This week, Derek got to pick the movie, and he decided to go with one of the greatest sports movies ever made: Space Jam, starring Michael Jackson, Wayne Knight, Danny DeVito, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird a bunch of other basketball guys from 1996, and Bill Murray...Why? Because it's Bill. Goddamn. Murray. That's why.
Acting circles around a cartoon rabbit and a professional basketball player!
When the Looney Tunes are attacked by aliens from an outer space theme park called Moron Mountain, they demand an opportunity to play basketball against the aliens in order to be able to stay on Earth. The aliens' leader, Swackhammer (DeVito), agrees to it and sends his very tiny minions out to steal the playing abilities of several NBA stars, including Charles Barley, Chauncey Billups, and Patrick Ewing, which transforms the minions into the gigantic MonStars.
All of whom play the number zero.
The Looney Tunes come up with a plan that involves kidnapping a retired-from-basketball-but-trying-to-play-baseball Michael Jordan to teach them how to play so they can beat the MonStars, because th' hell else ya gonna do?
Jordan's expression just screams, "You have got to be shitting me."
Michael's assistant, Stan (Wayne Knight) digs a giant hole to follow Michael to Toon World, and help him beat the MonStars by being large, sweaty, and generally unpleasant to watch.
But wait!
Just when it seems that the MonStars are going to pound the Looney Tunes into a soggy pile of mush, Bugs Bunny convinces his team that a bottle of magic water (read: steroid juice) will give them the power to beat the aliens and save them from having to be an attraction at Swackhammer's theme park.
Fortunately, Stan and Bill Murray ("I'm a friend of the producer...") are there to help Michael and his team of cartoons!
His official position: Benchwarmer and sweat generator.
Will they win? Will Swackhammer force them to come to Moron Mountain anyway? Will it be a strong enough victory to allow for a sequel twenty years later starring LeBron James?
We'll just have to see.
There's also some news in The Lobby, new movies Coming Soon, your favorite toons in Larry's List, Jake-in' Off over E3, and local TV Inside My Head!
Well, it's been a heckuva week. Not nearly as pointlessly murdery as it has been recently, so I'm willing to call that a win. And as a reward for behaving (more or less), this week's animations all have googly eyes!
See? Horror is way more fun with googly eyes!
Anyway, there's a lot of talk about Trump this week (which, as we all know, he loves so very, very much), all of which is not good. (I know, I know...Shocking.)
F'rinstance, it seems ol' Donnie can't keep off of Twitter to insult Hilary Clinton, Elisabeth Warren, and anybody else who won't fawn all over him. And those accounts are taking shots back at them. Last week, Clinton hit him right in the ego with this beauty:
Trump has written a lot of books about business—but they all seem to end at Chapter 11.
Donald pretended not to notice, and continued to call Warren "Pocahontas" because she has mentioned before that she is, in some fraction of her makeup, Native American. But he continues to insist that he's not a racist.
Right.
Does he look...like a bitch?!
Trump also fired his campaign manager, female journalist-shover Corey Lewandowski, last week, where he was quickly scooped up by CNN, for some reason. Be prepared for so much unbiased reporting about Trump. (*snort* I crack myself up sometimes...) Twitter was quick to respond to the firing.
BREAKING: Trump ditches his campaign manager. Let's go live to Trump headquarters for comment. pic.twitter.com/52KqYTw7Sz
Over across the pond, Britain decided (by a pretty narrow margin) to leave the European Union. Judging by some of the tweets I've seen, this appears to mean that racists can now be openly obnoxious and viciously rude to people who don't look like them.
Right now the EU is drunk texting Scotland "u up? wyd?"
This week, the guys decided that it would be a whole lot more fun to sit down and play some Cards Against Humanity and discuss their ideas for songs that would be included on the soundtrack of movies that were made about them.
And a good time it was!
Shown: A good time being had.
Each of them were given the four scenes their songs would be used for:
1. Opening credits;
2. Funeral of a character;
3. 80s-style montage scene; and
4. Closing credits.
Larry contemplates just how 80s his montage will be.
Larry decided to give the overall soundtrack an actual theme, which gave him a specific area of music to choose from.
Jake went even further, choosing to come up with descriptions of the scenes his songs would be used in!
Derek put the least amount of effort into the concept side of things, but he was working on his list of songs right up until Larry showed up to record.
Look...We've tried being reasonable with you. We've given you one opportunity after another to show that you are capable of not completely sucking out loud. We've even joked about you, saying things like, "Well, maybe if we get it out of the way early, the rest of the year will be easy!"
And now, here it is, almost six months later, and you're still being a complete and utter asshole. SO not cool. Seriously...Knock it off. I'm getting tired of trying to be funny when I am surrounded by sadness and grief because it's hard enough under normal circumstances, and also because it feels weird and uncomfortable making jokes during those situations.
So, as I said, please cut it out. I've had enough.
Thanks,
Derek
*****
(And now, back to our regularly-scheduled ramblings...with this week's GIFs provided by our pal @redtache, who is funny, so you should follow him.)
*****
Okay...Hi, everybody! I hope you're all well. I also hope you've been paying attention to the news because it seems that, once again, Donald Trump has been working very, very hard to destroy any and all hope he might have of becoming the president. And it has been hilarious.
And it gets better! His campaign sent out an e-mail Saturday in the hope of getting $100,000 in "emergency cash" to try facing off against Hillary Clinton's $8 million ad buy in potential swing states. Go ahead and do that math in your head. I'll wait.
Of course, for about a year now, Trump has been insisting that he didn't need to spend a bunch of money on ads because he gets free time on TV whenever some news program wants to hear him muttering his ridiculous neural firings.
What is happening in Donald Trump's brain at any given moment.
Meanwhile, Clinton, as I said, is well ahead of the game, making sure she's got all of her ducks in a row, and she has a strong team behind her, getting things done.
Oh, and speaking of firings, Trump also fired his campaign manager, Cory Lewandowski, today, so...yeah...
But, really, the comparison is pretty easy to make. And here's a fine example:
[Debate]
CLINTON: (wearing Heelys and vaping on Snapchat) On fleek. Emojis. YAAAS.
TRUMP: At my inauguration, I promise to kill a gorilla
Needless to say, as Trump's polls tank hard, he's scrambling to try to put together a campaign that, really, he should have had ready well before now. On top of that, his own part (the GOP, for those of you living under a rock) is working on possible ways to dump him from the nomination at the convention.
I wonder how Donald Trump will take to being described as the "loser" on the night of November 8. I fantasize about this more than I should.
In other stupidity, the Republicans in congress continue to claim that regulating assault weapons, even for people on the no-fly and terrorist watch lists, is unconstitutional, despite their regular use to kill people for no other reason than to show what a colossal dick a person can be. They claim that banning assault weapons, like Bill Clinton did during his time in the White House, will not stop this sort of thing from happening. Some have pointed out that there is factual evidence that proves otherwise.
For those saying gun laws don't work, I made a list of Australian public mass shootings since our strict 1996 laws pic.twitter.com/0bAcOPmeeP
And then there were tweets. So many good tweets. And I had to pick a small portion of them to share with you, kind reader, and perhaps convince you to come visit us over in the Twittersphere to maybe get a giggle or provide one. Now here we are...
I like my coffee, like I like my women, without some other guys dick in it.
And there you have it! Now get out there and have an awesome week. Also, be sure to throw out a "HUZZAH!" to our pal Billy Brooks, VFX ninja and executive producer-kind-of-guy, for the show he works on, Con Man, being up for an Emmy! And wish 'em all luck on that!
Oh, and go look at this.
We are outta here! Keep on truckin'!
Or, you know, the equivalent in your galactic region, I guess...
Well, once again Jake has given the guys a movie for which none of them can offer a reasonable excuse for its existence: 1999's Virus, starring Donald Sutherland, Jamie Lee Curtis, and William Baldwin. For some reason.
Perhaps his ruggedness?
Virus is a movie based on a comic book--part of the rash of license purchases that followed the success of Blade. And the fact that it is a movie based on a comic book is the only thing that this movie has in common with Blade. It's the story of the crew of a barge that is towing mysterious objects that are quickly ignored in favor of a deserted Russian research vessel they run across while trying not to die in a monsoon or typhoon or whatever the hell it is that they call storms out there in the Atlantic ocean.
Whatever it's called, Jamie Lee is visibly excited about it!
While investigating the ship as they hide in the eye of the storm, Captain Donald Sutherland claims salvage rights for his crew and they begin searching for a way to power the ship up again so they can take it with them. While this is happening, the ship itself tries killing one of the crew by dropping an anchor on him (Cliff Curtis), but it misses and just sinks their ship.
Now stranded onboard the Russian ship, the crew begin searching in earnest for clues, although it's pretty obvious that they aren't all that good at doing this sort of thing, as they ignore bullet holes all over the ship and completely fail to notice Russian words written on a wall in blood.
Good news, guys! They had puppies!
Slowly, our "heroes" begin to realize that the computer system on the ship itself has become infected with an alien virus that is controlling everything and trying to build robots for world domination. (Because, really, isn't that what all aliens want?)
And guess who yells about it...A LOT?
Some of the crew discover a survivor named Nadia (Joanna Pacula), who explains that the rest of the ship's original crew has been murdered by the shipboard computer. Her husband, Alexi (Levan Uchaneishvili), was the captain, but then had his brain pulled out with a melonballer and replaced with a circuit board with a murder chip installed, as well as a dial-up modem. (This was 1999, after all.)
And guess what! It turns out Alexi isn't the only murderbot on the ship! In fact, there's a bunch of them, as well as a factory that's geared up to crank out more! There are even some sort of weird robo-shrimps running around, welding doors shut! Those kooky murderbots.
This is what my life has come to? I was in M*A*S*H!
Will they make it through the storm? Will the murderbots make it to land so they can begin their takeover of the world? Also, why William Baldwin?
Derek thinks this movie is amazingly stupid. And, although he does like seeing Donald Sutherland and Jamie Lee Curtis yelling lines at each other, he feels it would be better if that happened in another, better movie.
Larry did not care for this movie, either, although he did think Nadia was pretty hot. His disappointment that there were no nude scenes with her or Jamie Lee Curtis is palpable, and he had to go home and abuse himself to Trading Places to make himself feel better.
Jake also didn't like the movie, but his biggest issues involve the cinematography and lighting choices. And, to be honest, he's right. What makes it worse is that the movie was directed by the same guy who was the effects supervisor for a little James Cameron flick you may have heard of called Titanic. Seriously...What the fuck happened?
I had this whole bit prepared to post about what an idiot Donald Trump continues to be (and has done so even more in light of recent events), and that asshole from Stanford getting a slap on the wrist for raping a woman (not to mention his family's ridiculous comments about it), and also a few words about the loss of hockey great Gordie Howe, a hero of mine, at the age of 88.
And then Orlando happened. 49 people are dead, and 53 were wounded, when a homophobic nutball with some guns went into a popular gay club called Pulse and began shooting. The shooter himself was killed after a gunfight with police after they broke through the wall of the club to stop him.
Why did this happen? What made this guy kill and injure over 100 people who wanted nothing more than to have a good time at the club? There's a whole bunch of speculation going on right now, as is wont to happen when this sort of thing occurs, but the basic gist of it is that the guy hated homosexuals, possibly because of his religious upbringing, or possibly just because he was a terrible piece of shit. Either way, the result is the same: All of those innocent human beings died for a stupid fucking reason.
It's wrong, and it shouldn't have happened. The guy shouldn't have been taught or preached to believe that LGBT people are evil or that there's something wrong with them. The guy should not have been given access to guns, let alone a fucking AR-15 assault rifle, because he had been on the terrorism watch list and had been investigated because of it.
But those things happened, and now those people and their families are going to be forever affected by it.
We here at Here Be Spoilers send out our heartfelt condolences to all the people who had to go through this, whether they were there, or they are a family member of somebody who was there. And to them as well as our other friends in the LGBT community, please take care of each other. Let love win.
*****
All right...I have nothing else to add, so I'm just going to post the tweets, if that's okay with you guys. If you dig them, head over to Twitter and join the conversation. In no particular order...
I asked my first grade students what they'll remember most about this year and some said, "When you ate glue." Making a difference!
And there you have it. I'm not going to post a video this week, either, because I didn't bother to look for one; I really have no urge to spend that much time looking at the internet right now. I hope you can understand. And so...
Derek had such a blast last week doing Inside My Head with Larry that he decided he wanted to do another one with Jake this week!
It all comes together in this one...
Along with covering Jake's first choices for The Soundtracks of Our Lives, they start into a conversation about what could have been better about all of the X-Men movies, rambling through some opinions about where the Star Wars franchise went wrong in the prequels, as well as shutting down the people who heaped hate on The Force Awakens. But then things got weird...
Shown: Things getting weird.
What starts out as a discussion of movies and comics moves into darker territory when Derek brings up conspiracy theories. And while both will acknowledge that they are far from experts on the JFK assassination, UFOs and cryptozoology, they are happy to give it the old college try.
Jake also discusses religion and cults, and what he feels the rules are that govern the labeling of an organization one or the other (surprisingly, one of them involves air conditioning). He also shares stories about finding wolves in Michigan when there weren't supposed to be any, and the astounding number of animals in Alabama that really shouldn't be running around loose, such as llamas and panthers.
Sorry I didn't get a list last week, but you know how it is; holidays, work, rains of frogs...The usual.
How I Spent My Holidays by Derek Springer
But I'm back, baby! And to make up for not posting a list last week, I'm doubling the list this week. So, technically, you could say that I did do the list, but it was just really late.
But, as usual, before we go into that, there's other stuff to talk about.
First off, boxing great Muhammad Ali passed away this past week. He was the guy who brought boxing into popularity because he showed that not only was it a sport and an art, but it could be an amazing spectacle. With the help of Howard Cosell, he became the name everybody knew when boxing came up in conversation, going on to inspire so many others that followed in his footsteps. But none of them will ever be able to fill his shoes.
Some can take a punch almost as well as he did, though...
On the ridiculous front, racist money-stealing assclown Donald Trump is having trouble walking, what with his foot being crammed so far into his mouth that he is able to taste his own hip. He is being sued in three or four lawsuits for his ridiculous Trump University because the people he duped into giving him a bunch of money don't feel that they got value for dollar. (Registered voters, take note.)
In defense of himself and his "university", Trump feels that the Indiana-born Mexican-American judge who is hearing the cases should recuse himself because "he's Mexican and I'm building a wall." And, when pressed further on the issue, Trump added that if the judge were a Muslim, he shouldn't be allowed to hear the case, either.
My dad told me this afternoon, after watching a news story about this whole thing, that he's wondering whether Trump actually even wants to be president. I have to admit, that's a reasonable question, as it seems like every time Trump's poll numbers show even a little rise, he opens his mouth and says something mind-bendingly stupid.
Er, I just meant I wanted to see if I could win it! I didn't actually want
to do the job...
Okay. Enough of this. Let's look at the tweets, 'cause there's a lot of them. And, should you find yourself amused, why not head over to Twitter and find a bunch yourself? I'd read your list, since you've been kind enough to look at mine. (Even if it was just to see the Simpsons gifs.)
I still have my dignity ... despite the fact my Amazon wish list includes liquid bologna
Oh, right. A video. I'll be honest: I didn't really plan for one this week, so I'm going to type a word into the YouTube search bar and see what it brings me. Let's see...how about "plunger"? Yeah. Let's try that...
Jake wasn't able to take part in this week's show, so Derek and Larry decided to just sit down and shoot the shit for a while in another thrilling extended episode of Inside My Head
Among the many subjects covered, they discuss the turn of events in Captain America: Steve Rogers #1, the soundtracks of their fictional lives, tattoos and why (or why not), and embarrassing moments.
Larry misses the days when he and Derek were in a band, yet he still refuses to offer an acceptable answer as to why he wouldn't sing. He also cheerfully performs "jazz hands" for no other reason than because there was a camera pointed at him. It was good times.
Huzzah!
Derek rambles about a lot of stuff, talking about the $10,000 tattoo, playing volleyball in the mud, and why he doesn't like Rush. Additionally, he introduces his idea for a sequel that nobody asked for...Rhinestone II: Cloudy with a Chance of Hog Balls!
