EntertainMENt

Back before the millennium I was big into The Crow. I loved the James O'Barr comics and the Brandon Lee movie, and I even came to like the second movie where Vincent Perez donned the greasepaint. (See pic at right for Brandon Lee's reaction to all the other movies).

The first movie had a kick ass sound track, amazing special effects, and a whole lot of heart and soul. It seems like after Lee died whoever got a hold of The Crow property just decided to halfass paint up some dude's face, off someone's girlfriend and start murthering bad guys.

The Crow: City of Angels centers around the death of Ashe Corven's kid at the hands of some ruthless drug dealers. Iggy Pop was initially supposed to play Funboy in the original movie, but was unable due to touring conflicts. I can only imagine fulfilling that dream as the reason why the studio made this film, trying desperately to cash in on the hype a dead Brandon Lee can bring to the project. In order to tie this film to the first one they brought back the character of Sarah (played by Mia Kirshner not Rochelle Davis) who happens upon another zombie and immediately applies some grease paint and tells him to start loppin' off heads. While wearing a half shirt. And having hair that is nowhere near long enough, so they made it feathery as hell to pretend like he's a badass. Eventually he offs enough people and a menacing black fella starts snacking on his bird. Then some legit CGI goes down and a billion clucks eat that fella. The end. The only redeeming quality of this movie is the soundtrack, which is almost as rad as the original.

The hair gets shorter and the reason for the face paint gets dumber. Our leading man (snicker) is wrongfully executed for the murder of his girlfriend. They strap some kind of bondage mask on him and after roasting him that somehow caused him to have scars that look like the classic face paint. To be honest I can't remember much of it because it was so awful. One neat factoid: Rob Zombie was originally slated to write, direct, and supervise the music. But he didn't because of differences with producers. So now its a shitty movie that will live on forever, great job.

For the next iteration in the series our avenger is a heap of white trash named Jimmy Cuervo (Edward Furlong), no seriously that's his name. He is in love with a pretty Indian squa and there's some kind of Romeo and Juliet shit going down. Also Tara Reid's fake breasts and Tito Ortiz are bumbling baddies in this one. Furlong whines his way through the entire movie, not quite intimidating enough to be offing anyone. Its pretty awful.

I was abroad when Stairway to Heaven aired so I had never seen it. At the time the only copy available was a rental copy off of Amazon.com, the kind that is normally sold to Blockbuster at a high price so they would have to rent it a few dozen times to start making a profit. So my options were: pay $230 for a VHS cassette or never see it. I figured I wasn't missing much. Although it does have that mysteriously ethnic fella (Mark Dacascos) from Brotherhood of the Wolf who can play anything from Mexican to Native American to Chinese and knows kung fu.

We live in the future and the entire series is now available on Netflix. I have to say I am pretty underwhelmed. Not only is this series fraught with awkwardly jammed in lines from the first movie but it has some of the poorest continuity and plot I've ever had the misfortune to observe. They bring back Sarah. Her haircut drastically changes between the first three episodes. There are 22 episodes, by the third one a major plot device is The Crow needs a job. They must have cashed in their entire music budget on Crystal Method's "Coming Back" because that shit plays on just about every episode. Here's an example of how hard they try, its very cute:



The source material is awesome, shucks I can recall reading one comic where there's nonstop gunslingers and dead bodies (The Crow: The Dead Time). I don't understand why so much crap is produced and given James O'Barr's seal of approval. I hear they're "rebooting" the series soon. Let's hope for the best.


-G

Girl Adventure: Inside The Lair of the Juggalos

You wouldn't happen to know any photographers, wouldya?

Oh Grant... if only I knew what the hell you were getting me into. Yes. I did know a photographer, and she was me.

And so did Grant (my lover NO. My friendzoned drinking buddy from the karaoke days of yore) invite me on an outing to go to "Twiztid" in LA. I thought that was the typical "i can haz cheezburger?" spelling he uses for everything in text messages, but no, in fact that was the actual spelling for a real "thing". A band, even. I called my dad to regale him of my upcoming "gig", as it were, and the conversation went something like this:

B-Tans: So my buddy has this website, and he asked me to shoot a show for him.

Her Dad: What kind of show?

BT: I don't know, Twisted. I think it's a trade show or something, like comic-con or some kind of exposition for nerd things.

HD: Oh! That sounds swell! (because my dad's from the fifties, let's just say he's a cartoon from Fallout for purposes of my story) Gee, well I sure wouldn't mind helping you out, kiddo...

(My instinct kicked in here. GRANT invited me to something??? Definitely NSFW. Or the folks.)

BT: ... nah, I think I'd rather just hang out with my friends and do it on my own, thanks. I'll let you know how it goes though.

Seriously, I thought it would be a trade show. 100% full retarded there. I fought the impulse to look it up, should I get cold feet - only later did I find out it would be an exposition of white rappers in circus makeup. I gotta be honest, it's not my precious 80s hair metal, [imagine me hunched over my Def Leppard headband like Gollum] but I'll give them props for creativity. The people were super nice despite the freaky scary appearance, but I gotta be honest, a couple dudes looked and smelled like rape. Just sayin', I'mma leave that open to your imagination.

Despite a mild concern for my lady parts, I had myself a great time, but I totally didn't look a BIT like I belonged. Some dude met me in the hallway and was like "WOO wOOOO!!!" I smiled graciously. By his response I could tell he was apparently upset that I didn't "woo woo" him back. Pardon me sir, I do not mean to offend, however I do not speak train. Thank you, Grant, for the opportunity to experience Juggalo culture. I still don't know exactly what that word means, but next time I will be more likely to wear a studded belt and my steel toed boots. If this does not allow me to fit in, at the very least I'll not look like a hipster at the circus like this last time.

Twofer Tuesday

ITT (In This Twofer) we will do our best to ruin your childhood (and by ruin I don't mean show you hentai of Patty Mayonaise blowing Heffer from Rocko's Modern Life). Or your kid brother's, cuz I know I was deprived as fuck cuz i didn't have Barney to digitally molester me when I was a young'n. I had shit like Bravestarr and Rocklords and Gobots and SilverHawks and Thundercats. Yea, it was rough I tell you.



One thing that every kid had growin up was Sesame Street. Did you know Alice Cooper was on that shit? How bad ass is that. He used to have snakes. That was scary. (TK regularly has sex dreams about Mr. Hooper) I think it would be quite the trick if someone synched up gangster rap with clips of Bert and Ernie, arguably the most awkwardly closeted homosexuals of all time. They need to push those two beds together and get a bottle of Syrah and really have a night of it. Gay sex I mean.



The best part about youtube is that there is a 50% chance if I think up an idea someone has already done the work for me. How neat is that? Not neat when you've spent hours writing a screenplay, hours shooting it, hours editing it, and then you find some dipshit has already done it and done it poorly and has more views than Aaron + Quicksand. I digress. 50 Cent is my favorite gang-affiliated emcee. Here is him singing his hit "Baby".

-G

Wild Week of Weirdos Winds Up in West Hollywood

Bet ya didn't think we could fit that many W's in a title? Well, we did. The Demented Duo known as Twiztid is just wrapping up a week long tour that has stretched from California to Illinois and places in between. Twiztid are label mates with the Insane Clown Posse on Psychopathic Records and have a following as loyal as the clowns do all across this great nation. These two bring their love of horror movie slashers and hard core rap to the stage in a blend that goes down smooth and bold every time. (Like your mom).

Any time you have a couple hundred Juggalos in one place people get a little nervous. From the bouncers working the door line to the half dozen or more squad cars waiting eagerly after the show, everyone was prepared for mayhem. I was very impressed though, as a whole the Juggalos were very well behaved and I didn't see a single fight break out.

The boys from Sik Mob (click on any pic for hi-res version) opened up and although they did a lot to get cheap pops (shouting out Juggalos, etc) they still managed to keep the crowd pretty entertained. Playing a psychopathic gig can be rough if you're not well known, and while these boys are Juggalos themselves they still need to put in the time and win the crowd over their own way. A very solid set, these fellas are definitely something to keep an eyeball and an earhole pointed at.


Next up was Kung Fu Vampire. I've seen this act a number of times with different Psychopathic acts and I'm always impressed. The band includes almost as many people as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club (Band) but depending on the gig they have a varying number of folks on stage. Tonight The Vampire, Razz(Violin and pic on right), Jeremy Pollett(Bass), and Paxton(Drums) were in attendance. Vampire has got a very unique sound bringing a rapid fire delivery reminiscent of other NorCal rappers with that wicked flavor thrown in. Live sets are especially cool because the way it was mixed emphasized the bass and violin more than studio stuff, which made it feel like the sound track from a creepy movie. If I was a clickin' man, I'd check out their website and youtube to learn more. The Juggalos were really feeling The Vampire, especially loving "Grinder" and "iCount". This act has paid their dues and doesn't even have to bother trying to get cheap pops from the crowd, they'll just start chanting "family" at him. Some would consider this the highest form of praise from a very selective and skeptical audience.


With the crowd sufficiently warmed up Axe Murder Boys took the stage. AMB won the 2005 Underground Psychos contest Psychopathic Records put on to become signed to the label. They're a horror core duo from Denver, Colorado who represent the 303 area. They've bounced around from Psychopathic, to their other label HatchetHouse, and now they're working on a new self titled album called The Garcia Brothers (James and Mike respectively). The boys have been touring hard and it shows. Their flows are tight and the duo's stage presence captivated the crowd. The Juggalos all were feeling what the Boys were spitting. A very solid set.


The one and only clock-wearing-zombie-bad-man himself hit the stage next, Blaze Ya Dead Homie. Blaze has been around for a long time, and has released numerous albums that have become required listening material for Juggalos. He has been releasing concept albums under the persona Blaze, Colton Grundy, and Clockwork Gray as well as appearing on other Psychopathic artists' discs. His set was tight and he was on point tonight. Killing the ocean of Juggalos with favorites like "Hood Rat" "Nasty" and his rendition of "Dead Body Man", Blaze turned in a great set that had everyone screaming for more.


Twiztid was set to hit the stage at 11:30, and at about 11:25 they started playing an intro of a mash up of some pop gems that are currently making the rounds. Britney Spears and that Hannah Montana broad, played at a Psychopathic concert? "What the shit..?" Wondered all the Juggalos. Then a needle scratch broke up all that noise and out come Jamie Madrox and The Monoxide Child. The Key Club may have to shut down for renovations, because they blew the roof off of that house.

Twiztid are about a few things: Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, bloody murder, weed, and motherfucking Batman. They performed both of their faces off and had the entire crowd screaming along with them at the top of their lungs. My photographer has Tinnitus despite us feeding her ear plugs. If the crowd's energy level was at an 11 by the time Blaze finished up, it was well over 9,000 when Monoxide and the Multiple Man dropped their mics.

Jamie and Paul went through their entire catalog playing old favorites and brand new stuff no one has ever heard live. Main stays like "Rock The Dead", "Afraid of Me", and "Hydro" were definitely huge hits with the crowd. Here's a few more shots:



We'll be uploading all the shots that didn't make the blog to a flickr or whatever you kids use now a days. Angelfire page? Yea something like that. Extra Special thanks to The Key Club for providing Media Passes and supporting HotDamnTV.com. Check out their website, their concert calendar, and their tasty buffalo wings. Bonus points to B-Tans, our roving girl-photographer, and TK for doing science all night long.

-G

Words Written By A Real Live Girl!

Let’s go back in time, shall we?

Incognito super-spy, hot chick, nerd babe extraordinaire B-Tans was hittin’ LA for a good time. She’s so incognito, you didn’t even know she was on the team! Guess what? SHABAM That just happened.

So back in time, B-Tans went to a concert at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica to hear the bluesy-weirdness of David Lindley seriously, click that bro. Fo real. Gotta respect a man in polyester. Verily I say, it was a long day of cruising and boozing around Santa Monica. But the night was young, and I was early for the concert so I proceeded to venture to a fine establishment for some pre-party libations.

You laugh, but truly – it was quite a rad night. Screaming my drunken head off to the jukebox originated tunes of Bon Jovi I was hailed by a fellow bar patron.

Me: WHooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa we’re halfway the—eere

Mysterious dude: SING LOUDER!!!!

Me: WHOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa LIVIN ON A PRAYERrrrr

At least that ‘s what I thought I was singing. I weigh 110lbs and I had like 5 mixed drinks. Who is this mysterious dude , you might ask. Now I would say it would be the drunken misrememberings of a crazy pint sized woman, but lo; I do have photo to confirm. By the rules of the internets: “Pics or it didn’t happen…” I present to you my drinking buddy:

Peter Dante!

Please try to ignore the evil drunken look on my face, and be instead dazzled by the brightness of his smile and darkness of his tan. (EDITORS NOTE: He's not brown, he's bronze kid.)

The concert was awesome. It’s really freaking hard to find a musician that’s funny and full of energy at that age and talented enough to have played with Jackson Browne, Ben Harper, and Bruce Springsteen (just to name a few). Hangin’ with my man Dante was at least as cool. LA rules!

More girl adventures to come, dear readers.

Though it will be difficult to remain a super-spy now that I’ve gone public…

-B-Tans

Original Comment

I did an art. But I didnt write any blogs. U mad?

-G

EntertainMENt

Living in Southern California is a pretty neat kettle of fish. Living in Los Angeles can be ever cooler because it affords unique opportunities, like seeing advanced and limited screenings of films. That was the case on Thursday, April 7th when HotDamnTV and its affiliates witnessed The Whole Bloody Affair.

It has been almost 9 year since the first volume of Tarantino's love letter to 1970s Japanese Cinema was released. In the years proceeding the release of the second volume Tarantino has often spoken of his vision for The Bride's story to be told in one long film. Fans eagerly anticipated this director's cut version, but they have been disappointed and teased with placeholders on IMDB and Amazon.com.


(INSPIRATION: Lady Snowblood (1973) Sex and Fury (1973))

In 2004 something close to this vision was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, but nothing for the American public. In February of 2010 Tarantino bought The New Beverly Cinema, but allowed the previous owners to continue running it and just wanted to offer programming suggestions from time to time. To celebrate his birthday this year Tarantino programmed the entire March calendar and decided to include the print that was shown at Cannes all those years ago (mildly distracting french subtitles and all).

I arrived at the New Bev at around 5:30 and was already 20 odd people down the line. I didn't leave the quaint Jewish neighborhood that the theater resides in until well after midnight. This cut of the film is a serious endurance trial, but worth it! I imagine the experience must have been similar to my father seeing The Ten Commandments in theaters (all 220 minutes of it), there was even an intermission thrown in.

What were the differences? Here are some that stand out:

• The quote at the beginning is no longer a Klingon proverb but a dedication to Kinji Fukasaku (who I know as the director of Battle Royale).
• The O-Ren Ishii anime sequence has a bit more footage of the pedo-boss being cut open and displaying his gizzard but the much rumored additional 20 minutes of anime was not in this cut.
• Some dipshit in the audience made an awful big deal about the scene where Uma Thurman gets her piggies wiggling after climbing into the Pussy Wagon. No one was impressed pal.
  
• The hurlyburly in The Hose of Blue Leaves is in full beautiful color with all the red red kroovy you could hope for. The blinking to change from B&W to color is gone. A few additional (and bloody) de-limbings are added and the kid who The Bride spanks for "fucking around with Yakuza" makes another appearance. This scene comes before the power is shut off and Uma Thurman's character dispatches a handful of 88s and then stops short of lopping the kids head off and chucks him into another pile of 88s instead.
• The scene with Sophie in the trunk is much longer and includes the onscreen removal of her other arm. "Gimme your arm!" The Bride snarls, and then lops it cleanly off with her Hanzo Steel.
  
• The biggest difference which makes the whole movie take on a completely different tone is that Bill doesn't drop the bomb at the end asking if The Bride knows her daughter is alive. In the original version that was the cliffhanger to keep audiences waiting in between the two volumes.
• Intermission with music from the showdown with O-Ren.
• The fluff in the beginning of the theatrical Vol 2 has all been removed, and instead after the intermission we get right back to business with the Massacre at Two Pines.

The rest of the film reeled on pretty much as you and I will remember it from Volume 2. The more I think about it, the more I wish I had seen it this way. Watching it without Bill spoiling the reveal before the final showdown would have been SO much more fulfilling. It would be like Darth Vader mentioning to Leia that he was her Daddy and Luke was her sister in the first movie, only George Lucas had actually envisioned fucking Dewbacks everywhere and not revealing all of that until the dramatic conclusion.

I love shitty Kung Fu movies. I love Lone Wolf and Cub. I love ultra violent Japanese flicks from the 70s with an awful lot of nudity and more simulated sex than Cinemax at around 10pm. Tarantino took all of the aspects that made these films so incredible and made a beautiful and respectful homage to all that came before him. I tip my hat to you god sir, and I eagerly await the day when Kill Bill will be seen in all its glory. Let's just hope this doesn't turn into another The Thief and The Cobbler fiasco!

-G

PS: Have you guys entered the dumb contest we have? Its not too late. See previous blarg.

Mother Fxcking Contest?

Hey pals. What's going on? You'd like some shit for free? Wellllll you stumbled onto the right blog toast. That's right chums. To make a long story short we ended up with a few poorly colored photographs of various hotdammers (Grant, Dan, Juliet, and TK specifically), five to be precise, that we are prepared to augnagraph and send to your stupid house along with a bright and sparkly HotDamnTV shark!

I know, you WISH you had one of these fresh sharks. How do you enter to win this contest you ask? It is simple, you just have to click LIKE on facepile on this link on our group's wall. In a month's time we will determine by random lottery who has won the match!

To recap:

• Free HotDamnTV.com SHARK keychain
• Autographed pictar of anywhere from 2-4 really cool people
• I'm going to fart inside of every envelope before I seal it
• Why haven't you jerks bought any of our T-shirts? Click here now and buy one -_-
  

Shucks, I'd enter. And by enter I mean your mom. Happy clicking pals! (None of us will ever be famous so these will never be worth any money, but Dan is rich and Juliet is very pretty.) Winners will be notified via facemash message on or around May 6th (never 4get).

-G

Twofer Tuesday

Lets get political up in this piece. This being an election year (I think) we need to get educated you guys. How better to understand our mysterious government than to observe the players in their natural environment? We need to listen to some words from some motherfucking senators I think.



This video is old, I know, but just think of the children! What if one of them hasn't seen it yet? Its beautiful. Imagine your Grandma trying to explain the internets to one of her friends over a bridge game complete with all the awkward metaphors that make no sense, the stumbling over words and techno-buzzwords. When Senator Ted Stevens made this speech about Net Neutrality over 9,000 months ago the tubes gobbled it up. It went from meme to legend quicker than the star wars kid or the chocolate rain dude. It has been remixed and lold at so much that I'm pretty sure 85% of ytmnds are about this. To this day I still refer to internets as "tubes" all because of this amazing amazing speech. It just feels so good. Aggressive shout outs and big ups to Vanessa for ghostwriting this link.



Special thanks to my Mommy and Daddy for inadvertently providing me with this link. I was skyping with them and my Mommy asked me to explain what "tubes" were (see first video). I explained to her the whole Senator Ted Stevens thing and how it was a pretty funny video and then my Dad told me a story about how a fellow he used to work with in the Navy (a 4 star general) was being questioned by some Representative about the logistics of moving 1,500 troops to Guam. That all seems like normal politicking and suchlike, but the real gold came when he seriously asked if the island would tip over with the addition of these people. For serious though. So I youtub'sd some keywords and low and behold there is glorious glorious film of it. The best part is that the representative clearly did a bit of research about Guam to figure out how wide the least not so long wide part was but somehow did not understand that Islands are not floating freely but are in fact a part of the earth's mantle. Thanks Mommy and Daddy! <3

-G