OLD

Gregg Popovich is hilarious.

You might not believe me since the San Antonio Spurs play pretty boring, straight-forward basketball. They win a lot of games and have a lot of really, really good players (unlike the Jazz, who have assembled the biggest collection of average players with zero personality).

The problem with the Spurs though, is that most of their great players are pretty damn old. In basketball years, anyway. Tim Duncan is 36 and Manu Ginobili is 35. Tony Parker is only 30, but he has a bad ankle so that kind of ages him up a few years.

So yeah. A little up there in years and a lot of mileage on those legs. Because of that, Popovich sent all of those guys (including 25 year-old Danny Green) home after their Wednesday night (11/28) victory over the Orlando Magic. They were in the middle of a six game road trip (which they had won every game so far) and were finishing off their fourth game in five nights against the Miami Heat. A lot of noise was made and a lot of things were said about this decision.

David Stern, the NBA Commissioner even went so far as to release a statement saying, "I apologize to all NBA fans. This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming.''

But here's the thing, this is exactly what Popovich has always done. He did it more than once last year, in the abbreviated 66-game schedule and he's done it before that.

At least he has a sense of humor about it. Check out these stat sheets that I found floating around the Internet. If you can't read them (they're a little blurry, sorry) the top one says R. Horry - DNP - OLD AGE, the second one says T. Duncan - DND - OLD and the bottom one, my personal favorite says B. Barry - DNP - TUMMY ACHE.

A great coach with a solid sense of humor. That's my kind of guy.

KUBRICK

Every once in a while, I get that flash of inspiration that a younger me once had all the time. That feeling that I'd get every time I watched a great movie that made me think, "Yeah, I want to quit everything and make things like that for a living."

Of course, I was younger then and living in my parents house with no bills to pay. I still think about it from time to time, especially when I see a video like this.

I don't like all of his films, but Stanley Kubrick was one of the greats.

Kubrick // One-Point Perspective from kogonada on Vimeo.

LIFE. LOVE. REGRET.

One of my all-time favorites.

11/22/63

It's the 49th anniversary of the assassination of JFK.

What I'm getting at, is that I'm thankful for The Misfits.

Ride Johnny, ride.

BADASS DIGEST

Badass Digest is a new favorite website of mine. It's probably the only film-related website I look at any more—mainly because they don't waste posts on who might get cast in a movie that might not even get made because it hasn't been written yet. That kind of thing has driven me away from sites that I used to love (like slashfilm.com) because I just don't care. Show me a trailer and then I can get excited.

Anyway, they've been trying pretty hard to diversify from the pack of movie websites and aren't all that concerned with getting 'scoops' and cheap hits, which is the biggest problem with online news sites nowadays. They still do their fair share of reporting rumors, but it's not as bad as some of the others.

One thing they've started doing is a web series where the EIC/founder of the site, Devin Faraci, goes to awesome places around Los Angeles and Hollywood to film and talk about cool things. My two favorite episodes are embedded below.

In the first, he goes to the Universal Backlot and wanders around the sets of all the classic monster movies from back in the day. It's a little bit of a veiled advertisement for the newly released Universal Monsters Blu-Ray collection, but it's still awesome to see all those old sets still standing and a cool way to learn a few facts that I never knew about   (like the reason Frankenstein walks with his arms out in front of him).

The second, is about prop collector Bob Burns. His basement is full of the original props from some of the greatest sci-fi, horror and monster movies of all time. He's got awesome stuff in there and I'm sure there are tons of things that didn't end up in the video.

Both these videos are right up my alley, because when I was little the first thing that I wanted to do "when I grew up" was make special effects for movies. As soon as I found out that was actually a thing, I wanted to be the guy that made them. Of course, that goes back to needing artistic ability, which I don't have on that level. I can write the shit out of some words, but actual designing and drawing is not a skill set that I possess. Believe me, I've tried. But still, that kind of thing always fascinated me and these videos just enhance that love for effects and props.

Check them out. And head over to Badass Digest.com to see more videos and have a look around. Pretty good stuff.

POOR PLANNING

You'd think they might be a little more careful with the placement of these two posters.

Poor Abe just can't catch a break.

BEETEETH (REDUX)

I love it when Dan does these kinds of videos. He's one of my favorite artists and hell of a guy. I'm always excited when he has a new project (or projects) in the works—which he usually does. Dude has been burning the candle at both ends for as long as I've known him and shows no intention of slowing down.

He and his GF, Jillian, are getting a children's book together hopefully for release this year. I actually can't put into words how excited I am about that, either. You can take a look at a couple sneak peeks over at his blog (beeteeth.tumblr.com), but I'll definitely keep you updated on when it comes out, if you aren't already holding your breath.

He painted this on the wall at the now-defunct Salt Lake Citizen store in SLC during the Arts Festival this past summer. Good stuff. Check it out. And while you're at it, he just got his webstore up and running. Just in time for Christmas, too. How about that?

Salt Lake Citizen from Dan Christofferson on Vimeo.

GUN MACHINE

Warren Ellis has long been one of my favorite comic writers. His Planetary series is right near the top of my all-time favorite comics list and he's got a few more that are almost as great. He's taken a huge step back from comics in the past few years and started working pretty much exclusively on novels. I liked his first one, Crooked Little Vein, but didn't love it. However, I tore through it at a pace that can only be equalled by the first few Charlie Huston novels, so that's saying something.

I'm really excited for his next one though. It's called Gun Machine and is already on my list of things to read in 2013—as soon as I get through my pile of 2012 books that's been staring at me all year, growing faster than it shrinks. The good thing about Gun Machine is that since it probably won't be released in softcover (I hate hardcover novels but can't really explain to you why) until late in the year it may move to the 2014 list.

Holy shit that's a long ways away.

SKYFALL

First things first - I loved SKYFALL. I thought it was fantastic from start to finish.

I haven't always been the biggest Bond fan and I don't think I've seen more than a couple pre-Brosnan Bond films, and I've definitely never seen any of them on purpose. That should hopefully change soon, but as of now, I couldn't tell you the difference between Roger Moore's Bond and Sean Connery's Bond. Not even a little bit.

But everything about this Bond film, I loved. Daniel Craig was awesome (as always) and Javier Bardem made for a great villain (but anyone that expected otherwise probably doesn't know just how great Bardem is in EVERYTHING). Sam Mendes (who I've been a huge fan of since AMERICAN BEAUTY) is a great director and I can see why he weathered the storm of MGM problems to make this movie. He did an excellent job.

Quick side note here: MGM, the company that holds the rights to Bond and all J.R.R. Tolkein's stories was in a lot of financial trouble for a while. They weren't sure if the company would go belly up and have to sell off the rights to different studios or what would happen. Mendes had signed on to direct the next Bond film right as all that started happening and essentially had to sit in a holding position while it all got worked out. He turned down other jobs and held off developing other projects just in case everything worked out. It ended up taking almost an entire year for things to get worked out. Craig was able to make other stuff in that time because to act in a movie is far less time consuming, whereas directing, you're involved in every single little thing. Mendes has essentially been working on SKYFALL and SKYFALL alone since 2009.

This is also why THE HOBBIT has taken so long to materialize. Guillermo Del Toro was supposed to direct that film, with Peter Jackson producing, but he didn't want to wait on everything else he had planned, so he bailed to make PACIFIC RIM and Peter Jackson took over and turned a single movie into multiple movies. I'm totally okay with this move, because I'm always interested in what Del Toro makes and I don't really care what Peter Jackson makes anymore. I loved the TWO TOWERS, but was so bored with the other two LORD OF THE RINGS movies that I can't even pretend to get excited about 3(!) new HOBBIT movies.

And now back to SKYFALL.

Daniel Craig acted as a Bond ambassador of sorts, because he was the one that convinced Mendes to come aboard and also recruited Bardem for the part of Silva. Once Mendes was attached, he managed to convince Roger Deakins to come along as well, and that might have been the best decision ever. Deakins is the cinematographer responsible for all the best looking movies. A lot of people might not notice that, but being a movie snob with a few years of film school under my belt, I love that stuff. Seriously, think about some of the shots in SKYFALL and how gorgeous they look. Deakins is the reason they look that good. Check out his IMDB credits and then you'll suddenly remember all the greatness he's capable of (seriously, THE VILLAGE was a pile of garbage, but it was a gorgeously shot pile of garbage). I get as excited about him shooting a movie as I do when I hear a good director has a new film coming out.

Now, on to one of my favorite parts of SKYFALL - the title sequence. Bond films always have a unique title sequence and I spent a good chunk of time last night watching a bunch of them, because if there's one thing we know I love, it's a good title sequence. Some of the other Bond title sequences are a little disjointed, but this one flows smoothly and I think it has a lot to do with the omission of the classic gun barrel mini-sequence that's *supposed* to be at the front of every Bond film. Mendes opted to save that part for the end and as a result, the opening scene flows into the title sequence much more fluidly. For instance, check out the LIVE AND LET DIE sequence. Good, but kind of weird. This one looks much, much better. I even like the song for SKYFALL. I've had Adele (who I actually kind of like) mixed up with Lana Del Rey (who I think is kind of full of shit, mostly because she lends credence to dorks with face tattoos being models) since I found out who was writing the theme. But now that I've been able to distinguish between the two, I'm a much bigger fan of the song.

*The entire reason I started writing this was because the creator of the titles put it up on Vimeo for everyone to see. Then, as I was writing this piece, it was pulled from the Internet, probably by MGM because they want you to go out and pay money to see the actual film in the theater. You can read about how they made it over here, but you just can't watch it. At least for now. If it surfaces again, I'll add it in here.*

I realize this post is all over the place, but it is what it is. It's the epitome of a Half-Assed Review.

T.A.I.L.

I love this band. You should, too.

This video was filmed in 1995, but for some reason never released. Revelation Records, celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year, got ahold of it and put it on the Internet.

HENRY ROLLINS AND SCOTT HOWELL

Henry Rollins stopped by on his Capitalism tour last month, and as always, it was awesome. I try to catch him every time he comes through town on tour.

This time, he was hitting every state capital before the election. He talked a lot about politics, but he tried to keep things balanced (or as balanced as he possibly could while pointing out many of Mitt Romney's huge flaws and general idiocy) and didn't really care what you thought or what your political beliefs were. He just wanted to make sure everyone was educated and knew what they were voting for or against.

Of course, he also deviated from that topic and talked about his quest to visit every country on George W. Bush's 'Axis of Evil' while he was in office. He never quite got it done, because his clearance to visit North Korea didn't come through until after he was out of office. He went as soon as he was able, and said while it was amazing, he was with a tour guide that only took him to government approved places so he wasn't able to see as much as he would have liked.

A whole bunch of other topics were covered too, and it was an awesome two hours.

I wasn't aware he was making little video features from each city until just now, but this one is from SLC. He talks with the Mormon Democrat Scott Howell that's running for Orrin Hatch's senate seat. Hatch is awful, so everyone should vote against him no matter who is running. Hatch has been in office since 1977 and he needs to be gone, so hopefully Howell has a chance.

He doesn't and he won't win, but a fella can dream, can't he?

The SLC video is embedded below. The rest can be found over at the TakePart.com YouTube page.

THE GHOSTS OF HARDCORE PAST

I wrote this for SLUG MAGAZINE this month. Head over to the website to read the whole thing, or better yet, grab an issue while you're out and about. It's free. You can't beat that price.

They also reviewed my zine FILLER. They point out the obvious shortcomings, like Candace Jean's page being too light and Candace Christensen's website being out-of-date, but other than that, it's a pretty good review.

The too light page from Candace Jean looked okay in the original, but lost a lot once it was reproduced. I was pretty bummed, but it was also midnight the night before Craft Lake City and everything was already printed. Candace Christensen's website went offline when Apple suspended the me.com sites and was supposed to be back up within the first few weeks of getting it published. Didn't quite work out that way, but oh well. I'm learning as I go.

Anyway, on to the feature story.

SLUG Magazine -- In 2004, hardcore blew up. Killswitch Engage released what would eventually become a gold record, Hatebreed was nominated for a Grammy and everything changed—again.

Before that, hardcore and metal were the genres of the underground and the bands were kind of like members of a secret society. They weren’t afforded any mainstream recognition, and if you met someone who had also heard of an obscure start-up band like Terror, Every Time I Die or Bleeding Through, you immediately knew you shared a bond. Then, all of a sudden, there were TV shows like “Battle for Ozzfest” and Jamey Jasta was the new host of a revived Headbanger’s Ball.

Local hardcore shows, which had been topping out at 100 people on a good night, were suddenly drawing upward of 400-500 people. Things were good again for Salt Lake City hardcore, the way they hadn’t been since the heyday when Clear and Triphammer were playing shows in the late ’90s. Nationally recognized bands were coming through town all the time and there were so many shows that local openers were starting to get the opportunity to play in front of crowds they’d never seen before...

Read the rest at the SLUG website

Tamerlane - 2008

11/3

I was about to complain that there aren't any shows coming to SLC that I'm really excited for, but then I found out that The Toadies are touring with Helmet and stopping at The Depot this weekend.

Nineties revival in full effect. I'll probably have to break out the flannel shirts.

See you there?