"She's just a really good actress," Sienna Miller’s publicist told the New York Daily News on the speculation that her sex scene with Hayden Christensen in Factory Girl seemed too real.  

You know you've been with at least one girl who has “faked it.” Can we refer to those as Siennas?

Last week, ESPN.com ranked the 80 Super Bowl teams. We decided to take a peek and offer some thoughts.

Jamie Malanowski, managing editor: One of the interesting things from these arbitrary rankings is that there’s little relationship between exceptional teams and good games.

We tend to think that the best games are those between two closely matched clubs. Working from this list, we can get the best pairings just by adding the rankings of the two teams. The pair with the lowest number should yield the best game.

In this case, the pair with the lowest number is the 1978 Steelers (3) and the 1978 Cowboys (19). Their combined score of 22 is by far the lowest combo, and in fact, the hard-fought 35-31 Steelers win was close and exciting and one of the best Super Bowls ever.

But a look at the next nine games shows far more uneven results:

1984: 49ers 38, Dolphins 16. Combined rank: 39 (Lousy game)

1983: Raiders 38, Redskins 9. Combined rank: 55 (Awful game)

2004: Patriots 24, Eagles 21. Combined Rank: 55 (Good game)

1998: Broncos 34, Falcons 19. Combined rank: 56 (Lousy game)                                

1997: Broncos 31, Packers 24. Combined rank: 57 (Good game)                                 

1989: 49ers 55, Broncos 10. Combined rank: 59 (Horrid game)                                 

1991: Redskins 37, Bills 24. Combined rank: 62 (Lousy game)                                   

1972: Dolphins 14, Redskins 7. Combined rank: 66 (Decent game)

2001: Patriots 20, Rams 17. Combined rank: 70 (Good game)

Just to pile on, only five other games score in the 70s:

1971: Cowboys 24, Dolphins 3. Combined rank: 71 (Boring game)  

1976: Raiders 32, Vikings 14. Combined rank: 71 (Awful game)                                

1990: Giants 20, Bills 19. Combined rank: 76 (Good game)                                     

1985: Bears 46, Patriots 10. Combined rank: 78 (Brutal game)                                       

1974: Steelers 16, Vikings 6. Combined rank: 78. (Not really that close)

Some other close, exciting games: Rams 23, Titans 16, in 1999, with a combined rank of 86; and Patriots 32, Panthers 29, in 2003, with a combined rank of 112.

So maybe this means that the caliber of the teams has nothing to do with the quality of the games. Which means that perhaps we should pull the names of the contending teams out of hat, and hope that Detroit and Oakland give us an exciting contest. 

Conor Hogan, fashion assistant and what we believe to be the only Seahawks fan outside the Great Northwest: I must stay loyal to my 2005 Seattle Seahawks. This is a powerhouse team that included NFL MVP Shaun Alexander, shoe-in Hall of Famer Mike Holmgren and five other Pro-Bowlers. Had it not been for numerous late-season injuries, some dropped passes and a few questionable calls, they would be the defending Super Bowl champions and vaulted into ESPN’s top 25.

Matt DeMazza, assistant managing editor: Yes, Seattle ran roughshod through the tough NFC West, in which the great St. Louis Rams finished 6-10—good for second place.

Of course, these lists that have become en vogue in the past decade or so are mostly silly, meant as little more than water-cooler and radio-talk fodder. That said, I guess the only two things I’d say about the list are that it’s hard to compare pre-salary-cap teams with post-salary-cap teams and that for one-year domination, I’d probably put the 1985 Bears atop the list instead of the 1989 Niners. Other than that, it’s hard to squabble about the rest.

Malanowski: I do notice with bitter satisfaction that my beloved 1968 Baltimore Colts were ranked above the Jets, just one of two instances where the losing team was ranked above the winner (the other was the Rams-Pats of 2001). As Tom Callahan points out in his excellent new biography, Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas, the result of the game, which ended 16-7 could have been very different. Unitas did not get along well with the stiff-necked coach, Don Shula, who perhaps was too keen on proving that his Colts could win without the legendary Unitas. Shula stuck with QB Earl Morrall, who in substituting for the injured Unitas had won the league MVP, even though Morrall was having a lousy game. Unitas didn’t get into the game until the fourth quarter, drove the Colts for one score and had them on the move. Had Unitas come in at half time, as he was ready to do, the Colts may have won. Then what? Joe Namath’s guarantee is remembered like Fred "The Hammer" Williamson’s boast. The leagues decide not to merge. The AFL folds. Decades later, Donald Trump’s USFL becomes the first league to successfully challenge the NFL. 

Dave Pfister, assistant editor and resident old-timer: Eh? No Bulldogs? Why I bet Jim Thorpe alone could beat your 49ers with both legs tied behind his back. And who in Sam Hill is this Jose Mantanas, anyway? Sounds like some thievin' Barbary Coast bandito. Ah, you kids with your namby-pamby Super Bowl and your broadcast televisions and your automobile advertisements and your rock and roll bands. In my day we had the Championship Game and the only TV we had was the crazy hobo in Buchanan Park, and the only cars we had were horses, and the only entertainment we had was Smitty changing horseshoes like the dickens at halftime. He could do 30, hell, 40 shoes before the teams got back onto the field! Poor fella was killed on account of a kick in the head during the '26 playoffs. His own horse, too. Wardrobe malfunction, the papers called it.    

 

With Armed and Famous off the air, how is network TV going to satisfy our hunger for really terrible reality TV? Just to give us hope, Endemol, the company behind Big Brother and the late Show Me the Money (hosted by William Shatner, who was made to look goofier than usual), is shopping around a new show: Rock Stars in Rehab.

According to Reality Blurred, Endemol has already approached Pete Doherty, whose relationship with rehab is sketchier than the one he has with Kate Moss, and a couple of lesser known Brits to star. Since the UK provides both our best and worst TV shows, it won’t be long before an Americanized version appears. Here’s our suggestion: Stars Over Promises, featuring Hollywood actors at Promises in Malibu, pouring their hearts out, sharing rooms and making their own beds. Think of possibilities just from the last few years of celebs checking in to dry out: Rush Limbaugh, Ben Affleck, Lindsay Lohan, Mel Gibson, Colin Farrell, Robin Williams, Joaquin Phoenix, Whitney Brown, Miss USA, Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the list is endless—more than enough for seasons two, three, four and beyond. And as the perfect host: Andy Dick.

We can’t wait. It would just like an awards show, but with no red carpet, very different acceptance speeches and much more crying. Read it and weep, Real World.

Like most of the publishing world, we must use Macintosh computers here at work. I don’t think of myself as a "Mac person," and "Mac people" actually tend to annoy me. They go on and on about all the things their neato Macs can do and I just think to myself, you don’t know the half of it. To the PC person, the Mac is a very guided experience. There are a limited number of programs and everyone uses the same ones. There’s not as much weird, occasionally wonderful, use-at-your-own risk software out there. In an ironic way, the Mac is all business – it’s there for you to use in its intended manner, not for you to tweak endlessly. You use it to accomplish projects, and it doesn’t want to be a project itself. And you can’t play games on it.

Tweaking does come at a price – I don’t expect a PC to last forever. And indeed mine hasn’t. Over the past three years I’ve installed and uninstalled more crap (I currently have at least 10 file-sharing programs on it, three different graphics programs and countless video and audio players) and pushed more files through it than I should have. (Note to self: Always buy the biggest hard drive available.) I don’t know what, technically, afflicts it now; it just seems very tired. I start it up and get a couple of hours of work out of it before the virtual memory is full and every simple task takes… an… eternity… to… complete. Reboot.

It is time for me to buy a new computer; unfortunately Microsoft is launching its new Windows Vista operating system at the same moment. Unfortunate because I don’t have the greatest faith in Microsoft’s brand-spanking-new products. Years ago I bought a computer loaded with Windows Millennium Edition, which was junk. And though I’ve learned to live with XP, and I appreciate that it is good in many ways, it’s not perfect and wasn’t from day one. (Interesting page here documenting XP’s issues over the years. I don’t know what’s more remarkable – the number of problems I’ve had or the number I haven’t.)

Another issue: The variety of Vista versions. With such a range of options, and such a gulf in price between the bottom- and top-of-the-line, I can’t help but think of Windows ME. I think Microsoft likes to punish people who try to go cheap.

I’m really on the fence. I might buy a Mac, even though I still find Mac people annoying. But Vista worries me—watch the demo here—with all its solutions to things I didn’t think were problems. All this needless 3-D trickery looks like trouble to me. The selling point is that Vista is “easier than ever”—I’ve never heard anyone complain that XP is "too hard." They complain that it’s buggy, or it breaks, or it makes too many choices for you. That seems to be a rule—the slicker the interface, the harder it is to make it behave just the way you want it to. If I want a lot of choices made for me, if I want a computer even a caveman could use ...

... I’d buy a Mac. And I just might. Oh, the shame.

When you see a movie as gruesome and sadistic as Saw III—the third (final?) chapter in the wickedly wonderful series about a dying psychopath named Jigsaw and the deadly traps he creates for people who take life for granted—the word “elation” doesn’t come to mind. More specifically, it’s difficult to imagine anyone behind the scenes enjoying themselves while making a movie with such dark psychological subject matter and unapologetic gore.

But that is what’s particularly interesting about the extra featurettes on the new Saw III DVD (also available on Blu-ray) just released by Lions Gate Home Video. As you follow director Darren Lynn Bousman, the actors and the crew around the set, you’ll be surprised at how much fun they’re all having—sort of like when kids discover something really gross and can’t wait to show their friends. It’s akin to looking behind the curtain of a twisted funhouse where people gleefully debate matters like what makes the most believable vomit (watery pea soup) and how you get maggot actors to, well, act. In one of the movie’s most cringe-worthy scenes, a man chained to the bottom of a well is slowing being drowned in liquefied putrid pig matter. As the actor screams and thrashes as the slop is pumped in, Bousman and crew howl with laughter at the mess they created while watching on a monitor in the other room. All this adds a new and unexpectedly light-hearted perspective to a series many equate with achieving the limit in screen violence.

To read more about what makes this young director tick, check out our exclusive interview with Bousman.

Not to seem truculent, but it has often seemed to be Playboy’s fate to be misunderstood by the mainstream media. Thus we were thrilled to see in the January/February issue of The Atlantic an article by Jon Zobenica called "Are We Not Men?" that really seems to get what we are all about.

"Playboy ... set a tone of cheerfully mixed company and sleek cosmopolitanism," Zobenica writes at one point, to which we add "and we still do!" Zobenica also does a nice job of decoding our, ahem, competitors, referring them to "laddie Neverland" where the residents refuse to grow up. Well, we couldn’t possibly comment, except to say that it’s nice to see somebody appreciating what we’re doing.

With Super Bowl XLI less than a week away, we've decided to post email discussions of a different daily topic. Today:

If Peyton Manning has a great game but the Colts lose, is he off the hook? Is he already off the hook after beating the Pats in the AFC title game? What if he has a terrible game but they win (a la Big Ben last year)?  

Jamie Malanowski, managing editor: I hate to ever say I feel sorry for a professional athlete about anything, but I do think the idea of judging a guy’s greatness on whether or not he’s won the big one is so dumb that it seems unfair that any player should labor under that burden. I mean, it’s just simple-minded., murder with a blunt instrument. The list of great quarterbacks who never won a Super Bowl is a long one—Fran Tarkenton, Jim Kelly, and most conspicuously Dan Marino—and the reasons why any good team lost to another good team on a given day are many. It may be true that if Scott Norwood hits that field goal, we think differently about the career of Jim Kelly, but it’s hard to think why.

That said, Manning is hardly off the hook. Even if the Bears win in the last minute in a close exciting game in which Manning plays well, he’ll at best have a temporary reprieve from the ``can’t win it all’ insult. (By the same token, he could have a poor game, but if the Colts win, he’s off the hook.) Manning at this moment is the un-Brady. Nobody is thinking about the interception the Boy Wonder threw in the Pats’ last possession a week ago. Brady’s rep, like Favre’s, is untouchable.

Matt DeMazza, assistant managing editor: I agree. While quarterback is arguably the most important position in team sports (a case could be made for hockey goaltenders), he’s only on the field for half the game, and in roughly half of his team’s plays, he hands off. Still, it’s almost universally agreed upon that if you’re starting a football team, you’re going with a top-flight QB, which is why the the media has created this sometimes-inane thing about quarterbacks and Super Bowls.

That said, the difference with Manning is that unlike Tarkenton and Kelly, who played in a combined seven Super Bowls, he’s playing in his first. His memorable postseason meltdowns (most notably against Pittsburgh last year, when the Colts finally had the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs) cast serious doubts on his ability to post numbers that are similar to his other-worldly regular-season stats. Of course, in this season's two playoff games prior to the AFC Championship Game, Manning didn’t play very well, either, throwing five interceptions and only one touchdown. It was the maligned Indy defense that really won both those games.

Anyway, yeah, if the Colts win, everyone thinks of him differently, but really, it’s kind of silly. One more thing on this topic: Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. Anyone want him over Peyton?

Chris Napolitano, editorial director: But you don’t put your team on the field and then give Dilfer the ball and tell him to win the game. But that’s what Indy will do with Peyton—expect him to win this game as he has won others during the season. And that’s why the Colts will lose. The Bears’ defense will stop him. Then he’ll press and start racking up the INTs.

Malanowski: That’s why I think being a football GM must be one of the most exasperating jobs on earth. You know that Trent Dilfer is at best an efficient QB who doesn’t make mistakes, but he’s got the ring, and Tarkenton, Kelly, Marino and so far Peyton Manning don’t. You see Joey Harrington stinking up Detroit one year and then playing well in Miami, you see Eli Manning playing great one week and then looking lost the next, you see Big Ben winning a Super Bowl one year and then playing like a man who hurt his head in a motorcycle accident—wait, never mind that one. But you get the idea. Greatness is achieved over time. How people play in big games in like a category unto itself. 

A.J. Baime, articles editor: Years from now we will look back at this upcoming game as a turning point. It will be a close hard fought game, low scoring, but at the end, when Chicago’s defense is worn out, Manning will put up 21 fourth quarter points. Every one will say, wow, Manning finally had his moment. Then next year Indy will come back and again be the dominant team behind his talent. Point: a great performance this Sunday will not necessarily erase Manning’s reputation as the un-Brady. But another great performance in Super Bowl XLII next year will. Because the guy is truly great, and we shall soon see how great he is.

Rocky Rakovic, junior editor: Peyton Manning is one of the top 10 quarterbacks to ever put on a jersey—that is, if you like 6-foot-5, 230-pound quarterbacks with a laser, rocket arm. He is not, however, a closer. If by some chance he does lead the Colts to victory (which Vegas thinks he will) that’s just one Super Bowl. There are nine quarterbacks who have won multiple Super Bowls out of the only 40 played. He needs more than one ring for respect.
 
Also, Peyton is often mentioned in the same breath as a certain Dolphins quarterback (must see this) who never won the big one. Guess who is flipping the coin at XLI?

Tim Mohr, associate edtitor: I know there have been several articles about this lately, but I think it is still worth bringing up in this discussion: Much of how we are talking about the quarterbacks here is informed by how we are forced to watch the game on the tube. When you sit in a stadium and can see the movement of the safeties and DBs, the extent to which the quarterback is a role player is much clearer. The reason Harrington succeeds in Miami is because they are scheming better and freeing up receivers in soft spots of the zone coverages they are facing. It’s not Joey changing, it’s the offensive coordinator.

Unlike baseball—which is in essence a one-on-one sport with a bunch of other guys standing around (which is why it is such an effective radio sport, whereas football is totally unintelligible on the radio)—or basketball (especially the NBA), football is still very much a team sport. Every player counts on every play, and, with the parity enforced by the salary cap system, that is more true now than ever. (It’s also the reason baseball and basketball players can jump from high school to the pros so easily, whereas, even before the NFL rule change mandating two years post-high school, hardly any football players tried to bypass college.) The reason Peyton is so reverred is that he is acting as an on-field offensive coordinator, recognizing coverages and switching to plays designed to work in those coverages. And that may also explain why he takes more flak when he’s not successful. Normally I would sympathize with him completely—in that I think the NFL is a coaching sport at this point, rather than a player sport. But since he doesn’t contradict the common notion that he in essence runs the offense, it’s hard not to assign him a larger share of the blame for failure. It’s a double-edged sword. 

Dave Pfister, assistant editor and resident old-timer: Give the Fridge the ball and things will take care of themselves. But Unitas is tough, especially in pressure situations, and he’s not going to lay down like some good-for-nothing pantywaist. Ultimately the game will come down to who has the better drop-kicker. That would have to be the Bears’ Scooter McClean. So I’m going with Bears 43, Colts, 37, though I still say the Canton Bulldogs are the best team in the league. 

 

Playboy’s resident movie expert, Stephen Rebello, is taking in the flicks and the scene at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Here is his final report from Park City:

The big, long wind-down has hit Sundance. The most-anticipated films have already won (or lost) their places in the sun, the sleeper movies have emerged, and the i’s are being dotted and t’s crossed on this year’s record-breaking acquisition deals. And, of course, the big-time swag and gift bags have long since been doled out to the A-listers who really don’t need them anyway.

Speaking of swag, the best comment heard while waiting for a table at a Main Street restaurant: “Look, I’ve either got to buy a couple of more suitcases, like, right now or I’m going to have to FedEx back to Manhattan all the great swag shit I got yesterday.”

There have been all-over-the-map reactions to director Craig Brewer’s Hustle and Flow follow-up, Black Snake Moan. (Say the title and people say, “What’s the name of it again?” Maybe they should revise the old Hollywood tagline, “Don’t say it, see it!”) The hubbub is exactly what this movie, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake, should generate. Your everyday movie doesn’t, after all, tend to feature such provocative taboo plotlines as this one does, what with the black, righteous former musician Jackson chaining lily white Daisy Duke-wearing Ricci to his living room radiator to save her from her powerful sexual urges. It’s a wildly offbeat movie that deserves a look.

A new Michael Douglas movie might seem an odd fit for indie-minded Sundance but The King of California (bought for distribution for a reported sum somewhere around $3 million) is a bit of a one-off. Douglas plays a former jazz musician and dreamer just out of a mental institution who convinces his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) to hunt for Spanish doubloons buried under a suburban wasteland. Both actors are good in the flick and although I didn’t run into anyone who went nuts for it, many said they enjoyed its shaggy charms. On the other hand, one of the big faves of the festival seems to be the lighter-than-air Irish musical love story Once about a Dublin musician and the Czech immigrant mother. I’d heard that buyers seem cool on the movie’s commercial potential but virtually everybody I ran into fell for it—hard.

Thanks again to the good folks in the Sundance Press Office, especially to Brianna Smith and Patrick Hubley, but it’s time to head back to Los Angeles, having seen a lot of films and met a lot of cool colleagues from all over the world. And, yeah, I’ve definitely run out of ChapStick.

 

If Jonathan Swift and Stephen Colbert had a kid, they'd probably both feel a little queasy afterward. But if that baby survived his second year and grew up to be an MC named $trick9, we'd like to think they'd shed a tear of pride then he dropped rhymes like this.

No sports team gets more attention in its home city from the media than the Bears. The news of the world takes a backseat to the Bears with one of our daily newspapers wrapping each day’s edition inside six, eight or even 12 pages of Bear info. There are Bear updates on some radio stations every half hour and, of course, the sports talk shows engage in endless speculation over Rex Grossman’s decision making, Benson or Jones from the backfield and whether Urlacher is as good as Butkus and Singletary.

Even though I am a life-long Chicagoan, I’ve yet to catch Bear mania. Perhaps its all those years of frustration and mismanagement since 1985 when the Bears of Sweetness and the Fridge were truly loveable. Or maybe it’s my natural resistance to all the Bear hype. However, if I’m really honest with myself, I know the reason I’m tepid on the Bears is because I’m a die-hard Peyton Manning fan.

My fascination with Peyton started in 1996, the first of the two years that we selected him for our Playboy Preseason All-America football team. In all the years I’ve been involved with the Playboy All-America tradition, we’ve never had a player more enthusiastic about making our team, about being with us for our special awards weekend, about being around the other gifted players from schools around the country. He was pleasant, polite and fascinated by the history of the Playboy team. And with good reason: his father, Archie, was a Playboy All-America back in 1970. (His brother, Eli, would be a Playboy All-America in 2002 and 2003).

Peyton’s leadership qualities were in evidence throughout the weekend. Some guys are born leaders and he's one of them.

 

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In Sin City, Frank Miller portrayed a demi-monde of violent and depraved individuals. No doubt the Las Vegas Police Department doesn’t want such individuals on patrol, but they clearly want those who are drawn to the graphics.

Some Massachusetts Republicans are apparently so desperate to break the stranglehold that the Democrats have on the state’s two Senate seats that they are considering asking the completely inexperienced Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling if he’d like to run.

Schilling, aware that his aging arm won’t last forever and that even someone as gabby as he isn’t guaranteed a broadcasting job, didn’t say no. His answer: "I couldn’t rule it out because it’s not something I ever thought about in a serious capacity." Now there’s a campaign slogan: Schilling for Senator—He Hasn’t Thought About It Seriously.

It wouldn’t matter. He could still win. After the Civil War, all northern politicians had to do to win was remind voters about the sacrifices of the Civil War. It was called Waving the Bloody Shirt. All Schilling needs to do is Wave the Bloody Sock.

Oh, Food Network, you were so freshfaced and eager! It truly makes us sad that one so young and promising as you should be turned out so early in its penny-pinching, creatively accessorized and adorably presented life. We didn't want to believe it, but it would appear from this clip that you're experimenting with subliminal advertising during Iron Chef America. Not only that, but the ads come from the extreme shallow end of the gustatory pool.

The truth? We're not really loving it so much. We hope you were well compensated, and that the rest of your johns are good to you.