Somewhat Manly Nerd

The only point of watching this movie is experiencing it in theaters. If you have any interest whatsoever, just go see it in 3D. Sure, it’ll set you back at least 15 bucks, but unless you want to wait until you have a 60″ 3D HDTV in your house, you’re not going to get nearly the same amount of enjoyment otherwise. Of course, you may have absolutely no interest in watching 9-feet-tall anorexic smurfs running around a super-evolved rainforest — in which case I’ll try halfheartedly to convince you to give your money to James Cameron.

…this is how I started to write this post over a week ago. I saw Avatar two Sundays ago and I thought it was an entertaining spectacle, even if it’s basically Pocahontas/Ferngully/Dances with Wolves in space. But now I’m already annoyed with it.

I stand by the assessment that if you’re interested at all, you should go see the movie in a 3D theater, but I’m not going to try to convince anyone now. Apparently, enough people have been already convinced since it’s made well over a BILLION DOLLARS. At the very least, it will end up as the second-highest grossing movie of all-time, and it also has a chance at toppling Titanic‘s worldwide record of $1.8 billion. These are James Cameron’s last two movies. I wonder exactly when he sold his soul to be able to make whatever the hell he wants and still bring in an obscene amount of money.

But I have to hand it to Cameron — he knows how to direct. That’s more than I can say for the blockbuster director that has attempted to take his place for the past decade. I think we all know to whom I refer. Cameron has come back and shown everyone how it’s done. He somehow took a movie that features funny-looking blue people and turned into the biggest hit of the decade. He has truly pushed the boundaries of filming technology and special effects once again, and you can actually decipher what is going on in the action scenes! And they are massive action scenes.

In terms of the 3D usage, it has to be the least intrusive I’ve ever seen, but there’s still some of that blurring and awkward focusing at times — it’s not perfect. I heard that in RealD (the theater type I saw it in), the 3D doesn’t pop out as much as in IMAX. I think that’s probably a good thing. You don’t feel engulfed in the world, but it adds some nice perspective to massive shots, particularly the flying scenes, which were probably when I was most impressed with the movie.

But overall, the movie is just so totally transparent and predictable that I couldn’t help but be bored a lot of the time. I wasn’t enthralled with the world Cameron had created, and neither did I really care all that much about the indigenous Nav’i tribe. I actually loved the Colonel who wanted nothing more but to destroy everything related to the Nav’i; the dude was a total badass. It’s a bad sign when the best character in a movie is a caricature.

No matter what I think, Avatar is already going down as one of the biggest movie events of all-time, and it even seems like a candidate for the Oscar for Best Picture. That is the most shocking development of all — I don’t even think as highly of The Dark Knight as many people I’ve come across, but it deserved a nod much more than Avatar. But hey, most critics seem to disagree with me. I’m just shocked 50-year-old men are more impressed with a pretty 3D film with no substance than me.

The Red Sox just signed Beltre to a 1-year, $9 million contract with a $5 million player option and $1 million buyout. Basically 1/10 or 2/14. Some people might look at last year and say he’s not worth it, or that it’s a merely a push — but I think the Red Sox just made another great signing. His value doesn’t come from his usually slightly-above average bat, but his insane glove.

The dude could be a shortstop. He’d be a better shortstop than Derek Jeter, that’s for sure. I want one of these compilation videos for Scott Rolen. Get on it, internet.

I figured that before I decided on this team that I’d go to BaseballProjection.com to take a look at their historical WAR data for the decade. Fangraphs only goes back to 2002 with their WAR calculations. I had good ideas already for each position, and for the most part the WAR totals agreed with my preconceptions, but there were a few surprises. I’m going to state right here that I might as well entitle this post “BaseballProjection.com’s All-Decade Team” because I’m basically just going by their WAR calcs. To make sure to highlight that fact, I’ll put each player’s WAR next to his name. read more…

U2 – New Year’s Day

Just be thankful it took three New Year’s for me to post this on the appropriate day. I’ll try not to make it a yearly occurrence from now on. Feel free to recommend songs to make sure it doesn’t.

Should I put an apostrophe in 00′s? And did we decide what we’re going to call them? “The Aughts” blows. “The Zeros” really works better, since this is basically a lost decade. Not for me, but for the world — well, other than China and India and maybe some other developing countries (Brazil?). But I guess aught means zero, but I think zero is dumbed down as to be indicative of America as a whole. Anyhow, this is supposed to be personal, not me analyzing the popular naming conventions of decades.

Edit: Oh wait, I just put an apostrophe in my last post title! Guess I’m not consistent.

I’m pretty sure I will never have a decade as eventful as this one. I started 2000 in middle school, a Dreamcast fanboy who loved video games and was afraid of women — well, I guess that last one hasn’t changed too much. But I’ve gone through high school and college the past ten years. I attended two high schools and four colleges. And then of course there are all the other milestones any person goes through that don’t need to be listed. The years of 13 to 23 cover all of those for most people, I imagine. How is any other decade going to beat that? Maybe if I move between cities and/or countries I can top it? Maybe marriage + kids? Too far off to think about and I feel like one doesn’t truly understand starting and raising a family until one experiences it. A person always thinks the present is going to be the most important time of one’s life.

But still, that’s a fairly stuffed ten years, is it not? I attended… I started to write a huge bunch of personal anecdotes, but I’d probably regret it at some point. I’ve become a bit more secure with myself and my past disappointments and failings, but I’m not totally comfortable writing them all out for the entire internet to see. Sure, no one reads this, but people technically *could*. So what was the point of this post? I guess I felt the need to wrap up the 00′s somehow.

In terms of looking forward, I find it so difficult to bring myself to do it. I see way too many possible paths laid out in front of me, all with their positives, but I can’t help but focus on the downsides to all of them. I assume the worst almost always, and while it brings immense  joy when things do work out, it’s not good when it stops me from actually doing things. So it’s going to be 2010. Here’s to actually doing things. I hope.

But I still won’t do the only thing I want to do.

I’ve been thinking about making Best of Decade posts for a month or so now, debating how to go about it — whether to just make lists or rambling contemplations, and how to spread them out across a bunch of posts. I’ve settled on separate posts for separate segments of entertainment, consisting of personal anecdotes and feelings about my decade’s experience in each form of time-wasting. They’ll all be somewhat chronological, so you can see my evolution and growth or lack thereof. I originally wanted to get this done BEFORE 2010 started, but that’s not going to happen now because I procrastinated like with every single other thing in my life. Except for one decision this year, and that turned out pretty well. But this is not about my laziness and neurotic failings, this is about stuff you watch on a screen. Let’s get this kicked off.

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Jerry Manuel
David Wright
Johan Santana
Mike Pelfrey
John Maine
Francisco Rodriguez
Daniel Murphy
Carlos Beltran
Jeff Francoeur

Reyes on the trading block, confirmed.

This post brought to you by Jon Heyman’s Hall of Fame Ballot, provided by Twitter.

just mailed Hall of Fame ballot, beating deadline yet again. voted for alomar, dawson, larkin, parker, morris & mattingly

The first half of those are respectable, even if I would possibly only vote for one. But then it just gets worse as it goes along. Actually no, that’s unfair to Mattingly, as his peak was legitimately great. Jack Morris? His case boils down to, “Did you see Game 7 of the 1991 World Series?!?!”

But Joe Posnanski has been going on, and on, and on, about Bert Blyleven > Morris, so I figured I’d go with a New York flavored debate. Even if there technically isn’t any debate, considering Keith Hernandez isn’t on the ballot anymore. He almost didn’t make it past the first ballot! He only received 5.1% of the votes first time around — that’s 0.2% away from being totally snubbed.

I’m not even sure if I’m arguing here if Hernandez should be in the Hall of Fame or not. I’d probably put him in, but I think you can make the case for keeping him out. What I can’t see making a case for is Mattingly over Hernandez. Mattingly is all peak, and his peak isn’t even THAT amazing. It’s not like he was Albert Pujols for the 4 years he was truly great. Hernandez has a more steady and unconventional career, one with a barely discernible peak. In the end, Hernandez accumulated more total hitting value and is actually the better career hitter. But as a first baseman, I’m sure hitting a dozen home runs a year doesn’t exactly impress Hall of Fame voters.

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The poster may be just cut from The Dark Knight Template, but it’s still boner-inducing — probably due to that very fact.

Every sign points to Inception being fuck-awesome. Christopher Nolan. Leonardo DiCaprio. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (a.k.a. Heath Ledger 2.0). Ken Watanabe. Sci-fi. $200 million budget. It’s the perfect storm.

Let’s run down Christopher Nolan’s directing history:

Following – An extremely low-budget film noir, which happens to be sitting on my hard drive right now begging to be watched. I’ll probably update this post once I watch it. Allegedly very good, as evidenced by the 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Memento – A fantastic mindfuck of a movie that’s on a metric shitton of Best of Decade lists — including mine.

Insomnia – A remake of a Norwegian thriller. I vaguely remember enjoying it, but not to any great extent. I’m sure Pacino is entertaining, though.

Batman Begins – Totally revitalized a sinking franchise and turned it into the most prized property of Warner Bros. after Harry Potter. Set a new bar for comic book film adaptations.

The Prestige – A solid, if not spectacular film about two dueling magicians, Batman and Wolverine. Also had David Bowie in it. The ending is pretty damn fucked up, which gives it bonus points.

The Dark Knight - Set a new bar AGAIN for comic book movies. Got an amazing performance out of Heath Ledger, flipped an 18-wheeler, and blew up a massive building. No CGI for Nolan.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that there’s basically zero chance of this movie sucking. At the very least, it’ll be solid. It all likelihood, it will tingle your balls.

Just watch this teaser trailer. The city fucking BENDS IN ON ITSELF. I don’t even know what the fuck is going on, but I like it.

HD resolutions here from Apple.

I hope everyone has at least a mediocre Christmas. It’s all about low expectations.

I will be asking my 11-year-old(?) cousin if he has seen Die Hard yet. If he hasn’t, it will be immediately remedied.

The best gift I’ve received thus far was the one I bought for myself: Rome on Blu-ray. The packaging is fucking awesome, and I can only imagine its contents are even better. If you want something done right, do it yourself.