a blog about a lot of things

Irrational Market: The problem with valuing the Neymar transfer Note: I am aware that the transfer fee of £200 million was set by Barcelona as a release clause and so was not determined on the market at the time by PSG. I am also aware that the value of the release clause was set in a large part as a fee thought too high to really pay and to prohibit a move before the end of Neymar’s contract and not solely as Barcelona’s idea of the worth of Neymar. However, this article will assume largely that the estimation of £200 million as the value of Neymar’s release clause was chosen as a value of worth and not with a prohibitive element. At the time of writing, Brazilian footballer Neymar is the most expensive footballer in the world following his transfer from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint Germain for €222 million (£200 million). This fee breaks the previous record of €105 million (£89.2 million) paid for Paul Pogba by Manchester United in 2016 and as this new record is more th...

Pricing Football Transfers: The market is flawed Football transfers have been increasing the maximum asking price possible for a footballer since the beginning of the professional era in the early part of the last century. It is not expected that transfer prices would decrease since due to inflation the price of few things have decreased from the last century to now. However, football players exist in a market that has become increasingly flush with money due to revenues from television and the cost of a football player now is far in excess of what would be expected under inflation. Football transfer fees are difficult to estimate in terms of being a good deal because there is little that is sure. Football and form is fragile and a good player in the past is not guaranteed to be so in the future. Furthermore, young players frequently fall short of expectations. A football transfer has to capture the current worth of the player, the worth of the potential of the player (w...

Black Butterfly, a remake of the 2008 French film, seems to draw heavily on other films about writers in thriller and horror situations. Most obvious are the comparisons to Misery and The Shining, down to the shared names of the lead characters in those films and in this one. Overall the movie has much to recommend it, in theory, but little to distinguish it. The basic concept is fairly similar to Misery, in that a once-popular writer is held hostage (though not by a fan in this case). The hostage taker this time is the drifter, Jack (played by Johnathan Rhys Meyers) who saves the writer Paul (played by Antonio Banderas) from being beaten up in a diner. He is later picked up on the side of the road by Paul. After reading Paul’s latest work, Jack and Paul come to an “agreement” where Jack helps Paul out of his writer’s block. The film attempts to make points about storytelling and the craftwork for creating believable works. Unfortunately, most of the dialogue about storyte...

Sleepless: A Review *Spoilers* Sleepless is by no means an original film. This is not entirely a problem when watching an action movie since entertainment value supersedes originality, but with a vast number of action films being produced, having an original storyline would add points to a film of this genre. A remake of the French film Sleepless Night , this adds to the feeling that the viewer has seen it all before. The ability to know what is happening before it happens is not ideal when the movie needs to really capture the audience’s attention by building tension. However, this is not a bad film. While it does possess a number of clichés and the entire crooked cop storyline can feel a bit rewarmed, this is a solidly entertaining film. The problem is that for fans of action films, they’ll have seen better done versions of every set piece. The chase scenes have all been done before as have the gunfights in parking garages and fistfights in kitchens. Not every f...

Marvel Netflix Series: The Villains Filled with spoilers below Over the past few months I’ve watched Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Daredevil in that order, so I’ve watched them all out of order. While this means I wasn’t really able to appreciate the interlocked nature of the series and really spot cross-series links when they showed up (a lot of the time) it did allow me to take each of the series from a stand-alone point (as much as that is possible when Marvel movies and television series have been around since forever and I’ve been reading comics pretty much my whole life). The series are all more distinct than they are similar but one of the uniting threads is the quality of the villains they face. In Luke Cage this means Cottonmouth (played by Mahershala Ali, who seems ever present and excellent these days) and Mariah to a lesser extent although the character of Diamondback doesn’t match up to those two and seems like a late and not as well thought out entry (for eve...

Best Picture Most likely winner : La La Land. A heavy favourite and much has been written about the race between La La Land and Moonlight for the best Picture prize as representative of the two types of movies that pick up Oscars. La La Land is a backward looking film in the sense that it draws heavily on the history of film and is influenced by the past. It is a good film and despite having a bit of a backlash recently on its treatment of jazz and its female protagonist, it is a spectacle in every sense of the word. Backup Pick : Moonlight. The best odds on this right now are 9/2 which is enough for second favourite but not really close ( La La Land is at 1/9). While La La Land is backward looking and a film about the movies and making movies, Moonlight is a far more unique film. It isn't an original story or even an uncommon one; but it is a rarely portrayed one. Films in African-American communities that have a heavy drug component are common but too often cliche. ...

Oscar Predictions -2017-Acting Awards Best Actor Most Likely Winner: Casey Affleck  as Lee Chandler in  Manchester by the Sea.  This award is not as much of a lock as it once seemed to be. Affleck's allegations of sexual harassment are getting more play in the media which could hurt his chances. And also, no award is sure when Denzel Washington is in the race. This takes nothing away from Affleck's performance in the film which is nothing short of exemplary. He's managed to portray a wide range of emotions in this very emotional film and hits all the right notes. Moving between immature to world-weary as the film moves, it manages to be one of the strongest portrayals of a emotionally suffering character in recent memory.   Backup Pick:  Denzel Washington  as Troy Maxson in  Fences.  Denzel's win in the SAG awards is what has been widely credited as turning this Oscar into a two horse race (which it definitely wa...