At any rate, here's what you missed since my Christmas Eve Post:
- 4.5 hours of opening presents on Christmas Morning (my family does it one gift at a time...and there were 17 people in the house);
- The Christmas matinee of Rocky Balboa -- a decent movie, I guess, though what I really can't wait for is the werewolf movie previewed just before it started. Something like Blood and Chocolate (who doesn't want to see a werewolf movie with that title).
- The four or five games of wiffle ball in my parents backyard, in January (we ruined that yard) and me avenging the fact that I was the #4 overall pick in the first game. I also discovered a near unhittable forkball.
- Michelle winning the annual Clark Milkshake Making Contest on December 27, 2006 with a "Cinnamon Roll Milkshake" (it really was good). I placed a respectable 5 out of 11 with a plain, yet perfectly constructed, peanut butter cup milkshake. Among the controversies to arise out of this year's contest: (1) do you have to add milk to be able to call it a milkshake?; and (2) do you have to use a blender (perhaps better -- is there an unfair advantage to not using a blender)?
- Me coming out of nowhere to smoke the family competition at Disney Scene It? My record: 5-1. The lone loss coming after Michelle, in a jealous rage because of the fame and accolades of my unheralded prowess, rustled me from sleep at 2 a.m. demanding a game. Knowing I was hardly coherent (and playing under protest) Michelle managed to steal a game from me. I followed it up the next day (during my waking hours) with a decisive victory.
- Watching the most amazing ending to a football game I'll ever see (Boise St. vs. Oklahoma) the night before we were to get up at 3 a.m. and drive 12 hours back to San Diego.
- Being with Michelle as she's hacked out a lung...for the past week and a half.
3 comments:
What on earth? First of all, it was midnight, New Year's Eve and you hadn't gone to bed yet. Secondly, you only won at least 3 of the other games because you had your sisters on your team. You owe me a pint!
Aaron, you owe some credit to the sister who helped you win that last game, you did give some answers, but I gave some too. I helped you win, we did it together, it was a team effort. And don't beleive everything that michelle says, you could beat her in the game if you tried again.
I too went with some friends on Christmas to see Rocky Balboa. I agree with many of the critics, that it was good enough to be worth the admission price, but it is certainly not a great boxing movie. There have been better: The Hurricane was much better, and Cinderella Man makes the Rocky series look like a film student’s senior project (B-rate is a generous compliment). The movie was worth the ticket, but I’m still not sure about wanting to add it to my collection.
The Good:
Antonio Tarver: he played the role of Mason Dixon. It was nice to see an actual boxer in a boxing movie. Miracle was a good movie, much better than any other hockey movie, specifically because the director understood the difference between hockey players being taught to act vs. actors being taught to realistically portray hockey players. Tarver was good because he was a boxer playing the role of a boxer. He wasn’t some gold-laden has-been, or a He-Man double whose name in German, or Swiss, or Dolph-ese means bad haircut.
The writing: the quick flashbacks to earlier Rocky moments were good, and Adrian being dead from the very beginning was excellent. The entire movie would have been ruined if Rocky was fighting to save her, or win for her, or anything for her. I’m glad Stallone wrote it so that Rocky fought for the love of fighting, not some overplayed cliché romance.
Just plain good: there was no language that I can remember, no nudity. I wouldn’t advise that young children see it, given the fight scenes, but for adults and older children it is really a good sell.
The Bad:
Antonio Tarver: there is a reason Tarver carries the alias “Magic Man.” Tarver is a former amateur gold gloves champion, an Olympic bronze medalist, and a heavyweight champion,. He took the light heavyweight belt from Roy Jones Jr., a boxer who in more than 50 previous fights had only been knocked down once. Tarver not only knocked Jone down, but knocked him out. For a former undisputed champion of the world it is sad to say that his acting was his best trait in a boxing movie. He looked out of shape, out of place, slow, and nothing like the champion he once was. Sylvester Stallone is old. He’s really old. All that stuff in the movie about calcium buildup and arthritis is probably true, and most likely copied from Stallone’s last physical. It is sad when a former champ looks worse with his shirt off than 6000 year old Sly Stallone.
Max Kellermann: please, Max, for the sake of my sanity-Shut Up!!! Retire early!!! Go back to hosting a no-rate show on ESPN at 1 in the afternoon when nobody watches. There is a reason you had to leave ESPN…because women’s college bowling drew higher ratings than your worthless show. It is bad enough I have to listen to your whining little weasel voice when I watch boxing on HBO. I paid for a ticket to see Rocky, not you. Get off the screen.
The Boxing: I have a hard time believing that someone with even a modicum of boxing experience would stand up, take punches, and not try to move or block the oncoming shots. But, then again…what’s a Rocky movie without hokey movie-style boxing.
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