Your Fake Study Abroad T-Shirt and You: How to Pretend You Are Cool

By Chris Hubbard

They say it is the one experience in college you will carry with you for the rest of your life, even into your late thirties: that when you go over seas, your life will never be the same, and that everyone should experience a semester abroad. To leave your country behind for half a year you would receive the opportunity of a lifetime in some exotic and beautiful country, life long friends (unless you smell weird or something,) and a receiving a free t-shirt that says, “I Studied Abroad,” in the mail a few weeks later. Or you could sit on the couch, watch Spaced and play Mass Effect 2 for eight weeks, lose life long friends (unless you have Xbox Live,) and have a free t-shirt that says, “I Studied Abroad,” accidentally mailed to you. Should the later happen, you coooooould send it back with a correction letter, yada yada. BUT FREE T-SHIRT! Besides, the shirt works just as well as the expensive trip. I found it’s not actually going that matters at all, but the fact that other people think you went that is the key.

“You went abroad? Where did you go?”

“Oh, I went to Africa.” The faces really light up when you say Africa more so than a lot of other places I’ve found (people seem less interested in Europe these days, don’t ask me why, but I’m assuming its because the squirrels are red over there). Maybe it is because Africa is so exotic to Americans. It might as well be Mars to most people. So to go there and come back in one piece makes you a folk hero for some reason.

“Africa! Really? That’s amazing? Where in Africa?” Okay, so here is the toughest part of the conversation so far. It’s not that it’s necessarily hard to answer, it’s just important because it sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. To say you went to Egypt is to end up in a lesson on monuments. “What are the pyramids like, what about the sphinx, did you see King Tut?” To say South Africa is a lecture on apartheid waiting to happen. Plus, now it’s up to you to give an update on the political progress of an entire nation. You have to be careful with people who know their stuff too. What if you give a country in civil war, and the person you’re talking to calls you out on it? Now you’re screwed before you really even started. I generally stick to saying Kenya, it’s familiar enough that people recognize the name, but they typically know nothing about it.

“Kenya! Wow, that’s amazing. What was it like over there?” This is where a well selected country really pays off. I can literally say anything I want to so long as it vaguely fits a person’s preconception of Africa, and pushing these boundaries is particularly entertaining. The crazier you get with the stories, the better as far, as I’m concerned. I once told a woman that we rode cheetahs from city to city.

“Doesn’t that hurt the animals?”

“Hurt them? They don’t even feel us on their backs! They’re pretty much the only means of transportation over there.”

“That’s remarkable! What’s it like riding one?”

“Oh, it’s the only way to travel as far as I’m concerned. I’m thinking of trading my car in for a Mufasa soon actually.”

“Wasn’t Mufasa the name of a character from the Lion King?”

“Yeah, but where do you think the name comes from? It’s a breed of Cheetah in Kenya.”

I’ve found that as the years pass, I can sometimes get away with more and more outrageous statements so long as I can write it off as being a product of the times. Things change over the years and not everyone remembers what things were like in Africa in nineteen eighty-whatever.

“The elephants were so tiny they could fit in our pockets.”

“But aren’t elephants humongous?”

“Well, today they are! What with the internet and all of that cancer going around, but back then it was different.”

Obviously if you’re going to go this far, you have to make sure you’re never going to see this person again. You can’t just tell your grandfather all about cheetah races and giraffe stampedes because he’s more than likely going to tell someone who actually knows something all about it, and then soon he’s coming back to curse you out. Save the outlandish stuff for the casual stranger, they usually won’t remember too much about the conversation anyway. Pretty much anyone in line at the bank, or at the laundromat, or on the subway is fair game as far as I’m concerned.

“You studied abroad? You know, I’ve studied abroad… or two. (pause for laughter)”

But the laughter never comes. If anyone, for any reason cracks this joke at you, and they will, be it while you are wearing the shirt or otherwise, you have a few options.

1) You can run away. It’s not cowardice; I’ve done it lots of times. Don’t even respond, just run. You’ll never see them again, I promise. Sometimes it’s really the best way of dealing with a jokester who has no idea what’s funny and what’s just plain stupid. Look, everyone who’s ever made this joke has on some level, thought they were being original, which means that they are obviously slow and won’t catch up if you decide the bus station a few blocks away is a better place be standing.

2) If you know the person, then all the easier to deal with. You don’t have to go anywhere or say anything, just turn and look then straight in the eyes… and slap them. Make it a hard slap, but don’t knock any teeth out or anything crazy. Just a good smack to the face. They won’t say it again, whether they are now crying, or trying like crazy to kick the shit out of you.

3) If you don’t know the person and you don’t feel like running, you can stand up and confront the problem head on if you’re in the mood.

“You sir, are the reason why this country is the most hated nation in the world, and I weep for the generations to come that will have to pay for your ignorant remarks here today.”

I usually point and turn up my nose when I say this too. It’s the best way to get out of any confrontation when it comes to your I Studied Abroad T-shirt. The reason it’s so effective is because it puts you in the driver seat. You’re taking the wind out of their sails quickly. I make sure to be loud enough so others can hear me too. That way I come across as the cultured one, and the people around us chime in on my side.

“You’re just embarrassing all of us. Why don’t you go back to your cave, you Neanderthal!?”

I’ve seen it turn even the most confident of wisecrackers into defeated creatures, running with their tail between their legs to get away from the scene of their embarrassment, which can only add to the satisfaction of wearing a Study Abroad Shirt…while having never studied abroad.

Above all, it’s important to remember that this Study Abroad Shirt is not a toy. It’s a serious conversation starter, and nine times out of ten, you will end up talking to someone about it. It’s better to have a plan. No one likes looking like an idiot, especially when you’re thirty eight and you’re still wearing clothes from your college years.

Spence’s note: Another way to deal with a jokester is by doing it the way that someone who I hold near and dear to me dealt with a similar situation two years ago: a random parent on a Rider tour. For those of you who don’t know, Wookiee Wednesday contributor Brian Long used to be a tour guide at Rider University. Bored with the monotony of the tour life, that clever bugger Brian decided one day to start his tour off with a new line: “Hey ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Rider! Now, I know what you’re thinking…. ‘Rider?.....I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER!!!!’”

Someone immediately filed a complaint.

The lesson here is that when you are in doubt, blame it on Brian and get your satisfaction from knowing he got yelled at.

Ides of March: Review

By Spence Blazak

Disclaimer: This is a modification of my review for The Daily Targum coming out on October 13^th. It is like the one in there, except in this one I added in a few swear words and the word leopard. Enjoy!

Phillip Seymour Hoffman looks more and more like my Pop with each passing role. His one sentence review of the movie was "P.S.H. played a great D. Blazak!" I digress. Ides of March just might have the best cast of any movie in recent memory, and this is why it hurts a little more that it doesn’t live up to its talent factor. Its good, but it just isn’t as good as it could have been. If you hear that your brunch is going to be cooked by Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, Ina Garten, and Mario Batali (…….no….no….. I never watch Food Network…..), then you just receive Nutella-covered garlic crackers, it is disappointing regardless of Nutella’s hazelnutty goodness*.

Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney) is campaigning for the Democratic Party’s Presidential bid. The climactic battle has come down to Ohio. Our main character is Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), the charming, second in command on the Morris campaign who has the power to make every female intern within a 2-mile radius take her top off and purr like a snow leopard whenever he pouts his marble chiseled lips.

Stephen is a valuable piece in the game of the Primary for both sides. The only way Paul (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), the head manager of Morris campaign, could be trying to hold onto him any harder is if he was SITTING ON HIM!(count it!). Meanwhile the rival campaign manager (Paul Giamatti), is trying to use Jedi mind tricks to win the beautiful Stephen over to his side.

Cover ups ensue, politics corrupt the incorruptible, illegitimate children abound, and dark glances are shot at enemies and friends alike. Ides of March’s greatest triumph lies in the performances of its cast. Presidential candidates pitch the same platforms every four years, but for some reason, people keep coming back and getting enchanted all over again. Clooney recognizes this and plays such a good candidate that the audience is practically handing him a blank check for a campaign contribution after the first debate.

Hoffman and Giamatti are, in my opinion, the two best actors in Hollywood today, and they lose themselves in their performances, making you wish they had even more screen time. Hoffman gives a one-two punch to the world of cinema that began with his tough-as-nails performance in Moneyball from two weeks ago, while Giamatti finishes off possibly the best year of his career that included two perfect performances in Win Win and Barney’s Version as well as one of the funniest things on recent television when he guest starred in an episode of 30 Rock as a pony tailed-footage editor who “went to hockey camp and became a Confederate Civil War re-enactor to meet women.” Marissa Tomei also appears as a New York Times reporter who brilliantly captures the d-bag, two toned personality you need to get a real story.

As for Gosling, he has begun to shape a career that is looking very similar to Leonardo DiCaprio’s. Ever since The Notebook, Gosling has slowly been building up more credibility for his actual acting chops rather than just his good looks. DiCaprio almost quit acting after Titanic, but then he earned respectability with performances like Howard Hughes in The Aviator and Billy Costigan in The Departed. Along with Drive and Crazy Stupid Love, Gosling has also had an excellent year featuring three well crafted performances, and his work here makes me very curious as to what else he has up his sleeve aside from his godly canon of an arm. Wookiee Wednesday contributor Brian dared me to write that. Pay up, buddy.

The movie is also the latest entry into the “Clooney-noir” genre, where George Clooney puts his hand into every aspect of the movie. While it is respectable to love ones work that much, the directing comes off as a little bit “blah” and the script’s wittiness just winds up falling flat a lot of the time. Brian put it best by saying “he is like a kid in school who sucks at drawing, but no one can tell him because he is the President’s son.” Even in his “masterpiece” Good Night and Good Luck the shot composition is its major flaw, but it is well covered by how cool cigarette smoke looks in black and white.

All in all, Ides of March is good, but it is just missing….something. The underlying theme appears to be not much more than how politics can change a person seemingly made of unbendable metal, as well as the horrible price of getting ahead in the world. Think of it as a Thanksgiving turkey. It looks great, but the stuffing is made out of a balled up copy of The Trentonian.

If All The President’s Men is a 4 star political movie, and Swing Vote is a 1 star example, Ides has the scale just barely tip in its favor to come in at 3 stars.

*this might be very presumptuous of me that it would have “hazelnutty goodness” because I’m allergic to hazelnuts and have never had them for fear of a VERY sore throat.

Drive: Review

By Brian Long

In Drive, director Nicholas Winding Refn (Bronson, The Pusher Trilogy) has created a film of visuals: a bullet and a hammer, an elevator attack, and a golden scorpion stitched onto the back of our hero’s jacket, making it clear that he will strike, quickly and violently, when provoked. It is a film of images almost by necessity in addition to a stylistic choice as our hero, simply known as Driver (Ryan Gosling) speaks very little throughout the course of the movie. He makes Clint Eastwood in the Dollars Trilogy look like a hyperactive 8-year-old.

It is to Gosling’s credit as an actor that his stoic face and expressive eyes reveal so much more than any lines of dialogue could. We see both seething rage and a desire to fit into the domestic life of his next door neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son Benicio (Kaden Leos). Drive is a fascinating film because it is very difficult to classify. Not understated enough to be considered a full-on art house character study, but not flashy enough to be considered a summer blockbuster of the caliber of the Fast and Furious films. It obeys certain tropes of the pulp crime genre of the “heist gone bad” but subverts just as many: the relationship between Irene and Driver doesn’t go further than innocent hand holding and when Irene’s husband Standard (Oscar Issac) is released from prison, we expect abuse and domestic unrest, but he is a genuinely good person who is trying to make the best of his second chance.

All of the performances are top notch, but special recognition must go to Albert Brooks (Finding Nemo, Broadcast News) who makes a startling face-heel-turn, using his typically warm comedic persona to portray a truly chilling and unstable mob boss. I want to do my best to keep the details of this film vague, because many details and surprises were spoiled for me (if you can, avoid the trailer) before my butt hit the theater seats. Know this, Drive is a unique film, and it is the type of film that comes around all too rarely because it can provide something for everyone. Do you enjoy introspective character studies? Do you enjoy pulpy crime dramas? Do you enjoy Ryan Gosling’s pretty boy face? (Editor Spence Blazak sure as heck fire loves all three!.....all…..three…..) Then refund your ticket Dolphin Tail and check this film out.

3 and a ½ stars out of 4

Chemistry Is Change: Why Breaking Bad Is One of the Few Shows Doing Television Right

(Possible minor spoilers for the entirety of the series Breaking Bad. And seriously? You haven’t watched it yet? It’s on Netflix! Go! Go now!)

By Brian Long

Last night saw the end of Breaking Bad’s penultimate season leaving me and other fans waiting with bated breath to find out what will happen to our “hero” Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and his sometimes loyal partner, sometimes enemy Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). No doubt if you are a TV fan in any way, shape, or form you’ve heard of AMC’s series Breaking Bad and you’ve also no doubt heard the extreme hyperbolic statements thrown around like “best show on television” and “if Jesus owned a TV he’d only watch this and Little People, Big World.” And frankly, these statements are true. But this article isn’t another tongue bath for the series; this is me asking the question why has this show been so effective and why has the critical praise been so heavy? To me the answer is simple: change.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who is a fan of the series. In the very first episode of the series, Walter White more or less lays out what will become the trajectory of the series to his chemistry class by saying “chemistry is change” and that it is “sudden and violent.” The progression from “Mr. Chips to Scarface” as series creator Vince Gilligan has often referred to it has been a fascinating one. After the revealing and shocking final shot of last night’s episode, it is clear that this is no longer the Walter White who would cook meth in his tighty whiteys. He has grown into the villain we all knew, but secretly hoped he would not become. Part of what makes the series so fascinating is watching that change, and it makes it so refreshing from the average television program where formula is not only the norm, but a necessity. I find this change so refreshing that Breaking Bad has ruined me for other TV shows. As a wise man once said, once you go Break, you can never go back.

Let’s face it. Television is very much a viewer based medium. Accessibility is a key factor in a show’s survival because it makes it easier for the average Joe Channel Surf to stumble across the series and begin watching. Continuity becomes a kiss of death. It is the same issue the comic book industry has been dealing with for years. With nearly HALF A CENTURY of back story for some its characters, how can anyone be expected to hunt down a copy of Action Comics #1 to catch up on Superman stories? So, histories are rebooted, continuity is updated to make it more accessible, and the cycle continues for another twenty years before the status quo is wiped clean again. This same method is applied to television on an almost weekly basis. But from a storytelling perspective, it seems wrong. People grow and change, and so does any good fictional character. Viewers sometimes get tantalizing hints that maybe the show will get a drastic shake-up (House is in prison this season, guys! This’ll probably be totally different than that one time he was in a mental hospital in the season opener and then they never mentioned it again once he was released at the end of the EPISODE) but the status quo will inevitably return in a few weeks and the long time viewers will be patted on the head as if to say, “There, you got your little taste of a new story, now sit back and enjoy the same thing you’ve been watching for seven seasons.” cough cough Everything that has been run on CBS since 1997.

Why should I let this bother me? Am I just being a raging nerd? I don’t think so. I think ultimately it comes down to storytelling suffering if the experiences the characters go through don’t change. Why should I care about any kind of action that a character undergoes if it ends up having no effect on them? Obviously the main character will never die on a TV show, so stakes are already low, but when you remove the idea that the character will experience something and then probably never speak of it again, you essentially wrote a story that could never have happened and wasted everyone’s time. Throughout the course of Breaking Bad, we’ve watched the complete moral decay of Walter and Jesse. The two men have essentially damned themselves and had two very different reactions to their equal and opposite actions. Formula is not necessarily a terrible thing; in fact, a series can easily maintain a formula and still have characters that grow from their experiences. Take what is for my money the other best show on TV, Doctor Who. Doctor Who’s formula is always the Doctor finds out about a problem, the Doctor fixes the problem. But the past two seasons have revolved around two of the Doctor’s fellow time travelers growing and maturing from their insane encounters with aliens and totalitarian robots. In the most outlandish of shows, we find realistic growth and that is truly a spectacular thing.

Breaking Bad’s final season will begin sometime next year and perhaps I’ll end up being wrong. Maybe Walt’s wife Skylar will have contracted amnesia in the off season and forget her husband is a drug dealer and various other components will be reset to their first season status quo, but until that day let’s never forget that change is good, and damn good to watch.

Softknocks: Wookiee Football Week 2, Part 2

By Spence Blazak

After our first blowout, the Wookiees decide to come back with a vengeance in typical Wookiee fashion: not having practice until the night before the game, only half the team shows up, and someone is under some kind of influence.

I grab my trusty notebook, my polar fleece, and my Baltimore Orioles pen before heading out to the bench to see who I've mustered up. I see Rips, and he looks on the verge of tears.

Me: "What happened?"

Rips: "AHHHHHHHHHH"

Me: "So……"

Rips: "I saw…..it"

Right as I'm about to respond "you saw what?" it hits me…..

Rips: "I went to go knock on TEAMMATE X's window to get them for practice. No response. I looked inside…..and he was as naked as the day he was born, sleeping on his bed."

Right on cue TEAMMATE X walks out and says "Hey-hey guys! Whats up!"

I can't look at him without imagining nakedness. There is no doubt in my mind that this will come between our friendship.

We start practice by throwing the ball around. Evan shows up with an oddly shaped bag from the Amersterdam Smoke Shop. That can only mean one thing…..

Evan: "A gas mask!"

GAME DAY

We gain two new players: Ryan and Joe. Since Goodhand has lab, I tell him I need a human sacrifice to take his place. So he provides me with his roommate Joe. He is a man of few words who has ice water in his veins. As for Ryan, he is the quarterback from another team on the Busch Campus League. Thats right, I've taken an even bigger card from Billy Beane's Moneyball playbook: I now steal players from other, better teams.

I put in Ryan at quarterback and tell him to throw me a lob that will make me dive. He does what I ask. I take five steps, slant in, then stumble as I jump for the ball….then I run into a Christmas tree. Everyone finds this hilarious. Now I can't walk.

As for the The Princess Leia Squad, Ali is nowhere to be found and we think Kelly is mad at us for something (girls, right?!?!?!) so we find two new recruits: Robin and Elise.

In the midst of our practicing, the tension has heated between Dalton and I. He is a Rays fan, while I'm a Red Sox fan. If one team loses tonight and the other wins, the winner makes the playoffs. I'm terrified. There is nothing more "Socky" than driving what started the season as a Championship team on paper into the ground on the last day of the season. I digress. Bottom line, if the Sox blow it, I'm being carried back to my dorm in a bucket.

With the addition of Reggie and Rommel (who just might be the best thing that ever happened to the blog), I tally up our players and we have a full roster AND SUBS! No one can believe their eyes. Before they get too excited, I bring them back to reality by telling them the name of our opponent: Domestic Violence. I feel like the theme song for Psycho is playing every time I say the name. No. I feel like THE GATES OF HELL ARE OPENING every time I say the name. Doomed. We are doomed.

We start seeing people we know on the way to the game bus, and we start marketing the game as the "Rosh Hoshanna Classic." Since Rips is our only Jewish individual on the team, we ask him what the holiday actually is. His response: "…….." Michael chimes in and says that he wished the Israeli girls on his floor a happy one, and they said it wasn't a happy day. He also knew a little about it from Entourage. Thats right. A show in syndication on the channel that used to be the KidsWB has taught Michael more about Judaism than Rips has learned as a lifetime Jew.

This is followed up by a bus wide debate on whether Evan is Jewish or not. While one might think that the debate would be ended once Evan said he "was not," that person clearly doesn't know the Wookiees.

Rips suggests expanding the team beyond just flag football. We debate having a frisbee, dodgeball, basketball, and quidditch team for our next endeavor. We then wonder if we should keep the name "The Wookiees" or rename ourselves another Star Wars joke. Our possible names: "The X-Wings", "The Tantans", "The Jawas", "Not the Droids You're Looking for", "The Sarlac Pit", "Jar Jar and the Binks." All we know is that whatever name we pick, the bar has been set with the team name from Cook/Douglass Co-Ed Leage: Its Not Easy Being White.

Note for basketball season: NEED. SNAP PANTS.

Boston is up by two runs and the Rays are down by seven. There is a God.

We roll up to the field and Rommel and Reggie greet us. Wait……..

Me: "WHERE'S BAYO!?!?"

Rommel: "He forgot to wear shoes that he liked, so he went back change."

I blame our impending loss on these shoes.

We look at our competition. They are all white boys, wearing backward hats that advertise for shirt companies, dressed in make shift sleeveless shirts, wearing stud earrings, as well as cleats. I try to be as nonjudgemental as possible.

Dom. Violence Goon #1: "Oh maaaaaan, I'm soooooo glad we wore cleats, wearing shoes is reaaaaaaally stupid." As he looks at our shoes and high fives his inbred teammate.

Me under my breath: "Oh! Wow! Looks like the Insane Clown Posse forgot to put their make up on today!"

First play of the game, we are on offense. Our quarterback is not only sacked via flag, but sacked via body. He goes to the ground. The Domestic Violence lineman straight up tackles him. The refs don't seem to care. I take matters into my own hands.

After going four and out, the other team gets the ball. They score immediately. They chest bump, high five, and yell "THATS WASSSUPPPP." At this point, I've turned into the Hulk. Me to Evan: "Aw, isn't that cute, they have the ability to form SENTENCES now! Maybe basic human decency will be next!"

We are on offense. I go to the Right Tackle position. Just like Big Mike in The Blind Side. A cleats kid gets around me. Whatever. Then he looks at me and raises his eyebrows. An invitation for confrontation. I block him and he goes down. I do it again. He didn't know that he was entering PAIN CITY when he stepped on this field!!!! Then we throw an interception….

I dive to pull off the kid's flag, miss, and wind up with a face full of mud. I yell to the heavens in discontent. Then take myself out for the next couple plays.

The opposing quarterback does a QB sneak and gets a first down. This results in….

Rommel:"WE CAN HAVE OUR Q RUSH?!?!?! We need to be running some Michael Vick up in this bitch!"

The Domestic Violence boys do something particularly absurd after their next play works, resulting in me leaning to the Princess Leia Squad and ask them, "Wow! I didn't know that you could major in Pre-Jail!"

HALF TIME

28-0. I can live with that. Doing better than last time. Always looking for improvement. I decide to sit out the open of the second half. First play, THE OTHER TEAM THROWS AN INTERCEPTION RIGHT TO REGGIE!!!!!!!! He takes it to the 20 yard line!!!! We grab a few yards on the first three downs, then on fourth down, when all looks lost…..MICHAEL DOES A QB SCRAMBLE AND GETS US OUR FIRST TOUCHDOWN!!!!! I FEEL LIKE THE KING OF THE WORLD. What? Something is wrong…..Michael…..isn't…..doing….a…..touchdown…..dance…..

Me: "DO THE PARTY ROCK SHUFFLE!"

No response.

I repeat myself.

Again, no response.

So I burst into a rigid version of the Party Rock Shuffle myself. All is right in the world.

The substitutes for Domestic Violence are on the sideline dropkicking each other….all while wearing cleats. I mutter: "2011 Darwin Awards are being given out early this year."

With two minutes left in the game, Bayo shows up. He has his shoes, but doesn't have his Student ID, making him ineligible to play.

Domestic Violence gets cocky and tries to run an option play. The quarterback is tackled just after he laterals back to the running back. The whistle blows. Regardless, the running back takes the ball down for a score. He wasn't down, but I immediately make a scene to win some time.

Me: "I HEARD A WHISTLE! I HEARD A WHISTLE! AND I DON'T THINK I'M DEAF! MICHAEL, DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING????"

Michael: "Spence, just stop…….yes I heard it."

Me: "YES!!!!!! HE HEARD IT, HE SAYS!"

We get the play called dead at that first tackle. They then throw a touchdown on the next play……

FINAL SCORE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE-56 WOOKIEES-7

POST GAME

We walk back to the bus.

Dalton: "Hey! The Rays came back! The game is tied at 7-7!"

I contemplate taking off my clothes, lying in the field, and waiting until the greenskeepers find my frozen body in the spring.

Evan: "DId I ever tell you about Fuck the Pig? My ex had a pig, and she named him Fuck. I loved that pig….."

We miss the bus, but its no worry. There are worse things than waiting a little while for a bus…..then I realize the next bus doesn't come for another forty-five minutes. God is testing me.

We finally get back to the dorm, and as Bayo and I are walking in, he tells me about what going to the gym with Rommel is like…..

Bayo: "Rommel spends the entire time yelling at me for not having the dedication I need to get 'photoshopped' like he is. Yes. He actually said that. Then he said, 'I'm working hard to get that Goku body. I'm almost there. Right now, you are at Krillen level. Step up, Son.'" So many Dragonball Z references in such a short amount of time.

Rommel is incredible.

We get into the room, Bayo takes off his shoes, then I decide to go shower. When I come back, people are screaming about the smell. I already know it is probably coming from my room. I go to check it out and the smell is unbearable. I'm convinced a mold has started to grow in one of the desks. After an hour of cleaning, we realize the culprit……Bayo's favorite shoes are infected with mildew. He throws them away in a heartbreakingly tender moment.

Then I find out the Red Sox blew it and are missing the play offs.

We both hug.

Before I go to sleep, I text the team that I want to have a practice the next day. Rommel (who is obsessed with Jay-Z's song "N***** in Paris" so much that he has begun to call black people NIPs) is in a class called "African American Scientific Researchers." He texts back, "Sorry, man, I can't come. I have to study for my N***** in Science Exam."

Rommel wins the day.

Moneyball: Review

By Spence Blazak

Mr. Long, the father of Wookiee Wednesday contributors Brian and Peter, has seen three movies in the last fifteen years: Titanic, Frost/Nixon, and now Moneyball. He hates going to the movies almost as much as he hates dogs (he once said that his memoir will be called Dogs: I Just Don’t Get It…with emphasis on the colon). Yet, he gave his most recently seen film a review of “very good!” My viewing companions and I were dumb founded.

I think that little anecdote sums up Moneyball’s brilliance, but I love to make all of my articles five pages long, so bear with me.

Moneyball begins the night the Oakland Athletics were swept by the Yankees in the 2001 ALDS. Since the Yankees have the power of Lucifer and sacrificed babies in their bats, it’s no surprise to anyone that this has happened. But how did the A’s get that far in the first place? They have everything working against them: the lowest payroll in baseball, they don’t have many fans, and the players (stay with me) have to pay for their own Pepsi products! OH THE HUMANITY!

This is where Brad Pitt comes in, playing Billy Beane, General Manager of Cokeland’s finest. He had been playing moneyball, getting cheap players that seemed crappy when in reality they are excellent hitters disguised by unorthodox styles.

For all of you following my “Softknocks” blog posts, Billy Beane has been my role model as a GM since I read the book Moneyball over the summer. Sadly, my translation of his ideas to hire unathletic players for my team hasn’t worked out yet… He is a beacon of hope for any man’s man, and Brad Pitt plays him exactly the way he should: constantly walking on the line between foolishly cocky and brilliantly confident. The key to any great underdog story is admiring the canine himself, and Brad Pitt wins you over within his first three minutes on screen.

The supporting cast is stellar as well. Chris Pratt makes Scott Hatteberg the perfect embodiment of the team itself (a washed up former star who can’t throw the ball due to nerve damage), and plays up his humble, soft spoken persona with the expertise of a seasoned actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as Manager Art Howe is hilariously deadpan as the face of the A’s who takes heat from the media for having players who seem so crappy, when in reality it was all Billy. Jonah Hill reaffirms the point he made in last year’s Cyrus that he has the acting chops to keep up with the best around. His timing and delivery is John Candy-esque.

The movie is filmed beautifully and every shot looks semi sepia-toned. Bennett Miller hasn’t directed a movie since Capote, and it has been well worth the wait. The sports scenes are authentic, and he integrates archival footage in one of the best ways I’ve seen in recent memory. He also milks the humor out of awkwardness in a way that brings to mind the old, great episodes of The Office.

Aaron Sorkin, the patron saint of the modern screenplay, writes the script, and the snappy dialogue brings to mind his most recent great work The Social Network. It’s the closest thing to a sequel I’ll ever get….I liked that movie way too much. While the script has a few bland spots that suffer from pacing problems, Sorkin’s refreshing lack of clichés easily makes up for it and then some.

Moneyball is one of my favorite books, and my philosophy on adaptations is that the book should have no factor into the movie’s merit. Regardless, Sorkin picks and chooses the most essential parts of the book, and doesn’t lose any of the intended “feel”. Sure, I would have liked to see the riveting back story of Chad Bradford, but does that really matter in the long run? Some readers thought the book suffered for its extensive breakdowns of the sabremetric method that Billy used to pick the right players, and the choice was well made to merely mention it a few times rather than give a lecture on it.

Sadly, the movie falls short of perfection in a few ways. Along with the somewhat buzz killing pacing problems, Moneyball features the worst “Cheer Up Charlie” moment since its namesake. In 2007, Peter Long coined the phrase in reference to the song in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Charlie’s mom sings the 35-minute ballad to him to cheer him up. It is the worst part of an otherwise great movie.

There is a scene where Billy’s daughter sings for him. Everything just stops, and she sings for 3 and a half minutes. It is one of those lame, breathy acoustic songs that is usually found in an Apple commercial. Yuck. And the metaphor of the song is so heavy handed that I had to have Mr. Long hold me back from pouring my Sprite all over my pants.

Over all, Moneyball will be the best thing that hybrid movie/baseball fans have seen since Major League, and baseball haters might even find a respect for the game because of it. If a 1 star inspiring sports movie is Rocky V, and a 4 star one is Rudy, then I will proudly give Moneyball a 3-and-a-half star review.