JoBlo Originals

Since the 1960s, Eric Idle has been reminding us to “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. More than that, he has made doing so a lot easier with his unique brand of comedy and creativity. Idle rose to prominence with his fellow Monty Python stars in the late 1960s and was a staple of screens big and small in the decades to follow. He has largely stepped away from the spotlight in recent years, which begs the question, “What happened to Eric Idle?” It’s nice to think he’s embraced the comforts of retirement, but the truth may not be quite so rosy.

I’m pretty lucky, I have lived through some major pop culture events. The Tim Burton Batman films changed comic book media, the birth of Image comics, seeing how Star Trek The Next Generation birthed a new fandom. But one of the biggest events was seeing how, in a few short years, animation would change forever. The Simpsons is one example of how cartoons started to break new ground. Yet there was one cartoon that broke the world of American animation. It was gross, it was crass, it was unlike anything we had ever seen. If the Simpsons were an explosion, Ren & Stimpy were the atomic bomb. Today many popular cartoons can all trace their origins back to an insane Chihuahua and a stupid big-nosed cat. It is undeniable Ren & Stimpy changed the face of animation. However the story behind the genesis of the show is full of rebellion, arrogance, and sadly…. pain. It’s a long and fascinating tale, so put on your Stupamatron helmet and get ready to learn about the origins of Ren & Stimpy in this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten.

Hello again, everybody. JoBlo.com here bidding you a big Wahoo welcome to WTF Happened to This Movie?! That’s right, the Cleveland Indians are well on their way to clinching the AL East – which means the 1989 sports comedy MAJOR LEAGUE is well on its way to becoming a classic of the genre! But how did MAJOR LEAGUE reach this status? How did it become one of the most quotable comedies of the decade? How did the cast, which includes Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and a young Wesley Snipes, pull off pitching, swinging and winning like a professional baseball team? How did it go on to represent Cleveland even though it wasn’t even shot there? And why did they have to make those sequels? Well, let’s go juuuuuust a bit outside to find out: WTF Happened to this Movie?!

When you hear the words “professional wrestler,” whose face comes to mind? “Well, let me tell you something, brother...” there may be no more iconic figure in the world of professional wrestling than Terrence Gene Bollea. But you may know him as Hulk Hogan. So WTF happened to Hulk Hogan? With a career that spans over 45 years, a lot. Let’s start at the beginning. But before we do, let’s keep in mind that the source of a lot of what follows is Bollea, himself. The complete record of Terry Bollea’s life is My Life Outside the Ring, his 2009 autobiography, which is more exhaustive than 2002’s Hollywood Hogan. In an industry stocked full of duplicitous people, Hulk Hogan’s long been considered to have perhaps the most strained relationship with the truth of any of them. But neither should we let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Madame Web has just spun Sony’s most laughably pathetic entry in its Marvel universe to date, which now has Awfully Good Movies revisiting the previously most pathetic Sony-Marvel installment starring Jared Leto as the living vampire turned Internet laughing stock… MORBIUS! With Venom 1 & 2 overcoming the haters to rake in big box office, Sony further exploited its share of the Spider-Man rights with Marvel and Disney with a solo film for Peter Parker’s vampiric foe that no one was asking for, with Jared Leto yet again making us reconsider his Oscar playing a thankfully less obnoxious comic book bad guy than the Joker. But even his Method dedication can’t liven up this pointless Spider-Man spinoff whose only connection to the MCU is a cameo from Michael Keaton as the Vulture that could have been a Zoom call, and whose only saving grace is Matt Smith as Morbius’ foster brother turned fellow vampire having fun with this like the garbage it is. Unless you want to see what a superhero movie from 2002 would look like in the year 2022, with entire subplots and lines of dialogue from the film’s trailers nowhere to be found in the final cut (looking at you, Tyrese Gibson!), then I’d say the cinema masterpiece that these memes are jokingly describing would probably be a far more enjoyable watch than the actual Morbius movie, no matter how many theatrical re-releases that Sony gets fooled into. Awfully Good Movies will (probably) return in August 2024 with its review of Madame Web, now playing in theaters and coming soon to an ad-supported streaming service near you.

Sherlock Holmes is a character that has been iterated and reiterated for every living generation and a few dead ones as well. It's been written about short stories, novels, film, TV, video games and even comic books. No matter which direction you kick a can, you will likely hit someone who knows Sherlock Holmes and has their own version of them as "Their Sherlock.” For me, Guy Richie's take on the pipe-smoking sleuth is the one that gets me the most excited about solving mysteries. In particular, the first instalment in the 2-part-series is a work of film that I rewatch often and am endlessly impressed by. And within that film, I think there is almost no better display of Robert Downey Jr.'s idea of what this 18th-century freelance detective was all about than the boxing match- also known as "The slow motion fight scene.”

Tom Green has cancer. It is early 2000, and he is about to go under because he would like to educate you on the world of testicular cancer, and if you can see his internal organs while doing so, so be it. And so there he is at 28 years old in a hospital gown, making jokes while medical professionals get ready to chop off one of his nuts. “This is going to fucking suck,” he says. But, if we know anything about him, it’s that nothing is off-limits for Tom Green. It was the ultimate combination of tragedy and comedy; you have a young man in his prime facing death while telling the world's greatest testicle joke. This comedian turned cancer into performance art, which made me believe God might have a twisted sense of humor... kinda like Tom Green himself. The dude revolutionized a breed of comedy that borders on anarchy, using the boob tube reveal just how wild and crazy the world can be... all you need is a warrior clown poet willing to go beyond the punch line. The comedy stylizing of Tom Green consists of gross-out reality-based chaos with flare from old-school hip hop and energy from punk rock skateboard culture. But are these jokes still funny? Was Tom Green misunderstood and ahead of his time? Was he trying to tell us something about the human condition through tom foolery and disgusting shenanigans? Is this man still out there influencing the masses? So yeah WTF Happened to...TOM GREEN?

Back in the dark days of the pandemic, one of the true moviegoing tragedies was that enough people didn’t see Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One on the big screen. With many of the set pieces being shot for IMAX, it was an altogether different experience in cinemas than it was streaming. Had it come out at a different time, it would have made at least doubt the still impressive $108 million it made domestically. With Dune: Part Two hitting theatres, this will likely be the first time a huge chunk of the audience is seeing Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Frank Herbert classic the way it was meant to be seen, with the desert vistas of Arakkis all the more stunning on a giant IMAX screen. As such, I’m expecting a massive box office jump for this, especially with the two young stars, Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, being significantly bigger now than they were in 2021.

Major stardom never really happened for Rutger Hauer. Why? Perhaps it was because the movies of Hauer’s that did best at the box office were the ones where he played the villain, such as The Hitcher. He was so unforgettable as a bad guy that when he played a hero, such as in the 1986 actioner Wanted: Dead or Alive, he came off as too intense and possibly psychotic. That movie hurt his chances at a big-screen action hero, even though the way he kills the villain, played by Gene Simmons, is perhaps the most excellent kill in 80s movie history. While his movies did poorly theatrically, they cleaned up on home video, paving the way for many low-budget actioners. Yet, next to Philip Noyce’s Blind Fury , one Hauer movie stands head and shoulders above the others, Split Second, which is this week’s best movie you ever saw!

Peter Weller starred in some of the most iconic films of the eighties. While he'll forever be known as the definitive Robocop, aka Alex Murphy, let's not forget that he also played the title role in one of the biggest cult classics of the decade, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighty Dimension. In the nineties, he headlined David Lynch's Naked Lunch, the sci-fi thriller Screamers, and many other cool flicks. Yet, towards the end of the decade, he moved behind the scenes into directing and eventually became a noted historian, earning his Ph.D. at UCLA. So, while he hasn't been seen in front of a camera for a long time (since Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013), it seems like this is more of a personal choice than anything else. So, what motivated Peter Weller to step away from the limelight and go in another direction? We dig into it in this episode of WTF Happened to this Celebrity!

Madame Web opens this week with pretty bad buzz. Let’s get one thing out of the way first. Not every Marvel movie by Sony has been bad. For my money, they’re behind the two greatest Spider-Man movies ever made, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse. And there’s the Venom movies. Those are elevated B-movies, but they’re a decent amount of fun thanks to Tom Hardy’s merciless scenery chewing, and the grosses for those flicks have been astronomical. Clearly, someone likes them. But Morbius…Morbius. Of course, one of the reasons people aren’t hyped about Madame Web is that the character isn’t exactly a household name. For those who aren’t in the loop, in the comic, Madame Web is a paralyzed, blind clairvoyant, which is distinctly not what Dakota Johnson is playing here. She’s already appeared, in a manner of speaking, in Across the Spider-Verse as a guidance counsellor, voiced by Rachel Dratch. So it seems Sony’s taken a loose approach in adapting the character to the big screen, which is fine. I think people have been down on it because of the meme-worthy trailer. Those posters, which looked whipped together, didn’t help, with everyone assuming this would be just another B-superhero movie. So what’s the verdict?

In 1989, the movie Best of the Best had a somewhat abbreviated run in theaters. Only grossing a mere $1.7 million, the movie was a major hit on home video and cable. That’s why, three years later, a sequel, Best of the Best 2, hit theaters… for a while. While the first film has maintained a certain cult status, the sequel, and the two more that followed, have been largely forgotten - until now on this edition of The Best Movie You Never Saw. We'll tell you why this Eric Robert, Phillip Rhee and Ralf Moeller action flick deserves some love.

It’s Oscar night 1987, Jeff Bridges and Sigourney Weaver are dressed up all fancy, ready to tear open that majestic envelope and read the name of the best supporting actor of the year. The competition was tough but when but the victor of the night was that of Sir Michael Caine for his wonderful performance in the Woody Allen flick Hannah and Her Sisters. The audiences erupted with applause as they celebrated Mr. Caine’s triumphant Oscar glory. But then silence nothing... the actor is nowhere to be found. Where could he be? What event could drag him away from this ceremony? Unfortunately, it would turn out the Michael Caine was stuck in the furious jaws of Universal and was out battling stupid sharks instead. That’s right, Michael Caine missed this Oscars because of Jaws: The Revenge. Was it worth it? Of the universally panned sharkie fourquel, Michael Caine said, “I have never seen it, but by all accounts, it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” But that the thing with Michael Caine is that he can be perfectly placed in Oscar winners and silly stinkers. And Michael Caine isn’t even his real name. He took his stage name from The Caine Mutiny, he birth name is Maurice Micklewhite, which is way too British even for Michael Caine. But this actor did give everyone a new type of British leading man to root for... the Cockney kind. Hollywood legend John Wayne once look Michael in the eyes and said, “You’re gonna be a star.” and boy howdy was The Duke right. But, with his retirement seemingly official, have we seen the last of the cockney legend? For more MOVIE NEWS, visit: http://www.joblo.com SUBSCRIBE for more of all the LATEST JoBlo Videos here: https://goo.gl/R9U81J #MichaelCaine #BatmanBegins #wtfhappenedtothiscelebrity

Howard Stern has been one of the most controversial – and revered – figures in the history of modern media. With a passion for the field as a child, Stern’s climb to the top of the radio world truly began in the ‘80s. And he did it off of his unique, button-pressing, FCC-clashing brand and humor, and all of it all made Howard Stern one of the most recognizable figures in all of media. And so as his markets grew and his written word topped the charts – but long before his first $500 million contract with Sirius – it was time for Stern to enter the movie business with his fictionalized biopic, Private Parts. So how Stern get his own shot in Hollywood? How did he micromanage his own book into a motion picture that got surprisingly good reviews? How did he further solidify himself as the King of All Media? Let’s find out: What Happened to this movie?!

I have this really bad habit when I watch new shows. I am always late to the party. It happens all the time. I watch a pilot of a TV show, write it off and then years later I find out it's an incredible piece of work. Community, Brooklyn 99, Superstore, and Babylon 5 are a few that come to mind. It's frustrating because I miss out on so much fun, like talking to other fans about the show, conventions, and fun marketing. Sure, you can still do many of these things after the show but, like a fresh slice of pizza, it always tastes better fresh out of the oven. Fringe is another slice that I have had to microwave. The series followed a quirky scientist, an estranged criminal son, and a badass FBI agent on some dark and fascinating twists and turns. These would involve alternate dimensions, time travel, and a cow. The show is tragically underrated and sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. But is Fringe as special as many fans claim it is? Or was my original opinion of Fringe being yet another X-files knockoff correct? Luckily you have me to serve you a fresh slice of awesome, in this episode of Gone But Not Forgotten.

Many people often blasphemously (and hilariously) joke around that Morgan Freeman is God. Not only because of his pitch perfect casting as God but also due to his smooth, defining and, yes, god-like is Morgan Freeman’s voice that one can’t picture penguins or parts of nature or, yes, God, without hearing the man. One reason could be that we’ve only ever really known Morgan Freeman as an older actor, not striking a chord with mainstream audiences until he was in his 50s. Soon enough his skills, screen presences and voice had Hollywood calling every time they needed a kind wise grandfather types or a grizzled vet from either side of the the law or any type of narration in any type of film. That persona has marked him as a welcome figure throughout modern cinema – despite the nearly constant cash grabs that pad out the unfortunate bulk of his filmography. There were some major controversies surrounded this man for sure, but he has been given a bit of a pass... the public seems to have quickly forgiven the man who became the widely accepted ultimate Hollywood earthly depiction of God, Let’s find out: WTF Happened to...MORGAN FREEMAN?

As a big fan of spy cinema, particularly the vintage kind from the early days of James Bond, I’ve always liked what Matthew Vaughn was doing with his yarns. While many say he should direct an actual 007 film, it’s clear to me - as a fan of the genre - that Vaughn’s heart belongs to a bygone era in espionage movies. If the Kingsman movies were his gonzo, R-rated riff on the Roger Moore James Bond movies he grew up watching, Argylle is his tribute to the campy James Bond knockoffs that hit theaters in the late sixties. Imagine the 1967 all-star version of Casino Royale, mixed in with a hefty dose of the Our Man Flint series, with a hero - played by Sam Rockwell, who seems to be channelling Dean Martin’s take on the Matt Helm films, and you’ve got a wacky spy yarn that’s unwieldy, but also quite entertaining.

The controversy around Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland led to him being replaced on all the shows he was involved in. So what happened? In this video, we're going to take a step back and look at the accusations, as well as how revolutionary the show Rick & Morty was for both its creator and network. You see, throughout the 90s, the popularity of more adult animation on TV would continue rising until the traditionally kid-friendly Cartoon Network began airing more adult-oriented animated programs after 11pm, eventually launching their Adult Swim slate of programs that catered to an adult audience that would be watching TV at that late of an hour. We would see the rise of cult hits such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. But no show seemed to have true crossover success until December 2, 2013, when an animated show that resembled a more adult version of Back to the Future debuted. The show came from controversial figure Dan Harmon, who had recently been fired from his network series Community, yet it would be the show's other creator that ten years later would make headlines for his off-screen behaviour. It’s time we delve into the controversy surrounding Rick and Morty, and its co-creator, Justin Roiland.

In a 2022 interview for Variety, actor, writer, and director Christopher Guest said, “When I met (Jennifer Coolidge), I knew there was something going on that was special. And I was right, fortunately.” He praised her ability to command attention without commanding the dialogue. “This person stands out. Everyone else, to me, is invisible. You want to see her.” We have seen her on our television and theatre screens since the early 90s. And 2023 may have been her best year yet, with her winning a second Emmy for The White Lotus and being named one of the most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. It's been a pretty amazing run for the actress who, at one time (long ago) was best known as "Stifler's Mom" in the American Pie Series. So, WTF happened to Jennifer Coolidge, the self-deprecating eccentric humorist and sometimes sex symbol, who owns over 100 credits in television and film? Let's find out!

This is it, folks! It's time to blow the dust off the fedora, oil the whip, and venture into the unknown one last time as we celebrate the end of an era with a look back at the fifth film in the Indiana Jones franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny! Unleashed 15 years after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and presented as Harrison Ford's final performance as Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones Jr., Dial of Destiny finds a disillusioned Indy haunted by a villain from his past and pulled into a chase to recover the Antikythera, an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery capable of predicting astronomical patterns and eclipses in advance. When released in the summer of 2023, it underperformed financially and was ill-received by many franchise fans. Looking back after a few months, did it deserve a better fate?

For us 90s kids, Dick Tracy was an interesting monster of a movie. It seemed to take a lot of cues from Tim Burton’s Batman, which was released the previous summer, but it definitely had a distinct voice of its own. Dick Tracy was another classic pulp adaptation of an urban enforcer that had very dynamic visuals and an over-the-top rogues gallery. It even sported a score by Danny Elfman, which would have his signature atmospheric sound. The movie would introduce a generation of young audiences to the 1930’s film noir/ detective movie genre. Additionally, the movie brought back Warren Beatty after a three-year absence when his last film, 1987’s Ishtar, was a big flop. Having a star like Beatty in a big-budget franchise like this was an enormous asset for the re-budding intellectual property. And the star power wouldn’t even stop there.

As comedian Will Ferrell walked across the magnificent stage of The Kennedy Center to accept the greatest honour an American funny person can receive: The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, something happened that made us all remember why he is getting this prestigious honour. The award instantly slipped from Will’s hilarious fingers, shattering this legendary humorist’s bust all over the floor. An obvious gag, that was so damn fitting to what Will represents in the history of the art of doing silly stuff. Without breaking character for a second, Will hilariously tries to pick up the pieces as the world just sits back and laughs… but not laughing at him; we are laughing with him. The appeal of Will Ferrel comes from his innocent attitude that elevates simple stupid jokes to performance art. As Mr. Ferrell once said, “What I recognized when I started doing comedy was that I'm probably not the wittiest, not the fastest on my feet, but the one thing I can guarantee is that I won't hold anything back.” And that funny philosophy of not holding back put this man on top of the comedy world, delivering hit after hit before he hit an inevitable wall.

Walt Disney Studios has had a pretty abysmal year at the international box office in 2023. Between Ant-Man 3, The Little Mermaid, Elemental, Indiana Jones 5, and perhaps most disappointing, The Marvels, the typically successful movie studio has lost an ungodly amount of money by producing overly expensive feature films that failed to resonate among the masses and earn back their financial investments. If the studio isn’t careful and the trend continues, Disney could break another record for the all-time biggest box-office bomb on record. Speaking of which, what would your answer be if you had to guess what Disney’s most notorious financial flop of all time? Well, up until recently, the correct response would have been John Carter, the disastrous 2012 adaptation of Edgar Rice Boroughs’ A Princes of Mars. However, after tallying up the receipts in 2023, Disney’s most infamous box office failure now belongs to The Lone Ranger, directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. Of course, losing hundreds of millions of dollars is one thing the studio must account for, overcoming the reputational hit of one of the most problematic productions in Hollywood history is quite another. Yet, while much of the public focus regarding The Lone Ranger has to do with the epic commercial failure and scathing critical response, many people overlook how damned and doomed the making of the movie was in 2011-2012. Between the production delays stemming from the budget spiraling out of control and the outbreak of chicken pox to weather problems and dangerous wildfires to Depp’s near-fatal horseback injury to the literal death of a crew member on set, the tragedy of the film extends far beyond the economics. Saddle up Kemosabe, it’s time to find out WTF Happened to the Lone Ranger ahead!

Yes, 2023 was an excellent year for cinema (though a TERRIBLE year for Hollywood, but we here at Awfully Good Movies believe you couldn’t have had the great movies without the bad ones, specifically the Top 10 Worst Movies of 2023! Last month, we held a poll for the year’s worst movies among our readers that, as always, gets tabulated against each film’s IMDb score and Tomatometer to end up with a list representing the biggest letdowns and losers amongst our moviegoing public. Whether it was Tomlin and Fonda trying to meet Tom Brady or Adam Driver trying to shoot CGI dinosaurs, the ten nights we spent in theatres watching this crap (except watching WHITE MEN CAN’T JUMP on Hulu) were far scarier than any nights we would spend at Freddy’s. Not even the likes of Vin Diesel driving cars through explosions (again) or Jason Statham punching prehistoric sharks (again) could’ve prepared us for the likes of THE FLASH shaking our faith in superhero cinema or THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER shaking our very belief in God… and by God, I mean David Gordon Green’s ability to handle horror. And need I say any more about my previous episode on EXPEND4BLES, the dumbest movie title since FAN4STIC and the dumbest Stallone sequel since ROCKY V? But thank God for the likes of Nolan and Scorsese for renewing our faith in the cinematic experience, just as WINNIE-THE-POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY getting a theatrical release was about to have us swearing off the movie gods. And thanks to all of you fabulous readers and viewers for getting me to my tenth anniversary working for this website… even if it means having to sift through all these shitty movies at the end of each year.

Ah Hollywood. The evil temptress where talent often overshadows any sort of character flaw. Many people claim it to be a new development with the advent of social media where a person tweets out something dumb ten years ago only to have it brought back up when they have a new Netflix movie dropping. But actually, celebrities have seen their careers implode long before people posted pictures of their dinners online for the world to see. Think back to the story of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the highest-paid silent film stars of the era whose talent and fame were overshadowed when a woman was assaulted and subsequently died at a party hosted by the famed comedian. Arbuckle was acquitted of the crimes, but his career never recovered. We have never seen a career implosion like we witnessed in 2023 when an emerging talent had a genuine break-out year that was expected to end with a a film that would see him nominated and potentially even win an Oscar. Instead, the year ended with that project shelved, potentially never to see the light of day and a career seemingly cut short when the dark side of their private life was exposed to the world. It’s time we sit back and find out just WTF Happened to Jonathan Majors.