Gumfellas

Does anybody remember "Chu-Bops" bubblegum records?
Somewhere around the late '70s, early '80s, someone came up with the idea of making a music equivalent to baseball cards.
Instead of cards though, they made miniature record albums featuring accurate artwork from existing LPs.
Each mini-album contained a large coin-sized piece of gum shaped like a record.
My brother and I used to have a bunch of those back in France. I found a list online.
With the advent of CDs, you could still make these!
But the music itself is the problem. Do you stick to Rock? Do you include Rap and Pop?
I could see a series of classic rap Chu-Bops: NWA's "Straight Outta Compton", De La Soul's "Three Feet High And Rising",
Public Enemy's "Fear Of A Black Planet", the Beastie Boys' "License To Ill", stuff like that.

This flashback brought to you by Orbit and its "Bubblemint" flavor of gum, which tastes a bit like Chu-Bops gum.
I stopped consuming Altoids mints about 6 months ago, and after trying various gums, I settled on Orbit.
There are lots of flavors, it's cheaper than most, and it's sugarfree. My favorite flavor is Spearmint, of course. :)
My second favorite is Bubblemint. Citrusmint somehow winds up tasting a little bit like peach. Raspberry Mint is okay.
Mint Mojito is exotic and intriguing. Lemon Lime is HORRIBLE! Original is peppermint and it's fine.
I won't touch Cinnamint because I don't like cinnamon. Yesterday, I bought a pack of "Crystal Mint", realizing too late
that it was, in fact, Wintergreen, which is the one type of mint I despise the most. Argh!!!
There are 2-3 more flavors I haven't tried yet.


And now, because it's been, like, forever since the last one...

Netflixing!!!

"A Scanner Darkly" - aka "Rotoscoped Drug-Ravaged Addicts Say The Stupidest Things!"
If you like talking, you're in luck! There's a whole lot of it in Linklater's newest Photoshop opus.
Faithfully adapted from Philip K. Dick's book of futuristic Big Brother war on drugs, the film follows a schizophrenic
cop who's developed two distinct personalities: the drug cop, and the addict. Hilarity ensues when he winds up surveilling
himself and his circle of drain-bamaged buddies and doesn't even realize he's staring at himself!
Amusing if you like bright colors. Annoying if you know people who, or you yourself, are drug addicts.

"The Promise" - beautiful, gorgeous, touching, and funny.
A Chinese fairytale of the highest order, about a girl who is bestowed fame, fortune and great looks by a goddess.
The catch? She will never be with the man she loves. And the spell can't be broken unless the impossible happens:
time reversing itself, snow falling in spring and the dead coming back to life. Good luck with that! :D
Well, yeah, it's a fairytale. And it's byoo-tee-full! The colors are so vivid and every screenshot is worth framing.
There's combat aplenty, swordfighting in spades, ninja wire-work, some CGI, all that good stuff.
For some reason, one of the English dub voices sounds like Sean Connery, or a Sean Connery impersonator. Weird.

13 Tzameti - aka Gun Club. "If this is your first night, you have to shoot."
Quirky black-and-white French film where a young man from Georgia (the country) living in France overhears a conversation
about an expected letter while repairing the roof of a house. He accidentally comes into possession of said letter when it
arrives and decides to follow the instructions therein. All he knows is that big money is involved and he sure could use it
to help his family. He takes the train to Paris then gets more instructions, eventually winding up somewhere in the
countryside, with the police trailing him. Our protagonist winds up as a participant in a high stakes game of daisy-chain
russian roulette. The film is in French with English subtitles that can be turned on and off. I'm fluent in French of course,
but the protagonist and his family members speak in Georgian so I had to turn the subtitles on occasionally.
This is not a happy film, with a sort of existential film noir vibe. It's interesting though.

Fearless - aka Jet Li's Utterly Kick-Ass Historical Wushu Epic Drama
Oh, this one is a goodie! At the turn of the century, China was the Europeans' bitch and had no national pride, probably
because China was divided into a bunch of independent provinces. A contest was organized, pitting the best European (and
Japanese) fighters against China's best. (:in movie announcer voice) One man dared to stand against them.
The movie actually starts 30 years before that, showing this one man's childhood and upbringing.
This one is definitely recommended. It's a lot more accessible than some other Chinese films (I'm looking at you, "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon"!) and resonates with universal themes of honor, obligation and the importance of self-control.

The Invincible Iron Man -
Following up on the two "Ultimate Avengers" OVAs, Marvel and Lionsgate recently released this little DVD of animated powered
armor mayhem, starring Tony Stark, the REAL billionaire playboy, who makes Bruce Wayne look like the stiff he is. :)
Yes, this in a origins story. Stark is financing the raising of an ancient Chinese city, the former seat of power of
The Mandarin (DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUN!!!), but armed rebels bedevil the project, blowing shit up and killing workers.
Tony keeps promising to show up to smooth things out, but he never does, and his engineer buddy Rhodes, who's overseeing
the project, is getting royally pissed. Then Rhodes gets kidnapped and Tony has to do something.
The animation is on par with the "Avengers" stuff, with the added bonus of CGI for vehicles and certain characters.
There is a little bit of blood and at least one person shot in the head point-blank, execution-style.
I don't recall any heavy swearing or f-bombs. Still, this is not Sat-AM cartoon material, kids!
One of the bonus features is the opening sequence to the upcoming "Doctor Strange" OVA, due in August '07. Wooh!!!

An Inconvenient Truth - not be confused with "Policy Of Truth"
DJ Bro asked for this. I didn't really watch it. I did chuckle at the bit with the stepladder though.

The Celestine Prophecy - like a badly made cosmic infomercial...
The sibling also requested this. Apparently, he's read the book and he liked it.
The film, however, is complete shit. Lousy direction, awful acting, just a complete frigging waste.

The Departed - gets Marty his Best Director Oscar (FINALLY), eventhough it's not his best work
So yesterday, the Academy finally relented and gave Martin Scorcese a loooooooooooooooooooooong overdue Oscar for Best Dir.
And for an encore, gave him Best Picture as well. On one hand, I'm happy for Marty, 'cause I like him bunches and he rocks.
On the other hand, he shoulda won sooner for something IMHO better, like "The Aviator" or "Goodfellas" or about 3 others.
But Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were there to give it to him, so it was sweet.
"The Departed" is good for Marty, which means it would be fantastic coming from any other director.
It's set in Boston and somehow does not involve menacing blinking Lite-Brites attached to major landmarks. (HAR!!)
It's based on a Japanese film named "Infernal Affairs". Oh, just go rent it if you ain't seen it already! It's GOOD!!!