Netflix Streaming and Amazon Bluray Movie of the Day : WAY OF THE DRAGON

WAY OF THE DRAGON is arguably Bruce Lee’s best film, in that it was the film he had the most control over; wearing hat of writer, director, and star. A circumstance which is not always a good thing, actors not always being the best gauge of their own interests or image. However Bruce Lee from the start was more than an actor, he was the message not merely the messenger, and as such was uniquely suited to define himself for others; and he does that expertly in this film.

The opening of WAY OF THE DRAGON (also sometimes referred to as RETURN OF THE DRAGON, confusing in that this came before ENTER THE DRAGON, not after) is pure Charlie Chaplin, Lee showing his penchant for physical comedy, and his pure charisma. And seeing Bruce Lee against the backdrop of the West that he always found both tantalizing and duplicitous, is a joy.

What surprises, revisiting this film after some absence, is how young he is.

You forget that these icons like Hendricks, and Ali, and Bruce Lee that shaped so much of the American consciousness and whose shadows continue to dominate so much of what we consider best of our cultural zeitgeist and worth aspiring to, at the height of their power… were basically just kids who believed the world could be changed… and changed it.

Is WAY OF THE DRAGON the greatest martial arts movie of all time? Probably not, but it is a great movie, and watching a Bruce Lee untouched by age or death, with his whole life ahead of him, in a sumptuously photographed, and largely fun film, is a little like visiting one last time… with a good friend.

There is something bitter and sweet about it.

And the final fight with Chuck Norris is justifiably classic. And like the film itself it is more in the nuances around the fight, the essential touches Lee brought to it, the philosophy of Chinese Boxing, the stretching, the inter-cutting of the kitten, all deliver something more than the spectacle of violence, but a way through violence… to find some peace on the other side of it.

A film that not just every Martial Arts fan should have in their collection, but a film any fan of cinema should proudly have on their curio shelf, as the work of 1970s art that it is.

And also the Blu-Ray is a must have for the audio commentaries, documentaries and pristine picture.

I like streaming for the chance to be exposed to a wealth of movies, but quality (when it is coming from a middle man such as a streaming or cable service) is always subject to bandwidth and signal concerns of the moment. The Bluray, failing damage, will give you the best picture in all moments… consistently.

So for movies like WAY OF THE DRAGON, that you intend to come back to again and again… Blu-Ray is the way to go.

Here’s the link:

The Bruce Lee Premiere Collection (The Big Boss / Fist of Fury / The Way of the Dragon / Game of Death) [Blu-ray]

Highly Recommended! And if a fan of this film I would direct you to the 1970s comic book series it inspired, Marvel Comic’s MASTER OF KUNG FU. Specifically issues 38 and 39 that form an excellent and not to be missed two part story, that any fan of Bruce Lee should check out.

Links here:

Master of Kung Fu, Edition# 38

Master of Kung Fu (1974, 1st series) #38

Master of Kung Fu (1974, 1st series) #39

And a book covering the career of one of the influential artists of the 70s and Bruce Lee fan, Paul Gulacy:

Spies, Vixens and Masters of Kung Fu PB

If you like this blog, and specifically this post, show your support by using the links above. You get great items, and this blog gets a few pennies. A win all the way around. 🙂 Thanks for looking and till next time… make someone smile today.

If, like me, you’ve been interested on Chuck Norris’ take on Bruce Lee well here’s a Norris quote about meeting Lee in New York in 1965, when Lee was working on the GREEN HORNET series. The quote is courtesy of the site BRUCE LEE DAILY:

“I said that I was really tired and that I should get to the hotel because I had an early flight the next day at nine o’clock. Bruce said he was staying at the same hotel so we decided to go over together. So we were taking a cab to the hotel, and now we are really getting involved in our conversation. We get to the hotel and are going up in the lift to the floor that Bruce’s room is on.

We both step out into the hallway – it was about twelve o’clock by now – the next thing I know I’ve got my jacket off and we are working out in the hallway.

I swear to you that the next time I looked at my watch it was seven o’clock the next morning. I looked at my watch again, I could not believe it, I had a flight in two hours back to Los Angeles and Bruce said that when we got back we should work out together, which we did for three years.

Then Bruce left for Hong Kong to pursue his movie career. I didn’t hear anything from him for about two years, then one day I got a call from Hong Kong; it was Bruce, he said: “I’ve just finished two movies over here, they were really successful”. He said he wanted to do a fight scene that everyone would remember and he said I want you to be my opponent and he was going to call the film Way of the Dragon.”

Read the full article Here!

Star Trek vs. Star Wars?!!

David W of BadAzz Mofo, the publisher of the FANTASTIC BadAzz Mofo Magazine of the same name, also runs a way cool blog, that I need to visit more often.

Why?

Here’s why:

Hilarious! Read his whole blog here!. And while there pick up his books and mags, they come recommended! And tell em HT sent ya!!!!

Florida CDC Homeless Attack Face Cannibal Zombie BS Media Bath Salts?!! News?

Florida. Florida. Florida.

That state hasn’t been right since the Bushes moved in. 🙂 .

I’m going to give this ‘news’ story the in-depth analysis it deserves. “Bath Salts cause homeless man to go on zombie style face eating attack”? “CDC warn there is no Zombie uprising.”

Really?

This is what passes for news and journalism and the wisdom of our government in action?!

Playing up America’s paranoia and gullibility, to spin some stories about homeless f**kers hopped op on Bath Salts, turning into vicious face eating zombies. And the CDC plays into it by issuing their ‘denial’.

I don’t watch TV, or the 24 hour propaganda machine on spin cycle, which means I still have working brain cells left and can tell bullsh*t when I hear bullsh*t.

This is bullsh*t.

A cursory examination of the story, lends a far more probable angle.

Pharmaceutical companies, have been trying to privatize Bath Salts for years, for some silly notion that they can reduce its therapeutic effectiveness and make billions selling you a now ‘controlled’ and watered down version of what you can today get for free.

So how do you get people to give up a harmless therapeutic used for decades upon decades, and pay you billions? Well if you’re a billion dollar conglomerate, with the mass media in your back pocket, you whip out that new strain of LSD you’ve been working on, feed it to some mental defectives, and let them out the mental hospital (budget cuts you know) and let them do LSD tinged, mentally defective things, and your media rushes in to point fingers at the culprit in the corner, the proverbial smoking gun,… Bath Salts. 🙂 .

You now have a CDC and FDA approved public enemy number one. And the pharmaceutical company gets handed the rights to control, privatize, and going by their track record, make both useless and harmful … Bath Salts.

So pick your story of choice…

Bath Salts that your great, great grand parents were using, and has been used for generations since, suddenly turning people into zombies

OR

Recent studies showing the effectiveness of Bath Salts as a simple inexpensive alternative to medications the pharmaceutical companies wants you to pay exorbitantly for, and so they trump up a reason to have Bath Salts outlawed.

I don’t know about you, but given the history of American greed and American atrocities in pursuit of greed, I always choose the answer that has the potential to make someone rich. 🙂

It’s a Machiavellian type of America.

However, it is a state that elected Jeb Bush twice. Perhaps they are all zombies. 🙂

(I kid! I kid! I love Florida! Would you believe like?)

“I mean it’s not that difficult.
It’s not brain surgery.
We become the things we obsess about.
A society that obsesses over monsters and the victimization of the other,
becomes a nation of monsters and victimizers.
A society that dreams of heroes
that save maidens, and stands against dragons
becomes that heroism.
America is in need…
of Nobler dreams.”— HT

The COMIC STRIP Returns?!!!! THE HOUSE OF DUELING MIDNIGHT #1

Yeah, yeah.. it’s pretty stupid, and horrible. But I have to admit… it made me chuckle. 🙂

As far as why… Well I’ve been meaning to put up a couple strips for a while. And have been trying to network, collaborate with a couple of artists, but I’ll let you in on a secret, artists aren’t really the most reliable bunch for collaborating or networking with… at least the ones I’ve been dealing with.

So rather than wait on people to grow up, I decided to just ‘what the heck’ it, and just go ahead and create and post something that would make me laugh.

Hence this very brief, very juvenile ‘cut and paste’ cartoon courtesy of one of the free cartoon generators out there, The art is crude, but the insane story and words and madness is all me. Hope you enjoyed it. If you do, leave a comment and some likes!

It’s a work in progress experiment, that will improve if you guys will stick in there with me. Thanks!! 🙂

On the Racism of HP Lovecraft : 2nd Verse same as the First! :)

One of my more popular posts is my article covering the racism of HP Lovecraft. And by popular demand of someone who describes themselves as a self-professed Romney and Gay marriage supporter out of Olympia, Washington (hey I’m just reading what’s on the card :)) … he urges me (maybe she) to repost the article.

This Ricky makes an interesting point about HP Lovecraft’s popularity perhaps being buoyed by the rising tide of an America under attack by selfish liberal interests, bolstered by an ignorant populace that keeps resisting paying welfare to big business.

He/she further goes on to say that “the middle and lower classes are just not understanding that big business is right to bankrupt the country, and enslave many to debt for the needs of the coming over-lords and all this was foretold in the fiction of the messiah… LOVECRAFT!!!! You Liberal scum!! Don’t you see?!! Lovecraft loves you!!!!! HE DIED FOR YOUR SINS!!!!”

Again, I’m just reading what’s on the card people. 🙂

He/She goes on to say “CTHULHU! CTHULHU! CTHULHU!” To which I say Gezuntheit!

Ahh you’ve got to love the intelligence and stability and eloquence of Lovecraft supporters. 🙂

And I think that deserves our renewed attention to the article that started it all! For those who missed it the first time, read it at the link below, with love from he/she/it in Olympia, Washington! 🙂

This one’s for you! 🙂

Great, Awful and Inexplicable Comic Book Covers of the Day! and The Mouse cries out No Hiding Place!?!

Great, Awful and Inexplicable Comic Book Covers of the Day!

Let’s start with the great which there aren’t too many of in the last 30 days. In fact there is only one:

Dynamite’s BIONIC MAN. A great Alex Ross cover. Plus while I’m no fan of DYNAMITE ($3.99 is too much to charge for a comic) I think they are getting shafted in this lawsuit. What lawsuit?

Dynamite is being sued for selling John Carter comics. Yeah, yeah I know officially it says ERB, the Burrough’s estate, is suing Dynamite, but the timing begs to differ. This has Disney’s fat fingers all over it. Those books have been out for nearly a year, odd that ERB would only get a hair up their nose once Disney’s movie was hitting theaters.

I don’t believe in coincidence. Not when greed and money are in the air. Smells like a big company leaned over to ERB and said sue em… we got your back. 🙂

Here’s the thing companies like Disney are trying to gut the concept of public domain. Sure Dynamite didn’t pay the Burroughs Estate to use John Carter. Here’s the thing… they shouldn’t have to. John Carter is public effing domain. The fifty years is ended (now extended to 75, utter bs) that means anyone and everyone should be able to produce John Carter of Mars books or comics or movies.

This doesn’t stop the heirs from producing their version and continuing to leech off their ancestor’s creativity. But neither should it stop Dynamite from producing their version. And may the best version get the readers. That’s free enterprise.

But nooooooo, companies like effing Disney, that owns ABC and everything else under the frigging sun just make up the laws as they go. Whatever happened to monopoly laws?… huh President? huh Congress? huh Supreme Court? Damn sell-outs!

Disney should have been put on the rack and broken into an effing million pieces years ago. But it’s never too late for a good idea. 🙂 .God I hate that company, I’ve hated it since I was a little kid, they are everything that is wrong with this country. Greed First. Uber Alles.

(ohhhh, I remember the first time my parents took me to Disney World and I saw that damn Mouse! All the other blind simpering sheep were cooing over the fat Rat. Not me!! Seven Years old I grabbed a brick and went after him! “Run B*tch! Run!!” You should have seen that rat run—- Ahh, Good times , Good times! :).)

So these companies are using bogus trademark to undermine copyright laws. It’s utter bs, and if allowed to stand it will just rob us of any shared cultural history that we do not have to pay a corporate entity to use or even mention. It is utter garbage. I hope Marvel/Disney chokes on their greed and dies. Goddamn Disney! I’ve always hated that Mouse!… Okay, I’m calm now.

NOT!

Moving on….

Under the heading awful:

Any comic book that has AVENGERS or X-MEN on the cover. I have never burnt a book in my life, but seeing the glut of AVENGERS and X-MEN titles, I can see the appeal of a bonfire. And no doubt it’s some of my Disney hate still filtering down.

I’m working on it.

Most racist company on the friggin planet… and it makes children’s entertainment. Please, spare me. Anytime people mention Disney to me I want to hurt em.

“But didn’t you like BAMBI?” Hell no! Waste good Venison? What are you… stark raving mad?!!

Okay….

Now I’m calm. 🙂 .

Under the heading of Inexplicable is the following:

What the heck is going on in this cover? And what ever it is, the person on the cover seems a bit young looking to be in that pose. Maybe it’s just me.

Well that’s all for this installment of GREAT, AWFUL and INEXPLICABLE. Yall come back now ya here?! Except the mouse lovers…. I still got the brick!!! :).

PODCAST OF THE DAY: Joseph Kony, Angelina Jolie, New World Orders and Wacky Podcasts! :)

PODCAST OF THE DAY: NO AGENDA

Stumbled across this podcast. These guys are nuts! More than half of what they say is questionable/ludicrous at best, but in between their humor and craziness is some interesting, and some informed, pokes at the traditional media/press that we are all getting… more than a little sick of.

This podcast is a bit too talk show and obnoxious for my liking, too much like the hate media they take shots at, but there is enough of a difference to give this particular episode a bit of a listen.

Particularly give a listen to around the hour thirty mark where they play clips of your congress people at work, and you see how utterly clueless your representatives are when dealing with these tech and software companies. They basically sign any ‘cyber-security’ legislation that gets put in front of them, and sign away your rights along with them, rather than admit they are not qualified to ask much less answer… these questions of a new digital age.

Listen Here

And if you like that, you can sign up for their show’s RSS feed here.

:)!

In The News: Facebook, Rating Attorneys, Rogue Planets and Feb 25th Look up in the Sky!

ALL THE NEWS, YOU CAN USE:

Ohio man given choice of Facebook apology or jail– It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Nope… it’s still funny. 🙂

Cyber-security expert finds new flaw in smartphones– Even as a tech guy, I’m a Luddite at heart. Which means, there’s a point where I think you give up too much for ‘ease of use’. There’s a point where I think you need to draw a line between what is your data and what is not. Increasingly smart-phones, and tablets, and I-tunes, and cloud computing, not challenged, not held to a standard… will erase any such line.

Scorned Attorney Threatens to Take Down Lawyer-Review Site– Yeah that’s really going to change people’s opinion of him. More to the point I didn’t know there was a review site for Lawyers! Cool! I have some reviews I need to leave. 🙂

Rogue Planets are Rambling through Galaxy– What??!!! You mean SPACE 1999 had it right?!!!! Doh!!

Five Sports You Can Start Today and Play Forever– Well these are usually bs, but these guys are right on. Tennis anyone?! 🙂

Planets Align February 25: Venus, Jupiter, Moon To Converge— Oohhhh! I Knew it was coming! I knew it! I’m going up to my roof tomorrow at sunset and scream… SHAZAM!!! Goshdarn it! We’ll see who becomes Captain Marvel! 🙂

Well that’s all the news for now. Go out and hug somebody. 🙂

Must See Film of the Day! Buster Keaton’s THE SCARECROW

The Odd Terrain of America, viewed as if by God or There’s something on the wing or UFO/Too Much Alcohol :)

I’m still creating the “awards” for the Welles’ Podcast winners ( Note to self, it takes a LOOOOONG time to edit the highlights of 11 different shows onto a CD. I’ve got eight shows done, three to go) , and still working on the 2nd and Final portion of the WORLD FAMOUS, (would you believe “Block Famous”?) Welles Awards. So in the interim, here’s some ramblings and pics from my cross country flight:

Well I was taking that long flight from the West to the East, and had one of the worst flights taking the carrier… US Airlines.

They were offering great round trip prices, little did I know these prices came at the expense of little things like free baggage handling and making your connections on time.

So when you added up the additional costs (due to US Airlines now charging for your baggage check), the US Airlines prices… not a deal. When you also add the fact that you also miss connections the US Airways prices are really not a deal. And because they cut out flights, if you miss a connection, you’re pretty much stranded until the next day.

Which is what happened to yours truly. So then you (you, as in me) have to come out of pocket to rent a hotel for the night… do you get the picture? Needless to say, not a happy camper. That said, thankfully US Airways still has good people working for them, in what amounts to a cost cutting atmosphere. So the Attendent, to perhaps appease my rising eyebrow (sign of my ire), she gave me a free round-trip ticket good for a year.

It was a bribe, but it worked. I was suitably appeased. Not happy… but appeased.

That said, I haven’t used the ticket yet, but will be using it shortly.

Anyhow when finally, on a flight heading to my final destination, beyond bugging the people I sit next to (the band mates for Darius Rucker, formerly known as Hootie of “Hootie And The Blow Fish”. The guys were heading to Tennessee to play a gig) I amuse myself by taking pics of the ground beneath.

The odd terrain of an America, viewed as if by God.

So amuse yourself by laughing at my horrific photography, as I continue to wrap up the Welles Awards! 🙂 . Take a look:

Take Off

Leaving the land of endless sun, and constant parking tickets. 🙂

Life on Mars

Sheesh! That landscape fills me with confidence! “Life on Mars” Indeed.

The Dragon… rampant! (If you’re the first person to tell me what movie that’s from you’ll win a copy of the movie) I quite like the image the river makes, very Chinese New Year like.

There's something on the wing!

You fools! Don’t look at the clouds! There’s something on the wing!!!

Home and the Grace of God

Okay, made it across the country… home… by the grace of God.

Okay that’s enough rambling! I’ve got work to do.