Celebration of Dialects and Accents, Vol 2. by AES: Recent Episodes
sportsalcohol.com podcast
In a sequel of sorts to our all-Soderbergh episode from 2017, and also our sportsiest episode ever by far, Rob, Ben, Marisa, and Jesse all discuss the new Steven Soderbergh film High Flying Bird, now streaming on Netflix! It's a brisk assessment of Soderbergh, labor relations, sports, Moneyball, iPhone cameras, and more!
As Oscar season heads into its final weeks, why not take a break from litigating the Academy's dumb choices and spend some time listening to Nathaniel, Sara, Marisa, and Jesse talk about their favorites of the year? We've got Best Picture nominees, we've got stuff no one else ranked this guy, and we've got outliers! This engaging discussion of the best movies of 2018 has got. it. all.
The seventh (!) Spider-Man movie of the past 20 years came out last month with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. To celebrate this occasion, the SportsAlcohol.com skeleton crew, including Spider-Man expert Rob, got together and did an impromptu group ranking of all Spider-Man and Spider-Man-adjacent movies, talking about each and every one! Maguire! Dunst! Franco! Garfield! Stone! Holland! Captain America! Doughy Peter Parker! Spider-Ham! We talk about 'em all on our brisk countdown! Some of our rankings may surprise and infuriate you!
The new movie Second Act starring Jennifer Lopez is opening on December 21st! Jesse and Ben caught an early screening and discussed how it works as a non-rom-com, a zany business movie, and a Jennifer Lopez star vehicle. It's the latest in our mini-series where Ben talks about business movies. WARNING: There are SPOILERS for the movie Second Act around the halfway mark of this episode.
Jesse and Nathaniel, the only two people you know who think Rocky V is better than Rocky IV, got together to discuss how the newest Rocky-ish movie, Creed II, stacks up against the original, as well as other Rocky sequels. Controversial takes abound! (See above RE: Rocky V.)
After pulling together 20-plus ballots from various writers and music fans to form our definitive list of the BEST SONGS OF THE 2000s, the SportsAlcohol.com podcast crew convened a small panel of those writers to talk about the list: what we thought of the final product, the songs we love and the songs we hate, as well as how we constructed our individual ballots. Join us for a sometimes-contentious, always entertaining look back at a decade of disparate pop music!
With the release of the second Fantastic Beasts film, The Crimes of Grindelwald, now upon us, Marisa, Nathaniel, and Jesse got together to assess the state of the Wizarding World: Where this new series still holds promise, how it falls short, and what the hell is up with Eddie Redmayne. Accio takes!
For the fourth year in a row, SportsAlcohol.com's movie crew of Jesse, Marisa, Sara, and Nathaniel got together for a long talk about the many indie movies that came out in May, June, July, and August of 2018. We hit over a dozen major titles, from Hereditary to Eighth Grade to BlackKklansman to Skate Kitchen to Sorry to Bother You to First Reformed and on and on and on! Get your rental suggestions for fall with this wide-ranging discussion!
One undisputed bright spot of this year's crop of summer movies was Mission: Impossible -- Fallout, the sixth (!) movie in the deathless Mission: Impossible franchise. After Nathaniel, Jesse, Marisa, and Jon all caught up with the latest mission, and watched/rewatched previous entries in the series, we all sat down to talk about Fallout, and how the series got where it is today. Come for the Fallout discussion, stay for the geeking out over MI 1 through 5, and stay even longer to hear what we think should go down in the inevitable MI7!
It's that time of year again. In our longest running recurring episode, the SportsAlcohol.com crew takes a look back at the top-grossing movies of summer 1998, and recall what we thought then, what we think now, and where the hell we were in our lives when we first saw the American remake of Godzilla. Among others. Join Marisa, Rob, Nathaniel, Jesse, and Sabrina for a ruefully nostalgic and nostalgically rueful look back at blockbusters from 20 years ago.
Incredibles 2 is Pixar's 20th feature film, so this felt like a good point to talk about not just one of the most-anticipated sequels of the year but also all of the Pixar movies that preceded it. A supersized panel including Marisa, Jesse, Nathaniel, Ben, Jon, and Sara talk through our personal highlights and lowlights from the Pixar canon, including our reactions to Brad Bird's latest!
The Soderbergh-free but all-star Ocean's 8 is currently heisting away plenty of money at the box-office, so Sara, Marisa, and Jesse got together to talk about the movie, how it measures up to the previous Ocean's films, and how it fits into the film careers of the many actresses involved: Sandra Bullock! Anne Hathaway! Cate Blanchett! Sarah Paulson! And more!
The founders of SportsAlcohol.com have stuck with Riverdale through an overlong rollercoaster of a second season and we have THOUGHTS about it: about the Black Hood, about the mafia's foothold in Riverdale, about just how stupid Archie is supposed to be, about the darkness inside Betty, about Veronica's real age, and about Jughead's mysterious double. We discuss all that and more in this full-season examination of why the hell we are still watching Riverdale!
In the second part of our comprehensive discussion of Steven Spielberg's career, we talk about Spielberg movies we recently saw for the first time, picks for overrated and underrated Spielberg projects, and make some varying cases for the Indiana Jones sequels.
Whether you're a fan of Steven Spielberg or not, his work looms large and moonlike over the cinematic landscape. On the occasion of his new movie Ready Player One (his fourth in the span of 2.5 years!), we got together to talk about both his newest foray into the world of sci-fi and his career as a whole. This wide-ranging discussion has been split into two episodes; this one, the first, covers Ready Player One as well as some of his trademarks as a filmmaker.
In conjunction with the release of the new They Might Be Giants album I Like Fun and our list of the best They Might Be Giants songs of all time, TMBG superfans Jesse and Marisa were joined by fellow TMBG superfans Alan Scherstuhl and Karen Han for an in-depth discussion of this cultishly beloved indie rock band. We talk about how we got into the band, how the new record stacks up, and our listmaking methodology, among many other TMBG-centric topics. A must for any and all equally obsessive TMBG fans!
With Phantom Thread performing surprisingly well in the recent Oscar nominations, we figured it was about time to go back and talk about the full eight-film oeuvre of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson. PTA fans Marisa, Sara, Jesse, Jon, and Nathaniel discuss every phase of his career, our personal favorites, and what he might do next.
We don't have any inside dope on who's gonna win the Oscars this year, but that hasn't stopped Marisa, Jesse, Nathaniel, Sara, and Jon from chatting about who might win in the big six categories, plus, of course, our personal favorites. Who's delighted by Denzel's surprise nomination? Who's rooting for Willem Dafoe? Who's surprised to love Meryl Streep's obligatory nom? Who loves Lady Bird? (Well, to that last one: All of us.) Listen and then somehow win your Oscar pool!
In the third of our business/sci-fi double feature series, Ben and Jesse are joined by Nathaniel for a post-viewing discussion of 1987's The Secret of My Success, a business movie suggested by Ben (which Jesse and Nathaniel had not seen) and Mars Attacks!, a sci-fi movie suggested by Jesse and beloved by Nathaniel (and which Ben had not seen). Both movies feature Michael J. Fox, at opposite ends of his big-screen career. Join us as we hash out whether we were foolish to have missed these Fox movies for so long!
A lot of the editorial core at SportsAlcohol.com watches Saturday Night Live every week, so we like to periodically sit down and check in to see how the season is progressing. This year's edition covers our favorite new cast members (what's up Heidi Gardner!), how the show's political humor is working (watch out, Alec Baldwin!), and our favorite weird sketches that nobody (sometimes including other members of our panel) seemed to like.