: cowardly buffoon
'nother day, 'nother day. With football season closing in, I think it's time for an early list.
In roughly twenty-five years, give or take, of watching football, here are the 20 Greatest QBs of My Lifetime:
(feel free to disagree)
1) John Elway
2) Joe Montana
3) Tom Brady
4) Peyton Manning
5) Steve Young
6) Dan Marino
7) Aaron Rodgers
8) Brett Favre
9) Brett Favre
10) Troy Aikman
11) Kurt Warner
12) Ben Roethlisberger
13) Jim Kelly
14) Eli Manning
15) Warren Moon
16) Donovan McNabb
17) Randall Cunningham
18) Drew Bledsoe
19) Michael Vick
20) Boomer Esiason
Honorable Mention: Phil Simms, Mark Brunell, Jim Everett, Vinny Testaverde, Rich Gannon, Daunte Culpepper
Football fans, discuss.
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Today's entry in the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time? Easy peesy, lemon squeezy, it's...
Michael Caine
as Dr. Frank Bryant in Educating Rita (1983)
Where do you start with Michael Caine? He might not have that one definitive role, but he's been so dependably outstanding, so taken-for-granted excellent, for going-on almost fifty years. He's one of the greatest English-speaking actors alive, appearing in almost 76,000 movies (I jest) - certainly he has to be on this list (and he'll appear a little later on down the road). Why not his terrific, subtle turn in this adaptation of Willy Russell's play about a housewife (Julie Walters, first-rate, and, like Caine, Oscar-nominated for her work) who decided to go back to school and finds herself drawn to and mentored by a disillusioned, sozzled literature professor? As Dr. Frank Bryant, Caine is both funny and profoundly sad, unaware as to where he stands in the world, what he's doing with his career, how to get through to his students. As Rita gets him to gradually lighten and loosen up and even begin to care again, Caine makes the revolution of a man's soul look effortless - and there's nothing actor-y or covert about it. He's not necessarily a likable character, but Caine doesn't care. He doesn't ask you to like him - he just gives himself to you, warts and all.
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With the discouraging movie news that Werner Herzog's new film Queen of the Desert, starring Naomi Watts as early 20th century explorer, archaeologist and political attache Gertrude Bell (a role the underrated Watts will likely excel in) will feature the dreadful Robert Pattison in the role made famous fifty years ago by the great Peter O'Toole, I, having seen Lawrence of Arabia far too long ago to vividly recall it, decided to refresh my memory about what exactly T.E. Lawrence did. If you're at all interested, here's a PBS link:
http://www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/players/lawrence.html
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And finally, a painting today by Rene Magritte, the great Belgian surrealist who died on this date in 1967.
The Menaced Assassin
1927
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York
In the foreground - or, really, the first distinct area of space, two bowler-hatted men wait patiently, stealthily, one with a cudgel, the other holding a net. (Incidentally, both of these men resemble Magritte himself and would appear over and over in his work.) Moving up the tilted floor into the next area of space, we see a man about to leave a crime scene - a woman lies dead, her head severed - but halted and distracted by the music wafting out of a gramophone. Beyond this area of space, we see three men peeping into the room through a doorway, over the blacony. What does it all mean? You tell me. Magritte was a big fan of cinema, especially detective thrillers. What we're left with is a dream-like reverie, a film on canvas. Witness, Victim, Murderer, Captor... hmmm.
Images:
http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/534/Educating_Rita_6091_Medium.jpg
http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art2/rene-magritte-the-menaced-assassin.jpg
http://www.mediamarketjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/lawrence-of-arabia-otoole.jpg
http://iqfb.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/john-elway.jpg
Information:
http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A3692&page_number=1&sort_order=1&template_id=1
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