Shouting Grounds

Fucking Brilliant! What a goddamn lunatic. Pissed because he doesn’t understand the phrase “Play us out”, and afraid that he’s being made to seem out-of-touch, an adult child throws a tantrum. It seems to me like he got his dick caught in a drawer or something. The fact that it continues after the show has concluded is amazing and sad.

yeah

Okay this is some seriously sick shit here. Apparently Tom Cruise opened a website completely ode to himself today! It’s literally a bunch of shit flash animations and pictures showcasing the films he’s starred in and the “achievements” he’s made in his life! Not a single mention of Scien”crazy”ology or even his wife or daughter! It’s a 100% about him!

Okay who on this planet seriously doesn’t know who the fuck Tom Cruise is? You’d have to live in a 3rd world country with no access to virtually anything for you entire life! And if that is you, then you don’t give a shit about Tom Cruise anyway! And if you do live in the “developed” world then you know who the fuck he is already so this site serves ZERO capacity in that regard!

When it comes right down to it, this site is nothing more that a serious ego stroke for this punter!! Anyone who thought this guy wasn’t LONG off the reservation already should be thoroughly convinced now!

Tomcruise.com

Fresh off the press from our favorite fear-machine! CNN has a new ‘feature’ called “CNN T-Shirt“. If you czech out the headlines under “Latest News”, you’ll see some of the stories have the little camera icon next to them, sure to deliver about 90 seconds of commercials and 30 seconds of news. Nothing new right? Well today I see a little t-shirt icon next to that one. Clicked on it and get this Total Bullshit (TM) new idea…CNN T-Shirt. Apparently you can order a shirt in your choice of size, color and sex…with the headline and the timestamp of when it happened.

Okay…are you really fucking kidding me? Try this one on, dumbshits:

In altering my workout routine, I haven’t been able to have my morning drip-coffee because I go directly from the gym to the car to work…so I’ve been buying coffee en route. Despite my better judgement, I’ve paid an exorbitant amount of money a few times for a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks. Last week I noticed Seattle’s finest changed their cup logos to something completely perverse. The usual green circle has gone brown (surprising since everyone and their mother are trying to project a ‘green’ image all the sudden), and the image of the mermaid has been pulled back to reveal her full glory…glory hole that is. The little tart is now completely spread eagle, pushing her goods on the whole world. And I mean all the goods, jugs too. She’s even holding her ankles for maximum obtusion! WHORE! Who’s ever seen a mermaid with a split tail anyway? Can she walk on land?

The protests in France were ugly as balls.  CNN has some great footage of the whole thing.  (Hopefully Still Here, Link on the Left)

From the first lighting of the torch all the way through to the end, the entire process looked like crap. 

Even though China doesn’t hold a “flame”, or torch (haha) to the rest of the world as far as human right go (though I am no expert on this), the display of garbage seen below isn’t any better.  Well, I guess it is since the FREE TIBET NOW boneheads probably weren’t shot later.  I mean who REALLY gives two shits about the Olympics?

Pretty, ugly eh?  Kind of like this dude…

There are those moments in your life (increasingly so, now that the Internet is so ubiquitous) were you may experience something for the first time, only to find out later that the opportunities to do so are drastically limited, or worse yet, in your ignorance, you discover that you will never experience it again. This is case with myself and kung fu cinema.

I really didn’t start watching and buying movies until the end of the 90′s, about the time when the modern-classic age of hong kong cinema was coming to and end. China now had possession of Hong Kong and many famous directors had fled for fear that their craft would be handicapped in some way by the political shift that was taking place. The great films of the 80′s and 90′s had already made their mark on the collective soul of chinese action cinema, and I was seeing it all for the first time.

The Prodigal Son

Out of the movies I’ve seen, “The Prodigal Son” film stood out. It stood out from the thousands of films because of it’s technical merit and because the respect for the chosen technique, featured in the story; Wing Chun.

No…not the band Wang Chun, or whatever…Wing Chun is a close-range Chinese fighting style. It is the style that Bruce Lee had been proficient in prior to creating his own forms. The secret behind the style is that the practitioner can defend and attack at the same time, without wasting energy with wild movement. Whether or not it could stand up to a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu onslaught (see “no”) is not my concern. It is a poetic style and lends itself well to being the featured art of a kung fu film.

Here is a scene from The Prodigal Son, which is, in my opinion, the finest technical fight scene I’ve ever seen in a film:

The fight scene is masterful in adhering to the rules of Wing Chun and not only is it fast, but it’s technically flawless. Very cool. That’s one that benefits from a slow-motion viewing or two.

Along with the riveting action sequences and technical accuracy there’s a great story and some comedy too. As with most Hong Kong action cinema you get a little of everything. One second someone’s wife could be getting raped, and the next there’ll be a fart joke. Couple this with the fact that the bad guy always gets killed/defeated and you now have the principle reasons why I love kung fu movies.

With the tone of recent martial arts action movies out of China turning, primarily, to tragic themes (Curse of the Golden Flower, Hero, Fearless, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, to name a few), I miss the old care-free days of “Cantonese comedy”-infused films.

Just for fun, here’s the final fight scene (complete with shitty dubbing and ass-hair-burning musical score)(watch for the headbutt, awesome!):

Fucking Sweet

The actor in the first fight scene on the bridges, who is practicing Wing Chun, is Lam Ching Ying. Who died in 1997 from liver cancer. So he was long dead by the time I even saw this movie. Sucks that he’s not around to school the next generation of action stars.

Here’s a great page detailing the life and death of a great kung fu action star.

Here are some bonus clips of Lam Ching Ying in action (awsome):
Spook Encounters 2
Magnificent Butcher
Wheelchair Beatdown

Best thing about this video is the scenes from Breakin’ in the beginning. It really takes me back to when I was a kid me and my cousins would watch that movie then run outside and try to pull that crazy shit off.

As for the Krump I fuckin love it. People talk shit left and right about it but I love the amount of energy it puts out. The boy Tight Eyez is fuckin spectacular at it. You’ll see him in the second part of the video. First in the green shirt and black cap in front of the garage door then later in the brown shirt and green baseball cap. At times he moves so fast he actually starts to blur, HA!

Oh and the music in the 1st half is fuckin schweeeeeet.

Badass.