Reefer Madness live-tweet recap

On 420, I live-tweeted the original 1936 version of Reefer Madness. The movie's so boring I wanted to jump out the window like that overacting pot dealer lady at the end.

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In a few minutes, I'm live-tweeting Reefer Madness. I haven't heard Nelson/Murphy/Corbett's RiffTrax of it. I bet it's hilarious.
12:01 PM Apr 20th via web

#ReeferMadnessLiveTweet starts now. This propaganda piece is apparently a classic in the drug-scare genre.
12:05 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie paved the way for such drug-scare gems as the Dragnet "Blue Boy" episode and the Quincy punk episode.
12:06 PM Apr 20th via web

The Quincy punk episode? Yeah, punk isn't a drug, but...
12:06 PM Apr 20th via web

... Jack Klugman, at his most self-indulgent and toupeed, preaches against punk as if it's a drug.
12:07 PM Apr 20th via web

MTV now reruns movies like the Star Wars prequels and The Matrix. But back when the channel was about videos...
12:07 PM Apr 20th via web

... this public-domain piece of shit was the only movie MTV could afford to broadcast.
12:08 PM Apr 20th via web

The opening credits begin. "Marihuana is that drug--a violent narcotic..." Just like cokane and hairrowhen.
12:09 PM Apr 20th via web

"Marihuana" finally leads to "acts of shocking violence"? Someone is feeding you bad intel, opening credits guy.
12:10 PM Apr 20th via web

A violent stoner is like a black Gossip Girl viewer. They don't exist.
12:10 PM Apr 20th via web

Pineapple Express shows what it's like if stoners try to get violent. As action heroes, they're the clumsiest.
12:11 PM Apr 20th via web

Reefer Madness, a.k.a. Tell Your Children, opens with the ugliest credits font ever.
12:11 PM Apr 20th via web

The ugly credits font is a cross between church bingo sign writing and the Dukes of Hazzard font.
12:12 PM Apr 20th via web

The opening crawl goes on forever. A stoner was probably responsible for the speed of the opening crawl.
12:13 PM Apr 20th via web


The exciting PTA meeting sequence influenced similar PTA meeting sequences in The French Connection and Ronin.
12:15 PM Apr 20th via web

Drink every time you hear the word "scourge."
12:16 PM Apr 20th via web

What is this? Fox News? The principal creepily repeats phrases like a Republican pundit.
12:18 PM Apr 20th via web

"Scourge." "Deadly narcotic." "Deadly drug." Get a thesaurus, motherfucker!
12:19 PM Apr 20th via web

When I hear the word "scourge," weed doesn't come to mind. What comes to mind is the Decepticon who had a beard.
12:19 PM Apr 20th via web

How did Scourge and Wreck-Gar grow facial hair? Was that the Transformer gods' equivalent of the platypus?
12:20 PM Apr 20th via web

The principal is doing Adam Sandler's "You can put your weed in there" shtick from Rob Schneider's The Hot Chick.
12:20 PM Apr 20th via web

"They are hidden inside jewelry cases, in the heels of shoes, women's shoes especially."
12:21 PM Apr 20th via web

The principal with the weird accent looks like the type of guy who's got a fetish for collecting women's shoes.
12:22 PM Apr 20th via web

Female weed dealers didn't look like Mary-Louise Parker back then.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web

Female dealers in the 1930s looked like the butterface from Peanuts who brags about her naturally curly hair.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web

Instead of MILF Weed, the movie's female dealer is selling MIWF Weed, as in Mama I Won't Fuck.
12:24 PM Apr 20th via web


The shots of the butterface slipping on her stockings were tacked onto the movie by an exploitation producer.
12:25 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie was originally funded by a church group. I bet the sight of the dealer chick's bare knees infuriated them.
12:25 PM Apr 20th via web

The director's idea of a scandalous opium den-like hangout is the Ricardos' living room from I Love Lucy.
12:26 PM Apr 20th via web

A teen warns his friend that Ralph the leering, very Aryan-looking pothead is "a little too old for us."
12:29 PM Apr 20th via web

Ralph's first scenes are dripping with Top Gun-like homoerotic tension.
12:29 PM Apr 20th via web

The camera is obsessed with Ralph and his friends' asses as they walk to the diner.
12:30 PM Apr 20th via web

The camera must be omnisexual like Captain Jack. It leers at ladies' stockings and checks out guys' asses.
12:30 PM Apr 20th via web

The diner is the whitest hangout I've ever seen. It's a Denny's employee's wet dream.
12:31 PM Apr 20th via web

If these ragtime piano-playing diner folks were really potheads, the music wouldn't suck so much.
12:32 PM Apr 20th via web


The movie traces how chronic ruins the life of 40-year-old high school student Bill Harper.
12:33 PM Apr 20th via web

'Cause day n' night/The dorky stoner won't stop saying "swell" tonight.
12:34 PM Apr 20th via web

Bill and his boo horrendously recite Romeo and Juliet to each other. The Bard is doing a pinwheel in his grave.
12:34 PM Apr 20th via web

"I'll buy you a soda." Bill says, "I never drink that stuff!" Bill prefers the blood of young virgins.
12:37 PM Apr 20th via web


Bill's new homies are the least convincing movie potheads ever. The actors flunked Fake Inhaling 101.
12:41 PM Apr 20th via web

The terrible acting reminds me of the late Mitch Hedberg's bit about movie pot: http://bit.ly/9fIITN
12:42 PM Apr 20th via web

I wish Method or Redman or @johnthecho or Kal Penn or Cheech or Chong would show up to liven up this movie...
12:42 PM Apr 20th via web

... because without cheeba, this movie is boring and not the campy wild ride everyone makes it out to be.
12:43 PM Apr 20th via web

The movie's public-domain status has resulted in a few colorized or re-edited versions.
12:44 PM Apr 20th via web

Maybe this movie would be more watchable with a new soundtrack provided by Redman, Cypress Hill or Lil Wayne.
12:44 PM Apr 20th via web

I'd re-edit the movie so that Bill gets high to the sounds of "Kush" by Lil Wayne: http://bit.ly/dvSZvA
12:45 PM Apr 20th via web

"Hit and Run" by the Bar-Kays would be great for the scene where a stoner kisses an old man with his car hood.
12:46 PM Apr 20th via web

This film says weed makes you a speedy driver. Yeah, that's as likely as Leno giving up The Tonight Show.
12:46 PM Apr 20th via web

After the apocalypse, all that'll be left are cockroaches and Leno, carrying a mic and testing the roaches' I.Q.
12:47 PM Apr 20th via web

Post-apocalyptic Leno: "So Mr. Cockroach, can you tell me who the cockroach in this picture is?"
12:48 PM Apr 20th via web

So when the anti-pot principal suffers from glaucoma, how's he gonna treat it? With optic nerve restoration tonic?
12:49 PM Apr 20th via web

Nothing says teenage rebellion like ragtime piano.
12:50 PM Apr 20th via web

In addition to making you drive faster, mary jane also turns you into a rapist.
12:57 PM Apr 20th via web

If this were real life, Ralph would be in no shape to get it up. This movie gets so many details right.
12:57 PM Apr 20th via web


Attempted rape. Fistfights. Gunshots. In 2010, this is what's known as a Jersey Shore cast party.
12:58 PM Apr 20th via web

Jack: "She's dead. Mae, get me some water." Jack, this ain't the time to show off your corpse ventriloquism act.
12:58 PM Apr 20th via web

Bill: "Mary! Mary!" I keep expecting him to next say, "You want the moon, Mary? I'll throw a lasso around it..."
1:00 PM Apr 20th via web

The creepy anti-pot principal keeps looking at the camera. He's trying to take over the viewer's soul.
1:04 PM Apr 20th via web

"It causes errors in time & space." Someone should write a sci-fi movie about blunts that can make you time-travel.
1:08 PM Apr 20th via web


Ralph's crazed Michelle Bachman-esque expressions are the most disturbing thing about this movie.
1:16 PM Apr 20th via web

The shitty print I'm watching suddenly doesn't have the audio in sync with the image.
1:16 PM Apr 20th via web

The out-of-sync audio makes Reefer Madness look like a dubbed kung fu flick.
1:18 PM Apr 20th via web

It looks like Jack is going to say to Ralph, "For someone who's a Shaolin monk, your kung fu's really lousy!"
1:19 PM Apr 20th via web


The movie has turned into a tedious courtroom drama with a bit of '80s Divorce Court-caliber overacting.
1:23 PM Apr 20th via web


The principal reminds the viewers to "Tell Your Children." About what? That you look like a registered sex offender?
1:29 PM Apr 20th via web


The Kristen Bell version of Reefer Madness is probably something the original version is not: watchable. End of #ReeferMadnessLiveTweet.
1:30 PM Apr 20th via web

The long Khan: AFOS September 2009 segment playlists

Starting today at 8am, these September '09 playlists (intro'd by yours truly, of course) will air all through the month on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel. Until September 29, they'll be repeated every Tuesday and Thursday at 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm and every Saturday and Sunday at 7am, 9am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.


"Eelmatic":
1. James Horner, "The Eels of Ceti Alpha V/Kirk in Space Shuttle," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly
2. James Horner, "Captain Terrell's Death," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly

"Promises, Promises":
3. Tom Jones, "Promise Her Anything" (from Promise Her Anything), Their Greatest Hits: Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, Rebound
4. Klaus Badelt, "The Promise," The Promise, Superb

"Chase Those Crazy Beatheads Out of Town":
5. Barry De Vorzon, "Baseball Furies Chase," The Warriors, Spectrum
6. J.J. Johnson, "Willie Chase," Willie Dynamite, Hip-O Select/Geffen

"Harkness, Everybody, Harkness":
7. Ben Foster, "Here Comes Torchwood," Torchwood: Children of Earth, Silva Screen
8. Ben Foster, "Judgement Day," Torchwood: Children of Earth, Silva Screen

"Tarantino Raided My Soundtrack Cabinets":
9. Ennio Morricone, "Algiers November 1, 1954" (from Battle of Algiers), The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music, Rhino
10. Giorgio Moroder & David Bowie, "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)," Cat People, MCA
11. Lalo Schifrin, "Tiger Tank," Kelly's Heroes, Film Score Monthly

"The Hottie and the Ostinati":
12. The Paramount Studio Orchestra, "Prelude and Rooftop," Vertigo, Varèse Sarabande
13. The Paramount Studio Orchestra, "The Streets," Vertigo, Varèse Sarabande

"Schnapps for Breakfast":
14. Bernard Herrmann, "Thank God for the Rain," Taxi Driver, Arista
15. Bernard Herrmann, "Getting Into Shape/Listen You Screwheads/Gun Play/Dear Father & Mother/The Card/Soap Opera," Taxi Driver, Arista

"R.I.P. Erich Kunzel":
16. Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, "Overture" (from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad), The Great Fantasy Adventure Album, Telarc

"I Guess This Means That Alias/Alias Crossover's a Possibility Now":
17. Michael Giacchino, "On the Train," Alias: Season Two, Varèse Sarabande
18. Eric Rogers, "Spider-Woman," Sci-Fi's Greatest Hits Vol. 4: Defenders of Justice, TVT

"English as Language Second":
19. Ennio Morricone with Maurizio Graf, "Il Ritorno Di Ringo" (from The Return of Ringo), The Ennio Morricone Anthology: A Fistful of Film Music, Rhino
20. Guido & Maurizio De Angelis featuring Susi & Guy, "Driving All Around" (from Il Cittadino Si Rebella), Beretta 70: Roaring Themes from Thrilling Italian Policefilms 1971-80, Crippled Dick Hot Wax!
21. Seatbelts featuring Masayoshi Furukawa, "You Make Me Cool" (from the "Mushroom Samba" episode), Cowboy Bebop: No Disc, Victor
22. Seatbelts featuring Mai Yamane, "Want It All Back" (from the "Asteroid Blues," "Stray Dog Strut" and "Speak Like a Child" episodes), Cowboy Bebop: No Disc, Victor

"Westlake Ho":
23. Johnny Mandel, "Trackdown" (from Point Blank), Point Blank/The Outfit, Film Score Monthly
24. Quincy Jones, "Kifka Car Caper," The Split, Film Score Monthly
25. Quincy Jones, "Main Title," The Hot Rock, Prophecy
26. Jerry Fielding, "Office Scuffle/Kenilworth Heist/Casino Heist" (from The Outfit), Point Blank/The Outfit, Film Score Monthly

"Say Si, Not Oui":
27. La-33, "La Pantera Mambo," La-33, Walboomers
28. The Wondermints, "The Party," Shots in the Dark, Donna

"Alley OOP":
29. Elliot Goldenthal, "Obligatory Car Chase," Demolition Man: The Original Orchestral Score, Varèse Sarabande
30. Hans Zimmer, "Show Me Your Firetruck" (from Backdraft), Passions & Achievements, Milan
31. Royal Scottish National Orchestra, "End Credits" (from First Knight), Hollywood '95, Varèse Sarabande

"There Are Never Possibilities":
32. James Horner, "Epilogue (original version)/End Title," Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Retrograde/Film Score Monthly

Hurley's a Y: The Last Man fan!

My favorite in-joke on the most recent Lost episode--besides the rabbit cameo during the retirement home sequence, clearly a reference to the DHARMA Initiative lab rabbits--was Hugo Reyes' choice of reading material at the airport. Dude was checking out the Spanish-language edition of Vertigo's Y: The Last Man, Vol. 3: One Small Step TPB. One of my favorite comic titles of all time, Y, which ended its run last year, also happened to have been created by Lost staff writer and co-producer Brian K. Vaughan.

This isn't our first peek into Hurley's comic collection. Back in the first season, Walt leafed through Hugo's copy of the Spanish edition of Green Lantern/Flash: Faster Friends #1. (Then a couple of seasons later, in an episode that BKV scripted, Hugo and Charlie got embroiled in a debate about Superman and the Flash.)

Because Y is back in the spotlight thanks to "316" episode co-writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's little shout-out(*) to their colleague, I'm cross-posting "Y: The last issue," a piece I wrote for another blog last year (January 30, 2008, to be exact). Some things have changed since I wrote that post: I was critical of Torchwood, but that show has improved since then, and Eagle Eye director D.J. Caruso now wants to split his planned adaptation of Y into three movies.

(*) Is Hurley's Y TPB also a foreshadowing of future events on the island? The Y issues that were collected in that TPB involved the crash-landing of a team of cosmonauts who were in space while almost all of Earth's male population perished. The sole survivor of the crash was a pregnant female cosmonaut. The Oceanic Six Five has returned to the island in similar fashion, and many fans suspect that Kate, who had hate sex with Jack before the Ajira flight, is prego.

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Y: The last issue

It's a sad week for comics. The brilliant and addictive Vertigo series Y: The Last Man is wrapping up its five-year run this week with its 60th and final issue. Written by Brian K. Vaughan (whom I met at WonderCon last year--he's a nice guy and he gave me some good advice about comics scriptwriting) and pencilled by the underrated artist Pia Guerra, Y is the saga of Yorick Brown, a twentysomething slacker who embarks on a globehopping journey to find his missing girlfriend and to find out why he survived a mysterious plague that killed all the men on Earth. In 2003, the superb writing in then-new titles like Y, Gotham Central and Sleeper reignited my love for comics after a low creative ebb during the '90s drew me away. (I stopped buying comics in the mid-'90s because I got fed up with the fugly-looking "enhanced" covers, the inane costume changes and the unwieldy crossover events--all '90s Marvel and DC gimmicks to boost flagging sales.)

What does any of this have to do with TV or film? If Y were a TV show, it would have been the best mythology show on the air. (It's because Vaughan didn't have network execs meddling in his vision or forcing him to keep his series going for another few years. Aw, the creative freedom a comics creator gets to enjoy when he owns the rights to his project and answers to no one.) Maybe the writers from inconsistent and unfocused mythology shows like Heroes should start taking notes from Vaughan's comic about how to build an intricate mythology and keep it from falling apart or how to do any of the following:

Unlike Lost, no ill-conceived, one-dimensional Nikkis and Paulos have ever been awkwardly added to Y's large, predominantly female cast. Every character in Y has been richly drawn, from 355, the world-weary, kickass African American government agent (and knitting aficionado!) assigned to protect Yorick, to Dr. Allison Mann, the surly Asian American lesbian biochemist who must unravel the mystery of the plague, to Col. Alter Tse'elon, the driven and enigmatic Israeli soldier who wants to capture Yorick as part of a plot to repopulate Israel. No character is overlooked. Even Yorick's pet monkey, Ampersand--the only other male survivor of the plague--was given his own flashback issue.

Unlike Heroes or 24, Vaughan's post-apocalyptic series has never taken itself too seriously, despite its exploration of gender politics. (Vaughan once said in an interview that "the level of discussion [of gender issues in comics] was never very sophisticated. If written by men, they were either this gross sex fantasy or, alternately, the surviving women would all go down to the U.N. building and hold hands, ending war and suffering. Both were insulting to women. I wanted to subvert the fantasy.") Speaking of attempts at subversive writing, Y is genuinely adult sci-fi, unlike Torchwood, which pats itself on the back for doing "adult sci-fi," but with the exception of the standout "Out of Time" episode, it has come off more juvenile than the show it was spun off from, the family-friendly Doctor Who. It's interesting that Y has been loaded with more T&A than Torchwood--Y wouldn't have been a Vertigo comic without them--and yet Vaughan's series is still more intelligent and grown-up than Torchwood, because of thought-provoking (but not preachy) dialogue like Dr. Mann's brief and startling discussion about how the plague fixed China's gender imbalance problem and caused the crime rates in that country to drop.

And unlike the showrunners of mythology franchises that wore out their welcome--I'm looking at you, X-Files--Vaughan set an end date for Y (as well as his other creator-owned comic, the equally enjoyable WildStorm title Ex Machina, a 50-issue saga about a disillusioned ex-superhero who becomes mayor of New York). From the start, Vaughan promised to conclude Yorick's quest after 60 issues and has stuck to that promise, so Vaughan's single-minded, Col. Alter-like devotion to reaching that end point hasn't resulted in filler storylines like Galactica's Apollo/Starbuck/Anders/Dualla love quadrangle or the repetitive Heroes-goes-El Norte arc involving Dania Ramirez's endlessly weeping character, Maya the walking Ebola virus (in Spanish, "Maya" means "basket case").

It's no wonder that Vaughan's knack for straightforward storytelling, his ear for witty dialogue and his clever but never gratuitous or pointless pop culture references (I love that Yorick is a fan of The Last Detail--his reaction when he stumbles upon a DVD of the Hal Ashby flick is priceless) landed him a spot on the writing staff of Lost last year. Vaughan co-wrote the "Catch-22" episode about Desmond's past as a monk, and of course, it was one of several highlights of Lost's third season.

Before the writers' strike caused it to slip into development limbo, Vaughan worked on the screenplay for a feature film adaptation of Y, with Disturbia director D.J. Caruso scheduled to be at the helm and Caruso's Disturbia lead Shia LaBeouf as a frontrunner for the title role. Like most other fans, I think Y is better suited for TV. It would have been perfect for HBO. But Vaughan disagrees and has said, "I never felt [that it can only be a TV series to be done correctly]. Maybe because I'm the only person who knew exactly how Y ends and I've always been able to see it as something with a three-act structure--something with a clear beginning, middle and end."

Despite Vaughan's involvement in the Y feature film--he said the feature is an opportunity to improve on material that he felt he bungled in the comic's first few issues--the film can't avoid paling to the original comic. For two hours, the feature will likely be a globetrotting action thriller elevated by sharp dialogue about gender roles and amusing pop culture references. For 59 awesome issues, the comic has been a globetrotting action thriller, a thoughtful exploration of gender issues, a satirical critique of sexism in the comics industry, an all-girl gang flick, a simian slapstick comedy, a medical drama, a floor wax, a dessert topping...