DJ Ckold Ckutz is young for his species--only 47 Earth years old. That’s just a baby for the Daar-Shdeelz race, who hail from the fourth moon of Mangnus 640 and normally live longer than 2,000 of our years. But his youth hasn’t stopped the furry, little, orange alien from taking the hip hop worlds by storm with his new album, 60 Days Same as Cash. Terrestrial fans of turntablism both young and old have found something to be excited about in this CD. DJ Ckold Ckutz brings a cosmic energy to the record, cutting astronomically fast on some songs. His characteristic sound is shaped partly by spare parts from his parents' space ship, including a radial ionization electrochamber, an astrophlangetic carbiner, and a phaser.
But Ckold Ckutz doesn’t just DJ on the record, he also raps on three of the songs. On "AAAW (Acceptin' Applications for a Ass Whuppin')," he combines the good-natured belligerence of his species with a Dirty South-inspired hook: "I got a PO box on Romulox/ Send it, let me see yo' resume and cover letter/ No other applicants are lookin' better/ Bring you in fo' a interview/ Anywhere--I'll whup yo' ass on Nebulon 2/ Don't hafta worry what yo' qualifications is/ I'm gonna put yo' doctor out of the medications biz/ On the form, tell me all yo' criminal offenses/ I'ma beat down you and all yo' references!/ You do Word, Excel, what's your WPMs?/ I'll stomp yo' ass microscopic like diadems." Still, rapping is not DJ Kcold Kcutz' strong point, his versatility on the wheels of steel (or, in this case, wheels of plutonium) is. And you can’t question this little extraterrestrial's skills in that department.
President Bush was finally proved right last week, when weapons inspectors in Iraq gave up their search without finding any weapons of mass destruction. "It's just like I said all along. We had to give the weapons inspectors a chance to do their job. Now that they’re satisfied there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, everyone can see that the decision to go to war was the right one. The world is a safer place without Saddam."
Scientists have found a tiny mammal fossil with an even tinier dinosaur fossil in its tiny, fossilized belly. Many paleonutritionalists take this find to be evidence that at least some mammals ate dinosaurs. But some researchers question that view, saying that it’s more likely that the early mammal ate a fossil of a dinosaur, since those are much easier to catch than actual dinosaurs. Still other scientists don’t see any reason to rule out the possibility that the tiny dinosaur crawled into a mammal fossil for protection from the elements--and then died there, in prehistorically tragic irony. But Yaoming Hu, a researcher affiliated with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is still convinced of the dino-dining hypothesis. He holds up the fossil and insists, "You can just hear the furry little bastard saying, 'Tastes like chicken!'"
Karl Nequaquam, the Litotic Film Critic
Shaolin Soccer, a kung fu sports comedy from writer/director/star Stephen Chow, isn't an unimpressive endeavor for such a young talent. The film is about a group of students of kung fu who are not having an easy time finding success after their monastery upbringing. But they bring their not unimpressive martial arts talents to the soccer field and enter a national contest in the hopes that they won't lose. The film certainly doesn't fail to entertain. One may wonder about the ability of a comedy to be an international hit, given the fact that audiences are often not non-judgmental of jokes in another language. But the humor of the film isn't exactly non-slapstick--that is to say, it's somewhat less than unphysical--and pratfalls are pretty much just as not unfunny (or not not unfunny, as the case may be) in any language.
The film is not without its feminist underpinnings, given the Vicki Zhao's character's (perhaps not unfamiliar) transformation from having only inner beauty to having both inner and outer beauty, although the story has a few not-unoriginal twists here. There are not just a few special effects, and they are executed outstandingly. Why are there so many special effects in a movie about the combination of two sports? Well, let's just say that the characters' kung fu talents don't exactly fail to be the opposite of unspectacular. It is not the case that there aren't soccer balls kicked so hard that they burst into flame in the air. All in all, I don't have any reservations about recommending Shaolin Soccer to anyone who doesn't dislike amusing, colorful movies in another language. My thumb is not unextended in an upward direction in response to the quality of this film.