For No Good Reason

Lost Someone

And now Christmas Day will celebrated with Live at the Apollo. 

According to the AP Obit, The Godfather was scheduled to perform New Year's Eve at B.B. King's on Times Square, so he had a shot at making a more dramatic exit; that said, who wants to see Mr. Please, Please, Please expire at an overpriced tourist destination that caters largely to white folk?  Christmas Day will do.

And what's with The New York Times not having a full JB obit on file?  (I'd provide a link, but I'm sure Jon Parles will have a complete piece up soon enough.)  The bulk of that fucker could've been written by 1988.

As for my James Brown, I saw him perform live in the late 1990s, by which point The Godfather was a desexualized parody of the guy who, in his prime, could work an auditorium full of women to multiple orgasms during the course of a show. He still had the energy and the moves, and I'm grateful to have seen arguably the greatest soul of all time in person, but it wasn't the transcendent experience I'd longed for.

As for my favorite JB song, that would be the title of this post, particularly as it's performed on the aforementioned live LP, which is the greatest live soul recording ever and a must-own for anyone who gives a shit about good music.

And, yes, the guy could be a monster in his private life. The important thing to remember is that no one who praises his artistic achievement is disputing this; sainting any of the great soul troubadours, with the exception of Otis Redding (though he didn't exactly lack for darkness; his complexity just hasn't been adequately documented), would be to deny the inner turmoil that brought them to us in the first place. But playing up the "wife beater" element at the near exclusion of the music is just as dishonest as claiming the greatness of the music somehow excused said behavior. This should be common sense, but I'm sure there will be those looking to diminish James Brown the artist on the way out.

"And I've Been Knocking..."

Epilogue

Two days after, a large UFO was destroyed in space by a Russian "weather satellite", which happened to be equipped with a laser cannon and class IV nuclear missiles.

Approximately six days later, the earth passed beyond the tail of Rhea-M, exactly as predicted.

One Great Game, One Great Potential Spectacle

T-minus ten minutes or so to the Knicks' first post-brawl game, and it's in the Garden.  I have no earthly what the fan reaction will be, and that's the primary reason I'm terminating my writing day an hour earlier than expected (see you tomorrow, ceiling, wall, Harvey Pekar bobble-head).  Up until Saturday night, Stephon Marbury, a career 20ppg shoot-first point guard turned 11ppg shoot-sporadically off guard, had been the target of the fans' derision; coming off his first Starbury-like game this season of thirty-one points and eight assists (he picked a fine time to return to form), it's possible that the Knick faithful will once again heap their hatred on Isiah Thomas, a world-class prick who embodies everything that's wrong about the competitive spirit and is only hanging on to his job because his owner may be dumber than he is.

I may have more to say on this.  You may not give a shit.  I was also thinking about throwing up a positive review of Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering; in lieu of, why don't you read Mike D'Angelo's piece from this month Esquire?  He's a bit too harsh on the third act (the film's sentimental streak is evident from the young thief's first glimpse of Jude Law's mildly autistic daughter doing gymnastics, which prompts Gabriel Yared and Underworld go all gooey on the soundtrack), but it's nice to see one of the country's best critics celebrating Minghella rather than tearing him down for being an exceptional craftsman who helped Harvey Weinstein win his first Best Picture trophy.

Fifty-seven minutes later... Renaldo Balkman is the best thing to happen to Isiah Thomas since Dale Humphrey and Steph is truly, madly, deeply back!

 

Old Time Hockey! Like Eddie Shore!

I'm just a wee bit busy today, but, in between interviews for a Creative Screenwriting feature on Zack Snyder's/Frank Miller's 300 (which I saw over the weekend at BNAT, and which really is unlike anything you've ever seen), I came across ESPN.com's "Top Line of All Time" challenge, wherein you're asked to assemble four formidable lines using fifty of the greatest offensive players in NHL history.  Being of sound mind and body, I immediately put all work aside and spent the last twenty minutes agonizing over this as if re-working the uncertainty principle.  My phenomenally prejudiced selections:

Line 1

LW: Bobby Hull
C: Wayne Gretzky
RW: Gordie Howe

Line 2

LW: Luc Robitaille
C: Mario Lemieux
RW: Mike Bossy (Fave player of my childhood)

Line 3

LW: Ted Lindsay
C: Mark Messier
RW: Jari Kurri

Line Red Wings '96 - '03

LW: Brendan Shanahan
C: Steve Yzerman
RW: Sergei Fedorov

DO NOT DISPUTE ME!!!

Getting Morricone on the Way Out

Though it's been six years since he last innovated (with the organ-in-space score for Edgar Wright's favorite movie, Mission to Mars), I still hope the Academy's bestowal of an honorary Oscar on Ennio Morricone doesn't mean an end to Morricone on Earth - especially since there's talk that he'll return for The Untouchables: Capone Rising (provided it moves forward).  Much as I love Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein and John Williams, there's no matching or duplicating Morricone.  He is sui generis.

Andrew Sarris is Less Knowledgeable Than Dennis Lim?

Generally, I deplore lists compiled solely for the sake of starting arguments amongst critics who should know better, but when the list is the critics, well, then, bring it on, Megalon!  And, oh, what a bang-up job Time Out New York has done with this eclectic ranking of the New York City cinema cognoscenti, which, two entries in, appears to have been undertaken as a thinly-veiled boost to Dennis Lim's ego.  Which is fine.  Lim might've spent the better part of a 2001 New York Film Festival screening of Mulholland Drive kicking the back of my seat for reasons I never bothered to ascertain, but the guy is a really good critic.  Really good.  Like "so obviously superior to Stephen Holden that the Times finally has a solid excuse for showing the nicest, but least interesting critic ever employed by a major daily the door" good.  It's a crime The Village Voice turned him away.

But better than Dargis, Sarris, White and Denby?  Paul Mooney, please!

First off, why ask a rather large panel comprised of publicists and pop culture observers to assess a film critic's "knowledge" of his subject?  As someone who's dedicated most of his life to film, I've got to say that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's valuation of Armond White's vast knowledge of cinema is, to quote Dr. Paul Flammond, as worthless as a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory.  No doubt, White's one contentious motherfucker (and often quite insane), but he packs every review with an informed perspective; even a review of a largely (and probably wrongly, though I have yet to see it) dismissed work like Apocalypto occasions thoughtful references to Stagecoach, The Emerald Jungle and King Vidor's Bird of Paradise.  True, White goes against the grain to a fault sometimes, but his understanding of cinema is unimpeachable.

And yet he's only three-tenths of a percentage point more "knowledgeable" than The New Yorker's defiantly dilettantish Anthony Lane?

It's also hardly a surprise to find the above-average Joe Morgenstern ranked number ten; such is the punishment for toiling under a banner of the country's top conservative daily.  ("Does anyone really read his reviews?"  Yeah, actually, we do, 'cuz some of us realize The Wall Street Journal is not the sum of its Op-Ed page.)  The New York Post's Lou Lemenick is also punished for his rightward affiliation, though he's richly deserving of his "better only than Rex Reed" standing.

They Play Carmina Burana Before Tip-Off at the Q

And, at least tonight, LeBron sings along to it.  In flawless Latin, I'm sure.

Dan "Boobie" Gibson -he will no longer answer to "Daniel"... without a flurry of fists, feet and wadded-up newspapers - is getting his first start this evening against the Raptors, and the shot clocks have auspiciously malfunctioned.  Shannon Brown, on the other hand, is back to riding the pine.  And chewing his fingernails, which is probably actionable if LeBron's intellectual property lawyers feel like throwing their weight around.

Donyell Marshall should not be logging significant minutes.  Shocked to find a clear path to the basket awaiting him, he responded with a halting drive and a weak layup that bounced right off the rim as if offended by the lack of effort.  On the next offensive possession, LeBron fired a pass to a wide-open 'Yell directly under the basket; rather than throw down an uncontested dunk, he paused for a second, pondered retirement, and then meekly dropped the ball through the hoop as the Raptors defenders sedulously kept their distance so as not to risk catching whatever mystery malady sapped Marshall of his game when he signed with the Cavs in the summer of '05.

Cavs down 25-18 at the close of the first quarter.  They look like one of the five worst teams in basketball.

It is now over two minutes into the second quarter, and Eric Snow has yet to sit.  Boobie Gibson has been sitting since midway through the first.  The Cavs are being exploited by quick guard play and transition baskets.  Someone please finish this thought for me because I've tired of arriving at this conclusion.

LeBron drives to the basket in transition and draws a foul that isn't called (it's not hard contact, but there is contact, and goes skidding into the first row), leading to a four-on-five fast break that ends in a Cleveland foul on Fred Jones

Boobie Gibson is back in, gets comfortable and responds by defending his position competently, swiping the ball in the passing lane and knocking down a three.  The more he plays, the better he looks.  And Brown refuses to reward this because he's got a chubby for Snow's hard-nosed defense... on bigger, slower guys who don't create offense with dribble penetration.

Thanks to extended minutes for Damon Jones (who has too much pizazz to play defense), the Cavs now have an Anthony Parker problem.  Parker has twelve.  His season average is ten.  His career high is twenty-two.

The shot clocks were inoperative during the entire first half, forcing the public address announcer to earn his paycheck for once.

BTW, it's Brad Daugherty Night, as the Cavs celebrate the final year on his contract.

Jeremy Daniel Boobie Smith.  Yep.  Commence legal filing.

As has been his custom this year, LeBron waited until the six minute mark of the third quarter to start his second half.

Boobie Gibson just stole a rebound from Chris Bosh.  Kid's got the hops.  And he's banging the boards with more energy than Gooden and Z, who both look terrible tonight..

Donyell Marshall powered up!  Two back-to-back buckets go down.  But he begins to flash and ceases to glow as he tries to drive for his seventh point of the quarter.

Z loses a rebound to T.J. Ford, who, unlike Boobie against Bosh, did not have to leap for his carom.  Z then has an opportunity to keep an offensive possession alive, but turns it into a transition basket for Toronto because he is a lazy sack of shit.  Coach Brown senses this, too, and finally subs in AV.

Hooray for Boobie!  He hits a contested three as the third quarter expires!  Sixteen points for the sudden consensus favorite ROY..

And LeBron has put on his cape.

And an out-of-position official overrules an out-of-bounds call, awarding Toronto the ball with a minute left and the Cavs up by four.  They go right down and hit a three.

That wasn't Donyell Marshall who just knocked down that three with seventeen seconds remaining, was it?

Boobie knocks down two clutch free throws.  He will walk on Mars one day.  Wearing nothing but ten championship rings, two championship anklets and a gold championship assplate, which will be the fashion in twenty years.  Blame the Singularity.

Dramatic four-point win at home against the Raptors.  On Brad Daugherty Night.  Take the win, but the Cavs sans Larry Hughes are still a bad basketball team.

The Going Rate for Wrecking Your Car While Masturbating in a Grocery Store Parking Lot?

$375.00.  And worth every penny, I'm sure.

Not worth a brass farthing:  Jiri Welsch, of whom ESPN's Chris Sheridan is good enough to remind us:

The Cavaliers still owe the Boston Celtics a first-round pick that they gave up for the Czech forward, who was traded a total of five times in his four-year NBA career.  Now playing for Unicaja Malaga of Spain alongside Raptors draft pick Erazem Lorbek, Michael Pietrus' brother, Florent, and former Bucks center Daniel Santiago.

Airtight Logic

If John Updike can snag Pulitzers for Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, why the hell can't Sylvester Stallone at least take down Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay nominations for the has-to-be-better-than-sex-in-church Rocky Balboa?  And if an unconscionable snub is in the offing, would it kill Laura Ziskin to set up an alternative Oscar telecast with running commentary from Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and unofficial ringside scorer Harold Lederman?

Also, I'm all for Rocky's gloves and robe going to the Smithsonian, but something's missing.