The Toy Story Breakdown

So with the Summer of Toy Story long gone and the pain of Toy Story 3’s ending finally dissipating away, its time to analyze these three films and truly pick out which of these three masterful films honestly stands the tallest. Now, all of these three films I have scored 10/10 as they achieved the highest marks in storytelling, direction, and overall satisfaction and quality fit for generations to come. But, when you dig deeper, they all have their different strengths and with enough analyzing, we can determine which one I think is the best.


Now, here’s the point system:
First Place: 3 points
Second Place: 2 Points
Third Place: 1 Point

There are 10 categories for which I will be ranking these films in. They range from larger categories like directing and editing and boil down to smaller categories like the musical score and cast of characters. Here we go:


Category #1: Writing
Winner: Toy Story
Runner-Up: Toy Story 2

Toy Story wins because of sheer originality. While its technically not the first film to explore a concept of a toy coming to life (Pinnochio and Child’s Play anyone?) it was the first to truly explore the unique concept of just what seemingly lifeless objects do when nobody else is looking. This fun concept explains why we constantly lose things, or other things pop up in random areas of the house. While we are used to the idea now, back then it was a very fresh idea---and gave Toy Story an Oscar nomination for original screenplay. By the way: Toy Story is the first film in the history of animation to nab that honor.



Category #2: Humor
Winner: Toy Story 2
Runner-Up: Toy Story

Toy Story 2 was hands-down the funniest of the three films. One-liners snap and crackle around every corner, every character has their fun chance to shine, several hilarious scenarios and running jokes are played-out, and to top it off all the pop culture references were light, loose, and don’t date the movie in the least bit. This was probably one of the more underrated aspects of Toy Story 2, it was straight-up funny.


Category #3: Heart
Winner: Toy Story 3
Runner-up: Toy Story 2

This is a no-brainer. I went to the midnight premiere of Toy Story 3, and I must say I was emotionally drained by the time the final frame had finished. Random strangers were holding each other, the manliest of men were driven to tears, and the entire audience was barely breathing during the now-infamous furnace sequence. No Toy Story accomplished such a feat. Toy Story 3 was the most emotionally-charged movie of the trilogy and arguably the most heart wrenching from any animated film since Grave of the Fireflies. Oh yea, I am going that far back.


Category #4: Musical Score
Winner: Toy Story
Runner-up: Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 and 3’s music were basically retreads of the original score by Randy Newman in the first installment. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but the original has to win in this category. And on another note it has the best piece of orchestrated music in the trilogy, which was the moment in the climax when Woody and Buzz are flying above the clouds and trees in a surprise dramatic twist.


Category #5: Best Songs
Winner: Toy Story 2: When Somebody Loved Me
Runner Up: Toy Story: You’ve Got a Friend in Me

The original Toy Story’s flagship song is the recurring song throughout the franchise and the Pixar brand. That being said, it doesn’t hold a candle to the emotionally-driven and incredibly personal When Somebody Loved Me by Sarah McLachlan. Those few minutes of beautiful singing, light piano work, and light strings perfectly explained Jessie’s backstory and why her hatred against humans existed. Few songs can exemplify an entire backstory but this sad gem did just that and more. How it lost to the still-decent-but-not-as-good “You’ll Be in my heart,” I will never understand why.


Category #6: Best Editing/Pacing
Winner: Toy Story 2
Runner-up: Toy Story

Toy Story 2 flowed the best of the three movies, although the original isn’t far behind. Toy Story 2 immediately treated us to an action sequence and ten minutes in the themes of immortality and growing apart from people are presented. Toy Story 3 may have had more heart, but it took quite a bit longer for it to take off. Toy Story 2 was quicker, and gave us more to see in a tighter amount of time.


Category #7: Animation
Winner: Toy Story
Runner-up: Toy Story 3

The original Toy Story set the bar for all animation by becoming the first full-fledged computer animated film. It was leagues ahead of anything we had seen, its hard to imagine this film came out at the same time as Pocahontas. The sequels did a superb job in terms of details, lighting, and special effects but we have to give this category to the original that started it all. The last time we saw an animated movie drive itself leagues ahead of the competition in terms of said animation was Sleeping Beauty way back in the 50s.


Category #8: Directing
Winner: Toy Story 2
Runner-up: Toy Story

John Lasseter may have seen better days before he went Cars-crazy, but the man was a fantastic director back in the day as he knew how to time the laughs and tears at just the right moments, while throwing in well-placed action sequences and deep moments that hit the adults while skipping over the kids. Toy Story 2 was the best example of his technique, as it has the best mix of heart and humor, and neither element tries to overwhelm the other at any given moment. Toy story 3 had a great script, but it could have really benefited from a better director like Andrew Stanton or Brad Bird.


Category #9: Ending
Winner: Toy Story 3
Runner-up: Toy Story




There are no words to describe how perfect this film ended. That being said its value will diminish severely if they ever make a fourth installment. I hope not. In the meantime, just watch it, and you’ll understand why it’s easily the best in the trilogy. And one of the best emotional moments in the history of Pixar animation.


Category #10: Cast of Characters
Winner: Toy Story 2
Runner-up: Toy Story 3

In Toy Story 2, every character had their memorable moment, had their chance to shine, and had their perfect one-liner. Already expanding upon the nice cast of the original, Toy Story 2 treated us to Barbie dolls, Rock em’ Robots, an adorable dog, Woody’s Roundup crew, a second Buzz Lightyear, and a delirious Emperor Zurg. And while these new characters are appearing, the likes of Hamm, Mr. Potato Head, and Rex deliver some of the funniest secondary character material from any animated movie. They became the humor side of the movie while Woody has to face his past and face his friendship mortality with Andy.


Overall Points:
Toy Story:
22

Toy Story 2:
23

Toy Story 3:
15




Bottom Line: The first two in my opinion are far better than the third installment (although Toy Story 3 was indeed a grand film that deserved all its praise and the Best Picture nomination) but I have to hand it to Toy Story 2. Quoting another writer, the most unoriginal part of Toy Story 2 was its title. Toy Story 2 was the first film to truly utilize and perfect the modern-day Pixar formula: for every laugh there should be a tear. And while not all Pixar movies do it as successfully as others (*cough*Cars*cough*Cars 2*cough*), Toy Story 2 was the first to branch off this old-school Disney idea about mixing in the heavy emotions while blending in plenty of humor and a great cast of characters to move the story along. Toy Story was Pixar getting their feet wet, and Toy Story 2 was them diving in and embedding themselves further into animation history. I love all three movies to death for all different reasons, but in my opinion you can’t top Toy Story 2.

That being said, this is one of the greatest movie trilogies in the history of film.

Pixar, leave it that way.

Happy 25th Anniversary Metroid!

The Metroid franchise hit its 25th anniversary earlier this month as a quarter century ago the original NES classic found its way into stores everywhere and shocked the gaming world with its loose gameplay, sinister tone, and surprise ending. And while Nintendo has done next to nothing for Metroid’s celebration as of now, its still worth noting that Samus is turning 25 this month. While she hasn’t been in the same pillar of success as Mario or Zelda, she has been involved in some of the greatest video games of all-time.


To add to that, this franchise is constantly evolving and shifting (sometimes for the better, sometimes in the wrong direction) and it only has room to grow. We can only hope and beg that Nintendo looks past the weaker sales of recent games and continues to give Samus more adventures to engage in. In the meantime however we are going to highlight the best Metroid games and in between provide some of the best music ever composed for the game—and some of the better OCRemixes. So here we go, the 7 best Metroid games of all-time, as of now.




#7: Metroid Fusion
System: Game Boy Advance
Year: 2002

This game is much more linear than the typical Samus adventure, but it still works well because of its gripping storyline, intense action, and introduction of Dark Samus. The idea of being the hunted as well as being the hunter added a sense of silent terror to the entire gaming experience. Remains one of the best GBA games ever released.




#6: Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
System: Nintendo Gamecube
Year: 2004

The forgotten game in the Prime trilogy, Echoes unfortunately was in the shadows of Halo 2 and made practically no money for Nintendo. What it did provide however was fantastic gameplay with a tough challenge to boot, as well as beautiful graphics, plenty of space to roam around, and another encounter with Dark Samus. While the light/dark world thing has been done to death, it wasn’t tedious here. Too bad the multi-player wasn’t as polished….it could have been something special.




#5: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
System: Nintendo Wii
Year: 2007

Even though the game went more in the Halo direction in terms of presentation, music, and style of gameplay, Metroid Prime 3 is still quite entertaining. What separates this one from the rest are the incredible controls, which in my opinion proves that the Nintendo Wii could have been the ultimate system for first-person shooters. The motion capturing controller allows you to feel more like Samus as she blasts her way through a tense adventure full of twists, turns, and plenty of action.




#4: Metroid II: Return of Samus
System: Game Boy
Year: 1991

It is quite dated when you look at it now, but this sequel was bigger than the original in every possible way: length, amount of content, amount of abilities, and the amount of surprises. While the revelation that she is a female bad-arse hero was a crazed shock, the fact that she saved the final Metroid as opposed to killing it definitely left its mark on gamers back in the early 90s. This game tested the limits of the capacity of the original Game Boy, but the full potential of this gem can never be realized until it is remade for a more powerful system with some colors and a cleansing of the graphics. This game is Samus at her bounty hunting best, as you get to hunt down all the Metroids in an entire planet.





#3: Metroid: Zero Mission
System: Game Boy Advance
Year: 2004

This is the original Metroid on steroids. Zero Mission is happily guilty of practically taking all the good elements from the original, Metroid II, and Super Metroid and combining them into a massive adventure full of action, different ways of competing the mission, and surprises (a constant theme in the franchise). The soundtrack got an upgrade, her abilities got an upgrade, and of course the challenge got a nice upgrade as well. This is the perfect game to start with if you have not experienced a Metroid game. It is a handheld underrated classic that is not imitated enough by following Metroid titles. I think Metroid works best in 2-D. Although…..




#2: Metroid Prime
System: Nintendo Gamecube
Year: 2002

We had no hope for this game. A rookie company, 8 years between titles, and a first-person view as opposed to the 2-D we grew up with and got used to? There was no way this game was supposed to succeed. But Metroid Prime wasn’t just a game; it was a darn good game, to the point of it being a work of art. The game is still one of the most visually impressive games out there, while cranking out a killer soundtrack, and plenty of content to keep Metroid and non-Metroid fans busy for weeks. The details of this game were absolutely astounding, from the water rolling off your helmet to the small particles that float by as you enter a new world. This is one of the 25 best video games ever made, no question about it. Retro Studios proved to the gaming world that they are no niche company; they are ready to play hardball at any time. Metroid Prime played flawlessly, and to this day keeps its title as the best Gamecube game ever.





#1: Super Metroid
System: Super Ninetendo
Year: 1994

It has been over 15 years since the release of this masterpiece and I still find new quirky little details that scrimmage around the massive adventure that miraculously fit inside the SNES cartridge (and Youtube shows me some new fun things too). The sheer amount of new elements that Super Metroid introduced not only to the franchise but the entire world of gaming makes this not just a brilliant game, but an important one as well. Super Metroid was an adventure game to the grandest of scales and several different ways to complete it. And let’s not forget the graphics, the eerie flawless soundtrack, an immersive world full of small secrets accompanied by a creepy sci-fi horror atmosphere, the slick controls that gave Samus dozens of fun abilities and moves, the nail-biting challenge, and finally the pure satisfaction of the experience. Metroid Prime may squirm around the top 25 list of all-time games, but this game cannot fall anywhere below top 10. It is that good. And if you have not played this game, then your life is not complete.

Whenever you think of Samus or the Metroid name, the image in your head will almost always consist of a screenshot of this game. Whether it’s the image of fighting Ridley the first time, or the first time you enter Zebes, or the final showdown against Mother Brain, when you think Samus, you will most likely think the one, the only….Super Metroid.







Happy 25th Anniversary Metroid! Hopefully we gamers can have 25 more years of epic adventures from Samus.

P.S. The Best OCRemix of a Metroid song:

Potential future ballparks of the Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays are the best baseball team in terms of pure value. While teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Rangers, and Tigers spend a good dollar to craft their good teams (and this is by no means as much of a complaint as it is an observation) the Rays manage to compete in the AL Wild Card and in the bloodthirsty AL East while having a payroll lower than every team in baseball except for one (Kansas City Royals). The Rays are about a dozen games above .500, have better records than some divisional leaders, and still remain a thorn in the sides of the Red Sox and Yanks up until the very end.

They are the defending AL Champs and were a couple bad plays away from pulling within distance of the World Series last year. So with that all being said, there’s only room for growth in this organization as long as we have the mighty manager Joe Maddon at the helm. Now of course in one aspect we have to improve is the stadium. Despite the impossibility of us leaving Tropicana Field, we all know my pure hatred of this wretched place. Here is one example. Here is another example. And here is a third example.

Oh and one more.


Now, my mind is buzzing as to what type of stadium we should build for the Rays organization. As a matter of fact, I ponder just where exactly this team would end up in the future. After all, rumors swirl around that Bud Selig told the owners of the ballclub to not make any longtime investments in the St. Petersburg area—which means there might even be a change in cities. Maybe the Rays will move to actual Tampa? Maybe it will hit up a beach? Or maybe better yet it will wind up in Central Florida? Either way, here are three potential options as to what I think should be the outlook for the Rays’ next baseball stadium.


#3: Type of Stadium: Stadium Amongst the Lights
Location: Downtown Orlando

The first potential option I can see would be a nice stadium embedded in the downtown Orlando area. While metropolitan Tampa looks to have run out of room (as from what I’ve seen) the Downtown Orlando area has proven that its not only a thriving community, but its one that can make room for a major new building with minimal issue (See the fast-paced construction of the Amway Center as an example). Yes the struggling economy has put a hold on other expansion ideas for Orlando but when the economy bounces back, how awesome would it be to build a stadium with the lights of the city in the background?

While I am not a fan of Downtown Orlando in the least bit, I acknowledge that the very youthful audience in Central Florida will flock to a sporting event in no-time. Look at the consistent sellout crowds for the Magic games and the decent attendance numbers for AFL games. I can see a ballpark with a retractable roof overlooking the city and being a staple of I-4 sightseeing. But I am sure the veteran drivers of I-4 would hate another reason for the interstate to be packed to the core.


#2: Stadium on the Beach
Location: Clearwater

For years, ideas of the Rays moving to a stadium next to the beach have constantly been buzzing. After all, some of the best beaches in Florida are in the Tampa Bay area. How unbelievably awesome would it be to build a stadium right next to the beach? How awesome would it be to be able to kick back and hit the ocean shortly after a ballgame? To add to that, it doesn’t rain as often in the Clearwater/St. Petersburg area as much as you’d think. Nothing spells out summer perfection like going to the beach and then walking over to a Rays game a few hours later.

They can enhance the experience by giving the entire stadium a beach theme—offer aquariums, a surf machine, laid-back music, aquariums everywhere (this is similar to what the new marlins stadium is supposedly going to offer) and even a few pool bars to make things interesting. Part of the appeal of the Amway Center is that there is a lot to do, even when your team is blowing it during the game. By offering a lot of activities throughout the game, the visit to the ballpark can become an experience, no mater whom the Rays are playing. And with beach access being far easier than access to a shoddy part of St. Petersburg, you will definitely see an increase in attendance.

Of course, there is a big drawback to this idea. If you are going to fling this close to the beach, a lot of properties would have to be sacrificed. To add to that, it would be hella difficult to honestly build this close to the beach without causing major traffic problems and major protests from those that live close to the ocean. But if both sides could make peace, we could have something quite special here.




#1: Baseball Park inside a Park
Location: Disney World or Tampa or Hidden Area in Orlando

I stole this concept from a minor league ballpark in Texas somewhere. Nonetheless, this idea is pure gold, and I am shocked that more teams don’t consider doing this in the future. Actually, I take it back as I understand why. You need a lot of space to pull off this feat, and very few big markets nowadays have such space to give away to a baseball field. A ballpark inside a massive park. Just imagine a baseball park smack dab in the middle of a big, big city park. This will be one of the few cases in which attendance to a ballpark area will be potentially high even though there might be nothing going on.

Picture this: you park your car in the massive parking lot several hours before the game even starts. Why? Because you get to slowly stroll through a massive park full of smaller baseball fields, picnic areas, recreational activities, several outdoor restaurants, a few food trucks, a place to bbq, and best of all an area to quietly and calmly tailgate as the Rays are just a couple hours away from entering the field. A massive HD screen plastered on one of the sides of the stadium showcase other baseball scores or other ballgames as you await the time to go in.

If I honestly had the money, I would invest in this in a heartbeat. Now, of course this type of park could not happen in any Downtown area of any sort, which leaves us with fewer potential locations. I don’t know much about Tampa so I’m not sure if anywhere near Downtown would have the space. But I do know closer to the Busch Gardens side has a bit more available space. So the outskirts of Tampa is option number one. Now if I could convince Disney to sell off the land or be a part of the Rays organization, then Disney World would be another spot. Disney still has tons of land left, and it’s all at a prime location.

To wrap it all up: in order for this type of stadium to become a reality you need a lot of land and far more support from the city as opposed to the other ideas. But the payoff I think would be far better than any ol’ ballpark. I’d love the chance to lounge around next to a baseball park even when there isn’t a game happening. I’d love the chance to play a little scrimmage game with family and friends before the actual game occurs. All in all I would love the chance to turn a game inside the ballpark into an all-day relaxing and chill experience.




A fella can dream, right?

Go Rays!!

One Day: 4/10

This movie had plenty of potential. Surely it was a consistently grim and depressing film but the themes about love and the main cast kept us interested. This movie had potential in which the aura of hope was strong enough to keep us wanting to see a nice resolution---in the midst of the depression. One Day could have been a wonderful film about love and friendship across different fields of time and distance—something that only the film Before Sunset accomplished in every degree imaginable. And then came the third act. That bloody awful third act.

One Day is a film that was running a certain direction, and then totally flips the switch in the final third of the movie, resulting in a jumbled mess of inconsistent themes, inconsistent pace, and just a story that seems like its only goal is to drive the audience to tears and suicidal thoughts. While it was accurately faithful to the book, sometimes this is a bad thing as novels do have their pitiful moments (See: No Country For Old Men). Worst of all, the screenplay was from the author so any hope of changing some of the material or some of the extremely weak parts of the novel were pretty much dead and gone.

This movie is about a friendship between two characters that spans a couple decades, and we the viewer see where they are in their lives as they meet each other on the same day every year. Despite their scenario and financial/martial/emotional status, they find a way to see each other to catch up. Like I said before, the script was from the same writer as the 2009 novel, David Nicholls. Nicholls had a fresh concept a fresh twist to the romantic drama genre, but in order to keep one step ahead of the reader he shifts gears in the final moments of the novel—winding up with a book I would most likely wind up hating. And all those events lead to a script that I wound up hating.

The 2011 Summer Season has been a very disappointing one, but we’ve had great performances left and right that have saved certain films (Bad Teacher, On Stranger Tides) and propelled others to new heights (Horrible Bosses). Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess kept my interest in the movie, as they delivered fine performances that chronicled them at their happiest and at their downright most depressed. Sturgess had a lot more to work with because of the events on his side and he handled them quite tell. Hathaway despite using an accent (not necessary if you ask me) also did a fine job, and being a naturally beautiful woman had to find a way to look unattractive and unappealing to the audience—meaning she also had to do some tough work. The rest of the cast did a decent job, but our main stars kept the film afloat……until the third act.

Lone Scherfig, who directed the under-the-radar Oscar bait An Education, did quite well in spite of the frustrating material she was dealt with. She handled her shots quite well, and sometimes let the visuals describe the emotions and mindset of our main characters. Sadly Scherfg’s direction was marred by the editing, which oddly left out some vital material, and shuffled around some scenes awkwardly. If your movie is being done in chronological order, why mess that up in the final act? Why skip out some of the better character-relationship-building scenes, only to use them for the final act, once their relationship has already been established? I’m telling you, this third act is poison.

Bottom Line: An ending can make or break a movie; it can erase some of the shortcomings in the first two acts, or ultimately weaken the entire structure of the film. One Day’s final act will leave you frustrated, will leave you upset, and it’s not just because of the events that happen, but in the manner that they are presented. Everything you were learning about the movie, all the lessons and themes and nice moments the script was giving us are flung out of the window in favor of an unexpected finale that crushes the soul of the entire body of work. The ending of this review will remain consistent with the rest of the article: Do not watch unless you are a fan of depression or subpar material.

Where are you Star Wars: Episode Seven?

Harry Potter has recently taken over Star Wars and has become the top-grossing movie franchise of all-time, domestic and worldwide. The eight films were not only based off of history-changing books, but they honestly weren’t half-bad, with 6 and maybe part 2 being the exceptions. Their fanbase has remained consistent, and so has the entire cast. It has been a mix of good and lucky but overall had led to a success story that topples that of Star Wars. So what should Star Wars do to reclaim this title? I think its time to finally actually propel the series….forward. No more prequels, time for a legit sequel.


Star Wars 7 needs to occur; we need to continue the storyline of Luke Skywalker. We need to see what happens just after the evil empire went down---again. Everything in life doesn’t just return back to normal, that’s just impossible. The heroes don’t just dance on Endor and that’s that. It’s not like every person for the dark side just got up and left. And it’s not like the Jedi won’t be blamed partially for the nonsense that went down for several decades. Return of the Jedi was not just a good movie; it was a great movie, and a fitting end to the original trilogy. That being said, we were still left with a plethora of burning questions. Star Wars 7 can also provide Luke Skywalker with his full first movie as a legit Jedi, and arguably the final one in the universe.

Now, I know that there was a lot written about Luke after the Battle of Endor in a variety of books and whatnot, but I am giving Luke the comic book treatment by offering an alternate storyline as to what I think should happen after the events of Episode VI. The seventh film should be a solely Luke Skywalker vehicle as I find it hard to be able to replace Princess Leia and Han Solo with any other actor. As for Luke, no offense to Mark Hamill, but he had less to work with and he’s easier to physically duplicate as he’s not as big a movie star or Hollywood figure as Harrison Ford. And lastly, his story is the least developed of the three major heroes. Here’s my take:


Star Wars 7 should be an action film combined with elements of spaghetti western. The overview plot is that Luke struggles to find out what to do with his life after the war finished, with him having no home technically, his father dead, his sister disappearing to look for lingering refugees from her home planet, and his mentor Yoda also deceased. Luke then decides to be part of a team of Rebels dedicated to searching for any remaining forces of the Dark Side attempting to start more nonsense. Basically it’s like a bounty hunter in a western strolling into town looking for someone. The change here of course is setting and time. Luke starts his quest in the massive city planet Coruscant to restore peace and make sure the Dark Side remains just a thing of the past.

In the meantime, we discover that Darth Vader was training someone to become his replacement in case Vader were to pass away. This new Sith, the last remaining Sith, is being driven insane because of the voices in his head coming from The Emperor. The Emperor repeatedly tells him that Luke destroyed his destiny, as the new Sith’s destiny was supposed to become the new partner-in-crime once Darth Vader becomes no more. The Emperor tells him that if he ever wants to have any relevance in the universe, he must hunt down and kill Luke Skywalker. In the meantime, a mysterious figure is putting up a massive bounty for Luke’s head—as he is technically the last remaining Jedi left. So the Sith, the bounty hunters, a few remnants of the Dark Side, and Luke will have their paths intertwine in the city planet.


Bottom Line: While my idea for the next Star Wars movie isn’t quite the direction that the franchise is known for, I think a full-fledged action movie with Luke Skywalker is exactly what Star Wars needs to dethrone Harry Potter and become the new king. Honestly, it’s a total shame that Luke finally overcomes his father’s shadow in Episode VI—only to see his story end. He is finally a Jedi, isn’t it time for us to see him off the chains breaking out those skills? We had an entire prequel trilogy dedicated to Anakin, whom becomes Darth Vader.

Argue what you will, the original trilogy wasn’t just about Luke, it was about the war itself. This film should focus more on Luke and his travels, with a few supporting characters joining along the way. Even if my idea for Star Wars 7 isn’t a good one (I never want anyone to think that MYT plot for Star Wars 7 is the ONLY one that works), a part 7 has to happen. I would love to see what Luke does next after the second Death Star was destroyed. For me, he should be a traveling Jedi about to meet more trouble in the City Planet. But his story deserves continuing. He suffered too much for us just to leave him with a bunch of tiny bears as his final cinematic scene.

What do you think should happen in Star Wars 7?

Denver Broncos: A Tale of Two Quarterbacks

Why do quarterback controversies exist? Why must we overcomplicate things? Currently the stupid Denver Broncos, fresh off a crappy season, have decided to stick with the same quarterback that helped fling them into a beautiful 3-13 record last season, and also was responsible for their awful collapse the season before. Despite whom the fans prefer, the Broncos are sticking with their man. Kyle Orton has not had much of a reputation in the NFL despite his talents, constantly proving that he can run down a team just as easily as he can lift them to the next level. Yet, Tim Tebow once again is put in the backburner as second-string quarterback. It does not make sense. This controversy can be eliminated almost immediately, before it causes problems with the team and its fans.


One of three things has to happen here for the Broncos to have any sort of shot at honestly accomplishing anything this season. Option number one, give Tebow a chance. Tim Tebow is the same quarterback that helped the Gators win two national championships during his days in college. He is a Heisman Trophy winner, and became the first quarterback to rush and pass for 20 touchdowns in the same season. He is a special kid with a lot of talent and a willingness to play. The man can throw, but he can also create plays with his running abilities. If the Broncos are going to waste his time and not try to develop him he is going to turn into the NFL version of Darko Miličić.



While we are at it, let’s mention that the Broncos were 3-10 with Orton, and this is in a very weak division in which the Raiders were 5-0 against the divisional rivals. Did you hear that? Raiders. 5-0. If this isn’t more evidence that its time for a change, I don’t know what is. Kyle Orton’s numbers have worked well, but when your team fails to make the postseason in a shady division for multiple consecutive years, why not switch things up? I say give Tim Tebow a couple of games in the beginning and if things look bleak, go back to Loser.

The second option is to trade Tebow for some defense. This is probably the option that makes the most sense, and with many NFL teams going trade-crazy, I’m shocked this has yet to happen. The man is popular, quite talented, yet the rumors persist that he was inches from getting the third slot in quarterback in the Broncos organization. So why not utilize his current value and fame and try to get some defense? While I am currently on the Kyle Orton Hate Parade (especially after recent comments about winning over the fans being last on his to-do list) he did post these numbers last season: 20 TD, 9 INT, 87.5 quarterback rating. But have you seen their defensive numbers? 2nd in giving away the most rushing yards and 9th in passing yards, and lets combine that with being 30th in tackles, 25th in INTs, and in the bottom 15 in total takeaways. Isn’t it time for defense?



Now who is the team that most desperately wants/needs a quarterback? The Miami Dolphins. What do the Dolphins have? Defense, and tons of it. What do the Dolphins need? A good quarterback. The NFL is now a league in which it’s a requirement to have a good quarterback to win it all. The last team to win the Super Bowl with a mediocre quarterback was Eli Manning’s Giants during their historic upset of the Patriots back in 2008. The last one to win with a miserable quarterback? The Ravens way back in 2001. The Dolphins need, badly, Tebow in order to compete in the devastatingly deadly division against the Jets and Patriots—two teams that got a lot better this offseason. And let’s not forget the Dolphins lost Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. For the sake of both franchises, this trade needs to happen.

The last option, why not let them both play? Give Tim Tebow the first half, and then totally mess things up by giving Orton the second half. Can you imagine being the opponent and being forced to create two different strategies when facing the Broncos? You get the run-n-gun style of Tim Tebow, which would wear down the defense, and then have the underratedly (not a word) accurate throw bombs of Kyle Orton to seal the deal. Not only does it force everyone else to switch styles of defense mid-game, but it gives less time for each quarterback, and it makes them less tired throughout the season. I am shocked that more football teams don’t follow a similar strategy—imagine the Eagles using Kobb last year to start, and then throwing a monkeywrench with the fast, feisty, and unpredictable Michael Vick in the second half. Its like a powerful relief pitcher and a closer wrapped into one for the second half of the game.

(Even the cheerleaders haven't been as good in Denver)


Bottom Line: The Denver Broncos’ quarterback controversy does not have to linger at all, as long as Denver does something, fast. They may think the current situation will not effect the season, but they are dead wrong. What if Orton struggles the first couple games? Then the fans, media, and perhaps even the players will become nervous and restless and set a bad tone for the rest of the year. Controversy needs to be stomped, and this can be achieved by whether switching the starters, trading away the popular second-string, or giving them both facetime and drive the opponents insane. They can add some annoying “oomph” by not even announcing the starter until half an hour before the game. There is a lot of talent here, and it can be utilized. But as long as Orton is a prick and Tebow is Denver’s sweetheart, its going to be tough for the team to improve upon its dismal record last year.

P.S. Dolphins, Ronnie Brown signed with the Eagles for just one million. You couldn’t up the contract ante? You bums.

Turning NASCAR into Mario Kart...for the good of the sport

For those that know me best know that I am not a fan of Nascar in the least bit. The massively long races consisting of cars going around in circles for a long period of time has never attracted my interest. I personally think that the races are too long, most of the tracks are the same, and that the racers get far much more credit than they deserve. When you win races, you honestly have to give it to the cars much more than the person because of the length of driving required—and a good portion of the credit goes to the pit crew. So what happens if a very good driver has a weaker car and a weaker pit crew? Then he doesn’t have a chance. And that’s not fair, I’d rather the driver have to work to earn his/her honor of being one of the best racers out there.



Nascar to me is like Mario Kart Wii in real life---you can be an excellent driver but if good luck and fortune is not on your side, then you just aren’t going to win. Perhaps this is what upsets me the most about the league; they don’t make it so that truly the best driver wins. Now I have assembled a way to make Nascar more interesting for me, and perhaps this will make Nascar more interesting for the rest of us. Because honestly its become like baseball—a sport that has suffered mildly because the society we live in is now more ADD than ever...and needs mild adjusting. How can I be a huge fan of racing games (ironically, even Daytona USA, an arcade game about a Nascar race) yet barely tolerate the sport that is all about racing?

For starters, the time trials should still occur to determine our order of cars. The 50 best times will go to the big race. Now, the big race will consist of not one race, but a total of 6 individual, much smaller races. The top 10 cars at the time trials face off in the first race, then the next 10 cars face off, and so on. Instead of the 194897741 laps that each car must do around the track, we are going to limit them to a simple yet effective 10 laps. That’s it. You have 10 laps to prove yourself to be the best driver. That makes the race shorter, more intense, and leaves with the drivers less time to make a mistake. Now, the winning car gets to have his car fixed up by the pit crew while awaiting the other races to finish.

We get a starting-off total of 5 10-lap races, and the winners of each race square off in one final race that determines the winner. The spectators get a total of 6 races, and 60 laps of cars going in circles. The stakes are higher amongst the participants and the spectators won’t have time to show signs of spectating fatigue. And we the viewer can be glued to the event pretty much the whole way through as oppose to being able to get up, leave, grab a sandwich, flirt with the neighbor, fight zombies, and then return to watch the final hour of the race. Zzzzzzzz.

Oh, and with the point system you ask? Only the top 5 get points, period. Winner gets 50, 2nd place gets 40, 3rd place gets 30, 4th place gets 20, and 5th place gets 10. There is no need to complicate things in the least bit with all these added rules and regulations. Currently only 10 points separates 1st place from 11th place. You serious? While there are other recommendations I would love to present (different track terrain, much more variety amongst the tracks in the Nascar series) the one that is most required is the shortening of these races so that they are much more…watchable.


Bottom Line: So how can we improve Nascar? Make the races shorter, and make the point system easier to follow. The most popular sport in the world is soccer, and it’s mostly because it’s the easiest to follow. Why not apply the soccer treatment to Nascar by creating 10-lap races and giving points only to the top 5 drivers? I think if we apply these major but easy-to-make changes, then it would build a better fanbase, and would be easier to pick up and follow for a new generation of fans. Racing is a lot of fun to watch, let’s not kill it with 2,300-lap races.

Let’s work together. Let’s make Nascar.....unboring(I know, that’s not a word)

Rock Music today needs to Germanify Itself

Dear Upcoming Rock Bands,

Stop trying to make yourselves sound as complex and as complicated as you really are. Stop trying to display your skills in moments when you don’t need to. Stop trying to add so much noise that the piece of music holds no true personality. There is a growing influx of bands trying too darn hard to sound loud, yet ambitiously skillful as humanely possible. It is time for every American rock band to sit down and start taking notes from the one modern-day band that in recent years has consistently delivered despite using a very basic formula: Rammstein.


Rammstein is by no means the most complex band out there. They are by no means the loudest band. They are also by no means a band that displays the most talent in their music. And they are not even close of having the best lyrics. However, they are the one light in the dark tunnel that is the current state of rock/metal. They have been active for nearly 20 years without a single line-up change, without a single “disappointing” album, without any traces of potential “selling out.” This band has created the perfect formula of creating consistently good music and its time more bands take notice.

They achieve this by knowing their limits, and the limits of our ears. Just because you can play at 80 notes a second doesn’t mean you should ever do it. Rammstein’s guitar riffs are usually loud but slow enough so that it grooves into a beat, into a likable rhythm. And in case it ever becomes tedious, change up the tempo a couple times before retreating to the original addicting rhythm. Rammstein is like a new-age AC/DC, same sound, doesn’t stray far from it, but darn it its heavy enough for us to forgive them. The drums never go insane during a song; they maintain the tempo and heartbeat without ever straying far. The guitars are loud but never squeal, never scream unnecessarily, and never spew useless notes.

The keyword I am trying to derive myself towards is: simplicity. Rammstein is simple, pure and simple. They use a simple rhythm, simple drumline, simple lyrics, and a simple simplistic approach to their heavy music. And, it works. It’s heavy enough to allow you to headbang but never too irritating to make you cringe in the middle of the moshing. They are intense, but display tolerable intensity, the kind that forces you to pump your fists in the air with pure joy.

When you have modern-day bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Dragonforce (ESPECIALLY them), Trivium, System of a Down (whom had one incredible album but never veered better than that), Bullet for my Valentine, and many other examples complicating their sound by trying to do so much at the same time in terms of volume, speed, and intensity, it really brings down the genre of rock several levels. All of you bands today need to sit back, calm down, and take a better, smaller approach. You have the potential to provide consistently special music....you guys just clutter and cluster yourselves in the music-making to a point in which you stop sounding like music and sound more like........grungy noise. Stop trying so hard. Please.



Be more like Rammstein.

Simplistically Epic.



Sincerely,
Music Fan

How to improve the American Idol Experience

Hollywood Studios is in need of some help fixing their attractions. Of all the attractions in all the theme parks, the American Idol Experience is literally the only one that actually gets advertised over the speakers.


They get such little support from the guests that they have to announce in the morning and throughout the day (through “commercials”) that the attraction still exists and could benefit from more people actually seeing their shows. Have you seen the attendance of their afternoon shows? About a half past bearable. While my solution is to destroy it altogether and build something new in the area, we probably have a contract that we must fulfill. If I have to keep American Idol in the park, this is what I would do to try to save it.


For me, American Idol should be done Fantasmic style: only once or twice a day. Several shows a day doesn’t work because the so-called voting portion of the show is not believable when there are 10-15 people seated in the audience. I say do two really big shows involving 7 singers; you can make one right before the parade at the 1:30-1:45 mark, and then do the second showing at the 6:00-6:30 range. Both shows can also be broadcast outside for people not inside the building to see. It would be a great way to pass the time while waiting for the parade to start.


The content needs a total overhaul. And by content I mean the music. The song list is only about 100-145 songs. It does sound like a lot until you notice this: only 13 Disney songs, only 8 Latin songs, and barely any true rock songs. Are you kidding me? Some of the toughest songs out there are in the rock realm, and those that can truly nail those notes are the ones that deserve the so-called American Idol dream ticket. But when you get shoddy easy songs like “Black Horse and a Cherry Tree,” “Drops of Jupiter,” and “Don’t Stop the Music,” it diminishes the entire experience. That being said, I am not saying we should have heavy heavy rock music like this on the setlist---our country is still afraid of metal. Honestly.

This is a Disney attraction, only 13 Disney songs is unacceptable. You should have much more music to choose from---and to make it more irritating 6 of them are from the sugar-coated nonsense of the Disney Channel. When Buffalo Wild Wings has more songs than the American Idol, we have a problem. When Rising Star Karaoke, which consists of an actual live band performing behind you, has nearly as many songs as the American Idol Experience, we have a problem. The beauty of music is how incredibly diverse it is, and when an aspiring singer has only 140-something songs to pick from when displaying his or her best skills, it’s a bit of a problem. I’ve even been told that the producers mildly force them to sing a certain song. I encountered a guest that was told to sing a song he had never sung before. That’s ridiculous.

American Idol Experience becomes extremely repetitive in that final show because everyone sings the same exact songs. I used to think it’s because of the guests, but now I am veering more into the idea that the producers and cast members of the show push them towards it. I say, let them sing whatever they want, it’s their career, and it’s their funeral if they shoot for a song they can’t nail. And this would add variety to a show that has become dull, very quickly. Sometimes, you need those repeat visitors from the locals to maintain popularity and relevance. The Idol Experience has neither.

And P.S. on the song selection: can we please let them the entire darn song? A song like Bohemian Rhapsody is insulted when you only nab a snippet. That song requires the widest vocal range of potentially any pop song in music history----give that aspiring singer the chance of his/her lifetime by making them take on the entire song.

Two shows, 7 singers each. Give out two tickets a day. Each show can run around an hour to 75 minutes, depending on how long the songs are and depending on the introductions. And like I said, it’s a great way to pass the time. Do one elimination round in which 4 of the 7 singers are eliminated, and have the top 3 do a final performance to show off their skills one last time. And then we vote on the top 3 who the winner is. More music, more performing, more mayhem, more judging (the judges aren't that bad to be honest), stakes are higher, the show is a little more interesting.

And hey, while we are at it, why not give it an extra event during Extra Magic Hours? This will never happen, but I am a dreamer, so let’s talk about it anyway. We should do the American Idol Karaoke Party. This is the truth, not all of us are born singers, its honestly a God-given talent. Yes you can work on the vocal chords as much as you want, but if your voice doesn’t support the notes there’s no way you can ever be on that show. That being said, the American Idol Karaoke Party allows for any guest (and cast member, since the show prohibits you from participating) to sing on that stage. If you don’t want to compete, you can sign up for the party early in the morning. We give you a Fastpass like ticket to go to the building at a certain time. You pick the song, and you go up there and sing away. Of course any silly business and the mic gets cut off immediately. But as opposed to a typical karaoke bar, you get the stage, the lights, the people watching and interacting, and your dream coming true. And no criticism will follow after you sing--unless its from your peers.


Bottom Line: The American Idol Experience needs help, because it’s becoming as stale as the television show. We should cut it down to two big shows, expand the setlist, and give more freedom to the singers. These solutions do not cost extra, and nor will they totally alter the dimensions and the theming of the attraction. And then to top it off, give everyone and I mean everyone a chance to sing with the karaoke party. Honestly, when karaoke is involved, you can’t possibly go wrong. Just doesn’t happen. Two shows, karaoke, more songs: these are the three essential ingredients to providing a better American Idol Experience.

Take this idea Disney, its free.