Tag Archives: pixar

Movies

The Boss Baby: Family Business blows up the DreamWorks Family Business

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)

A few weeks ago, a consensus was more or less reached that the animated feature Luca represents “minor Pixar.” Even committed fans of the film might find it hard to argue otherwise: Here is a short, sweet, little romp with a handful of major characters; conflict that never reaches life-and-death stakes; and bouncier, cartoonier animation than usual. Even the usual climactic Pixar-brand chase primarily involves a few kids riding bikes up and down a hill. Compare this to last year’s “minor Pixar” Onward, which may not have been anyone’s favorite, but featured a richly imagined world merging fantasy imagery with more mundane modern conveniences (and inconveniences), and a quest’s worth of side characters and environments. Or, to make Luca look like a tone poem, compare it to The Boss Baby: Family Business, the new feature from DreamWorks Animation.

By another set of definitions, it would be easy to call Boss Baby 2 minor. First of all, it comes from DreamWorks, which apart from a brief surge of Shrek fever in the early 2000s has played enthusiastic second fiddle to the Pixar winning streak. Second, it’s a sequel, and not to one of the signature later-era DreamWorks series like How To Train Your Dragon or Trolls—just 2017’s The Boss Baby, a mishmash of a hit family comedy whose primary feature was its unwillingness to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Family Business seems to exist primarily because it’s a sequel. While Pixar has (deservedly) taken heat for making too many follow-ups, DreamWorks really depends on franchising to keep its pipeline going; only three of its last ten movies weren’t part of some multiplatform franchise or another.

Continue reading The Boss Baby: Family Business blows up the DreamWorks Family Business →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: The Best Movies of 2020, Again

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)

Back in September of 2020, we wondered whether maybe it was just time to call it on 2020 and move on to other things, so we did our best movies of 2020 podcast four months early. But as it turned out, life continued on planet Earth, and we were able to pull together a list of the year’s best movies at the appropriate time: Well into the following year. In the spirit of, oh, let’s just say an extended awards season, we also got together to discuss some of the movies from this list that we hadn’t already discussed before. So think of this podcast about the best movies of 2020 as a sequel to last summer’s episode, and a testament to the fact that movies really were one actually-good thing in 2020, even if nothing much else was.

We are now up to SEVEN (7) 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.
  • SportsAlcohol.com is a proud member of the Aha Radio Network. What is Aha? It’s kind of like Stitcher, but for your car.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here
  • Our most recent episode or two will sometimes be available on our Soundcloud
  • You can listen to the episode (and a bunch of great songs!) in the players below.

Lists, Movies

The 20 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)

Back in the fall, we were so uncertainly about the prospects of discussing the best movies of 2020 in a timely fashion that we decided to call it early and do a best-movies-of-the-year podcast in September. Who knew when anything would get back to normal, if ever? As it turns out, we’re well into 2021 and things still haven’t gotten back to normal (and no amount of pushing the Oscars into April has changed that). But something that stayed the same, albeit in weird and different shapes, were movies, in that there were good movies all through 2020, and in a hell year–hell, a hell-year-plus–that’s still worth talking about. So here we are, talking about the best movies of 2020 again; this time in writing, though a podcast will soon follow, too. And if we (I, Jesse) didn’t get this up until March, well, we’re still having the conversation earlier than the Oscars. That’s gotta count for something, right? Maybe in a few months, you can even start to think about how you might see revivals of these movies out in the real world again. The best movies of 2020 are here for you well into 2021 and beyond! Herewith, Sara, Marisa, Jeremy, Jesse, and Nathaniel talk about their collective favorites.
Continue reading The 20 Best Movies of 2020 →

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Incredibles 2 and the Films of Pixar

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)

Who doesn’t love Pixar?! Actually, a non-rhetorical answer to that question awaits in this well-populated group discussion about the mega-successful animation studio, conducted after Nathaniel, Ben, Jon, Marisa, Jesse, and Sara got back from watching the studio’s (and Brad Bird’s!) latest opus, Incredibles 2. We talk about the new film, Pixar’s sequels in general, and, really, the whole Pixar oeuvre: Favorites, least-favorites, and the Pixar titles we think could use some more attention (the answers may surprise you!). Every Pixar movie is touched upon! Some are covered in surprising detail! Laughs and tears! We also talk about whether or not Jack Palance is dead! It makes sense in context. To infinity, and beyond!

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

    • Movies, Podcast, TV

    The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: What Makes Us Cry at Movies (and TV)

    3 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)

    When was the last time you cried at a movie? That’s a question posed toward the beginning of this Very Special episode of the SportsAlcohol.com podcast, in which Nathaniel, Marisa, Jesse, Sara, and Jon get personal about crying at movies (or TV shows): how often it happens, when we respect it and when we resent it, and why we react the way we do to certain types of emotional button-pushing (or lack thereof). Crying at movies is a near-universal topic, and we’ve tried to be very specific in our wide-ranging discussion that we promise is not a total bummer.

    How To Listen

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