Next of Kin

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The Outsiders...

Red Dawn...

Dirty Dancing...

Steel Dawn...

These are all movies that Patrick Swayze starred in during the eighties. He was also the star of the greatest movie--nay, the greatest thing--of all time...

Of course, they couldn't all home runs. And this time around, Jake and Derek watched one that was, at best, a bunt that resulted in an out: Next of Kin.

Patrick Swayze is Truman Gates, a Chicago cop who was born and raised in Appalachia. His brother, Gerald (Bill Paxton), follows him to the Windy City in order to make his fortunes in the field of cigarette machine filling. Unfortunately, Gerald gets caught in an extremely hostile takeover  of the vending machine company by some shady Mafia guy, led by Joey Rosellini (Adam Baldwin).

Not even remotely Italian.

Truman and his wife, Jessie (Helen Hunt), take Gerald's body back to Kentucky. Truman's family holds a funeral, and his older brother, Briar (Liam Neeson!), wants Truman to find the guys that killed Gerald and kill them right back. Truman wants to let the police do their job and arrest the bad guys. Briar is not willing to wait, so he heads to Chicago himself.

Upon arriving, Brian finds a hotel and befriends the clerk, Harold (Michael J. Pollard). Then he goes to visit the vending machine company, where he meets Rosellini and shoots the place up. Almost immediately after, Truman, who has returned home, shows up at the vending machine company and finds an empty shell from his brother's shotgun.

More Italian than Adam Baldwin.

Meanwhile, there is a power struggle going on within the Isabella crime family between Joey and his cousin Lawrence (Ben Stiller). Joey decides that Lawrence needs to go, and kills him after he finds out Truman had tried to get him to turn state's evidence against his own father.

Also more Italian than Adam Baldwin.

Truman finds Briar and arrests him to keep him safe, but not before they pound the snot out of each other in a bar. Truman then goes home and discovers that Jessie is pregnant. She tells him in the weirdest way possible, involving a teddy bear sitting at the dining room table. It's a short scene, but really odd.

While Briar is in jail, Joey's goons find out where he was staying and search his room, finding the shotgun he hid in the floorboards. (And possibly a lot of corn cobs, all symmetrically stacked and stripped of corn in an almost mechanical fashion. Maybe.)

Probably the closest to Italian, and furthest from Adam Baldwin.

Briar's gun is found at the scene of Lawrence's death, and Papa John Isabella (Andreas Katsulas) puts out a hit on Briar. Briar returns to the company and gets in a gun fight with Joey and his men. Briar kills two of Joey's men before Joey kills him.

FINALLY...Somebody who is at least a little Italian.

When Harold hears about the shootout at the company, he calls a number that Briar gave him in the event of something like this happening, and tells Briar's family what happened. Also, someone throws what may be blood or possibly marinara sauce at Jesse for some reason.

Meanwhile, Truman and the rest of the police figure out that Briar's gun at the crime scene was a plant, and Truman resigns so he can go after Rosellini. But will he be able to do it alone? Or will his family show up and help? Will Joey get away? You'll have to listen to find out!

Jake is shocked that, in an action movie from the eighties, starring Patrick Swayze, the female lead (Hunt) did not have a topless scene. It's not that he was particularly looking forward to it or anything, but it happened often enough in that decade that it would not have been a surprise here.

Derek is so very not impressed. Also, he and Jake both think that the movie should have been about Briar instead of Truman. Also, there's the whole corn cob thing mentioned earlier. Seriously, you have to have been there, but he does his best to explain it.

So put on your fedora, try not to make cousin-fucking jokes, and listen to this week's episode!

Cherry 2000

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Remember back in the mid-eighties, when the 2010s seemed so far away and futuristic? Back to the Future told us we would have hoverboards and flying cars! But it turned out that the 2010s of the 1980s would not be all wine and roses and dehydrated pizzas.

For instance, by the mid-2010s (again, according to the mid-eighties), sex toys, while more authentic-looking, would turn out to be non-waterproof,but also incredibly difficult to replace. Such is the premise of this week's movie, the 1987 Melanie Griffith vehicle, Cherry 2000.

Hard-drinking, Bozo-haired Melanie Griffith.

Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), a successful businessman,is a man who knows what he likes. And what he likes is a sex robot (Pamela Gidley) he keeps at home. After a particularly hard day at work, he comes home to his walking Fleshlight (with patented PleasureMouth Technology) and finds it doing dishes, which turns him on so badly that he has to have it right then and there. The robot, apparently with priority programming that requires it to stop whatever it is doing whenever its owner wants to rut, immediately ignores the dishes and drops on the floor to get down with Sam, leaving the water running, which overflows and shorts it out.

If it can't handle a little water, how does it deal with...you know...?

Crushed that his humpin' 'bot is broken, his repairman suggests he hire a tracker to take him to Zone 7, where these obsolete Cherry models are now stored. But before he can do that, his buddies take him to a bar/brothel called The Glory Hole,where he might try having sex with an actual woman. This does not work, as none of these women smell strongly enough of foam latex and gear lubricant.Oh, sure, there is some of that smell, no doubt, but not enough.

Now desperate, Sam seeks out the tracker his repairman suggested--E.Johnson (Melanie Griffith)--only to discover that she costs way more than he wants to pay. So he goes poking around  in dive bars, looking for someone cheaper. He finds Stacy (Brion James) and his partner, Slim (Michael C. Gwynne). Rather than help Sam, they attempt to rob him, only to be thwarted by their own stupidity. Sam immediately goes looking for Johnson so he can hire her. They hop in her Mustang and head out.

But not before attracting the attention of Robert "The Big Chin" Z'dar!

After a lot of driving, they stop so Johnson can rest, and Sam can listen to a  disc that has his Cherry 'bot's sex noises saved on it. When Johnson wakes up, she points out a ravine with a crane on the other side and explains her overly-complicated plan to use it to get to an underground reservoir where her mentor, Six-Fingered Jake (Ben Johnson), lives.

Johnson's plan, such as it is, involves pissing off the guys who own the crane by shooting at them, and then getting their car picked up by the crane and carried halfway over the ravine, then they have to kill the crane operator, and then get the car down into the ravine with a cable before the rest of the guys manage to kill them with rocket launchers.

Seems simple enough.

Somehow, this ridiculous plan works, and they get the car into the waterslide that leads to Six-Fingered Jake's hideout. Unfortunately, San screws it up when he slips and falls,causing himself and Johnson to let go of the rope connected to the back of the car that they were meant to climb down. They fall and slide until they land in a big pool of water, where they are found by Jake and taken back to his place, which is filled to the brim with toaster ovens, for some reason.

This guy knows how to cook a rattlesnake in three easy steps!

The guy who owns the site where the crane was, Lester (Tim Thomerson), sends some of his thugs to kill Sam, Jake and Johnson. Jake and Johnson escape, but Sam is knocked out and taken back to their base which appears to be some kind of trailer park from the 1950s. His ex-girlfriend, Elaine (Cameron Milzer), who now goes by the name of Ginger, tells him Jake and Johnson were killed. Lester offers to let Sam into his group, and Sam agrees, but starts regretting this decision when he watches Lester kill a tracker that made his way into the group.

Fortunately for Sam, Jake and Johnson aren't dead, and they arrive to save him, taking time allow him to set all of Lester's vehicles on fire and blow up a warehouse full of bees. (The bees are never explained.)

Nor are the clothing and accessory choices of Lester's men.

Sam and Johnson get away and, after a brief make-out session after Sam crashes Johnson's car, head to a gas station owned by a friend of Jake's named Snappy (Harry Carey, Jr.). Jake rejoins them, only to be killed when he discovers Snappy has informed Lester that Sam, Johnson and he are there.

Johnson gets to work fixing an airplane so she and Sam can fly to the factory where the Cherry 2000 'bots are, and they just manage to get airborne as Lester and his men show up.

But will they make it? Will Sam find a replacement for his beloved sex toy? Or will he give Johnson a try and see if an actual vagina is better?You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek can't get over how stupid the premise of this movie is. Especially now, when you can order a Fleshlight on Amazon Prime and have it two days later. And the potential for being electrocuted by it is greatly reduced.

Jake is bothered by the lack of a decent script that could have made this a slightly darker, but still entertaining sex-focused version of Blade Runner. Also, he doesn't like Sam, as there is really nothing about him to like,

Larry is straight-up enraged by the lack of structure in the movie, as well as how disinterested Melanie Griffith seems to be. He also dislikes Sam, like any right-thinking person should. Seriously, the guy is just so punchable.

So start the excessively complicated ignition of your futuristic classic car, stock upon hand sanitizer, and checkout this week's episode!

X-Men: First Class

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(A quick note: About halfway through the commentary, you may notice that Larry and I start getting giggly and talking about pants a lot. This is because we watched the movie with the closed captioning on--to keep background noise down in order to get better audio of us talking--and during the training montage, there is a scene between Charles and Erik where Erik tries to move a satellite dish with his powers. When he fails, the captioning just says "Pants." For some reason, we found this incredibly hilarious, and it just sort of leaked into the rest of the commentary. - Derek)

I think the aggressive Jazz Hands are what really sells it.

There are those who would argue that the X-Men are a metaphor for the Civil Rights movement. Others say they are a metaphor that represents the LGBTQ community as an outcast society. It could be either, or both. But above all, it will be about good mutants with neat powers, trying to stop bad mutants with other neat powers from destroying humanity in order to become the next step in evolution. But how did it all start?

It's this kid's fault, with a little help from Kevin Bacon.

Back in 1944, a young man named Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner) is being separated from his parents in a Nazi concentration camp. Does not take this well, and his reaction causes his mutant abilities to activate, giving him the ability to control metal. A scientist at the camp, Klaus Schmidt (Kevin Bacon) observes this and decides he needs to experiment with the boy. When he threatens to, and then kills the boy's mother, Erik destroys the lab and kills two soldiers.

Meanwhile, in Westchester County, New York, a young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) discovers a young girl named Raven (Morgan Lily) with shape-shifting abilities rummaging through his pantry. Charles is happy to meet someone who, like himself, is "different," and he offers her a place to stay and access to anything she needs.

Much later, he would offer to build a hair salon for her. It...didn't go well.

Jumping ahead eighteen years to 1962, Erik (now played by Michael Fassbender) is travelling the world, tracking down more Nazis to kill, and he's having fun doing it. As for Charles (currently James McAvoy), he has graduated from Oxford, and he spends his time trying to pick up women by pointing out their subtle "mutations," such as eye color, hair color, etc. However, he keeps getting cock-blocked by Raven (who is now Jennifer Lawrence), who disguises herself as "normal" in order to go out in public.

In Las Vegas, a CIA officer named Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) is tracking Schmidt, who is now going by the name Sebastian Shaw, and finds him at The Hellfire Club. She sneaks in and discovers that Shaw, along with his mutant crew--Emma Frost (January Jones), Riptide (Álex González) and Azazel (Jason Flemyng)--are pressuring Colonel Hendry (Glenn Morshower) to deploy nuclear missiles to Turkey, for some reason. Also, Shaw has a mutant power that allows him to absorb energy to keep himself looking young.

MacTaggart is having none of anyone's guff.

MacTaggert contacts Charles for advice about dealing with mutants, and she takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they meet a Man in Black (Oliver Platt), who takes them to Division X, where they hatch a plan using Charles' powers to find Erik and capture Shaw. They find Erik trailing after Shaw's submarine, but before he can get to Shaw, Charles stops Erik and lets him know he is not alone. Then they all go back to Division X, where they meet Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult), a scientist who believes he can create a serum to treat Raven's appearance without affecting her powers.

Meanwhile, Charles and Erik go in search of other mutants to join their team. The results are, for the most part, positive. However, not all of them are up for joining.

And the Fanboys did shout "Huzzah," and there was much rejoicing.

As Hank continues working on the serum, as well as new uniforms for the team, he has a setback which results in him returning to his pre-treatment form, a large, hairy blue Beast.

Charles begins training his team, including Erik, only to discover that his powers only act upon a strong emotional reaction. At first, he can only do it by focusing on the dark feelings, such as him mother's death, for which he feels responsible. But with the help of Charles, he manages to use more positive feelings to control it.

The other team members are ready and waiting, including Raven who is into Hank at first, but then tries to get her hands on Erik's goodies by disguising herself as different women. Erik tells her she is beautiful as herself, and she gets all squishy about it.

Shaw's team attacks Division X, killing Darwin (Edi Gethegi). Shaw himself invites the rest of the mutants to join him, and one of them--Angel (Zoë Kravitz)--takes him up on his offer.

Later, in Moscow, Shaw convinces the Russians to put missiles in Cuba, and with a shiny new helmet designed to block Charles from finding him, he goes off and starts the Cuban Missile Crisis. What a dick.

And it's time to slap that dick down.

MacTaggart gets Charles and his team together, and they fly a stealth jet out there to stop any sort of aggressive movements between the Russians and the U.S. Navy.

But will they be able to keep everybody calm? Will Erik get his hands on Shaw and, in doing so, squish his head like he did those Nazi soldiers? Why does Charles have hair and functional legs? What, to put a fine point on it, the hell is going on?

Line dancing. Lots of line dancing.

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek liked this flick. It was nice to see how the X-Men began, but he has a real problem with Erik's handling of Shaw in the beginning. Shaw had a submarine. Erik can manipulate metal. Why didn't he just crush the submarine and get rid of Shaw right away?

Larry also likes the movie. He is impressed by Michael Fassbender's extremely intense performance as Magneto. He also agrees with Derek about the poor handling of Shaw and the sub near the beginning. Also, pants.

So put on your Spandex jumper and put on your silly helmet! And get into this week's episode!