As A24 Films celebrates it’s tenth anniversary this year, every cinephile has to admit that this company has quickly risen to one of the most impressive studios releasing movies today. Their films are commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and adored by film geeks all over the universe.As an exercise, we gathered a group we loving call the Fancy Boys Film Society (Matt Drufke, Rick Copper, Kate Peterson, Riki Adams, Waleed Ismail, David Sitko and Joshua Chuboff) and while sports nerds were doing their fantasy football drafts, we had them create a fantasy A24 roster. For six rounds, each picked their favorite films from the acclaimed studio. Here is that draft.
The grind, she makes it a difficult trek to repeat at Stanley Cup champions… or does she? Can the Colorado Avalanche do it? Can it be done at all?
That’s Gabriel Landeskog, “Landy” as it were (all hockey players have a nickname with a ‘y’ on the end). He’s already hurt. It’s a knee and he’s out for 12 weeks.
Is it really that difficult? Perhaps the days of free agency and cap restrictions, maybe? Or is it just a matter of knowing how to control that cap. The Blackhawks did fine in the 2010’s – they won 3 and hadn’t won since 1961 before that – but inevitably collapsed under the weight. They also have never repeated. Ever.
I am going to ignore the cap. Yeah, I said it – ignore it. Not going to go back into the days of the Original 6 and marvel at their successes. That’d be stupid. For the most part it’s not that great. Here are the Original 6 and their overall Stanley Cup records.
Boston Bruins – 20 appearances, 6 victories (ouch) last appearance 2019
Chicago Blackhawks – 13 appearances, 6 victories (oof) last victory 2015
Detroit Red Wings – 24 appearances (wow!), 11 victories (meh) last appearance 2009
Montreal Canadians – 35 appearances (oh Canada!), 24 victories (amazing) last victory in 1993
New York Rangers – 11 appearances (sad), 4 victories the last one in 1994
Toronto Maple Leafs – 21 appearances, 13 victories… but the last time they appeared was when they won in 1967. It’s a sad state of affairs wearing the blue and white.
With all that history, I am going to back to what the NHL called the “Modern Era” even if said era is more than 50 years ago. Hey, that’s hockey. Stick with the past like a Bears fan. Sometimes that’s all you got.
On a brisk autumn morning, a curious ray of morning sun gleams through the gap of smoke-stained plastic window blinds. Countless particles of dust dance through the beam above a desk adorned with half empty mugs of tea and a crumpled Del Taco bag from the night before. The golden streak of dawn presses on through a slight opening of a closet that does not close, layer upon layer of landlord white hamstringing the hinges. It shines on a dark, sherpa-lined jean jacket emblazoned with pop punk patches, a cartoonish skull enamel pin, and a worldly collection of coffee and beer stains that blend into the deep blue denim. One of these days, I should get that jacket dry cleaned, but that will have to wait, for it yearns to be donned once more; The Ides of October have come to pass and sad boy season is well underway.
As A24 Films celebrates it’s tenth anniversary this year, every cinephile has to admit that this company has quickly risen to one of the most impressive studios releasing movies today. Their films are commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and adored by film geeks all over the universe.As an exercise, we gathered a group we loving call the Fancy Boys Film Society (Matt Drufke, Rick Copper, Kate Peterson, Riki Adams, Waleed Ismail, David Sitko and Joshua Chuboff) and while sports nerds were doing their fantasy football drafts, we had them create a fantasy A24 roster. For six rounds, each picked their favorite films from the acclaimed studio. Here is that draft.
Week one of the NFL season is usually a high variant week because our impressions of teams are based on nothing more than assumptions, predictions, and results from a year ago. Even given that, week one of the NFL season this year was absolutely bonkers. From 2:30 PM-4:00 PM CST on Sunday is why Redzone exists. If you were watching, you saw the Browns win a game at the buzzer against the Panthers on a 55 yard field goal by a kicker in his first career game. Then you saw the Bengals and Steelers kickers lose their absolute minds and run a game down to the wire that should have ended no fewer than five times. Then the Saints went down field at the end of regulation to kick what should have been a game winning field goal, only to have Atlanta get into range in 15 seconds before the Saints blocked a game winning field goal attempt. Then you got to watch an absolute embarrassment between the Texans and the Colts. Then you got to watch Patrick Mahomes starting to absolutely and surgically ruin the Cardinals.
On Sunday night, All Elite Wrestling, the upstart promotion run by Tony Khan, the son of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan, had their biggest event of the year at Now Arena in Hoffman Estates, IL. Odds are, though, if you have heard anything about the proceedings of the evening, you aren’t aware of the wrestling so much as the post show fire bombing of the company by newly crowned champion CM Punk.
For those that know the Lockport, IL born wrestler, he is a soothsayer and a truth teller. He is a great wrestler and gatekeeper of the sport, but also acerbic and short tempered with those he feels has crossed him or wronged him in any way. He is as notable for his promos as he is for much of what he has done in the ring. On Sunday night, he decided to light an M-80 and throw it into the AEW toilet to see how hard he could blow it all up.
Welcome back to the Fancy Boys Club Power Rankings! Let’s hope I don’t lose interest and I keep it up the entire season. We are less than two weeks until the NFL season and teams have survived the preseason without much in terms of major injuries, with the notable exception of the Baltimore Ravens mascot.
The 2022 season will start after one of the most unprecedented offseasons in league history. For those who weren’t keeping track, Aaron Rodgers did his yearly asshat routine before coming back to the Packers. The team showed their appreciation by trading Davante Adams to the Raiders. Abstinence advocate Russell Wilson was traded to a Broncos team that suddenly looks more dangerous with an NFL quarterback behind center. Massage enthusiast and noted sexual predator Deshaun Watson escaped Houston by being traded to one of the most morally bankrupt teams in a league full of them, then got suspended for 2/3 of the season. Tom Brady retired, definitely tried going to Miami until the hole they were digging themselves into got too deep, then returned to Tampa. The Chiefs sent Tyreke Hill to the Dolphins, and he proceeded to say a bunch of dumb things to the media. A year after trading multiple draft picks for Carson Wentz, every “well, actually” football fan’s favorite quarterback this side of Kirk Cousins, the Colts jettisoned him to Washington and traded for whatever is left of Matt Ryan. And the Eagles traded for AJ Brown so they can watch Jalen Hurts throw the ball way over his head on every ten yard out pattern.
If you watched the VMA awards (I did not), you saw one of the two major stories which came out of the evening. One was the first appearance of Johnny Depp post-defamation trial, so… y’know… gross. The other was the announcement that there would be a new Taylor Swift album, and that is always a big deal.
Part I had us digging into Texas from a size, sounds, sites and overall silliness perspective. There is a lot of all four categories, and I tried to hit what I could given where I took my Texas trek. Could have there been more? I did not reach Dallas and Dallas is an article all its own. Okay, time to move on to Part II.
Food
Barbecue – all of it is good, some of it is pretty good and some of it is excellent. If they ask you if you want your brisket “lean” or “moist” say lean. Moist means more fat. I went to a few places, one of which was the Harris County Smokehouse. It’s main claim to fame is you can order breakfast all day with your barbecue – “Only In Texas!”… except when you can’t. The night I went I got there about 2 hours before their closing time. All they had left was what was on hand as the cooks closed the kitchen. What? Yeah. Closed it down. Harris County Smokehouse became cafeteria style so you told them what you wanted and they slapped onto a dish or into a bowl. No eggs, no waffles, no pancakes as those all cannot be pre-cooked well. So, no 7PM breakfast. Not that I was going to do it anyway, I wasn’t. I was able to get brisket and chicken and two sides… but they were running out of sides. I looked at the server, looked at what they had left and said to myself “shit…” then said to the server, “I’ll take the boiled (GAAAAACK) brussels sprouts” then quickly added, “wait… is that peach cobbler a side?” With a twinkle on her eye (it was “on” as she had glitter caking her eyelids) “It is tonight.” Damn fine woman!
The best barbecue I had I was used to having and knew it would be good. I drove from San Antonio after my Alamo and River Walk experiences (see Part I) to salvage most of the day via a heaping plate at Salt Lick Barbecue in the Hill Country. Lean brisket, pulled pork, some spicy sauce, tater salad (it’s not potato in Texas), coleslaw, and sweet tea and I was good.
After that I had a day drink called a Firecracker at the Fang & Feather located on the grounds of the Wizard Academy, a place worthy of its own article someday. It was tremendously satisfying, and I have no idea what was in it. I’m not much of a drinker but from what I hear these guys have tremendous whiskey and, at the time they started it, were the only crowdsourced whiskey distiller in America. Look them up at Crowded Barrel Whiskey Company.
Many many Whiskeys, Cigars, and Watch Your Step signs
Frivolity
Texans love their football. Whoo doggie there are massive stadiums all over the place, including for high school football. Yep, high school football. It’s plain crazy. However, let’s leapfrog to the pro teams. Houston had the Oilers who moved to be the Tennessee Titans then got the Texans. They have never won a thing. Then we have the Dallas Cowboys, AKA “America’s team.” America’s team? Really? Well, if you look at it they do go on quick streaks of being great and then they go long stretches of not winning a damn thing so “America’s Team” kind of makes sense.
More sports frivolity? Baseball. Texas Rangers, 2x losers of the World Series. Houston Astros? 2x losers of the World Series… and they cheated to win the one they did so technically 3x losers of the World Series. I know, I mentioned this in Part I but cheatin’ merits another mention.
This cannon at the Alamo will probably be moved to Minute Maid Park so the Astros can have a louder sound when a fastball isn’t coming.
And more? Texas has more pro championships in basketball (6) than they do football (5). As for hockey, they have one Stanley Cup victory, but no one cares.
Freedoms
Freedoms includes lack thereof and Texas history has got it good. When the state decided it wanted entry as an official state into the union, the Missouri Compromise was in effect and therefore no slaves could be above the 36°30’ latitude. Texas wanted to be entered into the union as a slave state. Therefore, this strip of land became what was known as “No Man’s Land” until Oklahoma took it, which is why Oklahoma is roughly the shape of a Jiffy Pop popcorn held upside down. I know I just dated myself and I do not care. Dated is key here. Texas got wind the Civil War was over, the South lost and the Emancipation Proclamation was set in stone. However, they effectively kept it their own little secret for 2 more years until federal troops arrived in Galveston to take control of the state and make certain the still-enslaved people got their freedom. That was the short version of Juneteenth. There’s more here.
Plus, freedoms ain’t freedoms without guns. Based upon the ton of billboards seen on this Texas trek, the Uvalde tragedy has not slowed the Texas populations zeal for guns. Lots of Second Amendment folks out there still shouting the Demon-Crats are coming to take yer gunz! I saw more than one big-ass truck with such sentiment plastered all over their bumper and windows.
Frontage Roads
First, Texas has a lot of 3 and 4-level highways. There’s a crap-ton of concrete being utilized for roadways in this state. Good gravy. Second, most of Texas has a highway system where a side road – the frontage road – runs alongside the actual highway. Granted, Colorado has these as well but they are not nearly as sophisticated as Texas. In Colorado they are literally so close to the actual highway you’ll see dirt tracks running to them from the highway in what I call “fuck it” lanes, where when traffic gets bad if you have a 4×4 just say ‘fuck it’ and cut over to the frontage road. Again, Texas has a more sophisticated frontage road system and it works like this – you see the place you want to get to, pass it and then 2-3 miles down the road you’re able to get off the highway, do a built-in u-turn (AKA “turnaround”) under or over said highway to enable driving back to your chosen spot. If you happen to miss it? No problem, there’s another u-turn spot further on up so you can go back under (or over) the highway, return to your original turnaround and start over again. You could make your own NASCAR race out of it if you want… and based upon the chunks of cars, black tire marks and damaged guardrails people have. This system, by the way, is a nightmare for Google Maps. To make it worse there was a lot of road construction too. My Google Maps virtual woman got so tangled up in the mess she stuttered “head south… head south… head south… head… head… head… head.” I finally released her of her duties and figured it out on my own.
Which BY THE WAY GOOGLE – when someone is not familiar with where they are the first set of directions which inevitably includes a direction – are USELESS. I know not where north is in a strange land like Texas so stop telling me to “head north.” RANT OVER – as is this article y’all.
Fancy Boys Club 