Alejandro Jodorowsky, “Chocolate Rain” parodies, U.S. Open
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
On the heels of my Inland Empire watching and rewatching, I’ve spent a lot of time with Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s films lately. I bought the The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD (released earlier this year), which includes his four earliest movies: La Cravate (1957), Fando y Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), and The Holy Mountain (1973). Wow. Weird stuff, full of religious symbolism, sacrilegious imagery, nudity, amputees, blood, and general grotesqueness. Jodorowsky’s films are even less accessible than David Lynch’s films. By the way, Marilyn Manson, who is a huge fan of Jodorowsky, is reportedly starring in his latest film, King Shot (2009), currently in production. Jodorowsky is 78 years old and hasn’t released a film since 1990. In fact, he’s only released seven films ever, which means I have copies of 57% of his oeuvre. I’m very curious about this new project. See my film reviews and DVD collection at Filmometer.
Next: So, some good things have come from YouTube phenom Tay Zonday’s “Chocolate Rain” in the past month. Check out this short but awesome parody called “Fast Food Chain” and also download the “Chocolate Rain 8Bit Remix.” And of course there’s the inevitable Chad Vader parody from Blame Society Productions. (If you haven’t watched all of the Chad Vader Day Shift Manager episodes, you should.)
The U.S. Open is in the quarterfinals and a lot of the usual suspects are present in the men’s and women’s singles draws. I was rooting for James Blake to at least make the semifinals, but he was narrowly ousted in the fourth round. My money would be on both Roger Federer and Venus Williams to win the singles tournaments. Though if Novak Djokovic can make the finals against Federer he might be able to upset him again (like when Djokovic took out No. 3 Roddick, No. 2 Nadal, and No. 1 Federer, in order, to win the Rogers Masters last month).
I’m still excited about the Appalachian State upset of No. 5 Michigan last weekend. That was great. ESPN.com says: “No Division I-AA team had beaten a team ranked in The Associated Press poll between 1989 and 2006, and it’s unlikely that it had ever happened before. The Division I subdivisions were created in 1978.” I always love when the little guy crushes the giant in sporting events, especially when it’s a cocky Big 10 school on the losing end (excepting Penn State).
I’ll leave you with a Reuters article, “Airline sacrifices goats to appease sky god,” which starts out like this: “Officials at Nepal’s state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.” That’s kind of awesome.