Don’t need nuthin’ but a good time.

“People already know his history, but I would like for them to know he was a man who preached love from the stage. His thing was ‘I never saw a person that I didn’t love.’ He was a true humanitarian who loved his country.” -charles bobbit

Guac-a-mustard.

Bowser.

Welp…I didn’t see myself in the background, but the new GRINDHOUSE teaser trailer features a lot of footage from…Oh wait…I mean…it’s a real purty trailer featuring new footage from both Planet Terror and Death Proof. Yeah!

Only 73 days left until The Number 23 is collectively forgotten by 99.9% of the human population. It’s like I, and the good people of New Hampshire, always say “Live Free or Die…Die Hard.” It’s gonna be a long hot summer.

I am a very busy person, so I am going to make this brief. While taking a short break from my hectic schedule to relax and check the many blogs that I read on a daily basis, I noticed a little something on Cool Hunting that I thought was appropriate to link to here. It seems that there is a British company called Second Run DVD that has been around for about a year now and is releasing some very interesting and esoteric titles never before seen on the market in DVD format, including Nighthawks (1978)—the first British film to accurately depict the life of a gay man in London, Portrait of Jason (1967)—a confessional conversation with an African-American gay hustler by avant-garde filmmaker Shirley Clarke (there seems to be a gay theme developing here), Avenge but one of my two eyes (2005)—a controversial documentary about the cycles of violence surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian situation today, and Blissfully Yours (2002)—the resplendent 2002 feature from Thai-phenom Apichatpong Weerasethakul (I wonder if Seth knows or has worked with this guy or has seen this movie). For more information about the films check here or go to the Second Run DVD website.

I wonder if Muybridge knew what his photographs would lead to. That’s all I could think about while watching 300. Watching Gerry Butler cut through his enemies in a fluid, slow motion, tracking shot makes the whole persistence of vision thing worth while.

Butt-Numb 8 started with a screening of Black Snake Moan which finds Justin Timberlake shaking the shit out of his mother and yelling “I LOVE YOU,” Sam Jackson howlin’ the blues, and Christina Ricci chained to a bed instead of her image as a dough-faced goth girl. I didn’t see that much of it, but it looks interesting enough to check out. Black Snake was followed by movies I had no time to watch ’cause I was prepping, cooking, and serving the food the capacity crowd was eating. Dream Girls, Inherit the Wind, and a 70’s softcore cartoon.

But, I did see parts of Rocky 6. If you have any doubts, let me tell you that this movie is about Rocky. Every classic element is beaten until it becomes a horse. Then it is beaten again so that the old saying can be applied. R6 has everything! The old age jokes, the training sequences, the early morning jogging, the slow motion shots of Talia Shire praying Rocky doesn’t die in the ring. And the final fight … never before have so many head shots been landed in Boxing Cinema History! And never before has a movie looked more like a Gatorade commercial.

You know, some people have called Rocky an imbecile, a man-child. If you think that, shame on you! He takes all those face hits to wear down his opponent, bro-siff. Duh! He’s like a Weeble. He might wobble, and he may momentarily fall down, but he’ll get back up GODDAMIT! He’s Rocky. Each punch Rocky threw was a TKO on my attention span. Wow. It was too much fun. I left the theater smiling and laughing.

Then Seth Rogan was in the lobby drinking a beer. I couldn’t help but go in for another Celebrity Ass Kiss. At least he and Patton aren’t People Magazine type stars. They’re funny. Both in person and on screen. Seth asked me how Rocky was and I said (in Eddie Murphy voice) “I don’t wanna spoil it, but Rocky wins this one too. You know what I like about Rocky movies is the Realism…” He laughed, tipped his beer and I went back to work. His new movie with Judd Apatow and Paul Rudd is called Knocked Up. It’s about a regular guy who gets a woman he has a one night stand with pregnant. If it taught me one lesson it would be to never get pink eye. Knocked Up opens in June. Did I mention that it is funny? Really funny? Hilarious?

I had to leave the theater during Paul Verhoven’s newest, Black Book. I really wished I’d stayed and watched cause it looks like a return to form. You are not allowed to make Showgirls jokes. The first reel was the real deal.

After passing out for an hour I went back to the Alamo to catch Smokin’ Aces, starring everybody. It’s by Joe Carnahan, the happy lad behind Narc. This is what happens when Domino has a one night stand with Snatch, gets pregnant and has True Romance as a baby. It may “borrow” from every crime/gangster/hi-tech action film ever made, but Aces has Jeremy Piven. I’m not linking his name cause you should know by now that Piven is badder than Powers Boothe on a power trip. If you don’t know Powers Boothe, google him, watch The Jonestown Tragedy, Phillip Marlowe Private Eye, Red Dawn, Frailty, all 3 seasons of Deadwood, then come back and read the rest of the post. I digress. Enough of Smokin’ Aces, it will be exploding everywhere around you when it opens on January 26th.

Butt-Numb-A-Thon ended on 300. Zach Snyder was on hand to field questions and pepper his gory epic with comedic hindsite. If that doesn’t make any sense it’s cause I’m tired as shit. Which brings me back to bed.

Thanks to all the higher up Powers that Be for letting me hang out in the back of the theater and enjoy the spoils of BNAT8. Good night. No, wait … I’ve gotta be to work in a half hour. See you at the Alamo.

When I walked up the Alamo steps today I heard some lovely rumblings. I can’t say anthing else about the matter. I’m sworn to keep secret the rumors of what’s going to be happening this weekend at The Butt Numb-A-Thon. Sean Russell, who got to write his own Scrubs episode this season, told me about one of the films, but the real deal is … I can’t tell anyone about what I saw today that I “didn’t” see. Looks like Tim and Harry Knowles have put together a tasty 24 hours of this season’s best looking films.

“I took the shortcut.”