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| Where I was this week |
It’s
5:30am and I’m traveling back to Wichita from a week in Florida with the
family. Other than some good, quality
family time there isn’t much else going on for me to report – unless you want
to hear about me sitting around a pool in 80 degree weather (I’ll spare you the
details). I did take this picture of a pretty sunset in Punta Gorda, Florida.
Track and Field
I
tried not to bug the athletes too much this week and let them enjoy the
holidays with their families. I did get
a few messages from some athletes and I will be getting back in touch with them
later today to see how their training is going.
This
will be the last full week of training on their own before they return to
Wichita and the confines of the Heskett Center.
As of today (Monday, Dec 29) we only have 11 days until our season
opener at the University of Kansas. Next
week I’ll be previewing that meet.
“S” Movies
It
just happens that one of my shortest blogs will be this week when I have the
longest movie review of the alphabet.
There are a whole bunch of awesome movies in the “S” category.
This
is the 18th of a 24 part series (we’re almost done!) where I list movies I own
by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some
that start with numbers). I currently
own a small collection of 178 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.
Most
of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely. Some are movies that I had not seen but was
curious about. Some were gifts from
people with bad tastes in movies.
I
own 15 “S” movies and there isn’t a bad one in the lot. Here’s the list from best to worst …..
Movie Name (year
made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Worldwide box office)
Sideways (2004, 126 min, R,
7.6, $109m) – One of my all-time favorite movies. Directed by Alexander Payne (Nebraska) and
starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church, this is a buddy movie about a
bachelor party gone wrong in wine country.
I remember seeing Sideways in a little theater with a friend and we
couldn’t believe how funny it was on first viewing because we didn’t know much about
it beforehand. It’s a very quotable
movie and has several memorable (and very R-rated scenes). Get a group of friends together, pop open a
few bottles of wine (no Merlot) and enjoy this classic!
Swingers (1996, 96 min, R.
7.4, $4.5m) – The movie that made the phrase “Vegas baby” popular was also the
first starring role for Vince Vaughan.
If ever there was a cult classic film this is it. Written and co-starring Jon Favreau (who
directed Ironman and Elf) it basically just follows around several actor
friends while they are trying to make it in Hollywood. It’s really funny as well as being a pretty
good story but Vaughn steals nearly every scene he’s in with his obnoxious
personality. This has got to be one of
the most quoted movies of the 90’s. This
movie is “so money” that it didn’t even know it!
Slumdog Millionaire (2008, 120 min, R,
8.1, $377m) – This sensation of a movie hit the theaters without a ton of
fanfare but quickly became one of the top movies of 2008. English director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting,
127 hours) made a very interesting and stylish movie about an Indian teenager
and his life told through a game of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” For me it really brought the slum of India to
the forefront and what these kids have to do to just survive, let alone
thrive. It’s cleverly put together and
overall just a great movie.
Stripes (1981, 106 min, R,
6.9, $85m) – Bill Murray and Harold Ramis are a couple of down on their luck
guys who decide to join the Army in hopes of kickstarting their lives. It seems like every major star does a
military movie and this is Murray’s. I
love this movie, it has so many great lines and funny scenes that bring out
Murray’s sarcastic sense of humor (watching him try to do five pushups at the
beginning is classic). I recently saw
him in “St Vincent” and I think he is becoming one of our most beloved comic
actors of all time because he just seems like a guy you want to hang out
with. It was directed by Ivan Reitman
who did the Ghostbusters franchise after Stripes.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977, 96 min, PG,
6.8, $126m) – This is one of the first movies I can recall watching from my
childhood and the way Burt Reynolds avoided the police while fronting for a
semi hauling a bunch of beer across the country was just cool as heck. Reynolds is the star but when you watch it
over and over again the real comedy comes from Jackie Gleason as the cop in hot
pursuit of the Bandit. Sally Field and
Jerry Reed support the leads with great performances as well. There is nothing special about the plot, this
is just a fun movie watching a guy avoid the cops in a fast car while Gleason
gives us terms like “tick turd” and “sumbitch!”
Slap Shot (1977, 123 min, R,
7.4, $28m) – A cult classic starring Paul Newman as the player/coach of the
Charleston Chiefs minor league hockey team who starts using violence to win
games and earn fans for a team that is about to be sold and moved out of
town. I saw this movie for the first
time in college with a bunch of college hockey players at Kent State and
remember how much they loved this movie.
I watched it again recently and, surprisingly, it holds up well. Newman is great in the lead role but the
majority of the comedy comes from the three “Hanson Brothers” who arrive to the
team in the middle of the season and wreak havoc on the opposing players.
Silver Linings
Playbook
(2012, 122 min, R, 7.9, $236m) – This was another small budget movie that came
along at the right time and hit it big.
It didn’t hurt that it happened to co-star two of the most up and coming
names in Hollywood with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. They both play people with mental/emotional
problems but find a way to work together in reaching their goals. You know it’s a great movie when Robert De
Niro plays a supporting role and goes largely unnoticed. It’s not a typical romantic comedy but I
guess it could be classified in that genre, and for a date it would be one of
the better movies you could find.
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Snatch (2000, 102 min, R,
8.3, $83m) – Great movie starring Brad Pitt and Jason Statham about boxing
promoters, bookmakers, gangsters, robbers, and jewel thieves. Entertaining throughout, the best part of
this movie is Pitt who plays an Irish Gypsy who turns out to be a heckuva boxer
that messes up the gangsters’ fix and all hell breaks loose. Statham is also great is a more reserved than
normal role for him. If you like this
movie also make sure to check out the movie Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
made by the same director (Guy Ritchie) and also starring Statham.
The Social Network (2010, 120 min,
PG-13, $224m) – This movie tells how Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg created
Facebook and then fought several of his own friends in lawsuits over who really
owned the rights to the social network.
Jesse Eisenberg does a great job as Zuckerberg who is shown as a genius,
jerk and lonely jealous ex-boyfriend all at the same time. For better or worse, Facebook changed how
many people live their lives and inspired every other social media website that
has come since so if anything this will serve as an interesting slice of
American history for many years down the road.
The Skin I Live In (2011, 120 min, R,
$30m) – This is a Spanish movie starring Antonio Banderas as a plastic surgeon
who creates a synthetic skin like no one has ever seen before. I don’t want to tell any more about the plot
because when you realize what happens about halfway through the movie you won’t
believe what you’re seeing. Two warnings
here: 1) the movie is in subtitles and 2) you may possibly be permanently
scarred by watching this movie. With
that being said, I highly recommend watching it but be prepared for a twist
like you’ve never seen before. This is a
brave movie that would never get a big release in the US.
Super Troopers (2001, 100 min, R,
7.1, $23m) – This was a super low budget movie with no major stars that became
a cult classic years later on video and cable.
It follows several Vermont state troopers, who are a bunch of
knuckleheads, and end up trying to save their department by outdueling the
police officers in their area. The movie
business is a tricky thing, I’m sure there are lots of great movies that go
unnoticed every year and this could’ve easily be one too, but for some reason
it caught momentum at the right time and became popular. The guys who made this movie tried making
other movies but none have had the success of Super Troopers.
Sin City (2005, 124 min, R,
8.1, $158m) – This was quite the original movie when it came out almost 10
years ago with its unique visual style.
It also had big names like Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke alongside
director Robert Rodriguez (who sure knows how to make women look attractive in
this film). The plot is about a
miserable town and how all the different characters are caught up in the
corruption of that town. Even today I
think the visual style holds up and if you haven’t seen it you should for that
experience alone.
Semi-Pro (2008, 91 min, R,
5.8, $43m) – A lot of people were disappointed by this Will Ferrell movie but I
wasn’t one of them. I appreciated the
attempt to satirize the merger between the old ABA and the NBA with a fictional
basketball team like the Flint Tropics.
If you haven’t seen this movie, Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, who is the
owner and player for the Tropics. It’s
rated R so there is plenty of adult humor but I constantly laugh when I watch
this movie. It’s no Anchorman or Old
School but it’s as good as most any other comedy that Hollywood spews out these
days.
The Strangers (2008, 86 min, R,
6.2, $82m) – This horror movie starring Liv Tyler is about a couple that is
staying in an isolated vacation home when they start being terrorized by three
unknown assailants. There is nothing new
in the horror genre here, it’s just done very well. What I like about this movie is that it
doesn’t try to explain why the killers are doing what they’re doing – they’re
just crazy, insane psychopaths. It
didn’t have the best ending but I will overlook that because of how much I liked
the rest of the movie.
Shakes the Clown (1991, 87 min, R,
5.5, $115k) – This odd little movie was written and directed by Bobcat
Goldthwait (who was the weird talking guy on the Police Academy movies). I can imagine a lot of people won’t like a
movie about an alcoholic clown but this is a great premise. Basically what happens is a regular comedic
movie, except everyone is clowns and everywhere they go is a clown culture. Yep that’s it. And with that being the case it makes for a
bunch of ridiculous scenes that you have to see to believe. It won’t win any awards but I give it a thumbs
up for creativity and effort.
Wow,
I didn’t realize I would like every single movie on this list but I do! And I REALLY like all of them except the last
two (which I just like just a normal amount haha).
Next week
It’s
almost time for the indoor season to get going so I’ll be talking about our
first meet! It won’t match this week’s
list for quality or quantity but I have seven pretty good “T” movies as we
start to wind down on this movie by letter exercise.
As
always, I appreciate everyone who reads this blog! If you keep reading it, I’ll keep writing
it! Until next week, go Shocks!
