Quick hits

Just checking in. Haven't had the chance to blog much with so many things going on... hopefully everything gets sorted out next week so I can tell everyone about the plans.

Anyway, some things I liked over the past couple of days:

- The new Vanity Fair has an article about all the trouble the filmmakers went through for the first Godfather film. Awesome, awesome read. My favorite part was Frank Sinatra's intense antipathy towards the film getting made. The character Johnny Fontane, who was allegedly based on the Chairman of the Board, was marginalized in the movie even it was featured very prominently in the book. Francis Ford Coppola disputed that Sinatra had much to do with it, stating that the actor who played Fontane just sucked. Also, it was interesting to note that Marlon Brando was only 47 when he played Don Vito--and he was totally washed up in Hollywood eyes at the time. Isn't that crazy? For reference, Robert De Niro, who played the young Vito Corleone in the sequel, was also 47 when he did "Goodfellas". Oh, and Tom Cruise turns 47 this year.

- Here's a Slate piece about a guy who tries to apply the lessons from the Michael Lewis basketball article. The moral would resonate with every guy of marginal athletic talent who plays pick-up basketball.

- Speaking of number-crunching, analyst Nate Silver gives a roundup of his Oscar predictions after the fact, where he discusses the model he used and possible changes.

- The New York Times looked for a washed-up wrestler who didn't end up screwing up his whole life, and they found Tito Santana, who's now living comfortably as a high school teacher and basketball coach. Oddly enough, like Randy "The Ram" Robinson, he still spends weekends wrestling men who are half his age.

- Studios are bidding for the new buddy cop movie "The B Team", which would star Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. It's kind of amazing that Ferrell hasn't played a cop in any of his movies yet, right? Seems like a natural fit. I just hope there's a scene where Marky Mark starts talking to animals.

- While we're on the subject, Ferrell shakes and bakes with Nate Robinson! Haha, and Nate scored a season-high 41 points too. Not a bad month for Krypto-Nate.

Labels: basketball, hehehe, movies, wrestling

- posted by jaemark @ 2/26/2009 07:46:00 AM