The star of the 70's major T.V. smash, Kung-Fu, and the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two part sprawling epic, Kill Bill, was found dead in Bangkok early this morning.  It was initially rumored that Carradine passed away from the 5 Point Palm Exploding heart technigue, but it has now been reported that Carradine hung himself in his hotel room.  Carradine was 72 years old, so not exactly a spring chicken.

I've never really watched much of the T.V. show Kung-Fu, but I thought Carradine was a major bad-ass as Bill in Tarantino's action flicks.  Did you know that Carradine wasn't the first choice to play Bill in the Kill Bill movies?  That's role was actually offered to Warren Beatty first, but he turned down the offer and suggest David Carradine for the role and the rest is history.

Enjoy a piece of the bad-assness that is Kill Bill Vol. 2 

Spoiler Alert:  If you haven't seen Kill Bill Vol 2., first, what are you doing with yourself?, second, don't watch the clip since it is the ending of the movie.

So nothing too substantial but I did want to make you Pearl Jam fans aware that they have a new album coming out in the near future and they were the first musical quest on the new Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.  Below is the video, what do ya'll think?  Sounds good to me and I can't wait to either try and catch Eddie Vedder on his solo tour this summer, or catch Pearl Jam again when they hit the states in support of the new album.  Cheers!

First off, I want to welcome anyone who is reading this to"That's Protestant Whiskey."  This is a blog that I have been meaning to start for a while and now that things have settled down a bit I feel comfortable giving it my all.  I am excited to be writing on a subject that I have plenty of passion for and look forward to seeing where the site goes.  The site was initially a concept I wanted to do on my own, but quickly realized that I would need additional help if I was going to be successful, so I have collaborated on the name and future content with a good friend "Jake" who will also be posting shortly to introduce himself.

We have a lot of exciting ideas and content that we are looking forward to posting but the main mission of the site will be to navigate the world of current movies, television, and music with a dark sense of humor that will hopefully be entertaining for readers.  Both Jake and I are both major sports fans as well (especially NFL fans) so I am sure our content will occasionally run over into the world of sports; oh well, get over it now.

Also, if your curious where the name "That's Protestant Whiskey" comes from I recommend you check out the T.V. show called  "The Wire." (All five season are available for purchase).  It is easily one of the most brilliant television shows ever created and it's not only incredibly entertaining, but it might also be the most biting and realistic social commentary on urban life in modern times.  The name of the website is a quote from that show and we will be exploring the "The Wire" in more detail later on, but for now, just know it has nothing to do with mine or Jake's drinking problems or our religious beliefs.

Anyways, Thanks for stopping by and welcome to the site.  Both Jake and I welcome to your comments, criticism, and concerns.

For my first real post on the new site I have decided to try to express why I feel Slumdog Millionaire was the worst movie nominated for Best Picture in the 2009 Oscar Awards.

I had very high expectations when I heard about Slumdog Millionaire, I really liked Danny Boyle's past work (Trainspotting, 28 days later, etc.) and the concept seemed like a for-sure good movie.  The hype for the movie got way out of hand long before Oscar season, but it looked like a good movie to me long before the Oscar talk began.  The story line looked very engaging with the way the life of a young poor boy  was interwoven with and helped to answer the questions of the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."  But when I finally watched Slumdog after missing it in the theaters and waiting for the Netflix delivery to come to my house I was extremely underwhelmed.  It was entertaining at parts, but never really seemed to connect emotionally like many reviewers stated.  In fact only a few scenes really stick out in my mind, and the most memorable scene and about the only one I actually empisized with the character is pictured below.  Poop, nasty.

As of today I have seen all of the other movies except "The Reader", which quite frankly has been sitting at my house for a few weeks with little to no interest from me to watch.  I eventually will get to the movie, but it just doesn't sound entertaining.  I definitely will try to get to it this week, or this weekend so I can update this post and give you a complete picture, but otherwise every other movie nominated in the category of best picture was leaps and bounds above Slumdog in my opinion, and I also think it was a crime that "The Wrestler" wasn't the Best Picture of the year, let alone nominated for the top prize in the Academy Awards.

Sean Penn was very good in "Milk" especially after the first act of the movie.  If I only saw the first part of the movie and didn't know better I would of assumed Harvey Milk was the the twin brother of the character Sean Penn played in "I am Sam."  Am I the only one who thought Sean Penn acted like he was mentally challenged in the first part of that movie?  Seriously though Mikey Rourke's performance in the movie "The Wrestler" was one of the most difficult and heart wrenching roles I have seen in modern history, if it wasn't for Daniel Day Lewis' performance in what should of been the best picture winner the year before (There Will Be Blood), I would of said it was the best performance of the decade.  The character of Randy "The Ram" Robinson was difficult to watch, because you were seeing a likeable guy with other options in life self-destruct.  Everyone gets older and you rarely stay on top of the game, most of with wither and watching that for two hours isn't something that everyone will enjoy or appreciate.

"Milk" was a better overall movie than Slumdog; it just was a solid movie that showed us how far we have come in the past few decades, but also reminded us as a society how much farther we still have to go.  (As my favorite football coach would say:  "We have miles to go before we sleep").  As I said earlier I felt Milk took a little bit to hit it's stride but once you got into the story of his life, his courage, and his sticktoitiveness it was an enthraling film.

Frost/Nixon was also better, it was an interesting look at the medium of television, something I was not expecting from the movie.  I assumed it would be another straight forward Ronnie Howard movie that gained acclaimed based on the producer (Grazer) and director (Opie).  It was much more than that and Frank Langella was incredibly impressive in his role and actually made me think for the first time that Nixon could be a personable human being.

The last movie that was clearly better was "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" directed by the visually stunning David Fincher.  Fincher's movie took the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald and expanded it into a sweeping epic.  A great movie that I am actually eager to watch again, even despite it's incredible length.  Brad Pitt, similar to George Clooney are both chosing roles at this stage in their careers that are smart, and challenging. (Not a lot of fluff, they leave that for the Ocean's Movies).

Anyways, what thoughts do you have about the movies of 2008, and what are your thoughts on the movies of the summer, fall, and winter of 2009?