Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Pre-emptive MVP rant

SPORTING GOODS

Sports radio and internet has started to push the Ryan Howard for MVP argument. The argument is that Howard, who leads the league in HR's and RBI's, has carried the Phillies into the thick of the Wild Card race, while Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes are in cruise control due to the Mets' huge lead.

I won't bring Albert Pujols into the argument because it just makes it complicated, and I'll pick Beltran over Reyes because the stats support that. Just for fun, here's a comparison of some key stats between Beltran and Howard:

Win Shares:
Beltran: 1st
Howard: 10th

Offensive win shares:
Beltran: 3rd
Howard: 7th

OBP:
Beltran: 11th
Howard: 15th

SLG:
Beltran: 2nd
Howard: 3rd

OPS:
Beltran: 2nd
Howard: 4th

Runs created:
Howard: 2nd'
Beltran: 4th

RBI:
Howard: 1st
Beltran: 2nd

HR:
Howard: 1st
Beltran: 3rd

Runs:
Beltran: 2nd
Howard: 19th

Times mentioned as gold glove candidate:
Beltran: frequently
Howard: 0

Team games over .500:
Beltran: 32
Howard: 1

There are two things that sportswriters tend to overemphasize when voting for the MVP: RBI and late season performance. For evidence of the latter, see Guerrero, Vlad and Tejada, Miguel. Two years ago Vlad Guerrero won the MVP with a torrid two week stretch at the end of the season, including six homers in the last six games. Meanwhile, Gary Sheffield lost out on the award, largely because his hot first four months allowed the Yankees to run away and hide in the AL East. In sportswriter fantasy land, two weeks > four months. For evidence of the RBI effect, look at just about any year, especially those when Juan Gonzalez won the MVP.

So, Beltran has three things going against him. In addition to Jose Reyes likely splitting some votes with him, Beltran falls short in the RBI category (even though he is second in the league) and in late season heroics (as any Beltran walk-offs in September will barely make the first half hour of SportsCenter).

Carlos Beltran should not be a victim of his own success while Ryan Howard leads the Phillies drive to finish over .500. Furthermore, the discrepancy in Win Shares posted above is largely because Ryan Howard has barely made a greater contribution at first than David Ortiz. Zone ratings agree, with Ryan Howard ranked as the second worst fielding first baseman in the National League (needless to say first is the easiest position to play), while Beltran is second in the league in centerfield (one of the most difficult positions). If Papi couldn't get elected because he doesn't field, how can Ryan Howard?

Ryan Howard is a monster. He is one of the most feared hitters in the majors, with good reason. But on August 30, he is not the NL MVP, nor should he finish top 3. But he will, unless the Phillies fall flat on their face in September.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Pure Evil

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Jack Nicholson plays an Irish gangster in Martin Scorsese's The Departed. How bad is Jack? His sadistic Southie wears a Yankees cap on the streets of Boston in the movie.

Wow. This guy is evil.

Bush League

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

I'm a huge Entourage fan and the great Jeremy Piven is the best thing on that show. On Sunday, he finally won a much-deserved Emmy award. (The Emmys are a notoriously lame voting body and passed over Piven last year in the same category.) Well, before this year's ceremony, Piven had to endure something far worse; being interviewed by Billy Bush.

I wonder if his brilliant smackdown qualifies for an Emmy for next year. After all, his performance is longer than Ellen Burstyn's nominated part from this year. I also love how Bush keeps laughing like he's in on the joke. We're all friends! We love kidding each other! I think I'm gonna puke.

3-4-5

SPORTING GOODS


3. Mark Loretta
4. Kevin Youkilis
5. Eric Hinske

I was shocked to find out the Red Sox were shut out last night!

I hope Papi is OK...

Monday, August 28, 2006

The absolutely Impossible Dream

SPORTING GOODS

Before I even had the chance to write the eulogy on the Sox season, they did it for me by being swept by the last place Mariners over the weekend. I didn't get a chance to see any of the games, so if anyone did, can you tell me if the Red Sox even brought bats to the games? Or did they just stand there and wait for their turn to take the field again? Or maybe they grabbed some salmon from Pike Place Fish Market downtown and went to bat with that.

Baseball Prospectus Odds calculator gives the Sox a 4.2% chance of coming back and making the playoffs this year. For perspective, that's lower than the Marlins, Diamondbacks, and a host of other crappy National League teams.

Meanwhile, Mets fans, BP gives the Mets this chance of making the playoffs: 99.99985%

By that math, if they played the remainder of the season 6,667 times, the Mets would likely miss the playoffs once.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

That ... and the steroids

SPORTING GOODS

Call me naive, but I remain hopeful that many of today's stars aren't using HGH, never touched steroids, and are as good as they are because they are just good players.

So I found this article about some of the potential superhuman abilities behind Albert Pujols' success to be uplifting - and even if you are cynical, it is still interesting.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Movie Review: Snakes on a Plane

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

There are three reasons I go the see a movie in the theater instead of waiting for it to come out on video: First, I want to see it while everyone is taking about it. Next, I want to see it on the big screen. And last, I want to see it with an audience. These criteria hold true for about 99% of all the movies I go to. Snakes on a Planeis different. It is included in that rarefied 1% of releases where my least important reason to go to the theater becomes the most important. Movies like this are all about audience participation, which is precisely why I chose to go see it in Times Square. I tend to avoid 42nd street multiplexes because of their notoriously outspoken crowds. But for Snakes on a Plane, these people, whom I normally scorn, become my cheering, screaming, hooting fellow connoisseurs of cheese.

The fun started as soon as I got to my seat. By wearing my original, internet-purchased bootleg T-shirt, I was letting everyone know that I was into this one. I wasn't alone. When I saw the folks behind me had rubber snakes wrapped around their necks, I knew they were fellow travellers. As soon as the lights dimmed, cheers erupted. A raucous chant of "SNAKES! SNAKES! SNAKES! SNAKES!" filled the auditorium and didn't quiet until the fist preview was already over. My brother was "ssssssss"-ing the whole time.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm 'ssssssss'-ing," he said. "Like a snake."

"Stop that. No one can hear you over the cheering."

Then the cheering died down and I realized many, many other people were also "ssssssss"-ing.

"See?" he said.

Now the entire theater was "ssssssss"-ing.

"Oh."

As readers of Daily411 know, I have been looking forward to Snakes on a Plane ever since I heard the premise. Maybe "looking forward to" is the wrong way to put it. Perhaps "giddy" is more appropriate. Or "foaming at the mouth." Like most early SoaPers, I was immediately attracted to the So Stupid It's Great concept. And casting Samuel L. Jackson gave it some respectability. (Not a lot, but a little.) But I must admit, my enthusiasm for Snakes had started to wane. For some reason, it seemed funnier when less people knew about it. Now it was a phenomenon and I actually considered bagging the whole thing. I rationalized this thinking by deluding myself into thinking I knew exactly what the experience of seeing the actual movie would be like. Why bother going?, I asked myself. You got the shirt, you blogged a few posts about it, now put it to bed and wait for something more exciting to come along. But now, with an entire theater "ssssssss"-ing around me, I realized that I was wrong. It was different actually being here. It was different like watching a baseball game in person is different than watching it on TV. It was different like going to a concert is different that listening to your iPod. The act of Being There changes everything because it forces you to use all of your senses all at the same time.

My deepest hope was that Snakes on a Plane would be less a Bad/Good movie and more a Good Movie Disguised as a Bad Movie. What is the difference, you ask? A Bad/Good movie is a movie so bad you actually like it. Showgirls is a good example. So is Road House and The Color of Night and Commando or anything starring an early Steven Seagal. But no matter how much affection you may have for these movies, you must always acknowledge they are bad. That is part of their charm.

A Good Movie Disguised as a Bad Movie is something entirely different. It is a movie that looks like a bad movie but is actually a lot smarter than people give it credit for. Deep Blue Sea is a great example. So is Starship Troopers. Any movie that would kill off its biggest star just as he is finishing his Rallying The Troops monologue is a Good Movie. Any movie that casts Doogie Howser and a bunch of 90210-lookalikes and places them in the middle of a Giant-Bugs-As-Metaphor-For-Fascism storyline is a Great movie. I once had a fight with an co-worker about Starship. Voices were raised. Tensions simmered long afterwards. And no matter what he says, I will argue 'til the End of Days that Starship Troopers is one of the great satires in movie history.

So how was Snakes on a Plane? I think it was somewhere in the middle. It did a good job of establishing stereotypical stock characters and then having them do something that we don't necessarily expect or see coming. It gave the bimbo a lapdog named "Mary Kate." It gave said dog a terrible, surprising, hilarious death. It had pretty good jokes about who you’d rather have suck the venom out of your wounds. When Samuel L. Jackson discovered the snakes were being driven into a frenzy by pheromone-laced leis, it had him extol: “Great. Snakes on crack.” When a couple of tight-bodied mile-high club wannabes are attacked in the bathroom, the snake doesn't just attack, it latched firmly onto her silicone-enhanced breast. You were going to see some crazy deaths in this one, we were being told. And we did. One guy got it in the penis while taking a leak, another got it in the eye. A fat woman had a snake go up her muumuu while she slept. A kid got it. A cat got it. Anything and everything on the plane got it.

But it also got awfully repetitive. It didn’t really come up with a clever way to up the stakes. It never had Jackson have to outsmart a cobra or trick a python. I think they could have had more fun with material as ridiculous as this. As Jeffrey Wells said, “Samuel L. Jackson should have had gotten into a last-minute wrestling match with the big anaconda and then blown a hole in the side of the plane and the snake had gotten sucked out. The camera could have followed it all the way down and watched it splatter on the deck of a cruise ship.” He’s right. This kind of thinking would have taken the movie to different level; the level of Good Movie Disguised as a Bad Movie. Alas, it will forever be known as a Good/Bad Movie.

So I agree with Darlucky; it was not a great movie. But it was an indisputably great time at the movies. The only comparable experience I’ve had is when I went to see the re-release of the original Star Wars. Then as now, there was the added energy created by the audience's shared affection for the material. The difference now was that the audience had already bonded over a movie none of us had ever seen. At Star Wars, we cheered the stuff we loved and had all seen a dozen times. For Snakes, we were cheering about stuff we had all read about on the internet. And none more so that the infamous “I’m tired of these motherf@#king snakes on this motherf@#king plane!” line; you couldn’t even hear the end of it over the roar of the crowd.

Unfortunately, if you are interested in Snakes on a Plane, you may have already missed your best opportunity. It requires not just a large crowd but an enthusiastic one. Alcohol is probably a good idea too. Based on the lackluster box office numbers, I doubt anyone is going to be encountering any sell-out shows from here on out. (And we probably won't get any of the funny knock-offs I was looking forward to. Grizzy Bears on a Cruise Ship, anyone?) But I may be wrong. So get your butt to Times Square, or wherever the noisiest, rudest, most popcorn-throwingest crowds in your area go, and see this motherf@#king movie.

Monday, August 21, 2006

I'll go next ...

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

I'll admit it, I didn't love "Snakes on a Plane," and there were probably nearly as many things that I could make fun of after walking out of that movie than there were after my least favorite movie of all time, "Batman and Robin."

So why did my jaw hurt from smiling 20 minutes after I left the theater?

Honestly, I wouldn't tell anyone to go see this movie. Because at this point, I think anyone who hasn't seen it has missed the window of opportunity. Every day that goes by this movie will get a little worse, simply because it needs to be seen in a movie theater full of people that are genuinely excited to see it. Looking at the opening weekend numbers, that's not a good sign for the studio.

But I was lucky enough to see SoaP in the perfect situation: 10pm on a Friday with a few friends who were as excited as I was, in the popular Times Square theater, after a long week and a few frosty beverages, surrounded by an excited, loud, hissing crowd that made the movie even more enjoyable.

The plot was laughable, the direction terrible, the acting inconsistent, and the camera work vertigo-inducing, but in the end it was still enjoyable and lived up to the hype. Hell, waiting 80 minutes for Samuel Jackson to say his most anticipated line while the crowd went bonkers was worth it on its own.

But I wonder, even with all the publicity, if Samuel Jackson is asking what would have happened if "Deep Blue Sea" was released in 2006, called "Smart Sharks," and he was given the retort in the following exchange:

Dr. Susan McCallister: As a side effect the sharks got smarter.

Samuel Jackson: You stupid b****!

and then added: I'm tired of these mother f***in' sharks!

Because I don't think "Snakes" has legs. The weekend of August 17th it was an event. But the weekend of September 15th it's going to be a crappy action movie that is ready to close down in most theaters. I'm glad I caught it when it was an event.

Looking forward to the thoughts of any of this site's bloggers that saw the movie with me ...

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Everything is Rent

WHATEVER

In case you were wondering about the state of the rental market in Manhattan, my wife and I just learned that the apartment that we vacated yesterday will be going for $1895/month. That's a 31% increase on what they were asking for three years ago, when we moved in.

That is for a 325 square foot one bedroom in a walk up building. It has a dishwasher and is pretty quiet, but beyond that just a normal little apartment. Wow. Just, wow.

Monday, August 14, 2006

'Nuff Said

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Breathtaking

SPORTING GOODS

Mike Piazza just hit a solo home run vs. the Mets and the Shea faithful gave him a standing ovation. And they didn't let up until he gave them a curtain call. For those who are unaware, Piazza now plays for the Padres.
Has anyone ever seen a visiting player give a curtain call before? This makes me proud to be a Met fan.

Electrifying.

UPDATE (6th Inning): Holy crap, he just did it again and they gave him another ovation! This is unbelievable. "Sense of the moment" indeed.

Monday, August 07, 2006

A Movie I Hate They Are Making But Will Have to See

UNVERSAL REMOTE

You're not going to find a bigger fan of the Die Hard films than me (okay, maybe there is one guy...) but even I shudder at the news that Bruce Willis is going to reprise his starmaking role as John McLane in Live Free or Die Hard.

Yes that is the title.

And it is going to be directed by the guy that did Underworld.

Dear God.

First Stallone makes another Rocky movie and now this.

Thankfully, I found this at Defamer and it almost made up for it. It is awesome. Make sure you get to the chorus "Yippee ki-yay Motherf$%ker." I love how they make it look like Bruce is singing.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

A little scoring help

SPORTING GOODS

No need to comment on the Sox lost weekend; they are what they are right now. But I have a scoring question for whoever can answer:

Can someone explain to me how David Wells is only charged with one unearned run in this inning?

- D. Hollins singled to shallow left
- C. Crawford safe at first on first baseman D. Ortiz's fielding error, D. Hollins to second
- J. Cantu singled to left, D. Hollins scored, C. Crawford out at third
- T. Lee fouled out to catcher
- J. Gomes walked, J. Cantu to second
- G. Norton singled to center, J. Cantu scored, J. Gomes to second
- B.J. Upton singled to center, J. Gomes scored, G. Norton to second
- J. Paul singled to left, G. Norton scored, B.J. Upton to third
- B. Zobrist grounded into fielder's choice, J. Paul out at second

It seems to me that Crawford reaching on an error should have been out number one. So then him getting out while trying to reach 3B on a single shouldn't be counted as "potential out number two." Crawford can't be counted out twice, can he? Lee's foulout then should be "potential out number two" (as it is also the actual real out number two), so Wells then crapping the bed should all be earned.

I know it doesn't really matter, but David Wells shouldn't get any suggestion that he did anything less than suck on Saturday night.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Rebel without a clue

Whatever

Was flipping through the channels after Billy Wagner blew the Mets' game and I came across CBS's American Idol rip-off, Rock Star: Supernova. The last contestant had just finished singing a song by "The Who" and was being interviewed by the collection of washed up rockers. One of the rockers said, "That is a great song. That song is all about rebellion. Are you ready to be a rebel?" To which our young contestant replied, "Hell yeah. I'm getting a tattoo tomorrow."

How rebellious.