127 Hours

127 HOURS WAS MAXIMUM SELF OWNAGE. HE DRANK HIS PEE & ALMOST BEAT OFF.

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle's a real deal auteur motherfucker, son. I'm all in.

The Color of Money

I like these low-key Scorsese flicks because I think we all need to be reminded of how great a filmmaker Marty really is. Now it's not like we ever forget that Goodfellas is the greatest movie ever made every time we watch it on TNT, but, see, that's the thing....it's on, like, every other Saturday. Color of Money, though, ain't never on no Turner network and I have yet to see Loni Love or Paul Scheer talk about it on a VH1 clip show, so when you sit on your couch and fire it up, hell, it's ALL up to you.

Music by Robbie Robertson, script by Richard Price, knock-it-out-of-park cameo by Forest Whitaker, and one seriously tremendous fucking actin' performance by one Paul Motherfucking Newman. Witness the goddamn manliest sonofabitch the world's ever seen. Let's hear it for King Marty. He never let New York, New York get him down.

I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

Finally saw this and only watched it for the Joe Bob Briggs audio commentary 'cause, well, let's be honest here, John Bloom is a bona fide genius. And when I say "genius," I of course mean that Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In single-handedly changed my life.

No, really. My life. Come on, let's check them Highland Cinema/JBB stats:

• 1993 -- walked to junior high on Friday mornings talking about Midnight Tease and Robert Davi.
• 1995 -- emailed JBB from my CompuServe account to get the free copy of The Joe Bob Report newsletter. Afterward, looked up stills of Pamela Anderson from Raw Justice.
• 1996 -- New Year's Resolution to see every movie starring Billy Blanks and/or Dolph Lundgren. Nothing to it.
• 1997 -- Video Picks column in the high school newspaper. Highlights included Attack of the 50 Foot Centerfold/Frankenhooker and Redneck Zombies/Basket Case. Excited when I found Joe Bob's article about Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in a box of old issues of Rolling Stone.
  
• 1999 -- Drove by a used bookstore in downtown Denver and immediately thought, "I wonder if they have a copy of Joe Bob's Guide to Western Civilization." They did.
  
• 2000-2005 -- College-informed Woody Allen/Michel Foucault hiatus but stayed true to the cause by sandwiching Eaten Alive and The Hills Have Eyes between Chaplin's The Circus and Sayles' Men with Guns. Finally came back around with Cannibal Ferox and Hiroku the Goblin.
  
• 2006 -- Launched The Highland Cinema. Have shamelessly replaced "-g's" with apostrophes ever since.

I Spit on Your Grave is thirty years old and even with all of the overwrought, overblown critical hoopla that the film carries with it, and even with all of the signature Joe Bob analysis and pre-Information Superhighway trivia, this flick is still as uncomfortable and squirm inducing as anything that's come out before or since. Defending it will make you feel like a real jerk, but I think we oughta hand it to Meir Zarchi and Camille Keaton for wholeheartedly committing to a movie that's not about much more than castrating rapists and taking 'em to task with the business end of an outboard motor. I'm not sure I would have "enjoyed" this picture without Joe Bob's voice talking up the camera's feminist gaze, detailing the resumes of every last actor on the screen, or taking apart Siskel and Ebert's oft-mentioned lambasting of the film piece by piece, but I had all of those things and I came away with an even greater appreciation of the finely-crafted Briggs persona and half a mind to send What Have You Done to Solange? to the top of the queue.

Check out Joe Bob as he waxes phi-lo-sophically on H.G. Lewis' Blood Feast. I'm already smilin'.

I Am Comic

I used to hit every metal show that came to town, but at last Saturday's Goatwhore / Watain twofer I spent the entire night agonizing about how best to tweet my desire to make fun of everyone in the venue.

So, yep, guess it's official. I'm done with music. The future belongs to stand-up.

The Hurt Locker

Renner played Dahmer. We're down.