Emahlstadtgross
Speaking with Danny Pellegrino on the Everything Iconic podcast (via Page Six), Jennifer Love Hewitt revealed that she has two very specific goals for 2019, and they’re both connected to two of her old hit movies. The first is a TV adaptation of her 2001 movie Heartbreakers, which starred her and Sigourney Weaver as a…
Emahlstadtou sucks
The Longhorns are one win away from playing in tomorrow’s National Championship match.
Led by first-team All-American Cole Hammer, fellow freshman Parker Coody, and senior Steven Chervony, the No. 5 Texas Longhorns defeated the No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners to advance to the semifinals at the NCAA Championships. Coody rallied the Longhorns to a 3-2 victory by winning his decisive match on the final hole.
Just call @parker_coody ‘The Closer.’ Tied thru 16 holes, he birdied the 8th hole to go 1️⃣-up and then halved the 9th to send the Horns to the #NCAAGolf semifinals!!#TexasFight #TakeDeadAim pic.twitter.com/wRJC6kfCyt
— Texas Men's Golf (@TexasMGolf) May 28, 2019
Soosman vs. Dalke (3&1) — OU
Hammer (7&5) vs. Welch — UT
Pierceson Coody vs. Cummins (2&1) — OU
Chervony (4&3) vs. Hale — UT
Parker Coody (1UP) vs. Rebano — UT
A tall-task stands ahead for this talented Texas team with the defending champs standing in their way, though. Oklahoma State arguably has the nation’s two best golfers in Matthew Wolfe and Viktor Hovland. Wolfe dominated in the individual round by shooting 10-under par to win by a marginal five strokes.
The Cowboys were the only team to score under-par (-16) this weekend during stroke play and cruised to a 4-1 victory over SMU earlier today.
Spencer Soosman and Hovland teed-off the semifinal match and Hammer is matched up against the individual National Champion Matthew Wolfe to follow.
Hey @NoLayingUp, that second semifinal match any good?#WolffHammer #NCAAGolf pic.twitter.com/DaR4NtUp0j
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) May 28, 2019
Live coverage of the semifinals match begins at 3:00 CT on the Golf Channel.
The winner will face the winner of Vanderbilt/Stanford in the National Championship tomorrow afternoon.
Hook ‘Em Horns!
Emahlstadtthis is another cbs all access show, right? along with star trek: discover (and probably the picard show)? how is cbs making a compelling argument in 2019 to sign up for it's stand-alone streaming service? what a time to be alive.
Swamp Thing may not be as popular as Batman, but the vegetable monstrosity has always been at the forefront of comic book milestones. Right after Christopher Reeve made people believe a man could fly, and before Batman got nuts, Wes Craven pulled something out of a swamp to become a moderate success. On the comic book side, The Saga of the Swamp Thing was the first mainstream comic book series to abandon the Comics Code Authority’s approval in favor of a mature, dark and horror-oriented legendary run.
Despite its heavy roots in the horror genre, the titular Swamp Thing was rather campy, including starring in an animated TV series that had a cover of The Troggs’ Wild Thing that just changed the word ‘Wild’ for ‘Swamp’ and called it a day. It took us 48 years since the character’s creation, but we are finally getting the proper horror-oriented Swamp Thing show we deserve.
From the opening scene, showrunners Gary Dauberman (It) and Mark Verheiden (Daredevil, Constantine) want you to know theirs is a different version of the swamp. Alec Holland doesn’t create a bio-restorative formula that affects the plant life, for the titular swamp is already acting up before the show begins.
The opening scene follows a group of mercenaries who go looking for something deep in a Louisiana swamp, before the vines and roots from the nearby trees start attacking them, impaling one of the mercenaries and tearing the other to shreds. Form there we follow CDC researcher Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed) – who does not have white hair (though this may change) – investigating a deadly swamp-borne virus that is threatening her childhood home of Marais, Louisiana, where she discovers that people stayed the same, but the swamp has fallen to something mysterious and unnatural.
The first two episodes of Swamp Thing are mostly Abby’s story. Her investigation drives the story of the show and her character is our way into this mysterious town. Abby isn’t the most popular woman in Marais, as she has avoided the town and its inhabitants for years after escaping it all following a tragedy that impacted her life and that of the entire town. Reed does a great job conveying the emotional baggage that haunts Abby, as well as her determination and lack of fear when it comes to the weird and terrifying things coming out of the swamp. The character also seems to be a reimagining, as it combines Abby and Alec Holland’s wife, Linda into one person.
While Abby is our central character in the beginning of Swamp Thing¸ we do get a lot of Alec Holland pre-accident. Andy Bean is the standout of the first episode, as his Alec gives off strong Will Graham vibes. The moment he joins the investigation and the corpses start to show up covered in vines and with sprouts growing out from organs, you’ll be forgiven for thinking you’re watching a new episode of Hannibal. Bean and Reed have fantastic chemistry together, and her reaction to the accident that tragically separates them sells her grief and their relationship, however brief, as something significant. It is weird to be writing about Swamp Thing and say I wish we could see more of Alec Holland, but I also never imagined seeing a James Wan-directed Aquaman, either.
Of course, you’re probably here to know about the horror and the titular thing from the swamp. Good news is, both look great. Though our big, green, untalkative friend from the swamp (no, not Shrek) isn’t prominently featured in the first two episodes, what we do see of him is stunning. Derek Mears rocks a practical suit that looks straight out of the comics, covered in vines, moss and other types of vegetation. Mears nails the intimidating yet sad look of the swamp monster, as we see the confusion in his eyes that hint at a deeply existentialist story familiar to those who’ve read Alan Moore’s legendary issue “The Anatomy Lesson”.
Because the show doesn’t directly translate the comics to the screen, they manage to build a world that is ready for something like Swamp Thing before it is born. The swamp is already home to something mysterious and dangerous, and there we see some brutal vegetable-on-human kill scenes. There is also an autopsy scene in the pilot episode that evolves into the best spin-off to The Thing we could have imagined with practical creature effects to rival the big-budget blockbusters and horror franchises.
Even when we don’t see the plant life killing people, Swamp Thing still surrounds its world with enough shady characters to create an eerie atmosphere that reminds of Alan Moore’s American Gothic arc in the comics. Like Titans and Doom Patrol before it, Swamp Thing is full of references and Easter eggs to the entire DC Universe that makes the show ripe for crossover potential. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of fan-favorite characters like Etrigan the Demon or Constantine showing up at some point.
It may be because only the first two episodes were shown to the press, but one issue with Swamp Thing is that it isn’t clear if it’s actually going to follow the source material. This probably isn’t a huge issue for those unfamiliar with the character, but fans hoping to see a straight adaptation might be in for a disappointment. Likewise, because of the issues with production and the reported cut in the episode order, we don’t know how the season will be affected and whether the story has a proper ending by the time episode ten ends.
Swamp Thing has a truly unique aesthetic and visual tone for any DC show or film we’ve seen in years, and takes full advantage of the DC Universe’s R-rated approach with fantastic creature effects and body-horror inspirations. It is too early to tell how the rest of the season will play out, but fans of Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s swamp baby should be happy with how much potential this show has.
Editor’s Note: This is a review of the first two episodes only.
Swamp Thing — Ep.101 — “Pilot” — Photo Credit: Brownie Harris / 2018 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved
Emahlstadtman, is it just me, or do feminist horror movies always have really hot chicks in 'em?
Premiering at the Brooklyn Film Festival on Saturday, June 1st @7:00 PM at the Wythe Hotel is Sarah Pirozek‘s indie #LIKE, described as a feminist noir thriller.
Starring Sarah Rich, her performance is said to “evoke those of Ellen Page in Hard Candy and Matilda Lutz in Revenge.”
Woodstock teen Rosie (Rich) is mourning the first anniversary of her younger sister Amelia’s death, when she discovers that the mysterious man (Marc Menchaca, “Ozark”, “Homeland”) who sexploited and bullied her sister into committing suicide, is back online trolling for new victims. After the authorities refuse to get involved, Rosie discovers a darker side she never knew she had as she takes justice into her own hands.
Interestingly, “American Horror Story’s” Denis O’Hare provided this quote in support of the film: “#LIKE is a taut observation of teen sexuality and paranoia at the intersection of #MeToo and the unpoliced borders of cyber life, blessed with a stellar break-out performance by Sarah Rich.”
Emahlstadtthis is actually not funny at all and a totally reasonable sounding story.
the explanation for why he-man has a tiger is one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life and i have to share the whole clip pic.twitter.com/1pgtQglG0M— Bobby Schroeder (@ponettplus) May 21, 2019
Emahlstadtwtf
Just months after transferring to Texas from USC, highly-touted receiver Bru McCoy may be heading back to California.
The Bru McCoy era in Austin may be coming to an end after only one semester.
On Monday morning, the rumor mill began churning with talk that Bru McCoy, a former five-star prospect who committed to USC over Texas on Jan. 5 before electing to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal just weeks later and sign with the Longhorns on Jan. 25, is entertaining the idea of re-entering the NCAA Transfer Portal and heading back to USC, as first reported by USCFootball.com’s Chris Trevino.
Horns247’s Taylor Estes confirmed the report, noting that “those close to McCoy are working tirelessly to get him to stay at Texas.”
However, despite those efforts, McCoy has reportedly informed USC coach Clay Helton of his intent to leave Texas, per Orangebloods’ Anwar Richardson.
According to our Rivals USC website, they say, “Sources say [Bru] McCoy has informed Coach Clay Helton he intends to leave Texas and return to USC after being assured there was a scholarship available to him.”
— Anwar Richardson (@AnwarRichardson) May 27, 2019
After siding with the Trojans in early January, McCoy enrolled at USC just days later, but the stay was short-lived, as McCoy, of course, transferred out of the program fewer than three weeks later following the sudden departure of Kliff Kingsbury, who spent just one month in his role as offensive coordinator before accepting a job as the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals.
The Trojans’ loss soon became Texas’ gain and McCoy, the nation’s top-ranked athlete prospect, provided Longhorns head coach Tom Herman’s 2019 class with a new headliner and a potential day-one contributor at wide receiver. That is, of course, should McCoy ultimately secure a waiver for immediately eligibility to avoid being required to sit out for one season per NCAA transfer rules. Various reports indicated that the McCoy family was waiting to officially file the waiver until decisions came down surrounding the offseason departures of Justin Fields, who transferred from Georgia to Ohio State, and Tate Martell, who left Ohio State in the wake of Fields’ arrival and headed to Miami.
Both Fields and Martell received waivers from the NCAA for immediate eligibility, providing room for optimism regarding McCoy’s odds of the same coming to fruition for him, which would allow McCoy to suit up in Austin as soon as the 2019 season.
All had since remaining fairly quiet on the McCoy front. That was, of course, until Monday’s news that McCoy may potentially be back in California and at USC where it all began long before September.
Gearing up for Memorial Day weekend? Why not gear up with BreakingT for their massive Memorial Day sale. With more than 200 shirts on priced at just $10, including one to proudly proclaim that Texas is, indeed, back, folks, you’ll stock your closet and save enough money to stock up on extra BBQ for Memorial Day weekend. Better yet, you’ll save an additional 20% off everything in the store by simply using the code MEMORIAL at checkout.
Did I mention these BreakingT shirts will make an amazing Father’s Day gift?
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Hirudinaria manillensis aka the asian buffalo leech
Emahlstadtno paddle controllers/no kaboom = no sale
When the Atari VCS team decided to remake the retro console, it knew the controllers would be just as important as the box itself. After all, there's no gaming accessory quite as iconic as the Atari CX40 joystick. Earlier this spring, we got a glimpse of what the VCS will look like, and now, the company has revealed more details about the Atari VCS Classic Joystick and Modern Controller. Both are a carefully crafted mix of essential features, both old and new, the company said in a blog post.
Source: Atari VCS
Emahlstadtcause everyone wants to change their outfit to play video games.
Sony might have grander virtual reality ambitions for the PlayStation 5 beyond a headset and traditional controllers to let you play games Ready Player One-style in a body suit. It filed a patent for a VR glove with haptic feedback, and suggested it may even bring the tech to other clothing, meaning you could potentially "touch" an in-game item when you pick it up, feel every blow in Call of Duty or get a sense of what it's like to be sacked in Madden.
Via: GamesRadar
Source: USPTO Filing
Emahlstadtthe elite controller is already sufficiently modular and you could even use scuf brand thumbsticks and back grips and... OH GOD I MISS MY ELITE CONTROLLER SO MUCH!
Last year, Scuf introduced its Vantage customizable PS4 controller. It offered PlayStation fans a more comfortable grip and the ability to increase speed by cutting down on hand movements. Now, Scuf is ready to unveil a controller for Xbox One, the Prestige. The gamepad builds on Scuf's previous customizable features and adds perks like a longer battery life -- thanks to a lithium-ion battery that boasts up to 30 hours on a full charge.
Emahlstadtneat
Blizzard is on a bit of a relative tear when it comes to major Overwatch updates. Soon after adding the Workshop customization tool, it's offering players the chance to watch back their matches from any perspective with a handy replay feature. It's available through the PTR test server on PC now, and Blizzard says it's coming to consoles soon.
Source: Blizzard (1), (2)
Emahlstadti used to kinda like elton john. craft pride has ruined that. benny and the jets in particular is now one of my most hated songs of all time.
This week’s question comes from A.V. Club contributor Caroline Siede, in honor of the release of Rocketman on May 31:
Emahlstadt4:3 aspect ratio!?! wacky!
Not only are the directors of The Witch and Hereditary back this year with new horror films but so too is Jennifer Kent, following up her masterful The Babadook with The Nightingale.
You can check out the official trailer below.
Meredith Borders raved about The Nightingale, writing that it’s a “breathtaking success by a director who could have made anything after the success of her first horror feature.”
“Set in Tasmania in 1825, The Nightingale follows a 21-year-old Irish female convict (Aisling Franciosi) who witnesses the brutal murder of her husband and baby by her soldier master and his cronies. Unable to find justice, she takes an Aboriginal male tracker with her through the hellish wilderness to seek revenge on the men.”
The cast also includes Sam Claflin, Damon Herriman, Ewen Leslie, Harry Greenwood, Baykali Ganambarr and Magnolia Maymuru.
IFC will release Kent’s next in theaters on August 2, 2019.
Emahlstadtfucking tom herman
It took well over a year, but Sonos is finally ready to offer native voice control on its speakers beyond Alexa. Sonos is rolling out a promised software update that enables Google Assistant control, whether it's directly through supporting speakers...
Emahlstadtshared because of the good doggos
Anyone else notice the guy raising up his hands inside the Bear's face on Marchand's shirt or am I seeing things? #NHLBruins #WBZ pic.twitter.com/XGgTOpJycJ— Joe Giza (@JoeGiza) May 15, 2019
At my funeral take the bouquet off my casket & throw it in the crowd to see who next— D. L. Betts®️ (@DrDionte_Betts) May 14, 2019
— Lemon Peppvr (@juiceboxboYzzz) May 11, 2019
i feel like i’m being very clear pic.twitter.com/ibUU9r5U8e— Mary Ellen (@alissacaliente) May 16, 2019
Straight comedy - look at Odorizzi 🤣 pic.twitter.com/CjCfAh5lsK— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) May 15, 2019
"Dad, you make the plans for your games, don't you?"— Jim Rossignol (@jimrossignol) May 15, 2019
"Sort of."
"Well, if you call your plan 'Extreme Plan' then everyone will think it is great."
*silently renames design doc*
"I thought I had lost you." -Me gently to the cleaning cloth I use on my glasses when I discovered it in the small pocket of a purse— Samantha Powell (@sdpowell1) May 15, 2019
Look man, I ain’t fallin’ for no banana in the tailpipe. (Note: I made a few more of these and put them in the store). #beverlyhillscop #80smovies pic.twitter.com/8f2i2Ihs4a— Death by Toys (@danpolydoris) May 15, 2019
Such an LA bus sign pic.twitter.com/cu4PDglGJc— Ron Lin (@ronlin) May 16, 2019
Teaching the kids to awoo pic.twitter.com/NaE4qLV16J— Good doggos (@DoggoDating) May 15, 2019
Emahlstadtor, y'know, you could play with actual legos and shit, but what the fuck do i know.
Microsoft wants you to see Minecraft everywhere you look: a virtual tree on your lawn, a life-sized castle sticking through your house and an elaborate cave system hidden beneath your local park. This is Minecraft Earth, a free-to-play version of one of the most popular games ever made, rebuilt around augmented reality for the iPhone and Android. Similar to Pokémon Go, which popularized AR gaming in a massive way, it relies on your smartphone as a window into a virtual world. But unlike that game, Minecraft Earth is completely committed to the notion of augmented reality. You're not just running into a random Pikachu on the sidewalk, you're building elaborate Minecraft creations that everyone else can see. The title says it all: It's a planet-wide Minecraft takeover.
Emahlstadtwat? bob stoops? air raid? dallas? xfl? wat?
Emahlstadtboson darts!!!
Somebody call Bill Murray, or failing that, Most Haunted – an unconfirmed sighting suggests that Ghostbusters: The Video Game has been resurrected and will be spreading its ectoplasm across the Xbox One.
A Taiwanese game rating site has listed a Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered, picked up by Resetera. It hasn’t been officially announced, but the name matches the well-liked 2009 adaptation in which Aykroyd, Ramis, Hudson, and Murray resumed their roles. In the years since, that game has disappeared from Steam, as licensed games sometimes do.
According to the listing, the developer attached to the project is Mad Dog Games – who did an admirable job of turning World War Z into a satisfying Left 4 Dead-alike earlier this year. Ghostbusters: The Video Game was a third-person shooter, so firmly within Mad Dog’s wheelhouse.
If all goes well, this could be the most successful Ghostbusters reboot since 2016. Yes, I’m a fan of Kate McKinnon’s offbeat energy. That movie had its own Ghostbusters game, but didn’t feature either the original troupe or the newer all-women crew.
The 2016 game also reviewed terribly – which is perhaps why it makes sense to reach further back to bring the series back from the dead.
The post Ghostbusters: The Video Game might be getting a remaster appeared first on VG247.
Emahlstadtremember when it was called skull and roses?
Quinns: For as long as SU&SD has been around, Skull has been our constant companion. Do we need something to play at 1am at a board game convention? It’s Skull. Do we need to improvise a game out of almost no components at all? It’s Skull. Do we need to show off to people how great this hobby is with a minimum of rules overhead? It’s Skull. Of course we had to do it for Cards...
Never been so indebted to a person as to @michaelwaldron for the time he showed us this dog v wolf chase scene from Benji pic.twitter.com/6V4LNDFdni— caitie delaney (@caitiedelaney) May 7, 2019
for the record, this is among the most flattering presumptions anyone's ever made about me pic.twitter.com/7Y1bTHaHLi— Margaret H. Willison (@MrsFridayNext) May 9, 2019
If you spend enough time debunking the 10,000-hour rule, you reach a real mastery of it— Seamus McKiernan (@chezseamus) May 9, 2019
discovered my umbrella has an auto close button in the worst way possible: with it folded around my head at a bus stop next to some teenagers— Chris Boyd 🇬🇧🇵🇭 (@paperghost) May 9, 2019
Someone pointed out that Simpsons characters' eyes are normally connected but a strip of flesh spontaneously appears between them when they wear sunglasses and now I can't stop thinking about it pic.twitter.com/P3B5Y5Kq2A— Zack Budryk (@BudrykZack) May 9, 2019
Write as if David Benioff and DB Weiss will get to finish your story if you don’t.— matt tobey (@mtobey) May 9, 2019
Pass this shop regularly on the bus and think it’s far more sinister than it should be pic.twitter.com/mayk9eRibc— Lindsay Dodgson (@linzasaur) May 10, 2019
Marwin Gonzalez collision with Niko Goodrum - both left the game, Gonzalez under his own power pic.twitter.com/vdznqy4qaF— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) May 11, 2019
Someone said Tradition is peer pressure from dead people and I can't stop thinking about it— arham 🍸 (@arhamshaikhh) May 9, 2019
The Entire 2019 Kentucky Derby & the time between 2 Greinke pitches to Albies, Overlayed. pic.twitter.com/vliOF8wn8A— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 11, 2019
Emahlstadtgoddamnit. now i wanna go to nyc.
I will do a proper New York post in the next week or two. I discovered a unique wrinkle to Big Apple brewing I didn’t anticipate, and it deserves a post of its own. In the meantime, here’s another batch of photos to tide you over. The Brew Enthusiast, Chris McClellan, took me to four breweries in his Brooklyn neighborhood, and they demonstrate an admirable range of styles and moods.
The king of hazies in New York is Brooklyn-based Other Half, located next to the picturesque Gowanus Expressway. (That’s a wry joke, but on the other side of the brewery is Carroll Gardens, which is famously picturesque.) Other Half makes beers with crazy names like Broccoli and Baked Ziti, and they are saturated in hops. Pictured below is Galaxy-hopped Space Dream, an “oat cream IPA.” That’s not an extant style, but it is a pretty good description.
While sipping our oat creams, we were offered an impromptu tour of the 15-barrel brewhouse, which revealed two fascinating details. First, Other Half uses a centrifuge, which blew my mind. In typical breweries, these expensive devices produce clarion, sparkling beers. Other Half uses it to spin out the heaviest particulates so what’s left over is a nice stable haze. Not the typical use, but it works. There was also an entire pallet of oats, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen.
Whatever your view of hazy IPAs and pastry beers, Other Half is a brewery focused on their craft and it takes beer as seriously as any Bavarian. I’m still goggling over the idea that a brewery known for opacity would deploy a centrifuge, but it shows how much attention and care they have. Those quick to dismiss hazy makers should take the tour I did and listen with open ears.
Gowanus Expressway
I got to meet a lot of people in the New York beer scene, and I started asking this question: “What’s the brewery I should see no one’s talking about?” (A great question, incidentally, if you want to get off the Untappd superhighway leading you to the same buzz breweries.) The answer was inevitably Folksbier, an unusual operation with just a half dozen beers pouring—and not a hazy to be found.
I would describe the beer as eclectic but connected by a thread of rusticity, whether it was an English style (a rye porter), Belgian (table beer), or German (sort of a thick Franconian lager). That thread is carried over into the presentation and space. The vibe at the tasting room is mellow and countrified—to the extent such a thing is possible in NYC—and the day we visited, Grateful Dead played softly on the stereo. There were two dogs in the place and one baby. It felt like a pub people settle into for a session.
Chris knows the owner of Svendale, which is right around the corner from Folksbier. Although I hadn’t mentioned it among the list I wanted to see (or heard of it), he suggested we stop in. Man, am I glad he did. It turned out to be one of the best breweries I visited, and they poured the best hoppy ale I had in New York (and I had many)—another oat ale, but this time a pale.
I can’t tell you too much about the brewery, which I understand is not located in the city. The postage stamp-sized tasting room is charming and intimate, the kind of place where you almost have to get in a discussion with other pubgoers. I found that very welcoming and I’d love to have Svendale down the street from me.
My final stop was Threes Brewing, another of the highly-regarded NYC breweries. In terms of beer, it reminds me a bit of Portland breweries, where a familiar troika are the focus—lagers, hoppy ales, and mixed-fermentation ales. Their flagship is Vliet, a pilsner, which some fans speak about in hushed terms of reverence.
The pub is in Gowanus, and I found myself walking through a quiet and deserted Brooklyn to get there. (The “city that never sleeps” is apparently not Brooklyn.) when I arrived, however, I found a rocking scene populated by a crowd who were all twenty years my junior.
Because it was my fourth stop, I didn’t get to explore the taplist deeply. (My tolerance isn’t particularly high.) Fortunately, one of my selections included Kicking and Screaming, a tweaked version of Vliet lagered in oak vats for six weeks. The inspiration comes from Pilsner Urquell, which once had miles of wooden lagering tanks beneath the brewery. It was extraordinary. Because it was my last beer of the night, I failed to take notes, so you’re just going to have to take my word on it—or better yet, go try one yourself.
Emahlstadtbarf
Nineteen years ago, AOL, then a dial-up email service, bought Time Warner, a giant multifaceted media corporation, for $162 billion—at the time the largest merger ever. It was the frothiest crest of the bubbling dot com boom. AOL’s stock valuation was hugely inflated on future expectations of growth, allowing a company with $5 billion in annual revenues to purchase one making $27 billion. In the thinking of the time, AOL was the company of the future and Time Warner, old media, was a walking brontosaurus enjoying its last few breaths before extinction. AOL brought its vaunted list of email subscribers to the table along with Compuserve, while poor Time Warner dragged dying properties like cable stations HBO, TNT, and TBS, Warner Music, and Sports Illustrated along for their encore. The future is hard to predict, but even people with very little media or investment savvy immediately thought this was a debacle.
Yesterday, Boston Beer announced it was merging with Dogfish Head. In an 800-word joint letter issued by brewery founders Jim Koch and Sam Calagione, they describe their thinking.
We are bringing together two of America’s pioneering and award-winning independent craft breweries–with the industry’s best collection of brewing talent and a dynamic portfolio of craft and beyond beer brands–to position our company for success in an ever-growing and ever-changing world of brewing.
Any company not looking at radical opportunities in a competitive industry will go the way of the typewriter. To be able to compete and continue to grow, we realized that we have to do things differently. Our merger is different.
We will grow faster and stronger together and be among the winners in the long-term with the strongest portfolio of high-end craft and beyond beer brands in the industry–a powerful combination of lagers, IPAs, sours, hard seltzer, spirits, and hard teas–and enhanced distribution strength, top-ranked sales capabilities, and two founders that remain at the helm.
I was standing with a glass of hazy IPA at the Other Half Brewery in Brooklyn when news of this first happened, and I couldn’t really process the information. Craft beer has seen a lot of consolidation, and these brewery collectives are becoming a standard model. But it’s one thing when Oskar Blues and Cigar City team up. They’re nearly a continent away, and have fairly congruent portfolios and approaches to making and selling beer. Or when Duvel starts putting together a group that include Ommegang, Boulevard, and Firestone Walker, three stellar breweries located at intervals across the country.
We’re thrilled to announce that we're joining forces with @dogfishbeer, bringing together 2 pioneering and passionate industry leaders in America. This partnership will create the most dynamic American-owned platform for craft beer & beyond! Learn more: https://t.co/7q36g81y7D. pic.twitter.com/KW7bekkoTZ
— Samuel Adams Beer (@SamuelAdamsBeer) May 9, 2019
Dogfish Head and Boston Beer, on the other hand, are both stalwarts of the Northeastern US and have very little in common either with regard to portfolios or approach. Sam Adams built a national brewery on a 35-year-old amber lager and augmented its declining sales with flavored malt beverage and cider divisions. You could describe such a brewery in many ways, but “off-centered [beer] for off-centered people” (Dogfish’s longtime slogan) would never fit the bill. Even when he founded the brewery, Jim Koch trumpeted his connection to family brewing, and a decades-old beer recipe. He was restoring tradition, not creating a brewing revolution. Dogfish Head, meanwhile, has embraced experimentation more than any other American brewery, making wild and sometimes outlandish beer decades before that became a feature of American brewing.
We have to put all the usual caveats here. I have no idea what the details of the deal are, nor does anyone know the future company’s strategic plan. I’m not familiar with distribution arrangements or how this merger will affect them. (Distribution is almost always a central factor in brewery mergers and acquisitions.) There’s always the possibility that the companies have been planning this for awhile and have a creative plan to integrate these very different breweries that will boost, rather than diminish, both. But the letter from Jim and Sam doesn’t hint at any such thinking. Rather, it seems like this was a deal created by two companies spooked by the direction of the industry. The deal hasn’t been in the works long—Koch said it mostly happened over the past six weeks. It seems fear- rather than opportunity-based.
Last year, as AT&T prepared to acquire Time Warner. AOL had been peeled off by 2009; it turned out Time Warner’s assets were far more well-positioned to address the future landscape than creaky old AOL. The author of the original merger, Steve Case, reflected on the 2000 deal.
AOL and Time Warner had issues with "culture" and too much "short-term orientation," he said, adding there were people in the combined company that were not as enthusiastic about its digital path.
"They tended to play defense, trying to protect what already existed as opposed to playing offense and try to create what the future would be," he said.
Personality and culture matters. Sam and Jim are longtime comrades in the battle against big beer, but their companies have radically different identities and approaches to beer. I can’t see how these gears will fit together. AOL and Time Warner were both media companies, but they were so different they never meshed. Boston Beer and Dogfish Head aren’t as different as those two, but the challenges will be the same. How will a legacy brewery with an old flagship, one increasingly focused on non-beer products, integrate with a company that has for two decades defined experimentation and reinvention for American beer? I guess we’re about to find out.
This woman threw together a Starfleet uniform that's practically on point, and her Christmas tree brooch ends up looking just like the infamous Starfleet combadge.
Emahlstadtlol oskar blues
Guns-n-Rose bands together sticky prickly pear and floral hibiscus with a subtle hop profile in this refreshing, crisp AF rose’ ale. Available on draft, in select markets now, and we’ll be droppin cans in February. Check below to find it near you.https://t.co/8N7ATICd9K pic.twitter.com/QJWmBbiv53
— Oskar Blues Brewery (@oskarblues) November 8, 2018
If you’re ready to make the switch to a projector-based home theater, or if you recently picked up a portable projector, you can make your picture look its best with this 100" projector screen.
Emahlstadtholy shit. did you guys know that there are like 36 fucking godzilla movies, and one of them is titled "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack?"
because i did not.
With Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters set to bring an epic Kaiju spectacle to the big screen on May 31st, we’re just going to go ahead and refer to May 2019 as “Godzilla Month,” and we intend on not only revisiting some of the Big G’s finest outings but we’ve also got some fun content planned that’ll help get you in the mood for the King’s return.
Speaking of which, *most* of the many, many films featuring Godzilla are currently streaming across various outlets, ranging from Toho’s original classic from 1954 straight through their epic Shin Godzilla from 2016 and right into the animated trilogy that’s exclusively available here in the States through Netflix. What can be found and where can you find it, you ask?
We’ve done some digging and we’ve put together a complete film-by-film breakdown of where you can currently stream all the Godzilla films that are, well, currently available to stream, and we’ve deduced that anyone who’s looking to dig deep into the world of Godzilla will probably want to A) Sign up for the Criterion Channel and B) Sign up for Starz through Amazon.
Between Starz, Amazon, Criterion and Netflix, here’s what you can watch…
