Juno

If you've made the horrible mistake of watching the movie Juno, then you should read this.

Update:
I had to respond to Milkman Dan's comments in this post because I really want to embed this hilarious video that he linked.



Juno is worth watching if you're a Michael Cera fan, but he doesn't have a huge role in the film. I would guess that he is in the movie only fifteen percent of the time, but he provides more than fifty percent of the funny. That math doesn't lie.

The problem with Juno is that the dialogue is so pretentious that it's distracting. The main character has all these contrivances that she makes an effort to display, yet act casual about. A good example is the famous hamburger phone scene, where she casually brings up the fact that she's using a novelty phone while scheduling an abortion. How wacky! It's not that my belief is suspended, because I'm sure there are more pretentious people than her in existence, but it's god damn annoying. I wouldn't want to spend more than an hour watching them without Michael Nelson providing commentary.

The deciding factor on how many stars to give this movie was the terrible music. This movie suffers from the same problem as The Darjeeling Unlimited. It unrelentingly assaults the viewer with horrible music. The movie plays multiple, full-track songs from horrible indie bands and edits the scenes to be longer so as to torture impress the audience with how indie it is. When you watch this movie, you're going to want a mute button handy.

Chemical Memories

By the grace of all that is good about science: Science Badges.

I claim a few of these badges, but I wish I could claim the shower badge. Those showers in chem lab always freaked me out. I remember watching the lab safety video in high school and noticing two things:

1. Male student A spills mystery chemical on himself and immediately runs to the shower and starts stripping. Male student B idly stands by and watches with no expression on his face. If he expressed fear or concern, it would be less disturbing, but his lack of expression was, to me, his suppressed joy of a deadly strip tease. After viewing that, my love of chemistry was dwarfed by my fear of spilling mystery chemical on myself and having some creepy guy stare at me excitedly as the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme music starts to play.



2. Rubber gloved hands break a glass rod and shove the glass through the palm of the other (obviously fake, yet still bleeding) hand and keeps shoving way past the point where one would react to the pain. It was almost like the person just gave up on life after the accident and just decided to commit suicide via hand stabbing.



Are all safety videos made to be funny? Maybe it's a method to make them more memorable. This German forklift safety video is pretty well known classic.

Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtle Madness

Today was turtle-rific! Dinsaur Comics' T-Rex recently talked about the lyrics to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme song. He was discussing whether Splinter taught them to be ninja teens or ninja teams. T-Rex said, "You don't have to be taught how to be a ninja TEEN. If you're a ninja and you're a teen, then you're already being a ninja teen!"

John from Sinosplice translated the Chinese version of the lyrics to English and solved the mystery. The Chinese version of the lyrics are very interesting. It turns out that, in the Chinese version of the show, Raphael was only a bit crude and Splinter is a rat brimming with passion.

In other parts of the web, Darwin's Natural Selections had pictures and videos of strange teenage mutant ninja toys. In fact, the fake commercial is so humorous, that it I found it necessary to embed the video below for all the lazies who don't like clicking on links, but will click on play buttons of videos which are embedded in amazingly content-rich blogs such as this one.



It's a green day in hell.

Future Theater of Scientific Mysteries

One of my favorite shows in the history of the televisual universe is Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you are also a huge nerd, then you will be pleasantly surprised to find that even after Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo returned to earth many years ago, they are still subjecting themselves to audio/visual torment (spiritually, at least).

The most exciting of these new projects is RiffTrax. RiffTrax features Michael J. Nelson, the head writer of MST3K, as well as many different guests who join Nelson in creating entertaining commentary tracks for some new DVD releases. All you have to do is download the mp3 and use your own home stereo (or with the RiffTrax Player) to Sync the audio with the movie, much like watching The Dark Side of Oz.

Raise your hand if you've already checked out some sweet RiffTrax action and, if so, what was your favorite episode? My favorite, so far, was Roadhouse. Nat and I have also watched Transformers, The Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element, Firewall, Casino Royale, Point Break, Fantastic Four and Mike Willey's Chocolate Factory. All of them were equally funny. We fell asleep while watching Star Trek V and 300, so I am unable recommend them. We are currently set to watch Glitter, Triple Ex, The Mattress, and Night of the Living Dead when we find the time.

Another MST3K spin-off project is Cinematic Titanic. Cinematic Titanic features five former MST3K veterans. They have their first movie available to download as of today, but I haven't watched it yet. I have high expectations.

The Film Krew is another way to get some Mystery Science action. I think I've only watched one Film Krew movie from start to finish. It was Hollywood After Dark and it features a stripper from The Golden Girls. Hot!

Mike Nelson also recorded commentary tracks for some old movies released on DVD such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, House on Haunted Hill, Night of the Living Dead, and Carnival of Souls. My favorite of these is the colorized Reefer Madness, which is funny even without the commentary track.

While I'm at it, I might as well add that Mike Nelson has also written several books. I have them all, but I have only read the picture books: Happy Kitty Bunny Pony, Love Sick and Goth-Icky. Nat has read his two novels Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters, Mike Nelson's Death Rat! as well as Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese.

All of this comedy greatness has inspired me to create my own commentaries for some of my favorite bad movies. I'll let you know when the project is complete. Of course, it will be free to download and enjoy via the magic of the Interwebs and it will be the cherry on top of my extensive comedy portfolio (which exists only in my mind). If you're reading this, Michael J. Nelson, I look forward to working with you soon I have told you nothing that you didn't already know.

from left to right: Crow T. Robot, Bill Corbett, Michael J. Nelson, Tom Servo, Kevin Murphy

Horrible People

Horrible People is another great show from MyDamnChannel.com. It's a comedy soap opera featuring actors, writing, and music that you would see in a normal day time drama.



It's written by A.D. Miles (Crystal Shyps) and features many funny comedians and a couple of actors as well. It seems like there must be a decent budget for these comedy shows. Well, maybe not because the first season seems like it is going to be about an hour long total. I hope there is a large enough market for this that they can keep making these types of shows. I still can't get any funding for my show. Please help get The Ryan Niemi Show off the ground by donating through paypal. Click here.

Wainy Days

I am a huge fan of The State and Stella, so I was very happy when I stumbled on Wainy Days, an internet show starring David Wain.



Also, I just watched The Ten, a movie directed by David Wain and it is pretty damn great. I couldn't understand why it only has a 3 star rating on Netflix, until I saw the very end of the movie. It's a perfect example of how not to end a movie. Now the ending of Wet Hot American Summer is how you end a movie.

Darkplace

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is one of the best shows ever made.

There is a rumor that Darkplace is being adapted into a film version. One can only hope.

You Suck It Photoshop

But that's OK because Donnie is here to help you.



The entire series is available at MyDamnChannel.com.

Battery Hacks

You may have heard of the many battery hacks on the internet. Basically, you can save money by opening a 9volt to get cheap AAA batteries or cracking open your dead laptop battery to bring it back to life.

Well now, there's the insane car battery hack:



Friendly hack!

Spider Science

You can't argue with science.


Effects Of Drugs And Alcohol On Spider Webs

Computer Man

Home Shopping Greatness

Here's a video of a Home Shopping Channel salesman getting injured on live TV.


Here he is again with an important message:
"Go in here, let the butterfly just fly in on that monkey."


Speaking of shopping at home, (I can't find the non-laughtrack version of this): Another video

Book Reviews

Amazon Book Reviews by someone who hasn't read the books!

"I have not actually read this book (Brokeback Mountain: Story to
Screenplay) but I did see the movie and I liked it very much. However,
I don't understand why people keep referring to it as the "gay cowboy
movie." Can't two men be very good friends without everybody saying
they're gay?"

Hilarious

Kilos of Fish

How many kilos of fish can one cat carry? 10 minutes of japanese
television has been dedicated to answering this question.

Shocking, But Not Surprising

AOL Admits 40% of Subscribers Don't Have Computers

"Well, these documents do explain one thing," said Kowshik. "I always wondered how AOL managed to maintain a customer satisfaction rate of 40%. Now we know exactly which 40% of their client base that is."

Red State Update

Red State Update comments on Al Gore The Movie.

Also:

Jackie and Dunlap have declared War! On Neil
Young! What can you do to help with the war
effort? Buy every Neil Young CD you can find,
just load up on 'em, even Arc, and send them
to:

Red State Update
PO Box 12181
Murfreesboro, TN 37129

When they get a mailbox full, Jackie and
Dunlap will burn 'em up, tape it, and put it on
the internet for you to enjoy.

And finally:
South Park's Al Gore The Movie

all the rest

Adolph Kitty

This cat looks like hitler.

"

Get used to it, Hitler."