A mini episode in which Leigh, Brendan, and Chris start out discussing original fantasy movies, then muse about why there are so few good original fantasy movies, then play an impromptu and unplanned game of Kevin Degrees of Seven Bacon (an invented game based on something Leigh has dealt with from her parents where you have to determine what movie someone is trying to remember based only on the vague information they can muster up). We really cover a lot of ground here! Naturally we also introduce our next movie and accompanying cocktail, and boy is it… esoteric!
113 – A Haunting in Venice
October is back and so is our annual Halloween Spooktacular! We’ve previously dealt with a murder AND a death, so it only makes sense that a haunting should follow suit- and this haunting is in VENICE, baby! Kenneth Branagh returns as his version of Hercule Poirot as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return with the third (and presumably final based on the box office) film in his Agatha Christie adaptations, 2023’s A Haunting in Venice. Lock yourself in your sinking palazzo and listen close as we discuss the truly bizarre source material, Kenny B’s bag of directorial gimmickry, and the advantages of adapting a Christie mystery (Christery?) that no one knows or cares about. Naturally there’s also a fittingly autumnal cocktail full of honey and apples because this movie is all about honey and apples (and vengeful Italian ghost babies).
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112.5 – Reliable Rewatches (or: The Twin Demons of Capitalism and Nostalgia)
As we slowly crawl to the end of another excruciating year, the Hallo-Thanks-Mas holiday corridor creeps up along with it. As is often the case with these periods, we sometimes fall back on tried-and-true movies to rewatch (or music to listen, or games to play, or whatever, do what works for you). Leigh, Brendan, and Chris have a short chat about these old standbys and what they get from returning to them and how the hell they ended up being seasonal media in the first place. No, the whole “Lord of the Rings are Christmas movies” really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but we try to address it anyway. One thing that DOES make sense is our impending annual Halloween Spooktacular episode, which we briefly introduce here along with a cocktail recipe that suitably makes use of honey and apples. There’s… a lot of honey and apples coming next episode.
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112 – Love’s Labour’s Lost
Rita Mae Brown’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. On an unrelated note, in this episode Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to the filmography of Kenneth Branagh just to see how we feel about perhaps his most unusual and unique movie, his 2000 Shakespeare adaptation Love’s Labour’s Lost. Yes, that’s right, that little-performed play that Branagh chopped down to about 80 minutes, reset in pre-World War II Europe, and then added musical numbers from the Great American Songbook. Can such a weirdly specific take work? Is this even a play that can justify having this much done to it in the first place? Does it matter if Kenneth Branagh doesn’t really get how to make a 1930s movie musical or indeed how to make song and dance look interesting? Listen in, won’t you, as we spend a lot of time trying to make sense of all this while enjoying a sparkling cocktail (but sadly no cocaine).
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111.5 – Maladapted from a Video Game
Remember a few weeks ago when the Borderlands movie came out and no one liked it and it flopped and we all agreed that there was no reason to talk about it ever again? Well, we’re talking about it briefly. Or to be more specific, we’re talking broadly about movies adapted from video games, a much-maligned niche that has only rarely ever resulted in a movie that can actually function on some level. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris muse about the innate difficulties of trying to adapt a video game in the first place, the problems that seem to affect most movie versions, and if there have ever been any successful ones in the first place (there’s a few!). Join us again in two weeks when we cover some wildly different territory with a setting-shifted jukebox musical adaptation of a lesser Shakespeare play directed by someone whom we’ve talked about, uh, quite a bit. Hey nonny nonny!
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111 – Van Helsing
Our Summer of Failed Franchises (mercifully?) comes to an end with perhaps the most flagrant franchise bait yet, Stephen Sommer’s 2004 monster mash up Van Helsing. That’s right, at long last you can be chilled by terrifying imagery such as Dracula cosplaying as Gerard Way, Hugh Jackman with nightmarishly bad extensions, and a Frankenstein’s monster with a plasma globe jammed into his chest. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris try to make sense of these choices, along with topics such as “what the hell is going on with this world building?” and “why do werewolves keeps regenerating tattered modesty pants upon transforming back into humans?” Fittingly, we also enjoy a light summer cocktail as red and bitter as Dracula’s heart. (AHHHHHH if only he had one!)
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110.5 – Trailer Trash Talk
Obviously we’ve got some general movie spoilers to contend with in this episode, so be forewarned! Stemming from a brief digression in our last episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris kick around some thoughts on the state of modern movie trailers. How much information is too much information to reveal? What should a movie trailer ideally cover? How are modern tastes and viewing methods affecting how trailers are made? We’re casually dipping into all this and a whole lot of additional stream of consciousness chatter (plus a drink recipe for our final Summer of Failed Franchises episode coming up next)!
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110 – Artemis Fowl
Our summer miniseries of Failed Franchises continues unabated with a look at an adaptation of a pretty popular children’s book that stagnated for years in development hell, had a wildly troubled production period, was unceremoniously dumped on a streaming service because of a plague, and was then taken off again in exchange for a tax write-off. Almost assuredly, you will not remember that this all describes Kenneth Branagh’s 2020 damp squib, Artemis Fowl! Journey to Ireland (well, mostly just a house) with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the manic attempts to alter this movie in post-production, the vague half-baked world building, and the nightmarish image of Josh Gad unhinging his jaw while devouring dirt and forcefully expelling it from his anus. By necessity, there’s obviously a cocktail involved here too since there’s no way we could sit through this whole drab ordeal while sober.
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109.5 – Problematic Faves
Whether it’s a husky-voiced puppet master creeping on his unrequited love’s daughter or a charming ’60s romantic comedy that also happens to periodically feature a ghoulish yellow-face caricature of a Japanese man, we’ve all got faves that simultaneously have some deep-seated issues. Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss some of our own, be they characters with their own gross issues or movies that have aspects which have aged like a fine milk. Also, our summer of Failed Franchises continues unabated with our next episode, a long-gestating adaptation of a middle schooler book that surely seemed like a safe bet at one point, and the accompanying drink that will make the whole ordeal go down (mildly) easier.
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109 – Lost in Space
It’s humid and hot and wildly unpleasant to be outdoors, meaning that summer is thusly upon us and more importantly, that we’re starting yet another mini-series for the summer months. Our theme this year is Failed Franchises, where we focus on movies that were supposed to launch a wildly successful franchise but then just sort of embarrassingly fizzled out. Journey with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris through space and time back to the 1990s, a period where movie studios were actively courting nostalgic baby boomers by translating the TV shows of their youth to the big screen (with wildly inconsistent results), as we discuss 1998’s Lost in Space. Despite being the movie to finally knock Titanic out of the number one spot at the box office, there’s not much that works in this dull and bloated sci-fi adventure (and we’re not just talking about Blawp here, there’s way worse stuff at play). Is there a way to turn this overly-expensive piece of nostalgic excess into a better movie? Well, we think so! Listen in as we cover all of the above and more (along with a quasi-sangria cocktail to keep us all from turning into puddles of sweat).
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108.5 – New Media Resolutions (in Media Res)
Remember how back in January we made some resolutions for the new year involving media (movies, books, video games, television) of some kind? Well, we did. Go back and check if you doubt us, you Doubting Thomas, you. Anyways, we’re now halfway through 2024 so we figured we’d check in and see how all those empty promises were going. In addition, we’re doing yet another miniseries / theme for the summer, so listen up to hear more about that and how drunk we’ll need to be to watch our next movie.
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108 – Wish
What better way to celebrate 100 years of existence as an entertainment corporate entity than by making a film so crammed full of back-patting references to your own history that you forget to actually make a compelling movie? According to The Walt Disney Company, there is apparently no better way. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they watch the 2023 animated movie Wish, a wild misfire of a feature that doesn’t include logic, memorable characters, or good music, but hey, at least there’s seven characters who remind us of the dwarfs, right? We try to break down exactly went awry here, covering topics such as “What the hell is the logic behind wishes in this world?” and “Really, what is anyone’s actual personality?” and “Why did the animated aesthetic break so many brains?” And we actually come up with some (truly, only some) answers here! Also we drink a cool fruity cocktail that’s a perfect drink for the prelude to summer, so hey, it wasn’t all a loss!
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107.5 – Fall into the Age Gap
It’s been a week or so since The Idea of You has premiered on Prime, and the world has not been the same since (or maybe it has, we do this stuff in advance). But since only one of our hosts has seen it, we didn’t want to spend a whole episode talking about that. Instead, we’re talking about the something related to it- the concept of age gaps in relationships in media. What do we think about them? Do they feel gross? Are they actually fine? Are they, like so many other subjects, something that can done both well and horribly? (Spoiler alert: yes.) Listen up as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go into all of this nonsense and briefly mention our next episode’s movie topic, one you’re probably going to wish was a lot better than it ended up being.
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107 – The Portable Door
At long last, a movie that seeks to answer the age-old question, “what if doors were towels?” Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we go down under to knock on 2023’s comic fantasy The Portable Door, an Australian adaptation of the first book in a long-running British series about what if magicians used their magical powers for mundane purposes / profit (we guess???). On the bright side, it offers Christoph Waltz and Sam Neill going full ham and cheese as two corporate wizards. On the dark side, boy do we have some story and tone issues to dig into here (along with some very frustrating goblin prosthetics from The Jim Henson Company). On the drink side, we have an effervescent spring-inspired cocktail to make everything better! How many more sides could you want???
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106.5 – ShadowLetterBoxing
It’s a game! Look, we like things with less pressure, so games are fun for us to do. This time, we turn our slightly-drunken eyes to that beloved cinephile website, Letterboxd. Fans as we are of its sometimes intelligent, sometimes glibly entertaining user reviews, Brendan has assembled a list of short, pithy reviews for movies we have covered on this podcast and challenged Leigh and Chris to guess the movie the blurbs refer to. It’s a game! It’s fun! Also we cover our next movie, a fantastical YA-adjacent adaptation about a door that’s portable. No, we hadn’t heard of it, either.
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106 – The Truth About Charlie
Alors! What do you get when you take the bones of the 1963 comedy / romance / thriller Charade and filter them through a Nouvelle Vague sensibility? Well, you certainly get something worth talking about, one way or another. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris crack open The Truth About Charlie, Jonathan Demme’s 2002 attempt at doing just that. We run the gamut on this one, covering what Demme’s original intent was, why Mark Wahlberg looks like a such a lost dope in his little beret, and if the central conceit of creating a French New Wave adaptation of Charade even makes sense (kind of, but also not)! Naturally, there’s also a drink involved (and truly, a movie of this length with so much to cover really necessitates some kind of liquor).
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105.5 – Rom or Com?
So a few weeks back we had a brief rumination about if a rom-com has failed if it’s not actually very funny, and so we decided to speak on that for a bit. For example, are there rom-coms that are actually funny? Of our favorites, which ones fall closer to rom than com (or manage to skillfully split the difference)? Is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by definition a rom-com (technically, yes!)? Sure, this might have been better around Valentine’s Day as opposed to St. Patrick’s Day, but planning is hard and shut up! We also introduce the focus of our next episode, which aptly enough, is a remake of a movie that kinda drains much of the rom and com aspects of the original. Get ready for some truths dropping in two weeks!
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105 – Domino
What happens when you toss Tony Scott, Richard Kelly, the true story of a model-turned-bounty hunter, and an eclectic mess of talent into a blender with a heaping helping of meth? Well… nothing conventional, that’s for sure. Team up with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they are pummeled into submission by 2005’s Domino, starring Keira Knightley and directed by Tony Scott at his most manic. We take a look at the aggressive direction, a defiantly non-linear screenplay, and the vague feeling of unpleasantness that hits you when viewing a movie playing fast and loose with reality that’s also based on a real person who died under tragic circumstances during production. It’s a lot to talk about! Thankfully we also made a spicy (and suitably very yellow) cocktail to keep things rolling.
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104.5 – You Who Comments
It’s a game! We play another game! Leigh takes slightly-vague top comments from trailers of recent movies on YouTube and Brendan and Chris try to guess what movie the trailer in question is for. It’s fun! We like games! Also as always, our next movie is mentioned and we share a recipe for an appropriately spicy and yellow cocktail to accompany it. Games!
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104 – Just Like Heaven
Ah, the early 2000s! A special time in the history of cinema that spawned a plethora of high-concept romantic comedies. One need only look to Mark Water’s 2005 effort Just Like Heaven, in which Mark Ruffalo must deal with that bane of all apartment subletters, being haunted by the ghost of Reese Witherspoon (except she’s maybe not actually dead, it’s a whole thing). Plop yourself down on a comfortable couch with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the perils of balancing the frivolous with the emotional, the vague rules of the afterlife (or the almost-afterlife), and the question of why Reese’s character seems weirdly racist toward Asian people. All this mess and hot toddy cocktails aplenty, too!
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103.5 – New Media Resolutions
With January 2024 now well underway, we decide to discuss those lies we all tell ourselves we’ll commit to in the new year- that’s right, it’s time for resolution chat, babyyyyyy! But what with this being a podcast ostensibly about movies and other media, we’ve all made some specifically entertainment-related resolutions. Also like, those will probably be more fun than saying you’ll “improve yourself” and all that other crap. Will we read more books? Will we finally finish a particular video game? Will all those Criterion Collection movies bought during Barnes & Noble sales finally get watched? Listen and find out!
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103 – Two Night Stand
As a snowstorm hits the northeastern United States, we prophetically chose to watch a movie that deals with a freak blizzard that keeps two twenty-somethings snowed in after initially looking for a quick hook up. That’s right, as you surely can guess, it’s 2014’s Two Night Stand, a low-stakes sort-of rom-com directed by Mike Nichols’s son. Get snowed in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they remotely watch this movie (thanks, Covid!) and discuss how rom-coms have mutated over the last decade or so, our thoughts on Miles Teller, and the genuinely unhinged act-three-romantic-gesture (truly, it’s nuts). But, uh, at least there’s a cocktail (actually, we didn’t actually get to drink our cocktail, thanks Covid!). Remember, please mask up and stuff!
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102.5 – The Closing of the Year VII
Look, we’ve done this seven times now, so we don’t need to mince words. We talk about our favorite movie of the year, our least favorite movie of the year, and then do it again but with the drinks we made. Look, it’s the end of the year! We’re trying to relax! Also our first movie of (shudder) 2024 is thrown into the ether along with a hot wintery drink to accompany it. Now please, it’s Christmas, go eat some cookies or something.
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102 – Christmas Eve
If nothing captures the true spirit of the holidays like being stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time, then 2015’s Christmas Eve is sure the holly jolliest piece of bland seasonal ephemera we’ve encountered yet! Sadly, there’s very little of said holiday spirit actually to be found here, unless you count “Patrick Stewart does a one-man Christmas Carol” or “musicians play some Christmas music” or “doctor and nurse snipe about the existence of God while an orderly tries not to piss himself.” For our annual holiday spectacular, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris briefly touch upon religious cinema, the perils of making a movie from the pitch “what if Love Actually but trapped in elevators,” and how New York looks very similar to eastern Europe. We also manage to capture the true spirit of the holidays (inebriation) with a seasonally-appropriate spritzer. Seasons greetings!
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101.5 – The Holiday Trash Movie Tier List
What better way to kick off the holiday season than with a mini-episode-in-name-only that involves ranking all the TV Christmas shlock we’ve watched over the last few years? THERE IS NO BETTER WAY. DO NOT SUGGEST OTHERWISE. Anyway, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris spend a long time mulling over a list of festive made-for-TV ephemera to decide once and for all which ones might actually approach something close to “being a good movie” and which ones are more “shit.” And much like the movies we discuss here, we’ll also be covering a Christmas movie that pretty much no one has heard of (don’t worry, you can find it on YouTube!) for our impending Holiday Spectacular (and natch there’s a drink recipe too)!
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101 – The Law and the Lady
For our latest episode, we dust off an old chestnut that’s based on an even older chestnut, both of which cumulatively are such moldy old chestnuts that you’ve probably never heard of either. We dug deep, baby! This time, we go way back to 1951’s The Law and the Lady, a very loose adaptation of a 1925 play starring Greer Garson, Fernando Lamas, and Michael Wilding as the biggest simp ever committed to celluloid. Thrill as he spinelessly pines after his partner in crime as they attempt to steal a necklace from a blustering old American lady! Cheer as both he and his partner refuse to ever act upon their emotions for no solid reason! Laugh as the old rich lady bellows loudly at anyone within ear shot! Is there a way to dust off this weirdly-unbalanced and endlessly-retooled bit of theatrical ephemera? Well, sure, probably, but no one involved here really did it. Also we drink a tea cocktail, and those are always fun.
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100.5 – A Why Watch Retrospective
Nothing is more spine-chillingly terrifying than a look back at the past! SPOOOOOOKY!!! To commemorate doing one hundred movies (yeesh) for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris look back on their favorites and least favorites. Everyone has different definitions of these things and some people chose more than one because, you know, we like to shake things up here. Naturally we also briefly cover our next movie that we’ll tackle and we SPILL THAT TEA (or hopefully don’t because that would make a mess) with the tea-based cocktail that will accompany it. To one hundred more (I mean, sure, why not aim big)!
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100 – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Like a full moon occurring on Halloween, this year our annual Spooktacular episode coincides with our 100th episode. How exhausting to think about! To commemorate this occasion, we dust off a movie we’ve kicked around covering for years, dunked in a vat of eels and amniotic fluid, and brought it to horrible, horrible life. That’s right, it’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh’s turgid adaptation of the classic sci-fi / horror / sin against God novel. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go back in time to discuss Hollywood’s brief infatuation with prestigious horror movies based on literature, the film’s tendency to deliver dialogue as though it’s playing to the last row of the balcony, and Branagh’s inability to keep the damn camera still. We also make a suitably sour cocktail to mimic the sensation of being brought back to life by the jolt of a swarm of electric eels. SHOCKING, isn’t it?
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99.5 – Pitcher’s Mound – Jukebox Musical: What’s Up, Doc?
At long last, closure! Our jukebox musical mini-episode miniseries comes to a manic conclusion with the ultimate theatrical cop out- a jukebox musical based on a movie. That’s right, for Brendan’s turn he’s taken the Great American Songbook-esque tunes peppered throughout the 1972 Peter Bogdanovich screwball throwback What’s Up, Doc? and attempted to turn them into the spine of a theatrical adaptation. There’s also some other changes in there, so don’t worry, it’s less lazy than it sounds on paper. We’re also prepping for our annual Halloween spooktacular (and 100th episode), and we can think of no better way to do so than by getting pretty drunk for the occasion so be sure to try out the cocktail we’ll be making for it.
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99 – I’m with Lucy
In today’s increasingly fragmented society, one fact is sadly becoming more and more evident: you are either with Lucy or against Lucy. To get to the bottom of this hot-button issue we decided to watch Jon Sherman’s 2002 romantic comedy, I’m with Lucy, a fairly simple movie bogged down by multiple gimmicks designed to make everything more intriguing than it actually is. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we talk about Monica Potter and her coterie of five potential love interests- a sexy douchebag, a misogynist jock, a horny international-type, a nerd, and miscellaneous. We spend a lot of time covering the five dates, but also discuss bogging your plot down with a load of high-concept nonsense and how the blond WASPy Monica Potter was somehow begat by uber-mensch Harold Ramis. And hey, it’s a pretty easy cocktail we made to accompany this one, because we all deserve a lil break.
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