The month of July is coming to a close and that can only mean one thing: my focus starts shifting to fantasy football. I will try and get some posts out related to that subject so I might miss a couple days of the ol' Pocket Pair. It was a busy weekend with my family in town for mom's retirement after 38 fun filled years with the government. If you had a busy weekend as well, let me catch you up with what you missed.
5. Baseball Trading Deadline
Zack Greinke was most certainly dealt as he wound up on the west coast with the Angels. He lost in his first start with them getting out dueled by Jeremy Hellickson and the Tampa Bay Rays. Also traded this weekend was lefty pitcher Francisco Liriano who gained 12.5 games in the A.L. Central when he was shipped from Minnesota to the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox have been, by far, the most active trading partner so far as they have acquired Kevin Youkilis and Brett Myers in addition to Liriano already. Chris Johnson and George Kottaras were a couple smaller named players to move as well. Today and tomorrow will be where the deadline definitely ramps up as we find out if Philadelphia unloads their aging roster, if the Marlins have yet another fire sale, if division leaders stand pat or go for it and if a blockbuster is in the works.
4. Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees
After losing on Friday night, the Boston Red Sox took the final two games of the series, not only pushing their record back to .500, but also stayed within arms reach of the Wild Card. The pressure was really on after getting thumped in game 1 and having to face C.C. Sabathia on Saturday, but the Sox struck early and often against the big lefty tagging him for 6 runs in 6 innings. In each of the two wins for Boston they blew leads and had to salvage the games late in the game on the road. Will they be able to build off of this or will this just be another blip on a very uneven year to date? The Yankees appear to be cruise control mode as they are 3-7 in their last 10 games after starting the second half of the season 5-1. They still have a very comfortable 7.5 game lead to play with and nobody else in the A.L. East seems good enough to challenge them.
3. Chicago White Sox at Texas Rangers
I admit, it looks like I called the race in the A.L. Central for the Detroit Tigers a wee bit early. Not only did the Tigers have a poor 2-4 week, but the White Sox nearly swept their week going 5-1 losing only on Sunday. They have reestablished their 1.5 game lead over Detroit and now get to play Minnesota again whom they just swept. The Texas Rangers are not playing well. It all starts with Josh Hamilton who is mired in a deep slump and he seems to be bringing the entire team down with him. He was 0-6 in his two games this weekend against the White Sox and was benched on Saturday. I don't want to build up the 4 game series this week against the Angels as do or die, but if Los Angeles comes in and takes 3 of 4 or all 4, it could mark the end of a very strong two year run for the Rangers. They have played a lot of games in the last 2+ years, the heat in Texas will not subside and maybe it's beginning to take a toll on the roster.
2. Los Angeles Dodgers at San Francisco Giants
It looks like the Giants will need to make a move to keep pace with the Dodgers after what happened this weekend. Los Angeles waltzed into San Francisco and swept the Giants to create a deadlock atop the N.L. West standings. The Giants mustered only 3 runs in the 28 innings that were played and were shut out in the last two games of the series. Hanley Ramirez was 4-15 with a home run, 3 runs scored and 6 RBI in the series. If that doesn't force the Giants hand, I don't know what will. I was slightly wrong as the finale of the series went 3:03, just slightly longer than The Dark Knight Rises.
1. The Summer Olympics
I'm a bit disappointed because I had DVR issues and missed the opening ceremonies. Twitter kept me up to date about flying monkeys, sperm shaped objects flying through the air and David Beckham on a jet boat. It sounds like a good time was had by all. As for the Games themselves so far so good...save for the crappy tape delay in America. I understand NBC is in a lose/lose situation with the Olympics in Europe. NBC has decided to not show any live swimming medal events...none. They know its their biggest draw in prime time viewing so Americans have two choices: 1) avoid social media and watch the events on tape delay 2) stream the events online or check in with social media for the results. It will be too hard to stay off Twitter for two weeks or not go to ESPN.com or a similar sports site, so I choose to watch live as much as I can. Luckily my work will allow for this, but there are plenty of people who don't get that choice.
Outside of swimming the Twitter world seems to be in love with Archery, Handball and watching the US win at Basketball and Women's Soccer. Cycling is still boring, I saw the Chinese look terrible in Gymnastics, American Kim Rhode won a medal in her 5th straight Olympics and the Australian women wore their bikini tops over a shirt in Beach Volleyball.
That's 3 days down and we've just scraped the surface of what will occur. Live or not, the Olympics are fun to watch and I plan on seeing my fair share over the next two weeks.
---------------------------------------------------------
There's probably nothing more enjoyable than a really good M. Night Shyamalan movie. Unfortunately there's probably nothing less enjoyable than a really badd M. Night Shyamalan movie. He's had both. I watched Signs last night for the first time in forever and outside of the gimmicky solution to the problem, I enjoy it from beginning to end. He paces it so well and leaves enough to the imagination that the viewer can feel the same fright as the characters do. This is where he excels in his great films (The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) being the other two, struggles at time in the average one (The Village) and fails for the most part in the misfires (The Happening and Lady in the Water).
I know that it was all about the big plot twist at the end after The Sixth Sense came out, but it was more than that. The acting by the children made the films. Haley Joel Osment was spectacular, Spence Treat Clark was very engaging and both the children in Signs (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin) stole the show at times. Not to mention that the last two will probably be acting for a very long time if they don't go crazy as they have both proven to be very talented.
This is why I have high hopes for his next project, After Earth, which will release summer of 2013. Not only does it star one of my favorite actors Will Smith, but his son Jaden (Karate Kid) and fellow child actor Isabelle Fuhrman (The Orphan). Fuhrman had a very difficult character to portray in The Orphan and because of her talent kept the movie from being laughable. She was extremely strong and drew me in to the very twisted story line. The remake of The Karate Kid was lauded by critics and audiences, thanks in large part to Jaden Smith. He lights up the screen just like his father and that's what attracts people to his films.
Hopefully this can be a redemption movie for Shyamalan because after the disastrous The Last Airbender, I don't know if he can handle another box office failure. I want him to get back to creepy ghost stories that aren't too complicated but keep the viewers on the edges of their seat and hopefully come with a satisfying ending. It sounds all too simple, but obviously Shyamalan has lost his edge with his recent releases.
No comments:
Post a Comment