Jack TomasWebsite

Jack Tomas is a writer, filmmaker, and editor working in New York. He's originally from Houston, TX where he earned a BA in Theater and Communication from The University of St. Thomas. Later, he received an MA in Media Studies at The New School. Jack has worked several years as a professional filmmaker and his films have appeared in several film festivals including the Cannes Film Festival, The LA Comedy Shorts Festival, and The New York Independent Film Festival. He has also worked as a professional blogger since 2009 writing for Guanabee.com , Tuvez.com , Egotastic.com , and Directorslive.com . He lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn with his wife Marybec and two cats.

Nerd Fight! “Star Wars Fans” Battle “Dr. Who” Fans In England

By Jack Tomas | May 17, 2013 @ 5:43 am

Star Wars and Dr. Who fans got into the dorkiest fight ever at a sci-fi convention in England. It all went down in Norwich when the local Star Wars club put on a sci-fi con. Dr. Who actors Graham Cole and Jeremy Bulloch were there to sign autographs, so naturally lots of Tardis lovers left their mom's basements to see their heroes. But when the the Dr. Who fans showed up, the Star Wars fans started verbally abusing them. Many insults were hurled between puffs on their asthma inhalers. So, the Dr. Who fans did what any self respecting person would do and called the cops and whined that the mean old guy dressed like Darth Vader told him to "Da-lick my nuts!" or whatever. I tend to agree with Admiral Akbar when he said, "It's a trap!"

Why would the Star Wars club invite Dr. Who "celebs" to their convention if they hold the show in such poor regard? I think that they wanted to pick a fight with the Whoheads. This makes me think that the organizers may be Sith. Nerds have a hierarchy like any other group of people. It's arguable that Trekkies are on top and Star Wars fans are on the next tier. But Dr. Who is definitely a few steps down the sci-fi virginity pyramid. Was this just an opportunity for one group of nerds to push around a smaller, weaker, less economically profitable franchise? Maybe. I'm reminded of the time I went to see a midnight screening of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on opening night and two guys showed up dressed like hobbits. The Star Wars fans started booing and throwing stuff at the wee Shire folk. But why would you show up looking like Samwise Gamgee if you weren't looking to start some mess?

Poll: Americans Hate Justin Bieber

By Jack Tomas | May 16, 2013 @ 5:58 am

It's official: Americans hate Justin Bieber. Overwhelmingly. Public Policy Polling, one of those places that gather statistics, asked people their opinions of the current wave of crappy pop stars like Biebs, Taylor Swift, etc. Bieber scored the worst at 54% unlikeable, only a 20% likeable, and the rest of the people didn't give enough of a crap about him to hate him or love him. What's interesting is that these numbers were consistent across political party lines. Hating Biebs might just be the issue that can bring us together as a nation. It isn't just here in America. I've been doing guest spots on Toronto's The Dean Blundell morning show on 102.1 The Edge for our sister site What Would Tyler Durden Do? and they tell me that Biebs is considered a national tragedy in Canada. Still, if people hate him so much why does he sell out concerts and get multi-platinum albums?

I think it's two things: 1) The polls probably asked mostly adults and not the tweens that love the little douche. 2) People are lying. Bieber reminds my of Vanilla Ice in a way. When I was in eighth grade, Vanilla Ice sold millions of records, won a Grammy, and was the biggest star of 1990. But everyone claimed to hate him at the time. So, how can he sell all of those albums if everyone despises him? It isn't possible. Obviously people are embarrassed of their love of the Biebs. He's a guilty pleasure like Twinkies or heroin. Look, if you like Justin Bieber just admit it. I'm going to judge you for it but at least you aren't a hypocrite.

Detroit’s Robocop Statue Is Almost Finished

By Jack Tomas | May 14, 2013 @ 11:50 am

A 10-foot-tall statue of Robocop is almost complete and will go up somewhere in the Motor City. It started, like everything these days, on Kickstarter. A group, (probably of nerd potheads), thought it would be awesome to put up a statue of Murphy in his home city of Detroit. The statue only needs its final bronze casting from creators Imagination Station. You'll recall from the epic films that he was a cop that was almost killed by a gang of thugs. He was brought back as a cyborg supercop to clean up the streets in a dystopian future Detroit. In the film, the city had gotten so bad it was practically unlivable. While things were definitely going bad in Detroit in the 80's, things got even worse as more car plants closed in the 90's. Honestly, I've never seen anything like Detroit. It looks like a city post-zombocalypse. A lot of people in Detroit don't like the fact that a character from a movie that shows Detroit as an irredeemable place is a good thing. I disagree.

Look, I'm not having a dig at Detroit. It's really sad that one of our great American cities has become such a craphole. But let's face facts Detroiters, (Detroitians? Detroitites?), your city isn't getting much tourism these days. A giant statue of Robocop would be a great way to bring some much needed fundage to the city. Think about the Rocky statue in Philly. It has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city. Plus, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Robocop. Those movies are awwweeeesssoooomme. Do you want to know what Pasadena, TX, (the suburb of Houston I grew up in), is famous for? Urban f@$king Cowboy. Yeah, the movie with John Travolta, Deborah Winger, and an electric bull. And, may I add, that Robocop 2 was shot in Houston. But no one wants to put a 10-foot-tall cyborg killing machine in H-Town. So, please stop complaining Motown.

 

Wonderfully Horrible Netflix Instant Films: “Conan The Destroyer”

By Jack Tomas | May 13, 2013 @ 3:59 am
What Is The Riddle Of Steel?

I continue my quest to find the cream of the crap in Netflix Instant's library of streaming celluloid diarrhea with a classic tale of a magic and guys in fur panties. I'm talking about the classically awful 1984 sword and sorcery epic Conan the Destroyer. Arnold Schwarzenegger had rocketed to fame a couple of years earlier playing the mighty warrior in Conan the Barbarian. After the success of The Terminator it seemed like a sure bet that Destroyer would also be a huge hit. It was not. Mainly because it was bad, oooooh sooo perfectly bad. It lacked the seriousness and gritty edge of the first one. As silly as the idea of Conan is in general, in Destroyer he is a total clown. Still, it is a truly entertaining bit of Hyperborean crap.

At the beginning of the movie, Conan is praying for his lost love Valeria. Then an evil queen, (played by General Zod's girlfriend Ursa from Superman II), shows up and promises Conan that if he'll take her niece to retrieve a jeweled horn for some weird god, she will use her magic to bring Valeria back. So, Conan takes the young hot niece, (played by Olvia D'Abo aka Kevin Arnold's sister from The Wonder Years), to the magical fortress or whatever to get the horn. He also takes Wilt Chamberlain with him for backup, because of course. He later teams up with scary scary Grace Jones and Mako, who did the voice of Splinter in The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. They get the jeweled horn from a goofy wizard that lives in a room of mirrors that looks not unlike the fitting room at an Old Navy. When they get the horn back to Ursa and she puts it on the statue of the god, he turns into a ridiculous rubber monster that Conan has to kill. The End!

The special effects are so bad that they make the cheesy scene when James Earl Jones turned into a snake in the first Conan look like friggin' Avatar. I've seen kid's Halloween costumes that are more convincing than the evil monster at the end of the movie, (although the guy in the bad rubber suit is the legendary wrestler Andre the Giant). I also have to question the director's casting choices. While Ursa (Sarah Douglas) and Olvia D'Abo make sense, why in the name of Krom was Wilt Chamberlain in the movie? I've always said that basketball players should never ever be in movies because it always ends badly, (Space Jam, Shazam, etc). I guess if you must have a scantily clad female amazon-type warrior Grace Jones is not a bad casting decision. It's more that she scares me and makes me feel an emptiness and dread in my stomach and scrotum. Still, Conan the Destroyer is terrible fun movie to watch with your nerd friends who can truly appreciate just how bad a fantasy film can be. It's no Beastmaster, that's for sure.

The Vatican Does Not Like An Evil Mexican Death Goddess

By Jack Tomas | May 10, 2013 @ 1:03 pm

The Vatican has declared war on La Santa Muerte. No, this is not the plot of a crappy Dan Brown novel. For those of you that are too gringofied to know, La Santa Muerte is a popular religious figure in Mexico and much of Latin America. Basically it's the grim reaper but she's a chick. People pray to this boney lady to keep them from...well...dying. The Vatican says:

"It's the degeneration of religion...Religion celebrates life, but here you have death, it's not religion just because it's dressed up like religion; it's a blasphemy against religion"

La Santa Muerte is particularly popular with the drug cartels that practically run parts of Mexico. A lot of scholars think that SM is a version of the ancient Aztec death goddess Mictecacihuatl. God knows the Vatican is powerful, (tee-hee), but they might be biting off more than they can chew with this one, and they chew those stale wafers. You are condemning an Aztec death Goddess dressed like a scary skeleton with a scythe. The Aztecs knew a thing or two about death seeing as they would sacrifice thousands on a random Tuesday. Plus the drug cartels have this skeletal bitch's back. If a lapsed Catholic may give some advice to the big V: Pope Franky, best leave it alone.

Did This Kiss-Cam Couple Really Breakup?

By Jack Tomas | May 9, 2013 @ 12:00 pm
Your Kiss Is NOT On My List

A video of a couple appearing to breakup on the kiss-cam at a Grizzlies game is making the rounds this week. It all started on May 3rd when the kiss-cam repeatedly focused on a couple that was clearly having a fight. The guy just didn't want to kiss his girlfriend. The third time they pan to the couple, she appears to break it off with señor douchenozzle. The girl is then comforted by the Grizzlies' mascot. Many viewers on Reddit called "shenanigans" on the whole thing. The team Tweeted in response:

It looks kinda staged to me. Why do they keep panning back on them if they don't want to kiss? Why is the mascot conveniently waiting to comfort the girl? It brings up how friggin' annoying the kiss-cam is. What if I'm busy watching the game or eating a hot dog? What if my wife is busy texting her friend? Why should you be guilted into kissing for the entertainment of a bunch of drunken sports fans? I don't like the coercion of the whole thing. Then occasionally someone proposes during kiss-cam. That's not fair. Doing that puts a lot of undo pressure on the girl to say yes. What if she wants to think about it or doesn't feel ready but doesn't want to embarrass the guy in front of 60,000 spectators? I say we get rid of the kiss-cam and stick to important things like, oh, I don't know, the game.

 

Great, Now We Have To Worry About Sea Monsters

By Jack Tomas | May 9, 2013 @ 5:05 am
Release The Kraken!

The list of things that are going to kill us increased this week when a friggin' sea monster washed up on a beach in New Zealand. The creature was found by some Kiwis, (People from New Zealand not the fruit), on Pukehina Beach in the Bay of Plenty. The initial reaction to the horrifying beast was, "Crikey, mate what the f$@king s#&t is that thing?!!!" Scientists examined the body and identified it as a diseased killer whale that had decomposed in the water before the carcass ended up on a beach in Middle Earth. Um, I've been to Sea World and that thing doesn't look like Shamu. It resembles a nightmare from the bowels of hell to me. Some Kraken-like beast out of a Lovecraft novel that someone might envision during an opium induced seizure.

As Egotastic's resident Apocalyptologist I find this development very disturbing. OK, I know I said the world was going to end last December and hid out in a bunker with my cat and it didn't happen. While the timing was off, the end is definitely nigh. Zombies, aliens, ninjas, and robots were bad enough without having to worry about some biblical monster rising from the seas. All I know is I need to get out of this island I live on and move inland. Maybe Kansas. No sea monsters attack Kansas.

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