There’s only one thing geeks love better than Star Wars, and it’s pictures of Daisy Duke. I feel a little lame running bikini shots of Jessica Simpson to get traffic, but it really is legitimate news. It wouldn’t be fair to remove it, just because she’s got a great ass. So if our server’s a little slow this week, blame this news story and accept my apologies for selling out to T&A. The shame would be unbearable if I wasn’t basking in record setting readership.

Still, it’s a little depressing to know that no matter how much work all of us do, none of it is as valuable as a few bikini babe color shots. Maybe it’s time I turned this place into a porno site… don’t adult movies need love too? I guess not. Who needs hits, we have our dignity (mostly).

me with pictures of Keira Knightley washing a Bentley.

Internet Thefted

The internet is often accused with theft. Music companies blame it for declines in CD sales as people illegally download music, the book industry and movie industries have followed suit. But here’s something a little different, this time it’s the internet community that’s being brutally robbed.

We’re not talking big companies here, or ass-hat hackers. We’re talking hard working struggling journalists, we’re talking about people like well… me. If you live in the UK, maybe you’ve heard of Dark Side magazine. I haven’t, and probably never would have had I not been alerted to its existence by our friends over at Film Rot. They claim to be the most popular horror and fantasy magazine in Great Britain, and judging by the number of issues they’ve pumped out, they’re obviously pretty successful. Well hold on a minute, don’t run out and buy a copy. You might not want to support them, because they may be a bunch of thieves.

For the past several years, large groups of critics are alleging that they’ve been robbing internet journalists of their stories. I’m not talking about trying to lift a DVD review here and there for publishing without paying, maybe still crediting the author but not getting their permission or paying them for the work. That would be bad enough. No, I’m talking about lifting hundreds and hundreds of reviews and feature articles from great internet movie sites and publishing them in their magazine as their own. I’m talking about stealing the work of other writers and putting their name on it, with no compensation or credit given to the internet sites where they stole them. I’m talking about wholesale plagiarism, and if this is true it is absolutely the worst case of it I’ve ever seen. You can see a full list of the people they’ve allegedly stolen from here, a list which even contains one review from me. If you’ve got a copy of issue #110, check out their review of The Haunted Mansion, then compare it with my review here and let me know if you see any similarities.

Maybe this is part of the arrogant assumption that print journalists seem to have that the internet is irrelevant, or the public perception that anything you find on the internet is free to use. Print mags make us their bitch, and not just symbolically this time. To date, it doesn’t look like The Dark Side or their parent company Stray Cat Productions is going to do much about it except try and ignore the cries of protest. Aside from a lawsuit, what can we do? Actually, what we can do is go to you. One of the hardest hit by this is Laternia, and they’ve set up a message board to discuss this problem and track progress in fighting it. Click here to head over there, follow along, and offer your support. The best way to get something done about this though is by putting the magazine out of business. If you live in the UK, don’t buy the magazine, don’t support them. Better still, send them letters. Let them know what you think of their massive, and ongoing theft. Copyright infringement is despicable, and there’s no way a magazine which labels itself a “respectable publication” should be allowed to get away with this if it’s true. They may think they can just ignore it and wait for it to go away, but it’ll only go away if we let it. Check out the thread at Larternia for more details.

us to find out how you can help.

CRIMINALLY SEXY

I heard Senator Zell Miller on the radio this morning crusading against CDs. He thinks adult citizens shouldn’t be able to buy CDs that contain the all powerful “F” word. He’s not talking about warning labels, he wants to eliminate them. Crazy? In today’s wacked out environment it just might happen. We’re a society obsessed with protecting ourselves from impurity, and our entertainment is on the verge of being scrubbed clean with a wire brush. The Nazis blamed the Jews, we’re blaming rap videos. Is there really any difference? In the wake of this you might think there’s not much in the way of censorship out there to surprise you, but here’s something new: Now certain body types are considered morally offensive.

Your first thought was probably fat people. I mean, they’re unhealthy and seeing them sets a bad precedent for children. I know I wouldn’t want my child seeing fat people running around and getting the idea that maybe it’s ok for them to eat Whoppers until they drop dead from an early life heart attack. Kids, I know Artie Lange looks happy but diabetes just isn’t fun. But no, it isn’t fat people that’s raised the ire of our good friend Jeebus. Apparently, Jeebus hates hot people and he’s trying to protect our children from them. Thank you Jeebus!

In particular, Jeebus hates Lindsay Lohan’s bounteous bosoms and wishes them erased from existence. When test screening their upcoming (and potentially horrible) Herbie movie, the execs at Disney discovered something peculiar: Test screening audiences were offended by Lindsay Lohan’s breasts. Now the problem here isn’t that she was dressed in revealing outfits, or that Herbie convinced Lindsay to join an impromptu wet t-shirt contest after a particularly hard day at the race track. No, self-righteous parents were offended by her basic body shape, the size of her rack to be specific. They found her god-given hotness to be “raunchy” and being good god fearing individuals they bitched about this new source of filth.

Disney, being the profit driven entity that they are didn’t laugh at the stupidity of all this. No, like every gutless corporate empire they fear the new wave of “clean up the airwaves” paranoia sweeping the country. They want money, and the best way to make it is to back down in the face of mind numbing idiocy. So they’re putting a little CGI to use and reducing Lohan’s large livin bust. Because her natural body is offensive. When she jumps her breasts are too bouncy. When she laughs they shake seductively, and Jeebus hates natural, life-like breasts. Bet he’s gay.

So hot chicks beware, once HBO is shut down we’re coming for you next. Your naturally beautiful bodies inspire impure thoughts in our children, arouse our men, and fuel an industry based on sex, greed, and really small bikinis. It’s not safe to take your kids to the beach anymore without a smoking hot blonde crossing your path. When did this America become so beautiful dammit? That’s where McDonalds comes in. They’ve gotten a lot of bad press lately, and this is their chance to counteract that. If there’s anyone who can save us from sex kittens, it’s the golden arches. McDonalds, I suggest a new marketing campaign focusing on the effect a Big Mac can have on Lindsay Lohan. She’s looking pretty anorexic, throw her a check and force fries down her throat. Let’s see just how fat we can get her. Granted, that won’t shrink her breasts but if you get her belly big enough, no one is going to notice them. Early death from childhood diabetes is better than immorality brought on by the growing number big bubbly breasts out there. Help us Ronald McDonald, you’re our only hope.

me to protest the hotness of David Hasselhoff in Spongebob.



Hot Mail

To prove that someone actually reads this website and guided by the spirit of the hot male to your left (who really ought to do a lot to draw in the ladies), I answer reader mail. your comments to have them read on the… answered here. Let’s see what filled up my inbox this week:

Haralambos:Now Josh, stop sulking about X-Men.... ;-) After all, Superman is back to save the world, so everything will be all right! :-) Seriously though, have you seen the First Movie DVD, with the special inteviews included? They are dam interesting & show up Donners integrity to the comic mythos of Superman. The project on the drawing board before he came along, was a camp joke & somewhat cringable.

Which is the reason, IMHO, Nolan has to re-boot Batman. While Burton "got" gothic, he did not "get" Batman. Why Batman would kill anyone, is a mystery to me. Batman, of the comics, didn't ever. Remeber, he is the good guy! Burton needs to get Batmans ethics & all he saw was the darker side to his personality reflected in Batman--says I speculating.... As for Schumacher, while I respect him for being "out," *WTF* did he try & turn Batman into a gay icon? He alienated all the Batman fans & misrepresented the character. So, Bats is due for a re-boot & I am SO looking forwards to next week, when the first proper Batman movie ever, looks like it is about to arrive. *BFN*

Josh: I find this sudden revisionist attitude towards Burton's two Batman movies baffling. Six months ago a lot of people regarded one or both of Burton's Batman films as the definitive superhero movie. Today, everyone's good and ready to dismiss them as goofy, gothic curiosities so they can latch on to the flavor of the month. Curious. I'm also a little tired of "gothic" suddenly being a slam.

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COOP Records:RE: Drunk Boat - It's good to see that your interest in a film can be determined by it's "boring sounding title." You may also want to check the grammer in the last line of your commentary...real professional.

Josh: You may want to check your spelling of grammar.

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Josh: Before this next email, I'd like to offer a little bit of advice. Don't waste your time reading it. Just skip to my comments below it. To encourage you to skip the hot air, I've posted it in the smallest font possible.

lord moranosa: when will reality swallow the collective consciousness of the 'critic' ...?

this was my immediate thought when i read the rather slanted and un-enchanted review about revenge of the sith. a movie that has only parts that shines - courtesy of the cgi department - but the actual acting and drama comes off as forced and as inept as a george w. bush junior press conference. lucas tapped his muse firmly with the first two star wars - the episodes four and five respectively. after that, his hand becomes revealed with the dreaded episode six where the momentum gathered from episodes four and five become squandered in favor of the lucas great machinery of the product-tie. while those 'critics' in the know seem eager to deride the matrix serial, at least any individual with the secured level of neurotransmitters will inform any of the star wars fanatics that for the price of admission, you aren't getting anything other than a lucas con-job. which reminds me of why i never wanted to get laid in high school: because too many of the girls fronted but couldn't provide the experience i was seeking (..which wasn't a big build up and to shoot my wad in less than a minute once i had achieved 'home base'...). star wars seems to celebrate the infantile mind that can't see between or past the lines. the transformation of anakin to lord vader was as see through as george w. bush's assertion that iraq had weapons of mass destruction (...and this was known by king george because he had the receipts from his uncle ronald's and papa george's days and nights in office...). how can cinema blend claim any sovereignity as this island of critical independence when it kneels before the balls of king-boy lucas to kiss and nozzle and lick them for somehow preserving the memories of some youth that wasn't much of anything if star wars can be considered some universal truth of film making ... the man dropped the ball on his epic twice - the first being his 'digital remastering' of the first three, and then his digital butchering of the last three. if you are drunk enough and aroused enough, you will take home that by-morning hideous beast woman with you because she spent the entire night fondling your balls at the bar. the first two episodes of the second three, phantom menance and attack of the clones were the fondling at the bar, making you aroused for the 'pay-off' which has been already announced in the two episodes of the first three. lucas has used the james cameron logick: do a huge budgeted film that has a built in spoiler to let the audience's neurons seep into a catatonic state of 'entertain me with great cgi....'

meanwhile, you have taken useless pot-shots at robert rodgrieuz for his cgi films...? talk about the towering heights of hypocrisy. at least rodgrieuz, close friend and ally to lucas, goes one better and has characters that offer textures and depth, as compared to the poorly rendered characters of anakin and company (..sans yoda, who seems to be the only character that has remained true and viable as a jedi master....).

then again, i have to wonder whether cinema blend wants to become the next hollywood darling for hollywood to nuzzle with, ergo the same route of the god awful cyber waste of ain't it cool.com - the ultimate pony-boy for hollywood's big appetites and cock for profits at the box office .....

Josh: Dear Lord Viper Scorpion, or whatever jerky name you've chosen to call yourself: Just because you know big words does not mean that you should use them. First, you should have some clue as to their meaning, then you should have some reason to use them beyond stroking your own falsely inflated ego. Also, it helps to string them together in an order that actually makes sense. It's easy to shout LUCAS! GEORGE BUSH! NEURTRANSMITTERS! but without a clear connecting thought they don’t' mean anything, except perhaps that you are an ass-hat. I hope you've enjoyed my lesson in self-expression and wish you luck in continuing to convince yourself that you don't get laid because you don't want to.

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Lisa:Um. There is nothing scoopy about those pics. They're all over fan sites and a couple are in Star and other magazines. Plus, they are from her "Boots are made for walking" video with Willie Nelson. You don't have an exclusive here.

Josh: If you can point out where in our story we said these pics were an exclusive scoop, I'll give you a delightful prize. If they're on fan sites, I haven't seen them because I'm not a big enough loser to hang out on Dukes of Hazzard fansites. I liked the show, but seriously I have standards. And an interesting thing about the Star pictures… aside from their poor quality… is that if you compare them to ours you'll notice that Star has airbrushed out Jessica Simpson's protruding nipples. As we've already learned today from Lindsay Lohan's breasts, the female body is morally offensive.

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