Where to start with all the observations of the Chargers’ collective choke job?

-Throughout the season, it was remarked on that the Chargers had one of the worst per carry averages in the NFL, but people explained that it would be okay since the Chargers throw the ball well. Since when does that work in the playoffs? Even teams like the Super Bowl winning Rams had to rely on Marshall Faulk to win the big games.

-A large part of that low per carry average is due to the pathetic running of Ladanian Tomlinson. Constantly falling down even before contact, he broke less tackles this year than any starting running back I’ve seen in years. Formerly great, no doubt, but it’s time to put pride aside and retire. Schottenheimer’s coaching style simply dos not allow long careers, and he’s no different.

-Norv Turner – despite idiots on sports sites who wanted to give him credit for a nice regular season in a horrible division – is still meant to be a coordinator, not a head coach. There is no amount of experience that will change this. Going for the onside kick meant that the second most successful result (stopping the Jets on three downs) still would result in you having to go the full length of the field and rely on Nate Kaeding to not choke again. In addition, the play calling for the hurry up offense run by the Chargers made almost no sense, at least in terms of there only being one play called at a time. How are you not calling 2 plays every time you break huddle in that situation? The penalties and miscues can also be attributed to him, as his teams have never shown discipline.

-Shawne Merriman solidified his status as the most overrated “big name” defender in the league. He was being single blocked all game – at times by tight ends – and still had no impact on either run or pass. Without him contributing San Diego’s hardest hitter was Jammer, who is of course a Cornerback. Meanwhile every Jets defender was lighting people up.

-There is a complete lack of fear of all opponents coming to San Diego. When the Patriots won a few years ago, New England players celebrated by mocking Merriman’s “lights out” dance. Today, Shonn Greene celebrated a 53-yard run by mocking Tomlinson’s ball flip. None of them are punished, and none of them fear anything except maybe a few “those guys are meanies” comments in the post game locker room. Eric Weddle won a fundamentals award for his sure tackling this year, and was promptly run over by Greene on that same game clinching score. The team is soft. Period.

-When Antonio Cromartie was still a nickel back a few years ago people wondered why. Now that he’s spent two years getting beat regularly and almost had a key special teams turnover today, let’s give the definitive answer. Cromartie is athletic, but he’s not very strong and his spatial awareness is terrible. As a result he’s great in nickel situations where he can rove, avoid having to press Recievers, and keep plays in front of him. If you ask him to walk (stay with a man) and chew bubble gum (find the ball) at the same time he simply can’t.

The Nate Kaeding criticisms are obvious, he choked, but if anything that makes him more of a Charger than ever.

Dexter season 3 was just not very good. Ludicrous plot twists, smart detectives missing easy hints(over and over again) and a jet-setting Dexter with no sense of a work schedule to top it all off. It was tough watching such a great show descend into a gruesome vaudeville routine.

Season 4 had its shocking finale on Sunday night, so it’s a good time to take a look at the conclusion of an improved but still flawed show as it moves forward. Stop reading if you don’t want spoilers.

This poster means a lot more now

Finally able to get around Dexter’s deception and track down the real Trinity killer (which people kept calling him even after discovering the fourth part of his victim cycle), the police zero in on Arthur Mitchell just as an out of control Dexter loses him. The police also gain their truest sense of teamwork in the show’s history, just as Dexter’s skills as a lone wolf deteriorate. The juxtaposition is great, we’re watching a meticulous control freak lose any semblance of the code he used to swear by in the hopes of living a better life. And as has often been explored in art, the act of killing directly contradicts those hopes.

The problem with this season, though, is how we got here. The entire serial killer fascination is in part due to the fact that, among the ranks of murderers, they are exceptional in their appetite. Consequently, the fascination with serial killers by the public and media is an endictment of our low attention span and desensitized perspectives. Body count determines interest in a story on the news, or as is repeated on Dexter, “if it bleeds, it leads.” What then to be said of Dexter itself? The kindest explanation possible for the drop in writing quality is that it’s being intentionally ironic. The more unkind explanation is that the show has fallen into the trap of self parody inevitable when your premise’s “hook” paints you into such specific corners.

The only way to “raise the bar” on having serial killers as regular characters in a show(after all Dexter kills them on a semi-weekly basis), is to have their murders increase exponentially in uniqueness or body count. Here we are in season 4, finding out that the Trinity killer is the “biggest to ever hit Miami.” In season 2, Dexter’s body dumps were found and it was a case of the “biggest serial killer to hit Miami.” In season 3, the Skinner was one of the “most brutal serial killers to hit Miami.” This one upmanship also applies to the portrayal of people with personal relationships with serial killers. Deb was engaged to one, Quinn was dating the daughter of one, Dexter is one, everyone thought Doakes was one. At what point does something intended to be shocking become trite? Law enforcement or not, the idea that they would deal with this many massively successful serial killers seems a little bit ridiculous. And was the death of Rita a logical plot development, or something born out of this need for the writers to one up themselves?

This is, though, a far better season than #3, for several reasons. John Lithgow is outstanding as Mitchell/Trinity, finally bottling up his creepiness in a perfect performance. As Deb’s old flame Agent Lunde re-enters the scene, Deb’s turmoil is well portrayed. She acts carelessly, and yet is fully aware of her own carelessness, knowing that she’s going to sabotage her own happiness. We finally see her self-hate exposed with verbal rants serving as a mirror to Dexter’s inner dialogue. There’s still room for growth here assuming Deb follows up on what’s she has learned about Dexter’s true origins. Let’s hope Season 5 is even better, and hopefully the last season of the show. There is a finite life cycle for any concept, and it would be a shame if Dexter stayed on past the point of any plausability.

Dexter Season 4 finale – 7/10

Director: Spike Jonze
Writer(s): Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers

Cast:
Max Records – Max
Catherine Keener – Connie
Forest Whitaker – Ira
James Gandolfini – Carol
Lauren Ambrose – KW
Catherine O’Hara – Judith
Michael Berry Jr. – The Bull
Chris Cooper – Douglas
Paul Dano – Alexander

Preamble:
The 1963 children’s book by Maurice Sendak, 48 pages and 10 sentences long, gets adapted to live action by Spike Jonze.

Plot Points:

There isn’t much in the way of plot, as the original picture book was largely unconcerned with it. The essence though, is that a child is upset, runs away, and imagines a better world for himself where his home life is “easier” and controlled by him.

The Meat:
The natural inclination when seeing a movie like this is to question the need for its existence. With such bare bones source material, isn’t the adaptation rife for failure? Is there so much visual invention in Spike’s work that he can cover up the lack of a human cast and linear storytelling? There’s plenty potential for a Transformers 2 type “why the hell was this movie made” response. The movie’s greatest achievement, however, might be in reminding adult viewers that ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ never existed to service a plot.

Max’s parents are probably divorced, at the very least his mother is dating. She’s not paying full attention to him, and the man she’s being friendly with downstairs (instead of playing with Max) certainly isn’t his father. Max has just learned that the sun will die one day. That’s the plot setup for the film, and it’s all we need. Escaping into a nearby forest area after losing it with his mother, still wearing his wolf costume, the imaginative protagonist does what many children do instinctively – he acts as his own therapist. Who better to illustrate the session than the director of ‘Adaptation’?

Max projects all of his emotions onto imaginary wild beings, unable to grasp larger concepts in more realistic terms. If the Sun is going to die and parents don’t stay together, a child’s frame of reference for things like permanence, love, and friendship is shattered. He has to redefine these things, prematurely forced into an emotional form of puberty as so many children in single-parent households are. It’s the aftermath of a car crash, and Max goes to regain his bearings in the forest. Here, he re-imagines sections of arguments he’s heard, combined with his own fears and wishes for both the adults in his life and himself. Wishing himself to be king and trying his best to bring happiness, Max takes ownership of a situation where he was powerless. He forces all the giants around him to just… “be still”. He then sets out to accomplish his stated mission, making everyone happy again.

The problem of course, is the way these giants make things more complicated than play time and sleep time(the illustration of selfish affection is especially well done). Carefully considering the nature of consequences and complex emotions, he realizes in time his own smallness. As one of the characters says about the Sun “why worry about that little thing when I’m so big?” It’s sad to see Max finally gain perspective, and appreciate all those “you’ll understand when you’re older” conversations; but it’s also fun watching him oversee a group of Giant creatures building a life-sized version of a child’s fort along the shore. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ alternates heavily between the two emotions, between real grave situations and fantasy, and our protagonist acts and talks like children with overactive imaginations generally do. There’s never a “creepy child actor who speaks too well for his age” moment despite Max Records being nearly the only human actor for most of the film. For that, there aren’t many better examples of character studies of children in memory. Pan’s Labyrinth has a sister.

*Special nod for the voice work, which is as good as any animation.

Movie – 10/10