Edgy MD

Merandy is totally this year's P.J. Conlon. After seven scoreless his last time out, he's doing the unthinkable, actually improving on his 8-1/1.55 performanc in his first half with Columbia, going 4-1/1.52 so far with St. Lucie. Only four homers in 99 innings. Yeah, it's A-Ball, but that combines with low walk rates and opponent batting averages too, and it tracks across his career. His 1.54 combined ERA is second in all full-season affiliated baseball, behind only Phillies prospect Ranger Suarez, currently rocking an NCAA Softball-esque 1.42 ERA also between the South Atlantic League and the Florida State League.

Strange how parts of the film seemed to be aimed dead at me, with Peter getting ready to his homecoming dance to "Save It for Later" and then arriving at the dance and DJ is cranking "Space-Age Love Song." It would sort of be the temporal equivalent of me arriving at my own homecoming and the DJ blasting "Vaya con Dios" by Les Paul & Mary Ford. We middle-aged white dudes are apparently still a target market.

Yeah, this is very good. It gets Peter right, it gets Queens right, it gets teenagers right. Spider-Man, considering his long career as Marvel's top property, has a pretty weak rogues gallery. After The Green Goblin, you've got Doc Oc, Venom and ... a lot of jokers. But they've cycled through most them on the big screen already, and as they slide down, The Vulture is pretty much the highest profile remaining nemesis (goes all the way back to Amazing Spider Man #2), and he's just goofy. But they've given him a credible interpretation and backstory here, taking what's viable and reinventing the rest, and what they get is about the best they could have gotten. They've shed some of the key parts of Peter's life — Aunt May is now a middle-aged aunt, rather rather than an elderly great aunt; he lives in a walkup, rather than a little house — but they've restored some good stuff, like the internal conflicts of his high school set, and his Mets fandom is everywhere, if you look. I mostly like that they've put aside the notion that every superhero movie has to have a conflict that is a global existential threat. Spider-Man fights neighborhood crime, and that's great. And his nemesis in this movie is worse than that — he's an arms dealer — but we don't have to have the world on the line to care.

It was originally going to be just the first part. (There are three parts to this film, representing the shooting of three different scenes, but without spoiling, it's more complex than that.) Director Tom DiCillo's friends convinced him to expand it to a feature length, and they raised money for him. Two of them got decent roles in the film as a thank-you. The film was supposedly inspired by DiCillo's struggle to make his previous picture, Johnny Suede, Brad Pitt's first big starring feature, and one of the characters is supposedly based on Pitt. (DiCillo denies this but it sure is an appealing thought.) What's great is what a time capsule of the nineties this is. Nineties actors like Catherine Keener and Dermot Mulroney, nineties styles, rundown New York. Even the style of the film within the film and the mystical jazz soundtrack come right out of the era, and Buscemi's haircut seems to have been transplanted right off of Matthew Sweet's head. Good footnote: this film was Peter Dinklage's debut. His role is small but he owns the film when he's onscreen, and latter-day reissues of the film feature Dinklage on the poster/DVD box/digital download thumbnail.

I found it astounding in that it attempts with all its heart to be a nu Field of Dreams, but just isn't. We're all supposed to join him and support his dream, but he lies to his wife and children, puts their welfare in serious jeopardy, physically assaults his friends, rips off his father-in-law (embracing a cheap deus ex machina in the process), tells Bruce Willis to get stuffed despite a REALLY generous offer. Oh, and he risks the safety of the nation, because HE HAS A DREAM. Dreams are great, but sometime you need to realize you've achieved something just as good along the way, and you either adjust your aims accordingly, or accept that you don't have a dream at all, but rather a destructive obsession. Ray Kinsella himself would tell this guy to get real. Add a half a star if you like gorgeous western sunsets. This thing was shot like a Christian romance. Not that I would know.

A low-budget film crew (headed by a director played by Steve Buscemi), struggle through technical problems and personality conflicts to get a few simple scenes shot in an abandoned-Manhattan-warehouse-turned-"studio."

A NASA washout who never gave up, Texas rancher Charlie Farmer still dreams of going to space. And so, using nothing but the scraps of NASA's discard pile and his own technical wizardry, he builds a rocket in his barn and enlists his family in his dream of home-based DIY space travel, while running afoul of government suits.

You know what I thought this film was about? An actual baby driver. That sounds like a great elevator pitch. You get an MGM exec trapped on an elevator, and you hit him up with your crazy-assed idea for a film called Baby Driver. "It's about a baby, you see? And he gets the keys to the car! And he's DRIVING ALL OVER TOWN! For the whole movie! He's got near misses here, and running down mailboxes over there, and he's giggling and running red lights and shit! And maybe he interrupts a bank heist or something. The FBI is brought in and ... and Homeland security! But he's plowing through roadblocks! Baby driver! Green light, right?! Right?!" "Hey, let go of me!"

I agree that pre-release buzz about a production can unfairly poison reviewers against a film. It can work the other way around, for that matter.

Merandy, along with his unadopted brother Jordan Humphreys, gets promoted from Columbia to St. Lucie. I don't expect he'll ever be back. His first half numbers: 8-1, 1.55 ERA in 69 2/3 innings with 13 walks and 65 strikeouts. That's some baseball.

The fourth film was Batman & Robin, and that was actually the one Joel Schumacher apologized for.

Thanks, Obama!

I don't have an inability. I have a different opinion. I have a tremendous ability. Enjoy the lovefest. I'm not the sole dissenter. Not if you look around a little.

Joel Schumacher has recently openly apologized for Batman Forever, including the nipple pouches. Yeah, it stunk, but I didn't find it particularly worse than the other three movies from that serial.

Steve's apparently an old hand with his IBM Selectric. Writing to Mike Lupica in 1998: Dear Lip, I'm glad Hideki Irabu hasn't choked anybody yet. Steve Chaddock Long Island City Back with The Voice of the People in 2014: Long Island City: If Judge Judy gets paid $60 million a year handing out justice to the brainless, it’s worth it. Loonies, dummies, morons and once in a while someone with an IQ of 50 makes Judge Judy a genius. Love ya, Judy. Steve Chaddock To the Mighty Quinn in 2010: 3D mania is running wild. Yes, it will be on cable television and I will endorse it. I remember in the '70s I saw 'The Stewardesses,' a porn movie, in 3D, and I thought I was in bed with three people. I'm guessing Steve will NOT get tired of all the winning.

Always sobering to find myself and Steve on the same side of an issue.

Sheesh, the culture is clearly going against me.

Here's the original thread. Our voters averaged 3.8125/5 stars.

Centerfield wrote: Also, the stilted accents of the denizens of Paradise Island made for unintentional hilarity. Loved the accents. I get why it doesn't work for everyone, but I thought it added a lot to the characters. Was it done because Gal speaks with an accent and everyone had to match? Was wondering about that. That's the theory I'm working with, but match they did not. Different characters were slipping out of different studied versions of Germanic, English, Irish and other stuff. It felt Clash of the Titans hammy, only moreso. Centerfield wrote: If you're going to nitpick, you could go the route of "Why do the Germans speak to each other in broken English rather than their native German?" But why would you during such a great ride. I don't mean to nitpick. But yeah, when Diana is dueling languages with Samir, they used subtitles, but when Germans spoke to Germans, they used German-accented English. Either is a legit way to go, but both is offputting. You've got to stick with the rules of your own universe, man. Benjamin Grimm wrote: You have the 2008 Hulk movie listed twice. I'm guessing the 2003 one is the one you say is unwatchable? If so, i agree. He's got Batman Begins twice also.

Threw six innings of shutout ball tonight, giving up but three hits and a single walk, while striking out five. He advances his record to a record 8-1, with a 1.56 ERA. You may look shocked.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Kinda curious... who went with two stars? Why? Me. I found nothing original or particularly engaging in it. In the way of contemporary blockbusters, it was full of plot elements and money shots shamelessly cribbed from other films. Contemporary ones. Also, the stilted accents of the denizens of Paradise Island made for unintentional hilarity. As with a lot of latter-day superhero stories, the extent, nature, and limits of her powers were unclear and all over the map.

Looks like Colby (aka "Dynasty II") is going to be mostly repeating Brooklyn.

Any of you cineastes going to cast a vote?

Yeah, that's about the sum of it.