Halfway Home

Which I guess means you're standing on second. While the All-Star Game is the celebrated halfway point of the baseball season, last night's Reds-Phillies game was the 81st game on the Reds schedule, making it the actual halfway point. And what a way to end the first half.

22-1.

Damn.

22-1. 10 runs in the first, Cueto records a total of 2 outs, and Paul Janish comes in to pitch the top of the eighth. Paul Janish, of the backup shortstop variety, came into pitch. That's how well things went last night. You can't even make the "its an Eagles-Bengals" score joke because you can't score "1" in football (although if anyone could figure out a way, I'd put my money on the Bengals).

I can't say it was all bad, though. Cole Hamels, Jimmy Rollins, and Shane Victorino are all on fantasy teams I manage, so it helped me have a good night. Now, reality always trumps fantasy for me, but if the Reds are going to lose, they might as well lose big to guys that are on my fantasy team. And from what I've read, I think athletes would rather lose 1-22 than 0-1. The latter is a tight game where one hit here or a different bounce there could decide the game. When you're down 0-10 at the end of the first, about 38.5 things have to all go your way just to make it close. Some nights its not your night, and last night was definitely one of those nights.

So where does that leave the Reds at the midpoint of the season? They're 40-41, in fourth place in the NL Central, and 3.5 games out of first. Yeah for mediocrity. Back in January, I predicted that the Reds would finish the year just over .500, and I think they're right on track for that. When Votto went on the DL, the offense suffered mightly, and its still struggling to get back on track. The starters have been hit or miss with the addition of some injuries. And the bullpen has been statisitically the best in the majors so far, but there's no way they continue to pitch at that level through September. So they're pretty much right where I thought they'd be. I expect the starting pitching to get better (Volquez will get healthy, and Homer Bailey pitched brilliantly his last time out before Albert Pujols made the case for getting walked with the bases loaded), and once Votto gets back into the groove, the offense should even out. They're a .500 team, and I don't expect them to make a major move before the trade deadline, so I don't expect them to get any better. I do still think they can finish the year with a winning record, which would be good for morale, but I don't see them contending for anything. But given how the team's been the past few years, I'll take the moral victory this year.

Heat, Circa 1933

And the 2009 Magical Mystery Movie Tour continues, this week stopping at Batman vs. Captain Jack Sparrow, otherwise known as Public Enemies.

Now, I had high hopes for this film. Really high hopes. And I while thought it was good, I didn't think it was great. Johnny Depp was great as John Dillinger (nice to see him play a "normal" person; his first since, what, Finding Neverland?), but I think that could be due to the fact that Dillinger is the character that was given any depth. Everyone else just felt kinda flat and 1-dimensional. It may be unfair, but I can't help but compare this movie to Heat, Michael Mann's other bank-heist epic. There, he fully explored the characters on both sides of the story (Pacino's cop and De Niro's robber). I get that Public Enemies is a film about John Dillinger and not the people chasing him, but because of that, you don't feel anything for Christian Bale's Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent tasked with taking down Dillinger. I didn't feel like there was a character there, and thus their one scene together (aside from the ending, when Dillinger is gunned down; its a famous moment in history, so no spoiler alert for you!) is really dissapointing Of course it didn't have the gravity of the Pacino-De Niro diner scene, but it could have. Depp and Bale are two of the finest actors working today (in my opinion), and their one scene could've been great. But it wasn't because Bale's character didn't have any. All the early press focused on Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the same movie, but then the movie got finished, and it was just Depp. I have to wonder now if that's why all the recent ads for Public Enemies have focused solely on Depp with nary a whisper of Bale (I mean, he's only the God-damn Batman!).

But it was just Melvin Purvis that seemed flat; it was everyone not named "John Dillinger." In addition to Purvis, I wish they could have spent a little more time developing the other guys in Dillinger's crew. A big point in the movie was highlighting how loyal Dillinger was to his people, but without really knowing any of them, it was hard to connect with.

As I said, I thought it was a good movie. I think I'd give it a B-. There's some good shootout scenes (again, nothing like the heist scene from Heat, but that's okay) and there are a ton of cameos. It seemed like everyone in this movie was someone you'd recognize (not major names, but someone where you'd look it up on IMDb afterwards and go, "Oh! That guy!"), even the incidental characters that have only minimal screen time.

So there it is, the seventh new movie (I think) I've seen this year. Here are my grades so far:

Watchmen A-
Star Trek A+
X-Men Origins: Wolverine C-
Angels and Demons B-
The Hangover B+
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen C
Public Enemies B-

Happy Fourth of July.