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ohtani's jacket

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  1. It reminds me of the '89 Pistons sweeping the Lakers after the Lakers had beat them in 7 in '88. Obviously, the Spurs are more like the Lakers in terms of age, but I can't remember the last time I saw a team lose in the finals then come back this strongly.

  2. Now we only have to wait 3 days for the next game in San Antonio.  That long trip from the hotel to the arena.

     

    Hey, look on the bright side. At least they have three days to fix the A/C. 

  3. Cue Bayless mode:

     

    JORDAN PLAYED WITH A 120 DEGREE FEVER AND WON THE TITLE ALL BY HIMSELF.  LEBRON DOESN'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES

     

    /delusional Bayless mode  <_<

     

    Ha, if none of the stadiums had air conditioning, Lebron would have never won a ring.

  4. Eh, the Rockets, Sonics, Robinson-led Spurs, Jazz, Blazers, and Barkley's Suns made for a tough conference.

     

    If this were the 90s, we'd be talking about how flawed these teams are and how they're incapable of winning the title (the '94-95 Rockets aside.) They seem better in hindsight than they really were. None of them were as consistently good as the Spurs, who Lebron is now facing for a third time. 

  5. The West was softer than the East when Magic went to all those finals and you don't hear that as a talking point much. I'm not sure the Western conference teams Jordan faced were as good as today's Western teams, either.

    • Like 1
  6. Here's the last batch of films I watched for this:

     

    I BURY THE LIVING (Albert Band) -- great title, not so great film. The mystery takes forever to kick in and the pay-off is lame. The acting is pretty shoddy too. The saving grace is the photography, but not one of the decade's stronger B-films.

     

    THE BAND WAGON (Vincente Minnelli) -- the musical for people who like to claim that Singing in the Rain isn't the best musical of the decade. Is it better than Singing in the Rain? No. In fact, I'm not convinced it was better than An American in Paris, but Fred Astaire devotees may disagree. 

     

    THE BURGLAR (Paul Wendkos) -- pretty good under the radar noir. Has a bit of a problem with exposition, but the elements you want from a noir are there and the final set piece on the pier at Atlantic City is cool, even if the idea of a showdown at an amusement park was far from original. 

     

    ICE COLD IN ALEX (J. Lee Thompson) -- quintessential British war film. Just a ripping good yarn. The bulk of the action deals with a group of soldiers escorting two nurses across the desert in an ambulance and is similar to Wages of Fear in terms of the dangers they face. Fantastically shot set piece scenes. Great acting. Plenty of tension and drama. This one had it all. Great note to end on. 

  7. SUDDEN RAIN (Mikio Naruse) -- chose a random Naruse to watch since there's so much of his filmography I haven't see. It was all right, but the impression I get with Naruse is that he was inconsistent, particularly with the material he chose to shoot. Yet in some quarters they rave about each of his films because they were previously unknown and not canon. I'm not sure he deserves the plaudits. At least not on a film by film basis. This was also a film about a married couple bickering, and if you're married you'll know that's not always what you want to watch.

     

    WHEN CHIMNEYS ARE SEEN (Heinosuke Gosho) -- this was the first Gosho film I've seen, and despite it being the umpteenth million post-war Japanese drama about hardship and people living on the fringes, Gosho's love of Rene Clair meant this had a wonderful comic charm to it. Like most comedies it ran out of steam, but it was a good introduction to Gosho and I'd recommend it for people who like Shohei Imamura's films.

     

    O DRAKOS (Nikos Koundouros) -- considered by Greek critics to be the greatest Greek film ever made, this is a noirish character study about a sad and lonely officer worker who is mistaken for a notorious criminal. Since he hates his life, you can pretty much guess what follows. It was quite frenetic to begin with and I had some trouble with what was going on, but the photography won me over and the end shot in particular was really gorgeous. The story itself wasn't the most original, but I was into it by the final third. Not bad.

     

    THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT (Frank Tashlin) -- Frank Tashlin films are always colourful and fun. This wasn't a masterpiece like Rock Hunter, but it was enjoyable. It was Tashlin's ode to rock 'n' roll and features a lot of the biggest names of the day like Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Fats Domino.

     

    ROOM AT THE TOP (Jack Clayton) -- I enjoyed this kitchen sink drama. The lead character was a bit of a prick, but Laurence Harvey was a good enough actor that I didn't despise him. His motivations were clear; the only real problem was that it wasn't convincing when he was supposed to be in love (with Simone Signoret.) That was the only real chink in the film's armour, though I wouldn't call Signoret's Oscar winning performance exceptional. 

     

    THE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS (Roberto Rossellini) -- this is canon, but it's not the most exciting film is it? I liked a couple of the stories towards the end, especially the one about the siege, but I generally don't care for films that are chamber pieces or rather a collection of short stories. I get what Rossellini was trying to illustrate about the Christian spirit, but there wasn't much to hang your habit on. 

     

    SURCOS (Jose Antonio Nieves) -- now this was an excellent neo-realism film. There were as many neo-realism films in the 50s as there were films about post-war Japanese society, but this sticks out as one of the better ones and certainly one of the best Spanish films of the decade. It's a familiar story of a family of farmers who move from their village to the big city in pursuit of a better life and full victim to the evils of the city, but it was extremely well made and managed to slip past the censors in the Franco regime. I would consider this the Spanish version of the Bicycle Thief or something similar. 

     

    LA TRAVERSEE DE PARIS (Claude Autant-Lara) -- classic French comedy starring Jean Gabin and Bourvil. As usual with foreign comedy much is lost in translation, but the plot was amusing even if the jokes didn't make me laugh out loud, and I was impressed that the film didn't run out of steam. I probably won't vote for it, but I enjoyed it.

     

    EDES ANNA (Zoltan Fabri) -- Sweet Anna was very sweet. Even my three year-old daughter said she was cute. She's the maid of a woman who treats her like shit in this Hungarian drama about a sweet girl pushed to the edge. A very good, economical film that as probably an analogy for some political thing I can't be bothered looking up. Since there's only a hundred spots on the list, this is the kind of film that's right on the cusp, but it was very good. Fabri is another guy where I'd like to see more of his stuff.

  8. For my money, the 50s is the best decade in the history of cinema. I could go 200 deep easily and keep watching films for the rest of the year, so I'm happy to stop. There's plenty of stuff I haven't seen yet and a handful of films I wish I'd re-watched, but I was able to knock off a massive amount of stuff and branch out in several new directions, so I've thoroughly enjoyed this project.

     

    Sadly, I don't see this continuing into the 40s and earlier, but it was a great excuse to have a singular focus in what I watched.

    • Like 1
  9. BLESSINGS OF THE LAND (Manuel Silos) -- classic Filipino melodrama about a family of villagers trying to cultivate lanzones as calamity after calamity occurs. As it's a melodrama, the calamities are naturally quite convoluted and mostly revolve around a villager who is wrongly accused of murder and becomes a murderous recluse and attempted rapist, but it's an excellent piece of 50s melodrama and I deeply regret the amount of Tagalog cinema that lacks subtitles.

     

    SHREE 420 (Raj Kapoor) -- Kapoor is in full-on Chaplin mode here, creating his most obvious tribute to the Tramp while even paying homage to silent cinema. I love Kapoor, so I enjoyed this lively tale of the rags to riches rise of the Chaplin character and the price he has to pay with his soul, even if it also borrows the most didactic parts of Chaplin, including a Great Dictator style speech. Kapoor was a massive talent and it's a shame his work isn't better known in the West. 

     

    THE MONEY (Kim So-dong) -- a bunch of poor villagers talk about money... a lot... Picks up in the second half when the central character loses all his and everything turns to shit, but takes a long time to get going, and yeah, "money is the root of all evil" ain't the most original theme and is more fun with Bollywood songs (see above.)

     

    THE WHITE REINDEER (Erik Blomberg) -- this Finnish film is like Nanook of the North if Nanook of the North was a horror film. A newly wed woman visits a shaman to get a spell for keeping her husband at home and is turned into a bewitched vampire reindeer. Interesting to say the least.

     

    CARMEN COMES HOME (Keisuke Kinoshita) -- Japan's first colour film and quite a beloved one at that. Good old Hideko Takamine stars as a cabaret dancer who returns home to the country to visit her aging father and causes quite a stir. The colours are beautiful, there's a nice musical influence and some earthly humour, but as with most of Kinoshita's films it's lacking something, in this case probably an extra layer to Takamine's character.

     

    THE BLACK PIT OF DR. M (Fernando Mendez) -- moody and atmospheric horror about two doctors who make a pact to discover if there's life after death, with horrific consequences. Mendez really was a pro and did wonderful things with a simple budget and single studio lot. I would put him on the same level of Bava and Franco. Great B director.

     

    HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (William Castle) -- I wanted a ghost story not a whodunit, but if that doesn't bug you then this is one of Vincent Price's juicer roles and I suppose one of his better films. He has some venom soaked lines, that's for sure.

     

    LILI (Charles Walters) -- everyone talks about how heart warming and charming this is, but aside from the puppets I wasn't that sold. The love story was unconvincing to me, and when the love story is unconvincing in a romantic comedy drama, you've got problems. The dream sequence that closes this out is also talked up a lot, but it's got nothing on An American in Paris. The whole puppet thing works well, though, even if it's a little on the nose in terms of what it represents.

     

    YIELD TO THE NIGHT (J. Lee Thompson) -- excellent entry to the female prisoner on death row genre, a popular one in the 1950s. Diana Dors, a British Marilyn Monroe type, does extremely well going against type as the female inmate, and Thompson avoids any and all traps when it comes to sentimentality or melodrama. Sturdy film.

  10. SUZAKI PARADISE: RED LIGHT (Yuzo Kawashima) -- nowhere near as clever or brilliant as Bakumatsu Taiyoden, but a decent look at the "struggles and survival strategies of those living on the margins of post-war Japanese society" as a former working girl tries to resist the temptation to cross back over into her former line of work. Trouble is there were dozens of post-war films made about people on the fringes, so it's not that illuminating. Yukiko Todoroki gives an outstanding supporting performance as a bar owner raising her children alone after her husband abandoned them. One of the better performances I've seen in a while.

     

    CALLE MAYOR (Juan Antonio Bardem) -- as with Mexican films, it's tough to find subtitles for classic Spanish films. This stars American actress Betsy Blair as a spinster who's tricked into believing she's going to marry by a bunch of local layabouts with nothing better to do than play pranks on folks. It starts off with way too much exposition, but once the plot kicks off it's rather compelling as you want to see whether the fiance (and chief culprit) will redeem himself. I wasn't overly satisfied with the ending, but it was an intriguing film.

     

    UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN (Tadashi Imai) -- the chances are you've never heard of Tadashi Imai, but his films won practically every Japanese film award during the 1950s. He was a social realist and in this particular film challenged the rationale behind the war in what was otherwise a fairly benign love story. Given that it was from 1950 it must have been one of the first films to do so, but it employed voice over narration for the lead protagonists' thoughts, which is ultra rare in Japanese cinema of the time (in fact, I don't recall ever seeing it before) and the effect was kind of hokey. Still, this was all right.

     

    EL VAMPIRO (Fernando Mendez) -- hey, it's a Mexican vampire film, what more needs to be said? I actually thought this was better and more atmospheric than the Hammer films. Or maybe I'm biased because it's Mexican. 

  11. Americo Rocca, Cacharro Mendoza y Kung Fu vs. El Talisman, El Dandy y Guerrero Negro (September 1986)

     

    This trio of El Talisman, El Dandy and Guerrero Negro are sometimes referred to on the internet as "Los Bravos." The more famous version of Los Bravos was Fuerza Guerrera, Talisman and El Dandy, a trio which ran from 1985 through to some time in '86; and while I've seen a magazine cover that also calls the Guerrero Negro version Los Bravos, I'm not sure how often they tagged together or how long their association was. Talisman and Dandy often appeared without Fuerza, especially on smaller shows, and it's possible that they gained a new partner along the way.

     

    I forgot here that Fuerza Guerrera supposedly left EMLL in August of '86, vacating the Mexican National Welterweight title.

  12. Americo Rocca, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar vs. Negro Navarro, El Signo y El Texano (Hair vs. Hair) (9/19/86)

     

    This was a triple hair match from the 53rd Anniversary Show. In my previous entry about the Misioneros, I stated that they left the UWA around this time, but a quick look at the bills we have from this time shows that's clearly not true. They may have taken on more dates for Mora, but they still worked for UWA fairly regularly. There's a record of one more appearance at Arena Mexico on 12/12/86 taking on Chamaco Valaguez, Javier Cruz and Tony Salazar, and for what it's worth there was an earlier match at El Toreo on 4/13/86 where they took on La Fiera, Ringo Mendoza and Tony Salazar.

     

    Blue Panther, El Talisman y El Dandy vs. Stuka, America Rocca y Chamaco Valaguez (11/86)

     

    This was right around the time that Panther was getting his first big push at El Toreo. He'd gotten his initial break in Monterrey after his trainer recommended him to booker Rene Guajardo. Guajardo was impressed with Panther's skill level for a rookie and not only gave him a small push on the Northern circuit but sent him to Mexico City less than a year after his debut. Within six months, he was working for Francisco Flores and spent the early part of the 80s fighting an array of talented light weights in what was arguably the most stacked under card of any promotion in wrestling history. Throughout 1984 he continued to take minor masks on the smaller shows and then at the end of the year he teamed with Black Man to take the masks of Las Sombras de Plata I & II at El Toreo, his first apuesta match on the big stage. A few weeks later he won his first major title, the UWA World Welterweight title, which he took from El Matematico, and held onto it until 2/86 where he lost it to Black Man. A week later, Black Man took on Panther in an apuesta match and lost his mask in a move that severely hurt the Fantastico's career. 

     

    blackmanunmasked1.jpg

    Heading into the winter season, Panther took the UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight championship from Gran Hamada on 11/16/86 right around the time this match is meant to have taken place.

     

    Talisman had spent much of 1986 as the Mexican National Middleweight champion, having won the title from Atlantis in March. During his reign he defended the title against both Americo Rocca and Stuka. Stuka was a young high flying wrestler from Durango, who'd been trained in part by the father of Espanto Jr. He'd spent the early part of his career wrestling under his real name of Joel Garcia before adopting a masked gimmick based around the World World II German dive bombers; his mask adorned with iron crosses and other Luftwaffe insignia. True to his name, he was an aerial artist with a number of big dives. He didn't reach terribly great heights with EMLL, and as the decade flicked over he became a regular in Monterrey where he lost his mask to Perro Aguayo in a triangle match with El Hijo del Santo. He then worked for a long time in the Northern district as well as for AAA. The Stuka Jr that currently wrestles in CMLL is his younger brother, who was born the year after Stuka debut.

     

    Talisman would lose the middleweight title to rising star Mogur on 11/30/86 while his rivalry with Rocca spilled over into another hair match in '87. El Dandy was also feuding with Americo Rocca at this time. Dandy had won the NWA World Welterweight title on 8/24/86 from Javier Cruz and lost it to Rocca on 11/3/86. The pair were booked for a rematch on the 12/12 show.

     

    So there's quite a lot going on in this match. 

  13. Babyface, Cien Caras y Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Lizmark, Rayo De Jalisco y La Fiera (September 1986)

     

    This was another trios from before the hair match.

     

    Babe Face, so called because when he came up from his native Colima to Mexico City he was like a boy amongst men, was forced into wrestling by his mother because he was a troublemaker. What he lacked in height, he made up for with his bulky physique and he was said to have been one of the hardest punchers in the business. He also showed surprising vigour and agility for a man his size, however these qualities took their toll on his body and he wound up wrecking his hip. He worked for UWA for practically its entire existence and had one last run with AAA in the late 90s, but by that stage he was a wreck and needed a hip replacement. Babe retired for good and now runs a food stall behind Arena Mexico where he serves Japanese inspired rice dishes and Mexican huaraches. Somewhat amusingly, when this career rudo was touring Japan in the 70s and 80s, he'd spend his off days taking cooking classes and that's where the Japanese inspiration comes from. 

  14. Americo Rocca, Cacharro Mendoza y Kung Fu vs. El Talisman, El Dandy y Guerrero Negro (September 1986)

     

    This trio of El Talisman, El Dandy and Guerrero Negro are sometimes referred to on the internet as "Los Bravos." The more famous version of Los Bravos was Fuerza Guerrera, Talisman and El Dandy, a trio which ran from 1985 through to some time in '86; and while I've seen a magazine cover that also calls the Guerrero Negro version Los Bravos, I'm not sure how often they tagged together or how long their association was. Talisman and Dandy often appeared without Fuerza, especially on smaller shows, and it's possible that they gained a new partner along the way.

     

    Guerrero Negro was a talented wrestler from Monclova, Coahuila, who was brought to Mexico City by Herodes. Apparently, he didn't adapt to life in the capital so well and returned to Monclova some time after the 1985 earthquake, so whether he was working full time in the Federal District at this point is unclear. In the Coahuila area, he had a long running rivalry with Remo Banda, who later became Volador/Super Parka, and the two had several apuesta matches. Negro wrestled for CMLL up until 1991 and then worked a bit for AAA through to the end of the 90s. He then suffered a stroke and was in poor health for some time before his death in 2006.

     

    Kung Fu was a veteran worker who had made his pro debut at the end of the 60s. During the mid-70s, he capitalised on the kung fu craze by changing his gimmick to a masked martial artists fighter and had success in EMLL both in singles and teaming with another practitioner of the martial arts, Kato Kung Lee. In 1979, they formed a trio with Satoru Sayama called "El Triangulo Oriental," a forerunner for the UWA trio they formed with Black Man, "Los Fantasticos." The Fantasticos were one of the most exciting trios acts of the 80s, working a fast paced, all action style that was a perfect blend of high flying, martial arts kicks and lightning quick lucha exchanges, but by this stage they had broken up and gone their separate ways. Kung Fu moved back to EMLL, Kato Kung Lee was working for Mora in Tijuana and Black Man stayed with UWA. So long as he was masked, Kung Fu received a solid push from EMLL. He won the NWA World Middleweight title from Gran Cochisse on 10/17/86 and again from El Dandy on 10/7/87 before losing the belt to Atlantis in 1988; a rivalry that would culminate in Atlantis taking his mask on a 1990 Arena Mexico show. This was in stark contrast to his partners, who lost their hoods shortly after breaking up, but once the public realised how old Kung Fu was, his career took a steep nosedive. He also died relatively young, just shy of his 50th birthday, from a heart attack.

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