The American Film Institute came out with their list of the top ten movies and TV shows of the year.

Movies – Most of the picks seem reasonable. Knocked Up making the list sort of disqualifies everything else for me though. Diving Bell (an incredible read) looks like the movie to see this year.

Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
Into The Wild
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
Ratatouille
The Savages
There Will Be Blood

TV Programs – Nice to see FNL and Dexter getting some love. Would’ve liked to see Brotherhood, Damages and Californication in the mix.

Dexter
Everybody Hates Chris
Friday Night Lights
Longford
Mad Men
Pushing Daisies
The Sopranos
Tell Me You Love Me
30 Rock
Ugly Betty

In a handwritten letter requesting leniency from the judge in his case, Michael Vick included the sentiment: “I’m not the bad person or the beast I’ve been made out to be.”

I’ll leave it to others to debate whether Michael Vick has been treated fairly by the justice system (comparing his to other crimes, more or less serious, etc.). I will also skip the obvious hypocrisy of a society that happily shops supermarket aisles lined with the fruits of the killing of about 10 billion animals a year (not to mention the 3,000 cows who supply their hides for the 22,000 footballs used by the NFL each year). Similarly, I will deter my keyboard from curiosity of a media (driven in this case by public demand) that – when measured by airtime – nestles dog abuse somewhere between weather teasers and mass genocide.

Dog fighting is repulsive, sure. I am a vegetarian, lefty, San Franciscan. My relationship with my cats borders on the unholy. As a child, I regularly obsessed (both in and out of therapists’ offices) about the following philosophical question: How can we truly know that a head of lettuce doesn’t feel pain when we bite into it? So it doesn’t take too many dog electrocutions to convince me that Vick is a beast.

What I wonder is whether Vick has been overly demonized by an NFL looking to clean up its act under the guidance of a new commissioner.

The NFL glorifies brutality and violence. The aggressiveness demanded of players often spills, tangentially or directly, over to violent crimes. Beyond this, it is a league with a set of ethics all its own. Many have argued that one of the challenges for a guy like Michael Vick is to detach himself from “the street” and the bad influences of past acquaintances and accept his casting into the role of corporate gladiator, err, role model.

That, however, is the opposite of the message that’s embraced in NFL locker rooms where an ‘us against the world’ sentiment reigns supreme. Loyalty to one’s teammates – often defined as a willingness to dish out and absorb brutal violence – is at the core of the NFL ethical compass.

One of most storied moments in Brett Favre’s much-storied career was a 2003 game against the Raiders in which he played only a day after his father’s death. Can a league that celebrates players who return to the field of battle only days after a death in the family somehow shoehorn in an ethic related to dumping your childhood friends?

Is Michael Vick a beast? It’s a fair question, but the answer needs to come only after a bit of self-reflection (especially by the NFL and those of us addicted to the aspects of the game that could just as easily turn our stomachs).

When I was in college, I used to cover the Giants and A’s for the local Fox affiliate. My first year was Mark McGwire’s first year. He was a pretty thin, pale-faced dude who seemed to have a great disposition.

By our second year in the business, things had changed … dramatically. McGwire was bigger. Acne had become an issue. And although my only real interaction with him was shoving a microphone in his direction, you could tell he was more irritated than he had been in the past (and it was more than just the usual cycle of a player becoming more bored and put-off by the post game nonsense.

I saw what everyone else around the A’s saw. And everyone knew that the guy was taking something. It was a total given. Just like it was with Canseco. Just like it was with Bonds.

Now, a couple decades later, we are faced with the Mitchell Report on Steroid abuse in baseball.

In the report, Mitchell names big names like McGwire, Roger Clemons, Andy Pettite, Gary Sheffield, Lenny Dykstra (yes, the implicated even include the dudes known for hustling their way to the top echelon of the bigs), Jason Giambi, and more. Some of those named are none too pleased (was the supportive evidence used for the report weighty enough to forever smash a person’s reputation?).

So how should one react? Where do you draw the ethical line? The steroid story is so widespread that it touches nearly every aspect of baseball during this era. The Yankees were the powerhouse team. Many of their players are named in the report. So how good were they? And what about the legend of Joe Torre? Did his failure to win the Series in recent years coincide with a brighter spotlight on steroid abuse? And what about baseball’s front office, the agents, the owners, the coaches and, hell, even the friggin peanut vendor who also knew that these guys were juiced?

And what about the media? Everyone in the A’s locker room knew what some college kid knew. Hearing the old-timers talk over hot dogs in the press booth was how I first learned of steroids visible side-effects. Few of them made a big deal out of it. Are there enough asterisks to go around? Does anyone really place much weight on one of life’s most ironic phrases: The integrity of the game?

Weren’t the juice, the roids and the clear integral parts of the game during this era?

I have a troubling feeling that the big story here will not be the asterisks in baseball’s record books, but rather the ones on former player’s hospital charts in a decade or two.

I loved the end of Lost in Translation when Bill Murray whispers something into Scarlett Johansson’s ear. Others felt let down because they didn’t know what he said.

If you count yourself among the latter group, you can listen in on the scene with the help of some digital sound technology.

(hat tip to Kottke for the link)

Clear now looks like a doubly appropriate name for the steroid that “Made Marion” Jones took all the way to the record books. The International Olympic Committee has formally stripped Jones of her medals and cleared her name from the record books.

This one hurts. When the truth became obvious about Barry Bonds, you felt like the jerk kid of the family down the street who you always sort of hated fulfilled all of your predictions about where that personality would ultimately lead. With Marion Jones, it felt like something terrible happened to that cute kid for whom you left the hole in the wood fence between you and neighbors so she could crawl through and share some lemonade and swim with you and your kids and whose unforgettable smile always made its way into every meaningful family photo.

With Barry, you looked at the numbers and the head size and you knew something was up. With Marion, you looked at the unheard-of improvement that took place in a short amount of time and you cheered her on anyways.