Archive for November, 2009
30
Nov
Posted by John S in Film. Tagged: A Serious Man, Fargo, Godot, Jerry Lundegaard, Jewish humor, Jewish neurosis, Job, Larry Gopnik, Michael Stuhlbarg, moral consequences, moral uncertainty, negative Asian stereotypes, No Country for Old Men, Rabbi Marshak, Rabbi Nachtner, Rabbi Scott, Richard Kind, the Book of Job, the Coen brothers, The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the story of the goy's teeth. 3 Comments
“[The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle] proves that we can’t ever know what’s going on….But even if you can’t figure anything out, you’re still responsible for this on the midterm.” So Larry Gopnik, the physics professor at the heart of A Serious Man, tells his class about midway through the new film from the Coen brothers, basically [...]
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30
Nov
Posted by NPI in Monday Medley. Tagged: Alan Sepinwall, Aziz Ansari, Bill James, Chuck Klosterman, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Food, Funny People, infographics, j.d. drew, Jason Woliner, Judd Apatow, jurassic park, lord of the rings, Michael Lewis, moneyball, movie graphs, movie maps, movie reviews, Randy, star wars, thanksgiving, the blind side, the cfl, the millions, The Wire. 2 Comments
What we read while hiding our golf clubs… Food is a big part of Thanksgiving. Which food that is, though, depends in part on what region of the country you’re from. Check out this “infographic” which shows where search queries for different Thanksgiving foods came from geographically. Excellent news on the horizon for Aziz Ansari [...]
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29
Nov
Posted by NPI in Sports. Tagged: "oh, andy fantuz, anthony calvillo, avon cobourne, barenaked ladies, blue rodeo, calgary, canada", canadian football league, canadian tenors, canuck truck, damon duval, darian durant, grey cup, jim kelly, john elway, john saunders, ken miller, lil romeo, marc trestman, marty schottenheimer, mcmahon stadium, montreal alouettes, quid-pro-quo, rouge, saskatchewan roughriders, scott flory, slotback, wes welker. 3 Comments
10:01, TIM — Oh, man, they hand out a Most Valuable Player AND a Most Valuable Canadian? Isn’t that demeaning? (Cobourne was the former, and Cahoon–Canada’s Wes Welker–was MVC.) 9:55, TIM — Well, the real winner tonight was the Canadian Football League. When does next season start? 9:54, PIERRE — It was a good decision [...]
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28
Nov
Posted by Tim in TV. Tagged: albert brooks, bowling, brunch, homer, jacques, life on the fast lane, marge, The Simpsons. 6 Comments
In my review of the first season of The Simpsons, I mentioned that “Life on the Fast Lane,” was the season’s only episode that contended for a spot in the series’ pantheon. In “Simpsons Classics,” I’ll do my best to explain why “Life on the Fast Lane” and episodes like it belong in said pantheon. [...]
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27
Nov
Posted by Tim in "We Take, Among Other Things, Umbrage", Sports. Tagged: @insidethebcs, bowl championship series, bracket creep, college football, expansion of league=expansion of playoffs, meaningfulness of games, playoff systems, the merits of progress, the worth of the papajohns.com bowl debated and in the end denigrated, who wouldn't have wanted to watch texas tech and boise state last year?. 8 Comments
I’m going to continue a newfound late-autumn Friday tradition at NPI: criticizing the BCS. In case you missed Monday Medley, the BCS has its own official Twitter now, @INSIDEtheBCS, that spouts BCS propaganda and attempts to defend the institution based on 1) its improvements over the previous regime; 2) the meaningfulness of the regular season; [...]
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27
Nov
Posted by John S in Music, Ranking Bob Dylan Songs. Tagged: Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan interviews, country croon, Frank Sinatra, great singers, Lay Lady Lay, Nashville Skyline, Nashville Skyline Rag, One More Night, quit smoking and improve your voice drastically, quitting smoking, smoking. 2 Comments
There is one very important question imposed by Nashville Skyline: Can giving up cigarettes really change someone’s voice that much? That was, of course, Dylan’s explanation for the almost unrecognizable voice that appears on this album, and on “One More Night.” I’ve never smoked (unfortunately), but I can’t imagine this explanation can account for so [...]
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26
Nov
Posted by John S in Real World/Road Rules Challenge, Sports, TV. Tagged: Cohutta, Darrell punches Brad in the face, Evelyn's forfeit, highlights from The Ruins, Johanna threatens to sell Wes' house, Katie's retirement, men with a real good shimmy about them, Real World/Road Rules Challenge, Real World/Road Rules Challenge history, Shauvon's popped implant, Stacking the Salad, The Ruins, TJ Lavin, Tonya and Veronica fight, Wes Bergmann, Wes finally loses an elimination. 5 Comments
One thing we don’t have to be thankful for today is a new episode of The Ruins, as MTV made the prudent, but still disappointing, choice not to air a new episode last night. But some of us still need our Challenge fix, so with a week off before the final stretch of the season, [...]
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26
Nov
Posted by Tim in Culture, The Top 173 Things in World History. Tagged: dallas cowboys, detroit lions, football, thanksgiving, turkey. 3 Comments
Thanksgiving doesn’t quite make the Top 173 Things in World History, largely because I find the Disneyfied idyll of the First Thanksgiving a little dubious. But, if I were making a list of the Top Holidays in World History, well, it’s tough to put much ahead of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has a few flaws—I, for one, [...]
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25
Nov
Posted by John S in Comedy, TV. Tagged: Acting Without Acting, Bernie Madoff, Cheryl David, cheryl hines, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Danny Duberstein, Denise Handicapped, Elaine, George Costanza, Groat's disease, iPhone, iphone apps, itoilet, J.B. Smoove, Jason Alexander, jerry seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kramer, Leon Black, Marty Funkhouser, Michael Richards, Michael Richards racism incident, Season Seven, Season Seven Finale, seinfeld, Seinfeld Reunion, sitcom finales, the Blacks, The Car Pool Lane, the doll, the Seinfeld finale, The Table Read, Vehicular Fellatio, Wizards of Waverly Place. 6 Comments
In case we haven’t made it clear yet, we’re pretty big fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm here at NPI, and we were rather excited for Season Seven. Now that Season Seven has concluded, though, it’s worthwhile to go back and compare our expectations to what we actually got. Back when F.P., Josh and I went [...]
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24
Nov
Posted by Tim in Unabated to the Quarterback. Tagged: andre agassi, crystal meth, dave wannstedt, jom zorn, kansas city chiefs, marijuana, miami dolphins, new york jets, open, ricky williams, ron dayne, ronnie brown, tiki barber, todd haley, uniforms!, washington redskins. 4 Comments
Over at Deadspin, Will Leitch recently made a list of people who had had a particularly bad decade, or as Leitch put it, “reputations that were devastated by the last 10 years.” This list included Ricky Williams. That list no longer has any credibility. Sure, when Ricky Williams graduated from Texas in 1998, he was [...]
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