Tag Archives: star wars

Podcast, TV

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Best Streaming TV of 2022

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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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You may have heard of a coming streaming recession or TV apocalypse, but regardless of what the future may hold, right now, there is still a hell of a lot of streaming TV out there for your consumption, whether your streaming provider is Netflix, Hulu, Paramount, Apple, Disney, Tubi, or all of the above (or just Tubi because Tubi is the best). Sensing a need for categorization and consensus in this vast streaming TV landscape, Ben called an emergency session of the SportsAlcohol.com podcast crew to talk about our favorite shows of 2022, sorted neatly into a series of categories: workplace shows, relationship shows, fantastical shows, funny shows, animated shows… all the types of shows, as favored variously by Ben, Jeremy, Sara, Marisa, and even TV agnostic and confirmed “movie person” (ugh) Jesse. So before you just shrug your shoulders and fire up that new season of Mad About You that you missed a few years ago, why not listen to us stump for our favorites (and run down a few of our anti-favorites)? We’ve got something for just about everyone, and if you watch all of these shows already, you can hear us praise and/or debate them. Happy listening and watching!

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About Us, Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Top Summer Movies of 2002

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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)

As the 2022 summer movie season continues its extended wind-down period, maybe you’re thinking wistfully about summer movie seasons of the past. Here at SportsAlcohol.com, we are near-constantly thinking about summer movie seasons of the past, as part of our ongoing project to discuss the biggest summer hits of the past 20-to-30 years. This year, it’s time to talk about summer movies of 2002. (And 1992’s turn will be coming up shortly.) It’s another transitional period for the American Summer Movie, as we see the beginning of Bourne, the end of Austin Powers, a new beginning for Adam Sandler, and the beginning of the end before the next beginning of Tom Cruise. And we’ve got an all-star crew of Nathaniel, Jeremy, Becca, Ben, Marisa, and Jesse here to talk about our experiences with these movies back in the day, and also today. Hear Ben and Nathaniel debate Attack of the Clones! Take a tour of Becca’s long-standing movie-star crushes! Find out which movie made Marisa burst into tears of fright and which movie Jeremy absolutely hated! It’s all here, in our summer movies of 2002 extravaganza!

If you need to catch up before checking out the latest and greatest, here’s the complete history of this project:

1990
1991
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001

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Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Bill & Ted & Trilogies

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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)

To celebrate the recent release of long-awaited trilogy-creator Bill & Ted Face the Music, your pals at SportsAlcohol.com got together to talk about the new Bill & Ted movie, discuss our wide range of opinions of how well it works, and then have a broader discussion about the state and mechanics of movie trilogies these days. What are the best ones? What one-offs have been ruined into trilogies, and what great trilogies have been ruined with a part four? What makes a great trilogy, any? Are there even any? These questions and more are answered by your most excellent participants!

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Lists, Movies

The Top 10 Best Computer-Generated Sequences in Movies of the Past 25 Years

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Paavan
Paavan
Paavan is an English lit student studying in Toronto. His photography is great. He is so young I'm jealous. He also deactivates his twitter account all the time, which I really respect.
Paavan
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I was watching a documentary about the making of Toy Story a few days ago and was struck by the fact that photorealistic computer effects have been part of filmmaking for almost 30 years now. In this somewhat nostalgic mood, I found myself thinking about my favorite ways that filmmakers have used CG imagery; some explorations of the ideological implications of these then-new artificialities, but mostly just neat ways to wow the audience. I’ve written this list so I can talk about some sequences that I find interesting; their ranking here is arbitrary.

Some notes before we begin: I’m defining a ”computer-generated sequence” based on a vague threshold of how much of it uses computer generated imagery. Sadly, this means that something like the T-Rex attack from Jurassic Park or the T-1000 ambush from Terminator 2 don’t quite count.

I’ll also add that, because of the new enormous cost of creating CG imagery, the list is unfortunately homogenous: Mostly filmmakers working from within Hollywood, and as a result, mostly white and male. Sadly, we can’t look to modern studios to fix this issue of representation; on the rare occasion that women and/or people of color are hired for these movies, they’re not always allowed to direct their own set pieces. As this technology gets easier for those with lighter pockets to use, I predict that things will change in the new decade, and that we will see even more indie filmmakers telling interesting stories with CG.

Lastly, and most crucially, I ask readers that they watch the video clips attached to every piece so that they can appreciate the formal choices that I have highlighted with my writing here.
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Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (and The Mandalorian)

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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)

Star Wars is over, again, and also not at all. But the most recent Star Wars trilogy has indeed ended with Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. After taking in the movie somewhere between one and three times, your SportsAlcohol.com rebel alliance got together to talk about Rise of Skywalker, as well as the recently concluded first season of The Mandalorian. How did J.J. Abrams do in finishing off the trilogy he started, and the nine-film series he certainly didn’t start? How much do we love Babu Frik? And how can we avoid comparing this new movie to The Last Jedi? The answers to these questions and more await you in this epic but fleet new installment of our Star Wars podcast trilogy.

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Life, Movies, Music, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Mixtape: The Rise of Skywalker

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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)

The SportsAlcohol.com nerd core will be podcasting about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker soon enough (by which we mean, in a week or two). But in the meantime, with the movie’s commercial premiere just hours away, we made you a mixtape. Two years ago, we opened up a weird high school tradition to the world (or at least the SportsAlchol.com audience) by offering thirty-plus minutes of get-psyched mix-em-ups, to be listened to on your way to see a Star Wars movie. We’ve done the same for Episode IX, and I hope you enjoy it. (You can also download the never-before-officially-released Force Awakens mixtape here.)

As before, there are general instructions and a trivia component. The instructions are easy: about 35 minutes before you roll into your theater of choice to see The Rise of Skywalker hit “play” on the downloadable mp3, or the stream linked below.

Here’s the trivia part: This mix contains a lot of songs and samples. Some of them relate directly to Star Wars; most of those connections should be obvious, even if you don’t immediately recognize their origin. BUT: the rest of the songs and samples (that is, the non-Star Wars majority of the mix) have something in common. What is it?

The answer is relatively broad, so bonus points if you can go into more detail using specific examples.

A correct answer will get you a shout-out on our next Star Wars podcast!

In the meantime, enjoy getting psyched for the movie, and may the force be, well, you know.

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Top Movies of Summer 1999

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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)

It’s the longest-running SportsAlcohol.com Podcast Franchise: Since 2014, we’ve been revisiting the top-grossing North American box office attraction of 20 years earlier, discussing how we feel about some of these movies with the fullness of time (or in the case of one 1999 movie, with the fullness of having watched it for the first time just days earlier). So, in the tradition of 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1994 comes our take on the blockbusters of 1999, including:

    • The Sandman!
    • Will Smith’s best!… theme song
    • The future star of The Fanatic and Gotti!
    • Peak shagadelicism!
    • Toydarians!
    • AND MORE!!!

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Lists, Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: The Best Movies of 2017

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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)

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:

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Lists, Movies

The Top 20 Best Movies of 2017

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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)

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

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Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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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)

Do you like Star Wars? Do you like talking about Star Wars? Do you like listening to nerds talk about Star Wars? Did you like Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Did you hate Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Did you find yourself reinvigorated and more ready to talk Star Wars than ever before after watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Do you want to know what some avowed prequel-likers thought about Star Wars: The Last Jedi? Do you have opinions about Canto Bight? Do you have opinions about Brick? Do you have opinions about BB-8 driving a [redacted]? What about Luke Skywalker? Do you think you’re Luke Skywalker? Do you think you’re Han Solo? Do you think you’re Finn or Rey? Are you interested in what Rob and Jesse and Marisa and Sabrina thought about Star Wars: The Last Jedi even though it came out weeks ago because you’re still thinking about it yourself?

Here is a podcast about Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

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