Arizona vs. Stanford-Why the Stoops Haters are Wrong, What the Cats Must Do To Win, & Who Will Win

Mike Stoops is the right man to lead Arizona.

Here we go! Today the Arizona Wildcats will play their first PAC-12 game, & boy is it a big one for these Wildcats. Following a 7-1 start that saw them ranked as high as 9^th in the nation Arizona has now lost 6 straight games to D-1 opponents & the Wildcat faithful have begun to lose faith. Following last week’s blowout loss to Oklahoma State it’s not uncommon to hear even die hard Arizona fans talk about how the Cats are going to lose by at least 20 points to Stanford. Many claim Stoops is a hothead who loses control of the team in games & has shown an inability to win big games. I expect these pessimists to be wrong about this week’s game & they are clearly ignorant in regards to Stoops.

2nd Annual NFL Preview!

Jonathan Vilma is after the Lombardi Trophy.

It’s everyone’s favorite time of year again! That’s right, time for the 2^nd annual Joe’s Junk NFL Preview! Last year I shocked the world by correctly predicting the Chiefs would win the AFC West & Green Bay would win the Super Bowl over Pittsburgh, while the Buccaneers shocked me by winning 8 more games than I predicted. Hopefully this season I won’t blow any picks that badly & I can repeat my Super Bowl glory. Naw… Screw that. Hopefully I’m totally wrong & the Giants & Colts face off in the Manning Bowl! Now onto the predictions…* (Playoff teams in bold)

My (faux) Emmy Ballot: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Now that's an Emmy worthy handshake.

The Emmy nominations were just announced last Thursday (see the list of nominees here) I thought I’d give my thoughts on who/what should have been nominated in the major categories. Last week I detailed my list of Outstanding Supporting Actresses in a Comedy, & today we move on to their male counterparts.

No category gave me more trouble to narrow down to six nominees, as you’ll be able to tell from my honorable mentions list, than Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy (For a look at a professional critic’s opinion click here, & for my picks last year go here). There are just so many great comedic actors & roles in television that you could pick at least a dozen different actors & be able to make a fine case that they should earn a nomination, however Emmy voters are restricted to six votes so I am as well. Without further ado here are my six picks (click on their names to see one of their highlights from this season)…

My (faux) Emmy Ballot: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Alison Brie: Beautiful? Check. Hilarious? Check. Emmy worthy? You bet.

With the Emmy nominations being announced Thursday I thought I’d give my thoughts on who/what should be nominated in the major categories. Considering I watch more television than the majority of Emmy voters (who in their defense are busy making television) I’m actually more qualified than they are to decide who/what is deserving of recognition. For example they gave “The Wire,” considered by most critics one of the two best dramas of all time (“The Sopranos” being the other), only two nominations (& zero wins) in 5 seasons. That would never have happened had I been in charge.

Our first category will be Supporting Actress in a Comedy (For a look at a professional’s thoughts go here, & for my picks last year click here). Out of all the female categories this was the hardest to narrow down for while they’re may be a general lack of good lead roles for women comedically, be it on television or in film, there are a number of fine roles out there for women in complimentary roles & the women filling them are more than up to the task of making us all laugh (click on their names to see one of their highlights from this season).

2011 NBA Mock Draft

It’s time for the greatest draft of them all! No, I’m not talking about beer, or the NFL Draft, but the National Basketball Association’s Draft! But the NFL is better so there draft must be better you say? Wrong. Yes I enjoy the NFL more, however NFL teams start 22 players & hence unless you’re getting a new franchise QB it’s unlikely the draft will overly change your team for the next season. In the NBA you only start five players, so if you draft a starter you’ve just changed 20% of your lineup, that’s a huge difference. Plus while the NFL draft features boring trades like the 67^th pick for the 83^rd & 122^nd pick, the NBA Draft sees potentially franchise altering trades (Vlade Divac for the 14^th pick [Kobe Bryant] anyone?). There’s already rumors that Andre Igoudala, Lamar Odom, Monta Ellis, & Tony Parker could all be on the move tonight. To commemorate this momentous occasion my brother & I will go through the lottery (the top 14 picks) and alternate making the picks those teams SHOULD make. I’ll also give you my best guess as to whom they WILL take (something I did better last year than any major publication), my top 20 prospects, & 5 sleepers.

Why Everyone Hates the Heat

Just 8 Championships to go guys!

I hate the Miami Heat. Many people do. Most of those people also hate LeBron James, in fact he’s the main reason they hate the Heat (well, that & their bandwagon fans). Why though? What turned everyone against a player & team that prior to a year ago they had no problem with (unless of course you are a Kobe lover, or Dallas fan)?

The Heat, & their fans, have reacted all season as if the only reason people don’t like them is jealousy (as a spurned Bulls fan I can say this is one reason), despite a wealth of evidence otherwise. It’s not just the total lack of class that was The Decision & the following pep rally, it’s the fact that those involved, most notably LeBron refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. It was months before LeBron even admitted that maybe The Decision was a less than brilliant idea, but by then it was too late after he’d tried for months to hide behind it raising money for the Boys and Girls Club (if he really cared he would’ve just given the money out of the millions he makes from his contract & endorsements). Then he once again showed an inability to handle the consequences of his actions by hiding in the locker room during the player intros of his second return to Cleveland (a game the Heat lost, providing the best moment of the season up until the Finals). Finally he & Wade demonstrated a disturbing lack of maturity with their mocking of Dirk’s illness before game 5. Wade put forth the excuse that they did it because they knew the media would blow it out of proportion (LeBron gave no comment, seeming to realize they’d screwed up, or maybe he was still to busy trying to figure out where he went during the 4^th quarter of game 4). This then begs the question why do it in the first place? Why set yourself up to look like childish punks? Wade seems to think he was somehow pulling some witty little trick on the media that made them look foolish, the fact he doesn’t realize that his stunt had the opposite affect goes to the core of why people can’t stand the Heat.

The Summer Movie Preview

It’s the summer! Which means we’ll all be barraged with blockbuster movies, most of which will be mediocre (In fact we already got the mediocre “Hangover 2”!). That’s why I’m here to help you save your hard earned cash by telling you what movies are worth shelling out for (If you had any interest in “Thor”, “Bridesmaids” or “Everything Must Go” I’d recommend them as solid movies) & which ones to avoid.¹ (Note: by clicking on the name of the listed films you will be redirected to the trailer, a clip from the film, or the listed movie's imdb page.)

"The Hangover Part II" Review

“The Hangover Part II” has more laugh out loud moments than any movie so far this year, but that hardly makes it a comedy classic or even the original.*

*I don’t consider the original “Hangover” to be an all-time great comedy. It’s very funny to be sure, but ultimately it’s a bit uneven, especially towards the end. As far as 2009 comedies go I easily preferred the Paul Rudd/Jason Segal vehicle “I Love You, Man.”

The biggest problem with part two is that it completely lacks originality, one of the qualities that made the original so much fun. This isn’t overly surprising as the writers of the original have been replaced here with one of the writers of “Scary Movie 4” & “Superhero Movie” & the other two haven’t penned a decent script since “Old School” in 2003. These three titans of comedy lack creativity to such a degree that the only major shifts they make are moving the festivities to Thailand, giving us a flashback that pointlessly uses 12-year-olds in place of our leads because, you know, seeing middle schoolers drink heavily is hilarious, & upping the raunch to such a degree that instead of laughing I was stuck cringing in my seat. The rest of the movie remains largely the same,** telegraphing where many of the jokes are going, and robbing the viewer of the surprises that made the first so much fun.***

**In place of a tiger we get a monkey this time, & though slightly overused, the monkey provides a couple of the funniest scenes.

***If, like me, you fail to realize where the lost member of their group (this time Stu’s soon to be brother-in-law Teddy) is within the first half hour you’ll feel like a complete idiot when it’s revealed.

2011 NFL Draft Diary

It's time for my 2nd annual almost completely uneducated look at the first round of the NFL Draft (last year's draft diary can be viewed here). Let's do it...

#1-The Panthers go first &, no surprise here, destroy the franchise for the next half-decade by taking Cam Newton. Seeing as I’ve hated Newton since it came out that he and his dad, allegedly, took money for him to go to Auburn you can write off my criticism if you want. Fact is, however, that I’m not the only one questioning Cam’s work ethic & character. At other positions you can coast a little on talent & be an egomaniac, but it doesn’t work at the QB position (see Jeff George’s career & Bret Favre last year). I hate Jimmy Clausen & said last year he’d be garbage but this is a huge mistake. Should have traded down, taken Patrick Peterson (the best player in the draft), or Marcell Dareus.

The Real Best Pictures

The Oscars (or “Oscar” as the Academy obnoxiously insists on calling it this year) are this Sunday and “The King’s Speech” is essentially a lock to take home Best Picture over the superior “The Social Network.”* In honor of the Academy once again failing to correctly pick the best movie of the year let’s take a look back over who won the top award in film the last ten years, & who should have won.

*Nearly every critics’ award for Best Picture has gone to “Network,” which once again brings us to the insanity of awards in the entertainment industry. In sports the players and coaches do not decide who wins awards at the end of the season, rather sports writers decide the winners. This makes sense seeing as sports writers are paid to cover the entire sport, while players & coaches are merely concerned with their own teams. Yet in the movie, music, & television industries it is those within the industries, & not the critics whose job it is to judge what is produced, who decide the awards. Hence instead of having awards decided by an educated, relatively unbiased group of individuals we’re left with awards being handed out by an uneducated, petulant group of people with definitive favorites. Why? Because celebrities love nothing more than patting themselves on the back.

SUPER BOWL XLV PREVIEW!

In my pre-season NFL Preview I made this Super Bowl Prediction:

SUPER BOWL XLV

Packers 27, Steelers 23

Rodgers asserts himself as a truly elite quarterback & Green Bay wins the Super Bowl in Brett Favre’s last season (I think).

Now I don’t want to call myself a prophet but… how awesome is that?! I correctly predicted both Super Bowl teams!* Of course Sport’s Illustrated’s Peter King also predicted a Packers/Steelers Super Bowl, so I’m hardly alone, but he chose Pittsburgh to win. So there you have the one major storyline that’s been ignored by the media: Who will prove to be right? Peter King, the noted NFL reporter who’s been in the business for decades? Or Joe Matz, the 20-year-old Tucson blogger?**

*An improvement from last year when I correctly predicted the Colts appearance, but failed miserably in picking my Giants (I had the Colts winning).

**Peter & I don’t deserve too much credit since we both bailed on our picks. Before the playoffs he switched his prediction to Patriots/Packers, & I picked the Eagles over the Pack in round 1 (though I’ve been loyal ever since).

But enough about my genius, let’s take a quick look at why each team should win.

February-April Movie Preview

We've got three months to go before the summer movie season begins, but that hardly means there won't be anything to watch. I'll do my best to help you save your hard earned cash by telling you what movies are worth shelling out for, & which ones to avoid. (Note: by clicking on the name of the listed films you will be redirected to the trailer, a clip from the film, or the listed movie's imdb page).