Tag Archives: indie movies

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast Lost Episode: Indie Movies of Summer 2022

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

Hey there! It’s been a while, I know! We recorded our annual wrap-up of highlights from an indie-movie summer (and recommendations for a healthy streaming fall) back in September, but life, paid gigs, and occasionally COVID got in the way of Jesse actually editing the damn thing and getting it out into the world. I thought this particular movie podcast episode might feel outdated now that it’s December, but as it turns out, this is a terrific compendium of summer indies that will probably be largely overlooked as we head into the big end-of-year list-making season. Plus, some of these movies are newly available on Netflix and/or Hulu and/or old pals at AMC Plus, an organization that we make a case should be sponsoring us on this very episode! So let Sara, Marisa, Jeremy, and Jesse take you on a whirlwind tour of the movies you might have missed last summer while you were seeing Top Gun 2 a third time! You won’t regret it!

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

Movies

Modern Men: HONEST THIEF and SHITHOUSE

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

I have to get this out of the way: I have no idea why Shithouse is titled Shithouse. I mean, technically I know: The title refers to some kind of frat or residence house on or near a Los Angeles college campus where the movie’s two main characters don’t quite meet. It’s the kind of place where, when Alex (Cooper Raiff) asks about where to find a party on a Friday night, and his asshole roommate Sam (Logan Miller) tells him the big one is at Shithouse, Alex asks if there are any other parties available. There are not. 

Alex is not the kind of guy who particularly wants to go to a place called Shithouse and he’s not the type of guy who would name a movie Shithouse. (This apparently sets him apart from the actor playing him, who wrote and directed the film and likely had at least some input on the title.) Maybe that’s the point, in a movie about Alex trying to get out of both his comfort zone and his freshman-year loneliness (turns out, they may be the same thing). But it’s still a strange gesture for the movie to make, if only because it portends a different, more aggressive and maybe dirtbaggy brand of campus comedy, and Shithouse is one of the most sensitive renderings of college insecurity I’ve ever seen.
Continue reading Modern Men: HONEST THIEF and SHITHOUSE →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Best Movies of 2020

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

Usually around this time of year, we do a seasonal episode about the various indie movies of the summer, and then an episode in January about the best movies of the preceding year. But honestly, who the hell knows what the rest of 2020 has in store for us? So this year we’ve decided to just call it off and talk about some of the best movies of 2020 right now, in August. Would Tenet or The New Mutants have made our informal list? Who knows?! And who cares?! We had more than enough good movies to fill a supersized episode anyway, all of which you can currently watch at home without getting covid! Join Marisa, Sara, Nathaniel, Jeremy, and Jesse as we console ourselves with cinema!

We are now up to SEVEN (7) different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

Movies

Tribeca 2019, Part 1: Into the Woods

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

There are certain types of indie movies I’ve seen a lot in seven years or so of Tribeca Film Festival coverage: the gritty coming-of-age movie, the would-be scrappy rom-com (more on that in a future dispatch!), the slow-burn thriller. But it was still a little surprising that at Tribeca 2019, I saw no fewer than three movies in a row that featured following shots of its characters traipsing through woodsy environs. The movies had very little to do with each other. Sometimes it’s just one of those things.
Continue reading Tribeca 2019, Part 1: Into the Woods →

Lists, Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: The Best Movies of 2017

2 Comments
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

Hopefully you’ve gone through our list of the 20 best movies of 2017, and maybe if you did, you had some questions, such as: Where was this or that movie? Did everyone like every movie on this list a near-equal amount? Is there a way I could listen to Marisa, Sara, Nathaniel, and Jesse talk about the movies of 2017 for a feature-length amount of time? Luckily, we have a podcast for that.

Nathaniel defends The Shape of Water! Sara expresses frustration with Dunkirk! Jesse compares Call Me By Your Name to Brawl in Cell Block 99! Marisa talks about watching The Florida Project with a stranger! It’s all here.

I should note that because some of these movies have been covered extensively on other podcasts, we tried to steer conversations away from some of them. Here’s a quick list of supplemental podcasts you may have missed that also feature movies from our best movies of 2017 list (you know, in case two hours isn’t enough):

T2: Trainspotting is featured on our Danny Boyle episode.
Logan Lucky is featured on our Steven Soderbergh episode.
We talk about A Ghost Story, The Beguiled and Columbus on our summer indies ’17 episode.
We talk about Lady Bird and The Meyerowitz Stories on our Baumbach/Gerwig episode.
And yes, for more Star Wars talk, there’s always an episode for that.

Anyway, check it totally out:

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

Lists, Movies

The Top 20 Best Movies of 2017

2 Comments
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

As Marisa will mention in an upcoming podcast, last year felt like it was about seventeen goddamn years long, but that doesn’t mean we shied away from the challenge of combing through the approximately one million 2017 releases to determine which, of this year’s many fine offerings (finer than what the year had to offer in general, for sure) constituted the 20 best movies of the year. Regular SportsAlcohol.com Film Gang Marisa, Sara, Nathaniel, and Jesse each submitted individual Top 20 lists which were aggregated into a single Top 20 which featured relatively few movies with four-for-four list support (about 25%, I believe) but plenty of movies that got two or three of us way on board (unlike past years, no single-vote wonders made the list). Now that the mechanics are out of the way, let’s get to the movies themselves. A podcast, as always, will follow.

The 20 Best Movies of 2017

Continue reading The Top 20 Best Movies of 2017 →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

5 Comments
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach have collaborated on three movies, and this fall they’re both back with their own solo movies: Gerwig’s Lady Bird, which is expanding into more theaters this Thanksgiving weekend, and Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), which is available to all Netflix subscribers. Marisa, Sara, Nathaniel, and Jesse watched both movies (as well as plenty of past work from both filmmakers) and then got together to discuss how they function together, how they function apart, and what we think of their new projects. Learn all about our thoughts on Gerwig behind the camera in various capacities, who loved and who hated Baumbach’s semi-lost movie Highball, the age dynamics of While We’re Young, what we thought of Nights and Weekends, the Gerwig/Joe Swanberg movie Jesse made everyone watch before recording, how Baumbach fits with Adam Sandler (who stars in Meyerowitz), and whether what used to be written off as a bad summer could now potentially turn into a bad life.

How To Listen

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

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Indie Movies of Summer 2017

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

As another summer winds down, you may think to yourself: Did I see every movie I wanted to see? Even if these questions don’t haunt you, the film core of SportsAlcohol.com is here to tell you they should, because there were a ton of good indie movies out this summer. Just as we did in 2015 and 2016, Nathaniel, Sara, Marisa, and Jesse got together — returning to our lo-fi outdoor-recording roots from 2015 — to chat about as many movies as we could stand. If you’re looking for something to catch while it’s still lingering at the arthouse, Netflix ideas to get you through the fall, and/or a few spoilers about movies you already saw and want to talk about, this episode is for you. We cover well over a dozen movies, including The Big Sick, The Beguiled, Detroit, Ingrid Goes West, Good Time, Atomic Blonde, It Comes At Night, and so many more! What was good? What was bad? What was problematic? Is that a motorcycle you hear in the distance? The answer to all of these questions is YES and also LISTEN TO US.

How To Listen

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

Movies, Podcast

SportsAlcohol Podcast: Soderbergh & Logan Lucky

1 Comment
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)

While the Steven Soderbergh oeuvre isn’t universally beloved by The SportsAlcohol crew, it is well studied. We talk about his return to filmmaking in Logan Lucky as well as his whole career. If you’re worried we only cover his films, don’t worry: we talk more about K Street than anyone has since K Street aired. Other topics include:

  • Legacies
  • George Clooney (like, a lot about Clooney)
  • Blonde women
  • Movies that aren’t as good as Do The Right Thing
  • Why exactly one of us thinks the universally reviled Ocean’s Twelve is the best one of the series
  • non-actor actors
  • professionalism
  • contempt
  • K Street
  • The very nature of reality

How To Listen

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

Movies

A Ghost Story: Has David Lowery Made a Post-Actor Movie?

Leave a comment
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
Latest posts by Jesse (see all)

David Lowery’s A Ghost Story reunites him with Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, who starred in his Malickian lyrical-outlaw potboiler Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. It’s not surprising that Lowery would want to re-up with Mara and Affleck, who since their work for him have gone on to an Oscar nomination (Mara, for Carol) and an Oscar win (Affleck, for last year’s Manchester by the Sea). But part of what makes A Ghost Story so beguiling, and so much more interesting than Saints, is the way Lowery uses these talented actors: For long stretches, he doesn’t. In the contemporary summer movie season, where special effects and branding are often sold over movie stars, Lowery has made a movie more boldly post-actor than any recent blockbuster.

It starts out intimate, but familiar: A couple, unnamed by each other but called M (Mara) and C (Affleck) by the credits, nuzzles and sulks in a small house they’ve rented. Eventually, we realize that M wants to leave, while C, a musician, would prefer to stay. And then, after minutes on end of hushed semi-confrontation (and a few eerie noises), C dies in a car accident, right in front of their home. There are hints that Ghost Story will become a long-take study in grieving, like the way Lowery’s camera lingers on M, alone with C’s body in the morgue for a few minutes. The camera fixes on her as she fixes on the body, tucks the sheet over her husband’s lifeless head, then suddenly rushes out. The camera stays. And after a little while longer, C’s body, still sheet-covered, rises up.

It’s not literally his body. This wandering figure, with eye-holes cut in the sheet to make it resemble a hastily assembled Halloween costume, is C’s ghost, invisible to the world around him. As he walks around the hospital where his body remains, he’s presented with what looks like the opportunity to cross over into some kind of afterlife. He hesitates. And then he’s back at the house, watching his widow.
Continue reading A Ghost Story: Has David Lowery Made a Post-Actor Movie? →