Soxblog has a request from one of his readers, who’s serving in Iraq. Major J.B. Smith writes:

We are undertaking an effort to improve relations in the local communities in our area by distributing school supplies for use by the Iraqi children. These items will be given out by both US and Iraqi soldiers directly to the school systems and in some instance directly to the children. Items we are looking for would be standard school supplies of lower to moderate grade. Quantity is much more important than quality for this effort. We specifically need:

Paper Products: tablets, leaf paper, multi-colored construction paper

Writing Instruments: pencils, pens, crayons, paints, chalk, markers (bothPerm and Dry Erase)

Loose Leaf Folders/3 ring binders

Erasers

Scissors

Pencil Sharpeners

Paper Clips

Staplers

Staples

Binder Clips

All supplies can be sent to the following address:

MAJ JB SMITH

ATTN School Supplies

CMATT – AL KASIK

APO AE O9334

You can also reach Maj. Smith at jb.smith@us.army.mil.

Fine. I’ll say it. The new trailer for Revenge of the Sith looks gob-smacking good. It looks dark and interesting and full of Old Republic politics. It looks like the movie you and I have been longing for in our hearts.

Two years ago I swore that Lucas wouldn’t get my $8.50 this time around. So much for that.

. . . isn’t that Lindsay Lohan didn’t hook up with Bruce Willis–it’s that she already got a porn-star “lower back” tattoo.

What’s the over-under for a Lohan sex-tape? Two years? 18 months?

Help Amy Welborn get a new computer.

The R-Dog is so back in the hizzouse.

For a while now all the cool kids have been fixating on Sin City. Entertainment Weekly put the upcoming Robert Rodriguez movie on its cover a few weeks ago. Ain’t It Cool News is practically all-Sin City all the time. Even Kathy Nelson is caught up in the mania. (To my credit/shame, I blogged about Sin City a couple of months back.)

So what’s the big deal? Well, check out the two trailers and you’ll see. Sin City is adapted from a series of Frank Miller graphic novels and the movie looks unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It is, as one observer put it, like seeing a comic book at 24 frames per second.

If the movie lives up to its trailer, Sin City‘s composition alone will be taught at film schools for a generation. And comic books are hot source material these days as Hollywood is bringing everyone from Spider-Man on down to American Splendor to the big screen. And Frank Miller is the comic-book auteur of the modern era. And the cast is full of pretty people who appear on the cover of magazines like Details and Movieline.

With all of these factors in its favor, the entertainment press is already genuflecting before Miller and declaring Sin City the new Pulp Fiction, full of stylish, noiry goodness.

What I want to know is, has anyone else out there actually read the comic books?

Whatever else the Sin City comics may be, they are utterly unfilmable. They are page after page of murder, mutilation, torture, rape, beheading, cannibalism, and worse. L.A. Confidential is noir. Touch of Evil is noir. Sin City is Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho without the daintiness and restraint. Think Hannibal meets Faces of Death.

I haven’t seen Sin City yet, but if the movie is faithful to the comic books, then it’s a niche product, at best.

From Galley Brother B.J.: “IDF says players are detached from reality and automatically given a low security clearance.” No kidding.

The Big East tournament starts tonight at Madison Square Garden and once again, the Georgetown Hoyas find themselves in a must-win situation against Seton Hall. A month ago, it would have been inconceivable that the team would be struggling to earn an NCAA bid–after defeating West Virginia on February 12, the Hoyas were an astounding 16-6 (8-3). Certainly they could grind out at least two wins, say, against St. John’s and Providence, thereby reaching the magic numbers of 18 overall wins and 10 in the conference. Not so. The Hoyas crumbled under late-season pressure, losing every single game since. And so now, critics claim, they will have to most likely win the entire Big East tourney to get into the Big Dance. I think they’ll probably need to at least beat UConn in the second round.

Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise had a tough column on the collapse of area teams, especially Maryland, but at least gives Georgetown “a major pass.”

On a lighter note, as per my prediction, Hoya freshman Jeff Green received top honors and was named, along with UConn’s Rudy Gay, Big East co-rookie of the year. The last Georgetown player to earn the title was current Sixer and JVL mentor, A.I.