CineDrunk: Best of 2016 - Top Ten Lists

Priorities. Choices. Top Tens. We'll follow Viola's lead and just get to it.

Click below for the auditory feast, or listen and subscribe to CineDrunk via iTunes.

CineDrunk: Emmys & the Best of Television 2016

With TV's glitterati set to honor themselves at the Emmy Awards this coming Sunday, we recently gathered the CineDrunk crew for another (indulgent) TeleDrunk extravaganza/eleganza. 

In an (unsuccessful) effort to avoid inane predictions and meandering discussion, we each crafted a trio of top five lists: our favorite nominations, our favorite performances, and our favorite shows from the 2015-2016 TV season.

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Credit: Bee Raw

Our drink of choice this time 'round comes from the master mixologists at Bee Raw (a company to which we have no affiliation, we swear). Their guide to honey cocktails has made us regulars at the liquor store and given us a new favorite for everyday drinking: the Bee's Knees.

With ingredients this simple, we recommend buying the best quality you can afford. (At the very least squeeze your lemons fresh.) Your tastebuds will... buzz with approval.

Bee's Knees
recipe from Bee Raw

4 parts London Dry Gin
1½ parts lemon juice
1½ parts Bee Raw Honey simple syrup

1. Combine gin, lemon juice and honey simple syrup in a cocktail
mixing glass.
2. Fill halfway with ice and stir until well chilled, about 30
seconds.
3. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
4. Garnish with lemon twist.
5. Get your buzz on.

The Creative Arts Emmys were held over the weekend (where Nathan's fifth favorite AND most favorite nomination from this year became a winner), while the main event airs this Sunday, September 18 on ABC. Matt's final predictions to come!

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CineDrunk: Best & Worst of 2016 So Far

The year is half over, which is as good an excuse as any to dust off our ball gowns, fill the champagne flutes and hand out some awards. Oh, first-six-months-of-2016, we barely knew ye.

In the podcast that follows we recount our favorite and least favorite films we've seen so far, and we cook up some new superlatives like Most WTF Moment, Best Ass, and the Goofy Granny Award. (Hint: the winner is one of America's bushiest.) Listen in as we crown the jewels of Winter/Spring with our favorite libations in hand.

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CineDrunk: Best of 2015 - Top Ten Lists

It's that time of year! We've seen more than one hundred 2015 movies, so it's high time we rank them--unmercifully.

Just kidding, we're as giddy as BB-8 to talk about this impressive crop of films. And we do just that in our latest CineDrunk podcast. Without further ado, our long-awaited top ten episode in which we are drunk on movies, lists, and celery martinis. Cheers!

Celery Martini
(adapted from Saveur)

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2 oz London Dry Gin
1.5 oz lemon juice
1.5 oz dry vermouth
celery salt
lime wedge
celery hearts

Rim a martini glass with lime wedge and celery salt. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice and add gin, lemon juice, and vermouth. Shake vigorously and strain into rimmed glass. Garnish with a celery heart.
 

Watch the blog in the coming days for our full write-ups on the films that were most special to us in 2015. Want more? You can't possibly, but there's more anyway! Below is a short (we promise!) bonus podcast where we discuss even more films we loved from last year, though not quite enough to make any of our lists. Spiked hot chocolate is involved.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk via iTunes.

CineDrunk: Favorite Films of 2000

Remember the New Year that fueled our fears of end-of-the-world-caused-by-computer-glitch destruction? The New Year that outsmarted all the math machines on Earth because... math?

Those were innocent times.

Sixteen years later, we're taking a look back at Y2K. We're not quite ready to unveil our list of the best films and performances for the current year (though we're well on our way, with 80 films under our belt).

(Our first thought was to continue with our 2005 retrospective, until we decided we weren't the biggest fans of the films of 2005.)

So instead, we're rolling out our 15th-anniversary celebration of the films of 2000! The first year of this century brought us some great cinema, both popular and indie alike, and we had drunken fun trying to recall our memories from that crop of films.

Y2K Cocktail

• 2 oz cold espresso (we used super-concentrated Vietnamese coffee)
• 1/2 oz Cognac
• 1/2 oz Grand Marnier
• 1/2 oz simple syrup

Stir, strain, and garnish with a twist of orange peel.

SPOILER: Nathan's source for trivia question #3.

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CineDrunk: Best & Worst of Summer 2015

Labor Day has come and gone, so it's time to cleanse your wardrobe of white and say goodbye to the summer movie season. Before we part, though, let's take one last look at the past four months, CineDrunk Podcast-style.

Last winter we introduced the CineMunchies--our awards for cinematic excellence (just one step down from the Oscars). Now we present the CineMunchies' stunted stepchild: the CineSnacks. Join us for an approximation of coherence as we award our favorites of the summer in categories such as Best Actress, Best Food or Drink Moment, and Favorite Scene.

On the Drunk side of things, we continue to lower our standards. This time: rum punch and Jell-O shots. Hello, Jell-O; goodbye, dignity.

Photo by Simply Fresh Cooking

Jell-O Shots
Turns out there are as many Jell-O shot recipes as there are food blogs. Our go-to (read: the first one we found that sounded marginally well-informed) is Method 1 of 7 from wikiHow. You will need:

• 1 6oz package Jell-O
• Approximately 3 cups water
• Approximately 1 cup chilled alcohol of your choice (we used rum with mango Jell-O)

Visit wikiHow for the full recipe. Create gelatin magic. Slurp, swallow, repeat.

By some twist of fate/rum-filled bite of gelatin, we each had the same favorite, runner-up, AND worst film of the summer. Listen in to find out which!

Missed our first summer 2015 movie recaps? Have a listen to part one and part two. Or travel back in time to listen to what we thought of the summer of 2014.

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CineDrunk: Favorite Animated Film Showdown Part 1

Disney/Pixar's latest, Inside Out, got us thinking about our favorite animated films, and what better way to proclaim our love than with another movie showdown! And alcoholic drinks and animated features go together like broken glass in potato soup, so cheers to our 21st episode of CineDrunk!

With so many films to choose from, we split the competition into four groupings: Pixar, Classic Disney (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 through Oliver & Company in 1988), the Disney Renaissance (The Little Mermaid in 1989 to present), and the broad and expansive Non-Disney Animated Films category.

Part One of our podcast showdown features the Pixar and Classic Disney match-ups. Over drinks, naturally.

The Owl's Brew Classic with Gin

2 oz Owls Brew: The Classic
1 oz gin
1 spritzy squeeze of lime

Combine ingredients over ice. Stir and serve.

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Credit: Owl's Brew

Working from a master list of all Pixar feature films and all Disney Animated Classics from 1937-1988, we each ranked our personal top eight and then blindly compiled the results to determine a collective top eight in each category. Follow along with an Owl's Brew Classic with Gin, and stay tuned for Part Two to see which film emerged victorious as our Favorite Animated Film EVER!

PIXAR

Finding Nemo
The Incredibles
Monsters, Inc.
Ratatouille
Toy Story
Toy Story 3
Up
WALL-E

CLASSIC DISNEY

The Aristocats
Bambi
Fantasia
The Great Mouse Detective
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Sleeping Beauty
The Sword in the Stone

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