The 2011 PBA Rookie Draft List

FIRST ROUND

1. Jayvee Casio, Powerade:It comes without much of a surprise that Jayvee Casio emerged as the first overall pick from the 2011 PBA Draft. Whatever the next season turns out to be for Powerade, their previous horrible conference performances were very well paid off by acquiring this prized rookie.

2. Paul Lee, Rain or Shine: The frequently mentioned amateur who could possibly edge out Casio as the top pick gets his own Rain or Shine jersey. With this pick, Rain or Shine is starting to shed of their one-trick ponies stereotype. Under Yeng Guiao's fiery coaching style, Paul Lee is set to be the anchor that would make the team an every -conference contender. The future of Rain or Shine just got one bald-head clearer.

3. Chris Lutz, Petron Blaze: First the gears that gave this pick to Petron. Petron dealt both Mick Pennisi and Sunday Salvacion back to Barako Bull in exchange for a returning Dondon Hontiveros and this pick which they used to nab Chris Lutz. A solid addition to Petron given his two-way style of play.

4. Marcio Lassiter, Powerade: There is no mistake in this pick. Only what-ifs.

5. Mark Barroca, Shopinas: Mark Barroca and his girlfriend can run onto the fields and seasides to celebrate his first dayas a professional (of course he'll sign a contract).

6. Mac Baracael, Alaska: A solid pick for Alaska. A perimeter sureshot with a penchant for growing patches of facial hair. Mac Baracael can only sigh in relief that he'd no longer have to be a power forward banging bodies with players a head taller than he is. Welcome to the PBA. You're 6'3 frame is passable as a power forward. But will he play the position?

7. Jason Ballesteros, Meralco: I can hear Marlou Aquino falling off at the end of the bench.

8. Allein Maliksi, Barako Bull: The "what-is-this-guy-doing-in-the-first-round". Should be the "the-guy-who's-nail-biting-while-at-the-middle-of-the-second-round".

9. Reil Cervantes, Barangay Ginebra: Mobile inside banger. Could be Ginebra's next Banjo Calpito only with a more charming hair-do.

10. Dylan Ababou, Barako Bull: Probably the steal of the draft. Just because the former UAAP MVP isn't given much of a playing time by Smart-Gilas doesn't mean his stock has plummeted. Other teams can just say "we wuz robbed!"

SECOND ROUND

This is the start the purgatory rounds.

1. Magi Sison, Shopinas: 6'7 big slotman who can hoist the ball inside the basket with exceptional accuracy whenever his free.

2. Pamboy Raymundo, Talk ‘N Text: Might be the next rookie point guard with a proud collegiate career but was reduced to a towel-pounding bench cheerer for TnT after Pong Escobal. With Jimmy Alapag and Jason Castro at the helm, this is a safe bet.

3. Eric Salamat, Alaska: I was quite expecting that he could be drafted higher. Same feeling that I had when Sunday Salvacion and Cyrus Baguio were drafted back then at the 2nd round.

4. Julius Pasculado, Alaska

5. Ariel Mepana, Alaska

6. Brian Ilad, B-MEG

7. Gilbert Bulawan, Meralco

8. James Martinez, Barangay Ginebra: Another guard known for his torrid shooting and rat-tail. Let's see what Ginebra does to this former UE sharpshooter.

9. Ken Acibar, Barako Bull: The youngest of the batch. Acibar is an interesting case. Who knows if he could pull-off a Hans Thiele with Barako?

10. Paul John Sorongon, Barako: Bull If you break down his initials, you'd discover that he can be in the same sentence with Peter June Simon.

11. John Marc Agustin, Powerade: Ato Agustin's son. He carries the genes of the Atom Bomb. His father is older than him.

THIRD ROUND

Congratulations! You have free jacket/Jersey and cap!

1. Mark Cagoco, Shopinas

2.Filemon Fernandez, Petron Blaze

FOURTH ROUND

This was how Apollo Creed discovered Rocky.

1. Gerald Lapuz, Petron Blaze

A Basic Look at the San Fransisco Giants' August Offense

There are only plus 30 games remaining on the San Francisco Giants schedule and they're still lagging 3 games behind the National League West Division leader Arizona Diamondbacks. In the only real pennant race happening in the Majors, the Giants could not afford to lose some more games. If they plan to recapture the division, they should worry more about their offense than their pitching.

Their losses comes from the glaring and salient reason that they can't get enough from their bats. Well, they got Carlos Beltran from the Mets just before the trade deadline but a quick glance of their current August offensive performance made me think if they've replaced their bats with screw drivers:

• With only 67 Runs, the Giants are scraping the bottom of this statistic rankings. The only thing missing to define their offensive futility is to snag Adam Dunn from the White Sox.

• The Giants are third from last place in the National League in Batting Average with a moribund average of .240. But lookie here. The Diamondbacks are in last place with an even lower number of .230.

• Posting an OPS of .653 is enough of an effort to again bag another National League statistic bottom place. And again, the Diamondbacks are in a close contention with a .655 OPS. Welcome to the National League West.

Fim Review: Snatch

What looks like London’s answer to Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction turned out to be a shallower version that comes with two separated plots which both appear to be begging for everything to end.

“Snatch” operates on two storylines: The search for a knuckle-sized diamond that was acquired through a robbery; and a boxer promoter (Jason Statham as ‘Turkish’) who has to manage his fighter (Brad Pitt) into deliberately throwing a fight as ordered by a notorious gangster (‘Brick Top’).

The film heavily relies on riff-music and editing to control a convoluted picture that is heavily populated by a myriad of characters and several self-serving micro plots. Guy Ritchie played with slow-to fast motion, jump-cuts, and one Goodfella-like pause scene while the narration continues. Sometime it feels like Ritchie just put the camera on a Lazy Susan and spun it while the scene goes.

The characters soon find themselves entangled with each other albeit of varying degrees. Popping up like relief benchwarmers, several characters are inserted into the story just to fulfil a task deemed necessary so as to conveniently bridge the film up to its end. Jump-cut is the weapon of choice to transition several scenes from one to another-highlighted during the comically fast journey from America to London by the New York jeweller “Cousin Avi”.

Ritchie subjected the picture on a London environment that seeps with urban decay coupled with police-free violence. This effect further improved the visual texture apt for Snatch.

And with the left-and-right exchange of civil disobedience, you’d wonder why only on the last part of the film that a policeman has appeared. A good decision perhaps as an intrusion of policeman in the middle of the plot would only congest the scenes more.

It is easy to get lost following the story alone but when you account the accents (given that we’re not used to it), then there’s no reason left why you’re not down on your knees asking for a subtitle. Brad Pitt’s accent is a speech defect. I don’t care if it’s born out of culture. His accent is spoken like he had just tripped over a rake and impaled portions of his tongue with it.

Snatch is a ride. It is a visual ride with a story that shouldn’t be taken seriously. There is nothing beneath it. It has nothing to prove except that it has great editing and a roster of actors with serious chops.

The Georgetown-Chinese Team Brawl Reminds Us of The 1998 Centennial Team's Infamous Fight

By now, a lot of you had picked up already the news of the bench-clearing melee between the US NCAA's team Georgetown Hoyas and a Chinese basketball team. The game were reportedly tense from the start and a brewing fight is simmering, only waiting for one errant swing of an elbow before it finally explodes. And explode it did. In this video, you can see how the athletic confines of the basketball court suddenly became a host of a fighting mess.

This led me to remember the 1998 Philippine Centennial team's game in the States against an NCAA Division I team-the Minnesota Gophers. The game became infamous after the heated and physical game erupted into a tangled mess of men punching, kicking, and grabbing the shit out of each other. Thankfully, that scene was made convenient to us by a YouTube upload which you can see below.

The fast shift of camera shots require the viewers to be sharp-eyed so as not to miss the highlights (to which you'll reply with "what the heck, you can rewind it as many times as you want"). Anyway, speaking of highlights, here's a few bullets to watch out for:

• Andy Seigle desperately aching to have a face touch his erratic elbow (kudos to the incompetent referee)
• "The Captain", Alvin Patrimonio, perhaps in his angriest self, going apeshit by pounding at least 4 solid punches to a hapless Gopher
• Jun Limpot, after getting whacked at the back of his head by No. 10, searching for a vacant chair he could use to send someone to afterlife.
• The referee crawling out as if he's just been rescued from a rubble.
• Kenneth Duremdes testing the sole of his shoe if it would produce a squeaking sound if planted on a human head..

A Tale of Two SMART-Gilas 'Withdrawals'.

Here's pair of disappointing developments concerning the preparation of SMART-Gilas National Team. One, Dondon Hontiveros will no longer be part of the team. The recent Jones Cup tourney turned out to be the last time he'll be in a SMART-Gilas jersey.Reasons for his leaving are inconclusive but some are pointing it to a bad "tongue-lashing" from Coach Rajko Toroman at one time during the Jones Cup although I would rather believe the other reason: that he's been a victim of wear and tear; the 9-day straight schedule of the Jones Cup took a toll on his 34 year old body.

I don't think Hontiveros would quit and ditch another opportunity to represent the country just because a coach had nearly blown his head off with some words. Being a professional that he is, I'm sure he's had those kind of experiences before and fully knows it's part of the job. The "scolding" were perhaps a result of several ill-taken shots that Hontiveros put up during the Jones Cup games.

The other development is the pull-out of SMART-Gilas from the Qatar Invitationals Tourney. The lack of players due to injuries and the small lead time for the loaned Talk and Text players to rest before the tourney were cited as reasons to the non-participation.

These news are troubling given that it happened just a few weeks before the Wuhan Olympic qualifiers. Those PBA reinforcement should have jelled well already with the team by now. We can only hope that these news would not cause disorientation once players are all on the floor playing crucial games during the tournament.

Where Would Casio Land?

The submission of application for the 2011 PBA Draft is now past the deadline and a roster of the top cagers from the amateur ranks had their names on the list already. Some of the most coveted amateur players in the pool are from the SMART-Gilas National team whom all , except Chris Tiu (he doesn't need the pro salary I guess) , had decided to leave the program after the Wuhan, China Olympic Qualifiers in September and start their career professionally.

The player that a lot of fans and insiders alike are nosing to be the first draft pick overall is former DLSU spitfire and current SMART-Gilas point guard, JV Casio. With the pitiful Powerade Tigers drafting first overall, it is not far from being logical that they will draft Casio. However, surprises from the previous annual drafts can suggest that a shoo-in bet can sometimes turn out to be not the way how many had predicted.

So who will draft JV Casio on the night of August 28, 2011? Barring any legislative bills that would prevent Casio from being drafted, let's look at each team in their respective draft orders and analyse Casio's impact and chances of being drafted by that team based on respective current rosters.

Because it is near impossible that JV Casio misses the first 5, never mind get in within the two picks, this blogger opted to include only the first 5 teams in the drafting order.

1. Powerade Tigers: Powerade had a woeful season. So horrendous that my brother almost thought a crack squad made up of cigarette-wielding bystanders could beat this team minus Gary David. Kidding aside, Powerade has the unenviable situation where both their front line and back court need a thorough rebuilding (the whole team in short). Celino Cruz isn't the Red Bull guard of old anymore. Jai Reyes, as prolific his shooting is, can only showcase his toughness on defense when challenged by ball-boys during practice. The Powerade Tigers badly need a point guard that is not only deadly offensively but a tough defending point guard also. Those international stints surely has toughened Casio. Even with his top of the line credentials, he can't still be a shoo-in for the Tigers because of the aforementioned need of the team for an inside presence. Dennis Espino isn't 26 years old strong anymore and drafting a big man at number one is a possibility. Which could make JV Casio available for the....

2. Air 21 Express: Known as the "Grocery Queens" of annual drafts, the Express has made it a habit year after year to have some of the best rookies get on stage to model their cap and jacket for photo-ops before settling down in their round table seats and feel satisfied that they have another set of players to give-up in a lopsided trade. A peek at the roster of Air 21 Express would dislodge any thought that they need a point guard. Willie Miller, Paul Artadi, Marcy Arellano, and former SMART-Gilas head hunter Wynne Arboleda compose the backcourt rotation for the Express so getting Casio in the mix would only clog up the lineup more. Or, Air 21 Express will still get Casio and use him as a trade bait to get a solid big man like, say, Gilbert Lao. Not an ideal place for Casio.

3. Meralco Bolts: The Meralco Bolts team needs more to draft a coach than a player. Solomon Mercado remains to be the lead point guard for Meralco but having JV Casio would give the Bolts one of the best point guard rotation in the PBA. Mercado is averaging almost 42 minutes per game (41.88) during their frustrating Governors Cup campaign. Clearly, Casio can take a lot of load from Mercado if they miraculously snag him in the draft. Add to that the return of Mac Cardona and the thought of Casio on the same floor with the latter is a nightmare for the opposite team's defense.

4. Rain or Shine Elasto Painters: From Rajko Toroman's disciplined system to Yeng Guiao's "if-you're-free-shoot-it" philosophy, JV Casio could not be in a more polarizing offensive scheme. Although that is also to say that JV Casio would surely create a lot of scoring opportunities for his teammates once, and even before, he's hot.

5. B-Meg Llamados: The point-guard position in the B-Meg Llamados lineup isn't as promising as the other teams. Soon, Roger Yap will have to bid goodbye to his guard-bullying ways. Jonas Villanueva is constantly plagued with injuries. Drafting JV Casio at the number 5 pick is a steal of "bibilical proportions" (thanks Mico Halili). All there is to say is that a JV Casio-James Yap backcourt tandem is brutal and sadistic.

Laid Back Tim Lincecum

I can only wish that I can watch premieres of Showtime's season-long documentary of the San Francisco Giants ball club. For the meantime, short previews of "The Franchise" are pretty much welcome.

Tim Lincecum is laid back type of guy compared to other athletes with the same fame. He differs in how he deals with his stature as a public figure. As seen on this video, aside from his pitching prowess, one can scale his demeanor down to the likes of regular guys. His attitude can be read easily: "I just happen to be a two-time Cy Young awardee but like you, I don't also like grooming that much."

For most of the time since my baseball fandom, I haven't really had a steady team to root for. Having no geographical affiliation with any of the teams, it has always been being a fan not of a whole team but the team of a specific player that I like. Now, I came to the point that it is the San Francisco Giants that I would root for. A bunch of characters and a star pitcher that is part Filipino-Tim Lincecum.

Film Review: Inception

For some reason, mostly in parts in the duration of the film, Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity video, Citizen Kane’s Rosebud, heist flicks and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey all but formed a juggling reflection of inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Even Mc Escher was in the mixture. Kants and the Heideggers might even find this amusing because of the Existentialist theme.

Here was a unique plot of just blowing through dreams of some poor individual and harbouring whatever important file tacked beneath the endless limitations of the mind although the goal reverses when the lead cast tries to implant ideas through the subject’s dream. This is like what Matrix could have been if it met heist films like Ocean’s Eleven or whatever there may be.

The brilliance lies in the complexity of how Inception took in all unreal possibilities and train wrecked it into the subliminal and how the subliminal became the true setting while the real physical world is relegated to the bullpen. Christopher Nolan exemplified much of this when you have to account Physics into your dreams: So you have no gravity when this happens in your first dream? It delves even deeper when the subliminal gets differentiated when you have to dream inside a dream. There’s too many layers you wish you can group them Photoshop style.

Inception is one of those films where you have to watch twice to fully appreciate it, not only for the narrative but for the non-superficial. Some dialogues will probably require further dissection because the first time you encountered it might be when you’re digesting what’s happening while trying to locate that loose popcorn on your inner button holes.

The scoring is a tour de force. You have no time for the crescendo; it goes directly in the middle of the chorus. Just like in dreams, you always start in the middle not knowing where you were previously. The scoring is an African elephant parachuting directly into your lawn while your family is having garden barbecue. Relentless and unsettling.

The ending is one for the year. But it’s not as if it’s going to be as blurry and unanimously indecisive like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey. There’s been lot of analysis about the conclusion or rather the inconclusive ending and it’s mostly an open-thread debate. These are the kind of analysis where one enjoys watching a group talking about this and then one individual takes all responsibility as he rises to the occasion to explain it once and for all as if the rotation of our planet depends on his opinion.

Film Review: The Usual Suspects

Neither do I have the motivation nor an excess loose-change to watch some new movies on theatres. What I do have is the audacity to torrent films while at w**k. One of those films is Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects.

Here is a film of official off-the charts mind-blowing status. Here was a pre -X-men, Superman and Transformers Bryan Singer playing masterfully with the Film Noir genre. Here is a short plot:

A ship got flamed out producing enough burnt bodies to make you lose appetite for tocino. It only leaves two survivors: A Hungarian criminal and Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). The Hungarian is nursed in a hospital due to severe exponential degree burns. Verbal is in a good condition and is about to be released from the police station after getting immunity in exchange for his eye-witness account. He was then interrogated once more by an aggressive and doubtful police asking him to repeat his story.

I’d stop there.

The characters were a bunch of unnecessary personnel that had they not been grouped together would not make their collective personalities act as a hinge which helped propel the start of the story.

Kevin Spacey, Kevin Spacey, scoring, the twist and Bryan Singer. You’d most likely bring the ending to your sleep replacing your usual 6-number combination juggle before-sleep ritual. You can never disagree if I said Kevin Spacey delivers the chills. He’s just sitting there being interrogated with a fake cerebral palsy going on in him, but yet he made you a believer. Yes, you can fly.

Kevin Spacey definitely owns those characters who radiates off with a poker-face and calm swagger while simply butchering off people (watch Se7en).

Much of the beauty of the film is not while watching it. It is when you’ve finished it and your mind starts to re-create it as if to retrace everything back to the start. I guess the budget constraint of the film contributed to the feel let alone the pace-setting scoring.

Some may say that they can already foretell the conclusion halfway through the film-and for that, I give you props and everything you wanted to hear just to please your ego with your genius.

Film Review: True Grit

We never get to see that much of Western movies anymore. True Grit is a nostalgic remembrance to those folks who lived in a not so distant past and a pleasant introduction to those of the younger people. A reminder to the latter group that there exists a genre where a vast wilderness on the screen doesn’t necessarily mean it’s produced by National Geographic.

True Grit follows the story of a teen-girl who took it upon herself to find the killer (Josh Brolin) of his father. She enlisted the help of Marshall Cagburn (Jeff Bridges) to help pursue for JOSH BROLIN and try to bring him back to her county and be punished.

In probably the first Coen Brothers film I saw where a bag of cash is neither the cause nor part of tension, True Grit easily lived up to my personal hype- most of which stemmed from my ever-growing admiration to the relaxed yet spectacular actor that is Jeff Bridges. The Coen Brothers know how to pick their actors and partner with them every single monumental project that may have. Jeff Bridge is a wonder to marvel at in the picture. He bears the unintentional recklessness of a typical whiskey-downer but he just carried the film especially in parts where there is a little reason in the narrative to hold my interest and attention. Barry Pepper also provided a sound support towards the climax and as the plot moves on after which.

Of course, neither would the usual mundane approach of the Coen Brothers to violence is to be missed in True Grit. Probably one of the reasons why I like their style; they treat some scenes that are supposed to be laid with shrieks and piercing scoring with the enthusiasm of a dead man and yet it works.

The Coen Brothers-they’re just geniuses.

Film Review: The Man Who Wasn't There

Billy Bob Thornton displays an utter display of lack in interest to life and its daily spectacle. He’s character seems to have the same reaction to a murder as to with a falling leaf. That, my friends, is someone you don’t want to encounter in a poker game.

In the Man Who Wasn’t there, Billy Bob Thornton Plays Ed Crane-a barber working together with his motor-mouthed brother-in-law who incidentally owns the place. Throughout the entire film, rarely does Ed be without a cigarette tucked in his mouth and curvy smokes filling his presence. Other than that, he has a wife (Frances McDormand) and together with his work it's practically all he has.

Ed is a good example of a man who thinks life is nothing but a stop-over before death-or so before a business opportunity.

When a strongly willed man barged into the barbershop afterhours, he talks his plan of looking for an investor and partner for a dry-cleaning business which got Ed’s inner desire for this venture.

This signalled the dawn of a criss-crossing maze which delivers just and logical conclusions yet for all the wrong reasons. The Coen brothers craftily lead us in every numerous turn but handled it with great pacing.

Billy Bob Thornton perfected the terse delivery of his dialogues in the film. In exchanges, he answers and talks with just the exact words he thinks needed of him without even showing any interest of holding an extended friendly conversation.

James Gandolfini ruffled mind and restricted imposing will produces for good encounters with Ed Crane. But the steal of the show has to be handed to Tony Shaloub who plays Freddy Riedenschneider-the top class lawyer Ed Crane tapped for his wife’s court defense. It may not be runaway since the Coens included a fine cast of characters to smitten the story with varying personalities.

For all the humour of The Man Who wasn’t There, an individual’s alienation and actions thereof were tightly explored by the Coen Brothers. Yes, Ed Crane is bored to death-but not the moviegoers.

Film Review: Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive puts you in a maze while you’re in it and leaves you in a drunken haze afterwards. Although I have knowledge beforehand that David Lynch’s works were weirdly unsettling, nothing had really prepared me what to expect on Mulholland Drive.

Expecting that the plot would be a tad too easy to follow would be a delusional and futile attempt. On the opening scene, one would have been encouraged to instantly draw up and guess the narrative up to the end just like someone who intelligently drafts his own March Madness bracket because it seems destined for that old got-into-accident-and-now-this-amnesia plot.

There are a lot of characters who appears to be out of synch in connection to the story causing you try to find where they fit exactly-which probably would continue long after the wee hours of every night you remember the film. You have this greased up monster of a man, this mafia boss who disturbingly spits out a sip of coffee into a pristine piece of table cloth, a cowboy who speaks rather in a threateningly prophetic manner and an old couple running out of a tin can.

Even the texture of the film is a dilemma. While watching it, I have this feeling that this was originally shot with the intention to be a TV movie (after a few research, it turned out that my gut feel was right.)

Mulholland Drive took all standard concepts of storytelling and just re-arranged it in the same manner an earthquake would do in a village full of mud-hats leaving the audience in total disarray yet determined to pick up the pieces to rebuild the thought only to be stonewalled by the disconcerting structure of the story.

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive is a hauntingly weird film with no spectacular acting and a narrative that just completely destroys all hope of unlocking it but sure is a work of genius operating in a universe of his own.

Mulholland is just one plain complete package of bafflement but I am a hundred and ten percent sure that you don’t need to be a Sigmund Freud to appreciate the lesbo play.

Film Review: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

PLOT:

A deranged US Air Force Colonel orders his B-52 bombers to launch nuclear attacks on several Russian targets. Upon learning of the situation, the US President together with numerous high-ranking military personnel desperately tries to stop the attacks to prevent the setting off of the Doomsday Weapon which automatically detonates once an attack is made on Russian territory.

REVIEW:

The real and palpable possibility of a global nuclear meltdown is not one topic to be treated as a joke- especially in the 1960s when the Cold War is just in its puberty and both Washington and Moscow are a misunderstanding away from destructing the planet.

What Stanley Kubrick did was to bestow hilarity on the Cold War saga and lit it up onscreen with tickling satire. The grip of the ensuing doom and the rising degree of desperation are never lost despite the unforgiving laughter the satire may cause every time it appears. It is at times safe to say that there are times in the film where laughter is a decision because one could not prioritize the emotions that the film asks of.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight here! This is the War Room!” Peter Seller’s US President Merkin Muffley role uttered this quotable line when General Buck Turgidson, a gum-chewing loose cannon who often delivers his line as if he has agitated balls in need of some urgent scratching, tried to haul down the Russian ambassador while inside the war room of the Pentagon. The irony is blissfully blatant and incongruous situations like that of Peter Seller’s other character of General Lionel Mandrake asking Colonel Bat Guano to shoot the Coca-Cola vending machine and retrieve loose coins so he could call the President of the USA and inform him the secret code to recall the bombers is as childish as it gets but the viewers are well-aware that the call is of great importance to the survival of humanity.

The film is full of watered-down maturity. It does not degrade the importance of the plot, what Stanley Kubrick did was to tackle it with an honest view of the ridiculousness of such thing ever happening.

Really? Nuclear World War?

Goodfellas: A Review

Life is easy with gangsters; almost everyone offers a shortcut to everything a gangster desires. With Goodfellas, film maker Martin Scorsese made an undeniably masterpiece of a film, let alone an arguable best of its genre, look as easy.

Goodfellas is a story of Henry Hill and his tale of about thirty-years of wheeling, dealing, and living a mob’s life told within two hours of cinema. The film starts with a young Henry deciding to grow up and realize his ambition of being a gangster. While the Godfather throws Michael into this kind of life out of hierarchal necessity, Henry in the Goodfellas laid out his plan from the beginning.

Unlike the Godfather, Goodfellas distilled its characters into a rather more human bunch of mobsters with the same murderous tendencies. When Tommy (Joe Pesci) killed made-man Billy Batts, after which he and his trio decided to dump him in some vacant lot they knew, probably having a stop-over in mom’s house to pick a shovel and have dinner while a dead man is on a parked car’s trunk are not the type of mobsters previous genre films would have treated their characters. The miracle is it worked without reducing the compelling attribute of the situation.

A steady stream of narration by Henry and a couple of other significant characters guided the structure and formation of the plot all throughout. The characters in the Goodfellas were built excellently. The trio of Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci were each defined well to the extent that no point over the course of the film would you confuse yourself as to why this character does things the way that we’ve been shown.

A gaggle of characters were introduced just as frequent as they disappear through various brutal erasures. Knives were stabbed at chests, bullets went flinging onto somebody’s toes and people were left rotting inside garbage trucks. It’s necessary in a mob flick but Scorsese did it in a grand style. Incorporating popular music instead of orchestra scoring and using stop-motion visuals while the narration is continuing often is a gimmick that unintentionally leads to crappy entirety but Scorsese is no mere director. He crafted it and succeeded. No contest.

One must wonder how on this planet Scorsese not managed to win the Oscar statuette that year. Had this been an issue inside the Goodfellas plot, Henry and his mob would have stabbed the non-voters immediately.

Thome Crushes 600th Career Homerun

Two successive crushed balls were enough for Jim Thome to enter the elite hitters'club of 600. Presumed to be the most silent build-up of a hitter's march towards homerun number 600, Jim Thome rounded the bases mindless of it and with possibly the feeling of satisfaction carrying the burden off his back; that finally, the chase is over and he's a bonafide member of the club that boasts of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Babe Ruth and four others.

At age 40, only the legendary Babe Ruth had reached the 600 Homerun plateau faster than Jim Thome. The Bambino only needed 6, 921 at bats to do so. Thome did the same on his 8, 167th plate appearance.

After Thome's historic homerun, talks were immediately swayed as to whether Jim Thome will be elected to Cooperstown. Several experts were quick to remind everyone that the 600 of Thome is not enough to breathe hope in his Hall chances. Why? Because Jim Thome happened to be prolific during the Steroid Era. That Jim Thome isn't a transcendent star. That it takes Skip Bayless at least five hesitations to figure out if he should belong in the Hall of Fame. Summing it up means that they give little weight on Thome's statistic credentials. If that is the point then it may be derived that had Jim Thome did produce exactly the same numbers at exactly the same number of games but only this time around, played with a coastal team, say, New York or San Fransisco, Jim Thome may have filled the checkbox next to "transcendent ". Jim Thome was pronounced by some not worth of the call to Hall because his name lacks luster. Isn't it a shame?

He may led a league only one-time in total homers in a season but that doesn't take away the cumulative boggle that is 600. The bottom line is, 600 is 600 and only 8 players, out of more than 17,000 players that set foot on a Major League game, had ever accomplished this rare feat.

Rick Rypien Found Dead

In a span of a few months, another hockey hoodlum is found dead. Former Vancouver Canucks tough guy Rick Rypien was found dead inside his Alberta home and reports were that he took his own life. Rypien would have been playing for the reborn franchise of Winnipeg Jets this coming season.

Rick Rypien spent most of his career playing for the Vancouver Canucks and grew a reputation of a tough customer when it comes to fights and for which that he was my favorite in the NHL 2009 PC game to start a two-man melee. Boogard gone. Rypien gone. Tough guys dying young. [Yahoo! Sports]

The PBA: Where Playoff Games Can Be Taken For Granted

Tonight, we were sworn witnesses to one of the most awful twin bills the PBA had ever offered. Two contests that match the antics of its scripted telenovelas time slot counterparts. Not for the reason of high viewership but for its stench of fabrication. The fabrication part may not be true but be that as it may, the format that the PBA instituted for the semifinals have led to this kindof bad perception.

This PBA Governor Cup’s semi-finals format is appalling. Most of the teams’ chances are pinned on the other teams' performance. Of course they wouldn’t have to if only they did much better during the Elimination Round (that’s Talk n Text) but to carry-over their W-L slates onto the semifinals is bewildering.

Making it to the Semifinals should be enough of a reward for a team’s Elimination Round performance instead of the format where a high placing team like Talk n Text having an almost shoo-in ticket to the finals. This format even almost disregards one of the best sources of the best stories in sports: Upsets.

When TNT dropped its game against Petron during the first game, Ginebra were automatically out of the running for the last finals seat. This game only matters to Petron and Petron only. TNT can play Gilbert Lao as their point guard for the whole duration of that game and TNT will still be in the finals because they were assured of it already. On the other hand, Petron, with several injured KEY players, badly needs a win and a succeeding Ginebra win to enter the finals, which at the conclusion of tonight’s games, happened.

The problem is that the format encourages the tendency of shoo-in teams to take games for granted. It should never be, given that it is the playoffs. Every team should have the intense feeling that each game is a “must win” and each loss is a huge setback. This attitude was never in display during that TNT-Petron game-at least for one team. It is a disgusting playoffs sight. A team who takes a PLAYOFF game for granted!

Fans and critics who are very much aloud in their thoughts that the games were pre-meditated and fixed can’t be blamed because the format affords the tendency of such assumptions and tirades.

Jesus Christ. What is happening to the PBA.