Famous Critics's Blog

The new bad guys November 29, 2009

Anybody remember how, after the Iron Curtain fell and the USSR dissolved, the bad guys in the movies suddenly shifted from Boris Badanov-style Russkis to Bid Laden jihadist Arabs? After seeing “The Blind Side” recently, I want to make a case for Hollywood to focus its malevolent gaze on some real domestic terrorists: the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

The movie goes through 90 tearjerking minutes, passes up some opportunities to make the crack junkie mother or gangbanging neighbors into the bad guys, and finally sets up the NCAA for some much-deserved hatred. How dare the NCAA assume that the film’s hero and family values-loving heroine are conspiring to break NCAA rules? Imagine that someone would rescue a homeless child, pay for his education, buy him a car, and adopt him… just for the nefarious purpose of improving the football team at their alma mater?! Outrageous, but then that’s the NCAA.

These are the same people that refused to let a Colorado student play football because he had been a professional skier. Doesn’t matter that the NCAA doesn’t regulate collegiate skiing. If you take money for one sport, you’re ineligible for all others.

The same NCAA cracked down on Clemson University because the coach’s wives were giving an elementary school student rides home. His older brother  was a football player, and was raising him single-handedly after their parents died and/or went to jail, all while going to college, which made it impossible to hold a job. The little brother simply needed some parental supervision and rides to and from school, and his teammates and coaches and their families pitched in to help out. Nope, sorry, that’s a violation of NCAA rules. Gifts to players are verboten, and driving a kid to grammar school is a gift.

Let’s not even look at the debacle that is the BCS. Players at three schools — Boise State, Cincinnati, and TCU — did all that they were supposed to do — win every game — and they won’t be able to even be considered for the national championship, mostly because their schools aren’t traditional big-name football powerhouses like Florida, Alabama, and Texas.

The NCAA’s goal of keeping college athletics unpolluted by money and cheating is noble, and most of the time they do a decent job of accomplishing it. But when they turn into officious, narrow-minded bureaucrats who lack an iota of compassion and rely on strict interpretations of a policy manual, they deserve to be strung up and bludgeoned by a women’s college field hockey team.

Which, come to think of it, is a movie I’d pay to see.

Flipping the bird November 25, 2009

We critics are big fans of Thanksgiving. Okay, really, we’re more big fans of pie and mashed potatoes, but if there’s a holiday that gives us an excuse to eat mashed potatoes and pie, we’re behind it. And it also gives us a reason to look at great moments in turkey history.

In third place (just because it’s fictional), we present “The West Wing”, going in a new direction to create a new military air wing. Gotta love the President saying, “If the Oscars were like that [the runner-up is slaughtered] I’d watch.”

In second place, the inimitable Sarah Palin pardons a turkey too, but seems oblivious of her surroundings later on in the interview. Notice the reporters asking questions using phrases like “chopping block.”

And of course, the greatest moment in turkey history, when WKRP in Cincinnati decided to drop turkeys from a helicopter in a legendary Thanksgiving giveaway. 

Enjoy your bird, and your pie, and your tryptophan-induced coma.

What’s round and fun and fits in your hand? November 17, 2009

Most Halls of Fame have some sort of Veterans Committee that recommends overlooked old-timers for inclusion with the all-time greats. Also, usually when the Hall first starts, it looks back over the previous years to find those who should be inducted at the start. For instance, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s first induction class was in 1939, but included legends like Ty Cobb, whose career had ended nearly three decades earlier.

So then what’s going on at the Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, NY? This year’s inductees (their 11th group) include the Big Wheel (old school fun),  the GameBoy (too new for me, but clearly a forerunner of modern handheld games), and … the Ball. The Ball! How in the name of Milton Bradley did the frackin’ BALL not get into the Hall of Fame before now? Did it gamble on games it had played in? Was there a cloud of steroid suspicion hanging over it? (Let’s not forget all the accusations about “juiced balls” and baseball’s entire “live ball era”.)

What makes it even more egregious are the previous inductees. The Stick made it in last year. The Cardboard Box went into the Hall in 2005. How did the Ball not make it until now? You can’t have a game without a ball. All you need, for the most part, is a ball and an adjective. Base…BALL. Foot…BALL. Soft…BALL. Basket…BALL. Volley… BALL. Hockey… okay, well, that one was invented by Canadians.

So let’s hear it for the Ball. And here’s hoping that next year, the Rock and Bubble Wrap get their due.

Faux Fox November 11, 2009

I really don’t want to get into politics on this blog. Both parties are irritating. But only one party has the advantage of a TV news channel that’s willing to commit fraud to support its agenda. Yup, you guessed it… Fox News is faking it worse than a cheap hooker. And what really kills me is that it takes “The Daily Show” to reveal it.

The Republicans held a health care rally outside the Capital on November 9. Fox News used footage from an anti-tax rally on September 12, making it seem like more people attended the November rally than really did. It’s not hard to figure out. On November 9, Washington DC had clear blue skies and the leaves were orange. On September 12, it was cloudy and gray, and the leaves were green. The Daily Show ran a side by side comparison of the footage, and sure enough, Fox tried to pull a switcheroo. Is that journalism? Is that reporting what actually happened? Clearly not.

Historically, a picture was worth a thousand words. In this age of Photoshop, maybe it’s worth a bit less. On Fox News, it’s worth nothing at all. How can you trust a network that fakes stories? When it happened to the New York Times, people got fired. Will Fox News do the same to the people who perpetrated this fraud?

But let’s share the blame. Where’s the rest of the media on this? How come this story broke on Comedy Central, not on CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS? Are other networks going to give Fox a pass based on professional courtesy? Is Wolf Blitzer afraid that if he castigates Fox News, that they’ll turn around and make fun of him for being named Wolf Blitzer? I expect better from the media. And once again, we see why so many people (me included) consider Jon Stewart the most trustworthy name in news.

[11/12 follow up... Sean Hannity of Fox News has apologized, but called it an "inadvertent mistake." Hogwash. Somebody had to pull the video footage from an archive and splice it into the new story. That requires premeditation. Nothing inadvertent about it.]

Can you tell me how to get to… November 10, 2009

A huge happy 40th anniversary to one of the greatest creations of American society. No, not duct tape. Sesame Street! Many of you know that I’m a huge fan; there’s a poster of Kermit on my living room wall, a copy of “Sesame Street Unpaved” on my coffee table, my dog was very nearly named Henson, and my e-mail signature at work features a quote from Big Bird.

I don’t normally support using the TV as a babysitter. If you’re letting your kids watch Teletubbies and all the other garbage that passes for children’s televistion, instead of actually parenting, then you should have your parenting license revoked. But you should suffer the same punishment if you’re NOT making your kids watch Sesame Street every day. Jim Henson had a simple guiding principle: entertainment should be educational, and education should be entertaining. It’s a brilliant idea that all teachers should learn from.

I also give kudos to the Childrens Television Workshop crew for constantly analyzing themselves and changing the show to keep up with the times. There were huge debates at CTW about whether Snuffalupagus never being seen by adults was giving kids the idea that adults wouldn’t believe them. (And now, Snuffy has been seen by a grown-up.) Cookie Monster still eats cookies, but in moderation, and also eats veggies now too. My sister and I had heated discussions when CTW announced that they were going to create a new character who would suffer from some sort of disease. She wanted it to be HIV; I thought that obesity was a bigger problem for American kids. And CTW, geniuses that they are, created different characters for different countries, thus making the disease relevant for each audience. (Can any Brazilians tell me how to get to Vila Sesamo? Any Russians know the way to Sesamplatz?)

So here’s to the greatest street in the world. I still consider Oscar the Grouch to be one of my role models. And I still miss Mister Hooper.

Let the criticizing begin! November 9, 2009

This was all Lizanne’s idea. She said to me one day, “We should become famous critics.” The rest will someday be history, probably after the rest of the world has realized that we’re right about things more often than not. So take our advice. (No, that wasn’t the preamble to something pithy. Just take our advice. Because chances are, we’re right.)

And if anything in here upsets, irritates, or angers you, well, just remember that it’s Lizanne’s fault. She’s the cute, lovable one… who wears boots that she’s not afraid to plant on your backside.

It’s all happening at the zoo November 9, 2009

It’s not a secret that I’m a firm supporter of a little mayhem. Love a good natural disaster. Think that reintroducing mountain lions to the East Coast would keep the joggers and small yappy dogs on their toes. That sort of thing. So it should come as no surprise that I’m all aflutter over what happened at the National Zoo in Washington DC over the weekend.

A deer — and Rock Creek Park in DC has loads of them — hopped a fence, and surprise!, there were lions on the other side. The lions mauled it a bit (no doubt they were equally surprised), then the deer escaped into a moat. Zookeepers “rescued” it, and then euthanized it. You can plainly hear onlookers cheering for the deer to escape. And I say, bollocks!

First, you know that some of those people have to be NASCAR fans, and that they love a good wreck at 200mph. So then why not root for the lion? Is carnage only acceptable when it comes with a crash helmet, and everyone walks away uninjured?

Second, why shouldn’t the lions get some good high-quality enrichment, in the form of live prey to kill and eat? Why shouldn’t we allow the lions to be lions? If you’re an animal lover, you can’t just root for the cutesy wide-eyed Bambi-type critters. You’ve got to give equal time to the predators, red in tooth and claw, who should be allowed to pick off some prey species from time to time. If we want to teach people about nature — and that’s what zoos are for — then we should teach them about all of nature, not just the G-rated Disneyfied parts.

Finally, urban deer are hooved rats, wildly overpopulated, feeding on gardens, and often just two steps away from crashing through your windshield. I worked on urban deer management early in my career, and I think that rounding up a few of them and giving them to the lions, tiges, cheetahs, jaguars, and pumas wouldn’t be a bad thing. Cruelty to animals? Isn’t it cruel not to let predators behave naturally? Deer are a prey species (you can tell by their eyes, which are set on opposite sides of their head, the better to see trouble coming. Predators have eyes on the front of their heads, to give them binocular vision, useful for hunting.), and being eaten comes naturally to them. They may not like it, but it happens.

Or, we could just give the lions some small yappy dogs to play with.

Why you want your children to grow up to be hockey players November 9, 2009

Several professional athletes have famously said that they’re not role models and shouldn’t be treated as such. Others — and I’m looking at you, NFL wide receivers — have just continually acted like spoiled brats who need a good spanking.

But then there are hockey players. Yes, some will say that hockey is too violent, but I think you’ll find that hockey is really considerably less violent than football, has less bench-clearing brawls than baseball, and has far less players involved in nightclub shootings and wife beatings than basketball. Which brings us to today’s Hockey Hall of Fame inductees. One in particular… The Captain.

Steve Yzerman played his entire 20+ year career with the Detroit Red Wings, and remains with the team as an executive. In an era when players, hopscotch from team to team, following bigger and bigger paydays, Stevie Y’s loyalty to his team was admirable. He was made team captain at age 21, and spent the next two decades in that position. That’s why in Detroit, if you refer to The Captain, everyone knows who you’re talking about. The Captain didn’t fight. He didn’t question his coach in the media. He didn’t cheapshot his opponents, on the ice or in the press. He didn’t complain that he wasn’t getting his respect from management. He didn’t do drugs. And although he was one of the NHL’s best offensive players, he willingly sacrificed individual glory and statistics in order to improve the team. It worked; the Wings won 4 Stanley Cups behind his leadership. In 2002 Steve suffered a horrific knee injury, that required an experimental surgery. A bone in his leg was cut open lengthwise, a steel wedge was inserted, and Steve was told he’d be lucky to walk again. Forget hockey, just walking would be the goal. Within a year, Steve led the Canadian hockey team to Olympic gold. Think about that, Terrell “Turf Toe” Owens.

Today The Captain, #19, Stevie Yzerman, joins the Hall of Fame. Looking back on his lifetime of quiet leadership, dogged perserverance, pursuit of excellence, and commitment to teamwork, why would you NOT want your child to emulate him?