You’re probably sick of reading about MJ on Facebook and Twitter–but I need to mourn the loss.
I’m a huge fan–those of you who have seen me when Billy Jean comes on already know this. In fact, one of my earliest memories is listening to my uncle’s Thriller LP at my grandparents’ apartment.
Despite his eccentricity, he was a genius. Consider his oft-sampled hits like PYT and Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough–tons of artists, like Kanye and Rihanna, have been riding his coattails to success.
But, because of his off the wall personality (pun intended), the public easily vilified him as a molester. I still don’t think he did it–people saw him has an easy target and took advantage.
Regardless, you can’t deny his influence and the road he paved for stars like JT and Chris Brown. Although he’s gone, Michael Jackson will live forever though his music.
And I, for one, will be dancing in his memory this weekend.

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I heard about this documentary through the internets and the hype has been good. The guy who made this movie, no joke sat Tyson down for what looks to be 2 days and just had the man tell his story. It is a straight 90 minutes of Tyson talking. It takes a minute or two to get accustomed to his way of speaking, but once you get into the story it is extremely fascinating, sad and heartbreaking how this man went from nothing, to everything and back to nothing. Hearing it all straight from the man himself makes you see things in a different light and understand just where he was coming from. At one point when he mentions Don King he refers to him as, “a wretched, slimey, reptilian mothefucker…” and then continues to go off for another minute or so. He pulls no punches on himself and isn’t afraid to admit it is all on him and no one else. His complete and brutal honestly is extremely captivating at times. I enjoyed it, but then again I find Mike Tyson fascinating in some aspects. Go into it knowing that the whole movie is Mike Tyson speaking with a few short occasional news clips and some footage of his fights. Great watch, definitely a rental, no need to see in the theater. I give it 4 stars, because while it was good, it wasn’t great.

Pops drinking a Manhattan, made by me obviously. Here is to you dad, Happy Father’s Day! More pictures are here including a few of my niece and my bro, the other father present.

LAKERS!!!

Stolen from Robert Gauthier (Los Angeles Times)

I heard about Up shortly after the release of Wall-E; I have to admit, a story about an old man who straps balloons to his house didn’t sound very interesting.
But seeing how Pixar kills it nine times out of ten (c’mon, Cars was horrible) I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Not to mention the 97% on Rotten Tomatoes is quite the vote of confidence.

To sum up the movie in one word: amazing. It’s my favorite Pixar movie to date (with WALL-E a close second).

The thing about Up is the marketing doesn’t convey how deep the movie is–sure it’s funny and silly, but at times also quite sad. The LA Times describes it as almost having a movie-within-a-movie.

With its endearing characters (the Asian kid is named Russell–like my nephew!) and heartfelt storyline, it’s a must-see.