YOU'RE GONNA CALL WHO?!

I don’t blame Bill Murray for turning down Ghostbusters III. Why ruin the legacy of the first movie if the script isn’t up to par? More often than not, a sequel is nothing more than a simple cash grab and doesn’t have the fun, excitement, or feel of the original.  For every “Godfather Part II” you get “Caddyshack II” or dare I say it, “Rocky V”.

Ackroyd of all people should know what happens when you greenlight a sequel without the main cast returning. You can't make a fucking Blues Brothers sequel when one dies and you sure as hell can't make a Ghostbusters sequel without Peter Venkman. 


I have no problem with a Ghostbusters sequel if you pair them up with let's say four younger comic actors. Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, and Craig Robinson, for example.  You put those four with the returning Ghostbusters and I'd see it.  You put out a Murray-less movie and all the wit & charm is gone.


Between the Star Wars prequels and the fourth Indiana Jones movie, it's pretty clear that older movies should just stay cherished and not tinkered with. If you're gonna do it, do it right or don't do it at all.

Drop Dead, Fred

After the latest Fred Wilpon PR disaster, I’ve decided that another Fred should be running the team.  No, not me but here’s a list of other Freds I’d rather see running my beloved Metropolitans. Bonus points to anyone who can name all these references w/o using Google.

Freddy Benson

Freddy Shoop

Fred Sanford

Freddy Fernandez

Fred Garvin

Fred Flintstone

Fred Jones

Fred Mertz

Frederick Crane

Fred Palowakski

Braun's Balls

OK time to weigh in on the Ryan Braun situation. To me, it sounds like a lot like getting pulled over for going 90 MPH but the radar gun was off. You challenge it in court and get off on a technicality.  Here's the thing - it doesn’t mean you didn’t do it, it means you found a loophole in the system. I think that’s what happened with Braun.

Rules are rules. If the chain of custody was broken, then by all means overturn the suspension, but let's not forget Braun's test contained an incredibly high amount of testosterone. It was also revealed during his hearing that no one had tampered with Braun's sample. Why would they? How could they? Why would MLB be after one of their marketable stars? What's their motive to see him out for 50 games?  Why would the Milwaukee-based collector want to see the Brewers' best player suspended?  Are we supposed to believe that some mook just happened to have synthetic testosterone lying around in his house in case Ryan Braun’s piss was stored in his freezer?  Gimme a break.

Braun’s arrogance is sickening. YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM HERE.  You got lucky because of a delivery error, don’t act like you’re Andy Dufresne screaming at the warden.

Shut your mouth and thank Yahweh you’re not sitting out 50 games.

And eat a dick, MLB. THIS is your drug program? A loophole because FedEx was closed? Bud Selig is a joke. Fuck him, fuck his Brewers, and fuck Braun.

Thank you.

And the Oscar should have gone to...

With the Oscars tonight, I've decided to make a top 10 list of the biggest mistakes/snubs since 1980.

10. "Glory" was not nominated for Best Picture in 1989. This was a loaded year with "Driving Miss Daisy", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Dead Poets Society", "Field of Dreams", and "My Left Foot" all competing for Best Picture. "Glory" should have been nominated and should have won.

9. Charles Grodin not being nominated for Best Supporting Actor for "Midnight Run" in 1988. When you steal a movie like that from De Niro, you deserve some love.

8. "The Big Lebowski" being shut out in 1998. Bridges, Goodman, and the Coens saw what happened when you fuck a stranger in the ass.

7. Tom Hanks not winning for "Cast Away" in 2000. I liked Russell Crowe in "Gladiator" but no one could have done what Hanks did with very little to no dialogue for 90 minutes.  Plus he made you care about a volleyball.

6. Samuel L. Jackson not winning for "Pulp Fiction" in 1994. Has there ever been anyone better with Tarantino's dialogue?

5. "Forrest Gump" winning Best Picture over "Pulp Fiction" and "The Shawshank Redemption" in 1994. I know WHY it won, I just don't have to happy with it. Gump was a safe choice as opposed to the other two but which one movie still has (magic) legs in 2012? Nice special effects, great performance by Hanks, but the other two movies are all-time classics.

4. "The English Patient" winning over "Fargo" in 1996. Again, another safe pick by the Academy but "Fargo" was the best thing the Coens ever did. A great movie that was hurt by being released in early 1996.



3. "Ordinary People" over "Raging Bull" in 1980. Watch both movies now and tell me what holds up.


2. "Dances With Wolves" over "Goodfellas" in 1990. Costner made a great movie but Goodfellas is a masterpiece. This shouldn't have been up for debate.



1. "Shakespeare in Love" over "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998. How does Spielberg win Best Director that year but the movie doesn't? I still can't get over this.

The Numbers Don't Lie

With the recent passing of Gary Carter, it got me thinking about the numbers retired by the Mets: 37 for Casey Stengel, 14 for Gil Hodges, and 41 for Tom Seaver. Does Kid deserve the same honor?

If you look at the numbers, probably not. He had two solid years in Flushing before his career started to go south. Does he really belong there with Seaver? Does he "deserve" it before Piazza? Before Hernandez, Gooden, Strawberry, et al?

On the flip side, I always felt that Carter's worth was beyond the statistics he put up as a Met. A true leader in every sense of the word. And not for nothing but if we're so hung up on Carter's stats in NY, remember that Stengel was a joke and that Hodges only had three winning seasons as Mets manager. By that rationale, Davey Johnson should have the fucking stadium named after him.

Retired numbers are a tricky issue. The Padres retired 6 for Steve Garvey and 35 for Randy Jones. Do they really belong there with Winfield, Gwynn, and Hoffman? If a team like the Padres honored players who won NOTHING for them, why can't a storied franchise (yeah I said it) like the Mets honor their winners like Johnson, Carter, Hernandez, Gooden, and Strawberry?

The Mets are in a no-win situation here. If they do nothing, they're seen as heartless bastards. If they retire 8, they're seen as opportunistic since they had chances to retire it years ago.

VERDICT: I'd like to see them retire the number. This is a franchise that built a statue for a player who never wore the orange & blue so I don't think it's too much to ask to honor one of their own. A great Met and even better man.

I know they're going to do something to honor him, I just hope they do right by someone who always did right by everyone else.

8

The beauty of baseball is that the connection you have with a player is greater than any other sport. You have the ups and downs of 162 games, year after year. They're YOUR guys. So when a player from your childhood dies, it’s like a part of you died.

I’ve been a Mets fan since 1984 but didn’t really get into it until ’85, which just so happened to be Gary Carter’s first year as a Met. To a kid, Gary Carter was the player you wanted to be. Someone who had fun playing the game. Someone who did it the right way.

Aside from him being one of my favorites, he was one of my mom’s too. We got a new dog in 1989 and when it came time to give her a name, I suggested Sandy (I was in the middle of re-reading Carter’s autobiography and just finished the chapter where he met his future wife, Sandy). Mom loved the name and the player. She was always participating in the “GA-RY” chants during his many curtain calls. I couldn’t help but think about her when I heard the news today and I'm glad they’re both in a better place.

The demons that have plagued the 1986 Mets have been well documented, but the appeal of Carter was how he seemed to rise above the chaos. A family man, a religious man, he was someone who left EVERYTHING on the field. In today’s age of selfish me-first players, this was a man who signed every autograph, posed for every picture, and was thankful for what he had. This was someone who never took what he had for granted.

What really shook me today was how this AMAZING man who did nothing wrong was struck down by this awful disease and taken away from his family way too soon. My condolences to them.

Rest in Peace, Gary Edmund Carter. You will be truly missed.

Where Have You Gone, Kevin Costner?

After seeing my most recent post here and "The Bodyguard" clips running 24/7 after the death of Whitney Houston, I started to think about what the fuck happened to Kevin Costner.  I mean this is someone who DOMINATED Hollywood in every possible way.  Look at this filmography from 1987 to 1993:

• The Untouchables
• No Way Out
• Bull Durham
• Field of Dreams
• Dances With Wolves (An Oscar he shouldn't have won but that's for another time)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
• JFK
• The Bodyguard
• A Perfect World (highly recommended, check it out) 

And then... nothing. "Tin Cup" was fun, "For The Love of the Game" had its moments, but it's been mostly miss for him since '94.  It's easy to blame "Waterworld" for his slump but there's something bigger going on here.  In 1993, Costner turned down the lead in "Tombstone" because he didn't like the direction of the movie. He wanted it more Earp-centric so he wound up making "Wyatt Earp" a year later.  When you turn down the chance to work with Val Kilmer in what was probably the most underrated role of the last 30 years, you deserve what you get.

Really though, I've always been a Costner fan. I really hope his next role in the Superman reboot "Man of Steel" is his ticket back to Hollywood.

Balls on Film

So with the annual Cupcakes & Bananas baseball draft currently underway, I'd like to take a minute and post clips from my favorite baseball movies. I could probably post 10 from each movie but I might do that around Opening Day.  Anyway, enjoy.

TD or not TD?

As I bask in the glow of yet another Giants Super Bowl win over the Patriots, I’m debating whether or not the Giants should have taken more time off the clock as the game was winding down. I really do see both sides of the argument.

On one hand, you want to kill as much clock as possible so you don’t leave Brady with time to march down the field. You’re really playing with fire giving Brady 57 seconds and a time out. As it turned out, he was THISCLOSE to completing what would have been the most amazing finish in Super Bowl history.  If Gronk’s ankle was fine, we're not having this debate, and I’m still wiping the blood out of my eyes. 

On the other hand, nothing’s a given, and you take the points when you can get them, especially if the defense is letting you score. Say Bradshaw went down at the 1, was it a lock that he was going to score on the next three tries? It was Bradshaw who fumbled earlier in the game, not to mention the non-fumble call in the 49ers game two weeks earlier. Even if the Giants decided to kick a field goal, those aren’t gimmes either.  Just ask the Ravens. I love Tynes but anything can happen in that situation. Bad snap, he slips, whatever.

What say you guys?

Say it ain't so, Sly

Here's one of my favorite scenes from 2010's "The Expendables":

That's how an action movie should be - loud, violent, and in your face.  Yet when you Google "The Expendables 2," you find this nugget of shit:

The Expendables 2 will be PG-13

Are you fucking kidding me?  You're making an action movie with THOSE guys and it's not meant for the audience who grew up watching them in their prime?  What's the point of having Sly, Bruce, and Arnold in the same movie if you've basically reduced it to a Channing Tatum or Shia LaBeouf circle jerk?

And what the fuck is a Channing Tatum anyway? Sounds like something a GI got in Korea when he fucked a nine-toed whore.

But I digress. The idea of "The Expendables" was Stallone's homage to the movies he made in the 80s and save for a few plot points that could have been tighter, it was a fun movie.  It was made for the fanboys from the 80s. Limbs were flying everywhere, bones were being broken, a yappy broad got waterboarded, it was a GUYS action movie.

I understand why the studio wants to make it PG-13. It's a business and you want to make money, I get that.  But you're taking about an R-rated movie that had a budget of $80M and made $274M worldwide.  If it ain't broke, DON'T FUCKING FIX IT.

I'm really hoping this is just a rumor and that Stallone will come around and make this the hard R it really should be.