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What an upset - looks like New York beat the Supporters' Shield-winning New England Revolution in the conference semis. That's the league #1 seed to you and me, folks.

All the momentum is on their side; give me NYC in this one.

Some things I watched recently:

Turkey Bowl (2019). I always get up early to cook and watch something on Thanksgiving morning and this was the choice this year. It's a fully mediocre dumb comedy that's not quite good enough to be good nor terrible enough to be fun. It's not something I'd have sought out unless it had been expressly made to be a Thanksgiving movie and the basic premise resembled something that I always thought was a good basis for a comedy...which is: a guy comes back to his hometown for Thanksgiving to play football with his old friends. It's a built in reunion story which is ripe for drama and comedy and could easily have been something good. This one, instead, overcomplicates things by making the guy overly successful (he's dating a presidential candidate's daughter) and overly dismissive of his friends and family, and the the game they want to play is an unfinished high school game from their senior year that ended in the 3rd quarter in a tie because of a storm, and against their rival.

None of this matters, little of it makes sense, and it's all just the basis for a dumb comedy. And this is made on an obviously smaller budget and tries to do too much with their resources.. But I still think this concept and title could be used to make a good comedic drama about aging friendships. Kinda like The World's End, but maybe without the aliens and stuff.

For a better but much less pleasant Thanksgiving film I'd recommend Krisha. It's a sort of elusive drama that gets so uncomfortable that it starts to feel like a horror movie. It's extremely well put together on a very, very small budget. I don't know if it was written that way or if it was in editing, but the way the movie is assembled is remarkable.

Then I signed up for the free month of Paramount Plus, which I never thought would happen, but I had to watch the new special South Park: Post Covid. It's an hour long 'movie' that they make very clear is not a movie because 'it's made for TV.' I guess that way the original film from '99 is still pure as THE South Park movie. They're gonna be making a few of these a year that won't be on regular TV, and they've sorta embraced that the lines between movies, TV, specials, streaming, etc. etc., are blurring and falling apart.

The story this time takes place 40 years in the future and a lot of enjoyment of it is to see where each character is at that point, and some of those are spoilers, so I won't reveal those things except to say the boys aren't close friends anymore and some of the reveals are really great, and will either pay off later or are just perfect now. There clearly is more to this story, which sadly won't be covered by my free trial.

Like always, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are generally the best at sociopolitical satire, movie parodies, and biting commentary. They always have a fresh and unique angle on the stuff everyone else is trying to comment on without detracting from story and character. This leaves a lot to be resolved, but the jokes all fit within their context and the funniest things just come from making fun of the things all future-set movies do, and from knowing the characters and everything that's become of them.

Good stuff, but incomplete.


Annie Live! I know Frogs watched. He's a huge fan.

It was fun enough. I bet a lot of kids enjoyed it.

Bengals schedule

Chargers
49ers
@ Broncos
Ravens
Chiefs
@ Browns

With the tight race the AFC is, the high (#1 seed) is real high, the low is really low. As long as the team that allowed the Jets to come back and get throttled by the Browns doesn't show up, the first playoff appearance in six seasons is assured.