Every office has guys that seem to take fantasy football a little too seriously. Some people just can’t shut up about some great trade or late-round draft pick they made, even when nobody’s listening.
That’s why the concept of Fantasy Football: The Movie is such an interesting idea, and why most people who’ve seen the recently-released R-rated DVD have enjoyed the concept of so far.
Michigan-based independent film company Squawking Parrot Productions is the creative team behind the movie, which is available for $12 on its Web site, http://www.squawkingparrotproductions.com/home.php, and it is the fourth full-length feature film produced by the company. The price will go up to $15 on September 1st. It is also playing in a few Southeast Michigan theaters as well.
To help portray fantasy football’s uniquely quirky culture, the writers enlisted the help of Sean Baligian, a popular sports radio host in Detroit for WDFN 1130.
Thanks in part to the success of his local fantasy football radio show “Fantasy Football Geekly,” Baligian’s morning talk show has grown in both ratings and overall popularity in the area. Baligian used to joke when he first came on the air that only 29 people listened to the show. Now, the success of his morning show “It is what it is” makes him joke that the number has gone up to 37 listeners. Of course, he gets far more than that, and much of it can be attributed to his fantasy football fandom and expertise.
“I was doing Icetime (his hockey show) Geekly for so long, maybe people got used to me through those vehicles,” he said in an e-mail interview. “For a long time, I was just doing those shows and filing in, but thankfully I have been doing the 9-noon show for about five years now. We just try to have fun.”
Baligian said he was excited to work on the movie after he was sent a script that he really liked because of the way it resonated with him and his friends’ love for the culture of fantasy football. In the movie, Baligian plays a local TV host as opposed to his familiar radio gig, although he does also appear on Fox 2 News’ Sportsworks roundtable segment.
The movie has been getting good reviews from local critics so far and has been advertised on wdfn.com’s main Web page. Baligian talked about the concept of the movie and why it appeals so well to people who play fantasy football.
“The movie is about a fantasy football league and the antics that go into it,” he said. “For people that play fantasy, or know people who do, there’s a lot of things they can relate to in the flick.”
WDFN Detroit Lions analyst and popular personality Tom “The Killer” Kowalski also has a cameo in the film. The plot revolves around a group of friends who play in a league called the “Prime Time Football League” that gives the winner of each game free reign to pull whatever prank they want on the loser. Of course, that leads to some pretty interesting and crazy situations.
The movie is rated R for some harsh language and sexual situations, however, so parents should be cautious about buying this movie for their kids or taking them to watch it in theaters.
A trailer is also available on the movie’s Web page so fans can get a sense of what this original idea looks like in motion. Fans of the craziness that is modern sports talk radio as well as rambunctious comedy movies like ” Old School” and “Animal House” are the target audience, so if you like movies like that and have played fantasy football, this movie is definitely worth checking out.
