#remember the fabbri incident

[trent-frederics]

love to see it

[noisynutcrusade]

Kumbulla kicks Berardi: red card and penalty for Sassuolo. Here's what happened in Rome

At the expiry of the first half Of Rome-Sassuolo an episode he remembered the expulsion of the Juventus player Kean right against the Giallorossi. The protagonist in the negative, this time, the Roma defender Marash Kumbulla. The referee Michael Fabbri reviewed the incident on the monitor and decided to show the Albanian player red light and award a penalty to the neroverdi which was then…

[icedanceupstarts]

Assorted Senior Dance Musings

1. What even is a score anyway?: Scores are made up of numbers that we're apparently just putting where the hell ever this year. At this rate, anyone who wants to make the FD cut at worlds will need to aim to break 70 at a minimum. Curiously enough, this so far extends more to the RD than the FD, where not only do we seem less at risk of maxing out the scoring system before the second half of the season but also where the teams putting up big leads in the RD are losing some of their edge over the next tier of teams.

2. Papadakis/Cizeron: Because when you're a four time world champ you get your own bullet point. P/C have gone for an entirely new look in their rhythm dance, taking us to a campy aerobics class that miiight slightly overstay its welcome. An entire half a Finnstep of 123 dance?? This may not be the aerobics class we’re personally rushing to sign up for, but we certainly appreciate they’ve gone for something fun here. It's kind of refreshing seeing them go for something so unabashedly silly and campy. Their spoken word FD was possibly scientifically engineered in a lab to be the most Not Our Thing program conceivable, but surprisingly there's a fair amount to like. Hearing that they were skating to a spoken word poem made your mods go blue screen of death for a bit, but the program wouldn't stand up without it, and it's a well conceived program that clearly comes from a specific vision they have for their skating. Is it a vision that we, personally, need or want to see more of? Not really, but the wonderful thing about ice dance is that there's something for everyone.

3. Assorted Front Runners: Hubbell/Donohue and Stepanova/Bukin won't be debuting until Skate America, but the other major medal contenders have shown up in some capacity already. Sinitsina/Katsalapov are continuing their highly classical approach, with a particularly charming Singing in the Rain RD(version linked from the Test skates because the Ondrej Nepela videos are barely half a step above a fancam). Their free dance is all classic Russian ice dance like last year's, if mostly more cohesive although that ending does seem to come a little out of nowhere. They actually have the lowest scores of the top teams thus far by a few points, although the jury is very much out on whether that's going to mean anything or not. In sharp contrast you have Guignard/Fabbri doing a David Bowie free dance that has a bit too much going on musically and needs another pass with the music editor, but is a really strong program for them, despite or possibly because it's such a strong stylistic departure for them. They have generally tended towards more classic programs, so this is definitely an attempt to make waves. They've got some great elements like their stationary lift, and just generally unique, interesting choreo that stands apart from any of the other top teams. In that same vein, Chock/Bates have also picked something outside of their previous wheelhouse, a somewhat controversial snake charmer FD, not linked because NBC hates us. We're going to punt to people more qualified to talk about whether it's cultural appropriation or not and focus on what we are qualified to talk about, namely that Evan needs a snazzier shirt. Regardless of anything else, we don't love this free dance, and most of the things we do like come from Chock/Bates themselves. Their lifts and expressiveness, obviously, that's just a built in feature of any C/B program, and this year's free features some of the best use of body shaping we've ever seen, culminating in a truly amazing end pose. Gilles/Poirier have followed up on their acclaimed Vincent program to deliver another highly emotional, artsy free dance as part of their #programsforthepeople. Unfortunately we are not in the segment of the population that this Joni Mitchell FD is targeting, but it's a great vehicle for them anyway. Their programs are always so intricately choreographed and feature innovations that other teams adopt years later. After Weaver/Poje announced that they would not be competing this season, Gilles/Poirier seemed to have a free pass to the national title, but...

4. Rise of the Canadanes: There have been a number of unexpected occurrences already, but one of the most notable has been the rise of Fournier-Beaudry/Sorensen to seemingly major medal contention status. The former Danes are one of surprisingly many teams to have chosen Bonnie and Clyde, and they show great style and flair in this program. They always have such a sleekness to their skating, and they even found a third song in this musical that no one else seems to have discovered. We're a bit torn on the twizzles-- we admire the commitment to theme, but the placement in the middle of This World Will Remember Us is pretty jarring. We see what they're going for, but it would be smoother if those twizzles were at the top of the program. Their free dance, courtesy of Mr. Buble’s Cry Me A River, is as Canadian as their teammates Gilles/ Poirier's free dance, but far more dynamic. That extra energy and drama may help them challenge G/P for the national title, and at least help Canada keep three spots in ice dance for next season, a slightly tricky prospect. Keep watch on their marks at Skate America, where they'll face Hubbell/Donohue and Stepanova/Bukin, the two top teams from last season that haven't shown their programs yet.

5. American Bronze Battle: the lower ranks of American ice dance were tight last season, and have only gotten more so. We've already had a number of matchups, and will have a few more as the season progresses. Carreira/Ponomarenko have split placements with both McNamara/Carpenter and Hawayek/Baker, and beat the former while losing to the latter due to a twizzle error. McNamara/Carpenter are lagging behind in scores internationally thus far, but who the fuck knows what that means or if it means anything at all. Green/Parsons have also shown up extremely strongly with great matching skating technique and truly who knows at this point. Their scores have not yet been on par with the other on the Challenger series, but scores are just a collection of numbers in various orders, eliciting sound and fury from the fanbase but signifying nothing.

6. No, but really, what IS score?: It’s been frustrating watching the Challenger series and seeing scores fluctuate week to week knowing that it all counts for Season’s Bests, but this year has outsold in not a good way to the point it’s felt like even within the same competition scores aren’t reflecting decent margins or comparisons. Orihara/Pirinen made their team debut at Lombardia with decent performances, a few small bobbles, for a total score of 148.48. Just one week later they competed again at Nepela, cleaned up the bobbles and scored 166.93, an almost twenty point increase in a week. Across both programs that was a more than six point increase in PCS alone! Now don’t get us wrong, they are off to an outstanding start as a team and Finland could wind up with their own version of an ice dance battle here very soon, but just ????? We genuinely don't know how people are making predictions on how the season will go based on these early scores because we can't even tell you how the Challengers are going to go while they're underway, much less several months in the future. Nine teams broke 100 in the free dance at Nebelhorn alone, which we're pretty sure meant more just last year?

7. Why @ music editors: It's only September but look, we need to have A Talk. The music edits and overall construction of programs is already driving us to madness. We've brought up several teams already, and yet there are still more questions. Both of Smart/Diaz's programs suffer from this, with their super fun Grease RD for some reason having a final music cut after all the elements have been completed, and their Free Dance being made up of two extremely separate programs uneasily sandwiched together. Wang/Liu, for reasons we cannot yet grasp, opted to to put the Swan Lake finale in the middle of their free dance instead of at the end. We are no purists, we're all for shifting musical selections around to best fit the program, but it very much sounds like The End and then the programs keep going with a much lighter selection and it's very confusing? We can appreciate the choice to put their twizzles to the part where Odile famously does her 32 fouettes, but not where in the program they put those twizzles. Lauriault/Le Gac just have a massive shift in mood and style in the last 45 seconds. While further development of their free dance in addition to her cheery yellow dress has answered the question of whether it was a happy or sad program that troubled us so over the summer, it just changes into a completely different program right at the end without warning, and we're never prepared for it.

8. The rest of the Russians: There are just so many teams right now. And thank goodness for that third spot at Worlds but So. Many. Teams. You’ve got a seemingly clear top two and then... everyone else. Due to a combination of injuries, late changes to RD music, and Russia not sending any dance teams to Autumn Classic, US Classic OR Nebelhorn, we don’t have many competition results to discuss at this point but then again, see points #1 and #6 above. Shpilevaya/Smirnov and Popova/Mozgov both finished fourth at their respective Challenger assignments, the former with good season opener performances and the latter with an untied boot and an unexpected double splat at the end, and will be up against each other at Finlandia. Skate America will be a big event for Russian dance season debuts with Zagorski/Guerreiro putting their own unfortunate boot lace incident at Nationals last season behind them and Shevchenko/Eremenko making their senior debut.

[johnnymundano]

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) (AKA 4 mosche di velluto grigio)

Directed by Dario Argento

Screenplay by Dario Argento

Story by Dario Argento and Luigi Cozzi

Music by Ennio Morricone

Country: Italy

Running Time: 104 minutes

CAST

Michael Brandon as Roberto Tobias

Mimsy Farmer as Nina Tobias

Jean-Pierre Marielle as Gianni Arrosio

Bud Spencer as Godfrey

Aldo Bufi Landi as Pathologist

Calisto Calisti as Carlo Marosi

Marisa Fabbri as Amelia, the Maid

Oreste Lionello as The Professor

Fabrizio Moroni as Mirko

Corrado Olmi as Porter

Stefano Satta Flores as Andrea

Laura Troschel as Maria

Francine Racette as Dalia

Four Flies on Grey Velvet is considered by the chalk-and-elbow-patches crowd to be the third movie in Argento’s Animal Trilogy, which is a bullshit after-the-fact attempt to thematically tether The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970), Cat O’Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet together. Is a fly an animal? No. Is there a cat in Cat O’Nine Tails? I can’t remember, actually, there might be; Italians love them some cats. Anyway, a cat o’nine tails isn’t actually a cat. More importantly Four Flies on Grey Velvet was intended to be Argento’s sayonara to the giallo. His next movie was The Five Days (1973) a comedy-drama set during the anti-Austrian revolt of 1848. Unluckily for Argento it bombed, luckily for Argento and the world of cinema he would then make Deep Red (1975). As a movie four Flies on Grey Velvet is very uneven and not a little ridiculous, but taken as a giallo, it’s the real deal. Ultimately, though, its greatest value is as an artistic step on the way to Argento’s masterpiece, Deep Red.  

Dario Argento is by no means the greatest director ever, he is, however, arguably the greatest giallo director ever. And as arguments go it’s a short one: it’s either Argento or Mario Bava. But no matter who you personally adore, Argento is very much at the top of the heap and any of his giallo up to (and including) Opera (1987) are among the very best the genre can offer. Obviously this includes Four Flies on Grey Velvet , but equally obviously his best movies are still giallo, possibly more giallo than most. Argento’s movies are not venerated because they are great movies, they are venerated because they are great giallo. Although with Four Flies on Grey Velvet you can expect one of the greatest giallo ever, you should not confuse that with expecting a great movie; certainly not one of the greatest ever. Just trying to manage expectations for giallo newbies. Look, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is an amazingly entertaining, visually inventive and thoroughly bizarre time, flaws and all.

Big-haired rock drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) is persistently stalked by a creepy dude in sunglasses. One night after laying down some sweet beats in rehearsal, Roberto snaps and tracks the dude to a deserted theatre where a violent confrontation occurs; there is a scuffle, a knife is drawn, and when the kerfuffle is over Roberto is stood over a body. A spotlight snaps on and a figure wearing a freakily vacuous mask captures Roberto’s compromised form on film. Unsettled by the incident, at night Roberto dreams of a ritual beheading in an arena while during the day his already strained relationship with his wife, Nina (Mimsy Farmer), erodes further. When Roberto is attacked in his own home by a mysterious assailant he confides in Nina and, unable to go to the police due to his accidental murdering, enlists the help of his friend Godfrey (Bud Spencer) and The Professor (Oreste Lionello), both of whom are weird hobo types, for reasons known only to Dario Argento. Things get (more) complicated quickly with blackmail, a flamboyantly gay detective, adultery, stylish murders, a dead cat in a bag, a machine that can photograph the last thing a dead person saw, Ennio Morricone’s syrupy score, and a cumulative air of feverish irrationality as Roberto attempts to unmask his tormentor before death silences his cymbals forever.

Roberto’s cymbals are a crucial element in Four Flies on Grey Velvet’s incredible opening; it’s a full frontal assault on cinematic complacency, a dynamic reminder that when it comes to giallo Argento is simply on a different level. It’s one of the most thrilling pieces of cinema I’ve sat through; I hope it is taught in ivied halls of learning; it should be. An incredible amount of information is thrown into the viewer’s face, so much so that in any other hands it would just be a perplexing mess. But these aren’t just anyone’s hands, these are Dario Argento’s hands and so pin sharp editing, meticulous pacing, visual rhythm and a sly wit carry the day. Any viewer who fails to be enraptured by Argento’s showmanship in this opening hasn’t got a chance with the rest of the movie. Because, unfortunately, Four Flies on Grey Velvet never gets that good again. But a lot of movies never get anywhere near that good, and a lot of directors can only dream of being that good, so let’s not get too rainy faced about it.

Any tears on offer should be shed over my being an idiot, spending the last few decades reading about this movie and thinking “Michael Brandon” was just another screen name designed to fool American punters. You know, like George Hilton (Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara) or, more pertinently here, Bud Spencer (Carlo Pedersoli). But no, it is indeed Michael Brandon (Michael Brandon), a familiar sight on TV during my youth in “Dempsey and Makepeace” (1985-86). And he’s very good in Four Flies on Grey Velvet, being curiously detached in a wholly suitable fashion for the peculiar cinematic confection he inhabits. “Dempsey and Makepeace” was shit, though. Mimsy Farmer has a good time, delivering the acting goods and, unknowingly, limbering up for her headlining triumph in The Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974). Even though I found the humour as funny as bad news from the doctor, Bud Spencer proves to be a ridiculously affable screen presence, if perhaps a bit too “normal” for the folderol unfolding around him. Thankfully, Jean-Pierre Marielle is great as the gay detective, Gianni Arrosio. Usually a gay character in a giallo is where you have to grit your teeth and mumble something like “Um, that’s sure not aged well. Cough!” But, while slightly overplaying the falsetto, Marielle presents a gay character who is funny, fearless and, alas, just a bit too smart for his own good in the end.

Like any Argento movie, Four Flies on Grey Velvet isn’t perfect, but it is perfect in parts. Argento isn’t interested in every scene, so the movie kind of flops bonelessly in-between set pieces. There are a few too many party scenes involving hirsute men telling creepy jokes, and the unfunny comedy hobos seem to have stumbled blithely in from some other movie (a Bud Spencer movie, naturally enough). If it weren’t for the intrinsic entertainment value of the 1970s,  via its preposterous clothes and spirited hair stylings, a lot of the movie would fall a lot flatter. As L. P. Hartley didn’t say: The past is another country, they look like children’s entertainers there. And there aren’t really that many set pieces, or there are a lot of really small set pieces; Argento seems to take a disproportionate amount of pleasure in trying to find the most stylish way to shoot the most innocuous of actions. Which is nice and very entertaining, but you wish he’d expended as much artistic energy on some of the dialogue scenes as he does on a letter being received. Argento has his own artistic priorities which viewers are not privy to, and which seem shaped by his own idiosyncrasies rather than the needs of the movie as a cohesive narrative. He’s all over the place, basically. But when he’s on, well then, bang a gong. And Argento’s on far more than he isn’t. When he is good he is very, very good and when he isn’t you’re not too bothered because in a minute or so he’ll be very, very good again. You can’t get more giallo than that.

A note on the print: Four Flies on Grey Velvet is the least familiar Argento giallo to me as it was “lost” for a while prior to 2009, but it is now freely available. I watched the Shameless UK Blu-Ray of Four Flies on Grey Velvet. This is a gussied up print which looks a little soft, but pretty great. You can see just how much work has been done by choosing to view the version with the “missing 40 seconds” included. These 40 seconds are untouched and are…horrible. So horrible I guess they can’t be salvaged. Luckily they are also pretty trivial, so you can watch the version of the movie which excludes them and enjoy a lovely picture, secure in the knowledge that you’re missing nothing. Well, missing nothing except evidence of the astonishing job Shameless’ technical homunculi have  done. [Ticker tape parade erupts out of a side-street!]

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Coyle Traded; Smith-Pelly Waived; Gudas Suspended; Athanasiou – February 21

  There was a concern that Dmitrij Jaskin has been waived by the Washington Capitals. With everyone healthy, it was a numbers game and it seemed Jaskin was the odd-man out. However, the earlier report was refuted by Elliotte Friedman and Devante Smith-Pelly was waived instead.

Jaskin was a guy I fell in love with after he scored 13 goals in 54 games in the 2014-15 season. He had strong underlying numbers and looked like he’d be a very good two-way winger moving forward. My anticipation was that he’d be something like Nino Niederreiter, if a bit ‘worse’. While he has maintained very strong defensive numbers, his offence never caught up. It’s nice to see him still be valued by an NHL team, though.

I don’t imagine Smith-Pelly clears waivers. He’s a Cup winner on a cheap contract. Teams love that sort of player.

Just to add a bit of intrigue, this particular player being waived might be part of a trade down the road. Was it a team that wanted Jaskin? Washington clearing cap space? Stay tuned.

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Radko Gudas was suspended two games for his “high-sticking” incident with Nikita Kucherov.

Gudas is a guy that I’ll never understand. He plays a tough game but is reliable as a defenceman by many metrics. He helps drive the play better than most realize. He does, however, do dumb stuff like this with far too much regularity. It’s not even the first time he’s been suspended for swinging his stick at a player’s head, for the love of god.

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While he wasn’t skating with a line and wasn’t in the lineup Wednesday night, Nikolaj Ehlers was on the ice for Jets practice Wednesday morning, skating on a defence pairing of scratches in a non-contact jersey. Though he’s not ready to come back quite yet, it does feel like he’s on the verge.

This is huge news for the Jets. Since his injury, their team play has plummeted from top-10 team to a bottom-10 team. Their shot share since the calendar turned to 2019 is lower than the New York Rangers, which is not where any team wants to find themselves. Adding him back to the lineup will give them a much-needed boost.

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One rumour that has caught my eye of late was the Mark Stone-to-Boston rumour. After David Pastrnak, this team is woefully thin at right wing (depending on your opinion of Danton Heinen), to the point where Pastrnak had to be moved to the second line before his freak injury. Having a second line of DeBrusk-Krejci-Stone would give Boston a top-6 that could compete with anyone, and allow Heinen to bring some scoring to the bottom-6. This team desperately needs an impact right winger and Stone is one of the best in the league, let alone the best available.

Note: I wrote the above before the Charlie Coyle trade. I guess that’s something?

Click here to read Cam Robinson's take on the Coyle/Donato swap. 

One thing I'd like to add is that this is a smart gamble from Minnesota. Coyle was probably gone in a year anyway and this year is shot. They're essentially giving up one year of Coyle to find out whether or not Ryan Donato can make good on the potential he's shown in lower leagues. Remember that Donato was very highly thought of in the fantasy community coming into the year, and also by the Bruins as they had him on the top PP unit way back when. For a team that seemingly wants to re-tool on the fly than full-out rebuild, this is a solid move. 

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Colin Miller was a healthy scratch Wednesday night for Vegas. Nick Holden took his spot in the lineup.

This is curious for a couple reasons. First, Miller is pretty good. Second, the trade deadline is around the corner. Could they be holding him out in anticipation of a trade? I personally think that’d be a bad idea but bad ideas have never stopped NHL GMs before.

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In a piece for The Athletic, Pierre LeBrun intimated that Jakob Silfverberg already has a five-year extension in place with Anaheim but there are some small issues that need clarity first. Either way, that’s probably one name that can be knocked off the trade bait board.

I’d like to add: why? The Ducks are already loaded with expensive contracts for guys over the age of 30. Silfverberg, believe it or not, turns 29 in October. This is a team that should be looking toward Comtois, Steel, Terry, and others, not keeping around more older players. I get that they probably want one more kick at the can next year with a (hopefully) healthy Getzlaf, Perry, Rakell, and Kesler, but Perry and Kesler in particular are already a sunk cost. This is just chasing bad money with more bad money, even if Silfverberg is a good middle-six winger.

Regardless, dynasty owners hoping Silfverberg would get a fresh start somewhere else are likely out of luck.

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Can we talk about Andreas Athanasiou for a second?

A couple nights ago, I was looking up Jake Guentzel’s career scoring rates, and came across something interesting:

  Goals/60 at 5v5 since the start of the 2016-17 season https://t.co/TImfloH9MN this is quite the grouping pic.twitter.com/LZF8CUvvWG

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) February 20, 2019

  There’s Andreas Athanasiou, one of the top goal scorers in the league at five-on-five over the last 2.5+ seasons. His 1.67 primary points/60 minutes at five-on-five (goals and first assists only, data from Natural Stat Trick) is tied with Taylor Hall and Anders Lee for 35th in the league over that span, slightly ahead of names like Jack Eichel, Aleksander Barkov, and Sean Monahan. Keep in mind, he’s done this on terrible Detroit teams while spending less than one-third of his ice time on a line with Dylan Larkin. Maybe that gives him easier matchups, but it’s also given him considerably worse line mates – he’s spent nearly half his ice time with at least one of Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, or Luke Glendening.

Detroit could look quite different next year with Gustav Nyquist likely to be traded, Thomas Vanek on a one-year deal, and both Niklas Kronwall and Nick Jensen pending UFAs, the latter also likely to be traded. That doesn’t include Filip Zadina likely being on the main roster. Where Athanasiou will fit in here is uncertain. It shouldn’t be a concern, though, given Athanasiou has shown he can be plenty productive without top-tier line mates. He just needs more ice time. This guy should be over 18 minutes a game, not playing just 13 seconds more per game at 5v5 than Abdelkader.  

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Just as a small aside: when looking up the primary points rates over the last three seasons, one name jumped out: Brett Connolly. His primary points/60 at 5v5 over that span ties him for 28th among forwards with Leon Draisaitl and Evgeny Kuznetsov.

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I really enjoyed Cam Metz’s head-to-head playoff previews that he’s been doing over at Eastern Edge the last couple of weeks. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. It’s crazy to think how fast the season has gone, but many of us are just 10 days away from embarking on H2H playoffs, which means we should probably be getting ready for that right now. Reading Metz’s H2H previews has been a help for me so I assume they’ll be a help for the rest of the Dobber community as well.

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The San Jose Sharks claimed Michael Haley off waivers. I guess this in response to Nashville trading for Cody McLeod. What exactly is going on here? Why are playoff teams acquiring pure fighters?

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One team that is very interesting for me heading into the deadline is St. Louis. Craig Berube has completely turned this team around, and has done so with strong underlying metrics and not smoke and mirrors. Three months ago, there were rumours of trading Brayden Schenn and/or Vladimir Tarasenko. Now it looks like they’ll be buyers. This is another team that could use Mark Stone, though I imagine that conversation starts with guys like Thomas, Fabbri, or Kyrou, and I’m not sure that the Blues would want to part with pieces like that. Maybe they just add some depth pieces, considering how well this team is playing right now.

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I will say that one guy I’m starting to get worried about is Tyson Jost. I was pretty high on him coming out of the draft, thinking he’d turn into a reliable two-way second-line centre. A watered-down version of Mikael Backlund or something like that. Things haven’t gone well, obviously. I was always concerned that he could take longer to develop because he’d have to learn how to play a well-rounded game to make an impact, and defence usually takes longer to develop than offence. All the same, he’s been below-average offensively and defensively this year, resulting in a brief AHL stint not too long ago.

There is still time, obviously. He’s only 20 years old and the lack of production means the Avalanche can probably extend him for cheap once his ELC runs out next year. They probably have at least three years of cheap control for him to find the next gear. It would be nice to see some turnaround over the final six weeks or whatever, though. My fear is that he turns into a guy we named above in Dmitrij Jaskin, someone who is solid defensively but whose offence is poor enough to keep them out of the lineup.

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Calgary started Wednesday night’s game with Matthew Tkachuk on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. I’m interested to see how long it lasts. Obviously, Tkachuk should fit in very well on the top line but it also depletes their depth a bit, which was a strength of this team. I wouldn’t read too much into this until we pass the trade deadline.

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Speaking of top line changes, the Sabres had Evan Rodrigues on the top line with Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart in practice. We know about the history between Rodrigues and Eichel dating back to college, so maybe this is something that will last with chemistry. The team is 7-13-2 since Christmas so this feels like a desperate attempt to spark something. I doubt it’ll last very long.

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Updates on the games in the morning. 

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-coyle-traded-smith-pelly-waived-gudas-suspended-athanasiou-february-21/