It seems like so much fewer than three years ago that Natalie Portman was convincing us that listening to the Shins would change our lives (let’s face it: no review of the Shins will ever again be written without mentioning Garden State, so it’s best to get it out of the way early). But while Portman was quirkily winning Zach Braff’s heart by hypnotizing him with cuts from their first major release, Oh, Inverted World, the Albuquerque natives were turning themselves into indie pop powerhouses with the growing popularity of Chutes Too Narrow. With the release of Wincing the Night Away, many fans expected the band to build on the sunny, melodic, unbelievably catchy tone of Chutes. What they got is an album that’s reminiscent of Oh, Inverted World and has some of the same mood of Chutes, but unlike any Shins material ever heard.

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With Super Bowl XLI on the horizon, one issue remains at the forefront of my mind. No, it isn’t the fact that Peyton Manning exorcised the devil known as Tom Brady en route to his first AFC Championship trophy, or that, for the first time, two black coaches will meet in the Super Bowl. In fact, the game for me only siginfies the end of the season and, by extension, the logical end of the Sports Gal’s career as a columnist on ESPN.com.

Don’t get me wrong, this post isn’t meant to bash on Bill Simmons. I’ve always though of him as a pretty big part of the reason why I read ESPN.com on a regular basis, and I am in the process of reading his book, which, even though it’s full of recycled material, is quite enjoyable. In fact, the guy usually makes me laugh out loud right before he starts talking about the Patriots or Red Sox or Larry Bird or The Godfather or 90210 for the umpteen millionth time. Therein lies the problem with Bill: too often, he reverts back to being the Boston Sports Guy instead of the Sports Guy. There are legions of fans out there that care not for the Red Sox and would like to see you make fun of their teams for a change.

The Sports Gal’s mini-columns were breaths of fresh air: unbiased, hip observations from someone who, like us, both loves Bill and is annoyed at him from time to time. Here’s hoping that the Sports Guy finds more excuses to include sidebars from his wife and fewer opportunities to blab about yet another season of Real World/Road Rules Challenge that we don’t care about.

It seems appropriate, on the day that Oscar nominations were announced, that I review a film that, for the next few months, will garner attention for its omissions from the “Best Picture” category. Sure, Dreamgirls is getting a good deal of outcry for its absence from the list, and Little Miss Sunshine’s recognition is delightful, but one cannot see Pan’s Labyrinth and not leave the theatre ready to argue its place on the list. Guillermo del Toro’s dark, affecting film about escapism from war is beautifully acted, stunningly shot, and wildly original. More to the point, it’s among the most entertaining, engaging films of the past year.

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In the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, God punishes mankind for attempting to build a tower high enough to touch the heavens by destroying it and fragmenting the universal language to confuse future such efforts. In Babel, Alejandro González Iñárritu weaves four stories into an ambitious message about culture and miscommunication stemming from that dispersion of languages. Fortunately, the film leaves little room for the kind of backlash seen in the original Babel story. Indeed, the film is well constructed, pulling together four plots that could each earn their own movie but weigh on one another when everything is brought together.

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As I sat here at my desk…blogging…on my MacBook…listening to Rilo Kiley on my iPod…drinking a black and white hot chocolate from the new Starbucks location right next to my office, it came to me: I’m becoming everything I’ve always hated.

All I need to complete this picture is to be wearing Abercrombie and surfing in the early-adopter Firefox 3.0 for a hybrid. If that ever happens, please kill me.

And now, for a new Movie Hawk feature, the Trailer Park. This will be a sporadic feature (then again, what here isn’t), reserved for when an extraordinarily interesting trailer hits the Interwebs or when I have nothing else to write.

• TMNT - I’m still pumped for this movie, even if the trailer affirms fears that the tone will be more cartoonish than dark, forsaking the TMNT origin for the gags that made the cartoon wildly popular in my childhood. I’m all for “Cowabunga,” but it’s a proven fact now more than ever that you can put some dark material in a movie and still have young kids be interested.
• 300 - Frank Miller gave us one of the better movies of last year with Sin City, but I wasn’t initially interested in this film based on his graphic novel of the same name. This trailer has intrigued me a little more than previous efforts, but it still strikes me as a movie I’ll go see at 10:40 at King of Prussia with my friend and fall asleep.
• Blood and Chocolate - I include this because I saw the trailer in the movie theatre and most of the audience cracked up when the title card flashed. Can we discuss the fact that they’ve run out of movie titles? Anyone?

…some thoughts on things that have been bouncing around my head but can’t find a full post.

• I’m extraordinarily pleased that Cal Ripken was elected to the Hall of Fame. For a stretch of my formative baseball-watching years, Ripken was my favorite player; he played the game the right way and always proved to be a positive role model for the game. More than that, his accomplishments on the field certainly warrant his induction. I can’t quite get the right words out, so you should stop by Swing and A Miss to see Tom G’s take on things. Well said, TG.
• I’m still not sure what to make of Children of Men. Shot beautifully , directed with an eerily realistic eye on the dystopian London, and acted quite well (especially by Clive Owen and Michael Caine), it should have me jumping to join the list of people it has wooed. But I just…didn’t care about what was happening on screen. There didn’t seem to be a side to root for (not that there has to be), and in the absence of that, there wasn’t a sense of importance that Owen’s character was protecting a newborn in a fertile world. I realize that the movie was well made, but I couldn’t get me interested.

Last night’s 23-20 Philadelphia Eagles victory over the New York Giants will have plenty of storylines attached to it - the team finally managing the clock correctly, the continued resurgence of the team under Jeff Garcia, the reassertion that nobody quite knows what to make of this wild, rather pathetic NFC - but the most entertaining should be the return of The Bearded One, Koy Detmer, to the team. Like 2005’s resigning of Chad Lewis to fill a playoff-specific role, Detmer’s return showcases the calculating side of Andy Reid and the Iggle front office. In an eerie bit of precognition, considering Saturday night’s debacle in Seattle (go cry to Carrie, Romo), Reid acknowledged the importance of special teams - a strength in recent years for the Eagles - in close games. Having Detmer around to hold for David Akers was a crucial insurance policy, and last night’s ending feels all the more special because Detmer was brought in for just such an occasion. Like Lewis before him, Detmer will probably cash his last Eagles paycheck whenever these playoffs end, and Akers will spend the offseason getting used to another holder, but after an acrimonious year and a half, it’s nice to see a feel-good story coming from the Eagles’ brass.

Somewhere in the aperture between From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jumanji lies the somewhat poorly constructed farce Night at the Museum. Taken to heart, the film serves as an eye-opener to the wonders of history (and, specifically, New York’s Museum of Natural History) and a call to this generation of youngsters to enjoy them. As a vehicle for Ben Stiller, it fumbles more often than it scores (apologies for the football reference; we’re amped up for the playoffs over here) but remains a welcome distraction for adults and a should charm kids, a combination that can’t be said of too many recent “family” movies.

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Admit it: you love Rocky. If you didn’t love it, it would never have become the cultural landmark that it is today. There would be no “Gonna Fly Now” to pump fans up when their teams are down. There would be no reason to jog up Philadelphia’s Art Museum steps, turn around to face the world you have just conquered, and raise your arms in triumph. Hell, if you didn’t love Rocky, there would never have been a Rocky II. Or a Rocky V, for that matter, although that might actually be a blessing. So when Sylvester Stallone revealed his plans to revisit - and close - the 30-year-old movie series, you either cringed in fear that he’d wipe out all the good will from the Oscar-winning original or rejoiced that you’d have one last chance to scream “get ‘im, Rock!” at a screen. For those who have reservations about the film, I offer a simple suggestion: get ready to put on your imaginary gloves and shadowbox your way out of the theatre; Rocky Balboa is an effort worthy of the name.

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