A Fistful of Weird West! (Matt’s Picks)

    With this week’s Cowboys & Aliens hitting the multiplexes, we here at In the Mouth of Dorkness wanted to share some of our favorite tastes of the Weird West.

5.  The Tall Man’s Origin (Phantasm IV: Oblivion):  After all the other crazy reveals in this completely off the wall horror franchise, the discovery of the Tall Man’s origins has to be one of the most sad, but also fascinating for this retro science fiction buff.

4.  The Dust Devil’s Soul Hunt (Dust Devil):  Though not actually a Western at all, Dust Devil has all the look and feel.  And the title creature would fit right in, wandering the back roads of nowhere, looking for lost souls to consume.  Spirit world craziness and the worst of human nature collide in the deserts of the West…of modern-day Africa.

3.  Burt Gummer: Dandy? (Tremors 4: The Legend Begins):  If they go on long enough, horror movie franchises will eventually go to space.  But, they also frequently bounce back to the Wild West, which is where the Graboids go in this, the fourth film in the fun, goofy series.  Here, the ancestor of gun-toting survivalist Burt Gummer, Hiram, arrives in town and is not the stuff of action movie heroics to say the least.  But with a little logic and deduction, he my just get some killin’ done.

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2.  The Standoff (Outland):  It’s almost High Noon, and good cop Marshall William T. O'Niel isn’t going to let some two-bit mining exec have his unlawful way.  Even when two deadly goons travel all the way out to have a talk (read kill).  This remake of High Noon may not be so obvious at first, because it’s set in the future, on a deep space mining station.

1.  Gene Autry’s Strange Trip (The Phantom Empire):  Autry has a show to put on, and if it doesn’t go off without a hitch, he might just lose the ranch.  So, of course, like any good cowboy singer, he travels into the vast underground and faces off against the people of the lost continent of Mu.  And shucks, he has a good time.

-Matt

A Fistful of Bacon! (Matt's Picks)

    Kevin Bacon’s birthday was yesterday, and we didn’t think it should go unnoticed by the world of Dorks.  He was the definition of cool when I was a little one, and while his career has been all over the place, perhaps down more often than up, he’s hung in there and managed to earn some real respect. 

5.  The Charming Villainy of Sebastian Shaw (X-Men: First Class):  I was hardly the biggest fan of the latest mutant overload, but Kevin Bacon was like a bolt of lightning, giving the movie a great deal of its energy.  Like a mutant Bond villain, he was a worthy adversary for Magneto and  Prof. X.

4.  The Everyman Morality of Tom Witzky (Stir of Echoes):  Yeah, it’s not a very good movie, but Bacon sells the heck out of his Joe Schmo character’s dilemmas.   He’s gonna find out who done that young girl wrong, and he doesn’t care what rocks he has to upturn.

3.  He Wants That Cab (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles):  If it weren’t for Kevin Bacon, none of Steve Martin’s mad adventure would have ever happened.  Don’t mess with Bacon.

2.  The “Oh, Crap!” Moments of Jack Swigert (Apollo 13):  Sometimes you just have a bad day.  From forgetting to file his taxes, to getting stuck in a deathtrap far out in space, things could have gone better.

1.  The Movie Poster for Qucksilver (Quicksilver):  When I was a kid, this poster hung in every video shop, from the mom & pop convenience store down the street to the two story job in the center of town.  As I grew up, this VHS was at every video shop.  Yet, like Lyle Alzado’s Destroyer (another ubiquitous poster), I never got around to seeing it.  But you rocked the 80s, street biking Bacon!

-Matt

A Fistful of Bacon! (Brad's Picks)

Happy Belated Birthday, Kevin Bacon.  You have entertained us for years with your rebel-rousing dance moves, Bacon Brothers rock tunes, and your endless Six Degrees of Separation.  As a thank you for both your big and small roles, ITMOD devotes this Fistful Friday (uh Saturday) to your greatest roles.

5.  The Perversion of Sean Nokes (Sleepers):  Not necessarily a great movie, I find the child actors kinda annoying.  But Kevin Bacon's villainous pedophile juvie prison guard is perfectly terrifying.  And I love how sad and pathetic he is when you meet him years later scarfing down Italian at the back of that crappy NYC restraunt.  The monster deserves that bullet, but that old ragamuffin sure is small.

4.  The Tragedy of Henri Young (Murder in the First):  Another movie that manipulates and tears at your heartstrings, but damn, Bacon's mentally stalled convict is soul crushingly sad.  Things are not going to go well for him, but it's his aching performance that gets ya rooting for Christian Slater's crusade against Alcatraz.

3.  The Sexual Ambiguity of Lanny Morris (Where The Truth Lies):  Another sad character in another sad movie.  This one steeped in sex and unsolvable murder.  Bacon's Lanny is a veiled disguise for Jerry Lewis, a man who may love his straight-man partner as much as his countless female conquests.  Where The Truth Lies is a wonderfully icky film that we have come to expect from director Atom Egoyan, and Bacon (& Firth) deliver deliciously slimy performances.

2.  The Financial Dreams of Valentine McKee (Tremors):  Is there a film more fun than Tremors?  The answer if you don't already know is...NO.  Like the previous film on the list, Tremors has an unbeatable pairing in Bacon and Fred Ward.  They discover prehistoric underground Graboids in their backyard, and with a little help from Egg Shen, their eyes light with $$$ at the potential monster tourist trade.  Good luck guys, I hope you have a next door neighbor with plenty of firearms.

1.  The Rage of Nick Hume (Death Sentence):  From the director of SAW and based on the novel by the same demented mind that brought us Death Wish, Death Sentence is an equally brutal revenge thriller in which Bacon's Father/Husband goes on a kill-crazy-rampage against the hoods that cut down his family.  The film does not pull punches and neither does Bacon.  Bullets, machetes, and John Goodman's coke-bottle glasses will not block the terror of his double-barreled shotgun.  Kevin Bacon is a Monster and that's why Death Sentence gets the top spot.

Bacon Bonus:

--Brad

A Fistfull of Unwelcomed Visitors! (Matt's Picks)

5.  The Thing:  Are you it?  Would you even know?  Not even Quaker Oats can fight off this shape shifting, body stealing monstrosity from beyond, do you hear we?  Either we’re at war with the Norwegians, or we’ve got Thing trouble.  Bundle up, and don’t go with Windows.  Go with Childs.

Darn Norwegian

4.  The Russians:  Everything was going just fine in Middle America until those Red bastards dropped from the sky and a band of local kids had to go all John Rambo on their butts.

3.  Graboids:  Don’t step too heavy or these beasts from the depths of the Earth will come a’callin.  They’ll eat your truck.  They’ll wreck your house.  And only Alex P. Keaton’s dad has enough firepower to make them pause.

Don't look now, John Bly!

2.  O’Niel:  The mining company has everything all sewed up when a pesky, honorable law man O’Niel shows up and asks too many questions.  One raging, station crawling, pressure losing battle later, profits may never recover.

1.  The Aliens from Third Planet, Black Hole, Outer Space.  These dirty apes will build a robot to kick your atomic powered lizard’s tail.  They are snappy dressers, though.