I Want to Be an NFL Color Commentator When I Grow Up

Sam, I want to point a couple things out about that play we just saw. I'm going to freeze the screen here and I want you to look at the running back. With 3 minutes left in the game, you can actually see him look at the scoreboard and realize that if his team is going to prevail, it's up to him to make the plays. Nobody's going to hand him the game, he's the one who has to get it done. Great players make great plays. And 32 is a Great Player. You may remember I included him on my list of Players to Watch before the game as someone the team would ask to run the football on third down situations if their primary running back suffered a debilitating injury. And I was right.

You can just see it in his eyes, how he's telling his teammates to hitch their wagons to his star, how he's taking the whole team -- all 55 players, even the backup punter -- on his back and willing himself to get that extra yard, not settling for anything less. That's courageous, let me tell you, it's heroic, it's the stuff legends are made of. He looks at the sidelines at his teammates leaving absolutely nothing on the field and then the warrior in him realizes he has to step up his game. It's not about money, not about endorsements. He wants the respect of his teammates, he wants them to see him as a real man, and real men don't cower in the pressure situations. They get tough. They get it up whether it's their first time playing the game or they've pounded their way through any number of fields. And they're not light on their feet.

I want to show you something else, look very closely at this crude circle/square hybrid I just drew, look how the tight end sacrifices himself right HERE -- see it? -- bringing down the defender so his teammate can get that one extra yard. That's selfless, it's putting the team before you, it's teamwork at its finest, Sam, and the coaches recognize that effort. You don't think they see their men putting everything on the line? I'm telling you, we're going to have a hard time awarding the Levitra Player of the Game today, there's just so many men here rising to the occasion, stiffening the pressure at all the right moments, and sticking it to their opponents.

Y'know, Sam, when Renee had a chance to talk with the head coach before halftime, there was one thing he told her that I thought almost justified our use of women in a man's sport. He wanted his guys to come out after the half, score as often as they could to put the other team on the defensive, and really step up the effort on the defensive side to keep the other guys from putting points on the board. And Sam, what you're seeing here is a team sticking to its game plan to the letter. When you have an entire team -- offense, defense, special teams, and the cheerleaders -- all on the same page, playing for the same goal, fighting a war for the same spoils -- then you can accomplish anything, reach any summit, climb any mountain, touch any sky, kill any foreigner who may or may not be invading your territory. When I was a player, there was a name for game plans like this: championship football.

This team may be down 35-3, but those are the types of plays that will get you back in the game. Sam?

The Squid and the Whale

(****1/2) out of 5

"It's Mom and me against you and Dad," says Frank, the youngest son of the Berkman family, at the beginning of "The Squid and the Whale," Noah Baumbach's caustic yet moving observation on that most American of traditions: divorce. He's talking about what should be a friendly tennis match with family, but turns out to be an apt characterization for the brutal verbal tennis match that follows.

Bernard, whom Jeff Daniels portrays with just the right combination of charming aloofness and self-delusion, is a failed academic who -- perhaps inevitably -- now teaches a creative writing class, the kind of guy who drops phrases such as fait accompli into casual conversation. He achieved some literary recognition early in his career, but has since seen his output dwindle, his agent look elsewhere, and now finds fulfillment in flirting with his student (Anna Paquin), who contributes "epic stories about her vagina" to the class. To make matters worse for the pitifully competitive Bernard, his wife Joan (Laura Linney) is now the successful Berkman author, selling stories to The New Yorker and getting her novel published.

Early in the film, Joan and Bernard tell Frank and his older brother Walt that they will separate, Joan's affairs during the prior four years finally too much for Bernard to deal with. They agree to joint custody -- albeit each for their own selfish reasons -- and each son immediately chooses sides.

Walt clearly idolizes Bernard and the assumed authority that comes with being a published author. When Walt first talks with Sophie, a classmate he has his eye on, she tells him that "Tender is the Night" is one of her favorite novels. "That's minor Fitzgerald," Walt replies in the voice of his father, even though he hasn't read it. "'Gatsby' is really his masterpiece." So desperate is Walt's desire to meet his father's expectations and express his own talents that he later performs a Pink Floyd song at a talent show and claims he wrote it himself.

While Walt clings to whatever crumbs of wisdom Bernard hands down ("Do you think Sophie's pretty?" Walt asks. "She's not usually the type of girl I go for, but she's nice," Bernard deadpans), Frank stays on his mother's team. He's discouraged when Joan tells him he looks more like his father than her, and begins acting out sexually in school.

"The Squid and the Whale," which derives its metaphor from a museum exhibit featuring the two animals battling for position, plays out the way you'd expect a Wes Anderson-produced film to: it's off-beat, the soundtrack unlike anything else you hear in contemporary film, and funny just when things have gotten too serious.

At just less than 90 minutes, Baumbach doesn't waste any time, never allowing the pace to slow and ending right when Walt has achieved his well-earned sense of maturity. It also features an affable performance from William Baldwin. What more could the discerning viewer want?