TRAPPO's Mail Bag #9!
It's time for another fantabulous edition of TRAPPO's Mail Bag, the show that talks about you on purpose! And we've got a lot of topics on deck with this edition, dear listeners. This week, we're talking about Neil Marshall's The Reckoning, Madonna's 1998 album Ray Of Light, the life and career of genius (yes, genius) musician "Weird Al" Yankovic, comic books, the misbegotten Howard The Duck movie, the fake band Banjo & Sullivan from director Rob Zombie's very real film The Devil's Rejects, Zombie's upcoming The Munsters movie, the increasing ridiculousness of Zombie's continuing musical career, and a whole bunch of other Rob Zombie-related stuff, because at some point this just becomes a Rob Zombie episode of TRAPPO, and that was entirely accidental. So give it a listen if you're into Rob Zombie, because you'll probably get a lot of this particular episode. It's embedded below, and you can also find it on Apple, Google, Spotify, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts and Anchor, so choose your own adventure and join us as we explore the depths of TRAPPO's Mail Bag...
Join the conversation! Leave a comment below telling us what you think of this latest episode, and suggest topics for future episodes! We take all of your suggestions very seriously. You can also send us an email if you're feeling more verbose, and we always appreciate that. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram for the complete TRAPPO experience. Join us next week as we unveil the startling results of our recent poll as we answer the burning question: what are we reviewing next?
Thanks for listening!
(This comment was originally left by "dark and dark blue" here on July 1st, but apparently Blogger has decided to eat the comments on this post for now, so I'm posting it here at the commenter's behest, who reached out to me via Instagram. They were wondering if I was deleting comments, but I've only done that on one occasion, because the commenter requested the deletion. All comments to this blog are automatically archived via my personal Gmail account, and I am copy/pasting the original comment below. Sorry for the confusion. -Dustin)
ReplyDeleteI used to go to a comic shop in my neighborhood every week. The owner was very knowledgeable and loved to help customers whenever he could. Mick was the coolest guy I knew growing up. He’d host Magic tournaments after hours and he’d let me and my friends play Cyberpunk in the office on the weekends. He never asked for any money for all that. Sometimes he’d even surprise us with pizza or Coke when we were playing, because he was just a nice dude. He genuinely seemed to like people, and he wanted to make his customers happy. He lived in the neighborhood and saw himself as a part of the community, and he wanted everybody to feel welcome in his shop.
He had a heart attack when I was 14, and his nephew took over the shop. Hubert was a prick who didn’t know a thing about comics, customer service or how to run a business. He drove away all the regulars with his shitty behavior and the place closed less than a year after his uncle died. Hubert even ended up doing jail time for trying to sell some of the neighborhood sketchy kids weed on Memorial Day weekend. Mick started that shop in 1981. It was his life’s passion. 19 years in business, then his shitkicker nephew burns it all down. The place closed two weeks before its 20th anniversary. Turned me off comics altogether until I got back into them just a few years ago. I know how you feel with your own experiences. The wrong personality behind the counter is like poison. I just can't believe to this day that these idiots don't understand that they need to attract new readers to comics instead of alienating potential lifelong customers with their gatekeeping bullshit.
Fuck Hubert. What kind of name is Hubert, anyway? With a name like that, his parents must have known their kid was destined to be an asshole. All of these fucks are named Hubert, no matter what their drivers' licenses say.
Howard The Duck is an abomination. The little guy in the creepy duck costume, the duck tits for no reason, the implied bestiality, Tim Robbins embarrassing himself through an early performance, the theme song, Lea Thompson at the lowest point of her career… it’s one of the worst things ever made. It shouldn’t be in 4k. It should be in a landfill.
ReplyDeleteI watched the teaser for Rob Zombie’s new “Munsters” movie a week back, and it looks kinda bad. Like some bad cosplay or a fan film thing. I know he had the budget to basically build a neighborhood in Budapest, I think, so this movie obviously has some actual money behind it. Actually, I’m willing to bet this movie probably has the biggest budget he’s ever worked with. But the footage I’ve seen so far doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. Of course I doubt the footage in that teaser is really in the movie. I just wish the man had hired actual actors to play Herman and Lily instead of his dumb pal and his dumb wife. I just can’t see how this could actually work out, but I’ll still see it. If it’s streaming. No way in hell am I paying to see this crap in a movie theater.
ReplyDeleteRay of Light isn’t Madonna’s best album. It’s Like A Virgin, dummy. Like A Virgin is an absolutely perfect pop record from front to back. No clunkers. All bangers. You can’t unseat the Queen from her throne, and this is the record that forged that throne.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Like A Surgeon is a brilliant parody from Weird Al, one of the coolest and most savvy musical minds of the 20th century. And UHF is a true classic. Hey, maybe TRAPPO should discuss UHF! It’s the best, dudes!
Like A Virgin is expertly crafted pop music. Madonna's record label wouldn't allow her to produce the record because they didn't trust the artist to be her own producer, which is absolute bullshit. So she convinced Nile Rodgers, fresh off producing David Bowie's "Let's Dance", another all-timer, to work on the follow-up to her self-titled debut, and he ended up doing the best work of his career. And although she technically wasn't the producer, Madonna was present throughout the entire process, making sure everything happened the way she wanted it.
DeleteAnd who could possibly argue with the results? Five hit singles, including Get Into The Groove, which was a bonus track on the international versions, but most people know that particular song from its association with Madonna's film debut "Desperately Seeking Susan", which is also pretty amazing in its own right. But you can't argue with results like these. The title track was Madonna's first number one single on the Billboard charts, and the other singles all broke the top five. Her iconic performance of "Like A Virgin" at the first MTV Video Music Awards alone changed the pop music landscape forever. Her "The Virgin Tour" was an unqualified success. And the record itself has sold over 21 million copies worldwide, one of the absolute best-selling albums of all time.
Like A Virgin showed the world that Madonna wasn't some flash in the pan, one hit wonder. This record was a maverick new artist planting her flag and telling the world that she was here to stay. Like A Virgin is a masterpiece. A quote from Madonna herself regarding Like A Virgin's album photo really puts it all into perspective: "People were thinking who was I pretending to be - the Virgin Mary or the whore? These were the two extreme images of women I had known vividly, and remembered from childhood, and I wanted to play with them. I wanted to see if I can merge them together, Virgin Mary and the whore as one and all. The photo was a statement of independence, if you wanna be a virgin, you are welcome. But if you wanna be a whore, it's your fucking right to be so."
What a fucking legend. Perhaps the greatest single pop star of all time. And Like A Virgin is an absolute masterpiece. A TRAPPO retrospective on Like A Virgin would be a very cool thing, indeed. I would also accept a UHF retrospective. Or both. We could have both. Because the TRAPPO gods are benevolent gods.
God, that Munsters movie is just going to be a feature length episode of that fucking show, isn't it? When they made those Addams Family movies in the 1990s, they reinvented that shit for a new era. And when they made the Brady Bunch movies, they really leaned into the ridiculousness of the characters and how stiff and out of place they'd really be in any era. Both of those iterations worked extremely well. I don't know if Rob Zombie has the talent or the inclination to write a clever twist on The Munsters. I think he just adored that old TV series so much he wanted to re-create it as a movie, starring a bunch of people nobody really wants to see in the roles, because he doesn't know how to actually cast a movie anymore, if he ever really did.
ReplyDeleteThe man's career has become a punchline at this point. He just released an animated music video for a song called "Shake Your Ass-Smoke Your Grass" from his latest record, and it's just the absolute worst fucking thing. I have no idea what Rob Zombie is even trying to do anymore. This is the kind of music the guy behind Astro-Creep 2000 wants to make now? What the fuck happened? You guys like to compare him to Glenn Danzig, and I think Danzig's got him beat. Say what you will about Verotika, but at least it feels authentic. The music he makes is still on brand and when he stretches himself, like with his Elvis covers album, you can feel the man's passion behind the project. Danzig is passionate about blood, tiddies and monsters, and that passion is on full display.
I don't know what the fuck Rob Zombie is passionate about anymore. I haven't felt any passion in his music in so long I've forgotten. It all just feels like a series of pranks now. How stupid a title can I come up with this time? How insipid and dull can I make the lyrics and melodies? How little effort can I possibly put into this? Danzig still puts in the effort. Danzig still cares. So fuck Rob Zombie, that tired clown. Danzig wins.
I think I just have to agree with AquaSlash's entire statement. I can't remember the last time I've been excited by any of Rob Zombie's music. He covered "Blitzkrieg Bop" and SLOWED IT DOWN, which is a fucking crime against humanity. He also covered "We're An American Band" and made it sound more dated than the original, and that's one hell of a feat. The names of his recent records are insultingly dumb. Even "Educated Horses". What the fuck does that even mean? It's short and sweet, but it's somehow made me dumber just hearing those two words strung together.
DeleteAnd his "The Munsters" movie just looks like the TV show, which wasn't that good to begin with. I'm not saying he should have made a fucked up R-rated version of that movie, but at least it would have been something.
I'm still bizarrely fascinated by Glenn Danzig's "Verotika" and would gladly watch it again this weekend, just for fun. His music isn't incredibly deep or thoughtful, but the man has a niche and he knows what the hell he's doing. I've never felt insulted by listening to anything Danzig's done. He publishes a bunch of blood-soaked softcore comics. He makes ridiculous movies about monsters and naked women. He records aggressive gothic punk horror music. He lives the life he dreamed of when he was a kid, and he's never looked back and wondered if he made a mistake. That life is not a mistake. Hell, it's the life I dreamed of when I was a monster kid. It's the life I still dream of today. Glenn Danzig is my role model. Wow. I think that might be true. The man's pushing 70 and he's still living the dream, out there getting it done every fucking day.
Glenn Danzig worked his ass off and made his dreams come true. He's the personification of the American Dream AND the ultimate Halloween party all rolled up in one compact package. Put his fucking face on Mt. Rushmore.
"Danzig Wins" should be tattooed on ROb Zombie's giant forehead.
And chiseled onto his goddamned tombstone.
Holy shit the full trailer for THE MUNSTERS dropped today and it’s worse than I could have imagined! The movie looks like on par with Verotika in terms of production value, with cheap digital photography and terrible green screen work. Herman Munster sounds like Snagglepuss, and Lily sounds like Sheri Moon trying really hard and failing really hard to sound like Yvonne DeCarlo. How could it look so bad? How could it sound so bad? Did Zombie spend the entire budget on building the Munsters house in Romania and realized he was out of money before he even started production? Good lord, this guy used to know how to make a movie. This looks like Spirit Halloween made a movie with a Halloween Express budget. That trailer was embarrassing.
DeleteAt least Grandpa seems okay.
That was one of the worst trailers I've ever seen. Like some cheap TV show from the late 1990's. Check out some old clips of "The Munsters Today" on YouTube. This shit doesn't look far off. And the radioactive green color of Herman is repellent. And why is it an origin? Who asked for this? I don't fucking care how these monsters fell in love. Can't we just have some family shenanigans or something? The lightning effects look straight out of some antiquated editing software's built-in plug-in suite. I watched "Death Riders In The House Of Vampires" in a theater, BY MYSELF, because nobody else was dumb enough to buy tickets to this, and that movie looked better than this trash. Danzig made a better looking movie with "Death Rider". What the fuck happened to Rob Zombie? This is some amateur hour crap.
DeleteSo Danzig wins. Maybe it's time for Rob Zombie to just retire, stop bothering people with his lame movies and music and leave us all alone. Fade away into obscurity, Bro. It's over. Danzig Uber Alles.
DeleteIt’s just been announced the Munsters movie is going to premiere on Netflix in September. I don’t know if a theatrical release was ever in the cards, but it definitely isn’t now. I thought the trailer looked like a cheap Disney Channel or maybe Family Channel movie from maybe 15 years ago. I know Rob Zombie’s a big fan of The Munsters, but he was also a big fan of Halloween. And we all know how THAT turned out, don’t we? This movie just looks like a disaster. I don’t know why I had any real expectations for this movie before, but after watching that trailer, they’re all gone now. He hasn’t made a good movie since The Devil’s Rejects! How many chances does he get?
Delete31 is really good. I don’t know why people hate that movie so much. It’s really creative and over the top, deliberately so. Zombie didn’t have a lot of money to work with and it shows, but he does a lot with what he has, and I really felt bad for the poor saps who get abducted by these psycho clowns. Doom Head is awesome. I don’t know about this Munsters movie and I don’t care. The trailer looks like warmed over ass and I never cared about the Munsters TV show. Zombie wants to make a movie out of his favorite old sitcom. Good for him. Who cares?
Delete31 is trash. I’m sorry, but it is. The movie has a half-baked plot, it all takes place in one shitty location he could probably shoot at for cheap, the limited production design is boring, and the whole thing just leans into the man’s worst clichés and tendencies. The protagonists are literally carnies. Non-stop vulgarity. Mediocre action choreography. Pointless shock value. It’s like he ran out of ideas immediately while writing this movie and started bullshitting his way through production hoping he could figure out what exactly he was making somewhere along the way, but it never happened. It’s also his laziest damn movie. 31 is the stereotypical Rob Zombie movie people who have never seen a Rob Zombie movie believe a Rob Zombie movie really is.
DeleteAnd yes, his Munsters movie looks like cheap garbage. I heard he had something like 30-40 million bucks to work with here, but none of that was on display in the trailer. And I don’t know who the hell that is playing Herman Munster, but he is absolutely not right for that role. Ah well. It’ll be streaming on Netflix in two months, so I’ll watch it out of morbid curiosity if nothing else. The original series is on Peacock and I’ve been watching episodes here and there for a while. Somehow this modern movie looks worse in almost every respect than a TV show shot on the cheap in the mid-1960s. He really should have pushed to shoot his movie in black & white at least. That may have hidden a lot of flaws.
You know, I still wish him the best. I hope the movie’s entertaining and it gives him the opportunity to make something else. Rob Zombie is a talented filmmaker at heart. If he gets the chance, I think he could still surprise a lot of people.
But he really should stop making music. That ship has sailed, my friend.
I suggest you TRAPPO people check out Lotic's "Water", some of the most gorgeous music I've ever heard. Haunting and weird and deep and dark, like the waters of a troubled mind. She also just released "Sparkling Water", which is a re-imagining of several tracks from "Water" in a completely different, spare and more brassy style. Honestly, listen to any of her music. It's all worth getting into. Lotic is where it's at, fuckers. Get into it. DEEP into it. Drown in this bottomless pool of emotion with me. It's totally cool. And you kids wanna be cool, so strip down to your birthday suits and dive right in.
ReplyDelete