MANTRA #2, Malibu Comics, 1993

Welcome back to Dude Looks Like a Lady Week here at Dave’s Long Box, where we take a look at gender-swapping in comics as well as the phenomenon we call Man’s Mind Trapped in Woman’s Body, as embodied by today’s entry: Mantra #2 from Malibu Comics. That sentence is going to get me some Google hits, I guarantee it.

Mantra is about a guy in a woman’s body.

Written by Mike “Batman and the Goddamn Outsiders” Barr, Mantra was one of the more popular titles in Malibu Comics’ superhero universe. I’m using the word “popular” in a relative sense – Malibu’s entire line of books withered and died in the Great Extinction of the Nineties. Mantra was about a bad-ass warrior guy who gets killed and reincarnated into the body of Eden Blake, a beautiful woman with two horrible, horrible kids. Eden gets these magic artifacts – a mask, a sword, a cloak – and begins kicking ass with her new magic powers. Wacky complications ensue, however, because Mantra is AHH! AHH! DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LAY-DAY! At least, that’s how I remember it.

I’m not going to diss Mantra because I kind of liked it. The first dozen or so issues were just good solid Boob War fun, and then it started to suck. The writing got slack, they drifted from the original gender-identity-crisis theme, and the book was plagued by irregular art. But for a while it was OK.

Plus, Mantra took a lot of showers.

Eventually Malibu re-launched Mantra but with a different lead character, and then Mantra went from “kind of sucking” straight to “full-on sucking.” Instead of Dude Looks Like a Lady, they went with a nubile 16-year old girl in lingerie who gets punched in the stomach a lot, which is not as high concept of a premise if you ask me. I should do a post about NuMantra – she gets punched in the gut in every other panel! Seriously, it’s like a strange fetish comic or something.

Mantra is told in first-person narrative; we get the male character’s thoughts in captions where he often ruefully comments on being a woman. Barr makes it clear that the male character within Mantra’s female body is kind of an asshole. He’s not very nice to Eden’s horrible, horrible kids and his actions are influenced by the weird stereotypes and misconceptions he has about women.

In addition to fighting bad guys, Mantra has all sorts of minor misadventures, like putting on a bra, applying make-up, going on a girl’s night out, feeling "not so fresh," etc. When I read the first issue I remember wondering how long I’d have to wait before she tripped in her high heels.

Ah, there it is in the second issue.

Mantra is kind of like Morrison’s The Bulleteer or Dark Horse’s Ghost, in that it wants to comment on objectification of women and whatnot, but also wants to have cheesecake art, too. I mean, it’s one thing to invest your work with subtext and meta-commentary, but I mean, come on: boobs.

Wow, I made it through the entire post without directly commenting about the actual comic itself! Hurray! Hurray Dave! Hurray boobs!

GUY GARDNER, WARRIOR #42 DC Comics, 1996

This post may be NOT SAFE FOR WORK. Not because there is any nudity or dead bodies or anything, but because you might be embarassed looking at this stuff at work. Try explaining to your Mormon co-worker why you're looking at pictures of sex-changed Guy Gardner.

Welcome to Dude Looks Like A Lady Week, where we celebrate superhero sex changes and the eternal problem of the Man Trapped In A Woman’s Body. Both are weirdly common motifs in mainstream comics as well as real life. Sometimes I feel like a man trapped in the aged Brigitte Nielsen’s body, and it totally creeps me out. Anyway, we’re going to spend the ENTIRE WEEK on our Dude Looks Like A Lady theme!

Yes, I know it’s Thursday.

Our first comic is Guy Gardner, Warrior #42, where our hero the redneck ex-Green Lantern is somehow turned into a LADY by his old foe, the shape-changing reality-molesting Dementor. There he/she is on the cover, where it cleverly says “Gal” instead of “Guy” because DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY!

I’m going to have to find a link to Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady” so when you click on the text you hear Steven Tyler screaming “ahh ahh dude looks like a lady.” That’s the effect I’m going for: you’re reading the post in your normal “voice” when all of a sudden – screaming big-lipped Steven Tyler! “DUDE LOOKS LIKE A LADY!!!”

Sorry, that was really stupid. Let’s put it behind us and move on.

You know what else is really stupid? Guy Gardner, Warrior #42 It was coming towards the end of the Guy Gardner series, which had been re-tooled as Warrior when Guy developed alien bio-powers and became more of a he-man high adventure hero by writer Beau Smith, the Toughest Man in Comics. This era of Guy Gardner usually featured art by Mitch Byrd or, as is the case with Warrior #42, art by Marc Campos of Saliva Strand Syndrome fame. I’m going to be delicate and say that both men have done better work than this issue.

The story, let’s get back to the story. Guy wakes up as a girl – a buxom, wasp-waist female version of himself. He receives an invitation to a trap – a fashion show that Dementor has taken over. The shapeshifting villain is holding all the models hostage, and will kill them unless…

Unless the sex-changed Guy Gardner shows up and puts on a private fashion show for Dementor, parading around in skimpy outfits.

That’s a sentence I never thought I would have to write in my life, ever.

I’m serious about the whole fashion show thing. Check it out:

You’re probably thinking the same thing I was thinking when I first saw this: “Wha-HUHHH??” I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be sexy, or funny, or what the hell that is supposed to be. What is the ideal reader reaction to this scene? I can’t figure out what they were shooting for with the whole let’s-give-our-butch-hero-a sex-change-and-make-him-strut-around-in-lingerie thing. It seems… creepy.

But perhaps I’m overreacting.


In addition to the cheesecake fashion show, we get a few morsels of “humor,” like Guy trying to adjust to the reality of having breasts:


Man it is a good thing he is not pregnant! That would be hilarious. I love that panel, because he/she looks so shocked and outraged that he/she found breasts there.

The entire comic is a framing device for the fashion show sequence and manly Guy’s humiliation and objectification by Dementor. The sexual politics of this comic are confusing to say the least, but I’m pretty sure that women are not being portrayed in a kind way here. The whole sex-changed Guy Gardner thing is handled in an awkward and juvenile way – like I’m one to talk. I can just imagine this comic getting into the hands of a confused pubescent young man and fucking with his head but good. “She’s hot, but she’s really a dude! Wait, aren’t all women whores? What’s happening to meee?!”

Eventually a character named Martika, who is like Zsa Zsa Gabor with psychic powers, arrives and does something and Guy gets changed back to Guy and it’s all very tiresome and rote. Thankfully, our beloved Guy returns to us in his normal manly not-gay form.

No, really. Guy Gardner: not gay.

He looks like the love child of the Ultimate Warrior and the Indian from the Village People. Damn, and look at the arms on that Guy! His biceps are bigger than his skull! Now that is burly, and not gay.

I think changing the gender of your protagonist is the final, feeble attempt at survival by desperate creators, one final attempt at turning things around. Think “Turnabout Intruder.” Let's consider Guy Garner, Warrior #42 as Exhibit A and turn our attention next to a comic whose entire premise is Man Trapped in Woman's Body, as Dude Looks Like A Lady Week continues....

But before we move on, I present The Official Dave's Long Box "The Pain" Award to this comic. Well-deserved.

Always remember...

I know, I know - I'm about two weeks late joining in on this meme that Dorian over at Postmodernbarney spawned. First, I couldn't think of anything funny (I often can't) and then it seemed out of place during F*@% Yeah Movie week, so I'm posting it now. It's a poo joke. Big surprise.

THE F*@% YEAH FILES (Movie Version) #7

BIRDY (1984)

Director Alan Parker’s Birdy is the story of two lifelong friends who come of age together in Philadelphia and both suffer horribly from physical and mental wounds sustained in the Vietnam War. The movie begins in a psychiatric hospital where Al (Nicolas Cage), whose bandaged face has been disfigured from a bomb blast, is called in by an Army doctor to try to help rehabilitate his friend Birdy (Matthew Modine), who squats like a bird in his room, catatonic.

As Al tries to draw Birdy back from his disassociative state, we learn more about their relationship and history through a series of flashbacks. Al is a Philly street tough who befriends the introspective, eccentric Birdy, who is obsessed with the idea of flight. Birdy is a sensitive kid who sees flying as a means of escape from his surroundings. The two youths capture and train homing pigeons and support each other through the trials of adolescence. Birdy is obsessed with birds, has hallucinatory visions of flying, and eventually builds his own homemade flying machine.

When the two of them are separated and shipped off to Vietnam, Birdy finds himself in a terrible situation without Al’s support, a nightmare that he cannot fly away from. After surviving a helicopter crash and apocalyptic napalm attack, Birdy withdraws from reality and is hospitalized. Al, too, endures crippling physical and psychological wounds, and the two are reunited in a grim stateside hospital.

The movie is deftly directed by Parker, who also directed Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Angel Heart. Birdy functions equally well as a story about the transformative power of friendship and as an examination on the terrible toll that life and war can take on young men. Cage and Modine have great chemistry, and the flashbacks effectively engage the viewer and make you care about the outcome.

So that’s the set-up. Now I am going to ruin the movie for you by describing the F*@% Yeah moment at the very end. If you’re at all interested in experiencing Birdy’s genuinely surprising and cathartic ending, heed my SPOILER ALERT and read no further.

After numerous conversations, Al has been unable to fully pull Birdy out of his catatonia. Birdy has made some progress, but Al seems to be getting worse himself. The Army doctor who arranged their sessions together wants Al to return to Fort Dix. Despondent, Al gives up. “They got the best of us…” he says. “Maybe we should just stay here.”

Birdy suddenly snaps out of his fugue and says, “Al, you’re so full of shit.”

Al and Birdy make a daring escape. They reach the roof of the hospital, and Birdy takes off towards the edge. Al fears his friend’s obsession with flight and escape has returned in a suicidal way. “Birdy!”

Birdy reaches the edge of the hospital roof and jumps off. Al is horrified. “Birdy!”

Al runs to the edge of the roof – and finds Birdy standing on a second rooftop about six feet lower. Birdy looks up at Al and innocently says, “What?”

End of movie.

F*@% YEAH!

Some have complained that the sudden, almost comic ending is such a departure in tone from the rest of the film that it’s jarring, but I think it’s perfect. It’s a fantastic, triumphant catharsis. You know that in that one moment that Al and Birdy have in effect saved each other. When I first saw Birdy, it pulled an honest, relieved, unfiltered emotional response from me – something few movies ever do.

FEARLESS (1993)

Another movie that deals with post traumatic stress and the aftermath of a horrific incident is Peter Weir’s Fearless. Max (Jeff Bridges) and Carla (Rosie Perez) are survivors of a deadly airliner crash who are drawn together but have completely different reactions to their experience. Max is now utterly fearless, to an unhealthy degree. Carla is distraught and overcome with guilt by the death of her baby in the crash. Max develops a strange, intimate relationship with Carla, neglecting his own family. He begins doing foolhardy things like standing on the edge of a skyscraper roof, walking blithely through speeding traffic, and eating strawberries, which he is deadly allergic to.

Max tries but cannot convince Carla that the death of her child was no fault of her own. During a scene in which she’s absolutely despondent, a desperate Max comes up with a novel way to demonstrate her blamelessness and absolve her of responsibility – which brings us to our F*@% Yeah moment.

Again, SPOILER.

Max takes the grief-stricken Carla and places her in the back seat of his car, fastening her seat belt. He pulls a toolbox from the trunk. U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” starts up on the soundtrack, which may sound corny, but it totally works. Max puts the toolbox in her lap. “That’s your baby. Hold on to your baby.”

He jumps in the driver’s seat and guns the car. “Hold on to your baby!” he screams. He’s heading right for a wall. “Hold on to your baby! Don’t let go of your baby!”

The car slams full-force into the wall and the music stops.

The camera moves over Carla, then Max, both injured, then past the shattered windshield and crumpled, hissing hood, finally resting on the toolbox , which has smashed against the wall. There is no way Carla could have saved her baby.

F*@% Yeah!

Actually, it’s more of an “Oh shit!” moment, but it’s so powerful and memorable that I had to include it here. To be honest I haven’t see Fearless in ten years, but that scene still sticks in my mind. I hope I’m remembering the whole thing correctly.

******

Thus ends this week’s off-topic foray into some of my favorite F*@% Yeah moments. Thanks for playing. We now return our attention back to the comics, good and bad, that wait patiently for us in my long boxes.

THE F*@% YEAH FILES (Movie Version) #6

Megaforce (1982)

I should just make this a one-word post, because nothing evokes macho, high-tech, balls-to-the-fucking-walls, this one goes to eleven, incredible action like that one word:

Megaforce!

If you have seen Megaforce, you know that the entire film is one huge F*@$ Yeah.

If I had the lung power of Luciano Pavoratti, I would take a deep breath at minute one of Megaforce and bust out with one giant, sustained F*@% Yeah that would last until the end credits roll. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to hear any of the dialogue or the incredible soundtrack, but that’s OK, because I have memorized the entire film. Every glorious second of Megaforce is burned into my cranium, robbing me of the ability to perform complex math equations – which is a small price to pay for turning my brain into a total recall Megaforce computer.

To those who hate freedom and have not seen Megaforce, allow me to quickly summarize: Megaforce is an action-packed adventure about “a phantom army of super-elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise," all of whom wear silver jumpsuits and go into battle on missile-launching super-bikes and laser-wielding dune buggies. Tell me that doesn't sound awesome.

Directed by former stuntman Hal Needham, who brought us Stroker Ace, Megaforce stars Barry Fucking Bostwick, Persis "Lt. Ilia" Khambatta, the guy who played Knight Rider’s boss, and veteran movie bad guy Henry Silva. It was filmed with Introvision and the parachute and flying sequences were done using the Zoptic Special Effects System.

That is all you need to know.

I am shocked – shocked, I say - that this movie was not a huge hit and that Bostwick’s Ace Hunter did not assume his rightful place in the pantheon of American pop-cultural heroes, right next to Indiana Jones and Jack Tripper from Three’s Company. I guess in 1982 the world wasn’t ready for Ace Hunter’s blow-dried hair, or his pastel headband, or his skin-tight metallic jumpsuit, or his devil-may-care swashbuckliness. It’s a shame, and I think the world is a little poorer because we didn’t ever see Megaforce II: Deeds Not Words.

But I love you, Ace Hunter.

You know what I love best about him? The kiss/thumbs-up move. At several key points during the film, Ace Hunter and his woman Major Zara exchange their own little salute, sort of like the deaf guy in the elevator in Jerry Maguire who signs “you complete me” to his girlfriend. Ace kisses his thumb, and then gives Zara a tender thumbs-up. It’s romantic and macho all at the same time.

------

"...the entire film is one huge F*@% Yeah. "

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For some reason, my wife refuses to do the kiss/thumbs-up with me, which is a source of unending disappointment for me. And I’ve made her watch Megaforce, too, so I know she gets it. Unless she’s been lying to me all this time and actually doesn’t think Megaforce is a good movie…

OK, let’s get to the F*@% Yeah scene in the film.

At the end of the movie, Megaforce must bust through a mercenary tank corps led by Guerrera (Silva) so that they can reach Dry Lake, where their transport planes can pick them up. Why don’t they have helicopters? Because helicopters are for pussies.

Anyway, Ace Hunter’s elite force rips through the tanks with their laser dune buggies and rocket-cycles and make it to Dry Lake, where they cover their retreat by emitting multi-colored smoke streamers from their vehicles. Radical!

During the battle, Ace jumps over a bad guy tank and drops The World’s Most Powerful Hand Grenade into the open turret hatch, totally destroying the tank. Wait, that’s not the F*@% Yeah part. Well, it is, but there’s more.

Ace takes the time to climb up on Guerrera’s tank, knock on the hatch, and with a rakish grin, tell him, “I just wanted to say good-bye and remind you that the good guys always win. Even in the 80's.” Is this the F*@% Yeah part? Again, yes – but it is eclipsed by the following scene:

The Megaforce transport planes have to take off and Ace has been left behind! Guerrera’s armored force is hot on Ace’s tail as he roars across the open desert on his megacycle. How will he escape? Is this the end of Ace Hunter?

Fuck no, it isn’t!

Ace hits a button, deploying small wings on the side of his bike – and he takes off into the sky!

Suck on that Galactica 1980!

Ace and his incredible flying motorcycle catch up with the Megaforce transport plane and drive/fly through the open rear hatch as his men cheer him on! It’s one of the most triumphant scenes ever filmed with unparalleled blue screen special effects. Introvision, indeed!

Megaforce: so kick-ass that it deserves its very own Ace Hunter F**% Yeah image.

P.S. I stole the above Megaforce images from Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension as well as Badmovies.org, which has Megaforce audio files and the official Megaforce theme song. Both sites have more information and mockery of Megaforce and are highly recommended and I hope they don't kill me for stealing their pictures.

THE F*@% YEAH FILES (Movie Version) #5

Few films have as many masterfully arranged sequences as Brian DePalma’s tour de force:

The Untouchables (1987)

I know you all agree with me, and the only question in your minds is which scene I will choose for today’s installment of the F*@% Yeah Files (movie edition). Will it be Al Capone’s (Robert DeNiro) notorious baseball scene, when he demonstrates the effect a Louisville slugger can have on a human skull? Perhaps the scene when Elliot Ness (Costner) launches Frank Nitti off the roof of the Chicago courthouse and into a car far below, Lethal Weapon-style? Maybe the man-on-man kissing scene between Costner and Andy Garcia? …hang on, I’m thinking of The Touchables, which I rented one lonely night along with E.T., The Extra Testicle and Field of Reams.

What the hell, let’s get crazy and pick two scenes.

The first scene takes place in a cabin on the Canadian border, after Elliot Ness’s gangbusters have teamed up with some Canadian Mounties to intercept a shipment of contraband alcohol. They’ve captured one gangster, who is not cooperating. The tough Chicago cops try to rough up the goon, but the upright Canadian cop won’t allow it. Jim Malone (Sean Connery), who plays dirty, decides to put the fear of God into their captive, so he grabs his gun and goes out on the porch, where (unbeknownst to the captive) another mobster has succumbed to his wounds.

Malone grabs the dead man’s body and threatens to shoot if he doesn’t talk while their captive listens with increasing unease. Malone hoists the corpse up against the cabin window in full view of the live mobster, shoves his gun in the dead guy’s mouth, and yells, “I’ll give you to the count of three to tell me what I want to know!”

Of course, the dead guy says nothing, so Malone pulls the trigger. Blood sprays, and the prisoner inside the cabin freaks out big time – he’ll talk. The Mountie is aghast as well. “I don’t approve of your methods!”

“You’re not from Chicago,” Elliot Ness says.

Oh, F*@% Yeah!

The only scene that tops that one is the one sequence that everybody remembers from The Untouchables – the baby carriage scene, an homage to a classic scene in Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Like I'd know. I saw the Odessa steps sequence in Film Studies class, but I've never seen Eisenstein's entire movie. I'm just trying to act smart.

I won’t insult you by describing the whole thing frame-by-frame -- actually, yes I will insult you. After Sean Connery dies a bloody death (SPOILER!), Ness decides to go after Capone for tax evasion, and to do that he needs to nab Capone’s bookkeeper at Union Station.

Ness and Stone (Garcia) wait for the mobsters to arrive at the train station. It's almost midnight. Ness takes a position at the top of a huge flight of stairs and waits. Is that a mobster down below...? No, just some guy meeting his sweetheart.

While he waits, Ness notices a young mother struggling with a baby carriage, trying to pull it up the stairs. Ever gallant, Ness moves to help the woman pull the carriage up.

While he's pulling the carriage up he spots Capone's men. First one. Then another. Then another. He spots the bookkeeper.

A bandaged thug at the top of the stairs recognizes Ness... and IT IS ON. Ness pulls a shotgun from his overcoat, still holding the baby carriage, and blows Bandaged Thug away.

Chaos. Bullets start flying. Ness loses his grip on the baby carriage while shooting another goon, and it starts to careen down the stairs. A mobster at the bottom of the stairs starts shooting at Ness, who shoots a couple more bad guys. He's out of shotgun ammo.

He's got to save the baby! Ness pulls out a pistol and dives after the runaway carriage while mobsters shoot at him from all directions.

Bystanders are getting tagged left and right. Ness shoots at the guy at the bottom of the stairs, who ducks behind a pillar.

Shit, Ness is out of ammo again! He's screwed - the guy behind the pillar is reloading, and a wounded mobster on the stairs is still shooting at him.

Stone runs up, drawing two pistols. He throws one to Ness, who blows away the guy behind the pillar.

Stone does a sliding save at the bottom of the stairs, catching the baby carriage while drawing down on the last thug on the stairs. That's some cool shit right there.

Stand-off. Desperate, the wounded mobster grabs the bookkeeper and holds a gun to his head. The mobster says he'll kill the bookkeeper unless Ness lets them leave. "You got five seconds to make up your mind!"

"You got him?" Ness asks Stone.

"I got him," Stone says.

The cornered mobster is freaking out. He starts to count. "One--!"

Stone fires.

One shot, right in the head.

"Two," Stone says.

F*@% Yeah, and F*@% Yeah again!

Long dismissed by suckers as a pale imitator of Hitchcock, director Brian DePalma came into his own with this film, and in particular this legendary sequence, which is so perfectly choreographed and edited that it deservedly became a classic. When I saw it in the theater for the first time I forgot to breathe. In my mind, it’s one of the top ten action scenes of the 20th century. I am prone to hyperbole, it’s true – but you gotta recognize The Untouchables. You gotta recognize.

Willem? What say you?

THE F*@% YEAH FILES (Movie Version) #4

Because one post is not enough!

I have seen damn near every Chuck Norris film, with the exception of that stupid one. No, not that one. You know, the one with the dog. I refuse to watch that. I also draw the line at Walker, Texas Ranger, which is like Diet Chuck Norris to me. I can’t watch that stuff – too much talking and not enough kicking people in the face.

That’s sort of a funny criticism, because my favorite Chuck Norris movies are the early ones, which are usually paced incredibly slowly, have relatively few fight scenes compared to modern action movies, and feature wooden performances by Chuck. OK, when I say “wooden performances” I’m judging on a sliding scale. He’s as flamboyant and emotive as a drag queen these days compared to his early films like Breaker! Breaker! and Good Guys Wear Black, where Chuck is so inert that you wonder if there is something wrong with your VCR.

For the record, Chuck’s best films are:

- The Octagon, with fuckin’ Lee Van Cleef and a ninja training camp. Lee has this great line I used to always say as a kid: “You’re a moody S.O.B.”

- Silent Rage, with Chuck versus an unstoppable killing machine. Tagline: “Science created him. Now Chuck Norris must destroy him.” …by kicking the killing machine into a well.

- Code of Silence, with Chuck versus Henry Silva. It’s actually kind of a good movie. Honest.

I’m just trying to establish my Chuck Norris creds. I know he’s en vogue these days with all the kids, thanks to Chuck Norris facts and Conan O'Brien’s Walker, Texas Ranger Lever and the Young Chuck Norris video. It's a little played-out, frankly, and I don’t want people thinking I jumped on the bandwagon or anything. I was rocking the Chuck back in the day, when Bruce Lee fought him in Return of the Dragon.

Having said all that, the Best Chuck Norris Film Ever is:

Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)

Have you seen Lone Wolf McQuade? Holy shit! It redefines the word “macho.” It’s got a young Robert Beltran (from Voyager), David Carradine, an evil midget, and Barbara Carrera, of whom one character says: “How’d you like to bite that in the butt, develop lockjaw, and get dragged to yer death?”

It is literally one of the coolest movies ever made by the hands of man. If aliens landed on Earth tomorrow, I would hand them a copy of Lone Wolf McQuade as an example of the finest art our culture can produce. They should have created a special Oscar just for this movie: Best Ass-Kicking.

Lone Wolf McQuade is like the meaner big brother of Walker, Texas Ranger. It’s a spaghetti western style saga of a maverick bad ass Texas Ranger who loves his dog, his truck, and kicking people’s ass. He reluctantly takes a rookie cop (Beltran) under his wing, beds Barbara Carrera, and runs afoul of a murderous arms smuggling ring led by Carradine. Much ass is kicked on the way, until the bad guys make a fatal error – they kill his dog.

Bad call.

McQuade can drink more than you, kick harder than you, squint longer than you, grow better facial hair than you, and dodge machine gun bullets better than you. His truck is better than yours, too – which brings us to today’s incredibly cool F*@% Yeah moment.

The bad guys have temporarily – temporarily captured Ranger McQuade, and beat him up pretty bad. David Carradine knows how to hurt a guy, so he’s going to kill McQuade and his truck, too by burying them alive. The bad guys back McQuade’s Dodge into a huge pit, throw the barely conscious lawman inside, and then bulldoze a bunch of dirt over the whole deal.

"We're going to kill you and your stupid truck, too."

Inside the truck, Lone Wolf McQuade wakes up, groggy. He’s in the shit now. He reaches down, cracks a beer, and pours it over his head to wake himself up. Turns on the engine. Hits the supercharger --

-- and fucking drives himself out of his own grave!

His Dodge erupts from the earth, red-and-blues flashing. The theme song blares. Angels cry. Dave screams F*@% Yeah!

There are more awesome scenes in the film, but Chuck Norris’ four-wheel drive resurrection is the high point of the film.

No, it’s the high point of film, period.

THE F*@% YEAH FILES (Movie Version) #3

Sometimes F*@% Yeah scenes occur in movies that are no damn good. Fortunately, I adore bad movies, so I frequently find nuggets of gold hidden in steaming piles of poo. That’s a nice image.

Case in point: director Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea, a film that pits a number of otherwise quality actors and LL Cool J against a pack (a school? a gaggle?) of super-smart sharks in a collapsing undersea research base. You already know where I’m headed with this, don’t you? Deep Blue Sea is a fun, stupid movie that has the distinction of having the Best Death Scene Ever.

Don’t argue with me. It’s the Best Death Scene Ever.

It’s better than David Warner getting beheaded with a sheet of glass in The Omen.

It’s better than the girl getting hit by a bus in Final Destination.

It’s better than Rutger Hauer blowing up Gene Simmons' head with a grenade at the end of Wanted: Dead or Alive. "Fuck the bonus." (Sorry about the autographs - it was the only image I could find.)

It’s better than John Voight getting crushed, then eaten (snake cam!), then regurgitated (and winking!) by the title character in Anaconda.

It’s better than the flaming wheelchair scene in Manhunter.

It’s better than Greedo getting shot in cold blood in the original version of Star Wars.

It's better than Kevin Spacey's sudden, shocking death scene in L.A. Confidential.

It's better than the girl who takes the big slo-mo free fall to the grave during the opening scene in Cliffhanger.

It’s better than Taye Diggs “face off” with Christian Bale in Equilibrium.

It’s better than… you know, come to think of it, Taye Diggs’ death may actually be the Best Death Scene Ever.

OK, let’s just say that Samuel L Jackson’s death in Deep Blue Sea is One of The Best Death Scenes Ever.

I’m pretty sure everybody in the western hemisphere has caught this movie on cable, but if you haven’t – SPOILER ALERT! I am going to ruin the best part of the movie for you.

Samuel L Jackson plays a brilliant industrialist billionaire who is bankrolling this research project out in the middle of the ocean. Saffron Burrows’ hot but amoral scientist has genetically altered sharks to make them smart killing machines. Stop laughing, damn it! Things go wrong, and Sam and Co. end up struggling for survival in this big undersea base that’s flooding and falling apart while the sharks hunt them. By the laws of movie survival, Samuel L Jackson must survive the film, or at least heroically die at the very end. He has to - he’s the biggest star in the movie.

About halfway through the movie, the survivors are trapped in a chamber with a pool in the floor that opens out to the sea, and Jackson suggest they don wetsuits and swim for the surface. Understandably, the group freaks out – there are killer sharks out there, dude! Sam rallies the troops with a stirring speech about survival and sticking together – it’s his Oscar moment…

… and right in the middle of his speech a big fucking shark bursts from the pool, bites into him, and drags him screaming into the water. It’s over in like, two seconds.

I actually saw this movie in a crowded theater (I told you I like bad movies) and the audience went insane! You couldn’t hear the dialogue in the movie for the next five minutes because people were laughing so hard and screaming their approval. It was fantastic.

Deep Blue Sea – it may not be the Best Death Scene Ever, but it gets a hearty F*@% Yeah from me.

Willem - back me up, brother!