Hell. Yes.

 

Perhaps the single greatest movie/candy tie-in in the history of the world. Not yet available for purchase, but damn it needs to be!

Samsonite, I Was Way Off!

How excited are you about this sequel?  This was one of the few movies ever that I literally watched back to back because it was so good.  Radio?  Who needs a radio?

Butt Slide!

The Reds may blow it and miss the playoffs this year, but 2013 will always have this all-time gem to look back on!!! Of course he was OUT!

We've all done it...

USA! USA! USA!

Here we come Brazil!

The Michigan "Rivalry"

The outcry over the loss of what has suddenly become the most storied rivalry in college football is both disingenuous and laughable.

Mark May:

"I can't have much doubt. I think it's a terrific rivalry. And when GameDay comes to town they know it's a big game, everybody knows it's a big game. Growing up in upstate New York, I used to watch it when I was growing up, when it was on television."

Skip Bayless:

"This is not an historical... Are you kidding me? I mean, I grew up, I couldn't wait for Michigan-Notre Dame, going back to Bubba Smith."

Really Mark? The first time Notre Dame played Michigan in your lifetime was 1978. You were at Pitt and had a game that day against Temple, so I assume you didn't watch it. Skip, you were 26 the first time these teams met in 1978 - and Bubba Smith played for Michigan State!

Without going into too much detail, there is an amazing article that talks about the actual facts behind this rivalry. Jim Lefebvre gives a great summary of this series' history. Here are some highlights:

• 1887: Notre Dame's first football game is a loss to Michigan.
• 1888 - 1909: These schools play 8 more times as college football is born.
• 1909: Notre Dame finally beats Michigan.
• 1910: Notre Dame boards the team bus for the road trip to Ann Arbor for the Michigan game. At Niles, they are turned around, as Fielding Yost cancels the game. How's that for notice!
• 1910-1941: Yost's hatred of Notre Dame, born of that loss and his well-known anti-Catholicism, prevents Notre Dame from playing Michigan, and blackballs them from joining the Big Ten. Don't believe anti-Catholicism was real? Read the linked article above or try this one: Notre Dame Battles the KKK.
• 1942-1943: The series resumes only after Yost retires.
• 1944-1977: Another loooong hiatus as Michigan just can't get over it's ND hatred.
• 1978: The rivalry is renewed and carries on in the modern era.
• 2007: Both schools sign a 20 year extension of the series that runs through 2031.
• 2010: Michigan athletic director David Brandon announced that the deal had never been signed, and that the two schools were playing without a real "contract" right now. He continued to say that their mutual agreement to play allows for either side to pull out of the rivalry with three years notice.
• 2012: Michigan notifies Notre Dame that they will exercise that option and cancels games in 2018-2019 with "plans" to renew after 2020. No reason, except rumored Big Ten expansion to 9 conference games.
• 2012: Notre Dame later notifies Michigan that they will also exercise the same option and cancels games in 2015-2017. This is due to Notre Dame's deal with the ACC.

So you can see that Brady Hokes posturing and ripping Notre Dame for "chickening out"  is ridiculous. He is blatantly ignoring the actual facts and history of this series. Clearly, Michigan has called the shots and continuously crapped on Notre Dame out of hatred, bigotry and spite. The current hiatus that will begin in 2015 is simply due to conference realignment. Had the B1G not added 2 ACC schools, we probably wouldn't have allied with the ACC, and likely would still be playing Michigan every year.

So as we all sit back this Saturday night, drink our Pumking, and watch the Irish kick the living crap out of Michigan, pull this post up on your iPhone and reference the facts every time some yahoo rips ND for cancelling this "storied" rivalry. I'm sure Brent and Herbie will have a field day tearing into Notre Dame.

Can a Website Jump the Shark?

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

So we've all used the term for TV. It's the precise moment when a formerly great show takes that final and fatal turn for the worse. Fonzie was the original on Happy Days, but nearly every show has "that" moment. I wonder if the same can be said of a website?

Movies are a favorite topic hear on The Royal Heffernans blog. Probably 2nd only to Notre Dame. I own hundreds of movies, and am embracing the new technology and streaming more and more at home. Obviously, keeping up with upcoming movies online is a big part of that. For many years, my "go to" website was Ain't It Cool News. Harry Knowles and his crew liked the types of movies I liked. They had great sources, and always seemed to have the scoop on exciting new projects. They were irreverent, and would tear down a movie if it wasn't any good. It was almost a one stop shop for movie info.

Now, I think that has changed. For many reasons (all of which I will not go into here), the fans of this website, which was once the pinnacle of online movie news, have turned on Harry and the site. Suffice it to say that the quality of the website has gone down. Reviews are no longer trusted. The appearance of the website seems woefully behind the rest of the internet. Exclusive news and scoops are fewer and farther between. The website has also had some financial difficulties. 

In an effort to reinvent his brand, Harry started a web series titled, Ain't It Cool with Harry Knowles. He produced a series of short episodes, of which I had no interest in watching. By most accounts, they were self-indulgent and smarmy. In any case, Harry wanted to take his series to the next level and up the ante for season 2. So he did what anyone in Hollywood would do - he followed the current trend. That would be crowd-sourced financing.

So not only did Harry ask for financing for his new season. He WANTS $300k to build a studio, produce a show, pay for guests travel and even get a TV partner! However, he NEEDS $100k at a minimum just to allow production of the season. Why he needs that much for a web series, only Harry knows. However, the backlash has been merciless. In the most active talkbalk I have ever seen on AICN, thousands of former fans are lashing out at Harry and the Kickstarter campaign. I'll let talkbalker reflecto say it on his top comment:

Okay, look, in all seriousness, Harry:

WHY SHOULD ANYONE FUND THIS?

The "first season" was just a vanity project for you - all about you, starring you, about you and your fabulous toys which you have and no one else does and we're supposed to envy you. Any guest who came on who had accomplished more than you from humble roots (like the writer of Sinister) you shit on.

You blatantly distributed fake information on the Prometheus script then refused to properly apologize and laughed it off like a joke. Just like you've refused to properly apologize for so many plant reviews. Refused to apologize for gross errors in judgment like promising for a decade to update the site and failing to, and never bothering to properly set up regular communication with your consumer base. Refused to apologize for going into movies reviewing them "in your head" as the movie you imagine them to be as opposed to the movie they are - whether good (in the case of Chris Nolan) or bad (in the case of most summer movies of the last five years which you hyped yourself about because of a director or property, regardless of the film's actual quality). You refuse to apologize for even penny-ante mistakes like being too lazy to do your DVD column, or "Brian Cox", or when you watch screeners instead of going to the actual movie. You refuse to admit any fault. You refuse to acknowledge any failure. Because to you, everyone here with a valid complaint is just a cranky joke you call "Boiler", and their negativity (and your crippling debt) doesn't belong in Harry's magical world of movies where he's special and really cool and you're not, don't you want to be just like him?

And now you expect the "Boilers" to fund another season of a boring show that is all about you, all about your toys, all about your ego and has nothing to offer the world.

Have the balls to reply to your users for once, and tell me exactly why anyone should do that after everything else I've just described.

Umm, yeah. This project is going down in flames, and I think the end is nigh for Ain't It Cool News. Any other great movie sites out there that people are following? Tough to find that one site...

• /Film
• HitFix
• Collider

Game Week!

Football game this weekend: CHECK

Game watch party in 110" HD: CHECK

Optional 3D for 6 fans: CHECK

New ND hat to replace tainted hat worn to the National Championship: CHECK

The season is finally upon us! No more worrying about recruiting, 2-deeps and crummy practice reports. On Saturday, the real deal starts up again as Notre Dame faces off against Temple. My optimism, as usual abounds.

A recent post I made identified my 3 keys to the season. I am sticking with these 100%. In addition, I'm not the only one who feels this way:

1) Rees' development as a QB

The Rock Report had an outstanding article evaluating Rees, in particular his sophomore year in which he was THE man after Crist was pulled. The numbers are shocking, and the prospects for Rees to do well in 2013 look good!

2) Normal team development

Not that this is my favorite site, but The Rock Report had another great article on 2013. It makes a ton of sense, even if you take off the blue/gold tinted glasses.

3) Michigan

Think this isn't important? Think again. Michigan has been prepping for this with practice simulations during fall camp. The old days of Lou and Bo going back and forth are back. Again, we win this, and I think we are in a BCS bowl. We lose, and the season could go off the tracks. You know we'll use vanilla formations all day long against Temple. Like Holtz, Kelly will not tip his hand for the next game! So I expect to see a lot of hand offs up the middle, and a lot of player rotation. I'm totally fine with hiding every bit of info possible from Hoke. No practice coverage, fine. Keep our new gamebreakers under wraps, fine. Eeek out a 10 point win against Temple, fine. The only important thing is winning. If these tactics give us a better shot against Michigan, then use 'em!

Should we roll over Temple this week? Yeah. Will I be upset if I don't see amazing offensive fireworks, or if Temple gets a few too many points on the board? NO WAY!!!

I think the media has overlooked what Kelly has built here at ND. In four short years, our talent is strong and deep. Has everyone forgotten we were in the National Championship last year? There really is no reason why we can't get back there. Preseason rankings in the teens are really a joke.

This team can truly compete for a National Championship. Of that I have no doubt. We'll be favored in all but maybe Michigan and Stanford. While it's very hard to go 12-0, I think 11-1 is what we're looking at this year if we achieve the keys to the season above. Then, keep your fingers crossed! Naysayers who are talking 5 losses must be insane. This team has too much talent, and now we have experience and a desire to get to the top of the mountain. The 5-loss underachieving days of Weis are long gone. I think we may be in for another run in 2013.

T -3 days!

 

Store tonight, pack tomorrow, leave Friday and the fun begins Saturday!!! The beach looks awesome. Nice waves, water is 82 degrees, and the forecast looks to be in the mid to high 80's all week! 

Just in case anyone has forgotten, here's the floorplan:

And a lovely video from the website with awesome elevator music!


I am getting really pumped up. Can't wait for the cousins to go nuts. Piper is a little person now too. She will be EVERYWHERE! As a last minute purchase, we got a fancy sun-shade for the beach for Piper. It will be a good place for the littlest ones to get some shade and stay out for longer! See you all soon!!!

NFL Skates By Again!

In a similar vein to my other post today, the other hot topic in sports right now is the announcement of MLB suspensions in the wake of the Biogenesis scandal. While MLB and baseball pats itself on the back saying they have finally turned around PEDs in baseball, I would tell them to simmer down. Does anyone really think Tony Bosch is the "Thomas Edison" of PEDs? Have we already forgotten Victor Conte? For every PED lab that gets busted, I guarantee there are 9 that go undetected. While I agree that PED use in baseball has turned around, I would still estimate conservatively that there are about 10 times more players using than are busted. But at least the players are changing their tune and getting involved in cleaning things up. That's a huge development.

All that being said, I would like to redirect the focus on the NFL. For the life of me, I can't figure out how the NFL is able to skate by without any repercussions from PED use, when baseball gets continually hammered. After reading about and thinking about this a lot, I think it has to do with a combination 3 factors:

1. Baseball's reliance on stats and historical records.
2. The average baseball fan is older and more traditional.
3. Many of baseball's greatest players of this era have been implicated.

I would be willing to bet that if Tom Brady, Laurence Taylor, Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice and about 20 others had been busted, we'd be looking a lot harder at the NFL and PEDs. If one were to look, you would see things like the above infographic.

This just in... NFL players are HUGE! Research over the last 70 years has shown the overall weight of NFL players has increased about 1.5 pounds per year. That's unbelievable! Even more amazing is the body transformation. Another study showed that while the height and weight of players has increased, the body fat % has not kept pace, staying similar or actually decreasing over that time!!! Don't forget the amazing speed. How about a 6'8" 280 lb D-lineman running a 4.6 40 yard dash! That's just one example.

So is this all attributed to nutrition, weight-lifting and supplements? Hell no! PED use in the NFL is rampant, and anyone who says otherwise is just not watching football. I don't think human beings have evolved that much over the last 70 years. Charles Darwin is probably rolling over in his grave at the mere suggestion. The really interesting corollary is that if I'm right (and I think I am), either the NFL has the worst testing in sports, or the teams/league are all in on it. Judge for yourself.

I love football, but I'm not a blind idiot. When AP comes back less than a year after an ACL tear and almost breaks the single season rushing record, I know something is up. I also love baseball, and it just seems inherently unfair that if a player has a huge year (Chris Davis), or has a resurgence in his 30's, he's automatically using PEDs. By the way, if you think the NBA and NHL are PED-free, I've got a nice beachfront property to sell you in South Dakota!