Have you seen the Bearded Weirdo?

His reviews are actually pretty informative, for all that they give the entirety of the plot of most movies he's reviewing away. But then there's two kind of reviewers, those reviewing for people who have yet to see a movie (I count myself amongst this type) and those writing for people who've already seen the movie or who don't give a fig about spoilers. If this is you then you're going to love Bearded Weirdo Reviews. Just be advised this site is slightly NSFW. So if that discourages you from checking this site out read no further, because I'm about to talk about some grand fun reviews he's posted recently.

Still reading? Alrighty then get ready for the awesome!

In a recent review for The Warrior & The Sorceress the Bearded Weirdo had the following nuggets of wisdom to say about the sword-and-sorcery genre:

"Often, I find, uneducated video renters the world over use the terms 'sword-and-sorcery' and "fantasy" interchangeably. This is a tragic fallacy that must, must, must be corrected."

Mr. Weirdo goes on to explain, at length, the differences between high fantasy and heroic fantasy (the subset of fantasy to which sword-and-sorcery belongs). It's very interesting, even if the commentary gets a bit blue at times. My favorite nugget O'wisdom, at least what I can quote here, is the following:

"LORD OF THE RINGS is "high fantasy," not "sword-and-sorcery." Period. If a sword-and-sorcery hero ran into Frodo Baggins on some winding forest path in some faraway land of myth and mysticism... he'd beat the ever-loving sh!t out of that wimpy li'l hobbit bastard and steal his most cherished belongings. Then our unnamed savage ravager might go on an arson spree throughout all of The Shire, raping any hobbit ladyfolk he encountered along the way."

That does paint a picture. And what does that have to do with the movie mentioned above? Well you'll just have to read the review (The Warrior & The Sorceress) to find out! But the aforementioned review is a dull whitewashed piece of flotsam in comparison to the review for Demonwarp. You know you're in for something special when a reviewer's opening paragraph is:

"Why the f#@k would you ever go hiking in a place called Demonwood Forest? Seriously. What good could come of that? How could anything else but violent death await you? Have you people not seen any g-dd@mn horror movie, like, ever?"

Lots of expletives in this particular review. But if you can stick with it it's a real experience. Sort of like getting hit in the head with a volley ball at the beach. You're just sitting there minding your business then, out of nowhere, WHAM!

Alas Bearded Weirdo has not reviewed a lot of sci-fi features. This saddens me. Then again the few he has reviewed are full of his high octane critical wit. Behold what the Weirdo had to say about Barb Wire:

"BARB WIRE is the kind of movie that doesn't have a lot of fans who are willing to mention it without using that magic phrase "guilty pleasure" in the same breath. Like I said, I don't get the whole "guilty pleasure" thing, and I don't like it. To me, it's just a cop-out, and it smacks of "denying Jesus three times."

Well, Peter may have denied Jesus three times, but you won't soon catch me denying Pam Anderson even once. Not with this kind o' brilliant badness on her resume'."

I've read reviews that compare Barb Wire and Pamela Anderson to a lot of things but I don't think I've ever seen, heard, or imagined either would ever be compared to the life and times of Jesus. To be perfectly honest Barb Wire is a movie I've been meaning to write a review for, one day. I say "one day" because I've never really known where to start with it. Which is funny considering Mr. Weirdo got his review going with a lengthy rant about the absurdity of "guilty pleasures" which led to the following insightful overview of the movie:

"Inspired by the comic book of the same title, the film is a post-apocalyptic whirligig of bullets, bleached blond hair extensions, and black leather. It opens, like many a Bad-with-a-capital-B futuristic action flick, with a lengthy pre-credits scroll of white text in front of a harsh-looking "scorched earth" landscape that explains that the year is 2017 and America is involved in a second Civil War. Every city in the nation has fallen under an iron-fisted super-authoritarian government rule. Every city, that is, except for Wire's hometown of Steel Harbor <...>"

Nice synopsis. I particularly love the careful and well thought placement of an illustrative pic right next to this paragraph. (You'll just have to take my word for it if clicking the above link to visit a NSFW sight frightens you.) I should point out that Bearded Weirdo Reviews doesn't have a lot of movies currently under review. But the select few movies that have been reviewed are thoroughly critiqued. A very unusual and interesting review site. You should check it out soon.

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