Friday, March 21, 2008

the savages

i went to see the savages last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. phillip seymour hoffman and laura linney were amazing as usual, and i'm glad i knew NOTHING about this movie before i went to see it because i probably would not have gone had i known the primary subject matter of the movie. the movie is almost exclusively about a brother and sister dealing with their father who is suffering from dementia and who is incapable of living on his own. the decision as to whether to place the man in a retirement home and how to interact with a person who is often in another world is so morose, but despite this subject matter, this movie was actually very, very funny. if you have seen it, please let me know, and we can further discuss.

Monday, March 3, 2008

an injustice of epic proportions

i exaggerate, of course, with the title of this post, but i really am still in shock with an event i personally witnessed this past friday night.

for the video, go to:

http://videos.thestate.com/vmix_hosted_ ... id=1746217

then click on the summerville vs. spartanburg 4A highlights for a 3mn video of my high school team (spartanburg high) in the 4A state championship basketball game against summerville (with a.j. green, a very highly recruited wide receiver who's going to georgia - by the way, georgia fans, if green is better in football than he is in basketball, the SEC better watch out. he's an unbelievable athlete. dam$it, why didn't you stay in state and come play for Spurrier?!?!?!).

back to the injustice at hand - i was at the game. 5th row seats at midcourt at the colonial center in columbia, sc. it was a great game which my team should have won. and we did win it had the refs not screwed us over. on the very last shot (65 foot shot buzzer beater when we were down by 2 pts) i heard the horn go off as the ball was in the air. granted, the judgment call was much closer on this video than i remembered it, but it still looks to me as if it was out of his hands before the red light went off. regardless, wouldn't you think that when the refs had to spend about 2 or 3 minutes making a decision as to whether the shot was on time or not, that the tie would go to the shooter????? i think it should.

there were at least 6 or 7 video monitors at the game that i saw. i can understand not mandating video review at the high school level (probably too expensive to justify), but when it's for the state championship, and you're playing at the colonial center, video replay should have been used. it wasn't. and there were 4 senior starters on the spartanburg vikings who will never forget the injustice that was done to them b/c of a moronic devotion to the letter of the law (not allowing video review), when the spirit of the law (finding out if the shot was released on time) should have prevailed.

i realize it was just a high school game, but man, i think my team was robbed. . .