He's Snarkastic

It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited to another edition of the Mustard.

So much for the Yankees and the Red Sox. On the plus side, there goes two teams that I can’t stand and who will just make for a hilarious off season when they try to one up each other and spend millions more on “star” players until next year comes and they get beat again by lower salaried teams who just put together coherent, sturdy teams. On the negative side, there goes half the ratings for the rest of the playoffs. The sound you’re heard after the Yankees lost on Monday wasn’t George Steinbrenner but actually Fox execs screaming in anguish over the money they just lost. Ah well. It’s the White Sox turn. You figure it’s been about a century, they’re due.

So the conclusions drawn from catching the Caps/Rangers game on Monday:

1. The Caps suck with the sole bright spots of Olie the goalie and the rookie Ovechkin.

2. The Rangers sucks with the sole bright spot of Jaromir Jagr.

3. I’m freakin’ glad hockey’s back.

So finally my top summer movies are over so I present you with:

Mr. Snow’s Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies…for the rest of the year:

(In order of release)

Elizabethtown

Why? It’s done by Cameron Crowe who also did Jerry McGuire, Vanilla Sky and one of my all-time favorite movies, Almost Famous. Orlando Bloom finally gets a chance to do something non-historical epic-eqsue. Kirsten Dunst has been rising in my book since not sucking in Spider-man 2 and being pretty darn good in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The only thing slightly putting me off is the plot seems to be pretty similar to that of Garden State. Hopefully there’ll be enough of a differentiation once I actually see the movie.

Jarhead

Ok, this spot originally was going to V for Vendetta but since that movie got moved to the spring, this one has popped into the list. It’s the newest film by Sam Mendes of American Beauty and the underrated Road to Perdition fame. If nothing else the cast is terrific with Jake Gyllenhaal moving away from his whole Day After Tomorrow phase and back towards serious work, Peter Sarsgaard who is becoming the next Chris Cooper by being in seemingly every movie these days, and Jamie Foxx in his first true followup to Ray (we do NOT count Stealth). I’m interested as Sam Mendes usually makes some gorgeous looking movies and his Cinematographer here is Roger Deakins who has done pretty much all the Coen Brothers movies as well as some big movies such as Shawshank Redemption and Beautiful Mind (which while I hated that movie, even I admit it was beautifully shot).

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Oh, like this is a surprise. In my mind, these movies get better with each additional one. I know a lot of people did not like Prisoner of Azkaban as much as the other ones due to having to cut a lot of material for time but I loved it for being the best of the actual “movies”. Yes, the book is better but isn’t that always the case? Anyways, this one looks to continue in the POA vein of style which is fine with me. I love the casting of the new roles. Brendon Gleeson is gonna be a great Mad-Eye Moody. Miranda Richardson I know is going to nail Rita Skeeter. And how friggin’ awesome is the casting of Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort? I just hope with the director we’re getting Donnie Brasco Mike Newell, not Mona Lisa Smile Mike Newell.

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Ok, this one I’m looking forward to in the same way I was looking forward to Fellowship of the Ring. Great book that I hope they nail and am terrified they won’t. So far things look good. Casting no-names as the kids was the right first step. More famous actors would’ve over shadowed the characters. The design looks great. WETA who did Lord of the Rings is the best at what they do so I know those beasts and creatures are gonna be excellent. And as for the names they did cast, I think they went the best route. Tilda Swinton definitely looks like the White Witch I envisioned while reading the books and while I would’ve loved it if Brian Cox had voiced Aslan as originally planned, I have no problems with Liam Neeson. So here’s hoping cause if they get this right, they’ve got a whole series that’s going to make them some serious money.

King Kong

It’s Peter Jackson making King Kong. This guy seriously just laughs in the face of impossibility. Impossible to make the Lord of the Rings while staying true to the books? Done. Impossible to remake one of the most iconic movies of all time? Well, he doesn’t look to be doing too shabby there either. One he’s got a great cast. Adrien Brody showed just a little bit of talent when he picked up that best actor Oscar for the Pianist. Naomi Watts floored me with her performance in Mulholland Drive. And then there’s Jack Black. Big question mark there as he’s always been a big goofball actor. Honestly though he has some skills as he showed in School of Rock and I think his manic, obsessive energy is going to pour perfectly into the role of Carl Denham, the manic, obsessed filmmaker. Andy Serkis is doing the Gollum thing again by being the motion capture performer for Kong himself as well as playing Lumpy the cook which really is just a great name. And the few shots we’ve seen of Kong? Well it doesn’t have the nostalgic feeling of the stop-motion original Kong but damn he looks pretty sweet. And yes the trailer shows a lot of dinosaurs in it. No one seems to remember that they were in the original movie too. The original Kong had the notion of people being terrorized by pre-historic creatures on an island long before Crichton ever came up with Jurassic Park. So here’s hoping Jackson has a winner with this one. I’ll damn sure be in line on opening day.

News and notes:

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that any “answer” Lost gives always just results in 3 new questions.

Yahoo for Notre Dame moving up to #9 in the polls without even playing last week. USC this Saturday is honestly the rest of the season in one game. We win, the sky’s the limit. We lose, we spend the rest of the year in the teen rankings. Stupid Crowley going to the game.

Bring back Scrubs. Damn you NBC!

Hey there’s this really good movie called Serenity out. Go see it.

Little over a week now. Let the insanity begin.

Until next time:

“What if show Lisa we can sleep in her room without being frightened.”

“Ok Marge, but don’t be surprise if a snuggle monster shows up.”

“Well I hope he’s accompanied by the ‘How was your day’ monster and the footrub monster and the ‘Let me just-‘”

“Don’t worry, he’s not showing up.”