No jokes today...

Just a pause to remember all those that gave their lives so that I could make fun of Salo.

See you tomorrow.

"They could be fascist anarchists..."

So, Salo.

For those of you unfamiliar with the final work of Pier Paolo Pasolini, here is how the IMDb describes the plot:

Set in the Nazi-controlled, northern Italian state of Salo in 1944, four dignitaries round up sixteen perfect specimens of youth and take them together with guards, servants and studs to a palace near Marzabotto. In addition, there are four middle-aged women: three of whom recount arousing stories whilst the fourth accompanies on the piano. The story is largely taken up with their recounting the stories of Dante and De Sade: the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit and the Circle of Blood. Following this, the youths are executed whilst each libertine takes his turn as voyeur.

I couldn't possibly add any more then that, as this is a much clearer impression of the film then I got. The chief thing I thought about while watching this "cinematic exercise in endurance" was that I couldn't believe that people thought it was that offensive. Okay, there's rampant nudity, almost from start to finish. And as this is an Italian film, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the (very nude) teenage actors are actually teenagers. And we won't talk about the poop.(Suffice it to say there's enough poop-related material in this movie to shock even John Waters.)

But....

As a somewhat jaded cult movie fan, I found myself watching this movie and wondering what all the fuss was about. Sure, it's offensive, but I found it easier to stomach then Caligula, which I have tried and failed to watch three seperate times. Perhaps the fact that it dates from 1976, when there was little to nothing to compare it to(save the aforementioned Mr. Waters), makes it, as the Criterion OOP DVD box calls it, "The most disturbing, disgusting film ever made." Frankly, I found myself fast-forwarding. The execution scenes at the end of the film are the most graphic images in the film, and yet they seem to my eye to be no different then your run-of-the-mill super-low budget horror film haunting the back pages of Fango or Rue Morgue these days. Certainly it's on the same level, gore-wise, as some of Sub Rosa's better titles. But again, it's nothing that hasn't been seen before. Overall, I'd say that it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen(that honor still goes to House of 1000 Corpses), but it was no Caligula.

Pasolini was killed by a gay hustler shortly after completing Salo, and it would be interesting to see what he thought of the fuss surrounding the film. The British film institute has a very good page up here that accompanied a release of the film in 2002 and was a source of assistance in my understanding the context of the film a lot better. If you're curious, Criterion's DVD is out of print(rights issues as opposed to content), but you can find a copy at your better grey market online store for between $13-20. Don't bother spending the money on E-Bay on official copies of it. It ain't worth it. (Buy Hard Boiled or The Killer instead if you want to overspend for a Criterion OOP DVD.)

Proceed at your own risk, but I'd say if you watched Caligula all the way through, you can make it through this one.

Warning, live without warnings...

NOTE: z

No smoking around Muggs. Thankyou for your co-operation.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

More goofy internet stuff today. Rant later maybe, plus I finally got around to watching Salo. Thanks go to J2G from ITVR for this one.

Slacking Off???

I don't know where the past two days went, post-wise. I've been wrestling with my DVD burner and a cracked copy of Nero that wants to stop running when it's time to write the lead-out, and I spent the better part of my pre-work hours today diving through the front closet, which hasn't been cleaned out in at least a year...

Anyway, I finished the Neil Young biography, Shakey yesterday. It was a bit of a slog, as the most interesting stuff is covered in the first half or so. The second half of the book basically becomes "Neil records with so-and-so, then pisses them off by shutting them out until he needs them again" over and over again for about 150 pages or so. Read it for the pre-fame stories of Neil, skip anything post-Rust Never Sleeps. Contrasted with the bio of Nick Drake I also recently finished, Young comes off as the biggest tool in the history of rock(though Young's nothing compared to the stories related in the book about Graham Nash).

I'm now reading The Emperor and The Wolf, a biography of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune, which is huge. I've always been fascinated with Kurosawa's films, and he's always been somewhat of an enigma to me. His autobiography, such as it is, ends just before he becomes famous in the 50's(and long before its publishing date of 1982), but this book, by Stuart Galbraith IV, is exhaustive. It explores the lives of Kurosawa and Mifune and how they came together to make some of the greatest films in Japanese(and for that matter, world) history.

Just think about it.

Rashomon. High and Low. The Seven Samurai. The Hidden Fortress. The Bad Sleep Well. Yojimbo. Plus lesser known films such as Scandal, The Quiet Duel, and the just released Stray Dog.

Then think about just a few of the films that were inspired by Kurosawa.

Star Wars. A Fistful of Dollars. The Magnificent Seven. Battle Beyond The Stars. A Bug's Life. The Usual Suspects. Last Man Standing(the Bruce Willis one.)

And I learned one amazing and interesting fact already. The father of kaiju film, Ishiro Honda, was a great friend of Kurosawa's and worked on a few of his films before going on to become the king of rubber-suit movies. Rialto Pictures is currently running a re-release in art houses of the original Godzilla movie, scrubbed of Raymond Burr and with 40 minutes cut for U.S distribution added back in. Go here for a schedule of theatres showing the movie. If you can, go and see it. I will for sure when it hits Hartford at the end of July.

Rialto also has a current re-release going for Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers, the mid-60's psuedo-documentary account of the French's Iraqi-Freedom-styled attempt to quell a guerilla uprising in Algeria. It's fascinating viewing, and more so when you find that the Pentagon screened it in 2003. An interesting NY Times article on the screening can be found here, and hopefully someone will pick the remastered movie up for a deserved DVD release.

More tomorrow or Monday, possibly a rant on DVD re-releases.

-Edit- Subsequent research on Algiers indicates that there will be a Criterion DVD in the fall, with possibly as much as three DVDs. I imagine there's a lot of material to be covered.

More quiz action...

in lieu of actual content.



I'm not sure if there was another level above this, as I got 91 out of 100 right, and missed a couple of ones I should have known easily.

Thanks to Ken who had about a dozen quizzes on his site today.(I also took the "Are you Metrosexual?" quiz, and it's safe to say that I'm about as Metrosexual as Ron Jeremy.)

Something of actual substance tomorrow, maybe.

No more glowstick wars...

Phish to call it quits.

Apparently they've decided to call it a career because they don't want to become a caricature of themselves(read: like the Grateful Dead.) Considering that I didn't expect them to come back from their post-Farmhouse hiatus in 2000, this isn't a real shock. Trey has a fairly successful solo career going, and Mike Gordon is trying to become a filmmaker. Oh well, another band flames out before I get a chance to see them live.

Raw wasn't too bad last night. As expected, HHH/HBK at Bad Blood is going to be a Hell In A Cell match(and I think maybe it's time they retired HIAC as a match idea, since they've pretty much exhausted the idea.) If they blow the roof off like the NHB Summerslam match from 2002, then this will be a good match. Unfortunately, I'm not anticipating anything earth-shattering. The Eugene mega-push continues this week, as he tagged with Benoit in a match against Garrison Cade and the Coach, and Benoit had him hit the swandive headbutt on Cade. I must admit they've done a hell of a job getting what looked like an embarrassment of a character over in a big way.

Watched Vanishing Point yesterday also. Fox has put out a new, mostly bare-bones edition out of this 70's car classic. It was okay, not as good as I'd remembered it from when I was a kid. Barry Newman plays a burned out speed junkie(in more ways then one) who bets his dealer he can get from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Along the way he meets a variety of odd characters and gets assistance from a blind DJ given to spouting soul poetics and encouragement(Cleavon Little). It's a good movie, but has the usual downbeat 70's ending and some very creaky early 70's music. Guns'n'Roses fans will note that this is the film that inspired Axl's odd rap at the end of "Breakdown" on Use Your Illusion II.

The Burn-a-palooza continues with the acquisitions of The Little Mermaid(currently OOP) and Battle Royale(never to be legitimately available in the U.S.) How did I go so long without a DVD burner?

Fun with Pasolini and Miike...

Watching the Mayweather/Corley fight now. Mayweather looks goooood. Shaddax has a round for round up that definitely says anything I would want to say about the fight as well as a look at the mythic "pound for pound" championship that seems to have passed from Roy "knocked the fuck out" Jones to Mayweather.

One of the benefits of this new computer is that I can now begin acquiring the movies that I wanted to and can't afford. Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo is the perfect example. Now out of print, the Criterion DVD edition fetched well over three figures for some time, though at the moment, it looks like you can get one for about $50. This guy, though, is a bit much, as you can get the Woo films for about $50-100 each in other auctions.(Of course, that's what E-Bay is all about.) But I digress. Salo is also available at my local arthouse video store, and one pass through DVD Shrink later, now I have one too. They carry the Woo films also, so for the price of 2 blank DVD's and 8 bucks for rental, I'll have those too.

It's an all-Outrage-Cinema weekend as I also picked up Takashi Miike's Visitor Q and Ichi The Killer. Between the three, there's more then enough nudity, gore, sadism, and deviance to satisfy even the most debauched, jaded cult movie nut.(Like myself.) My buddy Brendan calls Visitor Q an endurance test, which will be interesting to see, because I've always considered Caligula to be the true movie endurance test. I've tried to watch it three times and never made it through the entire thing. I can never seem to get past Malcolm McDowell vomiting blood in slow motion. I'll probably have something on Salo up at some point in the near future, as any movie that the box copy claims is "perhaps the most disturbing and disgusting film ever made" has to have that claim verified.

A brief personal note.

Regular readers will note that there is no political content on this site, unlike other people I know. I am not apolitical, I just figure that I should blog about the things that affect my existence the most, and frankly, professional wrestling, bad movies, and the intramanet affect my existence far more then whether or not there were WMDs or prisoner abuse scandals.

But this pretty much says what I feel about all this business.

We will return to normal programming tomorrow.

Woo-Hah, I'm in business...

Finally got all my ducks in a row regarding the Great Clutter Cleanup, thanks to my buddy Brendan and some wonderful freeware that does unspeakable things to DVDs. So now the push is on.

Watched Raw finally last night, and there are but two words to describe the show. Popcorn Fart. La Roca returned for a one night only appearance (as the Raw crew was on the west coast), and gave Nick Dinsmore the rub in a major way, cutting a serious promo on the Coach(who had been running Eugene down on Bischoff's orders) and allowing Eugene to pull a Foley(copping Rock's catchphrase, and giving the Coach a Retard Elbow.) Other then that, the show was average, with Kane(as expected) going over in the 20-man #1 Contender Battle Royale with help from HBK. Not sure what they're thinking pushing Kane to the #1 slot, as he's involved in a stupid storyline with Matt/Lita, and it would be a good time to push someone like Edge as a main eventer before the inevitable return of the Belt to HHH.

Did not watch Smackdown last night, and from the spoilers, I didn't miss much.

Boxing this weekend on HBO, which will include your opportunity to see Roy Jones "knocked the fuck out", as my boy Shaddax put it. Also on the card is Floyd "Pretty Boy" Mayweather going to the Junior Welterweight division to take on DeMarcus Corley. This should be a good fight, though I'd expect the 31-0 Mayweather to go over here, as he's looking at taking on either Artuto Gatti or possibly going all the way up to 154 to take on Oscar De La Hoya. That road runs through Cory Spinks, though, and Mayweather, cocky as he is, doesn't seem to want to go there just yet.

Birthday Greetings

Birthday greetings go out to Will Guthrie, Dan Gookin, and my lovely wife Laurene, who all share May 19th as their birthday. Will went with his parents and bought a rather garish shiny shirt with a dragon on it for his birthday, which only seems right, and Laurene, Laura and I took a trip to the Palisades Center in West Nyack for the day. Laurene bought some new Legos, a new baby bag/backpack, and Monopoly Casino Vegas Edition for the PC, and I bought a used copy of Madden 2004 for the PC (Very fun and looks phenomenal, btw.)

Still haven't watched Raw yet, though I gather from intramanet reports that I missed Dwayne on Monday night. I'll probably watch it tomorrow.

New computer update.

Transfered 38 GB of materials from the old computer. Took 10 f'n hours to do it, and it still didn't transfer any of my Netscape stuff over, so I lost a bunch of E-mail and some of my bookmarks for the moment(at least until I can figure out how to transfer the rest of this stuff over.

Watched "Torque" at work tonight, and God help me, I enjoyed every stupid, brainless, CGI-filled minute of it. How can you not love a movie that has more ridiculous, over-the-top CGI in it then both of the Fast and Furious movies put together?

Nothing tonight.

New computer's not fully configured and I'm not going to be awake for Raw, so something better tomorrow, maybe.

I didn't know we'd ordered a horror movie instead of Judgement Day...

Holy sheepdip, as my friend Guthrie would say. By the end of the Main Event, Eddie Guerrero looked like he'd just walked out of a Fulci film. He took a massive chairshot from Bradshaw, then bladed as though he was Mass Transit. By the end, we were wondering if they were going to hit the finish before Eddie passed out from blood loss.

The PPV, taken on its own merits without considering the storyline implications, wasn't as bad as expected. RVD and Rey beat the Dudleys when Rey hit a 619 on both Dudz at the same time then RVD finished with the 5 Star. Decent opener. Mordecai made his debut, complete with cheesy entrance, and made short work of Scotty 2 Hotty, though not the squash I expected. He resembles Matthias Hues, a B-Movie actor from the 90's who was in "I Come In Peace" with Dolph Lundgren. Torrie Wilson beat Dawn Marie when Dawn Marie suffered a wardrobe malfunction, though not really of the Janet Jackson variety. Chavo Guerrero cheated his way back to the Cruiserweight belt, thankfully killing the two week reign of Jacqueline.(Could we just sort of forget this happened now?) Rico and Charlie Haas retained their tag belts by beating the team of Bob Holly and Billy Gunn in a decent match. John Cena retained the US title by beating Rene Dupree. The lowlight of the night was certainly Undertaker beating Booker T in a Death vs Voodoo match. Stupid and pointless, and UT's slowly but steadily pissing his legacy away. As mentioned, the ME resembled an abbatoir, as Eddie's Mutoh-level blade job led to the bloodiest match I've seen in WWE not involving Mick Foley. Didn't care for the DQ ending, though, as it means we'll have to sit through another month of the Bradshaw ME experiment.

Overall, on it's own, not a terrible show, but as a storyline-pusher, not so great.

Awesome!

P-P-P-Powerbook~!

Great tale, though it requires some reading. Basically it's an eBay-centered version of the Scamming-The-Nigerian-Scammers tales that have popped up on the net of late.

-Edit- Here's a non-PDF link for you if you don't want to(or can't) read the Acrobat file.

Wow...

Evidently, I didn't need to watch the PPV after all.

Though I do imagine that HBO will run this at some point, I'm glad that I didn't spent the $30 or $40 to buy the show. I'm surprised Jones lost, though I suspect that he'll be fighting again. I can't imagine he's going to go out like this. But, hey, HBO would be happy to put him on their commentary crew, I'm sure. I would also like to see the Zab Judah match on the undercard.(Again, if anyone out there has a tape they'd be willing to part with, my e-mail's in my profile.)

Another interesting story:

Vitaly Klitschko wants a rematch against the retired Lennox Lewis. My guess is that Vitaly would like to get a win over Lewis to legitimize his status as Heavyweight Champion since the division is somewhat weak right now. I can't honestly see Lewis unretiring, but I also can't see anyone in the division stepping up to fight Vitaly either. Klitschko may well turn into a pseudo-Tyson, fighting challengers below his level to keep the crown while waiting for someone to come down the pipe worth his time.

And then there's this. Trinidad has been looking for an opponent for a while, and was all set to fight Sugar Shane Mosley until Mosley ran into Winky Wright. Trinidad then was trying to get Wright, but Mosley invoked his rematch right, so now Trinidad's going up against Ricardo Mayorga. It should be a good fight, but not as good as Mosley or Wright.

Later tonight or tomorrow - Post-Judgement Day reactions(Don't expect anything good.)

Amusing online quiz for the day.

I'm a naughty boy, apparently, seventh level. (Never even read the Inferno, or if I did, it didn't sink through the layers.)

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

And here's a description of Level 7, from the results of the test:

Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river
Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The
violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their
pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows
shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is
overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted
and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of
final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those
branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their
nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence
against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down
against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their
tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth
their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company
in the Seventh Level.

-Edit- Almost forgot to thank Mat for passing this one one to me. My boy Air Guthrie and I are sharing a cozy flat on Level Seven, by the way. (Must be that whole blasphemer thing.)

Where is my mind?

Hey, another great Pixies link. This is from the Coachella festival, and it may be a better show then the previously linked reunion show.

No blog yesterday because I was too busy ordering a new computer from Dell. Nice system, that. You pick the components you want and they build it for you. I probably wouldn't have gone for the Dell, except for the fact that they were nice enough to give me credit.(Fools~!) Here are the specs:

Dell Dimension 8300 Series Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3GHz w/800MHz FSB Memory 512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M)
Keyboard Dell ® Quietkey ® Keyboard
Video Card New 128MB DDR GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI
Hard Drive 120GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices 3.5 in Floppy Drive and 64MB Dell USB Memory Key
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Mouse Dell™ Optical USB Mouse
Network Interface Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
CD orDVD Drive Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 8x DVD+RW Drive
Sound Card Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (D) Card with Dolby® Digital 5.1 capability Productivity Software Productivity Pack with WordPerfect® and Microsoft® Money Standard
Security Software Norton Internet Security™, 90 day trial
Digital Music Dell Jukebox powered by MUSICMATCH
Digital Photography Dell Picture Studio, Paint Shop Pro Trial, Photo Album Starter Edition
Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1 Year Limited Warranty plus 1 Year At-Home Service
Dell Media Experience Dell Media Experience™

Dell had a sale on their site, 20% off desktops, so I figured I'd go for it. I initially looked at their Media Center PC line, but I'm not gonna hook the PC up to my cable box, and it seemed like a lot more bells and whistles then I needed for about $500 more than I ended up spending.


Smackdown spoilers read as pretty dire, particularly going into the PPV this weekend. On the other hand, I'll be missing Jones/Tarver, which is Saturday night on PPV(unless someone wants to hook me up with a tape, of course.)

Eugene~! Eugene~!

Every once in a while, Vince McMahon's writers manage to do something right. Tonight, they did almost an entire show right. By far, the highlight of tonight's Raw was the in-ring debut of Nick "Eugene" Dinsmore. Eugene was initially presented as a basic cliched disabled character, but in the last few weeks, they shifted over to making him into a savant-like character, and tonight, it paid off. Eugene put on an old school wrestling clinic against Rob Conway, and I found myself wondering if it was 1981 again. Hopefully they'll do something good with this, as they teased a William Regal face turn tonight.

The rest of the show was good, save the opening non-event between HHH and Shelton Benjamin, interrupted by HBK. DAVE beat Tajiri, then went a bit insane on him afterwards. Randy Orton retained the IC belt due to outside help from Flair. Poor Val Venis got dragged into the Kane/Matt/Lita storyline, but Trish got an amazing and hilarious heel spot out of it, as she got Lita to freak out thinking Kane was coming. Funny stuff. And in the Main Event, Jericho got Christian to tap to the Walls of Jericho after Christian abandoned Trish in the ring when Jericho had HER in the Walls. Good stuff, and next week promises to be just as good, as there will be a 20-man mini-Royal Rumble to determine the #1 contender. They're really just blowing Smackdown away.

Rock, Rock on...

Click me for Cheat goodness~!

Boxing thoughts and a brief Raw preview.

Nice fights over the weekend. Shaddax has a round by round writeup of both HBO matches on his blog, and pretty much everything he has, I agree with. Miguel Cotto looked pretty spectacular in gutting out a decision win over Lovemore N'Dou, though he tired late, and actually asked his corner what round it was after the 9th. Cotto seems to be on his way to being one of the big fighters in the welterweight division for a long time to come if(when) he moves up in weight, and he's certainly going to be a factor at 140 for the moment.

Pacquaio and Marquez was a slightly questionable draw, though it was a very close fight. Pacquaio knocked Marquez down three times in the first, but the no-3-knockdown rule saved Marquez from a very early exit, and Marquez gradually pulled his way back into the fight as Pacquaio seemed to lose focus in the middle rounds. In the end, the judges had it 115-110 Pacquaio, 115-110 Marquez, and a 113-113 draw, which would be odd if the fight wasn't so damn close. I had Pacquaio winning by two points myself, but I could see where the judges had their problems. The rematch on this should be fabulous. If Pacquaio can keep his head in the second one, maybe he can pull one out.

NBC had a main event that turned out to be somewhat less spectacular then their hyperbole would have you believe. To hear NBC tell it, Francisco "Panchito" Bojado is another next big thing in the junior welterweight division, 15-1 at only 20 years of age. They showed lots of replays of a bloodied Bojado knocking someone out with one punch and made it sound as though he did this in every fight. The hyperbole was up there with HBO's recent ill-advised pushing of Joe Mesi as the next "great white hope". Well, Bojado's no Mesi, and he did dominate one Andre Eason, but he never seemed to get to the level that one would hope for, given the hype. He pretty much dominated Eason, but seemed to take the middle rounds off, and seemed content to pepper Eason with punches, only managing to get a knockdown at the very end, when he popped the mouthpiece right out of Eason's mouth with a solid left uppercut. Overall, Bojado will probably be up with Cotto in a year or two, but he needs to fight a higher level of opponent.

--------------------------------------------------

Raw this week has a PPV vibe, as May is a SD!-only PPV month. No less then five matches were announced on last week's show, with the highest profile one being Christian and Chris Jericho in a cage match. Other matches on the show include Tajiri/Batista; HHH/Shelton Benjamin; the debut of Eugene, in a match against Rob Conway which promises to be a technical-fest; and Randy Orton taking on Edge with the Intercontinental belt on the line. All this, plus the continuing soap opera of Matt Hardy/Lita/Kane, and fallout from the HBK/Benoit main event last week, makes for a much more interesting show, as sad as this is to say, than this Sunday's SD! PPV.

Placeholder title...

Fixed the links. Noticed a few new blog styles today. LW and Jaygo have changed their looks, and Shaddax suggested he probably wouldn't change his. More to come later.

Hey, new look~!

Tinkering around with a new look. Blogger has re-invented itself, and put up a whole funkload of new templates. Only bad thing is that as you can see, I lost all my links changing the template, and I haven't worked out how to get Haloscan into this new setup. Blogger's got a comment system now themselves, so maybe this will solve some of their issues with non-IE browsers.

Boxing thoughts and a Raw preview to come.

Why is it so hard...

To find a decent freakin' toy box these days? You'd think the evil empire of the retailing world would have them, but nooooooo. Three Wal-Marts, no luck. Geoffrey the Giraffe is no help either, as they either have a cheesy plastic one that my daughter would break in a couple of days anyway, or wooden ones that cost way more then they're worth. Oh well, going to try the big and odd lot stores tomorrow.

Watched some boxing last night(yeah, I know, THERE'S a surprise.) Comcast's guide had the ESPN2 Boxing listed as 10 until Midnight. Well, the fights actually started at 9, so I missed all but the main event. Lou Savarese vs. Leo Nolan in a heavyweight bout was the ME, and it was a good fight. Savarese is a 38 year old who's been kicking around the lower sections of the heavyweight division for a while now, having fought Kirk Johnson and George Foreman in the last few years. Nolan is a up and comer, 31 years old and 21-0 in his career, but Savarese is the favorite.

Savarese came out fighting early, but Norris dominated most of the fight. Savarese tore his bicep in the fourth round and was never able to climb back into it, save for a few brief flurries late in the match, and lost a unanimous decision. Nolan won one of the lesser belts, the IBA Continental Americas belt, and maybe can vault himself into the cloudy heavyweight picture with another good fight against a higher ranked opponent. Savarese, on the other hand, has to sit back now and decide, at 38, whether he wants to continue fighting.

Tonight's fights on HBO should be good. The Main Event is Manny "PacMan" Pacquaio vs. Juan Manuel Marquez for the IBF and WBA featherweight championships and a probable shot at the 130-pound champ, Erik Morales. Pacquaio's handlers are already looking past this fight, in a way, as the Filipino sees Morales as an opportunity to prove his supremacy over Mexican fighters, Pacquiao already having beaten Marc Antonio Barrera back in November '03. But he should look a bit more carefully at Marquez, who is bigger and more experienced, and on a 13-fight win streak. This one's a tossup to me.

The other fight on HBO is a 140 lb showdown for the IBF #1 contender slot between Miguel Cotto and Lovemore N'dou, who lost a contentious decision in February to IBF interm 140 lb champ Sharmba Mitchell. Cotto is being pushed as a new hope in the division. He's 19-0 at the age of 23, and is poised to make a big splash in the division, while N'dou is hoping to prove he's a contender for the belt currently held by the injured Kostya Tszyu. This one should be a good fight also, particularly if Cotto shows some flash.

Not much again today...

Added a few links to the sidebar, mostly relating to my recent interest in Penn and Teller, and by extension, James Randi.

I can't recommend Penn and Teller: Bullshit! highly enough. Each week, the pair spend a half an hour on Showtime taking a hard look at a particular topic. This week it's the Bible and how true it might be.(Yes, I know that's more then a half-hour topic, but I assume P&T will tackle one particular aspect). Previous shows have been on such topics as the environment, baby educational products such as Baby Einstein, and the ever popular psychic-John-Edward-I-can-talk-to-your-dead-relatives whackos. This show was particularly entertaining as P&T show how a "psychic" feels you out by doing a cold reading, using the information you're feeding him against you to make you believe his line of crap.

Something better tomorrow or Saturday, as there is boxing and movies to watch.

Not much to talk about today...

Slept, ate, worked, finished two Sunday N.Y. Times puzzles at the video store tonight instead of working. Learned what happens when you write in pen on a CD-Rom (oops. Guess I'll have to re-rip and burn that bitchin' Blind Guardian/Orange Goblin disc.) My printer appears to have gone the way of all flesh. Can't think of any pop culture-y thing to write about today. Maybe tomorrow. Sorry.

How did I forget to mention this?

Go Flyers~! They finished off the Leaves tonight, and now we go head to head with Nikolai Khabibulin and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Pretty damn good for a team that I didn't think would get past the hated Swamp Dwellers of New Joisey. Jeremy Roenick won it in OT, and Robert Esche stopped 34 shots despite having flu-like symptoms just two days ago. I can dream about that Cup, but I expect Tampa to be a tough opponent.

Why I hate Yankee radio broadcasts.

Do John Sterling and Charile Steiner watch the same Yankee games as the rest of us? I wondered that this evening as I drove home from work. Jose Contreras had another bad start tonight, going out of the game after 2 innings and not getting the first three batters out in the third. As Joe came out to give Contreras the hook, Steiner opined that Contreras was starting to be a "chink in the Yankee armor". Hello? Starting to be? Jesus Christ, the guy's had one good start all year, and he got pulled in the second inning a couple of weeks ago because Joe didn't want to risk a 7-0 lead. Contreras is not the solution that the Yankees need, and they never should have let Andy Pettite escape to Houston. Sterling and Steiner went on to suggest that the Yanks could simply skip him in sequences where they didn't play five games in a row, as if not pitching him is going to solve the problem. Hello? The boy needs to go to Columbus, or better yet, to Tampa so he can work out his issues without costing the Yankees any more games. The Yankees seriously need to start looking for a starting pitcher, and for that matter, some announcers who don't have blinders on. Argh.

The Benoit experiment continues...

Much to my surprise, Benoit retains the title this evening with a little help from his enemy, HHH. After the usual ref bump entertainment, HHH comes out and pedigrees HBK, ensuring Benoit keeps the belt, and I guess, ensuring us that we'll have a HHH/Benoit main event at Bad Blood. The match was excellent and ran 20 minutes, give or take with two commercial breaks. The rest of the show was pretty dire, but as expected, Eugene is going to turn out to be a wrestling prodigy, as he pretty much schooled Regal during their "training" session. Kane must have pooped in someone's shoes, as he's being put into an utterly stupid program with Matt and Lita.(Hey, if it keeps Lita out of the women's title chase, then I'm all for it.)

Next week should be a good show, though:

Batista vs Tajiri
HHH vs Shelton Benjamin
Orton vs Edge, IC belt on the line
Christian vs Jericho (again...)
and the Eugene/Rob Conway match.

Plus I'm sure there will be aftermath of the ME tonight, but next week's show is shaping up as a near PPV quality show. Too bad SD~! can't be this good.

French surrealism on a rainy Monday.

Watched "The Triplets of Belleville", which comes out on DVD tomorrow. Talk about your strange little birds. Sylvain Chomet's animated feature concerns a grandmother who raises her grandson to be a championship bicyclist. While riding in the Tour De France, he is kidnapped by two square-shouldered goons and brought to Belleville, a bizarre amalgam of New York and Montreal to be used in betting competitions by the French Wine Cartel. With me still? Okay, well, the grandmother and her spectacularly obese bloodhound follow the goons to Belleville, where the grandmother, penniless and homeless, takes shelter with the title characters, three bizarre old ladies who were a vaudevillian song and dance team in the 1930s. To tell more would be unfair, because this movie truly has to be seen. The character designs are very well done, and much of the film is akin to cartoons of the 30s and 40s in style. There is very little dialogue, but the film is so well done that you don't need it. You just sit back and let it push you along. I can't recommend this movie highly enough.

Watched quite a bit of boxing this weekend. The most impressive fighters this weekend were Kelvin "Koncrete" Davis, a cruiserweight who, despite his 5'7" frame, completely dominated Ezra Sellers, who was probably a good 6-8" taller; and Kermit Cintron, a welterweight who rolled to an easy 6th round TKO over Elio Ortiz Saturday afternoon on NBC. The only problems with these two:

For Davis, the fact that the cruiserweight division's only really a legitimate division in the WWE. Cruiserweight tends to be the division that you pass through on your way up or down in weight, and at 5'7", he's probably going to have to go down in weight.

For Cintron, the fact that he's still fairly unproven, despite a 21-0 record. After this fight, he should get a shot at someone a little higher in the rankings, maybe a top ten, but he's not quite a title contender yet. He wants Zab Judah or Cory Spinks, but I don't think he'll get that fight yet.

Watching Raw at the moment. So far, same old stuff, but Vince is in the building, which to me bodes ill for the Benoit/HBK main event.

Ten Asian action films you should see, not...

starring Jackie Chan, or directed by John Woo.

Inspired by a post on Lara's blog noting that yesterday, May 1st, was John Woo's birthday, I decided to compile this list. (Not that I dislike John Woo or Jackie Chan, but most people's knowledge of Asian Cinema begins and ends with these two.)

In no particular order:

Battle Royale (2000, Japan) - The final completed film of legendary Japanese cult director Kinji(Message From Space; The Green Slime)Fukasaku, this action and gore packed thriller has achieved near-legendary status due to its taboo subject; high school kids killing each other. It's an amazing piece of cinema based on an equally amazing novel, but you'll probably never see it legally in the US, as no distributor will go near it. Available on Ebay and on your finer grey market websites.

Volcano High (2001, Korea) - You may have seen this one by accident, as MTV bought broadcast rights to it and redubbed it with a cast of hip-hoppers. Surprisingly, the American dub is fairly faithful to the intent of the original, a live action anime with some great visual effects, phenomenal fights, and goofy acting. Available in an import edition that you can find at Suncoast.

Shiri (1999, Korea) - A taut thriller in which an elite team from North Korea infiltrates the South in order to carry out terrorist attacks, including a spectacular edge of your seat sequence set at a soccer stadium. Good performances and lots of action. Available from Columbia DVD pretty easily.

Dead Or Alive (1999, Japan) - God, I could write a column just on Takashi Miike. Suffice it to say that there's more over the top insanity in the first 20 minutes of this one then in three American action movies. Not for the squeamish, but a good time if you're willing to stick with it. Available in both import and domestic versions, spawned two equally insane sequels.

The Stormriders (1998, Hong Kong) - Sonny Chiba, Sonny Chiba, Sonny Chiba. This is a spectacular HK action picture with amazing visual effects, great fights, and Sonny Chiba. Available in an import, though a cut version appears on the cable from time to time with a terrible dub track.

Tokyo Raiders (2000, Hong Kong) - Good twisty action pic that goes from HK to Vegas to Tokyo. Jingle Ma is obviously trying to emulate John Woo(hey, look, doves~!), but throws in his own touches, and the Japanese/Chinese cast works well together. Available from Columbia.

Versus (2000, Japan) - Ryuhei Kitamura's blend of The Matrix, The Killer, and a Fulci film is so over the top and bizarre that he's developed quite a cult following. This movie is over the top fun, as an escaped convict and a not-so-innocent girl battle gangsters and the undead in a "Forest Of Resurrection". Kitamura recently grabbed the brass ring, being chosen by Toho to helm the "final" Godzilla film due at the end of the year. Available from Media Blasters.

Returner (2002, Japan) - A weird blend of sci-fi and action, Returner is about a girl who comes back to 2002 from the future in order to find a UFO and save its inhabitant, thereby avoiding interstellar war. In the process, she gets involved with Yakuza, Chinese gangsters, and a cooler-then-cool hitman who doesn't want to help her but gets sucked in. Great effects and some spectacular fights enliven this one. Available from Columbia.

The Princess Blade (2001, Japan) - Based on a manga, this is less about plot then style, but it's got some spectacular fight scenes, and a few amazingly realistic death scenes. Available from ADV films.

So Close (2002, Hong Kong) - This female-oriented action flick by actor-director-fight choreographer Corey Yuen is certainly the most unusual on the list, but it's one of the more straightforward movies here. Karen Mok is a cop chasing a pair of sisters who make their living as high-tech assassins. Quite a bit of humor and some spectacular fight sequences liven this one up. Available from Columbia.

So there you go, ten movies to check out. I did pass over a few, but these are the best of the best, in my opinion.

Holy Crap~!

It's the Pixies, back from the dead.

Go HERE~! (link snagged from Shaddax's other blog.)

Thinking about the Blender top 50 list tonight, decided it wasn't worth going song by song, so I'm just gonna highlight the songs I like that don't deserve this abuse.

49 - I'm Too Sexy - I love this song. Seriously.
42 - The Sounds Of Silence - Blender's chief problem with this song seems to be that it's stuffy and preachy. Come on, it's folk music, ferchrissakes. Give it a rest.
35 - Shiny Happy People - Even serious alternarockers have to lighten up once in a while. Hardly as offensive as some of the stuff on the list.
33 - Barbie Girl - Oh, come on. Blender needs to pull the stick out of its ass.
27 - The Final Countdown - Europe? Picking on Europe? Oh, come on. There are such better 80's hair metal targets to pick on then Europe. How about Whitesnake? Kingdom Come?
21 - Two Princes - Harmless hippie jam pop.
11 - Invisible - We've covered this one before. Disturbing, yes, but hardly worst of all time.
8 - Party All The Time - Hey, this is a fun song also, and it's got Rick James, bitch.
6 - The Heart Of Rock And Roll - Do we have to sic Patrick Bateman on the writers of Blender?
3 - Everybody Have Fun Tonight - I love Wang Chung. Really. They did an amazing soundtrack for To Live and Die In L.A., and they were one of my favorite 80's bands.

Number one is Starship's We Built This City. I can't understand this, because they had a far more dire hit in the late 80's, Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now. But worse then that is Grace Slick's quote in the article.

"This is not me. Now you're an actor. It's the same as Meryl Streep playing Joan of Arc."

Um, Grace? You and your band must have been good actors, because Starship was a bunch of AOR hacks long before We Built This City. And I don't remember hearing about you turning down all those record royalties and tour dates because people who'd never heard of the Airplane went to see you play this song, and Sara, and Miracles, and all the soulless crap that you and Mickey put out between 1976 and the early 90s, when you thankfully stopped claiming to be a rocker.

It's a long way from White Rabbit to soulless crap. To borrow from one of your former contemporaries, what a long strange trip it's been.