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Jeff Kay's Ridiculous Adventures In Suburbia

What Would You Like to Add to the “Dumb, But Love It” File?

By 65 Comments

I recently pulled the plug on Netflix DVDs, and went with streaming only.  I don’t regret the decision, but admit there’s been a few times during the past month when I was interested in watching something, and was disappointed to learn it’s no longer available to me.  And I’m not talking about new releases – those will never be offered.  I mean older stuff from the catalog.  Oh well.

A few nights ago, before I started the 11-day work marathon, I commandeered the Big Ass Television and settled in for a movie.  It’s rare when that sort of thing happens, and I began scrolling through the “just added” file at Netflix.  And I chose, on a whim, a so-called thriller called Frozen.

The description sounded interesting:  three friends convince a ski lift operator to let them go up the mountain just one more time, before closing, and get left behind.  They find themselves sitting in a lift chair, suspended high in the air, as the resort is shutting down for the week.  I knew it wasn’t going to be a high-brow cinematic exercise, and that was perfectly fine with me. Sometimes I’m in the mood for big, dumb entertainment.

And man, this one scratched that itch.  It reminded me of the kind of flicks my friends and I used to see on HBO during the very early days. They were usually things we’d never heard of, but turned out to be a lot of fun. Like White Line Fever, and Damnation Alley.

The acting isn’t very good in Frozen, especially during the first part of the film. You know, where they show the people who are about to be plunged into unspeakable horror, just living a normal life?  It’s the part where we’re supposed to connect with them, so we’re invested in their plight when the shit starts hitting the fan.

But I didn’t like any of those dumbasses.  The two guys were constantly (constantly!) insulting each other, and engaging in good-natured ribbing.  If someone kept coming at me like that, good-natured or no, I’d tell him to get fucked.  But these guys just kept reacting and making constipated faces at each other.  And the girl was whiny and dull, too.  I couldn’t wait for the deaths to start piling up.

However…  Once they were on the lift, it got kinda good. Oh sure, there was some serious ridiculousness.  Like when the girl fell asleep, in sub-freezing temperatures, with her hand wrapped around a metal pole.  She had to practically de-skin herself, to free it. Why??  Why would a person sleep with their hand gripping a frozen pole?  It’s ludicrous.

And the wolves!  What kind of fancy-ass ski resort has packs of bloodthirsty wolves roaming around?  You’d think word would start to spread pretty quickly about something like that, and hurt business.  A few dozen disembowelments on the slopes, and profits would likely slide. Right?

But there was some genuine tension and suspense, and I enjoyed the hell out of that not-very-good movie.  I like the high-concept, and the way 90% of the film was nothing but people sitting in a ski lift. And I found myself grimacing and tensing-up more than normal.  The director did a good job.  Bill and I would’ve LOVED it in 1978, and I loved it in 2012.

And speaking of the “dumb, but love it” category…  That new Van Halen song?  I thought it was a turd the first few times I heard it.  I was just sitting there, in front of my monitor, frowning.  But it’s growing on me…  It gets better with each listen.  It’s certainly not the greatest thing they’ve ever done, but I don’t think it’s as bad as I originally feared.  I find myself walking around the house singing it now.  Heh.

And that’s gonna do it for today, my friends.  If you’ve seen Frozen, I’d like to know your thoughts.  And if you have anything new to add to the “dumb, but love it” file, please do so, in the comments section below.  It doesn’t have to be a movie, it can be anything you want.  “Dumb, but love it” cannot be contained.

Also:  There’s some maintenance going on in the background, so don’t be alarmed if the site goes off the air for a while.  It probably won’t, but it’s possible.

I’ll see you guys next time.

Have a great day!

Now playing in the bunker
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Comments

  6. What I liked about that movie was that it was snowboarders being eaten by wolves. The skier in me snickers good-naturedly .

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    • I bought a copy for $3 when Blockbuster Canada went under. I feel just like him sometimes – especially when the variety store guy sneers “eighty-fyfe thents”…and the look…sets my teeth on edge.

      Reply

  8. I’ll be watching Frozen tonight, report tomarrow.

    My “dumb, but love it” stuff falls in the music department. I love terrible effects pedals.

    So much so that I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars to get my dirty booger hooks on four of the most infamous pedals around.

    Meat Box
    Buzz Box
    Gonkulator
    Punkifier

    All mine and tied with twine to an old board I ripped off a barn.

    Reply

  9. Today’s classic reminds me of something.

    Have any of you ever farted, while seated without leaning, just to have it ricochet back up your bung hole?

    You know, if you don’t stretch your pant seem so that the gaseous form shit dust can escape through the path of least resistance (not unsimilar to the physics guiding a bullet fired out of a gun barrel) the fart could go back from whence it came. If the ass vapors don’t have enough forward momentum or physical mass, god forbid, to push its way out of the cream puff textured butt from which it wishes to be expelled the concussive force against the hardwood high school gym bleacher surface where you sit will redirect the poop-toot right back up your shit chute.

    I once had one bounce back so hard it came out as a burp three minutes later.

    Reply

      • Holy BEJEZUS, icecycle. That was a beeyouteeful speech!!! I inhaled Diet Coke! Did you submit that to Wikipedia?

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    • Just had to add the movie “Teeth” to the Dumb But Love It file. It’s a very low-budget movie about a girl who has a full set of sharp teeth, um, “down there.” It’s cheesy and campy, but the cast and crew knew it, and just went with it. It turned out to be tons of fun, and is streaming from Netflix, as well.

      Reply

  11. OK, I’ll admit it. Dumb but I love it:

    “A Woman Scorned – the Betty Broderick story” on Lifetime starring Meredith Baxter Birney.

    I love it because it’s based on a true story. It’s dumb because they obviously couldn’t put the swear words in and I heard Betty swore like a truck driver.

    Reply

  14. Check out “The Sure Thing” an early John Cusak film..funny as all get out. My wife and kids just groan when i watch it and recite all the lines!!!!!

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    • “Houseguest” with Sinbad and Phil hartman is one of those quirky ovies I love to watch. So dumb, but I love it anyway.

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    • Plus, it has valuable wisdom: there are two kinds of snack foods, 1) salty and crunchy, and 2) sweet and crunchy.

      Reply

  16. “My Blue Heaven” with Steve Martin. Which, I just read, is a distorted comedy version of the life of Henry Hill of Goodfellas fame.

    Reply

    • I friggin’ LOVE GoodFellas. We’ve been known to cook about 724 dishes a la “Uncle Paulie” and sit around watching GoodFellas while dining on lasagna, sausage, “some veal cutlets I breaded and fried up just right…”

      My Blue Heaven is a pip, too.

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      • “Ma, I need to borrow this, the deer’s paw or whatever you call it is stuck in the grill. I gotta cut it out”. LMAO!

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          • The scene in the kitchen asking for the knife and at the dinner table was all ad-libbed. Amazing.

            I like to read trivia about the movies I love. Plus, I am a plethora of useless knowledge.

            Reply

  18. I wonder what people would think of that Van Halen song if it had a decent video. That was obnoxious as hell to watch, but the song sounded about like all the Van Halen songs I remember hearing. I was never a fan, but they had some videos that were fun to watch and the stuff of theirs I heard on the radio was not annoying like a lot of the other pop that was current then.

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  20. I think “Silent Running” with Bruce Dern may qualify as “dumb but love it” at this point in time. And if classics count, I’d nominate “The Jerk”. Pure genius.

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  21. I watched about half of Frozen…too boring, but I have farted without leaning and had it reverse itself right back up my bung-hole……gave me heartburn…..

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  22. The Day After Tomorrow
    Waterworld
    The Sum of All Fears

    Although the last one I argue is not dumb.

    Jeff..um…you have me kinda worried aboot the website going off line…it never ends well…
    Dennis Nedry: Oh, ah… I finished debugging the phones,ah, you know, I was gonna, so I did, ah, ah I debugged the phones. I thought maybe I should tell ya that the system’s gonna be compiling for, ah, 18 to 20 minutes some of the minor systems, they might go on or off but it’s ah, nothing to worry about, just a simple thing.

    ….see?

    Reply

  23. Man, did I enjoy Frozen. The wolves part was brilliant, and I agree that the frozen hand was excessive, but how can you not mention when her (or is it the other guy) face freezes to the bar?! That was something else. Between that and the compound fractures – serves him right for not tucking and rolling – there was plenty of tensing on my part.

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  25. Favorite dumb movies:

    Beerfest
    The Three Amigos
    Tommy Boy
    Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
    Doctor Detroit
    …and many others

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  27. For the “Dumb but love it” file:

    Dead Snow (available on Netflix Streaming) – Norwegian medical students on a ski outing in a remote cabin are harassed by Nazi zombies.

    Bubba Ho-Tep – Bruce Campbell is old, elderly Elvis in a nursing home where he meets up with a black guy who thinks he’s John Kennedy. They battle an Egyptian mummy. Good, dumb action and fun.

    For that matter, add ANY Bruce Campbell movie to the list!

    Reply

    • Dead Snow was hilarious….Nazi Zombies crack me up. The only problem with it is having to deal with subtitles only.

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  28. Mommy Dearest. So bad it’s good.

    I tried to get streaming Netflix on my computer, but was informed it was “not yet available in my country”. Bastards.

    Happy Wednesday, Surfers!

    Reply

  30. ok so im gonna be honest i used to keep up with this website every day but with work and my kids and whatnot i havent logged on in probably 3 or 4 years what was i thinking ill probably be up straight for the next 6 months trying to play catch up on whats going on where did this new fish come from and whats up with this fancy website

    Reply

  34. I hate to say it, but you are right about the Van Halen song. The more I listen to it the more it becomes tolerable…almost decent. The prechorus is damn catchy. (The “Swapmeet Sally” section) I will hold out judgement until I hear how it fits with the rest of the album.

    Reply

  35. King-POW: Enter the Fist is my all-time favorite dumbass movie. I hate Kung-Fu movies which is precisely why I find this to be a total riot.

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  36. Need some help from creative minds naming my new invention.

    I pull the pimientos from olives, put in a Xanax, then stuff the pimiento back in. Perfect for the 5 o’clock Martini.

    What should I call them? Mar-two-nis?

    Reply

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