"On Movies"

"...I'd rather read through the worst novel ever written than sit through the best movie ever made..."

The Cigarette-Smoking Man to Bill Mulder, "Musings of the Cigarette-Smoking Man'

Movies don't satisfy me for the most part. I find more release from looking at my father's golden retriever perform auto-analingus from across the room, or watching the NYM infielders drop game-ending pop ups.

A lot of people, particularly Syed Hossain, find my opinions of movies annoying. They also find my "in-movie commentary" as much a pestilence as I am forced to swallow down there unbridled silence. If you are with someone, and you are bearing witness to scenes that are absolutely ridiculous, or hysterically stupid, you have an obligation to make remarks during the film, while it is actually playing; not just retain these mental notes for use later. I find arching my head back for 3 hours to eat inflated prices of cancerous-inducent food that tastes like crap with a bunch of strangers in uncomfortable seats isn't the best usage of my time. Especially when you're with friends! Why would you go spend time with friends at a movie theater? Yes, you are physically sitting next to them, but your mind is fused into a screen. I actually think going out to the movies on legitimate "dates" is a catastrophic idea, I've never done it. Why would you want to spend the few hours you have with the woman you're trying to court, NOT paying attention to her?

Generally speaking, I find watching movies in cinemas to be unpleasurable and I'm not a big fan of doing it. Aside from trashing Keynesians and the State, my other muses in life consist of New York Yankees, jazz, family time and unprotected sex with multiple partners.

For the most part, it's my amateur opinion to say that the majority of films I've watched in my life were complete, disastrous flops and were probably produced as a result of a bunch of misallocated resources. There is a system I devised that I use to rate how much I like or dislike films. I've adopted a neoclassical approaching in translating my internal, subjective ordinal rankings of satisfaction that I receive from watching bad movies descending from 100 (highest) to 0 (least) into a numerical scale of cardinal values, using a utility function.

Only an Austrian will catch that last joke.

"Magnificent" = 99-100

"Decent" = 40-98.99999999

"Shit, terrible, fucktastic" or someother expletive in Spanish = -10,000,000 - 39.9

Here's a list of the worst of the worst that I could think of, there's so many more:

• Sicko
• The Preacher's Wife
• Titanic
• Wall-E
• Saving Private Ryan
• Deep Impact
• Bowling for Columbine
• Angels and Demons
• War of the Worlds
• Godfather, Pt. II
• Schindler's List
• Amadeus
• Iron Man
• Hitch
• Conspiracy Theory
• Borat
• The Departed
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• World Trade Center
• Transformers I & II
• Mulan
• Aladdin
• The Lion King
• Billboard Dad

I also put the following films in my bag of all-time best, in no particular order:

• Wedding Crashers
• Star Wars
• Antz
• Up
• Bobby
• American Gangster
• Charlie Wilson's War
• Gangs of New York
• The Darjeeling Limited
• Mission to Mars/Red Planet
• A Clockwork Orange
• The Lord of the Rings
• Annie Hall
• Recount
• The Matrix
• Wall Street
• Old School
• Flubber
• Thank You For Smoking
• There Will Be Blood
• Godfather, Pt. III
• The Bank Job
• The Dark Knight
• Enemy of the State/Minority Report
• X-Files: Fight the Future
• Evolution
• Glengarry Glen Ross

And if you want an example of action packed, unrealistic, science fiction movie done right, watch The Dark Knight.

"Early call: Teixeira for MVP"

I knew after Sunday night's game this article and this article would surface on the internet.

Some of the comments suggested that Tex was insufficiently capable of edging out the award from Morneau. However all these articles failed in their assessment of Mark Teixeira for completely diregarding the fact that he is a superior first baseman to Morneau, and not only to him, but to every other first baseman in the American League. Mark has had a career year at first base, and he is almost surely a lock for the highly respected Golden Glove Award for his position. His fielding percentage is .999, he's been involved in 85 double plays and he's committed one error all year. How many runs, or potential runs for that matter, has Mark prevented? Not only that, Morneau current AL-leading run production, hasn't translated into a first-place team, despite having another potential MVP candidate in the batting lineup every single night. Last time I checked, the team with the best record in baseball usually went on to playoffs. Thank god for some sanity in the local New York press.

We'll revisit this critical issue after the post-season ends with a further analysis of who's my pick for American League MVP. As for the other league, who cares, right? (Pujols is hitting 83 homeruns, driving in 200 runs and batting over .400 for the first time since Ted Williams did in the late 1940's.)

"Another Tragedy in August: the Bronx Massacre"

(Images courtesy of the New York Times and The NY Daily News)

I want to be the first one to dub this the Bronx Massacre of the Fenway. I'm still high off of last night's sweep. This is the only variety of imperialism I openly support.

=]

Let it rock: Yanks sweep aside Sox yankees.com: News:

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com
08/10/09 1:41 AM ET

NEW YORK -- The Yankees have waited all season for their new palace to rock like home, echoing with the concrete-rippling thunder that used to make the experience so intimidating for opponents across the street.

They glanced into the triple-decked wonder this weekend and could agree: the energy is back. Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira pumped the volume with back-to-back eighth inning home runs as the Yankees rallied for a 5-2 win and an emotional four-game sweep of the Red Sox.
As Teixeira watched his go-ahead shot off Daniel Bard soar high into the night sky, he carried his bat down to first base, casting it aside when the drive stayed fair. The fourth sellout crowd of the weekend erupted into a frenzy, serenading the falling Red Sox with chants of 'Sweep! Sweep!'
'That's Yankee Stadium for you,' Teixeira said. 'This place hasn't been around as much as the old one, but I remember being a part of a few games as a visitor. It felt like the place was shaking. It was kind of that feeling tonight.'"