Friday, February 27, 2015

South Korean adultery, emergency Pittsburgh art and a "Rocky" spin-off


- What do you do when the star of your sports or action movie franchise is too old to kick ass the way he or she once did, but you still want to squeeze every last dollar possible out of the ‘chise? You concoct a preposterous spin-off of that franchise, relegate the star to a non-action role and try to get fans to buy in. Cue Warner Bros. and MGM releasing a plot synopsis for “Creed,” their forthcoming Rocky spin-off film. Because Sylvester Stallone is aged out of the boxing star role, he will instead serve as a trainer and mentor to the son of his former boxing rival, Apollo Creed. “The Wire” star Michael B. Jordan has been cast as Apollo's son, Adonis Creed, and work on the project began last month under the guiding hand of director Ryan Coogler. Crowd scenes for the movie used fans of Everton FC because these hooligans were more than willing to fill their favorite team’s stadium for a chance to be on camera. The synopsis is a bit cryptic, but suggest dire straits for Balboa. Stallone's character will also be "battling an opponent more deadly than any he faced in the ring," according to the synopsis. "Adonis Johnson (Jordan) never knew his famous father, world heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, who died before he was born. Still, there's no denying that boxing is in his blood, so Adonis heads to Philadelphia, the site of Apollo Creed's legendary match with a tough upstart named Rocky Balboa.” Jordan will find Balboa in Philly and convince his father’s former rival that he has the same grit and toughness as his old man. This drastic theatrical reach is due out on Nov. 25 and it will be the first time Stallone has portrayed Rocky since the disastrous “Rocky Balboa” in 2006………


- Book a ticket to Seoul, would-be playas. South Korea just threw the door wide open to adultery by abolishing a 62-year-old law that criminalized extramarital affairs. There are some dudes whose wives either turn a blind eye to adultery or in the case of NBA star Andrei Kirilenko, give them one free pass a year, but a South Korean court went a step further and instantly caused the stock price of a prominent condom maker immediately to rise 15 percent with a ruling that the law suppressed personal freedoms. The Constitutional Court's ruling is big news and could impact many of the more than 5,400 people who have been charged with adultery since 2008, when the court earlier upheld the legislation, according to court law. In what could cause massive chaos, all current charges against those people could be thrown out and those who have received guilty verdicts will be eligible for retrials. The law states that having sex with a married person who is not your spouse is no longer punishable by up to two years in prison. Nearly 53,000 South Koreans have been indicted on adultery charges since 1985, though most have managed to dodge prison time for their crimes. Still, South Korean condom maker Unidus Corp. got a massive stock boost from the removal of the adultery ban, which has been part of South Korea's criminal law since 1953. Making the change has been a point of heavy debate in recent years due to changing social trends challenging traditional values. The law’s supporters argued in favor of protecting traditional values, but critics contended that the government had no right to interfere in people's private lives and sexual affairs. By a margin of 7-2, the court ruled that the law "excessively restricts citizens' basic rights, such as the right to determine sexual affairs.” Simply put, it was outdated and whoever wants to blow right through their marital vows and get their freak on with someone who is not their spouse now has a massive, unchanging green light………


- Most days, the NCAA totally sucks. Its inherent hypocrisy and all-around lame-osity are easy to hate but tough to change…and then there are days like today, when ineligible Baylor running back Silas Nacita highlights just how much the governing body for major college sports totally blows. Nacita was booted from the Baylor football team for accepting impermissible benefits, but his story captured national attention because of why he took those perks. Back in 2014, he was homeless and accepted housing and benefits because, you know, a homeless teenager would like a place to live. He initially accused the NCAA of wrongfully punishing him for accepting those benefits while homeless in 2014, but was removed from the team when Baylor's compliance office determined he had made "rules violations that impacted his eligibility." Even though he totally should have been allowed to accept help that kept him off the streets, he still took the high road and tweeted a statement accepting responsibility for his ineligibility. "The bottom line is that I broke the rules," he wrote on Twitter. "I should've never accepted the help and I am deeply sorry for my actions." He went on to admit that the  "close family friend" who has provided his housing was merely an acquaintance from his hometown of Bakersfield, California. "At the time I did not think this was inappropriate behavior, but now I can see that I made a mistake by disregarding guidance from Baylor compliance on what benefits I may accept," Nacita wrote. "I take full responsibility for my choice to accept these inappropriate benefits." The bottom line, as always, is that it’s (insert time you’re reading this) and the NCAA still sucks………..


- Ah, art. At its best, it is mysterious, colorful, confounding and offers great insights into the world and its inhabitants. At its worst, it is quite literally garbage and smells accordingly. But on those other days….it gets the fire department called to downtown Pittsburgh because folks cannot distinguish between a piece of living art and an actual safety hazard. Just as Pittsburgh firefighters how much fun that can be because they have been called to a downtown public square at least twice by people who reported smoke when they saw machine-generated fog that's part of a new art installation. Credit/blame for this one goes to artist Jennifer Wen Ma, whose "A Winter Landscape Cradling Bits of Sparkle" is a small oasis of mulched trees enveloping a small, boardwalk path. It contains a fog machine that emits a cloud of the wispy stuff every 10 minutes to simulate a cloudy mountaintop. One would think that the powers that be would be well aware of what the exhibit entailed before it went up to avoid this very sort of nonsense and waste of taxpayer dollars, but clearly not. The Office of Public Art, a public-private agency, believes it has successful addressed the issue by communicating what the hell is going on to firefighters and possibly toning down the intensity of the fog bursts to lessen the chance of future false alarms for the next six weeks or so until the installation is taken down on April 12. Until then, good people of Pittsburgh, please attempt to not be morons by overreacting to a fog machine in your midst………

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