Jarrod Kimber's Blog, page 57
May 26, 2012
May 25, 2012
cricket pop culture references: teenage mutant ninja turtles (original live action feature film)
Everyone knows that Raphael is the best teenage mutant ninja turtle.
But the makers of the first teenage mutant ninja turtles film tried to ruin that in many ways.
One of which was to make Raphael and whiny loner.
Another was to make him hate cricket.
It all starts when after leaving the other turtles, Raphael (who’s cool but crude) finds himself in a fight with a guy and baseball bats.
The guy is the oddly cast Elias Koteas (who in this film never wants to have sex with anyone involved in an auto vehicular accident) who says “A new game, roundhead (pause, followed by bat twirl), cricket”.
The twirl is by far the most interesting part of this cricket pop culture reference as Elias, an obvious stanislavski disciple, had clearly watched some cricket before playing this role.
This film was released in 1990, the same year that Alec Stewart played his first Test.
It’s clearly not a coincidence that Elias Koteas, or Casey Jones as his character is known, twirls the bat in the exact same way.
Raphael, not perturbed by the uncanny bat twirl, says, “Cricket? Nobody understands cricket. You got to understand what a crumpet is to understand cricket” as Elias taps his bat on his back foot while standing in a fairly common ready to face the ball kind of way.
Any cricket fan hearing someone, even a mutant (not alien) turtle, say something that fucken stupid about the sport they love would be pissed, and Elias certainly is.
Elias then gets down over the bat in a correct way, and uses his feet to come down the wicket (something that Stewart should have tried against Warne) and smashes Raphael in the face who flies through the air and lands in a rubbish bin.
Elias then says, “Ha, six runs”.
While it’s nice that he got the twirl, stance, bat tap and footwork pretty right, perhaps “he’s out caught”, or even just “caught/out” would have been better with Raphael in the bin. Although, we shouldn’t nit pick at such a decent attempt to use cricket in what was a fairly seminal children’s film in the 90s.
It’s also a little known fact that Elias Koteas learnt to love cricket so much because of this scene that he is now trying to write, direct and star in a biopic of Hansie Cronje with a working title of “that damned Hansie”. Elias still hates crumpets.
May 22, 2012
May 21, 2012
May 20, 2012
a windies win should inspire some hate
I once mindlessly suggested to my father that it was a shame to see the Windies struggling. That was followed by him abusing me for a long time about how you cant feel sorry for them, as they happily beat up on everyone when they had that chance. His scars were still raw.
But that attitude seems to be disappearing of recent times. The Windies are fast becoming the second favourite team of cricket fans, especially to those who never used to watching the West Indies pummel their country’s batsmen upside their heads.
They’ve been a perfect second side of late. They have exciting young cricketers, mystery bowlers, mini Lara, a talented young quick, and they’re not likely to beat your team in a Test match.
Not that they don’t get close.
At home against India they worked themselves into several good positions only to end up losing or drawing. And against Australia they played well only to fall apart when they needed to be at their best.
Yet again, they’ve snuck up on a better side and find themselves with a good chance of winning the Test. Rudi Webster, the former Windies psychologist recently said they don’t know how to win. To beat England at home, when they’re chasing less than 200 on a solid batting pitch, you need to really back yourself.
The two wickets were promising. But there is little to lose in a four over session that is essentially being played with Hammer Horror type lighting. It is when England puts on a partnership of any note, or as they close in on the total when West Indies will be under real pressure.
Will they do everything they can to win this match, or will they just put in another effort that annoys the opposition before they eventually fold.
It’s nice to be everyone’s second favourite team, but it’s better to win a few matches. They may never be universally feared or hated again, but it would be nice if they could do more than just temporarily annoy fans, and on occasions like this, really ruin the mood of a few opposition fans like my dad. It’s good to piss people off.
May 19, 2012
May 18, 2012
May 14, 2012
cricket pop culture references: the big bang theory “The Transporter Malfunction”
In what is sure to be a short lived new segment on cwb (I mean what the fuck ever happened to player profiles?) here is a new one, where I discuss pop culture cricket references.
I like to watch bad American sit coms while I eat.
For whatever reason good american sit coms don’t help me digest as well, so instead of watching Seinfeld or Arrested development, I watch how I met your mother, friends and the big bang theory.
It should also be pointed out that I don’t watch them ironically. Sure, some of the laughs are ironic, but I hate it when people say they watch shit tv just for the irony, no, you do it for the same reason as everyone else, shit tv can be comforting and it requires very little of you other than functioning eyeballs, reasonable hearing and steady breathing. And I’ve always been obsessed with American sit coms, I’ve even seen several episodes of the turkish version of the nanny.
The other day I was watching the big bang theory and it was an episode where Raj, the nerdy Indian one, was talking to his parents about a potential arranged marriage.
During their conversation the father asks, “why did you call us during the cricket semi finals” straight after a hilarious ‘we thought you were gay’ routine.
Now, I get it, Raj is Indian, his parents are Indian, so a cricket reference here makes sense.
But the phrasing “the cricket semi finals”, seems odd. Raj’s father would have said “why did you call during the India England semi final”, and would never have used the word cricket, as it’s India, and everyone knows what sport he is referring to. To make it more Hollywood, he could have said “why did you call when the cricket’s on, India are playing Sri Lanka in the semi final, and Agit Agarkar has bowled a maiden over”.
That’s not what they went for, instead we get an ordinary line of dialogue that doesn’t truly respect cricket or human speak, and thusly cannot help the game of cricket grow. Look at what the big bang theory has done for flash t shirt sales and weep at what it could have done for cricket.
The actor playing Raj’s Dad is also far better known (to me) as Babu from Seinfeld, the Pakistani restaurateur with fingers as mesmerising as that of Ajantha Mendis.
Perhaps his casting was simply hollywood’s way of bring India and Pakistan together, or suggesting they can’t tell them apart in the first place.
Strangely, this episode is far more known for the fact that it is Leonard Nimoy’s last acting role (at the moment). Few know this about Nimoy, but he was a wily club left arm finger spinner for his local side. And once bowled unchanged for a whole limited overs match before bowling limits filtered into club cricket.
