All Hollywood Mock Draft

With the NFL draft quickly approaching, the staff here would like to bring you our first ever AA Mock Draft!!  Now, this particular mock draft will be done a little bit differently than most you read on the web or see on TV.  I’m sorry, but there will be no Mel Kiper Jr. or Todd McShay breakdowns of the different players.  I thought however, in the interest of having fun (and also not being so well versed upon the needs of the teams and the scouting reports of the prospects), we would give you the internet’s first ever (or so we think, don’t quote us on it) all-Hollywood mock draft.  This is mock draft will operate under the assumption that 20 directors/producers are all making a film at the same time and they are having a draft to chose the actors who are playing the roles in their movies (interestingly, wouldn’t you think this concept would make for excellent television?)  Hopefully what this will accomplish is show who are the biggest stars in Hollywood right now and who we think would not only sell tickets but own are the most talented performers.  I will however note that these choice are made by my perception of how these actors are perceived by Hollywood producers and/or the public.   So these are choices of whom I think would be drafted in what order but my opinions on their full potential will be noted and it may not necessarily reflect who I think is the better actor.  So without further ado... 

With the first pick of the 2012 AA all-Hollywood mock draft….

1.     Leonardo Dicaprio

Yes, we understand that the first pick is somewhat controversial, and a lot of other actors could have gone here.  We think Leo is the safest pick here.  You know what you are getting with him: Big time star power, still rather young, and only continues to produce Hollywood hits. 

2.     Ryan Gosling

Taking Gosling at #2 is a definite reach but is there anyone in Hollywood right now that has a bigger upside than Gosling?  He had a HUGE 2011 with Ides of March, Crazy Stupid Love, and Drive.  His  full range of acting ability really blossomed with these movies.  He is a prime candidate to be a bust, but with such a high ceiling, too good to pass up at #2

3.     Christian Bale

I think Bale goes third strictly because of his acting alone.  I don’t think he possesses the star quality that the first 2 picks have but he has the ability to turn a mediocre movie into a good or even great one.  Not many actors have this trait and therefore I think he doesn’t make it past #3

4.     Matt Damon

As for Damon going 4^th, this is definitely a reputation pick.  He has solid movies and will continue to draw crowds, but as of late the direction his movies hasn’t been good with things like Adjustment Bureau and Here After.  This pick definitely could be seen as a stretch at #4.

5.     Johnny Depp

Depp at #5 is probably no real shock.  He is a little older and I think that hurts his value but his acting abilities don’t go away with age.  He has a lot of lovable characters, so we think the top 5 is where he belongs

6.     Jeremy Renner

Other than Gosling, it is hard to find many other people gaining as much steam as Renner in Hollywood right now.  This pick is definitely one based off potential, but if he continues to land big time action roles, look out, Renner could end up being a steal at #6

7.     Mark Wahlberg

BUST ALERT!  Whalberg at #7, we think, is vastly overrating his talents.  However, there seems to be a growing sense that producers are starting to believe that he is an accomplished actor.  We don’t think he deserves it, but it would shock us if someone lets him fall out of the top 10

8.     Brad Pitt

I like Pitt going in the #7-#10 range, I think that is what he deserves, and is probably where he will go.  One of those guys you know what you are getting with him, and is solid on all facets acting (comedy, drama, action, romance).  You name it he can do it and do it pretty well.

9.     James Franco

We think Franco slips into the top 10 at #9 only because of the fact he has shown such versatility and promise so far during his career.  However, he may lack the qualities of being a true star, only time will tell.

10. Zach Galifianakis

The first “true” comedy actor we think comes off the board at #10, Galifianakis had a huge 2009 with Hangover, but his super start status has lessened since.  Still think someone will reach here and take him at #10 with his upside being somewhere in the Chris Farley/Jim Belushi range.

Here are the rest of our picks with short analysis:

11. Will Smith - solid movies, talented actor, not enough of a track record though to warrant top 10

12.  Ed Norton - extremely talented, not much star power, but a possible top 10 pick

13. Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man's age hurts him, still a top 15 actor though, 

14.  Sandra Bullock - probably most talented woman actor in Hollywood today wouldn't be surprised to see her go as high as #6 or #7

15.  Michael Fassbender - Biggest surprise of the draft, relative unkown who had a big year, could be a steal at #15 or a huge bust

16. Kristen Wiig - arguably funniest woman in Hollywood right now, definite steal anywhere out of the top 10

17.  Will Ferrell - large fan base, guaranatees butts in the seats, would be a safe pick at #17

18.  Russel Crowe - Brings it some roles and doesn't in others, inconsistency drops him out of top 15

19. Ryan Reynolds - up and coming comedy actor that is starting to show versatility, arguably a top 15 talent, but not a long enough track record, we expect to see him fall to #19

20. Adam Sandler - Continues to knock out mediocre comedies, definite stretch at #20, but we think he lands here based off his track record of classic comedic performances

Love it, hate it, but this is how we think an all Hollywood draft would go. 

Wild Wild Week in Sports

This past week, ending with Easter weekend in terms of sports was wilder than an episode of Mob Wives.  There was a plethora of sports stories that we here at AA decided to go A.D.D. on you and give you a quick take on each thing that happened in the last week.

NCAA Championship:

Congratulations to the University of Kentucky and Coach Calipari on winning the championship.  A lot of people (including me) said you would never win a title because of the way you recruited “one-and-dones”, but apparently you perfected it.  We would like to go on record saying however, that we rooted our ass off for Kansas and Thomas Robinson to get the title.  No team and coach deserved it more, but that is the way sports goes sometimes.  One thing that did get the AA staff excited though is all the NBA talent we got to preview, starting with Anthony “The Uni-brow” Davis.  Can’t wait to see this kid at the next level, can you say next Tim Duncan?

Anthony Davis and his Uni-Brow prevail over Kansas to get his school national title number 8

NBA Home Stretch:

Plenty of great games were on the plate last week including a Oklahoma City and Miami matchup that lived up to its billing.  A lot of experts are predicting these teams to represent their respective conferences in the Finals this year and why not?  Right now both teams have to be the favorites with Chicago and San Antonio not far behind.  The MVP race (not that many people care too much) seems to be tightening between Kevin Durant and Lebron James also.  We thought we might mention the hometown Suns are playing well with wins last week against Utah and Los Angeles, bringing them to within one game of the final playoff spot, so the ending of the season should be really exciting.

NHL Season Over:

We don’t talk about too much hockey here at AA, but we just couldn’t help but bring up those scrappy Coyotes.  With a win to end the season against Minnesota they clinched a division title and a #3 seed going into the playoffs.  We want to extend a major Kudos to Dave Tippet and the Yotes’ staff.   This is their third straight playoff appearance and they did this with no owner, uncertainty whether the team was moving out of Arizona, and just the fact that hockey is just not that popular in the Desert.  Maybe a Stanley Cup could change all that?  Who knows? What I do know though is that with how great of a player former Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky was, he was a lousy coach.

Baseball is Back!:

Finally! We missed you baseball and it just feels right to be watching games again.  A lot of old faces in new places this year and we couldn’t be more excited than ever.  It will take some getting used to seeing Prince Fielder in Motown and Albert Pujols living it up in LA.  However, we couldn’t be any more ecstatic for the hometown D-backs.  A great start to the season including unveiling the new “A”, giving out the Silver Slugger awards (Upton and Hudson), Golden Glove (Parra), and Coach of the Year (Gibson) right in front of division rival Giants and the subsequently going out and sweeping them.  Couldn’t be happier! World Series Pick:  Arizona Diamondbacks over Detroit Tigers.

D-backs players and coaches accepting their 2011 awards

Masterful Masters:

Our 2012 Masters winner...Bubba Watson Everyone

The encore to the Easter weekend had to be the Masters.  It was the most anticipated Masters in over a decade and it didn’t disappoint, without Tiger in contention amazingly.  It started on Saturday with Phil’s back nine charge finishing up with his birdie on 18.  Going into Sunday there were still plenty of people in contention and the drama started early.  Louis Oosthuiezen’s double eagle on the second, the first one in the Masters since 1935, got things going early.  His playing partner, our boy, Bubba Watson just kind of hung around all day.  Then on the back nine he struck for four straight birdies and sent it into a playoff.  The AA staff was pulling for Bubba and desperately wanted him to win.  After blocking his ball into the deep woods in the playoff coming off a missed putt for the win we thought it was all over.  However, Bubba, out of the pine straw pulled a Tiger-esque scramble shot and stuck it 10 feet from the pin.  He two putted easily for the victory and we couldn’t be happier for the Bagdad, Florida native.  This guy is just an absolute class act all the way.  His dad died only a couple weeks after he lost a playoff in the 2010 PGA Championship and was heartbroken because he knew at the time it was probably the last time his dad would watch him play.  On March 26, 2012, a couple weeks before this year’s Masters he became a father himself after he and his wife adopted a one-month-old baby boy they named Caleb.  Plus, he plays with a custom made pink driver and every time he drives the ball over 300 yards Ping donates 300 dollars to Phoenix-area charities, including an upfront $10,000 donation.  The program is called “Bubba and Friends: Drive to a Million.”  This is not to mention that each outfit this weekend he wore would be sold to raise money for Fresh Start, an organization that offers cosmetic surgery for children with physical defects.  Lastly, he is part of an all PGA Tour boy band called “Golf Boys” (other members include Rickie Fowler, Ben Crane and Hunter Mahan) and most people describe him as a 33 year old kid who just goofs around a lot, plays video games, and a guy who plays the game because he loves it, not for the money.  What is not to like about him?  I mean, the man has never had a golf lesson in his life, he is completely self-taught and he just won the Masters for crying out loud! Congratulations Mr. Watson on getting this one and we look forward to the many more that will come.

Just for good measure we uploaded the Golf Boys big hit "oh oh oh". Enjoy.

aaaai Return of the Roar

I would like to first start off by apologizing to all the loyal readers of AA for not having a post in quite a long time.  We all know that the month of March was full of exciting sports moments and we were not able to give our insights, so for that we are deeply sorry.  However, now that our hiatus is over, we intend to return with a vengeance, much like our main man Tiger Woods did with his win at Bay Hill to claim his 7^th Arnold Palmer Invitational victory.  Tiger’s journey from that fateful 2009 Thanksgiving night to this moment has been, to say the least, eventful.  The biggest thing though that I think that killed Tiger more than anything was the fact that he just couldn’t win.  Now, he has finally cracked through and tasted the sweetness of victory.  To see really how far we have come, I thought we could journey back and chronicle through time the progress that Tiger has made as well as our society.

November 30, 2009 – Tiger Woods get into a wreck outside of his house, crashing his Buick into a fire hydrant and tree in his driveway.  At first most of us don’t know what is going on.  Little did we know what would slowly come to reveal itself about Tiger’s personal life over the next several weeks.  From the fact that his wife tried to beat him with a golf club, to the infamous message he left on one of his mistress’s phones that was played on the news over and over, to the 16 different women that came out and admitted to having an affair with him, to him eventually being unanimously hated by every woman across America and the punch line to every joke anyone told for about a month.

February 19, 2010– Tiger has his first press conference since the whole incident and finally (somewhat) comes out with the truth and gives an apology to his family.  He also says that he is going to take more time off from golf to get his mind right, meaning that we weren’t going to see him play for a couple more months, which killed the PGA’s TV ratings.  During this period he also lost many endorsement deals with most of the companies he represented as well.  I think much of us left that press conference feeling that maybe he wasn’t completely sincere, but that we just wanted to see him golf again and that is what we cared about most.

April 8, 2010 – Tiger returns to golf for the first time in about 4 months and everyone is anxious to see how he plays and mainly how the crowds would treat him.  For the most part it was pretty normal, it wasn’t the normal “Tiger crowds” we were accustomed to for so long, but what else would we expect.  We live in a day and age now where everything is so easily shared through the Internet and facebook that professional athletes’ personal lives are bigger than ever.  So, I think that his prior digressions definitely translated into a smaller crowd at the tournament.  As for his performance, he would finish tied for 4^th but his performance woes were just beginning.

August 10, 2010 – Woods, still struggling, hires Sean Foley as his swing coach.  Earlier in year Hank Haney resigned, but I think at this point much of America was tired of hearing about Tiger.  He hadn’t won and quite frankly his play was pretty bad.  He competed in the majors, but in the other tournaments his play was abysmal including missing the cut at the PGA championship and withdrawing from the Players Championship.  At this point the discussions were starting would Woods ever win a major again?

July 21, 2011 – Woods fires long time caddy Steve Williams due to personal reasons and the Williams is very upset by this and makes it known through multiple interviews.  I think that this was the first time people were starting to be on Tiger’s side for once because many people made it known how unprofessional Williams behavior after being fired was.  Still, Tiger’s play continued to show brief flashes of getting better, but still no wins to show for.  Due to injuries and other things, many people are now convinced that Tiger may never win another major again.  He would go on to fall as far down as #58 in the world golf rankings.

December 4, 2011 – Tiger finally breaks through and gets a win, except only it doesn’t count.  He wins the Chevron World Challenge, but since it is not an official PGA event, and only had 18 players in the field he can’t officially say he has won again.  However, looking back this had to be a big confidence booster for him.  He knew his game was starting to come back and he was just waiting for a week to put it all together.

March 25, 2012 – After continued improvement including a 3^rd place finish at Abu Dhabi and a final round 62 at the Honda classic to almost overtake the young gun Rory McCilroy, he finally put it all together to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational.  It was more than that.  While watching it, I felt as though it was a flashback to Tiger’s heyday.  There were enormous crowds following him and that infamous “Tiger Roar” was back.  It felt as though the past 30 months had been forgotten and for Tiger I think he felt the same way.  Golf needs Tiger at the top of his game.  Without him it just isn’t the same.  He finally brought back those old feelings of why we love golf so much and all the excitement that comes with it.  I think that America collectively kind of forgave him to and said, “we know your not perfect Tiger, but as long as you win, we still love you.”  Now as we approach the Masters this weekend the excitement couldn’t be higher.  People are once again picking him to win, and saying that, “Tigers Back!”  Is he? Only time will tell, but I think finding out in the near future is going to be one hell of a ride!