by Dave Thomas

Welcome to the month of the Miramax fire sale, wherein Harvey and Bob release all the crap they’ve been holding back before they leave Disney for good in September. Other than that, it’s your usual batch of not-ready-for-prime-time summer releases.
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AUGUST 5
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THE DUKES OF HAZZARD
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Just some good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm with that Confederate Flag on top of their car.
WILL IT SUCK?
Well, did you like “Super Troopers?” Jay Chandrasekhar, who directed that, is on board here. Not only that, most of the fifty or so writers credited with this adaptation are from that project as well. In a way, it seems appropriate. In another way, isn’t anyone from the original TV show still alive to write this?
I guess the casting makes sense, though the original rumor of Paul Walker as one of the Dukes and Britney Spears as Daisy Duke is, well, about as appropriate. And Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg is ultimately a less, erm, controversial choice than Anthony Anderson, which I think would’ve been a hoot n’ a holler, regardless.
Still, I don’t think we’re looking at even a “Starsky & Hutch” level interpretation here.
HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
I can’t believe no one’s taking on the Dukes. $48mil.
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2046
WHAT’S THE PITCH?
Wong Kar Wai ventures into sci-fi.
WILL IT SUCK?
As you might expect for a Wong Kar Wai flick, the buzz is pretty solid. Combines elements, literally, of his previous works (entire characters in some cases). Got every award “Kung Fu Hustle” didn’t get at the Hong Kong Film Awards plus a crapload more at international fests. Also features Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi fresh from “Hero.”

Read the rest of this entry »

[From ThisPoint]
Police in Germany are hunting pranksters who have been sticking miniature flag portraits of US President George W. Bush into piles of dog poo in public parks.
Josef Oettl, parks administrator for Bayreuth, said: “This has been going on for about a year now, and there must be 2,000 to 3,000 piles of excrement that have been claimed during that time.”
The series of incidents was originally thought to be some sort of protest against the US-led invasion of Iraq. And then when it continued it was thought to be a protest against President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election.
But it is still going on and the police say they are completely baffled as to who is to blame.
“We have sent out extra patrols to try to catch whoever is doing this in the act,” said police spokesman Reiner Kuechler. “But frankly, we don’t know what we would do if we caught them redhanded.”
Legal experts say there is no law against using faeces as a flag stand and the federal constitution is vague on the issue.

Ernest Tubb
[From WFMU via Brooklyn Vegan]

All these periodic payola inquiries would lead you to believe that the only way to get a song played on the radio is by delivering duffel bags full of cash, cocaine and Adidas sneakers to a station’s doorstep. Not so. For several decades, another time-tested method was to shamelessly hitch your tune to an already established single, a phenomenon known as the Answer Song

Click here for 28 free Answer Song downloads including Ernest Tubb and the Bar-Kays.

[From the Washington Post via Catch]

President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of: nearly five weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.
The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening for a spell of clearing brush, visiting with family and friends, and tending to some outside-the-Beltway politics. It is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.
The August getaway is Bush’s 49th trip to his cherished ranch since he took office. Tuesday was the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president’s travel than the White House itself.
Until now, probably no modern president was a more famous vacationer than Ronald Reagan, who loved spending time at his ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif. According to an Associated Press count, Reagan spent all or part of 335 days in Santa Barbara over his eight-year presidency — a total that Bush will surpass this month in Crawford with 3 1/2 years left in his second term.

Nardwuar has an hilarious new interview with David Cross available for download. It’s just shy of an hour long and funny as hell. Cross proves once again that he’s hands down the funniest comedian working. [via BrooklynVegan]

http://www.thisbirdhasflown.com/

From NY Times:
Charging that John R. Bolton was “not truthful” in answering questions about his record, 36 senators urged President Bush on Friday not to make a recess appointment of Mr. Bolton as United Nations ambassador after the Senate’s failure to confirm him for that job…
In a letter to Mr. Bush, the senators cited the disclosure on Thursday that Mr. Bolton had been interviewed by the State Department’s inspector general in an investigation of intelligence failures related to Iraq, even though he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March that he had not been involved in any such inquiry.
Mr. Bolton “did not recall this interview” when he assured the committee that he had not been questioned by any investigators, according to a letter sent Friday from the State Department to Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the ranking Democrat on the foreign relations panel.
The letter from the senators, all Democrats except for the Senate’s sole independent, who usually votes with them, was the latest escalation of the battle over Mr. Bolton.
He has run into heavy opposition in the Senate because of his history of criticizing the United Nations and over charges that he tried to influence intelligence assessments to conform with his own views.

WHEN: Saturday July 30th – 2-6pm
PRICE: Free admission
WHERE: East River Park Amphitheatre
just south of the Williamsburg Bridge on the Manhattan side
SUBWAY: F or JMZ to Essex / Delancey
– DJ Brian Turner
– Tall Firs
– Oxford Collapse
– Oneida
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Oneida: Their latest album,”The Wedding”, covers many bases, from ranging full-on rawk to quirky, low-key pop. Jagjaguwar describes their previous album as follows; this seems as good an encapsulation of their sound as anything I can come up with: “Their trademark iterated and psych-tinged noise attack is still fully intact, both nervous and subdued at the same time – like what happens when you give meditative children trained in the ways of yoga an excessive amount of caffeine.”
MP3s:
http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/runthrough.mp3
http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/dididie.mp3
http://www.scjag.com/mp3/jag/treasureplane.mp3
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Oxford Collapse: The Oxford Collapse’s newest album, A Good Ground, is a distillation of twenty-plus years’ worth of underground rock and roll, evoking early REM, the Meat Puppets, and others. It’s catchy as hell, propelled by melodic basslines and accentuated by jangly guitar work, and makes for a damn good summertime listen.
MP3s:
http://www.kaninerecords.com/mp3/proofreading.mp3
http://media.spin.com//features/band_of_the_day/audio/2005/06/
cracks_in_the_causeway_hi.mp3
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Tall Firs: Swirling guitars and edgy vocals; if the Oxford Collapse evoke SST Records circa ’85, the Tall Firs could have fit on said label two years later. Described on the Tonic website as “Songs of time machines and whiskey.”
MP3s:
http://www.tallfirs.org/mp3/the%20woods.mp3
http://www.tallfirs.org/mp3/buddy_baby.mp3
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Extra Action Marching Band: They’re a marching band who’ve won the SF Bay Guardian’s Readers’ Poll for Best Rock Band, which should tell you a lot. Flag twirlers, a percussion section, you name it…twenty-eight people strong. They have the honor of leading us from the ‘theater when the show is through.

This is our kind of site:

Having realized the dire need for a centralized and coherent source of openbar listings (because paying rent and shelling out 7 bucks on a Brooklyn Lager just wasn’t working out), we took it upon ourselves to give you, our esteemed reader, this free service at our own, though insignificant, expense.

Check out MyOpenBar.com

As our friend Jahhoo pointed out to us yesterday, Republicans sure have short memories. Last week House Republicans drafted a resolution that stated proponents of a speedy withdrawal in Iraq (otherwise known as Democrats) are enemy appeasers:

[From the Progressive]
In a shameless swipe at their political opponents, House Republicans passed a resolution on July 21 that denounces those who dare to question the wisdom of an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq.
“Calls for an early withdrawal embolden the terrorists,” the bill states, adding that the U.S. must stay as long as it takes to achieve a free and secure Iraq.

Yesterday Gen. George Casey made the high profile statement that “fairly substantial reductions” in troops can be made by next year. Think Bush and the House Republicans will be blaming this administration puppet of emboldening the terrorists? Think again. In response to Casey’s assertion Rummy had this to say:
“We don’t want any delays,…. “Now is the time to get on with it.”
Read the rest of the Chicago Tribune article here.