"The cool thing about the Village People is that they sang songs that were very much like negro spirituals. The spirituals were actually intended/invented as "maps" or "directions" for whatever freed slave happen to be in hiding nearby for safe passage to where ever they wished to go. Village People? Same thing. If you wanted to know where to find a nice fella, you could go either to the YMCA, or go In The Navy, or you could Go West."
Image via Wikipedia Now that Joey and Scott have mastered the fine art of recording their podcast episodes through the wonders of Skype, the next step seems perfectly logical: Conference Calling! And what better way to try out our new conference calling abilities then by inviting a special guest host to help review our latest Bad Movie Challenge, Supergirl!
Light years ahead of our previous lengthy interview with author/artist/musician/hepcat John Dimes (episode #26), in which we talked to John with Scott's Droid X on speakerphone propped up against the our Samson SAC01UPAK USB Microphone, our guest simply called us on Skype. Much in the same way that anybody can now, since our podcast was interrupted by an eager fan attempting to call the Moviesucktastic Hotline. Despite that little glitch, everything turned out great!
Which is more than can be said for Supergirl, of course. In order to help us review what is considered by many to be the lowest point in the Superman franchise (until Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Superman Returns, that is), we were aided by the expert opinions of Don Everitt Smith Jr., author of the new true crime book The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County: The 1850 Van Winkle Killings. Far from being just a New Jersey crime historian, Don Smith is also a comic book writer for the Bluewater Productions “Political Power” series (featured on Fox News), a freelance comic reviewer and Patch journalist, and occasional Guest Host on Blogtalkradio. Reviewing comic book related films and dealing with opinionated individuals like Joey and Scott is nothing new to the likes of Don, who was recently interviewed about his new book on Parcbench.
Adhering to his busy work schedule, Don was able to spend the first hour of the show with Joey and Scott, going over the Top Ten box office winners for the weekend of September 23 through 25, and earned the distinction of being the first Moviesucktastic Guest Host to weigh in on the Finger List, which also resulted in the first Finger List three-way-tie. He then spent the rest of his time sharing insights and thoughts on Peter O'Toole's professional low point (next to High Spirits, of course), the poorly executed and even more poorly received Supergirl. Don lends a past expertise to his review of the film, having previously interviewed Helen Slater, and being a lifelong comic book fan.
After Don's departure, Joey and Scott finish up their review of Supergirl. Both agree that one of the hardest parts of sitting through the two hour version of Supergirl is watching Peter O'Toole act his heart out, despite being trapped in a supporting role for such a crappy movie. You can almost imagine him interrupting every third take with "You do realize I was in Lawrence of Arabia, right?" It is painful to watch him emoting just as much as he did in Beckett or The Ruling Class while Helen Slater wanders around him trying to figure out what to do. They finish up with a slight reversal of Taking Out the Trash, in which Scott recommends the addition of some scenes to help round out some of the characters, grant the audience closure by tying up loose narrative ends, and padding the film's length with a much needed rating-boosting lesbian scene.
As he left the room Jonathan's father winked. "When you've been with the Burr family thirty years," he said, "it takes more than a couple of men eating breakfast in nothing but black leather pants to astonish you."
This episode of Moviesucktastic is available on iTunes and Zune, or on Podcast Pickle, Podcast Pup and Pod Feed. If you are on the go, you can stream it on the fly directly onto your smart phone using the sweet-ass Stitcher App. And, as always, you can also download or listen to the show streaming at Moviesucktastic.com.
And while you're at it, be sure to drop us a voice mail on the newly acquired Moviesucktastic Hotline, 908-514-4470. Just don't call us while we're recording. At least until we arrange a way for you to call into the show.
Moviesucktastic Episode #26 goes live today, and with its release, two milestones in Moviesucktastic history are reached! Not only does this episode feature the first-ever Moviesucktastic Interview, it is also the first episode of Moviesuckastic to be released without an 'Explicit' rating! That's right; not only did we bring a fresh new voice and viewpoint into the MST domain, we also managed to prevent Scott from flinging vulgarities a F-bombs around for an entire recording session. The string of expletives he releases in future episodes will no doubt make up the difference.
The multi-talented artist/actor/singer/writer John Dimes, aka Dr. Sarcofiguy (the first and only African American Horror Host), author of the books Coincidissonance and The White Corpse Hustle: A Guide for the Fledgeling Vampire, joined the Movie Guys via the latest high-tech, state-of-the-art phone conferencing technology (Scott propped his Droid X against the microphone) to discuss his latest book, There Are No Bad Movies! (Only Bad Audiences). In the book, John argues that all films merit approval on some level, and that people who nitpick and complain about the trivial flaws and minutia only distract from the overall entertainment value that the films are trying to provide. Proving to be both bold and brave, the author decided to give his pro-movie manifesto the ultimate test by offering up a review an interview by two people who seem to be dedicated to nothing more than trashing and complaining about films.
That would be us.
Armed with only his wit, charm, charisma, and an extensive knowledge of cinema, Dr. Dimes faced off against his mortal enemies in order to defend his position that film critics like Joey and Scott have only themselves to blame for the hardships they endure sitting through films like Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.
Surprisingly enough (or not so surprisingly - we can be nice guys as long as you're not a filthy Avatar Fanatic), Mr. Dimes and the Movie Guys actually ended up agreeing more than disagreeing. Whether obsessed with bad films or convinced that all movies are good, movie lovers are still movie lovers, and the common ground between these two opposing forces of film criticism proved to be as vast as the failure of James Cameron's Sanctum. What was meant to be a half-hour interview turned into an almost two-hour conversation about everything cinematic under the sun. Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Star Wars, Troll 2, Dakota Fanning, nothing was deemed as off limits - until John listed Van Helsing as one of his favorite films. Joey and Scott politely bowed out in order to prevent the show from going into overtime, but promised to dedicate an entire future episode to their thoughts and opinions on that particular Hugh Jackman contribution to The Arts.
Fun was had by all in the end, and the differences in opinions were dulled by a mutual love of films, making for fantastic conversation and a great episode. We enjoyed having Dr. Sarcofiguy on so much, we are planning on holding him to his promise to come back on the show when his upcoming CD, Demo Demons, is finally released. Until that day arrives, be sure to checkout his book, and to listen to our lengthy interview with him in Episode #26, the John Dimes Interview Episode. You can download it from iTunes, Podcast Alley, Podcast.comor streamed directly at MovieSucktastic.com. And if you happen to swing by Amazon and pick up a copy of John's book, be sure to let him know that the Movie Guys over at Moviesucktastic sent you.
Image via Wikipedia
