NFL is King Movie Review - Ghost Rider

A couple of nights ago I watched Ghost Rider on DVD. The story behind it's production reminds me of a combination of Aquaman and Medellin from Entourage. Aquaman because it's a superhero movie and the casting decisions that generally entails (Nic Cage vs Johnny Depp, JLo vs Eva Mendes). Medellin because this is basically Cage's passion project: he was tabbed for the role in 2001 and he has a Ghost Rider tattoo that had to be concealed during filming.

The plot of the movie is basically Johnny Blaze (Cage) and Roxanne Simpson (Mendes) are teens who are going to leave home and elope, until Blaze makes a deal with the devil and leaves Simpson to become a professional daredevil. Nic Cage is over 10 years older than Eva Mendes. I actually had an easier time believing that Cage sold his soul to the devil than that he's the same age as Mendes. I can usually buy the superhero premise, but I simply could not suspend disbelief on this issue.

Fun popcorn flick, though. Extremely cheesy. I give it 5/10.

Salute!

When The Sopranos debuted back in 1999, it was unlike anything else on television. Other shows featured sex, violence, and adult storylines, but The Sopranos had a slickness to it that made it feel more cutting edge. Shows like NYPD Blue and LA Law preceded The Sopranos, but the both had a pervasive Bochco-grittiness that served as a reminder that they went places Hill Street Blues had gone before. Since then shows like The Shield, Deadwood, and 24 have arrived with morally ambiguous characters, ultraviolence, and a healthy helping of nudity, and suddenly The Sopranos doesn't feel as fresh anymore.

So does that make The Sopranos the greatest drama of all time? How about Hill Street Blues, for its groundbreaking adult content? Or my favorite, The Shield, for continuing to build on these templates? This is the same kind of problem you have comparing athletes across different eras: evolution. Current all time home run leader Hank Aaron played at 6'0" 180 lbs, the same height and weight listed for light hitting Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp. Twenty years ago there were only 27 players in the NFL weighing 300 lb or more. Now there are hundreds. Education about nutrition, weight training, and sports medicine has made athletes bigger, stronger, and faster, making it difficult to translate dodging tacklers or crushing homers 40 years to today.

I'm for progress. I get more enjoyment from watching Batman Begins than Citizen Kane, I've watched enough tape to be confident that Shaquille O'Neal would dominate Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain, and I watch syndicated episodes of Seinfeld while I've never seen and episode of All in the Family beginning to end. So for me the bloom has been off the rose for The Sopranos for some time. But its influence is unquestioned, and it's easy to forget what it once was.