This is a follow up to my earlier post on Jim McCarthy and Off Wing Opinion (original), in light of further contemplation on my part and Eric’s post-mortem post (original). On reflection, I’m pretty comfortable saying that there are potential issues here. Blogs may not be newspapers, but allow me to quote Jim on using blogs for PR: “Blogs opened up a new front. It was a process of germination. The plan was to construct ideas with the media that would act as a filter so they would read subsequent pieces of information with the lens that you created.” ...

An Iraqi judge warrant was issued for Ahmed Chalabi’s arrest today, on charges of counterfeiting. A warrant was also issued for his nephew, Salem Chalabi, for murder. There are two basic possibilities here. One: Ahmed Chalabi is guilty, in which case it’s about time we started admitting that the guy behind a lot of our evidence against Iraq (original) is a liar and a crook. Those Iraqi defectors? He found them. He made up the meeting between Muhammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague. He may have been slipping information to Iran. He made up wacky stories about Saddam (original). He had the New York Times in his back pocket. Talk about a brilliant con man… ...

Now, see, we’re back to the joys of genre films that don’t wink at the audience again. After Harry Knuckles I was kind of resigned to Enter… Zombie King! being another semi-pro cheese-fest. (Note to self: get some info for this movie entered into IMDB, stat.) As it turns out, Stacey Case is a serious fan of zombies and wrestling and his movie rocks hard. It’s the same basic precept. Once you accept a world in which masked wrestlers are superstars of justice and zombies roam the earth, there’s nothing in the movie that sacrifices the plot for the sake of laughs. Occasionally the wrestlers serve as top secret consultants for the government, and that’s cool too. Since the movie takes itself seriously, it works. ...

This clip (original) is pretty surreal. A Fox news host is quizzing Disney’s president about the new Disney computer for kids, and he takes a sudden right turn into attacking him for sponsoring Gay Days (original) at the theme parks. That’s what I call good clean utterly insane fun.

Shaolin Soccer is playing this weekend at the Brattle — anyone interested in a Saturday showing, say 7:30? (Friday at 9:30 would also work for me.) They’ve also got Last Life in the Universe coming up, which won Best Overall Film (Jury Prize), Best Asian Film (Jury Prize), and the AQCC Award at FantAsia (original). Gotta make sure I get out to see that.

OK, here’s the deal with the Enter… Zombie King! DVD. The film has been sold to a distributor and will be out on DVD in October; the DVDs will be available on the Tijuana Bibles site and High Spots. It’s also going to air on TV in winter/spring 2005. (Whoa!) Straight from the horse’s mouth (original).

I really enjoy Eric McErlain’s Off Wing Opinion. It’s a great sports blog, very well written, with a lot of hockey coverage that I’d otherwise not get. Eric’s a Republican, and from time to time he makes political posts. So what? For that matter, Jim Pinto is pretty conservative, and it doesn’t stop me from reading Baseball Musings. Again, why would it? If I had to agree politically with everyone I talked to, there are a lot of good people who I’d never see again. ...

Wow, that was a lot of movies I just saw there. I’m still a little dazed. But while the cinematic extravaganza is fresh, I will provide a nifty capsule guide to everything I saw. First, though, some notes. The samurai movie “I badly want to see, but which I did not catch the name of, so all I know is that there’s a young woman who apparently trains to be a samurai when her… brother? is killed…” is Azumi by Ryuhei Kitamura, who also directed Versus. This makes me want to see it all the more. ...

It’s probably not the case that all Thai movies are deliriously loopy; my sample size of three is far too small. However, The Bodyguard is deliriously loopy. It’s like a goofy 80s Hong Kong cop movie, except much more so. I wanted to see this one because it stars Petchtai Wongkamlao, aka Mum Jokmok, who was in the incredibly cool Ong Bak. Phanom Yeerum, the lead from Ong Bak, has a cameo appearance as well. Alas, his cameo is the only serious martial arts moment in the movie — the Riverdance sequence later on doesn’t really count — and The Bodyguard is emphatically more of a comedy than an action movie. Think Chris Rock, but without Jackie Chan around to provide butt-kicking. ...

I figured Into The Mirror was going to be just another postmillenial Asian horror film. (How quickly we become jaded!) Turns out it’s a cop movie about the redemption of a man who got his partner killed and now labors as a security guard. His story just happens to take place in the context of a clever slasher movie with Asian horror elements to it. The lead, Ji-tae Yu, was the antagonist in Oldboy, and while I didn’t like Oldboy that much, I remember thinking he was good. I’m coming perilously close to having enough of a handle on Korean cinema to go out hunting obscure DVDs. Gotta keep a handle on that tendency. ...