FMoDscars

FMod = Free Movies on Demand. If you're not familiar with this section of your cable box, it could be bad sign. You might be a person who always thinks they're really busy all the time. Once you take a brief timeout, you'll realize most people hate you.

Aside: Someone once told me that the Chinese sign for "busy" is a combination of the signs for "heart" and "dead". If that's true, it would support my previous point. But I'm skeptical because (a) the person who told me was from Cape Cod and (b) if you ask me, there's a whole lot of BS translations (transliterations?) of Chinese signs flying around out there. The only person I'd really trust to translate a Chinese sign is a tattoo artist. "Oh is that really the sign for 'Star Princess'? It looked different in the Oxford Chinese-English dictionary. What, you say the dictionary is wrong? Ok...yeah, right there on my lower back. Great."

Or you could just be someone who can afford movie channels, Netflix, or real on demand. In any case, here are the top five films you're missing:

(Note: "Hackers" belongs on this list, but I omit it in this list since I spent so much time talking about it last time.)

Honorable mention: 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain



I'm 99% sure this belongs on the real list (if only for the title). But I've never been able to get past the first ten minutes (I've tried three times). This is Hulk Hogan playing a character named Dave Dragon. Dave is rich and crazy (it's good acting from Hulk). In the first ten minutes, he kicks the crap out of a few of his servants for no reason. I wish I could tell you what happened in the rest.

5. Sniper



The tagline is "one shot, one kill, no exceptions". Veteran sniper Tom Berenger has to teach some young softie what being a sniper is all about. Besides the "one shot, one kill" mantra, Berenger passes along such gems as:

"Ain't no room for Peter Pan on this hunt."
Or "Don't take a piss. Bugs will swarm up through your d***. Good night."

It's a classic plot, lacking just that bit of tact that would land it on the vaunted Blockbuster shelves.

4. Mean Guns

I'm just going to give you the plot synopsis straight out of IMDB:

"A gangster boss (Ice-T) has a list of about 100 people who have screwed up at one point or another. Rather than outright killing them, he decides to have a little fun by putting all of them together in a high security prison, unarmed, and dumping bucketfulls of guns, ammo, and baseball bats on them and letting them kill each other. The final three who survive are given a prize of 10 million dollars. Let chaos reign."

Ice-T's character is named Vincent Moon. The self-proclaimed "ultra cool opening to Mean Guns" is apparently so raw that I'm not allowed to embed it. Here's a link. It sets the stage for the high drama that follows.

3. Surviving the Game



This is a whole different ball of wax. Ice-T shows his versatility. Whereas he orchestrated the murder game as Vincent Moon in "Mean Guns", here Mr. T shows his range, playing the prey of the manhunt. Initially.

Because the manhunters didn't just send any old homeless guy into the Montana wildnerness without any food, water, or weapon. They sent Ice-T as homeless Vietnam vet Jack Mason, who "knows he's going to die someday. But today is not that day". Nor is the next day, as we find out after he's forced to spend the night in the wilderness.

Judging by the life expectancy of the homeless (especially those who are about 50 years old and likely used a lot of drugs in Vietnam), Jack's day is not actually that far off. But fortunately he hung in there long enough to give us this "TNT presents" epic.

Along with two of the top five, Ice-T also bags the FMoDscars Lifetime Acheivement Award for having all of his films appear on FMoD simultaneously. Implying there was a point when no one was willing to pay to watch a single Ice-T movie.

2. Maximum Overdrive!

Emmmmmmmmmmmmiiillllllliiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooooooooooooooo. This was almost numero uno. Machines turn on humans, but fortunately Emilio is there to save the day. From his post as a short-order chef in a truck stop. He's got an earring.

We, the viewers, know it's on like Donkey Kong when an ATM switches from having a normal "Deposit, Withdrawal, Enter Pin" ATM screen to a screen that says, simply, "F*** you".

The people in the movie aren't as quick on the uptake. Or as swift in flight.



What you see at the beginning of this clip is a rain of Coke cans. The Coke machine (not pictured) just finished off some other numbskull who stuck his face in front of the dispense area. You see the Coke machine unloading what's left in its clip.

1. Hard Target



You might pick up on the fact that this has the exact same plot as "Surviving the Game". Substitute JCVD for Ice-T. A few things put it in the top slot:

1. That silky, luscious mullet.
2. The iron-like strength of the girl's near uni-brow.
3. The mummy from The Mummy, with hair.
4. The villian's move at the 8:56 point of this clip. Start it around 8:30 (sorry, this scene is only available in the larger clip). I think this is my favorite clip in any movie ever. To set the backdrop, the crew who's trying to kill JCVD just let him escape somehow. Now he's slipped away into the Bayou (where he was born), and the bad guys are worried they won't be able to catch him.



Hey random minion who's not really responsible for this screw-up at all: "Get in the f-ing truck!"