Decided to dip into the theater yesterday afternoon with my boy 'Tini Mack to take in the latest X-Men offering, X-Men: The Last Stand.
Before I get to X-Men Trey, I have to take a second to prop one of the previews they showed before the main event. I have to say if the movie lives up to the trailer, The Decent looks like an off-the-hook horror flick. Apparently this is one of those flip-the-script movies that was made in the UK and has been out in the UK long enough for it to already be on DVD well before its debut in the US. It's due to bow here in August and I'm thinking I need to be front row and center for that bad boy. Check out the review and trailer (unfortunately not the one they showed in the theater when I saw it) to see what a brother is talking about...
Also a couple tidbits before I go - be sure to stay until after the credits roll to catch a final scene that will presumably set up X-Men 4 and for you 24 fans out there, note that the female doctor who is seen describing the mutant 'cure' and trying to inject Angel with it is none other than our girl Shohreh Aghdashloo (Dina Araz) from last season. Remember she played the mom in the terrorist family? I had her accent pegged from jump street but couldn't place it until after we had rolled up out of that joint. It's a minor role and not much screen time - I guess the curse of Academy Award Best Supporting Actor/Actress nominees continues. Shoot - for that matter it continues for the winners as well. What the heck has Cuba Gooding Jr. done lately? Joe Pesci? Mira Sorvino? Hmmm, guess all that glitters isn't gold when it comes to *those* Oscars...
Tell me I'm lying - check out this glossy. Man, they duplicated this exact scene in the trailer they're showing. Man, it's a dark day when you have to jack Looney Tunes for your material!
Dang - you know you're up to some dirty when the congressional Republicans are up in arms about the treatment of a Democratic congressman at the hands of the FBI! Such is the strange state of affairs of southside congressman William J. Jefferson (D-LA) whom the FBI proports to have the goods on. It seems those rascally Republicans aren't so much up in arms that the FBI raided old boy's cribs in D.C. and The Big Easy, but the fact that they raided his *congressional* office without warning. Oh snap! Think the Repubs are hiding anything incriminating in their own congressional offices? I'm speculation that's really where Jimmy Hoffa is stashed since their belief seems to be that congressional offices are soverign territory similar to the foreign embassies in D.C....
At any rate, Bill Jeff seems to be playing his own game of Clue with the FBI - "It was Bill Jeff, in the kitchen, with $100 G's in the freezer!" At least that's how it's being reported. To wit - old boy was recorded taking a briefcase which alledgedly contained $100 G's. Later back at the ranch, the FBI alledges that they found $90 G's broken up into $10 G packets stashed in tin foil and Tupperware in Bill Jeff's Frigidaire.
Dang - I know there's at least one happy, blonde escort in D.C. trying to figure out how much of the $10,000 she'll have left over if she spends $1,000 on a new pocket dog... But I digress. A friend of mine once gave old Tyrone some sage advice that went a little something like this: "If you get caught in a lie, just deny" (no, it wasn't Jesse, y'all) meaning that until you actually admit you did it, no one will know for sure. Clearly Bill Jeff overheard this conversation and is trying that advice out for a spin. I know, I know - innocent until *proven* guilty but it seems kind of silly for a powerful congressman to need to keep that kind of cash wrapped in a freezer like yesterday's leftovers. That's what banks are for (unless old boy's old skool like my grandmama who was proud to point to her Public Enemy 'Can't Truss It' T-shirt when asked about any institution run by anyone but her - Grandma! You think those tomatos at the Safeway are any good? No - you can't truss no tomatos you don't pull out your own garden, baby...).
When do you cross the line between competitor and school yard chump? Okay, chump may be a little strong for 'King James' but after two petty 'school yard' moves LeBron James dropped in the Cavs' last two series, I have to wonder just how mature this 21 year old is...
Okay, okay don't get your panties all bunched up about this blog title. Y'all know as well as I do that Kobe Bryant (post Eagle, Colorado and Laker championship squad blow up) is a very polarizing homeboy these days. There are only two camps - you love him or you hate him. Ol Tyrone finds himself in the 'Hate 'em' (or is that hater??) camp and no more so than after his mean mugging, fist pumping, jersey popping, and stagger swaggering during the Lakers' first round series with the Phoenix Suns. Now don't get it twisted, I've got no love for those streaky Suns either but I have to admit that series did make me a big fan of Raja Bell (the fact that he used to play for my boyz the Sixers is besides the point...) - that and the fact that he keeps showing up big in the playoffs to date...
Sorry for the brief timeout but even ol Tyrone has to catch a little R&R *sometime*. The adjacent glossy is an actual location shot but it's up to you geographically inclined readers to match the glossy to the Caribbean locale. Anyway, after a quick jump down to the Carib, your boy is back in effect with something new to ponder. Before I hopped my 
United 93 (a docu-drama of the before, during and after of the only 9/11 hijacked airliner that didn't hit its target) had me reliving a 'Glory Moment' shortly after the beginning credits rolled. After all this time, it took this flick to get me to realize that there was a southside homeboy at the controls of the plane. I admit I'm a little slow on the uptake from time to time, but I do consider myself fairly newsworthy so I was wondering how it was that I completely missed that fact. That feeling was similar to how I felt when I checked out the back-in-the-day civil war movie 'Glory' about the Massachusetts 54th - the first southside regular Union Army regiment that garnered high praise for their sacrifice in what amounted to a suicide mission when it stormed Fort Wagner in South Carolina. In that case, I was pretty sure I was never taught that history lesson (versus catching 40 winks during the discussion in high school U.S. History class) so I was pretty shocked that 1) it ever happened and 2) it wasn't mainstream enough to mention.
As for MI: III - that joint was action eye candy galore. The action sequences were off the hook, the gadgets and 'cons' were tight, but it all felt like I'd seen it before. I'm a fan of director J. J. Abrams' TV stuff like Alias and Lost and MI: III felt pretty much like a big screen extension of those joints right down to the black screen, white character cut shots that inform the viewers where the action is about to take place - that's straight out of Alias (and that show got so tired going back to the same well that it's about to bow out for good). But any flick that props *both* Ving Rhames and Laurence Fishburne can't be all bad and MI: III isn't. I dropped the same 2.5 Spinners on that joint with a 8 on the HMV scale. Dang. They could have gotten 3 Spinners if they had figured out a way to get Halle Berry or Angelina Jolie in that joint... 'Course Tom Cruise seems to have his mind on other things these days y'all.
USA Today is reporting that Jason Taylor and his wife, Katina Taylor were the victims of a hate crime. Hmmm...we still can't all get along despite Rodney King's heartfelt plea three days after verdict day in LA way back in 1992. How whack is that? If that's the case, what heinousness might be brewing in the face of this recent Mexican immigration dust-up?...
In light of activities undertaken by George Clooney, Bono, Angelina Jolie, & Bill Gates, I'm still wondering why there isn't a well known southside celebrity consistently attached to publicizing issues on the African continent? I know there must be at least one but he/she must be practicing some mighty quiet diplomacy, though I thought the point was to *publicize* the issues. Could it be that southside stars aren't big enough to attract media attention like the big four above? I think not since Will and Jada were able to attract some ink for their recent educational vacation in Israel. Hmmm...wonder how their fact finding mission to Darfur went? Maybe they just need to have a few more Jazzfests over there...
