Z/Web

Good game! Bai Jie finished nicely just three minutes in to put Washington up, and it took New York forever to get the equalizer. Late in the game Aarones was put in for her first appearance of the season, and seconds later the six-foot giant used her heat to finish a great cross from Sara Whelan. It looked like that was it, but then a stunner: in injury time the Freedom had a corner kick which Mia Hamm took. Her cross went through the legs of Bai Jie who screened the keeper and into the goal! Final: 2-1 Washington.

I wasn’t too excited about this game because both teams are so low in the standings. In the past, that meant that the teams weren’t very good. But surprisingly, both Columbus and Colorado are excellent teams: their positions in the standings just represent how strong the league has become. This game was terrific: Brian Maisonneuve got Columbus off to a great start with a goal in the fourth minute, but not long after that Balboa’s shot cruelly hit the post and refused to go in to tie. Minutes later, Balboa got another chance and this time he finished it. Then John Spencer scored to put Colorado up a goal. Shortly after the half Ross Paule scored to give the Rapids a two goal lead. Then it all fell apart as Colorado stopped going forward and tried to just defend. Perez got an easy goal when he was open at the top of the box and received West’s cross from the endline. Then West got his own goal in the 82nd minute to tie the score. A through-ball put Brian McBride one-on-one with the keeper, but his shot was blocked by a terrific save by David Kramer. But the rebound went right to West who finished beautifully, giving Kramer no chance on a second save. In overtime, Columbus almost scored right from the gate, and then Colorado had a terrific chip by Bravo that hit the post. In the end, though, the tie score held. Final: 3-3.

Interesting historical drama about a real-life racial massacre that occurred in 1923 in the deep South. My main criticism is that the “plot” was predictable, but since the story’s true, I guess that’s not much of a knock against it, though the director could have done more to focus on unique and more interesting aspects of the story. Basically, a white woman gets beat up by her white lover and blames it on an unknown black man, and in the lynch mob mentality of the time, dozens of blacks are rousted and murdered. The film’s long (142 minutes), dark, and slow, though it has some good performances. Many of the characters are well-defined, gray, not black or white, which makes for a more interesting and realistic story. It’s also more violent than I expected, at times almost a war between blacks and whites.