HEY WEINSTEINS! WHERE'S THIS FOR US, BITCHES?

From Movies At Midnight:

- GRINDHOUSE gets a massive six-disc DVD release in Japan this March.
It looks like the first four discs will be ports of what we've already
seen in the two-disc releases of DEATH PROOF and PLANET TERROR. The
fifth disc will include the 191 minute presentation of the theatrical
version, and the sixth disc includes the following Japanese exclusive
features:

- Grindhouse - US Trailer
- 2006 San Diego Comicon
- Tarantino Interview
- Staff/Cast comments
- The Directors of the Fake Trailers
- Coments on past Grindhouse Films
- Making Of Planet Terror

Not that I really need the two disc edition of Death Proof, but still...

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A brief thought on the Mitchell report and ESPN.

Two days before the Mitchell report came out, ESPN patted itself on the back with a primetime special celebrating their "This Is Sportscenter" ad campaign. The sports celebrity who'd appeared in the most Sportscenter ads? The same person who was, until Friday last anyway, one of the central figures in ESPN's promos for their Disney weekend in March? That would be Roger Clemens, ESPN's number one target on the day of the Mitchell report release, as well as the man who was outed by them prior to the release of the report.

Bet that ESPN:The Weekend commercial disappears for good now. ESPN's almost as good as the WWE about revisionist history when it comes to their own stuff.

2007 in Music.

Top ten list time again. 2007 was a year that I spent a lot of time on the road in the car. Of course, I spent most of that time listening to talk radio. But I did listen to some good music this year. A lot of what I got this year was bootlegs from other years, and such, and I didn't actually buy a single album for myself. The only CDs I bought this year were "High School Musical 2", Hannah Montana's second album, and The Jonas Brothers' CD (all for the 5-year old, though I can't say I don't enjoy some of her music.)

I've had a hard time trying to come up with ten albums that I liked this year, so instead, here's ten songs/albums I liked this year. (It's possible that not all of them came out this year, but most probably did.)

Magic - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - I really liked the whole thing, which is the first time I can say that about the Boss since "Born In The USA"

"1-2-3-4" - Feist - Inescapable, but probably the single thing I liked most in 2007, even when I started hearing it in Lowe's. (Over the years, I've found that no matter how "alternative" you are, if you make the Muzak, it's all over for you.)

"Munich" - The Editors - Another band that wants to be Joy Division, but I enjoyed this much more than anything that The Killers have done in their attempts.

Playing With Fire - Kevin Federline - What? It's funny shit. PANCAKES!

Neil Young and Crazy Horse Live At The Fillmore East - The first in the series of Neil's Archives, and a great show to boot.

Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer - Of Montreal - I went on a downloading kick with Of Montreal. This one's not quite as good as The Sunlandic Twins, but it's still way better than a lot of stuff out there.

Fear of A Blank Planet - Porcupine Tree - Yay prog metal!

Straight Outta Lynnwood - Weird Al Yankovic - Another high-quality album from Mr. Al.

"Give Thanks And Praises" - Bad Brains - The first song from their new album, which I still haven't gotten yet. Sounded good to me, a lot like the old stuff.

Dylan Hears A Who - Someone who sounds remarkably like Bob Dylan singing/reading Dr. Seuss to the tune of Dylan classics. Awesome.

And you can add me to the list of people who liked "Umbrella". It's a good song. Bite me.

What's scarier here...

isn't the fact that "I Am Legend" did $76 million.

It's the fact that the fucking CGI Chipmunk abortion did $45 million, thereby guaranteeing that Jason Lee will further destroy what little respect I had left for him by doing a sequel.

People, there are better movies to go see out there. Please, don't encourage Hollywood. Please.

Pouring one out for the schmaltz...

I always liked Leader of The Band.

And Same Old Lang Syne.

As a kid of the late 70's and early 80's, I was exposed to a great deal of top 40 before I discovered rock and roll, and Fogelberg is right up there with Barry Manilow and Abba on my "guilty pleasures" list.

Chalk up two movies in two months...

that I was really hyped up to see until I found out they changed the endings.

SPOILERS AHEAD. GO SOMEWHERE ELSE NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING OF "THE MIST" OR THE NON-ENDING OF "I AM LEGEND"!

So, as some of you know, I read, and I like the horror. So I was pretty jazzed up to hear that Frank Darabont was making a version of "The Mist". The trailers looked really good. Then I read an interview with Stephen King where he discussed the fact that Darabont changed the ending, and he really liked it.

Shit, I thought, this is the man who thought his junky miniseries version of "The Shining" was better than Stanley Kubrick's classic. This can't be good.

Now, mind you, I haven't seen the movie. But apparently, Darabont decided that the ambiguous, tenuously hopeful ending wasn't any good. So he decided to turn "The Mist" into a Twilight Zone episode instead. Basically, the novella ends with the protagonist, his son, and a few others driving south through the mist, trying to get to Hartford, or at least to get out of the mist.

The film ends with Thomas Jane and his survivors running out of gas, Jane shooting the others, including his 10-year old son, then going into the mist to get eaten, only to have the Army save him moments later in a fit of ironic pique. BULLSHIT, says I. As a result, a movie I really wanted to see, I might watch on DVD instead. Maybe.

As for I Am Legend, apparently they've chucked Richard Matheson's admittedly TZ-esque ending for some semi-biblical end of days nonsense. From the reviews I've read, it sounds like the movie's really great for the first 90 minutes and then sort of falls apart. Of course, this is the third(fourth if you count the Asylum Entertainment mockbuster "I Am Omega") version of I Am Legend, and they still haven't gotten it right, so there you go. I would have been interested to see how Will Smith played the vampire(er, zombie) bogeyman of Matheson's story.

Guess I'll go and see The Golden Compass after all. I know they've screwed that one up too, but it's not a book I hold in high esteem.

The people who are trying to protect you from piracy...

think you're a pirate anyway.

Apparently, they don't care about fair use when it comes to mp3s. And they wonder why we're still working on alternate ways to pirate.

They took away Napster, we got AudioGalaxy. They took away AudioGalaxy, we got Soulseeek, BearShare, Limewire. Then we got BitTorrent. If they take that away, we'll find something else. Piracy will always happen when you try to control the way we want to have our music, and when you charge $20 for a CD and $12 bucks for us to go to a movie.

Arrrrr.

The Mitchell report.

Isn't a particular surprise. The one name I have to say I didn't expect to hear of the names I've heard so far is Andy Pettite, who didn't strike me as a 'roid ranger.

I haven't had a chance to digest it yet, but it sounds like most of what he's saying is what us baseball fans have been saying all along, that the players used, the union and the owners knew, and they kept it quiet because of the McGwire-Sosa chase, Bonds and his chase, and the return of jaded fans post-1994.

Damn.

I may hate him, but he's the best goddamned fighter on the planet right now, and he made Ricky look baaaad.

It's almost a shame that Floyd claims to be quitting the sport. And, yeah, it was worth the $27.50, as sloppy and grabby and dirty a fight as it was.

Mayweather-Hatton.

If it goes to a decision, Mayweather will probably win.

Hopefully, Ricky knocks Mayweather's head off.

- It's 11:30 now. This show has been completely not worth the $27.50 so far. Mayweather-Hatton had better be good.