WATCH: Under Siege Re-Cut as a Silent Film is Just the Best

Written by Vince Mancini / 04.29.13

Some internet genius has one-upped us all today, taking Under Siege and recutting it as a silent film. We’ve seen some silent movie edits before, but this is magical. Consider the source. Under Siege was a landmark film for a number of reasons. For one thing, it was the high-water mark of Steven Seagal’s career – he was working with TWO Oscar nominees! – after which it would be all downhill, when word of his unique physiological reactions  spread around and he was relegated to the undercards of Hollywood and could no longer keep track of space or time. But the early 90s was a more innocent, more ponytailed time. Then there was the unforgettable naked Erika Eleniak popping out of a cake, a scene that doesn’t need me to justify its historical import. Which is to say nothing of the plot itself, the archetypal “ship’s cook saves the day,” which became so iconic that a lying pastor in Pennsylvania eventually tried to pass it off as his life story, and was used in at least six more straight-to-DVD Seagal movies. This film should be required viewing in high school classrooms.

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VIDEO: “We Saw Your Junk” gives Seth MacFarlane’s Boobs song a sex change

Written by Vince Mancini / 02.26.13

Probably the easiest criticism of Seth MacFarlane’s “sexist” “Why couldn’t the song have been about men?

To that end, flowy-locked New York software developer Kevin Gisi has released his own gender-swapped version of “We Saw Your Boobs,” called “We Saw Your Junk.” If I had one criticism of this, it’s that he doesn’t use Harvey Keitel for the breakdown. Come on! If ever there was a male Kate Winslet, it’s Harvey Keitel. Harvey Keitel’s penis has been in The Piano (which he mentions), Bad Lieutenant, and Ulysses’ Gaze, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure Harvey Keitel’s penis has been a bunch of places, places I can’t even imagine.

If I had a second criticism of this, it would be WHY ISN’T A WOMYN SINGING IT, HUH? Is it because Kevin Gisi doesn’t think women are funny? Is it because he thinks women can’t sing? Oh yeah, nice one, dude, I guess you’ve never heard of Taylor Swift or Aretha Franklin. If a woman sang this, YouTube would probably only pay her 70% of a man’s ad-sharing, because that’s the world we live in. That’s the reality. Kevin Gisi is probably some jock redneck who thinks women should just stay in the kitchen baking and popping out babies and not singing, and it’s just such typical bullshit that a white man has co-opted female culture and silenced women of color and stolen the voice of the disenfranchised yet again. I mean look at his hair! What’s that about? Is he mocking women? How is this any different from blackface? This whole video is like cultural rape. At the very least, it’s promoting a culture of cultural rape. Shame on you, Kevin, you bully rapist.

[AV Club]

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SUPERCUT: “It’s a no brainer.”

Written by Vince Mancini / 02.22.13

I’m always intrigued by the supercuts of specific phrases, like “You just don’t get it, do you.” That one’s perfect, because it’s something movie characters say constantly, and I’m 95% sure I’ve never heard it once in real life. Here, Debbie Saslaw (of the Flash Sazz Wagon Saslaws) of Slacktory has put together a supercut of “It’s a no-brainer.” She writes, “Has anyone ever really said this?”

I would argue “it’s a no-brainer” is a much more commonly-used phrase than “you just don’t get it, do you,” but the 37 movies and shows combined in this supercut seem to suggest that it’s still a lot more common in movies and TV than it is in real life. It seems to perform two basic functions:

1. “It’s a no-brainer.” As in, “this is me convincing you to do something that’s not actually obvious at all because it will propel the plot forward.” Such as, “hey, Chandler, you should get a pet monitor lizard to eat these cockroaches and name it Jake. I mean it’s a no-brainer.”

2. “It’s a no-brainer.” As in, “I just used a character to deliver some blatant plot exposition and he would seem either not-believable or like a total idiot if I didn’t have him at least acknowledge the obviousness of the thing he just said.”

I like that the supercut goes purely literal at the end. It’s a no brainer.

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Kai the Hitchhiker got that surfboard and wetsuit he wanted

Written by Vince Mancini / 02.12.13

While I’m mostly convinced that the Kai the Homeless free Hitchhiker story is eventually going to end in tragedy or at least mundane depression, a la the Golden-Voiced Hobo, for the time being, it’s still fairly uplifting. Kai went on Jimmy Kimmel last night, and in a six-minute segment (you can watch below), proved to be just as compelling as he was when he was delivering positive messages and smashing a guy with a hatchet. Besides the fact that Kai is basically a foul-mouthed, surf-bro version of the Incredible Hulk, a drifter who goes from town to town hiding from his demons while fighting crime and enforcing his own moral code, he seems suspiciously educated. For instance, in the original video, Kai described the victim of his hatchet justice as “haole, got no breath in him, you know what I’m saying?”

“Haole” being a Hawaiian term for foreigner, which some people think means “breathless,” stemming from Hawaiians’ observation that foreigners didn’t use a Polynesian greeting that includes breath sharing. It’s not crazy that a surfer might know something like that, but this time around, Kai also quotes Greek (25 seconds into the second video – something about “fileo towards sofia”) and mentions a story about the queen of England locking two ravens in the Tower of London (1:35 of the second video) -  a reference to the legend that the kingdom would fall if ravens ever left the Tower of London, specifically the two ravens born there in May 2012. So, if Kai isn’t educated, he’s at the very least a hobo who reads a lot. Oh, but that’s not all.

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Hitchhiking Hatchet Hero AutoTune is surprisingly uplifting (with follow-up interview)

Written by Vince Mancini / 02.07.13

As everyone expected since three seconds after it happened, Kai the Homeless Hitchhiking Hatchet Hero (yes, I know that he prefers to be known as “home-free,” not “homeless,” but it’s a little late for that) has spawned his very own autotune (well, multiple autotunes, this one courtesy of the Gregory Bros). It’s not really surprising that it lends itself well to autotune, since Kai prefaced his interview with a fourth-wall-breaking inspirational message that wouldn’t have been out of place as the spoken-word bridge of any up-with-people pop song. And of course, the interview had a natural chorus, and I think we all already knew what it was. SMASH SMASH SUH-MAAAASH.

I love Kai, but I am a little concerned that all this is going to ruin his life. Above almost all else, the life of a chilled-out drifter relies on anonymity. So as much as I want to know more about him, his message is more powerful if “Kai” remains but a last-nameless, exact-ageless idea, roaming from town to town inspiring the populace with his beautiful words and bashing sex offenders’ heads in with camping tools. It’s important we savor this moment, while his only outstanding warrant is for keeping it real. Be excellent to each other, bros.

Updates below.

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