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THE CURIOUS ONLINE REALM OF POP CULTURE WRITER NATHAN RABIN.
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Hollywood cancelled Max Landis so he decided to make weird pitch/movie/reading hybrids where he plays most of the roles.
it’s something! Something very bad.
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Hollywood cancelled Max Landis so he decided to make weird pitch/movie/reading hybrids where he plays most of the roles.
it’s something! Something very bad.
If you’re nostalgic for the children’s game Hangman then you will be utterly appalled by the 2017 Al Pacino movie based on it.
How can Trump continually denigrate Somalia and its people in the most egregiously, explicitly racist way and suffer no blowback or consequences whatsoever, other than, you know, our country also being increasingly bold and unapologetic in its racism?
Rob Cohen’s 1993 hagiography of Bruce Lee isn’t subtle or understated, but it is fun.
Donald Trump insists that anyone who does not unconditionally support the Iran War is, by definition, in favor of the country having nuclear weapons. As is invariably the case, he’s wrong.
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The Big Whoop
How can Trump continually denigrate Somalia and its people in the most egregiously, explicitly racist way and suffer no blowback or consequences whatsoever, other than, you know, our country also being increasingly bold and unapologetic in its racism?
Donald Trump insists that anyone who does not unconditionally support the Iran War is, by definition, in favor of the country having nuclear weapons. As is invariably the case, he’s wrong.
Trump telling voters that they’re living in paradise because of him, so they better show some fucking appreciation, is a bold strategy for the midterms. Let's see if it pays off for him!
We as a nation have taken a strong stance against child molesters and Hitler lovers, except where Michael Jackson and Kanye West are concerned.
AI slop doesn’t get more surreal or hacky than the strange subgenre devoted to chronicling explosive live TV confrontations between random celebrities, including, oddly enough, soft rock crooner Barry Manilow.
I finally got around to watching Captain EO, a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between Disney, Michael Jackson, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola that’s a technological marvel and dramatically tedious in the same way the prequel trilogy would prove to be.
Why have the government pay for your vanity projects when they can be funded through bribes from defense contractors and corporations looking for favors?
FCC commissioner Brendan Carr wanted to give his boss and Lord, Donald Trump, a magical gold remote control that gives him the power to make funnymen he dislikes go away forever, but it’s not quite working as planned.
If missing the end of the Kickstarter campaign for my 10th book and 1st novel, Five Nights at Freddy Got Fingered has sent you into a downward spiral, I have good news: you can still get in on the magic through Kickstarter’s Late Pledges program!
It all comes down to this!
Hilarious Cyber-Satire That’s Easy to Misunderstand
Clickbait
A totally non-clickbait article on why everything you love and revere sucks shit.
The Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place 30 Day Film Challenge isn’t the first of its kind, but it is the best.
Not all celebrities remain rich and famous forever. Here are five who went from wealth and fame to being homeless street trash.
I know I’m late to the game, but this is a definitive list of the top ten movies of 2025
We never should have even thought about writing this article.
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!
FILM
The LEGENDARY column about failure at its most epic!
My World of Flops
Morbius was supposed to be the greatest and most successful movie ever made but it actually sucks.
For a while there, it seemed like The Flash would join Batgirl on a shelf permanently because of Ezra Miller’s shenanigans. That may have preferable to letting the overblown stinker out into the world.
I finally got around to seeing 2019’s Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker and it’s so bad that it’s making me re-think my decision to devote my life to Star Wars fandom.
What happens when you adapt a 4,250-page literary series into a 95-minute movie? Nothing good, as illustrated by the infamous 2017 film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opens today, so it seems like a good time to revisit 2017’s The Mummy, which famously failed to launch the Dark Universe.
Ever wonder why that Larry Charles-directed Nicolas Cage-hunts-Osama-Bin-Laden comedy Army of One was ignored by everyone? Turns out it's because it's fucking terrible! And not in a fun way.
One of you kind souls paid me to watch and write about 1985’s The Bride, which is like The Bride! but lifeless and terrible.
The Fresh Prince wrestles with some fresh grief in Collateral Beauty, the least plausible movie ever made.
John Travolta and Nicolas Cage Face/Off in The Ultimate Acting Battle!
Travolta/Cage
John Travolta becomes the smartest man in the world, then uses his incredible powers to woo a pretty single mother and help his buddy grow larger vegetables in 1996’s Phenomenon, a well-worn denim jacket of a movie.
John Travolta and an Oscar-nominated Robert Duvall lead a remarkable ensemble cast in hotshot screenwriter turned director Steven Zaillian’s overachieving 1999 legal drama A Civil Action, a sleeper which is infinitely more entertaining and rich than its dry title and half-forgotten reputation would suggest
Nicolas Cage’s run of cheesily fun Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action extravaganzas continues with the wildly entertaining 2000 gear-head blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds.
Hoo boy. This movie is BAD.
In 1990 Nicolas Cage made Firebirds, the first of several thousand forgettable action vehicles unworthy of his talent or originality.
It’s Psycho Versus Psychlo in the cinematic war of the millennium!
John Travolta has big fun with a very big performance as a colorful lawman/law-breaker in the appealingly vulgar exploitation movie To Paris With Love.
Hey, you know what movie is great? Get Shorty. That movie is SO good.
Where YOU pay ME to SEE movies!
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Hollywood cancelled Max Landis so he decided to make weird pitch/movie/reading hybrids where he plays most of the roles.
it’s something! Something very bad.
Gene Simmons plays an intersex supervillain in a performance that somehow manages to offend every sexuality and gender in the 1986 James Bond knockoff Never Too Young To Die.
Wings Hauser is riveting as Ramrod the Killer Pimp in the 1982 Cult Classic Vice Squad.
My patron funded exploration of the films of Wilford Brimley continues with a look at the 1985 television movie Ewoks: Battle For Endor, an alternately grim and insufferably cute vehicle for the Ewoks, who fucking suck.
One of you kind souls paid me to endure a CGI=heavy nightmare fuel comedy vehicle for Jim Carrey collaborator Steve Oedekerk.
I finally got around to watching the Cannes Cut of Southland Tales, which I was at one point supposed to write the liner notes for, and holy shit is it great.
John Carpenter followed up 1978’s Halloween with 1980’s The Fog, an atmospheric, very silly movie about watery posthumous revenge.
One of you kind souls paid me to suffer through a surprisingly star-studded adaptation of the Harvey Comics C-lister. It’s, shockingly, neither good nor realistic.
This Looks Terrible
If you’re nostalgic for the children’s game Hangman then you will be utterly appalled by the 2017 Al Pacino movie based on it.
John Candy Month kicks off with a fond look back at 1989’s Who’s Harry Crumb, a stupid movie for dumb babies.
I forced myself to see the new Melania Trump documentary but the universe sent me an unmistakable sign when the sound cut out after 20 agonizing minutes and I decided to write up a movie without seeing in its entirety for the first time in my 29 year career.
Did Nixon have Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix murdered to keep them from inspiring a revolution with their hedonistic brand of blues-infused rock? That’s the premise of schlockmeister Larry Buchanan’s bonkers 1984 travesty Down on Us, AKA Beyond the Doors, the craziest rock movie you’ve never heard of.
Fuck you, Troy Duffy. No, seriously. Fuck you.
Music
The Weird Accordion To Al
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!
Literature Society
Our exploration of the worst and weirdest literature has to offer explores a 1998 coffee table book devoted to Joe Camel, the lovable humanoid camel with a penis-shaped face who very successfully sold cigarettes to small children.
Page 3 girl turned pop star/sex goddess Samantha Fox's memoir Forever is a reasonably nasty, moderately engaging time waster about an ordinary cockney lass miscast in the role of a naughty girl in need of love and her naughtier father/manager.
All he wanted was for us to respect his neck. Is that really that much to ask for?
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!
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The answer is Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Mr. Trebek!