My most hated movie cliches

Sure there are loads of terrible movie cliches: Nobody ever seems to reload their guns in a gunfight, Good guys will get attacked one at a time by hordes of bad guys, the bad guy having an English accent, etc.  But there are some lessor ones that really get my goat.

• If a guy dresses up as a woman, there will always be guys that try to hit on them.  No matter how terrible they look, they seem to attract guys.  I could give Tootsie as an example, but that guy was a drunk.  There was also one of the Revenge of the Nerd movies that had a terrible episode of that, but the all-time worst has to be White Chicks.  How the hell is anybody fooled by this.  They both look like that Crazy Tiger Lady.

• Whenever you have the underdog team play in the big game in a football movie, they always give up a kickoff return touchdown to start the game.  I assume they do this just to show how bad the underdog is.  But it happens all the time.  I just recently watched The Best of Times and Necessary Roughness and they both had a kickoff return for a TD to open the game.
• Whenever somebody is getting chased down by a car, they run straight down the road.  They never weave off the road or try to get behind an obstacle.  The closest I've seen to actually using logic when running away from a car was in The Terminator when Linda Hamilton is running away from the Terminator.  Of course, she mainly runs down the road still, but does try to get some cars in between her and the truck behind her.  
• A corollary to this is that whenever anybody is running away from something in a movie, they always trip and fall down.  Doesn't matter what kind of ground they are running on or what kind of shoes they have, they always go down.
• How many times have you gone out to your car on a nice sunny day and tried to start your car only for it to sputter and not start. Probably never, since this is real life, but in the movies whenever somebody is trying to escape from evil government forces or evil bloodthirsty demon hordes, the car always sputters when they try to start it.

I'm sure I have some more that I can't remember right now.

Hidden Youtube Gems - 10/10/11

I tend to wander around Youtube incessantly listening to music.  So sue me.  I have various playlists that I like to listen to whenever I get tired of Pandora or streaming radio.  I thought I would do a blog post of some of the best videos that have very few views.  I tried to keep them under 1,000 views but some might be just over.

Kowloon Walled City - "Bone Loss"

In the grand tradition of playing noisy music to piss off your parents comes Kowloon Walled City. This song, "Bone Loss", comes from their 2009 album, Gambling On The Richter Scale.  This video currently stands at 535 views on Youtube.  Surely, I can get this up to 540 by the end of 2012.

Saloon - "Le Weekend"

Now, this one is a little bit of a personal story for me.  I was in Japan once upon a time and happened upon a record store on one of my walkabouts.  I went in and started looking around.  It was a fantastic store that had tons of stuff that I wanted to buy, but knew I couldn't blow my wad too early, or try and carry all the stuff home.  So I just got a few things as I was browsing.  While I was looking around, they had a fantastic CD playing in the background that was very pop-y, trippy and generally happy sounding.  When I ask what music it was, the lady pulled out (This Is) What We Call Progress by Saloon.  They were a band that had already broken up by the time I picked up the album, but I still enjoy listening to it today.  This video is at 1438 views at this moment.

Nerdkween - "I Wish I Was Your Cloud"

Nerdkween is a singer-songwriter that performs here in Atlanta.  Her latest album, "Synergy", was put out by Stickfigure Records.  (You should definitely go the Official Stickfigure Homepage and buy one of everything)  I have no idea why this video sits at 279 views, it's a fantastic song and she is extremely talented and does her best to challenge the audience.

Elision - "Escapist of..."

 

When Krautrock isn't Krautrock.  Elision was from Germany but they are most definitely not the Krautrock made famous by Faust, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk.  They played a pretty straight forward hard-rock and loved to get sweaty.  You can listen to some more of their songs on their Myspace page.  This video is at 798 views... AND CLIMBING!

Botch - "Micaragua"

Surely, you've heard of Botch?  (yes I have and don't call me Shirley)  Now I've gotten that out of the way.  Botch were a pretty influential band that were tagged with the Mathcore label.  They only had 2 full albums in their 10 years, but they had a hell of an output anyway between their EPs and split albums.  This particular song was off the Anthology of Dead Ends EP.  For some reason, they named all the songs after countries and replaced the Ns with Ms.  This video is only at 485 views, but is sure to be pulled at some point due to the image and/or copyright stuff.

College Football Realigment, Here We...er, Wait a sec

So, in my last post about College Football realignment, changes looked to be coming fast and furious. A couple of weeks later, and it looks to have been shot down just as fast. Just like some movie I recently watched. Texas A&M (and Texas and the Longhorn Network for that matter), Syracuse and Pittsburgh are My Name Is Earl's tubby brother and sets the realignment train on its way.  It looks all set to decimate the Pennsylvania countryside until the Pac-12 does their Denzel and the SEC does their Chris Pine impression and puts the brakes on realignment.  What looked to be a sure-fire move to 16-team superconferences ended when the Pac-12 decides not to add Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.  Then the SEC refuses to add West Virginia and decides to keep Missouri waiting.

So we've gone from Unstoppable, to very stoppable.  Now, instead of being reduced to scraps, the Big 12 is still in business.  They've also decided to add another team in TCU.  I failed to mention in my last post how TCU was supposed to be moving to the Big East.  But I had already assumed that with the Big East slowly dying, TCU would bolt before it even started playing.  Turns out I was right.  (What would be really funny is if TCU bolted a dying Big East only to have to bolt a dying Big 12)   So what are we looking at now:

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State TCU Texas Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Rutgers S Florida West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt

So, we still have a crippled Big East, a somewhat stable Big 12 and a 13-team SEC.  The SEC can't stay at 13 teams in its current 2 division setup, the scheduling is a nightmare.  So, will Missouri go to the SEC as has been predicted?  It would make things easy for the SEC but then the Big 12 would need to get another team to get back to 10 teams, or would they try to stay at 9?  Or will the Pac-12 try to go to 16 by stealing Big-12 teams?  Whatever happens, it looks like it won't be happening as fast as it appeared just a few weeks ago.

Short Shots, 10/05/2001

I don't know if the story of Hachikō is the saddest thing ever or the greatest thing ever. I do know that my cat was extremely interested watching the movie, Hachi: A Dog's Tale, which is an American movie about the story of Hachiko.

I really love watching movies by Darren Aronofsky but only the first time.  The guy is an incredible filmmaker but his movies are difficult to watch.   Requiem for a Dream is in an incredible movie, but I became physically ill watching it.  Those of you who have seen it can probably relate.  Black Swan is another great movie, but I tried watching it again the other night but totally tensed up watching certain parts. So I watch his movies one time and am totally blown away.  Then I end up not being able to watch his movies a second time.  Most filmmakers just try to record reality and put it on the screen, but Aronofsky has a way of enhancing reality and projecting it straight thru the screen.  And not the happy side of reality.

Today's bad marketing decision, the the McDLT.  It wasn't a bad product because it was a bad concept, it was a bad product because of bad marketing.  At the heart of it, it makes a lot of sense.  You keep the lettuce and tomato separate from the burger so the burger doesn't get it all soggy and dull while it sits on the shelf.  But they ruined it with this terrible Jason Alexander commercial.

Today's free band name: Magnetic Coffins (or The Magnetic Coffins)  Probably not the name for a country band

I'd probably be more likely to watch this American Horror Story show if they didn't try to sell it as "From the Creators of Glee".  Now, Glee is scarier than shit, but that's still a hard sell.

Can't believe people are flipping out about this Brett Favre interview.  Yeah, he was downplaying Aaron Rodgers' skills, but shouldn't that be expected?  I mean Favre is the same guy that said he wasn't paid to be a mentor for Rodgers.  Favre is the same guy that kept people guessing for 4 years about whether he was going to retire or not.  And the talking heads keep saying they are sick of talking about Favre, but then at the same time keep talking about him.  Here's a tip: quit talking about him and you won't have to talk about him.

Hank Williams Jr blew it, he should have just said he was comparing John Boehner to Hitler.

Did Kazushi Sakuraba kill Japanese MMA?

Sure, that's an intentionally deceptive and sensationalistic headline.  I've been wondering about the death of Japanese MMA lately and if there are some causes that nobody has been thinking about.  (I even have a huge blog entry that I haven't posted about an off-the-wall reason Japanese MMA is dying because it didn't really end up making sense)  Of course the often cited reasons for the demise of Japanese MMA all have some validity but there has to be more than that.  The global recession has had an effect, but the USA is doing just as bad as Japan but the UFC is still going strong here and expanding worldwide.  Changing viewer habits?  Makes sense, Japanese fans are notoriously fickle.  You just need to look at the roller coaster popularity of pro wrestling.  Yakuza involvement?  It hasn't seemed to hurt UFC having Dana White in charge.  (I'm kidding, I'm probably more pro-Dana White than most people)

So, is there something else out there that has caused Japanese MMA to slowly die.  Maybe Kazushi Sakuraba has killed Japanese MMA.  Crazy theory, but let's take a look at Kazushi Sakuraba's career.

Stage 1 (Debut - Pride 12)

  

Sakuraba moved from professional werstling to MMA and had an auspicious debut as he lost by submission to Kimo Leopoldo, who came in 60 pounds heavier than Sakuraba.  In his next 15 fights, he went 12-1-1 with one no contest.  His lone loss was to heavyweight Igor Vovchanchyn in a match that happened just hours after his legendary 90 minute victory over Royce Gracie.  During this time is when he gained legend status in Japan with victories over 4 members of the Gracie family; Royce, Ryan, Renzo and Royler.  During this time, Pride was also becoming the biggest MMA company in the world.  They had a mix of small attendance shows with big shows at the Tokyo Dome in the beginning.  Pride 12 saw 27,000 attend Pride's first show at Saitama Super Arena, the unofficial home arena of MMA in Japan.

Stage 2 - (Pride 13 - Pride Shockwave 2005)

This was the period that saw Sakuraba's decline.  He went 7-7 and had three devastating KOs against Wanderlei Silva.  He also suffered multiple injuries during this time.  His worst may have been during the biggest fight of his career.  He was in the main event of the largest MMA show in history.  Over 90,000 at the Tokyo National Stadium saw Sakuraba match up with former kickboxing great Mirko Cro Cop.  Cro Cop came in 30 pounds heavier but was also fighting just his 5th MMA fight.  Sakuraba was able to take Cro Cop down late in the 1st and 2nd rounds but was never close to finishing Cro Cop.  At the end of the 2nd round, Cro Cop caught Sakuraba with an upkick and fractured Sakuraba's orbital bone.  Sakuraba was unable to continue and lost in the main event of the biggest MMA show ever.  His only significant victories during this time were a submission of an inexperienced Quinton Jackson and a suspicious looking submission of Kevin Randleman. 

Stage 3 - (Sakuraba in Hero's)

After Pride Shockwave 2005, Sakuraba left Pride to sign with their rival Hero's, which was run by the kickboxing group K-1.  In 2 years with Hero's, Sakuraba went 4-1 with 1 no-contest.  He couldn't avoid controversy in his time with Hero's.  There was the fight against Kestutis Smirnovas, where he was knocked out thru the ropes.  But the referee decided to drag Sakuraba back in the ring and restart the fight.  Somehow Sakuraba managed to regain his senses and eventually would submit Smirnovas.  His next fight was a high-profile main event match against Yoshihiro Akiyama at the Osaka Dome on New Year's Eve 2006.  After being dominated by Akiyama, the ref stopped the fight in the middle of the 1st round.  But the fight was later ruled a no-contest after Akiyama was discovered to have applied lotion to his body to make himself more slippery against Sakuraba's submission offense.  He then rematched with Royce Gracie at the controversy riddled Dynamite!! USA show at the LA Coliseum.  Though Sakuraba lost by decision, Gracie later tested positive for steroids.  He then beat former pro-wrestler Katsuyori Shibata and the legendary Masakatsu Funaki, who had been retired for 7 years, by submission.  His fight against Funaki was that last show that K-1 had MMA fights, K-1 PREMIUM 2007 Dynamite!!.

Stage 4 - (The Dream Years)

Not only did Hero's see its demise during Sakuraba's time there, but Pride also went out of business.  While Sakuraba was planning to return to Pride for a fight against Kiyoshi Tamura, but that never happened under the Pride banner.  Pride was sold to Zuffa/UFC in the Spring of 2007 and never had another show.  Sakuraba returned to fighting with Dream, a company formed between former Pride executives and K-1.  Dream hasn't come close to reaching the heights of Pride and Sakuraba hasn't come close to replicating his successes from the beginning of his career.  His time in Dream shows his career should definitely be over.  He's 3-6 in Dream.  He has 2 wins in Dream over non-MMA fighters making their MMA debut and a victory over the mostly average Zelg Galesic. He's also been submitted twice in that time, his first submission losses since that first fight against Kimo.

If you look at the career path of Sakuraba, his career peaked at the same time as the popularity of Pride was peaking.  Even though he had bad losses before, the downward trend for Sakuraba really began when he suffered a brutal one-punch knockout at the hands of Wanderlei Silva in August 2003.

After this knockout, his career was a mix of brutal beatdown losses and victories over subpar competition.  As his career slowly faded, Pride was still the top MMA company in the world.  From their start in 1997 thru the end of 2005, Pride was the biggest MMA company in the world.  Interestingly, when Pride's decline started in 2006, the UFC began to take Pride's place as the preeminent MMA company.  It only took a year and a half for Pride to shut it's doors and be bought out by the UFC.

So, did Sakuraba really kill Japanese MMA?  It's no secret that the Japanese fans love to root for Japanese fighters.  They respect all fighters that get in the ring, but they really get behind their own.  This is obvious when you see the fanfare and interest in the MMA debuts for Japanese Judo Olympic gold medalists, Hidehiko Yoshida and Satoshi Ishii.  But for all the Japanese MMA fighters that fought over the last 15 years, the most popular was Kazushi Sakuraba.  Is it possible that Japanese fans became disillusioned by Sakuraba's deteriorating skills and started tuning out?

Or maybe Japanese MMA killed Sakuraba's career?  Maybe he felt pressured to show up to fight for his Japanese fans when his body needed a rest.  Sakuraba is well known for coming to the ring with his legs taped up like a mummy.  Maybe if he would have taken time off to let his body heal, he wouldn't have had such bad losses on his resume.

It's not just the Japanese fans that are disappointed, though.  I'm pretty sure all MMA fans cringe when they see Sakuraba fight now.  He's just a shell of his former self and it is really sad to see him fight these days.  I imagine it's similar to Willie Mays fans seeing him stumble around the outfield for the Mets or Johnny Unitas fans watching him constantly getting sacked for the San Diego Chargers.  Hopefully, Sakuraba retires and MMA fans can just remember him as a great fighter and great entertainer.

Will Japanese MMA ever return to the levels of the past?  Probably not, but maybe there's hope for MMA in Japan.  The UFC returns to Japan to hold a show at the Saitama Super Arena in February 2012.  This show will go a long towards showing the state of MMA in Japan.