80s Action Movies Belong in the 80s

Just watched the first two episodes of the fifth and final season of 'Breaking Bad'. They're great. While watching, I wondered what Jonathan Banks, who plays Mike Ehrmantraut, had been in before.

When I IMDb'd him, I found out he was the #1 henchman in Beverly Hills Cop, so I streamed it to catch him in it. He was good. Even 28 years ago, Banks was a creepy character actor.

Despite looking like Phil Hartman.

"No more half measures."

Now he looks like Ben Kingsley, who is also a badass, if you've seen 'Sexy Beast'.

See?

But lookalikes aside, I watch BHC for the first time since probably the late 80s. Ecch. If you dislike Jerry Bruckheimer's oeuvre now, you should've seen it back then. Honestly. Try to watch Beverly Hills Cop. It doesn't withstand the test of time. My suspension of disbelief had to be partnered with turning off some basic motor skills in order to understand how...wait, why am I writing a review of the movie? All I'll say is try to watch it again, and tell me how this was the highest grossing movie of 1984.

Then again, maybe you shouldn't watch it, and should keep a memory of it being awesome when you were 13. But Jonathan Banks was cool.

The Dark Nightie

Heading to see the new Batman flick in IMAX today with my best friend, George. Mildly worried about my drastically underfunded bank account, and have dug into a pile of toonies to fund today's misadventure.

George and I took a screenplay writing class a couple of years ago, and have had a screenplay languishing ever since. More creativity has been lost via drinks and scattered notes than we will know. When I enter heaven, I expect God to play out my life on a big screen for me, and show a beach with two sets of footprints, then only one me an afternoon drinking and writing with George, freeze frame it, and say, "THINE FOURTH WHISKY SOUR PREVENTED THOU FROM SCRIBING AN OSCAR-WINNING SCREENPLAY, MY CHILD."

Apparently, there's a porn flick called "Batbabe: The Dark Nightie". Its synopsis on IMDb is as follows:

Bacchum City is being plagued by the maniacal Jerker who sets in motion a plan to steal all of the pornography in the land. He keeps it locked away in his phallically styled helicopter, waiting for the townsfolk to become consumed in sexual anxiety. But Wendy Wane, a strip club mogul by day, slips into her seductive alter ego Batbabe at night to combat the evils of The Jerker and his clown henchmen. Aided by hopelessly incompetent Commissioner Boredom and sexy lesbian District Attorney Henrietta Bent, Batbabe must summon the courage to continue promoting her standard random ten-minute promiscuities and corner The Jerker before he forces her to permanently retire.

I wonder who writes screenplays for porn? I could do that. It'd be 10 pages of dialogue for a 90 minute film, I'd think, with a lot of action lines that simply say:

CUT TO BONING

I believe with the above action, I can safely tell people I've written 80% of a (porn) screenplay.

Welcome back, me! Now what?

It's been a while since I've blogged. The trigger for this post was someone I messaged on OKCupid who has a beautiful food blog. As I simultaneously read and stuffed sushi into my face, I thought, "Why don't I do this again?"

I still don't have a theme for my blog. I'm a foodie, but don't really cook. I called the blog 'Fathers of Detective Fiction' with an original intent about blogging about detective fiction / crime fiction, but haven't done that yet. Currently, I'm reading 'The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star' by Nikki Sixx & Ian Gittins, which is about as far away from detective fiction as you can get, unless you decide to reflect on the mystery of why Nikki Sixx is not dead yet.

I could blog about karaoke places around the city, except I feel like I could sum them up pretty quickly:

• Twister Karaoke: decent and fairly clean, with happy pappasan and dour mammasan at the counter. Fairly updated songs.
• Yonge Karaoke: Songs are pretty dated, with occasional 'new' songs from the last 2-3 years. Bathrooms are sketchy, couches are uncomfy, bring Purel, and FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T TURN ON THE BLACK LIGHT
• XO Karaoke: not as good as Twister, since their couches are lumpy, but song selections are okay.
• BMB Karaoke and Music Studio: alcohol-free rooms are downstairs, acohol fuelled are upstairs. Good second choice if XO is filled up.
• Place across from BMB (downstairs. Or maybe it's across from XO? I'm usually past the point of fine detail to remember exactly where it is): so-so, but it gets bonus points for having 'Home Sweet Home' by the Crüe, and 'Sail Away' by Styx. Don't judge.
• Bar Plus: my favourite! Across from Zanzibar's Above the Swiss Chalet at Yonge & Dundas. Has an Android/iPhone app for songs to mark favourites, is clean, bright, and up-to-date tunes. All karaoke places should aspire to be Bar Plus. If I win the lottery, I'm opening up one similar to this.

So if I were a karaoke blogger, I'd have one post. Sure, I could throw in more details about the ambience, the crowd, the drink selection, etc., but that's pretty much it. Go to Bar Plus if you're downtown, XO if you're around Bloor & Christie, and Twister if you're at Yonge & Finch.

Me and my pal Brett, Twister Karaoke, sometime in 2010, I think

Maybe there is no theme. I'd like a theme, though. If anyone I know reads this and thinks I'm missing something obvious, let me know.