{ 2008 08 13 }
DVR Catastrophe
- Coverage - I’d like to thank the human interest piece NBC ran the other night for making me think “Pelligrini? That slut!” when the Italian swimmer took the lead in the women’s 200m freestyle swim. No matter how hard I try, I can’t completely disregard the terrible crap they run on network TV.
- Phelps - As of 4am EST on 13 August, 2008, Michael Phelps could secede from the United States, form his own country, and still be tied with the U.S. and Korea for the second-most gold medals behind China. He would be 12th in the total medal count.
- Review - I don’t understand how I keep forgetting to hold forth on the topic of Black Snake Moan. We’re talking about a movie concerning sex addiction with a titular entendre. It was made to be fodder; unfortunately, it wasn’t made to meet exceedingly high standards.
For starters, it’s difficult to suspend disbelief long enough to see a victim of adolescent sex abuse cured of her self-destructive coping mechanism by being chained to a radiator for a few days. Needless to say, the research I’ve read does not support this plotline. [Spoiler Alert] It gets even worse when the film tries to generalize a particular dysfunction in the last fifteen minutes.
As much as we all love Christina Ricci and Samuel L., they didn’t quite fit the parts. Yes, Christina Ricci specializing in making movies that are too realistically creepy for Tim Burton, but Taryn Manning is the gold standard for your “promiscuous white trash” (oh yeah, I said it) casting needs. For his part, Samuel L. is a bad motha - shut yo’ mouth! (R.I.P. Isaac Hayes) - with a penchant for making movies destined for obscurity. Sadly, the badness didn’t always comport with is character in this case. I wonder if they could’ve gotten Lawrence Fishburne. Justin Timberlake performs admirably.
- Gymanstics - Look…Either way, I’m going to get worked up about the women’s gymnastics team final, so you might as well get some notes:
- You’re supposed to turn 16 during the year of the games in question to qualify for the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed China to verify the ages of its more questionable competitors by providing passports. Yes, the IOC allowed an interested party to prove its case by providing documents it could produce from thin air that no other party could dispute. By contrast, the American justice system appears quite sophisticated. I can’t prove those passports included falsified birth dates, but Deng Linlin is 12 years old if she’s a day.
- Who came up with the various apparatuses that make up the gymnastic canon? The fixed rings and various bars (parallel, high, uneven) seem natural enough, as do the floor exercise, pommel horse, and balance beam, but I want to know who looked at a balance beam and said “You know, if I got a running start, I could really hurl myself over that thing.”
- Can anyone get enough of Bela Karolyi? I know I can’t. The guy is animated, he’s got an accent, and his blatant irreverence with regard to Bob Costas is refreshing. How many letters do I have to write to get Bela Karolyi to replace (the idiot) Joe Theismann on Monday Night Football. I’m sure Kornheiser’s on my side.
- I keep trying to work in a Club Dread reference, but it makes me feel kind of dirty. Those of you familiar with the film should know the scene to which I allude.
- NBC’s commentators love to reference the Chinese training system as being one that produces outstanding gymnasts by sort of, maybe infringing on the individual’s human rights. Now, I know that Chinese commerce is crucial to the American economy and the Sino-Soviet split provided a major opening for the “free world” team in the Cold War, but I think these Olympics would be more enjoyable if the coverage gratuitously demonized the Chinese government. I’m not saying they need to incite a riot, but a few strategically placed Tibetan flags could go a long way. Is a Costas satellite interview with the Dalai Lama entirely out of the question? [Editor's Note: Take a moment to check out His Holiness's marvelous website and compare it to Pope Benedict XVI's site. I think it's clear which religion has a better design team.] I guess the subtext of command v. market economy (or Democracy v. Totalitarianism, if you want to get polemical) just gets me nostalgic for the glory days of known enemies and Mutual Assured Destruction.
- Hold on…Is the Chinese women’s gymnastic performance really being relegated to “highlights-only” coverage so I can see Michael Phelps continue to bludgeon the world’s swimming records? That’s disappointing. Televised gymnastics may be more spectacle than sport, but at least there’s some element of suspense. Phelps’s races confirm foregone conclusions.
The eldest member of China’s women’s gymnastics team actually fell off the balance beam. I don’t know if Nelson is a familiar character in China, but I’m sure a few million Americans just went “Ha-ha” in staccato, descending notes.
- Oh no -someone call the SWAT team; disaster has struck. My DVR quit recording soon after Alicia Sacramone finished choking her way through the floor exercise, and it’s too late to catch the replay of that coverage. Maybe it’s some kind of digital mercy instinct. I wouldn’t know, because NBC failed to adequately account for scoring delays when they scheduled their coverage.
cwoy2j | 16-Aug-08 at 8:56 am | Permalink
Re: your Black Snake Moan comment, you know movies nowadays are in a sad state of affairs. I can’t think of the last time I took a chance on a movie and was entertained. Nowadays when I like a movie, it’s always been fairly well reviewed ala No Country for Old Men, Dark Knight but when I try to step outside and see something new like BSM, it just ends up falling flat. Is it b/c those other films have better marketing or that they’re truly better?
On a side note, I’ve inexplicably become a fan of Nicholas Cage movies. Not because they’re any good, but because you want to see what ridiculous hair piece he’ll be wearing like in Con Air, Ghost Rider, National Treasure, Next, etc.