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Son of the Top 9 Most Underrated Comedy Movies!!!

Published

on January 29, 2011

. 3 Comments

Underrated Comedies - Gentlemen Broncos, Midgets vs. Mascots

A year and a half ago, I did a list called The Top 9 Most Underrated Comedy Movies of the Past Few Years. Here now is my return to that theme... my updated list of the Top 9 most underrated comedies of the past few years!

9. Finishing the Game. I love 70s movies. I love Bruce Lee. And thus I ~~loved~~ liked this movie. It didn't blow my mind or make me piss myself, but it was an entertaining mockumentary that rewarded me for being a Bruce Lee fan. Plus, it was a good Hollywood satire. [Buy it now: Finishing the Game on Amazon]

8. The Slammin' Salmon. Wait... this went direct-to-video but Club Dread was in theaters? THAT'S A CRIME! Similar to Finishing the Game, this wasn't super laugh out loud funny, but it had a lot of chuckles and it certainly kept my attention. It's like Waiting... but better. [Buy it now: The Slammin' Salmon on Amazon]

7. The Brothers Solomon. Truly stupid. It's hard to watch this and not cringe at the ignorance of the characters, the concept, and the humor. But there're some surprisingly hilarious and unexpected jokes that come out of left field and slap the funny in your face. [Buy it now: The Brothers Solomon on Amazon]

6. Midgets vs. Mascots. DISCLAIMER: Not for everyone! It's racist, sexist, homophobic... and so on. It's a parody, so it's not all those things in a serious way. But it'll offend you. Me, on the other hand, I think the shart scene is the greatest achievement in modern cinema. [Buy it now: Midgets vs. Mascots on Amazon]

5. I Love You Phillip Morris. Part of me wants to swap this movie out for Dance Flick and leave it off the list... BUT I left it on here because it's criminally underrated. I haven't heard any talk or buzz about it! It's funny and emotional, and it sticks with you. [Buy it now: I Love You Phillip Morris on Amazon]

4. Death at a Funeral. (The American remake, that is.) I heard bad reviews. I assumed it was Martin and Chris Rock's The Expendables. I was wrong. It's a fantastic screwball comedy along the lines of Dinner for Schmucks (another underrated comedy, natch). [Buy it now: Death at a Funeral on Amazon]

3. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. Wow. I should have expected no less from Neal Brennan. I mean, this was shockingly funny. Stupid, yes. But incredibly funny. One of those "choke on my own laughter" kinds of funny. DISCLAIMER: It's very ignorant!!! [Buy it now: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard on Amazon]

2. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Extended Cut). The extended cut is looong, but it's fantastically funny. I mean, it's better to the point where I wouldn't recommend watching the non-extended cut. Bonus: this movie has lots of quotable moments. And penis. [Buy it now: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on Amazon]

1. Gentlemen Broncos. This choice is odd for me considering how often I favor in-your-face joke delivery. But I love this film up and down. It's probably the most underrated AND funniest thing on this list. It's insane, quotable, and warrants multiple viewings. [Buy it now: Gentlemen Broncos on Amazon]

More:
- See this same list of underrated comedies on our AudioShocker Amazon aStore
- The Top 9 Most Overrated Comedy Movies of the Past Few Years

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

Time Log Christmas Card

Published

nick marino

on January 2, 2011

in Misc

. 0 Comments

Here's the awesome Christmas card that Pete received from his brother Jack:

Kickass, right? Jack really nailed Time Log's visual style!

2010 YOU DON'T SUCK Awards = accepting nominations

Published

nick marino

on December 29, 2010

in Misc

. 13 Comments

That's right!!! The 3rd annual YOU DON'T SUCK Awards are on! It's the end of December, and that means it's time for you to let us know your favorites from 2010.

Categories this year include:

Comics [webcomics count too, people!]
Movies
Music
TV
Books
And the newcomer darkhorse category... Tea!

So tell what you watched, listened to, read, and drank this year that rocked your world. We'll be accepting nominations for the next few weeks, and then we'll announce the winners of the 2010 YOU DON'T SUCK Awards via podcast in late January / early February.

Oh, BTW, here are 2009's YDS winners and 2009's nominations, and here are the 2008 YDS winners.

GO AHEAD AND START NOMINATING HERE IN THE COMMENTS! The nominations are already going strong in the comments to AudioShocker Podcast #162, so check them out and then toss out your own.

Around the World in 37 Days

Published

neal

on December 24, 2010

in Misc

. 0 Comments

As you probably know, I'm currently in Terminal 4 at JFK, waiting to board my flight to Delhi. After two weeks in the motherland, I'll be off to Australia, returning sometime around the 29th of January. Hopefully I'll come back alive and without Herpes. If not, well, Nick/Pete/Justique/Ross/Kelly will still be around. PEACE!

Culturology #82 - Funny, Not Funny, Funny Again

Published

pete

on December 17, 2010

in Culturology and TV

. 1 Comment

In the spirit of Nick posting Time Log many hours late yesterday, I'd like to go ahead and sneak a Culturology out, here, ten minutes before the end of the work day (having just managed to hit an important deadline in my non-Audioshocker work). So... one thing that seems worth mentioning is that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which was America's funniest television show back during its third season, but then drooped mightily in seasons four and five, really picked it up again this year with episodes packed wall-to-wall with crack-me-ups. The show is mean-spirited enough that it laps back around to just being funny without me feeling concerned about its mean-spiritedness (like I think it did in seasons 4 and 5; had me concerned, that is).

It's nice when a TV show that used to be funny and then stopped being funny gets funny again. So it has me thinking of other times when that's happened. I'd say South Park pulled off a similar trick, since it was quite funny when it first came out, but then got pretty old pretty fast--by the middle of the second season, in terms of the whole foul-mouthed 3rd-graders things. But then, in season five, the Towelie episode came out, which was hilarious, and got me to watch South Park again for a while, until it got old again. But since the Towelie episode, the show has consistently had some great episodes every season, and plenty of chunky ones. The last great peak, though, was across seasons nine and ten, between the "Trapped in the Closet" episode and "Cartoon Wars" (the latter of which finally and ultimately won me over to the South Park cause).

Sadly, The Simpsons never had a similar surge. I realize that some people have thought that The Simpsons are funny during the past decade of seasons, but the show has never returned to the heights of its 3rd-7th Seasons. There was some talk of a resurgence a couple of years ago, but that seemed, again, more like a decision made by over-zealous fans that are over-educated and don't like it when TV points out how mindless and lazy they are as middle-class consumers, who then decided that, damn it, The Simpsons was funny again. So that they could feel better about watching The Simpsons instead of, I don't know, voting.

What I've been wishing for a while now is that somehow those direct-to-dvd American Pie spin-off movies would suddenly become hilarious. I mean, it was a long time ago that American Pie came out, but I remember it being pretty genuinely funny. And it always seems like direct-to-dvd should have the kind of culture in the States that it has in Japan (or, more correctly, that I presume that it has in Japan, based on watching, like, three direct-to-DVD movies from Japan).

I'm still hoping there's more examples of shows that went from good to bad and then back to good again (maybe SNL counts, when one of its cast gets funny for a couple shows before sucking again?), but I'm guessing they're mostly going to come from the ranks of basic cable networks, since mostly, once I think gets old, it gets put out to pasture. On the DVD commentary track to the Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob follows the Simpson/Thompson family to Cape Fear (or whatever it was called, is that what it was called?), the commentators point out that in that joke where Bob steps on the rakes for such a long time, there's this balance where the gag is funny for a couple takes, then stops being funny, but then, once it goes on for way too long, becomes extremely hilarious. And so maybe that's really the phenomenon here: these shows are still just hitting the same beats, and have managed to stick around long enough that the repetition of the same shit over and over again has gotten funny again.

Culturology #81 - Zombies Are Republicans

Published

pete

on December 10, 2010

in Comics, Culturology and TV

. 6 Comments

Not interested in having Neal jump my slot again, Culturology is back with what Vanilla Ice might have called a "brand new adventure," but I'll call "more complaints about stuff that most people think is just fine." Namely: the zombie TV show that was just on and so popular, The Walking Dead.

Is it just me, or was this show popular because people like Mad Men and Breaking Bad so much? Like, people want so badly for there to be good programming on cable television, that they just will themselves into believing that a show which is mediocre at best is one of the great achievements of contemporary televised entertainment. Now, I like zombies as much as the next person, and I think there are probably are interesting things to be said about the current trend of putting the "geist" back into "zeitgeist," but, having gone ahead and jumped on this bandwagon, and watched all six episodes of The Walking Dead, I'm mostly left scratching my head about what people see in this.

The biggest thing that I see is what South Park figured out years ago: the conservative powers that run our censorship boards don't mind grotesque violence. There's a massive double standard between censorship of violence and censorship of sex or speech acts. So zombies are pretty much the safest vehicle for cutting edge cable-TV violence, since they don't have sex and don't talk. In a lot of ways, The Walking Dead is about little more than acts of "Look what we can show on cable TV nowadays! Amazing!" It does nothing new for the zombie genre, nor for the TV drama genre, or anything else, other than there's lots and lots of rotting flesh and gun shots to human skulls. I haven't read the comic book, but I presume a lot of the flat-ness of the zombie mythology is they fault of the book, and not the TV show.

Again, there are probably interesting questions to ask about zombies, so maybe this show was an excuse for zombie nerds to talk about zombies? I'm not really a zombie nerd. I don't really want to talk about it.

AudioShocker Podcast Media for November 2010

Published

nick marino

on December 1, 2010

in Misc

. 0 Comments

Help support the AudioShocker! If you're planning on picking up some DVDs or mp3s or anything else from Amazon.com, pls consider using our Amazon aStore!!! Basically, you click on the links in our store and we get a tiny percentage of the purchase price.

To help make it easy for you, I've created a list of all the tantalizing media we talked about in November. From Black Belt Jones to Cherry 2000 to Arrested Development (band AND show), we covered a lot of ground. Check out what we talked about and, if you decide to buy any of it, use our links to get you to the checkout!

Culturology Presents... The Punisher in OVER THE TOP 2

Published

nick marino

on November 29, 2010

in Comics and Culturology

. 5 Comments

In the comments for the most recent Project Basement, Kaylie and Pete suggested some Over the Top fan fiction starring the Punisher (inspired by Katie's Punisher vs. Marv drawing, of course).

Feeling inspired myself, I decided to write it. And seeing as how Pete published his brother's incredible fanfic (pt1 and pt2) earlier this year in Culturology, I figured this is as good a place as any to post it.

---------------

I never dreamed I'd become a major competitor, let alone make it to the top. But here I am, in Las Vegas, with stakes out the ass and money riding on my every move.

Will I trip on some errant urine in the men's room? Will I give some guy the wrong look and get my face punched in before the final round? Who knows.

But what I do know is this -- I'm Frank Castle and I'm the underdog contender for the 2010 World Arm Wrestling Championship.

The Punisher in... OVER THE TOP 2

My room is nice. They're paying for me to stay in that one hotel that looks like a pyramid. It makes me sick to my stomach to think of all the crime going on right under my nose -- brothels, card counting, dining and ditching. But that's the name of the game here in Vegas. And I've got bigger fish to fry.

Once I win the 2010 World Arm Wrestling Championship, I'll be in the inner circle. I can trace the bookies and bets all the way back to the top and find the guy that funded the drugs that my wife and kids used to shoot up uncontrollably for 24 hours a day for two years straight.

They told me they wanted to stop, damn it!!! They told me they would quit!!! But everyday I'd see them with those fucking needles in their arms and that black tar heroin smeared all over their lips. FUCK!!!

Anyway, back to the arm wrestling. See, I saw this movie called Over the Top a few years ago. It's a Stalone flick. You ever see it? It rules. Point is, it's fucking Stalone fucking arm wrestling and kicking ass. You ever see Rambo? That was awesome too.

So I decided I wanted to take it over the top. Yeah, I know my kid wasn't kidnapped or anything, but screw it. I have this grudge about my dead family and I hate criminals and I've got this fake ID with the name Moose Bullworth on it, so I figured why not give it a shot, right?

And now it's time for me to get ready for the final match.

----

Two hours of meditation followed by five minutes of masturbation and I'm ready to go. I ate a Hungry-Man TV dinner and I feel like a million bucks. I'm gonna take it OVER THE TOP tonight!

I step out onto the stage and the crowd goes nuts. They love my stylized skull t-shirt and my rugged good looks. They're clapping and yelling "DEAD MAN! DEAD MAN!" as I walk out, trying to intimidate my competitor before he even sets foot on the stage. This is amazing.

Then my opponent comes out of the shadows and I'm shocked. The audience wasn't yelling for me... they were yelling AT me! She's a 7' tall amazonian piece of she-meat, green from head-to-toe and wearing a purple bathing suit. What in the shit is going on???

Her name tag says "Jennifer" on it. This can't be right -- I never signed up to get my arm crushed by a roid-freak goddess parading around in her underwear! I wanted to feel the sweaty sting of man moisture on my palms as I slammed his hand against the mini-mat. THIS WASN'T PART OF THE DEAL!!!

Whatever. It doesn't matter. I can still win. I'm the goddamn Punisher and I'm gonna punish her.

----

She gets her elbow lined up and ready to rock. PSSSHH. Amateur. I've been ready for two minutes.

I'm ready to fight, ready to win. I'm gonna win.

I grip her hand hard and show her what I'm made of. Damn, she's got big fingers. Like thick little green sausages. I could eat one of them right now, I'm so fucking hungry to win. I'd just bite it off and suck the goopy irradiated green blood out of it like the cream filling in a Twinkie. FUCK.

The ref shouts "START!" and we push our hands together, our arms bristling with the exhilaration of competition. The audience cheers us on. Actually, no. They just cheer her on. But what do I fucking care? I'm the Punisher, damn it.

I fight hard. Real hard. But things are looking down. She's stronger than me and she's got more energy. But I'm ready... ready to take it OVER TH--

WHAT!?! What's she doing??? NOOO!!!! That's my move! She's realigning her fingers, starting out with the index finger and slowly rewrapping her grip over top of my hand. SHE'S TAKING IT OVER THE TOP!!!

How could this happen to me? Did she see that movie too? C'mon! NO ONE SAW THAT FUCKING MOVIE! It's my favorite movie, not hers! I'm out to kill the heroin-daddy that slaughtered my family with his addictive smack! I'm ready to kill in the name of American freedom! This can't be happening to me!!!

I feel a pop in my right elbow. It's sort of liberating, really. I can give up now. My bone begins to tear through the skin as I start to black out. There's blood oozing onto the floor and the crowd is going nuts. She says "Eat it, dickwad!!! I just took it over the top!" right before I hit the ground.

----

I wake up to see her standing over me, the crowd silent now. She tore off my skull t-shirt and wrapped it around my arm to slow the bleeding.

"Frank Castle, you're under arrest," she says. "You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of--"

"FUCK YOU," I tell her as I spit in her face.

"You wish," she says with a smile and a wink.

Oh well... I gave it my best shot. I tried to take it over the top. It just didn't work out. I'm gonna go to jail for murdering thousands of evil slime trash deadbeat hustler criminals and cleaning up the streets of New York. I make it safe for these ants to live their meaningless stupid little lives and what thanks do they show me? They wanna lock me up and throw away the key. What a fucked up world.

Culturology #80 - Are You on TV? Then You are a Republican!

Published

pete

on November 12, 2010

in Culturology and TV

. 7 Comments

I got back to America in time for two things:

1) The mid-term elections.

2) Conan O'Brien's new show on TBS.

And boy did they both suck!

I've written before about late night television, and tuning back into Conan's new show confirmed the conclusion I came to back in Culturology #55:

One thing I don't feel bad about is Conan O'Brien losing his job. I think I stopped really caring about late night TV just in time for that whole hullabaloo (despite my one hemi-post trying to speak of the issues there-involved).

There's obviously something spurious in my continued need to state that I don't care about something anymore, since clearly I continue to care just enough to keep bringing it up (and, Norm MacDonald should still have his own talk show, and I would watch that). So maybe this is the last time that I bother with Conan, since he's just getting more and more boring. In a way, basic cable is safer for him, since there can't really be any ratings demand.

Speaking of the mid-term elections, I don't think there's a better insult available in my repetoire right now then "You are a Republican!" So, now that Conan isn't funny anymore (now that I'm not 17 anymore), I feel like he must be a Republican. Jon Stewart stopped being funny, what, five years ago? Republican. Does your television show involve sitting at a desk? Republican.

I think Teabaggers probably hate and distrust most not-totally-obviously-insane-and-bigoted television personalities, but I think, basically, if you're on television, than you're a Republican. Even if you're a Democrat, or "liberal," or whatever, if you're on TV then you're basically a Republican. There was some thing on the internet the other day about some Republican-minded survey group releasing a list of what shows Democrats watch versus what shows Republicans watch. But, sorry kids, all TV is right-wing TV.

Time Log's Gonna Be Late Today!!!

Published

nick marino

on November 11, 2010

in Misc

. 3 Comments

Sorry peeps. It'll be up in the evening, after I get home from work (and it's my last week of work... so start thinking of things you want to hire me for!!!). In the meantime, enjoy this Avatar (Airbender, NOT BLUE CAT PEOPLE!) line test animation: