Superbowl Sunday: The Preview

Giants (12-7) versus Patriots (15-3) 6:20 ET on NBC (if we’re lucky kickoff will be before 7)

If you have been paying any attention at all to this weeks upcoming Superbowl game between the Giants and the Patriots there are two things you are probably sick and tired of hearing about. The health of Rob Gronkowski and the sequence of events that led up to David Tyree’s amazing catch in Superbowl XLII.

Unfortunately for you, dear reader these are unavoidable topics when it come to analyzing this impending match up.

Revenge. There has been a lot of people predicting that the Patriots have the revenge factor going for them in this game because of the way the Giants ruined their perfect season. While I’m sure there is some serious residual sting from that loss for the Patriots players, it’s a losers lament and something that affects the fan base more than the players. Bill Belichick is not the kind of coach that is going to allow his players to blame anyone other than themselves for getting unexpectedly punched in the mouth by the Giants. The greater motivating factor for this years Patriots team is that the Giants were the last team to beat them this year. The teams are on a combined 15-0 run but as I chronicled before the Pats haven’t played a lot of talented teams and just barely got out of the Baltimore game alive whereas the Giants are gaining momentum at just the right time and have been beating the cream of the NFC.

Rob Gronkowski on the other foot is the other major story of the week. I have no doubt in my mind that the Gronk is going to play in the Superbowl. Whether they numb him up, he just plain guts it out, or he goes out of his mind on cocaine like L.T. used to do in the 80’s, he is going to be on the field this Sunday.The big debate is as to how effective he will be. If the Patriots can drive the field and get into the red zone I feel that Gronkowski with his freakish size will still be an effective end zone threat, a place that he has thrived all season. The Giants should be able to limit his impact on the rest of the field however by jamming him at the line and taking advantage of the fact that his speed should be hobbled.

Vegas has the Patriots listed as favorites giving three points to the Giants however I feel like this is the Gee Men’s game to lose. The Giants are better than the Patriots in every category except Quarterback. The trio of Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and Mario Manningham is deadly and doesn’t allow defenses to key on any one guy. Big Blue’s running game has been much maligned all season and just hasn’t been the game-changing strength that it has been in previous years but I’m still taking Bradshaw and Jacobs (Thunder and Lightning) over Green-Ellis and Woodhead (The Law Firm and Mighty Mouse) especially the way the Offensive Line has been coming together for the Giants. Both the Patriots and Giants secondary has been questionable all season but now that the Giants are healthy they have this category in the win column and have the extra edge of being able to use more defenders on the strength of what could possibly be the best front four in the NFL.

That leaves us with the last X-factor of the game being Brady versus Manning. When you think of Brady v. Manning the first image that comes to your head is the Elder Manning, but this year he will again be watching from the luxury boxes as Eli battles on the field. In years past this would be a match up that you didn’t even have to really think about. Brady was the better and more consistent Quarterback with all the experience and  swagger to go with it and Eli was the on-again off-again sufferer of the “Manning Face” who could either throw for 350 yards or throw for three picks.

This year we have seen a different Eli. The Manning Face still creeps up from time to time but I have been really impressed with the consistency of Eli’s game this year and last week against the Niners he showed some serious toughness as he shrugged off sack after sack without letting it affect his pocket presence. Tom Brady on the other hand is starting to show a few chinks in the armor and had a self-admittedly horrible game against the Ravens  and there is a reason it’s not the same old Brady versus Manning this year. These guys are getting older and with all the hits and injuries you have to endure it’s hard to have a long career in the NFL. That being said Brady doesn’t have bad games two weeks in a row, he has the backing of one of the greatest game planners in the game with Bill Belichick  and the Patriots won’t make the mistake they made in 2008 of underestimating the Giants.

So who takes home all the enchiladas on Sunday? Homerism aside, sort of,  I am staying with the New York Football Giants. All of the factors seem to be in there favor. The only category the Patriots dominate the Giants in is at TE and their most important TE is hobbled. You can argue successfully that the Pats have the edge at Head Coach and Quarterback but the margin is not that wide. The Gee Men have a great Defense right now and unlike teams who have been carried to Superbowl victories on defense alone, see 2000 Ravens, the Giants also have a great offense. Defense wins Championships but it doesn’t hurt to be able to sling some arrows too. The greatest factor the Giants have going for them is that they are peaking at the right time and that has been the blueprint for winning Superbowls for years now. The Giants rode a similar kind of wave in 2007, the Saints and the Packers did the same thing the last couple years and look for the Boys in Blue to do it again this year. One more thing Patriots fans. Try winning a Superbowl without Adam Vinatieri! The Patriots three Superbowl victories were each decided by three point and two of those were game winners by Vinatieri who has also since won another Superbowl with the Colts.

Final Score: Giants 27, Patriots 20

Grizzly Review: Red Tails

There’s nothing like two hours of hokey, old-fashioned, and exciting entertainment. Ridden with clichés and one-dimensional characters, big budget blockbusters are the foundation of American entertainment. I mean, what would we do if pretentious art films were the only things hitting the megaplex? You know what we would do? We would poke our freaking eyes out, and beg people like Spielberg and Lucas and Jackson to just get back behind the director’s chair, and give us the goods. But not Michael Bay. No, Michael Bay is on a permanent time out after the Transformers sequels.

George Lucas announced his retirement from big budget filmmaking, saying that he’ll be going out with Red Tails, a fictionalized telling of the Tuskegee airmen, the first all African-American pilot group. Serving as Executive Producer for the project, it was a story that Lucas was very eager to tell. He felt that the Tuskegee pilots were extremely underappreciated and wanted to bring their story to life in the most entertaining way possible. Now, in 2012, he’s achieved that goal, finally releasing Red Tails after twenty-odd years in production.

Red Tails’ main pilots are ladies’ man, Lightning (David Oyelowo), the “best pilot in the whole damn world”, Joker (Elijah Kelley), Junior (Tristan Wilds), and their leader, Easy (Nate Parker). Together, they make up the most talented and fiercest pilots in the military, but because they’re colored, they’re forced to do minuscule surveillance jobs where no enemies have been spotted for months, as they aren’t trusted to handle real combat due to the belief that they have “inferior mental capacity” to the other pilots.

The group’s leaders, Major Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and Colonel AJ Bullard (Terrence Howard), land them a mission that involves escorting bombers across enemy territory. They nail it with no US casualties which catapults their status into the top air league in the entire military.

TV director Anthony Hemingway makes his feature film debut with Red Tails, and the directing is definitely the first thing I want to talk about, because it’s f***ing awesome. Granted, this is one of the most heavily produced movies you’ll ever see, but it’s damn cool to look at, and the CGI is quite realistic. The dogfight scenes are breathtaking, and Hemingway makes use of steady cam, immersing us in the action instead of flip-flopping the camera every which way so that we see nothing.

The screenplay is the definition of cheesy, but I really didn’t care because the corny one-liners and unrealistic dialogue is just a part of what makes Red Tails the old-fashioned action fest that it is. In fact, the film borders on Chaos Cinema, with the extended dogfight scenes and thin plot, but it’s Chaos Cinema done right. Unlike 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the MoonRed Tails know how to balance action and plot well enough to the point where the resulting product actually comes off as a movie and not a commercial for explosives.

I had an amazing time watching Red Tails. It’s a fun, family friendly movie that can appeal to all ages, races, genders, and anything else you can think of. It’s an inspiring tale that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously and being a George Lucas skeptic, I was surprisingly impressed by this movie’s capacity to entertain and inspire all at the same time, while still not losing its edge. The surprisingly bad reviews can be called “racism”, but I call it opinion, and by definition, Red Tails isn’t necessarily a “good movie”, but it’s an extremely fun one to watch, and isn’t that all we really need sometimes?

4/5 Bears

The Walking Dead Update: A Need for More Zombies and the Battle for Governor

This is not the first time I have heard little grumbles about season 2 of the AMC series, The Walking Dead. Reading an article on Warming Glow made me realize how very often I have seen online TWD threads complaining about the lack of zombies, and how slow season 2 has been. Of course I absolutely agree, especially after reading about the season 2 opener that we will never see. A show revolving around the zombie apocalypse… we should not have to tell you that there should be more action! The way the season began, with Sophia being lost, was a setup for a long and drawn out, dramatic plot point. By episode 4, no one cared about Sophia anymore.

Hershel added a much-needed opposing point to the story. It was a very realistic element to TWD… seeing someone who morally could not bring himself to kill the walkers. However, how many zombies did we actually see action with this season? Not enough.

The incident with Shane and Otis was probably the most exciting zombie-related scene in all of season 2 so far. Bottom line: Don’t get boring on us! We need action! Grumble grumble grumble.

Next order of business: The Walking Dead needs a Governor!

Continue reading The Walking Dead Update: A Need for More Zombies and the Battle for Governor

Grizzly Review: The Grey

When I first saw the preview for The Grey, I was immediately put off by the presence of Liam Neeson, as well as the film’s seemingly relentlessly stupid plot and mindless action, but upon watching the trailer a couple more times, I began to see things that influenced me a little more. See, when you watch a preview, you need to look at it in parts, because more times than not, what you see in the preview is what the studio wants you to see and in most cases isn’t what you see in the actual film. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.


Regarding what caught my eye, there were three things in particular. Three things that may not mean much to the occasional moviegoer, but to someone who spends hours a week watching movie previews over and over again (pathetic, I know, don’t judge me), you pick up on a lot of things really quickly. The very first thing that caught my eye was the camera work. Most action films starring Liam Neeson insist on steady cam for scenes not including action, most notably Taken, which had one of the most steady hands I’ve seen in a picture of that kind. In The Grey‘s preview, this is not the case, starting off with a shot of Neeson simply walking, a voice-over invading the silence of his footsteps.

The second thing that I noticed almost immediately was the casting of Dallas Roberts, who hasn’t made a bad movie big budget movie since I’ve known him, and in many cases, his choice in independent film roles aren’t too bad either. But still, I know that good actors can star in bad movies, so that didn’t necessarily seal the deal for me. What did seal the deal though, was the film’s R rating. Now, you might be thinking I’m crazy, and you might even be considering clicking out of the page, but just stick with me for a bit, there’s a point to all of this.

Now, Liam Neeson is a middle-aged action star who has revived his career quite successfully, once again retaining the sex symbol status that he really never had. He hasn’t made an R rated movie since 2009, meaning he’s spent the last three years happily topping the box office, and at one point probably considered never looking back. What’s even more interesting is the MPAA certification behind the rating which is violence/disturbing content including bloody images, and pervasive language. Not once does it mention excessive gore or sex, but rather a subdued R rating.

I feel like as an industry, film is at a point where if the film earns an R rating, it’s usually because of either nudity or intense psychological drama, whereas PG-13 films have the excessive violence. The Grey proves my point, trading in useless action for some of the most intimate but not necessarily most violent death scenes in recent memory. Following a group of oil drillers in Alaska, a select group of survivors must make their way to safety after their plane back to Anchorage crashes, killing most of the other passengers, as well as the entire crew. Led by their mysterious hunter, Ottway (Liam Neeson), the group of seven survivors must make their way to safety, and in the far north of Earth, they have no idea where that might be.

To add insult to injury, the men are also being picked off by a group of wolves whose den is no more than 20 or 30 miles from their current location. They theorize that they only way they can get to safety is if they make it to a forest about 15 miles from them, they’ll be able to set up a camp, safely away from the pack of wolves, and possibly find a shelter or cabin of some kind. The more they walk, the more dangerous their journey becomes, with the wolves, the storms, and the altitude all playing factors into whether or not they’ll be able to survive this ordeal.

During the lonely nights, the men share stories of back home, what they would do if they made it out alive, and if their faith is enough to get them out alive. Ottway himself thinks of his wife back home, but states early on in an opening voice-over that he’ll never be able to be with her again, and we don’t know why. The film poses both philosophical and religious questions at many points throughout its duration, like the validity of human civility, the reliance on God and other higher beings, as well as survival skills in a time of desperation. There are also plenty of metaphors, as well as a good dose of symbolism to keep you thinking amongst all the atrocity.

The Grey is a film about 100 times sadder than I thought it was going to be, but it was also 100 times better than I thought it was going to be. Taking me completely by surprise, The Grey managed to take me on an emotional journey that I honestly wasn’t ready for. The characters are all individuals, beautifully fleshed out to represent a different walk of life, all with equally true and heartbreaking results.

Writer/Director Joe Carnahan is able to craft a beautiful film from a dismal topic, focusing much more on narrative than action while still keeping up a brisk pace for the film’s 118 minute long running time. But trust me, there’s plenty of action, and even a couple good scares to get the blood pumping. Liam Neeson turns in one of the best performances of his career, but Dallas Roberts is definitely his equal, playing a man of faith who struggles to maintain his sanity at times. He’s the most strong-willed of the group besides Neeson himself, and is the most resourceful when it comes to medical information.

Despite the film’s vast location, the addition of the man hunting wolves surrounding the group gave The Grey an extremely claustrophobic feel, with the mentality that the men have all this open space but nowhere to run. Speaking of the wolves, they were surprisingly realistic looking when looked at up close or dead. After some research, it turns out that they actually were real for the most part. The crew used four dead wolves that had been hunted and discarded in the surrounding area for the more “intimate” scenes. You’ll see what I’m talking about if you go see the movie. But when they weren’t real, the CG animals were quite realistic looking, and on a budget of only $17 million dollars, that’s definitely saying something.

The Grey, simply put, is an arthouse thriller suitable for the megaplex, but could most definitely find a home at your local independent theater. There were plenty of times when I feared that Carnahan would suddenly shift the bleak tone of the film, giving the characters the happy ending we know they deserve, but thankfully he doesn’t, and it results in a final scene that keeps playing over and over again in my head. It’s equally riveting and revealing, and if you have any remnants of a soul, you’ll probably shed a tear or two like I did. And on the bright side, the black guy does not die first in this movie. That right there should be enough incentive to hand over your ten dollars, right?

5/5 Bears