Thursday, July 14, 2011

The ESPYs. Because Why Not?

Pictured:The new Joker in The Dark Knight Rises.


Some people don't think there are enough meaningless award shows. Some people explode if they go three days without a real baseball game. If you fall into either of these categories, then the ESPYs are for you. You should probably also consider taking up a new hobby.

Even though I am a huge sports fan, I try to keep them out of this blog. This blog is dedicated entirely to movies (except when I talk about TV, comics, books, video games, live theater, AT&T, Norway, economics, stuff in my life you don't care about, etc.), but the ESPYs have so little to do with sports, I figure I could include them here.

First off, why Seth Meyers? While he is a step up from Jay Mohr, who hosted the legitimate NHL Awards, Meyers has to be the least funny person in Saturday Night Live history. And unlike the ESPYs, you actually have to try to win that award. The silence that went through the audience was just plain eerie. Then he did that Dirk School skit with Bill Hader which was kinda funny, but it lasted waaaaaaay too long.

On that note, why was this so long? There were two awards for perseverance, and each one had a seemingly 30 minute video clip to them. Why? Isn't that what ESPN's 30 for 30 was for?
(On that note, some of those documentaries were really good, namely "The Two Escobars", "The U", and "June 17th 1994".)
Yet even with those taking up so much time, they still made room for the stupid Tron/Logan's Run intro for each person.

But people only watch award shows to see who wins, right? Well, that's the biggest joke of them all. Best Male Athlete: Dirk Nowitzki, Aaron Rodgers, Raphael Nadal, and Jimmie Johnson.

Jimmie Johnson? First off, athlete and race car driver should never be used in the same sentence, unless that sentence is "He wasn't coordinated enough to become an athlete, so he became a race car driver instead." Also, he is currently ranked 6th in NASCAR, and I'm sure many people would argue how Formula One makes NASCAR look like a minor league team, or possibly Major League Soccer in comparison.
Raphael Nadal? He's been the best tennis player for the past several years, but his reign is about at an end. Even before the French Open, Novak Djokovic has been smacking him around all year.
It sounds like people were voting based on legacy and not their current state, but that is thrown out the window with Rodgers and Dirk. Sure their teams won championships, but I didn't think anyone would vote for them as MVPs at the end of their regular seasons. Dirk, the eventual winner, actually had one of his worst seasons statistically. But hey, he was in the news just a month ago. Everyone vote for him.

Without a doubt, the best athlete over the past 17 months (that's the ESPY voting period, allegedly) is Roy Halladay. A perfect game, a playoff no-hitter, and a 33-13 record the past season and a half, yet he wasn't even nominated?

As for best female athlete, there were no soccer players. Do people even watch sports anymore?

I've been to Albert Pujol's restaurant in St. Louis (great Cuban sandwiches) and he of'course has all his awards and jerseys and what not all over. He has his ESPYs - and I'm not kidding - on the floor behind the hostess stand. So I'm glad athletes take these as seriously as I do.  

Some movie news did come out of this though. The Fighter was the best sports movie. My quick two cents on that: it had some amazing supporting acting - Bale and Leo both deserved their Oscars - and it was all brought down by Mark Wahlberg. And while I first thought the last fight was boring, I saw the footage of the real fight. They actually jazzed the movie up a bit.

The other news is Jonah Hill is looking pretty good anymore. He is easily the most underrated of all the comedians in his little circle (he made Funny People tolerable, with a little help from Eric Bana and of course Eminem & Ray Romano ) and he got a lot of unheralded heat just because he was fat and shaggy. But look at him now:


And what better way to show off your new thin body than by standing next to a giant.

9 comments:

  1. I agree with every point. Why not take sports which rely heavily on statistics and actual quantifiable talent and boil it down to arbitrary popularity contests? Completely pointless.

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  3. I just can't stop watching at the last pic o_o

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  4. Funny mini rants here. As for the entire idea, Not a fan of it. I just think it's silly how they try to treat it something like a MTV production. As for some of the other things, Hill looks OK, but lets see if it lasts. In my eyes, most of the athletes ESPN covers aren't real athletes imo. Namely Golf. I agree about Nascar, but Golf is just as bad.

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  5. my god
    haha
    amazing last photo:)so cool!

    New outfit post - Get your rock on
    www.mirfashion.blogspot.com

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  6. Meyers is always on the sportsguys podcast on ESPN, probably how he got the gig. I tried watching a little bit but turned it on right during the kissing couple skit, which was painful to watch so turned it right back off. I'm a little biased but how D. Rose, the MVP of the league wasn't on the list made no sense to me.

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  7. Jonah Hill looks so f-ing weird. I don't like him as a comedian or an actor, quite frankly.

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  8. That guy's is either very short, or the other guy's very tall.

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