B-Day; Movie Reviews incl. Inception

Awesome Birthday this year ... spent the day with and was spoiled by Baby Girl ... grabbed a couple of Philly Cheesesteaks for lunch, caught Inception (more on that later) and kept tradition with dinner at Swiss Chalet with Baby Girl and my parents ... best birthday of the last 10 years hands down ...


The Book of Eli - starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis ... caught this on DVD ... post-apocalyptic event wasn't clear or fully explained, which I thought was good because it didn't matter ... acting quality was never in doubt with Denzel and Oldman ... both solid as usual ... fight scenes were awesome, never envisioned Denzel in those kind of battles ... top it all off, the choreographed fights were the Pinoy martial art of Arnis, points for that LOL ... Mila Kunis, not really a fan of hers, but she did the job with the "eye-candy" role ... never a dull moment in the movie ... really enjoyed the religious aspect of it ... and finally a plot twist that I didn't expect ... overall, a solid movie which I really enjoyed ... definitely a DVD purchase ... score: 4-4.25/5



Toy Story 3 - saw this at the theater with Baby Girl ... I was already in high school when the original came out, so there wasn't that nostalgic childhood feel to it ... not much to say, except that I enjoyed it more than the first two ... it was kind of predictable, but wasn't boring at all ... a good conclusion to the series ... there was a heartwarming moment at the movie's conclusion, one which made me want to take out my childhood toys LOL ... score: 3/5



Inception - directed by: Christopher Nolan, starring: Leonardo DiCaprio ... the hype is what drew me to watch this movie, so I'm guilty there ... but after seeing it, I was left with the same feeling after watching The Dark Knight ... both films, I heard people saying "G.O.A.T.", but honestly they were good, but far from ... evaluating Inception on its own merit, we've seen the concept before already in The Matrix ... like I said on Facebook, Inception is "The Matrix on crack" ... it was easy to follow ... but, there were a couple plot points that were left unresolved and I'm not talking about the ending at all (that was fine the way it was) ... the acting was fine, nothing that bothered me ... special effects were good, but nothing I was awestruck with ... final thoughts, I guess I was just disappointed because I listened to the hype ... like The Dark Knight, I will withhold on the score until I see the movie again ...

anyway, myself, Baby Girl and mi familia are off to San Diego for Princess and Romeo's wedding ... I've been looking forward to this for 10 months since Tatsu and Carteron's crappy-a$$ wedding ... afterwards we'll be spending a couple days in Las Vegas ... always great spending time with familia ... Toronto, I won't miss you at all ... hey, maybe I'll luck out in Sin City so I won't have to come back ... then I'll call into work rich and tell my boss "I'm rich b!atch!!!" ...

~J-Smooth~

The Three Am-Egos; Kobe's Legacy

I know I'm very late on this, but I wanted to give my dissertation on The Miami Heat, a.k.a. The N.W.O. a.k.a. Miami Thrice or what I call them, The Three Am-Egos ...



First off, Chris Bosh ... I don't blame him one bit for leaving Toronto ... 7 years, two playoff series appearances, three playoff wins and missing the playoffs last year despite career averages ... This incarnation of the Toronto Raptors couldn't win even with Bosh, so time to move on ... but it's just funny how he's enjoying his new found fame ... presenting awards at the ESPY's, talk show appearances and caught by TMZ getting into a limo with a bunch of ho's ... good for him ...

Dwyane Wade ... two major free agent signings and all of a sudden he's Floyd Mayweather, his mouth won't stop running ... calling The Three Am-Egos the greatest trio of all time and saying road teams can thank them now for selling out their buildings when the Heat come to town ... my opinion of this guy has done a complete 180 ... last time I checked, himself, LeBron and Bosh have one ring between them and The Lakers have been selling out on the road for years before ... Wade's career hit its apex in The 2006 Finals ... the NBA is about "what have you done for me lately?" ... re: Wade, all I can think of since '06 is the Varejao dunk ...

LeBron James' b!tch move to South Beach ends the Kobe Bryant debate once and for all, he's not on Kobe's level, let alone Michael Jordan's ... People can criticize his one-hour special on ESPN, but they still watched, myself included ... but all LeBron accomplished is finally opening everyone's eyes on how much of an egomaniac he is ...

Collectively what did The Three Am-Egos accomplish? ... one, they created a new set of villains for the NBA, which IMO is good for business and good for television ... and two, they turned Kobe Bryant into a bigger hero than he already is ... let's be honest, barring injury, the 2011 NBA Finals will be Lakers/Heat, no question ... Chris Paul potentially teaming with Dwight Howard in Orlando could make things interesting, but at the end of the day the eyes of the basketball world in June of 2011 will be on Hollywood and South Beach ...


Onto Kobe Bryant's legacy ... I've stated before, 7 NBA Titles and the all-time scoring title would put him Top 3 of all-time in my book ... right now, I can honestly say he's Top 5 ... a couple weeks ago I got into a bit of a heated argument with my cousin Tatsu's husband Carteron ... He's saying Kobe's better than Jordan this and that ... now Carteron is a f*cking idiot, he sounds/looks stupid talking about ball as much as he does playing it ... he was still rocking his Vince Carter jersey until '08 and thinks Jose Frauderon is a starting caliber point guard ... but my argument was simple and two-fold ... level of competition and accomplishment ...
Jordan went through the Celtics, Pistons, Sixers, Knicks, Lakers, Blazers then later Magic, Sonics and Jazz ... Kobe IMO beat one tough team and that's this year's Celtics, an aging team nonetheless which still took 7 games ... now accomplishment ... MJ: 6 titles, 5 MVP's, 10 scoring titles, 3 steals titles ... Kobe: 5 titles, 1 MVP, 2 scoring titles, BUT he lost twice in the Finals ... hmmmm, geee that's a tough comparison LOL ...

Now Carteron did ask me "what would it take [for me] to consider Kobe better than Jordan?" ... nothing ... Kobe can get the all-time scoring title, which is not unrealistic, 5 more seasons of avergaing 25 will get it done ... BUT, Kobe started playing outta high school, Jordan went to UNC for three years and retired twice ... Kobe can win more rings, but again Jordan retired twice ... prime Jordan wouldn't have lost to the back-to-back champion Rockets and The Bulls could've won a couple more titles if Jerry Krause didn't break them up ...

Finally, Kobe had the better supporting cast, no question ... Jordan had Pippen and Rodman, but the rest were a bunch of Joe Blows, meaning they could've been anyone ... Kobe has Gasol, Odom, Artest, Bynum and Fisher (who IMO is 100x better than Ron Harper and Steve Kerr) ... now all Kobe nuthuggers have to admit, that if the Lakers lost to the Celtics in this years Game 7, they wouldn't have any ammunition in their "Kobe is better than MJ" argument ... so basically, Game 7 in their eyes defines Kobe's legacy ... but what happened in that game? ... didn't Kobe shoot 6-24? meaning he was a non-factor on the offensive end ... on top of that, if either Gasol or Artest didn't play as well as they did, the Lakers lose that game ...

To all the Kobe fans (I'm one of them BTW) at the end of the day there's nothing wrong with second best ...

A couple parting shots to my former team, The Toronto Raptors ... MJ was 100% right in c*ckblocking Frauderon/Evans for Chandler/Diaw, that was highway robbery ... anyway, no chance in hell if they're rolling with "Il Mago" and "The Young Guns" ... although, I do like Demar DeRozan and Ed Davis ... DeRozan can be a 20 ppg scorer, while Davis can be a 15 ppg/10 rpg guy ... but they'd need a better coach and a great point guard (ala Steve Nash/Jason Kidd) to just be a middle-of-the-pack team ... 2011 hello lottery ... again ...

~J-Smooth~