Luca Guadagnino’s follow-up to 2022’s ‘Bones and All’ may not be his most groundbreaking film, but it certainly is his most entertaining. For me, if ‘Dune: Part II’ didn’t come out in March, ‘Challengers’ would easily be my favorite film of 2024 so far.

With it’s impeccable cast, fast-paced storytelling, and INSANE score it’s damn-near impossible to have a good time watching ‘Challengers’. Some of the technical choices left me a bit puzzled, and the ending is a bit of a mystery, but I can’t wait to see it again.

Check out the video above for a more-depth (and SPOILER-FREE) review!

VERDICT

4.5/5 Swedish Fish

So what do you think? Be sure to holler at us on Twitter (@korkedbats) and Instagram (@korkedbats)

Also, be sure to follow Korked Bats on YouTube.

The post 3 Big Things on ‘Challengers’ – A SPOILER-FREE Video Review appeared first on Korked Bats.

Guess who’s back… back again? Korked Bats Instagram is back, go ahead and tell all your friends (that doesn’t rhyme, forgive me). Like Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side, we have risen from the depths of Instagram Jail.

The proverbial chains have been broken and WE.. ARE.. BACK! AND BETTER THAN EVER! Some might say back with a vengeance. Some might say back like Tiger. Some might say back like Texas. Some might say back like Mike. Some might say back like Ryan Tannehill. Some might say back like Gronk. You get my point.

WE. ARE. BACK!

And you know what? We would not have been able to do it with YOU, the KB Army. With your help using the #FREEKORKEDBATS, we were able to unchain our account. A huge THANK YOU is in oder to the KB Army because without you, well, we would be nowhere. In fact, we are expecting a personal, handwritten, and strongly worded apology from Mr. Mark “the Zuck” Zuckerberg himself sometime next week. We will definitely be following up with that. Like I said in our cry for help, it was a simple misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, we did not get the account back before the first game of the 2020 NFL season. It sucks, but life’s tough, we’ll get a helmet.

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Here’s the full backstory, if you missed it:

The post NFL Isn’t The Only Thing Back Tonight, So Is Our Instagram Account (@korkedbats)!!!!!! appeared first on Korked Bats.

Imagine seeing this message on your Instagram the Monday after a three-day weekend:

Then imagine seeing this message as a sports blog that relies on social media to share our top-notch content (and yes, top notch content is the douchiest of phrases) just days away from the first NFL game of a pandemic-stricken year.

Hell yes WE THINK YOU MADE A MISTAKE, Instagram! Did we just get zucked by Mark Zuckerberg? This is CODE RED.

A joke gone wrong. A simple misunderstanding. These are the things that come to mind when we think about what went wrong.

Over the weekend, Novak Djokovic absolutely nailed a line judge in the throat with a ball. I mean absolutely pelted her. It could have potentially crushed her wind pipe. Hopefully you read Gator’s blog on it. Luckily for her and Djokovic, she was okay. Seems like the perfect opportunity for a joke, no? Unfortunately, little did we know it would cause us an insufferable amount of pain and anguish. Perhaps not as much as the poor line judge BUT it’s gotta be up there.

We think it’s a complete possibility that the entire country of Serbia waged war on our Instagram post, sticking up for their King Djokovic. There were a number of comments on the post (before it was deleted) that said things like “he clearly didn’t mean to do that” and “get a life loser” and “you Americans always love to try and bring Djokovic down.” No more than 24 hours later and we received the virtual jail sentence. We are locked up harder than Akon in the early 2000’s. They won’t let us out.

WE NEED YOU! We need the KB Army to help spread the word and #FreeKorkedBats on Instagram. We have already received a tremendous amount of support but we need our community to pull together to help FREE us.

Anyway, follow Korked Bats on Instagram and help us out if you don’t mind. The account isn’t suspended, just locked. And this lock of our account couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The NFL starts Thursday and we had a lot of top-notch content (DOUCHEY PHRASE ALERT!) planned for this week.

#FREEKORKEDBATS

The post Our Instagram Account (@korkedbats) Has Been Locked By Serbian Tennis Fans (We Think.) appeared first on Korked Bats.

Welp, that something extraordinary happened today.

In the first set of his match against the Spaniard Pavlo Carreno-Busta, he lost a tough game to go down 6-5 in the first set. In his frustration, he took a ball out of his pocket and smacked it. Unfortunately for Djokovic (who wasn’t looking and had no malicious intent), the ball flew and struck a line judge right in the throat.

It didn’t seem as though he hit it as hard as he could, but the ball struck the line judge (who just so happened to be a middle-aged women) in a horrible position that left her incapacitated on her side on the court. The line judge had to be carried out, and Djokovic, who had already been warned earlier in the set for bad behavior, was disqualified from the tournament as the ref ruled that he had to be defaulted.

Uh, yeah. I’d say nearly slicing a judge’s throat is grounds for disqualification.

To be honest, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen players default, but only due to injuries, or refusal to play. For the top player in the world to be disqualified after a freak accident where he almost decapitates a referee in a frickin major is unheard of. It’s like if Patrick Mahomes was ejected from a Super Bowl after an incomplete pass hit a ref or knocked him out.

Obviously, our sympathy goes out to the line judge, and I hope she’s able to make a full and speedy recovery from the incident, but she has now become a part of tennis lore. And once she does make a full recovery, we’ll be able to laugh at this video and how Djoker got her right in the neck. For now, this will go down as the U.S. Open where Nadal and Federer sat out and Djokovic got dq’ed for almost killing a line judge. Truly crazy stuff.

The post Djokovic Was DQ’d From The US Open After Nearly Lodging A Tennis Ball In A Line Judge’s Throat appeared first on Korked Bats.

TENNIS ALERT! The U.S Open starts this Monday, and it’s the first major to be played since COVID-19 shut down the world and cancelled Wimbledon. It’s an exciting time for tennis fans, but there is one caveat. Rodger Federer and Rafael Nadal will be sitting out of the tournament.

Even the casual tennis watcher knows that in tennis, there is Novak Djokovic, Rodger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and then everyone else. And by everyone else, I mean no one else. How dominant have those three been? Over the last 16 years, the 3 have combined to win 53 of the last 62 major tournaments. The dominance of the three is one of the greatest stories of all time in sports. To be at the top of their games for that long is insane.

That begs the question, should we count it as a win for Djokovic when he takes home the U.S. Open crown in a couple weeks without having to face Federer or Nadal? It’ll be like TENET winning an Oscar in 2020. Yeah, it’ll be cool. But there aren’t any other movies for it to compete with. Now sure, it’s a long tournament and anything can happen, but barring injury, Djokovic will win. That is a thing you can take that to the bank.

How can I be so sure? Well, he just won another tournament today, and he is 23-0 in 2020. The man is a tennis machine. It’s really Djokovic v. everyone else in this major, and it may not be close. In a sport that commonly rewards youth, the “next generation” of tennis has had to wait in the wings while the three play into their late 30’s defying the odds and father time.

Sure, I’ll watch every match possible because I’m a sports junky, but it’ll definitely feel different without Fed and Nadal. Hopefully, I’m wrong and Djokovic is stunned by a young gun, but it will definitely feel hollow when he raises the trophy this time around without his longtime rivals.

The post Does The U.S. Open Even Count Without Federer and Nadal? appeared first on Korked Bats.