Anyone for Spunkball?

The Guardian, always happy to fill web space with lists, has come up with 15 fictional sports that we could (or should, or then again shouldn't) expect to see on ESPN at some future time.

This thirst for sports novelty pervades the zeitgeist; which is why every single comedian in Christendom is currently doing gags about how the global game of put-out-the-Olympic-flame (aka pigs vs hippies) is a new sport just screaming to be born. And they're right. With its multiple teams - running cops, rollerblading cops, the 6ft 3in-plus phalanx of paramilitary Chinese thug cops, bemused past-their-sell-by-date athletes, "the-torch-ceremony-was-invented-by-Hitler" factoid-spewing sports hacks, and the hand-knitted woollen flag-waving, mung-bean curry-munching Western Buddhist demonstrators - it makes American football look safe, sane and uncomplicated (especially with the totally awesome introduction in Paris of a new team of cops on jet-skis).

And before you ask, yes, Rollerball is on the list.

The Ten Most Prophetic Sci-Fi Films

American discourse has now reached the point in which even Popular Mechanics is publishing lists. It's not a terrible list by any means, since it does include the all-time classic The Running Man, featuring assorted governors and comedy POWs. But where's Idiocracy? Where's Rollerball? Where's 1984? Really, isn't everybody becoming stupider while corporations get more powerful and governments tell increasingly bigger lies?

Moreover, none of those movies star Ethan Hawke.