I don't have cable right now so I'm rewatching old shows and movies. A lot of them are animated. Such is my way. I'd like to have a nobler reason for rewatching them--something like when James 
Let's say you're the newly-sentient internet. How would you decipher
the meaning of all the bits and bytes whizzing past you? And what about
the real world outside your electronic realm?
Former Comics Editor, Guy Leshinski
has very kindly given us permission to reprint a prophetic interview
with Bryan Lee O'Malley in 2005. Will Bryan Lee O'Malley attain the
Holy Grail of cartoonists? As Bryan says, "We'll see..."
Results tagged “sports” from The Cultural Gutter
48 x 61
48 vs. 61 in Rintaro and Katsushiro Otomo's excellent bicycle racing short where the racers look kinda like Rintaro and Otomo. Also, damn fine music and possible steampunkery.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame
I just read an article in The New York Times that filled me with hope -- hope for my relationship with cilantro. I’m in that small percentage of the
population that tastes something abominable in the herb. I find cilantro not only digusting, but also annoying, because it renders several international cuisines fraught with difficulty. This
particular article suggested that I might be able to turn cilantro-induced revulsion into pleasure, mostly by eating it repeatedly. Huzzah! Unfettered enjoyment of Indian and South American food is once again a possibility!
Continue reading...
Kathryn Bigelow Retrospective
Kathryn Bigelow won a best directing Oscar for The Hurt Locker. Time for a retrospective. Here's the trailer for Near Dark and some clips. Point Break (i.e. Keeanu Reeves best movie). Jamie Lee Curtis in the cop thriller, Blue Steel. The premillennial tension of Strange Days. The Pirelli ad, Mission Zero. And her sub movie, possible the manliest of genres, K-19: The Widowmaker. She also wrote an episode of The Equalizer.
VARIETY PAK
It’s been just over a year since I became a partner in the Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa’s oldest operating cinema. We’ve shown a lot of films in that time (we average about 40 a month), and I’ve written the synopsis for almost every one.
Continue reading...
Where Does the Art Start?
It's hard to know where the art starts and ends in this story about the in-fighting in the wrestling cabaret stylings of Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling. "It's a bunch of grown men and women in costumes pretending to be
professional wrestlers. It is
to wrestling as 'West Side Story' is to actual gang relations." Who knows what Kaiju Big Battel's Los Plantanos think of SSP's The Banana.
Incredible Combinations
A wrestler-fairy? A nerd-werewolf? A caveman-pirate? All these and more in Creebobby's second Archetype Times Table.
"That Yellow-Shirted Such-and-Such"
Frank Miller's Charlie Brown, Thumbsuckers.
Fighting Words
"Struck by the resonances between professional wrestling and comics" at Occasional Superheroine. Mixed Martial Arts vs. "the sweet science of bruising" at Salon.
The Road To Mundo Fine: Zombies vs. Robots
The
road to the end of the world is shorter than we think. Just when
we've adjusted our rear and sideview mirrors and selected a
soundtrack, the end stands before us, eyes shining in our halogen,
ready to total our engine block. The only question now is: zombies
or robots?
Continue reading...
Squeeze Play
Romance
and sports don’t mix. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway.
It’s one of those weird rules, hidden and unarticulated, that seem
to underly any given genre. It’s a tenet that gets passed down to
new writers, not as gospel so much as in the form of a mild warning.
It’s not that books about athletes are uninteresting, the wisdom
would have it; it’s that they’re unsellable. Readers won’t
care about them, so editors won’t buy them.
Unlessyou’re Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Then all bets are off.
Continue reading...
The Modern Master of Suitmation
It's a little Minoru Kawasaki retrospective: Calamari Wrestler (2004); Executive Koala (2005); Beetle, The Horn King (2005); Kani Goalkeeper (2006); The World Sinks Except Japan (2006).
But Will Your Parents Play?
Based on the reaction to the November launch of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii through sales and media attention, it's clear that gaming as a cultural phenomenon has cemented itself into the collective consciousness. Local news media observed in awe as the faithful lined up outside their local electronics retailer at midnight in order to be the first to get their sweaty mitts on the latest and greatest console gaming had to offer. Though like the theatrical release of Star Wars: Episode I or The Lord of the Rings, the attention garnered by this event was more human zoo-like spectacle than genuine interest.
Continue reading...
Weird Wasteland
The upcoming Tony Hawk game is set in 1980s L.A. with, if the trailers are to be believed, a soundtrack featuring Dead Kennedys and the Pixies. Prominent in the trailers are bike riding and a light rail train, which is cool but also very weird: L.A. is a horrible place to ride transit and bike.
Joystiq reports the clumsiest product displacement yet, where Electronic Arts removed a reference to Sega in House of Pain's anthem "Jump Around" from NBA Street v3. The corporate revisionist megamix in yo face!
Cracking a Moral Code
For those of you who paid for your copy of Tony Hawk 4 (Aspyr, 2003) on the PC, here's what you missed. Running INSTALLER.EXE in the pirated version brings up a window that shows a flat-monitor screen hanging painting-style on what looks to be a castle wall. A bouncy-yet-mournful synth tune plays in the background. Across the monitor, which has a circuit-board patterned background, there runs the text, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 © Aspyr. Enjoy another nice game from your friends at Class." And the friendly game crackers have outdone themselves with this installer: by using the arrow buttons you can move to another flat-screened monitor further along the castle wall, this one with the option to INSTALL. As you go between monitors, the perspective pulls out and then zooms back in dramatically. One of the options is to read the .NFO, a text file that is included with cracks to furnish more info.
Continue reading...
...
"I find it sadly ironic that in worlds only limited by our imagination, no one seems to have one." Bill Harris (on his blog on sports videogames, Dubious Quality) talks about why City of Heroes doesn't excite him.
Learning Vince's Dirty Moves
In July 1996, Hulk Hogan shocked the world by becoming what oppressed him the most as a hero in the 1980s: he turned heel. As the garbage filled the ring, he told Mene Gene Okerland, "As far as I'm concerned, all this crap in the ring represents the fans out here. " That year Pro Wrestling Illustrated's poll voted Hogan as the most hated wrestler.
I consider myself a heel. I have dark hair and dark eyes. And I'm usually up to no good. Catherine Kidd once asked me, after knowing me in Montreal for about a year "Are you nice?"
Continue reading...
No Love For the Glove
The line between gimmick and innovation is sometimes hard to draw. Game purists look down on specialized peripherals, and while I like my shotguns and dance-pads in single-purpose arcade games, I rarely think they're justified in a multi-purpose home system. Maybe I know too many people who bought the Power Glove. This Mattel peripheral was introduced in 1989. It worked with the Nintendo Entertainment System, but not as well as it worked for Fred Savage in the movie The Wizard.
Continue reading...
War Reporting
I know how Tim Carter feels. When I tell some people that punk rock saved my life, I get funny looks too.
In his documentary about Counter-Strike (Sierra, 2000), Carter tries to make a connection between videogames and martial arts. I think he fails at this, but he makes a valiant and genuine attempt to communicate what he knows to be true: that despite how bloody, violent and pointless the military first-person shooter looks to people on the outside, the game had a positive impact on his life.
Continue reading...
48 x 61
48 vs. 61 in Rintaro and Katsushiro Otomo's excellent bicycle racing short where the racers look kinda like Rintaro and Otomo. Also, damn fine music and possible steampunkery.Take Me Out to the Ballgame
I just read an article in The New York Times that filled me with hope -- hope for my relationship with cilantro. I’m in that small percentage of the
population that tastes something abominable in the herb. I find cilantro not only digusting, but also annoying, because it renders several international cuisines fraught with difficulty. This
particular article suggested that I might be able to turn cilantro-induced revulsion into pleasure, mostly by eating it repeatedly. Huzzah! Unfettered enjoyment of Indian and South American food is once again a possibility!
Kathryn Bigelow Retrospective
Kathryn Bigelow won a best directing Oscar for The Hurt Locker. Time for a retrospective. Here's the trailer for Near Dark and some clips. Point Break (i.e. Keeanu Reeves best movie). Jamie Lee Curtis in the cop thriller, Blue Steel. The premillennial tension of Strange Days. The Pirelli ad, Mission Zero. And her sub movie, possible the manliest of genres, K-19: The Widowmaker. She also wrote an episode of The Equalizer.VARIETY PAK
It’s been just over a year since I became a partner in the Mayfair Theatre, Ottawa’s oldest operating cinema. We’ve shown a lot of films in that time (we average about 40 a month), and I’ve written the synopsis for almost every one.
Where Does the Art Start?
It's hard to know where the art starts and ends in this story about the in-fighting in the wrestling cabaret stylings of Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling. "It's a bunch of grown men and women in costumes pretending to be professional wrestlers. It is to wrestling as 'West Side Story' is to actual gang relations." Who knows what Kaiju Big Battel's Los Plantanos think of SSP's The Banana.Incredible Combinations
A wrestler-fairy? A nerd-werewolf? A caveman-pirate? All these and more in Creebobby's second Archetype Times Table."That Yellow-Shirted Such-and-Such"
Frank Miller's Charlie Brown, Thumbsuckers.Fighting Words
"Struck by the resonances between professional wrestling and comics" at Occasional Superheroine. Mixed Martial Arts vs. "the sweet science of bruising" at Salon.
The Road To Mundo Fine: Zombies vs. Robots
The road to the end of the world is shorter than we think. Just when we've adjusted our rear and sideview mirrors and selected a soundtrack, the end stands before us, eyes shining in our halogen, ready to total our engine block. The only question now is: zombies or robots?
Continue reading...Squeeze Play
Romance
and sports don’t mix. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway.
It’s one of those weird rules, hidden and unarticulated, that seem
to underly any given genre. It’s a tenet that gets passed down to
new writers, not as gospel so much as in the form of a mild warning.
It’s not that books about athletes are uninteresting, the wisdom
would have it; it’s that they’re unsellable. Readers won’t
care about them, so editors won’t buy them.
Unlessyou’re Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Then all bets are off.
Continue reading...The Modern Master of Suitmation
It's a little Minoru Kawasaki retrospective: Calamari Wrestler (2004); Executive Koala (2005); Beetle, The Horn King (2005); Kani Goalkeeper (2006); The World Sinks Except Japan (2006).But Will Your Parents Play?
Based on the reaction to the November launch of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii through sales and media attention, it's clear that gaming as a cultural phenomenon has cemented itself into the collective consciousness. Local news media observed in awe as the faithful lined up outside their local electronics retailer at midnight in order to be the first to get their sweaty mitts on the latest and greatest console gaming had to offer. Though like the theatrical release of Star Wars: Episode I or The Lord of the Rings, the attention garnered by this event was more human zoo-like spectacle than genuine interest.
Weird Wasteland
The upcoming Tony Hawk game is set in 1980s L.A. with, if the trailers are to be believed, a soundtrack featuring Dead Kennedys and the Pixies. Prominent in the trailers are bike riding and a light rail train, which is cool but also very weird: L.A. is a horrible place to ride transit and bike.
Joystiq reports the clumsiest product displacement yet, where Electronic Arts removed a reference to Sega in House of Pain's anthem "Jump Around" from NBA Street v3. The corporate revisionist megamix in yo face!
Cracking a Moral Code
For those of you who paid for your copy of Tony Hawk 4 (Aspyr, 2003) on the PC, here's what you missed. Running INSTALLER.EXE in the pirated version brings up a window that shows a flat-monitor screen hanging painting-style on what looks to be a castle wall. A bouncy-yet-mournful synth tune plays in the background. Across the monitor, which has a circuit-board patterned background, there runs the text, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 © Aspyr. Enjoy another nice game from your friends at Class." And the friendly game crackers have outdone themselves with this installer: by using the arrow buttons you can move to another flat-screened monitor further along the castle wall, this one with the option to INSTALL. As you go between monitors, the perspective pulls out and then zooms back in dramatically. One of the options is to read the .NFO, a text file that is included with cracks to furnish more info.
Continue reading...
...
"I find it sadly ironic that in worlds only limited by our imagination, no one seems to have one." Bill Harris (on his blog on sports videogames, Dubious Quality) talks about why City of Heroes doesn't excite him.
Learning Vince's Dirty Moves
In July 1996, Hulk Hogan shocked the world by becoming what oppressed him the most as a hero in the 1980s: he turned heel. As the garbage filled the ring, he told Mene Gene Okerland, "As far as I'm concerned, all this crap in the ring represents the fans out here. " That year Pro Wrestling Illustrated's poll voted Hogan as the most hated wrestler.
I consider myself a heel. I have dark hair and dark eyes. And I'm usually up to no good. Catherine Kidd once asked me, after knowing me in Montreal for about a year "Are you nice?"
Continue reading...No Love For the Glove
The line between gimmick and innovation is sometimes hard to draw. Game purists look down on specialized peripherals, and while I like my shotguns and dance-pads in single-purpose arcade games, I rarely think they're justified in a multi-purpose home system. Maybe I know too many people who bought the Power Glove. This Mattel peripheral was introduced in 1989. It worked with the Nintendo Entertainment System, but not as well as it worked for Fred Savage in the movie The Wizard. Continue reading...
War Reporting
I know how Tim Carter feels. When I tell some people that punk rock saved my life, I get funny looks too.
In his documentary about Counter-Strike (Sierra, 2000), Carter tries to make a connection between videogames and martial arts. I think he fails at this, but he makes a valiant and genuine attempt to communicate what he knows to be true: that despite how bloody, violent and pointless the military first-person shooter looks to people on the outside, the game had a positive impact on his life.
