Category Archives: Quick Review

Quick Review: Those Guys Have All the Fun, Part 1

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I recently read Those Guys Have All the Fun,  a best selling non-fiction book. Through interviews with many of the business and on-air personalities of ESPN, this tells the story of the sports network’s first three decades. Here are my thoughts on this large book: in Part 1, I will tackle how the book was carried out and in Part 2 I will address what I saw as the book’s two main themes:  important business decisions and personalities.

1. As someone who fondly remembers ESPN from when my family first had cable in the early 1990s, I knew most of the products and many of the personalities that the book was about. It was funny to remember the programming that ESPN had at that time including fitness shows in the morning.

1a. This book reminded me that ESPN and all of its channels need a lot of content to cover 24 hours a day. In the early days, they struggled for content but even in recent years, I was struck by a comment from a manager that poker was a brilliant find not just because it was popular but because it filled a lot of hours cheaply.

2. I think this book wants to be authoritative but I think it tries to cover too much and talks to too many people to do this. It is an impressive feat to have talked with many of the important people from ESPN’s history and I assume that the authors have a lot more material that they didn’t include.

3. I don’t think I particularly like this format where the authors provide little overarching commentary and let the interviewees tell the story. The authors could have provided a little more summary material and this would have helped connect the chronological periods that each chapter covers. Letting the people involved tell their stories is interesting but ultimately there is an overarching story to tell.

3a. After I finished, I wondered who they didn’t talk to. I assume there were some employees who were not interested in participating and how they might have told a different story. In the end, this tends to be a very positive book about ESPN.

4. Bristol, Connecticut comes up a lot, almost always as a joke. It would have been interesting to hear from community leaders and residents about how they viewed the rise of ESPN as most of the employees don’t think very highly about it.

5. There is an assumption throughout from employees that sports are everything. Occasionally, events like OJ Simpson’s car chase and trial or 9/11 remind them that there are other important things going on in the world. I would be interested in hearing these employees talk more about the relationship between their job in sports and the rest of their lives. Is anyone in the company worried about a sports 24/7 world?

5a. Is ESPN set up to serve the ardent sports fan or does it make a concerted effort to draw new viewers? Certain events or sports, like the full coverage of the World Cup, might attract new viewers.

6. The issue of sexual harassment comes up throughout but the conclusions are unclear: has ESPN sufficiently dealt with this or has this book simply helped sweep it under the rug? And how many readers of this book would care about this issue?

7. I think more attention could have been paid to the Internet, how ESPN’s site compares to others, and how the company has balanced between TV and the Internet. I’m not very fond of all the video on ESPN’s sites and probably read more commentary on SI.com where the emphasis is more on the articles and insights than the overwhelming force of ESPN. Is there sniping within the company between the Internet and TV sides?

8. From a sociological perspective, there is a lot more analysis that could be done with this information. There is a quote toward the end from a Fox Sports executive that struck me: ESPN’s overall ratings are low. Yet, they draw a lot of attention. Perhaps this is because it is a favorite of males. Perhaps it is because they tend to dominate sports coverage in the US. Perhaps it is because their size has led to a number of competitors and websites devoted to their doings. But it sounds like ESPN has cultural influence beyond its ratings and this could be explored further.

Part 2 of this review will follow tomorrow.

Quick Review: Scorecasting

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I have written about Scorecasting several times (see here and here) so I figured I had better read it. Here are my thoughts on what I read about “the hidden influences” in sports:

1. This book truly aims for the Freakonomics crowd: there is a blurb both at the top of the cover and the back from Freakonomics author Steven D. Levitt. Those University of Chicago professors stick together…

2. I know that I have heard a number of these arguments before, particularly ones about why football teams should not punt, the unfairness of coin flips at the beginning of overtime in the NFL, and the phenomenon of the “hot hand.” Perhaps this indicates that I read too much sports news or that the sports world in recent years really has taken a liking to new kinds of statistics and statistical analysis.

3. A number of the explanations included psychology, just like Spousonomics. Is this because psychological terms and studies are better known (compared to disciplines like sociology) or because psychology truly does provide a lot of helpful information about sports situations? A lot of sports can be broken down into individual performances and efforts – see all of the recent psychoanalyzing of LeBron James – but they are also team games that require cooperation. Could we get more analysis of units or collectives?

4. There were particular chapters and insights that I found fascinating – here are a few:

4a. The overvaluing of round numbers, such as 20 home runs in a season or a .300 batting average, compared to hitters with 19 home runs and/or a .299 average. I don’t know if teams could really save a lot of money doing this but there is a fixation on certain figures.

4b. The trade value chart used around the NFL Draft and pioneered by the Dallas Cowboys needs to be revised.

4c. Two things about home field advantage. First, it is fairly consistent within sports across time and across countries. Second, officiating make up a decent amount of this advantage. I like the evidence of how baseball umpires suddenly started advantaging the road team on close calls when they knew that technology was being used to evaluate their calls.

4d. The chapter on the Cubs curse shows again that the idea is irrational.

5. In reading through this, I was reminded again of the wealth of statistics available in baseball. Other sports have to try to catch up to quantify as much as baseball can. But there is clearly a revolution underway with more professional teams taking these numbers seriously, including the new NBA champions. Could we get an analysis of whether teams that pay more attention to advanced statistics and analysis actually have better records? “Moneyball” was a big idea for a while as well but doesn’t seem to get as much attention now that Billy Beane isn’t competing as well out in Oakland.

5a. I’m sure someone has to have translated an undergraduate statistics course into an all-sports data format. How appealing would students find this and does this improve student learning outcomes?

Overall, I enjoyed this book: this should be of little surprise since it involves sports and statistics, two things that interest me. While some of the arguments may be familiar to sports fans, it does provide some more fodder for future sports conversations.

Quick Review: Spousonomics

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I picked up Spousonomics recently after reading some reviews earlier this year. Here are some thoughts about this book that has the intriguing subtitle “Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage and Dirty Dishes”:

1. The book uses economic principles to illustrate common problems in marriage. The bulk of each chapter is made up of case studies, usually three per chapter, where we read about how couples were using economic principles without knowing it.

2. I’m not sure what this book aspires to be: a primer in basic economic principles? A marriage book? Based on the front cover blurb from Elizabeth Gilbert (of Eat, Pray, Love fame) and the heavy emphasis on case studies, it reads more like a marriage advice book, just from the perspective of economics. On the other hand, the authors, both journalists, begin each chapter by explaining economic concepts and seem interested in sharing these ideas with a broader public. With some more information (more on this in a moment), this could be an interesting introductory text using a context that many adults are familiar with (not so much for high school and college students). If I had to choose, I would argue the book is more of a marriage book dressed up with economics. Even so, I imagine there is a decent-sized market for texts about marriage.

a. Here is the justification early in the book for why economics can help marriages:

We believe in economics because it doesn’t discriminate between the sexes, between who’s “right” and who’s “wrong,” who communicates better and who talks worse. It doesn’t talk down to you or attempt to psychoanalyze. It doesn’t care who won the last fight or whose turn it is to control the remote. Instead, it offers dispassionate, logical solutions to what can often seem like thorny, illogical, and highly emotional domestic disputes.

3. Several things grated on me throughout the text:

a. The authors say they talked to a number of economists but they quote relatively few economists. Perhaps I am reading this too much like an academic but why not utilize more information form the experts?

b. The authors cite economic studies but often only cite one or two to illustrate a point. There is a lot more complexity to some of these concepts that one or two study (which can often be complex themselves).

c. The authors talk about how they collected data by interviewing couples and conducting a survey. However, they continually refer the survey as the “Exhaustive, Ground Breaking, and Very Expensive Marriage Survey.” This may be interesting the first time but not every time they talk about the survey results. Additionally, most of the case studies they present in the book seem to be middle- or upper-class couples that deal with middle- and upper-class problems of balancing work and family ambition, kids who are in too many activities, etc.

d. The writing style can be quite informal – I know this is aimed at a mass audience but I wonder how much of this comes from the authors themselves or from editors who suggested that they needed to find “their voice.”

4. So has anyone written a similar mass-market book utilizing sociological concepts? This would be a classic example of an attempt to use an everyday phenomenon to teach about a particular discipline.

Overall, some of the case studies are interesting (there are a lot of examples in here and this would make it easier for people to identify with something) and the idea that economic principles can help us understand our relationships is intriguing. But some of the recurring smaller issues kept me from being impressed and in the long run, I wonder if this isn’t just another book dispensing marital tips.

Quick Review: Waiting for Superman

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I recently watched the documentary Waiting for Superman, a film that received a lot of media attention after it was released late last year. It does try to take on an important on-going problem: how to improve American schools? This is an issue that one can hear average citizens, politicians, college professors and others discuss frequently. Here are my quick thoughts about this film’s take on the issue:

1. The framing of the issue in the opening and conclusion of the film is quite effective. Toward the beginning, we meet several students who want to go to the better schools (often a magnet or charter school) in their school districts. But since they are not alone and these schools are attractive to many families, the students have to go through a lottery. At the end, we see the results of the lottery. This is the question that is raised: should a child’s educational opportunities be left to chance in a lottery? Get into one of these elite schools and life will likely be good; not get in, and children can be doomed to terrible schools that are termed “drop-out factories.”

2. While the documentary hits on some possible reasons behind the problems of American schools (No Child Left Behind, bad neighborhoods, tracking), the main emphasis here is on two things:

2a. Teachers are a problem. The idea pushed by the documentary is that the bad teachers need to be replaced and unions resist this process. Michelle Rhee, the attention-getting superintendent of the Washington, D.C. schools is followed as she tries to make a deal with the union involving merit pay for the good teachers. Interestingly, we don’t really see evidence from districts where teachers are not as unionized – does this help improve student performance?

2b. Parents deserve choices in schools. This involves magnet or charter schools within districts plus other operations such as the Harlem Children’s Zone and KIPP schools.

2c. I wish they had put these two ideas together more: so how do teachers operate within these “better” school settings? How are teachers trained and encouraged within these settings? What exactly about these schools boosts student performance – is it just the teachers?

2d. I also wonder how all of this might be scalable. Later, the documentary talks about raising expectations for children and Bill Gates talks on-camera about having the right “culture” in the schools. How might this fit into the idea about American schools being more of a competition-based system versus a country like Finland that pursues more equal outcomes across the spectrum of students?

3. Even though most of the documentary is about inner-city schools, it also follows one “average” suburban girl and the suggestion is made that even suburban schools are not doing that well. This is backed up with data showing that American students are the most confident among a group of OECD nations but their scores are behind those of many nations. Additionally, it is suggested that these suburban schools are not preparing students well for college where a good number find that they need to take remedial courses. Since many Americans likely are influenced by school district performance as they look to move, what exactly is going on in these suburban schools that needs to be fixed? Outside of the exemplar schools held up in the movie (magnets or charters, KIPP, Harlem Children’s Zone), are there any good schools? Is the whole system so broken that no school can really succeed?

Overall, I was a little surprised by the message and who I have seen support it: improve the pool of teachers (and fight the unions!) and offer parents and communities more choices of schools that are more effective in providing educations. Considering what I often see blamed as the problems of schools, No Child Left Behind or funding disparities, this is a change of pace.

At the same time, I wonder about whether these two solutions are really the answer. Are they band-aids to the issue or would they really solve educational problems in America? I keep coming back to the idea of residential segregation, the concept describing how races and social classes live apart from each other. Life chances are better for people growing up in wealthier, more educated settings but of course, these people can buy their way into such settings and avoid others. Would school districts near me, say in Naperville, a suburb that takes great pride in its schools, really go for the idea of charter or magnet schools? Do they even really need them?

At the very least, this documentary raises some interesting issues and a different perspective on a problem for which many wish to find a solution.

(This film was well-received by critics: it is 89% fresh at RottenTomatoes, 99 fresh out of 112 total reviews.)

Quick Review: 21 by Adele

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Even though I listen to a good amount of music, it is still somewhat rare to find an album that really captures my attention. The latest new album to achieve this status is 21, is the recently-released album from British songstress Adele (Adkins). The album has been on the Billboard charts for three weeks since its release, peaked at #1 and now sits at #2 in the Billboard 200. A few thoughts about this album which I have been listening to non-stop for a week:

1. The overall theme of the album is heartbreak – but it sounds like a soulful, engaging sort of heartbreak, the kind you actually might want to hear about over and over again.

2. I particularly enjoy several of the songs. The two songs to open the album are quite good and will make good radio singles. But two songs in the second half of the album are also quite good: Track 7, Take It All, and Track 9, One and Only. Track 7 is just Adele and a piano. Track 9 adds some other instruments but still is just Adele and her feelings.

3.  The arrangements on these songs, similar to the first album, are set up to showcase Adele’s voice. Even when she deviates from the melody, it doesn’t sound like she is preening or showing off.

4. Speaking of the songs, I read a review (or a couple) that mentioned how a lot of the songs sounds alike. I can kind of see the point: once you get past the first two songs, the rest mine similar lyrical ground and primarily feature Adele. This is not an album that has a lot of twists or turns with multiple styles of music or words. My thoughts on this are that the album doesn’t deviate from what Adele does well. To get something different, we’ll have to wait until the next album.

5. One thing I like about the the whole album is that it is unified and does seem to fit the title, a reference to Adele’s age when much of this was put together. This is exactly the age in which you would expect to hear about these upfront and raw emotions. I hope Adele can continue this age-related trend on future albums; this would give us a sort of lifecourse approach. While I think many musicians do this (check out how the themes and styles change as musical artists age and are no longer the young stars they once were), Adele’s first two albums have been more explicit about this. So can the next album, presumably something like 23 or 24,  examine the quarter-life crisis?

(According to Metacritic.com, this album gets “generally favorable reviews” with a composite score of 76 out of 100 based on the thoughts of 29 critics.)

(A side note: I believe the next music album I will review is Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. While I have heard a lot about this band in recent years, I bought this album, the first one I have purchased, on the same day I bought the Adele album. There are two reasons I want to listen to and review this particular album: the band gets good reviews and the subject matter, suburban life, is right up my alley. As far as I know, there are not too many rock albums that explicitly address the suburbs.)

Quick Review: Catfish

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Perhaps we could consider the movie Catfish a companion to the more publicized film The Social Network (reviews from Brian here, Joel Sage here): both films consider the effects that Facebook and other digital technologies have on our world. But while The Social Network was a stylized retelling of the founding of Facebook, Catfish covers the lives of more ordinary people as they use these technologies to search for love. Here are a few thoughts about this film:

1. The story revolves a guy, Nev, from New York and a girl from Michigan, Megan, who build a relationship built around a Facebook friendship, IM chats, text messages, and phone calls. Both parties are looking for love though why they are doing this ends up being the plot twist of the film.

1a. I think what makes this film work is that Nev is an appealing character. Even though he hasn’t met Megan in the early stages of the film, he falls hard and ends up giggling and swooning like a teenager. But when things turn out to be more complicated than this, he still finds a way to make sense of it all.

2. More broadly, the film presents a question that many people wonder about: can two people really build a lasting relationship through Facebook?  While this is an interesting question, research on Facebook and SNS (social networking site) use suggests most younger people are not looking to meet new people online. Rather, they are reinforcing existing relationships or reestablishing past relationships. And this film deserves some credit: whereas a film like You’ve Got Mail suggests that email and other electronic communication work the same way as traditional dating (and the typical romantic comedy happy ending), this film introduces some complications.

3. The Social Network seems to suggest that technology helps keep us apart. (A side note: this seems to be an argument from the older generation talking about younger generations. One thing I wonder about The Social Network: was it so critically acclaimed because it fed stereotypes that older people have about younger people? How much did the characters in this film resonate with the lives of younger film-goers?) In that film, Zuckerberg founds Facebook in order to join the in-crowd, is being sued by two people after arguments related to developing community-building websites,  and at the end, he is shown still searching for a connection with a girl he lost years ago. Catfish seems to make an opposite argument: despite the imperfect people who try to connect online, the film suggests there is still some value in getting to know new people. When Nev’s love becomes complicated, he doesn’t just withdraw or call it quits – he tries to move forward while still getting to know Megan.

4. This film claims to be a documentary though there is disagreement about whether this is actually the case. Regardless of whether the film captures reality or is scripted, it is engaging. (The presentation seems similar in tone to Exit Through the Gift Shop, reviewed here.) Have we reached the point in films where the line between what is real and what is written doesn’t matter? And should we care or do we just want a good story?

Overall, this film seems more hopeful about the prospects of Facebook and other digital technology. With a documentary style and an engaging storyline, Catfish helps us to think again about whether people can truly get to know each other online.

(This film was generally liked by critics: it has a 81% fresh rating, 109 fresh out of 134 total reviews, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

Quick Review: The King’s Speech

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The upcoming Oscars seem to be a battle between two films: The Social Network (see my earlier review here and sagescape’s here) and The King’s Speech. I just had a chance to see the second film and have some thoughts about this Best Picture contender.

1. Since this is a historical drama, I expected this film to be somewhat bland and formulaic. It was neither.

2. There is a little bit of a storyline about the gap between British royalty and the common people. In the film, this gap is between King George VI and his speech therapist, an untrained but effective practitioner. The question arises: how can someone rule a country (and empire) if either side has little idea of how the other lives? We could probably ask similar questions today about many of the people at the top of our social hierarchy.

3. The film had more humor, albeit fairly dry, than I was expecting. I don’t know that I would think of Colin Firth as a comic actor but he has some good lines spoken by a struggling character.

4. The context of the film is engaging as Europe inches toward World War II. Even if the timeline in the movie doesn’t quite match the historical record, the struggles of King George VI are heightened by the gathering storm.

5. The peak of the film is a speech by King George VI. Even though it is an important speech delivered at a key historical moment, I appreciated that the musical score and the editing was understated and intimate. Too often, I think films use music and editing as a crutch to cover up less-than-exciting climaxes. Good plots don’t need to be oversold.

6. I thought The Social Network was interesting but not great. In comparison, The King’s Speech is weightier, has better acting, and doesn’t have to rely on edgy dialogue or a current storyline. My vote for the Best Picture (between these two and the other nominees I’ve seen including True Grit, Toy Story 3, and Inception): The King’s Speech.

(Critics also like this film: RottenTomatoes.com says the film is 94% fresh with 188 positive reviews out of 199 total reviews.)

Quick Review: Exit Through the Gift Shop

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In recent years, I’ve read about the exploits of Banksy, Britain’s most famous street artist. Therefore, I couldn’t pass up watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, a 2010 documentary about Banksy and street art. Here are a few thoughts about the film:

1. The main character of the film is not Banksy but a Frenchman living in Los Angeles named Thierry Guetta. Guetta ends up filming a lot of street artists, eventually meets Banksy, and then sets out himself to be an artist.

2. One of the most dramatic scenes of the film involves Disneyland where Banksy and Guetta stage an “art installation.” While the reaction of Disneyland is not a surprise, it is still interesting to hear how quickly and how seriously their security responded to the situation. The hidden world of happy Disneyworld and Disneyland is a fascinating subject.

3. The images and symbols of the street art world are interesting. Based on what is in this film, one could surmise that it is generally involves ironic or snarky takes on common images and ideas. Part of the allure is simply placing these pictures in prominent places – the artists have a fairly persistent threat of being caught. The other part of the allure is that the art is often “cheeky,” particularly Banksy’s work that challenges the status quo (see the paintings on the wall separating Palestine and Israel). Some of the images are new but many of them are repackaged or remixed.

4. The film also spends some time following how street art became lucrative art as collectors and the general public rushed to buy it. What began on the streets became institutionalized art that museums had to have in their galleries and wealthy people had to have on their walls. I would be curious to know if the value of these art pieces has risen in the last few years (particularly compared to more “traditional” art). The film doesn’t quite display an outright sneer toward this popularity, perhaps more of a wry and bemused grin.

5. I read something recently that suggested it is hard to know whether this is truly a documentary or not, particularly since it is a documentary that tracks the life of an amateur documentarian. Is this all smoke and mirrors or an authentic film about a burgeoning art movement? Have stories in the form of mock documentaries, such as The Office, ruined “truth” caught on camera forever? Ultimately, I’m not sure it matters – the real question about most films is whether they are entertaining or not. And this film is pretty entertaining.

I found this film, on the whole, to be fun. The art is interesting, particularly watching the street artists working hard to put slightly subversive images in interesting places, and the characters even more so, particularly Guetta and his created alter ego (and the questions regarding the truth of his alter).

(Critics loved this film: the film is 98% fresh, 96 fresh reviews out of 98 total, at RottenTomatoes.com.)

Quick Review: Da Bears!

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Partly to commemorate the Chicago Bears’ lone Super Bowl title and also to help mourn the recent loss to the Green Bay Packers, I read Da Bears!: How the 1985 Monsters of the Midway Became the Greatest Team in NFL History. A few thoughts about this book, one of many products commemorating this 25th anniversary:

1. A main theme of the book is the ongoing battle between Head Coach Mike Ditka and defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan. How exactly the team kept moving forward with this kind of tension is interesting.

2. There are claims that the Bears were the team that really helped push the NFL to the top. With their winning plus the actions and charm of their players, the Bears were a kind of media circus in an era where this didn’t happen often.

2a. The problem with a claim like this is that little evidence is presented that might conflict with this narrative. At one point, the book mentions that several teams had recorded songs as teams before the “Super Bowl Shuffle” but it was this 1985 song that really took off. Another (implicit?) claim is that the Bears really pushed athlete endorsements forward. Were other star athletes not doing commercials? In the end, how exactly do we know the Bears were something different in the eyes of the media compared to any other team of the time? I would have liked to have read more perspectives from outside of Chicago – were people across the country as intrigued with the Bears as Chicagoans were?

3. Some things never seem to change with the Bears: defense over offense, inconsistent quarterback play, complaints about the McCaskeys, an inability to follow up on success (with the 1985 Super Bowl team never getting back to another title game), fickle fans who suddenly were worried at the end of the 1985 season with less than perfect play, and more. How long can a team have the same basic identity?

4. As a cultural phenomenon, it would be interesting to track other teams that have captured the heart of a city in the same way as the Bears. While the list of endorsements and radio shows during the 1985 season was impressive, many of those guys are still around in the Chicago media. Will there be a point where the 1985 team is eclipsed by another team or was their combination of dominance and style too much to overcome?

5. It was unclear to me how much of this book was original research versus drawing from existing sources.

Overall, I’m not sure how much new material this book presents: many of the themes are widely known. There are a wide range of perspectives in this book but I think you also find this information elsewhere. I was looking for a new take on a famous team and yet you will hear the same things on local sports talk stations and other media.

Quick Review: Babies

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I watched the film Babies recently with the hopes that I might use a portion of it to illustrate the idea of socialization in my Introduction to Sociology course. I didn’t end up using the film but I still have a few thoughts about this 2010 film:

1. The film follows four babies: one each in Namibia, Mongolia, Japan, and San Francisco. Between the four of them, there were some contrasts. But I’m not sure there was enough variation in these cases. Outside of the Namibian baby, the other three families were fairly Westernized. The Japanese and American baby seemed to experience similar things. If the goal was to draw attention to how babies develop in similar stages yet do so in unique cultural settings, I think this could have been improved. This is a problem that also plagues case studies: cases need to be selected in such a way that they have variation on the key variables of interest (culture in this instance).

2. The movie has no narration – it is a compilation of scenes tracking their development and there is some instrumental music. This leads to a lot of “awww” moments but the film struggles to say something larger.

3. Some of the scenes were quite well put together. The shots of the Mongolian child seemingly out in the wilderness on his own (a constant backdrop of mountains and cattle) were impressive.

4. I know this is an inherent problem in a film that attempts to follow four children through several years of life but I didn’t feel like we had a good understanding of the broader context the babies were in. There was little or no information about their parents or families. I felt like we saw a lot of scenes meant to show the different stages of development but little of the full story. Since the film was somewhat short (just under 80 minutes), ten or fifteen minutes of this information could easily have been added though it would have altered the approach.

Overall, this was an engaging film as it is interesting to watch the children grow up. There is much potential in these scenes but the film as a whole struggles to make a larger point.

(This film was okay in the eyes of critics. According to RottenTomatoes.com, 69% of critics – 67 out of 97 – said the film was “fresh.”)