2001 Maniacs (2005)

Because, by God, there's always room for another Maniac.

It's a lot like like Jello.

• Zipped .wmv of Christa Campbell. Good scene.

• Zipped .wmv of two other women making out. Only a brief flash from one of them.

 

The Impossible Kid (1982)

Tuna and I have both reviewed (and praised) For Your Height Only, the offbeat Filipino movie about a 2'9" clone of James Bond. The Impossible Kid is the sequel, in which the diminutive Weng-Weng again plays "Agent Double O."

While For Your Height Only had been a straightforward Bond parody, right down to the high-tech gadgets, The Impossible Kid is actually more of chopsocky film, in which Weng-Weng is now an agent of Interpol. It's not as consistently funny as the original. It has a few inspired moments, but it derives 75% of its humor from the same gag: Weng-Weng defeating one or more six footers in hand-to-hand combat. That joke is pretty funny the first time, and might have worked once more in a special situation, but when it's employed repetitively, it fails to deliver laughs during the reprises. Of course, Weng-Weng inevitably ends up punching his opponent in the dick, so that's always good for a chuckle.

Some of the film's strengths:

• A group of Filipino industrialists, accompanied by Weng-Weng, listen to a tape from some "terrorists," which ends with the admonition that "this tape will self-destruct." Sure enough, in a few seconds, the entire television explodes! A few seconds later, however, Weng-Weng and his boss are shown listening to the very same tape in the Interpol office, and it seems to be in fine condition!

• The head terrorist turns out to be one of the industrialists, yet earlier in the film he himself would have been blown up by a live grenade tossed by one of the terrorists, except for the timely intervention of the little fella! Now THAT'S a good cover.

• I have no idea what Weng-Weng's real voice sounds like, but in the English-language dubbing, his voice is provided by someone with a smooth baritone, ala Shadoe Stevens!

• Weng-Weng is very unusual for a little person in that he has the agility of a professional gymnast and can run quite fast. (Well, his legs move fast, anyway. Obviously he doesn't cover much ground per stride.) He doesn't seem to move like a typical little person, but rather like a very athletic young boy. This enables him to do some tremendous stunts and some astounding fight scenes.

• In one of my favorite moments. Weng-Weng is asked to leave the industrialist's house after appearing uninvited. He beats up a few gigantic mobsters who try to manhandle him, then walks out on his own. As he casually walks past a few more henchmen, he punches one of them in the nuts - for no reason at all other than to show that he's the alpha male.

• The dialogue is absolutely ridiculous. At one point in the tape, a terrorist says, "I am the leader of a world-wide organization - with affiliates all over the world." (As opposed to, I suppose, those world-wide organizations which are not actually world-wide.)

• At one point, Weng-Weng and his tiny motorcycle escape from some baddies by leaping over a chasm, Evel Knievel style. From the decidedly non-parabolic arc of the flight, it is obvious that the stunt is not done with forward momentum, but by having the entire cycle attached to a wire!

The end of the film gives us hope that the little fella will appear in a third adventure called License Expired, but that film apparently never got made, at least to my knowledge. It's too late now because Tuna tells me that Weng-Weng's license to kill has been revoked by the Almighty himself. A hero in his native Philippines, he received a state funeral procession in which one guy carried the coffin under his arm. When the procession reached the shore, the Minute Man (pronounced "my-NOOT" in this case) was placed upon a paper boat and accorded a Viking funeral. Of course, arrows would not have been practical, so one of the dock hands ignited his little barge with a lit cigarette.

By the way, although I obtained this movie in a collection called "Martial Arts 50 Movie Pack,"  it seems to be in the public domain, and you can pick it up for free here.

There is some nudity, but the women are not identified in the credits.

Other Crap:

Fire Chief Caught On The Lamb, trying to fuck a sheep of Goats.

Enormous crocodile thinks it might be cool to steal a tiger's kill. Wrong thought.

95 sexy pictures of Monica Bellucci

"Crash" Hits Theaters Again

• Fresh off the Oscar it received for being the picture which did not suck as deep as the other 2005 movies, Crash is heading to more than 150 theaters Friday for an encore run."

For you super-trivia experts ... Which linebacker wears #47 for the Eastern Illinois Panthers. You don't know now, but you won't ever forget again.

Six clips from V for Vendetta, the dystopic thriller starring Agent Smith, Natalie Portman, and the always world-weary Stephen Rea. Opens NEXT Friday

Colbert interviews Bob Schieffer

PLEASE MEET TYRONE BANKS

ABBA threatens to reunite unless Poland grants gay rights

The Economics Of Prostitution

"Bonds exposed - Superstar slugger's steroid use, day-by-day, drug-by-drug"

Colbert says: "Things like best value, quality testing or safety ratings just ruin the post-purchase surprise."

"Behold the awesome and terrifying power of the Da Colbert Code!" (Stephen reviews his Oscar predictions)

Colbert's ThreatDown

Yanni (allegedly) beats the crap out of his (ex-?) girlfriend , but in a gentle New Age way, with seashore noises playing in the background.

Orson Welles tries to do a commercial after having apparently served a vast quantity of wine before its time

Jon Stewart's tribute to "rugged" Old Time Westerns

Greenlight to new series for Andy Richter

• I'm thinking this could finally be the right vehicle for him: he plays a totally unfunny fat guy.
• Unfortunately, I can't think of anybody who would want to watch a show about a totally unfunny fat guy, except maybe Tom Arnold.

"FIRST DICK CHENEY JOKES ARRIVE IN IRAQ" Pentagon Hopes Merriment Will Unite Sunnis, Shiites

Dana Reeve, widow of Christopher Reeve, dies at 44, and a low-keyed pair of lives play themselves out. I never met Chris, but he and I had a mutual friend who knew him when Chris was a major star. I never heard one bad word about the guy. The word I heard most often was "gentleman."

This week's movies (2700 screens): The Hills Have Eyes - 75% positive reviews

• This is the only one of this week's movies which was pre-screened for critics. Obviously, they thought the genre critics would like it, and they were right. Here are some of the comments
  • "A bleak, gripping, refreshingly non-Hollywood shock-fest."
  • "The Hills Have Eyes is unadulterated evil excellence."
  • "This remake of the 1977 Wes Craven cult classic is brutally horrific. And that's a compliment."
• Hollywood Reporter and Variety split on the film, but Variety's negative was not very negative. In fact, Variety praised, "an astonishing and unexpected opening section."

The Weekend Warrior looks at the upcoming weekend.

• He thinks the three new movies will finish in the top three spots, while Chappelle and Ultraviolet sink into the Western sky.

So you think you know baseball? Well, here's an exclusive club with only one member. Name the only man in baseball history in the 40-20-30 club. (Forty doubles, twenty triples, and thirty homers in the same year.)

• Hint #1: Gehrig and Musial are great guesses, but wrong. Musial made 46-18-39 in the year he slugged .702, Gehrig had 52-18-47 in the year he slugged .765. Both Gehrig and Musial had other seasons with twenty or more triples. Gehrig did it once, Musial twice.
• Hint #2: for 69 years of baseball's lifetime, the same player was also the only man ever to bat in 12 runs in a major league game. It's still a record, but now he has to share it. Mark Whiten tied the record in his four homer game in 1993
• Bonus trivia: in the year before his epochal four homer, twelve rbi game, Whiten hit nine homers in 508 at bats. In the year of "the game," his slugging average was an anemic .423. He averaged fewer than ten homers per year in his eleven years in the majors with eight different teams.
• Whiten does, however, hold one unbreakable record. In his brief pitching stint, he averaged 27.0 strikeouts per nine innings! In his one inning, he faced seven batters, walked two, hit one with a pitch, gave up one hit, and struck out the other three! In many years, that would have made him the Indians' ace.

We knew President Bush liked ranching, but we were not aware of the natural closeness he has with cows.

Here's the trailer for Jimmy and Judy

• "Two misunderstood suburban kids challenge society and run from the police while documenting all of their deeds with a digital camera."
• looks promising for nudity

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

Torrente 3: El Protector

Yvonne Scio

Vanesa Zamora

Ruth Zanon

Madonna admitted her kiss with Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards confused her young daughter Lourdes.  She told Out magazine, "Lourdes is really obsessed with who is gay," and she said,
"Mom, you know they say that you are gay...because you kissed Britney Spears." Madonna said she replied, "No, it just means I kissed Britney Spears.  I am the mommy pop star, and she is the baby pop star, and I am kissing her to pass my energy on to her."

*  Or more likely, passing mononucleosis on to her.

*  But when she then kissed Christina Aguilera?  That was just hot
girl-on-girl action.

*  Look at Britney now!  Madonna must've sucked all the energy out!

*  Know what else Lourdes thinks is gay?  The name "Lourdes."