I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to spend three hours with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, but I saw “Grindhouse” on Friday. Aside from further cementing my view that Rosario Dawson is one of the hottest women on the planet (though she’s starting to look a bit skeletal; get that girl a cheeseburger, stat!), it was… er, a bit of a grind.

Conceptually, it’s pretty dumb to spend $60 million to perfectly emulate a double feature of movies that probably cost $600K or less to make; that, my friends, is why these are B-movies. It isn’t a chosen aesthetic; it’s one mandated by limitations both budgetary and, lets face it, talent. For every Martin Scorsese that found the artistry in cheese like “Boxcar Bertha” in the early 70s, there were dozens of Doris Wishman’s pumping out swill like “Deadly Weapons” (featuring the appropriately named Chesty Morgan, who in the movie’s best scene, clubs a guy to death with her enormous boobs). (more…)

I shoulda known YouTube would have Young Fresh Fellows videos… not that I actually knew any Young Fresh Fellows videos even existed.

Like their cover of “Picture Book” by the Kinks from This One’s For the Ladies. (In the video, everyone plays drums; on the CD sleeve, everyone is pictured with a drum kit and listed as playing “lead guitar.”)

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In the first of a fully self-indulgent multi-part series on bands that meant a lot to me in my formative years, here’s a look at one of the more obscure awesome ones, The Young Fresh Fellows.

(I probably should’ve started with The Replacements, who are kind of my Beatles/Stones. But I was ripping CDs this fine evening and found my Fellows stash. So the ‘Mats will have to wait, which seems appropriate. And I’d probably have to think more than I want to about how I feel about Don’t Tell a Soul.)

So, “who’s The Young Fresh Fellows?” you say? YFF is a Seattle band led by the inimitable Scott McCaughey. They got their start in the early 80s and have released a dozen or so records in the last 20 years. (more…)

300 is one of the gayest movies ever made, not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s about a bunch of sweaty, half-naked steroidal men fighting an enormous army led by a drag queen who sports all manner of body piercings and a giant codpiece.

It’s also a videogame, full of in-engine, 360-degree spins and pre-rendered backgrounds. Gamers may reflexively reach for their mouse, keyboard, or gamepad to reposition the camera for maximum viewing impact. It shares with games an obsession/fetishization with cool violence, cheesy macho posturing, and an adolescent view of sexuality. (Most women are useless unless they’re lesbians, in which case they’re awesome! The oracle has nipples that could cut glass!)

It’s a giant comic book… oh, wait, that’s intentional. Never mind, then. (more…)