Last week I posted an article here on the site covering the current state of affairs in the streaming wars, and where things may be headed. You can check that out here.
One of the issues I covered was the enormous amount of money NBC/Comcast had recently signed on to secure even more sports rights to their lineup, the biggest recent additions being the long-awaited return of the NBA as well as Sunday Night Baseball from MLB along with the wild card round of baseball’s postseason.
I mentioned how the math didn’t really add up, as I stated Peacock has almost always been a loss-leader to put it very mildly, it’s been hemorrhaging money for most of its existence, only just posting its first profitable quarter in last week’s earnings report. Comcast spun off its cable channels into the new company Versant, and they have since announced plans to spin off the network and streaming into its own company as well, a separation expected to be completed by mid-2027. Leaving Comcast as a broadband and telecom provider, basically washing their hands of the streaming and television money pit.
A story broke this morning that Peacock Premium (with ads), will be included with a YouTube Premium subscription. To those unfamiliar with YouTube premium, it is the paid version of YouTube that doesn’t include ads. As someone whose most used streaming app for well over a decade (probably two decades) has been YouTube, I am a long time subscriber of YouTube Premium. I used to use a different email every one to three months to get free trials of it, this went on for about four or five years. Then they began enforcing that more strictly, so I used a still active college email address to lock in the student discount rate, it’s been in the range of around six to eight dollars a month the last few years for me. But it gives me access to everything on YouTube commercial free. I use YouTube to follow podcasts, to follow a broad spectrum of channels that cover my many different interests, it also includes free movies that can be watched ad free as well. You can also use it for music, which I do here and there for its large catalog of concerts. To me it’s the best deal in streaming, it has saved me God-only-knows how many hours in commerical interruptions.
This move is interesting to me for a few reasons, the first of which being, as I stated in my piece, how I just don’t find Peacock of any interest as far as a streaming service. I just don’t like the platform, I don’t like the content, there are far too many commercials, and it’s really never felt like a good value proposition. The sports rights they do hold are too fragmented, if you’re an NFL or MLB fan, you only get one game a week. It made sense for Peacock to be sold off to a larger streaming brand that could get those sporting events in front of their larger subscriber base and extract value out of them to encourage subscriber retention, as I think what it has to offer is better at that than it is to drive new subscriptions.
To give you an idea of how much I dislike Peacock, when it was announced they had secured the rights to the MLB Wild Card round games, I decided I would simply not watch them. Later reports would clarify that the games will be simulcast on NBC and NBC Sports Network, allowing people the chance to watch them without necessitating a Peacock subscription, but to feel that strongly about a streaming service to abstain from an entire round of the postseason of your favorite sport is telling. Subscription fatigue is real, and Peacock is the low man on the totem pole for a reason.
Now sure, it’s not completely without its value. If you didn’t have cable and couldn’t pick up the networks with an antenna where you are, Peacock was a great way to watch the Super Bowl and the Olympics this past winter. But those are one and done scenarios, people were not as likely to carry Peacock year-round like they were the other apps.
Another reason this sparked my interest is it exhibits the continuing pattern of streaming consolidation. We have a major deal tied up in the courts in Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which cleared the DOJ in May and the European Commission last week, only to be hit with a suit from twelve state attorneys general and a temporary restraining order that has pushed the outside closing date as far as June 2027. Mergers and acquisitions are in the air. Could this move by YouTube signal the potential future outright acquisition of NBC/Peacock?
People state the concern is antitrust laws, if they had any intention of enforcing the antitrust laws, Google would already be ten different companies right now. They may be willing to see if they can add an over-the-air TV network and a significant streaming catalog of classic television and live sports rights.
Another interesting caveat is that YouTube Premium subscribers’ main benefit is not having to sit through commercials, but the addition of the Peacock Premium content is said to be its ads-included tier. So if you’d like to watch The Office or the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air woke remake (God help you) early next year on your YouTube Premium account, you’re going to have to sit through ads. (Live sports include ads regardless of plan, but everyone already knows and accepts this as the reality we have always lived with.)
Google is currently facing a lawsuit, filed July 14th in the Northern District of California, that asserts its claim that YouTube Premium is ad-free is a falsehood, as video creators often include their own paid promotional spots within the videos. There is a genuine bit of irony that they have added literal ad-supported content in the midst of this lawsuit, which shows they probably view it as more of a speeding ticket than a serious infraction.
A concern will be, does this increase the cost of a YouTube Premium subscription? YouTube says the standard Premium price won’t move when Peacock arrives. The upside is significant though, having access to live MLB, NFL, NBA, Premier League, Big Ten and Notre Dame football games is a massive coup for YouTube’s paid service, and may signal they are willing to expand the scope of what the service actually is. Google has the money and means to take it as far as their heart desires.
The best thing about this change for sports leagues is it gets their product in front of more Millennial and Gen Z viewers, as their business models currently stand, their revenues would go off a cliff without Baby Boomers.
This moves us a step closer to the old-school network model, which in a world of increasing frustration over fragmented sports rights, could actually be a good thing. It’s become such a populist issue that Trump’s FCC has made inroads about it.
Let Peacock be an industry lesson. The subcription model only works when people are actually willing to pay.
Tony Romo was arrested for allegedly driving drunk in Milwaukee. I’m not going to go for any of the low hanging fruit like, “Man, how drunk do you have to be to get a DUI in Wisconsin?”
“The repercussions from Tony Romo’s DUI arrest are just beginning.” — New York Post
I’m not here to kick a man when he’s down. Something this did bring to mind is what I call the Player-to-Announcer Paradox.
I couldn’t stand Tony Romo as a player. When he fumbled the snap on the game-winning field goal attempt in the playoff game against Seattle, I was as happy as anyone else in the world. We watched the replay again and again.
Then he retired, went into the booth for CBS and became one of my all-time favorite color commentary guys.
He exhibited a wealth of knowledge on X’s and O’s, situational football, what the coach and quarterback were thinking, and he was predicting things with mystical precision. Then the normies watching got upset. They felt he was “ruining” the surprise of seeing what was to come. I felt like I was sitting next to a football oracle and loving it.
Now Tony Romo is paid $17 million a yearnot to do the thing he is uniquely capable of doing. He was neutered, and now people complain that his commentary is too vanilla, boring and corny. They won’t be happy either way.
Let Romo Romo. Let his fans, the self-described Romosexuals, enjoy his predictive and insightful commentary again.
But Romo isn’t the only example of the Player-to-Announcer Paradox. This seems to be more the rule than a rarity.
I loved watching LaDainian Tomlinson play, but I’m not much of a fan of him on the mic. Also, how ridiculous was it that he went by L.T.? There is only one L.T. Pick a different nickname.
I hated J.J. Watt. I got tired of the annual injuries, the “look how hard I’m working” offseason videos, and then ring chasing by going to the Cardinals of all teams. But in the booth? I love him. He comes across as authentic, knowledgeable and humorous.
Tom Brady was one of my favorite players ever. As an announcer, I think he’s become decent, but he still doesn’t seem truly comfortable. The cringe-core energy he’s giving out in the rest of his endeavors probably isn’t helping matters either. But nobody is getting pulled over for driving-while-alkalized.
I never saw Cris Collinsworth play, but I can confidently tell you I can’t stand him in the booth. The concept has caught on, and the “Patrick Mahomes” shoehorned references by him have become their own meme.
I’d probably still take ol’ Collinsworth over Kirk Herbstreit though. Being forced into a double-dose of Herbie on Thursday Night Football, and then Saturday night’s biggest college football game on ABC usually has me opting for TNF highlights on YouTube Friday morning instead of the Amazon broadcast.
It’s a weird phenomenon. Some of the guys I loved as players I don’t enjoy listening to. Some of the guys I couldn’t stand on Sundays become some of my favorite voices once they retire.
They’re two completely different roles.
The greatest color commentator alive is blackballed from the league and currently working for Barstool Sports. Mr. Jon Gruden. A Gruden comeback is a statistical impossibility due to his ongoing lawsuit against the NFL that he refuses to settle.
While I’d love to see Gruden burn Goodell’s reign of terror to the ground, I’d probably settle for the real Tony Romo being given his voice back.
I often refer to how certain things are “demonic” in nature. Psychics, Free Masonry, Child Abuse, — sure, it’s a long list. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that in regard to something I genuinely believe the culprit is darkly spiritual. But it’s not just grand scale stuff that is subjected to spiritual attacks, it permeates our daily life. A question that myself and others have had is — why are we subjected to such harassment? Why is this allowed? Why is it necessary for us to deal with?
One aspect of Orthodoxy I gravited towards was the emphasis on drawing from the Church Fathers. And for my Roman Catholic readers, St. Maximos the Confessor is the last Church Father recognized by both churches — which I found to be an interesting sidenote.
“There are said to be five reasons why God allows us to be assailed by demons. The first is so that, by attacking and counterattacking, we should learn to discriminate between virtue and vice. The second is so that, having acquired virtue through conflict and toil, we should keep it secure and immutable. The third is so that, when making progress in virtue, we should not become haughty but learn humility. The fourth is so that, having gained some experience of evil, we should ‘hate it with perfect hatred’ (cf. Ps. 139:22). The fifth and most important is so that, having achieved dispassion, we should forget neither our own weakness nor the power of Him who has helped us.”
— St. Maximos the Confessor, Four Hundred Texts on Love 2.67, The Philokalia Vol. 2 (+662 AD)
I see it as a spiritual gauntlet — and in this fallen world, each day affords us plenty of fresh battles to partake in.
LeBron James will join the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year deal, the second year being a player option, for an $8m total contract value.
“The NBA’s all-time leading scorer will head back to the Eastern Conference to join the 76ers.” — NBA.com
Lebron announced on June 30th that he wouldn’t be returning to the Lakers, he did this after his son “Bronny” James $2m+ salary with the Lakers became guaranteed for next year.
I’ve never been in support of the term “nepo baby”. A deconstructionists/marxist term to guffaw at so called nepotism or privilege, when what they actually want is an inheritance tax. As far as I’m concerned, the reason people are motivated to attain great success is primarily for their children and future generations, and if they do so, they are entitled to position their heirs as they see fit. The most successful family in the world has had this multigenerational outlook for centuries and it has served them quite well, but this article isn’t about the Rothschilds. It’s about Lebron James.
LeBron held the Lakers organization hostage, giving them a de facto ultimatum to draft his wholly unqualified son, and made a mockery of the league in doing so. Bronny is so far beyond Nepo Baby it’s hard to quantify.
LeBron milked his “decision” announcement regarding which team he will play his age 42 season with for 24 days, he got every ounce of attention he possibly could for it before signing his name on a contract. Apparently the extended free agency period even held up the Association’s 2026-2027 schedule creation. Wanting to see where LeBron landed before locking in their primetime games for the upcoming season.
Though he received considerable flack from the sports media for his indecisive antics, this summer has not been nearly the PR disaster for him that his 2010 decision to leave his hometown Cavaliers and “take his talents to South Beach” was. Prior to that epic television event my thought process was, “well he has to choose Cleveland, otherwise they’ll rake him over the coals for this.” LeBron chose Miami, won not one, not three, not four, but two championships, and the rest is history. He then went on an incredible redemptive arc and returned to The Land and brought them their first major sports championship in 52 years. LeGacy now having been restored, James dipped for Hollywood for an eight year stint that included a 2020 BLM Bubble Championship with the Los Angeles Lakers.
With this move LeBron has made himself far more relevant in the league as he fights the sunset upon his career for as long as his incredible physio regimen, TRT and stem cells (allegedly) can hold it off.
We just recently covered Futures bets and how they are the most reliable version of Power Rankings, or at least a market-driven version of them, so lets check in on what they are saying about this move:
The 76ers have climbed up to #4 with +1000 Odds , or 10/1 (up from +2000 a week ago), behind Western Conference Finalists Oklahoma City and San Antonio at a strongly favored +260, and the defending champion New York Knicks at +900.
LeBron is in his ring-chasing era, and with the emphasis sports debate shows place on championships in regard to the GOAT pantheon, it’s hard to argue with at this stage in his career. Four titles after 23 seasons, including jumping to well positioned teams in Miami, back in Cleveland, and then LA just don’t compare to Kobe’s five titles, and Jordan’s six, both of which were secured with a single franchise.
LeBron joins the newly acquired Jaylen Brown from Boston, and “The Process” Joel Embiid. They form a new big three that looks to capture the 76ers their first title since 1983.
Boston deserves a large dose of blame for fumbling the Giannis trade talks so poorly that they felt it was best to dump a franchise player to a rival to address the fallout, and in doing so creating this potential superteam destination for James.
But their loss is the other East Coast residents’ gain as Giannis and Lebron will now be playing their games in primetime in the Eastern time zone and remix the league with new rivalries, compelling matchups, and a whole host of new and lofty expectations for LeBron and the Sixers to live up to.
While I’ll take satisfaction in the mumbled excuses LeBron gives in his postseason press conference should Philly come up short in their quest for a title, this gives me something I haven’t had for a few years in regard to the NBA regular season, a reason to watch.
Netflix has expanded its acquisition of AI software tools.
Netflix has officially closed a monumental deal to acquire InterPositive, the stealth artificial intelligence filmmaking startup founded by Hollywood veteran Ben Affleck. The streaming giant paid $587 million USD for the acquisition….. The system is trained strictly on a project’s own dailies to maintain strict visual logic, helping crews fix continuity errors, handle complex wire removal, reframe existing shots, and adjust background elements or lighting during post-production. —HypeBeast
As a writer, AI is a double-edged sword. Its ability as an editor, proofreader, and text analyzer can expedite and cost-control the post-draft process significantly. The concern I think most writers feel is the possibility that an LLM becomes sentient and can adopt genuine human characteristics that give writing its true individuality and style, the thing that separates prose from prattle. At this point, I have not seen a model capable of replicating that necessary touch of humanity.
Ben Affleck was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience this year and spoke about the significance of AI as a tool of creators, as opposed to being the creator itself. His startup was aligned with that vision. While I think his InterPositive technology can be useful, I have little faith in it doing much more than expediting and cost-reducing more “content” for Netflix to churn out. The true ceiling it could have provided the film industry will most likely be inhibited by its new owners.
The positive takeaway is that we will eventually reach a point with AI where anyone with the talent to make a high-quality feature length film will have the means to do so themselves, and with that comes the final gasp of the Hollywood gatekeepers’ relevance.
A guy who opens his sports betting app every day, even multiple times a day, sounds like a guy with a real problem. But what if that guy rarely ever places a bet? What if the guy I’m talking about is me?
I treat my FanDuel account not like a digital casino in my pocket, I treat it like I would my stocks app. It turns sports into an easily readable market index.
My favorite things to check in on are Futures markets. Primarily they tell you what a team’s current odds are to win the championship, make the championship game, win their division, etc. They don’t focus on the pointspread of the next game, they assess the odds of a future event, hence the name.
One myth I see stated often in sports media is that “Vegas thinks they’re the favorite”, or that “Vegas is giving them 7 points.” While the sportsbooks themselves set the initial line based on their own in-house oddsmaker’s analysis, that line is fluid, it moves as money is placed, shifting the odds towards the money. The sportsbooks ideally want to be in the middle, where the “vig”, the cost of the action that lies in the disparity of the odds, is where they make their money. Sportsbooks can get into danger when enormous amounts of public money are on someone who is, for example, a heavy underdog, and there is no money on the other side of the bet to offset the losses if the heavily bet side wins. This causes conspiracy theories (and I’m always willing to listen to those with an open mind) to circulate when the house ends up winning anyways, but it also shows what the goal of the bet taker is, to come out ahead no matter who wins or loses, and that means moving the line to whatever is most likely going to do that.
While you might think it’s just Johnny Casual placing all these bets and they don’t reflect data driven analysis of what is most probable to occur, the homer or the casual fan bets are called “public money”, there are sports betting syndicates and professional sports bettors who bring in significant capital and move lines when they see a disconnect between their view of what the line should be and what the odds currently listed are, they’re known as the “sharps”, and they bring in the “smart money.”
Betting syndicates employ data analysts with weaponized autism that make Rain Man look like Forrest Gump. And now when you add AI models to assist these savants you get some high level hedging happening across the sports markets.
So when I pop open my sports betting app and check out the futures, I’m looking at ticker prices like investments, mathematically deduced probabilities that bring public and smart money together to give you a sense of the likelihood of a given scenario happening, like the Dodgers winning their third consecutive World Series. This allows me to treat Futures as a more scientific version of Power Rankings.
Right now the Dodgers sit at +190, the plus minus odds look funny at first glance, but here’s what they mean in plain English. If it’s a +, it means if you bet $100 you win back your stake as well as the amount after the +. Right now, bet $100 on the Dodgers, and if they win it all, you win $190, and your $100 stake, for a payout when you cash your ticket in of $290.
If it’s minus, it’s just turned around, if a favorite is -200, a $200 bet wins you $100, for a $300 total payout. The payouts are adjust for each wager amount to the correlating ratio.
In the markets you have to be aware of and account for certain levels of bias. If you’re in Las Vegas and you’re betting on the Dodgers, be aware that due to the proximity of the massive LA metro area to Vegas, that the Dodgers are often overbet by Dodgers fans who come to Vegas and take the boys in blue no matter what the line is. The sportsbooks don’t always change the lines fast enough to correct these numbers entirely (but with automated market makers this has changed significantly) and this is where the sharps like to pounce, it’s a reason they often wait until just before a game starts, until all the public money has come in, to lay massive wagers on an inflated line to get an edge. This is why you often see significant line movement before kickoff, right before a fight begins, and so on.
In my article last week, Dead Sox Come to Life, I discussed how the Boston Red Sox odds were at 35/1, or written in +/- style, +3500. As we see today in the above image, those odds have shifted to +2500, 25/1. The betting market has priced in the Red Sox 14 game win streak, now one win shy of the franchise record set by the 1946 club, and the odds of them winning the World Series have increased as more money has come in on Boston.
The Futures are a way to cut through the noise of the talking heads in the media and look at what the money is saying is going to happen, backed by some serious data analysis. The money says the most likely outcome is a Dodgers and Yankees World Series rematch. With the Dodgers having the edge in the potential matchup. But there’s a reason they play the games, the magic of sports is how often the unlikely actually occurs.
We’ll check in on where the odds have shifted after the trade deadline, and see who has done the most to best position their team for a run through October.
Streamers are suffering their worst subscriber churn, many are losing money, and they’re getting desperate enough to offer content for free.
Streaming has been a cash burn heavy game for over a decade. The idea that if you can simply make it to the end of the streaming wars and be one of the “survivors”, it means a bountiful return of never ending subscription fee and price hike cashflow, but is that actually going to be the end result?
Competition with the dopamine deity of social media apps, gaming, and the ubiquitous YouTube swallow up enormous swaths of Americans’ attention, which is a finite resource, and it could be the iceberg that sinks the age of stream.
The Apples, Amazons, Googles and to a lesser extent the Netflixes of the world have the capital to burn, a primary business not reliant on streaming income that provides that capital (aside from Netflix), and the luxury of playing the long game.
Apple uses Apple TV+ as a boutique offering. They dump billions into it so they can rub shoulders with so-called A listers (most of whom are far less relevant now than when they were actually featured in box office hits). Their shows and movies all have an overpolished and gentrified quality to them that comes off to me as dystopian. Yes, that is genuinely the feeling I get from them. They feel like the type of content shown in the latter stages of a fullscale technocratic takeover, and perhaps that’s exactly what they are.
Netflix doesn’t really produce shows or films, they produce “content.” They are diversifying their product, and I’m not talking about race swapping historical figures in a period piece, they’re buying up popular podcasts, offering gaming options, and dipping their toe, little by little, deeper into the live sports pool. They know the contest is for attention. But they’ve waited too long to gobble up live sports rights in a meaningful way, which is the most reliable way to get audiences to tune in and sit through highly profitable commercials. Their status as being the biggest because they were first won’t cover their warts forever. They must make the most of their current position before it’s too late, or their next modern remake will be the emperor has no clothes. The sequel to which will be a deep correction of their stock price.
Google has YouTube, and YouTube TV, and has positioned itself well with those services — offering things outside the competition’s mass production loops of churn slop. They’re attempting to create an all in one sports app with YouTube TV (insofar as that’s possible in today’s fragmented rights landscape): Local Networks, Cable Networks, NFL Sunday Ticket, ESPN Unlimited content integration coming, and add-on packages for niche content. They’ve also been dabbling in live sports broadcasts on YouTube, having an early season NFL game on the platform the last few years. I’d love to see the number of viewers the Super Bowl live and free on traditional YouTube would pull in.
NBC Universal (currently Comcast-owned) and Warner Brothers Discovery were not in such positions. Warner sold itself to Paramount this year for, debt included, $111 billion. NBC’s situation is its own flavor of frantic. Peacock lost $1.1 billion in 2024 and was still bleeding half a billion a quarter absorbing NBA and NFL rights, so Comcast did what a cornered giant does: it started cutting off limbs. First it spun the cable networks—USA, Syfy, Golf Channel, CNBC, MSNBC—into a separate company called Versant. Then, in June, Comcast announced it was spinning off the rest of NBCUniversal and Sky into its own publicly traded company, effectively stepping back from the media business to focus on broadband and wireless. If streaming is the golden goose of the future, why is Comcast calling it quits?
Paramount Plus has entered the fray with half-trillionaire Larry Ellison’s son David leading the recently merged Paramount Skydance. They’re in the process of getting regulatory approval for their acquisition of WBD which will see the apps likely merge and a goliath sports streamer emerge with rights to UFC, NFL, NHL, MLB, College Football, March Madness, and so on. They certainly have the cash to burn, and are currently very willing to do so.
Another thing to keep an eye on — Paramount paid $7.7B for 7 years of UFC content. The fight promotion’s parent company TKO has a market cap of $35B and that includes WWE. How long until a company has seen enough of these gargantuan sports rights contracts and simply begins buying up leagues when possible? No doubt the Saudi Public-Investment-Fund has its eyes on this angle as well — it already put $10 billion into the WBD deal and will be Paramount’s largest foreign shareholder when it closes.
Disney/ESPN can’t be forgotten in all this. There is talk of them offering a “free” tier of Disney+ in an attempt to compete for attention. They’ve lit more money on fire in the last decade than the federal K-12 budget. Their enormous sports library provides them a bulwark for now, but can Disney’s resorts keep printing cash fast enough to cover for their studio flops? Last quarter the parks threw off 71.9% of Disney’s entire operating income while the studio and streaming side limped along. The rides are carrying the company. Moana’s live-action remake just cratered — a $250 million movie staring down a $100 million-plus loss — and it’s not an outlier. It’s the latest name on a list that already includes Snow White, Dumbo, and The Little Mermaid. And yes, the streaming math does change the calculus on what a box-office bomb really is when the movies end up on the app in a few months where they can drive subscriptions.
Free streaming apps like Pluto TV, Tubi and Roku channel (who Fox just agreed to buy for $22 billion) recognize the new battlefield reality and opt to avoid the overhead: they replay classic television and movies and cheap-to-produce podcasts with ads generating all the revenue and avoid modern production costs and subscriber attrition.
The cliff we are approaching asks a simple question: will future earnings merit the acquisition costs of conglomerateting (yes, I just coined that term) and the exploding costs of live sports rights in a world with diminishing attention to give, and generationally receding live sports viewing habits?
What happens when the streaming investors realize they’ve been chasing a pot of gold that isn’t going to be at the end of rainbow?
Could we be heading for a hilarious era where we are down to four to five mega streaming networks: Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Paramount, and they all offer most of their content for free just to get as many eyeballs on their product as possible?
Every now and then I come up with the odd jingle that keeps rattling around my head, and once in a while I’ve even fleshed them out into full-length songs. Problem was, I’d have to track down a buddy of mine who plays guitar to actually put the finished product together. That’s no longer the case.
Suno is an AI that lets you upload your own lyrics and orchestrate the rest — the desired music, the style, the pacing, and even the specific stuff like where to drop a bridge, a breakdown, or a guitar solo, and come out with a fully produced song. My first experiment with it is a new one I wrote: a 2000’s-era country bar anthem in the spirit of Toby Keith or Big & Rich. It’s the story of a man who just can’t get enough of the good times.
Well I do my best talkin’ down at the honky tonk, I’ll sit there all night ’til I can hardly walk… That’s just the way I am, ya see, needa find some women that love me for me.
I love my job, and I love my life, Love my girlfriend, and I love my wife. Even when I got it all, I can’t help but stray— Cause I’m out here Honky Tonkin’ damn near every day.
Yeah I head right down, shufflin’ and a-walkin’, one thing on my mind, and that’s Honky Tonk Talkin’.
Honky Tonk Talkin’, that’s my style, Buy you a drink and stay a while. If you’re lonely, baby don’t keep walkin’— Come on over, let’s do some Honky Tonk Talkin’.
I sit at the bar, year after year, the only sweat I like is drippin’ from my beer. The band’s all tuned up, deliverin’ a hit, all I smell is sawdust and spit. My eyes scan the room, just a-creepin’ and stalkin’, lookin’ for a little gal who needs some Honky Tonk Talkin‘.
Yeah I head right down, shufflin’ and a-walkin’, one thing on my mind, and that’s Honky Tonk Talkin’.
Honky Tonk Talkin’, that’s my style, Buy you a drink and stay a while. If you’re lonely, baby don’t keep walkin’— Come on over, let’s do some Honky Tonk Talkin’.
She was wearin’ Daisy Dukes and some fine Tony Lamas, had to move in closer to this little fine mama. Now this little filly was all toned up and tan, the way she was shakin’, looked like she needed a man. She said, “Buy me a drink.” I said, “Honey, I just might.” She slid a little closer, and said, “Looks like we’re busy tonight.”
In walks Carla Jean and Betty Sue, the good old-fashioned Mrs. and the gal who’d never leave me blue. They ran into each other while I was out on the town, compared a few notes and done tracked me down. One thing on their mind, like a lion out stalkin’, they’re here to do a different kind of Honky Tonk Talkin’.
Honky Tonk Talkin’, that’s my style, Buy you a drink and stay a while. If you’re lonely, baby don’t keep walkin’— Come on over, let’s do some Honky Tonk Talkin’.
Honky Tonk Talkin’! Honky Tonk Talkin’, that’s my style,
Honky Tonk Talkin’! Buy you a drink and stay a while.
If you’re lonely, baby don’t keep walkin’— Come on over, let’s do some Honky Tonk Talkin’.
Spain cut down the defending champs with a suffocating performance in the World Cup final yesterday. Argentina was held quiet, not getting a shot on goal until the second half of extra time. The lack of a true striker on the Sky Blue and White squad forced Messi up front, where he was less of a factor, only having 15 touches across the 120 minutes. Messi is at his best when operating from the wing or just behind the striker, using his tactical brilliance to generate scoring opportunities, following up on rebounds, or threading a shot on goal from the top of the box.
As the games played out over the past five weeks, I thought often about how aspects of what I was seeing would never translate to a mainstream American sports audience. And there are two in particular.
Flopping: This can be given a yellow card after VAR review, but players will continue to hit the deck and scream bloody murder anytime they’re grazed by an opponent. The art of drawing the foul and selling the injury is a part of the game, but it’s not enjoyable to look at. If Joe McCarthy were alive he would investigate it, and rightfully so, it’s downright unAmerican. We don’t like when LeBron James and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander do it in basketball either.
Offsides: This is the most egregious issue when watching a game. A beautiful goal plays out, and the offsides flag goes up because a player’s shoelace was a millimeter beyond where his defender was, and the goal is disallowed. This happens often — it feels like at least once a game.
The good news is that, and you’re gonna think this sounds insane when I say it, Canada is doing something about it. Yes, Canada. The country that couldn’t even do basic forest management, leading to the Northeast getting engulfed in wildfire smoke to the point that the Cleveland Indians had to postpone their game against the Pirates — and had the World Cup final’s air quality in question in the days leading up to kickoff at MetLife Stadium.
But the Canadian Premier League — yes, that’s a real thing — is testing out a new “daylight” offsides rule. Right now, as I mentioned, the offensive player being even the slightest bit past his defender the moment his teammate sends a pass negates the play. The daylight rule would require the offensive player to be completely beyond the defensive player, with visible daylight between their bodies. The issue with the current model is that timing your run as an offensive player to be fully behind the defender is a near-impossible task, since players are moving up and down the field constantly. The daylight rule would open up offensive scoring, create more breakaways, and force defenses to be honest with their line positioning.
It would make the game far more enjoyable to watch for an American audience that has just shown it’s willing to tune into the world’s game — with record ratings for Fox and Telemundo during this tournament.
A highly subjective list of films I return to again and again. A few mild spoilers ahead.
15. Rear Window (1954)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly
“We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” — Stella
The first Hitchcock film I fell in love with is still my favorite. The apartment courtyard perspective from Jimmy Stewart’s rear window is brilliant. Grace Kelly is at the height of her perfection, and humor and tension is blended perfectly in a script that has enough of a jolt to offer a satisfying end, and closing with Jimmy in a worse situation than when the film started with two broken legs is Hitchcock’s playful irony personified.
“Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans.” — Cliff Booth
Full disclosure, after the first viewing, I really wasn’t a huge fan of it. It is now without question my favorite Tarantino film, and the most restrained of his work. Save for the Bruce Lee/Cliff Booth backlot fight scene. QT is determined to get 1969 Los Angeles and its era of filmmaking over with the audience, not himself. The 93 KHJ Boss Radio playing throughout as Cliff’s muscle car races around Tinseltown creates the perfect atmospheric hang out film. The Rolling Stones “Out of Time” is ominously perfect as we approach the inevitable demise of Sharon Tate, only to have Tarantino swerving us with a fairy tale ending, where his restraint pays off as he uses the finale to unleash a torrent of his signature stylized violence, creating the perfect unexpected ending to the film.
Questions about Roman Polanski’s involvement, the potential of this being a Hollywood sacrifice or ritual, in particular since she was pregnant, Polanski having released Rosemary’s Baby the year before… All of that we’ll discuss some other time.
But for now, this holds the distinction of being both a favorite all time film as well as a highly rewatchable mood movie that can be thrown on anytime.
13. Casino (1995)
Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci
“I fucked up, Frankie. I fucked up good this time. I should have never started with this fucking broad.” — Nicky Santoro
Sharon Stone’s psychotic-bitch performance is so spot on you feel sorry for any of the men she has dated. There is no way aspects of that aren’t genuinely her. She should have won the Oscar for it, but flashing her pubic hair crossing and uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct a few years prior ruffled some serious feathers at that Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
It features the same music-infused, documentary-style filmmaking that made Goodfellas great, but the edge is darker, the fall is longer, and the 70s Vegas nostalgia hits like a degenerate gambler on 17. Pesci’s performance is his best in my opinion, even when the violence is look-away from the screen for a moment level intense.
12. The Game (1997)
Directed by David Fincher. Starring Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger
“Discovering the object of the game is the object of the game.” — Daniel Schorr
You’re into The Game from nearly the beginning — a lunch with brother Conrad Van Orton (Sean Penn), a cryptic invitation, and it just builds and builds from there. Douglas plays the escalation perfectly. Underneath the thriller mechanics it’s a genuinely Gnostic-coded film: illusory reality, elite depravity, the false death and rebirth. Consumer Recreation Services, CRS, the perpetrators of The Game, give a not so subtle nod to the three-letter agencies that control our own reality and experience. Using psy-ops and trauma to move us across the board as they see fit.
It works out two things about modern life that most movies won’t touch — the false reality we’re handed as normal, and the hidden hands behind the curtain, pulling strings sometimes just for the sport of it. The Game is an initiation. It’s a natural companion piece to Eyes Wide Shut in that sense. As well as a counterpart to The Truman Show, all released in the back half of the 90’s. There’s also an iconic representation of San Francisco, one I grew up a couple hours away from that I feel no longer really exists in the same capacity — wealth, status, one of the most geographically blessed and architecturally stunning cities on earth, a world apart from what it’s become. The bones remain, but the soul is gone. The Game is a window into a not-so-distant past, and the revelation of a not-so-hidden ruling class.
11. 1917 (2019)
Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Mark Strong
“It’s easier not to go back at all.” — Lance Corporal Schofield
A film that should have won best picture, but was too masculine, too white, and too authentic to do so in the modern era.
The moment that makes this film an all-time favorite for me is Schofield finally breaking over the top and sprinting horizontally through the charging line, trying to reach the commanding officer before the second wave of the doomed attack goes off. It’s one of the most moving, most earned scenes I’ve ever watched, and it never diminishes — every viewing hits the same way. Roger Deakins shot nearly the entire film on a single 40mm lens — one unchanging eye, so the camera could slide from a wide trench shot into a close-up without ever breaking the illusion of one continuous take. The large-format digital camera he used is what gives the trenches and the breach their scale and depth, putting you in the mud alongside Schofield the whole way.
It’s beautiful, it moves fast, and like a great roller coaster, you’ll be ready to get in line to take the ride again once it’s finished.
10. In A Lonely Place (1950)
Directed by Nicholas Ray. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame
“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.” — Dixon Steele
My grandfather passed away when I was two years old. In some ways, from the things I have heard about him, Humphrey Bogart reminds me of him. A cigar smoking, daily drinking, wry humored man with a sharp intellect driving things under the surface. That connection is one of the reasons I love Bogie as an actor.
It may not be Bogart’s best performance, but the script doesn’t require that. There’s much talk of a “male-loneliness epidemic”, Dixon Steele was living his own self imposed isolation long ago, and doing it with style. Gloria Grahame is stunning, and the story of her real life struggles with building a lasting marriage peek through into her character here. It’s an easy watch, and a great window into a rightfully romanticized era.
9. Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Directed by Don Siegel. Starring Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan
“No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz. And no one ever will!” — Warden
Alcatraz and the San Francisco Bay filtered through seventies American cinema grit, and a cagey Clint Eastwood leading the way — yes, I’m most definitely in.
I love the story, on screen and off. I’m a believer they did actually make it to Brazil, as History Channel’s special “Alcatraz: Search for the Truth” alluded to. It aired October 12, 2015, and that’s the special where the Widner family — the Anglin brothers’ nephews — brought forward the 1975 Brazil photo and the Christmas cards. The film version of the real-life prison escape delivers on all fronts.
No need to overthink this one, it’s a fantastic watch or rewatch.
8. The Revenant (2015)
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy
“I ain’t afraid to die anymore. I’d done it already.” — Hugh Glass
The Revenant is home to the greatest Native American attack sequence on film, the greatest grizzly bear attack scene on film, and some of the most breathtaking nature cinematography in cinema history. The film is paced perfectly with an incredible score by Ryuichi Sakamoto, and an “I will die for this mother fuggin’ Oscar” performance from Leonardo. One of my all time favorite in-theater experiences. I think I’ve just talked myself into watching it again this week.
7. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Directed by Mike Figgis. Starring Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue
“You can never, never ask me to stop drinking.” — Ben Sanderson
What happens if you stare into the abyss, and decide to jump in? This film is not for everyone, it’s dark, it’s depressing, but it’s undeniably real. Nic Cage took home his lone Oscar for his portrayal of Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriting cast off on a suicidal alcoholic mission to drink himself to death in Sin City. Ben makes the company of working girl Sera (Shue) and they embark on a romance of despair. The music, the cinematography, the performances, the cringe of a drunk hitting rock bottom and smiling through it— it will have you rethinking all the times you had one too many and made a fool of yourself in front of friends and family, and thanking God for abstinence and moderation.
6. Chinatown (1974)
Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” — Walsh
They call it the best screenplay of all time, and it may very well be that, but stopping there is selling the film far too short. A beautiful noir shot in full color, that by the way looks stunning on 4K (the images almost look 3D they are so rich in detail), the story of a hard-nose private dick who starts pulling a thread on a case and ends up with a whole ball of yarn in his lap he lacks the power to do anything with. Faye Dunaway’s dark secret reveal is an all-timer cinema surprise, and the final scene puts a perfect final touch on the message of the film. A Polanski masterpiece released just five years after the loss of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate, as we mentioned in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood.
5. Taxi Driver (1976)
Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster
“Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” — Travis Bickle
1970’s New York City, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Bernard Herrmann’s score, and a vicious script from Paul Schrader. Driving the streets of New York at night with the jazz score carrying you along is mesmerizing, yet the next chaotic incident is always out there, usually waiting around the next turn. One of the first films to hit me in my formative years with a, “this is my favorite movie of all time, this is it.” feeling.
A broken man in a broken world trying to do right in a broken way.
4. Barry Lyndon (1975)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Starring Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson
“It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.” — Closing narration
I saw this movie for the first time only in the past year. Stanley Kubrick’s misunderstood masterpiece. It stuck with me for weeks after the first viewing, the utter beauty of the film, the palette, the grand set design and period perfect costumes all served as accents on the message that struck me flat— do we live our lives, or merely survive them? Hopping from one opportunity to the next, as fate twists its way around us over the years, as we become different versions of ourselves, as actors in a play we didn’t write, as a means of self-preservation, and the dire consequences that living such a life can bring about when ambition reigns without conscience.
Perhaps the most gorgeous film ever shot, each frame presenting itself as a living painting of the era. There is a driving score that Kubrick re-orchestrated himself that marches us along like a funeral procession, beat by beat, ever closer to our inescapable fate.
Watch this immediately if you haven’t already, and dispel any expectations you have of what a Kubrick film is before you do so.
3. The Godfather Part II (1974)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall
“I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies.” — Michael Corleone
I’m in the camp who prefer the second act of The Godfather to the first, but that is in no way intended as a slight at the original. Part II builds upon the foundation of the family. We split time between Robert De Niro as a newly arrived Don Corleone in the early 20th century, and Michael Corleone in a post Don world, evolving into what he went away to World War 2 to avoid becoming; his father. This is my Star Wars, a trilogy of dynastic power and character devolution, chronicling an authentic ascent into power, and all its dark corridors that ensnare you along the way.
This is family.
2. No Country for Old Men (2007)
Directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” — Ellis
This is as close as it gets for me to a perfect film. On the surface we have a three man chase, scene by scene, one following another, with a ticking clock to see if Llewellyn Moss can get away with the money before Anton Chigurh can track him down, and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell bringing up the rear, assessing the damage in the wake of the storm. It’s perfectly cast, perfectly shot, perfectly paced, and perfectly ended.
It holds true to the Cormac McCarthy novel for much of the film, and uses much of the same dialogue. The script for the film is one that I find highly quotable, even though I’ve been told, “it’s not that kind of movie.” But how can you not love lines like “supposedly ky-yotes won’t eat a Mexican.” and “I know something better. I know where it’s going to be, it will be brought to me and placed at my feet.” and “It’s the tide. It’s the dismal tide. It’s not the one thing.”
The film is not what many expect, and that sours a lot of first viewings. Its pacing, style and abrupt violence can be off-putting for some, but are part of the recipe that makes it a film that has stayed with me for nearly twenty years.
Every answer you seek about the film’s plot was most likely presented in a frame that went unnoticed upon first, second or even a tenth viewing. From Chigurh walking outside and checking his boots, a green light before a car crash, or the loose screws next to the vent, the Coens put together an absolute masterpiece with subtle clues embedded the whole way through.
1. The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Directed by Mel Gibson. Starring Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern
“See, Mother, I make all things new.” — JesusChrist
The most important film ever made. The art of cinema has never put the greatest story ever told on film as well as Mel Gibson did so with The Passion of the Christ.
Against the industry itself that sought to suppress it, this film was made with craft, care and respect for its source material— the gospels themselves, in such a way that led to a finished product that is truly transcendent.
This is an annual Good Friday viewing for me. A film that I think of, without exaggeration, daily.
Gibson’s decisions were flawless; casting, script, costume, imagery, pacing. When to show things, how long to show them, etc. The list of correct choices he made in succession to put this together is hard to quantify. The clearest and cleanest explanation I have for it is that he was being driven by a force far greater than himself. I’m sure he would agree.
