Rocknowledgy Episode 38!!! Theme Winners Revealed!!

alahoyus everyone! Its been a long few months! We were away making a new rekkid! Suppose you heard about that! It comes out June 18th and its called OUR OWN MASTERS. Very excited. Also excited about this episode where we reveal the winner of the theme song contest. Thanks to all the participants of whom we play all their jams, so you'll get to hear them yourself. Ok, lots to do, hope you enjoy this, and stay tuned for more stuff coming soon!!! Gonna be a wild rest of the year!!!

Download here or on iTunes: http://rocknowledgy.libsyn.com/

 Episode 38 playlist:
 T6000- intro,
Killing Floor- Fido Castrol,
Ahab's Ghost- Rocknowledgy Theme,
Fortress- Rocknowledgy Theme,
Shogun Assassins- Rocknowledgy Theme,
Hammer of Satan- Pussy Wizard,
Tank- Run Like Hell,
Scott Walker- 30th Century Man,
Thin Lizzy- It's Only Money,
Gray Matter- Chutes and Ladders,
The Evens- Wanted Criminals,
Captain Beyond- Evil Men,
JFA- Walk Don't Run,
CSC Funk Band- Catcher's Mitt,
Nu Sensae- Sleeping Blouse,
Frank Zappa- Magic Fingers,
N.W.H.- White Cops On Dope,
Fanny- Ain't That Peculiar,
Kiss- Under The Rose,
The Mattoid- Rat Poison,
T6000-outro,
Charlie Feathers- One Hand Loose

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Stargate (1994)

"Give my regards to King Tut, asshole." - Col. Jack

" I'm on Planet 'X' lookin' for a dweeb who wears green fatigues. He wears glasses. He has long hair. And he sneezes. Chicken. Chicken! Yes, Chicken Man!" - Col. Jack

"I don't want to die. And your men don't want to die, and these people certainly don't wan to to die. It's a shame you're in such a hurry to." - Dr. Daniel Jackson

Another flick that took me years to finally see. This is one that started a HUGE franchise that would rival STAR TREK for years with spin off shows and movies, however, I could never find the time to go back and watch the original. I'd have watched it a lot sooner if I knew that one of my favorite actors was in it using his same name from another one of my favorite flicks. Kurt Russell plays another character named Jack in this one. Not as cool as Jack Burton from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, but its Kurt as Jack nonetheless. You can pretend if you want, except this Jack is a big dipshit marine for most of the flick. Anyway, Kurt Russell, James Spader, French Stewart, and often overlooked background guy John Diehl "star" in STARGATE!!!

In the late twenties a professor archeologist dude and his very young daughter are excavating in Egypt and are there when they dig up this huge cyclical portal gate with symbols on it that match these rocks on the ground that had been excavated as well. Fast forward about 65 years and the young daughter is now a scientist herself. She's sitting in on a lecture by a forward thinking archeologist/linguist who believes the pyramids were built by a civilization much more advanced than the ancient Egyptians. His colleagues walk out on his lecture but the young lady who is now an old lady offers him a unique opportunity while he's standing outside in the pouring rain. Meanwhile Col. Jack is a depressed ex soldier whose son has just died. He is recalled into active duty and cuts all his cool hair off.

Daniel Jackson (the archeologist/linguist) is offered the chance to be on the team that unlocks the key to the "cover" stones found way back in 1928. He figures out everything but one set in a matter of minutes. He figures the last one out in 14 days. Something they couldn't figure out for more than 2 years. Col. Jack classifies the project before Daniel can find out more about it, but when he discovers the meanings, they then ask him to translate the real thing. It says "STARGATE", and the symbols are constellations and coordinates for space. So when he plugs in the correct sequence, it fires the thing up. A wormhole to another galaxy opens and they send a robot through and then close it and track it. Then they decide to go through and see if they can reprogram the other side. Daniel volunteers and Col. Jack and him and some other military types shove off into the great beyond. They come out on another side in a pyramid millions of galaxies away. At first everyone is pissed at Daniel because it turns out that all the symbols are different. They wander around and Daniel finds a super fast camel type animal. Then they spot a trading village. The old chick gave Daniel a necklace and the people see it and worship him. Then a few of them take him to a bigger city.

While they are gone, a huge sandstorm comes up and traps the remaining members of their entourage. The humans there are mining the same substance the stargate is made out of. The leader of the miner humans offers his daughter as a prize to Daniel. Daniel is shy but soon falls for the chick Shayari. Then begins speaking to each other in a primitive form of Egyptian. Shayari shows Daniel some hieroglyphics that tell him the whole story. So the Egyptian god Ra is an alien who is the last of his race, but before he died, he built the stargate and kidnapped a bunch of ancient egyptians and took them to be slaves and miners for him on his planet. They mine this substance which gives him his power and technology. Daniel also finds the other symbols which will allow them to return home- except for the last one. They all head back for the pyramid.

So by now a huge pyramid shaped ship has landed on top of the pyramid and Ra is aware of whats happening. Jack and Daniel try to infiltrate, but Daniel gets killed. But Ra uses this sarcophagas thing regenerate him and tells him he's gonna send an atomic bomb back through the stargate to blow up Earth but it'll be 10 times more powerful coated with that stargate material. And he says he'll do it if Daniel doesn't go and kill his own team to prove to his slaves that Ra is their one true god. Then there's a bit of action, but I don't want to spoil this one for you. If you are a history nerd, a sci fi drama nerd, or a fan of shows like ANCIENT ALIENS, you'll dig the hell out of this one. Check it out.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Mac And Me (1988)

"I don't know. Just keep him dancing and they'll just think it's a teddy." - Michael

"...tired of feeling all by myself Being so different From everyone else Somehow you knew I needed your help Be my friend forever I never found My star in the night Feeling my dream was Far from my sight You came along and I saw the light We'll be friends forever" - Singer

"I can't believe it, the house looks perfect, you cleared up this mess for me?" - Janet

Whooo! This one is a real big bag of garbage! How as kid could you not see that is was such a big commercial for McDonald's? AND an obvious E.T. ripoff... Even the goddamned trailer had Ronald McDonald introducing it! I often watch movies that I consider a real big time suck, but I hardly ever admit when they are huge wastes of time. I mean, a lot of the time I really enjoy the hard ones. But let me be clear: WATCHING THIS WAS A HUGE WASTE OF TIME! It TRULY fucking SUCKED! There was hardly any good dialogue or redeeming moments whatsoever. It truly felt like torture getting through it. McDonald's presents MAC AND ME!!!

Seriously, I never watched the trailer before looking it up to post here, so beyond the obvious product placement in the beginning, I had no idea that this may have been semi funded by McD's. Then they spontaneously burst into a choreographed dance number inside a McDonald's and I began to get the clue. I mean- the fucking alien's name is MAC! M.A.C.- Mysterious Alien Creature. Yeah BULL- shit! He stands for bring your kid over here and buy some happy meals and a couple big MACs for your fat ass. And while you're at it, HAVE A COKE!!! Ok, I digress.

The US sends some satellite up to some planet and some aliens walk up to it and get sucked into it. The satellite returns to Earth and lands in some NASA facility. The aliens escape and run out into the desert and are separated from their littlest dude. He ends up jumping in a car with a single mom and her two sons who are moving across the country to a new place that she found for them. The youngest son is in a wheelchair. The movie tries to be slapstick as much as it can to take away from its super obvious stolen themes from E.T.

So this young alien haunts this wheelchair kid's new room and makes his older brother and mom think he's crazy. But the neighbor girl saw it, so she knows what's happening. Then he falls into a ravine. The lil girl has an older sister who the older brother is psyched about. She works at.... wait for it.... McDonald's. Finally the older brother meets the alien. Somehow they figure out that it has a family. I think its because it makes a sign with its hands or something. So they decide to help it. Meanwhile its family is dying of dehydration in the desert.

So NASA is onto them, there's a car chase with his wheelchair, and then they decide to dress the kid up like a teddy bear and take him to McDonald's to a birthday party, and then is the most ridiculous dance number that I've pretty much ever seen. Years and years before spontaneous viral web video dances... then there's another chase and a shootout and somehow the wheelchair kid gets killed. Then the head alien brings him back to life, and fast forward and they're swearing them in as US citizens. And then the whole alien family drives around in a convertible drinking cokes and eating skittles. Fucking insanity. I'd never recommend this. There are plenty of other flicks you should see first.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Snakes On A Plane (2006)

"Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane! - Flynn

"We're in a 200-foot aluminum tube and we're 30,000 feet in the air. And any one of those slimy little pieces of shit can trip a circuit or a relay or a hydraulic and this bird goes down faster than a Thai hooker. So my job is to keep LAX informed on how totally screwed we are, and then find some way to keep this mother in the sky another two hours. Figure that out." - Rick

"Fuck Randy! Fuck Randy and his high score. That's my own brother, and I say, "Fuck him!"" - Troy

This is a ridiculous flick! The kind of thing where it seems like they either took a bunch of notecards with subjects on them and threw darts at a wall, or either they REALLY wanted to make a genre flick they reeked of the kind of thing producers got away with in the 70s. It took me long enough to take a look at it, but again, another example of something that may have not been worth it in the beginning, but perfect the older it gets. Like a fine wine, Samuel Jackson and Kenan Thompson star in SNAKES ON A PLANE!!!

During the beginning credits of this one, we see beautiful beaches and a dude hauling ass on a dirt bike around some island. Over and over he jumps until the shitty song ends and the movie starts. He comes up on a dude hanging from a bridge and some Asian dudes whooping his ass. Finally one of them blows the guy away, and he freaks and splits on his bike. The Asian dudes hear him getting away and the obvious boss tells them to get him and kill his ass.

So he gets home and he's watching the news. Apparently he lives in Hawaii. Somehow he hears dudes about to bust into his house and kill him, he goes out onto his deck and Samuel Jackson says, "If you wanna live, shut up and do what I say." Then he shoots up the place and they escape. Samuel gives him a choice: Stay and get killed by this big time Asian gangster dude that they keep cutting to kicking everyone's ass and doing martial arts in his mansion.... OR go to LA and testify against this Eddie Kim gangster. Only problem? He's gotta survive till he gets there. This normally wouldn't be that big of a problem, they had a decoy plane and everything, but these gangsters were smart. They were in with the flight crew and loaded up crate after crate of every exotic snake known to man from all over the world and then put a bunch of "horny" snake hormone spray on the boxes of leis' that everyone would be wearing. BUMMER.

So we get to know the flight attendants for a few minutes, the seemingly gay but not gay dude, the old lady, the attendant on her last ever flight, and the young hot chick. Once everyone is asleep, a couple jump in the loo and begin to join the mile high club (with the crew's approval!)- until the timed release lets the snakes loose and they begin creeping through the whole plane. The first to go? The naked couple in the shitter. Then yes- a dude's dick gets bit off by one. And then a fat lady gets it, and a baby almost gets it, a little brother gets bit, and a rapper's entourage member gets bit on the ass. Then one of the pilots and one of the federal agents gets it. The gas masks fall and a ton of snakes come out with them and kill a ton of passengers. The remaining ones crowd to the front and the top of the plane (I've flown tons of times and only maybe once {MAYBE} was on a plane with a second level. I can't even remember). Anyway, Samuel J to the rescue.

So Sam J calls his dude on the ground and that dude finds a snake expert and they figure out that there isn't anywhere in the US where these snakes could be from. There is only one dude who could have them and/or the antidote. They figure all that out, while the remaining pilot is bitten but still survives. Then he gets killed. Then they shoot a hole in the plane, and then Kenan Thompson has to land the plane. This is a fucked up flick. I only have 2 problems with it. Number one doesn't even matter- the snakes were fake and they LOOKED fake. I WISH they LOOKED more real. I don't care if they're fake, I just wished they looked more real. Ok, number two: They never said shit about Eddie Kim or whatever his name was again. I guess everyone was so psyched they didn't die that he seemed like chump change. But he was the reason that all that happened. I wish they would have fucked his ass up. But they did little more than mention him at the end. Anyway, that is my beef with it. Other than that, great garbage!

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Marathon Man (1976)

"Is it safe?... Is it safe?" - Szell

"Tennyson! Alfred, Lord Tennyson. My God, but you can't compete on a doctoral level and not know "Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall 60 Years Later"! I hope you all flunk. Dismissed." - Professor

"I know exactly how Doc made his living, and the closest he ever came to the oil business was when he filled up at the friendly neighborhood gas station." - Janeway

Heard about this flick for a long time, but never knew what it was about or if it was even any good or not. I like how there's a lot of mystery surrounding what its about. The poster just says, "A Thriller." That's awesome. And after watching it, I can tell you that it is awesome, it has a pretty stellar cast, a really fucked up villain, and deserves to be seen by a larger audience. Roy Scheider, Dustin Hoffman, the guy with the teeth from KNOTS LANDING, and Laurence Olivier in MARATHON MAN!!!!

So here we have a convoluted little story until about halfway through when we figure out what's going on. When the story begins, a German guy is locking something up in a safe deposit box. Another guy, a very angry Jewish guy is road raging through the lower east side in Manhattan. The first guy pulls out in front of the second guy and the second guy ends up riding the other guy's ass all the way into a gas truck which explodes killing them both. The first guy had a key to that very important safe deposit box and it burned up. Our protagonist is "Babe" and he is a runner and is trying to get his phd in history. His father was in the same field, but apparently committed suicide during the McCarthy era for something he did wrong. Babe maintains his father's innocence.

"Doc" is Babe's older brother. At first he is in some European country and is repeatedly almost killed. When he gets word about the one German dying, he heads back to the US and meets up with Babe. Babe has met and stalked and scored with this supposedly "Swiss" exchange student. They meet up for dinner, and Doc accuses the chick of being a gold digger even though he expects she may have been sent by this other dude to spy on Doc's brother. So Doc pretends (even to his brother) that he is a bigtime oil executive, when he's really a spy type dude. He's after this man Szell who is the brother of the first German dude. Szell has been in exile in South America somewhere hiding because he was a famous Nazi dentist/ torturer. He stole millions worth of gold and diamonds from Jews during WWII and hid them with his brother in America. Doc is pretty sure he'll come looking for his treasure since his brother croaked.

Doc was right and he goes to meet up with Szell. Whatever organizations they work for, there seems to be some sort of "code". Doc mentions that Szell has broken the code by involving family. Szell suprises Doc by knifing him in the belly with this cool "hand knife" thing. Doc makes it all the way back to Babe's apartment and then dies. Babe can't understand what's happening, but he's visited by Doc's partner Janeway after being interrogated by the cops. Janeway asks Babe what Doc told him, and Babe keeps telling him that Doc didn't tell him anything. So later Babe takes a bath and is abducted from his apartment by two goons. He wakes tied to a chair with Szell in front of him repeatedly asking him, "Is it safe?" Babe doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, he didn't even know his brother was an agent until like an hour ago. He's tortured and then thrown in a room. Janeway busts in and shoots the two goons and rescues Babe. He fills in Babe with about as much info as I've given you and then the two goons show up again proving that Janeway is a goddamned traitor. Then they torture Babe some more.

Babe escapes and runs like hell barefoot through god knows where nyc. He's freaking out and tired and can't get anyone to help him. He calls the thug dudes that make fun of him everyday and tell them to break into his apartment and keep anything they want except to bring him some clothes. They do it, and good thing because the goons are there and would've killed Babe. So he meet up with his chick who definitely was in league with Szell. Szell is having a very hard time selling his diamonds because he gets spotted and identified twice within five minutes by two Holocaust survivors. Szell kills one of them and gets away. Babe's babe takes him to a remote house and is setting him up, but Babe knows and then Janeway shows up, kills the goons and says he'll let Babe kills Szell if he can keep the diamonds. Babe says ok, but Janeway kills his chick, so then Babe kills Janeway and goes after Szell. He finds him too. If you wanna find out what happens tho, you'll have to check this one out for yourself. Like I said, pretty rad story, well written, well acted. Check it out.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Westworld (1973)

"We aren't dealing with ordinary machines here. These are highly complicated pieces of equipment. Almost as complicated as living organisms. In some cases, they have been designed by other computers. We don't know exactly how they work." - Chief Supervisor

"What the hell, god dammit, that's not supposed to happen!" - John Blane

"Why don't you make arrangements to take our hovercraft to Medieval World, Roman World and Westworld. Contact us today, or see your travel agent. Boy, have we got a vacation for you." - Interviewer

A movie about a fantastic vacation resort in the future. Dick Van Patten, Yul Brynner, James Brolin, and Richard Benjamin weave a western and a sci fi in a damned good, often overlooked flick written and directed by Michael Crichton- I present to you WESTWORLD!!!

When this one begins, a reporter is doing a report on location from a resort by a company called the Delos Corporation. He's interviewing people who are just leaving this spot after paying $1000 a day to live for a week in one of three "worlds": West world, Roman world, or Medieval world. Each customer relays that it was the most marvelous experience they've ever had. Literally living out their vivid fantasies, the patrons are allowed to murder or have sex with the robots living in each "world".

We meet John and Peter flying by some sort of hi tech super fast hovercraft passenger transport to the remote desert location of the resort. Peter has never been to the resort and he's full of questions for John. They have chosen to live out their fantasies in West world. The initiation is sort of like every scene where a guy is going into the military a la STRIPES. The boys are fitted and handed their "cowboy" attire and then taken to their room in the old west town. Each "world" is made to look authentic down to every detail. The boys go to the saloon, bed down prostitutes, and get into bar fights. One robot in particular has a big problem with Peter after getting shot and killed by him and over the course of the flick becomes relentless in his pursuit of our young cowpoke.

Eventually the technicians running the show begin experiencing problems with the robots and this becomes more and more frequent as the flick goes on. At a certain point, John gets bit by a robot rattlesnake, a harlot in Medieval world rebukes this fat guest's request to pork her, and then that same dude really dies at the hands of the Black Knight robot. So the technicians try to shut the power down, but they accidentally lock themselves in the control room and are unable to keep the robots under control.

There is a huge bar fight the night before, and John and Peter wake up completely wasted, peel themselves off the floor and begin to walk back to their room. The one relentless robot cowboy stops them in their tracks and shoots John in the stomach killing him, and then goes for Peter. Peter freaks, rides a horse completely out of West world all the way past the border into Roman world. He finds a tunnel and tries to hide from the robot, who slowly but surely follows Peter step by step all the way to the main control room. Everyone is dead, the guests are slaughtered, the technicians have suffocated, but he finds a girl tied up in a dungeon. He releases her only to find out she's a robot too. Then he throws acid in that robots face and sets him on fire. Does that stop it? NO! He's STILL COMING! Then finally he knocks it down some stairs and sits down on the step- my guess is so he can do some soul searching. HA! Should you watch it? Well, this one is nice. I love old sci fi like this. Its a simple story, almost like a short story or a stretched out episode of TWILIGHT ZONE. If you dig that, then you'll dig this.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Escape To Witch Mountain (1975)

"That thing's flying upside down... That's impossible! That kind of vehicle *can't* fly upside down. It's not supposed to fly at all!" - Aristotle Bolt

"You're nothing but a pair of undersized land pirates!" - Jason O'Day

"Well, your wife died only a few months after you were married. And you were so sad. You took an oath that you'd never give your love to another woman, or to anyone. And you never have.... I'm sorry, Mr. O'Day." - Tia

I loved these movies as a kid. There were three of them based on a book by Alexander Key. There was a remake in 1995 for TV and a big budget semi-sequel made with The Rock in 2009. The first two original ones were the best though. The little girl is Paris Hilton's aunt. Hilarious. She was also the "hot chick" in MEATBALLS PART 2. An awesome little kids sci fi story, I present ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN!!!

When this film begins, we are presented with two small orphan children. Their foster parents have just perished somehow, and it seems to be a trend with the pair as we learn from unclear flashbacks that they've been in this situation before. Tia and Tony are taken to an orphanage where a red-headed bully gets treated to a dose of peculiar medicine from the strange siblings. Tia is telepathic and telekinetic and Tony is telekinetic when he plays his harmonica to help him concentrate. They find a weird map in Tia's "star" case pocketbook and they take it as a place they should try to get to.

Tia keeps having flashbacks of some sort of shipwreck that they were involved in, and keeps remembering pieces of her memory that helps them fill in the missing pieces. She sees the future sometimes as well and Tony has super hearing. She helps this butler dude Trevanian not get hit by a car, and he tells his boss Aristotle Bolt that he thinks he's found some kids with superpowers. Bolt wants to use them to get richer and become more powerful himself. So he sends Trevanian to pretend to be their long lost uncle and adopt them. The kids are wary of him right away. Bolt spares no expense and treats them to anything they want. Only he keeps them pent up in his mansion where they can't run away. Only they can also pick locks and talk to animals so one slip up and they escape on a buck wild horse.

Bolt freaks and sends Trevanian and some goons after them in his limo. The kids escape into town and find this old Irish widow named Jason O'Day. They hide out in his camper until he busts them. Well he actually busts their cat named Winkie, but then he finds them when Winkie knocks flour all over them. They know right away that he's a good dude and more bark than bite. Jason hears them out and helps them discover that they're not weird at all, they're just aliens. He helps them find the place on the map that is called Witch Mountain. It takes him a while to get there, and by now there are tons of cops all over California looking for them. He tries to drop them off near his brother's house, but a local sheriff sees them jump out and nabs them. They make short work of him in his local yokel hoosegow, and escape once again eventually meeting back up with Jason.

The townies are after them thinking they are witches, the cops, Trevanian and now Bolt in a helicopter chasing them up the mountain. They stop at this one old motel and call this number and a dude answers and says he's their old uncle Ben'e. I just kept thinking about the dude from the box of rice. Then he says come to the mountain and be sure not to lose them because we want them to see what happens. So they let Bolt follow them up the mountain and then they get close and the Winnebago starts flying and then the helicopter is upside down and lands that way and the kids go meet up with Uncle Ben'e who looks like Uncle Jesse from THE DUKES OF HAZZARD, and then they fly away in a spaceship. THE END. Should you see this? Well if you like weird old creepy Disney movies then yes. This was one of the best.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Tin Drum (1979)

"There once was a drummer. His name was Oskar. He lost his poor mama, who had eat too much fish. There was once a credulous people... who believed in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really... the gas man! There was once a toy merchant. His name was Sigismund Markus... and he sold tin drums lacquered red and white. There was once a drummer. His name was Oskar. There was once a toy merchant... whose name was Markus... and he took all the toys in the world away with him." - Oskar

"My dear Oskar, trust an experienced colleague. Our kind must never sit in the audience. Our kind must perform and run the show, or the others will run *us*. The others are coming. They will occupy the fairgrounds, they will stage torchlight parades, build rostrums, fill the rostrums, and from those rostrums preach our destruction." - Bebra

"Look, if you please, at this extraordinary potato... this swelling, luxuriant flesh, forever conceiving new shapes... and yet so chaste. I love a potato, because it speaks to me." - Vendor

Completely forgot about watching this one really late at night in complete darkness way out at Castle Greyskull with Lucian and Sadat while writing our new album back in December or January. Its pretty much a dark comedy, one of Lucian's old favorites. Its a German flick we watched o.g. style with subtitles. Its about this kid who doesn't want to grow up so he just forces himself to stop at age 3. Starring David Bennent who you'll remember as Honeythorn Gump from LEGEND. Creepy as shit, I present to you THE TIN DRUM!!!

Here we have the tale of Oskar, a little boy who was born a mother who fucked her cousin until she met this other dude while she was a nurse during WWI. Then she married him, but still kept up the secret relationship with her cousin. In the beginning they set up this story of this dude (Oskar's grandfather) who was running from the cops and hid under this chick's skirt in a field. He ends up getting her pregnant and then drowning trying to evade those cops. So we have this little wartime story of this couple who run a grocery store, the wife cheats on the husband with her own cousin and they have this shrimpy little kid. Well the kid gets a drum for his 3rd birthday, and sees his folks drinking and partying and decides he never wants to be like them, and he wants to stay 3 forever, so he throws himself down some stairs and somehow he manages to permanently stunt his own growth, and at the same time setting up a rift between his folks that will ensure they always blame each other for the ordeal therefore allowing him to act like a complete asshole indefinitely.

So time goes by and neighborhood kids get older and bigger but Oskar stays the same height. Its frustrating to him because they pick on him and around age 12 he gets an interest in the opposite sex. Girls just a bit older are taking care of him like he's a baby and he's got a completely different agenda on his mind. The film remains controversial because the star David Bennent was 12 at the time and has sex scenes with 3 different ladies. A young girl who gets pregnant, but we don't know if it was from Oskar or his father, an old neighbor lady, and ultimately a midget dancer he falls for in a midget wartime revue. Oskar figures out early on that he has a special gift in which he can squeal and break glass. The famous midget "Tom Thumb" tells him to hone his skills early in the film and asks him to join his traveling show to which Oskar declines the first time. I'm forgetting to mention that he beats that goddamn drum all the time and goes through them like hotcakes. Every time he fucks one up, he has a complete freak out till they go and get him a new one.

The mother continues her affair with her Polish cousin and one day Oskar, his mother and "2 dads" go to the beach and this dude is pulling eels out of a horse's head. GROSS!! The mom is puking her guts out. The real dad buys some, and cooks them for the mom. She reluctantly eats them and then for some reason punishes herself by binge eating raw fish for days. Then she gets food poisoning and croaks. After other scenes like Oskar ruining a Nazi rally by playing his drum, we see another showing the political climate of the day when The Jewish drum maker/toy store owner gets told to split from the mother's funeral. This sets up the rise of the Nazi influence in the Danzig area. There's a scene where they are trying to get the workers in this Jewish post office where the cousin works to leave, but they are trying to hold their own and they get bombed continually until its rubble. Oskar seems to care more for his drum than any of the shit going on around him.

At a certain point, Oskar joins the midget wartime revue and has a relationship with this midget girl. She is killed and he ends up coming home to Danzig which is mostly destroyed at this point. He meets up with his now 3 year old son and cyclically gives him his own tin drum. The Russians come into town while his family is hiding in a cellar and rape his baby mama. The dad dies while choking on his own Nazi pin. Oskar decides to grow up finally after everyone is made to leave town. I'm pretty sure he crawls under his grandmother's skirt while she's sitting in a potato field as the train taking everyone out of town rolls away. Heavy flick. If you're into war movies, this is a great one to check out from the people's point of view rather than the soldiers.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

" I just can't take no pleasure in killing. There's just some things you gotta do. Don't mean you have to like it. " - Old Man

"Things happen here about, they don't tell about. I see things. You see, they say that it's just an old man talking. You laugh at an old man, it's them that laughs and knows better." - Drunk

"Uh... yeah, maybe I've seen something like that up that way. Well now look, you boys don't want to go messin' around some old house. Those things is dangerous. You're liable to get hurt. You don't want to go fooling around other folks' property. If some folks don't like it... they don't mind showing you." - Old Man

I can't remember when I first saw this. Usually I remember things like that. I think maybe I heard about it way before I actually saw it. But when I did I was still young, and all the "old white house" dreams I had as a small child came rushing back. My great aunt used to live in a similar big old white house beside of my grandparents in the country, and I would NEVER go over there because I had dreams that witches lived in that house. That's what parents get for showing their kids THE WIZARD OF OZ at an early age and thinking they'll like it. So all of those creepy old houses in the middle of nowhere will FOREVER hold an uneasy feeling for me. One that screams, "let's get the fuck outta here!" A bunch of unknowns were cast for THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE!!!

In the beginning we hear a radio broadcaster explaining that there has been a string of grave robbing incidents on the outskirts of some small Texas town, and we see a grave desecrated with a body up on top where the cross usually is. Enter what will become an institution of horror movies for decades to come: 5 teenagers in a van going to explore, almost SCOOBY-DOO style. Two couples and the odd man out is in a wheelchair. He is one of the girls brother, and they are going to see if their grandfather's grave was robbed and check out his old estate. So they go to the graveyard and there's drunks everywhere just gawking. And then they decide to light out to the old house and check it out. They pick up a hitchhiker whom the cripple dubs "Dracula". The hitcher is super looped out and ends up cutting his own hand with a straight razor and then cutting the cripple guy. They kick him out and he smears blood on the van. Then they stop at a gas station but the old attendant tells them they're out of gas and the gas dude should be there later in the day. They decide to go check out the house and fill up with gas on the way back, against the advice of the old man.

So the brother tells the one chick and dude about an old swimming hole around back of the house once they get there, and they take off. The sister and other dude explore the house. The first couple realize the hole has gone dry and keep walking till they find another house. They think maybe they'll get some gas from these neighbors because there's a generator running. They knock on the door to no answer. The guy (in a completely stupid move) decides to GO IN THE HOUSE. DUMBASS! Basically as soon as he enters, a huge guy with a human skin mask on (Leatherface) clubs him in the head and drags him downstairs and slams this metal door shut. The chick waits for a while and then thinking he's tricking her, she reluctantly enters the house goes upstairs. She trips into a room full of feathers and furniture made out of bones. When she screams, it alerts Leatherface who catches her and she sees her dude on a slab and then he impales her up on a meathook.

The other dude goes to look for the other couple at sundown, and the siblings stay back. He goes past the water hole and finds the house. He knocks and sees one of the others vest on the railing. He enters the house and goes downstairs. He finds the other chick alive freaking out in a freezer but- TOO LATE! BOOM! He gets clubbed to death and the chick gets stuffed back into the freezer. So the siblings start fighting. Honking the horn does no good, so they keep trying to figure out what to do. He doesn't want her to leave so he finally convinces her to roll him over there with her. When they get close to the house, Leatherface jumps out of nowhere with a fucking chainsaw and just kills the cripple dude like it was nothing. I guess it isn't technically "out of nowhere" because "chainsaw" IS in the title. Anyway, he chases the chick through the woods almost catching her several times. She goes into the house, up the stairs and into a room and finds a dead lady and a seemingly dead old man sitting in chairs and freaks. To escape she jumps out of a second story window and finally evades him and gets to the highway. She then runs all the way back to the gas station.

The old man at the gas station can hardly make out anything she's saying, but he tries to calm her down and then turns from kinda creepy to super fucked up in the snap of his fingers, hitting her with the broom and swatting her until she's almost passed out, tying her up and putting her in his truck. He gets in and then is so excited he forgets to turn off the lights and lock up. I love how he explains that to her and while he's driving he starts poking her with a stick and laughing this terrifying crooked laugh. He gets back home and screams at the hitcher boy who is just getting home. He's mad at the hitcher boy for making the news for desecrating the graves and thereby calling attention to their creepiness. They torture her and she wakes up tied to a dead body chair. They have a delicious looking dinner consisting of sausages made from god knows what, but she ain't having any. They bring the old man down from upstairs and it turns out he isn't dead, just almost. They decide to let him kill her, but he's too weak. Leatherface tries to help him but it ain't working. She kicks out and escapes them, JUMPING THROUGH ANOTHER WINDOW!! She hobble runs down the drive and out into the street where the sun is finally rising. A tractor trailer runs over the hitcher and stops to help her. Leatherface chases them through the cab of the truck, and another small truck stops. The smiling bloody girl gets away, and Leatherface does the ultimate chainsaw berzerker dance with the rising sun in the background. Its fucking beautiful. This is a must see. Stop what you are doing and find it.