Road to The Expendables 2: Chuck Norris in The Delta Force

Chuck Fucking Norris vs Terrorists in Fashionable Scarves

Explosion Count: approx. 34

As part of our lead up to the recording and subsequent posting of our Expendables 2 episode, I'm taking one member of the cast each week and reviewing one of their films. This week I reviewed The Delta Force alone with my girlfriend Gen.

When I was a kid, Delta Force was fucking awesome. It's theme was only second to the theme from Star Wars in my head. And Chuck Norris had the best dirt bike ever!

Now time has lifted those rose coloured glasses have now been lifted and my view is a little more realistic.

The Gen Summation

"It's like they started to try and make a good movie then gave up and said fuck it, let's just blow shit up."

Can't really argue with my girlfriend. The Delta Force is about a squad of big time commandos who have been brought in due to a hickjacking. Terrorists from Beirut have taken a plane hostage and subsequently landed in their own country and taken all of the male hostages off, separating some military service men and possible Jews (including a Catholic priest who volunteers to be a hostage because he's a Jew just like Jesus was... I shit you not this was the explanation George Kennedy gives). 

A good chunk of the film tries to be a serious hijacking drama.

It fails at this due to bad script and bad acting but it tries. Like the German stewardess who doesn't want to help seperate the possible Jewish passengers due to the fact that she is German and people just naturally associate German with the Nazis. To be fair, she's got a little bit of a point.  Unfortunately, the poor actress that plays said stewardess is rather melodramatic.

And then somewhere around the middle of filming, someone remembered "Wait, we've got Lee Marvin and Chuck Norris in this thing" and they start blowing shit up.

Watching it as an adult I realized a few things.

This movie has a ton of lag time in between the crappy acting and Chuck Norris driving his awesome dirt bike around (the dirt bike did turn out to be pretty cool).

The other thing I discovered was how many celebs they crammed into bit parts. Shelly Winters, Joey Bishop, Bo Svenson.. okay so they're either older celebs or cult figures but still, I was really surprised at the amount of casting that was done.

Overall, not as good as I remembered.

Next week on The Road to The Expendables 2, Dolph!

Episode 32 (High Quality)

Ok, so the delay on this one is seriously my bad.  Between work and home being insanely busy, I had to contend with audio difficulties on this episode, as it was part of an experimental distance recording.  This would have turned out fine if I had used a headset, rather than a microphone in my free hand (don't ask what the other was doing).  On the upside, you can totally hear Brent clearly.

This episode was recorded some time ago, but is mostly speculative of things upcoming, so all of the things that we were looking forward to then are much closer now, which makes it far easier to handle waiting for them to finally arrive.  So, without further ado, the latest episode of TATANS.

As an aside, if anyone has audio promos for podcasts, send them along, as we always have at least one break in the show to accommodate a plug.  The Anime Roundtable used to get our advertising, but they've been dead in the water for some time, so their loss can be your gain!

Download Episode 32 (High Quality) - iPod Enhanced Version

Episode 32

Ok, so the delay on this one is seriously my bad.  Between work and home being insanely busy, I had to contend with audio difficulties on this episode, as it was part of an experimental distance recording.  This would have turned out fine if I had used a headset, rather than a microphone in my free hand (don't ask what the other was doing).  On the upside, you can totally hear Brent clearly.

This episode was recorded some time ago, but is mostly speculative of things upcoming, so all of the things that we were looking forward to then are much closer now, which makes it far easier to handle waiting for them to finally arrive.  So, without further ado, the latest episode of TATANS.

As an aside, if anyone has audio promos for podcasts, send them along, as we always have at least one break in the show to accommodate a plug.  The Anime Roundtable used to get our advertising, but they've been dead in the water for some time, so their loss can be your gain!

Download Episode 32 - iPod Enhanced Version

Mystery Asshole Theatre #11 - Star Wars - Part 4

Once more, I have to apologize for the delay in posting this. There have been a number of delays to this show, and I'm working to deal with those as quickly as possible. My professional life has been rather eating into this, but bear with me a bit longer.

Myself and the other Asshole, Brent, did actually manage to record another episode of the podcast (after several attempts, due to technical difficulties) which is proving difficult to edit due to a number of completely unrelated technical difficulties. The editing process on these episodes is not normally very meticulous, but this one has rather required it to be.

In the meantime, I have drunken banter between the Two Assholes and various Guestholes, as the proverbial lock was removed from the liquor cabinet on this episode, which was very much needed and deserved after watching the first 3 episodes. I think we may have actually stayed sober long enough to discuss the film, but the evening is kind of a haze.

Download Mystery Asshole Theatre Episode #11 - Star Wars - Part 4

Distant Worlds: The Music Of Final Fantasy With Arnie Roth

As regulars to the show are probably fully aware of, I'm not a huge fan of Final Fantasy. I've played the first NES game and a bit of 7 but beyond that, I'm not a player.

Last year, I had the oppertunity to check out Distant Worlds: The Music of Final Fantasy (which is coming to Toronto Saturday March 31). The tickets were a gift, my girlfriend loves the series, so why not.

And I completely enjoyed myself.

As a music nut, it was hard not to be impressed by the skill of the musicians involved as well as the music itself. Fast forward to this week and I got the chance to talk to Arnie Roth. Arnie's not a household name but his a Grammy winner, he's worked with everyone from the Irish Tenors to Barbie (ok...maybe not worked with but he did do the score for a number of Barbie films) and he's the conductor/arranger on the current Distant Worlds tour.

We spoke for around 24 minutes and one thing was made clear, he really loves the music he's performing.

Radio Free TATANS Ep 3

Radio Free TATANS Ep 2

Episode 2 of Radio Free Tatans!