The Video Round Up: December 19th 2015

By Austin Parker December 19, 2015

Video Round Up DEC 19th 2015 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Video Round Up is a new series highlighting videos and multimedia content that caught our eyes. Getting stoked on travel, good food, and extreme sports is best when shared with friends, so we’ll be posting a bi-weekly series on our favorite videos we find from every corner of the web. Have a tip or some awesome footage? Shoot an email to support@themanual.com

Distiller’s List Holiday Spirit Guide

Distiller's List Boozeletter | Happy Holidays | December 2015

Giving the gift of a bottle of good scotch or tequila will never go out of style. If you’ve left it to the very last minute, the pros at Distiller’s List put together a handy guide with picks for everyone in the family. In case you were wondering, we’d love to find that Don Julio 1942 under the tree this year.

Star Wars A Capella

Jimmy Fallon, The Roots & "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Cast Sing "Star Wars" Medley (A Cappella)

Star Wars mania has a firm grip across the country this weekend. We’ll keep things spoiler free if you haven’t seen it yet. If you need a little extra dose of things from a galaxy far far away, Jimmy Fallon put together a star studded a capella arrangement of the original music. Enjoy.

Giro’s Engrained:Verbier Part 1

Engrained: VERBIER, Part 1

The Alps are steeped in ski heritage. Verbier, Switzerland, a tiny ski town in the heart of the range, represents the best of those European roots, but also plays host to some of the best extreme skiing in the world. As a stop on the Freeride World Tour, Verbier is the competition that every skier wants to win. This first part of Giro’s Engrained follows their athletes as they prepare for steep free ride competition. We can’t wait to see the rest of the series.

Scott Sports/Team Lac Blanc Blowing Up Corners

Blowing Up Corners with Team Lac Blanc SCOTT

This is some of the best mountain biking film we’ve ever seen. Scott Sports recently launched their Genius LT with the new “Plus Size” tires (typically 3 inches wide rather than the standard 2.3). French riders Pierre Charles Georges and Amaury Pierron know how to use these more grippy tires to great effect while they charge down pristine, loamy trails.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Austin Parker is a former contributor at The Manual Parker is a powder skier and sport climber and is no stranger hauling…

Culture

How long should you let new cigars rest in a humidor?

Cigar humidor

Looking at those beautiful, oily cigars you've just unboxed or unwrapped, the calling to light up is real. I get it. I always want to smoke my cigars right away, too. But you shouldn't. Mail day is always exciting after you've ordered a slew of new cigars. When they arrive, the real fun begins. You'll probably need to organize your humidor to make the new sticks fit or arrange them for optimal humidification. As you're handling them, it's difficult to resist the temptation to crack open the cellophane or boxes and smoke one right away. While you can do that in most cases, I would recommend against it. Depending on where those cigars came from, where you live, and how they traveled, they might need a little time to rest in a humidor. They'll need to replenish some humidity and moisture or dry out a little.
How long should you let your new cigars rest?

When you put cigars in a humidor, especially one that's filled, they'll soak up and release humidity over time until they reach the average RH (relative humidity) that you have set inside your humidor. If you have a device like a that does this automatically, it will produce moisture and humidity to keep the levels optimal. You can also achieve the same thing with in smaller humidors, which release and soak up the humidity to match the levels on the label. Boveda packs come in a range of RH levels, from the low to mid-60s to the mid-70s.

Culture

The 11 best Kevin Costner movies, ranked

He has a full resume of films, but if you're a Costner fan, then you must see these movies

Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves

An all-American, blue-collar working man turned Hollywood essential, Kevin Costner has lived a life full of experience and dreams that some can only imagine. Starting out as a small kid -- 5'2" at high school graduation -- who moved around a lot, Costner was fond of things like poetry, writing, and singing in his Baptist choir. Outside of the arts, he was also very interested in sports of all kinds, which is reflected in his film career to this day. Also a man of the outdoors, Costner built his own canoe at 18 and paddled it through sections where Lewis and Clark ventured. Fun facts aside, Costner had a full and interesting life before the world got to know him as the charming and eloquent movie man we know him to be today.
From his past life, accomplishments, and hobbies, Costner was fully prepared to write, direct, and act for the screen as he fulfilled yet another lifelong dream. A man who was once called "The King of the Sports Movie," Costner has been able to act in films of a subject matter near and dear to his heart that became the films he is best known for. And that doesn’t include his many other successful movies having to do with politics, crime, and romance that also make for some of his best roles. Luckily, we’re here to talk about all of those films at once as we celebrate the man who has accomplished more in one lifetime than some could in many. Here are the best Kevin Costner movies of all time.

11. Open Range (2003)

Culture

The best Quentin Tarantino movies, ranked – Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and more

If you haven't seen these films at least one time, you need to ... and then watch them again and again

Scene from Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson

Of all the contemporary film auteurs, perhaps no one’s work has permeated pop culture as thoroughly as Quentin Tarantino's. This director’s hyper-stylized, retro fantasy worlds have come to define cinematic coolness. His clever mashups of genres, exquisite sense of aesthetics, impeccable editing, uproarious suspensefulness, and impossibly quippy dialogue have been endlessly imitated.
Given the current political landscape, Tarantino’s work has undergone a serious critical re-evaluation from Black and feminist critics and scholars who point toward both his allegedly abusive behaviors and the offensive politics and rhetoric of his films. It’s true that in this new light, for many, there may be nothing redeemable about his entire oeuvre.
However, to discard all Quentin Tarantino movies would discount the impossible talent of his frequent collaborators and stars, such as Sally Menke (who edited all of Tarantino’s movies until her death in 2010), Uma Thurman (who not only played the protagonist of Tarantino’s most iconic movies but was also credited as a co-writer on Kill Bill), Samuel L. Jackson (a frequent Tarantino star), and many more.
With that in mind, here’s our (subjective!) ranking of the greatest directed Quentin Tarantino movies of all time.

9. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)