Here are some recent movies I’ve seen.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Birth
Sin City
The Longest Yard
All I Want

All of these movies were worth seeing for one reason or another. . . except maybe All I Want, which I saw because Franka Potente was in it. Unfortunately, so was Mandy Moore. Ah the beauty of a monthly movie subscription service. . no money actually wasted on a bad movie.

I absolutely LOVED The Life Aquatic. It had more than just the dry humor of Wes Anderson movies. .it was hauntingly beautiful. I don’t know why Steve Zissou is such a sympathetic character. I don’t know why that ugly cg jaguar shark was so breathtaking. Whatever it was, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I highly recommend it. I need to go back and see it again.

Birth was painfully slow. I usually don’t mind that at all about a movie, but this one even had me ocassionally looking at the clock to see when some of the scenes would be over. But I also thought this was visually a beautiful movie. I was less disturbed by the story than the outraged Salt Lake City critics. In fact, the entire subject of the movie was misrepresented . . yes, it was, in fact, about a woman thinking a 10 year old boy was the reincarnation of her dead husband. And yes, there were some uncomfortable scenes .. and my personal problem with it: yes, there were some plot holes. But the movie was really about the grief of this woman. . how precarious her emotional state is in having accepted the finality of her loss. I almost think the boy is just an accessory. . almost unnecessary except for his role in evoking these feelings in her. His presence is almost over the top . . a way of throwing in your face something that Nicole Kidman portrays beautifully all on her own. Worth seeing if you’re in the mood, and if your sensibilities are less delicate.

I probably liked The Longest Yard more than most people. Yes many of the characters were unnecessary and stupid and I could have done without the first 3/4 entirely. . but for me, a lover of all movies that are remotely related to sports, the final game at the end featuring likable actors Adam Sandler and William Fichtner was enough to win me over.

I’m not a comic book fan and can’t say anything interesting about Sin City that hasn’t been explored a hundred times over by people who know a lot more about this genre. .but I did enjoy this movie. Ultimately very entertaining most of all for being different than any other movie I’ve seen.

Those were the recent ones. .but I’m looking forward to movies next on my queue and those I plan to see in the theater over the holidays. More on this soon. . .

In other football news, this is the first year I decided to try my hand at fantasy football. I had to see what all the fuss was about. I have friends who have tried it before and abandoned it. One of them said that it takes away from the enjoyment of the game. . you become obsessed with a handful of players and start to pay less and less attention to who wins and loses, as long as you are putting up enough fantasy points. I knew all this, but I had to give it a shot. So I joined a fantasy league on NFL.com that was for beginners. It had a pretty good mix of men and women. It seemed like a pretty non-threatening league that would be right for me. My goal: just don’t come in dead last.

So how has it been? Unbelievable. I have had so much fun this season and learned so much about all the top players in the league (even the ones on teams I never used to follow). Everyone comes to me to find out who’s injured, who’s starting, and who’s playing who. I’m up on all the last minute football news. The best part is that not only have I reached my goal of not being dead last. . .last week I made the playoffs! This week I won my playoff game. .and now I’m in the Championship game . .the Superbowl game for the league! It should be tough. I am up against a formidable opponent. Granted there is nothing on the line. . .I didn’t play for money, but how great would it be to win it all? Wish me luck!

The greatest moment in sports happened this weekend. I know you all know what I’m talking about since it was such groundbreaking news, but in case you don’t, it was this:

Chicago Bears quarterback Rex Grossman, who was injured in this year’s preseason and in the early weeks of last years NFL regular season, entered the game for starting QB Kyle Orton. Orton was putting up very very poor numbers (2 completions of 10 pass attempts for 12 yards) and the Bears were staying afloat on their tremendous defensive performance. Grossman was received with wild applause from desperate Chicago fans who were very disappointed in the first half offense. He repayed the fans with a touchdown on his first drive in the game. Bears fans around the country were rejoicing. I know because I was in Salt Lake City and was immediately on the phone with friends/family in Seattle and Chicago. While Orton was a very safe QB that would allow us to hang in the game and let our defense wear down the opponents, we didn’t have anyone that could move the ball downfield. . anyone that could bring the threat of the pass to open up our running game. Our defense was doing it all. It was a game of field position until Grossman came in.

And so went the greatest moment in sports. The return of the hero that’s conquered nothing yet. But we will hope for the best. . . .

Last week, the Miami Dolphins beat the San Diego Chargers 23-21 in San Diego. This week, the Chargers brought the Indianapolis Colts’ undefeated 13-0 streak to an end in Indianapolis. As far as I’m concerned, that means Miami’s better than the Colts. Go Miami!

John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry on the West Wing (along with many other roles on both the small and big screen), died Friday of a heart attack. He was 58 years old. How ironic that his character on the show just survived the very same ailment. None of the show’s writers have as yet commented on the future of his story line on the show (he was running for vice president with democratic presidential nominee Matthew Santos played by Jimmy Smits). In this 7th season of the show, the story lines involving the rest of the cast seem to be just filler, taking a back seat to the election race drama.

What a sad development. .he was one of my favorite characters.

I am always saying that nobody likes any team or person that dominates a sport (other than the people who are cleared to be legitimate fans–e.g. residents of the place the team or person represents). Usually when I say this, I’m talking about the New England Patriots who have won 3 of the last 4 superbowls. And, being from Chicago, I was fully licensed to be a Bulls/Michael Jordan fan in the 90s but I know they made plenty of enemies, such as fans of the Utah Jazz/New York Knicks/Indiana Pacers etc.

But who is a better example of this phenomenon than 7-time Tour de France winner and eternal victor of the sour grapes, Lance Armstrong? In recent news, Mr. Armstrong is standing trial for 1) chasing an Italian tour rider during a stage in the 2004 tour that he says was whining and not doing any work during a breakaway (this makes little sense until you learn that cycling is actually a team sport and requires cyclists to work together–both with members of their team and others, at times) and 2) for libel against the same Italian for saying that he was a liar when he testified that a doctor affiliated with Armstrong suggested he use performance enhancing drugs.

I don’t know what this mess is about, but I do know that for an athlete who has accomplished what he has accomplished and overcome what he has had to overcome, Armstrong has had to deal with a disproportionate amount of animosity and had to fight off those whose mission in life seems to be to see him destroyed. Even the director of the Tour, Jean-Marie Leblanc, says that the sport is relieved that Armstrong will not be returning to the race next year.

While I usually understand the desire to unseat a dominant athletic figure from his throne, I don’t understand the desire to totally obliterate him. This man is superhuman. The extent of the metastasis of his cancer would have killed anyone. He survived it and accomplished what elite athletes only dream of. . . 7 times. His body is a machine that that functions at a level far beyond our own. He’s practically another species.

If we want to take away his ability to live his life in peace, we should be doing it so scientists can poke and prod him to find out what specifically about his far superior physical conditioning allowed him to survive his fight with this rampant cancer. . not so we can dig until we find something worthy of saying “phew! . . .see, i knew he wasn’t a hero and an inspiration . ..what a relief!”

So hate him if you want . . .he deserves it for being so damn good at what he does. But for God’s sake, don’t take away the best reason for hating him.

I just finished watching the last new episode of the West Wing that I TIVOed from last weekend. Those of you that have been watching this season will know that the majority of the episodes are centered around the race for the upcoming presidential election. The contenders are a young, charismatic Latino democrat from Houston played by Jimmy Smits and an aging republican straight-shooter played by Alan Alda. The writers are necessarily left-leaning due to 1) the fact they write about a democratic white house and 2) the fact that they’re part of the entertaiment industry like the deaf and deafening liberal Hollywood. But I have to give them credit. Hollywood would have generated a republican candidate who can simultaneously be cunning enough to fool the idiot masses into voting for him and be too stupid to use multisyllable words or sit still without drooling or, you know, perform any of those highly complex cognitive processes. The West Wing has at least managed to create an atmosphere on the show in which the fictional left has some degree of respect for the fictional conservative candidate. So are we guaranteed another season of ripped-from-the-headlines topics illuminated with a liberal light or can the writers give the public the same level of subtlety and insight into the views of a republican white house?

I love Google Desktop. It has changed my life. I keep everything very organized and know exactly where to find everything on my computer, but searching for things on Google Desktop is even faster than using explorer to go right to where I know it is. Just imagine how great it would be if I didn’t know where something was! Download it here.

Since I don’t see nearly as many movies as movie critics do, it doesn’t seem right to have an entire top 10. There are barely 10 movies I saw this year that I can say I really liked. So here are my top 3:

3- Melinda and Melinda
2- Crash
1- Red-eye

I saw Syriana this weekend and thought it was good. Not exactly Friday night fare, but still worth seeing. I thought it was odd when someone told me that it was a “completely true story” when I had envisioned rather a geo-political commentary with some factual basis, much like Stephan Ghagan’s previous movie Traffic. To set the record straight, you can listen to an interview with Robert Baer himself (the author of the novel that inspired the film) in which he “discusses the film and separates cinematic fact from fiction” and here is an excerpt from James Berardinelli’s Review:

“Syriana is not non-fiction. It has been “suggested” by Robert Baer’s factual See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, but writer/director Stephen Gaghan (who wrote Traffic) uses Baer’s book as a starting point. Although the story applies real-world parallels, it is made-up. But that doesn’t lessen its impact or its capacity to generate discussion. Most depressing of all may be Syriana’s conclusion that the problem has become so deeply rooted that nothing can dislodge it. Cynical or realistic? Sometimes, it’s hard to differentiate.”