Edgy MD

Sports Films Set in Indiana Breaking Away (1979) Hoosiers (1986) Speedway (1929) The Winning Season (2009) Rudy (1993) Knute Rockne, All American (1940) Home of the Giants (2007) American Teen (2008) The Great Dan Patch (1949) Born to Speed (1947)

Willets Point wrote: I love Breaking Away but it's been about 20 years since I last watched. I never saw Bad News Bears but I tried to watch it with my son a couple of months ago and he asked me to turn it off about 15 minutes in. I don't think the constant use of ethnic slurs appealed to either one of us. There's a lot of ugly stuff there, no doubt.

Caught BNB streaming on Amazon Plus.

The two best sports films in US history both: 1. Feature Jackie Earle Haley. 2. Feature great, famous classical music pieces adapted for semi-ironic heroic scoring. 3. Feature teams shoehorned into the competition as an afterthought, with the Bears being the seventh team in the six-team league and the Cutters being team 34, starting in the back of a 33-team field. 4. Feature those teams only ending up in the competition as an afterthought only because of a bureaucratic bone being thrown to them. 5. Feature protagonist competitors who are aliens in their own town. 6. Feature probably a little too much comic hay being made at the expense of the gangly, curly-haired Jewish kid. 7. Feature just enough comic hay being made from the short kid who likes to punch. 8. Feature one (on the cycling team) and two (on the baseball team) stars carrying the rest of the sad sacks. 9. Feature the sad sacks having to step up and bail out the injured stars before the end. 10. Feature the redemption of a broken father figure, and you don't even realize it's going there until it does.

Well, Catwoman didn't get her own title for the grit, but for the zexx. Well, grit, too. Zexx, then grit. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61hzh6V5dbL.jpg>

I can't wait to not see this.

Anybody putting up a thread here, perhaps it would help, when you introduce a new film, if it isn't in theatrical release, letting the reader know what streaming platform(s) it can be found on.

We need a supercut that's chronological but stitiches together scenes from multiple movies, where the flashback exposition scene from earlier years gets cut and placed in the year it belongs. I guess that would open with Hela and the flight of the valkyries. Actually, no, it would open with the Big Bang and the birth of the infinity stones.

Well, the Marvel sequence appears in Avengers, so maybe it just hadn't gotten going yet. Now let's see if and when Paramount disappears.

As far as I know, Marvel Studios is still a thing, and hasn't been fully subsumed into the Mouse, right? Because we've rewatched a few of the early MCU films (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger this week, and looking back, the Disney Plus downloads include the Paramount (early distribution partner) logo, but not the Marvel flickering pages sequence of the music cue that accompanied it? Have they been removed? Did I somehow sleep through them? Or did those elements not yet appear until later? Also, The Incredible Hulk apparently isn't on the Disney Plus platform.

The Mets have rolled a lot of snake-eyes trying to develop a starting catcher in the first quintile of this century. You can go back to Jason Phillips and Vance Wilson, and throw in Josh Thole, Travis d'Arnaud, Kevin Plawecki, along with guys who barely saw daylight (Juan Centeno), guys who only saw a gleam or two after sailing on to other seas (Drew Butera, Francisco Peña). And then there's the guys still floating underneath (Ali Sanchez, Patrick Mazeika). So yeah, another Francisco makes it feel even more like we've been down this road. It's hard to develop MLB starting catchers. At least part of that is something that's hard to teach. Have a guy who can show up ,and either through the charisma of Piazza or the red-ass of Grote, impress upon everybody that he's calling the shots, and he says go fuck yourself if you don't see it that way, even if he's 23 and hitting .220. The caste system of today's game makes it hard for a young guy to just show up and step in like that. Butera and Peña, both being sons of longtime big-leaguers, would seemingly be as good as any to land like that, but neither had the offense to escape backup status even after they left the Mets. So, having the juice to take charge among players with stature and tenure seemingly being a prerequisite of the job, the 21st Century Mets have been modestly more successful importing vets (Lo Duca, Buck, Buffalo) who can arrive as equals. Also, the ones who stick are the ones who find away to take the punishment four days in five and not let their bat fall into a black hole. No small matter even for the guys who hit in the minors. Catching's tough. So, yeah, that's a long-winded way of saying it's really stupid to pin my hopes on young Francisco Alvarez. But he needed a home, and I found a place in my heart. He's still but a teenager, but he already has the catcherly frame (officially 5''11" and 220) that Travis d'Arnaud was never going to have. He was pushed so obscenely hard in his rookie year, skipping the DSL and going straight to stateside at only 17 with the GCL Mets, that you would have expected him to take his lumps and take them repeatedly. Instead, he fucking toyed with the league, hitting .462 / .548 / .846 / 1.395 in his first seven games, with two homers. Look at those numbers and try not to drool. The Mets, amazingly, looked at him and said, "Fuck it, let's push him harder," and sent him to the Appy League. He took a few games to get going, but even there, as the very youngest player in the league, he pushed people around, copied their homework, stole their lunch money, and stepped on all their blue suede shoes, and simply gave not a single shit. He hit .282 / .377 / .443 / .820 with five more home runs in 35 games. Did I mention that he was the only 17-year-old in the league? I don't think I did, but I alluded to it. Implied it. it was a sorry situation. All the girls swooned and all the guys felt like shit because their girls all looked at them in a new light. A yellowy light. Like they were suddenly all defective giveaways and Francisco was the only prize to be had. Alvarez didn't give a shit. He didn't even take advantage of his newfound popularity with the ladies. He was too busy passing through Kingsport to even get anything started. All the guys hated him but respected him, and at the end of the day, he invited anybody who had a problem to meet him at the flagpole, and nobody would ever, ever show. So yeah, eyes were on him. God knows how anybody's going to track minor leaguers this season, but Keith Law, Rany Jazayerli, and Casey Kasem's ghost all saw him moving toward their Hot 100s. Would the Mets have stayed aggressive and had him bypass Brooklyn to send him on to full season ball? God help me, but I think they would have. Look at him turn on this pitch: http://metsminors.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/francisco-alvarez-e1561635732560.jpg> Look at the catcher's glove and see how inside that pitch is, but like the David Wright worshipper I'm raising this guy to be, he keeps his hands in tight, and is quick through the zone. And let's turn out the lights and get a little pornagraphic here. Tell me those aren't the legs of a major league catcher. Tell me that isn't the ass of a major league catcher. He's years from the big leagues and there are no big leagues any way this year, and certainly no All-Star team, but that ass is already a Major League All Star. So get out of here with your crappy adoptees. Your relief pitchers and toolsy infielders. Yeah, they may make it to the bigs someday, but when they get there, it'll be Francisco Alvarez calling the shots. [fimg=379]https://miro.medium.com/max/2048/1*6jnXcsSkD5jlwZMdETq7xQ.png[/fimg] [fimg=321]https://metsjunkiescom.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/img_1507.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=350]https://miro.medium.com/max/4094/1*0VFtGq-6QamPLiBQEyyuHw.jpeg[/fimg] [fimg=350]http://metsminors.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/AGP_6886-1-e1564061058368.jpg[/fimg]

Indeed. Some films, if they really need you to be revisit them, will manage to find you. You, the viewer, can't be expected to do all the work. But The Money Pit is currently an available featured download on Netflix. Among the performers not figuring in the PotG voting above was a just-on-the-verge-of-their-brief-success White Lion, and a pre-Fisher King Michael Jeter.

It's very much (1) of it's time (despite a lack of gratuitous bewb shots), and (2) of a much earlier time, being a re-make of a 1948 Cary Grant/Myrna Loy film, and also incorporating comic stunts that were seemingly lifted straight out of a Buster Keaton silent. It certainly asks you for some charity, but parts of it are golden. Whether you were wrong depends on how much nostalgia can trigger that charity, but probably mostly not. Alexander Godunov was fantastic in his first three US films — Witness, The Money Pit, and Die Hard — at a time he could barely mouth out any English. He gets PotG for this one and is very much in the running for Die Hard. A deep emotional investment? Yeah, that's probably not going to happen. But as a married dude and as a homeowner, you'll probably dip your foot in a little deeper than you did in 1986.

Alexander Godunov: 3.53 Tom Hanks: 2.88 Shelley Long: 1.58 Yakov Smirnoff: 0.67 Philip Bosco: 0.51 Josh Mostel: 0.29 Joe Mantegna: 0.27 Maureen Stapleton: 0.18 Body by Jake: 0.09 https://img.moviepostershop.com/the-money-pit-movie-poster-1986-1010730008.jpg>

A guy on the fringes of the film industry hears over beers late one night about Cecil B. DeMille's massive set for his original, silent, 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, and the film industry folklore that they decided to just bury the set on site. He develops an interest in digging the set up, but not being a real archaeologist, and a fake Egyptian city from the 1920's having ambiguous archeological value, he runs into problems getting permits and funding and crews and stuff. He keeps trying to walk away from the project, but fate keeps steering him back to it for 30 years. [YOUTUBE]mAfhfNGRACU[/YOUTUBE]

I think the big deal was that a non-green-screen movie made a big profit in actual brick-and-mortar movie houses. In 2019! I think that it being a traditional genre — aka, no big deal — made it even more remarkable. No green screens and the only A-lister in it doesn't really appear until the second half.

POST-SEASON AWARD SUCCESS [TABLE][TR][TD]Eileen Brennan as Captain Doreen Lewis in Private Benjamin[/TD][TD]Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress[/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Adolph Caesar as Sergeant Waters in A Soldier's Story[/TD][TD]NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture[/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]James Caan as Sergeant First Class Clell Hazard in Gardens of Stone[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket[/TD][TD]Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture[/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Lou Gossett Jr. as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman[/TD][TD]Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture[/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Lee Marvin as Major John Reisman in The Dirty Dozen[/TD][TD]Laurel Award for Best Action Performance[/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Clarence Kolb as Col. Peter Fairbanks in Caught in the Draft[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Viggo Mortensen as Command Master Chief John James Urgayle in G.I. Jane[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Warren Oates as Sergeant Hulka in Stripes[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Nat Pendleton as Sergeant Michael Collins in Buck Private[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Christopher Walken as Plt Sgt Merwin J. Toomey in Biloxi Blues[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR] [TR][TD]Jack Webb as Gunnery Sergeant Jim Moore in The D.I.[/TD][TD][/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I knew who my pick was going to be even before I read the list. R. Lee Ermey. (Who was also in Toy Story. "Where is your honor, you dirtbag!") Hey, you get three picks!

Good job pointing out Ermey's other roles. I guess James Caan and Jack Webb are the only ones here where the drill instructor is the protagonist.

As stock characters go, it's hard to beat abusive asshole drill sergeants for Oscar bait. Yeah, they're rarely the protagonist, so they have to go for supporting Oscars, but being that they allow you to go broad instead of deep, rattle off shtick at a shouting level nose-to-nose with recruits who are usually the stars of the film, putting emphasis in weird places, they usually get to steal virtually every scene they're in. With luck, there will be an ambiguity of whether Sarge is just molding men, is an actual sadistic asshole, or even perhaps has an underlying personality disorder that only becomes fully clear later when he gets his drink on. Which one is it? Will we find out before basic training is over and we ship out? Oscar gold. Some sergeants aren't sergeants at all, but higher-ups. Officers. But they still have to play the sergeant's role in the film, abusing recruits during training, trying to turn some sad sack of shit into a soldier. Or a sailor. Or a marine. Some sergeants aren't sergeants simply because the film is set in a different military branch where the ranks have different names. Although several of these guys come from comedies, I tried with the choices to stay out of outright burlesques — like abusive boy scout leaders who act like drill sergeants, and shit like that. On the other hand, nothing is better than Andy Griffith Show episodes where Gomer and/or Floyd and/or Goober or some other Mayberrians get deputized and Barney tries to drill them into shape. Pure comedy gold. Also, these films should be set in large part, or en toto, in training. In movies that are mostly combat, sergeants are usually cool dudes. They still scream, but they suck on stale cigars and wear dogface shaves and charge in bravely under fire and their men would follow them to the mouth of Hell. It takes three or four wounds (or more) to kill them and they usually die saving the day. But training sergeants are mostly colorful assholes. I should probably take The Dirty Dozen out based on that distinctions, but it's already in there. Vote three times. Also, even though the voting mechanism will only allow three votes per customer, I feel like MFS62 should get a few more. [FIMG=500]https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/fortleetraveller.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/a/15/a1542676-f01e-11e9-8f99-bbe01b4eb765/5da724b3c16d0.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C977[/FIMG]

Lloyd is a journalist with father issues, and a crappy father to go along with it. Fred is a television host so alternately endearing and annoying in his earnestness that he's almost impossible for cynical Lloyd to see as genuine. Fate throws them together and the clash of the earnest and the cynical forces them both to confront their relationships. [fimg=500]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWE3ZDYwNmItOWM5ZS00Y2Q4LTlhNmYtODlhY2QxYzA1MDlhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjA5MDIyMzU@._V1_.jpg[/fimg]

When famed and wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombey dies in an apparent suicide, celebrated private detective Benoit Blanc is dispatched by an anonymous client to his family of selfish, awful, and conniving offspring to see if foul play was involved. Director Rian Johnson returns us to the world of the big-house mystery and the more-broad-than-deep portrayals by the ensemble cast that come with the program. [FIMG=500]https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGUwZjliMTAtNzAxZi00MWNiLWE2NzgtZGUxMGQxZjhhNDRiXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjU1NzU3MzE@._V1_.jpg[/FIMG]

Willets Point wrote: I read the book ages ago and can't imagine it as a movie. And if it's a different story, apparently the filmmakers couldn't imagine it as a movie either. Yeah, it's mostly a different story based on the book's characters. Ed Norton bought the film rights in 1999, and you'd figure that with a misbegotten, orphaned urban misfit protagonist, it was an attractive property for him. And the fact that the hero has a neurological disorder probably led him to smell Oscar fumes coming out of the book. But twenty years in development changes things, and Norton as a member of a crew of young adult sleuths became more of a stretch as time passed, and now that he's about a half-century old, the group and he have become a cast of youthful-looking, if world-weary, middle-aged dudes, and their mentor a Social Security-sniffing Bruce Willis. But if you've seen, say, A Walk in the Woods or Wonder Boys, you're used to actors forgetting how old they are when they read, and casting themselves as much younger literary characters. Once you get that out of the way, as I noted, Norton as Lionel Essrog isn't that much of a stretch, but after throwing out the coming-of-age aspects of Jonathan Lethem's story, they kept throwing out. The late-seventies/early-eighties nu-wave-era setting gets tossed (along with all the Mets references) and replaced with mid-fifties and be-bop. Norton said that he thought taking it back to the fifties would make it more consistent with the noirish aspects of the story, but I think keeping the setting in living memory would have too-much underscored how he had aged out of the character in the decades since the book's publication. He nonetheless puts work into reconciling these elements. Lionel's tics actually find some confluence in the explosive syncopations of the be-bop of the city, and a character who is seemingly a stand-in for Miles Davis sees him as a kindred spirit. The almost all-new story has a lot of such cut-outs, with Lionel caught up in a battle between a thinly disguised fictionalization of Robert Moses and a thinly disguised fictionalization of Jane Jacobs, and even though the tone is very different, the film at times feels like a spin-off of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, with similar settings, similar fashions, and even a scene that looks like a re-shoot of Mrs. Maisel's version of the Jane Jacobs rally in Washington Square Park. So, you know, fans of the book (and I am one) will have a lot to get past dealing with what this movie isn't. But what it is isn't entirely worthless either. Alec Baldwin's Robert Moses-guy has a tic-issue of a different sort, in that you keep seeing elements of Baldwin's mimicry of President Trump popping out of him. But about two-thirds of the way through, you start to see that this isn't that unintentional, and the story that Norton is telling is more than a little bit of an allegory for the Trump era, and Moses' cold-hearted populism is framed as a smarter version of the current president. And any look through a different facet at our insane era has its merits. And the commentary of a nutty Willem Defoe twisting with frustration over what his nemesis is allowed to get away with is all of us right now.

Lionel is a gumshoe. He and his three colleagues do the grunt work at the detective agency while their tight-lipped boss is the face on the agency. This is OK by Lionel, who has Tourette's syndrome (though the name never comes up explicitly) and prefers to stay out of social situations lest his tics start firing up at the wrong time. This compartmentalizing means that they get part of the picture on cases, but only the boss, Frank, has all the pieces. This becomes a real problem when Frank gets killed working a case that none of them really knew anything about. While the other shmoes are looking to move on, Lionel has a loyalty to his boss, who showed faith in him despite his embarrassing condition, and so he puts his neck out and picks up the case, trying to put together the pieces of a very complicated puzzle. Hyjinks don't ensue. Based on the novel by Jonathan Lethem, but a pretty different story. [FIMG=780]https://assets.www.warnerbros.co.uk/drupal-root/public/mb_horizontal.jpg[/FIMG]

Hostpersons want to know.