One Man’s List

Obviously this weekend, all over the country, it’s all about The Dark Knight.  Many call it the best comic book movie ever.  While it is incredibly good, I won’t go that far (see below).  Like I said in my quasi-review, I love the movie, but there’s something that holds me back from rating it the greatest ever.  So without further ado…here’s my top 10 list:

1.  Batman Begins.  It’s simply brilliant.  It tells the story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman 100% accurately and has a stunningly great cast.  It shows how this is a man who is constantly racked with guilt, fear, and anger and how he’ll never truly be whole.  LOVE IT.

2.  Iron Man.  Certainly the best of the Marvel films, and again, it’s simply brilliant.  Robert Downey, Jr. owned the role of Tony Stark.  Again, it tells his back story accurately and the cast is just stunning.  Like with Batman Begins, it’s directed by a person who understands the character and what the movie needed to be.  Fantastic film.  Close second, and I mean CLOSE.

3.  The Dark Knight.  Extremely good, especially the way they handled the Joker.  Brilliant cast, great writing, but like I said, there’s just something about that holds me back from naming it better than it’s predecessor.  I might change my tune after a few months go by and the DVD comes out.  We’ll see.

4.  Superman the movie.  The original starring Christopher Reeve.  It’s the part he was born to play.  He nailed the character like no other actors has ever done.  He changed his voice, mannerisms, and body language when he switched between Clark Kent and Superman.  What most people don’t understand is that the glasses aren’t the only thing hiding his identity, he creates an entirely different person when he’s Clark.  On top of that, the movie was made in 1976 and as it promised, it made you believe a man could fly.  For 1976, the special effects are great and I think the movie still holds up aside from the fashion and old cars.  My only complaint is that Lex Luthor is essentially the comic relief.  He’s supposed to be cold, cunning, power obsessed, and evil.  They just didn’t write the character correctly.  Other than that, great flick.

5.  Batman.  From 1989 starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.  Keaton was great as Batman and Jack was amazing as the Joker.  It’s a great movie but I don’t like how they portrayed Commissioner Gordon and I hated Robert Wuhl’s character.  I don’t know where that reporter came from and I don’t know why they picked Wuhl who tends to be annoying at best.  Also Prince doing the soundtrack.  I like Prince, but he and Batman don’t really go together.  Other than that, they did a great job.

6.  X-Men.  I actually don’t know which I like better between all three movies, so I’ll just go with the original for the first appearance on the list.  Good casting, good story, great special effects.  I didn’t like some of the writing (“you know what happens to a toad that’s hit by lighting?  The same as everything else”…that’s just awful), the way they underused Sabertooth, and Halle Berry’s attempt an African accent.

7.  X-2.  Like I said, I like the three pretty equally, so they should probably all be grouped together on the list.  Liked what they did here with Nightcrawler and the first appearance of Colossus.  Lady Deathstrike was a nice touch too.

8.  X-Men The Last Stand.  Or X-Men 3 if you prefer.  A lot of people pan this movie, but I liked it.  Some shocking deaths, Kelsey Grammar as Beast was great and they had a good old fashioned knock down, drag out fight at the end of the movie.  I have few complaints.

9.  Daredevil.  Another movie that a lot of people pan, but I think was really well done.  Jennifer Garner’s a little stiff in it in terms of her performance, but I liked Affleck as Matt Murdock/Daredevil.  Some good casting and a story that was basically taken word for word, scene for scene from one of the comic book’s story arcs.  I think people really underrate it.

10.  The Punisher.  I mean the one starring Thomas Jane.  I liked the movie a lot because they did a nice job of making it pretty gritty.  I really like the inclusion of the Russian (even if it is brief).  Better movie than people think.

Yes, I left the Spider Man movies off.  I hate them.  With the exception of the villains in the first and second movies, they’re complete wastes.  3 was awful.  I haven’t seen the newest Hulk movie, mostly because the first one was so terrible I’m afraid of this one.  I left Superman 2 off because the one that most of us have seen gets a little too weird for me at times.  The giant celephane “S” logo that he throws at the Kryptonian criminals?  When Zod and his band of thugs shoot some weird ray out of their fingers?  WTF?  The Richard Donner cut is much better I think, but still a little bit on the odd side for me.  Superman Returns really disappointed me.

So that’s my list.  I might revisit it in a few months or maybe I’ll wait for Iron Man 2, Captain America, Thor, The Avengers, and Watchmen.  After those movies the list could be completely different.  We’ll see.

The Dark Knight

Saw it twice this weekend and here’s what I think…

Go see it.  Go see it now.  It’s fantastic.  Heath Ledger is simply amazing as the Joker.  I’m not even sure I know the words to describe how good he is.  I read an article talking about how even though he’s spectacular, they probably won’t give him the Oscar because the academy doesn’t usually give out Oscars posthumously.  I don’t care, give it to him and give it to him now.

Now, that said, I do love this movie and I can’t wait for the DVD so I can spend a weekend watching it again, but I don’t think it’s the best superhero/comic book movie of all time like so many people seem to think.  I can’t explain it, but there’s something about the movie that keeps me from thinking it’s better than Batman Begins (my current pic for best superhero/comic movie of all time) and Iron Man (my #2 and it’s REALLY close between those two).  I was talking about that with a friend of mine after we saw the movie Friday night and he agreed.  Batman Begins and Iron Man blew me away.  After watching those movies, my jaw was on the floor and I walked out knowing I had experienced something really big.  I walked out of The Dark Knight totally entertained, but not completely blown away.  I don’t know why either.  Maybe it’s because of how much hype went in to it, maybe it’s because of the way they did Two-Face (I don’t want to give anything away, but if you’re a big fan of the character like I am, you might feel a little bit of disappointment….just a little).  I don’t know.  I do know this, I love how they made several references to “The Long Halloween” which is one of my favorite Batman stories ever.  I love Christian Bale as Batman, in fact, instead of listing the entire cast, let’s just say I love the cast.  Their extremely good, but still no one stands out more than Heath Ledger.  See the movie if for no other reason than him.  But see it anyways cause the movie’s really good.

My final rating: 4.99999999999999999999 stars.  Add a couple more 9’s, what the heck.

Oh Brett, Why Must You Tease Us So?

I’m a fan of Brett Favre.

There, I said it.  I’m a Bears fan and I like Brett Favre.  If he had played for any other team besides the Packers, I would argue until I’m blue in the face that the debate for greatest quarterback ever consists of Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, and Brett Favre.  That’s it, that’s the list.  But he did play for the Packers and so I never allowed myself to root for him.  I respected him, but I always wanted him to fail in the end because he was a Packer and I hate the Packers.

Finally, he gave me my wish and retired.  I could finally allow myself to embrace my forbidden respect/love for Favre and move on with my life…or so I thought.

As you probably know, Brett now says he wants to play again.  Not terribly shocking.  Most athletes find it really difficult to let go that first year of retirement.  Their body gets amped up like it has done for the last however many years they played their sport and it’s really hard to turn it off.  But that’s not what’s going on here, at least not according to Brett.  Oh no, Brett has “the itch” again and he wants to play, but he doesn’t want to play for the Packers.  He says he doesn’t “feel welcome” so he asked for his release.  As Brett must surely know, it won’t happen.  The Packers cannot, I repeat CANNOT, release a Hall of Fame QB that was the face of their franchise for like 17 years or something.  It’s a horrible P.R. move for the team.  They can trade him, but that doesn’t look great either and they might not get back the value he’s worth.  So how do we find our way out of this?

Simple.  Brett stays retired.  The truth is, that’s what he should do anyways.  He walked away for a reason and whatever that reason was, I assume it’s still there.  If he retired because he “didn’t feel welcome” then he should have known that’s not a valid reason to retire.  Simply put, Brett is now only doing damage to his legacy.  People are damn tired of hearing about Brett and will he/won’t he play again and if he does end up getting his wish of either being traded or released, he’ll join the ranks of Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, and Joe Namath who finished their careers with Kansas City, San Diego, and the L.A. Rams respectively (did you know that by the way?).  Do you really want to see Favre wearing a Tampa Bay jersey, or a Minnesota jersey, or a Baltimore jersey, or a Dolphins jersey?  Of course not.  The final image most of us have now of Michael Jordan is the shot he made to win the sixth and final championship for the Bulls.  We either block out or ignore the Washington days because it really didn’t do anything to enhance his legend and we don’t want to think about Jordan basically failing because Washington wasn’t exactly good while he played for them.  We do the same when we block out those other quarterbacks I listed and the jerseys they actually retired in.  The best thing for Favre is to just walk away.  Ride off in to the sunset as the old gunslinger who finally hung ‘em up with his legend in tact.  He’s got his ring, he’s on the short list of best ever, and he holds almost every major record for a quarterback.  What’s left to prove?

Maybe that Brett’s truly as classy as we’ve been told and will do one last great thing for Green Bay.  Walk away with dignity.  Or is it too late for that now?

Welcome to the Rapid Fire Round

So, I’ve been woefully bad about posting here.  I started a sports oriented blog on my station’s website with the intention of posting either on here or on there and then copying and pasting to the other, but it hasn’t really happened (obviously) so here’s lots of stuff…

NBA draft happened, as I hoped, the Bulls took Derrick Rose.  Some people would argue they should’ve taken Michael Beasley who fills their low post needs, but Rose is a Deron Williams/Chris Paul type player who makes everyone around him better.  I believe that anytime you can get someone like that, you do it and never look back.  Hopefully time will prove me right on that one.  Truthfully, I don’t expect the Bulls to be much better this year.  Vinny Del Negro (by the way, really?) is a first year head coach and the Bulls have an overload of guards.  Obviously Chris Duhon will be gone, but they still have Rose, Kirk Heinrich, Larry Hughes, Thabo Sefolosha, and maybe Ben Gordon if they re-sign him, which I think they will.  That’s too many chefs in the kitchen.  Someone’s gotta go and I think it’s Heinrich, but I doubt they move him as John Paxon seems to be in love with him.  We’ll see.

White Sox and Cubs split their season series which I actually expected.  The Cubs have been virtually unbeatable at Wrigley but terrible on the road.  The Sox meanwhile have to be the hottest team in baseball and I couldn’t be happier.  I heard an interesting question the other day as someone on either TV or the radio was pondering who had the easier road to winning their division between the two.  I think the answer’s easy, it’s the Cubs.  They play in a week division.  Yes, Milwaukee’s remembering how to play baseball, and the Cardinals are only about 2 games back (I think), but the Cubs don’t have Soriano back yet so if they can get to the All-Star break with at least a one game lead, I think they’re sitting pretty.  Meanwhile the Sox have to contend with Minnesota and Detroit.  I would include Cleveland on the list but I think they’ve played themselves out of the race and I expect them to trade C.C. Sabathia at the deadline which really won’t help them.

NFL wise, not much to report really.  Cedric Benson finally lived up to my expectations for him and did stupid crap and got kicked off the Bears and maybe out of the NFL.  Yes, he is Ricky Williams v2.0.  I was right on that one.  Sadly, to prove me right my team had to blow the #4 pick in the draft on him.  Awesome.  I’m so completely upset by the prospect of this upcoming Bears season that just thinking about it is making me depressed.  I see no way that they’ll be any good at all.  Again, awesome.

Luckily though the Fighting Illini should be every bit as good as last year.  I’m thrilled.  I seriously can’t wait for Saturdays this fall.

I spent $60 on two (2) baseball hats.  Is it just me or is that WAY too much?  And yet, I paid it.

I think I hate the baseball All-Star game.  They have the utterly stupid rule that every team has to be represented, so Toronto, who have no hope at all of making the playoffs, let alone the World Series, will have a player that will help determine home field advantage for the World Series.  Why the hell baseball doesn’t just do what every other league does and have home field go to the team with best record is beyond me.  For every good idea Bud Selig has, he has three that are just stupid.  Having the All-Star game determine home field is one of them.

I’m so beyond excited for The Dark Knight to premiere that I could seriously wet myself.  Just thought I’d throw that in.

And on that note, I’m done for tonight.