reviews Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Uncomfortable Middle: Our 2015-16 Premier League Preview, Pt. 2
For the American sports fan, following soccer means a reorientation about what constitutes success. With the success of the top teams reinforced by Champions League appearances and an enhanced global profile, there is a virtuous cycle to being good that makes it even harder to break into the top. At...
Starting From The Bottom: Our 2015-16 Premier League Preview, Pt. 1
PREMIER LEAGUE BACK....
The Pac-12 Will Be Great, So Try To Stay Up Past Your Bedtime
Welcome to our college football conference previews, in which we will tell you what you need to know about various conferences, with an emphasis on watchability. First up is the Pac-12....
Daniel Bryan's <i>Yes! </i>Is The Worked Shoot Of Wrestling Books
Late in Yes!, the new memoir from the great pro wrestler Daniel Bryan, there’s a moment where Bryan comes to an epiphany about what he’s doing in the WWE—the place where he’s been employed since 2009: “I came to the realization that what we were doing in WWE was no longer pro wrestling,” he writes. ...
This Is The Most Important Passage In Ta-Nehisi Coates's New Book
Last Tuesday, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates dropped his second book, Between the World and Me, to nigh-unanimous critical acclaim. It deserves it, because it’s an indescribably enlightening, enraging, important document about being black in America today. Coates is perhaps the best we have, and th...
Weed Review: Will Beast Mode 2.0 Make You Feel Like Marshawn Lynch?
Did you know that a Seattle marijuana-delivery service is now offering a Marshawn Lynch-inspired strain called Beast Mode 2.0? It's true. So we got a local enthusiast to review it for us. Here are his (scattered) thoughts. ...
It's About Ethics In Restaurant-List Journalism, Mewls Slighted Chef
Breaking: Entitled white dude slings around bogus journalism-ethics complaints in reactionary response to insecurity over his former spot atop a hierarchy! Call it DinerGate....
<em>Thrown</em> Is The Only MMA Book Anyone Ever Needs To Write
Nearly no one writes really well about fighting, which I've always thought was less because of the sport itself than because of the institutions around it. Promoters, matchmakers, agents, sponsors, and reporters are, after all, at all times engaged in a conspiracy to deny the essential humanity of t...
Reviewer Jump-Kicks Macho Steakhouse's Dick And Balls Into The Sun
Beast is a self-consciously primal London steak-and-crab restaurant, all ludicrously oversized tables and steaks and crab legs and prices, presented gravely as though in mourning of the fallen at Helm's Deep; a display of such over-the-top machismo that even Vladimir Putin rolls his eyes at it when ...
The <em>Observer</em> Absolutely Eviscerates Cutesy New Fried Chicken Joint
Pete Wells, take note: This is how you do a scathing restaurant review....
Disney's <em>Bears</em>: Bears Watching
There is a lot to like about Bears, the latest cinematic offering from Disneynature. There is much to dislike as well, but you'll be fine if you approach the viewing experience from the proper point of view. That point of view being that bears are great, and watching them do bear stuff is also great...
Miami Marlins Owner's Insane Book About <em>Peanuts</em> Will Melt Your Brain
When we speak of spring and baseball, we speak of renewal. New shoots of grass, possibility, the warm rays in Florida. We rarely mention the game's antipodal force that dwells there too, a darkness that consumes joy—its unblinking saurian eyes unevolved for 37 million years, unregenerate in its pred...
Let's Try Chips Ahoy! Ice Cream Creations, A Dessert-Flavored Dessert
Remember ice cream? Oh man, ice cream. There are so many wonderful things to remember about ice cream, but first and foremost—more than the carnival of flavors and colors; the various zany, luxurious toppings and swirls; the fun presentations (Sundae! Banana split! Ice cream cone! Ice cream cak...
Michael Bay's Ode To Meatheads: <em>Pain & Gain</em>, Reviewed.
There are many movies that could have been made from the raw materials of Pain & Gain, which is based on a series of outrageous Miami New Times articles about three dimwit Florida bodybuilders who in 1994 kidnapped a rich local businessman and stripped him of all his assets. Some filmmakers, for exa...
Danny Boyle Mesmerizes Himself. <em>Trance</em>, Reviewed.
For director Danny Boyle, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. With each genre of movie he makes, you get the sense that he wants to be sure it's the most demonstrative of its kind ever. Trainspotting was the druggiest movie ever. 28 Days Later was the zombie-iest movie ever. Slumdog Millionaire...
An Epic That Stumbles. <em>The Place Beyond The Pines</em>, Reviewed.
Director Derek Cianfrance's last film, Blue Valentine, was a crushing study of a couple (played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) falling apart. It was beautifully made and well acted—I loved it—but the rawness of the emotions and the ambition of the structure (cycling between the present and t...
<em>Room 237</em> Will Make You Love <em>The Shining</em> All Over Again
One of the saddest things about the death of a favorite filmmaker is realizing that you'll probably never see any new movie from him ever again. When popular musicians die, they always leave material lying around that their estates can spruce up and put out for the fans. (Jimi Hendrix died in 1970, ...
Steve Carell Needs A New Trick: <i>The Incredible Burt Wonderstone</i>, Reviewed.
1. Steve Carell, leading man, is a lot funnier when he's not trying to be funny. He tends to work better in supporting straight comedy roles (most famously Anchorman, but also Bruce Almighty and even Bewitched) than as the lead (Dinner For Schmucks, Get Smart). His sweet spot as a leading man is ba...
Seth MacFarlane Wasn't The Worst Oscar Host Ever: In Defense Of A Boob
For Seth MacFarlane's critics, Sunday night was supposed to be the moment we finally got to see the guy get his comeuppance. A "billion" viewers around the world, one of the most prestigious gigs in all of entertainment: As Oscar host, this was his chance to justify his swiftly, perhaps inexplicably...
The Rock Saves The Day. <em>Snitch</em>, Reviewed.
Snitch isn't great, but if you're like me and have enjoyed Dwayne Johnson more than his movies, his latest helps justify our faith in the guy. This is a B-movie thriller built around a real incident that's meant to show us the lunacy of our government's drug policy—and yet the movie's not preachy or...