Ugliest NBA Jerseys Ever

I miss the NBA. I can't wait for the season to start. In fact, I miss it so much that I've been re-watching some old classic games lately to tide me over until NBA 2K11 comes out, and the season fully kicks off a couple weeks after that. I know that my team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, are going to take a few steps back this season and will almost assuredly be lottery-bound, but I still can't wait to watch what happens. I can't wait to see how much Kevin Durant has continued to improve, to see if Kobe can tie Jordan at six rings, to see if the Celts have enough left in the tank for one more ring, to see if the Heat can gel and prove me wrong. There are so many interesting subplots unraveling as the NBA season gets underway that my League Pass Broadband will most certainly be money well spent. So, in an effort to whet my appetite for more NBA goodness, I popped in a classic NBA DVD in last night and as I was watching the game, a thought occurred to me - "Man, those jerseys are fucking ugly." In an effort to maintain the suspense for all my (two) readers, I won't say what game I watched, because the team's jersey that ignited this idea is also the jersey that got the number one spot on my "Ugliest NBA Jerseys Ever" list. It's not a good list to be on, and luckily every franchise involved has since changed their jerseys for the better.

My criteria for the list is pretty simple: Ugly jerseys are ugly. Everybody who looks at one of these jerseys knows immediately that they're ugly. Sometimes it's the color(s); sometimes it's the logo/image; sometimes it's a combo of both. There is one NBA jersey that I instantly wanted to put on the list, but I couldn't because it was just so deliciously bad. It's so bad it's good, and I have a feeling that anybody that wanted to be ironic or funny could wear this jersey, and with the right amount of confidence and alcohol could get laid with it. I can't say that for the rest of the jerseys on this list. So, we'll kick this off with the SOBIG (So Bad It's Good) Jersey.

SOBIG Jersey: Toronto Raptors Jersey circa 1995

Look at that fucking thing. It's sheer greatness by way of child-like euphoria. Let's ignore for a moment that a basketball team has never won a championship with a hideous jersey before. Let's also ignore for that same moment that a team with a fucking dinosaur on it's jerseys has never won a championship. Instead, let's focus on how the hell this abomination could ever have seen the light of day...

In 1993, an NBA expansion franchise was approved for Toronto. This signaled the arrival of the first Canadian NBA team since the Huskies played in Toronto in the late 40's. Instead of retaining the Huskies name, which makes sense because Huskies are known for living in cold climates like Canada, the owners decided instead to opt for something new and edgy. The list of over 2,000 team names was eventually whittled down to a few gems (I use that term extremely loosely): Hogs, Raptors, T-Rex (what the fuck kind of name is that anyway? "The Toronto T-Rex?!" Is that even fucking plural???), Dragons, and Scorpions - because nothing is more Canadian than the desert-dwelling scorpion, right? Due to the enormous success of 1993's Jurassic Park, the owners settled on the Raptors. I guess I kind of get it - a team is convinced that they'll get 6-14 year old boys hooked on their team because a deadly, carnivorous reptile was featured prominently in a huge summer blockbuster that everybody with a pulse adored. It's still stupid compared to the Huskies, but I kind of get it. This was the same decade that spawned the number one hit "Macarena," after all.

What I don't get is the fucking idea for the jersey. I can just imagine some coke-addled marketing exec strolls into a boardroom and in front of the trustees unveils his idea: one of the most proficient, deadly predators to ever roam the Earth dribbling a basketball. And he's wearing basketball shoes. And a white uniform with a purple "R" emblazoned on it. The raptor is slightly anthropomorphous, as his talons are replaced with hand-claws, and instead of the evil glare of a hunting raptor, there's an expression on the raptor's face that indicates he's just walked in on his father sleeping with his wife. While dribbling a basketball. Above the traumatized raptor is the team's name in a font that hasn't been used since the title card to the 80's motocross classic Rad, and the player's number is hidden away to the side. Sounds good, right? Yeah, but it's not busy enough yet. "Can we somehow make it uglier?" an overly concerned trustee asks. "Yeah, make it purple. And throw some cocaine-like pinstripes on it, but make them jagged, 'cuz that's edgy. And we'll put some spikes above the player's name on the back of the jersey," the marketing exec proclaims while rubbing his gums with more coke. That's really the only plausible explanation I can come up with.

However, there's something just so hideous about the jersey that I love it. I've always been a fan of dinosaurs doing things I love, and this does have that, after all. It's just an idea that is so ridiculous that even in the 80's I think it would have been scoffed at. It's so bad it is actually cool. I don't have this jersey, but I really think if I did, I would have an easier time of getting laid on the weekends. This jersey has the potential to be like a Michael Jackson "Thriller" jacket - if it is worn confidently, it will attract people, and great conversations can ensue, and then great sex. Because that's how it works, right? Right?

Number Five: Mid-90's Atlanta Hawks

This isn't an entirely atrocious jersey, but it is nasty enough to warrant a spot on the list. There was a time during the 90's where it seemed like every franchise with an animal name needed to include that animal on their jersey for some reason - and that animal had to have a basketball in or around it's hands/claws. This is an example of just overdoing it. This is a fucking basketball jersey, not a goddamn prom dress - it doesn't need to be extremely complicated and full. The Hawk is band enough - it's a stupid image to begin with, just staring straight forward with it's beak slightly agape - but what really clinches it a spot on the list is the color scheme. It starts off red and ends black. I just don't get it. Were the Hawks really so bad that they figured they had to fuck with the opposing team's perception of vision in order to win? I don't know. But if that was their goal, then they did a great job.

Number Four: Late-90's Cleveland Cavaliers

It's no surprise that I'm a Cavs fan, but my fandom doesn't preclude me from recognizing a pile of shit when it's in front of me. The slanted "Cleveland" on the front of the jersey is bad enough - really, what's the point of slanting a word on a jersey, anyway? - but the real big issue comes with the lettering and numbering itself. The white letters aren't too bad - they're not in an atrocious font like the Raptors jerseys or anything like that - and they're big enough to be read clearly. Nope, the big issue comes with the orange lines inside the lettering and numbering. What the fuck is that about anyway? It looks like a six year old kid took an orange Crayola marker to the jerseys and started tracing all the letters and numbers from the inside. Then, of course, there's the blue stripe across the front and back of the jersey that looks like a Smurf wiped his ass with it. That's how bad the Cavs were in the late-90's: A smurf used their ugly-as-hell jerseys as toilet paper.




Number Three: Mid-to-Late-90's Detroit Pistons

This one is just frustrating for one major reason: there was nothing wrong with their jerseys in the first place! The franchise decided that the traditional red and blue jerseys were too awesome and thought they needed to ugly things up a bit after they got a superstar-in-the-making with Grant Hill. I don't know what it is with basketball teams and the color teal, but between the Vancouver Grizzlies, the Pistons, and now the Oklahoma City Thunder, you'd think that the color had some sort of hypnotic trance over opponents. I don't get how franchises could think that teal would be a good color for their teams. I just don't. It's an ugly color that doesn't impose any type of fear in anyone, aside from homophobic southern Baptists, and no self-respecting fan would be caught dead wearing one. This was also the era where a team had to put some sort of stupid logo on the front of the jersey, and so it was only logical to put a flaming bishop from chess on it. Because there's nothing gay about a flaming-anything surrounded by the color teal, right? I kind of get the bishop, as it's supposed to be a horse, and the whole horsepower thing attached to pistons, but it doesn't make it any less stupid. Poor Grant Hill couldn't escape his bad luck; first he had to wear this atrocity, then he went to Orlando and began falling apart like Humpty Dumpty.

Number Two: Late-90's-Early-2000's Milwaukee Bucks Alternate

I think that this jersey was only worn once or twice, because I don't even remember ever seeing it. I'm guessing that the team walked onto the opposing team's court with their heads hung low and trying to avoid any type of attention towards the creature on their chests. Once the opposing team got a glimpse of the jerseys, they started laughing and beat the Bucks by 46 points. The lettering is bad enough - white-to-purple lettering which is surprisingly hard to read - but the real clincher is that buck(?) underneath it. The coloring is just disgusting for starters, but once you look at the anatomy of the creature, it looks like they decided the buck on the team's logo just didn't look enough like the Loch Ness Monster for their liking. Maybe they were shooting for a fucking Brontosaurus? Who knows for sure? Either way, it's just gross and offensive to bucks throughout the world. The only aspect of the buck appropriately portrayed are the antlers, and even those are overlapping the letters above. It's a good thing these jerseys disappeared back into the bowels of Hell as quickly as they appeared. Had they stuck around, I probably would believe in the Earth ending in 2012.

Number One: Late-90's Utah Jazz

Because nothing exemplifies improvisational, cool-as-hell jazz like mountains, right? Everybody knows how jazz originated: A rich white dude climbed the mountains of Salt Lake City with only his trusty trumpet attached to his back. Once he reached the peak of the mountains, he started playing something so amazing on his trumpet that it turned the sky blue. That's where the jerseys come from. Either that, or jazz was developed by slaves in the 1800's alongside blues and slowly took shape over the next century and a half. But I'm pretty sure it was the first one.

The mountains are bad enough, as they look like they were designed by an 8th grade class on Microsoft Paint, but it's really the color that kills me. It's a weird mixture of gay-purple and suicide-purple; looking at the jersey makes me wonder if I'm gay and want to kill myself. I can only imagine the mental issues the players went through having to wear the fucking things. The jerseys almost explain Karl Malone's complete collapse in Game 1 of the '97 Finals - he blew two clutch free throws before MJ knocked down the game winner. I guess now I know why: right before he lined up to shoot free throw number one, he looked down at his jersey and started questioning his sexuality and lost focus on the game. Clank! There's really no coming back from that, is there? One wonders if Malone wouldn't be remembered as a choke artist quite so well if he only had a decent jersey on his back from time to time.

To make it even worse, the word "Jazz" emblazoned on the front of the jersey looks like it's speeding past the mountains due to the lines coming off the "Z" at the end. Even the fucking word was embarassed to be on the goddamn thing it was trying to run away! Growing up as a Jordan fan, I was infinitely relieved to see the Bulls would be playing the Jazz in the Finals, because I knew that there was no way in Hell that a team wearing those jerseys could ever win the championship. David Stern just simply wouldn't allow it. We'll end this little list by just taking a moment to appreciate the ugliest jersey ever. Look at this picture of Jeff Hornacek for a minute. Look at the expression on his face. It says, "Yeah, I know I look like James Woods at a San Francisco disco." Poor guy. It's one thing to lose two NBA Finals back-to-back, but it's another thing entirely to lose them wearing those things. I certainly hope the Jazz ownership shelled out the money for the therapy bills.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

*****
Five Stars Out of Five

Every year summer rolls along and I spend much of my free time at the local cineplex - is that what you kids say these days? - and every summer I find I'm generally disappointed with most of what I see. I tend to only watch movies I know I'll like, and even the movies I do like often times fall much more flat than I imagine them to be in my mind. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions to that rule; Inception certainly comes to mind, as does Inglourious Basterds from last summer, and The Dark Knight the one before that. However, for every Inception there are five or six Iron Man 2's - you know, movies that aren't all that bad, but don't really live up to the hype you have built up for your head over the span of months of picking apart every trailer and TV spot you see. And then there are types of movies that you see previews for and are indifferent to. I call them "Meh" trailers, as they could go either way, and they're not on your must-see list. More often than not, I ignore those "Meh" movies and instead save my money (what little I have). Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World was certainly a "Meh" trailer, and even though I read and thoroughly enjoyed the graphic novels the film is based on and I absolutely love everything director Edgar Wright touches (I prefer his BBC show "Spaced" over the UK "The Office"), the trailer didn't exactly make me explode with excitement. So, on a whim Friday night, I decided to myself, "Fuck it, go see the movie or watch reruns of "Locked Up" on MSNBC." I am supremely glad I decided to go to this movie.

Let me preface this review by stating that I am the target audience for this movie: I'm a twenty-something kid (that's right, kid, not an adult; sorry, mom, I'm just not ready to move along yet) who recently had his heart broken and is struggling with getting older and taking on more adult responsibilities. I want the best of both worlds: I want to be able to buy booze, smoke cigarettes, and have all kinds of sexy sex without having to worry about adult issues like bills (so... many... bills), "personal accountability," or STD's. Much like the eponymous character of the movie, I'm a little boy stuck in an adult body. Beyond that, I was raised on pop culture; you know, video games (I fucking loved me some Sega Genesis, bitches), movies, music, and television. To take the bizarro similarities even one step further, I played bass in a band much like Mr. Pilgrim does in the movie. Christ, I feel like I might even be Scott Pilgrim... But I think that's part of the movie's charm: you relate to the characters, and you feel like it could be you in those shoes, even if what unfolds before you is so goddamn ridiculous.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a pretty aimless 22 year-old Canadian who currently started dating 17 year-old Knives Chau (an adorable Ellen Wong). Scott's had a rough go of things lately: he shares a bed with his gay roommate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin, Macaulay's little brother) in their no-bedroom apartment, he recently got dumped by longtime girlfriend Nat who went on to form an insanely successful band, and he's playing bass in a struggling local band called Sex Bob-bomb (a great reference to those pesky bombs from the "Mario" franchise). His relationship with Knives is pretty harmless - they don't even hold hands, and they spend the majority of their relationship together at the record store or riding the bus - and it's clear that he's using her as a stepping stone to getting over his ex-girlfriend. But then Scott meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who is probably my biggest Hollywood crush now), literally - she uses a subspace highway that passes through Scott's dreams in order to more quickly deliver goods for Amazon. He harasses her into going out on a date with him, and before they know it, they've entered into a relationship with one another. There's a catch, though. In order to continue dating Ramona, Scott has to defeat her Seven Evil Exes in battle. Scott's life starts to fall apart around him as he has to fight outrageous battles against douchey exes.

It's a pretty basic plot, but it's delivered in such a uniquely fantastical way that it works incredibly well. Edgar Wright has made such a loving flick to late 80's/early 90's video games and arrested development that it's clear that he and the cast had a blast making this flick. I wondered how Wright would handle the more fantastic portions of the film since he's dealt with smaller budgets in the past - Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, two of my favorite comedies ever were not expensive projects, but still fucking rocked - but he proved more than capable of using his genius in excellent fashion. The fight scenes are superbly choreographed and he sprinkles little gaming nuggets throughout, like boss battles with life bars, characters blinking red when they're on the verge of death (thanks, Zelda!), and defeated opponents exploding into coins. It's off-the-wall and unbelievable, but it works. Better than it should, as a matter of fact. I think part of the experience is how nonchalantly everyone handles it; the characters all act as if the occurrences are common-place, and that adds tremendously to the comedy. The film really could have faltered if the characters knowingly winked at what was unfolding on-screen, but instead Wright opts to play it straight.

The acting across the board is excellent, too. I don't know why I like Michael Cera, but I do. He's the exact type of actor I should hate, but I can't. He's quirky and awkward, but unlike Jesse Eisenberg, he makes it work for himself. He's almost always the clueless, underdeveloped kid in movies, but he shines here. Scott is a big of an egotistical prick who doesn't understand that his actions hurt others, and it's nice to see Cera act less like a humbled turd and instead a slacker who doesn't care if he hurts anyone around him. It makes his progress as a character more relatable and interesting. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is great as Ramona - she plays the character with just the right amount of distance and aloofness. It's a slippery slope to play a character like Ramona, because she could just as easily been a character most people hate, but she is totally believable as the girl Scott's crushing on. Kieran Culkin is hysterical as Wallace Wells, and Ellen Wong is just so damn cute as Knives Chau that you can't help but root for her. All of the evil exes are brilliant, too, with the highlight definitely belong to Brandon Routh's vegan-powered Todd Ingram. It's been interesting to watch Routh grow as an actor since he portrayed Superman, and he is so good here that I hope he somehow makes it back into the red and blue some day. A special mention must go out to Jason Schwartzmann as Gideon Graves, as he is such a tremendous douche that you can't help but love hating the guy. Schwartzmann has always oozed a certain douchiness, and he embraces it here to be the douchiest douce in Doucheville.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is a movie that was made for my generation: the man-children who struggle with growing up and leaving behind the great things that made our youth so memorable. The movie embraces it's retro-vibes and keeps the laughs and action coming at a breakneck pace. I can't get over how much I loved this movie, and I think a lot of it has to do with how perfectly it encapsulates the inherent silliness of growing up and falling in love. It's a movie I will probably show my kids some day in the future when they ask what it was like to be younger. They won't get it. And neither will a lot of other people. But that's the point: the movie wasn't made for anyone else. It was made for me and people like me. Congratulations, Mr. Wright. You've done it again.

The Expendables

***1/2**
Three and a Half Stars Out of Five

There's a scene about halfway through The Wrestler in which Mickey Rourke's character, Randy "The Ram" Robinson, is in a bar with a stripper and they're listening to Ratt's "Round and Round." They are having a drink, and the two start reminiscing about the good old days of 80's hair metal. Then, The Ram says, "Then that Cobain pussy had to come around and had to ruin it all." The two then discuss what was so wrong about having a good time, and how much the 90's sucked. That basically sums up my feelings towards many action movies for the last decade or so. Maybe it was 9/11 that played the role of "Cobain," and had to suck the joy out of everything. Maybe it was the lack of uber-males like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Maybe it was the choice to focus on fighting robots and other special effects spectacles instead of manly men doing manly things with manly weapons. I don't know what the specific "Cobain" it was that neutered action movies, but it happened nevertheless, and it hurt guys like me who grew up idolizing Commandos, Rambos, Running Men, and semi-professional arm wrestlers/truck drivers meeting their estranged sons for the first time.

Simply put, the action genre has been on life-support for quite some time. That's not to say that there haven't been good action movies in the last 15-20 years, because there have been. I loved the Bourne franchise, the new Bond movies rocked (especially Casino Royale), and some cool comic book adaptations have kept my thirst for action in check. But there aren't anymore movies made featuring alpha males who routinely dispatch nameless and faceless cronies by the dozen for a reason that doesn't matter. Sometimes it's just fun to watch bad guys get killed because they're bad. Luckily, this summer has seen a bit of a resurgence in paper-thin-plotted action movies with the likes of The Losers, The A-Team, and now The Expendables. I'll say right away that The Expendables isn't as much fun as The A-Team was, but it definitely takes the action to places that it hasn't been in two decades.

The Expendables is built around Sylvester Stallone's idea of combining the biggest action stars - past and present - in one over-the-top (Sly fans will get the pun) action spectacle. It features the three greatest action stars of the 80's - Sly, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger - on-screen together for the first time (the scene is only about three minutes, it's nowhere near as climactic as the scene in Heat featuring Pacino and De Niro, but it's still worth the price of admission to see the Arnie glaring at Sly and the two stars taking potshots at one another, if only for a few minutes). The scene, much like the movie itself, is a tribute to the fans who have made these men superstars over the years. This is an 80's action flick made in 2010, and it's a helluva lot of fun.

I'm going to skip a synopsis here and instead do something a bit different - I'm going to run down all of the stars in the movie, why they're in the movie, and why they kick ass. There's not much of a plot to write about anyway - it's an 80's action movie, after all - and it's just not important to the movie as a whole. What matters are the people in the movie, and the action. Oh, the sweet action.

Sly - the Italian Stallion is an icon. He's one of the few guys out there who is actually a great actor, but he decided over the years to apply his skill set to silly action movies instead of creating great films like the original Rocky. So what if he has had more Botox than Joan Rivers, or taken more steroids than that high school nitwit who wants to make varsity desperately badly! He's a man, damnit! Sly is one of the few icons still kicking it old school, and for that, he will always have a special place in my heart. He stars as Barney, the aging mercenary and leader of the Expendables, a crew that is apparently invincible and just love to kill dudes.

Jason Statham - Stick with me here: Statham is kinda like Karl Malone, minus, you know, the whole "Karl Malone is a huge dick" thing. They're both great at what they do, but neither of them can really carry franchises. They're great second fiddle dudes, as Statham shows here. He's great as Lee Christmas (such a funny name for a bad-ass), and his charisma helps make him likable. Also like Malone, he refuses to go fully bald, instead riding the wave of male pattern baldness like a champ. If he continues to follow Malone's career trajectory, expect him to go fully bald within the next four years, and then a few months after that, Kobe Bryant will accuse him of trying to fuck his wife.

Jet Li - the diminutive Asian is slightly under-used here. It's kind of a good thing though, since his English hasn't improved since 2000's Romeo Must Die, his first American movie. As an aside, I remember watching Romeo Must Die in theaters after a track meet in 8th grade with my brother (it was that or American Psycho, we fucked up) and thinking it was the best movie ever made. DMX was in it, and Jet Li fucked Anthony Anderson up with a fire hose! That movie was a good bookend to a solid 8th grade which included a lot of sexual firsts. My freshman year of high school would be a huge disappointment, as I don't recall seeing any Jet Li movies in theaters, and I know I went almost a full year without making out with a girl (sigh). Either way, Jet brings some cool kung fu action to the table, and even if his dialogue was forced and quite often unfunny, he was a cool addition.

Mickey Rourke - there's not much Mr. Rourke can't do right these days. He elevated Iron Man 2 from an over-stuffed sequel to a must-see due to his (criminally underused) Ivan Vanko. He's great here as Tool, the retired Expendable whose tattoo shop still serves as the unofficial meeting place for the guys. The only scene in the entire movie which has any dramatic weight belongs to Rourke, and he knocks it out of the park. He doesn't appear too much in the flick, but you can tell he's got a real rapport with Sly and company, and his appearance alone makes the movie better.

Terry Crews - the Old Spice maniac doesn't do a whole lot here. I've never been a big fan of Crews, as he's generally overacted in everything I've seen him in, but those Old Spice commercials where he screams psychotically for 30 seconds won me over. He's basically here to take a few shots at Jet Li's size and blow shit up.

Randy Couture - what does a UFC-retiree do when he's all punched out? Become an action star, I guess. I've basically stayed away from the whole MMA-craze, so I don't know anything about Couture aside from the fact that he's probably capable of ripping somebody's arm off and beating him to death with it. He also has a very small role in the flick, but he does have a cool-as-hell fight scene with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

"Stone Cold" - the retired WWF star (I refuse to call is WWE, so there) is decent as an evil henchman. He doesn't do much except shoot guns when called upon, or punch people in the face when he needs to. He does both well. I really wish at one point he would have just grabbed a can of beer, started guzzling the sunovabitch, thrown the empty can at Sly, flipped him off, and then gave him the Stone Cold stunner, at which point we hear the Rock's theme song explode throughout the arena and he comes running to Sly's rescue, smacks Stone Cold around a bit, drops him with the Rock Bottom, then gives him the People's Elbow, and then... wait, I thought we were watching RAW now. Sorry.

Dolph Lundgren - Ivan Drago himself! The ravage Ruskie finally made it back to the big time! For the last 15 years or so, there's been a pretty neat debate floating around about who the better DTV (direct to video) star was: Dolph or Van Damme. Hell if I know the answer. I basically stopped watching both of them after Universal Soldier. Speaking of, Dolph basically plays the same guy as he did during the Vietnam intro to Universal Soldier. Does anybody play a giant sociopath better than Dolph? Not in action movies, no. It was nice to see him appear on the big screen again, even if he hasn't aged well, and he's pretty underused. I still wish he would have rumbled with Sly a bit, maybe even stating, "I must break you," but I guess we'll save that for the sequel.

Bruce Willis - He's probably the actor who appears here who has had the most mainstream success. He's done animation, comedy, drama, the whole nine. He has a cool cameo here as a CIA guy, but he's not around too much to really comment on one way or the other.

Arnold Schwarzenegger - Same to be said for him, too. The three Plant Hollywood guys' big scene together in quite short, but it's all we can ask for given the fact that Arnie is kind of governing a fucking state and all. It's nice to see Arnie onscreen again, and he plays off of Sly quite well. There's a great joke about his political aspirations, as well. I guess we'll have to wait for the incomprehensible scene between Arnie and Jet Li for the sequel, too. I'm pretty sure those two yelling at each other in shoddy English would have to win some sort of award.

Eric Roberts - Eric should hold onto this moment forever. It's probably the only time he'll ever be featured in a movie which outperforms one featuring his infinitely-more successful sister, Julia, on opening weekend. I don't know much about Eric Roberts, other than the fact that he plays a slimeball to perfection, but I assume Thanksgiving dinner at the Roberts' household this year will go something like this: Eric has a few too many cocktails and starts slurring to Julia, "Can we all fucking forget about Erin Brockovich already? Seriously, nobody gives a shit anymore! I was in The Expendables! I kicked your ass at the box office, bitch! Come to think of it, I was in The Dark Knight, bitch! You ever been in a Batman movie, Julia? No? Well, fuck you, fuck Pretty Woman, and fuck Mona Lisa Smile!" Poor Eric. At least he gets this one event to lord over his sister.

And that's it, really. I mean, I'm kind of speechless when it comes to actually discussing the movie. It's just a bunch of awesome action scenes punctuated by some scenes which are trying to build camaraderie and manliness. I'm sure Sly wanted to make the manliest movie ever, but that title still belongs to Ahnuld's Predator. Still, if you're anything like me, you'll want to see the movie for the action scenes. It's gruesome, violent, awesome stuff, and there's some pretty cool dudes, too. Now we can begin speculating on the sequel and who it will feature. I've got my fingers crossed for Wesley Snipes, Kurt Russell (please, please, please!), and Van Damme. Make it happen, Sly!