Dude . . .

Alright, before I get any awards for most pretentious blogger (Too late, you say?), let’s talk football. Or better yet, commercials and football movies. I did see the game, which I found pretty compelling the whole way through with the exception of Chris Collinsworth’s commentary (Was he always such a numbskull?), but there are far too many better-qualified football fans. And I’m barely a fan. Ever since the Jets left Shea Stadium in Queens to play in New Jersey, I haven’t really cared.

The best commercials were, without a doubt, the careerbuilder.com monkey business series. (You can see them all at ifilm) I loved this guy with the bad haircut as he braved the complete mortification of having to work with actual monkeys. Budweiser did a good job overall, but failed miserably with it’s cock-blocking comic effort, "Cuckatoo to the Rescue," in which an annoying bird walked the bar to shoo guys away from the hot girl. Pepsi did well with its P. Diddy and Ladies’ Man spots, the latter featuring a hilarious cameo from Carson of Queer Eye fame. By the way, I haven’t met the person who isn’t creeped out by Quizno’s infant spokeschild? Yuk. Overall, an okay bunch of commercials featuring way too many that aren’t brand-spanking-new.

Football movies: Saw Friday Night Lights over the weekend. Very good football movie with all the emphasis on football. But as good as the football is—and it really is quite good, less exaggerated than Any Given Sunday’s, but still derivative—the movie suffers from wanting to make the same point every five seconds, which is this: Man, they are insane about high school football in Texas. And yet, this movie is equally insane about high-school football in Texas. Character and plot are an afterthought to the rigors of game-after-game-after-game regular season and postseason football. Still, I found the action to be pretty gripping. My guess, however, is that it will age terribly since the movie bets all its money on the intimacy one can attain with new camera angles that allow the audience a player’s-eye-view of the game and the pain. Next year and the year after that, new, better camera shots will be available. While character will still fetch a high price. Translation: I would much sooner rewatch North Dallas Forty.

FNL is also the second Peter berg-directed movie I’ve seen and enjoyed this year—the other being The Rundown, as good a dumb movie as I’ve seen recently. And I’ve seen a lot.