I ventured out last weekend to see another big movie of the 2009 summer season, Pixar’s UP. I’m a big Pixar fan, with WALL-E being one of my favorite films of last year, Ratatouille the year prior, Finding Nemo in 2003, etc. So I had high expectations for this movie, especially after the reviews. It’s currently sitting at #16 on IMDB’s top 250 movies. Unbelievable. The 16th best movie ever???
Let me say that I LOVED the first 10 minutes of this movie. Much like the beginning of WALL-E there is little or no dialogue, but you feel connected to the characters and get a sense of realism. Then the boy scout enters the film and all hell breaks loose. None of the characters develop after the first 15 minutes. In fact every single character kind of becomes annoying. The last half of this movie is much more “kid’s movie” than anything Pixar has ever done and just left me totally removed and sometimes even bored.
That being said, it’s definitely not a bad movie! I enjoyed some parts (like the beginning!), laughed a few times, and visually it was gorgeous (saw it in 3-D), but the story was just not up to Pixar’s standards in my opinion. Score was wonderful though, which is not unlike Michael Giacchino (LOST). I’m just wondering if some of these great reviews are just because it’s a Pixar movie.
3/5
Still waiting for a great summer movie. Maybe it will be The Hangover? I still haven’t seen Adventureland yet. Perhaps 500 Days of Summer?
If you know me you’ve probably heard me talk about ESPN’s Streak for the Cash. The rules are simple and it’s free to play:
1) pick the winner of a sports matchup
2) once that game completes you can pick another
3) the 7 players with the longest win streaks (as of Dec. 31, 2009) will meet in Bristol, Connecticut at ESPN to have a pickoff for $1 Million.
This is the 2nd iteration of the game. Last year the first player to accumulate 25 correct picks in a row won a million dollars automatically. Now I guess they’re making it harder. Currently the players with the longest streaks have 24, 22, 21, 21, 20, 20, and 20 wins in a row.
My strategy has changed in this iteration since we have almost an entire year to build the longest streak possible. When it was a limited time frame, such as 3 months, I’d make a pick every day or so. Now I can sit back and wait. I’ve only made 3 picks this month so far. Today I was waffling back and forth about actually making a pick or not, but I saw LAA Angels were playing at home trying to avoid a sweep by the Mariners. I made my last pick for the Boston Red Sox the same way last weekend. I usually take a look at Vegas odds (in this case LAA was -180), read up on player matchups, take into account “momentum factors” such as avoiding a sweep or previous losses, etc. So after waffling around I locked my pick for the Angels, even after reading their starting pitcher Ervin Santana had a current season ERA of 7.82. In his last start he gave up 7 runs in 2 innings at home before being pulled vs the White Sox. I figured he’d have to bounce back especially since he’s pitching at home and the Angels are trying to avoid getting swept by their AL West rivals. He didn’t. I immediately regret my decision of not cancelling the pick.
Santana gave up 8 runs in 6 innings before being pulled. The Angels were down 8-1 and my 10-game streak was on the verge of extinction. But then suddenly the Angels found their bats and were able to stage a rally to make it 8-5 in the 6th. There’s hope! I’m glued to my computer screen (ESPN gamecast) but it’s not video, it’s animation of pitch locations for balls and strikes or “in play” hits where you will anxiously await the text of whether or not a hit falls. Glowing yellow dots on a baseball diamond represent base runners. I’ve got the tv on and watching the University of Georgia playing the University of Washington in the College World Series of Softball and we’ve got the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. The star pitcher for UW walks in the winning run for UGA! Too bad I didn’t pick my alma mater in Streak when I had the chance. They’ll play each other again later tonight - I don’t understand how they play so many games in the world series of softball in the same day. But back to the Angels. Their bullpen held the Mariners to 8 and even got two throwouts at home plate in the 8th! Things were starting to go their way. In the ninth inning the Mariners bring in their closer. He walks two and allows a hit. He intentionally walks another and with 2 outs, walks in the tying run! A single brings in the winning run! They overcame a 7 run deficit to win in the end.
Check out the graph below for the probability of the outcome in real-time. At one point I think it was Seattle 98%!
And here’s my current pick history. If Denver hadn’t picked my boy Knowshon Moreno I’d be in the top 7 of streakers right now. The NFL Draft was great as far as streak is concerned because I could watch the analysis all day on TV and make a pick based on who was already chosen.
I don’t think I’ll be picking the Angels again anytime soon and certainly not if Santana is pitching.
If I didn’t have a streak going I’d pick Georgia in softball tonight. Go Dawgs! The baseball team got eliminated from the NCAA tournament today :-/
In one way I’m extremely excited - but in another I’m scared. These shows were dear to me and now everyone will have them. But I guess everyone needs to know about Karl (the man for whom this blog is named.)
Never being a Star Trek fan, and after being unimpressed by the trailers these past few months I had no intention of seeing this movie. However, after the glorious reviews all over the web this week I thought I’d give it a chance because I haven’t been to the movies in a while and I wanted to see what J.J. Abrams’ version had to offer. As of right now this film has a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m really unsure how so many people liked this movie that much. The action was cool for sure and the visual effects were awesome, but there was waaaay too much shaky-cam, much like in Abrams’ previous effort Mission Impossible III. I thought the story was pretty decent, nothing great or out of the ordinary. I didn’t care for the time travel (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT GUYS!!!) device. The acting was pretty good and the music score was good, but overall I felt very distant from the movie after it moved from the Starfleet Academy and into the space opera.
Speaking of space, I’m much more into this documentary lately. Maybe because it’s real.
I’ve always thought the intro to the Pilot could be one of the biggest clues in Lost. Check out the way the camera pans around Jack when he first steps out to the beach and hears the sounds of the aftermath of the plane crash. The camera swoops in from the left, goes around front, does a 180 and Jack is still on the left.
Now, look at a scene from this year’s fantastic “316″ episode when Jack returns to the island.
It mirrors the pilot for several reasons. But I think it’s specifically to draw our attention to the detail. Check out at about the :58-:60 mark. It looks to me like Jack is chasing himself. He stops suddenly - then turns around in the other direction - just like in the pilot. He knows something is off, but continues chasing the calls for help. Could it have been his past self? Have they been living this loop over and over?
