As always, click to enlarge. For more, see Non Sequitur, Tom the Dancing Bug, Tom Toles, Zippy the Pinhead, Jack Ohman, Doonesbury, and Tony Auth.
Avery Johnson: From the New Orleans projects to the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame. While on his, Avery hit and NBA-title winning jump shot and became one of two players under six feet tall to play in over a thousand NBA games. The Little General also acquired one of the NBA's all-time great nicknames...
Slumdog Millionaire. D: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan. Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Freida Pinto. Directors Boyle and Tandan aim for Charles Dickens and hit Horatio Alger. When you strip away the vivid colors and occasionally impressive set piece, you're left with boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy almost gets girl back/boy loses girl again/boy gets girl back once and for all. This is all wrapped in the sheen of a rags-to-riches story in which slumdog Jamal (Patel) successfully navigates the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" because the questions each coincide with traumatic events in his life. (A slumdog is an orphan of the slums of India's cities.) The characters' motives range from the implausible to the unclear, and -- despite the film's length -- the supporting roles are woefully underdeveloped. A more interesting film would have dealt with Jamal's brother Salim, whose responsibilities as the surviving oldest member of the family render him conflicted and resentful of Jamal while tiptoeing through a moral minefield. Nice performance by Khan, who deserved last year's Best Supporting Actor recognition for his superb work in The Namesake...
The most recent first line was, of course, from Charles' Dickens Great Expectations, one of the first great coming-of-age novels. Great Expectations occupies a permanent place on Citizen K.'s list of books you should read before you die...
The Portland (Oregon) Jazz Festival kicks off this coming Friday with Terence Blanchard and Gonzalo Rubalcaba leading a performance of God's Will, Blanchard's jazz suite about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath...
Come to think of it, the San Antonio Spurs best players have all had great nicknames, from George "Iceman" Gervin to David "The Admiral" Robinson to Tim "The Big Fundamental" Duncan. George Gervin was also the subject of one of the best sports posters ever:
Sunday Gospel Hour: I've enjoyed digging up gospel videos, so look for this to become at least a semi-regular feature. Once again, here's Glen David Andrews, this time leading choir, band, congregation, and anyone in hearing distance of New Orleans' Zion Hill Baptist Church in "I'll Fly Away."
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13 comments:
Love your cartoons today -- unfortunately they are all too true!
Ditto Sylvia's comment on the cartoons-- & that video is just amazing; I've heard enough mediocore bluegrass versions of that song I didn't know anything could bring it back to life, but those folks made it real music.
I read about Glen David Andrews in a review at Offbeat. I ordered the CD, then found the videos, which blew me away. (There is one yesterday and Friday as well.) T. and I have been listening to gospel music all weekend!
Huh! We must subscribe to a lot of the same political cartoons and comics. I do mine on GoComics.
Basketball isn't my big thing, but I had to stop at that poster. Heh, heh! The only "Iceman" that actually registers with me is the late, great, Albert "The Iceman" Collins, the Master of the Telecaster.
The poster is classic. Around the same time, there was similar poster of Moses Malone parting the Red Sea.
David "The Admiral" Johnson? And you're a Spurs fan?
The Spurs also had the great "In the arena everyone can hear you scream" poster.
Ay caramba! I should be stripped of bit of silver-and-black that I own.
The Aliens ("In the arena, everyone can here you scream") promo was great. The ads and the poster had S P U R S in the same script as the Aliens poster and ads.
It's great that you finally saw Slumdog Millionaire.
I liked it for its structure, and economical story. Every scene connected to the plot. It will get Best Picture I'm convinced.
Ren, thanks for the reminder. I meant to add that -- despite its flaws -- I would nonetheless choose SDM as Best Picture over the rest of the nominees (unless I like The Reader much more than I expect to).
The best American movie I saw last year was Rachel Getting Married. The best movie I saw was the French film A Christmas Tale. I'm not a foreign film snob, either. In fact, generally speaking, I prefer American films. (The English novelist Nick Hornby does, too. Somewhere in High Fidelity, the protagonist makes a list of the five greatest American movies --"and therefore the greatest movies" -- of all time.)
The Glen David Andrews CD arrived yesterday. It's wonderful.
I'll have to check that Glen David Andrews et al. out.
Late to hear this, but loved the video. K., your brother Bob and I once made a pact that whoever died first the other would scatter his ashes in the waters off the coast of Jamaica in his case, Hawai'i for me. But this reminds me I want my funeral procession in New Orleans, with music by the Neville Brothers, Clifton Chenier, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, and now Glen David Andrews et al. (And if the Mighty Diamonds are available, please add them.)
A New Orleans funeral would be a great way to go.
I got the Glen David Andrews CD from the Louisiana Music Factory -- it's an absolute killer.
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