Wednesday, January 23

The Trivial Eye: 90s Movies Based on Old TV Shows

by Jason Toon

OK, maybe the '80s got it started with Dragnet, but we really have the '90s to blame for the plague of Hollywood remakes of old TV shows. If it was on the Nick at Nite lineup, you can bet some producer was trying to convince Judge Reinhold or Kelly McGillis that it would be a perfect family-friendly comeback vehicle. Can you endure the awful memories long enough to remember these eight '90s movies based on much earlier TV sources?

read more…

 

Wednesday, August 22

The Trivial Eye: Fake Bands

by Jason Toon

Part scrappy gangs of streetfighters, part larger-than-life demigods, rock and hip-hop groups have grown into the closest approximations to legends you'll find in our skeptical age. So it's not surprising that so many movies and TV shows have populated their epic tales of success and excess with imaginary pop stars - enough to keep the Rocklopedia Fakebandica growing every day.

You won't see any of these acts on a festival stage near you (with maybe one exception), but can you name them, and the fictional movie or TV universes where they're famous?



read more…

 

Wednesday, August 15

The Trivial Eye: School Movie Posters

by Jason Toon

School: crucible of learning, forge of character, backdrop to films both sublime and substandard. As us Woot bloggers think about school all week for our Dealgebra 101 event, we'd be remiss not to reflect on some of our most powerful formative experiences: the ones we watched other people having. Can you name these eight filmic adaptations of the educational experience, as depicted by their posters?

read more…

 

Wednesday, December 21

The Trivial Eye: Name These Christmas Movie Posters

by Jason Toon

Internet trivia's a tough business. The question that can't be Googled is also the question so obscure that almost nobody would have a chance at guessing it correctly. Unless the questions aren't questions at all. while image-driven search is still in its infancy, we're rolling out the Trivial Eye, a new weekly column of visual trivia. Every Wednesday! 8 pictures! No prizes! All fun! This week…

Christmas Movie Posters

Say what you will about Christmas movies - even the funny ones can turn schmaltzy at the drop of a penny in the poorbox. But nobody can deny that without Christmas movies, there would be a lot more infomercials on basic cable this time of year. We've carved slices of eight cinematic chestnuts this week. Can you guess what movie posters they're from?

Answers can be found by clicking here.  Please post your answers, or arguments, below! But know this: the Trivial Eye is presented for public amusement and no prizes are offered other than that familiar feeling of aggravation that so much of your mind is occupied by useless trivia.

read more…

 

Wednesday, December 07

Woot Watches: The Applegates

by Sean Adams

I'd like for us to relive a moment from my life together: it's several years ago, my junior or senior year in college, and I'm eating in the dining room with a few of my friends. We're discussing movies from our childhoods, Flight of the Navigator, Encino Man, whatever comes to mind.

Me: Hey, what was that movie, something with "the Applegates"? I remember my mom rented that by accident thinking it was okay for kids but it was actually really bad.

Friends: We don't know what you're talking about.

Me: Sure you do, it was about this family, the Applegates, that were actually giant bugs who were pretending to be human.

read more…

 

Thursday, November 10

Crocsploitation Cinema: The Crocophile Watches ALLIGATOR (1980)

by Matthew Norman

That’s right, it’s week three of Crocsploitation Cinema, our salute to cinematic crocodilian anthropophagy! What, you thought the total lack of reader interest could dissuade us from this project? Think again, because this here is a labor of love. On with the man-eating crocodilian flicks!

This week’s picture: Alligator (1980)


In this classic b-flick, a father flushes his girl’s unwanted pet baby gator Ramon into the sewer, where it lives for years, growing humongous on a diet of chemically enhanced dog corpses dumped there by a shady animal experimentation lab. This monster movie masterpiece was scripted by John Sayles, now better known for politically-minded pictures (Matewan, Men With Guns, Silver City) with almost no giant alligator attack scenes in them...

read more…

 

Monday, October 31

Woot Watches Wideos: Matthew Norman's Five Scariest Movies That He's Never Seen

by Matthew Norman

All last week and concluding today, the Woot writers are each writing about the movies that scare them the most. Today on Halloween, Matthew Norman talks about five frightening flicks that managed to scare the bejesus out of him even though he's never really seen them…

(WARNING: Some of the following trailers may be slightly NSFW. Watch... but at your own risk!)

read more…

 

Friday, October 28

 

Thursday, October 27

Crocsploitation Cinema: The Crocophile Watches PRIMEVAL (2007)

by Matthew Norman

It’s time for the second installment in what I swear to Tabaldak is going to be a weekly series of articles about man-eating crocodile movies, no matter how unenthusiastic the reader response!

This week’s picture: Primeval (2007)


Very loosely based on the true story of Gustave, a huge killer crocodile still living (oops, spoiler) in Burundi, this film also packs a dopey, facile “political” message, inspiring the Onion’s AV Club to call it “the Blood Diamond of 25-foot-killer-crocodile movies”…

read more…