Category Archives: Comics

Comics, Movies

Shazam! is another superhero movie that’s not like all the other superhero movies that aren’t like other superhero movies

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Jesse

Jesse is a cofounder of SportsAlcohol.com even though he doesn't care for sports or alcohol. His favorite movie is Ron Howard's The Paper. I think. This is what happens when you don't write your own bio. I know for sure likes pie.

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Shazam!, based on the DC Comics hero originally called Captain Marvel and originally not published by DC Comics, stars Zachary Levi, who once appeared in a Thor movie for Marvel Studios. Levi plays the hero; the bad guy is played by Mark Strong, who also played a supporting role (and unrealized future bad guy) in Green Lantern, based on the DC Comics hero, but unconnected to the current DC Comics movies. Shazam! also co-stars Djimon Hounsou, who also has a supporting role in Captain Marvel, currently in theaters, a separate character from Shazam, the former Captain Marvel, and based in part on the Marvel Comics hero originally called Ms. Marvel.

Shazam! is about a teenager learning to wield his superpowers responsibly, like Marvel’s Spider-Man; it’s also concerns the effects of those superpowers on family dynamics—sort of like The Incredibles, a Disney film which is not based on a comic book, but owes a lot to the Fantastic Four, whose movie rights were recently welcomed back into the Disney fold when Disney completed its purchase of 20th Century Fox’s film division. The end credits of Shazam! feature charmingly scrawled drawings of the main character’s superheroic antics, followed by a post-credits scene goofing on another superhero, both elements that recall Deadpool, an offshoot of the X-Men series, which was also recently absorbed back into Disney via Fox. Disney, of course, owns Marvel, and Captain Marvel, but not Shazam!, which belongs to Warner Bros., which owns DC, which bought the character from Fawcett, the company that originally published stories about Shazam, back when he was called Captain Marvel.
Continue reading Shazam! is another superhero movie that’s not like all the other superhero movies that aren’t like other superhero movies →

Comics, Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Spider-Man Movies, Ranked

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Jesse

Jesse is a cofounder of SportsAlcohol.com even though he doesn't care for sports or alcohol. His favorite movie is Ron Howard's The Paper. I think. This is what happens when you don't write your own bio. I know for sure likes pie.

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Longtime readers and listeners of the SportsAlcohol.com World Wide Web Brand may have noticed that we kinda dig on Spider-Man. In fact, one of our most popular pieces ever, and the site of our only (so far) bona fide comment war is about Spider-Man 3; our first-ever podcast episode was about The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and we’ve recorded on related films since then; Rob has written about Betty Brant while Marisa has written about the songs of Spider-Man.

So yeah, we dig on this.

To celebrate the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, we did something different: Marisa, Rob, and Jesse threw together a straw poll to rank out every major Spider-Man and Spider-Man-adjacent movie of the past 20 years. That’s right: In this podcast, we talk about them all. The animated highs! The amazing lows! The venomous middles! It’s all here, in a compact hour-long episode with multiple post-credit scenes! Basically, it’s a Spider-Man extravaganza for our new age of superhero abundance. It’s the next best thing to what I know you’ve all been craving: PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN. While you wait for your photographer to come back with those, have a listen to us!

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Comics, Podcast, TV

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Riverdale, Season 2

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Jesse

Jesse is a cofounder of SportsAlcohol.com even though he doesn't care for sports or alcohol. His favorite movie is Ron Howard's The Paper. I think. This is what happens when you don't write your own bio. I know for sure likes pie.

Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

Hey, remember how last year we watched Riverdale all season long and then wanted to talk about it? Well, your SportsAlcohol.com Riverdale fan club may be down a member (I see you, Maggie) (and I understand) but a bunch of us are still watching this hot teen mess and we needed to talk it out: the ever-metastasizing stupidity of Archie, the evil lurking inside Betty (IS IT, THOUGH?), the gang obsession of Jughead, and whether or not Veronica is, in Marisa’s words, “pulling an Orphan.” In this brisk, enthusiastic episode, we find things to praise about Riverdale Season 2 among our many complaints and questions. Psyched for Season 3, guys!

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    • Comics, Movies, Podcast

    THE SPORTSALCOHOL.COM PODCAST: Justice League, Thor: Ragnarok, and The Comic Movies of 2017

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    Marisa
    Gripes

    Marisa

    There are contrarians, there are iconoclasts, and then there is SportsAlcohol.com co-founder Marisa. A contraiclast? Her favorite Springsteen album came out this century, so she is basically a controversy machine.

    Also, she is totally not a dude!
    Marisa
    Gripes

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    So, 2017 begins to wind down. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, buddy. But, as the year comes to a close, we launch—with apologies to Liz Lemon—out year end wrap-wrap-wrap-up. And, as with all things, we begin with an examination of facial hair, fever dreams, and superheroes. How do Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok and Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon’s Justice League fit into the pantheon of the gods: the MCU and DCEU? More importantly, how do they stack up against this year’s other comics output, namely Logan, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man: Homecoming? We discuss:

    • Which 2017 comic movie has the best villain?
    • “Immigrant Song” needle-drop: perfectly cheesy, or cheesily perfect?
    • Would You Rather: The Dark Lord Dormammu or Malekith the Dark Elf?
    • How long should Ben Affleck continue to play Batman: forever or infinity?
    • And, because you rely on us to go there, we do spend an awful lot of time talking about what’s going on with Henry Cavill’s face.

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    Books, Comics, Movies

    Stories from the Antebellum Planet of the Apes

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    Nathaniel

    Nathaniel

    SportsAlcohol.com cofounder Nathaniel moved to Brooklyn, as you do. His hobbies include cutting up rhubarb and laying down. His favorite things are the band Moon Hooch and custard from Shake Shack. Old ladies love his hair.
    Nathaniel

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    The last time a new Planet of the Apes movie hit theaters we took a look at the tie-in novel and short films that were meant to fill in a little of the story between the movies. With the release of War for the Planet of the Apes, we decided it was time to update that list and run through all of the stories that have been released in this iteration of the series. If you want to catch up on the current Apes timeline (or want to know which ones are worth checking out) before going out to see the new movie, this is the list for you. Continue reading Stories from the Antebellum Planet of the Apes →

    Comics, Movies, Podcast

    The SportsAlcohol Podcast: Spider-Man: Homecoming

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    Rob

    Rob

    Rob is one of the founders of SportsAlcohol.com. He is a recent first time home buyer and it's all he talks about. Said home is in his hometown in Upstate New York. He never moved away and works a job to pay for his mortgage and crippling chicken wing addiction. He is not what you would call a go-getter. This may explain the general tone of SportsAlcohol.com.
    Rob

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    The last Spider-Man movie, Amazing Spider-Man 2, was the subject of SportsAlcohol.com’s very first podcast. Over three years later, we’re back with an ever-more-slightly-better-produced episode about the third cinematic reboot of Marvel’s flagship character this century. Topics covered:

    • Betty Brant
    • Dennis Miller
    • Women named Marisa
    • How bad we are at podcasts

    Also, as mentioned in the podcast, check out Rob’s take on Betty Brant

    SPOILER WARNING: This podcast assumes you’ve seen every movie every made with Spider-Man

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    Comics, Movies, Podcast

    The SportsAlcohol Podcast: Suicide Squad

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    Rob

    Rob

    Rob is one of the founders of SportsAlcohol.com. He is a recent first time home buyer and it's all he talks about. Said home is in his hometown in Upstate New York. He never moved away and works a job to pay for his mortgage and crippling chicken wing addiction. He is not what you would call a go-getter. This may explain the general tone of SportsAlcohol.com.
    Rob

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    By the time you listen to this, The Suicide Squad movie will have set a box office record for August while receiving such bad reviews its fans are petitioning to shut down review aggregate site rottentomatoes.com. So is it any good? There’s actually a lot to break down here:

    • Studio meddling
    • Racism
    • Ike Barinholtz
    • Sexism
    • Soundtrack cues
    • The triumph of Margot Robbie
    • Unnecessary DC vs Marvel comparisons
    • The many lives of Jai Courtney’s career
    • How much worse Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was
    • Hollywood It Boy Joel Kinnaman
    • Method Acting
    • Ike Barinholtz again for good measure

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    Comics, Movies, Podcast

    SportsAlcohol Podcast: Captain America: Civil War

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    Rob

    Rob

    Rob is one of the founders of SportsAlcohol.com. He is a recent first time home buyer and it's all he talks about. Said home is in his hometown in Upstate New York. He never moved away and works a job to pay for his mortgage and crippling chicken wing addiction. He is not what you would call a go-getter. This may explain the general tone of SportsAlcohol.com.
    Rob

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    Mother’s Day Weekend means that all the SportsAlcohol got together to watch and talk about Captain America: Civil War
    Spoiler Warning: Lots of spoilers about this movie and the MCU in general

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    Comics, Movies, Podcast

    SPORTSALCOHOL PODCAST: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

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    Rob

    Rob

    Rob is one of the founders of SportsAlcohol.com. He is a recent first time home buyer and it's all he talks about. Said home is in his hometown in Upstate New York. He never moved away and works a job to pay for his mortgage and crippling chicken wing addiction. He is not what you would call a go-getter. This may explain the general tone of SportsAlcohol.com.
    Rob

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    Jesse, Nathaniel, Rob, and Sabrina all saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. None of them really liked it. They knew this would probably be the case. So why go see and then record a very long podcast about it? Long story short: Zack Snyder. This film’s director makes watchable movies that are always some degree of hot mess.  For the long version: listen on! You may want to read this seminal essay that is referenced early on.

    There will be spoilers, but not nearly as many as there were in the trailers.

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    Comics, Movies, Podcast

    The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Avengers Age of Ultron

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    Jesse

    Jesse is a cofounder of SportsAlcohol.com even though he doesn't care for sports or alcohol. His favorite movie is Ron Howard's The Paper. I think. This is what happens when you don't write your own bio. I know for sure likes pie.

    Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

    Avengers: Age of Ultron is the latest megahit from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it’s full of fun stuff to nerd out about. Rob, Nathaniel, Jesse, and Marisa saw the movie together over the weekend and talked about their Avengers Age of Ultron experience, touching upon superhero special effects, character balancing, the qualities of a good robot villain, comic book origins, the future of nerdery, and frenzied suggestions for post-credit tags that should have been. The discussion has many spoilers for the film so it will probably be more fun if you see the movie before listening to it.

    This also marks the one-year anniversary of our foray into podcasting, with an episode featuring the same four nerds who got into Amazing Spider-Man 2 this time last year. If you like our thoughts on Age of Ultron, check out our past year’s worth of podcasts on sci-fi movies, superheroes, rock and roll, TV shows we love and hate, and plenty more.

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    • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
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    • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
    • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
    • You can listen in the player below.