2013 CINCY: Serena Williams- Victoria Azarenka Final

At the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Serena Williams will face Victoria Azarenka in Sunday's final. Serena defeated defending champion Li Na 7-5 7-5 in a very tight semifinal match which featured 12 breaks of serve. But that was just the warm-up for the clash between Jelena Jankovic and Azarenka which turned into a 3-set serving disaster that included an astonishing 23 breaks of serve and a combined 20 double faults. Vika eventually prevailed 4-6 6-2 6-3.

Today's final will be a reprise of last year's US Open final which was won in dramatic fashion by Serena despite Azarenka leading 5-3 in the 3rd set and this year's Doha final which was won by Vika 7-6(6) 2-6 6-3.

Serena won last week in Toronto and is playing well this summer, having only lost three times this year and won her 2nd French Open title. That being said, she did not look that good against Li Na and clearly had some kind of abdominal injury which hampered her ability to hit her serve as fast as she wanted. She has clinched the US Open Series title one week early and is eligible for up to $1 million in bonus prize money if she defends her title in New York.

Azarenka defended her major title in Australia earlier this year and knows that she has the game to defeat Serena, even though she has only ever done it twice in fourteen meetings. Her only other win was in the final of the 2009 Miami title when Serena was injured.

I believe Serena will win the match, but it will not be easy. If she really is injured enough so that she can't get free points on her serve that will make it a long day at the office. She has a much better return of serve and a better serve (when not injured) than Jankovic so that will make this a much tougher match-up for Vika. That being said, the fact Serena has never won this title before and that she is playing one of the few people who ha beaten her all year should make it an interesting match. That being said, there's a reason why Serena sports a 12-2 head-to-head versus Azarenka (7-2 on hard courts and only 3-2 in finals). MadProfessah's pick: Serena.

FILM REVIEW: Elysium

While I was in Los Angeles for my wedding anniversary last week The Other Half and I saw the movie Elysium, the follow-up film from Neill Blomkamp, who directed District 9. Elysium was one of my most highly anticipated films of summer 2013 because I was so charmed by Blomkamp's debut work.

However, his second film is not as well-received by critics (66% favorable) or audiences (70% favorable) as his first (critics 90%, audiences 79%). This is unfortunate, because Blomkamp is working with a bigger budget and bigger stars (Oscar winners Jodie Foster and Matt Damon). The star from District 9, Sharlto Copley also appears in Elysium, as one of the key bad guys in the piece. Copley is a quirky actor, and his casting as Kruger is one of the weak aspects of the film. He simply does not convey the sense of menace as one would expect in a summer blockbuster villain; he's more like the weird, homeless guy in the subway you want to avoid not because you're afraid of him, but because you're just grossed out or uncertain about the guy's boundaries.

There are other problems with the film as well. While it's great to see Jodie Foster working in films (especially after her infamous Golden Globes speech this year where she said she was quitting the business), her Delacourt is a corrupt, elitist bureaucrat with ice in her veins who is willing to do "whatever it takes" to defend her society's morally bankrupt way of life. But, the film doesn't do a good job of really exploring or explaining Delacourt's motives. Is it just a lust for power? One would hope that there is a more complex motive for Delacourt's action than the typical desire for control. Plus, what going on with her accent? (It sounds vaguely European mixed with South African). Copley's Kruger also sounds South African, which is not surprising to those of us who recognize him from District 9, but there's no explanation why a violent and unhinged mercenary has a South African accent.

I must say that generally the use of language is one of the strongest aspects of the film. Damon's blonde, blue-eyed Max is shown speaking fluent Spanish in his orphaned, youthful past and in his squalid, hellish present. This Spanish in a sea of brown bodies and faces is juxtaposed with Delacourt's smooth French in the well-manicured, very civilized (read: White and upper-class) on Elysium. Elysium, as we know from the trailers, and very early on in the movie, is a floating habitat that the select super-rich have created and retreated to, leaving a desperate and destitute Earth to the multitudinous, teeming hordes. The use of language as a proxy for class is deployed skillfully and quickly illustrates the bifurcated nature of life in the future that we the audience are going to be experiencing in Elysium.

The central tension in Elysium is whether our main character, Max (Damon) is going to be able to figure out a way to Get Up There (to Elysium) in order to have a chance of getting access to near-miraculous machines which can fix basically any health problem. The plot to get him up there ends up with Max having information uploaded into his brain that could potentially completely change the balance of power between Earth and Elysium. The fact that there are millions (if noy billions) of people on Earth who do not have access to basic necessities of life (food, water, shelter, health) while a coddled few have access to all these in addition to miraculous health care is a clear commentary on current political debates going on in America and elsewhere. However, as Alyssa Rosenberg cogently argues, the sharp political wit that was so present in District 9 doesn't make much sense in Elysium and ultimately disappoints viewers who were excited by the visionary nature of that film.

I don't want to reveal too much of the plot twists except to say that all though the action doesn't always make sense (Blomkamp apparently has a tenuous grasp on the Newtonian laws of motion and other aspects of physics which can be distracting) it is always compelling. A friend of mine who saw Elysium at a preview described it as "a cross between Jason Bourne meets Terminator 150 years in the future."

Title: Elysium.
Director: Neill Blomkamp.
Running Time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout.
Release Date: August 9, 2013.
Viewing Date: August 9, 2013.

Writing: B-.
Acting: C+.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).

Djokovic-Nadal XXXVI: Rogers Cup semifinals

The ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Canada is going on this week and is now at the semifinal stage. The four remaining players are Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Milos Raonic and Vasek Popisil. The first thing to note is that half of the Big Four are not in that past sentence: Roger Federer mysteriously did not play the tournament and Andy Murray was upset by Ernests Gulbis. The second thing to note is that Djokovic and Nadal are meeting for the 36th time on the ATP tour, with the Spanish 11-time champion leading 20-15 overall but the Serb leading 11-5 on hard courts. Djokovic is the defending champion at the Rogers Cup; yours truly saw him defeat Richard Gasquet in person at last year's tournament in Toronto. The thing to note is that Raonic and Popisil are both Canadian, so there will be a hometown favorite in the final (almost certainly Raonic) facing the winner of Djokovic-Nadal XXCVI, whom I expect to be Djokovic.

MadProfessah Going To Citi Open in Washington, DC!

The final of the Citi Open tennis tournament in Washington, D.C. will feature 6-foot-10 John Isner versus -foot-7 Juan Martin del Potro. Amazingly, the combined height of these combatants is not the tallest final of the year, that honor was achieved in last week's final between Isner and 6-foot-8 Kevin Anderson won by the American in a 3rd set tiebreaker.

One extra cool thing about this final is that yours truly will be attending it in person!

ATLANTA 2013: Isner Beats Anderson To Win 7th ATP Title

6'10" American John Isner won his 7th career ATP tour title by defeating 6'8" South African Kevin Anderson in a wild 6-7(3) 7-6(2) 7-6(2) final of the BB&T Open in Atlanta, the first stop on the 2013 US Open Series. It was the tallest final in ATP history and the first final since Milos Raonic won the 2012 Chennai Open over Janko Tipsarevic that a title was decided by a match with no service breaks. The 3-set match lasted just 5 minutes shy of 3 hours.

Isner saved 11 break points and had 24 aces, compared to 21 aces (and only one break point on his serve) for Anderson. Two of the breakpoints that Isner saved were also match points at 5-6 in the 3rd set, and he also fought his way out of 0-40 in his first service game at 0-1 in the deciding set as well.

Isner improves to 7-7 in career finals (and a tour leading 26-7 for the year in tiebreaks) while Anderson falls to 2-4. The American will return to the Top 20 after today's win in Atlanta when the new rankings come out tomorrow. Isner had played tennis in college for the nearby University of Georgia Bulldogs and this was the third time in four years he was playing in the final of what he considers his hometown tournament (losing to fellow American Mardy Fish in 2011 and 2010). Isner's win puts him in the lead of the US Open Series on the men's side.

In other ATP news, Fabio Fognini's amazing win streak on clay came to an end at 13 when he lost in the finals of the Croatia Open in Umag to Tommy Robredo 6-0 6-3. It was the pulchritudinous Italian's 3rd consecutive final in as many weeks, but the Spanish veteran used his experience to win his 12th career title (11 of which have been on clay).

Federer's Slump Continues; Loses to #55 in Gstaad

Roger Federer decided to add two European summer clay-court events after his shocking 2nd round loss to Sergiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon in order to build up confidence before the United States hard court season. Ever since that disappointing result things have not gone well for Federer or Stakhovsky. The Ukrainian has failed to win a single match since then while Federer has been winning some matches with surprising difficulty but is also losing to players he would typically dismiss in his sleep. Last week he lost to qualifier Federico Delbonis in the semifinals of Hamburg after two close 3-set matches against Florian Mayer and Daniel Brands. Delbonis went on to lose the final against red-hot (in more ways than one!) Fabio Fognini. This week he faced Brands again and failed to win a single set, falling 6-3 6-4 in the 2nd round of the clay court tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland.

Federer apparently tweaked his back while playing in Hamburg and probably should have withdrawn from Gstaad. He is also playing with a larger racquet but he insists that neither are the cause of his recent sub-par results (his only title of the year so far is in Halle, on grass). Although he is down to World #5 now, exactly one year ago Federer was ranked World #1. If he doesn't do well in the upcoming Masters series tournaments in Cincinnati and Toronto he may have to face one of the members of the big Four in a US Open quarterfinal. This is likely since he won Cincinnati last year, and it would be a big surprise if he were able to defend that title, but we shall see.

FILM REVIEW: Pacific Rim

I finally saw the long-awaited Pacific Rim from Guillermo del Toro, his film about giant sea monsters fighting giant robots. Critical reaction has been somewhat mixed (72% on rottentomatoes.com) with the audience more favorably disposed to the action-packed film (82% on rottentomatoes.com). del Toro is known for his florid visual style, a somewhat macabre (and spooky) sense of humor and devotion to comic-book genres. His oeuvre includes the comic book movies Hellboy and Hellboy 2, the critically acclaimed (and Oscar-nominated) Pan's Labyrinth and the freaky horror films Mimic and The Devil's Backbone.

Pacific Rim features huge sea monsters (reminiscent of Godzilla) known as Kaiju who are appearing on Earth through a portal to another dimension found in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and coming on to shore and demolishing cities on the Pacific Rim (San Francisco, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Tokyo etc). In response, humanity bands together and creates equally gigantic (basically 1000-plus feet tall) robots called Jaegers to battle the Kaiju. del Toro is trying to introduce mainstream American audiences to a form of Japanese anime called mecha which features adventures by robots or machines as well as kaiju which features giant monsters.

The film definitely has a comic book feel to it while simultaneously fulfilling its role as mindless summer blockbuster entertainment. In fact, the number of familiar movie tropes that flash by is somewhat dizzying. Here are just a few: the smoking hot (typically a blonde and blue-eyed white male) hero with chiseled abs who has suffered an emotionally devastating loss and now needs to be rehabilitated to restore his long-lost hero status (Charlie Hunnam); the super-smart female with daddy issues who has undiscovered depths of ability that become revealed during the story (Rinko Kikuchi); the harsh and grizzled military man in charge, oftentimes played by an African American in recent multicultural revisions of reality, who has a secret weakness (Idris Elba); the mad scientist/technically proficient geek who has to dig deep and reveal surprising resources of courage and/or strength (Charlie Day and Burn Gorman); the hot-headed hottie who doesn't follow the rules but succeeds anyway despite his rivals (Robert Kazinsky); the amoral kingpin who is exploiting the horrible situation for his own gain (Ron Perlman). And those are just the character cliches!

The action itself is a curious (but entertaining) mish-mash of many many films we have seen before. My list of Pacific Rim's influences would include: Transformers (blindingly fast action), Top Gun (testosterone-fueled machismo), Real Steel (fighting robots controlled remotely by shadow boxing humans), Godzilla (huge Japanese sea monsters/aliens), Independence Day (a classic speech given before the final battle to save humanity from extinction) and Ghostbusters (huge creatures destroying skyscrapers in a major urban setting). This is not an exhaustive list!

Even though the film is not doing that well at the box-office, the theater I saw it in was packed (mostly with fanboys, to be sure) on a balmy Tuesday night in Arlington. I would encourage you to see Pacific Rim in the theater while you can, especially if you enjoyed any of the films on its list of influences.

Title: Pacific Rim.
Director: Guillermo del Toro.
Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief language.
Release Date: July 12, 2013.
Viewing Date: July 23, 2013.

Writing: C+.
Acting: B+.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: A-.

Overall Grade: A-/B+ (3.50/4.0).

Serena Wins 53rd WTA Title in Bastad, Sweden

Serena Williams won her 53rd WTA Tour title in Bastad, Sweden this weekend. She defeated hometown favorite Joanna Larsson 6-4 6-1, coming back from 1-3 down in the first set and won 9 of the last 10 games in the match.

The Swedish Open is Serena's 4th clay court title this year and 53rd of her career (tying her for 9th all time with Monica Seles) having finally won Roland Garros again  last month as well as Madrid and Rome in May. She has now won 28 clay court matches in a row and is 51-4 for the year going into one of her strongest periods of the year, the U.S. hard court season which culminates in the US Open where she is the current defending champion.

MOVIE REVIEW: World War Z

I've been stuck in a hotel ballroom in Sacramento, California for most of the last week so at the suggestion of my fellow shut-ins we decided to blow off some steam celebrating our imminent release by attending a example of mindless filmed entertainment, in this case, the movie World War Z starring Brad Pitt. We saw the film at a "midnight screening" at 8:30pm Thursday night at the United Artists Arden Fair 6.

World War Z is directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) and with a team of writers that includes Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Lost) and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Thor), who are attempting to adapt the best-selling book by Max Brooks.

The movie starts off with a bang and never stops moving. In the first 5 minutes after a short domestic interlude with Pitt as a stay-at-home dad and a vaguely European wife and two cute daughters, we see move the family in the hell of early morning traffic in downtown Philadelphia to a nightmare of a completely different kind as all hell breaks loose as zombies start to ravage the city.

We discover that the job Pitt is staying home from somehow was prominent enough that he can call the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations and that in the world the movie depicts the United Nations has enough clout to have boats, helicopters and planes to maintain a semblance of civilization in the face of an apocalypse.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie. I would say that it is not a great movie (it's not as good as Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later but it is definitely better than Steven Soderbergh's Contagion). Both of these films were made by men who have won Best Director Oscars. Forster has been nominated by the Academy before and he does good work here (almost certainly not to be recognized in February). The story doesn't make much sense but there are some very arresting visuals and there's an absolutely stunning sequence that looks like it was actually shot in Jerusalem.

Overall, World War Z is a fun summer diversion that has you gripping the edge of your seat for 90 minutes straight without over-burdening one's reasoning centers.

Title: World War Z.
Director: Marc Forster.
Running Time: 1 hour, 51 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images.
Release Date: June 21, 2013.
Viewing Date: June 20, 2013.

Writing: C+.
Acting: B+.
Visuals: B+.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).

2013 WIMBLEDON: 5-time Champion Venus Williams Withdraws

Venus Williams won the Wimbledon championships in 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and reached the final 3 other times in 2002, 2003 and 2009 losing to her sister Serena Williams in all three appearances. However, her streak of 16 consecutive Wimbledons will come to an end this year because the 7-time major champion announced her withdrawal from this year's tournament earlier today on Facebook:

Unfortunately, I will not be able to participate in Wimbledon this year. I am extremely disappointed as I have always loved The Championships, but I need to take time to let my back heal. I look forward to returning to the courts as soon as possible, with my goal being to return to Mylan World Team Tennis on July 8th in Washington DC. Many thanks to my fans for the love and support and I will be seeing you very soon back on the courts.

Venus turned 33 on Monday and is currently ranked #34 in the world. Her sister Serena is the defending champion at Wimbledon, ranked #1 in the world, and currently on a 31-match win streak, including the 2013 French Open. The longest win streak of this century is Venus' 35-win streak in 2000.

This is very sad news for fans of Venus. The question is should she retire (now? soon?) from singles and concentrate on racking up more doubles titles record with Serena (i.e. they are 13-0 in grand slam doubles finals)?  I think she should see if her body allows her to play the US Open and if not, she should announce her retirement from singles play at that time.

2013 HALLE: Federer Into SF 6-0 6-0, 902nd ATP Tour Win

Roger Federer recorded only the 2nd double bagel win of his career, his 902nd ATP Tour win, over Mischa Zverev, in 39 minutes and 29 seconds to reach the semifinals of the Gerry Wever Open in Halle, Germany. He will face Tommy Haas, who beat the 5-time champion here last year in the final. Haas dropped the first set to Gael Monfils in a tiebreak but then came back to win the quatrerfinal 6-7(4) 6-3 6-3. On the other side of the draw #2 seed Richard Gasquet will face the winner of Mikhail Youzhny and Phillip Kohlschreiber.

Federer has lost barely more than a handful of times on grass in his career, and is the defending champion at Wimbledon. however, he is looking for his first title of 2013.

Game of Thrones (S3E07): "The Bear and the Maiden Fair"

Episode 7 of Season 3 of Game of Thrones is titled "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" which in the fictional land of Westeros is avery famous song and as depicted in the image at the top of this post, refers to the plight one of our favorite characters, the gender-bending Brienne of Tarth, finds herself in  during this episode. S3E07 was written by George R.R. Martin, the author of the source material for the series of books which inspire the television series (it's not clear if we can call the HBO series an adaptation of the books any more since they have strayed so far from the original text). Martin's involvement raised expectations for this episode, which sadly were not really met.

As you know I have been blogging ever my reactions to every episode in Season 3 (click on the House Buckmire sigil in the left navigation bar for my Game of Thrones-related blogging). However, I was unable to write up my reaction to S3E07 in a timely fashion because I had to get ready for my 15-day Caribbean vacation (which I am currently on).  I will also probably not review S3E08 "Second Sons" until after I return to the United States on Friday May 31. Happily, I actually do have access to HBO at the place I am staying so I will try and view it at least once, but I can't promise a review. The soon-to-be infamous S3E09 "The Rains of Castamere" episode will air on Sunday June 2.

Anyway, one reason why I wasn't motivated to write about "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" was that it was somewhat disappointing. (Any episode in which Varys doesn't appear tends to be that way!) After the brilliant run of three great episodes (S3E03, S3E04, S3E05) and one very good episode (S3E06) this 7th entry in the 10-episode season was mostly about setting up things that will conclude the season, so there was not much action or shattering events in this episode.

Highlights
The main highlight of this episode was that Jon Snow, who is probably my favorite character in the books, finally got some dialogue for Kit Harrington (the actor who plays Jon Snow so fetchingly) to sink his teeth into and reveal more about the depths of his character. He has an excellent scene where he explains to his Wildling girlfriend Ygritte how he knows that the Wildlings are going to fail in their attempt to defeat the Night's Watch and invade Westeros. "Six times in the last thousand years, a King-beyond-the-Wall has attacked the kingdoms. Six times they failed. You don't have the discipline. You don't have the training. Your army is no army. You don't know how to fight together." Of course, the fiery red-head responds with her stock phrase "You know nothing, Jon Snow!" We will see...

The other highlight of S3E07 was of course Dany taking on the slavemasters of another city on the continent of Essos. She and her Unsullied army are camped outside of Yunkai when she is brought two trunks full of gold and the offer of a ship to sail to Westeros as a bribe if she will just leave Essos (and its slave trade) and go on and cause trouble someplace else. Dany doesn't take this well and neither does her dragon (which looks amazingly rendered on screen). Doesn't everybody know dragons love gold? The Yunkai dude is lucky to leave with  his life and Dany has another battle on her hand. Not only Yunkai but their "powerful friends," whoever they are.

Other highlights

• Margaery Tyrell consoling Lady Sansa Stark and realizing that the Stark girl is really very clueless about how relationships work between (straight) men and women, revealing to the audience (and to a clueless Sansa) that she has a lot of knowledge about sex, which presumably comes from experience, which as a professed virgin about to marryKing Joffrey she really should not have (or be telling anyone).
• Jamie Lannister jumping into the bear pit where Brienne has already been injured slightly after forcing Lord Bolton's men to turn around and go back to Harrenhal save her, after getting his stump treated by Maester Qyburn who we also find out has some unorthodox (i.e. vivisectional) proclivities of his own

Lowlights
The main problem with this episode was raised expectations not met. This happened in multiple scenes, starting from the confrontation (finally) between Lord Tywin Lannister and his teenage grandon King Joffrey Barratheon, the famous titular scene between Brienne of Tarth and a very large bear, and another scene with Tyrion trying to placate Shae (this time because he is being compelled by his father to marry her employer Sansa who she is already jealous of). All of these scenes should have been absolutely crackling and basically each one of them fizzled, or failed to meet (admittedly very high) expectations.

Grade: B-.
I understand that there can't be major action in every single episode of the show, and that a lot of the action of Game of Thrones is really in the dialogue and drama between the characters and the intricacy of their competing motivations. I just think S3E07 was not well-executed, which is pretty shocking since the source material was from the Source Himself, George R.R. Martin. Happily, the preview for (S3E08) "Second Sons" looks like we will atleast see an out-of-control Joffrey and the introduction of a potential love interest for Dany, the dashing Daario.

WATCH: Trailer for Next Star Trek Movie

The third trailer for the new Star Trek movie directed by JJ Abrams indicates that Star Trek Into Darkness will be one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Abrams did a good reboot of the Star Trek franchise with his 2009 film (see my A- review) but the plot was a mess and Eric Bana was somewhat disappointing as the villain. Chris Pine (Kirk), openly gay Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Zoe Saldana (Uhuru) were well-cast and quite good, asare John Cho as Sulu and Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Hopefully in his second at bat, Abrams will be able to use his cast in the service of a good story and exciting entertainment. Hot British actor Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) joins the cast as the villain.

Check out the trailer!

WATCH: Trailer for Man of Steel

Definitely on my short list of anticipated films for summer 2013 would be Man of Steel directed by Zach Snyder (the man who brought us the bloody but homoerotic 300) produced by my favorite director Christopher Nolan.

The reboot of the Superman franchise stars the stunning Henry Cavill as Clark Kent, Russell Crowe as his biological father and Kevin Costner as his adoptive father. Amy Adams plays Lios Lane;  Man of Steel is being released on June 14, 2013.  The third trailer is out now and is approaching 5 million views in just a few days.

WATCH: Trailer for Elysium

One of my most anticipated movies of summer 2013 is Neill Blomkamp's Elysium. Blomkanp's made his film debut in 2009 with the amazing District 9 (see my A review). Elysium starts Academy Award winners Matt Damon and Jodie Foster (guess who gets top billing?) in another dystopian view of Earth's future. The richest 1% of the planet live on an orbiting space station with everything while the rest of humanity lives on earth, which is ravaged by disease and environmental desolation. Watch the trailer yourself and get excited!

Last year my most anticipated summer movie was Ridley Scott's Prometheus (see my B/B+ review) which ended up under-whelming. That said, I have seen it three times, and it's currently airing on HBO.