My first (and hopefully last) movie review...

So, I usually feel that movie reviews are best left to the pros...seriously, whenever a friend recommends a movie, I nod, smile, and make a mental note to check rotten tomatoes or metacritic to see what actual experts think, so you can take the following with a grain of salt:

Just watched the critically acclaimed, and Oscar nominated movie "Million Dollar Baby". I must say, it left me very, very dissappointed.

Since my explanation is spoiler heavy, it's written in white text, so if you highlight it (by clicking and holding the mouse clicked, then dragging it down the page), you can read it, but if you don't want spoilers, then don't bother!

The cast and the performances were great, and it certainly isn't a "formula" sports movie, but there is a scene/plot twist in the middle of the movie, that was so poorly executed and so untrue to the sport of boxing that the movie completely lost me. Here comes the spoiler section of this review:

The first half of the movie follows the formula of any good sports movie, and does it REALLY well. The rookie fighter, working her way up in the ranks...her reluctant cornerman showing her the ropes...until finally she has the ~~BIG TITLE MATCH~~ with her evil, dirty, German opponent.

In this pivotal fight scene, the movie completely came unglued for me. Early on in the match, the German knocks Hilary Swank down with a cheap shot...as Swank is struggling to get up, the German knocks her down again. That's right, in a fully sanctioned world title fight, there was a knockdown, and rather than going to a neutral corner, at about a 5 count the villain knocks our hero down again. Never seen that in a boxing match. Hmmmm....let's see, realistically if something like this were to happen in a fight, the German character would be DQ'ed, suspended and perhaps not allowed to box again. In the movie she catches a stern warning.

Okay...you're saying to yourself...fair enough, so they blew it a little to make the German out to be a comic book villain, so what?

It gets worse.

The following round is an absolute clustermess of action. They are pushing eachother to the ground, hitting their opponents when they are down, and our hero is scoring countless illegal blows (at the urging of her corner) as apparently the referee is blind. Mercifully the bell rings amd I am left to wonder how on earth the judges scored the round with such frenzied action. (I should have known better than to think it was going to the judges scorecards...)

This is where the movie commits its biggest faux pas of all. After the bell rings to end the round, and the fighters have long since been seperated, Hillary Swank is heading to her corner. As she nears her corner, out of nowhere her German opponent nails her from behind (we're talking 5-10 seconds after the bell). So much time has elapsed after the round, in fact, that her cornerman has actually already got the stool set up in the corner, and when Swank falls she somehow breaks her neck on the stool. This never would have happened for a couple of reasons:

1.) It's illegal - not only in boxing, but there would be an assault law suit
2.) The German was likely ahead or even on the scorecards, so she really didn't have a good reason for this cheap attack.
3.) I've seen late shots in boxing before, but I've never ever seen anything like this...I'm not saying it's impossible...no wait a minute...I'm saying that in a major title fight, with a $1 million dollar purse, nothing like this could EVER HAPPEN!

Anyway, we find out later that Swank lost the fight. WHAT!? Was it a TKO? She couldn't answer the bell for the 4th round, so the German got awarded the match!!?? Huh? I guess the rules of boxing don't apply at all.

It ticks me off because they could have gotten the same result, but done it in a reasonable way...instead they resorted to this absolutely baffling plot twist and it ruined the movie for me.


To be fair, though, this is not a movie about boxing, it's a movie about relationships, and to that end, it's a good one. I just couldn't get over this one scene...and for the rest of the movie, I sat there thinking about how rotten it was. So I guess if your not a boxing fan, or if you think I'm being nitpicky, this may be the movie for you. As for me...big thumbs down!


Sorry about this post, I had to vent...back to regularly scheduled programming. Expect a HUGE NEWS post in the next 3 days.

Big News

My main man Duncan McAllister started a blog.

I'm loving his recent 3 S's post...particularly the "sandbox" section of S number 2.

The one thing my blog is lacking....

The masses spoke, and I listened...by popular demand, a picture of me hand-feeding a deer.




Regards,

Tony

The most disturbing Hasselhoff link of the week.

This may not be safe for work.

Very Disturbing Image

Padding the old post count....

Rather than editting the old post, I figured I'd post some more dontosai pics in a brand new post.

(See previous entry.)




Me and Paul surrounded by dontosai-ers...I wrote about 4 different jokes here....all of them innappropriate for mass consumption....(click here if you're in search of a more PG 13 blog.)





Paul, Mark, Hiromi, Tony, Greig, Yoshi Sensei, and the dontosai gents.






Paul, Tom and I by the ring-a-bell/clap/pray-for-companionship-so-you-no-longer-need-to-cry-yourself-to-sleep area of the festival.

Good times.





Tom and Hiromi...I know what you're thinking...what's a babe like her doing with a nerd like him?...I'll never understand how geeks like him and my dad landed hotties. Did I just call my mom a hottie?....oh dear. WWFSAT.

Dontosai

So last weekend was the annual Dontosai (Pronounced "Don't Oh Sigh") festival. It was really one of the highlights of my time in Japan in terms of seeing unique Japanese culture, (and it was a lot of fun.)



This is me in Front of the Dontosai bonfire.I don't have the picture I REALLY wanted to post here. (Of me and a few friends posing with some Junior High School boys dressed in their Dontosai gear.)







Anyway, Dontosai is a bonfire festival. People come and burn their New Year's decorations in the big bonfire. It's so environmentally unfriendly it's unbelievable, but it was all in good fun, so I guess that makes the environmental damage okay.







The people who are dressed up march several kilometers through town ringing there bells, and go up to pray at the shrine, and circle by the big bonfire.








Here are a couple of friends, Laura and Hein, who were full on participants. I was thinking about it, but the $100 entry fee was a little too steep...looked like fun though. It was about 2 degrees out, so they must have been cold!









After checking out the bonfire, I went to the temple part. People line up to make an offering, ring a big bell, and pray. I did it too, it all happens very quickly. You ring the bell, say a little prayer and clap your hands in the span of about 3 seconds. Suffice it to say, FDawg did not get a mention in my prayer, although Anna Kournakova's name may have come up.


Anyway, it was so packed full of people it was unreal, even by Japanese standards, but on the bright side, there were way more festival vendors out in force, which meant I got to eat fresh ~~KARAGE~~ booyah! If you can guess what Karage is, I'll be impressed! Tom on the other hand missed out on okonomiyaki...yech.

Against my better judgement, I've uploaded some video...good luck all!


Tony

Completely Ripped this link from Bry's Blog...

Took the career's test from Bry's blog. Bad news....

Withdrawn (I) 54.29% Outgoing (E) 45.71% Realistic (S) 62.16% Imaginative (N) 37.84% Intellectual (T) 77.42% Emotional (F) 22.58% Organized (J) 56.25% Improvised (P) 43.75% Your type is: ISTJ You are a Trustee, possible professions include - management,accounting, auditing, efficiency expert, engineer, geologist, bank examiners, organization development, electricians, dentists, pharmacist, school principals, school bus drivers, file clerk, stock broker, legal secretary, computer operator, computer programmer, technical writer, chief information officer, police officer, real estate agent.

Take Free Career Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Guess I'm suited to being an accountant....yech!

A grab bag of topics....

Opening Apology: Sorry for the lack of updates this week, I was very busy prepping for a presentation at the English Teacher's Mid-Year Conference. My topic was on Effective Team Teaching...ironic in that my co presenter and I are NOT a very effective team. Anyway, I thought it went poorly, but I received a lot of positive feedback...I get the official feedback this week.


Blog news: You can expect some ~FABULOUS~ pictures later this week. I won't spoil it, but I went to a crazy festival last weekend and I know you'll love the pictures...I'll post them as soon as my friend emails them to me.


Insomnia: Since pulling the all nighter on New Year's Eve, I've found it impossible to get to sleep before 5am. This wasn't a huge problem for the first week, because I didn't have work...so I'd sleep from 5am until 3pm...It was certainly strange, but I managed.

However, now that work has started, I've been sleeping (on average) 3 hours a night...I'm actually shocked at how well I'm coping. But I know this can't last! I know there's other insomniacs in the crowd...any tips from the peanut gallery? I've got a feeling I'll get back on track this week...my first FULL week back at school.


Weather...errr...Blizzard Report: 60cm of snow expected tonight (already 30 on the ground) - Guess who rides his bike 5KM to work!??! Tomorrow's gonna be fun!

Speaking of tomorrow, I have 2...count'em two lesson plans to make tonight and it's already 8:30pm. That only leaves me about 8 hours until I get to sleep...I'd better go.

Tony

Do you ever click this button?.....You Should!!!!

click the image to see it better


So have you ever noticed this button? I swear, it's the most interesting thing going. You just click it, and you're given a snapshot of someone else's life. It's absolutely addictive, and I find it very fun. You should try it!

There's a lot of garbage blogs that are just advertisements, or blogs that haven't gotten off the ground, but I'd say 1 in 5 is good, and 1 in 25 is an absolute gem!! I've even seen a few that could make Bryanna blush ;) - just kidding.

Anyway, your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to click into a few blogs, and if you find any good ones, copy and paste the address into a comment! I want to check them out.

Tony

This was meant to be a comment....

I tried posting this in the comments in the "clock" post...but it wasn't working for some reason...


Quick Responses:

To Alyane: I am seriously considering a trip your way when my contract is up. London is running #2 behind Costa Rica, but we'll see!

FDawg: I have no clue about this so-called elephant. None whatsoever. (Are you surprised?)

Teena: http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/acs/tacs-7111.html
was an okay link. I prefer this one:

(okay...no link here...I was searching for a link to some sort of Living Dangerous in Japan website when I stumbled upon this picture....it made me laugh out loud....am I weird?)




For the rest: It is a bizarre clock indeed...I stumbled across it while reading up on Pro Wrestling of all things.

Tony

P.S.

Did anyone see that Bry and I were named people of the year by ABC News!?!?

9 Comments and Counting!

Wow! I can pour my heart out....I can post strange and bizarre pics of myself...but nothing gets everyone talking like a link to a clock!

Unfortunately, I'm not up for a big post today...but I do have an AWESOME link to show you. It's marginally better than the clock. Click the banner.



Enjoy!

Another short post.

Still not sleeping properly!

I really thought this was a cool link.

Check it out:

http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/03/index.html

Scott Adams - Visionary

click the comic to see it better

I read this comic today - written in 1989. I think the Fear Factor people must have read it too.

The Man Festival

Here are my random thoughts about the day:



I arrived at Saitama Super Arena around 3pm. There were a lot of people outside buying t-shirts/souvenirs etc. Pretty comparable to any pro wrestling event.








It was a ridiculously snowy day.






Here's a pic of me beside one of the bigger Pride signs. This show is called "Otoko Matsuri", which translates to "Man Festival". The kanji (chinese character) behind me means, "Man". This kanji was all over the place at the arena...I don't know why, but seeing a ton of signs that just said "MAN" amused me.








These guys are a great part of Japanese sporting events...you are allowed to bring in your own food....and even beer! They don't let you bring in bottles or cans, so you give the beer to these guys, and they pour it into cups for you.





Okay...Time to debunk a myth. I've read numerous articles saying that the Japanese MMA audience is primarily female. This is utter nonsense. Want evidence? Scroll down!














Men's Room








Ladies' Room







The show itself was a major disappointment as the matches in the ring failed to deliver the goods.

I took a lot of pictures and video inside the building, but it didn't turn out too well. You can get good pics of the action at Sherdog.com or MMAweekly.com.

After the show I had one of the strangest New Year's Eves of all time. I was on a packed train (heading to Tokyo to meet friends), when the clock struck midnight. Nobody on the train even acknowledged it. I wanted to shout, "HAPPY NEW YEAR"...but bit my tongue. I went to a club with some friends until 5 am. Then for breakfast and caught a bullet train home at 7am.

Anyway, hope everyone here had a Happy and safe New Years.