Top Of The World, Ma! AKA Boston Sports Report Part Eight

I’m sure all of you that actually care know this, but as of right now Boston is the center of the sports universe. The Red Sox are grinding hard trying to guarantee that they have the pieces in place to contend for another World Series championship after the Detroit Tigers made a monster deal that will no doubt make them contenders this coming season. The two big stories in Boston right now are the New England Patriots striving for perfection (and giving Mercury Morris a heart attack weekly) and the Boston Celtics seemingly walking through competition in the NBA. Let’s start with the Pats and their remarkable (and potentially historic) season first.

Two weeks ago the New England Patriots had to find a way to win against the Philadelphia Eagles and barely squeeked it out by the score of 31-28. The Patriots had been beating teams so easily up to that point that sportscasters and NFL analysts began talking about how the Eagles had provided a “blueprint” for beating the Patriots. I was thinking that it couldn’t be a very good blueprint if the Patriots still won the game, but whatever.

The very next week, the Patriots had to fight from behind to win yet another close game versus an extremely physical Baltimore Ravens team with a veteran defense 27-24. Once again, the talking heads commented that the Patriots looked overwhelmed on defense and that they almost lost the game (focus on the word "almost" in the previous sentence). They forgot that the Patriots defense made the big plays when they counted most and the Patriots offense got on track to come up with the winning drive at the end of the game...again.

This coming week was the game the Patriots were supposed to finally lose. The Pittsburgh Steelers were the #1 defense in the NFL and they could run the football all day and they had enough good receivers and a good enough mobile, ball control quarterback that could potentially keep the Patriots offense off the field. The Steeler defense was experienced and physical, they would surely be up to the task of locking down Randy Moss...right? Of course, some young defensive player on their team who shall remain nameless guaranteed that the Patriots would lose the game...at Gillette Stadium...in December...on Earth. Just say no to drugs, kids.

The Patriots ended up beating up on the Pittsburgh Steelers 34-13 as Tom Brady threw for 399 yards and 4 TD’s. Randy Moss went off for 7 receptions 135 yards and 2 TD’s. Tom Brady has now thrown for 45 TD’s this season, 19 of them being caught by Randy Moss and 8 going to new addition Wes Welker. Wes Welker also leads the team with 93 receptions. Considering how easily the Patriots scored on the Steelers and how they managed to hold them scoreless for the entire 2nd half all of the talk about teams finding the supposed blueprint for defeating them has dissolved. The way to beat ANY team is to try to keep their offense off the field...if you can’t score more than the other team or stop them from scoring then all of it is moot.

The New England Patriots are now 13-0, they’ve earned a first round bye and one more win can clinch home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Their remaining games are the 16th @ 1:00PM vs. the Jets in Gillette Stadium, the 23rd vs. the currently 0-13 Miami Dolphins in Foxboro @ 4:15 PM and last but not least, the final game of the season on December 29th in Giants Stadium @ 8:15 PM. I can’t wait to see how the rest of this football season shapes up, now on to the surprising Boston Celtics.
I know what you’re saying...”The Celtics haven’t even played anyone yet!”. The “anyone's”’ in that sentence refer to the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns and the San Antonio Spurs. It’s not the Celtics fault that none of these teams have appeared on their schedule as of yet, but in the 19 contests the Celtics have been in they’ve emerged with a 17-2 record highlighted by an impressive 10-0 record at home. Not only are the Celtics the #1 defensive team in the NBA but they’re one of the best at passing and shooting as well...that’s just fuckin’ scary.

They usually beat their opponents by double digits and the 2 games they managed to lose this season were by a combined total of just 7 points. The combination of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen sometimes go up by so much that they get to sit out most if not all of the 4th quarter fairly often. Leads have gone well past 30 points on numerous occasions...they’ve doubled up the opposing team so often that it looks like their playing Live 08 rather than real basketball on the court. Stars are also coming out in droves to see the much improved C’s ball...where were y’all last year? (Ellen Pompeo, I’m looking at you).

The league and many NBA analyst (who to be fair never really watched the Celtics play last year) doubted that Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins would be adequate as starters. They weren’t aware of the defensive prowess of either player (why do you think the brass kept ‘em?) or their individual strengths. Perk is a tireless worker on the defensive end and he crashes the boards. Not to mention he has great hands, footwork and court awareness for a big guy.

Rajon Rondo has improved his jumper immensely this season and when added with great hands, excellent court vision, tremendous athleticism and blow by speed, the ball in his hands is cause for havoc to the opposition. When Rondo has great shooters like Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, James Posey and Eddie House spotting up for jumpers and threes alongside big targets like Kevin Garnett, Kendrick Perkins and Glen “Big Baby” Davis in the post his job is that much easier.

I knew the Celtics would be good this year but I never imagined they would be this damn good and dominant this early. Hopefully everyone can stay healthy and we can have a parade in the summer for a change in Boston. Oh yeah, l’m also tied for 1st in Dallas Penn’s Football Pick ‘Em pool and if the New Orlens Saints manage to win tonight’s game by 4 points or more I’ll be in 1st place all by my lonesome. Boston stays winning, I guess.


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Alternative Programming Or Kill Your Television 2

Here is a collection of some of my favorite videos that have recently hit the web (minus Snoop’s new joint...it already gets more than enough burn). Some of these joints are brand new and some of the others have been floating around the bloggerverse/internet for a while. Enjoy them all in one shot. Also, if you’re sick of the long ass load time it takes to read my blog just subscribe to my RSS feed or just use Google Reader instead. Here we go:

Prodigy-ABC


Ghostface Killah f/Styles P & Beanie Sigel-Toney Sigel AKA Barrell Brothers

(new) Ghostface barrel brothers ft beanie sigel & styles p
Uploaded by homhom

Beanie Sigel f/Styles P-You Ain’t Ready

Beanie Sigel feat. Styles P - You Ain't Ready For Me
Uploaded by Yannicklord

Scarface f/Trey Songz-Girl You Know

Scarface Feat Trey Songz - Girl You Know [NEW]
Uploaded by PeteRock

Cool Kids-Black Mags

Cool Kids - Black Mags (NEW)
Uploaded by Yannicklord

Murs-Yesterday, Today


Freeway-It’s Over


Freeway-Still Got Love


Skillz f/Freeway - Don't Act Like You Don't Know


Styles P f/Swizz Beats-Blow Your Mind


Nas-Surviving The Times


Joe Budden-Star Inside Of Me


Wyclef Jean f/Akon, Lil’ Wayne & Raekwon-Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill Remix)


Smif N’ Wessun f/Rock & Joell Ortiz-Stomp


Consequence-Breakfast Of Champions


Lupe Fiasco-Superstar


Hell Razah-Razah’s Ladder


Hell Razah f/Shabazz The Disciple-Audiobiography


Butta Verses-Round And Round


Wale-Uptown Roamers


Wale-Nike Boots (not an official video)


Tabi Bonney-Syce It/Escalator


Kenna-Say Goodbye To Love


Nas f/The Game-Hustlers


Kidz In The Hall-Drivin’ Down The Block (The Low End Theory) Trailer/The In Crowd Promo


Cormega “Who Am I?” Long DVD Trailer


Rest In Eternal Peace Pimp C

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Revenge Of The 80’s presents Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends

Back in the Fall of 1981, NBC premiered a brand new Marvel cartoon series starring everyone’s favorite web slinger Spider-Man along with two sidekicks/co-stars, namely Ice Man, formerly of the X-Men and a member of the Champions Of Los Angeles and a female mutant named Firestar. The funny thing was that Firestar didn’t really exist at all. The producers and animators at Sunbow Productions originally wanted the show’s lineup to consist of Spider-Man, Iceman and Johnny Storm, The Human Torch.

The problem was that the Human Torch character couldn’t be used in the Spider-Man series without the Fantastic Four license (which another animation studio had along with CBS), furthermore the Human Torch’s character (which originally was created by Marvel Comics and dated all the way back to 1939) was wrapped up in so much red tape that it couldn’t even be used in the 1978 Fantastic Four cartoon series...they instead replaced him with a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. (WTF?).

In order to offset the loss, the producers decided to just create a female character with similar powers to the Human Torch. She could fly and emit fire from her hands as well as control flames. Since they were pressed for time looking for a template to draw her from, they essentially just copied her from drawings and renderings of Spider-Man character Mary Jane Watson (?). They called her Heatwave and gave her the name Angelica Jones, they later changed her codename to Firefly but settled on Firestar before scripts and voice acting was done.

To make things even weirder, they made Bobby Drake (Iceman) look exactly like Flash Thompson, Peter Parker’s college nemesis. It got so confusing that when they added Flash Thompson as a character on the series, they had to change his hair color to avoid he and Bobby Drake being confused for one another in the shows production cels.

Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends was an exciting show for the times because Marvel Comics and Stan Lee himself had a hand in the creation and production of the show. They decided to have a variety of Marvel Comics characters make guest appearances to celebrate the new series.

Over the cartoons 24 episode run the heroes faced regular Spider-Man enemies like Doctor Octopus, The Kingpin, The Sandman, Green Goblin, Mysterio, Electro, Shocker, Kraven and The Beetle. They also faced off against Magneto, Doctor Doom, The Red Skull, Loki, The Chameleon, Silver Samurai, The Scorpion and last but not least, The Juggernaut, bitch!

The show also featured cameos by some of the most heralded heroes in the Marvel Universe (sometimes only in their alter egos) as they fought alongside the X-Men, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Sunfire, Sub-Mariner and The Black Knight. Matt Murdock, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark (Tony for Maaaaayor!) appeared as themselves in separate episodes.
As cool as it was to see these characters animated for what was the first time ever back then was a mixed bag at best. Since the show aimed at young kids, many of the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe didn’t often get the chance to wild out and do their thing. Let me present some examples when Marvel characters completely failed to represent in this show’s short life:

In the episode entitled “7 Little Superheroes” , Namor The Sub-Mariner was just about to catch wreck on Chameleon when all of a sudden he gets sprayed with alcohol while he’s flying. He falls out of the sky and loses consciousness right away. He doesn’t do shit for the rest of the episode even though he was clearly the strongest character present.
Whatever, man!

In the immensely popular episode “A Fire-Star Is Born” (which also tells the origin of Firestar who doesn't become a real Marvel Comics character until her first appearance in X-Men #193 in 1985), we get our first look at some of the new X-Men appearing in animated form (namely Storm and Wolverine).

Storm catches it from The Juggernaut after hitting him with an ill thunderbolt but he shook that shit off like R. Kelly does to a sexual assault charge. Canada's best contribution to American culture besides DeGrassi (yeah, I said it!) Wolverine (who so far has only managed to impale some fruit on one of his claws shish kabob style in this episode) jumps into action, flips and lands on Juggernauts right forearm (cuz he’s tiny).

He swipes away at Juggy for a while before Juggernaut simply grabs Wolverine by his legs and flings his lil' ass toward a brick wall. Wolverine’s claws go directly into the wall and he tries to pull away to no avail. His last lines for the episode are “I..I’m stuck!”. Bulllllllshit!

This episode also features the music that only played when the X-Men appeared on the screen...this music has been jacked by several Hip Hop producers and flipped in beats, most notably by MF Doom for his Special Herbs instrumental series.

In the episode “The X Men Adventure”, The Spider Friends (go for it!) end up at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters in order to face an enemy that has ties to Firestar. In this episode we encounter the new look X-Men again but this time with Storm, Sprite (Kitty Pride), Night Crawler (BAMF!!), Thunderbird (he died the next mission) and Collossus (I guess Wolverine was still stuck in the damn wall outside).

In this episode the the superpowered lineup should’ve been able to walk through their opposition but so much bullshit jumped off (like holograms of Colossus tricking Sprite and Nightcrawler showing up but teleporting but leaving behind no brimstone, etc.) that none of the heroes expect for Spidey and his pals could get their superpowered shit off (like getting caught in a fuckin' maze in their own house (?)).Since Sprite could phase through walls, Nightcrawler could teleport and Collossus and Thunderbird were both super strong a maze shouldn't have slowed them down at all. Man, what the fuck?

On this show I remember seeing Magneto, Doctor Doom, Sandman and The Red Skull catch L's all in the wackest ways possible. These were some super villians that would kill without mercy...you know, how 50 Cent acts like he'll do on his albums but instead he reads the Robb Report and burns the midnight oil in his office in his Connecticut mansion instead (Time is money!).

I did think that the ill crime lab computer setup that they had in their crib was the jump off, though. They waited until Aunt May went upstairs to listen to some old Benny Goodman records (or go hard at it with a vibrator...who the fuck knows?) and it was crime fightin' time!

All the gang had to do was pull that golden football statue one time like Wyclef and the massive crime computer setup popped out with the quickness. There was NO WAY that apartment had enough power to run all of that shit! What’s even funnier was that for the longest no one knew how they got that sweet set up...it wasn’t until halfway through the final season before they even made the episode “The Origin Of The Spider-Friends” which explained that Tony Stark footed the bill for it all to pay them back for doing him a solid on their first mission together.


This show isn’t officially on DVD but there are hella spots to get the whole series online if you look hard enough. Back in the days, the show was kinda dope, but nowadays when you see some of the lackluster/fogettable episodes of the series' run like “The Fantastic Mr. Frump”, “The Vengeance Of Loki”, “Swarm”, “The Education Of A Superhero (Videoman? FOH!)”, “The Transylvanian Connection” and “The Attack Of The Arachnoid” you’ll be like “This show fuckin’ sucked!”.



Marvel decided to fight off the cheese factor of these episodes by making a Marvel Comics hour starting in 1982 with a 13 episode season of the decidedly more serious , action oriented and violent show “The Incredible Hulk” to balance things out. This show was created to bring in a slightly older audience than Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends.



The series still airs to this day on Fox Kids Networks through their Jetix block of shows and I watch these episodes with my nephew. They only air a little more than half of ‘em , though. Weird, huh?

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The Textbook Definition Of A Cult Movie: Southland Tales

Let’s say you’re a young writer/director and a cold war kid that’s just fed up with the corrupt Bush Administration and their cronies, the rise of rampant commercialization/corporate sponsorship, terrorism induced paranoia, the Patriot Act/Homeland Security, Google trying to acquire the entire universe, junk food media that focuses more on celebrities than actual journalism and whatever else is pissing you off about post 9/11 life in America. How do you address all of these issues and exorcise your own growing stress that the Apocalypse is possibly nigh? Easy! Make an ambitious movie about it that spans multiple film genres!



The subject I’d like to discuss today is the curious case that is Richard Kelly’s Metro Goldwyn Mayer/Sony Pictures film “Southland Tales” . This film’s back story has become the stuff of legend and HBO is partly to thank for it. As any of us that have worked in any capacity near Hollywood or trying to break into it know, the show “Entourage” is loosely based on the experiences of Mark Wahlberg and his friends when they first moved to California. It also uses some Hollywood legends/tales that have circulated around for extra storylines/fodder for episodes.

The big storyline of the past season of the HBO series “Entourage” had to do with an ambitious film made by a visionary writer/director who made a previous cult hit. The movie generates quite a big buzz and everyone can’t wait to see it premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Once the film actually airs, people walk out of the theater, sit there bored or just booed and exited as quickly as possible once the film ended. This is what happened in the case of the fictional film “Medellin” in which Vincent Chase starred as Pablo Escobar and it was directed and written by “Queens Boulevard” director Billy Walsh.

That storyline was partly inspired by the true story of “Southland Tales” which premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was written and directed by Richard Kelly who created the modern cult classic film “Donnie Darko”. The film was highly anticipated by film fanatics in the know but when it was finally screened for an audience, the 160 minute film ended up becoming one of the worst rated films in the history of Cannes by receiving an average of 1.1 out of 5 possible stars in all of the dailies that ran a review of it. Roger Ebert also went on record panning the film, even going as far to say that at the end of the film there were deafening boos, very little applause and almost everyone walked out. It turns out that the only available footage taken of the 2006 Cannes premiere is on Youtube and Ebert’s account seems to be off a little:



The festival ended and it seemed that Southland Tales would never see the light of day. When the stars of the film were asked about it in interviews they wouldn’t speculate on the possibilities of it ever being picked up. According to most people that say the original version of the film, it was deemed “completely unmarketable”. Oddly enough, Sony Pictures picked up the film and sent Richard Kelly into the editing room with some people and waited on a new cut of the film that they could actually release in theaters.

In the end, the film was re-edited, a whole new narration was done by Justin Timberlake (above as Pilot Abilene), several scenes totaling 16 total minutes were cut from the film and $1 million dollars was spent on post production special effects to produce an 144 minute version that was accepted by the studio, pushing the film’s final budget to $17 million dollars (most of the cast worked for scale). The film was hyped up at Comic Con, started a buzz on the internet, released the different volumes of the graphic novel that serves as the film’s back story. Samuel Goldwyn/Sony execs settled on the unique marketing campaign and a proper trailer that was aimed at the cult film audience:



The release of the film was preceded by the release of three graphic novels that told the compelling back story of the film (they have now all been compiled into a 300 page graphic novel called The Prequel Saga). The events of Southland Tales are set in an alternate reality with a timeline that diverges from our own on July 4th, 2005. On that date, nuclear attacks hit both Abilene and El Paso, TX causing the attacks to be referred to as America’s version of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What follows is a stricter Patriot Act, which comes with a Big Brother like company that does 24 hour surveillance on every American citizen called USIDENT. Furthermore, the government takes full control over the internet to better monitor hackers, bloggers and malcontents. Each state of the Union erects border guards and every US citizen needs to obtain travel visas just to cross state lines...Damn!

Following the attacks on Abilene and El Paso, TX, the Bush Administration decide not only have troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they decide to wage war against Syria, Iran, and North Korea as well. The war also receives corporate sponsorship from Budweiser, Hustler Magazine and several other companies. Since soldiers aren’t rejoining the military after their first tours and enrollment into the military is at an all time low the Bush Administration reinstates the draft and launches campaigns all over the map.

The Republican Party makes a desperate push to take California in the upcoming 2008 Presidential election for the first time since 1988 because CA's 55 electoral votes will sway the whole election. However, California has become a hotbed of anti government activity led by several anti establishment cadres, most notably the Neo-Marxist Movement that has the most members and financial support.

Shortly thereafter, Americans realize that they can no longer rely on oil so they develop several different methods to power things that don’t use oil. Ultimately, a German scientist/billionaire develops an energy source that powers things completely without power from the power of the ocean...little do we know that this method is also slowly destroying the Earth.

The story centers around the character Boxer Santaros and his role in the impending Apocalypse. This film addressed so many topics in it and played on your personal belief system so much that it takes multiple viewings to fully digest. It really plays with our ability to fixate on celebrities, this movie stars a number of actors that have achieved cult status for one reason or another and the audience tends to focus on them, waiting for them to do something. If for any reason they’re out of the story or didn't do something they expected during the film, the audience member feels cheated that their favorite actor is out of the movie. Also, no one really has a character that you can totally identify with or does anything that you can truly view as heroic. In essence, everyone you see on the screen is merely a pawn that helps to bring about the inevitable end of the world. There are no heroes, just people that are players in the grand scheme.

One of the biggest problems with this film is that you can't easily explain what it's about or pigeonhole it into being one thing. If you don't have to proper background (Phillip K. Dick short stories, Chuck Palaniuk novels, a bunch of movies dealing with dystopian futures/apocalyptic themes, etc.) to be able to watch this film without having a seizure in your seat then you will watch this flick and not now what the fuck is going on and have no point of reference and nothing to compare it to.

Southland Tales premiered on November 14th and was put into limited release in 64 theaters on November 16th. The next week it was only playing in in 29 theaters across the country. By the third week it was only in 9 theaters and it opens up in the UK on December 7th. The closest theater to see this film in for me is 212 miles away in New York City, the second closest is almost 450 miles away in Arlington, VA. To see the last 9 theaters in the US that are still showing this film check out the map here



The odd thing about this film is that it is one of the most discussed films on the entire internet...but almost no one has seen it (at least not in theaters). As of this date (December 4th), the closest estimate I can make on this films take is less than $250, 000. As I stated above the film’s final budget was $17 million not including the money that Sony Pictures put into promotion (which I imagine wasn’t a lot since it was only in 64 theaters to start). This film is going to have to make it’s money overseas or through DVD sales (it’s estimated to be ready for North American DVD release around March/April 2008).

Don’t feel bad, Richard...I liked it. Hell, even “Blade Runner” tanked at the box office when it was released more than 25 years ago and people are STILL going to the theater to see it today. It may take years before people fully understand and appreciate this film...or maybe never.

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