A Few Of My Favorite Things is a series that appears most weekends on Driven By Boredom. Each week I talk about three of my favorite things from a specific genre of film, music, or something else all together. Each favorite thing is accompanied by a video and a description of why it is one of my favorite things. Click here for more favorites.

Takashi Miike is probably the most well known and beloved of the Asian Extreme directors. He has directed 75 films in under 20 years including 40 this decade alone. With all that production you have to have some misses and he does. I have seen probably 30 of his films and a lot of his Yakuza films run together a bit. For those not up on Japanese cinema a HUGE percentage of their live action films are based on organized crime. Imagine if they released 100 mobster films in the US. Out of control. The Yakuza is bigger part of Japanese culture than the mob is here, but they still release an insane amount of these films. Some of his biggest successes have been in this genre like Ichi The Killer and Dead Or Alive, but it is his taste for the bizarre that has really made him well known. He became well known in the US after directing the horror film Audition. The film an almost boring romantic film for the first hour and then suddenly breaks your neck with one of the more horrific torture scenes ever put to film. He is one of my favorite directors and if you continue reading I am going to break down my three favorites from the master of the strange. All my favorites are from 2001 a year in which he directed 7 full length films. There is no more fucked up director than Miike. Oh yeah, one other thing, he directs children’s films too… although I can’t imagine what parent in their right mind would let their kid see The Great Yokai War.

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A Few Of My Favorite Things is a series that appears most weekends on Driven By Boredom. Each week I talk about three of my favorite things from a specific genre of film, music, or something else all together. Each favorite thing is accompanied by a video and a description of why it is one of my favorite things. Click here for more favorites.

Welcome to the first addition of A Few Of My Favorite Things. To start things off I am going to talk about my three favorite Blaxploitation films. I probably know more about Blaxploitation that anyone you have ever met. I have seen over 50 Blaxploitation films and in college wrote a 20 page research paper on the genre. For those not familiar will Blaxploitation film, or Exploitation film let me give you a quick explanation. Exploitation films are not called exploitation because they exploit anyone… they are called this because they exploit certain elements in a film that are sure to sell tickets. These elements include violence, sex, action, or after 1971 all black films. Some of the more notable exploitation genres are slasher flicks, women in prison, spaghetti westerns (will be featured on this site soon), Sexploitation, biker films, and kung fu films. These films were made cheaply and mostly badly. As long as you had a good trailer and had the elements of your genre you could pretty much sell the film. In 1970 there had not been many films made for a black audience. People did not really think that you could market to that crowd. Melvin Van Peebles thought otherwise. In 1971 at great risk to himself he wrote, directed and stared in a film called Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadasss Song. I am not a huge fan of the film, but it changed everything forever. Aside from starting the career of Earth Wind and Fire, the movie showed Hollywood that there was a black audience to exploit. In 1972 Shaft and Superfly were released to great commercial success. After that EVERYONE wanted to make black films. Between 1972 and 1975 nearly 100 of these films were made before people got sick of the low production values and rehashed plots. A sequel to Blacula may have been to much for anyone to handle. That being said, without these films modern black films and urban culture would be so different from what it is now. So now that you know what’s what… let’s get to my favorites after the break.

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I saw the new Wes Anderson today and I realized that he has sort of become a parody of himself and I don’t think it is his fault.  There were a bunch of trailers before Darjeeling and they were all films that were completely influenced by Rushmore.  It was sort of amazing.  They all have the hip sound track and the deadpan humor and sort of similar fonts.  The thing is I want to see most of these movies, particularly the new Noah Bambach, but really how many movies can have Spoon on the sound track?  The one I want to see is Juno and it had the friggin Moldy Peaches in the trailer.  When I googled Juno the first thing I found described it as “This years Little Miss Sunshine”, which is just another one of these same Anderson influenced films.  These movies must have a genre title that I am not aware of…. let me know if you have a good name for these films.  Anyway, the point is Anderson’s new film seems to be a retread and it is probably just because his style has been so ripped off.  I enjoyed the film, but I it is not breaking any new ground.  There was a pretty funny Onion article making fun of this… let me see if I can find it.  Yup… Read this.  Also, go see this movie, but watch Hotel Chevalier first.  It is the prequel and is helpful to understanding the film.

One of the thing I thought was most interesting things from Anderson’s last film, The Life Aquatic, was the set design and in Darjeeling the set design was amazing again.  Myspace has a pretty good video about the details of the train that most of the action in the film takes place.

[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=18581515[/myspace]

What you may or may not know about me is that I am obsessed with the Miami Dolphins. I run a Dolphins website. I am going to DC tomorrow AM to watch the Dolphins take on my hometown team, the Washington Redskins (or as my dad (a Dallas, TX native) calls them the Deadskins). In celebration of the season starting and because I love you guys so much I am reposting this interview on this site too… And just so you are clued in Eugene “Mercury” Morris was the tailback of the 1972 Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins, the only team to ever go undefeated. You might say he is slightly proud of that fact.

“Mercury” Morris did an interview with Doug from Dolfansites.com which is a website of Miami Dolphin webmasters like myself dedicated to raising money for charities and helping out Dolphins causes. “Mercury” Morris is releasing a rap song about the ’72 Dolphins in about two weeks and he talks to Doug about the’72 team. The interview is both inspiring for Dolphins fans and hilarious, as Morris at some points sounds like a professional wrestler calling out the ’85 Bears and the ’92 Cowboys. The CD will be available soon from his website, but until then you can check out the song and his interview here.  You can read all the brilliant lyrics here.  My favorite part is about Dan Marino embarrassing the ’85 Bears.

Over the season, whether you like it or not, I will be posting interview with other Miami Dolphins types probably… so get excited. Football season started on Thursday and you will be hearing a lot about it from me from now on. By the way Mercury Morris was also starred in the Black Six, which after reading about it I NEED to see. Six times rougher than ‘Superfly’? No fucking way possible. I am so on it.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=IgVYinjypT8[/youtube]

Growing up I was friends with a lot of skinheads.  And one thing I learned about them was that no matter how not racist they claim to be, they are still not the most PC group you will ever be.  All the funniest racist jokes I know come from my time spent hanging out with a DC skin crew.   This Is Enlgand is about a bunch of skins that are conflicted about race.  The group gets split up between two factions who are both trying to convince a very cute 12 year old boy to join their cause.  The anti-Pakistan skins and the guys who are just trying to get drunk and fuck shit up.

This review is not really going so well right now.  I don’t know why.  I had some ideas here, and now I am just writing poorly.   The last sentence in that paragraph is not even a sentence.  So I think I’ll just make some quick points and go back to sleep.

1. This movie was good and you should see it.
2. The day I saw it I was listening to Jimmy Cliff before I left, then the movie was filled with reggae and ska, and then at a bar later they were playing two-tone ska.  It is just sort of amazing that I listened to that much ska/reggae in one day.
3. My biggest problem with skinheads is that they exist to fight.  The whole thing is about drinking and fighting.
4. Q: What do you call a black guy on a bike? A: Thief.
5. Q: Why are racist jokes so short?  A: So the  dumb  rednecks  who tell them can remember the punchline.

Lastly, my favorite racist joke of all time is:  Q: What do you call a ______ (insert type of people) with a PHD?   A: ______ (insert racial slur for said people).  It is so universal because it works for anyone.  Yay!  And here is some footage of original skins who listen to reggae.  I’m out.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPZFpWC9o4[/youtube]

I saw King Of Kong because I thought I was going to go see This Is England.  It just wasn’t playing when I thought it was.  I had read about King of Kong and it looked good so I said what the hell and bought a ticket.  Five minutes in when I realized I was going to watch a feature length film about Donkey Kong champions, I had a bit of buyers remorse.  An hour and a half later I had changed my mind.  Not only was there enough material for a feature length movie, but the movie could have been much longer.  The story is about two guys Billy Mitchel, the bad guy, and Steve Wiebe, the good guy.  Mitchel set the Donkey Kong record in 1982 and spent the rest of his life being pretty psyched about it.  He is very cut throat and will do whatever it takes to fuck over Steve Wiebe the challenger.  These guys are so black and white that makes the fourth Rocky movie look gray.  Mitchel is Drago.  My main problem with the film is how much they left out.  I wanted to see more strategy.  I wanted to hear more about other classic games.  I wanted to know more about the federation that keeps records on these games.  Do they cover modern games?  And most importantly I wanted to see more footage of Pac Man, because good Pac Man playing is like 100% more impressive that Donky Kong.  See what I mean?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s82nzkZBaek[/youtube]

Also, when looking up that video, I found this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOq6KzfFiTY[/youtube]

The newest movie from filmmaker Joe Swanberg is one of the most realistic I have ever seen. It was completely improved (the script was a drawing), the films cast was made up of other filmmakers, and the entire film was shot in less than a month. The film is basically about a girl who does not know what she wants in a relationship so she bounces around from guy to guy in her small circle of friends. Her break up with her first boyfriend was nearly exactly how the break up with my last girlfriend went and left me despising her for the rest of the movie. It was touching, and funny and um… other good things. Joe’s Q and A after the movie was pretty amazing too. The film was made in such a different way from the way you would expect movies to be done. He would edit at night and the next day they would watch what he had and then create a new scene that day. In NYC you can see for the next week at the IFC, if not you can watch it on IFC On Demand if you have cable. I would watch it at once. Yup. I’m going to see another one of Joe’s films Kissing On The Mouth tonight. I have seen it before and it is outstanding as well. Here is a clip of one of the more disturbing scenes in the film. Viewers be warned…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5wPt-ZJy0s[/youtube]

So my friend Joe Swanberg is in town tonight and his movie is playing at the IFC.  It is called Hannah Take The Stairs.  I think you should go see it, if not tonight at 8, some time later when it is playing.  I am going at 8, then to the after party, then to High Voltage where I am hosting and will have free drinks for you hopefully.  It is going to be fun, and Joe will be there.  It is at Sutra on 1st and 1st and it is free and there is an open bar at 11 until they run out.  Sweet.  Lastly, I am showing my apartment tomorrow, so if you want to move in with me and you have 1025 a month, hit me up.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf0ksFCaeI8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eifccenter%2Ecom%2Ffilm%3Ffilmid%3D58422[/youtube]

This very famous Bollywood family is staying at my hotel.  Evidently the father is one of the most famous people in the world, yet I doubt there are 10 people reading this who know who he is.  The daughter in-law is supposedly one of the most beautiful people on Earth.  You can read more about them here.  They have servants and things and tight security and I was not allowed to bring them breakfast, my manager had to do it.  Barbra Walters is coming to interview them today at 4PM.  Crazy.

In site news, I am going to sleep, but I have some good photos from Ruff and Trash last night for when I wake up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3C4oK7uCGc[/youtube]