Category Archives: Comics

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.

We are now up to SIX (6) different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

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.

How To Listen

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Comics, Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Avengers Age of Ultron

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Jesse
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.
Jesse
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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.

    We are up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • 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.

Comics, Movies, TV

Problems With The Daredevil Movie Besides Ben Affleck

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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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Something has been building inside of me. I can’t hold it in any more.

It probably started during the run up to the release of Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil movie. This was during the height of media scrutiny of Daredevil star Ben Affleck’s relationship with Jennifer Lopez. If you weren’t watching a lot of TV in the early 00’s, it’s hard to describe exactly how over-covered their relationship was. People were sick of it, so they made jokes. It really took hold during the Bennifer backlash when it was reported that Ben Affleck filmed a cameo for the Elektra film but it was cut due to an anticipated negative reaction. It grew when Affleck was cast as Batman in the forthcoming Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. A lot of people made jokes. I found exactly one funny.

Then, the unthinkable happened: a legitimately good live action adaptation of Daredevil happened. I’ve already mentioned that this has profoundly affected me. The release of Netflix’s Daredevil show roughly coincided with the release of the first trailer for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice as well as the discovery of Affleck’s boneheaded attempt to suppress information about a slave owning ancestor from a TV show about his heritage. I was at trivia the other night when the host had a question about this brouhaha, puncuated by a snickering joke about how distraught Ben Affleck must be now that his legacy as Daredevil has been overshadowed.

SO many jokes. Please keep laughing, but know this: Ben Affleck is not the problem with the Daredevil movie. Not even close.

I feel so weird being a Ben Affleck apologist. I have a lot of affection for him from his work in Kevin Smith’s films during my teenage years, but it’s not like I keep up on his oeuvre. It’s just that the hate is too much. At some point in time, it became cool to hate Ben Affleck. Just saying his name became a punchline. However, if you watch that Daredevil movie more than once, you see he’s practically an asset to it.

That being said, there are a couple of things I want to make clear:

1. I wasn’t happy when Affleck was cast in the Daredevil movie. I didn’t think he’d be terrible, but Guy Pearce was rumored at one point and that’s basically how Daredevil looks in my mind.

2. I don’t think this movie is good. It’s not good. I would know. I’ve watched it several times, including the director’s cut.

Thanks to SportsAlcohol.com co-founder Jesse for the necessary research materials
Thanks to SportsAlcohol.com co-founder Jesse for the necessary research materials

3. I don’t think Ben Affleck is that great of an actor and his performance here isn’t some great revelation. It’s just that he brought his usual steady, workmanlike talent to this and people call it the Affleck Daredevil movie like he’s problem. He’s not! These are the real problems:

[There are spoilers beyond this point, but do you really care?]

Continue reading Problems With The Daredevil Movie Besides Ben Affleck →

Comics, TV

So you finished watching Daredevil, now what?

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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
Latest posts by Rob (see all)

I have long loved Daredevil, the blind, Catholic lawyer/superhero. I was excited about the new Netflix series featuring the character and ready to love it  for just being better than the Mark Steven Johnson movie. I was not prepared for it to become a commercial and critical hit, but it’s now Netflix’s most popular show and the second most pirated show behind Game of Thrones . Reviews have been very positive, and it’s inspired a lot of great writing about gentrification and urban development. It’s a great time to be a fan of Daredevil.

I’m not one to quibble, but I’m lying I am one to quibble. Quibbling is what I spend most of my free time doing. This whole piece is born of quibbling. There is one  type of inevitable blog post that springs up around a successful comic book adaptation and I have found all the ones for Daredevil lacking: the recommended reading list. There isn’t a website around that hasn’t posted a list of Daredevil comics it thinks you should read. These lists are wrong. They are merely a compilation of google searches for well-regarded Daredevil stories. A character with a fifty-plus year history has tons of stories and not all of them will be relevant to fans of the TV show, even if they are critically acclaimed. I love the current Daredevil series written by Mark Waid, but it so tonally different from the show it could be a different character. Why would I put an origin story on the list when Matt Murdoch’s origin has been retold countless times and the show has maybe the best one?

Below I’ve put together a list of stories that embody different aspects of the show’s take on the Daredevil mythos and should appeal to people who watched it without feeling like it’s just drawings of what they just saw. Even this list is imperfect as I can’t find the better stories that highlight Karen Page as a solo character in print anywhere.

You can find most of these stories digitally either on Comixology or through Marvel’s great Unlimited subscription service, but I’m posting amazon affiliate links where available because it’s time we cashed in on how much I care about Daredevil.

So without further ado, the comics you will actually want to read if liked watching Daredevil on Netfilx:

Continue reading So you finished watching Daredevil, now what? →

Comics, Life, Movies

Falkor, Longshot, and Teela Brown: A Meditation on Luck

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Michael
Michael
Michael likes The Fountain and does not like Pay It Forward. If you meet him in person, he will let you know about it.
Michael
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Americans, at least some of us, have trouble with the idea of luck. John Chait once observed that “the argument that getting rich often entails a great deal of luck tends to drive conservatives to apoplexy.” Maybe this is because theodicy undergirds much of our society, or maybe because luck is a confusing and even possibly disturbing concept. After all, what is luck but a nametag-friendly moniker for that dark spirit: chance? Or, worse: random chance. Hence the derision in Obi-Wan’s sneering: “In my experience, there’s no such thing as luck,” the word itself spat out from the wise beard of a man who knows how things work. Then again, Obi-Wan can deflect lasers with his lightsaber and also live, albeit with diminished opacity, beyond death.
Continue reading Falkor, Longshot, and Teela Brown: A Meditation on Luck →