Nationals Baseball: Keeping asking those questions

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Keeping asking those questions

What? You expect the Nats to provide us with stuff.  Oh fine ok. I do have real baseball things to write about but that's for post work trip.

Christmas Movie Reviews 

Christmas Town
X(Mas)-Factor:  Reeks from every pore like cheap liquor from a drunk
Kids acting:  Lots of eyes wide and mouth open.
Watchability:  Survivable, Yes. Watchable, No. 
"Hey it's"! : The greatest "other guy" from our youth, Patrick Muldoon!  The girl who replaced Jadzia Dax as Other Name Dax.

Ugh. This movie is the worst. It has a standard premise as Other Dax works too hard and doesn't have enough Christmas spirit, but gets righted by a combination of a believing son, a holiday convert father, and the new spirited town where he lives. But everything layered on top of it is so bad.  The kid runs away like 90 f'n times in the movie. I'm not kidding. It'll be "Mom I think I see something" "Not now, Mason" BOOM GONE. He starts this by jumping out of a car because he thought he saw a reindeer. What? "Mom! Stop the Car! A reindeer! I'm going to chase it!" That is literally what happens.

The hook of the movie is the thought that this town is really harboring a secret REAL Christmas factory. The mysterious NP Enterprises is supposed to be very secretive, which means they cover the sled sent out for repairs... after it comes out into the open, and load presents... in the open, and dress strangely as to...not attract attention? Then after being treated to 100 minutes of the movie hinting very strongly that it's real, we get a terrible rug pull from Muldoon where he explains to Other Dax "Oh they do Christmas displays and stuff" which makes no sense to hold that out till the end because everything makes a lot more sense if it's said at the beginning. Then they show us it was real.  It's real. It's real. It's real. It's real. No, it's fake. No, it's real! GOTCHA! But it also makes no sense because why would they be so busy now, two days before Christmas, wouldn't their busy time be like right after Thanksgiving when all these decorations are going out?

Speaking of terrible rugs there's Muldoon's hair which looks like he spent the entire time in a cheap hotel room running his hands through it while contemplating the road his life took to get here.


Looks in mirror : "Dammit Muldoon. You were the guy Kapowski left Zack for. The guy Carmen left Johnny Rico for. Pull yourself together man!"

The music was terrible featuring only slow wacky or fast wacky, or out of place songs like when there's a couple doing a little fast dance in the background to "Gloria in excelsis Deo" .The VO stuff added in post was even worse. The "climatic" scene involves the kid running around the warehouse (or more accurately a small area of 4 hallways where signs are replaced to indicate new areas) all the while a loudspeaker produces hysterical bits like "Reindeer poop emergency. All hands to the stalls" and "If anyone speaks Swahili please come to list translation services" worse they top that with added VO of the elves reacting to that. A VO line is literally "Come on, we have a lot of poop to clean"

I haven't even got to Muldoon sucking on a peppermint stick, or the mechanic who has an orgasmic relationship with hot chocolate, or the father's crazy over the top decorations which are filmed so you can only see one small corner of a room, or the kid finding Santa's warehouse of toys which is him in green screen in front of shots of a Costco or what the hell Santa is supposed to be doing here


All this and the movie is actually pretty damn boring as it's padded as every scene of them walking places or getting into cars takes about 10 seconds too long. Oh and the foam attack on the Mom! And that aggressive mistletoe guy!

This movie gets no nothings.

14 comments:

JWLumley said...

Are the Nationals dealing Desmond? Saw the tweet about the Nationals entering the Tampa-San Diego trade and hope this means Zobrist.

Sirc said...

Tampa is going to trade Wil Myers and Ben Zobrist...

That's bold.

JWLumley said...

How many times can I refresh MLBTR before it breaks?

JWLumley said...

If it's Souza, I hope they get something back. Would rather see them trade Taylor since I'm not a believer. Reminds me of Lastings Milledge with much better makeup. Too many K's. Souza would be the Nats 3rd best hitting OFer today.

Anonymous said...

Not sure if these have been asked but here we go:

1) If you could make one trade, given the budget restrictions on the Nats, who would it be and who for?

2) Where do the younger outfield crop fit into the national's plans?

3) Nationals sign reliever _______ to a one year deal

4) How, if at all, did MW improve over the year and are there any metrics to back it up?

5) How do they beat the dodgers/cardinals? at least it's an odd year so the Giants are out

6) Stats on life-long switch hitters who have gone to one side

7) more personal backstory - love the blog!

6)

Zimmerman11 said...

Oh man... JWLumley is not happy!!! And neither will the rest of us when we don't have a CF in 2016!

Zimmerman11 said...

Couple of recent first round picks... but I have to say I know nothing about either player. So long Steven Souza Jr.

Bjd1207 said...

Same don't know jack about either one. Their numbers look really good though. Both young, So we'll have to wait and see. Souza deserved to play every day after his minors campaign last year, he just wasn't pushing anyone of our outfielders out of the way. Good luck to him...hope JW is ok...

Anonymous said...

This feels like an even value trade overall.

net talent +0
young toolsy 18 year olds carry a fair amount of risk, but so do late blooming AAA destroyers.

Anonymous said...

Selling high on Souza, I like it! Like the return's possibilities. Rizzo makes a completely understandable trade!

blovy8 said...

This looks like a great deal. Trea Turner was a 1st round guy who dominated in college, raked in full season A ball, can run, and has a lot more upside than Souza. 30 steals in 78 games. Just enough power to get respect. Souza had nothing left to prove, deserves a shot to start and wasn't going to get that here for three years unless Harper or Werth went down with something awful. Even then, given Williams' replacement patterns, McLouth might have platooned with the guy.

JWLumley said...

DOOM! but really it was a good deal for the Nats even though I'm high on Souza. My two concerns now are: Who plays CF in 2016? K Factory Michael Taylor probably, which will be painful. Second, who plays SS in 2016? (Turner is probably due in 2017) Still, CFers are easier to find than SS's so I probably still would have done the deal. But for all of those who think I'm high on my assessment of Souza, check out the Fangraphs article on him this morning and the comps (Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson). Ross could make a great closer if he can toughen up a bit or a mid-back of the rotation starter if not. Also, this means even more Nate McLouth next year. Hopefully he sucks less. Still, had a special place in my heart for Souza. Steven Souza Jr., your 2015 AL ROY.

JWLumley said...

@blovy8 I would say Souza and Turner are pretty equal upside. For me both are about 50-55 guys on the 20/80 scale. Souza K's too much and is too old, Turner's arm is a bit light for SS and he doesn't have much power. Still I'd project both guys as 3-4 WAR players in the big leagues, with Souza's value coming primarily from speed and power and Turner's value coming primarily from speed and defense/position scarcity.

sirc said...

I find it interesting that Turner played 68 games the year that he was drafted. He signed quickly rather than wait for the deadline. Storen did the same and was rewarded by being fast tracked to the big leagues.