Z/Web

A disappointing game. Houston loses 2-0 to LA in overtime and not in a good way. This game is marked with controversy as twice the lights went out and caused 18-minute game delays. Each time Houston was playing well and the delay threw them off their rhythm and gave the Galaxy time to regroup and get organized. Houston also scored a goal that the ref disallowed for a weak call. Basically two players went down in the box in what looked like standard jostling and the ref blew his whistle late, after Houston put the ball in the goal. The players who went down were off the ball and had nothing to do with the play and many referees would have allowed the goal. Frustrating. Houston finally gave up a goal in overtime on a David Beckham set piece when the Dynamo could clear in a goal-mouth scramble and LA touched it over the line. Certainly not a pretty goal, but one that counts. Houston was still in it, though, as there was plenty of time left, but to give LA credit, they came to life after they scored. Before that they looked beaten and tired, constantly defending Houston’s attacks, but the goal revived them as they suddenly started playing much better. Substitute Alan Gordon broke away on the right wing and though he’s really not a good goal scorer and shouldn’t have worried the back line that much, Houston overreacted and clipped him in the box for a clear penalty which Landon Donovan converted. That pretty much ended it, though Houston did hit the crossbar in the final minute or so.

The bottom line in this one is that Houston, though a very good team, did not quite have that extra something of past years. Though I love Stuart Holden, the team still misses Dewayne DeRossario, who could bring that bit of magic. The team had too many close games this season, especially against teams they clearly outplayed (like this one). In those games the Dynamo were hard to beat but failed to score. One of those games was against LA during the regular season: that home draw was the tie-breaker that allowed this Western Conference Final to be played in LA, and ultimately, with the game going to overtime, that home field advantage was what helped LA win it. I think Houston could have turned it around if LA hadn’t revived after their goal: they didn’t settle into a shell but started playing better than they had all game, and forced Houston into making desperation mistakes as the away team tried to get back in it. I guarantee if this game had been in Houston, the result would have been different.

All that said, I’m strangely not that depressed. I’m frustrated and annoyed, and certainly disappointed, and I’ll definitely root against LA in the final, but Houston did their best and it wasn’t quite enough. Ching had a game-winning header that Ricketts pushed over the bar to keep the game scoreless and that was the game right there. The tough calls and awkward stoppages give the Dynamo something to gripe about, but in years past they had the quality to overcome such disadvantages and this year they did not. (Designated Player Ladin, who came on for Oduro, did little. He was slow and still not on the same page as his teammates. If he’s the replacement for DeRo, that’s not a good replacement.)

Remarkable spectacle. That pretty much sums this up. It’s not a bad drama: there are a handful of compelling character moments and though they are not profound, they work well enough for this type of film. Story-wise this is well-structured, with a dad trying to save his family from the end of the world. The action is terrific and non-stop once the planet starts to break up, and the special effects are, frankly, astonishing. Most films have one or two scenes that are clearly the main spectacles, but here the effects just keep coming: out-driving an earthquake, skyscrapers falling, an entire city breaking up and falling into the ocean, volcanoes erupting, tidal waves wiping out mountains, just to name some of the bigger events. It’s worth watching just to see the remarkable graphics. But I was pleased to see that the story is decent: we care for the family in danger, there are some non-stereotype events and characters, the plot is actually followable and not too ridiculous, and the ending is classic Hollywood feel-good. Enjoyable. Though it’s over two-and-a-half hours long, I hardly noticed, which says a great deal.

Author: Jules Verne

I’ve been listening to this audio book for a couple weeks and it was an interesting coincidence that on the way home from watching the end-of-the-world caper 2012 I finish this book which is also a survival story, though set 150 years earlier. This is about a ship that sinks while crossing the Atlantic and the survivors who build a raft and try to stay alive long enough to reach land or be rescued. It is a harrowing and grim tale, and halfway through you think surely they’ve suffered enough, but the bad stuff is only beginning. It is a quite remarkable story of survival and the ending has an unexpected aspect that I enjoyed. There are aspects of the book that are a challenge to understand because of differences in time and culture (many of the nautical terms were meaningless to me, for instance), but the human condition and will to survive is understandable to all. Excellent.

Interesting film about a strange — and deadly — psychological experiment conducted by mysterious black ops government types using volunteers from the classifieds. It’s a little bit like the Saw movies (in the sense that imprisoned people are faced with unanswerable dilemmas, but without the gore), and also reminiscent of one of my favorites, Cube. It doesn’t have the depth of Cube, unfortunately. It builds us up for a grand climax but the payoff isn’t there. The explanation regarding the experiment is interesting, but not that plausible (I don’t really buy it); it seems like there would be much easier ways to find out what they seek. Another flaw is that though the characters seem interesting and have potential, we really don’t get to know them beyond the surface. There are some nice moments, some of the dialogue is excellent, and the performance of a few of the actors are terrific; however there’s too little happening here. You’re interested for a while, but that’s mostly because of the mystery and your desire to find out what’s going on, and ultimately it feels like a film short stretched to feature length.