Friday, August 25, 2006

Bon Cop Bad Cop: Canada’s First Cop Buddy Flick!!!

Ever since I heard about Bon Cop Bad Cop starring Patrick Huard and Colm Feore, my hopes were high. The poster alone got me going. Our first cop buddy flick! I’m happy to saY I was not disappointed. First of all, great picks. These guys have great chemistry and couldn’t be further from each other on the spectrum. Colm Feore is a character actor with a huge range (from Pierre Elliot Trudeau to Lord Marshal, the bad guy in The Chronicles Of Riddick) and Patrick Huard (buffed up to Vin Deisel proportions)is a French comedic actor on TV & movies probably best known for his work in Les Boys I, II & III.

Martin Ward (Feore) is a Toronto Cop who wants a cushy desk job and David Bouchard (Huard) is on the edge of getting his ass fired. Cooperation with ‘the other side’ is their only salvation when Quebec and Canada need to solve a crime that literally involves both sides. The language conflicts, the witty banter and the inside jokes are great. This however, may cause a problem with anyone outside of Canada; are we laughing cuz it’s funny or because it’s familiar? I’d have to say it’s a healthy dose of the two.

Although Bon Cop Bad Cop is a bit hokey, with its plot surrounding a serial killer obsessed with hockey (how Canadian/Quebecois!) it’s still funny as Hell. The comedy is mile-a-minute, the cast is rock solid-French comedian Louis-José Houde as Jeff the coroner is gold and Rick Mercer’s Don Cherryesque character is a guy you love to hate. The action is very Lethal Weaponish as there are enough fight scenes, explosions and post-explosion comedy/mystery to keep you going. A little formulaic, but hey, it’s their first time. My only other complaints are the use of too many subtitles and the badguy revealed at the end. Bad actor, horrible accent.

Overall, Bon Cop Bad Cop is a great laugh, but could definitely use some work. Fortunately there’s talk of a sequel. Hopefully the few kinks can be ironed out with a story that still busts on the English/French divide while appealing to a broader audience.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Bleach is the new Zen

Damn. I totally forgot about BLEACH!

Toilet smellin funky, washing machine needs a good cleaning, tub nasty, cat pissing on my bed, you know, the yuj.

Yeah, so I have a lock on my bedroom door cuz my porno collection's vintage, problem is I left Onyx in there...for the whole day. I left the little nigguh in there before, my bad, but he be chillin, if it's only for an hour or two.

One day I didn't do the obligatory 'OUT!'sound check-to which he'll usually bolt from his designated chillspot-before I lock the do'.

I came home late that night to unlock and immediately sunk into denial mode. Naw, I don't smell shit, or piss. Hmmm can't seem to find it. Then I climb my loft bed. No. He couldn't have done his business on the floor, under my dresser, he had to leave a smokin pile right near the pillow and pour pee into the mattress.

Frebreeze? Ninja, please.

Bleach saved the day-Ooh, so my mattress is stained. yeah, but the PEE smell is gone. Happy day. Bad back tho, had to sleep on the couch for a couple nites

But after washin a few thangs down I realized, bleach is the new Zen. It's spiritually calming to eradicate funk of all strains. Bleach is the new Zen. Nothing can resist its awesome cleaning power. Even the cat's clean! Strangely enough, he doesn't move any more...

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Hangin with Mike Patton Amon Tobin & Terrecon!!

Last week August 10th, Mike Patton touched down in the Mtl with his project Peeping Tom. (http://www.myspace.com/peepingtomispatton)

For y’all out of the loop, Mike Patton is the legendary and insanely versatile voice that has cemented itself in music history with Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas (with Buzz, the guitarist from the Melvins and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo on Drums) Tomahawk and has worked with Björk and beatboxing king Rahzel.

Speaking of Rahzel, he was one of the culprits in Mike Patton’s band. Peeping Tom is a mix of the old and new, silly lyrics, screaming, r n b singing (with a HAWT back up vocalist by the name of ) metal guitars, spiderman on keys, a DJ drums and a gong.

Coulda used more gong.

I checked out the show with Amon Tobin (responsible for the soundtrack to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (Ninjatune) and several unclassifiable albums of production genius) He also worked on a couple tracks for the Peeping Tom album. A barely-conscious Terrecon also accompanied us-watch out for this cat, he’s the next big thing comin’ outta Montreal!!!! Barely-conscious because he’d been up for 3 days straight, giggin’, producin’ and partyin’.

We left from Amon’s pad and took the metro-an alien concept to Amon as he usually walks or grabs a cab and Terrecon as he drives. I played gracious host and chaperone to the two, explaining the wonders of our transportation system.

After purchasing earplugs, we checked out the show which drew a solid crowd of Faith fans, Patton fans and several other strains of weirdo including Kid Kola Moondata’s Rhyna, Bluebird and Ninjatune North America honcho Jeff Waye and his wife. Mostway into the show, Terrecon could no longer stay erect so he walked back to his car. So disorientated was he that he walked all the way to Papineau from Beaudry-the opposite direction from where we came, effectively making his cracked-out journey twice as long.

Amon and I hung back to chat with Patton who was still pink from post-show blood rush. The two chatted about how they needed to work on something together from scratch as they’re both insanely busy-Patton constantly on tour, this show an off-day from their romp with ridiculously popular Gnarls Barkley, and Amon working on a new record and constantly globe trotting. All I could do is stand there in awe as two of some of my favourite musicians were shootin’ the shit.

You don’t understand.

Faith No More was a minor religion to me and the first time I heard Amon I flipped-and continue to cuz the new shit? Shit...

Anyways, I talked to Mike for a spell, catching up. Every time he’d drop in the city we’d chat, ever since I beatboxed in his ear after a Mr. Bungle show, he’d been wanting to hear more. But he’ll only get the best...I’m workin’ on it!!!

The night ended with Pizza care of Amon and him headin to his girly’s. I headed home inspired by two of the sickest kids in the game. Soon it will be my turn, mwahahahaha!!!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

It's a House of Cosbys...

The House of Cosbys

Has anyone seen this?

Spoiler below

The concept is that a white fan (Mitchell) finds a Cosby hair and creates a cloning machine. He clones a Bill Cosby to tell him jokes but gets carried away and clones more. As it turns out each Cosby specializes in something and has very limited speech referring to everyone as Theo, Rudy or in rare instances Kodak and Dwayne Wayne.

The look of each Cosby focuses on a distinguishing feature of Bill Cosby, making each look a little different from the last. There’s Curiosity Cosby (with a huge nose and chameleonesque bug eyes) dancing Cosby, Bathtub Cosby; you get the picture. There’s even a Cosbyette whom Cosby fan, Mitchell, fucks. (shudder)

Every tenth Cosby is a Super Cosby with special skills or powers. The first is Data Analysis Cosby whose look is based on Leonard Part 6. It’s clear a white person is doing his voice (the credits prove it, it’s the guy who does Mitchell voice) and sounds nothing like the passable-and admittedly funny Cosby voices-I’ll get to that later. Other Super Cosbys include, Ammunition Cosby, Carpenter Cosby, BCD2 (take a guess) and Preacher Cosby…then there’s the superhero group Cosby Team Triosby.

I’m not gonna front. The shit is hilarious. I can’t stop watching it. Out of context it’s a riot, but in the context of the history of social status, it’s another story, a story where I can see why Bill Cosby himself shut it down. His lawyers have lobbed cease and desist orders to Channel 101, the website responsible for broadcasting the four 5 minute shorts. Needless to say it’s a little harder to find the four-episode only series on the net.

These Cosbys are cloned to do things around the house, tell jokes, clean, cook. It’s sounding a bit like personal slaves. Throw in the fact that many of the Cosbys are voiced by white folk and the added dimension of Minstrel Shows comes into play.

Back in the day, a black person who wanted to perform theatre had to wear blackface. That’s right folks: Blackface, It Ain’t Just For White folk.

White folk who did blackface got a kick out of it and even found solace and calm in the release and freedom of playing a simple Black caricature. Role playing has that effect, especially when those impersonated didn’t bear the burden of running things, seemingly leading a simple-minded, irresponsible and carefree life-much how Black folk were portrayed in any movie old enough to be black and white. Then again...

I seriously doubt there was anyone black doing Cosby, but when it comes down to it, everyone likes to do Cosby. So in this case I’ll let this one slide- I’ve always hated cartoons with black characters voiced by white guys. What can be seen as racist however, is the fact that the most intelligent of Cosbys (Data Analysis Cosby) doesn’t sound like Cosby at all. Hmmmm...

I can hear the moans now.. ‘You’re taking this shit waaay too seriously’. I’d rather look at it as getting your mind to think down paths it may have not otherwise.



The folks at Channel 101 including creator Justin Roiland point out that South Park and The Simpsons lampooned the Coz with no legal retaliation. Once again, a far cry from what The House Of Cosbys is doing. It is the subtle and subconscious elements of slavery and the minstrel qualities of the show that have most likely caused the Coz’s ire-besides the riffing of him as a caricature But hey, I could be totally wrong and the Coz just can’t take a joke…

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Fuck War Let's Fuck!!

I'm not one for petitions, but this one's legit.


If you're for an end to the pointless loss of lives and culture between Israel & Lebanon, sign on to the ceasefire petition. The UN is paying attention and might actually have enouigh pull to something about it, but they need to know people are pissed!!!!!!

Cheerz

http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/mo/en.html

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Don't let the anchor of shouldawouldacoulda

stop you from setting sail on a new adventure...

Friday, August 04, 2006

I never understood why

People say 'Wahoo!!' instead of 'Yahoo!!'

Thursday, August 03, 2006

System of A down for my nephew

So yesterday was a fun, wet, muddy experience as I took my 12-year-old nephew to his first concert.

He loves System Of A Down, and for all y'all who don't know, he couldn't have picked a more musically complex, politically conscious and just plain fun sing-along band to fall in love with. System Of A Down are four Armenian-American psychos who started out artsy and nuts, and by their third album, dumbed their music down a bit, but have gotten hundreds of thousands of teens to sing along to anti-war and anti-Bush administration-themed songs.

This show was @Parc Jean Drapeau, Montreal and I feared the worst as it rained off and on all day. But lo and behold the heavens held their tears for the first -and in my opinion boring, monotonous bands: Bad Acid Trip, Unearth, Hatebreed and Avenged Sevenfold. Actually, Unearth was the only entertaining one out of the bunch.

I must admit 50% of my joy from metal shows are the stares and hushed whispers. Not only am I a big thick black man, I'm a big thick black man with ninjaboots on, a headwrap, billowing shalwar( Pakistani pants) and huge metal rings on with a Mars Volta wristband and a Metallica Master Of Puppets T shirt.

The fact that I was dragging my nephew around in the mud just added to the spectacle.
I got a lot of 'Is that your kid?' smiles and thumbs up as I piggy backed him for most of the System set. And he ain't a scrawny little tyke. It wasn't as bad as i thought it would be as I carried most of his weight with my butt. Even in the mosh it, where there was nothing but love-people watching out and making sure we weren't getting crushed. Headbanging and singing along with hundreds of sweaty, muddy french kids-oh yeah, it started pouring during their set- was just awesome.

After that I took my boy home and played him all types of stuff. He needs to know about Deftones, Meshuggah, Living Colour, Tool, Fishbone, y'know, the good stuff.

S'important to pass the essentials on to the next generation...

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Do Unto Others....

I feel so ashamed. And I should know better.


It just seems to play out that way. Like for example when one group of people massacres your people you'd think your people would know better and become benevolent and remindful instead of just remindful tyrants who end up destroying an entire country to get at one terrorist group...

In my case I wanna kick ass when some stupid white guy gets me confused with some other brother that looks nothing like me. Then he'll come up with the lame excuse that he's drunk. Ninja please.


Unfortunately that typa shit's contagious as I mistook Harold & Kumar go to White Castle's Kal Penn in Superman-the only 'minority' character in the movie, who just happened not to have any lines. Not even ONE word!- for M. Night Shamaylan (director of Unbreakable and Signs) Both South Asian. But they look nothing like each other!

For shame!!

Then I did it again, only this time in real life. I mistook another South Asian-who's a comedian for a friend of a friend's-who's a film maker- and neither look like each other!

Boy do I feel like a stupid drunk white guy...