| ARCHIVED | The Season in Review: Ranking 2009's Five Best Football Games

(originally posted 08 February 2010 as SS03)

5. Montreal Alouettes 28, Saskatchewan Roughriders 27; the 97th Grey Cup [CFL]: 55-yard lines, endzone goalposts, legal forward motion, 3 downs and out…and 13 MEN ON THE FIELD!?!

HIGHLIGHT

The anti-Arena Football League (R.I.P.), with its vast expanses of 110-yard fields and 20-yard endzones, 18-game seasons, 3-down possessions, 1-point scores on punts, and 12-man teams, the CFL is vastly under-appreciated in the US. Though the reality that many of its players are simply the cast-offs and never-weres of the NFL is unshruggable, the league is a superb filler as we wait for American football to start in those last heated weeks of the summer.

Of course, when this filler is a back-and-forth brawl of a comeback upset like the 2009 Grey Cup was (the CFL's championship match, equivalent in consequence to the NFL's Super Bowl), one shall hear no complaints about the lack of star power. When heavy favorite Saskatchewan went up by two scores in the first, Montreal, which was a Buffalo Bills-esque 0-4 in their Grey Cup history heading into the game, the Alouettes' (French, meaning lark) was forced to again turn to all-continent QB and three-time league Most Outstanding player Anthony Calvillo for an answer.

Calvillo, fourth on the all-time list for professional league passing yards and who once tossed over 6,000 yards in a season, rose to the call of duty, passing and rushing his Alouettes back to within 2 immediately after a TD pass. When Montreal missed a FG as time expired, the season seemed over, but...

...well, see the highlight.

4. Indianapolis Colts 35, New England Patriots 34; regular season [NFL]: Even the best decisions cannot account for Peyton Manning

HIGHLIGHT

Mozart composed his Requiem, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, and Peyton Manning plays American football; genius assumes many forms.

Down by a three-possession 17 points in the fourth quarter, Manning, in vintage fashion that is truly only his, led his Colts to within 6 points in the closing moments of this Week 10 Sunday night thriller. What followed on 4th & 2, with New England in possession inside both their own 30 and the 2-minute warning, provided for the most audacious and downright correct coaching decision of the NFL regular season.

Coach Bill Belichick's choice to try the fourth-down conversion, while ultimately fruitless, provoked and fueled debate on coaching conventions, led to his further exultation by the football blogosphere stat geeks, and, while possibly the product of arrogant self-absorption, further wrote his legend. Of course, we remember the denouement as such that Manning hit Reggie Wayne on the double-move slant with :16 on the clock...
 

| ARCHIVED | "You need more than guts to be a good gangster, you need ideas."

(originally published 06 April 2009 as SS02)

With as much undue hype and mindless lauding as 'Slumdog Millionaire' garnered this past year, I felt strongly convicted to again assume my role as the "that guy" film snob and allow the unenlightened masses the pleasure of seeing the beckoning light of the greener pastures of cinema. This year's Oscar champion was indeed a well-constructed effort, enabling even the most critical viewers to enjoy a tale that seems so overtly cheesy, yet maintains a strong storyline and credible character development. This film that was a few phone calls from going straight-to-DVD is indeed a heartwarming coming-of-age tale of love gained and lost.

'Slumdog' thrived on momentum, multicultural appeal, and, well, simply "feels good" (Read: 'Titanic', 'Crash'). The movie's gravest shortcoming is inherent of its artistic value, of which there is, of course, absolutely none. Yes, it is shallow at best, and, frankly, even empty. Genuine film is the quintessential fine art that 'Slumdog Millionaire' was not; last year's Best Picture winner was the very-deserving 'No Country for Old Men', the Coen Brothers' triumphant effort of neo-Western filmmaking overflowing with profound themes of fate and of good and evil, packaged entirely in a deceivingly simplistic grab-the-cash-and-run-from

-the-bad-guy plot. Besides, any film that bested Paul Thomas Anderson's mindblowing treatise on blood, oil, and religion, 'There Will Be Blood', is an immediate bona fide classic...

| ARCHIVED | Oscar Picks '09

(originally published 20 February 2009 as SS01)

With the presentation of the motion picture industry’s supreme awards on Sunday evening, I have conveniently elected to forego any possibility of listing 25 random facts about myself. Instead, I will continue a tradition of mine into Facebook, listing my selected Oscar picks for the 2009 awards.

Last year, I went for a conservative 10 categories, nailing 8. Of course, that I went with ‘No Country for Old Men’ for achievement in Cinematography over ‘There Will Be Blood’ was a fool’s errand in the eleventh hour, and a prime example of why second-guessing yourself in such elementary matters is often a mistake. However, that Tilda Swinton (‘Michael Clayton’…soooooo overrated) won Best Actress in a Supporting Role over Amy Ryan and her debut in ‘Gone Baby Gone’ (best movie from 2007 that you’ve never seen) is a high crime that no one could have foreseen.

Overall, 2008 had one of the weaker theatrical offerings in cinema’s history. But with past gripes aside, what follows is the list of 20 of my 2009 Oscar picks. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and their ways of selection often prove tricky to decipher, usually quite befuddling, and many times political instead of critical. Regardless, free soda to anyone who beats me...