Chasing Jazz: Syphilis, Capone and World War Two

In America, jazz music is probably more popular in theory than any measurement of actual fan-dom; people say they like it, but it doesn’t often come up in their daily iPod shuffle. Perhaps jazz’s borderline eccentricity keeps any jazz musician or band from becoming wholly popular—and thus worthy of criticism, spite and condemnation. Still, jazz is probably the most American genre of music; not just in terms of its creation but how it directly influenced 20th century America.

It should shock no one that jazz—like country, rap and classical music—has racially specific origins. Basically, by 1890 the first generation of Africa-Americans who had never known slavery were trying to find work but still barred from anything besides the cheapest employment. And just like nowadays, society forced unwanted, uneducated and untalented individuals into the entertainment industry; unlike nowadays, these 1890s entertainers were not paid by the truckloads but rather next to zilch. In response, many black entertainers in the Deep South picked up old European instruments and attempted to mimic the songs, rhythm and music of an ancestral Africa. Seeking low-level venues, most of the musicians ended up at one point or another in the lowest of venues: the red-light district of New Orleans.

And in their early days, this band even opened for the Rolling Stones!

The New Orleans neighborhood of cheapest brothels and bars was known as “Storyville”—for spending a night there inevitably led to quite the story. And to live there was to create a masterpiece…or die from an exhausted liver. Over the next few years, the original noise took on varied forms and attracted more classically trained musicians. “Rag time” music became “swing music” and eventually “jazz”—a word with such perplexing etymology that it was literally awarded “Word of the Twenty Century.” If one follows historical gossip, the origins are unspeakable and somewhat related to prostitution. Let your own mind try to connect the filthy, filthy dots; but I, for one, take pride that slang was as subtly gross a century ago as it is now. Perhaps I’ll be able to use “jazz” in its originally vulgar sense before the end of this post. Unrelated: everyone should check out www.ski-ski-ski.com.

Anyhow, Storyville and its collective, nameless clientele were all happy, firm and good until around 1917, when America realized it was going to need to enter The Great War. That was the original World War; and like a lot of originals, it had a smaller budget, less known cast and was really created by the British. America, though, acknowledged it needed as many sailors as possible, and functional ports to the Atlantic Ocean. This meant cracking down on prostitution--which had always been illegal in New Orleans but just never enforced. New Orleans had allowed rampant prostitution for decades because most of the ‘johns’ were sailors passing by and it was awfully convenient for the local economy to have the out-of-towners drain a two-week paycheck in eight minutes. Anyhow, Uncle Sam nixes everyone’s fun and brothels and bars go belly up faster than in the aftermath of an oil spill. With this development, many jazz musicians teamed up into combos and went upriver, so to speak. And literally. They went to Chicago.

On a related reaction to WWI, Prohibition took effect and speakeasies boomed in the biggest city that combined port-convenience (Lake Michigan/Mississippi River) and brewery-proximity (thanks to the East Coast elitists kicking German immigrants to the Midwest). Anyhow, Germans were known for their beer and so drinking a beer was the equivalent of getting shot by the Kaiser or, worse, at least funding him. The same limited and pointless patriotism in America led to sauerkraut being renamed "freedom cabbage."

The Chicago speakeasies, desperate to find excellence among the thousands of competitors, fought for the best new entertainment. The bars, disregarding segregation expectations, helped people of all races fight off that harsh and vile grip of sobriety and became known as “black-and-white” or “tan” joints. All the bacchanalian fun had a price, though.

And that price was dealing with the very out-spoken and public figure of Al “The Original Scarface” Capone. In 1913, the U.S passed the 16th Amendment—which technically allowed for Congress to pass an income tax, but more subtly cleared the way for Prohibition (as the country would no longer need to tax alcohol). Oddly, the repeal of Prohibition did not repeal the Income Tax, but that’s straying a bit from the point. Capone, unlike other criminals, failed to report his ill-gotten gains and got himself jailed for tax evasion. The same crime that would later give Timothy Geithner the position of Secretary of the Treasury gave Al Capone eleven years in the big house. Indeed, cupidity is the downfall of some.

So Capone’s network of organized crime collapses and Chicago falls into a quarry of regrettable lawfulness—or at least as much as Chicago would ever see. This means opportunity needed a new direction; and probably would have swung even closer to Canada, as so much alcohol was coming from over the border. However, national prohibition was repealed in 1933 and so Vice and her sister Fun started to move back down to New Orleans. However, they stopped about halfway there and realized that Prohibition had helped along the popularity of the automobile and drastically increased Americans’ mobility. This meant, for a time at least, the most logical place to throw the never-ending party was in the middle of the country. And so jazz thrived in Kansas City.

As expected, Kansas City was as desperate as any city in the Great Depression to export a reputation and import raw capital. A local man named Tom Pendergast became unofficial ringleader of bawdy entertainment. He put some guy named Harry Truman in the Senate and then followed Capone in spirit by getting himself arrested for juggling baby seals. Just kidding; it was for tax evasion. It was just around this time that Japan ruined Vito Corleone’s birthday and the United States was once again called upon to escalate/end a World War.

Immediately unconcerned in 1942 with actually winning (or even fighting) in the war, the country pulled millions of innocent Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese and Mexican U.S. citizens from their homes and sent them off to build patriotic shacks in the desert and learn the rules of football (“Now that’s ‘merican!”). This left thousands upon thousands of homes in Los Angeles, and other West Coast cities, deserted—creating one of the most absurd buyers-markets in real estate history. On top of this, aircraft and munitions factories opened up and needed thousands of workers—mostly made up of African-Americans, who were, again, hindered from actually serving in the war.

For a time, Los Angeles's 4th Street became a hub of entertainment for black and white kids, now focused more on freedom and peer-pressure than getting as blisteringly drunk as their parents twenty years earlier. Stunning everyone who had failed to think five years into the future, General Motors made a killing from WWII production and used the unprecedented profits to buy city bus and rail systems nationwide (including L.A.!) and immediately shut them down. This had the dual effect of forcing Americans to buy more cars and allowing them to move away from the cities’ downtown districts. Federal, state and local funds went toward building and maintaining new neighborhoods that disallowed non-white homeowners and so the American inner-city ghetto, as we now know it, was formed.

At the same time as this staggering discrimination, Europeans were thrilled to accept any American-style entertainment. Not entirely because they thought us all heroes, but mostly because their industries had been bombed into ashes and life is only so tolerable without some form of manufactured escapism. In short, jazz music—and, my more dear expertise, Western films—became widely popular while 1950s Americans grew bored and pharmaceutically sedated. Ultimately, young plebian Europeans (and a couple of Americans) slaked their restlessness by giving jazz and, the closely related, folk music genres an inspired edge. And thus was born Rock 'n Roll.

To come back to the vulgar etymology of American music, the term "rock n' roll" did not originally describe the music but rather referenced how young people supposedly responded to it. Specifically, they rocked (on their heels) and proceeded to roll (about in their beds). Yes, "rock 'n roll" is a 1950s equivalent to "gettin' jiggy wit it."

While an epilogue to the jazz era may not be entirely appropriate, an admission that jazz is not what it once was should be inarguable. With absolutely no evidence, I blame Generation X and their relentless desire to sub-divide every caveat of entertainment, forcing me to acknowledge my own continued, incorrect usage of the term “jazz.” Surely at many points I could have specified the genres of “New Orleans Dixieland,” “big band-style,” “Swing,” “Be-Bop,” “free jazz,” “Latin jazz,” “Afro-Cuban,” “acid jazz,” and “nu jazz.” In failing to do so, I likely deserve any scoffs coming my way. In response, well, they can go kiss my jazz*.

*Man, I hope I used the original term correctly there.

Going to Crazy Town: You Coming Along?

There is a presidential candidate who “toughens his wrists” by wrapping cords around them and hanging from a tree. While not subjected himself to various forms of self-torture in the wilderness, he shoots live ammunition at twigs and trees while jogging. And he doesn’t just carry a gun while exercising, either.

He received some attention for bringing a pistol onto the Harvard campus before giving a speech there. He claimed the campus was not immune to his gun-totting ways because he carries a firearm in lots of public places…and when walking around his house.

Also while at his house, he has been known to randomly jump over tables, chairs and couches just to prove (to himself or others) that he could. When not rivaling his adolescent sons in boyish roughhousing, this candidate occasionally allows bouts of narcissism and signs photos of himself to give to family members, employees, friends and enemies without their request.

He had to publicly promise animal rights activists that he would not kill any animals while visiting Yellowstone National Park. However, he broke that promise by killing a mouse that crossed his trail path. This candidate then kept the mouse body and sent it to the U.S. Biological Survey.

On more distant trips, his behavior becomes even less predictable. When traveling to Africa, he packed along over 70 books. These did not include the three dozen books he has written himself.

Years ago, he wanted to raise a volunteer, machine gun motorcycle militia division to quell violence along the American-Mexican border. The U.S. Army begged him to do no such thing. A short time after that, the man wanted to be promoted to a major general despite having no military service in the last twenty years.

Okay, so he’s not really a candidate in the 2012 election, but would you vote for him?

Congratulations. You just elected Theodore Roosevelt.

Oh God Yes!

"The Lady's Dressing Room": The 1730s Romantic Comedy

“The differences between men and women” is a vast expanse of joke material. And if the comedy staple was a body of water, it’d be the Ganges River: so over-used and polluted with filth and laziness that to claim a fresh joke (cup of water?) from this reservoir would be laughable if not so sickening. With the genre now castigated, I feel it is appropriate to note how one work of entertainment pre-dates even the classic (and, frankly, hilarious) rom-com “Shop Around the Corner” by nearly two hundred years.

Yes, by turning on one’s sarcastic radar—hence forth referred to as ‘sar-dar’—Jonathan Swift’s poem, “The Lady’s Dressing Room” becomes less of a searing indictment of female vanity and more of a sly wink and eye-roll to the convoluted dance of courtship that seemingly holds together the very fabric of society.

This is the poem.

Content-wise, the poem is about a young man who walks into a lady’s dressing room when she is not around and is disgusted by the mess he finds. For the next hundred, rhyming, lines, Strephon (the man) expresses voyeuristic contempt at the effort his would-be lover goes through to be presentable in public. Rags used to remove make-up, brushes that have dandruff and hair between the bristles, dirty towels, used toothbrushes, tweezers and more are worthy of condemnation to Strephon. Is he disgusted that his previously lovely companion is revealed to be a blank (or ugly) canvass? Does he feel lied to? Deceived by a woman’s fabricated beauty? Seems unlikely, as he is at least able to identify the tools of beauty this woman uses—oppose to some prehistoric monkey baffled by an imposing monolith. Perhaps it is just enough to be disgusted that women can be disgusting. The content of the poem is essentially that of pulling back a translucent curtain.

It is a long-winded description that yields so few actual revelations that the whole effort smacks of cruelty, and indeed has been condemned as misogynist. For whatever reason, men are allowed a certain degree of physical imperfections—and usually even defended as either 'character' (ex. wrinkles) or necessary practicality (ex. peeing in public). Moreover, the male body is riddled with mystery--I’m talking about nipples and armpit hair, mostly--and so any effort to be anything more than utilitarian in public is decried as “feminine” or “metro-sexual.” Regardless, the poem’s critique of women’s vanity and apparent self-obsession with looks is as culturally striking today as it was in Swift’s time or when the church compiled The Bible or years before that.

However, all previously articulated understandings of Jonathan Swift’s poem need to be thrown out with the bath water when one remembers the poem’s author is Jonathan Swift. Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is to “The Lady’s Dressing Room” what Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” is to “Sunshine.” A popular work, while commendable, overshadowing a lesser-known, more densely layered, production. The point being that Swift’s scathingly sarcastic critique on the poverty and oppression facing the Irish has since catapulted him into the title of “his day’s Stephen Colbert.” Perhaps some people still believe Colbert is a conservative commentator--as that is why he was asked to perform at the, painfully awkward, 2006 Correspondences' Dinner. And those same people are allowed to believe Swift was sincerely lambasting women.

In the last decade --a post-Alanis Morissette era-- Internet-users have twisted and corrupted the word “ironic” to such a degree that the word is barely used for its original intention—which, in fact, might be ironic. It’s confusing, so simply just trust me when I say Swift is being ironic in “The Lady’s Dressing Room,” as in his other works.

Fortunately, with our ‘sar-dar’ on, it is possible to detect Swift was satirizing men at least as much as women in “The Lady’s Dressing Room.” The earnest shock Strephon undergoes is as ridiculous as anything he finds. Anatomically speaking, men and women are humans; failing that, at least living beings. And anything living can be gross. Even puppies. That we understand the unspoken aspects of privacy is what makes the aforementioned curtain translucent. We know it exists, but to maintain civility we don't talk about it...just like Brendan Fraser's career (BOOM!).

As written, “Thus finishing his grand survey/The swain disgusted slunk away/Repeating in his amorous fits/ “Oh Celia, Celia, Celia shits!” (lines 115-118). The appropriate reader response: no shit, you idiot. Strephon, for pulling back the curtain, examining and detailing everything he sees, is the more vulgar of the romantic couple. He is the one that has spoken about the unspeakable—made unspeakable only by common knowledge. Few secrets are kept by any two people and so any secret kept individually by half of the world’s population (ex. women poop) would be less likely than everybody standing on one another’s shoulders until we reached the moon.

"Houston, forget about the Space Shuttle program, I've got an idea!"

Ultimately then, the poem is satirizing the tenets of traditional courtship—tenets broken by every generation of young people immediately after the origins of any societal guideline. That there are normal relationships or normal people is the allusion romantic comedies feed and feed for the sake of fabricating conflict in their story. Celia is weird for presenting herself unnaturally and engaged in such faux-privacy. And Strephon is weird for be disgusted by the effort he puts on Celia to be unnatural, not to mention the disrespect for her faux-privacy. And both of them are weird for thinking they are weirder than anybody else.

Everybody is weird but every so often, two people have compatible weirdness and, well, that's just what we call "love." Or so I was told by a friend who once claimed to be in love. But this allusion of normalcy is as necessary as the allusion of privacy. As then as now, all we have to do is not talk about it and both will be true.

So thanks a lot, Swift, you ruined society.

MILLER'S CROSSING: Fantasy History

I am a man of many tastes. (NOTE: poisonous tastes for my cannibal readers.) And on a particular, or perhaps every, night some time ago, I combined writing, drinking and watching one of my favorite films. Not owning any movies that are explicitly about drinking, I decided to just put in something about gangsters and call it good. So that’s how I ended up with “Miller’s Crossing” on the TV and two forties of Mickey’s malt liquor on my end table.

Mickey’s, ah yes, the sweet green embrace of mediocrity, my mediocrity. In the green bottle, I can only surmise that the drink itself is in fact green. A green liquid similar to what may have given the Green Lantern his superpowers—obviously I am not familiar with the comic book’s mythology. As far as I know, Mickey’s carries no real popularity and thus doesn’t suffer the stigma of being popular. This web site is only barely about alcohol though, so I’ll let it drift.

“Miller’s Crossing” doesn’t take place in any real city, nor really a specific time. As most of the characters are drinking during most of the scenes and the cops are occasionally interested in trashing nightclubs, it can be assumed to be during the Prohibition Era. Perhaps even a Prohibition Era in the future? Oh man, that’s be a great film concept. Just ban something other than alcohol and boom...a helluva story. Magic, perhaps?

Historically thinking, I have to say people in the 1920s drank between a selfish amount and a courageous amount of booze, or “hooch.” Simply, I don’t know how later generations had any alcohol left for them at all. Speakeasies make modern college bars look like a Mormon community. People would get off work, go home, go to bed, wake up just past midnight, go eat breakfast and then hit the town. They’d gamble, drink and dance until they literally had to go to work that morning. Unfortunately this meant showing up drunk more times than acceptable to people like Henry Ford, so Ford implemented a company-wide “Social Department” that cracked down on employees’ vices and canned their asses for anything less than model citizenship, not just work-based behavior. I seem to have strayed from the film. Regardless, we have our setting.

"I'm sorry, I'm recovering from a night of Four Loko...why are we in the woods?"

The opening of “Miller’s Crossing” is almost a parody of “The Godfather” in that there’s a slow focus on an Italian spilling his guts to a quiet mob boss. In fact, the opening line (“I’m talking about ethics.”) is carried with almost identical weight as “I believe in America.” Similarly, the speaker in each film is taking an audition-length route to ask for a license to kill while several cohorts and advisers drink liquor in the corners of the room. The intro scene acts as almost a red herring, a false set-up, for a movie that isn’t a parody but rather a familiar sandbox with familiar characters that the Coen Brothers move around. It’s as if they are neighborhood kids that discovered a new gadget on one your own toys that even you didn’t know about. Trying to make an honest dollar on a fixed fight isn’t just a throwaway line, but rather a theme of the movie.

Tom Reagan (played by Gabriel Bryne) swirls his glass, the cubes hitting the edges. Is his mind spinning? Is he nervous? I don’t know. It might just be Bryne having no real control over his own tendencies. I regret noticing this in the first scene because I suspect I’ll now see it in every following scene. Following this scene, Reagan wakes up with the biggest hangover this side of an Ed Helms movie and seeks the only cure known to man: more liquor and Marcia Gay Harden.

In one of the film’s best scenes, Leo (Albert Finney) and Reagan drink while discussing the whereabouts of Verna (Harden). Each of the characters know more than the audience and so the performances seem to change based on repeated viewings. Reagan also comments that his liquor is “better than the paint we sell at the club”—which makes me wonder if the quality of liquor since the Roaring Twenties has gone up like automobile safety or down like Bryne's movie career. We both take another drink.

The whole movie has a lot of the virtues and trappings of a typical Coen Brothers fare. We have an “evil incarnate” character, money as the driving motivation, linear plot lines, and multi-character storytelling. Hell, several cast members are hold overs, such as Francis McDormand, Steve Buscemi (a 21st century Peter Lorre) and John Turturro.

The plot continues with scene-starting lines such as, “Give me a stiff one.” During a police raid, Reagan is quick to grab a bottle of booze, or perhaps just floor cleaner, off a table before complete destruction—the destruction itself (in the real world and movie world) done mostly for show, not practicality. Reagan, looking for answers in the complicated plot, goes back to Verna’s crib for another drink and I begin to regret my dehydrating run earlier today. And yes, to a scene, Reagan swirls the ice in his glass, preferring the action of holding a drink to actually drinking.

Occasionally the film's audience is treated to violence with a little more orchestration than Francis Ford Coppola put together but with a certain gratuity not unlike “RoboCop.” Regardless, Reagan handles good news, bad news and boredom with the same antidote: enough liquor to knock out a team of mules. Tom Reagan gets beat up, no less than twenty people utter the line, “Jesus, Tom” and more drinks are poured, swirled and drank—though that last step might only be by muscle memory anymore. When people stop drinking, mistakes are made and can only be fixed by people drinking themselves back into oblivion.

I think Gabriel Bryne was just weird looking enough to not be a typical movie star but also not weird looking enough to be distinctive. Kind of a Gary Cole-slash-Sean Penn thing going on.

Burn...?

“Miller’s Crossing” is far from a documentary but I do think people drank more generations ago than now. Maybe water just wasn’t as safe then. Maybe people didn’t need to worry about driving drunk with their horses and get wrapped around a tree. It is strange then to read about historical figures (such as President Warren Harding) being considered heavy drinkers in their own times. When drinking after every meal was the norm, one would have to be swimming in the stuff to gain attention as a heavy drinker. Nowadays a guy can barely reach for his third beer in as many hours without disapproving looks from family members and strangers at soapbox-height.

But for all the drinking in the movie, nearly every gulp of escapism is only the first in what must be assumed to be a long, normal night. Only once is Reagan actively drunk, but he still carries himself with the confidence off all drunks and the eloquence of none. Reagan might be the boss man of Drink Town, USA—much like yourself—but he will not wake up with mysterious bruises, pee in public or otherwise string together enough forgotten introductions to mimic a real social life. No, Reagan at his worst is us at our best after one, two or ten too many drinks. Then again, I couldn’t see him writing a movie review either. Win for me, I suppose. I just think I could be a gangster is all.

Actually it’s just amazing that the characters in "Miller’s Crossing" had enough self-control to not pour a round of drinks at the ending funeral scene. Instead, Reagan soberly watches the girl get away. I don't think he chases after her. Wait. Did I miss something?

Okay, wait, now John Malkovich is beating people up. This isn't the same movie. When did I put in "Man in the Iron Mask?" Aw well. Isn't anybody else ever really proud of themselves when they can cook anything after having several drink? Shit. I got no frozen pizza.

I guess I'm walking to Jack in the Box.

Awkwardness: Nick the High School Newspaper Writer

Just for kicks this week, I've dug up a pair of stories from my personal history I wrote for the weekly newspaper in high school. One is a real news article; the other is just a commentary article that I probably had to rough somebody up to get published, because, really, it's barely anything. I omitted the names in respect to the living.

Originally published 4/20/2007 in "The Mentor":

The Bloody Truth by Nick Adams

Dozens of Manhattan High School students lay bleeding in the North Gym at the West Campus on April 25. No, it wasn’t an unfortunate PE class, it was the recent Student Council-sponsored blood drive.

Just like earlier this school year, students and faculty members of MHS were given the opportunity to give blood and save lives. The principle runners of the blood drive were seniors R- Anderson and H- Clark.

“There’s a lot of new donors,” said Anderson. “I think it’s a new experience [for most students].”

J- Tooill, the Red Cross team supervisor commented that the blood drive went smoothly. According to Tooill, they take 500 ml of blood from each donor. And any blood flavor was welcome, from A to O.

“I feel like you need blood to live; it’s the oasis of life,” said Clark.

This spring, the Student Council started setting up multiple stations and chairs around seven o’clock. Many elected members, and some from general assembly, brought food for the blood donors. Several blood specialists represented the Red Cross, which also brought some food.

“What’s a better way to start off a Wednesday than to save lives?” said senior K- Thomas.

In theory, each donor gave enough blood to save up to three lives. Times that by the scores of donors and you get a lot of saved people. But not just in Manhattan. All the collected blood is shipped off to Wichita and processed and then sent out to hospitals all over Kansas and parts of Oklahoma.

Many, if not all, of the donors from this drive feel proud that they are helping their fellow man. Senior N- Johnson, a recent blood donor, acknowledges that “it’s a great cause”. To him and many others, the temporary uncomfortable-ness is a small price to pay for the end result.

“The help here is great,” said Johnson. “Plus you get out of school.”

To future potential donors, Tooill suggests everyone should make sure to drink plenty of fluids and eat a good breakfast the morning of donating. Thomas offers much more blunt advice to potential donors by simply adding, “Man up!”

-----------------------------------------------

A Fearful And Celebratory Look into the Future by Nick Adams

The following article is an actual high school newspaper article from the arguably distant future. No part of the article is fictionalized:

Ringing in the Year 2050 by Robit Adams.

Robit here, grandson of the writer/dancer Sir Nick Adams. It’s that “beginning of the year” time of the year again. But rather than simply recap the previous year, I plan to recap the first half of the first century of the third Willennium (I can’t believe the Fresh Prince actually got it renamed).

I guess some of the problems still exist that we faced in 2000. For one, the Middle East sectarian violence has increased. It’s really sad actually. I thought the Baldwin Mid-East Peace Tour was going to star-strike the region into giving up violence (may Billy’s under-appreciated soul rest in peace). Oh well, most people don’t live forever.

Isn’t it odd that 50,000 movies will come out this year, yet none will be as good as the Wayan’s brothers’ timeless classic, “White Chicks”? They just don’t make movies with heart anymore. Even “Time Inns Are Forever,” the most financially successful movie of all-time wasn’t that great. Granted James Bond using a time-traveling hotel to go back to the 20th century and stop the Kaiser was one of the more realistic plots, but where was the love?

Everyone should note that 2050 will mark the 35th anniversary of the, hilariously ironic, end of WWIII. On a vastly different note, everyone probably grudgingly remembers the Clinton scandal several years back. Did former-President Hilary Clinton REALLY think she wouldn’t get caught rigging the election of President Chelsea Clinton? Three of my dads are still angry that it took eight years to prove it though.

It’s a strange time we live in where robots can actually feel love and, incidentally, feel pain. And randomly catch on fire. Though we do need to try building better robots since the Human Cloning Project fell apart after the successful, yet questionable, cloning of Mary-Kate Olsen.

It hasn’t been an easy half-century, that’s for sure. For instance the 37-cent coin creation controversy. Well, I guess the creation wasn’t as controversial as the decision to put Tom Arnold on the coin. And then there was that Constitutional amendment leading to a certain three states being bombed into uninhabitable ash fields. That was the biggest turn in American opinion since they discovered iPods caused ear cancer!

In some ways I imagine people from fifty years ago would be disappointed in our lack of progress. Our cars still run on gasoline, but who would have guess we would find an oil reserve in the least likely, and cutest, place? Not to mention how that “Life on Mars” hoax set us back trillions of dollars over 30 years ago. And let us have a moment of silence for the (tasty) animals that are now extinct. We loved your meat too much African Elephant, Hybrid Spider Monkey and Cow.

NFL Predictions: Week Fourteen

Houston at Cincinnati (-2.5)

Nick: The Texans are 9-3 (and winners of 6 in a row) because they play in the AFC South. The Bengals went on their own 5-0 run exactly because they didn’t play anybody else in their division. You can’t play third fiddle in a conference with the Ravens and Steelers and expect to be a playoff contender. Strangely, being third banana (or fiddle or whatever) has worked out well for T.J. “Who?” Yates, the now-starting quarterback for the Texans. With no managerial direction, the Texans recently picked up Jake Delhomme and Jeff Garcia—two more quarterbacks who have a combined 96 years in the NFL. Seriously, Houston has become the football equivalent of a “Rat Race” remake, complete with a smorgasbord of C-level stars. How many quarterbacks do they plan on using? They now have five with serious NFL experience, and none that will celebrate a Division Round playoff win. Still, fuck it. Texans.

Mac: Despite an outrageous QB carousel, the Texans just keep winning. Tate took the reins this past Sunday and still beat a solid Falcons team. The Bengals on the other hand have done a great job of holding off inferior opponents but haven’t had enough steam to beat playoff teams. If the Bengals can hold Arian Foster to a modest performance then their corners should take advantage of an inexperienced QB. Even so, this is a well-rounded Texans team that is built to outlast a team like the Bengals. Texans

Philadelphia at Miami (-2.5)

Nick: The Eagles and the Dolphins are meeting at the middle of inversely related seasons. True to their respective mascots, the Eagles have absolutely plummeted from pre-season highs and the Dolphins, a team that annually struggles to keep its head above water has actually risen from the “Suck for Luck” depths. Actually, among any of the bottom-tier teams, it seems the Dolphins are actually trying to win and doing a helluva job, too. Meanwhile I’d say the great Philadelphia-area will be drunk on Sunday in a vain effort to numb a pain whose cause can’t be diagnosed. Because of the mysterious failings, I think Andy Reid should be packing his bags. Desean Jackson might have a bit more passion with Michael Vick on the field but I’d give only even odds that Vick finishes the game. Philly’s LeSean McCoy is still one of my favorite rushers and tearing up the end zone this year. I think this will be one the games that makes no sense at all. Eagles.

Mac: Both teams are 4-8 but each have a total different perspective on their current situation. The Eagles have fallen on their faces. The Eagles still have the fastest offensive in the NFL, but after the early season meltdown they have finally quit. The DeSean Jackson situation has gone too far. None of the off-season pick-ups paid off. It’s also fairly amazing that Andy Reid quits coaching after every job saving season. Word of advice, just get rid of him before he lucks out and Michael Vick has another great year. Dolphins on the other hand are playing lights out defense, dominating 4 of their last 5 games and are a confident team that looked abysmal through the first 7 games of the season. While I can’t imagine the Eagles getting blown out for the third straight week, Dolphins win.

Kansas City at New York (Jets) (-9.5)

Nick: In case people haven’t picked up on it, I live in Kansas City and so picking the Chiefs is essential to enjoying the game in a public atmosphere. Basically they could be playing the best team ever (actually I think that’s coming up next week) and I’d still have to pick the Chiefs because about the time that I’m branded a disbeliever, well, that’s just too much. It’s no different than rooting for America in the Olympics even when its some sport I have never heard of but clearly a life-or-suicide situation for some loser country half-a-world away. I also love the Olympics because it’s the only appropriate time everybody in the country gets to be on one side and scream at “the others.” Chiefs win by forty points because Rex Ryan can bite me.

Mac: Let’s be honest, I’m going to pick the Chiefs. I could sit here and make jokes about the $2.5 million flea-flicker but my only hope is for Orton to play. I don’t think Orton is the future, but he is the right kind of QB to prove that this offensive has been held back by Matt Cassel. Is it too much to ask that without the starting QB during the toughest stretch of the season that we actually do good enough to win? Yes, it is. Instead I will root for a strong performance from Orton that finally wakes people up to the need for Matt Cassel to be replaced. Also the Chiefs are 7-5 against the spread, the Jets are 5-7 so Chiefs at least beat the spread.

New Orleans at Tennessee (+3.5)

Nick: The Saints’ defense allows nearly 400 yards a game but nobody gives a fart because the offense is countering with damn near 33 points a game. Drew Brees is the best in the league at the deep throws and just may be the lone highlight holdout this year in a position otherwise dominated by Aaron Rogers. The Saints will get their second chance at the Packers in the playoffs, but are they better than they were in Week One? No. Only the biggest twist of the season could stop the Packers at this point…perhaps some late-season resurgence of Tom Brady or a sniper in the stands during Week 15. Also, running back Chris Johnson’s “comeback” was against the Bucs and the Bills; he’ll be back to 50-yard games before long. Three and a half point spread is a gift from the gambling gods. Saints.

Mac: I don’t know what changed but Chris Johnson is finally back. That won’t win them this game. Saints are going to make every game a high-scoring thriller this year. While Johnson maybe back on track, this game will not be won by rushing. Brees keeps on pace to crush Marino’s pass yards mark, Saints win.

Chicago at Denver (-3.5)

Nick: Last week, the Bears were beat in Chicago by Tyler Palko. Broncos.

Mac: Tebow wins games. Exclusively running the option will not work week in/week out in the NFL. Tebow has a long way to go at QB, no matter how many average teams he beats. Nobody has run the option at this level in the NFL because nobody had the perfect QB. Tebow is that QB. The truth is we don’t know if Tebow will succeed, just as nobody knew that Aaron Rodgers would work out or that somebody like Kyle Boller wouldn’t. The NFL is full of extremely talented people that have to dedicated themselves to the game of football, 365 days a year. Their development is influenced by their team, their coach, their family, the media and even the fans. The development is a continually thing that will work out or it won’t. Vince Young has a skill set similar to Tebow but the pressure of the NFL derailed a winner that didn’t quite fit the QB mold. So instead of explaining why Tebow is amazing or terrible, I’ll just watch a football player test his talent. Tebow finally won a game last week using his arm, the first of his career. If he can do it this week, the lore of Tebow will grow. If not, we will have a lot of questions and Tebow will have a long week. I personally don’t think Tebow will win games against playoff teams. But Broncos win.

New York (Giants) at Dallas (-2.5)

Nick: The Cowboys lost to the Cardinals by six last week. The Giants lost to the Packers by three. Therefore…nothing. New York beat the Patriots a few weeks back, and that was fun, but otherwise the Giants have just not held their own against playoff-caliber teams. The Cowboys are taking the division and they’ll prove it with this win. Poor Eli Manning couldn’t put his foot down this year on being an elite quarterback in the league…or really even in his division, city or family. I love the man’s Leonidas-esque hard counts but you don’t score points with off-side penalties. Dallas.

Mac: Originally I thought this matchup had the most for me to talk about but not so much. Eli is playing some of his best football but its not enough. The running game is completely gone and the defense can only play with the lead which the Giants never seem to have. Romo is playing great and the running game is coming around. The Cowboys are on the upswing and the Giants are not prepared for a playoff run. But Giants win.

J. EDGAR: Defense of the Wealthy

I never quite understood why those protesters a month back were occupying Wall Street. Wall Street, as a symbol, is a carnivorous monster bent on hoarding money--the most quantitative element of hedonism. Wall Street failed nobody anymore than a shark fails swimmers by taking a bite out of them. We don’t blame sharks though; we blame the lifeguards.

My confusion regarding the whole Occupy debacle was only compounded when the police moved in on everybody around the country and forced confrontations. Now the country has to reexamine its priorities and the nearly flippant use of pepper spray as a way of avoiding communication. The powers that be could have just left the protesters out in the cold; December’s icy grip was already tightening and nobody had specific enough goals to voluntarily suffer through the winter. Why not just let the Occupiers die the worst possible death, a death of disinterest, a death not captured by iPhones and thrown on YouTube?

While Clint Eastwood in no way had neither the foresight nor sense of self-examination required to make a culturally noteworthy film, his concisely-titled “J. Edgar” does challenger the viewers’ perception on legal righteous. Eastwood may be several films deep in his own directorial career, but I think he has leveled off as a smart filmmaker for the lowest common denominator. Like his last ten annual efforts, he drains “J. Edgar” of color and de-saturates the pallet in some kind of Anti-Tim Burton stylization so that people can comment on the cinematography without asking, “Why the hell do all of Eastwood’s films look the same?”

Perhaps the cinematography will stay true to the film’s technical style in that it could be one of the three categories “J. Edgar” can hope for an Oscar nomination. In similar league would be the highly anticipated makeup conversion, turning Leonardo Dicaprio into a sixty-year-old Gerber baby.

I burn more people than a Bluth Family Corn Baller!

Sure, Dicaprio does a fine enough job, acting through the five pounds of makeup on his face. Though his cohort Armie Hammer has a visibly harder time and just generally looks like his face is melting or otherwise reducing himself to the acting cliches of a high schooler. As the story isn’t really about characters, or really even a story at all, I suppose we can just focus on the point—a point I’m not entirely convinced Eastwood himself was lucid of.

The FBI, as depicted in the film, sprung as a response to the fear of anarchists in the 1920s. The first notable violence during this post-WWI time was a string of bombing and attacks outside the houses of various government officials, senators and prominent businessmen. Now, when I/the film say “anarchists,” that’s actually including socialists, suffragists, communists, foreigners, literati, crazy people, progressives and anybody else decrying the economic status quo. Not unlike modern acts of terrorism, these attacks where not random. And while they may be detestable and even despicable, they were targeted attacks. In Hoover’s time, this meant the rich and powerful were in a level of danger they could not tolerate or payoff.

Hoover’s arrests proved measurably successful when X amount of poor people were deported from the land of the free but the paranoia rightfully remained and less than two scenes later, the most famous man in America (Charles Lindbergh) had his baby stolen. This kidnapping gripped the country in a way that is simply inconceivable in an era when missing children with no previous claim to fame can go missing and become overnight media sensations (if they’re white enough). I can’t even think of a 2011 equivalent to Charles Lindbergh, though a 2009 equivalent might have been some ungodly masculine combination of Captain Sully and that guy from the Old Spice commercials.

So anyhow Charles Lind-Awesome allows his tragedy to become the FBI’s kickoff to unprecedented freedom, information and technology—all courtesy of congressmen who are both among the rich, and friends with the rich, who need unequaled protection from the dangers of society. At first, Hoover and the FBI are befuddled that middle/lower class Americans sneered at the new agency and cheered on, of all people, bank robbers, gunmen, bootleg runners and other suppliers of vice and all that is fun.

It wasn’t until the Great Depression stopped feeling like an event and started becoming a way of life that Americans stopped seeing their life as is and allowed themselves to daydream, or even plan, of becoming rich. And if we are all going to become rich, then by God, we’ll want all the assurances that we can get that the riches to be gotten will stay in our grubby hands. If the FBI had just come out and said they are an organization, a tool, for the top 10% of Americans you can safely bet that in 1935—and 2011—that far more than 10% of Americans would still support the continuation of the bureau.

“J. Edgar” does not spend much time explicitly detailing the economic patterns of the investigations (that is, rich people are the victims) but rather reiterates the unprecedented “science” of the FBI. With some trace of unintended individuality in the world of Big Cinema, the film’s science faults are not due to factual errors but rather the dogmatic embrace of fingerprints and other forefathers of forensic evidence. Indeed, the FBI’s early methodology was a marked improvement from the Salem Witch Trials but the science of guilt was shortly substituted for the science of technology. Essentially, using evidence to find the guilty people became less important than finding guilt with random people. There was nothing “scientific” to wiretapping JFK, going through Eleanor Roosevelt’s mail or sabotaging Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fortunately, in “J. Edgar,” the best point is made with the Machiavellian character’s asperity for self-preservation. The movie shows us a character who is not obsessed with communism, revenge, recognition or even justice, but rather a character who is consumed with--and wildly competent at--consistency in a turbulent nation. But, ultimately, we do not need consistency in the country or in the movie.

TOUCH OF EVIL: That Feels So Right

Orson Welles’s, 1958 international noir Touch of Evil can proudly join my theoretical list of under-appreciated and under-viewed classics. It’s thankfully brisker, more red blooded and wholly more entertaining than Welles’s over-analyzed, dreary masterpiece, Citizen Kane.

In Touch of Evil, Charlton Heston plays a Mexican narcotics agent who becomes involved with a car-bombing incident, initially unrelated to his high-profile international drug lord court case. In case you read that too fast, yes, Charlton Heston plays a Mexican. Get over it. The man played a Jewish Egyptian in The Ten Commandments and he played “Good Actor” in Wayne’s World 2 (zing!). Seriously, he gives a relatively un-distracting lead performance for two-thirds of the movie. Everything kind of reaches a, highly enjoyable, surreal moment when Heston beats up five or six Mexican teenagers while shouting, “Donde esta mi espousa!?!” This might possibly be my favorite “Heston Moment” outside of Planet of the Apes.

Impressively, Heston’s performance is actually second chair to Orson Welles himself. Possibly believing no one can play a belligerent fat man like he, Welles heroically directs the eloquent film while filling the screen with a very un-eloquent American chief of police. Welles’s character (Quinlan) is a mix of Police Chief Wiggum and Vice President Dick Cheney. Leonard Dicaprio wishes he could play a large, quasi-moral authority like this. With Welles, there is no pretension, just pragmatism.

Orson Welles, hopefully wearing makeup and a fat suit, takes up enough room to warrant shots from aerial view, but his size is just another weapon in his arsenal of intimidation. Quinlan’s dogmatic investigations earn the respect of colleagues and fear of criminals; and just that Quinlan distresses society’s enemies is enough for law abiders to appreciate, if not applaud, the big guy. Such a sentiment resurrects the disgusting, sarcastic, former campaign quip, “Who would the terrorists vote for?”

Twice the cop of Sonny Crockett...and 1.5 times the man of a later Don Johnson.

To a scene, Quinlan dominates the pacing, energy and direction of all involved and through this power achieves even more admiration. Each character accepts the mindset that if you can’t stop a runaway truck you might as well get out of the way. For those in power, society is always on the verge of collapsing. If it’s not threats from outside, it’s threats from inside. The word “safe” could only be uttered as a whisper throughout American history and has been all but removed from the nation’s lexicon since the 1950s. I think this is why we are so ready to accept Quinlan election after election. Sure, rounding up innocent people is unfortunate if by accident and wrong if on purpose; but rounding up people who we know are guilty? Why, that’s an imperative.

Despite unintelligible swearing, stumbling around and chronic candy bar-munching, Quinlan’s laser wit and vengeful obsessions prove dangerous to peripheral characters, yet inspiring to the following decades of (fictional) cops who disregard any philosophical line separating legality, as they “know what’s right.”

The antagonist to these shameful American acceptances is Miguel Vargas (Heston). Despite being a Mexican government official, Vargas has not a trace of any “foreign” accent--no doubt more of an attempt to gain (American) audience sympathy than an accusation of incompetent acting on the part of Heston. To Americanize Vargas even more, he has Janet Leigh as a wife, goes by the name “Michael” and voices no real interest in futbol. Heston, by way of being Heston, demands the audience’s appreciation yet can’t shake off the image of an annoying ACLU lawyer. To hell with your delicate sensibilities, we sneer at Vargas, Quinlan gets results and Quinlan gets the bad guys. In less then three hundred years, America has molded national principles from enlightenment to efficiency. Anymore it seems pragmatism is patriotism. Has democracy failed those who are unhappy? No, the unhappy have failed the test of democracy.

This movie was released five years before the arrest of Ernesto Miranda, making the whole cinematic discussion uncommonly prophetic. As that real-life story goes, Miranda confessed to raping an 18-year-old but was unaware of his rights to have a lawyer during the resulting interrogation. Any speculation that Miranda “probably” raped somebody was muted by his own rights violation--which absolutely outraged the (arguably existent) Silent Majority. The outrage was short-lived as Miranda was convicted without his confession, released in 1972 and killed in a bar fight four years later. A suspect was picked up for the murder, was read his Miranda rights, declined to give a statement and was released. The Miranda murder case was closed without a conviction. Similarly, Quinlan’s ultimate defense for abuses of power rests in the fact that his assumptions are always correct. For--in the land of the free--there is nothing wrong with jailing criminals, fair trial or no.

While Heston smooths over (or at least distorts) any accusations of racism, Internet-educated audiences will be more baffled by the film’s relationship with marijuana. The apparent paranoia in 1958 of marijuana is used as a staggeringly weak plot-device to “knock out” Janet Leigh, transport her and keep her incapacitated for the better part of two days. Discussion of legality aside, evidently we all need to set some rules about marijuana use in films. Personal history shows me that ol’ Mary Jane doesn’t do much more than slow people down and explain the continued existence of Wendy’s chicken nuggets--but that's all beside the point. Regarding the film’s convoluted and panic-pandering depiction, there is no answer to how the leather jacket-wearing Mexican youths forced Leigh to get higher than James Franco piloting a blimp.

With a nod to technical analysis, Welles stages scenes and camera shots with a direct stylization rarely seen outside—or ever missing from—the film’s noir genre. Perhaps the most masterful decision is the opening shot of the film wherein a bomb is placed in a car’s trunk. For nearly four minutes, and in one continuous shot, audiences watch the car drive around a small border town. The intensity is stretched with such focus and grace that Johhny Q Moviegoer won’t even notice why the scene is as suspenseful as it is. For a man with a history in radio entertainment, Welles’s understanding of cinema had to be instinctual to a point that’s simply not possible anymore.

At best, it’s hard to say Touch of Evil is underrated; at worst, it’s incorrect. Film scholars, critics, students and snobs repeatedly report the film as a classic, when they’ve seen it. So maybe it’s not underrated, but rather—in the vein of Singin’ in the Rain and Sullivan’s Travels—is a genuine piece of entertainment dismissed by the average antecedent generations. Strange to think what would happen if more films of equal deserving were launched back into theaters; and not just unnecessary re-releases of literally the most-seen movies of all-time: Titanic, Avatar, E.T., Star Wars (yet again!) and so on.

The Brownsville Episode: When Roosevelt Failed Us

Everyone’s been there. Your favorite singer wrote a bad song, your politician extended the Patriot Act, your school’s team blew chunks during the big game against an obviously inferior team. “Yeah,” we mumble, “but…” But nothing; x-factors be damned, we bet on the wrong horse and we can’t admit it. We need to take the blows to our ego and move on. And I’m going to start now by resurrecting a moral crime in U.S. history that has to be the biggest, bloody, blotch on my favorite president’s legacy. I’m talking about Theodore Roosevelt and the Brownsville Episode.

The Brownsville Episode was a series of bloated and sloppy actions fueled by racist paranoia, baseless logic and bruised egos—and considering the connotations, may have been the origins for the Cleveland NFL team.

“Yeah, sure Nick, kick 'em while they're down."

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt was “the Man” in a way few American presidents have ever had the fortune of being. Perhaps few presidents had the stones to act as furiously unilateral as T.R.—but there I go again, defending the man. In another light, T.R. was an American dictator who only eventually left office because the country was beginning to bore him. Really, though, I think most Americans would accept, or even love, a dictator so long as the dictator’s views were in line with his or her own. Democracy is only fun if you’re on the winning side every time. So anyway, Roosevelt is rolling with the creation of the FDA—amidst accusations of socialism—when a bar brawl in Brownsville, Texas captures the nation’s attention.

Reportedly, one night some white people in the town insulted some black soldiers. In retaliation, 16-20 soldiers “attacked townspeople” and fired their guns (killing one bartender). That no real evidence existed to connect any African-American soldiers to any incident of violence was disregard as a minor technicality. In fact, there was no immediate trial or hearing and the (white) commanders at the nearby Fort Brown affirmed that all soldiers were in their barracks on the night in question. But the very notion that U.S. soldiers would attack American civilians was so outrageous that action was cried for, and action was carried out.

Roosevelt demanded the guilty soldiers confess. Because no soldier confessed to the crime nor turned in any other soldier, Roosevelt declared they had all proven themselves guilty. Wildly claiming there was a “conspiracy of silence,” the President dishonorably discharged all 167 black men in the company. Many of the soldiers had served for their entire lives, some over 20 years, and were now all denied back pay, pensions, allowances and other benefits expected at the time of service.

Roosevelt’s hammer of the presidency was as commended as it was criticized—again resurrecting the argument that courage is the victor of controversy. In this case, though, T.R.’s disinterest in self-examination proved egotistical. Senator Joseph Foraker started a congressional investigation that uncovered many of the facts we know today, including the testimony of the commanding officers, the inability of the townspeople (including the mayor) to reasonably describe any of the accused attackers, planted bullet casings and such. In response, Roosevelt had the Treasury Department (an arm of the Executive Branch) launch its own investigation—which included private detectives. This new investigation ran around Brownsville planting more fake evidence, bribing people, threatening people, destroying real evidence and just generally acting like jerks until Roosevelt felt his point had been made.

Roosevelt went on to talk about race relations in America, though always in the hypothetical. “Lynching could tear apart civilization,” he’d say…“however,” he’d continue, “black citizens shouldn’t protect black criminals,” though there was definitively no black conspiracy. And while T.R. wanted African-Americans to assist in the arrests of criminals, he apparently didn’t care that they were still excluded from serving as members of a jury or even as police officers. In response to a specific lynching, Roosevelt continued his baffling distance, saying “the hideous crime of rape” is abominable, and punishment “may follow immediately upon the heels of the offense.” What?

It’s difficult to just say Roosevelt may have been a racist president, and if the presidents were ranked by racism he wouldn’t even crack the top ten (hell, he wouldn't even be in the top 3 on Mount Rushmore). His first civilian guest to the White House was Booker T. Washington--which brought on a slew of death threats just weeks after the assassination of President McKinley. T.R., to his end, reveled in his own fantasies of being attacked by would-be assassins and having the nation cheer him on as he beat the hypothetical villain(s) into a bloody clam chowder.

In a broad sense, Roosevelt also did a lot of good for global understanding. He, and other world leaders, put pressure on Belgium to cease its genocidal exploitation of the Congo. And then after leaving office, Roosevelt joined a scientific excursion to Africa with the express purpose of retrieving samples of “exotic” flora and fauna. And if a flora or fauna needed to get shot, well, that’s where ol’ T.R. came in. His hunting party killed over 500 animals, including 17 lions, 11 elephants, 9 white rhinos, 7 cheetahs (and a partridge in a pear tree!). A filmmaker named Cherry Kearton filmed the entire trip and defended it all as great entertainment, allowing Americans to “visit” Africa from the comfort of a movie theater…also, Americans got to pretend they were Theodore Roosevelt.

The 1910 documentary was given the chill-inducing title of “Roosevelt in Africa,” and inspired the whole industry of travel filmmaking. More than that, Roosevelt’s radical importation of hundreds of (usually) dead animals allowed Americans to see Africa as a real place and not just a mythological realm filled with prehistoric monsters that may or may not have been manifestations of Satan’s demons—as was the common sentiment at the time.

Oh great, I just defended my support for Roosevelt again. Whoops.

In 1972, the United States Army declared that the soldiers involved in Brownsville Episode would have their discharges be declared honorable. The surviving soldier likely had mixed feelings regarding the late ruling-reversal. Yes, THE soldier. Only an 87-year-old Dorsey Willis was still alive and was given $25,000 after nearly 67 years of shinning shoes for a living—as a dishonorable discharge is quite the blemish on a job application. In fact, a dishonorable discharge will actually disqualify a U.S. citizen from owning a gun…so damn, that is serious.

The Brownsville Episode is an ugly marker, but one worth confronting for supporters of Theodore Roosevelt. We need to see the faults in our choices, so that we can be humble in victory. Except perhaps for fans of the Cleveland Browns--a team who perpetually, and impressively, remains in the pantheon of the NFL’s top 30 teams or so.

IMMORTALS: I Want to Kill Myself

Not since the 1998 “Godzilla” monstrosity has a movie so brazenly promised a sequel that everyone immediately knows will absolutely not come to fruition. I loved “The Fall,” and at least appreciated “The Cell,” but Tarsem Singh’s latest film, “Immortals,” exhausted all my goodwill within ten minutes. And for the remaining hundred minutes in the auditorium, I found myself counting the virtues of this film’s spiritual predecessors: “Troy” and “300.” These last two films rank among my guilty-pleasures and I would have freely admitted as much for “Immortals” but, frankly, this may be a film with no redeeming qualities and, worse, no earnestly enjoyable moments.

While Tarsem’s previous endeavors--including this one--have shouldered generally weak reviews, nearly every critic will applaud the visual flare and craftsmanship. But “Immortals” will get no such cudos from me. The most memorable visual motif would be the ham-fisted, CGI-heavy, scene transitions. The last shot of one scene focuses on a helmet that fade-dissolves into a boat of ridiculously similar proportions. Such transitions are manufactured with the grace and purpose of me transitioning an armpit “fart” sound into an actual fart.

And woe to those who think the CGI butchery ends there. The fight scenes featured revel in decapitations and amputations, each squirting blood effects copy-and-pasted from Wesley Snipes’ “Blade” films. Every time brightly-rendered blood drifted past the screen in slow motion, I was reminded that no stunt men were harmed in the making of this film—if they were even used at all. “300” had grace. “Troy” had emotion. “The Matrix” had originality. “Immortals” had last month’s leftovers, unevenly reheated.

Ever since “The Wrestler,” there has existed the false notion that Mickey Rouke is a good actor and the evidence may only now be tilting against him. Given the exact same motivation as Nero from “Star Trek,” Rouke exhales every one of his lines with unearned exhaustion. If you close your eyes, he almost sounds like Edward James Olmos after just running a half-marathon. This brooding technique is empty and stagnant two scenes in; nor is it helped when Rouke’s King Hyperion seems to just keep talking, hoping to find interesting dialogue eventually.

Opposite of Rouke’s species, is the endless beautiful Freida Pinto—who I’ve just begun to feel sorry for at this point. From playing a virgin prostitute in “Slumdog Millionaire” to a virgin veterinarian in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” to now a virgin oracle, Pinto has barely completed one line of character-building dialogue in three combined movies. Given the abysmal “girlfriend” characters she’s played, I can’t say whether she’s a good actress with any more authority than saying whether if she is a good bowler. She makes broad, thematic summaries of the protagonists’ tribulations and then inexplicably loves said protagonist by getting PG-13 naked.

The hero of the film, or at least the guy I wanted to punch the most often, is played by Henry Cavill—whose primary contribution to the world of cinema is staring in the next Superman movie. Muscular nothing, this guy has straight-up boobs. Very, very weird boobs. Incredibly though, it’s actually his sidekick who seems to be wearing a leather bra for half of the movie.

If only the rest of the movie was getting the same level of support as Stephen Dorff.

Worse than the vexing wardrobe, the characters solve their dilemma at around the 70-minute mark but then decide to go to war because, hell, it’s not like people ever really needed reasons to go to war. This, of course, is not even a sliver of commentary in the movie as Cavil and Pinto just finished talking about dead parents and boning (worst foreplay ever?) and the best reason I ever heard for a guy going to war was right after some girl broke his heart. As is, characters do and say things in some strange obligation that almost breaks the fourth wall.

Worthwhile conversations, or even reactions, are substituted for platitudes on faith, pain and, get this, immortality. Characters barely listen to one another as each of them are unstoppable in pouring our their next, ultra-prepared, soon-to-be-inscribed-on-a-tombstone, aphorism. The script reads like a cheap quote book and each line dropped like a sack of oranges.

Also, because this deserves mention, why are there no less than five movies coming out about CIA agents going rogue? Trailers for “Ghost Protocol,” “Safe House” and “Haywire” literally played back-to-back-to-back. When there was finally a trailer for “War Horse” I actually cried out, “Is that horse going rogue!?!” Indeed, the horse does go rogue and had I strangled myself right then and there I would have had a more pleasant experience than staying regrettably conscious for the next two hours. Almost to mock me, the last scene of “Immortals” explicitly recaps the major plot points of the movie just in case anybody had flat-lined for a few scenes at any point but wanted to get a Spark Notes version of the story before trudging out of the auditorium.

Even after leaving the theater, I again wanted to escape to deadening oblivion as I heard fellow moviegoers critique the inaccuracy of Greek mythology in movies, such as “Immortals.” Inaccuracy? Inaccuracy?! It’s mythology! Since when did Greek mythology become this fashionable subculture that deserves to be treated with unparalleled and impeachable reverence? I have friends who have dedicated literally weeks to studying Greek mythology so that they could be outraged at the seeming desecration of their adopted individuality. Have no fear, I tell them, for “Immortals” will not contribution to any forthcoming popularization of Greek iconography.

Personally, my favorite Greek god is Thor but I guess that’s just my burden.

MARGIN CALL: Reality Isn't Enough

The film “Margin Call” is marketed as “based on a true story” though the film adamantly, even awkwardly, refuses to be about specific people in a specific place at a specific time. Even terms like “Wall Street,” “New York,” “politicians,” “crash” “2008” and “recession” are erased from the characters’ dialogue even though such distinctions are as clear in the audience’s mind as the filmmakers intended. The movie is not so much based on a true “story,” but rather based on true ideologies and motivations. Yes, people like these character existed—and still exist—but I’d say most movies contain such realistic characters, though other movies have the theatrics to put said characters in extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, all the dads in America can breathe easily knowing “Margin Call” is not a 109-minute rant on the immorality and un-sustainability of unchecked, rampant capitalism. Nor is this even an Occupy Wall Street-geared movie. This is a re-enactment for those who don’t read books of how and why America’s, and thus the world’s, economic system seems to collapse every ten years. Granted, “Margin Call” may be based on a true story, but at what cost?

This treatise, er, movie…is really composed of three distinct acts (repeated confusion, lazy swearing and mild-mannered philosophizing) though not so distinct, fluid or colorful as to be intrinsically captivating. No less than three characters say some variation of “Speak English!” when confronted with the numerical language of stock trading. Fortunately, or regrettably, no charts are drawn and any analogies offered are promptly dismissed as remedial or inaccurate. The stockbrokers are not talking to their children or the audience; they are talking to one another and even if you are a professional stockbroker, you still won’t completely follow the conversations because specific numbers, equations, data, names, ratings or proper nouns of any sort are completely absent. This is a historical drama trying to be timeless.

More fatally, the characters themselves find little passion in the 24-hour span of the story. Several go through emotional stages but the stages themselves are under-whelming. “I am stunned,” says one character. “I as well,” says another. “I am the most stunned,” says a third. “I, truthfully, am not so stunned,” says the fourth. And so the story continues. They may be scared, but no real action takes place in the most literal sense. They go from sitting in an office, then a different office to standing on a rooftop, sitting in a car, standing in an office, on a stoop, and finally in a backyard where the movie ends. I suppose most people’s lives play out as such but it feels like a waste of cinema’s virtues. The characters may look out over the city skyline as executives are wont to do, believing themselves titans of the world, but no real-life, street level people consider such men with a fraction of assumed reverence.

Don't suspenders kind of doom a man to a life of mid-level management?

Just as importantly, “Margin Call” is not a Faustian tale, for there are neither real villains nor comeuppance--necessary or otherwise. This is the world we have created. Perhaps in that way, the film is at least unique, if not a little brave. The characters’ desperate acts are in the interest of survival, not greed, and if the only way to survive is to be greedy, so be it. Too many of us would do the same. A million dollars. Ten million? A hundred million? It’s amazing how quickly the characters, and by extension ourselves, can rationalize away morality and cling to the myth that money isn’t everything. A million dollars isn’t just for Scrooge McDuck to swim around in. It’s mortgages, it’s food, it’s sanity, health and continued survival for ourselves and our loved ones.

Like similar financial-oriented films, “Margin Call” has mid-level characters lament the world of capitalism while The Gatekeepers defend their own actions as inevitable human nature. Unfortunately there isn’t the throbbing masculinity and, dare I say, stunt casting of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” Nor is it within a mile of the wall-shattering monologues and even better-casted likes of “Network.” However, it is considerably more crafted than “The Company Men”--the self-crucifying 2010 film about the same economic downturn. Not a stirring recommendation, but why be more excitable than the characters?

More than anyone else, Jeremy Irons deserves a special nod—and not just because I could listen to that man talk all day. Irons, for his character name is irrelevant, conveys a man who is both soothing and perfectly inured to the suffering of others. He is the last character to see doom spelled on the wall so it’s almost fun to watch him alone discovered the advantages of such economic catastrophe. At this point, the movie damn near takes on gangster film qualities as characters confront one another in the bathroom, sinisterly park cars and allow suicide to become a motif of the film. In this last example, cultural memory has lied to you as no stockbrokers leaped from skyscrapers in 2008, or even in 1929.

The methodical pacing will appeal to the patient, but not those seeking escapism. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty to consider when questioning the tendencies (and obligations) of society, our neighbors and ourselves. And if a new movie is necessary to facilitate such conversations within and among ourselves then, by all means, see “Margin Call.” There are interpretations of the world and people, but the film itself is decidedly pessimistic as the end credits roll with the extended audio of digging. And digging. And more digging. It doesn’t matter why the character is digging, for leaving the theater to such chilling audio will create one summary: we are burying ourselves.

NFL Predictions: Week Ten

Week Ten predictions provided by Mac.

Raiders at Chargers (-7.0)/Broncos at KC(-3.0) two-fer

Does anybody really care who wins that AFC West? Chargers level the Raiders, pissing and

moaning about Carson Palmer ensues or Raiders defeat the hapless Chargers, pissing and moaning about Phillip Rivers ensues. Chiefs take advantage of a one-dimensional Broncos offense, pissing and moaning about Tim Tebow ensues, or the Broncos win with some Tebow magic, pissing and moaning about Matt Cassel…..wait a minute. Why in the hell is there not more pissing and moaning about Matt Cassel?

Sure he doesn’t throw the ball away once a quarter like Rivers and Palmer. Sure he doesn’t throw the ball away in ways where the designated receiver cannot be determined like Tim Tebow. But we are talking about a quarterback who currently has Dwayne Bowe playing certified #1 receiver like he is supposed to. Jonathan Baldwin is playing remarkably considering its his first year, his problematic nature and his fight with Thomas Jones that left he injured for the important development portions of the early season. Steve Breaston is doing all he can to make Matt Cassel to look like a real QB. Dexter McCluster is taking advantage of all the free space that the WR corps is giving him. Even the TEs are playing above their abilities with Tony Moeaki out for the year. Yet there is no talk about the poor play of Matt Cassel. He has moderate to below average arm strength, decent release but terrible ball trajectory when it comes to delivering downfield passes.

Pocket presence is very important and Matt Cassel does not have the confidence to stand in there when the rush is on. He drops his head, braces for impact and ignores the multiple options that have opened up down the field. While he is limiting his TOs, he has only learned to read coverage to know when not to throw the ball. He has only marginally improved on reading the defense to figure out where to the throw ball. This is important because it may be his second year (Ed. note: 3rd season) as Chiefs QB, but he is 28. He has studied behind Tom Brady for most of his career and this is his 3rd (4th) full season starting in the NFL. He has proven that he can be a great back-up QB, but he is definitely not a franchise QB. I hope I made my point…. Oh yeah Chargers win 31-27 (Raiders within the margin) and Chiefs cover (I’m biased as hell) 27-17.

(Ed. note: Freakin' NFL Network aired the Chargers-Raiders game last night.)

Bills at Cowboys (-5.5)

Mr. Harvard vs. Guy-Who-Dated-a-Celebrity-Who’s-Favorite-Movie-was-"Legally Blonde". The Bills season is going to get derailed. I don’t see the Pats missing the playoffs and the Jets proved last week against the Bills that they are for real. The AFC North is the only division I think can take both wild card spots so do the math. Cowboys on the other hand see the Giants facing the hardest schedule to end the season and only a two game lead for the division. That said, positioning doesn’t win you football games, but I’ll take the Cowboys 24-21 (Bills within the margin).

Saints at Falcons (even)

Drew Brees has thrown 379 passes this season, that’s 58 more than his closest competitor in the stat: Tom Brady. My prediction, Brees’ arm falls off. Falcons win 34-31. Also I don’t care if you have medical facts to argue against my prediction, science can suck it!!!

Steelers at Bengals (+3.0)

Good job keeping it together this far Mr. Dalton, but the Steelers will eat you….maybe literally, I don’t trust James Harrison. The CBs are the strongest part of the upstart Bengals defense and Big Ben eliminates their impact by his backyard football style (not a rape joke). 27-10 Steelers. In all honesty I want the Bengals to win this game, and every other game after being predicted by a handful of ESPN analysts to not even win a game this season. Haha, idiots.

Lions at Bears (-3.0)

Lions, no Tigers, but some Bears, oh my. Bears win 21-13. Just so you know, that AFC West/Matt Cassel rant went too long so I’m simplifying the rest of my predictions.

Pats at Jets (-1.5)

Jets 27-24, we all cry at the passing of Tom Brady. That might have been a play on words, not sure anymore.

Couple Freebies: Giants beat the 49ers and Vikings beat the Packers (they’re bound to lose a game; if I just keep predicting it when they finally lose I will be right).

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE: Rightfully Paranoid

Calling somebody a “communist” in today’s world is kind of a dated insults, perhaps in the vein of calling somebody a “fishmonger.” The guy on the street corner assures me that communism is still around, and I believe him, but the stigma—real or imagined—in America is not what it was in the 1920s, 1980s or 1950s.

As a society, we still allow peoples and ideologies to get the more paranoid half of our imagination—Islam, Haliburton or diet communism (socialism) to name a few. But none of these are quite as wildly and widely terrifying as communism in the 1950s. This was a time when the Cincinnati Reds (an allusion to Native Americans) had to change their team name to avoid offending people with connotations of communism--before eventually changing their name back to the (less offensive) name: The Reds. This was a time when not only the USSR had successfully tested nukes, but had several of them, big ones, and eventually the biggest one. Everything may be big in Texas, but it’s biggest in Russia. The USSR was putting mini-moons in orbit and shot their most bloodthirsty canine into space. Never before had a country won a war--like how America won WWII--and become so immediately terrified.

And when America talks about anything for longer than twelve minutes, Hollywood will make a movie about it. What’s extraordinary then, is when a movie can transcend its own time and be more than a classic, be more than revolutionary, insightful, quaint, nostalgic, or precognitive. One such movie was, is and will be, John Frankenheimer’s, 1962 Cold War-thriller: “The Manchurian Candidate.”

In practice, political movies are box office death because their inherent ideologies alienate half of the country or are otherwise too spineless. It’s why Oliver Stone can make marginally profitable or culturally resonate films, though they are cut off from being classics (his casting/directing/writing might also be holding him back). Political dramas, even historical dramas, are too political if the characters’ real life manifestations still have real world power. Conversely, films that take potshots at both sides (“Man of the Year,” “Swing Vote,” etc.) rarely offer any new intellectual territory. In “The Manchurian Candidate,” left and right extremists come under fire in every way that is both new and relatively unused.

In the film, Senator John Iselin is a McCarthy-stand-in, though assuming the real life McCarthy is the only hot blooded politicians to attack groups of people for their thoughts is historically negligent. Iselin, running for Vice-President, makes wild accusations about communists infiltrating the state department. Iseline's high-roading rhetoric mixed with presidential ambitions is obviously more akin to former Vice-President Richard Nixon, but Iselin’s character is little more than a puppet. This is not a one-to-one historical allegory, as Nixon was far from anybody’s puppet. Iselin, though, is routinely built up and brushed off by his backroom-savvy wife, Eleanor. Eleanor, a coy name-connotation of FDR's lovely wife, has to be the icy, remorseless caricature more modern Republicans have since painted on Hilary Clinton.

This power-couple then sends the movie audience mixed messages about what to believe. The self-serving, communist-hater would hate puppies if it’d further his career. Furthermore, while his specific conspiracy accusations are entirely unfounded, the film is undoubtedly about...wait for it...a communist conspiracy. The film, via psychological mumbo--and occasional jumbo--demonstrates that the Chinese and Russians very much want to take over America and feasibly could. The audience is asked to fear communists, then fear fear-mongers, then fear women, rightist, communists (again!), war veterans and snakes. Either that or just stop being afraid of everything.

Politics aside, the film is extraordinarily crafted—most notably in a few early scenes wherein several American soldiers are hypnotized and then hallucinate the actual events while dreaming months later. Shades of “Inception,” indeed, but only in the best, normal-gravity, way. Raymond Shaw (played by Laurence Harvey) lumbers through the scenes as a partially hypnotized, partially shell-shocked war veteran, but he really shines two-thirds in, impressing himself at his first articulated joke in years. Revealing Shaw as a formally likeable guy comes at the exact wrong moment for our hero Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra)—making it the exact right moment for the film.

Also, let us not forget why Frank Sinatra was a movie star. Yeah, yeah, he’s was good for every scene—and really good for one strangely out-of-focus scene. But he was great as one-half of the first karate fight scene ever staged in an American film. Like the political drama, the fight was brutal, destructive, crisp, confusing and left both parties considerably worse off than mere minutes before. Sintra may have been difficult to work with, as rumored, but the fight scene broke his hand and he let the movie use his private airplane as a set. True, he earned a lot of money from the original “Ocean’s 11,” but he wasn’t always just some suave character besting the mortals lucky enough to breathe his air.

"This is the best hand in poker, I'm tellin' ya!"

America was terrified, yes. But so was the USSR, and such a detrimental irony is not lost on the movie when the Chinese and Russian conspirators question their own communist beliefs, briefly favoring the joy of success and secret knowledge. These men, the supposed villains, are not risking their lives so that school children will be forced to read Karl Marx a generation from now; they are risking everything so that they can be proven to be on the "right side" of the human condition. Philosophy is not enough reason to die for most; but winning, well, that's in our genetic make-up.

Such philosophical cynicism is actually an embrace of human commonality when the same pitfalls of a reversal ideology crash around the Americans. Saved by few bullets, America in the movie avoids throwing itself into the embrace of a dictator we so nearly, and would have gleefully, elected. In this aspect, a crazed gunman circumvented democracy to save us from our worst enemy, ourselves.

Ultimately, there is no message to “The Manchurian Candidate” besides what you learn. The movie has nothing to say, but rather asks the audience to filter, question, test and believe what they can. The film was made with communism on the mind, but it has since outlived the explicit paranoia. Murder, friendship, deception, sacrifice, politics, demagogues, love, conspiracies, and hypocrites all populate this historical, fictional world, creating an experience and making adaptable ideologies still relevant, entertaining and terrifying.

NFL Predictions: Week Nine

Nick:

D-lineman Ndamukong Suh apparently met with--NFL’s Hammer of God--Roger Goodell this week. With more than a small sense of self-righteousness, I hope that Goodell played “Mr. Jenkins” to Suh’s “Howard Beale” and just ripped the football player in half with a devastating monologue on the true significance of professional football. Don’t kid yourself, the game is not about athletics, statistics and tackling people; it’s about good vs. evil. Professional football is a continuous melodrama, a soap opera for the people who don’t watch soap operas. What does this mean? It means Suh and the rest of the Lions have squandered their chance at being America’s Underdogs (ala 2002 Patriots) or America’s Recovery (ala 2010 Saints). Nope, fight after fight after taunt after fight, the Detroit Lions—with their small-scale winning—have become nothing but petty, self-serving and vindictive dicks. I am looking forward to them finally getting properly smacked by the Green Bay Packers later this year. Twice.

Mac:

The Lions. This is a team that hasn’t won anything. Last year they finished on a winning streak but this is first year in over a decade that they have had playoff aspirations. So where did this swagger come from? The fast start was not all that surprising, seeing the strides forward by the Stafford-Johnson connection and the instant impact of Suh. The confidence of this team is a whole other thing. It’s not quite like the Jets cockiness because the Lions haven’t tried to play the game in press conferences. Suh's quotes have gained the ire of many but most of his trash talking comes while he is planting the QB in the dirt. I don’t know what Suh or any other Lion said when Matt Ryan got his ankle stepped on by his own offensive tackle. If you enjoy clichés that present deductive reasoning as a duck metaphor then you would assume that clearly the story is true. To that I say, 'so what'. Although I’m not rooting for the Lions this year, I also don’t look at the idea of the Low-Blow Lions as being a bad thing. I love the Suh mentality that if he just keeps hitting the QB, he will beat the will to win out of them. Suh is making no friends in the NFL and he is damn proud of it. This is his second season and he has turned a perennial loser into a gritty defense that will pound its opponent into submission. As opposed to the cocky Jets who seem to find it more important to let the media know they are winners, Suh has truly showed the leadership to make the team put winning over everything else, including sportsmanship. Some people don’t like that, but it doesn’t matter what other people think of the Lions. They’re winning.

Miami at Kansas City (-3.5)

Nick:

Poor Miami is 0-7 and they’re still not really even number one in the “Suck for Luck” contest. That distinction would go to the Colts, who have the duel advantage of intriguing personnel possibilities (i.e. cutting Peyton “Superneck” Manning) and a string of defeats that’d make the Washington Generals look like winners. Whereas the Dolphins have shown some moxie in most of their games but still just stranded in Nowhere, USA. Last Monday, the Chiefs snatched victory away from the jaws of death inside of the monster of victory...or something. What I mean is that the Chiefs should not have blown the 13-3 second half lead but they probably also shouldn’t have had a second half lead. Basically, I just not a believer in Todd Haley’s beard and the Chiefs have a terrifying road ahead of them from Week 11 to Week 15. Fortunately this is only Week 9 and they can keep stumbling forward. Chiefs.

Mac:Records in the NFL don’t matter. If the Rams can beat the Saints with Sam Bradford injured than any team can surprise you come Sunday. The key to a game is match-ups and this one lends itself to the Chiefs. The Chiefs play well when Matt Cassel faces below average pass defenses which the Dolphins rank 27th. If the Chiefs play offense well early and get a lead, the Dolphins will have to rely on Matt Moore to lead them to victory, an event not likely to happen. Take away the run game and the Dolphins will flounder as they’ve done all season. Chiefs 24-13

Cleveland at Houston (-12.5)

Nick:

I’ve made up a lot of prophetic ground by repeatedly betting against the Texans. It’s not that I dislike the team. I just think they are a safe bet to never “bring it” when “it” really needs to be “brought.” Frankly, I was going to bet against the Texans no matter what this week as their division-leading 5-3 record is really close to the Browns very quiet 3-5 record. This spread just feels generous now. Colt McCoy is better than Matt Schaub for having a shred of mystery still left in him. Hell, more people in Texas probably know McCoy than Schaub, too. The Texans have never made a playoff appearance and they’ve still always been a better football team than the Browns, yet the Browns have beaten Houston 3 of 6 all-time meetings. Like Bender betting on a race horse, I find myself cheering on “Lasty.” I think Houston just might step in a big pile of Browns on the field and lose a gross one at home. Cleveland.

Mac:

Nick was mad at me picking the Browns game last week so….. what’s the deal Nick? The Browns are 2nd in the league at pass defense. Mostly because their wins have been against one-dimensional offenses and in 3 of their 4 losses their opponent started running the clock out early in the 3rd quarter. This Texans team hasn’t been consistent but has a dynamic offense that will put Cleveland down early and let Arian Foster milk the clock for the entire second half. Texans 27-10

New York (Jets) at Buffalo (even)

Nick:

I’m just hoping Mac takes the bait. Bills, duh.

Mac:

The optimist says the Jets have a good defense and the Bills have a good offense. The pessimist says the Jets have a bad offense and the Bills have a bad defense. At 5-2 the Bills are having an outstanding season, tied for the division lead and have a win over the Patriots. At 4-3, Jets are a disappointment dropping 3-straight in the middle of the season and having no success with an offense that is filled with every stud skill-player that was on the free agent market. But if the Jets win this game, those two opposite teams will be in the exact same position, 5-3 praying the Giants piss off Foxborough one more time. Look for the Jets to get out of the sports media doghouse, edging out the Bills in an offense explosion, Jets 37-31

New York (Giants) at New England (-9.5)

Nick:

Oh, a repeat of Superbowl XLII—the absolute best Superbowl for everybody outside of the greater Boston area. Like I’ve said before, Bellichek is one of the best at recovering from a loss—which is why he wins so many games. I think I’ve also voiced enough skepticism about the Giants. Continuing, I don’t think the Patriots will overlook a team they so gloriously overlooked just a few years ago in front of 90 million people. On a sadder note, I don’t think I’ll ever get my Manning vs. Manning Superbowl now. Damn Eli’s wild fluctuations and Peyton’s post-season tribulations. Anyhow, the Patriots are home and Boston started pre-gaming for this showdown on Tuesday. Now to just look at the point spread and…holy hell, ten points? The Giants have won 5 of their last 6, people. They’re going to make a better game out of this than ten points. New York within the margin.

Mac:

I don’t understand the Giants and I won’t pretend to. I don’t understand Eli Manning and I won’t pretend to. I could make a prediction on this game but it wouldn’t really mean anything. All I know is the Patriots don’t lose 2 in a row very often and I expect Tom Brady to come out on fire to make up for the Steelers game. But I still see something happening here. The NFC East is once again a talented division that has underperformed. At one point the 1-4 Eagles looked like it was about to become the best team to not make the playoffs…ever. Instead they sit at 3-4 two games out of the division lead and are on an upswing. Eli Manning is trying to live up to his off-season comments about being elite even though the team around him is losing a step. He doesn’t have the running game that will limit his turnover proneness and the defense is a loss when it comes to stopping the run. Eli is elite but teams don’t win in December with a bad rush offense and a bad rush defense. My predictions today is that the Eagles win the NFC East, the Giants don’t make the playoffs, and this game starts the downward trend of the Giants, Patriots 31-17.

Green Bay at San Diego (+5.5)

Nick:

At this point Aaron Rodgers is not only going to win the league MVP (if Peyton Manning is disqualified), but the second and third place winners will just be “Aron Rogers” and “Why are we even voting on this?” There are still too many reasons why the Packers won’t go 16-0 and so the better question is when will the upset happen? Against the Chargers? On their short week? When the Packers are coming off of a bye-week? When Rivers is making dumb passes like a drunk congressman? There is very little that makes sense in football and I think my biggest regret this season was not publishing my prediction that the Rams would beat the Saints (don’t believe I called it, do you?). This is moronic; only a dumbbell would pick San Diego. Only an absolute naïf or brain-stunted addlepate. Only a cable channel news pundit or dimwit, dingbat, dunce or dolt would do this. Maybe I’m just a simpleton, a simpleton with a plan. Chargers.

Mac:

This is a hard game for me to predict because every Chargers game I want to espouse my theory on Philip Rivers called the Anti-Farve. Instead I’ll simply say this, the Chargers have all the talent needed to be the team to upset the undefeated Packers. They have offensive weapons that are on par with the Packers. They have a defense that is actually playing better than the Packers. The only difference between the two is execution which falls on one person, the head coach. Simply stated Norv Turner has to be fired and the Chargers have to replace him with a coach that will hold this team, specifically Rivers, accountable for its mistakes and miscues. Although everything points to the Packers taking advantage of the sloppy Chargers, I’m predicting an upset by a Chargers team that gets their act together for one game, Chargers 34-24

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-3.5)

The Ravens only lose easy games. And some hard ones, but mostly just easy ones. And Ben Roethlisberger knows something about having trouble with the easy ones. The Steelers should play better than in Week 1. But are they 35-points better? Not likely. On the other hand, Joe Flacco isn’t taking anybody to the Superbowl unless he’s buying the tickets; which is too bad because this rivalry will only become one of the league’s best if Baltimore can get some major playoff wins and stop being the Joey Bishop of the AFC North. Big Ben is 7-1 against the Ravens when at home and that ain’t too shabby. Maybe this is just a lingering effect of picking the Chargers a paragraph ago but I feel another unlikely upset coming on. Picking underdogs does provide a small sense of euphoria. Who needs drugs when writing gives you an inflated self-esteem? Oh yeah, writers. Ravens.

Mac:

This is a game I’m excited to see. The Ravens and the Steelers are tied for first in the AFC North, both are playing great going into this game and both have teams that are built for winter football. The Ravens in all reality should finally be a better team than the Steelers but that should have been true in previous years yet every time that Steelers have one-upped them. This year however Flacco and Boldin have gained chemistry that gives this team an edge that they haven’t had before. Ravens beat the Steelers for the second time this year by playing Steelers football better than Pittsburgh, Ravens 24-17

Season Records:

Nick (5-1)

Mac (5-1)