Pain & Gain

Are you ready to get PUMPED UP??!!

You had better be you limp-dicked troglodytes, and all you haters had better put that Hatorade away because Michael Bay is coming to town and he knows who has been naughty and who has been nice.

Welcome to 1995 Miami where the only currency is how PUMPED UP your muscles are. If you are not using your time judiciously to get Rock Hard then you need to wake up and smell the bacon and think seriously about where your life is going and how you got to be such a droopy-eyed, listless jabroni.

EXPLOSIONS ARE FOR WINNERS

 

Kidnapping is for real people with real muscles. So is money and biznatches and C-C-C-C-COCAINE BABY so you need to stack all of those up and sit atop the mound so you can look Arnold dead in the eye when he’s riding atop his BEASTFUCK MEGAHUMMER.

 

This is a movie so jacked up that its biceps have biceps and it’s Marky Marks have Marky Marks. YES YES YES this sumbitch will straight up strong-arm you into forgetting that The Happening ever happened, which sounds counterintuitive because language confusion but this movie is about using muscles, not words, so keep on rocking in the free world.

This movie has so much steroid use in it it’ll make your pecs hard and your dick soft. That’s called osmosis, whereby the movie screen is the motherfucking membrane.

ANALOGIES GALORE!!!

Pain & Gain wastes no time so neither do we. We use the screening as an exercise in getting pumped up by buying a Rock-sized bag of protein and showcasing it like the suave minstrels of jackedness that we are. Showcasing it like a pimp superfly jetski on the Price is Right. $7,995!!!1!!

MY PROTEIN!!!

Then we look at the milk/protein combination like all those bears must have looked at goldilocks all those years ago before they shredded her to pieces and put leftovers in the fridge for the next day.

 

Instead of resorting to those beginner tactics we up our game by making a protein mix drink that St. Mike himself would call the breakfast of motherfucking champions. We have in common that we both play to win, and as we all know winners go home and fuck the prom queen.

 

As you can see, I have put on my winning face

 

We make & watch movies about bodybuilding, explosions, guns, strippers, and the CIA because reading the newspaper is for fags. The only good scenes in The Room was when those guys were throwing the football around! FRISCO!

During the screening peeps next to me was all up in my business, asking me if I’d ever heard ‘Silence is golden,’ whereupon I asked this Jabberwocky-looking mofo if HE’D ever done hard time. Then I flashed my neck tattoo and took a dump on the hood of his car. You can’t spell CREATINE without CREATE fuckfaces.

Oil rules and Greenpeace does other stuff that is NOT RULING because we said so, so go have a protein shake and forget about all the seals. Paul McCartney and everybody else would forget about them if they looked like cockroaches, you can believe that one.

KUMITE!!

Our heroes/avatars fight everything in this movie, ranging from drugs to the police, to addiction, to inmates and everything in between except maybe tigers. But fuck it Van Damme has that one covered and he LIFTS BATHTUBS for a living.

No I can’t stop shouting, cause that’s how I talk!!!

I know it will worry you that there’s a lot of gay paraphenaglia (spelling catastoptrophe but I don’t core I do alright for someone who never finished high scholl) in this movie but DON’T WORRY it’s all part of the plan. Just like the Joker said it was.

I'm an agent of chaos, BRRAPP BRAP

I have to quiet all these voices in my head for the making to make sense again. Micheal bay, yeah?! Fuck man. You did it again. There are so many plum-colored cars in this movie fuckin Rod Corddry doesn’t know which one to ride in!

If your girlfriend asks you to pleasure her this month just take her to GODDAMN PAIN & GAIN so she can see what a WINNER        looks like.

Go big or go home. And that’s not a dick joke like you think it is. There are enough dick jokes in this movie already that we can’t touch it with a ten foot dildo. Pluus if we ever had a ten-footer we’d have bigger fish to fry, am I right mike?

BOOM

YEAH. Trucks, no aliens, no zombies. Wait, maybe no trucks either but this movie has a turck for a soul so git some git some git some. fUCk it; le’ts throw the camel in there too!!!

It’s PRO-tein, not CON-tein and that’s an important distinction for an important person. Nothing you can say about this movie other than “Go see it”

I swear this movie had better win all the Oscars this year: actor, director, sound, actor, and all the supporting ones they give to the hot chick or the fat chick because this movie has both of those hanging out like a big muscular pair of balls.

FUCK. YES. MUSCLES. CARS. GO JUICE JUICE JUICE ACTIVATE GO GOGOGO.

Revenge of the Selected VRROOOOOM

Who could the next Batman be

The cat is out of the bag. In perhaps the most ill-advised move since the announcement of a Point Break reboot (which was just earlier this year – Hollywood is really pushing the throttle on these bad ideas), WB has announced that Batman will make an appearance in the next Man of Steel movie. It’s slated for 2015 and it’s unclear how big a role the Caped Crusader will play in Zach Snyder’s follow-up feature (the original earned a camel dick rating from yours truly at BMC).

What is known: Henry Cavill will be reprising the Superman role, David S. Goyer is back on board as a writer, fanboys are frenetically stroking their shafts, and it’s looking very much like Batman and Superman will go toe-to-toe in this one. The lone proposition there I can get on board with is Cavill, and it’s a lukewarm response at that.

Alas, WB has pushed the full retard button and the role of Batman must be recast. This is upsetting to me because pretty much the only thing I liked about The Dark Knight Rises was that it brought closure to the Dark Knight saga. Chris Nolan had laid down this mammoth gauntlet, and there was a tacit understanding that only a select few (and perhaps none of his generation) could touch this source material again. He had elevated the character and, more importantly, the superhero movie to a level of reverence, and on a much grander, sweeping, epic scale than what I consider to be the second greatest oeuvre in the genre, Unbreakable.

Since I’m a slave to popular trends and, well, everyone else is doing it, here is a list of my picks for the next Batman. Whatever. It’s rainy and I’m bored.

The names hereunder may surprise you. When you consider the most celebrated and iconic superhero performances ever captured on film, they have come from the least likely candidates. Neither Michael Keaton nor Christopher Reeve was a huge star when cast, and neither fit the bill physically. So when I drop the name of some unassuming, middling TV star and you’re like ‘Ben, seriously wtf?’ just think about how straight up imposing Mike Keaton was at 5’9” and 160 lbs and give me benefit of the doubt, okay? Because I know shit.

Adrian Pasdar

Elected on a platform tripling Arkham Asylum's budget

This is my number one draft pick right here. One of those rare actors who everyone acknowledges ‘Yeah, this guy is a hard ass’ without him ever having to lift a finger. Seriously. He is a already a superhero in Heroes, but all he really did in that show was look damn good in a suit and give his younger brother (Milo Ventimiglia as an infinitely stronger superhero) stern talkings to about what an unmitigated fuckup he is. DUDE. Petrelli for President.

  

Let’s also not forget Pasdar’s turn in Season 7 of Burn Notice, in which he is all kinds of jacked up and spends four or six whole episodes telling mercs to clear a path or their shit will get ended in the realest of ways. I don’t think he even fires a gun. He just leers menacingly.

Pasdar is suave, has the dark, brooding thing down pat, and is a legit good actor. His Bruce/Batman would rule to the end of time. He’s pretty much too good to be in whatever this movie will turn out to be. Nothing that Snyder has up his sleeve can be as good as Pasdar in this role.

Tahmoh Penikett

Tahmoh is my go-to actor for pretty much any action role that needs doing (cept Bond). Tahmoh is a god among insects.

For starters: he is a beast. The guy is 6’3”, probably 210 (but could easily go up to 225) and an accomplished muay thai practitioner. The fights scenes he has performed on camera have been a shit-ton more convincing than that keysi mumbo jumbo Nolan opted for, not to mention every second movie these days. Who’s ever heard of this bullshit? Keysi sounds like a cheap pornstar name. Tom Cruise does it in Jack Reacher, and you know what else Tom Cruise does? Dudes up the ass. Muay thai is for baddasses like Tony Jaa and Van Damme. You can say what you want about The Quest and the Muscles from Brussels himself, Van Damme has done enough cocaine to kill a family of large barnyard animals as well as three-quarters of Motley Crue.

Let’s not forget that wherever Tahmoh shows up, he is the dark horse. He played the Fox Mulder role in Dollhouse, if Mulder were less of a geek and more of a Terminator. And, sure, the Adama family rules the roost up on Battlestar Galactica but let’s be real: who does everyone wish they could be in this show? Team Agathon, baby. Team Agathon will sledgehammer your nancy ass.

And then some, fracker.

 

The only strike against him is that he already played a bit part in Man of Steel, but a) blink and you miss it; and b) there are myriad examples of actors who played multiple roles within one SF universe, so this should hardly be a problem.

And perhaps Tahmoh’s strongest asset: he has that Mike Keaton glint in his eyes that tells you he could snap at the push of a button. That devil-may-care quality about Keaton’s performance is something that people sadly tend to forget, and that has been absent from the Batman franchise since he retired the cape. Of all the Batmans, I maintain Keaton was the most frightening, because you feel his screws are just barely tighter than the criminals he’s chasing. Not only is he the sole Batman who full-on kills people, but he does it in such ingenious, vicious, horrific fashion. He murders baddies in ways that will guarantee they shit their pants first. And not just a coffee break shit. A nice, big, spicy Thai Express Special shit. That’s the Batman I want to see again and that I’m convinced Tahmoh can deliver.

Also: Canada. Boom.

Wes Bentley

He's the best piece of ass in three states

I don't feel there's much to say about this one. If he manages to bring even half the unhingedness of his real life into the movie, we'll have a real show-stopper on our hands.

Jai Courtney

The first thing you might say is: who’s Jai Courtney? And when I explain, your next question might be ‘Really??’ And, well, yes. Really. He rules.

Plus, what would be your counterarguments?

1. He’s too young.

Bale was only three years older when he was cast.

2. He doesn’t have the voice for it.

Audio engineering and, also, that’s a stupid reason.

3. Not tough-looking enough.

QED

The opposite ends of his mandible are in different time zones. He looks plenty tough. Also, none of us actually believes that Tom Cruise could have beaten his ass in Jack Reacher. The only reason why Tom Cruise beats his ass is because Tom Cruise bought the rights to the franchise so that Tom Cruise could beat whoever’s ass Tom Cruise wanted to beat on any particular day. Because he needs to puff out his chest every few years. Because he takes it from dudes.

That’s it. Four candidates. How many more do you need? Realistically, you only need one and there’s no way in tarnation that Zach Snyder can come up with better. In fact, if any of you have Snyder or Goyer’s e-mail address, let me know and I’ll go see them and have a little pow-wow. A little schmooze between Jews, you know?

Oh, fuck, and Malkovich.

John Malkovich

To be fair, this movie will probably be a joke so fuck it: let’s have a joke Batman in there.

Got thoughts? Leave comments.

Drinking games you can play at Expendables 2

Directed by Simon West

Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and a handful of other dudes

My first wildly successful experience with movie boozing was The Expendables. Drinking a half-dozen cans of Pabst felt appropriate in a theatre full of folk shouting and applauding at the movie screen as if they were watching a hockey match at their local bar. During a raucous, howling ovation at Jason Statham igniting a gasoline-doused pier with a flare gun, killing dozen of villains with a mammoth fireball, I remember thinking to myself: “Hot shit, everyone in this movie theatre must be as drunk as I am.” And to this day I hold firm the belief that everyone was.

Flash-forward two years and Sly & the boys are back in town. The original cast is looking even more pumped up than in the first instalment and they’ve corrected past mistakes by including Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins, and the incomparable Jean-Claude Van Damme.

The plot is there is no plot. Seriously. They even forgo creating backstories for some of the characters (i.e. Dolph Lundgren) and instead just drop in factoids about their own personal history (e.g. he was a chemical engineer and Fullbright scholar at MIT). The movie is essentially a $100 million excuse to get the biggest juice-monkeys in Hollywood together (and Liam Hemsworth) and have them kill a bunch of stuff with their testicles.

Vis-à-vis the first movie they’ve seriously cut back on the pontificating and the social commentary. Let me say that again: this movie is less profound than The Expendables. The few scenes where they make even the slightest effort are comically contracted.

--

Sly: Why is it the ones who deserve to die keep on living? What’s the message in that?

[whole audience erupts into laughter]

Randy Couture: I don’t know but I’m hungry. Can we go kill some guys?

Sly: Yes. That.

--

True to form a little drink will help the entire audience get into it. If intelligent alien life were to spy in on a screening of Expendables 2 and draw conclusions about our species from it they would haul ass out of our solar system and label it as a no-fly zone.

The first 10 minutes of this movie has Sly & the boys raiding a military-run village in Tibet in order to free a wealthy civilian hostage. A singular display of carnage ensues, with a body count to rival the whole of action movie history to this point. It had the audience in a giddy state. Rather than think too hard about how disturbing it was for all these people (myself included) to be laughing out loud at the brutalisation of one of the most systematically persecuted nations in the last century, I cracked a second Sagres and said to fellow movieboozer Callum: “Jet Li, man. Still got it.”

There’s a movie somewhere in there with JCVD as the villain (and get this: his character’s name is “Villain” because during scriptwriting Sly got tired of flexing his brain) and some nuclear warheads threatening to hit the black market and blah blah blah, here are some ideas for drinking games to play along with the movie:

• This game is called All Hale Caesar! Drink a Bloody Caesar shot (half Bloodshot Vodka, half Clamato juice) every time Terry Crews’ pumped-up biceps show up in the frame. As you do the shot you must yell: “All Hale Caesar!” (This is the name of his character because this is the greatest movie ever made) You may replace “biceps showing up” with “shouts,” or “kills someone,” or “does something manly.”

Such as bazookaing a bunch of Tibetan monks.

• This game is called I versus Sly. Drink until your speech becomes slurred and less comprehensible than Sly’s and then keep it there. You have to repeat one of his lines immediately after him every five minutes as confirmation.
• Bring along a bottle of the Swedish vodka seriously (seriously, it’s called seriously) and drink a shot of it every time Dolph Lundgren does something stupid.
• This game is called I’m Out! Every time a character complains about not having enough ammo you have to empty (read chug) your beer, bellow “I’m out!”, and crack a fresh one. (Trust me, you will ruin yourself with this game)
• This game is called Don’t Lose Your Head. Do a shot of Jägermeister (or whatever) every time someone’s head is severed or explodes. (This will result in moments of intense drunkenness followed by a few lulls followed by intense drunkenness. You will probably kill off a bottle this way)  
• This game is called Van Damn That's Good Coke! In honour of JCVD's legendary cocaine habit, every time the actor removes his glasses to reveal his hangdog, bloodshot eyes you do a bump of cocaine (90% purity or higher) and a shot of liquid cocaine (equal parts Jägermeister and Goldschläger). You must, of course, yell out "Van DAMN that's good coke!" in a Belgian accent while you're doing this. (Haven't you learned anything by now?)

Damage: 5/10 (pre-movie: 110 ml Babicka wormwood vodka; during: 4 x 330 ml Sagres beer)

Boozy rating: 14/10 (The Expendables was 10 and this was not as good as the original, so it becomes a 9. However, any movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme automatically gets a +5 rating so here we are)

--

NEXT WEEK: Either Ted or Bored Legacy