Rider Rumbling

Big game for the Riders tomorrow. They lose to the Hamilton Tiger Cats, they'll have dropped three home games in a row, and will be 3-4 heading into an Aug. 21 tilt with the 6-1 Alouettes in Montreal. In past years, this would have been considered a gimme. No longer. The Ti-Cats are a team on the rise.

District 9: Hype overdrive

At this point, everybody is loving District 9. It's certainly an OK movie, but it coasts heavily on the fish out of the water premise. The bugs are stand ins for every oppressed minority, a noble idea, but an old one. For me, the most interesting aspect of the flick is turning a plain bureaucrat into an action hero. Most awesome of all: Sharito Copley (a guy who never acted before District 9) actually looks like one.

Canadian connection: District 9 director Neill Blomkamp graduated from the Vancouver Film School and recruited 20+ of his classmates to help out.

Live Tonight: Young Rival

Saturday, August 15

Young Rival
The Distrikt

Young Rival last came through Regina with the Sadies, one of Canada's greatest touring groups. It's a pairing that fits. Young Rival aren't the wonderful mash of folk, country, rock, and pure energy that the Sadies are, but, as an indie-rock band, they seem to be channeling some '60s pop spirit on their self-titled debut EP.

Playing with Carl Johnson of Library Voices.



Also playing tonight: Donny Parenteau at the Pump.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Little kid Steve was probably never more excited about a Saturday morning cartoon than this one, which debuted on NBC in 1978. A Godzilla cartoon! Who could believe it? The greatest monster ever, who combined the awe-inspiring wonder of dinosaurs with the sheer greatness of fire-breathing dragons in one towering, city stomping visage.

Sadly, the cartoon did not quite live up to expectations. Here's the title sequence. See if you can spot the exact moment everything is ruined.



If you said "and Godzoooooooky!" you are correct. What the hell was that stupid thing? And why wasn't Godzilla eating him? And then stomping on that boat? And then laying waste to Tokyo? So many narrative problems.

But the series did have its moments. If you disregard Godzilla's dumb laser beam eyes (?!) and his gargling roar and his constantly-shifting scale and his human "friends"--and of course horrible Godzooky--a Kaiju-worshiping child could at least savour the annihilation of futuristic jets and cannons.

At least until Godzooky showed up, flapping and flopping and squawking like a concussed Scooby-Doo.



Damn you, Godzooky. Damn you to hell.



This is available on DVD, unbelievably.