It's a Manning World After All

Galley Brother B.J. sends in this NFL rule change and comments:

If this doesn’t work next year, there’ll be a rule requiring the opposing quarterbacks in the Superbowl to be brothers.

Also, fumbles are now still live after the whistle, gee that’s not going to lead to a bunch of late hits.

Greatest Musicals Ever

The clip from the aborted Batman musical last week reminded me of nothing so much as one of the ingenius Simpsons musical spoofs, the best of which was this amazing Stop The Planet of the Apes: I Want to Get Off. If you can find links to the Betty Ford musical and others, I'll post them.

Mechanical Bill Simmons

I don't have time to fill out this random Sports Guy column generator, but if you do and you send me the column it spits out, I'll post it.

Update: Courtesy of Galley Friend S.B.:

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction

So I'm sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that Derek Jeter
had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Grady
Little, that I dislike more than Derek Jeter. In the pantheon of people that
'Make the Sports Guy Mark Loretta,' these two are a 'Mark Loretta.

The phone rings. It's my friend Bish. very, very angry! Bish is always
willing to discuss our mutual distaste for Derek Jeter. Don't get me
wrong--we respect his abilities. But he's the Squiggy of sports. Totally
annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if
Derek Jeter caught a case of dysentary at the beginning of September, paving
the way for the Red Sox to the playoffs like William Henderson on The Clear.

Bish points out that the chances that Derek Jeter will come down with
dysentary in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the
possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitating success. As
usual, Bish is a crazy genius.

Here is what we came up with:

4. Derek Jeter receives a vicious Camel Clutch from Big Papi in front of
40,000 fans jammed into The Garden.

(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when
Hulk Hogan bodyslamming Andre the Giant? I don't even care if it was fake,
that was awesome. That rivals when Rudy getting carried off the field for
'Most Inspiration Non-Real Sports Moment 2006.)

3. Derek Jeter is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by
him but rather by either Eddie Guardado or Isiah Thomas.

2. Derek Jeter hangs scrapbook-style clippings of Brandon Walsh and
Daniel-San in his locker and is immediately put on the DL.

1. Derek Jeter meets the gay guy from Real World, falls in love, and leaves
team to begin filming 'My Fair Yankee.'

After we finish with the conversation about Derek Jeter we turn ourselves to
the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Linda Cohn is Sexy
Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be
joining this year.

Ordinarily, I'm never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball
team. That's like getting picked up by Anna Benson and going back to her
place, only to find out that Wilt Chamberlain is already there. If the best
you get is to share, sometimes it's not worth it at all, right?

However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner
up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next
vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of
'Naked Risk with cake' and 'Yokozuna's Shiny stripperss as potential team
names, we settle on 'The NY Wankers.'

The thing that's exciting about this league is that it's an auction format
league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as
though it would be the same as a draft league, but it's not. It's like the
difference between NHL 93 and NHL 94-you take out fighting and add
one-timers, you've got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey.
Any good sports fan knows that undefined but not everyone knows how to do an
auction.

Pre-Auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a
date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when
the whipped guy does not have to go to a play, and that's your date. Finding
the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is crucial for auction success. (speaking
of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that 'fantasy draft'
is code for 'I'm going to have my buddies over to watch Def Leppard perform
songs by George Muresan while I lube job? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times
people will choose to have their auction in a strip club. This is a bad
idea. Nothing good can come of this; at the end of the day every person in
the room is going to be Hooray! and have an extremely sore undefined after
four hours.

No, the auction must be held in someone's house-biggest furnished basement
wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if
two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a Madden '06 arcade
game, but owner B has a case of Miller Lite. Nothing will kill a fun evening
faster than the host's wife emasculating him with a 'Go sleep on the couch.'
We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy's house where his
wife will be in hopscotch, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming
season-after all, Greg Raymer doesn't play poker with the hand face up-but I
will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an
auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does.
In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone
starts out equal. It's the conservative of fantasy sports.

It's also like a Marathon running. It requires endurance, it requires
stamina, it requires concentration and planning. Without further ado, here
is my 'Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide':

Round One-work the body

Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than
they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to
be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the
Devil Rays? Do they have a tendency toward mouth breathing? You are looking
for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like baseball
cards

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys
you-d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Derrek Lee,
or over-hyped rookies that will never pan out like Cliff Floyd.

Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you
don-t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Johnn Drama asking
for Vinny Chase's AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a Sense of political science

In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will
be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you'll get involved in a
bidding war on a player. It's not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em
tournament-you'll have your the Joker-Batman in Batman moment, and you need
to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid
high waiver wire for Doc Gooden, you know you'll get him, but you're facing
a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the
field like Big Papi? Or are you Jim Mora Sr., skulking off the field into
the jeering history of your team's fans, with only your family still willing
to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving Day

Hour three of the draft is moving day, like the third day of The Masters.
You need to shoot a 70. This is where you'll fill out a lot of the players
that, while less sensual, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the
importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core
of your team, you'll find yourself as lonely as Paris Hilton in a The
Catholic League service.

Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where
you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day
by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and Mark
Loretta, you'll be okay.

Round Four-The Game of Trivial Pursuit

By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become Ridiculous. The
only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among
friends. Something that, at the beginning of the endeavor, seemed like such
fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads
against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of
competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are
the duke of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the 'go get your
****ing shinebox' moment of the draft. People will be exploding like
grenade, screaming incomprehensible things like the low talker and
threatening to throw a fit if they do not get their way.

Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It's a long season
coming forward.

'You can do it!'

The Joker Sings

Seriously. Stop whatever you're doing now and go to AICN, which has posted a sample clip of a musical number from the aborted production of Batman: The Musical.

It's the Joker, singing his little heart out.

Actor, Rower, Swordsman, Spy

Last night's Inside the Actor's Studio featured Hugh Laurie, who is both cooler and more quick-witted than Dr. Gregory House. It turns out that he was a stud rower at Eton and Cambridge and while at university was snogging Emma Thompson.

You'll want to catch it on repeat.

No More E3?

GameSpot is reporting that the Entertainment Software Association may radically shrink the annual videogame expo E3, moving it from the LA Convention Center to "a location that would support exhibitors in meting room space only."

That doesn't sound like an industry that's confident that their next generation products are sure-fire winners.

Voice of Gob

Galley Wife SLL sends us this link to the World Championship of Magic. I wonder who'll win this year. Can't wait to read all about it in next month's Poof.

Remember, a trick is something a whore does for money.

Or candy.

"Promiscuous Empathy"

Stephen Hunter's taste in movies could hardly be further from my own. I think I agree with him on a film about six times a year. But he's a wonderful critic: Smart, interesting, fun to read. He's everything you could want. His review of The Ant Bully contains a fabulous rant:

"The Ant Bully" represents a ruinous force in the world that might be called, for lack of a better term (although, heh-heh, this is a pretty great term), "promiscuous empathy." We identify with anything: birds, bees, flowers, trees. We weep for all. We make a fetish of our compassion and treat our feelings as if they're ideas. This contagion holds that there is no us and them in the world, that we are all one big us. The fact that the world then makes no sense is of no matter to those who hold this point of view; far more important is how happy it makes them feel, how moral, how superior. All they are saying is give peace a chance.

And he's just warming up. It gets better from there.

Another Sony Format Flop

But that's not the real story here. Look at the head and subhead:

"UMD fire sale at Amazon UK:
Most movies on PSP-friendly Universal Media Disc being sold at half of regular price or less; porn still regular price."

I wonder why the porn is holding its value. Seriously?

Public Service Announcement: Have you ever tried calling your local phone or cable company and found yourself screaming at some VoiceXML program? Or, in my case, aggravated beyond words because of an airline's incompetence (that would be United Airlines' losing my luggage for an entire week). Well, thanks to Galley friend M.R., we may have found a way out. It seems M.R. has stumbled upon this useful link that provides the key to accessing "human customer service" for over a hundred major companies. For example, stuck on the phone with a computer over at Comcast? "Press * at each prompt. Ignore invalid response." United Airlines? "Say 'Agent,' then 'Domestic' or 'International' as appropriate."

This may be the biggest breakthrough since the Allies decoded Enigma.

Crisis of Infinite Celebrities

John August has insane hotness:

Most screenwriting nerds can be divided along an axis of DC Comics fans and Marvel men. Largely because of the too-young-to-realize-it-was-bastardized Superfriends, I ended up in the DC camp. But one of the things that’s kept me there has been the franchise’s willingness to accept that every once in a while, you need a good housecleaning.

Thus, you have events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, while clumsily executed, had the laudable goal of simplifying the DC Universe. Through drastic and sometimes painful choices, the editors succeeded in getting rid of extraneous characters and plotlines, effectively rebooting the world.

I have come to believe the same thing must happen in the real world. The time has come to rethink, retool and retire many of our celebrities. . . .

It only gets better from there.

Fly, Eagles, Fly

How good is the 2006-2007 Eagles season going to be? This good:

Yesterday, the last day of about two dozen rookies and serious-injury recoverees practicing, well, you had Koy Detmer catching passes out of the backfield. And while the 33-year-old backup quarterback showed excellent hands - nary a bobble, let alone a drop - his routes lacked a certain crispness.

Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg explained that with fullback Thomas Tapeh still sidelined with a balky hamstring, "Koy knows this offense, every position. So we just stick him in there and he runs a little route. We don't mean to throw him the ball as much as we've been doing, but our defense has taken certain things away."

With outside-the-box thinking like that, 12-4 is just where we start the bidding. If we bring back Randall and put him in at wideout, who knows where the ceiling is.

Anyone know who the top prospect is in next year's draft?

The Ant Bully

If Cars didn't prove it, this does: The Golden Age of CG animated movies is officially over:

The Ant Bully: Rise of the Prolitari-Ant. Easily one of the most bizarre kids films I’ve seen in a long time, The Ant Bully is your typical, by the numbers CG kids film thinly disguising a delightful work of subversive fiction. It’s one of those films, that as it unfolds, causes you to look around the theatre at the other adults and ask: I’m not the only one seeing what I’m seeing am I?

You know those Bibles they make for kids? The ones with the simple stories and colorful artwork that leaves out all of the complex and adult themes that you’d have to commit hours of time to explaining away? Well, if someone sat down to make a similar version of the Communist Manifesto, it would look a hell of a lot like The Ant Bully. It’s a warm ultra-liberal hug of a kids film, preaching the joys of socialism and hard work, all the while telling a story of what the world might be like in a liberal post-9/11 world. . . .

After a devastating attack by “The Destroyer” (a little boy named Lucas) that floods and collapses their mound, destroys their egg chamber and kills untold scores of ants (they brush over this aspect very quickly), the film’s religious figure (a wizard as to avoid any direct correlation) Zoc (Nicholas Cage) concocts a plan to sneak into enemy territory, shrink “The Destroyer” and bring him back for trial. When he does, the ant masses are howling for blood. They want to tear the Destroyer apart. They cry out to eat him alive. But the wise and benevolent Queen Ant has different ideas. You see, The Destroyer is at war with the ants simply because he does not understand them.

Her idea? Sentence l’il Osama to live and work with the ants so he can. Because once they understand one another, there will be no reason to fight. While there, Lucas learns the value of hard work for the mound and how every Ant has his or her place in society. They each have their own specific jobs that they’re born into to do, and it’s important that each ant does its part so they can all enjoy the fruits of the harvest.

Yes, yes. I know. Ants are natures Communists. And I can imagine that it might be hard to tell a story about them without such an overt theme. Except that, well, they did it in ‘Ants’. But this isn’t just an “our culture, their culture” thing. Because as overt as it appears earlier in the film, the point gets hammered home towards the end. As Lucas and Zoc sit atop a rock and stare at the human city, Zoc asks ‘Is that your hive?’ ‘Yeah, I guess it’s like a hive.’ When Zoc asks about how it works, Lucas replies ‘I guess it’s every man for himself.’ This leads to a Zoc monologue about how that just doesn’t make any sense. Everyone has their place and don’t the humans realize that if they all work together and share in the fruits of their labor that they all can benefit?

Eagles Talk

It's almost that time of year. And let's not mince words: This is going to be a rough season. A season of discontent. The season that gets Andy Reid fired.

But it could be worse. We could be with the Detroit Lions:

-Last year, the Lions were quarterbacked by the two-headed monster of Jeff Garcia and Joey Harrington. This year, they'll be quarterbacked by the two-headed monster of Jon Kitna and Josh McCown. Next year, the team plans on using seven-headed monster Tiamat, who has no NFL experience (or arms, for that matter), but can spit boiling hot acid at would-be defenders with her copper dragon head. Defenses are urged to use their vorpal swords against Tiamat if they wish to slay her and take all her precious, precious gold pieces. For more information, defensive coordinators are urged to consult the Fiend Folio.

Hold On To Your Butts

From a Reuters column today:

Disgraced South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk said on Tuesday he spent part of private donations for his research in failed attempts to clone mammoths, extinct members of the elephant family.

Fearing imprisonment for fraud and embezzlement, Dr. Woo-suk was last seen on a plane headed to Isla Nublar, just off the coast of Costa Rica. Witnesses say he was carrying a briefcase and several cans of shaving cream.

Worst Star Wars Names

Ross Douthat takes on the great Anthony Lane--and wins! Here's Lane on the linguistics of Star Wars:

Sith. What kind of a word is that? Sith. It sounds to me like the noise that emerges when you block one nostril and blow through the other, but to George Lucas it is a name that trumpets evil. What is proved beyond question by “Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith,” the latest—and, you will be shattered to hear, the last—installment of his sci-fi bonanza, is that Lucas, though his eye may be greedy for sensation, has an ear of purest cloth. All those who concoct imagined worlds must populate and name them, and the resonance of those names is a fairly accurate guide to the mettle of the imagination in question. Tolkien, earthed in Old English, had a head start that led him straight to the flinty perfection of Mordor and Orc. Here, by contrast, are some Lucas inventions: Palpatine. Sidious. Mace Windu. (Isn’t that something you spray on colicky babies?) Bail Organa. And Sith.

And here's Douthat:

Pace Lane, I actually think that "Sith" is one of the better names that Lucas coined; the worst include Dexter Jettster, Greedo, General Grievous, Count Dooku, and (of course) Jar Jar Binks.

Count Dooku gets my vote for worst name in the Star Wars universe.

Miami Vice

For the Mann obsessives out there, I've got a short report on Miami Vice which contains some mildly spoilerish stuff. Read at your own risk.

***

I'm still not sure what I make of Miami Vice. I can never fully digest Mann movies in one sitting. But it's 18 hours later and I'm still thinking intensely about it; that's the first time a movie has stuck in my brain in a while.

My initial reaction is that it's good, not great. But then again, I felt the same way after seeing Heat, The Insider, and Collateral for the first time. The Viper camera he uses is pretty astounding. There are images, like one panorama of hills in Paraguay at sunset with a single thunderhead looming in the distance, that I will never forget. This is a beautiful movie.

And Mann has managed to make a cops-and-robbers flick where the ideal, the goal that motivates the protagonist, is middle-class marriage. That's no small trick. And my God, you'd think that he's the only guy in Hollywood who's ever heard a real gun fired. The sound work on the gun fights is shocking--you hear the different reports and registers and none of them sounds like typical movie gunfire. It makes a big difference.

Also, while the movie has moments of shocking violence, Mann demonstrates tremendous restraint. There's a scene where a character has been brutally tortured and murdered. But Mann doesn't show that to us--or even tell us about it with dialogue. Instead, we get a very tight shot of an enormous, scary looking man as he's rooting through a refrigerator. We see the back of his bulging, bald cranium, his enormous arms, and a sea of tattoos. As the camera pulls back a few inches, we see that he's wearing big blue rubber gloves that go up to his elbows. Then we notice the blood on them. And as the camera pivots, we see, in the background, someone's foot and ankle on the floor, peeking out from around the corner of a doorway. Anyway, without showing any gore or violence, Mann convinces us that something unspeakably terrible has just happened and sends shivers down our spines.

I thought directors had forgotten how to do that.

The knock on Mann is that he's all surface. A glorious surface, to be sure, but that there's nothing more than cold, shiny sleekness to his work.

For me, that criticism doesn't hold. Mann is not a director of ideas, although there is one big idea behind Miami Vice. As a director, his strength is his ability to combine narrative and atmosphere; he's a combination of the best qualities of Spielberg and Kubrick.

Mann likes to skip beginnings and jump into stories from the middle--he does this in almost all of his movies, forcing the audience to play catch up. But he then drives relentlessly to the ending. And he shows you fully inhabited worlds that are more spectacular than anything you'd get from ILM. Even judged on pure visual appeal, I take Mann's Los Angeles or Miami over Naboo any day of the week.

Miami Vice fits nicely into the Mann canon.

Fall TV

AICN's brilliant TV correspondent, Hercules the Strong, has a rundown on the fall shows. He's very high on Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60. No surprise there.

What is surprising is Herc's apparent fetish for hot moms:

Dana Delany is incredible, and today defines “milftastico.” . . .

Fey, now possessed of big American post-pregnancy breasts, continues to hold a vexing physical allure.

Someone get Herc some saltpeter.

Zidane Update

Zidane's mother Malika--who is totally not a terrorist--now says that:

nglish tabloid The Mirror quotes Malika -- who is recovering from illness -- as telling friends: "I am utterly disgusted by what I have heard. I praise my son for defending his family's honour."

"No one should be subjected to such foul insults on or off the football pitch and I don't care if it was a World Cup Final. I have nothing but contempt for Materazzi and, if what he said is true, then I want his balls on a platter."

Heath Ledger is the Joker

Yup.

"Ah, Bats! You're just in time to stem the rose! Let me put a smile on your face!"

Whatever. Hollywood can do what they want. They'll never be able to take Identity Crisis away from me.

Child Actors Grown Up Right

There's nothing funny about Haley Joel Osment's car crash, but the hidden detail in the story is pretty great: He was driving a 1995 Saturn.

This makes perfect sense, of course. Osment is surely quite wealthy, but all teenagers should have humble first cars. For one thing, it keeps their shiny new driver's license from going to their heads and for another, they're terrible drivers and often get into scrapes. I hope Osment makes a speedy recovery and kudos to his parents or guardians (or maybe even to him, if the Saturn was hist choice) for the Saturn.

And while we're on good upbringing of child stars, there's a satisfying tidbit about Star Wars moppet Jake Lloyd who, IMDB says, "works at Pac Sun at an outdoor mall in Carmel, Indiana."

Again, Lloyd certainly can't need the money. But he's in high school now and every high school kid should have at least one crummy job. It builds character. Again, good for his parents and good for him.

Not every kid actor is LiLo.

Mann Up

The new slug is just little shout out because I'm seeing Miami Vice on Monday afternoon and I won't lie, I'm pretty excited.

I'll risk the rath of Ross Douthat and suggest here that Mann is one of the two truly great American directors working who is still at the height of his powers. Discuss.

More on Mann after Monday.

Advice for Sony

Change or lose the console wars. Gamespot reports on DFC Intelligence analysis:

DFC begins by saying that Sony is currently the "king of the video game market," but with the PlayStation 3, it is clear that Sony is "handing its competitors a golden opportunity." The firm believes that the premium PS3's $600 price tag will put off potential consumers, hurting the overall gaming market and possibly putting Sony dead last in terms of installed user base.

It's not just the launch price that DFC believes could hurt Sony. Sony CEO Ken Kutaragi has gone on record as saying that the PS3 is more like a computer than just a gaming console, and, according to DFC, could see upgrades such as a writable Blu-ray drive or improvement to the system's memory.

While this may appeal to gearheads, DFC believes it will mean the price of the PS3 won't drop at the rate of normal consoles. "By fixing its hardware standard for several years," DFC argues, "video game console systems have been able to significantly lower prices over time by not having to upgrade to the latest technology."

"We believe that under Kutaragi's techno-elite PlayStation 3 strategy, the PlayStation 3 could end up with a market share more resembling Apple products [in the PC sector] as opposed to the dominant PlayStation 2 market share."

As for the other consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii, DFC sees scenarios where both of them could become the leader in installed base.

Even though the firm doesn't see an end to the 360's woes in Japan, it sees its strength in the North American market as reason why it could be the market share leader. The Wii, on the other hand, has "the biggest opportunity" because of its low price and potential to "expand into a much more mass market audience."

Lady in the Water

The keen-eyed Drew McWeeny just kills the new M. Knight movie:

LADY IN THE WATER is metafiction, fiction that comments on the very nature of fiction, fiction where structure and symbolism can comment on the story being told, even within that story. By building his film this way, he’s hoping that he’s bulletproofed it. After all, he says in the film that the only way you can truly understand a story like this is to approach it like a child, with your heart wide open, listening with innocent ears. And if the film fails, then that’s because you didn’t watch it right. And when he includes the character of Mr. Farber, that film critic played by Bob Balaban, and when he kills him, that’s his way of guaranteeing that any critic who hates the film hates it because of that scene. In a way, I admire his effort and the crafty nature of that. It’s ultimately a shell game, but it’s a smart one.

Pretty devastating.

Buffy's Back

In comic-book form anyway. What's a comic book, you ask?

I have no idea.

The End of a (Not-So) Brief Episode

I was going to remark on Will Haygood's recent essay on Frank Sinatra Jr. in the Washington Post, which captures well the fortune and misfortune of being the Chairman's son (from a singing career point of view). Then, last week, the elder Sinatra's long-time pianist, Bill Miller, died at the age of 91. Haygood interviewed Miller and relates this anecdote about him and his relationship with ol' Blue Eyes:

The pianist was born in 1915. He's slim and the body is bent. The bent body looks almost courageous, as if he's been pummeling things mortals can't see. His fingers are long and pink and elegant. He likes a little vodka in the evenings. He likes Key lime pie. He's never done his own album. "It never came about," he says. "It's a little late now. But"--and he lifts a hand like a bird's wing rising slowly up from a nest--"who knows?"

His piano on the potent Sinatra number "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" is considered classic. "That was an accident, really," Miller says. "We did the recording after two or three takes. You just hope for the best. I got lucky with that."

During a time of great romantic ballads, Bill Miller found love with a woman by the name of Aimee. They married, and sometimes she would join him on the road. Her love, his piano: Life was sweet. In 1964, they were living in California with their small daughter when a rain-soaked mountainside gave way, unleashing a torrent of mud and water. The family was separated. Miller's daughter somehow made it safely to the top of a hill. Bill was washed away in the debris, found clinging to a car at the end of a road.

They found Aimee the second night. Bill looked up from his hospital bed to see Big Frank standing over him. "Frank identified her body," he says. "Frank said, 'If it's any consolation, there wasn't a mark on her.' It wasn't any consolation."

Big Frank replaced everything for Bill. "The old man, he was good to me," Miller says.

In Gay Talese's famous essay for Esquire, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," the author also mentions this incident though he doesn't mention Miller by name:

When a musician friend's house was destroyed and his wife was killed in a Los Angeles mud slide a little more than a year ago, Sinatra personally came to his aid, finding the musician a new home, paying whatever hospital bills were left unpaid by the insurance, then personally supervising the furnishing of the new home down to the replacing of the silver ware, the linen, the purchase of new clothing.

Of course he could also be a terror.

On a sidenote: Galley friend A.F. says that Miller's stroke of genius was convincing Sinatra to sing "One For My Baby" in the key of D, not A. This made him sing higher, making him more emotional, more vulnerable--and sounding better than in the saccharine original.

Most Excellent

If you photoshopped Mandalay Bay out of this photo from the Daily Mail, it would look like a scene from Stargate.

The Prestige

I'm confused. What are Batman and Wolverine doing in the same movie? And why is Alfred doing the voiceover narration? And why isn't Scarlett Johanssen in the water box?

William H. Macy; Bai Ling

The Fug girls have a transcript of the unforgettable encounter.

Miami Vice and HD

AICN reviews Michael Mann's Miami Vice, the only movie capable of redeeming this summer horribilis, and has this tidbit:

I worried that the whole thing was going to feel sort of small-screen, especially given Mann’s decision to shoot everything on HD again, primarily using the Viper camera system that he used on COLLATERAL. During the scenes at the club and on the rooftop and in a few parking lots, there’s a definite grain to the image, and for some people, that won’t look like a “movie.” Personally, I think Dion Beebe deserves an Oscar nomination for his cinematography. I think it’s brave, visually extreme in even the quiet moments. There’s an immediacy to the way Mann uses his camera, putting you right in the middle of things, and it’s a perfect match for the way his script works. Even better, once the film breaks free of the nighttime and Mann plunges you into the brilliant Miami daytime, all that grain disappears, and suddenly, this is a film of stunning color and brightness. It’s beautiful. Mann’s showing off the full range of what that Viper camera can do, and this doesn’t look a thing like SUPERMAN RETURNS, shot on the Genesis camera. That has a sort of candy-colored artifical feeling that the Viper doesn’t. This camera, especially in bright light, seems to be capturing the world as it really is. There’s a depth of focus that captures the Florida sky in a way you’ve never seen before unless you lived in Florida.

The worst pirate you ever heard of?

Galley Friend M.R. sends us to this sad appraisal of Dead Man's Chest, which features a clip from the following really, really sad interview with Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, who wrote both of the Pirates scripts:

Terry Rossio: The world wants there to be movie stars and, in a sense, the story becomes Johnny Depp—because people want that. In terms of understanding why he's [created] an iconic character, the story becomes 'Johnny Depp is brilliant' which of course is true because Johnny Depp is brilliant. People are not necessarily as interesting in pedestrian reality. You still have a storyboard artist who comes up with a visual of Johnny first stepping onto the dock as the ship sinks. We wrote that [scene in which Jack Sparrow is introduced]. We wrote lines like: 'you're the worst pirate I've ever heard of—' and [the response] 'but you have heard of me.' People quote those lines. If the character had walked on screen and just stood there and said, 'hello,' it wouldn't be the same. So, clearly the screenwriting goes into the creation of the character. And I have to credit Gore Verbinski's direction.

The Sports Guy and The Answer

Galley Friend S.B. emailed me a link to this Bill Simmons column under the guise of pointing out the Heat discussion, but that was a thin pretext. He's really just trying to rub my nose in this:

Q: I am a long-suffering Philadelphia sports fan. Waiting for Billy King to pull the trigger on an Iverson trade is like watching your girlfriend drink too much at a party. You KNOW she is going to eventually blow chunks. There is no doubt. It's gonna happen. And it's gonna be ugly. The real question is, where? Do you dare hold out hope that she finds her way to a toilet? Or do you brace yourself for the inevitable ride home ... where she proceeds to redecorate the interior of your car with bits of fish taco and the stench of tequila?
--Brendon, Philadelphia

SG: That's been the most underrated sports subplot of the summer -- every horrified Philly fan dreading the news that Billy King gave away Iverson. It's legitimately cruel. Hasn't this city suffered enough? In last week's NBA column I suggested that Philly ban pro sports for a calendar year for everyone's safety. And normally, whenever I write something about a fan base that could be perceived as negative, the fans always fight back in droves and I'm guaranteed some hate mail (like with the LeBron thing last week). But with that comment? Not only did I get zero complaints, some Philly fans even e-mailed just to say, "Right on, the sports scene is absolutely morbid right now, never seen anything like this before" and "I majored in psych in college and am becoming convinced that Philly sports fans are suffering from collective depression, all the signs are there."

Now ...

Depression is a serious illness and I would never make light of it. Obviously Philly fans aren't legitimately depressed. At the same time, couldn't there be a more harmless form of depression that's sports-related? When I was living in Boston in the late '90s and early '00s, we were absolutely battling sports depression before the Pats beat the Rams to win the Super Bowl -- it was the tail end of a titleless 15-year stretch when everything had gone wrong (Bias and Lewis, Bird's back, Neely's hip, McHale's feet, Nomar's wrist, Clemens fleeing to Canada, Parcells going to the Jets, Pitino and Duncan, etc.), and after awhile, we started EXPECTING things to go wrong. That's when you know there's a problem, when you're trapped in an ongoing state of pessimistic inadequacy and there's no way out. Hence, the depression connection.

Well, doesn't that describe Philly fans right now? Pessimistic inadequacy? After 22 years of suffering and falling just short, dealing with a relentlessly unhappy media getting everyone riled up, enduring dozens of ludicrous front-office moves, getting their hopes raised by some genuinely big-time superstars (Lindros, Iverson, McNabb, Roenick, Schilling, Cunningham) and big-time contenders (the '93 Phillies, '01 Sixers, multiple runs with the Eagles and Flyers), McNabb's bizarre collapse in the Super Bowl and the subsequent T.O. debacle seemed to push everyone over the edge ... and these fans were uber-pessimistic to begin with. Hell, in a column about the "Worst 20 Sports Fans" for my old Web site, I picked Philly fans No. 1 and braced for the deluge of hate mails that never happened. Instead, they e-mailed in just to say stuff like, "You're right. We're insane. There's something wrong with us."

And that was eight years ago! When I was signing books in Philly last December, right as the Eagles' season was going down the drain, the bitterness was almost disarming. As I wrote in my football column that week, "I couldn't believe the body language of the locals -- signing a sports book for these poor people was like signing a romance novel for Jennifer Aniston right after Brad and Angelina started dating. You can't even imagine how many people asked me, "Can you sign it? Maybe this will happen to the Eagles someday?" And that was before T.O. went to Dallas, the C-Webb trade backfired and the Mets ran away from the Phillies.

Which brings me back to my original point: On paper, Billy King can't screw up an Iverson trade because Philly fans would see right through the stereotypical three-nickels-for-a-quarter trade that never works. They're too smart for it. At the same time, he's Billy King. He's one of the worst GMs in any sport. He shouldn't have a job. And he's absolutely going to screw this up. There's no doubt. Even worse, he's dumping Iverson because he's made so many bad moves over the last five years, it's the only way to potentially improve the team -- they have no cap room and nobody else with any trade value, and he has to do SOMETHING because he's one more crummy year away from losing his job. Does that sound like a valid reason to trade a 33-point scorer for 60 cents on the dollar? I didn't think so.

If I were a diehard Philly fan, I would be doing everything possible to stop the inevitably dumb trade that's about to happen -- launching anti-King Web sites, protesting outside of radio stations, chanting Iverson's name at baseball games, you name it. To borrow Brendon's "drunk girlfriend" analogy, there's still time to throw her in a car and drive her home before she starts puking all over the place.

It hurts because it's true. All of it.

Every last word.

The Paganini of the Ukelele

Joseph Bottum has found Jake Shimabukuro, the greatest ukelele player to ever live:

It surely means something that we live in an age containing the greatest ukulele player ever born, but I’m not sure just what it means. His name is Jake Shimabukuro, a twenty-nine-year-old from Hawaii, and he can make a four-string ukulele do everything but sit up and beg—and the question, when you hear him, is why: If you are this good on a ukulele, why are you playing a ukulele?

Take a look at him here, for example, playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It sounds good from the beginning, but the moment, I think, when it ceases to be merely good and becomes simply impossible is the second time through the chorus (at 1:40 in the clip), when Shimabukuro starts adding on the rhythm guitar’s part—approximating two guitars on his four-string instrument. (On the original Beatles song, as I remember, George Harrison played the rhythm part and Eric Clapton sat in to play the lead.) By the time he reaches the piano-like arpeggios at 3:38, the listener’s capacity for astonishment is exhausted: The man is some kind of mad genius, because the ukulele just isn’t capable of doing all this.

Bottum isn't kidding, either. Below is the YouTube clip of Shimabukuro. It's 100 percent safe from the office, although you will want to play it very loud. You'll be cheating yourself if you don't watch the whole thing, but if you really want to jump to the insane part, go to 2:38.

Judd, Interrupted

Galley Friend B.W. sends this heartbreaking story about Ashley Judd. Judd has long been a favorite of mine, and not just because of that Luke Perry movie. But if this account is even 5 percent true, then she's sort of horrible.

By the way, she's the only actor in Heat who doesn't rise to the occassion. When De Niro corners her in the hotel room and knocks the hangers down, she does nothing with what should have been a golden moment. I'm just saying.

World Cup TV Ratings

Buried deep in this story about the American ratings of the World Cup final is a very interesting tidbit. Soccer scolds like to lecture us about how a billion people (literally) watch the World Cup championship. The Tribune expands on that a bit:

Depending on two estimates, anywhere from 300 million (live coverage) to more than 1 billion people (live coverage, replays, highlights) watched Italy win its fourth World Cup on Sunday.

"Replays and highlights"? That's a pretty inflated figure.

Superman Sequel?

Galley Brother B.J. sends this link from LaLa Land:

Talent agency insiders with ties to the film tell TMZ that Warner Bros. Pictures president and COO Alan Horn has informed agents that a sequel hinges on whether grosses of "Superman Returns" can crest the $200 million mark domestically. What's more, the studio plans to shave millions - many millions - off any "Superman" sequel's budget.

Superman Returns has a good chance to go over the $200M mark for the summer, but it's not a lock by any means.

Worth Every Nickel

Hugh Laurie just got a raise--to $300K per episode of House.

Zidane! Zidane! Zidane!

Who would have thought you'd hear talk like this from a Frenchman? From a French soccer player, no less?

The France legend did not reveal what Materazzi said, but claimed it was "very personal" and concerned his mother and his sister. . . .

Zidane refused to say sorry to Materazzi and said he did not regret what he did after being provoked by the insults.

But Zidane, who was playing in his final game before quitting football, added: "They were very hard words. You hear them once and you try to move away.

"But then you hear them twice, and then a third time.

"Before anything else I am a man and some words are harder to hear than actions. I would rather have taken a blow to the face than hear that I can't regret what I did because it would mean that he (Materazzi) was right to say what he said."

"I want to apologise," he said. "But I can't regret it because if do that would be like admitting that he had every reason to say what he said. I can't do that because he was not right to say what he said."

Manliness on the pitch. Who would have thunk it?

Just as an aside: If this had happened on an American basketball court with some analagous type of insult, I bet public opinion would be running 80-20 in Zidane's favor.

We Got Next

How lame is ESPN? This morning on SportsCenter they ran a long segment on the skills contest at the WNBA all-star game. Which, of course, aired last night on the ESPN family of networks.

If it's part of the Disney universe, it must be sports.

It's a Sin...

There is nothing funny about having your identity stolen. Over the last three years, some 28 million Americans have been victims of identity theft. The thing is, the term now used to describe this con is called "i-jacking." And, as a result, banner ads for safety measures such as Identity Guard Fraud Protection end up like this:

STOP iJACKING!
(Get Identity Fraud Protection)

So save your money and save yourself. From going blind.

Brian Griese, Hero

Galley Brother B.J. sends along this outstanding parody of an interview with Brian Griese, the quarterback who Allan Barra once claimed was better than Elway:

Drew: My buddy banged your ex-girlfriend. Were you aware of that?
Griese: No.

Drew: Apparently, she was a cheerleader at Florida State. My friend said that, for a Jewish guy like him, nailing an FSU cheerleader was a triumph on par with Arafat’s death. Would you agree with that statement?
Griese: No.

Drew: The Bears had an outstanding regular season last year but lost their first playoff game to Carolina. How much blame do you personally take for that loss?
Griese: I played in Tampa last year.

Drew: So you acknowledge that you weren’t there for your team?
Griese: They weren’t my team.

Drew: I see this is a touchy subject, so I’ll move on. You played with Chris Simms. Is it true that when Chris Simms was a child, he made his dad hire a black man to be his toy for a week?
Griese: No.

Drew: They made a movie of it, you know. Starring Richard Pryor. Remember that?
Griese: That wasn’t Chris.

Drew: Brian Urlacher, your new teammate, dated Paris Hilton. You’ve seen Brian’s penis in the shower. Just how ravaged is it?

It goes on from there. Enjoy.

"Son of a Terrorist Whore"?

The Great Zidane was obviously provoked and the British press is on the trail to find out exactly what was said to him:

The Times enlisted the help of an expert lip reader, Jessica Rees, to determine the precise nature of the dialogue that caused Zidane to react in such a manner.

After an exhaustive study of the match video, and with the help of an Italian translator, Rees claimed that Materazzi called Zidane “the son of a terrorist whore” before adding “so just f*** off” for good measure, supporting the natural assumption that the Frenchman must have been grievously insulted.

As the son of two Algerian immigrants, the 34-year-old is proud of his North African roots, dedicating France’s 1998 World Cup win to “all Algerians who are proud of their flag and all those who have made sacrifices for their family but who have never abandoned their own culture”, so such a slur would certainly explain, if not justify, his violent response.

The Original Unaired Buffy Pilot

I suspected this would make it out into the open eventually. Bonus: Allyson Hannigan was not originally cast as Willow.

Finally, a Sports Moment

I'm not soccer expert, but that French fellow Zidane was the only guy I saw during the last month at the World Cup who carried himself like the American ideal of a warrior-athlete. The head-butt was really the highpoint of the World Cup. I never thought there would be any set of circumstances that would lead me to pull for the French.

Update: So very, very hot. The BBC is reporting that the Italian guy who crumpled like a rag doll may have said something about Zidane's mother to provoke him. More to follow, I'm sure.

How about a simple handshake?

So the Russian president comes up to you, lifts up your shirt, and kisses your tummy. How do you react to that? Five-year-old Nikita Konkin was understandably stunned--as were the attendant media--when Vladimir Putin did just that. Explained Putin, "I tell you honestly, I just wanted to touch him like a kitten and that desire of mine ended in that act."

These Russians can be so impulsive. Remember Ivana Humpalot?

You are hairy ... like animal!

Missile Command

In light of North Korea's recent missile launches, it might be helpful to gain a better understanding of the DPRK's entire arsenal. The Asia Times provides just that. The list of deadly weapons includes:

Nodong 1
Rodong 1
Taepodong 1
Daepodong 1
Nodong 2
Rodong 2
Taepodong 2
Ding Dong
Dong Kee Kong
Long Duc Dong, aka "The Donger"
Long Dong (a long-range missile)
Long Dong Silver (longer and sturdier)

Yes, I know, this is no laughing matter. (And the link really is helpful!)

So you didn't win the World Cup. So it sucks to host the World Cup and not be a part of it. But you gave it your best shot. It was a good run. Italy was looking good. You shouldn't feel bad at all. But I do think it's time to lose the wig.

Would You Like to Play a Game?

The Post's Mike Musgrove recently interviewed a Linden, Va., man whose obsession is collecting vintage 80's videogames such as Asteroids, Defender, and Zaxxon. Peter Hirschberg admits his hobby went "exponentially out of control" and is "psychotic." Still, who wouldn't want to be his friend? (Musgrove spent five hours playing in his arcade, which is otherwise closed to the public.)

Hirschberg's collection spans the Golden Age of videogames, "between the pinball era and the advent of Grand Theft Auto." But he lost interest with the rise of "shooter and fighting games," ca. 1984. As for setting the mood: "The soundtrack, behind the blips and pings of games including Joust and Q-Bert, is Hirschberg's Internet radio station, Retro Arcade Radio, which plays songs about video games as well as old-school Atari commercials." This, I think, would get to me.

Also, no mention of my own personal favorites from that era: Time Pilot, Front Line, and Spy Hunter (I never did get the speedboat). Musgrove doesn't reveal what he spent five hours playing. He does, however, ask the proverbial question: "What, exactly, is that Dig Dug guy all about?"

Clash of the Comics Titans

Galley Friend B.W. sends along this link to a Washington Post piece on the Marvel-DC divide. It's pretty good, but the real reason I wanted to blog it is that I'm at 35,000 feet somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and able to play around work on the web. It's an age of wonders.

Transformers Teaser

The box is locked, the lights are on, it's robot fighting time.

Now Presenting: Alexandra DuPont

I try never to be too show-offy, but I would like to brag that Miss DuPont is a personal friend of mine. Well, there it is.

Anyway, her Socratic discussion of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is very, very hot. Here's what you don't want to know: Matrix: Reloaded.

Good News

Warner has done something very right with the Harry Potter series: They've cast George Harris as Kingsley Shacklebolt. Because the world is an unjust place, I was certain Morgan Freeman would get the part, since he's the guy you cast when you need a stately, aristocratic black man. Nothing against Freeman, who's wonderful, but Harris is a fantastic actor and much better suited for the role.

Draft Dodging

Galley Brother B.J. on last night's NBA draft:

Speaking of AI trade rumors, the big theory is that Boston picked up 2 point guards cause they’re planning using 1 in a package for AI. Which point guard would be best for Philly? Telfair, the 5-10 version of Marburry, or Rondo, who has such a bad shot he didn’t even get guarded in college?

Bobcats, keep Jordan the hell away from Morrison unless you want to see your first-round draft pick in a bell tower with a rifle.

Has there ever been anyone who looks as pleased with himself as David Stern? Not even Federline self-satisfied that much.

Why do people keep praising Stern and talking about how tough he is? He’s the players’ union's bitch (age limit which helps the union, the NBA drug testing policy is laughable, and the Allen Houston rule allows overpaid players to collect 2 pay checks), the NBA has the least integrity of the big three sports (no other sport consistently faces rumors of the playoffs being rigged and griping about the god-awful officiating), the NBA ratings ain’t what they used to be (only the Finals were on network TV), and there’s all the money he’s losing by continuing to finance the WNBA. Really, what has he done, the dress code?

The Death of Superman?

Gitesh Pandya has the opening day numbers for Superman Returns. It did $21M on Wednesday, putting it on track to perform like last year's War of the Worlds.

I saw Superman this afternoon and can't really get it up to write anything about it. I've been a DC guy since childhood and the movie is a desecration of everything I've ever loved about comic books. It's so cloying and self-conscious and stupid that I don't even quite know what to say.

Just to take one example, while I understand that Superman himself defies the laws of gravity, is his costume supposed to do so, too? Whenever Supes is landing feet first, his cape hangs demurely at his ankles. It's kind of ridiculous.

Again, that's a microscopic point, but it's a telling one. Superhero movies require such an enormous suspension of disbelief just going in the door that they have to take extra care with all the little details.

Superman also suffers from terrible movie logic at nearly every turn. Events happen and choices are made not because they make sense, but because the story needs to go from Point A to Point B. Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor is ridiculous; he's a low-level thug with neither intelligence nor imagination. But he does have flair. Lots of it. Anthony Lane said that Superman was a quarter inch from camp. I wouldn't go that far.

(Btw, Luthor's evil plot is ripped from one of Cobra Commander's schemes in the Marvel G.I. Joe comic. Just sayin'.)

And all of these complaints leave out the betrayal of the geeks. The Superman we see onscreen in this movie bears no relation to any version of the character we've ever seen before. If Superman meant anything to you growing up, you'll be begging for an appearance by Doomsday before the first reel is done.

I'm a big fan of Bryan Singer. The Usual Supects is pretty wonderful, as are the two X-Men movies and House. And I don't genuflect before the original Richard Donner Superman--it was a nice movie, but certainly not unsurpassable.

But Superman Returns is so daft that it's difficult to find the words to describe it. Maybe the most damning thing to be said is this: There are reports that the budget hit $260M, making it one of the most expensive movies ever produced.

You sure don't see those dollars on the the screen.

Update: Just as another aside, there are some jump cuts during one of the big action sequences when all of a sudden you see, filling the screen, the mug of Richard Branson, who's playing one of the members of the space shuttle crew. I think he has one line. But it's an incredibly jarring cameo, and his face pops up on screen two or three times for no apparent reason other than he's Richard Branson. I wonder if he compensated the studio for this part.

Didn't they read Red Son?

Blog Crush has this on the Superman movie:

Mike Dougherty and Dan Harris, the two credited screenwriters for 'Superman Returns' have changed Superman’s famous motto, "Truth, Justice and the American way", to "Truth Justice and ... all that stuff". Seriously. No, really.

Dan: "I don't think 'the American way' means what it meant in 1945." Mike: "He's not just for Metropolis and not just for America." Dan: "He's an alien, from Krypton; he has come to Earth to be kind of a savior for this world, not our country . . . And he has no papers." Mike: "What would happen with the immigration laws we have now?" Dan: "I'd like to see someone kick him out!"

Yes, yes, good for you two jackasses. Aren't you just so clever. I bet Stalin and Kim Jung-il couldn't be prouder.

(I would have written more about this but I'm just so angry right now, and when I tried it was just "dirty god damn hippies" and "god I hate Hollywood so much some days" for like 8 pages. Yes, "the American way" was fine in '45 when we were fire hosing little black kids trying to go to school and women couldn't vote, but not now that we're enforcing our hundred year old immigration laws. Yeah, that makes sense. You've clearly thought this out. Was it better then, is that what you're saying? So, for the record, you're for fire hosing blacks and against protecting the US. Okay, thanks Hollywood. I knew about the second one, but I just wanted to be clear.)

Kind of makes you long for a Frank Miller Batman to off the Big Red "S."

Whatever that means.

Politics, Sort Of (and just this once)

Galley Friend Mike Russell has posted a fantastic CulturePulp bootleg which features the great Mike Murphy. The likeness, particularly in the eyes, is spooky good.

Spellbound

It seems while I've been away that the world lost one of its most creative geniuses. Yes, I am talking about the passing of Aaron Spelling. Columnist Tom Shales gives a fitting tribute to the man in the Washington Post, mentioning his numerous hit series, such as Dynasty, Charlie's Angels (which brought us "Jiggle TV"), Beverly Hills 90210, and Melrose Place. But let us also not forget Hart to Hart, T.J. Hooker (with a young Heather Locklear), Starsky and Hutch (one of the earliest television shows I can remember), and best of all, The Love Boat. I remember our family gathering around the tube on Saturday nights, watching the crew of the Pacific Princess set sail for another adventure (carefully broken down into comic, romantic, and dramatic subplots). Afterwards it was off to bed and listening enviously to the theme of Fantasy Island emanating from the living room. To this day I wonder how much more I could have learned, had I watched that show.

Across the Pond

I just got back from Lake Como, Italy, where I attended a transatlantic conference cosponsored by the German Marshall Fund and Bertelsmann. And yes, while the international implications of our ongoing War on Terror are profound (and which I will write about at some later date), let me comment ever so briefly on the cultural aspects of my trip:

1. All the female tourists to the area ask the same thing: Where does George Clooney live?

2. The town of Bellagio has surprisingly fewer fountains than one might think (and none are synchronized to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On").

3. Summerland is just as easy to understand in Italian as it is in English (and I don't really speak Italian).

On our way back to the Milan airport, an American girl asked our Italian driver, who spoke very little English, the inevitable question of where George Clooney lived. He smiled, made some gesture with his right hand, and continued driving. Half an hour later, he quickly pulls the car over to the side of the road, along the coast of Lake Como. He points to the town before us (Laglio) and says one word: "George."

Mamba Queens

So, Shaq wins his fourth ring. Dwayne Wade wins his first. But since I'm a hater, this is really all about Kobe.

Throughout most of this season--and particularly after his 83-point outburst--people cluck-clucked about what a genius Jerry Buss was. Of course he traded the right player! Of course Shaq was washed up! The Mamba is the future!

Really? It's obvious that Shaq isn't what he used to be. But the Lakers almost certainly could have traded Kobe straight-up for Wade (and maybe they could have gotten some extra goodies, too). Maybe the Wade-Shaq Lakers could have won a title. Maybe not. But would the franchise be in better shape than it is now? You betcha.

Choosing Shaq over Kobe was an affront to the basketball gods. Last night's game was the beginning of their retribution. Having Wade and Shaq win the title and Kobe being exposed is so satisfying that the thought of Riley also getting another ring hardly bothers me at all.

PS: I would have preferred a Game 7 in the Finals, but even without that, this was the best playoffs the NBA has had in a long time, despite the fact that the Heat aren't a team for the ages. Could it be that the league has finally found its post-Jordan feet?

Update: Galley Brother B.J. weighs in on the Mamba and the post-game:

Could Shaq’s speech at the end have been any better? When he said, “Dwyane Wade is the greatest player in the NBA,” what he meant was, “Fuck you Kobe, I carried you to those rings and you were interchangeable with 10 other players in the league. I’ve won without you and you ain’t never gonna win without me unless you follow Payton’s career path.” When he said, “Pat Riley is the best coach I ever had,” what he meant was, “Phil, for going back to Kobe, you’re dead to me.”

I hope everyone really liked the shot of Mark Cuban clapping on court because it’s the last we’ll see of him for about 2 months. He won't surface again until someone stumbles across him in either a Eastern European hostel or a Southeast Asian opium den.

Mobile ESPN Numbers

Like most of America, I have a love-hate relationship with ESPN. I love the idea of an all-sports channel. I used to really, really love SportsCenter. And there are certain times of year when I can't live without it because it's giving me early round matches at the Australian Open or the C-USA conference championship tourney. In many ways, ESPN is a godsend.

But I also hate what ESPN has become. SportsCenter no longer covers "sports" in any meaningful way--it covers sports (or movies or TV shows) in which ESPN or ABC have corporate interests. The network has become a gigantic infomercial for itself trying to spin off every conceivable product under its brand and then using its remainder inventory to bludgeon us with incredibly annoying ads for said products. And it has moved away from televising actual sports in favor of vile, soul-killing programming about sports--the Mike & Mike Show (and it's evening "highlight" show), Cold Pizza, Around the Horn, Rome Is Burning, Quite Frankly, and the host of cinematic features from Playmakers to one-shot movies, like the Bob Knight story.

All of which is why the news that the terribly over-priced and under-powered ESPN Mobile is failing is so satisfying. How many subscribers does ESPN Mobile have, you ask?

Take a guess, I'll wait.

Would you believe fewer than 10,000?

I would love to know how much they spent on advertising (don't forget the elaborate Super Bowl spot!) to aquire that number.

It's in the Vault!

In the event of an "Extinction Level Event" (yes, my nod to Deep Impact), the seeds of our planet will be stored in the Arctic Circle. The Global Crop Diversity Trust, in cooperation with the Norwegian government, has agreed to begin building this "Doomsday Vault." Which leads to a few questions:

If a nuclear or geologic catastrophe were to befall us, our only hope would be to travel to the Arctic Circle? On foot?

Would only the Norwegians have access to it?

Suppose a catastrophic event were to occur in the Arctic Circle and the rest of the world was then covered in water. And the only person who can get to the vault has gills on his neck and lives like a pirate on the High Seas?

Or what if the team building the vault comes across a dog being shot at by the Norwegians, who fail to kill it. The dog then mutates and kills other dogs, and eventually it becomes evident there is an alien virus living among the team, incubating, and ready to terrorize other humans?

I don't think this vault is a very good idea.

Is Kryptonite the New Botox?

Ross Douthat has an interesting observation:

It's a small thing, but it's interesting to look at the various live-action incarnations of Superman over the years (scroll down on this Moriarty DVD column to get a good look), and notice how the Man of Steel gets progressively younger and more boyish as time passes. George Reeves looks like your Dad, Christopher Reeves looks like your youngish uncle, Dean Cain looks like your older brother - and now Brandon Routh looks like, well, the 1980s Superboy. (It's also worth pointing out that there's a new movie coming out about George Reeves, who started playing Superman in 1953 at thirty-nine, and committed suicide at forty-five. It stars, naturally, Ben Affleck - who is thirty-four, and projects the gravitas of a twenty-five-year old.)

Once and Future Jordan?

Take a look at last night's box score and tell me that you still think LeBron is the best guard in the NBA, the heir-apparent to Jordan's throne. Miami won Game 5 with only three players in double-figures. Wade went over 40 for the second time in the Finals. And he went 21 of 25 from the line, including clutch shots to tie and go ahead at the end of OT.

The Bron-Bron hype machine may never relent. Nike and ESPN may continue to shove him down our throats and proclaim him the Chosen One.

But if I was starting a franchise, I'd take Wade ahead of LeBron, no questions asked.

Law & Order Deathwatch

The new cast is here. Refugees from CSI: Miami and Conviction. One of them is a chick replacing Dennis Farina (although the story amusingly refers to him as "Dennis Fontana").

I have no problem with a female detective, but if they wanted to go that route, why not have S. Epatha's character busted down to detective for some sort of insubordination and pair her with Jesse Martin? They have a great, semi-adversarial dynamic already.

The Politics of Star Trek

Galley Friend D.D. sends us this amazing link to a detailed, careful, and very scary examination of the government and culture of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. (If that gets you hot, there's also this appendix about "The Impact of Marxism on the Federation Council.")

I'm not qualified to discourse on these essays in any substantive way. And I'm okay with that. But I am enough of a geek to appreciate paragraphs like this:

The majority of the evidence points to the Federation Council as the supreme authority of the United Federation. The Council appears to combine executive, judicial, administrative, and legislative authority in one body, in a fashion superficially similar to the supreme power of the Romulan Senate. In 2268, the Federation Council convened on Babel to discuss the admission of the Coridan planets to the United Federation in "Journey to Babel" (Paramount, 1967); this matter demonstrates both diplomatic and legislative powers, as the Coridan planets were independent states, and the matter ipso facto is a question of interstellar relations, as well as a question of internal law, regarding as it does the territory and jurisdiction of the United Federation. In 2285, the Federation Council sat in judgment of then-Rear Admiral James T. Kirk, former Chief of Starfleet Operations, on charge of nine violations of Starfleet Regulations, and ordered his permanent reduction in grade to captain, as seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; this is interesting in that it combined functions that normally belong to a judicial apparatus (a court martial) and to an executive apparatus (the demotion of a commissioned officer). In 2370, the Federation Council legislatively set a speed limit of Warp Five for all vessels in the United Federation, as seen in "Forces of Nature" (Paramount, 1993). In 2372, the Federation Council voted to condemn the Klingon invasion of the Cardassian Union (a diplomatic act), and further voted to provide foreign aid in the form of twelve industrial replicators to ameliorate the damage to Cardassian industry, in "The Way of the Warrior" (Paramount, 1995) and "For the Cause"(Paramount, 1996); it passed Special Order 66715 in 2374 authorizing Starfleet to "neutralize security threats to Deep Space 9 by any means necessary" in "Inquisition" (Paramount, 1998); during the Dominion War, the Federation Council voted in 2375 to withhold the cure to the morphogenic plague from the Founders in "The Dogs of War" (Paramount, 1999) and shortly thereafter approved a Starfleet operation to harvest metaphasic particles from an obscure world in the Briar Patch, in Star Trek: Insurrection (Paramount, 1998).

Save Screech

I don't quite know whether or not to believe this story, but it's on the internet, so it's probably true. It seems that Dustin Diamond now lives in Wisconsin. And the bank's about to foreclose on his house. So he's selling T-shirts to pay off the mortgage.

Is this weirder than the Wil Wheaton site?

End of an Era

ILM is shutting down their physical effects unit, meaning that the triumph of CGI is nearly complete.

It's sad not because CGI isn't great, but because there is still a place for models and miniatures--see the amazing work with Minas Morgul and Orthanc in the LoTR series.

The Daily Gut

If you can't get enough Greg Gutfeld at the Huffington Post, or you just want better abs, check out The Daily Gut.

Double Bonus: Don't miss The Adventures of Keira Knightley's Jaw.

Getting Better all the Time?

Bad enough that Paul McCartney's divorce from Heather Mills has led to a nasty custody battle over daughter Beatrice. But now, a German book entitled Die Freuden der Liebe has resurfaced, supposedly with nude pictures of the former Mrs. McCartney, who claims, according to the Daily Mail, that the book was "an educational lovers' guide." Peter Wilson, who also posed for the book, told the Daily Mail, however, that the photo-shoot was "cheap, titillating and sleazy," and included "simulating sex, rubbing baby oil and whipped cream on each other, and acting out scenes with sex toys."

Like Ms. Mills said, it's educational!

On top of all this, cruder allegations have sprung, such as Mills having been a prostitute when she was in her 20s. Clients supposedly include a Saudi prince and Adnan Khashoggi. Petrina Montrose, a former call girl, claims she and Mills both spent time with the prince. From the Daily Mail:

"The prince was tall and greasy and I wanted to leave but I knew that to get my money I'd have to have sex with anyone in the room who picked me. Still, Heather was bubbling over with enthusiasm."

Miss Montrose said she was eventually summoned to the prince's bedroom to find two other women were already there naked--including Miss Mills.

When the orgy finished "Heather made no attempt to put her clothes on" she told the News of the World.

"Instead she started parading naked around the room, trying to impress the prince even more."

Sir Paul says he feels horrible about the "witch-hunt" directed at his ex-wife. On the other hand, I bet this helps his side of the custody battle.

Nacho Libre

For whatever reason, Jack Black doesn't do it for me. He hasn't made me laugh since his brilliant turn in Bob Roberts. But lots of people seem to love him, which is the only explanation for why a movie executive would greenlight a project like Nacho Libre.

In Nacho Libre news there's this tidbit about Danny Elfman taking his credit off of the project. It's a reasonably rare occurence--particularly for someone of Elfman's stature.

Geekzone

Marvel comics writer Brian Bendis interviews Joss Whedon:

WHEDON: I just did that tribute thing they’re doing to Stan [Lee]. I did a story for that with Michael Gaydos.

BENDIS: I know. I’m right after you with [Mark] Bagley.

WHEDON: Oh cool! Oh my God! Gaydos’ pencils were so amazing.

BENDIS: Aren’t they so nice? He doesn’t get nearly enough credit.

WHEDON: [Gaydos’s art] is so textured and so rich and so on the edge of comic books and so human. I was loving life because, you know, the story is really silly, so that’ll sort of help cover it.

BENDIS: What’s your story?

WHEDON: My story? It involves a comic convention of alternate dimensions where people are comparing their comic in worlds where there was no Stan.

Pretty hot, actually.

Also, this Whedon quote:

Sublimating yourself to a story is sort of the opposite of the Quentin Tarantino school. When I watched “Kill Bill,” it was like sitting next to Quentin Tarantino and having him go, “Alright, cool! Check out my music that I love!”

All Hail the Blu-ray!

Galley Brother B.J. sends this story about Sony and Pioneer delaying the launch of the BDPP-HD1.

Aprés Nadal

The Atlantic has a great story by Tom Perrotta on how racket technology saved the men's tennis game. Lots of physics and sports-junkie goodness.

Little known fact:

[C]omposite rackets help players hit better ground strokes, impart more spin, and return rocket serves, but they do very little to speed up serves. In 1997, in a comparative test done by Tennis magazine, Mark Philippoussis, the six-foot-five, 217-pound Australian renowned for his powerful serve, averaged 124 mph when serving with his own composite racket. With a classic wooden racket, he averaged 122 mph.

Who knew?

Michael Bay Demands Your Money

The Transformers movie website is up.

Oh, Justine!

Justine Henin-Hardenne may be a big cheater, but she's got plenty of moxie. She was the first womens player to attack the Williams sisters at the height of their powers and show no fear of them. As she's gotten older, she's gotten better. Her footwork has improved and she knows how to counter-punch now, too.

With her impressive win over Kim Clijsters today, JHH is poised to win her third French. She already has wins at the Australian and the U.S. Open, as well as an Olympic gold medal.

So how good is she? You could argue that she has a shot to be a top 15 all-time player. On the women's side, the list is:

1) Graf
2) Navratilova
3) Court
4) King
5) Evert

After that, slots are pretty much up for grabs, with players such as Althea Gibson making as much of a claim as Gaby Sabi. You might even have pre-stabbing Monica Seles and a Williams. But how far down would you have to go to put Henin-Hardenne on the list? Even today, I'd say not very far. And if she wins a couple more majors--or a Wimbledon--you might even be able to argue her for the 7-8-9 slots.

Update: For those of you who don't remember her 2003 French Open semi against Serena Williams, here's the Wiki account of JHH's underhanded antics:

Henin-Hardenne won the first set with 6-2 but lost the second 4-6. In the deciding third set, Justine showed all her talent and fighting spirit to prevail 7-5. However, there was some controversy in the third set with Serena leading 4-2 at 15-love. Williams started to hit a first serve, but Justine put up her hand to indicate that she wasn't ready. Williams netted the serve. The umpire did not see Justine's gesture and when he asked her about it she did not respond. The umpire ordered a second serve, and a visibly upset Williams lost the game and later the lead and the match. After the match the replay indicated that Serena was correct, Justine did put her hand as Williams was serving. This win ended Serena's 33-match winning streak in Grand Slam events.

What Would Uncle Jesse Think?

Just when I thought there couldn't be bigger news today than the death of Zarqawi and Abdul Rahman, I come across this from the New York Post's Page Six:

Former Full House child star and crystal meth addict Jodie Sweetin is getting back to work. Sweetin has signed on to host the strip-tastic new show on Fuse, Pants-Off Dance-Off. The show, taped at Fuse music TV's Midtown studio, features people of all ages taking off their clothes to their favorite music videos. No word yet if Sweetin plans to doff her duds, but Fuse says it hopes she will use her connections to get her former little TV sisters--Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen--to join in the freaky fun.

Little Steph? Say it ain't so!

The Death of Western Civilization

New Line is remaking the Japanese juvie snuff film Battle Royale.

I don't know what will be worse for the culture: the movie or the chorus of independent-minded dolts insisting that the splatter-fest is really an incisive cultural commentary and if you don't like it, you're just one of the lemmings who can't handle the truth!

X-Men: Last Stand

Finally saw it last night and it's pretty good. Especially the part at the end where Dark Willow geets all veiny and Wolverine brings her back to reality by telling her that he loves her before he has to impale her to close the mouth of Acathla.

I kid! Obviously Marvel's Dark Phoenix saga came first and Joss Whedon was leaning heavily on it for the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in much the same way that he leaned on the Teen Titan's Judas Contract for season three). But it was striking how much similarity there was between Ratner and Whedon's envisioning of "Phoenix."

It also struck me that the script Ratner and Fox settled on was particularly self-destructive for the future of the franchise. There's nothing wrong with killing major characters--in fact, that's a virtue. But why loose all of the interesting major characters? ***SPOILER TO FOLLOW***

Magneto, Xavier, Jean Grey, and Rogue are the four most interesting characters in the series. They have the most compelling motivations and internal conflicts and the most intriguing powers. The X-Men franchise will soldier on in the next trilogy and certainly there are no shortage of good characters: Ice-man, Kitty Pride, and Gambit are great. But they're ornaments; the stories are going to need dramatic foundations. Turning the series entirely over to Storm and Wolverine seems like a mistake.

There is much to dislike Last Stand--the way the studio cheaped out on the final fight at Alcatraz; the continuity problems with simple things, like time of day; not bothering to have Beast's hair obey the laws of gravity when he's hanging upside down--for that matter, the movie's incoherent representation of his abilities; the spots of bad dialogue; etc.

But there was much to like, too. Kitty Pride was beautifully realized, as was Juggernaught. The great Bill Duke got to do his thing. And how about the way Magneto crushes the first two cars in the motorcade?

In the end, it isn't quite fair to compare Last Stand to Return of the Jedi, as many have. Jedi left such a sour taste in your mouth that there was no need to see what happens next. I still haven't gotten my fill of the X-Men series. It's easy to see where they go from here, but hard to figure out how they'll do it well.

Thanks to Galley friend S.B. who sends us this link to a Daily Mirror story on a boy born yesterday and named Damian. The mother is a fan of The Omen and thought it would be a great idea to induce labor so that the baby could be born on 06/06/06. Damian supposedly weighed in at 6 lbs. 6 oz. but was delivered at 6:59 am.

So what's next? Dobermans? A tattoo on his scalp? Will he take up ice hockey? Please let this be the end of it.

Ahh, the Beautiful Game

I don't care what you say, soccer is a real sport.

Of course, this video must be fake. But it sure is funny. Would have been funnier if was the French team, though.

Happy Hell Day

Yes, for my fellow End of Times/End of Days/Armageddon/Deep Impact observers, today is truly significant--the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the millennium. Could a baby born today be the anti-Christ? Now before we do something rash, let me offer these thoughts: Being born on 06/06/06 is bad luck, but I wouldn't make much more of it than that. Unless the child is a boy and his parents name him Damian. Secondly, there is some dispute over the anti-Christ being born on 06/06/06 or being conceived on the said date. If it is the latter, I urge everyone to abstain until midnight.

But what more appropriate timing for the release of The Omen with Julia Stiles? From what a friend who previewed the remake tells me, it is pretty much the same film. Except it is Stiles instead of Lee Remick and Liev Schreiber instead of Gregory Peck. Most disappointing is the absence of the chorus chanting "Damian!" and "Sanctus! Dominus!"

But does this also mean we will be treated to remakes of The Omen II and III? Will we again be subjected to horrors such as the kid trapped beneath the ice pond and the woman who gets her eye gouged out by a crow before she gets smacked by an 18-wheeler? (If you saw these films in your youth, thanks to HBO, you never forget them.)

And does anyone remember who played Damian in The Omen III? (Hint: He never got to go to Montana.)

Does Anyone Remember Ready to Rumble?

And how the ill-fated David Arquette wrestling movie did a promotional tie-in with the then Turner-owned WCW?

It looks like Nacho Libre is doing a similar tie-in with the WWE. Do we think it will work?

Kirk Does Rocket Man

Galley Reader E.H. sends along this fantastic video of the Trek-era William Shatner doing a dramatic reading of Rocket Man.

Wow.

The Cerebral Assassin

If you're not doing anything right now, go turn on the Clijsters-Hingis match on ESPN2. Hingis went down 5-2 in the first set and fought off 3 set points before losing in a tie-break, 7-5.

This has the look of a classic match. Plus, there's no beating Dick Enberg in the morning.

Update: Never mind. Hingis collapsed in the second.

In Praise of the Swiss Miss

Seth Stevenson comes to love Martina Hingis:

I've also come—to my own great shock—to adore her style of play. It turns out I got bored with all those power hitters on the women's tour. What fun is there in watching cannon forehands, flat and low and hard, one after another? Half the players seem to come from a mysterious genetics lab somewhere in Russia, which pumps out 9-foot-tall blondes who do nothing but grunt, crush the ball cleanly down the line, and occasionally attempt an ill-advised drop shot. Meanwhile, Hingis' arsenal includes some gorgeous, looping topspins; bedeviling slices; pinpoint placement; and sudden changes of pace. As with her countryman Roger Federer (though she lacks his floating, ghostlike movement around the court), it's Hingis' tremendous variety that makes her such a treat to watch.

Moviestar or Us Weekly Queen?

Jennifer Aniston is omnipresent in the culture and she just had a bona fide moviestar launch of The Break-Up--which grossed $38M despite bad reviews and misleading marketing. Give her credit: She opened this picture basically by herself.

But how surprised would you be to learn that this is only the fourth time she's opened a movie over $10M:

The Break-Up-$38M
Derailed-$12M
Along Came Polly-$27M
Bruce Almighty-$68M

Bruce Almighty is a Jim Carey vehicle and Along Came Polly was a Ben Stiller vehicle designed as a pseudo-sequel to Something About Mary. What the success of The Break-Up shows is that, if an actor is forced on audiences enough times, eventually they'll get a hit.

Ben Affleck is another great example of this. After the slow-burn success of Good Will Hunting, Affleck was allowed to ride shotgun alongside Bruce Willis and Michael Bay in Armageddon, after which Hollywood assumed that he was a new leading man. He then bombed five consecutive movies, the biggest opening gross of which was $13.5M for Forces of Nature. He helped Pearl Harbor underperform, bombed again with Changing Lanes, and finally opened The Sum of All Fears to a respectable $31M.

You see similar patterns with Josh Hartnett (who hasn't actually gotten his hit yet) and the former Mr. Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, who after being pulled along by Tom Cruise's coattails in Interview with the Vampire, ran off a string of 8 leading roles without opening a movie above $15M.

Most actors don't get all of these extra chances. But the lesson to studio executives is clear: No matter how many failures a "star" has, if you keep giving them work, eventually they'll have a breakout hit.

The International Language of Destruction

AICN sends us to this link for The Sinking of Japan--no subtitles necessary.

It's funny how the medium of film is so universal that it creates nearly identical conventions in very different cultures. This trailer could easily be for an American disaster pic, right down to the annoying R&B ballad in the final third.

There Are Motherfuckin' Snakes on the Motherfuckin' Plane

For real:

Monty Coles was 3,000 feet in the air when he discovered a stowaway peeking out at him from the plane's instrument panel — a 4 1/2-foot black snake.

Coles had left Charleston earlier for a leisurely flight over the West Virginia countryside last Saturday in his Piper Cherokee and was preparing to land in Gallipolis, Ohio, when the snake revealed itself.

"Nothing in any of the manuals ever described anything like this," the 62-year-old Cross Lanes resident said. But the advice given 25 years earlier from his flight instructor immediately came to mind: "No matter what happens, fly the plane."

An attempt to swat the snake only resulted in it falling to Coles' feet under the rudder pedals. It then darted to the other side of the cockpit.

While maintaining control of the single-engine plane with one hand, Coles grabbed the reptile behind its head with his other.

"There was no way I was letting that thing go. It coiled all around my arm, and its tail grabbed hold of a lever on the floor and started pulling," Coles said.

Mother of God.

District B13

So that's where the amazing little French dude is from. Galley Brother B.J. suggests that District B13 might just be this year's Ong Bak.

More Trailer Mash-ups

It's third-rate, but still kind of fun: The School of Rock. Courtesy of Jenny.

Superman Returns

Mike Russell interviews the guys who wrote Superman Returns--and has the answers to everything you wanted to know about the new movie.

Pixar and the Nanny State

Cars looks like another Bug's Life--which is to say, better than Shrek, but far below The Incredibles in the animation pantheon. But who knows? Maybe we'll all be pleasantly surprised.

But in the run-up to release, Cars has given us one very unpleasant surprise: the worst promotional tie-in in the history of movies.

After selling their souls back to Disney, Pixar went on a promotional-partner spree with Cars, signing up 17 corporate sponsors for the movie. Seventeen is a garishly large number, but what's really striking is how few of these corporate tie-ins--Hertz, Goodyear, Porsche, State Farm Insurance, Georgia Pacific, Valvoline--have anything to do with the movie or its intended audience.

Yet all of that pales in comparison to Pixar's least attractive partner: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Cars actually has a promotional tie in with the NHTSA's Click It or Ticket campaign.

Surely you've seen the hectoring TV spots for Click It or Ticket. Somber state troopers pull over rambunctious young men (no female offenders are ever featured in these ads) and hand out tickets not for speeding or running red lights or any other actual traffic violations--but simply for not wearing a seatbelt.

I'm all in favor of seatbelts. They save lives and I wear mine every day. But, like red-light cameras, this is pure revenue-generation for the state gussied up as concern for public safety. It is the worst of the Nanny State: Instead of catching actual criminals, the police turn their attentions to the habits of law-abiding citizens.

The Click It or Ticket campaign is maddening in its own right, but it's almost unfathomable as to why Pixar would allow the that sort of busy-body, nagging message to get mixed up with Cars.

Update: I should have added earlier that those interested in defending red-light cameras should read Matt Labash's excellent series on them which explodes much of the junk science about how they promote safety. Labash argues, convincingly, that red-light cameras cause more accidents than they prevent. But they do gin up a lot of money for local municipalities.