February 22, 2012

Beautiful Lies: A Moneyball Review

December 30, 2011 By 1 Comment

(Editor’s note: This shouldn’t be needed given the fact that the movie – and book – are based on a true story with an ending that every sports fan should already be aware of. But to fend off the trolls: Spoiler alert. Now carry on)

Without sounding too much like a walking cliché, Michael Lewis’ Moneyball is one of my favorite books.  Though it takes Major League Baseball as its source material, that’s not remotely why I found it so fascinating.  When you got down to the meat of the book, it was basically a treatise on economics—how an organization that is otherwise constrained can find undervalued resources to compete in a system that is intrinsically unfair.  If that sounds esoteric, it is.  If it sounds boring, I’m not doing it justice.  It is to Lewis’ credit that the book is as pleasurable a read as it is.  To discuss market inefficiencies and oddball statistical approaches and create a compelling and engaging narrative takes some serious writing chops.  Luckily, as Lewis has demonstrated throughout his prolific career, he has those. [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – Modern Family Impresses (Again)

December 29, 2011 By 6 Comments

Scott gives us the rundown of one of the best comedies on network television and actually the only network TV show I watch regularly.

In a cast of characters that includes a voluptuous Columbian woman who speaks broken English and is married to a man nearly twice her age and has a son who acts even older, a pair of homosexual gentlemen who continually find themselves in the most precarious of positions (nee situations) including – but not limited to – using their orientation to land their adopted daughter into the preschool of their choice, and a trio of teenage siblings who couldn’t be more different from one another, how is it that the most compelling and downright hilarious character in ABC’s Modern Family is Phil Dunphy, the Caucasian, heterosexual, middle-class, middle-aged father of three who attempts to make a living selling real estate and who doubles as a bottomless beacon for some of the best quotes on television today? [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – Music Review – Bon Iver by Bon Iver

December 29, 2011 By 4 Comments

Note from Craig: We could never all agree on a single album for album of the year, but it just so happened that Denny and I agreed on this one.  That in mind, we thought this album deserved its own extended mention in Farewell to 2011.  I now hand it off to Denny.

Greetings, humans (and web-scraping services)! This summer I kind of went ‘bananas’ when Bon Iver’s new album leaked was released. Being the excitable person I can be from time to time, I let Craig know about the album and how awesome I found it to be – like, I emphatically let him know. Since I tipped Craig off to the album, he asked me to drop by and write an album review for the site’s 2k11 Farewell Tour™, so here goes:

For the uninitiated, Bon Iver is the nom de plume of Justin Vernon, the Wisconsin singer/songwriter whose 2008 album For Emma, Forever Ago made quite the splash – one big enough to land Vernon in-studio in Hawaii with Kanye West during the recording of West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (a setting in which few would expect to find a writer of slow, stark songs). This anecdote is my roundabout way of informing you all that the guy has significant ‘buzz’, which built over the full three years between FEFA and this June’s self-titled Bon Iver. [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – The Year in Movies

December 28, 2011 By 19 Comments

I tried to count all the movies that I saw this year from 2011 and I got to 32 and probably missed a few.  Even I am astonished by that number to be honest.  Lucky for you, I will not be discussing all 32.  Plus, does anyone really need to hear about Lliam Neeson in Unknown or Topher Grace in Take Me Home Tonight?  Didn’t think so.  I’ll be talking about some of the most memorable and notable movies to me, but this won’t be a complete take on 2011 until you guys are finished telling us about your favorites in the comments.

[Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – Hip Hop Hangover

December 28, 2011 By 9 Comments

If your name isn’t Kanye or Shawn and you didn’t release a much-anticipated album surrounding French-based dalliance and currency-based planking, it was certainly a touch-and-go year in the genre we call hip-hop. With the proliferation of Internet mixtapes by high-profile names of the game, Lil Wayne’s Sorry for the Wait and Wale’s 11.1.11 had just as much Internet buzz (and potentially higher quality tracks) as The Carter IV and Ambition, respectively. In addition, this ever-popular and ever-growing distribution channel of self-released gold provided us some new tracks from Big KRIT, B.O.B. and everyone’s favrorite ATL emcee-turned-actor Ludacris. Sadly, these were the highlights, and when highlights aren’t mainstream – despite the tendency to embrace the hipster-hop mentality of preferring the obscure – it’s not a good year for the industry as a whole. [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – Andrew’s Top Five Albums

December 27, 2011 By 15 Comments

A good year for music in terms of the sheer number of enjoyable albums to listen to. But not a very top heavy list, as I’m not sure any of top 5 would even crack last year’s top 5 (Surfer Blood, No Age, Against Me!, Dead Confederate, Titus Andronicus). But still, there was no shortage of great stuff to listen to this year. So here’s my top 5 for 2011: [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – The Year in Music

December 26, 2011 By 16 Comments

Note: As always, don’t consider this a definitive “Best Of.” This is just the best of the stuff that I decided to listen to this year.

Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness – I didn’t like Los Campesinos! the first time I heard them a year or so ago.  It wasn’t bad music, but it lacked a level of emotion or heart at least on the surface as I gave it a quick listen.  Leave it to me to get drawn back in by an album called Hello Sadness.  It isn’t all sad sounds though.  The album opens with “By Your Hand” which alternates between sounding like a party chanting chorus and its chatty verses.  The title track, “Hello Sadness,” seems to be their take on a single and the sound betrays the message a bit, I think as the upbeat drums and riffs make you want to bounce through the seeming misery in the lyrics.  It’s probably that straddled line that makes this album so good. [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – The Year in Network Television

December 23, 2011 By 11 Comments

Note: As we say farewell to 2011, we had enough television to talk about that we broke it up into network and cable. Rick, Kirk and TD have their fingers on the pulse of some pretty big network shows.

Person of Interest, CBS 9 pm Thursdays – Rick

It’s hard to say exactly what drew me to this series. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, and I lean away from dramas that require a huge suspension of disbelief. But for me Person of Interest works. (I do think it would have been a more successful movie than a television show though.)

One storyline each week that I appreciate is not knowing at first if the ‘person of interest’ is the victim or the assailant. Especially in episodes like Cura Te Ipsum (#4) where the ‘victim’ is really a different kind of criminal. That episode stands out as well because we are left not really knowing what Caviezel’s character decided to do. As the season progresses, and more people are connected to Reese and Finch, it does get harder and harder to believe that the operation can continue. Too many people brought in to a secret can only make it harder for that secret to stay in shadows. Here’s hoping the writers are on top of their game throughout the series. [Read more...]

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WFNY Top 10 Cleveland Sports Stories of 2011: #9 – Key Cavalier Wins

December 22, 2011 By 3 Comments

As the year comes to a close, like we have done the last three years, WFNY will take a look at what we view to be the 10 biggest sports stories affecting our local sports scene. Each day through the rest of the year, we will be counting down from 10 to one. Just missing this year’s cut were the Dan Gilbert/Chris Paul trade reaction, the Ohio State Basketball Seniors getting their diplomas on the same day they thrashed George Mason in round two of the NCAA tournament, and the Browns actually winning on a goal-line stand against Jacksonville. 

No. 9 – The Cleveland Cavaliers top several opponents against whom they were given little chance

If the overriding narrative of the 2010-11 season didn’t involve one LeBron James as the antagonist, the arch enemy of the Wine and Gold was indeed tally marks in the win column.  Dropping a professional sports record 26-game losing streak, it’s easy to see how a team could become national news rooted in futility. 

Found in the muck and misery, however, were a few diamonds. These shining moments were not exactly bright in the context of the entire season – one which would result in the second-worst record in all the land – but their timing coupled with their opponents certainly provided Clevelanders with fuel for euphoria, regardless of how ephemeral it all may have been. [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011 – Comic Book Movie Countdown

December 22, 2011 By 22 Comments

This year, as has been the case in the last few years, there were (way too?) many comic book movies. Some were good. Some were bad.  Rather than going in depth, I am going to count them down from worst to best.  Keep in mind that just because I thought one was worse than another doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy every popcorn-chomping minute, because I did.  There wasn’t a movie on this list that I would have rather not seen at all.  Some I might have enjoyed getting an extra discount off the matinee price, but that’s neither here nor there.

Without further ado… Number 5… [Read more...]

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Farewell 2011… Coming Soon

December 20, 2011 By 7 Comments

When we did Rocktober, we ended it by pretty much asking permission to occasionally stray from the strict sports format for some pop culture.  Overwhelmingly, you guys granted us leeway to do it.

So, as we wave goodbye to another calendar year, we thought it would be a good time to go over some of the non-sports things that consumed our entertainment dollars and hours away from Cleveland sports.  The week heading toward New Year’s we will be posting some thoughts and reviews of some of the TV shows, movies and albums that we were exposed to this year. [Read more...]

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