A Couple Things XVIII

-- I've located a copy of the Dilla, which of course means that I'll have to travel into Tampa. The good thing is that I'll be able to expense the purchase and have work pay for it, since I'm writing a feature on Dilla's death. It'll be from an interesting perspective and I hope it turns out to read as insightful as I'm expecting it. I will definitely give you all a link once it's completed. This also means that the hiphop producers novel blog, that will include my Dilla eulogy/appreciation, will be posted Monday.

-- I haven't watched any of these Winter Olympics, havent read anything about them. Can somebody please tell me why we should care about this stuff. Other than Olumpic pageantry, what's the appeal?

-- In the midst of this year's Oscar buzz, Freedomland is the first film to get Oscar buzz for next year's Oscars. This surprised me, because when I saw the previews, I though, "I might kop that on DVD when it drops, or catch it at the $2 show". And that was solely based off the fact that Sam Jackson was in it.

Over the past four or five years, Sam has the distinction of being in more movies than any other Hollywood actor. Jude Law tried to test him in 2004, but he wasn't seeing Sam. But what thats done is put Sam in a box, especially because he seems to play the same character in many of the films and because he can wear whigs and hairpieces rivaled only by Marv Albert and Chris Kattan in that More Cowbell skit.

So these days, when I see Sam in a movie, I'm thinking, "Average flick that the studio produced to make anywhere from $60-90 mill at the box office. Probably entertaining, but only to mock and make fun of Sam." But how can this happen Jules Winnfield, Carl Lee Hailey and Elijah Price?

The fact that Sam was in an Oscar-worthy film totally through me for a loop, especially since director Joe Roth ws attached to movies like Jerky Boys and one of my Top 10 favorites, Heavyweights.

The same thing is happening to Denzel. Think about his recent roles: Man on Fire, Out of Time. Getting a lil tiresome. But, I think the new Spike flick he's starring in, Inside Man, might juice him a lil bit, even though he's playing a blatant protagonist cop trying to foil the some mysterious evil plot of Clive Owens. It might turn out to be more of the same, but Spike is never on some okey-doke steez.

Anyways, for my Wire niggas out there...Richard Price wrote this script for Freedomland (I think he may have wrote a novel, but not sure) and he wrote Clockers and few episodes of the Wire including the Moral Midgetry episode when the Lt. started going hard with legal drug zone.