Saturday, July 24, 2004
3 reviews for the price of one
I do love the Sports Guy, he’s the only thing keeping espn.com from complete mediocrity, but that’s not to say he hasn’t made a mistake from time to time, a piece of writing that made me cringe while I read it, shattering my reverence for him, (much like watching Pedro get shelled by a mediocre team like say…the Orioles.) Up until his horrific, reactionary, unmentionable, selling out of Nomar, (complete with effusive praise of Jeter for “caring more,” and “trying.” After reading up to about the third paragraph my eyes spontaneously started spewing blood; their world “view” had been thrown into chaos,) Bill Simmons’ worst sin was a hater-fest on Conan O’Brien directly before his hiatus from Page 2 to write for Conan competitor Jimmy Kimmel, throwing journalistic objectivity out the window. Then we got to hear about how great Kimmel's show was for two years, as well as what a comedeic genius Adam Carolla was.
While I’ll admit O’Brien’s show has been slumping lately due to lack of new material, you can’t deny his role in moments of comedic greatness: the first 5 years of his show, as a writer for early 1990s SNL, and most importantly, as a writer for The Simpsons for seasons 4 and 5. (Somehow I dont think Carolla matches up with "Loveline," and "The Man Show.) Season 4 was recently released on DVD and finds the show at its absolute peak. There are no weak episodes, in fact there are probably more “classic” episodes then simply “great” episodes, including personal favorites “Whacking Day,” “Ralph Loves Lisa,” and “New Kid on the Block.” In fact my only complaint is that I have seen some episodes too many times in syndication, such as “Marge vs. the Monorail.” However, if you’re a big enough Simpsons fan to have seen an episode that many times in re-runs, you’re going to want to buy the set anyways
99/100
I also picked up the first two seasons of Batman the Animated Series on DVD from good old Best Buy, (packaged as one collector’s set.) This show was released due to fan activism, there have been petitions going around online for years. For someone like me who loved the show growing up, I say thank you geeks. This is a pretty good bargain: 28 episodes in all for 35 dollars. The show, in addition to being pretty funny, is beautifully drawn, capturing and even enhancing the dark, evil, Gotham City from the first Tim Burton Batman movie, leading you to believe a city could actually exist where the supervillains dressed in outrageous costumes and randomly terrorized the populace. Some of the episodes are legitimately scary, and the show goes into the psyches of both Batman and its villains at a level one doesn’t expect from a children’s show. Plus any episode with the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamil aka Luke Skywalker,) is a guaranteed 10. The others aren’t too shabby either
95/100
My last review concerns Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” which I finished on the plane over to Australia. While not as good as the classic “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the subject material of “Sun,” is much more relevant: Jaded young arts major hangs out with his friends in foreign countries getting wasted and bemoaning the futility of life. Hmmmmm. Sounds like someone I know. The story develops slowly over the first half, but picks up when protagonist Jake Barnes and his crew go to Spain for the Running of the Bulls. Hemingway, of course is known for his short sentence prose, and it is clearly less developed in this early novel than in his later work. But even at this early stage his gift for character dialogue shines through, with hilarious exchanges throughout. Plus I lied, his prose is still good, he just decides to talk about nothing interesting in the first 100 pages, other than his characters going to cafes. In the second half, the descriptions of the bullfights and the Spanish festivals are top notch. A slightly depressing book, for sure; you can see how the man ended up blowing his head off with a shotgun.
90/100
While I’ll admit O’Brien’s show has been slumping lately due to lack of new material, you can’t deny his role in moments of comedic greatness: the first 5 years of his show, as a writer for early 1990s SNL, and most importantly, as a writer for The Simpsons for seasons 4 and 5. (Somehow I dont think Carolla matches up with "Loveline," and "The Man Show.) Season 4 was recently released on DVD and finds the show at its absolute peak. There are no weak episodes, in fact there are probably more “classic” episodes then simply “great” episodes, including personal favorites “Whacking Day,” “Ralph Loves Lisa,” and “New Kid on the Block.” In fact my only complaint is that I have seen some episodes too many times in syndication, such as “Marge vs. the Monorail.” However, if you’re a big enough Simpsons fan to have seen an episode that many times in re-runs, you’re going to want to buy the set anyways
99/100
I also picked up the first two seasons of Batman the Animated Series on DVD from good old Best Buy, (packaged as one collector’s set.) This show was released due to fan activism, there have been petitions going around online for years. For someone like me who loved the show growing up, I say thank you geeks. This is a pretty good bargain: 28 episodes in all for 35 dollars. The show, in addition to being pretty funny, is beautifully drawn, capturing and even enhancing the dark, evil, Gotham City from the first Tim Burton Batman movie, leading you to believe a city could actually exist where the supervillains dressed in outrageous costumes and randomly terrorized the populace. Some of the episodes are legitimately scary, and the show goes into the psyches of both Batman and its villains at a level one doesn’t expect from a children’s show. Plus any episode with the Joker (voiced by Mark Hamil aka Luke Skywalker,) is a guaranteed 10. The others aren’t too shabby either
95/100
My last review concerns Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” which I finished on the plane over to Australia. While not as good as the classic “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” the subject material of “Sun,” is much more relevant: Jaded young arts major hangs out with his friends in foreign countries getting wasted and bemoaning the futility of life. Hmmmmm. Sounds like someone I know. The story develops slowly over the first half, but picks up when protagonist Jake Barnes and his crew go to Spain for the Running of the Bulls. Hemingway, of course is known for his short sentence prose, and it is clearly less developed in this early novel than in his later work. But even at this early stage his gift for character dialogue shines through, with hilarious exchanges throughout. Plus I lied, his prose is still good, he just decides to talk about nothing interesting in the first 100 pages, other than his characters going to cafes. In the second half, the descriptions of the bullfights and the Spanish festivals are top notch. A slightly depressing book, for sure; you can see how the man ended up blowing his head off with a shotgun.
90/100
# posted by Marmaniac @ 5:04 PM 
