My Soap Box

How to Train Your Dragon

2010-04-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve always been a big fan of the well made animated feature. There’s something special about that rare cartoon that crosses the barrier between “fun kids movie” and “all around good movie.” Animation let’s the filmmaker do things that might not be possible otherwise and put you into worlds that are chalk full of imagination. It’s like a free pass to think like a kid for 90 minutes and get wrapped up in talking toys, foxes dressed like Robin Hood, or an old man flying his house to South America. The best-of-the-best from this genre make you forget you’re watching a cartoon as you get sucked in to their subject matter, outlandish as it may be. And so it is with “How to Train Your Dragon.”

“How to Train Your Dragon” drops the audience smack dab into the middle of a Viking village and the life of a scrawny kid named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel). These Vikings aren’t so much into plundering as they are dealing with dragons. Dragons infest their tiny island and all good Vikings devote their lives to the hunting of and defense against these sheep stealing beasts. This is where problems arise for Hiccup. Hiccup is less the Village Idiot, more the Village Misunderstood Visionary. His lack of size and strength prevents him from taking on the dragons head to head, but what he lacks in brute strength, he makes up for in technological advances. One of his inventions allows him to take down a dreaded Night Terror dragon, something no one else in the village has ever done. Unfortunately the beast lands somewhere in the distance and no one in the town, especially his father Stoick (Gerard Butler), believes him. Determined to prove his worth, Hiccup tracks down the dragon to finish him off. When the time comes, however, he finds himself unable to do so and eventually finds himself forming a very unlikely friendship.

Everything about “Dragon” is solid. The voice work is strong and I must say these characters are extremely well cast. Too often animated movies rely on “name” talent that is designed to get people into the theater but then forces you to focus on those well known voices. Here, however, the work done by Baruchel, Butler, and the rest feels genuine. You’re not distracted by the voices as they just seem like a bunch of real cartoon Vikings (as weird as that description may sound). In addition, the visuals are excellent even if the 3-D aspect is a bit unnecessary. The design of the dragons is an especially nice touch. Toothless, Hiccup’s dragon, is unlike any other dragon I’ve seen on screen. His movements are quite catlike and it has the desired effect of making the dragons seem more pet-quality than you might think.

The script, however, is “Dragon’s” real strong point. Writer William Davies gives the story proper pacing and allows for authentic emotion, something that is often lacking in any movie, let alone an animated one. The bond between Hiccup and Toothless is reminiscent of dog and owner, and that comes across naturally rather than relying on the cliché play-up that so many movies resort to. The two work together as Hiccup tries to fix Toothless’ broken wing and Toothless in turn teaches Hiccup about dragon psychology, something no Viking has bothered to study. It’s an authentic relationship that these two share not only with each other but with the audience as well. The dialogue is full of humor and wit, never leaving the viewer wanting for comedy on top of everything else. Overall, “Dragon” is an extremely original story that is brilliantly told.

“Dragon” is a major step forward for Dreamworks animation. Their previous films (“Shrek,” “Flushed Away,” etc.) have done well at the box office but have failed to garner the critical attention that the Pixar films have. For me, this has always been because where the Pixar movies connect on an emotional, relevant level, Dreamworks features simply aim to make the audience laugh. There’s nothing wrong with that, par se, but great movies connect, not just entertain. “Dragon” manages to connect and entertain along the same lines as some of the better Pixar films. It is 98 minutes of pure imagination in cartoon Viking form and leaves the viewer wanting more from the inevitable franchise that is to come.

Grade: A

My old dog is going to be Toothless pretty soon,
Brian

"Date Night"

2010-04-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Hollywood is an unpredictable old booger. You never know quite what to expect from its products or its stars. Just when you think you’ve got someone figured out, whether good or bad, they’ll throw out a game changer that leaves you questioning your previous commitment or lack thereof. (Unless we’re talking about John Travolta. That guy always sucks.) Sandra Bullock, for example, has been an instant “out” for me since the late 90s but her role in “The Blind Side” was excellent and put her back into tolerable territory. It does, however, work the other way as well, such as with the stars of “Date Night.”

I love Steve Carell and I love Tina Fey even more. They are two of the funniest humans in the entertainment industry today and I am always excited for their involvement in any project. But both have disappointed me lately. Carell was the star of the incredibly mediocre “Get Smart” and Fey was most unfortunately involved with “The Invention of Lying” which was entirely unfunny. Both movies just served as reminders that you can’t trust the name. As such, my thoughts going into “Date Night” were divided. I was stoked about the concept of this film from the get go, especially considering the stars. But as more and more advertising made its way into my mindgrape, I started focusing on “Smart” and “Lying” and wondering if this was going to be one of those times where all the good parts are in the trailers. Thankfully this was not the case and star power prevailed.

“Date Night” drops us into the sadly average lives of Phil and Claire Foster who have found themselves in the classic relationship rut. Work, kids, book club, and once a week Date Night at the same restaurant for the same food form the base of their everyday lives. Sparked by another couple’s recent divorce, the Fosters decide to change it up and bring Date Night to Manhattan where, upon being denied a table at a posh restaurant, they take the reservation of a missing couple called the Triplehorns. Things are going well until two thugs, mistaking them for the Triplehorns, drag them outside at gun point and demand the merchandise that was stolen from a local mob boss. What ensues is one crazy night of shenanigans as the Fosters dodge cops and crooks alike with the aid of Holbrooke (Mark Wahlberg), a former client of Claire’s. Their adventures take them deep into the seedy underbelly of New York where they discover their vanilla boring lives are actually pretty darn good.

Carell and Fey make the perfect comedic couple. Their talents and attributes compliment each other brilliantly, bringing out the best in one another. Both of these actors are so natural in their roles that at times it feels like they are a real life couple who just happen to be really, really funny. There are a few surprisingly real, candid moments that would not come to fruition without these two in the lead. Carell especially brings honesty to the film that it would seriously lack otherwise. As the movie progresses, the two take turns being the dunce and the hero, and while that might fall flat with other pairings, here it furthers their connection. The Fosters are a great team. A bit dramatic and prone to inane plans, sure, but a great team nonetheless.

On screen support for the stars is strong for the most part, though Academy Award nominee Taraij P. Henson is horribly miscast as the police detective in charge of the Foster investigation. A quick confession: I'm a huge fan of Mark Wahlberg. I know I shouldn’t be and I certainly can’t defend some of his acting choices (“The Happening”, anyone?). But he seems to have a good time with each role and that makes it hard for me to dislike him. Holbrooke is a throw away character in many ways but Wahlberg makes the role bigger than it really is. Likewise, James Franco (as one half of the real Triplehorns) is rapidly becoming one of my favorite supporting actors. His five minutes on the screen are, for me, the funniest of the entire movie. Franco doesn’t seem to care about whether or not a part is too small for him, instead choosing his roles based solely on how much he’ll enjoy the filming (“30 Rock” and “General Hospital,” for example).

The behind the camera work is solid if unspectacular. Director Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”) seems to know where his bread is buttered, allowing Carell and Fey to do their thing without too much interference. He doesn’t let the film stretch itself too far and I mean that in a good way. There’s only so much that can be done with this story and it would be very easy to let it get off the rails. The script (written by John Klausner) is perhaps the weak link, though it isn’t bad, just a bit lacking. Some of the laughs are cheap and ultimately unnecessary given the comedic genius of the collective cast. The second act wanes a little and suffers from a bit of laziness but again, not in such a way that causes the audience to tune out. If nothing else it’s certainly a step up from Klausner’s last script, “Shrek the Third.”

“Date Night” is exactly what you can reasonably expect from a spring comedy. The laughs are abundant and the story is fun and entertaining. Without Carell and Fey, the movie probably comes off as fairly generic and mediocre but don’t you have to give some credit for securing the right cast? If you’re a fan of the two stars you won’t be disappointed. Overall it’s a very enjoyable experience and it goes a long way to making me forget the transgressions mentioned above. B.

I already regret my Wahlberg statements,
Brian

Epic Fail: Middle School Girl Tries to Dunk

2010-04-12T22:42:00.001-07:00

A Fan's Look at a Championship

2010-04-11T22:22:00.001-07:00

When I was 9 years old I caught glimpse of Christian Laettner hitting The Shot that sent Duke past Kentucky and into the Final Four. The moment literally changed my life. I’ve been an unabashed, diehard, and at times annoying Duke fan ever since. I have a Duke hat that I joke is older than my 17 year old sister. It started out as white but now slightly resembles the color of old urine and yet I continue to wear (and refuse to wash) it because it some ways it represents the meaning Duke basketball has had in my life over that time period. I estimate that I cried only three times between 1997 and 2003 (legitimate injuries not withstanding). One was when Paco, the family dog, died. The others were Duke’s loss to UCONN in the 1999 Title Game and Duke’s championship win over Arizona in 2001. When I’m bored I run over Duke recruiting classes of the past decade in my head and think of possibilities in which the Blue Devils win seven titles in the last 20 years instead of just three. It’s almost a lifestyle choice at this point, especially between Midnight Madness and the end of March Madness.

I’ve had a good feeling about the 2009-2010 Blue Devils since the very beginning. I don’t know why, honestly, because all things considered, this is one of the least talented Duke teams in recent memory. They lack legitimate star power and more importantly, they lost three of their top seven players from a disappointing Sweet 16 team the year before and added no substantial talent. But there was something about the way they played that had me dreaming about another title. This year’s Duke team controlled the ball, took good shots, and completely dominated on defense. They played defense like a Mid-major school but with the athletes to keep the intensity up for 40 minutes against major programs. The players all seemed to understand their abilities and limitations and played accordingly, which is a seriously underrated and rare gift these days. And most importantly, the one constant in all the years of Duke greatness, they have the best coach in the land.

Mike Krzyzewski is everything that is right with college sports. In a world that is literally dominated by cheating, lies, and manipulation, Coach K and the Duke program are a shining example of how things should be. He recruits the best players who can excel on the court and in the classroom. He talks consistently about his love for his players both past and present. And he wins. A lot. At times the program comes across as elitist, snobby, and annoyingly perfect and I understand why it rubs some people the wrong way. But no one, not even the most cynical sports fan or hardened Tar Heel, can deny Coach K’s greatness. He genuinely cares about the players and understands the importance of the student body, the fans, in a way that almost nobody in the country can compare with. Coach K makes even a fan in Texas who has never set foot on the Duke campus feel as if he is his coach. He exemplifies class in everything that he does and if that weren’t enough, he is perhaps the best teacher of the game of the last 30 years.

After the Blue Devils clinched their spot in the Championship Game last Saturday with a win over West Virginia, I started to get the symptoms of Big Game Itis. I hadn’t allowed myself to get too excited until this point, knowing that at any moment that excitement could bite me in the butt. But as Sunday wore on into Monday morning and the hour of the game grew closer, the symptoms were plentiful. I was nervous for 48 hours straight. I could not sit or stand still. No matter what I was doing my brain was running scenarios of what was likely to happen on Monday night. I bit my finger nails down to the nub. I waged an internal conflict between excitement and dread, half wanting the game to start already, half wishing it was already over so I could know how to feel. It had been nine years since Duke had played for a title and, as my body wasn’t used to this anymore, this was the worst case of Big Game Itis I think I’d ever had.

As the game progressed, I kept waiting for the moment when my stress would die down. At some point, I thought, one team will pull ahead of the other by a decent margin and I’d have to either let myself feel good about the outcome or start preparing myself for the sure loss. This was not to be the case, however, in a game in which neither team ever got ahead by more than six points. This turned out to be, without question, the best NCAA Championship Game EVER. Basketball is a game of runs but both teams were so locked in defensively that neither were ever able to get on an extended hot streak. Duke would go up five then down one then back up five. There was no patented 15-4 run to seal the game or parade to the free throw line that Duke weaponizes so well. Instead, the game was a constant back-and-forth pressure cooker for two and half hours, never allowing me to get comfortable in any way.

In the final five seconds, I paced the floor as Butler missed a shot, Duke went one-for-two from the line, and Butler’s star Gordon Hayward missed a championship winning half court shot by approximately one inch. Even in that moment, as elated as I was, I could not quite yet let go of the stress and tension I’d accumulated over the last 48 hours. When you are this invested, winning the actual game is kind of like taking that first dose of medication when you’ve been sick for a while: the symptoms of the duress your body has gone through doesn’t go away immediately. You feel a little better, sure, but you’ve still got that nasty cough. The nasty cough in this case would be a heart rate that would rival that of a “Biggest Loser” contestant after a half marathon, combined with an inability to sleep that night. (And that’s after a win! I’m going to die young, I’m afraid.) When it’s all said and done, I’m as Sports Happy as I’ve ever been. Being back on top of the College Hoop World feels magnificent. The coach (my coach) takes his rightful place on the list of greatest coaches in college basketball (or sports in general) history. And this under-talented, underappreciated Duke team has become perhaps my favorite group of all time. Call it an obsession, call it a lifestyle, call it whatever you want. But as my Sports Tears trickled out and my ulcer began to shrink, I was yet again reminded of why I love this fickle game and the teams that best represent it for me. Go Duke, go.

Cue “One Shining Moment,”

Brian

"Clash of the Titans"

2010-04-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

I am not often willing to spend the money to see a movie in theaters when I feel the movie is likely to suck. I’ve written before that “it’s all about expectations” and if I expect a movie to be bad, why would I put my $10 (or $15, as the case may be these days) into helping said bad movie make bank? But there are rare occasions when common sense is trumped by a Voice and the Voice leads me into the lion’s den, so to speak. Sometimes the Voice is that of my wife. Did I think “Bride Wars” would be terrible? Yes. Did I see it anyway? Yes. Did I want to kill myself afterward or halfway through? A little bit, yes. But the Voice took me there anyway. Sometimes the Voice is that of The Nerd Inside. Did I see all the terrible signs leading up to “Terminator: Salvation?” Yup. Did I let that stop me? No, I was there at Midnight and yes, the warning signs were correct.

Sometimes, however, the Voice takes on the form of Childishness. Full of precociousness and wonderment, the Voice of Childishness calls out, “Come on…come on…come on…” until I give in and find myself doing something stupid. In this case, Childishness sparked when a Thursday email reminded me that the next day was Good Friday and I didn’t have to go to work. What shall I do with my new found freedom, I asked myself. Immediately I realized what I must do: assemble a group to recreate the magical Summer of the Nerd and see a sure-to-be-terrible nerdy movie. And so, at 10:45 (because there were no Midnight showings that weren’t in 3D and weren’t at the Rave where even Childishness couldn’t drag me), two friends and I found ourselves in a theater watching “Clash of the Titans.”

“Titans” is a remake of the 1980 cult classic of the same name. I’ve never seen the original but everything I’ve heard suggests it’s about on par with the review I’m about to give for this version. “Titans” follows Persues (Sam Worthington) as he wages war against some of the gods and monsters of Greek mythology in an effort to…well, I’m not really sure. I guess to save this princess of some random human city that he just met 10 minutes prior to taking on this challenge and to avenge the death of his human father. The setup isn’t really a big part of the “plot” here. Perseus is actually the fun-baby of Zeus and so there are some conflicts of interest here as you can imagine. Zeus wants to crush the spirit of the rebellious humans so he unleashes his brother Hades on the world but he also doesn’t want his son to perish. Meanwhile Perseus wants to put a beat down on the gods but isn’t completely sure how he feels about Zeus. Add into the equation the guy who would have been Perseus’ Earthly father had he not cast him and his mother into the sea plus some ridiculous monsters and a weird demi-god who’s been watching Perseus since he was born (creepy) and you’ve got yourself a movie! Sort of.

I will say three things in “Titans” defense. One, the action sequences are pretty solid. Not great, mind you, but solid. If you like sword fights, giant monsters, and primal screams, this could be the movie for you. Worthington does an admirable job in exhibiting the looks, behaviors, and actions of an action star and the supporting cast don’t make fools of themselves in the action shots. Two, the dialogue isn’t atrocious. It’s not good, you understand, but it’s not teeth-grinding awful which is what I fully expected. There were only a couple of lines that made me wince and getting through a movie of this nature without really drawing attention to the dialogue is a good thing. Third, the movie doesn’t take itself seriously at all, which is a stroke of genius, considering the weak content.

Now I will say three things NOT in “Titans” defense. One, the “plot,” as noted, is just horrendous. The movie honestly feels like a video game in which you jump from one Level Boss to the next, only there’s really not any work to get to the next Boss. Two, the acting is predictably rough. While no single performance stands out among the rest as truly terrible, that’s more indicative of how mediocre the entire cast’s work is than anything else. I guess that’s not a huge surprise given that the majority of the cast is made up the type of actor you’d expect to get a mailed-in stinker from (even Liam Neeson is guilty of this). But Ralph Fiennes?! Ralph Fiennes?! Et tu, Brute?! I’ve always felt I could trust Fiennes but that trust is now in question. Three, the post production 3D installation was a huge disaster, and this has drawn my ire.

I get the appeal of 3D, I really do. It’s retro-new, it’s exciting, and it allows theaters to charge $5 extra to borrow their Buddy Holly glasses. If people are willing to pay for it, more power to you. My issue, however, is the hasty post production retro fitting that I fear we’re going to see a lot of in the next year or two. “Titans” was not shot in 3D, it was instead turned into a 3D film after the crazy success of “Avatar.” As a result, the print looks blurry and out of focus. Even the film’s director has thrown a fit regarding the 3D treatment. In truth, the shoddy nature of this feature just exemplifies the sloppiness that runs amok throughout the film’s mercifully short run time.

Now, all that’s not to say I didn’t have a good time. Childishness had come ‘a callin’ and darnit if I wasn’t going to have fun when Childishness was in charge. While I usually remain as quiet as possible in a crowded theater, I soon found I could not keep the Urge to Joke trapped inside for very long. After my nerds and I had cracked a couple of quiet jokes, the rows around us murmured their approval and before long the three of us had reinvented Mystery Science Theater 3000. The jokes were quick, easy, and plentiful. And really, given the less than serious tone “Titans” takes with itself, maybe that’s the whole point. Maybe that should even be the movie’s tagline: “Have fun! Make some jokes! Let Childishness take over for 83 minutes! Give us 10 bucks!” To that I say: “I accepted your invitation, “Titans.” In spite of your ridiculousness, I had some fun, I made some jokes, and I did let Childishness reign for 83 blessedly brief minutes. You may keep my ten dollars, but don’t push your luck looking for a good grade.” C-.

Release the Kraken,

Brian

Bob Huggins

2010-04-04T22:38:00.000-07:00

I've never been a fan of West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. He's always been a royal jerk to just about anyone he comes in contact with and his personal issues have bled out into the public eye more than once or twice. He was very hard to like during his Cincinnati days, mainly because you always got the feeling he was heavily involved in the paying of his bigger recruits.

All that said, however, the clip below shows a different side of Huggs and I think it's important to note. In a second half collision, WVU superstar Da'Sean Butler tore his ACL in what will be his final college game. It was clear almost immediately to me, to millions of other viewers, and to Butler himself how serious the injury was. As he lay crying, Huggins came on to the court to console Butler as any good college coach would do. However, he took it a step further and got literally an inch away from Butler's face to encourage, sympathize, and console his fallen star. It was a stirring moment, even for a lifelong Huggins basher like myself. See for yourself.

I am always trumpeting the character that Coach K at Duke displays year after year and the love he has for every player that comes through his program. He's the example as far as I'm concerned. So I feel it's important to point out when another coach, even one I don't really care for, like Huggins, displays some of that strength. A class move from a guy who clearly forms strong connections with his players.

BG

HUGE Casting News

2010-03-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

I very rarely write up a post concerning upcoming movies. There are plenty of sites out there dedicated to nothing more than alerting movie nerds to the latest Hollywood news and notes (and I surf a number of them myself). But every once in a while something really grabs my attention and I feel I have to share.

Later this year (supposedly, though it has all the markings of a film that will get pushed back), the Coen brothers will release their remake of the John Wayne classic "True Grit." Jeff Bridges will take over for Wayne and Josh Brolin and Matt Damon will also appear. I am extremely excited for this movie and today's news only heightened that.

One of my all time favorite actors is Barry Pepper. In my mind he is criminally underrated and hasn't had a decent role in years. Pepper was AMAZING as Private Daniel Jackson in "Saving Private Ryan" and even better as Roger Maris in "*61" (which only I and about 10 other people have ever seen). Pepper hasn't had many good turns over the last decade (which I trace directly to his unfortunate involvement with "Battlefield: Earth") which is so sad. The dude is solid all around and should be bigger than he is. Perhaps this will all change now that he's been cast in the villain's role for "True Grit." Being involved with the Coens has been a career saver for a number of actors over the last 15 years and I seriously hope their magic will work again in this case. Seriously looking forward to this film.

Oscar Thoughts Part 2

2010-03-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

While Oscar was kind enough to open its doors to more audience-friendly fare this year ("Blind Side," "District 9," etc.), the winners were still more often than not the critical darlings that I expect to see rewarded every year. The theme of the night was substance over style but overall I thought the Academy did a good job this time around in honoring the right films and performances. A brief "Cheers and Jeers" look at the big categories and the show itself.

JEERS
"Precious" wins Best Adapted Screenplay - Perhaps this is less a "Jeer" and more a "Meh." I haven't seen "Precious" though I've heard only good things. But Jason Reitman's script for "Up in the Air" is incredible in every facet of its content. The movie clearly didn't have the backing it needed to really get into the Best Picture race, yet I felt it more than deserved an award in this category. This had the feel of an award given more for social relevancy than for actual achievement in writing.

"Up" not a serious player for Best Picture - Sure it got nominated, but going into the night everyone knew this category was a two-way race between "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker." I'm not saying either of those movies is underserving of the attention. If I'd had a vote I would have voted "Up in the Air" fifth, "Avatar" fourth, "Inglorious Basterds" third, and "The Hurt Locker" second. They were all excellent films and I think "Locker" is one of those movies that gets better the more you think about it. But "Up" is absolutely brilliant, truly unique, and emotionally compelling. If it wasn't an animated film, it would win Best Picture hands down.

Producer pulls a Kanye - In the only real awkward moment of the evening, the producer of "Music by Prudence" (Elinor Burkett) ran on stage and pushed the film's director to the side so she could get in her own, semi-intelligible speech. Turns out the two are feuding, to the point of lawsuits, but still this idiot came across as the loser of the night. See for yourself.

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CHEERS
Jeff Bridges named Best Actor ("Crazy Heart") - Personally this would have been a very difficult category to vote in. Jeremy Renner and George Clooney were incredible in their roles and maybe even equal to Bridges. But when I walked out of "Crazy Heart," I felt like I had just seen the best leading performance of the year. Bridges' Bad Blake is magnificently true and authentic. And in general, it's good to see the impressive body of work Bridges has put together honored in this way.

Christoph Waltz named Best Supporting Actor ("Inglorious Basterds") - Waltz was absolutely mesmerizing from minute one of "Basterds." He was terrifying, methodically brutal, and yet verging on likeable in the strangest way possible. The most eloquent Nazi of all time to be sure.

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosting - The duo displayed perfect chemistry and managed to be funny and relevant without dominating the spotlight. In fact I think you could make a case for their being underused. I love what they brought to the table.

John Hughes tribute - Even for a guy who doesn't quite get some of Hughes' more popular works, his tribute, overseen by some of his bigger stars, was quite touching. The ovation given his family in attendance was even more touching. And for some reason it's always cool/weird to see Macaulay Culkin as an adult.

Lack of preaching - I can't remember the last time I was able to watch a Hollywood-sponsored event without feeling like I was being inundated by an agenda. I hate being preached to when I'm not in church, even if I agree with the theme of the sermon. Because it was honored so often, those associated with "The Hurt Locker" had numerous opportunities to slam the anti-war message down my throat. Instead, time and time again they opted to go with the overall message of the film which was to point out the atrocities of war without preaching about the politics. "The Hurt Locker" was incredibly powerful and significant and that message would have only been diluted by excessive preaching. Kudos to the entire cast and crew, particularly director Kathryn Bigelow.

Sean Penn is still a tool,
Brian

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief"

2010-03-05T00:08:00.000-08:00

Here’s the problem with being a movie nerd. When you make a point of going to the theater as often as I do, you often run out of viable viewing options for those celebratory moments when you might want to see a movie with friends or loved ones. It was my birthday recently and my wonderful wife, knowing my love for the silver screen, thought it would be a great idea to check out a movie on said birthday. The idea was solid, clearly, but the choices…yikes. The first couple months of the year are pretty barren movie wise and I’ve already seen most anything that really interests me. Hence, we ended up in a Sunday afternoon showing of “Percy Jackson.”

“Percy Jackson” is based on the first book in a series written by Rick Riordan. The books and the movie follow young Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) as he discovers his ancestry and the abilities he owes to that ancestry. All in one day, Jackson learns he is the son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas, and he is in great danger. He is transported to Camp Half Blood by his caretaker Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) who turns out to be a satyr. At Camp he is reacquainted with his former teacher Chiron (Pierce Brosnan) who turns out to be a centaur. As you can tell, it’s quite an exciting day for Percy. Before he knows what has hit him he is thrown into a world in which the stories of mythology are very real. He, Grover, and his new friend Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) soon set out on a quest to track down the god Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt.

I give these books a whole hearted “eh.” The stories are interesting enough but the writing is marginal at best. In truth they come across as yet another attempt to replicate the magic of the Harry Potter series. But whereas the Potter books are written for children but sophisticated enough for adults, most of the knock offs are childish and immature. They only become popular because Potter fans are always attempting to find that next fix to fill the void left by the ending of the Potter world. So what happens, you may ask, when you take sloppy and average source material and attempt to hastily turn it into a feature film? Well, you get crap like this movie.

“Percy Jackson” was, for all intents and purposes, worthless. I tried to will myself to ignore the inane dialogue and witless comedic relief. I tried to pretend like the early special effects weren’t pathetic. I even tried to convince myself it wasn’t that bad and I was in fact enjoying my movie going experience. But within about 15 minutes I was contemplating whether or not I could get a refund for this mess. The acting of Lerman and Daddario is bad but truthfully I expected that. Both are fairly inexperienced and usually your first turn as a leading character is rough. The rest of the cast, however, have no such excuse. Pierce Brosnan, Joe Pantoliano, Catherin Keener, etc. all feel as if they’re here only to collect a paycheck. (Joey Pants! What the heck happened, man?! You haven’t been in a real movie in years and THIS is your triumphant return? You were in “The Matrix” dude, come on!) Uma Thurman, Rosario Dawson, and Steve Coogan all stop in for cameos and all sleepwalk through their respective scenes. Jackson, however, is the worst of the worst. And I don’t just mean this film in particular; I mean in all of Hollywood, this is my least favorite kind of acting. When comic relief isn’t comical, it makes a decent movie seem bad and a bad movie seem miserable. This is the latter. Jackson is AWFUL and every cliché line he speaks only serves to highlight the low quality writing and acting you are currently subjecting your brain to.

Writing and direction are even worse in “Jackson” than the acting. Screenwriter Craig Titley truly lives up to his IMDB resume that is “highlighted” by his writing of the story (not the script) for “Cheaper by the Dozen.” Dialogue, scene structure, you name it, it’s bad. And then there’s Chris Columbus and his sloppy work behind the camera. There was a time when Columbus was one of the premier family-movie-makers in the industry. “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the first two “Harry Potter” films, and of course, one of my all time favorites, “Home Alone” were all excellent works of kid-friendly fare that had at least some adult appeal as well. Then came “Rent,” “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” and now this. Suddenly he’s looking like a guy who’s on his last legs. The actors don’t seem as if they’ve been challenged in any way and the plot lines are laughable. “Jackson” doesn’t even have the decency to come across as desperate. Instead it seems uncaring and haphazard, like Columbus knew he had a pile of trash on his hands and there was no way to make it look like anything but a pile of trash so he just threw it on the screen and hoped enough fans of the book would show up to break even. The best comparison I can make about this would be to call it “High School Musical” without the musical. It is of that quality or lower.

The final act of “Jackson” has some decent action sequences which keep this movie from being a complete and total loss. But it’s pretty darn close. This is lazy, sloppy, and careless filmmaking based on source material of the same ilk. Like the books, it doesn’t fill the void left by the soon-to-be-concluded “Potter” films but rather leaves the viewer wishing those “Potter” films could just keep going. D.

A lovely cheese pizza just for me,
Brian

OK GO

2010-03-04T22:24:00.000-08:00

I may be a little late to the party here but...

Check out the newest music video from visionaries OKGO. These guys put together amazing videos time and time again and this one is probably my favorite so far. So cool.

"Shutter Island"

2010-03-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

If there’s anything I’ve learned about the movie industry over the years it’s that the studios haven’t learned anything. If they can screw up a project, they will, even one with a pedigree like that of “Shutter Island.” This movie was supposed to be released back in November, right in the middle of Award Season. Apparently it didn’t test well or Paramount didn’t feel it was Oscar caliber and as a result it was pushed back. That’s not the end of the world, it happens all the time, and it’s not necessarily cause for concern. What is cause for concern, however, is the new release date (mid February, a dumping ground for Hollywood) and the new trailer. I have see the “Island” trailer approximately 128 times in the last six months and suddenly, a few weeks before the release, we got a different trailer cut to play up the “scary” factor and make you forget that this was supposed to be an award winning movie. Therefore, my excitement going into “Shutter Island” was only equaled by my nervousness.

Opening in 1954 New England, “Shutter Island” is set an isolated mental institute (found on, coincidentally, Shutter Island) for the criminally insane. The institute is equally dark, depressing, and creepy, a place no one would ever want to stumble into even if it didn’t contain the worst of the worst nut cases. It is in this world that US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) finds himself, summoned to the island to find an inmate who has escaped. Daniels is the definition of a flawed hero, struggling with both the ghost of his murdered wife and flashbacks of his actions in The War, but he is nevertheless extremely tough and determined. He has his own agenda for taking this case, namely that he wants to expose the acts of Shutter Island’s front man Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). Before too long, however, Daniels becomes acutely aware that Cawley is on to his little game and is working diligently to lock him away with the crazies. The film is filled with mind games, fantastic twists, and extremely intense sequences, culminating in a final act that is both heavy and thrilling.

Though it is a departure from the type of movie director Marin Scorsese usually brings us, “Island” is nonetheless exquisite in its craftsmanship. It kind of made me wonder if Scorsese could have revolutionized the suspense/thriller/horror genre if he had dedicated himself to it so many years ago. The pacing is SPECTACULAR, never quick to move until the very end and yet I never once felt as if it was dragging or became even slightly disinterested. The tension and suspense builds throughout the film while using none of the typical gags and bits you expect to get in a thriller. Music, sound effects, and the like are used to heighten the suspense, not cause the suspense, adding ambiance to the feel of the movie. Likewise, there are some action sequences here and there but unlike so many other thrillers, the action doesn’t allow for release of the suspense, rather allowing it to plays further on the tension of the subject matter as well as your own emotions.

The technical aspects of “Island” are equally magnificent (though that’s what I expect from Scorsese). Shutter Island is a frightening place and the use of color, sound, and shot selection left me feeling as almost a bit claustrophobic, as if I myself was trapped inside the asylum. I am a big fan of a director allowing the actual sounds of the film’s setting and environment to provide the soundtrack. “No Country for Old Men,” for example, is soundtracked (not a word, I know) almost exclusively by the action of the film and the dusty plains on which it takes place. “Island” often does the same. One scene in particular in which Daniels lights match after match to guide his way is amazing in its use of sound. My wife jumped EVERY SINGLE TIME he lit a match. (Though maybe that’s more about her than the film but I’m going to spin it in favor of the film.)

I wouldn’t say the on screen performances are quite as good as the behind the camera work, but in all honesty, I don’t know how it could be. I was (clearly) blown away by the direction. However, DiCaprio is as strong as ever, continuing his work toward a lifetime achievement award for making me look like an idiot for calling him a crappy actor who’s only made it in life because he’s good looking. “Island,” “The Departed,” “Catch Me If You Can,” and “Blood Diamond” have all gone a long way in forcing me to forgive him for his part in “Titanic.” Teddy Daniels is rough, gritty, and haunted and DiCaprio pulls it off well. His support, including Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, and Jackie Earle Haley, are all strong characters requiring strong performances. All of them come through admirably, with the exception of Mark Ruffalo. I just don’t know what to do with Ruffalo. I want to like him and I have nothing against him. It just seems to me that he is the exact same character in every single movie, whether it be a thriller like “Shutter Island” or a throwaway RomCom like “Rumor Has It.” He just bores me at this point and as he is perhaps the second biggest player in this film, I felt like he held the whole thing back a bit.

“Shutter Island’s” closing act is tremendous and the final words should, for my money, be added into the lexicon of memorable movie lines. My only real complaint about “Island” is that it often feels too self important. The script is based on a book by Dennis Lehane, who also penned the books that “Mystic River” and “Gone Baby Gone” are based upon. Those books cover hard, important subject matters that lend themselves to significant adaptations. “Shutter Island,” on the other hand, isn’t significant in terms of the topics and issues therein. It’s a straight thriller. An excellent, compelling thriller to be sure, but still not quite on the level of Lehane’s other works. At times it feels like Scorsese (or perhaps screen writer Laeta Kalogridis) is trying to make “Island” more important, more impactful than it really should be instead of just allowing it to be one of the better thrillers of the last few years. This forced significance by no means overshadows “Island’s” strong points but it does keep it from reaching its fullest potential. B+.

I have no idea how to pronounce that screenwriter’s name,
Brian

"Valentine's Day"

2010-02-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

Because of what you are about to read and the opinion expertly crafted within, I have been accused of being a Movie Snob. I fervently disagree with this diagnosis and think the perpetrator should be forced to read the work of Owen Gleiberman (or any number of mainstream critics, for that matter) for a week so she can see what a true Movie Snob sounds like. But I’ll have to let you be the judge. Personally I think I’m the anti-movie snob. Sure, I call out the truly terrible movies but I also find good in movies that get seriously panned by the rest of the known universe. I mean, come on, I gave a B- to “Transformers 2” for goodness sakes! I ask a movie to do just two things: set a goal as to what type of movie it wants to be and work towards that goal as strongly as possible. For the most part it’s all about entertainment for me. Quite simply, I love movies. I did not love this movie.

“Valentine’s Day” is an ensemble set on a particular Memorial Day. No, wait, I mean Valentine’s Day. My bad. From a doctor to a football player, a florist to a soldier, the lives (and particularly their love lives) of a dozen or so Los Angelinos are examined for a brief moment in the effort to remind us about what love is all about. Whether successful in love or otherwise, these people are, I guess, supposed to represent the wide range of emotions we experience on Valentine’s Day. And, as always, all of their lives interconnect in one way or another. The best way to describe this movie would be to compare it to “Crash” but annoyingly upbeat or “Love Actually” without a competent writer.

My guess is we’ve all, at one time or another, come in contact with that relative who’s gotten a little older and started to lose it. You know, the one who used to be of major influence in the family, the guy who made decisions. Now he’s not quite all there but he doesn’t want to admit it and no one has the heart to tell him. You know the type, yes? That’s the feeling you get watching “Valentine’s Day.” You know director Garry Marshall used to be good at his craft but the longer this film drags on, the more you think the guy has lost his movie marbles. I will not for one minute argue that I, as a twentysomething male, am the primary audience for “Valentine” or any other Marshall film. But I have appreciated (some of) Marshall’s past work and I am not diametrically opposed to the Chick Flick. “Pretty Woman,” for what it is, is a classic and “Runaway Bride” is solid (though both would be better without a hack like Richard Gere involved). Even “The Princess Diaries” had redeeming qualities for me until I was stuck in a waiting room for six hours a few years back and had to watch it three times. But “Valentine’s Day” is the type of thing that happens when a big name starts to lose it and no one around him has the heart to tell him no.

It isn’t all bad directing, though. The writing, while not atrocious, is certainly far from good and leaves an all star caliber cast with very little to work with. It’s cheesy and laughable but not in such a sophisticated manner as to become tongue-in-cheek or campy. There are several things that immediately identify poor writing but the one that drives me the craziest is when a set of characters have a conversation that shouldn’t take place on screen. If two characters have been sitting next to each other on an air plane for somewhere between ten and twelve hours, they would not introduce themselves when the movie starts. Period. Stuff like this denotes half-hearted storytelling.

And then we get into the issue of the ensemble. Ensembles are, for me, almost always very good or very bad. There isn’t much middle ground. If your actors are invested and your source material is strong, you can produce fantastic results. On the flip side of that, poor writing and direction allows an ensemble cast to give lazy, mailed in performances that do nothing to bring the material to life. The result seems, for lack of a better term, sloppy. Plot holes and bad dialogue look and sound worse when they’re happening to and being spoken by characters that are undeveloped and uncommitted. It is never a good sign when Ashton Kutcher gives the best performance in any movie, let alone one with this much talent. Too many characters are miscast and/or misused. Jamie Foxx is so uninspired that it makes one wonder what could have happened for this guy if he’d used his Best Actor Oscar for good instead of evil. And Patrick Dempsey continues to amaze me and by that I mean I’m amazed that he has any sort of career resembling the one he’s carved out for himself. That dude has some incriminating evidence against somebody who is very important in Hollywood. Even Taylor Swift is better in this than these guys were.

There are some nice moments in “Valentine’s Day” and some humor. As mentioned, Kutcher is quite funny and even George Lopez provides a laugh or two. Up to this point I’d always thought it was illegal for him to tell a funny joke. It’s always a personal joy to see Julia Roberts on screen (even if she is horribly miscast) and there’s a solid scene here and there. The overall product, however, is mindless, lazy, and lacking in execution. It is overly sappy without connection or relevance and rendered me completely uninterested. And if that takes me into the realm of movie snobbery, then I guess so be it. C-.

I can’t believe I laughed with George Lopez,
Brian

DIIRRRKKKK!!!

2010-02-15T00:23:00.000-08:00

Last week my dad called me and told me he had tickets to go to the NBA All Star Jam Session on Wednesday if I wanted them. My dad's boss is a Mavericks season ticket holder who, knowing what a fool I am for Mavericks basketball, passes on his tickets to me a couple of times a year. He was kind enough to pass on his Jam Session tickets as well and of course I jumped at the chance to go. I had planned to take my wife and some friends to the event on Thursday or Friday. I figured there'd be a better chance of there being actual All Stars on those days as opposed to Wednesday. But free tickets are free tickets. And it turned out to be an even better opportunity.

As I spoke to a friend on Tuesday about the event, he started looking for tickets to tag along with me for the Wednesday event. An iPhone internet search revealed that the Wednesday version of Jam Session was Maverick-centric and only open to "special guests" (meaning season ticket holders and anyone else who picked up a ticket at their local Minyard's Food Store). Somewhere along the line we came across a Craigslist post that mentioned that Dirk Nowitzki was going to be signing autographs. I got a little excited. Okay, a lot excited.

I love Dirk Nowitzki. Recently my sister did one of those Facebook question things that asked her, "Who would Brian Gill vote for as President?" Her answer was Dirk and she's totally right. If it was legally possible for Dirk Nowitzki to become President of the USA, I would totally vote for him (which is a perfect example of why not everyone should be allowed to vote). He's a top 7 player in the game today and has been for years despite being possibly the most underappreciated superstar in the history of the league. (Call me a homer, I don't care. I know basketball better than you do and Dirk gets nowhere near the respect he deserves.) Having grown up a Mavs fan, I have been through the absolute worst that any franchise could ask their fans to go through. My first indoctrination into Mavdom was an 11 win season, followed by a 13 win season in which my favorite player was traded. It didn't get much better until Dirk came along. Dirk owns a 40% share in the "Reasons the Mavericks Don't Suck Anymore" pie graph I have in my head (33% Mark Cuban, 8% Don Nelson, 8% Steve Nash, 5% Michael Finley, and 6% assorted others). Without Dirk this franchise would still be the joke that it was for most of my youth.

Dirk is my second favorite Maverick (and NBA player overall) of all time, having recently overcome Finley in my personal rankings and trailing only Derek Harper. “What? Still behind Harper? What's that about?" you might say. Consider that Derek Harper was my idol (in the "American" sense, not the Biblical sense of course) growing up. When everyone else wanted to be Michael Jordan, I wanted to be Derek Harper. If in 20 years I have a son who leaves Duke after one championship season and is drafted by the Mavericks, he still might only rank as my second favorite Maverick of all time. The fact that Dirk has gotten that close to Harper Territory should serve to illustrate how big a Dirk fan I am. The guy has carried the team through thick and thin without the kind of support other superstars have gotten across the league. And he has been the consummate professional through it all. The most unique player in the game, he is an absolute treat to watch night in and night out, despite not being the type of player who throws out Sportscenter highlight plays every night.

I digress. Some digging revealed that Dirk Nowitzki would indeed be signing autographs and so my uncle and I found ourselves in line to get into the Convention Center about an hour before it opened. He got in line while I ran to the “Absurdly Priced Pro Shop That Doesn’t Sell Anything You Actually Want and Charges You Way More Than Any Human Should Ever Pay for a Replica Basketball Jersey” to get something to be signed. (Security wouldn’t allow basketballs to be brought in. Everything else was good to go, just not basketballs, which was the one thing I had brought to be signed.) When I got back, my uncle told me a security guard had come by and told us Dirk would only sign for an hour and we probably would not make it up there before the hour was up. As a consolation, however, we would be close to the front of the line for Erick Dampier. Erick Dampier! Going from Dirk to Damp would have been a huge kick to the Gortats, no offense to Damp. As we waited, another employee came up and told the others that at some point they were going to have Security Guard X (who looked like a shorter version of Mr. Echo from “Lost”) jump into the line facing the crowd and anyone after him wouldn’t be able to meet Dirk. I would not have liked to have been the first person exiled by Mr. Echo.
Dirk arrived and started signing autographs. Every five minutes a lady would yell, “One item per person! No pictures!” Usually I hate these types of policies at signings like this but since I was so far back, I was happy to hear these instructions. The guy behind us started counting and figured that each person was on stage for about 10 seconds. After 15 minutes or so, the line had moved considerably and we felt pretty good about our chances. The line kept moving at a reasonable place and with the exception of the occasional long-talker taking upwards of 20 seconds to get off stage, everyone played by the rules. In one of the crazier moments of the day, a twentysomething girl asked if she could have the empty water bottle Dirk had just finished off. He gave her a weird look and said, “You want the bottle? Um, okay.” She ran off giggling like he’d given her the keys to his car. Ah, the power of the star athlete.

Finally it was my turn. I walked up on stage. I handed my criminally overpriced basketball to the security guard and told him where I wanted the ball signed. He pushed the ball over to Dirk who obliged. While he signed I motioned to my uncle to take my picture standing next to my German Hero, only just as he started to take the picture one of the guards brought this kid in a wheel chair onto the stage and it turned into an awkward moment of my uncle and I both trying to determine if this kid was going to cut through the picture while at the same time knowing we had approximately four seconds to get this thing done before security threw me off stage. This resulted in a truly terrible picture for which I apologize. Dirk handed the ball back to me and I forced him into a handshake because, get real, how am I NOT going to shake Dirk’s hand? I had thought about what I would say in this moment (gay, I know) but seriously, how do you sum up your appreciation for one of your heroes in 1.2 seconds? I stumbled through something like, “Um, thanks for being awesome” as we shook hands and then made my exit to stage left, my life forever having been changed.

It’s always a tricky situation when you meet a personal hero. You’re not quite yourself, naturally, and while you’ll jump at the chance to have the experience, there’s always the chance that the guy will turn out to be a toolbag. When I met Derek Harper in the 8th grade, he was the coolest guy in the world. He signed every single thing I brought to the table and sat around talking basketball with me and my buddy for a solid 30 minutes. On the flip side of that, I also met Chris Arnold, a radio personality from my favorite station, in the 8th grade and was amazed at what a jerk he was. The Harper meeting was iconic and edifying; not only did I meet him but he was a heck of a guy and that left me feeling like I’d made a good choice in a role model (as weird as that may sound). Meeting Arnold on the other hand was embarrassing and somewhat crushing. I listed to that guy every day! I even risked detention listening on a walkman during Texas History and yet he had no time for a young fan. I’m happy to report that the Dirk Experience falls into the Harper category, only further deepening my hero worship of the guy. Dirk was fantastic with everyone, especially the little kids who probably couldn’t figure out why this giant was writing on their clothing. He was a true professional and I will be forever thankful for the opportunity to have those 10 seconds of awesomeness.

Now go get a title,
Brian

Oscar Thoughts

2010-02-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

Oscar nominations are out and everyone in the Blogosphere has been discussing the most prestigious award ceremony over the last few days. I don't usually get too caught up in the Oscars because, for one, everyone else covers it so throrougly and two, I usually haven't seen a ton of the nominated films. Often the nominees are obscure titles that haven't been in wide release or ones that I have no real interest in. But what the heck, I'll throw my two cents in this time around. I'm covering only the major awards, of course, and for each category I'll be predicting who will win, who I would vote for if the Academy was dumb enough to induct me, and someone who I felt was worthy of nomination. That's not to say (generally speaking) that he/she/it should be nominated in place of someone/thing that was nominated. I think the Academy did a better job this year than they have in recent years in terms of nominating the right people. So way to go, Academy!

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
George Clooney, "Up in the Air"
Colin Firth, "A Single Man"
Morgan Freeman, "Invictus"
Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"

Prediction: Jeff Bridges - I still haven't seen "Crazy Heart" but Bridges seems to be a sure thing here.
My vote: Clooney, though Renner was great as well. In truth, this is an extremely strong category this year. I don't think you can make a legit case against any of these guys.
Also deserving: Sam Rockwell, "Moon", Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "500 Days of Summer" - Rockwell was spectacular in his own version of "Cast Away"/"I Am Legend." Levitt showed great range in the unique "500 Days."

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"
Helen Mirren, "The Last Station"
Carey Mulligan, "An Education"
Gabourey Sidibe, "Precious"
Meryl Streep, "Julie and Julia"

Prediction: Bullock - this one is completely locked up, the other nominees need not show up.
My vote: Having only seen one of these movies, it would have to be Bullock.
Also deserving: Maya Rudolph, "Away We Go", Amy Adams, "Sunshine Cleaning" - It was shocking to see Rudolph in a serious role and she delivered a stirring performance. "Cleaning" has gotten no award show love but I'm still not convinced Amy Adams didn't give the best female performance I saw all year.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Damon, "Invictus"
Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger"
Christopher Plummer, "The Last Station"
Stanley Tucci, "The Lovely Bones"
Christoph Waltz, "Inglorious Basterds"

Prediction: Waltz - if Bullock is a lock, Waltz is like the kind of lock that goes on a state of the art bank safe. No one else is coming home with this award...
My vote: Waltz - ...and no one else should take home this award. Waltz was perfect.
Also deserving: Brad Pitt, "Inglorious Basterds", Jude Law, "Sherlock Holmes" - I thought Pitt was comedic genius as the head of the Nazi hunting troop in "Basterds." With his take on Watson in "Sherlock Holmes," Law breathed a new life into his career that he will surely destroy when his new film "Repo Men" hits screens later this year.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, "Nine"
Vera Farmiga, "Up in the Air"
Maggie Gyllenhaal, "Crazy Heart"
Anna Kendrick, "Up in the Air"
Monique, "Precious"

Prediction: Monique - I haven't seen "Precious" and I don't intend to, but I've heard Monique is a shoe-in.
My vote: Kendrick/Farmiga - Honestly I can't decide who was better and I have a feeling that will only help Monique's campaign; Farmiga and Kendrick will split the vote too much for one of them to win. If pressed, I would vote Kendrick.
Also deserving: Emily Blunt, "Sunshine Cleaning", Melanie Laurent, "Inglorious Basterds" - Again, "Cleaning" got no love and it's a shame. Blunt was incredible. And for the first time, I'm calling foul on the Academy. Melanie Laurent was GANGBUSTERS in "Basterds." I haven't seen "Nine" but there's no freaking way Penelope Cruz did ANYTHING in that movie that equalled Laurent's work.

DIRECTING
James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
Quientin Tarantino, "Inglorious Basterds"
Lee Daniels, "Precious"
Jason Reitman, "Up in the Air"

Prediction: Bigelow - This will be the first time in the history of the Awards that a woman has won Best Director. Totally deserving.
My vote: Cameron - All of these directors are more than deserving (again, excluding "Precious" as I haven't seen it). But I don't know how I could not vote for Cameron. You can rip Cameron on his script and his story all you want (and it would be deserving) but as far as direction, the work he did on "Avatar" is so extensive that I don't think you can vote against him.
Also deserving: Neill Blomkamp, "District 9" - Blomkamp's work came out of nowhere. An excellent sci-fi tale with powerful yet subtle Apartheid themes, it is SHOCKING that this dude put this together on the budget he had (reportedly under $30 million).

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglorious Basterds"
"The Messenger"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"

Prediction: I think they'll balance this out. If "Avatar" wins Picture and Bigelow wins Director, I think the voters take care of either Tarantino or the Coen Brothers and vote for "Inglorious Basterds" or "A Serious Man."
My vote: "Inglorious Basterds" - I haven't seen "A Serious Man" yet but I think "Basterds" was the best, most inventive script I've seen put to the screen in a while.
Also deserving: "Moon," "500 Days of Summer" - Both were truly unique which is what I usually look for in this category.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"District 9"
"An Education"
"In the Loop"
"Precious"
"Up in the Air"

Prediction: "Up in the Air" - And the splitting up of the awards continues. This was a fantastic, real, sometimes depressing but never devastating movie that was wonderfully structured.
My vote: "Up in the Air"
Also deserving: "The Road," "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince," "Where the Wild Things Are" - Bringing "The Road" to the screen without losing the tone of the book was a difficult process. "Harry Potter 6" was perhaps the best of the bunch in terms of bringing the book to the screen as it was invisioned. And "Wild Things" tackled an incredibly difficult task in turning a beloved children's book of about 8 pages into a full movie that captured the essence of said book.

BEST PICTURE
"Avatar"
"An Education"
"The Blind Side"
"District 9"
"The Hurt Locker"
"Inglorious Basterds"
"Precious"
"A Serious Man"
"Up"
"Up in the Air"

Prediction: "Avatar" - I think "The Hurt Locker" is "Avatar's" biggest competition. But for all its flaws I'm not sure the Academy is going to pass on "Avatar." Honestly, though, I don't think you can go wrong with "Avatar," "Hurt Locker," "Basterds," "Up," or "Up in the Air." They were all excellent.
My vote: "Up" - The first Pixar film to get the respect that company deserves, I personally think "Up" was the best movie I saw all year. It is unique, it is funny, it is visually appealing, and it is emotionally relevant in a way that most of these movies weren't.
Also deserving: "Moon" - Having no budget hurt but having no support from the studio hurt worse. This was a fantastic movie and unfortunately no one will ever see it.

I might actually watch this junk this year,
Brian

"Edge of Darkness"

2010-02-03T15:10:00.001-08:00

Imagine for a moment that you are one of today’s teenagers, say eighteen years old. Imagine that you’re a big film fan who hits the theater every weekend and tries to stay up to date with the current releases. Imagine, however, that you’re not big on “old” movies, like, for example, anything made prior to 2004 when you first starting taking notice of movies that didn’t have talking squirrels. Now imagine sitting in on “Edge of Darkness” last Friday and wondering who in the world this Mel Gibson character is and where exactly he’s been for your entire film-going lifetime.

Maybe that sounds a bit ridiculous to anyone who isn’t eighteen, but consider that Gibson’s last star turn was in 2002’s criminally underrated “Signs.” A planned hiatus to work on directing combined with the infamous drunken rants that made the rounds a few years ago have kept Gibson out of the movie spotlight for eight years. Eight years. For all intents and purposes that’s an entire movie going generation that hasn’t had any big screen contact with a man who used to be a bankable, $20 million-a-film superstar. And that’s a shame, no matter the fact that Mel made the bed that he’s found himself in.

“Edge of Darkness” is based on a British mini-series of the same name. In a very rare Hollywood twist it is directed by Martin Campbell, who actually oversaw the original in 1985. Boston cop Thomas Craven (Gibson) welcomes his beloved daughter, Emma, home only to have her gunned down on his doorstep a few hours later. What follows for the rest of the film involves Craven trying to figure out who killed his daughter, digging deeper and deeper into the sordid political mess she found herself in prior to her death. Craven’s hunt takes him into contact with corporate villains, crooked lawyers, environmental activists, dirty senators, and a British bagman named Jedburgh, played exquisitely by Ray Winstone.

Craven is a hard cop, a guy who you wouldn’t be surprised to learn had roughed up a criminal or two. But his daughter’s death sets him free from any bureaucratic chains that might have inhibited him before. He is out for the truth of Emma’s death, revenge for that death, and to expose the political cover-up he’s investigating, but he’ll settle for the first two if that’s all he has time for. What sets Craven apart from many other tough-movie-cops is his ability to switch tactics to get what he wants. He threatens one man, outsmarts the next, and simply outtalks the one after that. He fights when he has to but he waits for the game to come to him. His moves are calculated. Again, however, when it comes time to stop talking and start shooting, he’s up to the task.

While the lead character is a fine example of an action movie hero, the whole of “Edge of Darkness” is a mixed bag. Campbell’s wildly inconsistent directing career (the man is responsible for both the saving of James Bond with “Casino Royale” and the absurdity that is “Vertical Limit”) shows up here as it seems he’s not sure whether “Edge” should be a political thriller or a “Taken” knock off. In truth it often feels like a foreign director is trying to pack his movie with the type of action he thinks the average American moviegoer wants to see. So what you get is an odd combination of outstanding, methodical dialogue built around slightly over the top action sequences. The result left me a little off balance, not completely sure what the film was actually going for. I came away feeling that the film had some failed award aspirations and compensated by adding some cliché action movie fodder. I am left to wonder if this wouldn’t have been better if Campbell and crew had just made this a darker, grittier version of “Taken.”

Acting wise, this is the Gibson Show through and through, with strong support from Winstone. Everyone else, even veteran character actors like Jay O. Sanders, seem out of their depth with Gibson. The normally powerful Danny Huston in particular seemed off his game. His corporate villain Jack Bennett is, for the most part, simply off putting and not in the way that you might expect a good villain to be. Comments and actions that are meant to come across as cold instead feel just plan weird. Winstone, on the other hand, is magnificent, the perfect compliment to Gibson. Jedburgh is a philosophical bad guy, a man who goes out of his way to respect those he is sent to “deter.” He gives you the feeling that he would be a “good guy” if only the good guys got paid a little better, while his cockney accent makes him simultaneously more menacing and appealing. The scenes he and Gibson share and the conversations therein are superb, especially their first encounter which brings forth memories of the diner conversation between Pacino and DeNiro in “Heat.”

Overall “Edge of Darkness” is a slightly bumpy ride that rests almost entirely on its leading man. Gibson delivers better than you might expect for someone who’s been out of the game for so long. He looks quite a bit older and more worn since last we saw him. Yet he still displays the same characteristics and mannerisms that made William Wallace, Martin Riggs, and the rest jump off the screen the way his characters have over the last 30 years. This is, for me at least, a triumphant return for a great actor, even if the movie isn’t up to par with the performance of its star. Will this resurrect his career and work to earn him back his place with the Hollywood elite? Who knows, but if nothing else, at least a generation of eighteen years can finally have the opportunity to get to know who the heck this Mel Gibson guy really is. B.

If you don’t like “Signs” you’re not watching it right,
Brian

"The Book of Eli"

2010-02-02T14:45:00.001-08:00

I am a big believer in a film owning its place in the world and being true to itself; sticking to its guns so to speak. If the goal of a film is to educate then it should strive to be educational. If the goal is to be funny it should darn sure make me laugh and laugh a lot. If the goal is to entertain then it should truly be entertaining. Obviously those movies that choose to handle tough subject matters are usually the ones that garner critical acclaim, but award nominations isn’t what it’s all about, at least not for every film. On the whole I think the first goal of the average film should be to entertain; to provide escape or release from the daily grind of real life. And if it’s done that then really I feel that’s all we should ask of it. So it is with “The Book of Eli.”

“Eli” drops us in the relatively near future, 30 years since “the war” tore a hole in the sky and the sun scorched the earth. What’s left behind is a desolate and bleak Earth on which an ever decreasing number of humans remain. Law, government, and the like are of the past, as are education and literacy. Everyone wears sunglasses in this scorched world and there is the obligatory lack of water as well as a large number of cannibals. (Though cannibalism is apparently frowned upon here, as opposed to the “everyone is doing it” position taken in “The Road.”) It is not a pretty world that “The Walker” aka Eli travels.

Eli (Denzel Washington) is a guy who knows how to take care of himself, as I imagine you would have to become to survive 30 years in this world. He’s heavily armed (including a wicked sword) though you get the impression that he could probably handle himself just fine without any weaponry. Along with a sack full of weapons and a rechargeable MP3 player, Eli also carries a leather bound book from which he reads every day. That book, as it turns out, is the last remaining copy of the Bible on the planet. Having discovered this copy sometime after the hole-in-the-sky thing, Eli wanders the path set before him, looking for a place where the Bible can be at rest. The majority of this movie deals with the happenings after Eli stops in a “town” lorded over by a slumlord named Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie realizes what is in Eli’s possession and begins a relentless pursuit to take the book from him, waging an all out war against the man.

“The Book of Eli” is far from perfect as far as action movies go. It is filled with clichés and is a bit “color by numbers.” This is one of those movies where you wonder, “Okay, what’s the twist going to be?” throughout the entire back half because you’ve seen this type of thing before so you know there’s going to be a twist. It is also, of course, highly unrealistic but seriously, has there ever been a realistic post-apocalyptic movie? The entire premise of this type of film is built on fantasy. The characters are pretty typical: virtuous hero, sly bad guy, bad guy’s right hand man, and helpless female who brings nothing to the story. Seriously, the female lead, played by Mila Kunis, is simply unnecessary. She is asked to do next to nothing and delivers appropriately. There are a lot of plot holes in what is a fairly jumpy plot line to begin with and I found there to be several wasted scenes which drives me crazy.

The biggest issue for me, however, was the seeming attempt to draw an R rating. A couple of edits here and there would have easily trimmed “Eli” down to a PG-13 rating but instead it feels like the directors (the Hughes brothers) went out of their way to ensure the R. That’s quite disappointing because in doing so they have alienated a large portion of the would-be audience. “Eli” is unashamedly Christian in nature. In fact I would say it is the most openly Christian film done by the mainstream that I have seen in quite some time, and maybe ever. It’s not just the whole “power of the Bible” thing or “screen religiousity” as I like to call it (meaning, cliché “this is how Christians would behave” acting). I’m talking very Christian ideas, quoting of fairly obscure Scripture, and open prayers that go far beyond the normal “movie prayer.” This is a film that the Christian community could have potentially rallied around but the R rating erased that opportunity, which is a shame.

Still, if the goal of “Eli” is to entertain the viewer, then it has succeeded. It is a very slick, (possibly overly) stylized portrayal of this potential future with strong action sequences that use very little CGI (something to be commended). The Hughes brothers do an excellent job of allowing the ominous landscape to become a focal point. More importantly, they hold to the world that they created and that’s a real key here. One of the biggest mistakes a director can make when he takes on a post-apocalyptic or sci-fi setting is to fall away from the reality he has created. The Hughes brothers don’t try to answer too many questions about why or how the world became this way and they tend to hold to what they have set forth as true in the world Eli inhabits. Gary Oldman is good, though perhaps a bit underused, and Denzel Washington is excellent. Eli is, clearly, a deeply religious, spiritual man and you can feel the connection Denzel had to his character. When he quotes Scripture it flows from his mouth not in the way a great actor would deliver it but the way a believer would and that makes a serious impact on the film. And the twist provides a great payoff and gives depth to the film as a whole. It does, however, make the films weaknesses stand out even more as you start to wonder if it could have been a great film instead of just a pretty good one. B.

I can’t spell apocalyptic,
Brian

Movie Rankings 2009

2010-01-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

I've still yet to see a couple of the more important films from the year ("A Serious Man," "The Informant!") but I don't guess I'll get a chance until next month when they hit DVD. So we'll have to move on without them. 2009 was a top heavy year for me. I gave out a lot of "A" grades this time around; more than I have in several years. After that, however, there wasn't just a whole lot to get excited about one way or another. I didn't see nearly as many bad movies this year as I would usually anticipate but there also weren't a whole lot of those movies where I came out thinking, "that was exactly what I thought it would be: not great but entertaining." Most of the movies that wind up in the middle of this list were disappointing as opposed to surprisingly good. Kind of a weird year all around.

A word about rankings. I have for years struggled with how to describe my rankings. I don't necessarily rank in order from best film of the year to worst film. Rather, I grade and then rank based on a combination of quality and enjoyment. I also take into account the supposed goal of the film. If it aspires to be an Oscar winner but falls short, that is usually taken into consideration. If it is, however, just meant to be a fun escape from the real world and attains that goal, I think there's something to be said for that. The point is, I think a lot of really entertaining films that deliver exactly what they are designed to deliver are looked down upon by mainstream critics because they aren't "award worthy." And that's a shame in my book. I would not make the case that "Sherlock Holmes" is a better film than, say, "Invictus." If I were voting for Best Picture between the two, I'd vote for the latter. But when the rankings come around, "Holmes" and "Invictus" both hit on quality and aspiration, but "Holmes" was more enjoyable for me and is therefore ranked higher. And that's the way it goes for me.

THE TOP TEN
1. "It Might Get Loud" - The best film experience I had all year. A+

2. "Up" - I have always had a great love for the Pixar films. From "Toy Story" to last year's "Wall-E" Pixar delivers great entertainment and heartfelt story lines time and time again. "Up" may be the best Pixar has to offer and the one that finally garners a Best Picture Oscar nomination instead of just Best Animated Picture. This is as emotionally compelling as any live-action film I've seen in a long time. A+.

3. "Inglourious Basterds" - From the opening scene where Christoph Waltz's Nazi Jew Hunter completely CRUSHES a French dairy farmer using only his words to the final triumph of Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine, "Basterds" is brilliant. I've never been a big fan of Quentin Tarantino but I very much respect the work he is capable of doing and this, for me, is his best work. Say what you will about "Pulp Fiction," "Basterds" is, from a film standpoint, his crowning achievement. It is a slow burn built more around excellent dialogue and performances than anything else but has enough well placed action sequences to keep "Kill Bill" fans happy. A+.

4. "Up in the Air" - This was perhaps the best depressing film I've ever seen. Centering around a man whose job it is to fly around the country and fire employees for companies that can't do it themselves, this film borders on the "masterpiece" level despite the subject matter. The script and direction (done by superstar-in-the-making Jason Reitman) are both excellent but the true strength of this film is in the performances of it's three leading stars. Vera Farmiga is at her sultry best as a fellow traveler that our main character tragically falls for. Anna Kendrick surprised the heck out of everyone going from the dregs of the "Twilight" movies to this brilliant turn as the up-and-comer in the firing business. And George Clooney gives, for me, the best leading man performance of the year. He brilliantly navigates the complexity of a man who is equal parts driven, satisfied, and begrudgingly lonely, allowing the man to become neither depressing nor overly smug. Clooney again gives you the feeling that there is no other actor who could play his role. He is Daniel Day Lewis if Daniel Day Lewis had a sense of humor. A+.

5. "Avatar" - I've gone back and forth on where exactly this movie belongs in the rankings and I'm still not sure I'm settled. There are definite holes from a filmmaking standpoint but I cannot stress enough how incredibly enjoyable and entertaining "Avatar" is, and in the end that's what this thing is all about. A+.

6. "Moon" - Without question this is the least-seen movie of any on my Top Ten List. "Moon" centers around a man (Sam Rockwell) who supervises a drilling station on the Moon, his only companion being a talking computer voiced by Kevin Spacey. Really, however, it's about paranoia and good old fashioned sci-fi twists and turns. There aren't a lot of frills, special effects, or explosions but the story is so classically science fiction that I couldn't help but love it. Another writer I read a lot said that at the end of his screening, another patron stood up and yelled, "Now THAT is what a sci-fi film is supposed to be." There's very little that I can say about "Moon" without giving away too much. Sam Rockwell has received no support from the studio for his work here which is a shame because his performance is masterful. Director Duncan Jones looks like a superstar in the making and I can't wait to see what he does in the future. A.

7. "Star Trek" - Unquestionably the most fun I had in the theater this year. This was an absolute blast from beginning to end and left me and about 250 million other people dying for the next installment. A.

8. "The Hurt Locker" - I would call this the first legitimate war movie about the current war in Iraq. "Locker" centers around a bomb disarming unit and the mental beating these soldiers take. Jeremy Renner gives a coming-out performance that should catapult him to the Hollywood A-list. His character is addicted to the rush and imminent threat of death his job entails. And yet as unaffected as he would have you believe he is, his fragility is evident in many of his actions. It seems he would welcome death were it to happen on his terms while still knowing how much he has to live for. I almost wouldn't classify this as a war movie because the battles that usually mark a straight war film are lacking here. But if it is a war movie, it's the best I've seen since "Saving Private Ryan." A.

9. "Sherlock Holmes" - If "Star Trek" was the most fun I had at the theater this year, "Holmes" was the second most fun. The chemistry between Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes and Jude Law's Watson is extraordinary, the dialogue is quick and hip, and the action sequences are perfectly placed. It is ridiculous and out of control in many places but that only adds to it's appeal, at least for me. "Holmes" is one of those rare films that doesn't take itself too seriously and still manages to come across as brilliantly structured. My only complaint is the lackluster use of both Rachel McAdams and Marc Strong. A.

10. "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" - I am a total Harry Potter nerd so it should be no surprise that I love each and every one of these movies. Now, there are some issues for me with what was left out of the book but just based on the film itself, I think this was the best of the group so far. The film's makers work seamlessly to pair outstanding visuals with acting performances that continue to get better and better with each film. I absolutely cannot wait for the final two parts of this story. A.

THE REST OF THE "A's"
11. "Away We Go" - Maybe too hipster for some, I likened this to a poor-man's "Juno." John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph were both excellent in this tale of two people abandoned by family who trek across country looking for a new home for their expected child. There is a lot of quirky humor in "Away We Go" but also a couple of HAUNTINGLY authentic scenes about life. One of two movies this year that made me cry (along with "Up"). A

12. "The Hangover" A
13. "Zombieland" A
14. "Invictus" A

15. "District 9" - When I saw this I thought it was destined to sit on my Top 10 List. It would have definitely made it in 2008 or 2007 and the fact that it slipped to 15 this year shows how strong at the top the movie calendar was in 2009. Absolute genius work here all around. A

16. "Fantastic Mr. Fox" A-
17. "The Road" A-
18. "Taken" A-
19. "Sunshine Cleaning" A-

20. "500 Days of Summer" - One of the cooler films of the year and a badly needed fresh take on the romantic comedy. "Summer" features Zooey Deschanel at her most charming and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is so good you almost forget he also starred in "G.I. Joe" this year. A bit depressing at times, it is nevertheless realistic and beautiful. A-

21. "This Is It" A-
22. "State of Play" A-

B+
23. "Where the Wild Things Are" - Spike Jonze did an incredible job of capturing the up-and-down mood swings of a child and incorporating that into the fabric of his film. He did this so well, in fact, that the film feels so roller-coastery as to leave the viewer slightly uncomfortable throughout the whole run time.

24. "Brothers Bloom" - No one saw this little con movie starring Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody and that's a real shame. If you're a fan of the con, this is highly recommended.

25. "Funny People"
26. "Watchmen"

B
27. "Orphan" - I don't watch a whole lot of scary/horror films so you'll forgive me if this wasn't super original, I honestly have no idea. The twist at the end makes "Orphan" extremely memorable but the work done by Isabelle Fuhrman as child to Vera Farmiga's adoptive mother creates an excellent cat-and-mouse game throughout.

28. "Whip It"
29. "9" (not to be confused with "Nine")
30. "The Soloist"
31. "The Blind Side"

32. "Public Enemies" - It's hard for me call a movie I gave a B the most disappointing film of the year, but I think that's where I'm going with "Enemies." It's a good film, don't get me wrong, but when you tell me you've got Michael Mann directing Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in a story about one of the most famous criminals in the history of America, I'm going to expect a GREAT movie, not a good one.

33. "Big Fan"
34. "A Perfect Getaway"

35. "Fanboys" - If you're a "Star Wars" nerd like I am, "Fanboys" is more than worth the viewing. It's cheap laughter, sure, but it's still laughter. Highly enjoyable, at least for this nerd.

36. "17 Again"
37. "Inkheart" - Much better than I thought it would be.
38. "Couples Retreat"

B-
39. "I Love You, Man"

40. "Adventureland" - I didn't love this coming-of-age film as much as a lot of critics did but I definitely appreciate it. It has a slightly more unique take on the whole "going to college, becoming a man" thing than the average film.

41. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"
42. "Monsters vs. Aliens"

43. "Transformers: Rise of the Fallen" - Not nearly as bad as everyone wants to make it out to be. Is it an Oscar caliber film? Of course not, but if you're expecting Oscar, don't go to a Michael Bay movie. This is what it is and what it is is pure entertainment, nothing more.

44. "The Taking of Pelham 123"
45. "Duplicity"

46. "Terminator: Salvation" - Another film that got destroyed by expectations versus reality. "Salvation" doesn't live up to the original "Terminator" or "T2" but from an action movie standpoint, it wasn't a complete disaster.

C+
47. "Land of the Lost" - Another that wasn't nearly as bad as it was made out to be. It's all about expectations, people. If you expect an earth shattering, ground breaking, original comedy, don't go see "Land of the Lost." If you're OK with cheap laughs based on Will Ferrell's typically juvenile humor, this isn't far off from many of his other films.

48. "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans"
49. "He's Just Not That Into You"
50. "Confessions of a Shopaholic"

C
51. "Extract" - Highly disappointing. There just really isn't a reason this movie should have been made.
52. "Push"

C-
53. "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" - I watched this three times over the course of five days on a cruise. It was hell.
54. "The International"

D
55. "The Invention of Lying" - Ricky Gervais is a certifiable comedic genius, but this proves that even genius goes bad when left unchecked. The entire movie is built on a false premise: it's not a world without lies but instead a world without filters - everyone just blurts out what's on their mind. The laughs are few and far between and somehow this even manages to make great comedians like Tina Fey seem unfunny.

56. "Bride Wars"

F
57. "G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra" - Just so bad on every single level. The longer I've thought about this mess, the more I've come to hate it. Somehow "Transformers," "Land of the Lost," "Wolverine," and "Terminator" took all the heat this summer but in truth I'd rather watch all of those movies every day for the next month than watch this movie once. Terrible.

58. "Year One"

59. "Post Grad" - Occasionally my wife drags me to a movie I don't want to see. It doesn't happen too often, we both usually go out of the way to see movies we know the other will hate without them. Much like "House Bunny" last year, this is one of those cases when Lindsey dragged me to a movie and she ended up hating it as much as I did. "Post Grad" is incredibly inept in every single way. I did not laugh more than three times. In fact, it made me sad and not sad like I connected with the story line and felt for the character. No, I was sad because Michael Keaton and Carol Burnett were both in this freaking trainwreck of a film and I remember both of them actually having a career at one point. It's truly a tough thing to be worse than "G.I. Joe" or "Year One" but "Post Grad" fit the bill and brought strong contention to 2002's "Cabin Fever" as Worst Movie I've Ever Seen.

I'm hoping to see "Crazy Heart" this week,
Brian

"Fantastic Mr. Fox"

2010-01-17T23:47:00.000-08:00

It’s an interesting thing seeing a movie during the middle of a work day. You can expect a much different environment during this time than any other. The staff is always either much friendlier or give off the impression that the previous night was a rough one. The popcorn tastes a little fresher and the bathrooms seem a little cleaner. Even the tickets are cheaper, reason enough to hit the mid-day showing whenever possible. But the real difference is the audience. If I see a movie on an average weekend evening, I can expect a large crowd of diverse people. If I see a mid-day movie on say, a Wednesday however, I know almost exactly what to expect.

The mid-day audience is made up of four standard groups:
a.) The Elders - I have found that no matter what the movie, there is almost ALWAYS an elderly couple in the theater;
b.) The Housewife - sometimes with kids, sometimes without, the mid-day movie is a big player for the housewife;
c.) The Student - sometimes it’s a college student who was smart enough to get all his/her classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sometimes it’s the high school student who’s skipping class, but you can always count a student in the audience. These often comes in pairs;
d.) The Professional - you can always count on at least one “9-5er” showing up for the mid-day movie. Maybe he’s got the day off, maybe he doesn’t, but he’s there regardless. My attention today rests here.

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” is the latest film from director Wes Anderson, maker of such oddball comedies as “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore.” Based on a story by famed children’s author Roald Dahl, “Mr. Fox” is the tale of a talking Fox, his fox family, and his animal friends. Mr. Fox is a thief by trade and a darn good one. He steals chickens, apple cider, and turkeys from human villains Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. After almost getting caught, he promises his wife he won’t steak again. However, as he enters the twilight of his life (he is seven fox years old, you know), he returns to his old ways and plots a great caper that throws his life and the life of all those around him into disarray.

As is the case with all Anderson films, “Fox” is an ensemble that is built on the strength of all characters involved. The voice work here is exquisite. Anderson assembled the usual suspects, such as Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and added more A-list talent to the equation. George Clooney and Meryl Streep provide the voices for Mr. and Mrs. Fox and both bring the exact kind of quality you would expect. Clooney in particular makes you feel as if he is the only guy who could voice Mr. Fox, just as he does with every role he takes. The script is witty, intelligent, and original. It’s never “I nearly died laughing” with Anderson but “Mr. Fox” delivers fun and entertaining scenes throughout. The real attention grabber, however, is the use of stop motion animation. It was a daring move for Anderson to film this way and a huge departure from what he’s done in the past. The film is, for lack of a better term, fantastic to the eye. Each shot is as dynamic as the one before. The longer the movie ran, the more I found myself riveted to what played out on the screen. This was a daring move that paid off.

I’ve never been Wes Anderson’s biggest fan. I’ve found all of his films to be incredibly promising but ultimately incomplete. There have always been too many scenes that felt like they belonged only in a director’s cut that distracted from the overall point of his films. Unlike most others, I actually liked his latest release, “The Darjeeling Unlimited,” the most because I felt like it actually progressed from point A to point Z in the most direct route. It was a step forward from a filmmaking standpoint, even if the storyline wasn’t up to par. “Mr. Fox” takes that promise shown in “Tenenbaums” and “Rushmore” and adds the steps taken with “Darjeeling,” finally delivering a complete project.

But while I may not be Anderson’s biggest fan, the man has developed an amazing cult following. Which brings me back to The Professional. As I settled into my seat and the previews began to play, the last person into the theater was the day’s representation of The Professional. He snuck in wearing a suit and tie, bags under the eyes and a general attitude that said, “I kind of hate my life.” He came in nervous but when he sat down in the aisle in front of me, you could almost feel the tension rush out of the dude as the opening credits rolled. As the film progressed The Professional got more and more into the movie. At times we were the only two in the theater laughing at the witty banter between a fox and a badger. I figured him for an Anderson fan when he started chuckling over bits that only someone who’d seen his other films would appreciate, like he was in on a joke that the rest of us weren’t privy to. When “Mr. Fox” came to an end and the lights came on, The Professional was the first out of his seat. Back to the grind I assume. But there was a slight difference in him. A pep in the step, if you will.

I don’t know the guy’s story, though I could guess. I would bet he’s a twenty-something in a job he doesn’t like who feels like a sellout every time he looks in the mirror. He just had that air about him. On this day, however, he got to remember what life was like before we had to grow up. Maybe he got off early that day or maybe his boss thought he was on a sales call. Either way, he was there and the 87 minutes spent in Anderson-land were enough to get The Professional through the day. “Mr. Fox” was fun and bright throughout, a truly enjoyable work that served as a great distraction from the grown-up world. A-.

I still have Milk Duds stuck in my teeth,
Brian

Sick-Sick Day

2010-01-14T23:21:00.000-08:00

Growing up I got sick all the time. Ear infections, throat issues, stomach bug, whatever, I always seemed to catch whatever was going around and I always seemed to get the worst case. I was quite the sickly kid. That extended until I started teaching. My first (and only) year in the classroom saw me set a world record for legitimate sick days. Those darn kids and their sicknesses. But when it was all said and done my immune system had finally manned up and gotten its act together. I never get sick-sick anymore. One year of teaching PE was to my immune system what our yellow Sun is to Superman. As such, I haven’t been to the doctor for an illness related issue in about four years.

Anyway, I finally did get sick-sick. I haven’t felt my best since Christmas. I guess I haven’t gotten enough rest and the crazy weather hasn’t helped much. You know how you can feel when you’re about to get sick? I’m a master at reading that feeling and just refusing to let myself get sick-sick. Not this time, however. It started with that ol’ sore throat and progressed to the sinus junk, the congestion, etc. finally coming to a head today with the fever and, my favorite, the body aches. I woke up this morning after having slept about two hours and I knew it was time. The over the counter stuff wasn’t going to cut it and I needed an antibiotic. I was going to have to go to the doctor.

My problem is I don’t have a doctor. I never get sick-sick, so why would I have a doctor? The last time I had to go to a doctor to get a wart removed, I went to my old family doctor. His botching of the procedure almost cost me the tip of my finger. (At least that’s how it went down in my head. I hate doctors.) Clearly I’m not going back there so I wound up back in the CareNow lobby. I’ve been to CareNow three times in the last year. I went once for a physical, once to have the above procedure rectified, and once with Lindsey when she had a dizzy spell. All three times I’ve exited and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “I have GOT to find a real doctor.”

On paper, the CareNow concept is great. It’s pretty cheap, you can get in without an appointment, and you can even check in online, the greatest decision this company could ever make. But the experience is never good, at least not for me. The nurses are great, but I always feel like the doctor is either hung-over or got his medical degree from Kazakhstan. Today was no exception. I knew I had an upper respiratory infection, the nurse knew I had an upper respiratory infection, and the second nurse I spoke to later knew I had an upper respiratory infection. The doctor, however, would not accept an upper respiratory infection as the cause for my illness. He did a flu swab and ordered blood work. Then he told me a nurse would be down to take chest x-rays because, and I kid you not, even though my lungs were 100% clear, I could still have pneumonia. I questioned this move. He said I was going to end up paying my full $140 co-pay anyway, might as well be safe. All I wanted was some antibiotics.

20 minutes later that second nurse I mentioned came in to collect a blood sample. It should be noted that I am freaked out by needles, syringes, little finger clickers, or anything that can draw blood out of my body. When I was four, my doctor thought I had meningitis and I got to have that wonderful spinal tap done to me while at the same time a moronic nurse who looked like Sarah Jessica Parker in “Flight of the Navigator” failed seven times to get an IV into my arm. I’m still kind of messed up by this. Anyway, I looked away and she did her thing, only apparently I have super human blood that refuses to come out upon command. She had to squeeze my finger approximately 25 times (not kidding) before she could fill her little vial. I felt like Seymour Krelborn giving blood to Audrey II. (Yeah, that’s right, I went with back-to-back 80’s movie references.) I nearly blacked out because I am a total girl with blood stuff and had to take a minute before I could get the x-rays taken care of.

Another 30 minutes later and the doctor shows back up with the shocking news that I had neither the flu nor pneumonia and it was, “probably just an upper respiratory infection.” He offered me a steroid shot “just to be safe” and I told him I would likely jab him in the eye if he tried to get another needle into me today. He handed me my scripts and I got the heck out of dodge before he tried to make me turn my head and cough.

I dropped the prescriptions off at Walgreens and went across the street to get some juice. Apparently I make horrible, horrible purchasing decisions when I’m sick. These are the items I bought at Kroger: apple juice, orange juice, Lay’s potato chips, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, some sort of apple turnover, “Texas Style Cinnamon Rolls” (packed in stay fresh pouches!), and a box of Cap’n Crunch Berries. I still don’t know why I got that last one. I was a carton of Marlboro Reds away from being arrested for holding up a 7-11. At the end of the day, I was short a little blood, totally stocked up on Cap’n Crunch, and determined to find a legit doctor before the next time this happens.

My finger has a heart beat,
Brian

"Avatar"

2010-01-13T22:11:00.000-08:00

I hate “Titanic.” HATE it. I’m not against the Chick Flick or the romance movie in general. Those movies have their place and some of them I actually quite like. Heck, I would probably name at least two Chick Flicks (“When Harry Met Sally” and “Serendipity”) on my list of all time favorites. So that’s not my problem with “Titanic.” My problem is that James Cameron turned it into a romance in the first place. I was obsessed with the story of the Titanic as a kid. There was a book in my school library about the Titanic and I bet I checked it out once or twice a month. So you can imagine how excited the 13 year old version of myself was when he learned there was a movie about the Titanic and it was being made by the man who gave us “Terminator” and “Aliens,” only to find out it was a romance starring Leonardo Dicaprio. That Cameron could turn one of the most fascinating stories in history into a romance still makes me angry. Clearly it was the right choice considering how much money it made. But still, the sting of having a favorite childhood story ripped away and replaced with some old lady throwing a dumb diamond into the ocean is ever present. Boo.

And so it was with great fear and trepidation that I entered a theater for a 3-D showing of Cameron’s latest, “Avatar.” The movie follows wheelchair-bound Marine Jack Sully and his pals as he explores an alien world known as Pandora. Sully is entrusted with endearing himself to the indigenous people of Pandora, called the Na’vi. To do this, Sully (along with several others) essentially transfers his mind into the body of an Avatar, a combination of Na’vi and human DNA that looks like a Na’vi. Sully quickly finds himself caught between the love for the alien planet he is quickly developing and the mission he has been charged with by the military. Inevitably the two worlds clash and he is forced to choose which side he is really on.

Since I’ve bored you with my tale of why I hate “Titanic,” I’m going to skip right to the point: I loved this movie. It is a magnificent piece of work that certainly makes you understand why it took Cameron so long to bring his vision to the screen. “Avatar” is expertly crafted from start to finish and it is the single most beautiful and stunning film I have seen in a long, long time. Not a single scene is wasted, which is no small feat considering its 160 minute run time. In fact I think the case could be made for an extra 20 or 30 minutes of development (looking forward to the director’s cut). The world, the creatures, and the weaponry are all spectacular and the effects are amazing. And whereas I usually find 3-D to be a distraction at best, for this movie it does nothing but add to the spectacle. Cameron uses the 3-D technology, along with the tremendous sound editing, to bring you into the world of Pandora rather than going the standard route of bringing the action out to you. This to me makes a huge difference not only from an enjoyment standpoint but also in regards to respectability. No matter how good a movie this turned out to be, if Cameron packed it with cheesy shots designed to do nothing more than show off 3-D, there is no way it would get the critical respect it has thus far received.

It should be noted that, while he is a great director, Cameron isn’t a great writer. The actors in “Avatar” do an admirable job and at times the cast, Zoe Saldana in particular, step up as the driving force behind the movie. But they aren’t asked to do that much. As far as the story goes, there isn’t much that hasn’t been told before. One review I read criticized Cameron for taking the best parts of his other movies and throwing them altogether for “Avatar.” To that I say, so what? Sure, the story isn’t all that original but truth be told, it’s hard to come up with something that hasn’t been done before in some way or another. We’re approaching 100 years of the spoken word in film and complete originality is hard to produce. I have always been of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter if you’re retelling parts of a story as long as you’re retelling it well. And this story, while secondary to the stunning visuals, is well told.

I love movies. Whether in the theater or on Blu-Ray/DVD, I see a lot of films every year. Because of that, sometimes I get a little jaded and get caught up in catching as many reasonably interesting movies as I can. Sometimes even good movies start to blend together for me. But there are a few movies that I wish I could see again for the first time. “Star Wars” is one. “Jurassic Park” is another. “Avatar” now takes a prominent place on that list. I saw this movie almost a month ago now and I have thought about it over and over ever since. It is a landmark achievement in film, the kind of movie that you have to believe will have a ripple effect on the rest of the industry. Maybe more importantly, “Avatar” made me feel like a kid again, taking in a fantastic world that I truly did not want to see end when my 160 minutes was up. It reminds me of the magic and the majesty of the silver screen in a way that I haven’t experienced in many years. A+.

I’m still mad about “Titanic,”
Brian

Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010

2010-01-12T22:42:00.000-08:00

My annual Movie Rankings column is about ready to go, but I've got to catch two of this week's Blu-ray releases before I'll feel like I have a good handle on the year. In the meantime, after an exhaustive search, I've put together a list of my top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2010. All around it seems like we're in for a pretty average year at the box office and certainly not one that is up to the standard of 2009, which was for me a very strong year for film. Yet as always there are some highlights.

10. The Book of Eli (January 15)
I'm purposely trying not to know much about this before I see it. What I do know is Denzel has never done a straight action/fighting movie like this before and I'm excited to see it. And it doesn't get any better than Gary Oldman in the role of the villain.

9. Shutter Island (February 19)
I was a lot more excited about this Scorsese pic when it was supposed to come out last November. The newly cut second trailer is making it seem like it's going to be closer to a horror movie than I want it to be. Still, pedigree is a big thing and "Shutter" has that along with an insanely intriguing story line.

8. Stone (May)
As you will be able to tell from my list, my movie choices are often actor-driven. Edward Norton plus a potential career saving turn for Robert DeNiro is enough to get me in the theater, even if I'm not really sure what this is all about.

7. Alice in Wonderland (March 5)
2009 was the year of the visually stunning film ("Avatar," "The Road," "Fantastic Mr. Fox") and "Alice" looks to follow that up this year. Tim Burton tends to polarize audiences: you love him or you hate him. I guess I'm one of the few who can pick and choose depending on the project. This one looks fascinating.

6. Green Zone (March 12)
Matt Damon is my favorite actor right now and a guy who delivers time and time again. Seriously, the last poor movie he took a starring turn in was "Brothers Grimm" and even that you could see why he took the role. Pair him with "Bourne" director Paul Greengrass and I'm there.

5. Inception (July 16)
Of all the movies on the list, this is the one that I know the least about. The trailer doesn't really tell me much of anything. But it looks amazing and director Chris Nolan has proven to be a trustworthy name many times over even before his success with the "Batman" reboot.

4. Robin Hood (May 14)
What can I say, I love the Robin Hood story and pretty much every film version. I love the Errol Flynn film, the one with Costner is a guilty pleasure, and the Disney cartoon is my favorite Disney movie of all time. So the story line alone is enough to get me interested. Adding in Ridley Scott and his best buddy Russell Crowe is just overkill.

3. Iron Man 2 (May 7)
The first "Iron Man" was slightly surprising in its awesomeness and that surprise factor has me a little worried about the sequel. It's really easy to fill a sequel with a ton of big names (Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell) and get lazy on the storyline (see: "Ocean's 12"). Still, if Damon is my favorite actor at the moment, Downey is right up there and the first "Iron Man" was incredible.

2. Toy Story 3 (June 18)
Pixar made its glorious debut 15 years ago with the first "Toy Story." I'm a huge Pixar fan and I have a deep attachment to the "Toy Story" movies.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (November 19)
Ya, I'm a nerd, what about it? The Harry Potter books are phenomenal and the movies are tremendously fun for me. I have enjoyed the Harry Potter world so much that, as much as I look forward to its on-screen conclusion, I will be sad to see it come to an end.

No Will Smith movie this year,
Brian

Conan to Leave NBC

2010-01-12T22:28:00.000-08:00

Regardless of how you feel about Conan O'brien, the guy has a rabid, faithful, cult following that includes this writer. After a few days of questions, the Tonight Show host today told NBC he will not accept a move to 12:05 am. NBC, currently ranked 4th out of the four major networks, has made one bad decision after another, ultimately leading to this situation which will only hurt the network further. I think I've got a full Conan column in me somewhere but I believe I'll wait to see where he ends up. What follows is his press release concerning his decision. As always, Mr. O'brien shows himself to be a classy guy in a business that doesn't often lend itself to such characteristics.

"People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over “The Tonight Show” in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004, I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my “Tonight Show” in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the “Tonight Show” to 12:05 to accommodate the “Jay Leno Show” at 11:35. For 60 years, the “Tonight Show” has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the “Tonight Show” into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The “Tonight Show” at 12:05 simply isn’t the “Tonight Show.” Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the “Late Night” show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard, and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of “The Tonight Show.” But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet, a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the “Tonight Show,” I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,
Conan"

I already miss you Coco,
Brian

"Invictus"

2010-01-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

I know a lot about sports. I know a lot about a lot of different sports. I know the most about basketball, followed by football, followed by some combination of baseball, tennis, soccer, and hockey, depending on the situation. I know a bit about ping pong and billiards, if you consider those to be sports. I know more than I’d like to admit about gymnastics thanks to the tremendous crush I had on Dominique Moceanu as a kid. I even know a thing or two about cricket due to a paper I had to write in college. I do not, however, know a lot about rugby. I vaguely understand the concepts (one of which appears to be, “Don’t die”) and the scoring is similar to football. But prior to Saturday, if you asked this recreation director to set up an impromptu game of rugby, the outcome would have likely been quite disappointing. (Unless, of course, you yourself didn’t know a lot about rugby in which case it might turn into quite a fun game, who knows.) I know a bit more about it now.

“Invictus” is the true-life tale of the South African Springboks rugby team that won the sport’s World Cup in 1995. Well, sort of. Ostensibly I think it’s about the rugby team. And at points the rugby action takes to the forefront of the film. But really “Invictus” is about Nelson Mandela’s early presidential years and his use of the rugby team to unite a bitterly fractured nation, told in three acts. Act One centers around Mandela (played, of course, by Morgan Freeman) and his attempts to figure out how to do the job that has been set before him. The relationship that Mandela develops with Boks captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) takes center stage for Act Two as the two serve as a bridge between their two cultures. And the sport of rugby is given its glorious stage during Act Three, as the underdog group of hardheads battles its way to a tremendously significant title. (I don’t feel bad, by the way, about spoiling the end of this movie. This event happened 15 years ago. I also don’t feel bad about telling you that Bruce Willis was dead for the entirety of “The Sixth Sense.” It’s been out there for a while now.)

The performances here are, as expected, quite strong. Freeman is one of the five or ten best actors we have going today and his pedigree shines through yet again. This was clearly a very personal role for Freeman, who initially got the ball rolling on the project and served as producer. He wraps himself into Mandela, as it were, capturing the man’s spirit and mannerisms in what is perhaps his best performance since “The Shawshank Redemption.” Likewise, Damon (probably my favorite actor these days), provides great support to Freeman’s undeniable leading man. Sure, Damon isn’t asked to do as much as he has been in the past, but he more than holds his own. I expect both to receive Oscar nominations in the upcoming weeks. In addition, director Clint Eastwood is masterful behind the camera. Look, I’m not a huge fan of Eastwood’s recent work. “Million Dollar Baby” is one of the most overrated films of the past decade and “Gran Torino” is really not good at all. But there’s no question that the guy knows what he’s doing, especially the way in which he makes the most out of very simple shots.

Perhaps the best part of this movie is the shrewd way in which the two stories (one of Mandela’s presidency, the other of the rugby team) are blended together. I don’t know who made this decision, whether it was Freeman, Eastwood, the studio, or some combination of the three, but it was a stroke of genius. Both of these stories are important and need to be told, but I’m not sure either could command an audience if told separately. Mandela has led an amazing life but his persona doesn’t exactly lend itself to fantastic storytelling. Act One of “Invictus” is great but borders on the boring. If the entire film had continued as it started, the audience would have been lost. At the same time, while the Springboks' improbable victory is a great story, I’m not sure you can package a rugby movie to the American movie-goer. By combining the two and focusing the story on how the two parts intertwine, Eastwood is able to shed some light on two stories that need to be told without risking the alienation of the crowds. (Though I guess box office figures would suggest no one wanted to see the film, anyway.)

I do not recommend “Invictus” if you’re looking for a sports movie. The rugby action has its moment and I personally picked up a bit of knowledge about the sport. But it’s far from being the focus of the film. I really don’t even consider this to be a sports movie. It isn’t like the sporting part of the movie serves only as a break from the rest of the action like, say, the very uncomfortable volleyball scene in “Top Gun.” It’s just not the intention of the film to be to rugby what “Hoosiers” is to basketball or what “Miracle” is to hockey. But the blend of these two huge historical stories is superb and the final product is excellent. A.

I typed “rubgy” instead of “rugby” about a billion times,
Brian

"The Road"

2009-12-17T00:12:00.001-08:00

It was just a little over two years ago that “No Country for Old Men” started its brilliant run toward Best Picture status. At the time I knew of Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the book on which “Country” is based, but wasn’t really in touch with his work. So after walking out of “Country,” convinced I’d just seen the best movie of the decade, I started looking into McCarthy’s other works. That’s when I first became aware of a project called “The Road.”

I readily admit that I came late to this party as by this time I’m pretty sure “The Road” was already on Oprah’s Book List (the Mecca of trendiness) and pre-production on the film version was well underway. Still, my interest was piqued and I (like many others) kept tabs on its status. For a while I thought this film might never see the light of day. It was scheduled for a Holiday release last year but was inexplicably pushed back to 2009. At some point I started seeing trailers advertising a mid-October release date. That date came and went and still there was no “Road.” Then November 25th was set as its official release date but when Thanksgiving rolled around I was quite frustrated to see that none of the local theaters were showing it. Eventually I ended up driving an hour away to take this in. This should tell you how badly I wanted to see this movie, considering how much I despise driving in Dallas traffic.

I knew going in that “The Road” was going to be one of those movies that I would not be able to recommend to just anyone, no matter how good it might turn out. Viggo Mortensen plays the aptly named “Man” who is attempting to get his son (“Boy”) down the coast and across the post-Apocalyptic wasteland that the country has become. It is, without question, the most desolate and harsh future-world I have ever seen in a film. Nothing I’ve seen even compares. There is no food, there is plant life, and there is no color: everything is just gray. It is a bleak, grim life that Man and Boy lead as they wonder the country side, hoping to avoid gangs of cannibals almost as much as to avoid starvation. Like I said, it’s not for everyone.

If you can handle the immense depression that “The Road” portrays, however, the payoff is…well, it would be a lie to say it all evens out in the end. It doesn’t. It is a screwed up world that Man and Boy live in and there’s not a lot of big happy endings to go around. It is, however, an astounding example of what a father will do for his son and the extremes to which he will go to ensure not his happiness but his survival. The relationship between the two is profound, though I guess that’s how it would have to be if you were literally the only one or thing the other has.

What I love about McCarthy’s works, what makes his stories so genius is their amazing simplicity. “No Country for Old Men” is just about good and evil and the people who run between the two. “The Road” wastes no time on understanding what has happened to turn the world into such a miserable place or why or how to fix it. It simply IS and the sooner you adjust, the better. There are only two themes here: survival and hope. The survival aspect is easily seen; it is the overriding theme for the movie. “Hope,” on the other hand, hides in “Survival’s” shadow and plants its seeds simply and subtly. There aren’t many overtly hopeful scenes because, whereas some stories use hope as the driving force to a positive outcome, hope is the outcome here; it is the end of “The Road,” as it were. By the end of the movie, however, you know, no matter how dark and depressing it may have been, the point was always “hope.” It is audaciously simple.

Though visually stunning and compelling, “The Road” can only go as far as its lead character can take it. When you’ve only got two real characters and one is a kid, obviously the other one is going to be pretty important. And truthfully, if you’re going to hang your entire performance hat on one guy, there are few better qualified actors than Mortensen. As is almost always the case, he takes on a very challenging, vulnerable role and shines brilliantly. It would be difficult to argue with anyone who would hold him up as the best actor of his generation and his performance here does nothing to tarnish that image.

As I had guessed going in, “The Road” is not a movie I could comfortably recommend to everyone. It is, for lack of a better term, haunting and I never want to see it again. But it may be the best movie I’ve ever seen that I never want to see again. A.

The Plano Cinemark is the biggest theater I’ve ever seen,
Brian

Review for "The Blind Side"

2009-12-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

When I see a movie, I try to go in without predetermined expectations. Of course there are some movies I’m more excited about than others. But I try hard not to expect a movie to be great, or even good. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at this little song and dance, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. “Where the Wild Things Are,” for example, was so pumped up in my own head that there’s no way it could have met my expectations. (It didn’t, by the way.) And so it is with “The Blind Side.” I want nothing more than to write today about how great this movie is. Truthfully I had half this review written in my head before I even set foot in the theater, a classic critical no-no. Alas, I am resigned to a “good-not-great” review and that disappoints me immensely.

“The Blind Side” is the true-life story of Michael Oher, a poor Memphis boy who was taken in and subsequently adopted by the wealthy Tuohy family. With the support of his new family, Oher improved his grades, took to the football field, and eventually went on to a superb college career (both academically and athletically). He was the first round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in last year’s NFL Draft and has become quite the inspirational story.

On the bright side, “The Blind Side’s” main characters are excellent. Sandra Bullock has long been on my, “Do not see (insert name) in a movie ever, under any circumstances” list for some years now. I just can’t stand her. But as Leigh Ann Tuohy, the driving force behind the family and their adoption of Oher, Bullock is strong and likeable. Sure, she’s a serious nuisance to anyone who stands in her way, but she portrays the mother looking out for her kids to a tee and I can definitely see why Bullock has received some Oscar buzz. And it’ll be hard for most to resist Jae Head, the youngest Tuohy who, in the vein of Hayden Panettiere in “Remember the Titans,” provides some honest comic relief in a film that would sorely miss it otherwise.

Likewise, I imagine somewhere around 15 million people came out of this film saying, “Wow, who knew Tim McGraw could actually act a little?” As Tuohy patriarch Sean, McGraw holds his own and brings some balance to Bullock’s intensity. I’m willing to give Quinton Aaron (Oher) and Lily Collins (sister Collins Tuohy) a pass in the acting department as both are extremely inexperienced actors who do an admirable job here. Aaron in particular is asked to carry the film on numerous occasions and truly shines in most of said scenes. A refined actor he is not, as of yet, and there are a couple of cringe-inducing moments here and there, but overall Aaron steps up to the plate and delivers.

The rest of the cast, however, are another story. Director John Lee Hancock is a guy who likes to put relatively unknown actors into important parts and draw something more out of them. There’s nothing wrong with that; in fact, that’s the way the movie business works, really. Obviously you can’t cast well known stars for every role, but a good movie usually has better to work with than “Blind Side.” Sure, you’ve got two well-respected actresses in Kathy Bates and Kim Dickens but both seem to float through weak performances. Most of this supporting cast comes across as a bunch of extras that were inexplicably given speaking parts. Coach Cotton (Ray McKinnon), in particular, is atrocious. ATROCIOUS. McKinnon should have his SAG card revoked IMMEDIATELY.

Too often I see the budget for a film and think, “How in the world did THAT cost 70 million dollars to make?” Rarely, however, will you hear me say a studio should have spent more than it did to complete a film. This is one of those rare times. “The Blind Side” reportedly cost a meager 30 million dollars to make. Unfortunately I feel like you can see where the studio cut costs. Whether it’s the shoddy state of the supporting actors or the lack of road jerseys for Oher’s high school teams, the film is littered with what I would consider corner-cutters that hamper its overall impact. They are small issues, to be sure, but in the end I think that’s even more frustrating than major issues. It leaves me feeling that, with just a little more support from the studio, this could have been a GREAT film. I am left to wonder how much better this would be had the studio spent a little more money, which would have been well-justified given the remarkable reception the public has given this movie (and it truly is REMARKABLE for a movie to gross more in its third week of release than in its first).

All told, “The Blind Side” is a good movie that people should see. It is an incredible story and Hancock (for better or worse) never allows it to be anything but positive and upbeat. (Again, because of how shallow Hancock takes the subject matter, I am left to wonder how much better it would be had he taken on a little more depth.) It is entertaining and touching and illustrates what a difference being a good person can make in a way that few Hollywood movies do these days. It just could have been a lot better and leaves me with that disappointing feeling of “what could have been.” B.

On a personal note, there is a lesson here for Sherwood Pictures, the makers of such films as “Facing the Giants” and “Fireproof,” on how to make a Christian-themed movie that still holds up in quality to the rest of the mainstream releases. I have, at times, waged an unspoken war against these films because while their intentions are good, their end product is embarrassing compared to what Hollywood has to offer. It bothers me that we as Christians (which the majority of my would-be readers are) rush out to support these films even though, from a quality standpoint, they are at best mediocre and at worst, terrible. I don’t know John Lee Hancock’s background but as a Christian, I would say there are undeniably Christian ideas being presented here in a way that is more example-driven as opposed to cramming God down the viewer’s throats. It isn’t watered down, it isn’t empty, it’s just not so explicit as to draw the “safe for the whole family,” Christian tag that our little community seems to treasure so dearly. I hope that the enormous success of “The Blind Side” (having so far grossed $150 million dollars domestically) will push Sherwood and their contemporaries to reach for new, quality heights that will bring in audiences outside of the Lifeway Christian Bookstore crowd.

That last paragraph may draw some flak,
Brian

"This Is It"

2009-11-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

(Note: If you don’t know, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” is a collection of footage shot on the set of a tour that Michael was preparing for just before his death.)

In my life long quest to always be a contrarian, there have been a few times when I just couldn’t make myself stay away from something. “Napoleon Dynamite” is a great example. “Dynamite” got so popular so fast that I absolutely refused to see it and called everyone who did see it a sheep. But curiosity got the better of me and I eventually rented it, loved it, and secretly hate myself every time I watch and enjoy the Jamiroquai “Canned Heat” scene. But what the heck am I going to do? You can’t fight a power like “Napoleon.” So I sacrifice my integrity and reference Uncle Rico whenever the opportunity presents itself.

To be honest, my “This Has Become So Popular That I May Have to Abandon It” meter is going crazy with this Michael Jackson business. I just haven’t been able to follow through. It’s like Spiderman feeling his Spidey-sense going street rat crazy, knowing that The Green Goblin is standing right behind him with an arm full of pumpkin bombs, and doing nothing to stop him. (Nerds unite!) I know, I know, Michael was always insanely popular. But not Death Popular. Death Popular is a whole different kind of thing. Death Popular allows people to do things like sell Rest In Peace t-shirts at Walmart, print the person’s likeness on a backpack, and put out movies about said dead person in hasty fashion. Usually Death Popular sends me running away from the person’s legacy like Will Ferrell streaking through the quad. It took me 10 years to get back on board with Nirvana after Kurt Cobain’s death and I stinking LOVED Nirvana.

Suffice it to say, it was a weird place I found myself in as the credits rolled for “Michael Jackson’s This Is It.” I kind of hated myself for following along with approximately 50 million people who watched this movie over the last week. But there I sat, having been riveted by what the last two hours brought to the screen.

“This Is It” is an incredible look into the mind of a legend that I don’t think anyone really understood. Here’s this guy who absolutely captivated the freaking world for 40 years but he was such a weirdo that most of us aren’t sure how to handle his legacy. On the one hand he was possibly if not probably the greatest entertainer the world has ever seen. His genius is undeniable even to a wannabe writer who knows nothing about dance. On the other hand, you get the feeling that you are watching a man who is only a man in the physical sense. His actions here are often that of a 7 year old child. He says things that are educated in a sense but come across as so infantile that I seriously have to remind myself that it was Michael Jackson speaking, not a kid saying a prayer during an Upward flag football practice. At one point during rehearsals for “Beat It” he literally lays stomach-down on the ground and pounds his fists and stomps his feet like a kid throwing a temper tantrum.

The choreography and the artistry displayed here are, obviously, amazing. The precision with which the man worked is something special and even the band and members of the crew comment on how rare it is for an artist of Jackson’s caliber to really care about the tiny details of a tour. Each segment of the film covers a different Jackson song and each one is engrossing. The arrangement on “The Way You Make Me Feel” (possibly my favorite Jackson cut) is incredible. There is a “Bad/They Don’t Really Care About Us” medley that, when combined with the green screen effects that were planned, delivers on an extremely high level. You get the feeling that this tour was going to bring things to the stage that we’ve never seen before.

At the same time, this film shows Jackson in a much more vulnerable state than normal. He knew the cameras were rolling but this wasn’t intended to be a public release until the Death Popularity kicked in. Because of this, you see some of the weirder aspects of the man. He looks so incredibly frail and sickly and yet it doesn’t seem to affect what he puts into the performance. A couple of the song segments and the videos that were being worked into them were just weird and you knew it had to be Michael’s brainchild. The man is wearing a Popeye t-shirt for about a third of the shots. Seeing as I still wear a “Goonies” shirt every once in a while, maybe I shouldn’t find this weird...But no, it’s weird for a megajillionaire to be wearing a Popeye shirt. And yet he was still brilliant to the very end.

“This Is It” is a strange film to watch. Lindsey said she had to fight back tears for the first 20 minutes and I totally get that. There are three dozen people shown in these tapes, all of whom put months of their time into making this the greatest show the world has ever seen, but they, like the rest of Michael’s fans, will never see it come to fruition. I’m personally bummed that another one of my top five “I Would Pay Just About Anything to See Them in Concert” performers (along with Zeppelin, The Eagles, Nirvana, and (gulp) Garth Brooks) will never happen. Yet it is so cool to see the King of Pop getting ready to do what he did best, which was completely fascinate his fans. As the opening credits told me, “This Is It” is much less a tribute to the man and more a tribute to his fans. And a solid tribute it is. A-.

I bet you I can throw a football over them mountains,
Brian

"It Might Get Loud"

2009-09-24T23:22:00.001-07:00

Imagine you’re at a party with a small group of friends, three of whom happen to be “musicians.” (By “musicians” I mean in college they could usually be found sitting in front of a tree, sporting a goatee, plucking out four chords and singing “Hey There Delilah.”) Say these three people discover that they all know how to play a certain song and say those people find a guitar or three at said party. Maybe they all keep a guitar in the car for such an occasion, who knows, just go with it. We’ve all been to this party at some point or another. How long would you guess it would take before these three start “jamming” to the tune of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion?” In my experience, this usually takes about 1.2 minutes.

Now imagine the three guys are Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge (U2), and Jack White (White Stripes).

“It Might Get Loud” is a documentary that centers on the electric guitar and three of its biggest proponents. Half of the film follows Page, The Edge, and White around in their home life to get a feel for the genesis of their musical upbringings. In the other half, director Davis Guggenheim lets the three guitar legends into a room, turns a camera on, and allows the viewer to watch the action unfold with great anticipation. Altogether it is a phenomenally brilliant undertaking that should garner the attention of ANY music fan, young or old.

“Loud” gives the audience an insight into the mind and creative processes of these men, exploring the differences therein. Jack White is the mad scientist of the group in that he kind of throws things together on the spur of the moment and takes what he gets, good or bad. He’s a guy who relishes the challenge of playing a crappy plastic guitar, of mastering his opponent. The Edge, on the other hand, is methodical and deliberate. He practices and experiments for hours before defining a single line of notes. Jimmy Page just simply plays the electric guitar better than anyone else and in ways that no one else can. Like their processes, their sounds are dramatically different. White’s music is extremely raw and unpredictable. U2’s is much more dominated by effects and comes across much more refined. Zeppelin was, of course, much harder than their contemporaries but Page almost seems like a classical player compared to the other two.

Still the similarities and unity between the three is quite apparent. There are heavy punk and blues undertones rooted in the styles of all three and that aspect of their respective developments is deeply explored. All three are great students of their craft. One of the best sections of “It Might Get Loud” is a segment that gives each artist an opportunity to discuss their greatest influences. It’s not every day that you get to see Jimmy Page play someone else’s record and talk about how great it is and what kind of impact it had on him. Or to see the emotional and almost physical attachment Jack White has to the music of Son House.

In addition, it is fascinating to see the level of respect these three have for each other and their willingness to learn from each other, even at their advanced level of ability. These are not “good” guitarists or even “famous” guitarists. These are three guitar gods who you half expect to display polite niceties with each other but remain egotistically distanced. But as the documentary illustrates, nothing could be further from the truth. On his way to the studio, White says, “My plan is to trick them into telling me all their secrets.” You might expect this from White, who is by far the youngest of the three and (I would imagine) the least well known. However, while White played, both Page and The Edge were keenly watching his movements, attempting to pick up a trick or two of their own. Each seems to view the other with the highest regard and the conversation that flows between them is fantastic.

It’s no secret that I am likely biased towards liking this film. I love U2, I love The White Stripes, and I love Zeppelin. Were I to make my own list of living guitar legends, all three of these men would probably make the top five. But even I was not prepared for the magnificence of “Loud.” For me, this is the best documentary I’ve ever seen and, so far, the best film of 2009. Brilliantly shot and edited, this is an absolute masterpiece that only left me wanting more when the 90 minute run time sadly came to an end. A+.

I used to play “Kashmir” during warm ups for my P.E. class,
Brian

Free Agency

2009-09-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

I didn’t grow up in a sports family. There was very little Sunday Afternoon Football or baseball in the summer. Most of my family at least watches the Cowboys each week but my parents weren’t into it. The extend of my sports participation as a young kid consisted primarily of bowling and one sad spring spent playing right field for a winless tee ball team. (That would make me the worst player on the worst team.) This all changed somewhere around the 3rd grade when, overnight, soccer became popular in my neighborhood and I started playing that. My real fire was lit, however, when my uncle’s took me to my first live sporting event, which turned out to be a Dallas Mavericks game. I was hooked.

Given that I didn’t really have any background in sports or parents to influence my decisions, I chose the teams for which I would root with very little thought to geography or tradition. I was a Mavericks fan, of course, which in those days was much harder than it is now. My first full season as a Mavs Fan For Life saw the team win 11 games, followed by a 13 win season. I was born into a West Texas family so even when I didn’t care about sports, Texas Tech was born into me and thus began my life as a Red Raider. The rest of my teams were chosen for very good reasons.

I started rooting for Ohio State because my best friend Kyle was from Ohio and I thought, what the heck, that sounds like fun. For the most part it has been fun, minus the last three January games of which I will not speak. To this day I don’t know if it was a replay or the actual game but once my dad happened to flick past a TV channel on which I caught Christian Laettner hitting the greatest shot in the history of college basketball (1992 East Regional Finals to beat Kentucky) and my Duke basketball fandom was born. I really didn’t like or get everything about the game of baseball, I just knew I didn’t like Juan Gonzalez or Jose Conseco so I chose the San Francisco Giants as my baseball team. Later, after their roid riddled years, I added the Rangers as my AL representative.

And I became a Raider fan because, truthfully, the Raiders were about the coolest team a boy could hope for. Their colors were edgy and menacing, the fans were CRAZY, they had Dallas legend Tim Brown, and their logo was a pirate. How could a 9 year old boy not like the Raiders? In addition, everyone I knew was a Cowboy fan and I never wanted to do anything everyone else was doing. In a sense, I adopted the renegade ideals of the organization.

I live by a few simple sports rules, which I put into a blog a couple of years ago called, “The Rules for a Sports Fan.” Unfortunately, the blog I wrote it on has been deleted and my computer got the Blue Screen of Death some time back, losing this column forever, but the rules still apply. These rules are simple but cover numerous fan-based conundrums. Things like prohibiting rooting for two teams in the same division or mixing clothing from two teams in the same sport. The most important rule, however, simply states that a fan CANNOT abandon a team.

There are very few legitimate exceptions to this rule. Losing is not an excuse. As I stated before, I was a Mavs fan during a decade that never saw them complete a winning season. Trading away your favorite player is not an excuse. In 1993 the Mavericks traded my all time favorite player, Derek Harper, to the New York Knicks. Moving to a new city is not a short term excuse. When I went to college I was in the heart of Razorback country and my hatred for the program persisted. For the most part, if you choose to root for a team, you root for them through wins and losses, thick and thin, championships and idiotic management. It’s pretty plain and simple.

If you do wish to abandon a team, you essentially have to prove that the team (or the team’s management) has abandoned you first. The most easily identified form of abandonment occurs when a franchise leaves a given city for another city. When this occurs every member of the team’s fan base gets an automatic option for Fan Free Agency, at which time any other team may be chosen. There are other exceptions, however. To keep this simple I’ll give three brief examples.

Your team makes consistent player moves that are CLEARLY designed only to save the owner money, not make the team better. Fans of the Phoenix Suns, Pittsburgh Pirates, or the Cleveland Indians during the movie “Major League” should feel free to take their time and money elsewhere;
Your team makes one majorly idiotic deal that not only hurts the team’s level of play, it also destroys the image or viewed atmosphere of the club. In 2003 the Knicks traded Latrell Sprewell, the heart and soul of the team and a guy who represented the last legs of the tough-as-nails image of the franchise, for Keith Van Horn, the softest player the league had ever seen. My love and interest in the team ended immediately;
Your team makes numerous moves over a number of years (at least five or more) that display a complete lack of knowledge of what is going on in the sport. This has to involve player acquisitions in free agency, trades, and draft as well as the consistent use (or misuse) of funds.

With that in mind, I am officially declaring myself an NFL Fan Free Agent, under Exception 3 listed above. For the last 6 years I have stood by the Oakland Raiders despite numerous attempts by the team to abandon me and the rest of Raider Nation. I have remained silent through the losses. I’ve stuck around despite the numerous occasions on which the Raiders signed or traded for a former star player now FAR past his prime. I shuddered but stood firm when the team traded too much for players, signed them for too much, and then promptly cut them. I watched as coaches were hired and fired with the frequency of a McDonald’s cashier. I openly questioned whether owner Al Davis was still alive and even theorized that he’d died some time ago but the rest of the organization didn’t know what to do so they strung him up like Bernie and made decisions with a dart board. But I stayed with them despite the many, many reasons to abandon ship.

That’s all over now. I was on the fence, considering making this agonizing decision, before the NFL Draft in April. For years, the joke about the Raiders has been that they will ALWAYS draft the most athletic player. Skill or ability to play in the NFL doesn’t really matter as long as the guy can run faster or throw the ball farther than anyone else. This notion came true once again when the Raiders passed on Michael Crabtree and drafted some dude named Darrius Heyward-Bey about 20 picks before he should have been drafted. In the second round, the Raiders drafted some guy that was literally projected to potentially not get drafted at all who, shockingly, is a freak of an athlete but probably has no football ability. This was all I could take. I hung my head in shame (cue the Charley Brown music) as my friends laughed and (rightly) mocked me as pick after pick, the Raiders looked stupider and stupider. I had this image of Al Davis rolling over in his grave and then remembered that his corpse has yet to be buried. It was the last straw.

It should be noted that I reserve the right to return to my Raider heritage when and if it is discovered that Al Davis is dead. So now that I am free of my Raider obligation, I have to pick a new team. That’s part of the deal. With the exception of a strike-shortened season during which you can abandon a sport altogether, if you declare your free agency, you must choose another team within 1 year. (I made that one up just now.) I’ve thought long and hard about this and I’m having trouble selecting my new team. I could NEVER be a Cowboy fan so the obvious, easiest choice is out. As such, I have come up with 5 teams that I need your help to choose from.

Arizona Cardinals - They have one of my all time favorite players (Larry Fitzgerald) and they play an exciting brand of football. On the other hand, they have been a historically bad team and I’m not sure I want to trade one bad team for another.

Pittsburgh Steelers - I have always had a great admiration for the Steelers. They’re kind of the anti-Raiders in that they follow their own pattern but they do it right. But I don’t want to be a bandwaggoner by jumping on board with a team that’s won 2 Super Bowls in 4 years.

Philadelphia Eagles - This would be an easy transition as the Eagles have kind of been my secondary team for a while now because, A.) I hate the Cowboys and B.) I love Donovan McNabb. The Michael Vick thing gives me pause, however, and they are due for about 5 years of terrible football in the near future.

San Francisco 49ers - This would be getting in on the ground floor with a team that may be absolutely horrible for a few more years. The Michael Crabtree thing will make a difference here. If he signs, I could be in but his not being on the team is a deal breaker.

New Orleans Saints - Again, I’m a fan of the pass-based offensive attack and the Saints certainly have that. There’s a lot of excitement on this team. But, they are a historically dysfunctional franchise and I really don’t want to go that route again.

There are no other teams that meet the criteria that I’m looking for in a franchise. As stated, this decision has been quite difficult and so I take it to you, dear readers. I will accept your arguments for or against any of the above 5 teams as you help me make a choice that will affect me for the rest of my life. Again, no other teams will be considered. If I can’t decide on a new team I’ll exercise my one year of free agency and root only for “Great Odin’s Raven” and “Texas With a Dollar Sign,” which are my two fantasy football teams. I appreciate your concern for my well being in this trying time.

I’m going to start using “Darrius Heyward-Bey” as a curse word,
Brian

My Dog, the Democrat

2009-08-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don’t know, I have a dog whose name is Ali. I adopted Ali about three and a half years ago and he’s been my constant companion ever since. I was raised in a family that treats their pets as just short of human which basically means they don’t eat at the table but their names make it into the list of those that get run through when my dad is trying to get someone’s attention. (“Duncan…uh, Paco, I mean um…Brian or…whoever you are, get over here.”) I don’t think there was more than a week of my life growing up in which we didn’t have two dogs. I was out of Harding and therefore eligible to have a pet for about 5 weeks when I adopted Ali; I just couldn’t take living without a dog any longer.

Some dogs I’ve had have just been pets. You love the dog because, well, it’s yours but there’s not just a whole lot that differentiates this dog from any other dog. You feed them, pet them, throw a ball every once in a while but in some ways they’re just a part of the house. But I’ve also owned (or known) a lot of dogs who had character and, for lack of a better term, personality.

Ali is one of those dogs. He’s got a lot of personality that separates him from other dogs I’ve owned. You might even say he’s a bit quirky. When I first got him I bought a $70 bed which he promptly ignored in favor of crawling under my bed, army style. When someone leaves the house he does The Spin Dance, which sees him spin around madly while barking loudly and violently. We’ve often referred to him as the Cave Dog because at any given time during the day he can almost always be found holed up under something. A table, a chair, someone’s legs, it doesn’t really matter; he just wants to be in a cave. Ali doesn’t bark at everything the way some small dogs do but when he does bark after something, he usually runs over to me with a big dog-smile to show me how proud he is of himself. He hates to be picked up, is somewhat racist, and loves to ride in the car more than a PE teacher loves dodgeball. And, as I’ve noted before, he is quite fat, especially on his left side which kind of weirds me out.

These idiosyncrasies shined through once again a couple of weeks ago when we hosted a surprise birthday party for Lindsey’s sister Kim and her husband John. Lindsey has these cardboard cutouts of President George W. Bush and Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” that make an appearance at most of our little shindigs. Lindsey will print out pictures of the honored guests’ faces and stick them on the cutouts. This party being no exception, President Bush and Dorothy stood in our entry way for about 18 hours before we began the real after-party clean up process.

While Ali stood quietly eating in our kitchen, I folded up Dorothy and then stepped away for a second to watch the Rangers blow yet another lead (seriously, I hate you CJ Wilson). Suddenly I heard some growling from the kitchen and looked in to see Ali staring straight ahead with teeth shown and tail raised. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and then he started barking and slowly backing away under the table (you know, because he’s a Cave Dog). I started looking around and finally figured out that he was barking at George. I brought George a little closer to the kitchen and the barking and scurrying increased. Clearly, Ali was terrified by the “man” standing in the kitchen.

Like any good dog owner would do I decided to torture him a little. I picked up Ali and brought him closer to George so that he could see that it was, in fact, only a 5 foot tall cardboard cutout of the man, not an actual former president hanging out in our house. Ali promptly peed on me and snapped at George. I put him down and he ran full tilt into the bedroom and into his closet, barking the whole way. It should be noted that because of his weight running is not one of Ali’s skills but man did he put up a valiant effort on this occasion.

The really crazy thing about this occurrence was not that Ali freaked out over an inanimate object. This sort of thing has happened before. Once I found him barking ferociously as a pile of laundry that was stacked on the washing machine, a black fleece stretched out over the top, giving the appearance of a weirdly shaped headless man. No, the weird thing is that, as I mentioned, George had been standing in the entry way for somewhere around 18 hours when Ali finally picked up on his presence. The second I removed Dorothy (and her little dog, too) from the equation Ali suddenly saw George for the first time. So basically should an intruder enter our home with the intent to immediately inflict some sort of harm, Lindsey and I are lacking in dogs that can alert us to his presence. On the plus side, though, if anyone decides to break in and perform some sort of long term sneak attack, we’re well covered.

I put George in the front guest room. The next day we were in that room talking and Ali wandered in like he usually does. (He likes to be where the people are. There’s a better chance of someone giving him food that way.) For a minute every thing was fine. Then suddenly, as if George had materialized out of thin air, Ali realized we were not alone. There on the ground laid President George W. Bush, bent in half, half smiling up at him. Ali flipped out. He started barking and growling while Spin Dancing his way out of the room and into safety. I picked up George and unfolded him, held him up in the doorway, and stuck my head out just in time to see Ali take off for the bedroom. A minute later I found him in the back of his closet, still barking.

I can come to but one conclusion from these experiences. My dog is a Democrat, and a hardened one at that. I don’t really consider myself to be a Republican because the real term for my political beliefs is probably Apathetic. But I confess my leanings are probably more towards the Republican side than anywhere else. My family members are Republicans and I would guess that most of the people I hang out with are closer to Republicans than Democrats. This puts Ali in the minority but he’ll obviously be darned if he’ll go down without making his political views known. Perhaps he tried his best to keep quiet for as long as he could or perhaps he felt it best to display outward unity with the President until he was out of office as a show of solidarity and strength. Maybe he just likes the similarity between his name and the name of our new president, I don’t really know.

Either way, I expect this to have an impact on our relationship. One of his more excited barks sounds remarkably close to, “Yes we can” and I’m pretty sure he was watching “An Inconvenient Truth” the other day while I was out of the room. Still, Ali remains my dog and I imagine our friendship can withstand this new voicing of beliefs. Just as long as he steers clear of Michael Moore. That crap will find him a permanent spot in the backyard.

I’d prefer it if he’d just play poker,
Brian

The Year of the Career

2009-08-23T10:07:00.000-07:00

Last week marked my one year anniversary of working at Richland Hills Church of Christ. That makes this the longest period of time I’ve ever spent in one job (which is, admittedly, a bit sad). For the occasion of finding myself with a career for the first time ever, I felt it needed to be commemorated in some way. And so I blog.

I didn’t really prepare myself to be in the job that I’m in. It sort of fell into my lap, or maybe I fell into its lap. While I was off trying to be a teacher and wondering if that was what I really wanted to be or not, the good Lord showed me something different. Within a couple of weeks I found myself right smack in the middle of football season. I walked into a firestorm of issues and complications and had about seven seconds to try to get it all sorted out. When I started going through all the stuff I had at my disposal I found I was in possession of exactly two pee wee sized footballs with 14 teams about to begin practice in a couple of weeks.

At my first coaches meeting, my unofficial introduction to the ministry I was now in charge of, the first coach walked in and promptly told me his son wasn’t listed on his roster. The two had different last names and I had no way of knowing but it wasn’t the best start I could have hoped for. A few weeks later I made a HORRENDOUS call while officiating a football game that probably cost one team the game. We can say the Upward program is non-competitive all we like; a game changing call will NOT go over well. There was the near fight that took place between a couple of coaches after one game and the three kids we lost to other programs because their registration forms were lost in the transition from one office to another. I had a kid break an arm during a practice and a coach tear her ACL in a tournament. And there was the damage-to-equipment screw up that I’ll never really speak of.

Still, over the last year I’d like to think I’ve had some success as well. Each of the four seasons I have overseen has brought a growth from the season before and some grew exponentially. I have been blessed with a skill set that I call “The Ions”: supervision, administration, and organization. These skills have been a huge help to me. We’ve had families place membership that came to our church just because of the program I get to oversee. I’ve been able to develop relationships with kids and parents who I wouldn’t have met otherwise and know the impact of what I, along with a ton of volunteer coaches, are doing. And I’ve been on the winning side of the coach’s game two out of three times and gone undefeated as a coach. You all know how much I like to win.

I cannot express to you, dear readers, what a joy it is to work at RHCC. It is at times almost surreal to walk around the offices of the church where I grew up as a part of the staff; to get the opportunity to work with some of the people I looked up to most as a teenager. I am surrounded by those who have at one time or another made a tremendous difference in my life and continue to do so to this day. I have been met with absolutely nothing but support from every staff member I’ve come in contact with. And let me tell you, though you might think that might be standard when you work at a church, the truth is more often than not churches are far worse in this department than just about any other industry. The infighting and lack of anything resembling quality that plagues most churches is next to non-existent here in my experience. It is a fantastic thing to work with a church that actually cares about making things GOOD and hold its ministers and staff to a high standard for the ministries they work with. When I was deciding whether to take this job or not I was told that, “you cannot beat the environment in which you’ll work” and that could not be more true.

I’ve learned, seen, and done a lot over the last year. Here are some of the highlights.

*I have learned that a Saturday’s worth of trash from 600 people is still there when you get to work on Monday;
*I have fought the urge to say, “Rick Rick Rrrriiicccckkk!” in my best Amy Poehler voice approximately 900 times as it springs to mind every time I run across Rick Atchley in the office;
*I have seen a minister put his arm around a hooker as we met with the homeless;
*I have learned the unending and borderless influence of “The Office;”
*I have been called a bad Christian because I would not allow a parent to register his kids after the end of the month long registration process;
*I have seen 12,000 Texans freak out over a horse in the church auditorium;
*I have overheard a kid thank God for our sins during a mid-practice prayer;
*I have learned just how much I can take from certain people before I feel the urge to strangle them;
*I have witnessed first hand the glory of a team coming together without their leader;
*I have learned how hard it is not to judge the parents who show up in a brand new Prius with lattes in hand and ask for a scholarship;
*I have seen the same kid puke on three separate occasions because he drank too much Gatorade at halftime;
*I have learned that some kids will actually put dirt on an open wound when you tell them to, “Rub some dirt on it and get back out there”;
*I have come to a better understanding, for better or worse, of how differently people look at you when you work at a church;
*I have mistaken a coworker for a homeless person (way to blend in, Kelly!);
*I have learned to leave the longest, most detailed incoming voicemail I can possibly think of;
*I have seen a kid experience the greatest frustration and the biggest moment of joy of his football career within the span of 20 seconds;
*I have filmed not one but two embarrassing videos in costume;
*I have learned that sometimes when you spend 50 hours a week at the church building, it’s hard to get excited to go to church-church;
*I have good-gamed Jonathan Storment somewhere between 150 and 300 times, including once in the mall that I think made him have flashbacks to his days in Arkansas;
*I have learned that there is almost nothing my team of 9 women can say that will make me uncomfortable, but when it happens it’s a doozie;
*I have found myself at times unable to differentiate between Will Ferrell and Dave Fraze;
*I have learned the value of my weekly basketball games and the stress release they offer me.

When it’s all said and done I have absolutely loved the last year. The truth is, outside of being a professional athlete, general manager for the Dallas Mavericks, or a (well paid) film critic, this is essentially my dream job. Seriously, I wear shorts, t-shirts, and Nikes to work almost every day and I have access to a basketball court 15 feet from my office. What more could I really ask for? Moreover I am blessed to be in a position where I am constantly reaffirmed that God is working through me and am allowed to see the efforts I put in take hold on a daily basis. Call it a calling, call it right-place, right-time, call it whatever you want. I truly believe I’m in the place God called me to be and after years of trying to find my place in this whole “career world” I could not be happier than to be where I am today.

Will Ferrell just walked by my office,
Brian

"G.I. Joe" / The Summer of the Nerd

2009-08-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

Back in March, three friends (Jason, Elijah, and Ryan) and I made the sparking decision to go see “Watchmen” at a midnight premiere. It was a fun night filled with all kinds of exciting revelations such as what happens when someone brings a baby to a violent, 3 hour movie at midnight. It had been several years since I’d done a midnight premiere of a film and it got us all talking.

As most of you know, I’m a huge, huge, HUGE movie nerd. At the beginning of each calendar year (and then again sometime in the middle) I go through the IMDB calendar for the next 6 months to a year and make a list of all the movies I’m going to want to see in the theater. (Side note: I don’t really remember what my life was like before IMDB became a part of it. It’s the greatest movie industry innovation since color film.) When I made that list this year, my nerd radar went crazy over the absurd number of summer films that could be considered Nerd Fodder. It started the first week in May with “X-Men: Wolverine” and continued through this week with “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” Naturally, I deemed this three month period The Summer of the Nerd.

After the success of the “Watchmen” premiere (screaming baby aside), I decided this was a prime opportunity to form a club. The principals of the Summer of the Nerd club were threefold:

1.) We would see every nerd movie that made its way to theaters;
2.) We would see each of these movies at midnight;
3.) We would make t-shirts.

That’s really all there was to it. A group of loyal nerds was assembled and the principals were agreed upon. Seven films were to be considered eligible for official Summer of the Nerd viewings: “Wolverine,” “Star Trek,” “Terminator: Salvation,” “Land of the Lost,” “Transformers 2,” “Harry Potter 6,” and “G.I. Joe.” (Note: both “Up” and “Public Enemies” would have made this list as well had the theater owners allowed for a midnight release. Their loss.) With the schedule and the participants in place, LB designed a shirt and the rest was history.

Seven times the group gathered between 10 and 11 pm at United Artist Fossil Creek Stadium 11 to take place in the nerdiness. Sometimes the group was small (only four of us for “Terminator”) and sometimes huge (even Stephen’s mom came to “Harry Potter”). Sometimes the movies were great (“Star Trek”), sometimes not so great (more to come on the atrocity that was “G.I. Joe.”). Sometimes it was hotter than the first level of the underworld in the theater and once we even got refund passes due to the heat stroke many of us endured. One time we even got “an exclusive in depth look” at the movie we were about to see during the pre-preview commercials.

But always the night was fun. The hours before each film actually began were filled with ridiculous hypotheticals, the sharing of nerdy videos (like this one), and relentless mocking of the nerds around us. Each viewing brought a couple of hours hanging out with friends and engaging in nerdy, witty banter that likely annoyed everyone around us. In what other time of life could you take bets on the length of the loop of trivia slides shown before the movie starts (never longer than 2 minutes, 37 seconds)? A great time was had by all and if nothing else we each came away with a t-shirt. What else can you really ask for in life?

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. As the last week approached, my nerdy friends and I grew wary of what we were about to endure with “Joe.” The warning signs were as follows:

1.) The trailers gave us numerous shots of the Joes wearing “accelerator suits” that made them faster, stronger, etc. This went against everything G.I. Joe stood for;
2.) Aside from Dennis Quaid, the top-billed actors in this film are Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, and (gulp) Marlon Wayans;
3.) The studio did not screen it for critics. (Note: this is probably the worst sign of all. Over the years, the ONLY movie I can think of that didn’t screen for the critics and turned out even passably good is “Tombstone.” That’s it.) The only place you could find a real review of this movie prior to its release was from Ain’t It Cool News;
4.) Again, Marlon Wayans is one of the four “name” actors. Marlon Wayans.

The best way I can describe my feelings towards “G.I. Joe” is to repeat what I told one of my friends as we watched the disaster unfold on the screen: this movie gave me a new appreciation for Michael Bay. If you’re unfamiliar with Michael Bay, just check out his IMDB page. (Seriously, what the heck did we do before IMDB?) Bay has became synonymous with big budget, high octane, special effects driven summer blockbusters that are heavy on action and low on trivial little things like competent acting and writing. Still, he makes money and for all his flaws (which are immense) he is a wizard with the camera. He does amazing things that keep the audience from fully realizing or focusing in on the TREMENDOUS plot holes and TERRIBLE dialogue that plague his films. I’ve bashed on Bay quite a bit in the past and I cringe each time I see his name attached to a film I have any interest in because every single time, I know that coming out of the theater I will say one thing: “Well, it was another Michael Bay film.”

Michael Bay represents everything is wrong with the movie industry and yet I longed for him to be at the helm of “Joe.” Please understand how much it pains me to say that. Instead Stephen Sommers, whose best credit to this point is as director of “The Mummy” (seriously), was in charge of “Joe” and the results are lacking. Sommers attempts to do what Bay does with each of his films but as it turns out he’s just as bad of an actual director as Bay with none of the camera wizardry to keep him afloat. In addition, he writes most of his own films and continues to prove himself to be one of the world’s worst writers. Ever. And I don’t just mean screenwriters; I mean all writers in the history of the world. When you combine all of this with truly a cast that, as a whole, can’t act and CGI that is truly abysmal, you get a disastrous result.

I imagine the development of this film went something like this:

Day 1 - Stephen Sommers is tabbed as director;
Day 2 - Sommers finishes an all night party (at which he was reportedly heard yelling, “I got another film! Can you believe it?! Those morons gave me another film!”) at 4 a.m. and begins writing;
Day 3 - Sommers wakes up from a nap at noon, realizes his script is only 10 pages long, and fills in the rest with some summaries of scenes from “Star Wars” and the words, “BIG EXPLOSION” after every third line of dialogue;
Day 4 - A casting meeting is held at which Sommers says, “I don’t care how well they can act, just make sure they look good.” Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller are cast on the spot;
Day 5 - Shooting begins;
Day 6 - Sommers realizes his cast is stale and lacking in depth so the decision is made to bring in a well respected veteran actor to “anchor the kids”;
Day 7 - Dennis Quaid receives a script for “Joe” and thinks, “What the heck, I’m 55, I don’t get that many opportunities to make a million dollars for 2 days of work” and takes the gig;
Day 8 - Sommers realizes his cast needs some comedic release and acts the studio, “who can we get for fifty thousand dollars?” Marlon Wayans starts immediately;
Day 9 - Shooting finishes and CGI production begins;
Day 10 - Instead of hiring a real effects company to take care of the massive number of CGI shots the film has, Sommers gives the job to two former roommates, his wife’s nephew, and the son of a casino owner whom he owes a favor;
Day 11 - “Joe” is delivered to the studio and the decision is made to keep it away from the critics as long as possible.

And that’s how you make a Stephen Sommers film. I could be quite content with “Joe” as a “Transformers” knock off and from the moment this film was announced I fully expected it to be more about the action than the acting. I can handle that. Summer blockbusters are supposed to be about fun and entertainment, not awards. But when your actors are bad, your script is rotten, and your shots are lacking, you sure as heck better have amazing effects to counter it all. “Joe” misses the mark on all four counts. This movie is attempting to be too big. It wants to be “Transformers” when really it should be shooting for something more along the lines of “The Island.” There’s nothing wrong with being a throwaway action film, as long as you’re not trying to be THE throwaway action film. But most importantly, no one (audience and critics alike) is going to overlook huge flaws when the action sequences aren’t spectacular.

Still, as several of my fellow nerds said, sometimes it’s less about the film and more about the company. I think all of us would have preferred a different final film to close out the Summer of the Nerd. But in the end, we all gathered with our matching shirts for one last Nerdout before the summer came to a close. It was a good time with good friends and maybe that’s really all you can ask for from a summer movie.

“G.I. Joe:” D+. Summer of the Nerd: A+.

Brendan Fraser makes a random appearance in this film,
Brian

The Great Film Retrospective

2009-07-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Lindsey and I have started a little blog as we go through some of the best movies in the world. We invite you to join the discussion.

Vacation Journal

2009-07-16T23:31:00.001-07:00

As is often the case when I go on vacation, the desire to write gripped me more while Lindsey and I were on our honeymoon than it does in my normal day-to-day. I came home with tons of ideas, some good and some bad, and itching to put pen to pad (or, in this case, finger to keyboard). Cruises are fantastic places for people watching and as the trip went on, I made notes of all the interesting/ridiculous things that went on through the week. Since at least two of the books I read on vacation were journal-types, I felt inspired to create one for this trip.

DAY 1
10:00 am - I left my wedding ring at home. Good start.

12:00 pm - We’re pulling into the parking areas for our cruise. The standard Carnival lot costs $50 for the week. A steep price, to be sure. There are tons of “discount” lots surrounding the terminals, some complete with people out waving cars down to park in their spots. One is discounted to $29. My question is, having already paid the sum for this cruise and all the excursions therein, why in the world would I park my car, unsupervised, in someone’s yard for a week for $20 less than in the lit, secure, official lot? The extra $21 will probably not pay for the new tires and stereo you’ll need when you get back.

12:38 pm - We are experiencing a significant delay in boarding the boat. Apparently it got in late and isn’t clean yet. We’ll be here a while.

1:25 pm - There is a boom box playing AWESOME vacation/party tunes like “Celebrate Good Times” and “Locomotion.” Even better, it’s clearly intended to be played during the typical 20 minute wait for boarding. Therefore, we’re talking about an 8 song loop. If I hear “Gloria” one more time…

4:30 pm - After finally boarding the boat, we are immediately sent to our Emergency Stations to practice putting on our life jackets. The woman asks us not to blow the safety whistles attached to said life jackets and shockingly no one does. We do, however, find out that everyone else on the boat has an assigned life boat(s) to go to, but we do not. I guess we’ve drawn the short straw and have to go down with the ship.

4:42 pm - We finally leave the pier approximately 3 hours behind schedule and immediately have to return because someone is having a medical emergency. Personally I think someone from our little section realized we were to be fed to sharks as chum in the event of an emergency and decided to bail.

6:05 pm - Our waiter for the week is named Isoyaman. He looks and talks very much like the grown up version of Data from “The Goonies.” Lindsey cannot understand a word he says.

6:12 pm - We share a table with a Hispanic couple, a mom and her 20-something daughters, and a very odd pairing consisting of a woman who looks to be in her mid 50s and a young teenage boy. I’m intrigued.

6:33 pm - There is a child (no older than 4) at the table behind us. He continually gets up and runs around the dining room as if this was not a cruise ship filled with strangers who paid a chunk of money to be on vacation. His mother, strangely, seems to think it is fun to get up and climb around all the other chairs to chase after him over and over.

8:26 pm - We’re attending a sort of orientation to life aboard the boat and events therein. Our cruise director, Steve, looks like Chris Elliot and sounds like Wallace Shawn of “Princess Bride” fame.

10:02 pm - After flipping channels on our stateroom TV for a few minutes, we realize that all the network stations are Denver affiliates. For the rest of the week we will receive all the important news and goings on of Colorado. If Katy Wallis had anything going on in her neighborhood last week, I know all about it.

DAY 2
8:45 am - Each day we get a sort of program called the “Carnival Capers” that describes the days events. Today’s is headlined, ““Fun” Day at Sea” as if to suggest quite sarcastically that there will be no fun had this time around.

11:05 am - At another all cruise gathering, Steve discusses the upcoming set that a comedian is going to do later that night. He stresses that this will be an r-rated performance over and over again. After about the twelfth warning, I’m starting to wonder what exactly is going to happen at this show. I think he may murder someone for comedic purposes.

11:16 am - During the little show, Steve brings the Carnival mascot onto the stage. This sucker looks like a multicolored brother of Hellboy. I am not kidding. His head is shaped like the whale fin that comes out of the top of all Carnival ships and it looks like sawed off horns. Creepy.
12:29 pm - While walking back to our room, we pass a door that has been decorated with the phrase, “Relaxing in the Breeze” spelled out, along with pictures of two women I’m assuming were occupying the room…and a teddy bear. Yup, these are the people we’re sharing a boat with.

2:38 pm - Lindsey and I are reading on one of the platforms. The book I’m reading, written by a half-crazy Christian author, spends a full chapter denouncing Harry Potter. Meanwhile, two feet from me, my heathen wife is ready Harry Potter. That’s what we call irony.

3:36 pm - One of the non-Denver channels that we get is Boomerang. (Yes, we get frickin’ Boomerang but not ESPN.) It is a Spanish channel, however, so all the advertisements and the names of the show are in Spanish but all the shows themselves are English. Also, it’s really weird how the names of shows and movies are changed in other countries. “What I Like About You” is apparently called, “The Adventures of My Sister and I” in Mexico.

6:45 pm - Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of one of the kids I used to teach in Grapevine. Bailey Littlejohn if I’d had a dodgeball I would have plastered you, kiddo.

11:21 pm - There is no cheese on this boat. I mean, sure, you can get a slice of American on your burger. But there’s no cheese on the salad bar, no cheese for hot dogs, and no cheese for baked potatoes.

12:02 am - I flip over to one of the movie channels to see what options we’re going to have for the next 24 hours and the opening credits for “Nights in Roadanthe” are rolling. Blerg. Too bad Jason isn’t here, he could watch his favorite movie upwards of 10 times in one day.

DAY 3
8:00 am - We wake up to the sight of another Carnival cruise ship docked across the pier. I consider starting some sort of battle with them but think better of it. For now.

9:15 am - As we walk through the Welcome Center in Progreso, we come across an out-of-control beer vendor. He’s jumping around like the leader of the Grambling University marching band and blowing a whistle that I’m pretty sure he stole from one of our life jackets.

9:17 am - Another vendor approaches the man in front of us with a book of tattoo designs in an effort to get show him the fine craftsmanship they offer here in Progresso should he want to get a barbed wire tat around his bicep. The man is upwards of 60. I question the marketing technique.

9:33 am - Our tour guides are named Jose, Arturo, and Antonio. I kind of don't believe them.

10:47 am - We’re being given a tour of a Mayan city. It is incredible experience to see what these people could do with so little technology.

11:01 am - It is blowing my mind how many people have come on this walking tour through a rocky, uphill terrain wearing flip flops. Just stupid.

11:08 am - There’s a guy with us sporting a Mardi Gras tattoo. I don’t mean something reminiscent of Mardi Gras, I mean it just says, “Mardi Gras” across his arm. Do I really need to comment on this?

11:21 am - Oh the joy of people watching! There is a man here who is pushing 70 and is being accompanied by a woman I would have sworn was his daughter until it is CLEARLY confirmed that she is in fact his wife. She has to be 25 years younger than him.

11:43 am - As we take a few minutes to sit around this beautiful watering hole in the midst of buildings that are thousands of years old, the guy next to me pulls out a can of chaw and beings chewing and spitting all over the place. Nothing says classy like spitting chewing tobacco residue all over sacred Mayan architecture.

12:40 pm - There is a family sitting next to us on the bus with a baby. Not a kid, not an infant, a baby. Like a 2 month old screaming baby. I cannot think of a better way to have a terrible vacation that to bring a baby on a 5 day boat trip to Swine Flu country.

2:00 pm - The movie screening in the on-board theater today is “Australia.” I question this on two fronts: First, “Australia” is 17 hours long. Who is going to watch this instead of enjoying the many amenities of the luxury boat they’ve paid to be on board? I’m pretty sure they could have gotten through the entire “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, director’s cut, before finishing “Australia.” Second, this movie was a complete and total failure on all fronts. 22 people saw “Australia” on its opening weekend and 17 of them were related to Hugh Jackman.

6:08 pm - At dinner tonight only one dude in the entire dining room is wearing a t-shirt. This happens to be a Michigan Wolverines t-shirt, proving once again that Michigan fans are idiots.

DAY 4
9:12 am - As we make our way into Cozumel, we can’t help but take notice in the differences between our boat, the Ecstasy, and the other boat that follows us around, the Fantasy. Everything about the Fantasy seems better. Even the lettering on the tail of the boat is straighter and more prominent than ours. It’s a good thing I didn’t start a war with them yesterday, they probably have on board machine guns.

9:25 am - We’re waiting to leave on our excursion for the day and I’m watching all the people roll in from the two boats. One is wearing a t-shirt that say, “I’m so gay I (poop) rainbows.” I worry about this young man because he obviously has a serious medical condition that has been magnificently misdiagnosed.

9:55 am - For today’s excursion, Lindsey and I are taking a submarine down to look at the reef around Cozumel. This turns out to be one of the coolest things I have ever done. The water here is amazing.

11:19 am - All of our tour guides are wearing tiny, tiny shorts that look like they belong in Gob Bluthe’s “Hot Cop” routine in “Arrested Development.”

12:03 pm - Lindsey and I eat in the city and I drink the water given me. If I die in the next 12 hours we’ll all know why.

12:50 pm - A little known fact about Mexico: their top six retail markets are t-shirts, glass products, wooden trinkets, jewelry, liquor, and Nacho Libre masks. Seriously, every store we’ve seen thus far sells masks by the dozen. If I’m ever down on my luck, I think I’ll create a gang of bank robbers who wear these masks during our heists.

2:28 pm - Between episodes of “The Travels of My Sister and I,” Boomerang plays a music video. This one is the Japanese-drawn Power Puff Girls, singing in Spanish, to what I’m pretty sure was the Ramones’ song “Blitzkrieg Bop.” This is the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet.

8:42 pm - After skipping dinner in the dining hall, we bump into one of our tablemates in the grill area. She proclaims that she is proud of herself because, while at the beach party in Cozumel, her daughters passed out before she did. Yup, these are the people we’re sharing a boat with.

DAY 5
9:30 am - None of the food here is exquisite but it is plentiful. I will probably need a month to clear all this crap out of my system.

11:26 am - While walking on one of the decks, I spot what appears to be a manatee sunbathing. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be the palest, fattest man you could ever think would be sun bathing. His positioning is so awkward, too, that one might think he was being forced to be in the sun for the first time and, like a 6 year old, had decided to pout about this with his head stuck down between his folder arms. It was weird.

12:39 pm - Oh dear readers! If only I had access to such technology that would allow me to take pictures simply by blinking my eye! There is a large woman standing in front of me wearing shorts that probably never fit correctly and displaying, quite prominently, a large tattoo on her upper thigh. I can’t stare directly at it for fear of being spotted but it kind of looks like a portrait of Don King.

3:47 pm - “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is the movie of the day for, I think the third time this week. I’ve seen parts of this film about 30 times now and I really kind of wish I hadn’t at all.

11:07 pm - Cheese! We’ve found cheese! There’s a huge tray of it spread out in the grill. It is as if the kitchen staff kept it hidden from us all this time just in case there was some sort of coup and they needed to have something to barter with in exchange for their lives. I’ve already eaten a plate full.

I’m going to get a barbed wire tattoo around my thigh,
Brian

Death of a Legend

2009-07-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve got to start off by saying that I write today of an entertainer not of a man. Perhaps it is impossible to discuss the subject I wish to address today without truly considering his magnificent faults as a man but that’s what I’m going to try to do.

I was in the car driving from my house to the post office. I was listening to The Ticket, as usual, as they attempted to cover the death of Farrah Fawcett. The producer broke in and announced that he’d been pronounced dead at the hospital after numerous attempts to resuscitate him. And the radio show’s hosts seemed unable to quite voice what they wanted to say.

Those were the circumstances in which I learned about the death of Michael Jackson. For my generation (and likely the generations on either side of me), the question of “where were you when…” is likely to revolve around that date for many years to come. I was one of the first in my little group to hear the news and I even sent out a mass text to those I thought might be interested, something I never do concerning pop culture. Radio and TV personalities, usually so calm and together, were frazzled and shocked. Facebook, Twitter, and every other social network went nuts. The line in the post office was quickly abuzz, with one guy on the phone simply saying, “Man, the King of Pop.”

If this happened 15 years ago it would have been treated as nothing short of the JFK assassination. Because of the way the last few years have been for Jackson, however, I think the general consensus among those I’ve spoken to regarding this is a feeling of not knowing exactly how to feel. One of my buddies told me, “I just don’t know how I should be reacting to this.” On the one hand, Jackson was (is) a pop icon that very few could rival. On the other he was at best a seriously disturbed individual and at worst a freakish pervert. For myself, I have to separate the art from the artist. Perhaps it is impossible to discuss Jackson without truly considering his magnificent flaws as a human but that’s what I’m trying to do because… Well, because I don’t know how to do it any other way.

I loved Michael Jackson; his music, his dances, his incredible PRESENCE that almost no one else in the world had. The guy straight knew how to perform. Heck, he was raised to be a performer first and only (which most certainly led to his complete detachment from reality). I came late to the Jackson scene since I didn’t really listen to much music as a kid. But when I really discovered Jackson I dove in head first. Everything he did, from the Jackson Five to “Free Willy,” was phenomenal. He almost made a white church kid from Texas want to dance. (Okay, maybe not quite for me but I know a TON of people who fall into this category.)

Jackson was an artist that crossed almost all barriers (except those of my parents). Whether you were young or old, black or white, pop or rock, rich or poor, you could appreciate Michael. He was called the King of Pop for a reason. He’s one of those guys that you can’t help but like as an artist. If you go back and watch some of his videos, you’ll find them to be as cheesy as they come (“Bad” in particular is terrible) but you’ll also find that you don’t care because of what an awesome show he puts on. You never knew what he was going to do next and so you WATCHED intently. The songs in his catalog are amazing. “Beat It,” “Man in the Mirror,” and “Billie Jean” along with so many others are absolute classics. But they almost come second to the brilliance he displayed in his videos and concerts.

The legacy that Jackson left behind, from a musical standpoint, is unquestionable. When the Billboard Top 100 comes out, the top three spots will all be taken by Jackson albums and it’s possible that every one in the top ten will be associated with him. Prompted by an untimely death or not, that is an INSANE feat. Amazon reported that once the news of his death was confirmed, they sold out of all Jackson titles within 17 minutes. The tour he was planning to embark on would have been the biggest in a decade. At Summer Spectacular it is an absolute guarantee that the songs that will get the most applause each and every year will be Jackson titles. He was the best of the best and there is no one in music whose death would cause more coverage than his, including Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.

Two big Jackson moments come to mind when I think about his enduring influence. As a kid, somewhere in my middle or early high school days, my brother and I were home alone on Halloween weekend. We were watching VH1 and they played the "Thriller" video in its entirety. I don't guess I'd ever seen it before and I know Duncan, who was probably 9 or 10 at the time, hadn't either. So we both sat there fascinated by this video...and then Duncan freaked out. I think he was scared of the possibility of werewolves for 10 years after this. For us, at least, the spectacle of "Thriller" stood the test or 12 or 15 years of time.

A few years later I made the trek to Harding to start my college career. Harding had a block on their incoming cable signal that prevented anyone in the dorms from getting MTV. We could get BET, sure, but not MTV. It was really awesome. Anyway, at the beginning of my freshman year there was a whole in the block and for about 3 weeks we could get MTV. (Don't forget this was still during a time when, occasionally, when the program directors got really confused, they would accidentally play some music from time to time.) During those three weeks the Video Music Awards were broadcast. My roommate and I taped it, pretty much because it we'd have something to talk to girls about. The headliner was NSYNC (cring) but as they were singing their little song, a screen flashed "The King of Pop" and from behind the screen came Michael Jackson. The crowd went BAT NUTS as he essentially just danced for 3 minutes, the NSYNC kids looking on in amazement with the rest of us. It was an incredible performance. At this point we were probably 8 years out from Jackson having a hit record and all of the stuff that went on between the two times periods, but he still had it and the crowd still loved him.

It can often be very hard to separate the art from the artist. It's also difficult to know just how to quantify mental illness or the fact that the artist was never allowed to grow into a man, period. Who Jackson was as a person was not who he was as a performer and I know a lot of people have had a difficult time attempting to pick a position. But strictly speaking from a performance standpoint, Jackson was an icon, a god, a lasting symbol of the value and enjoyment we take from the world of art and his sudden death is monumental.

I don't have time to think of a closing line,
Brian

An Open Letter to Mark Cuban

2009-06-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Dear Mark,

I’m writing in regards to the upcoming decisions you will have tonight when the NBA Draft starts and your phone starts to ring. Mark I know you have a general manager who is supposed to handle all of this stuff but let’s both be honest, Donnie Nelson has no idea what he’s doing. So I thought we could just handle this man-to-man.

This is a big draft year, Mark. Sure, there’s not as much talent out there as you’d like. But the fact is, this team you’ve assembled is about to implode. There are almost no young players who can actually play and they’ve become one of the most unathletic teams in the NBA. What’s more, you’ve got no depth, Mark. None. If you’ll remember, each NBA team is allowed 15 players on their roster each year. I bring this up because at times I feel you think that it’s against the rules to have more than 10 useful players under contract at a time. Mark you had Matt Carroll on the 15 man roster this year. Matt Carroll. Do you realize you started Jose Juan Barea at shooting guard this year…in the playoffs? Look I like JJ as much as the next guy in the same way that I like my dog, Ali. He’s fun and furry (seriously one of the hairiest players in the league) and he provides some entertainment. And in the right situations he can be effective. But he’s not a starter in this league, Mark, not by a long shot and not anymore than Ali is to be honest.

Something has to be done, Mark. Your GM has no idea how to draft. He’s proven it time and time again. Two years ago, after this team got PUNKED in the first round by a terrible Golden State team, he proceeded to draft Nick Fazekas. I’m not sure if you even remember Fazekas, Mark, because he was proven to be the worst player in the league so fast that he was quickly dismissed. But still, your GM drafted that guy. The year before that, after the Mavs were exposed as being soft and too reliant on their outside shots, he drafted Maurice Ager, a guy who was by all accounts considered to be soft and too reliant on his outside shot. That’s just retarded, Mark. In the last 5 years your team has managed to draft just one lonely effective player (Devin Harris) and you traded him away. It’s got to change, Mark, and it has to start now.

Tonight Donnie Nelson is going to come to you at some point and tell you who he wants to draft. He might want Nick Calathes, a tall, unathletic white guy who’s going to have to play a year in Greece before he can come here. He may want Marcus Thornton who appears to be an exact replica of Maurice Ager. He may want Chase Budinger, another unathletic white guy who is a dead ringer for Keith Van Horn. You remember Keith Van Horn, right Mark? He was the tall, unathletic white guy that Avery Johnson foolishly sent in to guard Shaq in the 2006 Finals. Remember? You gave him somewhere around 4 free million dollars last year to get the Jason Kidd trade to go through. Do you really want that guy again? Worse yet, he may tell you he wants to draft a foreign player. Maybe a young French point guard who plays 12 minutes per game…in France.

Whatever it is Mark, whoever he wants, I’m begging you: please, please, please DO NOT listen. We all like Donnie and he’s a heckuva nice guy but you see, Mark, he’s got what I like to refer to as Acquisition Retardation. He just can’t figure out how to make a good move and this comes out every year during the draft. Don’t do it, Mark. Don’t listen to him. Think of him as you would Forrest Gump.” He sure is a likeable, friendly guy and I’m sure you’d love to have him around for interoffice ping pong games and backcountry witticisms. But would you want Forrest Gump making your roster decisions, Mark? You see what I mean.

Now you may ask yourself, Mark, “If I don’t listen to my GM, how will I know who to draft?” I’m going to help you out there, Mark. I’m going to help you on behalf of Mavs fans everywhere because the truth is, if you draft one more unathletic white guy, we’re all going to storm the streets like the townspeople in “Young Frankenstein.” The rest of the world is going to think the Detroit Red Wings just won the Stanley Cup because the riot is going to be so bad. There will likely be pitchforks and torches involved and it’s just going to be ugly. Let’s avoid that, Mark. Just for kicks, this one time, let’s not have AR (Acquisition Retardation) and let’s actually make a pick that makes sense. Whatdaya say, pal?

Here’s the guy, Mark. I want you to write this name down on a piece of paper and have it ready for the moment that Donnie Nelson tries to convince you to draft a Swedish midget who he thinks has a lot of upside. I want you to take that paper out of your pocket and just scream this name over and over until Donnie gets confused and leaves the room and then you can call in the name yourself. You have your paper ready?

Sam Young.

That’s really all you need to know, Mark, but just because we’re pals I’m going to tell you why you need to remember that name. Because, and I know this is going to sound crazy, Young actually addresses the weaknesses this team has had for years. I know! I know! Donnie’s been telling you for years that the way to fix weaknesses is to bring in other players who have the exact same weaknesses because, hey, they’ll spur each other on and it’ll even out right, hahaha?! NO. That’s wrong, Mark. That’s AR springing up again. You have to stop it, Mark, and the way you start to stop it is by drafting Sam Young.

Young is big and mean, Mark, the exact opposite of most of the wing players on this roster. He’s got a disposition that suggests he might be willing to rip a man’s arm off if it would help his team win and big muscles that indicate he could probably do just that. He can shoot a little, Mark, and get this, he actually makes good decisions on when to shoot and when not to shoot. That’s a rarity around here since Dirk Nowitzki is the only guy on the team who understands the difference between a good shot and a bad one. He can defend and when you add that to his ability to score he can really and truly play BOTH sides of the ball! Perhaps that puzzles you since there really is not one player currently employed by the Mavs who other teams have to think about both on offense and defense.

And get this, Mark: Young actually drives to the basket! He does, I’m telling you, it’s the craziest thing! He actually likes to go inside and dunk in some dude’s face instead of jacking up terrible, TERRIBLE jumpers time and time again! Somewhere in that crazy head of his he’s figured out that if you take a shot from 1 foot away there’s a much better chance of it going in that if you take a shot from 24 feet away! I was shocked, too, don’t worry. Young is tough as nails, Mark. At a workout a few weeks ago he had to have a piece of plastic surgically removed from his bicep because while doing a vertical leap test he got it lodged in his arm. We’re talking a flimsy piece of plastic, Mark. This dude jumped so high and slapped so hard that the plastic imbedded in his body. That’s never happened before, Mark. And then he was back working out right after the surgery, puss dripping all over the place. That’s TOUGH, Mark! That’s exactly what this team needs!

And here’s the best part: he’s almost certainly going to be available when it’s your turn to draft! If you can just remember to scream his name over and over while Nelson tries to talk you into someone else, things will start to get better here. I’m willing to come to your draft headquarters and bash Nelson on the head with an anvil if you want. I’m just saying, I’ll do anything to help this happen. My friend Jason has promised to buy a Young jersey and wear it to every pick up basketball game we have for a year if you will just call his name when pick number 24 rolls around. Take a cue from Obama, Mark, and just start chanting, “Yes we can! Yes we can!”

This isn’t going to fix everything, Mark. I don’t want you to get confused and think for a minute that by drafting one solid rookie who fixes some weaknesses your team has that you can then take the rest of the summer off. There’s a lot of work to be done this offseason, Mark. A lot of work. But this is the right place to start. Remember what we’ve talked about today, Mark. Remember that your GM has AR. Remember that he once drafted Nick Fazekas. Nick Fazekas Mark! Even that name makes me mad. How could anyone expect a guy named Fazekas to be a good NBA player?! Remember that if you draft another unathletic white guy or a foreign player 10 years away from contributing, you’re likely to have a mutiny on your hands. You don’t want to be responsible for a raging mob that runs the streets of Dallas like they’re in a stinking zombie flick. This is the place to start, Mark. Draft Sam Young and get the summer started right! Take a cue from Obama and quietly chant to yourself, “Yes we can!” Yes we can!” Lock Donnie in his office/playroom and handle this yourself! Please Mark, I’m begging you. Sam Young. Sam Young. Sam Young…

Alex and the Would-Be Wonder Stomach

2009-05-29T23:48:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I was at a big party for a couple of friends who are getting married in a few weeks. It was a huge deal with somewhere between 100 and 12,000 people in attendance (maybe closer to the 100 side, but still big) all gathered together to celebrate our friends and their upcoming marriage. At some point in the evening, however, the focus of part of the group (myself included) shifted from the happy couple and landed squarely on the shoulders of one of the guests.

As our hosts were cleaning up the food, I and some of the people at my table decided it would be in our best interest if we ate another dinner roll or two. Our gracious host left the tray of rolls with us but after we’d all had our fill there were still 8 rolls remaining. Enter Alex Walton and the Would-Be Wonder Stomach.

Alex moseyed over to our table (because, you know, we’re awesome and everyone wants to hang out with us) and before long started eying the rolls. He said something to the effect of, “Those rolls look good. Too bad I’ve already eaten 3.” Still he slowly reached for one more and began nibbling at it.

Over the years I have been a part of an amazing number of stupid adventures, dares, and competitions. Sometimes these revolve around food, sometimes physical exertion, but no matter what, the key is always idiocy. I have a friend who has attempted the “Gallon Milk Challenge” at least twice. Once I convinced a friend to, while on a first date, always refer to any food item as “num nums” in exchange for my paying for his date. I paid; he did not get a second date. In college a group of us decided it would be a great idea to take one of those mechanical wraps that are supposed to work your abs and strap to our thigh, and then try to walk with it. The goal was to see who could put the wrap the farthest up his leg and turn the power up the highest and still be able to walk. My roommate Shade cranked that sucker to 10 and made it approximately 8 feet while whimpering like a baby before falling and yelling to, “Get it off! Get it off!” (Every single one of these feats was done, mind you, without the influence of alcohol.)

More often than not I am not one of the participants but rather the jerk who talks other people into doing them and then sits back and laughs. I’ve learned to gauge what approach will most likely work in these situations. If I feel like its money I’ll throw out a number that I would contribute to get the bit done and see if people will chip in. It’s amazing how quickly you can raise 20 or 50 bucks in order to see someone eat a plate full of deviled eggs. Occasionally the proper approach is to question the subject’s manhood. Sometimes it is just as simple as to annoy them so much that they’ll take on a stupid challenge just to get you to stop saying, “Come on.” This is my role and I’m okay with it.

When Alex reached for the roll my Stupid Sense (the equivalent of Spider Sense) went off. What would it take to get him to eat all of these rolls, I asked myself. As he was nearing the end of roll number four, I simply threw it out there that it would be a pretty amazing feat if he were to finish the remainder of the rolls, bringing his total for the night to 11 (plus a full dinner and cheese cake). I expected to have to work hard to get this challenge accepted. In a trial, for instance, the lawyer always starts with his opening statement and then moves on from there to present evidence, character witnesses, etc. It’s much the same with a challenge. To my surprise, Alex bought in almost immediately and reached for roll number five.

Now Alex is no behemoth. He stands somewhere around 5’9 and probably weighs a buck thirty five soaking wet. And these rolls were the worst kind, small and compact, the kind that expand tremendously in your stomach. But Alex could sense the impending glory of this night and without speaking he had accepted the challenge.

Over the course of the next hour, Alex binged on the compact, spongy rolls. He moved quickly at first but his progress began to slow around roll number seven. A crowd gathered’ as they, too, could sense the great things that were to come. I continued to talk Alex through his challenge, usually with encouragement but admittedly with occasional insinuations about what we would think of him if he were to bail out. The most valued of these comments seemed to be, “If you only eat nine rolls tonight, for the rest of all of our lives this will always be remembered as the night of Angela and Joe’s engagement party. If you eat ten rolls, however, this will be forever remembered as the night that Alex ate double digit rolls.” This seemed to push him through to roll number ten.

Roll number ten was a battle. Alex began to sweat. Jason and I got him numerous bottles of water and encouraged him to just drown it down. Someone handed him a tray to throw up in if necessary. Most of the girls scooted as far away from him as possible. Angela seemed less than enthused that this was taking place at her party. (Sorry Angela, opportunities like this just cannot be scheduled.) At one point Alex gave me a look that was part, “Help me” and part, “I hate you so, so very much right now.” Finally, with about a half of a roll left, he got up and began walking around the pool in an effort to clear space to shove the bread into. He made somewhere around 47 laps, looking miserable the entire time, before finally dejectedly throwing in the towel. As it turned out that last half of a roll was far bigger than it looked. It was a valiant effort but much like

The crowd quickly dispersed with sighs of disappointment and a sense of pity for what our poor friend had been through (and what he would go through the next day). The events of the evening left me thinking about all the ridiculous feats I had participated in and/or watched my friends take part in over the years and made me ponder how these things come to pass. Perhaps it’s boredom, perhaps a desire to impress girls, perhaps just a need to show how strong we (or our stomachs) are. But for some reason or another, even at 25 or 35 years old, we find a motivation to take on these absurd challenges, to look stupidity right in the eye and say, “Yup, that sounds like something I want to do.” It’s still amazing to me what we, and by we I refer mostly to guys of course, will do for the sake of challenge, for adventure, for respect, and for sheer idiocy.

Perhaps we’re all a little less mature or refined as we’d like to think we are, but on some level (or maybe all levels) I’m okay with that. We live in this world where almost everything revolves around work, money, and responsibilities and maybe it’s a good thing that on a random Sunday night, we can act like idiots and get one of our friends to eat enough rolls to feed a small third world country. (At least they didn’t go to waste, right?) Maybe we need a little stupid adventure in our lives to keep us all sane. But aside from all that, Sunday, May 24th, 2009, will (for me) always be remembered as the night Alex Walton ALMOST ate double digit rolls and nearly died at a party.

Anyone up for the Gallon Challenge?
Brian

Review for "Star Trek"

2009-05-20T14:17:00.001-07:00

There are certain lines from the endless collection of great films from the last 80 years that, when uttered, invoke strong feelings and memories of, “the first time I saw…” While certain films define generations, these films, and these lines, transcend generations, becoming fixtures of history instead of just the current pop culture. They are the blockbusters, the masterpieces, and the cult classics that tend to embed themselves in our minds. Darth Vader’s often misquoted, “I am your father” brings forth a whole litany of tremendous film achievements and fond memories of a galaxy far, far away. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” reminds many of us of the sheer terror of the ocean and how much damage a 20 foot great white shark can do. The words, “Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’” serve not only as a pretty solid motto for life in general but also as memento of the, well, redemption that Red and Andy found while imprisoned at “Shawshank.” In the same way, it is impossible to hear the words, “Space, the final frontier…” without thinking of the crew of the USS Enterprise and their exploits.

Recently the Star Trek franchise has been in dire straits. No one seemed to care about the last two films and the overexpansion of the TV show (are you listening “C.S.I.” creators?) ran any ingenuity the show had into the ground. The final edition of Star Trek (“Enterprise”) went off the air in 2005 with hardly a whisper. The once vibrant powerhouse has been relegated to a fond memory to be relived only through DVDs and syndication.

Enter J.J. Abrams. With the success of the TV show, “Lost,” which he created and writes for, Abrams has fast become one of the biggest names in Hollywood. His work with “Mission Impossible III” was quietly heralded and gave that franchise a bit of legitimacy it had lost. His eye for talent is notorious and he generally manages to get the absolute most out of unknown actors in a way that M. Night Shyamalan dreams about. Abrams initially wasn’t interested in this project but was inevitably talked into and the franchise as a whole is much better for it.

“Star Trek” is the telling of how the original crew of the Enterprise (Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, et al) came together. This is a new angle as the original series never tackled this material, instead just giving basic background information throughout. Because of this, Abrams and his team were allowed to completely make it their own, whereas previous editions of the show and the movies were given a more rigid path to take. Abrams was essentially given the keys to the car and told to take it wherever it pleased him to go. And go he did!

From the opening sequence, “Star Trek” moves a mile a minute, pausing between explosions for genius writing and character building. This film falls directly in line with the new brand of action movie (see: “Iron Man”) that substitutes one liners and terrible dialogue with actual plot points, however far fetched, and phenomenal discourse. The crew of the USS Enterprise is bright and witty and they plan to display it at every opportunity. Mix in a surprise appearance by one of the original cast, a Beastie Boys soundtrack cut, and a “blink and you’ll miss it” glimpse of a tribble and what you have is, without question, the best Star Trek film to date.

Casting wise, the decisions made here are near perfect. Each actor brings a piece of himself to the character he or she plays while channeling the original cast member and paying homage to those cult heroes. Chris Pine takes on the vaunted role of Captain James Tiberius Kirk with brilliant success. He’s a bit less dramatic than William Shatner ever was but come on, even the biggest Shatner fan has to admit that the film is better for that. Zachary Quinto, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin play Spock, Sulu, and Checkov, respectively, give admirable performances. Simon Pegg is provides more direct jokes than James Doohan ever did as Montgomery Scott but he manages to steal the scene almost every time he makes an appearance. (Expect the Scotty character to take a much larger role in future Star Trek films.) Karl Urban in particular gives a spot on interpretation on Bones McCoy but for the most part, the film doesn’t allow itself to become a mere replica of its predecessors. And therein lies the true genius of the movie. Whatever hardcore Trekkies want to say, there is no mistaking that this film stays in keeping with the original series and films. The ships are bigger, the action more intense, and the jokes less hammy (and therefore funnier), but the backbone of the show is there.

This is only the beginning for the new branch of the “Star Trek” franchise and in a sheer stroke of genius, certain plot points have given Abrams an immense freedom to do what he wants and go wherever he feels the Enterprise should go. Regardless of the future, “Star Trek” is joyous and straight-up FUN. Even in the moments that drop below spectacular action and fall into typical sci-fi potholes, the audience cannot help but be entertained and they are more than rewarded for their patience as the film continues to develop. There is an adventurous beckoning inherent to the Star Trek brand and this film brings that spirit in a fresh new form. The cast, the direction, the style, cry out, asking you to take part in “the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” as they “boldly go where no one has gone before.” This film is so good that I almost hate it because it is EXACTLY what all Star Wars fans wish Episodes 1 through 3 had been. Whether a hardened Star Trek fan or not, I would dare just about anyone to see “Star Trek” and not be completely entertained.

Grade: A

The Site

2009-05-06T00:26:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I like to think I’ve come pretty far in my professional life. I’ve managed to meander between a few crappy jobs in order to end up where I’m at and I feel pretty blessed to be here. At 26 I’m in what is pretty much my dream job (with the exception of playing professional basketball). And heck, this time last year I was teaching gymnastics to 3 year olds in the morning and babysitting 6th graders in the afternoon. Ugh.

Still there are days where I feel perhaps I’m not quite as far along as I might have thought.

Today my services, along with the rest of those of the rest of the Children’s Ministry team, were called upon to help clean out a storage unit. Now by “clean out” I mean “throw away everything you can find” and by “storage unit” I mean “place where everything that has ever been discarded in the history of Richland Hills Church of Christ has been sent to die.” You know when you move and you have some trouble deciding what to keep and what to throw away and you wonder why you have some of this stuff in the first place? That’s what this was like, only it was 100 BILLION times worse and it was someone else’s stuff.

By the time I got to The Site the rest of my team had already pulled out a massive amount of junk that could not have ever served a legitimate purpose and was loading trucks. When we realized we couldn’t use The Site’s dumpster we then got to unload the stuff that had just been loaded in order to load it more properly so that it could withstand a trip on the highway. Calls were made to determine where exactly we might be able to take all of this wonderful garbage that had seemed so important to keep. Meanwhile some of us tried to determine how best to proceed. My idea of leaving, stopping payment on The Site, and when the storage people threatened to throw away our stuff if we didn’t pay, laughing and telling them “go for it” was considered but ultimately turned down.

More calls were made. We discussed the possibility of there NOT being at least one snake hidden somewhere in the pile of rubble and decided that it was between zero and one percent. (I would lean more toward the zero.) Finally, after repacking the trucks yet again, a solution was found. We could take our wonderful collection of Styrofoam structures, broken tables, and enough PVC pipe to stock a Home Depot to a dump that straddled the North Richland Hills/Arlington border. (If the word “dump” brought to mind the commercials for discount furniture store The Dump, as in “the dump-to-the-dump-dump-dump,” you are not alone my friend.)

Three trucks were dispatched to this landfill and I managed to squeeze myself into the group chosen to go. Frankly I didn’t want to be at The Site when the body was inevitably discovered. We made our way to the dump which is a world unto itself, nestled away between cow pastures and topless dance clubs. We pulled into a lifeless dead zone and paid our seven dollars per truck to begin our drop off. Who know you had to pay to bring trash to the trash people. Weird, I know. A sign on the side of the check in station read, “If you come into the dump by 4:30 you will be allowed to enter as long as you finish by 5:00 pm.” What happens if you need to stay until 5:01 is anyone’s guess. Perhaps you’re locked in for the night, perhaps you’re required to put in some time washing dishes at the topless bar, I’m not really sure.

We were (rudely) directed to a couple of dumpsters and told, in no uncertain terms, that metal was not to unloaded in these dumpsters. My first thought was, why not? My second thought was what happens when I throw metal away at home? It all ends up here doesn’t it? How exactly do they sort this stuff? My third thought was, why are you asking questions? Just dump this stuff and get the heck out of here before you get locked in the dump for the night. I took whatever metal we had in the bed of the trucks over to the designated “Metal” pile. This area clearly resembled the trash compactor on the Death Star minus the blaster proof walls and since Chewbacca wasn’t there to protect me, I quickly threw my stuff in and retreated before the snake pulled me under. (Look it’s been a long time since I made a Star Wars reference, just deal with it.)

We all jumped back in our trucks and headed out with only a slight detour taking us squarely into the middle of the landfill. A truly wonderful suburban sight, I must tell you. It was on our way back to The Site (and the all too certain camera crews we would all face after the discovery of the Sasquatch locked away inside) that the craziness of this day hit me. It was a pretty solid bet a few years back that my career would someday involve working at a dump but I had thought that those days were probably behind me. After all the crazy jobs I’ve had over the last few years, who would have thought that it would be this one, the ministry job of all things, that would have me spending my day at the dump? Perhaps I’m not quite so far along as I thought I was.

Review for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"

2009-05-03T23:08:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of each year I go through a few websites and try to get a feel for the movies that will be made available to me over the next twelve months. When I began this process for the 2009 movies, I have to confess my nerd radar went a little bit crazy. Sure, 2008 provided a couple of Fanboy fantasies (“Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” in particular) but overall, the Nerd Film Quota was way down last year. 2009 is sure to make up for this, however. With the upcoming releases of nerd fodder such as “Star Trek,” “Transformers 2,” “Terminator: Salvation,” and a ton of others, I have deemed the next few months the Summer of the Nerd. And what a summer it will be!

The SOTN got off to its official start this week with the premiere of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” The prequel to the X-Men trilogy of the early 2000s, “Wolverine” is designed to give us the back story of future X-Man Wolverine (duh), who has long been one of the more popular X-Men. The film begins with little-boy-Wolverine also known as Jimmy and later known as Logan (you pick which one you like best) tragically activating his mutant powers while simultaneously discovering he has a brother, Victor Creed, who also has mutant powers. The two begin a 120 year trek through time fighting in every war this country has ever seen because after all, being impervious to bullets makes one a pretty valuable soldier. All of this comes to an end when the powers go to Victor’s head and he exhibits the evil inside. After a fairly comical execution attempt, the brothers are put into the charge of William Stryker, a military man who is putting together a special task force, so to speak, of mutant mercenaries.

Soon after Logan and his team are kicking butt and taking names all over the world on shady missions that usually translate into more death than Logan cares for. He walks away from the job and his team, hoping to leave them behind for good. Years later he is living a normal life (or as normal as anyone with claws inside his skin can expect to find), complete with cabin in the mountains, manly job, and beautiful woman. Unfortunately for him, Victor is on the loose killing off the members of his old team and Stryker comes in town to recruit him. Before long, Logan finds his beloved dead and calls on Stryker to turn him into a weapon strong enough to take down his brother. Because of Logan’s ability to heal himself, Stryker is able to graft adamantium (a made up metal) onto his bones, essentially giving him a steel skeleton. Thus we learn how Logan became Wolverine.

Inevitably Logan learns that Stryker has double crossed him and goes into a berserker rage that even Animal from The Muppets would be proud of and runs naked through the country side before being taken in by Ma and Pa Kent. (Wait, that last part is another story. But really, there’s very little difference here.) Quickly thereafter he begins his pursuit of Stryker, Victor, and anyone else who might have been involved in his tragedy. This brings him into contact with future X-Men Scott Summers, who will become Cyclops, and Remy Lebeau, also known as Gambit. He launches his final attack against this crew which turns into his saving of a host of caged mutants, a battle with super-mutant Deadpool, and his getting shot in the head with an adamantium bullet, which explains why he has no memory when the X-Men discover him later down the line.

If that last paragraph sounds a bit thrown together and unbalanced it’s because the end of the film is quite similar. The first hour and a half of “Wolverine” is a straight up adrenaline roller coaster. It’s highly enjoyable and entertaining and for many fans of the comics or the cartoon from the early 90s, it is extremely exciting to see some of these characters brought to life. As a kid I was always interested in what Wolverine’s back story was above all the rest of the vaunted X-Men and I felt like this movie did a pretty good job of answering those questions. But the final 10 minutes or so are incredibly rushed and flimsily tied together. The movie gives answers but some of them seem very shallow and poorly thought out. Even some of the special effects, a highlight of the movie for the majority of the time, seem sloppy in the finale. It’s as if director Gavin Hood, with three months left in the schedule, had vacation plans and decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and wrap this sucker up before he left. Perhaps he was so eager to start working on the inevitable sequel that he just couldn’t figure out a way to finish this one up. It’s like a Saturday Night Live sketch.

This fact doesn’t make “Wolverine” a bad film. It’s a ton of fun and the action is tremendous. More importantly, the cast is spot on. Hugh Jackman, though somewhat useless in just about every other role he’s played, takes to the Wolverine part well as he did in the original “X-Men” trilogy. Danny Huston plays William Stryker with a suave demeanor that suits the character. I’m a huge fan of Liev Schreiber and his commanding performance as Creed (later known as Sabretooth) almost makes one forget the dreadful showing that wrestler Taylor Mane gave as the same character in the first “X-Men” movie. (Shudder.) Schreiber is one of the more underrated actors of his generation and he brings an instant credibility to just about anything he does, including “Scream 3.” (Shudder.) The script which deteriorates so rapidly toward the end is otherwise very well put together and brings a great deal of humor to the table, something that should never be missing in a good superhero film.

SPOILER ALERT – I’m about to disclose information concerning the end of this film. I usually refrain from doing this but in this situation I cannot fully cover this film without going to this. If you have not sent this movie and wish to keep the suspense, STOP READING NOW.

Where the film really screws up is in the treatment of one of its biggest and brightest characters. I call this the “Darth Maul Treatment.” When “The Phantom Menace” came out in 1999, a good chunk of the marketing campaign revolved around new super-villain Darth Maul. When that awful film finally hit theaters, Maul got almost no screen time and in the end was killed off, never to be seen again. This is played out with horrible precision in “Wolverine.” As excited as the Fanboys were about the whole “Wolverine” movie, a lot of that excitement was directed towards Deadpool, one of the most smooth and sarcastic bad guys in history. Deadpool is one of those rare villains that garner almost as much attention as the hero he opposes. He is to Wolverine what Boba Fett is to Han Solo. The decision to cast funny-and-ripped Ryan Reynolds in this role was brilliant and brought even more fanfare.

Here’s the problem: Reynolds gets about 10 lines in the whole film (probably the best lines in the whole thing) and then is unceremoniously disposed of in a way that will be almost impossible to explain away should he ever make another appearance. So in essence, Hollywood finally put a great villain on the screen and placed the perfect actor in position to play the part…and then quickly killed him off and threw him to the curb, along with the hopes for repeat appearances of the fans. In a world that is often completely and utterly dictated by leaving every possibility open for sequels and cliffhangers, why in the world would you so freely dispatch a crowd favorite that could have realistically warranted his own film? A truly terrible decision.

I have a feeling there are going to be some angry Fanboys out there and clearly I believe the whole film would have been bettered by some attention to the close. But hurried ending aside, “Wolverine” did the job of filling in some back story and opening us up to another superhero franchise. It is extremely enjoyable and fast paced albeit easy on the brain. But with the number of “Action Movies with a Moral” on the rise, perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing to have one that simply asks you to sit there and be entertained.

Grade: B-

Review for "Sunshine Cleaning"

2009-04-28T23:40:00.001-07:00

It seems too easy to compare “Sunshine Cleaning” to “Little Miss Sunshine,” the award-show darling from 2006. If the similarities in the title weren’t enough, perhaps the supporting role by Alan Arkin, an adorable yet quite strange child, and the surrounding themes of death would also do the trick. Indeed, the comparison seems too easy but compare I must.

If you liked “Little Miss Sunshine,” you will likely enjoy “Sunshine Cleaning” as well. If you weren’t in love with “LMS” (like me), you will likely still enjoy “Sunshine Cleaning” as it manages to tackle its subject matter with a little more, well, sunshine than the former film. “Cleaning” revolves around single mom Rose (Amy Adams) who, along with her sister Norah (Emily Blunt) takes up crime scene cleanup as a way of making ends meet. They start their own business and slowly but surely learn the ends and outs of what it takes to clean up a trailer after, say, a murder-suicide. It’s a dirty and often gruesome job and both women find themselves attempting to provide comfort and peace for the loved ones left behind, while dealing with their own troubled pasts.

The wonderful thing about a small budget, independent film like “Cleaning” is that it allows for true, genuine character development and exploration that often goes missing in bigger movies. The characters here are brilliant. Even when the story line seems potentially lacking and unquestionably rushed, I loved the characters and was truly interested to see what would happen for each of them. Arkin plays the haunted grandfather to a tee, one part loving and well intentioned, one part having never recovered from where his life has taken him. Rose’s son Oscar (Jason Spevack) is a likeable and sympathetic little weirdo who brings the audience in subtly rather than dramatically. Clifton Collins, Jr. gives a very steady performance as a janitorial supply store manager who serves as a confidant (and occasional babysitter) for Rose.

The real stars, of course, are Adams and Blunt. As is often the case, Blunt’s younger sister Norah is the perfect opposite to Adams’ Rose; fragile and weaker on the surface but stronger than even she gives herself credit for compared to tougher and harder on the outside but hurting and tired inside. I would challenge any moviegoer to sit through a scene in which Norah climbs up a train trestle to “stare into the face of God” without feeling emotionally attached to her character. Likewise, it is hard to take in Adams’ performance without feeling, in some small way, moved. Her shortcomings as a mother, sister, or whatever else are less worthy of condemnation and more marks of true authenticity. She is on the verge of breaking when she starts her company and it seems that bringing this small service, however unappreciated it may be, into people’s lives gives her a bit of hope if nothing else. What I love most about Adams, particularly in this role, is the way she acts and engages both the audience and her on screen surroundings with her eyes. Here her eyes are almost pleading with you, with her family, with the universe to just give her a break. Being that “Cleaning” was released in March, it’s unlikely that Adams will see any attention come award season but her performance here is better than any female role I saw all of last year.

Where “Cleaning” truly excels is in its willingness to allow the emotion of the film to develop organically; to “let the game come to it,” so to speak. Far, far too often films such as this resort to trolling for emotion. That is, scenes that are supposed to be moving or emotionally engaging are played up with music or camera angles in an effort to MAKE the audience connect. More often than not this doesn’t work and many times when it does, the viewer feels kind of dumb for falling for the movie’s dirty little trick (see: just about any movie involving the death of a family pet). In essence, you feel forced or baited into crying or “feeling for” the character.

There is no such trickery with “Cleaning.” Director Christine Jeffs simply puts the material and the characters before the audience and allows them to make their own judgment of whether to get connected to what’s happening or not. And, for me at least, it worked. I truly enjoyed this film and maybe more importantly, I CARED about this film and about its characters. That is something that honestly doesn’t happen all that often and I hope to see the efforts put worth here rewarded come award season.

Grade: A-

"17 Again"/Zac Efron

2009-04-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

A few months back I wrote a column about people, places, and things that I feel I should strongly dislike but for some reason I can’t quite bring myself to do so. I’m a pretty opinionated person and so it’s quite disconcerting when I cannot bring myself to “hate” something when I know good and well I probably should. The focus of this particular column was Justin Timberlake, whom I have a slight man crush on despite desperately wanting to hate him. After watching this movie, I have a sinking suspicion I may have to add another person to that list.

“17 Again” is the story of the middle aged Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) who has lost sight of the good things in his life. As his marriage is coming to an end and his children seem to be less than concerned about spending time with him, Mike lives with his best friend Ned (predictable comic relief played by Thomas Lennon) and regrets the decisions he made in life that led him to this point. Soon, however, he finds himself turned into the teenage version of himself (Efron), enrolls at school, and starts to live his life over again. While part of him struggles to find a way to get back to his real self, part of him is excited about the opportunity for a re-do of sorts.

If you think that sounds similar to “Freaky Friday,” “Big,” “13 Going on 30,” or about 2,200 other films, you would be correct. This is not a unique formula by any means. The age-jumping concept is has been used time and time again and it seems like just about every generation has their own version of this film that sticks out. However, as I’ve said before, I really make an effort not to judge a film based on whether or not it’s been done before. Not every movie can be an original award contender. It’s about entertainment if nothing else. Still, I would be lying if I said my hopes were high going in. Formulaic teen film plus Zac Efron is not likely to equal success in my mind.

I’m pleased to say “17 Again” managed to surprise me. As expected there’s very little “new” here but there is a lot of fun. Best of all, there’s some very good (and very unexpected) acting. A teen flick is usually RIPE with terrible actors who have nothing but a pretty face to go with their complete and utter lack of anything resembling talent. Not so much with this film. Sure, there’s a very award Michelle Trachtenberg trying desperately to play a girl 6 years younger than she really is (awful casting on this one) and the extras are predictably bad. These gaffs are more than made up for, however, by Efron and his son/school mate, played by Sterling Knight. There’s a certain dynamic between the two that works very well and brings an authenticity to the movie that would have been otherwise missing.

Efron especially impressed me with his acting chops. I’ve never really seen this kid in action before. Once, while working, a coworker’s child was watching the original “High School Musical” in my office and I heard enough to know that I did not care to watch volumes two or three. I’ve not seen “Hairspray” because of my well known, long standing hatred of musicals. Until the last couple of weeks when Efron hosted “SNL” and then starred in this film, I hadn’t really seen much of him. I simply knew that, as a teen heart throb that stars in Disney produced musicals, he was to be disliked, sight unseen. I stand by this assessment because, let’s be honest, everything this dude is about is pretty much against what the majority of males are about. I mean, come on, the guy sings during basketball games. SINGS. Not good.

But there seems to be, at least on the surface, more to Efron than just the looks and INSANE popularity. Make no mistake about it, “17 Again” is a throw-away film. Without Efron as the headliner, the studio would be thrilled to make 20 million off of this thing. It is very easy, even for much better actors than Efron, to turn in a throw-away performance in a movie like this and it would be hard to fault him for doing so in his first starring role away from the “HSM” franchise. Instead, he plays the character straight and shows some real talent. You can tell that he really put effort into studying Matthew Perry’s mannerisms and brings those to the screen. At the same time, he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, which is the other big issue a lot of young talents make in an effort to make sure they’re seen as real actors. This isn’t a film that calls for a dramatic, strong, impassioned leading performance. Efron hits the right chord here and the movie is genuinely pretty good because of that. Perhaps most importantly, I wasn’t constantly aware that I was watching Zac Efron on the screen. I was just watching an entertaining little movie that happened to have a couple of big names in it. Even some of the best actors in Hollywood struggle to play a character instead of playing themselves.

Overall “17 Again” wasn’t life altering and I didn’t come away feeling like I’d just witnessed the changing of the Hollywood guard as I’m sure Disney would like me to feel. Perhaps my extremely low expectations going in influenced my thoughts as I left. But I was entertained, I was impressed by the acting, and unfortunately I think it’s going to be a little harder to dislike Zac Efron from now on. At least, that is, until he sings on the basketball court again. Seriously, that needs to stop.

Grade: B

Madden

2009-04-17T23:45:00.001-07:00

Note: I usually don’t write much about sports on this blog because I know that a good half of my “audience” could care less about the intricacies of the NBA Draft or why it sucks to be a Raider fan. But I haven’t had just a whole lot of blog fodder (such as a dead rabbit in the street) lately and so a sport column is what I have to offer today.

Yesterday it was announced that longtime NFL analyst John Madden was retiring. The news was less than shocking as there has been some speculation over the last few months that Madden was on his way out. Still, this announcement was somewhat out of the blue and left me, perhaps like many others, to consider his legacy.

As a coach, Madden was one of the best. He spent about a decade with the Raiders, winning one Super Bowl and compiling the best winning percentage of any coach in the history of the game. But his coaching resume pales in comparison to what he’s done away from the field. Madden picked up with CBS after the 1979 season and has been in the broadcast booth ever since. He was the go-to color analyst for many years, jumping from CBS to Fox and from Fox to Monday Night Football. For many, he has been THE voice of the NFL. His fear of flying has become well known, as he almost always takes his custom RV from city to city. Even his endorsement deals, from ACE Hardware to Tinactin foot cream, are easily recognized and remembered.

Without question his greatest contribution to the sports world is the video game named after him. “Madden” is routinely one of the best selling games year in and year out no matter what gaming platform one might prefer. This year will mark the 21st installment of the game and it shows no signs of slowing down, no matter if John is in the booth or not. Just about every gamer of the last 15 years has, at one point or another, played, if not owned a “Madden” game.

Over the last decade, Madden’s commentary has quite often come under fire. In truth, it seemed more and more like he was either less interested in the games he was watching or his mind wasn’t working as fast as it once had. Never an intellectual by any means, what Madden brought to the table was an insight only a man involved with the game for 60 years could offer and once that ability began to deteriorate so did his credibility. I know plenty of sports fans who could barely stand to watch a Madden-analyzed game because his commentary was so poor.

Still, even at his worse, Madden had moments of greatness. Every once in a while he’d pick up on something that no one else would see and bring it to the viewers attention. Perhaps the most casual of sports fan doesn’t care about these little details but a lot of hardened fans do. His knowledge of the game is outstanding and that came out more often than not, even if you had to suffer through a little annoyance to get to it. The Madden video games taught many a football fans that never played the game some of the ins and outs of play calls, zone defenses, and the SAM linebacker. And, for me at least, his voice has become synonymous with nighttime football, be it Sunday or Monday.

I liken Madden to his college basketball contemporary Dick Vitale. Many a basketball fan cannot stand Vitale’s analysis, no matter how insightful it may be. Both Madden and Vitale can be loud and obnoxious and if you’re not paying really close attention you can completely miss the points they try to make. But like Vitale with college basketball, Madden is a FACE for the NFL. In a world that changes dramatically from year to year, he’s been one of the faces of the league for over 30 years. An entire generation (or two, or three) knows his name, his face, his voice. Whatever shortcomings he has displayed over the last decade have been more than made up for by the good he has done in that time.

I’m not going to claim that the NFL is suddenly worse for having seen a legend move on to another phase of life. In all honesty, his replacement Cris Collingsworth is a pretty solid broadcaster in his own right and is probably an upgrade from day one. But stepping in for one of the league’s all time greats won’t be an easy task by any means. Madden is and has been a tremendous ambassador for the sport and his presence in the broadcasting booth will be surely missed.

E.R.

2009-04-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow supposedly marks the end of the acclaimed/never ending NBC series "E.R." In truth, I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of this show that's been going on for somewhere between 14 and 39 years. I've tried a couple of times but I guess I didn't get into it when it was popular and so I don't really know (or care) about the characters or story lines. Still, it's pretty remarkable for a show to go on for this long.

It's been too long, in fact. Sure, I may have a group of friends who are out of "E.R.'s" target audience but I don't think I know a single person who still watches this show. And I hang out with some people who watch A LOT of TV. I can't remember the last time I even overheard a conversation in which ER was brought up unless it was, in fact, the actual emergency room. Still the show has hung on. In a world that can't embrace the genius of "Firefly," "Pushing Daisies," or "Arrested Development" I find it hard to understand how a tired medical show like this has managed to stay on the air (and supposedly hold viewers) for 15 years. It's become a running joke within my "Office" watching group. Every single week, as we await the last segment of "The Office" while they run a "final season of E.R." commercial, someone (usually Jason) says, "that show is still on the air?!" It's truly amazing.

So that got me thinking. Now that "E.R" is about to turn over the reign of "Most Shocking that it's Still On the Air" television program, what will take its place? So without further adieu, I present to you the "Top 5 Shows Most Likely to Unexpectedly Still be on the Air After 15 Years." (The title of this list needs work, I know.)

5. "Grey's Anatomy"
This seems like the obvious choice to replace "E.R." because of the many similarities the two have. But I'm not entirely convinced this will make it through another year so it drops down the list. I actually watched this show for a couple of seasons before it jumped off the deep end and I realized I didn't like any of the characters. I quit for good when they performed a surgery in the parking lot..in the bed of a pickup truck....on a deer. That was enough for me. Everything I've read says it's gotten even weirder and when it shows up on "The Soup" from time to time, I'm glad I made the decision to quit. Yet it continually gets great ratings and plenty of people are still sucked in despite admitting the idiotic plot lines. That's the mark of a shockingly lengthy show run.

4. "C.S.I."
I know some people who still watch this show and it's continually in the top 5 of the ratings each week. But the multiple spinoffs are a recipe of disaster. There are only so many ways you can kill a person and investigate the scene of the crime. (See what I did there?) When I stopped watching 4 years ago this was already getting old but it shows no signs of slowing down.

3. "Dancing with the Stars"
I've never watched this show and I feel as if my life is somehow better for that. But my gosh, a lot of people watch this. Eventually, this dancing craze will die out and people won't care about it as much, just like poker. But this brings in both young and old alike who will keep it around WAY longer than it should be allowed to continue.

2. "NCIS"
I know one person under the age of 40 who watches this show (you know who you are) and he swears up and down that it's "a really good show." I've now attempted to watch this 3 times and the farthest I've ever made it into an episode is 12 minutes. It. Is. TERRIBLE. I cannot imagine anyone watching a show in which Mark Harmon is the best actor. MARK HARMON. Yet it's been running for 6 years and is now in syndication. The USA Network runs it 3 times a day. I know what you're thinking, "Sure, but USA used to run "Walker Texas Ranger" all the time." EXACTLY. They ran an incredibly bad TV show that lasted almost a decade. That's a clear cut sign that this piece of junk is going to keep loitering around for years to come.

1. "Desperate Housewives"
Perhaps I run in the wrong circles, but I honestly can't say I know for sure that a single one of my friends or associates still watches this show. It had its little craze where everyone watched it as a guilty little pleasure but that time has come and gone. No one seems to care about it and other shows make a sport out of poking fun at it (one of the best moments in "Family Guy" history). It's been running for 5 years and already seems to have lost any hardcore fans it may have had. Every time a promo for this show crosses my eye I think, "Wait, people still watch that show?!" Yet there it sits, week after week, in the top 10 rated shows on TV. It's going to keep going, people, and in 10 years we're going to see incessant commercials for its series finale and wonder who's still watching. I guess we should all just get used to it now.

Tragedy

2009-03-09T23:16:00.001-07:00

I had a traumatic experience last week. But first, the set up.

I play basketball every Thursday with a bunch of ministers, salesmen, and doctors. It’s a strange combination of players but it’s basically anyone who has flexibility built into their schedule so that they can get together on a weekday morning. I’ve been playing in this game off and on since I was in high school. When I took the recreation position at church, one of the biggest “perks” of the job was the opportunity to play in this game. Regardless of what my schedule looks like or how stressed I am, I play in this game every week because I’ve learned that the rest of my week tends to be a lot better after having played.

In my playing career, I’ve injured and reinjured my ankles and knees approximately one billion times, give or take a half million. I’ve suffered numerous high ankle sprains, a severely torn meniscus, five fractured or broken ankles, eight of ten toes broken (often many at the same time), etc. etc. This is what usually happens when I injure my poor neglected ankles: I go to the doctor. The doctor puts my foot in a boot or soft brace. The doctor tells me to stay off of it and not play for 4 to 6 weeks. I tell him “no problem.” I sit out for approximately two days. Then the sheer depression of not running around and playing sports gets to me, I take off the boot, wrap the ankle, and play through whatever level of pain I might have. (It should be noted that this is not a claim of manliness or toughness, but rather an illustration of the stupidity I routinely display in regards to injury.)

Right now I’m playing on what I believe to be a small fracture in the base of my ankle. I’m not 100% positive on this because I decided to forego the doctor’s visit and skip the middle man this time around. I’ve got my foot in a light brace and I’ve been playing without much problem. However, the risk of further aggravating the injury is obviously heightened right now.

Fast forward to Thursday. We’re playing the final game of the day and I’m feeling pretty good on the court. On the first play, I drive into the middle of the lane, jump stop hard, and kick it out to an open teammate. But as I land I hear a “pop” and my ankle twinges. Short of a bone bursting out of your skin, a “pop” sound is about the scariest thing you can be faced with in an athletic setting. Anytime you see an athlete get seriously hurt, he will almost always say he heard a “pop” as he went down.

I got a little scared and called for one of our replacements to sub in for me. I gingerly walked around the court, weakly testing the ankle, and hoping I hadn’t done something serious. It didn’t hurt anymore than it had before, which I found odd, and so I kept moving over to the bench. When I sat down, I brought my foot up to inspect the injury and was met with something I wasn’t prepared for. The sole of my shoe had torn loose of the fabric. The “pop” sound I had heard was the glue that holds the two pieces together tearing apart.

Tragedy had struck in the Fort Worth Christian High School gymnasium. My shoes were ruined.

Many of you may know my affinity for sneakers. I have many pairs and I make an attempt to rotate every couple of days to prevent them from getting too worn down. Basketball shoes are a slightly different animal. I am extremely picky about basketball shoes and I’m even more particular about how I take care of them. These shoes that had just been ruined have never been worn on anything except a wooden basketball court. That’s it. I wear a different pair of shoes into and out of the gym and I won’t even wear them to play on carpet or any other basketball surface. Basketball shoes are expensive and so I used to only buy one pair per year. When I bought a new pair, the old ones were given away or retired to “occasional use” status.

Lately, however, I haven’t been buying basketball shoes at all. I bought the ones I was wearing Thursday probably 5 years ago and each time I’ve tried to replace them, I’ve just ended up going back to them. They’re the lightest, most comfortable basketball shoes I’ve ever had and until a few weeks ago I hadn’t sustained any real ankle injuries while wearing them (which is a big deal). I haven’t bought a pair of basketball shoes in at least 3 years.

Now I have nothing but the broken fragments of my favorite shoes, left to start the search for the next great pair while at the same time feeling guilty about leaving a fallen comrade behind. Farewell dear Nike Air Speed Systems Mid Top basketball sneakers. You have served me well and you deserve far better than your fate of being used as a chew toy for my parent’s dog.

Midnight Premiere

2009-03-06T22:54:00.001-08:00

In my younger days I frequented the Midnight Premiere events that go hand-in-hand with big budget movies. I did this a couple of times in high school, several times in college, and a great many times right after I moved back to the Metroplex when I lived in an apartment that was virtually part of the Grapevine Mills Mall property. Since then these excursions have lessened in frequency to the point that, prior to yesterday, I couldn’t even remember the last Midnight Premiere I had been to.

Last week as the world prepared for the release of “Watchmen,” Jason and I began throwing around the idea of seeing it at midnight. I’m quite used to this conversation. It usually goes something like this:

Guy number 1: “Dude, we should go see that movie.”
Guy number 2, talking to girlfriend/wife/random girl he might have some level of interest in: “Do you want to see that?”
Girlfriend/Wife/Random girl: “Never in a million years.”
Guy number 2: “Ya man, we should make it a guys night.”
Guy number 1: “Dude, we should totally go see it at midnight.”
Guy number 2: “I’m in.”

Later one of the guys will reconsider this decision, then begin to waver, then drop out entirely. At this point the other guy says this is lame but is secretly happy that he doesn’t have to stay up that late and was able to save face by waiting on the first guy bailing out. I’ve been part of this conversation numerous times. This time around, however, it was different. I didn’t have to be into work at any given hour and Jason was closing. So we had at least two. Elijah jumped on board the day of the big event and Ryan was a late commitment, bringing our party to four. And so, in the name of Nerdom, we made our way to United Artist Fossil Creek 11, tickets pre-purchased and Red Bull in hand.

We arrived about an hour early because in the past, when I’ve done this sort of thing, the theater had everyone stand outside until 20 minutes before start time in a structure that usually resembles a sheep pen. To my surprise, we were one of the two small groups awaiting show time. We waited patiently, passing the time by not-so-quietly mocking one of the theater attendants who was attempting and failing to take down a sign by jumping and scaling a wall. Shortly thereafter we asked said attendant if he’d like a boost or if we could just go ahead into the theater. His response was “Sure, there’s already a bunch of people in there.” Blerg. Here we thought we were the first people in line! My first comment was, “Oh, it’s not going to smell good in there.”

I was correct.

As a group, nerds are not a great smelling people. I mean no disrespect by this. I’m a nerd myself, though a slightly lesser brand of nerd (because I like sports, too), and hopefully a bit better groomed. But let’s just be honest. The chances of a warm theater full of comic book nerds smelling like the perfume section of Dillards are pretty low. We took our seats and settled in for that awful 30 minutes before a movie in which the theater tries to entertain you with approximately 5 trivia slides that loop every 122 seconds. (Yep, we timed it.) At first we were all a bit annoyed by the group of girls sitting two rows behind us who, if not by birth date then by maturity level, were clearly not old enough to be at this movie and were jabbering incessantly.

Quickly, however, my attention was brought to something far more alarming. A young couple, somewhere in their late 20s I would guess, walked in sheepishly, carrying… wait for it… a baby! (Actually, I’m only assuming it was a baby. The subject was in a car seat, covered by a blanket. I guess it could have been a ferret or even an elaborate setup to illegally record the movie. Elijah thought it could possibly be a keg. I’m going to bet it was a baby, though.) Not only had this couple decided it was a great idea to bring a baby to what turned out to be one of the most loud, violent, and graphic films I’ve ever seen, this was, after all, a midnight showing (just in case you hadn’t picked up on that). Jason commented that he thought he was probably going to swear and I believe the majority of the theater agreed with this sentiment.

Soon after, the lights dimmed and the second stage of this adventure began. I must commend the people who chose the trailers to be shown prior to the movie, as they ran the Nerd Gamut, so to speak, with “Terminator,” “Star Trek,” and “Angels and Demons.” These only heightened the excitement in the room, which in turn, only made the smell slightly worse.

(On a side note, does anyone else remember the days when the movie theater was a cold environment? Even the most cold-inclined girl I know doesn’t feel the need to bring a jacket into the theater anymore. A cold room would have done a world of good on this night.)

Eventually, “Watchmen” began and proved itself relatively worthy of the idiotic lengths I had gone to in order to see it. Three hours later, the closing credits rolled and I made my way back to my car, fully satisfied by the movie-going experience, but perhaps a little more aware of my age. It was close to 3:45 before I made my way to bed and the 9 o’clock alarm I initially set for myself was quickly pushed back to 10. I have been paying the price all day for the war I waged against my body by keeping it out so late. I could have gone to bed at 7 this evening. But overall the experience was worthwhile, if not a much needed departure from the every day activities, and I consider myself lucky to have enough nerdy friends to make a small adventure like this possible.

Some Quick Movie Reviews

2009-03-05T20:29:00.000-08:00

In about 2 hours I will be standing in line at United Artist Fossil Creek 11 to see “Watchmen.” It’s been quite a while since I’ve tried to do a midnight show but I’m pulling out all the stops this time around in the name of Nerdom. Will my Friday work experience be awful? Most likely. But I can’t pass up the opportunity. Before I go, however, I feel I should write some quick reviews of the 2009 movies I’ve seen thus far. I saw 3 movies in about 2 days and didn’t have time to write full on reviews for each (except for “Taken”). The launch of “Watchmen” officially marks the beginning of Movie Season, as it is the first one from my “Top 10 Most Anticipated Films” to make it to theaters. So a quick run through of the three 2009 movies I’ve made it to so far.

“Bride Wars”
Let’s be honest here. Was there any chance that I was going to like this movie? Absolutely not. This film was written for women only and there was almost nothing for a guy to latch on to. And there’s nothing wrong with that, per se. Some “chick flicks” are designed to hit the date audience, some to hit the girl’s night out audience. This is 100% the latter. The acting is abysmal. Kate Hudson is rapidly turning herself into a pigeon holed actress who will only be allowed to appear in awful romantic “comedies” and the fact that Anne Hathaway followed up her recent Oscar nominated film with this, we can only hope is coincidence. The jokes fall flat throughout, the story is cliché to say the least, and the whole thing is an exercise in idiocy.
Grade: D

“The International”
I confess I’m a bit disappointed in this. I wasn’t expecting greatness from this film but I’ve come to trust Clive Owen in the sense that if he is involved, it’s usually an attempt to make a legitimately good film. This story about a corrupt bank walked the line between good and bad but eventually fell into the “eh, that was OK” category that so very many action/dramas end up in. My biggest problem here is that for the first hour or so of the movie, it appears to be more of an “action with a purpose” movie, meaning that it isn’t built entirely around effects and shock value. Then for approximately 20 minutes it seems to lose itself in an insane fight scene that is completely and totally out of sync with the direction of the film. Then it returns to its original intention. In addition to this confusion, Naomi Watts is either a much worst actress that I’ve given her credit for or completely drunk throughout the entire filming of the movie. She is just terrible. In all, “The International” was mildly entertaining (all you can really ask for) but instantly forgettable.
Grade: C+

“He’s Just Not That Into You”
The makers of “Bride Wars” could take a page out of this book on how to make a date-worthy “chick flick” if, in fact, they wanted to do so. This film follows the paths of 3 or 4 couples that are kind-of, sort-of connected through “When Harry Met Sally-esque” breaks describing ways to tell if a guy isn’t interested. This is far from great, particularly because it lacks consistency. The film doesn’t flow. In addition, I felt like there are so many characters here that the film doesn’t have enough time to develop all those characters and so at times it feels as if they’re changing their personalities rather than just showing depth. But it is an entertaining and quite honest look into the dating world. I enjoyed the movie more and it’s a pretty solid date movie, if nothing else.
GRADE: B-

Review for "Taken"

2009-03-02T22:55:00.000-08:00

I wrote a blog a few months ago concerning things I feel like I should hate but find it hard to do so. The entry centered namely around Justin Timberlake, whom I feel I should hate with the fire of a thousand suns but find it impossible to do. And so it is with “Taken.”

So many things about this film stand for the many things I am so fervently against in the movie industry. The plot is lacking, the holes in the story gigantic, and much of the acting is atrocious. And I mean, seriously atrocious. It is a movie that is completely and totally action driven, something I generally hate in a movie. Yet I cannot keep myself from loving what I just saw.

There’s almost no plot to sum up here. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know what this movie is about. Former FBI/CIA/CTU/Something Government Related agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has retired from said Government Related Agency job and is trying to be a civilian in an attempt to get closer to his 17 year old daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). When Kim is offered the opportunity to spend the summer abroad, Bryan reluctantly relents, on the condition that she stay in contact with him through the use of an international phone he buys her. Upon arriving in Paris, Kim and her friend immediately make all the dumb mistakes you hear about in kidnapping stories. Soon after, while on the phone with Bryan, Kim realizes there are intruders in the house and she is about to be abducted. Bryan promises to come for her and promptly jumps back into Government Related Agent mode. The rest of the film follows Bryan as he burns France to the ground in an effort to find his daughter.

If you’re looking for complex plot points, this isn’t the movie for you. The entire film is one attack-on-bad-guy after another. There is very little concern for international law or “conscience questions.” In most action movies, these things are at least mentioned or thought about, even if only for a moment or two. In “Taken” these things are discussed in about one sentence and then kicked to the curb where they belong. Bryan Mills has far too many Albanians to take down to think about things such as laws. His ONLY concern in life is finding his daughter and he will do anything and everything to make that happen. This includes, but is not limited to, breaking and entering, torture, impersonating a foreign official, and leaving anyone behind who is not his daughter. This is not “Dark Knight” or any other action movie in which the hero struggles to find the line between wrong and right. There is no gray in this film. Bryan Mills is RIGHT, everyone else is WRONG, and it is as simple as that, collateral damage be darned. “Taken” is very unapologetic in this stance and it works.

Here is why “Taken” works where other films fail. Too often, action movies try to bridge the gap between reality and fantasy and in doing so fall flat. Our hero cannot take out 37 bad guys with a single pistol clip then stop to reload a moment later. If you’re going to allow him to not reload for an entire battle, then go full out and toss out the reloading all together. Another one of the more tired clichés in action movies is for the hero to take somewhere between 2 and 41 bullets during the course of the film yet still manages to get by. “Taken” throws out the notion that the hero ever has to even be winged by an enemy’s bullet. The shooting displayed by everyone in this film who is not Liam Neeson would make a Stormtrooper proud. Bryan Mills seemingly walks through gun fire the way Wyatt Earp does to take down Curley Bill in “Tombstone.” And when a bullet won’t do the job, he’s more than capable of delivering a karate chop to the neck that immediately knocks a would-be attacker out.

On the flip side of that coin, too many action films take absolutely preposterous ideas and turn the whole thing into a special effects collage surrounded by the “Oh yeah, this is supposed to have some sort of story” plot line. A wonderful example of this would be “Crank 2: High Voltage” which I was so lucky to see a trailer for prior to “Taken.” (If you can’t tell that this sentence is OOZING sarcasm please stop reading now.) This movie selects a subject (the abduction of a family member) that audiences can relate to or at least imagine what they would do in the situation and then seemingly allows the imagination to run free. It’s a brilliant mix because while the on screen happenings are often ridiculous, the story in which it happens is very real and easily related to. When the fairly predictable final scene comes into reality, it is less anti-climatic and more justifying.

It should be noted once more that the acting (outside of Neeson) in this movie is absolutely horrendous. Maggie Grace, in particular, is laughable as a 26 year old trying desperately to cling to the ideas of what a 17 year old should behave like. My comment to those sitting near me was that it felt like Neeson was acting in a major motion picture and the rest of the cast was participating in a drama class at Santa Monica Junior College. (Very similar, in fact, to “The Phantom Menace.”) But in a way this seems to work for “Taken” as crazy as this may sound. While Mills has no time to mess with the intricacies of diplomacy, neither does director Pierre Morel have time to mess with the motivation of his actors. I would be very skeptical of any future Morel films. But in the end, “Taken” is a highly enjoyable “man’s movie” and Mills is a subtly clever and witty “man’s man.” In the spirit of “Die Hard” I was able to revel in the absurdity rather than be turned off by it and that is where this film hits its mark.

GRADE: A-

Imagination

2009-02-22T23:04:00.000-08:00

I have a fairly active imagination. As a kid (okay, also as a teenager and possibly as recently as yesterday) I spent the vast majority of my time pretending to be an NBA superstar in my backyard. I would lower the goal, throw down some ridiculous dunks, and create astronomical stats to attach to my fame. Also from an early age my imagination took shape in writing and storytelling. In the 3rd grade my teacher asked each member of the class to write a short story (meaning, two paragraphs to a full page) based on a picture that she showed us. After heavy editing and cutting down on the sheer bulk of my work, I turned in a 12 page response that blew Ms. Stone’s mind, as I’m sure it came nowhere near to what she has anticipated receiving. My imagination took hold.

Imagination is a funny thing. It seems to be something we, as a society, value in children but frown upon later in life, save for a very few professions that require it. As we grow older, most of us learn that the things we imagine should be kept a little closer to the vest than say, displaying it for all to see in a 12 page “short” story. Daydreams are meant to be kept inside and eventually, I think many lose the real ability to imagine whatsoever. Perhaps the Imagination Chip (similar to the Emotion Chip that robots have in just about any sci-fi movie) is reactivated when we have kids who want bedtime stories that go beyond whatever’s happening on Dora the Explorer. But for many of us the imagination is left behind.

Sometimes I struggle with this. My imagination is often fervent in its desire to spring forth in the oddest of ways. At times I feel like John Dorian in “Scrubs” trying desperately to contain the absurd thoughts that sometimes run through my mind. Joking is the best remedy for this affliction and fortunately I am currently surrounded by people who are appreciative of what I like to call “Insane Hypothetical Situation Jokes” wherein I throw out an absurd scenario in which a person might say or do something even more absurd, usually at the expense of another friend within the group. Still there are times when I feel like the Logical section of my brain is in cahoots with my mouth to keep the Crazy Imagination section of my brain at bay.

I thought about this recently when a devastating tragedy took place on my street. As I was leaving my house for work one morning (okay, it was closer to noon) I saw a dead cat in the street. Sad, I thought. Upon turning the first corner I caught sight of a small rabbit that had been running around the neighborhood and it, too, was dead in the street. Also sad, I thought. As I turned the next corner, I was confronted with yet another body, this of a squirrel that had met an untimely end. That’s right, dear readers. On the same night, within a 20 yard radius, three animals of different species met their demise. In my mind, there were only three possible answers for this blood bath:

1.) It was just an unlucky night to be a loose animal on my street. On three separate occasions, three separate cars had inadvertently run over three separate animals. This seemed to be too coincidental for my liking;

2.) Some kid (or potentially my next door neighbor in a drunken stupor) had intentionally tracked down and killed these animals in a night of “Natural World Terror.” This also seemed unlikely, as I found it hard to believe that someone was walking around our quiet street, silently offing unsuspecting animals;

3.) The more likely conclusion, as my imagination would tell me, was that the previous evening had marked some sort of battle within the Animal Kingdom of Suburban Fort Worth. In my mind, a scene played out that was part “Gangs of New York”, part street-fight from “Anchorman”, as the cats, rabbits, and squirrels of the neighborhood waged war against each other. Much like the Bloods, Crips, and Latin Kings, the three species had grown tired of sharing their territory and had decided to do something about it. The fight likely began at some pre-appointed time after the humans had gone to bed and these three souls were the casualties that had been left behind as all sides retreated to their hideouts at day break. No doubt cats, rabbits, and squirrels all across the city were pouring their 40s on the ground in remembrance of their fallen comrades.

In the Imagination section of my brain, that story made some sort of twisted sense to me. At the same time, the Logic section was kicking the crap out of the Imagination section, like a bully would a nerd. Short torn from the beating and hair wet from the swirly my Logic section had handed out, my Imagination section quickly shrunk away to cry in its room, while vowing to someday be avenged.

Perhaps that was the wrong way to go. Sure, people might think I’m slightly saner than I might actually be (though that’s likely gone now thanks to this insipid blog). But in the end, is it really that great of a thing that Logic continues to rule my brain the way Mike Dexter rules Huntington Hills High School in “Can't Hardly Wait”? Sometimes I wonder if life in general wouldn’t be a little better if we were all a little more in touch with the Imagination section of our brains. Perhaps I should have turned the Cat-Rabbit-Squirrel War of 2009 into a 12 page short story like I would have in the 3rd grade. Surely Pixar has a use for something like that before its next feature film.

Grading the Non-Deal

2009-02-11T20:56:00.000-08:00

One of the more popular thing for sports website to do these days is to "grade the deal" when a trade is made. Said websites will look over a recent trade in any of the sports and judge who came out of the deal on top. Being the trade/free agent/draft nut that I am, I tend to read a lot of these pieces. I'd like to take on this concept tonight. However, I'd like to grade the deal that DIDN'T happen.

Various reports I heard and read today informed us that the Mavericks and Clippers had recently engaged in some trade talk. The focus of the discussion was on Jason Kidd and some of the Clippers excessively expensive players. The Clippers, being the Clippers, are low on cash and apparently aren't happy with having so many big contract players while winning only 11 games thus far. The reported terms of the deal would have had the Mavs sending Jason Kidd to LA for Baron Davis and Chris Kaman. Reportedly the Mavs brass turned this deal down but the speculation has gotten everyone around town buzzing. The debate of whether or not it was a good decision to walk away from this deal has been raging.

I'm going to catch some flack for my opinion on this, but for me this is a no brainer: Cuban and Nelson unquestionably made the right call.

On paper this looks like an easy trade for the Mavs to make. When he's motivated and on his game, Baron Davis is one of the NBA's best offensive point guards. He is aggressive and physical and he's never met a shot he didn't like. Likewise, Kaman is one of the better young centers in the league today when healthy. Last year he averaged 15 points and 13 boards per game to go along with 3 blocks. He's a major upgrade to Erick Dampier. Kidd, meanwhile, is in the last year of his contract and aging. He'll be 36 by the time the next season rolls around. That's ancient in point guard years. An all-star caliber center and a dominating point guard in exchange for an aging legend who might leave at the end of the season seems like an easy call.

But there's a dark side to this deal, too. Injuries are a major factor for both of these guys. Before last season, Baron had missed an average of 26 games per year over the last 5 years. This season he's already missed 15. He is constantly injured which is a direct result of his conditioning and weight issues. You could start an office pool on how much Baron will way when he reports to training camp each year. Kaman isn't much better on the injury front. He missed 26 games last year and has missed 38 so far this time around. Kaman, in my book, is much less of a risk but a risk nonetheless.

And then we move on to attitude and game play. The biggest issue here is that Mavs fans remember Baron Davis as the guy who absolutely TORCHED their team in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. Baron brought his absolute highest level of swagger to that series and intimidated the heck out of the Mavs. He talked trash then backed it up and also managed to hit every single ridiculous shot he took. He was physical and powerful as he abused every Mav sent to guard him.

The problem is, that Baron Davis doesn't really exist. The real Baron Davis is a guy who rarely brings his A game is far More concerned with his life off the court than on. The physical gift is there but he has always lacked long term motivation. He will continually show up out of shape or downright fat and take months to work himself into shape. Davis has perhaps the worst shot selection in the NBA while shooting at a miserable 41% for his career. He takes shots when he wants from wherever he wants regardless of what's going on in the game. For all the "leadership" props that have been thrown his way, he's never made it out of the second round in the playoffs and has pretty much left under bad circumstances everywhere he's been. this god-like Baron Davis that most Mavs fans see is a myth, a guy who existed for about 10 games two years ago and likely won't make another appearance until his next contract year.

Which takes us into the next sticking point. The contracts on both Davis and Kaman are bad. Kaman's is only bad because of his injury issues but it's long, lasting through 2012. Davis, on the other hand, has a maximum contract that he signed only 7 short months ago which lasts through 2013. When that deal is up, he will be 34 years old and given his injury and conditioning history, might be rolling around out there on a wheel chair. This deal would essentially marry the Mavs to two injury prone question marks for the next 3 or 4 years. If nothing else, consider this: why are the Clippers so willing to get rid of both of these players in exchange for Kidd, whom they will never resign this off season? Sure, it's the Clippers, and sure, they're a cheap organization. But their not in the business of giving their players away. Davis was signed in this past off season. You have to ask why they are so quick to give him away.

The true answer to that question is they've gotten a glimpse of the real Baron Davis and it hasn't been pretty. He's been injured A LOT but even when he's in the game, he's shooting a career low from the field, taking 5 three pointers per game, and has already feuded with his coach on numerous occasions. He's completely lost motivation and the only time the Mavs would have seen that motivation between now and 2013 would have been the 3 or 4 times a year when they'd play the Clippers and Baron would want to prove something.

Not making this deal was probably very hard for the Mavs front office. It's very, very tempting on paper and it would have invigorated the average Mavs fan who remembers the 2007 Playoff Baron. But in the end, holding off was the right call. But the real grade will be determined by what else comes their way before the trading deadline on the 19th.

Grade - A+

The Quest for the PS3

2009-02-09T22:35:00.001-08:00

I'm not much of a gamer. Somehow the gene that is found within 90% of the males from my generation that contains Video Game Ability was not handed out to me. We didn't have a Nintendo or other system growing up and I've still just never really embraced the Gamer mentality. My video game playing history is made of about 95% sports games, such as Madden and NBA Live. I pretty much suck at every other game and even the sports games I play almost always on the easiest level.

Over the course of the last few years I have owned 3 systems. When my used Play Station 2 crapped out I bought an Xbox. When I started grad school I decided I needed to be rid of all distractions and sold the Xbox. After my first semester of grad school was finished I bought an Xbox 360 as a reward. Recently I handed my 360 off to my brother because it had, in all honesty, become a very expensive DVD player. I just wasn't playing much. I thought my video game playing days were over.

And then the unexpected happened. I started missing the games. I'd come home early from time to time and want to do nothing more than load up NCAA Football and use Texas Tech to kick the crap out of Oklahoma (something that apparently can only happen in Video Game World). But there was no way I was going to spend the cash on a new system right after I got rid of mine.

Then over the Christmas break Lindsey and I went over to the McBrooms house (yes, the same people who run a Children's Gang) and I had my first extended contact with the PS3. We played a game called Buzz Quiz, which I've described as Trivial Pursuit for Dumb People. It is AWESOME! Everyone has a wireless buzzer and the questions lend themselves to useless sports, movie, and music knowledge, which I have an insane abundance of. I loved it. Lindsey loved it. And the door was open!

I came to the decision that I would wait on the PS3 until after the wedding. There were enough expenses to go around as it was. But upon entering a Soon To Be Closing Circuit City, I stumbled across a table displaying 2 PS3s at a ridiculously reduced price. My eyes widened, my jaw dropped, I drooled a little. I decided to hold off for the moment and think about this decision rather than making a spontaneous purchase (the bane of budgets everywhere).

I talked to Lindsey about this purchase. After all, any money spent here would be coming directly out of the Honeymoon Budget, if not the Life After Wedding Budget. In the end, I decided to buy the darned thing and for the first time ever, enjoy the very VERY small amount of money I now have. (Stress on the very.) We jumped in the car and headed to The Land of Circuits. Somewhere along the way Jason joined us and our quest began.

Upon pulling into the CC parking lot, it suddenly hit me that it was Friday evening and there would likely be a million people pouring into these stores looking for PS3s, greatest hits albums, and John Travolta movies. (Just kidding about that last one; nobody wants those.) Would the PS3 still be here? My concern was validated when we entered the store and found the table where the PS3s had been, empty. Blerg. I should have just bought the thing when I had the chance!

After numerous attempts to call other CC locations, my merry band of adventurers and I trekked on to the CC in Hulen. Now this CC was a completely different animal than the one in Hurst. The store had never been updated from the mid 90s and in general it had the feel of a New Orleans-like ransacked store being looted. Everyone here was very edgy, as if at any moment the entire crowd might grab whatever they could get their hands on and rush out in mass exodus. The seriously undermanned staff would be powerless to prevent this. We asked around and were told that the PS3 had sold out long ago. Blerg again.

After more calls to other CC locations, my ever increasingly agitated band of adventurers and I trekked to the CC in Lake Worth. Here it appeared that the looting that was about to take place at Hulen had already come to fruition. There was next to nothing of interest left. Defeated, we didn't even bother to ask any of the suspicious looking employees if they had any PS3s.

Defeated, we headed over the Matt and Angie's place. They informed us that they had been only minutes behind us at the CC in Lake Worth and had, in fact, seen numerous PS3s. Blerg! How could I have missed this? It was too late to make the trip back as the store was about to close. The next day I awoke with the dawn (that is a lie), brushed my teeth, threw a hat on and drove out to Lake Worth CC. I arrived 30 minutes before they opened and sat in the parking lot, along with another gentleman who apparently had the same idea. As the magical hour approached, more and more people started showing up. By the time the clock struck 10, two dozen cars full of people were waiting. I was the fourth person in the store and I made a bee line to the hidden spot Matt and Angie had spoken of. There, locked away in a vault even Wells Fargo would be proud of, was the fabled PS3.

After three Circuit Cities and five trips in total, my quest was ended. Many brave adventurers were lost along the way. But I got my PS3 in all its glory. And, true to form, the one game I bought was NCAA Football.

2008 Movie Rankings

2009-02-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

As noted in my review for "The Wrestler", I am not a professional movie critic. (Still awaiting offers, Ebert and Roeper.) Therefore, I often don't get to see many of the films that make their debuts during award season until sometime after the end of the year. This year is no exception. Several of the films I looked forward to most as Award Season approached weren't even available to the masses in Dallas/Fort Worth until recently. I don't feel like it would be proper to have a rankings list when I have yet to take in some of Hollywood's best. As such, my annual movie rankings can't really make their debut until some time in February (like February 7th for instance). But with "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (review to come) finally under my belt, I've gotten to see the majority of the nominated movies; at least the ones that I'm ever going to get to.

So without further delay, I present to you, dear reader(s), my official 2008 Movie Rankings, number 1 through 55.

A+
Batman: The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A
Tropic Thunder
Seven Pounds
Iron Man
WALL*E
Marley and Me
Hancock
The Wrestler
Burn After Reading

A-
Quantum of Solace
Step Brothers
Defiance
Baby Mama

B+
The Rocker
Definitely, Maybe
In Bruges

B
Pride and Glory
Eagle Eye
Cloverfield
Vantage Point
The Bank Job
Incredible Hulk

B-
21
Smart People
Righteous Kill
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Appaloosa
The Express
Superhero Movie

C+
Bedtime Stories
Run Fatboy Run
Leatherheads
Cassandra’s Dream
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

C
Babylon A.D.
Drillbit Taylor
Horton Hears a Who
What Happens in Vegas

C-
Mamma Mia!
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Twilight

D+
Semi Pro
The Lucky Ones
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Crystal Skull

D
The Happening
Jumper
Strange Wilderness

D-
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
10,000 BC
The Other Boleyn Girl

F
In the Name of the King
House Bunny

Oliver Twist

2009-02-04T22:26:00.001-08:00

On Super Bowl Sunday, Lindsey and I went with a couple of friends over to the home of Stephen and Katie McBroom. (aka, the McBroomsters.) As my years on this earth have grown longer, I have found myself less and less inclined towards Big Party Groups during sporting events. This changes when one of my teams is playing and I can surround myself with like-minded fans but this was not the case for the Super Bowl. So a small group of friends was right up my alley on this evening.

Had I known what was in store for me, I would have made my way to The Vine gathering.

I am a creature of comfort and this fact is exemplified in my clothing, specially my pants or shorts. I will always choose jeans over slacks, cargo shorts over jeans, and athletic shorts over cargos. In addition, when I'm sitting for an extended period of time, I don't like to have stuff in my pockets. So when I walked into the McBroomsters house, the first thing I did was set my wallet, keys, and phone on the kitchen table so I could get all comfortable and whatnot.

Now, you should know that the McBrooms have an "infant." His name is Mitchell or Mitchy Mitcherson or the Dread Pirate Mitchell or whatever other devious name I might come up with between now and the end of this blog. Mitchell is a funny kid. He's like 15 months old or something like that so he's right at that age where he's not quite sure about other humans he doesn't see every day but at the same time he thinks he might possibly enjoy playing with said other humans. After Sunday I think this might all be an act he pulls to sucker unsuspecting guests into trusting his little baby face.

Sometime into the 3rd quarter, as I wondered if Larry Fitzgerald was ever going to get going (spolier: he did), Mitchell brought his mom a present: my wallet. Apparently having eyed my possessions the moment I walked in, Mitchell built a ladder out of dining room chairs (OK, maybe just one chair), scaled the table, and took hold of my wallet. This is no ordinary infant, dear readers.

As Katie handed my wallet back to me and we all had a good laugh, I realize that all of my cash was missing. Look I don't usually carry around a lot of bills but on this night I was. There was a good chunk of money in there. At first I thought surely it must have just fallen out as Mitchell played with the wallet. So I got up to look for my missing money but couldn't find it anywhere. Meanwhile the rest of the group thought I was joking (or perhaps they were all in on a plot to split my cash). I searched high and low, all the while Mitchell watched me with a look that was half "I'm a cute baby who doesn't know anything" and half "You better stop looking for your money, old man, that stuff is GONE."

Finally the others caught on to the fact that my money really was missing and, much to Mitchell's disappointment, Stephen joined me in the search. A few minutes later the truth was revealed: the money was found in Mitchell's crib. So this kid had scaled Mount Dining Room Table, snatched my wallet, stashed the cash away, possibly made some phone charges to my credit card (I haven't checked yet), and then slyly handed the empty wallet over and played dumb to its missing content.

I'm convinced he wasn't acting alone. Perhaps in the Weaver/McBroom family, children are taught the value of the quiet foot, a quick hand, and a big smile. Surely a 15 month old cannot learn how to lift a wallet all on his own. I'm inclined to dub Mitchell Oliver Twist because I'm certain the family is running some sort of children's con artist gang. I've got my eye on you Weavers/McBrooms. And next time I visit that house I'll be sure to take a page out of Derrick's book and leave my wallet in the back-dash of the car. Much safer.

Mavs Draft Blunders

2009-02-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

Recently while watching a Boston Celtics game, I began pondering the issues that have left the Mavs a middle of the pack team with little hope of winning an NBA Title anytime soon. Part of the issue is the lack of consistency from anyone on the squad besides Dirk and Jet. When Dirk is off, or even worse, when he goes to the bench, the team goes to pot.

While I'm thinking about this, I'm watching the Celtics take all three of their All Stars (Garnett, Pierce, and Ray Allen) out of the game and proceed to extend their lead with their subs in the game. Boston has extreme depth and players manning the bench who know what their roles are and what is expected of them night in and night out. What struck me in this moment of enlightenment was how many of the subs on the floor were Celtic draft picks.

I love the NBA Draft. I follow it year round and I am a student of its history, as you can tell by my recent "Reviewing the Draft" columns. I think it's incredibly interesting to see where teams make the obvious pick, where they screw up epically, and where they find steals. A franchise's fate sometimes depends entirely, for better or worse, on the success of a particular lottery pick. Perhaps as important is a team's ability to pick up talented role players late in the draft.

Boston is a shining example of excellent scouting and selecting players that produce in the NBA. They start three player that were originally drafted by the franchise and when they go to their bench there are six other original Boston draftees that coach Doc Rivers can go to. That's an astounding number, especially considering that just 18 months ago, the Celtics gave up a lot of their young talent in the Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen trades. Being a bad team certainly helped them stockpile the talent needed to pull off those trades. But they aren't just getting results from their early picks. Starting center Kendrick Perkins and backup shooting guard Tony Allen were late first round picks while Glen Davis and Leon Powe were second round picks. They've drafted guys that have games that translate to the NBA and who understand and take to the role they are given.

So I did the research. I wanted to see how many players each NBA team currently has on their roster which were originally drafted by the franchise. (Note: I went ahead and counted "Draft Day Trades" as original picks. Also, this research was done a few weeks ago so it's possible that a few minor trades have messed with these numbers.)

Oklahoma City has 10 players currently under contract that were original draftees of the franchise. The Celtics have 9 drafted players on their roster, tying them for second with Chicago, Portland, and Utah. Charlotte, Detroit, and Philadelphia aren't far behind, with 7 apiece. Then a host of teams have either 5 or 6 original draft picks on their roster. Denver, New Orleans, and Orlando are tied for next to last with only 4 draftees each, though each has added a franchise player (Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwight Howard, respectively) through the draft in the last 5 years.

And which team, you ask, comes in last on this list? My very own Dallas Mavericks, who have a whopping 2 players under contract that were originally drafted by the franchise. Two. To make that even worse, those two players are Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard. Dirk was drafted in 1998, Howard in 2003. Meaning not a single player on this team was drafted in the last 5 years. It should be noted that the Mavs made a blockbuster move to obtain Jason Kidd last season, a trade in which they gave up 2 draftees (Devin Harris and Maurice Ager). Still, even with those players on the squad, the Mavs would be tied for last in the league.

Look, every team misses in the draft. Sometimes a team drafts on potential and it doesn't pan out. Sometimes they draft based on position and a more talented player slips by. And sometimes a team drafts a surefire prospect and for some reason it doesn't work out.

But what the Mavs have done goes beyond that. What this demonstrates is a complete and total inability to find players in the draft that can make the club and actually contribute to the team's success. Whether it's first round picks or late second rounders, this team continually shows at best a disregard for the draft and at worse an incompetence in evaluating talent. And in doing so they have left themselves inconsistent, old, and lacking in prospects to either develop or trade for help.

Reviewing the Draft: 1993

2009-01-31T00:10:00.000-08:00

1993 was a great draft for role players but didn't offer up a great deal of depth. This class featured 7 All Stars but only a couple of perennial All Stars.

1. Golden State - Chris Webber (1): Webber was one of the more complete players in the league for several years. A great scorer, rebounder, and passer, he could also dominate inside or shoot from beyond the arc. He tended to shrink in the biggest games, however.

2. Philly - Sam Cassell (24): Cassell won titles with the Rockets during his first two years and another last season with the Celtics. A bit of an enigma throughout the majority of his career, at times he was a great leader, others a headache, but always a tremendous contender.

3. Orlando - Anfernee Hardaway (3): At 6-7, 200 lbs with great scoring ability and court vision, Penny could have redefined the point guard position. Injuries ruined the final 7 years of his career.

4. Dallas - Nick Van Exel (37): In many ways similar to Cassell, Van Exel was at times a tremendous discipline problem but always left everything he had on the court.

5. Minnesota - Jamal Mashburn (4): Another player who wasn't always a disciplined player, when he was healthy and in shape, Mash could score with the best of them.

6. Washington - Allan Houston (11): The consummate professional, Houston was one of the more feared shooters in the NBA for many years, including once in Miami.

7. Sacramento - Vin Baker (8): Baker was an excellent post player in his early years but weight and alcohol issues plagued him and left him unusable despite an enormous amount of talent.

8. Milwaukee - Lindsey Hunter (10): Certainly not the most talented player in this draft class but an excellent leader who won titles with the Lakers and the Pistons and still serves as a pseudo player-coach in Chicago.

9. Denver - Bryon Russell (45): A defensive minded player who played a significant role on many some great Jazz teams. Possibly more famous for being the guy that was defending Michael Jordan on his final shot with the Bulls.

10. Detroit - Calbert Chaeney (6): One of the greatest college players in NBA history, Chaeney was a fantastic scorer who found work for many years, though usually on bad teams.

11. Detroit - George Lynch (12): Similar to Hunter and Russell, Lynch was an excellent role player who did a little bit of everything on some very good teams.

Honorable Mention

Isaiah Rider (5): Should have been one of the best scorers in the league but instead blew a dozen chances and is currently in jail.

Chris Mills (22): A fine role player for many years, but usually on bad teams.
Ervin Johnson (23): Servicable big men were already becoming scarse by 1993 and Johnson played in the league, almost always as a backup, for many years.

Review for "The Wrestler"

2009-01-28T23:02:00.000-08:00

Since I’m not a professional film critic, I often don’t get to see the Award Caliber movies until long after they’ve been reviewed a million times. Most movies that are shooting for Oscars aren’t released until just before the end of the year and many of them don’t go into wide release until the middle of January. This has positive and negative effects. For one thing, if a movie is bad and falls far short of its Oscar goals, I hear it in advance and can avoid wasting my time. But the flip side of that is if a film is getting a lot of critical praise, there’s always a chance that I’m going to expect far too much by the time I get the opportunity to see it. I confess that, going in, I was concerned that “The Wrestler” was going to fall into the latter category.

“The Wrestler” is the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a former WWF wrestling superstar who’s hanging on to the glory days by the thinnest of threads. Living in a trailer that he can’t always pay the rent for and working as a stocker at a grocery store, Randy is 20 years removed from his prime. His body bears the marks of years and years of abuse. “The Ram” lived fast and loose, snorting coke and injecting insane amounts of steroids while taking a beating each night in the ring. He is broken, bruised, and scarred.

Unlike many of his compatriots, Randy hasn’t given up on The Ring. His weekends are spent competing in the lower levels of “professional” wrestling, fighting up and down the Northeast coast. These matches are often held in veteran’s halls and elementary school gyms and feature alarming violence and equipment. While the fights are planned out ahead of time, the stunts are painful and many of the fights involve very real weapons. One fighter uses a staple gun to subdue and intimidate his opponent. Another litters the mat with barbed wire. Randy himself cuts his forehead with a razorblade to sell a stunt to the crowd. It’s a very brutal, desperate world that “The Ram” finds himself in. Yet the crowds love him and for however short the moment lasts, Randy needs the spotlight.

Whatever money Randy has, he spends on Cassidy, an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei) whose time he craves far more than her services. Cassidy will not allow Randy to get any closer than her other customers but it’s clear that part of her wants to. Randy would probably like to take Cassidy out of the situation she’s in but knows he wouldn’t be able to offer her much. The film takes us through a few months in Randy’s life as he struggles with becoming an average person, his health, and his severely strained relationship with a daughter he left behind.

“The Wrestler” isn’t an easy movie to take in. But some of the best movies in history aren’t easy to watch. Mickey Rourke is brilliant in what is almost a semi-autobiographical role. Director Darren Aronofsky had to fight tooth and nail with the studio to get Rourke in the film but in hindsight there isn’t anyone better suited to play “The Ram.” Rourke has in many ways lived the life of Randy “The Ram” and has the scars to prove it. He destroyed his career with drugs, steroids, and hard living and without this role would almost certainly be un-hirable, a waste of one of the more talented actors in his generation. This is more than his comeback film, this is his legacy, the role which will define his career no matter what great things may come his way in the future.

This film is not about professional wrestling, nor is it truly about Randy “The Ram” Robinson. Rather, it is a film about MAN and his eternal struggles. Everyone knows the man who can’t let go of the past. Whether it’s the former high school quarterback, the guy who’s paid the price for not finishing college, or a professional wrestler far past his prime, this is a familiar story, only highlighted with barbed wire and steroids. How does a man so used to being a superstar adapt to working a deli counter? And what does a man do when a doctor tells him he isn’t physically capable of doing the one thing that he finds affirmation in? These are the types of questions Aranofsky attempts to ask. He simply chooses professional wrestling to be his platform.

My one complaint about this film is the way it has been promoted. “The Wrestler” is being sold as tale of redemption or a comeback story but I think that’s misleading and the critics that have reviewed it so have missed the mark. This isn’t “Rocky Balboa” or any other sports movie in which the hero is getting one last shot at glory. Leading up to the inevitable “Last Big Fight” no one, including Randy, realistically believes that this is his chance to get back into the Big Time. Even if that were to happen and the movie were to end with “The Ram” jumping back into the ring with WWF (or WWE, or whatever it’s called these days), this movie wouldn’t be about that. Randy isn’t so much interested in a comeback as he is in going out on his terms. He wants to be Michael Jordan hitting the championship winning shot for the Bulls, not Patrick Ewing wearing number 6 for the Orlando Magic, barely making it up and down the floor. As he says toward the end of the film, this is where he belongs and he doesn’t want to let anyone or anything force him away from his place in life.

From a humanistic perspective, “The Wrestler” is heartbreaking because despite its over-the-top action, it is shockingly real. Yet despite the fact that there isn’t a traditional happy ending, it is a film that is more than worthwhile for its phenomenal study of LIFE, if not for the spectacular performance of its star.

Grade: A

The Belly Stomach

2009-01-27T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ivy Iverson, my soon-to-be niece, is a funny kid. One of the more entertaining things she's prone to doing is the creation of new words. A few months ago she referred to her tummy as her "Belly Stomach." I thought this was hilarious and, always apt to adopt funny words or phrases into my vernacular, I've started saying it. (That's right, I took a bit from a 2 year old. I'm not ashamed.)

This week I've been in San Antonio for Rec Lab, the annual recreation ministers conference. The conference itself has been solid if unspectacular and I definitely can't complain about staying in a Hilton hotel for free (even if they do charge $10/night for wireless internet and $19 for a medium cheese pizza). It's the time that I spend outside of the hotel that's killing me.

You see, dear readers, I am a lifelong, diehard Dallas Mavericks fan. Over the course of my life that fact has caused me as many problems as any other character trait (or flaw, dependent on your point of view) that makes me who I am. For the first 9 years of my Mavs Fan career, the team averaged about 20 wins per season, resulting in numerous taunts from all the bandwagon elementary school kids that surrounded me as they rooted for the Bulls or the Rockets. Then there were a few good years in which the Mavs looked like champions, even coming very close in 2006 before terrible officiating and a choke for the ages got in the way. Since then it's been a rapid plunge down the competitive hill that has brought the team to the point of being irrelevant yet again.

Through all of this the San Antonio Spurs have been the big bully on the block. No matter how much the Mavs achieved, the Spurs (and their obnoxious fans) were there to point out the flaws that inevitably allowed San Antonio to send the Mavs packing. When we finally managed to best the Spurs we went on to choke away the championship in the Finals. I hate the Spurs and with a very few exceptions I hate their fans. And here I am in San Antonio, surrounded by Spurdom.

In essence, I am in the Belly Stomach of the Beast.

(By the way, what does that saying even mean? It is usually said to indicate a tough battle that is about to ensue but in reality, if you're in the belly of the beast you've already lost, right?)

Everywhere I go the Spurs follow me. There are Manu Flopinobili jerseys being sold in the gift shop. The Spurs flagship radio station came on in my car. Tim Duncan is on TV advertising Chevy's. At least 5 dozen people passed me today wearing shirts that proclaimed the Spurs champions from one of the many years they won the title. Dick's Sporting Goods had Spurs candy canes for sale. Candy canes!!! Everywhere I turn I am inundated with silver and black. Meanwhile my beloved Mavs are looking worse by the day. And even when the Spurs aren't that much better, they can still play the "We've Won 4 Championships in 9 years" card that I will never be able to hold.

I'm in the Belly Stomach of the Beast, folks, and I cannot wait to bolt out of here tomorrow. One more Tim Duncan commercial may push me over the edge.

My Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2009

2009-01-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

Well as usual my Movie Rankings for the year are still to come. I'm hoping to catch “The Wrestler” tomorrow and if I can get to “Benjamin Button” in the next week, I'll feel like I've seen enough movies to make accurate rankings. (If I was a professional critic I could have seen these weeks ago. That's a hint to any potential publishers out there...) Anyway, after some exhaustive research I've put together my Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2009.

This is a big deal for me each year. I enjoy looking at the movie calendar and trying to determine what's going to be good and what's going to stink. Last year, 6 of my top 10 anticipated movies made my top 11 in the rankings (so far), 2 were moved to 2009, and 2 were terrible (thanks a lot Indiana Jones!). So, in my own humble opinion, that means I at least know what I'm going to like each year and if you have similar movie tastes, these movies should appeal to you in '09. It looks like 2009 will be a big year for blockbusters but it could be lacking in Award Season films. And as always, my nerdom will be yet again highlighted by those movies that appeal most to me.

10. "Up" – May 29
In all honesty, the plot for this movie doesn’t just blow me away. An old man ties balloons to his chair so he can see the world, or something like that, I don’t really feel like checking IMDB again. But it’s Pixar and for me, if Pixar is attached to a project, I’m in regardless of the content.

9. “Star Trek” – May 8
J.J. Abrams is kind of bugging me with the direction Lost is taking and I’m not sold on the cast. But this is supposed to be a fresh, reinvented take on the classic series and the nerd in me can’t help but be interested.

8. “The Soloist” – April 24
The date keeps changing which is a TERRIBLE sign for a movie that is undoubtedly designed to take a shot at the Oscars. But Robert Downey, Jr. has always been a favorite of mine and his roles in “Iron Man” and “Tropic Thunder” only solidified that this year.

7. “Duplicity” – March 20
Julia Roberts’ potential return to prominence is in the balance with this con movie directed by Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”) and costarring Clive Owen. Julia still has the star power to get me there, no questions asked, and it’ll be interesting to see if that holds true with the rest of the world.

6. “Sherlock Holmes” – November 13
Robert Downey, Jr. plays the title character, supported by Rachel McAdams (another favorite of mine). Added in with the readily available story lines from the classic literature and I don’t really need to know anything else.

5. “Watchmen” – March 6
This will follow in the footsteps of “The Dark Knight,” “300,” and “Sin City” as it comes from a graphic novel that has gained cult status. It’s a very dark take on the world and role of superheroes. I honestly cannot say whether or not this movie is going to be good. There is a very good chance that it will be awful but I’m extremely interested still.

4. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” – May 11
As a kid (and teenager, and adult) I loved the X-Men. The original trilogy was great but there were still so many questions left unanswered. This will be the first (of many to come, apparently) film to tackle the back stories of these characters and it has an excellent cast.

3. “Terminator Salvation” – May 22
This film demonstrates the power of an amazing lead actor. If Christian Bale wasn’t playing the lead role of John Conner, I wouldn’t be nearly as excited about another “Terminator” movie. I’d be interested, sure, and it might even touch the top 10, but it would be nowhere near number 2. A potentially more serious turn than “Terminator 3” and Bale as the star make this a major draw.

2. “Public Enemies” – July 1
Theirs is nothing to not like about this movie. Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, and Johnny Depp are some of the most respected actors in the industry and they’re being directed in a historical shoot-em-up by Michael Mann, who happened to do one of the greatest cops versus robbers movies EVER (“Heat”). There’s really not much else to say.

1. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” – July 17
It was my number one most anticipated movie last year and after it’s late move to this year, it’s still number one. Whether you’ve read the books or not and whether you’re a huge nerd or not (I would be a “yes” on both accounts), these movies are just flat out good films. The movies have gotten progressively darker as their subject matter has gotten more serious and this should be no exception.
A few others worth noting:
“Edge of Darkness” – November 11
This is the return of Mel Gibson to the big screen after a 7 or so year hiatus.

“Fanboys” – February 6
The story of five friends who try to steal a copy of “Star Wars: Episode I” back in 1998.

“Green Zone” - TBA
Reunited Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon (the final two “Bourne” movies) is enough for me.

“The Road” – December
This has an extremely intriguing storyline and stars Viggo Mortensen, possibly the best actor in Hollywood to turn out the most unlikeable movies while still performing brilliantly.

“A Serious Man” – October 2I will always, always, always be there anytime the Coen brothers put out a new film. Even when they’re not good movies, they’re still interesting and unique enough to leave me wanting more the next time around.

Reviewing the Draft: 1992

2009-01-17T22:47:00.001-08:00

1992 was a year that saw the introduction to the league of one of its all time greats (Shaquille O'neal) and then a lot of rookies who never turned into the players they had potential to be. Very few drafts in recent history have given us so many accomplished college players and yet only a few (5) turned into All Star quality players.

1. Orlando - Shaquille O'neal (1) - Without question one of the most dominating presences the NBA has ever seen.
2. Charlotte - Alonzo Mourning (2) - In any other draft, Zo would have been the number one pick. One of the most intimidating forces in the league for many years.
3. Minnesota - Latrell Sprewell (24) - Choking incident aside, Spree was a fierce competitor and a fantastic player on both ends of the court. Some terrible off court decisions messed with a great career.
4. Dallas - Christian Laettner (3) - Never lived up the expectations that he set for himself at Duke but was still an All Star caliber player for many years and a solid contributor after that.
5. Denver - Robert Horry (11) - The ultimate winner. Horry wasn't particularly great at anything except hitting the big shot time and time again on his way to 8 or 9 championship rings.
6. Washington - PJ Brown (29) - An excellent defender and strong rebounder, Brown was a major contributor on a number of good teams for a long time.
7. Sacramento - Jim Jackson (4) - Jackson's size and incredible passing ability set him apart from the average shooting guard of the day. The injury he suffered in 1995 prevented him from moving the way he once was and essentially turned him into a very good role player.
8. Milwaukee - Tom Gugliotta (6) - Googs became an overnight sensation in Minnesota but after an All Star appearance got overpaid to go to Phoenix and went through numerous injuries that kept him from ever contributing much.
9. Philly - Doug Christie (17) - Say what you will about Christie's mental state, he was an excellent defender and a steady hand on offense while playing on some good teams.
10. Atlanta - Clarence Weatherspon (9) - Far from flashy or sexy, Weatherspoon nonetheless was a solid scorer and rebounder for quite a while on a number of teams.
11. Houston - Walt Williams (7) - In all honesty Williams could have done a lot more. Like Jackson, he had a unique combination of size and passing skill and yet as his career progressed he allowed himself to become a shooter (and a very good one, mind you) rather than a playmaker.

LaPhonso Ellis (5) - Again injuries are to blame. Ellis was a fiery player who could create his own shot but preferred to crash the boards and deliver thunderous dunks.
Jon Barry (21) - An excellent shooter and role player for many years.
Matt Geiger (42) - Never a particularly talented player, Geiger possessed a high basketball IQ and became a very good defender while playing significant roles on good teams.

Reviewing the Draft: 1991

2009-01-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

I started doing this last year but haven't posted one in quite a while. I love the NBA draft. In many ways it is probably my favorite sporting event all season. In keeping with that love, one of my favorite things about the draft is looking back and playing the "what could have been" game for the first few picks. Every year there will be a dozen or so picks that make absolutely no sense and it seems everyone in America understands this except the GM picking. And of course there are a number of picks that surprise everyone. What I have here is the first 11 picks from the 1991 draft and what, in hindsight, the order of the draft would be like now based on production and longevity.

The 1991 draft wasn't a particularly strong draft. While it did produce several solid, career role players on good teams (like Rick Fox and Luc Longley), only 7 players from this class made an All Star appearance and only one (Mutombo) made numerous appearances. It should be noted, however, that the first pick (Larry Johnson) could have potentially been a generation-defing player had it not been for serious injuries that turned him from the power player he once was into a jumpshooter.

1. Charlotte - Dikembe Mutombo (originally picked #4): One of the all time great defensive centers and 18 years later, the only pick still playing in the NBA.
2. New Jersey - Larry Johnson (1): Injuries ruined the career of Larry who could have been a position redefining player. Still, he made the transition from power player to finesse player and had some incredibly productive years.
3. Sacramento - Terrell Brandon (11): An All Star multiple times and named the NBA's Best Point Guard at one point by Sports Illustrated.
4. Denver - Steve Smith (5): Made an All Star appearance and served as a very important second or third option on some good teams.
5. Miami - Kenny Anderson (2): Never lived up to expectations but made an All Star appearance in 1995 and was a solid player for a very long time.
6. Dallas - Dale Davis (13): A strong, imposive force in the paint for a very long time, particularly on the defensive end.
7. Minnesota - Stacey Augmon (9): Augmon wasn't great at anything but he was good at a lot of things. "The Plasticman" had a long career as a journeyman.
8. Denver - Billy Owens (3): Owens was doomed from the start. A good player with a knack for scoring was asked to be a franchise player in Golden State and couldn't measure up. Weight issues abounded as well.
9. Atlanta - Luc Longley (7): Longley one three titles with Jordan in Chicago and played his role, limited as it was, very well for many years.
10. Orlando - Rick Fox (24): Fox wasn't much for stats but he was the ultimate role player on 3 Laker title teams.
11. Cleveland - Greg Anthony (12): Never a great player or a stats guy, Anthony was a strong backup throughout his career, partiularly for some good Portland teams in the mid 90s.

Honorable mention:
Bobby Phills (45): Phills was coming into his prime before his untimely death during a racing accident.
Erick Murdock (21): Had some of the fastest hands I've ever seen in the NBA but never got much of an opportunity to play big minutes.
Chris Gatling (16): Made an All Star appearance in 97 with the Mavericks but was mostly a shooter off the bench for the majority of his career.

Review for "Slumdog Millionaire"

2009-01-14T00:47:00.001-08:00

It always drives me crazy when a human, be they movie critic or just a lay movie lover like myself, discredits a film by citing the “already been done” clause. Meaning, if the movie resembles another film in writing, acting, directing, storyline, cinematography, music, catering crew, or anything else, it is essentially worthless should the reviewer decide to deem it so. I myself fall into the trap from time to time but at least in most of these cases I follow up the “already been done” clause with the “and it was awful the first time” clause.

The truth is, after 100 something years of major motion pictures, just about everything has been covered. Every movie is borrowing something in some way from some movie from the past. The better movies twist the ground which has already been covered or offer fresh perspectives. But just because a given topic has already been covered doesn’t mean it can’t be covered again. It’s all entertainment. So what if one movie of today borrows from a movie of the 70s? The truth is, the latter movie probably borrowed from a movie of the 60s and that one a movie of the 40s and that one a book from the 19th century.

I say all that to say this: when a movie comes along that IS truly unique, it sticks out. In a sense the film emblazons itself on your memory and you never quite let go of it. A filmmaker that can come up with this unique concept is ahead of the game because it will be favorably compared to any movie that resembles it for the next 30 years. “Slumdog Millionaire” is that movie.

“Slumdog” follows the life of Jamal Malik, a boy who comes from the worst part of India. The footage of life in these slums is sobering and far worse than anything you will ever see in the States. The tiny box homes covered with tin roofs are literally stacked on top of each other and the squalor is painfully obvious in every way. Jamal has come within one correct answer of winning 20 million rupees on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” but is now in custody of the Mumbai police on suspicion of cheating to get to this point. After torture, the investigator goes over each question with Jamal and asks him to explain how he knew the answer. Each question results in a flashback to a period of Jamal’s life as a “slumdog” and brings together a snapshot of his life through ten different stories.

I’m not going to say another word about the content of the film. Because this is such a unique film it should be experienced by the viewer with the minimal amount of information possible going in. It is a refreshing and sobering piece that should be a “must-see” for any movie lover.

The acting, done by an entirely Indian cast, is phenomenal. From Dev Patel who plays the role of Jamal as a young man, to the work of game show host Anil Kapoor (think an Indian Regis Philbin), the actors display the type of discipline and dedication to the profession that is sometimes lacking in Hollywood. Even the children who play the youngest versions of Jamal and his brother are engaging, talented, and endearing while giving the kind of work that most directors would kill to have from their American child actors. Despite the spectacular filmmaking it has produced over the last few years, Bollywood (the Indian film industry) has been fairly unsuccessful in its attempts to breakthrough into the consciousness of the mainstream public. “Slumdog” is, in a sense, a proclamation of arrival. If the public won’t come to Bollywood, perhaps Bollywood will just come to us.

Danny Boyle, one of the most underrated and brilliant directors in Hollywood today, has crafted a magnificent film that manages to touch just about every emotion within the spectrum. It is funny at times, touching at others, poignant for a moment and then heartbreaking, but thoroughly entertaining and genuine throughout. Boyle made a name for himself in the early 90s with “Trainspotting” and became a big name with 2002’s “28 Days Later” but has never quite gotten the respect he deserves until now. This is his masterpiece, his shining moment. And if the success of his film brings new audiences to his work the whole of “Movieland” has been bettered.

“Slumdog” is not for the faint of heart. There are some tough, gruesome scenes and this movie is, after all, primarily about the life of abject poverty in a foreign country. But the viewer who can handle a few hard moments will be rewarded with an extremely good and genuinely powerful film that is sure to be copied a hundred times over the next 30 years.

Grade: A+

Review for "Marley and Me"

2009-01-03T14:25:00.001-08:00

Let me preface this by telling you I am one of the biggest babies in America. There were four or five major male influences in my life growing up and all of them were big babies so I really didn’t stand a chance. I’m apt to cry during all of the appropriate guy (aka war and sports) movies, such as the final scene of “Saving Private Ryan” and the moment that Mike Winchell narrowly misses the end zone at the end of “Friday Night Lights.” But beyond these themes, the one thing that is guaranteed to force me to cry is that of a person and his/her dog.

I read John Grogan’s “Marley and Me” last year, some time after it had already reached “Bestseller” status on just about every list imaginable. Sitting in an airport, I begrudgingly pulled this book from my collection of reading material and began reading to pass the time of my seven hour layover. Six hours later the book was finished and the people sitting around me must have been wondering if I had some sort of emotional disorder due to all the ridiculous weeping I had done. I looked like death to be sure. Mothers were shooing their children away from me and a hobo, sensing I might be in distress, offered me a sip of his whiskey (I made that last part up).

I’m typically a bit skeptical of the movie based on a book. This is true partially because if it’s popular enough to spawn a book it’s too popular for me to handle and partially because if I actually like the book, the movie usually falls short. So when I heard that “Marley and Me” was being turned into a major motion picture I was somewhat short of optimistic. The additions of Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, as well as my natural curiosity concerning how well the book could be translated to screen eventually won me over.

“Marley and Me” is the story of a young couple (Owen and Aniston), their careers, their children, and the dog that comes along for the ride. As the story begins, the Grogans have just moved to Miami. One is a reporter, the other a columnist for rival newspapers. In order to keep Jennifer’s (Aniston) maternal instinct at bay, the un-ready-for-parenthood John (Owen) buys her a yellow lab, a runt puppy named Marley who turns out to be the “world’s worst dog.”

Marley is a pain, a nuisance, a hassle to deal with. He destroys the garage when a thunderstorm rolls in. He eats the couch cushions. He humps legs. He swallows a brand new necklace, resulting in the inevitable Poop Exploration known all too well to dog lovers everywhere. Marley disrupts a dog obedience class. He tries to climb out a car window. He causes mayhem in a variety of ways only believable because they did in fact actually happen.

Marley becomes notorious as John transitions from full time reporter to part time columnist and finds it hard to write about anything but the world’s worst dog. As Marley’s exploits become more outrageous, John’s column becomes more popular and soon he finds himself with a daily column. At the same time, his family is going from a young couple with dreams to a family of five (plus a monstrous dog) while his closest friend Sebastian, the eternal bachelor, travels the world writing the pieces John wishes he could. A prevailing theme within this film is the sacrifices both John and Jennifer make as they realize the importance of family over that of career.

“Marley and Me” follows the path of the Grogans for some fifteen years and truly captures the essence of real life. There’s very little sugarcoating here, though the film manages to keep its “family movie” tag. Both of the main characters go through ups and downs, both separately and together. They experience the issues that come with trying to start a family and then trying to manage the family you did start. Through it all their lives are shadowed by the ever-present Marley and the shenanigans he pulls along the way.

Director David Frankel does a wonderful job of allowing the movie to be about the dog without allowing the dog to become the all-encompassing focus of the movie. Too often a Family Pet movie falls into the trap of ignoring the human characters and forcing emotion upon the viewer. Not so with “Marley.” Marley is very much a part of the family rather than having the family revolve around him. This seems simple enough and yet I can scarcely remember a movie that manages to show family life with the dog as well as this one. You never forget that this movie is about a dog and his family but what we have here is enough strong material to support a good movie even without the dog. That is a rare quality. In addition, Wilson and Aniston, along with Eric Dane (Sebastian) and Alan Arkin (editor Arnie Klein) are near perfect casting choices and all deliver strong performances. But make no mistake, the true stars are all the dogs who take turns as Marley in his various times of life.

I’d like to tell you I held it together, manned up, and didn’t shed a tear during the inevitable end of this film. But the truth is I was lucky to make it half way through before the sniffles began. It has never ceased to amaze me the impact that a terrible dog can have on one’s life, whether it is over the course of fifteen years or that of a two hour movie. “Marley” sums up what it’s like to have a dog as part of one’s family, even if he is the “world’s worst dog.”

Grade: A

How to Mix the Mavs Part III: Deciding What to Do

2009-01-01T23:04:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two months since the last installment of "How to Fix the Mavs" and a lot has taken place. The team played incredibly well without Josh Howard, Dirk has forced his way into the MVP race, Jason Terry may be headed to the All Star game, and what was a 2 and 7 record has now turned into 19 and 12 and just a hair out of second place in the West. The players have adjusted pretty well to Coach Carlisle's style and things are looking significantly better than they were two months ago.

The question is, is that a good thing? There's no worse place to be in the world of sports than stuck in the middle. Obviously a good team can be content to contend for a title. And a bad team, as awful as they may be, can always rely on the opportunity to rebuild. But a team that's somewhere in the middle is in a bad way. Cut bait and start over and you alienate your fan base and perhaps whatever players you decide to keep around. Hold on too long and you set your franchise back three to five years when you could have been improving. The middle of the pack is a tough place to be.

I believe this is the situation in which Mark Cuban finds his Mavericks right now. The run that they’ve been on lately, winning 17 of 22 games, has been impressive. Dirk is playing as well as he’s ever played and Jason Kidd looks fantastic, not to mention the surprise emergence of Jason Terry that has taken place over the last month. Right now there might not be three guards in the entire NBA who are playing as good perimeter offense as The Jet. However, for the most part, they haven’t been playing against stellar competition. With the exception of the Christmas Day win at Portland, the Mavs haven’t beaten any of the better teams in the league. They’ve stayed close, hung tight with the Spurs and the Lakers and played a decent game against Utah with the chips stacked against them, but ultimately fell short in each contest. To me they appear to be a team that is better than about 20 to 22 teams in the league, but not good enough to take out the other 8 to 10 teams. They are the Best of the Rest, so to speak, after the Celtics, Lakers, Cavs, and Spurs of the world. That means they aren’t true contenders for a title and quite possibly aren’t really capable of advancing past the first round in the playoffs.

The next six weeks are going to be incredibly important for this team. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the decisions made in this time period will determine the path of the franchise, for better or worse, for the next five or ten years. Mark Cuban and the ever-more-useless Donnie Nelson have to be extremely realistic and pragmatic in their approach to what to do with this team and the players on the roster. No stones can be left unturned in their search for how to best equip this team both for the now and the future. There are four ways to look at this team and ways to act accordingly.

1. This team is a player away from being a legit title contender:
If you subscribe to this theory, you buy into the impressive work the Mavs have done over the last 22 games and believe that their strong play will continue. The team as is probably lands in the 4th or 5th playoff spot and has a chance to make a run if they peak at the right time. What the team needs is to add a piece or two that will really push them over the top.

It’s a good season to be in this position, if in fact this is where the Mavs truly are. There are a lot of teams who are trying to get rid of their overpriced Second Wheels, like Corey Maggette and Gerald Wallace, and will likely take 30 cents on the dollar. If you’re willing to commit to overpaying a role player because what he does is what you need, there’s a pretty decent market. Should Cuban decide this is where the position the team is in, there are any number of players that could be acquired that could/should push the Mavs back into the true contenders.

2. This team needs to make a major move to make themselves contenders:
If you subscribe to this theory then you must agree that the Mavs have to trade one or more of the team’s Big Three (Dirk, Josh, Kidd). These are the only three players on the roster that could bring something significant enough in return as to push the team over the edge. Realistically, trading Kidd probably wouldn’t bring back enough to make the trade worthwhile. Trading a superstar like Dirk almost NEVER works out for a franchise losing the player. Just ask Toronto how they like the Vince Carter trade or New Orleans how the Baron Davis trade worked out. In the NBA, trading a superstar is usually the last option.

That leaves Josh Howard. In my opinion, the Mavs are a better team without Josh on the floor. The ball moves better, the team as a whole takes better shots, and the IQ of the team goes up. It’s not that Howard is a bad player or even a bad guy, off court issues aside. It’s that he doesn’t compliment the team very well. Josh needs to be on a team that has either a low post player who scores easy buckets with his back to the basket or another swingman who gets his points by slashing. Trading Josh is the logical move to make if this is the theory the Mavs opt to believe in.

3. This team needs to rebuild right now
If you subscribe to this theory you believe the Mavs need to make a handful of moves now and start the rebuilding process immediately. Josh Howard could be moved for several lesser pieces, maybe a draft pick. You could sell Jason Terry at an all time high right now with the way he’s playing. Jason Kidd is still a top 10 point guard with an expiring contract to boot, a great trading chip for a number of teams. Even Erick Dampier could provide a lot of help to a contending team that needs front court depth. Perhaps it actually is time to trade Dirk and start over.

Should the Mavs buy into this theory, these moves have to be made NOW. Cuban must strike while the iron is hot with Terry, move Josh Howard immediately, and use Kidd before his contract expires in the off season. If you make a lot of moves in a short amount of time, you are likely to add some pieces that can pay off in a year or two.

4. This team needs to cut salary and be ready for the feeding frenzy in 2010:
If you subscribe to this theory you’re conceding that the Mavs as constructed cannot win a title and the players here do not hold enough value to bring in quality players to rebuild with. In 2010 Lebron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and several others have the opportunity to become free agents. Just about any team that doesn’t legitimately feel they can win a title in the next two years is doing everything they can to become players in the free agent market that summer. This is going to leave a number of teams very unhappy, especially considering that each of these player’s current teams will be able to offer considerably more money than any other franchise.

But if this is the path Cuban feels the Mavs should take, it means the team will be almost completely and totally gutted. Kidd, Howard, Terry, Dampier, and a host of others will be moved for next to nothing except expiring contracts and even Dirk might be subject to trades, though I suspect Cuban would hold on to Dirk to team with whichever young superstar the team signs in 2010. This is a risky way to approach the next couple of years. Tanking games is a tough sell for fans and players alike. And in the end if you can’t convince Lebron or Wade to sign on for less than they can get at home, you’re in serious trouble. But it’s an option nonetheless.

I’m not completely sure which theory I subscribe to, though I have to say I’m falling somewhere between 1 and 2. I think Josh needs to be traded in order for this team to progress but I don’t want to see him given away. If a deal can be struck to add a couple of quality young players and a pick in exchange for Josh, I’d be all over it and I’d be searching out the teams who are trying to cut salary to see if I could grab a quality swingman or big man for cheap. Regardless of what happens, this is a critical time in Mavericks history and the moves made (or not made) will have a tremendous impact for years to come.

Avery Johnson Makes Me Sick

2008-12-19T23:21:00.000-08:00

(Disclaimer: Most of the time when I write a blog, I try to take the approach of a writing penning a column for a newspaper or website. Even when it's heavily biased I try to come across as grounded. Occasionally, however, a rant slips through. This is one of those rants.)

If I met Avery Johnson today I would punch him in the mouth. Just straight up, haul off and pop him one. As a diehard Mavs fan I've been furious with Avery for quite a while now for the absolute destruction of the franchise that took place over the last 2 years. But today's headline pushed me over the edge.

It should be noted that I used to be a huge Avery fan. I respect him as a person, I respect his character, and I appreciate the good work he does for the community. As a player I rooted for him, as I did for all short NBA ballers, despite the fact that he played for the hated Spurs. He was fiery and smart and he kept his teammates in line at all times in a powerful way. I was thrilled when the Mavs hired him as their coach in 2005. There are some guys that you see as players and you think to yourself, "that guy is going to be a great coach." Avery was one of those guys. That proved to be the case for about 2 years. Avery coached the team to the Finals in '06 then to a league-best 67 wins in '07 before the greatest collapse in NBA history.

But somewhere towards the end of the 2007 season things started to change. Avery started getting outcoached more and more often only to be saved by an incredible player performance. Then came the first round playoff upset during which Avery was SEVERELY outclassed by Don Nelson. The predictability of his game planning and absolute refusal to change strategy became a constant. And perhaps most importantly, you could see that his players were beginning to grow tired of him.

All of this carried over into last season which turned out to be one of the most catastrophic in team history (and we're talking about a franchise that once won 11 games in an entire season). Avery had absolutely no control over the players either on the court or off. He looked lost half of the time and just angry the other half. His substitution patterns were wretched, his misuse of timeouts was legendary, and his complete unwillingness to get his players in check was pitiful. His relentless badgering had stripped the entire team of their confidence and any semblance of "fun." Possibly most damaging was the way he continually and publicly emasculated point guard Devin Harris.

Harris was never shown any kind of trust while being coached by Avery. He was never allowed to run the offense for himself or get out and push the ball, despite the fact that this played to his strengths. He constantly (and I mean constantly) was required to look over to the bench to get a play from Coach Johnson and just about any time he didn't he was in for a tongue lashing at the next timeout. Truthfully, I don't think Avery ever liked Harris as a player because Harris was the exact opposite of what Avery was as a player. Harris is taller, faster, and more naturally gifted than Avery ever was. Harris' greatest fault was not being Avery when he was on the court.

And so Devin was sent packing last February in exchange for Jason Kidd. This has turned out to be one of the worst trades in team history, despite the fact that Kidd has played pretty well in his time here. When the trade took place, I was all for it for a lot of reasons. The number one reason being that Avery was NEVER going to trust Devin to run the show here in Dallas. Without the trust of the coach, Devin would have rotted here, never getting the opportunity to really display his skill set. I was sure that Avery would HAVE to trust Jason Kidd, one of the five greatest point guards in NBA history. In the end, Avery still couldn't relinquish control to Kidd and was eventually fired, the Mavs have become mediocre and old, and Harris is a potential MVP candidate in New Jersey.

Tonight the two teams met for the first time since the trade which of course brought a lot of attention, interviews with all parties involved, and questions. The Dallas Morning News caught up with Avery Johnson, currently whipping everyone's butt as an analyst on ESPN. The quote from the article that really caught my attention was when Avery says, "We kind of predicted it. If you go back and look at our comments we talked about him being an All-Star around this time. It's not really a big surprise."

Really? Really Avery? Because the last time Harris was in a Dallas uniform he was looking like a scared kid, knowing that the next time he didn't look at the bench before moving up the court he'd find his butt planted squarely on the bench next to the corpse of Juwan Howard. All anyone saw for the last year that both Avery and Harris were in Dallas was Avery constantly berating Harris and never adapting his worthless game plan to allow Harris to do something that fit his skills. It was like pulling teeth to get the Mavs to run for the last year of Avery's reign here and Harris' numbers in New Jersey make it pretty clear that this had a lot more to do with the coach than the player. As Dirk put it at the end of the article, "Maybe he needed to get away from Avery a little bit." Understatement of the year and a nice little backhanded jab at Avery. (Deep down inside, I think Dirk shares my desire to punch The Little General for wasting the prime of his career.) Harris has absolutely broken out in New Jersey where he is averaging 24 points per game and an insane 10.5 free throw attempts per game, something the Mavs are badly lacking.

In truth I think Devin's run as an elite player will be a short one. He's playing on a bad team which inflates his stats. He still is not a consistent outside shooter. And maybe most importantly of all, his body is just too frail to take the beating that he takes night in and out without breaking down. He's heading to one of those careers where the guy spends 25 to 35 games on the injured list each year. And his game is built around speed and athleticism which will fade with both age and injury. But the point is, the Mavs could be benefiting from those prime years prior to his body's breakdown in addition to the 2 first round draft picks they gave up to get Kidd. I love Kidd and I think he gets a bad rap for what's taken place over his short time here. But the youth, speed, athleticism, and just straight dynamism that Harris brings to the table are sorely missed right now.

And it's all because Avery Johnson couldn't get his head around the fact that there are good point guards in this league who don't play the way he did. To hear him take credit for that and claim that he knew it all along makes me sick. I hope his next coaching gig is Cambodia, which is far more than he deserves. And Perhaps Dirk would like to meet up with me sometime to take turns punching Avery repeatedly.

Some Love for G Wallace

2008-12-17T23:43:00.000-08:00

Just a quick hit. My compatriot over at DallasBasketball.com wrote a column this week concerning why the Mavs should pursue Charlotte’s Gerald Wallace. There’s no reason for me to sum it up, just check it out for yourself.

Why the Mavs Should Trade for Wallace

What Wallace does best, as noted in the column, is get to the free throw line. He manages to produce as many free throw opportunities (6.6 per game) as Dirk does while attempting almost 9 less shots per game. Obviously Wallace’s touches and scoring opportunities would drop in moving from one of the worst teams in the league to one of the better. But keep this in mind: Charlotte is one of the lowest scoring, slowest paced offenses in the league. Playing with Jason Kidd, who is widely known for rewarding guys who run the floor, would generate a lot of touches for Wallace in fast break situations where he excels. He defends the weak side extremely well making the small lineup the Mavs have utilized over the last few weeks even more effectively. And possibly most importantly, the acquisition of Wallace (at what will be a very low price) makes Josh Howard expendable if the right deal comes along.

But even without another deal, the Mavs look pretty good with a lineup that features:
Wallace
Dirk
Dampier
Kidd
Howard

That’s a darn good lineup and Wallace plugs in to the motion offense very well. Considering the fact that he likely comes at a significantly lower price than he would have a couple of years ago in free agency, this is a guy the Mavs SHOULD make a run after.

Sports Quick Hits 12/11

2008-12-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

1. Graham Snubbed For the Heisman
The Heisman Trophy finalists were announced yesterday and it was no surprise as to who was nominated: quarterbacks Tim Tebow (Florida), Sam Bradford (Oklahoma), and Colt McCoy (Texas). What did come as a surprise is the fact that Texas Tech's quarterback, Graham Harrell, wasn't included on the list. Under normal circumstances, the exclusion of a Tech quarterback wouldn't phase me in the least. Despite putting up ridiculous stats every single year, it's become an annual event for the Heisman Committee to overlook the numbers because of Tech's high-powered system. But this year is the biggest insult in program history in my opinion.

I don't think Harrell would have or should have won the trophy. If I had an unbiased vote, when it came right down to it I'd probably vote for Bradford myself. But leaving Harrell off the finalists list altogether is outrageous. Just take these simple facts into consideration: playing in the same division of the same conference as Bradford and McCoy, Harrell threw for more yards than both; more touchdowns than McCoy; at a better completion percentage than Bradford; and with the same number of interceptions as both while attempting far more passes than either Bradford or McCoy. All three quarterbacks led their team to the exact same record, with Harrell BADLY outplaying McCoy when the two met a few weeks ago.

Look I get upset that Tech QBs get the shaft every year when it comes to national recognition. It has never sat right with me that Tech guys get discredited because they are "system" QBs yet bums like Eric Crouch can not only be nominated but when the Heisman while running a "system" of their own. McCoy, Bradford, and Tebow, just like Crouch, Detmer, and Young, all run in various "systems" that allow them to excel. Harrell is a heck of a lot more of a traditional quarterback than any of these guys. To leave Graham out of the running for the Heisman, even if he was eventually going to end up in fourth place, is a sham and I think the Heisman Committee ought to be ashamed of themselves.

2. Yankees Spend a Quarter Billion

Over the last few years, my hatred for the Yankees has been pushed to the back of my Sports Mind because of the way they have struggled so mightily. But this week that hatred was rekindled. During the current economic crisis, the Yanks still found the money to sign not one but likely two of the biggest free agent names in baseball and may not be finished. Yesterday the Bombers inked pitcher C.C. Sabathia to a 7 year, 160 million dollar contract, and today were said to be offering another pitcher, A.J. Burnett, a 5 year, 80 million dollar deal. (The obvious question being, are they stockpiling players who have two letter first names?) Next on the list is Mark Teixeira who I hear is close to making a deal with Boston but whom I can’t imagine leaving whatever money New York offers on the table.

In truth, I guess this stuff should make me mad at baseball instead of the Yanks. It’s Bug Selig and the Player’s Association that keep the MLB from having a salary cap like every other major American sporting league. But, hey, it’s a lot easier to hate the Yankees when the team is shoved down your throat with unceasing relentlessness by every major sports news outlet in the country. It infuriates me that in baseball the rich continue to get richer while the poor get even poorer.

On the plus side, when the team still struggles to make the playoffs next year and ends up falling short of a championship, it will be hilarious to see the turmoil that ensues. You don’t spend a quarter million dollars in three days and sit idly by to watch your investment not paying off. Chemistry is something the Yanks forgot about long ago.

3. Kobe’s New Shoe
Word came today that Kobe Bryant’s new shoe, Nike’s Kobe IV, will be a low cut sneaker. Specifically designed by Kobe himself, the shoe is apparently inspired by a soccer cleat.

I think he’s going to get some head scratches for this move but I applaud Kobe for pushing this design on the folks at Nike. The need for high top sneakers in one of the biggest myths in the history of sports and I hope to see the low top shoe become more popular. A high top sneaker only protects against minor ankle rolls and in fact, speaking from the personal experience gained from breaking or seriously rolling my ankles over a dozen times, a lower cut allows an ankle just to roll over rather than resisting it which causes more damage. And for players who make a lot of cuts and quick stops, a lower cut, lighter shoe is a necessity. I stopped playing in high tops a long time ago and moved to a mid cut. I’d gladly move to low top sneakers for good if I could ever find one that provides the width you need for basketball. Here’s one guy that hopes The Kobe IV leads to a revolution in the basketball shoe world.

4. Owens Does it Again
I warned Cowboy fans about Terrell Owens. I told them that he was a cancer, a guy who could and would destroy any locker room in the NFL (as proven by his take down of the Eagles, one of the strongest rooms in the league). Owens is the type of guy who can be on a team that goes 19-0 with a Super Bowl win and throw a fit that he didn’t get the ball enough. You can’t trust a guy like Terrell Owens and any Cowboy fans who have convinced themselves that they could have been fooled.

Today is came out that Owens and two other receivers held a meeting with offensive coordinator of which the basic gist was they didn’t like the Tony Romo was throwing to his friend, tight end Jason Witten, more than them. Then this news “somehow” got leaked to the media. This sounds to me like Owens got ticked, got his boys to back him up, and then let word slip about what was going on. So while the Boys are preparing to play the World Champion Giants this weekend in a game that could determine their playoff lives, the whole team gets to deal with this mess instead.

I’m pretty sure this is Terrell’s last year in Dallas and I think even the most steadfast Owens’ fan has to be saying good riddance. When it’s all said and done, Owens will go down as one of the most talented receivers in the history of football, but also as a guy who never won anything and doesn’t have a single positive contribution to show for it.

5. Dirk
I’ve talked less about Dirk this year mostly because the Mavs just haven’t kept my interest like they normally do. They seem to be destined for a lower level playoff finish and a first round exit. I’m much more interested in what kind of moves they’ll make to solidify their future.

But tonight as I watch Dallas take on the hapless Bobcats, I was reminded of what an incredible player Dirk Nowitzki is and how often he is taken for granted. The Mavs last game was a double overtime thriller against San Antonio in which Dirk played 52 minutes and 40 minutes straight. Coming out tonight it was easy to see that the team, and Dirk in particular, hadn’t physically recovered. His shot looked a little tight and his legs a bit weak. A lot of early shots that are usually automatic for Dirk were coming up short. But as he always does, Dirk adjusted and came through for his team.

One of the things I have always admired most about Dirk is that when he’s having an off shooting night he finds ways to contribute. A lot of times when you see Dirk go something like 7 for 22 from the field he’ll also come away with 18 rebounds. If he has a couple of extra turnovers he’ll also give you an extra block or steal at just the right moment. Tonight when it was obvious that he wasn’t feeling it, he became the facilitator in the half court offense, drawing the defense to him and then finding the cutter time after time. And then, when the moment was right, he stepped into a 3 and drilled it to give the Mavs the big bucket they have come to depend on him for over the last 10 years.

But I want to point out another play that will certainly go unnoticed after he finished off the night with that shot. Just a few moments earlier Dirk made the hustle play of the night. A long Jason Terry three pointer went wide. As he was coming in to crash the board, Dirk changed direction and was just able to smack the ball back in bounds as he fell into the Charlotte bench. The hustle play preserved possession and gave the Mavs another shot to put it away. As he careened out of bounds, Dirk landed in the lap of Bobcats’ coach Larry Brown, one of the games all time greats, who helped him up. As the camera panned past Brown and a timeout was called, you could see a small smile and look of admiration cross his face. You could read exactly what he was thinking: if only I could get just ONE of my guys to play like that. Here’s Dirk Freaking Nowitzki, a perennial All Star, an MVP, the best shooting big man in the league, and he’s diving into the other team’s bench after a ball in the middle of December against a crappy team like Charlotte. It stuck with me and it obviously stuck with Brown. You have to love Dirk.

Cotton Bowl Bound and Reality Sets In

2008-12-08T10:29:00.000-08:00

I was born a Texas Tech Red Raider. My whole family is from the Lubbock area and I had two uncles, among many others, who pushed the Red Raider way on me. As a kid I chose most of the teams I root for, whether it’s the Oakland Raiders or The Ohio State University Buckeyes, but I came by Tech fandom honestly. So please allow me a moment to explain how hard it is to be a fan of a team that has ALMOST no chance of winning a football championship in my lifetime.

The past year was the best season in the history of Texas Tech football, at least since the school entered the South West Conference in 1960. Starting at around number 15 in most ranking polls to begin the season, Tech jumped as high as number 2 before the 65-21 crushing in Norman. It was a season marked by many incredible highs that most Tech fans could only dream of: the contention of both Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree for the Heisman trophy; the last second defeat of the number 1 ranked team in the nation and longtime bully on the block, Texas; the national press finally acknowledging the Red Raiders as a legitimate championship contender. It was a season that was a blast to be a part of from beginning to end. And under normal circumstances, I would be more than satisfied with 11 and 1.

But this isn't a normal season.

Sunday's announcement that my Red Raiders would be taking on Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl came as no surprise. There was perhaps a 1 percent chance that the Fiesta Bowl would choose Tech over Texas, though perhaps 1 percent is a bit high. From the moment the second quarter began in the Tech-Oklahoma game 2 weeks ago, my hopes of playing in a BCS game had all but faded away. I had convinced myself that playing in the Cotton Bowl is no laughing matter and that the steps the program took this season should still be valued. Still, when the announcement came, I couldn't help but be disappointed.

Let's get this out of the way up front: unlike some of my fellow Tech fans, I'm not going to argue that the Red Raiders necessarily should have been invited to the Fiesta Bowl instead of Texas. There's a small part of me that feels cheated in that Tech squarely defeated Texas only a short month ago and yet the Longhorns are the ones headed to Arizona. If it had been the other way around, I assure you Texas fans would be throwing a fit today. An even bigger part of me feels cheated by a ridiculous BCS system that rewards teams from lesser conferences in order to “spread the wealth.” So while Tech will take part in the best non-BCS bowl game, Cincinnati, Ohio State, and Virginia Tech, with their 8 loses between them (not to mention Penn State and Utah, both of whom Tech would crush) will all enjoy the perks of playing in major night games and approximately twelve million dollars that will be paid to each school for playing in a BCS game. Still, this system has been in place for ten years and everyone has to play by the same rules. All of this is a moot because if Tech had taken care of business and just stayed relatively close to Oklahoma they’d be preparing for the Fiesta Bowl as I write this.

I’m not writing today to complain about how unfair the BCS system is or question how Texas got into a BCS game despite the fact that Tech has the same record and also owns the tiebreaker against the Longhorns. No, today I’m more concerned with writing about what it’s like to be a Tech fan and how much reality hurts.

Fans of teams like Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Florida, or any other national power can’t understand what it’s like to be a fan of a program like Texas Tech. Even during down years, programs like those mentioned above always have hope of resurrection. OU was awful during the early years of the Big 12 but in the end the school’s tradition and money won out and they’ve been back in power since they hired Bob Stoops. It’s the same for places like Florida. The Gators had a couple of “bad” seasons under Ron Zook in which they still made trips to the Outback and Peach bowls then quickly reloaded with Urban Meyer and won a title a year later. Tennessee just completed a losing season and went through the process of hiring a new coach. The program is down but because of their tradition and power, in all likelihood the Volunteers will be competing for conference championships within a couple of years.

It’s not very hard to be a fan of a traditional powerhouse, and I feel like I have permission to say that considering the fact that my other college sports loves are Ohio State football and Duke basketball. It’s easy to root for a team that disappoints you when they don’t win the title. When Ohio State bombs out in the National Championship Game, despite my immense depression, I can always comfort myself with the thought that, “There’s always next year.”

There’s not such thinking about next year when it comes to Texas Tech. This year was THE year. Their quarterback will graduate, their best player will head for the NFL, and it’s likely that Mike Leach, coach and offensive genius, will leave for would-be greener pastures. Next season it will almost certainly be back to normal, meaning the Red Raiders finish with between two and four losses, go to a decent bowl, and don’t warrant any legitimate national attention.

But the key to that last sentence is “almost.” It’s “almost” certain that Tech won’t take that step into serious contention next season. “Almost.” There is perhaps a two percent chance that next season will be the one in which the Red Raiders jump into a BCS game and championship contention. And that “almost” is the kick in the pants every single year.

The truth is, as easy as it is to be a fan of a big time program like Oklahoma or Florida, it’s also easy to be a fan of a terrible team that has zero chance of winning a title in the next ten or twenty years. Fans of Vanderbilt, Baylor, Duke, etc. can enjoy a 6-6 season and then settle back in to reality when the next year rolls around and the team goes 3-9. You always hope they start winning some games but you know going into each season that there is no way your team will win a title. As depressing as that sounds, there’s comfort in having lesser expectations, in accepting your team’s doormat status and just hoping that once a year they jump up and screw up another team’s season.

“Almost” gets me every single year for the last decade of Texas Tech football. In all honesty, maybe I shouldn’t expect the Red Raiders to ever make a BCS game. Despite turning themselves into a second-tier program (a major upgrade from where they were ten years ago), they still play third banana in the Big 12 to Oklahoma and Texas. Both of those programs have an endless supply of money to support them, boosters who can quietly sweep problems under the rug, coaches who will never leave as long as things are good, and a tradition that never dies no matter how bad things get. In recruiting alone, Tech almost always comes fourth behind Texas, OU, and the other national powers that raid the Texas high school football system each year. Maybe the Red Raiders are right where they are supposed to be, a second tier team that is always exciting and dangerous but ultimately doomed to fall short against the powers of college football. But regardless of whether or not that is my lot in life as a Tech fan, the two percent chance, the “almost,” never seems to go away.

When the 2009 season rolls around, I will almost certainly convince myself that this year could be the year. That despite losing Graham Harrell, Michael Crabtree, and Mike Leach, we’re still set up to make a run. That the collection of undersized hustlers at the skill positions and an offense that can score on just about anyone will be able to bust their way through the rankings. That perhaps they’ll get a little lucky and catch Texas and OU off guard and beat both. And at the end of the season, when Tech heads to the Gator Bowl or the Holiday Bowl or maybe even the Cotton Bowl, reality will once again set in and I’ll remember that I’m a Tech fan and Tech has ALMOST no chance of winning a national title each season.

“Almost.”