Fantasy Chase picks: Week 5

Things are happening REALLY FAST through four weeks of our Fantasy Chase game, as we’re already down to 71 players after starting with 197.

How fast?

You’re absolutely right, Ron Burgundy. In fact, let’s how look at how quickly the field has been whittled:

Pre-race Players left
Chicago 197
New Hampshire 183
Dover 113
Kansas 107
Charlotte 71

How about Charlotte? Is there more craziness ahead?

For starters, at least one person picked 11 of the 12 remaining Chase drivers (everyone except for Ryan Newman) for Saturday night’s race, which ensures more people will be eliminated.

But how many? The popular pick to stay out of the bottom four this week is Kasey Kahne, which makes sense. The best pick, though, might be Kevin Harvick.

Why? Because Adam Huth picked Harvick. You might remember Huth as the dude who won seven regular season races. Well, make it eight victories on the year — he picked Joey Logano at Kansas last week.

It’s too bad for Huth, though, that his wins mean nothing in terms of winning the championship. That’s what a points reset will do for ya.

Anyway, here are all your picks for Charlotte (note: picks in Italics means driver already eliminated):

Twitter ID Charlotte
KeviRHatfield Busch, Kurt
Springwolf Busch, Kurt
Dfblanchard Busch, Kurt
HitYourMarks Busch, Kurt
davidlerner75 Busch, Kyle
Nascar_Nut Busch, Kyle
BPierce Busch, Kyle
dave_phillips1 Busch, Kyle
poloshot Busch, Kyle
Sam_Beishuizen Busch, Kyle
Sports2hiphop Busch, Kyle
chrisonethree Busch, Kyle
brian_wiggins Earnhardt Jr., Dale
AshBollinger Earnhardt Jr., Dale
icemankeller Earnhardt Jr., Dale
wdoyle66 Edwards, Carl
Bradley_016 Edwards, Carl
kennethriggs Edwards, Carl
oldguyjk Edwards, Carl
Toenailurface Edwards, Carl
lorettamagers Gordon, Jeff
fatbuzz66 Gordon, Jeff
Mattdobson_7 Gordon, Jeff
Huth88 Hamlin, Denny
Readymixchick Hamlin, Denny
quickdraw222 Hamlin, Denny
jdubharris Hamlin, Denny
gregatkins Hamlin, Denny
Kfisher88 Harvick, Kevin
devyanks90 Harvick, Kevin
CopaCavanna Harvick, Kevin
jsoupzzz Harvick, Kevin
Scottwilfong Harvick, Kevin
ZHorrall224 Harvick, Kevin
Adam_Huth Harvick, Kevin
ncraiderfan17 Johnson, Jimmie
cgros127 Johnson, Jimmie
lancesells Johnson, Jimmie
cpeuterb Johnson, Jimmie
basspro24chevy Johnson, Jimmie
dickiep1018 Johnson, Jimmie
Chubdubblub Kahne, Kasey
turbojunker Kahne, Kasey
bruce_compton15 Kahne, Kasey
gonzalezterence Kahne, Kasey
ItsAlexKaplan Kahne, Kasey
Amishkid17 Kahne, Kasey
thndrnghrd24 Kahne, Kasey
digertwo Kahne, Kasey
bakemoney2000 Kahne, Kasey
CFDIG Kahne, Kasey
TheTigerBones Kahne, Kasey
Coates_Burghfan Kahne, Kasey
AppBuckeye31 Kahne, Kasey
rebel388 Kahne, Kasey
mattgross Kahne, Kasey
tcholbrook Kahne, Kasey
coreyr12 Kahne, Kasey
dallasjunebug Kahne, Kasey
chris_siebold22 Kenseth, Matt
Revvin4Seven48 Kenseth, Matt
csvelin Kenseth, Matt
HD388 Kenseth, Matt
stephenflorentz Keselowski, Brad
Ed_326 Keselowski, Brad
fnmetal Keselowski, Brad
mauhernz Keselowski, Brad
ClintLJones Logano, Joey
trv240sx Logano, Joey
katiecole125 Logano, Joey
Gael78II Logano, Joey

 

Fantasy Chase: Week 4 results

Kansas was an ugly race for some of the major Chase contenders. And that meant elimination for 36 players in our Fantasy Chase — 34 percent of the overall field!

We’re now down to 71 people remaining with six races to go.

The bottom four drivers at Kansas — shockingly — were Brad Keselowski, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne. So that means a fond farewell to the following people:

Keselowski (11):

whenske
Jrig1980
Race5599
jmorris_np
Hokiefitz
RealJDogg_82
NSCRtruckFAN
18frannie
ashaver13
CraigHaasis
echo837

Earnhardt (5):

caseylandrum15
arlenekrue
MaximeB92
DeuceStaley_48
jojolv48

Johnson (3):

DRLDeBoer
MoWhi
BigLiciousT

Kahne (5):

DillonSims
jsugi48
Jddorman2
tvphotog17
_Chouinard

In addition, 12 people were eliminated when the race took the green flag due to their picks of drivers who were no longer in the Chase. They were:

Kurt Busch (6):

hollywoodtlb
pamnielsen
bradleykarnes
cswiecki84
kid67y
PhotoMatt_KCCO

Greg Biffle (6):

thejosh20
4toddboyer
ZTsmiley
scottaltimaman
prettymonkey
Daniels_Caudill

Movie review: Gone Girl

The less you know about Gone Girl before seeing it, the better. So you won’t find any spoilers here except for this one: Spend $10 to go see Gone Girl in the theater, and it’ll be worth every penny.

After all, movies are supposed to entertain us. That’s the reason we’re still willing to invest a couple hours in a single activity, put our short attention spans on hold and fork over $13 for a soda and popcorn.

Gone Girl is dark and a bit twisted, but it’s also sprinkled with humor to break some of the tension. It feels all too real at times, which certainly is a reflection of our society’s obsession with high-profile crimes. The cast is electrifying, and the film sucks you in to such a degree that you lose track of the nearly 2.5-hour run time.

Above all, it’s compelling — and wildly entertaining.

If you’re one of the people who have already read the book, you know the kind of roller coaster ride that awaits. I hadn’t read it, so I was surprised by all the developments — and I didn’t mind it one bit. Without giving too much away, Gone Girl is about a Midwestern housewife who suddenly disappears on her fifth anniversary. All signs point to her husband, who gets the Nancy Grace treatment and endures a harsh media spotlight while everyone picks apart his behavior.

Did he kill her? His behavior certainly seems suspicious. Or was she abducted? Was it something else? What happened to her?

Ben Affleck is terrific as the husband, and it probably ranks as one of his best performances. Rosamund Pike, who I wasn’t familiar with before this, is perfect in her role as the wife and the lawyer played by Tyler Perry will make you forget all about Madea. Neil Patrick Harris is also creepily good.

But the real stars are the crisp writing — former Entertainment Weekly TV critic Gillian Flynn adapted her own bestselling novel — and the direction of David Fincher, whose ominous, foreboding style works perfectly for this story.

While I loved Gone Girl and highly recommend it, I don’t think it will be in line for any of the major category Oscars. It’s not really a Best Picture type film, nor are the actors going to get all that much buzz. It reminds me of Fincher’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which didn’t get a Best Picture nom in 2012.

It should still do extremely well at the box office, though, and rightfully so. This film lives up to the hype, and you won’t regret investing your time and money to see it.

Rating: 10 out of 10