NFL Predictions - 2013/14 Season

The season starts tonight, and while I don't usually do sports stuff here I have predicted mostly everything this year below the jump. Check it out and let me know what you think in comments!

NFL Season Predictions - 2012

Though it's clearly not a regular feature, I am a pretty big fan of football and would like to write about it just a little bit. As such, this isn't going to be a massive breakdown but more of my casual observations about the season to come and how I think everything will shake out. I actually did this last year and was mostly okay with my predictions. This year they will be better. Or, you know, I hope they will be better. So before the first game kicks off I'd like to set a few things in stone. Or at least digital ink. And, without going any farther, if you're expecting Tebow's boys to make the playoffs, well, there's always next year.

NFL Season Predictions

I know the team (of one) here at ProcessedGrass appears too sophisticated for the common physical activities of sportsmen, but it actually turns out that we do love games of sport. And what game do we love more than any other? Football, naturally. Well the NFL season is finally starting tonight. The clouds have parted, the earths have quaked, the rains have fallen, and the bars will once again flood with amateur experts and soon to be dejected fans alike! But if you're a betting man where are you going to be putting your money? I can't pretend to know, I can just observe and look at the bigger picture. We like to be comprehensive, this is all about taking off the blinds. Big pictures! Picture this!

Baby, Who Turned The Temperature Hotter?

Fired Up! (Gluck, 2009)

Let's get this out of the way right here, right now. I have a soft spot for coming of age films, I have a soft spot for high school films, I am a 20 year old male and I am naturally inclined to like grotesque jokes about sexuality because I'm an immature prick. There, we have it. Mercy street! Despite all of those affections, even I have a hard time calling Will Gluck's Fired Up! anything resembling a solid comedy. Covering territory that other 'should have been rated R' teen comedies such as Accepted have tread upon before, the film is a hodge-podge of solid ideas that are kept in check by a studio's desire to market to as large an audience as possible.

Anchored by Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen playing two high school super stud football players, Shawn and Nick, we watch them sign up for cheer leading camp in an attempt to hook up with as many girls as possible in two weeks. We have seen this story before, and before that, and probably even before that. Thankfully at least half the time D'Agosto and Olsen actually do the comedy thing really well, especially individually, and when there is noticeable chemistry between the two the film gets fairly funny quicker than it takes the blood to rush to these oversexed teenagers' sperm poles. Wow, a lot of phallic references in this post.

The supporting cast here is really interesting as well, and they all play to the material they are given as well as they can considering how devoid of humor some of the gags are. It was interesting to see Margo Harshman who played Tawny on Even Stevens show up, but she is mostly wasted because her running joke makes little sense in context. John Michael Higgins has a few funny bits as well, but the standout is obviously David Walton as Dr. Rick, the generic frat boy tool bag who slides nicely into the role of antagonist. Not only does he nail the part perfectly, he is given the best recurring jokes. Hearing him proclaim how "Tubthumpin'" by Chumbawumba is part of the soundtrack of his life is simply hysterical. He is a breath of fresh air in a sea of generic, age appropriate, semi-edgy teen humor.

Yes, the film is mostly mediocre, but I have to admire the film for instituting a number of running jokes that it never gives up on, whether they are funny or not. The narrative takes no turns, the direction is sub-par at best, and the script is not deep or anything of the sort, but the film is as funny as the rating will allow and all of the pieces of a great comedy are present. Hopefully in the future projects like this can get an R rating and be phenomenal, because seeing all of this potential go to waste is simply frustrating.

C+ or 2.989473825467328516

Comments are welcome and, for anyone with a literary mind, I encourage checking out my poetry blog filled with all original works for your reading pleasure.

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