The Movie Super Bowl

A few thought about the Oscars and other stuff.

I turn the channel once in the three and a half hour Oscar telecast because the "Best Original Score" award is coming up. And what happens? Salma Hayek comes out wearing the best dress I've ever seen at an awards show and I friggin miss it. Here's the photo to prove it.


If "Crash" was the best movie put out last year, then Barry Bonds got so big by using a Bowflex machine. I honestly don't even know which one I would've picked. "Crash" was the only one I saw. As one person I read put it, "Crash wasn't even the best movie with Terrance Howard in it last year (Hustle & Flow.)"

George Clooney is the man, even if he is a flaming liberal.

In two of the last four years, the Oscar for Best Original Song has gone to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem and "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by Three Six Mafia.

Jessica Alba was threatening to sue Playboy for running a picture of her on their March cover. She alleges that the picture damages her reputation and leads people to believe that she posed "nude or semi-nude" in the magazine. Because it's such a stretch to think that the person who wore lefover fragments of lycra and spandex throughout the entire movie "Into the Blue" would ever pose "semi-nude."

Speaking of that magazine, I wonder what the top 5 sure-fire best sellers would be right now in 2006 if they posed in Playboy? I think it would go a little something like this,
5) Jessica Beil
4) Hilary Duff
3) Scarlett Johannson
2) Jessica Alba
1) Jessica Simpson
Not my list, by the way, I'm just saying. Now, I know that this whole commentary is offensive to women everywhere and I shouldn't be thinking of lists like this now that I am no longer in the eighth grade. But I spent too much time and energy thinking of it to leave it out.

I'm saying right now that Connecticut wins the men's basketball championship this year. I have a good feeling about them this year. It's the same feeling I had in 1999 when they beat Duke in the finals and I didn't pick them. I had the same feeling in 2004 when I picked them to win the online pool. I think Julie's brother is still reeling from that beat down.

Domino (Keira Knightley, Mickey Rourke) - I loved this movie. It is based (very loosely) on the life and times of Beverly Hills kid turned bounty hunter Domino Harvey. It's a straight action flick that sprinkles in some delightful little nuggets of drama and even some romance. The movie is cut at a frantic pace, jumping from one scene to another like a music video, which is a technique that I usually hate. In this case it seemed to mirror the manic style of the storyline and complimented the plot righteously.

There is a fair amount of comedy as well, intentional and otherwise. A particualrily hilarious scene takes place with Mo'Nique on the Jerry Springer Show, singing the praises of her proposed racial subclassification including "Blacktino" and "Hispanese."

Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, Keira Knightley is smoking hot. She may be the most attractive woman in Hollywood that's under a C cup. The combination of action sequences and scant bounty hunter outfits is enough to make a fella fall in love.

And the rest of the cast! You've got Keira, Mickey Rourke, Chris Walken, Mena Suvari, Lucy Lui, Delroy Lindo, Edgar Ramirez, Mo'Nique, and my personal favorites... Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green playing themselves. That's right! Steve Sanders and David Silver back together again... 90210 style!

Bad News Bears (Billy Bob Thorton, Marcia Gay Harden)- Cute remake of the 70's classic. Has some funny parts but never really focuses on a demographic that it is geared to. The kid's uniforms are sponsered by Bo Beep's Gentlemen's Club, and that's pretty darned funny.

I'm finished,
Nate

Let's play ball!

For something with such a grandiose name like the world baseball classic, you would think more people would care. The competition starts this week with teams from around the world vying to win the coveted... I actually don't know what they win. I bet it's something good, though. Like a King Size Kit Kat or something.

I'm approaching this competition with cautious optimism. I think it will be an interesting endeavor in international competition and I always love to see players out there giving it all for their homeland. Laying it on the line for the country of their birth.

Oh, wait... Mike Piazza is playing for Team Italy. That's Norristown, Pennsylvania's own Mike Piazza catching for Italia. Are you kidding me? That's only one instance. The big debate for the American team earlier this year was whether or not Alex Rodriguez would play for the United States or the Dominican Republic. There were pros and cons to each side. The biggest argument for playing for the U.S. being, I don't know, he was born in friggin' New York City!

(Actually, I think it was all just a show by A-Rod until he found out that neither team would pay him more for being on their team. I'm surprised he even agreed to be in the thing after that. I swear to god, if North Korea offered to pay A-Rod more to play for them, he would change his name to Kim-Il Rod and move to P'yongyang. I hate that guy.)

I don't get this roster thing at all. A-Rod decided to play for the U.S. in the end, but Piazza is playing for Italy and Nomar Garciaparra was going to play for Mexico (which I'm sure he's been to a few times, but he was born in California.) You could make the argument that Piazza is not the best catcher the U.S. has to offer (hell, that's not a argument, that's a known fact), but if that's the case he should just not be playing at all. Could Chan-ho Park be on the United States pitching staff? Absolutely not. But he and Byung-Hyun Kim (who's kind of an anti-relief pitcher in all honesty) are the studs of the South Korean rotation. And guess what? They were both born in South Korea! I looked it up!

All that aside, the real fun may be off the field as the crazy Cubans come to town. Cuba and the U.S. have always had a tenuous relationship. There was that missile thing back in the day, assassination plots and that decades-long embargo thing. The Cuban team had to receive a special sanction from the government just to participate in the tournament. You can't tell me their aren't going to be at least two or three Cubans that do the dollars to pesos conversion of what a fifth string middle reliever makes in salary and decides, "Screw communism, I'm getting myself a pair of Timberlands!"

MOVIE REVIEW

Doom (Eric Urban, The Rock) - I loved the video game that this movie was based on and always wondered why they never made a movie about it. I wish I was still wondering. Guns. Mars. Demon creatures. That's about all you need to know.

I'm finished,
Nate