My God, It’s Full of Nerds!

Obviously inspired by Jackie’s Chan’s Drunken Master (1978), Magnificent Butcher features Sammo Hung as Butcher Wing, one of Wong Fei Hong’s most famous students. A Beggar So character is shoehorned into the plot, which is probably taking the emulation one step too far. Also, I don’t think Amy was a very big fan of the relatively graphic rape/murder scene in the middle of this broad comedy, or its attendant hints of necrophilia. Butcher is really schizophrenic that way, with goofy Looney Toons fights giving way to a serious vengeance plot in the last 15 minutes. Sammo is still amazing for a guy of his build, but he’s not well served by the movie.

Wong Fei Hong: The most badass resident in nursing home.

That’s what you get for giving Jackie Chan a purple nurple.

But Sammo, you’re fat, so it evens out.

I knew King Boxer, and sir, you’re no King Boxer.

Our most recent podcast is here. In this episode Chris desperately backtracks on The Dark Knight, I talk about three cult movies that were released on DVD exclusively at Best Buy, and we go over the Fantastic Fest schedule.

As it happens, the promised Bigfoot press conference went off. None of the pictures or other “proof” was presented. Just vague promises that they’re on the way. I’ll have more to say on this a little later.

On Friday, we’ll have undeniable proof that a colony of Bigfoots are living in north Georgia. At least, that’s what these guys say.

Anyone want to start a pool on what excuses they’ll use to get out of having the press conference?

Looking at the site again, I’m a bit perplexed by the phrasing of this sentence: “A body that may very well be the body of the creature commonly known as ‘Bigfoot’ has been found in the woods in northern Georgia.” May very well be? I haven’t heard hedging like that since Beneath Loch Ness.

I’ll give CNET credit, they fit a lot of common sense (usually lacking in home theater articles) into this.

I decided to show this to Amy because the director Zhang Yimou also produced the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. Hero certainly foreshadows last week’s extravaganza in terms of Zhang’s love of epic multitudes moving in unison.

Amy didn’t seem to like the movie as much as I do, but then, this is probably my favorite martial arts movie of all time. I love the cast (Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen), I love Chris Doyle’s cinematography, I love Tan Dun’s score, I love Ching Sui Tung’s fights. I could watch this movie on a loop.

Fencing!

Javelin!

Reverse archery!

Table tennis!

But you know what? I still think Sam Jackson is great.

Oops, it got taken down.

Update: Commenter Seth L points out the footage is up at io9.

What? Would it have killed them to put it on Blu-ray?.

Yuen Woo Ping is a fantastic action director, but I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of his later work as solo director.

Take Tai Chi Master, for example. Without a doubt it features some of the best kung fu fights I’ve ever seen. In particular the duel between Michelle Yeoh (still credited as “Michelle Khan” in the oddly damaged print used for the new DVD) and the evil albino eunuch set the bar for superpowered fight scenes, at least until CGI made wire removal so easy.

But on the other hand, Woo Ping’s later movies tend to the infested with bizarrely inappropriate digressions. In Tai Chi Master I could have done without the dozen or so cutaways to the one alleged good guy who is trying to fake his own death during a desperate fight, or the oddity of one fight scene where Jet Li keeps (fatally) hitting people with his head, actually bouncing from one prostrate body to another on his noggin like some sort of demented Mario Brothers character.

When Woo Ping works with another director, I think his worst tendencies are curtailed. Also, working with people like Gordon Chan, Quentin Tarantino, and Wachowskis seems to have driven Woo Ping to new heights of realism in his wire-fu, and that’s a good thing.

Apparently Robert’s Rules of Order are different in China.

This is why you should always leave a tip.

Managements Techniques of the Beautiful and Kick-Ass.

In our new podcast, I make an uncomfortable confession, we talk about The Xifiles and The Dark Knight, and identify one piece of comic book news that came out of Comicon.

“Don’t ruin this great cinematography by talking.”

Hunting pandas is lot harder that I thought.

“I promise I won’t be in Rush Hour 4, okay?”

The Chinese Olympics are going to be more exciting than past games.

The winner takes on the winner of Boa vs. Python.

Tony Jaa goes AWOL from Ong Bak 2. I don’t think this situation is likely to help him breakthrough as an bigger international star.

(As of this writing, the article has gone AWOL from Variety’s server. Here’s a cached version.)

Below I’ve added Twitch’s copy of the Ong Bak 2 promo reel.

According to Joss Whedon at SDCC, there will definitely be more Dr. Horrible.

Which is a little funny, because in every other interview he gave on the subject up through yesterday he was very clear that he didn’t think he’d continue the series in the foreseeable future, if at all.

What changed? I’m guessing somebody got a check from iTunes…

In our new podcast we talk about Watchmen, The Spirit, Wall-E, and few movies that aren’t cartoons. Look for a cameo by Chris’ wife as part of a scientific experiment.

And this may be the best one yet.

When you press the topmost fin, Mechagodzilla’s eyes light up and flicker out, and it makes the sound of Mechagodzilla’s roar followed by Godzilla’s.

Five Deadly Venoms is a movie so good there’s a whole subgenre named after it. Movies directed by Chang Cheh and starring the set of actors featured in this movie are called “Venom Mob” movies. Here’s what you need to keep in mind to enjoy a Venom Mob movie:

- Don’t worry about keeping track of every character at the beginning of the movie. It’s pointless. Most of these movies have setups that would make Victor Hugo throw up his hands in confusion. For example, Five Deadly Venoms opens with the dying Poison clan head explaining to his only student that the student has to redeems the evil that the Poison Clan has done, that there’s a secret treasure all his old students are looking for, and that the old students all have superpowers and wore masks and trained at various times and some of them know each other and some of them don’t… You really need a flow chart. And then the movie introduces a bunch of red herrings who may or may not be students.

Here’s the trick: Half of these character will be dead before the movie reaches the halfway point, and then the conflicts and relationships will be much clearer. Just stick with the movie until the slaughter begins, and you’ll have a much better time.

- Don’t expect many female characters. Despite the slightly defensive testimonials on some of the new Celestial DVDs to how not-gay Chang Cheh was, almost every one of the Venom Mob movies ends with two men walking off into the sunset, sometimes holding hands. The only females in Five Deadly Venoms are extras representing a family that gets completely wiped out by the bad guys.

“I’m ready for my match with El Santo!”

They’re just needling him.

I wish learning kung fu would actually let you do stuff like this.

I just put a couple of DVD box sets for sale on eBay.

Be sure to read my FAQ.

China must be a modern country now, because they allow trivial lawsuits related to movies.

It may be trivial, but I hope he wins. I’m sure the “creative meeting records” this guy is demanding would be fascinating.

I love cryptozoology. Of all the fringe sciences, it’s the coolest, and unlike psychic powers or UFO abductions, there’s nothing physically impossible about it. Of course there could be animals out there that haven’t been documented. In fact, it’s almost certain there are. And some of those animals could be truly bizarre. For example, the Megamouth shark was discovered during my lifetime. Other could have great stories, like the possible rediscovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

But, and isn’t there always a “but?”, the whole field has been hijacked by people who don’t understand science and who will willingly throw logic and evidence out the window if it conflicts with their own theories.

For example, Bigfoot isn’t very likely to exist. The probability that a breeding population large primates could be living in North America, often in close proximity to humans, and leave no conclusive proof of their existence is laughably small. I mean, c’mon, no body? In the fifty years since Bigfoot became a household name? At some point you have to acknowledge reality and stop making complicated excuses for why the minimum evidence we should have found has never been found.

Well, no body has been found unless we believe these guys, who do have all the credibility that the Knight Rider theme imparts upon a scientific venture.

The Russian equivalent of Bigfoot is called the Almasty or wildman, and I suppose it’s slightly more likely to exist, if only because there are parts of Asia that are truly uninhabited. Still, it’s a long shot, and if you’re going to claim it exists you’d better have some great evidence.

That brings me to the Centre for Fortean Zoology, which sponsors “expeditions” to find unknown animals. I’m certainly not against that, but these people are laughably credulous. You can read the full story of their recent Russian “expedition” here. It’s pretty hilarious reading. I especially liked Day 9, where the locals take the CFZ people on an archetypical snipe hunt. If they want to be taken seriously as scientists they should probably also avoid statements like this:

Sadly, although they excavated the place where the makeshift grave was supposed to have been situated, it was too no avail. The body was long gone. But in an area where bears, jackals and other scavengeing carrion eaters are common this is hardly surprising.

The body was long gone? How do they know a body existed in the first place? They found nothing. I don’t care how many jackals there are in the area, nothing is still nothing.

On Day 13 a little desperation sets in, and they claim that some vague shadows are “good supporting evidence.” It’s good supporting evidence that things cast shadows, but not much more than that, guys.

In the end these people ended up with the same things Bigfoot researchers always tout as their evidence: unknown hair, some scat which will, I’m sure, “defy analysis,” and some fuzzy eyewitness reports. Dear CFZ, unless you have a body, don’t bother.

After making Amy watch High Risk last week, I really though I owed her a good Jet Li movie, and there are few Jet Li movies better than Once Upon a Time in China.

“I’m Jet Li, bitch.”

“I’m Jet Li in the rain, bitch.”

“I’m Jet Li in a stupid hat, bitch.”

“I’m Jet Li with a pastry, bitch.”

“I’m Jet Li with my biggest fan, bitch.”

Because if you look hard enough, you can find at least one person who believes anything.

More proof that Joss Whedon should have created Cop Rock, not that Hill Street Blues dude.

Morgan Webb is pretty.

Webb Alert is Morgan’s almost-daily tech news podcast. As time goes on the stories have been getting longer and more detailed, which is good. She’s also been doing special gaming editions on Fridays, though she skipped this week, I assume because she’s heading E3.

I’m a big Wong Kar Wai fan, and as such I thoroughly enjoyed his English language film My Blueberry Nights. Sure, it’s basically some bits from Chungking Express (1994) rearranged and translated into English, but it’s still good. Maybe Wong’s love for having characters communicate exclusively through wistfully bittersweet personal anecdotes doesn’t entirely translate to the American milieu, but on the other hand, Natalie Portman.

One thing that occurred to me while watching some of Wong’s films. If you take some of the scenes about male characters and replace the music with, say, the soundtrack from Friday the 13th, you pretty much have the backstory of a serial killer.

Take Jeremy from Blueberry Nights. He’s a British guy in New York, played by Jude Law. He runs a diner, and he can’t remember people’s names but he remembers them by what they order. He keeps a fishbowl full of abandoned house keys on a shelf behind the counter. He spends his nights watching footage from the diner’s security camera, and he keeps his favorite tapes. And every couple of weeks he picks up a prostitute and knifes her to death in the bathroom.

Okay, I made that last sentence up. But didn’t it follow on naturally from what came before? Or watch Wong’s segment from the incredibly misnamed anthology Eros (2004). Even with the standard soundtrack, I expected it to be the story of how the main character guy was inspired to make a woman suit out of real women.

“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti!”

It didn’t happen yesterday.

So, what approach did California Calamity Guy take to the fact that San Diego defied the revealed word of God and didn’t blow up yesterday? A sort of desultory half-apology. He claims he never really said July 8th was the date for sure, despite spending the last year and a half recording the voluminous numerological, biblical, political, economic, athletic, and geologic evidence that July 8th was definitely the date.

He doesn’t say what he’ll do next, but he sounds so depressed I suspect he’ll get out of the prophecy biz for a while. C’mon CalCal Guy, buck up! One hundred percent of people predicting the end of the world are wrong their first time! (And second… and third…) Get back up on that pale horse and keep predicting, and maybe you’ll be right someday!

Today is the day. So far, San Diego still exists.

I mentioned in my post a couple days ago that I didn’t think that site was a joke. I still don’t. I can’t imagine a normal person putting in that kind of effort or being able to simulate insanity quite so well.

The Resistance, on the other hand, I’m not so sure. This guy made some ripples a few months back by complaining that the old-timey Starbucks logo they were putting on some their cups was turning him on too much. I read some of his book, and I think he may be a put on. It’s just on the edge of being parody.

“I’d like to go over the checklist of things we’re going to need to steal the Czar’s jewels from the penthouse of the skyscraper.”

“Sure, boss.”

“How are we on personnel?”

“We got a 150 faceless and interchangeable thugs, but they’ve been carefully briefed to make sure no one will ever see more than 10 of them at a time. But if shooting starts they’ll all jump out of every corner and take a couple of bullets in the chest just for the heck of it. They won’t die hard.”

“Why did you say those last two words like that?”

“No reason.”

“Who else do we have?”

“We also have the computer expert, who will be the only person wearing glasses, and our main thug is obsessed with beating up a certain movie star. I’m sure that last one won’t be a liability.”

“Weapons?”

“We’ve got lots of machine guns, and those pistols with hexagonal cartridges on top. One guy is bringing his 7.62mm machinegun. A few machetes. Also, two flame throwers. Oh, and everyone has pistols.”

“Okay. Wait, what was that?”

“Everyone has pistols.”

“Before that. Did you say flame throwers?”

“Sure.”

“Do we need flame throwers? It’s a hotel! We aren’t going to be clearing brush or busting bunkers.”

“What if someone drives a car into the lobby elevator, rides it up the penthouse, and starts trying to run us over? Flame thrower might be useful then. At the very least when the car catches on fire it will look really cool going off the balcony and falling to the street.”

“You have a point. Anything else?”

“One more thing. The bill for the snakes came today, and they want us to pay before the job.”

“SNAKES? Why do we have snakes? Is Samuel L. Jackson going to be up there?”

“No, but one of our main thugs thought we might want to have a bag full of snakes. The guy at the store even threw in a free monitor lizard, so it seemed like a pretty good deal.”

“Okay, okay. The planning here has been a little rocky, but so long as the nothing really unlikely happens, like some special forces guy whose family I blew up a couple years ago happening to be in the building, I’m sure it will go fine.”

Jet Li is really into game shows.

“Oh, I’m get it. I’m supposed to be Jackie Chan!”

No matter what some fantasy-prone foot fetishist on Wikipedia thinks, this woman is wearing shoes.

The sophisticated comedy Wong Jing is known for.

My advice: Tip the bellhops.

Parking in the city is tough.

“These snakes are paying for themselves!”

“Now I’m Bruce Lee? I’m so confused!”

Jet Li promised High Risk would be his last Wong Jing film, but he lied about that too.

I think. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think this site is a joke. In four days, though, he’s going to have to find something else to harp about, or at least do a quick recalculation and reschedule.

And the first person who can explain to me the logic behind this gets a bright, shiny donkey.