What went down in Spielberg yesterday on the return of F1 to Austria? Come with me below the fold to find out… Continue reading
F1 Grand Prix of Austria — Qualifying results
Formula 1 returns to Austria for the first time in over a decade at the newly-christened Red Bull Ring. Would the namesake’s team uphold Red Bull pride on Qualifying day amidst the short and tricky track in the Alps? Or would the German Mercedes team continue their overpowering display of prowess? Come with me below the fold to find out… Continue reading
A little Thursday comedy — Slap Shot (1977)
The Stanley Cup Playoffs may be over (proud of you Rangers, congrats LA) but Slap Shot is forever (clips definitely NSFW).
Sure, 1977 was one of the all-time great years in cinema history with the release of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Saturday Night Fever and Annie Hall, not to mention such crowd pleasers as The Spy Who Loved Me and Smokey and the Bandit. But it also saw the premiere of the best, most profane and funniest hockey film ever.
The late, great Paul Newman, Strother Martin, one of the finest character actors of the 60s & 70s, and director George Roy Hill of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and The Sting fame team up to create not just an uproarious sports comedy but a great movie with the backdrop of the Recession in the Rust Belt grounding the hijinks in place and time and giving the rollicking plot a desperate, melancholy undertone. And for the hockey-oriented, the film serves as a knowing commentary on the eternal existential dilemma of the sport: goonism vs. skillful clean play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDXBsKnK4G8
Yes, ’77 was a landmark year for Hollywood where popular entertainment also achieved incredible quality and originality. And Slap Shot is a part of that magical run, a little gem among that year’s remarkable cinematic treasure trove.
Gorgeous Lady of the Week — Lucy Liu
Lucy Liu has had a pretty long run as one of the sexiest women on the planet. The Chinese-American beauty first burst onto the scene back in the late 90s as the ultra-hot, ultra-nasty Ling Woo on David E. Kelley’s Ally McBeal. Despite deliberately trading on a lot of stereotypes surrounding the cruel yet sensual “dragon lady”, Liu’s character was one of the first Asian females to be featured as a principal character in American television.
From there it was a one-way ticket to the top, as Ms. Liu was immediately tapped for big budget Hollywood features in 2000 like the Jackie Chan-Owen Wilson vehicle Shanghai Noon and, more importantly, the Charlie’s Angels reboot alongside Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, a huge popular success. She had a key supporting part in the Oscar-winning Chicago in 2002 and then reprised her role as Alex Munday in 2003’s sequel, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
2003 also saw her work for auteur Quentin Tarantino on his cult revenge epic Kill Bill (Volume I & II) as samurai sword wielding yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii, the first killer to be crossed off Uma Thurman’s list. Beautiful and lethal, O-Ren’s snowy duel with the Bride is a coup de cinema in a major work that deserves to be revisited. A pale imitation like 2012’s The Man with the Iron Fists, in which she also starred alongside Russell Crowe, shows just how good a movie Kill Bill was in retrospect.
Seeming to get lovelier by the year, Ms. Liu is now an ageless 46 and continues to do important work, returning to television for the critically acclaimed cop drama Southland and the highly entertaining CBS hit series Elementary, where she plays an unconventional Watson to Jonny Lee Miller’s Holmes in New York City. She is also an accomplished visual artist and active in several charities, including as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign. Beautiful, accomplished, pioneering and whip-smart: Lucy Liu is the total package and definitely a MFL kind of woman. In fact, why she hasn’t been a Bond girl is beyond us. Better yet, we think she’d make a killer 008. You’re welcome, Eon Productions.
tomvox1’s Watches for Sale — June selection
Got a very cool one on offer this month: a rare original early 1960s Hamilton Ventura. This solid 14k gold watch is one of the iconic designs in the vintage watch world, so much so that the modern incarnation of Hamilton, part of the Hydra-like Swatch Group, makes about a million homage versions. But accept no substitutes — this here Ventura is the real deal with it’s then-cutting edge caliber 505 electrical movement inside the gorgeous body, an innovation that prefigured the tuning fork and quartz revolutions to come.
Ironically, betting the future on their proprietary electrical movement and largely ceasing conventional mechanical watch production essentially doomed the historic watchmaking company from Lancaster, PA. The electric movement, never a particularly precise timekeeper, was quickly rendered obsolete by the Bulova Accutron and the coming of the quartz age and by 1969 the company had ceased all US operations. But they remain one of the legendary names in horology history and the Ventura is a timeless classic. You might say it’s fit for a King.
What We’re Listening To – “Lazaretto” by Jack White
Jack White has only himself to blame. I thought admitting I’ve got mixed feelings about Jack White’s latest record would be a good, or at least honest, way to start a review. Of course that blame I put on his shoulders assumes Jack White cares one fig about whether or not I’m conflicted about his newest album, “Lazaretto”, which I am, and which I’m certain he does not, but c’est la vie. Here I go anyway…
Classic Movie Watch — Patton (1970)
Among the greatest of war movies, 1970’s Patton features a mind-blowingly good performance by George C. Scott as the famously colorful WWII general that serves to catapult this epic far above the standard military biopic. The film is not only remarkable for the vivid on-screen portrait of a gifted but notoriously impolitic and ambitious American general helping to turn the tide of war in the United States’ favor but also for the off-screen context of being made at the height of rampant anti-war sentiment in the US and abroad due to the Vietnam War. You would have expected the film to be a hatchet job on an unrepentant warrior from the gung ho past and to reflect the anti-authoritarian zeitgeist of the time. You would also have expected a war-weary public to reject yet another nostalgic World War II movie released at the end of the 60s. Instead, it’s a straightforward yet nuanced portrayal of a seriously flawed but undoubtedly great military leader that earned popular and critical success from the get go with an unapologetically pro-US message. And through the movie we come to see that a man like Patton, a true lover of war who believed himself reincarnated from Roman Legionnaires and Napoleon’s soldiers, should probably be kept in a glass case that says “Break Open in Time of War”. But we also see that it’s surely good to have old soldiers like George S. Patton handy when the stuff hits the fan.
The famous opening sequence, a stylized and also sanitized version of Patton’s famously profane speech to the Third Army, remains one of the movies’ best “grabbers”, as well as one of the most iconic 6 minutes in the history of cinema. And despite Scott’s misgivings that starting with the speech would overwhelm subsequent scenes, that acts as a preamble and the movie gets better from there. It really starts with Patton’s arrival in North Africa to take command of a green and badly demoralized US II Corps after their mauling by Rommel’s Afrika Korps at Kasserine Pass, quickly whipping them into a cohesive fighting unit ready to take on the seasoned and highly accomplished German troops. By utilizing Rommel’s own tank tactics against him, we see the revitalized Americans fight back via impressive large scale armored tank battles thundering from the oversized 65mm widescreen print.
F1 Grand Prix of Canada — Results & aftermath
A thrilling Canadian Grand Prix just went down with Mercedes’ perfect season on the line and their two pilots fighting to be the Silver Arrows’ top dog. Would 2014’s script continue play out exactly as it had for the first six races with a Mercedes on the top step? Or would another team and driver finally get to taste victory in Montreal? Join me below the fold to find out…
F1 Grand Prix of Canada — Qualifying results
Another Mercedes 1-2 as Rosberg grabs second Pole in a row without drama, Vettel back on form to take 3rd on the grid in Canada
After the contentious qualifying session in Monaco two weeks ago where Lewis Hamilton openly speculated that his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg caused a deliberate yellow flag to thwart his final fast lap, Rosberg responded by grabbing a straightforward Pole position in Montreal at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, besting his teammate by less than a tenth of a second. Once again the two factory Silver Arrows were untouchable with Hamilton’s 2nd position over half a second quicker that the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, who wrung the most out of his underpowered chassis to take 3rd on a course that demands speed in the long straights. After showing signs of coming out of his season-long funk in the last couple of races it seems the German 4-time World Champion is primed to at least hold off his junior teammate Daniel Ricciardo for Best of the Rest honors come Sunday. But barring mechanical issues, Team Mercedes look to continue running away with the Championship points with the only real drama seemingly to be which of their two excellent pilots will come out on top from week to week.
Full Qualifying results below courtesy of Autosport.com:
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m14.874s 2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m14.953s +0.079s 3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m15.548s +0.674s 4. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m15.550s +0.676s 5. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m15.578s +0.704s 6. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m15.589s +0.715s 7. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m15.814s +0.940s 8. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.162s +1.288s 9. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.182s +1.308s 10. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m16.214s +1.340s Q2 cut-off time: 1m16.255s Gap ** 11. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m16.300s +1.246s 12. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m16.310s +1.256s 13. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m16.472s +1.418s 14. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m16.687s +1.633s 15. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m16.713s +1.659s 16. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m17.314s +2.260s Q1 cut-off time: 1m18.235s Gap * 17. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m18.328s +2.578s 18. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.348s +2.598s 19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m18.359s +2.609s 20. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m19.278s +3.528s 21. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m19.820s +4.070s 22. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari no time
Race day is tomorrow at 2pm Eastern on NBC here in the US.
Earworm of the day — Take It to the Limit by the Eagles
I have been playing this song lately as if it were brand new instead of nearly 40 years old. Between the hooks, the polished perfection of the band and the melancholy wanderlust, it feels like the ideal warm weather driving song. Here’s a primo live performance from ’77 with Randy Meisner singing his classic composition shortly before he quit the band.
Meisner didn’t write many Eagles tunes but “Take It to the Limit” is a beauty. The Eagles get a tough rap in “serious” rock criticism as being somehow too polished and slick, too SoCal for their own good, as if massive popularity somehow made the band unworthy of respect. But maybe all those millions of record buyers knew better than the critics after all. I think with the perspective of time and not hearing their songs every 10 seconds on the radio one can now appreciate just what kind of chops they had. Their lyrics are sharp, the vocal harmonies are Byrds-level good and the hits still sound fresh after all these years due to the super-crisp production. The Eagles gave the people what they wanted and they did it damn well. The next time you’ve got a long road trip go ahead and cue up Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume II. Despite the fact that it’s all the same band, the songs are so diverse I bet you’ll keep coming back for more on the way home.
