Final Thoughts on 2009-10 NBA Season: Where being right feels wrong

After two rounds of pretty lackluster basketball, the final two rounds of the NBA Playoffs finally delivered the goods—most notably this year's Finals, the same matchup I had predicted at the beginning of the year (for the second straight year). And if this post doesn't end up looking as catastrophic as the NHL Final Thoughts did, my logic was still the same in hoping that like my 2009 picks, the predicted runner-up would actually triumph once again. Instead, things ended up exactly as I pretty much feared they would, with the Lakers pretty much waltzing through the West before getting probably the stiffest challenge they've had for any of of the five titles Phil Jackson has brought to the team.

My own prognosticating this post-season was an improvement over last year's mark (and at least this year, I was no worse than Jalen Rose), but there were certainly those who did better:

Final Thoughts on 2009-10 NHL Season: Did that really happen?

The curse that I failed to mention in both the last round of predictions and the ones made at the beginning of the year—as well as anywhere in between, I would assume—is actually one I consciously factored into my original decision to pick the Chicago Blackhawks as runners-up this year. That would be the fact that my predicted runner-up when I made NHL predictions for the first time here on BMC in 2009 actually wound up winning it instead. And now for the second straight year, I'm delighted to say I was wrong. Wonderfully, gloriously wrong.


But as it relates to how I did once the playoffs began, I amazingly finished with the exact same mark I had last year—although with one less in the number of series with exact number of games. The important part, of course, is how my picks stacked up to the "experts":

NBA Finals Predictions: Saving the best for last

Even with those beloved Blackhawks a mere pair of wins away from claiming their first Stanley Cup of my lifetime in a series that's featured three intensely competitive games to kick off the final hockey contests of the season, there's no denying that this NBA Finals promises to be the best finale for the sport in a number of years—even superior to the last time these two clubs played a couple of years back. 

So if you were expecting me to whine about our umpteenth meeting between these two franchises for the NBA Championship, I'm sorry to disappoint. Lest we forget, this was, after all, the exact matchup I had in my pre-season picks.

So do I stick with what I said then? Well, the video there—if it hasn't made your browser crash (and sorry if it did)—should be a pretty good indicator of what I'm really hoping for. Although, any Laker in tears should suffice.

But before we get to my selfish desires, here's an updated look at how the experts and the non-expert (READ: Me) stand after last round's picks heading into the final round:

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.