FBC co-founder/editor-in-chief Brandon Andreasen is a football expert, and I love asking him questions about the NFL. He manages to be smart and funny and insightful while nerd-ing out on the gridiron. Today, as the Oscar nominations come out, he turns the tables on me and asks some questions about what happened this morning. Let’s get fancy!!!
There is this weird trend going around in conservative social media. I mean, pretty much anything those dorks do is weird. But this one really has me confounded. So I am asking you for your help.
Maybe you are a conservative and can help me make sense of this. Maybe you know someone who is a conservative and can ask them. Maybe you are pen pals with Roger Stone. Who knows? The world is a complicated place.
Anyways, back to this trend…
Continue reading “Help me understand Republicans: Not paying taxes, immigration laws, and abject racism…”
On Thursday, the Oscar nominations will be revealed to the world. All the guilds and AMPAS members will finally have their say and we will see who will be in the running for movies biggest night. I usually can predict the Oscars with about 80% accuracy. Any less than 70% and I’m just gonna drink my way through January. Any more than 90% and… well, about the same. It’s cold in the midwest and there isn’t a lot to do.
I should point out that this is who I think will be nominated and not who should be nominated. So, with that said, let’s get into nominees from the major categories.
And the nominees will be…
When a movie is expected to dominate the Oscars in January, it can go one of two ways: It can keep the bright light shone upon it and have a very big night (Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All At Once) or can be weighed down under all of the expectations and sink to the bottom (The Power Of The Dog, 1917). Heavy is the head that is expected to wear the crown, and this year, that head is firmly on the shoulders of Paul Thomas Anderson, the 55-year old bespectacled weirdo whose film, One Battle After Another, is expected to have a very big March. The film, telling the story of Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) trying to get him and his daughter to safety, has all of the PTA benchmarks: a star-studded cast, a razor-tight script, a Jonny Greenwood score, and a lot of hype. One Battle will be Anderson’s fourth film making a run at Oscars’ biggest prize and he will almost be certainly be nominated for Best Director for the fourth time.
But something about this film and this nomination feels bigger. Because One Battle may have to win Best Picture in order to be considered a success. And, if you are a fan of movies, you need the film to succeed.
This Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will release the nominations for the 98th Academy Awards. I, as always, am fucking psyched. You’ve heard me talk about the Oscars before so you know how I feel about them. They’re amazing and they try to get it right and, lately, they’ve been doing ok. No, I am not counting Green Book winning Best Picture. Or CODA.
This year, the big question seems to be if any movie will be able to stop the momentum that One Battle After Another has been, seemingly, building since its release. While Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest movie seems to currently be on pace to have a big Thursday as the front-runner for the top prize, there are some storylines which have popped up in the last few weeks.
This Thursday, we will learn the answers to these questions:
It’s December 21, 2012 and I am hosting an event at the O’Hare Hilton. As a comedian, New Years Eve can be kind of a mixed bag. While you can usually guarantee a full audience, they can be drunk or distracted or just looking for someone to make out with at midnight. All of those things are not great for an artform which, for the most part, requires an audience to sit politely and listen.
Continue reading “My two weirdest New Years Eve shows…”
Last week, I was horrified when reading the stories of ICE agents in Chicago dragging naked children out of their beds and putting them in vehicles. And while I was disgusted by the behavior, I was even more upset to see the reaction of people online supporting it. Because, as with everything associated with this President, you may agree with the initial understanding of the most basic argument, but the way things are carried out with such inhumanity and callousness is just tragic and if you are in favor of it, then you are absolutely a bad person.
Continue reading “It was always about hate…”
Taylor Swift has made it known that she does not like being called “calculated”, and I get it. To refer to a woman by that word implies a certain tone that one would not give to a man, who normally would be called something like “ambitious”. It’s a shame to me that she doesn’t like this term, because I consider the word a grand compliment and I believe it applies to the pop star. As we enter the tenth month of 2025, Swift has her twelfth album, The Life Of A Showgirl, out. And there is a lot that is needed to calculate.
Continue reading “All That Glitters May Not Have Gold: A review of Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl”
Sometimes, a joke can seem funny the first time you think about it. An idea pops into your head and it can make you laugh and laugh and you think it’s the most creative and hilarious idea you have ever come up with. It’s only after a little time passes that you realize that while they may be elements that are comical, the crux of the idea as a whole was a stinker and this was one of those things that needed a person to tell you, “Hey… let’s really think about why you think this is funny and what it’s about.”
This is exactly what happened when comedian Nate Bargatze hosted Sunday night’s Emmy awards. Bargatze, last year’s highest-grossing comedian and someone I believe is one of the best joke craftsmen working today, brought with him a through-line that he believed was going o be the star of the broadcast. However, what happened was the joke fell flat, he was wildly criticized, and television’s biggest night became the kind of thing where you had to cover your eyes every time the host stepped onstage.
Let’s talk about what happened, why it didn’t work, and the easy way to have made the joke a lot funnier.
Happy Oscars, everyone!
This has been the least I have written about my favorite awards show in the history of this site and there are two big reasons for that. The first is that the major races have been the most fluid I have, possibly, ever seen since I’ve been watching the awards as a child. While some races seem to have solidified, there are few categories where I feel like you can lock in and say, “This is one you should bet a lot of money on.”
Continue reading “FBC 2025 Oscar Coverage, Part III: Predicting the winners…”
Fancy Boys Club 