Ambition

I’m back with a big update. You’ll have to excuse me for my less frequent posts, I’ve been busy writing my book “Moneyball 2: how steroids and three aces created a playoff team.” It’ll be a closer look at the Oakland A’s of the early oughts, how the Moneyball theories really didn’t create a title contender it was more a result of striking gold on three pitching prospects. The revisionist history being that the Oakland A’s would’ve been hard pressed not to succeed given the fact that they were running three young Cy Young contenders into the ground and their team had the most rampant steroid use in Major League Baseball. OK, you caught me; there’s isn’t any book in the works.

A quick sidebar: how is it that new ads for Gossip Girl can say “OMFG”? Is this really allowed by sensors? Do they just not know what it means? I think this goes back to the whole “skeet skeet” thing from a few years back. It’s obscene but really it’s some sort of inside code of obscenity, so they’re skirting the issue. If it were up to me I wouldn’t allow it unless I allowed the word Fuck on prime time television as well. While we’re at it, I demand that John Cena change the name of his wrestling from the STFU to something more appropriate.

Anyway, I’m not here to talk baseball or censorship today, I’m all about my true passion, the art of film. I’ve been plowing through my Netflix queue lately. I saw No Country for Old Men again, and it was just as great as the first time I saw it. There was a huge outcry when the movie came out because the ending didn’t provide enough closure, there was too much ambiguity, but after seeing it again I actually enjoy the ending more. It was a much more satisfying ending than last year’s best picture, The Departed, where just about every character gets killed. (Sorry if you haven’t seen it perhaps I should have written “SPOILER ALERT!!!” or perhaps you should’ve seen it by now, it’s a year and a half old.) Anyway, even if you didn’t enjoy the ending I strongly recommend seeing it again, on the other hand if your problem was that you didn’t enjoy a sociopath mowing down everyone in his path; well I guess that’s a valid reason to skip it.

On the other end of the spectrum we had the Darjeeling Limited. I’ve been a big fan Wes Anderson’s films, and also a huge fan of Owen Wilson, but I feel like I’ve spent too many hours of my life watching slightly less interesting versions of his previous works. Wes is suffering from the law of diminishing returns, Rushmore was great, very funny and unique, but then came the Royal Tennenbaums which I thoroughly enjoyed but not nearly as much as Rushmore and so came The Life Aquatic an enjoyable trip and now the Darjeeling limited, each time the laughs were fewer and further between. I don’t really have any advice for Wes on how to remedy this, but I’m not paying for another identical comedy, no matter if it comes with a short film where Natalie Portman gets naked or not.

Anyway, these were pretty well known releases, especially No Country for Old Men, but I wanted to shine a light on a lesser known film, that film, Southland Tales. Southland Tales was Richard Kelly’s directorial follow up to the cult classic Donnie Darko. From all appearances I’d say that Kelly was trying to make a masterpiece but ended up with a total frickin’ mess. I don’t know how far off this film was from coming together and being a masterpiece, perhaps it’s a very thin line between garbage and masterpiece, but this one never came together. I had actually heard as much before renting Southland Tales, but I’ve always been a big fan of ambition, and frankly I miss it. Ever since the punk rock movement in the late 70s there hasn’t been nearly enough ambition, no one tries to make epic masterpieces anymore. The Led Zeppelins of the world gave way to The Ramones, mostly because no one was as talented as Led Zep, so most were better off imitating the Ramones. My point is that I’m willing to watch crap like Southland Tales in the hopes of someone making the next Star Wars or Godfather Trilogy. There were some enjoyable scene but I’d strongly advise against this one. I’ve taken the bullet for all of us on this one, and even though I support ambition, there’s no point in all of us sitting through it. Don’t cry for me, the lovely and talented Cheri Oteri was in this one, so I don’t regret my sacrifice..

That’s all I’ve got for today.

-Bender Out

And in the end...

The Final four, the culmination of March Madness, I even think I picked Kansas back in December, or whenever it was that they kicked BC’s ass so soundly. Of course when I filled out my bracket I had UNC and when I was asked who would win before tip-off I said Memphis, but I think I’ll concentrate on my December prediction. I’ll admit that I was definitely rooting for Memphis; I’ve become infatuated with Derrick Rose’s talents. The Miami Heat were widely thought to be tanking for a shot at Michael Beasley, but I think they might want to be tanking for a shot at Rose instead. I loved seeing Memphis put it to UCLA, for some reason UCLA fans and supporters had become unbearable to me. Between the “no love for Love” debate, and their fans complaining about the constant reminders of every call going their way for a couple months. Listen, that’s the price you pay for getting a series of awful calls go in your favor, you got the wins but in exchange you have to listen to the complaints. Anyway, I didn’t mind Kansas winning. After years of not winning despite having arguably the best overall talent in the last fifteen years, why not have them breakthrough and win. Bill Self like Roy Williams before him had been labeled as a guy who couldn’t win big games, as recently as three weeks ago there was talk of Self being fired without a great run, of course now he’s the subject of a bidding war between Kansas and his Alma Mater Oklahoma State.

So some final thoughts on the college basketball season. Today on ESPN’s Around the Horn they asked if this Kansas team was one of the best ever in college basketball. The question is ridiculous on several levels. First, while they did have a very good season, they certainly didn’t dominate for the entire season. But more importantly, the best players don’t stay in college anymore. Derrick Rose was the best player in this tournament, and he was a damned freshman. He isn’t one of the all-time greatest freshman either, and next year he’ll be in the NBA, with all the other truly elite players. No team of this era would win against the best teams from the 90s. To call them one of the greatest teams of all-time you have to compare them with teams like the Early 90s Dukies. I’m not even sure if this team could’ve kept the game close against the Laettner/Hurley Duke team. How about the Fab Five Michigan teams, they didn’t even win a title, but I don’t think they would’ve had too much trouble disposing of a team like Kansas. I don’t mean to come down too hard on Kansas, they were the best team this year and deserve to have their day, but we should also remember that college basketball isn’t what it used to be despite what all of its fanatical supporters would claim.

One more quick sports note for today. Bill Buckner threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Red Sox home opener today. The fans gave him a huge standing ovation that lasted for more than two and a half minutes once he got to the mound. All the sportscasts declared that the Boston fans had finally forgiven Buckner. Enough time had past, and the Sox had won two championships, the fans could be so magnanimous as to forgive poor Bill. No longer would they ask “how dare he?” The real question is can Bill forgive the Red Sox fans. Today wasn’t about the redemption of Bill Buckner, it was about the redemption of Red Sox nation. Bill forgives them for their years of unwarranted abuse, and the applause was just an indication that the fans finally deserved his forgiveness. Bill never had to be forgiven, he gave everything he had to the game, he hobbled out there everyday and performed as a near Hall of Fame level player. He made one error in extra innings of a tie game and for some reason that’s all that anyone wants to remember. It’s all part of the strange relationship between athletes and fans. The fans feel like the players owe them something, the players somehow represent them because they play for their favorite team. It’s all very baffling, but somehow Bill Buckner and Steve Bartman and many others have been sucked up by this bizarre fixation and had their lives altered forever. Today Red Sox nation is forgiven its past discretions but doomed to repeat them someday. Today we can cheer and lets just hope we actually learned something through all of this.