Idea: Casey Rae suggested I start a tumblr to capture the best phrases from parental advisory movie reviews. This gem from today’s Family Filmgoer would be a good place to start.
“The dialogue includes a lot of midrange profanity…”
I read that to Husband, and then this dialogue ensued in our living room:
Husband: “That’s some bullshit!”
Me: “No, bullshit isn’t midrange, it’s a a barnyard epithet.”
Thank you, once again, Family Filmgoer, for starting our Friday morning off with a giggle.
Getting messages asking what this year’s Halloween theme is going to be and when I’m going to start posting. It’s October 5th already, isn’t it?
But wait! I’m not 5 days behind! I can make this year’s theme Archaeology & Anthropology in Horror and then I’m actually ahead of the game because I’ve already been obsessing over this for months.
Everybody wins.
I’ve been sick for a while, but posting will resume soon.
As long as I’m not mutating like the anthropologist in The Relic. If I turn into a South American lizard-god we may have to re-assess the project…
Until the running and the screaming starts, I’ll be working on a subject tag for these posts.
I’m obsessed with the Family Filmgoer ratings in the Washington Post weekend section.
Last night I came across this gem of a rating for Paranoia.
It’s an embarrassment of riches, that review. So many things to mock, so little time on this mortal coil.
Before I could begin to peel that onion of absurdity, I became obsessed with the term “barnyard epithet,” which I will put in quotation marks here in homage to the Family Filmgoer’s use of said punctuation in reference to “getting laid.”
A debate between Husband and I then ensued over the meaning of the phrase. The phrase “barnyard epithet,” that is. We’ve got “getting laid” covered.
Husband insisted it meant “bullshit.” This was disappointing to me because I like believing it means something more colorful.
Goatfucker, perhaps.
We debated this for much longer than I should ever admit. But I will. We debated this for a long time.
While we were debating the wisdom of looking this up on the Internet, I remembered that I have a reference book on the subject sitting right on the coffee table. I’d just checked Melissa Mohr’s Holy Sh*t! A Brief History of Swearing out the library and hadn’t even opened it yet.
Meanwhile, Husband had become obsessed with the hilarity we might find on the Internet and had begun reflexively adding the words, “dot-com” anytime one of us said, “barnyard epithet.”
It’s not as funny in the cold light of day.
Maybe I should add that there may have been some mint juleps involved.
There, that makes the story of two adults creating a taxonomy of profanity much more socially acceptable.
Unless you’re the Family Filmgoer.
Sadly, Mohr doesn’t seem to mention the term but by the time I’d spent some quality time reading through the amusing index to the book, something buried deep in my brain was telling me that this was actually something I’d learned years ago as an undergrad and had something to do with Cold War era politics in America.
Which sounds bonkers, but turns out to be accurate. And sort of bonkers:
So there you have it. Simultaneously fascinating and disappointing, but what can you do?
This post originally had this image at the top, but even I had to draw the line at using the image of an innocent goat with filthy hindquarters shooting the camera a come-hither look. But that doesn’t seem to stop me from telling you about it. Or posting the picture, which probably contradicts my claim of self-restraint.
Last month’s SyFy Craptacular of the week, Sharknado, is being released for a (probably) one-day only theatrical engagement.
This means loads of fluffy press, such the Washington Post’s, “Sharknado’s next prey: Big-screen audience,” in which writer John Anderson and art-house owner Greg Laemmle seem to miss the point of craptaculars entirely (or can’t be bothered to take 3 minutes to read about The Asylum’s production process).
No one sets out to make a bad movie, Laemmle said. “But maybe in the case of ‘Sharknado’ they did.”
Vitale of Syfy disagrees. “These movies are made to be entertaining,” he said. “They are made on purpose to be fun; they’re not created to be a ‘Troll 2’ or an Ed Wood movie. ”
We’ll let that slide in order to get to an in-depth discussion of the critical questions raised by Sharknado in this post I wrote when Sharknado first aired and then forgot to post:
1) Sharknado: could it really happen?
2) Who the hell is Tara Reid and what is she famous for?
3) Did that dude just make a menstruation joke while I was slightly distracted by Tara Reid’s IMDB page?
4) Is Aubrey Peeples related to Nia Peeples?
5) Tara Reid? She’s no Ian Ziering.
6) Did you see Swamp Shark?
7) Did you know John Heard was in the Pelican Brief?
8) The Peach Pit? What the fuck? Why would anyone think that would be a good name for a diner?
9) Do you think it’s true Nia Peeples used to open for Liberace in Vegas?
10) This movie is halfway over, are we still sober?
Sharknado: could it really happen?
Sure, why not?
Who the hell is Tara Reid and what is she famous for?
All kinds of crap, it turns out, but she never seems to imprint on my brain. She’s no Ian Ziering. He was in Beverley Hills 90210. (Not the shitty reboot, either. He was in the shitty original show).
Did that dude just make a menstruation joke while I was slightly distracted by Tara Reid’s IMDB page?
Yes.
Is Aubrey Peeples related to Nia Peeples?
No.
Did you see Swamp Shark?
I did. I just pulled out my notes. Here they are, in their entirety: “Blah blah blah blah. Running. Screaming. Terror. Swamp. Shark. Blah.”
Did you know John Heard was in the Pelican Brief?
I worked on location on that movie for 2 days. I never met John Heard.
The Peach Pit? What the fuck? Why would anyone think that was a good name for a diner?
Whatever. If you want me to believe that you’re being pursued by sharks in a flooded L.A., at least hose off the pavement for the exterior shots so we can pretend along with you without needing to get up to get another drink.
Followup question:
Why don’t we have a monkey butler so we don’t have to get up to refill our adult beverages?
Monkeys make terrible butlers.
Do you think it’s true Nia Peeples used to open for Liberace in Vegas?
I have no idea, but Nia Peeples and SyFy/Asylum alum Tiffany were on an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap together.
This movie is halfway over, why are we still sober?
Mischief managed. Moving on…
Not enough people have seen Jaws, judging by the tweets I’m seeing. How could you people not catch that the scene where two characters compare scars and one of them tells the story of being in a shipwreck and everyone else being eaten by sharks is an homage to the scene in Jaws where two characters compare their scars and one tells the story of being in a shipwreck and everyone else being eaten by sharks?
And that character saying, “We’re going to need a bigger chopper!” was a reference to one of the most quoted lines in movie history.
You people on the twitter, you disappoint me.
Many articles about Sharknado were like the mutants that figure in many SyFy movies – plaintive struggles for hip pop culture credibility grafted on to the genetic lattice of massive sharknado-driven web traffic. See also: the Atlantic trying to explain how the Federal Reserve is just like Sharknado.
If you’re interested, Here’s an amusing interview The Asylum’s David Michael Latt did with the Examiner about the fast, cheap but totally in-control production process they’ve honed. (Also probably the only time you’ll ever see me link to the Examiner on purpose).
I do find it amusing to read tweets and posts from viewers who are trying to maintain a facade of ironic distance, despite the fact that their twitter feeds display evidence that they previously “discovered” B movies in 2009 when they watched (in an ironic way) the Debbie Gibson opus, Mega Shark ve Giant Octopus and again (ironically, obviously) in the 2011 follow-up, in which Gibson battled Tiffany in Mega Python Vs. Gatoroid.
In conclusion, Sharknado was good for the internet traffic of a lot of websites who wrote gratuitous articles about it.
Like this one.
The rumors are true. We also watch non-shitty movies. Last night we rewatched ParaNorman because it’s on Netflix streaming now.
It’s a clever, dark, weird, and wonderful movie. Plus, I’m easily amused by Donovan references.
I should have emailed the winners of the MeanLouise Blogiversary present drawing instead of writing this post. I’ll get to you, I promise!