the sports guy

A few days ago sportswriter Bill Simmons wrote a piece covering his thoughts on the NBA offseason, he did it comparing a specific scenario with a quote from the movie Almost Famous. He went on to call Almost Famous the "defining movie of the decade" (although he admits The Dark Knight could overtake that once the greatness has set in)

Anyway, my initial reaction to the article was "I can't believe this crazy coincidence!". You see, about a week before that, I had this talk with a writer from HK Mag and a USC School of Journalism grad student over the greatness and relevance of Almost Famous. The three of us were drunk at my house and were just going off on the movie. What are the odds a few days later my favorite writer uses the movie as a reference point for my favorite sport? I didn't mention it on here at first because I am seriously coming off as this creepy psycho stalker of Simmons, but really, this one-sided Bromance is too legit to hide. It's like that song by Boston man, IT'S MORE THAN A FEELING (lalalla guitar solo)

Okay, seriously. Back to original topic. Simmons' piece immediately "inspired" bloggers around the web, one google of Almost Famous+Best Movie+Decade and you'll find all these bloggers talking about Simmons piece and throwing in their own two cents. Some claimed Simmons' piece inspired him to come up with his list of "best movies of the decade".

Really? You need that piece to inspire you to think of this? Don't all film geeks do this? I must have blogged/talked about "best films of this decade" 8 to 9 times this year alone. I probably started doing this in 2007, which was a stupid idea cause there were still three more years to go then.

Anyway, as I'm going through the links I see that even Entertainment Weekly, one of the biggest publications in the US, have jumped on the Simmons bandwagon and wrote a piece on the "best movies of the 'aughts"

Simmons continued rise to "mainstream US popularity" is amazing. I even talked to Malcom Gladwell about this when I did a brief phone interview with him yesterday (Gladwell writes the foreword to Simmons upcoming book and his 10,000 hours rule is a ripoff of Simmons' playoff reps theory). It's amazing that Bill Simmons has made it this big doing what he does: HE IS THE AMERICAN DREAM.

A ESPN reader put it best when he wrote in this backhanded compliment two weeks ago.

" Simmons, you amaze me. You are either the embodiment of the American Dream or a sure sign of Armageddon. You write for ESPN, yet you break no stories, have no sources, offer little analysis. Instead you write superfluous pieces of fluff that are only your half-baked opinion, offer no proof and constantly write about the NBA, the Red Sox and Pats to the exclusion of anything else of substance. To top it off, you seem as mature as a horny, pimply 14-year-old. I don't get it."Even though this email reads like a diss it's not. It's a testament to how good Simmons has it. He's the only writer on ESPN who doesn't have to break news stories, he writes what he wants (writing an NBA piece when the season is over and other major sports are underway?) and he's able to be openly biased.

I started reading him early this decade when he was just a cult favorite among geeks such as myself. I've blogged about how much I relate/love his writing since 2003 or so, only I always thought "no one else gives a damn about his writing except geeks, he references far too many obscure crap and talks about NBA too much".

Only I was wrong. Simmons got popular, fast. The way he's grown in pop culture the last few years have been astonishing.

I guess his geeky style of writing (comparing a national sports story to a storyline in 90210 or WWF) and his outright homerism of all things Boston (shows that he's a passionate sports fan and not a robotic stiff journalist) appeals to more than just geeks.

Or maybe everyone is a geek deep down.

Anyway, I don't agree with Simmons that Almost Famous is the decade's defining moment. Sure, Philip Seymour Hoffman knocks it out of the park with his performance as Lester Bangs and Jason Lee, the main kid, Billy Crudup and even Jimmy Fallon (!!!!!) all gave great performances. It's got a kicking soundtrack and a 14 minutes scene with Zeppelin's STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN in its ENTIRETY... Still, Almost Famous is not a better film than No Country For Old Men, The Dark Knight, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Castaway.

Castaway is tricky, it's a not a great film per se, but there are three elements that were just done masterfully.

1: The entire segment with no dialogue, just Hanks on the island.

2: The heartwrenching scene of Hanks losing Wilson. When was the last time an inanimate object mattered that much to the audience?

3: Hanks reunion with Helen Hunt, where he knows he's lost his chance and they can never be together.

Points off the movie for that stupid "standing at the crossroad" reference though.

Yeah.