March Madness 2009

Jeremy BeckUncategorized

In sports, equality is overrated. Sure, the global economy might be in a crippling recession, but that’s nothing compared to the dwindling talent level in college basketball. By my count, no fewer than 11 teams have a legitimate shot to win the NCAA title this year. Eleven! Are you fucking kidding me? Do you realize John Wooden once won 10 championships in a 12-year span?

Think about this: The 2002 Duke Blue Devils – the best collegiate basketball team I’ve ever seen – won their games by an average margin of 19.5 points. This year’s top overall seed, the Louisville Cardinals, have an average victory margin of 12.3 points. That’s a staggering 37% decrease. Teams just can’t dominate wall-to-wall anymore.

For better or worse, the 2008-09 college basketball season is one of extreme parity, and while that might make for some competitive contests, it also signifies the lack of an Upper Crust – a truly elite group of teams that is all but guaranteed to dominate in the postseason.

I can’t decide if this phenomenon is good or bad. Read More

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Why Watchmen is a movie for our time, for better or worse

Jeremy BeckReviews

I like big movies. I always have. Not being a professional film critic, I don’t feel obligated to prioritize small-scale, independent projects over studio-helmed blockbusters. I certainly have no intrinsic problem with low-key indie films – one of my favorite movies of 2008 was Rachel Getting Married, which is about as lo-fi and low-budget as you can get – but in general, my boyish, exuberant sensibilities tend to be partial to grand and even grandiose filmmaking. Cinema as a medium can show us truly remarkable things, and I love movies that tell sweeping stories on an epic scale, movies with an unapologetic sense of adventure and a bold imagination.

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is, if nothing else, a big movie. With a $130 million budget, an IMAX release, an immensely popular novel that has inspired a rabid fan base, and a storyline of apocalyptic proportions (not to mention a runtime of two and a half hours), Watchmen demands to be recognized as an epic. In this, I suppose it succeeds – after all, making an epic is really all about effort, and no one is going to accuse Snyder of not trying hard enough. Read More

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Upcoming Theatrical Releases: March 2009

Jeremy BeckFeatures

One of my favorite parts of writing the Manifesto in years past was when I would break from Oscars’ analysis and look ahead to the upcoming summer season (or, as was the case in 2007, the entire year), attempting to forecast the hottest pending theatrical releases. Forgive my leanings toward divination, but there’s something exciting about gazing into the unknown. It’s not really about prognostication – I’m not interested in showcasing my predictive prowess regarding which films will be hits and which will be duds. It’s more about building anticipation. One of the marvelous things about movies is that you never know when you’ll next see a great one, and it’s fun to peer into the future and question just when and what that will be.

Of course, in the past, I could only perform this ritual of cinematic stargazing once a year, as the Manifesto was issued annually to coincide with the Oscars. Now, however, I’m the author of this fancy, ever-evolving blog and am no longer subject to the tyranny of that ceremony; in fact, I can write about whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want. It’s quite liberating, really. Read More

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The Top 10 Movies of 2008

Jeremy BeckTop 10 Lists

I considered devoting a detailed post to the recent Oscars telecast, but there’s really no point; while I’m more than happy to convey my esteemed thoughts on movies, TV shows, and other forms of populist entertainment, I can’t quite motivate myself to write about an awards ceremony. In terms of my predictions, I correctly hit 14 of 21 categories for a score of 67% – not terrible, but certainly not good, especially in a year with an established frontrunner. Most of my upset picks in the technical categories proved to be more idiotic than sneaky; I won’t beat myself up over the Sound categories or Departures winning for Foreign Language Film, but going with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over Slumdog Millionaire for Original Score was just wishful thinking, and I missed on both big 50-50 areas (Actor and Original Screenplay). Poor form.

(On the plus side, multiple people informed me that the Manifesto helped guide them to strong finishes in their respective Oscar pools. I’m happy to provide assistance, but they obviously must have made some shrewd adjustments to a few of my more dubious selections. In my own pool with weighted scoring, I finished seventh out of 12 and lost to my sister by one fucking point. Seriously poor form.) Read More

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Oscars Analysis 2008: Best Picture

Jeremy BeckOscars

NOMINEES

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

WILL WIN

Twenty categories later, we’ve finally arrived at the big prize, and the suspense is … er, is there any suspense? Like, at all? At this point, I feel like the 2008 Best Picture race is more of a sure thing than the Iraqi election in 2002, when Saddam Hussein won 100% of the vote because no other candidates were allowed on the ballot. As such, the question isn’t “Which movie is going to win Best Picture?” but “Is there any challenger with a shot in hell of defeating Slumdog Millionaire?”. Read More

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