My annual pack of baseball cards

Happy Opening Day, everyone! Time for over 6 months of smug baseball writers mocking older writers, sports radio hosts, and dumb fans for their "takes." Of course some of the highlights of the season include the annual smug expression of superiority when discussing the Hall of Fame, the smug rejection of non-"smart" opinions around the trade deadline, and best of all the smug lambasting of awards voters who don't agree with the cool kids.

If I sound cynical, it may be because the Pirates won't contend, I haven't renewed the MLB.TV package (and why do the blackout rules still apply to that, anyway), and when I bought my annual pack of Topps baseball cards the other day, I could only find a jumbo pack that cost 5 bucks.

I still  love baseball, even though I have all but stopped regular watching of basketball, tennis, boxing...Australian Rules Football (OK, I weaned myself off that one years ago), and curtailed my overall sports viewing. Buying a pack of cards is a ritual for me, a way to reconnect with the game and summon nostalgic feelings for the days when I didn't grasp just how much of a ripoff these things were.

I would have liked a chance to get a smaller, less pricy pack, but on the bright side, I got more cards and more chances to get some of my favorite players, like...Well, I think I need to develop some favorites. I hoped to get some Pirates, and I did get two--Opening Day starter Ivan Nova (see what I said about the Pirates in the second paragraph) and John Jaso, who looks cool on the card but is no longer in The Show.

Here are some other scattered impressions I have after looking at my cards:

*I say it every year, but, wow, these pieces of cardboard look and feel better than they did when I was scooping them up and actually collecting.  Great graphics, good stock, attractive photos--and these are the "regular" ones.

*I never knew exactly what "embossed" meant, but Topps has embossing all over these cards.
*The wrapper touts "ONE EXCLUSIVE KRIS BRYANT HIGHLIGHTS CARD INSIDE!" This may be a dumb question, but why? I do indeed have a Kris Bryant card now, but why does HE get a card in every pack? Does his uncle run the company now?

*I remember when "League Leaders" cards were LAME, but this Jose Altuve (led the AL with a .346 BA) looks pretty much just like a "regular" card with only an unobtrusive label above his name on the front. It's like, hey, I got a Jose Altuve. Cool.

*I am not a big fan of the "Legends in the Making" subset. The design just doesn't appeal to me.

*Other notable players I got:  Adrian Beltre, Carlos Carrasco, "Fielding Award" Nolan Arenado," Daniel Murphy, Luis Severino, Avisail Garcia.

*By far the coolest card in the pack: A Sandy Koufax in the style of the 1983 Topps set.  I'd almost pay another 5 bucks to get another of these special cards.

Play ball!

Behind the Rankings: Stuff like "The Best of Years of Our Lives" helps make Filmstruck a winner

As long as I have Filmstruck and am able to watch it, I am going to rate it high in the weekly power rankings. It's great to be able to sit down and watch The Best Years of Our Lives just because, as I did last week. William Wyler's 1946 film depicting the troubles of servicemen returning home won multiple Oscars including Best Picture and is widely considered one of the best of its era. For what it's worth, it made a ton of money in initial release and is #37 on the American Film Insisitute Top 100 list.

Also, in a recent podcast interview with Ken Levine, TCM host Ben Mankewicz said Best Years is one of the most popular films the channel shows. In an interesting bit of dissent, Levine says he hates the movie because it is so heavy handed. I know Mankewicz feels otherwise because, one, he defends it in a non-aggressive way on the podcast, and, two, he talks about it on Fi;mstruck.

One of the interesting things about Filmstruck is that it has extras. In the case of Best Years, it has about 10 different intros/outros. I mean, it is almost overkill considering the movie itself runs nearly 3 hours and there are 20 minutes of intros. I'm glad they are all there, though, and no one is forcing you to watch them--not even Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is in "gracious guy who seems like he would be pretty cool" mode in several clips from when TCM screened the movie as one of The Essentials.

You also get a conversation B-Mank had with a representative of a disabilities interest group, a segment aired when TCM screened the film as part of a theme. Did I mention that TCM shows Best Years often? Plus there's a short clip of commentary from Wyler's son, producer David Wyler; as well as a new intro by B-Mank himself.

The movies are the thing, but it's nice to get a little added value with your viewing and, maybe more importantly, a little extra TCM. These kinds of extras help make Filmstruck more like the TCM on Demand we wanted.

'Mooners Monday: More "On Stage"

 Last week I looked at the "poloponies" gag around which the episode was constructed. The other great thing about "On Stage" is Ralph's glorious hammy acting as "Frederick." His voice, his little nods, his facial expressions--all are great. Let's take a look at Ralph Kramden, Master Thespian:

If I had to pick one favorite line reading, it's when he tells Alice, "Rachel, you've come mmm-back."

Ralph's face, even just looking at the script is funny enough.

 

Humblebrag mode after the show



 

 



 



 

Streaming Video Rankings #103

We had a bit of weather this week, so you might think I had more time to consume streaming video (wow, that phrase sounds pretentious). Yes, because I worked so hard I didn't feel like doing anything as strenuous as...reading. Here's the top 10:

1) Netflix: I don't know how much Netflix I watched. I don't know what half of these so-called Netflix Originals are even about anymore. I surrender, though, to the ubiquity of Netflix. They are still the top dog, whether their shows are any good or not. Maybe I will get around to Santa Clarita Diet or The Mechanism or Requiem. In the meantime I can only bow down to the onslaught of original content.

Plus it bought the streaming rights to the entire Monty Python catalog, indicating it hasn't totally given up on vintage material.

2) Filmstruck: Now that I am actually paying attention to this service on a weekly basis, I am thrilled that so much new content arrives each week. Just this weekend, there is a collection of Hepburn/Tracy, an assortment of movies directed by Herbert Ross, a few of Scorcese's first flicks, and a fun collection called Troubled Waters with The Breaking Point, His Kind of Woman, and more.

3) Warner Archive Instant: Yvonne Craig on Dr. Kildare alone justifies a high ranking.

4) Hulu: Is anyone out there watching Hard Sun? I'm not sure anyone is. I know I am watching Gotham and Brooklyn Nine-Nine now that they have returned

5) Hoopla: This 100% free app is available through your local library (hopefully), and the only hitch is the monthly rental limit determined by the agreement it has with Hoopla. It makes it difficult to watch a TV series this way, but it's great for ebooks and movies. I just used this for the first time to "borrow" a video on Roku, and the 72-hour rental period is annoying, but it's free.

For the record, I saw an hour of Ric Flair footage--not coincidentally from territories with murky non-WWE-owned library rights: Flair against Billy Jack Haynes from Portland and Flair against Jerry Lawler from Memphis. The whole process was smooth and easy. Thumbs up to Hoopla/

6) Amazon Prime Video: Amazon didn't bring a lot of flashy new adds this week, but I don't really mind when I can sit down and watch a few Make Room for Daddy episodes.

7) YouTube: The PRO Classics channel from Peter Rodgers Organization is quietly uploading dozens of uncut episodes of shows like The Rifleman and lately My Favorite Martian. It's free!

8) The CW: Black Lightning continues to stand out in its point of view and different slant than the other superhero shows. It's not my favorite show on TV by any means, but it is solid entertainment that manages to be distinctive.

9) NBC: Out of the blue, NBC added Punky Brewster to its "Throwback" section. Reminds me of how you may be lonely and then one day you're smiling again.

10) Pub-D-Hub: An interesting add this week was an episode of Dial 999, a show about a Canadian solving crimes in London.

5Q Movie Review: Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Note: I saw Godzilla Raids Again on The Criterion Channel/Filmstruck.

Note #2: This post contains major spoilers for the original Godzilla. You can avoid them by skipping the last Q/A.

Q: When this movie came out, were Japanese critics all like, "Oh, great! All they ever make these days are sequels and comic book movies?"

A: The film was a box office success in Japan in 1955, but I can't say for sure this reaction wasn't common. My Japanese is a little rusty, but I did find some reviews saying, "God help us all if this becomes some kind of endless 'shared universe' deal."

According to Wikipedia, though, critical and popular reception to the movie itself was disappointing, with the consensus that it was a rushed sequel.


Q: Is this just a carbon copy of the first movie? IS it a rushed sequel?

A: Not at all a carbon copy! The tone is a little lighter, and most of the humans are different. The director is different, with Motoyoshi Oda replacing Ishiro Honda. I wish I knew why Honda didn't return; I'd like to say he had creative differences with Godzilla, but Honda did return to direct multiple other pictures in the franchise. It's not a great sequel, but it is entertaining enough in its own right, and in one important respect, it actually improves on the original.


Q: So what IS better about this one?

A: The filmmakers realize that while it's fun to see a giant lizard smash houses, trains, and buildings, it's even more funner to see it smash other monsters. Therefore we see Godzilla clash with Anguirus,  who returns later in the series. Godzilla fights dirty, by the way, but it's hard to hate on him for it.


Q: Is there as much subtext in this follow-up?

A: It's more text-text. The nuclear origins of Godzilla and the problems associated with testing are much more explicit. I don't mean that a professor with a tweed jacket speaks into the camera  about them while occasionally puffing on a pipe, but several characters do discuss them more openly than in the previous film.

It's OK to admit it--I'm kind of envisioning that scene with the professor in tweed, too, and how cool it would be.


Q: Hey, how do they explain the sequel, anyway? Wasn't Godzilla taken out by the Oxygen Destroyer in the first movie?

A: He was, and I have to confess that I did not realize this: THIS Godzilla is...a different monster! I always assumed they weaseled out of the original ending or ignored it, but nope, Raids Again is explicit in declaring this is a second monster. It's kind of amazing I was able to focus and get through the movie, really, let alone enjoy it as much as I did, after learning this.

'Mooners Monday: On Stage

"On Stage," which premiered April 28, 1956 on CBS, gets better each time I see it. There isn't a lot of hilarious moments compared to some of the other Classic 39 episodes, and really there are only two things that stand out to me. Yet it's a solid episode with a warm (if hokey) ending as Alice once again throws away a chance at improving her life in favor of staying trapped in that dinky Chauncey Street apartment all day.

Well, that's a harsh way of putting it. Maybe Alice really doesn't think she can be an actress and maybe, more importantly, she doesn't want to be. Either way her and Ralph have a nice moment at the end of the story.

What stands out in "On Stage" is the hilarious way Ed pronounces "polo ponies" as one word when he is reading lines for Master Thespian Ralph before the latter stars in the fundraiser the Raccoons are staging. It gets into Ralph's head, of course, and he can't say the word any other way, and I bet you can't, either, after seeing this.

An interesting note is that according to The Official Honeymooners Treasury, writers Leonard Stern and Sydney Zelinka built the entire teleplay around that word. Stern tells the authors:

That one word came first, and we built a whole sketch around it. When the word 'poloponies' came up,  we started to devise a character who would be rich enough to have polo ponies. Then we came up with the play, and who he would rehearse with. The whole thing was worked backwards, just to  justify having 'poloponies' in a speech.

A string of poloponies?

 



That's a string of POLO PONIES!

How can Ralph go on with such a rank amateur? 

Ralph says it himself.

Now he's got ME doing it!



Ralph's face when he has to tell famed producer Herbert Whiteside, "I made a little mistake. It should have been polo ponies."