The National Championship Game will be played between the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes this evening at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. My thoughts are this:
I’d say that sums everything up. Ducks by 16.
Images via pinimg.com, zimbio.com, oregonlive.com, azcentral.com, and cpcache.com
The Man Booker Prize, awarded each year to the best English-language novel published by a company based in the United Kingdom, has now achieved a level of prestige comparable to the Pulitzer. By the terms described above, one might expect that most Booker winners would be as thoroughly British as a gaggle of Wodehousian aristocrats sitting down to roast, pudding, and port.
In reality, the Prize has been awarded to writers from around the world since its 1969 inception, and most recently, the last two prizes went to historical novels written by authors from Oceania: The Luminaries, by 28 year-old New Zealander Eleanor Catton (the youngest person to ever win), and The Narrow Road to the Deep North by 53 year-old Australian Richard Flanagan. The combination of a shared setting and two very different perspectives inspired me to pick up both works.
Foxcatcher is a good movie. It is well-mounted, with impeccable cinematography and production design. The acting is superb and is headlined by one of those showy disappearing-act performances that should gobble up attention and awards. The story handles some weighty themes with a deft and incisive touch. But you’re probably not going to see it, and that’s fine. It’s just one of those movies that’s good, but fails to gain any traction outside of cinephile circles.
The foundation of the film certainly sounds like something that could be a minor hit. An awards-baity teaming of Bennett Miller, who was Oscar-nominated for directing Capote, Megan Ellison, the Silicon Valley scion who has become Hollywood’s most consistent auteur-enabler over the past few years, and three actors–Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo–going serious after becoming A-listers with lighter fare. The story concerns the unhealthy relationships between John Eleuthère du Pont (Carrell), a socially maladjusted chemical fortune heir, and the pair of wrestling star brothers, Dave and Mark Schultz (Ruffalo and Tatum), who become drawn into his world. The film seems split into two halves, exploring how Mark grapples with his feelings of insufficiency and anger first against the aloof splendor of du Pont and then with the disappointing familiarity of Dave. [Read more…]
I think it’s fair to say that, so far, this year sucks.
Even before the awful news of recent days, 2015 was already feeling like more of the same 2014-ness, but re-warmed in a microwave with a broken ‘defrost’ function. On top of that, after making a few too many mumps jokes at the NHL’s expense, I started the year by catching a nasty winter virus.
While in the throes of this seasonal plague, I awoke one morning to my phone making noise. I thought it was the alarm I’d set. Instead, it was a notification from the NHL app that Randy Carlyle had been fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs. I assumed this was merely a fever dream, laughing until I was wracked by a spasm of coughing.
Wait a minute… this is no dream.
In pain, I realized it was all real, and I cough-laughed some more. And then I got some water. [Read more…]
The New Year brings with it a bevy of resolutions, crippling cold, I guess, and most importantly, to your resident college basketball guru, the advent of conference play. Most major and mid-major conferences play only intra-league games from now until March. Plenty of time still exists for teams to play themselves into or out of the tournament, but at this milestone, let us break down the biggest winners and losers of the non-conference season.
Courtesy: Nerdist Industries
I listen to an absurd number of podcasts. I love everything from highly polished scientific and political shows, all the way down to the over-caffeinated ramblings of comedy dudes furiously scrambling to out-riff each other. Many of my favorite podcasts have made me laugh so hard that strangers on the train have switched seats to avoid me. Others have left me so engrossed in the subject matter that I’ve actually walked past my own apartment building.
But there’s only one that caused me, on a gorgeous summer day, to stop dead in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and burst into tears.
The doors have opened.
Yesterday afternoon, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first quartet to be voted in by the writers since 1955. I’ve written a lot about what I thought would happen (and would like to think that I called this one), and I now have thoughts on what actually happened, and what it means for the future going forward.
Image via netdna-cdn.com
So, I got to see Louis C.K. do a stand-up show at the Chicago Theater last night. This was sort of a huge deal for me. In fact, my first impulse for this article was just to state that fact and then post Nyancat. I’ll try for more, though!
Since discovering his eponymous TV series nearly five years ago I have become an enormous fan of Louis C.K. His melancholy sense of humor, playful intelligence, dedication to not being a corporate jagoff, and disheveled style have been cornerstones of my pop culture identity. To wit, more than one friend has told me they’ve watched a particularly sad or embarrassing scene on Louie and felt bad for me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m so vocally a fan of his or because he’s had such a influence on me, but there we go. If the goatee fits I will wear it. [Read more…]
(image via)
Over my Christmas vacation, I took some time to sit and watch the first season of Transparent, available on Amazon Prime. All 10 episodes of the show became available back in September and started conversations about a story from a perspective not often seen on TV.
We here at The Addison Recorder read stuff. We also watch stuff. And play stuff, even. Sometimes, that stuff is interesting. Sometimes we just need to talk about whatever pop culture ephemera occupies our time. Which brings us to this column. Swagger on.
