The dude's re-attempt the Henchmen episode, discuss new vehicles, and plan a bachelor party while talking about Rocksteady, Bebop and other minions of our favorite villains.
This week's duel pits the Foot Soldiers from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. the Putty Patrollers from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
Last, we close out with our top 1 vs. 100 Fight Scenes Ever.
Can you classify Pokemon as henchmen? Evolving into a better killing machine for their "trainers"?
Top 5 Villains from AFI Top 50 Villains List: The Gang talk Godfather I vs. II, gay chicken with Keyser Soze, we actually agree with the American Film Institute, and go after that old lady from Titanic.
Top 5 Villains not on the AFI Top 50 Villains List: The bad British accents get even worse as the Gang name the best villains in recent times.
Remember the days when surveillance was difficult? Leg work was required to find out where your mark was at all times. You followed them around, you snooped through their things when they weren't around, trying to find out any little piece of information that could make your work and the overall reason for it, worth it.
Believe it or not, there was actually a time in history when having a camera pointed at you 24/7 was a bad thing. People feared the idea of someone they didn't know personally or at all watching them go about private things like eating, sleeping and bathing.
Yeah, I’m with you that shit is cray. Now everybody makes sure to upload their meals to tumblr, check in wherever they are, and update their friends, family and complete strangers with their every movement. Every time they update our phones and computers, they make it easier than ever to share, stream and upload our lives, second by second, step by step.
In the 2000's, cameras began being installed at intersections in major metropolitan areas all over the US. Of course, this made people freak out. Who could have access to these cameras? Would they be used for more than the red-light patrols they were explained away as? Is this the government overstepping their bounds and taking us one step closer to a police state where any wrongdoing is instantly punished?
Ask the people who have been fired from their jobs because they posted some nonsense on Facebook or Twitter and because they use their real name, they are held accountable for everything they say digitally in their irl lives.
Explain this to me, why does the government need to tap your phone and use drones to spy on you, when you willingly post everything about yourself to unprotected websites? So you know how easy it is to take away everything someone has by removing access to their Facebook page? All anyone needs is the email address of the account and they can create a new password in a matter of moments. Don’t you ever remember hearing all those stories in the news of [insert email provider here] being hacked and losing millions of users personal info? Yeah it happens all the time. How long until all those nudes you uploaded to share with one person are smeared across your grandmas timeline and you’re getting a call from your boss telling you to clean out your desk, they don’t need someone from their company posting pictures of themselves all over the interwebs?
So before you check in at McDonald’s and notify your stalker that you’re grabbing a quick cup of coffee, ask yourself why George Orwell didn't have an Instagram.
It's part 2 of 2 of the bonus episode where Cir and Nick talk documentaries, albums, movies, and then slip into five minutes straight of Swingers quotes. Take a listen, because it's your last chance to hear bad audio quality before we unleash the new Beast Duels/On The Rocks Studio next week.
I guess this list is a week or so late, but whatevsos. Top 10 list, here we go.
10. Doug Benson - Potty Mouth
Doug Benson smokes a lot of weed. Recorded on April 20th, Benson's fourth album comprises stories about CNN, movies, television and twitter -- all through the dry, red eyes of a pothead. I guess he's kind of like John Howard Griffin in that way. Bonus: the CD comes with all six episodes of The Benson Interruption that aired on Comedy Central.
9. Wyatt Cenac - Comedy Person
Wyatt Cenac, know by many as The Daily Shows expert in all things black, makes a strong debut stand-up album. Whether discussing how to "hipster hipster" or why not owning a TV makes you a douche, Cenac's record is consistent with the laughs. Though not political per se, he manages to tackle social issues and constructs while sounding way less pretentious than I do by even mentioning it. He also reminds me a lot of my black friend Cir, which is a huge compliment and maybe racist.
8. Brian Regan - All By Myself
Consistently funny, Brian Regan has developed into one of the most prolific of modern day comedians, regularly selling out theater-sized shows. Ashtonishingly, he manages to pull this off with an entirely clean set, void of blue humor and profanity. He doesn't even say cunt like once in the whole album. I think I like that his comedic sensibilities are just like mine.
It must be noted, of course, there is one tragic downside to this album. Whenever I say the title, I end up with that fucking Eric Carmen song stuck in my head for a goddamn hour.
7. Mike Birbiglia - Sleepwalk With Me
Mike Birbiglia is unique among most stand-ups in that he doesn't really tell jokes; his style is more of a raconteur monologist telling painfully personal stories in humorous ways. The NPR This American Life contributor covers his history of bladder cancer, sleep-fighting dream-jackals and nearly hemorrhaging out as a result of it, and his accidental engagement. He also wrote a book of the same name if that's your cup of tea. And if you're reading this, it's not.
6. Marc Maron - This Has To Be Funny
One would think having a breakout podcast propelling you to fame and New York Times pieces might allay some self-loathing, but apparently not. Still "panicky and weird" from the jump, Maron continues to find the humor in neurosis and a crippling sense of self-worth. Whether it be his mother admitting to not being able to love him as an infant or the braintrust behind the creation museum, Maron's fourth comedy record is a definite must-listen. Be sure to also check out his podcast, where he twice weekly talks with comedians and accuses them of being miserable, talentless, joke-stealing hacks.
Completely and totally unrelated, here's a Morgan Murphy video.
Aaaaaaaaaaand back to Maron:
5. Amy Schumer - Cutting
Oddly cute (the first auto-fill that pops up on google when looking for album artwork is "amy schumer hot") yet heinously offensive, Amy Schumer's debut album is very reminiscent of her ex-boyfriend Anthony Jeselnik's Shakespeare (quite possibly the #1 album of last year). In tackling topics ranging from bedding high-schoolers to incredibly uncomfortable eponymous anti-joke, Schumer blah blah blah pseudophilosophical rant about can women be funny. Yes they can, if their jokes were sexually transmitted by Anthony Jeselnik.
4. Doug Stanhope - Oslo/Burning the Bridge to Nowhere
I don't think I'd be breaking new ground to say that Doug Stanhope is the closest we have to a modern-day Bill Hicks. Angry, offensive, and unashamed of his own degenerate tendencies, Stanhope continues to bring the comedy he's infamous for. Even after nine albums, he doesn't show signs of slowing down. In fact, he seems to be speeding up by including a tirade that included fantasizing about torturing and murdering his own audience members. I bet in real life, this dude would be kind of unpleasant to be around.
3. Tig Notaro - Good One
There's someone about Tig Notato where no matter what she says, I laugh my ass off. The title of her album- not even referenced in its content- is an impression she does that is simply a robot replying to people's jokes. She manages to balance story-telling (multiple encounters with a singer who I don't even know named Taylor Dane), observational humor (babies with fat, fat thighs but stupid little one inch feet) to the absurd. For more of the absurd, watch the second half of the video below (along with bonus Paul F. Tompkins appearance in the background)
2. Rory Scovel - Dilation
I don't know where this fucking guy came from, but it's a land of ridiculous hilarity so potent that I might now be sterile. Whether he's talking about driving on mushrooms being like flying a spaceship or making awesomely racist jokes about Precious or fighting Chinese kids (which make me totally guilt-free about laughing about the Precious jokes), this album is absolutely an instant classic. Though I have no idea why he named it what he did.
Here's a clip of him and another comedian Jon Dore on Conan doing one of the most bizarre bits I've ever seen.
1. Louis C. K. - Hilarious
What can be said about Louis that hasn't been said? If Live at the Beacon Theater was a comedy album and not just a video that sold hundreds of thousands of copies within a week, he'd have two items on this list. Louis is this generation's best comedian, and Hilarious is some of his best work. Not only did Louis, a Mexican with an unpronounceable real last name, manage two great comedy specials last year, but also managed to create/write/star in the 2nd season of an Emmy-award nominated TV show. He's like the Orson Welles of dick jokes.
This is one of my favorite Louis bits ever, despite how hypocritical it is because goddamn do I hate everything about being on an airplane.
For the sake of argument, let's say this fight is these guys going head to head while they're in their prime. A real "who would win, Ali or Tyson" type battle but with more killing of infidels. Plus, there's not much sense in doing a modern day fight with these two. A lifeless body with shattered neck vertebrae against a buoyant corpse all bloated with ocean water just seems to be in poor taste, even for me.
So Saddam, early 90s
Versus Osama, sometime in the middle of the year 2001. Can't remember the exact date.
Just looking at the movies these eras inspired should give Saddam an easy victory here. I mean, Three Kings was so good, even Mark Wahlberg isn't horrible in it. Compare that to the Nic Cage World Trade Center movie.
First of all, and I know I'm not breaking any new ground here, but fuck Nic Cage. I know people are worried about CERN and Higgs bosons and shit, but if Cage and M. Night Shayamalan ever collaborate the universe might actually fucking implode.
Second of all, that movie was made in the year 2006. They really only waited five cocking years to exploit that shit? Even Michael Bay waited 70 years to make Pearl Harbor. I mean, what's fucking next? Is Gary Marshall gonna make a movie with Gwenyth Paltrow as Gabrielle Giffords and Ashton Kutcher as that astronaut?
Anyways, I don't really see Osama imposing to much of a physical threat. The guy had been on dialysis since the fucking cold war. All Saddam would have to do is turn the power off at Osama's for a few days and he'd end up getting to fluid-overloaded he'd technically be a beverage. And Hussein just kinda looked like a bad-ass. No one has a mustache like that for that long without knowing how to kill a man using only his hands.
So congrats to Saddam, this week's winner. Hope to see you soon in the Arrested Development movie.
Topical! And stream of consciousnessy, just for the ferk of it.
Fuck. It actually takes the rape of young boys for Rick Santorum to no longer be the most despicable person in Pennsylvania. Congrats, Jerry Sandusky, for creating a charity for troubled male youths. I'm sure they considered not being anally violated in a shitty college's locker room to be their biggest conflict in life, so I'm glad you were able to help them work through those issues.
At least he didn't call it "Fisted"
Can you believe this book is a real thing? Fucking seriously? And with that finger? Mother fucking Theresa it's like he was bragging about it. He's like the Little Prostate Exam That Could.
<insert Hershey highway joke here. Too hack to bother writing>
It is kind of refreshing to see some sexual assault not being performed by a Red Sox fan.
Remember that time that there was that one organization that covered up all those young boys being raped? There was that big backlash when that one guy was fired? The boss who oversaw it all, I think it was. What was his name... The pope. No wait, he wasn't fired. From what I can tell, sodomy is alright as long as you're using rosary beads for your sex toys.
Look, I know football is retarded, but I generally give people enough credit to realize that winning some college cunting football games is just the teeniest, tiniest skosh little bit less significant than allowing a dozen boys getting Deliveranced by a guy old enough to be Moses' fucking babysitter. 400 wins, Joe Paterno? Fuck off, man. That's only ten wins per alleged sexual assault. Come back to me when you've won at least 500. Shit, Cy Young won over 500 games, he didn't cover up any pedarasts. We better all feel lucky that dude's been dead half a century or he could go on quite the fucking tear.
All that being said, Roman Polanski is a great fucking director.
Speaking of people we shouldn't have been surprised about...
I'll do what I can to have batman win here, since he's awesome and Superman is pretty horrible. As a comic book crusader against criminals and all that is evil, the tales of Superman are pretty worthless. It's like talking about who the hottest girl is in your high school, and then one of your friends says "well Katrina Bowden is hotter".
Of course she is you fucking idiot. She's the space alien who is impervious to bullets of hot girls. She's so hot there's not even a point in mentioning her. And that's why Superman is so fucking boring. "Oh, the bad guys have a bunch of guns? Too bad for them, not even guns can kill me." Yeah, it's really fucking exciting to watch someone who's never in any danger. That's why I stopped watching House. I watched the whole first season of people actively seizing and hemorrhaging out their GI tracts but still no one ever died in that goddamn show.
And Superman's villains are awful. Batman has the Joker, Two-Face, The Mad-Hatter... I'll forgive them the abortion that Batman and Robin was. Who could've predicted that an Arnold Schwarzanagger film would be terrible?
Compare that to villains like Lex Luthor. The bad guy is just some billionaire mogul? Shit, in real life when some billionaire bent on capitalist domination at the expense of child labor dies, we hold iPod-light vigils for them at the mall.
We're better off siding with the rich guy instead. Look at Bruce Wayne. That dude could've sat around and slept with supermodels (maybe even Katrina Bowden?) and spent his money on shit like ten-thousand dollar shoes and gold pens. Instead he learned how to kick ass and drives a cooler car than Marty McFly.
Frankly, I know Superman would win in a fight. I don't give a fuck. A world where Superman is the coolest superhero we've got isn't a world I don't want to live in.
Netflix's technical prowess is pretty impressive. They have literally thousands of movies available to watch instantly. Their technology is so good that watching a movie on instant is actually faster than just getting up from my couch and putting a DVD in. It's really increased my risk of getting a blood clot.
The instant watch feature is so widely used, it accounts for approximately 25% of all internet traffic in North America. That puts it in 2nd place for all causes of internet usage, and the number 1 cause for all internet traffic that doesn't include blonde high school drop-outs thinking that they're now just one lucky break away from starring in a major motion picture.
They're so efficient at streaming video it's actually gotten to the point where if it lags for five seconds, I suffer from an intense rage due to a sense of instant gratification entitlement that I've only known for a year but feel like I've known my whole life. It's actually kind of romantic.
Netflix is so meticulous in their process that they've managed to create genres way beyond what I'd ever felt a need to know of in my life. For twenty-some years I was limited by just a few categories like comedy, drama, horror and movies with those nice blonde girls I was talking about earlier. But now, I have options of genres like "Swedish Serial Killer Movies With a Female Narrator" or "Critically Acclaimed Movies from the 70's That Would Have Received More Commercial Success If DeNiro Had Been in Them, But Are Still Worth a Watch". And each category will have like twenty fucking movies. Which is great, because I'm a big fan of those genres.
That being said, if they're so fucking smart then how come Rock-a-Doodle is in my Top 10 Picks for Nick?
Oh well. I guess it's not like they divided up their instant and DVD services. Or named something "Qwikster".
I watched part of Kill Bill (Part I) yesterday on TV. I think it's important that I start off by pointing out that watching a movie being played on TV is like ordering a hot dog instead of steak because you don't want to go through the extra effort of adding "...medium rare". It's just a lazy thing to do. I'm not proud of that decision, but what was I supposed to do... watch commercials?
I changed the channel at the scene when O-Ren Ishii says this:
The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!
Of course, since it was on TV, what she actually said was
The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your <...> head. Just like this sucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the <...> time!
Really? Really. We can't just say fuck on TV? I guess I can understand. It was early on a Saturday evening. No one wants impressionable young children channel surfing being exposed to foul language like that. It's a responsibility of ours-- as Americans-- to protect our young ones.
Oh yeah, did I mention they didn't do anything to edit out the fucking severed head?
Jesus christ. Enough of that. Had to switch back to the Seinfeld commercials. I saw an infomercial for this:
Remember this $50 coin they made out of 24 carat gold? Neither do I, but apparently you can buy them for ten bucks on TV. What a fucking steal.
And by "buy them", of course I mean shoddy replicas with "COPY" written on the Native-American gentleman's head on the other side. Classy.
The commercial ends with the claim that you should purchase this shit to "avoid disappointment and future regret". I'm sorry, but how is buying a fake coin going to help me avoid disappointment? Does it time travel and prevent me from getting a joint bank account with my fiancee a week after we got engaged and a week before she spent more on chapstick than I'm willing to spend on a DVD?
So Kill Bill on TV and commercials both let me down. Time to run though, I'm gonna watch Human Centipede on Turner Classic Movies. I hope they don't do anything horrible in it like say the word shit.
I was watching Jeopardy recently, and a category came up called Period Movies.
The answers to the questions ended up being things like Year One*. They were NOT films such as the following:
28 Days
28 Days Later
127 Hours
Monster
A River Runs Through It
The Crying Game
Red Dragon
Six Days, Seven Nights
Scent of a Woman
The Sting
Red Dawn
Crimson Tide
Pretty In Pink
Blood Diamond
The Fountain
Trainspotting
The Wrath of Khan
Raging Bull
Very Bad Things
Unstoppable
The Hurt Locker
The Fighter
Malice
True Grit
Snatch
There Will Be Blood
Blood Sport
The Thin Red Line
Sense and Sensibility
Life Is Beautiful
Reality Bites
Hot Fuzz
Blood Simple
First Blood
Misery
Anger Management
*seriously? Year One? Year One. That made it onto a Jeopardy episode? This garbage should be bleached out of our entire cultural awareness. If aliens ever come to Earth, they won't hesitate to enslave us because they'll know we're retarded and can't take care of ourselves.
Let me start off by stating that all of the 3 very non-fictional characters in today's duel are unlikely to ever battle one another. They're all technically on the same side; the fight against tyranny, oppression, and villains with either bad accents or bad mustaches.
So, to begin our analysis...
James Bond
Pros:
Gets all the ladies
Drives fancy cars
Is British and shit
Drawbacks: too dependent on flashy gadgets. When he's left without gadgets, he ends up getting his junk smashed repeatedly with soap-on-a-rope by this lazy-eyed dork:
He also has to deal with stupid women with names like Christmas and Pussy. He was also played by this guy (can't even post the picture on this website, out of shame)
Jason Bourne:
Pros:
Knows how far he could run, given a known altitude
Access to a few dozen different passports
I'm pretty sure he ends up owning a surf shop, but I might be thinking of Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption
Drawbacks: His claim to fame is that he's forgotten a bunch of shit. That's not exactly a trait I hold highly for international men of mystery. I've had bouts of retrograde amnesia too; it's called fucking college.
I mean, christ, I can't even remember what I ate for breakfast and I've only been awake a couple hours. Shit, if forgetting stuff makes you just shy of a superhero every senior citizen would be running around in a fucking cape.
John McClane
Pros:
Defeats broken glass merely with his feet
Killed Severus Snape
Coined the following...
Drawbacks: He's basically a regular cop, he's broke with no friends or family, and is kind of an asshole. Or as I like to call it, "he's a cop".
Still, the fact that he has 1) no money 2) no Q to give him gadgets and 3) doesn't have to go to the abortion of a continent that is Europe makes John an easy winner here.
Plus, his daughter looks like this...
...but still managed to be kind of badass in Live Free or Die Hard.
So yesterday was the Kentucky Derby, which I somehow stumbled upon and got to watch the last couple hundred yards from 30 different fucking vantage points. I get it. The horse crossed the finish line first. It's not gonna fucking change when you switch to the aerial view.
The winner of the 2011 Beast Duels-sponsored Kentucky Derby was called Animal Kingdom, which I'm pretty sure was named after an Australian movie with plot holes so gaping I'm pretty sure they fucking bend light.
When the race ended, the interviewed the winning jockey-- which is a horribly named profession. It's bad enough they're all short and squirrely, but their job doesn't need to conjure up images of goddamn tighty whities. So they're interviewing this short cocksucker and they ask him about his racing strategy.
The jockey. No shit.
His strategy?! "Uh, I sat on the horse. And then... kept doing it." Can't wait for the Lifetime story about that dude. It'll be like A Beautiful Mind Part II.
I can't imagine anything more unnecessary than a jockey. It's a horse race. Just let the horses go. They're in narrow lanes, it's not like they're gonna get turned around.
The worst part of the whole Kentucky Derby ordeal was when I realized that that horse's ejaculate was worth more than my fucking brand new car. Brutal.
We all know Chewbacca, right? The tall thing who looks vaguely like Bigfoot, but also kinda something from a beef jerky commercial? So let's take Chewbacca (of Star Wars fame) and pit him against some people.
What a wookiee!
Why Chewbacca, you may ask. How about because he's one of the most badass creatures in film history. Want proof? He makes being a wookiee sound fearful. A wookiee. Compare this to that cocktard pussy Russell Brand who ~wrote something and called it My Booky Wook.
Ugh. Seriously? Fuck that grimy British piece of shit. I bet that dude constantly smells like soup. Ooooh, look at me, I slur a lot, look at how charming. Fuck you. The fact that this dickhead gets to tag a chick like Katy Perry is proof that there is a God and he fucking hates all of us.
So like I've shown, since Chewie's so awesome let's have him fight multiple people of moderate strength. I'm talking people who are not quite as tough as, say, a Pierce Brosnan-era James Bond, but still exponentially tougher than the aforementioned Russell Brand. Probably something like any-woman-who's-ever-played-softball tough. Like Demi Moore in GI Jane tough.
CGI is a hell of a drug
Chewbacca vs. 5 Average Strength Humans
This is clearly Chewbacca. I imagine the fight goes a little something like this...
1) Subdues person A
2) Rips one of their limbs off
3) Proceeds to beat person B, C, D, and E to death with it
Using this method, the number of people he could beat is essentially infinity. He'd be like the digits-in-Pi of mayhem. The David Foster Wallace's Jest of killing.
Basically, he'd be like a coprophiliac in zero gravity: he would fuck that shit up.
In the most ridiculous attempt at life-imitates-art, a dude straps a dozen snakes to his body and boards an airplane.
This shit is like the beginning of that Indiana Jones movie.
Of course, his complete lack of running-a-terrorist-organization and trying-to-kill-the-sole-witness-in-the-trial-to-convict-you-of-murder makes him a lot less badass that Hawaiian dude in Snakes on a Plane.
Somewhere, Christina Ricci is just glad this dude didn't want to recreate Black Snake Moan. And considering how fucking retarded that movie looked, so am I.
I am here today not as the god and master of all that is Beast-Dueling, but as a concerned American citizen.
President Obama, there are some events in our nation's recent history that still have not been properly handled. Horrifying and gruesome events that still leave Americans upset and on edge. A tragedy that, even when unspoken of, still lingers in the back of our minds.
I remember when I first witnessed it like it was yesterday. The traumatic event is still crisp in my mind, as I am sure it is in everyone's. I recall turning on the television and reeling in horror. Why would anyone do this? I am aware that the perception of America by other nations around the world is of a country full of greed and corruption; a society of idle godless heathens willing to tear down weaker countries just to save a few cents per gallon of gas. But what had we done to deserve this?
And yet, so little has been done since that time. So little has been done to find the true culprits and bring them to justice. Many feel that something far more sinister than even meets the eye may have occurred, as conspiracy theorists are want to suggest. But I have more faith than that. I believe in America.
But, Mr. President, there is no denying that far too little has been done to right the injustices that we have suffered as Americans-- nay, as human beings. Some say "never forget," but I for one would like to have the issue settled and put to rest so that I may at last reach peace and perhaps be able to forget, even if for a moment.
President Obama, you were elected on a platform of change; Yes We Can was the battle cry of millions a short few months ago. So why are we still waiting?
I ask you, beg you, Mr. President, we need and demand change. If you spoke the truth, if your favorite film really is The Godfather, then why have you not erased all available records of The Godfather Part III from ever existing? Seriously, that movie sucks giant fucking dick.
A faithful American citizen who still has hope, NF
No time to fuck around people, let's get right to it: Man vs. Jellyfish
You all know jellyfish, right?
They look pretty harmless and lame, but supposedly they can pack a ridiculous poison. Either that or that slutty girl I met just had me piss on her for fun. Also, how do you get stung by a jellyfish when you're hanging out behind a Denny's?
Anyways. Remember the movie Sphere? That wonderful thinkpiece with Samuel L Jackson and Sharon Stone? Yeah, it was awful, but at least it had Queen Latifah getting mauled by a few hundred jellyfish.
But aside from a magical giant circle from space, that movie was mostly fiction. Can a jellyfish really kill a person?
I'm going to say yes, and here's why. How the fuck do you kill a jellyfish? At first I was thinking you could dry it out by pouring salt on it like a snail, but christ, it lives in fucking salt water. What else would you do, punch it? That'd be like punching a marshmallow. Marshmallows cannot be killed. Shit, you can even put some peeps in the microwave and they're just encouraged to fight it out.
Fuck that. I mean, some types of jellyfish are called man o' wars. Man himself isn't even named that. They just fucking one-up us in title alone.
I'm staying out of jellyfishes way. Because they might kill me and that'd suck, but the worst part would be dying at the hands of something that was named after part of a sandwich.
