Space Jam 2K11

I've been having a lot of random conversations lately. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's my friends.

It's probably me.

Anyway, while watching the 2011 MLB All Star Game with a few friends, Field of Dreams came up in conversation, which led to Angels in the Outfield, which led to Rookie of the Year, to the less popular Little Big League, which led us down a long road of applying modern day approaches to classic sport film stories of the past. This got me thinking. What if you applied the modern day concept to say, a basketball film? How about Space Jam?

In my childhood favorite, Space Jam, an evil group of aliens descended from their home on Moron Mountain to enslave The Looney Tunes for their newest amusement park exhibit. When faced with these new pint sized foes, Bugs & Co attempt to win their freedom by challenging the seemingly harmless aliens to a game of basketball. Much to the tunes' surprise, the aliens steal the talent of the NBA's greatest superstars and grow into the dream team of monsters we know by heart as The Monstars.

With the skyscraper height of Shawn Bradley, the unmatchable paint power of Patrick Ewing, the perimeter force of Larry Johnson, the unparalleled sportsmanship of Charles Barkley, and the ball handling magic of NBA great, Muggsy Bogues, at their disposal, the Monstars are a truly force to be reckoned with.

Long story short, the tunes recruit the help of Michael Jordan, who comes out of retirement to save our childhood favorites from a life of torment and slavery. The soundtrack was boss.

So, I've done some thinking. If the Monstars came back for a rematch today, whose talent would they pirate? What follows is how I envision a Space Jam Rematch of 2K11.

NBA Superstars

Dwight Howard - For our modern day Space Jam search, we must begin at the top, and no NBA superstar goes higher than Superman, Dwight Howard. Coming in at 6'11" and 265lbs, the starting center for the Orlando Magic may not have the height of 90's legend Shawn Bradley, but if the Monstars took a look at just one of Howard's posterizing swats, they wouldn't sweat the 7 inch height swing. With the shoulders of Atlas and wingspan to match, Howard is nothing short of terrifying in the paint. Plus, the guy has more than enough charisma to go around, making him ideal for the big screen. And this, is exactly why he's the perfect cornerstone for the evil dream team.

Blake Griffin - Say hello to the human highlight real, Blake Griffin, power forward of the Los Angeles Clippers. Weighing in at over 250lbs and standing at an impressive 6'10", Griffin is without a doubt the most talented young flier in the galaxy. He may not have the lockdown defense of a Patrick Ewing or true grit of a Larry Johnson, but his oop ability alone makes him a prime candidate for the Monstar talent search. Oh, and this guy dunked over a Kia. I think the folks at Moron Mountain are going to notice that.

Dirk Nowitzki - If you thought the Monstars were terrifying in the first place, just imagine them with a mid-range game and German accents. Basically, I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that the Monstar squad has learned a thing or two about basketball since their defeat 15 years ago. Free throws win championships (Just ask John Calipari). With the prettiest jump shot in the game, the NBA Finals MVP will supply the talent pool with all of the perimeter prowess a team could ask for.

Zach Randolph - Here's your Charles Barkley, only a few inches taller. The team needs to add an enforcer to the talent pool, and no one fits this role more perfectly that Z-Bo. Randolph has really shined over the last two seasons as the centerpiece of the Memphis Grizzlies lineup. With his blue collar mentality, Z-Bo asserts his physical dominance and always seems to grab double digit rebounds on his way to 20 points. He's not a sexy pick, but it was either Z-Bo or Kevin Love, and there's no way in hell you're telling me Kevin Love is sexy.

Derrick Rose - Now onto the sexy pick, Chicago's Derrick Rose. If the Monstars were impressed with Muggsy Bogues' speed in 1996, then they're going to crap their pants when D-Rose takes the court. I could lead a workshop on the talent of Derrick Rose, but I'm going to leave it as this: You can't guard his kind of speed. When you combine that with a hangtime that makes you wonder if he's playing under a different law of gravity, Rose is the most dangerous man in the NBA. The lineup is complete.

Just below the cut: Josh Smith, Kevin Durant, Dwayne Wade, Deron Williams, Carmelo Anthony

If you're wondering why LeBron wasn't posted in the list above, I've got you covered. Here's the plot.

In a search for salvation, the Tunes turn to the greatest player in the National Basketball League, LeBron James. I can imagine it now, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck pop up through a sewer lid on the bustling Miami strip. After navigating the sunny streets, our heroes finally arrive at South Beach to find their would-be savior sipping Santana with his entourage. Bugs and Daffy beg and plead until LeBron agrees to get up and follow them down the rabbit hole. Daffy is quickly attacked by a shark or railed by a beach patrol car. You pick.

The tunes practice night and day, working on sound fundamentals, the mid ranged game, and most importantly, free throws, until the big showdown is at hand. All seems well in Tune Town, until the starting line up is announced and Bugs discovers that LeBron has betrayed the Tune Squad, deciding to take his talents to Moron Mountain. When confronted by a distraughtly baffled Tweety Bird, James explains that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to win "not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7, but multiple championships!" From there on, the heartbroken tunes are shutout and grimly sentenced to spend the rest of their days as slaves in an interstellar carnival. I know, I know, we all hoped for a storybook ending where Lebron learned a valuable lesson and performed under pressure, thus allowing the Looney Tunes to live happily ever after, but sadly, all we're left with is a shackled Porky Pig who dejectedly stutters, "Th-Th-Th-Th-Th... That's all folks..."

And that, my friends, is my modern day reconstruction of Space Jam.

Jonah Hill plays Stan Podolak and Bill Murray stars as himself, with special guest appearances by Lisa Leslie, Lil Wayne, and Ahmad Rashad, in Space Jam 2K11.

Jake Morgan's Top 10 Video Games (of all time)

Last night I was sitting in my den with a few friends when a curious question popped up in conversation. What's your favorite video game of all time? Yikes. Talk about a toughie. That's almost like asking your mom which child she loves the most.

So, with a great deal of thought and meditation, I have created a list of my top 10 video games (of all time). As you peruse the list, please keep in mind that

• These are my top 10 favorite video games, not necessarily the 10 "best"
• The Morgans raised a Nintendo family, so you will detect a bias toward Hiroshi Yamauchi

With that stated, enjoy!

10. Street Fighter II

We're starting our top 10 countdown with Street Fighter II, one of history's finest fighting games. Bringing a whole new world of awesome to the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and arcades everywhere, this fine addition to the Capcom franchise brought 8 of the world's top fighters right to your fingertips. If I remember correctly, Street Fighter II was the first fighting game I ever played, adding a huge nostalgic bonus. I can actually remember walking into the Dickson County Pizza Hut and watching as older guys would be duking it out with Ryu, the classic, and a big green electric monster named Blanka. Whether you were button jamming, jump kicking, or strategically using the hadouken to set up your hurricane kick, this game had something to offer every level of gamer. And this, my friends, is why Street Fighter II comes in at #10.

Best Street Fighter Memory: Jumping up and down while fighting my with my cousin Michael, then successfully launching my first HADOUKEN!

9. NFL Blitz

A highly competitive sports game with big hits, quick passes, and no rules? You had me from the start. Coming in at #9, we have my favorite sports game ever, NFL Blitz. Back in the day, I was all about the Jacksonville Jaguars. With Brunell, Keenan McCardell, and an arsenal of Da Bomb, Sub Zero, and the VTB, I was practically unbeatable. Then with the installment of NFL Blitz 2001, you could play as Steve McNair and Eddie George on a Titans team fresh off the Super Bowl run. This game is a classic for both sports and violence enthusiasts alike.

Best NFL Blitz Memory: Beating Bradley Rowlett with a walk off 80 yard TD pass to Keenan McCardell after walking him through the process of his defeat.

8. Mario Party 2

We're about to get sentimental with #8. For the longest time, Mario Party 2 was a staple of my family reunions. My sister, cousins, and I would have a duel at every holiday to see who would have bragging rights until the next gathering. It's all about winning mini games  the suspense at the end when Toad announces the "Super Star", then getting to spend the next three months boasting Mario Party supremacy. I love my family.

Best Mario Party Memory: Winning and talking smack from holiday to holiday.

7. Mario Kart 64

In 4th grade I received a Nintendo 64 for my birthday. This may have been the single most exciting moment of my life. My sister and my cousins gathered around as we unwrapped the glorious N64 and raised it into the air like we had just uncovered the holy grail. We spent the rest of the evening playing Mario Kart and eating homemade ice cream. So many fun days were spent racing for the gold through cow fields, winter wonderlands, and rainbow roads. In closing, Mario Kart reminds me of a simpler time when all you really had to worry about were red shells and spinning out on banana peels.

Best Mario Kart Memory: Opening my N64 with my family and racing around as Yoshi with my sister and cousins.

6. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

The super fast paced Sonic the Hedgehog 2 comes it at #6. Sega hit a homerun with this fast paced, chili dog loving hero as he sprints through a world of spike traps and flying robots to defeat the evil Dr. Robotnik. In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, you get a two tailed sidekick named Tails. He doesn't do too much aside from die and look yellow, but you never feel alone with your trusty companion at your side. Complete with a righteous soundtrack, Sonic is most deserving of a seat in my bracket of favorite games.

Best Sonic Memory: Every time I played the 3rd level, the one with the waterfalls.

5. Halo

Halo claims #5 on my list, and takes the cake as my favorite first person shooter franchise. Halo dropped for XBox when I was in high school, and it quickly won my heart. You play as Master Chief, the last spartan, a futuristic super soldier on a mission to thwart an alien race called The Covenant as they attempt to destroy Earth. With a legendary co-op campaign and epic multiplayer mode, Halo was every high school gamer's dream come true. So many colors and explosions.

Best Halo Memory: Sneaking a couch, a television, and an XBox into our high school theatre tech booth so we could play during Advanced Theatre class. Those were the best of times.

4. Super Smash Brothers

For #4, we have the Best. Party. Game. Ever.

Super Smash Brothers was my birthday present in 6th grade. My friends and I played battled for the entire night, pitting our favorite Nintendo characters against one another. Super Smash Brothers is fast, fun, flashy, and can become wonderfully chaotic as you try to knock your friends off the map and into oblivion. After the original, Super Smash only got better as Game Cube and Wii presented even more characters and crazy courses in "Melee" and "Brawl."

Best Super Smash Memory: Getting this game for my 6th grade birthday party, then playing it until the sun rose the next morning with my besties. 

3. Pokemon Red

I remember buying my first game boy when I was in 6th grade. It was a green game boy color. To accompany my new investment, I purchased a game called Pokemon Red. Life would never be the same.

Pokemon Red comes in at #3 on our countdown because it bonded with the soul of 12 year old me. I've always been a sucker for anything with a lot of colors and endless customization options, so this was the perfect fit. Pokemon may seem kiddy on the outside, but Red featured an engaging story where you built your own team from the ground up along your journey to defeat the land's greatest duelists. With your team of murder beasts, you roam the country side in search of cash, gym badges, and more Pokemon which you either knocked out for experience or enslaved in your red and white ball Poke Ball. It was the perfect system.

Of course, from the success of Red & Blue came Yellow, Gold, Silver, and then a whole line of colors that I can't quite vouch for. There was also a Pokemon Snap spin off which allowed intrepid hearts to ride around and take photographs of their favorite pokemon. You could then take your cartridge to the nearest Blockbuster and have your best shots printed in sticker format. Looking back, this may have sparked my interest in photography. Interesting...

In summary, Pokemon Red was brilliant and my Raichu from 1999 could have pwned any challenger. Just saying.

Best Pokemon Memory: Beating the Elite Four, then crying on the Charlotte Elementary School playground.

2. Final Fantasy Tactics

You knew it was only a matter of time until a member of the Final Fantasy genus made an appearance. So, without any further ado, at #2 we find our first Sony game on the list: Final Fantasy Tactics. Tactics came into play for the original Play Station in the late 90's, a day and age where graphic were basic and story was everything. This is a big reason why I firmly hold that Square Soft's masterpiece has the best story of any video game in existence. With endless options, you customized your team of fighters to save the kingdom from demons, dragons, and backstabbing tyrants. I'm positive I logged over 70 hours into this game, and every minute was well worth it. If I had 70 hours to kill, I wouldn't hesitate to start up a campaign of Tactics right now.

As a matter of fact, I'm watching my roommate play Final Fantasy Tactics at this very moment. I love this game.

Best Tactics Memory: Beating the game and saying out loud, "Damn. That was the best game I've ever played." Oh, and becoming a lancer. It's the greatest.

1. Star Fox 64

Coming in at #1 on my list of all time favorite games, we have the legendary Star Fox 64. With more lightning paced laser blasts and barrel rolls than you can fathom, Star Fox has everything an undiagnosed ADHD kid could possibly ask for. Let's think about it. You're cruising through space in your Arwing, picking up all the bright and shiny objects, dodging the rainbow spectrum of laser beams, and bombing the evil Andross's goons into oblivion. Need I say more?

Fine.

Aerial combat, space warps, tank missions, flying robots, supersonic butterflies, submarine action, sun monsters, wolf packs, and, lest I forget, ALL RANGE MODE. Seriously, I think I had to go change pants the first time I went into All Range Mode.

I'll never forget the joy brought to my 5th grade heart the first time I navigated the Lylat System, thwarted Star Wolf's posse from blowing up the base, and flew into the core of the planet Venom to defeat the dastardly wizard on his home turf. I recall jumping in victory (I jumped a lot when playing video games as a kid) as my Arwing sped away from the exploding noxious green planet. It was true triumph. There was much jumping.

Star Fox 64 is also the first game I can remember to incorporate the "RUMBLE PACK" experience. If memory serves correctly, the game box actually came with a 3lb grinding attachment that you clunked onto the back of your controller, inevitably leading to tens of thousands of cases of carpal tunnel, but I digress... THE RUMBLE PACK WAS AWESOME! Not only did it add a top heavy sense of stability by tripling the weight of your controller, it also violently convulsed each and every time you took a hit, bumped an asteroid, or got remotely close to pretty much anything. Simply said, it gave you the real cockpit experience of Fox's Arwing.

At the end of the day, it's a bunch of talking animals flying interstellar fighter jets to stop other talking animals from taking over the galaxy and that, ladies and gents, makes it my fav.

Best Star Fox Memory: Beating the game on the highest difficulty, then following Fox's father's ghost out of the labyrinth of exploding demise. That was the day I became a man. This was about a year ago.

Swagg

Two months ago I awoke from a slumber to see the little red light flashing on my phone. I believe it was right at the crack of noon when I rolled over and checked my new message. I quickly discovered that a friend had been perusing job listings at the Center for Nonprofit Management when she came across a listing for a "Digital Media Instructor" position at Rocketown, an organization that shares the love of Christ with the youth of Nashville through a variety creative programs. The deadline for application was May 1st, and in my groggy haze, I discovered the date was May 2nd. Being at 24 hours behind the curve, I hit play on the soundtrack of The Social Network, and within 30 minutes, I had a suitable cover letter on its way to Rocketown. I guess they liked it.

Soon, I was offered the position to teach both photography and video production for a 7 week program called Rocketown Summer Sessions. Summer Sessions is an amazing programs that offers a diverse group of Nashville youth the opportunity to come engage in activities like photography, dancing, skateboarding, song writing, and much, much more. There's even a "Gear Heads" group at Summer Sessions that begins the week by repairing old busted go karts, then has them racing full speed around our custom course by week's end. Summer Sessions is connecting students from all across the board of Nashville as bond over their passions.

A month down the road, I  found myself sitting in Rocketown at the crack of dawn. For those of you unfamiliar with my living habits, I'm a high maintenance sleeper. As a freelancer, I have the luxury of setting my own schedule, which seldom results in wake up times before 10:30am. Day One of Rocketown Summer  Sessions started at 7:45. Brutal. So, like I said, at 8am that Monday morning I found myself sitting in a circle of students I'd never met, ready to give my first real shot at teaching photography and video production. The first week went well, but proved to be a challenge as I established myself in a new role, in an entirely new setting, with an entirely new group of people, all while adjusting to a "normal" sleep cycle. By the end of Week 1, I came home and blacked out.

Week 2 was an entirely different story. I came in with the mentality that I was going to go all out, and that my team was going to dominate. To clarify, Summer Sessions also offers team game competitions. Teams are led by Rocketown staff (like me). Games range everywhere from dodgeball in the skatepark, to kickball on the blacktop, to the most irritating minute to win it challenges the world have ever known. As I met my new team for the first time, I told them they had one minute to work together to create a team name. If they failed, our team would be named "Taylor Swift." One minute late, we were team Taylor Swift. During day one we were conquered in each of the minute to win it challenges, and the moral of Taylor Swift was low. On the drive home I wondered if naming my team "Taylor Swift" had been pushing things too far. I envisioned the humiliation our opponents would face when Taylor Swift had conquered them, but the last thing I wanted was to embarrass my squad. 

Day two - I walk in to discover a Taylor Swift collage posted on the Summer Sessions scoreboard. Turns out the evening before, a young girl on my team crafted this masterpiece and posted it for all to see. From that point on, Taylor Swift was a unstoppable train, like that train from Denzel's latest flick, Unstoppable. We swept everything, including the handball tournament, which is for all purposes a hybrid of ultimate frisbee, basketball, and soccer. Essentially, you pass a dodgeball like you would in ultimate frisbee, attempt to shoot past a goalie who's guarding a net to score, and you play on a basketball court. After running the table in the tournament, Taylor Swift found ourselves pitted against the all staff member team in the final match. Being up just one point with time running out, we needed to seal the deal. In an effort to supplant our glory, the staff team set in place a new rule that if you could shoot the ball from the 3 point arc and score through the basketball goal, instead of the soccer net, your team would be awarded 3 points. On a fast break I found myself and my 12 teammate Caleb, who'se pretty much become my favorite kid at camp, staring eye to eye with the staff goalie (who used to be the drummer for Audio Adrenaline). In a moment of pure luck and glory, I called for the ball. Caleb, without looking, tossed the ball over his shoulder and hit me in stride. Channeling my inner Dirk, I pulled up and let the raindrops fall. Everything slowed down as the ball drifted through the air and toward the net. Silence fell across the court. The ball fell through the net. Rocketown erupted. I remember running down the court with arms held wide. Kids were jumping on my back. I was jumping on kids backs. Someone was probably seriously injured. The entirety of Rocketown was chanting "Taylor Swift! Taylor Swift!" It was a beautiful.

It may have have just been a game of handball, but in that moment, it felt like I had hit a walk off home run in the World Series. 

From that point on, Taylor Swift became known as Taylor Sweep. We would not be denied. And at the end of the week, we claimed first place. 

Over the course of these three weeks, we've made a lot of funny short films ranging everywhere from Anti-bullying to a short survival guide on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. We've taken some sweet photos and doctored them up in photoshop. We've put our own swagg on things. We've all formed new friendships as well, which is what it's all about.

Coming in, I really didn't know what to expect from this job. Three weeks in, I absolutely love it. I'm getting paid to teach photography, make short films with kids, and play dodgeball. Yes, I get paid to play dodgeball. And kickball. And handball. Simply put, it's been a treat. I still struggle with the early a.m. wake up call, but I'm slowly adapting. With the first three weeks behind us, I can tell the next four weeks have a lot in store for Rocketown. Brace yourself, Nashville!