January 9, 2010 at 9:59 pm · Filed under First thoughts
In the words of Les Grossman, a nutless monkey could do my current position. The “Man” tells me I’m an IC Specialist. The eye tells me I pick up boxes and files and move them from point A to point B. Needless to say, I have tons of free time and have used it to listen to countless books on my mp3/iPod.
As Kris tackles the greatest films of all time, I’ve started to tackle some of the literary classics. Recently I listened to Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” with the famous first chapter that has been paraphrased by countless people since…
Needless to say, Saturday’s #12 Georgetown vs. #13 Connecticut was a tale of two halves and I saw it as such thanks to the magic that is the Digital Video Recorder.
After letting the youngest watch three hours of educational TV, or whatever kept her from making the most noise and running me up a wall, I took over the tube for the 12 noon start for an early jump on the Big East title.
I’ve seen as much of the Hoyas this year as possible and it’s clear to me that Greg Monroe will be a quality NBA pro. He won’t be a superstar, but I can see him doing what another recent G’Town big is doing. Last year, Jeff Green averaged 16 ppg, 6 rbns and 2 assists. His numbers are down this year, but that’s about where I see Monroe.
The problem the Hoyas have is Chris Wright is a junior leader, yet plays like a stupid freshman for at least 5 minutes of every game. Even when he’s scoring 30 against Harvard or putting up 20+ to take down a scrappy St. John’s team, he makes too many dumb plays to be a positive difference maker. Early on against the Huskies, he took a couple of stupid shots and made a silly pass and UConn will make you pay.
Watching UConn for the first time reminds me of a typical well-recruited but young team. Jim Calhoun has a ton of talent that wants to play a structured street ball game. They want to press, run after every change of possession and attack the glass. They’re a poor shooting team, whether it’s from behind the arc or from the stripe. Nevertheless, if you get caught up trying to run with them you’ll fall behind quickly.
That’s what happened to the Hoyas. There are no seniors on this team, so no one to explain that while we can run with teams, to run with the Huskies falls into their game plan. I was waiting for my wife to finish getting dressed and saw my boys fall down by 15 at the break. I then set it to record and left to go shopping and eat a lot of meat at Golden Corral.
I returned to listen to Dick Vitale stop slurping UConn and start marveling the breakout performance of Austin Freeman. The 6-4 junior guard supposedly slimmed down this year and it’s helped his shooting. On this afternoon, he was left open on Town’s basic screen hand-off at the wing. It’s a shot that’s always there in this modified Princeton offense and for some reason, UConn never closed out on the shooter.
Maybe they got comfortable with such a big lead (They led by as many as 19 in the first half). Maybe they didn’t think Freeman would hit the shot (which is silly after he had nailed the first two). Maybe, despite the fact they block a lot of shots, UConn is just not a great defensive team (that’s my opinion). Either way, Freeman got hot and for a long portion of the second half was outscoring the entire Husky squad.
With the Hoyas hanging onto a 1-point lead, the final 40 seconds should just be it’s own highlight. Probably cut it down to the final 20 cuz UConn had a couple of chances but couldn’t hit either open look. End result was a quality win, the Hoyas’ third victory over a Top 20 team this year and likely enough to stay in the Top 15 when the polls come out on Monday.
January 9, 2010 at 7:59 am · Filed under First thoughts
While our fat friend has started an admirable journey through classic films with pedigree, I have my own little aside into the business that is show. At least for one evening.
With two little girls running around and a wife who works an overnight weekend shift, you can imagine just how much time I have. Yet alone the time to watch what I want when I want to watch it. My current situation has allowed me to see films like the first two Cheetah Girls movies (Remember Raven Symone from the final years of the Cosby Show? Combine her with the girls from 3LW, a short-lived R&B group and you have proof that Whitney Houston didn’t blow all her money away since she was a producer).
Houston was also a producer on both film adaptations of The Princess Diaries, the vehicle that got Anne Hathaway’s career moving and reminded America that Julie Andrews is still kicking ad vital.
And sadly, I’ve seen all three High School Musicals. I can only say this — if you want a quick laugh, watch any of the basketball scenes from any of the films. The fictional high school in New Mexico wins back-to-back state championships with the dreamy Zak Efron as the star. Only Efron can’t play a lick of basketball. I mean he looks bad just shooting unguarded…
But I digress…
Needless to say, the opportunities I get to watch a film I actually like are few and far between. So on Friday night when I was able to get my 2-year old asleep and looked up, I was shocked to see that there were three films on my expansive list of films I love.
I’ll start with the selection from Starz - The Count of Monte Cristo starring Jim Caviezel and a standout performance by one of the most underrated actors of our time, Guy Pearce. First the film, an adaptation of the book by Alexande Dumas. The fat Frenchman also wrote The Man in the Iron Mask and The Three Musketeers, but this is the best story of the three in my opinion. When I was working at the University of South Carolina, I went on a book splurge.
While sleeping behind the couch on the floor, I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (in 2000 before the films came out) and The Count. The movie takes a slightly different but well conceived path than the book. It’s a tale of a decent guy who gets railroaded and betrayed by a “friend” and ends up doing 13 years in a French prison. He escapes with a treasure map to countless cash and revenge on his mind.
The director, Kevin Reynolds, has a hit or miss resume but he did a really good job with this unlike Waterworld. It helps when you have a great story, quality actors and Pearce doing what he does like in LA Confidential, Memento and The Hurt Locker.
Bravo was showing Fight Club and that’s one of my all-time favorites. I just finished that book and David Fincher, who also gave up Se7en, The Game (with Sean Penn and Michael Douglas) and Panic Room, really hit a home run. Going in reverse-order (film to book), I now see what they were working with and admire the ability to bring such a complex story to the screen and do it so well. It’s the little touches, like the splices of Tyler (Brad Pitt) before he’s introduced. An absolute classic.
Finally, TV Land was showing Groundhog Day, the tour de force of Bill Murray’s career. Harold Ramis, who according to IMDb.com has talked everyone into doing Ghostbusters III, directed this absolutely perfect film. You get all sides of Murray. You get Andie McDowell, who is a classic beauty. You get an absolutely perfect film from start to finish.
So there you have it, all three films on one night and both kids asleep so I can flip without having to stop on Nick Jr. or PBS Sprout.
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Now playing: ESPN 980 - January 7 2010 The Tony Kornheiser Show Part 2
via FoxyTunes