{"id":3300,"date":"2009-01-22T20:56:12","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T01:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=3300"},"modified":"2009-01-22T21:02:44","modified_gmt":"2009-01-23T02:02:44","slug":"to-a-boyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/to-a-boyle","title":{"rendered":"To a Boyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was listening to The B.S. Report<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the podcast by Bill Simmons, a.k.a. Sports Guy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in my car yesterday. Simmons was talking with “Cousin Sal” about the weekend’s football games, when the talk turned to the recent spate of Oscar-worthy movies they’d seen.<\/p>\n

On over-the-air sports radio, which I haven’t listened to in several years, I would get pretty incensed when Mike & the Mad Dog would spend 20 minutes talking about last night’s episode of The Sopranos, John Wayne flicks, or why the remake of Sabrina<\/a> was much better than the original<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(I’m not making up that last one. It led to the immortal line by Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, “I don’t see why people were so ga-ga over Audrey Hepburn,” confirming my suspicion that a too-excessive interest in sports is clearly a symptom of repressed homosexuality.)<\/p>\n

With Simmons and his cousin, on the other hand, I was interested in their opinions and their looser takes on the movies. Also, both of them have worked as comedy writers for Jimmy Kimmel’s show, so I figured they may have funny stories about some of the flicks.<\/p>\n

While they praised The Wrestler<\/a> pretty highly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Sal watched a DVD screener of it with his new pal Roddy Piper<\/a> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d both men considered Slumdog Millionaire<\/a> the best movie they saw last year.<\/p>\n

And that’s when it struck me: I’ve been watching Danny Boyle’s<\/a> movies for 12 years now, through the ups (Shallow Grave<\/a>, Trainspotting<\/a>) and downs (A Life Less Ordinary<\/a>, The Beach<\/a>) and a lesser-seen gem (Millions<\/a>). At no point did I ever think he was headed for some sort of mainstream approval.<\/p>\n

And now he’s made a movie that a couple of sports-betting maniacs from Boston consider the best flick of the year. This world is full of wonders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to The B.S. Report \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the podcast by Bill Simmons, a.k.a. Sports Guy \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in my car yesterday. Simmons was talking with “Cousin Sal” about the weekend’s football games, when the talk turned to the recent spate of Oscar-worthy movies they’d seen. On over-the-air sports radio, which I haven’t listened to in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “To a Boyle”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32],"tags":[528,529,363],"class_list":["post-3300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-bill-simmons","tag-danny-boyle","tag-sports-guy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-Re","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1039,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/da-boot","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":0},"title":"Da Boot","author":"Gil","date":"July 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"After the World Cup, Bill \"Sports Guy\" Simmons (as opposed to Don \"No Soul\" Simmons) decided he would start supporting an English Premier League soccer team, and asked his fans for advice on which team to support. The massive article that resulted makes for some fun reading.","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/da-boot#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3465,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-21609","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":1},"title":"What It Is: 2\/16\/09","author":"Gil","date":"February 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Montaigne & Clive James. And this lengthy article by Michael Lewis about Shane Battier and the intangibles on NBA statistics. What I'm listening to: Some podcasts of the B.S. Report. What I'm watching: To Die For, Lisa Lampanelli's HBO special, and the first episode of Dollhouse. What\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3503,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-22309","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":2},"title":"What It Is: 2\/23\/09","author":"Gil","date":"February 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Montaigne & Cultural Amnesia, and Edmund and Rosemary Go To Hell, the new ish of Monocle, and that NYTimes article about the House-like diagnosis of that guy I asked you all to help out with platelet donations a few months ago. What I'm listening to: A whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-22309#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=039333354X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5661,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-october-15-2010","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: October 15, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"October 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This collection of links comes to you courtesy of the matrix of Twitter, Google Reader and Instapaper! Enjoy! @sportsguy33: using 3,844 words to explain an accidental tweet that was 12 characters long. #brevityfail * * * Who's in the honor roll at the School of Boom Goes the Dynamite? *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3656,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-3232009","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":4},"title":"What It Is: 3\/23\/2009","author":"Gil","date":"March 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: Zot! 1987-1991 and Clyde Fans, Vol. 1. I never read Zot! when it was coming out back then and, reading it now, I can see just why I didn't give it a try then, why I wouldn't have liked it then, and why I'm enjoying the living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0061537276","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4634,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/what-it-is-11209-2","url_meta":{"origin":3300,"position":5},"title":"What It Is: 11\/2\/09","author":"Gil","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What I'm reading: The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons, When The Shooting Stops . . . The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story, by Ralph Rosenblum, and that bio of Timoleon in Plutarch that I read a few months ago. I'm still thinking about the weird modernness of T's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis"","block_context":{"text":"Adventures in Rufus and\/or Otis","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/adventures-in-rufus-and-or-otis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=034551176X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3300"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3302,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions\/3302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}