I try to avoid writing about superfluous celebrity gossip and rumours and such, but this one has has had me befuddled for a while. Who the fuck is Amy Winehouse, and why is there so much coverage of her?

Alright, you got me. I’m being a little facetious. I know who she is. She’s a singer. You know how I know that? Because the news reports of her being a drug addict show up under the “music” section of 411mania, a site I’ve frequented recently. But I guess my more specific question is “why does anyone care?”

I’ve never heard any of her songs (that I know of), I’ve never seen anyone talk about how they enjoy her music, hell, I’ve never heard anyone outside of a tabloid newspaper or internet “news” site even mention her name. Purportedly, she’s a musician of some sort, but I have never heard a word spoken about that. All I’ve ever heard is that she’s a human train wreck. Let me take a moment for some “research” here (when you’re just looking on Wikipedia, you have to put research in quotation marks).

So she won an assload of Grammies in 2006 and had a fair degree of critical acclaim. Critical acclaim don’t mean shit though, as the cast of Arrested Development will tell you. I know that I didn’t have a frigging clue who she was in 2006. Oh wait, she’s the chick who did that Rehab song. I think I remember that. She didn’t want to go. Well that puts a different spin on this doesn’t it? (Or for those who knew the Rehab song first, vice-versa)

Her manager is blaming fame for her drug addictions. Shouldn’t that be out of bounds for a celebrity whose major hit was about her not wanting to go to rehab? Is anyone supposed to feel sorry for someone whose whole gimmick and persona is based on being an addict? If she sat down for a Barbara Walters interview, would she tearfully confess that “I only wanted to be a junkie up to a certain point, I didn’t want to be this addicted, this go way out of control”? It’s tantamount to Tommy Chong blaming pot for his career dwindling. Not a chance. Chong is smart enough to know that if it wasn’t for pot (either his use, or that of his audience) he wouldn’t have any career at all left. He knows which side of his bread is (bud) buttered.

Now obviously, there are always more sides to a story, and an angle of heartless music executives exploiting her notoriety at the expense of her health for profit is certainly tempting. But that’s ignoring personal responsibility. Unless a record executive tied her up and forced her to smoke crack, I don’t buy that as any sort of excuse.

Let’s remember, this isn’t like your typical rise and fall story, where Elvis gets addicted to drugs and slowly his handsome charm transforms into bloated death. This is a girl who got famous for being, to steal a great turn of phrase, “a drunk with a singing problem.” I fail to see the tragedy here. She’s doing exactly what she seemed to set out to do.

In the meantime, the funniest thing is on that 411mania link, there’s a further link for “more on Amy Winehouse,” and none of the stories that show up have anything at all to do with music. It’s all just personal drama. It’s to the point where I wonder if any of it is real.

Is it all just staged to get people hooked into her personal dramas, so that when she finally puts her life back together people will rise up and congratulate her with a thundering ovation of free publicity (and pursuant comeback album buys)? Did a British record exec get wind of the shitstorm of tabloid coverage (read: free publicity) given to the public breakdowns of Britney Spears and whoever else, and decide to manufacture that for themselves? For that matter, is all of the Britney Spears bullshit a failed early attempt at this sort of manufactured public drama (if it is a fix, it qualifies as a failure)? So, I restate the question, who the hell is Amy Winehouse?

Christ almighty. I’d also read that Spears story when it was on 411mania. Note to self: stay away from everything but the wrestling, video games and politics sections on 411. Speaking of video games…

It’s been joked about for years but it’s true, nobody does a better job of making the same games over and over again than Capcom. I want it made clear though, that I’m not complaining. I just tried out Mega Man Powered Up recently, and it’s pretty kickass. It’s an updated version of the first NES Mega Man game, with a few new bosses, an updated style, different levels, and to the pleasure of some, an adjustable difficulty level. Of course, if you’re a sadist like me, they also have a version that’s the original game but only the graphics are updated; it’s still one of the hardest games of all time.

As I said before, between the Mega Man and Street Fighter games, it’s pretty clear that Capcom loves to update old games. And around the same time as MMPU came out, a similar update of Ghosts n’ Goblins came out (also on PSP). Plus they’re also doing both a 3D remake, and a 2D update of Bionic Commando. The 2D Bionic Commando looks amazing.

Based on how satisfying the gameplay on MMPU was, personally I’d love to see them remake all the classic 8-Bit Mega Man games into that style. Of course, I can’t mention that without mentioning Mega Man 9, which has ensured the dampness of my pants lately. But that’s for another day.

Seems my sudden surge of activity (riding my new rocketbicycle, inline skating, Aikido, and generally walking everywhere and avoiding my car) has resulted in extreme muscle aches, a painfully sore right knee, sore right elbow, and non-weight-supporting stabbing-pain right shoulder.

Time to take it easy!

Still went to Aikido, but was very relaxed. We practiced posture, unbendable arm, and some more static techniques that don’t require a lot of motion. But I can’t find any pictures or videos of the related activities.

Perhaps I should take some time off and, oh, I dunno, watch batman or something. I still haven’t even gotten around to seeing Ironman yet. :/

On Friday night, Lindsay, Matt and I took in The Dark Knight. For two and a half hours, I don’t think I blinked once. Here’s my thoughts. I’ll try to avoid any gratuitous spoilers, but no promises, so SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

I know I’m biased, but I agree with Kevin Smith. The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie ever made. Without question. The movie is a sprawling epic with twists and turns galore, multiple themes and motifs cross over each other. The concept of a white knight (Harvey Dent), and a black knight (Batman). Order and chaos (Batman and the Joker). Faith lost and faith renewed or rewarded (Gordon and Lucius Fox). There’s a lot going on with this movie. The story is dense, but not overwhelmingly so.

A lot of little details that only occur to you later, or upon repeated viewings, add extra emotional depth. Harvey Dent and Batman each think the other is the most important symbol of hope for the people of Gotham. That difference costs them much in the long run. Late in the film, a truly grotesque Two-Face screams at Batman and Gordon that he was the only one who lost anything.  But Dent was Batman’s hope to someday end his mission against crime, and by this point of the film, Batman has lost as much as anyone. The best part about this is, he doesn’t say any of this, but you can read it clearly on his face, impressive considering most of his head is covered with a mask.

Dent is a classic tragic hero. He’s a good man who’s only crime at the start of the movie is an abundance of ambition. By the end of the film, that ambition costs him everything. Whether it was his arrogance (taking on the mob, one would be well aware of the potential consequences) that caused his downfall is irrelevant to Dent. Terrible things happen to Dent here, and it’s all just chance. Maybe he spent too much time “making his own luck,” and it was karma putting a thumb on the scales to balance the score. As the battle with the mob and the Joker escalates, Dent’s becomes reckless making bolder and bolder moves that all lead to his own downfall. Unlike some previous versions of Two-Face, Eckhart’s Dent clearly is a man who’s path from hero to villain is the cause of more than just monstrous facial scarring.

As expected most of the attention on “entertainment news”* programs and the internet message board community is Heath Ledger’s Joker. Believe the hype kids. Heath Ledger just disappears into the role and his performance delivers in the best possible way. In the first part of the movie, the audience laughs at The Joker’s antics, being wowed by the “pencil trick” or his various odd inflections stops laughing by the climax. As is desperately needed, by the end of the film, it doesn’t matter how showy and darkly funny he is, the audience wants to see him get what’s coming to him. The audience can’t identify with The Joker. You might be able to relate to some of the things he says (on anarchy: “when the chips are down, these people will eat each other,”), but you can’t identify with his goals. He’s not Dr. Octopus or The Green Goblin or even Harvey Dent (good men who fell from grace). He’s as close to pure evil as you can get without getting into a religious discussion.

I was expecting to be impressed with Ledger’s Joker, but even my lofty expectations were exceeded. I wasn’t expecting Ledger to outdo Mark Hamil’s voice work on the Batman animated series, but he did just that. Ledger’s very physical performance is manic and unrestrained, but just up to the line of being so out there as to loose the sinister edge. “Does Gotham really seem like a better place because of the Batman?” he asks from off camera to a Batman imitator who’s torture he’s video taping. His tone is taunting, playful even. Out of nowhere, he explodes “LOOK AT ME!” terrifying both the hockey-pad Batman and the audience. That he can run the gamut from trickster clown to psychotic killer as quickly as he does, and still be believable, is what seals the deal on Ledger’s performance, in my books. On the other end of the spectrum is the scene where the Joker, disguised as a nurse, sits down by Dent’s hospital bed, and says “Hi” with the delivery and facial expression of a high school girlfriend trying to get back a guy she had cheated on.

It’s not all roses. While Harvey Dent’s arc is beautiful and tells a wonderful story of pride going before a fall, Two-Face is almost “Venomed” if you know what I mean (though there are some members of the online community who have different ideas on this). The “Batsonar” is overused in the climax. Batman Begins’ much hated “If it gets underneath Wayne Tower, this thing is gonna blow!” guy get’s a spiritual cousin in “That’s not good!” guy. And while Maggie Gyllenhall’s turn as Rachel Dawes is way better than that of Katie Holmes, it’s still the weakest performance in the film.

These complaints are really nothing more than nitpicks, though. This is easily the best movie I’ve seen in years, and that includes Batman Begins. When people used to ask me about Batman Begins, my standard line to emphasize how good I thought the movie was always “about halfway through the movie, I realized it was already better than all the previous Batman movies put together, and he hadn’t even put on the costume on yet.” A parallel moment occurs in The Dark Knight where The Joker introduces himself to the mobs by way of the aforementioned “pencil trick,” and you immediately know that this is going to be something really special.

It looks like most people agree with me, since the movie seems to be on its way to setting a record for breaking records. Nonetheless, the movie lived up to the unbelievable hype that was applied to it (by myself, amongst others), and I am very happy with the results. It was well worth the three year wait, and I’ll gladly wait another three for one more from Nolan. As I said to Matt later on in the night after first seeing that movie, the only real problem I see with Dark Knight is that it’s about 23 hours too short.

*Entertainment News programs are neither entertaining, nor news.

Day three of Aikido started out with my first “breathing excercises,” AKA Meditation. I was interested in doing some meditationy stuff but never really got around to it before, so it was nice to be force-fed it. I have some issues kneeling for long periods though, and it’s hard for me to stay relaxed while sitting cross-legged, but it gives me something to work on.

Besides that though, meditating didn’t work at all. The particular excercise we were doing was imagining a grape-sized sphere in the middle of your being, and with every exhale it doubles in size. I started getting self conscious that my ‘being’ was starting to touch other peoples beings; then I started wondering how big doubling it would be (if it’s the size of Victoria, would doubling it take it to Saltspring or Galiano?), and finally I started thinking about how fast it would have to be expanding to cross half the country in a single exhale, and I found myself slowing my breathing as I didn’t want to break the laws of physics.

Yeah that’s a relaxing excercise. “Tear the universe apart at the seams! Now breath calmly in through your nose…” Right.

One of the students has a blackbelt from a different brand of Aikido, and Sensei allowed him to show two or three different throws that he had learned. They were geared for a large attacker to be taken down by a small/light defender, and since I’m a big guy… well… heh.

I found one particular throw really, really effective:

That’s a much more flourishey version with lots of spinning around - my basic variant did the same particular motions but with a taste of minimalism.

I found it really interesting as the attacker, as your leading leg is like a solid tree trunk nailed to the ground - if the defender tried to push you back it just wouldn’t work. So the defender first pulls you a bit off balance, does a half step to yank your head down (which makes your leading leg buckle), and once your leading leg is gone a tiny shove backwards makes you topple. It was really cool.

After that we did more Jo training. I think the word is - kata? Which means single-person doing a routine with a Jo. I did 3 steps last time, and this day got up to 13 steps. It feels really neat to swing that piece of wood around in a controlled fashion (and having it effective as well).

Did you know that South Park’s website has an avatar/wallpaper creator where you can make yourself as a SP character?!

It’s really fun. Here’s me looking at something amusing off screen:

It’s not quite the same as Weasel’s situation, but I have been horribly antisocial and out of shape for long enough now, and I recently decided to rekindle my childhood love for the game of lacrosse by joining a summer men’s league. I played on my school team from the age of about 12 to 18, and then for my college’s club team, but my equipment bag was stolen out of my car about two years ago in Denver and I hadn’t picked up a stick since. Now, I have purchased a combination of new and lightly used equipment using craigslist, eBay, and Laxzilla.com and am preparing for my first game this Wednesday.

It’s also the first of two nights that Ween will be playing in Denver, so I will definitely have my hands full, but it should be fun and I’m hoping that my teammates are both cool and skilled (but not too much better than me). I’ll keep you posted. Here’s to grown men having fun!

We’re now a mere five days away from The Dark Knight. I was planning on putting together a big review of all the viral marketing stuff, and include all the links to the different websites, but the Joker was kind enough to do that for us. Not only that, but he also took the time to vandalize all the other sites as part of his last game before the movie.

In preparation of the big wrap up, I got a phone call from, well basically, from the movie today. I’d given them my phone number previously for a viral thing that ended up with Commissioner Gordon entrapping me. Basically, the call today was a collage of the audio from earlier viral fun like the guy the Joker was holding hostage, the Harvey Dent hostage negotiation, Gotham News talk shows and the aforementioned Commissioner Gordon call. This viral campaign has been really well done on all fronts and people are certainly well hyped for the movie. You can get a lot of the specific audio and video from the campaign on this site.

Lots of glowing reviews. Kevin Smith called it the best comic book movie ever made. Certainly looks that way to me. Obviously I’m biased, but there’s just so much great potential, and every little bit of the movie I’ve seen (and I have seen a decent bit, at least 13 minutes worth of little clips between released scenes like the Two-Face tease and the various TV trailers) has been stellar. I’ve had to swear off the internet scavenging though.

There’s just too much access these days, you know? It must be frustrating for Chris Nolan, et al, to look on the nerd websites and see camera phone pictures from press screenings. They seem to have put a decent amount of care into controlling what information is available and what isn’t. Through following the movie online, watching spy shots of the filming in Chicago for the better part of the year, I’ve got some of the basic points down. I know a lot of the big beats. But I have no idea about how a lot of them fit together. And I know there are things I’m missing as well. I’ve got a lot of random puzzle pieces and only a few of them seem to fit together. Sure, there’s been a fair number of leaked photos, but there wasn’t anything too spoilerish out there before they started screenings.

Apparently there are two very spoilerish pictures out there, purportedly, one of each Joker and Two-Face (possibly the fates of each character at the end of the movie?). Took me about 5 minutes to find them. But I thought about it, and decided not to open the page. I’ve seen enough. In the meantime, I did download the score, and today picked up the animated DVD, Batman: Gotham Knight. It’s 6 stories in 6 different styles that all sort of link together. It’s really well done, though. It’s anime-styled and really comes across better than the last DC animated project, Darwin Cooke’s Justice League: The New Frontier. Not that TNF was bad, but it seemed a little underwhelming. There is a preview on Gotham Knight of a new Wonder Woman animated movie, which looks decent. Keri Russel is playing the titular heroine, with Alfred Molina as the villain. I like both those casting choices. I couldn’t buy Keri Russel as Wonder Woman in live-action, but I think she has a good voice for it. As for Molina, he gets to play Ares, the God of War. Wasn’t that Kratos?

Anyway, the other big thing people are talking about is obviously, Heath Ledger’s performance, which is being bandied about for an Oscar nomination. Honestly, I hope he gets nominated, but doesn’t win it. It may be a cliche that it’s “an honour just to be nominated,” but it is probably true. When people are running down an actor’s accomplishments, they mention the nominations as well as the awards. But my concern is that I expect if he did win it, regardless of whether or not he deserves it, a lot of cynical types will bitch that he just got it because he’s dead.But we still haven’t seen the film. Maybe this time next week, we’ll all be talking about how it would be insane not to give him a posthumous Oscar. We’ll find out soon.

Oh, also, I should mention that I just watched the newest Venture Brothers episode, “What goes down, must come up” and this one was as funny as the previous seasons. All you need to know is that Dr. Venture got lost in the sewers beneath the compound, and the guy from Prodigy was running around down there.

“He just keeps saying he’s the Firestarter. I’m trapped in a sewer with a confessed arsonist Brock!”