Vic Sage

i have to admit that upon hearing this, i literally laughed out loud. You have to appreciate the biblical scale of how disastrous this season is turning out. Locusts? It looks like we're soon going to see the death of our first born.

what the Mets need isn't available on the FA market. Moustakas is probably the best available, but he's the wrong type of player. They need to trade for Machado, or somebody of that level/age, to make an impact at 3b. But that means paying one of those guys a max-deal, so its unlikely that will happen, given the contract they just gave to Cespedes.

To Vic's point that the Wilpons would use the money to buy a jackalope ranch in Mauritania or something, it's possible, but a separate issue. I'd like the Mets to preserve the resources they have; rich and stupid is at least marginally better than poor and stupid. The Pons have so much debt to service that i don't think the jackalope population in Mauritania is facing an imminent boom. And my suspicion is that our team's payroll will be equally boomless.

regarding payroll, i think our ownership doesn't get the benefit of the doubt that they'd put any savings back into the team rather than their pocket (or to service their debts). Look at all the deals they've just made... we received NO real prospects, just payroll relief and a shitload of hard throwing right-handed RPs with minimal success in the minors to date. If we wanted actual prospects, we would've picked up some of the salary of our outgoing guys. But no, they just wanted to save the cash. And there's no indication that they'll be willing to spend next year at this year's levels.

while i agree about adding offense, lets first acknowledge that offense wasn't what cost them this season (they're much better than league average in runs). It was the devastation to their pitching staff that did it (with nearly the worst Runs Allowed). That being said, what they need is greater consistency in offensive production, rather the boom-or-bust lineup we've been fielding. We score a greater % of our runs on HRs than just about anybody. We go from winning an 8-7 game to losing a 7-2 game. What we need are OB guys; line drive hitters that make consistent contact, work the count, get walks, to balance the lineup. Conforto has been sort of up and down in that regard, and Cespedes is purely a streak hitter. But the description sounds like Dom Smith to me, or at least that's his hitting profile. And if we're not building with him and Rosario, then what exactly are we building with? You simply cannot build around young pitching because of its high rate of injury and inconsistency. I think sitting Smith in AAA or on the bench, while we get another boom/bust bat at 1b would be a grave error. I want to see, once and for all, if Nimmo can be a major league hitter and platoon him with Lagares in CF, with Conforto in RF. Nimmo is the kind of line-drive OB guy i'm looking for, if he can hit .300/.375/.425, but lets actually give him and Smith a season and find out. Then, at least, we'll know. I think our greatest FA needs are at either 2b or 3b, wherever we can find the most consistent bat/glove (I think Flores can play the other position, whichever one we get), at catcher, and in the starting rotation. With Familia and Ramos in the pen (and the dozen RPs we've just traded for), i think we'll be able to field a decent pen, but we simply cannot rely on Harvey, Wheeler and Matz again for the rotation. They've shown absolutely no indication that they can pitch a full baseball season in the majors without some significant injury. And Gsellman, Flexen and Montero should be depth/emergency options only. I think Syndegaard is entitled to this injury before he joins them, due to his incredible upside and full season performances to date. So I think we go into next season with Syndy, DeGrom and _____, _____, and _____. I'm willing to wait and see on the 4th and 5th slots, to see if any of the walking wounded come around, but we need at least one strong veteran pitcher that can be a #2-#3, and will eat innings in a consistent and competent manner. So I don't think Darvish is reliable enough. As for Moustakas, i don't like his offensive approach for our lineup. And Weiters? No catchers over 30 and in decline, please. What else ya got? So i want a bat at 2nd or 3rd, a solid 2-way catcher, and a good mid-rotation SPer. These are necessities; everything above that is gravy, IMO.

oh, and he gave a thumbs up to both BRINGING UP BABY and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Its interesting to see the young Grant and the older Grant back-to-back like that, and see the development of the Grant style. And Hepburn is just amazing.

I do have SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (and THE PRODUCERS), but i did want to add more musicals. He's seen alot of them though, as well as action films, so he's not unfamiliar with the best stuff in those genres and I'm not including anything he's already seen. I was thinking of TOP HAT and either HAIR or PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, but i wanted to keep it to 26 weeks. And i was also thinking about ENTER THE DRAGON and CROUCHING TIGER, but i was saving that for our "foreign film & indie" class. And i think AMERICAN BEAUTY is not only brilliant, it pairs well with THE APARTMENT as satires of middle class values and aspirations.

Frayed Knot wrote: MLB-wide pct of solo HRs = 58.9% NYM pct of solo HRs = 68.2% Now you'd expect some kind of gap given our poor (though not bottom of the barrel) OBA, but still ... Perhaps the fact that 2 of our top HR hitters have been batting in the lead-off position much of the season has something to do with it? Even after the 1st inning, hitting after d'Arnaud and the pitcher for the rest of the game isn't going to give a guy (whether Conforto or Granderson) a lot of opportunities for 3-r HRs.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: "Gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" is such a great line. I also loved how Keenan Wynn's character was concerned, despite the threat of nuclear annihilation, about the Coke machine. he was very concerned about Sellers/Mandrake's "preversions", and warned him he'd have to answer to the coca cola company. There are so many great supporting performances in that movie -- George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens -- and then some interesting faces that pop up, including James Earl Jones as a member of the flight crew, along with William Daniels as the navigator. The Being There / Forrest Gump double feature occurred to me because (1) they fit together perfectly, (2) It is an amazing performance by sellers, and (3) Forrest Gump is on the AFI top 100 and did have a cultural impact, but there's alot less there than meets the eye and there was a reason that i didn't include it in my original list and i probably won't stick it in now. Maybe one of the Pink Panther movies.

we saw DUCK SOUP and DR. STRANGELOVE. He liked the Marx brothers alot (this is still a very funny movie), but didn't love DR. STRANGELOVE (it wasn't funny). I was trying to explain the difference between satire (which generally just causes a knowing smile) and farce, snappy patter and slapstick (like the brothers Marx), which generate guffaws. But he wasn't buying it. He did appreciate the performance(s) by Peter Sellers, though. I might add a BEING THERE / FORREST GUMP double feature near the end.

i didn't much like it until the court-martial scene. Then the combat stuff that followed was really harrowing; the best battle scenes since SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. It reminded me of the HBO mini-series THE PACIFIC, which, while not as good as BAND OF BROTHERS, was still pretty good. Gibson's constant use of religious imagery was a bit much, but at least it was relevant to the character, so i didn't mind. But Gibson surely does love to shoot scenes of violent christian martyrdom.

my son's responses to date: He like MODERN TIMES ok, but hated 2001. It is incredibly slow and ponderous film (intentionally so) and his contemporary teenage mind simply couldn't handle the pacing. He loved KING KONG, and while he appreciated ALIEN for its filmmaking, he doesn't like horror movies and the discomfort it causes him is not a feeling he likes to have. Which i generally feel, too, but i just find the design and direction of ALIEN to be extraordinary, so it really transcends the horror elements. Next up is DUCK SOUP and Dr. STRANGELOVE, which i'm looking forward to.

My son has also inherited a love of classic films from his father. Early on, I would just keep an eye on TCM and record whatever looked to me to be an "essential", as they put it. We never had any kind of formal curriculum. I've seen all of the movies on your list except for three: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly; Touch of Evil; and American Beauty. I agree with sharpie, it's a good list, although mine would probably have been somewhat different as well. Of course Casablanca is on the list! It HAS to be! (Gone With the Wind is a notable omission. Sure, it's a chick flick, but it's the one chick flick that everyone should see.) I'm glad to see several movies that I have a particular affection for: High Noon, King Kong, and Double Indemnity. Modern Times is a good example of Charlie Chaplin -- I would have gone with The Great Dictator but I'm glad you didn't choose City Lights. The only movies from the sound era that I would have definitely included but that you left off are Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, and Young Frankenstein. I would also have included some silents. The Birth of a Nation is an essential part of movie history. Others that are worthwhile are The Crowd and Sunrise. about Gone With the Wind, see my comment above; I thought about GREAT DICTATOR, but the series is chronological and i wanted to start with a silent film, and i wasn't going to do more than one (to keep my son's interest). I was thinking about Sunrise and The General, but i just thought he'd like "Modern Times" times more, and it gives the list a silent comedy, which i thought was an essential place to start. If he pursues his interests in film, he can get to BIRTH OF A NATION, and other silent classics, on his own; YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN? Did you mean BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN? That was on my list, too, but i can't show him everything. I was going to pair it with Cronenberg's remake of THE FLY. i might still. Ditto with TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. But i already had a few Bogie films and i needed to spread it around a bit.

sharpie wrote: If you were doing silents I would have gone with Metropolis although I have no quibble with Sunrise. i was only doing US films for this "semester". Metropolis will start off the 2nd series of foreign/Indy films and deep cuts.

Centerfield wrote: Terrific list. And I don't have the words to describe how cool of a thing this is to do with your son. I'm motivated to go through that list and fill in the gaps myself. Also feel like I should go back and re-watch some of them. I remember having watched Double Indemnity and Vertigo but remember almost nothing about the films. Has he seen Gone With the Wind? Or was it one of those you thought he didn't like? It may be a bit played out but is a must for anyone interested in classic cinema. Gone With the Wind is dated melodrama at its worst, adapting a book that is likewise. He wouldn' have sat through 1 hour of it, much less 4!

MFS62 wrote: Vic, I know you mentioned Hollywood films and the AFI 100 list. But an interesting companion movie to Lawrence of Arabia might be Hill 24 Doesn't Answer. You know. The British officer trying to find himself involved in a war in the Middle East. Just a thought. If not, how about Gunga Din? Anyhow, it sounds like a great thing to do with him. Later lawrence of arabia is 4 hours long - no double feature that day!

I don't know that Alan Trammel was "snubbed". He was on the ballot for ... what... 15 years?, and he didn't get elected. He may well have been deserving (i came around to that position in his later years on the ballot), but that's different than being 1-and-done, without ever really getting a shot to have your case made, like Whitaker and Lofton.

So my son loves movies (big surprise), but the only film classes in his high school are for seniors or for students in the performing arts program. So, I registered him for an online college course this summer, about "superhero cinema", which seemed perfect. Well, he started it, and the readings were overwhelming in both density and volume, and were more about philosophy and psychology than about films, and he was starting to get seriously stressed by it, so we withdrew him from the class. I promised him, instead, that he and i would watch double features every Sunday, and talk about them, and he'd get a basic grounding in classic Hollywood cinema and history. We've just finished week II and so far, so good. The program i've put together is a 28-week survey of classic Hollywood films of the 20th century, largely based on the AFI top 100 (revised in 2008), pairing older films with more recent ones around some common theme or element. I didn't include films he'd seen already (or ones i thought he probably wouldn't like). For those of you who'd like to follow along at home, here's the program: 1. Modern Times (36)* / 2001: A Space Odyssey (68)* - [7/30] 2. King Kong (33)* / Alien (79) – [8/6] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Duck Soup (33)* / Dr. Strangelove (64)* 4. Bringing Up Baby (38)* / North by Northwest (59)* 5. Maltese Falcon (41)* / Chinatown (74)* 6. Citizen Kane (41)* / Touch of Evil (58) 7. Sullivan’s Travels (41)* / Network (76)* 8. Casablanca (42)* / Annie Hall (77)* 9. Double Indemnity (44)* / Fargo (96) 10. The Third Man (49)/ Saving Private Ryan (98)* 11. Sunset Boulevard (50)* / The Player (91) 12. High Noon (52)* / Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (69)* 13. On the Waterfront (54)*/ Raging Bull (80)* 14. Singin’ in the Rain (52)* / The Producers (68) 15. The Searchers (56)* / Wild Bunch (69) 16. African Queen (51)* / Apocalypse Now (79)* 17. Vertigo (58) / Taxi Driver (76)* 18. Some Like it Hot (59)* / Tootsie (82)* 19. Psycho (60)* / Silence of the Lambs (91)* 20. The Apartment (60)* / American Beauty (91) 21. Lawrence of Arabia (62)* -- 22. Bonnie & Clyde (67)* / Untouchables (86) 23. The Graduate (67)* / Animal House (78) 24. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (67) / Unforgiven (92)* 25. MASH (70)* / Platoon (86)* 26. A Clockwork Orange (71)* / Goodfellas (90)* 27. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (75)*/ Shawshank Redemption (94)* 28. The Godfather (72) * / Godfather II (74)* * = AFI top 100

the curse of the HR derby strikes again!

l could live with a platoon/rotation of Cabrera, Flores, Reyes and Rivera at 2b/3b next year. They're all useful players with specific strengths and, with Rosario at ss and Smith at 1b, could be a solid IF. And ditto for Cespedes, Conforto and Bruce in the OF (backed up by Lagares and Nimmo), but we definitely need an upgrade at catcher. RRivera is an adequate backup, but this should be it for d'Arnaud. He has move lives than a cat, but how many chances does he get before we move on?

41Forever wrote: Here's the lineup i'd like to see for the rest of the season: Rosario (ss) Nimmo / Lagares (cf) Conforto (rf) Cespedes (Lf) Smith (1b) Flores (3b) Cecchini / Walker (2b) d"Arnaud (c) Trade Cabrera and Granderson (and Walker, too, if possible) by August trade deadline for whatever you can get for them. I'll even take 4 more A-ball relievers! Bruce? Unless you can get some value for him, keep him and make a QO in the off-season. The challenge with the lineup you suggest is that Bruce is closing in on 30 homers, among the league leaders, and I don't know how you can tell him to take a seat. Terry says to Jay: "Hey Jay, you know that $13million we're paying you? Well we want you to earn it by sitting over here, next to me. Get in a few games here and there, pinch-hit, play 1b once in a while. Cuz we know what you can do, and you ain't part of our plans going forward. Those kids? Nimmo, Smith, Rosario? Even Lagares, Flores, Cecchini? Them we still gotta find out if they can play everyday. You understand, right?" "Sure, coach. I just have to make a call..."

Here's the lineup i'd like to see for the rest of the season: Rosario (ss) Nimmo / Lagares (cf) Conforto (rf) Cespedes (Lf) Smith (1b) Flores (3b) Cecchini / Walker (2b) d"Arnaud © Trade Cabrera and Granderson (and Walker, too, if possible) by August trade deadline for whatever you can get for them. I'll even take 4 more A-ball relievers! Bruce? Unless you can get some value for him, keep him and make a QO in the off-season.

Chapter serials were the equivalent of tv series, before tv was prevalent. They were NOT filmed as movies; they were made as 20min episodes and then cut together as films later, to make more money off them. I happen to like the Flash Gordon serials (the first one, anyway... not so much Buck Rodgers, but the Captain Marvel series was better than either of them), but turning sequential, episode based comic strips into sequential episode based shorts is simply not the same thing as choosing from among all the Flash Gordon strips and serials ever made to create a single stand-alone feature film. And to include those serials, you then have to include every other comic-based serial (of which there were many), and then there is no rationale for keeping out episodic tv shows that replaced them, and that way madness lies.

or he could be Addison Reed, as soon as they trade Reed.

just saw it on a flight. eh. Maybe if i saw it at home, with good sound...