To encourage a bit more variety in my blogging posts and to help distance this site from the one of old, I’m installing this monthly post where I summarize the previous month’s activity in a wraparound that will hopefully give people the chance to go back and find stuff they might have missed, as well as keep them apprised of any changes or news that happened that month.

Non-sports fans feel free to skip these first paragraphs. I won’t feel bad if you aren’t all that interested in reading my little rant over the state of Tennessee football in 2018. Actually, I won’t even know. For movie coverage, head below the thin gray line. (See what I did there?)

Jeremy Pruitt — an x-factor, or just another ex? 

Photo credit: the Knoxville News Sentinel (knoxnews.com)

While movies are constantly being released, the college football season is a fleeting thing. And maybe thank the pigskin gods for that because folks, this year’s gonna be a rough one. At least if you call Rocky Top Tennessee home. The Volunteers are, uh . . . well, it’s a rebuilding year as they say. That means in 2018 preparing for more Ls than Ws, especially when you’re rooted in the Southeastern Conference, arguably the toughest place to play in all of football. And this year it also appears to mean, if you’re Jarrett Guarantano anyway, picking up your mouthguard after getting slammed in the gut after every single play.

For those on the outside, and possibly under a rock: In an attempt to move beyond the mess of the Butch Jones mid-season firing (some will say the Butch Jones era), this year we’ve picked up an Imperial Alabama defector in former defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. He’s the fourth guy in the last decade to give this thing a crack. Since the sacking of long-time HC Phillip Fulmer in 2008, we’ve been Lane Kiffen’ed (7-6 overall; 4-4 in-conference in 2009 before his Houdini act at the eleventh hour left us after one season again headcoach-less), then were Derek Dooleyed (15-21 over three historically bad seasons for a Vol coach with a multi-year deal). Then Mr. Jones, who went 84-54 over four seasons, butchered it all in his 2017 and final season, one in which we didn’t come out on top once against our conference opponents. And, unfortunately through five games played thus far, in which we are 2-3 (0-2 in the SEC), right now it’s looking increasingly more like Jeremy Blewit.

If it seems like I am prematurely hitting the panic button, consider that our newly minted Coach was seen kicking a whiteboard on the sideline when things went sideways in the 2018 Great Florida-Tennessee Debacle — the 47-21 final score not all that indicative of the farce that unfolded that day. Consider the leadership role he’s fulfilling and the optics of him flipping his shit in his very first meaningful game, one that also happened to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 1998 victory over the Gators. This meant that while he was out there, going all Bobby Knight on his players, members of that championship team were bearing witness to it all from either the stands or the sidelines. Consider that, to his former boss Nick Saban, the undisputed master of the modern collegiate game, Pruitt is now officially part of the Rebel Alliance and must be destroyed. On Saturday, October 20 watch as the Evil Empire of college football, the Alabama Crimson Tide, rolls into town and reminds him of what he’s left behind.

To me, it isn’t that Pruitt needs to prove he’s got this big, winning personality — that would be a nifty plus — he just needs to show he’s capable of being an x-factor. That some of that Alabama Toughness can rub off on us. (Maybe that’s what he was trying to impart there with the white board incident. The board sure held tough.) For all that we have gone through, and are about to go through in this daunting schedule, let us hope he at least has the composure to make some of these nasty SEC clashes interesting. Interesting in a GOOD way. I don’t hold any pretense of him being our Nick Saban, or even a second coming of Phil Fulmer. But is it too much to expect a better end to the season than the quite frankly embarrassing way in which it has opened up? I don’t think it is.

New Posts

New Releases: Searching; Operation Finale; White Boy Rick

Around the Blogosphere 

First, a side note. How many of you are currently using the new Gutenberg editor WP has just started to roll out? How have you been liking it? I’m a creature of habit and haven’t really experimented with it but the block-style formatting seems pretty convenient.

As to blogging itself — man, there has been a flurry of activity from two of my go-to sites recently, Cinema Axis and Assholes Watching Movies. Both have provided extensive coverage of the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. There are so many titles that I have just been introduced to I’m honestly kind of intimidated. I can’t even name two titles that I most want to see.

Meanwhile, Ryan has updated us on this month’s batch of horror releases. It’s October, so you know the pickings have to be pretty good. Head on over to his site here and have a look at what’s coming to theaters near you as well as VOD.

Recent (Re-)Viewings 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (review here). I was way too harsh on this film when I first saw and reviewed it. The essence of that piece boiled down to me perceiving an “excess of fan service.” I was kinda right, but at the same time wildly swinging for the critical fences. Well aware of its rather simple and generic plot, I am nonetheless finding myself being gradually more persuaded by the Force thanks to regular re-watches of this 2016 spinoff in recent weeks, twice in September alone. Despite my less-than-five-star review, I’ve really come to love a lot about this movie — perhaps more than anything the casting, from Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso and Mads Mikkelsen as her Imperial scientist father to Alan Tudyk voicing the highly sarcastic droid K-2SO, to Ben Mendelsohn as the slimy Orson Krennic and his ridiculously OTT “FIIIIIIRE!!!!!!” commands. That said, I am still less sold on Forrest Whitaker in the Star Wars universe. That’s right up there with Benecio Del Toro appearing in The Last Jedi. But the spirit of this adventure (and eventual suicide mission) and its significance in the grander scheme has really made a Star Wars fan out of me. About time, eh?

Sunshine — Danny Boyle, 2007.

A fellow blogger might recall reviewing this for my site way back in the day, when I was running a feature called Bite Sized Reviews (rest in digital peace). I told her after reading her take on it that I couldn’t wait to check it out. My Bite Sized Reviews thread has been defunct for over three years. Oops. But better late than never, because this might be at the top of the list when it comes to favorite Danny Boyle movies. 28 Days Later is great, but so the fuck is Sunshine. From the soothing yet terrifying solar flare-steeped visuals to the swelling, gorgeously ambient score — melancholic, but never depressing or too down-beat — to the mind-bending twisty science-fiction stuff at the end, Sunshine is a movie you don’t just watch, you feel it.

Go Big 🍊 !!!