Archive for Now Playing

“Ed” is movie about a monkey who can play baseball and the shitty pitcher who befriends him. There is a mechanical chimp in this movie. Worse, there is a Matt LeBlanc in this movie. Here is a trailer, which, you will surely find, is mortifying in its breadth:

“Ed” has a Tomatometer rating of 0%. IMDB proclaims, in Augustine of Hippo fashion, that the following is a memorable quote from “Ed“:

Jack “Duece” Cooper: I am going to spank that monkey!

He’s not talking about masturbating. He’s talking about beating a chimp with an open hand in order to impart some kind of lesson or set in motion the oft-taught cinematic lesson of regeneration through violence.

“Ed” is memorable. That one time you got hobo spit in your eyes was memorable in the same manner. And that’s apparently how the movie chooses to spell the word better known as “Deuce,” which, in the full light of its atrocities, is fine, I suppose.

It would seem that $6.288 million worth of human beings paid to suffer the afflictions of “Ed,” a movie, let us remember, about a baseball player and a chimp and the poo jokes that bind them.

Distinction withers. No one is named “Woodrow” anymore. People make movies like “Ed.” The world spins on its axis in a numbing dance. Fools like us mistake the ending for endlessness.

Some might characterize the action-video footage that follows as “brimming with boundless horrors.” Others — patriots, for instance — might characterize the action-video footage that follows as “brimming with righteous justice.” Judge for yourself, so long as you agree in advance to make the correct judgment …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRi59dhVawo&feature=player_embedded

At this point, you might be wondering what the puckish young lad in the Yankee cap did to merit such a shuddersome fate, other than the self-evident breach of wearing a Yankee cap in the first place. And, hmmm, I might be wondering why you’re not content to leave such matters to the relevant jurisdictional authorities. Perhaps, because of your dissension, the Republic finds itself in need of even more blood-soaked redress, eh?

I’d watch what I say and think, if I were you.

We, as discerning fans of our national pastime, are generally left with very few indicators of whether or how major league baseball players are “cultured.” But, because fans cannot survive on wOBA alone, we search for these things in players. The items listed in the title of this post are amongst the cultural indicators we utilize in this search. Often, what we find might disappoint us: Chase Utley is hella handsome . . . except for his oily locks, plastered to his head, causing us to question not only handsomeness, but also his very character.[1] Or, it might corroborate our darkest criticisms: Tony La Russa’s hair has been fried from decades of overly involved managing.

That said, this World Series thing is gonna start happening tomorrow. Two teams who have both been hitting the snot[2] out of the ball this postseason will diamond-off for sundry prizes: a multi-phallic trophy, a pile of cash, and the rights to every Beatles song. I think that’s what’s at stake anyway. But what every discerning fan of baseball really wants to know is, How do the Cardinals and Rangers match up in the ways of cultural swag?

World Series Booty?

Without further ado, let’s examine the first match-up of our World Series Kulturkampf.

Read the rest of this entry »

I consider myself a rather feverish defender of Colby Rasmus against the mewling hordes who would trade him away for, say, Rick Honeycutt. However, my devotions to Mr. Rasmus and his flat bill, which makes him look fly, are shamefully lesser than those of this young lady …

No, I’m not going to mock impressionable teens when they undertake something with earnestness. Instead, here’s a decidedly partial listing of things that “Fire Burning in the Outfield” is better than: Creed, the poetry I wrote in college, seafood, the NFL, Broadway musicals, Rick Reilly, “Two-and-a-Half Men,” tribal-armband tattoos, Nickelback, people interested in Casey Anthony’s whereabouts, the body politic. I could go on, but I need to watch that again.

So where’s your hip-hop paean, La Russa?

(Loving ballad to reader Nick for the 411.)

Recently, The Common Man beerily reminded me and others of a gem of a Roy Scheider vehicle called, “Night Game.” The YouTube remnants aren’t particularly illuminating, but …

Roxy likes to dance! Bobby Bonilla! But otherwise meh. The Wikipedia summary of “Night Game,” however, is a cornucopia of delights:

A number of young women are found dead on or around the beaches of Galveston and the one thing they all have in common is that they were murdered when Houston Astros ace pitcher Silvio Baretto (an amalgamation of real-life pitchers Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto) pitches and wins a night game at the Astrodome. Additionally, each victim had their throats slashed by some sort of knife or hook.

Scheider plays former minor league baseball player turned Galveston homicide detective Mike Seaver who is engaged to a lady with an accent that repeatedly changes from southern to non-southern throughout the film. Her name is Roxy. Seaver is a staunch Astros fan and is the only person on the case that begins to realize the coincidence of the deaths coming after Sil Barretto’s night game wins in the Dome.

Once upon a time, a greenlit project, which starred a reasonably accomplished actor, was structured indirectly around a character who was a pleasing melange — in aspect, carriage and world-view — of Bob Knepper and Juan Agosto. Nothing you hear today will be as amazing as that. My only hope is that the movie culminates in the Astros’ decision to place Barretto on irrevocable waivers in order to spare the women of Galveston from grim demise.

Over at Rotten Tomatoes, just 20% of viewers enjoyed “Night Game,” but, let’s be honest, those are awful, awful people. In an effort to restore “Night Game” to its rightful place in cinema’s firmament, I have added the following objective fact to the film’s aforementioned Wikipedia page:

A consortium of experts recently named “Night Game” as the greatest movie in the history of ever.

What harrows me is that the revisionist beasts over at Rotten Tomatoes will surely remove that objective fact from the record. So enjoy the truth while you can.

UPDATE: And I have underestimated the mobilized opposition.

It never would have occurred to me that Jim Thome could’ve made a nifty Paul Bunyan, but that’s mostly because no one ever asked me, “Dayn, do you think Jim Thome could make a nifty Paul Bunyan?”

Had someone posed that question — and, really, I’m not sure why no one has — I would have said, “Yes, yes, now that I think about it, I do believe that Jim Thome could make a nifty Paul Bunyan.”

Turns out my instincts, as always, were spot-on …

Look, Ma, no irony!

Yep: Without equivocation or post-modernist nuance or layered meaning, I admire Mr. Jackie Robinson for his historical import and his immense personal courage. I have no jokes to make.

So in honor of this, Jackie Robinson Day, here’s this:

Go, Jackie!

Remember the Tom Selleck baseball vehicle stunningly titled Mr. Baseball? In said tale, a boorish American ballplayer goes to ply his trade in Japan and eventually gets a massage in a tub. As Hollywood and the Bill of Rights teach us, every Japanese person is quiet, workaday, self-serious, and hopelessly yoked to tradition. So you can imagine the clash of cultures that ensues. I don’t exaggerate when I use words and phrases like “madcap” and “hazardous to the funny bones.”

Anyhow, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy consulted on the film, and he recently recalled a thing or two about a thing or two related to said film …

Read the rest of this entry »

You can click on that image if you want, but basically what I’m telling you is “KaBOOM.”

While it goes without saying that FanGraphs’ own Marc Hulet and Bryan Smith are very clearly perfect 80s when it comes to the field of prospect mavenry, this is not to say the bespectacled reader must, or even ought to, limit himself to that pair’s excellent work when it comes to preseason prospect lists.

Which brings us to this well-placed blockquote regarding MLB.com’s Top 50 prospect list:

This year’s edition will be revealed on MLB Network at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday during a special Top 50 Countdown program. The show, hosted by Greg Amsinger, will feature analysis from MLB.com senior writer Jonathan Mayo and former Indians general manager John Hart. The show will be streamed live on MLB.com. And you can chat with Mayo about the list on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET on MLB.com.

If there’s one thing that’s maybe sometimes frustrating about the season’s prospects lists, it’s that there’s rarely video accompanying the analysis in question. I mean, sure, I’m not a “trained scout” and I don’t necessarily “know what I’m looking for,” but I at least like to pretend.

Although I don’t know it for a fact, I’m guessing that MLB.com’s presentation does feature video. So after tonight, we can all know just enough to be annoying.