Last night, I attended a stand-up comedy open mic. If you’re unfamiliar, that is where you are guaranteed four minutes of stage time so long as you’re able to write you name down on a sheet of paper. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned pro with jokes on jokes to spare, or someone who has always wanted to go up and nervously has a few things jotted down. Just want to get up and yell horrible things about people you don’t like? As long as you can write your name, an open mic will not only have you but tell you that you’re just the same as everyone else.
Without a doubt, one of the best performances in film last year was the amazing turn Michelle Williams had as Mitzi in The Fabelmans. Williams, a four-time Oscar nominee, is clearly one of the best of her generation and shows it in the new Spielberg film as she plays the mother of a young filmmaker. We see her love of art and freedom and watch as she channels that into her son. And one of the best scenes of the year comes when one of her son’s movies shows her something about herself she didn’t even realize.
And so it’s a shame that Universal is campaigning her as a Lead Actress role. Here are the four reasons why.
In an earlier article, I mentioned that this was an amazing year for theatrical comedies, and that is a statement that I stand by. Which is why it is so heartbreaking that the pure comedies which were released in 2022 will get the bare minimum amount of love when the Oscars nominations come out in a few weeks. It would be funny if the Academy believed in comedies which, if you haven’t caught on already, they do not.
In just a few hours (noon EST), the 118th Congress will be sworn in and the GOP, which hold a very slim majority after barely wrangling success from the jaws of defeat, will have control of the agenda of the House. What will their agenda be? They have made that perfectly clear: if your last name is Biden, you can go eat a pile of shit. Their plans include impeaching Joe and investigating Hunter, but you can assume they’re not going to stop there. My guess is that there will also be an attempt to get Jill Biden’s doctorate reversed and will attempt to have First Dog Major shot in the face.
Hey everyone! I get that we are over three weeks away from having the nominations revealed for a ceremony that is over three months away. Totes get it. There’s no way I should be saying these words on the second of fucking January, but I have no choice: IT IS OSCARS TIME, BABY!
Lucy Chesterton slowly opened her eyes as her children came barreling into the bedroom she shared with her husband, David. Sure, her little boy and girl were coming in much earlier than they usually do. The sun was barely starting to rise in the cold December sky. But today, Lucy could not blame her little ones for being excited to start the morning. Today, after all, was Christmas Day.
With only a few days left in 2022, I still have not seen The Fablemans or Aftersun or The Banshees of Inisherin or Tár, and based on everything I’ve heard about them, they will all be on my “Best Of” list for film this year. However, I have seen a lot of great movies that I want to talk about. So, knowing that, here are ten films that if you have not seen yet, you are seriously missing out on.
You sit down to write something poignant – or what you seem poignant – about a topic and then life hits you. The planned topic doesn’t fucking matter right now. Along with countless others, my heart aches.
Allow me a moment to talk to you about my friend, the amazing Steve Marshall.
Steve living it up in the early AM at Cesaroni’s Deli in Woodstock for a Hotspur match with (L to R) Tony, author (nice job with the mask) and Dave.
Steve Marshall’s friends list was wide and varied. Certainly, Claudia and all the stylists at International Hairways in Crystal Lake were among them, but the customers who went in to get their haircut were too. Occasionally I’d hear a customer exclaim to him “Oh, I didn’t know you did comedy.” Didn’t know? It was all over the place, just like Steve.
He had his comedy friends, those of us who’d dare travel with him to various gigs from The Atlantic in Chicago to far-flung exotic places like Janesville and Rockford. “Dare travel” is purposefully placed. Most of time, Steve would drive. Not that any of us really wanted him to drive, he had to drive. Steve had a bazillion props to bring. A prop comic is like a drummer – no one wants to schlep their stuff into their car and haul it around. Therefore, the prop comic becomes the driver.
Rules of the road, for the most part, were adhered to but they were sometimes stretched – as a Brit his driving could sometimes be challenging for the passengers (as Michael Wasz once stated “we’re just fortunate he’s on the right side of the road”). Once you got to your destination, you briefly became his roadie. “Grab that violin if you don’t mind there, Rick… and the painting… and that bag of Elvis clothes… and…” you get the picture.
It seems like just yesterday that I lost interest in writing a weekly power ranking of NFL teams that you could find on literally any sports website (albeit less funny and witty). Then I blinked and suddenly the season is 75% done. If you are a Bears fan like me, the season was over the moment they chose to draft Kyler Gordon and Velus Jones over, you know, players with talent. If you are a Packers fan, your season didn’t end until Aaron Rodgers started acting like he had been shot every time someone touched him. If you are a fan of the Eagles, then your season is very much still alive.
Now that we are past Thanksgiving and headlong into the Mariah Carey soundtracked Christmas hellscape, it’s time to take a look at every team based on my patented Adam Gase Scale. For those that don’t remember, Gase is one of the worst coaches in NFL history, and managed to get hired by the Jets to be head coach even after he had been discovered to be a fraud. The more Adam Gases on the Adam Gase scale, the worse a team is.
This past week, if you are a fan of hatred and being a gross piece of shit, then the GOP was just giving you all you could handle and then some. This is the kind of stuff that always makes me roll my eyes, but especially when you consider this: when people talk about the crazy ideas that the “radical left” has, it’s always things like socialized medicine, a fair tax system, working to make sure we don’t destroy the earth, a fair living wage, and removing student debt. You know, things only real pieces of shit would want. Oh, and also, it would be great if police stopped murdering unarmed minorities.
What are some of the crazy ideas of the “far right”? I don’t know, because it’s the same ideas as the mainstream conservative movement.
Fancy Boys Club 