And we're back.
Sports
UT Football
Well... It's tough to say it was a building year for the Texas Longhorns. This was Year 2 without Vince, and Year 2 when I cringed my way through the multiple personalities of Colt McCoy at QB. Add in an offensive line which didn't always look that interested in protecting Colt and a secondary that seemed to slow, too small and often perplexed by every offense which they faced.
And, of course, UT lost to an A&M team for the second year in a row. An A&M team which, on paper, they should have manhandled. The bottom line is that A&M wants it more when UT faces them down.
The Holiday Bowl brought me some small feelings of good cheer as UT walked all over ASU in the first half and kept it up pretty well in the 2nd. Once again, and this is just my feeling, but I sorta still believe the Big 12 is just a lot tougher conference than the Pac-10. This year I would put virtually any Big 12 school up against ASU and I'd expect pretty much the same result.
Dallas Cowboys
Oh, the season held such promise. And then Romo started "dating" Jessica Simpson.
My Superbowl dreams of Cowboys v. Pats now seem in a great deal of jeopardy.
My God, TO was getting along with the team... it was going to be great...
Spurs
The Spurs won. Again.
Suns
Did not win. Again.
Baseball and Steroids
For some reason, I'm completely in denial about Roger Clemens taking steroids. Bonds? Sure. But Clemens? No reason it couldn't be true, but I thought he was just a guy who liked to eat a lot of red meat and pasta or something.
Alas.
As much as everyone wants to freak out about the list of names, what they should really be looking at is why Selig and MLB have ignored the rumored use of steroids and not asked the players to do so much as pee in a cup for their million dollar salaries. After all, high school athletes have to do the same, as do employees at Subway.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
DITMTLOD: Sean Young as Rachael in Blade Runner
I dig Blade Runner. Depending on my mood, its easily one of my favorite movies. Sure, it's clunky in parts, and there are multiple cuts with different meanings, but this isn't a post about the arcane magic of Blade Runner. This is a post about a 13 year-old League raising an eyebrow in honor of Sean Young as a robotic noir love interest.
It's not accurate to refer to the Rachael character in Blade Runner as a Femme Fatale. In fact, for a noirish crime drama, there is no woman trying to take Deckard out unless you count both Pris and Zhora, neither of whom use seduction in the "kill Deckard" technique and so aren't really femme fatales in the sense I understand the term.
I saw Sean Young as Rachael before I was aware that Ms. Young had an odd reputation in Hollywood circles. And I am positive I had seen the movie before the Catwoman debacle. In all likelihood, I didn't know who Sean Young was when I saw Blade Runner the first time.
Rachael the replicant is smokin'.
Not to belabor a point, but I might add this movie also had Daryl Hannah in punk-aesthetic and Joanna Cassidy running around in nothing but glitter. But I guess, you know, the whole "trying to kill you" thing was a bit of a turn-off when I was 13.
The character of Rachael was (spoiler alert) of course a "replicant", ie: a synthetic human. More human than human, if you will. And, of course, that lent a certain odd, doomed mystique to the character as she progresses down her character arc and adds her to the distinguished line of Lady Robots of Interest (we can begin with the robot Maria from Metropolis and follow through Ghost in the Shell).
Mostly, though, Rachael personified the elitist ice-queen of the detective flicks, sometimes the wife or daughter of a shady millionaire in Chandler novels. Like other good ice-queens, Rachael was tough on the outside, but once past the frosty exterior, she falls for the bedraggled detective.
And, of course, what guy doesn't want to see himself as a tough guy detective (no, it doesn't matter how young or old)?
Rachael examines a note from Rick. She will check "Yes, I like you".
Or, more to the point, what wanna-be hard-boiled detective doesn't also want to think that if he finds the right angle, the lovely but generally unpleasant girl will fall madly for him and will no longer be so unpleasant? (My suspicion is that this generally does not really work out.)
Aside from a shot or two of Sean Young's thigh when Deckard and Rachael get their groove on, Rachael is always dressed in throwback outfits, lifted from the Lauren Bacall gowns and dresses, particularly the big-shoulders-era. I think we were to understand the wardrobe suggested what the script did not explicitly mention, that the suggested social role Rachael had been placed into was of the elite, living above the squalor of the streets. After her introduction, Rachael's huge fut coat seems oddly out of place on the streets of LA versus how it might look among the heights of the Tyrell pyramids.
Whether Young developed Rachael's mannered speech and movements, I really have no idea. Certainly the casting away of those behaviors becomes part of the movie and character as she finds out the truth about herself.
But, there's that toughness to Rachael that's necessary to a film like Blade Runner or, in fact, a believable love-interest for a hard-boiled detective film of any stripe. Rachael does, after all, pick up Deckard's gun and save the day when Deckard faces off with Leon. She does decide to take her life into her own hands once she realizes that her memories were nothing but implants.
Depending upon your preference for which cut you want to watch, Rachael may or may not have much time. Let alone Deckard (late breaking spoiler. Sorry).
Raccoon eyes for Rachel
So, a salute to Sean Young's portrayal of Rachael. That's a Replicant in the Media the League Once Dug.
It's not accurate to refer to the Rachael character in Blade Runner as a Femme Fatale. In fact, for a noirish crime drama, there is no woman trying to take Deckard out unless you count both Pris and Zhora, neither of whom use seduction in the "kill Deckard" technique and so aren't really femme fatales in the sense I understand the term.
I saw Sean Young as Rachael before I was aware that Ms. Young had an odd reputation in Hollywood circles. And I am positive I had seen the movie before the Catwoman debacle. In all likelihood, I didn't know who Sean Young was when I saw Blade Runner the first time.
Rachael the replicant is smokin'.
Not to belabor a point, but I might add this movie also had Daryl Hannah in punk-aesthetic and Joanna Cassidy running around in nothing but glitter. But I guess, you know, the whole "trying to kill you" thing was a bit of a turn-off when I was 13.
The character of Rachael was (spoiler alert) of course a "replicant", ie: a synthetic human. More human than human, if you will. And, of course, that lent a certain odd, doomed mystique to the character as she progresses down her character arc and adds her to the distinguished line of Lady Robots of Interest (we can begin with the robot Maria from Metropolis and follow through Ghost in the Shell).
Mostly, though, Rachael personified the elitist ice-queen of the detective flicks, sometimes the wife or daughter of a shady millionaire in Chandler novels. Like other good ice-queens, Rachael was tough on the outside, but once past the frosty exterior, she falls for the bedraggled detective.
And, of course, what guy doesn't want to see himself as a tough guy detective (no, it doesn't matter how young or old)?
Rachael examines a note from Rick. She will check "Yes, I like you".
Or, more to the point, what wanna-be hard-boiled detective doesn't also want to think that if he finds the right angle, the lovely but generally unpleasant girl will fall madly for him and will no longer be so unpleasant? (My suspicion is that this generally does not really work out.)
Aside from a shot or two of Sean Young's thigh when Deckard and Rachael get their groove on, Rachael is always dressed in throwback outfits, lifted from the Lauren Bacall gowns and dresses, particularly the big-shoulders-era. I think we were to understand the wardrobe suggested what the script did not explicitly mention, that the suggested social role Rachael had been placed into was of the elite, living above the squalor of the streets. After her introduction, Rachael's huge fut coat seems oddly out of place on the streets of LA versus how it might look among the heights of the Tyrell pyramids.
Whether Young developed Rachael's mannered speech and movements, I really have no idea. Certainly the casting away of those behaviors becomes part of the movie and character as she finds out the truth about herself.
But, there's that toughness to Rachael that's necessary to a film like Blade Runner or, in fact, a believable love-interest for a hard-boiled detective film of any stripe. Rachael does, after all, pick up Deckard's gun and save the day when Deckard faces off with Leon. She does decide to take her life into her own hands once she realizes that her memories were nothing but implants.
Depending upon your preference for which cut you want to watch, Rachael may or may not have much time. Let alone Deckard (late breaking spoiler. Sorry).
Raccoon eyes for Rachel
So, a salute to Sean Young's portrayal of Rachael. That's a Replicant in the Media the League Once Dug.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Marvel Officially Much Better at Interwebs than DC
I while back The League took a look at the Marvel online comic experience with their Digital Comics Unlimited effort.
Today I saw their new marvelkids.com website, and its really, really cool. They have some major nav issues to work out, and having Cap prominently displayed at this point is a bit... well. But there's potential here.
DC's efforts for kids are not so good. Category before characters? What are they selling, anyway? And, really, you can't actually BUY anthing off the site, so the whole point of the site is sort of up in the air.
I'm probably just really jazzed by the Iron-Man CG feature, but I think Marvel is taking a step in the right direction.
If only I could get this excited about the actual Spidey and Iron-Man comics...
Today I saw their new marvelkids.com website, and its really, really cool. They have some major nav issues to work out, and having Cap prominently displayed at this point is a bit... well. But there's potential here.
DC's efforts for kids are not so good. Category before characters? What are they selling, anyway? And, really, you can't actually BUY anthing off the site, so the whole point of the site is sort of up in the air.
I'm probably just really jazzed by the Iron-Man CG feature, but I think Marvel is taking a step in the right direction.
If only I could get this excited about the actual Spidey and Iron-Man comics...
Friday, January 04, 2008
Comics 2008
In trying to create a new Ryan for 2008, I dropped a few titles when I went to the store this week. I dropped:
This is after I'd already dropped:
1) I was simply getting overwhelmed. I wasn't finishing my stack each week.
2) I kept getting vaguely depressed about money I'd spent on comics I didn't like. For every two or three bad comics, that was a Jimmy Olsen, Superman, Adventure, Action or Lois Lane back issue I could be picking up.
3) I wasn't picking up and trying anything new. Why did I spend money on Arena and not try the hipsterish "Umbrella Academy" they interwebs are liking? Or trying stuff I'd never heard of.
4) As much as I like the characters, there's no joy in seeing them go through the paces in mediocre stories.
I certainly haven't lost love of super-hero comics. There are still lots of titles on the list of what I will pick up. I just don't want to buy comics any more that aren't consistent or well done, hoping they get better. Comics are too expensive any more to justify following a series because you keep forgetting to purge it from your pull list.
There are a few substandard series I'm sticking with until they wrap, just because I'm curious. "Countdown" and "Death of the New Gods" (seriously... this series has been two issues two long already, and Starlin's "everyman" dialog for the New Gods is awkward and misplaced. He's a fine artist, but he needs an editor like nobody's business.) are on that list.
I'm hoping as the events of 2008 unfold, I'll find new titles to stick with. We'll see. In the meantime, I'd also like to do some exploring of comics I haven't given a chance.
Oh, and by the way, Jim Shooter's issue of Legion of Super-Heroes was the single best issue of Legion I've ever read. Just saying. That guy still has it.
- JLA: Classified
- Amazing Spider-Man (I'll pick it up again when they eventually ret-con One More Day out of existence)
- Some Countdown tie-ins that I totally don't care about (Mystery, Adventure)
- Wildstorm titles
- Black Panther
- Birds of Prey
- Teen Titans
- ...and a few more
This is after I'd already dropped:
- Batman: Classified
- Welcome to Tranquility
- Godland
- ...and a few more
1) I was simply getting overwhelmed. I wasn't finishing my stack each week.
2) I kept getting vaguely depressed about money I'd spent on comics I didn't like. For every two or three bad comics, that was a Jimmy Olsen, Superman, Adventure, Action or Lois Lane back issue I could be picking up.
3) I wasn't picking up and trying anything new. Why did I spend money on Arena and not try the hipsterish "Umbrella Academy" they interwebs are liking? Or trying stuff I'd never heard of.
4) As much as I like the characters, there's no joy in seeing them go through the paces in mediocre stories.
I certainly haven't lost love of super-hero comics. There are still lots of titles on the list of what I will pick up. I just don't want to buy comics any more that aren't consistent or well done, hoping they get better. Comics are too expensive any more to justify following a series because you keep forgetting to purge it from your pull list.
There are a few substandard series I'm sticking with until they wrap, just because I'm curious. "Countdown" and "Death of the New Gods" (seriously... this series has been two issues two long already, and Starlin's "everyman" dialog for the New Gods is awkward and misplaced. He's a fine artist, but he needs an editor like nobody's business.) are on that list.
I'm hoping as the events of 2008 unfold, I'll find new titles to stick with. We'll see. In the meantime, I'd also like to do some exploring of comics I haven't given a chance.
Oh, and by the way, Jim Shooter's issue of Legion of Super-Heroes was the single best issue of Legion I've ever read. Just saying. That guy still has it.
Hey, fever!
Everyone is sick. Not just Jamie and me and Nicole. EVERYONE. People from my office were either at home or going home to be sick. I feel funky, and not in the James Brown approved manner. Jamie feels bad. Nicole wasn't doing great. Jason is usually so full of allergies, he didn't really notice anything different.
Jamie is in full-blown denial regarding her allergies and is insisting she's got a cold, which is possible, but it seems odd that she has exactly the same reaction to the spores in the air as the rest of us, but hers are coming from another source.
My eyes have honestly felt sort of weird for three days, and yesterday I took something called Alavert. Which made me feel better, but which made me have the attention span of a hamster on crack. It was impossible for me to focus for more then five minutes at a time yesterday.
It would be great if we'd get some rain and wash some of the stuff in the air away, but forecasts aren't really calling for any of that.
Jamie is in full-blown denial regarding her allergies and is insisting she's got a cold, which is possible, but it seems odd that she has exactly the same reaction to the spores in the air as the rest of us, but hers are coming from another source.
My eyes have honestly felt sort of weird for three days, and yesterday I took something called Alavert. Which made me feel better, but which made me have the attention span of a hamster on crack. It was impossible for me to focus for more then five minutes at a time yesterday.
It would be great if we'd get some rain and wash some of the stuff in the air away, but forecasts aren't really calling for any of that.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Three Movies I saw
During my days off, I saw some movies...
Juno: Occasionally you wander into a movie and realize that the movies aimed at the hip, the young, the with-it, the tastemakers... are no longer aimed at you. And that movie has unintentionally informed you that you are either too old, too unhip or too cynical to enjoy the movie in the way it was meant to be watched.
People love this movie. I thought it was okay, but I don't really get why people are falling over each other to praise the flick. At best, it seems like a good starter vehicle for star Ellen Page.
I found the dialog oddly stilted and stylized for a fairly concrete sort of movie, and I was sort of having trouble buying the hipper-than-thou'ness of the lead character and references that seemed to place the movie about ten to fifteen years ago. Toss in a nigh-lack of consequence for the lead characters, and a somewhat insidious cry for conformity, and the movie just didn't work for me.
Walk Hard: Is Exactly what you think it is. Only a little less funny. I do wonder if it would be funnier on a second viewing as the movie is terribly quotable. Unfortunately, in spoofing a film like "Walk the Line", the characters need to follow the same path as the late, great, screwed up Johnny Cash, you have to pretty much follow the many beats of the source material. This makes the movie seem a bit bogged down, and occasionally those familiar with Walk the Line or Cash's bio may not find much humor in scenes as they're played.
A renter for a boring Friday night, I'd say.
And, I know I am alone in this, but I think Tim Meadows is one of the most under-appreciated comedians on TV or film. That guy cracks me up. And, yes, I have both seen and ENJOYED The Ladies Man.
I am Legend: If Juno was not aimed at me, I am Legend is pretty squarely targeting me directly. Part action movie, part character piece, part Zombie flick, and featuring explosions and the affable Will Smith, they might as well have written "with The League in mind" right on the poster.
That said, the movie left too many gaps that I filled in from viewings of The Omega Man, but successfully changed the "mutants" into something far more frightening than the albino goobers of Omega Man.
Still, one feels that the movie seemed like it could have been larger in scope somehow, and that the movie seems too often like its trying to get you to jump and too seldom like there's much past the spookiness in the shadows.
Probably worth seeing in a dark theater at matinee. Or go rent Omega Man for an ending that has a really grim downer before the credits, the kind that you just don't get any more thanks to the suits wanting to offer the audience either hope or a chance of a sequel.
Juno: Occasionally you wander into a movie and realize that the movies aimed at the hip, the young, the with-it, the tastemakers... are no longer aimed at you. And that movie has unintentionally informed you that you are either too old, too unhip or too cynical to enjoy the movie in the way it was meant to be watched.
People love this movie. I thought it was okay, but I don't really get why people are falling over each other to praise the flick. At best, it seems like a good starter vehicle for star Ellen Page.
I found the dialog oddly stilted and stylized for a fairly concrete sort of movie, and I was sort of having trouble buying the hipper-than-thou'ness of the lead character and references that seemed to place the movie about ten to fifteen years ago. Toss in a nigh-lack of consequence for the lead characters, and a somewhat insidious cry for conformity, and the movie just didn't work for me.
Walk Hard: Is Exactly what you think it is. Only a little less funny. I do wonder if it would be funnier on a second viewing as the movie is terribly quotable. Unfortunately, in spoofing a film like "Walk the Line", the characters need to follow the same path as the late, great, screwed up Johnny Cash, you have to pretty much follow the many beats of the source material. This makes the movie seem a bit bogged down, and occasionally those familiar with Walk the Line or Cash's bio may not find much humor in scenes as they're played.
A renter for a boring Friday night, I'd say.
And, I know I am alone in this, but I think Tim Meadows is one of the most under-appreciated comedians on TV or film. That guy cracks me up. And, yes, I have both seen and ENJOYED The Ladies Man.
I am Legend: If Juno was not aimed at me, I am Legend is pretty squarely targeting me directly. Part action movie, part character piece, part Zombie flick, and featuring explosions and the affable Will Smith, they might as well have written "with The League in mind" right on the poster.
That said, the movie left too many gaps that I filled in from viewings of The Omega Man, but successfully changed the "mutants" into something far more frightening than the albino goobers of Omega Man.
Still, one feels that the movie seemed like it could have been larger in scope somehow, and that the movie seems too often like its trying to get you to jump and too seldom like there's much past the spookiness in the shadows.
Probably worth seeing in a dark theater at matinee. Or go rent Omega Man for an ending that has a really grim downer before the credits, the kind that you just don't get any more thanks to the suits wanting to offer the audience either hope or a chance of a sequel.
Melbotis Reading Club: All the Pretty Horses
Hey, Leaguers...
I've had a question regarding what I'm actually reading. I picked up a three book Cormac McCarthy collection of the Border Trilogy.
It's just over $20 for three books in hard cover, and that ain't bad.
Here.
There was also some talk of some sort of reading circle. Well, I'm reading All the Pretty Horses, and I'm on about page 95 right now if you want to catch up.
Before I read my next book, I'll be listing the book and version of it I'll be reading before I crack the cover. And if you want to play along at home, feel free to do so.
I've had a question regarding what I'm actually reading. I picked up a three book Cormac McCarthy collection of the Border Trilogy.
It's just over $20 for three books in hard cover, and that ain't bad.
Here.
There was also some talk of some sort of reading circle. Well, I'm reading All the Pretty Horses, and I'm on about page 95 right now if you want to catch up.
Before I read my next book, I'll be listing the book and version of it I'll be reading before I crack the cover. And if you want to play along at home, feel free to do so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)