I'm So Hot!

Word of the day : quiddity : the essence of someone or something
                                            : a trifling point; a quibble
                                            : eccentricity; an unusual personal opinion or habit

Staying cool out there, readers? 

Last night, the NFL Network completed its ten-part series about the 100 Greatest Players of the NFL this coming season.  Each week, ten players were unveiled (90-81, 50-41, etc.).  The list was chosen by the players themselves.  Apparently, it's been a very popular poll among players since the NFL Network started doing out a few years back. 

As chosen by the players, here are the top 20 players in the NFL:

20) Ray Lewis (LB, Balt)
19) Troy Polamalu (S, Pitt)
18) LeSean McCoy (RB, Phil)
17) Justin Smith (DE, SF)
16) Ed Reed (S, Balt)
15) Andre Johnson (WR, Hou)
14) Jimmy Graham (TE, NO)
13) Jared Allen (DE, Minn)
12) Maurice Jones-Drew (RB, Jac)
11) Terrell Suggs (DE, Balt)
10) Patrick Willis (LB, SF)
9) Haloti Ngata (DT, Balt)
8) Adrian Peterson (RB, Minn)
7) Larry Fitzgerald (WR, Ariz)
6) DeMarcus Ware (DE, Dal)
5) Darelle REvis (CB, NYJ)
4) Tom Brady (QB, NE)
3) Calvin Johnson (WR, Det.)
2) Drew Brees (QB, NO)

1) Aaron Rodgers (QB, GB)

As the football season nears, I'll make my own list(s) of the game's best players by positions (along with predictions, etc.) but there isn't a whole lot I can complain or argue about here.  The only thing I would change would be to include Eli Manning in the top 20, even top 10, and would take Haloti Ngata out of it.  And, as great as he is, I don't think Ray Lewis, at this point in his career, is the second-best linebacker in the game.  The top-5 look pretty accurate, and I was glad to see great players from bad teams (the Vikings, Jaguars) represented.  Every team was represented with at least one player on the top-100.  The teams with the most players were Baltimore, San Francisco, and Philadelphia with 7; Green Bay and Pittsburgh had 6; New England, the New York Giants, New Orleans, Chicago, and Denver had 5 each.  9 teams had only 1 player on the list, including Cincinnati and Jacksonville.  The Tennessee Titans, one of the more anonymous teams in the league, just barely cracked the list, with RB Chris Johnson slipping in at #100.

*

The NBA Draft last night was a pretty plum occasion for Kentucky and North Carolina, who had, respectively, six and four, players taken in the two rounds.   I thought the Houston Rockets had a great draft - UK's Terrence Jones, UCONN's Jeremy Lamb, Iowa State's Royce White.  The Celtics, too, getting Jared Sullinger and two Syracuse big men - Kris Joseph and Fab Melo. 

*

Julia and I watched Jack and Jill last night, which was a watchably lousy movie.  Interesting, random cameos, however: Johnny Depp, John McEnroe, Dana Carvey, Bruce Jenner.  And you might not have lived until you've seen the usually serious thespian Al Pacino in his extended supporting role (far larger than a cameo) as himself, who falls in love with Sandler's twin sister (Sandler, of course, in drag) and tries to woo her.  If that's not silly and surreal enough, Pacino also gets to sing a Dunkin Donuts theme song.  Cuckoo.  

* 

It's been a good week since I've done a profile on Professional Photographer magazine's "100 Most Influential Photographers" list.  We need to plow through this list quicker. 

Patrick Demarchelier (#53) 

Demarchelier was born outside Paris in 1943 who got interested in photography when he was seventeen when, in the seaside town of Le Havre, his stepfather gave him a Kodak camera at the age of seventeen.  His photos appear (and have appeared) in Life, Harper's Bazaar, British Vogue, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Elle; he has also worked for, among others, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.  He was the first non-Briton to become the official photographer for the Royal Family; in 1989, he was the official photographer of Princess Diana of Wales from 1989 to her death.  He has lived in New York since the mid-1970s.

 

* 

And finally here's one more entry in my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time. 

Albert Finney
as Andrew Crocker-Harris in The Browning Version (1994)

Julia and I saw this for the first time a few years back.  Based on Terence Rattigan's play (previously filmed in 1951 with Michael Redgrave), the adaptation stars Finney as a disappointed, disliked, caustic teacher of Greek and Latin at a British public school.  The film is little more than a character study about a man who toils away for years and can't see the fruits of his labor, but Finney, as mesmerizing as ever, breaks your heart.  There is a scene late in the movie when one of Finney's best students, on the day of his graduation, gives Finney a inscribed version of Robert Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon.  Finney, touched by this caring act of kindness, breaks down and cries, realizing that he has genuinely touched one student.  It's impossible to not be moved by this scene, or Finney.  But yet this actor has been a joy to watch his entire career.  Acting at its finest. 








Images: 

http://www.film.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/url.jpg

http://c48743.r43.cf3.rackcdn.com/Images/2009_07/06/0156/532508/e4d2b48d-b7f8-4043-b648-80a8be1a788e_g_273.Jpeg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--lFP983Bn8o/TWuHwgd3v3I/AAAAAAAABBE/LBF97CAeAdM/s1600/p.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ul_Ph4ijHRA/TWuHtu3o5zI/AAAAAAAABA8/-uYaS3kjTNM/s400/p1.jpg

http://0.tqn.com/d/movies/1/0/P/L/Y/jack-jill-al-pacino-adam-sandler.jpg

http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/3327/The_Browning_Version_30949_Medium.jpg

Information: 

http://models.com/people/patrick-demarchelier