Joe Bob Briggs

Cafe Society
1

Just curious if any fellow members out there are familiar with Joe Bob Briggs. His drive in movie reviews were always howlers and he now seems to have gone rather mainstream. Fortunately, none of this seems to have dampened his iconclastic spirit.

I wish someone had a link to some of his drive in movie reviews, they were a scream, especially the one where he reviews himself. His incisive analysis of why he rates movies with vomit meters and quantities of breasts is really leading edge commentary on America’s cinematic tastes.

2

Have you read Iron Joe Bob?

It’s a very funny book. Unfortunately, his books are hard to find. They didn’t sell too well.

3

Yes, I picked up his book Joe Bob Goes to The Drive-In back in the 80s. Great stuff, especially the characters he would write about in the fictional backwoods town he lived in in addition to his hilarious movie reviews. You can see a lot of his reviews [url=http://www.joebobbriggs.com/review.asp* here, though one of my favorites, Evil Dead, is sadly not there.

I almost religiously watched his show on Cinemax and even followed it to TNT Monstervision, where eventually he couldn’t take it anymore with some of the movies they made him host.

He invented a lot of terms I still throw around today, such as aardvarking, bimbo fu, and the always appropriate ‘unlicensed atomic duffelbags’.

4

Or, you can also see his reviews here.

:smack: fu

5

I heart Joe Bob. Thanks for pointing out that he’s got books. I’m picking a couple up at Amazon right now.

6

If you can sit through the movie, the fairly recent DVD release of I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) has a secondary commentary track done by Joe Bob/John Bloom that’s worth the price.

(If you’ve never seen or heard of the flick, it’s a “rape revenge” movie that can be rather brutal, depending on your tastes.)

Oh, and apropos of nothing but John Bloom himself, he had a cameo in the TV-miniseries (which I’m pretty sure has been released to DVD, as well) of Steven King’s The Stand, as a Texas cop (State Trooper? County Sherrif?) named Joe Bob.

7

Skeezix, I have to believe that Joe Bob and Bloom crack ultra-wise in the commentary track. Briggs’ sense of humor is right up my alley, sadly the flick you mention isn’t in the least.

8

That and he has a small Cameo in “CASINO” as one of De Niro’s peon’s who he constantly berates about the slot machines.

9

I saw Bloom doing his Briggs as a stand-up act.

Sadly, it wasn’t very good. He seemed very nervous and his delivery was forced and wooden. He’s much more at ease in front of a camera or a word processor.

I, for one, was excited to see him in Casino as the nitwit nephew of a county supervisor that De Niro had to fire and refused to re-hire, leading to his downfall.

10

I used to be a faithful member of the Monstervision chat room that would get together online on Saturday nights to watch his show on TNT. The crowd was much like the Dope–people brighter and more entertaining than the norm.

And he has done another commentary track for Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter, unbelievably bad drive-in fodder directed by the notorious Bill “One-Shot” Beaudine and featuring the hunky muscleman Cal Bolder.

11

Yeah, he did a stand-up routine for a while, not long after he was fired from the Dallas Times-Herald … and bounced right into syndication.

Didn’t hurt him much. Under his real name, John Bloom, he was already an award-winning movie critic and investigative reporter.

His stand-up routine has improved immensely over time, but his written work is still funnier. In his first two books, “Joe Bob Goes To The Drive-In” and “Joe Bob Goes Back To The Drive-In,” his movie reviews invariably open with some bit of social criticism that’s totally unrelated to the movie he’s about to review… and is usually quite funny.

12

Yep, another fan here. Iron Joe Bob was hilarious.

13

Now I admit I’ve only seen this film on TNT. But it didn’t seem like they had to edit it for tv.

What we got here-

No, none, zero, el numero zilcho breasts

Not even one bucket of blood.

One really pathetic beast.

You’d think that a film with Jesse James and a hot mad doctoress would have plenty of gunfights, nekkid lab work, and some great beasts with scars and those neck bolts.

You’d be wrong.

Imagine opening the latest issue of TaTas Monthly and finding out that the centerfold is wearin winter clothes that hide everything and a scarf over her face. This here movie is like that.

What we got here-

No, none, zero, el numero zilcho breasts

Not even one bucket of blood.

One really pathetic beast.

I give it oh half of a star. Cuz it has an artifishul brain. And cuz of the line “Juan-Nit-Ta”.

14

I always thought that the MPAA ought to drop their silly letter codes and just use Joe Bob reviews. They explain exactly what parents need to know to decide whether to allow their impressionable children to see a movie. Sex? Violence? He doesn’t just make vague references to “suggested nudity” or “sexual situations” or “intense violence,” he tells the reader just what to expect.

15

Oooo, and don’t forget his brief appearance in Face Off as the creepy electrotherapist. My wife and I looked at each other and rewound that scene about a half dozen times before we decided it was really him. The end credits verified our decision.

Yes, you heard right; my wife adores Joe Bob in all his misogynistic, beer-swillin’ redneckedness. I’ve only read his column in his books but I loved the fact that he published just as much of his hate mail as he did fan mail, not to mention all the slightly creepy prison mail and marriage proposals from women behind bars. In fact, IIRC, he had a category of movies called Women In Cages.

Ah, now I’m all juiced up to read an old-fashioned Joe Bob review. Lessee, I just watched Jeepers Creepers 2. That’s pretty standard drive-in fare. Bear with me:

I was driving down county road 432 the other day when I came upon my trailer park neighbor Lulu walking along the side of the road stark nekkid. I slowed down as I pulled up next to her and said “Lulu! What in the hale are you doin’?”. She hollers back, “I’m lookin’ fer my keys! I lost them last night when Walt gave me a ride home from the bar.” “Oh,” sez I, “but where are your clothes?!?” She stops and puts her hands on her hips haughtily and sez, “Duh! The keys were in my pocket!”

Which leads me to the latest broke-down-on-a-country-road-while-being-stalked dead teenager movie to hit the silver screen, Jeepers Creepers 2.

Seems that every 23 years Mr. Jeepers gets the munchies and guess whut time it is? In the last movie, he only gets to chow down on 1 teenager and a couple of stringy cops. In this movie, he’s one his last day at the all-you-can-eat teen buffet and he decides that he needs to make this one count.

First, he nabs some farmer kid that can’t tell a scarecrow from a hungry demon, only to piss of the kid’s dad who goes on a one-man mission of revenge. Then, to his great for-choon, a busload of crunchy football players and cheerleader appetizers break down nearby looking for all the world like a giant mobile TV dinner.

Hilarity ensues as he taunts the kids by licking the windows and jamming all the exits. Then the braniac star of the team decides it would be best if they all go outside the bus and run screaming into the night. It then turns into a veritable smorgasbord for Mr. JC as he picks off one yummy teenager after another. But then Farmer Revenge shows up and decides to do his best Captain Ahab impersonation. Needless to say, things don’t work out quite as he planned.

Heads roll, trucks roll, credits roll. We’ve got demon fu, Post Pounder 2000 fu, flare gun fu, scarecrow fu, kids-in-a-can, javelin through the face, knife through the hand, throwing stars made from teeth and bone, and a dead spot where CB’s and cell phones don’t work. 9 dead bodies, half a demon head, one decapitated wing, 3 handfuls of blood, and zero breasts.

Two and a half stars. Horseflesh sez check it out.

16

I had the same reaction when I saw him in ‘The Stand’. He wasn’t in it for long, but he was in it early in the series.

17

I used to read Joe Bob in the Dallas Times-Herald, and later in the Dallas Observer. I’ve got all of his books–about half of them autographed!–and corresponded with him by e-mail for a brief spell a few years ago!

(I sent a question to “Ask Joe Bob” that he used on his website and responded personally to!)

Blood, Breasts, and Beasts–he’s always been my favorite movie reviewer!

18

Joe Bob’s reviews were always in the military paper (The Stars and Stripes) overseas. I got a real charge out of them. “Breast Fu” was my inspiration for my own personal martial arts form: Key Fu. The only other practitioner in the world is my friend Bubba, but he’s not a master.

19

He’s got a new book out: Profoundly Disturbing, a chronological series of essays about movies written off (at the time, or even today) as “profoundly disturbing.” It runs the gamut from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Crash, and covers stuff like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, Reservoir Dogs and And God Created Woman.

Good stuff, but no fu that I recall. And it probably won’t be a revelation to anyone familiar with the exploitation genre. But his essays are solid pieces that examine the appeal and dissect the taboos violated by each film.

Interrobang!? sez…well, you know.

20

You know, for years I harbored the secret belief that Joe Bob Briggs and Joe R. Lansdale were one in the same. I remember feeling vaguely disappointed when I found that they weren’t.