5 Off My Head: Fur Friends

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Happy National Pet Day, everybody! I don't have a pet (well we do have a fish, one that has lasted an astonishingly long time as far as fish go, but he's more the boyfriend's than he is mine) so I am just living vicariously through everybody else's love for their fur friends today. Give them a big sloppy kiss from me! 

Anyway with Lean on Pete (which is basically a dog movie, just with a horse) and Isle of Dogs (which is definitely just a dog movie) in movie theaters I've been thinking a lot about Man's Best Friend lately, so here let's take a look at this totally random list that I made off the top of my head of the first five favorite movie dogs that popped into my head. Enjoy...

My 5 Favorite Movie Dogs

Max from How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Beatrice from Best in Show

Barney from Gremlins

Zero from The Nightmare Before Christmas

The mutated wolf-dog from The Thing

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What are some of your favorite movie dogs?

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I Am Link

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--- Jake Be Quick - The 10th anniversary of Brokeback Mountain is swift approaching - in case you don't have it scrawled in gigantic letters across your calendars like I do it's a week from tomorrow - and The Hollywood Reporter did an extensive interview with Jake Gyllenhaal looking back on the movie that's worth plowing through if you're even one tenth the fan of that movie that this spazz right here is. He actually talks about his entire career, from Donnie Darko up to working with Amy Adams right now on that Tom Ford movie.

--- Doubled Up David - I'd be a lot more excited about the prospect of two Michael Fassbenders at once before having witnessed the way two Tom Hardys onscreen at once was totally squandered in the movie Legend, but perhaps Ridley Scott can do right by the concept -- that's right, Sir Ridley says there will be two Fassys in the second Prometheus, or Alien: Covenant or whatever the heck they're calling it now. I hope they are both wearing that insanely provocative body-hugging jumpsuit still.

--- Book Jock - Alex Pettyfer's been making some news (or well "news" I suppose) this week - he's promoting a book his production company is releasing (I had to check, no he didn't write it, and no he doesn't have much in the way of film projects lined up) and he went on Bret Easton Ellis' radio-show (oh god of course he did) and talked about the beef between him and Channing Tatum on the first Magic Mike. It's all kind of strange (something to do with allergies?) but hey we got this gif out of that movie, so who cares about anything else?

--- Wisdom By Waters - It's the happiest time of the year, aka the time of the year when John Waters releases his annual Top Ten Movies list at ArtForum. As usual I am on board with like 90% of it (except for Gaspar Noe's Love, yuck, but I'm not surprised he picked it) with there being one or two titles that I haven't even heard about that I must see immediately. That Barefoot Bandit doc!

--- Player Of Games - I never got around to reviewing the 2nd Mockingjay movie; my opinion stayed vague, satisfied but vague.  And then I read this amazing piece at EW comparing the third book to its film counterpart and it made me rethink everything. Seriously good stuff, if you're a fan read it -- I'd always thought I was somewhat alone in liking the third book so much; I remember the reviews at the time shrugging. But this piece really captures the daring ways Susanne Collins ended her story and how the film sanded its edges.

--- Maybe Mogwai - Zach Gilligan says that if the third Gremlins movie ever gets off the ground there's a good chance he'll be in it because they want to make it a distant sequel a la Jurassic World and not a hard reboot, and since he's one of the few survivors from the originals (I have my doubts that they could coax Phoebe Cates out of retirement, sadly) he's probably correct. My lifetime-long love affair with Galligan cooled after seeing the crowd (super gross) he was running with at a screening a couple of years ago, but I s'pose it just ain't Gremlins without a Billy.

--- And Speaking of Eighties Franchise Staples and the side-long rebootish stuff coming our ways, we all know there's a new Ghostbusters movie coming but the question that matters even more has yet to be answered... but a big clue has been given! That's right -- Coca Cola has re-registered the trademark for Ecto Cooler! Everybody's favorite sugar slime is maybe making a return! (thx Mac) Dudes, I will buy all of it, ALL OF IT, and build myself a bunker underground and that's it, I'm gone.

--- Master Showgirl - Genius Paul Verhoeven recently won a special award at the Key West Film Festival and there he attended a screening of Showgirls, which I wish I could've seen, my god, I wish. He talked to The Playlist about that film and all his films, up to and including his upcoming rape-revenge thriller with Isabelle Huppert called Elle, which is basically the movie I want to see more than anything else in the world. No word on when it's out but he's finished filming, and they share this from behind-the-scenes, which is the first picture I've seen anywhere:

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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I feel like they should maybe cover their mouths for what's coming. It could splatter on them! They're only a couple of feet away, for goodness' sake. You guys, cover your mouths. Hit the jump to see the rest, and cover your darn mouths. It's getting messy!
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Which is Hotter?

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Zach Galligan: Trek or Noir?

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poll by twiigs.com

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We ask this silliness (seriosuly, I don't even know what that picture on the right is from, but man it's ridiculous) on the occasion of Zach's 50th birthday (can you believe that?) knowing full well that the only answer to this question is BILLY PELTZER BILLY PELTZER ALWAYS FOREVER THE MOST ADORABLE BOY IN THE ROOM BILLY PELTZER. 

Good Morning, World

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This morning's fun-fact: There is a 1993 movie called All Tied Up that stars preeminent harpy Teri Hatcher as a woman scorned who groups up with a bunch of her friends to teach her cheating boyfriend, played by Gremlins' adorable Zach Galligan, a lesson by tying him up... well let me just quote Netflix on this one (yes you can watch it on Netflix instantly):

"To make him see the error of his ways, the women bind him to the bed and subject him to a series of physical and psychological tortures -- to hilarious effect."

High-larious! Anyway apparently Zach spends a hefty portion of the film undressed and tied to a bed is my point. This is surely the kind of film intended to be fast-forwarded through. (pics via)

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Christmas' Ways Not To Die

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Silent Night, Deadly Night (1985)

First off, Billy the Deranged Santa Impersonator Who Kills People (Robert Brian Wilson, in his very first role, before going on to some scattered gigs on TV and then disappearing) seen killing people there above? In that last shot, with his post-murder O-face? He looks just like this guy I dated in college. Which leads to a lot of confusing, conflicting feelings, which are kind of creeping me out.

Anyway, on a less personal note, does this scene remind anyone else of poor Barney the dog being strung up by the bad Mogwai in Gremlins?


It makes me think of that scene immediately. And then I remember that it always seemed a little much, those tiny Mogwai hauling that big dog up like that. I mean, they're not even Gremlins proper yet, they're still just the little furballs at this point... but I suppose they've got the will-power and the ingenuity to do such things, after all. How dare I doubt them!

And then I think of dreamy Billy (Zach Galligan)...


Even Gizmo got starry-eyed whenever he said his name.

Such a crush on that Zach Galligan back in the day. Dreamboat! But no, I am digressing here, it's an entirely different Billy that we are supposed to be talking about! Billy the Deranged (yet also hot) Santa Impersonator Who Kills People, as seen up at top. And Gizmo doesn't like that Billy.


If you've ever had the... pleasure?... of seeing Silent Night, Deadly Night, you'll probably agree with me that it's one of the nastier 80's slasher movies. And you might wonder why I chose the above death scene instead of the most memorable death scene from the movie, when Horror Icon Linnea Quigley has that unfortunate topless rendezvous with the business end of a pair of antlers.


Well... that shit is a little hardcore for me to lovingly document frame by frame. Yes, even for me. I chickened out on a Ways Not To Die once before (the "Curbing" scene in American History X) and here I'm going with the friendlier "Man Strangling" scene in the movie... the movie that has a rightful rep for misogyny. This guy Billy's seen killing above was just trying to rape the girl Billy is in love with! So he's bad and deserves Billy's wrath! (Never mind the fact that the girl Billy loves doesn't see this strangling as the Act Of Love it was meant to be, freaks out, and then Billy kills her. I said nevermind that right now!) So here we have Billy's failed attempt at a noble act that leads to all that unfortunateness down the road. Did I mention Billy the Deranged Santa Impersonator Who Kills People is also hot? I did? it deserves visual recognition. I love how we're introduced to Adult Billy - with a long slow pan up him:


Hey there, big fella in ill-fitting Mom Jeans. Wanna help me "load" my "car"? Anyway...

He's a hot piece of Faux-Kringle. Too bad he's all nuts and and stabby and all. What a waste!

A note: This is coming at y'all a week early because I am totally going to be lying on a beach getting my laze on come Christmas Day. Yay me-on-a-beach! Come this Sunday, I'll be out of town for a week. (And on a beach, y'all!) I've got a few little things set to post during the week on their own, but otherwise you should expect radio silence here at MNPP for most of next week. So this yuletide-y stab at gratuitousness of the fleshy male sort as well as the stab-stab is sort of my early gift to y'all. Oh come all ye perverts!

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Previous Ways Not To Die: A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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