ROD'S REVIEW

What started as an April Fool's joke has turned into a marketing home run. After posting the Tauntaun sleeping bag on their website, the demand was so overwhelming that the folks at Thinkgeek.com went about producing it, and now you can own one for yourself. At The Gamehole, we take pride in reviewing items on the cutting edge of sweetness, and even in these tough economic times, at $99.99, this item is worth every cent.

For those who need a refresher, go back and watch Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back. Tauntauns are a species of snow lizard found on the snowy plains of the planet Hoth. The Rebel Alliance domesticated the animals, and used them to patrol outside in the freezing cold. They are known for their cold-resistant blood and inner organs, and a thick layer of insulating fat and fur. Han saved Luke's life by slicing open a tauntaun and stuffing him inside the dead body to protect him from the elements and keep him warm.

Apparently, Thinkgeek labs have isolated the synthetic compounds needed to re-create tauntaun fur. The bag comes complete with saddle, printed internal intestines, and a lightsaber zipper pull. According to the product description, features include:

• simulates the warmth of a tauntaun carcass
• great for playing "save Luke from the Wampa" games
• bag dimensions - 33" x 67" (not including head pillow or legs)
  
  

Many of you may be thinking this would be a fun gift for your kids. Screw that. Kids don't deserve such a first-rate item. They grow up thinking "Attack of the Clones" was a good movie. They carry around Jar Jar Binks action figures, quoting lines like, "Weesa got a grand army. That's why you no like us meesa thinks." And they actually think that Greedo shot first! Are you kidding me!? But who can blame them. George Lucas has forced these abominations on our younger generation. It's amazing that he actually approved this item to be produced. Further proof that Lucas Films never passes on an opportunity to make a buck.

It's no wonder so many Star Wars fans despise that Lucas Films refuses to digitally re-master the three original theatrical films as they were and release them on dvd. Here's a quick list of the most heinous changes that were made to the original films when they were released as "special" edition features.

Jedi's don't scream. The 1997 special edition of "Empire" was changed so that Luke screams like a newborn as he jumps off the platform after his duel with Vader.

The big finale of "Jedi." The special edition added things from the upcoming prequel trilogy, including an image of Hayden Christensen as Anakin in the scene where the ghosts of him, Obi-Wan and Yoda smile at Luke.
Han shot first! But I digress...

Back to the sleeping bags. The product features caution that the bag is for indoor use only and not suitable for camping. After testing it myself, I can tell you that this is bullshit. I took the tauntaun sleeping bag camping the last time I was up in Canada. Besides keeping me warm it brought added piece of mind just in case a bear or other wild animal thought of messing with our campsite.

The bag actually did come in handy during an encounter in the middle of one night. You just never know what could be rustling around the campsite. Everyone else was cowering in their tents, but not me. I can still see the look on that marmot's face when I jumped out of the tent in my tauntaun sleeping bag and gave chase. You think a varmint is going to tangle with a 6-feet tall horned snow lizard? No need to rattle pots and pans or curl up in the fetal position and play dead anymore. Thanks tauntaun sleeping bag. I owe you one.

SCOTT'S REVIEW

From my favorite movie The Empire Strikes Back this is when Han Solo rescues Luke Skywalker on Hoth. When Han finds Luke stranded outside the rebel base, Luke’s been injured in a Wampa attack and is near freezing to death. To keep his friend alive until he can build their tent shelter for the night, Han uses Luke’s lightsaber to cut open his tauntaun and secures his friend inside the animal’s entrails. “I thought they smelled bad on the outside” Han says. But what would be better to survive a cold night on Hoth, a Tauntaun or the cotton version of one.

So the way I see it is the problem for Luke is if the Tauntaun’s body temperature reaches freezing point, those once toasty guts, blood, and assorted alien goo, will in fact become a frozen coffin. If the Tauntaun died of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia with an average body temperature of 75 F (23 C), and if Tauntaun blood freezes at 28.4 F (-2 C), then Han has roughly a hour to set up a shelter before Luke once again is in danger of losing his life due to the cold temperatures of Hoth.

Now If Han had this sweet Tauntaun bag with the lightsaber zipper, Luke's core temperature would have been stabilized and he would have not had to pick guts and whatever out of his hair for the next two weeks. Also can you imagine the smell, it’s kind of like that day after Zorbas gyro smell that lingers on way to long.

Finally, what has taken us so long to reproduce a fine product like this? We have the technology to produce Snuggys and the Slap-Chop but it takes an April Fool’s joke to finally bring this to market. It's too bad that so many of us first generation Star Wars people will have to fight our kids to use their sleeping bags to relive a night on the bitter cold wastelands of Hoth.

KRAMMER'S REVIEW

What is a ninja assassin? Isn’t that a bit redundant? Is there such thing as say a ninja florist? Or is that like a singer actress meaning not being good at either?

That is why this documentary style comedy/drama simply had to be made. There are a lot of unanswered questions out there about ninjas and this movie answers almost none of them. For example, what do ninjas eat? I would like to eat like a ninja. Do karate men really bleed on the inside? Apparently not as the single consistent element in this movie was the buckets and buckets of blood. Do ninjas sleep? How do ninjas feel about cats? Do ninjas ever get sad?

What better setting to try and resolve these issues than Berlin – ground zero for ninjas?

The movie ostensibly is about a kid taken off of the streets and trained in “Asia” to be a ninja assassin. He is trained to look like a ninja, smell like a ninja, and most importantly, to dress like a ninja. He walks on fire, eats broken glass and in general fucks shit up. Despite this, he still enjoys a stroll in the bonsai garden. The sensei here is no Mr. Miyagi. Instead of having his students try to catch flies with chop sticks, he shoves those chop sticks up you know where.

Problems begin when dumb ass Europol starts sticking their nose in where it does not belong. Like the combined police force of the European continent could hope to withstand the ninja tide. Stupid!

I learned some stuff about ninjas that I did not know. They no longer are throwing those gay smoke ball things on the ground. Now, they basically teleport. I guess they are just that fast. They can also hide anywhere, even in plain sight. There could be a ninja in my shoe right now and I would have no fucking idea.

Similar to the A Team’s unending ammo supply, they also have an unlimited number of throwing stars for tossin’. Pretty handy that. I also did not realize that these hurled throwing starts sound like gun shots. Scary!

This movie is “good” like G.I. Joe was “good.” It has all of the blood of Kill Bill but none of that annoying gravitas or plot. The film’s motto is “fear not the weapon but the hand that wields it.” Yeah. This movie changes everything.

Seriously, I am inspired. I am working on a screen play for the sequel. I am still trying to figure out who will be the lead. I am down to either Adam Sandler or Bette Midler. I will probably end up flipping a coin. I am thinking about calling it “Ninja Assassin 2.” In the sequel, my ninja related questions will be answered. As a tease, ninjas do get sad, really sad.

NUTSON'S REVIEW

Remember when you played Pitfall and thought videogame graphics had reached their apex? Then you played Mortal Combat and thought it was so realistic you were going to shit the pants of the guy next to you? And then came Madden, and Halo, and Call of Duty.

Now think back to old school ninja movies. Ninjas would throw shuriken. They would walk really quietly. They would make a whoosh sound when they turned their heads. And you thought nothing could be cooler than a ninja.

Well it took a couple pollocks to show us the way. The Wachowski brothers showed us that there is something cooler than a ninja. A ninja assassin. Whoa. Right? Just think about that for a second.

Ninja Assassin stars a nice fellow named Rain. You might remember him from How Stella Got Her Groove Back, or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. In this movie he is raised in some crazy china camp for ninja kids. But when the one lady ninja gets killed for some reason, he goes mental and then it’s on.

The movie is set in Berlin. Obviously. But no one speaks German there. They just sit in lawn chairs on the sidewalks and get killed by ninjas. All you really need to know is that it costs 100 pounds of gold to pay for an assassination done by a ninja. But of course you would know that because like the agents at Europol you’ve been monitoring all the big name assassinations lately.

Apparently the dude who wrote the script got the whole thing done in a weekend. That is not surprising since the dialogue flowed like shit through a gigantic block of lead.

For some reason critics didn’t like this movie. One such douche wrote “Whatever the case, McTeigue (as well as the Wachowskis) have really taken a step down with this one. It's a wild mess, and it commits the worst crime a messy film can make -- it completely lacks entertainment. It's an overly violent, unintelligible bore."

I guess this so called ‘critic’ was stupid enough to watch the entire movie. The first 5 minutes are just below average. The rest of the movie is like getting titty slapped by Rosanne Barr for 90 minutes after she spent the afternoon rolling around in donkey shit and roofing nails. Which is to say it is somewhere south of enjoyable and just north of slamming your cock and balls in an oven door.

What most critics missed was that Ninja Assassin showed ninjas flitting around like shadows, curing their own wounds by making queefy gestures with their hands, and swinging around a chain – which is evidently the most devastating ninja weapon of all time. Had they seen that, they would not have been so quick to call this movie a ‘bore’ and would instead call it what it is. A fucking cottage cheese (small curd) filled pustule on the underside of Greg Louganis’ chlorine scented wiener.

I give this movie one of a possible five muffin tops.