Fixing the NBA...

Yes, I watch sports.

Ok, now that that's outta the way. Lets get right into it. The NBA sucks balls right now. I think the fact that Kobe and the draft were the two biggest stories DURING the playoffs (after the warriors got eliminated) attests to that. The spurs are a great team. But they are boring as shit to watch, and Cleveland's plan of "hoping Lebron can score through double and triple teams" didn't help things either. I am no sports blogger (you can find much better ones at AOL Fanhouse, Deadspin, etc...just google them, I am too lazy to hyperlink), but I think there is a real simple solution to the lackluster NBA and all we have to do is look to a couple decades ago.

The NBA needs to merge with the AND 1 mixtape tour. Like the ABA before it, the NBA looks down on the looser, some say rule-less play of the AND 1 tour, but you know what it is fucking fun to watch. Like the ABA before it, there are several colorful personalities in AND 1 that already outshine the boring basketball machines in the NBA. I think the sooner David Stern comes to this realization the better basketball will be for it.

For those that are unfamiliar with the AND 1 mixtape tour, its basically a showcase of the best "street ballerz" in the land going at an established team of veterans across the country and recently the world. It wasn't until the AND 1 tour went global did I realize a merger could work. In the foreign lands, the AND 1 players went up against a lot of the pro players from those countries. Granted, Australia's pro league doesn't hold a candle to the NBA skill level, but the simple fact was that the AND 1 team can play legit ball with the best of them if they want to.

This isn't just about dunking either, although the AND 1 tour would reignite the Dunk Contest. After Dwight Howard's robbing last year, it is clear that the NBA just wants to kill the contest again. But you throw in people like "The Air Up There" aka Mr. 720, Spyda, 50, and the likes and you have an entertaining contest. The AND 1 guys also have some of the best handles ever. Yes, a lot of what they do is traveling and/or carrying, but when is the last time you saw carrying called consistently in the NBA? All of the stuff that Hot Sauce does is mostly legal by NBA rules.

Frankly, based on how the draft turned out, you could just replace the eastern conference of the NBA with And 1 players and you would automatically make everything more competitive. Imagine Hot Sauce going after Bruce Bowen. Imagine the Professor trying to take Steve Nash to school. Imagine The Air Up There dunking on Duncan. Imagine Escalade...um sitting on the bench.

Imagine the greatest announcing duo EVER doing play by play and color...Marv Albert and Duke Tango. They could have "Oh BABY!" offs. BTW, Duke tango is the greatest color guy to ever do basketball.

No matter what they say, pro basketball is a very closed community. If you dont go to a competitive prep school you wont get recruited by the big name college programs. If you dont play in a Division I A school you probably will go undrafted. So unless you are put on the path early on, a lot of quality players will fall by the wayside, which is why I think you are seeing such a huge amount of talent in the current AND 1 mixtape tour. This is an idea that could save basketball plain and simple. And just for reference, there have been several And 1 players that have made the jump to the NBA and done well. Most notably And 1 legend "skip to my lou" aka Rafer Alston and Carlos Arroyo aka "Carlos Arroyo", so it could happen.

Make it happen stern!

P.S. I have embedded some of the better AND 1 highlights for the uninitiated.

Die Hard?

I'll give Len Wiseman credit for this...he directed a helluva first 40 minutes. I really enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard (LFoDH) through its reintroduction of McClane and to Justin Long's character. The first shootout at Long's apartment was really quite nice.

The movie basically went off the rails though when McClane drives an SUV from a parking garage somehow into the 4th floor control room of a power plant. I was willing to forgive all the techno-babble that allowed the Long's hacker character to maintain communications through a variety of means but the van thing was ludicrous. The following hanging truck scene was also unnecessary...and after thinking about it I realized it was done better by Spielberg in Jurassic Park 2.

After the aforementioned sequence, LFoDH stopped being a Die Hard movie and became Wiseman's exercise in blowing shit up. Granted he did it well, but having John McClane fight an F-35 jet is stupid, and that entire sequence with the jet looked like it had almost been lifted from True Lies.

I know I am not the only one who has thought this, but the main problem with the way the script handles the action is that it treats McClane like a superhero. He falls long distances and gets up with a slight limp, he fights jets and wins, etc. That is not Die Hard, or at least why we all loved the first one. Granted, the series got more and more cartoony as it progressed, but was always grounded in some sense of realism, which was totally lacking in the 4th installment.

Although, it seems like it has been so long since the first Die Hard came out, and a decade since the third film people probably don't even remember why they liked the first 3. All that is remembered is that John McClane is a bad ass and "Yippie Ki Yay Motherfucker!" or the various cable tv edits of the famous line.

With that said, this Pg-13 installment definitely felt like an R-rated movie. I did kind of feel that it would have been better if McClane used more F-bombs to describe the terrorists rather than "jerk off", which he used too much. If you actually sit down and rewatch "Die Hard" unedited, you might actually have forgotten how much great cursing there was in that film.

Anyway, overall if I had to rate it, I would give it a 6. Much better than I thought it ever could be, but a big knock on it forgetting why the first movie is so revered.

Barely a Review: LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD

I don't know what bugs me more. The fact that LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD isn't a great film, or the fact that it doesn't suck ass. It's in that vast category known as okay. It's fine for a what it is, a big loud summer action film. But as the 3rd sequel in the greatest action franchise ever it's easily the Fredo. If you're wondering, DIE HARD is Michael, DIE HARDER is Sonny, and WITH A VENGEANCE is Tom Hagen.

The film's main saving grace is Bruce Willis. He may not be able to say fuck but all the other looks and nuances of John McClane are here. I am stunned to say that Justin Long holds his own as the computer hacker who helps McClane save society from crumbling. Beyond those 2 the film excels at serving up a lot of entertaining stunts and fight scenes. All things being equal I'd rather see McClane shoot more people in the head, but he's able to dish out a lot of carnage as the film unfolds.

The main weak link is Timothy Olyphant as McClane's new nemesis. There are moments where you think he'll be a viable threat, but he also whines too much at the first sign of trouble. I like my villains with a healthy supply of confidence. Also, the scenes of various Federal agents trying to make heads or tails of what's going on have no life at all. It really makes you appreciate what having actual well-developed supporting characters meant to the original film.

Should you see this film? I suppose so. After last summer's offerings of X3, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3, and SUPERMAN RETURNS at least LIVE FREE has a lot of exciting moments and a hero you can root for. Though you may not be rooting quite as hard as you did during the previous DIE HARDS.

Shaq-Fu vs. Obesity: Whoever wins, we lose...weight

So, Shaquille O'Neal's new tv show premiered tonight on ABC. "Shaq's Big Challenge" chronicles a 6 month journey where Shaq and a team of doctors, trainers, and nutrionists try to get 6 dangerously overweight kids back in shape. Also, Shaq will practically be trying to cure childhood obesity by himself on a governmental level.

The main reason I watched (and will continue to watch) is for Shaq. If you are a fan of his "Shaq-isms" then this show will not disappoint. He had 3-4 lines during episode 1 that had me doubled over e.g. Calling out black people on only knowing the melody, not the words to "white songs", the example he was using the "Cheers" tv theme song.

After watching one episode though, the kids definitely have very unique personalities and will probably make this show all the more enjoyable to watch. And so far at least, they haven't resorted to too many artificial tear jerk moments or fabricated pseudo-reality tv situations. They seem to be documenting how difficult this thing is going to be. And yes, they are working with the parents as well to fix these kids habits at home.

I really hope others will watch this show because it is actually pretty entertaining and ultimately is for a good cause.

"Shaq's Big Challenge" is on ABC at 9pm on Tuesday nights.

Dolph Lundgren Potpourri!

There has been so much Dolph Lundgren news the past few days that it's hard to keep up with it all. So here are a few items in rapid fire succession.

Will Ferrell accepted an award from Spike TV recently and thanked Mr. Lundgren for his support. The clip of his speech is amazing for a few reasons. First, Ferrell is a riot and second the award is presented by Paul Reubens as Pee-Wee Herman. I can't remember the last time Reubens got into that outfit, aside from when he lures children over to his house.

You can see that clip here.

Next, Lundgren participated in a celebrity boxing match for Russian television against former UFC fighter and actor Oleg Taktarov. Unlike those crappy American celebrity boxing matches there's no sissy-ass headgear.

Check the 5-round fight out starting here and ending here.

Finally, and dare I say most importantly, the website for Lundgren's 3rd film as a director is up and running. It's titled MISSIONARY MAN and it finds Lundgren as a mysterious figure who helps out Native Americans and kills dirty rotten bikers. There isn't much to the site yet, but there is a trailer. Check it out here.

Jumping on the Hay Wagon

While I am definitely looking forward to 3:10 TO YUMA as well, there's another Western on the horizon piquing my interest at least as much: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, based on the excellent novel by Cormac McCarthy and written/directed by no less than Joel and Ethan Coen. While I enjoy their comedies (dark and not-so-dark alike), their return to hard-boiled, violent drama feels overdue, and they couldn't have picked a better story to adapt. Having read the book but not seen the movie, it's hard to provide even an opening sketch of the film for certain. It looks to be a fairly faithful adaptation, though, so I'll give it a shot (avoiding spoilers at all costs, of course): the Tex-Mex border, in or around 1980...so not long after Vietnam and still a bit away from our great technological age...a drug deal gone wrong, and something of a blue collar townie stumbles upon the site...a not-your-everyday cold-blooded killer on the loose, with a job and a mission, not necessarily the same things...and a dedicated sheriff turned philosophical, due to this seemingly new breed of violence and greed.

The townie is played by Josh Brolin, who I'm not going to call under-rated because he really hasn't done much of note (though he was strong in GRINDHOUSE, for all the camp of his story)...still, I'm wagering he's a more capable actor than his resume may show. The killer is played by the chameleonic Javier Bardem, who's been a foreign and art film favorite for quite a few years now, and he's already getting some pretty strong acclaim for this too. The sheriff is played by Tommy Lee Jones, an obvious choice and with good reason. His near-perfect directorial debut from a couple years back, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA, was similarly a thoughtful, sometimes-brutal "modern" Western. Along with Chris Cooper, maybe Billy Bob Thornton, and very few others, Jones knows how to play these old world honorable, simple-but-never-stupid men steeped in heroic cowboy/Americana lore...the world has left them behind, it seems, but they'll keep on keepin' on as only they've known to all their lives. One can count on Jones to never over-simplify them or play them as mere archetype.

The movie isn't set for wide release until November 21, which is quite a ways away, but the trailer is out now. I have quite high hopes, as is pretty evident I'm sure, and the trailer does everything to support them.

Trailer: 3:10 TO YUMA

Coming on the heels of the excellent AMERICAN GANGSTER trailer is another trailer featuring Russell Crowe. The film is 3:10 TO YUMA and it's a remake casting Crowe as a brutal outlaw who is set to stand trial. Christian Bale plays a rancher who finds himself given the task of escorting Crowe to court. Along the way he'll have to fend off various members of Crowe's gang who attempt to free their leader.

It looks like a solid western, something that we don't see too much of these days. Every now and again you'll get a small flick that comes and goes (I'm thinking of SERAPHIM FALLS) but you'd have to go back to OPEN RANGE to find the last western that caught on at all with the public. Hopefully the star power in YUMA can get a few folks into the theater. It will probably depend on whether it opens the same weekend as some shitty horror film.

3:10 TO YUMA is scheduled to open on October 5th. Check out the trailer here.

So Long to the First Family of Television

It’s over. 8 years of brutal murders, a marriage built on lies, and many scenes involving strippers came to an end tonight as “The Sopranos” concluded its spectacular run. After the bloodshed that marked the series’ penultimate episode many were expecting this finale to make SCARFACE look like a game of Uno. In the end, with the exception of a crushed head, the show went out with what could best be described as a tense-calm.

Tony and his family will live on to keep making the same mistakes they always have. It’s the audience who is forced into closure. We’re the ones who will be trying to find a fitting close to these characters’ arcs. I don’t know what the overall reaction to the finale will be in the mass media, though my guess is it will be a Seinfeldian “That’s it?” response. I say fuck that, this show has never made things easy so why let it end that way?

“The Sopranos” is the show that made me believe in dramatic television. The big offerings of the 90’s like “NYPD Blue” and “ER” never grabbed me. I recall blind-buying the first season of “The Sopranos” on DVD and I was hooked from then on. TV has changed in a huge way since “The Sopranos.” It wasn’t the first dramatic show to come from HBO but it was one of the first to make its mark in the DVD age. This was key because no longer did you need to have pay cable to enjoy the program. If you walk the aisles of any Best Buy and linger at all the shows available on disc you can see its impact in spades.

There is a bit of sadness at the idea that I’ll never see Tony, Paulie, Christopher, Sil, and the rest of the gang hanging out at the Bing. But that sadness fades when I think about how television has embraced so many shows since “The Sopranos” premiered. From “The Shield” to “The Wire” to “Rescue Me” the spirit of “The Sopranos” will keep going strong.

Trailer: AMERICAN GANGSTER

Remember when the summer was the time to get excited about movies? I'm not sure when that ended for me but this summer's crop of blockbusters smells of ass. When I think of the films I'm anticipating most for the rest of the year they're basically all due to come out in the fall. Chief among them is the Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe crime drama AMERICAN GANGSTER.

The last time Denzel and Crowe tangled together we ended up with VIRTUOSITY. Yeah, I know, we were all burned by that one. But a lot has happened since then. Both actors have developed into the best of what their craft has to offer. Oh, and this movie is directed by Ridley Scott. That's a slight step up from Brett Leonard.



In the film Washington plays Frank Lucas, a real life drug lord who smuggled heroin into America using the coffins of dead soldiers during the Vietnam war. Crowe portrays the lawman hot on Lucas' trail. The stacked supporting cast includes Cuba Gooding Jr. (stop laughing), Carla Gugino, Josh Brolin, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and everyone's favorite genital tucker Ted Levine.

The movie is set to open in November. Check out the fantastic trailer here.

Jericho may Skeet Skeet again!

If any of you remember the Stealing Cable podcast, the recent news about CBS's impending renewal of Jericho may remind you about a topic of conversation that often popped up in several episodes. Taking a more intelligent perspective on primetime viewership. We often debated how accurate the Nielsen's were when they really weren't factoring in Tivo/DVR usage, network website viewing, and of course Bit Torrent downloads.

Outside of the bit torrent thing, it seems like CBS is the first to embrace alternate viewing strategies when it comes to counting viewership. I gotta applaud them and say it's about damn time. As an avid Tivo user, its nice to know that someone will actually be paying attention to the several million of us out there.

Anyway, I will link to the Ain't It Cool story that has collected multiple sources pretty much confirming that JERICHO WILL BE BACK. Likely with a smaller cast given the awkward renewal time, probably a midseason replacement, probably 8 episodes initially, but most importantly fans of the show will get some answers.

There were a ton of news stories about the crazy fan campaigns to save the show, but I really didn't bother to cover them because I felt that it had no shot at working. Thankfully, I was wrong to not pay more attention to the efforts.

Link to the AICN story explaining this all.

Official Shoot 'Em Up Trailer

Man, this has been a busy news day for fans of Stealing Cable...or maybe just me.

After the world finished processing the awesomeness of a director's cut of Commando coming out later this year, IGN played host to the first official trailer to Shoot 'Em Up.

If you aren't familiar with the film, I don't blame you. But it made a pretty huge splash on the internet as early as almost 2 years ago based on a several minute long animatic that director Michael Davis was shopping around to studios. Latino Review got a hold of it and posted it online. It was a hyperkinetic homage to the films of John Woo with some very overt references to Hard Boiled.

The project was greenlit. Clive Owen signed on. Monica Bellucci signed. Paul Giamatti signed. Filming began. A promo reel was released some time ago, which we posted here a couple months ago. It looks fantastic. I will embed it below.

This is definitely a movie to watch out for this fall.

Here I will link to IGN's exclusive trailer, which is actually pretty similar to the promo reel.

Come September, I Can Die (just kidding God): Commando THE DIRECTOR'S CUT

HERE COME THE SANDWICHES!!!

I guess my last post was coincedentally appropriate.

FINALLY, someone got their act together and put together a special edition of one of my all time favorites, COMMANDO. This will be the director's cut with about 5 minutes of additional footage! Tons of behind the scenes stuff. The works.

September 18th, every member of CommandoFans.com's DVD collections will be complete.

Here is a more complete rundown of the features

Also, for fun here is a link to the current thread at CommandoFans.com discussing this monumental news. Please be careful, these guys really, really, REALLY like Commando.

Have Sword, Will Travel: VERNON WELLS IS BACK

If you haven't seen Commando (A Mark L. Lester Film), please stop reading this hilarious blog and go watch it right now...

Ok, seen it? Good.

Remember Bennett (ha, how could you not!), he was played by Australian mega star Vernon Wells. He has carved out quite a niche for himself in the world of B and sometimes Z grade movies since he hit it big in the mid 80s.

I am happy to say that HE IS BACK.

Thanks to self proclaimed "sword master" Bobby Lento's action adventure series through time, Have Sword will Travel, Vernon Wells has returned to play super villian Ruby Slayer.

I will embed a couple videos later on in this post, but yes it is as terrible as it sounds. My colleague Chris has described it being like "porno without the fucking". Very true. But ultimately, it is good to see Vernon back in action.

Now to the videos...

Here is a highlight of Bobby Lento's greatest county fair shows...



Here is part 1 of possibly the greatest Vernon Wells interview ever (Mr. Lento disabled embedding, bastard!)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiODwDGvxU

And finally, one installment of "Have Sword, Will Travel" (no im not quite sure how we go from the "castle" set to a 1980s warehouse in the blink of an eye or why the "profesor" looks like a ZZ Top roadie)...

Barely a Review: KNOCKED UP

KNOCKED UP is the funniest movie since BORAT. Now BORAT was only released 7 months ago, but whatever, it's still the truth. Judging by the trailers that played in front of KNOCKED UP we are in for a slew of comedies over the rest of the year. I doubt any of them will be packed with as many memorable lines, and honest to God heart, as can be found in KNOCKED UP.

After many supporting turns on TV and film, Seth Rogen shows he's got both the comedic timing and the charm to be a leading man. Katherine Heigl is more than just window dressing here. Her role as a suddenly pregnant career woman has far more depth than one would expect from a typical comedy. Rogen and Heigl are backed up nicely by a terrific cast, most notably Paul Rudd who nails his part as Heigl's brother-in-law who offers Rogen a lot of insight as to what to expect from fatherhood.

Heigl's character works for the E! channel which leads to a whole slew of celebrity cameos. There's also a lot of familiar faces who pop up in all sorts of different roles. I will say I was quite saddened that at no time did Heigl have her Uncle Casey show up to lend his support and guidance.

Unleashed: How did I miss this one?!

Louis Letterier is for real ladies and gentleman. Before popping Unleashed into my DVD player yesterday, I thought Letterier was basically a Luc Besson-lite, who will go on making cartoony, yet enjoyable action flicks like the Transporter series for the rest of his career.

After seeing Unleashed, I think the guy has clearly matured as an action filmmaker and is able to take the Besson formula (outcast male lead, gets mixed up somehow with a damsel/person in distress, then has to fight to protect her/them) and make it feel fresh again.

Also, Jet Li can act! I have seen all his classics and enjoyed his work, but outside of his physical prowess, I wasn't very impressed. And now, with his back being very injured, he uses a lot of stunt doubles in his movies, which takes his one asset out of the equation. But in Unleashed, he had an opportunity to play a really different role, Danny the Dog, and had some really solid character work throughout. While the middle portion slows down as they delve into Danny's attempt to find himself again with the help of a blind piano tuner (morgan freeman) and his white stepdaughter, it is still pretty enjoyable to watch even if he isn't kicking that much ass. With all that acting though, Jet Li's surprisingly girly voice becomes really obvious.

But, the real star of the film is the action. I respect Yuen Wo Ping, the choreographer for Unleashed and countless other classic Hong Kong epics, but his wire-fu techniques have been played out for the past 6-7 years. I have maintained that few movies he has done that aren't wuxia (films basically set in Ancient china with superpowered hero stuff i.e. Crouching tiger) have had some really excellent fight work. In Unleashed, he stays grounded in reality, which means minimal wire work. All the fight scenes were very nitty gritty, but clearly had the Wo Ping touch when it came to the complexities of the choreography. The close quarters fight Jet has with the man in white INSIDE A EUROPEAN BATHROOM was breathtaking.

I also gotta give credit to Letterier for shooting the fight scenes perfectly. I enjoy piling on Tarantino whenever I have the chance, so this is where I say that the Kill Bill movies were pretty sub-par for me. They were marketed as action extravaganzas, and the action was probably the worst part of both movies. The House of Blue Leaves sequence, choreographed by Wo Ping, and full of dismemberments was shot so unintelligibly that I had no idea what was going on most of the time. Now compare that to how the bathroom fight was shot in Unleashed. Wide shots, very few quick cuts, etc. You can see the fighters go at it. I guess its just an American thing. They dont know how to shoot "Asian" action.

I can't say enough about the action in Unleashed. It was some really top notch work and I am surprised it didn't get more buzz when it was out in theaters. I can safely say Unleashed is Jet's BEST American movie since his idiotic debut in Lethal Weapon 4. And all things considered, it can probably hold its own against some of his Hong Kong work too. I give this film the highest possible recommendation.