The commercial says, “Sandra Bullock’s best performance.” Strange that this makes me want to see the movie less.

Yes mullets, you are reading correctly, Shago has hitched his way to comic con again. But in a surprising twist this year, our sponsors have allowed me to use the free wi-fi available at the convention center to type up his aimless rants…

…as the disappointment of not getting a beverage at last call wears off, all I can do is continue to boo Hayden Christensen and give awards for what little I saw today.

BEST PERSON:
Without a doubt, Zoe Saldana (Uhura from Star Trek ’09). She was beautiful, insightful, and eloquent as she talked about the role of female characters in Hollywood. To give you an idea of how awesome she was…she was sitting next to Sigourney Weaver, and still blew everyone’s mind.

BEST PANEL
Dexter – First off, I think this is a fantastic show, so I may be bias. John Lithgow is the the new villain for next season, so I hope the show continues to impress. I’m a little afraid of Jennifer Carpenter now, but I like it.

BEST COSTUME
The fandango paper bag. I didn’t see any eyeholes, but it was crossing the street. Bravo, you took the most annoying thing about pre-movie seating and tried to get it hit by a car.

BEST OF THE REST
Bruce Campbell & Burn Notice. Never really watched the show, but Bruce was hilarious as always.

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…

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.

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…

When I’m driving and people cut me off, I always say to myself, “It’s ok.” This is because, someday, I will kill them.

You had me until the showering.

As my handsome colleague G.I. Jab has reminded us, the Olympics have begun. It’s 2:25am and I have ten (officially “X“, I guess) HD channels devoted to the Olympics. This is strange because there are only four different things on right now. I guess I could picture-in-picture the Croatia vs. Spain team handball match and the Croatia vs. Spain team handball match, just to see if it ended differently.

Oh well…as I endure another sleepless night, deciding between watching Zoolander or committing suicide, I decide to surf the web looking for information on my new favorite Olympic sport. And here’s what I found:

Handball: “Grab It!”

Shago’s back with something special! I have been watching movies, but not many qualified for a full review. So, here’s a few that you might catch flipping through the pay-per-view and movie channels. I’ll give you everything you need to know in this segment of Shago’s Quick Flicks:

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS

If you liked the first installment of National Treasure, you’ll love the sequel. Why? Well…because it’s the exact same movie. The same actors hunt for a treasure. Replace the Declaration of Independence with the Presidential Book of Secrets and off we go! While this movie has good action and is fairly entertaining, it gets negative 3 pigs because it’s a rerun.

HOME OF THE BRAVE

Sam Jackson and Jessica Biel star in a dramatic film about soldiers returning from Iraq. All I can say is the Army must have one hell of a screwed up medical plan. Everyone has such beautiful straight white teeth, but disturbing mental issues. This is an emotional movie about a tough subject. Unfortunately, whenever I see Sam Jackson, I think of this. 1 snake + 1 plane = 2 pigs, it could have been better.

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH/GOOD LUCK CHUCK

Remember when Dane Cook was funny? Me too, way before these two movies. 1 pig for the hot chicks.

RATATOUILLE

Amazingly, this move ranks #127 on IMDB.com’s User’s Top 250 movies of all time, beating out such crap as: Ben-Hur, Platoon, Gandhi, Glory, Scarface, and the far superior animated feature Toy Story. I only have one question: Was this movie supposed to be a comedy, drama, action, or zoophilia? Cause it really wasn’t funny, entertaining, exciting, or sexy. 0 pigs.

TALK TO ME

So you ask me, “Shago,if everything sucks, what should I watch?” Well, I’ll give you one. Don Cheadle plays 1960′s radio personality Petey Greene. This movie has a good cast, good story, and some sweet-ass fashion! Enjoy 4 pigs.