Guy de Lombard

The last beer of the six from last weekend tries to capitalize on the Monty Python name, entitled the Monty Python Holy Grail Ale, from the Black Sheep Brewery Company.  The best way to describe my feelings on this beer?  Ric Flair...

Hell Freezes Over...Again

Few things set off a typical sports fan like the incompetence of their favorite team.  Well, average Joe New Jersey Devil fan, this is your time to go apeshit.  In the last few hours, your beloved Devils have given the axe to John MacLean and in his place for the rest of the season is Jacques Lemaire.  As you will undoubtedly remember, MacLean was hired prior to this season to replace, wait for it, Lemaire.  All of this, combined with the ludicrous contract handed to one Ilya Kovalchuk and the trainwreck that it caused, should all be traced back to the one person who enabled such a thing: Lou Lamoreillo.  The coaching change isn't necesarily a surprise, since he has been known for this kind of thing since 1994.  However, the mind-numbing contract to Kovalchuk, combined with the fact that he hasn't produced his usual numbers since being acquired in February, are all indicators that New Jersey is doomed to be basement dwellers for a long time.  No, they are not even close to Toronto Maple Leaf bad (Hey, I just had an idea for tomorrow's piece) or even New York Islander bad, but as long as Lamoreillo is still running the show, the Devils will be nowhere near their Stanley Cup years.

Thrashers Home Jersey

When I write about the most unusual jerseys of all time, I try not to make it about something that is still in use.  However, this entry has been bugging me for a while to the point that I can no longer ignore it.

Every year since the 2004 season, I have always asked the following question about the Atlanta Thrashers (other than why can't they be competitive in their own division): What the hell is up with their home jerseys?  The first image you see is the original incarnation of the Thrashers' current home unis.  As you can see, this is one of the most unusual, if not downright ugliest jerseys of all time.  Originally introduced as a third jersey, it eventually became the home jersey, replacing the jersey you see below:

Now, what was wrong with this jersey, other than the fact that the logo on the front is one of the worst of all time?  All one would have had to do was switch the logo on the front with the one on the shoulders.  As if that wasn't enough, when Reebok decided to make their Edge jerseys, every team had to adjust their jerseys to fit according to the design of the jersey.  Here is Atlanta's home jersey design, in accordance to the RBK Edge look:

The look is marginally better, as there isn't that blue blob running from the armpit down the sides.  However, that design on the left sleeve, namely the "ATLANTA" running down the side, combined with nothing really going down the right side kind of makes you wonder who in their right mind would want to be wearing this jersey 30 games or so out of the year.  I say 30 because Atlanta has a third jersey, which looks like this:

If the hockey Gods are kind, this would be the team's new home jersey and perhaps we can finally put an end to the ridiculous notion that the current home Thrashers jerseys are an acceptable look.

Running With the Idiots

Finally, after about six and a half years of having a DVD case that was chewed up by a friend's dog handed to me, I got around to trying to watch the movie that was encased within the mangled cover. And as you can probably imagine, it was an exercise in trying to get through Shatter Dead, emphasis on the word "trying."

The plot, with the source coming from the ever reliable Wikipedia:

Shatter Dead is a zombie film set in an unknown area following a woman named Susan's (Stark Raven) attempt to return to the apartment of her boyfriend (Daniel 'Smalls' Johnson) in the midst of the return of the dead to a semblance of life. On her way, she is harassed by a preacher (Robert Wells) and a dead woman named Mary (Flora Fauna) intent on convincing her that being undead is preferable to life.

The director of this debacle is one Scooter McCrae, and this film looks like it was definitely made on a $500 budget, as the camera used was likely one that a vacationer would use in capturing something for home movies and the makeup and blood effects look even worse. Acting is almost nonexistent, which is best (or worst) displayed by some guy that calls himself The Preacher Man. If I wanted someone to convert me to their way of thinking, I would not want to call on this guy, as he is the least convincing preacher ever. On paper, the storyline is excellent, but one has to execute such a story, and that is where McCrae falls woefully short. Not helping matters is a scene where a couple of fruitcakes start shooting up the house where Susan is holed up in, with one of them saying as he kicks in the door, and I quote, "Prepare to be physically challenged!" Since when did Double Dare become associated with a zombie movie, anyway? The violence is wonderful and there is some full frontal, so parents should hide the children when watching this film. However, that is not enough to make Shatter Dead anything more than a curiosity watch.

Green Stools and Fruitcakes

Some time ago, I posted about the unintentionally worst movie ever in Hell of the Living Dead. Well, that movie still has that title, but not by much. I know you're asking yourself: "What could possibly challenge a Dawn of the Dead ripoff as the worst horror movie ever?" Why, it's Troll 2, of course.

Seemingly everyone I know has at some point or another, known about this movie, so I won't get into major details about the plot. Instead, I will give the short version of what this film is about: no trolls, people eating green crap and turning into either trees or sweating green goo, and a little boy that should have probably been locked up in a mental hospital. Also in this film are quite possibly the stupidest parents in a movie, what could pass off as the first gay orgy caught on film, and the best line delivery ever (see the end of this piece).

Yes, this movie is terrible, and likely the worst movie that everyone knows about, but it's hard to think of this movie without actually laughing at part of this movie. From the awful script writing to the overall horrid concept of "goblins" instead of trolls (cue Cheech going, "Hey, that's false adverstiement.") it would be difficult to hold in a chucke or two. However, it is not advised for anyone to actually sit through this movie without at least getting a break or two to take in the mess that this movie leaves behind.

Zombies and a Jive Talkin' Turkey

Since I didn't bother with a movie last night, and given that I'm all sportsed out until Sunday, I decided to go back into the already seen section of my DVD collection. Today's "masterpiece" is another Andreas Schnaas film. Schnaas, as you remember, directed Zombie Doom aka Violent Shit III. Today is a look at an earlier work of his called Zombie 90: Extreme Pestilence. Those fortunate enough (or unfortunate, depending on your point of view) had this movie included with the Zombie Doom release.

If you're looking for a story line, it is that a plane carrying a vaccine for the AIDS virus crashes in some forest and the vaccine causes people exposed to it to turn into zombies. It is up to Dr. Burns, who was Dr. Senius in Zombie Doom and who for some reason, sounds like a jive talking black guy, and his assistant Dr. Simon (who sounds like an effeminate version of the Pilsbury Doughboy) to stop the zombie invasion. The story line is simple enough to allow for lots of zombie action and violence, which is all this movie is for the most part. As far as the violence is concerned, there is one guy that gets stranded in the forest and gets cut in half by a chainsaw wielding zombie. Another one has a baby (obviously a doll, so don't write complaint letters) getting ripped apart while the mother gets decapitated by what looks like an ax, but somehow looks like the head was put on a tee and knocked off by a baseball bat. The voice dubbing is obviously done strictly for comedic purposes, with a highlight being "Jimi Hendrix" and "Jim Morrison" somehow getting involved in a German film. There are also editing issues, as in one scene, a guy gets cut in half by the chainsaw and following that, the chainsaw wielding zombie is just waving the chainsaw around, all clean. There are a lot of issues with this film, many of which actually inspire laughter, but the entire purpose of this film: gore and lots of it. A sense of humor is a must if you plan on sitting through this movie.

Zombie Doom

Do you want to see blatant false advertising at its best (or worst)? Well, look no further than the movie Zombie Doom. This German "horror" film is 75 minutes long, yet only has about five minutes worth of zombies. So, why the name? Well, if I was to market this movie to the younger set, I would not want to have the parents see that movie was called Violent Shit III, which was in fact, the original name of this movie, though one has to wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to market it to the youth in the first place.

The basic plot of the movie is that three people get stranded on an island that houses a mysterious cult of people that wear masks that they get from what looks like a Radio Flyer wagon. The leader of the group is a guy that calls himself the Meister, who looks for all the world like a poor Hulk Hogan impersonator. Also in this group is Dr. Senius, complete with the Hitler 'stache and the Meister's father. The three castaways find themselves at the mercy of this horde and while two survive, the other gets killed before what the horde calls the "Pig Hunt." It is there that the two remaining survivors are joined by the horde's castoff Leon, and last time I checked, I don't know any Asian people named Leon. The trio does fairly well for themselves for a few minutes before the castaways run as the zombies begin to surface. Meanwhile, Leon is joined by a couple of his friends that were also cast off from the horde. It should be mentioned that the two remaining people from the beginning of this film get killed off about halfway through the film. Somehow, there is a longer sequence with ninjas (!) than there are zombies, and at the end of the movie, the only people left standing didn't even join in until halfway through the movie.

So, obvious logical errors aside, there are absolute signs that Zombie Doom was indeed, made on a small budget. When the people get decapitated, it is blatantly obvious that the mannequins of the victims are the ones taking the fall. The English dubbing is quite bad, ranging from the inability to sync sound effects with the proper actions to the "one sound effect at a time" idea to memorable lines that have people saying that others make them want to puke. There is lots of gore, lots of explosions (from Nerf guns posing as rocket launchers), and a bunch of stuff that would have been more at home on a low budget martial arts flick. If you're looking for gore and lots of it, Zombie Doom is the movie for you. If you're looking for any semblance of logic, then stay far, far away from this movie.

Dallas Stars' Mooterus jersey

I have wanted to write about the infamous Dallas Stars' third jersey since I began this blog, but have put it off for various reasons, whether it was something else got my attention or I really dreaded writing this piece. However, here I am writing about it, so I guess there is no turning back now. Originally introduced in 2003, the logo used for the jersey was supposed to be a bull with the constellation inside of it. However, fans thought of it differently, as it earned the nickname "Mooterus," so called because it resembled the female reproductive system. To be fair to the folks who came up with the idea for the logo, this wasn't intentional. However, the inexplicable inclusion of the color red to the design made this more of a mess, which gets further muddied by the supposed comet-like design on the bull's left horn. So, to say that this jersey didn't last more than a year would be correct, but to say that this was a total disaster would be an understatement to the likes that only the Islanders' fisherman jerseys of the mid-90's and many of the third jerseys of 1996 can match.

Zombie Bloodbath 3

I can remember seeing Zombie Bloodbath 3 on something that used to be the video format of choice called VHS (maybe you have heard of it). As you may remember, during my college days, I used to borrow some horror movies from a friend of mine to watch for a few days. This was one of those movies that I wish that I hadn't watched. Terrible in just about every way imaginable, yet just as much of a train wreck that I can't simply turn away.

Zombie Bloodbath 3 was part of a trilogy of films directed by Kansas City based director Todd Sheets. Locals will know him as the guy who owned a few haunted houses back in the day, which explains some of the settings for the movie. What is not explained is the incredibly shoddy "space" sequences, or the fact that the "high school" looks a lot like an elementary school, or the fact that zombies can talk and somehow play the piano, or just the incredibly lazy editing that sees the ending mirror the beginning. Saying all of that, there are some pretty good gory scenes for what it's worth, and the dialogue, though not intellectual, does provide some laughs every now and then. There is even a bloopers segment at the end of the movie, which at the very least, shows that Zombie Bloodath 3 doesn't take itself seriously.

When Jersey Designs Go Wrong: "Wild Wing"

When one goes through the history of the Anaheim hockey franchise, there is a lot to cover. Okay, not really, but from the beginnings as a franchise born from a Disney movie to now, it has been a rather interesting journey. And no jersey defines the Disney days better (or worse, depending on your point of view) like the "Wild Wing" jersey. Like the Boston Bruins third jersey that was talked about in an earlier article, the "Wild Wing" jersey was introduced in 1996 in a year that saw six teams introduce such jerseys. And much like their counterparts that year, they were rather forgettable designs.

Now, take a good look at the picture above, and ask yourself if this is what you would want to be wearing if you're a professional hockey player. All that needs to be said about the jersey is the "Wild Wing" mascot that emerges from the sheet of ice. I don't think there needs to be any other words for this amateur effort.