nl Page 158 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
<em>The Sessions</em> And The Trap Of The Disease-Of-The-Week Movie
All genres have their trademarks. In romantic comedies, the two meet, fall in love, break up, and then wind up together. In action movies, a lot of ass is kicked, then more ass is kicked, and then at the end, a hell of a lot of ass is kicked. That predictability isn't always a bad thing—after all, w...
This Isn't Your Life: On the Brilliant, Trippy <em>Holy Motors</em>
We like to believe that we're the masters of our own destinies, that our lives are ours to do with as we wish. But in reality, that's not true. We behave differently around our bosses than we do around our friends. Even as grown-ups, we still revert to childish tendencies when we're around our paren...
Your Cardinals-Giants Open Thread
Game 2 of the NLCS is tonight, and this is the spot to talk about the game with all of your internet friends while the action unfolds. The Cardinals took Game 1 after jumping out to an early lead against an out-of-sync Madison Bumgarner, and they look to take control of the series tonight with Chri...
Less Is More: How The <em>Paranormal Activity</em> Movies Got Better With Each Sequel
Sequels are almost never as good as the original movie, so it's a downright miracle when a franchise gets better as it goes along. It's hard to think of many that achieved that feat, but here's one you may not have considered: The Paranormal Activity series....
<em>Friday Night Lights</em> Creator Tells Mitt Romney To Stop Using His Slogan
The internet loves a few things more than the regular population does. Chief among them are animated GIFs, pornography, and scripted NBC shows. But the internet does not love Mitt Romney. So when Romney co-opted the motivational cry of Friday Night Lights's Dillon Panthers, the internet smelled cyni...
Hooray For <em>Sinister</em>, A Horror Movie That's Actually Good
For a genre that remains a Hollywood staple, horror doesn't get much respect. If a film isn't screened in advance for critics, it's usually a horror movie. Although they dominate Halloween, they're also the movies that get dumped at the deadest corners of the release calendar: January and late Augus...
Sam Rockwell Is The Next Christopher Walken
There's a scene, late in Seven Psychopaths, the deliriously entertaining meta-movie that opens Friday, when Sam Rockwell's character Billy—the most psychopathic of all the psychopaths of the title—attempts to decipher the hoary adage, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." He mulls for a ...
Ben Affleck's Only Weakness As A Director: Casting Ben Affleck. <em>Argo</em>, Reviewed.
1. Argo is such a terrific, jaw-dropping true-life tale, with such a natural, seamless movie storyline, that anyone who knows the story would beg the filmmakers not to screw it up. So it's a relief that they absolutely do not do that. There are so many tones to juggle here; this is a film that veers...
Don't Despair, NHL Fans: You Can Watch Imitation Pro Hockey On ESPN! Here's How.
There's still no NHL hockey. It won't be coming back for a while. (But you knew that already.) So what is a despairing puckhead to do? You could always watch college hockey, which starts its national TV schedule this weekend. But you're probably not going to find the skill you're looking for there. ...
Here's A Belgian Soccer Player Driving His Porsche Into A Store
A rough Saturday night for Belgian midfielder Jonathan Legear. He had just found out he was not selected by his Russian club, and spent the night...somewhere. Whatever he did, he found himself on the road at 5:30 a.m., and this happened....
Bob Brenly Doesn't Understand How The Earth's Rotation Works
If there is one thing baseball announcers love talking about, it's shadows. "Boy I tell ya, these shadows are going to play havoc on the hitters this afternoon!" Given how much the shadows get talked about, you'd think most announcers would have a solid understanding of how the earth's rotation wo...
Auburn Wrests Title Of "Team Everyone Wants To Play" From Arkansas
Arkansas beat Auburn today, which in itself wouldn't be so strange except that as recently as this morning it was reasonable to ask whether Arkansas would ever win another game, ever, ever. The Hogs were a preseason top-10 team that lost f̶i̶v̶e̶ four games—in September. If someone was to cushion th...
Bennifer No More: Ben Affleck's Amazing Comeback
The Academy Awards aren't until February, but as far as Roger Ebert is concerned, we already know who's going to take home the big prize. "The winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture will be Ben Affleck's tense new thriller Argo," he wrote on September 10, not because he thinks it's the best mo...
Watch Your Favorite Actors Humiliate Themselves In <em>The Paperboy</em>, The Worst Movie Of The Year
In 2003, Matthew McConaughey starred in a film called Tiptoes that went straight to video. It might seem odd that this film would go straight to video, considering its cast included McConaughey, Kate Beckinsale, Gary Oldman, Patricia Arquette, and Peter Dinklage. But then you see what the film was a...
How The Crazy-Ass AL Division Races Unfolded: Visualizing Momentum
The Athletics and the Yankees clinched their respective division titles on the same day, but the paths they took to get there were very different. The A's budget freight train slammed through a Rangers squad that had sat atop the AL West for over 170 consecutive days, while the Yankees barely edged ...
Arkansas Coach John L. Smith Realizes He's Actually $40 Million In Debt, Not $25 Million
John L. Smith is even more broke than he initially thought. He first filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 6. In a subsequent filing, on Sept. 19, he reported $25.7 million in liabilities and $1.2 million in assets. You don't have to be a CPA to know that this is a bad cash flow position. But wait, it gets ...
God Bless Liam Neeson, He Sure Does Try. <em>Taken 2</em>, Reviewed.
If you liked the first Taken, it was probably because of Liam Neeson. With that unlikely hit, the Oscar-nominated actor established himself as a tough-guy action star, a development that was surprising not because he's a bad fit for the role but, rather, because he proved really adept at it. Anyone ...
Seth MacFarlane Hosting the Oscars? Really? A Grierson & Leitch Discussion
Yesterday, the Motion Picture Academy of America announced that Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane would be hosting this year's Oscars. This was flabbergasting news, to say the least, and it took us a day to process it. We decided to talk it out, so that when we were done, it might actually make som...