapable Sexist Patriarchy That Still Haunts Us Today!  I was wondering when you'd show up!  A couple minutes of boring shit happens, and The Mad Scientist shows up at her doorstep, ready to show off his miracle juice and prove it's legit.

Wait, no!  Not okay!

I'm good with, you know, wanton killing of goons and mooks and other faceless human drones that probably have families they go home to after their shift at whatever evil mercenary company they work for.

But you don't.  You fucking do not.  Abuse.  Guinea pigs.  In your movie.

I will fucking hunt you.

After the guinea pigs get injected with the wasp potion, they transform into mice because apparently that's what baby guinea pigs look like?  And now Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman is totally okay with everything and willing to shoot herself up with the junk so she can look pretty for the ads she has to pose for.  Because god knows she's so frumpy, old, and unattractive as it stands now.

At this point, I called my roomie in, on account of he started watching the movie with me, then got bored and asked me to let him know if anything was about to happen.  He rushed in, and as the music swelled and Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman got injected with the wasp juice...  nothing happened.

From there, we fast forward three weeks, and everything's going great, Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman is looking younger, if only slightly, and nobody has died yet even though we're like, a good third or more of the way into the movie.

So my roomie went back to his room to watch Breaking Bad. 

A bunch more boring shit happens, but suffice it to say, the only plot point that's even slightly important that is revealed is that three of Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman's employees are snooping around, wary of the wasp juice.

But now Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman is getting impatient.  She breaks into the lab again, and picks up the bottle of concentrated wasp juice The Mad Scientist warned her not ever to inject ever.  She fills her syringe.  The music swells.  She places the needle to her arm.  I call my roommate into the room.  She injects the wasp juice.

And nothing fucking happens. 

Well, that's kind of a lie.  Fast forward to the next scene and Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman looks younger.  And by that I mean they took off her age makeup. 

So my roomie went back to his room to watch Breaking Bad. 

The three employees talk some more about oh no, wasp juice, and then in one of the only slightly amusing parts of the movie, The Mad Scientist fights a kitten that has gone crazy from the stuff.  So now we get Wasp Woman, right?

Well, yeah, but we have to wait a bit longer and also there's like 20 minutes left in the movie by now. 

By the time Not-Yet-Wasp-Woman jabs herself one last time, it's too late.  I'm done already.  Even if the movie somehow ended in an awesome scene reminiscent of that poster up there, it'd be too little too late. 

So imagine my feelings when I saw the Wasp Woman as she was finally revealed.

You know what?  You don't have to.  Because there's a still from the movie that encapsulates it perfectly.

This.  This right here.  This is my verdict. 

But okay, let's talk about the end.  The Wasp Woman kills like, 3 people.

She is then found out by the employees, who have been tipped off by The Mad Scientist.  The Mad Scientist throws a bottle of acid at The Wasp Woman's face, and they turn on a fog machine to half-assedly attempt to make it look like the acid is burning something.  Then she gets thrown out a window, and we get a shot of her charred body which pretty much just looks like a bunch of rotting ground beef.  It's not even that gross, cause it's just black-and-white. 

So that's the disappointing mess that is The Wasp Woman.  I didn't have high expectations, but man, I dunno.  Nothing happened in the movie until the last 30 minutes, and that's being generous.  It's like, have you ever stayed at a party for a really long time because your friend was gonna show up and meet you there, but he shows up late, and he's way drunker than you when he gets there, so you don't end up having any fun because you're taking care of him all night?  And he has to go home and he's all throwing up everywhere, and apologizing, and you're like, it's no big deal?  And it's really not that big of a deal, but there was a cute girl at the party and maybe you wanted to talk to her a bit longer?  And even if she wasn't interested, it's a Saturday night and you'd rather not spend it taking care of a friend who doesn't know how to handle his alcohol? 

That's what watching this movie is like.

Verdict: Skip it.

#beer #honey #ale #roger corman #b-movie #horror #not really

[beersandbmovies]

The Stranger and Galaxy of Terror

This is kind of a big day in Beers and B-movies history.  Today, I review, for the first time, a Roger Corman flick. 

I can safely say that without his contributions to cinema, I wouldn't be doing this blog today.  This dude is one of the original producers of awful b-movies.

So, thank you, Mr. Corman.  You can also go eat a dick.

The Beer.

The Stranger is an offering from Left Hand Brewing, a fairly well-known and successful craft beer brewing company perhaps best known for its milk stout. 

But I hate milk stouts, and besides, who drinks a milk stout in the summer, so fuck that.

We're drinking an American pale ale.

Oh say can you fucking see. 

The beer pours beautifully, with that nice gold/wheaten color that great pale ales and wheat beers always seem to have.  So, right off the bat, the beer is getting good marks in my shallow, skin-deep, one-year-out-of-college mind.

It smells nice too, floral and very, very hoppy.  I was preparing myself for a very bitter pale ale as I took the first sip, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this beer is incredibly smooth.  Yeah, it's bitter and hoppy, but it's not particularly intense.  The hops mingle with lemony-citrus notes and each mellows the other out.  

I'm going to recommend this beer, not just for people that like pale ales, but for people that like beers.  I know a couple folks that shy away from pale ales and IPAs because the hoppy bitterness sticks around and blows out the palate and gives them headaches and also they have no taste, but I'd definitely have them try this one.  It's a good starter pale ale.

Verdict: Recommended.

The B-Movie.

I figured I'd mix it up a bit this week, since this blog was in very real danger of becoming Beers and Sushi Typhoon movies if I kept going on my current path.  So here's a, ahem, "classic" from Roger Corman.

I have to warn you, this one might be more NSFW than normal, so heads up.

Anyway.

The movie begins, and we get introduced to all the characters, some of which you will recognize as Joanie from Happy Days and that guy who played Freddy Krueger.  You will recognize the other characters as "the whiny prick", "the past-his-prime captain", "a guy that looks kinda like Sean Penn", "the hot one", "the captain who is also crazy", "the old dude", and "the dude that actually looks a whole lot like Burt Reynolds".

We learn that this band of misfits is to be sent on a rescue mission to save survivors from a ship we saw get taken over in the very early minutes of the movie.  Standard stuff, but what really makes this movie is the fact that they decided to take a full 20 minutes (out of a 1 hour, 20 minute movie) to show us the ins and outs of how the spaceship runs, and how it is to get to its final destination.

Instead of blasting aliens.

So that's cool, I guess.  I mean, everything's made with miniatures and stuff on-set, so it's cool to actually see actors, you know, interacting with the things around them.  That said, come on, man.  My time is valuable.  I don't care about hyperjump presets and gyro stabilizers and people yelling about made up ship stuff for fucking forever.  You've already established you're there to blast aliens.  So blast some fucking aliens already.

Our happy band of characters we know nothing about head over to the spooky mansion abandoned spaceship and start checking things out.  Of course, they all split up, and leave The Whiny Prick alone to whine and yell and generally be so fucking annoying that I was worried the movie would keep him alive just so he could ruin every scene by yelping like a dog that just had its tail stepped on.

Good thing he's first to go.

The crew is so shaken by this that they immediately dissect his body and discover that, shocker, something insidious and probably evil or something killed him.  So they go back out there to find out what.  And that's when they find the Aggro Crag enemy base.

If you're kind of lost at this point, don't worry, I'm in your shoes too.  The characters jump cut from location to location without any explanation, so I could only assume this is where the aliens holed up?  I dunno.

So, the Past-His-Prime captain gets chest-leech-lampreyed to death,

and the rest of the crew heads back to the ship to regroup. 

They all decide to storm the base again, leaving Freddy Krueger behind with The Old Dude and The Captain Who Is Also Crazy.  Once again, the guys storming the base split up, leaving The Big Dude to grieve after, no shit, he breaks some fucking plastic ninja stars that were apparently super important. 

What follows is actually a pretty great scene where The Big Dude dies- the ninja stars reform and launch themselves under his arm skin, creeping their way up in a very, very cringe-inducing way. 

Then, to save himself, he chops off his own arm.  Too bad the arm is still alive. 

The disembodied arm throws the ninja star, hitting The Big Dude square in the chest.

It's really only here that the movie shows its cards about the aliens- they're barely visible up to this point.  We cut back to the ship, and it's become obvious that The Old Dude is evil.  The Captain Who Is Also Crazy also gets her face burnt off, so there's that.

Trust me, it looks less like they covered her in deli meats and ketchup when the scene's actually happening.

Now we're back at the Aggro Crag enemy base, and we only have Freddy Krueger, Not Sean Penn (this guy, right here),

The (evil) Old Dude, Joanie, and Not Burt Reynolds left.  Not Sean Penn gets picked off amid some cool shots of aliens stalking him, and The (evil) Old Dude runs off to do evil shit, I guess.  Freddy, Burt, and Joanie then proceed to the Hall of Mirrors, where Freddy fights Dark Freddy, just like in Ocarina of Time never mind, video games are for nerds.

Suddenly, Freddy realizes that none of this is real apparently, and it's all a manifestation of his own fear or some bullshit like that, so the fight just ends.  And also, by the way, everything in the Aggro Crag enemy base is a manifestation of fear and that's how everyone else died?

Then Joanie gets exploded to death by, like, squeezy alien ropes?  Burt gets all sad because they were boning, and the two survivors move on.  Burt goes ahead because he's the hero, while Freddy hangs back and is never seen again for the entire movie.  Burt confronts The Old Dude who is also apparently something called the Planetmaster.  So he has the power to turn his face into a solar flare, I guess.

Burt fights some aliens for a bit, then the zombified crew, and then Zombie Joanie, before confronting The (evil) Old Dude (who is also a Planetmaster?) and just, shooting the fuck out of him.  So now Not Burt Reynolds is the Planetmaster apparently.  And roll credits.

I still don't fucking know what a Planetmaster is.

That said, besides the non-ending, I actually dug this movie.  It's paced decently, and the combination of awful lighting and awful sets blend seamlessly so that it's really hard to notice either.  It also hits a nerve for me at least, the low budget sets, the cheesy alien costumes, the flimsy sets- it's really charming.  The acting's also pretty good- it's a classic case of the actors doing their best with a shitty script, and the job they do is pretty commendable.  It's cheesy, yeah, but I'd watch it again. 

Verdict: Watch it drunk.

#sci-fi #left hand brewing #the stranger #pale ale #galaxy of terror #roger corman

[beersandbmovies]

Omission and Yakuza Weapon

Oh goodness.

This one is a keeper. 

I just...I can't even.  Hit the jump already.

The Beer.

Omission is one of those lagers that follows the current trend of "beer minimalism".  These beers don't use many ingredients and flavoring agents, and it's kind of a style a lot of breweries are latching on to. 

The beer pours a gross-looking cloudy pee color, but the aroma is pleasant and malty, with hints of spicy hops- it's pretty refreshing, but there's not much else to the nose.

The beer-drinking experience is similar to the beer-smelling experience, in that there's not much to it.  It's refreshing, and it's got a nice bittersweet quality to it due to a masterful mixing of malts and hops, but for me, it's all too simple.  I'm a Northwestern grad, dammit.

I am a man that craves complexity, deep flavors, layers of experiences that I can dig through and enjoy, and though Omission lager is certainly not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it fails to satisfy my refined palate.

Verdict: Not Recommended.

Now let's talk about a movie about a dude with a machine gun for an arm.

The B-Movie.

Whoo boy.

So remember when I reviewed Alien VS. Ninja and was so taken by the production company Sushi Typhoon's logo that I pretty much decided to like the movie before I even watched it?

Well, this is another Sushi Typhoon movie.  Sorry to spoil the ending, but this movie is one you need to see.  It's on Netflix instant right now.  You know what?  I'll wait.  Watch the movie, then come back and read this review of the movie you just watched.

All set?  Great.

The movie starts and we're dropped into a war zone, where immediately our lead, Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas starts flipping out and killing everybody.  He has a monologue that explains that he can't be hit by bullets because he's not scared.  Same goes for land mines.

Fast forward two minutes, and Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas steps on a land mine before storming the camp of some dude he apparently wants to kill.  Naturally, he uses the land mine to perform a superjump, crash down into the camp, and, no shit, drill holes into some dude's face with a...drill shoe?  Yeah. 

Welp, I'm sold.

The story is that Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the son of a Yakuza boss that just kicked the bucket, so now he has to go back to Japan to make sure everything's legit in the family. 

Of course, it's totally not.  The mob has been taken over by Jeff Goldblum, and everyone's out to kill Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Then we meet his love interest, who throws a boat at him. 

I, uh, I can't really put it much more clearly than that.  Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's love interest throws a full-on boat at him, hits him with it, and he says "ouch".

Moving on.

We stop in a coffee shop for some exposition, and the entire plot gets set up in like 3 minutes.  Jeff Goldblum is trying to unite the Yakuza to consolidate power, as well as to better distribute a hyperdrug 1000 times more powerful than heroin. 

Then, we flash back to Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's past, where we meet his best friend/rival/lover (PLEASE), as they have the most romantic fight I've ever seen, complete with a cloudy visual filter.  After they beat the shit out of each other, they give each other tattoos, because of course.

The Love Interest gets captured Jeff Goldblum, who has strapped on a white, wiggly dildo thing.  So there's that.  Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes to rescue her, but Japanese Jeff Goldblum has set up a tower of 38 trained assassins (each with their own theme, natch) to challenge him on his way.

At this point, I was pretty stoked, especially since I saw a pirate themed assassin on the list.  Too bad Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas wasn't as excited as I was.  He decides fuck this, and blows up the whole building with a gigantic pile of dynamite.  Because this is how physics works, this explodes only the floors between the bottom floor and top floor, bringing him within striking distance of Japanese Jeff Goldblum. 

Too bad a helicopter shoots his arm off and then a rocket shoots his leg off after he fucking catches another rocket with his not-shot-off arm.  Nkay.

Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas shoots down the chopper, before passing out.  Both he and Jeff Goldblum get rebuilt, Robocop and Darth Vader style, respectively.  

Though I will say, I feel a bit cheated- we're about two-thirds of the way through the movie by now and our lead is only now getting his machine gun arm and rocket leg.

After Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas just completely disintegrates a bunch of assassins, we move into the final fight scene that lasts like, a half hour.  It starts with a 10-minute long, continuously-shot fight sequence.  This is one of the better fight scenes I've ever seen.  It's one continuous take.  And it's awesome.  Here, I can't find a clip, but watch the movie's trailer.  It should give you a taste of the fighting in this movie.

Then we move to a really pretty scene- it's like ballet, except with a dude shooting rockets out of his knee and exploding people into a fine red mist. 

Then, we meet Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's best friend/rival/lover.  Up till now, we've been getting intermittent backstory on this guy- he wants to be better than Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  It's pretty much his only goal, and only reason to live.  And during the movie, his sister is killed.  It's pretty bad- he spirals into drug use, and is hopped up on the hyperdrug when we meet him.  It's a sobering part of an otherwise lighthearted movie.

At least until he starts using his naked, dead, sister as a fucking gun.  An awesome fight scene happens, the sister explodes after Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas punches her in the genitals as his best friend/rival/lover is shooting a rocket out of her. 

Yep.

After Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas punches his best friend/rival/lover so hard his spine rips out his back, it's time for the final showdown. 

Darth Goldblum has set up a nuclear bomb in the corpse of Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas's dead father.  And he's built himself a mechanized dick that serves as the detonator. 

So now Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is in a pickle.  He's gotta kill this dude, but he doesn't want to kill Japan.  Especially not now that the camera has panned back to include a nice shot of Mount Fuji in the background.

Or, wait, no, he's not in a pickle because he doesn't give a shit.  Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas throws Darth Goldblum off a cliff, and punches him to death in mid-air, causing the bomb to go off, obliterating everyone. 

There's a rule in theatre, and it goes something like this- if there's a gun on the wall, it's going to be fired by the end of the show.  I think Chekhov came up with that.  I guess it works for nukes too.

Watch this movie, guys.  I unequivocally recommend it.  And unlike other movies of its ilk, it's masterfully paced.  Even though the movie starts off super-ridiculous, it's able to continuously top itself so the gratuitous violence never gets stale.  The fights and action sequences always seem fresh and "Oh shit!"-worthy, and the humor is beautifully cartoony.  Just watch it.

Okay, I'mma go now, though.  I have to watch the rest of the Sushi Typhoon movies.

Verdict: You Must Watch This Movie.

#sushi typhoon #yakuza weapon #omission #lager

[beersandbmovies]

Brooklyn Summer Ale and Dinosaur Island

Now that it's not last week anymore, I'm feeling a lot better.  Rejuvenated.  That said, I'm kinda shooting low this week.  It's some easy prey- a 1994 movie called Dinosaur Island.

And jeez, guys, it's a doozy. 

Let's rip this shit apart.

The Beer.

This is one of the better looking beers I've ever had.  I usually like to make fun at this point, talking about how beer usually looks like pee or something, but jeez.  Look. 

This is Brooklyn Brewing's Summer Ale.  You may know Brooklyn Brewing for being pretty much the least expensive craft brewing company available here in the Midwest, so that's a plus. 

I've had their other beers, and pretty much been very meh about the whole thing.  The pour and aroma of their summer ale, however, gave me a whole lot of hope.  It's truly golden, and the aroma is perfect on a hot day, with nice, piercing notes of lemon, grapefruit, and hops.  I've noticed it's kind of hard to mess up a summer ale, so long as you get the citrusy aroma right.

It's got a nice mouthfeel, and is as refreshing as advertised.  The beer pretty much tastes like it smells, and although there aren't really any surprises or, honestly, anything super exciting about the beer.  You know what to expect.  And you know what?

That's okay.

Verdict: Recommended.

The B-Movie.

So this movie came out two months before Jurassic Park.  Just, just so you know.  Technically, it's not a rip-off.  That's good, though, because there's plenty of other shit that's more interesting to talk about in terms of this movie.

Once again, it should be blatantly obvious why I picked this movie.  The opening credits roll, and in no time at all, the movie introduces us to Dinosaur Island, where someone who wandered off the set of Avatar is sacrificing some other ladyto a T-Rex.

Oh, and by the way, we really don't see many dinosaurs in this movie, if you were expecting to.  It's really more of a boob island than a dinosaur island.

So the story is that a helicopter full of army dudes crashes, and deposits our heroes on an uncharted island.  An uncharted island covered with dinosaurs.  And here, let me show you this.  This is how the dinosaurs look in this movie.

They're like the shunned, shitty bastard children of the puppets from Pee-Wee's Playhouse. 

I love it.

Now, you guys know how these movies go.  The stereotypical army dudes come upon a tribe of warrior women, who capture them and assert dominance for a bit before the patriarchy rears its ugly head again and the men Save The Day. 

Here, of course, someone comes up with an ancient scroll that reveals that these dudes are gods and are destined to kill a T-Rex because, no shit, one of them has a smiley face temporary tattoo (which gets inadvertently rubbed off in subsequent scenes).

Now, the dudes are living the high life, even the kind-of-Jack-Nicholson-looking-captain character who never does anything for the entire movie.  The three main dudes, the Nerd, the Hero, and the Other Guy all find girlfriends or whatever, and then give their three gals their sacred scroll.  A fucking Playboy mag.  Which they three girls then proceed to study like the goddamn bible.  Oh, and by the way, since the girls' names aren't pronounceable in English, the dudes name them April, May, and June.  As in Miss April, Miss May, and Miss June. It’s so blatantly sexist that it can almost be read as satire of the way movies turn powerful female characters into sex-crazed drones as soon as A Penis shows up.

At this point, of course the women take their clothes off, feel each other up, and feel the dudes up. 

This whole thing is really uncomfortable.  I'm just watching this, feeling awful for those poor actresses, and feeling awkward watching girls feel each other up with my roommate and our mutual friend.  Maybe inviting them to watch the movie with me was a mistake.

After like, three more uncomfortable sex scenes, including one that takes place in, no shit, a magic spring, as well as a forgettable Triceratops fight, the three of them and their captain are finally ready to go off and kill the T-Rex.  So they hatch a brilliant plan.  

i don’t know what i expected.

So the adorable, chubby T-Rex takes the bait, and the army dudes open fire on it.  Nothing fucking happens to it until Other Guy goes ahead and chucks a grenade into its mouth, blowing its goddamned head off.  It's pretty sweet.

Oh, and he says a thing too!  He says "One of these days, Alice- pow!  Right in the kisser!"  Which is funny, because it's a Jackie Gleason reference and this movie was made in fucking 1994.

I'll say this for the movie, though.  I had a lot of fun watching it.  It reminded me what it was like to be 14 and embarrassingly hormonal, because the plot was obviously ripped from the minds of middle school students and the drawings they made in the margins of their textbook before they learned to treat potential romantic partners like, you know, people. It’s boobs and dinosaurs. That’s it.

Verdict: Watch it tipsy.

.

#dinosaur #ale #summer #brooklyn #island

[beersandbmovies]

Summer of Lager and Summer Lover

There's not a lot that keeps me from posting on time.  In fact, there's really only one thing that keeps me from posting on time. 

laxiness.

But this time was different.  This movie made me seriously question what I've been doing on this blog.  Whether what I'm doing matters, whether it has any significance.

This movie almost broke me.

The beer was nice, though.

The Beer.

Let's start with the good. 

This is Cisco Brewing's awfully named beer, Summer of Lager.  I mean, honestly, does that name make sense to any of you?  I guess it's a play on summer of love, but it, it just doesn't work.  Lager of Summer wouldn't be much better, but at least it would make sense.

Anyway. 

The beer is pretty much odorless, and it pours a real nice dark orange color.  I think I picked up hints of lemon and malt as it poured, but I could just be making that up.

Drinking this beer is an experience suited only for 80-90 degree nights, but damned if it's not perfect for those nights.  It's a smooth lager, with slight floral hints, and a nice grapefruit undertone.  The head is bitter, so if you're getting foam in your sips, there's a nice flavor balance.  This is the kind of beer you drink sitting on your fire escape, your gut hanging out under a tank top two sizes too small, and an old pair of boxers providing the absolute minimum amount of coverage necessary to keep the cops from carting you away for public indecency.

That's a regular summer activity, right?

Verdict: Highly Recommended.

The B-Movie.

I was promised a cheesy, exploitative, pansexual romp.  I was instead introduced to a genre of movie I had no idea existed, and continues to frighten me, even as I write this very sentence.

The cover should have given it away.  

As the credits rolled over a picturesque island, I started to get the feeling I was in for something terrible, but still held out hope.  I've done this for too long to still be this optimistic.  I'm always wrong about these kinds of things.

We're introduced to our two leads, a couple of rich, attractive newlyweds on their honeymoon.

Within the first minute of us meeting them, the lady has a monologue where she talks about systematically destroying her husband, scattering the pieces of his broken life to the four winds. 

bit of a red flag probably. 

The two of them are honeymooning on the Isle of Lesbos.  Which seems like an odd choice for a presumably monogamous heterosexual couple on their honeymoon.  Especially when one of them is named Sappho.

Yeah, so by the way, Red Flag Lady’s name is Sappho.  Oh dear.

After a couple of painful dialogues between the two leads, in which it is revealed that red flag lady finds incest "kinky", we're introduced to the mansion where they're apparently planning on living for the rest of their lives.  And at no point does anybody yell "Wooo!  Endless summer!!!" 

To summarize the rest of the movie, red flag lady does more red flags and cuts her hair short.

Then she meets not-Natalie Portman, and they fall in love. 

This ends up breaking the dude’s heart for some reason, wait, no, it's because he just married Red Flag lady and they're on their honeymoon.  Oh, and also, she has decided that cutting her hair short makes her a a twelve year old child (??????) and that her husband is married to a baby now apparently?

So Red Flag lady has the bright idea of having a three-way marriage, filled with lots of open sex and free love, and all that other shit that sounds really nice in theory, but requires, you know, emotional maturity and communication in practice. What could go wrong?

Unsurprisingly, everything falls apart, Red Flag Lady destroys her husband’s life and all of the art that he has spent his life making, and then...dies?  Immediately, the husband falls in love with not-Natalie Portman, and the two of them sail away into the sunset.

And I'm left a hollow shell of a man.

If you read the blog, you know I'm prone to exaggeration.  I like to blow things out of proportion for little reason.  But I want to open up a bit here, to be honest with you.

I had no idea movies like this were made.  Now, this is by no means the worst movie I've seen, but it did cause me to have an existential meltdown.  How do I write about a movie like this?  Nothing interesting happens throughout the whole movie.  And in a movie with like, five sex scenes, that's a crime.

Right now, I'm thinking "what the hell am I doing?"  What am I doing with this blog?  Why?  There's the occasional buried gem out there that I can bring to you, but is it really worth the effort?  Is it worth the boredom, the slog of the so-bad-they're-really-really-bad movies that occupies so much of my time?

That's why this post is late.  I've been doing a lot of thinking.  I've considered stopping writing.  I've considered giving this blog to somebody else.  I've considered just leaving this blog without any explanation. 

But I've come to a conclusion.

This movie is why I need to keep writing. 

I've made a commitment to you to dive down to the depths of Netflix Instant and show you what I find, whether it's a pearl or a piece of a rotting whale carcass.

Beyond warning you about the worst of the worst, I'm also in a unique position where I can mete out justice in my own small way to the makers of these movies.  I can get back at them for wasting my life and causing me to spiral into an existential crisis.  I can tell them that putting two women kissing in a movie does not automatically make it sexy, nor does it make it edgy.  I can tell them that there are better ways to discuss issues of sexual and gender identity than having a girl cut and dye her hair and instantly tell her husband he’s a pervert for marrying a twelve year old boy.  I can tell them that what they have made will be forgotten in a matter of years, not decades, and that artistically they have made no statement, made no impact.

This is my calling, and to forsake it would be a disservice to you, to myself, and to the thousands of great bad movies I have yet to watch. 

I have to do it.  It's what my heroes would do.

Verdict: Do not watch this movie.  That's what I'm here for.

#summer of lager #summer lovers #chick flick #awful #i hate everything #philosophy

[beersandbmovies]

Robocop vs The Terminator and Fixed Gear

Since I love you guys so much, I felt like doing another outside the box blog post.  Hopefully it reads more like me flipping the script and making things interesting rather than me calling you desperately, 4 or 5 times a day, promising you that I've changed, that things will be different, that I can be new and exciting.

Not...not that I'd know what that's like.

The Beer.

Well, it's blatantly obvious which demographic Lakefront Brewery is trying to court with this craft beer named for a specific style of bicycle.  Let's see if you can guess which.  

But now that the word "hipster" has lost any real meaning, I guess it's not worth it to crack jokes. 

Anyway, Fixed Gear is a red ale out of Milwaukee, and continues the tradition of being a "red" ale that does not pour red.  You could call it copper, but you'd be generous.  It's more, just, brown.  The nose hits sharp and hard, it's very hoppy, and kind of overwhelmed my palate. 

It's not a bad thing- I was kind of stoked that a beer came out swinging like this.  I can appreciate that.  Drinking it, however, I was pretty disappointed.  The aroma led me to expect a deep, powerful, bold brew.  Like a James Earl Jones beer.  Instead, I got a Mark Hamill beer.  Hoppy, floral, sharp, and a little bit whiny, at least at the start.

This beer tastes like an IPA, except without the body.  It doesn't hit hard enough to really satisfy me, and it lacks body.  Maybe it's not a Mark Hamill beer.  Maybe it's a Glass Joe beer. 

Ooh, would you look at that beautiful video game related segue into the next part of my post.

Verdict: Not Recommended

The B-Movie Video Game.

One fateful night, some genius had a brilliant idea.  Make a movie set in Detroit, in the not-too-distant future, and take a look at how law enforcement could cripple a struggling urban environment. 

Then they put RoboCop in it.

A kindred spirit, a little earlier, had another idea.  With technology seemingly taking over more and more of our lives, can we really be considered to have free will?  When is our dependence on machines detrimental to our growth as a species, or worse, right out dangerous?

Then they put Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.

This is how two of my favorite series of movies were made.  By geniuses.

Years later, some dude who was probably not old enough to legally view any of those films had another idea.  What if RoboCop fought the Terminator, and like, had all these guns that go pew pew, and oh man, he could fight the ED-209, and holy shit, what if RoboCop invented Terminators.  Evidently some video game designer who was presumably high as fuck heard him.

And now we have this.

Now I have to be honest, I haven't played video games lately.  The only system I own is an Xbox 360, and it's pretty much only used for Netflix and DVD watching.  So getting this whole thing set up was a bit of an issue.

But I made it work.

When the game started up, I was greeted with some awful, blorpy music, and the face of a Terminator set against a explosion, as RoboCop brandishes his pistol.  Pretty promising start.

But alas, all good things must come to an end, and as I pressed start, I had to wade through about 30 seconds of story before I got to blast some shit.  I'll sum it up like this.  RoboCop's a cyborg, right?  So that means he has free will to some extent.  To be able to produce semi-sentient beings like Terminators, Skynet needs a human brain to connect with it in order to add reasoning and autonomous decision making skills to its network.  RoboCop ends up connecting to the network through an elaborate trap, and is the one responsible for Terminators existing in the first place.  The game starts back before then, though, with Flo escaping into the past to warn RoboCop of what he's about to do, and the Terminators sent back in time to kill her and stop RoboCop.  It's a decently put-together story, if I cared about those kinds of things.

But I don't.  I care about this.

The first thing I noticed about this game is that it's hard in a really weird way.  The game makes you break it.  Like, you have to find that one spot where you can crouch down and take potshots at enemies without them being able to hit you.  If you don't, you're dead.  Or rather, terminated.

And that's no fun. 

It doesn't help that the control is scarily movie-accurate.  You move like RoboCop.  Which is to say, you don't really move, you lumber.  You lumber fucking everywhere, and it's pretty impossible to dodge anything.  You'd think that'd be a problem, and it is. 

But you can fucking shoot enemy bullets out of the air, so it's forgivable.

And I have to be honest, the first time I fought a Terminator, I fucking lost it, giggling like a schoolgirl as I shot at him with a gun I blasted off of the ED-209 earlier in the game.

I remember wanting to have a snappy one-liner at the ready for when I finally put him away, but I'm pretty sure all I came up with was "YEAH, DICK".

Unfortunately, the story gets cut short, and I was forced to leave Earth for the Terminators to ravage.  After I got to the levels set in the future, the control issues really became a problem, and enemies respawned as quickly as I could put them down.  And despite my best Rambo-like efforts, I simply could not shoot down all the bullets coming at me. 

Now, my friends say that the sign of a good, difficult video game is when it always feels justified when you get hit.  Like, you as a player did something wrong, you are able to recognize it, and the game punishes you (fairly) for it.  That way, even when the game gets difficult, things never get too frustrating, and you're able to learn from your mistakes and move on.

I say the sign of a good, difficult video game is when, every time you get hit, you don't scream out bull-fucking-shit, then throw your controller at the wall.

This game, regrettably, fails on both accounts.  I want to love it, and I kind of do.  I'm glad I own it, but if I'm being honest, I get more enjoyment out of telling people I own RoboCop vs The Terminator than actually playing it.  And I'd imagine that's a bad sign.

Verdict: Play it drunk, but stick to the first few levels.

#red ale #fixed gear #robocop #terminator #video game #snes #arnold schwarzenegger

[beersandbmovies]

Bad Ideas Summer Special! Steele Justice and Steel Reserve

I promised you guys I'd do something special this week to make up for missing a week on Memorial Day.  Hopefully "chugging a 40 before writing a blog post" counts as special.

Welp, why delay the inevitable.  Shotgun yourself a Busch Light and join me after the jump in the wonderful world of terrible tasting alcohol and misremembered movies.

The Beer.

Oh god.  

First of all, I chose this picture specifically because it appears to be the only time anyone ever drank Steel Reserve out of something other than just the bottle, maybe with a paper bag around it.

Second of all, christ.  I've tasted some bad 40s.  Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't mind bad beer.  I went to college, I'm used to it.  And, admittedly, other than its pee color and aroma of body odor and apples, the first couple of sips weren't too too bad.

Then I started noticing something.  You all know how, like, if you've had the stomach flu or something and had to vomit earlier in the day, this terrible bitter-yet-oddly-disgustingly-sweet taste lingers in your mouth?  That's what Steel Reserve tastes like.

There is nothing pleasant about this beer.  Well, except for the fact that it gets you drunk. 

And, to its credit, it does make me nostalgic.  See, Steel Reserve's aftertaste smacks distinctly of all of the greatest bad decisions made in one's life.  And that's pretty nice.

Verdict: Shit, it's over 8 ABV.  What else do you want in a 40? 

The B-Movie.

You guys have already guessed the plot of this movie.  If you read this blog, you know all the set pieces already.

John Steele, a Vietnam vet, is a loose cannon ex-cop who is trying to win back the heart of his ex-wife who has a Vietnamese partner who is shot and then is replaced by a different partner that is only one year away from retirement. 

Only one man has the power to stop the Black Tiger Gang from taking over the streets of Southern California.  That man is...

John Steele.

Now that you know how the movie goes, I'm going to try, in my post-drunken haze, to recount my experience with this movie as it happened.

The credits rolled, and the first bit of the movie took place in Vietnam, setting up the main bad guy, as well as Steele and his partner.  The action was semi-passable, and the one-liners were forced and just not at all entertaining.  At this point, my hopes were low, and I wasn't even tipsy.

Then John Steele wrapped his pet snake around his neck like the most awesome scarf on the most awesome hipster ever.  I wasn't drunk enough to realize how awesome that was at the time.

I'll wait while you all change your desktop images to that picture up there.

I stayed skeptical until the gunfights started happening.  Now, have y'all ever played Lethal Enforcers in the arcade?  Or, for that matter, Revolution X?  Pretty much any of those cheesy light gun games?  Remember how crazy it was when you shot someone, and they just kind of flailed around?

Yeah, like that.  Ever wonder what it would be like if that happened every time someone was shot in an action movie?  'Cause Lethal Enforcers seems to be pretty much the entire inspiration for the fight choreography in this movie.

So after a scene where it's established that Steele and his partner are the kind of friends that are totally okay talking about wars while one of them is naked and in the bathtub

The partner is shot by the Main Evil Guy's son, a gang boss, and takes like, 30 minutes to die while John Steele does some stuff to establish that he's a loose cannon guys.  Keep in mind, this is after he fires off a rifle near cops, punches out pretty much everyone in a country/western bar, and drinks, like, all the alcohol there is.  When John Steele is at a loss for words, he communicates with punches.

The partner's daughter survives, because the movie needs a reason to bring Steele and his ex-wife back together, and Steele is confronted by his former boss at the force, who tells him he's a loose cannon. 

It's every movie ever, guys. 

After the partner finally bites the dust, there's a scene where Steele shows up drunk to his funeral, and proceeds to beat the shit out of the gang boss.  Too bad his daddy, the Main Evil Guy, is a mover and shaker in town.  He throws Steele in jail. 

And then Steele punches his way out.

After he gets his new partner to help him escape, he's on his way to find Love Interest, who is being targeted by the gang or something.  Then a scene happens that is pretty much wish fulfillment for 80s haters.  See, Steele's ex is taking care of Love Interest at a video shoot for a wannabe Madonna.  What this means for is that we see the 80s gunned down in the street.  And let me be clear, although we don't see Not-Madonna get shot, her backup dancers and band are not as lucky. 

At this point, I'm drunk, and I'm realizing that this movie, for all its flaws, is an archetypal 80's movie.  And just as I think that, this happens.

A.  Fucking.  Montage. 

It's perfect.  It's motherfucking perfect.

Oh, except for the fact that the Partner Who Is One Year From Retirement doesn't die.  But that's good!  Because he's the only good actor in the movie.

After the montage, we gear up for the final battle.  And I'm getting close to wasted at this point.  Unfortunately, the action doesn't get much better.  There are some cool explosions, but the highlight of the battle is definitely when the fucking snake-scarf kills the gang boss.  Everything else is just awkward to watch.

Especially when they try and have John Steele fight the Main Evil Dude with swords.  That just, that didn't work at all. 

Now, earlier in the movie, the gang boss had been saying "there is no law but Black Tiger law" a lot, usually before shooting someone.  At the end, right before he dies, the Main Evil Dude says the same thing.  It's a perfect set up for a perfect one-liner.  And they fuck it up.  Steele says: "And the only justice is my justice". 

Fucking, fuck you. 

The title of the movie is Steele Justice.  The correct answer is "And the only justice is Steele Justice."

God fucking dammit.

That said, the movie follows that up with Steele pushing the main dude off a suspended platform with a grenade in his pants, causing him to explode in midair in a shower of fireworks.  That's a plus.  Though this is the image that will stick with me.

Before the credits roll, we close with a whole bunch of beautiful tropes straight from other movies.  From Commando, we get the ex-soldier's boss offering him his old job back, which the ex-soldier refuses.  From Die Hard, we get the hero's ex-wife punching out the asshole who isn't evil but who everyone hates.  From Banksy, we get an overt piece of penis graffiti as Steele unites with his newfound family.

Verdict: Watch it.

Seriously.  If you like 80's action flicks, this is a must-see.  The acting is bad, and the action doesn't make up for it, but that, combined with all of the cliches and tropes the movie hits makes for something that's hilariously funny to watch.  And you don't even have to pay for it.  Look at me, all linking full movies.

#40s #awful #steel reserve #steele justice #action movies #80s

[beersandbmovies]

Red Banshee and Cherry 2000

Sorry about last week, guys.  It was Dillo Day.  You know how these things go.

And if you don't, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a college holiday named after a random-ass animal.

To make up for it, I'm going to have something special for you next week.  For now though, we have Red Banshee, and Cherry 2000.

The Beer.

I have a pretty solid relationship with red ales.  I'm usually kind of nonplussed by them- they're all right, but not something I'd try again.  Kind of like that time I tried to make a fancy dessert for my crush out of Ramen Noodles and then ended up just eating it all myself.

Fort Collins Brewery's Red Banshee promised something different.

The beer poured darker than I expected, more copper than ruby, with a decent head to it.  It smelled faintly floral, and kind of malty.  It instantly reminded me of Daisy Cutter. 

When I drank it, I was very surprised to find that it still tasted quite like Daisy Cutter.  The floral, bright notes carried through my palate, supported by a nice malty fullness.  The weird thing was that unlike Daisy Cutter and other floral pale ales, there wasn't that hugely bitter, hoppy bite at the end.  I was pleasantly surprised, especially since I was kind of expecting it. 

After drinking a lot of beers that kind of turn on you at the last second, it was nice to drink one that didn't.  The weird thing, though, is this is a heavier ale.  It's kind of confusing drinking this beer- you expect it to be light and drinkable, because of all of the floral, pale flavors, but it kind of weighs you down a lot.  It's kind of like a Christopher Guest movie.  You go in expecting a fun little romp, but then you're stuck watching the movie for like, two and a half hours.  That said, I did down the beer pretty quickly.

Verdict: Recommended. 

The B-Movie.

I'm pretty much an open book about why I pick movies.  Let me show you why I chose this one.

I don't think I need to say any more.

The movie starts, and the opening credits roll over a James Bond-esque montage of silhouettes of naked girls, except there's no Shirley Bassey song being played over it.  Afterwards, we meet our main character, everyman Sam Treadwell.  He's coming home from work to his boring robot wife in his boring house in boring post-apocalyptic Anaheim, California.

Woo.

So his boring robot wife is apparently named Cherry.  So there's the title right there, and there's me wondering how she becomes the badass from the poster.  Lucky for me, they bone in a pool of water and soap suds, and she gets shorted out. 

Apparently losing his robot wife is kind of a big deal, so after a scene where Sam takes Cherry to a mechanic to try and fix her, he copies her memory to a teeny-tiny CD in the hopes that maybe he'll be able to find another robot-wife to transplant it into (yikes!).

Then there’s a really off-putting scene at a bar that features polka-dotted go-go dancers showing off demo reels and writing up sex work contracts... Oh, you want to see that part?  Okay.

So after that scene, Sam gets word that out in the boonies, he might be able to find someone who can track down a Cherry (model 2000 (oh man that's the title of the movie)) for him.  All packed up, Sam sets off for Glory Hole.

Which is apparently the name of the town he has to head to.  But I guess the joke's on me, because I'm the one that Google image searched "Cherry 2000 Glory Hole" and scrolled through the results in the hopes of finding a still from the movie.  I didn't.  I did find a whole bunch of stuff I won't ever be able to unsee though, so there's that.

After a stop at the Glory Hole Tavern, Sam locates The Redhead, a female tracker that is willing to help him find his dear, dear Cherry.  Heh. It's funny because the plot points are also innuendos.

There's a real short fight scene between Sam and some bandits, but soon enough, the two of them are off towards the elephant robot graveyard to find Sam a new wife.

I gotta say, they make a big deal about this whole thing being dangerous and shit, and there are a lot of gunfights and stuff, but jeez, it's just a fucking robot.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of them everywhere, and the place they're headed for just holds a bunch of discarded ones.  I guess nothing's easy in post-apocalyptic California.

Now here's where the movie turns from a poor man's Blade Runner into a poor man's Mad Max. 

There are a lot of cool driving scenes across a barren desert landscape, which is nice, but it just makes me want to see Mad Max.  That's the thing.  This movie takes elements from great movies like the aforementioned Blade Runner and Mad Max, but it only takes the boring parts about, like, driving on empty roads, and what it's like to eat dinner with a robot wife.  Not the cool parts like what it's like to crash into a trailer or what it's like to, uh, question your own humanity and the humanity of everyone around you?  I dunno.  Blade Runner was confusing.

Okay, so they're hauling ass through California, and have to cross into some sort of demilitarized zone that's really intense and dangerous.  There's apparently some barricade they have to bust through first, so after they crash through the joint and shoot Enjolras and Gavroche, they're well on their way. 

By this point, the Bad Guy, Lester, is onto them, and gets his lackeys to spring a trap on our heroes.  And by trap, I mean he hoists their car up with a ginormous magnet and everybody shoots everything. 

Welp, I'm in love.    

They make their way out of the trap, lowering the car into a gigantic pipe/water slide.  After paying their 7 dollar admission (they brought a Coke can with them) to get into Six Flags Great America's Hurricane Harbor, they slide down the pipe and splash down right into the boat of Wise Old Man.

Now that the posse's all together, they decide to go out and recover the Mustang, on account of it's awesome.  Predictably, Sam gets knocked out, and Redhead and Wise Old Man are assumed dead even though, come on, guys.

Sam wakes up at the Sky Ranch, a creepy, culty place where he meets Lester, who generally seems like an okay guy. 

He's all about being yourself, and physical and mental fitness.  Kind of like a self-help book writer.  Until he makes some dude put a bag with a bulls-eye on it on his own head, and then shoots him with an arrow, and then it’s clear that this is very much a cult scenario.  To be fair though, it is a pretty good shot.

Sam also runs into his ex-girlfriend Ginger there, and if that weren't enough, the whole ranch does the hokey pokey at night.  I was legitimately terrified at this point.  There's nothing scarier than the hokey pokey.

So he's gotta escape, right?  And of course, Redhead and Wise Old Man show up to help.  They torch the ranch, and escape in the Mustang that happens to be there.

But oh no!  Sam has lost the memory disc to his robot wife!  And Wise Old Man has found it and given it to Redhead because there needs to be more dramatic tension even though everyone knows that Sam and Redhead will end up together!  What a tangled web we weave.

Redhead and Sam make out, of course, and of fucking course, Sam discovers the memory disc and is all "I hate you now even though I was totally going to abandon my mission for you fifteen seconds ago".  Which makes Redhead understandably angry, which is a shame because they're currently being shot at by a bunch of dudes.  The two of them lazily fight them off, then bitch at each other in the car for a while on their way to the robot graveyard. 

At their last stop on the way there, somebody tells some lady "well, you can just shit in a hat", and Wise Old Man gives a monologue about death.  So after he dies, because of course he dies after he gives a monologue about death, Sam and Redhead escape Lester once again in a plane that Redhead fixed up.

Sam and Redhead make it to the robot graveyard, and Lester is in hot pursuit, with, no shit, sandwiches that Sam's ex made for the whole group.  Before Lester's goons reach the heroes though, Sam finds the right model of robot wife, and drags her out of the graveyard while she somehow manages to make the climactic gunfight boring.  

Sam shoots Lester and attempts to make his escape with Redhead and Robot Wife on the plane, but it can't take off- there's too much weight.  And to make matters worse, Lester isn't dead!  What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  In an effort to save Sam and his Robot Wife, Redhead jumps out of the plane to hold off Lester and co. while the others escape.  So it's Decision Time for Sam- be with the Robot Wife he spent the whole fucking movie trying to get, or Redhead, the awesome girl with the rocket launcher? 

Yeah, that's what I fucking thought.  Sam lands the plane, asks Robot Wife to grab him a Pepsi, and then, in a total dick move, picks up Redhead to fly off into the sunset.  But not before smashing Lester to death by dragging him into the side of a decorative showgirl statue.  And then Robot Wife has sandwiches with Sam's ex!  Everyone's happy.

I dunno about this one, guys.  I honestly felt like watching Blade Runner and Mad Max instead the whole time I was watching the movie.  That said, the acting is good, and when the action happens, it's awesome.  Plus, Lester is a pretty great villain.  He has enough charisma to nudge this movie far enough in the right direction that I can give it a light recommendation.  Also you see a whole lot of underboob in the movie, which, if you didn't know, is the rarest and most powerful kind of boob.

Verdict: Watch it tipsy. 

#red banshee #cherry 2000 #redheads #red ale #sci-fi #beer #b-movie

[beersandbmovies]

Booyah and Today You Die

I had big plans, guys. 

Big plans. 

See, I bought this beer called Booyah.  I was waiting for the perfect time to drink it, the perfect movie to pair it with.  And I had finally found it.

Today You Die is a Steven Seagal movie, and if you've read my review of Above The Law, you know that I'm generally a fan of the guy- and with a title like "Today You Die", I figured I was in the clear.

Whoops.

The Beer.

Recently, I've been buying beers pretty much only based on the names they have.  I would not recommend this tactic, especially if you're like me and are easily swayed by manly-sounding words and references to 80's cartoons.

Having said that, here's Booyah.

Booyah is a farmhouse ale from MKE Brewing, and man, was it perfect on a hot night.  The beer poured orangey-lemony, and the nose was malty and wheaten.  This was all kind of by-the-book at this point, I was expecting a beer that tasted like sitting on a porch with a piece of straw tucked between my teeth, and so far, that's how it seemed to be going.

But do not be fooled, my friends.  This beer is not a normal farmhouse ale.

The beer is invigorating and lemony, almost like a shandy.  There are these little kicks of flavor that I really can't liken to anything else but having someone's tongue in your mouth.  It's surprising, and when you think it's over, the aftertaste hits hard.  You know that feeling when you've stopped making out for like a second and they just decide to bite your lip?

Verdict: Recommended. 

The B-Movie.

My first mistake was not checking the date the movie was made.  For those of you that don't know, Steven Seagal, like Nicholas Cage, suddenly became a horrible, unrecognizable abomination sometime around the late 90's.  

Today You Die was made in 2005.

So we don't get this:

We get this.

With that out of the way, Today You Die.

So here's the deal.  Imagine I ask you to lay out for me the plot of a derivative 80's action flick, and say you have to have it done in like 30 seconds.  In fact, don't imagine that.  I'm asking you to lay out for me the plot of a derivative 80's action flick, and give yourself 30 seconds to think of it.

Got yours?

Okay, so here's the plot of Today You Die.  See how many plot points are exactly the same.  I'd guess no less than 4.

-Lead is a criminal with a heart of gold trying to go legit after "one last job"

-Lead is the fall guy for an elaborate set-up as the job goes awry

-Racially insensitive stereotype sidekick 

-Actual bad guy is a corrupt cop

-Gang fights in warehouses

-Helicopter explosion

Tell me how many matched up in the comments.  I'm honestly curious.

The movie begins with the Love Interest waking up next to Steven Seagal, and I've already lost all hope.  As I've mentioned, Seagal plays a criminal in this movie- he's kind of like Robin Hood, he steals from drug dealers and gives to the poor.  Well, like a terrible, un-coordinated Robin Hood.

There's a brief heist scene bookended by a montage of Seagal's stuntman clipping into things and ziplining across to the target house.  Inside, we get a decent action scene where Seagal's stuntman (who looks nothing like Seagal, by the way), just up and kills a whole bunch of people. 

So now he has to move, I guess.  He brings his Love Interest to Las Vegas, because that's the place you go when you want to lay low and start a legit life.  He meets up with some dudes that are obviously the guys that get killed last in the movie who give him a supposedly legal job.  Of course, things go wrong, there's a shitty car chase scene that features Seagal driving an armored car slightly above the speed limit, and then Seagal gets captured by the police. 

As far as I understand, the sketchy dudes set this whole thing up in the interest of stealing 40 million dollars from the truck Seagal was driving. 

Anyway, Seagal is now the only one who knows where the money is, and everyone wants it.  After speaking with a DA, Seagal's shipped off to prison, where he's apparently the only one allowed to wear a gigantic rocawear jean overcoat.  I guess the wardens do have some sympathy for the inmates after all.

What follows is some of the most offensive, racist acting I've ever seen.  If you want to see Steven Seagal try to act like a horrible Black stereotype, well, here you go.  In prison, he makes friends with this gang leader.  He's the (eventual) racial stereotype sidekick.  He's played by Treach of Naughty by Nature.  So, of course, Seagal spends the rest of the movie trying to connect with him with all the grace of, well, of Steven Seagal. 

Seen here attempting to "get, that, dirt off [his] shoulders".

It's exhausting, like watching the Prison Mike scene in The Office.  I start to wonder if Seagal’s always been unintentionally racist, or if I'm just reading into a stupid movie too much, and then I realize that like 20 more minutes of movie have gone by and Seagal's already escaped from prison with his sidekick in a helicopter.

By the way, all of these scenes are interspersed with David Lynch-style nightmares the Love Interest is having, because apparently there's something creepy and spiritual going on here.  Oh, and no, it never gets brought up again, much less resolved.

After more hum-drum scenes of Seagal shooting folks and getting denied when he attempts to fist-bump black men, we're in the final parts of the movie.  Two gangs that were never mentioned before in the movie kill each other in a warehouse, and Seagal sweeps in to recover the 40 or whatever million dollars that they apparently had even though nobody told the audience that.

And now we're at the end?  Already?  They haven't even walked away from an explosion without looking at it.

Oh, okay. 

Seagal proceeds then to kill the guys that set him up, and then the boss of the criminal organization that set him up who is also the devil or something apparently?  And then the corrupt cop that got in the way of his quest for vengeance or whatever.  Seagal gets his money back, Treach takes his cut, they save the hospital from being closed, and the credits roll.

Oh, and yeah, that wasn't a joke.  They save a hospital with the money.  A hospital that was only shown in a fly-by shot at the beginning of the movie.  A hospital that had a "Going Out Of Business" sign on it. 

Verdict: Skip it. 

#steven seagal #booyah #ale #farmhouse ale #today you die

[beersandbmovies]

Alien vs. Ninja and UFO

If you know me and you've ever come to me asking for a movie suggestion, you know that I'm quite fond of recommending over-the-top Japanese movies.  If you were lucky, I told you to immediately watch the brilliant Survive Style 5+, which, in addition to maybe being my favorite movie ever, is the best film Quentin Tarantino ever made even though he didn't have anything to do with it.

If you were unlucky, I insisted you watch Ultimate Versus, a straight-up action film that features a guy punching a guy's sunglasses out the back side of his head.  For some reason, people don't ever seem to enjoy this movie as much as I do.  Go figure.

I think I've just discovered a third movie worth bugging my friends until they watch it.

Or cut me out of their lives.

The Beer.

Harpoon is a fairly well-known brewing company, perhaps most famous for their IPA.  But I've kind of given up on unseating Dogfish Head for the time being, so here's their slightly less popular UFO brew.  I immediately honored the beer by giving it probably the most terrible pour ever.

Shut up, you can't make fun of the awful pour now because I already poked fun at myself for it.

UFO actually stands for Un-Filtered Offering- this is Harpoon's unfiltered wheat beer, and it certainly looks like it.  The beer's aroma matches its wheaten color- it's crisp and inviting.  Tasting it brings out some nice malty flavors, as well as some rye and orange undertones.  The mouthfeel is pretty nice too, just sharp enough to match the crispness of the beer.

Here's the thing.

It tastes so much less expensive than it is. 

I bought this in a pack that cost about 12 dollars for a 6 pack.  And drinking it, all I could think was that it tastes like someone poured like a half-cup of Blue Moon into a can of PBR and told me to drink it.  Of course, there are more complex things going on here, but for those of you who went to college, or didn't but went to college parties like a gigantic creeper, the flavor profile will be largely familiar.  Not in a good way.

Verdict: Not Recommended. 

The B-Movie.

At first, I was very surprised.  As the credits rolled, I was surprised to see Funimation listed as an involved party.  I mean, that's a pretty big company- maybe I'm in for something high budget? 

But then, the next production company logo rockets to the screen.  "Sushi Typhoon".  Or, more accurately:

Suddenly, I'm totally sold on this movie before it even starts, which is why I reposted the logo here in the hopes that it'll work the same way for this review.  

Anyway.  Alien vs. Ninja, or AvN, if you're really fucking pressed for time and can't be bothered with the extra syllables.  The movie starts up, and we're introduced to the Ninjas, who all look like the demon offspring of Shredder and an unfortunate Power Ranger.

The ninjas start off by exploding that temple or whatever up there with some bad CGI, and then proceed to bad-CGI jump into the forest.  We're introduced to the Comic Relief, the main character, the Pretty Boy, and the cheesy American voice actors that dub over them as they all dash through the forest.

Well, not the voice actors. 

They're in a studio or something.  We never see them onscreen.

The main ninjaman hangs back to completely annihilate fucking nine attacking ninjas at once.  It's at this point when I realize I'm going to be enjoying this movie pretty non-ironically.  The fight scenes, guys.  They're so fucking good.

After the ninjas are all dead, a fireball streaks across the sky.  So okay, that's where the alien comes from.  Sweet.

Cut to the remainder of the ninjas, who are picking on The Girl Ninja Of The Movie for, I don't know, reasons?

Cut back to the fireball, that immediately explodes and unleashes a whole fucking bunch of aliens that bounce around on the trees.  After this, our heroes return to their village, where their master instructs them to, guess what, check out the fireball.

But not before a scene right out of a cop movie where an (incredibly offensive portrayal of a gay) ninja calls our main ninja a loose cannon.  And then blows a kiss to Pretty Boy.

So all the ninjas set out to investigate the fireball, when, uh oh, the ground opens up underneath one of the ones we don't really care about.  And then the ground opens up again and he pops back out of the ground.

Exploded into a million fucking pieces.

This isn't a fight so much as it's a slaughter.  The ninjas are getting picked off one by one in some pretty grisly ways.  It's really kind of cool to see these guys so utterly helpless against the super-fast aliens after seeing them kick so much ass in the first scene.  Our main guy lands a lucky hit on one of the aliens and they all decide to retreat. 

There's a "we're kind of fucked" scene, where we meet a kid whose village was overrun by the aliens, and then an Independence Day monologue from the hero.  The monologue, for the interested, pretty much boils down to "So this alien who just completely eviscerated our men, uh, just completely eviscerated our men.  I'mma go get revenge.  Come with?"

Everyone's like "yeah okay", so they set up a trap straight out of Predator using, of course, the Comic Relief as bait.  And, holy shit, it works.  One of the aliens dies.  But uh-oh, there are like, so fucking many more.  We finally get a good look at the aliens, and they're fucking great.  They're not CG, they're dudes in rubber costumes that are obviously inspired by H.R. Giger's personal dolphin sketch collection, and I love it.  But they're pissed and ready to fight.  Good thing the ninjas have this badass to help.

oops he gets ripped in half. 

We then get some awesome alien/ninja action featuring aliens trying to abduct the lady ninja and a subsequent fight that looks suspiciously horny, some ass kicking care of Pretty Boy and main character, and some scared sniveling and crying from the comic relief.  The dust clears, The lady ninja does this,

and, whoops, Pretty Boy gets abducted.

Well, shit.

The remaining team (main dude, lady ninja, and Comic Relief and also that worthless scared boy)  regroups, and Comic Relief goes off to warn the village instead of save his friend because he's not gifted in the courage department.  He gets ambushed by an alien who has killed like, the whole ninja village, somehow gets away, and meets up with the others.  Oh, and he kinda snivels the whole time.  Because he's a giant fucking coward.  If that wasn't clear.

And then the alien catches up and punches his head off. 

Now all the other ninjas captured by the aliens, along with Pretty Boy, reappear as zombie ninjas.  And then this happens and I laughed until I couldn't breathe.

The two of them figure out how to save the ninjas- apparently there are weird aliens living in their throats that they have to pull out in hilarious ways.  So they do.

After saving their pals, our hero guy goes off to fight the last remaining alien in one of the coolest fights I've ever seen.  Suffice it to say, it goes from the alien and ninja swordfighting, to fighting hand to hand, to pro wrestling, to the alien sprouting wings and flying up high enough that the two of them are able to crash down to Earth in a giant ball of flame.  Or rather, one of them is.  The ninja blows the alien up in midair, makes a perfect landing, and then is showered by alien bits. 

Fucking

Sweet.

The hero meets his buddies again, and everything's okay as they set off into the sun.  Oh, except the movie WHAT A TWISTS us.  The kid is apparently evil and smuggling one of the body snatcher aliens in an effort to, I dunno, destroy the world?  Whatever.  This movie is awesome.  Watch it now, and then you'll be able to tune me out when I'm asking everyone I know if they've seen it yet.

Verdict: You Must Watch This Movie. 

#ufo #AvN #Alien VS Ninja #ninja #japanese #wheat beer