Okay, let's try to start blogging more - a gradual goal, as making this post, establishes blogging more.

Saw a couple of cult movies in the past week I had never seen before, The Warriors and Escape from New York. Both are really made by their premise - particularly Escape from New York - Manhattan is turned into a prison that runs itself, President trapped inside, former war vet-turned criminal has to rescue him to secure his own freedom. How can that be bad?

In addition, while Kurt Russell pretty much starts his ascent up the hollywood ladder (to the great heights of "Soldier" and "3000 Miles to Graceland," Escape from New York is populated by a bizarre assortment of stars from an earlier time. For example, Ernest Borgnine, who most people my age know as the guest dad in the Junior Campers episode of The Simpsons, played a crazy cabbie who drives Russell around town. Adrienne Barbeau, who was apparently married to John Carpenter from 1979-1984, leading to her roles in Escape from New York and The Fog, was best known for her part as Bea Arthur's divorced daughter in Maude. Barbeau plays the squeeze of Harry Dean Stanton, who was smack in the middle of his career as a character actor, and can now been seen as a 80-year old cult leader on HBO's Big Love. Lastly, Lee Van Cleef, "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"'s Bad, plays the police commissioner who injects Russell with some sort of chemical which means he must return within 22 hours to have it removed, or die.

Overall, a very solid movie. Solid '80s synth music in the background, a ludicrous chandelier car driving by Issac Hayes (I finally get an incredibly random "Duke of New York" reference in Aqua Teen Hunger Force) and coliseum combat involving a club with a spike on it. Moves along fairly quickly, Russell growls more than he actually talks, and it's essentially the basis for the Metal Gear Solid series.

The Warriors was also a movie made largely by the premise – New York in the future/past is dominated by gangs – when one gang leader tries to unite them all in the North Bronx, he is assassinated – the real assassins frame one gang, The Warriors, and the Warriors have to attempt to get to their home and safe ground in Coney Island, while clearing their name, while every other gang is out for them. The lead actor, Michael Beck is something of a two-movie wonder – his turn in this must have inspired the producers of Xanadu to pick him up as the lead, and his turn in Xanadu must have inspired producers everywhere to never place him in a lead again. David Patrick Kelly, who plays the sadistic true assassin, and beckons the title group with one of the movies two most famous line (“Warriors, come out and play,” with a huge emphasis and a bit of whining on the “play”), is something of a character actor who finds himself all over the place, recently, as President Truman, in the movie I saw immediately proceeding “The Warriors,” “Flags of Our Fathers.” James Remar, who plays a Warrior, but rival to Michael Beck’s Swan, is seen here and there as a villain, such as in “48 Hours” and now co-stars in Showtime’s “Dexter” a show I hear good things about and mean to get around to watching. Strangest in my mind was Lynn Thigpen as the radio DJ, best known for her role as the Chief in the kids game show “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?”

I enjoyed the warriors a good deal as well – there are some solid fights which some particularly strange gangs – most notably the Baseball Furies – a group of bat wielding nuts that wear face paint. While less gruff than Snake from “Escape from New York,” Swan is equally unemotional and is back and forth with the female lead, either getting with her, or calling her a whore.

Next out is The Machinist, where I look forward to seeing a deathly ill Christian Bale.

Okay, time to try to start posting in my blog again.

Since whenever I come up with a grand amazing entry I want to write and even if I start writing, I never finish, I'm just going to post in short bursts, just to show that posting is possible.

There we go.

Okay, as many of you reading this may know, I was chosen and qualified along with two other members of my team to participate in VH1's 2007 World Series of Pop Culture. That taping was this past week. For better or worse, I can not reveal how that went, but you'll find out in July when it airs.

There comes a time in every man's life when he must move on to some new TV, movie, music and book projects. Here's where I stand at this moment.

Movies - man, there's so much I want to see - I plan on seeing the Prestige today, and I'd eventually like to see what I've heard is it's lesser cousin, The Illusionist. Of what's out now, I'd most like to see The 300. I'd like to see the past two Best Picture Academy Award winners Crash and The Departed. I'd like to knock down some more directors' work with ones like Mean Streets and Cape Fear for Martin Scorsese, and about 30 more films for Woody Allen. I'd like to watch some very cult classic late '80s and '90s movies like Heathers and Clueless. And I'd finally like to get back on watching all the Bond films over again, even the ones I've seen.
That should keep me busy for a while.

TV - Two weeks ago, I finally finished the year-and-a-half quest of watching Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. An excellent endeavor, though the final season, was far from the best of the series. One of my next projects will thus be to finish up the Buffyverse by getting my hands on some Angel DVDs and cracking through those. Probably my top priority is catching up on Veronica Mars, the first two episodes which I saw a couple weeks ago, which seems like a couple months ago, but I think remember them well enough. Also waiting on deck are two comedies I'd like to catch up, My Name is Earl and How I Met Your Mother, and maybe I'll start giving 30 Rock a chance, as I've heard pretty good things for the most part.

Music - This is where I may be falling the farthest behind, but there's a few things at least I'm looking out for. New Maximo Park and Fountains of Wayne albums should be arriving soon, and I'm looking forward to both of these. In addition, I've heard rave reviews of the Pipettes, so that's the group I plan on checking out next. I'm going to have to keep searching for some new hot bands and albums as well as digging back to find some lost classics from days of yore.

Books - I have pretty much not picked up my book in about two weeks. The book I'm "reading" now is a history of the Punic Wars, and it's been fascinating so far and I plan on actually getting moving on it again. My second book in line is Julian Barnes' "Arthur & George" which I don't know all too much about except that Arthur is I think Arthur Conan Doyle and the George is someone probably famous whose first name is George.

Well, here's where I stand. And oh, yeah, I suppose I have school to worry about at some point. If anyone has any suggestions for media to munch on (not literally, unless it's some sort of edible book, which I would welcome), let me know.

Well, all I seem to post about these days is predictions, so why should this be any exception?

I suppose I'll pick some Oscar races, for better or for worse.

Best Picture:
Strike Little Miss Sunshine - too small of a movie, a comedy and a little too quirky for Oscar
The Queen - I think this is a little bit too quaint and foreign, and Helen Mirren near definitely winning the Best Actress is not enough
Letters from Iwo Jima - this is a possibility, but I don't see a film entirely spoken in Japanese winning - lots of critical fanfare, but not enough commercially I don't think for this to take off, though I wouldn't rule it out entirely - Oscars love Clint of late

That leaves I think the biggest two contenders, Babel and the Departed
Both have a decent shot - Babel winning the Golden Globe, though that's not necessarily worth all that much -
My deciding factor will be that since I think Martin Scorsese will get his long awaited Academy Award, and the Best Picture is more often than not linked with Best Director.

The choice: The Departed

Best Director:

I feel like the Academy Awards have been waiting for a chance to finally make up for past wrongs and hand Marty his statue. I was a bit surprised that they passed him up on Gangs of New York, and then again with The Aviator. Third time (in the 2000s) I think will be the charm. His biggest competitor is Clint, but they let him win last time he faced off against Scorsese, I think they'll even the score.

Best Actor/Actress:

These are the easiest categories to predict - as long as I go with the prevailing logic, and I will - Helen Mirren for The Queen and Forest Whitaker for Last King of Scotland.
I could go on a long explanation about how much Oscar loves portrayals of real people, or how these particular performances fit the mold - but the heapings of praise and awards these two have recieved nearly unanomously so far should be more than enough.

Best Supporting Actress:

I'm going to take Jennifer Hudson - people loved her.

Okay, I've gotta go, quick picks (less words than the last one even - well, maybe not that few)

Best Supporting Actor:

I have no fucking clue - I'll take Mark Wahlberg, becuase I love his recent output.

Original Screenplay:
Babel

Adopted Screenplay:
The Departed

Okay, we'll see how I do.

First, how about a good prediction out of my for the Super Bowl? I know I was impresed with myself. I didn't predict it. Well, I predicted the game, but I didn't predict my prediction being fairly accurate. So I'm 1 for 2, but that's a number I can live with.

From the stupid things out of peoples' mouths category, I read that our good friend Rush Limbaugh said this piece of drivel:

"And before we go to the break here, folks, I've got to get something off my chest. You know, the game was the game. And the game was what it was. But I - I can't handle any more press criticism of Rex Grossman. They're writing his name W-R-E-C-K-S. They're just ... worst quarterback ever to play in the Super Bowl. And it's been like this since the Green Bay game -- actually since the Arizona game, a little crescendo of it in the Green Bay game, the last game of the season for the Bears. And it's just unrelenting! It's just -- they're focusing on this guy like they don't focus on anybody!

"And I tell you, I know what it is. The media, the sports media, has got social concerns that they are first and foremost interested in, and they're dumping on this guy -- Rex Grossman -- for one reason, folks, and that's because he is a white quarterback.'

I really don't even have anything to add. This just speaks for itself. Now every person reading this blog I guarentee already feels the same way as I do about Mr. Limbaugh - but this should just give more reason to the people who haven't tuned him in lately.

Baseball:

Now, I'm no nostalgia craving old timer who thinks every little thing ought be like it was in the old days. And I understand that in today's sport, people change teams - it's just a fact of life. Here and there we can have the Craig Biggios of the world, but for the most part, at best there will be Tom Glavine's who play for years and years on one team but then when they get old, have to go somewhere else to find someone interested in paying them.

That said, it's always nice when you have a chance to keep around a guy who can still help you out and who is willing to accept a reduced payday.

This could apply to a lot of people, and really in any sport, but probably more in baseball, where former starters, can still if they want, often be useful bench players.

In particular though, I refer to the case of Bernie Williams. Now, I'm no Yankee fan, so know my bias ahead of time. And I understand Bernie is old, and he is not as good as Abreu or Matsui or as promising as Cabrera. But there is one answer to why anyone has a right to say that Bernie deserves a place somewhere on the roster. The fact that the Yankees have made the moronic move of guarenteeing Doug Mientkiewicz a major league contract. Besides signing someone whose name is unspellable, the Yankees have signed someone who simply, sucks. Sure, he's better than Jason Giambi on first base, but hell, a Jason Giambi bobblehead is better than Jason Giambi on first base. Now, of course, I don't really give too much of a shit, I'm not a Yankee fan, and I have no right to speak for them. But I'll try anyway. If I was, I'd sure rather have a guy who poured his heart and soul into the team for 15 years and won four world championships than a guy who had just over 100 at bats for the Red Sox all 2004 season and attempted to steal the world series ball from a baseball mad city salivating for a championship like a couple of pit bulls starved for over 80 years without food.

Hell, I mean, I was sentimental about losing Cliff Floyd, and he'd only been on the Mets for four seasons, and maybe played for a total of three. (Though who knows when the Mets are going to have another shot at a player named Cornelius?)

But it just seems worth considering every once in a while keeping a player who can still be useful
over a player who can still be useless.

With the bye week, there is not a single thing about the Super Bowl that can be said that hasn't been said yet. That said, I'll at least take a stab at a prediction. Colts 27, Bears 14. There it goes, if it's half as good as my baseball predictions, the Patriots will return in win the Super Bowl somehow.

All right, me blogging is back - somehow fighting off laziness at least temporarily. I will dare I say, attempt to do this more often, but let's see it before I believe it.

Firstly, I'd like to complain about the moronic reaction to a number of Aqua Teen Hunger Force advertisements in Boston.

Here are a couple of links with the story:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/advertising-campaign-causes-terror-scare/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/index.html

I can't believe they're threatening Turner and the creators of the advertisement. Beyond being absolutely moronic, it is scary that the people protecting this country, and that city from terrorists could not identify an ad from a bomb, especially an ad for a fairly popular TV show. Had one eighteen year old male been shown this, all of the concern over this potential threat would have ended immediately.

So this shows to things - first of all, how incompetent the people who ran this thing are, and how irresponsible they are in trying to put the blame on Turner. Take responsibility, idiots, for you screwing up for thinking an advertisement - not a "hoax" as many are reporting, was a bomb - and not being able to figure it out before over a million dollars. These have been in 10 cities and no other city freaked out. They're in public places and not causing a disruption. Imagine seeing a giant Lite Brite and shutting down a couple of bridges over it. That's pretty much what happened.

Here's some more.

"

A furious Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed yesterday to throw the book at the masterminds behind a guerrilla marketing campaign gone amok that plunged the city into bomb-scare pandemonium and blew nearly $1 million in police overtime and other costs.

As city and state attorneys laid groundwork for criminal charges and lawsuits, cops seized 27-year-old Arlington multimedia artist Peter Berdovsky, who posted film on his Web site boasting that he and friends planted the battery-wired devices, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown. Both were jailed overnight on charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct.

"This is outrageous activity to get publicity for a failing show," said Menino, referring to the battery-operated light-up ads for the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," which sparked at least nine bomb scares in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville."

The second thing it shows is of course how out of touch with pop culture the people in charge are. Pretty sad, frankly, You don't have to like Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But someone in the entire fucking government should know what it is.





More later.