Bob Uecker: National Treasure, Milwaukee Deity

I recently watched an MLB network special on Bob Uecker and tried again to soak in what a blessing and joy it's been to have him announcing baseball games for a perennially poor team for the last 43 years. People my age wonder what/why is Bob a national celebrity? We certainly know his Harry Doyle character from Major Leagues, even fewer may remember him as the Dad on Mr. Belvidere, but there's plenty more than that. Bob was a habitual guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, was THE spokesperson for Miller Lite, and announced World Series games with Bob Costas, Tim McCarver, Joe Morgan, and Howard Cosell. He's widely considered to be hilarious by most people and is generally unencumbered by his massive celebrity, though I've heard a few occasions when he isn't the nicest of people out in public. He's consistently fended off offers from New York, and many other markets offering much more pay and fame than Milwaukee, yet here he has remained. In his own words, he fishes, he plays golf, and he does baseball and he wouldn't know what else to do with himself. Everything he else he did was "nice", but he always yearned to return to baseball while away in Hollywood. He enjoys SO much the fact that current players still treat him as one of their own. I really enjoyed former players talking about how he deserves to be included in the names of: Jack Buck, Vin Scully, and Howard Cosell. Yount makes a great comment that he isn't in the Hall of Fame just because he's funny. If you've never seen his Hall of Fame speech, it's a must-see on Youtube. He has everyone laughing and rolling around for fifteen minutes perfecting self-depricating humor. We certainly won't have a lot of years left with Ueck, so I want everyone to soak it in and appreciate whatever he has left. I want us all to remember the great times we've had and how lucky we've been. Listen to Rock Schroeder to see what normally happens when an athlete hops in the broadcasting booth for their former team. We've been unbelievably lucky and blessed.

Divergent: Brought to you By Under Armor

I saw Divergent on HBO and jumped on board. It was tracking a surprising 71% on Rotten Tomatoes from viewers and I thought that warranted a chance. I was surprised because it wasn't what I was expecting. It's your standard futuristic & the world is separated into 5 factions (just like the areas in the Hunger Games series). You choose at 18 what faction you will join and be a part of for the rest of your life (the Giver-esque). Our heroine decides on joining the police/military essentially. She begins training and diving into becoming a super-soldier. The plot is that some people are part of a resistance called "Divergents", which is what she scored on her test that was supposed to tell her what faction she was supposed to join. She becomes tougher and essentially the Super-soldier they want, but she still isn't blindly conforming to everything. She falls in love with the trainer, who seems easily 20 years older than her and he becomes her mentor in training as well as the outside world. It was better than I thought it was going to be and Shailene Woodley guaranteed herself a career in Hollywood. She isn't Angelina Jolie, but she's good enough during the action and drama that she won't be hurting for work when this franchise ends. Bottom Line: 6.5 out of 10. Better than expected out of the teen-action/drama retreaded garbage I was expecting, but it wasn't anything amazing. If you are looking for something to watch and didn't hate Twilight and the Hunger Games, I'd watch this one.

Two for the Money: Two for the Garbage

This was supposed to be a movie about high-stakes gambling and the excitement of picking the right games and making a lot of money. It's actually crap. It does a terrible job of talking about sports gambling. Matty's character is exciting for a few moments, but then they turn him into a fraud, which totally ruins the movie. They attempt to explore parts of Russo's and Pacino's relationship that goes nowhere. What's really stupid is how they act like the world would end when they go 2-12 picking games on a weekend. The whole premise is that they get portions of all the bets placed, so why would a losing weekend effect them so badly? Why would nobody do 10 team parlays when Matty's character is going 10-2 all the fucking time? It's ridiculous that despite being hotter than the sun at picking games he doesn't actually bet himself. I got pissed off watching this at home dumb everyone was. Bottom Line: 4.1 out of 10. Crap that's not fit to watch at any time on any media outlet.

Birdman: Michael Keaton Can Act

I saw Birdman, AKA critic's wet dream film of 2014. It was very critic friendly with tremendous acting from Keaton (especially), Ed Norton (excellent, but standard excellence for Norton), Emma Stone, Zach Galifinakis & Naomi Watts. The film centers around Keaton's character of Riggan, a once famous actor who played Birdman is 3 insanely successful movies in the early 90's. This role was made for Keaton. Riggan decides to spend the last of his money directing, filming, & starring in his own adaption of a favorite author who gave him a cocktail napkin worth of encouragement during one of his plays at Syracuse. He struggles with many things within himself, but the voice of Birdman egging him on constantly during times of self-doubt. Keaton is incredible navigating through the insane depths of his character. The play is a train-wreck mixed with brilliance with the SUPER temperamental Norton crushing it. It's a very serious drama mixed in with some random humor. It's filmed in generally very tight frames and close up, it's very unique. It's a little to artistic/boring for mainstream popularity, and it was boring at times, but the acting and interesting characters are enough to keep it moving along to be enjoyable (for me anyway). Bottom line: 8.8 out of 10. Impressive efforts from all the actors involved, but it was still boring enough to not get pushed up into the 9's. You can drop coin at the theater, but you'd be better of waiting until it's streaming/rentable for cheap.

The Bears: Bye Bye Tresticles

The Bears this year are just a disgrace to a historic and proud franchise. You can be bad, but you can't be bad and look like you have no balls or desire to play. Tressman has to be gone after this game. It's silly to wait until the end of the year for this ride to stop. It's just embarrassing to watch them struggle through each week looking completely lost and without giving a shit what happens. Matt Forte should really be the only player welcomed back next year, and of course Robbie Gould. This season potentially held promise after having, on paper, the best offense around with Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett, and Forte. Josh McCown looked excellent in his limited action last year, so what could a healthy Cutler do with these guys and an offseason together? The correct response is Cutler doing the same sad shit as always and looking like an Emo kid the entire time. He should probably just pose for memes professionally on the side, it would be less heartbreaking for Bears fans. The hailstorm that's going to follow this team into the offseason is going to be something spectacular. I'll be sitting back and watching the fireworks. At least this year they aren't competing with the Jaguars for the #1 draft pick, we'll leave that for next year.

Goodbye Sons of Anarchy

I was on from Day 1 for Sons of Anarchy, which is very rare. I was drawn in by the story, even though I was extremely skeptical about a show about a bike gang. The cast is phenomenal and impressed throughout. I was already an enormous fan of Charlie Hannam since I saw him in Green Street Hooligans. Despite being much smaller then, you still believed he could fight. There was instant credibility lent with Katie Segal, Ron Pearlman, and the other guys who you couldn't name, like Mark Boone Junior, but you knew films they were in. I still think the first season is probably the best. The love story of Jax and Tara in it's fiery infancy. All the characters being defined and just scratching the surface of their depth and depravity. I know my friend Zach loved the second season adding Henry Rollins, Adam Arkin, and even Tom Arnold (to a MUCH lesser extent) to the mix as the new assholes ruining the little town of Charming was pretty awesome. I was actually struggling with season 3 where they were spending time in Ireland tracking down Abel's kidnappers, but there was TOTAL redemption in the season finale and I was all-in from then on. Things got crazy and when you look back it's hard to remember all the characters that had come and gone. It was just a great show basically from pilot to finale. I'm so glad they allowed so much leeway to Sutter and the writers & directors. It's something that could have only survived and thrived on Cable/non-network TV. You almost wish Sutter would take a run with something on HBO just to see where he would take it even further with NO restrictions. I think this show has made a lot of careers and hopefully will get the cast some work moving forward. I was always impressed by the closeness of the cast & crew and the finale afterword was just a love-fest of mutual respect and love. I actually really enjoyed the final episode as it was the ultimate at "tying up loose ends". I've long mentioned my absolute delight in the idea of a show, or even a sequel of a film, ending in everyone's death so any hope of it continuing is gone. That didn't exactly happen, but it's safe to say Sons of Anarchy is at peace and never returning. Well done EVERYONE associated with S.O.A., it was a great show. Bottom Line: Start watching SONS if you never have before. It's on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant video, and through all other kinds of outlets. You'll struggle to find a better action/drama series ever again probably.

Horrible Bosses 2: The Same Movie, but Paying the Lead Actors More Money!

Horrible Bosses 2 is very similar to Horrible Bosses 1, but without the horrible bosses. The "gang" is back of Charlie Day, Jason Sudekis, and Jason Bateman, also Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Anniston also lent their talents again. Chris Pine and Christopher Waltz get brought into the fold to complete the stacked cast and they attempt to make kidnapping and ransom funny. There were funny parts, but I really can't get into Sudekis and Day fighting to be dumber in every scene while Bateman plays Michael Bluth again. It's a dynamic that works, but in SO many doses it gets really old and tough to swallow. Everything takes longer because they are too stupid to function at a human level at anything. Waltz is pretty cool, but really limited appearances in this one, just like the other side characters besides Pine. I should mention the premise is the boys decide to make a "shower buddy" that turns your shower into a car wash with soap & shampoo included. They go on a local news broadcast with funny results and eventually get the opportunity to pitch the idea to a huge company in hopes of getting mainstream production going. That isn't important because it's 90 minutes of the guys dicking around with limited supervision or direction. They get pointed in a direction and act like fucking morons to sometimes really funny results. Bottom Line: 6.2 out of 10. Funny enough to watch, but not to pay money to watch. If you REALLY liked the first Horrible Bosses film, you'll like this one too. Isn't reinventing the wheel, that's for sure.

UAB: The Price of Big-Time College Football

UAB may not be your powerhouse program, but you ask the 100 young men on the team what it means to them to suit up every Saturday in the green & gold of UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) and if they think it means more to the players on Alabama, or Oregon, than it does to them. It has been decided that UAB will discontinue their men's football program after this year. Not only that, but this means the Bowl eligible UAB team will not be going to a Bowl game. Everyone on that team it would seem has played their last game of college football for UAB, and probably their last game period. It struck me as so sad and disappointing and I'm very glad they have outspoken support from Roddy White, who played at UAB from 2001-2004 before becoming a first round pick for the Atlanta Falcons, where he continues to play today. Tristan Henderson has received some press for his heartfelt, and really heart-breaking, speech to the UAB President Ray Watts when he announced the team would be disbanding after the end of the season. UAB still plays D.I basketball and often find themselves in the NCAA tournament. It may be too late for UAB, but there are sad lessons to be learned. It's too expensive to compete in D.I football if you don't already have a major program and heritage. UAB shares a board of trustees with Alabama and it would seem they were constantly second-class citizens to almighty 'Bama for everything related to athletics. Alabama refuses to play them in basketball or football. Support is minimal from the one article that I read, so I'm not sure how it works or how true that is. The reality is the cost of the schools who recently have started to play D. I football is a subsidy of at least $16 million dollars annually. That isn't JUST for football, but it gives some idea and perspective. It's HUGE business and how your Alabama's and Oregon's of the world, besides Phil Knight (Oregon alum & Nike CEO) would be through the enormous amount of money paid out to the schools who participate in BCS bowl games. The TV take to be split between all teams in the conference for just one BCS Bowl game is more than these other schools hemorrhage out for the subsidies each year. It's why these selection processes are so important. It isn't JUST for our entertainment and "fairness", but the difference in money to the programs voted in is VERY significant. It was estimated that for UAB to be "competitive" in football it would require around $44 million over the next 4 years for facility upgrades and whatever else would be required to keep up with the Jones'. All other sports with the exception of major D.I men's basketball programs lose money every year. A major football program helps keep the other sports, especially women's athletics because of Title IX, feasible. Travel, scholarships, coaches, facilities, and meal plans (I'm forgetting other big expenses I'm certain) all cost a LOT of money. A D. I football program hasn't been eliminated since 1995, but plenty of other sports have been cut to appease Title IX and the schools budgetary concerns, primarily wrestling & men's swimming/diving are the likely candidates. Without diving into the financial mire, I just think it's very sad for the players on UAB. Do they lose their scholarships? Will they be allowed to transfer to another team without losing a year of eligibility? What is going to happen to the coaches? Was there a way to save the program? How can this be prevented in the future? With the creation of these monstrous "mega-conferences" and their money grabbing ways smaller conferences and their teams will have the monetary gap widen and therefore will not be able to have the "state of the art" equipment and facilities as larger conferences schools. There has to be a better way than our current systems, but I don't see changes coming in the near future. I hope the UAB players can find happiness and continue playing if they so choose, or at the BARE minimum continue on their scholarships to finish their academic careers. If that doesn't happen there should be some real hell being raised.

Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat (Sounds like Tom Cruise's Marraiges...)

This film focuses on the World being under seige by aliens called Mimics. Earth is fighting them, in Europe at the time of the movie. They have ravaged most of Europle and, just like the Nazi's, are having issues taking over Britain. There's a large scale attack/landing planned, landing in France, again taking a page right out of WWII. Tom Cruise is somehow essentially taken captive despite being a Major in the U.S. Army and put on the front lines. They wanted him to film/create propaganda of the landing and ensuing battle. Cruise, despite having no real combat training, miraculously doesn't completely suck and manages to kill one of the alien "Generals". He dies in the process, but absorbs the aliens blood and this starts a "Groundhog Day"-like scenario where Cruise continually replays the day. Insert Super-soldier Emily Blunt (She's pretty awesome) and you've got yourself some fun. It's not a unique idea, but it's explained and done in a unique way. The action and CGI are both excellent as they flawlessly combine CGI with real animatronics. The suits are either rubber or actual metal and it's very impressive. Cruise continually brings the wood in these action movies, so hats off to the little guy. Blunt is awesome, somehow being sexy and tough/strong/scary all at the same time. Her career is definitely going to continue to rise. Bottom Line: 8.2 out of 10. Good cast, effects, action, and story makes this worth watching. It certainly has a few ridiculous moments, but it keeps it in check for being primarily an action movie. Blunt is excellent in this film and hopefully gets more great roles from this. An Oscar nomination won't happen from this, but I'm thinking soon her name will be called. Editor's Note: She's ONLY 31! (32 in February) Looks like my marriage proposal is on the way across the pond... 2nd Editor's Note: I forgot she was married to Jim from the Office (John Krasinski).

Neighbors: Zac Efron Looks Different...

Neighbors is based on the hilarious idea that a frat house in an ordinary neighborhood can lead to awkward and hilarious situations. This frat house is led by Zac Efron (who is kind of close to college aged) and 29-year old Dave Franco. McGlovin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Seth Rogan, Rose Byrne (Very attractive), Ike Barinholtz (Jimmy "The Body" Gibiatti from the League) rounds out a pretty solid cast. Rogan & Byrne are married and just had a child, so they are still trying to be fun while they try to figure out parenting. The frat house & the couple actually start out on a great note & have a great time partying on their first night together. Afterward they are told to always call Efron if they are too loud. The next night they call Efron a bunch of times, he doesn't answer, they call the cops, things go South. The couple is then in a race to get the Frat two more strikes while the Frat tries to ruin their lives and get them to move. It's surprisingly not funny despite all the opportunities and decently funny cast. Ike Barinholtz doing celebrity impressions is probably the highlight of the film, especially his Barack Obama impression. Nothing in this film is new and it's far from special. Bottom Line: 5.8 out of 10. Funny parts, but far from special. I don't recommend buying this thing, but if it's on TV and you have some free time, give it a whirl.