| 50 Movies in 50 Weeks, Number Seven: Watchmen |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|01:21 pm] |
There's been a dry spell for movies lately. But to answer "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
I did. Loved it.
Hoping to add three more to the list by the end of the week... but I'm home, and being home is being annoying. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 13 and 14 |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|01:14 pm] |
Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis
This is a book about a guy choosing to become obsessed with something. I respect that. His poison of choice is Scrabble, and he throws himself in, trying to work from a ranking as a novice (300-700) to an expert (over 1600).
The book is entertaining, and well written, but suffers from the fact that Stefan keeps fucking up in the tournaments. Not getting beat by better players, but making stupid mistakes and losing. It makes me want to scream at him for being a loser.
I Hate Your Guts by Jim Norton
Jim Norton is angry. The end. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 12 |
[Mar. 9th, 2009|09:48 pm] |
Why We Suck by Doctor Denis Leary
The "Doctor" is actually semi-legit... he has an honorary doctorate. That was the only "new" information I gained in this book. Believe it or not, Denis Leary is angry about things. Sometimes, in words that strongly reminded me of other comics... again, shocking considering "No Cure for Cancer" is almost word for word "Retaliation" by Bill Hicks... but anyway.
I enjoyed the book. I mean, I love Denis Leary even as I hate him. I'm this books target audience. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 11 |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|10:27 pm] |
Better than Sex by Hunter S Thompson
Do you like Thompson? Find him amusing? Not mind that he often doesn't tip his hand as to whether something really happened, or if he's just blowing smoke at you?
Then read it. Otherwise... no. |
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| 50 Movies in 50 Weeks, Number Six: Paul Blart, Mall Cop |
[Feb. 22nd, 2009|05:11 pm] |
We're seven weeks in and I've seen six movies... promising. I didn't really care about seeing Paul Blart, but Fanboys isn't playing anywhere near here, and there really wasn't anything else to grab me... fuck Slumdog, for the record.
Hungover. The movie was what I needed- entertaining and mindless, which let me chill for an hour and a half. Next week is looking weak, release wise, and I don't know that I'll see anything... but maybe. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 10 |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|10:22 pm] |
The Associate by John Grisham
It's a John Grisham book. If you've read one, you've read them all. That said, it wasn't bad, and it killed a few hours. That's all I ask. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 9 |
[Feb. 15th, 2009|07:08 pm] |
God Save the Fan by Will Leitch
Will Leitch founded Deadspin.com, which is basically the anti-ESPN. He's on the infamous ESPN blacklist (names that must not be mentioned as sources), and posted the (verified) report of Chris Berman using the phrase "You're with me, Leather" to pick up a girl wearing a leather jacket.
You might have seen him on Costas' show on HBO, taking the full fury of old people for the internet, which they seem to think he is the sole author of.
He also comes across as someone I'd like to have a beer with. This is a collection of essays and thoughts, and it's funny. If you like sports, you'll like this book. Mostly. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 8 |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|09:50 am] |
I miss the days when I could plow through two or three books a week... but time is so my enemy right now. Anyway...
Book 8: The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs by Bill Jenkinson
I have respect for Bill Jenkinson after reading this book. I'd never heard of him before I heard of the book, and didn't go into the book with an opinion one way or the other about the guy. But I like people who become incredibly obsessed with something- and for Bill Jenkinson, that "something" is Babe Ruth.
This isn't a biography. It's basically a re-telling of how every season of Babe Ruth's career went, just from a statistical standpoint. I've probably read four or five different biographies of George Herman "Babe" Ruth, including an autobiography, so I enjoyed the fact that most of the stories were compressed to their simplest points. He had a rough childhood, and became a great athlete. He did nice stuff for kids, and people loved him. That's about all the biography you get, which is fine... because this is a book about a one of a kind athlete. And it's a book with statistical evidence on it's side.
Look, Babe Ruth his a LOT of home runs compared to people in his time... the only other person of Babe Ruth's generation to hit 500 home runs was Jimmy Foxx. Babe Ruth beat fox by almost two hundred home runs. But the part that really makes this book shine is putting everything into perspective. For example, Ruth lost five home runs to a weird rule (that was changed because of him in 1921) that said any home run hit that ended a game wasn't a home run- it was a single with RBI's for the baserunners. And he lost an astonishing eighty two home runs over the course of his career to a ridiculous little rule that a home run wasn't called fair or foul from where the ball exited the field of play, but by where it landed... and if it landed out of sight, it was automatically foul.
That's a problem when you're talking about a guy who regularly hit the ball out of the stadium. And that's the part of the book I really liked, and that I'd never even considered.
Babe Ruth played at a HUGE competitive disadvantage for putting up big home run numbers.
Yes, I knew that medical techniques of the time were primitive, and that the ball was basically mashed potatoes in a horsehide sack, and that the same ball was regularly used for an entire game... meaning it'd get lopsided, or so dirty you couldn't see it, or... you get the idea. There were no off-season training regimens. No strength coaches. Babe was told not to run in the off-season to "save his legs" for the season. Think that might have contributed to the leg injuries that ended his career?
All that pales to one simple fact- in Barry Bond's entire career, he's never hit a baseball further than 463 feet. 463 feet is a tremendous shot, and further than almost any player today hits it...
During Ruth's time, a 463 foot shot to center field was called a pop-out. There wasn't a stadium in the league that didn't have a fence further away than that. Sure, some stadiums had "short" fences down the lines... 380 feet. So what Jenkinson did was take every documented ball that Ruth hit (confirmed by a minimum of three sources), and he found almost three hunded "fly-outs" that went over 475 feet. That's enough to clear the deepest fence in the big leagues today by about sixty feet. And, as he mentions in the book, that does not include what would have been "routine" 400 pop-outs.
There are a lot of other arguments made in the book that point to Ruth being the greatest hitter in baseball history. Here's the one I can't quite get over- in the history of professional baseball, there have been only a handful of five hundred foot home runs. We're talking confirmed five hundred footers in a competitive game- regular or post season. If we're generous, there have been about twenty guys that have hit one that far, names like McGwire, Sosa, Mantle, Schmidt, Bell... then the guys where they're assumed to have hit one that far like J.D. Drew and Albert Pujols, which I'm including in the twenty who've hit one. Only two of them have hit multiple balls that far- McGwire and Mantle. If you give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume it's been done thirty times by people not named Babe Ruth...
Well, Mister Ruth hit thirty-nine baseballs more than five hundred feet. That's thirty nine CONFIRMED five hundred footers. One of those was six hundred and one foot hit, and one was a six hundred and three foot hit... both of which are so amazingly far beyond what anyone else has done that it's just silly.
And there's one hit...
It was an exhibition game, where Ruth was batting against Walter Johnson, when both were in their prime. Johnson let go with a fastball, Ruth swung his ludicrously large bat... and dropped it immediately after it connected. He walked off the field, not even watching the ball fly. He told the crowd "That's the best shot I'll ever hit."
The ball came down in a field that was all mud, and stopped exactly where it hit, sinking a couple inches into the ground. It was measured, and then re-measured, and then measured a third time, because no one could believe it.
You can go to that field today, and they've left a marker for the ball and a marker for home plate. They're two football fields apart. With thousands of witnesses, Babe Ruth hit a baseball off a major league pitcher six hundred and fifty three feet.
Ruth had hits, in regular season games, of 601, 603, and 595. The longest anyone else has ever hit a ball is Mickey Mantle, who hit a ball 560 feet... which even the guy who measured it admits is to where it quit rolling, not to where the ball actually landed.
There's so much information in this book, and at least three references for anything the guy came up with. He also estimates everything in a way to take away rather than give unfairly... for example, Ruth averaged a home run every .635 games over his career... so with 8 games more a year (making a 162 game season), he should hit 5.1 more home runs a year... for purposes of the totals in the book, Jenkinson assumes he'd hit four more home runs every year. The final numbers? A rather conservative estimate based on known deep fly-outs (which wouldn't always be reported, obviously), balls hit fair that ended up being called foul due to the confounding fair/foul rule, and the modern dimensions... one season over a hundred home runs, two over ninety, a few in the eighties, three in the seventies, and three in the sixties. All in all, five seasons that would be the modern single-season record (and one that would be thirty home runs over the closest assault on it), and a career total of almost 1200.
And that's CONSERVATIVE.
Babe Ruth, man. The book is subtitled "Recrowning the TRUE King of Sluggers."
No shit. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 7 |
[Feb. 5th, 2009|10:13 pm] |
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
I don't feel like doing a review. It was a good read, though. Lots of little essays, and it flowed together pretty well. I'm glad to move on, though. |
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| 50 Movies in 50 Weeks, Number Four: Taken |
[Jan. 30th, 2009|10:50 pm] |
This one grabbed me from the speech in the trailer... it's something I hope I never have to say, but hope I could say if needed, if that makes any sense.
Anyway, Liam Neeson is surprisingly bad-ass in this. And for once, someone was paying attention in film-writing class... they don't SAY things, they SHOW them. Rather than hearing people talk about what a bad-ass the main character is, he just does things that leave no doubt he IS the cock of the walk.
I dug it. Not on the level of Gran Torino or Frost/Nixon, but perfectly acceptable entertainment. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 6 |
[Jan. 28th, 2009|10:18 pm] |
Book 6: The Punch by John Feinstein
Sometimes in sports, everything clicks together perfectly. The '86 Celtics. The Red Sox in '04. The Bulls, their entire run during the Jordan era. The Cowboys of the early 90's. Michael Phelps and his eight gold medals. Even individual players on a team can have that time, when no matter what they do things work out. Eli Manning in Super Bowl XLII comes to mind. Pedro Martinez coming out of the bullpen against the Indians in the playoffs. Tiger Woods at the US Open in '08.
And sometimes, things go as wrong as they possibly could. Bill Buckner and his tragic error. John Starks going 0-11 on the biggest stage he'd ever play on, possibly costing the Knick's the title. Steve Christie and "Wide Right." Moments that are about as far from clicking as you could ever get.
And then there are the moments where the two come together... where everything clicks perfectly for a horrific outcome. Barbaro's leg snapping. Joe Theismann having his leg destroyed by Lawerence Taylor. Any of the boxers who have died in the ring.
The Punch is the story of one of those moments, and the aftermath.
In 1977, Kermit Washington punched Rudy Tomjanovich during an NBA game between the Los Angelos Lakers and the Houston Rockets. Thirty years later, neither man has gotten away from the one moment.
It was a perfect storm of wrong- Tomjanovich was running full speed to break up a fight, Washington reacted by swinging at what he perceived as someone charging to join the fight. Washington was one of the first big-time weight lifters in the NBA, strong as an ox. Tomjanovich was faster than almost anyone in the game. Washington's fist landed perfectly square on Rudy's face, just below his nose.
It was a massive impact.
So much so that Tomjanovich's face was separated from his skull by half an inch. His brain cavity was leaking, and spinal fluid was collecting in his mouth. It wouldn't have been a shocking outcome if he'd died.
The Punch is John Feinstein talking about the two men involved in the incident, and how it shaped the rest of their lives. Neither man can get away from what happened. Neither one has "gotten over" it. It's a fascinating picture of a man who just can't say "I'm sorry" without adding the "but" and a man who just wishes everyone would pretend it never happened. Beyond those two, though, Feinstein examines how it completely changed the culture of fighting in the NBA.
Overall, it's a little dry. A little boring at times. But it's fascinating to see how one moment can change the entire trajectory of so many lives.
Next up is something non-sports related... probably Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. |
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| 50 Movies in 50 Weeks, Number Three: Gran Torino |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|08:42 pm] |
Fresh from it's Oscar snubbing, I finally got to check out Gran Torino. This was the fourth time I'd tried to see it, having been snubbed by various reasons in other attempts...
Worth the wait. I love Unforgiven. Million Dollar Baby is an amazing movie. Mystic River deserved all the praise that was heaped upon it.
This beat all of them. Whatever movie takes home Best Picture at the Oscars this year should thank the Academy that Gran Torino wasn't nominated. It's not just a great story of redemption and all that, but it's flat-out FUNNY. There were a few lines I missed because the entire theater was cracking up.
There were so many easy roads the movie could have taken. So many quick and pleasant ways out of some situations, and instead of taking them the movie took the RIGHT way. Maybe that doesn't make a lot of sense... but it's how I felt.
The only downside is I'd be absolutely SHOCKED if I see a better movie this year. And that kind of sucks.
I loved Frost/Nixon. I thought Milk was awesome. The Wrestler was a tour de force... but Gran Torino is one of the ten or twenty best movies I've ever seen. Maybe it's not going to be one of my favorites... but it's fantastic.
If, as has been rumored, this is Clint's last ride, he did it in style. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 5 |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|10:06 pm] |
Let Me Tell You a Story by John Feinstein with Red Auerbach
Red Auerbach is the man. This book is a collection of stories he told John Feinstein, not really a biography but almost a memoir.
That's really all it is.
One story about Red I love, though, isn't in the book... probably because it'd seem like boasting.
Boston, like a lot of cities, passed a smoking ban for restaurants a few years back, before Red Auerbach died. One day, Red was in his favorite Chinese place (he ate Chinese food almost every meal) and lit one of his signature cigars. A woman next to him complained, and told him he couldn't smoke in the restaurant.
Red's response?
"Check the menu, ma'am."
She looked, and the menu bore the "Smoking is not allowed in this establishment." line at the bottom.
Right above "Except for Red."
THAT is how beloved the man was, and is, in Boston. |
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| 50 Movies in 50 Weeks, Number Two: Notorious |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|12:04 am] |
Thanks to some comic misunderstandings and bad timing, I managed to have a rather shitty date tonight AND see Notorious rather than Gran Torino. This marks the third time I've attempted to see Gran Torino and failed- but c'est la vie.
Notorious is, of course, the bio-pic of Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls, or the Notorious B.I.G. It is what it is- a pretty blunt look at a guy who never quite managed to get his life together and died violently at 24. The movie was pretty even-handed, overall, neither exaggerating Biggie's pro's or cons, and not even trying to make crack dealing look honorable.
The biggest complaint I have is the way they tried to force lines from songs into the movie. Like I'm pretty sure no one, in their entire life, ever said "Biggie Biggie Biggie... can't you see sometimes your words just hypnotize me?" in the middle of what was supposed to be a serious conversation. That, and the forced "He had just pulled everything together" scene right before the fatal gunshots... more because the way they show that was him having conversations that sure sound like reconciling a relationship with his two "baby mama's" and the girl he was schtupping on the side.
Oh well. It wasn't a BAD movie, but it wasn't a good one either. Firmly middle of the road, like a five or six out of ten.
Next up is Gran Torino... hopefully. |
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| 26 Books in 2009: Book 4 |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|11:38 pm] |
Flying through them here... book four was Shanks for Nothing by Rick Reilly, the sequel to Missing Links. I'd never read it before, but it was pretty enjoyable.
I don't really have a lot to say about it. It's the type of book that's perfect for an airplane or a long train ride, and it's not really memorable... but it was nice to visit the characters from Missing Links again, at least for a little while. |
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