Fancy Boys Go To The Movies: Black Widow

Fancy Boys Go To The Movies: Black Widow

Ok, so F9 was a nice way to get back into the theater, but the way we all know that the world is healing enough is that Marvel has decided to release a film. Granted, you can also watch the film on the Disney+ for an additional fee, but the Marvel/Disney corporate overlords would not have released Black Widow unless they knew enough people were comfortable going out. And the numbers seem to be panning out for the newest installment of the MCU: the film has already made $146 million at the domestic box office, and will no doubt double it’s $200 million budget when things are all said and done. And that’s not even including the $60 million it made for Disney+ on it’s opening weekend.

And that’s a good thing, because Black Widow is an interesting film for the Marvel franchise. It’s not a film setting up sequels or taking us further. It, by all accounts, will be the last time Scarlett Johannsson plays Natasha Romanov. The movie’s director, Cate Shortland, is not one of the big, splashy names that Kevin Feige & Co. have brought in or are bringing in. The film is a weird (and occasionally disjointed) film that runs over two hours and does nothing to further the MCU legacy.

And, more often than not, it works really well.

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Guardians Of The Cuyahoga

Guardians Of The Cuyahoga

Yesterday, the decision was announced that the Cleveland Indians would be changing their name to the Cleveland Guardians. Because the internet is a place of calm and reasoned discourse, this decision was lauded as a celebration of progress and then people went back to being excited about the start of the Olympics.

No, wait. The World Wide Web is a goddamned trash fire and people lost their fucking minds over something they had never previously cared about.

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I Liked Space Jam 2

I Liked Space Jam 2

Author’s Note: I’m calling it Space Jam 2. I know it’s called Space Jam: A New Legacy, but I’m just gonna call it Space Jam 2.

Welcome to the age of Space Jam 2, a movie that was more inevitable than death and taxes. Yes, after 25 years, the Looney Tunes gang is back to do roughly the same thing they did last time. I enjoyed it. Others didn’t. It’s okay to like or not like a movie. What I don’t understand is the utter disdain for this movie when its predecessor is not a good movie either. Maybe it’s time to take a long, cold look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “when did I get so old?”

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Good Girl

In Loveland, Colorado on July 7, 2021, it ranged from the mid 60’s to the high 80’s with a blue sky sporadically dotted with white clouds. It was a perfectly beautiful day, but not an ordinary one.

Honey my Foxfire Red Lab and I walked that day – a lot. She didn’t want to go back inside. 5AM-5:30AM we saw more than I’d expect from the wild and domesticated kingdom. Baby bunnies played in the grass in front of us. A large raccoon came out of the bushes, sat down and watch us walk. Her current best buddy, Jaxson the cinnamon lab, came strolling by with his human pal Bridgette and did a quick nuzzle. The birds, most of them, came out in force. A great horned owl swooped down right in front of her followed by a white pelican. Mallards swam toward her. Swallows dove in and out, and a lone cardinal played its song.

No geese though. Very unusual for a typical morning, but not so unusual for they knew – she hated geese. What else did she hate? Fireworks but only if she saw them as she seemed to think we were under attack. Cats, but cats hate pretty much everything. People moving without moving their feet – like kids on scooters or skateboards and people coasting on their bikes. She once took a kid right off his scooter. Didn’t hurt him, just knocked him off like a safety taking a wide receiver out from under his feet.

This photo is tattooed onto my right shoulder.
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Portillo’s Craps the (coop) Bed

Portillo’s Craps the (coop) Bed

I am not a man who often goes wanting. My rotund figure and near endless appetite portend the fact that I have strong opinions about fast food, of which i’m often reliant on, as I’m sloth to eat my own food, even as i’ve cooked it. There are very few people on earth who were as ready for the great Chicken Wars as I was. The opening shots were fired, as all things are, on Twitter. The term “woke” was ruined through social media by conglomerate brands trying to be cool by turning their 140 characters of brand awareness over to jaded millenials, fresh off their graduation from Arizona State. The term was then co-opted by Tucker Carlson and his ilk, and now woke means “anyone that doesn’t get a throbbing erection at the sight of the flag.”

But I digress, as the only thing that that brings myself joy to the point of an unrequited pants skyscraper is a damn fine chicken sandwich.

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Fancy Boys Club Sits Down With Mike Maxwell

Fancy Boys Club Sits Down With Mike Maxwell

Both blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge and Chicago comedian Mike Maxwell understands something very clearly: Work sucks. They know.

Where DeLonge expressed that sentiment in one song, Maxwell has done something on a much larger scale: he has created The Anti-Boss, a one-man show which takes a look into the world of the workplace. The show, which will happen next on July 7th at The Comedy Shrine in Aurora, has been showcased at clubs and festivals. Mike answered a few questions for us over e-mail, and because of his knowledge of workplace frustrations, we CC’d his answers to all of the wrong people.

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The Notches in the Door Frame

The Notches in the Door Frame

Parenthood is strange. For the first few decades of life, you’re led to believe adults have all of the answers. They did, for better or worse. The subjective nature of finding the ‘right thing to do’ is the divine outcome of being alive and getting hurt. We endure pain on every plane of human experience and try to keep our children from bearing it as well, knowing full well that heartbreak is, in fact, an education. Most times, the answer is merely being there. But what comes of that when we’re gone?

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How To Never Get Booked For A Comedy Show, Part 4…

How To Never Get Booked For A Comedy Show, Part 4…

With comedy shows starting to open back up, I’ve decided to bring back the one series of articles that is, by far, the most popular thing I’ve ever written for this site. That’s not too surprising. Comedians love to talk shit about each other. We looooooooooooove it. And there are certainly plenty of dudes to trash.

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