After I discovered his surprising, affecting piece "17776" — a thoughtful, unexpected, and often funny deep dive into a future where people live forever and fill their time by playing a lot of different types of football — I started watching more work by SB Nation's Jon Bois. I wish I'd found his stuff earlier. He's low-key amused, detailed (with sometimes surprising details), and fond of finding weird stories. And not just sports stories, either: one time Bois analyzed how the TV show 24 handles death. He's deadpan, though he sometimes yells and swears, to make the "WTF" moments he recounts more, um, "WTF"-y and amusing. It's kind of like when Steven Wright slightly smiles or that one Ron Funches joke where he yells.
I have a lot of Bois's stuff to look back at, so I try one or two videos every couple of days or so. I also happened onto a different SB Nation program, "The Worst _____," done by people not Jon Bois. I watched "The Worst Super Bowl," recapping the Jan. 1999 Broncos-Falcons Super Bowl, and quickly stopped wanting to watch. It was, I thought, a lot of easy snark on late-90s pop culture. Especially on 1999's films. Nope. 1999 was a fantastic year for film. Great stuff came out, and a lot of good films were surprising hits: how often are two summer hits horror or horror-influenced (The Blair Witch Project, the former; The Sixth Sense, the latter)? Sure there was crap like Wild Wild West and Inspector Gadget, but come on, video producer, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is not bad just because you thought it was a retread. (I think it's more uneven than the delightful first Austin Powers, a movie that makes me giggle, but Spy Who Shagged Me has jokes that I laughed myself sweaty at.) And you could have made a larger point about how often the Super Bowl musical acts are safe, but the video just goes "hurr hurr Kiss and Cher and ska revival LOL." In other words, the video makers were obvious and could have done better. (And not even a nod to that Super Bowl's World Wrestling Federation ad?!)
Bois, among his other strengths, does not get obvious. With him, I'm amused and I'm learning stuff. Looking forward to seeing more of what he does.
Anyway, here's an episode of Jon Bois's show "Pretty Good," detailing precisely how unlikely it was for Baron Davis of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets to sink a basket from 89 fricking feet.
I have a lot of Bois's stuff to look back at, so I try one or two videos every couple of days or so. I also happened onto a different SB Nation program, "The Worst _____," done by people not Jon Bois. I watched "The Worst Super Bowl," recapping the Jan. 1999 Broncos-Falcons Super Bowl, and quickly stopped wanting to watch. It was, I thought, a lot of easy snark on late-90s pop culture. Especially on 1999's films. Nope. 1999 was a fantastic year for film. Great stuff came out, and a lot of good films were surprising hits: how often are two summer hits horror or horror-influenced (The Blair Witch Project, the former; The Sixth Sense, the latter)? Sure there was crap like Wild Wild West and Inspector Gadget, but come on, video producer, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is not bad just because you thought it was a retread. (I think it's more uneven than the delightful first Austin Powers, a movie that makes me giggle, but Spy Who Shagged Me has jokes that I laughed myself sweaty at.) And you could have made a larger point about how often the Super Bowl musical acts are safe, but the video just goes "hurr hurr Kiss and Cher and ska revival LOL." In other words, the video makers were obvious and could have done better. (And not even a nod to that Super Bowl's World Wrestling Federation ad?!)
Bois, among his other strengths, does not get obvious. With him, I'm amused and I'm learning stuff. Looking forward to seeing more of what he does.
Anyway, here's an episode of Jon Bois's show "Pretty Good," detailing precisely how unlikely it was for Baron Davis of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets to sink a basket from 89 fricking feet.
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chris_walsh- Chris Walsh
