Book of Eli Movie Review 5.5/10!

This movie was kind of a disappointment. I thought that having Gary Oldman and Denzel Washington opposite each other in a pseudo-biblical post-apocalyptic battle field would be highly entertaining. I was disappointed. It was somewhat entertaining, but it was nearly as good as I thought that it would be. The movie is your standard post-apocalyptic nightmare. Basically a Mad Max/Postman/The Road standard fair kind of stuff with a bit of Fahrenheit 451 thrown in. Of course nothing is ever really explained as to what happened in the world to make it this way except for some vague allusions to things that happened like "a whole was ripped in the sky" and "after the big flash." I guess, that's ok as it wasn't all that important to the plot, but still that sort of sets the tone for this movie as it seems to have lots of things that just are with no explanation for what the heck is going on. This movie was bad, and would have received rating probably of 6.5 or 7 except for a couple of things. There is a big twist of sorts and the end and to be honest it was bad for the movie as it really just didn't make that much sense. My issue with can't really be discussed without giving out a ton of spoilers which I prefer not to do, and the ending just left me with to many unanswered questions and to much Why the hell did this happen this way to get more than a slightly above average rating. As is kind of a theme it seems with the movies I have watched this year this movie had a lot of potential but underachieves and fails to reach that potential.

Legion Movie Review 4/10!

From the previews I really didn't think this movie was going to be that good, but since I have a mancrush on Paul Bettany I knew I was going to go see it as soon as I saw the first trailer. Essentially this is a Zombie apocalypse movie but instead of some virus the zombies are created by Angel possession. Yea, I know, sounds silly, it was pretty silly when I was watching it. Listening to an audience can sometimes give you a clue as to the quality of a movie. If the entire audience is laughing at inappropriate times then its probably a good example of a poorly written script. I don't expect my action movies to have Oscar quality scripts, but I do expect them to no be so painfully bad as to make the audience laugh when it should be feeling something else. There isn't really that much action in the movie, and the dialogue scenes between the characters are painfully cheesy and forced. The one bright spot of the film is how they implemented the angel wings into the big fight scene. Basically the bottom line on this film is that it had an interesting idea but do to poor, poor pacing, cheesy melodramatic over acting, and a script that lacked the proper cohesion to tell the story kept it from actualizing any of he potential that was there. If your going to the theatre and you have to choose between this movie and Book of Eli, see Book of Eli, its better, although only marginally. It somehow manages to take itself far less seriously, which is saying something considering how seriously Book of Eli took itself.

Five Movies you should see right now.

5. In Bruges- An odd but incredibly well made little flick with a lot of good acting and a drunken midget. Can't go wrong with that combination.

4. Grey Gardens- Creepy, disturbing, and utterly fascinating. I know not everyone is interested in documentary film making, but if you are this is one to see without a doubt.

3. Dances With Wolves- Not only is it a very good movie it will remind all of you who watched Avatar that its a complete rip off of this movie.

2. L.A. Confidential- It has Guy Pierce, Kevin Spacey, and Russell Crowe, how can you go wrong there? This is a really great movie with an excellent script and snappy acting from the ensemble cast. Its my favorite cop movie by far.

1. Twilight- PSYCH!!!! You should never see that trash. The real number one is YOJIMBO. A great samurai movie from possibly the greatest director of all time Akira Kurasawa. It stars Toshiro Mifune as the samurai with no name. This is the inspiration behind Leone's Dollars Trilogy, and in fact the first movie of said trilogy was a complete rip off of Yojimbo, so much in fact that Kurasawa sued his ass in court, and won. This is an excellent movie, and is a little lighter than Sanjuro, or some of his other works like Throne of Blood.

Repost of my Sosa block with a little extra about McGwire

I wrote this blog a while back about Sosa and it still applies with whats going on with McGwire. I still believe what I wrote in the Sosa blog, but I have a few more things to add. Firstly, its really silly to see all of these media types who kept pressuring McGwire to come clean turn around and have a field day with it. Seems incredibly hypocritical, of course I wouldn't know what to do if journalists weren't hypocritical. What's even worse is all the guys who were just upset that he didn't come clean in the way they thought he should, so they are critical of that. Secondly, I still think the media has a completely blind eye to the fact that all of their so called clean players from before the steroid era were all popping greenies (amphetamines). They are just as much a PED as steroids are. Stop turning a blind eye just so you can make a story, or protect the sanctity of an era that is not nearly as clean as you would have us believe.

THE SOSA BLOG

Ok, so its true that apparently Sosa did test positive for a performance enhancing drug and it made headlines in the sports world yesterday. But lets be honest about this, is anybody actually surprised anymore when a name like Sosa's pops up testing positive? I for one am not shocked by any name that comes up from the late 90's and early 2000's anymore. And frankly did we need confirmation to know that Sosa was on them? Anybody that watched him play had to have him on their top 2 or 3 list of players most likely to be taking a shot in the butt. My top 4 list was Big Mac, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens. I have been screaming for a while now that Roger Clemens was the one pitcher I was certain of to hitting the juice, and truthfully he is the only player other than Bonds that I have felt a certain vindication and satisfaction in seeing the news come out. The question though that I feel needs to be asked is was it worth what Big Mac and Sosa did to themselves and the game? I would have to say yes. Those of you who know me well know that I am a rules nazi. I am fair to the rules to a fault, when I play softball I have actually called myself out when an umpire was umping that didn't know all the rules. I hate it when my team gets the benefit of a bad call and I tell an umpire when I think he missed a call, even if it is one that helped my team. But at the same time, 1998 was a magical season for baseball fans. Outside of hard core baseball fans, baseball was not doing well after the 1994 strike and 1995 lock out ( I do believe the owners were more at fault than the players, and they get a bum rap on this, but thats a blog for another day) and he game was struggling mightily to get butts in the seats. Sosa and McGwire's home run chase changed that. It created interest in the game on a national level that baseball had not enjoyed in a long time. That interest did not go away, it maintained through the 2000's and even though baseball can't compete with football for television ratings (this mostly has to do with the number of games) people were going to game at a great rate in most cities, Florida and Montreal of course were exceptions. Montreal baseball was destroyed by the strike, and never recovered. They had a hell of a team in 1994 and had real chances of going places that year, and their fans got their hearts ripped out. But for most teams 1998 was magical. Not only was it home runs in numbers never seen before, but it was a rivalry between two players in the same division, and each on teams that historically have one of the best rivalries in baseball. Everbody was watching, everybody wanted to know what was going to happen next, and everybody was enchanted by the fact Sosa and McGwire were pushing each other to play better via encouragment rather than animosity. Sure the steriods make the season seem a bit hollow now, but you can't take away what it did for baseball, even now baseball is doing all right and its in part due to that season. And you can take away some of the gloss on what they accomplished on the field with their numbers, but you can't take away the grace they handled themselves with during that chase and embracing what they were to baseball. And lets keep in mind that in 1998 they weren't technically even breaking any baseball rules, which means that perhaps baseball administration is far more on the hook for steroids than the individual players are. Was it worth it, yea, it probably was, without 1998 contraction was a very real and ugly possiblity, and the face of baseball could have been drastically different. Would baseball have been better if the owners and administration had been more responsible in their drug testing? Absolutely, but us and the players have to play with the hand they were dealt, and we still have to look for a silver lining in a cloudy sky.

Undefeated Seasons

So why all the big deal and hub bub about the Colts deciding they don't care about going 16-0? Why does it matter? The answer is it doesn't not one little bit. The only thing that is important is winning the Super Bowl. It doesn't matter if you go 8-8 during the regular season or if you 16-0. The Championship is the same regardless of how many wins you have, the super bowl ring looks the same, the Champagne tastes just as sweet. The Colt's had nothing to gain by playing their starters and going 16-0 and everything to lose. They could have lost Peyton Manning, it is football and anything can happen at any time. If that happened they might as well just forfeit. And for what? The Colt's had already secured home field, so what else was there? The fans at the game that boo'd the team should be ashamed of themselves, because they sure as hell would have lit Jim Caldwell up if they had suffered a catastrophic injury that cost them a chance at a championship. In fact Jim Caldwell was in a complete no-win situation. If he pulls his starters and rest them then he gets blasted, if he plays his starters and one gets injured then he gets blasted by the press. He chose the right answer in choosing the solution that gets him blasted by the press but doesn't cost his team a chance at winning the championship. In fact I feel terribly sorry for poor Jim Caldwell, if he was Tony Dungy he wouldn't be facing nearly as much criticism. Tony Dungy was in the exact same situation as head coach of the Colts and he did the exact same thing, yet most of these same fans and critics that are yelling at Caldwell complimented him about his savvy coaching and ability to keep focused on the target. I know, I am a Colt's fan and I remember it well. Basically the bottom line is the fans and media need to quit their bitching. Winning the division and locking down homefield early gives the team the right to rest their starters, why should the Colt's squander that advantage over some useless thing like an undefeated season?

MVPs on Bad Teams

It is pretty easy to tell how a pitcher who pitches on a bad team is affected. Generally speaking it means less wins, as his team will score fewer runs, and more wins blown by the bullpen. It can also mean a higher earned run average, or more unearned runs allowed because bad teams often have a terrible defense as well. But not many people think about how playing on a terrible team alters the statistics of a truly great hitter. I think how these players are treated has changed in the last decade. Previously, I think one great hitter on a bad team had their stats inflated. Now I haven't done in detailed analysis on this theory yet, this is purely from observation of games in the 80's and 90's. I will do research on retrosheet to back it up though, and I think it will prove true, but I hypothesize that players on bad teams had their stats inflated because pitchers then didn't want to put guys on base and waste pitches. So instead of pitching around the good hitter in the lineup, they just pitched to him knowing they had a lead and that he couldn't really hurt them. You get a whole lot of meaningless fastballs down the middle of the plate, I.e. the Jack Morris school of pitching. However, lately, with pitchers not going deep into ballgames, and the intentional walk a much bigger part of the game, pitchers are approaching it differently. Why pitch to a guy who can hit a homerun when you can just walk him and get the next guy out? The difference in mind set is the difference in the pitching mentality then and now. When I get a chance, I will pick out some players and pour through the box scores and see how exactly they were treated with runners on base in the games there teams were behind by a large margin. I think I will be proven correct.

Sherlock Holmes Movie Review 8/10!

I personally am a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes. I have read every single one of the stories many, many times. As such, I was concerned that this movie rendition would for lack of a better word, suck. It wasn't the best movie I have ever seen but it was pretty quality. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are an excellent combination for Holmes and Watson. Of course there are some liberties taken to fit them to the roles. Watson is a much older, less clever, and more portly character than that portrayed by Law, and Holmes is in general much less charming than Downey portrays him, however, those are some changes to be expected given it would be pretty hard to relate to a cocaine addled ass. Although as with Iron Man, it seems Downey gets to play a lot of characters that kind of resemble him in real life.... Other people will have an issue perhaps with the rather proficient fighting nature of Holmes in the movie, but frankly, that part is rather true to form. Holmes was an excellent pugilist, an excellent fencer, and uncannily strong. If anything, they actually downplayed his incredible strength from the stories. He once bit a piece of solid iron back straight after a strong man had struggled to bend in curved. Regardless I digress. Its a simple movie, that stays true to the form of Sir Doyle's stories pretty well. And of course its going to have a sequel because you can't make a movie about Holmes and leave it at just one unless Moriarty is the primary antagonist. The plot is a bit thin, but there is enough wit and humor to make up for it, and it somehow manages to all make sense in the end, somehow. All in all if I was recommending a movie in theaters right now I would wholeheartedly recommend this one over Avatar. Or as I like to call it "Dances with Blue People."