Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; the Riddle of Steel…is that Shaq should not play superheroes. You’ve entered a mythic realm of swords and sorcery, of Tangos and Cashes, of Mikes and Ikes. Every week, our hero (read: pudgy misanthrope) battles a tremendous schlock monster – as well as the sinister threat of early onset heart failure. With his sharp words, he slices the beast open, spilling its flaws upon the ground before hoisting the entrails aloft in celebration. To commemorate this all-too-violent metaphor, a feast of one tasty snack food item will be prepared and set before you. A couple weeks ago, the Alamo Drafthouse launched its Summer of 1982 series; a celebration of arguably the greatest season of the greatest year to ever…fall two years before I was born. Dozens of iconic films, both real people legit and JFC-approved, are being screened, including a certain sword and sandal epic that redefined swords, sandals, and indiscernible Austrian meat piles: Conan the Barbarian. We all remember Conan, he was the gentle oaf-beast who solved most of his problems by cleaving said problem’s head in twain while he struggled with words far less complicated than twain. He battled the Snake Cult and it’s malevolent leader Thulsa Doom (which translated into English from the ancient text means, “This is CNN”). We all remember that classic moment in which Conan is seated in the center of the banquet table, like a roided-up centerpiece, while his masters make him recite what is best in life.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we’re always a hit…with elderly mimes and people whose favorite band is The Jerky Boys. This is the Internet’s best place to wait around for articles on the sites you like to load – sort of a cyberspace truckstop. And like a truckstop, we celebrate things that most people cast off as “trivial” or “base” or “seriously detrimental to one’s memory and critical thinking skills.” We are too! Wait, what was I saying? Anyway, this week we’ve had the very rare privilege of stumbling across a little gem of a rotten turd that will be playing a limited engagement of roughly ten shows a day in every single theater across the country. The arthouse maestro Peter Berg has taken the board game Battleship, that wonderful tool for teaching children all the necessary tenets of blind, desperate warfare, and extrapolated its meager mechanics into a two-hour cinematic testament to the struggle between Hollywood and your brain. Incomprehensibly bad as Battleship may be (read: totally is), I couldn’t help but wonder if the “plot” on the screen wasn’t merely a smoke screen for something that, like the invading alien ships, lurked just below the surface. So I gathered all the best minds in the Junkfood Cinema war room, which may or may not be my pet name for the corner booth at my local TGI Friday’s, and formulated some theories on just what the hell was going on here. My hope was to come up with a

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema…tequila is my lady! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but head honcho Brian Salisbury has been changing up the recipe round these parts. It all started with Kindergarten Cop and continued with 5 Courses Not Offered at Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. I’ve stepped into the master’s kitchen this week to continue the new cooking style. We’ll look at a film of dubious quality, point out flaws, missed opportunities and shining moments alike and, as per usual, offer up a delicious snake to go along with the film. This week’s target? American Pie.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we’re formin’ in a straight line…at the buffet. You’ve foolishly wandered into the Internet’s best second best currently existing bad movie column. Every week we examine a particularly rank schlock dog, rather frankly, exposing every spoil mark and moldy flaw. Then, eschewing our sense of reason, and regard for our own intestinal well-being, we happily consume the rotten red hot with a gleeful smile on our lips. We then pair the film with a similar, but less metaphorical, snack food item themed to the events on screen. Or at least, that used to be the format to which we dogmatically adhered. Now, the warm, bosomy embrace of routine has been replaced by the shrieking, bloodletting scratch-fight of anarchy. In honor of our on-going, shoulda-called-the-doctor-at-the-four-hour-mark nerd boner for Roger Corman, we decided to celebrate this godking of b-cinema by featuring one of his most treasured, albeit dingy gems. Therefore, we head back to school and audit a few classes at Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. What we found was quite shocking. The following is a report detailing a few courses R’n’RHS does not offer, but probably should based on what we beheld.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we’ve already eaten a truckload of those Dorito-shell tacos. This is the weekly (cough) bad movie column that dares never to ask why. Our taste-free taste in film runs the gamut from terrible to abysmal to Ishtar to worse. Usually the way this is constructed, and I only use that term in the same sense as one constructing a soggy gingerbread house, is that we skewer the film first, pointing out all its sundry flaws before lavishing adoration upon it in section two. This is routinely followed by a tasty (read: heart-punching) snack food item themed to the movie. But rules, like diets, were made to be broken. It is therefore with slightly less shame than usual that we present to you the various important life lessons taught to us by one of the all time great contributions to Elementary School Film Noir: Kindergarten Cop.

Editor’s note: With our own Junkfood addict Brian Salisbury busy writing through the typhoon that is SXSW, we’ve farmed out his column to similarly-minded Rejects. This time at bat – Kevin Carr! Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema, where our best exercise is lifting food into our mouths and working those jaw muscles. This week, we’re looking ahead to the future by looking into the past. Remember when reasonable people saw virtual reality for its true dangerous potential: to control people’s minds? You don’t? Well, try telling that to the filmmakers from 1992 because apparently it was a real threat. Today, we’re examining the gloriously convoluted dangers of virtual reality in a world of ooey gooey polygons and cybersex. The film that warned us of these dangers: The Lawnmower Man.

Editor’s note: With our own Junkfood addict Brian Salisbury busy writing through the typhoon that is SXSW, we’ve farmed out his column to similarly-minded Rejects. First up – Adam Charles! Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema. Our jokes are as good as our speling. I’m just kidding…we are good speller. You’ve found yourselves in the annals of a column dedicated to nearly all of the works of Sylvester Stallone except for that one when his Mom will shoot and he’ll warn you about it. We eventually plan on retitling this column Junkfood Cinema: It Is The Laauuwww and today we add one more notch onto the “Stallone takes over Junkfood Cinema” tally, but just before we draw the line to make it complete we’ll offer up a suggestion of something to throw down your kisser in celebration. This week, we give you Tango & Cash.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we take our Coffy black…and with six spoonfuls of Häagen-Dazs. You have just stumbled Across 110th Street and Hit! the internet’s most Boss bad movie column like a Hammer, and there’s No Way Back. Every Friday (Foster), we Drum up another Jive Turkey, becoming Mr Mean as we Savage! and Slaughter the movie right In Your Face. But then, as if we were a Thing with Two Heads we lay aside all our Hangups to tell you why we think the film is actually Super Fly. Then, for The Final Comedown, we’ll offer a Big Time delicious themed snack food item for you to cram down your food Shaft. This week’s big score: Hell Up in Harlem Alas it is time once again to bid farewell to Blaxploitation History Month, and this third incarnation in which we’ve focused on the best of the best worst blaxploitation sequels. We may not have broken any new ground or radically advanced the medium of irreverent film journalism, but some how, against all odds, we managed to undeniably not get sued. So please enjoy this chicken we just counted well before it hatched.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; enjoy a bowl of our Sugar-Coated Pimp Smacks. We recently asked blaxploitation icon Isaac Hayes to write a theme song for this week’s entry. He politely declined, as he is currently dead, but we think his song would have sounded almost exactly like this… There’s some dudes on floor; with indigestion, stomachs sore. What hit ‘em? Junkfood Cinema! Watching bad films all day, who threw their integrity away? Junkfood Cinema! We’ll tell you what makes them so fine, what puts the stars in our eyes. So bad, but who loves them? Junkfood Cinema! To top this thing with a cherry, we offer you a snack that’s so very…so very delicious. Junkfood Cinema. Thanks Isaac, we hope you’ll forgive us. Today’s Sweet Sweetflick: Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; Truck Turner isn’t just what we call Brian when Tacos-On-Wheels runs out of Baja sauce. Welcome back suckas, to the Internet’s freshest bad movie column; this month featuring a funky twist. This is Blaxploitation History Month: Sequel Edition. Every week in February, we’ll be rolling out another super bad blaxploitation sequel that’s so whack we can’t help but dig it. We’ll lay down some cold-blooded mockery on said film, going upside its head with its own numerous faults, but then will jump back, kiss ourselves, and get hip to all the reasons we think these movies are dy-no-mite. To top it off, we’ll serve you with a badass, and bad for you, snack food item themed to the movie. Today’s jive turkey: The Human Tornado.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; the jiveness of our turkey is a byproduct of its being deep-vat chocolate-fried. Welcome friends, to the mean streets of Schlocksburgh. Every week, we pick on some fast-talking, upstart bad movie out to make a name for himself, roughing him up with sucka punches of merciless mockery. But then, just when we think we’ve won, that movie kicks in the doors of our gentlemen’s club, The Cynical Shit Heel, and proceeds to blow us away with two well-aimed barrels of undeniable amiability. Then, in acknowledgment that this brash movie from the block now unquestionably owns our territory (and our hearts), we humbly offer a tribute in the form of a funky, themed snack food item. It’s finally February again…is a sentence few people are wont to utter. But here at Junkfood Cinema, February means one thing and one thing only: Blaxploitation History Month. That’s right, it’s a grand tradition that, to this day, has somehow failed to get us banned from the Internet forever. Some might charge that our adoration for this controversial subgenre reeks of poor taste. I for one resent the implication that we here at JFC have any taste whatsoever. I won’t go into the sociopolitical critiques of blaxploitation because, well frankly it’s boring. But I can tell you that I legitimately love these films and I am so grateful for the actors and characters to which they’ve introduced me. Given that this is our third annual celebration of blaxploitation, I’d say

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; if it wasn’t for bad luck, we’d have won that chicken-fried cake eating contest. You have walked under the ladder of decent web content, smashing a few mirrors on your way, and have crossed paths with the black cat of bad movie columns. Every week we step on the cracks of a schlocky film, breaking its back and spilling salt into its wounds. But then, as we’re spinning around three times like boozed-up dreidels, we offer the film the better part of a wishbone with our genuine love and affection. To put a fourth leaf on this clover, we will suggest a themed snack food item that is sure to hex your digestive track as badly as the movie hexes your IQ. This week’s unlucky charm: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.

When we at Junkfood Cinema heard that we had somehow again avoided outright cancellation, clearly an oversight on the part of hectically busy and woefully unobservant management, we decided to celebrate with another installment of the Junkfood Cinema Awards, affectionately known (read “irresponsibly abbreviated”) as The Junkies. Since this was our sophomore effort, we really wanted to flaunt our year-long incompetence with plenty of pomp and circumstance. We therefore hired a big time Hollywood director, one who had similarly proven his commitment to terrible films, to produce a garish, way-too-expensive, online awards ceremony. But then we had to fire him over some incredibly unsavory comments he made; something about rehearsals being for fatties. So instead, we’re just going to do the exact same crap we did last year. Enjoy.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; our reindeer games are Reindeer Games. Twas the night before Christmas, and here at JFC, we’re administering cinematic pain with despicable glee. These holiday movies are awful, fraught with despair. And at first we treat them with an appropriate lack of care. But then we reverse, like our heads we did wound, seeing to it that with love these turds are festooned. To top it all off, ‘ere we roll out of sight, we pair the film with a snack to make your Crisco-mas bright. And now we present, before this stops being funny, a disaster called Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; home of the fried food advent calendar. As December marches on, here at JFC it’s beginning to look a lot like Type-II diabetes.  We are back yet again to roast a particularly horrible cinematic chestnut on the open fire of relentless mockery as you struggle to keep the terrifying Jack Frost from trying to bite pieces of your face off; seriously, how scary is that song? But then, I will sugarcoat that same chestnut (plum? bag of mixed metaphors?) with genuine adoration until you are confronted with the unconquerable desire to take me off your Christmas card list and add me to the one enigmatically marked “People to Letter Bomb.” To make your season especially bright, in much the same fashion that nuclear blasts are quite luminous, I will then pair the film with a festively tasty, disgustingly decadent snack food item. Today’s figgy pudding of shame: Elves.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; slippery when festive. You and your intrepid team of reindeer, who may or may not be aerial yaks, have flown your sleigh past the mountains of good taste and crash-landed here on the island of misfit movies. Each week I will crank out one of these Charlie-in-the-boxes, pointing at its flaws and laughing like the meanest little bastard on the naughty list. But then, realizing how dangerously close I am to not getting any presents this year, due to the aforementioned bastardness, I will make a sappy speech in front of a glowing Christmas tree professing how much I loved this movie from the start. That cheap gesture should secure me that Chocolate-Covered French Fry Maker I’ve had my eye on. To put a bow on this whole affair, I will offer up a sugar-laden snack food item paired to the film that will constrict your arteries like Santa climbing down a cramped chimney. This week’s flimsy gingerbread house: Home Alone 2.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; try our new pecan marshmallow yule log, patent and FDA approval pending. Happy December, everyone; it’s the most wonderful time of the month! Despite your busy schedule of shopping, decorating, and pretending to tolerate those relatives you can’t stand, you somehow managed to find time to topple down the chimney of another JFC. We are sort of like fruitcake; nobody ever asks for us, no one knows how we came to be a tradition, and no matter how clearly you state your distaste for us we keep turning up. Every week in the month of this month I will be Nationally Lampooning a festively terrible holiday film. But then, like a Christmas miracle, I will flip the flop and confess as to why the film is precisely my particular brand of egg nog. To put the star atop the proceedings, I will then offer a greasy, but delectable snack food item paired to the film in the hopes of making your waistlines a little less merry. This week’s sugar plum: Home Alone.

Welcome back to Junkfood cinema; nature is lethal, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the McRib. Welcome to the feast of intellectual famine! For our first course, we will be serving skewered schlock seared over a hot flame of merciless ridicule. We will follow this with a round of genuine affection sweetened with just a suçon of my completely indiscriminate, and therefore dubious, taste. For dessert we will be serving an actual food, of the junk variety, paired thematically to the film. Hey, yesterday was Thanksgiving wasn’t it? It’s hard to tell here at JFC because we feast like manic depressive sea cows on a weekly basis. But now that you’ve had ample time to digest, and now that you’ve again worked up an appetite by spending all day hip-checking soccer moms to obtain $3 seasons of Cagney & Lacey on DVD, we horribly humbly submit another feeding frenzy for your destruction consideration. Today’s Reheated Nugget: Deep Blue Sea.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we don’t know what a barbie is either so just throw the shrimp into our mouths. You have just gone walkabout and stumbled upon the Internet’s 87th most prestigious bad movie column. Every week, I spear a wildly schlocky movie as it goes hopping by with a veritable pouch full of shortcomings. But then my opinion of the film boomerangs back to the pure adoration I’ve been harboring all along. To cap the occasion, I offer a disgustingly delicious snack food item certain to prove only slightly less hazardous than any of the innumerable poisonous Australian fauna. This week’s didgeri-don’t: BMX Bandits. 

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; now get off our lawn. This is the weekly internet bad movie column that gets winded as you scroll up and down the page. Every Friday I assault your senses with whatever terrible movie I happen to being using a coaster that week. I will pummel and pistol whip the movie with its own flaws–and a pistol apparently–until it can barely stand, but then I will congratulate the movie on its acceptance into the gang and lavish it with praise. I will then buy a beer and a disgustingly awesome snack food for the film as we stand as friends at the bar singing our gang’s…theme song (?). This week’s punk: Never Too Young to Die