Monster's University: 6/10

Pixar, where has your courage gone?

In this decade alone, we have been treated to two sequels, a prequel, a princess story (as if Disney doesn’t have enough of those), with another sequel on the way. Pixar’s Dreamworks mannerisms has been kind of unnerving, especially when we have seen the ballsy efforts like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and especially (especially) Wall-E. The original stories are occurring less frequent, and while it’s leading to guaranteed money for the company and Disney the diehard Disney fans and film fanatics have been less than impressed.

And now we have Monster’s University. Surely the charm is there, the animation is the usual Pixar quality, and the production value remains the best in the animation business. But there was a constant sense of pointlessness to this prequel throughout the whole thing, and it lacks the heart and humor of the original Monster’s Inc. The originality of the 2001 gem is also missing, as University dwells into familiar clichéd territory in the second half.

This movie works well with the tykes and the true-blue Mike and Sully fans, but with the rest of us who really didn’t care much to see how they met----well, there’s not much here. It is simply about Mike and Sully’s rivalry during the start of their university career and how they had to learn to accept each other if they ever wanted a chance to remain in the school.

In the grand scheme of the G-rated filmmaking culture, Monster’s University excels and surpasses that of the normal fare. But this is Pixar we are talking about, a company that bleeds pure quality and has created some of the greatest animated films in history. They have raised the bar too high to create something so….normal. It is odd from a Pixar movie to see failed jokes and a sense of predictability.

It’s not as funny, not as heartfelt, not as surprising, not as deep, and not as engaging as Pixar’s best, and not even Dreamworks’ best for that matter. It is simply light entertainment that will calmly entertain and not overwhelm---while at the same time not linger in your memory like Pixar’s best like Toy Story, Nemo, Ratatouille and Up.


Good but not great—and in Pixar standards that should never be good enough.

The *Legacy of LeBron James

So LeBron James and the Miami Heat are once again champions after an instant classic series against the old-but-powerful San Antonio Spurs. LeBron James picked up the slack of others and delivered a fine performance to say the least to get his second Finals MVP award. Miami is currently buzzing about the potential dynasty that is has on its hands as they have three straight Finals appearances and now two straight wins. Truthfully, the team is just a few tweaks from continuing to become a threat in the East.

Now, the comparisons to Michael Jordan have continued to build. After all, at age 28 LeBron has one more trophy than MJ at 28. After all, LeBron now has 4 MVPs to MJ’s 5 MVPs. And of course, now LeBron has only room to grow and can pretty much certify himself as the best player in the NBA. The sports world feels like these comparisons are now valid, as his “legacy” is growing at a torrid pace. All this is true: he is the best player in the NBA, he is going on Jordan’s similar rate of success, and he is indeed conquering the game.

But, I will forever hand his legacy an asterisk. It will forever be stained with an asterisk in my eyes. And you can call me a hater, you can call me biased, and you can say whatever you want about my opinion towards the man, but my stance will stay the same. There are a variety of reasons why this * will be attached to his legacy when he retires. And here are the *s




*The Disney Hype Machine
________________________

ESPN loves LeBron James. They need LeBron James. Ever since Jordan left the game and the NBA handed the reins of the NBA Finals to ABC the ratings had been in the crapper. David Stern knows this, the NBA knows this, and Disney knows this. The NBA on NBC remains one of the greatest pieces of sports history simply because of the flurry of epic moments we got to see in the network and hands-down some of the best commentators and analysts to ever grace our televisions. ESPN had none of this when it first got the basketball rights and needed a boost. LeBron was that boost.


LeBron James was part of the group of young superstars that elevated the game into new heights not seen since the 90s. While there are many players that contributed to the small rebirth of the league, LeBron was the frontrunner. So of course Disney, like everything else, markets this opportunity to death. This is why they compare him to Jordan and not to Kobe Bryant (who has 5 rings) or Magic Johnson (that does the LeBron style of play far more than Jordan ever did). Every accomplishment he makes---we must compare him to Jordan. Every Finals appearance or win---have to throw in the Jordan. And all the commentators get in on the action by trying to hammer these comparisons, much like when they shove the Celtics-Lakers rivalry in our faces.


The beauty of this hype machine is the fact that LeBron must surpass a couple other players before Jordan. Tim Duncan is a quiet superstar with 4 rings. Shaq himself has 4 rings, and he was a major contributor to all of them. Magic Johnson has 5 rings, and he is more like LeBron than anyone else in history. Lastly, Kobe Bryant himself has 5 rings. Why aim to the mountain when you have to go through the woods first? Because Jordan is synonymous with basketball and Disney clearly attempts to skip past these facts. 


The * happens because the legacy is heavily manufactured by the madmen at Disney, forcing the issue every single time, forcing us to believe that we might see the best player in the new millennium, when he still hasn’t quite matched the greatness (And it hurts to say this, but the man is amazing) of Kobe Bryant. Newsflash, one can even argue that Durant had more of an MVP season because he put up similar numbers and had far less help. But Durant plays in Oklahoma City. LeBron is in Miami now. Funny how his exposure increased dramatically after joining arguably the sexiest city in the country.

P.S. Dwayne Wade has more rings than LeBron James. Just saying.




*The High School Factor
____________________________

Doesn’t anyone ponder just how many more rings Michael Jordan would have if he left college earlier and became pro at a younger age? Three years of pro ball was spared at the expense of college. Now while I am not criticizing this move since high school-to-pro was unfathomable back in the 80s, its fun to imagine what would happen if Jordan had 8 years of experience heading into his peak in the 90s as opposed to just 6. Would he have won more championships? Would there have been a four or five-peat in his crystal ball? Who knows, but the fact remains that LeBron James was striahgt out of high school and was able to accumulate far far more experience in his younger days and it definitely helped morph him into the superstar he is today. Isn’t it borderline-ironic that the last two players that have been considered the best in the sport came straight out of high school?

P.S. Derrick Rose, the other MVP in recent years----was in college for a little past ONE season. Extra NBA experience is always an advantage no matter which way you look at it.


This * is a little unfair to LeBron because he didn’t affect these circumstances as much as the game evolved into a sport in which if you are good enough at 18, you were given a chance to go right in. But either way, if he does get 6 rings, those 4 extra years of experience with a great coach (Mike Brown) definitely added a layer of game to his arsenal.





*The Lack of Competition
_______________________

Let’s be absolutely honest here, LeBron’s legacy would never be this big if his conference had not been the utter disaster it has been in recent times. Let’s be honest here too: the other reason why no high school player ever had a chance at the NBA during the 80s was because of the mere existence of the Bad Boys Pistons. In the late 80s, Michael Jordan got beat up so badly by this team he had to gain 20 pounds of muscle just to have a chance at the Finals. Three straight years Jordan lost to the Pistons. There is no counterpart to the Miami Heat, and I am not counting the Bulls because Derrick Rose is nowhere near as intense as we make him out to be.


As a matter of fact, what does the East have? The Knicks will never advance with Carmelo at the helm, the Bulls will never advance if Derrick continues his Mr. Softy ways, and the Celtics are getting old and might even lose their great coach. The only true counter to the Heat was the Pacers, which would have never survived the 90s and even the early 2000s.


I am taking it a step further; the current Heat team would have been slaughtered by the 90s East. The mid-90s Magic would have destroyed them, the 90s Bulls would have annihilated them. And let’s not forget the 90s Heat, 90s Pacers, 90s Knicks, and even the 90s Hornets. What did they go through on the way to the Spurs? A useless Bucks team, a Rose-less Bulls team, a Danny Granger-less Pacers squad. What did they go through last year on the way to the Thunder? Hapless Knicks, inexperienced Pacers, and an old Celtics team that still pushed them to 7. This Heat squad doesn’t (shouldn’t) have much to worry about until they take on a West team, it is that simple.


To me, the FIRST series in which the Heat proved themselves truly to be a worthy team and not just a very fortunate one was this win against Spurs, which was well-fought to the very end. But as of now I don’t see the rough road blocks to the Finals unlike what Larry Bird (Pistons), Michael Jordan (Pistons, Knicks, Pacers), Shaq and Kobe (Kings, Suns, Spurs), and even Tim Duncan (Lakers, Suns) faced on their way through the playoffs. The closest to a rival LeBron has had was the Wizards—and that ship sailed a long time ago. And like I said, it can get nitpicky in this article, but the Heat had no excuse taking so long to get to the Finals with the talent that they have.

If the Heat was in the Western Conference, I am not sure if they could get past the tough teams on the way to the end. There is the Spurs (of course) but then there’s the Grizzlies, Thunder (full team)----and there would even be a struggle with upstarts like the Clippers and the Rockets. The NBA is not as overall difficult as it used to be, as for every good team there are two bad ones.


And on the subject of difficulty, just how would this Heat squad manage in the 90s? Not good, not good at all. The Miami Heat is like the guy that gets all the lucky breaks with the ladies--you hate him, envy him, but want to be him at the same time. The Heat for the past two years have gotten a nice paved road to the Finals--whether they took advantage of it or not.

I am a 90s NBA junkie, and it really hurts to see a subpar team like this win the entire thing, while much superior teams of struggling-to-win franchises fall because of bad timing. One of the greatest teams I have ever seen, the 1996 Seattle Supersonics, had the extremely bad luck of running into the Greatest Team Ever in the Chicago Bulls---who still needed 6 games to defeat them. The 1996 Magic was also a devastating force, once upon a time when Penny Hardaway was the best point guard in the business and Shaq was just Beast Mode.


How about the 1997 and 1998 Jazz teams? And what about the Knicks and Pacers in the 1990s? Each of these teams in a playoff would hand LeBron and company losses across the board. LeBron’s 2 rings were far easier to come by than Kobe’s first two rings and Jordan’s first two. Remember….Jordan’s first opponent in the NBA Finals was freakin’ Magic Johnson. Even the 90s Heat would give the on-off-on-off 2013 Heat a good run. It might be the 90s bias screaming, but this Heat squad given the mild performance throughout the playoffs have proven one thing----nothing.









*The Joining of Superstars
____________________________


This is the biggest issue with LeBron’s legacy by far. The difference between all the greats and LeBron is that most of the true greats remained with their franchise, and made players around them better. Scottie Pippen would not have been the same if it had not been for Jordan. The entire Celtics and the Lakers squad would have been extremely different if it had not been for the heavy influence of Bird and Johnson (and technically the rivalry). And even Shaquille O’Neal would have never gotten a ring if it weren’t for the help of Kobe Bryant----even if he will never admit it.


So what kills me is how people can compare James to anybody when he decided to pursue the help of other sure-fire Hall of Famers to accomplish his goals. Chris Bosh gave the Raptors the ounces of hope it had, Dwayne Wade was already an established champ that remains one of the most accomplished and talented guards in the history of the NBA. And then there’s Ray Allen, one of the best shooters in history.


Newsflash: of course your ****ing scoring, rebounding and percentage numbers are going to be incredible if you have all this great surrounding help. I am not diminishing the talents of LeBron James, but the fact remains you will look good and play good if your partners are going in the same Hall class as you. This is a given. The Dream Team of 1992 is the greatest team ever made because it consisted of so many Hall of Famers that the team had millions of ways to beat you. Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley could have had a pure total hangover from the night before, and the rest of the team still would have won by 77 against anybody.


The Heat is a mild case of this: if LeBron has a bad game, Wade can step up. Or Bosh. Or Ray Allen. Or even the underrated talents of Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller (One of the more underrated shooters in the past decade), even Rashard Lewis---------so kidding about that last one. Want to know why your shooting percentage is so high? Because you have plenty of other fully established shooters to choose from. By removing some of the attention off you, it allows you to breathe easier. This is what made Kobe Bryant such a nuisance in the mid-2000s---you knew he was going to have the ball at all times, yet somehow he manages to drive his way past you.


The point is, if you have a bad game, there are other options. Hall of Fame options. When LeBron James joined the Heat with Wade and company, it angered us not because of the joining, but because we had a chance to see the next M.J. and instead he decides to take a much easier route to get to the championship. You think he didn’t plan this? He studies film, he does his research. Of course LeBron James secretly knows how weak the Eastern Conference is. Of course he secretly knows that the best way through the title was not building a legacy but instead combining chapters with another person who had seen it and been through it all.


This is where LeBron’s legacy ends—once he left the Cavs and became a Heat. When he was with the Cavs and was four wins from giving Cleveland its first championship, it was then fair to assume that he was on the building blocks to creating a new-generation Jordan career. But when he joined that Heat….it was like giving up and instead focusing on his credentials. Never mind that Cleveland has been absolutely starving for a championship for generations, he went to Miami----a city with already a good history with sports, and decides to shift gears. Did Jordan give up after three straight years of losing to the same freakin’ team? No. Because true legends don’t quit. They don’t.


Reggie Miller never left the Pacers.


John Stockton never left the Jazz.


Patrick Ewing never left the Knicks…..they had to trade him. And this man was hobbled during the latter years with New York.


You can win 3, 4, 5, 6 titles with the Heat but one fact remains: You needed Dwayne Wade. You needed Chris Bosh. You needed a team with more money and more willingness to spend it. You couldn’t do the thing yourself, you didn’t try to develop a team and morph them into a contending champion.

Pointless Trivia: The 1991 Bulls entered the Finals with NO FINALS EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER. Michael Jordan didn’t round up a bunch of veterans after seven seasons of disappointment, he went with a team that had been (mostly) by his side and with plenty of hard work and perseverance, became the franchise of the 90s.





****Bottom Line: I applaud LeBron James and company for winning the championship, I honestly do. They did prove themselves and persevered when the time came. That being said, you can’t ever, ever, ever, ever compare his career to that of Jordan. When Jordan was getting destroyed in the playoffs, he got stronger and played harder. When the going got tough for LeBron and other teams were catching on to the Cavs’ shtick, he left and piggybacked the career of another player from the same class.

LeBron James and the Heat is not a Legacy, it’s a Dream Team. There is a total difference. And the sooner we see this, the sooner we can drop the stupid notion that he will ever be in the same breath as Jordan. He needs to surpass Magic, surpass Bird, and surpass Bryant before even thinking about heading down the success and quality path of Michael Jordan. I could spend 45 minutes discussing why Jordan was so good that its almost underrated in this day and age when kids don’t truly understand what it was like watching him work his magic. LeBron is a phenomenal player, but has phenomenal help—and this phenomenal help will continue as other aging starts and upstarts will want to piggyback on all the fame and fortune associated with playing in Miami.

Congrats. LeBron James, you are the best player in the world playing for the best team in the world.


But you will never be Jordan.


Ever. 

Before Midnight: 10/10

The ultimate goal of the storyteller is to leave the listener or listeners thirsty for more.

Before Midnight accomplishes just this, and for the third time in the indie darling series.

This dramatically beautiful film follows the lives of two characters that avid moviegoers have come to know about and love for the past two decades. Taking place nine years after the spectacular Before Sunset, Before Midnight is exactly what it looks like when a magical love story's happily ever after begins to show its age. It doesn't have the majesty or the warmth of the previous two movies, as it's instead infused with brutal realism and a more conflicting blend of optimism and pessimism.

Written by the same trio of Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and the great director Richard Linklater, this third installment continues using the same formula of excellent dialogue and whimsical cinematography combined with flawless acting. Ethan Hawke's best performances have come from this series, as he combines confidence with fragile hidden vulnerability in a way that delivers nothing but sympathy from the audience. And then there's Julie Delpy, whose subtle angst is mixed with an incredible dosage of charm and sexuality that you just won't find in most actresses modern day. They both deserve Oscar nominations, they honestly do.

Breathing life into the performances that transforms these characters into seemingly living and breathing people is the breathtaking writing, which never feels forced, never feels sugar-coated, and never feels like it was written first but instead spoken first and then translated into a script. And to top it off we have an accomplished director that has spent nearly two decades making this trilogy giving the movie all the necessary pacing, minimal movement, and breathing room to keep us engaged.

In all honesty, I usually can't do films that just focus on dialogue and nothing more. But with the right characters, the right story, and the ability to keep you engaged, keep you guessing, keeps you begging for more, even a simple movie about two people in love just talking can become the most beautiful of films. And Linklater has done it three times with the same two characters—and this will become one of the most underrated accomplishments in the history of motion pictures, I can guarantee it.

Before Midnight will make you laugh, will make you cry, will make you think, will make you frustrated, and will leave you discussing everything that you had just witnessed in the previous 108 minutes. And this is why this movie will stand tall as one of the best in this entire year.

The Pointless Federer/Nadal Debate

So Rafael Nadal has won yet another French Open title, his 8th of his career. This is indeed an incredible accomplishment and pretty much nearly declares him as the best clay tennis player in the history of the sport. Bjorn Bork may want to argue and debate this, but Nadal’s dominance on clay cannot be ignored.

However, what should be ignored is this talk about Nadal potentially being the greatest tennis player of all-time.






This talk has to stop. Even if Nadal can catch the 17 majors that Roger Federer has, there is no way I can ever declare Nadal as the better of the two. Although Nadal can officially be considered one of the 10 greatest tennis players in the Open era, there is simply too much Nadal has to accomplish on top of those Grand Slam titles in order to even have the opportunity to outshine Federer when both careers are said and done. Even if Nadal continues to dominate those French Opens, there is so much more he has to do.

Like I said, Rafael Nadal is one of the greatest players I have ever seen. But:

Nadal has 65 total championship wins between Singles and Doubles play. Federer has 84.

Nadal has been in a Finals match 92 times.  Federer has 114 Finals appearances. 

Nadal won 81 consecutive matches on clay at one point. Federer at one point had 65 consecutive grass wins while also holding a 56 consecutive hard court victory streak.

Nadal has never won 24 consecutive tournaments. Guess who has.

Nadal has never been #1 for 237 consecutive weeks. Guess who has.

Nadal has never been in 33 consecutive Grand Slam semifinals. Guess who has.

There has been only one male tennis player with over 300 weeks in the #1 slot. Guess who it is.

There have been only two players with 40 Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances. Jimmy Conners is one. Guess the other.




And if we are really using the head-to-head argument as to why Nadal is the best, then let’s go in this direction:

Nadal has a losing record against Alex Correctja and Dominik Hrbaty, being a combined 1-5 against them. Does that make those two players better?

Michael Jordan has a losing record against Isiah Thomas in the playoffs. Does that make Thomas the better player?



Then let’s go with the Grand Slam numbers argument. It wasn’t as big a deal in the 70s and 80s, as we saw the better players like Bork and Conners skip certain major tournaments altogether, diminishing the amount of majors they had in their arsenal. But even if Nadal were to catch Federer, the number of these titles is not enough of a representation to truly display dominance. After all, Bill Russell, Robert Horry, and some guy named K.C. Jones have more titles than Michael Jordan. Does that make them better? Yogi Berra has more rings than Johnny Bench. Does that make him the better catcher? Tommy Henrich has 7 more titles than Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro----I really doubt you can declare Henrich to be better.

Roger Federer has been around two different eras that feature some of the greatest tennis players in history. Federer wasn’t eaten alive by the Sampras-Agassi era, and is currently thriving quite well in an era that features heavy-hitters that will see themselves in the Hall of Fame including Nadal, Djokovik, and even with some improvement Andy Murray. During Federer’s pure domination days he didn’t just win the majors, he thrived in the smaller tournaments left and right. His biggest weakness during the early 2000s was himself, as he played almost literally every darn tournament. His record is a massive, whopping 896-204. His biggest rival was only 11 years old when he had turned pro.

Nothing against the man, Rafael Nadal has set up a good case as to becoming the greatest clay court player. But the greatest of all-time? It has to be Roger Federer. There is no other answer.

What the TEA 2012 Attendance Report Tells Us

For those of us that don't know, the TEA is in charge of coming up with the attendance figures of the theme parks and museums around the world. In a moment of awesomeness, they even make it available for free if you can find it in their website. Well, I just downloaded the report and for your reading please, am going to point out some of the more interesting (and also expected) revelations of how many people visited what parks, and why we honestly should never ever worry about Disney ever again. And yes, I did this once. Here are some of the charts:

We can start with the top 15, right? Once again, for at least the 4th year in a row Disney has the 8 busiest theme parks in the world. Once again Magic Kingdom is on top of the line. Once again the Japanese Disney parks have remained much bigger success stories than the French and Chinese counterparts. And once again, there two Universal parks threatening the lower-attended Disney parks like Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. While Hollywood has gone up 2.2%, we see Universal of Japan going up a dangerous 14% and Islands of Adventure riding the Potter train with a 4% increase. Then hot on the heels is the new awakening of the California Adventure--finally seeing Disney-like numbers and inches away from the Top 10. Who knows how much bigger the increase will be with the New Fantasyland and New Test Track still having the fresh smell. Disney next year might have 9 of the top 10 slots. This is pure unfairness.

We see less Disney on this side but do see some hometown favorites like Sea World of Florida (Whose numbers went down badly after the sad death of the trainer) and Busch Gardens, both going up in attendance thanks to the major increase in Florida economy. De Efteling, one of the classic classic theme parks, is making a nice comeback into the Top 20. Here's to hoping Sea World can reach its higher numbers of back in the day. Does anyone outside of Europe even know the existence of the Walt Disney Studios Park?

So Disney also has the top water park in the world, does that surprise you? But, but, how long can this reign continue with this Chinese water park exploding in attendance and inches away from overtaking the #1 spot. Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach hasn't delivered anything new or major in ages, so it could just be a case of lack of appeal to the locals. Maybe something new is in the future? It is also good to be the Schlitterbahn cross over a million visitors this year and go up heavily in attendance.


And finally, random random trivia:

Fighting the Flop Epidemic

Alright, this needs to stop.


All the flopping needs to go away right now.


Now. Now. Now.


Please.

These little itty bitty fines for flops is not going to be enough to make the problem go away. These players are damaging the NBA with their constant attempts to fool the hard-working referees--which honestly have it the toughest amongst the four professional sports. These players are spending more time trying to improve their acting as opposed to trying to improve their game.

I am fully aware that competitive players will try to do little sly tricks here and there to get the upper hand. But this technique stripped straight from soccer demeans the sport and lessens the quality by nine degrees. The game slows down, we question every call, we question every fall, and now pretty much have to observe every play with a bit of skepticism.

LeBron James may not be the worst offender, but when even the best player in the league is doing it, we have to do something and take notice. He is about 20 pounds heavier than Charles Barkley in the 90s and yet falls on the ground about a 100 times than Barkley ever did, and scatters across the ground like pebbles on a body of water.

The little fines are not enough, its time to warrant suspensions and fines of at least $50,000 to get the dice rolling. It might be considered a bit much in order to eradicate acting, but it will send the proper message to the players. $5,000 is chump change, and a small sacrifice for the apparent greater good of getting calls your way and cheating your way to a victory.

Increase the punishments. End the madness.




End the flopping.