• One of the Sharks passing the puck to his goalie so hard that it should have registered as a shot on goal.
• With the score at 3-3 to open the third period, Manchester had a 2 on 1 opportunity.  Worcester's defender paid attention ONLY to the guy without the puck, allowing the puckhandler to drive home a top-shelf goal twenty seconds after the face-off.
• Two Monarchs colliding as if hip-checking each other as they brought the puck out of their own end on a power play.  It was the funniest thing we saw all night, and when the four of us are together it's hard not to laugh anyway.

So what, they're a new team trying to get to know one another.  They'll have it together soon.  Meanwhile, there's the issue of Finz, the Sharks' mascot.  He does not appear to be a shark - or even an aquatic creature.  Greg thinks he is a hedgehog wearing sweatpants.  Speaking of Finz, he threw a t-shirt at me at the beginning of the game.  I reached out to grab it, but it bounced out of my hand.  I had my camera in the other hand, what was I going to do?  Later in the game another shirt got thrown at me, but some college hockey dudes sitting behind us grabbed it over me.  But it was in the exact same spot on the same trajectory.

Before we go any further, here is some required viewing.

More CDs to talk about
It's actually been a while since I talked about music, but I picked up two CD's the other day, new releases from artists I love.  I haven't had enough time to hear either one from beginning to end yet, but I've heard enough to have an opinion.  To start with, my favorite Scientologist has returned to the scene.  My man Beck came along with The Information, an album that I had no idea he was working on.  Turns out he'd been working with Nigel Godrich again, keeping up the tradition of having a Dust Brothers/Geffen album followed by a Godrich one.  This time, however, Beck hasn't joined with Nigel to give us a laid-back acoustic-based album.  Instead, he's keeping the same funky vibe that was seeded in Guero alive, and does so with an even better sense of style.  I've got all of Beck's stuff, and I can quickly say that this is a great addition to his discography.  There's a whole lot of soul on this one, with plenty of jams you just wish you could cruise with in your car.  Unfortunately, it's getting cold out there, so the chances you'll have the windows down for it are low.  But if you're a big fan of Beck, you're likely to be really happy with this new collection of songs.  "Strange Apparition" is one of the best songs he's ever written. 

Meanwhile, The Decemberists have just released The Crane Wife, their first release with Capitol (who also just signed Interpol).  It just might be their best album yet.  I've gotten everything of theirs except for Five Songs, but I'm pretty sure that the grandeur of The Crane Wife is the best example of their sound.  Colin Meloy's well-read demeanor shines through, and his voice is more self-assured and less reminiscent of a lot of emo singers (one of my complaints when I first started listening to them).  "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" is a beautiful little song, and the combo track of "The Island/Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter" is almost as epic as The Tain.  It's their heaviest album, too, which made it even more appealing to me.  These guys have been a pleasant little surprise.

Well, everybody have a Happy Halloween!

It's not just a new spin on Marty's mob-story history.  I remember hearing that he was doing a Boston-based film about the Irish mob a couple of years ago.  It sounded like a good idea, but as most of us who live around here know, it's not easy to make a movie about Boston and have it really look and feel like it's Boston.  Most of the time the accents are overdone and the attitude is all wrong.  Even The Boondock Saints, one of my favorites, lacks something in that department.  It works well on its own, but it just doesn't scream Boston, it could just as easily be New York, Philly, Baltimore Chicago, etc.  Mystic River did an excellent job of capturing Southie, though.  But The Departed is even more Boston-centric.  It works on both the levels of the film's atmospheres and its performances.  Every shot screams with Bostonian flavor.  As for the performances, half of the cast is from the city and just about everyone here is of the highest acting pedigree.  So kudos to Scorsese for being able to do the city justice.

He's also got some of the old tricks up his sleeves.  When you've seen enough of his films, you start to expect innovative stuff.  Not just as far as shooting scenes, but in the editing phase as well.  Check out those shadows.  Look for some carefully-placed jump cuts that help pick up the pace.  Listen for some clever musical cues on another great Scorsese soundtrack (The Stones are prominently featured, as are Dropkick Murphys, appropriately).

Scorsese still knows how to get what he needs from his actors.  I've been throwing a lot of support behind Leonardo DiCaprio for a while now, and this is probably his best performance yet.  Greg and I agreed that his accent was perfect.  When you're talking accents, it doesn't matter when Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg get involved, because they grew up in Boston.  But their work is excellent.  Damon is great all over again, but it's Wahlberg who really sinks his teeth into it.  I think that he's really become top-notch.  Vera Farmiga plays pretty much the only woman in the movie.  She's okay, but her accent was pretty shaky.  Still, she looked the part (i.e., sorta hot, but looks like she came from inside of Rt. 128) and her role essentially holds the plot together.  I read a cool article about her in the New York Times Magazine a couple of months ago about how she puts together audition tapes so I know where she's coming from as an actor, which is always fun.

And then of course, there's Jack.  Jack Nicholson owns this movie.  The New York Times review pointed out something that I've been saying for years.  Jack essentially has been doing an impression of himself for the last twenty years.  He knows that he is a personality, and he uses that to his advantage.  So essentially, there's two Jacks: "the actor named Nicholson and the joker named Jack," as the Times put it.  Nicholson is the guy you see in the first half of this film, and in bits here and there.  But then you've got Jack the rest of the time.  I can imagine him shooting the movie and one day just saying, "You know what, this is my picture now.  I've got some ideas for fun little things to do here.  Let's have a good time, okay, guys?"  And we love Jack for it.  He's an American treasure. 

It's a great mystery story, too.  Intertwined characters, a love triangle, crooked cops, tough Irish guys, and Jack Nicholson.  All in a Martin Scorsese microcosm.  Go check it out, it's two and a half hours of great cinema.

(Wiki says that Marty's next project is called The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Leo will be on board.  Nicholas Meyer, who was involved in all the good Star Trek movies, is writing it.  I can't wait.)

It's a good movie season this fall.  I don't even know what the major Oscar contenders are that are supposed to clog up December, but what we've got running up till then is great.  Other than The Departed, I'm dying to see The Prestige and Flags of Our Fathers, both of which just came out yesterday.  The Prestige is a cool-looking movie about magicians, played by Hugh "Wolverine" Jackman and Christian "Batman/Patrick Bateman" Bale, and directed by Christopher Nolan.  Flags is Clint Eastwood's latest movie, and it's about Iwo Jima.  Can't go wrong there.  After those, Borat, For Your Consideration, The Fountain, and Children of Men are all major blips on the radar.  I'll get to 'em. 

This has been easy so far
I got The Crow from Netflix this week, watched it, was entertained, and sent it back.  I don't really think it's a film that needs to be talked about at length.  A good action flick, a marginal art film (the style has aged since the 90's), and of course, if Brandon Lee hadn't died in a tragic accident on-set, he'd have become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood because of this movie.  Its best visual motifs heavily inspired The Matrix, the soundtrack is a great "goth starter kit" and I can see why people still love it today.  Thing is, The Crow is a yawnfest in comparison to last night's movie, Requiem for a Dream.  I had seen the middle of this movie twice, never the beginning, never the end.  I have a big problem with watching a movie if I haven't seen it from the start, so I never let myself see past the end of the second act.  I wanted to see it mostly because I really can't go around talking about how much I love the work that Darren Aronofsky has put out if I've only seen Pi.

I'll start at the top:  Requiem is probably the most depressing, jarring, and devastating movie I've ever seen.  But it's powerful, and it has a message that gets through quite easily.  DON'T DO DRUGS.  It's as simple as that.  D.A.R.E. doesn't work.  This movie does.  But kids shouldn't see this movie.  Most people shouldn't see this movie, even, but it's as if it has to be seen.  It's so well-made that it demands an audience.  Aronofsky has an amazing gift for filmmaking.  I already knew this when I first saw Pi, and he goes quite far above and beyond what he did in his debut.

What I couldn't believe was the fact that this movie really reached inside of me and made me completely invested in it.  I could feel the effects of addiction and desperation that the characters went through, I could feel a real sinking feeling in my stomach, and the greatest thing about it is that I couldn't tell myself that it was just a movie.  It felt like it was happening to me.  At the end of Seven, when you can cut the tension with a knife, I was able to take myself out of it slightly and just appreciate the movie.  But Requiem's final reel is an unrelenting barrage of imagery that is scarier than any horror movie I've seen.  Think of what Alex has to watch at the end of A Clockwork Orange and you'll know what I mean.

Because of this, I couldn't bring myself to watch Aronofsky's commentary track tonight.  I sealed the envelope and tossed it in the mailbox this morning because I knew I wouldn't be able to see it twice in 24 hours.  As much as I wanted to hear him talk about how his trademark "hip-hop montages" were developed, or about the nature of Ellen Burstyn's apartment set, or Chris McDonald's infomercial, etc.  I didn't have the stomach to go through it all again.  But it was worth it to see the film once and maybe read about the behind-the-scenes stuff later.  I really hope that Aronofsky goes on to do the film version of Flicker (as rumored) because this movie really hit me the same way the novel's mysterious Max Castle films were purported to be capable of. 

And the performances are amazing.  Jared Leto is heartbreaking as Harry, Burstyn is even more powerful in her descent as Sara, Jennifer Connelly is great (and gorgeous) as usual, and hell, even Marlon Wayans delivers.  I actually wonder why Marlon hasn't gotten anymore big roles since this movie.  He was absolutely fantastic as Tyrone.  They all manage to sell the story through their performances and make it all the more devastating. 

Requiem, as I said, isn't for everybody.  So if you'd like a funnier way to stay off drugs, check out this old Something Awful cartoon.  Darren, I'll see you at The Fountain.

Two days ago, Cory Lidle accidentally crashed his plane into an apartment building in Manhattan.  Even though Lidle only played for the Yanks for about five minutes, it's still upsetting.  He was still a part of the team, he enjoyed being there.  When they asked Yankee players, coaches, John Sterling, etc. about Lidle, they all had nothing but good things to say, and that made me think that even if you're with a team for only a couple of months and play every four or five days, you can still make an impact.

Too weird to live, too rare to die
After enjoying Terry Gilliam's Brazil early on in my Netflix adventures, I got Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, if only because he directed it.  My knowledge of Hunter S. Thompson is too negligible to want to see Johnny Depp do a dead-on impersonation and I'm not one to go out of his way to see a "drug movie," either, but this is Terry Gilliam doing a drug movie.  Amazingly enough, though, he's never done anything like acid before, so it helps this movie seem to be less about the drugs and more about the interactions of Depp and Benicio Del Toro (both of whom are fantastic, in this or any other movie).  I didn't know that a movie could come off as being "stream of consciousness," but Fear and Loathing gets it done, probably because the screenplay was written in about a week.  It's very funny, makes you think when it has to, but most importantly, it's got Gilliam's fingerprints all over, and for some reason, his work just clicks with me.  Being a Python might be one reason for it, but since he's the director, it's even more subversive.  Look out for about 2,647 cameos throughout.

Then I moved on to The Warriors last night and had to stop halfway through because the DVD was absolute shit.  I've wanted to see this movie for a while and the "Ultimate Director's Cut" DVD I got had inserted these awful comic book transitions between scenes that were obviously added in for this release.  Not only were they unbelievably distracting, but they completely ruined the film's quick pacing.  The movie even has an introduction from director Walter Hill, and the first words out of his mouth are "I've never been for the whole 'director's special edition' thing."  Well, maybe you shouldn't have done it!  Sometimes all a good DVD needs is a good digital transfer, not added scenes that should've stayed on the cutting room floor, or any other bells and whistles.  COUGH GEORGE LUCAS STAR WARS COUGH. 

Tried to see The Deptarted this week, plans fell through.  Will try again soon.

I checked out The Magnificent Seven to compare with Seven Samurai.  The plots are almost identical and most of the characters are the same in both films, although Kikuchiyo and Katsushiro are combined into the character of Chico.  This is actually a pretty good idea, as it's understandable that both characters' main traits complement each other.  Another difference is that Chico gets the girl in the end, unlike Katsushiro.  But that's a Hollywood ending for you.  Chico is played by German actor Horst Bucholz, playing a Mexican.  Also, the Lithuanian-American Charles Bronson plays a half-Irish half-Mexican, and Yul Brenner plays a Cajun.  This was probably the only way they could explain his accent, but I don't care.  Yul Brenner was about as cool an actor you could ever hope to see in a movie.  Steve McQueen tries his best to keep up with him, but in my eyes, he didn't quite get there.  And I kept wondering if Robert Vaughn would tell me to call the Law Offices of Mark E. Salamone... right now.

Last night I saw Run Lola Run, a German movie I remember coming out in 1998 and wanting to see.  The Netflix sleeve said that it was a "post-MTV" movie, and that's probably the best way to describe it.  Watching this movie pretty much sums up what MTV was like in the mid-90's... unique camera movement, a super-cool soundtrack, a heroine with bright red hair and boots, animated sequences... it's all there from the time frame that gave us Beavis and Butthead and Soundgarden videos.  The story is told in a unique non-linear fashion in which Lola, running across Berlin to get her boyfriend Manni out of a tight jam, effects the lives of people she runs into in different ways.  Then the scenario starts over again, and different actions and choices lead to much different circumstances.  Franka Potente is perfect in the role, and now I can see exactly why she was chosen for the girlfriend role in The Bourne Identity.  If you were a teenager in the 90's and had a thing for European techno music, you're going to love this movie.  I wish I had seen it when it came out, I would have flipped out.

Speaking of the Bourne movies, The Bourne Ultimatum is just one of the movies I will have to see next summer. 

The Rachel Ray Backlash begins here
I just want to be the first to say that I'm pretty sick of Rachel Ray.  She was fine when she had just the one cooking show.  I didn't even care that they'd run two episodes of it at a time, so 30 Minute Meals becomes sixty in reality.  Then she got extra shows where she traveled around with just $40 to eat three meals with in strange cites.  She'd eat a full breakfast and lunch, and since she only had four or five bucks left she's just get a cocktail at the end of the show.  Then she'd get an interview show with famous people who don't know who she is, and she'd drink more cocktails and just get drunk with Armand Assante or Ving Rhames.  But now she's got an Oprah-style talk show. 

That's enough outta you!

I don't get it.  I just don't get it.  Do we need another talk show to clog up the afternoon on TV?  We've got Oprah, Dr. Phil, Tyra Banks, that squeaky lady from Will and Grace, Maury Povich, Montell Williams.  Then you've got all those shows like The People's Court, Judge Joe Brown, Texas Justice, Judge Judy... do we really need Rachel Ray in there, too?  Give a show to someone who doesn't already have a show. 

Oh well.  Where's Tony Bourdain when you need him?

October means one thing
... and that's the baseball playoffs.  The Yankees and Tigers are tied at a game a piece.  Today's loss was tough (even though I left for work after Johnny Damon's three run shot), but it's hard to beat a team that has Robbie Cano batting ninth.  It's also hard to beat Derek Jeter right now... in Game One he was 5 for 5 with a homer.  Outstanding.