Courtney Enlow

I do not understand fantasy football. It make about as much sense to me as Inland Empire and vastly less interesting. But I am to understand that it is absolutely fascinating and life-consuming for some of you. I am confused by your choices in hobby, but I admire your gusto and moxie. So I’ve decided to fix your broken system.

The biggest problem with fantasy football is that it involves football. I mean, technically it’s socially acceptable D&D make-believe for the cool kids. This is what makes it vastly uninteresting for those of us intrigued by neither football, nor D&D. What does intrigue me? Finding some way to make the new fall TV season interesting.

And here the twain shall meet.

Football = boring. Most of the new fall television offerings = boring. But if you combine them? Shit, man, it’s the best office pool ever. Let me explain.

Here’s how it works: Instead of owners, the participants are “producers.” Instead of football teams, the players are picked from the certain-to-be-shitcanned shows premiering this season. Each roster will include a lineup of characters. As the season progresses, you will earn points based on their actions.

Each roster is to include the following players:

Quarterback - The quarterback will be the lead in its program. This character will carry the show and is vastly important, but is by no means its most interesting piece (Jack Shepherd and Buffy Summers as examples, albeit on better shows). Points are earned each time this character is finally snapped out of the straight-man role and is sent into tears, screaming rage or violence against walls and/or tabletops.

Running Back - The running back will be the sidekick in its program, the comic relief. Points are earned for every ill-timed quip.

Wide Receiver - This character will steal the show right out from under the lead (Seth Cohen and Sheldon Cooper are examples, albeit on better shows). Points start being earned the instant the show becomes aware of this and drops all focus on the main character in favor of this magical person.

Tight End - The hilarious gay character. This character is in theory supposed to teach the fellow characters/middle American audience to accept gays as part of society, but will generally be the butt of lots of gay jokes. Lots.

Placekicker - Hot boring chick who does nothing.

Special Team - The wild card, Charlie Kelly-style.

Here’s my team:

QB - I’m gonna take the chick from Chase. No one is more prone to histrionics than female television leads in high-stress jobs trying to have it all. This is a lock.

RB - I’m taking Kurt Fuller from Better With You. Joanna Garcia is likeable enough, but she only picks projects that are so forgettable that I’ve actually forgotten the name of this show and I just typed it. But Kurt Fuller is always reliable. Not reliable enough for me to ever watch, but enough so that if I ever actually did lose my bearings and watch this, I’d probably enjoy him. He’s also great at adding that hint of weirdness to whatever he does. This will inevitably stand out in this slice of Sunbeam.

WR - Gerald McRaney on Undercovers, I’m callin’ it now. He will do so by getting his wife, Delta Burke, to guest star, making her the only person able to out-hot Gugu Mbatha-Raw, a.k.a., Martha Jones’s sister.

TE - The gay guy on $#*! My Dad Says, which is incidentally the hardest title to remember of them all, because that fucking number sign really throws me off. Shatner will make countless gay jokes. The tuning-in-early-to-Two-And-A-Half-Men crowd will not be laughing at him.

PK - All of them. This is a pretty open spot.

ST - The show Twist of Kate, an entire show devoted to Kate Gosselin reading fan mail. This pick will gain me points by causing the other producers to take leisurely baths with their respective toasters and clock radios, leaving me the ultimate winner. Score!

The game that I’ve described above is stupid and really convoluted and basically impossible. But it still makes more sense to me than actual fantasy football.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

Courtney Enlow

Let’s do this. First, the picks. Italics is my wishes and dreams; bold is who will actually win.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA
Lost
Breaking Bad

I’m still working through Breaking Bad and have not actually seen this past season, but I got enough “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit” GChat messages about it that I know it was probably outstanding. Also, Mad Men will still probably take it home, but a girl can dream. I MISS YOU EVERY DAY, BEN LINUS.

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Glenn Close (Damages)
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)

I’m pleased J. Margs is having a good resurgence year and she certainly deserves it, but Glenn Close was absolutely spectacular this season, and if Damages can’t be nominated for Drama Series, which it really should have been, since this season rivaled the first for sheer greatness, then I’ll give it to my favorite cutthroat bitch Patty Hewes every year. If you’ve never watched it, and you probably haven’t, which is why it’s going to DirectfuckingTV next season, Netflix it immediately.

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)

Per uszhe, and I understand deservedly so, it will probably be Bryan Cranston. But Michael C. hasn’t nabbed one yet and that makes me a sad panda.

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Martin Short (Damages)
Terry O’ Quinn (Lost)
Michael Emerson (Lost)

They should all win. Three-way tie. Martin Short was ridiculous great as Lenny, the creepy lawyer, and Locke and Ben took turns making me cry a bunch in their alternate, non-island, purgatastic timelines. If I have to root for one, I’m pulling for Martin Short. His wife just passed away, and he was just so great, I want happy things for him.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
Rose Byrne (Damages)

For being the co-lead, Rose Byrne gets ignored a lot come awards season. This season, she certainly didn’t have as much to do, but she’s held her own against Glenn Close for three seasons now and, dammit, she deserves it.

OUTSTANDING COMEDY
Glee
30 Rock

I’ve never even watched Glee and I’m over Glee. 30 Rock started out slow this season, but by episode six, it became excellent. The nominated episode, “Dealbreakers Talk Show,” is possibly my favorite episode of the whole series.

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)

Both. Just … both.

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)
Tony Shalhoub (Monk)

I’m going to just assume Shalhoub will get this for his last season, but I’d love it if Dr. Sheldon Cooper won. He’s hilarious, weird and he stole the show right out from under poor Johnny Galecki.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother)

JUST FUCKING GIVE IT TO HIM ALREADY.

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Jane Lynch (Glee)
Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)

The Janes are both hilarious and I’ve loved them both for a long time. I’m perfectly fine with Lynch winning, because I love that this formerly underrated woman is finally getting her due, and I just hope the same happens for Krakowski.

Pre-show is on in the background as I type this, and I would like to comment on the following things: Betty White looks like a beautiful watercolor pond. Billy Bush was awkwardly grabbing at Jane Lynch’s tummy place. Maria Menounos is using a fake serious journalist voice. Great Christ, Betty Draper, what the fuck are you wearing? Joel McHale is hot. Why does Eva Longoria still get invited to things? Tina looks stunning. Will and Amy are adorable and I want them to be my neighbors and have General Foods International Coffees with them.

There. That was the pre-show. You’re welcome.

In the immortal words of Jack Donaghy before he went gay all over Matthew Broderick, let’s do this.

7:00 - Smart Cars. Yes, I still find them hilarious, but I know that their hilarity timeliness is that of Furbys.

7:01 - I find Lea Michele unspeakably irritating. Her and Kate Gosselin in the same sketch? Only the power of Tina Fey, Jon Hamm and Betty effing White could save the day.

7:03 – And Jane Lynch. And Hurley. And Joel McHale. I take it all back. I love this.

7:04 - Oh Jon Hamm. There’s just nothing. Nothing. Nothing I wouldn’t do to you.

7:05 - TIM GUNN. HE JUST MADE IT WORK.

7:06 - There was nothing I didn’t love about that. Except Kate Gosselin getting a check.

7:08 - For popping out a kid every other month, Amy Poehler looks amazing.

7:10 - This comedy montage has had all the Sheldon Cooper, Barney Stinson, Modern Family and 30 Rock a girl could want. And all the Two and a Half Men clips were Jon Cryer.

7:11 - Jon Hamm and Betty White? Oh, look, it’s half of the four people I’d give my left tit to have dinner with.

7:12 - I really need to get around to watching Modern Family.

COMMERCIAL SIGN! Okay, what is the deal with this CGI owl movie? There are two things I loathe: CGI dancing animals and CGI wizened owls.

7:18 - I love that John Hodgman has become the NPR commentator for the Emmys the past two years. I like when Hodgman happens.

7:19 - Foreign people are adorable. That is something I learn constantly during award show presentations. It’s writing. I love the writer interviews. I wish they did it for every award.

7:20 - “I’m on a horse” references – not yet old to me.

7:22 - Ty Burrell is wearing the fanciest suit. He looks like Link Larkin.

7:23 - I wish Stephen Colbert presented everything. From awards to grocery store samples to his butt like a monkey. Just everything. It’s Supporting Actress. Come on Jane and/or Jane.

7:25 - Damn yeah, Jane Lynch. You are made of wonder. I love you so much that I will probably watch Glee at some point despite my Lea Michele hatred and the irritation I have with its seeming never-ending parade of guest stars. Also, CHICAGO RULES. *throws a battery*

COMMERCIAL SIGN! I am more excited for Betty White to guest on Community than I am for my own wedding.

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Courtney Enlow

He’s creepy. He’s hateful. He induces the kind of rage that causes people to set puppies on fire. He causes the kind of ire that makes my eye twitch like Mr. DeMartino from Daria. And he’s apparently really fucking good at it.

For over four years now, we’ve been inundated with the flesh-colored bearded visage of this terrifying human being and his Frankenstein’s monster girlfriend. And for four years, we’ve laughed as they pretended they were famous and that people cared about them. Haha, we thought, they’re such fools. No one cares. No one.

Apparently, the joke’s been on us.

You know that famous line asshole’s use a lot, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”? They embody this. And while we laugh at them and hate them and get annoyed by them, it’s worked. IT’S FUCKING WORKED.

Well played, beardface. Well played.

This past week, TMZ has stood for “They Made a motherfucking sex tape ew icknast gross Ziggy” (I did not fully think this out). The site took a break from showing photographs of a plastic surgeon’s death scene (real classy, TMZ) and has displayed nothing but minute-by-minute updates of Spencer’s alleged sex tape blackmail. Which is obviously not real because a) it’s Spencer, b) I think we’re all pretty hip to the fact that no celebrity sex tape is remotely ever released without the knowledge or signature of both parties featured in said tape and c) because fucking duh.

The story: Spencer is blackmailing Heidi’s paralyzed face and immobile boobybags with footage of them bumping boobybags all night long. When interest was only minimal, Spencer upped the ante and paid off a nameless Playboy bunny to say there’s a lesbian tape, too. One he “found” while cleaning out their house. Meaning they’re filming that one right now. Hot silicon-on-silicon action.

This sex tape will go one of two ways: 1) they will release the tape to the gentle thud of the release of the Screech tape or 2) Heidi will “give in” to Spencer’s purported “blackmail” and do a reality show about their “horrible” “relationship.” Then when the reality show ends and they go under for a little while, the sex tapes, featuring a noticeably older Heidi and Spencer (because, see, they will not have been real) will be released to the gentle thud of the release of the Screech tape.

I hate that these two are still happening. Even Paris Hilton is pretty much over. But these two still exist. People are still talking about them. No one has ever liked them or genuinely cared about them, but they exist. They matter in some weird fucked up way.

AND I AM WRITING ABOUT THEM. I hate writing about them. It fills me with a Snapped-esque rage that leaves a wake of blood and no memory of what I’ve done, but I keep doing it. I just keep playing into their hand. They are like Aryan evil super geniuses and I keep being bested by them and I hate it. I HATE IT.

Tricky fuckers.

The good news is that the sex tape is often the last desperate act of the famewhore. The bad news: the one after that is usually a baby. Please lord, do protect that poor fake child from being conceived by these two. There is no worse fate.

Here’s the thing: I keep waiting for this era of famewhore-dom to end. I’ve been waiting since 2002. And. It. Just. Won’t. At some point, I’ll have to just accept our plastic overlords as a part of lives. I’ll have to stop complaining and learn to deal.

I’m so afraid, you guys. So, so afraid.

I have to keep believing in a world without Speidi. In a world without Snooki. In a world without stupid, stupid Kardashians. And I must believe this is not merely a beautiful dream.

But all dreams must die sometime.

I’d make some impassioned final paragraph about banding together to fight the stupid, but it’s inevitable, people. Yea, like the final survivors in a zombie film, we can try our hardest and fight the good fight, but we will be taken over, we will be consumed, we will be changed.

Let’s just start spray-tanning and lobotomizing now.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Courtney Enlow

Hear me out.

So you’re on an elevator with the snozzberries guy who’s married to Christina Hendricks, Ryan Atwood’s brother Trey, some chick who I thought was from the trailer was the girl from Miss Congeniality but apparently isn’t, some other clowns and Charlie Sheen. Pretend you’re M. Night Shyamalan. Which one do you make the titular devil?

If you’re going for the twist, BOOM, the elevator’s the devil (I demand accolades and hugs if this turns out to be the ending). If you’re going for realism, it’s Sheen every time.

Let’s take a look at Sheen’s history of horror:

1990 - Sheen is engaged to Kelly Preston. She “accidentally” winds up shot in the arm with a revolver. They break up shortly after. Obviously. She is sent flying into the arms of Travolta and Xenu.

1994 - Sheen’s name is released as a client of Heidi Fleiss. Today, Heidi Fleiss is a completely insane drug addict with a lot of birds.

1996 - Sheen’s porn actress girlfriend accuses him of beating her and knocking her to the floor, giving her a split lip. He pleads no-contest. This is a Hollywood legal term for “I totally fucking did it.”

1998 - Sheen injects coke, because snorting is no longer getting it done quickly enough. Had his father not reported him for parole violation, the next step would have probably been shooting it directly into his brain with the revolver, lovingly called “This Is How I Got Kelly Preston To Quit Mouthing Off.”

2005 - Denise Richards files for divorce, alleging various beatings, death threats, verbal and physical abuse and intimated kiddie porn on his laptop.

2008 - Another lucky lady snatches up this winner.

2009 - He holds a knife to her throat while high on crack on Christmas Day, and is charged with felony menacing, third degree assault and criminal mischief. Happy Christmas, everyone!

Early 2010 - He goes to rehab. Because that’s what you do when your career is about to go boompoof because you’re a fuckup.

Early 2010 - The first Two and a Half Men episode to air after rehab achieves the show’s highest ratings. Sheen negotiates $1.78 million dollars per episode. I lose complete faith in humanity.

Summer 2010 - Sheen celebrates a ruling of no jailtime by hitting up the Playboy mansion, hanging out with Ron Jeremy and probably bukkake punching more nudey-shot chicks. Ron Jeremy’s Orgazmo goodwill is completely erased.

Last week, 2010 - News is released that the Christmas Day blowout erupted over the Train song “Drops of Jupiter.” My longtime Train hatred is once again justified.

Basically, this guy is a complete fuck face.

Let’s go back to the money part, because I blame YOU for this.

Sheen earns a reported $1.25 million dollars per episode for Two and a Half Men, a television show in which he pretty much plays himself. He obtained this salary, essentially, as a reward for brutalizing the mother of two of his children on their very first Christmas.

To put that into perspective: Jon Cryer, Sheen’s co-star makes $550,000. This is a large sum of money, but only half of what Sheen makes, and I’d bet about $500,000 is what Duckie required to be forced to work with Sheen and not tell the police about all the dead hookers.

Jon Hamm, a gentleman who in no way plays himself, beats women, shoots high profile Scientologists or frequents brothels, makes $100,000. Take that little factoid and kill yourself with it.

It sucks that a chodegargler like Charlie Sheen makes that much money. But he wouldn’t if people weren’t watching his show.

I have watched more Two and a Half Men then I’d like to mention, largely out of laziness when it come to changing the channel between How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory, which incidentally is how I also know that Rules of Engagement would be a pretty awesome show if they fired everyone and made it the “Patrick Warburton and Megyn Price Sit Around And Be Awesome” hour. And I feel studied enough to categorically state that it is a bad show. It is heinously unfunny, displaying only the broadest and lowest common denominator kind of humor.

Apparently, that’s what you people are into.

When I say “you people” I am not being intelligence-racist. Some of my best friends like bad things. But in a world where an awesome movie like Scott Pilgrim made only a third of what “Stallone and Drago SMASH!:The Movie” and half of what “Julia Roberts Eats Gelato As An Act of Empowerment” made, a world where Mad Men receives weekly bitchslappings from the Kardashian sisters’ enormous thighs, and a world where Tina Fey makes less than a third of what Joe Estevez’s nephew makes, I’m pissed.

Be smarter, world. It’s not fair to the rest of us.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.

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Courtney Enlow

Yep. I saved the worst for last.

Over the summer, I’ve brought you some of my darkest, most secret cinematic shames. But this one? This is the clincher.

Grease 2 is, without any hint of exaggeration or hyperbole, the most batballs-retarded piece of movie shit in history. It is awful, it is painful, it is brutal.

And I love it.

Let me preface this by divulging my feelings on the original Grease. Grease and I have a troubled history. I find the original Grease to be a mess of laughably old teenagers, bad storylines and an inconsistent (at best) song list. And that is a glowing review compared to my feeling towards the stage show. Holy shit the stage show is bad. I would watch 30 showings of Cats and Annie over the Grease stage show.

And despite my loathing of the stage show, and my only partial enjoyment of the original film, it is still horribly hurtful and humiliating to admit this: I find Grease 2 to be far superior to its predecessor.

I want to be proud of my feelings, to be comfortable with them, but I am unable. You’re not supposed to say this. You’re not supposed to feel this. But I do. And I know I can’t be alone.

I don’t want to pretend anymore.

Grease 2 is the tale of one Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), a Pink Lady who wants desperately to rebel against her role. She wants to wear capri pants to school and turn her pink satin jacket to its black leather reversed side (that seems really expensive and hot) and date someone who isn’t a T-Bird. Alas, the stringent rules of these social circles are unbending and anyone who breaks them will face penalty of social death (and possibly actual death).

Stephanie’s ex-boyfriend Johnny Nagarelli (Adrian Zmed) is kind of the Danny Zuko of this movie, only he doesn’t get the girl and is basically an idiot manchild. In fact in this film, set one year after the previous one, the T-Birds are all illiterate. I feel like the OGTB’s were goofy but at least passably intelligent. These guys are actually just flatiron fucking stupid.

The girls aren’t much better. There’s Sharon (Maureen Teefy, a.k.a., a chick from Fame, a.k.a., best name ever), who is desperately trying to be Jackie O. There’s Paulette (Lorna Luft) who is desperately trying to be Marilyn Monroe (though if we look at the layers below the surface is really trying desperately to be her sister Liza – DAMMIT, Judy, why was she never good enough for you?). There’s Rhonda (it does not matter what her name is) who has a nose only an emu could love.

Our boys include the extra stupid Goose (Shooter McGavin), the date rapist Louis DiMucci (proper stage actor Peter Frechette) and another one who doesn’t matter.

One would think our hero would be the greasy guido with the fancy hair, like last time. Well one would be a fool to think such things. A fool I say! Our hero is this man.

Oh Rexy indeed.

Maxwell Caulfield plays a wimpy Brit deep in smit with our Stephanie. When she tells him that she could never go for him because he is a) not a T-Bird, b) literate and c) not a coo-ooo-ooo-ool rider, he immediately betrays his identity in ways Sandy Olsson only dreamed of when she poured on those leather pants. He adopts the secret identity (and a Bale-as-Batman gruff voice with an American accent) of … guy on motorcycle … and wins the heart of our blonde rebel.

But he’s STILL not a T-Bird, you see. So there’s conflicty things. The conflict ends with him driving off a cliff, Thelma and Louise-style.

My personal favorite part of the movie is this: he drives off the cliff and is assumed dead because it’s a fucking cliff. Stephanie is heartbroken but MUST carry on and perform in the Pink Lady and Other Ladies talent show song. She immediately whizzes it and starts singing some magical song in her mind, which she duets with the ghost of Motorcycle Guy. The guy who is not actually dead.

Ghosts of people who are not dead are the best kinds of film character, and let no one tell you otherwise.

So he motorcycles through the end-of-the-year school carnival/luau thing, which I question historically as Hawaii had only been a state for like five years, totally ruins and destroys all the hard work of the Student Activities Board and reveals himself to be British Guy. The T-Birds accept him as one of their own, Stephanie allows herself to truly accept love and we all learn valuable life lessons, mostly because we were gifted with this song.

The songs, people. THE SONGS. There’s a song with bowling as a metaphor for sex, there’s a song about tricking a girl to have sex under threat of nuclear attack, there is a song about wondering who a guy is and there is a song about nailing broads at the goddamn grocery store.

Why is this movie not more beloved?

Seriously?!

Grease 2 is totally lame. But it’s no less lame than the original and for that it deserves at least one apology.

Sorry, Grease 2. Perhaps the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Courtney Enlow is a writer living in Chicago and working as a corporate shill to pay the bills. You can contact her at courtney@hobotrashcan.com.