Burn, baby, Burn!

And this is how they celebrate on campus...



There's a cool video from a helicopter at Yahoo Sports, but I can't find a copy I can embed! (Also the nimrod reporter says "spur on their Tar Heels." Seriously??? You make THAT mistake?!?!?!) Here's a link:

Burning benches, aeriel view

The site has lots of extended interviews with CoachK and the players too!

DUKE WINS!!! 2010 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

DUKE WINS!!!

2010 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!

What a crazy, intense game. During the day I was actually relaxed. Duke had a big size advantage and the way they'd played defense against Cal, Purdue and Baylor, and the way the Big Three had played offense picking apart West Virginia, I felt pretty comfortable. Then the game started...

It was a hard fought defensive game. Neither team led by more than seven the entire game. Duke led most of the game, but Butler's defense meant they couldn't pull away. The first half ended Duke 33, Butler 32

Duke kept the lead most of the game, but Butler kept clawing back. It was a one point ame with ten seconds left. Hayward, Butler's best player, drove the lane, faded from Zoubek and shot a high arcing shot...

The shot hit off the rim. Zoubek grabbed the rebound and was fouled. He made one, intentionally missed the other. Hayward grabbed the rebound and shot it from midcourt as the buzzer sounded...

It was on line...but bounced off the rim.

DUKE 61, Butler 59

DUKE WINS!!! DUKE WINS!!!

What a tough game! Duke held Butler to 32% shooting, 31% from 3- and kept their top scorers -- Hayward and Mack -- to 7-of-25 shooting. Still they were right there. Butler outrebounded Duke in the first half and seemed to be quicker to the ball, driving in the lane and getting close shots. And they kept Duke from going off. Nolan Smith was 5-of-18. Scheyer was 5-of-12. Only Kyle Singler was able to score, going 7-of-14 for 19 points. Duke shot 41%, but only 27.8% from 3. But Duke was stronger on the boards in the second half and didn't let Butler turn them over for easy scores.

Still, what a great, heartbreaking, heart-attack inducing game. My hat is off to Butler. If they hadn't been playing Duke I would have been rooting for them. They are now officially my favorite non-ACC team.

And congrats to DUKE!!!! GO BLUE DEVILS!!!

It was a senior and junior laden team. The rise of Zoubek after years of injuries. The play of the big three -- Smith, Scheyer and Singler. You can stop one, but no one stopped them all. It was Thomas and Zoubek in the post. It was a team that lost two key starters from last year (Henderson and Williams), and yet with five players from that same team that got trounced by Villanova in the Sweet 16, they came together, played like a team, got tough on defense and now...

DUKE IS THE 2010 NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Coming soon...Alice vs Alice!!!

Yes, I'll have matching reviews of two different recent Alice in Wonderland projects. The first will be the current version in theaters directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp. That is a more traditional adaptation. Second will be a sci-fi reinvention of Alice in Wonderland that aired on the Syfy channel (and isn't that the most stupid name change in the history of tv! Seriously, you bother changing the name and it's just to switch the i's to y's? Why not make it "Cy-phy"? Or "sai-ffeye"? Or "bkqqqqsci-tuppletttingfi" where the "bkqqqq" and "tupplettting" are silent?) This sci-fi interpretation of Alice came after the Syfy channel had a big hit with the sci-fi version of Wizard of Oz called Tin Man, which I haven't seen but hope to soon.

Also, later in the week I'll be posting another competative review of two movies that about organ repossession. The current movie REPO MEN starring Jude Law and the strange sci-fi/romance/musical REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA which starred Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head and Paris Hilton.

NCAA - FINAL FOUR!

DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!! DUKE WINS!!!!

(#5) Butler beats (#5) Michigan State. It was a game that came down to the final minute. Butler made a key defensive stop and got the won. Congrats to Butler! Go Horizon League!

And...

(#1) Duke beats (#2) West Virginia 78-57!!!! Everyone thought this was going to be close but Duke wins by twenty-one. They started the game getting easy buckets inside and then kept hitting from 3. Duke shot 13-25 from 3-point range. And while 21 sounds big it really could have been bigger. WVa shot 5-10 from 3 in the first half and they got a lot of calls. All the smack of Duke getting all the calls was bull today as West Virginia was getting bailed out by the refs all night. Without the help from the stripes, WVa would have lost by fourty. And for all the talk of how tough the Big East is you know how many times any of the eight Big East school beat a higher seed in this tournament? Zero. And how many Big East teams are in the finals? Zero.

A great, great night.

Duke plays Monday for the national championship!!!!

Go Duke!!!

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (movie) (a review)

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (movie) (a review)

WTF did I just watch? Okay, seriously, I didn't get this movie at all.

The story: Darren (our teen protagonist) and best friend go to a traveling freak show where his friend recognizes one of freaks is a vampire and after the show he asks to become a vampire. The vampire refuses. Meanwhile, Darren steals the vampire's spider which the next day gets out at school and bites his friend putting him into a coma. Darren goes back to the vampire for the antidote. The vampire learns another vampire has found Darren and now his life is in jeopardy. He agrees to give the antidote to Darren if Darren will become a half vampire, which will give him some protection from the bad vampire. Darren agrees and he is half-turned, which gives him some power, but he must drink blood to get the full power and his friend gets the spider-antidote and gets better. But at home, Darren almost feeds on his sister and realizes he cannot stay at his house. He fakes his death and moves in with the freaks from the travelling show. Now the bad vampire still wants Darren. See there are two factions of vampire -- those that kill humans and those that don't. So now the bad vampire tries to get him, first by turning his friend, the kidnapping his family and then having a big final showdown, which ends in kind of a draw. The bad vampire and his friend leave. Darren goes to live with the freaks and good vampires.

First, yes, I had a lot of help with that synosis from Wikipedia.

Second, WTF is that? I didn't get why all the vampires were after this kid at all, which is like the point of the movie. I also didn't get what the point of the movie was. It felt like a lot of random running around with vampires. Now I haven't read the books this movie was based on, so hopefully they are a lot better (they'd have to be), but yikes! I'm going to mention two specific area where this movie screwed up.

First, is tone. The movie has a largely comedic tone. Was it going for comedy/horror, ebcause it if was then it failed. The thing about comedy-hybrids (comedy/action, comedy/horror, etc) is that the comedy comes second. You have to make sure the story works as a good horror movie or a good action movie or a good cop show and then you add in comedy. This is because all the emotion will come from the other part of the hybrid, all the hope and fear, the thrills and spills, so if you don't get that right the story will be just flat. And that's what happened to this movie. Was there part that was supposed to be scary? Because none of it was. For instance, when his friend is bitten by the spider and he is asking for the antidote -- that should be some intense stuff. A friend dying and it's his fault for stealing the spider? Wow. Instead the scene is light and almost comic. When he turns into the half vampire is that supposed to be bad? What about when he goes to live with the freaks? Nothing has any emotion. You need to make the bad stuff bad and the good stuff good and then fit in the comedy where you can.

A good comparison -- BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER the movie vs BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER the tv show. Buffy the Movie was a flop. It was a horror movie with a lot of comedy in it and the director decided to film it like a comedy instead of like a horror movie and the whole thing just fell apart. Buffy the tv show is a horror show. Yes, there's lots of funny in it, but it is made like a horror show -- the scary parts are scary, the bad parts are bad -- and then they fill it in with humor. If CIRQUE was supposed to have any parts that were scary or bad or emotional then they failed because they tried to make it like a comedy.

The second is emotion. We have to know what is good and what is bad so we will get some emotion out of it. Is being a half vampire good? Is it bad? Is drinking blood so you become powerful (without killing anyone) good or is it bad? Now some of this comes from tone, but some of it comes from the story you want to tell. In TWILIGHT Bella wants to turn into a vampire. In other stories, becoming a vampire is bad. It comes down to story -- what's the story you want to tell. Here, I have no idea what the story is. Usually there is a thing that you can tell inspired the story. The writer wanted to tell a story about a cool kid who became a freak and learned freaks are okay. Or a kid who feels like a freak finds acceptance among other freaks. Or...well, this story could have been about anything because I got NOTHING out of it. TWILIGHT is simple -- it's a romance, made more powerful by the fact that it's a romance with this perfect, supernatural guy. SPIDER-MAN is a love story about a geeky guy who loves a girl, becomes a superhero but realizes he can't be with her because it would put her in danger. BUFFY (movie) is about a superficial blond who gets superpowers to fight off evil and loses her friends, but learns to value more important things. CIRQUE...I have no idea.

I'm all for freaks and vampires and stuff. But there needs to be story. There needs to be emotion. This was bad. Maybe if you just want weird stuff, this movie will have enough to satisfy you, but if you want a good story this movie has nothing.

AVOID.

Some films I'd recommend instead: Sky High, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the tv show), Goonies, Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events (some tone problems here too, but a much better movie), Lost Boys, Gremlins 1 & 2, Back To the Future 1, 2 and 3, Ghost Busters, Beetlejuice

HOW TO DRAIN YOUR DRAGON (movie) (a review)

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (movie) (a review)

First, GREAT MOVIE. It's like AVATAR for kids. Absolutely worth seeing.

Story: there's a Viking village that has to deal with attacks from dragons that steal their livestock. The vikings train to become mighty dragon slayers. Hiccup, the son of the Chief, wants to be a great dragon killer like his father, but he's a bit of a screw-up and his father is afraid he will get killed so he blackballs his son from dragon slaying training. Still, during raids Hiccup keeps trying and his father realizes he won't be able to stop him, so he lets Hiccup enter the dragon slaying program. At the same time Hiccup comes across a rare dragon -- a Night Fury -- that he kind of caught during the last raid. He has a chance to kill this rare dragon and become a hero, but seeing the dragon close up he has a change of heart. The two become friends and as they bond Hiccup learns all sorts of things about dragons, like how to sooth them and what they are afraid of and Hiccup realizes he doesn't just not want to kill this dragon, but he doesn't want to kill any dragons. This let's Hiccup excel at dragon slaying training since he can best dragons without actually killing them. His dragon also eventually shows him the dragon's nest which is where their queen dragon lives. Eventually things come to a head: in training Hiccup is forced to kill a dragon an when he refuses the dragon will almost kill him. He will be saved by his Night Fury, but his dragon will be captured by his father who will use the dragon to go back to the nest to kill the queen of all dragons so the vikings can be rid of dragons forever.

See? Almost exactly like AVATAR with dragons. (The movie is based on a book that came out in 2003 btw).

Now this movie does have comedy in it, but not as much as a lot of other animated films. It definitely has some kicking action scenes and all the flying and fighting are great. It migh be a little intense/scary for little kids...or they might absolutely love it.

DEFINITELY RECOMMEND FOR KIDS ** I saw the 2D version, but with all the flying and action scenes I'd recommend the 3D version if you can.

FOR ADULTS -- (** SPOILERS **)

Well, it doesn't quite hold up to Avatar which is a shame. To be honest, I actually probably enjoyed this movie more than Avatar until the third act, which is where this movie falls apart thematically while Avatar holds together strongly until the end. Avatar makes everything very clear -- there are greedy corporations that want the minieral and want to get rid of the natives, however it needs to be done. Then there are the scientists who want to find a peaceful solution so the humans and Navi can be on the world together, who think the Navi world is beautiful and worth saving. The third act is the greedy humans detroying the sacred tree, but the wildlife of the world attack the greedy human forces and drive them off the world, letting the scientists remain. Go nature! Go environment! Unfortunately, it is in this third act that How To Train Your Dragon comes apart (at least thematically) and why it's really Avatar for kids. The third act of HTTYD has Hiccup's Night Fury captured and forced to lead the vikings to the dragon nest. Fine. Once there, the queen dragon attacks the vikings, overwhelming them and it is Hiccup and some friends who come save them. Also okay. Except the queen dragon keeps attacking and now Hiccup and his Night Fury have to find a way to kill the queen dragon.... What? They kill the queen? Isn't that bad? I mean, they do show the queen as punishing (i.e. eating) dragons that don't bring enough food, but don't insects or bees or whatever usually LIKE the queen? It's not like the dragons seem to want to be rid of the queen. The queen just sits in her cave. They could always just not come back if they really didn't like her. But, no. So it's kind of a weird message. I mean, first it's weird that you have dragons who are apparently more like ants or bees then reptiles, but okay, but then you have a movie where the main character doesn't want to kill dragons -- any dragons -- so the big final sequence is where he kills the queen?

I don't know. For me the whole third act felt pretty off. Which is a shame, because to be honest before that I actually liked this movie more than Avatar. In fact, the other biggest complaint I had about the movie was that it was too short. I wanted more time to explore the viking world and the dragon world. The movie is close to 90 minutes, but they easily could have made it close to 110 without losing any tension and making the characters and world deeper and more powerful. My only other complain is that some of the drgons (including the main one) look a little more like fuzzless stuffed animals than like dragons. I know they wanted to make them "cute" but they still could have been more dragon-like and have still worked. (I also wasn't a big fan of Jay Baruchel as Hiccup because his voice is a little too distinctive to me and it was distracting. If you don't know who he is it probably wouldn't be a problem.)

As an adult, while I loved a lot of this movie, I also found it frustrating not because it wasn't good, but because it came so close to being really, really great. And I was really, really rooting for it to be great, but that third act just didn't do it for me. It's fine for kids and for adults just looking for a fun actiony movie, but I just wish the filmmakers had realized they had a chance to make something more. Because they really, really did.

HAPPY APRIL 1ST