Matt's Movie Lodgecast: Recent Episodes
Matt's Movie Lodge
Matt's Movie Lodgecast™ is a weekly film review podcast of current theatrical and VOD releases hosted by Lodgemaster Matt, along with his fellow Lodgers and co-hosts, "resident hothead" Lucas & sagely wise Brother Bischke. Our movie rating system is based on the VideoHound Rating Scale from WOOF! (No Bones) to Four Bones. Call the Lodgecast Hawtline any time to leave your comments, questions, reviews and bone counts! 1-877-565-1466 - Call toll free today!
SALAD DRAGON: noun 1) A scene in a movie that is so bizarre, baffling or transcendent that it instantly justifies the price of admission. 2) Reese Witherspoon's leafy transformation in A Wrinkle in Time.
Homer! Nolan! Damon! Epic! Hawt! Take! The ancient Greek epic poem has been adapted into a 173-minute epic action fantasy film. Shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film cameras, we definitely saw this in IMAX. With a $250 million budget, it doesn't get any bigger than this!The stacked cast includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page, and John Leguizamo. Damon is Odysseus heading home by sea after the Trojan War to get back to his wife Penelope (Hathaway).You've seen it. Now hear our hawt take. If you haven't seen it, go out of your house and see it BIG!
It was time for the Lodgecast to finally face the Michael Jackson biopic. We gathered up our collective Michael Jackson knowledge to discuss him and speculate on what this biopic was going to be. Then we entered the Dolby Cinema to witness his life and music from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Michael Jackson's nephew Jaafar Jackson plays Michael, with Juliano Valdi playing him as a child.The supporting cast includes Nia Long, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Laura Harrier, Jessica Sula, Mike Myers, Miles Teller, and Colman Domingo as the villainous Joseph Jackson. Directed by Antoine Fuqua, this movie has grossed over $1 billion dollars! Join us as we review Michael (2026)!
Writer/director Kristoffer Borgli is back! If you've not heard of him, he was the comedic writer/director behind Sick of Myself (2022) and Dream Scenario (2023) (both worth seeing). He returns to his dark cringe comedy with The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a happily engaged couple whose relationship takes a bad turn a week before their wedding. Alana Haim serves as the maid of honor, and Mamoudou Athie is the best man. The movie involves confessing the worst things you've ever done, and some Lodgers give their own dark confessions of mayhem they caused in their youth. Tune into this darkly humorous episode!
You may have forgotten about Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!, but back in March, we covered this Frankenstein goth romance starring Jessie Buckley as The Bride and Christian Bale as Frank.It’s set in 1936 Chicago and is quite unhinged. It also features Peter Sarsgaard, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Penelope Cruz. Maggie Gyllenhaal wrote and directed this film, in case you didn’t know. The movie was a box office bomb and got mixed reviews.Mostly, we covered it in order to say goodbye to an old friend, which you will hear about in this special episode!
The Lodgecast triumphantly returns to cover a new adaptation of the Masters of the Universe! After the success of Mattel's Barbie, $200 million was poured into this sword-and-sorcery comedy.Nicholas Galitzine stars as He-Man, and Jared Leto as Skeletor. They battle it out along with Camila Mendes, Jared Leto, Alison Brie, James Purefoy, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, Charlotte Riley, Kristen Wiig, Morena Baccarin, and Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms. It's a 140-minute epic return to the planet Eternia.The film was directed by Travis Knight with four credited writers. It received mixed reviews and performed mildly at the box office. We'll let you know what we thought in this epic Lodgecast!
!Take a listen to this new transmission and discover the hidden depths of the Lodgecast. We won't say any more! Listen and find out!
2025 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-four Oscar categories in under 30 minutes!Then it's onto our special award, where we'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2025 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2025.Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen, and let us know what you think!
85-year-old writer/director James L. Brooks returns with the political dramedy Ella McCay (2025). This movie bombed so hard that it was yanked from theaters before we could see it there, but we vowed to catch it on VOD, and we did!The film features an ensemble cast with Emma Mackey as Ella McCay, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Rebecca Hall, Albert Brooks, and Woody Harrelson. We dive deep into the world of Ella McCay in this episode, analyzing a mind-boggling script and so much more!
Have mercy! But there was no mercy shown when having to confront Mercy (2026) in IMAX!From desktop film auteur Timur Bekmambetov, Mercy (2026) features Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) sitting in a chair trying to prove to artificial intelligence Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) that he is innocent of murdering his own wife.He’s got 90 minutes to do so using all the bells and whistles of a desktop film, and the clock is ticking! He’s on FaceTime, he’s accessing emails and texts, he’s bringing up bodycam footage and security footage, he’s trying every technological trick in the book to prove he’s less than 92% guilty to avoid execution. Listen to our reactions as this hawt take definitely got heated up!
Prestige season is winding down, but not before we cover Park Chan-wook's highly anticipated black comedy thriller No Other Choice. Chan-wook has given us other cinematic gems like Oldboy (2003) and The Handmaiden (2016), so we were excited for his new offering.In No Other Choice, paper industry expert Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is fired from his job and has no other choice but to kill off his competition to keep his standard of living. The film stars Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, and Cha Seung-won.The film was snubbed by the Oscars, but is sure to make many of our 10 best lists in the forthcoming Oscar Lodgecast Extravaganza!
Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) and his Fingers gang, played by Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman, Emma Laird, Sam Locke, and more. Ralph Fiennes and the Fingers eventually clash for a wild ending. You'll hear where we render our bones in this Bone Temple hawt take!
The $75 million dollar Melania Trump documentary hit theaters this weekend, and we were there to witness it on opening night. In this emergency episode of the Lodgecast, we tell you all we encountered on the screen and in the Burbank 16 theater that projected this movie.This film takes place in the 20 days before Donald Trump's second presidential inauguration. We witnessed all 104 minutes and will tell you all of our observations in this special episode!
Okonma, Abel Ferrara, and Fran Drescher. The movie features an exceptional soundtrack of 80s music and synth score by Daniel Lopatin. Timothee Chalamet shines on the silver screen and may just get Oscar gold for his electric performance! We'll let you know what we thought of Timothee and everyone else in this prestigious hawt take!
No one has heard of the movie called Going Viral, but it features actor and musician Corey Feldman, so we watched it to give us an excuse to talk about all things Corey. Feldman holds a deep place in Lodge history, so most of this episode consists of our stories about Corey.We do briefly discuss Going Viral which has no stars except for Corey, and is not worth watching! But enjoy our recollections on the legend of Corey Feldman!
From the bestselling book by Freida McFadden comes the big screen adaptation of The Housemaid. This erotic psychological thriller is directed by Paul Feig (Bridesmaids). Sydney Sweeney shows up to become a live-in housekeeper for a wealthy couple played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. As Seyfried's character begins acting crazy, we quickly learn that all is not what it seems.Critics and audiences were generally favorable, but we'll let you know what we thought in this episode, stacked with a minivan full of guests!
Avatar: Fire and Ash exploded into theaters this holiday season. Spider and the gang are back in James Cameron's third installment of the Avatar saga. We traveled to the tundra of Minnesota to join a special group of adventurers for this trip to Pandora.Jake Sully and Neytiri return, along with their family, battling RDA forces and a fiery Mangkwan tribe. The movie stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Oona Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter) as Varang, and Jack Champion as Spider!With a 197-minute runtime, this is the longest Avatar yet, and we were all in! Take a trip with us to Pandora on this special Lodgecast episode!
Lodgemistress are back with another intimately Wicked episode! Will they love this epic conclusion to the popular musical tale, or will they rip it apart with tornados of scorn? You are but a clock tick away from finding out!
Merry Christmas! Our holiday special Lodgecast movie this year is Tyler Perry's Finding Joy. Tyler Perry has been churning out movies faster than we can cover them in the past few years. He wrote and directed 4 movies plus 40 episodes of TV in 2025!Finding Joy dropped onto Amazon Prime Video in November. It stars Shannon Thornton as Joy, along with Tosin Morohunfola, Brittany S. Hall, Inayah, and Aaron O'Connell. Joy is a fashion designer in New York City who travels to Colorado for the holidays only to discover an unlikely love interest in backwoodsman Ridge (Tosin Morohunfola).While this might not be Tyler Perry's finest movie, it left us with plenty to talk about in this holiday feast of a Lodgecast. We hope that you all find joy in the New Year!
Director Edgar Wright has remade The Running Man! The Richard Bachman (Stephen King) 1982 novel was set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, so I guess this is the year to remake it. We talk about the superior adaptation from 1987 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then we get into the new one starring Glen Powell.The cast of the new Running Man also features William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Sean Hayes, Colman Domingo, and Josh Brolin. Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards who goes on a dangerous network TV reality show to try to survive 30 days and possibly win $1 billion dollars. Now we live in a world where the mass media is in heavy decline and The Running Man seems like a satire of network television that is way outdated. And that's just one of the many criticisms we'll throw at this latest rendition of The Running Man!
Die My Love received a D+ CinemaScore, which pretty much made it a must-see for the Lodgecast!The movie is directed by Lynne Ramsay and based on a 2012 novel by Ariana Harwicz. It stars Jennifer Lawrence as Grace, a young mother in rural Montana grappling with severe postpartum depression and psychosis that unravels her marriage to her husband Jackson (Robert Pattinson). The supporting cast includes LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, and Sissy Spacek.We’ll give our thoughts on the cinema of Lynne Ramsay before we cover how this movie consistently beat us down for 2 hours. It’s a brutal film with a wild performance by Jennifer Lawrence and a miscast Robert Pattinson. We took the cinematic beating so you don’t have to! This is Die My Love!
Matt's Movie Lodgecast Episode Number 200 is upon us! For this, we picked the highly anticipated and prestigious film Bugonia from Greek god and director Yorgos Lanthimos.For this film, Yorgos has remade a 2003 South Korean movie called Save the Green Planet! Jesse Plemons plays a conspiracy theorist who, along with his cousin, abducts the CEO of the pharmaceutical company played by Emma Stone. Plemons' character delves into all sorts of alien conspiracy theories as Emma Stone's character tries to convince him otherwise.The film also stars Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone. It's another strange Yorgos vision with a wild ending that we'll spoil in this 200th episode!
Happy Thanksgiving! Sit down to the table and enjoy our Lodgecast feast as we consume Predator: Badlands! We'll discuss the Predator franchise, including the six movies leading up to Predator: Badlands. Then we'll take you to the hostile planet of Genna, where Dek, a young Yautja, has to kill the apex predator Kalisk. It's a hostile environment, and Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is joined by Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged, legless Weyland-Yutani Corporation synthetic. Predator: Badlands was written by Patrick Aison and directed by Dan Trachtenberg.We indulged in some specialty Predator-themed drinks from the MacGuffins Bar for this special holiday episode!
Writer/director Ari Aster's Eddington is now available to watch on HBO Max. We caught it in theaters back in July, and we'll tell you all about our experience. We knew after Beau Is Afraid (2023) that we were in for a wild ride, and we were correct in that assumption. Only a trickster provocateur like Ari Aster would have the gall to make a 150-minute set during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic! For many people, the trauma of that period is too soon, but not for the Lodgecast.The movie features an excellent cast led by Joaquin Phoenix as a sheriff in small town Eddington, New Mexico, along with Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. Put your masks on and stay six feet apart as you listen to our take on Ari Aster's Eddington!
The Toxic Avenger remake finally made its way to theaters in all its unrated glory. It's a remake of the classic Troma film The Toxic Avenger (1984). This reboot stars Peter Dinklage as Winston Gooze, who becomes the Toxic Avenger!The movie also stars Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon. It was written and directed by Macon Blair.We saw it on the big screen and we'll let you know just how gross it got!
Springsteen is given the music biopic treatment with the brand new film Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. Based on a 2023 book by Warren Zanes, the movie covers Springsteen's turbulent time around the making of his 1982 album Nebraska. Jeremy Allen White plays Springsteen as he battles his demons and tries to stay true to his working-class New Jersey roots. Jeremy Strong plays Springsteen's manager Jon Landau, and the movie also features Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, and Odessa Young.It's written and directed by Scott Cooper, who made the film Crazy Heart (2009) and other films. We talk about our relationship with Springsteen and then dive into a bumping Dolby screening of the movie on discount night!
Pacino. It played in theaters only one week, and we missed it there, but we caught it on VOD!Set in 1928 in Iowa, the movie follows Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino) and Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) as they attempt to exorcise the demon of a young woman named Emma Schmidt (Abigail Cowen). It is directed by David Midell in a truly bizarre manner, with cinematography resembling the American TV series The Office.We'll let you know how weird it gets in this terrifying episode of the Lodgecast!
As we near Halloween, we watched this spooky movie about a haunted house told from a dog's perspective. This low-budget 77-minute feature was directed by Ben Leonberg and stars his Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Indy. Indy is truly a good boy, putting up with filming for over 400 days to capture his incredible performance. In the movie, his owner is dying of chronic lung disease, and Indy sticks by his side. The film is beloved for Indy the dog's performance, but we'll let you know if we loved it!
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson returns to the big screen with his epic action comedy film One Battle After Another. We took in this $175 million budget, 162-minute film in full IMAX at the Burbank 16. It goes without saying, go see this movie on the big screen! Marvel at Sean Penn's beautiful mug as big as you can see it! Then once you've taken it all in, you might enjoy our hawt take.The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. It is loosely based on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland. It's got a wild score by Jonny Greenwood. It's undoubtedly going to be up for a bunch of Oscar nominations. Check it out! Then hear our hawt take review!
Renaissance man Finn Wolfhard is having a helluva year. In June, he released his first album called Happy Birthday, featuring the single "Choose the Latter". And back in April, Finn Wolfhard's directorial debut horror comedy film Hell of a Summer was released in theaters. We saw it on the big screen!It's a summer camp slasher starring Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Billy Bryk, Pardis Saremi, Rosebud Baker, Adam Pally, and Finn Wolfhard himself. We have a long and complex history with Mr. Finn Wolfhard, and we'll explore it all in this episode.
David Cronenberg directed a new body horror film this year. Released back in April, it's called The Shrouds and stars Diane Kruger, Vincent Cassel, Guy Pearce, and Sandrine Holt. Four years after his wife Becca's death from cancer, businessman Karsh (Vincent Cassel) has invented "GraveTech", a tombstone that broadcasts a live, interactive 3D image of a deceased's decomposing corpse. Sound tasty? Then dive into our episode covering director David Cronenberg's examination of grief!
Horror auteur Zach Cregger wrote and directed Barbarian back in 2022, which delighted most of us. Now he returns with his follow-up film Weapons (2025). At 2:17 AM seventeen children from the same third-grade classroom suddenly run away from their homes. That's the premise.The film features an ensemble cast including Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Toby Huss, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan. The film received critical acclaim and was a minor hit, grossing $264 million. We'll let you know what all the buzz is about in this episode!
Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye plays himself in his movie Hurry Up Tomorrow. The movie serves as a companion piece to his latest album. We caught this vanity project in theaters.In the movie, The Weeknd is a pop superstar in crisis who has lost his voice. His manager (played by Barry Keoghan) is trying to boost his ego. Jenna Ortega plays a deranged fan hell bent on tracking The Weeknd down. Trey Edward Shults directs. This movie was reviled by audiences and critics alike.We'll let you know what we witnessed!
When H.G. Wells penned the classic 1898 science fiction novel The War of the Worlds, he could scarcely have predicted that in the futuristic year of 2025, a man named Ice Cube would be starring in a desktop cinema adaptation of the novel. Even Orson Welles, with all his imagination, when he produced the 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, couldn't have conceived that in 2025, a tech company called Amazon would create a Prime Video adaptation of the story featuring a surveillance expert that utilizes the Amazon Prime delivery service in order to save the world.No one could've predicted what dropped onto Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025. Due to popular demand, we fast-tracked this episode so we can tell what we watched so that you never have to watch it!
Slapstick comedy is back in theaters in the year 2025 with The Naked Gun! Liam Neeson stars as Lt. Frank Drebin Jr., son of the late Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen). We share our love and light for the original Naked Gun trilogy before taking on this legacy sequel directed by Akiva Schaffer.In this new one, Pamela Anderson stars as the love interest, Paul Walter Hauser stars as Drebin's right-hand man, and Danny Huston stars as the villain.The gags are many, and some of us laughed while others did not laugh as much. Tune in to find out about the latest filing of The Police Squad!
It's been a number of months since we saw this one, but we did cover Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 back in March. Director Bong follows up his masterpiece Parasite (2019) with this sci-fi dark comedy starring Robert Pattinson as Mickey. Warner Bros. gave Bong over $100 million to make this movie, and unfortunately, it was a commercial flop with middling reviews. Our takes on it were quite middling as well. Set in the year 2054, the plot follows a man who joins a space colony as an "Expendable", a disposable worker who is cloned every time he dies.It features a good cast, including Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Patsy Ferran, Cameron Britton, Daniel Henshall, Stephen Park, Anamaria Vartolomei, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo. The film is currently streaming on HBO Max, if you wish to fire it up!
All Nicolas Cage wants to do is surf in the new movie The Surfer. But he's thwarted at every turn by surfing gangs and much more in this unique psychological thriller directed by Lorcan Finnegan and written by Thomas Martin.It's the Nic Cage show as he struggles with anguish in the hot sun, and his life falls apart. It's a movie called The Surfer without much surfing, but plenty of Cage! We'll let you know what we thought!
The new body horror movie Together made a little splash this summer, and we decided to cover it. It stars real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie. The two move to the countryside to work on their troubled relationship, but Dave Franco drinks some supernatural water and begins merging physically with Alison Brie. Then the sticky body horror starts!Get sticky with Dave Franco and Alison Brie, written and directed by Michael Shanks in his directorial debut. We'll let you know how our bones converged!
We took in the sixth installment of the Final Destination film series in 4DX! We talk about the Final Destination movies and about our previous adventures in 4DX before we enter Final Destination Bloodlines.Just like the film Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023), Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) starts out in the year 1969. It begins with a thrilling high-rise Space Needle restaurant tower collapse, then flashes forward to 2024 to follow a family haunted by Death.The movie stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd in his final film performance. We'll report back on how much the Regal Pepsi 4DX rocked us!
You might've forgotten about Disney's Snow White (2025), but we did not forget about it! We went to theaters to take in this disastrous live-action reimagining of Walt Disney's 1937 classic animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The film generated all sorts of controversies that we'll remind you of.Thanks to an army of trolls, it currently sits at 2.1 stars out of 10 on IMDb. It stars Rachel Zegler as Snow White, Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, and seven horrific voice/facial motion-captured, computer-animated dwarfs. We'll tell you all you missed in Disney's Snow White (2025)!
Director Osgood Perkins is back after last year's sleeper hit Longlegs (2024)! This time he's adapting a 1980 short story by Stephen King called "The Monkey" featuring a cursed monkey toy. Theo James and Theo James star as twin brothers who face random horrific deaths due to the monkey toy. The movie also stars Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O'Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott, and Elijah Wood. It got decent enough reviews and good box office. This is our third Oz Perkins film that we've covered and we'll let you know how his career is progressing!
Sinners recently dropped on HBO Max! We caught Ryan Coogler's film on the big screen a few months back. It stars Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers who return to their hometown in Mississippi in 1932 to take on some sort of evil that we won't spoil here. The film also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo. This movie was met with critical acclaim and got people talking, so let's talk about it!
The Lodgecast is back and so is M3GAN! Writer/director Gerard Johnstone returns to reinvent the M3GAN character as she battles with a new AI foe in humanoid military robot AMELIA. This PG-13 sequel veers away from horror into the sci-fi/comedy realm, and we’ll let you know just how well this genre-bending follow-up works.Allison Williams returns along with her niece, played by Violet McGraw. Amie Donald plays M3GAN and Ivanna Sakhno plays AMELIA (Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics & Infiltration Android). And Jemaine Clement is in the mix for some corrupt tech bro comic relief.The film wasn’t the box office hit the producers were hoping for, but we do hope for a M3GAN 3.0! I guess a spin-off erotic thriller SOULM8TE is in the works, which sounds promising! ❤️✨
It’s almost summer time and almost time for the Lodgecast to come back from Spring Break 2025! A perfect time to take a look at the brand new merchandise in our store and maybe buy some hawt new threads for those summer dayz and nitez. We got hats, we got totes, we got Salad Dragon definition shirts! We now have shirts and stickers that say “Sexy Certified”! Check out all our new merch in our merch store by clicking the link in the bio or going to lodgecast.com and clicking the top link. All proceeds go to helping the Lodgecast survive like paying for the pricey 4DX screening of Final Destination: Bloodlines we just (barely) lived through. Thank you listeners. You’ll hear from us very soon!
We're still chilling on Spring Break 2025, but we wanted to announce that we're now selling some hawt new Matt's Movie Lodgecast Merch designed by Brother Nathan!We got t-shirts, we got magnets, we got mugs, we got stickers, we got tote bags, and much more. Everything comes in all shapes and sizes and variations. Go over to lodgecast.com and you'll see a link up top to "Matt's Movie Lodgecast Merch!". We'll keep adding to the store as time goes on.Love and light to you all in this time of Spring Break!
We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We must give our dear Lodgemaster a much-needed editing siesta after splicing together over 300 four-bone episodes in the last seven years!We'll be recording episodes of notable movies here and there while we rest up, but they won't be released until after our break. Fear not, dear listener; we shall return! Love & Eternal Light!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2024 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in under 30 minutes! Then it's onto our special award, where we'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2024 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2024. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen, and let us know what you think!
Kevin Spacey made his comeback movie in 2024 called Peter Five Eight. We've been sitting on this one for a long while but wanted to drop it on you before we take our Spring Break. This neo-noir thriller went directly to video-on-demand and stars Spacey, Rebecca De Mornay, Jet Jandreau, and Jake Weber. Spacey plays Peter who is an assassin who comes to a small mountain community to wreak havoc. "In this town NOTHING is what it seems." We talk all things Spacey in this controversial new episode of the Lodgecast!
The goddess of AMC Theaters, Nicole Kidman, hits the silver screen with the new erotic thriller Babygirl. Whether or not it was erotic or a thriller will be debated in this steamy episode. The film is written and directed by Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) and stars a high-powered CEO, played by Kidman, who begins an affair with young intern Harris Dickinson. Kidman's husband is played by the always sexy Antonio Banderas, and the film also stars Sophie Wilde as Kidman's assistant.We caught this one in theaters with a full audience that was ready for a sexy good time. This A24 movie was a box office success, which will hopefully pave the way for future erotic thrillers!
It's December 31st, 1999. The last party before Y2K. That's the setting for the new A24 movie written and directed by Kyle Mooney. Mooney is known for being a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2013 to 2022. In his directorial debut, he directs Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Tim Heidecker, and Alicia Silverstone. Mooney is also in the film, along with somebody special who shows up in the third act that we won't spoil here.The movie features a stacked late 90s soundtrack. This could be a late 90s nostalgia slam dunk, but is it? We'll let you know in this packed episode we assembled for Y2K!
Does the title of this movie grab your attention? It did for us! We went in knowing nothing about this movie other than it starred Amy Adams. The movie is based on a 2021 novel by Rachel Yoder and directed by Marielle Heller, who also directed Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018), and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). Amy Adams is the star, and she is supported by Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Snowden, Emmett Snowden, Mary Holland, Ella Thomas, Archana Rajan, and Jessica Harper.It was in theaters for a minute, where we caught it on the big screen. You can now watch it on Hulu. But maybe listen to our review before you do so!
We’re all safe from the fires in LA so far! So let the Lodgecast whisk you away to the tundra of Minnesota where we recently watched A Complete Unknown about a young Bob Dylan played by Timothee Chalamet. This movie covers Dylan’s early folk period up to his controversial decision to go electric in 1965. James Mangold directs this conventional biopic which also stars Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez. We got way into Dylan for this one! Enjoy this Minnesota winter special Lodgecast with some hot cocoa!
Happy New Year! It's the new musical film everyone is talking about, so we figured we'd talk about it. Wicked: Part I! This 160-minute movie covers the first half of this epic adaptation of the popular musical adaptation Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, which is based on the 1995 novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire, which comes from the universe of L. Frank Baum's Oz books which were adapted into the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba Thropp, who eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, but it's gonna take a long time for her to get there. Along the way, she befriends Ariana Grande who plays Galinda Upland and encounters Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible and Jeff Goldblum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.The film is directed by Jon M. Chu and also stars Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, and Peter Dinklage. In this movie you'll hear hit songs like "The Wizard and I", "Popular", "Defying Gravity", and so much more. Listen to our thoughts and feelings on this fantastical episode!
Merry Chongsmas and Happy Chongnukkah! Back in Episode 134 of the Lodgecast we covered a little movie called "2025 - The World Enslaved by a Virus" and it was a special experience. The movie has received the lowest possible rating on IMDb at 1.0. It was written and directed by the Wesely Brothers. Since then, we've been tracking these bros and they released a new movie called A Law for Christmas which currently has a 1.1 rating on IMDb. We saved it for the holidays and watched this entire movie with a running time of 2 Hrs. 21 Min.The movie stars Savannah Lathem as Gloria Winters who has just become the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. She travels to a small rural town to interview farmers. There she meets the love of her life Christian Baker (Chase Giacomo). The movie carries all the signature filmmaking techniques of a Wesely Brothers production, which we will tell you all about in this stuffed holiday episode! Enjoy!
At age 94, Clint Eastwood is back! He directed the new legal thriller Juror No. 2 to critical acclaim! The courtroom isn't our favorite place to be in movies and we certainly had some issues with Clint's latest and last (?) film.The movie stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, and Kiefer Sutherland. Hang in there Clint!
You might've just missed this recent little supernatural horror movie that dropped onto Netflix called The Deliverance. But the Lodgecast knows that a horror movie directed by Lee Daniels deserves to be covered! We talked about our history with Mr. Daniels' films, most notably Shadowboxer (2005), Precious (2009), and The Paperboy (2012). Then we watched The Deliverance, which did not disappoint, serving up many salad dragons to our delight.The movie stars Andra Day, Rob Morgan, Caleb McLaughlin, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Tasha Smith, Omar Epps, Mo'Nique, and Glenn Close as the unforgettable Alberta Jackson! You're gonna wanna tune into this episode and possibly fire this movie up on Netflix. Movie critics be damned, this movie is a wild ride!
To mark the 30th anniversary of The Crow (1994) and commemorate the passing of Brandon Lee, director Rupert Sanders made his own version of The Crow and called it The Crow (2024). There are existential moments in Lodgecast history where we ask, "What are we doing?" and seeing The Crow (2024) in IMAX was one of those moments.The Crow (2024) stars a tatted-up Bill Skarsgard as The Crow with his girlfriend, played by FKA Twigs. It got bad reviews and did bad box office and was just all around bad, bad, bad. So in our generosity, we've decided to drop this goth bomb on you!
We explore the wild universe of the Alien franchise as we confront its latest installment Alien: Romulus (2024) directed by Fede Alvarez. We briefly talk about Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), Alien Resurrection (1997), AVP (2004), AVP:R (2007), Prometheus (2012), and Alien: Covenant (2017) before we ascend the sacred Burbank 16 steps to watch this movie in IMAX. We were pleasantly surprised at this interquel, which takes place between Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986).It stars a younger group of actors this time including Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. Facehuggers and chestbursters abound! But let Ian Holm rest in peace!
Despite Bischke’s strong objections, we finally covered the vampiric ballerina splatterfest ABIGAIL. But don’t worry, he’s already exacted his revenge…and then some!
The day after Election Day, the Lodgecast tried to shake off the post-election blues by watching Robert Zemeckis's new film Here starring Forrest Gump and Jenny (Tom Hanks and Robin Wright). Zemeckis has had quite a run on the Lodgecast with three films: the Lodgecast classic Welcome to Marwen (2018), the remake of The Witches (2020), and Holy Smokeo himself, live-action Pinocchio (2022). Here (2024) looked to be another wild Zemeckis film-in-the-making, all taking place in one room, in one house over the course of decades. Actually millions of years as the film starts with dinosaurs, eventually leading to Native Americans, and then a role for Benjamin Franklin's illegitimate son William. It's based on the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, with a screenplay by Zemeckis and Eric Roth. Most of the nonlinear story covers a post-World War II family and the ups and downs of their lives from the late 1940s to the early 2000s. Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly play the parents of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Hanks and Wright are severely de-aged and then re-aged over the course of the film using the magic of digital effects. While our reviews varied, this Zemeckis outing wasn't as painful as the previous three!
We recently witnessed Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan in the conservative biopic Reagan! This week it's Dennis Quaid in the gross-out body horror movie The Substance! Way back in Episode Number 9 of the Lodgecast, we covered a little French revenge film called Revenge (2018) directed by Coralie Fargeat. This French film director has returned six years later to give us The Substance (2024). The movie stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid. As we'll say in this episode, if you have the stomach to watch this body horror movie, then watch it first before you listen to all the spoilers in this episode.
Happy Halloween! In our last political-related Lodgecast for quite a while we take on Ali Abbasi's new horror comedy The Apprentice. It's a horror comedy because it is the origin story of American psychopath Donald J. Trump. Sebastian Stan stars as Trump, with Jeremy Strong as Trump's mentor Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump. Over the course of the film, which covers about 1973-1987, we see Trump devolve from an aspiring real-estate mogul to the pathologically narcissistic, vindictive psychopath we know today.Join us in our election anxiety episode as we try to laugh at the man who has spent the last nine years destroying our country. This episode will be instantly dated so tune in today!
In a very special episode of the Lodgecast, we cover the new epic political biopic Reagan (2024)! For this hotly anticipated film, we took a little Lodgecast field trip to do some research. You'll hear all about it in this episode. In the movie Reagan (2024), Dennis Quaid stars as President Ronald Reagan alongside Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan. The rest of the cast is stacked, including Jon Voight, C. Thomas Howell, Kevin Dillon, Mena Suvari, Robert Davi, Xander Berkeley, Pat Boone, Kevin Sorbo, and most importantly, Creed's Scott Stapp as Frank Sinatra. The film was directed by Sean McNamara who has quite the filmography. It's an epic Lodgecast about an epic movie covering an epic President. This is Reagan!
Reverend David A.R. White returns for a fifth installment of the God's Not Dead film series entitled God's Not Dead: In God We Trust. We caught a Fathom Event screening of this during the one week it was playing. It delivered on its promise of being the most political in the series, with David A.R. White running for Congress against the villainous secular congressman Peter Kane (Ray Wise).Scott Baio stars as Kane's even more villainous right-hand man. Isaiah Washington reprises his role as Congressman Daryl Smith. Dean Cain, Mike Huckabee, and the Newsboys also show up.The movie dares to ask "Is God dead in American politics?" Spoiler: David A.R. White wins the election and God is Not Dead! Will David A.R. White rise to the presidency and become the Antichrist in God's Not Dead 6? Only time will tell!
Ever had a taxi ride that changed your entire life? Well that's Daddio! In this unique film, Dakota Johnson gets in a cab with taxi driver Sean Penn. Over the course of their journey from JFK International Airport to her apartment in Manhattan, they have a 100-minute conversation about life, love, loss, sex, power, and much more. Daddio was written and directed by Christy Hall. Dakota Johnson plays Girlie and Sean Penn plays Clark, also known as Daddio!
Francis Ford Coppola, you madman! Coppola spent $120 million of his own money to finance his new epic science fiction dramedy Megalopolis, and we just witnessed it in IMAX on Discount Nite! Folks, if you live by a theater that is playing this movie, it does deserve to be seen on the big screen. It is a sight to behold printed on Salad Dragon skin celluloid. An uncompromising, ambitious vision that will certainly draw a wide variety of reactions as it did for us. The cast is stacked with Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero, Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero, Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III, Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina, Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz, Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater, D.B. Sweeney as Commissioner Stanley Hart, and Dustin Hoffman as Nush "The Fixer" Berman. It was 50 years in the making, and at 85 years young Coppola has taken us to Megalopolis. See it BIG!
Saleka Night Shyamalan makes her film debut in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap! Saleka is M. Night's daughter in real life, but in the movie, she plays fictional popstar Lady Raven. Her concert is attended by serial killer Josh Hartnett and his daughter played by Ariel Donoghue. Hayley Mills of The Parent Trap (1961) fame is trying to track down Hartnett and trap him at the concert. It's another head-scratching psychological thriller from master of suspense M. Night Shyamalan.
Director Ti West completes his X trilogy with his new movie MaXXXine. Mia Goth is back as Maxine Minx from the film X (2022). This time she is an aspiring actress in 1980s Hollywood seeking to put her adult film career behind her. Meanwhile, a killer known as the Night Stalker is roaming around Hollywood killing people and threatening Maxine.The film also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon. The film seems like it could be a sleazy 80s slasher slam dunk for Mr. Ti West, but does he succeed? Tune into this hawt take to hear our reaction.
One of the most talked about horror movies of the year is Longlegs. This hyped horror movie is from director Oz Perkins, who directed Gretel & Hansel, which we covered back in Movie Lodgecast Number 84. In Longlegs, Maika Monroe plays an FBI agent who must track down a serial killer, who might be played by Nicolas Cage. The movie also stars Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt. This horror movie has produced much debate, including on this podcast as opinions were decidedly mixed. Join us as we dissect Longlegs!
J.Lo's fascinating year continues! After covering This Is Me...Now: A Love Story, we were curious to see what she was up to in her Netflix sci-fi action movie Atlas. Jennifer Lopez plays Atlas Shepherd, who learns to stop worrying and love artificial intelligence in the year 2071. She takes control of a giant mech robot and befriends the onboard AI named Smith. The movie also stars Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong.
It's a box office bomb losing over $100 million and scoring an abysmal 10% on Rotten Tomatoes currently. The movie is Borderlands, starring multi-Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett as Lilith and her team of misfits in this sci-fi action comedy based on the video game series. The movie was shot in Hungary during the COVID-19 pandemic by director Eli Roth with reshoots by Tim Miller to give it a PG-13 rating. It finally dropped into theaters here in August and it's a disaster-piece that we had to cover.The impressive cast includes Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black as the obnoxious voice of Claptrap. Don't ever see this movie, but maybe hear what we witnessed. This is Borderlands.
Russell Crowe is back again with his clerical collar fighting demons! A little over a year after The Pope's Exorcist (2023) was released, a new movie called The Exorcism has been released directed by Joshua John Miller. Joshua John Miller is the son of Jason Miller who played Father Damien Karras in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist! Joshua John Miller was also a child actor who starred in movies like River's Edge, Near Dark, Class of 1999, and Teen Witch. In his directorial debut The Exorcism (2024), Joshua John Miller directs Russell Crowe as Anthony Miller, an actor with a deteriorating mental state who melts down as he's working on an exorcism horror movie.The film also stars Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, Adrian Pasdar, and David Hyde Pierce. Will it live up to the dizzying heights of The Pope's Exorcist? We will let you know!
At age 79, Aussie director George Miller has released the lively Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This film comes out almost a decade after the highly regarded Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). It is a prequel to Fury Road starring Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy as young versions of the character Furiosa. Chris Hemsworth plays the villain Dementus, and there's a whole bunch of other demented characters that inhabit this post-apocalyptic wasteland. The film unfortunately bombed, and we'll discuss why, along with giving our review of this expensive action film!
The movie event of the summer has arrived! We saw Twisters in 4DX with motion-seats, wind, spraying water, vibration, smoke, and strobe lights! On a packed discount night at the Regal North Hollywood, Twisters proved to be the perfect 4DX movie that rocked our worlds for two solid hours.After sharing our recently rediscovered love for Jan de Bont's Twister (1996), we headed into the Pepsi 4DX with large Pepsis in hand. From the opening tornado scene, we knew we were in trouble. Twisters is directed by Lee Isaac Chung and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane. Deadpool & Wolverine unfortunately kicked Twisters out of 4DX, but if you somehow get a chance to see it in 4DX, DO IT! And if you feel it, chase it! We got twins!!
Forty years after the film Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Detroit police detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) returns for the fourth installment in the Beverly Hills Cop film series. After being burned by Eddie's legacy sequel Coming 2 America (2021), we were cautious about Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. We share our love for Eddie in the opening, along with Harold Faltermeyer, who composed the great "Axel F" theme song. This movie was released on Netflix, where it quickly rose to the most-watched film.Many older actors returned for this one, including Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge. The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kevin Bacon, and Taylour Paige as Axel's daughter. The film is directed by first-time director Mark Molloy. We tried to bring some love and light to this one!
It's time to jump in the pool! Chris Pine's directorial debut was in theaters for two weeks tops, but we were able to dive in and experience it on the big screen. In the film, Chris Pine plays poolman Darren Barrenman. He fights for what is right in Los Angeles, which leads him down a path of corruption & real-estate & water & power.Pine assembled an impressive cast including Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Tobolowsky, Clancy Brown, John Ortiz, Ray Wise, Juliet Mills, and DeWanda Wise. Poolman premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to wretched reviews, so we knew we had to see it!Never watch this film, but do listen to our take on Chris Pine's Poolman!
Take a nostalgic Lodgecast trip with us back to 2018, when, for a brief period, we paid $9.95 per month to see unlimited movies at any time and in any theater. We watched the recently released HBO Original documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash to learn the story behind that crazy time in American moviegoing history. We find out all about the rise and fall of the MoviePass company and the players behind the scenes. And we mostly talk about our personal histories with MoviePass, including the MoviePass-produced film Gotti (2018) that we covered way back in Episode 14. We also talk about when MoviePass officially crashed during our hawt take of Mission: Impossible - Fallout. It's all love and light as we look back at our MoviePass moviegoing experiences. Rest in Peace $9.95 MoviePass! Long Live the AMC A-List!
Happy 4th of July America! For such a time as this, writer/director Alex Garland dropped his latest flick Civil War into theaters. This $50 million A24 film actually made some money bringing in $120 million worldwide. In the film, the United States is engulfed in a Civil War, as President Nick Offerman has taken authoritarian control over the federal government. Meanwhile, various secessionist regional factions are heading for Washington, D.C. to wreak havoc. Journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson are road tripping while capturing the wartime action. What is the purpose of this film at this time, Mr. Garland? We considered it our patriotic duty to try to figure it out. God Bless the USA!
Director Luca Guadagnino returns. After his dark-hearted cannibal film Bones and All starring our boy Chalamet, Guadagnino has made a light-hearted tennis romance starring Zendaya. Challengers features a love triangle between her and Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. We'll let you know if this movie is sexy! The film features plenty of tennis to the pulsing techno beats of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's 15-Love-n-Light and the Lodgecast is ready to serve! 🎾
It was time to Do The Dune! Part Two! Yes, we got our Dune-themed sandworm popcorn bucket and we test it out live on the air. Then we snuggled in for another trip to the desert planet Arrakis to watch our boy Chalamet get all spiced up. And this time we got way more than just flashes of Zendaya! We rode this sandworm for 166 minutes and we'll let you know our reactions to this epic science fiction film conclusion. Bring on the Dune Messiah and the Children of Dune and even the God Emperor of Dune and the Heretics of Dune!Dune 2 featured a star-flooded cast including Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Lea Seydoux, and Christopher Walken!
The Lodgecast boys and girls of summer have returned from our extended Spring Break! We've been secretly recording while we were away. And one movie we did not miss was the baffling Marvel superhero movie Madame Web! The Dr. Michael Morbius Memorandum states that any Marvel movie that falls below 20% on Rotten Tomatoes must be covered on the Lodgecast. And Madame Web scored an abysmal 11% on Rotten Tomatoes!By the time we got to theaters, the word was out that this film was a turkey, and audiences were primed to laugh at everything Madame Web threw at us. Dakota Johnson delivers a bewildering performance as Madame Web as she tries to spin drama out of the wretched script and awkward pauses. She's supported by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott. Tune into this episode to find out more about this cinematic bomb!
We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We must give our dear Lodgemaster a much-needed editing break after splicing together over 280 four-bone episodes in the last six years!We'll be recording episodes of notable movies here and there while we rest up, but they won't be released until after our break. Fear not, dear listener; we shall return! Love & Eternal Light!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2023 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in under 30 minutes!Then it's onto our special award, where we'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2023 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2023.Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen, and let us know what you think!
This Is J.Lo…NOW! At age 54, Jennifer Lopez has released her ninth studio album, This Is Me... Now, and along with it, she financed a $20 million romantic musical film that dropped onto Amazon Prime last week! This Is Me...Now: A Love Story is loosely based on J.Lo's life as she falls in and out of love over the past decades. This visual album was only 65 minutes long, but we had much to say about it!Even though he's only in it for a few shots, Ben Affleck looms large over the project as Bennifer crashes and burns in the opening scenes, and J.Lo goes through a decades-long search to rediscover herself and her soul mate Ben. The film features many songs from her new album and many therapy scenes with Fat Joe as her therapist.It also features a whole host of cameos, including Jane Fonda, Kim Petras, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Sofia Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sadhguru, Derek Hough, Trevor Noah, Paul Raci, and Ben Affleck as Rex Stone/Biker. Watch it through our eyes if you dare!
Three boys ventured out into a cataclysmic rainstorm to tackle the appropriately waterlogged NIGHT SWIM, starring Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt and Academy Award nominee Kerry Condon. Did it scare our fins off or leave us cold in the shallow end? Dive in and find out!
Jason Statham is The Beekeeper. Requests were pouring in for us to cover this ridiculous action movie so we did. David Ayer directs and Kurt Wimmer writes (he also was one of the credited writers on Expend4bles). The movie features bees and honey and plenty of bee talk. Statham is an actual beekeeper on the property of Phylicia Rashad. When Phylicia Rashad gets fooled into a phishing scam and loses all her money she shoots herself. This sets Statham out on a John Wick-style quest for revenge. It left some Lodgers laughing and other Lodgers screaming, “Not the bees!”. The movie also stars Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, and Jeremy Irons!
Nicolas Cage recently turned 60! And just when you think he's done it all, he delivers yet another fantastic performance in a movie like Dream Scenario. This dark comedy by Norwegian film director Kristoffer Borgli stars Cage as a biology professor who starts appearing in random people's dreams and becomes famous. It's a wonderful setup for exploring the ins and outs of modern fame. It also stars Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula, and Dylan Baker. Another winner from A24! See it!
Poor Things was one of the most anticipated movies of 2023, and it did not disappoint! It is another unique vision from director Yorgos Lanthimos and is currently nominated for 11 Academy Awards.Emma Stone stars in a bravura performance after she is revitalized by an eccentric surgeon played by Willem Dafoe. The cast is rounded out by Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and Jerrod Carmichael. It's a must-see!
For this episode, we ventured into new territory. We went to an AMC Screen Unseen mystery movie event. AMC Screen Unseen shows a movie that is coming out soon, but they don't tell you what it is. No one in the audience knows what the movie is until it hits the big screen! A cool idea from AMC, and at a price point of $5, our theater was packed. All we knew was that the mystery movie was R-rated, and that was enough to get us excited. We recorded an intro for this episode where we speculated what this mystery movie might be. Hear our reaction in real-time as we reveal this mystery movie to you and discuss it!
There was a Pet Sematary prequel that came out late last year! A prequel to the Pet Sematary (2019) remake, to be precise, which was a remake of the 1989 film based on the 1983 Stephen King book. So Bloodlines is a prequel of a remake of an adaptation that went straight to Paramount Plus. We covered the Pet Sematary remake way back in Episode 43 of the Lodgecast. Bloodlines scored a woeful 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, which sealed our fate that we had to cover it. This movie is set in 1969 and stars Jackson White as a young Jud Crandall who discovers the secrets of the cemetery. This movie stars some other heavy hitters, including Henry Thomas, David Duchovny, Samantha Mathis, and Pam Grier. The cast is rounded out by Forrest Goodluck, Jack Mulhern, Natalie Alyn Lind, and Isabella Star LaBlanc. While "sometimes dead is better," we're not ruling out future installments of the Pet Sematary franchise!
The Year of the Dragon is upon us! But before we get to dragons, let's get prestigious with Sofia Coppola's new A24 biopic Priscilla about Priscilla Presley. For this 'cast, we got the old Elvis (2022) crew back together to take a new look at The King from his wife's perspective. This movie is an adaptation of Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. It stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis. We came in with varying degrees of fandom for the films of Sofia Coppola and we left with varying bone counts!
And so we close out the year 2023 with Timothee Chalamet's Wonka. This is a new musical fantasy prequel to Roald Dahl's story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That 1964 book has been adapted twice: the classic version starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in 1971 and the not-so-classic Tim Burton 2005 remake starring Johnny Depp as Mr. Wonka. While this new Wonka movie didn't reach the dizzying heights of Cats (2019), there was still plenty of wacky musical fun to be had. The movie is competently directed by Paul King, who is famous for Paddington and Paddington 2. Wonka co-stars Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Olivia Colman, and Hugh Grant as Lofty the Oompa-Loompa. Join us for this special Minnesota-based Lodgecast as we inject the liquid chocolate deep into our veins! Wishing you all a wild and wonderful wishy-washy New Year!
Sean Hannity produced a Christmas comedy this year called Jingle Smells. The movie premiered on the video site Rumble, which is attempting to be a conservative version of YouTube. The premise involves quirky garbage men and canceled Christmas toys. It features John Schneider, Ben Davies, Eric Roberts, Victoria Jackson, James Storm, Jim Breuer, and, of course, Sean Hannity as himself! This one was bound to hurt even the most battle-hardened Lodgers. But we made it through to deliver this Christmas miracle episode to you! Merry Chongsmas and Happy Chongnukkah!
If you see one movie between now and Christmas Day, make it The Holdovers! We share our love for director Alexander Payne in this episode before snuggling in for a very cozy comedy starring Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa. Set in December of 1970, Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly teacher at a boarding school in New England. He is tasked with looking after the students who have to remain on campus for the holiday break for various reasons. Giamatti is a shoo-in for at least a Best Actor nomination in a hilarious role reminiscent of his great role in Sideways (2004). See this Christmas movie! With the whole family! Before Christmas Day if you can!
Director David Gordon Green returns to ruin another beloved horror franchise. After making three terrible Halloween movies that we covered, this time Gordon Green sets out to destroy The Exorcist franchise. We put off covering this for as long as we could but eventually had to face it. This wretched Exorcist sequel stars Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O'Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ann Dowd. And Gordon Green even got 90-year-old Ellen Burstyn to reprise her role as Chris MacNeil. And for what, Mr. Gordon Green?! I'm getting angry just thinking about this movie! Hear our devastating takedown of The Exorcist: Believer. It will be followed by another terrible sequel called The Exorcist: Deceiver in 2025, and we will witness that atrocity as well!
Meg Ryan has a new movie out! It was in theaters for a minute, and we caught it. Meg stars in it and also wrote and directed it. It's a romantic comedy called What Happens Later and stars her and David Duchovny. They're exes who bump into each other at an airport. When their flights are delayed, they are forced to stay in the airport all night together. We'll let you know our history with Meg Ryan and if her new movie warmed our hearts or froze our souls!
Just in time for Thanksgiving, we slipped into a screening of Eli Roth's new slasher film Thanksgiving! This movie is based on the superb fake trailer from Grindhouse (2007). One year after a Black Friday sale goes awry and numerous people die, a John Carver-masked axe-wielding maniac is killing the citizens of Plymouth, Massachusetts. It sounds like a layup, but does director Eli Roth rise to the occasion?! Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Milo Manheim, Jalen Thomas Brooks, Nell Verlaque, Rick Hoffman, and Gina Gershon star! Happy Thanksgiving!
The second highest-grossing tour of all time is now a concert film at your local AMC theater! We weren't sure if we were gonna Lodgecast this one, but by the time we walked out of this 2 Hr. 49 Min. concert movie, we had some things to say. When we finally got to the AMC Burbank Prime cinema to see this, all the Swifties had apparently already watched it because we had the theater all to ourselves. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour unfolded before our eyes in ten acts (eras) from Lover to Midnights. We came in knowing little about Tay Tay's life or music, so we learned a lot. We found out the most popular, beautiful, richest girl in the world gets all she wants and all her dreams come true. Join us for our review of this musical adventure!
David Fincher's The Killer is dropping on Netflix! It received a limited theatrical release, so we had to catch it on the big screen at the Laemmle Glendale. The film stars Michael Fassbender as an ascetic assassin who sticks to his plans and never improvises. But when a hit job goes awry, he's forced to go on the run while killing off some loose ends. The script is by Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en, 8mm, Brainscan), and it's perfect material for Fincher, who directs the hell out of it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross provide the synth score. The cast also includes Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O'Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, and Tilda Swinton. Fire up your Netflix and watch it, and then hear our hawt take!
Director Martin Scorsese returns with a 3 Hrs. 26 Min. epic Western crime drama called Killers of the Flower Moon. We spent an entire Sunday confronting this motion picture in IMAX! It brings together Marty's two favorite actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, who haven't starred together in a movie since This Boy's Life (1993). Lily Gladstone also stars as DiCaprio's wife.The film is based on the 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann, with a script by Eric Roth. In the film, the Osage Nation has struck it rich with oil on their reservation in 1920s Oklahoma, but a series of murders of Osage members is disturbing the community.Could Uncle Bobby De Niro and his nephew Leo DiCaprio be involved in the murders? We'll spoil everything in our review of this lavish $200 million production! It will be nominated for absolutely everything at the Academy Awards, so you should see it at some point. Prestige Season has begun!!!
Four boys with an extremely shaky grasp on the lore of the 10-film SAW franchise attempt to take on the latest installment, featuring Tobin Bell as Jigsaw in a way you’ve never seen him before!Prepare to be grossed out by this sick and twisted Hawt Take just in time for Halloween!
Those burly boys known as The Expendables are back almost a decade after their last outing in Expendables 3 (2014). We were definitely not going to cover Expend4bles, but then it scored a remarkably low 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, which made it essential viewing. The cast is getting downright geriatric, with a 77-year-old Sylvester Stallone, a 65-year-old Dolph Lundgren, and a 67-year-old Andy Garcia all trying to pull off some late-career stunts. Jason Statham does the heavy lifting in the action department, and he's lazily supported by Randy Couture, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, and Iko Uwais. This movie bombed hard for many reasons, which we will illuminate in this Hawt Take!
What up Stonk Kingz?! New movie out about Roaring Kitty AKA Keith Gill who took the apes to the moon with his WallStreetBet on GameStop. We'll tell you our retailer investor stories and how to invest your money, before we see this stonk movie. Paul Dano plays Stonk King Keith Gill, along with a stacked cast including Pete Davidson, Vincent D'Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, and Seth Rogen. While the dream of taking Dogecoin to $1 dollar have faded, we still have a glimmer of hope that one day AMC Theaters will be saved by the little guys like us. HOLD!!!
Earlier this year, a film was released called Hypnotic, directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Ben Affleck. It was a major box office bomb with bad reviews and was only in theaters for a blink of an eye. But we caught a screening of it and, like hypnotized victims, we scarcely remember what we saw. Join us in examining our recollection of Rodriguez's head-scratching thriller. The movie also stars William Fichtner, Alice Braga, J.D. Pardo, Hala Finley, Dayo Okeniyi, Jeff Fahey, and Jackie Earle Haley.
Oh hai Tommy! Some brave Lodgers traveled to Westwood for one of the first screenings of Tommy Wiseau's new movie Big Shark (2023). Twenty years ago writer/director/actor Tommy Wiseau released one of the all-time greatest bad movies called The Room (2003). If you haven't seen it, then it is your duty to watch it immediately! It's now 20 years later, and Mr. Wiseau still looks and acts about the same. He was in the house to introduce and answer questions about his new horror comedy Big Shark. This one is set in New Orleans and features many CG shark attacks. Tommy plays a firefighter alongside Isaiah LaBorde and Mark Valeriano, and they take it upon themselves to kill the shark. This movie is probably not coming to video-on-demand anytime soon, so see the movie through our eyes! Oh hai Shark!
Comedy is back in theaters with the new teen sex romp Bottoms! We joined a packed house of youngsters for this high school flick about two senior girls who start a fight club. The girls are Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, and they're committed to losing their virginity with cheerleaders Havana Rose Liu and Kaia Gerber. Former NFL running back Marshawn "Beast Mode" Lynch oversees the fight club. Emma Seligman directs this zany comedy! Hear our hawt take!
77-year-old writer/director Paul Schrader returns! We haven't given up on Uncle Paul, and we'll keep covering his movies as long as he's alive. This is the third Lodgecast outing for The Schrader Patrol. In the past, we've covered The Card Counter in Episode 109 and First Reformed way back in Episode 10. Now, we cover a new chapter in Uncle Paul's diary entitled Master Gardener. Joel Edgerton plays a horticulturist and former White supremacist. He's presided over by a rich Southern widow played by Sigourney Weaver. He grows close to gardener apprentice Maya (Quintessa Swindell). It's about as exciting as it sounds. Keep 'em coming Paul!
It's been a minute since we saw this in theaters back in March. But we remember having a good time at this D&D fantasy comedy. Based on the popular and Satanic role-playing game from Hasbro. This game brand adaptation stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant. Directed by the talented duo of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who brought us Game Night (2018), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and Horrible Bosses (2011). If you liked any of these, then you might like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves!
Beau Knows High Anxiety in the nightmarish dark comedy from filmmaker Ari Aster! Joaquin Phoenix plays the hell out of Beau in this epic three-hour fever dream. A24 seemingly gave Ari Aster complete creative control with a $35 million budget to put this crazed vision on the screen. We saw this movie back in April in IMAX and in this episode we'll break down for you every act of this five or six act film.Along with Joaquin, the movie features Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, Armen Nahapetian, and Richard Kind. While the movie received wildly different reviews from the Lodgers who attended this screening, it absolutely demands to be seen! Watch Beau Is Afraid and then listen to this Lodgecast!
You haven't seen Mindcage? You haven't heard of Mindcage? Lodgemaster was determined to watch this VOD homage to Silence of the Lambs, starring Martin Lawrence and John Malkovich. After months of dragging our feet, we finally sat down to watch it. The movie was filmed in Arkansas and also stars Melissa Roxburgh, Robert Knepper, Jacob Grodnik, and Aiden Turner. We'll let you know what we witnessed in this hawt take!
It's a movie that was seemingly made for the Lodgecast. It opened on July 4th, 2023, and has since grossed $170 million! The child trafficking sleeper hit of the summer called Sound of Freedom. Produced by Angel Studios (creators of The Chosen), Sound of Freedom stars Jim Caviezel as real-life anti-human trafficking vigilante Tim Ballard. Before we headed into this movie, we talked about our latest findings on Ballard and Caviezel. Then we joined a sold-out crowd for this 2-hour and 10-minute action movie. Is the movie really a MAGA Q-Anon adjacent piece of propaganda like the mainstream media is conveying it to be? Or is it merely an innocent revenge flick shining a light into the darkness of the global sex trafficking trade? We'll let you know everything we saw. Sound of Freedom was directed by Alejandro Monteverde and stars Caviezel, Bill Camp, Jose Zuniga, Eduardo Verastegui, along with a very small role for Mira Sorvino. God's Children Are Not for Sale!
At long last, the Barbie Dreamcast has arrived! Find out what our sparkling crack team of pink-clad ladies think of this hotly-anticipated Greta Gerwig joint!
Booking our tickets months in advance, we scored hot seats for the opening weekend 70MM IMAX screening of Oppenheimer! We were in the third-row center face-melt zone for the Trinity test conducted by J. Robert Oppenheimer and his friends at the Manhattan Project on July 16, 1945. Director Christopher Nolan captured it in all its horrifying glory. And Nolan captured much more than Trinity and Los Alamos in this three-hour epic biopic. Cillian Murphy pours his heart and soul into portraying the tragic Oppenheimer. He's accompanied by a stacked cast including Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, Alden Ehrenreich, Gary Oldman, and Rami Malek as Chee-Chee. Feel the heat with us as we deliver this 100 million degree Celsius Atomic Bomb of a Hawt Take! Not only is this Hawt Take 100 million degrees, but according to our calculations, it's also our 100th Hawt Take!
Way back in April of 2018, the Lodgecast reviewed a documentary by director William Friedkin called The Devil and Father Amorth. The doc was about Father Gabriele Amorth, who performed tens of thousands of exorcisms, including one on screen which William Friedkin filmed. It was an unforgettable night at the movies. Little did we know that five years later, Russell Crowe would burst onto the screen playing Father Gabriele Amorth in the horror film The Pope's Exorcist (2023)! It has been a number of months since we recorded this podcast, but we had a blast watching this and then talking about it. We can only hope for a Father Amorth horror franchise!
We're back in the saddle again! Galloping along with our archeologist friend Dr. Indiana Jones played by Harrison Ford, who just turned 81 years old! We prepared for this adventure by recently rewatching the first four Indiana Jones movies in one day. The first three Jones movies from the 1980s were wonderful. But needless to say, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) did not hold up, and our expectations for this fifth installment of the Dr. Jones saga were low. Director James Mangold takes the reigns from Spielberg this time, along with many credited screenwriters. This time it's 1969, and we're searching around the globe for Archimedes' Dial of Destiny. Harrison Ford leads the cast, which includes Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, and Mads Mikkelsen. Returning characters include John Rhys-Davies as Sallah and Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. Composer John Williams does some heavy lifting, scoring the heck out of this one at the age of 91! We'll let you know all the highs and lows of our final adventure with Dr. Indiana Jones!
We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We need to give our dear Lodgemaster a much-needed editing break after splicing together over 250 four-bone episodes in the last five years! We'll be covering some of the hawtest films that come out in the next few months, but we won't release these episodes until summertime. The Lodgecast Boyz & Girlz of Summer will return! Just in time for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny!
Lily Tomlin! Jane Fonda! Rita Moreno! Sally Field! We had to see what these 80-year-old ladies were up to in the geriatric sports comedy 80 For Brady. The story features four lifelong friends who travel to watch Tom Brady play in Super Bowl LI in 2017. The movie offers supporting roles from Tom Brady, Billy Porter, Rob Corddry, Alex Moffat, Bob Balaban, Glynn Turman, Sara Gilbert, Patton Oswalt, Rob Gronkowski, and the one and only Guy Fieri. The witty screenplay was written by Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern, who were the writers of Booksmart (2019). The cinematography is by the great John Toll, who shot Braveheart, The Thin Red Line, and Cloud Atlas. Laughs were had by most of the audience for this wacky comedy. We'll tell you all the trouble that these ladies get into!
The gravitational pull of the viral marketing campaign for Cocaine Bear sucked us into the theaters. That title! That poster! The memes! This horror comedy is based on a true story of a bear that ate cocaine in the 1980s in the wilderness of Tennessee. Elizabeth Banks directed this movie with a solid cast of Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Margo Martindale, and Ray Liotta (Rest in Peace). But this crazy movie wasn't the barrel of laughs we were hoping for, at least amongst this Lodgecast crew. We'll let you know how quickly the drugs wore off in this coked-up hawt take!
Son of Cronenberg (Brandon) Returns! Deep in lockdown, we covered his film Possessor (2020) which pulverized us. This time around Alexander Skarsgard plays a struggling writer in a resort town who gets killed and cloned with the help of Mia Goth and her sordid cohorts. Sex & drugs & violence were amply served to us, but was that enough to win us over? Brandon Cronenberg and Mia Goth were in the AMC Burbank 16 to introduce the film, and Kevin Sorbo also made a cameo appearance! We'll tell you all about our experience of this twisted sci-fi horror flick!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2022 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in under 30 minutes! Then it's on to a new award this year. We'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2022 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2022. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Kevin Sorbo (KSorbs) has directed a new Left Behind movie which we encountered in theaters as a Fathom Event. For those unfamiliar with Left Behind, they were a series of 16 bestselling Christian novels covering the End Times and authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. In the early 2000s, Kirk Cameron starred in three films which were adaptations of some of these novels. Then in 2014, Nicolas Cage starred in a big-budget reboot of the series, entitled simply Left Behind. Nine years passed until Kevin Sorbo took up the torch, directing and starring in this new sequel to the Nicolas Cage movie entitled Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist. This time Kevin Sorbo is playing the lead role of Rayford Steele, accompanied by co-stars Neal McDonough, Corbin Bernsen, Sam Sorbo (Kevin's wife), Braeden Sorbo (Kevin's son), and Bailey Chase playing the rising Antichrist named Nicolae Carpathia. Before we entered this movie, we take you to school on the ideas of premillennial dispensationalism which is a widespread belief system amongst Evangelical Christians in America. We'll tell you all about The Rapture, The Antichrist, The Tribulation, and much more in this episode. And then we'll tell you about this wild movie! It's an epic faith-based Lodgecast with a Seven-Headed Salad Dragon that we can't wait to unveil. Brace yourself for the Apocalypse!
We return to the computer screen in the new film Missing which takes place almost entirely on laptops and mobile phone screens. The film is from the creators of the 2018 film Searching, which we covered way back in Episode 22. The other special thing about this film is it stars Storm Reid, the lead girl from A Wrinkle in Time, which we covered in our very first Lodgecast and which gave us the Salad Dragon. In this movie Storm Reid's mom goes missing on a trip to Colombia and she does her best to track her down using the power of the Internet. It's got many twists and turns which we will spoil. It also stars Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, and Nia Long. Join us for a thrilling screenlife adventure!
Oscar buzz is heating up and the award for Best Actor goes to Brendan Fraser in The Whale! There is no doubt Brendan is winning Oscar night for his role as a 600-pound man named Charlie in Darren Aronofsky's new film. We talk about director Aronofsky and his wild career before witnessing his latest. While the marketing made it look uplifting, this film was rather unpleasant and drew a mixed reaction from this Lodgecast audience. The movie also stars Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Ty Simpkins, and Samantha Morton. Based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter. Congratulations Brendan Fraser! Well deserved!
Our boy Timothee Chalamet plays a cannibal?! You know we had to cover director Luca Guadagnino's new film Bones and All. In 1980s Virginia, Chalamet and Taylor Russel play fine young cannibals as they drive across the United States in search of Russel's mom in Minnesota. They are stalked by a super creepy cannibal named Sully played by Mark Rylance. This bleak romantic horror movie definitely has its qualities and we'll let you know how that factored into our bone count in this Bones and All Hawt Take!
We made it to Lodgecast Episode 150! We wanted to make this a special episode so we reserved the spot for the new robot horror movie M3GAN. Ever since the 4-bone M3GAN trailer dropped last year, the entire World has been abuzz about M3GAN. Who is this artificially intelligent doll turned fashion icon? Well we found out, and accurately predicted that this film is just the start of the M3GAN franchise as M3GAN 2.0 has already been green-lit for release in 2025. This first M3GAN movie stars Amie Donald as M3GAN with Jenna Davis supplying M3GAN's voice. Allison Williams plays M3GAN's creator and Violet McGraw plays the girl who becomes attached to M3GAN. As artificial intelligence rapidly advances and wreaks havoc on our lives and livelihoods, M3GAN will be there to remind us of the terrors we are actively unleashing!
As flash floods spread across Los Angeles, we risked our lives driving through torrential rain to see Damien Chazelle's 3-hour Hollywood epic Babylon. The movie massively flopped at the box office losing over $100 million, and it divided critics and audiences alike who either loved or hated it. It was rated R for severe sex & nudity, violence, drug use, profanity, and elephant defecation. We definitely had to see it on the big screen! The movie is set in the late 1920s and early 1930s as motion pictures transitioned from silent films to talkies. It stars Margot Robbie as a very coked-up aspiring actress, Brad Pitt as an aging silent film star, and Diego Calva as a film assistant who bears witness to the whole extravaganza. The movie has excellent supporting roles including Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Lukas Haas, Katherine Waterston, Tobey Maguire, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, and even the great Eric Roberts! You might love it or you might hate it, but you owe it to yourself to witness Babylon!
Lodgemaster braved the icy Minnesota tundra with a duo of extra special guests to witness a cinematic dramatization of the tumultuous life and times of the incomparable Whitney Houston. The pitch perfect cast features Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Clarke Peters and Law & Order SVU's very own Tamara Tunie. Press play, pop some bubbly and dance with somebody!
There's a new Avatar movie out in theaters called Avatar: The Way of Water. We saw it opening weekend in 3D high-frame-rate IMAX. This movie took James Cameron over ten years to make! Is it better than Avatar (2009)? Will it gross more than any film ever? Who is this "Spider" character everyone keeps talking about? All these questions will be answered as we dive into this epic sci-fi film that ran 3 Hrs. 12 Min. Sam Worthington as Jake Sully and Zoe Saldana as Neytiri are back and married with children, including Sigourney Weaver as their teenage daughter Kiri Sully. Even villain Stephen Lang is back! Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, and Jemaine Clement also make appearances. But the real star is Jack Champion as "Spider". We'll tell you all about "Spider" and much more in our travel review of our epic return to Pandora!
Holy Smokeo! There were two major Pinocchio films that came out late this year and we opted for the most painful one! Director Robert Zemeckis, the genius behind the movie Welcome to Marwen (2018), has returned with a direct-to-Disney-Plus live-action remake of Walt Disney's beloved 1940 animated film Pinocchio. We knew this one was gonna hurt, but we were unprepared for the level of pain Zemeckis was going to inflict upon us this time. Will this $150 million soulless production finally put an end to Zemeckis's career?! Probably not! Tom Hanks is Geppetto, Benjamin Evan Ainsworth is the voice of Pinocchio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Keegan-Michael Key is the voice of "Honest" John, Cynthia Erivo is The Blue Fairy, and Lorraine Bracco is the voice of a new seagull character called Sofia. Brace yourselves for Pinocchio and have a Happy New Year! Holy Smokeo!
Merry Chongsmas and Happy Chongnukkah! Yes indeed we did see the lauded new Spielberg film The Fabelmans AKA Spielberg: The Boy Genius Origin Story. Oh man do we have things to say about this film! As it is going to be bulldozing its way through awards season, we have to try to inject some sense of sanity into the Spielberg-worshipping publicity machine. We went into this film with open minds and hearts, but after watching all 2 hours and 30 minutes, we came out with some harsh words for our boy Spielberg. This film is now on VOD so watch it and then hear our take. Or if you can't stomach watching it, just listen to us. And if you loved the film, then hear us out. It'll give you much to talk about over the holiday dinner table. The film stars Gabriel LaBelle as the boy wonder Sammy Fabelman, Michelle Williams as his mom Mitzi Fabelman, Paul Dano as his dad Burt Fabelman, and a horribly miscast Seth Rogen as their friend Bennie. Judd Hirsch also has a small role as Uncle Boris, and there's a very special film director cameo at the end that we won't spoil here. It's time to Meet The Fabelmans!
We shed love and light on "Weird Al" Yankovic in this ode to the funny man who played a role in all our childhoods. We introduce this episode with our Weird Al origin stories before we review his new music biopic satire Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. The movie is streaming for free on The Roku Channel and stars Daniel Radcliffe as the adult Weird Al, Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, and a legion of other celebrity roles and cameos including Weird Al himself as a record producer. We had a barrel of laughs in this one with mostly glowing things to say. If you're an Alfred Yankovic fan, you have to see Weird: The Al Yankovic Story!
Dine with us on a Tuesday Discount Night as we digest the new black comedy The Menu directed by Mark Mylod. Feast your eyes on actors Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, and John Leguizamo. Taste each delectable course in this full meal served at this elite dinner where celebrity chef Ralph Fiennes serves up a healthy portion of murder! Savor the flavor of deliciously decadent delights in this spicy hawt take! Yum!
We are drowning in prestige season, so it was time to see one of the most prestigious films of the year entitled Triangle of Sadness. Directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund, this film won the Palme d'Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Set mostly on a luxury cruise, this is a hilarious satirical black comedy making fun of the wealthiest people in the world. It stars Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Buric, Henrik Dorsin, Vicki Berlin, and Woody Harrelson as the drunken cruise ship captain. The Lodgecast recommends seeing Triangle of Sadness!
Happy Thanksgiving! We have a Thanksgiving feast of a Lodgecast today starring none other than Kirk Cameron. It's one of our longest episodes serving up Salad Dragons for everyone. Before we entered this Fathom Event, we went even deeper into our history with Mr. Kirk Cameron. The last Kirk Cameron movie we covered was about homeschooling, but this heartwarming Christian drama is about adoption. It features a Christlike adopted teenage boy played by Raphael Ruggero, and their perfect adopted parents played by Kirk Cameron and Rebecca Rogers Nelson. There's a lot of crying in this movie, but also some comedic relief in the form of a kid named Nate played by Justin Sterner. Once you've had your turkey and stuffing, feast upon our story about a little faith-based movie called Lifemark. Streaming now exclusively on Pure Flix just in time for seeing it over the Thanksgiving holiday with your family!
We had to cover the new David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream directed by Brett Morgen. For this screening, we brought on an extra special Bowie super-fan as a guest. To start the episode, we all talked about our deep relationship with one of the greatest musical artists of all time. Then we proceeded into the IMAX theater to witness this loud, trippy doc on the big, big screen. Certainly not your average talking-head interview rock doc, we were treated to a 140-minute spectacle that features tons of amazing Bowie footage and music. We'll tell you all about it, but needless to say it is recommended viewing for Bowie fans!
Olivia Wilde's new film Don't Worry Darling is now streaming on HBO Max. We saw it a while back in IMAX and gave our gut reactions. Florence Pugh is living in an idyllic 1950s-styled neighborhood, but not everything is what it seems. We've seen this scenario before. Harry Styles plays her husband, and her neighbors include Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, and Nick Kroll. Chris Pine plays the sinister mastermind behind the planned community and his character was apparently modeled after psychologist and author Jordan Peterson. There's a twist in this one that we will spoil, so you've been warned!
With Election Day right around the corner, the Lodgecast drops a bombshell episode covering the new movie from Breitbart News called My Son Hunter directed by Robert Davi. In this cast we'll expose all things Hunter Biden and cover The Laptop from Hell! The movie was filmed in Serbia and stars Brit actor Laurence Fox as Hunter Biden, John James as U.S. president Joe Biden, and Gina Carano as secret service Agent Hound. Emma Gojkovic plays the fictional hooker with a heart of gold who hears Hunter's story and decides to tell all! We will tell you all we saw and more in this highly politicized episode of the Lodgecast!
We saw the last Halloween film that will ever be made! It was time for the saga of Michael Myers to end once and for all! Evil Dies on Discount Night! Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode for the last time in movie history! In this movie she kills Michael Myers in a kitchen island massacre! Director David Gordon Green completes his masterful trilogy with Halloween Ends! This time Mikey Myers has a buddy and his name is Corey (played by newcomer Rohan Campbell). Together they terrorize Haddonfield. Will Patton is also in this movie as he sort of falls in love with Jamie Lee Curtis. We'll spoil it all in this epic conclusion to the Halloween franchise! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The new horror movie Smile had been haunting us for quite some time. We had seen the trailer at least a dozen times in the past six months, so it was inevitable that we had to see it on a packed Tuesday discount night. Sosie Bacon (daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) is the star of this supernatural horror film. She plays a psychiatrist who witnesses a bizarre suicide and then is forced to confront her own sanity after seeing many smiling hallucinations. First time writer/director Parker Finn based this movie on his own short film and this one is quite literally a glorified short. But critics and audiences were mostly delighted by the many jumpscares. We'll let you know what we thought in this hawt take! It's almost time for Halloween!
Warning: This is not a very uplifting film or podcast episode. Filmmaker Gaspar Noe has returned with a film about dementia and death starring Dario Argento, Francoise Lebrun, and Alex Lutz. If you saw the last Gaspar Noe movie we covered called Climax (2018), then this is a wildly different experience. We saw this at the dying and now permanently closed Landmark Theatres' Pico. Vortex has been widely praised and with good reason, but it is depressing as hell! You've been warned!
Lot of buzz around the new film Barbarian so we checked it out to get a hawt take. Zach Cregger is basically a first time writer/director who brought this unique horror film to the screen. Set in Detroit (but filmed in Bulgaria), the film stars Georgina Campbell and Bill Skarsgard who both check into the same double booked Airbnb. We won't say anything more, but if you're a horror movie fan you probably want to check this film out. Lot of surprises in this one that we thoroughly spoil in this hawt take!
The classic Steven Spielberg film Jaws was re-released into IMAX theaters this Labor Day weekend so we decided to see it big! And we took a Lodger to see it who had somehow never seen it before! The 1975 blockbuster changed the course of cinema and it still holds up today. You know all about it, but we'll mention that it stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and a shark named Bruce! John Williams provides the famous score, and it's based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley, who wrote the screenplay with Carl Gottlieb. We'll talk about all things Jaws and get the full reaction of a person who has never seen it!
September 3rd, 2022 was National Cinema Day and we celebrated by seeing the new horror movie Orphan: First Kill. The theater was packed as everyone was pumped to see the prequel to the 2009 film Orphan. It somehow stars the same actress Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther, along with Julia Stiles, Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald), and Hiro Kanagawa as a hard-charging detective. This horror movie was directed by William Brent Bell and written by David Coggeshall, and was shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Were we scared? Were we knocked out by the twist? We'll let you know as we celebrate cinema in movie theaters!
Director George Miller returns at the age of 77 with his first feature film since Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). This one is called Three Thousand Years of Longing and stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Based on the 1994 short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt, this movie has Elba star as a genie who tells mythical recollections to a lonely British scholar played by Tilda Swinton. The film crosses many genres and was a box-office bomb, and we definitely think you should see it!
Terror on the Prairie is one the first films released by The Daily Wire Plus! A new streaming service from Ben Shapiro's right wing media company The Daily Wire. This western set in Montana stars cancelled MMA fighter Gina Carano and is directed by Michael Polish (Twin Falls Idaho). Some other actors in the film are Nick Searcy, Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone, Tyler Fischer, and Daniel Day-Lewis's son Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis. Few publications have covered this movie, but we were not afraid! We'll let you know what we saw!
French film director Claire Denis returns to the international film scene with her new film Both Sides of the Blade. The last film she directed called High Life (2018) left quite an impression on us when we did a podcast review of it back in May of 2019. That film starred Juliette Binoche, and now Binoche is back in Both Sides of the Blade alongside actor Vincent Lindon (Titane). We had heard that this film was an erotic thriller, but in actuality it is a romantic drama. We saw it at the Laemmle Glendale.
The schnapps of this film from IMDb: "It is the year 2025: Since the outbreak of the Corona virus in 2020, the world has not been the same: A communist system with a single world government has been established, English has been chosen as the world language, contacts have been reduced to a minimum. Christianity has been banned completely; the constitution how we knew it no longer exists. In Germany, a small group of young Christians start an underground revolution to reunite Christians and regain freedom." If this sounds intriguing to you, then listen to our podcast review. You will learn the true meaning of "spray fish"! Writer/director/actor Joshua Wesely put together this low budget film that we had to see. And if you're really curious, it is available on the free streaming platform Tubi!
Let the bodies, bodies, bodies hit the floor, floor, floor in A24's new Gen Z slasher whodunit directed by Halina Reijn. Two Gen Z lovers played by Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova head to a secluded house for a "hurricane party". At the house they meet up with Myha'la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, and Pete Davidson. Tensions mount when the power goes out and somebody is murdered. We'll let you know our hawt takes on this lauded black comedy horror film, and we won't even spoil the ending!
One of the favorite movie genres amongst Lodgers is the all but defunct erotic thriller genre. Yet at the ripe age of 81, director Adrian Lyne is back with a new erotic thriller to hopefully revive the genre he popularized with classics like Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Unfaithful (2002). Adrian Lyne's new film, which is his first in 20 years, is called Deep Water and it stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as a troubled couple. A supporting cast includes Tracy Letts, Lil Rel Howery, Dash Mihok, Finn Wittrock, Kristen Connolly, and Jacob Elordi. After many delays in release, the movie got dumped on Hulu back in March when we watched it. We'll let you know if Lyne delivered another erotic thriller classic, or if he's lost a step in the 20 years he's been away. The movie is based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith.
After witnessing the trailer at least a dozen times, we finally got to see Jordan Peele's Nope! We saw this big screen spectacle in IMAX the way it was intended. After Jordan Peele's last film Us (2019), our expectations weren't too high as we were all kinda lukewarm on that movie. This time around we were very divided in our reaction to Nope! In this movie a UFO descends on a horse ranch in California. Nope has a solid cast including Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea.
Body horror master filmmaker David Cronenberg is back with a new body horror film! After spending most of the 2000s making excellent non-body horror movies, he's returned to his roots for a dark cinematic voyage of sex & surgery called Crimes of the Future. We were all fans of Cronenberg to varying degrees, and we talk about his filmography before entering this futuristic tale starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart. Definitely not a podcast episode or movie for the weak of stomach, we'll spoil all the grisly details of the Salad Dragon scenes, of which there are many!
On a whim we decided to see The Black Phone, the new Blumhouse horror movie directed by Scott Derrickson and adapted from a short story by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son). Ethan Hawke plays a child abductor nicknamed "The Grabber" in 1978 suburban Denver. It also stars Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, and James Ransone. We got all hot and bothered about the film and the theatrical experience in the Burbank 6, in this very hawt take!
The anticipation was high for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic! Mostly because of the shots we'd seen of Tom Hanks as Elvis's manager Colonel Tom Parker. Like all Baz Luhrmann movies this film looked bonkers and it is definitely not a conventional music biopic. Austin Butler plays rock and roll icon Elvis Presley, with a supporting cast including Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr., David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Luke Bracey. This 160-minute film covers Elvis Presley's entire life. We disagreed over many points in the film and we hash it out in this comprehensive Lodgecast!
In this urgent Lodgecast a group of adventurous Lodgers attended the Fathom Event on June 14, 2022 of Kirk Cameron Presents: The Homeschool Awakening. This is the latest controversial documentary from actor and Evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron. We discussed our long history with Kirk Cameron and our feelings on homeschooling. Then we proceeded up to the Burbank 16 to witness Kirk Cameron. This screening had many twists and turns which may have involved the sitcom The Golden Girls. Needless to say if Kirk Cameron shows up in theaters again, we'll be there!
Writer/director Alex Garland returns with his new folk horror film called Men. His last film Annihilation (2018) was one of the most hotly debated movies in the Lodge, so we were excited to see and fight about Men. The film stars Jessie Buckley who goes to a small village in the countryside after the death of her husband. Actor Rory Kinnear shows up there in many forms, and the holiday quickly spirals into horror. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a "D+"! We'll let you know what we thought!
With widespread critical and audience acclaim, we were excited to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, written and directed by the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) who previously did Swiss Army Man (2016). Michelle Yeoh leads a great cast including Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film features an intense multiverse mix of black comedy, science fiction, martial arts, and animation. Did it blow our minds or wear us out?! Find out in this piping hot take!
The Lodgecast embargo on Marvel movies has been lifted, as Marvel released a film so reviled that we had to see it for ourselves. Jared Leto is Dr. Michael Morbius in this critically panned Marvel vampire movie. The movie cost about $80 million but it looks like it cost about $5 million. It also stars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. Hopefully Morbius spreads like a virus throughout the entire Marvel cinematic universe and takes it all down from the inside.
Madea is back! We knew she would be. While Tyler Perry claimed to retire her after A Madea Family Funeral (2019), we knew we hadn't seen the last of the Madea cinematic universe. Writer/director Tyler Perry plays Mabel "Madea" Simmons in this new Netflix film. Actually we watched and talked about this back in early March so our memory is foggy, but there is a big scene at a Red Lobster. The film also stars Cassi Davis-Patton, David Mann, Tamela Mann, Brandon Black, Gabrielle Dennis, and Brendan O'Carroll. Madea will return and we will be there for it!
Some said it would never happen, but we survived to watch the movie Top Gun: Maverick! After waiting three long, arduous years since its initially scheduled release, we finally witnessed Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick. In this episode we express deep nostalgia and love for Top Gun (1986) before heading into the Universal CityWalk. We saw it in IMAX opening night with a rowdy packed house, and we had a good time! The new film is directed by Joseph Kosinski and stars Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer. But the big star is Thomas Cruise as Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell! It's the Number One Movie in the World! If you haven't seen it yet, go see it on the big screen tonight!
We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We'll be heading to tropical areas for a few months, but actually we just need to give the Lodgemaster a much needed editing break after putting together over 200 four bone episodes in the last four years. We'll be covering some of the hawtest films that come out in the next few months, but we won't release these episodes until summertime. The Lodgecast Boyz & Girlz of Summer will return! Just in time for Top Gun: Maverick!
Ti West's new slasher film X was receiving positive reviews so we had to see it. A crew of six Lodgers jumped in a van and drove down to the Burbank 16 to witness this horror movie with a packed audience in the infamous Theater #13. In the film, a pornographic film crew goes on a road trip through Texas to shoot at a farm owned by a creepy elderly couple named Howard and Pearl. Sex and violence ensues. The film stars Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega, Martin Henderson, Brittany Snow, Owen Campbell, Stephen Ure, and Scott Mescudi.
Exactly 50 years ago today on March 24, 1972, The Godfather was released in theaters in the United States. To coincide with this 50th anniversary, the Lodgecast has a very special episode we are releasing. In late 2020, Francis Ford Coppola released his recut of The Godfather Part III which he called The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. We watched this recut and talked about it at length along with discussing The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974). The episode was so epic that the Lodgemaster feared editing it, but alas he has assembled this very special episode covering The Godfather trilogy. We are joined by two real life brothers for a deep dive into Coppola's epic crime films. Happy 50th birthday to The Godfather and long live Francis Ford Coppola!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2021 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in a little over 30 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of picking our 2021 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2021. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Leatherface is back in what is apparently the ninth installment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. This "requel" does away with all the sequels and brings back the legacy characters of Leatherface, Sally Hardesty (the lone survivor from the first one), and the voice of John Larroquette as the narrator. The film didn't feel like Texas and was in fact shot in Bulgaria. While certainly grisly, we'll let you know how it holds up to the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The 83-minute Netflix film stars Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Moe Dunford, Nell Hudson, Jessica Allain, Olwen Fouere, Jacob Latimore, and Alice Krige.
The Master of Disaster director Roland Emmerich has returned with a $140 million sci-fi disaster movie called Moonfall. It was a total bomb at the box office with terrible reviews, so we had to see it in IMAX! The stupid plot involves the Moon as a megastructure built by aliens that is now on a collision course with the Earth. Only Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley flying the Space Shuttle Endeavour into the hollow Moon can save the Earth from total annihilation. This hilariously brain-numbing movie drew mixed reactions, but certainly angered one particularly hotheaded Lodgecast host. The movie also stars Michael Pena, Charlie Plummer, and Kelly Yu, with a cameo by Donald Sutherland. Screw the Moon!!
Desktop films meet COVID lockdown films when agoraphobic techie Zoe Kravitz discovers a murder online in Steven Soderbergh's new thriller Kimi. Kimi is a smart speaker much like Siri or Alexa, and Zoe Kravitz's job is to moderate how Kimi is performing. All is well and good until she uses her high tech expertise to pick up the audio of a murder. She is then forced to leave her apartment and confront the hostile outside world. Along the way she has Zoom calls with Robin Givens and Andy Daly, and has to confront Rita Wilson and other villains. We'll let you know how we feel about Soderbergh's latest movie which was written by David Koepp and features a score by Cliff Martinez. It's on HBO Max.
Those Jackass boyz are back for the last time (until the next time)! If you like to hear about boyz getting hit in the nuts, then this is the Lodgecast episode for you! Lots of wieners in the movie. But it's probably a more successful outing than Johnny Knoxville's Action Point (2018), which we covered way back in Episode 11 of the Lodgecast. This movie features Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Dave England, Wee Man, Danger Ehren, Preston Lacy, and some newcomers to the Jackass crew.
Hail Macbeth! It was time for the Lodgecast to take in some theater with Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth. We were tipped off to an IMAX screening and jumped at the chance. We talk all things Shakespeare and Macbeth before we proceeded to this black & white adaptation. While the play is undoubtedly four bones, we had some differing opinions on this version as we hash out what is foul and what is fair about this Joel Coen film. It stars Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth and Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth. Other actors in the mix are Bertie Carvel, Alex Hassell, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling, Kathryn Hunter, and Brendan Gleeson.
Scream 5 AKA Scream came out and we went all-in for the Scream film series. Not only did we see the fifth Scream in theaters, but beforehand we watched all four of Wes Craven's Screams in a row! We were well educated into the world of Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley, and Ghostface when we entered this one. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette all return for Scream 5, along with a new cast of kids including Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, Jenna Ortega, and Jack Quaid (son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan). It's directed by the duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Get ready for more slashing and stabbing from the terrorized town of Woodsboro!
Tune in for a Royal Rumble Hawt Take as the Lodgecast argues about one of the most viewed Netflix movies of all time! Writer/director Adam McKay's latest film Don't Look Up sparked much divisive debate about whether its contemporary satire worked or was even funny. The bones are up for debate, but the cast is undeniably great, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, and our boy Timothee Chalamet as Yule. Let us know your thoughts!
A gang of Lodgers traveled to the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood to witness an early screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza in 70mm. We didn't know if we were gonna Lodgecast this one, but after the film we felt compelled to give our first reactions in this hawt take. We briefly discuss our thoughts on writer/director P.T. Anderson before tackling this sprawling film set in the San Fernando Valley in 1973. The movie stars Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie. Watch it!
Prepare yourself to get blue pilled! At an AMC Theater in Maple Grove, Minnesota three Lodgers swallowed the blue pill of the fourth movie in The Matrix franchise. We went to the IMAX at the AMC Arbor Lakes 16, which we have learned has since permanently closed! After the movie, as a snow storm began, we piled into a minivan and discussed WHAT is The Matrix, and also WHY is The Matrix in 2021. Director Lana Wachowski has returned and brought back some of the cast from previous matrices including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Lambert Wilson. You'll also see actors like Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and a special Christina Ricci cameo. There's plenty to unpack in this mind-altering episode. Rest in Zion to the AMC Arbor Lakes 16!
Why would Steven Spielberg want to make a straightforward remake of the 1961 Best Picture-winning musical West Side Story? And could such a musical remake be good in the year 2021? The Lodgecast is joined by some magical musical sisters as we try to answer the many questions we had about Spielberg's West Side Story (2021). The Jets face off against the Sharks in Manhattan's West Side, and the movie contains all the classic musical hits written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. The movie stars Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, and Mike Faist. And 90-year-old actress Rita Moreno returns in a new supporting role! As with almost all modern musicals this move was a box office bomb!
Take the cannoli, toss the pizza pie, and slice the garlic so thin that it liquefies in the pan! The Lodgecast is getting extra spicy and Italian in our new episode on House of Gucci! It's all about the day-to-day operations of the Italian fashion brand Gucci. The film is directed by 84-year-old Ridley Scott and stars Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, a fat-suited Jared Leto, and Al "Dunkaccino" Pacino. We have numerous thoughts about this sensational story of murder, madness, glamour, greed, and Gucci!
Merry Christmas! Celebrate the Christmas holiday with a good Christian movie from director Paul Verhoeven! Travel back to 17th century Italy for some blasphemous fun with a lesbian nun who has mystical visions. The movie is based on the real life nun Benedetta Carlini who is played by Virginie Efira, and co-stars Daphne Patakia, Lambert Wilson, and the great Charlotte Rampling. As with all Verhoeven movies, this one is loaded with sex and violence and many immodest acts. Merry Christmas Lodgecast listeners! We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas!
Let's get nostalgic with Finn Wolfhard and remember everything we loved about Ghostbusters (1984)! Ivan Reitman's son Jason Reitman directs this sequel to Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989). But this time we ain't in New York City. We're in rural Oklahoma! Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) has passed on and his daughter played by Carrie Coon and his grandchildren played by Finn Wolfhard and Mckenna Grace go to live in Egon's old haunted house in Summerville, Oklahoma. Ghostly happenings haunt the family and familiar Ghostbusters relics appear including Ecto-1, Vinz Clortho the Keymaster, Zuul the Gatekeeper, Gozer the Gozerian, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver! The film also stars Paul Rudd, Celeste O'Connor, and Logan Kim as a character named Podcast. Did this nostalgic cash grab make us Woof hard, or were we delighted at the fan service? Listen and learn as we take Finn Wolfhard's hand into small town Oklahoma!
It was time to Do The Dune! For some reason we saw this movie at 10AM on a Saturday, but we all stayed awake for director Denis Villeneuve's envisioning of Dune: Part One. Based on Frank Herbert's 1965 best-selling science fiction novel of all time, with a budget of $165 million, and a star studded cast, the stakes couldn't have been higher. The entire future of cinema rested upon Dune's shoulders. Did it rise to the occasion and surpass David Lynch's 1984 film? We will let you know in this epic Lodgecast. The movie stars Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem. Omniscient editorial note: Dune: Part Two has a planned release for October 2023 and we will be there!
No More Time to Die! As the Lodgecast survived to witness the 25th film in the James Bond series. No Time to Die was originally supposed to come out in April of 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic until October of 2021. We drove to see it at the brand new AMC Porter Ranch 9 for a very special reason relating to Nicole Kidman. Once there we talked all things Bond, and then took in all 163 minutes of Daniel Craig's final outing as 007. This one is directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga with a theme song by Billie Eilish. It also stars Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Rory Kinnear, Ralph Fiennes, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Billy Magnussen, Ana de Armas, David Dencik, and Dali Benssalah.
Prestige season is in full effect and what better to kick it off than with the Palme d'Or winner Titane! Writer/director Julia Ducournau serves up a healthy helping of French body horror that was consumed and digested in a variety of ways on this contentious Lodgecast. Was it Salad Dragon City, or Salad Dragon Exploitation? A profound and moving reflection on the human condition, or a repulsive and gratuitous tale of violence for the sake of shock value? Or was it all of these things and more?! Titane stars Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon, Garance Marillier, and Lais Salameh.
You might've forgotten or not known that 91-year-old Clint Eastwood directed and starred in a movie this year called Cry Macho. Well the Lodgecast did not forget, as we are hell bent on covering every Clint Eastwood movie until his dying day. This time around, Clint plays an ancient Texan rodeo star named Mike Milo who goes to Mexico to find his buddy's 13-year-old son Rafo. There ain't much to this movie, but we will explain to you just how old Clint Eastwood is. Clint is supported by a cast including Dwight Yoakam, Eduardo Minett, Natalia Traven, Fernanda Urrejola, Horacio Garcia Rojas, and a rooster named Macho! Stay Alive Clint!
Writer/director Glenn Danzig has returned to the silver screen with his new western horror film Death Rider in the House of Vampires! In Episode 53 of the Lodgecast we attended the LA premiere of Danzig's directorial debut Verotika (2019) with Danzig in the house for a Q&A. This time it was a more subdued affair as we traveled deep into the San Fernando Valley to the Regency Theatres Van Nuys Plant 16 to catch the last screening of Death Rider with an audience of about four other people. We were very curious as to how Danzig would follow up his hilariously puzzling debut Verotika. We shall let you know! Devon Sawa plays Death Rider, and the film also stars Julian Sands, Kim Director, Ashley Wisdom, Danny Trejo, Eli Roth, and Glenn Danzig himself!
For such a time as this! David A.R. White has returned as Reverend Dave Hill in God's Not Dead: We The People, also known as God's Not Dead 4! Way back in Episode 4 of the Lodgecast we covered the third installment of the God's Not Dead series called God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness. Reverend Dave was quite conflicted in that one, but in this one he has a clear mission to save homeschooling from the intrusion of the United States government! It was an interesting night at this Fathom Event at AMC Theaters and we'll give the update on the ongoing saga of David A.R. White. The faith-based film also stars Isaiah Washington, William Forsythe, Antonio Sabato Jr., and Judge Jeanine Pirro!
Halloween fuckin' Kills y'all! The dreaded followup to the wretched Halloween sequel called Halloween (2018) has arrived in theaters. The good news? The kitchen island burned to the ground! The bad news? Michael Myers did not burn and he's out for many more brutal kills in Haddonfield, Illinois. This time the whole town of Haddonfield joins in an angry mob to kill Michael Myers. As Lodgemaster predicted Jamie Lee Curtis is stuck in a hospital the entire movie. But Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Anthony Michael Hall, Thomas Mann, and an entire village of bloodthirsty suburbanites attempt to finish off Michael Myers once and for all. They don't succeed! Halloween Ends comes out October 14, 2022 and we will be there!
It's not every day you get a musical based on a teenage boy suffering from social anxiety. In fact, there are no musicals like Dear Evan Hansen. After winning a Tony Award for Best Actor for portraying Evan Hansen from 2015–2017, Ben Platt is now on the big screen reprising the title role. Platt is supported by a strong cast including Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Nik Dodani, Colton Ryan, Danny Pino, Julianne Moore, and Amy Adams. So why did this lauded coming-of-age stage musical flop at the box office and get panned by the critics? We got a tale to tell in our coverage of this unique cinematic experience!
A new horror film entitled Malignant dropped into theaters and on HBO Max recently. The Lodgecast was reluctant to review it after seeing the trailer, but a few Lodgers tipped us off that it was worth watching. Caution Lodgecast listeners! This movie has a twist and we spoil it big time in this Hawt Take. The director is James Wan, who created the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises. Is Malignant bloody brilliant enough to launch its own horror franchise? We'll let you know in this brisk Hawt Take! The movie stars Annabelle Wallis, Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White, and Jacqueline McKenzie.
Writer/director/bad boy Paul Schrader has returned with a new movie about counting cards called The Card Counter! The last time the Lodgecast tussled over a Schrader movie was in our hot Prius fight in Episode 10 covering First Reformed. This time five Lodgers descended upon the newly branded AMC Americana at Brand 18 to take in Schrader's latest effort. We do a thorough examination of this one covering the performances of Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, and Tye Sheridan as they order drinks and play cards. Willem Dafoe is also in the mix as a link into Oscar Isaac's dark, torturous past. Come play blackjack and poker with us! This is The Card Counter!
We're back in the AMC Theatres again! We took a nice summer break but we are back for a stellar lineup of fall films starting with Candyman (2021), which is the direct sequel to Candyman (1992) and ignores the films Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999). Directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and DaCosta, we get a new cast of characters in modern day Chicago played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, Kyle Kaminsky, and Vanessa Williams. Tony Todd is also in the mix but you'll hear more of him in this Lodgecast than you will in the movie! We'll let you know precisely how scared we got in our returning episode!
Hope your summer is going well Lodgecast listeners! We wanted to send you a dose of summer love and sunlight with our review of In the Heights. We'll be back in September officially, but take this episode as a summer bonus. The Lodgers are currently watching classic cinema and resting up for a helluva prestige season. In the meantime hear our voices as we sing the praises of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights. We discuss our relationship with Lin-Manuel before experiencing the 143-minute filmed version of his Tony-winning musical. The film is directed by Jon M. Chu and stars Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, and Jimmy Smits! And if you pay attention you might even spot Marc Anthony. While the film was a box office bomb, it was not a bomb in our hearts. Sending summer love and light your way! Have a good time but remember, there is danger in the summer moon above! Hope to see you in September!
After over three years of Lodgecasting every single week, we’ve decided to take a brief two month summer break to recharge our batteries, heal our souls, and bleach out our eyes from some of what we’ve seen. In this mini-episode we’ll mention some of the movies we’ll be missing along with what we have to look forward to when we make our return in September. Enjoy the rest of your summer Lodgecast listeners! We’ll be back in September with a full slate of highly anticipated films to take us through the end of the year!
The Lodgecast is about to take a two month summer break, but before we do we wanted to go out with a bang! That bang was F9 in 4DX which includes motion seats, water spritz, wind, and strobe lights! We had varied histories with the Fast & Furious films which we discussed before we headed into the brand new Regal North Hollywood 4DX. And then we got pummeled! Vin Diesel and company shook our chairs for 145 minutes and we'll tell you all about it. Fear not Lodgecast listeners, we'll be back in September and we may sprinkle in a few summer treats so stay subscribed!
The Woman in the Window seemed to have the ingredients for a successful psychological thriller. It is directed by Joe Wright, written by Tracy Letts from a bestselling novel, and stars Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Anthony Mackie, and even our favorite Jennifer Jason Leigh. But it got sold to Netflix and we overheard that the movie was getting "scathing reviews" from critics and audiences alike. So we knew we had to find out what was wrong. Joined by a guest who had read the novel, we were fully equipped to tackle this story about an agoraphobic woman who spies on her new neighbors. Join us as we find out what is wrong with The Woman in the Window!
Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter Gia Coppola has made her second feature film called Mainstream. It was released with little fanfare in May and was generally disliked by audiences and critics. But it starred Andrew Garfield (Under the Silver Lake) and had an intriguing trailer so we decided to cover it. Maya Hawke (daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) plays an aspiring YouTuber who meets a man named Link (Garfield). Link's antics skyrocket him into viral video stardom. With the help of a manager played by Jason Schwartzman (Gia Coppola's uncle), Link's popularity catapults to the stratosphere and problems ensue. The movie also features Nat Wolff, Johnny Knoxville, Colleen Camp, and real life vloggers Juanpa Zurita and Jake Paul. Find out all about Mainstream in our latest Hawt Take!
After watching the trailer for A Quiet Place Part II for a year and a half, the movie has finally arrived! First we reminisced on the original film which we Lodgcasted and discussed the infamous whiteboard. Then we re-entered the post-apocalyptic world of John Krasinski, starring Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cillian Murphy, and Djimon Hounsou. A group of us saw it in IMAX and can confirm it is a movie for the big screen! Enjoy the silence in this thrilling post-apocalyptic horror movie!
Writer Derek Kolstad is back! He wrote John Wick: Chapters 1-3, and this new film called Nobody (2021) starring Bob Odenkirk. We didn't know this going into Nobody, but we soon discovered the film had striking similarities to the John Wick franchise. Odenkirk definitely worked out to star in this violent action flick, as he harnessed his latent rage into the killing of a lot of Russians. The director is Russian filmmaker Ilya Naishuller, who did Hardcore Henry (2015). Odenkirk is aided by the help of his daddy Christopher Lloyd, his wife Connie Nielsen, and his half-brother RZA. Fun was generally had at this badass flick that we saw at AMC Theaters!
Chris Rock Torture Porn in IMAX! What could go wrong?! In our excitement to get back into movie theaters, we made the hasty decision to drive up to the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood to see Spiral: From the Book of Saw. Our histories with the Saw film series were minimal and, to our astonishment, this is the 9th installment in the series! Things went very badly with this screening and we'll let you know all the bloody details. Chris Rock stars as Detective Zeke, and he's supported by his daddy Samuel L. Jackson, his buddy cop Max Minghella, and his mean boss Marisol Nichols. Find out what the Jigsaw copycat killer has been up to! Spiral is the #1 Movie in America!
We're back! After successful vaccinations, a group of us climbed the hallowed steps of the AMC Burbank 16 to see the new Mortal Kombat! First we entered The Edge and recounted our history with the Mortal Kombat media franchise. Then we ascended to the Dolby Cinema and the joy enveloped us as we reclined into our reserved seats to take in the cutting-edge image and sound technologies. It was nothing less than movie magic. Had we died and gone to heaven? We will give you the full emotional experience for our first trip back into movie theaters in over one year!
The highly anticipated abortion movie called Roe v. Wade has been on our radar for a long time. After a hilarious teaser trailer was released in 2018, we waited three long years before it was finally released on VOD. Roe v. Wade is produced, written, directed, and stars a man named Nick Loeb, who we'll tell you everything we know about in this Lodgecast. The film also features a conservative ensemble cast including Jon Voight, Stacey Dash, Robert Davi, and a bunch of other cameos we won't spoil here. Roe v. Wade also showcases stars of yesteryear such as Professor Joey Lawrence, Jamie Kennedy, and Steve Guttenberg! This is a very special and controversial Lodgecast episode that you're not gonna wanna miss. The truth about the Roe v. Wade movie comes out today!
We have reached Episode Number 100! We wanted to make it extra special so we timed it out to coincide with the highly anticipated Coming to America sequel. Coming 2 America dropped onto Amazon Prime in March and the world tuned in to see what was happening in Zamunda. We also scored an extra special first time guest named Brother Eric who many Lodgers know and love. So plug in those ear buds to hear an all star episode covering an all star cast including Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan, KiKi Layne, Shari Headley, Teyana Taylor, Wesley Snipes, and James Earl Jones. Thanks for joining us for the first 100 Lodgecast episodes! Onward and upward! Love, Light, and Lodgers!
GODZILLA VERSUS KONG!!! Who will win?! Many Lodgers call into the Lodgecast Hawt Line and weigh in on who the big winner will be. It was a closely split vote but one monster did emerge the winner of our poll. We watched this epic monster battle on opening night on HBO Max. And there was a winner in the movie, which we won't spoil here, but we do spoil on the Lodgecast. Alongside our two CG monsters, there is a big cast of stars including Alexander Skarsgard, Millie Bobby Brown, Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Shun Oguri, Eiza Gonzalez, Julian Dennison, Lance Reddick, Kyle Chandler, and Demian Bichir. We'll let you know what we thought of this fight and so much more in our 99th Lodgecast episode!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2020 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty Oscar categories in a little over 30 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of picking our 2020 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2020. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Listen to our new Hawt Take and take in our brand new Hawt Take Theme Song sung by Sister Jessee!! Have you seen the new hidden camera comedy movie called Bad Trip? A lot of people have watched this movie on Netflix. The film features best buddies Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery going on a road trip in pursuit of Eric's high school crush played by Michaela Conlin. Lil Rel Howery's criminal sister is played by Tiffany Haddish who is chasing them throughout their road trip from Florida to New York City. Along the road trip they encounter real people and pull off outlandish pranks with hidden cameras for some hilarious results. Watch this real movie on Netflix tonight!
"Get a girl, I'll get a boy! One plus one!" Time to explore the controversial film debut of Australian singer, songwriter, and director Sia! Her film Music was released to much derision for its portrayal of autism. We'll get into that and so much more with our review of Sia's Music starring Kate Hudson as Zu, Maddie Ziegler as Music, Leslie Odom Jr. as Ebo, and Hector Elizondo as George. This musical drama features songs from Sia's studio album Music which she wrote for the soundtrack. According to Rotten Tomatoes, critics and audiences hated, hated, hated this movie! We'll let you know what we thought in this dangerous Lodgecast episode.
Blink and you might've missed it! A new unique film called Bliss starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek arrived on Amazon Prime in February. The film's trailer gave away way too much but also led to us determining that it was definitely Lodgecast-worthy. We won't spoil anything in this write up, but we will give away everything in this Lodgecast, including all the psychotic twists and turns that this movie makes. Writer/director Mike Cahill was seemingly given total freedom to do whatever he wanted. He even got to cast Bill Nye the Science Guy and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Strap into your Brain Box and join us for a podcast episode of ecstasy and Bliss! Wow!
Listen to our new Hawt Take and take in our brand new Hawt Take Theme Song sung by Sister Jessee!! This week we examine the pitch-black comedy I Care a Lot starring Rosamund Pike and directed by J Blakeson. It's a nasty little movie that has been garnering critical praise and even earned Rosamund a Golden Globe! We'll let you know if it lives up to the hype as it attempts to skewer "late-stage capitalism". The movie also stars Peter Dinklage, Eiza Gonzalez, Chris Messina, Macon Blair, Alicia Witt, Damian Young, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and the great Dianne Wiest. I Care a Lot is sitting up on Netflix for all you 200 million global Netflix subscribers to watch!
In one of the most divided episodes we've ever had, the Lodgecast takes on Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar! We've always said comedy is subjective, but Barb and Star have taken that to a whole new level! Either we witnessed one of the funniest comedies in recent memory, or we witnessed a film as bad as the worst Adam Sandler comedies. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo are Barb and Star in this highly controversial comedy, also featuring Jamie Dornan, Damon Wayans Jr., and Andy Garcia as Tommy Bahama. In the film two best friends from Nebraska travel to Florida on vacation only to become caught up in a villain's plot. Either you love it or you hate it!
To celebrate the Lodgecast surviving one year of being locked down, we watched an HBO Max Original movie called Locked Down! The movie is directed by Doug Liman (Swingers) and written by Steven Knight (Serenity) and stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor. With all this talent, we thought it might have something to offer! Written, financed, and filmed entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie featured an abundance of Zoom conversations and pandemic-related humor and drama. It also showcased a whole bunch of cameos including Stephen Merchant, Mindy Kaling, Lucy Boynton, Mark Gatiss, Claes Bang, Ben Stiller, and Ben Kingsley. While this romantic comedy heist film tested the resolve of the Lodgecast, we are all better people for seeing it!
An Amazon Original Movie called Nocturne came out a while back. The schnapps is "An incredibly gifted pianist makes a Faustian bargain to overtake her older sister at a prestigious institution for classical musicians." Writer/director Zu Quirke conducts this symphony starring Sydney Sweeney, Madison Iseman, Jacques Colimon, and Ivan Shaw. Three Lodgers perform their own trio of criticism, lyrically spinning a Lodgecast of love and light for your ears. We keep it short and sweet as we analyze this 90-minute movie available on Amazon Prime!
"You don't get it do you? Me and you. It's madness!" It sure is madness in this new film written, directed, produced, and starring Louise Linton. For those of you who don't know, Louise Linton is married to ex-U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Mnuchin is worth about $300 million and I'm sure a bundle of that money went into his wife's vanity project entitled Me You Madness. In this movie Louise plays a rich, narcissistic serial killer named Catherine Black who runs a hedge fund, lives in Malibu, and loves money, fashion, and 80s music. The Lodgecast takes a deep dive (perhaps too deep) into this criminally insane film. The 80s hits and salad dragons keep coming in this movie so sit back and enjoy the ride!
Lodgers didn't know how good they had it when they viewed Ad Astra for Episode 68 of the Lodgecast! George Clooney's The Midnight Sky continues in the tradition of what is being termed the "Sad Dadstra" genre of melancholic space movies. George Clooney directs and stars in this $100 million Netflix movie. Clooney is stuck with child actor Caoilinn Springall in the Arctic Circle as they try to tell space cadets near Jupiter not to come home because most of Earth has been wiped out. The space cadets are played by Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Tiffany Boone, Demian Bichir, and Kyle Chandler. The Lodgecast brings on a George Clooney expert to help us evaluate the man, his career, and his latest bewildering science fiction film. Why George, why!?
It's The Little Things. A new neo-noir crime thriller from boring writer/director John Lee Hancock. With an Oscar-winning cast in Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto we were hoping for a little magic, but we'll let you know what we got. Denzel Washington & Rami Malek play the hard-charging detective duo trying to track down a serial killer that might be Jared Leto. Denzel & Rami mope around Los Angeles for two hours. Thomas Newman composed the sleepy score. Jared Leto somehow got Golden Globe nominated for this! The film can be watched on HBO Max, preferably while folding laundry.
After months and months of failed attempts to see Christopher Nolan's Tenet on the big screen, the Lodgecast finally settled for watching it in the comfort of our homes. The home viewing of this film allowed us to pause, rewind, and reflect on this mind-bending story of time travel and inverted entropy. We try our damndest to explain what we saw as the 150-minute spectacle unfolded. The movie stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. It was photographed by the great Hoyte van Hoytema, with a wild score by Ludwig Goransson. When the lockdown ends we'll be returning to cinemas to see this one on the big screen!
Matt's Movie Lodgecast recommends you see the new movie Promising Young Woman. Writer/director Emerald Fennell has delivered a stunning debut feature with an all star cast lead by Carey Mulligan. Because the movie features so many dark twists and unexpected turns, we do our best to avoid spoilers on this one. The Lodgecast Boyz are joined by two amazing women on this 'cast as we do our best to cover this provocative, timely thriller. It's a rape revenge movie for the #MeToo moment that has to be contended with. The all star cast includes Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Alfred Molina, Molly Shannon, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (AKA McLovin). Watch it!
Hey y'all! We watched this brand new Oscar bait movie about white trash called Hillbilly Elegy. It's directed by Ron Howard and was meant to win all the awards, but it ain't gonna win nothin'! We'll let you know why in this wild Lodgecast review. The movie is based on the completely unadaptable and overrated 2016 memoir by J.D. Vance. Little J.D. and his mama played by Amy Adams and his Mamaw played by Glenn Close all reach for Oscar gold. Gabriel Basso, Haley Bennett, Freida Pinto, Bo Hopkins, and Owen Asztalos also star.
Prestige season continues with the 97% Fresh, critically acclaimed movie Sound of Metal. Riz Ahmed gives an Oscar nominated performance. He hasn’t been nominated yet but he will be! Mark our words! Riz plays a drummer in a metal band who loses his hearing and struggles to deal with this new reality. Through the power of sound design the movie takes us into his world. This movie will be nominated for Best Sound Mixing! Mark our words! We’ll break down all the sights and sounds this movie delivered in our latest locked down Hawt Take! The movie also stars Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff, and Mathieu Amalric. Enjoy the Silence!
It is thyme to tell you about this little known movie called Wild Mountain Thyme. Long ago in a land called Ireland, John Patrick Shanley wrote and directed a movie based on his play about a very strange Irish family. Emily Blunt throws herself at her next door neighbor Jamie Dornan, who constantly refuses her. Then Jon Hamm throws himself at Emily Blunt. It's all very lyrical and magical and whimsical and we can't wait to tell you the full tale. Also the movie stars an Irish-accented Christopher Walken!!
Son of Cronenberg (Brandon) grabs the torch from his father David and runs with it in the new ultra-violent sci-fi horror film Possessor. A contract killer implants her consciousness into other bodies so she can brutally assassinate people. Andrea Riseborough stars as the contract killer. She is implanted into Christopher Abbott who kills a bunch of people in the most graphic way possible. Definitely designed for fans of David Cronenberg, we'll let you know if Possessor delivers! The film also stars Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Mank! The most prestigious Hollywood picture of the year is here! David Fincher directs! Gary Oldman stars! As Mank! Herman J. Mankiewicz, the brilliant mind behind the writing of the greatest film of all time: Citizen Kane! Mank! The picture they tried to stop! A Netflix production. With an all star cast! Amanda Seyfried, Lily Collins, Arliss Howard, Tom Pelphrey, Sam Troughton, Ferdinand Kingsley, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, Joseph Cross, Jamie McShane, Toby Leonard Moore, Monika Gossmann, and Charles Dance. Mank! Written by David Fincher's dad Jack Fincher. Mank! The greatest motion picture of our time!
Time to get Freaky! A new movie called Freaky was getting buzz, so we watched this new comedy slasher film directed by Christopher Landon. Serial killer Vince Vaughn switches bodies with a teenage girl played by Kathryn Newton. Blumhouse Productions serves up blood and laughs in this twisted take on Freaky Friday. The movie also stars Katie Finneran, Celeste O'Connor, and Alan Ruck. We let you know if we were feeling freaky in this locked down hawt take!
From the director of Welcome to Marwen (2018) comes a new dark fantasy comedy called The Witches (2020). That's right ladies and gents, Robert Zemeckis is back adapting Roald Dahl's book The Witches (1983) and remaking Nicolas Roeg adaptation of The Witches (1990). Why would Zemeckis remake a classic adaptation of a classic book? Because we now have the power of computer animation! Zemeckis miscasts Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch in an attempt to fill the shoes of Anjelica Huston from the 1990 version. And that's just one of Zemeckis's sins that we'll talk about in our comprehensive review. The movie also stars Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Kadeem, Stanley Tucci, and the voice of Chris Rock. Watch this movie on HBO Max or don't.
Writer/director Sofia Coppola has a new movie out on Apple TV+ called On the Rocks starring Bill Murray, Rashida Jones, and Marlon Wayans. After some discussion of Sofia Coppola's career, the Lodgecast analyzes her latest film. Rashida Jones plays a mother of two who suspects that her husband, played by Marlon Wayans, might be cheating on her. Bill Murray plays the father of Rashida Jones and he joins his daughter for an undercover investigation of her husband. The Lodgecast debates the merits of what ensues with much disagreement. Lodgecast listeners, what is your take on the films of Sofia Coppola?
We watched another VOD indie horror movie called The Wolf of Snow Hollow. Writer/director Jim Cummings stars as a stressed-out police officer when folks from his small Utah town keep getting killed by a werewolf. I guess it's a horror comedy but we weren't laughing too much. It's definitely The Jim Cummings Show as he steamrolls through his audition scenes that he wrote and directed for himself. It is the final film of the great actor Robert Forster, and it also stars Riki Lindhome, Chloe East, and Jimmy Tatro. But all the actors are overshadowed by writer/director/star Jim Cummings!
The Lodgecast takes on a popular documentary called The Social Dilemma available on Netflix. This movie is a must-see for all teenagers. Sit your teen down, take away their phone, and watch this movie. Then have a discussion with your teen about social media and the negative impacts it may be having on their life. This docudrama lays out a whole host of reasons that social media has been damaging society in the past ten years. The Lodgecast discusses these problems and then lays out clear solutions for how they can be solved in this coming decade. The Social Dilemma features a bunch of leading talking heads on the subject including Tristan Harris, Jaron Lanier, Roger McNamee, Shoshana Zuboff, and a ton of people that worked for Facebook, Twitter, and Google. It also features unique dramatic sequences where the horrors of social media are played out for maximum emotional impact. These dramatic sequences feature the actors Skylar Gisondo, Kara Hayward, Vincent Kartheiser, and other dramatic powerhouses. Put down your phone and watch this movie! Then pick up your phone and listen to this podcast!
David A.R. White is back with an AR-15 in the new ultraviolent Christian action film Beckman from PureFlix. Last time we covered David A.R. White was in Lodgecast Episode 4 where we reviewed God’s Not Dead 3: A Light in Darkness. Since then David A.R. White has been wrestling with some demons and he decided he wanted to make his own Christian version of John Wick. David A.R. White plays Aaron Beckman who was a contract killer but becomes a pastor. Things go haywire when a cult leader kidnaps Beckman’s adopted daughter. William Baldwin plays the cult leader. The movie also features brief performances by Burt Young and Jeff Fahey. Join us for our review of one of the most violent and exciting Christian films of all time!
Jagshemash! I like! Wa wa wee wa! These are some of the phrases you'll hear on our review of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Sacha Baron Cohen snuck up a Borat sequel on us and we watched it immediately and laughed heartily! Borat returns from Kazakhstan to the USA with his fifteen-year-old daughter Tutar and attempts to deliver her as a gift to Mike Pence and then Rudy Giuliani. Along the way Borat and Tutar encounter many adventures that we will reveal in our review of this movie that you should've streamed on Amazon Prime by now. If you haven't watched it yet, then watch it!
With Election Day 2020 right around the corner, the Lodgecast took on one of the most anticipated and dreaded movies of the year: Dinesh D'Souza's Trump Card! Two years ago we stomached Dinesh D'Souza's Death of a Nation in Episode 19 of the Lodgecast. Now Dinesh is back to take on socialism, corruption, and the Deep State, and to sing praise to President Donald Trump. Despite this movie's popularity in the iTunes Store, Trump Card has not been reviewed by any critic on Rotten Tomatoes. While most critics run in fear of Dinesh's propaganda, the Lodgecast runs toward Dinesh with furious anger at his astounding levels of bad filmmaking. We dismantle Dinesh's movie scene by scene and lay waste to his arguments with flawless logic and humor. Listen to our review of the movie that Dinesh D'Souza calls "Dinesh D'Souza's Most Important Film Yet!" This is Trump Card!
Happy Hubie Halloween Lodgecast listeners! What is Hubie? Who is Hubie? Hubie Dubois is the latest Adam Sandler character in the new Happy Madison Production from Netflix! While in any normal year we would be knee deep in prestige season watching Oscar contenders on the big screen, in the fall of 2020 we are covering the hottest streaming movie on Netflix called Hubie Halloween. Sandler as Hubie is surrounded by a whole gang of cameo performances that are happy to take an easy paycheck in this lazy Neflix hit. Gather the family around the 4K UHD LED Smart TV and take in all the spooks and giggles of this PG-13 horror comedy film. Along with Sandler you'll see Kevin James, Julie Bowen, Ray Liotta, Rob Schneider, June Squibb, Kenan Thompson, Shaquille O'Neal, Steve Buscemi, Maya Rudolph, Michael Chiklis, Tim Meadows, numerous members of Sandler's immediate family, and more.
Are movies just supposed to curl up in a ball and die because there's a global pandemic? No! Do movies have to permanently live in some fantasy world that pretends that coronavirus never existed? Hell No! This is the future of cinema! The 57-minute horror movie Host is the first of many post-COVID films that the Lodgecast will tackle. Drawing on the desktop filmmaking genre that was established with films like Unfriended (2014) and Searching (2018), the Shudder Original horror movie Host takes desktop horror filmmaking to a whole new level! The entire film is set during a seance conducted over a single Zoom chat session! The Lodgecast is excited for this new renaissance of desktop films that will be streaming into our living rooms as we detach from the outside world and drift deeper into the virtual realm of our screens. Host is directed by Rob Savage and written by Rob Savage, Gemma Hurley, and Jed Shepherd. It stars mostly British actors including Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore, Emma Louise Webb, Radina Drandova, Caroline Ward, Teddy Linard, and Seylan Baxter. The future of cinema is here now and it's called Host! And it's still rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes! Watch it!
Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed a new movie for Netflix called I'm Thinking of Ending Things, based on a 2016 novel of the same name. Actress Jessie Buckley plays Lucy who heads with her boyfriend Jake played by Jesse Plemons to meet his parents. After a long car ride, they arrive and meet the parents played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis. Things get very weird, and then Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley head out on another long car ride, and then things get even more weird. The film runs 134 minutes and we'll let you know what we thought of all this craziness!
Russell Crowe is Unhinged! Four Lodgers drove 100 miles per hour down the freeway to the Mission Tiki Drive In Theatre to see Russell Crowe get Unhinged! In the first wide theatrical release since the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to see it on the big screen from the safety of our automobiles. Seeing this violent road rage flick at the drive in was a wise decision. From the opening scene Russell Crowe is totally Unhinged! The movie also stars Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman, Jimmi Simpson, and Austin P. McKenzie. It was directed by Derrick Borte and written by Carl Ellsworth. Come get Unhinged with us!
In this hawt political climate we decided to do another hawt take of a political documentary. It's called Boys State and follows a bunch of teenage boys that attend this week long political event called Boys State in Texas. In this hawt take we have a very special guest that actually attended Boys State years ago and he has quite a tale to tell about his experiences including meeting Bill Clinton! After listening to his tale, we discuss this compelling documentary about testosterone filled teens duking it out to rise to the top of their political simulation in Boys State. We follow four interesting boys along the way named Ben Feinstein, Steven Garza, Robert MacDougall, and Rene Otero. The film is directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine and is available to watch on Apple TV+.
The Lodgecast faces one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year. Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. are back for a third installment of the Bill & Ted franchise. It's 30 years later and Bill and Ted are now middle aged parents with daughters named Theadora "Thea" Preston and Wilhelmina "Billie" Logan. Before we Face the Music (2020), we examine our histories with Excellent Adventure (1989) and Bogus Journey (1991). We then evaluate how effectively Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves have traveled through time and if their music can truly save the world in 2020. It's a new epic adventure also starring Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Anthony Carrigan, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Holland Taylor, Kid Cudi, and Jillian Bell. It is written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, who wrote the first two Bill and Teds. Dean Parisot, creator of Home Fries (1998) and Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), directs this Bill and Ted sequel. Hear our critical response in this full episode!
Remember the bestselling book and hit New Age movie The Secret (2006)? It's been a while since Oprah Winfrey pushed this book and movie on the law of attraction into homes across America. But there's a new movie out called The Secret: Dare to Dream which is revealing The Secret to a whole new generation. The film stars Katie Holmes, Josh Lucas, Jerry O'Connell, and Celia Weston. We opened our hearts and our minds to all the wisdom this movie possessed and we will reveal the love and light of The Secret to all listeners of this podcast episode. Nourish your spirit as we collectively dare to dream and send forth positive thought vibrations to attract all the love and prosperity that we've ever desired. This is The Secret: Dare to Dream!
Did you know that there was a Crocodile Dundee 4?! There is and we watched this crazy sequel starring an 80-year-old Paul Hogan as himself, but also sort of as Mick Dundee. It's complicated and we'll explain to you everything in one of the Lodgecastiest movies we've ever seen. We set the tone with our feelings on the original trilogy: Crocodile Dundee (1986), Crocodile Dundee II (1988), and Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001). Then we bite right into The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee (2020). Paul Hogan interacts with a wide array of fading stars including Chevy Chase, John Cleese, Olivia Newton-John, Reginald VelJohnson, and Wayne Knight. The crocodile dragons were abundant and we hope we do them all justice in our explanation of Crocodile Dundee 4!
Seth Rogen plays a Jewish immigrant living in Brooklyn who falls into a vat of pickles in 1919, only to wake up in 2019 and encounter his great grandson who is also played by Seth Rogen. The stage is set for a high concept comedy as the bearded immigrant Seth Rogen is thrust into 21st century Brooklyn and has to deal with hipsters, Twitter, and a whole lot more. Five Lodgers streamed this new film on HBO Max which is directed by Brandon Trost, and based on a 2013 short story written by Simon Rich. In this locked down hawt take, the Lodgecast weighs in on how successful this ambitious high concept comedy is. It's Rogen vs. Rogen and we all got pickled!
8.1% of Hulu subscribers tuned into the new movie Palm Springs and the Lodgecast was among that viewership. The movie bears a striking resemblance to Groundhog Day (1993), but it may be a premise that just works. Andy Samberg & Cristin Milioti play characters trapped in a repeating day in Palm Springs. They engage in all sorts of shenanigans as they try to escape the infinite time loop. During this romantic comedy they encounter J.K. Simmons and the eyebrows of Peter Gallagher. The heartwarming film is written by Andy Siara and directed by Max Barbakow. Love & light converge on this Lodgecast as we join in a mystical union of bone counts. What bone count do you think that is? Listen and find out. Sound off in the comments!
There's a new horror movie out from Australia called Relic! It features a grandma, a mother, and a daughter in a haunted house. Robyn Nevin plays grandma, Emily Mortimer plays mom, and Bella Heathcote plays the daughter. Grandma goes missing and when she returns something ain't right. This movie saw a deep divide between critics and audiences in their scores on Rotten Tomatoes so we thought we'd give it a shot. The film is directed by Natalie Erika James. Jake Gyllenhaal was one of the producers. This is Relic y'all!
Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams star in Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Hailing from the small town of Husavik, Iceland, these two best friends take the world by storm in the Eurovision Song Contest. A grizzly Pierce Brosnan stars as Will Ferrell's dad, and Dan Stevens stars as a flamboyant singer representing Russia. The film features Eurovision stars including John Lundvik, Anna Odobescu, Bilal Hassani, Jessy Matador, Alexander Rybak, Elina Nechayeva, and Conchita Wurst. Superstar Demi Lovato is also in there somewhere. The film is directed by David Dobkin. Eurovision was new to the Lodgers attending this musical comedy film and we'll tell you what it's all about. Stay tuned til the end of hawt take for a special performance of the Fire Saga song "Double Trouble", sung by our amazing guests who are a real-life husband & wife duo!
Attention Dads! Tom Hanks has a new war film out called Greyhound on Apple TV+! The film has received generally positive reviews from critics! American hero Tom Hanks wrote the screenplay for this movie based on a 1955 nautical novel called The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester. Tom Hanks plays a flawless war hero in Commander Ernest Krause, commanding officer of the USS Keeling, codenamed Greyhound. Spoiler alert: he saves the day! We watched this movie which also has a scene featuring Elisabeth Shue. We'll report back for duty with all the easy, breezy details of this swift 90-minute World War II naval movie. Let's go to those Greyhound Videohound Bones!
Filmmaker Judd Apatow returns with a new monumental comedy movie called The King of Staten Island. This 136-minute comedy is centered around tatted up slacker Pete Davidson in a semi-biographical look at his life in the New York City borough of Staten Island. Davidson's antics drew a mixed response from the Lodgers who witnessed him. Davidson is surrounded by talented actors including Marisa Tomei, Bill Burr, Bel Powley, Maude Apatow, and Steve Buscemi. We'll give you our thoughts on the career of Judd Apatow and a whole lot more in this full Lodgecast episode!
Mel Gibson, Emile Hirsch, and Kate Bosworth return to the home movie screen for this VOD flick filmed in Puerto Rico called Force of Nature. The Lodgecast gives its thoughts on Mad Mel before it dives into this wet heist film set during a hurricane. One half of the Polish brothers (Michael Polish) directs this film. If you don't remember the Polish brothers, they made a splash in 1999 with their debut feature Twin Falls Idaho. Michael Polish would go on to marry Kate Bosworth and cast her as the star of this film that we discuss called Force of Nature. No one comes out dry in this unfinished symphony of action!
Jon Stewart is back! After proudly serving his country on The Daily Show from 1999 until 2015, Americans have been wondering what he has been up to. The answer is that he has been writing and directing the political satire Irresistible which just came out on VOD. The Lodgecast Boyzz dig deep into this strangely “off” comedy where the Lodgemaster declares that "something smells good in Stinkville". Steve Carell (also known as Cap'n Hogie from Welcome to Marwen) makes his Lodgecast return as a cynical Democratic strategist who turns a small Wisconsin town upside down in a quest to win a mayoral race. Carell is pitted against cynical Republican strategist Rose Byrne. Mackenzie Davis (the Lodgemistress) plays Carell's love interest ... we think. And Chris Cooper plays the working man that Steve Carell is championing for mayor. You're not necessarily going to want to watch this movie, but you should certainly tune into this Lodgecast where the Lodgemaster assumes the role of hothead as he confronts Jon Stewart for this soft political satire.
The Lodgecast would like to introduce you to Becky. She's a 13-year-old girl who likes to kill! In this movie Kevin James plays a Neo-Nazi who's escaped prison with fellow inmates named Apex, Cole, and Hammond. They think they're home free until they encounter Becky! Joel McHale is miscast as Becky's dad, but Lulu Wilson is well cast as Becky! Watch Becky foil the best-laid plans of Kevin James and as she brutally murders. The movie squeaked by the MPAA with an R rating for brutal violence. Sound too violent? Let us describe it to you in this Hawt Take!
Time for a new Spike Lee Joint! Spike takes us back to Vietnam where four Vietnam War veterans head to remember their squad leader and retrieve some buried treasure. Delroy Lindo leads this crew as they set out on a 154-minute quest complete with Vietnam flashbacks. Spike seemingly does whatever he wants to do in this Netflix production and the Lodgecast covers it in all its glory. Tune in to hear our reactions unfold in real time as we grapple with this epic war drama.
The time has come for the Lodgecast to cover a Happy Madison Production! The Lodgemaster watched the Netflix hit movie The Wrong Missy and said we had to cover it. 55-year-old David Spade is our male lead in this romantic comedy. But the real star of this show is actress Lauren Lapkus. Find out what happens when a corporate retreat to Hawaii goes terribly wrong! The movie also stars Nick Swardson, Rob Schneider, and Adam Sandler's wife Jackie Sandler. Tyler Spindel directs a screenplay by Chris Pappas and Kevin Barnett.
This week on the Lodgecast we go to the virtual arthouse cinema and see the recent French film Deerskin. This odd 77-minute movie is written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, AKA Mr. Oizo when he is being a French electronic musician. It stars Jean Dujardin who you might recognize from The Artist (2011) and Adele Haenel who you might recognize from Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). Our main character in Deerskin acquires a deerskin coat and a video camera as he heads into a small town in the mountains and strange mischief ensues. This comedy horror film is interpreted in various ways by each Lodge member in this heated take from the Lodgecast!
The #1 Movie in America for the last five weeks has been the indie horror movie The Wretched! Grossing over $800,000 at 75 drive-in movie theaters, we just had to check out what all the buzz was about. We headed again to the Mission Tiki Drive In Theatre for a double feature. After yawning through the first feature which was an indie thriller called Arkansas, we stuck around for The Wretched and it sucked us right in! The movie stars a kid named Ben who slowly realizes his neighbor is possessed by a witch. It is directed by the Pierce Brothers and was shot near Northport, Michigan. See the #1 movie in America at your local Drive In!
See a side of Al Capone you ain't never seen before! Tom Hardy stars as a dying, crazed Capone in the final year of his life. As neurosyphilis and dementia rot his brain, we get to witness Al Capone smoke cigars and eat carrots and shit himself three times! This is a special movie, folks - with a disgusting performance by Tom Hardy as he roams around his Florida estate muttering paranoid phrases and coughing and grunting like Frankenstein. Tom's performance is supported by Linda Cardellini, Jack Lowden, Noel Fisher, Kyle MacLachlan, and Matt Dillon in supporting roles. Josh Trank directs. We definitely got Tranked!
This week we cover the brand new documentary Spaceship Earth which explores the creation of a self-engineered replica of Earth's ecosystem, called Biosphere 2. We don't often cover documentaries, but we certainly picked the right one to discuss with Spaceship Earth. The documentary spans decades, covering the scientific hippie cult of Synergists who would eventually pull their resources together to create the Biosphere 2 in 1991. All the footage is there...from amazing 16mm footage of the cult in the '60s and '70s to great video footage of the biospherians in the '80s and '90s. It is highly recommended viewing to all Lodge members as we creatively process how we are going to thrive into the 21st century. #loveandlight
We virtually travel to the seas of Ireland for this VOD release set on a boat with a crew subjected to a horrific parasitic infection. We had heard that the film had some parallels to the our ongoing coronavirus pandemic and we were not disappointed. Things get pretty real abroad the fishing vessel as crew members worry if they're infected and if they should go ashore and spread the virus. Sound like too much body horror for these times? Let us explain it to you before you dive in! The crew features actors Connie Nielsen, Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Olwen Fouere, Jack Hickey, Ardalan Esmaili, and Elie Bouakaze. It was directed by Neasa Hardiman.
We summon the depths of the VOD market for this horror film about heavy metal music and Satanic cult killings. It sounded like a good time, but did this low budget film summon any Salad Dragons? It does feature a twist that we will spoil for you in this Hawt Take! The all-star cast includes Alexandra Daddario, Keean Johnson, Maddie Hasson, Amy Forsyth, Logan Miller, Austin Swift, and Johnny Knoxville as Pastor John Henry Butler. American film auteur Marc Meyers directs.
Eighteen years after Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay and Silent Bob have rebooted with their new movie called Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. This is the eighth film in the View Askewniverse if anyone is counting. We joined forces in the virtual world to discuss this recent release that we watched on Amazon Prime. Jason Mewes and a silent Kevin Smith take a road trip adventure to Chronic-Con and encounter a ton of cameos along the way including Brian O'Halloran, Jason Lee, Justin Long, Shannon Elizabeth, Rosario Dawson, Val Kilmer, Melissa Benoist, Craig Robinson, Tommy Chong, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Harley Quinn Smith. We discuss our relationship with writer/director Kevin Smith before we engage in lively debate over his latest comedy film.
The closing down of movie theaters couldn't keep us from the big screen! The Lodgemaster had the brilliant idea of going to the Mission Tiki Drive In Theatre to see Vin Diesel's Bloodshot! Maintaining social distancing, we took three cars and drove 45 minutes east of Los Angeles to Montclair, CA to bask in the glory of Vin Diesel. Part of the Valiant Comics Shared Cinematic Universe, this superhero film got short changed at the box office due to the pandemic. Seeing it at the Drive In Theatre was a wonderful experience that we'd love to share with you in this Lodgecast Hawt Take! Diesel is joined by Eiza Gonzalez, Sam Heughan, Toby Kebbell, and Guy Pearce. David S.F. Wilson directs this technologically advanced, action packed romp.
Well we had tickets to see The Hunt in theaters on Sunday, March 15th, but that didn't happen! Instead we were forced to watch this controversial movie on video-on-demand. If you can remember back to August of 2019, this movie's release was delayed in the wake of the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings. President Trump got the movie abruptly cancelled when he tweeted on August 9th, 2019 at 11:44 AM: "Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! They like to call themselves “Elite,” but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!" Finally the movie The Hunt got released into theaters on the weekend the coronavirus chaos erupted, and then the movie was quickly released digitally one week later. Was this movie racist at the highest level?! Will this movie cause liberal elites to start slaughtering deplorable conservatives?! What is all the controversy about?! The Lodgecast joins together from remote quarantined locations to debate this contentious movie. The Hunt is directed by Craig Zobel and stars Betty Gilpin, Ike Barinholtz, Amy Madigan, Emma Roberts, Ethan Suplee, and Hilary Swank.
In what will be our last theatrical outing for a very long time, the Lodgecast witnessed The Way Back on Tuesday, March 10, 2020. Little did we know when we entered the AMC Burbank 6 theater to witness this sports drama, that in one week AMC theaters would be closed worldwide due to the coronavirus pandemic. Actor Ben Affleck shows us The Way Back from alcoholism in this realistic performance that mirrored the actor's own struggles with booze. Directed by Gavin O'Connor, this movie is an inspiration to us all as Affleck plays basketball coach Jack Cunningham. While AMC Theaters are currently closed and the future of the AMC A-List is doubtful, fear not Lodgecast listeners! We've got some spicy Video-on-Demand Lodgecasts coming your way throughout the coronavirus quarantine. In the meantime we're hoping that we can all find the way back!
Writer/director Leigh Whannell returns with his bold new take on The Invisible Man. Last time we saw director Whannell's skills on display was in Episode 12 of the Lodgecast where we witnessed his movie Upgrade (2018). We had to see what this director was up to next, so on Super Tuesday we ascended to the AMC Burbank 16 IMAX movie theater and watched this unique blend of science fiction and horror. Actress Elisabeth Moss dominates the film and shows off her acting versatility, while actress Storm Reid of A Wrinkle in Time (2018) plays a supporting role which delighted us all. We'll let you know how this new film compares to the great 1933 film The Invisible Man directed by James Whale and released by Universal Pictures.
Orion Pictures presents Gretel & Hansel based on the "Hansel and Gretel" story by the Brothers Grimm. This film is directed by Oz Perkins who is the son of actor Anthony Perkins. Oz Perkins shows us some visual talent in this grim fairy tale that somehow got a PG-13 rating. Sophia Lillis is Gretel, Sam Leakey is Hansel, and Alice Krige is The Witch. We'll report back what we witnessed in the dark woods!
"Ride Together. Die Together." That's the tagline for Bad Boys for Life (2020) and also our motto as we piled into The Edge to record our Lodgecast. We even brought a notorious guest who's officially known as The Lodge's Resident Bad Boy. But with the stakes this high and passions burning hot this episode turned into a contentious affair with a very dark and controversial twist. After this dark twist, we continued on to discuss Will Smith & Martin Lawrence and their return to their roles of Mike Lowrey & Marcus Burnett in the Bad Boys franchise after almost 20 years. These Miami detectives are joined by Joey Pants and a whole new gang of fresh faces known as AMMO. The movie was a smash hit at the box office but was it a smash hit in our heart of hearts? Most of us will let you know. But there's a new Bad Boy in town!
We don't often Lodgecast family movies, but we just had to see what Jim Carrey was up to in the hit film Sonic the Hedgehog! When last we left Jim, he was in a dark place in our Lodgecast Episode No. 8 where we discussed the Polish downer movie he starred in called Dark Crimes (2018). Would America's funnyman ever return to the big screen with that classic Jim sparkle? We shall let you know with our reporting on Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). We'll also give you the low down on the look of Sonic's design which caused quite a stir in the massive online Sonic fandom community. Also in this 'cast, one Lodgecaster gets very heated up about having to see this family movie. In this film, Ben Schwartz is the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog, Jim Carrey is Doctor Robotnik, and James Marsden is the lead guy.
The Lodgecast would be remiss not to cover the horror movie The Lodge. We hoped for a classic movie that shared our namesake. We’ll tell you what we got! Directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala follow up their creepy Austrian horror film Goodnight Mommy with another bleak vision in The Lodge. It stars Riley Keough, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Alicia Silverstone, and Richard Armitage. One particular Lodger gets quite heated. Not in the film The Lodge, but in the actual Lodgecast! Tune in for the hawtest of Hawt Takes as we set fire to the wintry Lodge on the Lodgecast!
Tyler Perry wrote, directed, and produced his first Neflix movie! We heeded the call and watched this movie on Netflix opening night. It's a Tyler Perry thriller which follows our lead character Grace as she falls from a dangerous new love affair, but fights back in the movie's shocking conclusion. Once again Tyler Perry proves to be the fastest director around shooting this 2-hour movie in just five days! He brings along a great cast including Crystal Fox, Phylicia Rashad, Bresha Webb, Cicely Tyson, and Tyler Perry himself. If you've never seen a Tyler Perry movie, then this is a great place to start!
CinemaScore is a market research firm that polls audience members on the most recent theatrical releases and asks them to give the film a letter grade. In their 20 year history only 21 films have received an average of an "F" rating and the horror movie The Turning is one of those infamous films. We gotta start the movie year at the bottom and this is pretty damn close. The Lodgemistress joined us to gaze upon her doppelgänger actress Mackenzie Davis who gets spooked over and over again. Actor Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) proves to be as annoying as ever. Director Floria Sigismondi attempts to set the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James in they year 1994 for some reason. Hear the Lodgecast describe the film's weird ending that forced audiences to give this film an "F"!
It was time to Do the Dolittle! We swore that if Dolittle dropped below 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, we were gonna see it and it now sits at 15%. So five Lodgers hit up the Studio Movie Grill in Glendale for a screening of Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. John Dolittle. RDJ is surrounded by an all star cast of CG animals voiced by Emma Thompson, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Marion Cotillard, and Rami Malek as Chee-Chee! Stephen Gaghan (Syriana) directed this movie for some reason. Stay tuned for a Salad Dragon scene that literally involved a dragon and a green leafy vegetable!
Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2019 Film Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty Oscar categories in a little over 20 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of picking our 2019 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2019. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are a few surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
Have you heard of the movie Underwater? It is a movie that was shot in 2017 and finally released into theaters in 2020. It is the last film to be released under the name 20th Century Fox which is now the Disney-owned 20th Century Studios. It might be the last film starring actor T.J. Miller. It also stars Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel. The entire film takes place underwater. An underwater creature attacks the crew of an underwater station. Tune in for more interesting facts about the film Underwater on our podcast episode!
The world will know his name and the truth! We all thought The Mule (2018) would've been an ideal movie for 89-year-old Clint Eastwood to go out on last year, but ol' Clint is back with a new film called Richard Jewell about...Richard Jewell! We went into the movie vaguely remembering Jewell as the 1996 Summer Olympics bomber, but we found out that we were lied to by the FBI and the mainstream media! Richard Jewell is a hero! The FBI and the media are fake news! After the film we ponder why Clint would make such a movie demonizing the FBI and the media at this time in American history. Does it have anything to do with how Republicans feel about the FBI and the media today? Well 'ol Clint Eastwood didn't make the connections clear enough. Clint should've been on Fox News clearly explaining it to Sean Hannity. The Fox News crowd didn't get the message and the movie was a box office bomb! But we still saw it and had some major laughs. Paul Walter Hauser stars as Richard Jewell, alongside Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde.
Rian Johnson weaves a tangled web in this intricate whodunit that will keep you guessing until the final scene! Or will it?! Once again, the Lodgecast collides with a prestige movie that received almost universal critical and audience praise. Does this movie really live up to the hype? It has got quite an ensemble cast featuring Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, and Christopher Plummer. Rian Johnson writes and directs this murder mystery that is an instant movie classic! Or is it?!
We didn't sleep on Doctor Sleep! Stephen King's sequel novel to his 1977 book The Shining has been adapted into a movie. It made its money back but it could've grossed $200 million more if it was just called The Shining, Book Two. Keep it simple Hollywood! Ewan McGregor stars as a grown up and messed up Danny Torrance. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Rose the Hat, head of the True Knot, a cult that feeds on children with psychic powers. Jacob Tremblay stars as a "baseball boy" that is brutally murdered by the True Knot. The movie has numerous references to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror film The Shining, and we will talk about all of them!
The Jellicle Cats have finally come out to play! After the remarkable trailer that dropped last summer, no movie has been more heavily anticipated by the Lodgecast than Cats (2019). A very special crew with three new guests huddled into a Kia in Coon Rapids, Minnesota to discuss this human-cat hybrid spectacle. A never-ending salad dragon bowl was served to us all! Listen in as we take on the likes of Rebel Wilson, Dame Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Sir Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden, Jason Derulo, and Francesca Hayward as Jellicle Cats! We urge you to see Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Broadway blockbuster magically transformed into a sexy CG nightmare! Experience it on the big screen with the whole family! Meow Playing!
It's the Lodgecast Star Wars Holiday Special! Fire up your podcast blasters and discover where your favorite Lodgers landed in a bone count spectrum as wide as the galaxy! Love & Lightsabers!
Happy Hanukkah, y’all! The dubious allure of the Hollywood Arclight pulled the boyz back for the hotly anticipated Uncut Gems. The Edge was cut right down the middle for this tale of chance and intrigue in the jewelry district. Listen now and find out precisely how brightly this opal glistened...
We were not motherless as we headed into Motherless Brooklyn, written, produced, directed, and starring Sir Edward Norton. Brother Lucas's mother joined us at the AMC Universal CityWalk for this neo-noir set in 1950s New York City. All we knew going into Motherless Brooklyn was the trailer in which Edward Norton has Tourette's syndrome. We discovered a lot more including a cast of Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Alec Baldwin, and Willem Dafoe. If you've been wondering what Edward Norton has been up to, we'll fill you in on the blanks. "If!"
Set 25 years after the events of Terminator 2, Terminator: Dark Fate ignores the other Terminator sequels and wipes the slate clean for a fresh reboot of the Terminator franchise. Terminator: Dark Fate lost $130 million, but that wasn't enough to keep the Lodge's Terminator freaks away from seeing Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger kick butt one last time. Director Tim Miller and producer James Cameron follow the basic Terminator 2 blueprint, and it's probably safe to say this puts a nail in the coffin on the Terminator franchise... particularly when Arnold sorrowfully says, "I won't be back." This box office nuclear bomb also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, and Gabriel Luna.
After much resistance, the Lodgecast Boyz came together for a Hawt Take of the soon-to-be Oscar-nominated Ford v Ferrari. We saw the trailer to this movie at least a dozen times and felt that we'd already seen the film, but the universal critical and audience acclaim suckered us into seeing it at the AMC Dolby Cinema. Matt Damon and Christian Bale go VROOM VROOM in their Ford racing cars and we cheered them along. Bring your Dad to see this slice of Boomer Oscar bait. He's gonna love it!
The Lodgecast hasn't covered a documentary film all year long, so when we saw that No Safe Spaces was coming to our local Burbank AMC Theater, we jumped on the chance. We had to see what right wing commentator Dennis Prager and comedian Adam Carolla were up to in this documentary on free speech. As left wing snowflakes, we were thoroughly triggered, and by the end of the movie fully owned by the onslaught of airtight conservative wisdom that we were served. While not as painful as Dinesh D'Souza's Death of a Nation (2018), we still had some criticisms for Prager and Carolla and some of their filmmaking methods and arguments. We definitely left our liberal safe spaces for this movie and we'll report back to you all the unseemly details!
Happy Turkey Day, Lodgers! Marty Scorsese, Bobby De Niro, and Joey Pesci have joined forces one last time to bring you one last gangster film. Al Pacino joins them as Jimmy Hoffa and their de-aged faces exchange mafioso dialogue for 3 hours and 30 minutes! After you've filled up on turkey and stuffing, gather around the Netflix fire this Thanksgiving and unbuckle your belts for an epic crime film! Six Lodgecast Boyz attended this very limited theatrical release at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. And we definitely had some words for this movie. We're gonna lose our podcasting license for this one!
"Why'd ya spill yer beans?!" The Lodgecast Boyz spill their beans on this highly anticipated film directed by Robert Eggers, who directed The Witch (2015). The Lighthouse stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson duking it out by a lighthouse in late 19th century New England. The film was shot on black and white 35mm film with a 1.19:1 aspect ratio. Without spoiling too much of our reaction, give Willem Dafoe a damn Oscar already! Tune in to find out why.
Get interstellar with Brad Pitt as he travels to the outer reaches of the solar system in search of his long last daddy Tommy Lee Jones. Writer/director James Gray guides us into space for a serious outing that is mostly devoid of action or comedy, but features much ambient music and lens flares. Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland lend their support. We saw this in IMAX and then we butt heads over the power of this solemn cinematic meditation.
The best reviewed movie of the year is here! Holding strong at 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, we headed off to the Arclight Hollywood to see this critical darling. South Korean film director and screenwriter Bong Joon-ho received the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for this movie. Safe to say there ain't nothing remotely like Parasite coming out from American filmmakers. A mixture of genres is blended into this bizarre tale of a poor family infiltrating the lives of a rich family in modern day South Korea. We'll let you know how we felt and how the Arclight audience reacted.
You may have not heard of Natalie Portman's new film Lucy in the Sky. It was quietly released into theaters with negative reviews from both fans and critics. Despite the negativity, our love for Natalie Portman drew us in as we went to the AMC theater for one of the last screenings of this movie. Natalie Portman plays astronaut Lucy Cola who slowly begins to lose her grip on reality due to a case of space madness! The movie is loosely based on a true story of a crazed astronaut named Lisa Nowak. Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz, Dan Stevens, and Ellen Burstyn co-star.
It's Gemini time! The hotly anticipated 120-frames-per-second feature film Gemini Man has finally arrived, and we were there to witness it opening night in all its 3D high-frame-rate glory! In the intro to this Lodgecast, we tell the tragic tale of seeing director Ang Lee's first 120fps feature film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016). After that bomb, studios somehow let Ang Lee direct another movie at 120fps. They also let him digitally de-age Will Smith so he looked about the age of his son Jaden Smith. The results are spectacular and we'll tell you all about them! This movie also stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Clive Owen, and Benedict Wong.
The highly controversial Joker movie dropped into American theaters like an atomic bomb this October. The last remaining Lodgecast Boyz who hadn't yet seen it went to the Los Feliz Vista Theatre and joined a packed house for this dark visionary film from director Todd Phillips and actor Joaquin Phoenix. The violence and mental illness of the Joker permeated our minds and produced quite a wide range of reactions. You're gonna wanna tune in to hear our visceral review as we try to unpack Joker!
Whoa daddy! After a brief review of the Rambo movies, we weren't quite prepared for the carnage that Sylvester Stallone dished out in this blood-soaked sequel for the MAGA-era. Rambo crosses back and forth across the Mexican border and kills and kills and kills. We'll let you know all the gritty details in this epic account of Rambo: Last Blood.
Every Tuesday is Discount Night at AMC Theatres. And luckily we chose a Tuesday evening to see Hustlers in a jam-packed screening at the AMC Burbank 16. Jennifer Lopez has returned at the age of 50 for an incredible performance in every way! Constance Wu is the lead character who goes from stripper to mother to straight-up hustler. J.Lo, Cardi B, and Lizzo guide her along the way. It was a rowdy night at the AMC and you best believe we'll be returning for discount night when it comes to movies this fun!
A 2 Hrs. 50 Min. horror movie? Yes please! We revisit Derry, Maine 27 years later to see what our lovable group of Losers is up to. Director Andy Muschietti adapts the second half of Stephen King's It word-for-word in this epic horror masterpiece. Before floating into IT Chapter Two we give our thoughts and feels on the recently revisited IT Chapter One. Then we settle into the AMC Dolby Digital recliners for an eternity of thrills and chills. We also eat a giant movie theater pretzel. The movie stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Andy Bean as the adult versions of the Losers Club. Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff reprise their roles as the younger Losers, while Bill Skarsgard also returns as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
Ready or Nawt for the Ready or Not Hawt Take? We discuss the spoiler trailer of this movie and a giant movie theater pretzel before we dig into this acclaimed black comedy horror movie. A young lady marries into a rich family who play a murderous game of hide-and-seek the night of the wedding. A very hawt debate ensues over Andie MacDowell's performance! We'll spoil everything about this movie in this hawt take.
An unnamed Lodge member confessed to the Lodgemaster that he had never seen The Matrix! So when the 20th anniversary screenings popped up at AMC Dolby Cinema we knew we had to go. Six of us embarked on the journey and most of us hadn't seen it in 20 years. And we were red pilled so hard! Whoa! We'll give you the lowdown on the philosophy of the Matrix, as well as if Keanu Reeves’ performance holds up.
Apocalypse When? Apocalypse Now! The Lodgecast does their first review of an older movie to see if it stands the test of time. This screening was on August 15, 2019, 40 years to the day after Apocalypse Now was released on August 15, 1979. We scored tickets a little late for this one and were forced to sit in the second row of the AMC CityWalk IMAX which strained our necks and melted our faces off! How does this new 3-Hour Final Cut rank against the original cut and the Redux? Enter the heart of Francis Ford Coppola's darkness with us as we re-explore this epic vision of the Vietnam War.
It's the dog days of summer and not much good is coming out at AMC Theatres before Oscar season starts heating up. So we decided to see Crawl (2019) directed by Alexandre Aja and starring Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper. A hurricane hits Florida and a father and daughter get trapped in a crawlspace with alligators. Not much more to it, but we mostly had fun!
Where'd You Go, Bernadette has finally arrived in theaters. The Richard Linklater film starring Cate Blanchett was set for release on May 11, 2018, but it was pushed back four times until it was dumped into theaters on August 16, 2019. We knew something was amiss with this one from seeing the trailers ever since we began the Lodgecast last year. Oh boy were we correct. Where'd we go for this one? The AMC Sunset 5 was the setting, but Linklater took us to the ends of earth and the edge of our sanity in this two-hour adaptation of the bestselling novel. Besides Cate Blanchett, the movie also features Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, and the always delightful Laurence Fishburne. Listen to our podcast episode and find out where Bernadette went!
Another billion dollar grossing Disney remake has hit the multiplexes. Director Jon Favreau sets out to create a photorealistic computer animated remake of the beloved 1994 film The Lion King. There's maybe a reason that people like anthropomorphic characters instead of photorealistic animals... because anthropomorphic animals can express emotion! These dead-eyed lions and hyenas and warthogs drain all the magic out of this beloved classic. But they look so damn real! Did we feel the love (tonight), or did we skewer this hunk of lion meat? Listen and find out! Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Oliver, Beyonce, and James Earl Jones lend their voices to the Disney IP machine.
The Lodgecast continues the pursuit of finding a good horror remake. We try out Child's Play(2019) based on the horror classic Child's Play(1988). This technological update on Chucky does away with the supernatural element and it also does away with the concept of a logical script. Lodgemaster takes on the role of hothead in this hawt take as his anger at this ridiculous remake slowly boils over. Not even the soothing voice of Mark Hamill can save this misguided reboot.
The most anticipated movie of the year is finally here! Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In...Hollywood has been released, and a large group of Lodgers went to the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood to see it opening weekend on glorious 70mm film. We were transported to 1969 Los Angeles for 2 hours and 45 minutes! After this epic comedy-drama many, Lodgers fled into the night, but five of us remained to give our first impressions of what we experienced. The star-studded movie features Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Clu Gulager, and so many others. We share our praises and our qualms about this unique motion picture!
The Poison Rose is now the 5th straight John Travolta movie to receive 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. After seeing Trading Paint (2019) earlier this year we promised ourselves we would only see the next Travolta movie if got 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Well it did. Even with co-stars Morgan Freeman, Famke Janssen, and Brendan Fraser, the movie couldn’t get a single positive review. It features a breakout performance from Travolta’s daughter Ella Bleu Travolta. The film doesn’t have a plot summary on Wikipedia and I can’t remember what it was about but listen to our podcast if you want to learn about the continuing adventures of John Travolta and The Poison Rose!
From the mind of Ari Aster comes Midsommar. Last year Ari brought us Hereditary, and without taking a breath he went into production on Midsommar which he delivered to us on July 3rd of this year. The promise of Swedish cultists had us licking our lips for this folk horror epic. Four members of our movie cult experienced the 147 minute motion picture starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, and Will Poulter. We micro-dosed magic mushrooms a few hours before seeing the movie. Just kidding. Probably don't see this movie on mushrooms. Either way we had some pretty nice things to say about Midsommar.
Glenn Danzig showed the L.A. premiere of his debut film Verotika at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre, and five Lodgers were there to witness it. The venue was sold out and packed with Danzig super fans adorned in black. Verotika mashed up violent and erotic imagery like never before as the crowd howled with laughter during this low budget horror anthology film, featuring three tales of increasing perplexity. The strange editing and camera zooms left us tickled and confused. Danzig’s appreciative Q&A after the movie deepened the mystery. In this podcast review, we try to unravel what Glenn might’ve been up to with the help of the Lodge’s resident Danzig expert. Whatever it was, Danzig served us up a night that we’ll never forget!
You ain't never had a friend like Will Smith as a motion-captured genie! The Disney IP machine is at it again with Guy Ritchie's Aladdin. While we were all big fans Aladdin (1992), the only reason we came out for this live action edition was Will Smith. And Will Smith does deliver, adding a hip hop homage to Robin Williams' ultimate voiceover performance. The music in this film is incredible with hits like "Prince Ali", "A Whole New World", and the new Princess Jasmine tune "Speechless". We'll give you the low down on what you probably missed in this Disney children's film. Next up: The Lion King!
Master of the Macabre Brian De Palma is back with a new direct-to-video film called Domino. The movie was produced at a low cost by Saban Films (the masterminds behind Dark Crimes and Speed Kills). At age 78, De Palma wants to go out with a bang as he tackles ISIS in Europe killing people on the red carpet of a film festival. That really happens in the movie Domino, along with some other unbelievable Salad Dragons scored to the strings of maestro Pino Donaggio. The film stars some Game of Thrones actors. Is it better than Tony Scott's Domino (2005)? We'll let you know!
Director Dexter Fletcher is back! After ghost-directing last year's smash hit Bohemian Rhapsody, Dexter Fletcher has officially directed this year's smash hit Rocketman! And it's all about one of the greatest rock musicians ever, Sir Elton John. The film combines two genres that are troublesome to some Lodgers: the music biopic and the contemporary musical. All this adds up to some groans and eye rolls, but we are definitely in the minority! Critics and audiences love this movie! Did we like Taron Egerton singing Elton John? Are the musical numbers magical or aggressive? And how about that "too hot for Russia" sex scene? We'll give you our very hawt and spicy take on Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman!
Don't make me drink alone! The Lodgecast reaches its 50th episode with a special MA-di Gras Celebration at the AMC DINE-IN Marina 6 in Marina Del Rey. We drink, we eat, and we take in the pleasures of Octavia Spencer as Ma! This highly anticipated psychological horror movie had us buzzing since we first saw the trailer and while our reaction is a little mixed there's still some fun to be had. Tune in to our evaluation of a lonely middle-aged woman terrorizing teenagers!
The Lodgecast Boyzzz rejoin with the Sinisisters, as we head to beautiful Santa Monica to experience the spiritual sequel to last year's Eighth Grade. This year we talk 12th grade and our senior year of high school before we head into Olivia Wilde's delightful coming-of-age comedy Booksmart starring Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever. Does the film live up to its universal critical acclaim? Is it better than Superbad (2007)? All this and more will be explored in our Lodgecast analysis of Booksmart.
We venture way outside of our demographic comfort zone for a little pom-pom cheerleader love from some senior citizens including Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, and Rhea Perlman. Life is too short and being elderly is too depressing, so break out your cheerleader uniforms and bust a move! As the poster promised, one of the old ladies in this movie does the splits! Nice to see Diane Keaton again after not seeing a movie of hers for decades. It's never too late to chase a dream!
Join us as we re-enter the John Wick Cinematic Universe and travel deep inside the Parabellum. Actually Parabellum means a type of semiautomatic pistol or machine gun. Keanu Reeves is back kicking butt and taking no names until the plot kicks in and we have to wander aimlessly in the desert until the next action sequence. The audience is there for Keanu, but the movie also has Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Anjelica Huston, and some others. While it's no Replicas (2019), John Wick: Chapter 3 has its moments and we talk about them in this hawt take!
Do you like pain? Do you enjoy suffering? Then watch the new film Loqueesha on Amazon Prime. The Lodgecast called for an emergency VOD screening after viewing the trailer in disbelief. But we were not prepared for what writer/director/producer Jeremy Saville had cooked up. Arguably the most painful movie we have watched on this podcast, Loqueesha is sure to unite all races and genders in universal hatred for this movie. We report back to you our experience so you never have to watch it. The Loqueesha Line has been crossed! Ouch!
Four Lodgers entered the AMC Century City 15 as skeptics about the movie The Intruder, which we expected was going to be a ho-hum home invasion thriller. But we left the theater as true believers in the power of Dennis Quaid! Pumped full of human growth hormone and grinning like a true psychopath, Dennis Quaid carries the movie with hilarious bravado as he encroaches upon the lives of the couple that buy his house played by Michael Ealy and Meagan Good. The movie is Tyler Perryesque in its ridiculous plotting and editing, but Dennis Quaid deserves some kind of reward for his efforts. A fun night at the movies!
We had no idea what the heck we were getting into when we hit up the AMC Burbank Town Center 8 for a late night screening of Claire Denis' High Life. All we knew was the film stars Robert Pattinson in space. After a slow start the movie kicks into overdrive when we flashback to a full spaceship of prisoners being sexually experimented on by Juliette Binoche. And then we enter the $%#* box for the Salad Dragon of the Year! If this sounds intriguing, then give a listen to our Claire Denis Super Hawt Take of High Life.
You might be wondering, "What happened to Neil Jordan?" The Irish film director, who brought us The Crying Game (1992) and Interview with the Vampire (1994), has been steadily working through the 21st century on movies and TV. When we saw he was joining forces with the great French actress Isabelle Huppert for a thriller movie called Greta, we had to see what the result was. We hit up the AMC Sunset 5 and recorded this podcast Live on the Sunset Strip. One Lodger was unable to complete the entirety of the film, but the rest of us remained for a pretty basic psychological thriller. The movie also stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, and Neil Jordan's muse Stephen Rea.
The Lodgecast reviews the final Marvel Cinematic Universe movie it will be reviewing on this podcast. The 3 Hrs. 2 Min. Avengers: Endgame is a fitting end to a decade-long journey that had us both exhilarated and fatigued. For this final Marvel film we laughed a little, we cried a lot, and we sat in somber reflection at this $356 million spectacle. In this episode we break the movie down for you hour-by-hour as we try to recall all that we witnessed. As you already know, the movie has a large cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Brolin, and Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan. Will this weepy superhero drama become the highest grossing film of all time? Probably. Farewell Marvel movies! Thanks for the memories!
We’re deeply divided in the heart of the Prius over the new movie Under the Silver Lake by director David Robert Mitchell. Is it the ultimate L.A. hipster epic or is it a tale signifying nothing as one Lodger contends? Buried by distributor A24, we hit the Hollywood Arclight for the only theater playing this 2 Hrs. 20 Min. indie saga. Actor Andrew Garfield seeks to unravel the vast Los Angeles conspiracy as he encounters much along the way. This neo-noir film is dividing both audiences and critics and really needs to be contended with. Watch it on VOD today!
The Beach Bum is mandatory viewing for all Lodgers. After dazzling us with the dark depths of Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine shows off his lighter side with the stoner comedy The Beach Bum, starring Matthew McConaughey as Moondog. After dining on Mai Tais at Damon's Steak House, four Lodgers hit the relatively new Laemmle Glendale theater for a late show. We all agreed that the McConaughassaince is back in full force as McConaughey stumbles around the Florida Keys spouting hedonistic poetry as he smokes tons of weed with his friends including Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Zac Efron, Jimmy Buffett, Martin Lawrence, and Jonah Hill. There are endless surprises jam packed into this 95-minute celebration of having fun and a barrel of laughs too. Smoke as much marijuana and drink as much beer as you are comfortable with and then see The Beach Bum. We did and we are happy to tell you about it. Long live the Moondog!
For the 20th Anniversary of the classic horror film Pet Sematary (1989), Paramount Pictures released a remake of the film called Pet Sematary (2019). Lodgemaster demanded we revisit this classic Stephen King tale. For the most part if follows the original movie with some slight twists and violent turns. Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and John Lithgow try to bring out the creepiness, but there were some qualms about the inability to carbon copy the horrors of the original. Anyway, we’ll bury you with our knowledge of Pet Sematary!
Trading Paint is the third John Travolta movie in a row to receive 0% on Rotten Tomatoes! The movie played at one theater in the entire Los Angeles metro area and you better believe we drove to it! We cruised down the 110 Freeway at 75 mph to the AMC Rolling Hills 20 in the remote town of Lomita, CA. The movie stars Johnnie T as a Talladega dirt car racer whose arch nemesis is Michael Madsen and whose love interest is Shania Twain. While probably the least interesting film of the Travolta Zero Percent Trilogy, we are proud to have seen it and to have reported back our findings. And we got to eat at Chili's Grill & Bar afterwards!
Three Lodge Dumbos somehow found themselves watching Tim Burton's Dumbo in 4DX at the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 14. The 4DX shenanigans were a bit subdued and we have our theories as to why. As for Disney's Tim Burton's Dumbo, it was rough ride that required some serious self-medicating with alcohol and drugs beforehand. We try our darnedest to stay positive through this review and the cast gets some praise including Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, and Alan Arkin. But the gleam in the eye of CG Dumbo didn't quite have the charm of the animated original Dumbo (1941). Next Disney trip: Aladdin!
The most hyped movie of the year has arrived! After Jordan Peele's breakout horror directorial debut with the acclaimed Get Out (2017), the entire globe stood in hushed anticipation for what would emerge next from the mind of Jordan Peele. Does the film stand among the greatest horror movies of all time, or does Jordan Peele's sophomore effort fall short? Five Lodgers see it opening night in a packed house in Burbank and we will let you know exactly how the film stands in the canon of horror cinema. Exceptional performances are contributed by Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and America's funnyman Tim Heidecker.
When we arrived to see Gaspar Noé's Climax at the Arclight Hollywood, we were already in a weird headspace for reasons which you will find out early on in the podcast. The only possible cure for our sickness was Gaspar Noé's Climax and boy did it deliver. Noé took his time early on before the psychedelic sangria kicked in. Halfway through the movie, the opening credits roll and the bad trip commences and it does not stop. Our minds were wiped clean as we experienced a catharsis of bad trip vibes. Ultimately we walked away into a richer universe thanks to Gaspar. An ensemble cast of dancers is joined by Sofia Boutella who gives one of the greatest drug trip performances of all time.
It's back to the Cinemark Baldwin Hills for another helping of Tyler Perry! While our hero Tyler Perry says A Madea Family Funeral will be his last Madea film, we call B.S. on that. After loving on Tyler Perry during the intro we head into a packed house for a Tyler Perry fiesta platter! Tyler Perry treats us not only to massive helpings of Madea, but also serves us tasty sides of his characters Joe, Brian, and Heathrow. We laughed and cried and hurled and cried and laughed some more. Needless to say, Tyler Perry you are an American hero and we salute you!
The bones are scattered all over the map when it comes to rating Robert Rodriguez & James Cameron's $200 million lovechild Alita: Battle Angel. Did you like the Japanese manga "Battle Angel Alita"? Well we don't discuss that. Instead we discuss Robert Rodriguez extensively and his wild cast of characters including Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, and Keean Johnson. After two hours of this epic cyberpunk saga, some of us had fun and some of us had allergic reactions! We can fundamentally agree that the extras in this movie are phenomenal and that the final reveal at the end of the movie will be one of the greatest things we witness in 2019.
On a cold, wintry L.A. night with temps dropping as low as 45 degrees, we saw Cold Pursuit starring Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, William Forsythe, and Tom Bateman. Unlike we were led to believe, this movie is not a standard Liam Neeson revenge flick. Cold Pursuit is actually a black comedy in the vein of Tarantino knock-off movies such as Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Suicide Kings, and the most atrocious movie ever The Boondock Saints. While the Lodgemaster stands up for this amoral, violent, unfunny oddity, the Prius fights back with a vengeance. See Cold Pursuit directed by the Norwegian Hans Petter Moland and you decide who's right!
Four Lodge Members take a deep psychological dive into the masculine psyche and its archetypal configurations that are manifesting in 2019. They went and saw What Men Want! The movie is a very loose sequel to Mel Gibson's What Women Want (2000) and Mad Mel is neither seen nor heard. This time the woman who hears "men people" is Taraji P. Henson and she leads a cast including Aldis Hodge, Richard Roundtree, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Tracy Morgan. We do hear the innermost thoughts of one of our own male Lodge members in this podcast and you will not want to miss what he is thinking!
M. Night Shyamalan's Glass completes the Unbreakable trilogy I guess. AMC Century City 15 is the place where we accidentally cut ourselves on this sharp cinematic diamond. We've got some expert Lodgers on this 'cast that have seen every single M. Night Shyamalan Joint in theaters! During this hawt take, we discuss Bruce Willis' dead eyes, Samuel L. Jackson's heavy sedation, and James McAvoy dialing it up to eleven for an insane performance that has nothing to do with actual dissociative identity disorder.
Put on your suits and dresses cause it is time to lift our glasses to Tinseltown and exclaim "Hooray for Hollywood" as we toast our love for the Oscars! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging gallop through the Academy Award nominations as the Boyz lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty Oscar categories in a little over 20 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of picking our 2018 movie favourites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favourite films of 2018 (well Brother Lucas only liked 5 films this year so he joins us halfway through). Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!
To kick off the 2019 movie season we locked ourselves in a Burbank movie theater and subjected ourselves to a late night screening of the horror movie Escape Room. We tossed and turned and tried to get out and somehow managed to stay awake for the entirety. A January movie release if there ever was one, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't too good either. I guess it was shot in South Africa so that's kind of cool. It stars Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, and Nik Dodani. There'll probably be an inescapable sequel with diminishing returns.
This is what we Lodgecast for ladies and gentlemen! We Go Out of Our Way to Watch Weird Movies so You Don't Have To! Ain't no one in the whole wide world gonna see in theaters a little movie Keanu Reeves did called Replicas. We ate at Marie Callender's in Monterey Park and then proceeded directly to the AMC Atlantic Times Square 14 to see the sci-fi techno-thriller Replicas. Some stiff drinks at Marie Callender's knocked one Lodge viewer out, but the rest of us remained alert for a fun-filled biotechnological evening. Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, written by Chad St. John, from a story by Stephen Hamel, Replicas delivers to us a wild adventure tale on human replication. The sequences of Keanu Reeves endlessly hacking through his virtual reality computer interfaces will stay in our hearts and minds forever. No techtards here!
Very dangerous spoilers ahead in our review of the movie Serenity (2019) written and directed by Steven Knight. Matthew McConaughey is at his tanned, bare-bottomed best as Baker Dill trying to catch a big tuna fish. Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, and Djimon Hounsou are there to cheer him on, but then things take a turn as McConaughey suffers a severe existential crisis. Find out why in our in-depth review of Serenity!
Learn about the former US Vice President Dick Cheney in the new movie Vice written and directed by Adam McKay. Christian Bale embodies Dick Cheney in every conceivable way. Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, and Tyler Perry all lend great support. But when McKay gets into the editing room he starts to play Oliver Stone and the result is a mixed bag. Cheney 2020!
Take the Bird Box blindfold challenge with us as we blindfold ourselves while watching Bird Box and then review it. Actually we watched this Netflix movie starring Sandra Bullock and then we went insane. John Malkovich is in it and so is B.D. Wong. Does this meme-generating machine live up to its hype or is it all a public relations stunt? Chirp with us and find out.
Get Hawt & Wet with Us in our movie review of Aquaman directed by the great James Wan. The movie has grossed over $300 million in China and we try to figure out why. It stars Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, and Dolph Lundgren. Can't wait for Avatar 2 to blow this out of the water!
Lodgecast hits up the Cinerama Dome at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood to takes in the sights, sounds, and smells of Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite featuring our favorite actresses Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz. We generally feel that Lanthimos has hit his stride and we relish all the strange little details in this 18th century period dramedy.
Natalie Portman stars in Vox Lux written and directed by Brady Corbet. A gang of Lodgers went to see Natalie & Brady at a special screening at the AMC Century City 15. Natalie stars as pop star Celeste Montgomery and so does Raffey Cassidy, but then stars as Natalie's daughter. Jude Law also stars and Willem Dafoe narrates. Pop songs by Sia.
Welcome to Marwen is recommended viewing by the Lodgemaster. The film was a box office bomb with projected losses for the studio at $60 million. That being said, there is no film quite like Welcome to Marwen. Robert Zemeckis takes his motion capture obsession to the next level capturing foot fetishes and doll fetishes and torture and all sorts of weird stuff. Zemeckis twists the documentary Marwencol into a PTSD nightmare that will haunt you for a long time. Steve Carell, Leslie Mann, Diane Kruger, Merritt Wever, Janelle Monáe, Eiza González, Gwendoline Christie, Leslie Zemeckis, Siobhan Williams and Neil Jackson star in it. I hope Marwencol creator Mark Hogancamp never has to watch this!
You gotta see The Mule. Clint Eastwood directs and acts in this geriatric comedy at age 88! He's still got it. And by got it, we mean he is able to maneuver in a threesome at a party held by the Mexican drug cartel. This movie had us in tears laughing and we had a lot of fun talking about ol' man drug mule Clint and the hard-charging DEA played by Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Peña who are hot on his tail. Dianne Wiest and Andy Garcia also star.
What's up with Creed 2? We'll let you know in this latest Hawt Take. Drago returns with his son and they want revenge, but they also want love and forgiveness. Or do they? Russia wants to be our friends but they also want to murder us. Things get confusing and they star Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Dolph Lundgren, Florian Munteanu, Wood Harris, and Phylicia Rashad. With a very special cameo from Brigitte Nielsen as Ludmilla Drago.
Lodge Boyz review of Widows directed by Steve McQueen. Based on a 12-hour British TV series from the 80s, McQueen and Gillian Flynn try to cram it all into 2 hours. But they fail in our opinion. Should've been a TV series. Oh well. It is chock-full of stars including Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Carrie Coon, Robert Duvall, and Liam Neeson.
Speed Kills (or as we like to refer to it, Yotti) is a 2018 movie starring John Travolta as a speedboat racing champion. It features a Virtual Reality component that we explore. It also features many similarities to John Travolta's 2018 film Gotti. This movie covers the adventures of boat racer Ben Aronoff. Matthew Modine co-stars as George H.W. Bush. Join us for this wet and wild ride!
Modern auteur Tyler Perry dazzles us with our second cinematic masterpiece of the year in Tyler Perry's Nobody's Fool. Tiffany Haddish is a force of nature and we were psyched to see her team up with T.P. Add Whoopi Goldberg into the mix and you know you've got a winning combination. Tyler Perry, we salute you sir!
From the bowels of hell of a Burbank parking garage we secretly recorded our thoughts and feels about director Luca Guadagnino's re-envisioning of Dario Argento's horror classic Suspiria. The film doth star Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth, and Chloë Grace Moretz with a cameo by the original Susie Bannion, Miss Jessica Harper herself.
We took a trip to the IMAX to see the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. This movie sucks! It's probably gonna win Best Picture at the Oscars but it's terrible! Anyway it stars Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury and it also features Mike Myers. Bryan Singer directed until he fled and then Dexter Fletcher took over, but the movie could've been directed by anybody or a biopic robot.
Wonderboy Damien Chazelle wows us into outer space with First Man: A Neil Armstrong Biopic. Ryan Gosling gives it a go as Neil Armstrong and is teamed up with Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Ciarán Hinds, Christopher Abbott, Patrick Fugit, and Lukas Haas. Technically sound, but does the story hold water? We'll let you know.
Venom! Go get em! We all saw Venom separately but came together to discuss it and tear it pieces. Must we keep going to these superhero movies Lodgemaster? Spare us the pain of low-rated Marvel movies please! Tom Hardy does his best but can't save this movie although Eminem provides music over the credits that we loved.
A Star is Born is one of the greatest movies of the year! We love it! Go see it! Then listen to our Hawt Take Movie Review! We love you! We love Lady Gaga! We love Bradley Cooper! We love Andrew Dice Clay, Dave Chappelle, and Sam Elliott! On Oscar night we are rooting for A Star is Born!!
David Gordon Green did a Halloween movie. It's called Halloween. It's got Jamie Lee Curtis in it. We went to see it. We talk about.
Writer/director Dan Fogelman brings his dreams to the screen in Life Itself (2018). Unlike the Roger Ebert movie of the same name, this movie features Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Mandy Patinkin, Olivia Cooke, Laia Costa, Annette Bening, and Antonio Banderas. And you might even see a little Samuel L. Jackson! This is Life Itself!
We swing wildly to the Left in this politically charged podcast as we take in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 11/9. Us Lodgers analyze all parts of this film about how we got here as a nation with this President Trump guy.
Son of Levinson (Sam) chases the Zeitgeist in his stylish Assassination Nation. The world of the Internet and social media merge with reality in a violent witch hunt to the death starring Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra, Anika Noni Rose, Colman Domingo, Maude Apatow, Bill Skarsgård, Joel McHale and Bella Thorne.
A gang of Lodgers descend on Santa Monica to see that Mandy movie on the big screen. Recorded in Palisades Park, we discuss Nicolas Cage and the hallucinogenic nightmare he starred in. Director Panos Cosmatos has given us a vision that haunted our dreams and we will never forget.
Shane Black kept the Predator movies coming with The Predator in 2018. We see it and we discuss the various actors in it including Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, and Sterling K. Brown. We found the movie lacking a lot but what it lacked most was Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Get sprayed with fresh Peppermint as Jennifer Garner goes on a relentless killing spree in this ultra-violent revenge flick. We didn't know what to expect from this movie and we were laughing all the way to Skid Row. With a special call-in guest from the Lodgemaster's father. One of our top episodes!
From the desktop computer to the silver screen, John Cho wows audiences in the revolutionary new film Searching. He searches for his daughter via her laptop computer after she disappears. Will he find her? We'll let you know and so much more.
The Happytime Murders unites the creative forces of Henson Alternative (Ha!) with the comedic powerhouse Melissa McCarthy. Unfortunately the results are not so hysterical according to this Lodge crew which didn't laugh once. But we've got some words for these puppets in this Lodgecast review.
Dive deeper and deeper into The Meg as we dive into the wetness of the 4DX theater at Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE. On a hot summer's day we get drenched for this shark movie starring Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, and Cliff Curtis.
Five Lodgers spend a summer morning watching Spike Lee's Joint BlacKkKlansman. Hear about Spike Lee's vision of Ron Stallworth's story starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, and Topher Grace. Power to the people!
Three Lodge members endure Dinesh D'Souza's Death of a Nation. Dinesh follows up 2016: Obama's America and Hillary's America with another documentary that may or may not be right up your alley. Is Donald Trump the next Abraham Lincoln? We are joined by some Russians at the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood for a screening of this unique motion picture.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout kills MoviePass but lives on as Tom Cruise wows us with his stunts. Is Tom getting too old for this? We discuss. Written, produced, and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Michelle Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Henry Cavill, Vanessa Kirby, and Angela Bassett. Go Ethan Hunt!
Boots Riley's anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, anti-corporate, pro-labor union, politically charged, dark comedy Sorry to Bother You is what is on the menu in this Lodgecast. We hit up the Glendale Americana and see this movie on the big screen. Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick, Terry Crews, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, and Armie Hammer star with some voiceover work from Patton Oswalt and David Cross. It's a strange one with a Salad Dragon that'll knock your socks off!
The Lodge held a festival of love and light as we reflected upon our experiences in Eighth Grade before seeing a movie about kids now in Eighth Grade. This movie is written and directed Bo Burnham and stars Elsie Fisher. Gucci!
Buckle your safety belts and we twist and turn into the strange world of Distorted. If you have heard it's a direct-to-video movie starring Christina Ricci and John Cusack. And there is a virtual reality component which we also partake in. Minds Eye Entertainment takes us on a weird ride and we are here to hold your hand.
Listen to our Yelp Review of the Hotel Artemis starring Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Charlie Day, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Dave Bautista, and Zachary Quinto. It was a long stay at the Hotel Artemis and writer/director Drew Pearce couldn't save the day, but Jeff Goldblum certainly did!
In many ways Gotti is the movie of the year in 2018. After eating Sbarro's Pizza we take in John Travolta as the Teflon Don John Gotti. Directed by Kevin Connolly, the movie has it all including a main theme song by Pitbull and also the 80s hit "West End Girls" by British pop duo Pet Shop Boys. You're gonna wanna listen to this episode! Got eeemm!!
Listen and learn about Hereditary in this comprehensive movie review of the film directed by Ari Aster and starring Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro and Gabriel Byrne. We talk about one of the most talked about horror movies is quite some time.
Lodgecast Boyzzz get upgraded at the Highland Park 3 Theatre as they consume writer/director Leigh Whannell's Upgrade starring Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, and Harrison Gilbertson. Things get heated in the Prius as one hot-headed Lodger downgrades the movie with a harsh bone count.
Probably don't see this movie, but maybe listen to this podcast. We wearily endure Action Point from those Jackass bros like Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius. It's not a wild ride. It sucks.
Time to reconcile with Solo: A Star Wars Story. Here are all the hot scoops about Ron Howard/Phil Lord/Christopher Miller/Kathleen Kennedy's mondo $275 million Star Wars flop featuring Han Solo. Alden Ehrenreich, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, and Paul Bettany star. Thandie Newton gets killed off quick! I've got a bad feeling about this one!
We became a Prius divided after experiencing Paul Schrader's First Reformed starring Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, and Cedric the Entertainer. Has Schrader made a late career gem or has he lost his touch forever? Listen to our heated debate as we fog up the windows of the Toyota Prius.
Wanna hear a review about a French rape and revenge action horror film? Look no further. Lodgecast Boyzzz hit the AMC Sunset 5 for a delightful Mother's Day screening of Revenge. It's a bloody ordeal and if you can't stomach watching it, then listen to us tell you all about it. Matilda Lutz stars in a film directed by Coralie Fargeat.
Strictly for the Jim Carrey Completest, we dive into the darker side of America's funny man in this detective drama that eventually got its U.S. VOD release in 2018. While it is certainly dark and dreary, we can promise that we will describe to you the Jim Carrey Orgasmic Experience! Jim hooks up with Charlotte Gainsbourg in one of the most memorable Salad Dragon scenes of the year!
Tully is here to help! Lodge boyz and girlz gather round for a hot take on the new film directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody and starring Charlize Theron. Learn about taking care of children and getting a night nurse and so much more. Get your Tully fix!
Woof Woof Woof! We take on one of the worst movies of 2018. Why did you do this to us Lodgemaster? Oh the humanity! The remake of Overboard with Eugenio Derbez and Anna Faris is atrocious. We watch it and talk about it, so you don't have to!
The Lodgecast Boyz get into Avengers: Infinity War which is the beginning of the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or is it? We will discuss all the characters and all their motivations and all their character arcs and all of their attributes including Thor, Captain America, Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Iron Man, Black Widow, Dr. Strange, Vision, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Loki, Gamora, Groot, Rocket, Thanos, Star-Lord, and many, many, many, many more.
We descend upon the sole theater in Los Angeles playing the William Friedkin documentary entitled The Devil and Father Amorth. Are demons real? Are you ready to witness a real exorcism? Will the director of The Exorcist deliver on his promise to show us the horrors of Satan? All shall be revealed in this Lodgecast Movie Review.
Join some Movie Lodgers in the Lodge as they reflect up on A Quiet Place and the experiences they had viewing this motion picture. They talk about the beautiful couple John Krasinski & Emily Blunt and the nice movie they have made together as husband and wife. Please join us for our super warm take of A Quiet Place.
Learn more about God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness presented by Pure Flix Entertainment and starring David A.R. White in this informative movie review. The movie also stars John Corbett, Tatum O'Neal, Ted McGinley, Shwayze, Dana Loesch, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and many other living luminaries. Learn about God's plan for Trump's America as David A.R. White navigates a minefield of anger brewing on the college campuses of the United States in 2018.
The Lodgecast Boyz dish out their first serving of Hawt Takez on Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One. We dig out all the easter eggs with spoilers of all the nostalgia trips you're gonna take if you were born in the 1970s or in the 1980s. If you've not seen Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, then do not listen to this podcast episode or watch Ready Player One. Go watch The Shining.
Steven Soderbergh is back at it with an iPhone 7 Plus camera in his hand in the new psychological horror movie Unsane! Claire Foy leads an all-star cast including Amy Irving and Matt Damon and Joshua Leonard from The Blair Witch Project (1999). Lodgecast Boyz meld minds in the Prius as they attempt to wrap their collective brain around this complex movie. Is Claire Foy insane in the membrane or is somebody stalking her? All will be explained as four superfans of the man who made Ocean's 11, 12, & 13, lay their bones at the altar of Steven Soderbergh. Let's get nuts!
Immerse yourself into the mind of Duncan Jones! In this episode of the Lodgecast, we review the neo-noir sci-fi film Mute that was released on Netflix on February 23rd, 2018. This spiritual sequel to Jones' Moon (2009) features a mute protagonist played by the dreamy-eyed Alexander Skarsgard and also features a couple of twisted American surgeons played by Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. Their fates collide in this thrilling Blade Runner-esque epic family film. The Lodgecast Boyz try to keep their opinions muted as they sit through this 2-hour visual extravaganza at the Lodge. Then they weigh in on this labor of love that spent years in development hell.
In the first ever episode of Matt's Movie Lodgecast, the Lodgecast Boyzzz take on Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time. We explain to you what the Lodgecast is going to be all about before we enter the AMC Burbank 16 to witness a larger-than-life Oprah Winfrey take us on mystical tour of the New Age that is right below the surface of our everyday existence. Reese Witherspoon is magically transformed into a Salad Dragon and The Salad Dragon Scene is born into life. Please take note for all future episodes:
The Salad Dragon Scene: 1. A pivotal scene that is so utterly uncanny, bizarrely baffling, trippy transcendent, that it instantly defines the film and justifies the price of admission alone. 2. Reese Witherspoon in A WRINKLE OF TIME (2018).