Musings, Ponderings, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis

1) So, at the Resident Female's urging, I have now seen Fever Pitch, which is of course the Bostonized version of Fever Pitch. Now, I tried to put aside all my skepticism going in, most notably that the lead actor is the acting equivalent of Willaim Hung, the lead actress hasn't had a major part in a good movie since she starred alongside Shelley Long in 1984, and that I still view the original movie (about soccer) as one of the best movies made in the last ten years. I even was somewhat secretly hopeful, because I'm constantly rooting for the Farrelly brothers to recapture their Dumb & Dumber/There's Something About Mary magic from earlier in their career (Little Rhody representin'!). Regardless, despite a few chuckles, it was brutally bad, and here are some random observations that I still haven't worked out in my head:

- Why didn't Jimmy Fallon ever wash his hair through the entire thing?

- Drew Barrymore has lost all of her beauty. Now, crazily enough, when she is on camera, her face makes her look contropuntily either fat or immaciated, yet never anywhere in between. I don't know what the hell is going on with that, but there is no way it is organic.

- First, Drew Barrymore is never again to be cast as a mathmatician. Ever. I think we can all agree on this. Second, she was making up business models and market predictions, which means she wasn't actually a mathmatician, but really an economist and/or business analyst. Am I the only one this pissed off?

- In the original, they had Colin Firth have a few scattered pictures of Arsenal place around his apartment, and even had a scene where he was wearing the team's underwear. Okay, that was funny, subtle, and effective. In this one, they had red B's draped everywhere in Jimmy Fallon's apartment, with an entire wall of just Sox bumper stickers. This is the reason why I hate Hollywood humor:

"Hey, guys, you think the audience will get the joke that he really likes the Red Sox?"
"Probably, but, well... ah, hell, let's put up an entire wall of the logo to be on the safe side."

- I hate the way that Sox fans (or any fans, for that matter) come across in the six second media segments of yahoos that get posted everywhere. This was a 90-minute version of that.

- I've seen better chemistry between the leads in a snuff film.

- Also, the characters were charicatures of jokes of impressions of jackasses. None of their actions made any sense whatsoever. Also, why the hell did he have to sign the papers at the ballpark? That I don't get.

- Alright, enough of that.

2) Though I am now completely convinced that Hollywood has entirely run out of ideas. I wouldn't be the least bit to wake up tomorrow and see a trailer that went like this:

Coming from Paramount Pictures:
When we run out of proper ideas and recycled garbage, it's time to unlock the vault and finally allow people to see the single scariest horror movie in the history of cinema:
Arnold Schwartzenegger
Sylvester Stallone
and Peter North
in
"Stop that! We're out of lube!"

Opens Christmas Day

3) Screw the Yankees, screw the commishoner's office, and screw no off-days. The 30 games in 30 days thing totally wore the Sox down to the point where they might miss the playoffs. Seriously, the last 7-10 games they were sleepwalking through everything. I still think the Sox will take this, but man, they really should have put the Yanks away a long time ago, and the play of late has just been attrocious. Well, it should all come down to the three games at Fenway.

4) Pats lose to Carolina. Wish I had seen it instead of being on a plane, so I could actually have any sort of sense about why the Pats lost. Between Grad school and personal issues, I haven't seen either of the Pats games, and I haven't seen a full Sox game in weeks.

5) However, I was at the Nats-Giants game for Barry's first away game of the season. I snuck over to left field with the Resident Female and screamed taunts at him the whole night. My section was definitely beratting him all night, and it was magical. Sure, he hit a home run and the Giants ended up winning, but I still had a great time.

6) Email of the week (from about 2 weeks ago), comes from Teddy Backhair, on why he broke up with his girlfriend of six weeks:

"While I say it was because she is annoying, stupid, moody, bitchy, and somewhat clingy, I really broke up with because one morning I woke up, looked over at her sleeping, and from that angle I realized she looked a little bit like Chupacabra. You know, the mythic Mexican goat killer. I still shudder when I think of it."