THE CURIOUS ONLINE REALM OF POP CULTURE WRITER NATHAN RABIN.
Articles & features
Why are baby boomers so protective of an outdated flour mascot?
Tim Ballard and Donald Trump want you to think that powerless outsiders represents a terrible threat to women and children when they are actually much more dangerous.
We’re going to have to laugh to keep from crying.
I love bad movies but I need to write about more good ones, because this site could benefit from a little more positivity and a li'l more balance.
It’s Christmas in January! 2010’s Hitlertastic The Nutcracker in 3-D has a reputation for being one of the worst and craziest movies ever made. That reputation is correct.
Blog
The only blog on the internet!
Why are baby boomers so protective of an outdated flour mascot?
Tim Ballard and Donald Trump want you to think that powerless outsiders represents a terrible threat to women and children when they are actually much more dangerous.
We’re going to have to laugh to keep from crying.
I love bad movies but I need to write about more good ones, because this site could benefit from a little more positivity and a li'l more balance.
I’m enjoying being on social media site Threads, which is like Twitter but less evil.
I’m on high alert for deadly dangers since watching all of the Final Destination for my Substack, Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas.
Some thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, online cringe and neurodivergence.
Hilarious Cyber-Satire That’s Easy to Misunderstand
Whether you’re a small child or a punk hitting your bottom on heroin and cocaine in the late 1970s, Yo Gabba Gabba! is full of life lessons.
We hope you're hungry for some meaty arguments!
A totally non-clickbait article on why everything you love and revere sucks shit.
We never should have even thought about writing this article.
Not all celebrities remain rich and famous forever. Here are five who went from wealth and fame to being homeless street trash.
We were going to share some neat trivia about actress Mena Suvari but since you don’t even know who she is we’re not even going to bother.
You’ve seen all the memes! Now see them all again, this time with punishingly literal commentary!
FILM
The LEGENDARY column about failure at its most epic!
I watched the three hour long Kanye Infowars interview so that you don’t have to.
Because I am Christ-like in my selflessness, I watched all 103 excruciating minutes of “Dancing” Donald Trump’s infamous musical town hall and wrote a 3000 word My World of Flops piece eviscerating it.
Did Louise Lasser have a nervous breakdown while hosting Saturday Night Live or was it all part of the act? Regardless, the result was one of the most excruciatingly awkward episodes in the show’s history.
A week devoted to terrible Saturday Night Live hosts kicks off with a mortified look at Milton Berle’s notorious episode.
My World Of Flops returns with a bleakly comic post-mortem on the biggest political debacle of the millennium (excuse me, WILLenium), Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 Presidential campaign
Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University made a part-narrative/part documentary film about how Jesus chose Trump to be president that’s pretty fucked up.
It’s like Snakes on a Plane but with money! And Kelsey Grammer devouring scenery shamelessly as Darius Emmanuel Grouch III, AKA The Rumble AKA The Colonel
John Travolta and Nicolas Cage Face/Off in The Ultimate Acting Battle!
A perfectly cast Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery are a mismatched buddy team for the ages in Michael Bay’s uncharacteristically enjoyable 1996 action adventure The Rock.
John Travolta continues to scrape the bottom with the deathly dull 2019 racing Trading Paint.
With Shania Twain for some reason?
This Nicolas Cage vehicle is g-g-g-rounded until all of the g-g-g-ghosts!
Nicolas Cage has made a LOT of movies. Some of them are pretty crummy, like the overwrought 2019 Southern Gothic melodrama Grand Isle.
In a real change of pace, John Travolta, late in his career, that was not good.
Nicolas Cage. A jaguar and a killer on the loose. A boat. All the ingredients for a goofy good time.
Where YOU pay ME to SEE movies!
It’s Christmas in January! 2010’s Hitlertastic The Nutcracker in 3-D has a reputation for being one of the worst and craziest movies ever made. That reputation is correct.
One of you beautiful weirdoes paid me to write about the 2022 movie world goof Razzenest, which I dug!
One of you paid me to suffer through the 2017 time-loop Marlon Wayans vehicle Naked, which is like Groundhog Day, but nakeder and terrible.
My journey through the one season non-wonder Backstrom continues with a look at an episode where he solves a murder at a Scientology-like cult.
You know what movie REALLY holds up? The cult classic horror thriller Candyman. What a picture!
I finally got around to watching Child’s Play 2, which is mesmerizingly stupid and a little bit silly.
My journey through the much buzzed-about 2016 drama Vinyl begins with a look at its heavy-handed and underwhelming Martin Scorsese-directed pilot.
The second season of Red Dwarf ends on a high note with the audacious “Queeg” and “Parallel Universe.”
Cinema at its shittiest!
With MoMo mania sweeping the nation, it seems like the perfect time to revisit 1985’s Deception of a Generation, an unintentionally hilarious expose about how He-Man, Scooby-Doo, the Care Bears, E.T and Yoda are all trying to turn your children into sassy little Satanists.
The famously terrible 2001 Danny DeVito/Martin Lawrence stinkeroo What’s the Worst That Could Happen is indeed terrible and a real stinkeroo.
For the purpose of a very strange cyber-safety initiative noted bully Garfield became an anti-bullying advocate and Nermal became a fat-shaming asshole as oblivious as he is creepy.
As part of my ongoing, obsessive coverage of Loqueesha filmmaker Jeremy Saville’s life and work, I unearth some of his early Youtube work, including such tellingly titled clips as “The Girlfriend Trainer” and “GayDate.” In a shocking, unexpected turn of events, they’re quite poor and also pretty offensive!
If you thought Vince Offer’s 2013 sketch comedy abomination inAPPropriate Comedy was an abomination, you’re right, but its Vince Offer-heavy prequel, 1999’s The Underground Comedy Movie, is somehow even worse! It’s an Offer you can, and most assuredly should, refuse.
It's a second rate The Godfather parody with Rodney as the Rodfather! Plus, it's a Kevin McDonald vehicle. What's not to love? (a lot, actually)
You know how everyone says Bright is total garbage? They're being overly generous.
Music
Let’s Get Weird!
Al gets meta and deconstructionist on this epic, almost eleven minute long parody of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”
It took me a solid week of furious effort and three viewings of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, but I have written what I think is the definitive 5000 word manifesto about the Citizen Kane of “Weird Al” Yankovic-themed parody biopics.
“Weird Al” Yankovic stars in another movie debuting on streaming this month and it is VERY weird but in a decidedly different way than Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
With Al’s second film as a screenwriter on the way I figured it was the ideal time to rerun my 5000 word appreciation of UHF.
The hardcover, full-color version of The Weird A-Coloring to Al is out and, at the risk of being immodest, is literally the greatest book ever written.
You don’t have to be the world’s most prolific author of books about “Weird Al” Yankovic to be excited about his forthcoming "Weird Al" brings The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour but it certainly doesn’t hurt!
There is a lost generation of kids without a new “Weird Al” Yankovic album to call their own. Are they beyond help?
Here’s a hint: it has NOTHING to do with not being good enough and everything to do with the Rock Hall taking itself way too seriously.
Literature
The Very Finest in Flaming Literary Garbage!
In honor of the boy band-centric Turning Red , I am re-running a piece (compiled in The Joy of Trash) about disgrace boy band Svengali Lou Pearlman’s deranged and deluded memoir.
Is rock music a tool of the devil that will make your child commit suicide? According to the anti-rock Christian manifesto Why Knock Rock? the answer is hell motherfucking yes!
A laughless stroll through the first year and a half of Garfield (the disco era!) reveals that the insanely successful comic strip about the titular lasagna-loving, Monday-hating misanthrope has always been terrible.
Reality television villain turned Donald Trump advisor Omarosa is not here to make friends in her perversely unsatisfying “tell-all” Unhinged.
Why are baby boomers so protective of an outdated flour mascot?