Scoring's up, but not me

When your fantasy world turns upside down: How to survive Tony Romo, Drew Brees& Matt Forte woes

Tony Romo is down and your fantasy football may be on the way out.
Drew Brees is throwing as many INTs as a vintage Ryan Leaf.
Can Chad Ochocinco keep using his hands for more catching and less Tweeting?

Last week, I was tempted to write in this column about how Week Six was one of those rare fantasy weeks for me when everything falls into place. All three of my teams scored triple digits in winning handily, and I figured that I would talk about how awesome it felt when things come together like that, especially since it’s such a rare occurrence.

I ultimately decided against it, fearing that it would be show of hubris, causing the fantasy gods to show offense and immediately plague my team with locusts or floods or ACL injuries.

Apparently, even considering such braggadocio was enough to turn my fortunes against me, because I suffered through a heinous Week Seven. On the NFL’s highest-scoring week in two years, even though two of my three leagues have scoring systems so liberal that your players practically get points for drinking Gatorade, I managed to crack 50 points in just one of the three leagues and was soundly beaten in all three.

What’s impressive is that I managed to underwhelm in a variety of ways. There were poor performances by reliable players, idiotic lineup decisions by yours truly and one injury that not only ruined my week in one league, but possibly destroyed my championship hopes. Let’s take a look back at this carnage. Maybe you can take some sort of lesson from this horror show

In my NFC-only league, which I run and contains close friends and family, I came into the week at 3-3, but riding high after back-to-back huge efforts gave me the overall point lead. But my team has been notoriously all-or-nothing, and this was a nothing week, with all my weaknesses glaring brightly. My top running back, Matt Forte, was supposed to be Marshall Faulk in the Mike Martz offense but instead gets about as much carries as Trung Canidate used to. And Michael Crabtree went back in the Witness Protection Program after emerging from hiding the past few weeks. My brother’s team beat me by a jillion.

Next up was my work league, where the situation was very similar: So-so record (3-3), but solid point totals. Plus, I thought that this was the week that my first-round pick, Drew Brees, would have a bust-out day against the lowly Browns. By his fourth interception, it became abundantly clear that wasn’t going to happen. This actually was the least of my disasters, as Brees got some garbage points and Ochocinco finally used his hands for catching and not tweeting.

Still, my two heretofore reliable runners, LeSean McCoy and Rashard Mendenhall, struggled, leaving me vulnerable to a Monday night comeback by my opponent.

Worst of all was the debacle that my online league suffered. This team was unbeaten after six weeks somehow, despite the fact I whiffed in the draft with early choices on Ray Rice on Larry Fitzgerald. I caught a break by playing a guy who scored just 63 measly points, and yet my team sputtered and stumbled their way to a pathetic 34 points heading into Monday night.

It would have helped if I had Kenny Britt on my roster. Oh, wait, I do have Kenny Britt on my roster; I just chose to sit him in favor of Jabar Gaffney. Oof!

Yet I still had my quarterback in play on Monday night, and a big game would allow me to come back for an ugly victory. If you haven’t guessed that my quarterback was Tony Romo, then you haven’t been paying much attention.

By the time I turned off the TV on Monday night, I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. The bottom line is that I’m probably not as smart as I thought two weeks ago, nor as dumb as I seemed last week. Who knows what this Sunday will hold?

If it’s another like last week, I’ll be switching to a Fantasy Celebrity Apprentice League real quick.

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Movie Review

Over-the-top thriller The Housemaid revels in camp, chaos, and excess

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney in The Housemaid.

Both Amanda Seyfried (the upcoming The Testament of Ann Lee) and Sydney Sweeney (Christy) are starring in movies with Oscar ambitions this year. By sheer coincidence, the two actors are also co-starring in The Housemaid, a thriller coming out within weeks of their more ambitious works, one that is likely to be seen by many more people than those prestige plays.

Sweeney is given top billing as Millie, a down-on-her-luck ex-convict looking to land any type of job so as not to break her parole. She finds a too-good-to-be-true lifeboat with Nina (Seyfried), who hires her to be a housemaid for her large house on Long Island, where she lives with her husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), and daughter, Cecilia (Indiana Elle).

After a warm interview, Nina almost immediately becomes highly erratic, whipping back-and-forth between happy-go-lucky and rageful. It seems clear that Nina is suffering from mental health issues, as she’ll often accuse Millie of misplacing or stealing items that she didn’t take. Andrew, apparently used to Nina’s tirades, tries to protect Millie from the worst, something that grows increasingly difficult as Nina ups the ante.

Directed by Paul Feig (A Simple Favor) and adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from the bestselling book by Freida McFadden, the film is likely the trashiest mainstream movie to come out in 2025. The first half of the movie relies not on story but on moments as Nina embodies the word “hysterical” to an unbelievable extent. The resigned acceptance of the abuse by Millie, as well as the saintly patience of Andrew, make almost every scene laughable, as nobody seems to be acting anywhere close to how a person would normally react to such extreme situations.

The scenes and the performance of Seyfried are so over-the-top, in fact, that it’s clear that the filmmakers are in on the joke. It’s next to impossible not to have a little bit of fun while watching the actors react to outrageous incidents as if nothing is out of the ordinary. The worse Nina acts, the more Millie and Andrew retreat into their chosen roles, and the funnier the film becomes.

Fans of the book will know that the story changes course, eventually turning into a more stereotypical thriller that also has some relatively gnarly visuals to offer. But the trashiness continues, with Sweeney’s, um, assets repeatedly on display in both clothed and unclothed ways. The sex appeal of the R-rated movie makes it an outlier, as recent studio films have shied away from asking their big stars to disrobe completely.

Both Seyfried and Sweeney are far from their Oscar hopeful roles here. Seyfried is given free rein to act as brazenly as she pleases, and she takes full advantage of that ability. Sweeney seems to have been told to be much more reserved, and unfortunately that results in too many wooden line readings. Sklenar continues his breakout streak (It Ends with Us, Drop) with a role that allows him to show more range than either Seyfried or Sweeney.

The Housemaid is an unusual type of movie to be released at a time of year when most films are either those aiming for awards or more family-friendly fare. Despite its many flaws, it’s still an enjoyable watch that features a variety of crazy scenarios not typically seen in movies nowadays.

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The Housemaid is now playing in theaters.

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