kimblr.com

Wednesday’s UIL baseball semifinals
(at Dell Diamond, Round Rock)
CLASS 2A SEMIFINALS
San Angelo Grape Creek (30-6) vs. Salado (30-6), 10 a.m.
Corsicana Mildred (30-6) vs. Buna (22-6), 1 p.m.
CLASS 4A SEMIFINALS
Corpus Christi Calallen (40-1) vs. Friendswood (27-9), 4 p.m.
Waxahachie (31-8) vs. Birdville (32-10), 7 p.m.
(at Disch-Falk Field, UT-Austin)
CLASS 3A SEMIFINALS
Castroville Medina Valley (36-2) vs. Texarkana Pleasant Grove (24-8), noon
Snyder (33-6) vs. Hutto (27-7), 3 p.m.
(at Disch-Falk Field, UT-Austin)
(at Dell Diamond, Round Rock)
(at Dell Diamond, Round Rock)
CLASS A SEMIFINALS
Flatonia (24-5) vs. Seymour (17-12), 10 a.m.
Pineland West Sabine (26-7) vs. Bosqueville (19-6), 1 p.m.
CLASS 5A SEMIFINALS
Plano West (38-2) vs. Laredo United (32-7), 4 p.m.
Houston Bellaire (39-8) vs. Carroll (22-18), 7 p.m.
(at Dell Diamond, Round Rock)
SOFTBALL ALL-DISTRICT TEAMS
MVP — Hannah Schnebly, Jr., Weatherford
Off. MVP — Brandi Heath, Jr., North Crowley
Def. MVP — Randi Tongate, Jr., Weatherford
Co-Pitchers of the Year — Jamie Lambert, Jr., Burleson; Morgan Rodgers, Sr., Mansfield
Newcomer of the Year — Sydney Kramer, Fr., Summit
Coach of the Year — Mark Strickland, Granbury
Ashleigh Jimenez, Sr., Burleson; Taylor Bankston, Soph., Burleson; Baillie Trumble, Jr., Granbury; Courtney Dews, Sr., Granbury; Shelby Poe, Jr., Mansfield Legacy; Audrey Phillips, Sr., Mansfield; Courtney Hoeppner, Jr., Paschal; Megan Askew, Jr., Weatherford; Chelsie Miller, Sr., Granbury; Shawna Henderson, Jr., Weatherford; Kayla Gritt, Soph., Summit; Katelyn Potts, Fr., Legacy; Megan Ayala, Jr., North Crowley; Hopie Perez, Sr., Weatherford; Emily Spicer, Jr., Summit; Megan Crawley, Jr., Mansfield; Malorie Wakefield, Jr., Weatherford.
Kari Fry, Jr., Burleson; Chelsie Lopes, Sr., Granbury; Rachel Ward, Sr., Legacy; Brooke Taft, Jr., Mansfield; Alexa Sheridan, Sr., North Crowley; Paloma Sanchez, Jr., Paschal; Jillian Montano, Sr., Summit; Katie Monreal, Jr., Burleson; Eli Torres, Fr., Summit; Kassie Salazar, Soph., Timberview; Chelsea Lee, Soph., Weatherford; Ashlee McDonald, Soph., Burleson; Porsha Parks, Sr., Timberview; Hailey Naifeh, Sr., Granbury; Brandy Bonner, Jr., Granbury; Elizabeth Cornwell, Sr., Mansfield; Christina Gallant, Jr., Summit; Jacqueline Torres, Jr., Paschal.

star-telegram.com

Derek, have you got your cup on? Because I will hit you there. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage
These days in Hollywood, ”low budget” films usually end up costing more than the runway rentals to land Steven Spielberg’s ego. That’s why it’s so exciting to see truly low-budget films actually get made without all of the self-examination and scrutiny that comes with the ability to shoot more than one take. And it’s even more fulfilling to have someone else notice.
The Foot Fist Way is the sort of mockumentary-without-breaking-the-third-wall-type of film that comedy snobs and repetitive teenagers constantly clamor for. Since being picked up as the marquee title to light up Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s new production company, Gary Sanchez Productions, it has started to garner the sort of attention that it (maybe) deserves.
Your weakness is disgusting to me. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage
Danny McBride shines brightly as Fred Simmons, the undefeated (and unchallenged) “King of theTae Kwon Do demo”, whose macho skills don’t actually extend much further than his mustache. When his well-written but occasionally underplayed wife (Mary Jane Bostic) hands in her rights to their marriage at a drunken office party, Fred starts down a path of comedy self-implosion that is littered with one-liners and begs for a final bit of triumph back at the dojo.
The only real problem with this movie is that its punches don’t always deliver. While there are many character-driven comedies thriving in the movie market today, The Foot Fist Way acts more as a character-carjacking. The generally outstanding performance by McBride leaves many of the other characters struggling to keep up which can lead to the whole film (McBride included) losing focus. And while main man Fred Simmons shares qualities of guys that we have all come to recognize at our local Chili’s, he is often without true depth or complexity. Rather than letting insecurity be the under card to machismo in this 90-minute boxing match, too often it is thrown out of the arena altogether and replaced by humorous but empty montages of board-breaking and weak-kneed children flailing about.

laist.com

The Foot Fist Way premiered at Sundance in 2006. I got my hands on a copy about a year ago, and wondered why it never got a big cross-country release. I knew it was a hit among big-time comedy folk (your Stillers, your Apatows, your Oswalts), and I started to figure that maybe they just wanted to keep it to themselves. But with a big push from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, Foot Fist has found its way into theaters. Shot independently over nineteen days for little money in North Carolina, the film is a character study about a character you’d never want to meet — Fred Simmons.
Danny McBride plays Simmons, an unbalanced children’s Tae Kwon Do instructor who goes completely off the rails when his wife (the very funny Mary Jane Bostic) cheats on him. Fred is obsessed with karate master and low-budget film star Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (Ben Best), and tries to focus his energies on bringing his hero to the school. That’s about it for a plot, much of the film consists of quasi-connected short scenes and moments that feel quite a bit like sketches. A genuinely hilarious scene early on involving an elderly woman, for example, is a self-contained jewel (I actually choked on soda watching it), and would be an internet sensation if this film had never existed.
The juxtaposition of a deranged man and young children is a comedy staple going back (at least) to W.C. Fields, but since this is an indie flick, things go darker than you might expect. Simmons is not a likable man, not at all really, and McBride’s resistance to give him a big heart makes him feel a lot more authentic than a lot of the “heroes” in major studio comedies today. Sometimes a dick is just a dick.

cinematical.com

I'm not what you'd call a fan of Jane Fonda. But my coolness has always been tempered by pity. Jane Fonda's serial, husband-inspired personas — sci-fibimbo, antiwar radical, trophy wife — reveal a fragile ego perennially doomed to playing a latter-day Trilby to modern Svengalis.
After her 2001 divorce from media mogul Ted Turner, Jane seemed to have surrendered hope of vicarious fulfillment through men. Which is not to say her inclination for slavish disciple-hood in any way subsided.
Her latest "marriage" showcases Jane as born-again celebrity shill for feminist guru and best buddy Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues (TVM), in which, inter (genit)alia, the notion of the lesbian "good rape" of an underage girl finds rapturous expression.
Last Thursday, Jane appeared with Ensler on NBC's Today Show. During the interview Jane casually introduced the C-word that signifies the female sex organ. Host horror, network embarrassment, rebroadcast bleeping and public apologies ensued.
The blogosphere lit up with commentary from opposing camps. On one side, comments along the lines of: "She made a mistake, what's the big deal anyway," and "Good for her!" On the other: "She shouldn't have," and (from deep Fondaphobe territory): "Hanoi Jane knew exactly what she was saying!What a c–t!"
Jane's supporters repeatedly invoked the TVM mantra about "reclaiming" the C-word from misogynists. In this optic, Jane was simply doing her bit to take back ownership of the word on all women's behalf.
Considering Jane's faux-revolutionary history, the "slip" was probably purposeful. Still, her provocation raises an interesting question: How can an identity group "reclaim" a word, as though it were equivalent to a company logo — that is, a piece of intellectual rather than public property — and effectively privatize it without democratic consultation?
Words are powerful. Those who capture the language capture the culture.
There are two kinds of word reclamation by identity groups, one far more serious than the other. The first is merely an irritating form of linguistic bossiness aimed at everyone; the second actively seeks to widen racial and gender rifts in our culture.
As an example of the first kind, organized homosexual activists and their supporters employed relentless substitutions of the erstwhile neutral word "gay" for "homosexual." Eventually, with the help of the largely liberal media, they seized it in the linguistic approximation of a "hostile takeover." ("Queer" is somewhere in between: It has for the most part migrated to niche use as an academic shibboleth).
So although it was arrived at through bullying, "gay" is democratically available for everyone's use. You'd be thought rather queer — I mean strange if you persisted in using "gay" when you meant "merry," but at least linguistic dissidents are not reproached for their stubborn insistence on the word "homosexual" over "gay."
The second kind of reclamation — linguistic segregation — occurs when a taboo word is arbitrarily assigned to one particular context alone. Thus for blacks the N-word (and others like "ho") has been reclaimed for benign self-referential use in "their" culture, but remains racist in "ours."
In its public forums, society benefits from a dignified level of civil discourse, which can only be achieved through taboos against words commonly perceived as disgusting. However titillating and rejuvenating Jane Fonda finds the use of transgressive thug code in her private life, she should not have inflicted on her mainstream audience a word the vast majority of them consider indecent.
But what the lumpenproletariat find indecent is of no concern to language-engineering ideologues. With a view to emulating the transmogrification of the N-word, militant feminists like the TVM gang are urging a scenario in which women may refer to themselves as c–ts at their pleasure, but men only at their peril. A feminist devoted to furthering this cause actually signed off on an e-mail to me (without the editing you see here): "[Y]ou're a c–t, and I'ma c–t — and quite proud of it…C–tily yours,…" Yuck!
Language belongs to everyone, and evolves organically, not by edict. No racial or cultural or ideological elite should seek to sequester for its own use what is forbidden to the general population. That's an impulse that is socially, culturally and politically divisive. That's language apartheid.
I'm allowed to write the A-word in full, because it isn't taboo. But the impulse behind language apartheid is nevertheless obscene, and acceptance of its application token of a riven culture.

network.nationalpost.com