NHL Stanley Cup Final Predictions: A curse will be broken

Tonight can not get here soon enough for this particular Blackhawks fan. Indeed, the conference finals ended much sooner than most anybody had expected (all of the predictions I was able to track down had both series going longer than they ultimately did) and it's still somewhat remarkable that neither Sid the Kid nor Ovie were playing among the final four teams.

But that, as they say, is why they play the games. And while many of us here in Chicago are already acting as though this Stanley Cup's in the bag, with the way this year's playoffs have gone, nothing should be taken for granted.

Last round marked problems getting picks from other sites on to my page as soon as I would've liked and we indeed appear to have lost a few of the experts—most regrettably one Erin Brown from CBS Sports, who shared the same score with me but owned the tiebreaker. Unfortunately, the powers that be stopped updating that blog some time after the second round and now your new leaderboard after last round's picks looks like this heading into the Final:

Movie Review: The Informant!

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. THAT MATT DAMON'S ONE LOVABLY GOOFY BASTARD — After alternating between three performances in the Bourne series (with a fourth installment likely) and three performances in the Ocean's series (with a fourth installment hopefully not being likely), we get to see Damon take advantage of the opportunity to try something decidedly different from those two recurring roles that he inhabited for the last decade. In The Informant!, Damon is reunited with Steven Soderbergh once again, adding a bushy mustache and some extra 30 pounds in taking on the role of Mark Whitacre, the real-life Archer Daniel Midland whistle-blower who learns of his company's involvement in an international price-fixing scheme. He proves to be remarkably good at playing what is essentially a bad actor, and Melanie Lynskey is equally effective as Whitacre's loyal albeit clueless wife.
2. AT LEAST IT'S A LITTLE PLAYFUL WITH THE "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" BIT — Keeping in mind how I generally feel about that phrase's use, I took Steven Soderbergh's opening disclaimer that while most of the story is fact-based, the filmmakers also had no problems changing a few things for dramatic effect. The warning concludes with, "So there," and at the start it's hard not to smirk at Soderbergh effectively flicking off his entire audience right from the get-go about how faithful he's going to be that phrase. 
3. I HAD A FEW LAUGHS ... — The movie includes a hit-or-miss stream-of-consciousness series of random inner thoughts from its main character such as wondering why the German word for pen has so many syllables or how polar bears can tell their nose is black.

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. ... BUT NOT MANY WERE VERY MEMORABLE — Jeez, even those two particular jokes I listed there don't even really sound that funny. Although there's a surprising number of comedic performers in this cast, The Informant! withdraws amused chuckles from its audience, but hardly any laughter of the gut-busting variety.
2. THIS IS WHY THE OLD-TIMERS DESPISE VOICE-OVER NARRATION — While the joke here seems to be taking pride in using the inclusion of every one of Whitacre's most mundane and random observations, it barely holds up as a stylistic gimmick and almost deliberately avoids being a genuine storytelling tool. 
3. IT'S NOT AS ENJOYABLE AS ANY OF THE FILMS IT REMINDED ME OF — You wouldn't be wrong for saying that The Informant! reminds you of The Insider, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, or even Catch Me If You Can. You also wouldn't be wrong if you felt all three of those aforementioned films were ultimately more entertaining.

25 WORDS OR LESS:

The Informant! feels like an overly long joke on its audience that concludes with an unsatisfying punchline.

"FLY ON THE WALL": Episode III

INT. UNITED CENTER - FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2010, 4:20 P.M.

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS PRESIDENT JOHN MCDONOUGH sits at his desk having a conversation on speakerphone. 

JOHN

So what's this big news you have for me?

Movie Review: Where the Wild Things Are

THREE THINGS I LIKED:

1. THE OPENING MOMENTS — Spike Jonze begins Wild Things with roughly 10-15 minutes of handheld footage of his isolationist young star (Max Records) wreaking havoc. Max gets into a snowball fight that leads to his prized "igloo" being destroyed and then disrupts his divorced mother (Catherine Keener) with demands for dinner while she is trying to spend some quite time with her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo). I won't make any grand predictions about what the future holds for Records, but as far as this film goes,  he mercifully displays none of the typically dreadful child-actor affectations.
2. AN ARTIST'S TOUCH — There undoubtedly those who would argue Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott Medal-winner is something too sacred to be adapted for the big screen. Considering that the 338-word book didn't even run 40 pages, it may indeed have been better-suited for a short film. Regardless of any flaws, Jonze's live-action version of Wild Things is ultimately well-intended and far more sincere to its origin than most recent Hollywood attempts at children's classics (example springing to mind: "If the producers had dug up Ted Geisel's body and hung it from a tree, they couldn't have desecrated the man more."). 
3. THE ACTUAL WILD THINGS LOOK GREAT ... — Most everything in the movie looks great (there's equally ambitious production design and cinematography), but the right combination of giant puppetry and CGI makes the monsters really quite stunning.

THREE THINGS I DIDN'T:

1. ... ALTHOUGH THEY COULD'VE BEEN A BIT MORE "WILD" — We're given a variety of voices (James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Paul Dano) and ultimately a variety of problems—too many problems, actually. Did I call them monsters a second ago? I don't know that they're scary in the traditional sense, but it's accurate if you find dysfunctional families voicing their resentments to be frightening.
2. NOBODY LIKES STRETCH MARKS — I understand that those are bound to be somewhat evident when you're basing a script on a work that's just 10 sentences long, but there's multiple points where Wild Things feels as though it's without any real conflict and just sort of meandering. The dialogue between Max and the Wild Things touches on personal relationships and reaches for a larger context, but much of it ends up being forgettable and feeling like filler. 
3. UM ... SO WHAT REALLY WAS THE POINT OF THAT? — I would've thought that transforming a bedtime story into something like a thesis would result in a perhaps a more profound or significant view of the tale. Instead I was just sort of left thinking, "Well, that was cute."

25 WORDS OR LESS:

The film version will neither usurp nor diminish the legacy of the book.

Adventures in Housesitting: Your senses are gone so don't you hesitate

My friend and his father left early Sunday morning for a week-long cruise in or around the Bahamas. I'm not entirely sure of where they'll be visiting, really. All I know is that seeing as I'm unemployed and thus have pretty good availability, I have once again been entrusted with the keys to a real, live suburban home—complete with cable television, internet and a dog that was probably born before either of those were invented.

As you might recall, it was nearly some four years ago that I was asked by aunt & uncle to take care of their cat, Cosmo. But whereas last time I was anxiously waiting for the cat to pinch a loaf, this time around I'm tending to a white lab whose problem isn't with having a bowel movement so much as where he's having them (i.e. in the house).

I originally misheard the dog's name as "Plato" and was impressed by the idea of my friend and his family naming a pet after a student of Socrates and a mentor of Aristotle that laid the philosophical foundations for Western culture/civilization.

Then after clarifying, I found that the name was actually "Play-Doh," which seemed to remind me of about the 3:33 mark of this routine. I'll laugh about it now while I can.

NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Finals Predictions: MORE LATE ARRIVALS

Same deal as the NBA, although when it comes to hockey, CBS Sports has apparently dropped out here (Dennis Dodd had his picks in a separate post—the actual blog hasn't been updated in ... wow) and Puck Daddy's staff picks aren't really worth another graphic right now (not to mention they added two names and lost one guy ...). Anyway, here's the Conference Finals addendum to the original picks, and I'm guessing there won't be any more similar problems in the buildup to the grand finale.

NBA Playoff Confrence Finals Predictions: LATE ARRIVAL

It appears Ball Don't Lie will not be publishing their picks this round either (KD did mention he had the Lakers in six in a separate post, whatever that's worth), but here's the late picks from the guys at CBS Sports. I know, I could've just gone back and pasted this over that monkey washing the cat in the original post for this round's picks, but I'm leaving those gifs up for future reference so I can remember which of these sites I add fuck this thing up every year. That, and the monkey's funny. Obviously.

The Braves' First Quarter: The debut of a fancy (for me, at least) new graphic

Yeah, as I've said probably something like a million times before, I've been meaning to change up how I do these little quarterly thoughts on my Four Bs and I know I've also confessed something like a million times plus one about how the basketball and hockey playoffs typically delay my immersion into the baseball season.

Still, when you consider both how this first 41 games to the season began and ended, the Braves are kind of an ideal squad to try something different other than my usual meandering faux essay. Let us not forget that when it comes to expectations for the year, mine for the 2010 Braves were set quite high.

So far, here's how I'm feeling:

NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Finals Predictions: FUCK NO SHARKS

The NHL's post-season is once again filled with a bit more suspense than we've been getting from the NBA so far, what with both Eastern Conference semifinals needing to go seven games. And at this point, what are we to make of the No. 8-seeded Montreal Canadiens—a team with even less regular season points than some Western Conference teams that didn't make the playoffs? Well, considering that they've now knocked off this year's President's Trophy winner and last year's Stanley Cup champion in consecutive rounds, they deserve as much respect as ... that No. 7 seed they'll be up against. Or the top two seeds from the West on the other side of the bracket, really.

OK, honestly? This is all shaping up really well for my dear 'Hawks at this point. I'm in such a good mood, that I even added those additional Puck Daddy contributors to the mix:

NBA Playoff Conference Finals Predictions: Life after LeBron

Alas, the top seed has been vanquished and we're down to our final four teams in the NBA—and maybe finally in store for a couple of competitive series after three of the last four series ended in sweeps.

Three of those four missing expert picks from the Yahoo experts did finally show up for last round, but the boys at Ball Don't Lie never posted conference semifinal picks. They may get to it this round, but so far nothing from them and instead of using gratuitous photos of the author for spots where I'm still waiting for expert picks from now on, I will instead be using this classic image of a monkey washing a cat.

Final Thoughts on 2009-10 Chicago Bulls: Same Old Song and Dance

The Trib had this graphic of King James on the front page of their sports section this morning for this story, and that of course brought a great many things to my mind at once.

First, I thought back to one of the many sports magazine covers I had way back before I entered my teens—and that I had just been discussing one issue in particular that even way back then was partaking in the photographic fun that these days is more commonplace, especially during many fans' free agency fantasies. LeBron here, for example, has already been imagined in multiple jerseys. But I'm fairly certain that the issue I'm thinking of was called Inside Sports, and the issue I'm thinking of had Michael Jordan on its cover during one of the years it was still uncertain where he would end up after the season—as though there were ever any doubt. It's easy to say in hindsight, but when I brought this up last week, I was wondering if maybe that's what we're about to see now: a whole slew of LeBron speculation going all sorts of other places when the guy just ends up staying where exactly he is.

I looked for that cover with multiple images of Michael, the same shot of him driving to the basket but one almost certainly in a Knicks jersey, another probably in a Lakers jersey, and most likely another contender I'm forgetting. But I couldn't find that cover anywhere on a Google Image search, although I do remember owning this issue. And this one for some reason looks a lot like a comic book character drawing of mine I just saw.

But like I said, this image brought multiple things to mind at once, because it's so easy to get off-topic when talking about this past year's Bulls squad seeing as last season was just essentially another one that didn't count. By now, I guess we should be getting used to this.