Back Logged

Lots to talk about and believe me my big brain has been working OT.

First of all, Rambo II and III. These movies of course are brilliant on multiple levels. You have Rambo II which from now on I will dub Vietnam War II: This Time We Win. Maybe I'm giving too much credit to this film and the writing team that included James Cameron but lets be clear here, Rambo II aka First Blood Part II aka Vietnam War II: This Time We Win is completely hilariously awesome in its many allegories to Vietnam War I: The War We Lost. I am of course an expert on the Vietnam War as I took ONE WHOLE class about it my Sophomore year in college!!!!!

The movie begins with Rambo breaking up rocks in some hard labor camp because you know, he blew up a whole fucking town in the first movie and made Brian Dennehey (that spelling is wrong) and his police force his own personal punching bag. Which reminds me that Brian Dennehey only reminds me of that terrible ESPN movie Season on the Brink about Bobby Knight. Anyhow, Rambo is recruited on what is later found out to be a PR mission to just "Take photos" of camps where POWs are presumably being held. What we find out though is that a weasely pencil pusher beuracrat doesn't even care about the POW's that may or may not exist!! Parralels from the war include this 'pencil pushers' belief that superior technology will triumph over low grade tech and hard work....which of course is the Vietcong beating the technologically superior United States. The closing scene even has Rambo coming back into the high tech command center yelling with rage and shooting the shit out of the place.

The classic line, "Do we get to win this time?" is uttered. Also Rambo has a brief love at first sight romance with an asian woman who talks very broken english.

Let us not dwell on Vietnam War II...as we have Rambo III..aka Rambo helps the Taliban. The plot in this one is even shittier so I'm not going to bother.

Key Points in Rambo III include:

-Rambo RAMS A TANK HE IS DRIVING INTO A HELICOPTER!!!!
-The line, "God would have mercy, John Rambo won't"
-The film concludes with a dedication to the people of Afghanistan...and implies that they are dedicating it to those scrappy freedom fighters taking on those darn soviets....aka the Taliban!

Now a Book Review: Rebels On the Backlot or as I call it: Really Shitty Book

I ended up skimming good portions of this book because it is pretty terrible. I guess this is because I'm already a movie nerd and was more interested in how these "rebels" broke through the hollywood system and worked within the confines of it. Instead I learned that Tarantino doesn't bathe. Now maybe I already knew too much about Spike Jonze but some of the things that the author was saying about him were pretty much false. I also had issues with her wording on things. She implies that the Jonze directed video for the song "Sabotage" is responsible for giving The Beastie Boys their first huge hit. This is patently false on several levels...now I do concur that the video in conjunction with heavy play on MTV at a time where MTV's influence was at an all time high no doubt helped the record, but The Beastie Boys were successful prior to this as well. Yeah, I'm nitpicking a single sentence that was pretty much throwaway in this book but it bothered me. Too gossipy, not enough hard information, and overall pretty boring....boourns.

Chinese Democracy exists...is out, people have heard it. The record that is pretty much dead set on not coming out in 2008 despite the promises is of course the long awaited album by Dr. Dre known as DETOX. I am waiting to lay back in my shack, play this track. Also I was waiting for the bus the other day and this guy in a nice new BMW rolled up and was bumping Regulators by Warren G. If you don't know this song or the record you better go download it right now. The G Funk Era is an era that I rank right behind the Industrial Revolution era.

Lastly, there is a place called DRAGO right across the street from the bar I always go too. I have been tempted to run into that place (only after growing a healthy beard) and wearing a stocking cap and what not and yelling "DRAGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Rocky 4 joke you uncultured bastards.