NBA Predictions

I wasn't planning on doing any fantasy basketball this year, but I went home early today because of a stomach bug and ended up drafting a couple teams on ESPN while curled up on the couch. It put me in mind that I should put pen to paper and make my very smart NBA predictions, which are all but certain to be proved correct by season's end.

I haven't done much research on all of this, but here's 10 predictions I'm making from the gut:

1. The Celtics, despite inner turmoil and a number of minor injuries, will finish the season with the best record in the Eastern Conference.

2. On the flip side, despite much hyping of their talents in the press, Washington will fail to make the playoffs entirely.

3. The Eastern conference will finish up like this

  1. Boston Celtics
  2. Orlando Magic
  3. Cleveland Cavaliers
  4. Atlanta Hawks
  5. Miami Heat
  6. Chicago Bulls
  7. Toronto Raptors
  8. Detroit Pistons
  9. Washington Wizards
  10. Philadelphia 76ers
  11. Indiana Pacers
  12. New York Knicks
  13. Charlotte Bobcats
  14. New Jersey Nets
  15. Milwaukee Bucks

4. The Spurs depth will prove too much of an advantage over the long haul, and they will finish first in the West, just ahead of the Lakers.

5. Early buzz about the new-look Clippers will collapse as the team completely falls apart. Playoff predictions by NBA insiders will look ridiculous come February.

6. Written-off-and-left-for-dead teams like the Thunder and the Rockets, and possibly even the Warriors, will be surprisingly competitive.

7. The Western Conference will finish like so:

  1. San Antonio Spurs
  2. Los Angeles Lakers
  3. Denver Nuggets
  4. Portland Trail Blazers
  5. Dallas Mavericks
  6. Utah Jazz
  7. New Orleans Hornets
  8. Phoenix Suns
  9. Houston Rockets
  10. Oklahoma City Thunder
  11. Los Angeles Clippers
  12. Golden State Warriors
  13. Memphis Grizzlies
  14. Minnesota Timberwolves
  15. Sacramento Kings

8. The following players will have much stronger seasons than expected: Jason Thompson, Allen Iverson, Baron Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Andrea Bargnani, Michael Beasley, anyone on the Thunder who's under 25, and everyone on the Rockets not named Yao or T-Mac.

9. The following players will be predicted to have step-back seasons, but will instead remain just as solid as they were the year before: Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, Nate Robinson.

10. Someone other than Blake Griffin will win the Rookie of the Year award.

The Twentieth Best Movie I’ve Seen In Theaters This Year

#20. The Informant!

If you’re just joining the party, here’s the list of The Twenty-Three Best Movies I’ve Seen In Theaters This Year.
 
I’ve been dreading doing this review because, while I cannot seem to summon any enthusiasm for the movie, neither can I spew any vitriol towards it. It seems, even in this review, The Informant! lacks any element of life.
 
The problem with The Informant! is that it just lies there, like a dead thing (or your momma! Boom!). Is it a drama? Maybe. The stakes keep rising as the plot moves along, and there’s an implicit understanding that Matt Damon’s character is in way over his head. Is it a comedy? Maybe. There are funny parts, and Damon is consistently amusing, perhaps even exceptional, whether on screen or in his understated, off-kilter voiceovers. Is it a satire? Maybe. It seems vaguely satirical, and most of the serious roles are played by top-notch comedians, leaving the viewer to assume that it’s supposed to be satirical.
 
But that’s the inherent problem. Even after having left the theater, I didn’t really know what it was supposed to be. I don’t have to tell you what a huge failure that is.
 
Let me tell you my suspicion: director Steven Soderbergh read the screenplay and felt that it was a satire. He cast the movie accordingly, throwing ace comedians (Joel McHale, Patton Oswalt, Tony Hale, Paul F. Tompkins, Tom Smothers, etc.) into all the major roles.  Then he gave the actors plenty of rope, assuming that they would just find the rhythm as the movie went along.
 
Unfortunately, the plot structure is too disjointed to allow such a maneuver. While Damon’s in the movie enough to establish a consistent tone, the rest of the cast appears in only a three or four scenes at the most. Most of them look like they tried to find the joke, couldn't, and decided to play it straight. There's nothing wrong with playing it straight, but most of the film takes place in boardrooms with characters bickering back and forth, and if there's no joke to be played, there's no reason to watch. So while the movie chugs along acceptably, there's never any sort of narrative momentum - the situation gets neither more dramatic nor particularly funny.

Sort of like this review, which is helpless to do anything but state the facts in the face of this singularly disappointing film.

In fact, the only reason the movie has any life at all is from Damon's performance, who remains eminently watchable and explosively funny the whole film - more in spite of than because of his gigantic and wholly unnecessary weight gain for this role.

Instead, the trailer - which boils the movie down to its funniest, most on-target moments - ends up being a much better representation of how a movie like this should feel. And that's a pretty sad thing to see.

Best Sketches: SNL Season 34

Doing the quick-hits list of best sketches from this year's Saturday Night Live made me realize that I never did one from last season. Easy to remedy that.

I could have listed these "in no particular order", since it was one of those years on SNL - a huge pack of very solid, memorable sketches, all about equal in terms of staying power - except for the top few, which I feel we'll be remembering for years to come.

Without further ado, and with apologies to "Like A Boss" and Will Ferrell's monologue:

15. Two A-Holes At A Pitch Meeting in the 1960's

This one is only rated this low since it's perhaps too inside joke-laden - not only do you have to have seen "Mad Men" before, but you needed to have specifically seen their Emmy-nominated season finale, "The Caousel." It also wouldn't hurt to have seen Jason Sudekis and Kristen Wiig's "Two A-Holes" series before. With or without that preparation, the sketch is loads of fun - especially with the appearance of John Hamm's real-life co-stars Elizabeth Moss and John Slattery.

14. Immigrant Tale

1800's-era Irish Immigrant Justin Timberlake philosophizes about his future progeny, Justin Timberlake, and the great things he will achieve. Timberlake manages the exact balance of self-deprecation and winking self-aggrandizement - a sentiment that frankly may someday be engraved on his tombstone.

13. "Goodnight Saigon"

Season 34's final sketch featured both a who's who of celebrity cameos (Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Paul Rudd, Artie Lange, et al.) and a surprisingly and weirdly moving version of Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon". There's a reason Ferrell ended his career as perhaps the best sketch artist in the history of SNL - he's perfectly cut out for this sort of work. Even as the sketch gets stranger, he only gets funnier.

12. "I'm On A Boat!"

This one only gets better the more you watch it. Millions and millions of people have done comic raps, but not very many go so far as to snag a hip-hop superstar (T-Pain) and do a fully professional music video while they're at it. They're also the first people to realize what's now abundantly obvious - T-Pain is fully willing to mock the horse that brought him here (see: Funny or Die videos, CMA skit with Taylor Swift, etc).

11. Madonna & Angelina Jolie

Two spot on impressions by Wiig and Abby Elliot, the best of which is both of their expressions when they say the phrase "space baby."

10. High School Musical

It's not just that Zach Efron showed some acting chops on his turn on SNL - he was exceptionably good. Especially when knocking the show that made him famous, when he shows up at his old high school as their shellshocked commencement speaker.

9. Whopper Virgins

A take on Burger King's controversial (and legitimately offensive) Whopper Virgin commercials, SNL imagines what, exactly, an actual Whopper Virgin interview would look like.

8. Mary Poppins

I knew that Anne Hathaway had a theater background, so I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that she was excellent on SNL, but my esteem for her acting chops had risen significantly by the end of the show. Sort of the opposite of watching Matthew Fox or Tim McGraw host. This isn't the only time she's in the top 10.

7. Weekend Update: Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake takes us through an entire SNL episode in 3 minutes. And it's spellbinding. Because Timberlake could host SNL every week and no one would be bothered at all.

6.Wedding Toast

Really, it's 10 different brilliant new characters that all happened to be tried out at the same sketch. It's just kismet it all happened at once.

5. Couric/Palin

The first of the truly memorable moments of the season on the list, this was one of those skits that got broken down ad nauseam by the press for no other reason than Sarah Palin was such a polarizing figure last fall that the press remained deeply fascinated by her throughout the race, to a truly bizarre degree. And Tina Fey's impression of her - helped immensely by Seth Meyer's sharply funny writing - ended up a condemningly accurate portrayal of what, exactly, Palin's appeal really was.

4. The Lawrence Welk Show

It's not so much that it's an accurate imitation of what "The Lawrence Welk Show" was, it's just that doing a version of the show in the 21st century, completely irregardless of context, ended up being much more funny than doing it 40 years beforehand.

3. Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals

I don't know why this is funny. It's just that it somehow seems totally accurate.

2. Motherlover

Because it took guts to say "y'know what the world is crying out for? A sequel to our song about hiding our penises in boxes!" It also probably took guts to call Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson and ask them to be in the music video. I can't imagine how you start that phone call.

1.  Sarah Palin Rap

And the cultural zeitgest comes to rest on Amy Poehler, who, seeming to physically hold off labor while performing, raps a song that features her killing a moose with a handgun, screaming "Now you're dead! Now you're dead, 'cause I'm an animal! And I'm bigger than you!" while Palin cheerfully bobs her head in rhythm three feet away. In 15 years, we will have no way to explain this clip to our children. It will absolutely mystify them, and possibly us as well.