I feel like any references to tiger blood, winning or warlocks would be cheap and inappropriate.

Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog. Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese. Harvey Keitel and Scorsese. Leonard DiCaprio and Scorsese. The history of cinema is filled with electric partnerships between actors and directors, beautiful examples of artistic synergy that have created timeless works of art. Of all of these legendary collaborations, there was possibly none more promising than the creation of Sheen/Michaels Entertainment, a production company that united the larger-than-life talents of human trainwreck Charlie Sheen and cock-rock superstar Bret Michaels.

Or maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps Live Freaky, Die Freaky!'s ultimate contribution to cinema was how it went on to inform Nicolas Cage's hairstyle choices for years to come.

The last time punk rock threatened to change the world was about 2002. Like all subcultures, the popularity and identity of punk ebbed and flowed and became totally irrelevant to the previous generation over the years. In 2002, I was still in high school and, for a brief period of time, the music that I listened to was on television. I can’t say I’m particularly proud of it, but I saw bands like Good Charlotte go from indifference to TRL right before my eyes. This was important to me, somehow, because I was still a dumb teenager. Cries of ‘Sellout!’ abounded (this was a time when making tons of money from music was not only possible, but highly frowned upon). Bands may have been signing to major labels left and right and producing what is now considered mostly embarrassing crap, but I knew that soon bands like Goldfinger and… whatever the fuck else I listened to would rule the airwaves.

(Please note that I am not here to argue about what is punk and what isn’t but rather what my teenaged mind considered punk. That is one of the more boring and endless debates of the entire Internet, which is no mean feat in itself.) Read the rest of this entry »