OK, time to worry.
When you physically dominate a team like the Dolphins did to the Colts last Monday night and you don’t come away with a win, something clearly went wrong that should not have gone wrong. And what that something was was coaching. Sparano deserves a lot of praise for the job he’s done since filling the tiny shoes of Nick Saban and Cam Cameron, but blame for the 27-23 loss to the Colts rests squarely on Sparano shoulders. A coach is responsible for a lot of things and Sparano got a lot of things right in Week Two. The game plan was great, the execution was better, and we saw a much more motivated and mistake-free performance than we saw in that Week One atrocity. But the in-game play-calling and clock management…ugh.
The three moments that stood out: (1) Facing third-and-seven at the Indy 32 with 56 seconds left in the first half, the Dolphins run Ricky Williams for five. Then they kick the FG on fourth and a short two. The play-calling here foreshadowed the later events including the devastating sequence that probably cost Miami the game. Going conservative and settling for a long-field goal attempt. I thought Miami should have gone for it on 4th down. And since they left 43 seconds for the Colts to score the tying FG, they probably should have. At the very least Sparano should have learned a lesson here. But he didn’t; (2) Third-and-six at Indy 30. 4:33 left in the game. 20-all. A simple 3-yard Ronnie Brown run and a FG for the sadly all-too-brief lead. Sparano went conservative and played for the field goal even though he knew he’d be leaving Manning almost four minutes only trailing by three. Insane. Bill Parcells is supposed to be this guy’s mentor! After playing so well all game why wouldn’t you try to put the Colts away here with a first down?; (3) The botched two-minute (plus) offense. This was what everyone was talking about after the game. ANd rightly so! I haven’t seen a worse hurry-up offense since Donovan McNabb vomited away Philly’s chances in Super Bowl XXXIX. Running on the first two plays. Wasting a time out. Not getting another play off before the two-minute warning. WTF? Miami had one last shot from the Colts 33. Now imagine if they had one or two more plays. Pulling out a win would have been a realistic scenario. I still can’t fathom how the team blew the end of the game that badly. Pennington’s an experienced QB. He knows what to do in that situation. Sparano and coaching staff didn’t help him.
The Dolphins blew a game they should have won. Now coming off a short week they’ve got a west coast game against a good team. You can’t like those odds even against a banged up San Diego team. I’ll say this. If Miami can take this game Sparano will have gone a long way to removing the taste of that coaching debacle from everyone’s mouth. If Miami loses, they drop to 0-3 and a return to the playoffs is pretty much out of the question. And so will be the chances of Chad Pennington QB’ing this team for 16 games.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Your 2009 Miami Dolphins: Week One
Oh Lordy.
I knew my 2009 NFL predictions would eventually prove embarrassing, they always do, but I expected that to come well into the season not the very next day! Who’s the opposite of Nostradamus? We need a term for that. I am that guy. Past Interference hereby officially apologizes to all the guys I singled out for improvement this year. Ronnie Brown? Did virtually nothing yesterday. Anthony Fasano? Well he improved in the category of fumbling the ball away. Jake Long? Manhandled by John Abraham. Pat White? My excitement wore off about the time he sailed a pass about ten yards over Ted Ginn’s wide open head. I mean a wide open Ted Ginn’s head. Oh it was ugly. Let’s not overreact to one bad loss, a road loss to a 2008 playoff team no less, but Miami played very, very badly yesterday and the score could have been a lot worse. The one bright spot was the run defense totally shutting down Michael Turner. Just keep repeating that Dolphin fans. It’s all we have. And Davone Bess looked good.
The worst part of it all was Chad Pennington playing like the 2008 playoff Chad Pennington, not the 2008 regular season Chad Pennington. That’s two horrible games in a row now for him. Sure the offensive line wasn’t giving him much time but Pennington had chances to get rid of the ball and either took a sack or was unable to hit an open receiver to salvage some yards. His arm strength looked weaker than ever and the team resorted to having him throw on the run several times to try to get something going. I should have put a big fat caveat in my 9-7 prediction. We might well see Chad Henne at QB sooner rather than later if Pennington keeps this up much longer and if that happens a losing record is likely. Not that I’d have a problem with the team putting Henne in there if Pennington is no longer what he was most of last year. The team simply couldn’t make any big plays yesterday. The few times they used the Wildcat it didn’t work. They might have been trying to set up a big pass play from White by running out of the formation the first couple of times. If that’s so it would have been brilliant except for White’s inability to hit the broad side of a barn on the play ‘cause that should have been 6. The big pass play Pennington pulled off came off a flea-flicker, not a downfield strike. Don’t be surprised if Henne gets in there sooner than you think (Is that another prediction?! When will I learn?). I still trust the management and coaching when all’s said and done so I’m not too worried (yet) despite yesterday's debacle.
You know, at least my playoff team picks don’t look half bad after a whole week. But I can’t figure out why I named Carolina as a playoff team. I thought they made a big mistake in resigning Jake Delhomme to a huge deal when he appeared finished last year in the playoffs. Like Pennington he’s picked up where he left off. Looks like Atlanta’s the better team right now. But don’t worry Panther fans, A.J. Feely’s on the way! Haha. (Did that trade Wannstedt made for him really happen? A second-rounder? Really?).
I knew my 2009 NFL predictions would eventually prove embarrassing, they always do, but I expected that to come well into the season not the very next day! Who’s the opposite of Nostradamus? We need a term for that. I am that guy. Past Interference hereby officially apologizes to all the guys I singled out for improvement this year. Ronnie Brown? Did virtually nothing yesterday. Anthony Fasano? Well he improved in the category of fumbling the ball away. Jake Long? Manhandled by John Abraham. Pat White? My excitement wore off about the time he sailed a pass about ten yards over Ted Ginn’s wide open head. I mean a wide open Ted Ginn’s head. Oh it was ugly. Let’s not overreact to one bad loss, a road loss to a 2008 playoff team no less, but Miami played very, very badly yesterday and the score could have been a lot worse. The one bright spot was the run defense totally shutting down Michael Turner. Just keep repeating that Dolphin fans. It’s all we have. And Davone Bess looked good.
The worst part of it all was Chad Pennington playing like the 2008 playoff Chad Pennington, not the 2008 regular season Chad Pennington. That’s two horrible games in a row now for him. Sure the offensive line wasn’t giving him much time but Pennington had chances to get rid of the ball and either took a sack or was unable to hit an open receiver to salvage some yards. His arm strength looked weaker than ever and the team resorted to having him throw on the run several times to try to get something going. I should have put a big fat caveat in my 9-7 prediction. We might well see Chad Henne at QB sooner rather than later if Pennington keeps this up much longer and if that happens a losing record is likely. Not that I’d have a problem with the team putting Henne in there if Pennington is no longer what he was most of last year. The team simply couldn’t make any big plays yesterday. The few times they used the Wildcat it didn’t work. They might have been trying to set up a big pass play from White by running out of the formation the first couple of times. If that’s so it would have been brilliant except for White’s inability to hit the broad side of a barn on the play ‘cause that should have been 6. The big pass play Pennington pulled off came off a flea-flicker, not a downfield strike. Don’t be surprised if Henne gets in there sooner than you think (Is that another prediction?! When will I learn?). I still trust the management and coaching when all’s said and done so I’m not too worried (yet) despite yesterday's debacle.
You know, at least my playoff team picks don’t look half bad after a whole week. But I can’t figure out why I named Carolina as a playoff team. I thought they made a big mistake in resigning Jake Delhomme to a huge deal when he appeared finished last year in the playoffs. Like Pennington he’s picked up where he left off. Looks like Atlanta’s the better team right now. But don’t worry Panther fans, A.J. Feely’s on the way! Haha. (Did that trade Wannstedt made for him really happen? A second-rounder? Really?).
Sunday, September 13, 2009
2009 Predictions
Hallelujah. Finally, the NFL is back. Life is so much more boring without it. I think I started the last two seasons by blogging my predictions but I’m torn about it dong it again. Mainly, because they’re a huge embarrassment! Completely off base and giving anyone who cares to a pretty airtight case that I know nothing about football or anything else. But, in the short history of this blog making bad preseason predictions is the closest thing PI has to a tradition so let’s go ahead and do it anyway. Then forget this post ever existed.
The Miami Dolphins shocked the football world (and me) in 2008 by going 11-5 and winning the AFC East just one year after their 1-15 horror show. The reasons for the turnaround weren’t too hard to spot. With the new Parcells-Ireland-Sparano troika we got a solid draft, good personnel moves (signing Pennington especially), inspired coaching (the Wildcat), and basically the first time this decade the fans felt the team had people in charge who knew what they were doing. However, the Dolphins also prospered thanks to an easy schedule, almost surely an easier one than what the team’s going to face this year. Also, Pennington’s best-ever season made him an MVP candidate. Given his age and injury history odds are 2009 won’t be quite as magical. And with Tom Brady back at least one division opponent is likely to be much improved. Finally, where Miami’s luck in 2007 was all bad, everything that could go wrong went wrong, that all turned around completely in 2008 and the team finished with an impressive record despite only a slightly above-average point differential.
So there’s lots of reasons to think the Dolphins regress in 2008. Regression to the mean, coming back to earth, whatever you want to call it, there’s two things that cut against it: (1) Better players and (2) Playing better. Who knows how the team’s 2009 draft class turns out but so far they seem pretty high on Brian Hartline, they addressed a clear need in the secondary, and I’m gotta say I’m real excited to see what Pat White can do in this offense. Also, Jason Taylor’s back and while he may no longer play like a defensive MVP, any Jason Taylor is better than no Jason Taylor. As for better players, I like Ronnie Brown a lot this year (and my fantasy teams reflect that!). The guy was dominant on a horrible team in 2007 before he got hurt. He’s now in his second year back from the ACL-tear. And you know Miami’s offense is going to revolve around him. I’m looking for the 2007 Brown to be back. With another year experience the receiving corps should also be better. I don’t know about Ginn but I do like Bess and Fasano to step it up this year. And Jake Long will show he was worthy of this draft slot.
The team should be better in 2009 but might have a worse record due to the much tougher schedule. So I’ll say 9-7. Whatever happens it’s just comforting to know the team’s in good hands again. Growing up watching this team in the 70’s and 80’s, I just kind of took for granted the team would always be a playoff contender. But the post-Don Shula/Jimmy Johnson era wised me up permanently. You hand over the reigns of a franchise to incompetents and fools and your team can hit rock bottom pretty quickly.
The Rest. Sure why not. I have no limbs to crawl out on. New England and San Diego should easily win their divisions. The Colts should squeeze out another division title. And the one team I don’t hear too many people talking up is Baltimore. I didn’t like what I saw out of Pittsburgh on Thursday and the last time they won a Super Bowl they collapsed the next season. I can see that happening again. To me the Ravens look like the team to beat in the AFC North. All they need is for Flacco to build on his rookie season to challenge the Pats and Chargers for the Super Bowl. And with New England’s suspect defense and San Diego’s coach, I’m going to say the Ravens make it to the Super Bowl. Yeah, that’s right. In the NFC, the Giants, Eagles, Packers and Bears are the only teams I like as Super Bowl contenders. Seattle and Carolina are probably the best of the rest. I like the Vikings, Cowboys and Cardinals to collapse in the second half of the season. I’d kind of like to pick the Packers or Bears to go to the Super Bowl but the Giants are the best team.
Glad that’s over. Football’s back!
The Miami Dolphins shocked the football world (and me) in 2008 by going 11-5 and winning the AFC East just one year after their 1-15 horror show. The reasons for the turnaround weren’t too hard to spot. With the new Parcells-Ireland-Sparano troika we got a solid draft, good personnel moves (signing Pennington especially), inspired coaching (the Wildcat), and basically the first time this decade the fans felt the team had people in charge who knew what they were doing. However, the Dolphins also prospered thanks to an easy schedule, almost surely an easier one than what the team’s going to face this year. Also, Pennington’s best-ever season made him an MVP candidate. Given his age and injury history odds are 2009 won’t be quite as magical. And with Tom Brady back at least one division opponent is likely to be much improved. Finally, where Miami’s luck in 2007 was all bad, everything that could go wrong went wrong, that all turned around completely in 2008 and the team finished with an impressive record despite only a slightly above-average point differential.
So there’s lots of reasons to think the Dolphins regress in 2008. Regression to the mean, coming back to earth, whatever you want to call it, there’s two things that cut against it: (1) Better players and (2) Playing better. Who knows how the team’s 2009 draft class turns out but so far they seem pretty high on Brian Hartline, they addressed a clear need in the secondary, and I’m gotta say I’m real excited to see what Pat White can do in this offense. Also, Jason Taylor’s back and while he may no longer play like a defensive MVP, any Jason Taylor is better than no Jason Taylor. As for better players, I like Ronnie Brown a lot this year (and my fantasy teams reflect that!). The guy was dominant on a horrible team in 2007 before he got hurt. He’s now in his second year back from the ACL-tear. And you know Miami’s offense is going to revolve around him. I’m looking for the 2007 Brown to be back. With another year experience the receiving corps should also be better. I don’t know about Ginn but I do like Bess and Fasano to step it up this year. And Jake Long will show he was worthy of this draft slot.
The team should be better in 2009 but might have a worse record due to the much tougher schedule. So I’ll say 9-7. Whatever happens it’s just comforting to know the team’s in good hands again. Growing up watching this team in the 70’s and 80’s, I just kind of took for granted the team would always be a playoff contender. But the post-Don Shula/Jimmy Johnson era wised me up permanently. You hand over the reigns of a franchise to incompetents and fools and your team can hit rock bottom pretty quickly.
The Rest. Sure why not. I have no limbs to crawl out on. New England and San Diego should easily win their divisions. The Colts should squeeze out another division title. And the one team I don’t hear too many people talking up is Baltimore. I didn’t like what I saw out of Pittsburgh on Thursday and the last time they won a Super Bowl they collapsed the next season. I can see that happening again. To me the Ravens look like the team to beat in the AFC North. All they need is for Flacco to build on his rookie season to challenge the Pats and Chargers for the Super Bowl. And with New England’s suspect defense and San Diego’s coach, I’m going to say the Ravens make it to the Super Bowl. Yeah, that’s right. In the NFC, the Giants, Eagles, Packers and Bears are the only teams I like as Super Bowl contenders. Seattle and Carolina are probably the best of the rest. I like the Vikings, Cowboys and Cardinals to collapse in the second half of the season. I’d kind of like to pick the Packers or Bears to go to the Super Bowl but the Giants are the best team.
Glad that’s over. Football’s back!
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IX
“They have to win now! That’s what teams of destiny do.”
--Me to my wife after the Manning to Tyree play.
In rethinking Super Bowl XLII, I’ve got to say I kind of feel sorry for Patriots fans (a little anyway). Not because their team blew a championship, a perfect season, and a claim to be the greatest team of all time. That’s sports. No, I feel sorry for them because to most of us that game was one of the most thrilling, electrifying sporting events we’ve ever seen. To them it’s just a sad and bitter memory, a reminder of the immortality their team lost that night.
That game was like one of those super-vivid dreams. You know the ones that seem so real, so detailed even though they’re so bizarre they couldn’t possibly have happened. And when you wake up you go over it in your mind while simultaneously coming to grips with the fact that no matter how intense it all was it in fact was just a crazy dream. Yeah, Super Bowl XLII was a little like that, except it all actually happened. The G-Men shutting down the greatest offense ever; Brady-to-Moss seemingly shutting the door on the upset bid; Manning-to-Tyree; the Plax TD; and the exclamation point--the big hit on Brady in the final seconds. I still can’t believe all that stuff happened. But it did. Or like an old Silver-Age DC comic would put it: Not A Hoax! Not A Dream! Not An Imaginary Story!
A few points about the game:
1) The Past Interference staff likes to think of themselves as basically humble people. But I’ve got to give myself some credit being the first person anywhere to realize the historic nature of what Eli Manning pulled off on February 5, 2008. No, not the huge upset; a lot of people noticed that. I’m referring to the winning drive. Before Super Bowl LXII, exactly two quarterbacks had ever led their team on a championship game-winning touchdown drive ending in the final two minutes of play. With his TD pass to Burress, Manning joined Bart Starr (The Ice Bowl) and Joe Montana (Super Bowl XXII) as the only QB’s to ever lead a last-minute championship TD drive. That’s right. Two Hall-of-Famers with nine combined championship rings…and Eli Manning. And those other guys started their drives trailing by 3. Manning trailed by 4. So only Eli began his historic drive with the pressure of knowing it had to end in a TD. Cool huh?
2) Now I’ll point out something else that I haven’t seen anyone else note: this was the closest Super Howl of all-time. I’m not just talking about the final 3-point margin of victory. Obviously there’ve been a few other three-point games. What I’m talking about is the score at any point during the game. At no time during Super Bowl XLII did either team ever lead the other by more than 4 points. In every other Super Bowl save two, one of the teams led the other by at least 9 points at some point during the game. The only other Super Bowls where nobody ever led by more than one score were Super Bowls V and XXII. The Colts won the former game by 3 and trailed by a full 7 points earlier. The latter game’s biggest lead was also 7 points and the final margin of victory was 4. So from start to finish Super Bowl XLII was the closest, most competitive game in Super Bowl history.
3) Finally, has any Super Bowl ever had more pre-game anticipation than this one? I don’t think so. New England shooting for perfection obviously interested just about everyone. You can’t compare the Dolphins in Super Bowl VII to this one; it was just a different media world back then, before the internet and the 24 hour news cycle. They might as well have broadcast that earlier game by crystal radio when you look at the mountain of oppressive hype you get today. Further jump-starting the pre-game chatter was the opponent, a New York team(!), one that almost beat the Pats in the Week 16 finale. I can only think of one other Super Bowl that came close to this one in terms of public interest: Super Bowl XIII, the Steelers/Cowboys rematch. I previously wrote that game was the closest thing the NFL ever had to an Ali-Frazier fight. But in the post-ESPN age you have to give the edge in “buzz” to Super Bowl XLII. I know it’s hard to imagine but trust me, there was once a time you actually could turn on a TV and never be able to find a single show featuring grown men yelling at each other about sports. Radio too.
After the Giants pulled off the upset for the ages, many called it greatest Super Bowl ever. And if you were arguing for it in a court of law you’ve got a lot of evidence. Let’s see: Unparalleled pre-game anticipation. Excitement and electricity that slowly built throughout the game. Close and competitive from the opening kickoff through the final seconds. The greatest play in Super Bowl history. And maybe the biggest upset ever.
I loved that game.
But I reflexively rejected the “best ever” level, probably due to my contrarian nature. I knew I’d have to think about it for a long while before determining how it ranked with all 41 of the Super Bowls that came before. And a year later, just when I’d finally processed it all and reached a conclusion, they had to go and play another Super Bowl that might have been the best ever.
The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part I
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part II
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part III
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IV
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part V
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VI
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VIII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IX
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part X
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Conclusion
Friday, July 31, 2009
Stuff I Saw On YouTube: Commando
A few months ago “Meet the Press” had an episode featuring various state governors as guests, one of whom was Arnold Schwarzenegger. My wife said to me she couldn’t believe someone as stupid as Arnold could get elected governor. I replied that she was way off base. Sure California might be in utter ruins by the time he leaves office but he isn’t stupid. My evidence? Simply this. Could an overly muscled guy with a funny name, a thick Austrian accent, and no apparent acting ability become the biggest box office star in the world if he wasn’t super smart? I don’t think so. Of course luck played a part in Arnold’s rise also. He hit the movies at the perfect time.
The 1980’s ushered in a new kind of action movie. Our ‘80’s army of one-man armies, aided by nothing more than their own superior training, sophisticated weaponry, the suspension of certain physical laws, and millions of dollars in special effects, slaughtered and dispatched hundreds of unmourned mercenaries, foreigners, traitors and aliens. Thankfully innocent bystanders always emerged completely unscathed in the countless explosions and deadly crossfires. Sylvester Stallone’s First Blood probably ushered in the age of the’ 80’s action movie but he opened the door for the combined acting talents of Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and whoever else I’m missing. Box-office gold. But Schwarzenegger was the king of them all y’all.
Now Arnold went on to make a few pretty good movies, but if you’re looking for the one movie that defines the ‘80’s era of good clean gratuitous slaughter, the apotheosis of the genre is Arnold’s true masterpiece: Commando. Now believe me, I’m not claiming it’s actually a good movie. You can’t defend this crap on any aesthetic level. But it’s a historic movie, the one introducing us to the on-screen Schwarzenegger persona that went on to rule the box-office. It’s the first time Arnold gets to kill people and be funny. For pure mindless entertainment you’ve got to check it out and the single best way to watch it is not as a full-length feature film, but rather as a series of hilarious clips on YouTube. It’s the only way to appreciate the absurd, gruesome yet cartoonlike violence, terrible acting (beside the point in a film such as this), and of course the classic Schwarzenegger one-liners uttered upon each ruthless dispatch of another hapless victim. Plus, by watching random Commando clips, you dispense with all those boring parts: you know, the parts advancing the narrative, i.e. the parts where Arnold’s not killing people or blowing s##t up. The real challenge is trying to figure out just which scene is the movie’s best.
Is it this one, Arnold’s first kill of the film? I love the stilted stoner dialogue (“Mellow out man”) delivered by the unarmed kidnapper. What was the dude's backup plan? Check out how Arnold offs him with one perfect shot from the gun he never even bothers to raise and aim. And I’m no firearms expert but that gun sure looks like it would blow someone’s head off, not just put a neat little hole in it.
How about this one? The bad dude Henriques manages to raise his arms after Arnold breaks his neck while the passengers mysteriously remain blissfully unaware of this carnage in their midst.
I’ve got a soft spot for this one. David Patrick Kelly, “Sully”, is a classic 80’s movie villain and for my money Arnold ends his miserable existence with the best one-liner of his career. Actually, it’s probably the single greatest line of dialogue in the history of cinema. You don’t believe me? Just watch. The final line’s pretty good too. James Bond did this stuff first but face it, Bond just isn’t all that funny. Arnold’s funny.
Ah, the infamous "Shed Scene". Hundreds of rounds of bullets and one severed arm prove no match for Arnold and some expertly wielded gardening implements. According to some YouTube commenters at least some DVD versions of the movie censor this scene. What's the thinking there? Who could possibly take the scene seriously? It parodies itself.
The final showdown with Bennett. Until this scene, the movie never really established the source of Bennett’s murderous grudge against Arnold’s character. Getting kicked out of an elite commando unit creates a need for lifelong revenge? Seems kind of lame. But at last the scales fall from our eyes during the final showdown. The wounded Schwarzenegger, uh, I mean John Matrix, psychologically manipulates Bennett into throwing away his gun so the two can engage in your classic mano a mano clash. How does “Matrix” do it? With a disturbing speech bursting with homoerotic sadomasochism. How else do you read this?
On top of that, pay attention to the facial expressions on the face of the leather-and-chain-mail clad Bennett while Arnold tempts and taunts him. Just in case the words alone weren’t “subtle” enough to clue the audience in. Yes, in the end it’s the 1980’s version of Gore Vidal’s script for Ben-Hur ("I'm not gonna be overt. There won't be one line. But I can write it in such a way that the audience is going to feel that there is something emotional between these two that is not stated, but that blows a fuse in Messala. That he is spurned. So it's a love scene gone wrong"). “Let off some steam Bennett” indeed.
Or what the hell. If you don’t have time to bleed just cut to the chase. Skip all of the above and just watch the one clip that trims all the fat and extracts the movies’ true essence. Killing. Yes, witness every single killing in the entire movie packed into one explosive four-minute clip. Kudos to whoever put that together. Time well spent.
The 1980’s ushered in a new kind of action movie. Our ‘80’s army of one-man armies, aided by nothing more than their own superior training, sophisticated weaponry, the suspension of certain physical laws, and millions of dollars in special effects, slaughtered and dispatched hundreds of unmourned mercenaries, foreigners, traitors and aliens. Thankfully innocent bystanders always emerged completely unscathed in the countless explosions and deadly crossfires. Sylvester Stallone’s First Blood probably ushered in the age of the’ 80’s action movie but he opened the door for the combined acting talents of Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, and whoever else I’m missing. Box-office gold. But Schwarzenegger was the king of them all y’all.
Now Arnold went on to make a few pretty good movies, but if you’re looking for the one movie that defines the ‘80’s era of good clean gratuitous slaughter, the apotheosis of the genre is Arnold’s true masterpiece: Commando. Now believe me, I’m not claiming it’s actually a good movie. You can’t defend this crap on any aesthetic level. But it’s a historic movie, the one introducing us to the on-screen Schwarzenegger persona that went on to rule the box-office. It’s the first time Arnold gets to kill people and be funny. For pure mindless entertainment you’ve got to check it out and the single best way to watch it is not as a full-length feature film, but rather as a series of hilarious clips on YouTube. It’s the only way to appreciate the absurd, gruesome yet cartoonlike violence, terrible acting (beside the point in a film such as this), and of course the classic Schwarzenegger one-liners uttered upon each ruthless dispatch of another hapless victim. Plus, by watching random Commando clips, you dispense with all those boring parts: you know, the parts advancing the narrative, i.e. the parts where Arnold’s not killing people or blowing s##t up. The real challenge is trying to figure out just which scene is the movie’s best.
Is it this one, Arnold’s first kill of the film? I love the stilted stoner dialogue (“Mellow out man”) delivered by the unarmed kidnapper. What was the dude's backup plan? Check out how Arnold offs him with one perfect shot from the gun he never even bothers to raise and aim. And I’m no firearms expert but that gun sure looks like it would blow someone’s head off, not just put a neat little hole in it.
How about this one? The bad dude Henriques manages to raise his arms after Arnold breaks his neck while the passengers mysteriously remain blissfully unaware of this carnage in their midst.
I’ve got a soft spot for this one. David Patrick Kelly, “Sully”, is a classic 80’s movie villain and for my money Arnold ends his miserable existence with the best one-liner of his career. Actually, it’s probably the single greatest line of dialogue in the history of cinema. You don’t believe me? Just watch. The final line’s pretty good too. James Bond did this stuff first but face it, Bond just isn’t all that funny. Arnold’s funny.
Ah, the infamous "Shed Scene". Hundreds of rounds of bullets and one severed arm prove no match for Arnold and some expertly wielded gardening implements. According to some YouTube commenters at least some DVD versions of the movie censor this scene. What's the thinking there? Who could possibly take the scene seriously? It parodies itself.
The final showdown with Bennett. Until this scene, the movie never really established the source of Bennett’s murderous grudge against Arnold’s character. Getting kicked out of an elite commando unit creates a need for lifelong revenge? Seems kind of lame. But at last the scales fall from our eyes during the final showdown. The wounded Schwarzenegger, uh, I mean John Matrix, psychologically manipulates Bennett into throwing away his gun so the two can engage in your classic mano a mano clash. How does “Matrix” do it? With a disturbing speech bursting with homoerotic sadomasochism. How else do you read this?
Put the knife in me and look me in the eye and see what's going on in there when you turn it…It’s between you and me. Don't deprive yourself of some pleasure. Come on Bennett, let’s party.
On top of that, pay attention to the facial expressions on the face of the leather-and-chain-mail clad Bennett while Arnold tempts and taunts him. Just in case the words alone weren’t “subtle” enough to clue the audience in. Yes, in the end it’s the 1980’s version of Gore Vidal’s script for Ben-Hur ("I'm not gonna be overt. There won't be one line. But I can write it in such a way that the audience is going to feel that there is something emotional between these two that is not stated, but that blows a fuse in Messala. That he is spurned. So it's a love scene gone wrong"). “Let off some steam Bennett” indeed.
Or what the hell. If you don’t have time to bleed just cut to the chase. Skip all of the above and just watch the one clip that trims all the fat and extracts the movies’ true essence. Killing. Yes, witness every single killing in the entire movie packed into one explosive four-minute clip. Kudos to whoever put that together. Time well spent.
Monday, July 27, 2009
The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VIII
The Sloppy Joe of Super Bowls
What if we watched a Super Bowl that was:
1) Close
2) High-scoring
3) Had a couple 4th quarter lead changes
4) And was decided on a last second field goal
That has to be the greatest Super Bowl of all-time right?
Well, what if we filled out the picture with a few other critical details:
1) Lots of penalties
2) Offensive, defensive and coaching blunders at key moments of the game
3) Terrible special teams play
4) Excepting a five-minute stretch of the 2nd quarter, no scoring in Quarters 1-3
5) Game overshadowed by Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple.
Now where does it rank?
C’mon we can’t be picky. You know how many Super Bowl blowouts there’ve been? If you watched a lot of Super Bowls in the 80’s then you better get down on your hands and knees and thank the football gods every time you get an entertaining Super Bowl like Super Bowl XXXVIII. If it’s close and comes down to the wire it’s a great game. And so it was.
Now calling it the greatest Super Bowl ever is another matter. To earn that honor the game must succeed on a number of levels. And one of those levels is Quality of Play. You want what an earlier generation of sportswriters might have described as a “Crisply played game”. Super Bowl XXXVIII featured too many mistakes to be the best ever. 20 penalties alone (25 called) disqualify this game from best-ever status. And what about the special teams? Adam Vinatieri cemented his legend as the greatest clutch kicker ever with his 41-yard game-winning kick. What’s that? He earlier missed 31 and 36-yard attempts? Move along, nothing to see here. Of course Carolina kicker John Kasay greased the skids for the Pats winning drive by sending his kickoff out of bonds, setting Brady and Co. up at their own 40. Brady and Co. should have been driving for a tying, not a winning FG, but Panthers coach John Fox panicked and started going for 2 prematurely, costing his team three points (New England never would have gone for 2 if they’d led 27-24 instead of 27-22). Then again, Carolina was lucky to even have a shot at the end.
The real story of the game was New England’s continual squandering of chances to put the game away. In the first half we had the two missed FG’s and later a loss of ten yards on a botched trick play on 3rd-and-3 from the CAR 31 that cost NE a shot at another FG. In the 4th quarter, NE gave up a 33-yard TD run right after going up 21-10. Then, leading 21-16 in the 4th, Tom Brady drove his team to the Panthers 9 with less than 8 minutes to play but instead of icing the game the supposed best big game passer of his time threw a pick in the end zone. A few plays later, Bill Belichick’s great D forgets to cover Muhsin Muhammad and he blew all our minds with an 85-yard TD score to give the Panthers their first and only lead of the game.
It was non-stop action the rest of the way. But overall just too many mistakes to be the best ever. Plus Janet Jackson’s nipple. Let’s call it the Sloppy Joe of Super Bowls.
The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part I
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part II
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part III
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IV
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part V
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VI
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VIII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IX
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part X
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Conclusion
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