Frisbee: Mixed Tour 3/Nationals

Scores
Flaming Galahs vs:*
Oxford Mixed 13-9
Thundering Herd 2 10-13
Bear Cavalry 2 13-6
Lemmings 13-9
Kent 13-10
South Coast Ultimate 13-7

* all scores are more or less guesses



My Thoughts
This isn't an official team write-up, just my thoughts on the team and my own performance (because you all clearly care so much).

After a short nights sleep on Friday everyone arrived pitchside an hour before the 1st game and we got a proper warm up in. We came out alright, not particularly hard but our offense was good. Theirs was not. We got a lot of cheap turns from misplaced passes and drops and managed to take a sizable lead. I think they eliminated those from most of the rest of their games and could have beaten us had they done so in our game. They had a lot of very good players who just weren't playing anywhere near the top of their game.

Next up were Herd 2 who had been climbing all season long. They were well up for the game (taking down a local 1st team, who wouldn't be?) and I felt like we expected to put down their challenge pretty easily. Next time we looked at the score they were 2 ahead and we were running out of time. Then we ran out of time. Nuff respect to Herd 2; they played well and deserved the victory - but we walked away shamefaced. This game seemed typical of our season - we have been unable to get our heads in the game at crucial moments. We weren't in it before it started (thinking perhaps, that we didn't need to be) and we couldn't switch on when we saw where the game was headed. It felt like the tournament was kind of over at this point, and that the season had been a little wasted.

We went into our last game of the day pretty pissed off with ourselves and didn't struggle too much against Cavalry 2. I was moved from D-line to O-line for this game (and the remainder of the weekend) - swapped with another handler. Felt like a demotion to me, and apparently to him too - I guess only the captain will know. The D-line got plenty of blocks and put away a few in the first half. Other than that we traded and never really felt too threatened.

Meanwhile, on a pitch not too far away, some sort of small miracle was happening. Oxford got their shit together and Herd had a nightmare. That result put us in a 3-way tie which we won, apparently by 1 point! Much jubilation and excitement. This gave us the easier cross-over in the morning, oxford the harder one and pushed poor Herd out of any chance at moving up significantly.

Sunday morning was wet and miserable and the team were pretty crap at warming up. This London club scene is pretty lightweight compared to uni training in Durham - not sure how they would have handled regionals in horizontal snow... Anyhow, we had Lemmings first up who had beaten us at tour 1. They had lost their captain/founder to the 2nds for reason unknown but were still a force to be reckoned with, particularly their girls who had sticky hands. O-line was a joy to play and we were pretty efficient with our points - most had no turnovers and were scored in 10 passes or fewer. We won the game by two or three and it felt pretty comfortable. Our D-line got plenty of blocks but just couldn't score, although it felt like they had it in them if Lemmings started coming back.

Next were Kent who had beaten us in a hard game at tour 1. They've got some standout players and a hard running short game. We came out and lost 3 on the trot. Captain put the D-line on and they scored 3 on the trot, then the O-line played a D point and scored again. The game was a great battle from thenceforth. I was loving the O-line groove, running as middle handler mostly and remembering why I prefer it to D-line handling. Unfortunately I have lost the ability to assist - I think I threw away almost every opportunity I had from 10 yards out or less. I got a chance to redeem myself and made a layout block in their endzone. I rarely lay out and less so for D so I was pretty pleased with myself. I have no idea what my form was like - probably more of an awful fall over than anything pretty. I can't really remember it anyway, that half second is black, whether from having my eyes closed or just being too excited to form memories. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I am that I couldn't hold the disc (I was trying to) for a Callahan - it's not often I'm going to get chances like that. Anyway, enough about me - we traded out most of the rest of the game and the D-line converted their block for the final point. I think Kent were pretty gutted but their speech was lovely and as gracious in defeat as it was in victory last time.

Final game was against South Coast Ultimate. We had a pretty gritty game against them at tour 2. They had a great deep game: all their guys could huck and sky and they pretty much took us apart. Half of our team were hungover and they made some dodgy calls and we made some rude words and it all got a little tetchy. This game was quite different. We shut down their deep game with flatter forces and conservative marking. They proceeded to throw away quite a lot. We took the first half something like 7-2. They were very tired, probably because they only put the disc through the men on the pitch. We used our girls to good effect, sending them deep for probable half of the O-lines scores. We were very fired up for this game which was pleasing to see - especially as I felt like shit before hand and was fully expecting to lose. In the end we cruised to an easy victory for the plate and the game was very pleasant all round.

In the end this was a great tournament. I finally felt like we played near our potential and, crucially, did it consistently. I'm not entirely sure why we couldn't bring it to previous tournaments: we'd trained hard and often, played competitive friendlies etc. Anyhow - I'm glad we managed to end the season on a high. The team has been great, lots of new friends made (only to lose some again to foreign countries) and everyone has played some standout ultimate. Mixed in London is a lovely community too and I look forward to seeing/beating everyone throughout summer league.

Tournament Predictions follow up

Going up
1) BAF from 9 to 5
Word is they chumped it against Kent (quite an upset) and then lost to Don't Let Go to stay out of the top 8. Final position - 9th

2) Galahs 1 from 18 to 14 (gotta back yourself, right?)
See main topic for full breakdown - basically we got lucky on Saturday and played great on Sunday to finish 13th and win the plate

3) Oxford Mixed from 21 to 17
In our group. Did alright on Saturday (2nd in group) then won their crossover into the top 16 and lost their penultimate game. Final position - 15th

Going Down
1) Bear Cavalry from 4 to 7
Finished 3rd

2) Curve 1 from 12 to 15
Finished 17th

3) Bear Cavalry 2 from 23 to 26
Finished 27th

So not so bad then: 2 well out and the others only by a few places.

Film: Iron Man 2

I liked the first one. Saw it on the Saturday night of a tournament at York if I remember rightly. Anyway, it struck a great tone; fun, slightly self-referential but not annoyingly so, , a decent villain, good action, great banter between Potts and Stark etc. It had it easy in some ways; not a well known story (cf Batman, Spiderman) and it was an origin story which is, in my book, always the most fun.

Onto Iron Man 2. First off, let me say it's not bad. I'm going to talk about all the stuff I didn't like which is going to make it seem bad, but it isn't. I enjoyed watching it, I'm just in no desperate rush to watch it again.

I came out of the cinema feeling like the film had everything it needed to be but had somehow failed to put all the elements together in the right way. Nothing is too obviously wrong but it just doesn't quite work. It is unbalanced, I think; not enough action interspersed throughout the film, just a lot of talking and then a big action sequence at the end. Plus Stark doesn't get to be much of a hero in it (the saving Potts thing is a bit lame and doesn't really make up for all the abuse he's taken from her) and it is meant to be a hero movie.

The villains and the ending
I thought the villains of the film were excellent. Some have argued that there were too many, citing SarJo's character as a potential villain that distracted from the others (cf Spiderman 3) but I never saw her as a villain so for me she didn't get in the way.

Vanko and Hammer paired up nicely - they complemented each other and the themes of the film (morality of an individual with that much power etc).
Hammer provided a counterpoint and mirror to Stark both for comic effect (trying to command the stage at the Expo like Stark did) and also reflecting Stark's arrogance back at him. Sam Rockwell is seriously good in this role bringing vanity, jealousy, neediness, corruption and a desperate desire to be loved to a few short scenes.
Rourke was fantastic as Whiplash, grimy, tattooed and almost impenetrably accented. His character reflects another side of Stark - the inventiveness and ability (compare the opening scenes of both films) but also single-mindedness and inscrutability. Whiplash however, was seriously underused. This guy is the villain, the big threat, the monster we're all supposed to fear. And how much screen-time does he get? (not much) And how much of that screentime is him tinkering in labs (quite a lot). The big climax mostly involves him sitting at his computer and typing something every time one of his drones dies. That's not very intimidating.

The ending generally was a bit of an anticlimax. There was a lot of flying around at high speeds which wasn't very exciting (couldn't see much, just lots of swooshing - compare that to the fighter jet scene from the first one). Then when they hit the ground and take out the drones it's just a lot of the camera swirling around static figures. Then Whiplash comes along and he's got a new suit which is cool and he's finally a bit scary. Then 30 seconds later he's dead. Even this fight is poor. Whiplash gets ended with that blast Iron Man and War Machine accidentally discovered - fine - but is he really so good there was no other way of beating him? Same as the first film a bigger suit seems to have no weakness. Is there no disadvantage to building 4inch thick armour that the lighter, faster Iron Man can utilise? If not, then why doesn't he build like that? So Whiplash gets beaten and he's like "actually, I win" and sets his bomb. To which the response is "not if we fly away." And then he's all like "oh." Come on! Just blow the bomb without the whole big beeping red light and 10 second timer. Obviously they're trying to set up the whole superhero saves the girl thing but it seems like a pretty weak attempt.

Oh, and Hammer. The other villain. His 'big' ending - a whimper as he walks away with the cops. Wow - that was cool (N.B. sarcasm). They're probably keeping him alive for future films (I hear in the comics he provides super weapons on the black market thus creating baddies for Stark to fight) but surely he could have a better ending than that?


Rhodes/War Hammer
I said above that I enjoy origin stories. Rhodes becoming War Machine is the origin story in this film and I think they really botched it up. This could have been really cool; Rhodes overcoming an obstacle, mates banter, learning the new suit, kicking ass together etc. Instead we get something that felt morally dubious. My problems are as follows:

- It ties in to the Senator issue. What is the film's standpoint on the morality of one man owning such a powerful tool? Rhodes steals the suit, Stark never gives him permission. Rhodes represents the army and the US Govt. So that's the military intervention which Senator Stern wanted all along. But Stark could turn the suit off any time he wants it is later revealed. He doesn't, so does he approve of the State having it?

- Stark isn't really into weapons any more, how does he feel about his suit being made into a walking armoury?

- There's no learning. Rhodes just steps into the suit, it fits him perfectly and he instantly knows how to work it. Not only that but he can fly it pretty well. There is a nice moment in the fight when War machine slides across the floor and Iron Man controls his descent, but that is it. The best bit about an origin story is getting to grips with the new powers. None of that here though.

- Stark doesn't give him a single tip or software update to help him and show official nod of approval. Stark's suit can fly higher (cos of the gold, see film 1) and presumably has a whole load of updates and bug fixes. None of this seems to affect War Machine though. Not so sure what my point is here... Also, why the hell has Stark got a load of mini arc reactors (power systems) already loaded into his old suits? He doesn't use them, he just changes the palladium in his own...


Pepper Potts
Pepper, and her relationship with Stark, was great in the first film because we knew nothing would happen between them. Why did we know this? Because she was his PA and he ran a large business. No matter how equal they were in terms of banter that disparity meant they couldn't get it on without it becoming a bit sleazy and unfeminist. That frisson of excitement between them came in part because of that slight taboo. That frisson was what made the relationship special. In this film they get rid of the only obstacle almost straight away. No obstacle, no drama. In making her CEO they did try and do the whole 'servant is master for a day' role-reversal thing but it didn't really work 'cos Robert D-J is too charming.


Too much going on
Despite restraint on villains there is too much going on:
- Pepper as ceo
- Pepper as love interest
- ScarJo
- Sammy L
- Agent Coulson
- The driver character (played by director Jon Favreau)
- Father relationship
- retconning big reactor/Expo
- illness
- War Machine/Rhodes
- Hammer getting War Machine
- Hammer/Vanko
- Vanko family history

These elements combine with the fact that there are too many 'themes' (using the term loosely). Usually in Hollywood films the character has an arc (ie changes for the better over the course of the film). Usually this arc follows a theme e.g. man doesn't trust anyone, gets in a scrap and loses, learns to trust his friends, they all get in a scrap and win together. Iron Man 2 has far too many themes, any one of which would be sufficient to hold the story. This is why it feels so narratively muddled I think.

Themes include (and note, some overlap)

- Self destructiveness
- Lone gunslinger act
- Egomaniacality
- Romantic Love
- Parental Love
- Buddy Love
- Who should own a superweapon

So for anyone of these Stark should have had a big problem and then clearly faced up to it by the end and used that new-found knowledge about himself to save the day. This is a superhero film, we don't need subtlety, that sort of stuff can be written big, bold and obvious. Instead we get different beats (specific moments) of different arcs kind of glued together to form a Frankenarc. For example he is dangerously self-destructive and we get a great scene showing this - drunk at his own party he nearly kills everyone. Does he ever face up to this? No. He learns instead that his Daddy did love him after all. Does he put this knowledge to use to defeat the bad guy? No. He realises that teamwork will save the day. Any of these would be effective themes to build an arc from. All of them together is muddled and underwhelming.


Little bugs and plot points that annoyed me
- Tony getting in the F1 car was a surprise to everyone, the driver, Potts, ScarJo, everyone. Except Vanko who apparently read his mind months before and sorted out the papers to get himself trackside

- If you didn't stay after the end of the first one you musta been hella confused when Samuel L Jackson turns up and starts rattling on about the Avengers with no preamble or explanation.

- The whole illness thing made no sense at all. If the palladium is poisoning him, why not just put the reactor in the suit (or anywhere away from his body) and just connect the couple of wires needed to run the magnet, you know, like the original battery worked. Also, when he puts his new, triangular, reactor in why does that suddenly make him feel better and more powerful? Surely it's just providing the same current to the electromagnet to keep the shrapnel out of his heart?

- In the first film he flies home, turns off the power 4ft above the ground and promptly crashes through two floors of his house. Funny moment. Pretty sure he drops a few feet onto random buildings in this one and the same thing doesn't happen though.

- What happened to the stuff from the trailer (it got cut obviously, my question is why?) That image of Stark guiding ScarJo using the Iron Man hand never cropped up. No biggie. More of a problem for me was the awesome scene from the trailer just before he dropped into the Expo. You can watch it here. Basically, in the plane Stark asks Pepper for a kiss for luck, she kisses his helmet and chucks it out the back, he jumps out after it calling out "you complete me!" Great line, lots of banter, generated a good buzz online. Wasn't in the film. Could have been easily.


Wow - well that was epic-er than I thought it would be. Hopefully future film thoughts will be a little less verbose.

Film: The Graduate

Watching old classics for the first time is an interesting experience because you usually can't help but have been influenced by what you have heard about it and or seen in references/parodies/quotes etc. The Graduate is obviously very famous and famous for one thing really - "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me." This line and the plot point that it implies are all I knew about the film so the second half was more or less unknown to me. And I found it a little disappointing.

To my mind the seduction of the graduate, Ben, by Mrs Robinson was fascinating and I wanted to know more about Mrs Robinson - why was she cheating, why with a neighbour's son, why with someone so ill-equipped to handle an affair and why she only wanted sex. Mrs Robinson was a character I wanted to know much more about but she is more or less dropped in the second half. Instead we get a slightly turgid tracking of Ben on his mission to marry Elaine, following her around campus and pestering her with proposals.

Elaine is interesting if only because her actions are so bizarre. (Spoilers) A boy she likes takes her on a date to a strip club and humiliates her until she cries. He then confesses that he has been sleeping with her mother. When she moves back to university he stalks her. Result - she abandons her new husband and runs away to make a life with him. Did that not strike anyone else as odd? I really want to know what her thought process was there.

Now don't get me wrong - I think that's a fantastic story: guy has an affair with older woman and then realises her daughter is the love of his life. I just think you really have to do some 'splainin as to how he wins her back and I couldn't find any of that.

One twist that I thought the film was going to take never materialised (which kind of felt like a let down but was more my own fault than the film's). Mrs Robinson protested so strongly at Ben joking about going out with Elaine that I though she would be revealed as his half-sister, the result of the previous generations misdemeanours. I still think that would be a brutal twist - especially if revealed just after they've eloped and gotten married or something.


Points that I did like about the film
- The soundtrack is (famously) wonderful
- Dustin Hoffman is fantasticly squirm-inducingly good
- It has so many really powerful dramatic and brilliant individual scenes; for example:
- The seduction at Mrs Robinson's House
- The revelation to Elaine
- The confrontation with Mr Robinson
- The church scene

Overall I'd give it 8/10

Frisbee: Burro Electrico (open)

Open Tour 1 this weekend.

Should be an exciting tournament because
a) I'm playing with a new team
b) It's always fun discovering which teams that were awesome and are now crap (although less fun the other way)
c) There are 7 European teams playing

My open team for this season is Burro Electrico and I'll be very interested to see how we do. Our aim is to be in A-tour for tour 2 which means being top 16. Well, top 13 actually because 3 teams come up from B-tour. Well, top 13 UK teams because the Europeans probably won't be back. So all very confusing and open and anyone could go anywhere. Exciting.

Now, Burro have only played for one season so far and apparently they lost everything in sudden death (which included the closest thing I've ever seen to a fight on an ultimate pitch). This seems pretty typical of a new team and hopefully something we can iron out this season. From my experience at the top of the bracket (whilst they were at the bottom) last season I would say this team has the potential to push into the top 12 - it's just a question of mentality. Quite a few of the experienced players on this team have apparently not played A tour before so we'll see how that goes (not that they haven't played in other pressure situations).

The current squad seems to be quite a middle aged - not too many students (only 1 comes to mind) but quite a few over the age of thirty (which is obviously well old). I think I'd guess the average age to be 28, maybe more. On the books at the beginning of the season were 24 names and the captain was talking about rotating players for games or whole tournaments. Thankfully everyone got injured and we are now down to 15 for Tour 1 (and the captain is in a tizzy).

Training so far has been... interesting. We had decent turnout for a while but for the last two sessions we've had 9 players. I've been pretty disappointed by that, especially as we had tryouts and turned people away. Like Flaming Galahs, I get the impression 3-4s is being introduced to some players and that the team played a lot of stack last year. Anyhow, we've trained every fortnight (or less, with Mixed Tour) and played winter league together, although no tournaments. At the moment I think we're a bunch of very talented players... I'm just not sure if we're a team yet. At times there's a lot of voices arguing their point and some people who get quite angry at the team when we fuck up.

The past two trainings we've had friendlies against Fire lines (ie just 7 of them): the 1st we lost 11-1, the 2nd 11-9.
For the 1st game I can't remember the last time I was more embarrassed to be playing ultimate. They played a clam and we couldn't get a 1st pass out and when we did we didn't know what to do with it.
For the 2nd game I was just relieved that we were making a showing of ourselves. In another context we'd be kicking ourselves for throwing the game away (we were 3-0 up) but relief was my main emotion. In this game they switched from man to an aggressive arrowhead and said after the game that we would have beaten them if they'd stayed man.

Conclusion - we're a great bunch of players but when we need to play as a team (against clams and zones) we don't have that communication/knowledge/trust/plan that brings us together.

So this weekend. Well tournaments are where the pressure really gets put on - especially when playing unfamiliar teams. I think a tournament is just what we need - if all goes well Tour 1 is going to forge us into a team.

Personal goals for the weekend
I figure if I write these down then I'll have to focus on them and become a better player etc

Get a layout block. Sounds basic, but if you've played with me you know I don't really do the whole D thing, especially not the diving around bit. Well, that's changing hopefully.

Flatter backhand hucks. Mine have got too much roll edge - easier for me to get them out, harder for the receiver to catch

More aggressive handler movement. As asked for by the captain. I'm generally happy to get the disc out to a cutter and let the team take it from there, moving into a dump position for if I'm needed. He'd rather I pushed upfield harder and faster so I'll give that a go...

Frisbee: Flaming Galahs (mixed)

I recently moved to London and started playing for two new teams. Flaming Galahs is the mixed team I now roll with...

This has been a lot of fun so far. Regular trainings, regular pubbings (not that I go) and a team of mostly unfamiliar faces to make friends with. Coached for a short time by an ex-Durham player who was senior when I was junior and has gone on to nearly great Ultimate things but prefers to do great Life things (like sorting out the Middle East) instead.

We've got two teams in tour this year and I've been solidly on the 1st team (I believe). My girlfriend is also recently to London and also plays on the 1s. It's always interesting figuring out a new teams style and discovering who the loudmouths are. Apparently they'd never played 3-4s before (I love 3-4s) and Tom (the coach) was having a hard time convincing them it could be effective. As it is we've played it for at least half the time and we're just about getting there. Some people still don't intuitively understand it, but we're drilled enough to make it work anyway.


We did alright at Tour 1 (got into the top 16, which was our aim) but literally threw away an opportunity to take it up to the next level against a great team. Game to 13, win by 2. We're 12-11 up. O-line is on going downwind and throw it away from 5 yards out. They roll us all the way up to 14-12. Probably a defining moment of the season. That said we were helped out by having the GB captain/coach playing for us that tour but not the rest so we probably didn't really deserve to be up there anyway. Next tour we got kicked out the top 16 by a south coast team that punished had a great long game to which we could find no answer. Pretty annoyed by that too.

Nationals is tomorrow and at the last training we had 9 people turn up. Out of a squad that fields 2 full teams. Not quite sure what happened there.

Anyhow it should be a good tournament - we've injured a few of our guys and so I might get the sort of pitch time I'm used too (these London teams seem to be captained y old people who feel that 20* is a good minimum squad number). We've got a good team and I expect us to hold seed at the top of our pool on Saturday and then see where Sunday takes us. Hopefully up.
*slightly exaggerated


Predictions for overall movements
All total guesses obviously

Going up
1) BAF from 9 to 5
2) Galahs 1 from 18 to 14 (gotta back yourself, right?)
3) Oxford Mixed from 21 to 17

Going Down
1) Bear Cavalry from 4 to 7
2) Curve 1 from 12 to 15
3) Bear Cavalrey 2 from 23 to 26

Keep an eye on Flump Fresh who were stacked last time (too many good guys want to play for that team) but the 1st team may have taken their best having lost players to Clapham. So could go either up or down (just like everyone else then really I guess).

Frisbee: First frisbee post

So, first off, yes, I'm aware it's technically Ultimate, and that frisbee is TM'd and all. But I like the alliteration so I'm going to use the terms interchangeably and as I see fit

To explain my frisbee situation

I started at Durham university, captained in my final year and came 4th at Uni nationals. I have since never managed to come 3rd at a tournament. I am plagued by an inability to play hard in that game; I think I'm mentally quite weak. Nevertheless, I am increasingly coming to the opinion that this might have been the best year of my life. Lovely girlfriend, great course, successful, happy team and awesome housemates... winning combination.

Since then I played for The Brown (Newcastle) and we came something like 10th at one tour in 2009. I had a great time oop north and we had a great team for one year. Unfortunately it is a small town with two large universities near by. Lots of player turnover with only a small handful of permanent residents. Whilst it would be nice to see The Brown do well this year I'm not holding out any hopes.

This season I moved to London and took up with Burro Electrico (open) and Flaming Galahs (mixed). As I write Mixed Nationals is 3 days away and the open season starts a fortnight after that.

I'm also captaining a summer league team filled mostly with ex-Durham players - first game tomorrow night! We've got some top quality talent on this team, combined with some unknown beginnery types (friend brought them in). We're in the second division of the league and my aim is to win that and hopefully make a good run in the cup - I don't think we're finals material but quarters or semis should be do-able.

Note.
This blog will be a little pointless if I'm not forthright and honest... but being forthright and honest might not keep me in the best of books with my teammates and captains. I shall attempt not to name and insult anyone directly etc, but I may step on a few toes by voicing opinions that I perhaps wouldn't do in person. Apologies in advance

Two posts will be forthcoming. One discussing my open team and the other my mixed one.

I hope you are waiting with baited breath...

Welcome

So,

welcome to this blog and all.
I'm reasonably sure it'll be defunct within a year, if not sooner, because I suck at life. On the off chance that I develop rabid worshipful followers, consider this fair warning that I promise no regular updates or longevity.

What this blog will be about

1) I watch quite a lot of films. I want to work in that sort of industry so technically it's research or something too. Anyway, I thought it might be good for me to put down a few thoughts about each one. This will force me to think about them critically etc and hopefully improve my ability to quickly and non-violently end arguments with friends and family about why their thoughts on film are wrong.

These won't be reviews (I can't afford to see things when they come out) and they won't be critical deconstructions. Just musings that ramble on.

Note, I grew up without a tv and have missed out on quite a few classics. So keep an eye out for a fresh perspective on old films that you saw many years ago and assumed I did too.

2) I play quite a lot of Ultimate Frisbee. I'm not great, but I'm not too shabby either; I play at the standard of a top 16 UK team I would say. Blog posts may arise on tactics, strategies and lessons I have learned or they may lean more towards tournament and training write ups from a personal perspective. We shall see

3) I occasionally lead a life outside of these two spheres. I may occasionally write about that life.

4) I like cooking. If I make something good I may be kind enough to share the recipe with you so you can make tasty deliciousness for yourself.

That is all at the moment. I reserve the right to take up new interests and write about them too.