Hollywood A to C

I was watching the news today and saw that actress Keira Knightley is putting her foot down over her boobs.

That makes for a weird headline even by Hollywood's standards, but there you have it. Apparently the production house that is turning out her latest film, The Duchess, wants to increase Knightley's bust size for the promo posters. Knightley is said to be fighting back, declaring that she's proud of what she's got, and her chest doesn't need to be enhanced. No C cup for her, thank you, the A cup is just fine (though an A cup is really more of an "A saucer" when you get down to it).

Good for Knightley. Nice to see her taking a stand on something important, like phoniness in the movies. Now if only she'd wipe off the make-up, fire her hairdresser, send Mr. Gucci and his red carpet dress packing, and tell the lighting guy to cool it with the halo effect. When she's done that she can have the director of photography remove the filter from the lens, tell the editor not to cut out her mistakes, and inform the producer that she no longer needs to fly first class because coach is where the real peoples be.

Knightley's breasts have been news before. Back when she was only so-so famous, her breast size was enlarged on the posters for King Arthur. She didn't mind then, but ah, she's a star now. When an actress becomes a star, they get a boatload of ethics to go with their trailer.

Still, it's an interesting issue for her to hang her t-shirt on. Why breast size? Why not fake lashes, dyed hair, ten pounds of Max Factor, or body doubles during the sex scenes?

I was watching an ABC bit about Knightley's beating of breast, and in it they intimated that this will empower women to stand up for themselves. One "expert" said that young women will now feel free to proclaim that the real them is the real deal. No more phoniness, no more caving to the materialistic, misogynistic culture.

Sure. It's men that tie 300, 000 women down and cart them into the operating room for breast augmentation each year (2006 numbers). Seeing as the FDA doesn't allow anyone under the age of 18 to receive breast augmentation surgery without parental consent, there aren't that many "young women" doing it. The women going in for the surgery are just that: women. They can vote, they can fight in wars, they can fly an airplane, they can get their breasts augmented. The only thing they can't do is drink, which is a shame, because the bar is where augmented breasts are always a sure hit.

Breasts are an interesting piece of anatomy. Without them, there would be no wet t-shirt contests (well, maybe there would, but they'd be boring ones), nor would there be a reason to find yourself in court for sexual harassment after a case of the morning stares. Breasts make office parties and late night TV more fun, and they do wonders for a football game when a woman playfully responds to a drunk's request of "Show us your tits!"

Alas, poor Keira probably never heard those words when growing up in jolly England, where the footballing yobs are not shy about asking for such favours. Maybe her protest isn't so much about the phoniness of the movie business, but her way of battling past teenage angst.

Whatever the case, I wish her luck on her quest for truth in pictures, though you can bet if it was zit removal, she'd be giving the Photoshop lab two perky thumbs up.

Photo: Telegraph

Those Crazy Days of Base-Ball

I was watching a game the other night, and Jays' reliever Brandon League whipped a ball at a batter. The pitch struck him in the leg, the batter took his base, and the ump tossed League from the game.

Usually an ump gives a pitcher a warning before tossing him, but these days the umps are quick on the trigger to toss someone if they think the pitcher intentionally drilled the guy.

Personally, I think throwing at a batter is part of the game, as long as the pitch comes in below the shoulders. The "inside pitch" has got to remain a part of baseball, and pitchers have to be given the right to throw it. Batters already have a massive advantage through a small stirke zone, a short pitcher's mound, and a meaningless batter's box. These days they can even elect to wear padding on their elbow, which should be banned outright: this is not cricket, and elbow padding only begs a hitter to lean over the plate.

If umpires begin tossing pitchers at the first sign of trouble, then you can kiss pitching strategy good-bye. A pitcher won't want to throw inside to brush a batter back, because if he misses by only two or three inches, he might plunk the batter and end up with a trip to the showers. This threat forces the pitcher to pitch carefully over the plate, and when you pitch carefully over the plate, you're throwing grapefruits ripe for homeruns.

The history of hitting someone with a baseball is as old as baseball itself, but the rules have gone through unbelievable changes. In fact, batters used to receive the short end of the stick when it came to inside pitching.

Picture this. The year is 1876. You're playing "base-ball." You're up to bat, as the "striker," wearing your little cloth cap and baggy pants. The pitcher winds up from 45 feet away. He's not allowed to pitch "over his shoulder," but he can still whistle the thing in there pretty good using an underhand or sidearm.

So you get ready. The pitch comes in. Ker-plunk. It hits you in the ribs. The ump says nothing, and the pitcher gets ready to throw another. In the rules of the day, the first ball, whether "unfair" (today's "ball") or "fair" (today's "strike"), is not called regardless of where it ends up. It's a freebie.

Pitch 2: the pitcher winds up. Ker-Plunk, he nails you in the shin. The ump calls the pitch "unfair," but he doesn't tell you to take your base. You see, three "unfair" pitches make up one "ball." But a pitch that hits the batter is also a ball. So there's a chance you'll face 8 more unfair pitches before you can walk, or two more, if both of them nail you. Of course, there's always a chance you'll hit the ball, in which case you hope the ump sees it clearly, because if the ump needs help with the call, he's allowed to ask for help from a spectator.

Image that today, say in Yankee Stadium. A Red Sox player hits the ball and it looks foul, but the ump isn't sure, so he turns to the crowd and asks for their opinion.

In the old days, being hit by a pitch was almost guaranteed. Pitchers used it to great advantage, intimidating players and moving them around the 6 x 6 foot batter's box. But then, batters used it too, leaning into pitches in order to get on base. Getting hit by numerous pitches sounds like a lot of pain to take for one lousy base, but it makes more sense when you consider the baserunning rules of the day: men on base, regardless if forced or not, all advanced one base if the batter walked. In other words, a man on third would come home even if the bases weren't loaded. Walks were winners.

Hitting a batter became a little more costly in 1878, when the rules declared that an umpire could fine a pitcher on the spot for beaning a man. The hitter couldn't take his base after being hit, but he could be satisfied to hear the ump tell the pitcher that he was fined anywhere between $10 and $25. A year later, the fine increased to a maximum of $50, showing that ball clubs thought beaning a hitter was cheap at half the price. The imposed fines had to be paid at the end of the day, or the offending team forfeited the game.

Baseball's history is a confusion of rule changes, a lot of them centering around the hit batsman. There were a number of leagues in the country, professional and amateur, and none of them agreed on anything at the same time. In less than a decade, the National League changed the number of balls needed for a walk from 9, to six, to seven.

Over in the American Association, they decided to simplify the whole thing. In 1884 they became the first league to immediately give a batter first base if he was hit by a pitch, as long as the ump thought the beanball was intentional. They declared that an intentionally beaned man could not be put out on his way to first, as long as he took first base "on the run." So after being drilled by a pitch, a man had to hustle to first. If he took his time, the big baby could be thrown out.

Ventura Takes Exception
Everything was fine for five minutes, but those damned hitters screwed everything up again by trying to get hit by pitches, forcing baseball to remove the hit-by-pitch rule if the ball struck you on the forearm or hand. It was called the Welch amendment, named after one particular hitter that had a knack for leaning into pitches, then putting up his hands to "defend himself." (Hughie Jennings may have been another good actor, being hit by 287 pitches between 1891 and 1903).

Baseball began to wimp out in the 20th Century, and now a hit-by-pitch is a big deal. Benches clear, managers get ejected, pitchers get fined thousands of dollars, soccer moms cry. Today's beanball, however, is nothing compared to the old days, where you literally expected to get drilled at least once per at-bat, and maybe three times for good measure.

Ah, the good old days.

Photos: Nationals Review & Google Images

The Dark Knight - Review

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: C. Nolan and J. Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale/Heath Ledger
Runtime: 152 minutes

Ticket line ups and sell out crowds don't mean much to me in terms of how good a movie is. All line ups mean is that people are willing to line up to see the movie. That's it. Box office records, and revenue, don't have a thing to do with a movie's quality, at least in the first or second weekend.

So what makes people line up to see a flick?

Good question. If you knew the answer to that, you would be sitting in the biggest office Hollywood has to offer. There'd be starlets rubbing your back and lowly interns shining your shoes, as actors and agents take turns kissing your ring.

Nobody knows how to make people line up for a movie. Producers pour money into flicks in all kinds of ways: top notch screenwriter, award winning director, great cast, bestselling book to base the movie upon, and advertising out the ying yang. They put up billboards in Times Square and send their stars on the late night talk show tour. They plaster the internet, bus terminals, and subway stations with posters, and they beam commercials straight into your living room. And at the end of all their hard work, producers can do only one thing: pray.

They know better than anyone that there is no guarantee a film will do well. None whatsoever. Sometimes they get Star Wars returns. Others, Bonfire of the Vanities.

Why is that?

There's a lot of theories, but I like William Goldman's. He's a screenwriter that's had some big hits. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride, Marathon Man, Misery. Though he wrote some duds, he wrote a lot of movies that people lined up to see. How did he do it?

Search him. Goldman's theory says there is one reason a movie succeeds: people want to see it. There is one reason a movie doesn't succeed: people don't want to see it. End of discussion.

There's no other explanation. Audiences are incredibly fickle, and there is no way to read their minds. That's why you see so many sequels. Producers have given up trying to shape the art and business of film, so they cash in when they can. If people line up to see Spider-Man, you'd better get ready for another decade of web slinging. James Bond? Same thing. Batman? Ditto. These are called "franchise movies," and producers will squeeze the life out of them before moving on to the next - hopeful - hit. And, speaking of James Bond, they will only move on once the franchise has crashed. Bond, to his credit, has yet to flop badly enough for the studios to call Her Majesty and tell the Queen that they will no longer need her Service.

Which brings us to Batman. See if this would make sense outside of the movie business:

Batman. 1989. A movie about how Bruce Wayne grows up, becomes Batman, and faces the Joker. The Joker dies.

Batman Returns. 1992. Batman comes back, fights two bad guys, plus a semi-bad Catwoman.

Batman Forever (apparently so, but not with Michael Keaton - he's replaced by Val Kilmer). 1995. Batman fights another two bad guys, and is joined by the Boy Wonder.

Batman and Robin. 1997. Kilmer is replaced by Clooney. Batman must again fight two villains, but he's now joined by Robin, and Batgirl.

And...thud. The franchise hits the dust until three years ago with Batman 5, which is miraculously called Batman Begins. In this movie, we learn how Bruce Wayne grows up to become Batman, and -- hey, wait a minute. Didn't we already see all of this?

Sure we did. But this is an extra-special re-telling. This one's darker, or more powerful, or more true to the Batman story. The story you saw before was okay, but all the hype was misplaced. This, the producers tell us, is the real Batman. Besides, it's not like the Joker's in it or anything...

So tonight I go to see The Dark Knight, the 2nd of the second Batman movies, where we meet...ta-da! The Joker.

Look, I'm all in favour of a good time. I liked The Dark Knight, and I thought Batman Begins was the best Batman movie of them all. But while we're cooing over these flicks, let's be real about Hollywood and our expectations of it.

We constantly tell Hollywood to give us fresh ideas and better movies. We yell "derivative" at the top of our voices, and feel cheated when we see the same old, same old. But who are we to complain when we sell out North American theatres for a chance to see a retread of a movie from 19 years ago? The message to Hollywood is clear: we want to see these movies, and we're only lying when we tell them to give us something new.

How can it be otherwise? Tonight's film shows that the same pattern is being repeated. The second movie needs two bad guys, one primary (the Joker), one secondary (which I won't give away). There's a damn good chance that Robin will show up in the next film (but not Christian Bale, if he follows Keaton's lead), plus two or more bad guys to keep the sub-plots rolling. Then we'll get another movie with a couple of bad guys that are only interesting if you've read the comic books. Finally, and mercifully, there will be one more film until the franchise goes cold. Then, once today's audience has procreated and raised their children to movie-going age, we'll be fed another dose of Batman Redux.

But, you're saying, what was The Dark Knight like? How was Heath Ledger? What's your deal and why don't you shut up?

Okay, fine. Tonight's film was good. Not bad, not great, but good. Like most sequels, Knight takes it for granted that you've seen the first one and know the lead character very well. Why is Wayne living in an apartment instead of a mansion? Why is the Batcave in the cellar of a building? Sorry. You should have re-run Batman Begins before coming into the theatre.

There's no real story to The Dark Knight. The Joker shows up, causes havoc, and Batman tries to save the day. That's pretty much it.

Heath Ledger does well as the Joker. Ledger was a damn fine actor, and it's a shame he died so young, but his Joker role is not worthy of an Oscar nod, as some have said. He does a good job with the character, but it is nothing that leaves a memorable impression.

The rest of the cast is fine. Aaron Eckhart is good as Harvey Dent. The three old timers, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman, are as steady as ever. Freeman and Caine aren't used much, but Oldman has a lot of screentime. Maggie Gyllenhaal's character is pretty much there for kidnap-bait. I did take issue with one 30 minute sequence of the film, where the characters go against type so badly that I was wondering what the hell the movie was doing. See if you can figure it out, because I can't.

The lack of story scared me. Batman Begins was so good in this regard, that I thought the second would follow up. Not to be. Comic book characters get short shrift in sequels, as if the first movie said all there was to say about them. That's why you need two or more bad guys, a bunch of new gadgets (like Knight's Batcycle), and a couple of sidekicks in later films: they prop up the lack of depth by throwing new tricks and characters into the mix. Spider-Man, to its credit, has avoided this cliche. As in the first series of Batman films, I think these cliches will eventually ruin this franchise, too.

But if what I am saying is true, why are people lining up around the corner to get into the theatre?

Search me. I guess people just want to see it.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

I'm A Sports "Journalist," Get Me A Tissue

"Though spared the indignity of another tie, Selig had to suffer through the 4-hour, 50-minute Yankee Stadium special wondering, like everyone else, which position players Francona and NL manager Clint Hurdle would designate their pitchers and whether this would officially wreck the sham that says an All-Star game should mean something."

That's Jeff Passan, from Yahoo Sports. Someone get him a hanky. Though not quite as much of an insipid hack as Toronto sports writers, Jeff always comes close.

Poor guy. Another sycophant who believes that sports are for one thing: to give him a job worshipping his heroes.

In 2002, Major League Baseball made the All-Star game mean something (homefield advantage for the World Series) because a tie game angered the fans. Back in the 2002 game, the managers worried that their poor pitchers' arms were going to get tired, so they asked for the game to be called a draw. Bud Selig agreed, and the game ended, to a chorus of boos from the stands.

I never used to watch the All-Star game. I don't believe any game should be televised unless it means something. This is not Europe, where you play "friendlies" against some team from down the road or across a continent. The only exception to this is the pre-season, where the games actually mean quite a lot: they tell you whom you want to hire and fire.

This is North America. We play to win. Winning is all the matters (unless you work for the Jays, whose losing record has forced them to run commercials that say "it's about more than winning." Sure it is, when you're losing). If a game isn't worth winning, why is it worth watching?

I only started to watch the All-Star game when it was decided that the winning team would receive homefield advantage in the World Series. Good enough for me. Now that there was something on the line, I was ready to tune in.

Sports writers hated the idea. You see, they make their living worshipping and protecting sports stars. They thought that baseball players might get hurt playing in a game that mattered (they do it 162 times during the regular season, but boo-hoo, be careful on one night July, little darlings). Sportscasters wanted the game to stay the way it always was: a nice four-day press trip to a baseball stadium, where they could hang out with their heroes and pat them on the back.

Tough luck. Sports "journalists" covered up the steroid scandal in baseball for over a decade while they kissed millionaire butt. Their opinion is absolutely irrelevant to me when it comes to how the game should be played, or if any changes should be made to it.

Major Leage Baseball heard the jeers six years ago, and the league responded to what the fans wanted. The fans! Who could believe it? Not the sports writers, who suddenly found themselves with the task of not drinking too much from the press box so they could actually report on a real game during the All-Star break.

If managers are afraid of long innings and tired arms, they should manage teams better during the game. If this means a player doesn't get a chance to play, too bad. The game means something. Sit on the bench and wait your turn if we need you. This isn't Little League. They're grown men, playing for a very important prize in the post-season. Being picked last doesn't mean they'll miss a date with Mary Jane, it means their team might win. They can deal with it.

As, in fact, they are. I haven't heard much griping from players today about a long, 15-inning game. The fans, too, don't seem to care that they were treated to a close one. It's the sports "journalists" that are having a hard time with it. A long game meant delayed flights, late deadlines, and perhaps a missed opportunity to hit the bar for last call on their newspaper's dime.

So tonight I will tune in and listen to these hacks berate last night's game. And I will laugh, knowing that the fans caused the change in the game, and ticked off these self-righteous buffoons. It's going to be a great night.

Favre

It's going to get ugly in Green Bay.

After Brett Favre's tearful farewell to the game in March, everybody thought that they'd seen the last of Brett Favre on the football field. It seemed this time he actually meant it when he said he was through.

Not so fast. Favre has said he wants to come out of retirement. A couple of months ago, the Packers would have been keen to hear the news, but now they're saying they've moved on. Trouble is, they still have control of Favre, which means they have to decide what to do with him now that he's said he wants to play.

In the past couple of weeks, the tension has been rising and the fans have been getting restless. The team's management has said that a) Aaron Rogers is going to be their starting QB, and b) Favre can come back as a back-up if he wants to.

That isn't exactly what a Hall of Famer wants to hear, so Favre has asked to be released from the team. This will allow him to play for any team in the league. And guess what? Just today the Pack said that they will not release Favre, so if he wants to play football, he'll have to be happy with a back-up roll on the Packers squad, or forget about playing altogether.

That doesn't have to be the final answer. There's a chance the Packers can trade Favre to a team outside their division, which will guarantee that he won't embarrass them on their own turf in at least 2 games next year. But as it stands now, there's a very real possibility that this could blow up to the point where Favre will want to play for another team just so he can go into the Hall of Fame in any jersey other than Packer green.

Weird how life goes. Six months ago, Favre was a Packer legend. Now he's a headache for management, and a martyr for the fans.

Sanctimony Murmur

I'm back from a break, and while I was gone...nothing happened.

Life's funny that way. One minute you're working hard on a ton of ultra-important jobs, reading reams of frightening news reports, answering life-or-death phone calls about family dinners and gig prospects. The next, you're sitting around for a week or two, drinking a few beers, watching baseball, listening to the grass grow, and it hits you. Life doesn't change much, and it doesn't need you, anyway.

I spent my 20's travelling around the world, and I'll bet that I watched the news maybe 3 times a month that whole decade. This was back when the internet was in its infancy, so the only news I got was from the TV hanging over a bar in Mexico or somewhere. If you've been in enough bars, then you know that the TV is always on super-low volume and drowned out by ABBA's greatest hits, so your chances of hearing anything important are pretty much nil. If you're a news junkie, you'd have to read the little scroller on the bottom of the screen to stay tuned to the big stories, like how the pandas came out of their cave and screwed for the first time in years.

So I spent a decade not really knowing what was going on. I don't mean I was a complete moron. I knew that Clinton got re-elected, and George Bush, and I saw 9/11 happen. Big stuff. But as for the little stuff in between, well, I just couldn't be bothered. When there's a beach bunny sitting under the TV set asking you to buy her another Bahama Mama, suddenly politics and Mississippi floods don't seem like that big a deal.

Not watching is more fun than watching, and certainly less stressful. I suppose I could hang on a politician's every word, or check on how many times an Israeli market's been blown up in a given week, or whether Katie Couric's numbers have gone up in the ratings. But taking a break from listening to those stories reminds you that life is pretty fleeting, and most things don't matter one way or the other.

Sure, I guess it matters to "life," whatever that is, but does it really matter to me?

That's a tough question. On the one hand, you could say that everything that happens in the world has a direct impact upon your life, no man is an island, so forth. When an Israeli market blows up, and someone mentions that Israel might nuke Iran, the gas prices spike. That bugs me, but it doesn't make me sit down and cry. So yes, that news story impacts my life, but not so much that it takes control of me.

So what do I care about? I worry about big stuff like Islamofacism, and what I see as a new wave of communism disguised as human rights (we are all one, up with the collective, everyone's a migrant, the Declaration of Human Rights is the gospel, Western society is the problem, the world belongs to all of us...and we need someone in charge to tell us exactly what to do with it). But I don't worry about it as much as I do the damn dresser drawer that won't work properly. Every time I watch the news I get pissed off, but whenever I open the dresser drawer and it almost amputates my foot, I get even more pissed off.

Caring is about proximity. Dresser drawer? Care. Weirdo terrorist in Baghdad? Care a little. Weirdo terrorist in my living room? Care a lot.

This is why I'm amused when I watch the news reports on TV. A month back, everyone and their mother seemed to be protesting about Myanmar. Remember that place? Former peaceniks were saying that war would be a good idea, to feed the people hit by the hurricane. No one liked Myanmar's regime, governments said they'd boycott them until doomsday, and feminists were going to send shipments of underwear to the junta in order to embarrass them or turn them on, I can't remember which. Anyway, Myanmar was a very big, bad problem, and the whole wide world was up in arms about it.

We all cared. Then a month goes by, and damned if I can find anything in the news about it. Oh, sure, there's lots of websites that still have a stake because they blew their money on the domain address, but when is the last time it led the evening news? It's been ages. I haven't heard the word "Myanmar" come out of a politician's mouth in a hell of a long time, and I doubt I will again until the place gets knocked over by another hurricane. The protests have dried up, and everyone's gone on to other protests, other problems, other picnics with potato salad.

So really: did we care?

If caring is about proximity, it's also about longevity. You can usually judge how bad a problem is for you by how much time you spend worrying about it. I'm sure you know that Myanmar is still a craphole and that people are suffering unbelievably. But you don't care anymore because you never really did. It was just the latest craze, the latest hep thing to be upset about. Then Obama got nominated, or your raise came in, or your boyfriend proposed marriage, or your dad died. And Myanmar? Poof.

Still, you can console yourself with the oldest line in the book: what can I do about it? Given a choice between a dresser drawer and Myanmar, you're probably going to reach for a screwdriver before you put your underwear in the mail.

Caring is about proximity and longevity, but for the really big news stories, you need one more thing: the news. The old "global village" adage is very true, but only when a megaphone is blasting the message into your rec room. For a few weeks, the news can have you thinking that Myanmar is the next city over. But when the megaphone changes to A-Rod screwing Madonna, Myanmar miraculously ends up on the other side of the earth. Proximity? Nada. Longevity? Forget it. Burmese people? Never heard of them.

The next time you're watching the news, be honest and ask yourself if you really care. If you do, let me swing by and ask you again in six months.