2009 will be the 30th anniversary of ESPN on the air, and to celebrate their success they’ve hired 30 different filmmakers to make documentaries to talk about how great they are. One of those filmmakers just so happens to be Spike Lee.

Lee and 29 other A-list directors, including Richard Linklater and Davis Guggenheim, have each been recruited by the network to make an hour-long documentary about a sports topic close to his or her heart. Lee, a die-hard New York Knicks fan, has yet to announce the nature of his project.

The documentaries under the newly-launched ESPN Films will begin airing Tuesday nights on ESPN in Sept. 2009 and be televised through 2010.

Spike may be tight lipped about the nature of his project, but I know EXACTLY how it’s going to play out. Spike Lee films all contain specific elements and trademarks unique to him. Here’s what we can expect in his work for ESPN.

1. A Steamy Sex Scene Between Dana Jacobson and Chris Berman – All Spike Lee movies have graphic animalistic sex somewhere within the film. A drunk Dana Jacobson stumbles into the office late night, looking for extra bottles of Grey Goose. She’s unable to find one, but she does find Chris Berman, and a couple of Deux Deux’s, straight from Canada baby.

2. RACISM! Stuart Scott Is Harassed In The Workplace – It’s just not a Spike Lee movie unless whitey is hating on somebody.. so unfair. Little Stuart Scott is preparing his notes before a SportsCenter broadcast when he’s approached by a producer and asked to “blacken it up” a little.

What? You thought he says “BOO-YOW!!!” every five seconds because he wants to. No sir. They force ya boy to get his Bojangles on.

3. Heavy Drug Use and A Violent Death - Ahh the grand finale, the movie would just be boring if someone didn’t get loaded and killed. You thought Michael Irvin simply left the network didn’t you? Ahahaha silly rabbit. MICHAEL IRVIN IS DEAD. His crack cocaine habit got out of hand, and one day Stephen A. Smith caught him stealing quarters out of his car’s ash tray.

“You are absolutely pathetic Michael!”, a visibly angry Stephen A. Smith said. “Quite frankly, as a black man I’m shocked and appalled at your terrible behavior. It’s time to die. You’re ruining the negro gene pool”

Stephen A. then pulls out a pistol and kills Irvin in the parking lot.

To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of Will Ferrell movies. Talladega Nights? Blades Of Glory? Elf? Bewitched? Anchorman?… all wack movies. Then we have to take the fact that Will plays basically the same character in every film, which means all signs point to yet another flick that I shouldn’t bother watching. However, the trailer for Semi-Pro still looked pretty good despite my reservations about Ferrell’s work.

Besides, after that horrible piece of crap movie Never Back Down, this couldn’t be that bad right? Right.

My prayers were answered, and overall Semi-Pro was actually very entertaining. There were more laugh out loud moments than I anticipated which was a pleasant surprise. I believe this film “worked” because it was rated R instead of PG-13. When you have a really silly movie like this, some of the jokes simply would NOT have worked if the film was edited to be “family friendly”. Ultimately, that R rating may have been a bad idea because Semi-Pro sorta flopped at the box office, but whatever, thats none of my concern.

DeRay Davis and Andre 3000 didn’t add much to the movie as far as comic relief, which was a letdown. Woody Harrelson probably gave the best performance of the film, playing the washed up has-been elder player. I cautiously recommend this film, meaning you should see it, but don’t go out of your way. You should catch it if someone else is paying, or if it’s coming on HBO one night and you have nothing better to do.

The Important Stuff:

How good on a scale of 1-10? - 7
Are the best parts of the movie in the commercial? – Kinda sorta, yes.
Any female nudity? – Sadly, no
Any killing/gruesome murders? nope

So I had the opportunity to view an advanced screening of Never Back Down tonight, two weeks before it hits theaters nationwide. Those of you who read my Never Back Down preview know that I didn’t have very high hopes for this flick. Here are the general assumptions I made about this movie one month ago:

It looks like they took the script from “The Fast And The Furious”, removed all references to cars, and plugged in references to fighting. A bunch of privileged white kids who are bored of spending daddy’s money start pretending they’re Tito Ortiz to impress their girlfriends.

The sad part is I was absolutely right.

This movie is downright horrible, it’s “what you see is what you get” at it’s finest. There are no special twists, there is no character depth, there is no suspense, this film has absolutely no redeeming qualities. I know what you’re thinking… “well the action from the fight scenes should keep me entertained, and I’m SURE there will be hot chicks”. Keep dreaming buddy, the action is mediocre, and there are actually more half naked sweaty men than there are women.

The entire film can be summed up in two or three sentences at the most. Guy moves to new town, guy likes girl, girl’s boyfriend beats up guy, guy spends rest of film training to beat up boyfriend and get girl. The end.

Something else that simultaneously made me laugh and shake my head at the same time, was the first visual of a black person in the movie is a shot of some brotha breakdancing surrounded by rich white kids cheering him on. How cliche can you get?

I can just see the director sitting at the monitor with a puzzled look on his face. “Something’s missing, the first five minutes of this film just don’t seem right….I GOT IT… where’s the dancing colored guy??. Get me Jamal on the phone”

Hardcore MMA fans will detest this movie even more than I do. The fight scenes are like UFC on training wheels, I love how they call out each move as the characters are performing them. “Hey, thats a rear naked choke!!!!…. wow he has him in an arm bar… TAP OUT BRO!!!”

I advise you to never see this film. Banish it from the earth. We should collect all film reels and bury them in obscurity alongside Flavor Flav’s dignity and Paris Hilton’s nobel peace prize.

The Important Stuff

How good on a scale of 1-10? – 3
Are the best parts of the movie in the commercial? – there are no best parts to this movie
Any female nudity? – Nope.
Any killing/gruesome murders? Nope

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If you ever needed proof that mixed martial arts is surging in popularity, Hollywood has given them their own little teenybopper feature film.

I’ve been to the movies twice in the last week, once to see Cloverfield (meh), and a few days later to see Rambo (possibly the manliest film ever made). During both visits, I was forced to sit through a trailer for this MMA movie “Never Back Down’.

I actually laughed during the first time I watched this preview, it looks like they took the script from “The Fast And The Furious”, removed all references to cars, and plugged in references to fighting. A bunch of privileged kids who are bored of spending daddy’s money start pretending they’re Tito Ortiz to impress their girlfriends.

Here’s the kicker, I’m actually going to go pay to see this bullshit when it’s released. Solely for the purpose of reviewing it on this website. Actually, I think I may pay to see something else, and sneak into this film after I see the movie I really want to see. Since I spend so much time and money in theaters, I figured I might as well start reviewing all the sports films that are released.

LOL.

The music video for Will Farrell’s ‘Love Me Sexy’ hit YouTube this week, it’s hilarious and over the top cheesy at the same time. All I wanna know is, how are you gonna have a music video and leave Possum Allawishes Jenkins a.k.a. Andre 3000 out??

Here’s a little background for the Semi-Pro movie if you’re unfamiliar with the plot.