Happy Birthday Bill S! & The Minx!

I've been really remiss in the birthday department lately, but that's only because I've been remiss in every department of life; and while some friends caution me against spreading my laziness and incompetence too thin, I'm having a good day and feel like I still have more to give! Or withhold! Whatever.

Anyway, today's a Twi-Night Doubleheader, with Corsican Twins Bill S. (Wo'C contributor and He Who Must Be Referred To For The Next 24 Hours as Bill S! under penalty of law) and The Minx!

And okay, yeah, when we phrase it that way it does sound less like a birthday party and more like an action-packed comic book issue about a superpowered heroine dropping in on an unusually exciting Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and getting in a fistfight with a super villain near the coffee urn. But what if I said there was cake? Hmmm...? And what if I lied, and really just meant there's dessert? And what if I stretched the definition of "dessert" to the point where we all just collapse on the ground and start eating grass like a dog trying desperately to cope with intestinal worms? Because that's the World O' Crap Birthday Way?

Let's begin, shall we?

There were a lot of disgusting crypto-desserts on Pinterest, but I went with this one because Elsie the Borden Cow is something of an unofficial Wo'C mascot, having made her debut in s.z.'s very first post, way back in Ought Three. And since I can't cook, I figured it was safest to go with a "no cook", "no bake" recipe. Plus, it's "thrifty," and who doesn't enjoy that on their special day? Why, I've lost track of the times I've come home after a hard day at my imaginary office, smacked my lips meditatively and announced, "Mmm! I'm in the mood for something thrifty!"

So as the ad says "Why not try this salad today?" Well, there's literally a million reasons, but I'll just go with #45091: "If your aim is to poison a Russian refugee you're better off just putting a nerve agent in his tea, because he's gonna see this shit from a mile away."

Still, I'm pretty sure I can pull this off, because my Grandma actually used to make a version of it for Thanksgiving, except she suspended the cottage cheese in the lime Jello, rather than having it erupt out of the interior like so many maggots, and there was no tuna, because I guess she never really got over the Depression.

Okay, let's see...Package of lime gelatin...Yeah, that'll taste like crap, but at least it'll toughen up our toenails. Hot water...vinegar...salt...Mm, tastes like dessert already. Tub o' cottage cheese...Mayonnaise... Chopped celery...Y'know, this is more complicated than I thought. I need some volunteers from the audience -- someone chop the onions, someone thinly slice the radishes, and someone drain and flake the tuna, okay? Just think of it as an Amish barn raising, except afterwards we'll eat the barn and it'll taste disgusting.

Wait, there's a problem...My store doesn't carry Borden's. Damn! And despite that tone of blasé assurance at the bottom of the add, I don't have my own Borden's Man. Do any of you have your own Borden's Man? And if you do, will you unchain the poor bastard and let him out of the basement to help me?

No? Fine. Okay, change of plans, let's just tune into Borden's TV shows, "The People's Choice" and "Fury."  I can't seem to find them on my cable guide, but I'm sure Ivan can explain what the hell they're about. (By the way, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear has moved, so please adjust your bookmarks accordingly.)

Okay, instead of the Cottage Cheese Tuna Salad, how about we all just wish The Minx and Bill S! a very happy birthday, and we'll call it even.

But first, the traditional Sexy Birthday Lizard!

And because The Minx is also the human companion of Famous Internet Cat ZoeLuna, there's a bonus damp cat in the pic. Enjoy!

The 6th Annual Skelly Awards

By Wo'C's Red Carpet Reporter, Bill S!

The Oscars are airing tomorrow night, which means it's time for us to look at the nominees in this year's four acting categories, and determine who among them has the single most embarrassing prior role, thus winning the not-so-coveted SKELLY Award. As always, if someone was nominated (won) in a previous year, they are ineligible for a nomination again. This rule, however, does not apply to the films they appeared in, as you'll soon see. Let's have a look at this year's contenders.

5th Place: Laurie Metcalf

Laurie made her feature film debut as a hotel maid (an unbilled bit role) in Robert Altman's 1978 comedy A Wedding. Over the years she's won multiple Emmys, a Tony, and is now in the running for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Lady Bird. She faces stiff competition from odds-on favorite Allison Janney in I, Tonya. (Is it too much to hope for a tie in this category?) On the road to all those awards, she made an unfortunate stop in the lame-brained 1988 comedy Stars and Bars.

In the first year of the SKELLY competition -- before it even had a name -- I nominated the movie's star, Daniel Day-Lewis, who came in second place (the winner that year was Denzel Washington, for the even more lame-brained comedy Carbon Copy). I have to confess that it's been nearly 30 years since I saw Stars and Bars, and until I was researching film credits to write this column, I'd completely forgotten that Laurie Metcalf was also in it. I'm guessing she's forgotten it too.

4th Place: Sam Rockwell

The favorite to win this year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is one of those actors (like recent Oscar winner J.K. Simmons) whose name in the credits provoke an anticipatory grin. We know whatever the film's quality, we can be assured one bright spot.

Of course, everybody's got to start somewhere, and for Rockwell, his earliest roles were not quite so memorable. One such role was in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, playing (as he was billed in the credits) "Head Thug". I'm guessing when this kiddie flick bowed in theaters back in 1990, nobody was imagining that one of the bit players would one day be walking the Red Carpet. Especially since, at the time, the biggest name in the cast was Corey Feldman. And he was playing a turtle.

3rd Place: Frances McDormand
The favorite to win this year's Best Actress Oscar for her role in Three Billboards is the Coen brothers' favorite leading lady, and Joel Coen's favorite lady all around. She's also one of my favorite actresses -- I'll watch her in almost anything.

Which, unfortunately, is how I came to see one of the flimsiest films of her career: Passed Away:

Dead On Arrival

This is probably the most disappointing picture of this year's bunch. It boasts a batch of gifted actors (too many to list, but let's start by asking what possessed Bob Hoskins to sign on) so I had high hopes. Also, I tend to be drawn to movies about dysfunctional families, whether intense dramas like Long Day's Journey Into Night, or black comedies like August: Osage County. This movie is neither of those. It isn't anything, really. One problem is that it seems too short. That's not a usual complaint with bad movies, but the 92 minute running time seems to be the result of laziness more than anything else. Each character is trotted out, their identifying quirk identified (McDormand is saddled with playing the least convincing movie nun since Helen Reddy in Airport '75) and then...nothing much more happens with them. The whole thing feels less like a feature film, and more like a hastily slapped together pilot for a sitcom that would get cancelled in three weeks.

2nd Place: Willem Dafoe
Nominated this year in the Best Supporting Actor category for his subtle, empathetic performance in The Florida Project, Dafore's first film role was in Heaven's Gate, the movie that starred last year's SKELLY winner, Isabelle Huppert. His part in the film wound up on the cutting room floor, so he was spared any true onscreen embarrassment for a dozen more years...when he starred in the kinky melodrama Body of Evidence (see the Better Living Through Bad Movies chapter "Sex, Lies, and Direct-to-Videotape" for a full exegesis of this film).

No evidence of brains

In the third year of the SKELLYs, I nominated Julianne Moore for her role in this film. She only had a small role (her name's not even on the posters), and she looked gorgeous, so our embarrassment level may have been slightly lower that it is for Willem Dafoe, who's one of the leads. He plays a lawyer who's banging his client, which makes him an idiot. And he's cheating on Julianne Moore, which makes him certifiable. And so he manages to embarrass himself more than anyone else in the movie. Including Madonna.

You might be wondering then, why only second place? What could be worse than appearing in a film that was reviewed right here on World O'Crap? I won't hold you in suspense. The winner of the 6th Annual SKELLY Award is...

Gary Oldman

The favorite to win this year's Best Actor Oscar for his role in Darkest Hour, he's never won before, which is surprising. Shouldn't a guy who can play both Sid Vicious and Winston Churchill already have a bunch of them? He generally elevates the quality of the films he's in, but there was one film he couldn't save. That nobody could save. I'm speaking, of course, of The Scarlet Letter:

The most critically mocked picture of 1995 -- even Showgirls received better bad reviews. Publicity described it as "freely adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel", which is an understatement. In the book, Hester Prynne bears a child as the result of an adulterous affair, and is branded a social outcast. The man leading the crusade against her, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, is also the father of her child, which makes him a moral hypocrite, and an asshole. In the movie, though, he's a troubled, romantic, even sympathetic hero.

Putting the "dim" in Dimmesdale.

That's not all they changed. For example: Hester first sees the good reverend when she catches him skinny-dipping, and then returns home to enjoy a hot steamy bath, surrounded by candles, and um, pleasuring herself. The movie adds more action to the story, and a ridiculous happy ending (well, two ridiculous happy endings if you count that bathtub scene). They should have just dropped any pretense they were adapting the book at all and made a porno version. That would have been more honest. (You can probably guess what the "A" would have stood for in that.)

Or better yet, when crafting the screenplay, they should have enlisted the talents of esteemed author Clifford Noadtz.

[This year's column is dedicated to the late Roger Ebert, whose book "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie" -- a collection of his most scathing reviews -- was a very helpful reference tool, saving me both time and money. It will likely prove to be as helpful in years to come.]

The Slumgullion Episode 45: Black Panther

It's a new Slumgullion! Episode 45: "I Don't Mind That She's a Mutineer...I Do Mind That She's a Drama Queen."

In Part 1, Jeff and Scott grief counsel each other through their co-dependent relationships with Star Wars and Star Trek, and somehow wind up awarding a pair of breasts to Dr. McCoy. In Part II, the New Movie Crew takes on Black Panther, and the fur really flies.

And check out the bonus video below.

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, and star Chadwick Boseman make a surprise appearance at the opening night screening at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. At least, it was a surprise to us.

Whatever The Traffic Will Allow

By Keith

Hello, World O’Crappers and let us count the ways Republicans heart Juvenile Road Kill, huh?

• Sweet, fresh kidneys (there are two per kid)
• Ripe, accurate retinas (two-per)
• Sharp precision corneas (two-per)
• Lovely liver, relatively free of chemicals. Plug & Play. Ready to Roll.
• Cartilage for orthopedic surgeries: (advanced ACL, other procedures)

The list is by no means complete, but even these few spare parts are enough to keep the average billionaire from having to pay the Death Tax for a few more years; at least long enough to contribute to his 2020 campaign.

Okay, it's a bit like the plot of The Island (2005), but unlike that movie's pen-raised, captive clones, our current NRA-approved system allows for the breeding of free range donors, with harvesting taking place at semi-regular intervals by volunteers, so capital costs remain low.

Thanks for your attention, and please pick up a free copy of our prospectus on your way out.

Moby Dreck: Age of the Dragons (2011)

By Hank Parmer

It should come as no surprise if I note dragons are hot right now. Okay, when it comes to the fire-breathing variety, except for the White Walkers' new pet they're hot all the time. But you know what I mean. Over the last couple of decades, what with advances in computer-generated effects, on TV and the silver screen these mythical beasts have proliferated like Everglades pythons.

But as today's example illustrates, this has not been an unmixed blessing.

Let's say there's a RenFaire-themed alternate reality in which dragons are real. Not only that, but they're prized for their precious vitriol (though not so much for their withering sarcasm) so the creatures are harvested by intrepid bands of landsmen who roam the wilderness in ironclad tour buses. But wait: Wouldn't this be the ideal setting for a new interpretation of a revered American novel, whose dense symbolist prose has bored generations of high school students out of their skulls?

And what if you could hire a distinguished African-American actor to spout chunks of Captain Ahab's dialog, as well as tap a familiar British thespian -- often cast as a menacing but quirky thug who's prone to episodes of astonishing violence -- to play an abbreviated version of the Pequod's unflappable second mate, Stubb?

What could possibly go wrong? Well ... everything.

Even though his name appears nowhere in the credits, at first I strongly suspected my favorite punching bag and bête noire, Mark Atkins had a hand in this mess. It certainly has some of the tell-tale signs, beginning with the blatant lie of its poster: There is a dragon, true, but the protagonist never gets within a hundred miles of a shining broadsword, nor is he ever this up close and personal with one of the beasts. As his filmography shows, Atkins has made a career out of crappy films featuring dragons -- Jack the Giant Killer and P-51 Dragon Fighter, to name only two -- and with A Princess of Mars he proved he was ready to apply that reverse Midas touch to classic literature.

And by this point I could well understand why the guy might have ample reason to use a pseudonym. Yet I have a hard time believing he'd content himself with only one credit under his assumed name, or that he could cast the likes of Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones, or that Atkins would have the self-control to refrain from inserting one of his signature "circling P.O.V." shots somewhere in the film. Even though it scarcely bears contemplation, it seems certain now what we have here is something much more dire: an imitator or -- even worse -- an acolyte.

But on to the movie: The fun begins with a flashback to Ahab's difficult adolescent years. Even at this early age, according to the voice over he's a precociously talented hunter. On this fateful day his beloved kid sister tags along while he checks his snares. He's disappointed to find he's only snagged a couple of rabbits. Someday he's sure he'll bag one of those elusive Whooping Hippogriffs.

Sis skips down to a nearby stream with her pail. A vast, dragon-shaped shadow passes over her unnoticed. While she waits for him to join her, Ahab's sister amuses herself by idly tossing pebbles into the babbling brook. She hears something behind her, freezes and slowly looks back over her shoulder.

Ahab hears the girl's terrified shriek; he races down to the stream, only to find a huge white dragon crouched over her bloody corpse. Ahab, mad with rage, yells his defiance and attacks the beast with his knife. He's knocked down into the water, and the dragon belches a jet of fire. Fade-out on a very artistic shot of the abandoned bucket in a sea of slow-motion flames, while first-person narrator "Ishmael" informs us that no one knows why the dragon didn't finish the job on Ahab, who was terribly burned but somehow survived.

Compulsory Beast Blogging Event

I've been told (over and over again, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and by the ghost of MySpace, which I accidentally summoned during a seance last night while I was using a Ouija board to contact my grandfather in a last ditch attempt to discover the identity of his murderer, and also  where Gramps put the spare furnace filters, because they don't make them for that model anymore and some jerk on Ebay is charging like 200 bucks for a 6-pack!) that it's #LoveYourPetDay, and if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that while popular cultural, contemporary mores, and modern technology have all passed me by, I have one hope to survive the future without being ritually executed by Millennials in a Logan's Run-style shopping mall, and that's to #ObeyTheHashtag!

So here's some cats.

Moondoggie

Shadow

Shadow avec Moondoggie

Better Living Through Bad Movies: The Alligator People (1959)

The stars of Better Living Through Bad Movies: The Audiobook, John Szura and Blanche Ramirez, are back and giving the business to The Alligator People, that lovable 1959 sci-fi classic that perfectly captured America's Cold War fears about atomic mutations, psychoanalysis, and piano-playing reptiles.