Shameless Pile Keeps on Growing: 10001 Ways to Make Spaghetti

Here are some recent finds & additions to The Shameless Pile. The main source were second-hand shops and teh interweb.

Second-hand DVDs:

Jonah Hex, Voyage of the Unicorn, Best Defense, Look, Up In the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman,
Cellular, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Fingersmith, The Main Event

Full Metal Alchemist Movie: The Conqueror of Shambhala, Heaven, Firetrap, Durch die Wüste

Mill Creek Box Sets:

Fists of Vengeance Martial Arts Collection, Spaghetti Westerns 20 Movies, Ten Thousand Ways to Die Spaghetti Western Collection, Ten Thousand More Ways to Die Spaghetti Western Collection

Books (in Finnish):

One Thousand And One Nights 1-6 (Finnish translation based on Waldemar Brögger's Norwegian edition). I already had one edition that contained about half of the stories.

James Bond: Zero Minus Ten by Raymond Benson, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, A Murder of Quality by John Le Carré, Captain Cook by Alistair MacLean, Summer of Night by Dan Simmons, Hammurabi by Vilho Sorvari, Pip, pip, Sir! (Selection of Jeeves stories) by P.G. Wodehouse

PS3-games:

I went digging bargain bins and found Assassin's Creed Amerigan Saga collection (AC III, AC IV Black Flag, AC Liberation). Destiny was sold at local electronics store opening sale for 2 €.

Movie Review: Disaster Movie

Disaster Movie 

Lionsgate, Grosvenor Park Media, 3 in the Box, USA, 2008. 

It's again the time to watch bad parody movies. I was planning to have a Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer Movie Marathon, but already this one was too much. It is just impossible to watch more than one of these movies without losing one's sanity.

In 10001 B.C. caveman (Matt Lanter) gets stomped by mammoth. Then he and American gladiator Wolf (Ike Barinholtz) battle. Then caveman meets sabre tooth Amy Winehouse (Nicole Parker). The caveman says her name so we know that she is Amy. Amy prophecies that the end of the world will come in 2008, Crystal Skull will be important then. In 2008 Will (Matt Lanter) wakes after a bad dream. He tries to wake his girlfriend Amy (Vanessa Minnillo) only to find out that they have shared the bed with Flavor Flav (Abe Spigner) and midget Jojo (Lloyd Arnold II). Will has a problem and he can not say to Amy that he loves her. 

Sabre tooth Amy Winehouse

Will

Amy

Will has his Sweet 16 Birthday party, actually he is 25 but he forgot to have the party before. Guests include hairy women and Dr. Phil impersonator. Will's buddy Calvin (Gary 'G-Thang' Johnson) dates with Lisa (Kim Kardashian). After some "Superbad" and "Juno" references and random acts of violence we get to the most important scene in the movie: Kim Kardashian wrestles with Carmen Electra.

This is going to be painful.

Dr. Phil Look-A-Like

Lisa and Calvin

Kim Kardashian wrestles with Carmen Electra

Amy arrives to the party with Calvin Klein underwear model. Then it is time for a terrible High School Musical spoof. And more bad celebrity imitations with obscene songs. Then a "Cloverfield" style disaster strikes. Will, Calvin, Lisa and pregnant Juney (Crista Flanagan) escape together and meet Hannah Montana who has been crushed under an asteroid. Then there is a dumb "Hancock" spoof. Oh, how I wish I had watched any of spoofed movies instead.

Then "Day After Tomorrow" style ice age hits. The four get shelter in a warehouse and meet "Sex and the City" gang. Carrie is by the way performed by male actor. Juney fights with Carrie, with some tasteless pregnancy jokes. My brain hurts. 

The guy from "Jumper" tries to hit on Amy but panics. He teleports to Narnia only to be impaled with Prince Caspian's sword. The four go outside and some body parts fall on the streets. Will tries to call Amy, but the GSM signal is bad. Asteroid kills Lisa, but soon Calvin meets the Princess from "Enchanted" (Nicole Parker again). But also Prince Edwin (Tad Hilgenbrink) appears. Calvin and Edwin battle for The Princess. Dance Battle.

Arrrgghhh.

The Princess

Tornado drops cows on some superheroes. Falling cow was fun in Monty Python & The Holy Grail" so it must be fun also here, right? Guess again. Meanwhile Amy is trapped under a fallen statue. She calls Will for help. Some random events follow where Princess eats glass and Calvin gets poop on his face. What next follows is a horrible Alvin & the Chipmunks scene. Still half an hour of torture left. 

Then citizens and Batman are evacuating. The Princess murders "Speed Racer". At the museum Amy tells that the only way to stop the Apocalypse is to put Crystal Skull back on the Altar where it belongs. Next "Beowulf" and "Kung Fu Panda" spoofs, some gay jokes and Indiana Jones (Tony Cox). After the world is saved there is still time for Amy's and Will's wedding and some more terrible songs. I want to cry. 

"Speed Racer" was much funnier than this movie

Indiana Jones Look-A-Like

The extra features may be actually more fun than the movie but I don't want to watch them. This movie was nominated on several categories of The 29th Golden Raspberry Awards. How it won none of the awards just shows how rigged the voting system is, there is no way that any of the other nominated movies could be worse than this. Friedberg & Seltzer managed to make a worse movie than "Meet the Spartans", I could not think it would even be possible. Also "Meet the Spartans" was mercifully shorter. This is one vile piece of garbage, burn it with fire. Watch any movie, any other movie. 

Rating: Very Bad

Starring: Matt Lanter, Vanessa Lachey, Gary 'G. Thang' Johnson, Nicole Parker, Crista Flanagan, Kim Kardashian West, Ike Barinholtz, Carmen Electra, Tony Cox, Tad Hilgenbrink, Nick Steele, John Di Domenico, Jason Boegh, Valerie Wildman, Abe Spigner, Noah Harpster, Austin Michael Scott, Devin Crittenden, Dana Seltzer, Michelle Lang, Jonas Neal, Walter Harris, Ty Miller, Gerard Facchini, Jacob Tolano, Roland Kickinger, Christopher Johnson, Preston James Hillier, Johnny Rock, David Born, Genevieve Guzchack, Hilary Kennedy, Lloyd Arnold II, Jared S. Eddo, Yoshio Iizuka, Lauren Gottlieb, Katrina Norman, Monica Soto, Audra Griffis, Amaris Davidson, Courtney Shay Young, Clinton Huff, Devin Walker, Dominique Kelley, Jeremy Barthel, Billy Jackson, Luke Sexton 

Directors: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Movie Review: The Final Countdown

The Final Countdown a.k.a U.S.S. Nimitz: Lost in the Pacific

The Bryna Company, USA, 1980.

Mysterious billionaire Mr. Tideland assigns systems analyst Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) to aircraft carrier U.S.S. Nimitz. His duty is to observe and think ways of making things go more efficiently. Captain Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas) welcomes him aboard. Unexpected storm rises and the ship is sucked into a mysterious vortex. When they recover, the contacts to military base are dead except for some ancient radio signals. The ship has ended in the middle of World War II just before attack on Pearl Harbor. Commander Richard Owens (James Farentino) is a history specialist so his knowledge comes in handy. The officers try to decide if they should interfere with the Japanese attack and change history or just go with the flow.

Warren Lasky

Captain Matthew Yelland

Commander Richard Owens

The Japanese Zeros attack a yacht carrying Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning) and his secretary Laurel Scott (Katharine Ross). The Americans go for help and there is F-14 Tomcats vs Zeros dogfight. Senator, Laurel and Charlie the Dog are saved together with surviving Zero pilot (Soon-Tek Oh). The senator is quite a doofus and Laurel is the one who writes his speeches. Laurel has to struggle in the men's world so Owens begins to admire her.

Time vortex

Laurel Scott

Senator Samuel Chapman

The Japanese attack force nears and Zero pilot gets nasty. Senator tries to send a radio message to Pearl Harbor, but gets a colourful response. Senator and Laurel are taken to safe place but everything does not go as planned. Captain decides to fight the Japanese but the time vortex disagrees with changing the history. Also Mr. Tidelands real identity is revealed.

Zero

Zero pilot gets nasty

This is a good light scifi with good aviation scenes, although there is not much dogfighting. Department of Defense co-operated with the production so there is good footage of aircraft carrier, takeoffs and landings. Real U.S.S Nimitz is well utilized in the movie. There is a slight letdown with the "Deus ex machina" style ending as the movie plays it safe by not changing history. Also the middle part is quite slow and uneventful, after a solid start. Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen seem to have fun as Captain and the analyst who have some friendly disagreement about the methods.

U.S.S. Nimitz

Rating: Good

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, Charles Durning, Victor Mohica, James Coleman, Soon-Tek Oh, Joe Lowry, Alvin Ing, Mark Thomas, Harold Bergman, Dan Fitzgerald, Lloyd Kaufman, Peter Douglas, Ted Richert, George Warren, Gary Morgan, Phil Philbin,

Robert Goodman, Richard Liberty, Neil Ronco, Bill Couch, Jack McDermott, Masayuki Yamazuki, George H. Strohsahl Jr., Ronald R. Stoops, Kenneth J. Jaskolski, Sergei M. Kowalchik, Jake Dennis, Jim Toone, Edward J. Deats ,Robert L. Huffman, James R. Augustus, Sam P. Baldwin, Ronnie J. Ellis, Timothy W. Gersbacher, Wayne L. Flesher, William S. Frost, David H. Signor

Director: Don Taylor