Arsenal 1 West Ham 0

Player ratings from Arsenal's hard fought road win today: Manuel Almunia - 7.0 - didn't have a whole lot to do but came through when necessary Bacary Sagna - 7.5 - rock solid again, what a signing by Wenger, possibly the best right back in England at the moment. Gael Clichy - 7.0 - and pairing up with the best right back in England, it's the best left back in England. Arsenal's fullbacks ability to completely shut down the opposition's wing play while also constantly getting forward into dangerous positions themselves (Clichy a little moreso than Sagna) has been a huge factor in the great start to the season. If these two aren't France's starting fullbacks in their next Euro qualifier, Domenech is an idiot (which he is and they won't be). Kolo Toure - 8.0 - superb as always, great leader, always makes the big tackle, rarely out of position, and even bursts forward with dangerous runs from time to time. One of the best centerbacks in the world imo. When he's gone for the African Cup of Nations in January and February, he'll leave a massive hole to fill. Phillipe Senderos - 5.0 - and the weak link of the defense - this guy continues to scare me, he lacks pace and doesn't make up for it with exceptional positioning. He also commits way too many clumsy fouls so he's always a risk to give up a PK or get a red card. He was ok today but Dean Ashton got the best of him several times, even getting open on a corner for a header, which is surprising given that Phil's greatest strength is that he such a strong player in the air. Gallas can't get back soon enough. Alexandre Hleb - 7.0 - he was playing well before a bad tackle knocked him out (Noble was lucky to get off with a yellow). Great cross to assist the goal. Abou Diaby - 7.5 - he was lively today, looking more comfortable on the left flank than any previous games - hopefully his superb goal against Derby coming into the middle from that position gave him confidence. Cesc Fabregas - 6.0 - off day for Cesc, it was a real battle in the midfield, and he held his own but wasn't able to excel like he has been this season. Unfortunately, his streak of I believe 7 straight games with a goal ended today - absolutely incredible run, especially for a guy who is a playmaking midfielder that spends hardly any time at all in the opposing teams penalty area. Mathieu Flamini - 8.5 - the best player on the field today, won the ball time and time again in the midfield and distributed it well. What a story he's been - was looking to find a new team before the season because he didn't feel he had a future at Arsenal and now has taken that holding midfielder role and made it his own, so much so that Gilberto, perhaps Arsenal's best player last season, has so far played almost exclusively as a centerback. Emmanuel Adebayor - 5.0 - off day for him but he still did ok, held the ball up well before passing it to Hleb for the cross that resulted in the goal. Robin van Persie - 7.0 - pretty inconsistent performance, invisible at times, and gave the ball away too easily on occasion. But also scored the only goal of the game on a nice header and could've easily had a 2nd if it wasn't for a great save by Green to push his shot onto the post. Subs: Emmanuel Eboue - 4.0 - first time I've seen him as a winger this year and I wasn't overly impressed. He was electrifying coming forward as a rightback but doesn't look as comfortable doing so from a more advanced position. But at the same time, I can't blame Wenger for converting him since Sagna has taken over at rightback and we are in desperate need of wingers. Hopefully, Eboue will grow into this new role. Gilberto Silva - 6.0 - I felt much more comfortable about holding a 1-0 lead when he was brought on as another defensive midfielder. Nicklas Bendtner - no rating - only second time I've seen him play this season, didn't really have a chance to do much. It was great to see Arsenal's amazing run to start the season continue with a tough road win over a decent West Ham team that could easily challenge for a European spot this year (though they'll probably finish around 10-12 imo). That's 6 wins in 7 matches in league play, with the only blemish being a 1-1 draw at Blackburn where Lehmann gifted the Rovers their goal, 3 wins in 3 matches in the Champions League, and 1 win in the League Cup (a dominating performance of Arsenal's reserves over Newcastle's 1st team no less). With Henry gone, not even the most optimistic Arsenal fan could've predicted a start to the season like this. But really, it seems that Henry leaving for Barca (he scored a hat-trick today too, good for him) has been a blessing in disguise as all the young players now feel more comfortable and don't have to worry about deferring to a star. Instead of a one-man show, it's a true team effort, game in, game out, and it's been awesome to watch. In Wenger I trust.

The Office, Season 4 premiere - 9.0

The new season of The Office kicked off with a hilarious hour-long episode last night. The first half of the episode, dealing mostly with the aftermath of Michael hitting Meredith with his car, was a little bit stronger but I was still laughing consistently in the last 30 minutes as well. The main characters, Michael, Dwight, Jim, and Pam are all great but what makes this show so amazing are the secondary characters - Andy's nipple chafing, Creed's interest in Meredith's painkillers, Kevin's obsession with Jim and Pam (not to mention him running a 5k in a suit), Stanley's unrelenting surliness, Michael's irrational hatred of Toby, etc, etc were some of the funniest moments from last night. As for the overall outlook of the season, I'm glad the Jim and Pam situation is resolved (for now) as dragging it on for another season as it was would've surely become tedious. Ryan becoming Michael's boss should be interesting as well, and whenever he comes back to Scranton will be hilarious, especially considering how bitter Kelli still is. But really, the ongoing plotlines don't even matter that much, just the everyday stuff in the office is what makes this show so great. It's easily the funniest show on TV and after LOST and The Wire, my favorite currently running show period.

Eastern Promises - 8.5

David Cronenberg's latest is far superior to his last critically acclaimed, graphically violent, Viggo Mortensen vehicle, A History of Violence. Unlike in A History of Violence (which was ok but not great imo), Eastern Promises is fast-paced and gripping from the first shot to the closing credits. The plot, centering around a midwife (Naomi Watts!!!) who becomes involved with the London-based Russian mafia after she delivers the baby of a teenager who was forced into prostitution and finds her diary when she dies during childbirth, is very interesting with a tight 100 minute run time and refreshingly, not a single wasted scene in the entire film. Viggo Mortensen, as a driver and close confidant of the bosses' son, gives an incredibly strong, oscar-level performance, seamlessly and believably transitioning from menacing to compassionate from one scene to the next. Some of the violence could be considered gratuitous (I for one could've done without Viggo's naked fight scene or even one or two less throat-slashings) but I think overall it was important in establishing the dark tone and atmosphere of the film. Don't hold me to it, but right now, I would probably consider Eastern Promises the best film thus far of 2007.

Heroes, Season 2 Premiere - 6.0

I understand many of Jeremy's complaints regarding the Heroes season premiere and agree with several of them, especially regarding the predictability of this particular episode (I'll also be extremely annoyed if the little girl's nightmare drawings transform into visions of the future ala Isaac's paintings). However, while this episode was somewhat subpar, I do think overall it sets up some interesting storylines for the rest of the season. Unlike Jeremy, I'm still interested in what happened to Peter Petrelli; the new Mexican killer girl could be cool (she will end up being a very sympathetic character imo, and she's hot); and Hiro in feudal Japan is sort of cool (though I'm far from sold, even if they did bring in Sarc from Alias to play the white samurai). And I think potentially the best sign is that it seems they are moving on from having just one or two evil individuals like in season 1 (Sylar, Malcolm Mcdowell, and to a lesser extent the Petrelli mom) to having this broader mysterious organization that Mohindar and Mr. Bennet are now apparently declaring war against. This could certainly backfire but for now, I'm intrigued. Not sure how well everything will end up tying together but at the moment, I'm looking forward to watching Heroes this coming week more than any other show outside of The Office.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels - 7.5

This is a very stylish and clever crime thriller from Guy Ritchie. It is fast-paced and entertaining and all the storylines end up tying together relatively neatly. I do however have a few small complaints. For one, the humor was far less consistent in Lock, Stock than in Ritchie's subsequent film Snatch, with Lock, Stock noticeably lacking a consistently hilarious character like Brad Pitt's fast-talking gypsy boxer in Snatch. My other (pretty unreasonable) complaint (that also applies to Snatch) is that the accents are sometimes close to indecipherable for me. This is pretty annoying as it is, but even worse since the dialogue is really the heart of the entire film, so missing a line here or there is worse than it would be with say The Boxer, another movie that comes to mind when I think of difficult accents to understand. Even so, Lock, Stock is a highly enjoyable movie that I suspect will also score well on the rewatchability scale.

reviews

I should be writing my personal statement for my UNC law application right now but instead I think I'll write up some reviews of what I've been watching lately. Enjoy...

Burma

Here's a good blog with a lot of pictures (one of the best ones I've found is seen above) and up to date news on the ongoing democratic protests in Burma against the ruling repressive military junta. Unfortunately (and amazingly) it's blogs like this that are now the main source of news for what is actually happening in Burma, especially since the government has now shut off all internet access within the county. Such a sad story, though it is inspiring to see these people risk imprisonment and even their lives to fight for basic rights that we casually take for granted.

Halo 3

So my roommates and I went and picked Halo 3 up at midnight tonight and I've spent the last couple of hours playing online. The gameplay seems relatively similar which is obviously good because there was no need to make major changes in the first place. There are new weapons and maps but none of them has made a huge impression on me yet. The biggest change is that the online play is exponentially better - there are more pre-game options so you aren't just put into a random game like with Halo 2 and by choosing to prioritize a good connection during our game selection we were able to play live with 4 different accounts on the same TV without any lag at all. This is absolutely amazing - with Halo 2, it started to lag with 2 people playing together and became unplayable with 3+. The graphics are also quite impressive but the improved online play is definitely the best improvement.

Friday Night Lights

Chalk another one up for Jeremy - this show is awesome. I'm starting to see a pattern emerge here, Jeremy recommends show, Ben ignores recommendation, Jeremy persists, Ben gives in, Ben loves show (this pattern can also be applied to games). Anyways, after reading this article by the Sports Guy (whose other favorite shows are The Wire, The Sopranos, and LOST, hmmm those sound familiar, he's got good taste...) I went to Best Buy and bought the complete first season for only $25. I watched the first 7 episodes today with my roommates and the general consensus is this show rocks. I'll give it a rating when I finish the entire season but at this point anything below a 9 would be a shock.

Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor - 9.0

I don't normally review music because really I hardly ever listen to complete albums, especially newer stuff - mostly I've been downloading good songs to listen to while running lately (Maroon 5 and Michael Jackson baby). But since I've listened to this entire album a good 5 times in the last week and 5 or 6 songs considerably more times than that, I felt compelled to write something about it. I think the reason I like Lupe so much is because he combines good lyricism with some really thoughtful and intelligent rap. Really the only thing that separates this album from Illmatic (my all-time favorite rap album) is that with Illmatic there really are no weak tracks (only having 9 songs might have something to do with that) whereas there are a few on Food & Liquor I'm starting to regularly skip over. Even so, this album is awesome and Lupe is now on the short list of rappers I really like.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior - 4.0

This is a pretty listless watch everything blow up action/sci-fi flick. I actually thought its biggest strength was that it didn't fall into the common trap of taking itself too seriously and thus had a few good comedic moments. Even so, I was pretty bored after half an hour and the last chase scene (which was probably close to a 4th of the entire movie) especially dragged and dragged and dragged on.

3:10 to Yuma - 5.0

While this movie did do a few things well (pacing and production value come to mind), overall, it was a bit of a disappointment given the high expectations I had going in. First off, the acting was only good, not great which, when actors of the caliber of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are involved, is a pretty significant letdown. But while the acting was not quite as exceptional as I would have hoped, the bigger failure of this movie was with an overly unbelievable ending (even for a western). I felt like the motivations behind Crowe's character's final actions were not adequately explained and thus these actions were pretty fantastic and implausible. For me, the last 15-20 minutes put a damper on what was a relatively enjoyable previous hour and a half. Bottom line, this movie was only ok. Worth seeing? If you like westerns, then sure - the atmosphere, sets, and plot (until the last scene) are all top-notch. But unfortunately, while 3:10 to Yuma did have its strengths, Unforgiven it was not.

Freaks and Geeks - 10.0

The one and only season of Freaks and Geeks, which I watched over the past week, is definitely up there in my personal top 5 TV seasons ever with LOST 1, The Wire 1 (or 3 or 4), and The Sopranos 1 and 2. Its main strengths are its extremely well-developed (and well-acted) characters and superb writing. It can be both poignant or hilarious and often switches back and forth adeptly. Really, everyone should watch this show - unfortunately we all screwed up and missed out when it was originally on so it was canceled midseason, which really could be seen as both a blessing or a curse. As it is, the 18 episodes that do exist stand on their own as a masterpiece, and realistically as with almost any show (excluding The Wire), this one would've surely declined as well in subsequent seasons. But even when I try to convince myself it was all for the best, in the back of the head I'm still thinking I wish I had more Freaks and Geeks to watch, more Lindsey (!!), more Bill, more Daniel, more Ken (Seth Rogen!) - hell more of everybody, all the characters are so freaking good...

The Lives of Others - 9.0

The Lives of Others is a German film about the Stasi spying program in East Germany before the wall fell. It does an outstanding job of painting the big picture of the overall culture of fear and injustice that was brought on by the Stasi program through the telling of a smallish but heartbreaking story about a Stasi interrogator who is assigned to spy on a possibly subversive playwright and his actress girlfriend. Using a story with well-developed, dynamic, morally ambiguous, and above all realistic characters makes this film that much more accessible. It is riveting literally from the opening scene to the final credits. It should also be commended for its subtlety and nuance which helped this film avoid the common pitfall of other 'message' movies of inciting resentment by banging said message over the viewer's head. Very highly recommended - I was disappointed when Pan's Labryinth didn't win the Best Foreign Film oscar but now I can see why. Along with Pan's Labryinth, The Lives of Others is easily one of the 5 best movies I've seen from 2006 and it could be argued they are the top two.

Brazil 4 USA 2

I didn't pay quite as much attention to the USA/Brazil game today as I normally would since we had football on the other TV but I think I still got a pretty decent feel for what was going on. Here are some player ratings. Tim Howard - 7.0 - for a team that gave up 4 goals, he actually played pretty damn well. He actually made a very good save on the first goal, only for it to deflect off Onyewu and in. On the second, he couldn't do much, and the 4th was a PK. He does get docked points for the 3rd goal, Ronaldinho's freekick. While it was well-placed, Howard was awfully slow to react. He's a good keeper though, we're lucky to have him. Steve Cherundolo - 8.0 - I thought he had an excellent game. Robinho did do him up once in the corner (absolutely disgusting move to get out of a double team, then Robinho had Onyewu beat with a stepover but was tripped/dove) but other than that he did pretty well defensively. He also made a very nice run and cutback that set up Dempsey's goal - it was especially nice to see an American lift his head and actually look up before he played a cross for once. I think Brazil is the type of team Cherundolo excels against - they keep it on the ground and their strengths are their passing, speed, and technical ability. He can hold his own against even the best team like that whereas against a team like Sweden that overpowers you physically, he struggles because he's so small. Oguchi Onweyu - 2.0 - obviously a tough matchup but he was pretty terrible. Own goal, was (very poorly) marking Lucio on the 2nd goal, and could've given up a PK to Robinho. But oh well, better players than him have looked completely overmatched against the likes of Ronnie, Kaka, and Robinho. Carlos Bocanegra - 5.0 - his lack of speed was glaring at times but he didn't have his worst game. He did well to just run the ball into the net for our first goal - it would seem like, since he's such a physical presence, that Onweyu would be the more dangerous player on set pieces, but Bocanegra continues to show that he's extremely valuable in these situations. Boca actually scored 5 goals for Fulham last year in only 25 or 30 games. Don't feel like looking it up but I'd be willing to bet that was in the top 2 or 3 for goals by defenders in the entire EPL. Anyways, I'm still conflicted on him, I see him as a pretty average defender but he's now been made captain for both USA and Fulham, so he must be doing something right. Heath Pearce - 6.0 - I honestly didn't notice him much, which for a defender is normally an ok thing - means he didn't make any glaring mistakes. He also had a nice long range shot that should've set up Wolff for a rebound goal (or should've been a PK, never got to see a great replay). DaMarcus Beasley - 4.0 - he's looked good recently but never looked dangerous today and wasted several potentially dangerous set pieces. I cringe every time we have a dead ball in a good position and it's Beasley getting ready to strike it. I just know it's either going to be floated 20 yards past everyone or not clear the first defender, there's really no in between. On the positive side, as usual, he did some good defensive work today. Benny Feilhaber - 3.0 - pretty invisible for most of the game, can't really remember him doing much of anything. Michael Bradley - 7.5 - in my opinion, this was the best I've seen Bradley play. He made several good tackles in the midfield, especially on Kaka, his distribution was not great but not bad either, and he even had a nice strike on goal from 20-25 yards out. He did stupidly give away a PK but I'm willing to forgive that since he had such a good game otherwise. Landon Donovan - 5.0 - I almost gave him another low rating but figured I was being unfair to him - after all, he did play a huge part in both our goals, hitting the corner that Boca finished and assisting the assist on the 2nd (great ball that sent Cherundolo into open space down the sideline). Still he is incredibly frustrating with his lack of aggression. Does the following situation sound familiar: Landon has the ball in space on a wing, 1 on 1 with a defender, Landon takes a few steps towards the defender and perhaps even feints one way like he's going to make a move, only to think better of it and quickly drop the ball back to a midfielder behind him (normally Feilhaber or Bradley). Landon, you're the best fucking player we've got, when you have a chance to attack the defense, do it for god's sake! I can't remember the last time we've scored a goal against a credible opponent from a long build-up where we're controlling possession in the other team's half. So when our best player, who by the way is quite explosive, has a chance to take someone on 1 on 1 and make something happen, he needs to do it. Josh Wolff - 1.0 - Just when I had finally begun to relax because we'd passed the 15 game mark under Bob Bradley and it seemed like the Josh Wolff era had finally, mercifully, come to a close, we call him back up for a goddamn game against Brazil. Think of every cuss word you can and then colorfully use them in combination - now you're probably close to what I was saying when I saw this fucker was starting today. He tries hard... there's the comprehensive list of Josh Wolff's footballing strengths. I swear the only way I'd be madder than if he plays for the US again would be if we were about to play Spain or France and called Jeff Agoos into the squad. Clint Dempsey - 6.0 - took the only real chance he had well. While I still like him more as a midfielder, after watching his last game for Fulham (goal, 2 assists against Spurs) and his last few US games, I'm becoming more confident that he can be more than serviceable as a forward. He's especially shown improvement as a target player. I still consider Landon our best player, but Dempsey is gaining ground quickly. I'm not going to bother rating our subs because they really didn't do a whole lot. Overall, I was pleased with our performance, we played with them and even took control of the match for a 15 minute span there when we were down 2-1. And even though we did give up 4 goals, in my opinion, our back 4 looked much more solid in this game than they did against Sweden. Brazil really only had a handful of chances the entire match from the run of play (though we do need to really work on our defending on set pieces, it's godawful and has been for years when playing against good competition - only goals against us by Germany in '02 WC quarterfinal and by Italy in '06 WC were off set pieces). If a few calls go the other way (we get the PK when Wolff went down, they don't get the freekick on what looked like not much of a foul on Ronnie that set up his freekick for the 3rd goal) and it could've easily ended up a draw. This losing streak is however getting pretty annoying. That's now 5 consecutive losses since winning the Gold Cup and our next match, against what will almost definitely be a full strength Swiss squad in Basel is going to be very tough as well. But whatever, at least we're playing quality teams now, I'd rather lose a competitive match against Brazil or Sweden than pound Guatemala 5-0.

NFL

NFL starts in an hour. I am excited... Here are some playoff predictions: AFC East - Pats AFC North - Steelers AFC South - Colts AFC West - Chargers Wild Card - Broncos, Ravens NFC East - Eagles NFC North - Bears NFC South - Panthers NFC West - Seahawks Wild Card - Saints, Cowboys Superbowl - Pats over Eagles