Posts by: Michael Sellers
As a lifetime fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I have waited DECADES for this movie to finally get made. It has been in active development since at least 1990 — went from Cynergi to Paramount to Disney and at one point had Robert Rodriguez attached to direct–in the end it’s Andrew Stanton and it looks […]
If you missed the USA-Brazil World Cup quarterfinal soccer match in Dresden Germany today, go find someone who DVR’d it and watch an instant, transcendant classic that had everything — heroes, villains, plot twists and reversals, and a final transcendent moment where patience and incredible effort were rewarded with a magical goal (the latest ever […]
As weekends go, this will never go down as one of my best — some personal dramas definitely interfered with my ability to enjoy the U.S. Open. But Rory McIlroy did a lot to cure me from my malaise. Not only was he brilliant as a golfer — but also as a human being. Such […]
Reprinted from MichaelDSellers.com
It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles and I am beset by a mountain of problems, deadlines, tasks unfinished, things to worry about — you name it. But all day, ever since I heard the news that my boyhood idol Harmon Killebrew died yesterday at the age of 74 […]
I was looking forward to writing about the Pacquiao-Mosley fight, but this is a hard one to analyze and didn’t produce and revelations in the same way that the Margarito fight did. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it on a first viewing, so I watched it a second time this morning, […]
Thank you to everyone in the Hollywood Steakhouse family who participated in our “Global Reunion” last night. What a blast! Here’s a video of the party-in-progress. At this point the people here at our place were partying via skype video with a group of about 30 HSHers in the Philippines. It’s been 10 years since […]
Celebrity deaths happen – we read about them every day. So why is it that some truly hurt, while others don’t? One that truly hurts me just happened — Seve Ballesteros, the Spanish golfer, has died at 54 from a brain tumor that he had been battling for more than two years. Seve was an […]
Well, another Pacquaio fight is almost upon us — he’ll be taking on Shane Mosely a week from tonight. I’ve been lying low lately but now that the fight is almost here, I’m excited to have a chance to think and write about Manny Pacquiao again. For starters –before getting to Pacquiao-Mosley I want to […]
I’m on record as recognizing the greatness of the original “Opulence, I Has It” commercial for Directv — a sequel, “I Am Epic Win” (?) is out now and I think it’s as funny as the original. Here it is. Note how the Russian gazillionaire’s electrode assisted muscles are bulging while the […]
News just came that my favorite uncle, Arthur Wagner, age 94, has passed. He was more than an uncle to me — a mentor, grandfather, the grand patriarch of our clan who occupied a huge and honored place in my world. Feelings are complicated; he was 94; he lived a long and fruitful and much-loved […]
Last week I wrote about the “Great Facebook Revolution of 2011”. This has been a tough week in Libya, but here is a video of Gigi Ibrahim, a social media participant in Cairo. She is an inspiration.
Years from now, will the wave of change that is rolling through the middle east be remembered as the Facebook Revolution of 2011? Will this be the point where, looking back, it will be seen that social media came of age as the the ultimate and definitive force for social change?
I knew something was up just by the way her voice sounded on the phone — Saturday afternoon call, how ya doin’, Dad? Fine, how about you? Then: “I’ve got news.” I knew immediately what the news was going to be because Kaitlyn and Andrew have been together for four years and seem like true […]
A recollection of my first visit to the Hobbit House, the famous folk club in Manila staffed entirely by dwarfs, where I heard the great Filipino singer/songwriter Freddie Aguilar play, and met Jim Turner, the unique owner of this unique watering hole and folkhouse.
The second part of the BBC audio documentary on Manny Pacquiao is available now, so I’m embedding both parts below — click and listen!
The deep and mystical allure of fishing has been with me since I can remember. I’ve loved the mere presence of the ocean — I could stare at for hours, and be nurtured by it, and calmed by it. And as I watch it form the sore, or a balcony, or a bridge, I’m […]
The boxing blogs are buzzing this morning with discussion about “Filipino Flash” Nonito Donaire’s 4 round demoltion of 4th round TKO victory of Ukrainian Wladimir Sidorenko in a battle for the WBC Continental Americas bantamweight title at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California yesterday. Donaire had Sidorenko on the canvas three times in four rounds […]
The Inquirer has an article that they picked up from the Cebu Daily News by Malou Guanzon Apolisok on the The Pacquiao Effect and whether or not it’s a good idea to have Pacquiao as the country’s tourism ambassador, as has been proposed in Congress. Having spent some considerable time and effort back in the […]
Manny Pacquiao just added an extraordinary new title to his collection — Yahoo’s Most-Searched Sports Star of 2010. Pacquiao landed first on a top 10 list that includes tiger Woods Brett Favre, Lebron James, Danica Patrick, and Maria Sharapova. For those of who have been following Manny’s rise through the years, this is a compelling […]
Following is an article by Ingming Aberia discussing Pacquiao’s now-famous statement “boxing isn’t about killing each other — it’s about entertainment.” Aberia analyzes Pacquiao’s knockout record and concludes that he eases off frequently against outclassed opponents. “Against relatively easy opponents, Pacquiao holds his punches. Against dangerous foes, he becomes a killer.” The article is reprinted […]
I wrote a post over the weekend on the Philppine American War, and this got me to thinking (and hence googling) looking for videos of old, colonial Manila. Here is a compilation of the videos I found. Great stuff.
Marquez’ one-side defeat of Michael Katsidis has set the stage for an epic trilogy bout between boxing Superman Manny Pacquiao and his possible “kryptonite”, Juan Manuel Marquez.
Part 1 of Mike Costello’s Manny Pacquiao Audio Documentary on BBC is out now and I’ve embedded in below at the end of this brief post. In it Costello covers his arrival in Manila, takes a visit to the Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo where he says “I’ve never seen anything like this […]
The gentle charm of the Philippines never ceases to produce moments for me that are very special. I was just roaming on the net and found a very cool little website — Lawaan.com — which is a website about Rena’s hometown and while there I found this — a theme song for the town. […]
There is an excellent article from British boxing writer Gareth Davies in the Telegraph about Manny Pacquiao and a BBC Documentary. One quote from Manny in particular caught my eye: “I love the Filipino people and I’m not only doing this for myself, for family, but I’m doing this also because of the honour of […]
If your spirit is in need of a lift — this is it. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret the peaceful pre-WWII state of her country — then the tragedy and heroism of the invasion, resistance, and eventual liberation in […]
It has been inspirational to read what Filipinos from all over the world have written in response to What We Can Learn From the Empathy, Humility, and Grace of Manny Pacquiao — 717 responses on this blogsite alone and thousands more on FaceBook and elsewhere. Some comments have moved me to tears — others […]
A dispatch from the “Trenches of Indie Film Warfare”…….
“Opulence, I has it.” By now everyone has seen this commercial, and I suspect there are plenty of people who have come to hate it …. but sitting on the couch I have always found myself looking up from my laptop and watching when this commercial comes on, and this morning after pondering the fact […]
