Edgy MD

Yeah, I think seventies and indy minors, I think Miami Miracle. The story really lays out there what baseball could be, should be, and in fact was. SPOILER ALERT!! Heartbreaking that his victory --- demanding a ridiculous sum as a buyout and winning it in arbitration --- was so Pyrrhic. Great, you got paid a crazy amount to shut down your team, the only independent minor league team in baseball. But shit, you took it and indeed shut it all down. Can't ask the guy to do all the heavy lifting, but it still hurt to see.

This guy is positively raking right now. If Nieuwenhuis isn't back soon, dD sure will be.

Well, I'll just go ahead and outright recommend it then. I've found the cosmology of the Thor films weighty and stupid, but this just embraces the stupidity and delights in it, gobbling on its cheesiness just as lovingly as it gobbles on its cheesy seventies soundtrack.

Yeah, the challenge is launching this and not letting it undermine their Marvel Universe. Delivering a tongue-in-cheek-y Spaceballs/Flash Gordon space adventure certainly is a challenge to reconciling with the graver and weightier tone they've been bringing to the Avengers films, if we are to accept that they indeed take place in the same universe. Which isn't to say it isn't better than Spaceballs and Flash Gordon. It is. And done right, I guess it could lift and lighten the tone of the Avengers series if there indeed is to be any reconciliation. (And some shared peripheral context suggest there is.)

Saw it last night, and am having trouble getting the smell of nerd off of me this morning. [fimg=444:2zfju7jx]http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Poster-High-Res-691x1024.jpg[/fimg:2zfju7jx]

Documentary film telling the story of veteran character actor Bing Russell (grandfather of a future Met hero), and his quixotic mid-career move to walk away from Holllywood and establish a mid-seventies independent minor league baseball team --- at that time the only indy team in the country, clashing with the powers of baseball and giving exactly zero shits. Now streaming as a Netflix exclusive.

He's got to commit on his beard, one way or the other.

It's a'right. The strange thing is that while he's totally got the chops to take over --- and he surprises the entire band and their management by being an acrobatic dervish of a frontman, rather than standing operatically up front, interrupted only by a Steve Perry stiff-backed stagger --- what he isn't prepared for is the alienation and exhaustion of the tour, which turns into the band's longest ever, I think. So, the movie ends up turning into a long-form version of the video of "Faithfully," including the trademark shots taken through the giant front window of the tour bus, as the broken white line rolls endlessly by, beautiful landscapes in the distance, that might as well be on TV, because you never get a chance to stop and commune with them. Like every road ballad ever, the fans make it all worthwhile. Pineda looks about 26, but the timeline seems to suggest he's closer to 40. And he's got a family back home living a very different life while he's on the road in the US launched suddenly into stardom. Every other member of Journey is a recognizeable brand of classic rock dork. Ross Valory is the avuncular survivor with a Joe Walsh semi-stoned twang, who's probably clean now but has a whole lot of stories if only he could remember 'em. Jonathan Cain is the feather-haired cool guy who takes care of himself and probably has a new age book or two in him, taking Pineda under his wing with diet recommendations and vocal exercises. Neal Schon is somewhere between (almost at the exact halfway point, I would estimate) the Springsteen working-class-hero and the Gene Simmons cynical carnival huckster, committed to the belief (despite the obvious) that he's still running the best rock 'n' roll caravan America has going. Nobody has mastered the rock star guitar squint like he has. Latecoming Motley Crue-wannabe drummer Deen Castronovo could just as easily be touring with Cinderella or Michael Bolton, but is suddenly collecting 1/5 of the take for a huge-selling live touring act. He'll tell you he's played with ALL the best, but Pineda trumps them all. Main problem is that the band was clearly the initiator of the film, so there's a lot of stuff that you would've like more of, but it doesn't push the current brand. We get relatively quick retrospective of Schon's early career as a teenage wunderkind playing second fiddle in Santana, and the band's first few albums as a progressive outfit. That's all pre-history. History begins with Escape --- the band's pop-rock breakthrough with Perry. We get no mention of the Escape video game, nothing of Perry's shitty solo career leading to the band's disappearance in the mid-eighties. We get a brief glimpse at their attempted restart in the mid-nineties, but no real analysis of how the demand for bitter authenticity of the grunge era made the hammy earnest romantic showmanship of Journey just about the least viable band to push at that moment. We briefly see footage of Steve Augeri, the diabolical figure (sort of a cross between Julian Lennon and Ronnie James Dio) who served as frontman on the oldies circuit from 1996-2004, but no word of future American Idol judge Randy Jackson, the band's bassist during that era. (He appears in one brief photograph.) Jeff Scott Soto, the curly-maned singer who filled in between Augeri and Pineda, might as well not exist. Most notable is the absence of Steve Perry. All respect is paid to him by Pineda and other Journeyers, but how do you tell this story without knocking on Steve Perry's door and asking him what he thinks about it all? There's also this poignant moment where the producers are interviewing some 20-ish heartland concert-goers, sucking on cigarettes and oiling themselves in cheap beer as they tailgate before a show at what seems to be the beginning of the tour. The group is asked what they think of the new singer, and one young lady says she wishes he was "from here." One of the male companions calls her racist and the camera zooms in on her as she absorbs the jibe. She kinda is racist and she's reviewing the thought in her mind as the camera holds. It's maybe more a sort of tribalism. Her life is so small that she needs the illusion that this globetrotting band is an extension of her and her people and her familiar community. It's relatable, but it's also wrong, and sad and, yeah, racist. But just when I'm hoping the film-makers stay with this theme, and do more Heavy Metal Parking Lot-type interviews, they cut to Santiago, Chile, which apparently was Pineda's actual debut, and the crowd, delighted to have a big act come visit the southern hemisphere, now with a frontman who speaks Spanish, is absolutely eating chips out of his knickers, and POW!! The new Journey is born. The film runs about a half hour too long. Too much time is spent interviewing Pineda, who is often saying absolutely nothing, but saying it poetically as he switches from English to Tagalog to Spanish, often mid-sentence, and often without seemingly realizing it. I guess this Spanglishalog is something like the street dialect of Manila. Like so many Filipinos, he's always ready with an engaging youthful smile, even when dreamily discussing the bitter decades of tragedy in his life that pre-dated the call from Schon. But stay with it until the end --- the last three shows, and their pre-/post-concert backstage receptions --- one in LA, one in San Francisco, and one finally in Manila, are a pretty solid summation of the glory and the alienation and the power and the desperation of being a show bidness figure.

The story of a homeless kid from the streets of Manila who grows up to take over as lead vocalist in one of the world's shlockiest classic rawk bands, and surprises everybody, including the band themselves, by completely revitalizing a brand most people were content to let die.

Well, this is most likenable to Gallipoli --- sweaty men struggling to somehow retain their humanity in unthinkably dehumanizing circumstances. Lacks Gallipoli's poetic script and narrative development, though. Farrell is here in a turn that follows similar early career moves by Russell Crowe and Brad Pitt --- playing a brutish and malignant oaf that's pure id, not necessarily meant as a role to stand out on it's own, but to show he has it in him to lend nuance and menace and gravity to any later protagonist roles he gets. There's also some symbolism here that's delivered more clumsily than you might expect Weir to deliver it.

Which film of his do you find to be horrid? Green Card? Anyhow, I guess in the Weir context, this wouldn't be seen as his tour de force or anything.

Not a tale of an awkward teenager weathering a miserable summer at a beachfront community, but a rather one of hard men trekking thousands of miles to escape Siberia during World War II. Directed by Peter Wier. [fimg=450:15ip8uyx]http://jimsturgessonline.com/images/albums/userpics/10001/TWB_poster_Swiss_002.jpg[/fimg:15ip8uyx]

This article suggests him getting moved off of short was something of an arbitrary decision. He had never been given the opportunity as a pro with the Pirates.

Murphy is making $5.8 million this season, and will go through arbitration one more time this winter, and likely earn about $8 million in 2015, before becoming a free agent after this season. Wow! Arbitration and free agency, all in one off-season.

Over... ? Over hill? Over dale? Over Macho Grande?

Allan Dykstra, your AAA homerun derby champ. Runner up: former Mets prospect Francisco Pe�a.

Fricken' homered fricken' twice more to-fricken'-night.

Screenplay by Mark Bomback. How can I resist?

Interesting that the police report has the players holding only Venezuelan IDs and naming them as "30-year-old Vincent Lupo Perez and 19-year-old Wuilmer Gabriel Benavente." One guy there is 10 years older than the Mets have him listed at and both are brandishing alternative names.

Finally, among the heavy-hitters of supporting talent was Dustin Hoffman as the restaurant's tyrannical owner. And think about that for moment. If you accept that the movie is all an allegory of the film-making industry, what should we understand it to mean when the Chef's boss is a money-grubbing and creativity-stifling hateful Jewish guy?

Also worth noting is that the movie is something of an ongoing commercial for Twitter. It was beyond product placement. It was a pitch.

Jon Favreau writes, directs, and stars in the title role, as a successful but burnt-out high-end LA chef. He saboutages his career by picking a fight with a food critic and some hyjinx attempt to ensue as he attempts to revitalize his career and re-connect with his son. Son is played by, I think, the same kid who was in Lego Movie, so he's like got a sweet spot as the kid who redeems semi-lousy, self-absorbed dads. (I checked this out. Different kid.) Anyhow, I have similar problems that I had with Lego Movie, in that this was a spirited movie, but it's execution just wasn't true to that spirit, the scenes feeling served up as cliched and predictable as the menu items he was tired of cooking. That's bad, isn't it? But maybe it's me. The people around me were certainly ooohing and aahing and laughing and cackling. I didn't feel it. Narrative arc felt way disjointed, and themes felt forced. I was looking at the end for Disney to have played some part in the production. Favreau brings in a lot of big shot supporting talent, including his Iron Man buddies Scarlet Johanssen and Robert Downey. (Makes you wonder how much trouble Gwyneth is, that she didn't get a courtesy call.) Also there's Sof�a Vergara and Bobby Carnevale and John Leguizamo as the loyal, spirited buddy who tries to keep the enthusiasm going until our hero can pull himself out of the dumps. But it wasn't doing much to pump up my spirits. Again, others in the theater were slopping it up. Maybe I don't watch enough cooking TV, and there were just scenes I'm not as conditioned to respond to as the others were. But maybe I just need to look past the food porn and high calorie soundtrack padding. Maybe there's something meta going on, and the chef picking a fight with a food critic was just a big analogy for a Hollywood filmmaker picking a fight with a film critic. A big fuck you from Hollywood to the critics they depend on for their self-esteem. YEAH! You tell those hatin' bloggers, you aggrieved, mega-rich filmmakers!! But you know, I don't particularly like Hollywood's idea of down and out. Favreau mopes and feels sorry for himself and treats his kid coldly as he drives back and forth in this gleaming Mercedes Benz, bouncing between his spicy Cuban ex-wife played by a supermodel, and his smokey Scandinavian restaurant hostess/apparent friend-with-bennies played by a super-hero. And of course they both care deeply for him, even as he grows increasingly self-centered. Oh, boo-hoo for you. There's a great movie about John Favreau as a talented but broken, dispirited man with a colorful, energetic buddy trying to keep him going until he can pull himself up. Its name is Swingers and it came out in 1996.

Divorced single mom and masseuse Elaine Bennis finds mid-life romance with Tony Soprano, in his penultimate role, but simultaneously indulges a new friendship with his ex-wifie, who talks his ass DOWN. Neither party is aware of Elaine's relationship with the other, and that sort of Three's Company plotline is guaranteed to provide the mix of anxiety and hilarity that will thrill dozens. The film is clearly aimed at females, although the females it presents generally range from awful to merely indecently shallow, and they share shit with each other that they just shouldn't share. But I guess they do. Tony's character (Albert), is a decent egg, but the only other male (played by Ben Falcone) is a horror show, and Toni Collette (playing his character's wife) takes his huge piles of crap with mere occasional eyerolls. Aren't the "friend" couples supposed to be charming and colorful in romantic comedies? Catherine Keener makes the ex-wife unbearable, too. Hey, nice to see longtime TV actors inhabit new characters in a film, but... mostly I wanted to get a divorce from society.

It's OK. I can watch 51s games too. But it still speaks of one catcher going out of Las Vegas and two coming in. So I'm curious. Teaparty would have to sit out a few days while attempting to pass through waivers, right? So maybe Plawecki would be initially promoted to cover that stretch.

Teagarden not expected to clear wavers?