- So Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant doesn’t appear to have affected his box office cred with moviegoers. His latest directorial effort, Apocalypto, topped the box office charts over the weekend, grossing an estimated $14.2 million. The Holiday, Happy Feet and Casino Royale were in the next three spots, meaning that for the first time in quite a while, none of the four highest-earning movies of a given weekend absolutely blows. Kudos to movie fans for going to see films that have actual quality and watchability to them. The total haul for Mel’s movie wasn’t overwhelming, but it was enough to prove that people aren’t still bent about the intoxicated remarks he made last summer……..well, except for Jews, who I imagine might still be a wee bit upset. But other than that, looks like most people have forgiven Mel or at least forgotten what he said.
- Count me among those hoping the Red Sox fail in their bid to sign Japanese pitching sensation Daisuke Matsuzaka. I’m not a Yankees fan (YANKEES SUCK!) or a fan of any other team that might attempt to sign him if the Sox don’t, mind you. I just hope for their sake that they don’t end up ponying up that $51 million negotiating fee, money paid to Matsuzaka’s Japanese team, then pay an additional $100 million to Daisuke himself. The $100 million is the amount his agent, the loathe-able Scott Boras, is looking for in terms of total contract value. So imagine that they give this guy a six-year, $102 million deal. That’s $17 million in salary per year, plus if you
break the negotiating fee down across the life of the contract, that’s about $7.3 million per. In other words, $24 million-plus per year for a guy who’s never thrown a Major League pitch. Call me nuts, but you can get two top level arms for that amount, $12.15 million annually for each. Besides, I have heard reports that in his career already, especially in high school and right after, he pitched crazy amounts of innings and pitches on far too little rest. He seems like a candidate to flame out big time, and even if he’s a 20-win pitcher for the life of his contract, he’s not worth $24.3 million per, none of the past decade’s Cy Young winners have made that much, nor should Daisuke.
- Thanks to the ass hats at the American Film Institute. I’m trying to figure out of their lists of the 10 best movies and TV shows from 2006 are a joke or if they are really that stupid. Maybe an 8-ball of coke was involved or some LSD……all I know is that any list of movies that includes Borat¸ The Devil Wears Prada and Dreamgirls among its top 10 is irrelevant. Are you serious? A pathetic attempt at cross-cultural homor featuring lame gags and a phony accent, a chick flick about a fashion magazine and….well, I’m not even sure how to describe Dreamgirls, other than: bad. The TV list is a little better, especially since it includes Heroes, the best new show this season. I don’t have HBO, so I can’t say yea or nay on The Wire, but Friday Night Lights and The Office aren't bad choices either. But where are Prison Break, Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls? I know the WB isn't an established network, but to deny shows like Mars just shows a tremendous amount of ignorance on the part of the AFI. The lists were supposedly compiled by show biz insiders and professional critics, but I have to wonder if they all got together and sniffed paint fumes in a poorly-ventilated room before doing the voting.
- Can someone explain to me why people are still writing about and investigating the death of Princess Diana nearly a decade later. She’s dead, people, D-E-A-D. The Kennedy assassination, this ain’t. She wasn’t shot, she died in a car crash. If her driver was drunk, it doesn’t change the outcome. People were far too obsessed with her life (why, I don’t know. I don’t really think she merited the attention given to, say, the Pope, Mother Theresa or people who actually made a major impact on the world and weren't simply members of an outdated monarchy that’s little more than a figurehead). The Brits and anyone else who spend any further time looking into Diana’s death need to realize that there’s a world going on around them right now, one filled with actual problems that matter to people living here and now, not a decade in the past.
- The “Naïve and Ignorant” Award in sports for this week goes to…….all of the University of Idaho fans and players who are surprised/bitter than head football coach Dennis “Vagabond” Ericsson has left UI after one season to take the head coaching job at Arizona State. Ericsson has coached at two stops in the NFL, four others in D-1 football, with ASU being his fifth college stop, following Miami (FL), Oregon State, Washington State and Idaho. I’m sorry, Idaho sycophants, you thought an accomplished coach who has won two national titles would stay in Spud-ville, a bottom-level D-1 program, and eschew a chance to coach at Arizona State, a Pac-10 school with in a conference with an automatic BCS slot every year? A school with a better stadium, better practice facilities, better academics, more money and much better weather than Idaho? How did you not realize that this was going to be anything other than a long layover for Ericsson in between better jobs? Be thankful you landed a coach like him for one season, and lament your own naïveté in believing you could keep him there for any sort of prolonged run.
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