"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do, I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby

:: Friday, November 26, 2004 ::

Movie Review: "The Phantom of the Opera"

I got a chance the other night to see a preview screening of this film, which is opening in the proverbial "select cities" on December 22 and nationwide on January 21, 2005, and here's how strict things have gotten about piracy.

Last year the motion picture academy wasn't going to send out its traditional "screener" videos, for fear they'd wind up pirated or on the Internet, but after an outcry from Academy members, they did so. Sure enough, an actor named Carmine Caridi, who had some bit parts in the "Godfather" movies, gave his screener copies of "Big Fish", "Something's Gotta Give", "Mystic River", and "The Last Samurai", to a Chicago-area man named Russell Sprague, who made tons of illegal copies and was eventually sentenced to a prison term for piracy. Caridi, for his part, was fined $300,000 in civil penalties, the judgment there coming down only a few days ago.

So, screenings such as the ones I attend are now also attended by a security guard who has a wand, pats you down and informed me I couldn't have my camera phone there and had to "go back to the car".

Well, that was too far and luckily, there was someone there in charge who offered to keep the camera phones during the screening, which satisfied Mr. Security Guard. The phone couldn't have done anything other than take muddy-looking photos and I would never do such a thing anyway, but from now on I leave the camera phone in the car.

As far as the movie is concerned, you need remember only one name:

Emmy Rossum.

Rossum plays Christine, the young heroine of the story, which is translated here on the screen faithfully from the stage play by director Joel Schumacher, who has directed such disparate films as "Veronica Guerin" and "Phone Booth", along with a couple of the Batman films.

All the actors and actresses in this film did their own singing (with the notable exception of an almost-unrecognizable Minnie Driver, who played Carlotta).

Rossum is terrific, in the role which grows from an innocent young girl to a worldly woman... and I seemed to remember how young she was, from her roles in "The Day After Tomorrow", and her brief appearance in "Mystic River", playing Katie, the girl who gets murdered (I figure most of you have seen "Mystic River" by this point so I'm not giving you a spoiler) -- and looking it up, I was right -- she is only eighteen years old.

Rossum is already a major talent and she could get an Oscar nomination for this role, and though the Academy doesn't usually nominate musicals for Best Picture, they have been more willing to do so in recent years, particularly with the victorious sweep of "Chicago" a couple of years ago, and so "POTA" might indeed get such a nomination.

Schumacher's direction is filled with color in a "Moulin Rouge"ish sort of way, but also with darkness when necessary, as the story itself is dark, and it's juxtaposed with scenes shot in black and white, a sub-story set years in the future, after the days when the Phantom haunted the Paris Opera House. Excellent performances were also given by Scottish actor Gerard Butler as the Phantom, and Patrick Wilson as Raoul.

Don't miss this movie, it's going to be one of the highlights of the holiday season.

AYRating: ****

:: posted by Al at 4:20 PM [+] ::
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Some Meat With Your Turkey

From the other side, this time the New York Daily News weighs in with some idle speculation about the Sosa-to-the-Mets deal.

In the article, the writer goes over all the stuff we already know, then says that the teams face a "large financial gap", which we learn later amounts to about $4.5 million.

This is hardly insurmountable money in these times, and since we already know that Jim Hendry pretty much has a mandate to move Sosa no matter what, I'd say that this could be posturing from the Mets front office.

I also note that the same article says that the Mets could be pursuing Moises Alou and Magglio Ordonez. The first is pie-in-the-sky; Alou's probably asking way too much for the Mets' liking, and Ordonez may be doing the same, despite his injury-filled year.

The one thing we know about Jim Hendry is that he manages to make deals that surprise us, and that he was the engineer behind the Nomar trade, at one point even telling the other clubs who they were going to get in the swap.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Sammy go somewhere other than the two rumored teams, the Mets or Dodgers, if Hendry gets creative.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

:: posted by Al at 11:11 AM [+] ::
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A Step In The Right Direction

NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended Ron Artest for the rest of the 2004-2005 season for his actions in the ugly Friday night brawl in Detroit.

The other players involved got lesser suspensions.

The head of the NBA players' association immediately appealed the suspensions, but since the appeal hearings are headed by Stern, it's unlikely that any of them will be reduced.

Just once I'd like to hear a player apologist step up and say, "You know, you're right. My guys did wrong, and we're going to take the punishment like men, and not appeal."

Too much to ask in this case, I suppose.

Here are some excerpts from columns from national sports columnists on the issue, and I quote from the one from the Detroit Free Press' Mitch Albom in particular:

Fact is, respect is what started this in the first place. Oh, not real respect. Real respect has traces of kindness. Real respect is deferential, like a young apprentice and his patient mentor. Real respect knows, at its core, humility. I'm talking about the bastardized "respect" in today's sports world -- where the word means nobody does anything to you that you don't like, want, accept or appreciate."

This is the bottom line.

I don't excuse the fan behavior here, either. Patrons who were overserved beer were probably the instigators, and the NBA, along with other pro sports leagues, have to stop bowing to the almighty dollar and start monitoring how much fans are drinking, which in too many cases is way too much.

As I have written here before, I see this sort of thing all the time at Wrigley Field, and the only reason such a brawl happened first in the NBA is the fact that fans in NBA arenas are closer to the action than in any other sport.

We saw one such instance in baseball last September 13 when Texas reliever Frank Francisco hurled a chair into the stands next to the bullpen in Oakland, at a fan who had been throwing insults, and who admitted later that she and her husband specifically bought season tickets in that location for that precise purpose. It's not farfetched that it could get worse, and that serious injury or death could happen if this isn't stopped.

Mitch Albom (and if you haven't read his "Tuesdays With Morrie", you ought to) is right. There is a lack of civility in our society, and it's got to change.

The fans were wrong to start it, and those involved, if they can be identified, ought to be arrested and face trial. But the players were even wronger to not just walk away.

Yesterday I wrote that Artest ought to be banned for life, and I hope that David Stern will at least consider this before reinstating him. Harsh lessons must be taught so this never again happens in the NBA, or in any other sport.

:: posted by Al at 2:06 PM [+] ::
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Rusch To Judgment

In Cub news, the ballclub signed Glendon Rusch to a two-year deal yesterday, with Rusch being able to opt out after 2005, presumably, as the link above indicates, if he is not a rotation starter by then and wants to try his hand at that elsewhere.

This is a good move -- as I have said, Rusch was a savior of the pitching staff many times in 2004, and I'd like to see him fulfill the same role in 2005, spot starter and long reliever, something few teams have now. Terry Mulholland did this job for the Cubs and others for several years, and I think Rusch, whose style and handedness is similar to Mulholland's, could do the same thing. A good signing, and not too expensive.

With Thanksgiving coming and the deadline for arbitration offers not till December 7, it's not likely there will be much Cub news this week, which gives me a chance to pontificate about the brawl in suburban Detroit on Friday at the end of the Pistons/Pacers game.

People have joked "we were at an NBA game and an NHL game broke out", but this is a far, far more serious matter than the almost-staged hockey brawls these days -- oh, but wait a minute, there aren't any of those going on right now because the NHL is still locking its players out, now in the 66th day, with no end in sight, and the possibility that the entire season will be wiped out.

Why is this important in the context of Friday's brawl? Because the NBA is considering such a lockout, and they already had one that wiped out half of the 1998-99 season, and next time they're probably going down the NHL road, and having a brawl like this isn't going to help the league's image.

Let's face it. There are no non-culpable parties here. Ben Wallace was an idiot for starting an on-floor fight with less than a minute left in a blowout game. He was even stupider for starting it with Ron Artest, who has proven in his NBA career that he's not playing with even HALF a deck (c'mon -- you're under contract with a professional sports team and you ask publicly to be given two weeks off to promote a rap CD?).

Artest was then "lying on the scorer's table" during the fracas -- and who does that in a sane world -- when beer landed on him from the stands, which prompted him and other players to go after fans.

The fans were wrong to throw beer and food and whatever else they threw. This puts culpability on ownership, which sees beer sales as a huge profit center. I have seen this sort of drunkenness all too often at Wrigley Field, with the inevitable fights, and one ugly brawl in 2000 that started over, of all stupid things, a fan grabbing the cap of the Dodgers' Chad Kreuter.

But I think the players have an obligation, when this stuff is done, to simply walk away. The players could have all gone to center court in Detroit, far away from the fans, and security could have cleared the few offenders out. By running into the stands, they made it worse, and got even more people involved. Local authorities have said they may file criminal charges, and I hope they do, and if players are charged and convicted, let them not allow celebrity status to get them out of actually serving prison time.

There has been at least one suggestion by a national NBA writer that an appropriate punishment for Pistons management might be to make them play their next home game against Indiana next March in front of an empty house, forcing them to forego several million dollars in revenue, and I'd agree with this. It's not only the ticket revenue, but as noted, the beer sales -- and that's another thing that must be done, the curtailing of beer sales drastically, perhaps restricting patrons to one per trip, eliminating walking vendors (yes, I know this costs people jobs who really need them, but these people could be reassigned elsewhere), and cutting off beer sales much earlier in all games.

NBA commissioner David Stern has already begun to do the right thing by handing down "indefinite suspensions" to the players involved, and I believe that Stern ought to make these mandatory suspensions for the entire season. Further, for Ron Artest, I think the NBA ought to throw him out forever. Let us also hope that no agents or lawyers or players' union reps fight any such suspensions or expulsions.

Someday, sometime, a pro sports league has to stand up against the thuggery and arrogance that today's professional athletes are showing, or all the sports that we love to watch will collapse. Right now is the time to send that message.

:: posted by Al at 12:05 PM [+] ::
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