A League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Smart Boris: Good, really good. Cursing CEOs, nutcase competitors, and plenty, oh, bountiful grace, plenty of lives ruined by bowling. Some roll for money; others do it for the little bit of pain that accompanies perfection. But with their custom-made balls, towering egos, and, in one case, tragically mistaken faith in karaoke, these pin soldiers make life a touch more modest and a lot more beautiful. And how did I live these twenty-eight years with no move called "the crotch chop"?? (Below, Pete Weber executes a crotch chop.)

Why would a man chop his own crotch, you ask? I'm not sure such a thing can be explained, but if it can, we must find our answer in this Cleveland Scene excerpt that the film uses as its epigraph:

"To embrace bowling is to embrace indignity, to cuddle with disappointment. To love bowling is to be so secure or so culturally naive as to shrug off the pull of utter unhipness that shadows all who celebrate the skill of throwing a 16 pound orb at a single spot down an oiled patch of wood 60 feet long and 42 inches wide."

Slothrop: All of life, turns out, is a bowling alley. Sponsored by Odor Eaters. (That sounds callous, flippant, dry, and insincere, but it's true. And heartfelt. And so we've got ourselves a helluva Just Normal Dudes Trilogy: A Fistful of Quarters, Confessions of a Superhero, and now, A League of Ordinary Gentleman. Just wait 'till Slothrop gets behind the camera and makes a movie about the high octane world of fantasy baseball.)