Z/Web

Interesting, if tame, thriller about a young girl and her brother who end up moving in with their godparents after their parents are killed in a car accident. The children have a $4 million trust fund, so they’re financially secure. At first things seem okay, but gradually the girl begins to suspect the godparents of killing her parents in order to control the trust fund. A little obvious and heavy-handed at times, it’s none-the-less and interesting story. The girl character is very cool, intelligent and yet still realistic. The initial ending is pure poetic justice and satistifying, but then there’s a tacked on secondary ending that’s just lame. It still liked it, however; Stellan Skarsgard gives his usual excellent performance, and Diane Lane was good as the wife.

I don’t usually report on televised MLS games (just the games I attend), but this is the playoffs, and San Jose’s performance tonight makes them the first team eliminated from the playoffs. It just wasn’t meant to be. The Quakes played okay, but didn’t dominate, and let the Crew have a lot of dangerous chances. We had one guaranteed goal as Conrad got within a couple yards of the goal with only the keeper to beat, but his shot missed the entire goal. There’s a reason he’s not a striker. The first half was nil-nil, but San Jose’s lax defense undid them in the second half, allowing the Crew to score. Eight minutes later good work by Donovan and Graziani leveled things, but it was really a lucky goal as somehow Ariel’s slight touch got the ball through a forest of Columbus players on the line. For a time I thought that maybe the Quakes were really going to do it: a tie or a win and they’d have home field advantage in the next game and maybe they could win that. They’d certainly be psyched up and have a good chance. But instead the defense broke down exactly the same way they did in San Jose, with a long ball over the back line to Cunningham, who slid a cross over to an unmarked Garcia, who finished it off against Joe Cannon. Just terrible defending. Goose looked slow, Robinson was erratic, Manny struggled, and we missed Mulrooney and Ekelund (both out injured). Graziani and Donovan worked hard, but two players don’t make a team. What seemed to come so easily last year, as though we were fated to win, was a struggle this time, and the Earthquakes just didn’t have what it took. They looked tired and out of sorts, frantic in their defending, and hardly ever took shots. I’m not saying they were awful — just poor in comparison of how they used to play. Something just didn’t work this season. Perhaps it was Goose and Landon missing for a huge chunk with World Cup; perhaps Landon’s a known quantity in the league now and doesn’t get the breaks he used to; perhaps it was just the mix of injuries. Who knows? Something will need to be fixed for next year. At least LA lost their second game against KC in a 4-1 rout. Come on KC, win! I’d love the see LA knocked out early as well. Final: 2-1 Columbus.