The Ten-Four, Good Buddy Fantasy League!

Hey everyone.

I'm starting a Fantasy Football league this year, and some of the frequent commenters on this site - Jonathan and Assistant Village Idiot - will be joining.

It's a pretty laid-back league in which the majority of people will have never played fantasy sports before, and it should be a fun experiment in how competitive we get in trying to beat each other, either through the league or through outrageously overaggressive emails issued during these battles.

Anyway, there's still a few spots open in the league, so if you've never know the joy of watching your running back break free for a forty-yard score, or your opponent's QB going down with a bruised shoulder in the first quarter, or just unnecessarily trash-talking over the awesome skills your wide receiver has, a receiver you have never seen play, probably never will, and could not pick out of a crowd (Seriously. The best player on my fantasy baseball team is Ben Zobrist, who I just discovered this week is a white guy. Who knew?), then you're free to join in.

No experience necessary (and possibly, quite inadvisable), and don't feel like you've got to be a frequent commenter in order to ask to join. Send me an email at 10fourgoodbuddy@gmail.com if you'd like to be a part of it.

Movie Fun

A couple different fun links for you today. First, I don't know if I posted this before, but someone linked me to IFC's 50 Greatest Trailers Of All Time a couple weeks after the first time it got sent my way, and I was surprised to discover that I just couldn't help but poke back through it again. If I keep getting linked back, I'm sure eventually I'll watch all fifty. My personal favorites were the ones that didn't show any of the actual films, just short scenes of people talking about the movies, like #6, Orson Welles' booming voiceover introducing Citizen Kane ("These are the chorus girls. Of course, we're just showing you the chorus girls for purposes of... ballyhoo. Still, it's pretty nice ballyhoo."), or #2, Alfred Hitchcock giving you a tour of the set of Psycho, trying unsuccessfully to appear perturbed by the concept of mayhem and vicious murders. While at the site, I also enjoyed their History of Unreliable Narrators.

Second, Total Sci-Fi Online made one of those lists that you know you're going to get pummeled for but at some point a site like that has to make anyway: a list of the 100 Greatest Sci-Fi Movies. I liked the list and couldn't find much wrong with it, though I've never been able to summon much love for their top movie, Blade Runner, no matter how hard I try. The list takes into account both the best of the the cheap, mass-produced alien/monster movies from the '50s without ignoring the fact that best films of the genre were made in the '70s and '80s. For the record, a more challenging enterprise would be to try to make a list like this without ever using the word "dystopian."

And finally, Screen Junkies wonders what it would be like if movie posters put quotes up from their negative reviews instead of their positive ones.

Good Screenwriting Alert:

In the opening 20 minutes of The Hangover, the script quietly establishes that Doug (Justin Bartha) is the only thing that ties together the three other characters together. He's the peacekeeper and the normal friend, and it's clear that without him the other three guys would have nothing in common. The script then removes Doug from the picture entirely, leaving the other three characters to deal with each other. While most movies are forced to continually up the ante in order to get the characters yelling comically at each other, The Hangover could let them start screaming from the moment they wake up with the titular hangover. Then, once Doug rejoins the group, they aren't forced to have a "y'know, I'm just glad we're friends/best friends/husband and wife/partners/brothers/Wayans brothers/literally birds of a feather/almost done with this Michael Bay movie" scene. The movie could just keep right on moving to the resolution.

In the inevitable sequel, I guarantee that this element will no longer be there. Either they will remove Bartha entirely from the movie, or he will remain with the group the entire movie, spoiling the chemistry. A much better solution would be if they somehow managed to once again get separated from Bartha for the majority of the film, however they needed to do that ("alright, guys, I'll see you in New York City in 24 hours for the wedding/funeral/bat mitvah/birth of my child/briss/disarming of the nuclear bomb. Don't be late."). Unfortunately, I'm betting that won't happen.