This is either a very stupid story or a heroic story depending upon whether you empathize (or not) with a man who wants to get home during the holidays and uses the only means at his disposal to do it. Read about it here >>

The only Asian American comedian I know recently got blasted by news sludgemaster Matt Drudge on his website and, as a result, has been swimming in a deluge of hate mail that, from the excerpts on her site, have been racist, sexist and overall ignorant. Now from her latest blog entry it seems that her revenge in posting the email addresses of the most outstandingly ugly hate mailers has had an effect with some of the emailers begging to be taken off her blog. Well, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen the saying goes. What was the original issue? Cho appeared at a Moveon.org rally. Read about it here >>

Jeremy Love started a thread on the Emporium with his picks of 2003. These are mine.

ZATOICHI: Choppy, stabby fun

Zatoichi - Takeshi Kitano's completely entertaining samurai action-comedy. Funnier and more accessible than Kill Bill Vol. 1.
Evil - the Swedish boarding school drama that is also a meditation on fascism.
Elephant - Gus Van Sant's transcendant account of a high school massacre without easy answers.
The Story of the Weeping Camel - the ethnobiographical story of a family of Mongolian camel herders which is haunting and beautiful.
The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King - the resounding finale to one of the great achievements of modern film.
Bus 174 - the chilling documentary about a tragic bus hijacking and seige in downtown Rio.
Mutt Boy - the Korean comedy about a dog-like layabout who takes on corrupt town officials.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 - Tarantino's ferocious blood blender on film.
28 Days Later - one of the freshest new takes on a tired horror genre recently.

I expand on my choices in the same thread.

This is a very cool Flash website which educates the visitor on the progress made in excavating the various tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Be sure to check out the 3D tour for KV14 (bottom left quadrant of the map) .Click on "Atlas of the Valley of the Kings". See it here >>

After hearing about this Vertigo comic series for some time I decided to check it out. It's an excellent, well-told story about a world wide plague that wipes out all creatures with a Y chromosome at the same moment, all except for a young man and his pet monkey. As the last man, he becomes a pawn in a developing power struggle between the women who rise to authority in the world. The art, by Vancouver artist Pia Guerra, is very reminiscent of Steve Dillon's pencils on Preacher. See the Amazon entry here >>

Beyond a guilty pleasure

These days there's not a lot different from the real news posted on Fox and the terrorist cum soap opera cheesorama that is 24. The show goes beyond guilty pleasure for me for following the twists and turns. You really have to admire the writing and story editing that goes into that show. Here I have to give props to my main man Dan Evans who writes hilarious episode summaries on Sk8Jesus.com and on his forum. Visit Sk8 here >>

For some reason I can't explain I was looking for theme from the kids show The Littlest Hobo. I had it in my head to look for it and I found the lyrics, someone's Spanish version and then .. and then .. I found the motherlode archive of mp3s of several shows I hadn't even heard of. Plus, a punk version of The Littlest Hobo. (Go to "Complete List" at the top menu) See that site here >>

The Washington Post has an illuminating article on the ridiculous expansion of hunting technology that is helping even bow hunters in a fast paced world bag their deer in their limited time in the field. Digital cameras, microchips, laser sights, chemical deodorants, and advanced materials all seem to put the deer (who have not kept up in the arms race) at a severe disadvantage. Read more here >>

More Asian epics!

As I said last year (hee hee), I was pleased to discover that the touted Martin Scorsese import The Fall of Otrar was making its way to Vancouver along with a passel full of other forgotten Central Asian films. The schedule is out for Along the Silk Road: Central Asian Cinema at the Pacific Cinematheque. Otrar will be showing on the weekend of January 16-18. Read more here . Yes, you might say that I'm not yet sick of epics after The Last Samurai and The Return of the King. I've always been a fan of the big screen vistas such as David Lean's films, the odd Bible epic and the sword and sandal genre. The most interesting epic I've seen in quite a while was the Korean battle movie Musa (read review here) and then Zhang Yimou's flawed Hero certainly made good use of the wide screen.