A quick breakdown of my must-sees for the summer movie season, which officially opens today.
1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - The book was my second favorite in the series (behind Prisoner of Azkaban). The movies keep getting better.
2. Terminator Salvation - I'm a HUGE Terminator geek. Not sure about Anton Yelchin as Reese, but Christian Bale is a badass.
3. Brüno - I don't know if it can possibly match Borat, but Sacha Baron Cohen has earned my commitment to find out.
4. Up - The name says it all. Plus it's Pixar, and it's in 3D!
5. Angels & Demons - I liked the book, and unlike a lot of folks, I enjoyed the first movie. This one should be more cinematic.
6. Public Enemies - Michael Mann directing Depp and Bale in a crime drama? Wouldn't miss it.
I'll probably end up seeing a few others, based on reviews or just 'cause, but these are the ones I'll plan weekends around.
There's a saying in baseball (according to Toby Ziegler, anyway). Every team's going to win 54 games, every team's going to lose 54, it's what you do with the other 54 games that counts.
Some approximation of that saying applies to presidential elections as well. Each candidate will win 180 electoral votes and lose 180, it's the remaining 180 votes that count. And they come from the same small group of battleground states every four years. Ohio and Florida are always critical. New Hampshire, Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, Colorado. Perhaps a couple others.
Any state not on that list gets largely ignored, the winner-take-all system providing no incentive to poll, advertise, or campaign where the outcome is already determined (and often pre-determined). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in just five states; over 80 percent in nine states; and over 99 percent of their money in just 16 states.
The creatively named National Popular Vote Inc (whose president was recently a guest speaker in one of my classes) is making a serious effort to change this dynamic, by ensuring that the presidency is awarded to the winner of the national popular vote. And contrary to popular belief, this doesn't require a Constitutional Amendment to throw out the electoral system.
Instead, NPV is trying to get each state to pass a bill under which that state agrees to award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of the outcome in the state itself. The bill is only activated when enough states (states accounting for at least 270 electoral votes) pass it, at which point the winner of the popular vote is guaranteed an electoral college majority. Genius!
Now, there may be some misgivings about changing a system established by our Founding Fathers in what seems like an end run around the Constitution to screw the small states and destroy federalism. I'll let NPV's myth-busting page address those concerns.
At this point, four states accounting for 50 electoral votes have enacted the National Popular Vote Bill: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey. Only 220 more electoral votes to go. And interestingly, NPV's polling shows strong support for this bill not only nationally, but even in the battleground states. Maybe the voters there are just sick of being bombarded by election commercials. Whatever the reason, don't be surprised if this is in place by 2012...
It didn't exactly take off the first time around, with the ridiculous red and blue glasses (an extra dimension, and all we had to sacrifice was 254 colors!), but 3D is back in a big way, and the experience is absolutely worth the extra few bucks.
So far Gina and I have only experienced the new Real D technology in animation (though it's occasionally used in live action films as well).
First was Bolt, a good movie in its own right, but definitely enhanced by the 3D. There were gratuitous objects in the foreground of most shots, and the occasional debris flying toward the screen, but I was actually wishing for more of that stuff. I didn't think it exploited the technology enough, especially for an action story.
Coraline was next, and while the movie was Tim Burton on acid (yeah, I know, but more acid), the visuals were stunning in 3D, which made up for some of the movie's shortcomings.
And this week we watched Monsters vs. Aliens, which made the best use of 3D yet. We also saw 3D sneak peaks of Up and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and they looked visually amazing.
I'm guessing most of you will see Up this summer, and I highly recommend giving 3D a shot. It'll be like watching a football game in HD. It's the same game, but it just looks so much better.
If you are a fan of golf or Charles Barkley, or comedy for that matter, you have to check out The Haney Project on the Golf Channel, Mondays at 6pm.
Barkley used to score regularly in the 80s, with occasional rounds in the 70s. But at some point the mental aspect of the game crushed him, and his swing came to look like this abomination:
Now Tiger's coach, Hank Haney, is taking on the task of fixing Barkley's swing. Based on just the first episode, which aired last week (posted below), it would probably cost millions for the amount of dedicated time Barkley gets from the famed swing guru. But you can already start to see the improvement.
It's been hard to get worked up about the Oscars recently. For the third straight year, I've seen only one of the five best picture nominees (heading into the show). This year I've seen only two of the twenty nominated performances, one more than last year and just two fewer than in '07.
Yet unlike the past two years, despite my continued unfamiliarity with most of the nominees, I'm actually looking forward to the show. In '08, Juno and Ellen Page weren't factors. In '07, The Departed was the favorite, but I didn't think it was that great, and I was actively rooting against Jennifer Hudson (to no avail). Didn't like Dreamgirls, and didn't like her in it. The other performances I saw that year (Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg) were fine but not contenders.
This year, I've seen the odds-on favorite for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, and I thought both were excellent. I obviously can't say they deserve to win, since I haven't seen the other nominees, but I can say that they are both worthy of the honor. Heath Ledger is the biggest lock of the night, and I look forward to seeing his family accept on his behalf. As for Slumdog, it lived up to its considerable hype. Very creative and satisfying. If you haven't seen it yet, head to your nearest multiplex before Sunday night.
Hopefully I can do the same for Milk. For whatever reason, it's the only remaining movie I'd regret not seeing before the show.
P.S. I also saw (and enjoyed) Man on Wire and Wall-E, good bets to win Best Doc and Best Animated.
I love the way Lost is unfolding this season. Announcing an end-date has freed the creators to start wrapping up story lines. But it makes me wonder if they're going to have time to get to everything. And that's assuming there's something to get to in the first place. What if some of the so-called mysteries were just things they threw out there to mess with our heads? I'll be so annoyed.
Here are some questions I want answered:
Why did the psychic tell Claire she couldn't give up her baby?
What's the significance of Hurley's numbers?
Why was Libbey in Hurley's psych ward?
What's the deal with that four-toed statue?
Why can't babies survive when conceived on the island?
Thank goodness I don't have class on Fridays. This is just a tremendous, high-quality tennis match between the two lefty Spaniards, with some of the best rallies I can remember. They won't let me sleep!
Three hours in, and they're only 4-4 in the third, one set apiece. Already four service breaks this set! Gina's going to wake up before it's over (and probably roll her eyes at me).
Nice Verdasco profile on ESPN. This guy is easy to root for, and I think he's going to be in the mix for a couple of years. But I want Nadal/Federer VII. They're long overdue for a Grand Slam final on the hard stuff.
6:08 AM
Nadal wins the longest Australian Open match ever, at 5 hours and 14 minutes. I was emotional for Verdasco at the end. The guy played like a champ. It's a shame it had to end, and since there are no fifth-set tie-breakers, I was hoping for an extended, 15-13 conclusion. Instead, Verdasco fell behind love-40, fought off two break points with swinging volleys, then finally double-faulted to lose 4-6.
Here are two of the best points of the match, and they're representative of how the whole thing went:
