Star Wars is Dead to me.

Spolers follow, if you don't want them stop reading.

Edit: The following is an over the top rant, and is more in the nature of venting displeasure than in serious commentary.

In the current novel series, Jacen is going sith, and he (or he and his Sith master) kills Mara Jade. In the comic series set 100 years after Lukes only bloodline is a smuggler (tatooed no less -ick) and wants to have nothing to do with the force.

Star Wars is supposed to be about fun, where is the fun in that?

I gave up on the prequel comics and novels a while ago. For whatever problems the movies may have had, the comics and novels were much worse. Badly written, and badly executed. The whole Vong thing was ill concieved, especially killing off Chewebacca, but I forced myself through it. It sucked. And don't get me started on the Clone Wars animated - man the animation there looks like rejects from the old “Droid” stuff. Ick Ick Ick. That is one of the problems with modern animation (American more than japanese) -- it is so stylized - can't anyone animate people that actually look like people?

I mean, Star Wars is about fun, a rolliking good ride. The prequel movies were a formal tragedy that we already knew the ending to, but it was fun as well.

Chewbacca was killed because the people who were making it wanted the audience to feel like anyone could die at any moment. Well so what. Did you actually have that feeling for any of the main characters in any of the Star Wars movies- Heck No!

So I will take my 6 movies, and the Han Solo Trilogy by Brian Daley, and the Lando books by L Neil Smith, and the good stuff of the post RotJ pre-Vong books (Basically anything by Stackpole, Allston or Zahn) and I will enjoy them, and hope for the best in the upcoming TV series - it has Lucas behind it, and to be honest after the crap the books and comics are giving us, that is a good thing.

I mocked the prequel haters. If this is how they felt, I take it all back.

Martial Arts Mayhem

Been in a DVD buying frenzy the last few days. Most of what I bought were martial arts movies, filling in holes I had in my collection, and this led me to think about the martial arts movies I have, and which one I think are the best. First a short listing of the stuff I have in my collection (and I am including general action movies with a martial arts star).

Above the Law
Best of the Best 1 & 2
Bloodsport
Bulletproof monk (if you want to count it)
The Crow
Electra
Enter the Dragon
Fearless Hyena
Good Guys Wear Black
Hard Target
Karate Kid 1 & 2
Lone Wolf MacQuade
Missing in Action 1 & 2
Only the Strong
Ong Bak
The Protector
Return of the Dragon
Rapid Fire
Road House
Rush Hour 1 & 2
Shanghai Noon & Knights
Timecop
Under Siege 1 & 2

The single best Martial Arts movie, in my opinion, is Best of the Best. Most martial arts movies talk of the arts as non violent, but end up using violence to solve the issue - this movie is different. It is non-violence that solves the issue. And it's also a great sports movie, and has some of the best choreographed fights I've ever seen.

Rapid Fire is a fun one, and it shows the seduction of violence. When the main character kills someone out of self defense, he is horrified at the act. As he has to kill more and more in the movie to stay alive, he become less and less horrified of the act. I feel that if Brandon hadn't died in the mishap on the Crow we would have an Oscar contending actor here - he was a phenomenal actor, in addition to being good at martial arts.

Above the Law was a breath of fresh air when it came out, with Aikido and a different kind of character. But as more and more Seagal movies came out, you found out that he wasn't acting, but just playing himself. But that doesn't lessen the joy of watching the martial arts in this film.

Much like the above, Ong Bak was amazing, just for the different approach to martial arts, seeing kinds of things we haven't seen before. And it is so intense. Tony Jaa is a favorite.

Bloodsport The classic Tournament movie.

Enter the Dragon. Legendary, and Bruce's best movie.

Jackie Chan films are uneven. When they are off, they are decent, but when they are on, they are among the best stuff out there. And his comedy is a really nice change of pace.

I love the first two Karate Kid movies. No one was a martial arts person before the movie, but decent cinematography and good choreography makes up for it. And they have very good stories.

Only the Strong, while not as good as others, had the different martial arts thing going for it, and watching Capoiera is really cool.

I don't have a lot of of Hong Kong movie in here, because I generally don't like “Wire fu”.

And Road House. Great great film, taking so many classic martial arts tropes* and working them into a movie about a bouncer/cooler. And it is likely one of the most macho movies ever made. A strong favorite.

I love this stuff, for the beauty of the choreography, the mayhem, and the tropes. And according to my mom, when I was 2 or 3 and would see a Bruce lee movie on TV, I would try and mimic what I saw. So I've been fascinated by this stuff for longer than I can remember.

* Crippled Master, Master and single student, master and school, peaceful village threatened by an unscrupulous businessman, enemy master, the send students to enemy fighter before the master fights him bit, wandering samurai/ronnin helping village. And more.

Take Me Back to my youth

Did you have any bands that you were ashamed of liking in your younger days?
Not really. Even the goofiest one, I still like.

Do you look back on some of the things you listened to and groan? If so, what were they?
Some of the pop of the era, but not really.


Up through the 80's there were a lot of music related tv shows did you watch any? (That weren't on Mtv or Vh-1)
Nope

A good many singers/musicians made films that were pretty awful, but have a cult following, which ones do you like?
Jazz Singer - Neil Diamond (I don't think it is awful, but others...)
Berry Gordy's the Last Dragon.


Are any of your youthful guilty pleasures still favorites now? Or do you pretend like you never liked them?
I stand up and am proud to say I have every album from Shaun Cassidy, on vinyl. :)

Top 5 albums

Music Memiors

Top 5 albums that are at least 20 years old. (There's a stipulation however...all 5 albums cannot be by the same artist/band)

A Night at the Opera - Queen (1975)
My favorite album of all time. Shows off the wide range of the band. Mellow, hard rock, and everything in between, and a number of experimental peices.

Moving Pictures - Rush (1971)
The album that got me hooked on the band. And the best known song is the worst on the album.

Bird and Diz - Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker (1950)
Also has , Max Roach, Curly Russel, Thelonius Monk. This album is made up of the single best players of their instruments in Jazz at the time.

2 AM paradise cafe - Barry Manilow (1984)
His best album, and it is a nice smokey jazzy piece. Mel Torme and Sarah Vaughn guest on the album.

Best of the Statler Brothers - Statler Brothers (1975) Okay so it's a hits album, it still fits the criteria. One of the best country albums of all time.




And a bonus 5 just because :)

Fresh Aire 3 - Mannheim Steamroller (1979)
Romantic Warrior -Return to Forever (1976)
Touch - Eurythmics (1983)
Defenders of the Faith - Judas Priest (1984)
Piece of Mind - Iron Maiden (1983)


And you know, all 10 of these will (or have) end up on the Lifetime music awards on my sidebar. :)

On Libby

You know what I have to say about the whole Libby thing.

I don't give a damn.

It's just politics as usual. Both parties do the same thing. I don't care anymore.
I really stopped caring the last time a President did something illegal, and nothing came of it. Or the time before that.

Clinton created the Escalante Grand Staricase National Park. Didn't follow the rules set down to do such things. Didn't do any studies. Did it by fiat, stealing land from the one state he came in third in the election, so he had nothing to lose, and gained him more environmental votes. Announced from another state, rather than the one where all the land came from.
There was even a lawsuit, and the final result - what was done was wrong, but as it took years for the case to come to a conclusion, it would cost the government too much money to change it back so the illegal act stood.

Nixon did all his crap.

Strong Evidence that Johnson has something to do with Kennedy's murder.

I couldn't care less about a commute of sentence. It's business as usual.

Laughing at the 360.

Interesting article here about Xbox 360 failures. They run in the 30 to 33 percent. Microsoft sidesteps the question, ignores it and claims it is at 3% to 5%. Typical.

And just thing with a 1/3 failure rate, they can inflate the "We have sold x number of game consoles" because so many are replacements with retailers that offer a warranty.

This gen of consoles is just not my thing. 360 failure rate, and game I don't play, Wii with controls I don't like, and the PS3 with it's prices, and the fact it is behind in the market losing some 3rd party software support.

Looks like I will stick with the PS2 and my computer for a while

Sleepy Tuesday

What type of music do you find to be the best to sleep to?
I actually sleep best to spoken (I use audio-books), but if I do use music, it is mellow new agey kind of stuff. George Winston is good. Although I prefer to listen to him awake.:) k d lang's Shadowland is another

Is there any kind of music that you absolutely can't fall asleep to?
No not really. I've taken naps listening to thrash metal before.

If anyone artist could sing you to sleep who would it be and what would they sing to you?
k d lang - shadowland as mentioned above.