Tag Archives: christmas

Lists, Movies

Happy Holidays-ish: The Top Six Best Christmas-Adjacent Movies

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Sara
Sara
Sara is big into reading and writing fiction like it's her job, because it is. That doesn't mean she isn't real as it gets. She loves real stuff like polka dots, indie rock, and underground fight clubs. I may have made some of that up. I don't know her that well. You can tell she didn't just write this in the third person because if she had written it there would have been less suspect sentence construction.
Sara
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First, a confession, which may not seem immediately related to the subject at hand: until December 3rd, I had never seen a Batman movie in full. Not a Nolan, not a Keaton, only dim memories of Val Kilmer clips interrupting Seal in the “Kiss From a Rose” video. But that night I gathered with some fellow SportsAlcohol-ics to watch Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, in a thinly-veiled attempt on Jesse’s part to (a) get me to finally watch one of these things and (b) put forth the argument that Returns is part of one of my favorite genres: not unequivocally holiday-themed films like A Christmas Story or Elf, but what I’ll call the Christmas-Adjacent. These are films whose plots do not revolve around, say, getting the family together for a big dinner, taking over for Santa after accidentally killing him, or having your marital infidelities exposed with poorly hidden gifts intended for your mistress. Rather, they use the holiday, or holiday season, as a motif or backdrop for other stories, variously invoking the warmth, loneliness, and occasional homicidal rage the season brings. You can also watch them any time of year and it doesn’t feel too weird. Having now seen Batman Returns myself (Ed. note), I absolutely agree that it fits the genre, and is fun to contemplate as one of the strangest studio tentpoles to exist. But the following, in my opinion, are the best, and the ones that most often end up in my holiday-watching rotation.
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SportsAlcohol.com Founder in the Wild!

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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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The turkey is done. The doors have been busted. The Friday has been blackened. Now ’tis the time to move on to the season of holiday specials. To that end, SportsAlcohol.com founder Nathaniel will be giving a presentation on comic strip-related holiday specials at a very merry edition of Kevin Geeks Out at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn.

Poster_KGOHoliday_240_356_81_s_c1

Official description:

For the Christmas edition of the KEVIN GEEKS OUT show, comedian Kevin Maher and his guests look at their favorite Holiday Specials, from the obvious to the obscure. This two-hour video variety show will stuff your stocking memorable moments from movies and tv specials.

You want to check out the new Alamo Drafthouse. (Drinks an food at your seat! Rosé shakes!) You want to see nerds presenting clips from different holiday specials, recalling your youthful favorites and introducing you to the weird ones that passed you by. You want to find joy and light in the world. You want to see Nathaniel in some kind of festive garb. You want to get tickets.

If you’re investigating this page becuase you found the ticketing site for Kevin Geeks Out and thought, “Hmmm, SportsAlcohol.com, what is that?”—good! Our obtuse, SEO-befuddling site title has somehow worked on you. You can see what we’re all about, holiday-wise, with this podcast about our favorite holiday entertainment.

Movies, Music, Podcast, TV

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Holiday Entertainment!

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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.
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To celebrate the corridor between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, which apparently also includes Christmas, the SportsAlcohol.com crew convened for a holiday podcast to talk about holiday-themed entertainment: what counts, what’s great, and what we wish we could ban from the airwaves every December. Hear us talk about Love, Actually, Paul McCartney, Mariah Carey, TGIF, Home Alone, and so much more! The SportsAlcohol.com holiday podcast is guaranteed to brighten your spirits. Probably.

How To Listen

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

Music

Your Sad-Bastard Christmas Songs of 2014

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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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When it’s seasonally appropriate, I love all types of Christmas music. I don’t care if it’s the hokey Andy Williams stuff or the cash-in “Last Christmas” covers or the well-meaning but wrong-headed charity songs that don’t realize that it totally does snow in Africa because there are mountains. But if there’s a particular sub-genre of Christmas music I love the most, it’s sad-bastard indie rock that’s only tangentially about Christmas.

If you didn’t realize that was a particular sub-genre of Christmas songs, I direct you to some of my favorites: “Xmas Cake” by Rilo Kiley (on perhaps my favorite Christmas compilation ever), “Christmas TV” by Slow Club (from an amazing Christmas EP that has the best “Christmas, Baby Please Come Home” I’ve ever heard), “It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop” by Frightened Rabbit (which looks like it’s free right now if you have Amazon prime), plus any of those Sufjan Stevens Christmas originals (though I’m especially partial to “Get Behind Me, Santa”). And even though “Christmas Number One” by the Black Arts (aka Black Box Recorder and Art Brut) sounds mostly happy, it does sort of criticize the way holiday music is slapped together in August in hopes of making money in December (and it laments the loss of Top of the Pops).

So, every year, I seek out more sad-bastard indie Christmas music to add to the ever-growing playlist. Here are the best selections for 2014.

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Movies, TV

THE CHRISTMAS _________ GAME

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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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November 22, 2013: Jesse was musing on Twitter about the Fathom Events presentation of Glenn Beck’s The Christmas Sweater, which we’d seen advertised every time we’d been to a movie that month. Sensing a need, he put out a call on Twitter for a similar story he could call his own and ride to seasonal riches. By that evening, he’d received the following list.
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