Tag Archive: football

Great Rebounds in Cinematic History

November 7, 2011 Adam Thomas

1.) I watched “That Thing You Do” last weekend and even though it basically devoles into a skin-a-max movie in the last 5 minutes–Guy and Faye walk back into the hotel after making out on the street, and Guy says to Lemar, the magical hotel bell boy who loves his job (or does he own the hotel? He does call it “My hotel” but what hotel owner would also work as a bell boy?) “Watch my bags Lemar…”  Lemar smiles creepily into the camera and says, “That’s what I do!”–End of movie. So that’s what Lemar does? Watch people’s bags while they go get it on? What kind of hotel operation is that man running?  Ick.

By the way, Hanks is a huge Raiders fan (arn’t we all?) and so the pizza place where the Oneders play at the beginning is called “Villapianos” after Raiders great Phil Villapiano, and there was a deleted scene where Hanks’ character–who was supposed to be gay–gets picked up by his boyfriend and the boyfriend is played by none other than Raider legend and crew cut aficionado Howie Long!  Good stuff.  Anyway, I got side-tracked…

Now, it got me thinking. Is Guy grabbing Faye–who had been dating Jimmy, the lead singer, for two years prior to her street/hotel daliance with Guy–the greatest rebound in cinematic history?  Oh man, it’s a tough call.  I went to my memory for some others:

Guy and Faye–That Thing you Do (already mentioned above)

Victor Lazlo and Isla Lund–Casablanca (probably THE greatest rebound in cinematic history cause it helped defeat the Nazi’s and end WWII, while at the same time turning Rick into one of the greatest drunks of all time).

Victor the Meat Cutter and Jan–Beautiful Girls (Two Victors in a row!)

Preston Meyers and Amanda Beckett–Can’t Hardly Wait (Basically the whole movie is based on him trying to grab this board so he gets points for persitence…and acting slightly like a psycho killer).

Jerry Maguire and Dorthy Boyd–Jerry Maguire (Our first instance of a female grabbing a male rebound)

Hot Rod and Denise–Hot Rod (Babe, wait!  Babe Wait!  BAAAAAABBBBBBEEEE!)

Mike and Lorraine–Swingers (Simultaneous rebounds)

I was gonna add Jeff from the Max grabbing Kelly after she dated Zack, but I think she cheated on Zack with Jeff so…I don’t think that counts. Also, remember that guy Professor Jeremiah Lasky from the College years?  I have nothing to add to that other than, remember him?

If you can think of more movie rebounds, please post them in the comments section.

2.) The Rams need to go back to those sweet yellow and blue uniforms that they wore last weekend when they worked the Saints. The new gold and blue ones are gross.

3.) I’m not sure how I never heard about the whole “Like Bernie” dance craze until now (about a year later), but I plan to make up for lost time.  I’ve been Bernie-ing all weekend and plan to do so whenever I go somewhere to dance or hear conga drums.

4.) The saxophone at the end of M83’s song Midnight City might be the best thing going in music right now.  That part is INSANE!  And the new album is absolutely incredible, except for the song about frogs that makes me want to karate chop the little kid talking (or the voice actor playing a little kid talking) in the throat. “And den you become a frog…would you like to play wit me?”  Shut the F up!  How did that song make the final cut?

5.) Last night the number one college football team played the number two college football team (Alabama vs. LSU) and holy balls it was a great game.  9-6.  Unfortunately, these two won’t meet in the national title game, which is a shame because they are going to absolutely curb stomb a team like Stanford or Boise State.

And just for the record, I didn’t watch the whole game, but I flipped to it during commercials as me and the wife enjoyed “Beauty and the Beast” on ABC Family. Oof, that was a tough sentence to write.

As for the three team tease, I am 0-2 on the season and I hope you’ve learned not to follow my advice by now.  Anyway, we need to keep this mildly sports related so here it is!

ATL -6.5 at Indy

Seattle +11 at Dallas

Chicago +7.5 at Philly

Enjoy the games!

Comment

A Quick Dip in the Pool

August 24, 2011 Randy Neil

I gotta keep it short and sweet this time, kids. It’s been a busy week for yours truly, and although my passion and love for sports is stronger than ever, life has been beating me up and destroying my free time. Just to give you an idea, I’ve got 200 trinomial equations to simplify before Friday. Yippie.

It’s imperative I start off by saying, “How ’bout John Mayberry Jr.??” The kid is on fire. Usually when a guy gets limited at bats, like a pinch-hitter, they struggle seeing the ball well and don’t get enough practice to be worth-while. Mayberry Jr. has been filling in for our suspended Victorino and grazing Ibanez with stellar numbers. A joyous sign of things to come.

Football is on the way and I couldn’t be more ready. With school kicking my ass, I’ve signed up for 0 fantasy leagues, haven’t made ours, and spent no time researching all my secret sleepers (like Johnnie Lee Higgins.) Did you scoff at that? That’s what I mean. I have no idea what I’m talking about and probably didn’t even spell the kid’s name right. I promise to be more prepared next week.

Terrelle Pryor got signed by the Raiders this week. Welcome, Adam, to being a fan of a team that has signed an over-hyped quarterback. Although his team isn’t relying on this signing to perform right away (like my team, the Panthers n’ Cam Newton), there’s still plenty of scrutiny to come with this guy. I guess there was also that JaMarcus Russell guy, too.

Roger Goodell (the NFL commissioner and fine-nazi) allowed Terrelle Pryor to enter the supplemental draft in order to enter the NFL this year. Then, he “punished” Pryor for his college violations by suspending him for 5 games in the NFL regular season.

Let me say that again…. Roger Goodell suspended Terrelle Pryor for 5 games in the NFL for violations he committed in college.

How can that possibly be?? That’s like getting fired from a job for being late, getting a new job, and then being punished for being fired at your old job. That’s insane. Not only is it insane, it’s also the first time in NFL history that a player was punished before he ever took the field for an NFL team. It doesn’t matter whether you believe what Pryor did was right or wrong, it’s ludicrous.

Ah well, when it’s Cam Newton v. Terrelle Pryor in the Superbowl, I’ll have more opportunity to give Adam a hard time.

I wanna leave you guys with a video my friend put together last week. It’s dedicated to our most hated players in sports today. A montage of your favorite athletes to loathe. Enjoy, haters….

Comment

Football is Back, So Did It Ever Leave?

August 15, 2011 Randy Neil

Seriously. The powers that are controlling football may very well be the smartest marketing group on the planet. I don’t doubt the lock-out was real. What I doubt is the fear and panic ESPN and the NFL tried to instill in fans and viewers this summer. Was anyone really going to walk away from a multi-billion dollar business?

What they did was genius, though. They single-handedly doubled everyone’s interest in football in a few short months. Now, the commentators and analyst get to say things like, “Now that football’s back” or “Thank God we have football again” like we missed something during the summer.

Fans are grateful for a football season that we all fretted wasn’t going to start until… well… when it normally starts.

With that being said, THANK GOD FOOTBALL IS BACK, THOUGH!!

To start the season right, the NFL gave us the Hall-of-Fame induction ceremony. Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Shannon Sharpe… screw the Hall-of-Fame award, give them Academy Awards! Did you see their award speeches? All of them were over-the-top tear-jerkers that would make any grown man cry. “Whether you hate him or love him, you knew him as…. PRIME TIME.” I suppose I’d be full of myself if I was being inducted into the Hall-of-Fame, too. I just wouldn’t want everyone to cry about it.

David Akers, long time kicker for the Eagles, was traded this year. As the longest active Eagle in football, he wanted to thank all the fans for his time spent in this wonderful city. He rented an entire billboard on I-95 for a month just to say thank you. Well, I’d like to say, “Thank you, David Akers. That, was a super classy gesture.” I wonder what would happen if McNabb pulled something like that when he was traded.

Speaking of classy, I didn’t get much of a chance to bitch about caddy Steve Williams. It’s a funny thing that the media does to people. As Tiger Woods caddy, Williams never discussed anything with the media and often shunned them. After being fired, he became the most vocal person in the world. It’s kind of a double-edge sword though. The media made this a story. They took it and blew it up into something much bigger than it should have been.

Now, I can’t say that Williams isn’t to blame for this, but when the spotlight was shined on him more brightly than ever, he did what any man would do, and talked. It’s tough to remain steadfast in your morals when you find yourself being discussed on national television.

What’s most ironic is how the media turned on the man after the story got so big it imploded upon itself. You can’t ever blame the media, because it’s not a real person. The media is, and always will be, a blameless entity. Were they partially at fault for trying to manifest interest in something that really shouldn’t have been that big in the first place? Probably. It’s remarkable that they can then change the story to, “Steve Williams draws too much attention to himself.” as if that wasn’t their doing in the first place.

The media begged him for his story, and then when he delivered, they scolded him for selfishness and poor timing. Just as they did with Lebron, and countless others, it’s how the story goes.

On the lighter side of things, Bert & Ernie from our beloved Sesame Street released an announcement (again) to the press this week that they were in fact, not gay. A group of people started a petition online to suggest that “the couple” gets married on television to inspire kids and help the cause for same-sex marriages. The Children’s Television Workshop (producers of the characters) then had to release a statement stating that “the two are not homosexual, because they are puppets, and puppets have no sexual-orientation.”

That is hilarious. Whether you’re for or against same-sex marriage, the idea of puppets transforming themselves to any sort of figure for civil rights is comical. My rebuttal to CTW (if I had one) is, “What about Kermit and Ms. Piggy?” Wasn’t she always trying to get with Kermit? Isn’t that sexual orientation? Ugh, I can make an argument out of anything….

Enjoy your football. Til next time folks….

Comment

Fire Jeff Davidson

September 13, 2010 Randy Neil

altWho is Jeff Davidson?  A moron.  The offensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers (yes, I’m a Panthers fan… bring on the boos) who has to be probably the most idiotic play caller in the history of football.

Hear me out.  Yesterday in Carolina’s loss to the New York Giants (who are supposed to suck, and will suck), the Panthers walked into the locker rooms at half-time up 16-14 after a 19 yard pass to Steve Smith with 7 seconds left.  It was awesome. 

That’s pretty much where the greatness ended, and Carolina’s red zone offense turned into Tom Coughlin’s skin: a big sloppy mushy pale-colored mistake.  

Let me read you the result of each drive the Panthers had after halftime.  Fumble, Punt, Intercepted Pass, Intercepted Pass, Fumble, Punt.

Most notably in the 4th quarter, Jeff Davidson kept calling PASS after PASS even after it’s continuing unsuccessful results.  One drive, with 14 minutes left in the 4th quarter, Davidson calls 14 pass plays in a row.  FOURTEEN!!  We managed to get a 1st and goal on the 4 yard line and instead of using our 2 incredibly talented running backs, Davidson calls 4 pass plays which results in a interception, no points. 

The next two possessions…. a pick and a fumble whilst trying to throw.  Neither drive lasted longer than 2 plays each. 

I’m not gonna defend Jake Delhomme, I simply can’t, but I remember two years ago in the NFC Championship game where Jake threw 5 picks after an insane run of 40+ pass attempts and <10 rushing attempts after being down 1 TD to the Cardinals.  Don't send Matt Moore down the same sad road.

You have 2 of the elite running backs in the game on your team and don’t put the ball in their hands ONCE on the 4 yard line?  2 years ago we were 12-4 with an almost identical roster.  We were 4-1 with Matt Moore in the last 5 games of the season last year.  Stick to what works.  Stick to what has worked.  Run the ball. 

Even the commentators were clowning Davidson’s ass during the game.  Time to give ol’ dirty John Fox the responsibilities. 

Holla.

Comment