Edgy MD

Glad to hear it, but I imagine something close to half the guys on a mid-season AA roster will get at least a taste of the majors. Reese Havens, Mark Cohoon, Adrian Rosario, Armando Rodriguez --- all these guys should get at least a crack. Heck, Rob Carson's already been there.

Pretty much dead on. Not so much in the way of stereotype rastamem (though there's some overbroad stuff there). And more plot and fewer set pieces than your standard Police Academy film. What struck me is what a wet blanket it was on some hot careers. Harold Ramis had done big hits Caddyshack and National Lampoon's Vacation by then, but wouldn't come back until 1993 with Groundhog Day. With Bob Marley dead and Peter Tosh in a sort of professional exile, Jimmy Cliff was poised for a breakthrough. (Springsteen had just included a version of Cliff's "Trapped" on the megaselling USA for Africa album.) Even as he played a character in the film resenting being sanitized for the masses, he was reggae's biggest hope for a market in Babylon America. The film failed and he hasn't appeared as an actor since, and his singing profile in the US continued to wane even after Tosh was killed.

Collin tackles the age-old question, and begs you to stop asking it. Good use of the word "volatile." While fans can listen to the these claims and enjoy the drama of the minor league soap operas, the players cannot (for our own sanity) get caught up in it. If we gave validity to every claim that was made about our careers, most of us would cry ourselves to sleep at night from the brutality of people's words. The rest of us would be eternally bitter at our stagnate progress. Either way it ends up hindering our careers. Needs a hug, he does. Anyway, Collin had something of a rough go his last time out at Harrisburg, but has generally been real effective (2.39 ERA in 11 starts), and I'd be wondering when the phone was gonna ring if I was him.

And Dustin Martin farmed out to Bingo.

Yeah, the narrative held together well, but it led on mostly pointlessly, save that this strange obsessive hobby led to increases in some people's lives, and deteriorations in others. I imagine Steve Martin and Jack Black had a sitdown on the subject of what's left when you're no longer playing it for laughs. With Black, when he's not playing the ham, there's usually this amorality that's left over, like in King Kong, and it's in fact creepier when he's a straight guy without a broken moral compass. But (to the extent that's a good thing), he didn't even bring that to the table, and Wilson emerges as the obsessed villain figure. But seeing him as the broken guy is a tough sell also, in light of his depression-induced suicide attempt. Clearly the studio had high hopes for this film, enlisting heavy hitters for supporting parts (Anjelica Huston, Brian Dennehy, Dianne Wiest, Kevin Pollack, and Rashida Jones), plus filming in many an exotic North American location. And I guess any fun derived in it comes in part from being daytrippers along for the ride in this strange hobby that certainly makes for a pleasant few hours diversion but takes a rare breed to make a true avocation of. So, no, you won't get deeply engaged, but the birds are pretty, though your disengagement may leave you with a disappointing tendency to play at guessing which shots are CGI enhanced. A shot on a frigid mountainside, for instance, won't have the characters breathing vapor or red-nosed. This stuff breaks the old suspension of disbelief, even if subconsciously. So, yeah, I agree with you, but I still retained some good will for it.

A bird hater.

There's a cringe-able moment or two --- zany resort satire hijinks like Andrea Martin riding on a parasail that snaps free and flies her away, and Rick Moranis climbing on a windsurfer and sailing miles out to sea --- but more keep-worthy moments than you might expect. And great music. Cliff composed like eight new songs for the film, and the opening and closing credits are set to "Seven Day Weekend" --- Cliff's duet with Elvis Costello and the Attractions. They also pull a track from "The Rhythmatist" --- Stewart Copeland's ambitious but forgotten anthropology rock album.

Three ambitious birders (Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson) compete to see who can spot the most species of bird in a single year. It's a film, also, with a lot of birds.

Robin Williams is a Chicago firefighter who invests his disability money in a small-time beach resort on the fictional Caribbean island of St. Nicholas. Jimmy Cliff, in the role that ended his viability as a movie star, is his reggae-playing local partner. Harold Ramis directs and half the Second City company plays supporting roles, in addition to Peter O'Toole, Twiggy, and Adolph Caesar, in his last film role as the corrupt small-time prime minister trying to take over the club.

Milwaukee takes Mr. Git'er Done at #185. Just how high can a guy who throws one pitch go in the Draft? We might find out with Magnifico. Granted, the one pitch is a plus plus fastball that consistently touches triple-digits, but it doesn't have much life, making it more hittable than it should be. He throws a slider, but it's below average, and there is some question about his medical, given that he had screws inserted in his elbow when he was in junior college. Still, that arm strength doesn't grow on trees, and a team that thinks it can help Magnifico add a secondary offering may take a shot at turning him into a short reliever.

He gives more of what I use Twitter for.

Colin, making his second go in Bingo, runs his record to 5-3 with eight strong innings against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. His ERA drops to 2.17, and maybe the post-Acosta shuffling will lead to a richly deserved promotion to Buffalo. Meanwhile, Colin is transfixed by bat dogs, his brother is digging on Tyrone Wells, and his baby is just breaking the needle on the darling-and-dainty meter.

Gallipoli worked for me. It had the strange advantage of being the last film my family of six ever went out and saw together as a family. Really strange selection, I guess, but I didn't even know, up until that point, that World War I was a viable subject for a movie. Every time I ran the bases thereafter, the phrase fast-as-a-leopard would churn in my mind.

That's generous of you, but there are readers counting on your guidance here, Vic.

I was torn between three stars and thee and a half. I went for the latter because it had genial good will and because it wasn't Secretariat. But I have half a mind to dock it back down to three for it's shameless and continued references to Target stores as some sort of cornerstone of American life.

Grieving widower (Matt Damon) tries to turn things around for his emotionally crippled kids and himself by buying a new home with a deed that includes a rider that the homeowner take over stewardship of a private zoo on the property. He and his 14-year-old son each meet a pretty girl, his seven-year-old daughter gets to play with peacocks and peahens, and healing ensues, but not very easily. Cameron Crowe takes a Disney subject with a strangely frank title (so over-the-top in it's frankness that it probably helped kill the film at the box office), and ends up producing something that's not quite a Crowe film, but not quite a Disney thingie. And that's cool, but while it includes the virtues of each, it's kind of held down by the shortcomings of each. (This isn't actually a Disney film, but the spirit was never far away.) Generally not without heart and commitment and stuff. Crowe reportedly got Damon to play the lead by visiting him on the set of True Grit and leaving him a copy of Local Hero along with the script (and Peter Riegert sneaks into a scene). So yeah, it's got some of the Local Hero flava, with a successful but detached guy throwing himself into a new and risky scenario that leads to his rebirth and reconnection. Could have been written better. It's no Local Hero, but it's no Elizabethtown either.

It really is to the core. A genial Disney gloss can't really hide how massively condescending it all is.

Next up on Forgettable Family Friendly Fare: We Bought a Fucking Zoo!

Woman inherits a horse farm in decline. Defies the doubters. Raises a champion.

And he's about 16.25% of the way through Bondy's five-year prediction.

There goes that perfect season. Send that boy this and help him out.

Rocket on pitching mechanics and shrimp and grits.

Didn't work for me at the time. It might work better now.

It's good, but my main issue was that there was sort of little reason for Sigourney's appearance, beyond punching the enigmatic and sexy square on Weir's card. I mean, there's a purpose to her being there, as she's part of the puppet play that Billy is trying to orchestrate, but she proves no deeper than the shadow puppet princess she's analogous to. And I guess that's sort of a justifiable purpose for her, but at least Gibson's guy was a character with some depth, even if he ultimately proved not to have much depth of character. But I think Weir likes to leave some open question marks about characters and pieces missing from the puzzle.

Iron Man 2: I know who he's fighting, why the bad guy is angry, what's the source of his power. When he made a decision in the course of battle, I knew why. Made it more coherent than most of the rest of these. The scope of a lot of these just gobbles coherence up.