The Cinema Sins website has a popular YouTube series called Everything Wrong With... that meticulously identifies the flaws in movies. Unlike Mystery Science Theater 3000, the movies being scoured for sins are often pretty good, and this makes the task of nitpicking more difficult given the inverse relationship between quality and flaws. The problem with the video series is that the relentless pursuit of errors inevitably leads to the scrutiny of non-errors. This is illustrated in the Everything Wrong with Les Miserables video.
The Paris Uprising of 1832 is sympathetically portrayed in the various incarnations of Les Miserables and the 2012 film adaptation riffed by Cinema Sins is no exception. The real life uprising occurred shortly after the death of General Jean Maximilien Lamarque, a champion of the poor. At his funeral a group of students with aspirations of inciting a nationwide revolution hijacked and re-routed the cortege. This was an actual event and, considering Les Miserables is a musical, was portrayed about as accurately in the movie as anyone could reasonably expect. Even so, this is documented as a movie sin at the 4:19 mark of the video. The accompanying text states: "So they're (sic) protest is to interrupt a funeral parade honoring a guy they loved?" Ridiculing the movie for featuring a dramatization of something that actually happened is ironically erroneous, and with this example we of how relentless nitpicking can be more annoying than funny.
The above error is about as far from a sin as you can possibly get. Les Miserables makes the logic behind the funeral protest exceedingly clear. As the song goes, the rebels needed a sign to rally the people and bring them in line. The death of Lamarque provided the sign and the students seized it. The historical action is worthy of criticism, and Les Miserbles does this implicitly by portraying the students as idealists who do not have a good grasp of what they are actually doing. Within the movie the motives of the "sinful" act are adequately described and its actors sufficiently admonished through their development as misguided rebels. Taking these things into consideration, this sin should have been overlooked.
To be fair, the top two goals of Cinema Sins are two generate views and be funny. The latter goal gives them license to have a liberal perspective on what is or is not a goof. Moreoever, the sin in question grabbed my attention and caused me to watch the video multiple times, so the people producing Everything Wrong With clearly know what they are doing. Even so, the videos fail when they make fun of non-errors. Pointing out idiocy is a foundation of comedy, but jokes are only funny if they are ridiculing something truly idiotic.
Nitpicking is perfectly good if actual flaws are being pointed out. However, it becomes unfunny and annoying when the focus is so intense that relevant context or basic historical facts are ignored. When this happens you are left with snark
instead of humor, and excessive snark has a way of getting tiresome
quickly.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Thursday, August 7, 2014
The Toolbox Revolution
Rooting for intriguing cast-offs is one of the few perks of rooting for a terrible baseball team. Though your Mike Trouts or Clayton Kershaws are more entertaining, superstars lack the endearing "I played in the minors for 10 years because I love baseball" quality present in marginal talent. Moreover, lack of talent requires adaptation and this adaptation can inspire the imagination. Brooks Kieschnick, also know as "The Toolbox," is a good example of this.
The career stats of Kieschnick are about as pedestrian as you will ever see. He hit .248/.315/.444 with 16 homers in 336 career plate appearances and had a 4.59 ERA in 96.0 career innings pitched. In 2003 he played for the Milwaukee Brewers and had his finest season, posting a solid .300/.355/.614 slash line in 76 PA and an ugly 5.26 ERA in 53 IP. On the surface this resume is the epitome of forgettable, but a slightly deeper analysis reveals that it is somewhat remarkable.
In 2003 the Milwaukee Brewers were coming off a 56-106 campaign and entering a rebuilding phase. With nowhere to go but up the Brewers were able to take a flyer on Kieschnick. What he accomplished in two seasons with Milwaukee was sneaky impressive. Kieschnick became the only non-starting pitcher since 1946 to throw more than 20 innings while getting more than 50 at bats in a season, which happened in 2003 and 2004. This is a nice bit of trivia, but when you think about it, hybrid players like Kieschnick just might be more than roster filler for cellar dwellers.
The potential value of a dual-threat player is comes from the grueling length of an MLB season. Regular occurrences over a 162 game season include starting pitchers getting knocked out in the 2nd inning, outfielders tweaking their back and needing a day off, bullpens being burdened with bringing blowouts to their merciful conclusion, and so on. A hybrid player brings value by absorbing this fatigue, which is especially useful to playoff hopefuls who need all of the energy they can muster during the stretch run.
A good hybrid player would also make the lives of NL managers much easier. Instead of performing bench-gobbling double switches, a manager could use the hybrid to pinch hit and then throw an inning of relief. You can easily imagine how this might come in handy during extra-inning games at any point of the season.
Granted, it's also easy to think of reasons hybrid players do not exist. For starters, there is the logistical issue of where they are situated. How would they be able to warm up for an inning of relief and take practice cuts for a pinch hit appearance at the same time? Furthermore, it does not make sense for a power-hitting corner infielder on the cusp of making The Show to try to get a call-up by adding bite to their slider. Even so, when you see backup catchers pitching in blowouts and throwing 95 mph fastballs, it makes you wonder if their role is not unnecessarily limited to being a backstop.
Baseball is in a golden age of embracing unconventional ideas, so there is a faint glimmer of hope for the hybrid revolution. It's highly likely this revolution will never happen because GMs know it's an unfeasible idea, but it's more fun to believe it's simply because The Toolbox was truly one of a kind.
The career stats of Kieschnick are about as pedestrian as you will ever see. He hit .248/.315/.444 with 16 homers in 336 career plate appearances and had a 4.59 ERA in 96.0 career innings pitched. In 2003 he played for the Milwaukee Brewers and had his finest season, posting a solid .300/.355/.614 slash line in 76 PA and an ugly 5.26 ERA in 53 IP. On the surface this resume is the epitome of forgettable, but a slightly deeper analysis reveals that it is somewhat remarkable.
In 2003 the Milwaukee Brewers were coming off a 56-106 campaign and entering a rebuilding phase. With nowhere to go but up the Brewers were able to take a flyer on Kieschnick. What he accomplished in two seasons with Milwaukee was sneaky impressive. Kieschnick became the only non-starting pitcher since 1946 to throw more than 20 innings while getting more than 50 at bats in a season, which happened in 2003 and 2004. This is a nice bit of trivia, but when you think about it, hybrid players like Kieschnick just might be more than roster filler for cellar dwellers.
The potential value of a dual-threat player is comes from the grueling length of an MLB season. Regular occurrences over a 162 game season include starting pitchers getting knocked out in the 2nd inning, outfielders tweaking their back and needing a day off, bullpens being burdened with bringing blowouts to their merciful conclusion, and so on. A hybrid player brings value by absorbing this fatigue, which is especially useful to playoff hopefuls who need all of the energy they can muster during the stretch run.
A good hybrid player would also make the lives of NL managers much easier. Instead of performing bench-gobbling double switches, a manager could use the hybrid to pinch hit and then throw an inning of relief. You can easily imagine how this might come in handy during extra-inning games at any point of the season.
Granted, it's also easy to think of reasons hybrid players do not exist. For starters, there is the logistical issue of where they are situated. How would they be able to warm up for an inning of relief and take practice cuts for a pinch hit appearance at the same time? Furthermore, it does not make sense for a power-hitting corner infielder on the cusp of making The Show to try to get a call-up by adding bite to their slider. Even so, when you see backup catchers pitching in blowouts and throwing 95 mph fastballs, it makes you wonder if their role is not unnecessarily limited to being a backstop.
Baseball is in a golden age of embracing unconventional ideas, so there is a faint glimmer of hope for the hybrid revolution. It's highly likely this revolution will never happen because GMs know it's an unfeasible idea, but it's more fun to believe it's simply because The Toolbox was truly one of a kind.
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