Kurasawage

I had this sinking premonition that the Pats game wasn't going to go so well, and as such, I felt I needed to be away from my TV for that entire weekend. I went through a bunch of old invitations to see what I could do instead. I found an interesting one in George Lucas' Kurosawa fest at his big Star Wars themed ranch. I decided to RSVP and grab me a plane ticket to LAX.

Now you may be wondering why I would get an invite to so exclusive an event. First off, you should never wonder why I get invited to exclusive events, considering I'm me; and second, I actually am the foremost Caucasian expert on Iranian cinema here in North America, and I generally receive invites to these types of international film celebrations.

I can't lie, the festival was rather entertaining. He started Friday night with two greats: The Seven Samurai and The Hidden Fortress. Of course, after the second film, Lucas spent two and a half hours telling us how much it inspired his Star Wars series. Saturday gave us three films: Rashomon, and then Yojimbo, and its sequel, Sanjuro. The question was posed to me, in the discussion period after the last movie, is there anything like these coming out of Iran?

"No."

And that was that. He finished the weekend on Sunday with three more great movies: Ran, Throne of Blood, and Kagemusha. Many of you probably know that Ran and Throne of Blood are based on Shakespeare's King Lear and Macbeth respectively.

Normally I expect a film festival to go on a 2-3-2 schedule, and was ready to leave after the second film on Sunday. I should've. Kagemusha was a film brought to the US through money from Lucas and his homeboy Francis Ford Coppola. That meant about another 2 and a half hours of self-congratulatory back-patting and reminiscing after the film was over. I'd had enough, so I stood to leave.

"It's okay," Lucas yelled to me, "the Patriots have already lost, you can stay here with us."

"Yeah, the Pats may have lost, but I need to save what's left of my soul."

There was some uncomfortable laughing at first, and then an old guy stood and cheered. I have no idea who he was, but he was important, and the whole place joined him. Before I knew it, everyone was tossing verbal grenades at the two on stage about how horrible the last three Star Wars movies and The Godfather III were. I felt like a man again. Kurosawa and Abbas Kiarostami would have been proud.

I came home to find out the Pats had lost on a bad offensive pass interference call on Troy Brown in the second quarter, a call that was made in an attempt to keep the game close and the advertisers happy. Good Riddance.

Mayor McCheese: Why I Couldn't Give a Shit Less About the Chicago Bears

People always ask me if I root for the Bears, being that I'm from Chicago. The answer, of course, is no. Absolutely not.

The truth is, here in McDonaldland, no one cares who wins the games, because as long as they're close, we as major corporations win. Just look at last night's Pats/Colts game. Looked like a possible blow out for the Pats, no? And maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, but as long as you don't tell anyone else, I don't see any harm. You'll notice after the Manning pick-six, the Colts went three-and-out, giving the Pats excellent field position. We needed to stop the bleeding, so someone put a call into commissioner Roger Goodell, who in turn put through a message to the head referee: we needed to kill that Pats drive: no more points. Next thing you know, questionable offensive pass interference call on Troy Brown, the drive stalls, and the pendulum shifts back in the other direction. It didn't take long before you got a tie game, and tons of people watching Dollar Menunaire commercials.

Sound cynical? Well it isn't. My favorite athlete, Michael Jordan, once said "Republicans buy sneakers too." The difference between the NBA and the NFL, is that the NBA placed all their eggs in the basket of a player, while the NFL placed it in the basket of a game. We as corporate sponsors don't like shelling out seven figures for an ad that no one's going to see in the fourth quarter of a 44-13 game, and you wouldn't have a football if it wasn't for us. As such, it's important to keep us happy, and that's done with a close game. Maybe we went too far with the Pittsburgh game last year, but we couldn't trust Bill Cower's game plan. I think we made the right decision.

Just imagine, Bears fan, what would you think of Ditka if we'd been on the job back in Super Bowl XX? Ask the 2001 St. Louis Rams, they'll tell you.