Hangin' In Denver

So the day before our buddy Chris McCarley's wedding reception out in Golden, CO, The Better Half and I visited TBH's friend Kate out in Denver.

We spent the day at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival.




Boy was it hot. For some reason I envisioned Denver looking like the Coors TV commercials (you know snow, snow-covered mountains, snow-fed streams...generally cold), was I wrong.




This thing here is legally classified as a motorcycle. Crazy, huh?



Even the bonzai was hot.


Kate was a gracious host and we generally had a good time. Cherry Creek is apparently the Orange County of Denver. Full of rich, snooty people living in over-priced cheaply-made McMansions, with bad taste in "art."

The shoe did seem to fit.


LINKS

Cherry Creek Arts Festival

A Day At The Beach...Cleaning Up

You know, normally when you say "we're going to hang at the beach" you mean lounging around, getting a tan, listenin' to some tunes, knockin' back some brew.

But nope, not The Better Half.

She got her colleagues together to clean up Cabrillo Beach down in San Pedro last weekend.



We found a bunch of interesting things: socks, bikini tops, peanuts, hangers, umbrella spokes, maintenance signs and...

this...



Bud Light & Clamato...I'm so there!

LINKS

Heal the Bay

I Can Now Drink Budweiser

Yup, Anheuser Busch, guardian of the American brand Budweiser, has been sold to Belgian brewer InBev.

You heard that right, the King of Beers, the epitome of what it means to be American (Bud, Mom, and Applie Pie), is now Belgian.

Of course, given that I love Chimay, and Stella Artois, and Delirium Tremens, and DeuS (all Belgian beers) this now means that I can drink Bud.

Look out Mom and Apple Pie, with the plunging US Dollar, you could be next...

LINKS

NYT: InBev Buys Anheuser Busch
Wikipedia: In Bev Brands

Christopher Nolan Is The Man

Okay, so Heath Ledger is going to dominate all the news surrounding the upcoming The Dark Knight (a.k.a. the greatest movie, ever!), but spare a thought for the man behind this incredible franchise-reboot: Christopher Nolan.

My old buddy Doney Joseph alerted me to the fact that there's a nice little profile on him in The Guardian (I haven't read it thoroughly for fear of spoilers). And yes, like all great directors before him, he was making Super 8 movies with little action figures when he was a kid.

Great, just great, once again demonstration that for the rest of us, it's already too late...


Filmography

Following [1998]
Memento [2000]
Insomnia [2002]
Batman Begins [2005]
Prestige [2006]


LINKS

Guardian: Christopher Nolan Profile

Indians - They Read Magazines Just Like Us!

Wow, an article on India in the New York Times, and it's not by Somini Sengupta...which means it probably won't be quite as slanted as usual.

Apparently American magazines have become popular in India (imagine that, Western pop culture being consumed in third world countries, how novel!), but there is a twist. These are the "Indian-ized" versions of such popular rags as Rolling Stone, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, etc.




In the beginning advertisers were slow to embrace this trend, so they toned things down. Now, by all accounts, some of the features have actually become racier than what they run in the US.

Maxim, bless their tasteful heart, recently had cover story called "48 Ways to Get a Gori" ("Gori" being the tasteful slang for a white chick).

Way ahead of you on this one fellas...

LINKS

NYT Story: India Magazines

Titanic Tie-Breaks

Was the Federer-Nadal fourth-set tie break better than the Borg-McEnroe fourth-set tie-break?

I dunno, while I think the Federer-Nadal match was better, as far as the tie breaks go I lean towards Borg-McEnroe (18-16!).

I have to admit at 4-1, and then 5-2 and serving I though Rafael Nadal was going to finish off our man Roger Federer. But Nadal did get uncharacteristically tight to allow Federer to close it to 5-4.

But man! Nadal had that amazing, amazing forehand down-the-line passing shot to bring up match point on his serve. He had Federer exactly where he wanted him on the very next point; Nadal executed the perfect inside-out forehand, dragged Federer out wide to his backhand, and was waiting at the net to finish it all off...

...until Federer, using the shot that Nadal has always relentlessly exploited, came up with an incredible passing shot of his own...using his backhand.

And just like that, using a once-in-a-lifetime shot at the most important moment, Federer pushed the match into the fifth and deciding set and changed sports history as we know it.

Wow!

You can judge for yourself.

Click below to play the Federer-Nadal tie break (courtesy of NBC Sports):

Click below to play the Borg-McEnroe tie break (courtesy of ESPN STAR Sports!):





LINKS

Wimbledon: Borg-McEnroe 1980
ESPN: Borg-McEnroe 1980

OMG! Now I've Seen Everything

I...don't...believe...it!

Tennis...in Sports Illustrated...on the cover!

Can it really be?

Two non-Americans on the cover, and they're not part of the Swimsuit issue?

Has the world gone mad?

I mean it was one thing for Bob Ryan to say that the Wimbledon finals ranked above Tiger Woods's US Open win as the greatest sporting event of 2008 on Pardon the Interruption the other day (Michael Wilbon, bless his biased heart, of course went with Tiger), but for the match to actually make the cover of SI?!

Pinch me, I must be dreaming...

LINKS

SI: Wimbledon Finals Cover Story

Cool matt pond PA Video

The Better Half sent me this very cool, stop-motion animation with paper cutouts (instead of the usual plasticine figures associated with stop-motion) video for "Locate the Pieces" by matt pond PA.

Very cool stuff.

Click below to play the video:

LINKS

All Music Guide: matt pond PA

Movie Monsters

Great article in Variety on the various monsters that show up in Hellboy II: The Golden Army directed by the great Guillermo del Toro.

Del Toro, of course, is one of my favorite directors working today (and is one-third of the Three Amigos troika of Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) and I had the good fortune of meeting him at USC.

I was taking Leonard Maltin's class (who is way smarter than he appears to be on TV, though he did admit to liking Crossroads, that Britney Spears cinematic gem) and del Toro showed up to screen his excellent movie The Devil's Backbone. He did a Q&A afterwards and then invited everyone up to the stage to talk to him.

I didn't know what Hellboy was, or who he was, but I wanted to impress del Toro and told him that I had heard he was going to be working on it. He got very excited and flipped open his journal.

Wow!

It was filled with pages and pages of luscious drawings, paintings, sketches that he had done. I think most of the stuff in there ended up in Pan's Labyrinth and not in Hellboy itself, but from the looks of it some of it made its way into Hellboy II.


This is why I love del Toro. Not only can he hop from genre to genre with whip-lash inducing turnarounds, but he always keeps his singular identity intact no matter what kind of film he makes. And his ability to meld that imagination of his into the worlds of his story is incredible; he takes magic realism to a whole new level.

Ever since that day in class I have become a lifelong fan of his and will be first in line for any movie he decides to make...even the upcoming The Hobbit!

Filmography

Cronos [1993]
Mimic [1997]
The Devil's Backbone [2001]
Blade II [2002]
Hellboy [2004]
Pan's Labyrinth [2006]



LINKS

Variety: Del Toro's Creatures

Alternate Doogie Howser, M.D. Intro

Sent to me by my very young colleagues Ryan Booth and Logan Callanan.

Can you tell what's so alternate about this Doogie Howser, M.D. intro?

Click below to play the video:

Holy Sh*t Batman [Gotham Knight]!

Wow!

To fill in the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. is releasing the straight-to-DVD Batman: Gotham Knight animated film.

It looks incredible!

Better yet, Kevin Conroy, the voice behind Batman in the original animated series, is back!

MTV has a five-minute clip that is simply stunning!

And so it begins...

Click below to play the trailer:

Click below to play the exclusive 5-minute clip:

LINKS

MTV: Exclusive 5-Minute Clip

Wikipedia: Batman Gotham Knight

Batman Gotham Knight Official Website

Bloc Party's Mercury Is Hot!

The boys are back with a blazing new single "Mercury"!

The official release date is 11 August 2008, but you can listen and watch it now...nice of Bloc Party to do that for us.

Very dance-y, herky-jerky break-beats, inane lyrics ("My mercury's in retrograde"...really Kele, really?), all in all very tasty stuff.

Click below to watch the video:

LINKS

Bloc Party Official Announcement

India Overconfident? Noooo...

Ironically enough there is a great article in the latest edition of The Economist about the overconfidence that India has to guard against.

The Economist was talking about the Indian economy, but I suppose we can apply it to the cricket team as well as a certain huge Bollywood star...

Seriously (and I'm talking about the Indian cricket team here), at what point does this whole flatter-to-deceive thing begin getting old?

LINKS

The Economist: Overconfident India

More Bad News

Again, again, India romps through to the final of a one-day international tournament, and again we lose.

This time it was to Sri Lanka in the 2008 Asia Cup.

Like Australia seems to have an inexhaustible supply of pace bowlers, Pakistan of talented headcases and England of angsty players, Sri Lanka apparently has a steady stream of spinners. Just when you thought that Muttiah Muralitharan was finally going to fade away (BTW, what was he doing playing in an ODI, wasn't he going to limit himself to just Tests?) up pops some chap called Ajantha Mendis out of nowhere and crushes India with a 6-13 night (that's six wickets for just 13 runs!).

Six for 13.

Six for 13!

And wouldn't you know it, Sanath Jayasuriya at the sprightly age of 39, sets up the win with a 114-ball 125!

MS Dhoni has to be real careful here. His incredible debut, his leading the team to that Twenty20 World Cup win followed by that unlikely win over Australia in the CB Series, meant that he was the latest golden boy in India. But like others before him, it goes quick. He has now presided over two crushing finals defeats (against Pakistan in the Kitply Cup and now this) and has begged off the upcoming Test series against Sri Lanka due to fatigue.

Fatigue?!

Dhoni, my boy, be careful. Look around my friend, it all goes so very quickly. So very, very quickly.

LINKS

Cricinfo: Match Report

Cricinfo: Mendis

Cricinfo: Match Home

Tarantino You Inglorious Bastard!

Wow, Quentin Tarantino has finally surfaced with his long-gestating World War II project Inglorious Bastards and is currently shopping it to other studios.

This is according to my second-favorite film blog Deadline Hollywood by the fantastic Nikki Finke. (My favorite film blog? Why, that would be the must-read Hollywood Elsewhere by love-him-or-hate-him curmudgeon Jeffrey Wells.)

The really interesting thing, however, is the svengali-like presence of Harvey Weinstein, who has his grubby little hands all over this deal.

According to Finke, Weinstein is making it so that he personally will profit from the movie's grosses, not the investors who have ponied up to bankroll his flailing The Weinstein Company.

A lot has changed in the "independent" film world since the demise of Miramax as we knew it, but old Harv just keeps on keepin' on.

I sincerely hope I never have to cross paths with him one day. Look at what happened to the boys in Entourage...


LINKS


DH: Tarantino Unveils Film
Hollywood Elsewhere

Reunited And It Feels So Good!

Okay, so maybe I'm not quite over Roger Federer's loss in that epic Wimbledon finals against Rafael Nadal, but this certainly helped.

Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick are back together again!

Patrick is going to join Olbermann on NBC's Football Night in America this Fall. They were the two anchors I first saw when I started my American education with ESPN all those years ago. I think they were the first two to really cross over into mainstream pop culture (weren't the two in a Subway commercial at one time?) and were right there in the beginning of the worldwide dominance of the navel-gazing sports behemoth.

Then, of course, Olbermann had a nasty split with ESPN (I believe it was because he defied them in appearing on The Late Late Show with disgraced former Sportscenter anchor Craig Kilborn), bounced around for a bit before finally achieving the national prominence he always thought he deserved with MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Patrick stayed on with ESPN, playing the elder statesman (a role he was clearly uncomfortable given the unfortunate decision to start dyeing his hair). Then he bolted for his own nationally syndicated radio show (taking Reggie Miller with him apparently) and a column with arch-rival Sports Illustrated (in a Baron Davis/Elton Brand like tit-for-tat ESPN hired away the insufferable Rick Reilly from SI).

Then, of course, this news, and it all comes back full circle.

Read the New York Times article, though, if you can. It really does a great job in outlining just how ruthless ESPN is. It's no accident that they are at the very top, but man can they be spiteful and vicious.

It happens to the best of us, once you get to the top, you change.

LINKS

NYT: Patrick Reunites With Olbermann

That Dancing Engineer Guy Again

Remember my earlier blog post about Matt Harding, the dancing engineer who goes around the world and does his little goofy dance?

Well, the New York Times just ran a profile on him and it's a well-written piece about the boy.

The music, apparently, is based on the famous poem "Steam of Life" by the Rabindranath Tagore and is sung in Bengali by a 17-year-old Bangladeshi Palbasha Siddique, now in Minneapolis.

As The Greek said in Season 2 of The Wire, "The world is a smaller place now."

Amen to that my brother.

LINKS

NYT: Matt Harding

The Best Final? Music Montage

To help us decide whether it was in fact the best final every played the Beeb (aka the BBC) has put the highlights together in a stirring musical montage.

Great stuff.

LINKS

BBC: Musical Montage

Toad In The City

Met up with my old pal Karan "Toad" Mehta yesterday. He was visiting with his family all the way from En-Why-See.

Family? Yup, it now includes (in addition to his lovely wife Sam) the cutest little boy Ishaan (nickname "Golu").

Seriously, that's one extremely sweet little boy. He's standing up now, which means it's only a matter of time before he starts running. Ooh boy, something tells me Toad is gonna lose more weight.

It was nice to see an old friend all grown up. Fatherhood just fits Toad like a glove and he was glowing...I mean I had heard that mothers glowed (glew?) in the presence of their kids but fathers? Who knew?

Sometimes, growing up doesn't seem all that bad.

The King Is Dead

Long live the king...




LINKS

NY Times: Nadal Dethrones Federer

My Very First Egg Cream

This is is my first ever egg cream (vanilla). Both Lionel Richie and me approve.

So, if you ever happen to be in the Uptown area of Denver, stop by Steuben's for a fantastic, retro-cool time.

LINKS

Steuben's Website

 

Denver Airport Is Wicked Scary

In Denver with The Better Half for my buddy Chris McCarley's wedding reception.

Gargoyles in suitcases? Strange stuff for an airport.

Charlie...How It All Started

The original video that started it all, again imaginatively called "Charlie the Unicorn."

Click to play the video:





LINKS

Official Website

Charlie Is Back!

Yay! Charlie the Unicorn is back in the sequel cleverly titled "Charlie the Unicorn 2."

Click below to play the video!





LINKS

Official Website

What The...?!

According to ESPN NBA columnist J.A. Adande, this is Xavier McDaniel choking Wes Matthews.

Crazy!

LINKS

Supersonicsoul Blog

The NBA Cares...About Money

I've never really understood this one unique aspect of American sports: teams moving cities.

I mean, it's like Liverpool FC is moving to Sheffield, I mean the club is called Liverpool!

I was confused when I first go to Rochester after hearing about the Cleveland Browns becoming the Baltimore Ravens, when previously the Baltimore Colts had become the Indianapolis Colts.

Wait, how does Cleveland become Baltimore, I mean that's two completely different cities?! And the Browns become the Ravens? But there used to be the Baltimore Colts, which were now the Indianapolis Colts? And then, another Cleveland Browns appeared out of nowhere....

And now, the Seattle SuperSonics, an integral part of the Pacific Northwest for the last 45 years is moving to Oklahoma City.

Why?

Well, back when Hurricane Katrina was wreaking havoc, the New Orleans Hornets relocated temporarily to Oklahoma City and the fan support was through the roof (I mean these were passionate fans, College Football-like fans). The NBA realized that they needed a franchise there, stat, but realized the incredible PR hit they would take if they moved a team from New Orleans away considering how devastated the city was.

Of course, the New Orleans Hornets used to be the Charlotte Hornets. There used to be a New Orleans Jazz, which eventually became the Utah Jazz. And now there is a team called the Charlotte Bobcats.

New Orleans...Charlotte...Utah...Hornets...Bobcats...Jazz...

See, told you it was confusing.

Anyway, back to the hapless Sonics. Apparently the NBA was mad that Seattle refused to use taxpayer dollars to pay for a new stadium, and engineered a deal to surreptitiously move the franchise away.



There have been lawsuits, accusations, hand-wringing from the previous owner, Starbucks mogul Howard Schultz, but at the end of the day the denizens of Seattle refused to use the taxes they pay to line the pockets of millionaires (what a novel concept for the prevailing conservative economic policies!), and the NBA punished them for it.

Oh well, what're you gonna do. It's another example of how professional sports, despite the hoary, sepia-toned, gag-inducing puff pieces NBC and ESPN are so good at putting out, are all about one thing: money.

And the poor fans are left holding the bag.

LINKS

ESPN: Sonics Saga

Marat's Magical Mystery Tour Continues

In the immortal words of Denzel Washington in American Gangster: "My man, my man!"

Marat Safin continued his unlikely march to the Wimbledon semi-finals with a hard-fought win over Feliciano Lopez.

Now, normally if you see a scoreline like 3-6, 7-5, 7-6, 6-3, and you hear the words "hard" and "fought" in connection to Safin, you would safely assume that he was on the wrong end of things.

But our man put aside a slow, nervous start, used a rain delay at 2-5 in the first set to regroup and came back and managed to hold on for a tight, hard fought win.



Safin? Hard? Fought? Win?

As the man himself so eloquently put it: "Sh*t happens!"

You gotta love this guy!

LINKS

Independent: Safin Survives
ESPN: Grass Stains

Borat Is Sherlock Holmes...No Really

Sacha Baron Cohen is Sherlock Holmes and Will Ferrell is Dr. Watson.

More suited for an SNL skit or a big-budget Hollywood comedy? You decide.

Yup, apparently Borat himself is being tagged to play the great British detective in an upcoming movie and Ron Burgundy is going to be his sidekick.

Me? I think it's bloody inspired and can't wait for it.

The only issue is that Judd Apatow is involved, and really, aren't we all getting a little sick of Apatow by this point? I mean is Holmes going to be hanging around with the boys playing ancient video games and talking about which hot chicks on the London stage look good in corsets?

If it were me, I would get Jack Black to play Moriarty.

Now that would be interesting...

LINKS

Variety Story

You Gotta Love Jelena Jankovic

After our favorite headcase Jelena Jankovic was so unceremoniously ousted at Wimbledon, she had these choice words:

"I was almost playing in the parking lot. I almost needed a helicopter to go to my court."

Hopefully they will put her on some other court apart from No. 18 the next time around!

LINKS

Telegraph: Jankovic Crashes Out

The Williams Sisters...Let The Conspiracies Begin

So, it's all but certain that Venus and Serena Williams are going to the Finals at Wimbledon.

Venus has Elena Dementieva next and Serena has China's first ever singles Grand Slam semi-finalist Zheng Jie. The real intrigue is not involving those matches, it's involving what happens in the finals...

Rewind a few years back. I'm not sure if you can remember but Venus was the queen of Tennis and little sister was struggling after her shocking US Open win. Then the two were slated to meet in the semi-finals of the Indian Wells tournament...

...and neither showed up. Venus pulled out with an injury (even though she had looked perfectly fine destroying the competition up to that point), Serena won by forfeit, the crowd booed her mercilessly, she won the tournament and the two sisters vowed never to return. The conspiracy theories started almost immediately, their Svengali-like father (ever notice how the words "Svengali" and "father" always seem to go together in tennis?) Richard Williams had ordered the older sister to give little sis a chance. The two sisters had brokered a deal themselves. The WTA Tour did it.

Serena used the win to dominate women's tennis and her sister. Venus's career went about in fits and starts (as did Serena's eventually) and Serena was most definitely the ascendant Williams.

Yet the strange thing is that Venus kept chugging along at Wimbledon. Despite two losses to her sister in the finals, she managed to amass four singles titles for herself.

Venus's game is much more suited to grass, and current form would make her the firm favorite to win.

But what if Serena wins? She needs the win more than Big Sis who is defending champion.

A-ha...let the conspiracy theories begin...

LINKS

ESPN: Williams Sisters Destined For Finals

Elena Dementieva: The Forgotten Russian

It's funny, you look at all the headlines (and there really are only a few) chronicling Elena Dementieva's win over Nadia Petrova to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals and they all seem to have the words "demons" and "face" in them.

Sure enough, Dementieva was up 6-1, 5-1 and then...two match points were blown...and before you know it she had lost the second tie-break....and she was involved in a third set fight for the match that had, moments before, been hers for the taking.

Thankfully, she finally won the match and did, in candor unusual for athletes, admit to nerves afterwards.

I like Dementieva, I really do. She hasn't fallen prey to the same fashion-magazine posturing as her peers (ahem, Maria Sharapova), she has a solid, powerful ground game, and despite having the worst serve in the women's game (by far), she continues to battle on.

She lost in the French Open this year while leading Dinara "Marat's Little Sister" Safina by a set and 5-2. Yet she continued to battle.

She has seen her ranking drop over the last couple of years, but she continued to battle.

And despite that horrendous serve, she continues to battle.



I remember her being very gracious in defeat at the US Open a few years ago, and being extremely sensitive to the recent tragedy that had occured in the school in Beslan (something her Russian opponent Svetlana Kuznetsova neglected to even touch upon, instead completely focusing on her own inconsequential victory). Even in the aftermath of bitter loss she was wise enough to realize that there were things much bigger than her at play in the world.

She may never win a Grand Slam, but you can bet that she will always keep battling on, as gracious as ever.

LINKS

Guardian Story: Dementieva Beats Petrova

The New Bond Trailer!

Omigod!

Here it is!

The new trailer for the upcoming James Bond movie Quantum of Solace (hate the title, though according to Wikipedia, it's one of the stories in the Ian Fleming short story collection For Your Eyes Only, a story in which Bond only appears on the periphery) is finally out, and it's fantastic.

** SPOILER ALERT**

Bond seems to be out for revenge after the tragic death of Vesper Lynd (so memorably played by the great Eva Green) at the end of Casino Royale. Of course, the Bond-on-his-own-out-for-revenge storyline was the basis for what is probably considered the worst Bond movie, License to Kill, but soemthing tells me this will be better.

**END OF SPOILER**

Of course, and this could be a topic for antother day, Timothy Dalton was actually a pretty good Bond, and The Living Daylights was actually a fantastic movie, but for some reason the whole Dalton period has been unfairly branded in the minds of Bond fans.

In any case, here is the trailer (click to play the video):





LINKS

Quantum of Solace Official Website

Say It Ain't So Chris!

Here we go again, Chris Noth is leaving the Law & Order family...for the third time!

Chris, of course, is Detective Mike Logan, a role he so memorably played for a number of seasons on the original Law & Order. He left that show, only to return for a two-hour TV movie Law & Order: Exiled (I suspected it was converted into a TV movie after the pilot wasn't picked up for a series order), but nothing longer term came of that.

Then, the eternally strange Vincent D'Onofrio (love that guy) started acting up a bit due to "exhaustion" (code for contract re-negotiation), on Law & Order: Criminal Intent; but hard-core L&O godfather Dick Wolf called his bluff. He called up our old pal Noth to "share the load" with D'Onofrio, with each actor headlining alternating episodes.

Noth was first paired with Annabella Sciorra (very good, very interesting dynamic between the two) and then with the fantastic Julianne Nicholson (first discovered by The Better Half in the wonderful movie Tully - more on that at a later time). Then Nicholson left on maternity leave, and was replaced temporarily by the great Alicia Witt (apparently Sam Raimi's first pick for Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man movies).

Alicia Witt

It was wonderful - I picked up the show even when it moved to USA Network. Noth had great chemistry with the both Nicholson and Witt.

Julianne Nicholson

But, as they so often must, all good things must come to an end.

Noth is leaving again...that's the bad news.

The good news?

He's being replaced by the singular Jeff Goldblum!



Talk about inspired casting!

I love Goldblum, and thought he was really good in Raines (the Frank Darabont show that ran ever-so briefly on NBC), even if the show wasn't quite as good as I had hoped.

He'll be great on L&O:CI (as the cool kids call it), I can't wait to see him mumble his way through all those duh-duhhs!

In the meantime, Dick, buddy, any chance you could spin off into another series, but this time with Noth and Witt? C'mon man, why break up a beautiful team?

LINKS

Variety Story
Wikipedia: Raines
Wikipedia: Chris Noth
Wikipedia: Jeff Goldblum
Wikipedia: Alicia Witt
Wikipedia: Julianne Nicholson