review Page 941 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Sports Video Games Of The Year
Rarely considered for overall video-game-of-the-year honors, the uncommon diversity of sports video games, and the unique demands placed on them to recreate both a real-world sport and the real-life experiences associated with it, support their own class of awards more than any other genre. These ar...
The 27 Dumbest Things Gregg Easterbrook Wrote In 2012
Imagine the import of an alien to answer the yes-or-no question, "Does your society believe in God?"...
The Year's Best Stories About Wrestler Run-Ins
Inspired by the saga of "Wrestling Superstar Virgil," we collected our readers' encounters with the titans of the squared circle. These are the best of the year, in no particular order....
Shitballs And Bucketloads Of Cunt: The Year In Cursing
George Carlin's been dead for four years, but that doesn't mean the scourge of cursing on television is beyond us. Indeed, it was a regrettable year for foul language of both the intentional and unintentional varieties. Here's a sample of what corrupted our children's ears in 2012, with links bel...
Resistance Is Futile. <em>Les Misérables</em>, Reviewed
As someone who hasn't read the Victor Hugo novel and is only vaguely familiar with the musical based on it, I can't say I went into director Tom Hooper's version of Les Misérables with any expectations or cultural baggage. I suspect that's part of the reason why the film worked for me—or, at the ver...
Ugh. Colin Cowherd Is (Statistically) The Best Pundit Of 2012.
Republished with permission from PunditTracker.com....
The 15 Best Peter Gammons Tweets Of 2012
Longtime baseball analyst Peter Gammons also shares his insight and knowledge via his Twitter account. Even when the season is over, Gammons will offer up his aperçus about baseball and life in general. Here are his best tweets from 2012....
Creaks And Reeks. Judd Apatow's <em>This Is 40</em>, Reviewed.
In recent years, critics have pegged writer-director Judd Apatow as the next James L. Brooks. That's meant to be high praise. Brooks—the director of movies like Broadcast News who, like Apatow, transitioned from television to film—managed to create sophisticated romantic comedies that mixed humor an...
The 10 Best Sports Infographics Of 2012
For those who don't really enjoy scrolling through Baseball Reference spreadsheets, there are some great artists and analysts out there constantly developing new ways to elegantly present the data of sports. Below are the 10 best sports infographics/data visualizations from 2012, in approximate orde...
Quentin Tarantino, Slave To His Habits: <em>Django Unchained</em>, Reviewed
1. Django Unchained is giddily entertaining, powerful, confident filmmaking by a guy who keeps finding new tricks up his sleeve with every movie. It's a big, sprawling statement that throws everything at the wall and sees what sticks, which has always been one of the strengths of Quentin Tarantino, ...
What Were Your Favorite Sports Stories From This Year?
The year in sportswriting is almost over, which means that it is time to start making all kinds of "best of" lists. All the cool kids are doing it. We'd like to make a list too, and we'd like your help compiling it. Were there any pieces of sportswriting that you came across this year that you foun...
In Sickness And In Health. <em>Amour</em>, Reviewed.
When my wife and I got married, I gave a toast where I laid out all I wanted for us: A long, healthy, happy life. Not great riches, not great success—just a fulfilling marriage that would sustain us both for the rest of our lives. So far, we've been lucky, and I'm grateful for that, but as anyone wh...
The Year In JaVale McGee, Our Favorite Basketball Player
No NBA player is closer to Deadspin's heart than JaVale McGee. That's because JaVale McGee only makes spectacular plays—the plays that no one else in the NBA could or would make, because they're cowards. To commemorate the man with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, here's the best of McG...
A Suffocating Triumph: <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>, Reviewed
1. I've always thought the best compliment you can give a movie is that, while it's playing, you forget not only that you are watching a movie, but also that you are a person with a life that was going on before the movie and will continue going on afterward. These are the transformative films, the ...
The Deep Breath Before The Plunge. <em>The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey</em>, Reviewed.
1. It's always important to remember that the first film of any trilogy—particularly one that has to not only introduce a bunch of new characters but take time to remind us of all the people/dwarves/elves/wizards we'd forgotten in the nine years since we last saw them—is always going to be the slowe...
The Year In Gronk
Rob Gronkowski is what would happen if Dr. Frankenstein created a monster, but instead of blood, the doctor filled his veins with Keystone Light. Here are some of the best Gronk stories from this past year....
Bill Murray: A Traitor To His Crass. <em>Hyde Park on Hudson</em>, Reviewed.
1. Everything about Hyde Park on Hudson feels like it's taking place in a wax museum. Actually, that's not giving it enough credit: It's more like the Hall of Presidents robotic displays at Walt Disney World....
Damn It Feels Profound To Be A Gangster: <em>Killing Them Softly</em>, Reviewed
1. Killing Them Softly is a polemic disguised as a thriller, a series of scenes featuring various tiers of low-level gangsters shooting, talking, drinking, and complaining, unaware, somewhat blissfully, that they're all metaphors. (It's hard enough to be a gangster without having to walk around symb...
<em>Hitchcock</em>: For The Birds
Over time, great individuals can attain such a level of public adoration that any sort of criticism leveled against them is treated as sacrilege, whether they be Abe Lincoln, Mother Teresa, or a Beatle not named Ringo. Naturally, that inspires a certain kind of person to take dead aim at such sacred...
Incense And Disappointments. <em>Life of Pi</em>, Reviewed.
1. Life of Pi is about 65 minutes of staggering cinematic beauty surrounded by 55 minutes of touchy-feely New Age claptrap. You recognize the kind, with its choose-your-own-adventure brand of spirituality, and God as captain of the ship sailing everyone's personal journey for self-fulfillment and un...