OSACR DEBACLES: 1981 - Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark

1981 - Chariots of Fire over Raiders of the Lost Ark (8 out of 10 on the Disaster Scale)

The only reason this isn't a "9" or a "10" on the debacle scale is because I haven't actually seen Chariots of Fire, primarily because it looks SO BORING PLEASE OH GOD DON'T MAKE ME WATCH THIS MOVIE!!  The one clip they always show with the famous theme music playing, and the guys running and skipping on the beach, wearing their weird skintight polo shirt/tighty whities...ummm "uniforms" and hopping around like My Little Pony background dancers....I mean, no.   No thank you.

 Seriously?

Plus my wife says it sucks, and since we agree on movies most of the time and I really don't want to watch it...I'm going with "it sucks."  Maybe I'll change my mind when I finally see it, but I can't imagine carving out 124 minutes out of a weekend to put myself through this.  Honestly, I'd rather watch something that was meant to be awful like Snow Dogs so I could enjoy the unintentional comedy and revel in another great film choice by ACADEMY AWARD WINNER Cuba Gooding Jr.!

This is movie magic people.

So it's not you, it's me Chariots of Fire. I hate being bored and wanting to kill myself, so I'm avoiding you. Cheers! Enjoy running on the beach like morons!

However, regardless what movie won that year...the Academy could have chosen, I don't know, arguably the most fun movie in the history of ever!  Raiders is STILL one of the most fun movies of all time, and it came out 33 years ago.  It's as old as Beyonce, and has aged just as well. (and without the chair humping at the Grammys! Bonus!)

Plus it was part of one of the best trilogies of all time! (note: That Crystal Skull debacle with Shia the Boof never happened. N-E-V-E-R H-A-P-P-E-N-E-D. Please, please, please leave Indy alone going forward Lucas.  My dog Clancy did not like this movie by the way. She gave it zero Paws! http://clancythepants.blogspot.com/2008/10/indiana-jones-and-kingdom-of-crystal.html)

But Raiders? Oh man.  You had Harrison Ford doing cool stuff before he got all old and ornery and started wearing earrings and crashing planes! There were snakes and boulders and crazy fun things happening constantly!  And what kid didn't think that the ark melting Nazis faces off with the coolest thing they had ever seen!  THERE WAS FACE MELTING AND THERE WERE NAZIS!

My internal reaction to a Justin Bieber song.

Good lord I love this movie.  Plus, even if we're only comparing soundtracks between the two Raiders STILL comes out ahead.  Seriously, how can you listen to this and not want to jump up and start adventuring? You can't!

 ADVENTURE YOUR FACE OFF!!!

Suck it Chariots!

Dear Rockets,

I love you guys.  Good, clean love. Without utensils. To that end:

• I've been a Rockets fan from the time I was little, and you called my all-time favorite player Akeem Olajuwon's name on draft day:

 "How did we not beat NC State? Seriously?"

• stuck by you as Akeem added an "H" to his name and and became one of the most dominant inside forces of all time;

Here is your jock back Patrick.  Thanks for playing.

•  cheered for the back-to-back titles you brought back to Houston, especially since my hometown had never won anything before then;

Not just the U.S., but the WORLD.  Suck it Ghana!

• argued the genuineness of those titles to all the people who said "You never would have won it if Jordan hadn't gone off to play baseball";

 "I left to play baseball to avoid losing to those Rockets teams. Truth yo!"

• defended the moniker "Clutch City" even when you guys became highly un-clutch in the years after Hakeem retired;

What's the statute of limitations on clutch-ness?

• cheered for the Francis/Mobley squad even though Francis' usage rate was approximately 97% (editors' note: Francis REALLY liked dribbling the ball.  Like, a LOT)

Francis' motto?  "When in doubt, pass to yourself."

• continued cheering even though you made the players wear pajamas for years;

 (and ruined another possible title run by letting Matt Maloney start at PG)

• rooted on the McGrady/Yao teams that teased us with a number of amazing moments (including McGrady scoring 13 points in 33 seconds), but ultimately fell short year after year;

 Nothing snarky to add here.  This was incredible.

• still followed the team closely in Morey's early days, when the roster wasn't remotely an actual team, but a collection of "assets";

"Super awkward picture take 3.  Could you guys spread a little farther apart? That's great!"

•  Watched while Harden and his new teammates went through the usual growing pains;

Harden in his "Tenacious D" Period. Such lateral movement!

• rooted the squad on last year only to see you fall in a hard fought Round 1 battle to Portland on a Lillard miracle;

 As always, there was Parsons behind and one step too slow...

•  basked in this season where you guys started scalding (19-5) and have stayed hot (currently in the 3 seed in a loaded west);

WESTERN		W	L	PCT	GB	HOME	ROAD	DIV	CONF	PF	PA	DIFF	STRK	L10
1	Golden State	50	12	.806	-	27-2	23-10	10-3	30-7	109.6	99.4	+10.3	Won 4	7-3
2	Memphis	45	18	.714	5 ½	24-7	21-11	7-6	28-13	99.3	95.5	+3.8	Won 1	6-4
3	Houston	43	20	.683	7 ½	24-9	19-11	5-6	24-14	103.3	99.7	+3.6	Won 2	7-3
4	Portland	41	20	.672	8 ½	26-6	15-14	8-3	23-14	102.4	97.4	+5.0	Lost 1	7-3
5	LA Clippers	41	23	.641	10	24-9	17-14	8-3	27-12	106.0	100.0	+6.0	Won 1	6-4
6	San Antonio	40	23	.635	10 ½	24-7	16-16	4-6	22-18	101.6	97.4	+4.2	Won 6	6-4
7	Dallas	41	25	.621	11	21-11	20-14	6-6	21-17	104.3	100.8	+3.5	Lost 1	5-5
8	Oklahoma City	35	28	.556	15 ½	21-8	14-20	7-5	19-19	102.3	99.6	+2.7	Won 1	7-3

• then was fired up to see you take down the Cavaliers who were on fire coming into town;

Josh Smith says I can't shoot but I can block shots!

• It was a nice win against a good team.  Definitely be fired up.  But you decide to tweet this out? Really?

There is one King James.  He's going to be in the Hall of Fame and is likely going to be considered a top-5 all time player.  He has 2 titles, 5 Finals appearances and 4 MVP awards.  Meanwhile  the last time you guys were truly relevant and played in the Finals Lebron was 11.  Since your last title you've won 35 playoff games in 20 years.  Lebron, in half the time, won 97.

I'm all for confidence and get that it's a "fun" tweak after a win.  If this had happened after you won a series against him? Awesome.  After a Finals' game? Sure!  But when you do it after a game in early May?  You look like a not-ready-for-prime-time team who is desperate to be noticed as a contender.  How about you win a playoff series or two before you start saying you're better than the best player since MJ? I'm rooting for you, but dial it down a notch. 

OSCAR DEBACLES: 1989 - Driving Miss Daisy

To continue the discussion of why the Oscars are dumb....

1989 - Driving Miss Daisy over Field of Dreams, My Left Foot and Dead Poets Society. (5)

Driving Miss Daisy won the Oscar the moment that the first Oscar voter saw a rough cut of the movie and immediately began telling friends and throwing high fives. I mean, the formula is perfect Oscar catnip.  Period piece? Check.   Older and much admired Actor/Actress in the leading role? Check.  Comedian acting in a serious role? Check.  Curing all of America's racial ills in under two hours?  Check.  I mean...if it hadn't won the Oscar, the Academy would have had to completely revise their checklists on how to vote for the awards which hadn't been revised since...I don't know, probably 1952 with whiteout.  Let's face it, that isn't going to happen when there is scotch to drink, and scripts to be stolen and money to be made! (I'm assuming this what most Oscar voters do in their spare time.  At least when they're not doing mounds of cocaine and chasing whores.)  Driving Miss Daisy is a sweet, nice movie - there's no shame in that.  It's just not the best movie made that year (or even close)  However we're all at least partially indebted to it for helping to establish Morgan Freeman as a "A" list celebrity, and freeing him from having to be on shows like the Electric Company (even though he was great on that too!)

Looking good Morgan. Looking good.

Field of Dreams and Dead Poets Society are great movies.  Neither had a chance to actually win mind you - FOD was way too "weird" for the Academy's tastes, and DPS was too geared towards the younger generation. I envision an 85 year old Oscar voter watching FOD and thinking the voice leading Kevin Costner on his quest was actually coming from the bedroom.  ("Who's there? Come out of there!")  However, there's no doubt that these are the 2 movies that people still watch, re-watch and re-watch some more today.  If I stumble upon Field of Dreams while clicking channels, there are very few situations that are going to keep me from watching the rest of it - even though I own it and can watch it anytime.  (wife) "Oh dear god, one of the boys lit himself on fire!" (me) "Shhhh! Costner is about to play catch with his dad!"  As for My Left Foot, it checked nearly all the boxes on the Oscar list too, but couldn't quite get there since there was no racial component - despite yet another ridiculously great performance from Daniel Day Lewis.  He's so much better than almost any other actor of the past 40 years, they should give him all the awards even if he's not in a movie that year.  I want him accepting awards just for breathing and being Irish.

I drink your milkshake!...and whatever else Ireland wants.  GIVE ME ALL THE AWARDS!

The Oscars are dumb. Let's all not care!

So as I was ranting and raving about how the Academy Award going to "Birdman" (I'm not calling it by the rest of its pretentious, wanna-be ee cummings title) instead of "Boyhood" was "ridiculous" and "garbage" and "another example of how much Hollywood loves itself", while my wife looked on in silence.  Then I (rather annoyingly I'm sure) wondered aloud "Why do I even care so much at all?" to which she responded with a genuine "I don't know", before turning her attention back to her (certainly more interesting than me) glass of wine and post-Oscar show fashion breakdown.

For whatever reason her words hit me...she was right! Why do I care about the ultimate decision reached by an irksome group of primarily old, primarily out-of-touch, often voting-for-reasons-that-are-unrelated-to-the-merits-of-any-given-film folks who would likely be annoying as all hell if I actually met them.  Why indeed?!  And if I, a person who really, really loves movies and wants to see new and unique movies made every year doesn't care, why should anyone care?  How often have they gotten it right anyway?  (hint: not very often)  I assume their lousy voting record just means they are much more focused on doing blow and chasing hookers than picking the best movies.  (Actually, they would be probably be chasing mistresses and not hookers since hookers would come over to you if you had money...let's just move on.)  Granted, fundamentally I get that not everyone will agree on a"best" movie, since films are subjective no matter what general consensus eventually coalesces around a particular flick.  I mean look, there is no chance that 50 Shades of Grey isn't a horrible movie.  There just isn't. There is nothing any of you can say to me that is going to convince me it's not two hours of no chemistry having, poorly written, crappy awfulness wrapped inside a bowl of poop.  Yet it made $80M in its opening week because people are dumb.  Ugh!  The people that think it's awesome are wrong of course, but still...point taken.

Look, I don't really care about listening to folks who think Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey was the best movie of the year...mainly because they might then ask me questions like "Why don't more Adam Sandler movies get nominated?" or say things like "I didn't like The Godfather because there were too many mobsters in it" and I would begin weeping for humanity while backing slowly away for fear of contamination.  There are many, many bad movies released every year, and many of them make a crap-ton of money.  I'm looking at you Transformers...why couldn't you be decent??? For the love of my all-time hero Optimus!

(note: my wife was not as impressed to take this picture as I was to be in it.)

The bottom line is that the Oscars (which are named after Oscar the Grouch of course) have engaged off and on in profound suckage at the task of honoring the "best" movies for many years. Plus, they refuse to even acknowledge that comedies are difficult to pull off and could actually be considered "worthy" of an Oscar.  To which I say, give this man an award for something now Academy!

OSCAR CLIP!

Just because the Oscars say a film is the best movie, time doesn't necessarily always judge the Academy to know what the hell it's doing. All in all, the voters have consistently done a mediocre job at best at picking Best Picture.  I'll cover one example every few days as evidence that we've lived through a lifetime of the Oscar voters sucking it up (all winners ranked on a scale of wrongness from 1 (eh, not a big deal) to 10 (oh holy hell Hollywood!)):

1980 - Ordinary People Over Raging Bull (5).

I rate this a "5" level mistake because I average the general public's 20/20 hindsight view of this as a "9" - level disaster against my rating of "N/A" (not applicable) because (pause for effect) I don't like Raging Bull.  I know, I know.  As someone who loves so  many types of movies and as someone who tries hard to appreciate how a movie is put together, what it's trying to say, etc., I should love Raging Bull.  I really should...I know this.  At the time no movie looked quite like it, or had characters quite like it and it has Scorsese's (more about him below) awesome fingerprints all over it. Yet...it was a slog for me and I have no desire to see it a second time.  My blurb for it would be "Not as good as Rocky IV" which would have been poorly received, since not only did most critics and folks really like Raging Bull, but the unrelenting awesomeness that is Rocky IV hadn't been made yet.  Yes, the world was a hollow place in 1980 without people having experienced lines of dialogue like "If he dies, he dies" and "if i can change, and you can change, everybody can change!"  Rocky IV is the best.

I liked Ordinary People fine, even if at its core it was just a really, really well acted after school special about privileged white people.  But who doesn't enjoy a good after school special?

DANCEFIGHT!!!!

Be Nice to People with Twins

Why should you be nice to people with twins?  Because they are tired.  Like really tired.  I'm talking "haven't had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in years" tired.  Like "am not sure if something happened last week or if I dreamed it while sleeping on the floor next to the crib" tired.  I mean, "to be so tired that halfway through a work email you completely forget why you started drafting it in the first place" tired. If you have multiple kids, you likely have experienced (or are still experiencing) this level of disorienting Requiem for a Dream existence.  You likely are living life with the volume slightly turned down and feeling every thought having to fight through a few extra cobwebs and snags before hitting the right synapse.  Neurons no longer "fire", they "limply project."  Thoughts no longer "pulse" they "meander" or "sachet" or "poop themselves."  They get there, but sometimes minutes (or months) far too late to be of any use.

If you have no kids, imagine the most tired you have ever been.  Maybe it was pulling a few all nighters for exams, or the night after you ran a marathon or after you stayed out til 6am going to super fun bars and places and stopping for some sort of delightful treat on your way home and you get to sleep in all day and WHY WON'T YOU SHARE ANY OF THAT PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS FREE TIME WITH ME??? Jerks.

Sorry.  What I meant to say (if it's not obvious already) is that I know how it feels to be this tired.  I know this because I have twins.  Twin boys.  I have two little people for whom I share joint custody of their very existence.  Without me they die.  (Well to be fair, they can open the pantry so they'd likely hang around long enough to watch a few more Thomas episodes)  This terrifying thought should keep me up nights on its own.  But it doesn't.  Their terribly strategic nighttime crying does.

Basically, my boys have two activities that they came straight out of the womb being able to execute like veterans: (1) be adorably cute at all times; and (2) wake up at different times throughout the night ensuring my wife and I can't ever reach that sweet, sweet, deep sleep that I remember so very well from times of yore.  It's basically because of talent #1 that I don't leave them on someone else's doorstep due to awful talent #2.  Not because I don't want them - I literally love them more than everything else in my life put together - but because for the first few months they were home it would not have surprised me if I had taken them out in the stroller for a walk, only to come home without the stroller and have absolutely no idea what happened the previous 30 minutes.  Not just on the walk, but for the previous week.  ("So you think you went to work last week?"  "Yes sir. I mean, I'm pretty sure I did.  I've still been getting paychecks.  It's June right?"  "It's November."  "Oh.")

Luckily, we have endured the worst of it, those first 3-4 months when they were waking up every few hours to eat, never at the same time, and because we were first time parents our eyelids catapulted open at every noise. Thus 2-4 hours of sleep a night was the usual menu, with me more towards the "4" end, and my poor wife at the "2" end, slowly becoming a shell of a human being-like thing.  Obviously, things have improved and they sleep much, much longer these days, but still. Tired.

I used to fantasize about fun things while at work.  Winning the lottery; having a MLB team call to let me know that they desperately need to sign a 38-year old attorney to be their shortstop; punching certain cable news hosts in the face...you know, good stuff!  Now fantasizing about sleep has started creeping in there. "How great would a weekend of sleeping by the beach be?"  I yearn for sleep the way my younger self yearned for SI swimsuit models...

18 Year Old JC's fantasy

My fantasy now.  Check out the way that sexy bed is put together. Yowsers!

We're past the worst of it, but there is no doubt, it's going to be a long time until I feel rested again.

A few caveats:

If you're a parent of just one young, healthy kid, you have it easy.  I really don't know how else to say it.  Yes, in a vacuum compared to folks without kids, etc. etc. it's hard and difficult and you're responsible for a life and all that...yes, I'll give that to you. But on the rare occasions we are out with just one of the boys? Oh man. EASY! Like...E to the Z yo! And if it's the two of us and only one of the boys? CAKEWALK!!! One of you can do stuff like...go to the bathroom, or take a sip of a drink, or have a conversation with friends where you maintain eye contact for more than 5 seconds, or basically do anything not involving keeping an eye on your man-to-man assigned 22 month old ball of unpredictability.

If you're a parent of twins AND you have other kids...oh man.  I am in awe.  Slow clap for you all.

For parents of triplets or more multiples?  You are my hero.  

For anyone who has said multiple sets of multiples?  You're probably in a mental institution now, but I want to applaud you anyway.  You probably gave it a good effort, and your extended family is likely doing a great job raising those kids!