So there I was, confused, kinda drunk, empty flask on the hip, quite possibly dreaming…

…deserted on a tropical island with Brooke Shields…Audrey Hepburn calling me Fred…scattering Steve Buscemi’s ashes…Tom Hanks singing the Cowboy Song……Robert Duvall telling me that the waves break both ways…and fading away as Elisabeth Shue made me rice. Then I started thinking about…joining the army cause these are the same people I see at unemployment…or maybe I could invent the Opti-Grab…or should I just bet it all on Fleet Dreams…

…and then someone asked me, “What are your top five movies of all time?” A challenge that Shago will accept. My only disclaimer is that, in my opinion, great movies have to have “re-watch-ability.” There are great movies like Schindler’s List, Pan’s Lybyrinth, The Usual Suspects, Das Boot, Saving Private Ryan…etc, but, for the top of my pork list, I need it to be in my collection and always available.

1. Casablanca. Maybe I’m a rank sentimentalist, but easily the greatest movie ever made. Great actors portraying believable characters in a fabulous story. Drama, love, a great ending, and most of all, Bogart’s subtle comedy, “do you want a drink…of course not…mind if I have one?” Mullets, watch this movie again, it’s a masterpiece.

2. The Godfather. An easy choice. Great writing + great acting + great directing = brilliance. Am I the only one that can still watch a three hour movie?

3. The Sting – Newman & Redford, I love to watch it so I can remember what acting used to be. They make movies today to show guns, violence, women, suffering, etc in unending and incomprehensible actions scenes. They think this will cover up the fact that there is no story. Give me a movie like The Sting, I want more characters, I’ve already seen every explosion.

4. The Matrix, I’m not a big Keanu fan, but I really think this is a great movie. In fact, Joe Pantoliano and Hugo Weaving make the movie, they’re fabulous. Next time you watch it, take note of how many times you are captivated by them just talking. The sequels could never equal the original, but which ever could? (Phantom Menace, looking at you…). I’ll have trouble believing that you weren’t blown away the first time you saw this. Plus Carrie-Anne Moss in leather!

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark. After watching this , didn’t everyone want to be Indy? I know I did. Unfortunately, Kingdom of Crystal Skull did knock this down to 5…and still falling.

Honorable Mention

Star Wars: of course.

Jaws – I really want to put this in the top 5 and it may replace Raiders as I write this. After this movie came out, people became mortified of sharks, wow. Kinda like everyone fears Transformers, Hangovers, Cobra, Horowitz, Museums, Christian Bale’s next accent, and marrying Sandra Bullock now…right? …maybe? …hello? …can I get a hallelujah from 20C? …or not? Ok, those movies may be 80 minutes of “fun”, but after watching Jaws, you were seriously afraid of water…awesome.

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan: the best and only reason to consider that a sequel could be better than the original. Dear Hollywood, if Ricardo Montalban is not in your sequel, reconsider making it.

James Bond. Bond movies of the 70’s and 80’s were fantastic. And, in my opinion, really started its own genre (anything spy, government related…i.e. Bourne, Tom Clancy etc.) Well done.

The Shawshank Redemption: Excellent movie with all the elements of greatness. Great story, great character development, great ending. But can you watch Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood and still have the same respect for this movie? I can’t.
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And I might as well throw in the worst…off the top of my head…hmm…maybe something with Horowitz? How about Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael? Watched it with Anita Mandalay, and we agreed, quite possibly the worst thing I ever saw.

Hello again mullets and welcome to another addition of Shago’s Random Thoughts (or ShaRTs as I just named them). Today’s movie is Jurassic Park starring Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern. As I watched this movie for the third time this month, I began wondering many things, so I decided to write them down. Enjoy:

First off, do I even like this movie? Is it Laura Dern? I mean she’s not really hot and seriously looks like a stick. And I don’t really like movies with kids in them. That one kid was in Tremors and that movie sucked. I guess the effects are pretty sweet. I did watch Land of the Lost as a child, so maybe I really like dinosaurs, weird. I can’t believe they’re remaking that.

That dude getting eaten while on the toilet is sweet; Hope I don’t go out that way.

Sam Neill looks pretty cool in that hat, I wonder if I would look that cool? Probably not, I mean when would I even wear it? He can even pull off that that scarf/bandanna thing around his neck. That’s strange because it makes that kid look pretty queer.

Wouldn’t Jeff Goldblum look better with a big patch of chest hair coming out of that shirt? And doesn’t he play the exact same character in Independence Day? I wonder if anyone remembers an old movie he was in called Transylvania 6-5000? I bet it would really piss off Ed Begley Jr if I bought like 60 copies of that movie, then didn’t recycle the plastic DVD boxes. You know who else plays the same character all the time? Oliver Platt. Flatliners, A Time to Kill, Frost/Nixon, that quirky and smart but kinda wussy guy. He should be in this movie.

If there weren’t so many commercials in college basketball, I wonder if I’d even be watching this?

If I made a joke about that girl saying Meat-A-Saurus, would anyone laugh? I bet they’d just think I was some kind of pedophile. Better not risk it.

Sam Jackson has a cigarette in his mouth the whole movie, but does he ever inhale? I hope I don’t watch this whole movie again just to find out. When they find his arm, his hand should totally have a cigarette in it.

If raptors are so smart, why couldn’t they figure out how to clone themselves? Losers.
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Well, I hoped you enjoyed this quick insight into Shago’s brain. Until next post…

I want to live in the sauce!
-Homer

This may not be the most timely of posts, but I feel obligated to inform the world… worst Die Hard… ever. How embarassing that this was allowed to be made. I mean, did you see how the (badly CGI’d) jet flew over that bridge, stopped on a dime, did a 360 and flew over the semi, almost vivisecting Bruce Willis? If not for Kevin Smith and the Credence outro this is unwatchable. Thank all that is holy that I did not spend any money sleeping through this in the theater.

Lucy grew up kinda hot, 1 pig.

My Fellow Mullets,

There comes a time in every man’s life when he sees the end. I guess, accepting his own mortality as a human being, movie fan, writer, Horowitz hater, filthy wine-loving hobo, etc. For me, the time has come…again. The other day, I saw that Universal is planning a remake of one of my favorite movies: ‘Slap Shot’ starring the late, great Paul Newman.

Peter Steinfeld (’21‘) will write it and he says:
“Right now I’m finishing writing the re-make of the iconic hockey movie Slap Shot for Universal. I’ve never had so many people hate me for writing something they haven’t seen yet. It’s such a classic film and fans of the original feel like I’m grave-robbing or something. But I think the movie will be really fun and will capture what it’s like to play minor league hockey in 2008.”

I couldn’t have said it much better, you’re grave-robbing a classic that fans will hate you for. Hmm…my work here is done. I guess, once again, Hollywood has proved to me that it has no … original … ideas … left.

Another little part of my soul will die when this movie is released.

Dennis Quaid stars as secret service agent Barnes in the story of an assassination attempt on the President (William Hurt). The movie is told from the perspective of several characters. In order to give you my opinion on this movie, I have to tell you how it ends. So be careful, SPOILERS FOLLOW:

The President is in Spain for a meeting on terrorism and is set to speak in the middle of an open-air plaza. But, when he is called back to his hotel, his double heads to the speech. Of course, our evil-doers know this because secret service agent Taylor (Matthew Fox) is in on the whole plot. So, the assassination turns into a kidnapping and off we go. (By the way, the lead terrorist is Suarez (Said Taghmaoui) who masterminds all of this through his cell phone.)

I think the best way to do this is to split the movie into my likes and dislikes. So here we go:

SHAGO LIKED…

…the concept of this film. We see the assassination attempt, then we rewind and see it again from a different character’s perspective. Pretty cool..the first two or three times. Then we go again and again and again and yawn. Wait…should this be in the “like” category? Hmmm…anyhoo, moving on.

SHAGO DID NOT LIKE…

…the characters. Oh man, talk about being spoon fed some BS in order to make the characters believable. As my loyal readers know, this is one of my biggest complaints about movies these days. You can’t just give me one line of crap (see below) and expect me to care about the characters…but that’s a whole other post.

Let’s start with the President’s double. They make a point of telling us that they’ve used him before for photo shoots, but nothing this important. Ok, good enough, he must be convincing.

There’s Agent Barnes, who is just returning to work after taking a bullet for the President in an earlier assassination attempt. Ok, he’s tough, I bet he could survive a car crash.

Then there’s Javier (Edgar Ramirez) who, we’re told, has double secret super commando ninja skills. Ok, he’s a bad ass, that’s how he can kill about 20 secret service agents by himself. Oh, and he’s only doing this to get back his kidnapped brother. Kinda pointless, but what’s a movie without some futile in-fighting between the bad guys.

Lastly, there’s Howard (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist, who confesses to a random child that he’s having some family issues. Let me say that I really like Forest Whitaker as an actor. Unfortunately, he comes off looking more like a psycho child molester filming little girls than a concerned parent.

SHAGO RIDICULED…

…the car chase, about ten minutes of:
Drive, Turn, Crash, Barnes dialogue: “Shit!” Drive, Turn, Crash, Taylor dialogue: “Shit!”
Drive, Turn, Crash, Barnes dialogue: “Shit!” Drive, Turn, Crash, Taylor dialogue: “Shit!”
Drive, Turn, Crash, Barnes dialogue: “Shit!” Drive, Turn, Crash, Taylor dialogue: “Shit!”
Seriously.

SHAGO HATED…

…the ending. Let’s recap, our terrorists have: shot the President’s double, blown up a bomb in the middle of a crowded plaza, killed most of the secret service, turned on their henchmen, and are now escaping in an ambulance with the President. Until…dramatic pause…a stupid girl wanders out into the street in front of them looking for mama. The ambulance swerves to miss her and crashes, the end.
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Are you f’ing serious? They just killed hundreds of people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You expect me to believe that they give a crap about saving this kid’s life? Really, hit the kid, drive away, and you win.

Ugh, maybe I’m being too cruel. Or maybe I’m just too damn mean to be a terrorist.

8 Strangers, 8 Points of View, 1 Truth, 1 Pig.

So I was pretty much a lazy piece of crap in 2008. I quit my job to pursue my lifelong dream of getting drunk on my porch while flicking off the passing hobos and throwing stones at small children. It was wonderful I must say, but all I really have to show for it is a beer gut, a couple lawsuits, and a few less years to live. So, I decided to punish myself for these slothful ways. Call it Shago’s penance or act of contrition or any other word I vaguely remember from Sunday School twenty years ago.

For my punishment, I forced myself to watch Winona Ryder movies…numerous Winona Ryder movies. Now, we all know that Winona Horowitz (her given name) is just awful. I mean can anyone watch Alien: Resurrection without enjoying this part?

So let’s get started. Remember mullets, I am a trained professional, DO NOT attempt this at home.

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

Tim Burton’s creatively uncomfortable story of Edward (Johnny Depp) and his scissor hands trying to fit into suburbia. This is really a fascinating movie but, let’s face it, it’s ruined by Horowitz trying to be a blond. In the end, Kim (Horowitz) falls in love with Edwards because he’s so innocent, has cool scars, and wears leather pants. But their love is not to be. Actually, this ending is not sad. I mean who wouldn’t prefer an eternity of isolation to the love of Horowitz? 3 pigs, a really good movie, but doesn’t make Shago’s top tier.

SEX AND DEATH 101

Roderick (Simon Baker) receives a strange list that includes every women he has ever had sex with and all of his future sexual partners. He breaks off his engagement and starts down the list.

In separate but colliding stories, Death Nell (Horowitz) is a serial killer seducing and murdering her male sexual partners. You see where this is going…

The best part of this movie is that Horowitz really doesn’t have much of a role until the end. Silly, but still kinda fun, this film wasn’t terrible, 2 pigs.

HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN QUILT

A bunch of old ladies are making a quilt for Finn’s (Horowitz) wedding. They sit around and tell stories about their lives. The movies flashes forward and backwards to these stories until you are utterly confused. Or maybe I was too busy bashing of my head against the wall and praying for death to understand. What I got is that Finn is worried about getting married so she has sex with some random hot guy. Somehow, this is her husband’s fault. Then, her thesis is ruined when it is blown away by an angry gust of wind. But she feels better when the quilt is done.

I think the point of this story is that men are bad because they have a penis and women are awesome because they can quilt. I guess we’ll have to live with that, 0 pigs.

BOYS

After a fall from her horse, a couple of kids from an all boys school find Patty (Horowitz) unconscious in a field. Patty is a 25 year old ugly, strange gal who is being investigated by the police in connection with the disappearance of a baseball star. Her rescuer, John (Lukas Haas), instantly falls for her because he is also ugly and strange. Patty ends up getting this poor high schooler drunk and then rapes him. After getting arrested, they “escape” from the two-story police station with the help of an ultra fast elevator and station wagon. We are only left to hope that they crash and die a horribly painful death.

In a strange twist, John C. Reilly plays the police officer. I kept waiting for him to say a quote from Talladega Nights or Walk Hard, but it never came…mullets…(sob)…(sob)…it never came. This movie is one of the worst pieces of crap I’ve seen, 0 pigs.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it. Now that I have stopped crying and trying to burn my eyes out, I would like to introduce the new Shago, a changed man
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…kill me Billy…

I’ll kick off the new category with my alternate ending for The Rock starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. It’s a well known fact that once you start watching The Rock, you cannot turn it off. One of the mysteries of the modern world.

In Shago’s ending, the US Government agrees to pay Ed Harris the $100 million, but they require him to fire the VX chemical weapons at a Raiders game. Everyone ends happy and the last 45 minutes are filled out with some sweet lesbo action between Vanessa Marcil and Claire Forlani.

THE END

Wake up all you mullet fans out there! Dust off your hangover and walk with me. A new chance at parody awaits you as I introduce our new “Alternate Endings” category. Up to this point we’ve been limited to the “bonus features” we get on reanimated Blu-Ray versions of the same ol washed up trash we saw 3 years ago. Well I have had enough and I’m not gonna take it anymore.

Ever wanted Shia LeBeouf to grow a nice beer gut?

M. Night Shyamalan to get the Aunt Jemima treatment?

Eddie Murphy to save the world from the Nazis?

Jennifer Aniston to get bitten by that asshole dog on yet another sugary spoonful of sanctimonious crap (thanks G.I. Jab) we got subjected to this holiday season?

Michael Keaton to show up at the end of The Dark Knight and kick someone in the nuts?

Me too. Me too.

What I’m trying to say is we can do better folks. Choose your own adventure. Make your own endings. The right kid dies. Stuff like that.

Oh and Happy New Year, Peace and Love, Peace and Love from Anita and all of your favorite Mullets!

So I didn’t rush out to the theater to see the fourth installment of Indiana Jones because, being a sequel, I really wasn’t that excited for it. But, as I was eating my Thanksgiving turkey chili cheese fries, I decided to give it a shot and picked it up on demand.

Now, I could bore and tell you about the plot, actors, etc. but you already know it. The bad guys need Indy to find the artifact because they are dumb and then they’ll use its power to conquer the world. Sound familiar? Thought so, so all I did was write down of bunch of alternate titles for the movie. Enjoy:

Indiana Jones and…the Communists that can’t shoot straight, I mean dude, he’s like three feet away from you
Indiana Jones in…oh my god, another movie with Shia LaBeouf
Indiana Jones and…the stuntman with a gray wig on
Indiana Jones in…how to survive an atom bomb without a scratch
Indiana Jones and…of course its his kid, can you be more predictable?
Indiana Jones and…the truck with a random RPG in the back
Indiana Jones in…he always gets away from the bad guys, but don’t worry, they’ll catch him again
Indiana Jones and…the Communists that run out of ammo and then throw their guns away, I mean you came all the way to the Amazon jungle with a bunch of trucks, why didn’t you bring extra bullets?
Indiana Jones and…the random cliff with a road next to it
Indiana Jones and…the monkeys that hate Communists
Indiana Jones in…Ants Gone Wild
Indiana Jones and…the Communists that can shoot every native in the temple, but still can’t hit Indy
Indiana Jones in…Alien vs. Communist – Requiem
Indiana Jones and…the guy that stops for gold always dies
Indiana Jones and…if they make more of these movies with Shia as the new Indy, I’m gonna vomit

This movie was decent, but all it really did was take Raiders and change the scenery, 2 pigs.