McCourt strikes again, "Falling Skies", 2011: Year of the Crappy Movies, Great Songs

Hello,

Let's start off with something good. Remember to cheer for your USA Women's Soccer team tomorrow. They are playing South Korea at 12:15 p.m. ET. I'm at work so please cheer for me. I should be able to watch Saturday's match at 12:00 ET. You can bet I'll have plenty of opinions about how the USA women perform.

Just when I thought the Dodgers situation couldn't get any stranger or more bizarre, what happens? The McCourt strikes again. I think Frank McCourt should just change his last name to Court, with how much he's there. The Dodgers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Delaware court. Sarcasm alert: And in his normally classy manner he's blaming Bud Selig for his problems. Bud Selig made you borrow $100 million from the Dodgers to finance your lavish lifestyle? Bud was the cause of your divorce? Selig wouldn't let you leverage the Dodgers future for your corrupt and greedy personal gain? Seriously Frank you've got to go away.

I 100% agree with Bud Selig in denying the Dodgers the ability to sign the $3 billion TV contract with Fox. That's obviously an attempt by McCourt to continue to run the Dodgers into the ground, um I meant keep the Dodgers. It's also his way to finalize his divorce. He tried to finalize his divorce and get needed cash flow in the proposed Fox contract. In that contract with Fox $385 million dollars was going directly to McCourt. Of the $385 million do you realize $173 million, nearly 45%, of that money was suppose to go to Jamie McCourt? I can't even fathom $173 million. That $173 million could go to sign some players so that Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw don't have to go it seemingly alone.

I can't fathom all these large amounts of money that are being thrown around, to me $10,000 is a big lump of money. One thing I can fathom is how much damage is being done to the Dodgers while McCourt drags this worthless legal process out.

Many legal experts think this is a ploy by McCourt so that MLB won't be able to seize the Dodgers this week. McCourt next owes payroll on June 30th. Once McCourt can't cover salary on Thursday, then many think that MLB will take over the Dodgers. By filing for bankruptcy, he's hoping to impede MLB's plans. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy also frees up $150 million for "daily operation and buys time". That would be consistent with McCourt's behavior up to this point. He has no love for the Dodgers other than a way to enhance his image. Which of course he's failing spectacularly at. (Thanks as always to espn.com.)

Last night was another new episode of "Falling Skies". It was a good episode, but not up to the first two hours of the series. The first two hours of this show did set a rather high bar. "Falling Skies" is falling a bit into "The Killing" territory with lazy storytelling. For instance, Mason leading a group of the resistance to be able to get his son back. While they were surveying the situation, one of his team accidentally knocks a brick to the ground. Of course that brick just happens to be loose. That draws the attention and shooting of a mech. However the resistance fighters run away and the mechs don't chase? These aliens who've been mercilessly wiping out humans now give up so easily? It just doesn't ring true.

Although "Falling Skies" is still more intelligent than "The Killing". At this point any comparison is premature. Two or three days after an episode when I'm thinking about "Falling Skies" I'm trying to figure out all the intriguing mysteries. I love a work of entertainment that makes me think. I have some questions. It seems neither the mechs or the skitters have the flexibility to put the harness on the kids, so who's doing that? It looks like that kind of work would require human or equally flexible hands. Or do the harnesses embed themselves someway into the kids?

Other questions: Why are the mechs having the harness kids round up scrap metal? It seems it might be more efficient to have other mechs do it. Does that go back to the flexibility of the human hand? When are Mason and Anne going to get together, she's already is taking over as a surrogate mother for his kids. Between the mechs and the skitters, who's really in charge? After thinking originally the mechs were in charge, now I think the skitters are in charge. The skitters directed a mech to kill that group of kids. I predict the harness turns the kids into more skitters. Finally, is there anyway the humans can divide and conquer the mechs from the skitters?

Although last night's show wasn't up to the quality of it's first two hours, it was still enjoyable. The characters are likable from Noah Wyle as Mason to the characters of Anne, Pope and the other resistance fighters. (It makes me realize was there one likable character in all of "The Killing"? I could relate to both Linden and Holder, but they aren't the most likable characters.) I like how this show has set up several mysteries to solve. See above. I just don't want it to be like "The Killing" in that we have all these stray story lines that go nowhere. For instance, Linden is really haunted by a past case and is reliving some of her obsessive behaviors from that first case. Then we hardly hear about the case anymore. To the creative people behind "Falling Skies" please stay away from that lazy storytelling. Please!

Many people's biggest criticism of "Falling Skies" is the crazy amount of commercials in it. Well duh that's why you have a DVR. I barely notice the commercials as I skip through them. Not that even if I see the commercials, I remember what they are for. Also some greedy companies are disabling fast forwarding through Comcast On Demand shows, to no one's surprise Fox is one of the companies doing that.

Coming to movie theatres this Friday is another piece of crap. Michael Bay's sure to be awful "Tranformers 3: The Continuing Crap". (I'm not sure if that's the correct subtitle.) It will be foisted on a hormonally driven teenage public. I suggest it's time to start boycotting these type of action trumps everything movies. For instance, the action trumps common sense, story, good taste etc. I'm all for a fun popcorn flick, but is it too much to ask for a story and some intelligience. Or at least don't insult my intelligience.

This has been an awful year for movies. Some of the horrendous movies I've seen this year that have made me regret spending my time and money. "Unknown", "Hoodwinked 2", "The Green Hornet" (which was particularly awful), "Green Lantern", "Judy and the Non-Bummer Summer". There's also "Pirates of the Caribbean 38: Making Johnny Depp Richer" or whatever number of sequel it is now. We also have "No Strings Attached", "Rango: Johnny D Don't You Have Enough Money Yet?", "Kung Fu Panda 2", "Gnomeo and Juliet"- another horrendously bad movie.

Upcoming craptastic looking movies include: "Cowboys and Aliens" (that could go either way), "The Smurfs" (really?), "Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (it looks like it might be this years most unintentionally funny movie), and "Apollo 18" Then there's "Conan The Barbarian". Shouldn't it's tagline be "Lots of sex and violence, no story to complicate things"? A couple of other movies that could go either way are "Captain America" and "Rise of the Planet Of The Apes". Although if I was a betting many I'd bet on those last two movies sucking.

I've been smart enough to skip some of these other crappy movies. An obvious rule of thumb: if the trailer is terrible, how can the movie be good? Terrible movies I've missed and possible subtitles: "Drive Angry: Think Stupid", "Arthur: Another 80's Remake?", "Hanna: Why Did We Even Make This?", "The Rite: The Wrong?", "The Roommate: Vacancy Please", "Your Highness: Natalie Do You Really Need Money That Bad?" and least but not last "Season Of The Witch: Dumb Squared".

It's sad when one of the more entertaining movies of the year is a Justin Bieber concert film "Never Say Never". Also looking back on this year, "Furious Five" was a lot better than it had any right to be, it might be on my year end Top Ten. Excluding "Saving Private Ryan", did you ever think you'd see Vin Deisel and top ten film in the same sentence? This year has been so bad, I've set a personal record for falling asleep in movies.

I'd like to dedicate this song to Scotty McDreary. This is someone who has much more talent, Nelly Furtado, her song "One Trick Pony":



Counting Crows: "Sullivan Street":



Martika's incredibly danceable "I Feel The Earth Move":



Ellie Goulding's "Guns and Horses":



Eurythmics "Would I Lie To You":



Jessie J's "Price Tag":



Last but not least, Soundgarden's "Spoon Man":



themusicaddict