Thumbs Up/Sideways/Down

No "Sideways" today, I'm just going to Billy Joel-like extremes...

Thumbs Up: Nightmare Scenarios
True story: In Autumn 2004, I was deployed to the beautiful country of Iraq, and the day after the Red Sox defeated the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS, I was stuck on duty in my unit’s headquarters. As a deranged Bronx Bomber supporter, I was already deeply shaken over what I considered to be the ultimate nadir: seeing the Sox celebrate on Stadium grounds after the Yankees choked worse than Christopher Moltisanti. And yet it somehow got worse for me, as headquarters received a satellite feed that showed a continuous loop of the final out/celebration for the next 24-hours. So the images were burned permanently into my brain, and with 4 TVs posted--one on each wall--there was no turning away from it; it was a Clockwork Orange-style torture chamber. Despite all that went on during that yearlong deployment, it’s hard to imagine a more perfectly-tailored personal hell than that horrific day.

So I can sympathize with two recent “doomsday” victims: the Suns and Bulls. Who is Phoenix Public Enemy #1? Well, Robert Horry literally made a strong push for it, but I would think Bruce Bowen is still first on the Suns’ Most Hated List. And guess who drilled the tiebreaking 3-pointer with about 30 seconds left in Game 5? Double B. Then, in the decisive 3rd quarter of Game 6, Bruce had 8 points—including 2 dagger 3’s—and a steal on Nash to put the Suns on ice. Doesn’t Alice Cooper own a sports bar in the greater-Phoenix area? Maybe he can bust out one of his old guillotines and stage some Bowen beheadings.

Similarly, how could it have gone any worse for the Bulls? I suppose they could have been swept outright, or maybe Kirk Hinrich could have lost his eligibility by revealing he’s an android (have you seen his picture on ESPN.com? Dude looks like the Silver Surfer with a wig). But still, Chicago paid top dollar for the Pistons’ Ben Wallace—in what was perceived as a major coup—only to fall to Detroit in the playoffs in six flaccid games. Worse, Wallace was positively brutal in the last game: 6 points and 7 boards, plus he only played 29 minutes with a gimpy back. And this was supposed to be his best season, too; from now on he’ll be on the decline AND costing $15 mil per year. Have a nice summer, Chicago fans…

Thumbs Down: Miami Vice
I saw this monstrosity over the weekend, and it was just an abominable mess, a sprawling disaster. Where to begin…I mean, if there was a running theme to this movie, it was “incoherence.” Right from the start, you couldn’t read any of the credits, because they were smaller than the last line of an eye exam chart. Next, just about every last bit of dialogue was mumbled or snarled gibberish, and those were just Colin Farrell’s and Jaime Foxx’s parts; the rest of the cast’s garbling was even worse. When the most coherent character in the movie is a thick-accented Korean-Cuban, your cast has got enunciation problems. Not that it mattered much, because I think there was more motor revving (boats, cars, planes) than actual speaking in this movie. The plot had something to do with drugs and/or a double agent, although I don’t seem to recall either ever being located—perhaps they were stashed in Farrell’s atrocious Scott Stapp hairdo. And Farrell and Foxx had less chemistry together than Neo and Trinity. At one point they did a “fist-bump” (before revving up an engine), and that was about it; Turner and Hooch had more charisma than these two. And just once I’d like to see a cop movie without the FBI and the local police arguing over “whose jurisdiction” it is. Why is this always a problem? If it was me, and someone else wanted to do the extra work, I’d be like, “Hell, knock yourself out…”