Throwback Thursdays #7

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No intro this week so just enjoy this pic of GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray hanging out instead. Songs down below.

Luka:

Lionel Richie - Hello

 My first song is Lionel Richie’s Hello. There’s no point in me describing how great of a song or how many weeks it spent on the charts since this is all well-known. Everyone loves this song and with good reason. It has good lyrics, a good melody, it’s extremely catchy and to top it all off, it is sung by one of the best singers of all time. The chorus is especially fun to sing with everyone attempting a seductive “hello” in hope of mimicking Lionel but always end up sounding more like Uncle Leo. The main reason I picked this song though is its insane/weird video that naturally makes it very fun to watch. The basic plot of the video is that Lionel is crushing on a girl who is the subject of the lyrics. Sounds normal right? Yeah, until you figure out that Lionel is the girl’s teacher. Here are some highlights of the video. :21 – The name of the fictional character in the video is Billyboy..? Really? They could have picked anything else and it would have been less weird. :55 – We meet Lionel’s crush in the video, his student Laura who appears to go to the same barber as him (they randomly have strangely similar hair). 1:44 – Unrelated but how fucking old is that guy? 1:55 – No one in this school finds it weird that the drama teacher is stalking his student in the hallway? Nobody? 2:21 – Laura’s friends save her from a Lionel sneak-attack from behind. 3:41 – Creepiest moment of the video (big accomplishment), Lionel calling his student late at night only to sing “Hello, Is it me you’re looking for?” before hanging up. 4:34 – One of Lionel’s students (who looks to be the same age as him) tells him something’s up in the sculpture class. 4:57 – Laura made a sculpture of Lionel’s head and then begins touching his face. 5:25 – Thank god this video ends at this moment because if it hadn’t, I’m pretty sure we’d all be witnesses to a crime. Great song. I’m kind of sad that videos like this don’t get made anymore. 

Ja Rule ft. Jennifer Lopez - I'm Real (Murder Remix)

It was late 2001 and I was just turning 10. What else was happening at the time? Ja Rule and Jennifer Lopez were releasing this great song. I don’t know anyone who hears this and doesn’t immediately start having a good time. It has that laid back summer vibe that just makes you want to put on your doo-rag and go play ball in the Bronx (or is that just me?). The song has J-Lo on the chorus as well as trading lyrics back and forth with Ja Rule who was huge at the time (if you’re young and reading this, you’re just going to have take my word on this one). The video has Ja and J-Lo (J-Lo is in her full ‘Jenny from the Block’ persona in this one. Also, how well has she aged? She looks just as good now as she did back then. Unreal) just lounging in their neighborhood, in front of a basketball court, and on the hood of a car. A simple concept for the video but you don’t really need anything too complicated for a song such as this one. What the video does have is two clothing styles that sadly disappeared after the early 2000’s. One being the Doo-Rag (pretty sure that’s how it’s spelt) which every single rapper wore back in the day. These seemingly all disappeared at once and are now nowhere to be found. I personally blame Kevin Federline for this. After he starting wearing them in the mid 00’s the African-American community probably got together and just decided that they had to go. Thanks K-Fed. The second thing in the video that you never see anymore is the “one sleeve pulled on, the other on top of the shoulder” style of wearing your shirt. I blame people’s common sense for that one since I can’t believe people ever thought that looked good. 

Mad Men - 'A Little Kiss' Review

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Full Spoilers ahead for Season 5, episode 1 of Mad Men (if you haven't seen it there's no reason to read this)

Ah Megan. After a year and a half hiatus (caused by a dispute between Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner and AMC), Mad Men finally returned on Sunday night giving us (the audience) a better look at the woman Don Draper proposed to in an unexpected move at the end of season 4. And speaking for myself, after this episode I don't blame Don. However, the episode did not start with Megan but rather with several advertising executives (we later learn they are of rival ad company Y & R)  throwing water bombs out the window at African-American protesters down below. This scene sets up the social situation at the time which from a poster on the window is revealed to be 1966, seven months after the Season 4 finale.

At the beginning of the episode we also get to see the three Draper kids with Sally (growing faster than any child I've ever seen), Bobby, and baby Eugene who is no longer a baby sleeping over at their father's house for his 40th birthday. It is through this that we get our first glimpse of Don after his marriage to Megan and he seems more patient, polite and in generally a happier mood than we've ever seen him before. By the time we get to the office we see where Pete and Roger are after the 7-month break and they couldn't be more different. Pete seems to be the boss of the younger workers at the office and generally the busiest guy at SCDP (Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce) while Roger seems to be around for solely comedic value now as he drifts around the office seemingly doing nothing productive (unless you want to count him paying Don's secretary to come sit outside his office).

Joan as a mom is seen in this episode too taking care of hers and Rogers baby (her rapist, douche husband doesn't know this), Kevin. She is being helped out by her mother but it is obvious that Joan isn't one for the housewife role as she misses the office and gets mad at her mom for saying that Greg (Joan's douche husband) will essentially control whether or not Joan can work. Back at the office we see Don, Pete, Roger, and Lane (Bert Cooper is still in the office but he somehow does less than Roger, seems like he is completely out of the business end of things at the company) having a meeting in the hallway with Pete again taking charge of the proceedings and speaking for the group. Pete mentions to Don that he's working on getting Mohawk Airlines again (a company they passed over in hopes of getting American Airlines) to which Don reacts with indifference. The new Don Draper seems to have one thing on his mind, Megan. This thought is supported by him failing to even attempt and save Peggy's failed Heinz presentation (it being "the bean ballet", I don't care what the Heinz guy said, that'd be a cool commercial) but rather politely and patiently saying they'll work on something better. Even Peggy notices it saying to Stan that "this is a new Don"

Pete vs Roger seems to be a main point of emphasis in this first episode as Pete gets upset at finding Roger already at his Mohawk Airlines meeting. Strangely enough as Ken points out, the fact that Roger was there probably helped Pete in the long run but Pete is having none of it as he stubbornly continues to bitch at Roger's dis-usefulness at the company (hard to argue but then again Roger is hilarious). Megan who works under Peggy at the office in a strange repetition of the early Don and Peggy relationship decides to throw Don a surprise birthday party only to have the surprise funnily ruined by Roger and Jane (seriously, Roger is comedy gold). At the party we get to see more of the culture divide that began in the last season. Stan and Peggy's boyfriend arguing with Cooper over the merits of the Vietnam war. Roger and Don looking confused as Megan chats it up with the band playing at the party. We also see Ken's wife for the first time who is none other than Alex Mack (look up the show if you don't know who this is).

At the party is when Megan decides to perform a birthday song for Don (video up above) who seems uncomfortable the entire time. After the party we finally get to see some of old-school loner, brooding Don as he dismisses Megan for embarrassing him and wasting her money on a party like this. Nice to see the seasons 1-3 Draper even if it was for just a few minutes. The performance by Megan gave us some great bits at the office the next day with Roger singing Frere Jacques to Don in a "seductive" voice and Harry (the guy no one likes) vividly telling Stan what he'd do with Megan if he could without realizing Megan was right behind him the whole time. Funny stuff.

The Roger and Pete showdown continued later in the episode as Pete demanded to switch offices with Roger since he does more work and is more important to the company. This leads to this great exchange, Pete - "I say we take it to a vote", Roger - "I say we take it outside". Needless to say Pete did not get Roger's office but he did end up switching with Harry who Roger paid off in order for everything to work out. Pete ends up getting the last laugh this episode as he gets his secretary to set up a fake appointment at 6 am knowing Roger would go. Can't wait to watch the interactions between these two the whole season.

After seeing a want ad from SCDP for "equal opportunity employees" in the newspaper, Joan returns to the office with her baby to make sure people haven't forgotten her. What she doesn't know is that the want ad is just a prank by Roger on the Y & R people. Joan realizes that she has not been forgotten and is sorely missed as Lane tells her how much the agency needs her around. Both Lane and Joan seem similar this season in the sense that they both look to be very lonely even with several important things in their lives. Megan, after not taking Don's scolding well leaves the office early only to be followed by Don back home (when would the old Don Draper ever leave work for a woman he mistreated?). It is here where she begins cleaning the apartment in just her bra and panties provoking Don by saying things such as "you don't get to touch, you only get to watch". This of course excites Don who loves when women 'neg' him and leads to a passionate hook-up right there on the carpet.

The episode ends with the lobby at SCDP being filled with African-American applicants answering the "want ad" in the newspaper. The 5 partners (mostly Lane as he is still the main voice of reason in the office) decide that they will hire one of the women to be the secretary in front of the office. This development will sure to cause an even larger culture clash within the office and I can't wait to see what sort of racist things will come out of Roger's mouth in the weeks to come.

Some random thoughts: We got no Betty or Henry in this episode which might mean that they are slowly being phased out of the show (no complaints here). Pete seems to be the new Don Draper with everything from the house in the suburbs, the wife he appears to not love as much right down to the obsession over work. Will be interesting to see how this develops. Finally, even though the Don-Megan relationship appears to be working out at the moment, I have a hard time believing that it will work out because as we've seen through 4 seasons, Don can never have a healthy relationship with a woman and will surely find some way to get out of this one.

Overall a very good way to start the season. I love how Mad Men doesn't care about conventional TV pacing and uses its slow pace to build the characters up making every small interaction more important.

Rating: 8.3/10

-Luka Milanovic
@Luka_M91 on Twitter

The NBA: Where We Stand 3/4 of the Way Through

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Here we are! The NBA season is roughly 75% complete, so that means it is time for my quarterly look at the season. If you have read the ¼review and the half-way point post, then you know what to expect; some awards, some opinions, and some observations about all things NBA. The trade deadline, as well as some key injuries, probably changed things quite a bit for some teams and we will get to those points later, but for now let’s hand out the awards that are sure-fire locks.

The Lock-it down Award

This goes to two guys who carry ‘James’ in their names. Of course I am talking about Lebron James being a lock (or at least, he should be) for the NBAs MVP award, and James Harden being a lock for the NBAs 6^th man of the year award. Realistically, these have been decided for a solid month, with Lebron’s season ranking higher (in terms of PER, John Hollinger’s mathematical formula to judge a player) than any other season since, well ever. Harden on the other hand could easily start for most teams, and many argue that he should start next to Westbrook on the Thunder. Coach Brooks however, likes to use him in the ‘Ginobili’ role, where he is the primary creator and is always on the floor in crunch time. It would take a serious collapse for these guys not to win their respective awards, as of now they are the least exciting award ‘races’ that the NBA has.

The “We will make a lot of people mad, but can’t really do anything about it” award, given to the coach of the year so far.

Unlike Lebron and Harden, who are already making space on their shelves for their awards, the race for ‘coach of the year’ is completely up in the air. There are so many worthy candidates this season that it feels unfair to pick just one winner, but that’s what I will try to do anyways. Firstly, the way injuries and playoff races have changed since the all-star break we can remove Rick Adelman, George Karl, Nate McMillan, and Kevin Mchale (last cut) from the race. That leaves us with Byron Scott (who has done a masterful job on the Cavs, they should not be where they are right now), Gregg Popovich (defying everybody’s predictions about San Antonio’s demise for what feels like the 10^th year in a row), Scott Brooks and Tom Thibodeau (number one seeds in their respective conferences), Stan Van Gundy (through all of that idiotic Howard drama, he has this team playing really well), Doug Collins, Lionell Hollins, and Rick Carlisle round out the long shots. I would be fine with any of these worthy candidates winning, and I didn’t even talk about Alvin Gentry, who has done a really good job with Phoenix. Expect a very interesting distribution of votes for this category at seasons’ end.

The “Our criterion for awards needs to be better” award for the NBA’s very vague requirements for winning certain awards goes to the Defensive player of the year award race.

I hate the DPOY award. It almost always goes to a defensive big-man, and nobody really explains why. Is the award meant to be given to the best help defender? The guy who blocks the most shots? The guy who plays the best individual defense? It is 2012! We should be able to figure this out. On that note, a lot of people say that Dwight Howard should win the DPOY award because the quality of big-men in the league is terrible; my counter: perimeter players dominate this league (Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Ellis, Durant, Westbrook, Nash, Paul, Williams, I could go on for another 30 players but you get the idea). So what this means is that on any given night, a guy like Tony Allen will be matched up against a guy who can score, and score a lot, whereas Howard is guarding scrubs that can’t score at all. This enables Dwight to stay close to the rim, and provide a lot of off-the ball help, but when matched up against someone who knows what they’re doing (Bynum) he gets outplayed! What I am trying to say is that if there were more quality big-men in the league, Howards defensive impact would be minimal. The DPOY award should take into account man-to-man defence as well, or have a guard and a big-man category. It goes without say that if I had a say, I would vote for Tony Allen as the defensive player of the year.

The “Dilemma” Award

This goes right back to the vague criteria argument. Do you realize that one of Durant, Lebron, and Kevin Love can’t make the All-NBA first team because they are all forwards? For some reason the NBA insists on making everything about positions, so we get outraged every year when it comes to all-star selections, but almost never when it comes to the all-NBA ones. The All-NBA selections are the most underrated awards each year, but they may finally get the attention they deserve when some significant snubs are made. So for this award, I will dish out my selections for all 3 teams, using my own criteria.

All-NBA first team: Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love. I do not care what anyone says, these five guys have had the best seasons in the league, and should also finish the top five in MVP voting.

All-NBA second team: Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Lamarcus Aldridge, Andrew Bynum, Dwight Howard. Yes, I realize that I have Howard and Bynum on the same team, so what? I can’t fairly pick one over the other in terms of who has had a better year, so I am calling it a tie. If you find yourself questioning the Lamarcus Aldridge selection, watch a Portland game then get back to me.

All-NBA third team: Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Blake Griffin, Marc Gasol,

A former regular season MVP, a former Finals MVP, and the reigning finals MVP all grace our third team! I think that it is very safe to say that the NBA is in a very good place at the moment. One thing I should mention is that Marc Gasol has had an amazing season. He was effectively Memphis’s only reliable big man while Zach Randolph was injured and has developed to the point where he may be better than brother Pau. This guy elevates his game in big moments, and plays the game the right way; he absolutely deserves to be recognized for his achievements this year.

That will wrap up this edition, with the final one coming sometime at the end of the regular season. In the mean time, we have some Mad men, some more NBA, and other cool stuff coming at you later this week. Cheers!

-Follow us on Twitter @MillenniumSandE

The NBA So Far (part 4)

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As promised here is our continued look at the NBA. For the last installment of this series (on the top 8 teams) we might switch things up a bit.

13. The Portland Trail-Blazers (72points)*

The Blazers started off this season as one of the best teams in the West and they looked like they could potentially pull off a few upsets in the playoffs and get to the finals. Their starting five was solid on both offense and defense, but they also had key contributors off the bench. Then things started trending downwards and the team has not been able to pull it together. McMillan decided to sub Crawford into the starting lineup instead of Felton (who apparently forgot how to play basketball) which was obviously not going to work, since Crawford will never primarily look to pass. He is a great scorer off the bench and can go off for 50 (did so while playing for three different teams) on any given night, but he should not be forced into playing like a distributor. The other move McMillan made was subbing Batum in for Matthews, which turned out great for Batum, but put Matthews in a giant shooting slump. So then came the trade deadline which involved rumours surround the Blazers. Will Crawford go to the Wolves? Will Felton go to the Lakers? Well neither of these two happened, but the team said fuck it and just traded just about everyone else away. Camby was shipped to the Rockets, Wallace to the Nets (I still don’t get why the nets did this…it’s not like Wallace will make Deron stay), Oden was waived (go to Pheonix, it’s your only chance at playing again!), and McMillan was fired. What did the Blazers gain from this? Not much to be honest, except more playing time for their younger players. Where will they finish the season? At home on their couches watching the NBA playoffs (hopefully Felton stays away from whatever he was eating prior to this season). Now the Blazers can look forward to the NBA lottery and hope the team rebounds next year, since they do have some good pieces to surround Aldridge with.

-Igor

*Editors Note: It really speaks volumes as to how much this team fell off from the start of the season.

12. The Denver Nuggets (72points)

When we initially picked the teams that we wanted to write about, I jumped on this Nuggets squad. They were playing a fun, up-tempo style and were winning games without a true star, but unfortunately, injuries got the better of them and they were unable to sustain their red-hot start to the season. As of this writing (insert joke about how out-dated some of these rankings are) the Nuggets are in a three-way tie for 7^th in the Western conference, but are a half game out of fourth, and four games out of third. The West basically breaks down to nine teams fighting for the last five spots, as the Thunder, Lakers, and Spurs have created separation from the rest of the pack. So where do the Nuggets fall in that mix? If I had to choose, I think 8^th is the spot that they will end up with. For starters, Denver is still not fully healthy, and the constant flux of line-ups and minutes has not allowed them to be consistent whatsoever. Secondly, the Nuggets have only six (!) home games remaining in the regular season, are they good enough to scrape some road games? Yes. Can they win more than 54% (their current winning percentage) of them? Probably not; From April 13^th to April 25^th Denver plays the Lakers, the Rockets twice, the Clippers, the Suns, the Magic, and lastly the Thunder in that order. That stretch of games will determine whether or not they make the playoffs, but until then all they can do is try to keep winning games and hopefully get healthy for the playoffs. If Denver makes it in I firmly believe that anything can happen, even Mark Cuban is on record as saying that “seeding has never mattered less”. So the key is to just make the playoffs and hope that the match-ups work out in your favour. Until the playoffs actually start however, we know nothing.

-Daki

11. The Orlando Magic (82 points)

So after much speculation, Dwight Howard has decided to exercise his player option for the following season and remain with the Orlando Magic. It would have been interesting to see how he would have fared in New Jersey with Deron Williams, which seemed to be the only plausible city Howard was going to end up in. The Lakers were not going to trade Bynum, and no one else was offering any trade the Magic would be willing to accept. So now that Howard is still with the Magic, they have the exact same team they’ve had all year. They’re 3^rd in the Eastern conference, which is impressive considering the inconsistencies they’ve been battling all season, especially from Jameer Nelson, who seems to be finally picking up his pace and playing the way he should have been playing all season. Howard has had his usual great season, and hopefully his level of effort picks up now that he knows he’s going to be staying in Orlando this year. One of the biggest surprises for the Magic this year has been the improved play of Ryan Anderson, who is leading the league in both threes attempted and threes made. The Magic are playing well right now and they are 3^rd in the league points allowed per game. They have the ability to go far in the playoffs, but they’ll need their starters to be more consistent more often. However, it will be difficult to beat the Heat in the playoffs, as they are, in my opinion, still the favourites to win the title this year.

-Jovan

NBA Rundown post coming soon

Tweet Our continued look at the NBA will be up shortly, so be patient for just a little longer

Breaking it Down: The Best Rocky Training Montage

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You know what the best part about writing a blog is? You get to come up with shit like this to write about. So its post St. Patrick's day, I am not even thinking about going to bed (energy drinks will do that to you), so I decide to flip through YouTube and watch random videos. Of course I eventually got to some Rocky training montages, and had a brilliant brainstorm. Why not use this built up energy to see which montage is the best? It gives me something to do, it will be fun, and it gives me an excuse to just watch the training montages. So after watching each montage (twice) I think I am ready to write this. Before I get to it here is the criteria:

Chills

You know when you watch something so amazing it just sends chills throughout your body? Well I subjectively rated the chills I got from watching each scene (bonus points if I got them the second time through) on an arbitrary scale, and ranked the montages accordingly.

Music

You can not have a good montage without good music, this almost goes without say.

The scene

Is it even possible to compare these? I will go more into what this category is when I talk about the montages.

Overall Impression

A simple rating for the overall experience.

Note* I guarantee some of you will disagree whole-heatedly with my rankings and I am cool with that, you are more then welcome to let me know how I could have ranked these better. Also, I am only doing movies 1-4, so if some scenes are missing, you know why. Anyways...

# 4 - Rocky 3 Training Montage: West coast style

Music: 10/10
Chills: 6/10
Scene: 9/10
Overall impression: 8/10

Total: 33/40

The music used for the montage was great as was the scene. So Rocky has to go West to befriend former rival Apollo Creed, who will train him to use quickness and agility instead of brute strength to win. What the montage lacks in chills, it makes up in the training department. Some of the drills Apollo had Rocky do were downright fun to watch. Also, this training montage gave us the birth of bromance; that embrace that Rocky and Creed do when Rocky finally bests Apollo in the beach race is so surreal.

A Run-down of today's trades

Tweet Before getting into today's trades I would just like to mention that the referees absolutely blew it today in the Syracuse and UNCA game. The UNCA players deserved better, but were denied history by some horrific officiating. That is all I will say about that, but on to the NBA trades, in chronological order starting with...

Milwaukee trades Andrew Bogut and Stephen Jackson to the Warriors and receive Monta Ellis, Kwame Brown, and Ekpe Udoh.

The reaction everyone seemed to have with this trade was "huh?", and for the most part, I agree with it. This just seems like such an odd trade to make, especially mid-season. I guess Milwaukee feels that they are playing well enough without Bogut to roll the dice with Ellis. Can Ellis and Jennings co-exist? Will coach Scott Skiles and Ellis clash? These questions will only be answered once we actually see some games. As for the Warriors, They get to rebuild with a Bogut and Lee front-court, which is not terrible, but they are banking on Bogut being healthy for an extended period. Also, Mark Jackson preached defense first, and now he is getting some personnel to make it happen. It seems that the Warriors have decided not to go all out and make the playoffs, choosing instead to re-tool and reshape the team into one that fits Jackson's coaching style better.

Memphis trades Sam Young to the Sixers for the rights to Ricky Sanchez.

A quiet trade. The Sixers add a solid role-player in Young (he played some solid minutes in Memphis's playoff run last year) to help them in the playoffs, and Memphis stashes a potential future asset.

The Indiana Pacers acquire Leandro Barbosa from the Raptors for a 2nd round pick.


Another relatively quiet trade; the Raptors shed some money off their payroll and Indiana adds a proven energy/impact scorer to bring off the bench. I get the feeling that Toronto could have done better, but 2nd round picks are not as useless as they used to be. The Raptors needed to be smart and they were. The trade will free up more minutes for the Raptors young guards so the team can better evaluate them. As for the Pacers, they get a guy who can swing the momentum of a game, a valuable skill to have in the playoffs (see J.J. Barea last year).

The Warriors Acquire a future 2nd round pick from Atlanta for cash considerations.


Someone in the Atlanta front office apparently needed some quick cash.

The Lakers send Luke Walton, Jason Kapono, and their 1st round pick to the Cavaliers who in turn, send Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga back to the Lakers.


The Lakers massively improve their point-guard situation while sending away what basically amounts to dead-weight. The Cavaliers free up Irving to own the point-guard position while adding another pick to their stockpile. The Cavs are doing a really good job of re-building on the fly, and still have enough to make a potential playoff push this season. The Lakers get some much needed help for their 'big 3' as they look to contend once again.

The Portland Trailblazers send Gerald Wallace to the Nets for Okur's corpse, Shawne Williams, and a first round pick. The Blazers also fired head coach Nate Mcmillan and released Center Greg Oden.


So Portland essentially decided to blow things up completely (Sacramento: SIGN MCMILLAN! Do it now!). News has come out that the Blazers had completely tuned Mcmillan out and have essentially given up on the season. This seems so bizarre, especially since the Blazers had a really good first half of the year (as you will see in part 4 of our rankings) and were always a dark-horse pick in the playoffs. I guess that Jamal Crawford signing turned out to be terrible. The Nets meanwhile, declined a Pau for D-Will swap (more on this in a bit) and brought in Gerald Wallace to try and convince Williams to stay. My question is: why? The Lakers handed you an established big man who was locked up for several seasons, and you chose to roll the dice and hope Williams re-signs? With Dwight Howard officially (no, for real this time) staying in Orlando for one more full season, what will make Williams want to wait? He will just sign with Dallas, and the Nets will be left with Gerald Wallace (poor guy always seems to end up on horrible teams). Also, Portland has given up on Greg Oden, who should definitely go to Phoenix and their miracle training staff, its the logical move for him.

Portland Sends Marcus Camby to the Rockets for Hasheem Thabeet, a first round pick, and Johnny Flynn.


The Rockets add more size for the playoff push while Portland continues to stock picks and young players. There really is not much else to say here, except that the Rockets are now rolling with three centers. A Dalembert-Camby combo would be really tough to score on however, so the trade does make Houston a bit better.

Golden States receives a first round pick and Richard Jefferson, and sends Stephen Jackson to the Spurs.


So within 48 hours, Jackson went from Milwaukee back to Golden State, then back to San Antonio! Of course we all know that he helped the Spurs win a title in 03' and we can safely assume that Pop' will integrate him nicely into this line-up. San Antonio takes advantage of Jefferson's solid year and gets rid of a massive contract while not really hurting their title hopes. The Warriors now have a very solid potential starting five of: Curry, Thompson, RJ, Lee, and Bogut and are a more complete basketball team. They will be intriguing to watch this year and next.

Houston gets a first round pick and Derek Fisher from the Lakers, who receive Jordan Hill from the Rockets.


Thanks for your help Derek, now go play behind Dragic and Lowry, we even threw in a pick to sweeten the deal. Trades like this remind you just how much of a business the NBA is. Although, to the their credit, the Lakers got better with this trade. They now have a point guard and adequate back-ups for Bunym and Gasol. The only reason I can see Houston doing this trade is for the pick, and possibly to clear some playing time for Camby.

Three-way trade between the Clippers, Wizards, and Nuggets that sends Nene, Brian Cook and a draft pick to the Wizards, Nick Young  to the Clippers, and Javale McGee and Turiaf to the Nuggets.


The Wizards get rid of quite a character in McGee and provide John Wall with a legitimate NBA starter to prevent Wall from going insane over his rookie deal. The Nuggets feel that they get 80% of Nene's production at 1/8th the price, so kudos to them I guess. The Clippers come out shining here, turning nothing into a solid shooting guard in Nick Young. He solidifies the Clipper's starting five and makes the Clippers dangerous again, a great trade for them.

Draft day winners: Lakers, Clippers, Wizards, Stephen Jackson, Nick Young
.
Draft day Losers: Portland, the Nets, Gerald Wallace, and the morons who reffed the Syracuse game.

Part four of our rundown (with the Blazers embarrassingly ranked in the top 13-if we redid the rankings now, they would be bottom 10 for sure) is coming soon. In the meantime enjoy March Madness and good luck with your brackets.

The NBA so far (Part 3)

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For Parts one and two of our NBA rundown, in case you missed them click here (one) and here (two). I noticed that in part two I forgot to post the points that the teams accumulated from our ranking system. Better late then never right? Here they are for those of you who are curious: Kings-27, Suns-37, Bucks-37, Cavs-40, Warriors-41, Jazz-47. Yes, I do realize that the Warriors are going to be ranked higher even though they received fewer points, but it is a small price to pay for a quality report. Anyways, here are teams 19 to 14.

19. The Golden State Warriors (41 points)

Heading into the season the Warriors had failed at getting DeAndre Jordan, settled for gifting Kwame Brown 9 million for the year (if decent big men weren’t so scarce this guy would never have a job in the NBA unless it was a locker room bouncer…and even then he’s probably too soft), were uncertain if their back court could co-exist, and brought in rookie head coach Mark Jackson. This obviously was not a recipe for success, so as a fan I wasn’t expecting much this year except some fun up-tempo Warriors’ basketball. Unfortunately, early on in the year the team seemed to have lost their flair on offense while still being mediocre on defense which really concerned me (c’mon Mark you’re better than that). However, in the last few weeks the team has really turned it around and started playing that fun to watch basketball again. With a relatively easy schedule the rest of the way (really doesn’t mean much since they could lose to a d-league team but beat the ‘96 Bulls on any given night) they could sneak into the playoffs as an 8th seed…and we all know what happened last time they were 8th. Monta Ellis has been his usual self, hitting ridiculous shots and making some spectacular plays, but the other half of their back court really worries me. Stephen Curry keeps re-injuring his ankle and unless he takes a larger amount of time off and heals fully, I could see this keep happening throughout his career (knock on wood that this does not happen). As for the other players, David Lee is showing why the Warriors signed him a few years ago (no flesh eating elbow disease this year thankfully), Ekpe Udoh is a solid center but probably not one I would start, Dorell Wright has gone from one of the most improved players to one of the biggest busts this year and needs to be benched or traded ASAP. The bench has been playing well and is packed with scorers (Robinson and Thomspon) and good defenders (Rush and McGuire) which is always a luxury to have. Apparently the front office is interested in making a move for Bogut which I wouldn’t mind, even though he comes with a huge injury risk. Many moves need to be made to improve this team for the future, the first one being to acquire a good center, but for now I’m happy to enjoy these fast paced late night games.

-Igor

18. The Boston Celtics (53 points)

The already old Celtics are getting older, yet Pierce and Garnett are having very solid seasons. However, the Celtics aren’t playing as well this year, which can be seen by their sub-par record (at just over .500), putting them currently near the bottom of Eastern conference playoff teams. The Celtics have had injuries all season, especially with Rondo and Jermaine O’Neal, and their play has been inconsistent as a result. It also doesn’t help that Rondo has been inconsistent himself, who followed the best statistical game of this NBA season with an 8, 5 and 2 performance just two games after. Pierce has been the best Celtic this year, and Ray Allen is shooting a career high percentage from three point range, but there is not enough depth on this Celtics team and a team with such a poor bench cannot expect to do well in the playoffs. Boston’s decline began after they traded away Perkins, and it’s a shame they could not win another title with him the previous year, but when you are playing against the Lakers and David Stern, you probably shouldn’t expect to win the title (though they did manage to take the series to seven games, even though only one of those seven games were fairly refereed). The Celtics are struggling, and their chances of making it anywhere in the playoffs are looking slim, which is unfortunate because they will soon have to begin rebuilding once their three veterans retire. At this point, it would be best for them to start rebuilding right away and trying to get good value for their veterans, who can still play well on their own. There’s no point in waiting for them to retire when they still have a high current market value.

-Jovan

17. The Minnesota Timberwolves (56 points)

Ricky Rubio. Sadly this paragraph must begin with him and his season-ending injury suffered just last week. With Rubio the T-Wolves have that rare player in the mold of Steve Nash (yeah I get it, Rubio’s shooting sucks, but Nash shot 36% in the 98-99 lockout shortened season...just saying) with his ability to see the floor, always find the open teammate, make passing infectious throughout the team, and in general seem like the type of guy who would be extremely fun to play with. With Ricky the Wolves were surprising everyone by staying right in the playoff hunt in the extremely competitive Western Conference. Now without him they have to turn to Luke Ridnour (very average) and J.J. Barea (Rick Adelman seems to not like him for whatever reason) to hold down the fort at point guard for the rest of the year. Could the Wolves still make the playoffs? Possibly, but they’ll need to get even more from their superstar (no question about this) forward Kevin Love who is without a doubt the best Power Forward in the league (sorry Blake but you’re going to need something more than “spin, spin, spin, yell and flop your arms” as  a post-move to get this status). Since Love is already averaging 25.7 points and 13.6 rebounds a game, this may be too much to ask. The Rubio injury has been one of (if not the) worst stories of the year because this Minny team had been one of the feel-good stories up to that point. Rick Adelman continues to prove he’s one of the best coaches out there and Nikola Pekovic has emerged as a very solid big man in the NBA. Something that seems even less likely when his appearance seems more suited for a bouncer rather than an NBA center. I believe Minnesota will continue to fight for a playoff spot the rest of the season but will fall short due to a lack of PG consistency. Their future looks very promising though with a young core of Rubio, Love, Pekovic, Derrick Williams (has shown flashes of very good play), Michael Beasley (still salvageable in my opinion), Wesley Johnson, Martell Webster, J.J. Barea, Darko and the rest of a team that can only improve. Finally, if you’re not a fan of the T-Wolves, watching this will make you one.

-Luka

Editors Note: We wish Ricky Rubio a swift and successful recovery, its never fun when such a likeable and unselfish young player has his season ended so abruptly.

16. The New York Knicks (62 points)

Best Cartoons Growing up IV

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No long explanation today, just a clip of an episode so enjoy! I will say that this was one of the more underrated cartoons for me as a kid, I never missed an episode.

Liverpool Vs. Everton a Running Diary

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Alright! Having some free time on my hands, I decided to watch the mersyside derby today and do a running diary of it. As you may or may not know, I am a huge fan of Liverpool so this diary will be very biased, so Everton fans (all six of you) you have been warned. Before I begin I do feel that I should mention that this Liverpool season has been the worst. Yes, I am referring to it as simply 'the worst'. Liverpool finally got owners who were willing to spend some serious money to improve the team, only to see players like Andy Carrol, Charlie Adam, and Stewart Downing (combined cost: over 60 million!) get out-performed by the likes of Kuyt, and Craig Bellamy (combined cost: less then 10 mil, and that is only the cost of Kuyt who was bought over 5 years ago, kill me now). To top it off, Liverpool's best players (Suarez, Gerrard, Lucas-not up for debate, he is a phenomenal player) all missed games due to freak injuries, lingering injuries, and suspensions. To make maters even worst than that, as we continue down the well of misery, Liverpool has managed to hit the post or crossbar this season a staggering 28 times. That is not a typo, if even half of those go in I am pretty sure Liverpool is locked into a champions league spot. I have not even talked about penalties yet. It has gotten to the point where every time Liverpool wins a penalty you wonder how they are going to fuck it up. My personal favorite miss so far was when Charlie Adam, the so called 'set piece master' pulled a Beckham. I can not describe how sick to my stomach I am that the only defense I have against other fans (casual or otherwise) is to hold up five fingers and try to ignore their quips. This culminated when people asked me why I am even still a fan and that I should look for a new team. Okay, nothing makes me more mad then hopping onto a band-wagon, I am a fan for a reason, and I know that one day it will be worth it (see: 49ers of San Francisco) so Chelsea fans: your golden boy Mourihno got clowned by Rafa every single time they played in a cup, and Rafa was operating with one third the budget, Arsenal fans: your cup drought is longer then ours, City fans: you might not win shit this year, and United fans: I respect you (the die-hard ones at least) enough to wish you luck in the title race. Whoa that felt good, the next 90 minutes probably will not, but let's get on with it anyways.

4pm: Kickoff, we begin...

1' Form apparently does not matter in Derbies, Good, because Liverpool's form can best be described like the Toronto Maple Leafs: garbage

2' Carrol and Suarez combine nicely, but Everton clears the ball. Andy Carrol has been unbelievable this year, and I use that word in the worst possible way. He took a massive dump on Liverpool when he played for Newcastle, so I was ecstatic when Liverpool got him. The result? ugh... He is incredibly frustrating, has all the tools, but refuses to use them for some reason.

6' After some incredibly dull play, Suarez sets Gerrard up for a one on one with the keeper. Read my introduction to this, then take a wild guess at what happened. Here ill make it even easier: multiple choice.

a) Gerrard scored
b) Gerrard hit the post
c) Everton's goalie made a wonder-save, then an Everton defender made an even better block.

The NBA so far (Part 2)

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We continue examining the NBA at the halfway point with part 2 of our look at the NBA so far. In the last edition (click here if you missed it) we ranked the bottom six teams, today we continue with our list by taking a look at teams we ranked from 24th to 20th. As explained in part one, the four of us ranked each team (from 1 to 30, first place getting 30 points, second getting 29, and just like that until the 30th team got only one point) and combined our results to produce our rankings. The rankings take into account both how well the teams are playing, as well as their chances to win a title. Without further ado, I will lead part 2 off by talking about my favorite team.

24. The Sacramento Kings

A long time ago (at the start of the season), I talked about how the lack of passers on this team would probably affect their chances of success. 38 games later, with a 12-26 record it turns out that no, you can not win many NBA games if you do not have players who are willing to fill up the 'assists' category instead of the 'points' and 'field goals attempted' categories. To make matters worse, the Kings basically hit the reset button on their re-building plan when they fired Westphal. While I do agree with the move, I hate the fact that the new coach (Keith Smart) is basically making the same mistakes that Westphal did. A young team like Sacramento should be focused on giving out lots of minutes, wins be damned. There is no excuse for Cousins to be averaging less then 30 minutes a game (link). What the Kings are doing instead is letting guys like Donte Greene, and John Salmons eat up valuable minutes that Jimmer and Isiah Thomas could really use. For what? So the coach can have a few extra wins on his resume? Keith Smart is not a long term solution, the team should have had him be an intern while trying to find an established head coach. If no established coaches are available, then keep Smart for the rest of the year. Needless to say, the first priority for Sacramento this off-season should be to find a point guard (this is where I hope for Steve Nash or Deron Williams), then find a coach that can and will be there for a long time (Mate McMillan would be ideal, but I would give Jerry Sloan a call to see what he is up to these days). Constantly firing head coaches for not winning with the youngest team in the league is a recipe for disaster. At this point, Sacramento almost assuredly will not make the playoffs, especially in the always competitive Western conference. With a deep draft and free agent class looming, Sacramento is poised to add to their young nucleus and the future looks bright. Speaking of future, this Sacramento Kings team will, in fact stay in Sacramento and have a chance to thank the city and the fans with some good basketball. I was incredibly happy when I heard the news, even though I do not live there, I have watched enough Kings basketball to tell you that those Sacramento fans are incredible and do not deserve to have their one pro sports team taken from them. Now that the city has done its part, it is up to the team to hopefully reward it with a title. I will be there every step of the way supporting this team that is the reason I love basketball so much. I would write more, but we have 23 other teams to get to.

-Daki

23. The Phoenix Suns

It’s been a long time since Steve Nash came to Phoenix and reinvigorated the franchise, only to continuously lose to San Antonio in the playoffs. Ever since Stoudemire’s departure to New York, Phoenix hasn’t been the same team. They gave the Lakers a good run in the playoffs, mostly because J-Rich reverted back to his Golden State days by hitting threes all over the place. They finished under .500 for the first time in the Nash era last season, and it’s not looking any more hopeful for them this year. If you take a look at their starting 5, you’ll notice something that’s fairly uncommon in the NBA today. Two of their starters are 38 and 39 years old. Nash has kept in incredibly good shape and is still a premier point guard, but unfortunately is not on a premier team. Grant Hill’s ability to still have an impact is in part because he was rested the whole time while he was injured back in the early 2000s. Regardless, Phoenix is still a tough team to beat. Their record may not show this, but Phoenix is a streaky team that can put up ridiculous offensive pressure on their opponents. With the addition of Gortat, who is having a career year (in part due to Nash), Phoenix improved its center position over last year, but with streaky players such as Dudley and Frye,Phoenix isn’t going anywhere this year. Once Nash leaves and Hill retires,Phoenix will have a chance to rebuild, but as of now, they’re not a playoff team, yet they can still offer their opponents a tough challenge. It’ll be interesting to see where Nash chooses to go in the upcoming off-season.

-Jovan

*Editors note: Marion and Beaubois for Steve Nash, come on David Stern, let's make it happen!

22. The Milwaukee Bucks

Nobody wanted to write about this team so ended up with them since I had the last pick in our “draft”. The Bucks are really not that entertaining to watch but they have a young “point” guard in Jennings who broke out this year as one of the best scorers in the league. The reason I have quotations on point is because he plays nothing like a point guard, but rather more like Allen Iverson. Other than him it’s the same old Bucks. Bogut gets injured again so Gooden steps in and has a great run and everyone is sick and tired of Skiles, resulting in a very inconsistent rotation. The one surprise this year has been Ilyasova, who is the best rebounding small forward in the league. I doubt this team makes the playoffs and will probably be stuck in mediocrity for the next few years.

-Igor

21. The Cleveland Cavaliers

The biggest question entering the Cavs’ season was: how will Irving fare against NBA competition? I thought he would okay, but nothing spectacular…. but I was way off. He’s been the best rookie this year and probably one of the better middle class point guards. He’s shooting just under 50% from the field on the year, over 40% from 3 and over 85% from the line. Such efficient numbers are hard to find in the NBA, especially for a rookie point guard. He might be able to lead this Cavs team to the playoffs (unlikely but it would be interesting). I have to give a shout-out to Varejao for playing excellent this year before going down with an injury and Jamison who’s still playing at a high level on the offensive end. What the Cavs need to do is to get rid of their old guys for next year, add some more pieces around Irving, and hope that Tristan Thompson turns into a decent 2-way player

-Igor

20. The Utah Jazz

Utah started off the season strong, surprising most fans and viewers, but the Jazz seem to have come to earth with a current record in the.500 range since early February. They’ve had a similar experience to the Phoenix Suns, in which the last good season they had was in 2009-10. After struggling in 2010, and having Jerry Sloan resign as head coach, and in addition trading Deron Williams to the Nets for Devin Harris (who hasn’t played well since his first year in New Jersey), they fell below .500 and finished the season losing 10 of their last 13 games. Jefferson has been playing well this year, but Utah has had numerous inconsistencies from their players, including Millsap, Miles, and especially Harris. One positive for this developing Utah team is the improved play from Hayward, who is showing great potential and may prove to be the spark they need to make a playoff push. Of course, Harris is going to have to step up as well because you can’t make the playoffs with as tarting PG who does not shoot or average many assists. Utah proved in the beginning of the season that they have what it takes to be a playoff team, but as other teams have improved throughout the season, the Jazz hit a bump in the road and need to regain momentum if they want to make the playoffs.

-Jovan

Igor was slated to write about the Warriors next, but being a team he particularly likes we decided to give him more time to work on it. Next time: teams 19 to 14, as we finally hit some legitimate playoff contenders.

The NBA so far

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As promised here is our (delayed) All-star break feature on the NBA. What we decided to do was rank the teams (sort of like a mid-way point power rankings) in order of how they have played so far, as well as their chances for winning the title. Four of us ranked the teams from one to 30 with the last place being one point, second to last being two points and so on. here is the first part of our list, these will come in chunks then we will do a big article for the elite eight. We also divided the teams by doing a draft for the rights to write about them, because anytime you can do a fantasy draft for anything you have to do it (it makes things about 100 times more fun). Anyways, here is our first installment of teams, starting with number 30.

30. Charlotte Bobcats (4 points)

Four voters, one point per last place, you can probably guess which team we had unanimously in last, ladies and gentleman your Bobcats! (Cut to MJ whiffing on an easy putt). To be fair, they chose a hell of a year to suck, Anthony Davis is a beast and could form a solid foundation for any franchise. I am giving as much effort to this paragraph as the Bobcats have given to their season, so there.

-Daki

29.The Washington Wizards (9 points)

Quick. Name the Wizards head coach... If you guessed Randy Wittman you’re either a cheater (very possible), a die-hard Wizards fan (impossible), or Randy Wittman (possible). The Wiz head coach has been as irrelevant as his team excluding John Wall this year. Washington came out of the gate to a very slow start (2-15) and got Flip Saunders fired as head coach. This surprised no one because how much do you think guys like Andray Blatche and Nick Young worked out over the lockout? Not a lot. Since that time the Randy Wittman led-Wizards and John Wall have stormed all the way back and are now in the East’s playoff race!! Ok not really, but they have been slightly better going 5-13 since Wittman took over. The Wizards do have some form of weird entertainment value as they’ve somehow managed to create a team mostly made up of ‘the guy you don’t want on your basketball pick-up team’ guys. You know the guy I’m talking about. The one who is insanely lazy on defense, turns the ball over with no care and thinks he’s one hundred times better than he is. That’s basically the entire Washington roster other than Jan Vesely (plays the game the right way but is just very raw) and Wall who is the one redeeming quality of the Wizards. Last year’s rookie of the year has seemingly gotten better in every aspect of his game and seems like a Derrick Rose Lite at this point in his career. Wall seems to have the demeanor in some games of a prisoner counting the days until his sentence expires. Funnily enough this is basically what Washington has become. Quick random theory on this; what if Wall did something to Stern pre-draft that David is making him pay for in his first few years in the league. After ‘The Veto’ we all know the commissioner has great control over things so why put it past him? Insane? What’s more likely? That David Stern is punishing John Wall for something he did or that someone thought the supporting cast of Andray Blatche, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, and Rashard Lewis’ corpse was a good idea...?

-Luka

28. The New Orleans Hornets (11 points)

Who would have thought that David Stern would make Eric Gordon sit out a large amount of games (probably the season) so the Hornets would get a top pick to add to the young core of players they have? The foundation they got from the Clippers in the now famous 'veto' suddenly does not seem so bad when you add a top pick. It is also incredible that Stern convinced the Hornets to play Kaman again so that they could raise his trade value exponentially (My theory: he tells the refs to treat him like LeBron) and maybe add another valuable building piece. Of course I am only speculating, there is only a 50% chance that what I wrote about Stern is actually true. Anyways, the Hornets are in full out 'tank the season' mode which will eventually spark the debate talking heads have every year: how do we prevent this from happening? There really is no way to prevent it, but what I would do is have the bottom eight teams play a tournament with the winner getting the number one pick. I will expand this idea in a future post, this is not the time or the place.

-Daki

27. New Jersey Nets (17 points)

The main news that has been surrounding the Nets this year has been the potential acquisition of Dwight Howard that will be concluded in the next few weeks. I won’t talk about this trade anymore, but rather focus on the Nets’ season up to the half way point. Deron Williams has been their star player and seems to have overcome his wrist injury issues by putting up a career high in points per game (21.7, including a career high of 57 tonight!). However, his assist numbers are the second lowest of his career and this is probably because of the inability of his teammates to score. Luckily for the Nets and Williams’ assists, Brooks Lopez returned about a week ago and has made an immediate impact on the offensive end. Outside of these two, MarShon Brooks and Kris Karda..I mean Humphries are the only other players worth mentioning. Hump is his usual self grabbing ever offensive rebound off his missed layups and Brooks is a young player with lots of potential (as I mentioned in mine and Luka’s Rising Stars mock draft). The Nets are struggling this year and I don’t expect anything to change unless they do acquire Dwight or another big name player to keep Deron and make an impact in the NBA when they move to Brooklyn next year.

-Igor

26. The Detroit Pistons (21 points) 

Remember when the Detroit Pistons were one of the best teams in basketball? It wasn’t too long ago and yet it seems like an eternity. Back in those days the 5 Piston starters were all all-star caliber players, Joe Dumars was considered one of the best GM’s in the NBA and the palace was rocking each and every night. How the times have changed. These days only 3 pieces remain of the mid-00’s Piston glory days. Tayshaun Prince, Ben Wallace, and Joe Dumars. Each a shadow of their former selves (I still think Prince could be a serviceable player for a title contender. He is wasting away on this team though). Wallace’s game was never going to get better with age (his post game makes Dwight Howard’s look like a mix of Olajuwon’s and McHale’s) but it is the decline of Dumars that has ultimately doomed the Pistons. Weird free agent signings for even worse contracts combined with one of the most confusingly crafted rosters in the league have set up Detroit for the type of success they’ve had over the last few years. Very little. This year the Pistons are simply one of the league’s bad teams with a few bright spots on the floor and on the sideline. The hiring of Lawrence Frank was an inspired one since everywhere he’s gone, he’s proven he knows what he’s doing. Of course anyone is a massive upgrade from John Kuester who was the first coach to my knowledge to have a legitimate mutiny performed on him (seriously, the players refused to practice and everything). On the floor the Pistons have one of the most under-appreciated, least-talked about young stars in the game in Greg Monroe. Monroe has been a force this year averaging 16 and 10 with 2 assists and a steal per game. If he can continue to develop in sync with some of the young guys he has around him (Jerebko, Knight, Stuckey) the future of the Pistons could be much more promising than their present. As for the time being though they’ll just have to settle for being known as the team that gave Charlie Villaneuva and Ben Gordon a combined 90 million dollars. 

-Luka 

25. The Toronto Raptors (23 points) 

It’s been a tough year for the Toronto Raptors. Bryan Colangelo didn’t make any significant off-season moves, the players he did bring over have underperformed, and to top it off, Andrea Bargnani has been out for most of the season with a calf injury. It’s unfortunate because with the defensive leadership of Dwayne Casey (the only good move Colangelo made), Bargnani was finally showing up on both ends of the court. Nevertheless, the Raptors still have a better record than three of the Eastern conference teams, and they’ve had numerous close games against better teams that were lost due to poor execution in the final minutes of the games. The Raptors have been battling inconsistency all season (ie. Demar DeRozan and Jerryd Bayless) and they don’t have a true leader, but they have still managed to function as a team and challenge stronger opponents. With the players the Raptors have, that’s still somewhat of an accomplishment. The season won’t end any different for the Raptors. They’re probably going to stay a bottom 8 team in the NBA, and hopefully Colangelo will draft a player who will make a significant difference for this long-struggling Raptors team.

-Jovan

That will do it for part one, look for part two sometime this week.

The Comic Side of Things

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Full disclosure: I actually spent more time thinking of how to explain the title of this post then actually writing it. Finally, I settled on 'the comic side of things' because what I will be talking about in these posts mainly stems from comic books, more specifically, comic books about super heroes. Who doesn't like super heroes? In this generation of great super hero movies (Iron man, Captain America, Thor, The Dark Knight etc.) we should recognize that most of the inspirations for the movies came from the comics. I will not bore anyone with detailed character history, but will provide some of my opinions on the chosen content. I should probably mention that I will not be talking exclusively about comic books, but will talk about movies and television shows based on these super heroes as well. In this opening edition I will talk about Batman: Year one and a comic book titled 'Old man Logan'.

Year one is a DC animated movie that examines the first year of Batman and commissioner Gordon's efforts to bring the corruption and crime in Gotham city to an end. Obviously, as it is based on a series of comics it will be different from the movie versions but not unrecognizable. Bruce Wayne still received training from the league of shadows (although it is not directly shown, it is heavily alluded to), Wayne's parents are killed in the same way, and Batman's goal is to make criminals fear him using the symbol of the bat. The voice acting for year one is really, really well done. Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle, Breaking Bad) and Neil Patrick Harris (How I met your mother) do very good voices for Gordon and Wayne/Batman respectively. The animation is also excellent and the characters look and move very realistically, the fight scenes are particularly engaging and make the fights look authentic. The story itself is interesting and it is always fun to watch any hero in his/her early patrols (for lack of a better word) trying to figure things out and overcoming obstacles. Of course we are treated to some scenes where Gotham's criminals and citizens are describing Batman as an otherworldly being possessing super-natural abilities. I honestly have no idea why I enjoy these so much, but it probably has something to do with making Bats look like a complete bad-ass. My one criticism of the story is that they switch from Gordon's to Bruce's to the criminals perspectives way too often. The story feels like its presented in chunks rather then a smooth ride from start to finish and that hurts it a bit, especially for the non hardcore fans who may be confused by the constantly changing perspective. All in all, the short film is done really well and I would recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, or even has some time to kill.

7.5/10 - Nothing sensational, but very enjoyable and very well put together. Definetely watch if you are a fan of Batman.

The next 'comic side' we look at will be from an actual comic. 'Old man Logan' is about Wolverine 50 years into the future. It ran as an eight issue-long story that ran from 2008-2009. I was lucky enough to read this in one book that just combined the eight issues for convenience, and was also lucky to have had no idea what it was about when I started. This probably made the events of the comic 100x better and more interesting for me. There were instances where I literally stopped reading just to observe the pictures, it was that good. Having said that, I'm not sure how much I should say about it because it might ruin it for those of you who hopefully decide to check it out after reading this. I will leave it at a few things that hopefully will not ruin anything for you and maybe even intrigue you a little. Yes, the story is 50 years into the future and the main character is very much an older version of Wolverine (you would have eventually guessed that from the title). The back story is that the Marvel villains realized that they out-number the heroes 10-1 and decide to organize themselves and just wipe them out completely. Going against all of the villains proves too much and our favorite heroes start getting picked off one by one (this is not shown in the comics much, but the writer has expressed an interest in writing sequels where he would showcase some of the events of the villains assault). The world is then divided among the villains and civilization collapses. I'll let you find out the rest.

9.8/10  - Even for causal fans of super heroes I think this is a must read. The details I described above don't even compare to the ones that happen in the story.