Cru Jones Society

Like all good things, even Ridiculous Movie Competitions must come to an end. It’s been a hell of a ride filled with mediocre and subpar movies over the last two weeks, so I thought we’d end with one nearly everyone I know likes. You may be wondering how this one fits the criteria, but that’s easily answered by clicking the little link to your right. Come on inside as we wrap up this 8-part feature. Continue Reading »

Of all the entries on the list, I’m willing to bet these two films have the lowest combined viewing total. Don’t let that deter you from reading though - these movies settle their respective scores with a climactic race! That’s right, if you’re pissed off at someone, don’t settle things violently. Settle it with either a good old fashioned foot race or strap on your skates on brave the most daunting hill in town! What could be better? Continue Reading »

Ahh youth. I generally try not to make fun of kids in this space (except Averman from The Mighty Ducks - God, how I hate Averman) since that’s incredibly unfair and just plain shitty, so this’ll be a tricky post. We’ve got two youth movies on deck, one featuring the dorky kids you used to shame with a dodgeball to the glasses on P.E. days and one about kids at fat camp. Fortunately, the kids in these movies are incredibly pleasant. It’s the writers that deserve the ridicule, and of course, the bizarre competitions and wagers that give these movies their climaxes. Time to dive in to Round 6 of Ridiculous Movie Competitions. Continue Reading »

I watched Rocky Balboa recently on Showtime and had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the fights looked terrific, I was stoked Duke was still alive to train Rocky, and the inclusion of little Marie was a nice nod to the past. On the other hand, Burt Young looks like he’s approximately 95 years old, the story is absolutely preposterous, and his son is still a whiny pain in the ass. But the best thing about Rocky Balboa? The filmmakers basically ignore Rocky V ever existed.

Rocky V is such an upsetting movie, it’s only natural that I’ve seen it about 50 times. And if you’re talking Rocky V, you might as well throw in Over the Top as well to really embarrass ol’ Sly. Let’s get to it, shall we? Continue Reading »

D2: The Mighty Ducks

Where to even start with this one? And yes, this one deserves its own post. It’s that friggin’ screwy. Continue Reading »

I’ll bet when David Mamet wrote this play, and then wrote the movie, he hoped and anticipated for stimulating discussions about it. I’ll bet he never thought he’d see his movie sitting side-by-side with the Bobcat Goldthwait laugh riot Hot To Trot, though. You’re welcome, Mr. Mamet. I’m taking your film places it’s never been before! Strap in, because we got more ridiculousness to unpack! Continue Reading »

With ski season rapidly descending upon us, let’s take a look at two of the finer skiing movies ever made coming from someone other than Warren Miller. Of course a list of the best ski movies would only include Out Cold, the Ski School series just for its gratuitous use of naked boobs, and the immortal Hot Dog: The Movie!  So, um, let’s look at half of the best ski movies ever made! Continue Reading »

Ill-advised bets, non-sensical ski races, absurd races of any type (rollerblade, foot, horse), insane attempts to find love, arm wrestling… that’s what I’m interested in.

Welcome to Ridiculous Movie Competitions. E Dagger here to take you through the next two weeks to examine no less than 14 movies that feature some sort of glaringly bizarre competition sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of them. How can a movie built around a grandfather and a grandson switching bodies end in a climactic foot race? How should an awkward youth take on his bullies? Why, with point fighting, of course! And who are those gangs getting ready to rumble on the corner? And why do they seem to be doing jazz tap?

We’ll get to all of them, and much more. So sit back, make a bizarre wager with a co-worker or friend (failing that - yours or a friend’s penis), and let’s get to the competitions. First up: West Side Story and The Karate Kid. Continue Reading »

Even though it is October, the greatest sports month on the calendar, watching the Cubs crap the bed in spectacular fashion against the buttfucking Dodgers and laboring through a sinfully boring Broncos/Buccaneers snoozefest, I officially need a sports break.

And considering our recap of the 2008 baseball season coupled with three straight days of Major League discussion along with a Happy Friday featuring Paul Newman in hockey gear as the lead-in last week likely turned off any female that still improbably frequents the site, I’m here to make amends. Yeah, it was a lot of sports last week, so to any woman that gratefully still reads us, here’s something for you (I think).

I’m probably committing social suicide with this post, but fuck it, that’s never stopped me before. Here it is in all its glory: My Top 5 Favorite Chick Flicks of All-Time. Continue Reading »

Considering it’s baseball week here at the Cru Jones Society, Dagger and I wanted to pay tribute to the finest baseball series on the planet - Major League, Major League II, and *sigh* Major League: Back to the Minors. Taking into consideration I am the only person to ever own the third installment (ever) I was given that one to write about; Dagger took the second; this has lead some CJS readers to believie that Limon would be tackling the first. Well that would be wrong. Limon is playing with tarantulas in the dessert. So Dagger and I fought over who would write the piece about the greatest baseball movie. The results from that fight after the jump.

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The sequel used to be tricky business. As a filmmaker, you used to have to try and stay true to the original film while advancing the story in an interesting fashion and evolving the characters. That is - back when studio executives actually gave a shit about any of their products. Now it seems that more sequels come out each year than original films (you can lump remakes in here as well). I mean, Christ, 6 of the top 10 movies of 2007 were not only sequels, but most of them were THE THIRD in the series. Six of the top ten! Are we playing it safe? Are we running out of ideas? Are we too afraid of change? Were people really that desperate to see another installment of National Treasure or Shrek? I need answers!

Of course, at least most of the time these days, the filmmakers try to invent a new adventure in which our favorite friends take part - Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth Swann execute an impossible-to-follow series of double crosses in order to… actually I’m not really sure who was trying to achieve what in that third Pirates movie - but there was a time when it was clear the filmmakers truly just did not give a crap. The studio came knocking on their doors with armfuls of cash to pump out a sequel like yet another peculiarly named Sarah Palin child, and the filmmakers snickered as they did their best to see if they could get away with handing in the exact same script with minor adjustments without anyone at the studio noticing.

Obviously, this tactic worked at least a few times. Tell me Home Alone 2 was fundamentally any different than the first one. Convince me that the basic structure of Wayne trying to win back Cassandra from her richer and better-looking producer changed somewhere between Wayne’s World and Wayne’s World 2. And even though they played the evil nation of Iceland in D2, the fact that Averman, Goldberg, and Spazzway still play worse hockey than your average local chapter of Jerry’s Kids renders it indecipherable from the original.

You could make the same case for Major League II. And basically, you’re not wrong. Except that I’m here to tell you that, no, in fact, you ARE wrong, dear CJS reader. Here are the main ways in which Major League II differs from (and in many ways is superior to) the original, and great, Major League. Continue Reading »

Last summer I became a fan of the South Carolina Buzz. For those unfamiliar with the Buzz, they are the AAA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. I know most of you may be thinking ‘WTF, Hart? You were born and raised in Colorado, you’ve been and A’s fan for 20 years, and a Rox fan for 12. Why are you into the Twins AAA team?” Well, loyal CJS reader, it’s all because of a film I saw last summer. The film followed the Buzz through their 1998 season, a season that any minor league player would love to have had. Join me as recount this classic tale of the underdog. Continue Reading »

You can blame the Wal-Mart $5 bin for this one. Or you can blame my collection of weird-to-awful VHS tapes (Species, Over the Top, Best of the Best 2, Demon Knight, anyone?). Hell, you can blame my parents for making me an only child causing me to spend an ungodly amount of time watching pay cable and an inordinate number of shitty movies during adolescence.

Whatever the reason, I have some weird shit in my DVD collection. And it’s not like I have one of those giant DVD collections either where there’s bound to be some bizarre crap that sneaks in by osmosis. Nope, between Lady E and myself, we have approximately 70, which sounds like a lot at first blush, but pales in comparison to the astonishing treasure troves kept by most Americans. By contrast, I only buy discs that rarely get shown on television and discs that have peculiar re-watchability. Are any of these movies on your list? Click on and find out. Continue Reading »

I have no problem with films that have obvious lies. Like an alien eating candy off the ground, a family living with Bigfoot, or that all it takes to convince people that your dead boss is still alive is a pair of sunglasses and clever movement. Those are all fine. It’s the small, subtle lies that I have grown to loathe. What follows are the lies that I found to be the most irritating. Continue Reading »

Movies have been made since the beginning of time about people’s professions and places of business. This is no surprise considering how much of our lives is dominated by work. This is the only reasonable explanation for people finding Dilbert funny.

No matter your place of business, you add the word “bikini” to it, you’ve not only increased your sales 300% (provided you sell goods marketed at middle school aged boys), you’ve got yourself a staple of mid-90s softcore porn movies! Come on inside as we count down the 6 greatest bikini professions in cinema history. Continue Reading »

Summer officially started a month ago, according to most calendars. While the temperatures in my fair city climbed ever so high and let me know that it was in fact summer time, I’m not sure the cable channel USA has kept up with such current events. For you see the network decided to air a Christmas themed movie. Normally I’d be opposed to this for many reasons, but I ignored those reasons and indulged in the viewing of this movie. The Christmas film of which I speak, and the one the programming department at USA decided to play on this rather warm July evening, was “Elf” starring Will Farrell. Continue Reading »

E Dagger welcomes you to the new week by tackling this balls-out action movie starring Angelina Jolie. Considering Lady E and I have made it to the movies approximately 5 times in the last 4 years, I thought it prudent to actually write a review of something topical. Was this movie worth our *son of a bitch!* $19.50?  Read on and find out… Continue Reading »

There are only a handful of movies ever made that I enjoyed as a child, and can still enjoy today as an adult completely irony free. The Goonies is among those at the top of the list. Many times when I go back and look at the favorite movies of my youth, I realize that they were cheesy, or just don’t appeal to me as an adult, but I have enjoyed The Goonies from as early as I can remember right up until recently when I popped in the DVD that I picked up for less than $10 while grocery shopping. Twice, actually. I bought the movie, and about 2 months later forgot I had done so and bought it again. Naturally I noticed this little oversight about 5 minutes after opening the movie, thereby making it nonreturnable. If you need a copy, let me know I’ll get you one cheap.

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So I’m getting ready this morning and somehow despite feeling like I fell out of a dog’s ass when I woke up, I’m set to go quicker than usual. Having a few spare minutes for once, I happily plop down on the couch for some early morning television.

Not feeling like staring at Al Roker’s smiley ass this morning, I cruise the digital movie channels and what do I find? Booya! Top Gun is on! I can’t think of a better way to start my Friday morning. Planes! Motorcycles! Kenny Loggins music! Homoerotic beach volleyball! What could be better?!

So what happens?

I come in right at the scene where Iceman acts like an idiotic prick during the final Top Gun training exercise causing Maverick to fly through his jet wash. Flat spin ensues. Goose punches them out and crashes into the canopy which hadn’t yet cleared. Goose is dead. And now I’m depressed.

Talk about your all-time backfires. Goose is the glue of Top Gun. Without him, the movie isn’t half as good and we’re missing damn near all the quotable lines. His death ranks as one of the All-Time Top 3 Most Depressing Movie Deaths with Hooch from Turner & Hooch and Jim Brown in The Dirty Dozen.

And now all I can think about is Tom Skerritt talking to Tom Cruise in his underwear telling him he’s got to “let him go.” What the fuck, Tom Skerritt? It’s been a matter of hours since Goose died and you want Maverick to let him go? Why don’t you and your mustache go back to Picket Fences where you belong and let Maverick grieve for christ’s sake? I realize you’re a military man, but give the man some time!

I thought about this all the way to work. Not even the dulcet tones of Rise Against could shake me out of it. Goose is dead, and now I have to live with it for the rest of the day. Swell…

Hopefully Senor Limon can turn this Friday around. We’ll see.

 We’re going to take a break from the Love Lounge this week. We’ll be back next week to poke fun at more awful dating advice. In the mean time, please enjoy the following…

As I surfed through the channels a couple of Fridays ago, I stopped on Starz5 (or whatever) and tuned in to Scream. I hadn’t watched this movie in several years and wondered how it held up. As it turns out, it’s like virtually every other horror movie ever created - you’ll watch it once, get scared (or not), and then put it away forever. I thoroughly enjoyed Scream in the theater, but haven’t watched it much since. Horror movies have virtually zero replay value once the initial shock of them wears off. I exclude horror comedies like Army of Darkness or Evil Dead due to their camp factor and intentional unintentional comedy (if that makes sense).

But watching this movie prompted another question in my mind: What movies scared the piss out of me? This obviously isn’t limited to horror movies (as you’ll see in the article), but encompasses all the movies I’ve ever seen. Which ones inspired fear? Dread? Fright? Pounding pulse? Soiled undergarments? All of the above? The list is varied, my friends. Let’s peer into E Dagger’s psyche and see which movies gave him the most terror bang for his buck. Continue Reading »