Tuesday, November 25, 2003

..and he didn't own that movie ranch.

Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher in baseball history, has died at the age of 82. Rob Neyer has an excellent appreciation of Spahn's achievements in his ESPN.com column. I was finishing up the Koufax book last night on the LIRR and there was a mention of Spahn and Koufax's lobbying to add him to the All-Century team a few years back. I pulled into Port Washington, put the book away, walked home and as soon as I sat at the PC, I read that Spahn had passed away. Weird.
I lost at poker again, by the way. I won one nice big hand and that was it. Crappy cards, bad decisions, you name it--I lost every which way. Luckily, it didn't cost me much money...but I really have to get off the snide.

Monday, November 24, 2003

been a long time, been a long time...

I caught some good rock'n'roll last Thursday night: The Detroit Cobras and The Greenhornes at the Mercury Lounge. Both bands would be considered part of the late 90s-early 00s Garage Rock revival, which I happen to really enjoy. I can see how some people might see the neo-Garage trend as just that, a trend, a bit ersatz, but I think its the most refreshing thing to happen to the rock scene in years. "Indie" rock is actually fun again. These bands seem to have remembered how much fun it is to play rock'n'roll music. This isn't dour, navel-gazing, rhythm-less "rock," it's souped-up, pounding, thumping, dancing, hip-swingin' rock'n'roll! The Cobras essentially play punked-up 50's r&b, while the Greenhornes play mid-60s style rock'n'roll, clearly influenced by The Yardbirds above all (they even covered the Yardbirds' "Lost Woman"). The Cobras are the more memorable band, but both were a lot of fun.

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

My Caption of the Day

Do you think Bill might be saying "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart!"

Lord of the Trophies/Rings

Barry Bonds just won his SIXTH MVP award, and his third in a row. SIX F'IN' MVP AWARDS, FOLKS. That's twice as many as Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio, it's a truly staggering number. I felt Bonds deserved the award again, but a great case could be made for St. Louis' Albert Pujols, and I thought it would be a much tighter vote. Anyway, it was Barry in a walk (no pun intended), and his legend grows and grows. Next stop, Babe Ruth. It's amazing that Bonds won his first MVP in 1990, and he's still winning them easily thirteen years later. How often is the best player in the game (any game) still the best a decade later?

I watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers again last night. I'd seen it once before, in the theater last winter, and I enjoyed it far more the second time. It's not that I didn't like it the first time, but I was feeling logy and it's a long freakin' movie. Consequently, I was trying to stay awake half the time and getting antsy waiting for things to wrap up. When you're in a hurry, waiting for the Ents to get their wooden asses in gear is interminable. Last night I was able to really enjoy it. I haven't seen the "Extended" version of the first LOTR, and I'm not dying to see the longer version of Two Towers that was just released today, but I suppose I'll see them both eventually. I've been told that the longer versions add a lot of character development and nuance that make the stories much richer and satisfying, but jeez, they're already three hours long. It's amazing when you sit through a movie this long and realize how much they had to cut out. Personally, they don't seem bloated to me in their theatrical release versions, but my friend Will Simon quipped, "Howard Hawks could havd told the same story in 82 minutes." Well, he probably could have, but he'd have Walter Brennan play Gollum. Hmmm, now who would play Aragorn in Hawks' version, Bogie, the Duke or Cary Grant?

One more note on The Two Towers: it sure was good to see Brad Dourif in a major movie again. He was so good in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then in John Huston's sadly overlooked Wise Blood, he's always a welcome, if slightly creepy presence on my screen.

...also, I'm currently finally reading Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, and it's pretty fantastic thus far.

Monday, November 17, 2003

A-Rod Wins, Random thoughts.

Alex Rodriguez finally won the AL MVP today, in a very tight race. Although I'm not sure I would have voted for him this year (I thought Carlos Delgado and Jorge Posada had excellent cases), I'm happy he won. He's deserved it before, and I'm glad the BBWAA got over their last-place bias.

In other baseball notes...Rob Neyer has a good piece today discussing why the Yankees are so good and why they're likely to remain so good. I'm just happy to see him write about something other than the Red Sox. Also, Japanese star Kaz Matsui has announced he's coming to the major leagues. I don't know much about him, beyond the stats (which are impressive), but it's said the Yankees will probably make a run at him, possibly moving Soriano to centerfield. We'll see.

Retromedia has closed! I'm so very bummed out about this. I had only recently discovered the site and now it's being yanked away from me--I had so many clips left to watch! Maybe we should all throw money at this guy so he re-opens the site.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

34-24-34?

It's Tuesday again, which for me means it's 24 night. Yes, I am among those TV geeks who never miss an episode. It's now season 3, and I'm still going out of my way to catch every second of this ridiculous show. Don't get me wrong, it's good TV: exciting, creative presentation, great production values, strong acting, etc. However...c'mon, it's pretty absurd. As super-agent Jack Bauer, Kiefer Sutherland has been injured more in 3 seasons than Mickey Mantle was in 18, and still never misses a beat, not to mention the wild turns the plots and characters take at the drop of a dime. Last season Kiefer had a hunk of wood lodged in his leg after a plane crash. He tore it out, limped around with a grimace for about 5 minutes, and then resumed running all over Southern California to foil the bad guys. An episode later, you'd never have had any idea he'd suffered such an egregious injury.
However, for most 24 fans, our main source of angst is Kim Bauer (Elisha Cuthbert), Jack's daughter. I think most fans, especially males, really want to like her. First of all, she's extremely hot, with that sexy yet innocent "You can bring me home to your parents with pride and you can also bend me over the sofa at 2 am" look, and besides, she's the beloved daughter of the hero...but sheesh, do the writers of this show make her look stupid. Half the time she seems very with-it, sharp and tough, and then the writers always contrive to make her do the dumbest thing possible. In both of the first two seasons, she's gotten stuck in ridiculous "Perils of Pauline" type emergency situations that no thinking person would ever get themselves into. So far this season, that's eluded her, but she's spent the first three hours of the latest international crisis worrying about when she can tell her Daddy she's dating his new partner. As Ed Pancreas summed it up: "Daddy, I know dere's a viral coming and killing peoples but me got a boyfriend! Me got a boyfriend! Teeheeheehee!"
If I were Elisha Cuthbert (and I think we can all be thankful that I'm not), I'd be planning my hissy fit for the writers and producers. Hey, a couple seasons ago she was a kid, largely unknown (at least in the US) and thankful to have such a great gig. Now, she's getting movie offers (like looking adorably sexy in the way I described earlier in Old School), her picture is constantly being splashed around in celeb mags and the internet...in short, she's a rising young star, and pretty essential to the show. They've already killed off Jack's wife and had his ex-adulterous lover turn out to be an evil double-agent (who wound up killing said wife), chances are they're not going to kill off the daughter. So, Elisha, now is your time to demand that your character stop being so freaking stupid and self-absorbed. Let Kim save the freakin' day, just one time, please? Because even with that questionable new hairdo, she's really, really hot.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

American Icon Soup

One more thing about Mystic River: for days now I keep singing Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River," changing "Whiskey" to "Mystic." It's easy to fall into, hard to stop, and given the content of the film, highly inappropriate.

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Old West Action

Caught Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort, Mystic River, the other day. Man, this is an excellent flick. Its one of the best things Eastwood's ever done, and I'm of the school that that's saying a lot. It's probably his best work since Unforgiven, and at least since the underrated A Perfect World. Clint doesn't appear in the film, instead he's working with one of the strongest ensemble casts of recent years, i.e. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden & Laura Linney. What's nice to report is that the lesser parts are just as ably handled. No one delivers a false performance - everyone rings true, as does the look and feel of the film.

I won't rehash the plot of the film, you can find that anywhere. Suffice to say, it's heavy stuff, definitely not a good "date" movie (unless you happen to be dating a child molester, murderer or small time gangster from a blue-collar Boston neighborhood). As I said, everyone's very good, but Penn and Robbins really stand out. It's Penn's best work since Dead Man Walking, and Robbins' best to date. Playing a man with a wound that cannot be healed by time, Robbins' body language is extraordinary. He stoops his shoulders, hangs his head and presents himself as a wounded child in a grown man's body--as if time stopped for him on that fateful day in his youth, while his body marched on. Penn is a walking mass of conflicting emotions, coiled like a cobra, but with genuine pain and loss in his eyes. We're never sure if he's longing to renounce bloodshed forever, or longing to let it seep back into his pores.

Eastwood's direction is sure-handed and smart - he doesn't waste frames showing off, and maintains a certain level of anxiousness and dread from beginning to end. In Mystic River, as in Unforgiven and A Perfect World, violence is presented as a disease, akin to alcoholism. It infests the lives of those consumed with it, and spreads to those around them, innocent or guilty. Eastwood's characters try to back away from the violence in their pasts, but somehow relapse, fall off the wagon and slide back into the blood and brutality that's been the ruin of their lives. The best flick I've seen this year, and deserving of the hype.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

International Steakfishing

I had a bizarre dream last night. In it, I apparently worked at Saturday Night Live. I was working in a dark blue office with no windows, and we all worked in cubicles. The week's guest host was James Caan, and I was told to go speak to him about something. Caan had found one sketch absolutely awful and over-long. I read it and agreed with him, and he asked me to have someone write something better. I went back to the writers and producers and told them what he'd said, at which time they instructed me that it was just the 12:50 am skit anyway, so it didn't really matter, and why didn't I write a new one? It was my first day on the job and I'd never written anything for the show, so I was apprehensive. Nevertheless, I began to wrack my brain for an idea. Suddenly, I had it: The International Steakfishing Competition! In my sketch, two red-blazered sports announcers would broadcast the International Steakfishing finals - wherein two beautiful women would be fishing and reeling in cooked steaks. Why they were beautiful women instead of typically gruff looking fishermen, I have no idea. They would reel in a filet mignon, a strip steak, a london broil, etc. I remember that I had one of the commentators remark, "Look at those grill marks!" at one of the catches, and I'd written in one of those "Up close & personal" segments about one of the girls. In my dream, the staff seemed to like my sketch, oddly enough. Very odd.