Jason Cox: December 2006 Archives

All too often, we go and see flicks with high expectations, only to be let down immensely afterwards. "King Kong." "Star Wars: Episode 1." Even "Borat" to a degree.

Anyway, I'm home in the DC area for the week between Christmas and New Year's, and, for better or worse, have been spending a lot of time with my folks. I trust their judgment on movies about as much as I would trust tossing beers back with James Frey as we swap college tales. They wanted to see "Rocky Balboa," aka Rocky 6. At the very least, I thought, it was a free movie ticket and free dinner afterward.

Conceptually, a sixth Rocky movie is absurd. Everyone knows that. A man in his 50s taking on a heavyweight champ in his prime is, simply put, whack. As each Rocky movie degraded in quality, I was set to have a good time just making fun of the flick.

But... it didn't suck.

I'm not going to say I loved the movie. It certainly had a few flaws in it with character development, overuse of deus ex machina and a rather passe, overly dramatic filmmaking style, except where it needed it most (during the climactic fight). But on the whole, I dug it. In fact, I'd say it's the best Rocky flick since numero uno. How? It's hard to discuss without spoiling plot elements (a sin in the world of former college film majors), but unlike the other flicks, this one isn't really about the fight - at least not the one in the ring.

Anyway, check it out if you get a chance. The best way to approach it is to see the first film beforehand and then pretend II-V were simply never made. To me, there is Rocky I and there is Rocky Balboa. That is all.

Who's going to try out?

CBS will be holding casting calls for two of its biggest reality shows on Jan. 13 at the Harrisburg Mall. More details can be found here:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor_application/

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race_application/casting_call.html

If you think you might try out, let us know! We'd love to follow a few Yorkers to the casting call as they make the attempt to become a reality TV star.

E-mail me at jcox@ydr.com or call me at the office at 771-2051.

If there's anything I've learned in my one year at the York Daily Record, it's that it's hard to get people to call you. No, I'm not talking about waiting for sources to call me back. I'm talking about feedback. I can't even piss people off enough to get them to call (not that I'm trying... much).

But seriously, it's tough to get the citizens of York County riled about anything, good or bad. It can be demoralizing, but sadly, I've just gotten used to it.

Last Thursday (Dec. 14), I wrote a column about my less-than-successful-attempts trying to get guys I know to go to Club XS, the gay club in North York. I ranted about how I feel that, in this area (if not the country as a whole), there is a false sense of acceptance of gay culture. Most people nowadays pretend to be cool about it, but really aren't. I won't retell the whole thing here, so read it in your leisure.

Long story short, I actually got a phone call about the column. In fact, I got five (well, four phone calls and an email). And all of them thanked me for saying what they felt needed to be said. And... it felt good. It reminded me why I do my job. Remember, you don't only have to call us when you're ticked off at us. You can let us know you think we did a good job too.

Some people are well-versed in literature. Some have a treasure trove of knowledge of world history. Others can recite Pi to the 1,000th decimal place. Me? I know lots of Worthless Crap. Lots of it. So much, in fact, that I'm banking that I, along with the help of two friends who know equally as much Worthless Crap, might be able to make $250,000 off of it.

We're going to try out for the second season of VH1's "The World Series of Pop Culture."

A co-worker of mine recently dropped a hint that I needed to check out this band called Black Plaid. I haven't been able to see a show of theirs yet, but I tracked down their MySpace page and was blown away to discover that these rockers are only 13 and 14 years old. Now I'm not saying they're the next Led Zeppelin or anything, but day-um! For middle schoolers, these kids rock.

Tonight, the band will perform in the FINAL round of a HIGH SCHOOL Battle of the Bands at The Championship in Lemyone. That alone ought to tell you something. Later this month, they will be playing at DRAGONFLY in Harrisburg. I was hoping to do a full story on these kids, but sadly, they live just over the county border in Camp Hill.
Check them out on MySpace here.