Woohooo
I was able to dig up the entire frontpage of my personal site that was destroyed from a while back from Archive.org.
Blog Snapshot
Blog Entries
|
I was trying to write a full review for this but failed miserably because of lack of writing skillz and time. So here's the short version. I like it. Aight?
Xuan said her sister got a horror movie called "Sudoku" starring Jackie Chan. Knowing how I love Jackie Chan and sudoku, she said that with an exclamation mark. My reaction: sudoku? horror movie? Jackie Chan? That's puzzle I could easily put together. It must be the latest Jackie Chan movie "Shinjuku Incident." It's not a horror movie, it's a gorey gangster movie set in Japan about Chinese immigrants. No martial arts. Jackie does his best to pretend he couldn't fight. It's strange to see him hold a stick, surrounded by a group of thugs, and trying really hard to act like he doesn't know how to use it. It looks pretty unnatural, actually - not how you would expect a normal person to use it. So you get a lot of that in the movie. To make ends meet, you see Jackie's character and his posse start off by selling fake phone calls and then fake accessories. One thing leads to another and he and his posse turns into a full-blown "HK triad," helping a local Yakuza gang kill off their their rivals. They also get into the drug business. That's when Jackie's character decides that they've ventured too far into the dark side and decides to help a local cop shut off the entire operation and capture affiliated Yakuza leaders. Even without martial arts, the film is gripping. The story is decent; the acting pretty good; and the production value is high. I only wish Jackie Chan's character would kick some major ass though. A lot of times you see Jackie doing great action in a crappy movie. Now, he's in a decent movie, but he doesn't fight. It's a pretty good movie by itself, but it would have been excellent if he threw in some kung fu. |
|
0 Comments | |
|
|
Red Cliff (Part I & II) - Overall, it's a 2.5/4 type of movie. Not completely good, but better than average. The battle scenes are unique, and it's probably the main reason to see the film. You can tell it's CGI, but I haven't seen anything like it being attempted in previous HK/China productions. The film also looks great. It's very colorful. I don't know about the hair styles on the guys though. I'm no fashion expert, but they look a little strange to me.
Part I has too many extraneous scenes - a baby horse being born, a scene showing the leads' appreciation for music. C'mon, keep it moving. The second part is tighter and more to the point. The battle scenes are even more impressive. You can tell this is the most expensive movie ever made in HK/China. Being a John Woo film, there's also a decent helping of cheese. The suspense is often killed by the leads doing what they tell you they're gonna do. Also, there's a lot of hand-to-hand combat (mostly with weapons), but, unfortunately, no real martial artist in any of those roles. What a waste. If you gonna have that many fight scenes, at least have someone who can actually fight. I'm surprised by how well the film did though. The first film one made over $120M US in Asia (mostly from China and Japan), and the second one made about the same. So, overall, it made almost a quarter of a billion. I think the first one became the highest grossing film in China ever. When John Woo first announced that he was making this film for $75M US, people in the industry were skeptical that he could make that money back. I mean, the highest grossing film back then in China was only about $40M US. But it was smart of him to split the film in two. And it was huge in Japan. Ong Bak 2 (6/10). It's interesting to see Tony Jaa's take on traditional kung fu. He does drunken style, tiger style, crane style, and used a bunch of different weapons. It's all mixed with his special blend of thai kickboxing. The guy is a well rounded martial artist, and it's a great showcase for him. The only problem I have with it is, there's no wow factor because we've seen Jackie and Jet do this type of thing before - and no offense to Tony Jaa, but they still do it better. Ip Man (9/10) - The best martial arts movie of 2008. Warlords (Jet Li) was a great movie, but, in terms of martial arts, this was the best. I've already watched it 5 times. It took a good director (Wilson Yip) and fight choreographer (Sammo Hung) to finally give Donnie Yen a hit of his own. The film is well-crafted. The fight scenes are cleaner than Donnie Yen's previous films. He actually takes his time to pose and show off his techniques. Unlike previous Yip/Yen productions, not of the action scenes are hogged up at the end; there are plenty of fight scenes throughout the film. I guess it's finally DY's time, now that Jackie is getting old and Jet's sworn off films about martial arts legends. Look for a Star (5/10) - Um, I watched it with no subtitles, so I could only understand the parts with Andy Lau where cantonese was spoken. It's one of the highest grossing films in China; I think it might be 2nd, behind Red Cliff Part 1. So I had to see what the big deal was. Based on the parts I could understand; it's just a typical romantic comedy. It's strange that it was such a huge hit in China, and yet, it bombed in HK. |
|
0 Comments | |
|
So far, so good. I like the organization of the different modules and all of the new stats and graphs.
|
|
Glad you like the changes. 1 Reply | 
Hehe, cool. 0 Replies | |
|
|
...ramento. It's been a while - about 16 years. I've always felt more at home in Sacramento where I can the Kings on TV without paying $180 for NBA League Pass, or maybe even get season tickets since Arco's only 5 minutes away from where I plan to stay. There are also lots of parks within walking distance with plenty of courts. I also like the blossoming Asian community - Pho is best in Sacramento, no offense to San Jose or the Bay Area (or anywhere else).
|
|
0 Comments | |
|
|
Ok. Not as clean, efficient, and well-acted as S.P.L. The film doesn't show you much until the last half hour, but that last half hour is so good, you don't mind that the first hour has one too many characters (especially the mom character) and subplots. Like S.P.L., Flash Point is another great Hong Kong martial arts actioner, like those of the good old days. I really missed those - the ones where they just let guys fight for 30 minutes straight. Donnie Yen's the only martial arts star using mixed martial arts in movies, and he makes it look so entertaining. He's on a row with director Wilson Yip.
|
|
doh, i missed this one in the theaters when it came out earlier this year. gotta look for the dvd... 0 Replies | |
|
|
Jay Chou? Edison Chen? Huang Xiaoming? I'm glad they have at least one martial artist in the cast - Wu Jing. Oh well.
From MonkeyPeaches.com: The original Five Deadly Venoms (Wu Du), made in the 1970s by master marital-art director Chang Cheh , is about a young protege being ordered by his dying master to eliminate the evil ones among five of his previous protege , known as the Five Deadly Venoms. Each of the Five Deadly Venoms has a lethal skill learned from a toxic animal. Story of the remake, by Hong Kong-based Celestial Pictures, will be set in the present days in a fictional city. Director Kirk Wong (The Big Hit, Jackie Chan's Crime Story) says the cast will probably include Jay Chou (Curse of the Golden Flower, Initial D) as the protege and t Edison Chen (The Grudge 2, Dog Bite Dog, Initial D), Maggie Q (Live Free or Die Hard, Mission: Impossible III, Naked Weapon), Huang Xiaoming (The Banquet), Wu Jing (Invisible Target, Sha Po Lang, Drunken Monkey) and Liu Chia-Hui (dozens of Show Bros. classics) as the Five Deadly Venoms. Andy Lau has dropped out of the cast. Shooting of the US15 million remake will start by September and locations will include Shanghai, Harbin (northeastern China) and the States. |
|
holy cow! ... 1 Reply |
Yeah, that's true. It's just he's kinda old now and will probably not be doing most of the fighting. 0 Replies |
also they need to check their math: 1 Reply |
Haha...yeah. 0 Replies | 
Lame indeed. 0 Replies |
edison chen AND jay chow? boy they pretty much guaranteed not to get Etchy's vote of approval. 1 Reply | 
doh, i guess kelly didn't get it. =( 1 Reply |
Probably a good thing. 0 Replies | |
|
|
Wow, this past month sure went by quick. I went to Sundance and Vegas, one after the other. Sundance was fun - Xuan went for four days. It's pretty cold, but it's still probably the best festival to attend. Everything takes place in one compact area, and celebrities are everywhere. The guy from Girl Next Door and Matthew Lillard both stayed in the same hotel as us (Jen, Tim, and me). We spotted P. Diddy in the streets.
Didn't do much in Vegas. Rode on the rollercoaster and saw Zumanity, which was pretty crappy - by far, the worst of the Cirque Du Soleil shows. |
|
0 Comments | |
|
|
Hey guys,
Go watch Rob-B-Hood already and write your fucking reviews. Thanks! And no, both of you are awesome! |
|
pat watched it last night, i haven't had time to go see it yet. 1 Reply |
Well, Pat sucks too, then :) 1 Reply |
he'll probably do a review... he said it wasn't bad. 0 Replies |
hahaha... 0 Replies | |
|
|
That means it'll probably make between $10-11M over the weekend, which is slightly better than what box office analysts had predicted. That's really good for a subtitled movie that's already been out for about a year.
|
|
0 Comments | |
|
|
I've only seen Greece play in two games. One against China and the other against USA. I have to give their coach props for making the best adjustments during games. When they played China, they were getting destroyed in the first quarter, down by ten plus points. Noticing that China's guards were only around 6' tall, they started trapping them with 6'6" guards/forwards. China couldn't get past half court and got destroyed.
When they played USA last night, they tried the same thing, but because USA's guards were bigger, faster, and better ballhandlers than China's, this backfired. USA got lots of easy drives to the hoop. Greece then abandoned that approach and started doing pick-and-rolls. Defensively, they went with a zone. 20-5 run. Crazy. Their power forwards got wide open three-pointers, and their point guards got easy layups. By the time USA figured out that they should switch on those, it was too late. Again, because USA has no three-point shooters, they had a tough time attacking the zone; everyone threw up a bunch of bricks. Now, the best USA could do is get Bronze. They're playing Argentina next. Argentina won gold in the Olympics a couple years ago. USA could end up empty-handed. LAME. Get some goddamn REAL shooters on this team - like Mike Bibby or Sam Cassell (best shooting point guards in the league), for instance. |
|
Shooters and people who can play defense. 0 Replies | 
The Duke coach, like crappy Mike Montgomery, is notorious for relying on superior talent and being a horrible game coach. He's great at motivation and recruiting. Couldn't adjust at all to what the Greeks were doing. Didn't use the big men at all (also a Coach K thing), had redundant players on the court at times and also had no offense to speak of when the PG was overmatched.. just like at Duke. 1 Reply |
i think nba should just move closer to FIBA rules. then there won't be as much of an adjustment. if we keep losing every 2 years, it's going to lose a ton of respect (and worldwide revenue)... 2 Replies |
True, but harder to market teams as opposed to superstars like Lebron and Wade. NBA caters to the superstar because that is where all the money is ever since Jordan came around. Stern is too greedy to make the switch to more team based play.. at least at this time. If we lose in 08 who knows! 0 Replies |
Yeah, that'll help, but we still need a more well-rounded team though. Shooters who can spread the floor so all those slashers can do their work inside. 2 Replies |
the other thing i was wondering.... do the strategies that these europeans use work in the US? like, if a US team tried doing tons of backdoor cuts and pick-and-rolls, would they do well?
Yeah, Utah Jazz and the Kings use that all the time during their heydays. The thing is you generally need your point guard and power forward to be both good passers and good shooters to make it effective - Malone/Stockton and Webber/Bibby. Europeans are even better at this because their bigs can also shoot 3's.
or ... what if one team just went and grabbed all the foreign players (nocioni, tony parker, manu ginobili, pau gasol, boris diaw, etc) and hired a good european coach and went full euro-style?
the differing rule sets (trapezoid lane, hand checking, closer 3pt line, full zone) make a big difference in the style of play. big men and athletic slashers are neutralized in FIBA play... not so in NBA. still, that is a badass team :P
actually, the spurs are pretty close to the team i mentioned. you could probably do a few trades to bring in nocioni, gasol, and diaw. duncan alone might be able to do it. ya, parker PG, ginobili SF, nocioni SF, gasol PF, diaw C would be freakin crazy. you think, with NBA rules, that team, run euro-style, would be able to win a championship?
That team would have 5 all stars on the team.. I would think they would have a pretty good shot, on paper at least. Who knows how chemistry and injuries would affect things. It's less of a euro-style thing and just a stacked team. You could make up a team of say Arenas, Kobe, KG, Brand and Shaq that would have just as good a shot.
nocioni and diaw aren't all stars, are they? and spurs already have parker and ginobili (and duncan)...
ok, here's a scenario ... hire the entire greek team and coach and bring them over. it shouldn't be all that expensive, right? none of them are current nba players. i mean, the bobcats could probably do it. and i bet the bobcats would get some huge ratings from people tuning in to see how the greek team does....
hehe, it would be an interesting publicity stunt but they would be the worst team ever by far. the game is just too different and their skills won't translate over to the NBA. It would be cool to see international teams come to the US and play NBA rules...
yes, exactly. but, perhaps you could put together a team that has some stars (gasol, ginobili, etc) and the rest just non-nba euros...
That'll work too. Hehe... Brand and Brad Miller could be guys they can run the pick-and-roll with, but they just didn't bother - too busy playing one-on-one.
Yeah, they brought a team that would kick butt in the current NBA.. but having tons of slashers and no shooters doesn't work for FIBA. I think we had decent big men but the offense was not built around them. Anytime Carmelo, Wade or Lebron got the ball it wouldn't get passed out. Doh. Also, Brad Miller and Jamison are great for FIBA play.. but they got almost no PT. Instead they played some funky combo of 1 non shooting big (Howard/Bosh.. Brand can shoot if given the chance) which crowded the lane.. and then put 4 non shooting slashing guards around him??
I should also know that you are the person I can call early in the morning for games like this if I want to rant :P You know you were up! 1 Reply |
I was up, but only because I was jetlagged. 1 Reply |
Tonights game at 3:30am is going to be a lot tougher to stay up for.. 1 Reply |
Holy cow. Damn. I might actually wake up just in time for that. |
|
Post a Comment
IGN RSS Feeds