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You don't need to watch the movie.
The premise for this curated (by me!) episode is simply this: what if this movie were a musical instead? Let's re-write.
Interesting episode 
I do like how nobody remembered why Alicia Silverstone became a thing. She was in three Aerosmith videos when they had their comeback, including one with Liv Tyler. So, she was the next upcoming star for a bit, until she wasn't.
Turning existing works into musicals is a time honored tradition. Who can forget how the cynical play Pygmalion became My Fair Lady, over the creator's dead body (Shaw refused to sell the rights, so they just waited until he died). Now you have Broadway musicals based on Ghost, 9 to 5, The Producers, etc. There's even a Last Starfighter musical. Results with these adaptations, naturally, vary
This one's not in my iTunes feed either. Is anyone else having a problem like this? I can download it directly from the iTunes page, but refreshing does nothing. Weird.
Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2014-04-16 15:57:11)
I was able to get it by going to the iTunes store and manually download it, but it had a date of 2001 so showed up at the bottom of the list. I tried to download it to my iPad at work today to listen to it again, and there seemed to be a problem. So, something is/was up.
The "taking a physical in your spaceship" line is probably a reference to Communion - a very weird (and pretty scary) alien abduction movie with Christopher Walken (it's one of his most interesting performances). Based on a nutty UFO book.
Everything looks completely normal for me in iTunes on both feeds. I have to assume it's something on their end.
Funny episode. The movie sure does move like molasses.
It really would make a good musical. The fact that one main character is from the 50s and the other from the 90s seems like something a lyricist could get a lot of mileage out of: he's singing in the style of Buddy Holly, whereas she's singing in the style of Alanis Morissette. Or whoever. Something like that.
Re: baseball rules... If you grew up outside America, it's nearly impossible to figure them out. For most Europeans, baseball is just as inscrutable (and just as alien) as quidditch (which is a deliberate satire).
(To be fair, most sports use the "because he MUST" justification.)
Baseball is the easiest sport to grasp by far. It's basically a board game. The goal of the players is to start at "home," round the other three squares and return to home, and when they do they score a point. Only one person can be on a base at a time so they have to round the bases in sync. The ball is a timer -- they can only move after it's been struck by the bat, and if the ball makes it to a base before they do -- the other's team's goal -- that playing piece (i.e. player) is removed from the board. If the player at bat fails to hit the ball after three chances, he's removed from the board for that round (inning). When three players fail in this way, the team's turn is over and they swap. The team who was trying to hit the ball becomes the one trying to catch it and get it to the bases before the other team, who is now trying to round the bases. They play nine paired rounds and whichever team has accumulated the most points at the end wins.
Don't ask me about football, though, because I have no idea.
Now you do cricket.
+4
Baseball is the easiest sport to grasp by far.
The real problem is that Europeans don't grow up with it. Soccer rules don't make much sense either, but at least we're exposed to it from an early age.
Now you do cricket.
OK... It's an insect that looks like a cross between a grasshopper and a cockroach.
No game makes "sense." It's just meant to be something to do when you're bored.
Granted, this is why I watch movies and not sports. Movies are supposed to have a "point." Sports are just supposed to have a winner.
John Hodgman had a really interesting take on sports on one Judge John Hodgman podcast. He eventually realized that he, like other nerds, missed out on the major advantages of sports: the rules provide a way of deciding for sure who is the winner and enable young people to practice physical, real-life conflict resolution. And when you lose (and you definitely sometimes will), you have a coach and teammates who will tell you to change your stance, practice your moves, try again, and don't give up.
So that's the point of any sport, I suppose. Actual board games and such don't have those things. (Whereas they do have strategy, turn-taking, rule-following, and so on).
Last edited by Zarban (2014-04-17 02:00:25)
Baseball is the easiest sport to grasp by far. It's basically a board game. The goal of the players is to start at "home," round the other three squares and return to home, and when they do they score a point. Only one person can be on a base at a time so they have to round the bases in sync. The ball is a timer -- they can only move after it's been struck by the bat, and if the ball makes it to a base before they do -- the other's team's goal -- that playing piece (i.e. player) is removed from the board. If the player at bat fails to hit the ball after three chances, he's removed from the board for that round (inning). When three players fail in this way, the team's turn is over and they swap. The team who was trying to hit the ball becomes the one trying to catch it and get it to the bases before the other team, who is now trying to round the bases. They play nine paired rounds and whichever team has accumulated the most points at the end wins.
Don't ask me about football, though, because I have no idea.
Now you do cricket.
Ya, I agree, Baseball has to be the easiest sport by far. Mostly because you don't need to know
every single little thing. You hit a ball and run around a field before they catch the ball and try
and tag you with it, and there are 3 safe places where you can stop running. Then the next guy
hits the ball. miss 3 times and your out. 3 outs and the teams switch places.
thats it, thats all you really need to know to watch it with friends on TV.
Now football, forget it, I don't even know all the rules. But I don't watch sports, ever, so...
LOL. Baseball is the easiest sport...followed by 8.5 lines of explanation!
Basketball is the easiest sport.
Put ball in other hoop for two points. If you put it in the hoop from farther away, you get three points. You can run with the ball, but you can't carry it. You have to bounce it up and down as you move.
That's it. Actually, soccer is probably even easier than that.
soccer is probably even easier than that
The basics seem simple enough, but things get much more complicated once you get to specific FIFA rules (things like "offside" can be really hard to figure out).
Dorkman wrote:Baseball is the easiest sport to grasp by far. It's basically a board game. The goal of the players is to start at "home," round the other three squares and return to home, and when they do they score a point. Only one person can be on a base at a time so they have to round the bases in sync. The ball is a timer -- they can only move after it's been struck by the bat, and if the ball makes it to a base before they do -- the other's team's goal -- that playing piece (i.e. player) is removed from the board. If the player at bat fails to hit the ball after three chances, he's removed from the board for that round (inning). When three players fail in this way, the team's turn is over and they swap. The team who was trying to hit the ball becomes the one trying to catch it and get it to the bases before the other team, who is now trying to round the bases. They play nine paired rounds and whichever team has accumulated the most points at the end wins.
Don't ask me about football, though, because I have no idea.
Now you do cricket.
Ya, I agree, Baseball has to be the easiest sport by far. Mostly because you don't need to know
every single little thing. You hit a ball and run around a field before they catch the ball and try
and tag you with it, and there are 3 safe places where you can stop running. Then the next guy
hits the ball. miss 3 times and your out. 3 outs and the teams switch places.
thats it, thats all you really need to know to watch it with friends on TV.
Now football, forget it, I don't even know all the rules. But I don't watch sports, ever, so...
Technically, even the football players do not know all the rules. That is why you have coaches and advisers and the like for reviews. Baseball is becoming the same way, now.
Every sport is odd to an outsider. I use to coach tennis and explaining the scoring and rules to first time players took some time.
Football-11 guys try to move a ball 100 yards and have four tries to do it. Move 10 yards get 4 more tries. Get 6 points for crossing the end zone. Other side gets a chance.
There you go
It's interesting that baseball seems an easy sport to understand because people often say that it's one of the hardest to play well--hitting a round ball with a round bat is harder than it looks. At the elite level, hitting a major league pitcher's fastball is definitely one of the hardest tasks in sports.
Outside of team sports, fighting sports are the easiest to "get" if someone hasn't seen them before. One person is trying to kick the other person's ass. Pretty basic. Whatever the rules might be, the point of the contest is trivially obvious to the onlooker.
But, yeah, Blast from the Past.
It's interesting that baseball seems an easy sport to understand because people often say that it's one of the hardest to play well--hitting a round ball with a round bat is harder than it looks.
Well that's not really anything earth shattering.
Here's a metal stick and a little white ball. Hit the ball into a hole a couple hundred meters away.
Easy to explain, less so to do.
Rob wrote:It's interesting that baseball seems an easy sport to understand because people often say that it's one of the hardest to play well--hitting a round ball with a round bat is harder than it looks.
Well that's not really anything earth shattering.
Here's a metal stick and a little white ball. Hit the ball into a hole a couple hundred meters away.
Easy to explain, less so to do.
At least in golf the ball is stationary. In baseball someone throws it at you really fast.
Football-11 guys try to move a ball 100 yards and have four tries to do it. Move 10 yards get 4 more tries. Get 6 points for crossing the end zone. Other side gets a chance.
There you go
Thank You! That "Down" stuff never made sense to me before... 
No game makes "sense." It's just meant to be something to do when you're bored.
Granted, this is why I watch movies and not sports. Movies are supposed to have a "point." Sports are just supposed to have a winner.
I'm as far from a sports fan as it gets, but I feel this is a bit reductive. For many (not me, nor anyone else here) movies have no point. It's just something to do when you're bored. You sit, watch things happen on a screen, and then...that's it. That's a reductive expression for the magic all of us feel when entangled in a good movie. For those same people, games or sports are a way to stimulate mind and/or body, tap into humanities primal sense of competition and conquest in a (not always) safe way. I train in Martial Arts for many reasons, but I COMPETE in Martial Arts because playing that game benefits my character.
I think the difference is between playing a sport and watching a sport. I completely understand the appeal of the former and how beneficial that can be. Just watching however, while it can be kinda entertaining in a primal way, provides no deeper meaning in my opinion.
Agreed, but I was going off of Mike's use of "..something to DO when you're bored." If he's referring to simply watching, then sure. But again, movies have no more inherit worth than anything else you watch. Even if the opinion of the value is universal, it's all still subjective.
As for the value of sports only coming from having a winner, some of my best performances in Jiu Jitsu, where I was absolutely at my best, was when I lost. I once caught a guy in 20 some odd seconds in a somewhat fancy leg lock. That had far less value than the match I lost where I nailed a guillotine to triangle to moo plata combo, but ended up losing on points.
Anyway, this is getting all very hair splitting. I think we all agree more than we don't.
UPDATE: On further thought, I actually disagree that the value of watching sports is somehow objectively less than film. On an individual basis based on preference, fine. Whatever. But when I think of athletic performances in combat sports by guys like Genki Sudo, Muhammed Ali, Ernesto Hoost, I see pure art. Not everyone will, just like I will not necessarily see the same thing in a Pollack painting that others would, but I don't deny that there is a level of expression there, even if I am not prepared to comprehend all of it. Again, I give no fucks about 95% of sports, but that doesn't mean that artistry isn't present there to be observed.
Last edited by Eddie (2014-04-17 19:46:45)
Any sport has the potential to be difficult. It all depends on who you're competing against. Except for Ninja Warrior. Although in that case the competition would be the course itself.
Baseball is one of the hardest sports for anyone to just pick up and play. In high school all the lacrosse players would talk trash about baseball (lax bros and baseball players hating each other was a thing at my high school), until one time our coach had a few of them take some swings in batting practice. Not one of them came close to hitting the ball, and for two main reasons. 1, they didn't know how to properly swing a bat, which is much more complicated than it looks. 2, they were afraid of the ball. Who could blame them though, it was coming pretty fast... for batting practice Besides, when the best players in the world have about a 35% success rate, that probably means it's not easy.
I love sports; playing much more than watching, but I do enjoy watching football and baseball, and sometimes college wrestling. It's more fun to watch a sport that you have a lot of experience playing, probably because you have a greater understanding and appreciation for the artistry of it, as Eddie was saying. You can marvel at the idiosyncrasies that the players have perfected over years of experience. People like watching people do impressive things, and that extends beyond sports.
I don't like watching soccer. It's a lot of back and forth, and in an hour and a half you're lucky if they score more than twice. But I've also never played it, so a lot of the little stuff blows right by me.
Last edited by Sam F (2014-04-17 20:49:27)
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