ETMC' s Inaugural Giveaway!!!!

"Name's Ash. Housewares!"

In honor of my blog's 100th post (yes I know this the 101st - thank you), I wanted to mark the occasion by offering the first giveaway straight from the depths of the Man-Cave. As many of you may or may not remember from a couple weeks back, my folks were kind enough to store some items for me while I was in grad school and are sending them back now that I have settled in for a bit. Some of these special treasures included a few of the Army of Darkness Ash figures in the Macfarlane Movie Maniac Series signed by the man himself, Bruce Campbell. I bought quite a few of these back in November 2000 and paid to have him sign a couple of them at the Vulkon show in Altamonte Springs, FL.

Well now one you lucky readers has a chance to win one of these babies...S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about a hundred and nine, ninety five. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right. Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. You got that?

Sorry I got a little carried away there.


A photo from the signing. Looks nothing like he does now as Sam on Burn Notice.

So the rules are simple. I am going to use True Blood's bye week this Sunday (9/6) to announce the randomly selected winner of this autographed figure. The best way to win is to gain the most entries into this lottery and you can do so by following the requirements below:

1) Get one entry for commenting on this post

2) Get another by becoming a Follower or should I say Cave Dweller. If you already follow me, let me know and you get an entry.

3) Get one more entry for posting about this giveway on your blog

4) Get another entry by adding me to your site's Blog List

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I can give you more entries as well. But I don't want to sound like an attention whore or anything like that, so only follow me on these networks if you would like to. They are just bonuses.

DEADLINE TO ENTER IS 6PM ET THIS SUNDAY (9/6)!!!!

At first I was thinking of doing something like a $25 gift card, so the giveaway could be spent without limits by the winner. Ya know like J. Astro could buy some cheap DVDs for the Bin, Frog Queen could buy some materials for creating her Halloween art, Allison could use it for something at school...et cetera, et cetera and so forth.

But since this is ETMC's first giveaway, I want it to be the party to end all parties, a pajama jammy-jam...and what better way than to leadoff things with something signed by BC himself. A figure of Ashley J. Williams no less!



So good luck to you all and hope to see a good amount of entries!

ONCE AGAIN - DEADLINE TO ENTER IS 6PM ET THIS SUNDAY (9/6)!!!!

END OF LINE.

Slow night, so I went to YTMND!

Needed to decompress after the long week of traveling, so watched some senseless YTMND last night. I know these things are so 2005, but some of them still entertain my tired brain. The Darth Vader ones in particular. Seriously, who comes up with this shit?!

Here are a few of the new ones that amused me and would like to share with you all:

Vader gets some action from Leia

Jeff Goldblum is terrible at third base

Disco Jason - stay through the end!

One for Philadelphia Flyers fans!!!!!!LOL

Vader gets his Christmas wish!

Howard Dean's tie fighters!

Wife Picks Out A Movie Night: Last House on the Left (2009) - Hidden Spoilers

"Hello. Have you taken the lord Jesus Christ as your savior? Take this pamphlet."

This is my second installment of Wife Picks Out A Movie Night and boy did Jules pick out a winner! When The Man-Cave was first opened its doors, I used her suggestion of The House Bunny to cut my teeth on reviews, so to speak. Had I reviewed that film today, it would tossed right into the Amateur Hour vault, but let's stick to the film at hand.

Being a fan of the original, I thwarted any and all attempts by my wife to drag me and see this one in the theaters. I thought that the trailer gave too much away and I was a little "remaked" out. The taste of the Prom Night redux still lingered on my tongue and I was not about to waste money on something I believed would falter. Well, Prom Night is out of my head now and I totally forgot what I saw in the trailer because I have been hit in the head one too many times. So, Jules showed up for movie night with this one and Pride and Prejudice in hand. Guess what my choice easily was? No smart asses it was not P&P.

Wow! What I feared would be the My Bloody Valentine remake 2.0 turned out to be a real enjoyable flick. At a little under two hours, we were both hooked in through the end.

The Collingwood family (Mari: Sara Paxton, Emma: Sarah Potter and John: Tony Goldwyn) head up to their lake house for the weekend. Mari and her friend Paige (Marta MacIssac from Superbad) meet a spaced-out kid named Justin, whose eyes look like one of the possessed townsfolk in this season's True Blood. Seriously, there seems to be no white in his eyes at all. They go back to his motel room and smoke a little ganja until the rest of his "family" comes back. Rut-Row, Raggy! His father Krug (Garret Dillahunt) just escaped police custody thanks to the help of his psychotic girlfriend Sadie (Riki Lindhome) and his just as psychotic brother Francis (Aaron Paul). With his face plastered all over the front page, Krug cannot afford to let them leave and decides to use Mari's truck to transport his family and the girls along with him. Justin is not like the rest of them and wants no part of hurting the girls. He really didn't know they were coming back so soon and just wanted to hang with two hot chicks.

Along the way, Mari causes the vehicle to wreck and crap hits the fan. Unfortunately, Paige is murdered before Mari is beaten and raped by Krug. Somehow she manages to escape and jumps into the lake, but Krug hits her with a bullet in the shoulder. They all decide that she a goner after that shot. Wrong! She is an awesome swimmer (which we are beaten over the head with that fact throughout the beginning of the film) and somehow makes it back to her parents' lake house. In the meantime, the vehicle-less Krug and his family coincidentally seek shelter from the storm at the Collingwood lake house...unaware that Mari is their daughter. The Collingwoods find Mari and is tipped off by Justin that they are the ones who hurt her. So the parents exact their revenge against her attackers.

That was basically what you saw in the trailer, so the rest of the story will be kept hidden. So allow me to SPOIL YOU with HIDDEN SPOILERS! Click and Drag to highlight below...

The parents slaughter the family and their exact revenge. I have to admit that the original did focus more on the revenge aspect then the actual attack on the girls and the revenge methods were far superior. But that is neither here or there.

Aaron Paul gets f'd up and is dealt the worse of the parents' punishent. He has a wine bottle broken over his head, he is stabbed in the heart with a kitchen knife, he is almost drowned in the dirty sink water by Potter and Goldwyn, his hand is mangled in the sink incinerator, and finally he is put out of his misery with a hammer to the head. I was hoping that Dillahunt would have suffered the same type of fate.

Dillahunt's death happens at the very end of the film when it seemed that credits are about to roll. That is when I remembered this scene in the trailer. I can't believe they put this scene in trailer instead of making it a surprise. It actually winds up being a little corny when all is said and done.

First, Goldwyn's character performs some surgical procedure that paralyzes Dillahunt from the neck down. As he puts it, "I didn't have any rope or duct tape." That was cool but then instead of torturing the man who beat and raped his daughter, he kills him off quickly by sticking his head into a running microwave (something else foreshadowed at the beginning of the film). But I thought that microwaves have the safety feature where it automatically stops as soon as the microwave door is ajar. I know, I know...it's a movie. While the quick death via microwave is corny, it was funny and cool as hell at the same time to see Dillahunt's head explode.

END SPOILERS

The acting is in this one was fantastic! First of all, no one is going to be as cool as David Hess (NOBODY!) as Krug, but I put that fact aside. Dillahunt is a pretty good actor and has been in some stuff that I recently enjoyed (No Country For Old Men and the now canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), so I am glad he pulled it off. He was mean f'n bastard!

I need to mention that Sara Paxton is bee-u-tt-full. She's like a hotter version of Rachel Blanchard and actually turned in a good performance. She's not just a pretty face, so that was good to see as well as seeing her strip down and go swimming in the lake. Goldwyn and Potter (who looks like she was under the knife a lot recently)were both and that's saying a lot because I am not a Potter fan. The family should have known better than screw around with Paul played a crazy ass f'er too! Again, good job all around.

Worth seeing if you are or are not a fan of the original. As long as you can separate the two, you will be fine. The only negative is what I mentioned in the hidden spoilers above. I'm actually pissed that I dropped good dough to see Prom Night in the theater, but I did stayed away from this one. Doh!

The Verdict:

Great choice wifey!

ETMC Extras:

- This review is based on the Unrated Version

- It was good to see Michael Bowen in a small role. Guy was born to play an asshole.

- Hope Dillahunt gets more work soon in some quality work. He has serious range.

- Aaron Paul and Sara Paxton were dating when this was released? First, uh lucky bastard! Secondly, that rape scene was probably awkward to shoot with those two in it together.

- I wish some original cast members made cameos in this one. If they did, I missed it.

- The alternate ending on the DVD was the same exact finale that was shot from a slightly different angle?! I call "Shenanigans'"!!

- The funniest part of this film for me was my own commentary during the motel room scene. I could have sworn that Paul was the "Dude You Got A Dell" Guy. Remember him? I was making jokey comments like "Well of course the Dell Guy would have pot in his hotel room." and "Dude, you're getting murdered!" Jules kept yelling the whole time that he was NOT the Dell guy. So that would be "Doh! Squared!"

The Sawyer Family releases their new grill at Sears online!

I wish I could make shit like this up!

A grill for the cannibal in you! LMFAO! From TMZ.COM...

The Perfect Grill ... for a Cannibal

Posted Aug 20th 2009 2:20PM by TMZ Staff

Sure, Christmas is still 4 months away -- but if you have any friends who love to dine on human flesh, we've found the perfect gift for you ... courtesy of Sears?!

The department store is currently offering a grill on their website under the categories, "Human Cooking > Grills to Cook Babies and More > Body Part Roaster.

We called a Sears customer service rep for an explanation, who told us: "Oh my God. This is horrible. Oh my God."

END ARTICLE.

LOL - so the morals of this story are:

1) Never underestimate the importance of proofreading in the corporate world

2) Be weary of hiring smart ass copywriters and web designers The Sawyers' Grill is currently out of stock! Sorry folks but you missed the window of opportunity to get this limited edition item. Ya gotta be quicker on the draw before someone pulls out the ol' "Fuck You, Charlie!" on 'ya. Right, Cook?


But we all know it's not the grill. The secret is in the meat!

Nerd Alert: Fantasy Football Draft

The East Coast Football League (ECFL) returns for its second season! That's the name of the fantasy football league I started with some of my friends and co-workers last year. As the commissioner, I wanted to start a league that had a lot of scoring, a decent league entry fee, lots of opportunities to win your money back through all of the awards offered throughout the season, and most of all - a kick ass live draft party while operating on a meager budget.

After scouting the best deals in town and the city, I held my live draft at Barnaby's Bar and Grille on MacDade Blvd last year. It was a hit and we were treated like royalty, so it was a no-brainer that we would hold this year's draft at the same location.

Bad News: The night before, I was called by the new manager to basically renig on our deal from last year and one we had agreed over three weeks back - which was 50% off the total bill. He told me that they could only offer a $50 credit, which is good but not the same kind of deal we received before and financially far way from what was promised. Worse part is that I could not back out at the last second, especially with everyone planning to show up at the location in less than 12 hours. People were already out for the night, so I could not track them down, find a new location and I get a new deal in that time.

So I made sure to get to the site earlier then the other team owners and had a Come-to-Jesus talk with the manager about his lack of professionalism. I demanded the best service for the 20+ people that were attending the event. And I also demanded that the hottest waitresses tend to my section... the section as in where we were sitting, not my "section."

Now that the financial bullshit was out of the way, I kept my end of the bargain and had the greatest live draft ever...for the second straight year! This year I allowed the guys to bring their significant others with them since my wife tagged along with me last year. This way they could keep each other company and laugh at the guys as we got on fantasy football draft on!


The first rounds are the most tense. Wow do I sound like a f'n dork or what?

They set up three tables on the dance floor with dudes at one end and the chicks at the other. They had live six televisions (including the one big screen) playing with ESPN, Comcast SportsNet and the NFL Network. The ladies were kind enough to keep the jukebox going with some cool tunes. Finally, the restaurant provided us with had two power strips set up so we could all plug in our laptops and access the 'Net via Wi-Fi.

By the end of the night, the live draft turned into a freakin' crazy party with chicks, guns, firetrucks and hookers and drugs!!! (you get a $1 if you name the film that line is from). No but seriously, it was another hit among the league members and everyone feels pretty good about their teams...except me. As the defending WFC and Super Bowl Champs from last season, I am a marked man now, haha. After the draft last year, I hated my team but they went on to win the whole damn thing, so we'll see.

Some more pics:


Beer #10 and a chicken


Beer # ??????

Amateur Hour: Rise of the Dead (2007)

Prime example of misleading cover art!



Let me begin by saying that the opening of Rise of the Dead (ROTD) should have had a warning that stated "This is not a zombie film!" Would've been much appreciated. So a big F-U goes out to Lions Gate for their marketing ruse!!

I thought that Universal Remote would have had clinched the Worst Film Review Award for ETMC's Amateur Hour in 2009, but it was easily topped by the piece of rat dropping I just finished viewing. At first I contemplated poking my eyes out with needles to rid myself of the imagery, but I figured that it would be more productive to warn all of you who have not had the, um, pleasure of seeing this bile. STAY THE HELL AWAY!

If you are a consistent reader of ETMC, especially the Amateur Hour segments, you all know that I make jokes about movies that are bad or so bad they're good, etc, for fun. This time I am dead serious!!!! This is an angry edition of Amateur Hour! This is Angry Hour!!

The bad news is that I wasted the last 1:12 of my life, but if there is a positive, it's that I didn't waste cash or a rental from my subscription service on this shite. I would like to thank FearNet for the assist on this one. GRRR!!

I have no choice but to spoil this sucker because there is not much to the story. Like I said in the last paragraph, the running time is only like a little over an hour. It's length is like an extended episode of True Blood except it's not about vampires and sucks balls!

First of all, there is the aforementioned trickery in the title. If you ask 10 out of 10 people what type of movie a film called ROTD is, I bet you all ten would think it is a zombie film. Am I wrong? Wouldn't that be what you would think as well?

That aside, we have a movie that plays out like a broke ass version The Unborn, which is already a broke ass film in and of itself. In fact, I would recommend the creators of ROTD look into obtaining some compensation from the creators of The Unborn or even pursuing possible legal action because the plots are very similar with a few subtles differences. Actually I wish them nothing except ot give me my 1:12 of life back in gull plus VIG!

Ok so the acting is bad, but I knew that going in. Sometimes that is the fun of watching low grade stuff, so I'm going skip past that. I will say that the lead actress at least looks to be trying to give a good performance, but it's hard with what is given to her. The real sin is the gore. We get blood, but we never see any skin penetration with knives or anything like that. This might be a budget issue, but I hope they weren't going for the whole Hitchcock angle because that would be way too laughable.

ROTD is about a young woman who has a baby that she gives up for adoption because she is too young to take care of him. Some years later, the child shoots and kills himself with a gun left out by one of the dumb ass adoptive parents. Now the spirit of the child is possessing and killing/ruining the lives of those he seeks revenge on. Sounds awfully familiar...

I've already spent too much time on this shit, so LET ME SPOIL YOU WITH SPOILERS BELOW...which means I am doing you a favor so you won't waste time watching it. Click and drag to highlight...

The only part of the movie worth mentioning is the end because it is completely fucked up. The final mystery at the end is that the baby wants to be re-born again with his original mother, but he has a possible Oedipus complex as well. For those of you slow on the uptake (which is totally cool with me), that means he wants to get with his mom...yes get with her in that way.

The heroine's boyfriend gets possessed by the dead child and corners her. She has a gun but decides not to kill her boyfriend because there is no way to stop the child from getting what he wants. The dead kid will just keep possessing people, hopping from body to body, and her boyfriend would be dead as a door nail. So, she knocks her possessed boyfriend down, drops her drawers, rips his pants off, and mounts him. Basically she committing male rape, if that is a real term - but you get my point. So during this sex scene, she says crazy stuff like,"Come on baby! Come to Mommy!" while baby noises are being heard. Weird shit, huh?


I know what you are thinking but trust me when I tell you that this scene is not as fun as it sounds. It's lame...mega lame. And then the viewers are fast forwarded to some months later where our heroine is very pregnant and the man she raped is miserable. The End!

END SPOILERS

So what we have here is a film that is marketed and titled to sound like a zombie film, but it could not be further from that. This is a supernatural thriller shot on the cheap, slow-moving and boring as hell. It's like me making a film about an avalanche and calling it "Sandy Beach Tsunami" (don't steal that either, it's trademarked ;) ). Not the same thing, right? If you proceed to watch this one, do so at your own risk.

The Good Stuff:

- Male rape

- The most strangest sex scene on film, err video...I say that in a bad way

- Thank heaven I only had to suffer for a little over an hour


The Bad:

- Not a zombie film

- Gore is weak

- I can keep going but I'm going to stop


The Recipe:

- 3 cups of The Unborn

- 2 cups of incestuous porn

- 10 tablets of Tylenol PM

Finally, grind ingredients and snort for full effect.


Final Verdict:





Utter Dreck!


I have to put this behind me and look towards a better, brighter day!

Keeping it Reel: Near Dark (1987)

"It's not what's going on, it's what's coming off...your face!"
- Severyn (Bill Paxton)

It's kinda funny that two of my favorite vampire movies were made in 1987 and they are both on completely different ends of the spectrum as far as vampire films are concerned. These films are The Lost Boys and Near Dark. The Boys is a horror-comedy romp and Near Dark is played as serious as a heart attack. Sure there some lighter bits of dialogue that shoot a bit of dark humor into Near Dark, but they are not the same laugh-out-loud level found in Joel Schumaker's piece. I saw them both around the time of their original releases and they have been two of my favorites in the genre ever since. But let's focus on the subject of my review.

Near Dark is a film about a young Texan named Caleb (Adrian Pasdar before he married a Dixie Chick and became one of the Heroes) who is turned into a vampire by the attractive May (Jenny Wright) and now must live out his existence with a traveling gang of vampires, consisting of a large portion of the cast from Aliens (Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein). The problem is that Caleb is not a cold-blooded murderer and refuses to kill in order to survive. His sole purpose to attempt life as a vampire is his love for May, but simply cannot bring himself to slaughter the innocent. The rest of the gang gives Caleb an ultimatum: kill or be killed!

This is Kathryn Bigelow's first solo directorial project and she definitely makes the most of it. Not only is the cinematography and soundtrack fantastic, but the film's dark (no pun intended) mood really engulfs the viewer. This mood almost makes the film seem realistic in a sense...for a movie about the immortals who feast on human blood. I mean that there are no over-the- top supernatural abilities of the vampires in this film's universe. No one turns into a bat or teleports or anything like that. They have healing abilities and super strength, but that is the extent of their abilities. One other thing - the "V-bomb" is not dropped once throughout the entire film. I am only using the word vampire to get my point across. It is obvious that they are vampires but the word is actually never said.

The performances are outstanding!. Pasdar comes across very believably as a Southern boy who has been thrusted into a world very different than life on his family's farm. His resistance to feed causes him physical distress that is ultimately well-portrayed. Pasdar's moans and body convulsions really makes you think you think Caleb is going to keel over at any second unless he gets a drop of blood down his throat. You start feeling for the guy. Wright is probably the weakest link in terms of acting, but part of that is due to the thespians surrounding her. And I am talking about the rest of the gang members. They are like the Texas Chainsaw/Sawyer family if they were vampires and decided to permanently be on the road hunting down their next meal.

The gang of vampires includes their leader Jesse (Henriksen), his queen Diamondback (Goldstein), an older man in a little kid's body Homer (Joshua Miller), and the enforcer Severen (Bill Paxton). I am going to stop right here for a moment and give Paxton a great deal of credit. He has played some great characters in some wonderful pieces of work throughout his career, but this my favorite Paxton performance by far...yes even more than Coconut Pete in BL's Club Dread. Ok I'm kidding about the Coconut Pete thing, but in all seriousness my second favorite performance is his portrayal of Chet in Weird Science - because you know that anyone with a haircut like that has gotta be an asshole - heh heh). He is one of the reasons this movie holds dear to my heart and I don't think I'm alone when I make that statement. On the cover of the film's first DVD release, the old theatrical poster was ditched in favor of a new picture featuring the family side-by-side, but Severen is protruding into the foreground past the rest of the gang. That really says a lot about the quality of the character and performance. His image stands out among the pack, much like his character in the film. Hell - I started this review of with a quote from the man!



The Severen version of the theatrical release poster


Now this film is over 20 years old, so I assuming a majority of you readers have already seen it. If not, leave The Cave and go watch this because you won't be disappointed. Everybody else, please proceed.

Spoilers Ahead...

The gang, while malicious and bloodthirsty, are the people that you wind up rooting for to win in the end. Henriksen is the perfect Jesse and his line delivery is simply phenomenal. For example, Caleb asks how old Jesse is. He answers, "Let's just say I fought for the South. We lost." Also when they crash for the night, err, day at a hotel and the hotel manager tells Jesse he recognizes him. He surprises the guy by saying,"I make it a habit to stop by every 50 years." It's not so much the lines he is given as much as his delivery. It does no justice typing them down without hearing Henriksen's voice powerinbg the words. Goldstein is ok for what she is given and Homer is a creepy little fucker. When I first saw this film I could have sworn the person playing him was a girl. His character could have been a little more involved based on the dynamics of his fate. He is an old man trapped in a child's body and will remain so for eternity. He fell in love with May and turned her into a bloodsucker to be his Diamondback so to speak, but she rejected his affection. Now May is in love with Caleb and it drives him insane to the point where he threatens to turn Caleb's little sister into one of them because "that makes us even, Steven". Homer's whacked but I would be too if I were in his situation. Finally, I already said my peace about Severen.

The worst part of this film for me is when Caleb's dad (genre regular Tim Thomerson) finally catches up with the gang and permanently dismantles the bond that was forming between Caleb and the rest of the gang. I wanted Caleb to become a member of the gang after working so hard to gain their acceptance, not have to go to war with them. But I guess it was inevitable. Caleb bails them out from certain demise and in return, Severen of all people gives Caleb one of his spurs as a sign of respect. Dad shows up looking for his daughter and then the shit hits the fan!

The best part of the film is the gang's trip to the bar for Caleb's initiation. This is easily the film's most memorable and goriest scene. One of the patrons is James LeGros (Drugstore Cowboy) in an early role as the lone survivor of the massacre. This one has to be seen to be believed!

END SPOILERS!!!

What are the kids sayin' nowadays? Oh yeah! Bar massacre scene ftw!!

People that I have talked to who have seen the film always have two qualms: the use of blood transfusion to reverse the vampire infection and the ending. I try not to get wrapped up in the prior because there's really no given science or explanation behind how the transfusion process cures vampirism but is needed to bring the film to a conclusion. I just let that stuff like that go in films. As for the latter, the ending is open-ended but the story is over. May is human again and the lovers live happily ever after.

Near Dark is a film I have watched so many times throughout my life that I could not even give an approximation of exactly how many times that might have been. The story is good, the mood is dark, the imagery is intoxicating, and the characters are engaging. All of these pieces add up to a perfect mixture for a great film about vampires...even though no one ever actually say the word.


My favorite shot in the film. Something so simple, but so beautiful. This is the type of imagery portrayed throughout the majority of the film.

ETMC Extras:

- On one of the DVD extras, Henriksen mentions a planned prequel that detailed how the gang members met each other and some of their earlier exploits. Obviously that never manifested but that would have been f'n sweet.

- Bigelow was informed by the producer that she was on a tight leash and would be replaced if she didn't competently handle directing duties over 5 days. (DVD extra and imdb.com)

- Johnny Depp and D.B. Sweeney auditioned for the role of Caleb. How weird would that have been.

- A remake is coming...how wonderful...

Gifts from the Gods Part 1!

"Name's Ash...Housewares!"

Ok well not the gods, my folks actually. They have been kind enough to hang on to a lot of my keepsakes I purchased throughout my life since I left for grad school in 2005. It's time to start getting my stuff back now that I am a little more settled in and out of apartment living. They are sending my packages in periodic waves and the first one just came in earlier today. Thought I would share some pics of my booty (my treasures, not my rump shaker) with you all as I keep getting these packages at my doorstep. Hopefully each box will hold a special item or gift from the gods that I can use on my quests in life, much like Zeus did for Harry Hamlin, err Perseus in Clash of the Titans.

The first one is a great score! I've commented on several other bloggers' sites about my Evil Dead addiction. I have 5, count 'em 5, of the Ash figures from the MacFarlane's Movie Maniacs 3 collection. This was the first mainstream figurine of Ash was released, so I was totally geeked!

In 2000, I went to the Vulkon Covention in Orlando to meet Bruce Campbell face-to-face for a signing session. During the day, I found them for sale at some vendor table at MSRP and bought the four figurines. I didn't know that other companies would produce countless toy versions of the Ash character and all things Army of Darkness. So I had Bruce sign two of them and I stored the other three because I thought I could sell them for a lot of money one day. Today I proudly hung one signed figure one of the walls in the hallowed Man-Cave thus elevating its status to "near legendary". Check it:


Check out BC's autograph in the top left.


Here's one of the unsigned ones

Unfortunately, one of the unsigned figures somehow leaked air into the plastic cover and turned the cover brown. The figure itself is still mint but the inside is tinted now. Good thing it didn't happen to my signed copies.

I don't know the true value of these figures, but I am sure they are worth more than the $10 I spent on them. With my 100th post around the corner, one of these might make a great giveaway. If anyone is aware of the value, please let me know.

Can You Feel It??!!

The weekend is here! Hope you all have a hip-thrusting one!

Who Let the Dogs? Well Put Them Away...Michael Vick Signs with the Philadelphia Eagles

A dark cloud has covered my hometown of Philadelphia and I'm not talking about smog from all of the construction projects. What was recently a bright home for the Liberty Bell, the Declaration of Independence and the WFC Phillies has now been tainted by the arrival of Michael Vick. After dropping the ball landing spectacular free agents, like Tony Gonzalez, it just figures that the organization would take on a PR nightmare like this.

I am going to assume that even non-sports fans know who Vick is, but I will briefly explain just in case. Vick has been out of football since the 2007 season after he was convicted of conspiracy and running a dogfighting operation. He served a 23-month sentence in federal prison and also served time in an indefinite suspension enacted by the NFL. Well, he was recently reinstated and reports began circulating that one NFL team was working out a contract agreement with him. My thoughts of potential landing spots for him would be San Francisco, Oakland or Dallas. These are teams that are either desperate for a quarterback or who loves having thugs and criminals suit up for them.

While watching tonight's Eagles preseason game against the New England Patriots, a friend of mine texted me and alerted me of the news. I thought he was joking because I have joked with him about his team (Buffalo Bills) signing perrenial malcontent Terrell Owens this past offseason. Then I went on ESPN and my eyes shot out of my head!

The news has already not gone over well with the people in my area and this announcement happened a couple hours before I started typing this post. My phone has been blowing up with angry text messages and my Inbox is getting clogged with angry Facebook updates, all damning the Eagles decision to sign Vick.


Turnabout is fair play with the Michael Vick chew toy!

He was the highest paid player in football at one point, made even more money through his endorsements and was basically the f'n poster boy for the NFL. So why would he need to do something as cruel as this for money? His friends and lower-tier family members (cousins, etc.). Hopefully he learned to be careful with the company he keeps. These people that he was helping out were the first ones to throw him under the bus at the first sign of trouble. Their testimonies did him in. I am a dog lover, so of course I think this guy is a real dick. These dogfighting operations are cruel enough in and of itself but the "training" practices are really the sad part. Dogs are stolen out of people's yards or kidnapped during house burglaries in order to be used in training the vicious dogs for competition. The operators put the stolen, little innocent dogs into the pits with these evil mutts that are trained solely to hate and kill. Their "training" is to kill other innocent and defenseless dogs. For example, my dogs are the most harmless creatures. They love people and get all excited when other dogs are around so they can play with them. So I picture someone stealing my little dogs and putting them into one of these pits with the vicious ones. My dogs would be all excited and want to play with them and then these dogs would rip them to shreds 'because they are defenseless and not mean-spirited. They wouldn't know how to fight back. This is what really tears my shit up when I think of other owners who have had their animals stolen just to be slaughtered in support of this nonsense.

Two other Eagles fans who are very upset about the Vick signing. My dogs:


CHASE



"PRINCESS" MANDY

In closing, I am not happy with the Vick signing because of what he has done in the past but that's just it - the past is the past. Maybe I will get over it someday. To be fair, in professional sports there are athletes comepting right now that are drug users, drug dealers, gang members, people who commit vehicular manslaughter while under the influence, guys who shoot other people...I can go on and on. It's kinda poetic justice that just yesterday, I was telling my Bills fan friend that Vick messed up big time, but there are tons of criminal athletes running amok every day. The guy served his sentence and lost everything he had such as his respect and alot of the money he ha. He will NEVER see that kind of payday again. Also, he was not the best quarterback before he got suspended (I personally always thought of him as a gimmicky and overrated disppointment to his former team, the Atlanta Falcons), and now he has not played for two years and has aged two years as well. He really might not be that good anymore. But he's on my team now so I guess I have to support him.
Ugh. Go Phillies!!!

I hope he's ready to hear those overwhelming "boos" in every stadium this year...especially here in Philadelphia. The fans of his new home team might be the ones who jeer him the most.

Three Stooges Movie News! Giamatti in and Penn out

"Hello...Hello..Hello..."

It's like a day or two old, but it's new news to me... Paul Giamatti will replace Sean Penn as Larry Fine in the upcoming Farrelly Brothers' Three Stooges film. Penn left for "personal reasons" and Jim Carrey is also no longer attached to play Curly either. Benicio del Toro is still scheduled to play Moe Howard, which is a great casting choice! Same with Giamatti as Larry. That looks like a good fit.


Larry Fine will now be played by..."Pig Vomit!"

I have been a huge Stooge fan since childhood (probably explains the whole Evil Dead, Raimi, Campbell/Ash lovefest I have), so I will say that I am excited about this adaption. No one is going to come close to matching the originals, not by a LONG shot, so I hope that the Farrelly Brothers production will be a worthwhile one.

Before I give it my full blessing, I need to find out more information, like the time period in which the film takes place. Will this be set in the past or modern day? And what type of comedy: old school slapstick or current gross out humor? I don't have a problem with the latter, but if you are making a Three Stooges film, please keep the humor somewhat close to the source material. Guess we'll see how this plays out.

BTW, why the hell didn't Raimi get involved in this production? I mean he is a HUGE fan, so it would have been interesting to see what he would do with a Stooges film. Nevermind, I forgot that he is getting paid megabucks to do the World of Warcraft feature.

It better as hell be better than that ABC tele-production around 9-10 years back that was produced by Mel Gibson, another self-proclaimed Stooge-aholic...which I find extremely ironic nowadays.

Anyone else Stooges fans or interested in this movie at all? Or both?

Amateur Hour: BMX Bandits (1983)

"Don't Gasp, Nicole. We all know you were once a BMX Bandit."

I went and got a crown installed on my jacked-up tooth late last week so I wound up staying home from work in severe pain once the Novocaine wore off. You know how they say that if you fall down, try to smack your hand on the floor before you the rest of your body hits the ground? Well if you haven't heard that before, I learned it Taekwondo a long time ago. The reason is that your body cannot feel two areas of pain at once. So as the painkillers started to leave my system, the intense throbbing increased. I figured that I needed to find a second source of pain to nullify the one in my mouth, so I wouldn't feel it anymore. It hit me! Bad movie...Amateur Hour!!

Searching my On Demand service for some crappy cheese cinema, I finally came across a film that I remembered from my youth...BMX Bandits. This use to run on HBO all of the time when I was a kid. My friends and I would watch the movie and then go out on our BMX bikes to jump ramps and do all kinds if crazy shit. Of course, I sucked so I got hurt a lot. Maybe all of the bumps to the head affected my memory because I remembered a little bit about this movie but not much.

In case you don't know much about this production, BMX Bandits is known for two things: being a film that capitalized on the BMX craze in the 80's and Nicole Kidman's first motion picture feature. Yup, I said Nicole Kidman - the Academy Award winner, ex-Mrs. Tom Cruise, etc.

The plot is pretty simple: a group of young BMX riders find a stash of high tech walkie talkies and sell them to their friends in order to get money for new BMX equipment. The problem is that the walkie talkies belong to a team of bumbling bank robbers who are now after our protagonists to get their walkie talkies back.


"The original plan was to hide the walkie talkies in her 'do."

Man, I hope I didn't make that plot line sound too heavy or serious. This film is strictly a comedy with some cool stunts (for the time period) and some pretty good cinematography. It also looks as though this film was aimed for the youth market, but I am sure that it was intended for all ages...back in 1983. In 2009, it can be viewed as a giant cheesefest that is silly but entertaining enough that getting through the whole thing is not a chore.

Seeing Kidman sport a red-headed mop fro as Judy is pretty funny considering how she looks nowadays. Acting-wise, she really doesn't show potential signs of the superstar she would become in the future. Then again, a film entitled BMX Bandits really doesn't sound like the vehicle to allow a thespian to do so.

That aside, let us take a view at some memorable moments from this 1983 cheeser-piece:

- Early into the film, we are introduced to the male leads, PJ (Angelo D'Angelo) and his sidekick Goose (James Lugton). Wait a minute...male brunette lead with a blondish sidekick named Goose? Where have I heard that one before. Hey?! Ridley Scott, you should be ashamed. ;)

- Like I mentioned before, Kidman's afro is on performance enhancing drugs. It's like a Ronald McDonald wig


Nicole: "Haha...I'm off to better things, mofos, and you'll never hear from me again! Eat It"

- I love the fat rich kid stereotype in the 80s. It knows no geographical boundaries, nit even in Australia. How does the audience know that this kid will be trouble? Well we see him coming out of the store dressed like an over-sized bumblebee in overalls, stuffing his face with cake and his theme music - a tuba going "womp-womp-womp". Get it? Because all fat kids are rich and frumpy

- Goose keeps comparing he and his friends' plights to horror movies he has seen. They are fake horror films but the plots are cool enough that I would see them if they were real.

- Why did the hot female cop start nibbling on that dude's big ass Dumbo ear for no reason at all? Seriously, what was up with that?

- The cinematography is pretty good but that might be due to the beautiful landscape/backdrop of the film's location. Australia is a beautiful place!

- Whitey and Moustache (David Argue and John Ley) are believably goofy as the goons responsible for losing the walkie talkies in the first place and go all out to try and get them back from the heroes. Hilarity ensues.

- Lotsa corny-as-hell lines. Some lines make you chuckle and others make you groan

Alright the meds are wearing off, so let's wrap this sucker up...

The Good Stuff:

- Kidman looks like Carrot Top before he buffed up

- Cinematography is a plus

- Film doesn't take itself seriously at all

- The two goons are goofy and a big part of the fun


The Devil's Advocate:

- Good Grief....someone call the fashion police! PJ's shorts looks like he should be playing for Will Ferrell's team in Semi-Pro.

- Lines written for an attempt at humor wind up being groan-worthy

- The finale falls kinda flat compared to the rest of the action


The Recipe:
- 1 cup 80's BMX craze
- 1 cup heavy Australian accent
- 1/2 cup Nicole Kidman

Add ice and puree. Makes 1-4 servings.


Final Verdict:



Must see cheese!!! Also a must for Nicole Kidman fetish-types such as Nicole Kidman completists and Nicole Kidman stalkers. Oh yes...they're out there!

The movie is silly yet fun and I was hoping to trash. But in all honesty, it was entertaining, in a strange kinda way, especially if you like b-movies. Fun and safe for the whole family.

In closing, let's just say that this film didn't offer a second source of pain to numb me from the one in my tooth, so it can't be that bad, right? Too bad for me!!!!

I won an award. Freakin' sweet!

Oot-oot! Thanks to my homegirl Allison at Allison Writes, the Man-Cave now has its first award to display on the blog trophy shelf! Ok, it's a "tag", but I don't care. An award is an award and it is mine. All mine...to share with 9 other people.

Seriously though, I appreciate Allison thinking of me and passing on the "Honest Scrap Award" to Enter the Man-Cave. Allison is one of my very first followers and is a repeat commenter on my blog. According to the rules of the HSA, I am supposed to link back to her blog, which I would do anyway because she deserves it. Allison doesn't write movie reviews, but she is a young and extremely talented writer. She can speak on several topics and always lends a funny and very creative comment to a blog post. If you have not visited her blog yet, please do so at Allison Writes.

Now allow me to get a spatula so I can pry my lips off Ms. Allison's rear and get onto the distribution of the HSA award to ten followers (not in any particular order). I share this award with everyone who reads and/or comments on my site, so these awards go out to all of you.

But "rules is rules", so I have to follow everything exactly as the award guidelines state. If not, it's like forgetting to say "Klatuu Verata Niktu" before removing the "Book of the Dead" from its cradle. Cuz then the Army of the Dead will arise and come after us, and we wouldn't want that to happen with the weekend upon us and all. Doing this is a bit of a tour-de-force so my explanations of sites are brief.

To the winners, if you are interested, the rules are to simply to link back to the awarders' site, pass it along to ten other blogs and finally write 10 honest things about yourself. I thought it would be fun to follow through with it, but it's up to you...



1) Filmfather - good guy and great site. must visit blog! he made me laugh my ass off this week with a post where he busted someone stealing his review. Awesome!

2) The Horror Effect - her picture reviews are the f'n coolest! seriously.

3) Frog on the Pumpkin - frog's the best. She always leaves comments and is a great artist

4) The World of iMike - my Philly brethren has an excellent site!

5) Paracinema...the Blog - I am new to his blog, but I am already hooked!

6) Jigsaw's Lair - well-designed site and he reviews everything; very ETMC-esque so I like it!

7) I Like Horror Movies - he already has a ton of awards already and rightfully so. Excellent poster who adds colorful comments frequently on ETMC!

8) Don't Say the Zed-Word - another new one I have been following; horror fans: if you have not been to this site, go now!

9) The Sexy Armpit - have to give a shout out to my neighbor state! posts are funny!

10) when is evil cool? - love his junk drawers posts; cool guy who comments here!

Ok the final lap, 10 honest things you don't know about me and now can use them to roast me:

1) I am a fantasy sports junkie. Seriously, like nerd-level junkie

2) Dog Lover Extraordinnaire. I have two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Not a very ferocious breed but I love those little bastards to death!

3) I use to work for the Philadelphia Flyers back in 2005-2006

4) Along the lines of employment, I also use to work on the European Tour events for The Golf Channel

5) I know the lyrics forward and backwards to Digital Underground's 1990 epic "Humpty-Dance." It's my "go-to" whenever I am forced into karaoke

6) I HATE driving! Can't stand it! It annoys the hell out of me. I try to speed and drive crazy to make things exciting, but it doesn't work.

7) I am an idiot savant when it comes to useless film trivia

8) I am SERIOUSLY considering getting lowered into the shark cage when I go to Hawaii. Great whites might be present! "You go in the cage, cage goes into the water, shark's in the water..." EXACTLY, Quinn!

9) I have been told by several people, that I can imitate other people's expressions and voices. I can imitate real life people I know like friends, enemies, family, bosses, co-workers...I can go on and on.

10) I am a huge addict of caffeinated products, especially Dr. Pepper and Monster Energy Drinks as well as coffee.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me. ETMC is an open book to my life, so I tried to find topics that I don't touch on frequently, if ever.

PEACE OUT!!!!

Keeping It Reel: G.I. Joe or G.I. NO?

I am leaving the Man-Cave in a few minutes, but I just wanted to share a quick thought I had with you all.

G.I. Joe: The Movie. I am so tired of the commercials and trailers. Not even Metallica's Sad But True riffs and Kid Rock's American Bad Ass can get me excited for this. I will wait for DVD. Maybe I will get proved wrong, but that guy who plays Duke annoys the hell out of me. In every movie, he acts like a John Cena ripoff... a bizarro, bootleg John Cena. That's bad. Real bad. I'm not even going to credit him.

Sorry but I vote G.I. HELL-NO!

Am I being a complete dick? Probably, but is anyone excited to see this film? I'm not trying to fish for comments but I don't know anyone who wants to see this film. Transformers 2, which I have not seen, seemed to take wind out of the sails for people I know who would be really into this type of film. I used to like G.I. Joe as a kid, but this just looks so awful.

Do you vote G.I. Joe or G.I. HELL-NO!?

Army of Darkness: Which line is better?

In Army of Darkness (1992), Ash (Bruce Campbell, like you didn't know) is attacked by miniature reflections of himself as the result of a shattered mirror. To make matters worse, he is forced to swallow one of the little suckers. Even after he gives the little bugger in his stomach some "hot chocolate", it is not long before a doppelganger rips apart from our hero.

When Ash asks who this other version of him is, the second Ash replies "I'm Bad Ash. And you're Good Ash. You're goody little two shoes!" He repeats the latter line several times while punching Ash in the stomach and head. Finally, the madness ends when a closeup shot ends with Ash's shotgun barrel point-blank in Bad Ash's face. Ash gives him a nod, pulls the trigger and sends Bad Ash flying backwards.

OK, PAUSE!



In the theatrical release, Ash states," Good...bad...I'm the guy with the gun."

In the original cut, Ash states, "I ain't that good."

So I ask you which line is better. The theatrical release's line is perfect in my opinion, but had I never heard that line before, I would think the original's line is funny as well.

Your turn. Tell me what line is the best...

Fifth sign of the Apocalypse: Jeremy Piven hosts WWE RAW

Jeremy, couldn't you have gone on Conan or something instead?

I think writing all of these Roddy Piper film reviews really had me feeling extremely nostalgic this evening. No baseball...no shows to catch up...nothing. 15 channels of shit of the T.V. to choose from, to choose from, to choose from... (anyone who gets that reference gets $1 from me)

After a long day, I thought I would read blogs and watch Monday Night RAW. It can't be that bad anymore, right? Right? WRONG!

The show starts with Jeremy Piven, yes THAT Jeremy Piven from Entourage and the like, rolling onto the arena floor in a blue sports car. I rubbed my eyes to fight the hallucination, but it was no mirage...it was him! And he had The Goods co-star Ken Jeong (The Hangover, Role Models) dressed like a pimp in a leopard trenchcoat calling himself Dr. Ken! Piven was on RAW as the guest host (???) and also to promote his new film The Goods. After some Piven jibber-jabber, Dr. Ken ran around the ring making shreiking noises, barking like a dog and finally sucking on a pacifier. WTF?! Did someone spike my Dr. Pepper?

Piven made some fireworks explode on the entrance ramp, used some obscure jokes for the typical wrestling fan on some dude named The Miz and called SummerSlam the wrong name. He called it SummerFest instead before being corrected by John Cena. This is when I changed the channel. Embarrassing and laughable in a bad way.



Apparently they had Shaq on last week and having a guest host is going to be a recurring theme every week according to the announcers. That's ok. The fans sounded excited...I think.

Well to end this on a happy note, here is a clip from SummerFest, err, SummerSlam from '89. I remember getting this on Pay-Per View as a kid and laughing my ass off when this blooper happened. Thankfully someone posted this on YouTube, so we can all re-live the moment and see why live television is so wonderful...



Yes, Mean Gene yells "Fuck It!" right after we hear Vince McMahon say "Nice Move".

LOL @ Lafayette!

True Blood's Lafayette short but sweet scene in the bathroom is by far the most hilarious thing I heard on HBO last night...


Arlene: Excuse you. It says "Ladies" on that door.

Lafayette: So what you skank ho's want up in here?

Tara: Watch ya'self, bitch!

Lafayette: I am (a beat) and I's is gorgeous.

Tales Outside the Man Cave for 8/3/09

Pretty low key weekend with the exception of Friday night. Juliana and I headed to R.P. McMurphy's for the Neighborhood Hotties Contest sponsored by 94.1 WYSP. Now I love hotties, don't get me wrong, but the real reason we attended this little contest is because it was hosted by Danny Bonaduce and the crew of his Philadelphia radio show, The Danny Bonaduce Show. Not only is Danny a local boy from our area, but he is an entertaining morning show host who does not sway from making jokes at the expense of his crazy drug and criminal past. Also, Jules and I got hooked on Breaking Bonaduce when it was on VH1 a few years back and soon became fans of the guy.

Danny rolled in with his 20-something girlfriend Amy around 10 pm and hit the bar. We talked with him for a few minutes and then got a picture before the contest began. A real down-to-Earth and nice guy! He was funny as hell on stage too, so we plan on heading to more Bonaduce sponsored events in the future.


Danny and my beautiful Jules



Me, Danny and some creepy ass guy glaring at us on the right.

Who won? Some hottie...can't remember. The DJ announced that one of the chicks backed out at the last second and they needed one more contestant. After no one stepped up to the plate, I volunteered. Bastards turned me down! Apparently they have something against cross-dressing. Damn it, I could have used that $500!!! But I got my pic with Danny, so the night wasn't a total loss.


I should have won that Neighborhood Hottie Contest, no? ;)

After the contest ended, Jules went to The Deck and I went to my local watering hole to grab some beers and watch Cliff Lee's first start as a Phillie. In case you care, he threw a 5-1 complete game, so Friday night was a total score from all aspects.

Saturday was a time for rest, so we used that time to catch up on episodes on Burn Notice we missed out on due to my travel schedule the past few weeks. The remainder of my day consisted of playing some NCAA Football 2010 and writing some blog posts.

Sunday was my chance to finally see Watchmen on Blu-Ray. I was unaware of the 3 hour running time, so it wound up consuming most of my day. I liked the story but it was really long. So long in fact that I don't even want to spend more time writing a review on it. Liked it but the length was a killer.

Later on, Juliana wanted to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, so we watched that before dinner. Finally to wrap things up, we watched the usual HBO lineup of True Blood, Hung and Entourage. By the way, I am loving True Blood this season even more than last season if that's possible. What a cliffhanger to end the this week's show!!

So basically, Friday night was an active night followed by two days of couch-potato heaven! God I love America.