I am one of the many people who enjoyed Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess's debut.  It was irreverent, silly, and perhaps most importantly, quotable.  I can be cool these days and say, "You know, I saw that when it was out in the theaters," seeing as how popular it became on DVD.  (PS - Shout out to Seda Puda!)  Unfortunately, being so cool also has the drawback of seeing 45-year old men at bars and soccer moms at the store wearing "Vote for Pedro" shirts.  So now is about the perfect time for Hess's follow-up.  And who better to pair up with them than Jack Black himself, along with writer Mike White, who wrote School of Rock. 

There's a ton to talk about in this movie and I don't feel like giving you a blow-by-blow, so I'll just keep it simple.  The concept is funny enough: Jack plays Ignacio, a Mexican monk who goes into lucha libre with a street urchin named Esqueleto (whom he calls "Stephen") to make money for his orphanage.  There's plenty of colorful characters to fight along the way, including a large wrestler named Silencio, clad head to toe in black with two silver seahorses on his chest.  There's plenty of quotable quotes, Jack Black songs, and bad Mexican accents to go around.  And in the end, it's still heartwarming.

Hess's style of filmmaking is quite similar to Wes Anderson's, where framing, camera moves, and zooms and pans all play a part in the way the movie looks and feels.  They're also well known for their soundtrack choices.  All of Anderson's soundtracks are great, and they usually play into the movie.  Hess did a pretty good job with the Napoleon soundtrack, but hit the nail on the head with Nacho... so much so that I'm thinking of buying it.  Hell, Beck did half of the songs.  Another trademark I picked up on is the use of costumes.  Anderson's costume design has been talked about for years, but the same could be said for Hess's movies, although it's not as high-scale. 

I say that if you enjoy the ads for Nacho Libre, you're probably going to love it.  If you're scratching your head, then you're probably not the target audience.  And in my opinion, that's just as well.  NACHOOOOOOOOOO!

This post will be about seeing the Yankees on Friday
I was afraid we may have had made the trip in vain because the forecast for the whole weekend was for rain and/or thunderstorms.  This, of course, happened to Dean when he came all the way up to see the Sox play the Yanks at Fenway, only to have it cancelled.  However, the weather held off on Friday (exept for the seventh inning) and the game was played. 

I took pictures from where our seats were, but all of my "put the pictures on the computer paraphernalia" is upstairs, so I'll post them another time.  We were actually the second to last row from the top, but the view was still great.  You could see pretty much everything (except the action in right field) and you could still hear the bat, the infield gloves, etc.  The Stadium was pretty packed, too (over 54,000), so the place was pretty pumped up.  When Bernie Williams would get up, the place went crazy.  When A-Rod got up, the fans would try to encourage him, and then boo him when he struck out in his first at-bat.  Things got better for him, though, because he'd end up getting the go-ahead run later on, and we were grateful.  Meanwhile, the Marlins couldn't field to save their lives. 

Things would get close later on when Kyle Farnsworth would give up a run to make the score 6-5 Yankees.  But in the ninth, the familiar opening notes of "Enter Sandman" would signal the arrival of Mariano Rivera himself.  The Stadium went nuts, and he quickly dispatched all three batters.  We sang "New York, New York" with Frank Sinatra, and I got separated from my group when I tried to run to the bathroom quickly.  But still, when I got out of there, there was a "Boston Sucks" chant going on, so I got in on that.

Sorry if this seems a little jumbled so far, but I'm tired.

The ride home was crazy.  From Bridgeport, CT (where the ferry drops you off) to Hartford was all solid, can't-see-in-front-of-you rain.  I've been able to handle driving rain plenty in the past, but this had to be the worst.  Greg will remember coming home from Holyoke recently in the rain, and I'll have him know that this was worse.  But hey, at least when I got home, my car had a spotless shine.

And now a little on the World Cup
Team USA is already out of the World Cup, which doesn't surprise me.  They couldn't even scratch together a win in the group stage after all of the Nike-fueled hype around them.  I think the team was pretty good, it's just that they're not better than the Czech Republic or Italy, and hell, even Ghana must have something on us at that rate.  Landon Donovan is way overrated, too.  George said that he was like the Bode Miller of this whole thing, which I guess is accurate, but Donovan wasn't out going to bars and fighting with the natives at night. 

Meanwhile, my number two team, England, has advanced to the Round of Eight.  I know who almost every starter is for the English squad, but I could probably only tell you about three of the Americans.  How screwed up is that?  David Beckham got the winning goal today, and my boy Wayne Rooney played all 90 minutes, which makes me happy.  If Rooney's already back to playing a full game, he should be good to go for next season at Manchester United.  Portugal is next in their sights, where another Man U star, Cristiano Ronaldo, is sure to be a factor.  I assure you, this is exciting.

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing Nacho Libre tomorrow night... I'll let you know what I think. 

I remembered ECW from my high school days.  Back then, I didn't have cable, so watching the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW was out of the question.  So after looking through the weirder, independent broadcast stations late at night, I would discover ECW.  I wasn't an avid follower of the promotion at the time, but I certainly took notice.  In ECW, they had no "rules," as if they're needed in pro wrestling; but it made for a very unique show.  The use of chairs, tables, kendo sticks, etc. was commonplace.  Characters like the Sandman, New Jack, Taz, Sabu, the Dudleys, and Rob Van Dam were all colorful, well-developed, and fun to watch.  While WWF and WCW were off creating "sports entertainment," ECW was trying to keep wrestling exactly what it was -- wrestling. 

ECW went bankrupt in the late nineties and WWF bought them shortly before buying WCW and being renamed WWE.  A lot of ECW talent stuck around to start with, but were soon being kicked out or released by Vince McMahon's company.  The only one of those guys who really managed to attain a heightened level of popularity in WWE to this point was Van Dam.  But with the second annual One Night Stand approaching, WWE got the bright idea to bring ECW back as a full-time operation, and guys like myself took this as a bad omen.  We figured that although it might be great to see the promotion come back to weekly television, it wouldn't be the same.  But the buildup to ONS was getting good, then better.  Also, interviews with Paul Heyman made it seem like he would have the majority of creative control, which was the key to ECW's original success.

And so, One Night Stand hit this Sunday night from New York City.  The show was fantastic, especially compared to the regular programming WWE had been offering up on Raw and Smackdown.  A ton of the old ECW guard were there, the crowd was full of genuine ECW faithful, and the matches were fantastic.  Heyman was in his glory, the brash loudmouth promoter acting just as much like the loose cannon he'd been years ago.  The main event, in which Rob Van Dam beat John Cena for the WWE title, was the perfect ending to a very well-booked show.  Cena was the perfect champion to take the title off of on Sunday: he was cheered by tons of screaming kids in much the same way as Hulk Hogan, and that's the kind of thing that makes ECW fans and jaded WWE fans want to hurl.  He'd also been champion for basically a year (except for a three-week period in January when he briefly lost it).  The whole thing was a sort of victory for the working-class over big business. 

I'll skip all of the plot details that took us through Monday Night Raw and into last night's debut of the new ECW show.  But it was shocking how much can happen in two nights.  The show was terrible.  Part of it can be attributed to the fact that the show will usually be taped before Smackdown is taped.  The problem there is that the crowd that goes to SD shows aren't there for ECW.  They don't know the talent.  Another problem was the fact that ECW is being played on, of all stations, the Sci-Fi channel.  Because of this, Sci-Fi felt that they needed supernatural-themed characters, so there was a zombie and a vampire thrown in.  Nothing against zombies and vampires, but they don't belong on and ECW show.  As I read online, "The original plan was for the Sandman to beat up an alien character, however Sci-Fi refused to allow an alien to be beat up on their network."  That right there is comedy gold.  They also threw in a terribly gratuitous strip-tease from some hot chick, because they figured "Hey, it's EXTREME, so let's look like we're pushing the envelope!"  And you'd think that at least the wrestling would save the show... well, they only had two of what you might consider matches (which were just squashes), and a ten-man battle royale that featured plenty of botched moves. 

So this morning, I checked 411wrestling.com (my favorite source for insider news) and all of my worst fears were confirmed: Paul Heyman wrote the show, but it was rewritten by Vince McMahon himself.  Everyone there, including Paul, thought the show was a total disaster.  Vince's yes-men told him the show was a huge hit.  Basically, as I feared, it's not ECW, but it's WWE's idea of what ECW should be. 

In a couple of weeks, ECW will tape at the original ECW Arena in Philadelphia, where it all began.  They'll be by themselves, in front of their real fans.  That is, as long as they last that long.  If things don't change creatively, ECW might die all over again.

I would like to let Strawberries Dude know that about a week later, my new issue arrived with a cover story on The Raconteurs, the very project Jack was working on.  He wasn't working the night I picked up the album, without even bothering to read the article.  Broken Boy Soldiers is a great collection of songs in the vein of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and other great rock bands.  As Greg put it when we listened after our last pre-Florida round of golf, "It's like a fresh batch of classic rock."  Even though you can detect Jack White all over the CD from his vocals, guitar, and synthesizers, it's not all about him.  Brendan Benson, an old Detroit pal, is just as influential with his great songwriting and sweet melodies.  I know it's been said before and usually kills bands when it happens, but it's a Lennon/McCartney kind of relationship that creates some excellent music.  Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes fill things out as the rhythm section.  I don't know who they are, actually, but the four of them gel perfectly.

The Raconteurs are apparently not what most people think they are; a supergroup, a side project, a vacation from the members' respective 'day job' bands, an ego trip, etc.  They insist that they're hoping to be a long-term rock band, and after the many many spins I've already taken this album for, I hope it's true.  More than anything, I think that this band will be the next phase in the legend that will someday be Jack White, much the same way Eric Clapton built his reputation over the years with Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominoes, and eventually his solo work.

And while we're on the topic of music
It's kind of a shame that I got Broken Boy Soldiers in the same swoop as Editors' The Back Room.  It's not that I was comparing the two, it's just that I think that Editors' effort was kind of overshadowed by the other purchase. 

Editors (not The Editors) are one of the slew of bands being slapped with the "Joy Division tribute/ripoff" label that critics seem to be handing out with gusto these days.  I got into Joy Division thanks to Interpol, and I ended up with the opinion that they sounded only slightly similar to one another, mostly because of the fact that the vocals of Ian Curtis and Paul Banks were reminiscent.  After listening to The Back Room once, I was really shocked by the fact that it's Editors' Tom Smith who sounds 99% like Interpol's Banks.  Some songs, "Camera" in particular, could be mistaken for Interpol simply because he is dead on to Banks' timbre and style.

Editors really didn't even know much of Joy Division to begin with (they even said that they were surprised by the similarities), but they're not a carbon copy, just as Interpol wasn't.  Editors possess a lot of those hooks and semi-punk tendencies, but they've also got a slight Coldplay aftertaste, something I noticed with Bloc Party.  I guess that Brit producers seem to want to follow that trend of whimsy in their rock albums.  But don't let that deter you, there's a lot of really good stuff to get at in this album.  Listen to Editors because they're Editors, not because they kind of sound like four other bands you might have heard of.  It's great stuff, and these guys might end up being huge, but in a good way.

Fun Fact!
I referenced sixteen bands/artists in this post.  That has to be a record... I need to stop name dropping.

June is also a good time to have graduations.  Speaking of which, yesterday was my sister's high school graduation.  I'm very proud, Fran!  Your speech was great, and you cleaned up.  This town really loves you, and it showed by the honors and such that you received.  You're going to do great, there's no doubt... so go get 'em.

X-Men 3 was a pretty good movie IMHO
Greg (who's moving to Florida in a couple days) and I saw X-Men: The Last Stand last week.  I'd heard a lot of negative buzz about this one from people like us, being comic fanboys.  Meanwhile, most of the people who weren't familiar with X-Men canon seemed to enjoy it.  Ultimately, Greg and I thought it was really good, but there were points to be made for both arguments.  Lemme break it down for you...

The Pros:

• Kelsey Grammer was perfectly cast as Henry "Beast" McCoy.  He had been in my "fantasy cast" for years, so I'm glad that Fox knew to pick him out as the gentle blue giant.  The character was very well-written.
• Ian McKellen's Magneto had some of his best moments in this one (even though his prison escape in X-2 was my favorite).  His speeches were as stirring as ever, too, but the helmet was still kinda stupid looking.
• Vinnie Jones delivered with the Internet-inspired "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" line. 
• Rebecca Romijn is naked in a PG-13 manner.  John Stamos is a stupid man.
• Hugh Jackman owns the Wolverine role, and I am even more pumped now to see The Fountain (coming in October!).

The Cons:

• You can tell that this project was rushed, almost to the extent that Fox wanted to show up Brian Singer for leaving, saying "Ha ha, we got our movie out before your big Superman movie.  Also, we don't care if it isn't as good."
• The Phoenix angle is all wrong.  It's one of the key X-Men storylines and it's only treated as a subplot here.
• Nightcrawler is not in the film.
• Too many key characters get killed off or lose their powers, which really sucks when you realize that more sequels are possible.  I won't reveal who kicks the bucket, but believe me, they're very important to the story.
• Crummy continuity in spots.
• Halle Berry delivers her lines like a robot.  She's an Oscar winner, for crying out loud, and she can't give Storm any more urgency?
• The Morlocks were thrown in as an afterthought, and they're as maligned as the Phoenix element of the film.

Thing is, though, when everything got put together, it was still a decent movie.  Probably better than the Fantastic Four and Daredevil flicks that came out (I didn't see them because I don't care about those guys), but not as good as the first two X-Men entries and certainly not as good as Sam Raimi's Spider-mans or Batman Begins.  Looking forward to Superman Returns...