Inspired by death

On my internet radio show (www.dementiaradio.org Thursday evenings starting at 7PM CDT) I sometimes have problems figuring out what songs to play. I then realized by paying attention to news, I could come up with something to play and go from there.

Of course deaths are commonplace this week and because of Henry Gibson I played something based on Laugh in and the Blues Brothers since he was in both of them. I would have played the song "Lybian in a Jet Plane" for recently deceased Mary from Peter Paul and Mary but realized I did not have it. For Patrick Swayze, I played "Mr Ghost is coming to Town" since the song "Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas" does not work as well in September.

Anyway, the movie Ghost has an ending that I really do not like. NOTE: Spoiler alert for the rest of the post




Ok, after the Swayze character ascends into heaven, there is a young attractive woman who knows for sure the man she loves but saw wastefully murdered still exists but she knows she can not see him until she dies which on average is at least 40 more years. Also looking at a scene from earlier in the movie, if she dies in her 70s she will ascend as an old woman while her dead husband will be the same way he perished.

Personally I believe the character decides after a few years to try to join her dead husband but by killing herself condemns her to the hell and joins the people responsible for killing her husband in the first place.

Being a sports fan, I have watched many sports movies. Some of them have endings that ruin it for me. I am only talking about movies that I liked and not Major League II, or Caddyshack II where I found myself rooting against the hero or movies whose endings might not be sports accurate but still work like Happy Gilmore. Here are my top 5 likable sports movies with bad endings:

5: Wildcats. I liked the idea of a suburban divorced mother becoming a coach of a inner city high school football team and thought the story went well as she first had to gain the respect of the team and then get them better.

In the big game, it came down to a defensive stand and a field goal attempt by their high class school opponent to win the championship game. Somehow, the big, fat player from the inner city school who had to join the team to avoid getting into trouble made it to the other sideline and got insulted by the coach. He then made it back to his team's sideline and demanded to get back into the game and was put in the game as they were lining up for the field goal . I figured he was going to plow over the line and cause a shadow to fall over the holder as he blocked the kick. That would make sense. He actually jumped 5 feet into the air to block the kick and his teammate recovered the ball and returned it for a winning touchdown.

4: Taking Care of Business. A long time suffering Cubs fan (what Cubs fan isn't?) is in jail but not scheduled to be released two days after the Cubs World Series game in which he won tickets. So he gets his fellow inmates to "hold him hostage" as he sneaks out. He not only attends the game but makes a spectacular catch of a Mark Grace tape measure home run and then returns to prison in disguise as nothing happened.

First off, Mark Grace tape measure home run? Anyway, wanted people have been arrested at ballparks for appearing on a kiss cam in the ball park during a regular season game. Now we are supposed to believe that someone who is already in the news from being held hostage in a prison and makes a spectacular catch of a home run in a World Series game does not get identified by anyone other than his fellow inmates?

3: Mighty Ducks D3. I liked it more than D2 which also could have made the list. The Ducks as a group get a scholarship to a private high school for hockey but have trouble adjusting to a new coach and the varsity team. In the annual varsity vs. jv match up, both teams decide to let the game decide the school's nickname and with a last second goal, the Ducks win.

First of all, I liked the fact that the Ducks decided to listen to their new coach and adapt their style to give themselves a chance vs the varsity team and the game was scoreless until almost the end where two Ducks players were penalized giving the varsity team a 5 on 3 advantage which in hockey is huge. Normally, teams shorthanded by two players just try to keep the puck out of their net. The Ducks' captain steals a pass and goes the other way to try to win the game but gets caught by two varsity players. So he passes the puck behind him where a defense man joins the play and scores the winning goal.

What is wrong with that? The defense man who scored the goal was the goalie in the previous two movies and is fat. For him to score the winning goal, he would have needed to beat three varsity players down the ice after skating around frantically for 30 seconds in the penalty kill. No way.

2: Rookie of the Year. A ten year old Cubs fan injures his shoulder then discovers he can throw a ball over 100 MPH so the Cubs sign him to be their relief pitcher. In the game to clinch the division title after their starting pitcher blows his arm out, the kid falls and his arm returns to normal but he still retires the side with trickery to win the game.

In that inning, the kid used the hidden ball trick for the first out and a softball pitch for the final out after the batter realized the kid lost his fastball. The second out turned into a child's game that made me think why couldn't the writers make the kid's arm return to normal after one out.

Also, the scene after the division game shows that the team won the title. Though possible, it is very unlikely that a team after losing a starting pitcher and the closer would win two playoff series especially since the team was going nowhere before signing the kid.

1: Necessary Roughness. A top college football team was severely penalized for violations and forced to recruit walk on players and a former high school star quarterback who never got the chance to play in college to play the schedule. Due to academic problems and an administrator who wanted the team disbanded, the team was forced to have their players play both offense and defense and they got beaten badly until the end where the upset the number one team in the nation.

I enjoyed the movie especially Rob Schneider announcing. It was a fun movie. However, defeating the number one team in the nation with a squad of scrubs playing both ways? For some reason, no one on the team got hurt during the grueling season played on a hard AstroTurf field until the next to last play where they faked an extra point and completed the pass to get the two point conversion on a play where someone blocked below the waist which should have drawn a penalty anyway. It left me shaking my head in disgust.