So I finally got around to watching "Balls of Fury", the 2007 sophomoric flick billed as "a huge comedy with tiny balls"...and you wonder why TLM didn't want to go see this at the theaters with me.
Well, it exceeded my expectations, and I was surprised my a few things. For example, I had no idea that the movie was essentially a spoof of to-the-death martial arts tournament movies like "Enter the Dragon" and "Mortal Kombat", except it's to-the-death ping-pong. Go figure.
[ On a side note, there's at least one actor who was actually in "Mortal Kombat" (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and one who should have been (James Hong). ]
The main reason I wanted to see the picture, however, was to watch serious actor turned caricature of himself Christopher Walken play the part of Feng, the sillily evil grand master of the tournament. He did what I expected him to do; that is, talk in the oh-so-recognizable Christopher Walken way and steal the show. It didn't matter what getup he was in (this one was pretty out there), he's still that guy dancing around in the Fatboy Slim video for "Weapon of Choice" (is there anything this guy can't do? Oh, right, talk differently).
Walken had some strong competition, though, from relative newcomer Dan Fogler, who won't be receiving any Oscar nominations anytime soon but still gave a great performance with his deadpan, slapstick, Def Leppard shirt wearing character and hero, Randy Daytona.
This is a piece of a Red Sox "Sgt. Pepper" Montage AL-9000 sent me. There's a nice page with a full size version of it on the NY Times site, complete with a listing of each person included.
It's always good to see Nuf Ced McGreevey...it's too bad he couldn't just give a quick jolt with his left elbow a bit and tag Harry Frazee in the ear.
What a night. As BostonDirtDogs so perfectly put it, it was "Manny being Papi". He (and everyone at Fenway and watching at home) knew it was gone right off the bat, and even after seeing lots of replays I'm still not sure where it went.
I'll tell you this, though: Manny spent so much time at home with his arms up in celebration, admiring his bomb over the wall, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he takes one in the ribs Sunday in Anaheim.
Obviously Daisuke wasn't on point last night, and I think credit is due Terry Francona for taking him out when he did. We often hear people call up sports radio to complain about some move the manager made (or didn't make), and I think Tito deserves a tip of the cap for how he handled his pitching staff yesterday.
J.D. Drew came up big in the 1st to drive in 2 runs early. Though finishing with only one hit on the night, he made it count. Finally.
Mike Lowell got the sacrifice fly in the 5th to tie it up. As usual, Lowell came up big for the Sox in a clutch situation, and I really hope to see him stay here next season.
One batter before Lowell in the 5th was Manny, who for all intents and purposes should have made the 2nd out in the inning on a foul pop fly first base side. One thing TLM and I didn't know about from where we were sitting in the bleachers was just how close (and subsequently pivotal) the play was. As the ball came down some guy behind us was yelling "Be a good fan. Be a good fan.", and in fact this kid (Danny Vinik) was. He JUST robbed Jeff Mathis of the catch.
That play happened just in front of Steven King. Spooky? No, coincidence, but still of note.
As Okajima was warming up on the mound, we all heard some dance song being played and it took us a bit to figure out what we were hearing. Eventually we heard something being spelled out and it wasn't long before we could figured out it was "O-K-A-J-I-M-A". That's right, Okajima has his own song. You can listen to it below, but be prepared, it gets stuck in your head for hours.
In anticipation of the upcoming (and hopefully very successful) 2007 Red Sox postseason run, I give you this video of the Standells performing "Dirty Water" (not sure where). At first I thought there was just bad camera work, as the first 30 seconds or so seemed overly focused on the drummer, smiling and mumbling the words along. Then I realized he was the lead singer...ah, the early days of lip-syncing.
Also of note: apparently the lyric "lovers, hookers, and thieves" was changed to "lovers, buggers, and thieves", complete with the drummer delivering a knowing smile after momentarily covering his mouth with his arm. Maybe it's the subsequent "ah, but they're cool people" [in possible reference to hookers] that turned the network execs off...or maybe they just really wanted to find a way to get the word "buggers" in there.
I found this on LifeHacker. In the words of Jake Mandell, it's creator, it's a "quick online way to screen for tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability.", so it's made intentionally to be pretty difficult, but it's fun so give it a shot. All you have to do is listen to 36 pairs of musical phrases and hit one of two buttons: "same" or "different"....it's that easy. The test was created while Mandell was working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel in Boston.
I got an "exceptional performance" at 91.7% correct (and was surprised to see so). Good luck!
Content found on The Neoteric is of no particular genre, topic, or focus, other than it was all at some point, in some way, interesting enough to me to write about.
