A Nic Cage Weekend

I hope everyone enjoyed their Nic Cage weekend. In case you missed it, TBS aired Con Air, Gone in 60 Seconds and The Rock in consecutive days this weekend. For a few of my readers, this is fantasy come true, a TV movie nirvana where only Nic Cage movies are shown. What an omen considering Friday was they day I unveiled my Nic Cage system for rating movies.


As expected the thoughts and opinions on this blog have drawn some criticism and skeptics. Not everyone agrees with the thoughts our of contributors, and this was the case on Friday. I received a comment blasting the Fab 5 and music reviews. Let me say this....it's the burden we must bare, the cross that we must carry. We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day! Ok so I got a little carried away. But July 4th is not far away, and I thought some insight from Bill Pullman can only help our cause.

Now you might be wondering, "what should I expect from Monday's blog?" If I had to give you a general direction of this post I will give you an actual comment made by one of contributors. We were talking about a trivia website when we were blessed with this statement....

Dicky: the other day they had a game where you had to name all the women in the Mambo # 5 song in less than 2 minutes. I did it with 1:18 left to spare.

So now that we have Lou Bega on our minds, let get right into the action. I am going to preview 2 more movies Public Enemies and Year One. Its a big sports week so we will dedicate a new section to cover all the action. We have part 2 of Steamin Beamen's music review. And a fresh round of picks from MP4.

Year One- (June 19)Jack Black and Michael Cera star as buddies in the Year One. It's being marketed as the first road trip. My beef with this is all the cross promotions that the NBA is doing with this film. And despite what you may have heard about Cera off screen (that he is a whiny, complainy bitch) he is very funny. Jack Black movies have been hit or miss, but he's coming off a very good performance in Tropic Thunder and I think he will be good in this as well. It's not my most anticipated comedy of the summer, but I do think its worth a view. 2 and a half Cages out of 5.

Public Enemies-(July 1) Johnny Depp can carry a movie by himself. So team him with director Michael Mann and Christian Bale and you've got the ingredients for a potentially great movie. This is based on the real life bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) as he avoids the cops (Bale). Here's the trailer. It's worth checking out if you haven't seen it yet. 4. and a half Cages out of 5.

"Steamin Willie Beamen"
Due to the length of Friday's blog I had to cut Steamin's music review into two parts. The good part of that is he is being charged half billing, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

Old and Cold
Jamie Foxx – Intuition
Blame it on the club cluuuu cluuuu clubbbbbbbb. I love Jamie Foxx and this album is in no way new but seeing as he is one of my favorite artists and I wanted to give a quick shoot out to my man Andy “F.A.Tandy” Lehatto would have wanted to see this in my playlist. If clubs did not exist you never would have heard so much of this album. It is the latest attempt by who I consider the most versatile comedian ever. I loved his stand up. I liked his movies. I hate his music. I mean Foxx can bring it on the screen and he sure can bring it on the stage but in the booth it is a bad R&B album with a bunch of good cameos. Buy the singles and be done with this album. I love you Tandy Man.
Best Songs
Blame It

Plug, Plug, Plug,
Monsoon – The Bridge Mix Tape
Wednesday night I attended the CD release party for my cousin. I am going to try and get some more info on the availability of the music but if you run into it check it out. He has good flow and some nice beats. It is a work in progress but something that finds its way onto my recently played at least one time a week. I also had the opportunity to use this event to reconnect with an old warrior from the PTL, Nik Caner-Medley. Nik made an appearance at The Garage at 52 Curtis. Also known as Hurricane Alley. Nik shared some old war stories of battling in the ACC and what it was like oversees. Many of you may remember him slicing up the ACC others may have already got tickets to watch him play with Blake Griffin this summer. Either way he is doing well and is ready to take the states by storm now that he is back in town.


The CD You NEED to Buy but Have NEVER Heard Of
The Easy Star All-Stars – Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band
You may or may not have heard me talking about these guys before. They are a band that does reggae remixes of famous albums. They have put out three albums; Dub Side of the Moon (Dark Side of the Moon), Radiodread (OK Computer), and now Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band). This is not the best one yet, but it is the only one that many of you may have actually listened to. I know everyone claims to have listened to Dark Side while they were burned up after finals watching the Wizard of Oz and some people like Radiohead, but everyone knows the Beatles. I also had the pleasure of seeing these guys this year on my birthday in Portland. They had an 8 piece band with a trombone, sax, piano, percussion, and four different vocalists. It was great. I got drunk. I spent the rest of the night at my house running around all billed up with a George W. Bush mask on. It was a good show. Reggae music shall set you free. You can buy this on itunes and I would say that “in an economy like this one” it is worth the money.

"Picks of the Unknown Gambler"
Question, what has lots of money, no worries and a celebratory cigar to validate his performance? If you guessed an MP4 hot streak then you must be taking his advice. And you might also be a stalker, but we can let that slide. Let me tell you, he is hot. He is like that Hansel, so hot right now. Winner of his last 4 picks, MP4 has an air of confidence and it is contagious. He is back with some picks to pad your bank account. "in an economy like this one" I'd say this is a pretty good bet...

MondayP4

Snakes (Garland) @ Fathers (Peavy) - Under 8. Two reliable hurlers both coming off bad performances will look to turn it around against bad offenses in the pitchers park of all pitchers park; Yanity Field West.

"The Nate McClouth Game" - Bucs (Z. Duke) +130 @ Braves (Kawakami) - An underdog with great value. The Duke is hot. Hot 'Lanta wont help to cool him down.

Yes I said I'm not betting the finals...so I lied. This number is to enticing for me. Game 3 - LA @ Orlando - Under 201

Career Juice: 10-6-1

"You Play To Win the Game"
This is a new section that I have named in honor of the one and only Herm Edwards. Over the past 7 years we've been blessed to have Herm in our lives and guess what? Christmas come early, Herm is now on TV. Every Sunday we will get even more Herm comments, and we will get them all week long during football season. The man is a walking sound byte and I can't wait to watch. So this is our sports section. With all our useless commentary and analysis on life we've been skimping on the sports. But its a big week, so here we go.

It seems like the NBA Finals are all but over now after the Lakers took a 2-0 lead. We could have had a series on our hands if only Courtney Lee could make a last second layup. With the game tied up with .6 seconds left on the clock, the Magic executed a flawless inbounds play, an alley-oop to Lee. A perfect inbounds pass put the ball right next to the rim and Lee just missed the shot, plain and simple. It did have some degree of difficulty but that's a shot that has to be made. So instead the Lakers were given a second chance and Kobe took advantage. So now the series shifts back to Orlando and it does not look promising. Game 2 was at least a close game, maybe as Herm would say, "something to build on". Game 3 is tomorrow night, for more on that see MP4.

On the baseball front there are some huge division rivalries this week that need to be covered. The Yankees invade Fenway for 3 games against the Sox and the Phillies arrive at Citi Field for 3 against the Mets. As we all know the Yankees haven't beaten the Sox yet this season, and playing at Fenway the Sox need to capitalize. The pitching matchups are Burnett v Beckett on Tuesday, Wang v Wakefield on Wednesday and Sabathia v Penny on Thursday. Beckett Burnett should be the best pitching matchup of the series, with the Sox having the edge over Wang and the Yanks with the edge with C.C. on the bump. But being in Boston the slight edge for the series is with the Sox. The Yanks are a half game up in the division, but given that the Sox have an automatic out as DH right now shows how good the rest of the team is.

As for the Mets, they should be thankful that their savior is pitching against their arch rivals. They are not healthy right now dealing with some injuries and are going to need David Wright and Carlos Beltran to come up in a big way if they want to take this series. The matchups are Happ v Santana on Tuesday, Hamels v Pelfrey on Wednesday and Moyer v Redding on Thursday. The Santana game is almost a lock and the Mets will try to steal one from Hamels or Moyer. The need it too because the Phils are starting to pull away with a 4 game lead in the division.

"What to Expect When You're Expecting"
Two new chapters of the "The Tale of the Pauper: A Cross Country Trip of Enlightenment". The Golden Coast is within earshot of the Pauper, and I've got plenty to cover. I'll give you part 3 of my summer movie preview and will provide a movie review of one of the movies I've previewed to see if it lives up to the Cage stars I've given it. That's all I have to say about that. So, until next time.....Stay Sweet