Vic Sage

well, since today is another day, here's my new "top 10 desert island movies": True Romance - it was a toss-up between this and PULP FICTION, but this one wins due to the comicbook connection. Empire Strikes Back - best of Star Wars Almost Famous - great music, great characters, funny and sad Singin in the Rain - greatest movie musical ever Duck Soup - greatest Marx Brox movie Wizard of Oz - i can't believe i didn't put this on my list yesterday King Kong (33) - I've watched it every Thanksgiving since i was a kid Casablanca - you MUST remember this! Bull Durham - After "field of dreams" but before "the natural". Outlaw Josey Wales - as much as i like "Unforgiven", this one gets the nod. and tomorrow i can make another top 10... and we can go on like that for weeks...

Delgado 3 Floyd 1 Lo Duca 1 Oliver 1

I took my daughter. It was "build-a-bear day". I was dubious, given the forecast, that a game would actually be played, but she was absolutely certain. Happily, she was right. OHernandez - 3 Nady - 2.75 Delgado - 1.25 Wagner - 1.25 Sanchez - 1 Valentin - 0.50 Floyd - 0.25

Here's 10 off the top of my head, in the order in which they occurred to me (tomorrow would likely be an entirely different list): The Good, The Bad & the Ugly The Producers The Crow Moulin Rouge The In-Laws All That Jazz Barbarella Kill Bill (v1-v2) Field of Dreams Bladerunner

while i'm right there with you on Donnie Brasco, i have more reservations about HEAT. Despite direction by the excellent Michael Mann, I found this movie overlong and not very interesting. Other than the great scene between DeNiro and Pacino in the diner, i was generally disappointed. Its not terrible. But i didn't think it was particularly good, either.

Despite your reaction to SIGNS, you should really try UNBREAKABLE. Considering our mutual interest in comics, and the superhero mythos, i think you'd appreciate it.

Yancy, i assume you liked UNBREAKABLE? I didn't love SIGNS, but i liked it ok. THE VILLAGE on the other hand... as far as i'm concerned, that's the weakest of his films to date. I saw the ending a mile off, and without that "twist", there was absolutely nothing else going on there.

just as the answer to the question of "Sinatra or Mathis" is "Presley", the answer to your question, CF, is Q: "Clueless or Brilliant?" A: "Disinterested" The Media speaks only in story, not in truth. Whatever story is more compelling will be the one that draws the media's attention. "Truth" is complicated, and complexity and ambiguity are avoided at all costs. Its too hard to sell, either because audiences are too stupid, or because the media thinks they are. Its not that reporters or other media types are necessarily "clueless" and can't understand the math (though some certainly are), its more that they just don't care, and have no reason to.

I'm a fan of Shyamalan's work. He's a writer/director of unique, visually arresting, sometimes moving stories about the spiritual quest to find one's purpose in the world. He is a master at frustrating audience expectations, which is a brave (somewhat self-destructive) impulse. Rather than simply being a con-man adept at the sleight-of-hand gimmick of the "twist ending", he's a maker of quiet, contemplative, sad, fantasy films. All that being said, he's annoyingly inconsistent, and he's a better director than he is a writer. As a writer, his scripts are often clumsy in their exposition, unfocused in the development of themes, and treat characters in a superficial way. As a director, however, he unfailingly finds the best place to put the camera in any scene. And his casting instincts are terrific (except when he casts himself), often getting great performances. As auteurs go, his work has a stylistic and thematic consistency, even as their quality zig zags. Thats because the success of SIXTH SENSE gave him the power to make whatever movies he wants, and sometimes his talent as a filmmaker exceeds his skill as a storyteller, thus creating a huge crater in the Earth. Unfortunately, such is the case of LADY IN THE WATER. But even here, in one of his lesser works, his desire to dramatize the importance of storytelling for our spiritual well-being is a message of hope and redemption. And I'm glad he made it and i saw it. It sure beats the crap out of wasting his and my time by making the SIXTH SENSE 2 ("I can still see dead people! And they've got guns!!") LADY IN THE WATER has been eviscerated by critics and audiences alike. In fact, the crowd i saw it with hooted and booed at the end (Hey, they could be Mets fans!). And, to be fair, by casting himself in the movie as an artist whose great, important work will change the world after his martyrdom... well, that kind of hubris demands a come-uppance. His self-importance aside, however, i still think the movie is worthwhile. Not great, certainly. At times, not even very good. Certainly not up to UNBREAKABLE quality (which, for my money, is on the short list of great films of the last 20 years). Shyamalan's movies cast a spell, regardless of the ocasional inadequacy of their construction, that never fails to make me think and make me feel. If there is anything else that art should accomplish, i have no idea what it may be. If you're looking for a slam-bang action film, this ain't it. In fact, unless you're already a fan of his work, this movie is unlikely to make you one. But for those who see a difference between his films and those of Jerry Bruckheimer's, and for those who appreciate that difference, I think the movie has sufficient quality to hold your interest. The films of M. Night Shyamalan Praying with Anger (1992) Wide Awake (1998) The Sixth Sense (1999) Unbreakable (2000) Signs (2002) The Village (2004) Lady in the Water (2006)

No, no twist ending. But it does play with your expectations, to some degree. Not as much as his prior films, though.

really, really, really, really good. But, IMO, it's not "GODFATHER II" great. Still, it's absolutely worth going out of your way to see.

M. Night Shyamalan's new film opens to widespread derision... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452637/ ...but what did YOU think?

no its Phonetic Yiddish.

Wickman is nothing to get worried about. They'd probably be better off with Ray closing, at this point in Wickie's career.

looks like Endy did just fine today.

ex-Met Jason Tyner helped Minny beat Tampa 6-4 today.

I'll be there with my daughter. She's very excited. I don't have the heart to tell her John Maine is pitching.

]But here's why Yankee fans love the 'Captain': he's all about team and there is no "I" in Derek Jeter. wow. did he actually pull out that hoary old chestnut? What style! And while he's correct that there is no "I" in Derek Jeter, lets see what there IS: DEREK JETER jerk drek terd jeer eek reek retj deter eet drek der jerk That's alot of bad stuff in Derek Jeter, even without an "I".

those are all good ideas, but i think they're window dressing. The view outside the window, however, shows storm clouds in the distance. This is why i say we need another decent starter.

From HARDBALL TIMES website: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/mid-term-report-card-new-york-mets/ ]The other thing to note about the Mets' top three starters is that they all have FIPs (Fielding Independent Pitching ERA) higher than their actual ERAs. This could be due either to luck or superior fielding, it's not easy to tell which, but some regression to the mean in the second half should be expected. Those three pitchers, though, have started 52 of the Mets' 89 games thus far. That has left 37 starts to a motley crew of crafty veterans (e.g., El Duque), good-looking youngsters (Bannister) and various Quad-A anonymities (Jeremi Gonzalez). Bannister made five starts early, going 2-0 with a 2.89 ERA, before going down with a bad hamstring. On the other side of the coin, Jose Lima was given four starts (wha?) and fared even worse than most of us thought he would: 0-4 with a 10.00 ERA. As a group the 4-5 starters have gone 9-16 with an ERA of 5.55, while pitching about five innings per start. The Mets would certainly like to shore up the bottom of the rotation, especially since Pedro has recently shown some health concerns, missing his last two starts before the All-Star Break. Perhaps Mike Pelfrey, the Mets' top draft pick in 2005 who has recently joined the rotation, will be a key performer. In any case, the Mets are rumored to be searching desperately for an established starting pitcher to bolster the bottom of the rotation. yes, you only need 4 pitchers for the playoffs. But you still have to get there, and while we might not blow the entire lead, we may end up playing little better than .500 over the 2nd half because of the lack of starting pitching, and we'll certainly be putting a strain on an already overworked pen. Thats not the way you want to go into the playoffs. If Pelfrey continues to pitch OK, then maybe he fills one of those slots. But i'm not sanguine about ElDuque/Main/etc filling the other slot in a way that gives me enthusiasm for our post-season chances. I don't mind handing one slot out of 5 over to rookies and has-beens, trying to catch lightning in a bottle, but handing over 40% of the rotation for the 2nd half of the season to huge question marks (when the remaining 60% are so fragile) is just begging for a 1st round knockout.

Keith and Ron together are terrific.

]A healthy Martinez, a solid Glavine, a steady Trachsel is not so horrible. no, its not horrible In fact, that would be quite good enough. But we don't have those things. What we DO have is an unhealthy Martinez, a slumping Glavine, and a trachsel thats steady at an above-league avg ERA for whom the Mets score a ton of runs. ]Wouldn't the odds favor one of the group of Pelfry, Bannister, Maine or Hernandez having some success from this piont forward? Perhaps, but we need TWO of them to have success, not just one. And the odds of THAT, while gettng back a healthy Pedro, and having glavine return to solidity, and having Trax' steadiness level out at 1/2 run of ERA less, are NOT odds you really want to bet on. ]I'm with Yancy - I don't think that in the long run the pitching is as bad as people are being led to believe. And i think you and Yancy are delusional. But i mean that in the nicest possible way! ]Go get another starter be it Rodrigo or Livan and throw them into the mix as well. Why not? cuz those guys blow. We need a solid #2-#3-type starter that can push Trax to #4, leaving only the 5th slot open rookies and has-beens. And I don't think there are any available right now. But if there were, you'd have to give up something of value to get him. Either F.Garcia and J.Vazquez sound like possibilities, if they'd take Heilmann and a prospect in return. Sanchez, however, has been too important to the bullpen to move now. As for Dontrelle Willis, trading Pelfrey and/or Milledge for him (even if thats all it would cost us, which i doubt) is not trading away the future. D-Train is 24 years old! He IS the future. But whats good about him is that, unlike Pelfrey, he's the present, too. But i don't think there's any way FLA trades him to the Mets.

He DID do fine in 02 (as indicated by an OPS+ of 130). The problem was, after an awful 01, he came back in 02 without the same pop of his earlier years, and so it felt disappointing. While he was a perfectly good #2 hitter in 02 (though not always used in that slot), he was no longer the Fonzie we once knew. And his last 3 1/2 years have been dreadful. In fact, I've never seen an excellent player have his production fall of a cliff like his did, at such a comparatively young age. Washed up at 31? geez. Still, i'm happy to see him back and wish him well.

And there i was, already about to annoint Mr. Wright as the Mets' Mr. Right, and it turns out he's shilling for a faith healer. Ugh.

i agree about Lois and Clark being too young, and about the "bullet in the eye" scene... its great. But the movie DID give me goosebumps... repeatedly. And i can certainly understand why you'd complain about the length of the attenuated ending, but i wasn't bored or fidgety... i was moved by it. Its part of why this is more an "epic" than your standard "summer action pic".