L&N Line

It's Time To Stop Apologizing For Chris Johnson

2011-10-11T13:50:00.005-05:00

So all I hear nowadays about Chris Johnson is how well, the lockout, and his holdout, are contributing to his sucking this year. I have no doubt that those two things are somewhat factors, but didn't anyone see how Johnson performed last year? It wasn't exactly dynamic, and memories of his 2009 season got him a pay raise that frankly he's not going to be able to live up to. Chris Johnson is fast, and a bit slippery, but defenses are stacked to defend him now, and I think he's got a reputation for not liking contact.

And why would he? He's a tiny guy for NFL standards, and his success came from evading tacklers. Last year he started to get crushed, and the little dance he does to try to juke people doesn't work anymore. It is the basic tenet of Moneyball that Johnson should have been traded while his value was high, so we could have gotten a lot of players in return, like perhaps a guy who could replace Kenny Britt in case he got hurt, which they don't have now. I believe almost any running back that the Titans could put in right now would be at least replacement level if not better, and think of all the rewards the Titans could have had by getting rid of him, instead of caving to the perception, and the fans who believed Johnson was worth the money.

What was good for the Titans while Britt was in the lineup was not that Chris Johnson suddenly had holes to go through because defenses had to cover Britt and Nate Washington (and potentially Jared Cook), but that defenses, geared to cover Chris Johnson, were not able to cover the Titan receivers. It is a passing league, and the Titans were close to becoming that team. But now Britt is gone and they don't have anyone like him out there, and the pickings are still slim for Johnson, while having no one that scares any secondary in the receiving corps.

It's a little upsetting how perception rules everything. It's one of the saddest aspects of sports, making your teams nearly unwatchable at times.

The Braves Collapse Is Not Nearly As Painful As Other Past Failures

2011-09-29T03:02:00.002-05:00

This season, I followed a Braves team that wasn't very good, yet somehow, they were pulling away with the Wild Card lead. I could never quite put my finger on it. How in the world were they 10 1/2 games ahead of the Cardinals at one point? It seemed like every time I watched them or listened to a game, they were doing something ridiculously bad. They lost some painful games this year, yet the stats were showing some fantastic seasons for some players.

The only problem is...when those players had a bad game, it cost them. Being a well-rounded team means that you can make a couple of mistakes here and there and it won't cost you the game seemingly every time. It means, if your pitchers are having a bad game, your offense has the ability to pick them up, and vice-versa. The Braves never had an offense that clicked, because there were too many black holes in the lineup.

Even with the Wild Card lead, I never really believed in this team. The weaknesses were too glaring. At the beginning of the season, the leadoff man was Nate McLouth, and when he got hurt, it turned into Jordan Schafer. Neither of those guys is any good. Then the Braves got Michael Bourn, who pretty much slumped after the trade, although he was much better than those other two guys.

Then the 2nd spot was filled most of the year by Martin Prado, who for the past couple of years could be depended upon to bat around .300. He batted around .260 this year. And since he never walks, that hurts.

Chipper Jones is, of course, well past his prime. He had a decent year for someone his age and constantly injured. But he was being relied upon to be the team's #3 hitter. And I don't care what sabermetrics might say about Chipper, this is a case where the human eye was better than the advanced stats. He never could really be a #3 hitter this year, and probably never again.

Dan Uggla took an entire half of the season to get right. When he did, he was awesome. Unfortunately, nearly everybody else on the team tanked once he got hot.

Brian McCann must have been severely sidetracked by his injury after the All-Star Break. You could depend on McCann almost daily to do something great. But after he got off the disabled list, he was pretty useless the rest of the year.

Freddie Freeman had a great rookie season, and unfortunately, his production, which would be a great compliment to an awesome offense, was relied upon to be one of the main sources. You can't rely on a 21-year-old who is just learning the ins and outs of the majors be your top offensive producer, even if he's having a great season for a rookie.

Jason Heyward was so bad this year, people started remembering the types of things said about Jeff Francoeur during his stay in Atlanta. Heyward was the biggest disappointment of the year, and hurt the offense more than any one person, right alongside Prado. The Braves were relying on Prado to stay the course and for Heyward to get better in his second season. And they got worse, which made them unfortunate, almost automatic, outs.

Alex Gonzalez was a black hole in the lineup from the start. But his bad numbers at the plate only became magnified as the Braves looked for someone to start hitting. I think everyone was OK with Gonzalez' offensive production, as long as the other guys did what they were supposed to do. They didn't, so the presence of Alex Gonzalez at the plate was always a painful sight because now, his lack of production just compounded the other lack of production the lineup was getting.

I like to think in these terms--the Braves had very little room for error when it came to scoring runs, and while, rightfully so, the team was criticized for being unable to get hits with runners in scoring position, it seemed like so many times, they needed that hit with two outs. Since on average a batter is not going to get a hit somewhere over 70% of the time, the odds were always against them.

The pitching kept them winning games for much of the first half, and that had to do with solid presences Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens, both who went down shortly after the All Star Break along with seemingly everyone else. With Hanson and Jurrjens unable to put in solid work, the Braves had Tim Hudson, rookie Brandon Beachy (who began to lose it in the second half), the god-awful Derek Lowe (and somehow, the saber stats supported him being just as good a pitcher as Hudson, which...I think more data is needed), and a triumvirate of rookie pitchers who were not ready to be in the majors until 2012 or 2013: Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado, and Mike Minor.

With all this inexperience and worn-down veterans, the bullpen was used a lot. Unhittable pitchers like Johnny Venters and Craig Kimbrel suddenly became wild and hittable towards the end of the season. It would not shock me if I found out Venters needed surgery after this season. The guy was ridiculous all year, and there should have been some regression in his stats, but not to the point where he became absolutely frightening to watch later in the season, walking guys and giving up solid hits. I worry about Venters a bunch.

Venters and Kimbrel each gave up games in September that had they been played in June, would have never happened.

There were just too many holes in this team, and the prospect of going to the playoffs with this bunch was scary. I didn't think they had a chance to make it past the first round, and when the collapse began, I wondered if it wouldn't just be better for baseball that this team didn't make it anyway. They were not going to be a tough first round opponent throwing Hudson, Beachy, and Lowe against any of the playoff pitching staffs. And with this offense, even if they made it past the first round and into the NLCS, it would likely be against Philly, and Philly is way too much of a beast for Atlanta. Halladay, Lee, and Hamels would have carved this team up quickly. Another playoff loss was inevitable. Collapse or no, this team wasn't going to win the World Series.

So when the analysts and the sports pundits talk about "worst collapse" and how that's so bad that they missed the playoffs, I think it's an overblown story. Make the playoffs, not make the playoffs, this team was embarrassing for many reasons, and they were not going to be champions. Manager Fredi Gonzalez, chided by many this season and many times referred to as "Frediot," certainly wasn't going to be the balm this team needed. Just too many bone-headed mistakes. But his bad decisions were magnified mainly because of the team that was on the field. As I was saying before, good teams can overcome mistakes. When Gonzalez made one, it lost the game. When Charlie Manuel in Philly makes one, that team finds a way to blur it out.

Plus, I don't know what this idea was that Gonzalez is just like Bobby Cox. In what way? Maybe philosophy, maybe "player's manager," but not very fiery. I wished so many times he would race out of the dugout and bark at an umpire, but it looked like Gonzalez was always worried that his mom was in the stands or something and just took the "if you have nothing positive to say, then don't say anything at all," approach to leading the team.

The Braves collapse...it was inevitable. I was resigned to it about a month ago, the last time they got swept by Philly and had an 8-game lead in the Wild Card. It's not worse than Jim Leyritz in 1996 or Ed Sprague in 1992, or Kirby Puckett in 1991. It just doesn't have the same feel. I saw it coming and braced for it, and I feel a little relieved I won't have to see this team in the playoffs. Also, seeing the Rays win in the way they did, combined with the way the Red Sox lost their game, was the type of thing that made me love baseball in the first place. When I saw that, I was totally at peace that the Braves had come up short, yet again.

Oh, There's Just One More Thing...

2011-06-24T19:22:00.004-05:00

So, Peter Falk is dead. Maybe that means very little to you other than it's sad that anyone dies. But to me, I just can't imagine a world without Falk in it.

I grew up with a Mystery loving mom, and she has raised an even bigger fan of the genre. One of the shows/characters that got me into my longest running obsession (if you will) was Columbo. The character first appeared in 1968 with a couple of TV movies and then became a part of a television show from 1971-1978 as part of the NBC Murder Mystery Movie rotation which also included McMillian and Wife and McCloud. The characters was then revived in series of television movies on ABC in 1989 and continued through 2003.

1989 was when I was first introduced to the character (I remember thinking what's the guy from Princess Bride doing) and the later movies are perfectly fine, but due to the new rise in popularity A&E started showing the older episodes, and then I became hooked. Such a simple switch on the mystery genre (we know who the killer is from the opening sequence in most of the movies) created such a new and addictive formula. Of course this wouldn't work if it you didn't care about the character solving the mystery, and that character wouldn't work if you didn't have an amazing actor, and Falk nailed it on every level. Watching Columbo do his thing to figure out who the killer was (usually by amusingly annoying the piss out of the suspects) and how the murder was accomplished is what makes the whole thing work. That look in Falk's eyes when Columbo figured out who his man was is the definition of "Priceless." He is my all-time favorite character on television, and I rank him right up there with the most iconic characters in film like Indiana Jones, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, etc.

If you've never watched an episode and you have any love of mysteries or just great storytelling you have to check it out immediately. My two favorite episodes are "Murder by the Book" directed by a very young Steven Speilberg and "Swan Song" with a suprisingly good Johnny Cash as the murderer. The entire original run is available on Netflix streaming, and you really can't go wrong with any of the episodes; I would just start from the beginning and keep on trucking.

But while Falk was mostly known for his role as the quirky detective he was also great in quite a few other things. His friendship with John Cassavettes produced some great team-ups like Cassavette's own films, Husbands and A Woman Under the Influence; they also worked on an episode of Columbo together and a little seen but great film called Machine Gun McCain. And even though I've never been the biggest Neil Simon fan, I loved Falk's Sam Spade esque turns in the mystery comedies, Murder by Death and The Cheap Detective. Falk was nominated for an Academy award in the fun gangster film, Murder Inc. He was also in the original version of The In-Laws with Alan Arkin, and it is so much better than the crappy remake with Albert Brooks and Michael Douglas from a few years back.

Of course, most people from my generation know him best as the storyteller in the brilliant Princess Bride, but in that same year he had a masterful turn in Wim Wender's wonderfully fantastical Wings of Desire.

In the past decade, Falk was still working hard. His last memorable role was in 2001's Made where he had a lot of fun as an aging mobster. He was far and away the best part of the film which also starred Jon Favreau (who also directed), Vince Vaught, Donald Faison, and Sean "Puffy" Combs. He also popped up in Walter Hill's underrated Undisputed, lent his voice to the animated Shark Tale, and was apparently in the Nicholas Cage sci-fi dud Next (but I can't remember very much other than hating that movie).

I hope those that have not seen much of Falk's work will now seek some of it out. As for those that are as big a fan as me, let's light up a cigar (maybe even don a trench coat) and watch our favorite Falk moments.

So...

2011-06-13T19:33:00.003-05:00

George asked me if I thought maybe the mob got to LeBron... and I couldn't dismiss it out of hand. But I do think he's never been forced to work for anything, and is almost autistically incapable of putting into the highest gear.

Also, this NHL Final is looking a lot like the 1960 World Series. Just saying.

Bin Laden and the Emerging Plot Threads

2011-05-02T15:35:00.011-05:00

Above: It's only fitting that the titular movie about Navy SEALS stars Charlie Sheen...and that "winning" is incredibly apt here.

How much would we pay to see video of a group of Navy SEALs assaulting a secret compound with the world's most notorious terrorist inside? I'd love to see the preparations, the tension before the helicopters took off and just before they reached their target.

So Osama Bin Laden is dead, and it took roughly 40 minutes to bring him down, after 18 years or so of being on the national radar. Now that he's dead it seems like it happened all too soon; we didn't get the crazy Saddam Hussein trial, see him led off to prison in chains, or anything. He's gone. This is a good thing.

The big what-happens-now question, I think, is not so much what will al-Qaeda do now that their leader is gone, but what happens with Pakistan.

We have two sides now arguing about two different things:

Pakistan is upset that the U.S. came into their country and violated their air space, and didn't say anything to them that this was happening.

The U.S. is upset that Pakistan is playing dumb and somehow make it look like they had to idea that Bin Laden was living in a mansion, where mansions are scarce and questionable, in their own country.

I don't think the U.S. needs to apologize for their actions, considering the circumstances. This isn't Bin Laden disguised and living in a bunker, this is Bin Laden living in a freaking mansion! Can you blame the U.S. for not saying anything to Pakistan before going in? Especially such a delicate and risky assault where the tiniest thing that goes wrong could mean not only failure, but Bin Laden again on the run? If the tiniest thing that could go wrong could possibly mean tipping off the wrong person, who in turn tips off the target, then you can't possibly make a "due process" call there.

We talk about it in sports all the time, where we see coaches do the wrong thing with timeouts, fouling a team before they can take a tying three pointer, those little things in close games where you increase your chance of success by looking at the big picture rather than using narrow in-the-moment decisions. If there was a 0.1% risk of someone tipping Bin Laden off, then the decision not to tell Pakistan is the right one. They can be mad all they want to.

And I think that's how this might play out. Pakistan will be mad, the U.S. will say, "We're sorry you feel that way," and then move on.

2011-04-27T12:19:00.003-05:00

Ira Glass' NPR show This American Life is pretty good, and he's been in the game for a long time. For those of us who make art of some kind, and frankly aren't great at it, I think this is fantastic advice to remember.

35 YOPC - 35 Years of Oscar 1980-1989

2011-04-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

For my 2nd segment for the Oscar rundown, we get into the 80's. The 80's truly encompass my beginnings as a huge film buff. While the 80's might not be the best decade of film (the 60's and 70's are probably my two favorites), it's hard to find a decade that was more entertaining. This was also the decade, for better or worse, that the tent pole movies started coming into play. As I said in my previous post, "Jaws" changed the landscape of film, and in the 80's you can start seeing how that landmark of a film really took effect. 1989's "Batman" arguably took the big budget studio extravaganza into a whole new realm, but that's a little bit down the road.

All that being said, the Oscars kind of took a step back in this decade. You can see in the twenty years prior, that while the "Best Picture" winners took some fairly safe routes, there were also quite a few out of left field winners and nominees. Even though there was a lot of potential for the 80's to be the most interesting decade for the Oscars, Big sprawling epics like "Gandhi" and "Out of Africa" along with bio-pics such as "Amadeus" kind of ruled the era; not that they were all bad, but this was the decade where some great genre films (sci-fi, horror, comedy, fantasy) really could have changed the scope of the Oscars for years to come.

But alas, the Academy kind of played it safe. The movies from the 80's that are still talked about today ("Back to the Future," "Ghostbusters," "Blade Runner," etc.) barely got a mention when it came time for the Oscar ballots to go out, but maybe in the end that's a good thing. Here's a look back at what did happen and what should have happened.

1980

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Peter O'Toole ("The Stunt Man") for Best Actor - "The Stunt Man" is actually my favorite movie from 1980, and I have a feeling very few people reading this have even heard of it. It's one of those cool mind-fuck movies where reality and fiction create some extremely blurry lines, and it's really one of the few movie-within-a-movie scenarios that works. O'Toole is just brilliant as the twisted director, Eli Cross. It's a film and a performance I don't want to get into too much detail about since I don't think I could do it any justice nor would I want to ruin the surprises in store for those that have never seen it. But trust me, O'Toole deserved the nomination, and could have been one of the coolest winners in Oscar history, but Robert De Niro had to fuck everything up by being brilliant in "Raging Bull." What an asshole.

Honorable Mentions: John Corigliano ("Altered States") for Best Original Score and Akira Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" for Best Foreign Language Film.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "The Blue Lagoon" for Best Cinematography - Nestor Almendros is one of the greats when it comes to cinematography ("Days of Heaven," "Sophie's Choice"), but "The Blue Lagoon" is not a very pretty picture any way you look at it. And with great looking pictures like "Empire Strikes Back," "Altered States," and "The Shining" left out in the cold, there is just no excuse for "Lagoon" being in the mix.

Honorable Mention - "Coal Miner's Daughter" for Best Picture.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Robert Redford ("Ordinary People") for Best Director - "Ordinary People" shouldn't have won Best Picture either, but that doesn't bother me as much as Redford's victory. Redford is a good director, but to beat out Martin Scorsese ("Raging Bull"), Roman Polanski ("Tess"), Richard Rush ("The Stunt Man"), and David Lynch ("The Elephant Man") is just asinine. Sadly this would not be the only time Scorsese lost to a first time actor turned director.

Honorable Mention: Mary Steenburgen ("Melvin and Howard") for Best Supporting Actress.

MOST DESERVING WIN - Robert De Niro (Raging Bull) for Best Actor - O'Toole would have been a really cool win for Best Actor, but I really can't argue against De Niro in the movie that should have won "Best Picture."

Honorable Mention - "Empire Strikes Back" for Best Sound and Special Achievement Award for Visual Effects - At least it won something.

BIGGEST SNUBS - "Empire Strikes Back" for Best Picture; "The Stunt Man" for Best Picture; "Dressed to Kill" for Best Original Screenplay; "The Long Good Friday" for Best Picture; Walter Matthau ("Hopscotch") for Best Actor; Stanley Kubrick ("The Shining") for Best Director. Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges could have all gotten Best Supporting Actor nods for their great work on "Airplane."

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - "The Final Countdown" or "Flash Gordon" for Best Original Song. Just to see Europe or Queen performing at the Academy Awards would be pretty awesome.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "Fame" for Best Original Screenplay - Apparently, "And then they dance" was just some of the best writing the Academy voters had ever read.

1981

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for Best Picture - I don't think this needs much explanation.

Honorable Mention - Susan Sarandon ("Atlantic City") for Best Actress.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Reds" for Best Picture - With movies like "Body Heat," "My Dinner With Andre," and "The French Lieutenant's Woman" not even on the Oscar radar, this overindulgent and boring ass film had no business even being in consideration.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "Chariots of Fire" for Best Picture - It beat "Raiders;" I don't care how good it is, it beat fucking "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Not to mention, "Raiders" was the hands on favorite to take down the prize, but fucking "Chariots" just had to ruin everything. We would soon learn that Spielberg's kryptonite is the Brits.

Honorable Mention - The "Arthur" theme for Best Original Song - it would have been much cooler to have seen Randy Newman win for his great song, "One More Hour" from "Ragtime" than for that awful "Toy Story 3" song he won for this year. And of course Warren Beatty beating Spielberg in the Best Director category was annoying, but I feel I already talked too much about the awful "Reds."

MOST DESERVING WIN - Rick Baker ("An American Werewolf in London") - there is a reason Baker took home his 9th Oscar in 2011, and "An American Werewolf in London" is some of the best make-up work film has ever had to offer.

Honorable Mention - Henry Fonda ("On Golden Pond") finally getting a Best Actor win; thankfully it was for an honest to god good film and performance.

BIGGEST SNUBS - "Body Heat" for best screenplay or Kathleen Turner for Best Actress; Griffin Dunne ("An American Werewolf in London") for Best Supporting Actor; "My Dinner With Andre" for Best Picture; Harrison Ford ("Raiders of the Lost Ark") for Best Actor; Bill Murray ("Stripes") for Best Actor. "Thief" for Best Picture, Screenplay, or Michael Mann for Best Director.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Kurt Russell ("Escape from New York") as Snake Plissken and Bruce Campbell ("The Evil Dead") as Ash gave two iconic performances that are remembered more today than anyone who was actually nominated in 1981; would have been cool to see either one of them get a nod. Or how about Burt Reynolds best film, "Sharky's Machine," getting a Best Picture or Screenplay nod.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - If you didn't think a low budget fantasy film could get a Best Original Score nominee you would be wrong because "Dragonslayer" did just that in 1981. The score is actually pretty good, but just to see it listed with the likes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Ragtime," and "Chariots of Fire" is very surreal.

1982

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Jerry Goldsmith ("Poltergeist") for Best Original Score - Goldsmith is not only one of the best composers, but he just picks the coolest movies to be involved with ("Gremlins," the original "Planet of the Apes," "The Omen," "Chinatown," "Star Trek" films, etc.), and his score for "Poltergeist" has always been one of my favorites. I guess it's hard for most to argue against him losing to John Williams for "E.T.," but I think he should have won. Honorable Mentions: "Eye of the Tiger" for best song from "Rocky III" and "Tron" for Best Costume Design.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Charles Durning ("Best Little Whorehouse in Texas") for Best Supporting Actor - I love Durning, but come on! "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas?" I have no problem with a great performance being recognized even if it's in a bad movie, but Durning is nothing special in this film, and I can guarantee that there was a better supporting performance that deserved to be in his place (Bill Murray in "Tootsie" for instance).

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Ben Kingsley ("Gandhi") for Best Actor - Nothing against Kingsley but 1982 produced three of my favorite acting performances, and they were all nominated: Paul Newman ("The Verdict"), Peter O'Toole ("My Favorite Year"), and Dustin Hoffman ("Tootsie"). Really only Jack Lemmon winning for "Missing" would have made it worse, but it should have gone to Newman (yet another great actor that eventually won for one of his worst roles: "The Color of Money"), and in a close second would be O'Toole and Hoffman. But this was "Gandhi's"year, so it went to Kingsley.

Honorable Mention - A very, very close runner-up is "Gandhi" winning for Best Art Direction; it beat "Blade Runner" for Christ sakes! Like I said, it was "Gandhi's" year.

MOST DESERVING WIN - "Quest for Fire" for Make-Up - Sadly, there was very little that deserved to win an Oscar in 1982, but "Quest for Fire" was one of the few films to beat "Gandhi" in any category, so it gets the mention here by default.

BIGGEST SNUBS - Where do I start? How about Eddie Murphy or Nick Nolte for acting honors in "48 Hrs;" Ricardo Montalban for Best Supporting Actor in "Star Trek II;" "Poltergeist" for Best Original Screenplay; "Blade Runner" for Best Picture. "Deathtrap" for Best Screenplay or Michael Caine for Best Actor; Sean Penn for Best Supporting Actor in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High;" "The Thing" for Best Visual Effects.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - George Romero ("Creepshow") for Best Director or Best Screenplay - still the coolest anthology ever made; talk about a sub-genre that has never gotten any love at the Oscars. And John Carpenter's "The Thing" was one of the best five films of 1982, and yes, I'm a Carpenter fan, but there are a lot of people out there that could care less about him that love this movie. And how cool would it have been to have seen "The Dark Crystal" nominated for Best Film?

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "Gandhi" for Sound - Because when I think of "Gandhi" all I can think of is how great it sounds; it did thankfully lose this award to "E.T." If only it could have lost the "Best Picture" award to "E.T." as well; the world might be a better place.

1983

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes ("Wargames") for Best Original Screenplay - "Would you like to play a game?" It's rare that such a high concept type film works, and it's even rarer that the screenplay is this good, and it really is this good, and it's even more rare that Oscar would ever recognize a movie like this. Ingmar Bergman was also nominated in this category for his great screenplay for "Fanny and Alexander;" how many foreign films have been nominated in this category? But they both lost to Horton Foote's screenplay for "Tender Mercies," which is yet another film that works almost solely on a great performance (Robert Duvall), so it winning for Best Original Screenplay makes absolutely no sense.

Honorable Mention: "The Right Stuff" for Best Picture.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Meryl Streep ("Silkwood") for Best Actress - I love Streep as much as the next guy, but this is such an overblown TV Movie of the Week posing as a big screen feature, and Steep is just not very good in it; the screenplay does her no favors; which leads me to my honorable mentions:

Honorable Mentions: "Silkwood" for Best Original Screenplay and Cher for Best Supporting Actress in...wait for it..."Silkwood."

Honorable Mention #2 (aka That Wasn't "Silkwood") - "The Big Chill" for Best Picture - Someone please explain to me the appeal of this damn movie.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "Terms of Endearment" for Best Picture - Three of the other nominees had no business being nominated: As stated above, I can't stand "The Big Chill," and both "The Dresser" and "Tender Mercies" are more about great performances, but then there's "The Right Stuff." I have some love for "Terms of Endearment;" it's one of only a handful of films that has ever made me cry, but it beat "The Right Stuff," and I just can't figure out a way to forgive it for that.

Honorable Mention: "Flashdance: What A Feeling" for Best Original Song - the other nominees were nothing special (per usual in this category), but I really can't stand this fucking song.

MOST DESERVING WIN - Jack Nicholson ("Terms of Endearment") for Best Supporting Actor - This is one of the few performances from the 80's on where Jack wasn't just being "Jack" if you know what I mean; it's a very stripped down and honest performance It's the 70's Nicholson that we all fell in love with returning for a brief moment. Like I said I have some love for "Terms of Endearment," and I'm glad this was one of Nicholson's wins.

Honorable Mention: "The Right Stuff" for Original Score.

BIGGEST SNUBS - "A Christmas Story" for Best Screenplay; Christopher Walken ("The Dead Zone") for Best Actor; William Hurt ("Gorky Park") for Best Actor; "Fanny and Alexander" for Best Picture; Jaime Lee Curtis ("Trading Places") for Best Supporting Actress; "Zelig" for Best Picture or Woody Allen for Best Director and/or Screenplay; Al Pacino ("Scarface") for Best Actor.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Sure it was a sequel to what was even then considered one of the greatest thrillers (if not films) ever made, but "Psycho II" is not half bad (It actually holds up very well), and Anthony Perkins was top notch in his return as Norman Bates; that would have been a cool Best Actor nominee. Also, David Cronenberg's cult classic "Videodrome" could have made for some interesting nominations: James Woods for Best Actor for instance; it would have been great if his clip would have been him pulling the gun out of his stomach.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "Flashdance" got nominated for Best Film Editing and Cinematography.

1984

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Pat Morita ("The Karate Kid") for Best Supporting Actor - The Mr. Miyagi character and stuff like "Wax On, Wax Off" has just become borderline parody at this point, so very few people seem to remember how really fucking good Morita was in this film. The film itself holds up nicely as well I might add (especially the hotness of Elisabeth Shue). But Morita deserved the nomination and in a world where the Oscars are fun and have some sort of meaning, he would have won. Yeah! I'm looking at you Mr. Haing S. Ngor ("The Killing Fields"); what have you done since you won your Oscar? I never saw you training Hilary Swank in "The Next Killing Fields" or popping up on the late night skin flick favorite, "Picasso Trigger."

Honorable Mentions: "Beverly Hills Cop" for Best Original Screenplay, Jeff Bridges ("Starman") for Best Actor, and "Ghostbusters" by Ray "Fucking" Parker Jr. for Best Original Song.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Splash" for Best Original Screenplay - the fact that "Splash" ever got made is amazing; the fact that "Splash" was actually a box office smash is unthinkable; and the fact that the screenplay would then get nominated is just flat out unforgivable.

Honorable Mention - Glenn Close ("The Natural") for Best Supporting Actress; in fairness, if there was a category for most ridiculous use of lighting of a character I think "The Natural" would be a slam dunk.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Sally Field ("Places in the Heart") - I'm now starting to think that I just don't care much for Sally Field (she's the first repeat in this category), but either way, Judy Davis ("A Passage to India") and Vanessa Redgrave ("The Bostonians") should have been the two nominees duking it out for this award, and Field shouldn't have even been on the radar.

MOST DESERVING WIN - "Amadeus" for Best Picture - I say this loosely because all I have to base it on is what it was up against ("The Killing Fields," "A Soldier's Story," "A Passage to India," and "Places in the Heart"), and therefore it deserved the prize. That being said, 1984 could have been a really fun year for the fanboys and girls out there at the Oscars, but the Academy did not see fit to reward us. But still, "Amadeus" is a great film, and most likely the best film that won Best Picture in the 80's so it deserves a mention.

Honorable Mention - "Amadeus" for Best Costume Design.

BIGGEST SNUBS - So "Ghostbusters" doesn't get nominated for Best Picture? Fine; the Academy has never shown much love for big budget comedies, and then you throw ghosts into the picture and you're really fucked. But what I can't forgive is that it didn't get a Best Screenplay nod; this is arguably the most quoted film of all time (My personal favorite line being "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown"), and yes, even then it was being quoted all over the damn place. So no "Ghostbusters" for Best Screenplay, but fucking "Splash" gets some love? Give me a break. Also, M. Emmett Walsh ("Blood Simple") for Best Supporting Actor, or the Coen brothers for Best Director; Eddie Murphy ("Beverly Hills Cop") for Best Actor; Francis Ford Coppola ("The Cotton Club") for Best Director; "Gremlins" for Best Visual Effects; Michael Douglas ("Romancing the Stone") for Best Actor; "This is Spinal Tap" for Best Picture or Screenplay and Christopher Guest for Best Supporting Actor.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - If all of those fucking Hobbit movies can get nominated for Best Picture then why no love for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?" Seriously, would you rather watch "The Two Towers" or "Temple of Doom?" (F.Y.I. - If your answer is "Two Towers" then you're an idiot.)

STRANGEST NOMINEE - To be honest, all of the nominees were pretty typical for the Academy, so the only thing that really stands out is how much more they could have brought to the Oscars in 84 with all of the stuff I mentioned above.

1985

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale ("Back to the Future") for Best Original Screenplay - "Back to the Future" probably deserved to be nominated for Best Picture in 1985, but there is no way in hell it was going to be, so it's pretty cool that the great screenplay got a nod. This might actually be one of the strongest years in this particular category, it was up against "Purple Rose Of Cairo," "Brazil," and the eventual winner, "Witness." I still think it should have won, but a great nomination either way. Honorable Mentions: Harrison Ford ("Witness"), after being looked over for stellar work in two "Star Wars" and two "Indiana Jones" films, finally got a deserving nod, and Jon Voight ("Runaway Train") was a pretty cool nomination in the Best Actor category as well. It does make you wonder why they decided it was okay to nominate a great performance in an action adventure film three years after "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but that is no offense to Voight. He was great and deserved the nomination.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Out of Africa" for Costume Design - Costume design has never been the most interesting category to anyone that really doesn't care at all about what people are wearing in a film (count me in that crowd of the non caring), so maybe someone who does follow this category religiously can explain to me what was so special about what they wore in "Out of Africa." There were some natives wearing what natives almost always wear in films, and Robert Redford and Meryl Streep look and dress like most people did in the early part of the 20th Century. I don't know why I care, but this just seems to me to be a throw in nomination since "Out of Africa" was in just about every other category, so why not for Costume Design as well? How about getting a little creative with a movie like "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" (Big and Colorful costuming) or something even more offbeat like "Brazil."

Honorable Mention - "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins" for Best Make-Up - They made Joel Grey look old and Asian, and you thought Robert Downey's character in "Tropic Thunder" could never possibly happen in real life? Oh you would be wrong. Mickey Rooney got so much shit (and deservedly so) for portraying an Asian in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," but there is no mention ever of Grey's ridiculous casting. Admittedly, he is pretty good in the role, but that still doesn't make it understandable as to why they didn't just cast an Asian actor in the role, and then for the Academy to nominate it? Oh, I give up.

MOST DESERVING WIN - Don Ameche ("Cocoon") for Best Supporting Actor - "Cocoon" is fairly typical for: A) A Ron Howard film and B) A schmaltzy and relentless Hollywood tear jerker. Still, that doesn't take away from the fact that Ameche is really good in the film, and as I've said before the Best Supporting category usually has some of the cooler nominations, and occasionally some of them actually win. This was one of those cases.

Honorable Mention - William Hurt ("Kiss of the Spider Woman") for Best Actor - It would have been cool to see Ford or Voight win, but Hurt was great as well, so no complaints.

BIGGEST SNUBS - Spielberg, it seems early on, would either lose to or get overlooked for a foreign director (when his film was nominated for Best Picture) and in this case Akira Kurosawa got nominated for "Ran," and while "The Color Purple" was nominated for Best Film, Spielberg failed to get a nod. Kurosawa was a great choice to include, but someone else could have been left out; "To Live and Die in L.A." deserved noms for both William Friedkin as director and William Petersen for Best Actor; and yet another great comedic performance got overlooked, and this time it was Chevy Chase in "Fletch" (Come on, naysayers, you know he deserved at least a mention.) And speaking of Kurosawa, "Ran" would have been a great Best Picture nomination.

THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE BOX - How cool would it have been to see Paul Reubens get a nomination for "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure;" I've also always found it strange how horror movies don't even get a mention usually in the special effects category, but 1985's "Re-Animator" would have been a great film to buck the trend; for the detached head performing oral sex scene alone would have made it well worth the nomination. Also, Chris Sarandon, might be the coolest effeminate male vampire in the history of cinema ("Fright Night"); his character's sweater collection alone deserved a nomination (That's some "Best Costuming" people!).

STRANGEST NOMINEE - Robert Loggia is one of the greatest character actors, so I'm not upset he got nominated in the Supporting Actor category, but for an 80's legal/sex thriller like "Jagged Edge" is very odd.

1986

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - David Lynch ("Blue Velvet") - This might actually be the coolest nominee ever; "Blue Velvet" was far and away my favorite film of 1986, and Lynch is the main reason why. Sure, standard Hollywood crap got nominated in the Best Picture category over it ("Children of a Lesser God" and "The Mission"), but at least they felt fit to give Lynch the directing nod (Randa Haines got left out for "Children"). His trippy model of suburban life involving a crazed Pabst Blue Ribbon drinker sucking on Oxygen (Dennis Hopper) and a naive dork (played brilliantly by Kyle MacLachlan) getting his world turned upside down by the very sexy and bug nuts Isabella Rossellini is a treasure to behold. And Lynch directs it as if these are the sanest surroundings ever to exist, and it makes the film that much better.

Honorable Mentions - Dennis Hopper ("Hoosiers") for Best Supporting Actor. He really could have been nominated twice in this category (See Above), but he's great in "Hoosiers" as well. He might have actually had his two best performances in '86. And I also have to give props to Sigourney Weaver getting a Best Actress nomination for "Aliens;" very cool.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Jane Fonda ("The Morning After") for Best Actress - You know after finding out Loggia was nominated for "Jagged Edge," and now this, I guess I didn't realize the Academy showed a decent amount of love for these 80's psychological thrillers, but "The Morning After" (with a by the numbers directing job by the great Sidney Lumet) is just silly, and Fonda's performance (not to mention her hair) doesn't help matters. It's just a stupid nomination especially when you consider Bette Midler was overlooked for two great performances ("Down and Out in Beverly Hills" and "Ruthless People") and Mia Farrow's Best Performance ("Hannah and Her Sisters") didn't get a nod even though the film was nominated all over the place in other categories.

Honorable Mentions - I already mentioned "The Mission" and "Children of a Lesser God" getting nominated for Best Picture was awful, but it deserves another round; these are just two very average, very boring films with some good performances thrown in the mix. Two of the worst nominees in this category in the history of the awards. Oh, and "Crocodile Dundee" was nominated for Best Screenplay, but remember, "Ghostbusters" wasn't two years before. So this was the comedy script they decided to go with? Disgusting.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Paul Newman ("The Color of Money") for Best Actor - I love, love Newman; I can't stress that enough, but his second portrayal of "Fast Eddie" Felson (This was a semi-sequel to the classic 1959 film, "The Hustler") is just so lifeless. This is by far the worst Newman performance I've ever seen, and it's the one he won the award for? Was the Academy that terrified that he would never do anything good again?

Honorable Mentions - "Room With a View" for Best Adapted Screenplay - just for the fact that it beat out the brilliant adaptation of Stephen King's "Stand By Me." This was a really cool year for nominations. And fucking "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun" winning for Best Original Song; "Mean Green Mother (From Outer Space)" from "Little Shop of Horrors" should have easily taken this trophy home.

MOST DESERVING WIN - "Platoon" for Best Picture - When I said "Amadeus was the best film to win this award in the 80's, I kind of forgot about "Platoon," so I will now change my opinion. "Platoon" was my 2nd favorite film of 1986 after "Blue Velvet," and it wasn't nominated, so I was perfectly fine with "Platoon" taking down the award. I really miss this younger and more focused Oliver Stone. Nowadays he just seems pissed about everything and that is really damaging his filmmaking abilities. Interesting side note, "Hannah and Her Sisters" would probably be my 3rd favorite film of '86 and it was also nominated for Best Picture; like I said, pretty cool year for nominations.

Honorable Mentions - "Aliens" for Visual Effects and "The Fly" for Make-up.

BIGGEST SNUBS - David Cronenberg ("The Fly") for Best Director; Rutger Hauer ("The Hitcher") for Best Supporting Actor; "Mona Lisa" for Best Picture and Neil Jordan for Best Director; "Ruthless People" for Best Original Screenplay; "Stand by Me" for Best Film; Christopher Walken and Sean Penn both deserved acting nods for the highly underrated (and shot in Franklin, TN) "At Close Range."

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - The character of Jack Burton from "Big Trouble in Little China" (I swear this is probably my last Carpenter shout out) has always been one of my favorites, and Kurt Russell embodies every essence of that coolness factor; would have been a sweet Best Actor Nominee. I would also have loved to have seen "Little Shop of Horrors" get nominated for Best Picture; that would have made my year.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" for Best Visual Effects - In some ways its' kind of cool that a pointless horror sequel got any kind of love from the Academy, but it had to be "Poltergeist II?" And from what I remember the effects are actually kind of terrible; especially that scene with the braces attacking the kid.

1987

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Albert Brooks ("Broadcast News") for Best Supporting Actor - The comedic performance Brooks gives in "Broadcast News" is right up there with just about anyone else you can come up with. The scene where he has to fill in as news anchor is one of my all time favorite comedy scenes; the sweating alone got him the nomination I'm sure. As much as I love Sean Connery's winning turn in "The Untouchables," Brooks should have won this by a landslide. Honorable Mentions - Anne Ramsey got nominated for her hilarious turn in the underrated "Throw Momma From the Train."

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Full Metal Jacket" for Best Adapted Screenplay - The first twenty to thirty minutes of "Full Metal Jacket" is very strong and gutwrenching in a good way, and then the film turns into something that is the exact opposite of that. It's as if Kubrick had this great short film in his mind, but then just didn't know where to go from there; and I would assume knowing Kubrick's takes on "2001," "The Shining," and "A Clockwork Orange" this is very "loosely" adapted.

Honorable Mention - Robin Williams ("Good Morning Vietnam") for Best Actor - I just don't get the appeal of the movie or Williams's performance in it.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "The Last Emperor" for Best Picture - "Hope and Glory," "Moonstruck," "Broadcast News," and "Fatal Attraction" made up 4/5 of one of the coolest and most versatile lists of Best Picture nominees in the show's history, but then the 5th film has to be a fine, if unoriginal, big sweeping epic and then goes on to win the whole damn thing.

Honorable Mention: "The Last Emperor" for Art Direction - The movie looks great (don't get me wrong), but it's a look that had been done so many times before. The Academy would have been better served to honor one of the other nominees like the intense gangster setting of the "Untouchables" or the fun slice of life on display in Woody Allen's "Radio Days."

MOST DESERVING WIN - Michael Douglas ("Wall Street") for Best Actor - What has always interested me most about this performance is that Michael Douglas is just not that intimidating of a person, so to cast him in this kind of larger than life role of a money hungry, blood-sucking leech was a bit of a stretch on Oliver Stone's part, but it worked out beautifully. Douglas walks the finest of lines with the character; he knows exactly how far to take it and when to pull it back. It's just genius all the way around; he deserved the win 100%.

BIGGEST SNUBS - Even though all three leads of "Broadcast News" got nominated as well as the script and it got a Best Cinematography nod, but James L. Brooks didn't get a nomination for Best Director? Mickey Rourke ("Angel Heart" or "Barfly") for Best Actor; Jack Nicholson ("Witches of Eastwick") for Best Suppoting Actor; David Mamet ("House of Games") for Best Screenplay; Robert Downey Jr. ("Less than Zero") for Best Supporting Actor; Chris Cooper ("Matewan") for Best Actor; Charlie Sheen ("Wall Street") for Best Supporting Actor and the film for Best Picture.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - I realize it just wasn't understood in it's time, but "Throw Momma From the Train" is a brilliant dark comedic take on Hitchcock's Best Film (IMO), "Strangers on a Train." While Ramsey getting nominated was cool, both Billy Crystal, Danny DeVito, and the film itself all could have been nominated and I would have loved every second of it. And most people just think of it as a dumb action movie from the 80's, but "Robocop" is borderline brilliant satire, and a screenplay nomination would have been well deserved.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - The awful, and I mean awful, Bob Seger song, "Shakedown," from "Beverly Hills Cop II" was nominated for Best Original Song. God, I really hate that category.

1988

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Glenn Close ("Dangerous Liaisons") for Best Actress - Glenn Close's scenery chewing performance in the great "Dangerous Liaisons" is just a thing of beauty; the simple fact that she steals a lot of the picture away from the brilliant John Malkovich is reason enough to understand how great she is in this film.

Honorable Mentions - "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" for Best Cinematography; Charles Crichton ("A Fish Called Wanda") for Best Director; "Dangerous Liaisons" for Best Picture.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Joan Cusack ("Working Girl") for Best Supporting Actress - Best hair maybe, but supporting actress? I don't know; I've never been a huge fan of Cusack, but I'll admit she's given some memorable performances in the past but this wasn't one of them, and they also nominated Sigourney Weaver in this same category for her work in the film which was well deserved; I think Cusack's nom could have gone to someone more deserving from another movie.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "Rain Man" for Best Picture - Out of all the Best Picture winners in the 1980's, I can't think of one that deserved it less than Barry Levinson's overwrought and just flat out ignorant film. This is one of those films that I've gone back and watched a couple of times since to see if my feelings towards it have changed, and the damn thing just gets worse every time. I will go ahead and include Dustin Hoffman's win for Best Actor in this rant if for no other reason than Tom Cruise (the one bright side to the film) acts circles around him at every turn. And I still can't figure out how this is supposed to be a "Feel Good" movie on any level when it's borderline depressing the whole tedious way through. God, I hate this movie!

MOST DESERVING WIN - Kevin Kline ("A Fish Called Wanda") for Best Supporting Actor -Since he really doesn't do much anymore, I forget just how great of an actor Kline is, and this is his tour de force performance, and he actually won for it. Amazing! When you look at all of the great actors in the 1980's, Kline never seems to be on anyone's radar, and he damn well should be.

Honorable Mention - Peter Biziou ("Mississippi Burning") for Best Cinematography - I don't have a whole lot of love for this movie, but it's a beautiful picture to look at and Biziou, like Kline, really doesn't get enough credit. The problem is most of the movies he does work on are not all that great, but you can always say that it was a great looking film (i.e., "Derailed," "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," and "9 1/2 Weeks"). The man did do "The Truman Show," "Damage," and "Time Bandits," so they are not all bad.

BIGGEST SNUBS - John Malkovich ("Dangerous Liaisons") for Best Actor (this one peeves me off almost as much as "Ghostbusters" not getting a screenplay nom); Eddie Murphy ("Coming to America") for Best Actor; Tim Robbins ("Bull Durham") for Best Supporting Actor; Stephen Frears ("Dangerous Liaisons") for Best Director; Robert De Niro or Charles Grodin ("Midnight Run") for Acting; Michael Caine ("Without a Clue") for Best Supporting Actor.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Just like a broken record, I will say again that comedies get noticed rarely enough at the Academy Awards, and parodies are just flat out toxic, but how fucking cool would it have been to see Leslie Nielsen get nominated for Best Actor for his brilliant work in "Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad?" He would have deserved it.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - The tear jerker, "Beaches," got nominated for Best Art Direction. Of what? Fucking beaches?

1989

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Woody Allen ("Crimes and Misdemeanors") for Best Director - This was one of the strangest years ever at the Academy Awards; Allen got nominated for his best film (imo), but the film didn't. He bumped out Bruce Beresford, who's "Driving Miss Daisy" would take home Best Picture. Who cares? It's great Allen got nominated because like I said, they don't get any better than this in the Woody Allen library, and he should have won too. Oliver Stone would take home the prize for "Born on the Fourth of July." Stone did a fine job, but Allen deserved it.

Honorable Mention - Danny Aiello ("Do the Right Thing") for Best Supporting Actor.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Dead Poet's Society" for Best Picture - If there is a beloved 80's film I hate more than "Rain Man," it might very well be "Dead Poet's Society." And while I do like the occasional Barry Levinson film, I absolutely love the majority of "Poet's" director, Peter Weir's, work. So I have no idea what went wrong here, but this movie is just so melodramatic and just so...well...awful (I can't think of more fitting term). People learn to love or hate Milton (never really completely got the gist of that) and are able to break out of the mold that their prep school tries to form around them; oh, these poor son's of rich people. And it all comes down to a climax involving a suicide attempt because the dude's dad doesn't want him to be an actor. Fucking really?

Honorable Mention - Dan Aykroyd ("Driving Miss Daisy") for Best Supporting Actor.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "Driving Miss Daisy" for Best Picture - When the director doesn't even get nominated for the film that wins, that should tell you something. "Driving Miss Daisy" is a film full of wonderful performances (with the exception of Aykroyd), but yet again just because you have great acting doesn't mean you have a great picture, and this is a prime example.

Honorable Mention - "Under the Sea" ("The Little Mermaid") for Best Song - just for the simple fact that the film's other song that got nominated, "Kiss the Girl," is much better.

MOST DESERVING WIN - Denzel Washington ("Glory") for Best Supporting Actor - It's gotten harder each year to remember why I consider Washington to be one of the best actors working today, but then I go back and watch him act his ass off in "Glory" and remember why.

Honorable Mention - "Cinema Paradiso" for Best Foreign Language film.

BIGGEST SNUBS - Michael Douglas ("War of the Roses") for Best Actor or the film for Best Screenplay; Meg Ryan ("When Harry Met Sally") for Best Actress; "Crimes and Misdemeanors" for Best Picture; "Do the Right Thing" for Best Picture and Spike Lee for Best Director; "Parenthood" for Best Picture or Steve Martin for Best Actor; "Steel Magnolias" for Best Screenplay.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Just for the dialogue alone, it would have been cool to see "Major League" get a Best Screenplay nod.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - Can a sequel using the same music be nominated for Best Original Score? Well, apparently because "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" did just that. Good score, but if they are going to be so fucking hard ass with the rules for Best Original Song, shouldn't the Score have to fall under the same restrictions. So that's the 80's, and it didn't take quite a month after the first installment. So, by my rate, we should have the 90's up by the end of May.

An Apology

2011-04-04T11:37:00.003-05:00

I don't know how many people care, but for those that do, I thought I would offer an apology for the ridiculous lateness of my Oscar retrospectives, and for that matter anything for awhile on my 35 Years of Pop Culture thingee. I was able to do the 1975-1979 posting in a matter of two nights; it was only 5 years to cover, and I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. I could do at least one of these a week for three weeks or so and I would be done with that portion of 35YOPC, but like many things in life, it didn't work out as planned. I spent the next three weeks working on the 80's portion. Basically, life happened. Work got busier, and I have a pregnant wife, dogs to take care of, family came into town, etc. And most importantly the Oscar thing just took longer than I thought it would. It basically takes me an hour at the minimum to do one year's worth. So essentially over the next three nights, whenever I had an hour to spare I would try to crank a year out. Another thing I discovered is that Blogger does not like you to keep things saved in drafts for too long. And when I would come back to work on it a few days later, the format would be completely screwed up, and in some cases sections that I had typed were gone. So then it became extremely annoying and more time consuming because I would have to clean a bunch of stuff up and then get to the new sections. So, as of now, 1980-1989 is complete, but blogger is not letting me posting it unless I want it to be one long paragraph and cause everyone to go blind from reading it. I've tried to fix it a few times witn no success, so I don't know what to do. I have other lists of things waiting in the background, but I wanted to get the Oscar thing done first, but now that we are well past the airing of the Academy awards it's becoming kind of moot anyways. So not sure what will happen from here, but I am trying to figure something out. I assure you more lists will be coming (even if they have nothing to do with the Oscars), and hopefully at a more rapid pace. Just wanted to let anyone know following all of this what was going on, and thanks for reading. And as you can see, this is one long paragraph as well, so what's up, Blogger?

35 YOPC - 35 Years Of Oscar (1975-1979)

2011-03-02T21:17:00.006-06:00

With arguably the worst Oscar telecast in my lifetime behind us (Seriously, James Franco, you could have acted like you wanted to be there), I thought I would devote my next installment of "35 Years of Pop Culture" to the Oscars. This will be a pretty simple rundown of various aspects of each Oscar race from the films of 1975 to 2010. So you guys aren't having to read a novel, I will divide this up into four segments; 1975-1979 will be covered in this post, and will therefore be the shortest of the four.

I don't hate the Oscars by any means; they are what they are and some of the time they actually get it right. Sure it's irritating, especially starting in the 80's, that many genre films have not gotten the recognition that they deserve (especially comedies), but film is a realm of all kinds of fan bases, and I'm sure someone out there was really glad that Chicago won "Best Picture." Anyways, here goes. Hope all enjoy! Please add comments of what you think should have won, or shouldn't, or if you think I'm a stupid little girl or something. All opinions are appreciated.

1975

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Al Pacino (Dog Day Afternoon) - "Attica, Attica!" Easily one of my all time favorite performances ever in a film, and one of the main reasons Pacino has become my throwaway answer to "Who is your favorite actor?" It's hard to argue against Nicholson winning for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; although more on my feelings of that film later, but I like to pretend that Pacino's ridiculous win for Scent of a Woman (probably more on that later as well) was more for his unfortunate losses for performances like this.

Honorable Mention: Fellini's directing nod for the brilliant Amarcord.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Barry Lyndon (Best Picture) - I love Kubrick, and I don't dislike Lyndon by any means, but it's not a great film, and there were plenty of more deserving ones that year.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Best Picture) - I'm sorry, but Jaws like Citizen Kane and Psycho before it completely changed the cinematic landscape, and so how do you not award that kind of achievement? Granted, Kane and Psycho didn't win either.

MOST DESERVING WIN - Louise Fletcher (Best Actress for Cuckoo's Nest) - Nurse Ratched is just one of those great classic cinema roles that are few and far between and Fletcher nailed it in every sense of the word.

BIGGEST SNUBS - It's great Fellini got nominated in the directing category, but how do you not honor Steven Spielberg (Jaws) with at least a nomination? If you were going to knock out one of the Best Picture nods for Fellini, why not have it be Milos Forman ("Cuckoo's Nest") or Kubrick?

Honorable Mentions: Three Days of the Condor for Best Screenplay; Roy Schneider, Richard Dreyfus, and Robert Shaw could have all gotten acting nods for Jaws.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Dario Argento (Deep Red) for Best Director.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "The Hindenburg" got 4 nominations and two wins. The wins were "Special Achievement" awards for sound and visual effects (which have their own categories now), but still: "The Hindenburg?" Really?

1976

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Laurence Olivier for Best Supporting Actor in "Marathon Man" - the Supporting Actor/Actress category has always been one of my favorites; it seems to be one of the few that the Academy isn't scared to think a little outside of the box with, and for his evil Dentistry scene alone he deserved the nomination.

Honorable Mention: Robert Deniro for Best Actor in "Taxi Driver." Yes, he actually didn't win.

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Talia Shire for Best Actress in "Rocky" - Shire has never been a good actress (I don't care who she's related to), and while the love story really works in "Rocky" and makes it something other than just another "Boxing" movie - that has more to do with the script and Stallone.

Honorable Mention: Best Picture nominee "Bound for Glory."

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Peter Finch for Best Actor in "Network" - Don't misunderstand me, Finch is brilliant, and I would have loved to have seen "Network" take the Best Picture prize from "Rocky" (which I love as well), but come on? How does Deniro not win for his iconic turn in "Taxi Driver?"

MOST DESERVING WIN - "Harlan County U.S.A." for Best Documentary - It's surprising how the Oscars seems to screw up this category more than any other (look no further than "Exit Through a Gift Shop" losing out this year), but here they got it so right. One of my top ten favorite docs of all time.

Honorable Mention: "The Omen" for Best Original Score

BIGGEST SNUBS - "Taxi Driver" got the Best Picture nod but no directing nod for Scorcese? "The Outlaw Josey Wales" for Best Picture; Richard Pryor or Gene Wilder for their great acting turns in "Silver Streak." Brian DePalma ("Carrie") for Best Director.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - John Carpenter ("Assault on Precinct 13) for Best Director or even better, Best Original Score.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - Best Cinematography: "King Kong" - It's as if they felt bad for how big of a financial disappointment it was. Because trust me, this is one ugly fucking movie.

1977

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Woody Allen ("Annie Hall") for Best Actor - Allen has been nominated a total of 21 times, but this was the only acting nod he ever got, and he deserved it. This is one of the classic comedic performances and I actually wouldn't have minded seeing him win based on his competition. He lost to Richard Dreyfus for "The Goodbye Girl."

Honorable Mentions - John Travolta ("Saturday Night Fever") for Best Actor, Sir Alec Guinness ("Star Wars") for Best Supporting Actor, and Steven Spielberg ("Close Encounters of the Third Kind") for Best Director

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "The Goodbye Girl" for Best Picture - Sometimes great performances don't translate into a Best Picture worthy nominee, and "The Goodbye Girl" is a prime example of this phenomenon.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Jason Robards ("Julia") for Best Supporting Actor - The Academy had a hard on for Robards for a couple of years (He won in the same category the previous year for "All the President's Men"), and Robards was a great actor, but this was one of the weakest years for this category. Sir Alec Guinness should have won easily as Obi Wan Kenobi (and I'm not even a huge "Star Wars" fan).

MOST DESERVING WIN - "Annie Hall" for Best Picture - This is one of the few years where I think they nailed it in the Best Picture category, plus I will always celebrate a great comedy getting a win since so few get nominated.

BIGGEST SNUBS - Christopher Walken ("Annie Hall") for Best Supporting Actor; "Saturday Night Fever" for Best Picture; William Friedkin ("Sorcerer") for Best Director; Harrison Ford ("Star Wars") for Best Supporting Actor.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - Jim Abrams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker ("Kentucky Fried Movie") for Best Original Screenplay; George Romero ("Martin") for Best Director.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - "Airport 77" got nods for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Who said horrible sequels never get any love?

1978

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - Woody Allen ("Interiors") for Best Original Screenplay - Allen's early dramas get lost in the midst of all of his comedies, but they shouldn't and "Interiors" is a great example of why. And the fact that he lost to the overindulgent and horribly dated "Coming Home" is flat out annoying.

Honorable Mention - "Ready to Take a Chance Again" for Best Original Song from "Foul Play."

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Hopelessly Devoted to You" for Best Original Song from "Grease" - The "Original Song" category has so many stupid restrictions that eliminated all of the other better songs from "Grease" since they were from the play, but even with that being the case, to stick a terrible song from the movie just because it was the highest grossing musical at the time is still ridiculous.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - "The Deer Hunter" for Best Picture - If they had a "Best Scene/Sequence" category, then I would give the "Russian Roulette" scene an immediate win. It's a brilliant bit of film making and storytelling, but the rest of the movie? Pretty bland in my opinion. But to be honest, this was one of the worst "Best Picture" groupings in the history of the awards (especially considering how many groundbreaking films were released in 78), but I still would have given it to "Midnight Express" or "An Unmarried Woman" over "Deer Hunter."

MOST DESERVING WIN - Nestor Almendros ("Days of Heaven") for Best Cinematography- It's one of the most beautifully shot movies ever.

BIGGEST SNUBS - "Halloween" for Best Picture and John Carpenter for Best Original Score and Best Director; John Belushi ("Animal House") for Best Supporting Actor; George A. Romero ("Dawn of the Dead") for Best Director; Christopher Reeve for Best Actor or Gene Hackman for Best Supporting Actor in "Superman;" Dustin Hoffman ("Straight Time") for Best Actor.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - "Dawn of the Dead" or "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" for Best Picture; with these two movies and "Halloween," 1978 was a great year for the horror genre.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - The killer bee themed disaster movie, "The Swarm," got nominated for Best Costume.

1979

COOLEST NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Alien" getting nominated for Best Art Direction - I think it should have gotten cinematography as well, but when one of the best looking films ever gets noticed in any of these types of categories I'll take it.

Honorable Mentions - Al Pacino's Best Actor nod for chewing up as much scenery as possible in the otherwise unimpressive "...And Justice For All." ("You're All Out of Order!!!"); "The Rainbow Connection" getting a nod for "Best Original Song" from "The Muppet Movie."

LEAST DESERVING NOMINEE THAT DIDN'T WIN - "Norma Rae" for Best Picture - Sally Field is great (We really like you), but the movie itself is just preachy and predictable.

LEAST DESERVING WIN - Robert Benton ("Kramer Vs. Kramer") for Best Director - I actually do like "Kramer vs. Kramer" but Benton sure as hell didn't deserve a directing win over the likes of Bob Fosse's dreamlike vision with "All That Jazz" or Francis Ford Coppola's take no prisoners film making approach in "Apocalypse Now."

MOST DESERVING WIN - Melvyn Douglas ("Being There") for Best Supporting Actor - Many think Robert Duvall was robbed for his entertaining performance in "Apocalypse Now," and in any other year I might agree, but I just think Douglas's understated performance in "Being There" is a thing of beauty. I would not be upset if Duvall had won, but I'm glad Douglas got recognized.

BIGGEST SNUBS - "Alien" for Best Picture and Ridley Scott for Best Director; Martin Sheen ("Apocalypse Now") for Best Actor; Don Siegel ("Escape from Alcatraz") for Best Director; Best Screenplay (or Picture) for "Life of Brian."

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX - "The Muppet Movie" for Best Picture; Angus Scrimm ("Phantasm") for Best Supporting Actor as the mysterious and frightening Tall Man.

STRANGEST NOMINEE - The Best Sound category has never been the most prestigious award and plenty of nonsensical action spectacles get nominated every year, but the extremely awful disaster movie, "Meteor," just doesn't deserved to be noticed anywhere except for maybe The Razzies.

1980-1989 will be up by this weekend hopefully. Peace.

Attention Stupid People: An Open Letter To NFL Fans

2011-02-15T15:47:00.002-06:00

You are the problem here, whether you realize it or not.

None of you want a lockout or a players strike, yet that appears to be where we're headed. Why? Because of you idiots.

The owners want more money. The players want more money. And you know why this is your fault? Because they're arguing over your money! Every dime that trickles down to NFL owners and players originates in your pocket.

By all rights, we should be a fully recognized third-party at the bargaining table, because without us there's nothing to fight over.

Alas, the owners and players know what I know: that fans are too damn stupid, selfish, and lazy to ever take ownership of their part of the game.

Far be it from me to make Men In Black sound like a source of wisdom, but remember what Tommy Lee Jones says to Will Smith, when asked about why they don't just tell the public that aliens exist:

"A person is smart... people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

On our own, we have strong opinions and can actually make a good deal of sense. But as a group... forget about it.

The NFL knows that no matter how pissed off individual fans get, they'll never be motivated enough to actually band together over any kind of boycott or solidarity. They know that no matter how long you have to wait for football, your appetite will not be diminished. They know that, even if it takes a little time, you'll come crawling back to the game you love... buying PSL's and jerseys and $8 hot dogs just the same as you used to.

You make me sick. If there is a lockout, I won't be calling out Goodell or Mawae or anyone else from the two sides. I'll be calling out the same group that's to blame for electing crappy presidents and making Real Housewives a hit show: you assholes.

The Art of Conspiracy

2011-02-07T17:05:00.002-06:00

Recently, I watched a number of disasters on YouTube. It's a long story of how I just up and started watching horrible events one day, but the gruesome viewing began with the Ramstein air show disaster in 1988. Then I went to the Challenger space shuttle explosion that occurred on my birthday back in 1986, an event I remember for being outside at recess and then spending the rest of the day watching news coverage at school. And then, of course, there's 9/11.

If you're not familiar with what's going on almost 10 years later, 9/11 has become the new JFK for conspiracy theories.

I'll fully admit that I've been drawn to conspiracy theories in the past. I accepted Oliver Stone's JFK as total, stunning, absolute fact for years. I'm an open-minded guy, so if you give me a compelling argument that I cannot refute and can't find evidence against, I'm willing to go along. The thing is, JFK came out in 1991, before the height of the information age. And it can be argued that even 9/11, back in 2001, was before the age where information was everywhere.

Now I know some people just basically are wired to believe the official explanation immediately, and God bless you guys. I tend to want to know down to the last detail. I am willing to concede certain things until I get the information I need. One of the things that bothered me about 9/11 was the collapse of WTC 7, probably the gateway drug into 9/11 conspiracy. Almost anyone looking at the building, un-struck by planes and containing just a few small fires, might wonder why the building just collapses. That bothered me, too. I have gotten to the point in my belief system though, that there is likely a logical, non-conspiratorial reason for it...but I'd like to know what the reason is. (Thankfully, there are some people smarter than me who have posted videos on YouTube explaining how much damage WTC 7 actually took before collapsing).

Now, I'm not going into all the theories and different conspiracies here. My post is spurred on by a completely coincidental airing of 9/11 Science and Conspiracy on National Geographic soon after my YouTube viewings. The program focuses on scientific debunking of the conspiracy theories, with 9/11 "truthers" watching on and basically saying, "This scientific experiment is complete hogwash!"

My curiosity now focuses on, "What makes people believe in a conspiracy?" The 9/11 Science and Conspiracy program takes time to talk to people who offer their theories on why people believe what they believe, and their points are valid, but I think even they go a little too far in explaining it. It's a bit of an irony when the people grounded in truth offer somewhat elaborate reasons for why people who dabble in the unknowable believe what they do.

As someone who has believed in some conspiracy theories, I believe the first element of it comes from having a skeptical mind about anything that is presented to you. I believe people with this kind of mind have been fooled before by something and found that being fooled was an embarrassing situation. They start quoting The Who and claiming, "We Won't Get Fooled Again!"

And that's how conspiracy builds, and then never gets beaten down. In The X-Files, creator Chris Carter made a brilliant role-reversal between two characters in order to ensure his science fiction series was "grounded" in its beliefs. Fox Mulder would normally be the nut, while scientific Dana Scully would be the one to put an end to all this. But what happens is, tons of weird, absolutely beyond-scientific occurrences happen on the show, and it's Scully who is the nut who keeps saying, "There's an explanation! It can't be what I just saw in front of my eyes!"

So if I let something strange enter my head and say, "Wait a minute...that just doesn't seem right," and then start finding odd coincidences or little things that can't be immediately explained, and then have others who think the way I do who reinforce that belief...well, then you want to dig deeper. I think the conspiracy theorists have fallen victim to the "Won't Get Fooled Again" problem because it's a self-reinforcing policy. Here's what I mean:

By allowing the official explanation to be your belief, you are now allowing the possibility that you are being bamboozled. A conspiracy theorist never wants to allow for the idea they are being fooled, so it's easier to say, "We aren't getting all the facts." No matter how stupid one sounds trying to debunk an official explanation, the core idea that, "You can't get anything past me" still holds. I watched with some amusement and horror as truthers were presented facts and were extremely quick to go on the offensive. One man incorrectly referred to the argument against him as a "straw man" argument. Let me explain:

Conspiracy theorists believe the World Trade Center buildings were taken down by controlled demolition, that the official explanation (that intense heat melted steel girders on one floor, causing the collapse of the remaining floors above it, creating several tons of pressure on the remaining floors below) is a laughable lie. So, in order to prove that such intense heat could make the girders fail, NatGeo got a group of professionals together to burn a steel girder with jet fuel. And it's no surprise the girder failed in about 4 minutes. So one guy says, "Well, that's not what I'm saying. It's a straw man argument." Straw Man fallacy is where one person takes a position, and then another person distorts the position in order to make the other person sound stupid. Salesmen use it: "Do you want to make a ton of money at home selling commonly-used products to people around the world?" When you say, "No, that doesn't appeal to me," the salesman returns with, "You mean, making tons of money doesn't appeal to you?"

And yet, conspiracy theorists say that the melting of the steel girders could not have caused a collapse, even when it is shown to them. The reason why is that the conspiracy is no longer a search for the truth, it's a belief, and to be shaken from that belief is to admit that you can now be fooled. So once the theories get debunked, the conspiracy theorist says, "Well, these people doing the test are obviously on the take. The government and multi-million dollar corporations tell them what results to find." One demolitions expert said it best, "It's like Whack-A-Mole. You keep slamming one theory down and then another comes up. And then you slam that one down, and another comes up."

Nothing can possibly change a conspiracy theorist's mind. You could have streaming video of 10 years of every inch of the World Trade Center before the attacks, video of all the planes in the sky, all the evidence in the world, and there will always be a crack in the story. These videos were obviously doctored! When will we see the real video?

I felt the need to write about it just because of my own dabbling into conspiracy theories. I think the difference between me and those who make it their life is that I'm willing to shake my beliefs. I'm not worried about being fooled. I'll always be curious and entertain those ideas, because I think it's important in any field of study to take on all points of view in order to get closer to the truth, or at least debunk other possibilities.

I remember reading an article about one of the original, actual, CSI guys and how he built his cases. In one particular murder case, the defendant claimed that the reason why the blood pattern on the wall appeared the way it did was because the victim shook his/her head in such a way. Well, he tested this theory out, ridiculous as it seemed, and came up with the conclusion that there was no way the events went down as the defendant said it did. When asked on the witness stand if the defendant could be telling the truth, the CSI guy said that there was no way that it happened like that. The defense lawyer then said, "You couldn't have possibly done an experiment in which you know for sure," and the CSI guy responded, "I have done that exact experiment."

I love stuff like that.

Jeff Fisher Is Out

2011-01-28T11:30:00.003-06:00

Considering what he might have had to work with if the upcoming season wasn't canceled, I'm not surprised Jeff Fisher is no longer the Tennessee Titans head coach. It was looking like he wouldn't be here past next year anyway. How was he expected to win with his assistants bailing and an uncertain future at quarterback, no matter which of the names might have come here.

For years, I'd felt Fisher had taken this team as far as he possibly could, and I wished he would move on. The usual response to that was, "Well, who would the Titans get to replace him?" The fact is, once you're stuck with a guy you don't have much confidence in anymore, it really doesn't matter. You just want someone new, and hope that even if the new guy isn't very good, it leads to a better hire.

I think once a man in a certain position has had success with his style, and Fisher experienced it early in his tenure with a Super Bowl trip in 1999, then that's exactly the style you are going to get no matter what the personnel. I think it's perceived, right or wrong, that a man in Fisher's position just can't adjust to another way of doing things if the personnel isn't there. Rather than, "this might work," it's "Well, this worked before so we're going to keep doing it, even if it's a massive failure right now."

And what I'm getting to with Fisher's style is, he liked vanilla offense with the very rare twist. He liked to run the ball, with little deception. And the discipline on these teams could get very frustrating. I don't think the Titans were ever a huge overall penalties/yardage team (except this year), but they always seemed to get a penalty at the wrong time, at a crucial moment in the game. That's at least the perception I've had over the years.

So I sort of got tired of that whole thing. I'd like to see something different, because we experienced a lot of 8-8's and one-and-dones in the playoffs. We were hoping that Fisher could replicate 1999 every year, forgetting how lucky the Titans were back then and how that Bills game was a few seconds away from being the type of loss we'd later come to expect from them. Because Fisher liked to play a pounding run game with very few points scored, it meant that any mistake could turn the game on its ear, despite completely dominating teams in the stat category. Famously, in 2000, the Titans lost one of their defining playoff games against the Ravens after having outgained them in every offensive category except the score, because turnovers absolutely killed the "dominance" they were otherwise enjoying.

We like Fisher because of those happy feelings from 1999 and his no-nonsense approach appealed to Nashville, and it will be sad to see him go because we've lived with him so long. Many of us are ready to gamble that this franchise will be a perennial 4-12 team by putting in a new guy, because we know what we get with Fisher and it's hard to imagine his style would have taken them far ever again, even when they havethe better team on the field. In the end, Fisher underachieved more than he achieved, and despite the idea that the Titans might be worse off without him, it's something I'm ready to accept.

3-D's Likely Future

2011-01-26T13:33:00.002-06:00

It might surprise many of you, being a part of the movie theatre industry, but I am very much against 3-D, especially its complete overuse that Avatar basically ushered in 2009, having studios scramble to convert their 2-D product to 3-D for the extra buck.

I've been seeing some terrific railing against 3-D on Ebert's site, which currently has a link to this letter from master editor/sound mixer Walter Murch. Murch knows a thing or two about film, and he approaches the argument against 3-D scientifically.

Back in the early stages of the rebirth of 3-D, the films that were coming out, like Meet the Robinsons, were easily outgrossing their 2-D counterparts (percentage-wise). It was a novelty, and people were willing to shell out some extra dollars to see something new. But now, everything that gets the 3-D treatment seems to feel the need to show it off in some way. 3-D really only works when it comes to showing depth. It really doesn't work at all when "things are flying out of the screen at you." The effect is almost always bad, since the image coming off the screen has an unusual termination, and the effect is lost.

2010 was littered with 3-D content, but it's just a sampling of what you're going to see in 2011. Almost every tentpole release this summer will be available in 3-D:

May 6: Thor

May 13: Priest

May 20: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

May 27: Kung Fu Panda 2

June 17: Green Lantern

June 24: Cars 2

July 1: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

July 15: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

July 22: Captain America: The First Avenger

August 3: The Smurfs

August 19: Fright Night and Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World

August 26: Final Destination 5

And that's forgetting many of these movies are long-in-the-tooth sequels, 3-D or not.

The problem with this slate is that most of these movies would do good or great business without the 3-D premium. And once these movies hit and make their money, it's going to be "proof positive that 3-D is viable," because the studios are going to see the grosses and believe that the ends justify the means. Over the past year, I've seen a noticeable change in family film-going where the 2-D version of a movie is favored over the 3-D. Never so much as with Tangled, a movie that is approaching $200 million, and obviously didn't need 3-D to be profitable.

As always, the consumer has the power to stop, or at least slow, the number of 3-D films they are shoving down your throat. Most of these will have 2-D brothers, but really, avoiding a movie altogether if you can help it will send the message.

35 YEARS OF POP CULTURE - 50 WORST SEQUELS

2011-01-24T21:34:00.008-06:00

If you need to read the intro about my year long retrospective you can scroll down a bit or just click here.

When I was going through all of the movies released over the last 35 years that I consider the worst of the worst I realized something; if I just made a general worst list it would pretty much all be sequels. Because if there was one thing the past 35 years has given us in abundance, it's a lot of shitty sequels.

So, I have decided to divide up my "Worst of Movies" list into a few sections; the first of which is the sequels' list. I had to set up a couple of guidelines. First, the movies had to have played at least initially in theaters. There is way too much direct to video/dvd nonsense (and I've unfortunately seen a lot of it); it would make this list nearly impossible to keep to just 50. So, Leprechaun in Space or Leprechaun in the Hood if you prefer will not be on this list even though both of those films completely deserve to be. Second, I have decided to limit myself to one film per series. This whole list could have seriously just been Friday the 13th and Police Academy movies, so in certain series I just had to pick the worst of the worst.

Also, obviously (and I will try not to repeat this every time because I assume that most people reading this are of average intelligence), I haven't seen everything. So here's a list of universally panned sequels over the past 35 years that I have yet to witness (and probably never will), so when you ask why wasn't that on the list? You now have an answer: Smokey and the Bandit 2 and 3, Death Wish 2-5, Porky's 2-3, Missing in Action 2-3, Arthur 2, Problem Child 2, Return to the Blue Lagoon, 102 Dalmatians, Next Friday, Crocodile Dundee in L.A., Men in Black 2, Analyze That, Meet the Fockers, Little Fockers, Look Who's Talking Now, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Son of the Mask, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Big Momma's House 2, Basic Instinct 2, The Grudge 2, Van Wilder 2, High School Musical III, Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakul, Sex and the City 2, Dumb and Dumberer, Lara Croft - Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Pink Panther 2 (2009), and 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

On to the Fun Part...

50. ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996) - If there was ever a film to show John Carpenter just didn't give a damn anymore, look no further than his sequel to his 1981 hit, Escape from New York. Snake Plissken (one of the greatest creations in the history of film) is neutered beyond repair in what is basically a modern update of the original. Although, not sure if modern is the correct term. Basically instead of everyone saying "I thought you were dead," they say "I thought you were taller." Instead of boxing there's basketball, etc. And the trendy Los Angeles satire is broad minded and not funny; wait till you see Beverly Hills and the people that have had had way too much plastic surgery. Oh, and Peter Fonda surfs at one point for some reason. This movie ended up barely making back Kurt Russell's salary (around 10 million), so apparently I'm not alone in this assessment.

49. HANNIBAL (2001) - In all fairness, this could have been a lot worse, and it's a hell of a lot better than the novel it's based on. However, it's still a pile of shit. It's debatable as to whether or not Julianne Moore is a better actress than Jodie Foster, but she's not a better Clairice Starling (her attempt at a Southern accent is enough to make this list). Lecter is much more menacing behind bars, and Gary Oldman's over the top villain doesn't help matters. Also, the eating of Ray Liotta's brain while he's still alert just has to be seen to be believed.

48. AIRPLANE 2: THE SEQUEL (1982) - Surprisingly there were quite a few decent sequels made to parodies over the past 35 years (Naked Gun 2 1/2, Hot Shots Part Deux, etc.), but this isn't one of them. Part of the problem is none of the original creative team is around to help out, and the bigger problem is it's not funny. That's a pretty detrimental when dealing with a comedy.

47. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END (2007) - This movie is a prime example of why sequels are rarely a good idea. It's the art of over indulgence; take everything that worked in the first two films (I actually kind of like the 2nd one) and make it a lot bigger. Bigger is rarely better when it comes to films, and this is an eye opening testament to that assessment.

46. BLADE: TRINITY (2004) - David Goyer is a decent writer, and the first two films in the series take his reasonably strong scripts and combine them with talented filmmakers (Stephen Norrington and Guillermo Del Toro). However, Goyer is not a very good director, and his script for this film (whether or not there is one is debatable) is the weakest of the bunch which doesn't help matters. Add in a ton of overacting (Ryan Reynolds, Parker Posey) and a pissed off main star (Wesley Snipes), and you get a train wreck, but it's not a fun one. The decision to use slow motion in an establishing shot of Jessica Alba hooking up her ipod is just one lovely example of why this movie sucks.

45. MOONRAKER (1979) - There are plenty of bad James Bond movies in this period (A View to a Kill, Never Say Never Again, For Your Eyes Only, Tomorrow Never Dies, Living Daylights), but none even come close to Moonraker. Rarely does the high concept work this poorly (James Bond in space). This was of course MGM's answer to the popularity of the Space Opera (Star Wars, Star Trek) in the 70's, and it didn't work. And it commits the worst sin a James Bond movie could commit, it's fucking boring.

44. STAR TREK V - THE FINAL FRONTIER (1989) - Talk about high concept blowing up in your face - Spock's half brother (Laurence Luckinbill) takes the Enterprise crew hostage so they can take him to meet up with...wait for it...GOD!!! And they find him (well sort of). Shatner's decree of "Why do you need a ship? You're God!" is kind of funny, but it doesn't even remotely help save this mess of a movie. Star Trek has done plenty of things wrong with their franchise, but the fact that this didn't put the final nail in the coffin is more amazing than anything else that came before or after in the franchise.

43. THE TWO JAKES (1990) - Maybe this could have been worse, but every time I think about this movie I just think: THEY FUCKING MADE A SEQUEL TO CHINATOWN! And to make it even worse, Jack Nicholson made the damn movie; he should fucking know better.

42. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II (2000) - John Woo, without a leash, gets you a lot of white doves, a ridiculous amount of slow motion, and a bunch of masks. Seriously, I still don't know who's who in this movie. They just keep taking off masks; it's weird and not good.

41. BEVERLY HILLS COP III (1994) - I actually kind of like the second BHC movie, but I understand people's complaints that Eddie Murphy needed to be a little more restrained. However, in BHC III they actually needed to let him loose. Murphy is just so damn dull in this movie. A serious minded BHC movie is not a pretty sight, and there was so much that could have been done with the setting at the amusement park, and director, John Landis, takes advantage of none of it. In fact, this looks like the most boring amusement park ever; who the fuck would go to this place? Maybe that's how drug smugglers were able to run their operation out of it.

40. BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997) - I thought for sure this would be higher up on the list. This use to be my token answer for "What's your least favorite movie of all time." But it's professionally made (which can be said for very few of the remaining films), and it just doesn't suck as bad as the ones that come after it on this list. But it still sucks. Teaming up Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy makes no sense from a political standpoint (one wants to freeze things, and one wants to keep everything green), and there's a fucking "Bat Credit Card." And I wasn't a huge fan of Tim Burton's overly Gothic look in his two Batman films, but Joel Schumacer's Las Vegas revue show wasn't much of an improvement. And oh my God, the one liners! "You won't put me in the freezer." Maybe this should have been higher on the list.

39. TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - There actually are moments in this film that work in a fun stupid action movie kind of way. But then the rest of it is just overdone, not funny even though it tries very hard to be, and borderline racist. And it's almost three hours long; there is not an action movie that ever deserves to be this freaking long. Also, I never thought I could get tired of cleavage, so thanks Michael Bay you took away my love of breasts for a couple of hours. Asshole.

38. RUSH HOUR 2 (2001) - If Eddie Murphy needed to be restrained in Beverly Hills Cop II then what the hell did Chris Tucker need to do in this sequel. Quite possibly the most annoying performance in the history of film. And much like Escape from L.A., this is just a retread of the first Rush Hour movie (which is no one's Escape from New York) but set in a different geographical location. They even have Jackie Chan doing a broken English version of Chris Tucker's famous line from the first film: "Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?" Embarrassing for all involved.

37. CHILD'S PLAY III (1991) - As bad as Seed of Chucky is, Child's Play III somehow manages to be worse. My favorite part comes at the big finale which takes place in this ridiculously over sized traveling carnival fun house. It's really amazing that the first Child's Play holds up so well because miniature killers just aren't that menacing (See Puppet Master, Demonic Toys, Dolly Dearest, or the other Child's Play sequels), and Child's Play III is the worst of the bunch.

36. GREASE 2 (1982) - Yet again another sequel that just remakes the first film, but changes a few key elements. Here, the John Travolta character (Maxwell Caulfield) is the dork that has to prove himself, and the Olivia Newton John character (Michelle Pfeiffer in her debut) is the popular one. The original Grease really doesn't hold up that well (imo), but it's The Godfather compared to this dreck. The songs are awful, and with the exception of Pfeiffer the acting is ridiculous. There is a reason Adrian Zmed never became a star, and Grease 2 is a shining example. A funny side note - on the wikipedia page for this movie, the creators claim that their musical number in the bowling alley ("Score Tonight") made the sport popular again.

35. BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING (1977) - The Bad News Bears without Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal just doesn't work on any level. Not that either one of those actors could have saved this movie. The final game played in the Astro Dome should have given the movie a grand scale to work with, but the whole thing is shot in such a poor manner that it just looks amateurish. This has to be the least exciting "Big Game" moment in any sports movie. It's funny to note that the chant at the end of this movie ("Let them Play!") was screamed by many pissed off baseball fans at the All-Star game from a few years ago that ended in a tie.

34. SHORT CIRCUIT 2 (1988) - 1988 is probably the first year that sequelitis really took hold, and Short Circuit 2 is one of many horrible outings that took place in this year. They couldn't even get freaking Guttenberg or Ally Sheedy back for this. We just get Fisher Stevens playing his caricature of an Indian person that makes Mickey Rooney's Chinese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's look tame in comparison. You should really check out the imdb page there is a fan review that calls this movie "A Modern day masterpiece, and a unique twist on the classic Frankenstein theme." I really can't find anywhere in the review that remotely reveals sarcasm, but I guess every movie has to have its fans.

33. THE MUMMY - THE TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (2008) - This is a movie that really should work; a unique Asian theme brought into the mummy lore with Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh together on screen. And the first two films in the series (while not groundbreaking) are a lot more fun than they should be. But it just doesn't work at all. Brendan Frasier is at his campy worst and Luke Ford is just an awful actor. And Maria Bello replaces Rachel Weisz and gives possibly the worst British accent in the history of cinema. Seriously, the movie is just that bad.

32. HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK (1992) - I still don't understand how the first Home Alone made as much money as it did; it's fine but a "Holiday Standard" it should not be. But the sequel making money is even more annoying. Everyone from the first film conveniently ends up in New York, including Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern's bumbling crooks, and the kid gets lost again. Obviously, these are the worst parents ever, and I'm not sure how that equals holiday cheer.

31. TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (2010) - This movie, like the books, is just a hodgepodge of random scenes that don't add up to much. The storyline is just a connect the dots version of every love story ever told. In this case it's choosing between a vampire and a werewolf, but it could just as easily be an emo kid vs. the jock. And how can anyone be on Team Edward anyways? When this series starts out he's a freaking pedophile. Someone explain how that's not the case. Really this and the first sequel, New Moon, are a toss up, but at least that one had Michael Sheen.

30. ROBOCOP III (1993) - When you can't get Peter Weller to come do your sequel, then why bother? And was Nancy Allen more hard up for cash than Weller? Robocop is not a character that lends himself to multiple movies; he's pretty bland and uninteresting; the reason the first one worked was mostly due to Veerhoven's timely satire at the media conglomerates of the time. Robocop III is just a boring ass action/sci-fi movie that the nineties was so good at producing on a weekly basis.

29. SAW V (2008) - A Saw movie had to be on here somewhere, and while I can see the argument for Saw IV and maybe even Saw VI (or what I like to call Michael Moore's Saw), V was just flat out dull. And I still can't figure out how killing Jigsaw so early on seemed like a good idea. What little the movies had going for them relied solely on the character and Tobin Bell's haunting performance. Instead we have Costas Mandylor; who thought that was a good idea? And how do you waste a perfectly good actor like Scott Patterson? I still can't believe this is the highest grossing horror series.

28. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS (1997) - I would have loved to been in the pitch meeting where a sequel was green lit to a movie from 16 years earlier and the most genius thing they could come up with was moving the setting from London to Paris. You know there are so many talented starving screenplay writers out there because shit like this that nobody wants to see gets made; it's enough to make you cry.

27. TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER (1982) - I love that the fact that Peter Sellers was dead, and this movie was still made with him as the lead. They just put together a bunch of outtakes from the previous films and used a lot of stand-ins that looked nothing like Sellers. It probably should be higher up on the list, but the audacity of it makes it beautiful in a weird sort of morbid way.

26. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD (1989) - I'm not one for gore even though I'm a big horror movie fan, and I don't love seeing people die onscreen by any means, but I find it very weird how little of either of those things happen in this Nightmare on Elm Street entry. I think only 3 people eat it in this film, and the dream sequences are extremely dull. Super Freddy has to be the dumbest concept ever in the series. 1989 had three awful entries in three of the most popular horror franchises (Jason Takes Manhattan and the Revenge of Michael Myers were the other two), but The Dream Child is by far the worst of the bunch, and that's saying something.

25. GRAFFITI BRIDGE (1990) - Making a sequel to Purple Rain (which is a horrible film that strangely has a ton of fans) is bad enough, but how anyone ever thought this movie worked is beyond me. If you need proof of Kevin Smith's rants about how fucked in the head Prince is in real life, then look no further than this movie.

24. HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING (1991) - The worst crime you can commit after giving your sequel such a strange title is not ever explaining what the fuck a Quickening is. And I still can't figure out why Sean Connery has to be a Spaniard; why can't he just be Scottish? That's the accent you're going to get no matter what nationality you make him. And I want to meet the person that pitched Christopher Lambert as a star and got him some decent sized roles there for awhile.

23. ANOTHER STAKEOUT (1993) - The original Stakeout is actually a pretty damn good action yarn from the 80's (when the best action yarns were made), but the sequel is typical 90's action - it sucks. Richard Dreyfuss has no qualms about admitting the majority of his work has to do with the paycheck, but I still can't figure out how this movie got green lit. Was anyone hammering for a sequel to Stakeout seven years later. Well, I saw it, so I guess maybe I was. Oh, and Rosie O'Donnel's in it if you needed even more proof of how much it blows.

22. LOOK WHO'S TALKING TOO (1990) - The first "Look Who's Talking" might be the only talking baby movie (well I guess it's more like out loud thinking baby) that works. The sequel is like every other talking baby movie; it doesn't work at all.

21. TEEN WOLF TOO (1987) - The fact that you could actually make a movie worse than Teen Wolf is pretty damn amazing in its own right. The reason many of us thirty-somethings are shocked at the resurrection of Jason Bateman's career is all because of this shitty film.

20. POLICE ACADEMY 2 (1985) - Really any of the Police Academy sequels could be on this list; they are interchangeable. And the original sucks a lot of ass as well. However, this one pisses me off more than the rest for some reason. I think part of it is that with inflation its gross would be well over 100 million in today's dollars. That's just ridiculous. Oh, and Bobcat Goldthwait is the fucking villain.

19. CANNONBALL RUN II (1983) - It brings a tear to my eye when I think that this was the final pairing of the original Rat Pack. And it's movies like this that make me realize I will just never understand the popularity of Burt Reynolds and Dom Deluise.

18. JEWEL OF THE NILE (1985) - What makes this movie more annoying than most on the list is I truly believe that there could have been a great sequel made to Romancing the Stone. If the studio gave Robert Zemeckis and company a couple of years to work something out I think it could have been really good. But instead they rushed it into prodcution, hired Lewis Teague as director, and released it a little less than a year after the first one. Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny Devito were all contractually obligated to make this movie, and you can see their disinterest the whole way through which doesn't help matters. Jewel is a prime example of how the studio system can really suck a lot of the time.

17. REVENGE OF THE NERDS II: NERDS IN PARADISE (1987) - Revenge of the Nerds is a charming enough comedy that holds up pretty well, but Nerds in Paradise is as bad if not worse than all of the Nerds clones that came after it. An early peformance by Bradley Whitford makes for an interesting footnote on what is otherwise a forgettable 80's sex comedy (there were so many of them).

16. X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (2008) - The final nail was driven into the X-Files franchise in this 2008 film. Making it a stand-alone film and getting away from the ridiculous mythology that just kiled the series in its last couple of seasons was a great idea. Making it yet another "Saw" clone was however not a good idea, and I can't figure out why Chris Carter would have thought otherwise.

15. I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1998) - When the wrong answer to a trivia question is what drives your plot into action, you know you are in for a doozy. Where the first film was an unexceptional yet still professional jaunt in the teen horror genre, the sequel is a 180 spiral into slasher sequel oblivion that so many better films have ventured before. I use the term better loosely, but still if that's not enough for you; well, you get Jack Black as a drug dealing pool boy with dreads and a twist that stretches the imagination quite painfully ("Get it? Will Benson? Ben's Son?") Yeah, seriously! That just happened!

14. BAD BOYS II (2003) - So remember that thing about Transformers where I said there should never be an action movie that's almost 3 hours; Michael Bay had already breached this problem a mere six years earlier with this ridiculous sequel. This film has actually developed a bit of a cult following; many people speak of how it's the cruelest movie ever made and how somehow this makes it a thing of beauty or some such nonsense. I tried watching it again with that ludicrous thought in mind, and I hated it even more. There is this one sequence where Will Smith and Martin Lawerence berate a possible suitor for one of Lawerence's daughters and it goes on for about ten minutes; it's enough to make you want to pull every last hair out of your head and then force feed it all to Bay. And if there was ever any proof that Bay needs to stay away from trying to do any kind of comedy; there are not one but two sequences of an above ground pool falling apart. Oh, the hilarity.

13. THE NEXT KARATE KID (1994) - It's The Karate Kid with a girl instead of a guy. And when I say it's The Karate Kid, I mean it's the exact same freaking film except it's a girl instead of a guy. I'm not saying a girl can't learn Karate, and I'm not saying a movie couldn't be made about the sport with a female lead, but this isn't it. The most impressive thing about this movie is it manages to be worse than The Karate Kid Part III; that's an impressive feat indeed.

12. BLUES BROTHERS 2000 (1998) - Let's overlook the fact that a movie with 2000 in the title was released in 1998. Let's overlook the fact that the 2000 really has nothing at all to do with the film. Let's not overlook the fact that Dan Aykroyd (who at some point had some talent; I've just forgotten when that was) wrote the damn thing and thought 'this is something I should be involved with.' I can't, however, overlook the fact that this is a Blues Brothers movie with a lot of really bad music and there's not a single joke that works in the whole thing. I also can't overlook the fact that now John Landis is tied with Michael Bay for having two films on my list.

11. THE HILLS HAVE EYES PART 2 (1985) - This is less a movie and more a movie with a bunch of flashbacks to the first film from 1977. Even the dog has a flashback; let me reiterate that statement: THE DOG HAS A FLASHBACK! This is pretty interchangeable with the other Hills Have Eyes Part II that came out in 2007; the only reason this one gets the prize is...well...THE DOG HAS A FUCKING FLASHBACK!

10. POLTERGEIST III (1988) - We are hitting the home stretch, and there is nothing better to lead us off than freaking Poltergeist III. It's amazing that with none of the returning production crew or writers from the first one that the second movie worked at all, but at least in that one you still had the family unit intact. Here you just have Carol Ann (Heather O'Rourke) returning; she's staying with some family members, and the ghosts decide to follow her, and it doesn't work. The film is really more boring than anything else, but the film is of course most notorious for O'Rourke passing away while making the film. An urban legend of sorts started about whether or not that is O'Rourke's lifeless corpse that Nancy Allen is hugging at the end of the movie. So not only does this movie suck, but people are also very gullible and stupid.

9. HALLOWEEN - CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995) - Ah yes, the always fun installment of a horror series where they give us an origin for our favorite mass murderer, and we get to learn exactly why he loves to kill everyone in his path. In the case of Michael Myers, there is this Druid constellation that appears every Halloween they feel like making a sequel. What's sad is it's actually worse than it sounds. There are other bad Halloween sequels for sure (Resurrection anyone?), but this is just the sloppiest of the bunch. And poor Donald Pleasance; this was his last film (He, like O'Rourke died while filming). This film also introduced us to Dimension Films' love of cutting films in post-production to the point where they make absolutely no sense. They even intercut a scene from a Hellraiser sequel at one point, and nobody noticed. That speaks volumes.

8. ROCKY V (1990) - I guess after Rocky ended the Cold War with his fists and a few nicely placed musical montages in the last film they had nowhere to go but down. Taking Rocky back to his roots must have sounded like so much fun, but it wasn't, and I don't know why they ever thought that. Instead of a larger than life supervillain like Clubber Lang or Ivan Drago we get street fighter Tommy Gunn (real life boxer Tommy Morrison in arguably the worst acting debut ever) and instead of a big fight at the end in a boxing ring we get a strangely choreographed street fight. So they made a Rocky movie without a big fight at the end. What the fuck were they thinking? At least Stallone somewhat redeemed himself many years later with Rocky Balboa. He lost that redemption last year with The Expendables, however.

7. CADDYSHACK II (1988) - I told you 1988 had a lot of shitty sequels, and here's another one to throw on the fire. I never realized how funny Rodney Dangerfield was in the first installment until I saw Jackie Mason attempting to do the same schtick (but with more of a Jewish flavor) in the sequel. Dan Aykroyd (a favorite on this list) also pops up kind of doing his own Bill Murray but not as successfull; go figure. And there is a big golf match on what is essentially a big minature golf course, and Jonathan Silverman does something stupid in the movie. I wonder if Silverman looks at Jason Bateman's current career renaissance and thinks: "Damn! That could be me." And then I guess he realizes he made a sequel that was actually worse than Teen Wolf Too. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

6. THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS (1996) - God! I had never felt like clawing my eyes out before I watched this monstrosity. While the original film is not innocent of being a little too overdramatic at times, the sequel takes that to a much higher level. The whole thing is souped up in gothic angst and just looks like something that got shit out of the worst Marilyn Manson album. I really hated the whole Goth movement, and the Goth movement hated this movie, so what does that tell you?

5. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III (1982) - Also knows as Friday the 13th 3D or the one where the credits shot out of the screen at you with a disco rendition of the main theme. While Part V (A New Beginning) is awful it has some groundhouse appeal, and yes, Jason X is a piece of ugly digital shit, but it does have Jason in space (actually, that helps it none). Still, Part III always chaps my ass the most. It could be because it's an hour and a half slasher movie that takes an hour to introduce us to all of our cast, and there is a lot of people to off in that last half hour. It could also be because they actually manage to make a food stamp reference (No, really, that happens) to ridicule a Puerto Rican character that doesn't look remotely Puerto Rican. It could also be because of the 3D gimmick amounts to a bunch of people poking stuff at the screen, and we also get to see a dude take a dump in three dimensions. I hate it for all those reasons and more; so many more.

4. EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977) - I know what you're thinking if this is four, what kind of shit did I rediscover for the final three. Oh, just you wait. But as for The Exorcist II. I've seen this movie for some goddamn reason three or four times, and I still have no clue what the hell it's about. There's something about Regan (Linda Blair) being hypnotized by a bunch of crackpots (Louise Fletcher and Richard Burton amongst others) and the demon, Pazuzu, emerges yet again. Couldn't they have just left well enough alone. There's also a bunch of flies or something at some point, or maybe it's a moth. Christ! I really don't know. I really have no clue what this movie is about, and I don't have any intention of watching it again to find out. Who am I kidding? Exorcist II party, my place!!!

3. SPEED 2 - CRUISE CONTROL (1997) - I just might have to do a post on how shitty action movies were in the nineties in my retrospective, but 1994's Speed was one of the few that worked, and still holds up today quite nicely. I really thought that Jan De Bont was going to be the next big action director and that his follow-up Twister was just a slight dip, but then came Speed 2 (and later The Haunting) to prove me completely wrong. I know the argument against how stupid the boat thing is (they could just jump off) is that logistically they couldn't just jump off, and I get that, but it doesn't make the fact that it's on a boat any less stupid. It just doesn't. And there is nothing funnier than the "Oh God, they are about to crash in the seaside town" climatic sequence; the shots back and forth between the town and the open mouthed looks from our reluctant cast members is just priceless. William Goldman once wrote that the 90's was the worst decade of cinema, and with movies like Speed 2 it's hard to argue.

2. SUPERMAN IV: QUEST FOR PEACE (1987) - It's nice that they let Christopher Reeve turn a Superman movie into an anit-nuke commercial. I just wish it had only been a commercial. There's so much wrong with this movie how does one know where to begin. Jon Cryer and that hair? Mariel Hemmingway vs. Margot Kidder? Gene Hackman trying to look interested? Fucking Nuclear Man? This movie has it all in all kinds of wrong ways. I was eleven years old and I knew this movie sucked; do you know how hard it is to not entertain an eleven year old kid with a superhero movie? I even kind of dug Supergirl when I was a kid. It's really fucking hard, but Superman IV managed to do just that. Congratulations.

1. JAWS - THE REVENGE (1987) - I thought it was going to be really hard to come up with a number one pick on this list that I had no doubts about, but when I was going through wikipedia and came across Jaws - The Revenge I immediately knew there could be no other. And congratulations 1987, you got the top two picks. So, at 11 years old you couldn't make a good superhero movie, and you made a movie about a giant shark eating people that I also thought sucked. The revenge aspect really takes the cake. For those not in the know, the shark is actually after the Brody family. Travels all the fucking way from Amity to the Bahamas to get to our favorite shark hunting family, and it tries to some damage to Mario Van Peebles with some ridiculous dreads along the way. They even make a mention that Martin Brody (a non-returning Roy Schneider) died of a heart attack earlier brought on by his fear of sharks. So he takes out two great whites in his lifetime but then dies in his sleep thinking about them. Nice fuck you to the fans of the original. None of the sequels are good, but this one manages to be the worst just by the mere stupidity of its storyline. It's rather amazing that most films ever get made; the time, the money, and all of the people that are involved cause a lot of problems on set if a damn idea even makes it that far. But in the case of Jaws IV, someone pitched this idea of a shark having a personal grudge, someone liked it, and then a bunch of people got together and spent a lot of time and hard earned dollars making it. I just really don't know what to do with that information; I really don't.

On The Room, And Other Cinematic Oddities

2011-01-24T20:18:00.007-06:00

I'm looking forward to Jonathan's pop culture lists covering the last 35 years. I think pop culture definitely plays a part in who you are, whether you decide to jump on board or eschew the mainstream.

I've had this running dialogue in my head for some time now about what exactly makes a movie like The Room a sub-pop culture sensation. The argument in my head goes like this:

Man, The Room is such a bad movie. Why do people watch this thing? Yeah, we make fun of it, but if you take a look at any Netflix or Redbox selection, there are a number of movies that could be chosen for ripping. Why this one?

So, I decided to examine this phenomenon a little deeper. I think we actually have to examine a movie like The Room just as you would examine a movie like The Godfather, not so much in terms of cinematic quality, but their paths to success. How many times do you read about a monster success story, and find out that there was a great deal of luck involved, whether it's casting, an odd choice that pays off, finding the right people to work with each other, or some other unforeseen thing?

Here's a quick example: Johnny Depp's performance in Pirates of the Caribbean. Disney's top franchise relies almost entirely on the Depp performance, which he patterned after Keith Richards and Pepe Le Pew. And Disney thought the performance was ruining the picture. They could have fired him. They obviously were talked into it, and that's good for them. The franchise has made over $2.5 billion (and will add more this year when On Stranger Tides arrives), almost strictly because of Depp's character.

The intensely bad movie that comes back to garner cult status has the same kind of miraculous events. Unfortunately, it seems easy to make one of these movies. I think a market is being created by which aspiring filmmakers believe they can just make a bad movie and think it will be picked up on video. What these filmmakers don't know is that you can't set out to make a movie as bad as The Room. I don't think you can do it on purpose unless you are a genius, and I don't think too many geniuses aspire to make bad movies. It takes several remarkable events to make a movie like this. I will discuss them in detail. But first, I'm going to go over a few notable productions that either discuss, dissect, or try to emulate this phenomenon.

The process of making a bad production on purpose has been covered brilliantly by Mel Brooks with The Producers. The plot of the movie-turned-musical-turned-movie-musical is that a Broadway producer finds out from his accountant that making a flop can be more profitable than making a hit if you are certain the production will fail. That's the mistake Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom make, because self-conscious awfulness tends to find a voice. There's a great line, "I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?" And that's exactly what happens with "Springtime for Hitler." The audience is unnerved at first, but then decide that it's a brilliant parody, because nothing so dumb could be serious.

With that in mind, there's another part of the spectrum and that's Snakes on a Plane. Snakes looked primed to be that knowing kind of bad movie where we could all be in on the joke and celebrate its campiness. In the end, Snakes on a Plane is just a poorly-done comedy when it comes down to it. I'm pretty sure this was going to be a try for a solid B-picture when it was first being made, but then self-awareness came into the fray and suddenly Samuel L. Jackson was asked to say a line that was invented by the internet. "I'm tired of these motherfucking snakes, on this motherfucking plane." Now that the filmmakers were in on the joke, we no longer had the power to be.

And in another part of the spectrum, there's Mystery Science Theater 3ooo. From 1988-1999, Joel Hodgson/Mike Nelson and two robots voiced mainly by Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu/Bill Corbett starred in a show in which they were forced to watch bad movies. They threw billions of sarcastic quips at the screen over the years, and a great many of those episodes are funny. Many (probably most) of those movies are unwatchable, even with sarcastic barbs being provided. The movies that this gang watches, and makes fun of, also don't qualify. Even the movie that comes closest to having a life outside of MST3K, Manos: The Hands of Fate, is so bad that it is difficult to generate real laughs. The character of TV's Frank (Frank Conniff), one of the show's minions, comes out and tells you, the audience, "We're sorry for this one."

The reason why Manos: The Hands of Fate and other MST3K "classics" probably couldn't make it on the outside is that the audience, in general, would have to follow the MST3K script. It's not true audience participation if the script for making fun of it is already written. And there's not much you can add to Manos. It's not only a bad film, but a really boring one bordering on abuse.

So what makes a movie like The Room, its ancestors Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and its contemporaries Troll 2 and Birdemic, successful failures? I'll look back to Ed Wood to start.

Back in 1994, Tim Burton made what will likely be his best film ever in Ed Wood. Johnny Depp portrayed Wood, the writer/director of 1958's Plan 9 From Outer Space, the movie that has been labeled "The Worst Movie of All Time" by many. Wood is portrayed as a guy who is extremely enthusiastic about movies, a man who is awed by Orson Welles and hopes to make films like he does. But knowing what is good and knowing how to make it are two different things.

So let me state the obvious. The number one event that needs to occur is a discernible lack of talent. The second is the one that goes hand-in-hand with that aspect, and that's an incredible enthusiasm. Enthusiasm plus lack of talent gets you halfway there. Then the third is being unaware that what you are doing is bad.

We see Depp's Wood shooting scenes and remarking, "That was perfect," after nearly every take. A lot of it has to do with the fact that he has no money to do more takes. And the other thing is that he has entirely too much regard for the people he's directing, especially when the aging Bela Lugosi (in the Oscar-winning turn by Martin Landau) is involved. So, even when they are bad, Wood doesn't want to admit that it was bad.

So four is having almost no money to make your movie. Not wanting to admit takes are bad for various reasons comes down to the lack of talent you have. Low-budget productions are made all the time and good filmmakers find a way to bring the most out of them. Much of a low-budget movie's success is determined by how ambitious the project is, so you have to realize that on your tight budget, you're not getting lavish sets or great actors or good special effects. Horror movies shot on a low budget are generally the winners here, because it takes no money to make horror good.

Number five is complicated, and this is where Plan 9 might differ from the movies that have made a living off of being bad. In sports, they refer to star players having that "x factor," that intangible, indescribable thing that makes them better than good. With a bad movie that suddenly finds success, it requires a draw that an audience unknowingly considers a draw, a multi-layered badness. A bad movie has to have multiple scenes that you will find interesting in some way, and usually in this case, it's not what the filmmaker intended.

I argue Plan 9 From Outer Space doesn't even qualify as a movie like The Room. It really only contains a few scenes an audience might participate in.

In The Room, most of the accidental humor comes from Tommy Wiseau, the film's writer/director/producer and stars as Johnny. Wiseau has an unplaceable accent in addition to no acting skill, so his scenes are almost always filled with oddball deliveries in addition to just plain sounding funny. The hallmark of The Room is Wiseau's "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!" screamed in the middle of the movie in a scene not calling for melodramatic overacting. Wiseau completes the line with his arms and elbows, hands balled into fists, tugging down from the sky to emphasize his pain.

But that alone wouldn't be enough. It's a gateway scene. It's the scene that's included in the trailer, which now touts the movie as being a "comedy," like Wiseau meant for it to be that all along, that might get you into a midnight screening of it. There are many Wiseau scenes like that, all aided by his acting and accent.

Then we go to the script. Lisa's mom mentions, very casually, and in newspaper parlance "buries the lead," that she has breast cancer in the middle of a conversation. She says it so nonchalantly, like she had biscuits and gravy for breakfast. And then it's never mentioned again. There's also a kid named Denny (Philip Haldiman) that sort of appears and disappears throughout the movie. We hear that Johnny and Lisa (Juliette Danielle) "adopted" him or something, even though he's just a college kid, a neighbor. There's a scene on the roof of the house where Denny is accosted by a drug dealer. Denny's battle with drugs never comes up again and has no bearing on the story.

The scenes that are bad are multi-layered in their awfulness, which I think contributes to its draw. Like, we have this couple (Michelle and Mike) that shows up early on in the movie, somehow has access to Johnny and Lisa's apartment, and they start making out, only to get caught by Lisa and her mother before it goes too far. Somehow Wiseau tries to make this scene worthwhile and worthless at the same time. It's an incredible feat. No one bothers to question how this couple got in the house, or that it might be disrespectful to fuck around on your friends' couch, especially while they're not there.

That's just the surface, really. Audience participation amps up when the movie inexplicably contains pictures of spoons all around the apartment, and audience members throw spoons every time they appear.

This is how The Rocky Horror Picture Show became such a phenomenon. It was bad, but it had cool songs. The cool songs were the draw, then the audience found a way to fill in the fun when the music numbers weren't playing, usually involving grade-school sex humor.

The fact that there are so few of these movies shows how insanely hard it is to get one made. You have to be inept on another level to get a movie like The Room to connect somehow with audiences. One of the movies trying to make this connection is Birdemic, a horrible eco-conscious film where birds start attacking people because of their environment-ruining ways.

Time will tell if Birdemic becomes another one of these types of movies, but it doesn't contain much in the way of multi-layered badness. If there is an area where a smart-ass could attack with venom it's in the phony environmental message. There's a hammy line when Rod (Alan Bagh), exclaims after watching a movie on a date, "That was a good movie...An Inconvenient Truth." Plus, Rod is successful on a level in which Warren Buffett could not dream. Almost every deal he is involved in makes millions of dollars, and it seems like he does it all in a day or two.

Plus, the birds don't attack until about an hour into the movie. The bird special effects are where the movie really "shines." They are awkward-looking onscreen, with no dimension, just pasted there like "good job" stars on a child's test.

Where Birdemic may have a hard time catching on in this realm is that it is often boring and annoying. It gets into that Manos: The Hands of Fate territory. The actors are bad, but not in that "special" way, and there are few scenes that are memorable for an especially wrong reason.

So here's something for you to look forward to: Birdemic 2: The Resurrection 3D. The problem the sequel presents is that now the filmmakers, such as director James Nguyen, are now in on the joke. Birdemic 2, in 3D no less, violates the rule of not knowing that what you are making is bad.

As for Troll 2, this movie has a number of great stories. It's a movie that earned its cult status on video and a number of viewing parties. The documentary Best Worst Movie focuses mainly on the film's top star, George Hardy, a dentist from Alabama, and slightly on the film's director Claudio Fragasso and writer Rossella Drudi. In this case, you see the minds of filmmakers who have no idea of their lack of talent. Fragasso is seen on a couple of occasions getting visibly angry at the Troll 2 theatre viewing parties with Q & A's where people ask questions that insult the movie. He seems oblivious to the fact that the movie is called Troll 2, has no bearing on the original Troll, and contains no trolls. It also has spawned a YouTube sensation with "the worst scene in movie history," where a guy says, "They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! Oh my Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood!"

Troll 2 is bad, but it might be the only movie of the five I've mentioned that can actually be watched without making fun of it. The movie does a good job of that by just being.

I think I've pretty much figured out what it takes to make a successful bad movie, and I hope I've articulated it here. Anyone else have any thoughts?

35 YEARS OF POP CULTURE: INTRO

2011-01-22T21:23:00.004-06:00

This is my 35th year of existence, and in that 35 years (or I guess more approximately 31 years or so of it) I have immersed myself in as much pop culture consumption as is humanly possible, so why not write about it.

Throughout this year I plan to do what all of us on-line critics and proffesional critics alike enjoy doing; I will be making a ton of goddamn lists.

Movies, music, television, literature, and whatever else I can come up with will be up for grabs. The Best, the Worst, the Mediocre, the most fun, the scariest, the saddest, etc. It will be a smorgsaborg of pop culture insanity that I hope everyone who reads will enjoy.

I'm far from an expert; remember in the long run I'm like what the majority of you out there are; a big ass fan. And I haven't seen, read, or listened to close to 100% what has been hashed out over the last 35 years. But I've probably experienced more of it than the average human, and in cases where there are certain omissions I must make due to the lack of anything more than a 24 hour day, I will make note.

I will be including 1975 in some discussions for two reasons. 2011 has just started so it will not be able to be a big part of most of what I write about. At the end of the year I will have to do some 2011 specific lists or something. Second, I was technically conceived in the year 1975 so depending on your view of the meaning of life, I guess it's fair to say that the year is as much of my life as any other.

I'm not setting up a specific schedule or anything; I would never stick to that. But I have a bunch of ideas for topics to write about, so hopefully I will get to most of them. I will have the first post up in a day or two; I'm going to start off with a few "Worst" lists (Those are in many ways more fun to read than the "Best Of" lists anyways). I hope you guys enjoy, and if you have any ideas or areas of pop culture that you would like me to tackle send me an e-mail (samloomis13@yahoo.com) or post it in the comments. Just remember the guidelines are 1975-2011. Should be fun.

Simple College Football Idea

2011-01-01T13:43:00.006-06:00

It's been a good year for the bowl games. I enjoyed the great Tennessee - UNC game, and it's only one of many great (or at least interesting) story lines in the bowls. But, like nearly everybody, I hate that we can't be sure of a true national champion. Isn't there a simple way of keeping everything together? The idea I've heard most often is making the playoffs the bowl games, but I don't think that could ever happen.

Here's my idea. Take a close look at the schedule. There is nothing going on on the 11th and 18th of December for this year except the Army-Navy game, and three lesser bowl games. Couldn't we have the quarterfinals and semifinals of an eight team playoff in those weeks? Have the championship be the last game like we have it now? And then have the bowls run as usual? No playoff is going to affect the early bowls, such as the New Mexico Bowl, because those teams won't be in the top eight. And the six losing teams would just slot into the other early January bowl games.

The one complaint would be the playing of a couple of extra games, and right near exams. Of course, nobody cares about this in I-AA, Div. II, or Div. III football, so that's just something the bowls say to protect their position. That isn't a problem here, I think, because the bowls remain intact. On the plus side, the networks love it, and we get Saturday football in December again since the NFL has largely abandoned it.

Just for fun, this is how the Dec. 11 games would have gone this year (this leaves out Arkansas and Ohio State of the ten BCS teams):

1. Auburn hosts 8. Connecticut
2. Oregon hosts 7. Virginia Tech
3. TCU hosts 6. Oklahoma
4. Stanford hosts 5. Wisconsin

I'd be in. Would you not be? What would you not like?

The NFC West Debate

2010-12-06T21:01:00.002-06:00

So the big question in what is turning out to be one of the most exciting NFL seasons in recent years is should a team under .500 be able to go to the playoffs if they win their division? First off, it's a pointless and kind of stupid conversation; many "SUPPOSED" experts I've heard discuss this act like it's a possibility that something will be announced in the coming weeks that will screw the NFC West champion if they finish 7-9 or worse. For the record, it won't. Nothing will be changed this year; could something be changed in the future? Possible, but it shouldn't be. And here are a few reasons why:

1. This isn't a common occurrence. No team has ever won a division under .500. Only two teams have ever even won a division at 8-8. Last year's San Diego Chargers were only the 2nd team to ever do this. This was actually a possibility discussed by many when the conferences went to four divisions at the early part of this past decade, but it hasn't happened yet, and it may still not which leads me to...

2. The season isn't over. The St. Louis Rams who now sit atop the division with a 6-6 record (last time I checked that was .500) are an exciting and fun young team to watch; Sam Bradford could be a freshman fluke, but he is looking to be one of the elite QB's of the next generation. Their remaining four games aren't easy, but they get KC at home and San Francisco and Seattle are both huge possibilities for wins. The game at New Orleans looks like the only definate loss, but who knows. St. Louis have only lost big twice (Detroit and Atlanta) and their other four losses were by a combined ten points (Raiders, Bucs, Cardinals, and 49ers). Granted, they haven't beat anybody really worth a damn, but the schedule is not their fault (nor is their division for that matter), and this isn't college football. There are no Bowling Green's on the schedule (although the Carolina Panthers might not be too far off). My point is the Rams could very easily be 9-7 or at the worst 8-8 when all is said and done.

3. Where would it stop? So let's say the Rams or Seahawks win the division at 7-9 and the NFL decides that Collin Cowherd is right and they are pussies for letting this madness go on. After this season no one under .500 can go to the playoffs even if they win a division. What about 8-8; is there a huge difference between 7-9 and 8-8? For that matters is there a huge difference between 7-9 and 9-7? It's arguable that the two games that seperate those two records are very close and/or lucky wins by said team. And do you know how many 9-7 teams have made the playoffs? 50 since 1978. These are 50 teams that have probably been one or two bad plays away from going home or gotten one or two extremely lucky plays to eke their way into the post season. No one is complaining about them, but 7-9? Holy shit! Stop the presses!

4. What about the teams that will be screwed? The teams that would be ahead of the St. Louis Rams at this point if we had one mega division would be (not counting present division leaders) New York Giants (8-4), Green Bay Packers (8-4), New Orleans Saints (9-3), and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-5). (Eagles, Bears, and Falcons all lead their divisions). My second argument of the season not being over plays into effect here as well. All of these teams (minus the Bucs for the most part) could turn it around and win their division; barely a game seperates any of them from the top. The opposite could also happen where a couple of these teams end up with the same final record as the Rams or worse. So with four games left it's kind of a moot point to argue.

5. The NFL is a continuous circle of joy and pain. The fact is that in one or two years, the NFC West could easily be the toughest division in this conference. Look at the emerging talent of the 49ers and Rams and look at the possiblities of the Arizona Cardinals if they can just go get a QB not named Derek Anderson (They should seriously think about going after Kevin Kolb if the Eagles are willing to deal). The Seahawks have some young possibilities as well, but are a little farther behind in the discussion. And hell yes, I think there is some bias afoot. I'm sorry, but if this was the NFC East the discussion would lean more toward the positive saying you can't have a postseason without the Giants, Redskins, Cowboys, or Eagles representing. That would just be stupid; well, so is this debate for the most part.

It's the way it is. Like it or love it if you win your division you have earned your spot. I do think if anything should be looked at in the future it's that the team with the best record (wild card or not) should get home field advantage. At least that makes a little more sense. But in the end shouldn't you just win your division? Shouldn't that be the goal? You know that is your easiest road to the playoffs and at least getting one home game, so go do that and quit worrying about the Rams and Seahawks battling it out in a mediocre division.

It's been such a great season of highs and lows and I think the fate of the NFC West is such a pointless thing to talk about which I only added fire to; you gotta love irony or possibly my lack of knowing what irony is.

Titans Fans Continue Their Sad Support Of The Bully Cortland Finnegan

2010-11-30T10:14:00.008-06:00

Nashville, I have a very important question for you: Why the hell do we put up with this shit?! Why do we tolerate—even praise—Cortland Finnegan’s thug behavior? Hell, we gave him a weekly call-in radio show for Pete’s sake!

When Cortland made the Pro Bowl, you all cheered. And I was there in the back, quietly pointing out that he’s a hot-head who plays dirty. When the Broncos called him out earlier this season (along with the rest of the Titans roster) for being dirty, you defended him as one of your own. But there I was behind you again, sheepishly suggesting that the evidence shows the Broncos were clearly right.

And when he orchestrated and instigated a fight with Andre Johnson on Sunday, and then smiled and taunted the Houston crowd on his way out of the stadium, I said to myself, “Finally, the city of Nashville is going to see this bully for what he is.”

But I was wrong. Because many of you are still defending his cheap-shot ass. Many of you called his radio show yesterday to praise him for his toughness. And Jeff Fisher petitioned the league to not suspend Finnegan on the grounds that he never threw a punch.

Let’s get one thing straight here, geniuses: Finnegan threw a punch. He just didn’t have closed fists. Watch the video… watch him slam Johnson in the face right at the start of the play. Here it is:

Now… I know defensive backs shove receivers at the line all the time. I’m not an idiot. But that’s a more-than-typical violent shove there… directly to the facemask with two hands. Saying he didn’t throw a punch is a weak-ass technicality. There are even reports he turned to the Texans sideline just before the play and said, “Watch this.”

Finnegan is a teenager. He is petulant… he is violent… he is angry. It’s trendy for Titans fans to use semantics to excuse away the bad behavior. “He’s just chippy.” Or, “He just plays with emotion.” Or my favorite: “He’s an instigator.” Bullshit. He has openly admitted he wants to be known as the dirtiest player in the league. And you idiots are lapping it up.

He’s a thug. He takes cheap shots after the whistle constantly. He’s been flagged and fined for unsportsmanlike behavior numerous times in his short career—at least $40,000 in fines this year alone. One GM in the league called him an “absolute scumbag.” All for 13 interceptions and 5 sacks in five years. That’s… average. It might be easier to accept his misbehavior if he was producing like a super star, but he’s not. Plenty of cornerbacks can amass 13 interceptions in five years--hell, his own teammate Michael Griffin has 15 interceptions in four years, with nowhere near the penalty yardage, fines, and negative press that Finnegan brings.

And now he’s suggesting his fighting partner’s punishment should have been stronger. Give me a break. Compare and contrast with Andre Johnson’s remarks about the fight:

“I want to apologize to the organization, our owner and my teammates. What happened out there today wasn’t me. I just lost my cool. I wish I could take back what happened. I can’t. It’s over and done with now. I’m pretty sure I’ll be disciplined. I’ll have to deal with it.”

Now that’s a man who’s not making excuses. That’s a man who knows he went too far. Finnegan? He probably wishes he went further than he did. Don’t forget that when Denver’s Kyle Orton said Finnegan was dirty, Finnegan’s response was to challenge him to a fight.

Andre Johnson also called the commissioner of the league to apologize personally, and says he will not appeal the fine because he knows he did something wrong. Finnegan? He’s appealing the fine.

The most annoying thing is that Finnegan did all this on Sunday when his team was getting shut out 20-0, late in the game. He melted down like a whiny baby and lashed out physically against an opponent he couldn’t beat any other way. Freaking child.

Nashville, I wondered if the city was losing perspective when so many of you defended Albert’s head stomp several years ago. Or when you stood and cheered the uber-thug PacMan Jones’ great kick returns in spite of his many arrests. I worried about your sanity when you continued to side with Vince Young despite his continued attempts to prove how selfish and childish he is.

But now… now, I’ve just given up. If you see the “look at me” dance that Finnegan performed on Sunday, taunting and mocking a crowd whose team had truly destroyed the Titans, and you think that’s a guy we should get behind… well, then I don’t think I want to know you anymore. I think you can take your Titans and your bitch-ass quitting QB and your street-gang-mentality cornerback with Tiny-Man’s Syndrome… and you can sail off together to the Sea of Never Making the Playoffs. Have a nice trip. You all deserve each other.

Honestly… I thought we were better than this. I thought there was a decency and politeness engrained in our culture in Nashville that would make it impossible for an attitude problem like Finnegan to stick around on the roster—let alone be a hero. But I was wrong. I’ll take my ball and go home now, I guess.

Look at the last five years, people. Vince’s meltdowns and tantrums. Albert’s stomp. Pacman’s multitude of legal issues. Owner Bud Adams flips a double bird to the entire Buffalo fan base and organization. Vince’s fight in the strip club this off-season. Pick up Randy Moss, one of the most notorious bad-attitude players in the league. And now Finnegan’s continued antics of thuggery and violence.

Don’t look now, Nashville, but you’re the new Oakland. You’re the new Cincinatti. You’re the new punch line in the NFL when it comes to bad behavior and character issues.

And what’s worse? I’m starting to think you like it that way.

The Titans Are 5-2, So Why I Am I Not Excited?

2010-10-25T13:16:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, the Titans beat the Eagles 37-19. On paper, that looks like a dominating performance. Of course it wasn't. The score is skewed by an interception return with no time on the clock. Still, the Titans came back from 19-10 and gained control of the game with a performance from Kerry Collins to Kenny Britt that could not be stopped.

I'm still not excited. I can't figure out why. One thing is, once Vince Young gets back, are we going to see the Vince Young/Chris Johnson/Kenny Britt show? Was this the game in which Kenny Britt became an elite receiver, and now defenses are going to have to worry about what he's doing and not throw everything at Chris Johnson like they've been doing? I mean, that whole Kenny Britt thing yesterday seemed like a fluke, right?

And yet, in the five wins this year, the Titans have scored 30 points or more every game (OK, so they only scored 29 against the Giants). They have scored more points than any team in the league by a pretty wide margin. The two teams closest to them are Oakland, by virtue of their 59 point performance yesterday (and with a bit of reason, that means it doesn't count), and New England. And this is without Chris Johnson putting up any of the kind of numbers he was putting up last year. Johnson has 662 yards and 7 TD through 7 games, whereas he had 824 yards and 5 TD last year.

Stats can be skewed, though. A lot of the Titans' points have been in garbage time. That interception return yesterday, the CJ touchdown last week, and all those Cowboys miscues that led to scores the week before that. As surely as they will be the first team to cross 200 points for the season, this team isn't nearly a dominating offensive team, right? Are my eyes deceiving me?

It really makes me wonder about perception versus reality. We think about the teams with dominating offenses like the Saints and the Colts having great quarterbacks who make names out of their receivers. You see quarterbacks who confidently throw on almost every down, and even when the pass is incomplete, it scares the hell out of you. There's always a "well we didn't get it this time, but we'll probably get it next time" sort of feel to those teams. Whenever you see the Titans throw incomplete passes, your mind is immediately focused on what kind of punt yardage the team is going to get on the inevitable 4th down. And despite having a lackluster pass offense (29th in the league), and not the usual Chris Johnson show, they're scoring points.

And this defense is doing sort of what it did in 1999 when it went to the Super Bowl. It allows tons of yards (23rd in the league in allowing passing yards, 10th against the rush), but it really grinds teams in the red zone. And it also gives all of us heart attacks. I just wonder how long an offense and a defense can play this way over a full season. You would think this would eventually become tiring.

And next week, the Titans play the San Diego Chargers, who are inexplicably 2-5. It would not shock me to see the Chargers find a way to put 40 points on the Titans this upcoming weekend, and then we'll start hearing about how the Chargers always do this. Start slow, and then start coming around. It would make sense that just when the Titans are at their highest and are building confidence in the fan base, they would fall to a Chargers team in which people have begun to lose confidence. Oh, and the Titans/Oilers franchise hasn't beaten the Chargers since 1991. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a weird point spread where a team with a much worse record is still a 3 point favorite (In fact, looking it up, San Diego is a 3 1/2 point favorite right now). That just goes to show, the 5-2 record right now still seems suspect.

Giants/Rangers

2010-10-25T12:58:00.003-05:00

One of these franchises will win for the first time in years, and in the Rangers case, if they win, it will be the first time ever.

As the 2nd incarnation of the Washington Senators, the Rangers franchise, which has been in Texas since 1971, has not won in the entire time they have existed, nor have they ever been in the position to win since 1961.

The Giants have not won since 1954, and they were in New York at the time.

Other than that, why might we want to watch this series? I really didn't think the Giants had it in them to beat the Phillies, but that mega-offense they have in Philly can get in a strange funk at times, and they just happened to do it in the NLCS. A lot of it has to do with the Giants pitching, but considering the Giants are not exactly a juggernaut, I felt like the Phillies should have won that series.

And thus, I think the Rangers, also with a good pitching staff and a mega-offense that does not seem to slump very much, will probably take this series.

I haven't seen this un-sexy of a matchup since the White Sox/Astros World Series in 2005. That also had a franchise that hadn't won in forever versus a team that had never been (and also a team from Texas). It was a sweep. They were all pretty close games, but in all, a 4-game series sucks no matter how you approach it.

But if this series goes 7, still will anyone care? The last time the Giants were in the World Series was 2002, against the Angels, a series that went 7, and I don't think I watched one game. I'll probably watch some of this if I can, but I won't go out of my way for it.

The Braves Can Blame Themselves, Like Always

2010-10-11T21:38:00.003-05:00

Bobby Cox's last game as manager of the Atlanta Braves ends in a 3-2 loss, and like so many postseason games before it, everything in the world went against them: costly walks, barely hit baseballs going for hits, and of course, like sands through the hourglass, bad umpire calls.

The Giants were afforded the benefit of almost every close call, including one where Omar Infante may, or may not have, held second base on a fielder's choice that would have resulted in a tie game, men at first and third, and two outs, rather than tie game, bases loaded, and one out. And like all Braves games in the postseason seem to play out, the next guy struck out (which would have been the third out), and the next guy hit a single to left to give the Giants the lead.

The umpires are generally under fire like every official is in every playoff in every sport. Every playoff results in plays that under review should have gone the other way, in an alarming amount of instances. Because the play is more intense, and plays are closer than usual, calls are always harder, and I think game officials also get caught up in the emotion and are prone to mistakes.

This is called "the human element," and the argument goes, well, the players are human too and they make lots of mistakes. But as fans we accept that players make mistakes, especially since they are going against other humans, two opposing forces trying to stop each other. We are not as forgiving of officials. Their only opposition is their eyes and perception.

The theme throughout the season with umpire calls has been letting what might have happened get in the way of what probably happened. You get the call right most of the time by making the call that is simplest. The play at second base tonight: sure, Infante could have been pulled off the bag before he had possession of Alex Gonzalez's throw, but you can't possibly see that. It wasn't obvious. And even in slow motion replays, it was difficult to see what happened. So the right call is out regardless of what you think you saw. When in doubt, the ball beat the runner and you can't possibly say with any certainty he was off the bag before he caught the ball. This is the problem with a lot of the questionable calls this year.

Of course you have some that are just plain wrong, and those are the most brutal. But those happen less than the close play scenario where an ump inexplicably makes the call that is against common logic.

THAT SAID:

The Braves lost this series because of a punch-less lineup and bad defense. The pitching was stellar, and everything else was not. Injuries were an overrated topic, but yeah, I'd have liked to have Chipper and Martin Prado playing. The lineup had to fill holes with guys who are better suited for the bench and the weaknesses were glaring. I think there's no doubt the Braves win this series with those guys. But they should have won without them. The Giants were ripe to be beat. I don't think the Braves beat the Phillies in the next round, however, and I certainly don't think the Giants have a chance, even with their pitching. The Phillies just shut down the best hitting team in baseball. What are they going to do against a team that has way less offense?

I'll definitely miss Bobby Cox in the dugout. I have had a number of criticisms of his in-game management in the past and that I won't miss. But the guy is like your dad out there, you love him no matter what. All of my teams: the Braves, Titans, and Predators, have had the same guy leading them forever and I'm not used to change. I guess I'm lucky that way, but I'm looking forward to the Braves moving on.

Garbage

2010-10-10T19:02:00.003-05:00

After Mike saw his Reds just gift-wrap a win to the Phillies, the Braves followed suit in Game 3 of the NLDS and yes, I blame Bobby Cox.

Brooks Conrad is now the most hated man in Atlanta after he committed three errors and allowed the Giants to win the game 3-2 over a Braves team that had just taken a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth on an awesome line drive HR from Eric Hinske. I haven't been so elated in a long time. My hands were numb from clapping after that hit. The only problem is that Billy Wagner is hurt and they would have to use an unproven guy to close out the game. In comes Craig Kimbrel.

Kimbrel got a fly out on Cody Ross, then walked Travis Ishikawa, then struck out Andres Torres. With two outs, Kimbrel got Freddy Sanchez to swing at two pitches out of the zone and then inexplicably threw him a fastball down the middle on a 1-2 count. Sanchez singles, and up comes Aubrey Huff. Now, even though Aubrey Huff hits left-handers better than right-handers, Bobby Cox played the universal percentages and put in lefty Mike Dunn. Bad move. Huff singled, of course on a pitch he was fooled on, hitting a flair to right field in front of Jason Heyward. Tie game. Then Cox puts in Peter Moylan, who gets the ground ball he wants, but oh, if only Brooks Conrad weren't there to field it. It goes under his glove. Giants take the lead and an undeserved win after Brian Wilson comes in to close it out. And by the way, this patient approach Braves batters have has become a thorn in my side. Jason Heyward allowed a pitch that should have been hit in the stands to just go harmlessly by. And this happens too often.

But the Cox pitching change isn't what lost this game. It's the insistence to play Brooks Conrad that lost this game. I have never seen a man so loved during the season become such a hated person in such a short time. And it's not his fault, in my opinion. When a person becomes a liability in the field, and has made so many bad errors (he made a few that nearly cost the Braves a chance at the postseason), then it is the responsibility of the manager to pull that guy out of the starting lineup. Braves fans like Brooks Conrad when he's up late in the game and can possibly give you a nice pinch-hit HR or something (see the Reds game earlier in the year with the pinch-hit game-winning grand slam). He was never meant to be a guy out there in the field.

So what does Bobby Cox need to do? Seriously, is Troy Glaus that bad of a defender? Glaus should be at third and Omar Infante, who was placed at third when Conrad had fielding issues there, should be back at second where he is more comfortable. Glaus bailed out the Braves with a beautiful double play in Game 2 that if, unturned, would have lost the game. Plus, Glaus, as much as he struggled towards the end of the year, is a better bat. YOU CANNOT DO WORSE THAN THIS. Someone tackle Bobby Cox and explain this. YOU CANNOT DO WORSE THAN CONRAD. If Troy Glaus goes out there and makes three errors, no one will be hoping Brooks Conrad could have been in the game. Hell, I'll take the young Diory Hernandez if Troy Glaus can't go.

Cox will need to make this change because now, they're down 2-1 and the season is completely on the line. And Conrad can not be allowed to play in the field the rest of the playoffs. If he is allowed to play any more positions, this final season's destiny rests in Cox's hands and is his fault.

I was so excited after that Hinske HR. So excited. I can't tell you how hard of a crash that was when it fell apart.

The MLB Playoffs, 2010

2010-10-04T11:06:00.005-05:00

UPDATE: One slight error I made was saying the Brewers didn't make the playoffs. I really meant, during the 1991-2005 stretch the Braves went regularly. The Brewers made it in 2008, and lost to the Phillies.

ALSO: I've made a lot out of the Braves facing all those different teams over the years (they've also played many teams multiple times). But the Yankees have also been to the playoffs enough now that they've faced everyone in the AL except the Royals, Rays, and Blue Jays. And while the Braves have faced 4 different AL teams in the World Series, the Yankees have faced off against 6 NL teams.

I know this time of year, people are absolutely immersed in football nowadays, and when your team muffs a kickoff in the last two minutes of the game to seal a victory for a team they had been beating all day, well, that's understandable.

Two of our bloggers have teams in this year's playoffs. Mike's Reds and my Braves, luckily not playing each other in the first round. There are many stories that can come out of these playoffs and I'd like to discuss them here.

First off, I've mentioned it before, but the Braves have played every franchise in the National League since 1991 in the playoffs at least once except for the teams that haven't made it: the Brewers and the Expos/Nationals. This series against the Giants will be the second time the two have faced off, and it's the second DS. The last one was in 2002 when Dusty Baker managed San Francisco and took that team to the World Series. It went five games.

Speaking of Baker, he has the chance to play his old team in the NLCS should the Reds and Giants advance. It's funny, I've never considered Baker a great manager. He's made some huge blunders in the postseason that stick out, especially that 2003 NLCS when he was with the Cubs, but he's now taken three teams into the playoffs and he was within an eyelash of winning the World Series in 2002.

Back to the Giants. This team hasn't won a World Series since 1954, and the team was in New York. They've been in San Francisco since 1957. So they're the team with the longest World Series drought:

The Tampa Bay Rays have been to a Series but they haven't been in existence long enough to qualify for drought status.

The Rangers have the second longest drought, and they've never been the World Series as this team or as the (2nd) Washington Senators. This dates back to 1961. They've been in Texas since 1971.

It'd be fun if the two old Washington Senators franchises faced off the the ALCS: the Twins and Rangers can both claim Washington D.C. as their original home. The Twins last won in 1991.

And of course the Yankees won last year. Screw the Yankees.

In the NL, the Reds haven't won since 1990.

Braves, 1995.

And the Phillies beat the Rays in 2008. Screw the Phillies.

There's only one true rematch on the board and that's Phillies/Yankees from last year (the franchises also played in 1950). Teams tend to change a lot over the years, so the closest to being an honest rematch after that is Phillies/Rays. But it's always fun to look at what possible historical rematches exist:

Braves/Yankees (Braves as Milwaukee in 1957 and 1958, then Atlanta in 1996, 1999)
Twins/Braves (1991)
Reds/Yankees (1939, 1961, 1976)
Giants/Twins (as Senators) (1924, 1933)
Giants/Yankees (and a fun reunion between old NY franchises) (1921. 1922, 1923, 1936, 1937, and then Giants as San Francisco in 1962)

By the way, when's the last time you saw two teams (Braves, Rays) in the playoffs who had no-hitters/perfect games pitched against them in the regular season?

Here's what I hope:

I'd like to see the Braves win it all, sure. But what I'd like to see is a World Series that lasts 7 games. We haven't had one since 2002. But even if a Series goes 7 it doesn't mean it's a good one. You've got to think 1986, 1991, 2001. Games that were competitive throughout. Even last year's Series between powerful teams like the Phillies and Yankees only went 6 and not much of it was compelling.

Here's what I think will happen:

My instinct says the LCS will be Yankees/Rays and Giants/Phillies. And I don't see anybody beating the Phillies when they have that kind of offense, bench, and starting pitching (Halladay, Oswalt, Hamels). It looks like a Phillies rematch with either the Yankees or Rays and both of those teams look like fodder. Guys, I hate the Phillies as much as one man can hate them, but those guys are awfully good. Scary good. Which is why the Reds must pull off an amazing upset and end the madness. They have the offense to do it. But jeez, the pitchers will have to be on their game.

From a Braves Fan:

What a nice surprise that this team ends up in the playoffs in Bobby Cox's final year. But man, did these guys look tired and hurt by the end of the year. It's amazing they're in after all that has happened. They lost two huge bats (Martin Prado and Chipper Jones, and I'll even include Troy Glaus as a third, who couldn't miss pitches in May and then suddenly became very bad afterwards), and it caused a domino effect in the lineup where the bench guys, who are good as bench guys, had to start every day.

But this frustrating September was marked by the feeble at-bats many batters had. Seriously, I could be drunk for the next ten days in a row (barring alcohol poisoning) for the number of shots I could have taken watching weak grounders/and or fly outs. Those fly outs weren't even close to the warning track. Sometimes you say, well, he flew out, but he hit it hard and maybe he'll get them next time. Give you some hope. But when you see those weak, outfielder-didn't-even-move kind of flies, it's demoralizing. And watching Alex Gonzalez swing the bat is brutal. He truly is all-or-nothing. Which means pitchers can throw slider after slider without repercussion.

What works out in favor for the Braves is they get three days off before they have to play again. Maybe those muscles will restore somewhat to health. Seriously, they didn't look like they had anything left, and the eight runs they scored yesterday were a miracle of sheer will.

Anyway, I'm going to love watching the games this year. It'll be fun in lieu of the mediocrity that is the Titans.

Go baseball.

Gary Danielson and Momentum

2010-09-18T19:26:00.002-05:00

I won't go through the my own thoughts about momentum here (it's been done a lot), but a college football announcer I like a lot surprised me during the SEC Championship last year by bringing up the topic as something that is debatable. He only hinted at it, and I really wanted to know what his thoughts were on the subject.

During that game (Florida-Alabama 2009), CBS' SEC broadcaster Gary Danielson (and I'm paraphrasing and taking the quote out of context because I can't remember what led to him bringing it up) said, "Momentum is something that if you believe in, and it works for you, go for it."

Nowhere else did I hear anything about momentum. Then today, during the Florida-Tennessee game, Danielson got a forum to speak about it. And it was refreshing.

After Florida successfully converted a fake punt with the game tied at 10-10, Danielson commented that Florida coach Urban Meyer is a big believer in momentum and that he was trying to make a play that would bring momentum into their favor. And then he said, "Well, just because I don't believe in it doesn't mean Urban Meyer shouldn't."

After the Gators scored a touchdown and CBS returned from break, Danielson laid it out like this (again, paraphrasing), "Momentum suggests that a team has some sort of advantage, when really one team usually just has better players than another team." He brought up that in a tennis match, you'll see the better player win most of the time because they just wear their opponent down over the course of the match. I'll add, we generally see Rafael Nadal win because the guy is fitter, faster, more skilled, and has a better array of shots that he can land at any given moment. Well, Danielson believes that football is much the same way. You'll see Tennessee hang with Florida for awhile, but then the better players eventually wear them down.

I'll try to sum up Danielson's comments this way: what we see as this unstoppable force of momentum is really a product of a better team playing a steady game (skills, execution) and eventually tiring and frustrating their opponent to the point that it looks like the better team is just coasting. We see this with sprints in the Olympics when a faster runner seems to be neck-and-neck with the pack and then pulls away. They're not running faster, the other runners are just slowing down.

After Tennessee apparently recaptured momentum after scoring a touchdown that brought them within 24-17, the ensuing kickoff went out-of-bounds. Danielson took the moment to say, "This is why I'm not a momentum guy." He added, "Yeah, I get kidded about it a lot, but that's the way I see it."

So I have at least one guy in my corner. I'm glad it's not someone who sucks.

NFL PREDICTIONS

2010-09-08T22:25:00.003-05:00

It's been a few years since I've attempted to do this, and there are plenty of good reasons. Mostly, I'm always wrong. But it's fun to try, and if I ever actually get something right I can brag later. I challenge the rest of the L&N guys to get their picks in as well, and then whoever is the least wrong can brag an ass ton at the end of the year. The lady to the left wants you to make some picks, and so how can you say no to that? That would be plain rude.

Anyways, here goes. Let's see how much I fuck this up.

NFC EAST
1. NEW YORK GIANTS
2. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
3. DALLAS COWBOYS
4. WASHINGTON REDSKINS

I have to go out on a limb in some of these divisions, and I'm sorry, but I have no faith in the consensus pick, the Dallas Cowboys. I like that Coughlin's job is on the line, and I like the QB that Eli Manning is becoming. They also have a great wide receiver core, great tight end, an interesting running game, and a good defense. Kolb looks to be primed for an Aaron Rodgers type year of proving people wrong about whether or not the Eagles should have held onto McNabb. I don't think he's as good as Rodgers, but he will put up some numbers. And the Redskins could actually be a huge suprise; a lot of people are making them their wild card pick. But Shanahan was so much better when he had Elway, but weren't we all? I do think Clinton Portis is nowhere near done and should put up some impressive numbers for what that's worth.

NFC NORTH
1. GREEN BAY PACKERS
2. MINNESOTA VIKINGS (WC)
3. DETROIT LIONS
4. CHICAGO BEARS

The one thing I'm fairly certain of is that the Packers should have the best record in the NFC and the Detroit Lions should be a hell of a lot better. The Vikings will still be in the mix and there might only be a game seperating the two, but Favre's numbers will come back to reality and Petersen will still fumble the damn ball no matter what BS he is spouting. He will also realize how much he misses Chester Taylor when Toby Gerhart's scrawny ass proves to be a bust. Sydney Rice being out half a season doesn't help either. The Lions/Bears thing is kind of a toss-up (Both teams will probably be in the 6 win range. More gut than anything else.

NFC SOUTH
1. ATLANTA FALCONS
2. NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (WC)
3. CAROLINA PANTHERS
4. TAMPA BAY BUCS

I probably should pick the Saints to win this division, but the reality is no team has repeated as division champ in the NFC South since its inception in 2002. So until that happens I'm not picking against it. Plus it's not like the Falcons don't make sense. That Saints defense scares the hell out of me and should scare the hell out of Saints fans even more. The Panthers might pull off an 8 win season, but I can't see much more than that, and who will be their QB? The Bucs should have the number 1 pick next year which will do them a lot of good when the strike happens right after the draft.

NFC WEST
1. ARIZONA CARDINALS
2. SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS
3. SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
4. ST. LOUIS RAMS

It's a pick straight from the gut. I think 8-8 wins this division so it's not like I think the Cardinals are world beaters. There are a lot of questions with both the 49ers and the Cards, but everyone else is going with the 49ers so I'm going against the grain. Sue me. The Seahawks would be a pretty upset special kind of pick, but the QB situation raisies even more issues than Arizona's similar predicament. Love their running game; Forsett could have a breakout season. The Rams should have the number 2 pick in the draft next year.

AFC EAST
1. NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
2. MIAMI DOLPHINS
3. NEW YORK JETS
4. BUFFALO BILLS

I think the Jets have pissed the Patriots off enough for them to show why this division has been their's to lose for the past decade. The Dolphins could go either way, but I feel good about it. The Jets will find out why bragging a lot and spending a lot of money rarely wins anything close to a championship; see Dan Snyder for a good reference. And the Bills will be showing up and trying their hardest I'm sure.

AFC NORTH
1. BALTIMORE RAVENS
2. PITTSBURGH STEELERS (WC)
3. CINCINATTI BENGALS
4. CLEVELAND BROWNS

I've been pretty high on the Ravens, and I still think they had the best offseason. However, when I started typing this out this was much harder than I thought. Looking at the Steelers schedule, if they can manage to go just 2-2 with Big Ben out of the picture, there is no reason to think they can't be 11-5 when all is said and done. And I predict Mendenhall will be the league's top rusher. It will be close, but I'm sticking with my gut and picking the Ravens to win the division. The Bengals will still be pretty good and might cause some problems for both of the top two teams. The Browns should have a pretty good draft pick next season.

AFC SOUTH
1. INDIANAPOLIS COLTS
2. HOUSTON TEXANS (WC)
3. JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS
4. TENNESSEE TITANS

As long as the Colts have that fucker, Manning, it's hard to pick against them. The Texans should be able to eke out a 10 win season; good enough to get them in the playoffs. Gotta love that offense, and they have a pretty damn good defense as well. Schaub's health is always an issue, but he made it through all of last season with barely a scratch so let's hope that was a good sign. Probably a dick move to put the Titans last, but no matter how you swing it, Chris Johnson is not the deciding factor. That would be Vince Young, and I just don't have enough faith in him to believe much has changed. The defense is suspect as well; especially when you realize they are seriously considering bringing back Haynesworth. The Jags match up pretty well in every area; Jones Drew isn't that far off from Johnson, is he? Still could go either way, and if Young proves me wrong maybe they are vying for 2nd place and the last wild card berth. The Titans have ways of sneaking in there.

AFC WEST
1. KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
2. SAN DIEGO CHARGERS
3. OAKLAND RAIDERS
4. DENVER BRONCOS

Did I really just type in the Chiefs in the number 1 spot? Yes I did, and I hate the Chiefs, so fuck off. These are my picks. There has to be a couple of big suprises, so why not the Chiefs. They've slowly been building their team in the right direction, but they do have a pretty awful QB at the helm. But sometimes great running games and good defense make up for that and the Chiefs have both. The Chargers will put some points on the board, but they are putting a lot of faith in a rookie running back. The Raiders and Broncos both look about the same. I would love to say my Raiders will have that turnaround season, but that schedule is rough. Maybe 6 wins; I'm hoping for 7.

NFC CHAMP - GREEN BAY PACKERS

AFC CHAMP - BALTIMORE RAVENS

SUPERBOWL WINNER - GREEN BAY PACKERS

That was fun.

Tim Lincecum

2010-09-01T13:20:00.004-05:00

OK, I've wanted to touch on this for awhile, and with the recent struggles of Giants ace Tim Lincecum, it becomes apt.

Early on in the season I started thinking about guys with weird pitching deliveries, like Fernando Valenzuela and Hideo Nomo. These guys burst onto the scene and had success for a decent amount of time, but not as long as a Hall-of-Fame career would require. You can give Valenzuela a time from 1981-1986 in which he was clearly a dominant pitcher, but from 1987 to 1997, he started to falter and began the acquisition-roulette left-handed pitcher guy. And he was only 26 when he started to lose it.

Hideo Nomo had two great seasons with the Dodgers, beginning at the age of 25, before losing it and getting passed around for awhile, before coming back to the Dodgers and having two more legit seasons a little later.

Mechanics are an essential part of baseball, and once things get too complicated, problems will likely arise in the future. Age, injuries, and those slight differences you don't notice over time all conspire to take your perfect herky-jerky confusing motion into something that is only a parody of what it once was.

Your best pitchers of all time, like Bob Gibson, had a simple motion, something that was easy to correct if things go bad, and I imagine for Gibson it went bad very rarely (from 1959-1975 he had a career ERA of 2.91).

For awhile, the confusion works. Batters have a hard time picking up on the ball, and if you have stuff like Lincecum, then it's all the harder to adjust. But give those batters some video and some reps against you, that motion doesn't mean much anymore, and it certainly doesn't mean much if you can't even do it the same way and your pitches start to flatten out because your mechanics are all out of whack.

So, in other words, I predicted that he would begin to struggle. Anyone who comes on the scene with something unusual, whether it's a windup or a batting stance, is destined to have short-lived success. Athletes need simplicity in execution, because complicated mechanics get in the way. Now, I'm sure Lincecum will go ahead and pitch about forty no-hitters after I post this, but I don't see him staying dominant long. I know the past few games are a small sample size, but seeing his "predecessors" in unusual motions, the future doesn't look great for him for an entire career. I don't necessarily want him to fail, because guys like him are why we go the ballpark. So I hope he breaks out of it. He just may need to adjust that delivery to be more simplistic.

I'm Glad This Is The Last Year of Bobby

2010-08-25T17:37:00.002-05:00

The Atlanta Braves currently reside in 1st place, and will continue to do so no matter what happens tonight in Philadelphia. But that isn't the point. The point is, Bobby Cox lost a game his team was winning 10-1 today by doing the usual Bobby Cox nonsense that has likely cost this franchise a couple of extra championships over the years.

Of course, you won't hear that from anyone affiliated with the Braves, certainly not the usual SportSouth team of Chip Caray and the usually excellent Joe Simpson.

With a 10-1 lead, Braves starter Jair Jurrgens started to lose it a little bit, and he gave up 4 runs and it was suddenly 10-5. OK, well that's bound to happen in Coors Field, one of the most ridiculous parks ever due to the thin air and the extremely huge outfield. But, inexplicably, Jair was out there again in the 6th inning. And, inexplicably, he was out there as he continued to struggle. In comes Peter Moylan finally, but he starts walking guys, and before you know it, it's 10-8.

OK, so then things calm down a bit with new pitcher Eric O'Flaherty, and then the dependable Johnny Venters comes in the 7th and mows down Rockies batters. All right, way to go Johnny...now take your shower...oh, wait, you want him to pitch another inning? And wait, after he walks a .201 batter? And then the bases get loaded? He's still in the game after all that?

Players like playing for Bobby because he's a "players manager" but the loyalty goes way too far. Venters should not have started the 8th inning at all, and he definitely shouldn't have been there after he allowed the lead-off walk. The Braves have a million arms down in the bullpen and Bobby Cox wanted to pitch a guy who had not pitched more than 1 inning very much this season to pitch another inning in freaking Coors Field.

Losses like today's 12-10, 11-unanswered-run debacles lie squarely on Bobby's shoulders. I've had enough. There's a lot of good he brings the team, obviously, and the Braves ability to come back has been amazing this year, but when the game requires actual management, the Braves are screwed. If they make the postseason, can't wait for that usual "let's play the game like the regular season" thing the Braves always do.

Boobs and Blood in 3-D: God Bless America

2010-08-24T22:04:00.002-05:00

Chris had a great post last summer discussing the merits, or lack thereof, in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. My personal favorite passage is this:

"What baffles me about people who defend Transformers is how they can forgive the extremely long stretches where there are no robots, fighting, or explosions. Because in the middle of all this is a filmmaker's need to make it something more than it is, which tips Michael Bay's hand that this movie is not as people are defending it."

Well I like to think Alexandre Aja read this or at least had the same thought while watching Bay's ridiculous giant robot thingamajigee because Aja's Piranha 3-D does not have any of these problems. This movie is 85 minutes of mean ass prehistoric fish eating everything in sight, and considering the movie's setting is Spring Break on a lake in Arizona there is more than enough food on the platter.

This isn't so much a review because to be honest I have no idea how to say that I liked this or didn't. Piranha is a movie that just is what it is. If you are in the mood for a female hangliding on a lake topless and after she goes in the water she comes up with half of her body missing then you'll be more than satisfied. If you're not in the mood for that, I guess go watch The Switch.

But the fact that a movie like this exists in a film era of so much self awareness and pretenious blandness is a revelation of sorts. I'm not saying that there aren't great movies made when one actually tries to do just that (Toy Story 3 and Inception are great recent examples of big budget studio films that work on just about every level), but to see something so effortless and fun with an expert touch is wildly fufilling.

The film also questions the negative mind of the movie geek that holds junk like Transformers 2 and GI-Joe so dearly. The idea that stuffy old critics just don't know how to have fun at the movies is thrown out the window when you see that Piranha has an 81% approval rating from the nation's critics on rotten tomatoes. Here's a movie that has no pretensions about it. For instance, Elisabeth Shue and Adam Scott don't decide to go investigate the origins of the prehistoric piranha by jetting off to Egypt to get clues off of pyramids. In fact, the only exposition we get is about a minute's worth with an underused Christopher Lloyd who just happens to be nearby and has a fossil of the species. That scene is B-Movie gold.

Sure, the movie spends a good thirty minutes with a little bit of set-up. They even throw in the typical Weinstein requested pointless death scene in the middle of everything so you don't have to go too long without some blood and guts. Think Henry Winkler's misplaced death in Scream but with cliff-diving and piranhas.

But then the movie gets to it's final thirty minutes. It's the big Spring Break Wet T-Shirt contest (Hosted by none other than the sleaziest of the sleaziest, Eli Roth) with about three hundred horny people all over the water. It's a smorgasbord of epic proportions that Aja makes brutal use of. What I found more interesting about this sequence than the piranha swimming around having some snacks, was Aja's incorporation of the stupidity of people when exposed to pure chaos. There's one sequence where a guy just jumps in a boat and heads to shore mowing down anyone in his way. It's bizarre and kind of beautiful all at the same time.

We also have Jerry O'Connell playing essentially Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame (Interesting side note: Francis is threatning to sue Dimension films because the movie makes him out to be too sleazy. Really?) and his lovely beauties (Porn star, Riley Steele, and the ungodly beautiful, Kelly Brook) on another part of the lake with the Sheriff's (Shue) son (Steven R. McQueen) for yet another gory set-piece.

There's a lot of nudity, a lot of blood, and a lot of piranhas. Like I said, the movie is what it is and it has so much fun being just that it's hard not to kind of love it. Once again, don't know that I could actually call this a good movie, but it's as entertaining as it needs to be if not more. And even the parts that don't work (like the 3-D for instance) kind of make it all the more endearing. I will say this; Piranha 3-D is the Godfather of 3-D piranha movies. And sometimes isn't that enough?

So Now We're Just Remaking Titles?

2010-08-04T22:27:00.003-05:00

So according to this article posted at Bloody Disgusting today, the Weinstein's have hired a writer for their remake of "An American Werewolf in London." Why a great film such as this has to be remade is beyond me, but fine, whatever? I'm not against remakes in general, but I fail to see the point with most of them. But if you want to take a crack at it, be my guest.

However, apparently Harvey and Bob are actually going to steer away from the original source material, not to mention they have hired Fernley Phillips to write the script; his previous credit would be the god-awful "Number 23." So this being the case, why don't you just make your own original werewolf movie and call it anything else other than AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN "FUCKING" LONDON?

And this is where my problem with most remakes lies. All the studios and producers are really doing is taking a title that has relevance with a group of people and slapping it on their own bullshit hoping to make a few extra bucks. Last time I checked, you can make a good movie with a fresh title and people will come. But I digress.

Ironically, Chris and I were talking this past weekend about how the only good horror remake of the past decade was arguably 2004's "Dawn of the Dead." And I would also argue that the only problem I have with the film is that it's called "Dawn of the Dead" because other than a setting at a mall it has so little to do with the original source material.

And what does not sticking with the source material mean? I would assume that you would still have to have the damn werewolf in London. Maybe it will be so meta...aww fuck it! So irritating!

Three Great Soccer Calls

2010-06-26T20:39:00.003-05:00

From 12 years ago... if you listen closely, you can hear the name of the player who scored.

"Diego Armando Maradona. Gracias Dios, por el fútbol, por Maradona, por estas lágrimas, por este Argentina 2, Inglaterra 0."

And now, finally, we get one.

A Couple World Cup Thoughts

2010-06-12T22:05:00.003-05:00

Well, not bad from the US if you saw the game. They played with the heart that you want from the guys, and played up to England's level. Nice first game, and the draw, despite the awful goal, was deserved. That was the average game for them, and likely a bad and good game to come, unless we truly have grown.

England looked rough, but that's a good sign; the eventual champions always start slow. A few of their big questions have been answered, even though they know that the goalie and the right midfield choice were the wrong one. Their manager will get the ship righted, make the team adjustments they need, and I think make at least the semi-finals. Few will say it but I feel it was very positive for England!

Chicago and Philly Don't Compete For Championships Often

2010-05-25T14:26:00.004-05:00

The Chicago Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers are in the 2010 Stanley Cup. Because the two cities represent the same conference in every sport except hockey and have had very few chances in baseball with the historically inept White Sox and Phillies, championships played between these cities have not occurred since 1948. A grand total of 4 championships were played between 1910 and 1948, and in the case of both cities, each fielded a team that they no longer can call their own.

There were back-to-back NFL championships in 1947 and 1948 between the Chicago Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles. The Cards won the first meeting 28-21 at Comiskey Park and the Eagles took a 7-0 decision the next year at Shibe Park. Back then, championships were played on home fields. That was decided by alternating between conferences.

In 1910 and 1929 the Connie Mack-led Philadelphia A's took out the Cubs 4-1 both years.

So it's been 62 years. As for the hockey clubs, the Blackhawks haven't won since 1961, and the Flyers haven't won since 1975. So, one of these cities is ending a long Stanley Cup drought.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like 2005

2010-05-06T15:16:00.002-05:00

This summer kicks off with Iron Man 2, the sequel to a very popular and huge hit from 2008. My review of it will be tomorrow on the nymoviereviews site, but here's a hint: this isn't a great kickoff to the summer.

In fact, this summer has a lot in common with the summer of 2005. Remember that summer, where you couldn't turn around without some publication/periodical focusing on a phantom slump that was based on the previous year's numbers and wasn't paying attention to the trashy product that was hitting the screens?

This summer is sequel-heavy. There are a couple of hopeful originals, or "originals," looking for bank, but this summer is entirely contingent on the goodwill generated by previous entries. The summer of 2005 was hoping you really, really loved The Honeymooners and Bewitched. We only have a couple of remakes, or different versions of movies that have already been made, this summer

After Iron Man 2 goes for The Dark Knight record this weekend, we have yet another version of Robin Hood. The marketers can throw out Gladiator, and Russell Crowe, and Ridley Scott all they want to, this movie is going to bomb. How many of you get excited seeing Crowe in this role and seeing yet another swords and sandals epic? I haven't seen a movie like this take off since Lord of the Rings, and that's 7 years now, and not really the reason people showed up anyway. Even Braveheart had a hard time making money back in 1995.

Then we have yet another sequel, one that actually comes after a chapter that generated a lot of bad-will...Shrek Forever After...in 3D! I have no doubt the movie will make some money, but if this has a whiff of Shrek the Third badness, this one won't make $150 million.

Competing against Shrek is the one movie that might get a cult following, but probably won't be a huge hit and that's the SNL skit-to-movie MacGruber.

Then, you always have to give Jerry Bruckheimer his props...even though Prince of Persia is based on a video game, it looks like the kind of Bruckheimer-produced garbage that people flock to, and it should be a pretty big hit with Memorial Day behind it.

But also having Memorial Day behind it is Sex and the City 2. Another sequel, another movie that looks absolutely atrocious, and yet will "strike a blow" for women when it becomes a huge mega-hit. I'm sorry, this is the kind of cinema that women really want? Really?

June starts the possible slump talk. On the 4th, we have the Apatow-produced kind-of-a-spinoff Get Him to the Greek, which contains the Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. After looking at the previews, and yes even the Red Band version, I'm not seeing this take off as some huge hit, and it competes against other movies that are going to have a hard time with audiences, like the buddy-action-romantic-comedy Killers with Katherine Hiegl and Ashton Kutcher. The comic-strip adaptation Marmaduke...ugh...and the one interesting movie out of this group is Splice, the Species-ish sci-fi thriller, which probably has no chance at all.

June 11 comes our creative-dearth weekend: The A-Team, which should do G.I. Joe kind of business (I'm thinking a little less), and the remake of The Karate Kid, starring Will Smith's kid Jaden and Jackie Chan. I'm not seeing either of these making a huge impression.

Then there's Jonah Hex, a Western comic book movie that looks OK but I can't see being huge, and Pixar's first real test of their brand's staying power with Toy Story 3. I have every bit of faith that Pixar will deliver yet another winner, and I loved the first two Toy Storys, but it's been 11 years since Toy Story 2 was released. That kind of gap doesn't usually bode well for franchises, but if any studio could do it, it's Pixar.

The 25th brings aging stars with broad-appeal films that I can't see doing crazy, lasting business. Tom Cruise returns with the action-comedy Knight and Day, co-starring Cameron Diaz. A lot of their thunder will have been stolen by Killers three weeks before it comes out. The same kind of premise; the girl is a hopelessly naive unwitting action star, the guy is a secret government agent with all sorts of skilz. Advance word is good, but you're looking at a pretty hard fade after it's released most likely.

And that's definitely true for The Grown-Ups, the new Adam Sandler comedy with his buddies David Spade, Kevin James, Chris Rock, and Rob Schneider. It looks like a camp movie with lots of pain and pee jokes. It might be one of his lowest-grossing comedies ever when all is said and done.

Then we have the July 4 weekend.

We have Twilight: Eclipse, a guaranteed money-maker. Running up against it: M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon series. My question is, why? Why even attempt to compete against the unholy behemoth that is Twilight?

July 9 brings the I-still-don't-know-what-it's-about-even-though-I've-seen-4-trailers Despicable Me, with voice work from Steve Carell and a million others. It competes against Predators, which I don't think has a chance in hell of being a hit. No Predator movie has ever done well, even when they battled the Aliens.

I've seen Inception being described as the most anticipated movie of the summer. Directed by Christopher Nolan, I am amped for it. But does the movie scream out, "Super hit" when I see the trailers? It really doesn't. Those kind of movies where they're trying to keep everything secret, and it's got a sketchy premise that's hard to describe, don't generally do well, or as well as hoped.

Inception competes against The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and I haven't seen enough of that to think it might do well...it looks like another one of those Percy Jackson type of movies that will have some decent pull but not much.

The following weekend, Dinner for Schmucks arrives, with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. It looks pretty funny...not sure of its potential box office though. The big movie being released this weekend is Salt, with Angelina Jolie doing her badass babe routine. I don't see this doing even what Wanted did a couple of years ago (Wanted barely hit $100 million after a good opening weekend)...it doesn't have the concept.

The 30th is going to be a big bomb: We have the sequel to Cats and Dogs...who asked for it? The original came out 9 years ago. Then there's the trying-to-be-Twilight movie Beastly, coming from CBS Pictures, which has had a horrible track record so far: Back-Up Plan, Extraordinary Measures.

August brings us Step-Up 3D...yawn. Then the next weekend is the every-action-star-ever-is-in-it The Expendables, which will have some retro interest. Too bad Stallone couldn't get Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger for bigger roles in it. There's the very interesting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which I think has no chance at all despite it's original concept. Edgar Wright's movies have never been huge draws for the casual movie fan.

Hey, on the 2oth...Nanny McPhee Returns...

Closing out August is a 3D treatment of the old Roger Corman cult hit Piranha. Because people for 30 years have been clamoring for it.

September is its usual wasteland: We have a new Resident Evil in 3D and finally, Oliver Stone's sequel to Wall Street arrives.

I really think this summer is going to have a lot of movies that have an initial explosive weekend, and then die shortly after. There's also going to be one or two that people should want to go to, but don't because it just doesn't look good. This isn't exactly a record-breaking summer we're seeing here. Only a couple of originals have a chance, and even they might end up disappointing. There's entirely too much product relying on old stock to make its money...seriously, Toy Story 3 I am very curious about. It has all the advantages in the world to a be a big hit, but the franchise has been gone so long. The new 3D versions of Toy Story 1 & 2 didn't exactly attract a huge audience.

I won't be surprised if we hear of another "slump" this summer. It should still be better than 2005, and lack of originality isn't exactly a new thing. It's just when studios rely on things that are so old is when the lack of originality becomes more noticeable.

Much Better Ending Than the Predators Game

2010-04-27T00:10:00.002-05:00

So, somehow, someway, the former Yugoslav republics all get together to have an annual basketball league. The champion is determined by a single game playoff. This year, this happened...

We Won't Be Seeing You "At the Movies" Much Longer

2010-03-25T12:34:00.003-05:00

I'm sad today, and most people will think it's stupid why, but "At the Movies," after 35 freaking years, was cancelled (It will keep airing till August). I've been a fairly consistent follower since the late eighties. So I was there after Gene Siskel died and after a rotation of new critics, Richard Roper finally took the vacant seat for good. I was there for Roger Ebert's bout of cancer which eventually took him off the show for good since he no longer had a voice and eventually it was Richard Roper and Michael Phillips doing an admiral job at filling the renowned seats.

I stuck around for that awful late 2008/2009 duo of Ben Mankewicz (Turner Classic Movies) and that big pussy known as Ben Lyons (E Entertainment) who seemed more concerned with getting catch phrases in the movie ads than actually giving an honest and well thought out opinion of a film. My personal favorite cringe worthy moment was in his review for 2009's "Orphan" where he said "I wouldn't adpot this movie." Holy Shit, Really?

Lately it's been good again with Michael Phillips returning and A.O. Scott of the New York Times joining him for the latest incarnation. But I guess for whatever reasons the ends aren't there to justify the means to keep the show going. I can't imagine the thing is that expensive to produce nor can I imagine they are having to pay Phillips and Scott a lot of money to do what they love to do, but for whatever reason it's going off the air.

Love it or hate it, the show is an institution. And I would go as far as comparing it to the "Today Show," "Tonight Show," "Saturday Night Live," or hell, "Jeopardy." It's one of those shows that while you might not have watched it every week, it was comforting knowing it was there. It has spawned off many imitators that have never been able to last a season or two. Most recently, these shows have taken "Politically Incorrect" type formats for a younger audience. You will have some "E" reporter tag teamed with Jeffery Lyons or Leonard Maltin looking more uncomfortable than the people watching the show. Who wants to hear Leonard Maltin talk about how hip something is; just let him talk about the damn movie.

It also makes you wonder what the state of film criticism is. The internet has made way for a whole new generation of film critics, most of whom can't even spell a word correctly, but dammit, they have an opinion. There is also this guy spouting his crazy film gibberish on a weekly basis.* And now many papers are firing their film critics; of course in a few years what will the state of the newspaper be?

You can still go to the websites and read the likes of Roger Ebert (Still going strong with a new energetic love of film that borders on insanity), Peter Travers, or A.O. Scott, but for this film lover I always enjoyed watching the critics battle it out on the tube. I will miss the year end best and worst, the "We Pick the Oscar Specials," and just the weekly rapport between two intelligent film lovers (excluding Ben Lyons of course).

One of my fondest memories is of a "We Pick the Oscars" special from 1994. This was when Gene Siskel was still alive and well and he was going off on a tangent about "Maverick" being nominated for "Best Costume." I don't remember the exact verbage but it was something along the lines of: "They're wearing cowboy hats! So What? It's a Western!" In that same special, Roger Ebert went off on less of a tangent about Susan Sarandon being nominated for the awful movie, "The Client." Letting it be known that while Sarandon was one of the best actresses working today, how many lesser known and better performances have to get looked over for a phoned in performance by a bonafide movie star? This is an opinion shared by many film lovers today when discussing the state and importance of the Academy Awards.

Maybe the fact that this will matter to so few people is comment enough on the state of film criticism, and that's fine. To each his own. I just wanted to pay tribute to the show that really broadened my interest in film and partly made me the film lover I am today. I will miss you, "At the Movies." It's been fun.

* For anyone reading this that is not a regular reader, this film review site is one run by our fellow blogger Chris, and should be read by anyone with a love for film or tall men who look like Blake Shelton.

The 24 Hour News Cycle Can Officially Go to Hell

2010-02-18T13:53:00.002-06:00

Today, a plane crashed into a building in Austin. Apparently, the guy who did it was disgruntled, or upset, at something. Whatever.

I no longer care. I just want to know the facts. The speculation makes us all dumber. This is one of the lessons learned about the media after 9/11. 24-hour news is a contradiction in terms, because there is really only about twenty minutes of news a day. Everything else goes something like this:

Reporter: Is it true that the man who crashed the plane into the building might have dressed up as a zombie and ate human flesh with his children?

Expert: Yes, it's entirely possible. And let's not forget the after-effects of eating human flesh, which has shown in lab rats to cause irritability and psychosis.

Reporter: If he indeed ate human flesh, and indeed suffered from irritability and psychosis, do you think that could have led to him crashing the plane into the building?

Expert: It's hard to say at this moment, but it very well could be at least one reason why he did it.

Hey, it's nothing new to criticize the 24-hour news cycle. But when I walk into a place and they're playing the news and I overhear all the stuff being analyzed and guessed-at, it reminds me of why I no longer watch the news. It's unfortunate that I can no longer trust the news, that even when they finally reach a conclusion and have dug up every detail they possibly can about an individual who has done a horrible thing, that you still can't take it as gospel.

Further making the 24-hour news cycle bleak are the revelations of the Columbine incident. The news reported one way, and then someone had to come out with a book explaining that all the things that we thought we knew about Columbine were absolutely wrong.

The same goes for the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War, seen as these great Scud-busting weapons of efficiency that in actuality hardly ever worked. Or the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, a staged incident.

Can we start over? Do we have to put up with this?

Local Radio Hosts

2010-02-16T15:43:00.001-06:00

This afternoon, on my lunch break, I heard a bit of that new Three Hour Lunch program on 104.5 The Zone.

They were talking about punters and punting in general... and near the end of the conversation, Blaine Bishop said, "Maybe we should bring in Craig Hendrix from the Titans to help us on this one."

Freaking brilliant. Local sports radio at its best.

Colts Lose, Colts Lose!

2010-02-09T11:40:00.003-06:00

I’m going to get to my more in-depth analysis of the game in a moment, which is colored by my being a Colts fan. So before I expose myself as the total homer that I am, let me publicly say the following:

The Saints won that game. They earned it, and they deserve it. I can’t think of any other team I’d rather see beat the Colts than this year’s Saints. Hard not to like those guys except for the fact that they were opposing my favorite team. Drew Brees was lights out, and deserved the MVP. Congrats to them.

Now, my blood turns blue for a moment… here’s why the Colts lost, in random order:

1. The Colts receivers lost this game. There’s no other way for me to look at it.

A. Aside from two of the most glaring Super Bowl drops in history (Garcon on the 3rd down play and then Wayne at the one yard line near the game’s end), there were two or three other drops that I saw that should have been catches. Unacceptable in the Super Bowl to have this kind of sloppy receiver play. Dallas Clark was the only receiver who looked like he belonged out there.

B. Wayne was off all game. He re-aggravated his injury a few days before the game, and I can’t help but wonder if that contributed to his drops and general stale route running.

C. Hank freaking Baskett should have had that onsides kick on the first hop. I’m personally ashamed that he bobbled it so badly.

Manning played really well. Really well. He made throws fading backwards, running to his right, and repeatedly put the ball in pinpoint-perfect position for his receivers. Take away the interception, which I’ll address in a moment, and he played like an MVP. More on Manning in a moment too.

2. The interception wasn’t necessarily what it looked like. I’ve seen them run that play to Wayne a few dozen times, and he was not where he was supposed to be—again, perhaps a symptom of his injury. I’m not saying Manning is blameless for the INT, but Wayne was not where Manning expected him to be, and it allowed Porter to make the great play. Maybe Manning could have seen that Wayne was off the route, and held the ball, I don’t know. But high profile analysts like Chris Carter and Keyshawn Johnson (both of whom do have a tendency to be complete idiots, I understand) have publicly mentioned they thought the INT was Wayne’s fault more than Manning’s—that Wayne appeared to be dogging it a bit.

No matter. The Manning haters are still going to call it a choke. Because that’s what you do when Manning loses… you say he chokes. Nevermind the 2 playoff games he won to get here… those games aren’t “big games”… unless he’d have lost them, that is. Nevermind that he’s won as many postseason games as he’s lost. Oh well. QB’s get all the glory… so I guess it’s mildly fair for them to get all the blame.

Also… comparing this INT to the one Favre threw in the NFC Championship game is laughable. Favre was running to his right and throwing against his body (something you’re never supposed to do) and he didn’t even need to throw the ball… not to mention he had room in front of him to run. That was a stupid decision. Manning’s Super Bowl INT was maybe a ball he shouldn’t have thrown, in that he maybe should have seen that Wayne wasn’t coming back to the spot… but it’s not the same thing whatsoever.

3. How the freaking crap does this Colts team get the ball back with over a minute to go in the first half and freaking run the ball three times?!?! This might be the biggest WTF moment for me in the entire game. Manning has written the book this season on late-first-half scoring drives. What the hell were they afraid of? The play calling on this drive is unforgiveable. I don’t understand how it can even happen.

4. The Onsides Kick. You know what? The Onsides Kick was gutsy. It was bold. It changed the game’s complexion. It might have been the biggest play of the entire game.

And all that would be true… if the Saints had actually recovered the damn ball.

I have watched this game twice now, with particular attention paid to the onsides kick, and it’s pretty clear that the Saints player loses control after grabbing at the ball, and a Colts player falls on it. He’s immediately jumped on by about 20 people, and half a dozen penalty-worthy hits and punches are thrown in the scrum, and somehow the ball changes hands by the time the refs pull them all off. Incidentally, how the hell does the NFL let that scrum take place with all that shoving and violence and not issue a single penalty to either team?!

Sour grapes time: it’s always annoyed me that this “scrum” thing is part of football. That a game that prides itself on inches and being exact, and using HD replays to “get it right”, can let fumble recoveries come down to who twists the other teams testicles the best inside the scrum. There isn’t a better way to find out who recovered the ball? Because there’s at least one official who audibly says “Blue Ball” on the tape, only to be overruled a couple minutes later by another ref.

People are talking like this play is the new “The Catch” or something… but it was just an onsides kick, and one that the receiving team actually recovered, only to be robbed of it in a pile-up.

Summary: That’s my four keys to the loss. Any one of those things goes the opposite way, and we might be looking at a different outcome. We might not be. The Saints were going to score. They were dominant all year. And they earned their victory. I truly don’t believe that any one play makes or breaks a game… and throughout the whole game, the Saints made more plays than the Colts did… and it crushes me to say that.

But the Colts did enough to shoot themselves in the foot (dropped passes, horrific play calling at the half) that the Saints didn’t need to be perfect. I truly expected the Colts to win. And they probably should have. But apparently the receivers spent the prep week watching Braylon Edwards highlights and the coaches brushed up on the Jeff Fisher School of Frustratingly Conservative Play Calling. Ugh.

On the plus side… Joseph Addai and Dallas Clark looked downright manly in that game. There is plenty to be optimistic about for the Colts franchise. Just wish it would have come together well enough to win this game.

Things That Won't Impact The Super Bowl's Outcome

2010-01-29T10:05:00.002-06:00

I’m hearing/reading some things about the upcoming Super Bowl that are not true. It’s too long between now and the game for analysts to resist trotting out the same old, tired analysis. The fact of the matter is… these are the two best teams in the league all season long, and it should be a close game.

Here, for your reading pleasure, is my list of things being talked about that will have no impact on the game:

1. The Citizens’ of New Orleans love for their team

You cannot tell me—with a straight face—that the will of the citizens of New Orleans for their team to win can have any actual impact on whether their team wins or not. Ditto for the Katrina disaster playing any part. It’s a great story… great city… plenty of things to like about the Saints. But suggesting there is some karmic payday coming their way because of the hardship they’ve faced is dumber than dumb. And if New Orleans is owed any karmic payday—as they probably are—the idea that it should come in the form of a professional sporting victory is laughable. Stupid in fact. Would a Super Bowl victory for the Saints have any positive effect on the city? Sure… probably… in the form of hope and pride and bonding. But in terms of providing housing for people? Jobs? Not so much. Sometimes we greatly exaggerate the power of sports… and this is one of those times.

2. The Colts running game

I think the Colts have won enough games without stellar rushing numbers to warrant the assumption that they don’t need to run to win, at least this year. Also, they just beat the best defense in the league against the run—who is also the team with the NFL’s best rushing attack… and they outrushed them and averaged nearly 5 yards a carry. Please stop suggesting the Colts rushing attack is an important factor… it’s not. Also, even if it does matter, the Saints are 21st in the league against the run. Against the pass, if you’re curious, they are 25th.

This game is Peyton Manning versus the Saints… for the most part. If he has a bad game, which is rare this season, there’s probably nothing the Colts can do to win. If he has a good game, which is frequent this year, it can overcome a lot of possible mistakes in other areas of the Colts performance.

3. The color of the Colts jerseys

The hot comment to make now—last night on ESPN radio, this morning in Sports Illustrated—is reminding everyone that the Colts are undefeated in the Super Bowl when they wore the white jerseys… but lost the only time they wore the blue jerseys (the famous “guarantee” game against the Jets). The Colts will be wearing blue for the upcoming Super Bowl.

I’m perfectly willing to continue believing that colors on shirts have no bearing on sporting event outcomes… but if you have some sort of argument or proof that leads you to believe otherwise, I’m all ears.

4. The location for the game being Miami (where the Colts won last time)

I don’t think these players care one bit where the game is played. And I’m not sure there’s any scientific evidence that a team can get a “good vibe” off a stadium just because they won there recently.

5. The Colts travel plans and jetlag

A lot is being made of the Pro Bowl requirements the NFL is holding the Colts and Saints to—they have to be there and make an appearance. But the Colts want to travel to Miami together as a team. So some of the Colts will be flying to Miami for the Pro Bowl, flying back to Indy to meet the team and turn right around and fly back to Miami for the Super Bowl preparations. That’s kind of stupid. But I’ve read some suggestions that there will be jet lag that might affect the Colts players in the big game. But that’s almost stupider than the Colts flying arrangements. Jet lag doesn’t last for seven days. I think their bodies will acclimate long before the Super Bowl.

6. Whether or not I wear my Colts jersey

I received an awesome Peyton Manning jersey for Christmas from some awesome in-laws. It’s the only football jersey I’ve ever owned. I have a few friends who seem to seriously believe that I can jinx my team by not being careful about the timing and occasions I choose for wearing that jersey. Those friends are idiots.

7. The fact that a few players involved in the game have relatives in Haiti

I could simply say that both teams have a Haitian on their roster, so the effect is cancelled out. But I’m not sure there’s much to the idea that “players whose minds are on family that might be in trouble will play out of their minds” theory anyway. But even if you do… it’s cancelled out… offsetting penalties. No effect.

I could probably think of more, but I don’t want this to be some gigantic thing. It just annoys me that so much talk is wasted on stuff that doesn’t matter… and so many useless stats are thrown out as some sort of evidence of something. My favorite stupid stats are the historical ones that cover multiple decades… like Team A hasn’t won a playoff game when the weather is below 30 degrees in over 85 years!! Idiots. I hate that crap.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Ending the Prediction Game

2010-01-24T21:33:00.003-06:00

Predictions are fun...until you correctly pick 3 out of 10 for the entire playoffs.

And so, the Super Bowl is exactly as it was envisioned from about Week 8 in the season, the two teams that were going for an undefeated season for awhile, the two teams that looked unstoppable and then suddenly looked stoppable and then proved unstoppable.

Colts/Saints should be a fantastic Super Bowl. If there is one thing about being wrong that feels so right, it's getting a matchup like this.

The thing about the prediction game during these playoffs is seeing a team you believe in completely self-destruct. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Vikings/Saints game tonight, where the Vikings were so clearly better than their competition on this given night that you swear they should have won the game by about 21 points.

Brett Favre, as I have seen time and again, can amaze me with his ability and in one fell swoop make me think he's the worst quarterback I've ever seen. That interception before overtime...I sat there and said, "Oh, well, looks like he's going to run the ball and get a good amount of yards and Longwell will get the field goal try and oh look he's throwing across his body across the field and...yeah, you just pissed the game away." Keep in mind, even if that pass was incomplete, that would have been a massive failure. There was no real reward for the risk he was taking, and it befuddles me how time and again we've seen Favre do this. It's why I never got completely on board the "Favre is God" bandwagon. Tough guy, amazing ability...where is this guy's head?

I was going to reiterate, even if the Jets had won today, that the Colts probably played their starters in Week 17 more than what could have been truly classified as "resting" to the full extent of the phenomenon. But now that the Saints are in, it doesn't really matter. No matter how you slice it, a team that rested its starters is in the Super Bowl for the first time in ages.

And for my Super Bowl prediction...I pick the team that a Manning has ever played for.

Conference Championship Games

2010-01-18T20:54:00.002-06:00

As many of you know, I am essentially bound by this working theory (re: resting the starters in Week 17 and Super Bowl success) to pick the Vikings and the Jets this Sunday. There might not be a more difficult challenge to this theory than these games.

One thing that is nearly impossible to find out in this whole thing is how many teams made the Super Bowl by playing their starters for a half in that final game. You can look at stats and figure out whether they played or not and whether they made many plays, but you can't tell what the overall situation was. It might actually be wrong to say the Colts rested their starters enough to qualify for this phenomenon, because many of the guys were in that final game trying to achieve individual records (Manning went 14-18 for 95 yards in that final game against the Bills). There have been teams that played their starters for a half or less and went to the Super Bowl, but not many.

In the past, with bye weeks, the Colts played their starters very briefly before pulling them, then usually lost in the playoffs. This year, they played a little bit more than usual.

This upcoming game with the Jets is loaded with all sorts of tidbits. We start with the fact that the Colts paved the way for the Jets to make the playoffs in Week 16 by pulling the starters in the third quarter, leading to a 29-15 loss. The prevailing sentiment about that game, as close as it was, is that Manning had solved the Jets' blitz and was ready to just go on a rampage against their defense. I again call the "there is no way to look at an alternate universe" rule for this. We just don't know what would have happened. It's as if most analysts don't believe in teams making adjustments, as if the Jets would have simply played the exact same game that they were playing and would have been helpless against Manning. We just don't know.

Some people could say, "Well the Jets will feel disrespected that the Colts laid down for them and they don't deserve to be here," and the Jets will therefore get "mad" and show the Colts but good. I certainly don't believe in that. It's just as easy to say the Colts allowed a team in the playoffs that very well took care of a long-time nemesis (the Chargers) for them and now they'll have a much easier road to the Super Bowl because of it.

If the Jets are going to win, they have to stay away from penalties. The Colts, already a relentless offensive team that nickels and dimes teams to death with lots of "We've got 'em 3rd and 4 boys!" only to see the Colts complete an easy slant route right at the 1st down marker, don't need any help. They played a lot of close games that if their opponents had just cut down on mistakes, had a good chance to turn the game. Even last week's Ravens game, where the Colts won handily 20-3, was one play from being interesting, and that play was Ed Reed's interception that turned into a fumble recovery for the Colts. You ever see a guy holding the ball, thinking there's no way he's keeping it if he gets hit? I thought that way not only about Reed but later, Ray Rice. You sit there and go, "Oh no...this guy's losing the ball," and then to no surprise, he does. Hate to say something cliche, but the Jets have to stay away from turnovers, too.

The Jets will be playing an even worse run defense than the Chargers this weekend, which favors them greatly. The emergence of Shonn Greene cannot be underplayed. The Jets are also a better defense than the Ravens. The Jets have to stop the Colts from getting those easy passes, limit touchdowns, run the ball, not get penalized or turn the ball over to win this game. It's a tall task. The other thing they'll need to do: not allow Peyton Manning to have the ball with two minutes left in either half. The Colts will try to score in those minutes and have a great success rate. Think again how different that Ravens game would have been if they hadn't given the Colts such an easy 7 points at the end of the 1st half by dropping passes and not running the clock down in that last possession. The Ravens cut out about three easy-to-fix mistakes and that game is going down to the wire.

I think the Jets will cut out those mistakes and will win this game Sunday. If not, it'll be one of those 34-14 games.

As for the Vikings and Saints, I think we're still not entirely certain what team we're getting with the Saints this weekend. The Saints got a favorable Divisional matchup against an Arizona defense that couldn't stop anything (gave up 90 points in two playoff games, which is a record), lost Kurt Warner and most of the starting secondary. Meanwhile, the Vikings beat a team that by all measures was playing the best heading into the playoffs and looked primed for a Super Bowl run. They just killed them.

I think the Vikings play much better than the Cardinals, which is not a stretch by any means, will score more points, and will make this a closer game. If it's in any way close, I like my chances with Favre should the Vikings need to score in the closing minutes. This matchup is so good on paper. Too bad it'll probably end up being 47-28 by the time it's over.

So there's my reasoning. Looking forward to it.

But I Will Still Take Credit...

2010-01-17T19:03:00.002-06:00

Hey, I went 1-4 in picks this weekend, but the one was special: Jets over Chargers. Awesome.

Still a chance that the Super Bowl will have two teams that played their starters in Week 17...Vikings and Favre versus his "old" team the Jets, completing the Favre trifecta for the year. Holy crap.

Almost every potential Super Bowl matchup has intrigue: we could have Favre versus Manning, Saints/Colts and all of that backstory...the only real bad one would be Saints/Jets, the only intrigue there being...a rematch of Week 4.

Depeche Mode Responds to My Predictions

2010-01-16T22:16:00.004-06:00

Click here to listen to Depeche Mode's analysis concerning my predictions of this Saturday's games.

I mentioned it before, the "resting the starters" theory would be put to the test this year because of the weak AFC. There is a reason why the Ravens were 9-7 this year, and they showed why in this game tonight against the Colts: bad penalties, dropped passes, and incredibly poor clock management.

I get the sense that most games are within a play or two of being completely different from the final result, and the Ravens truly botched making this game a lot closer than it was. I texted Kennelworthy during this game, discussing how even more pissed off I am at this team for this performance in light of their playoff games against the Titans in the past.

The AFC now has only one team that can keep this theory going: the Jets.

The Saints/Cardinals game is a wash on the "resting the starters" discussion. Both teams were guilty of it. However, it didn't look like it hurt the Saints that much. Of course, the Cardinals were short-handed on both sides of the ball for much of the game. Not that it looked like it would have mattered.

Oh, and one more thing: Dan Dierdorf pulled off one of those great announcer comments that, without any possible way of seeing an alternate universe, took the results of tonight's game as irrefutable proof that "...the Colts rested their starters, and it worked." Since we will never know what would have happened had they played their starters, this comment is officially null and void. And with the history of the Colts and this issue, they took a big gamble. I really don't care what happened tonight.

It'll be funny if, after all that, we still get the matchups that the regular season promised: Vikings/Saints, Colts/Chargers...it's what everyone wanted, we may well get it.

Picking Them This Weekend

2010-01-11T10:53:00.002-06:00

Well, I went 2-2 with my picks this weekend. Could have gone 3-1 with that Packers/Cardinals game (sorry Doc...that was a horrible way to lose. I imagined the worst at your household when I saw that last play).

What we know about the "resting the starters in week 17" deal is that it is far worse for bye week teams to do it because they essentially have two weeks off. So, it was not surprising to see the Cardinals pull that game off this weekend. Still, I was rooting for their demise because it would have worked well with the theory. No matter the result, though, no one game proves anything.

What we do know now is that the Cardinals, with a playoff win under their belt, probably sidestep a good portion of what "resting the starters" means for most teams. After this game, the Cards have officially played their starters, and now they play a Saints team that took two weeks off. I pick the Cardinals to absolutely roll in this weekend's Divisional. If that holds true, I think they lose to whoever comes out of the other Divisional, because:

Both the Vikings and Cowboys played their starters in the final week, so I must stick with my guns on this no matter who comes out of the Saints/Cardinals game. That said, I pick the Cowboys to win their matchup with the Vikings. The Cowboys have a more complete team than the Vikings, and are playing extremely well right now. They probably feel they can beat just about anybody after handing the Saints their first loss, and it should continue here.

In the AFC, we have a really difficult set of games here. No doubt both the Colts and the Chargers will be highly favored in their games this weekend, because the lowly 5 & 6 seeds lucky to be here made it past the Wild Card weekend.

I'm saying it right now: the Ravens will beat the Colts. This is a rematch of a week 11 game that the Colts were lucky to win, and at the time the Colts were actually playing, and not quitting games like at the end of the season. Plus, it looks like the Ravens decided to back off on the penalties or things that could lead to penalties this weekend against a Patriots team that historically gets lots of calls. That led to the Ravens' demise in many close games this year, and I think they're a much better team than a 6th seed would lead most to believe.

The Ravens defense is not as scary as in years past, but they are still the 3rd-ranked defense in the league, and if they cut down their mistakes, this should be a game they win by 7-10 points.

Now we come to the Jets/Chargers. The Chargers will be the biggest favorite this weekend, bar none. I would like everyone to consider this, though: the Jets have the number one ranked defense in the league, allow the least points and touchdowns, and have been playing for their lives for the past three weeks. Yeah, teams laid down for them, but they kept that Colts game close while the Colts were still playing for real, and the Bengals would have gotten beat anyway.

Meanwhile, the Chargers went through the final games of the season playing the Titans in what amounted to a scrimmage (the Chargers' backups ended up in that game), then playing the starters very little in that final game against the Redskins, and now have had a bye week.

I'm saying that these two teams are a lot closer than you think they are. According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, in fact, the Jets expected win-loss differential is roughly 11-5, while the Chargers also are closer to an 11-5 team. You have to think about what the Jets had to go through with a rookie QB and they had some rough patches, and we saw the emergence of Shonn Greene in the last game as their top RB. Their offense just put up 24 points on a better defense, the Bengals. Plus, you have a team that didn't expect to be here and are coming off a solid win.

I'm saying it, and may be the only one outside of New York with the balls to say it: The Jets are going to beat the San Diego Chargers. If you believe also a team can be "overconfident" or if you get into the Bill Simmons' wacky set of reasons like "nobody believed in us," then you must believe that a team like the Jets can sneak up on the Chargers.

If my predictions are true, you would have Jets-Ravens in the AFC Championship, and lots of people snoring and CBS executives jumping off a bridge. At least they'd get a New York team, I guess.

You know, if I'm completely wrong, I'm still having fun looking at these playoffs in a different way. If I end up right about all this, all the better.

Decade in Review: Movies: Box Office

2010-01-07T13:50:00.004-06:00

I debated awhile as to whether to write some of my observations about movies this decade on nymoviereviews, or here. Obviously, I decided here.

The first observation I have in a long line of posts forthcoming is about the box office. Whether you are a believer in total attendance being the true measure of a film's popularity (and I would argue that more people see movies than ever before, just not in movie theatres) or not, the box office dollars exploded this decade unlike any other before it. I'd like to tell you the tale of Jaws.

At the beginning of 1990, Jaws was sitting there at 5th all-time on the domestic chart, behind the Star Wars trilogy and Steven Spielberg's own E.T. By the end of the 90's, the movie sat at 13th, after basically being unharmed by the eighties. It was Independence Day, in 1996, that bounced Jaws from the top 10 after having been there for 21 years.

My point about Jaws and this past decade is that now, Jaws sits at 48th all-time. (By the way, Independence Day is now 30th)

That's right, the movie that grossed $260 million back in 1975 has been passed 47 times, 35 of them in the recently-completed decade.

What happened? Well, ticket prices certainly account for some of it, but this was the decade of the franchise. Moviegoers went to the familiar more than in any other time in history. The top 10 of the decade are as follows:

1. The Dark Knight, sequel to Batman Begins and part of the Batman franchise.

2. Shrek 2

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Movie #2 in what became an unintelligible series.

4. Spider-Man. One of three non-sequels to make it, but who are we kidding? Decades of comic book fans were ready for this.

5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, film #2 that somehow, despite all reason and integrity, found its way into the top 10 of all-time.

6. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, third in a franchise that had fifty years of Tolkien followers buoying the entire series into the billions of dollars worldwide.

8. Avatar, continuing the trend of James Cameron way overspending, but being let off the hook when the movie does insane business. Studios will now think it's OK to spend $300 million on a movie because they all have the chance to do what this one did. It'll be either 1st or 2nd of the decade by the time it's all over.

9. Spider-Man 2.

10. The Passion of the Christ. Mel Gibson marketed this movie as close to "you must watch this if you believe in Jesus Christ" as you could without actually saying it. Last I heard, that's a lot of people.

This top 10 doesn't include stuff like any of the Harry Potters, the other LOTRs, the other POTCs, and a load of Pixar movies, in which every new film builds upon earlier success much like sequels do. Before this decade, sequels were usually just a quick cash-in (they still make those, too), but now studios are thinking that their franchise can go to fours and fives with relative ease. And there's at least a consciousness to make the sequels look better than the first movie, which wasn't a requirement in years past. That's why Jaws is 48th now.

As a side note, studios started buying into this "popular reading series" thing and went overboard, as they often do. Harry Potter, LOTR, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, etc. were huge hits because they had time to build up followers who were hungry for movie versions. So, that's why The Golden Compass, The Seeker, City of Ember, Daredevil, and so on, were made in haste. Why weren't they hits? Because the audience is smaller, way smaller, than those legendary comic book and fantasy series.

I'll be back with some more in the coming days and weeks.

The NFL Playoffs are Full of Randomness

2010-01-05T16:14:00.005-06:00

There are "scripts" we've all seen before in sports, where we get to expect certain outcomes to happen. These ideas can come about fairly quickly, or can slowly form for decades. In the NFL, we see patterns emerge, and we expect them to continue... but this year they haven't. The Cowboys were not bad in December, actually winning a few games and making the playoffs. The Jets made it into the playoffs with luck actually treating their fans decently for once. Heck, the Saints won their first ten games or so, reversing a trend that goes back decades, even though it's not quite so surprising anymore. I think that more than once in the playoffs, we're going to have our minds blown by a result that we didn't see coming.

Along those line, I'm starting to think that, now that we all believe it's a bad idea to rest starters in the final few weeks, suddenly that doesn't mean anything. Think of quantum physics, that by observing a particle it changes the particle. Now that we've observed the phenomenon, it will no longer exist. As Chris pointed out, seven teams rested there starters, and we can't ignore them all. The "football gods" no longer care about this.

Stick with me for a second with a soccer comparison? Nations come to have a certain identity on the pitch, and in the World Cup and other such competitions, you start to have a general idea of what's going to happen. Everybody, including myself, felt that Germany would beat Spain in the finals of the Euro 2008 tournament. As they say, "football" is a game that's played for 90 minutes, and then the Germans win on penalties. This held true for decades, basically since Germany reemerged in the 50's. And Spain always underachieves, always, in every major tournament, again going back decades. Almost no one predicted Spain to win, based on historical precedent alone. So what happened in the final? Spain won, and convincingly. It felt, and still feels, that a new era is upon us, one in which I expect the scripts to be flipped... but I expect as soon as we figure out the new script, it will change.

Before the season ended, I assumed the Vikings and Saints would lose quickly, because they always do. I thought the hot team would continue to win, and the teams that rested their starters would struggle. But now that I'm thinking some of the scripts will change, I'm rethinking that, and beginning to believe that about anything could happen. The Saints could suddenly turn it around, the Eagles could catch fire, anything could happen, much like the Cards last year. We could even be headed for one weird Super Bowl. Let's just hope that that doesn't mean a Cardinals-Ravens Super Bowl, but I wouldn't be shocked.

As far as official picks go, I just don't know, there's way too much in the air this year. I do feel a Colts/Pats rematch could be in the cards, and I feel strongly that we'll be looking at a Vikings/Packers rematch as well. THAT would be a great championship Sunday, don't you think? But it's too much of a crapshoot, and I don't trust any team.

Except for one. For the Super Bowl, I think Manning will want to prove this whole not playing at the end of the season stuff isn't going to keep them from the title, and he has the mindset to do it. We all think they are one of the best three or four teams in the league, but I think they are the most mentally strong, starting with the QB, the real leader of this team. That'll put them over the top to win it all. If I have to choose an NFC team I'll choose the Pack, but I think that conference is wide open.

Or maybe I'm totally full of crap. Their lifeless coach could bomb them. We'll see.

One more thing, off subject: all Week 17 games need to be played at the same time, say 2:00 Eastern Time. I know this would cost the NFL a few bucks, but it would decrease the number of games where a team simply roles over, like the Bengals did. The World Cup does this in the final game of each group so that games like this don't happen again, with a scoreline agreed upon before the game.

Teams That Won't Make the Super Bowl This Year

2010-01-04T00:54:00.006-06:00

So, knowing what we know now about resting your starters versus playing them, and how there is an unbelievable, un-spotted record concerning this statistic, we can point out the teams that won't likely be attending the Super Bowl this year. These teams either played their starters very little or not at all.

Indianapolis Colts, repeating a sad tradition.

New Orleans Saints, already fading as it is, may very well have an early exit.

Those two teams played their starters the least, and in the Colts' case, they did it for two weeks, and now a bye week. These teams will be going in cold. They may very well lose their first playoff game. Even if they make it past their first game, they will lose the Championship game against whomever they play.

I also have concerns about, yes, the San Diego Chargers. Playing hot, they pulled the starters pretty early and now they have a bye week. History is not good for these teams, even like the Chargers. They may get a break with how weak the AFC is this year, but I would not be surprised if they got beat. It's just the way this final game, playing your starters or not, works, especially for a team getting a bye week and essentially will be off for 2 weeks.

Also, the Cincinnati Bengals aren't exactly high on the list, either. That was a woeful performance against the Jets, who I think have a chance to sneak up on some teams and I pick to beat these same Bengals in the playoffs this upcoming weekend.

The Arizona Cardinals will also likely lose to their Week 17 opponent, the Packers, after resting their starters. It's not as bad when you don't also have a bye week, but they aren't going to the Super Bowl regardless.

These teams played their starters for the most part or all of the game:

Vikings, Cowboys, Eagles, Packers, Patriots, Ravens, Jets.

If history repeats itself, it will be two of these teams in the Super Bowl. Weird, huh? Can you imagine any of those AFC teams being the representative? That's why the Chargers might be the first team in at least a decade (I haven't done the research that far) to make the Super Bowl after significantly resting their starters. Still, don't be shocked if they lose.

The Patriots lost Wes Welker, by the way, by doing the right thing. I see that and I still think you need to play your starters. There are two things that are troublesome for the facts at hand:

1. You can injure your starters by playing them in the last game. Of course, it's completely OK if you injure your starters for the season in the first game of the year. No one second-guesses you then.

2. There is still a chance a team that rests their starters makes it to the Super Bowl, especially if you have a conference as weak as the AFC is this year.

I still believe in what the facts tell me, though. Even if there is an anomaly this year, the evidence is overwhelming on what you should do.

Picks for Wild Card games this weekend:

Patriots over Ravens
Jets over Bengals
Cowboys over Eagles
Packers over Cardinals

If true, this would set up these match-ups:

Patriots at Chargers
Jets at Colts
Cowboys at Vikings
Packers at Saints

I'm not going to venture any further, considering I could be completely wrong about my Wild Card picks, but those are some very interesting match-ups for the Divisional games.

Trying To Sum Up My Feelings On The Colts Game

2009-12-29T13:02:00.003-06:00

I need to start the article by saying this: I am upset that the Colts pulled several starters against the Jets. I wanted that undefeated season, and it was as close to being in the bag as possible with the Jets and Bills as the only remaining opponents. I don't think Peyton gets hit or hurt enough to be scared of injury. I think the bye week before the playoffs gives ample time for rest, so I don't think they needed to rest Peyton. I also think the Colts win that game (without much doubt in my mind) if Peyton alone is allowed to remain on the field, even as other starters sit. I will probably always feel like they let a truly great feat slip through their grasp out of fear. I also happen to feel that resting your players is a strategy that backfires regularly, and it pains me to think the Colts might have just let their season-long momentum get away from them.

But... that being said... the media is going crazy with this story. Of course, we all know the media is reactive. They ask questions they know are loaded in the locker room, knowing they'll get to criticize the player or coach regardless of the answer. If someone in the NFL gives the party line answer, like Tom Brady almost always does, the media whines about boring press conferences and players not being honest. But if Brady says something opinionated, he'll be crucified for it.

This is the state of the NFL media as we know it. The coverage and criticism is officially bigger than the game itself.

Let's get this out of the way, can we really blame Caldwell for wanting to protect a player so important to his team? We can disagree, sure--as I do--but it's not like he had no basis or logic whatsoever in making his call. Even if we label Caldwell resting Peyton as "paranoia," we still have to at least give some credence to his fear. Heck, the play of Curtis Painter in that very game was the perfect illustration of what Caldwell was paranoid about. No player is more important to their team's success than Peyton Manning, and without him they are nothing (as we Colts fans will learn for years after he retires). If there's one guy in the NFL to be paranoid about injuries with... it's him... not because he gets injured a lot, but because of what happens if he ever does.

As I said in my comment to Chris' post, Caldwell would be demolished if he'd left Peyton in only to see a freak injury happen to him. Am I the only one who remembers the criticism of Belichick for leaving his players in too long in games during their undefeated season? Caldwell criticism would be absolutely deafening if Manning had been injured--far worse than the current storm. "Conventional wisdom" is, by definition... conventional. When a coach goes against conventional wisdom, as Belichick did earlier in the year on 4th down, he is criticized for it.

The real problem is that coaches are essentially making decisions, in a round about way, based on what people will say about them afterwards. Why? Because coaching is a dangerous job, and great coaches are fired all the time for simply not winning for a season or two. How did we get here? Job security is almost more important than whatever game decision is actually in front of you.

Some other thoughts that I can't really take the time to put in order:

I'd rather go 15-1 or 14-2 but still win the Super Bowl than go 16-0 and fail to win the Super Bowl. Like any fan probably would... I just wanted my cake (16-0) and the ability to eat it too (Super Bowl).
Let's not forget that Manning has actually been injured for several weeks, with a "glute" injury. He's been on the injured list, but has still played. And, at times... played like someone who has a small nagging injury. Not sure if any of you saw the Jets game... but there were several throws he made that were just a bit off. Now, I have no idea if his throws were off because of his butt injury of if they were off because he ate some bad chicken. But it's not as though there isn't any reason at all to worry about rest or injury. Freeny and some of the other guys that got pulled have also been battling injuries.
It's also patently stupid to suggest the team owes fans a refund or should be investigated for laying down (yes, I have read actual analysts suggesting this). If you bet a bunch of money on the Colts and then lost, you have only yourself to blame. History alone should have told the bettors to stay away from this game. And I don't think NFL teams owe gamblers anything. It's called a gamble, for Pete's sake.
As for the fans of teams that needed the Jets to lose... maybe if your team had won more games when they had a chance they wouldn't be dependent on some other team to win or lose. Teams rest starters when they have something clinched all the freaking time in all sports. Does it suck? Yeah, sure. But it's not as though this is new. Happens every single year with many teams. So it's pretty silly to me to see some teams and fans saying "But if they'd kept Peyton in my team would still be in contention!" If the Colts go 8-8 next year, and miss the playoffs due to some great team laying down... I will be upset that the Colts lost 8 games, not that some great team lost one. Can I understand teams on the bubble and their fans being disappointed or upset? Sure. But not blaming the Colts for the end of their season. That's like blaming the final batter in the World series who strikes out instead of blaming any of the previous 26 outs in the game. It may be a matter of opinion, but I don't think teams that win a ton have a responsibility to the teams that didn't win as much, and I'd like to think I'd feel the same way if the shoe were on the other foot.
As a fan, I'm really more upset about the whole "momentum" issue than I am over the undefeated season. I wanted undefeated... for sure. But I've seen this team get to a great record and then rest players four or five different times this decade... and they always lose in the playoffs. The one year they couldn't rest, and needed to play through the last regular season game for position, was the year they won the whole thing. So it's more that I'm worried that resting is a bad strategy and we'll lose in the playoffs than it is that I'm pissed we won't be undefeated. (But I am pissed we won't be undefeated).
There are several areas of NFL football where conventional wisdom seems wrong to me. Always punting on 4th down, not using great players to return punts for fear of injury, and resting players when the playoffs are locked up. All three issues could do with a little re-examining, I think. And all three have become conventional wisdom not because of math or logic... but because of history, tradition, and fear for ones reputation and job status.
Finally, Caldwell didn't make that decision. Surely you know that. It was Bill Polian's decision. And you could see in the eyes of the pulled players that they wanted to go for it.

That's all I have right now. You can probably tell that I'm both mad at my team for their choices on Sunday and mad at the people who are, in my view, over criticizing said choices. In my view, there are only two legit reasons to be critical of the Colts for their move: 1. Because resting players prior to playoffs actually doesn't seem to work, and 2. Because actually going undefeated would be an unprecedented achievement in the modern era. All other criticisms seem hollow to me. I don't think it makes Caldwell or Polian stupid, and it's even a bit premature to say that they were wrong. It just means they made a choice that a lot of people didn't understand or agree with... myself included.

The Colts Are Headed Towards Repeating A Losing History

2009-12-28T02:27:00.007-06:00

Really, does anyone ever think anymore? Why is it conventional wisdom to rest your starters and play your scrubs if you've clinched everything you can possibly clinch in the regular season? Oh, because of injuries, right? Whatever, you don't have much of a chance anyway if you don't play your starters in the final week.

Super Bowl winners this decade, and what they did in the final week of the season:

The 2000 Ravens played their starters the whole game in a 34-20 win over the Jets. The Super Bowl runner-up Giants also played their starters. This year, it looks like all the teams played their starters for most or all of the final game.

2001 Patriots, same, in a 38-6 win over Panthers. The Pats eventual opponent, the Rams, would also play their starters in the final game. Most teams play their starters in this playoff year, except for the Eagles and Bucs in the final game, against each other. They would play each other the next week, and someone had to win, and it was the Eagles. In an anomaly, the Eagles then beat the Bears (who played their starters in the final week) in Chicago. The Rams took care of the Eagles the following week.

2002 Buccaneers, yep, in a 15-0 win in cold weather over Chicago. Their opponent, the Raiders, also played their starters. The 49ers didn't, and needed an 18-point rally and a miracle catch by Terrell Owens to win their next playoff game against the Giants, and then they got destroyed by the Bucs. All the other teams played starters.

The 2003 Patriots, who had clinched 1st round bye already, beats Buffalo 31-0 with Brady throwing 4 TDs. The Super Bowl runner-up Panthers also played their starters in the last game. Most teams here did play their starters, except the Broncos, who would get crushed by the Colts 41-10 in the playoffs.

2004 Patriots, in a very interesting case study for this argument. They had already clinched the 2 seed, went in and beat the 49ers in what was a bad game, 21-7. Meanwhile, the Steelers went 15-1, running their scrubs against the Bills in a 29-24 win. In their playoff game against the Jets, they won in OT 20-17 only because Jets kicker Doug Brien missed TWO field goals in the final TWO minutes of the game. They then got drubbed at home 41-27 by the Pats.

The Colts also trotted out their backups in the final game against Denver, lost that game, then destroyed the Broncos the next week in the playoffs. Then, lost to the Pats 20-3.

The 2005 Steelers had to win their last game. But check this out: The Bengals, Patriots, Jaguars, and yes, the Colts, played scrubs in the final game. The Jags and Pats played each other, so someone had to win there and it was the Pats, who would lose to the Broncos, who played all their starters in a meaningless game in the final game of the season. The Colts lost their game against the Steelers. The Bengals notably lost Carson Palmer in their game against Pittsburgh, so data is skewed there, but how do we know he didn't get creamed because his O-line was out of sync? Basically, both AFC Championship reps played their starters in the final game.

The Steelers' opponent, the Seahawks, are the closest to bucking the trend. But it looks like for the most part, they played their starters in the final game despite some replacements towards the end. The lone team that didn't play their starters was the Bears, and they lost to the Panthers.

2006 Colts. They finally win, and this time they played their starters in a final game where they needed to win to clinch the 3 seed. They beat Miami 27-22. It looks like all 6 of the AFC reps played their starters in the final game. The Bears amazingly made the Super Bowl with a QB controversy, but they played their starters. The Eagles rested, barely beat an 8-8 Giants team, lost to the Saints, who also rested their starters, and then the Saints lost to the Bears, 39-14.

2007 Giants. They memorably played their future Super Bowl opponent Patriots in the final game. They had nothing to play for except to beat an undefeated team, and nearly did, losing 38-35. In the AFC, the Jaguars rested their starters and won a close game against the Steelers the next week, then lost to the Pats. The Colts would eventually rest their starters against the Titans in the final week, then lose to the Chargers in their first playoff game. In fact, the Chargers were playing hurt in that game and still won.

2008 Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger got hurt in a meaningless game against the Browns, and predictably, there were questions about whether it was wise or not to play him. But they blasted the Browns 31-0 and Roethlisberger was OK. Meanwhile, the Titans and Colts played it safe in their final game against each other, and both got bounced in their first games. The 8-8 Chargers took care of the Colts, and the Ravens beat the Titans. Yes, both winners played their starters in the final game. The other AFC rep, the Dolphins, played their starters but lost to the Ravens.

The NFC contender Cardinals, of course, went 9-7 and barely looked like a playoff team, but they played their starters in the final game. All the NFC teams did, in fact, except the Giants, who got bounced by an equally questionable Eagles team in their first playoff game.

Every team who won the Super Bowl this decade played their starters in the final game, and didn't take them out in the second half or anything. Guys, this is a remarkable fact. It doesn't guarantee you a Super Bowl win, but it gives you a better chance than a team that rests their starters. Not one team this decade has won the Super Bowl after resting their starters in the final week. They might get a playoff win here and there, but they do not even go to the Super Bowl, as even the runners-up have played their starters in the final week.

Yet, vile stupidity reigns every year. Rest your starters for the playoffs. Don't get hurt. I heard some serious garbage tonight from sports radio that lauded the decision of Jim Caldwell to rest Peyton Manning today in the 29-15 loss to the Jets that ended their perfect season. He brought up the injury factor, neglecting the fact that the Colts O-line, plus Manning's quick thinking, usually avoids their star QB from getting hit. When this Curtis Painter guy came in and they gave up the sack (and fumble TD), it was the first time in like a billion plays they had allowed a sack.

By the way, if the Titans were still in the playoff hunt, I would have been pissed at the Colts forever for allowing the Jets to play against their B-team. I'm sure there are more than a few teams upset about the Colts' wrong decision today.

With the way the Chargers are playing, the Colts need to be sharp in the playoffs if they want to make it to the Super Bowl again. But, what can I say, conventional wisdom, which is incredibly false, will prevail again.

The Titans Are Awesome

2009-12-25T21:00:00.002-06:00

So, here we are. We didn't have much hope for the Titans to make the playoffs anyway, but this is the team that would have gone into the playoffs potentially facing opponents that did this to them:

vs. Indy (0-2) 31-9, 27-17

vs. New England 59-0

vs. San Diego (it's 42-10 as of this writing, so who cares how it finishes)

By the way, for everyone who enjoys questioning Jeff Fisher bashers, if you saw the game tonight, you would understand what gets under our skin about him. He seems to be a very good, knowledgeable guy, but he has no control over his players. We've been seeing this act for years, where intense players can't control themselves, get their feelings hurt too easily, and rack up game-changing penalties.

And, the Titans lose most of their big games. Why is that?

Titans Fans: Which Games Matter, and Who to Root For

2009-12-22T12:52:00.004-06:00

Just to show that this is very possible, and for whom to root for in every game. The only ones I wasn't sure about are the two Pitt games, which you could change up a bit and still see the Titans get in. There are some real upsets here, but this is best case scenario. Not all of these have to happen, but most of them do.

Week 15
SD @ TEN LP Field 7:30 PM TEN
KC @ CIN Paul Brown Stadium 1:00 PM KC
BAL @ PIT Heinz Field 1:00 PM PIT
HOU @ MIA Land Shark Stadium 1:00 PM HOU
JAC @ NE Gillette Stadium 1:00 PM NE
DEN @ PHI Lincoln Financial Field 4:15 PM PHI
NYJ @ IND Lucas Oil Stadium 4:15 PM IND

Week 16
JAC @ CLE Cleveland Browns Stadium 1:00 PM CLE
NE @ HOU Reliant Stadium 1:00 PM NE
PIT @ MIA Land Shark Stadium 1:00 PM MIA
CIN @ NYJ Giants Stadium 1:00 PM CIN
KC @ DEN Invesco Field at Mile High 4:15 PM KC
BAL @ OAK Oakland Coliseum 4:15 PM OAK
TEN @ SEA Qwest Field 4:15 PM TEN

And the result is the Titans are in with no tiebreaker:

NE 11-5
CIN 10-6

TEN 9-7
MIA 8-8 (I think they'd be in)

DEN 8-8
PIT 8-8
BAL 8-8
HOU 8-8
JAC 7-9
NYJ 7-9

AFC Playoff Scenarios... How Can the Titans Get In?

2009-12-22T10:42:00.005-06:00

Since I can't find anywhere that's listing the playoff scenarios for the AFC teams, and since there are few things in life I love more than running through them, let's do this thing.

Here are the remaining games that matter, and my best guess on who wins in bold:

Week 15
SD @ TEN LP Field 7:30 PM SD
KC @ CIN Paul Brown Stadium 1:00 PM CIN
BAL @ PIT Heinz Field 1:00 PM PIT
HOU @ MIA Land Shark Stadium 1:00 PM MIA
JAC @ NE Gillette Stadium 1:00 PM NE
DEN @ PHI Lincoln Financial Field 4:15 PM DEN
NYJ @ IND Lucas Oil Stadium 4:15 PM IND

Week 16
JAC @ CLE Cleveland Browns Stadium 1:00 PM JAC
NE @ HOU Reliant Stadium 1:00 PM NE
PIT @ MIA Land Shark Stadium 1:00 PM PIT
CIN @ NYJ Giants Stadium 1:00 PM CIN
KC @ DEN Invesco Field at Mile High 4:15 PM DEN
BAL @ OAK Oakland Coliseum 4:15 PM BAL
TEN @ SEA Qwest Field 4:15 PM TEN

That leaves these record:
NE 11-5
CIN 11-5
DEN 10-6
PIT 9-7 (PIT win head to head tiebreaker over BAL)

BAL 9-7
JAC 8-8
MIA 8-8
TEN 8-8
HOU 7-9
NYJ 7-9

For the Titans to get in, they'd have to win the Chargers game to get to 9-7. A tall order, I think. Then, if the Steelers beat the Ravens next week, and then both teams lose their final game, then the Titans are in. If either of those teams win their last game, but the Broncos lose both of their games, then the Titans are in. All that assumes that the other teams not mentioned don't make a run of their own.

If the Ravens beat the Steelers, then we need Denver to lose twice. And have no one else win nine games. That's the big if in these scenarios; we don't need Dolphins, Jags, or Jets winning out, because that would likely spell doom.

The Pooch Kick Kills Another Team

2009-12-05T22:31:00.003-06:00

In the Big 12 Championship, Nebraska handed Texas the game after gaining a 12-10 lead and less than 2 minutes to go. Again, a coach decides that the probability of a kickoff return TD was better than the probability that the opposing team could get in field goal range with a short field.

You have to kick the ball deep and hope to make a play. Holy crap. Even worse, the conservative kick hopped out of bounds and gave Texas the ball at the 40. Nuts.

Can this decade be more infuriating with wrong coaching decisions? Even worse, when you later hear the interviews and people talk about a never-give-up mentality in winning the game. Well, there's that, and then the realization you only had to go 35 yards to put yourself in position to win.

I really wanted this BCS picture to go crazy, almost as much as I wanted a Red Sox-Cubs World Series in 2003. And of course, am denied.

The Awful 2009 SEC Championship

2009-12-05T18:27:00.004-06:00

Props to Alabama, I didn't see a rout of Florida in their future. The Gators played like total garbage in this game. They dropped passes and couldn't make tackles, and Tebow couldn't make an easy TD pass in the 4th quarter when the Gators still had an outside shot of making a comeback.

Though I hate both teams, I was only really rooting for Florida because I told anyone who asked that I thought they would win. On the other hand, I'm glad the Gators won't be winning another title this year. We can do without the Gator chomp for awhile.

Finally! This Is What It Feels Like!

2009-11-30T11:32:00.005-06:00

Watching Kenny Britt jump up and grab that ball yesterday, I suddenly saw the Titans do things that always seem to happen to them.

That 99-yard drive. Holy crap, how many times had this thing been set up for your usual Titans mediocrity, starting with that first 4th down way back in their own territory? Then you see Kenny Britt make sure he made the catch to keep the drive going. In the past, I swear receivers were looking for pass interference penalties rather than just catch the ball.

And weren't you just waiting for someone on the offensive line to get a false start penalty and stall the drive?

For the first time since the Miracle play and the subsequent playoff run to the Super Bowl, I felt genuine excitement for the Titans.

Last week I brought up the teams the Titans are going to have to jump in order to get to the playoffs. This past week was profitable for this team as many of the competition took steps back this weekend. Here's the update:

The Denver Broncos have the first wild card spot by themselves right now, with a 7-4 record. Remaining schedule: KC, Indy, Oakland, Philly, and KC again.

Two teams fell to 6-5 and one joined their ranks. Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and Baltimore.

Pittsburgh (Oakland, Cleveland, Green Bay, Baltimore, Miami)
Jacksonville (Houston, Miami, Indy, New England, Cleveland)
Baltimore (Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Oakland)

The 5-6 group got very crowded:

Miami (New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Houston, Pittsburgh), by far the toughest remaining schedule

NY Jets (Buffalo, Tampa, Atlanta, Indy, Cincy)...the Jets might actually have a good chance of sneaking in.

Houston (Jacksonville, Seattle, St. Louis, Miami, New England)

Tennessee (Indy, St. Louis, Miami, San Diego, Seattle)

So, 3 teams in this group won yesterday, and 4 lost. Profitable, and it means that the Titans are now 1 game out of the 2nd wild card, barring the tiebreakers, which means they're probably still technically 2 games out. But hope for some upsets and hope for the Titans to keep it going. The chances are still slim, but, as Jim Carrey said to Lauren Holly in Dumb and Dumber after she told him there was a 1 in a million chance that she'd ever go out with him, "So you're saying there's a chance!"

A couple of asides:

The Titans, under Young, drove 99 yards in 2:36. Two weeks ago, Bill Belichick went for it on 4th down with 2:08 left and the prospect of giving Peyton Manning the ball at around his own 30, as if knifing down the field in that amount of time was going to be the most monumental task of his career. More and more, this risk seems justified to me.

There have been a couple of "Fisher could have lost us this game" moments in the last couple of weeks. Last week, that pooch kick which was taken to the 35 after being caught around the 20-25 yard line, giving the Texans more than enough opportunity to get in position to kick a field goal to tie the game. I have never been a fan of the pooch kick for that very reason. It is the special teams equivalent of the prevent defense, where ultra-conservative play allows liberal amounts of yards all in the hope that you don't give up a huge play which is rare in the first place.

Yesterday, it was the play at the end of the 1st half. As much as we've seen Young grow up this season, someone needed to tell him to throw the ball out of the end zone if he didn't have a play so they could have kicked a field goal. It's one of those things, we don't know how the game would have been played after that, there's no guarantee the same plays and actions on the field would have occurred in the 2nd half, but if they had, it would have been nice to allow Bironas to kick a field goal and win it towards the end. Then again, I can't guarantee Bironas would have kicked the field goal...in either instance! Ahhh! Damn, Chris, can't you just be happy with the amazing game-winning touchdown? OK, yes...I guess.

Hard to Believe, but 10-6 Might Be Good Enough

2009-11-23T23:59:00.002-06:00

In no way am I suggesting the Titans will run the table the rest of the season and go 10-6, but remember when we thought even 10-6 wouldn't be good enough? Now it seems likely it will be.

After the division leaders, the current Wild Card contenders are:

Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, and the now-lowly Denver, at 6-4.

Miami, Baltimore, and Houston, at 5-5.

Tennessee and the suddenly-can't win Jets are next at 4-6.

So there isn't a team exactly running away with it in the second tier right now, and looking at the remaining schedules for these teams, it's likely 10-6 will get in, and possibly even 9-7.

Things can change, but in this group of teams we have Denver and the Jets just fading completely right now.

Baltimore and Pittsburgh have to play each other twice still. Pittsburgh still has the Packers and Miami on the schedule, too. Baltimore might have the easiest road left of all these teams, but they still have the Packers and they're such a who-knows? team they could easily lose at Oakland at the end of the year.

Houston has Indy, Jacksonville, Miami, and New England left as the tough games.

Anyone trust Jacksonville in this mix? They just barely beat Buffalo last week and now they play San Fran on the road, which will be a tough game, Houston, Miami, and New England for the next 4 games.

Miami has to play New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Houston, and Pittsburgh to end the year. Anyone seeing them go 5-1?

Denver: Giants, Colts, Eagles. They have several other interesting games, 2 with KC and 1 with Oakland. Anyone seeing them going even 4-2 on this stretch?

The Jets, who I think are completely insignificant at this point (and yes, they beat the Titans and have the same record...which satisfies me no end after hearing the 3-and-0 chants after that game), still have to play Carolina, Atlanta, Cincy, and Indy.

Again, I'm not even saying the Titans will go 10-6, but that 10-6 will get the playoff berth. The Titans have a pretty rough road ahead as well, with Arizona, Indy, Miami, and San Diego left as the tough games. I mean, being 4-6 is not a good prospect going into that kind of remaining schedule. However, they have 4 out of 6 games remaining at home. The way they are playing, the Seattle and St. Louis games should be locks for at least a 6-win season. Come away with winnable games like Arizona and Miami, maybe get a break against Indy or San Diego, you might have a 9-7 team looking at a decent chance.

Kansas City and Oakland, both 3-7 teams, will have lots to say about the Titans' minuscule chances. They've come up with some impressive wins. If they sneak by some of these teams mentioned above, then this could get really interesting. We could be looking at the rare 8-8 team getting in.

Seriously, after the 0-6 start, who thought the Titans would be 2 games away from the leading Wild Card contenders?

Belichick's Call

2009-11-16T12:57:00.003-06:00

I'm going to put my opinion in the comments, but here's a great analysis by the cold numbers. Run your own numbers here.

The Belichick Gamble

2009-11-16T10:01:00.003-06:00

As is expected, Bill Belichick is being widely criticized for his decision to go for it on 4th and 2 on his own 28 with a 34-28 lead and roughly 2 minutes left against the Colts Sunday night.

I actually didn't think this was that bad of a decision, had the Patriots played differently after the play came up short.

If you get it, you win. If you don't get it, then you basically allow the Colts to score a touchdown too quickly, get the ball back, and try a field goal to win it.

They had a chance for this to happen with about a minute left, when they decided to tackle Joseph Addai one yard short of the end zone just before the winning TD to Reggie Wayne. Had they allowed Addai to score there, then the Colts would not have run off more time before finally making the winning play.

We've always heard of the idea of allowing the opposition to score to get the ball back with time on the clock (I've never seen it), and this was the perfect time to do it. And I thought they were going to allow Addai to score on that play. It looked like half the defenders were thinking that, but the other half didn't get the message.

Whenever a decision such as Belichick's last night occurs, and it doesn't work, then the idea must be, "What is our best chance to win now?" rather than "We should have punted." Once it didn't work, Belichick should have said, "OK, make it look as good as you can, but let them score, unless Manning throws a gift-wrapped ball your way."

Then you put the ball in the hands of Brady, and I'm sure he could get the yards required to put them in position for a field goal.

I think people might be too hard on Belichick considering he just saw Manning carve up his defense in 2 minutes on the previous drive. A punt would have put the Colts around the 25-30 yard line depending on the kind of return, and with 2 minutes and a timeout he could have easily gotten them back to that same spot in no time.

So, the bad decision to me was not going for it on 4th down, but not allowing the TD earlier. Because you knew that was going to happen anyway, so give yourself a chance to win.

I Am Still In Disbelief

2009-11-16T09:55:00.003-06:00

Around the start of the 4th quarter, I gave up. I began preparing myself for the worst. The Pats had seriously had their way with the young and inexperienced Colts secondary all game long. Peyton and company had struggled to get anything going on offense. In my mind... there's no way the game is still in reach at this point. Even for the Colts.

Obviously, I was wrong. Here are some things I still can't believe:

1. That Belichick would go for it on 4th and 2 from his own 28. Despite how little I think of this man, even I was surprised he did that. And it sure looked to me like it might have been Brady's idea--he was at least involved in the discussion.

Don't tell me for a second that they were really just that sure Peyton would score from 70 yards away. It's easy to say Belichick felt the defense would give up a score no matter what, and so he went for it. But not when Belichick has a history of being a cocky jerk who likes to make statements and run up the score. He was arrogant, plain and simple. He wanted to step on the Colts' throats. And in my opinion, got what he deserved. It was an attempt to pull a Bud Adams and give the Colts the finger, and it backfired. I'm looking forward to a week's worth of articles about Bill's screw up.

Yet even now I almost can't believe he did it.

(wow, I wrote a whole couple paragraphs about Belichick without mentioning cheating... amazing).

2. That final touchdown pass to Reggie Wayne. Lost in the hub-bub surrounding the comeback and the Pats' bad decision to go for it on 4th and 2 was the fact that Wayne's catch at the end was freaking ridiculous.

3. I can't believe the Colts are so good at scoring in the 4th quarter and so bad at it in the first three.

4. Still marveling at the perfect storm that led to the Pats not being able to challenge that spot. Out of timeouts (because of calling one just a few seconds earlier) kept them from challenging... and the timing of the play coming right before the 2-minute warning meant the replay booth couldn't look at it on their own either.

Not that it would have been overturned... looked very, very close.

5. I can't believe how many people I have talked to already today that stopped watching the game with about 5 minutes left--Manning's final interception of the evening seems to be the point when people starting tuning out.

6. That Belichick's bodyguard threw a photographer to the ground. Dang.

I am completely and wholeheartedly biased... but that was one of the best games I've seen in a long, long time.

Haterade

2009-11-12T14:04:00.004-06:00

I absolutely, positively, cannot stand the expression, "Hater."

If you use this term, you are uneducated and idiotic.

Has someone called me a hater recently? No. In fact, probably never.

I think I first started disliking it when I was reading a Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comment thread on IMDB. Why was I reading a comment thread on a movie that does not even deserve to be watched, much less commented upon? I don't know, I think I'm fascinated when people defend something that I can in no way see the value. Usually, the impassioned defense of a movie like that is, "Hey, man, it's freakin' robots and fighting and Megan Fox and stuff...it's rad!"

Any case, there were a bunch of people writing their disparaging comments of TROFL and someone writes something to the tune of, "All you haters out there just don't get it...look how much money this movie is making..." and so on.

It has gotten to the point where you can no longer dislike anything without being labeled a "hater," and God forbid you hate something popular.

I know what the spirit of "hater" is, and it's very rarely used the correct way, although even then, it sounds like someone who can't stand that someone has a different opinion from them. The spirit of "hater," in its correct use, is a person who just can't accept the success of another person, is unwilling to dole out respect. In other words, arbitrary hate. There are obvious examples of this, when people can't come up with a coherent reason to hate something, they just do.

Whenever I see the usual use of "hater," though, it's like the world is like this:

This is popular, you must love it.

I actually don't like it.

Hater. There could be no other opinion other than sheer like for this popular product, so you're trying to be different or difficult.

No, I think there are some serious flaws.

Look how much money this popular product is making. You are wrong.

So, you either like something, or you like it and can't admit it. There is no such thing as not liking something for any valid reason anymore.

I often wonder when the people who use "hater" actually don't like something, whether they realize they are being "haters" according to their own definition or not.

Sounds Observations - Absurd Pregame Interviews

2009-11-09T13:10:00.004-06:00

Hi everybody! I watch a bunch of crap on Sundays to give you myopic insights into relatively mundane topics. Shall we begin? Abridged version today:

NFL Week 9

1. I talk a lot about the different pregame shows on here, and I typically neglect the NFL Network's show, which begins at 8 am here in the central timezone. There's a reason for this: I avoid Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin like the plague, and they both are employed by the Shield's Propaganda Machine. But, I decided to take a look on Sunday morning, and found it to be... not so bad.

The highlights are Warren Sapp and Marshall Faulk, who have astute, cogent and relatable insights into the NFL's inner workings, from off-the-field issues (holla at Fantasy Unsports) to play-calling and player personnel. However, I could not look away from this interview by Faulk with Ray Lewis. Go ahead and watch it; I'll wait.

Ok?

Alright, the main thing that got me is that the man (Lewis) makes absolutely no sense when he talks. It's as if he thinks if he makes a point passionately, he doesn't need to worry about what that point is. My favorite part is when he's asked about the Bengals (who ended up trouncing the Ravens later in the day) regarding respect for them. Lewis says "I don't need to respect nobody. I just don't disrespect anyone."

This is akin to the classic Vanilla Ice interview regarding the "Under Pressure" riff. "Our joint goes da da da daga da da... DA da da da daga da da. It's different!"

2. Ok, I went 6-6 so far this weekend. 6-6! This was an absolutely absurd week for picking games. Houston tried to scare Indy but lost the closest thing to an upset lock as there's been all season, Green Bay losing to TAMPA BAY? Carolina easily covering against the Saints and almost winning? I don't understand.

3. Against my better judgement, I was listening to Colin Cowherd this morning, and I heard two interesting things:

A. He made a point that was mentioned on the pregame shows (must've missed it myself) on why Miami is the only team that can properly execute the Wildcat formation: You must commit to it. It's why it doesn't work in Philly with Michael Vick, because they throw it in there as a gimmick, rather than a useful part of your offensive scheme. Good stuff.

B. Trent Dilfer was on, and I'm amazed that he's become a very talented and informative analyst. He made a defense of the Notre Dame coaches that actually almost convinced me that it's not their fault for the way things have been going for the Irish. Unbelievable. Watch, cause he's going to be either the next Tom Jackson or the next Sean Salisbury. Either way, it'll be entertaining.

MLB

4. Yankees won. A-Rod redeemed. Rivera and Jeter enter the Pantheon of greatest ever discussions. I remain unmoved.

College Basketball

5. It starts tonight with the defending champs (North Carolina) playing Florida International University. If that sounds like a game you're very likely to miss, keep in mind Isaiah Thomas is the fresh-faced coach at FIU, and it'll be worth tuning in solely for the facial expressions when the score's 157-9.

That's it for this week. I'm tired and there'll be plenty more next time. Cheers!

Championship City

2009-11-05T04:19:00.011-06:00

So, the New York Yankees once again win the World Series, ending the decade as they began it. I don't care much for it, but that's another subject.

Instead, I'd like to focus on the decade's champions and the cities that got to celebrate them, because so much of the meaning of winning a championship has something to do with where the fans come from. New York has won the last championship of this decade.

Disclaimer: There are a great many people out there who love to point out that the decade has not officially ended, that because there was no year 0 that a decade starts with 1 and ends with 10. We had this argument in 1999 when everyone wanted to celebrate the new millennium the next year. Sorry, folks, the decade is determined by the first three numbers of the four-digit year, and why can't we just call the year before Year 1, Year 0 anyway? I'm not going to go through the motions of what Jayson Stark did in this article, where he felt the need to put quotation marks around every mention of the word "decade."

Besides, decade means ten years, and 2000-2009 is ten years.

Which city won the most championships in this decade?

Why, this one is easy if you think about it. Boston. Although the Patriots play in Foxboro, we know that the Patriots are the representatives of the closest metropolitan city. The Patriots (3), Red Sox (2), and Celtics (1) combined to score 6 championships for the city.

Los Angeles won 4, all by the Lakers. But if you want to encompass the entire L.A. area, you could include Anaheim's 2 combined championships from the Ducks and the Angels, and L.A. would also have 6.

New York City just won its 3rd championship of the decade, with 2 World Series wins and the Super Bowl-winning Giants. Of course, the Giants play in New Jersey as a New York team. If you would like to include all of New Jersey's teams as part of the NYC metropolitan area, New York came away with 5 championships if you also include the New Jersey Devils, who brought home two Stanley Cups.

Of the 39 championships (there was no Stanley Cup in 2005), these areas took 17.

So who else won multiple championships? Pittsburgh won 3 with the help of two Steelers wins and one Penguins win. Detroit won 3 with the help of the Pistons and twice with the Red Wings.

Tying St. Louis and Pittsburgh? Try San Antonio and those pesky Spurs, with 3 championships in a city that they own by themselves.

That leaves St. Louis (Rams and Cardinals), Tampa (Bucs and Lightning), and Miami (Heat and Marlins) with 2.

After all that, 15 more championships were taken by these 6 cities and that leaves 7 with individual championships:

Indianapolis (Colts), Chicago (White Sox), Phoenix (Diamondbacks), Denver (Avalanche), Philadelphia (Phillies), Baltimore (Ravens), and Raleigh (Hurricanes) round out the rest.

So now we know who won. How many championships did these cities have a chance to win?

Boston had 7 and came away with 6, the lone loss being that Patriots defeat at the hands of the Giants.

Including Anaheim with L.A., that metro area contended for an astounding 9 total, coming away with 6, the Lakers losing 2 NBA titles and the Ducks losing a Cup.

New York's metro area tops all of them, with 11 total attempts. The Yankees lost 2, the Nets lost 2, and the Devils lost 1. The Mets lost 1, but it was to the Yankees, so New York was both a winner and a loser there.

It gets a little more interesting and varied with cities like St. Louis (4 total attempts), which lost a Super Bowl and a World Series (and also won both those things), and Detroit (6), which lost a World Series, a Stanley Cup, and an NBA championship. Pittsburgh went to 4 and came away with 3, with the Penguins losing the 2008 Cup.

The city that had their hearts broken the most was Philadelphia, of course, with 4 total trips and coming away with only 1, losing a Super Bowl, a World Series, and an NBA Championship. Dallas would come away totally empty-handed with 2 failed attempts, the Mavericks and Stars.

The number of once runner-ups from individual cities is massive, starting with Nashville's Titans in 2000, Tampa (Rays), Charlotte (Panthers), Raleigh (Hurricanes), Chicago (Bears), Denver (Rockies), Houston (Astros), Oakland (Raiders), Indianapolis (Pacers), Cleveland (Cavaliers), Orlando (Magic), Phoenix (Cardinals), Seattle (Seahawks), and three Canadian teams who just couldn't bring the Cup back to the promised land: Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa.

So, then, I thought, what about the states? I would have to include college sports, too--strictly basketball and football.

It should come as no surprise that the state of Florida won the most. With 6 college wins, 4 of them from the Gators (2 per sport), 1 for Florida State (football), and 1 for Miami (football), combined with the 4 professional wins, Florida took home 10 total. They lost 5 more (yeah, the Gators actually lost in the NCAAs in 2000. It was a happier time). The state of Florida was involved with 15 title attempts.

Then it's California, with 7 wins. USC football won 1, combined with the 6 others previously mentioned. So they lost out on 5: USC (football) and UCLA (basketball), and the 3 other professional attempts, for a total of 12.

Texas went for 7 and got 4, when you include the Longhorns' win over USC to add to the Spurs. Houston and Dallas, what a bunch of losers.

Michigan: 8 tries. Michigan State won an NCAA, so 4 total wins for that state, and an extra loss when they lost to North Carolina this year.

Pennsylvania was all professional attempts: 8, coming away with 4.

North Carolina went for 6 and won 4, with Duke (basketball) and 2 UNC (basketball), along with the Hurricanes win. Losses came from the Hurricanes and Panthers.

And who knew the Sooners went for 4 BCS wins in this decade? Oklahoma came away with 1, over Florida State. They lost to LSU, USC, and Florida.

Ohio's only championships were with the Cavaliers and, perhaps, most memorably, with Ohio State. With the ignominy of losing to Florida in both football and basketball in the same year (2007), they also lost to LSU. They took their lone championship for Ohio when a referee decided some 3 seconds after a play was over to call pass interference in the end zone against Miami in 2003. I know what you're thinking. Screw Miami. That's 1 win with 4 crushing losses.

Maryland took 2 with an NCAA and the Ravens. They lost nothing. To hell with them.

Indiana had 3 tries, when you include the Hoosiers loss in the 2002 NCAAs. Indiana says Thank God for the Colts.

Louisiana won 2 with LSU (football) and that's it.

Kansas: 1 and 1 with a win and loss in the NCAAs.

Arizona: 3, with an NCAA, but still only D'Backs to celebrate.

Missouri: All St. Louis and their 2 wins, 2 losses. Sorry, Kansas City.

Massachusetts: all Boston of course. No need to delve further.

Washington: the lone Super Bowl loss from Seattle.

Illinois, 3, with the NCAAs. They still only had the White Sox actually win.

Connecticut, Georgia Tech (basketball), and Virginia Tech (football) were the lone representatives from those states in any kind of championship. UConn won, the Techs didn't. Sorry, Georgia, Virginia.

New York State, strictly to the letter, took 3 championships: 2 Yankees and 1 for Syracuse. New Jersey won the same amount, if you go strictly to the letter and give the Giants to Jersey. Overall the two states won 6 and had 12 tries between them. In other words, you just add Syracuse's win/attempt to all the New York metro area wins/attempts.

Tennessee went for 2, when you include Memphis, and came away empty-handed.

Yet Another NFL Promotion/Relegation Idea

2009-11-03T11:11:00.008-06:00

Well Doc, it doesn't take much to get me going on this topic. I've debated how this whole NFL relegation thing could work, and I think something might be needed in time, if only to counteract how many horrible teams there are these days. For years the Bengals stank while raking in millions of dollars, and other teams are starting to follow the same course. The NFL is a river of money, and all you have to do is be in the club.

And so we get wonderful gems like Lions-Rams, and weekends where half the games are one star games. If we're to keep the salary cap, which does at least give every team a chance, we have to find a way to punish the awful teams where the front office has stopped trying. So lets kick some teams out.

For the life of me I can't figure out why there can't be a reasonable second tier league played in the fall, or even in the spring, as a minor league. It works so well in baseball, and even the miserably boring Arena League survived for years.

So, two tiers should work, and we need more teams. Let's give 13 cities a team, or even a second team, to create a second league with 15 teams. LA could have two. Here are the next 13 major metropolitan areas without an NFL team:

LA
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA
Portland
Sacramento
Orlando
San Antonio
Las Vegas
San Jose
Columbus
Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News
Austin
Providence-New Bedford-Fall River
Memphis

Okay, and some of those wouldn't work because they are too close to very popular existing teams. But every single one of them is larger than New Orleans or Buffalo. And further down the list we see:

Louisville
Salt Lake City
Raleigh-Durham
Winston-Salem
Grand Rapids
Hartford
Oklahoma City
Greenville
Birmingham
Richmond

And there are a handful more that have populations of over 1m. Of these lists, are there 13 cities that could field their own team? No doubt about it. And I'd bet at least one of these markets would be a major success. You might even have room for an NFL III.

So here's my proposal, which I'm trying to keep as realistic as possible. We have a new second tier with fifteen teams. The worst team in the NFC and AFC are relegated, leaving just 30 teams in the NFL (like the old format, which I prefer). So, in two years, surely predicated by which big money owners showed up, your NFL II league consists of:

NFC Worst team (Lions/Rams)
AFC Worst team (Raiders)
LA #1
LA #2
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA
Portland
Sacramento
Orlando
San Antonio
Las Vegas
San Jose
Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News
Austin
Memphis
Louisville

This league is more stripped down, with the format being seven home games and seven road games, playing every team once. The top team is promoted, and the second and third team playoff for promotion, that game possibly being the most lucrative game of the year. Relegation would be determined by a short playoff between all teams that couldn't win five games. Imagine the drama as the Titans try to win five games this year! The whole Vince Young thing would have even more impact.

Now, how would you work out the details? Like salary cap and the draft? I say everybody gets to play at the same salary cap, and NFL II teams are mixed in starting at the third round of the draft, with a few more rounds added at the end. Plenty more debate to be had here.

Of course, the owners may never go for all this because you'd be harming their cash cows. Maybe if they got some cash up front for franchise fess that would help. Are there other problems?

Sound Observations - NFL Relegation

2009-11-02T15:50:00.002-06:00

Well, as a Packers fan, I want to stick a piping hot iron stake in both eyes after seeing what occured last night, but there's plenty more to get this week...

NFL

1.) I've talked about this before, and I think Mike has originated the idea on this site, but why don't we relegate teams to the minor leagues like the English Premier League in soccer? I think this is the best way to work the UFL into a marketable system in American football. Think about it:

The 2008 Lions get sent down to the UFL after finishing 0-16 in the NFL. Rather than reward their incompetence with a high draft pick and fresh new logo, they must win a certain amount of games in the UFL the following season to become eligible for reinstatement in the primary league. Wouldn't attendance actually increase to the UFL games, in the hope that, if they're playing inferior competition, they have a chance to be promoted at the end of the year? This would provide huge incentives for the UFL teams to recruit quality talent, with the hopes that those players would be able to compete at the highest level.

The converse is true as well. If you have a team at 3-11 in week 15, and there's only a few teams with that record or worse, won't you be playing as hard as possible in the final weeks of the season to avoid relegation? This brings a new dynamic into the league that has plenty of ramifications all season long. It'll provide excitment in both leagues and keep an amorphous affiliation between them. Someone get this idea to Mr. Goodell.

2.) Shannon Sharpe wore a purple velvet suit yesterday for the CBS pregame. A velvet suit. Let that one simmer in your brain for a while. Mmm...

3.) I was at a bar yesterday to watch the Packers/Vikes (because Tennessee played a 3 pm game for some fucking reason and I couldn't weep in the privacy of my own home), and saw some very energetic and vocal Cleveland fans. Even when they were losing 159-3, they kept complaining about calls and cheering their team when they got their only first down. That's committment. Good for them.

4.) This is ridiculous to say, but... I... I think Terry Bradshaw had a pretty amazing interview with Brett Favre on Fox's pregame show yesterday. It was conversational, realistic, biting, and revealing in a way that most people can't get from the super-intelligent Favre. Surprised the hell out of me, but I've got to give him credit. Now, why they conducted the interview in a hall closet of someone's apartment I don't know.

5.) As K-Dub mentioned in the previous post, the Titans looked like they cruised to an easy win with Vince Young, circa October 2007. The reason why is simple: Jeff Fisher is a very, very good coach. I originally bet on Jacksonville to win, but then I thought, "Is there a better coach for a mid-level talent team coming off a bye week, playing a moderately talented visiting team?". I changed the pick and had no doubts the Titans would pull it out. No one does more with less over the course of a season than Fisher.

All the pundits are talking about how Fisher has had only 6 winning seasons in 16 as a head coach. Well, he's only had 5 losing seasons as well, and while 8-8 doesn't really blow the hair back, many of those seasons were during the whole "We're moving to Tennessee! Oh, well, first we have to stay in Memphis for a while, then we'll have to play at Vanderbilt's stadium." days. He's a good coach, and it would be moronic to fire him. Which means he'll be coaching Dallas next year.

MLB

6.) Rodriguez indeed is getting the proverbial gorilla off his back these days, but let's not forget he started this series 0 for 8, and is still not what I would call a clutch hitter. You don't learn stuff like that, or get used to the pressure. You just kind of close your eyes and hope for something to happen. If you're as talented as Alex Rodriguez, sometimes it does. Doesn't mean he won't choke next time.

7.) Strangely enough, given the fact that I really like the city of Philadelphia, I agree with Mike. I don't want to live in a world in which the Phillies have won back to back championships. Of course, I live in a world where Florida won back to back NCAA championships in basketball, while holding the National Championship in college football at the same time. Those were dark days.

8.) What're the odds at this point that the Cubs will EVER win a World Series? Is this even calculatable? Is that even a word? My head hurts.

9.) I'm starting to notice that HBO has gotten away from nudity in their programming. I have to voice my opposition to this. Not only do they show a grand total of 3 distinct movies in a day, but their "original programming" is all mindful, thought-provoking Emmy-bait. This is not right.

Even the previously-fun-to-watch-but-now-looks-like-it's-written-by-a-retarded-monkey show Entourage has focused more on career goals for the group and less on the gratuitous, happy-to-throw-myself-at-and-willing-to-fuck-a-guy-I-just-met SoCal girls from the first couple of seasons. I want answers! If we can't get quality nudity from network shows that can somehow show dismembered and disemboweled corpses, but need to blur out a nipple, we need to depend on our premium channels to give us a little skin. That is all.

Holla back!

The Upsidedown Sports World Of KW

2009-11-02T11:03:00.004-06:00

The sports world seems upside down to me the last few days:

The Titans just blew out the Jags and looked great doing it. Vince Young played with confidence and seemed like a leader. The defense was pretty darn awesome (save for those two Jones-Drew scampers). When did this happen? I’m almost more pissed at the first 6 games seeing them play like this… where was this the last six weeks?

The Colts nearly lost a game to the 49ers. Peyton was sacked three times, had a fistful of “three-and-outs”, and was missing throws long and short all day. The Colts offense was so frustrated that they had to turn to a trick play to score the go-ahead touchdown (an awesome trick play, by the way).

A-Rod is awesome-ish… hitting home runs and doubles and getting RBIs in the—gasp—World Series. Yankee fans will probably still not let him out of jail.

The Predators aren’t flat-lined after all. Now 6-6-1 after winning 4 out of their last 5, the team looks like a contender for one of those lesser playoff spots. For now. The defense looks great, and the offense is starting to gel.

The entire city of Green Bay booed Brett Favre.

Eli Manning looks like me playing QB. Tony Romo suddenly looks like Peyton Manning, with zero interceptions the last three weeks.

USC lost bigger than they have in over a decade.

Andre Agassi says he used to wear a hairpiece when he was playing tennis in his prime. W. T. F.?

Crazy past couple days... many things happening the opposite of how I expected them too. Especially with Agassi's hair.

The Decline of Sports

2009-10-30T16:03:00.003-05:00

Sports aren't going anywhere, it's just that they're not immune to the pressures that every business faces, although generally facing them well off the front pages. Money drives everything, and the game is often played on the outskirts of legality to make more of it. The NBA tries to exploit their refs in quasi-legal ways to maximise profits, and it surprises no one.

The NBA has approached this in the dumbest way possible, the one that everybody can see. And MLB isn't much better by allowing steroids for so long. Issues that all can see will eventually be found out. Best to let players take uppers or something to increase their energy (no, I'm not endorsing that). The NFL is okay for now because steroid bodies can be hidden by the uniforms, but if it weren't for that we'd have the same issues we have elsewhere.

As an aside, I continue to believe that the much maligned Tour de France is the cleanest pro sport in the world because they take drug use seriously and don't just sweep away their issues. Good for them.

But no, the end of sports will never come, as there will always be people like me suiting up to play in adult leagues every weekend. Professional sports are in trouble, real trouble, and they need to face up to this, but something will be around. In what form?

Even if one of the major sports leagues fail, another league will take its place because there is too much money to be made. But, is there a chance that some element of professional "wrestling" will come into sports? Has that already happened in the NBA? I believe it has. I hate to say it, but everything in the book I linked to rang true. We've entered an age of sports as entertainment, and not fully sports.

Phillies Hope to End 364-Day World Series Drought

2009-10-29T17:13:00.001-05:00

From The Onion

Cheating And Scandal Will Never Be the End of Sports

2009-10-29T09:58:00.003-05:00

Last night I got home and read Mike's previous post, which led to the Deadspin article containing excerpts from a book written by disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy. It is indeed a fascinating read, and if it's true, then the NBA certainly has a scandal that I think is even worse than the steroid problem in the MLB.

This past year, I've heard a lot of sports radio talk centered around the steroids in baseball, and at around the time Manny Ramirez made it back to the Dodgers after his 50-game suspension, talk show hosts made note of the warm reception Dodgers fans gave him in that first game and said, "Fans are showing that they just don't care about this steroid mess."

Well, in some ways, this is true. I think the more accurate way to describe it is "people don't care enough about it to say goodbye to baseball."

I've been a baseball fan going on 25 years now. The very best baseball is played in the Major Leagues. College baseball is nearly unwatchable for me. When the steroid scandal hit, MLB dragged its feet for a very long time, finally getting around to suspending players. But the players are allowed back in, the records they may set are not officially tarnished (although baseball writers exact revenge on these numbers by not allowing these guys into the Hall of Fame), and there's no way of knowing whether they are all clean because drugs can be a step ahead of the testing. But for all that, I really have no choice on what MLB does. It's baseball. I love baseball. I will still watch.

It's the same for the lockout that happened 15 years ago. I thought, when a new labor agreement had to be reached a few years later, and there was talk of another lockout, that I might stop watching it if it were to happen. But then I realized, no, I wouldn't. The game I grew up watching and becoming my favorite sport for so many reasons had not changed.

There are a lot of things, I suppose, I wish I could stop enjoying so I could pursue more fruitful endeavors. I guess if I really tried, I could find a way to stop watching (or listening) and I wouldn't notice the void. But every time it's on, and it's either my team or a battle between two good teams, I can't help it. And if someone says they have tickets to the game and I'm not doing anything, I'll go. I think this is the case for many baseball fans, and why stadiums still fill up. It's the game they love...what other avenue is there to watch professionals play?

Sure, there are a few who can stop and do, but clearly it's not going to stop the majority, because they have no alternative. Saying baseball fans, or in the case of the revelations of Tim Donaghy, NBA fans, "don't care" is wrong. We care, we want it completely clean if possible, but in the meantime, the games are still the games we enjoy even if there's something cracked in them.

On the other hand, should officiating in sports become so awful that every game is being altered by horrible calls, you might see an exodus if nothing happens there. Officials can change the game in a meaningful way by interpreting the rules incorrectly or allowing things that are clearly wrong to stand. This is why the NBA scandal could be worse than the MLB steroid problem (although this postseason in the MLB is making me wonder if some umps are on the take). If people start going to games and think that their team is getting hosed because of officiating, and fans take a step further and think the refs are on the take, and there's a lot of evidence supporting this claim, then fans will turn on the sport.

Of course, when fans start turning on the sport, the league will probably make the necessary changes to try to win those fans back...until the next scandal hits.

Another Item in Deadspin's Favor: Blowing the Doors off the NBA?

2009-10-29T00:37:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm not sure how much you can trust Tim Donaghy, but I have the feeling you can believe at least SOME of this article in Deadspin. With nothing to lose, he tells all, throwing several refs and the NBA's top brass under the bus. This supposedly was to be published next month, but now will not as the league has threatened a lawsuit. It's a must read.

Sound Observations - Dream NFL Pregame Lineup

2009-10-26T14:15:00.006-05:00

Back again this week, since there's a lot happening in the sports world and beyond:

NFL Week 7

1.) I'm addicted to watching the pregame shows this season for strange reasons. One is because I've always generally stuck to Fox because they used to talk about Packers games nonstop in the mid to late 90's, and two because CBS is leading the league in "most mustaches in a pregame crew" stats.

Simply put, there are waaaay too many people in the studio at 11 am. Everyone knows this. Nobody likes it. But the networks just keep throwing us bullshit analysts because a.) they're former players and can string two sentences together, or b.) they're former head coaches that were respected and just want to make an easy paycheck before going back to the grind.

Because of that, we've been treated to the likes of Shannon Sharpe, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith (by far the worst idea, ever), Keyshawn Johnson, Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan. There's no analysis, cogent commentaries, or useful thoughts. It's all explosive, inappropriate laughter and lighthearted ribbing. Awesome.

There are some decent analysts out there that do their jobs, however, and I'd love to see more of them. So here's my dream team of a pregame panel:

Tom Jackson

Howie Long

Bill Cowher

Charlie Casserly (league info; love that segment on CBS)

For host, I'm waffling between Curt Menefee, James Brown (mustache included), and Chris Berman. All do a servicable job, but Menefee seems like he can barely get a word in edgewise, and Berman relies too much on schtick. Berman's definitely got the longevity, but I'll have to give it to Brown for the moderator position. Even though CBS's pregame is about as exciting as a senior citizen's strip club, I think he gets the job done.

Oh, and I'm sending all the "insiders" packing. Schefter, Mortenson, Glazer, et al. can hit the road. They seem a little too involved with themselves and their "breaking news", when the fantasy guys already have all that information. I wish I were a network producer.

Also, I'll throw an honorable mention to Mike Ditka, who is actually an outstanding analyst, but he can't get his words out properly. He reminds me of Frank Costanza trying to say "Del Boca Vista".

2.) While we're here, some of the box announcers need to go too. I'd give a pink slip to Chris Collinsworth (too smug and not good enough to succeed Madden), Rich Gannon, Ian Eagle, Joe Buck and his mancrush on Aikman, Jon Gruden, Ron Jaworski (put him back in the studio) and Dan Dierdorff.

I'd promote the hell out of Jim Nance, Brian Billick (I'm surprised too), Gus Johnson, Daryl Johnston, and Kenny Albert.

3.) Yes, the Packers will play the Vikings next week at Lambeau, and there will be a smidgeon more press coverage than usual. I hope the old man can make it out there so Green Bay can welcome him with open arms.

I fucking hate Brett Favre.

4.) I'm in a pick 'em league with some family from Wisconsin, and one of the team's names is Biff Stoner. I don't know if it's a pot reference or a clever switch of first syllables, but I think it's hilarious for some reason. Anyway, I went 6-0 with my morning picks for the 3rd week in a row. 6-0! Then New Orleans decided to show up in the 4th quarter, the Falcons played like they had Biff Stoner at tailback and it was all downhill. I hate gambling.

MLB

5.) Yankees/Phillies. Who's excited? Anyone west of the Mississippi? I'm sure this will be a decent series, and not a coronation, which will be pretty nice for a change. But we're playing into November now. November baseball? I'm past caring.

College Football

6.) Speaking of coronations, I spent Saturday night listening to the announcers spooge all over Tebow again in the Mississippi State/Florida game. Did you guys know that Tebow's competitive? And that he HATES to lose? And that he writes little Bible verses on his antiglare thingies on his cheeks? I imagine he's wearing those when he's banging some groupie or cheerleader in Starkville. Good times.

TV

7.) How did anyone watch anything before DVR/Tivo? Were people more active? Did they converse more? All I know is that I haven't seen my family since the fall season started.

Cheers!