Just the Ticket

Here is the first of many looks back at SW@ Ticket 's foray into criticism of the Horror genre, starting with two stupid-funny-ish non-horror selections. FROM June 16, 2004 (SW@ Ticket #6: What If?): Although I usually reserve themes for the N.5 issues, this sixth issue deals with questions of the "what if?" nature. First we address the question: "What if you were a big shot movie producer and an escaped mental patient with a great script held you at gunpoint?" This question was well-addressed but not really given an answer in Shoot or Be Shot! , a small but funny comedy of errors. Harry Hamlin stars as an egocentric producer of sub-par, often pornographic, action films who smokes more Cuban cigars than our Governor Ahnold "Buy Kullyfwornyia Groan" Schwartzenegger. William Shatner, in his usual "There's...somethingonthewing...some...thing" style of speech, plays the escaped mental patient and hapless screenwriter. A lazy independe...

Thanks to your unwavering readership, dear Ticketholders, Just the Ticket and all other contributions to the Ticketverse have passed the 5,000 readership mark. Welcome to the Dead Parade 's Slither issue is still #1 with nearly double the readership of its runner-up, Just the Ticket 's A Little Piece of... , which has me incredibly shocked since A Little Bit of Heaven was suck such a terrible movie, but I appreciate the readership, guys. So keep the +1's coming and tell your friends to get my numbers up because Safeway pays the bills, but bitching about life and pop culture fuels my soul. Speaking of bitching and fueling my soul, the whole Retribution debacle has me in a greater state of depressed aimlessness than usual. So to get back on track, I thought another exhibition of cinematic degeneration would inspire me to kick off another round of Ticket Stubs . So without further ado, here comes an update of The Bad, the Ugly, and the Uglier: FROM July 11, 2004 (SW@ T...

As promised at the end of the last issue of Ticket Stubs , I went to Moses Lake on Tuesday in my free jeans and free T-shirt to buy a ticket to Resident Evil: Retribution 3D  with my free Fandango gift card and get my hands on a Coulson's Revenge gift card at the local GameStop. More on that later, but for now it's time to start the Countdown to Retribution  with a flashback to April 21, 2012 (Welcome to the Dead Parade #4: Resident Sequel Update) :  Since I reviewed  Resident Evil  and  Resident Evil: Apocalypse  at the GodsOfMelee Yahoo! Group on  December 30, 2004  (SW@ Ticket #27: Resident Sequel) , I have developed an appreciation for the series that wasn't there at the time, when I had to wait between films. And since the first publication of Resident Sequel , three more have joined the franchise, there's no time like the present for a Ticket Stubs Update . Commencing countdown.... FIVE.... Resident Evil : As you may know by no...

Thank you all for taking a detour with me to the SW@ Ticket Sniperscope , for a SW@ Publications/TimeDrop Productions crossover event! What began on December 2, 2004 as merely a prejudicial rant about a terrible movie evolved into a coming attractions project called the SW@ Ticket Sniperscope , so named for the long-range viewing capabilities of a sniper's scope, my ability to see a poorly executed (or properly executed) film from a long distance of time, and just because it fit with the whole S.W.A.T. theme at the time. I have since changed the title to Coming Distractions , as my legal department (a.k.a. my conscience, 'cuz this fake company is all me, baby) informed me that the gun-related nature of the title might offend some people. What you'll see next is that very first issue, featuring a SW@ Ticket Update and followed by a Piece Offering  of some grossly inappropriate sequel concepts, one of which you may recognize. Enjoy! SW@ Ticket Update - August 14...

On to Stephen King's Dark Tower  saga. The plot of the tale is that Roland, a gunslinger (think cowboy meets knight) must find the title landmark, save it from being destroyed, and kill the Crimson King (somewhat like Sauron in the LOTR trilogy), who is the one trying to destroy it from his prison at the top. Book I ( The Gunslinger ) opens with Roland (a descendant of King Arthur) following a man in black through the desert. Along the way he wipes out a few mutant villages with his unreal shooting skills, kills a boy named Jake (who will come back to life later), and finally confronts the man in black (who may or may not be Randall Flagg from The Stand , a.k.a. "the Wizard Flagg" from Eyes Of the Dragon ). Book II ( Drawing Of the Three ) opens a few minutes later with Roland 50 years older, sitting on a beach with waterlogged guns and giant lobsters trying to eat him. It centers around Roland's journey down the beach, where he finds doors into various times in ...

It's issue 19, and you know what that means! The Hobbit  films are currently in production, and due to some (hopefully welcome) liberties taken by epic-master Peter Jackson, they will follow in the footsteps of his previous foray into the Tolkeinverse (up for review today) by being fleshed out into a trilogy, featuring returning characters like Ian McKellan's Gandalf and Andy Serkis as the marvelous mocap masterpiece that is Gollum. I loved the book, and am looking forward to the film adaptations. So let's pay tribute to Jackson by doing what he has endeavored to do: move forward by looking back.... FROM June 17, 2004:  The heroic journey is something that you come across a lot in life and literature, and being a mythology freak, I see a lot of it. I usually don't like the predictable stuff, but when it's wierd enough that predictability goes out the window, I can't get enough. So in this special issue, I'll review my two favorite heroic journeys of all ti...

Back in the second issue of Ticket Stubs , I promised that "the other Pimpin' Ain't Easy  selection, the brilliantly pointless  Broken Flowers , is another review for another day." Well, that day has come. But first, a critical history lesson that proves Drag Ain't Easy, Either: FROM September 10, 2004 (SW@ Ticket #17: Drag):  In Shakespeare's plays, women weren't allowed to perform, so men  played the female roles. In the script, when a female character entered, Shakespeare would write DRAG (DRessed As Girl). And so the term drag queen was born. You learn something new every day on SW@ Ticket , and today I'm going to review the gay masterpiece known as Connie and Carla . Starring writer/director Nia Vardalos ( My Big Fat Greek Wedding ) and English actress Toni Colette ( Shaft ) as the title pair, Connie and Carla is packed with annoying but familiar show-tunes, a few minutes of Lucy and Ethel-style slapstick, a bit too much Gigli -style romance...

Continuing our theme of cats and bad costumes from last issue, today's Ticket Stubs  is a flashback to Halloween 2004 for reviews of Garfield: The Movie  and White Chicks . FROM November 2, 2004 (SW@ Ticket #23 : Fat Cats & Fat Asses): A b-l8ed Happy Halloween from SW@! Unfortunately, I was unable to see any of the recent batch of scary movies ( The Grudge , Van Helsing , Kingdom Hospital , Dawn of the Dead , or its English parody Shaun of the Dead ). But today, I bring you reviews of a symbolically Halloween nature. The first review contains the traditional colors of Halloween: orange and black. Garfield: The Movie stars Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, Brad Garrett (Robert from  Everybody Loves Raymond ) as Garfield's canine nemesis, Breckin Meyer ( Road Trip ) as John, and Jennifer Love-Hewitt as Garfield's vet and John's love interest. Garfield, although too active for his old cartoon self, still enjoys practical jokes: tying the Doberm...

As I said last time, the milestone moments maintain their momentum this issue, which marks the first time I officially used the SW@ abbreviation in my post titles. Believe it or not, the idea came to me while I was adding my initials to the high score list on Capcom VS SNK 2  at the San Diego State arcade (the only fighting game I had seen up to that point that allowed the @ character in name entry) as S@W. An arcade frequenter I recognized came over and said "S At W? That's stupid." So I superimposed the last two characters and the SW@ logo was born. FROM January 21, 2005  (SW@ Ticket #30: Br@t and the C@):  Aaaahhh. The "at" symbol is truly one of America's gre@est inventions, for it is only in America th@ we are lazy enough to abbrevi@e two letter words. Being a lazy American myself, and just thinking it looks cooler, I will abbrevi@e the acronym "SWAT" as "SW@" in future issues. No big deal, but I gotta put it out there for the new ...