02.15.12
Gome of the Week
These two goofballs won $10,500 each for watching The Simpsons for 86 hours and 37 minutes straight.
I unofficially achieved the same feat three times in 1997. Where the hell's my check?
This Week's Link That's Probably Not That Great
The Criterion Collection Tumblr - Here you go, film geeks.
This Week's Movie You've Probably Never Seen
Catch the Heat (1987)
Come on, catch it! What are you, afraid you're gonna get burned? All right.
I've watched a handful of lady-takes-on-scumbags movies over the past few years, and I've realized that it's a genre (sub-genre? possible fetish?) that I enjoy quite a bit. There's nothing like seeing a gal drive her stiletto heel into some dude's neck while wearing an outfit suitable for a night on the town.
This movie didn't have quite as much evening-wear-kickery as I had hoped for, but Checkers Goldberg (best name ever; played by karate-lady Tiana Alexandra) doesn't back down from a challenge, and she's not afraid to put perennial henchman Professor Toru Tanaka in a skull-crushing head scissors, even though she shops in the kid's department and he's pushing four bills. So that was something.
As you can see from the cover there, Rod Steiger's rocking a rug that even a fancy drawing can't render plausible, and the other main dude in this (the unfortunately named David Dukes) looked like he was sporting a piece, too. Checkers worked under an assumed identity, disguise style, for a good portion of the movie as well, so everybody was wigging out. It was distracting.
Goldberg (she's half Jewish!) is a cop who gets called down to South America to go undercover and try to take down a drug dealer (Steiger, who sleepwalks through all his scenes while wondering why he didn't invest his money better) who's using young women to traffic heroin. No one can figure out exactly how he's doing it, until Checkers infiltrates the seedy underbelly and figures out that he sweet-talks the girls into getting boob jobs, has his crooked surgeon stuff their implants with the dope, and then has a doctor in the States remove them and replace the heroin bags with the standard silicone. So everyone's a winner.
There's a lame attempt at a love story, some unconvincing body doubles (Checkers gets on a motorcycle and all of a sudden she's a short, stocky dude), and a drug-lord-mansion shootout at the end that lasts about 25 minutes. You know, the standard stuff. But the dialogue was so off-base and Alexandra pulled off some ridiculous around-the-corner high kicks, so I was mostly entertained for 88 minutes. And that's all I ask for. Might not want to watch this with your wife on Valentine's Day, though. A cop with a revolver pressed against a perp's dick is not the most romantic thing in the world. Although when the cop said "Give me a name or I'll give you a vagina," I think we both got a little titilated. Or maybe that was just me.
Here's a really short trailer.
This Week's Record You're Probably Not Listening To
Moon Martin - Escape from Domination (1979)
Yes, it's like Greg Hawkes from The Cars and Oliver from The Brady Bunch morphed into a dude who is so crazy he can't even decide on a lapel style.
This LP is on Capitol Records, and apparently Martin was mildly successful in the late 70's/early 80's. I'd never heard of him, but I've since found out that he was the dude who wrote the "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)" tune that Robert Palmer parlayed into a hit in 1981. Moon Martin: cashing checks.
Here's the hit from this record, "Rolene." It's pretty sweet. Well, kind of sweet.
This Week's Hip New Slang Word or Phrase
smeel manely - A sweet way to describe one's scent of masculinity.
Origin - Rocky II.
Usage - "Oh, dude. I'm going out on a hot date tonight."
"Dude, is that why you drenched yourself in Stetson cologne?"
"Dude, I splash it on after a shower and it makes me smeel manely."
"Dude, you smeel like 1985."
This Week's Top Ten List
The Top Ten Things I Got My Wife for Valentine's Day:
10. A homemade coupon good for one uncontested divorce
09. A shirt that says "I'm with Stallion"
08. A ride to Little Caesars to pick up my goddamned dinner
07. The option of shutting her fat yap or me shutting it for her
06. Longing looks while N.W.A.'s "Just Don't Bite It" blared from the stereo
05. One-hour access to the key for the padlock on the fridge
04. Flowers that reeked of the gas station I hastily purchased them from
03. A custom Sweetheart that says "BALL GAG?"
02. Polaroids of me hanging brain out of a pair of Daisy Dukes
01. The chance to hold the remote, as long as she didn't touch any buttons
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