CineDrunk: Best of 2019 - Top Ten Lists

Remember 2019? We don’t either.

Luckily we do remember a few of the movies we saw, enough to create personal top ten lists, one from each of your CineDrunk hosts. We’ve got Popes, portraits, and parasites, and we even found a few of those elusive Lady Directors!

These are the 2019 movies that stuck with us, the movies that helped us understand ourselves and our world, or just let us escape for a few hours, or reminded us of beauty we’d forgotten.

Cheers to 2019. Cheers to art. Cheers to voting the national tumor out of office in 2020. Onward!

The Pear Sipper

2 oz vodka
2 oz pear nectar
1 generous splash seltzer

Combine ingredients with ice in your favorite glass and stir. Find a rocking chair, a favorite podcast (see below), and a cat. Sit and sip with joy.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.

CineDrunk: Best of 2018 - Top Ten Lists

Who among us has a weakness for bears and marmalade? Who is far from the Shallow now? How many horse movies can we abide? You’ll never know if you don’t listen to our most anticipated podcast of the year! Mix yourself a Dumpster Fire cocktail (the official drink of 2018 because it’s all the year deserves and all we can afford) and join us as we reveal the movies that moved us in 2018.

There will be drama, there will be drunkenness, and by god there will be dancing. Cheers!

Dumpster Fire Cocktails

2 oz cheap vodka
3 oz cheap fruit juice
1 generous splash seltzer or club soda

Combine ingredients with ice in whatever glass you have that’s moderately clean. Stir and serve.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.

CineDrunk 20 Years Later: Practical Magic

We’re back with another entry in our new podcast series 20 Years Later, in which we gab and gulp about our favorite films of two decades ago. For this round, each of our podcast hosts chose a movie from 1998—not necessarily their favorite movie or the best movie of that year, but one that spoke to them at the time and has lingered in their memory, for better or worse.

Next up is Elizabeth’s choice for 1998: the positively bewitching actress-showcase-of-a-romance-movie Practical Magic, starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Dianne Wiest, and Stockard Channing. Under-appreciated by critics in its time, Practical Magic has loads to say about love, loss, and sisterhood—with iconic food moments to boot.

Naturally, we made a family-sized pitcher of Midnight Margaritas to stir up the conversation. (Recipe below.) Cheers, and happy listening!

Midnight Margaritas
adapted from Serious Eats

2 cups blanco tequila
1 cup triple sec
¾ cup fresh lime juice
1 lime wedge, for glass rims
1 small handful Kosher or other coarse salt, for glass rims

Prepare glass(es) of your choice by running the lime wedge along each rim and dipping in Kosher salt.

Add tequila, triple sec, and lime juice to a pitcher with ice and stir. Remove ice and chill. Pour over ice in salt-rimmed glasses.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.

CineDrunk 20 Years Later: Deep Impact

Here at CineDrunk we spend a lot of time looking to the past. We find answers in the movies that shaped our youth and comfort in their familiarity. Sometimes when we look back we don’t see what we saw before, and sometimes we do, but most times we do want to record a podcast about it.

Here then, is the inaugural entry in a new podcast series called 20 Years Later, in which we gab and gulp about our favorite films of two decades ago. For this round, each of our podcast hosts chose a movie from 1998—not necessarily their favorite movie or the best movie of that year, but one that spoke to them at the time and has lingered in their memory, for better or worse.

First up is Nathan’s choice from 1998: the Mimi Leder-directed disaster movie Deep Impact, starring the dreamy Elijah Wood and the serious career woman with family issues Téa Leoni. Overshadowed at the time by the flashier and far inferior Armageddon, which was released just a month later in June 1998, Deep Impact serves up destruction with a side of Ensure (by the pallet-ful, to feed the country after the comet hits), and with an attention to character uncommon to the genre.

Enough gabbing though, let’s get to the gulping. We chose a tea-infused tequila cocktail in honor of Téa and her stiff drink-guzzling mother, played by Vanessa Redgrave.

Cheers and happy listening!

Téa’s Sweet Revenge
adapted from Serious Eats

Photo by Autumn Giles

For the chamomile honey syrup:
4 Tablespoons loose chamomile tea
1 cup raw honey
1 cup water

For each cocktail:
Kosher salt
1 oz lime juice
1¾ oz tequila (silver is best here)
1½ oz chamomile honey syrup

For the chamomile honey syrup: Add water and honey in a small saucepan over high heat. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add chamomile tea. Steep for 30 minutes, then strain the liquid to remove the tea and refrigerate to cool.

For each cocktail: Place the salt on a small, shallow plate. Moisten the rim of your glass of choice with lime juice, then dip the rim into the salt and set aside.

Combine lime juice, tequila, and chamomile honey syrup in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously until well chilled, about 15 seconds. Strain into the salt-rimmed glass and serve.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.

CineDrunk: Best of 2018's First Half

We pressed pause on 2018 to take stock, praise the praiseworthy, and relegate the rest to the dustbin of history. Pour yourself the Drink of the Summer (an Aperol Spritz) and press play to listen in. Also find out if tired movie formulas can find success simply by casting (gasp) humans other than straight white men! (Spoiler: they can. OH THEY CAN.)

Aperol Spritz

3 parts sparkling wine
2 parts Aperol
1 part club soda

Pour over ice and serve. Stirring optional because it's summer.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.

CineDrunk: Best of 2017 - Top Ten Lists

While we're happy to have 2017 behind us, we did find some comfort and joy in movie theaters throughout the year. We managed to take in more than 100 films from 2017, so it's high time to rank and debate the best of them. Have a listen to the latest CineDrunk below to find out which movies made our personal top ten lists, and mix yourself up an accompanying cocktail!

The Bittersweet Ruin

2 oz gin
1 oz pear nectar
0.75 oz Amaro Montenegro

Combine gin, Amaro, and pear nectar in cocktail shaker and stir. Serve in rocks glass with ice.

Also listen and subscribe to CineDrunk on Apple Podcasts.