Willets Point

I have a chance to see this tonight, should I go? (There's no star system to help me out!!)

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="old original jb"] the Paris of Western Pennsylvania. Many Parisians, in fact, refer proudly to their city as "Le Pittsburgh de l'Europe." That explains why their city's landmark is giant steel erection.

I should add that Donald Sutherland puts in a great performance as the befuddled Mr. Bennett. I can't remember ever seeing him in a costume drama before.

Yet another Jane Austen novel brought to the screen, but one of the best I've seen and I think faithful to the time and the book (I think - Full Disclosure: Despite being an English major I've never read a Jane Austen novel in its entirety). Kiera Knightly and her big brown eyes star as Lizzie Bennet one of five Bennet sisters whose hyperactive mother is desperately trying to marry them off and move them up in gentile society. Knightly puts in a good performance as the young woman ahead of her time in that she actually realizes how ridiculous these societal expectations for women are. The director/cinematographer likes moving the camera about for long uncut scenes moving among people and rooms and picking up snatches of conversation which works to good effect. Everything's in soft-focus and lit by sunset making it a beautiful film, almost too beautiful in that it undercuts the satire of what could actually be a harsh society. Still, not everything's too nice - clothing is frayed, there's dust on the floor, and that wall needs painting making everything more lived-in instead of museum-quality. Except for a cheesy coda at the very end this movie avoids Hollywoodization. It's also very funny and well acted.

He had a girlfriend named Debbi Sue.

In my day we had to walk four miles to school ... uphill ... both ways ... in two feet of snow ... fighting off bears with our notebooks .... and we liked it!

I like how the boy's trying to catch them in his hat.

If we don't see him it's because the safety-concious Minaya is filling up roster spots with aged retreads and not giving rookies a chance.

I saw the A&E Biography of Tony Curtis and the thing that sticks with me is how he really wanted to make "a service comedy with Cary Grant" (and when he said this he mimed Cary Grant looking in a periscope). Curtis was at the height as an A-list actor and was able to get that movie made and thus "Operation Petticoat."

Nymr83 wrote: I have to wait in McGwire and hope to god that some more information on the 'roids comes out, if it doesn't i still don't regret keeping him out on the first ballot. Marris isn't in the hall either, there's no rule that a single-season record holder needs to be inducted. This seems to be an over-simplified evaluation of McGwire. There's a vast difference between him and Maris. For starters McGwire hit 583 homeruns for his career. He led the league in homeruns four times in his career, plus the year he was traded he had more homeruns than anyone else in MLB. He hit thirty or more home runs in ten different seasons. He was the first player ever to hit 50 or more home runs in three consecutive seasons and then added a fourth. Also the first player to hit 60 homeruns in consecutive seasons. He helped the A's to three pennants and one World Championship. He was a 12-time All-Star. His similarity scores aren't too shabby including HOF'ers Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey. I think the stats make a good case that he was not a one-year phenenemom and would be worthy of HOF consideration. The issue of steroids is important but if ends up excluding McGwire then he'll have plenty of company.

They have this pitcher named Kazmir who is supposed to be hot shit.

Theo's family history led to this classic post by Frayed Knot.

He looks about 50 years old and more like a guy who works in a hardware store than a baseball player. Cool card though.

My image broke too which is why I reverted to the snowless toaster. As to big threads, if it's still in FA and you think it can break things, then it's still dangerous. So either a) send it off to the archives or bring it back!

All this information would look better in the Rico Brogna thread.

Thigpen's name always reminds me of this guy:

Week of January 30th.

="Edgy DC"]God idea. Of course it's good idea!

I gave it five. This movie really is that good.

That too. Here's the discussion from the Crash thread (sorry I can't make it prettier): ON EDIT: Elster made it prettier. I suck.

Elster88 wrote: The posts in the Crash thread are great. Maybe a friendly neighborhood mod could throw them in here? That wouldn't be me, I'm a rocker.

I thought it would be helpful to spin this off from the Crash thread. Everyone has different criteria for rating movies -- which is quite fine by me -- and I figured it would be helpful if people explained their methodology. Me, I use three stars as the baseline. Three stars means that I found the movie entertaining from beginning to end. Well, entertaining may not always be the right word -- you may want to substitute gripping for a drama or informative for a documentary -- but regardless of adjectives it's a good movie. Moving up one notch, four stars means a particularly good film that is well-written, features excellent acting performances, and is well-directed and produced. This is a movie I'm going to want to see again. At five stars are my all-time favorites. I should add that as far as historical evaluation goes it's in comparison to movies I've seen and liked not to every movie ever made. So films like "Donnie Darko" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" are going to get five stars because they're MY all-time favorites not because they are objectively the greatest films of all time. Moving in the other direction, two stars is a bad movie that has some redeeming quality - perhaps a dumb comedy with quotable one-liners or a drama where one actor puts in a memorable performance. One star films have only one redeeming feature in that I was able to watch the movie end to end without leaving the theater or turning off the TV. I also reserve the right to award zero stars for something that is unwatchable. Half-stars grant a little nuance in between these rankings. I tend to be highly-selective in the movies I go see so I tend to award a lot in the three to four star range since I just don't go see the movies that would get lower ratings. So that's me, how about you?

Why do you call those three films the NYC trilogy? Pretty much every Woody Allen movie takes place in New York and features the city prominently.

It's worth five stars when it's FUCKING GREAT and we want to give it FIVE FUCKING STARS! Fuck yeah!

I've just noticed that I've cracked the top 25 Mets of all time. I'm Tommie Agee!