Cinematic Underdogs Paul Keelan / Jordan Puga

The Longest Yard is a total smorgasbord of tones, jokes, and cultural winks, whiffing at laughter from start to finish. We get a jail yard-sized salmagundi of half-baked jokes. Wet Willies. Terry Crewes peddling McDonald's cheeseburgers, fries, and McAssholes. Pegging the refs in the nuts. Dan Patrick cameo as a cop, clowning on Frodo. Goldberg rockin' an XXL jockstrap. Tracy Morgan as a prison yard Ladyboy. Adam Sandler drinking a six-pack during a high-speed chase. Chris Rock riffin' on white guys and Prozac. James Cromwell acting much too prestigiously for a Happy Madison project. Rob Schneider yelling, "You can do it!" as a callback to The Waterboy. Burt Reynolds hired as a nod to the much-superior original. Bob Sapp doing his best Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile impression. The Great Khali looking huge. Nelly, band-aid on his cheek and all. Jim Rome and Chris Berman being themselves, offering tongue-in-cheek color commentary. Kevin Nash, Brian Bosworth, and William Fichtner doing their best as prison guards, trying to infuse redemptive nuance into their villiany. Joey Diaz being chubby, homophobic, and unfunny. Steve Austin being stone-cold silly. Suffice to say, this one wasn't for us. But we do our best to tackle it anyway. Enjoy the smackdown!

We're back with our Adam Sandler vs. Will Ferrell mini-tournament/bracket and covering the overlooked sports comedy, Semi-Pro. Chronicling the travails of Jackie Moon (Ferrell) as he tries to get his flailing minor league team, the Flint Tropics, promoted to the NBA, Semi-Pro is very much a byproduct of its era.

Filled with bear wrestling, stoner humor, bantering broadcasters, a cuckolded super-fan, a classic 70s soundtrack, lots of funky callbacks to blaxploitation films, and even more cameos, Semi-Pro is definitely a laugh a minute outing. Unfortunately, much of its humor felt played-out by the time of its release, causing it to bomb at the box office and signal the end of Ferrell's silly, man-child reign of 00's studio comedies.

On the pod, we discuss the comedic range (and lack thereof) of Ferrell's comedic career, his off-screen persona and presence in the sports industry, the ways in which Semi-Pro feels like an all-star mixture of tired/reused gags, and the ways in which it would have fared better if it came out earlier in his heyday. We then debate whether the film's veteran brand of dumb-bro humor should've been retired by its release or whether it offers the charm and humor of a comeback sports comedy, even if it arrived in theaters a few years past Ferrell's prime.

Enjoy!

Matt Belenky joins the pod to breakdown Luca Guadagnino's Challengers, a breakout 2024 hit about a steamy tennis threesome. We discuss Zendaya's star power, the nuanced dynamic of the film's central love triangle (in comparison to other love triangle movies: Vicky Christina Barcelona, Yu Tu Mama Tambien, The Dreamers, Bull Durham, etc.), Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's thumping and ecstatic electro score, how this fits into the pantheon of great tennis movies, Luca's incremental acclimatization to shooting suburban America, the refreshing arrival of an adult romantic/sports drama with palpable buzz and fervor, whether the film is kinky/erotic or a giant marketing tease, and the use of tennis as a sublimated metaphor for sex.

Enjoy!

We've finally found our home on the putting green and covered Happy Gilmore, the seminal millennial sports comedy classic that largely inspired us to start this podcast.

If you love Happy, Chubbs, Shooter, Subway ad placements, hockey shenanigans, and the rest of the 90s Happy Madison crew as much as we do, then you've stopped by your happy place!

Grab a pitcher of beer and gallop that horse-y around your own personal heaven cause you've hit jackpot! And stay tuned, because Happy Gilmore is the first in a bracket of Sandler vs. Ferrell sports comedies coming your way this spring and summer!

Cheers!

We’ve officially been Bingo-pilled and there’s no going back. Seriously ya’ll, this episode with Bingo-superfan Jed Bookout is bonkers. Completely unhinged. We talk Bingo playing cards, Bingo revolutions, Bingo’s wine drunk slutty dog shenanigans, potential Bingo sequels, Bingo sex-capades, Bingo legacy media, Bingo’s Schrödinger's box theory, Bingo merchandise, and so much more Bingo! 

Enjoy! 

Jed Bookout joins the pod to discuss A24’s early breakout hit of 2024, Love Lies Bleeding: a sapphic, bodybuilding, ultra-violent fever dream of a movie. Set in a scuzzy and sordid 1989 New Mexico setting, and tracking a pair of lesbians turned serial killers by necessity, Love Lies Bleeding is a tonal tour de force evoking the likes of Paul Schrader, Lynne Ramsey, & David Cronenberg. Perhaps the best synopsis of her sophomore entry: Imagine Nicolas WInding Refn directing a Coen Bros script. 

Over the course of the episode, we also discuss Rose Glass’ promising future, Kristen Stewart’s best career performances, the film’s moral neutrality toward ‘roid rage and its juxtapositions between the seedy and the sultry, the unorthodox structural brilliance of Vox Lox, the underrated sub-genre of vagabonds going on vacations in hell (namely, Spring), and the many influences of Love Lies Bleeding’s neo-noirish, black comedy beats.

And yes, we make sure the conversation veers podcast relevant by intermittently debating whether it could be considered a quasi-sports movie, likening it to everything from Black Swan to The Wrestler (although, upon further reflection, Stallone’s arm-wrestling masterpiece Over the Top or the Farrelly Brothers’ bowling romp Kingpin may serve as better reference points).

Enjoy!