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By - Manohla Dargis suggests that SATC II has been subject to what I call the Phantom Menace effect — that is, a sequel subject to especially and in some sense unfairly harsh criticism because critics were far too easy on a previous iteration. I can’t judge for sure, but I can say that unless the hour+ of the first one I saw was wildly unrepresentative, everything that critics are saying about the second one would seem to apply with at least equal force to the first one.
- Posnanski’s most recent list reminds me of another potential good list: the most unjust goats in sports history. Scott Norwood would be, at a minimum, near the top — a 47-yard field goal, on grass, at night, on a neutral site? That just isn’t a kick an NFL kicker could be expected to make in 1991, and unfairly making him the goat takes Marv Levy’s strange clock management off the hook. Buckner is a more complicated case, in that his play was one a major league first baseman can be expected to make, but because of even more consequential blunders by his teammates the Red Sox would have been overwhelmingly likely to lose the game even if he had made it.
- Sally Quinn continues to inch her way up the WaPO pundit hall of shame. Really, nobody better defines the vacuity of the millionaire pundit class.
- More on the general subject soon, but I think the puzzle of Ted Olson and same-sex marriage becomes a lot less puzzling when you remember the lawsuit’s near-zero chance of success. (This doesn’t mean that he isn’t sincere, just that the lawsuit doesn’t really risk long-term damage to his standing on the right because if anything it advances their policy interests.)
- I’ve ranted about this before, but as a commenter notes trying to make Steve Bartman into a goat may indeed constitute the most pathetic whining in the history of sports. I don’t have much sympathy for the ’85 Cards or their fans, given the whole “being outscored 13-0 in the subsequent 9+ innings” thing, but they were victims of a bad call without which they may have won. The ’03 Cubs, conversely, are 100% responsible for their own loss, for reasons that only start with the fact that players aren’t entitled to unobstructed access to balls that leave the field of play.