jaycaruso's posterous

An advantage to where I live. Our own tangerine tree.

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Posted November 20, 2009

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The kids my wife watches rocking out to AC/DC

See what happens when I stay home?
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Posted November 6, 2009

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Review - 'The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3', the remake

A lot of people I know have not seen the original 'Pelham 1-2-3' and they're missing out really. It's one of the best heist films you'll see. It's a taut thriller with compelling performances from the two leads, Walther Matthau (as Lt. Zachary Garber) and Robert Shaw (known only as 'Blue'). It's tense and exciting and despite the moving being 35 years old, it doesn't feel dated.

As a film buff, I am not averse to remakes. I think there are times when remakes are warranted or when the filmmaker does honor to the original. 'Oceans Eleven', 'The Thing', 'No Way Out', 'The Manchurian Candidate', 'Cape Fear' and 'King Kong' (the Peter Jackson version, not the 1976 debacle with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange) are perfect examples of this.

With some remakes, I get the feeling the writers and the director are thinking, "How can we make this movie more cool and relevant?" Well, instead of the calm and icy cold demeanor of Shaw's character 'Blue', they get John Travolta going completely over the top in every scene and saying variations of the "F" word about 695 times throughout the movie. Denzel Washington plays Garber this time around, but rather the character being one that is much smarter than he looks with a cunning you don't see at first, we get a character that isn't as smart as he looks who gets dragged into every unwillingly into every action he takes by the psychotic Ryder (Travolta). That happened in part because in this version, Garber is not a police officer, but rather just a transit employee.

Tony Scott does what Tony Scott often does. He uses a ton of cuts, weird camera angles and heaps on the action. Sometimes that kind of thing works like it did with say 'Deja Vu' or 'Man on Fire' but here it just makes the whole thing seem messy despite the movie centering around two main areas for the majority of the film. It becomes a distraction. But what really did this movie in was the performance of Travolta. He must have been studying the Al Pacino overacting handbook. It was just annoying to watch.

Do yourself a favor. Skip this version and go and rent the original. It's worth it.

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Posted November 4, 2009

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Why The Yankees Will Win The World Series

It comes down to one thing:

Pitching.

Both of these lineups can rake (though I think the Yankees have more balance). The teams both have legit number 1 starters in CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Indians fans are probably going nuts. But after those two is where the questions come up, particularly for the Phillies both with regard to who they put on the mound and who their lineup will face.

The Phillies were able to pull off two late game wins in Colorado beating Huston Street both times. They pulled off a late inning win against the Dodgers and Jonathon Broxton. Neither of those guys are named Mariano Rivera and that is who the Phillies will have to hit against in those situations. The Phils were able to face Texas Rangers cast-off Vicente Padilla in game 5 against the Dodgers. In a game 5 match-up against the Yankees, they'll go against AJ Burnett. Granted, Burnett can either be fire or ice, but I'd hand him the ball before Padilla any day of the week. Any by game 5 if the Phillies are not down 3-1, I'd be surprised. So a win would mean the Phillies would have to beat Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia at home. We already saw what CC can do on 3 days rest and having to do it twice in the World Series won't be that big a deal considering he'll have had nearly a week off since his last start.

For the Phillies they have to counter with Cole Hamels, Pedro Martinez and perhaps Joe Blanton or JA Happ. Either Martinez or Hamels will start game 2 against the Yankees. Martinez at this point is kind of like Burnett. It's a mystery as to which Pedro is going to show up. Hamels has been struggling. He hasn't pitched 7 more innings in a month and in the playoffs he's given up 20 hits in 14.2 innings of work and 11 runs while only making it into the 6th inning once. His ERA of 6.75 is really bad.

That being said, this is not going to be a walk for the Yankees. The Phillies are a tough team and for 3 games, the Yankees lose the DH making their lineup changes and pitching changes that much more critical. I suspect that Freddie Guzman has seen his last action in the playoffs as Joe Girardi would be foolish to leave Eric Hinske off the series roster. Still, the Yankees will win this World Series because of their superior pitching. The Yankees will celebrate their 27th World Series championship on their own field for the first time in 10 years.

Yankees in 6.

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Posted October 26, 2009

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