Look, we really enjoy watching a bad movie but sometimes even we have limits. So while everything in the world is going to hell, we thought maybe we should watch a GOOD movie that not all of us have seen. Ergo this exceedingly wordy minisode miniseries, Why Don’t We Watch This. And for our inaugural ep, we got some food and drinks and decided to watch the 1966 Cold War comedy, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. For some reason, a comedy about people panicking over impending doom felt weirdly apt. Also, we appreciate how Alan Arkin is a god-damned smokeshow in it and reveal our first fantastical summer movie episode. Listen, won’t you?
Tag Archives: mini episode
55.5 – Why Don’t We Watch This – The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming
Filed under Why Watch?
54.5 – Director Swap
One way to get through your social distancing quarantine to watch a lot of movies, and another way is to wildly speculate about how these movies could have been changed in some way. That’s our whole thing! This time, we tweak that whole thing a little bit by speculating about what movies would have been like if they had a different director behind them. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they speculate about what The Death of Stalin, The Country Bears, and Birdman would have looked like with someone possibly more hilarious or possibly better suited overseeing the film. Also we reveal our spooky May movie and an equally spooky cocktail to go along with it. Spooky DELICIOUS, that is (we hope)!
Filed under Why Watch?
53.5 – Gender Swap ‘Til You Drop
Truly, there is no easier way to shake up a movie industry mired in the safe and predictable AND enrage a certain sector of the Internet than by swapping the gender of one or more of your film’s characters. It is, literally, the easiest way to increase the representation of women or make male characters mildly less dull- all you have to do is some simple find+replace in Final Draft. So what movies would have benefitted from such a switcheroo? Leigh, Brendan, and Chris rattle off a few such changes they think would improve their respective movies while also preparing to tackle the next full-length episode, one where a hard-drinking tough-as-nails detective is played by… A WOMAN??? Fetch your smelling salts and join in!
Filed under Why Watch?
52.5 – The Beautician and the Beast
What better way to celebrate the final days of February the Month of Love than by discussing a rom-com that finally pairs up Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton, the Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks of February 1997? That’s right, at long last someone is giving The Beautician and the Beast the attention it shrilly demands. After all, what could be more romantic than traveling to a small formerly-USSR country, falling in love with their oppressive leader, and doing it all in garish stilettos and midriff-bearing tops? Anyways, join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris for this detailed deconstruction of a movie that was somehow against all odd released in theaters, and be sure to listen two weeks from now when we cover a sci-fi movie with a couple that has just as uncomfortable chemistry.
Filed under Why Watch?
51.5 – Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
THE WHY WATCH CREW SPEAK! One month after Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker premiered to a resounding critical “Oof,” Leigh, Brendan, and Chris finally do what every other podcast did like two weeks ago and gather together to try to make sense of whatever the hell that movie was supposed to be. Spoiler alert: it’s not great! There’s a lot of J.J. Abrams nonsense to sift through here, like the nebulous time-wasting questing and what the hell the Emperor is doing here alive and why won’t the spaceship battles take place in space??? Also next up is our annual Month of Love February Rom-Com so at the very least you’ll have a movie that tries to earn its kiss at the ending this time.
Filed under Why Watch?
50.5 – The Closing of the Year III
As always at this time of the year, we are tired and have a bunch of other stuff to worry about, like shopping for presents and the distressingly low box office intake of Cats. So, we present for you all our annual year in review where we talk about our favorite and least favorite movies and drinks. Also since we forgot to mention in the actual episode, we’re kicking off 2020 with Brotherhood of the Wolf. Oops. Well, happy new year to you all regardless.
Filed under Why Watch?
49.5 – The 2019 Streaming Christmas Garbage Festival
At what point is a mini episode no longer a mini episode? Probably at this point. This point, when you have what is ostensibly a “mini” episode that’s longer than some of our actual episodes. In our defense, there’s a lot to cover here! With the Christmas season upon us, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris gather in front of a roaring fire to discuss the glut of direct-to-streaming-service holiday movies available at your fingertips. From the twisting supernatural romantic thriller The Spirit of Christmas to the sack of garbage topped with a festive bow that is Santa Girl to some movie Disney dumped on their new streaming service when it became apparent no one would pay to see it, we run the gamut of these Christmas flicks of questionable quality. Also we talk a lot about Netflix’s attempt to horn in on this racket by use of Vanessa Hudgens and movies where everyone is horny AF for the holidays. Aptly, we also announce the movie we’ll be doing for our impending 50th episode and wouldn’t you know it it’s also a Netflix Christmas movie. WE SIMPLY CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THE HOLIDAYS.
Filed under Why Watch?
48.5 – Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
In our latest mini-episode, we we cover the sequel to a movie we’ll be doing for our next full-length episode. It’s like Memento, but instead of your favorite Christopher Nolan trappings it’s got Angelina Jolie and her prosthetic cheekbones. That’s right, we paid money to see Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in theaters, which is more than most of America is doing. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss a whole secret island full of Maleficents, Michelle Pfeiffer’s underdeveloped and vague motivations, and also how we can pretty much wave away genocide attempts once the person responsible is turned into a goat.
Filed under Why Watch?
47.5 – Why You Not Watch
It’s finally happened. We’ve run out of things to say about scary movies for Halloween. It’s a real kick to the shins, it is! Anyhow, in lieu of that and springing from a tangent about horror films, we all talk about the things in film that make us not want to see a movie with no further information needed. No matter how open minded we try to be about these things, there’s always a genre, director, or actor who will stop us in our tracks and make us cry to the heavens “WILL NOT WATCH!” Also we’re planning a creepy high tea for our October episode spooktacular, so check out our latest mini and get ready to be immersed in a movie that has so much atmosphere the gravity eventually crushes the plot and character into a Gothic singularity.
Filed under Why Watch?
46.5 – Nostalgia Goggles
Friends, nostalgia is the most dangerous drug and none of us can get enough of it! But, for about forty minutes anyway, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris will doff their nostalgia goggles and discuss times they revisited a movie they loved growing up and later revisited. Will it hold up like so many movies broadcasted incessantly on Comedy Central in the early 90s? Or will it be more like rewatching the 1995 classic Mighty Morphing Power Rangers: The Movie, a feat so deeply upsetting that all you can do is call your parents after and apologize for making them take you to see it? Either way, we get another blast from the past next episode where we tackle a movie from Leigh’s formative years with some friends from our own yesteryears. Rest assured, the goggles will be off for that one.
Filed under Why Watch?
45.5 – Talkin’ Tone
Finally, an entire episode dedicated to the songs and performances of Tone Loc! Whether it’s “Funky Cold Medina” or showing up for one scene in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Tone Loc has- oh, wait, never mind. It’s about tone. Tone in cinema. Like movies feeling “big” or “intimate” and the cultural and critical baggage that entails, that kind of thing. Also our upcoming back-to-school movie and a game we’re playing with various nips and mixers to make it a lot more watchable (because boy is it not watchable).
Filed under Why Watch?
44.5 – Time Troubles
Whether telling an impossible ad intellectually-stimulating tale using the realities available to us through science fiction or wringing jokes from a mom wanting to fuck her son who was sent back in time by his elderly scientist friend using wildly unsafe experiments funded by aiding international terrorists, time travel movies have been an important part of film history for decades. As a prelude to our upcoming episode with deals with a certain MACHINE that can travel through TIME, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss their favorite time travels movies, the different kinds of time travel movies, and what makes a compelling time travel movie. Also, we talk about Primer. Anyhow, join us next TIME for a science-fiction romp through the ages you won’t soon forget (not a guarantee).
Filed under Why Watch?
43.5 – Haven’t Seen It
For this mini episode, we decided to do something a little different and play a game that would lead to discussion. Well, it’s kind of a game and kind of a discussion, but not like in the strict sense of either. Well, there are actually aspects of both to it, but- look, we work from a list of capital-I Important Films and ask those amongst us who have NOT seen the movie in question to try their best and guess what the movie is actually about based off what they do know of it. Look, why are you reading this anyway when you could just listen to it? We don’t deviate a WHOLE lot because we also do talk about our upcoming conspiracy thriller movie and what we hope is a sufficiently globe-trotting drink to accompany it. But we’ve never seen this movie, so uh… we’ll see how all that goes!
Filed under Why Watch?
42.5 – Movies That Move You
With the impending summer movie season upon us all, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decide to kick it off with a mini episode about when movies make you cry and scared and feel stuff. Mostly the first one, I think because we were all in a certain mood seeing how the movie we’re doing next is a delightful romp about death and life and all that frivolity. Also we prepare a recipe for a classy cocktail that can hopefully get us all through a movie with a three-hour runtime. You can probably all guess what it is without listening to this. No, it’s not Endgame.
Filed under Why Watch?
41.5 – Mary Poppins Returns
Disney took an old film of great acclaim
Can you imagine that?
And made a sequel that’s more of the same
Can you imagine that?
New actors but a similar plot
In some ways charming but sort of not
There’s decent choreography but also BMX
What was with those guys biking on the ramps?
When Leigh saw that sequence on a plane she said we had to chat
So we all watched this Poppins pic
Then we recorded this right quick
Can you imagine that?
Filed under Why Watch?
40.5 – What a Wonderful Worldbuilding
Whether you’re a movie maker, a dungeon master, or just some kid who is haphazardly slapping together some Legos without any sort of regard for the instructions and DAMMIT TEDDY THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE TAJ MAHAL DOES THAT LOOK AT ALL LIKE THE TAJ MAHAL TO YOU???, world building is a big thing to consider. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about world building as it relates to movies, from good ones that do it well, bad ones that do it well, and the different ways to dump loads of exposition on your audience without them tuning out to check their TikTok or whatever it is the kids are doing now. We also reveal our upcoming movie, something that traffics heavily in world building itself, and the TWO drinks we’ll make for it because duality is a thing for this movie.
Filed under Why Watch?
39.5 – Whoseenit?
As a prelude to our Mystery March episode (which is a thing we just made up now), Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about detectives in pop culture, be they Sherlock Holmes or, uh, other. Also there’s some stuff about whether or not you should be able to solve a mystery while watching / reading it and a lot of stuff with TV procedurals. Anyway, you’ve got two weeks to start growing a ridiculous mustache for our next episode’s mystery movie.
Filed under Why Watch?
38.5 – All the Screen’s a Theatre
Because we spent our last mini episode doing our customary new year nothingness, we bumped a discussion about Shakespeare adaptations to this mini episode instead. It still works! Anyway, Leigh leads a group discussion about the various movie versions of Shakespeare plays, be they mostly faithful to the text and setting or something set in a high school with the great sounds of the 90s permeating throughout. We also determine our Valentine’s Day romcom and an appropriately dairy-based drink to go with it, and there’s a lot of bird noises.
Filed under Why Watch?
37.5 – The Closing of the Year II
As is our wont, we were feeling very lazy at the end of the calendar year and just recorded us talking about our favorite and least favorite movies and drinks of 2018. Two weeks from now we’ll be ready to work again, we promise. Happy New Years!
Filed under Why Watch?
36.5 – Pitcher’s Mound – An Original Christmas Movie
Now that it’s well past Thanksgiving, we’re at the glorious time of year where Christmas movies are being thrown at the you like some festive, pleasantly bland spaghetti against a wall. Be they movies about journalists who meet a prince on Christmas or bakers who meet a prince on Christmas or kids who meet a fuckable Santa on Christmas, the options abound and yet for the most part aren’t all that good. SO, we said to ourselves, why not try to come up with a pitch for our own Christmas movie and share with the group??? So we did. We’ve got a contemporary follow-up to The Nutcracker, a story about a magical advent calendar that is certainly NOT the same as that Netflix one, and a bunch of people spending the Christmas holiday at a fancy hotel where hijinks ensue. Join us again in two weeks for our festive Christmas special where we’ll tackle one of the aforementioned holiday movies. Start counting down on your magical, life-altering advent calendars!
Filed under Why Watch?
35.5 – The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
It’s November, and as all these posters of Keira Knightley topped in cotton candy indicate, the Christmas movie season has well and truly begun! When Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sat through The Nutcracker in 3D two years ago, they mentioned a Disney adaptation of the story currently in pre-production. Now, in 2018, this movie has somehow become The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and boy is it somehow both exactly what you’d expect and also not really at all. Fresh out of a screening, the crew try to gather their thoughts as best as they can to discuss the handful of things that did work (Keira Knightley’s bizarre acting choices, the basic idea of the story, the physical production design) and the many things that did not work (uh, most everything else). Join us in two weeks as we dip back into some spooky Autumnal nonsense with a Dean Koontz adaptation and an odd drink. Très chic!
Filed under Why Watch?
34.5 – Something in the Atmosphere
As the spookiest month of the year draws over us like a wet musty towel, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decide to talk about their favorite atmospheres in movies. From the vibes that excel at bringing you into the world of the movie to the ones that are tied into a specific emotion or time of year, we toss them all about! We’ll be back in two weeks with a more specifically spooky movie (well, sort of spooky sometimes) and a new type of themed cocktail challenge to accompany it. In the meantime as always you can like us on Facebook and rate us on iTunes and Stitcher.
Filed under Why Watch?
33.5 – It Was Like a Million Degrees
Autumn seems to have finally descended on Boston (for the time being), but when we recorded this it was very hot and we had all had a busy few weeks so we’re pretty much just telling you what to expect two weeks from now (it’s the not-sequel-but-also-a-sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, spoiler alert). Also Leigh tries to remember the Jeff Wayne musical version of The War of the Worlds, which we haven’t ever really listened to. OH WELL SEE YOU ALL IN TWO WEEKS!
Filed under Why Watch?
32.5 – Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
This past Friday, we decided to partake in an activity our livers would not thank us for and watch the “original” “musical” “classic” Mamma Mia! at home with a Greek sangria and then see the prequel / sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in theaters while also drinking heavily. We had some initial thoughts about the movie a few weeks back and we’re all now kinda ashamed to admit that MM!HWGA is kinda… good??? And fun??? And not a complete train wreck??? Anyway, please enjoy our random thoughts about the movie, and forgive us for the end just sort of cutting out due to some technical difficulties, but it was late and we were tipsy and most of what we thought is here!
Filed under Why Watch?
31.5 – Shameful Sequels
Sure, we all know sequels might not be as good as the original, but for this minisode we want to take a look at the least-likely sequels clearly made in a desperate attempt to grab cash. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss ones where the lead(s) refused to returns, movies that had a premise that could not easily allow for a sequel, and the ill-fated attempts to make sequels to a successful adaptation of a stage musical (be sure to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again only in theaters July 20th). We’re also doing a very different sort of movie and drink for our next episode, so check in then for our own example of diminishing returns!
Filed under Why Watch?
30.5 – Why Did We Play This – Detroit: Become Human
We once again try something different for a mini episode and tackle a recent video game release in our discussion. That’s right, we’re tackling David Cage’s Detroit: Become Human. Leigh leads Chris and Brendan on an in-depth analysis of Cage’s previous games, the twists of the plot, and the very deep well-conceived themes hidden in the game. For example, did you know the robots are analogous to people of color? Well, they are and it’s a very subtle comparison! As usual we also introduce our upcoming movie, an international flop of historic proportions, and offer you a hard drink to wash it all down with. You know the other stuff: like on Facebook, and rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.
Filed under Why Watch?
29.5 – An Occasion to Watch (or: Meme Critiques)
As three weirdos who make it a point to watch movies every four weeks for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris naturally have a lot of specific occasions we like to watch other movies on, be it a holiday or that time in everyone’s high school career where some teacher made you watch Remember the Titans. We talk about the times we watch certain movies and the movies we like to watch on those times, and we also get off topic a lot because this was a very loose topic we came up very suddenly. Also we have a lovely summer drink recipe for a lovely dumb summer movie coming up two weeks from now. As with every occasion you listen to us, you can like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast or rate us on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.
Filed under Why Watch?
28.5 – Fandon’ts
Fandoms! They’re the inescapable parasite that our franchise-heavy movie world must support, lest all of the major studios crumble into dust. In this episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about all the horrifying aspects of fandoms that have reared their ugly, shrieking, appeasement-seeking heads. From gatekeeping to temper fits to the mysoginistic dregs that flow through the Internet, we poke them all with pointed sticks and muse on the world they have left in their wake. Also it’s not all gloom and doom, because there’s a whopping three drinks for the frothy inanity of a movie we’ll be tacking next time, so enjoy that part! As always, subscribe and rate on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher and like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast. What have you got to lose???
Filed under Why Watch?
27.5 – Twist and Shout
What a twist! Instead of doing something else you might have expected, instead we’re talking about twist endings. How unexpected maybe! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we define twist endings, cover the ones we don’t like and why, and then very quickly throw out some good ones because we realize we’ve spoken too long about bad ones. Also there’s the next movie we’ll be doing and the drink for it, and we hope you remember The Girl from Monday because it’s related to that, so maybe download that episode and give it another listen, why not! As always, visit us online at dratpack.com, like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast, and subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. TWIST!!!
Filed under Why Watch?
26.5 – Why Do I Like This – The Tryouts
Look out! In lieu of our more normal subjects, we’re doing this first mini episode in a new mini episode series that we’re calling Why Do I Like This for lack of a better name. In this, we’ll discuss something we like that has a lot of negative connotations of any kind and explain why we like it and offer a defense of it. Join us for the first of however many we end up doing mini episodes as out very own Leigh discusses her love of pop punk music while Chris probes her mind and Brendan is there also. At the risk of shaking things up TOO much, we also have a drink recipe for the medieval mess of a movie that will follow in our next episode. If you in turn decide you like us, you can show it by rating us on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher, liking us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast, and visiting our website at dratpack.com.
Filed under Why Watch?