Saturday Morning Cartoons

We're going to check out Knocked Up this afternoon (can't be missing LeBron vs. the Pistons round six), and I'm obviously very excited. I feel bad for not making it last night, considering it is at a scintillating 91% on the Tomatometer with 128 precincts reporting. To put that in perspective, other films that achieve 91% on the Tomatometer include Million Dollar Baby, which along with being morbidly depressing and secretly a black comedy, won Best Picture in 2005, and a laundry list of other fantastic, award-winning movies such as School of Rock, High Fidelity (Jack Black, critical darling?) Hotel Rwanda, Borat, Children of Men and Capote. Again, very excited, although more pumped for Superbad.

Few links before I leave you:

1) This is a compelling argument for Pirates 2 and 3 as great, yet misunderstood, films. It's long and spends a little too much time going over the plot (who hasn't seen these movies?), but makes a very nice case. One problem: You can convince me in no way that the Calypso storyline was that relevant to Pirates 3 it needed to take up so much time. I think they couldn't find an editor so they just put everything they shot into the movie.

2) Courtesy of Andrew, perhaps the best case made for Obama as President thus far: he's a baller.

Cut to the future Mrs. Obama asking her brother to take her new boyfriend out on the court, to make sure he was not the type to hog the ball or call constant fouls.

This was touched on previously, maybe by Henry at TrueHoop, but isn't basketball a pretty good indicator of the type of person someone is? Would you really want a ball-hog in a position of power? How can someone who doesn't find joy in getting the ball to an open teammate supposed to be given any sort of responsibility? All our leaders should be able to throw at least a decent entry pass to the post.

3) There was big Star Wars convention last weekend to honor the thirtieth anniversary, and USA Today's PopCandy blog was there to cover it all. Two of the cooler features was a gallery of Darth Vader helmets and a guy in a Boba Fett costume that had a freaking working jetpack. In the Villains Hall of Fame, you've got to include Fett and Vader both along with Ric Flair, The Joker, Iago, Mayor Wilkins and Red Grant.



(I'm definitely going to have to do a Villains Hall of Fame post sometime. Yes.)

4) Do you know what the best part about LeBron's explosion on Thursday night was? It caused people to start bringing up all of the other great, forgotten playoff performances of the past. I would say as good as James was, I wouldn't be able to move him above Allen Iverson's Game One performance in the 2001 NBA Finals. People talk about how crappy LeBron's teammates are, but AI's weren't a whole lot better, and I think it's safe to say the 2001 Lakers, who went 16-1 in that postseason, were a little better than this 2007 Pistons team is now.



That Lakers team hadn't lost in 67 days. Iverson scored 48 in the overtime victory, and thank God for YouTube. Enjoy. Also, never forget how good MJ was.

5) Kristen Bell, recovering from the Veronica Mars cancellation by being her usual smoking self. And she's in a movie with Jason Segel? I'm there.

6) I enjoyed this link way more than anyone should, which then led me to YouTube looking up some of my other childhood favorites. Obviously Batman: The Animated Series and Animaniacs are the best cartoons listed there (you can't even argue that, although TMNT was definitely quality action as well), but I'm going to have to go with this as my favorite theme song: