Quick Review: Ghostbusters

I have to say I was a bit concerned with the social media and other commentary regarding Ghostbusters, the latest franchise reboot, being a bad idea because the Ghostbusters are now women. After all these years Hollywood is still unfair to women, whether it's the type of roles and scripts they're offered or their pay compared to male actors. So I made sure I saw it during opening weekend, and the box office report says it earned $46 million.

And it deserves it, because despite a bit of a slow start to set things up, it's quite funny. The new 'busters (Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones) work well together, and Chris Hemsworth gets to ham it up as their receptionist, hired despite being dumb as a post but pretty to look at. The plot involves a scheme to open a portal to release malevolent spirits and bring on the apocalypse. There's a post-credits scene to set up a sequel, and though I tend to frown on them I want one in this case. If nothing else, it may help shut up the sexist Twitter trolls...no, they're like the cockroaches that will survive nuclear holocaust. My grade: B-plus.

P.S. Classic title song >>>>> New theme song.

Dumb In Dallas

I'm not quite sure which comment (stereotype?) applies more, "men are stupid" or "Dallas sucks." (Okay, "Dallas sucks" is not a stereotype, at least when it comes to the Cowboys.) A blogger for a weekly paper called the Dallas Observer took Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis to task for leaving the team to be with his wife, who gave birth to the couple's second child. Lewis missed a start. The Observer writer, Richie Whitt, wrote:

Don’t have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are.

But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it’s all kosher because of Major League Baseball’s new paternity leave rule?

Follow me this way to some confusion.

Imagine if Jason Witten missed a game to attend the birth of a child. It’s just, I dunno, weird. Wrong even.

The blog Hay Ladies! did an excellent job in responding to Whitt's ridiculous commentary. There's only one thing I feel the need to add: many, many baseball players have missed games when their wives had a baby. It's been going on for a long time, especially since a flight can get a player home in hours. It's not like the old days when teams traveled by train. The only new angle to this particular story is that Major League Baseball now has a paternity leave rule that allows teams to add a player to the roster for a 24-72 hour period. The Rangers wanted an extra pitcher, so they used the rule to call up an pitcher from the minors. Lewis became the first player to be placed on the new paternity leave list. (There's been a bereavement list for a few years now, for serious illnesses or deaths of immediate family members.)

This shouldn't have been a big deal. Actually, it isn't a big deal, except to this Dallas neanderthal and those who "think" like him.

Hat tip to one of my Twitter followers, @jboschan, who posted the link to the Hay Ladies! blog.

SI Swimsuit Issue: Yikes!

I finally got to peruse the copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue that a postal carrier so helpfully left in my mailbox during last week's Snowverkill, and I just have to say...holy crap.

Besides all of the bikini-clad supermodels, many of the ads feature scantily-clad women, on one or two occasions paired with a man, which is shocking. The back cover (both inside and out) features the female Green M&M, and on the inside cover she's peeling off her green shell. There are four wives/girlfriends of international soccer stars in bodypainted swimsuits. How is THIS fashion? The only men seen in any of the photos are in a "Dancing With The Stars" spread featuring athletes, and the men are, of course, fully clothed.

Apparently, however, there must be some female demographic in the readership. There are three men's cologne inserts. (I hate those smelly things, by the way.) One features "Lost" star Josh Holloway (see image), one has a shirtless male model and one has a guy with his little daughter hanging on him from behind. There's also a four-page Perry Ellis ad featuring a male model.

As for articles: for each photo shoot location there's a one-page travelogue, there's a one-page interview of Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn (who is also in swimsuits in this issue), and there's a "humorous" article in which Bar Rafaeli answers questions taken from eHarmony.com and Chemistry.com and the writer analyzes her responses.

I'm fine with all this, but they should really remove the word "Sports" from the title. There's not a drop of sports in this thing.

And, again, where is the all-male swimsuit issue?

Snowverkill and Swimsuits

You may have heard that here in Philadelphia and other parts of the I-95 corridor, we're having a little weather today.

Following December's Snowpocalypse (23.2 inches officially at National Park, NJ -- substituting for Philadelphia International Airport) and this past weekend's Snowmageddon (28.5 inches), the current mess that started last night needed a name. My friend Mark mentioned that it was being referred to as Snoverkill. I added the "w" and made it my goal to see Snowverkill as a trending topic on Twitter. Sure enough, it happened today, at least nationally; I haven't seen it on the Philadelphia list of trending topics, although we do have #ushouldntbeatallstar and #shooturself...

My front steps and a path along the sidewalk in front of my house have been shoveled three times -- my neighbor did it early this morning sometime; I did it a second time around 11 am while there was a lull and just a short coating was on the ground, and a third time around 5:30. In between my two shovelings, over 7 inches of snow fell, and it's still coming down. Less than two minutes after I shoveled the ground was covered again. At 6:45 I measured outside my door -- another two inches already! That would make at least 15 inches in my neighborhood, although it could have been more since early this morning there was a period where the snow mixed with/changed to sleet and rain, which tamps down the snow. (We're under a blizzard warning but the winds haven't been quite as strong as anticipated here, so it may not be officially called a blizzard yet.)