Beltmann

My mom is nearing 60, is the church secretary for a fundamentalist Bible church, self-identifies as a member of the Religious Right, and has voted Republican her entire adult life. And even she is fed up with W.

Bound to happen, I guess. Jackie Chan, too, has clearly lost a great deal of agility and strength over the last decade. 'Course, Chan is 52. Li is only a spry 43, so he's obviously a big wuss.

Gravel?

I read something like that somewhere, too. I know he's been threatening to stop making martial arts films for awhile now, but does that mean no more acting, period? (I'm not sure I'd be too interested in Jet Li, thespian, anyway.)

Well, I like it a lot. It seemed to kind of get lost in the glut of "urban dramas" that came out in the early Nineties. On the surface it resembles a whodunit, but its main concern is how drugs and violence contaminate entire communities, dramatized in the collapse of one African-American youth's life. (He chokes up blood the way some of us sweat.) This process is observed by a predominantly white police force that makes hollow attempts to keep order, and refuses to intervene with the community's gradual decline. Instead of characters with overt prejudices and plain racial allegiances, Le

Fair enough... four hours, too, is a big investment if the interest isn't quite there. To be honest, my main interest rests less with New Orleans than in the fact that it's a Spike Lee movie. I also really dig his earlier stuff like DTRT, but I'm probably most keen on Clockers and Malcolm X (which is one of my favorite movies ever).

I totally understand the time-crunch argument, too, but you're right: The only way for our tastes to grow and refine are to keep giving unfamiliar stuff a shot. I'd be less happy if I had allowed my tastes to stagnate right around the time Pseudo Echo and Mr. Mister were on my tape shelf. (Okay, bad example.) Generally speaking, most rap and hip-hop, even the more respectable, underground stuff, doesn't quite press my personal sensors the way certain other genres do, but if I had given up on it, I never would have found the rare exceptions that now mean a lot to me.

I remember really enjoying the movie, but for the life of me I can't recall how it ended... so I guess the ending left me a little cold, too. Eventually I'll pick up a used copy of the DVD--I'm a bit of a Spike Lee completist--so I'll be sure to check out that featurette. Since we don't have HBO any longer, I've got to find someone to tape When the Levees Broke, Lee's new doc about Katrina, tonight and tomorrow. He's a pretty skillful documentarian; I really liked 4 Little Girls and thought Jim Brown: All American was decent.

From my seat Snakes on a Plane wasn

I haven't seen it yet, but The Proposition is pretty high on my "must-see" list. Hopefully it'll show up here sometime soon.

I agree... While I'd give the movie a "C," I'd give the marketing campaign an "A."

Didn't Nikki Giovanni herself recite "Ego Trip" for a Blackalicious recording? That's some good stuff; I listen to it often.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Deltron 3030 is my main knowledge base for him... I haven't really delved too deeply.

I thought Snarks was about message board wiseacres who define themselves in terms of what they don't like. I'd pay to see a movie about Sam Jackson kicking that kind of ass.

Probably between 5% and 10%. My first vinyl ever purchased with my own money was Run DMC's Raising Hell, and my most recent purchase was Common's Be. El F - Everything I've heard by Del the Funkee Homosapien, I've really liked.

Wow, that is a fun fact. Cool.

Cool... I fell asleep literally seconds before Young came on.

Much better than the original The Eye. The story concerns a lonely pregnant woman who sees dead people, and I liked the way the movie exists entirely from her point-of-view--since we

I only like the white episodes.

Click for more info I did this for the MMJ disc. I first had to remove the driver from my PC, re-boot, and THEN hold CTRL-SHIFT to prevent the CD from automatically re-installing the driver. Everything worked great from there. After I ripped the CD, I then burned the files as a new audio CD. Works perfectly. And this process is much easier than it probably looks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This morning I read an interview with Cristi Puiu, director of the award-winning The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. He made a few comments that seem related to the above discussions:

That's what I was told about this:

Speaking of Jackie Chan, I watched New Police Story last night. It doesn't have anything to do with his previous Police Story cycle (Supercop, First Strike, etc.), but it's definitely in the same vein. I liked it... plenty of plot, plenty of clever stunts. And while no one's ever accused Jackie Chan of being a great actor, here you can see him really trying, and it's not bad at all.