DGOW Matchup of the Day #2: Emma Stone vs. Erika Christensen

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's second match-up is Emma Stone vs Erika Christensen.

	Emma Stone	Erika Christensen
Date Selected	Dec. 8, 2010	June 15, 2011
DOB	Nov. 6, 1988	Aug. 19, 1982
Birthplace	Scottsdale, Arizona	Seattle, Washington
Known for	"Zombieland", "Easy A"	"Traffic", "Parenthood"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared on "Drive" with Nathan Fillion (Buffy, Firefly, Dr. Horrible)	Appeared in "Veronika Decides to Die" with Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy)

Analysis: If we're going solely on looks, then I think this is actually a pretty close matchup. Neither Stone nor Christensen is what you'd consider a "classic" beauty, but both are really hot. However, buzz plays a role in the voting too, and that's where Stone has Christensen beat by a wide margin, thanks to landing the lead female role in the upcoming "Amazing Spider-Man" movie.

Prediction: Stone, and probably by a wide margin.

Click here to vote!

"Harvard Man" starring Adrian Grenier, Sarah Michelle Gellar

I know the title for this blog is "Basketball Movies for the NBA Lockout", but despite featuring basketball prominently, "Harvard Man" isn't really a basketball movie. In fact, after watching it, I'm not really sure what kind of movie it is, aside from one I never really want to watch again.

THE MOVIE

Score: 1.0 out of 5 Real NCAA teams: Yes Fictional NCAA teams: No Notable NBA players involved: Ray Allen has a supporting role, though he's basically gone for the entire second half of the movie Best basketball moment: There's a scene with Alan and Marcus (Ray Allen) talking and practicing, and Ray literally doesn't miss a shot. Worst basketball moment: When Alan ignores a wide open Marcus for a potential game-winning three. I know it's part of the movie's narrative. It still kills me that Ray Allen was open for 3, and didn't even get the ball. He's Jesus Fucking Shuttlesworth, for God's sake.

Alan (Grenier) is the point guard for Harvard's basketball team. The movie starts with him having sex with Cindy (Gellar), his girlfriend-ish thing from Holy Cross, at the same time Alan is supposed to be playing against Holy Cross. Alan and Cindy finish having sex, at which point Alan realizes he's late -- and so is Cindy, since she's a cheerleader for Holy Cross. They both rush to the game, where Harvard proceeds to get its ass kicked, much to the frustration of both Alan and his buddy/only good player on the team Marcus (Ray Allen).

While that is happening, a tornado is ravaging Alan's hometown in Kansas, destroying his family home. He flies home and finds out his parents' insurance doesn't cover tornado damage, but they say they'll be alright. Alan heads back to Harvard, where he has sex with his philosophy professor while also discussing the dangers of LSD (this becomes important).

Alan decides to ask Cindy -- who's dad is a mob boss -- if she'll ask his dad to loan him the money. Dad says no, but Cindy comes up with her own scam: she'll tell Alan that dad said yes, so long as he shaves points against Dartmouth. Then she'll bet big on the game, give Alan the $100,000 he needs from the winnings, and make some quick cash on the side.

Alan thinks about it, consults with Marcus about whether or not it means anything that they win, since the team sucks anyway, and decides to do it. He shaves points in the most obvious way possible, ignores Marcus for a potential game-winning three, and Harvard loses.

Cindy goes to collect her winnings, but Teddy doesn't have it all. He tells Cindy that his assistant will stop by her place in a couple hours with the rest of the winnings.

Marcus comes by Alan's room and pulls a gun on him, accusing him of throwing the game. Alan admits he's in danger, but tells Marcus not to worry about it, and it was a one-time thing. He then flies back to Kansas with the money, and some high-grade LSD he got from a friend who is a chem student. He gives his parents the money, and Cindy waits around for the rest of her money. Kelly finally shows up, and it turns out she's an FBI agent, and so is Teddy. Kelly detains Cindy, and Teddy joins Alan on the plane back from Kansas, but not before Alan ingests 15,000 micrograms of LSD (3 tabs; he was only supposed to take one at a time).

From here, the movie breaks into three parallel paths that occasionally intersect. For purposes of brevity, I'll condense them thusly:

- Alan is tripping balls, escapes from the FBI twice, but is so out of his mind that he could die at any minute
- Cindy is worried that Alan is going to confess to the FBI, sending both her and her father to prison, so her father sends two goons after Alan
- the FBI agents need Alan, as part of a bigger case against Cindy's father.

Amazingly, with all this going against Alan, he manages to call Chesney (the anti-LSD philsophy teacher who he's fucking), who gets him to a doctor and gets him clean. Chesney also happens to be in a three-way relationship with Kelly and Teddy, and sets them up in a compromising position, which Alan photographs and uses as blackmail against them.

In the end, everyone goes their separate ways, and Alan has another mini-trip, leaving us to question if everything is still OK for him or not.

THE REVIEW
I don't know any way to describe the experience of watching this movie other than "painful". The plots just continually get layered upon each other, until everything gets unraveled neatly in the end, the dialogue is stilted and forced and the cinematography is aggressively rough, with frequent cuts in the middle of sentences for no reason and constant unnecessary camera movement. It's a movie that tries so hard to be something more than it is that it ends up being less than it could be.

The biggest problem with "Harvard Man" is that it's not content having a primary conflict that drives the film. Instead, it keeps adding additional conflicts on top of each other, eventually collapsing under the weight of its own confusion. If you took the entire LSD plot out of the movie, you could still have a really good movie about point shaving, mafia involvement, love triangles and consequences, and it might be a movie people wanted to watch. Or, make a movie about a drugged-out, point-shaving basketball player and drop the whole FBI and mob angles and you've still got something interesting. But with so much in the mix, any sort of main themes get lost, particularly when, in the end, there are literally no consequences for the main character.

I'm sure the filmmaking style used by writer/director James Tobeck appeals to some people, but I honestly couldn't stand it. Scenes were frequently inter-cut with each other, sometimes up to three at a time, rather than playing out in a standard linear fashion. Single shots would be cut up multiple times, resulting in constant jumpiness, and the dialogue was either shot or edited in such a way that the natural pauses that exist when people talk in real life were completely eliminated. Plus, the LSD sequences go on for far too long; I get trying to establish what the character is experiencing, but this went beyond "establishing" into "re-living".

The only thing that really salvaged the viewing experience for me was the acting from the two female leads, Gellar and Joey Lauren Adams. In fact, outside of Grenier and Allen, the majority of the acting in this movie was pretty strong. It's not enough to salvage the material they're working with, but it's still pretty impressive, particularly for Gellar, who gets to take another swing at the type of character she played in "Cruel Intentions".

THE BASKETBALL

The movie is set at Harvard, which has a lower standard than most Division I schools, but I still can't get past Adrian Grenier as a Division I player, much less one who's considered to be good. He's like 5-foot-10, which I guess is somewhat acceptable for an Ivy League starting point guard, but he's also rail thin, and it doesn't particularly look like he can shoot.

On the other hand, there's Ray Allen, who is basically the exact opposite of Grenier as a basketball player.

The basketball scenes are shot decently enough, though they definitely end up looking more like high school than Division I. Also, the timing of everything in the opening scene just seems absurd, but no more so than anything else that happens in this movie.

NBA EQUIVALENT

When he was drafted, Ray Allen was immediately traded for Stephon Marbury. Now, imagine if that had happened, and as they were swapping hats, Marbury immediately turned as insane as he would end up being circa 2009, and just started guzzling vaseline. This movie would be the equivalent of that trade, at least from the Wolves perspective.

BETTER OR WORSE THAN A LOCKOUT?

At some point come December, the NBA lockout's going to feel like a bad trip, so I guess this movie is really about the same.

DGOW Matchup of the Day #1: Autumn Reeser vs. Lucy Punch

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's first match-up is Autumn Reeser vs Lucy Punch.

	Autumn Reeser	Lucy Punch
Date Selected	Dec. 1, 2010	June 22, 2011
DOB	Sept. 21, 1980	Dec. 30, 1977
Birthplace	La Jolla, California	London, England
Known for	"The O.C.", "Entourage"	"The Class", "Hot Fuzz"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared on "No Ordinary Family" with Julie Benz (Darla from "Buffy")	Appeared on "The Class" with Lizzy Caplan, who co-starred with Eliza Dushku on "Tru Calling"

Analysis: I think this is going to be a pretty straightforward decision for most people. While Punch's profile was raised by her co-starring role in "Bad Teacher", she's still not on the level of Reeser, who seems to have come through the failure of "No Ordinary Family" unscathed. Plus, just on a straight up picture comparison, Reeser has the advantage.

Prediction: Reeser in a relative blowout.

Click here to vote!

DGOW Matchup of the Day #2: Olivia Wilde vs Beau Garrett

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's second match-up is Olivia Wilde vs Beau Garrett.

	Olivia Wilde	Beau Garrett
Date Selected	Nov. 24, 2010	April 6, 2011
DOB	March 10, 1984	Dec. 28, 1982
Birthplace	New York, New York	Los Angeles, California
Known for	"TRON: Legacy", "House"	"TRON: Legacy", "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared on "House" with Felicia Day (Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible)	Appeared in "Fantastic Four" with Chris Evans (Captain America from "The Avengers")

Analysis: The third consecutive match-up with a natural tie-in pits these two TRON beauties against each other. They also appeared together on an episode of "House", on which Wilde starred for multiple seasons. Wilde is definitely the higher profile of the two, I think Garrett has more of a "textbook" beauty.

Prediction: I think Wilde's name recognition carries her to at least a first-round win here.

Click here to vote!

DGOW Matchup of the Day #1: Rachel McAdams vs. Amanda Seyfried

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's first match-up is Rachel McAdams vs Amanda Seyfried.

	Rachel McAdams	Amanda Seyfried
Date Selected	Nov. 10, 2010	Nov. 17, 2010
DOB	Nov. 17, 1978	Dec. 3, 1985
Birthplace	London, Ontario, Canada	Allentown, Pennsylvania
Known for	"Mean Girls", "The Notebook"	"Mean Girls", "Mamma Mia!"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared in "Sherlock Holmes" with Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man from "The Avengers")	Appeared on "Veronica Mars" (Joss once guest starred on "Veronica Mars")

Analysis: Mean Girl vs Mean Girl. Two will enter. Only one will survive. It's honestly funny to think that these two played classmates in "Mean Girls", since they're more than seven years apart in real age. Seyfried was actually close to high school age when "Mean Girls" came out. McAdams, who played Regina George, was not.

Prediction: This is really a toss-up, and I think if voters go solely off the pictures here, Seyfried will advance, but based on overall résumé, I'd tab McAdams as the favorite.


Click here to vote!

DGOW Matchup of the Day: Aly Michalka vs. Ashley Tisdale

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's match-up is Aly Michalka vs Ashley Tisdale.

	Aly Michalka	Ashley Tisdale
Date Selected	Nov. 3, 2010	May 18, 2011
DOB	March 25, 1989	July 2, 1985
Birthplace	Torrance, California	Deal, New Jersey
Known for	"Easy A", "Hellcats"	"High School Musical", "Hellcats"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared on "Hellcats" with D.B. Woodside (Principal Wood from "Buffy")	Appeared on "Hellcats" with D.B. Woodside (Principal Wood from "Buffy")

Analysis: Yes, I put these two up against each other simply because of the "Hellcats" connection, so all you "Hellcats" fans out there (yep, that's right, all seven of you) have to decide once and for all who is better: Marti or Savannah. Or, you know, you could pick which one you prefer based on some non-Hellcats reason. They both have Disney connections too, and they both sing.

Prediction: I think Michalka advances in a close one, though whoever wins this is probably Vergara roadkill in the next round.

Click here to vote!

"Eddie" starring Whoopi Goldberg and Frank Langella

I decided to review "Eddie" back-to-back with "Space Jam" for a couple reasons. First, they were both released in 1996. Second, they both involve completely absurd premises that rely heavily on the viewer's suspension of disbelief. And third, and probably most importantly, they have disparate levels of acceptance among basketball fans, and I'd argue that most fans have the two movies reversed in terms of perception of quality.

THE MOVIE

Score: 3.5 out of 5 Real NBA teams: Yes Fictional NBA teams: No Notable NBA players involved: Malik Sealy, John Salley, Mark Jackson, Rick Fox, Dwayne Schnitzius and Greg Ostertag play fictional Knicks players. Many others appear as themselves. Best basketball moment: The entire streetball game between Sealy and Gary Payton (playing an unknown streetballer). Worst basketball moment: Ostertag's inability to get his warmup pants off when he enters a game. The scene is played for a joke, but goes on way too long.

Edwina "Eddie" Franklin (Goldberg) is a limo driver who spends pretty much every waking moment of her life obsessing about the Knicks. She has a closet full of Knicks jerseys, calls into radio shows, and has season tickets, which she uses to heckle Knicks coach John Bailey (Dennis Farina). One day, she's picking up a client at the airport, and it happens to be new Knicks owner "Wild" Bill Burgess (Langella). Of course, she starts talking about the team, and how they could be good if they did this that and the other.

Later, during a game in which the Knicks are playing horribly and most of the seats are empty, Burgess overhears Eddie's heckling from his owner's box, and decides to put her in the halftime "honorary coach" contest. She makes the free throw and gets to spend the second half on the bench. The few Knicks fans in attendance love it, and go crazy when she gets ejected.

Burgess is fed up with Bailey, and thinks he's overpaid, but learns that if he fires the coach, he has to keep paying him. So, he concocts a plan to get Bailey to quit, naming Eddie the honorary coach again before the next home game. The plan works, Bailey quits, and Eddie gets to "coach" the Knicks for a game. After the game, upon seeing his limited options for hiring a real coach, Burgess decides to offer Eddie the job full time.

At first, the team continues to suck under Eddie, as star Stacy Patton (Malik Sealy) continues his ball-hogging ways (at one point, he takes 38 shots in a game), Terry Hastings (Rick Fox) is distracted by his divorce and Ivan Radovadovitch (Dwayne Schintzius) struggles with both the English language and defense. Then, after another Knicks loss, Eddie runs into aging star Nate Wilson, who suggests that she try to relate to the players on a more personal level, rather than just thinking of them as "professional ballplayers". She does, and it works, sparking a turnaround that gains steam when Eddie benches Patton for Wilson.

The Knicks start reeling off wins, and Eddie becomes the toast of the town. She helps Hastings reconnect with his wife, helps Ivan learn English, and even gets Patton back on track by having his limo drive him to a street court, where he faces off against a street ball player (Gary Payton), who reminds him where he came from and not to waste his gift (with an assist from Patton's mother, of course).

Eddie gets the Knicks in position to make the playoffs, but the night before the regular-season finale, Burgess tells her that if they win, he's going to sell the team to a group that will move the Knicks to St. Louis. Eddie walks out of the meeting, and considers skipping the finale, but shows up at the last minute. In a close game against the Hornets (now coached by Bailey), the Knicks take a late lead, when Patton passes out of a double-team to give New York an easy basket.

During the ensuing timeout, Eddie walks onto the court and takes the PA microphone and announces Burgess's plan to the crowd. They get pissed, and join her on the court, along with players from both teams. Burgess comes down from his box and announces the Knicks will stay in New York. On the final play of the game, Larry Johnson drives for a lay-up, but runs into Ivan, who finally plants his feet and takes a charge, nullifying the basket. The Knicks win, and go to the playoffs.

THE REVIEW
It's easy to read the recap of the movie, or remember it from having seen it years ago, and criticize the absurdity of some of the scenarios. A fan becoming a coach? Some cowboy buying the Knicks, then trying to turn around and sell them later that same season? And not just sell them, but move them to St. Louis?! That could never happen!

Of course not. It's a movie. And it's a damn entertaining one, once you stop getting caught up in all the details. In fact, throughout the course of the movie, "Eddie" does a pretty good job of covering itself on its plotholes. Eddie isn't just some "random" fan. She has coaching experience. Sure, it's on the weekend rec league level, but they show her taking that role very seriously multiple times, which helps with the suspension of disbelief when she becomes Knicks coach. And it's easy to only focus on the "Wild Bill" part of Burgess's character, but they do a really good job of establishing him as a shrewd businessman, with subtle scenes like the review of the available coaches after Bailey quits.

In many ways, Burgess is Mark Cuban before we knew Mark Cuban existed. Sure, with Cuban it's easy to focus on the fines, and the yelling at the refs and the eccentric behaviors, but all that distracts from the fact that he's a brilliant businessman and something of a genius.

It also helps that the movie, overall, is just damn entertaining. The banter between Eddie, her players and other players throughout the league is well-written. It's easy to forget now, but there was a time when Goldberg was considered one of Hollywood's top comedienne's and while no one's going to put "Eddie" up there with her best work, her comedy chops definitely show in this movie (on a semi-related note, this is one of two Goldberg movies that came out in '96 that I think are drastically under-appreciated, the other being "The Associate". That still doesn't let her off the hook for "Bogus".).

THE BASKETBALL

As with most basketball movies, the percentage of baskets shown that are dunks is unbelievably disproportionate with what you'd find in a real NBA game, but other than that, the basketball scenes are really good. It helps that nearly everyone on the court in most shots is a real NBA player, including at times the entire Knicks lineup. The only major Knicks character who didn't play in the NBA was played by Vernel Singleton, who played with Shaq at LSU.

Even the streetball scene featured multiple NBA players, including Payton, and real-life Knicks John Starks, Herb Williams and Anthony Mason.

There were three small things that bothered me about the basketball scenes in the movie:

• everything was filmed at Charlotte Arena, which was a piss poor stand in for Madison Square Garden
• Mark Jackson's character wore #5, and it was just weird to see him in a Knicks jersey that wasn't #13
• John Salley's character was supposed to be a past-his-prime legend, but because he was played by John Salley, I could never see him as anything but "John Salley-esque". Fortunately, that didn't hurt the narrative of the movie too much. 

NBA EQUIVALENT

"Eddie" is like the D'Antoni-era Knicks. It's not going to win anything significant, and it may not always be the best way to get things done, but damn if it isn't fun to watch.

BETTER OR WORSE THAN A LOCKOUT?

Much better. Though you do have to sit through some pretty awful mid-'90s NBA uniforms, which may have been the real cause of the last lockout.

DGOW Matchup of the Day: Sofia Vergara vs. Kari Wuhrer

Each day (twice on Saturday and Sunday), AdamReisinger.com will spotlight a first-round match-up in the 2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament. Today's match-up is Sofia Vergara vs Kari Wuhrer.

	Sofia Vergara	Kari Wuhrer
Date Selected	October 27, 2010	July 6, 2011
DOB	July 10, 1972	April 28, 1967
Birthplace	Barranquilla, Colombia	Brookfield, Connecticut
Known for	"Modern Family", "Knights of Prosperity"	"Sliders", "General Hospital"
Six Degrees of Joss	Appeared on "Dirty Sexy Money" with Donald Sutherland (Merrick from the "Buffy" movie)	Appeared in "The Air I Breathe" with Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy from "Buffy")

Analysis: These are two of the oldest contestants in the 2011 field, but also two of the hottest. This is a tough region, but I wouldn't be surprised if Vergara tops it. Wuhrer, out of the mainstream for some time now, didn't stand much of a chance in this tournament, but kinda got screwed by her first-round matchup.

Prediction: Vergara in a landslide.



Click here to vote!

2011 Desktop Girl of the Week Tournament

 I didn't point it out last week, since I didn't want to spoil the surprise, but Sarah Michelle Gellar was the 32nd different DGOW selection since the end of the 2010 DGOW Tournament, which means it's time for the 2011 Tournament to begin. Who will join Monica Bellucci (2005), Christina Aguilera (2008) and Scarlett Johansson (2010) as DGOW champions?

The field is packed this year, with plenty of potential champions and lots of close first round matchups, so let's get to unveiling the first half of the bracket, with each region this year named for a female Avengers character (joining 2008's female Spider-Man characters and 2010's female X-Men characters).

Janet Pym Region
Sofia Vergara vs. Kari Wuhrer	Aly Michalka vs. Ashley Tisdale
Rachel McAdams vs. Amanda Seyfried	Olivia Wilde vs. Beau Garrett

See the rest of this week's matchups and vote after the jump...

The San Diego Comic-Con Swag Unpacking

This may seem like its coming late, since San Diego Comic-Con ended on Sunday, and it's now Tuesday, but I didn't fly back from San Diego until 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time yesterday. That meant I arrived in Boston -- where I flew out of last week -- at around 10 p.m. Eastern Time and finally walked into my door in Connecticut at 1 a.m. on Tuesday. So it's been a long trip back.

However, I am now officially unpacked, and in going through the unpacking process, I realized just how much swag I ended up with.

Now, for many SDCC attendees, the term "swag" refers to all the free stuff the booths are giving away throughout the show, but, honestly, I tried to avoid partaking in a lot of those giveaways. The fact is, the majority of those T-shirts, mini-posters, bags and various other knick-knacks end up stuffed away in the bottom of drawers or in boxes in basements, and I didn't want to overload my luggage with stuff I knew I wouldn't care about next week, much less next year.

Instead, I bought a lot of stuff, most of which I wouldn't have had access to outside of this show (or a show in general). So here is all of that stuff. Obviously, with lots of pictures, this is going to be a long post, so buckle up.

I preordered this Emma Frost statue awhile back and picked it up at the show. The transparent look is really cool, even if the Bishoujo line isn't usually one I collect. I do think I need to cool it (no pun intended) on the Emma statues -- this one makes seven in my living room.

San Diego Comic-Con Update: Oh My Joss...

So today was something of a good news, bad news kind of day for me here at San Diego Comic-Con. First, the bad news: I struck out at all three ticketed signings I went for, failing to get a wristband for Eliza Dushku, Rose McGowan or Joss Whedon. The good news was just about everything else.

Originally, I'd thought that the noon Dark Horse Whedonverse signing was ticketed, but it wasn't, so I was able to get the last of my Buffy covers signed by Georges Jeanty, the three Dollhouse #1 covers signed by Andrew Chambliss and some other stuff signed by Zack Whedon and Jo Chen (as an aside, I got a bunch of Buffy stuff signed by Jo on Friday, which turned into something of an all artists day for me with little else on my slate).

Charmed Comic Review, Issue #12: The Charmed Offensive

Normally with my Charmed comic reviews, I jump right into the recaps, because the issue has been out for a couple days. However, this is not the case with Issue #12, which is available in limited quantities at SDCC, but won't hit stores for a couple weeks.

So my recap and review are after the jump. Be warned, there ARE spoilers. If you don't want to know what happens, then don't read on.

San Diego Comic-Con Thursday Wrap-Up: SMG at SDCC

This is going to sound crazy, but if I got locked into my hotel room for the next three days, I'd still be happy with my 2011 San Diego Comic-Con experience. How could that be? Three words: Sarah Michelle Gellar.

I'm an obsessive Buffy fan, and so the opportunity to sit in a panel and hear Gellar talk, even if the majority of the talk was about her new show "Ringer", was incredible. I even got to ask a question, leading to one of Gellar's longest answers of the panel, so I was on Cloud 9.

Of course, to get into that panel, I had to wake up way before 9... 5 a.m. to be exact. As I wrote in my earlier post, I seat-camped in Ballroom 20, sitting through panels on "Burn Notice", "Covert Affairs" and "Psych" before getting to "Ringer."

Live from San Diego Comic-Con

I'm writing this from Ballroom 20 at San Diego Comic Con, on what's already been a long day at the show. I woke up at 5 a.m. and got in line shortly after 6. Things actually moved pretty well here (as opposed to at the Hyatt, where I've heard 2012 badge purchasing was a clusterfuck), and we got into the Ballroom shortly after 9 a.m.

Personally, I'm here primarily to see the panel for Sarah Michelle Gellar's new show "Ringer", but that's the fourth panel of the day in the room. I have to sit through panels for Burn Notice, Psych and Covert Affairs. I don't watch any of those shows, but they all seem good enough, so it won't be too bad. And honestly, it's worth it to see SMG in person.

The reason I can do this is because SDCC has a policy of not clearing rooms between panels. This can cause problems, and does result in people being shut out of rooms while others take up space waiting for one late panel (I've already encountered a bunch of people in this room who are only interested in Game of Thrones, which is the panel AFTER Ringer), but it's the only reasonable way to do it. Otherwise you have to maintain lines for each separate panel, instead of per room, and you make people play favorites if they want to see multiple panels in the same room.

Then again, I'm in, so of course I'm going to say the system works. We'll see how I feel after I get shut out of a bunch of stuff later this week. For now, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the day, and I'll have plenty of pictures to share with you tonight.

Desktop Girl of the Week: Sarah Michelle Gellar

Yes, Sarah Michelle Gellar is a repeat pick. But I don't care. It's been nearly seven years since she was last selected -- a selection that predates the current DGOW format anyway -- and any time I'm flying across the country for the opportunity to see someone in person, that person warrants a DGOW selection.

If you hadn't heard, Gellar will be returning to television this fall, for the first time since "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" ended, starring in the new CW series "Ringer." The concept of "Ringer" is intriguing enough that I may have watched it without Gellar's participation, but her presence clinches it for me.

My fascination with Gellar predates my obsession with "Buffy", going back to the three-movie swing of "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Scream 2" and "Cruel Intentions". I had the official one-sheet for the latter hanging in my dorm in college, and probably still have it somewhere in my basement. If I had any inkling at all that Gellar was doing a signing session at SDCC, I would have dug it out to get signed, putting it ahead of any "Buffy" merchandise. That's how much I loved that poster.

Of course, in 1997, Gellar became "Buffy", so much so that her post-"Buffy" work has basically been ignored. She got some buzz for "The Grudge", which came out a year after "Buffy" went off the air, but her selection of projects (like the strange "Southland Tales" or "Veronika Decides to Die") has left something to be desired.

• Sarah Michelle Gellar on IMDB
• "Ringer" Official Site
• Become a fan of "Ringer" on Facebook

As always with DGOW, I’ll provide a widescreen (1680x1050) image for downloading. If you want to see past DGOW, then just check the archive album.

The "Big 2" Dilemma: Is Shaq Right?

Earlier today the schedules for the 2011-12 NBA season were optimistically released, and Shaquille O'Neal made his debut as a Turner analyst on NBA TV's schedule release show. The topic of the Miami Heat came up, obviously, and here's what O'Neal had to say about them:

"The Miami Heat, they've got a lot of great players, the `Big 2.' They will be back. LeBron James is taking a lot of criticism, but I know LeBron very well. He hears everything that everyone is saying, so I think he's going to come back and have an MVP year this year."

He went on to speak more about James and Dwyane Wade, but never brought up Chris Bosh, making it obvious who he was leaving out when referring to the Heat's "Big 2."
Now, O'Neal does have a history of verbally tweaking Bosh, famously calling him the "RuPaul of big men", but this didn't seem to be quite along those lines. Instead, O'Neal, in his own way, was pointing out that the Heat have two legitimate superstars, and by omission, Bosh is not on that level.
The fact is, on some level, O'Neal is right. The Heat do in fact have a Big 2. That's not to imply their roster is a Big 2 and a Little 13, and that Bosh is no different than Dexter Pittman, but that Bosh simply isn't on the level of Wade and James. But because of a flawed financial system -- the same one that the NBA owners are willing to sacrifice a season to fix -- Bosh gets lumped in with James and Wade and the trio gets a Big 3 label slapped on them.


Realistically, there is a limited number of true superstars in the NBA, and that number is smaller than most people would assume. A true superstar is the kind of player who is a perennial MVP candidate, the centerpiece of a championship contender, a guy who people buy tickets to come see. LeBron fits that bill. So does Wade. Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul... those kind of guys. There are certainly more, but it's not a huge list. It's definitely less than 21 players.
Why do I bring up 21? That's the number of players slated to make at least $15 million next season, which is "max money" range (some of those guys aren't making the true max, including the entire Heat trio, but there are also max guys making less than that, so for this exercise it seems like a natural cutoff). Bosh is tied for 15th on that list, meaning 14 players will make more than the Heat's alleged 3rd wheel, including Rashard Lewis, Elton Brand and Jpe Johnson.
Look at those last 3 names. Any of those guys seem to fit the "superstar" criteria I outlines above. Did they ever, at any point in their careers? Of course not. But because the NBA has a "max" salary, any guy who makes a coupleAll-Star teams feels entitled to that, and thus we end up with no separation between the stars and the superstars. It's not Chris Bosh's fault that the NBA's salary structure puts a 6- time All-Star with one All-NBA selection in his career on the same level as a two-time MVP who's been 1st-Team All-NBA five times in the last seven years.
If the NBA worked like it did pre-1999, with no per-player maximum salary, then last summer LeBron James would have commanded $30 million or more on the open market. Same with Wade, or Durant, or any of those other superstars I mentioned above. Bosh would not have. Simple as that. But under the system in place, the Heat landed three "max" guys, so they got labeled as The Big Three without any real consideration as to whether that was accurate or not.
Over the course of the 2010-11 season, there were plenty of "Big 2" or "2 1/2 Men" jokes lobbed at the Heat, designed to denigrate Bosh, but those missed the point. Big 2 shouldn't be a slight toward Bosh, but a compliment to James and Wade. There are few true superstars in the league, and Chris Bosh -- a fine player in his own right -- just happens to play on a team with two of them. Don't blame him for the fact that he gets paid just as much as them.
One last point: technically, none of the Heat's top 3 players are "max" players, because they all took less to sign with the team. Ditto for Gilbert Arenas, who shaved a bit off his deal to help the Wizards cap flexibility (God, that seems so long ago now). But aside from situations like that, I can't remember a team ever negotiating a guy off the max line. It seems like once someone like Joe Johnson gets labeled as a "max" guy, it sticks, no matter how crazy it seems, which just seems like another flaw of having a designated max. If there's no target to shoot for, then maybe last summer, Johnson's offers come in more around the $12M range, and maybe Bosh does too. But guys decide they're "max" guys, and because "max" is a set negotiating point for every team (with the obvious exception of the player's current team) then teams don't try to negotiate down, because they know what the standard offer is going to be.I'm not sure how to fix it, but it seems absurd in retrospect that going into last summer, it was a given that James and Bosh were going to end up with identical contracts no matter where they ended up. Because a team that only landed James is still a solid contender. A team that's only landed Bosh is... well, basically the '09-10 Raptors.

This Week in Buffy History: July 19-25

July 211966 - Jack Stehlin born (played Dr. Angelman in Season 4 of “Buffy”)

July 231970 - Charisma Carpenter born (played Cordelia Chase)

July 241981 - Summer Glau born (played Prima Ballerina in Angel Episode 3.13 “Waiting in the Wings”)

July 251973 - David Denman born (played Skip on “Angel”)

2007 - Season 8, Issue 5, "The Chain", released by Dark Horse Comics

Jersey Monday: Junior Seau

I'm going to San Diego later this week, and I do have a Chargers jersey packed in my bag. However, it's not this one. I got this Junior Seau jersey when I was in high school, and suffice to say it no longer fits me.

It's kind of hard to tell from this picture, but if you look closely at the left sleeve, you can see the hint of a Starter logo. Most of the early jerseys in my collection are either Champion or Starter, which were the two most prominent companies making NFL replicas back in the early-to-mid-'90s (on the NBA side, Champion was the ONLY company making them, which is why pretty much all of my pre-'00s NBA jerseys are from them).

Looking at this picture, I realize I couldn't have worn this jersey very often, because the back numbers are way too far intact. The jerseys from this era that were a regular part of my rotation have drastically faded back numbers; back then the screen-printing process put a solid number over the mesh fabric, and over time the part of the number that was over a hole would pop off, leading to pealing.

I think part of the reason that I didn't wear the jersey often is that I wasn't a huge Seau fan -- I only got this one to check a team off my list, and the Chargers weren't exactly loaded with stars back in those days. Seau was probably their only player who had any type of national recognition, and until recently, if you wanted a jersey of a team, you pretty much had to go with the small set of players the league selected for you (being able to choose from the entire roster, or even customize any name or number on a replica, is a development that only happened in the last five years or so).

Oh, as for which Chargers jersey I will be bringing to San Diego? It was the very first I ever spotlighted on Jersey Monday.

Jersey Monday will continue every Monday until I run out of jerseys to spotlight. And since I’ve got more than 150 of them, that could be awhile.

"Space Jam" starring Michael Jordan

There's a generation of basketball fans for whom Michael Jordan can do no wrong. Listen to these fans, and you'd think Jordan never missed a shot, never lost a playoff series and never made a bad decision. These fans will also tell you how great of a movie "Space Jam" is. They're delusional -- not as delusional as anyone who tells you Kobe is better than MJ, but still delusional.

THE MOVIE

Score: 1.5 out of 5 Real NBA teams: Yes Fictional NBA teams: The Tune Squad and Monstars don't play in the NBA, so no Notable NBA players involved: Michael Jordan, obviously. Also Larrty Bird (in a non-playing role), Charles Barkley, Muggsy Bouges, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing and Larry Johnson. Best basketball moment: When MJ suits up in Looney Tune land for the first time and unleashes a montage of dunks. Worst basketball moment: Barkley's unintentionally intentionally horrible performance after he loses his talent as plays a pick-up game with random girls on the street.

Michael Jordan is retired from the NBA, playing minor league baseball and sucking at it, but everyone -- except the national media -- still loves him. Meanwhile on some distant planet, Swackhammer (yes, that's actually the villain's name) is looking for a new attraction for his amusement park on Moron Mountain, so he sends five of his underlings to bring back the Looney Tunes. They arrive in Looney Tune Land, and threaten to take the Looney Tunes back to Moron Mountain. But Bugs Bunny convinces the Nerdlucks (again, that's actually their name) that the Tunes should get a chance to defend themselves. Seeing how tiny the Nerdlucks are, the Tunes challenge them to a game of basketball.

The Nerdlucks steal the talent from five NBA players, then use it to become huge basketball-dominating forces known as the Monstars. The Tunes, realizing they need help, kidnap Michael Jordan from the golf course, where he's playing a round with Bill Murray and Larry Bird, while being shadowed by Stan (Wayne Knight), his team-assigned personal assistant.

Jordan is reluctant at first, but after being challenged by the Monstars and seeing them hurt Tweety Bird, he agrees to help. He sends Bugs and Daffy to get his basketball gear. All suited up, Jordan leads a practice, where we learn none of the Tunes have ever played before. That is, except for newcomer Lola Bunny, who has skills -- just don't call her "doll" (seriously, they go to that well more than once in this relatively brief movie).

Stan, who's been digging up the golf course trying to find Michael, spotted, Bugs and Daffy returning to Tune Land and followed them, and wants to get Michael back to the baseball team. But he explains he has to help the Looney Tunes win first, and Stan wants to help.

Gametime arrives, and the Monstars dominate the first half, despite committing more fouls than the entire '88-89 Pistons roster. At halftime, Stan sneaks into the Monstars locker room and learns they stole the NBA players talent. Meanwhile, Bugs motivates the team by tricking them into thinking regular tap water is Michael's "special stuff". The Tunes come out ready to play in the second half, and tighten up the score, much to the consternation of Swackhammer (which, again, sounds more like a low-budget porn than a Looney Tunes villain). The evil alien is pissed that the Monstars didn't steal Michael's talent, but they insist he's a baseball player. MJ is fed up with Swackhammer, and wants to raise the stakes of the bet (OF COURSE he does...): if the Tunes win, the Monstars have to give the NBA players their talent back. If they lose, MJ goes with them to Moron Mountain.

The Monstars up their physicality to Laimbeerian levels, forcing Stan into the game. They then pancake him -- literally -- but his shot goes in, pulling the Tunes within one. Upon seeing Stan flattened and re-inflated, MJ's confused, but the Tunes explain anyone can do that in Tune Land. Michael is legitimately pissed that they waited until 10 seconds left in the game to tell him that. The Tunes are down to 4 players, but Bill Murray shows up out of nowhere and joins the team. They get a steal and get the ball to MJ, who leaps from halfcourt and stretches his arm for the game-winning basket. Yay!

The Monstars rise up against their former boss, sending him to the moon. MJ gets them to give the players' talents back, and the once-again Nerdlucks decide to stay in Tune Land, where they've literally never appeared in another Looney Tunes property. Michael gets back to the real world just in time to play his baseball game, arriving on a spaceship (which no one ever brings up again). He then gives the talents back to Barkley, Ewing, Johnson and Bogues, but apparently swaps Bradley's "talent" with the ability to get posterized. Then, because they questioned whether he could still play, he comes back to the NBA. The end.

THE REVIEW
To put this as simply as possible, anyone who tells you "Space Jam" is a good movie is a Jordan fan who hasn't seen it since 1996, and possibly has never seen it. Michael Jordan actually struggles to play a believable Michael Jordan (though he does nail the gambling problem and has a great moment in the locker room where it looks like he's ready to punch Porky Pig). But Jordan isn't really the problem with the movie, the Looney Tunes are.

While Jordan is the marketing vehicle for the movie, if you look at the premise and execution, it's a Looney Tunes movie at heart. It's just not a good one. It doesn't capture any of the style or humor that make the classic Looney Tunes cartoons such a joy to watch. There are plenty of callbacks to classic bits, but that's all they are. The entire movie, both from the Tunes side and the Jordan side, relies on the viewer having a sense of nostalgia for both of the primary subjects, and doesn't advance them in any meaningful way.

For a comedy, the laugh-out-loud moments are incredibly sparse, and I definitely found myself laughing more at things that were only funny because of context than because of the way they were written. The funniest moment in the movie may be everything Vlade Divac says when the NBA players are refusing to play after Barkley and co. have their talents stolen.

Also, by modern standards, the interaction between live-action and animation is pretty bad. I'm sure it seemed OK back in 1996, but now it just looks very disjointed.

I will say this in defense of the movie: the soundtrack is awesome. I've had it on CD since it came out, and it's a solid mix of R&B, dance and hip-hop that's worth a listen. The only negative is that the soundtrack's best song, "Hit 'Em High", isn't featured in the movie. So watch the video on YouTube instead.

THE BASKETBALL

The vast majority of basketball in this movie is either intentionally bad (post-talent-stealing) or animated, so it's really hard to grade it. Michael Jordan does dunk a lot, which nearly salvages the movie.

NBA EQUIVALENT

Delusional MJ fans will tell you this is Jordan playing with the Bulls. Some may at least couch it by saying it's Jordan with the Bulls when he was wearing #45 (which we get a glimpse of at the end of the movie). More realistic fans will tell you it's Jordan playing with the Wizards. But, honestly, it's not even that good. It's Jordan drafting Kwame Brown.

BETTER OR WORSE THAN A LOCKOUT?

Worse, and I'll tell you why. If the lockout lingers, some NBA player (LeBron, I'm looking in your direction) is going to get the idea to make a Space Jam-esque movie during the break, both to fill the downtime and help pay the bills. The world didn't need the first "Space Jam", and it certainly doesn't need another one.

San Diego, Here I Come

I booked this trip so long ago that it's hard to believe that it's finally here, but in just a few short days I'll be in San Diego. A whale's vagina... no, that can't be right (note to self: get all "Anchorman" references out of system now, unless you want to look like a tool for the entire show). I've been to plenty of conventions over the last few years, but this is the big one. San Diego Comic-Con.

I'm not flying out until Wednesday, but I'm already about 90% packed. Normally for a show I'd be bringing a big stack of books to get signed, but I want to keep things light for SDCC. Plus, I'm flying out, so i cant exactly just stash a longbox in my back seat, and I'm going down to Baltimore next month, which will be more of a creator focused show anyway.

As of right now, my personal schedule is currently filled up with panels and a few high profile signings, with plenty of plan Bs in case I can't get into things. My biggest priority for the entire show is Thursday's "Ringer" panel, marking Sarah Michelle Gellar's second-ever SDCC appearance. Still, if for some reason I miss out on that, I'll still have a good time, because, mean, it's San Diego.

I'll be sure to share pictures and stories throughout the show, so stay tuned to AdamReisinger.com or follow me on Twitter (@AdamReisinger) for updates.

Comic Review: "Dollhouse: Epitaphs" #1 from Dark Horse

I always thought "Dollhouse" was a show that would have made for a perfect translation to a comic book series, with the main character Echo being able to explore more outlandish scenarios than TV would allow, and each issue serving as a self-contained Echo imprint story.

"Dollhouse: Epitaphs" is NOT that book, but that doesn't mean it's any worse, just different. This is the first issue (well, really second, if you include the one-shot from a few months back) that tells the story of what happens between the end of "The Hollow Man" and the beginning of Season 1's unaired episode "Epitaph One".

If you haven't read the one-shot, you shouldn't be too far behind jumping into this story, but if for some reason you missed both "Epitaph One" and the Season 2 follow-up "Epitaph  Two: The Return", then you might not get what's going on. The book does try to re-introduce readers to the post-Dollhouse apocalyptic world without being too expository, or giving too much away. Still, I can see how some readers might be lost, particularly given that none of the primary characters from the series appears in the book.

The characters that do reappear are Alpha and Ivy, though the latter is really just an imprint -- technically 3 imprints -- of the character from the series. I really did enjoy what they did with the Ivies, exploring all sorts of weirdness about essentially "meeting yourself." Fortunately, the book didn't dwell on that, and instead focused on the story with Alpha training a 13-year-old boy for the war ahead. We see the early stages of the tech that was eventually implanted onto Victor's gang in "Epitaph Two", and there's even some heart behind all the action that's going on.

It's clear that the writing team of Andrew Chambliss, Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon pushed this book more towards the audience that watched "Dollhouse" and already knows the story, because it's a much stronger book if you've got the background knowledge it leaves out, particularly where Alpha is concerned.

"Glory Road" starring Josh Lucas, Derek Luke

I first saw "Glory Road" right before it came out, at a special screening attended by some of the real-life people portrayed in the movie. I bring that up, because the movie walks a fine line between "based on a true story" and "Hollywood fiction". I think it works fine as a movie, but not quite as well as a vehicle for telling this incredible story.

THE MOVIE

Score: 3.5 out of 5 Real NCAA teams: Yes Fictional NCAA teams: No Notable NBA players involved: Pat Riley appears briefly as himself in the credits (and is played by an actor in the movie's key game), and former NBA journeyman/blogger Paul Shirley has a brief cameo as an Iowa player. Best basketball moment: The back-to-back steals and layups by Hill in the championship game. Not only did that really happen -- though not quite as filmed -- but they look really good in the movie. Worst basketball moment: The girls basketball game at the beginning of the movie. It's cheesy, and factually inaccurate (in '65, Haskins was already at Texas Western).

Don Haskins is hired away from the high school ranks to coach the men's basketball team at Texas Western (now known as UTEP). The school doesn't have many resources, forcing Haskins to live on campus, and take a different approach to recruiting. In the mid-'60s, it was an unspoken rule that teams would only have a certain number of black players on the roster, and only play one or two at a time. Haskins realizes the only way Texas Western is going to compete for a championship is to go against those "rules" and recruit the best players that no other schools want to recruit, for social reasons.

Haskins puts together his team, consisting of seven black players and five white players, and there are conflicts immediately, both because of race and desire for playing time. Meanwhile, the school's administration is unhappy over the racial makeup of the team, and the team grows unhappy with Haskins's harsh training techniques and deliberate in-game strategy.

Despite some early success on the court, Haskins realizes he's going to have to loosen the reins on his black players, letting them play their style of game. The team faces adversity midseason, when forward Willie Cager is discovered to have a heart problem, forcing him to the bench.

The team begins to bond, despite the racial inequities and the hatred from opposing crowds, and looks to be on the verge of an undefeated season. Following a win over East Texas State, the team returns to its hotel to find the rooms of the black players trashed and vandalized with racial slurs. This leads to the season finale at Seattle, where the black players play tentative -- and divided from the white players -- resulting in the team's first loss of the season. Following the game, the black players admit the pressure is getting to them, and they see the white players on the team lumped in with everyone else. The team hashes out their differences in the locker room in a heated scene, and heads into the NCAA Tournament, with the boost of getting Cager back, after an impassioned plea from his mother.

The movie skips Texas Western's first two wins in the NCAA Tournament, getting right to the regional final against Kansas. After an intense, heated game, the Miners advance with a dramatic one-point win in double overtime. The team arrives in Maryland for the Final Four, where Texas Western's racial makeup is immediately contrasted with Kentucky's all-white blue bloods.

The night before the national championship game (the movie skips the semifinal win vs Utah), Haskins tells his team that he's sick of the racial bias from the fans, the media, and everyone, and he's only going to play the black players in the final game. The white players, despite their desire to play, are supportive of the move. The next night, Texas Western's all-black starting five takes the floor against Kentucky's all-white starting five. Kentucky's coach, Adolph Rupp is noticeably agitated. Texas Western opens the game with big center David Lattin dunking strong over Kentucky's All-American Pat Riley, setting the tone for the game. As the game goes on, the Miners gain control and win over the crowd, making history in the process, much to the obvious displeasure of Rupp.

The team returns to El Paso, where they get a hero's welcome at a packed airport. The players are show with text telling what they did after college.

THE REVIEW

There are two ways to look at "Glory Road".

As a movie, with a narrative enhanced by Hollywood storytelling, it's a really good watch, and incredibly compelling. The movie works in some comedy in the early scenes, allowing the viewer to ease into the story, before hitting with a lot of the harder social issues. The drama as the team comes together, and is nearly torn apart, is moving, and the locker room scene after the Seattle game definitely induces chills. The championship game is shot remarkable, using cuts between the players and coaches and fans, and a flash-bulb technique to increase the impact of every play. It may seem like it follows the "Rocky" formula of a scrappy underdog coming together and rising up against impossible odds, but it plays that old tune so well that you invariably get sucked in anyway.

The problem that prevents my rating from being higher is how fast and loose the movie plays with the facts of the '65-66 Texas Western men's basketball team, particularly in the early scenes of the movie. First, '65-66 was not Don Haskins's first year at the school, it was his 6th. Many of the players he's shown recruiting in the summer of '65 were already at the school then, though they all had been recruited by Haskins. The bigger issue comes with what is supposed to be one of the defining scenes of the movie -- the meeting with the team the night before the title game. Simply put, it didn't happen. Haskins himself has said that the decision to start five black players was purely a basketball strategy move; he wanted his best players on the court.

Personally, I think the movie would have been even stronger if it had portrayed Haskins's choice to play an all-black starting five closer to how it happened in real life. That way, it actually does a better job making Haskins seem color blind, rather than making him put race ahead of the game. Social progress often comes from people making everyday choices, not world-changing decisions, and that was the case in reality here. By portraying it differently, it actually weakens the movie.

THE BASKETBALL

There's a lot of actual on-court action in this movie, and most of it is shot pretty well. There are times when director James Gartner has to resort to movie tricks to make the on-screen action match what's supposed to happen, but it's not nearly as prevalent as it is in many other basketball movies. For the most part, when you're watching the movie, you get the sense that these guys can play. The frequent cutaways to Haskins on the sidelines are mildly distracting, but necessary since the movie is really centered around him. I think my only real problem with the basketball as portrayed is the frequent use of dunking techniques -- particularly the off-the-backboard alley-oop -- that couldn't possibly have been used in the 1960s.

NBA EQUIVALENT

"Glory Road" is good. Really good. It's just not as good as it's supposed to be, and its key problem is in narrative vs reality. Does that make it Derrick Rose? Eh, it's not THAT good.

BETTER OR WORSE THAN A LOCKOUT?

So much better. It's even compelling enough to take your mind off the lockout for a couple hours. Plus, Pat Riley shows up and doesn't even bring up the 2010-11 Heat, so that's a positive.

Desktop Girl of the Week: Alison Brie

This past weekend, I finally decided to catch up on the TV series "Community". I started from the beginning, and I'm now almost completely caught up, so now seems as good a time as any to make "Community" co-star Alison Brie a DGOW selection.

Longtime readers of this blog should know that "Community" isn't my first exposure to Brie. As a longtime "Mad Men" fan, I've been watching Brie as Trudy Campbell for years now. Still, her role in "Community" is much larger, and much more likable (personally, I've never liked Pete or Trudy on "Mad Men", though I've come to appreciate the importance of Pete's character).

Aside from those two roles, I've never seen Brie in anything else, though it's not like she has a ton on her résumé. A couple of web series, a guest spot on Hannah Montana and a supporting role in "Scream 4", which I have so far refused to see, mostly because I heard it was terrible. Still, if Brie and my girl Hayden are in it, it can't be entirely bad, right?

• Alison Brie on IMDB
• Follow Alison Brie on Twitter
• "Community" official site

As always with DGOW, I’ll provide a widescreen (1680x1050) image for downloading. If you want to see past DGOW, then just check the archive album.

This Week in Buffy History: July 12-18

July 13
1999 - Episode 3.22, “Graduation Day”, airs on The WB

July 14
1956 - Vladimir Kulich born (played The Beast on “Angel”)

July 16
1974 - Robinne Lee born (played Charlotte, Sired Vampire in Episode 7.08, “Sleeper”)

July 17
1978 - Katharine Towne born (played Sunday in Episode 4.01, “The Freshman”)

Jersey Monday: Drew Bledsoe

I did this a couple weeks ago, where I matched the number on the jersey to the date of Jersey Monday, and since I don't have any other natural tie-ins for today's entry, I'll do that again with the only No. 11 jersey in my collection: Drew Bledsoe.

I got this Bledsoe jersey the first year New England switched to this style, which I believe was 1995. They introduced the "flying Elvis" jerseys in 1994, but the logo was on the sleeve and the number style was traditional. In '95, they flipped the TV numbers and logo, increased the size of the logo (seriously, you can't tell from this picture, but the Patriot head on the shoulder was HUGE) and went with what I always thought of as NASCAR-style numbers on the front and back. Just compare Bledsoe's 11 with the 11 on the side of Denny Hamlin's car.

I wasn't a Patriots fan, and since the aborted move to Hartford they've become one of my most hated teams, but I wore the crap out of this jersey when I was in high school. I honestly loved how it looked, with the subtle alternating color strips in the fabric, and I wish the Patriots had never ditched it for the darker jerseys they use now.

Even though I didn't particularly like the Pats in those days, I did love Bledsoe, mostly because Bill Parcells had him putting up crazy numbers in the mid '90s. Bledsoe was on the first fantasy football team I ever had, back in 1994, and I still remember him getting me multiple victories that season, including the game in which he threw an NFL-record 70 passes. Of course, for some stupid reason, we had a completion percentage component in our league, and that was a bitch to calculate by hand in 1994. I'm so glad fantasy football is all internet-based these days.


Jersey Monday will continue every Monday until I run out of jerseys to spotlight. And since I’ve got more than 150 of them, that could be awhile.

"Celtic Pride" starring Damon Wayans, Dan Aykroyd, Daniel Stern

Until rewatching it for this blog, I hadn't seen "Celtic Pride" since it first came out in theaters. Back then, I was a regular attendee of Celtics games in Boston, and went to see the movie with a huge Celtics fan. He hated it because the Celtics lost (oh, sorry, SPOILER ALERT FOR MOVIE THAT CAME OUT 15 YEARS AGO), and I hated it because I thought it was stupid.

15 years later, I still think the movie is mostly stupid, but overall it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered.

THE MOVIE

Score: 3 out of 5 Real NBA teams: Yes Fictional NBA teams: No Notable NBA players involved: Larry Bird, Bill Walton and Bob Cousy all play themselves, though obviously in non-playing roles. Best basketball moment: Really, outside of seeing the old Boston Garden again, there really isn't much redeemable about the actual basketball in this movie. Worst basketball moment: The horrible special effects needed to make it look like Aykroyd's spastic half-court shot during halftime of Game 7 somehow goes in.

Mike O'Hara (Stern) is a former high school basketball star who got injured early in his college career and now works as a phys ed teacher and lives and dies with the Boston Celtics. Jimmy Flaherty (Aykroyd) is a plumber, O'Hara's best friend, and a huge fan of all Boston sports, living vicariously through their great moments. They're die hard Celtics fans who also happen to be insanely superstitious, and possibly just insane. After watching the Celtics blow a 15-point halftime lead in Game 6 of the Finals against the Jazz, they find out that Utah's star player, Lewis Scott (Wayans), is partying at a local bar. They go down to the bar, where they get the idea to pose as Jazz fans to get him so drunk that he's too hungover to play well in Game 7. During their charade, they meet Larry Bird (their idol), who scolds them for being fair-weather fans. Despite this, they power forward and get Scott wasted.

The next morning, they wake up at Jimmy's apartment, hungover, and realize that Scott is with them. After messing with him while he's still passed out for awhile, they eventually kidnap him. After being told by one of their cop friends that it's kidnapping whether you hold a guy for a second or a week, they decide to hold on to Scott until after Game 7, so at least if they have to go to jail, they can help the Celtics win in the process.

While Scott is being held hostage, he shines a light on the pathetic lives the two fans lead, while they explain to Scott why they hate him so much (ballhoggery, his attitude toward the game, etc.). Scott tries to escape, but a cabbie refuses to help him, and the two fans catch up to him. He challenges O'Hara to a game of one-on-one, and in the process incapacitates his two kidnappers. Before he leaves them, he gives them an option: if they show up at Game 7 in Jazz colors and root for Utah, and the Jazz win, he won't go to the police. But if they don't, or if Boston wins, they're going to jail.

Mike and Jimmy show up at Game 7 wearing Lewis Scott jerseys, and explain to the fans around them that they're only "pretending" to root for Utah to jinx the Jazz. At halftime, Boston is up 14, and it looks like they're going to jail, until Mike yells at Lewis to start passing the ball, rather than trying to do everything himself. He does, and miraculously it works, and the Jazz get back into the game. He dishes off the game-winning assist at the buzzer, and Utah wins by a point, with Mike and Jimmy joining the team on the court to celebrate.

The movie ends with a scene seven months later, as Mike and Jimmy break into Deion Sanders's hotel room, presumably to kidnap him so he can't play in the Super Bowl.

THE REVIEW

Upon rewatching the movie, I was stunned to learn that it was a Judd Apatow film. He co-created the story, wrote the screenplay and served as an executive producer. It's obviously not as refined as his more popular work, but some of his influence definitely shines through.

Overall, the plot of the movie is completely implausible, and the basketball (which I'll get to in the next section) is even more unbelievable. Still, it's the scenes with Mike, Jimmy and Lewis at the apartment that make the movie work, at least better than it did in 1996.

When "Celtic Pride" came out, the NBA was experiencing an incredible run of popularity, thanks mostly to Michael Jordan. Fans loved Jordan, and he as least publicly gave the impression that he cared about them. Lewis Scott -- despite having some elements of Jordan (superstar who does most of his team's scoring) and Charles Barkley (his "I'm not a hero" commercial at the beginning of the movie is a direct knockoff of Barkley's "I'm not a role model") -- is really more representative of the NBA superstar from the post-Jordan early '00s era of the NBA. He was incredibly talented, but didn't seem to care on the court, and had an adversarial relationship with fans.


There were two particular scenes that really hammered that home. The first came shortly after Mike and Jimmy had tied Lewis up, and Mike had gone out to get some advice on what to do, leaving Jimmy alone holding Lewis at gunpoint. The kidnapped star, seeing how much Jimmy valued his memorabilia, went on a bit of a rant:

"It's pathetic. All these pictures of other people's achievements and what have you done? What's your claim to fame? You think Larry Bird has a picture of you on his wall with your hand down a toilet wrangling a turd? He doesn't even know you exist. And you MET him! You might as well take that gun and put it in your mouth and blow your brains out."

Now, obviously the words are different, but doesn't that sound a bit like, "All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today."? Obviously Judd Apatow couldn't have been thinking of LeBron when he wrote "Celtic Pride", but he did a pretty solid job of pinpointing the ego of the post-Jordan superstar, and why many fans hate players like LeBron, or Allen Iverson, or Vince Carter or anyone who they perceive as wasting their gifts.

There's another exchange when they're discussing endorsements, and Scott says he does them just for the money, while Mike says he thinks Scott does them because he thinks if fans see him enough times on TV, they'll like him.

If the movie had spent more time on these scenes, and less time on the two games and the party scene, I think it might be remembered more fondly. Maybe even in different hands, it could have been a quality character exploration into the relationship between superstar athletes and blue collar fans, rather than a cheap slapstick comedy.

THE BASKETBALL

While some scenes were better than I remembered them, the basketball was much, much worse (and I didn't remember it being good anyway). Boston Garden is filmed in a way so that only the lower 10 rows of the arena are visible, making it clear they couldn't fill it with extras. The majority of the game action is shown either super wide or super close. It uses lots of movie magic to make it seem like Damon Wayans can ball, mostly by showing him pulling up for a shot, then cutting to the ball swishing through the rim, then cutting back to Wayans holding his hand up in perfect post-shot form. The close cuts on dunks are even worse, with Wayans -- likely jumping off a trampoline -- sometimes overshooting his mark.

They had to do this, though, because if they didn't, it would have been even more embarrassing. At one point, they actually show Wayans taking a runner/floater of some kind -- one that's supposed to miss -- and he gets three inches off the ground, maybe. The guy apparently had no vertical leap to speak of, and so they had to shoot all the basketball to mask that. Still, it's really, really hard to watch.

Lastly, I know it's a movie, and one in which interaction with two fans is obviously a big part, but Utah's coach (played by Christopher McDonald, a.k.a. Shooter McGavin), reacts to heckling way too quickly and too often. He snaps before tipoff of the first game we see, which would make sense if Mike and Jimmy's heckling had been building over the course of the series, but the first game we see is Game 6, which means we're coming off three straight games in Utah.

NBA EQUIVALENT

Multiple double-digit leads blown in the NBA Finals? The off-court narrative overshadowing the on-court action? A hated NBA star clashing with heckling fans? Who else could it be but the 2010-11 Miami Heat (during their five-game, crygate-inducing losing streak, obviously).

BETTER OR WORSE THAN A LOCKOUT?

Better, but much like a lockout, it'll make you wish you were watching quality basketball instead.

My 11 Favorite Episodes of Sliders

In my rewatching of "Sliders", I'm finally through the first four seasons, which seems as good a time as any to run down my favorite episodes. I guess it's possible that a Season 5 episode would crack this list, but given the unlikelihood of that, I feel confident calling these 11 episodes my favorites. 

11. As Time Goes By (Season 2, Episode 13)

As much as I like this episode, which follows Quinn and a lost love through three different worlds, I think it would have worked better as a multi-episode arc. Rather than just being told about Quinn's attachment to Daelin, we could have learned about it organically. Still, I'll always love this episode, if only for the weird backwards time world.

10. Slide by Wire (Season 4, Episode 16)

I really liked the twist they threw at us in the beginning of this episode, where the "wrong" Maggie slides, and then we get to see our Maggie get back to the military roots she seemed to have abandoned for much of Season 4. Also, it's worth noting that of the six episodes that follow this one in Season 4, only one is remotely watchable, and then we transition to the new cast in Season 5, so this marks something of an end-point for fans of the early seasons of "Sliders".

Looking back on "The Decision", a year later

A year later, I'm still not sure how to describe the feelings I felt as I was driving to Greenwich for "The Decision". As a LeBron James fan, I knew deep in my heart that I'd probably end up supporting him no matter where he ended up, but I think I also knew that even if he stayed in Cleveland -- which was unlikely at that point -- nothing would ever quite be the same.

The scene in Greenwich is still one of the most surreal I've ever been around. The crowd swelled throughout the afternoon, hoping to catch a glimpse of LeBron and celebrate with fellow fans should he pick their team. For the most part, Knicks fans were CONVINCED he was coming to New York -- why else hold the event in Greenwich, they asked? (In case you're still wondering about that, read this fabulous piece from Zach Lowe, where he talks to some of the behind the scenes people involved with "The Decision").

As the moment for the actual decision to be made came, I was in the dark, both literally and figuratively. The sun had set in Greenwich, and the crowd was gathered around trying to get any word on what was happening inside. It's clear that the organizers didn't anticipate such a large crowd, otherwise they would have set up some way for us to watch the event. I know some people made their way over to the media trucks, but it wasn't until the police announced over their bullhorns that LeBron had picked Miami that everyone knew. Most fans dispersed quickly, but many others stuck around, hoping to see LeBron James and boo him. In retrospect, it should have been my first indicator as to the reception LeBron was going to receive in every city last season.

Still, I couldn't have in my wildest imagination  anticipated just how big "The Decision" and the fallout from it would become. I figured that, assuming LeBron picked anyone but Cleveland, that Cavs fans would hate LeBron for a long time, but the hatred toward the pomposity of the special itself would fade after awhile. Part of that is because I couldn't watch the show itself and see just how poorly everything came off to the TV audience. I didn't hear the phrase "take my talents to South Beach" until later that night, by which time I'd already had some time to process what had happened. I didn't sit there watching Jim Gray ask question after question without getting to the point, which I'm sure exacerbated an audience that was already on edge.


July 8, 2010 was one of the most surreal days of my life. I was so conflicted driving home that night; conflicted between being happy that LeBron had a great set of teammates and was likely the favorite to win the title and being upset that he abandoned Cleveland. I wrote the next day, "At some point in the future, I'll eventually reach acceptance. I'll break down and buy a LeBron Heat jersey, because somewhere inside I'm still a LeBron fan." It took about three weeks for me to get to that point, and it really wasn't until training camp rolled around that I was fully comfortable supporting LeBron again. I never got to the point of "hating" him, like so many did, but there was definitely a period post-"Decision" where I found myself questioning if I could be a full-fledged fan again.

This week, I went back and re-watched some of my videos from that day, and it's funny that at one point I said that if LeBron signed in Miami, I'd still be a LeBron fan, but I couldn't be a Heat fan. Honestly, I don't really consider myself a Heat fan, even to this day. Obviously, I want the team to be successful, but only in the sense that it would mean LeBron is succeeding. And while I obviously still consider myself a LeBron fan, it's not the blind fandom it was before "The Decision". I now recognize his flaws and failings, and I'm willing to point them out, rather than just dismiss them.



Re-live "The Decision" from Greenwich, CT