Hi everybody

In addition to the actual Chronicles, which you can find attached, there is also a URL below that I would encourage you to go to. It's a short movie made by a friend of mine by the name of Danish Ahmed. Danish and I met through a networking group called Referral Quest to which we both belong. Danish does a lot of stuff, but mainly he is an inspirational writer. This film, called The Love Movie, is deceptively simple. When you first look at it, you think, "What's this?", but as you get into it, you start to see that the message Danish is trying to communicate is quite elegant and beautiful. It's kind of a reminder for all of us to never lose sight of the real nature and joy of simple love. I know that sounds kinda hokey, especially coming from a hard boiled Spud like myself. But it's true. In all our rushing around trying to get from A to B with our asses intact, I do believe we kind of lose track of a lot of important stuff. Danish's job, it would appear, is to remind us of that fact in the hope that it will get us to slow down and smell the roses. The Love Movie was selected by my pal Caruso for the Love and Lust Film festival, and he might be able to show it at the Italian Film Festival later this year, if we can just get Danish to change his last name to Ahmedici or something.

Please feel free to forward this to anybody in your network who you feel could use a little love.

Cheers, Mur

http://www.TheLoveMovie.com/

 

 

******************************************

V O L U M E 249

THE LAST BIG FAT PLOP OF WINTER…I HOPE.

In about an hour or so it will be March. I’ve just come in from the preliminary show shoveling that will be continued tomorrow morning and probably at some point later on in the day too. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that this snow is not the product of a 25° below wind chill storm with serious gusts and two foot drifts. This is the wimpy-ass, almost rainlike snow that is just a degree or two from actually washing away the other snow that’s already on the ground. Yahoo. Truth be told, this snow is a lot easier to shovel, mainly because you’re not freezing your ass and/or face off while you’re doing it. Yeah, it’s a little bit heavier, but us veteran homeowners have built up some shoveling muscle over the winter months and it’s nothing we can’t do standing our heads. So bring on the wimpy-ass white stuff. I could care less and by this time next week it will all just be a memory and I’ll be getting the old bike lubed up for spring. At least I hope so. Otherwise, I could be in for one those deep dark depressions that are inevitably the result of heightened expectations losing out to cold hard, and in this case, snowy reality. Oi.

BYE BYE NYPD BLUE (12 YEARS 2 XL SPUDS PER YEAR = 24 XL SPUDS)

It was something like 12 years ago when NYPD Blue first hit. It starred Denis Franz and David Caruso, both looking a lot younger than they are today. From that first episode, I remember saying to myself, “Now this is a show that’s going to be around for a while”. Like many of my other predictions, which included Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Rocky Movies, Jeopardy and the career of Harrison Ford, I was right. This is the only other long running series besides 24 and Seinfeld that I can safely say I have seen and thoroughly enjoyed every episode. NYPD Blue evolved out of an earlier series created by TeeVee Land bigwig, Steven Bochco, called Hill Street Blues, which was another staple here at Spud Central. Both these series were imbued with a fundamental intelligence and a real ear for street language. Both were composed of ensemble casts and featured extremely good actors in both the main and secondary roles. The production values on NYPD Blue are extremely high. The grainy photography, gave the show a realism that almost made it feel documentary like. The quick 2 cut style and loose camera work have tightened up a bit over the past few years, but also go a long way toward enhancing the realism and showcasing the city of New York, with all its warts and bruises.

But any show that lasts this long has, at its core, a strong cast of characters who we all got to know quite well, because like most humanoids out there, their lives and their work were all jumbled up into one electrostatic ally charged mass, that is presented to us with such incredible skill, that we simply slide in at the start of each show and out at the end, never having felt like we were being acted at or told any sort of scripted story. We have instead spent the better part of an hour as a fly on the wall, observing something that’s probably closer than we might want to admit, to the day-to-day reality of most NYPD detectives.

What all this adds up to is pure, unadulterated TV brilliance. This is top notch TV entertainment and it will be sorely missed here at Spud Central as I’m sure it will in your TV room as well.

BLIND JUSTICE (ABC 10:00 PM TUESDAY) (2 SPUDS)

This is the replacement show for NYPD Blue, so it has some pretty big shoes to fill, but the first episode of Blind Justice managed to convince us that it a lot more than just a cool gimmick to juice up the tired cop show formula. IN A NUTSHELL: TV Veteran, Ron Eldard plays a NYPD detective who is blinded in the line of duty in one of the most intense gunfights I’ve seen in a while. Instead of going on disability, he sues the department to get his job back. The opening episode is all about his first day back on the job. Ron’s character has a lot to prove. FEARLESS FORECAST: Because it’s a Steven Bochco Show, everything about it is first class. The writing is great. The characters are interesting. The story is compelling. And the blindness is treated as a disability that Ron is working his ass off to overcome. It takes a really strong actor to pull something like this off, and Ron has just the right combination of grit and self-effacing humility to pull this off. This show has a built-in audience of Bocho fans, like me and the Wife, but what will carry it is if they can keep the level of believability high, which I’m pretty sure they can. This is outstanding TV. If the network ratings tank, it will just move to HBO or A&E and we will hopefully still be able to see it.

STONE COLD (2 SPUDS)

This is a made for TV movie, (that’s slated to be developed into a series for next fall or winter), that I taped a couple of weeks ago and just got around to watching. It’s significant for a couple of reasons. It marks the return to TV of one Mr Tom Selleck and it also marks the return to TV of a Robert B. Parker property. The last one of these was a very successful series in the mid eighties, called Spenser For Hire, which starred Robert Urich and Avery Brooks (who went to star in Deep Space Nine).

In Stone Cold, big Tom plays an alcoholic ex-LA homicide detective who is now the sheriff of a small New England town. Tom is very moody and kinda quiet in this movie and gets to drink a lot of scotch and stand on the porch of his seaside house looking out at the ocean, while he’s slowly solving a serial murder case and the rape of a local teenager. This movie has a very slow pace, but is extremely well directed and stylish looking for a made for TV flick. Nobody has a lot to say in this movie because the script is very economical, but the supporting cast and the bad guys are all very good too, so you kind of roll along with the movie without any real discomfort over the fact that it’s a made for TV flick, because there really is a sense of visual style to this film. Also unlike Tom’s other big giant hit series, Magnum PI, which was kind of chatty, almost a comedy in a way, Tom gets to do a fair bit of actual emoting, because this flick is pretty serious in tone.

As you can see I’m going on about this movie like it was a real movie that I went to the movies to see. Well, that’s because it really was that good. It should come around again at some point soon. I’d make a note to tape it and check it out. Most TV movies are one spud or less. But this is two spuds all the way. I just pray it doesn’t all turn to crap when they start rolling out the series.

AROUND THE BEND (ONE SPUD) This is a little indie flick whose only real saving grace would be, I thought, Christopher Walken. It’s basically the story of a family of men. Michael Caine is the grandpa, Chris is sis son, trip to honour his wishes. On one level it’s a kind of touching story about fathers and sons and mending fences. Unfortunately it’s poorly directed and photographed and as a result has a really then he has a son and that guy has a son. Anyway Michael Caine dies and leaves specific instructions regarding the disposal of his ashes and the three leftover men head out on a road depressing low rent feel to it. I’m sure that’s what the director intended. There’s not shortage of artsy fartsy assholes who are willing to sacrifice production values for the sake of a realistic feel. In this case, it just brings the movie down several notches and kind of nullifies all the good stuff that the actors bring to the party, yadda yadda. You can obviously tell I didn’t think much of this film. Too bad, because I think Christopher Walken is a National Treasure. (Yankee national that is).

SOME EASY TO FIND 2 SPUD CHRISTOPHER WALKEN MOVIE APPEARANCES The Rundown • Man On Fire • Poolhall Junkies • Catch Me If You Can • Suicide Kings • Wayne’s World • Batman Returns • Biloxi Blues • Last Man Standing

FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (1.5 SPUDS)

1)Besides sequels, Hollywood is really good at only two other things. 1. Stealing European movies and Americanizing them, and 2. Remaking movies that got made a long time ago. Flight Of The Phoenix falls into category 2, as it was originally made back in 1965 and starred Jimmy Stewart and a super heavyweight supporting cast that included Sir Richard Attenborough (or Dickie as he’s known around here), Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Hardy Kruger, Ian Bannen, Dan Duryea and George Kennedy. This was a pretty decent movie the first time out of the gate and it’s not half bad in this incarnation with Dennis Quaid, Hugh Lawrie, and an outstanding character turn by Giovanni Ribisi.

Essentially it’s the story of a oil drilling crew who are being transported, with a lot of their gear, home from some non-functional drilling site in the Gobi Desert, between China and Mongolia, which would probably get my vote for absolute butthole of the world. Anyway the plane crashes. That’s all I’ll tell you, because, as I said, this is a pretty decent flick and you’re going to need a few of them when the old re-runs start rolling. (And I’m no Larry King, who blabbed out the entire ending of Million Dollar baby to Chuck Swersky on the radio a few weeks ago. What a turd!)

The only thing I didn’t like about this movie, and it’s kind of something that I don’t like about most Hollywood movies I see these days is that everything, is kind of formulaic. Unusual things happen, but they aren’t really all that unusual. Some subplots get started but never completely resolved. Small stuff like that, which have the longer term effect of making the movie seem a bit linear and perhaps a little less tense than it could have been if someone had spent a little more time with the screenplay. But that’s just me splitting hairs. It’s a worthwhile flick. It’s very well put together and it’s got a neat plot and Dennis Quaid looks pretty buff, sweating away in the desert heat. What the hell do you want for six bucks?

THE SPORTS POTATO MINI CHRONICLE – HOOPS EDITION

WHY I AM, QUITE POSSIBLY, THE ONLY RAPTOR FAN WHO STILL LOVES VINCE CARTER

A few months ago, when all the “End The Vinsanity” crap started up in Toronto and culminated with Vince Carter’s trade to the New Jersey Nets, for nobody in particular and a little cap space, I was as happy as the next spud. But not for the same reason as everybody else. Most people had already come to the conclusion that Carter was just a prima donna pain in the ass who was dogging it most nights and poisoning the rest of the team with his attitude. But I was happy for Vince Carter, because with the precious few ounces of hoops savvy I do have, I knew that he was going to a team that already had an established leader, namely Jason Kidd, and another heavy hitter like himself, namely Richard Jefferson, who was scoring big before he got injured. I also knew that the Nets would put Vince into the right role for his kind of game and skill level. The Raptors, bless their pointed little heads, have never had a real point guard to rub the team on the floor, since Damon Stoudamire. And though you could argue that they did have team leaders in Antonio Davis, Charles Oakley and now Jalen Rose, the dumb press and the ignorant fans kept looking to Vince to be the big man. Which is something that he simply is not. And it drove him crazy. It put him off his game, because the pressure that was created and exerted on him were just too many balls for a point-getting shooting guard to juggle. Vince showed a lot of patience over the last few years. But finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. And I don’t blame him.

Last night I read that Vince has scored 20+ points in the last 18 games he has played for the Nets. He’s also dishing a boatload of assists, taking down a ton of rebounds, driving the basket, getting to the line and even playing some defence. In short, he’s doing everything a great NBA player should do. And why is he doing that? Because he’s playing on a team where that is all that is expected of him. He’s not the franchise. He’s the head role player. And his role is scoring points. If my fellow T.O. basketball fans and the yahoos who shape sports opinion here in Toronto would just start to see this for what it really is, they’d probably end up in the same place I am. Just happy that Vince is happy, because he seems to have finally found a team that knows how to manage him.

I’m not saying everybody should be happy for Vince. Most people will still think that he abandoned the sinking ship that is the Raptor’s franchise. I for one am pretty sad when I watch them get taken to the cleaners by what essentially turns out to be three gifted twenty something players for the Dallas Mavericks. I watch a lot of basketball. And what I see out there with the great teams is that they are bringing it every single game. The Raptor’s do their best, but, honestly, there’s really just not enough talent on the team at the moment. I’m hoping their new management can turn that situation around. But the simple fact is that it’s hard to get players to come to a cellar-dwelling franchise unless they’re used up, troublemakers or otherwise defective.

Thank God we live where we live and can get all kinds of other games. If all I had was Raptor games to watch…well, that kind of unthinkable.

That’s all she wrote for this episode. Happy trails and see you next time.