Drat Pack: Recent Episodes
None
We wrap up our Summer of Games: The Good Ones series with 2006’s Silent Hill, an adaptation of parts of the classic video game franchise directed by that guy who did Brotherhood of the Wolf, Christophe Gans. Despite a fairly unfavorable critical response at the time, Silent Hill is in retrospect looked on as a pretty faithful adaptation of the material. Does that make it actually good, or is the bar just that low? Well, we’re… mostly receptive to what it’s doing, at least! Listen along as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss the source material, the adaptation itself, and what it manages to do successfully (or at least interestingly). Look, in comparison to our next movie, this one is a ding dang walk through the woods of Centralia (pre-unending coal fire). But at least we’ll have a slushy cocktail to make our final game adaptation (hopefully) go down a little easier.
Ah, the bad one! Our Summer of Games sinks to a new low with 2000’s Dungeons & Dragons, a cheap, misbegotten adaptation of the classic role-playing game- an intellectual property with nearly endless possibilities to draw from, and somehow we ended up with this. Journey along with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we try to make sense of what source material this is pulling from, why Thora Birch is so shockingly awful as a fantasy empress dishing vague platitudes about equality, and if Damodar’s ice blue 90s lipstick is supposed to be a fashion choice or an indication of naturally blue lips or what the hell is going on here. On the plus side… it was a good drink! Will this be a new nadir for our Summer of Games? Boy, we hope so!
Ah, the good one! Continuing our Summer of Games where we devote a mini episode to a movie based on a game that actually worked out, we’re watching and discussing 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the rare game adaptation that’s actually pretty great! Join Leigh, Brendan, Chris, and Jarnathan as we talk about the many things this movie does right- casting, tone, direction, writing… it’s mostly all working really well! Why can’t they all be like this? Why didn’t more people see this? Why must we watch the much worse movie adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons next episode? Because we’re gluttons for punishment, that’s why. But hey, at least we enjoyed this movie!
As summer finally technically begins, our summer miniseries follow suit, and what better way to kick off our Summer of Games than with a video game adaptation? Enter 2010’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, a very very long and trite would-be magical epic starring a bunch of noted white people amidst some fairly rote sandy scenery. Leigh leads the discussion as someone who is very much a fan of the source material, with Chris lending his support, and Brendan in third place trying to figure out what came from the video game and what was just tossed in as an attempt to make this whole thing feel like a movie. Listen in as we discuss the origins of the story, the weird sidelining of any fun aspects of the video game, and the needlessly complicated evil plan the movie tries to keep effectively spinning. Also, there’s some FIFA-flavored potato chip chat and a suitably refreshing cocktail that’s easier to take than this movie.
Summer has started, and with it one of customary themed mini-series! As the sun mercilessly beats down on humanity, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris retreat indoors to kick off our Summer of Games. That’s right, we’re going to be talking about three crappy movies based on games of various natures, but to combat that, we’re also trying to seek out some games adapted into movies that are (supposedly) good. With that in mind, our first discussion topic is 2021’s Werewolves Within, a cinematic adaptation of a video game that is a video game adaptation of a party game. Got it? Werewolves Within was received fairly favorably by critics and viewers upon its release, but is it actually good or is the bar just that low? Listen along, won’t you, as we try to direct just what exactly this movie is and how well it manages to function. Also, gird your loins as we reveal our first bad cinematic adaptation of a game to follow two weeks from now, and the drink that will mercifully keep us inebriated as we view it.
In the year of our Lord 2026, it feels like not only are we getting fewer romcoms, we’re getting far fewer insanely unhinged romcoms. Enter 1999’s Simply Irresistible, a real fever dream of a romantic comedy about a magic crab who awakens a woman’s dormant ancestral baking skills while helping her get some, except apparently it’s not really about any of those things apparently. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, Chris and returning special guest Faith pick apart this bizarre piece of 90s nonsense like so much goo-filled dessert fruit. Is it possible for two leads to have negative chemistry? Is constantly referencing better movies enough to sustain your crappy one? And seriously, what the hell is this movie supposed to actually be about? All this chatter and an equally misbegotten cocktail, too!
Hey look, this game we played twice before is back! That’s right, it’s Haven’t Seen It, where one (or more) of us tries to describe the plot of a movie we’ve never seen before based off just what we’ve gathered by context while someone who has seen said movie feels a smug sense of superiority for knowing how it actually goes. Unsurprisingly, it gets harder and harder to find viable movies for this, so we don’t get to do it all that often (or we end up accidentally repeating ourselves, as we did previously). But THIS time it’s different! THIS time, we made a list! And we limited ourselves to three movies per person. Er, wait, two. But we got to do a game we liked again, so we’re glad anyway. We also briefly discuss the upcoming romantic comedy we’ll be discussing two weeks from now, and it’s, uh, weird.
The only thing that can make an unseasonably chilly April even more unsettling is throwing Helen Mirren and a CGI mansion full of grumpy ghosts into it. Commence your midnight seance to listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris watch the 2018 horror half-effort Winchester, a movie about the fictionalized version of the fictionalized version of a rich old lady who decided to have fun building a big ol’ house. We discuss the various versions of the “true story” of the Winchester house, the perils of trying to take cinematic advantage of a house that you can neither film in nor adequately recreate, and the endless edging that is 90 plus minutes of attempted jump scares. We also have an herbal California-style gimlet, designed to be almost as effective as large quantities of laudanum at messing you up.
What better time to completely disassociate and imagine you’re in a whole other world than right now? Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to a variation on a theme of an older mini episode about fictional worlds they’d like to visit or live in and instead talk about the ones they’d actually like to participate in narratively. Perhaps you too have always wished you could live as a playwright’s wife in 1950s New York City and sling gin-soaked barbs with the best of them! We also cover the movie we’ll be doing next (a horror film for the SPOOOOOOKIEST season, late April) and the herbal / sunshine cocktail that will hopefully make it go down easier.
Hey darling. Are you worried? Well don’t! Unless you’re Leigh, Brendan, and Chris, because we’re rightfully worried about sitting through Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling (drop the comma, it’s cleaner), an attempt to stretch a 22 minute Twilight Zone premise into an interminable 2 hours plus. Listen along as we discuss the frustrations of spending two hours watching a movie that you’re already ahead of after ten minutes, the confusing world of the story (both “real” and SHOCKING SPOILERS virtual), and trying to make sense of who knows what and why they’re doing what and how shitty that makes them. Thankfully, we have a period-appropriate cocktail (in so much as anything can be period appropriate here) to make us slightly drunk as we watch the movie. Again, this is somehow over two hours. Do worry darlings.
For our latest mini episode, we turn our attention to media that we think is unfairly ignored or maligned. Be it something so indie or low-budget that it can’t afford to get a foothold in pop culture or something wrongly slandered, we’ve got a lot of stuff to advocate for. Listen as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss media that runs the gamut from video games to movies to television. Naturally, we also discuss something that’s probably more accurately disparaged- namely, our next ill-fated movie to view and discuss. Don’t worry, darling, we also have a drink to make it go down smoother.
If there’s a lesson that adapting books to movies has taught us time and time again, it’s that it’s hard! Sometimes what works effectively in a novel simply doesn’t translate to the visual medium of film. And sometimes someone just makes a mess of the whole thing and creates a cinematic example of missing the point. Such is 2008’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a passion project of its writer / director that still manages to strip away almost everything that makes the source material interesting. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss this mercifully short yet incredibly meandering misfire and discuss topics such as “would a department store mannequin have given a more compelling lead performance?” and “why did Nick Nolte eat a bowl of gravel before filming his scenes?” and “what exactly are the titular mysteries of Pittsburgh anyway?” On the bright side, we got a really good coffee cocktail out of this whole mess!
Sometimes we have a lot of thoughts about a movie that’s simply not bad enough to consider as part of our regular podcast. And sometimes we have a lot of thoughts about TWO movies, one of which is a remake of the other. And sometimes it’s improbably both the original and remake of a movie that came out years ago. That’s right, this week we’re spending a LOT of time discussing the movies Sabrina, both the classic 1954 Billy Wilder original starring Audrey Hepburn and the 1995 Sydney Pollack remake starring Julia Ormond. What would possess someone to remake a beloved classic starring one of the most iconic actors of all time? Could the remake possibly be the better movie despite NOT having Audrey Hepburn or Billy Wilder? Why would someone be infatuated with Greg Kinnear when Harrison Ford is right there? Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris exorcise their thoughts on this subject while briefly introducing next episode’s movie and the accompanying cocktail. Yes, we know it’s an ironically long mini episode, but hey, it’s close to Valentine’s Day so why not have some romantic comedy pleasantness?
With Valentine’s Day less than two weeks away (we regret to inform you it is now too late to maneuver reservations at any decent restaurant), Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to the old romantic comedy well to see what bitter muddied water can be drawn from it. And boy, is that bitter water muddied with things like incest, vague mob dramas, and reincarnation! That’s right, our movie this February is 1989’s Chances Are, starring Cybill Shepherd as a grieving widow and Robert Downey Jr. as her daughter’s love interest / the reincarnation of her dead husband’s soul. Nothing complicated here! We kick around a lot of the nonsense thrown onto this movie, but namely, “why would anyone want to create a movie where a dead man comes back to Earth and is split between romancing his daughter and his wife?” Not to mention the resolution! We’ve also got some hot tea-based cocktail to accompany this to keep us both warm and too drunk to reconcile the deeply upsetting intricacies of the movie.
It’s time for another mini episode and with another mini episode comes another game… sort of! Instead of an actual game, we’re doing a draft of our top four fictional characters in media, just a list of some of the best ones out there! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go serpentine and snatch up our faves while trying to avoid stepping on anyone else’s toes. On top of that, we’ve got our annual Valentine’s Day romantic comedy episode coming up soon, so we talk about the deeply bizarre movie we’ll be covering in two weeks (along with a wintery cocktail to warm our hearts when the movie cannot).
We’re ringing in 2026 with a bit of the ol’ Bayhem- specifically, 2005’s The Island, directed by explosion auteur Michael Bay and starring two Ewan McGregors, two Scarlett Johanssons, and one of almost everybody else. Suggested for discussion as an example of “dumb entertainment,” the movie is mostly notable for 1) Michael Bay’s take on what seems to be at heart a 1970s conspiracy sci-fi thriller 2) an out-of-character financial flop for Bay and 3) being the focus of a lawsuit by the creative team of 1979’s Parts: The Clonus Horror, which it (allegedly!) rips off pretty aggressively. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss all this and more (like what vague plot points really just don’t make a lick of sense) while imbibing on a wintery cocktail. Sadly, we could not get Aquifina product placement for the drink.
The year is nearly over! It’s closing up shop! Slam it shut, baby! Close that year! As is our wont, we recap the year and talk about the best and the worst of what we watched and drank. It’s low key! We’re also kicking off 2026 with a big expensive sci-fi / action mess, so listen up for more info about that. Happy holidays and happy new year, be cool and nice.
It’s Holiday Spectacular time, and what better way to celebrate than by watching a movie that was… mostly well received? Leigh, Brendan, and Chris’s reason for the season this year is 2022’s Happiest Season, Clea DuVall’s Christmas romcom about a lesbian couple who find themselves terrorized by both the straights and the trappings of the holiday. But why did Chris suggest that we this ostensibly good movie when the Jim Carrey Grinch is still allowed to exist? Can you enjoy an otherwise solid movie when the central crux of the plot is so troubled? What the hell are Victor Garber’s political leanings? Will Brendan enjoy seeing footage of his beloved childhood mall? Well, it wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t wrap up all these questions with a festive bow AND enjoy a toasty seasonal cocktail while doing it. Happy holidays, everyone!
It’s late November aka prime “let’s circle back to this after the holidays” season and what better way to both blow off responsibility and get ready for Christmas than by doing a full mini episode of our snack food review game “Eat It or Beat It?” That’s right, there is no better way. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we eat a lone pumpkin spice sweet in remembrance of the autumn, gimmicky Christmas candies, and even some weird holiday amalgamation of sugary confection from across the pond. We also briefly go into our upcoming Holiday Spectacular movie (it’s neither a Hallmark OR Lifetime one this time!) along with the cozy hot cocktail we’ll be downing whilst cinematically going home for the holidays.
Return to the distant year of 1985 which will in turn return you to the distant year of 1962 with a forgotten comedy that finally dares to take the piss out of that sacrosanct topic, the Peace Corps. Naturally, this could only refer to the comedy Volunteers, a movie whose most lasting contribution to modern culture was ensuring the birth of Chet Haze. Listen in on your old-fashioned ham radio as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about Tom Hanks’s spot-on old money New England accent work, what jokes manage to still hold up (shockingly, not the ones where an east Asian character keeps mixing up the letters R and L), and why all the heroic characters will probably still be killed by villainous vengeance-seeking gangs as soon as the credits roll. And hey, we knock it out of the park again with a pretty great cocktail to make this whole ordeal feel like less of a chore than it was!
It’s Halloweek, and since we already blew our scary podcastical load on The Mummy Returns last week for the spookiest of all holidays (next to Arbor Day), we decided to do a lil Halloween game to celebrate it. Anyway, maybe you haven’t noticed but Hallmark is slightly dipping its white Canadian 90s celebrity toes into making movies for Halloween with the same sort of bland competence it brings to Christmas. As is only right given that we have played our patent-pending the Hallmark Christmas movie generator game multiple times before on this podcast, we’ve decided to do a spooky version where we attempt to make the blandest, safest Halloween-themed movies possible while still drenched with the trappings of the season. Join us for a few rounds of this old favorite, and naturally we also briefly kick around our upcoming movie and cocktail combo. Happy Halloween / blehhhhh!
It’s our Halloween Spooktacular, baby, and nothing says the spooky season like a limp underbaked sequel to a blockbuster action / horror-adjacent blockbuster based off of a 1932 Universal Studios monster movie. Naturally, we’re talking about 2001’s The Mummy Returns, a movie that proves there’s nothing scarier than a vain attempt to make lightning strike twice (or a CGI Rock scorpion centaur, take your pick). Slip into some comfortable gold body paint as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss what the deal is with sequels in general, how Jonathan got screwed over here, and why the Scorpion King is even here in the first place. Plus, we have a themed cocktail that’s really great! Like, one of our best! It’s SCAAARY how much we liked it! Anyway, happy early Halloween!
What started off as a vague idea of making up a YA movie or book molted in discussion to become something else and sometimes that’s okay! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about young adult media, be it books or movies- what they are comprised of, what makes them work, and if we can identify them when we see them. We’ve also got our Halloween Spooktacular rising like a full moon in the distance, with a suitably SPOOOOOKY movie being featured (eh, not really) and a suitably DELICIOOOUUUS cocktail accompanying it (we hope).
It’s back to school season, and what better way for us to reminisce about our distant high school memories than through the lens of a failed young adult sci-fi franchise? Return to your own far-flung youth with 2011’s I Am Number Four, one of many attempts to make “Twilight but for boys” that simply didn’t take. Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss literary crap factory overseer James Frey, the “designed by committee” world that this movie confusingly creates, and the perils of casting an Abercrombie & Fitch ad that a witch turned into a real boy as the lead of your film. Also we have a suitably orange cocktail to accompany this whole mess, a fitting reminder of that time when we colortimed all movies to be orange and blue in lieu of actually making them visually appealing.
Summer, alas, is over (even though it’ll still be like 80 degrees for a while but now with the added fun of 7:00 pm sunsets, such fun) and with it our unhinged musicals miniseries. So long, Something Like Summer! Hello, customary teen movie to kick off the school year! As we briefly discuss the teen sci-fi adaptation we’ll be covering two weeks from now, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris also talk about some other teen fiction- namely, stuff they wrote when they were teens (or younger). How much did we just rip off other media we liked? How many random topics could we cram into one work of fiction with no regard for logic or coherence? How many times did Leigh write something where a character gets amnesia (spoiler, they all have amnesia)? Did anything at all hold up to our jaded modern perspectives? Listen and find out, won’t you?
Hey, hey, hey! ~~BIM’s on the way! BIM’s the only way~~! BIM’s all the way! (?) Look, any way you may hear it, our Summer of Unhinged Musicals has reached its natural endpoint, with a movie that is unquestionably a musical. And boy, what a nonsense of a musical it is! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they attempt to make sense of 1980’s The Apple, directed by schlockmeister lunatic par excellence, Menahem Golan. Is it a modern-day retelling of the very beginning and very end of the Bible? Is it a movie fascinated by queer people that also thinks they’re wicked and sinful? Is it a disco musical that also seems to hate disco music? Friends, it’s all these things and so much more (by so much more we mean a lot men in thongs and Miriam Margolyes being groped by a bland-ass Canadian singer in the tightest pants the costume department was able to manifest). We’re also pretty drunk on our themed sangria, which seems fitting because watching this movie sober is potentially hazardous to your health.
What would summer be without summer movies to accompany it? Well, probably just insufferably hot. Thankfully, we have summer movies to distract us from (insert horrific woe here)! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris have a nice li’l chat about some of this season’s big blockbuster-y movies (and one smaller, more intimate one). From superheroes to dinosaurs to Chuck, the summer of 2025 has had it all! We also talk briefly about the upcoming conclusion to our Summer of Unhinged Musicals and the cocktail that we’ll be drinking to accompany it (hint: we’ve got a lot of apple themes going on).
The Summer of Unhinged Musicals continues with perhaps one of the most unhinged movies we have ever covered, period. For your pleasure (?), we present 2017’s Something Like Summer, an adaptation of a self-published absurdly long young adult novel that was for some improbable reason turned into an absurdly long movie musical. Blurbs really can’t do this one justice, but suffice to say there’s a lot of gay angst, a lot of questionable creative choices, and a lot of mind-numbingly bizarre plot points. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they team up yet again with past guest Faith to just tackle this mess beat-by-beat. And yes, we’re all a little surprised that this is our longest episode ever too, but there’s just an unending river of insanity to cover here. Naturally, such a movie necessitates both a cocktail AND baked goods, so we really are covering all our bases here.
As the year rolls swelteringly along, so does our Summer of Unhinged Musicals, and what better way commemorate this year’s miniseries than with yet another game (but one that relates to the theme)? Brendan dusts off an old chestnut from a while back where he posits a musical title and description and Leigh and Chris have to determine whether said musical is real or fake, but THIS time it’s exclusively jukebox musicals, the bane of the serious theater aficionado! Do you know enough about jukebox musicals to know if there’s one based on Enya songs? Or one based on the non-McCartney songs written by John Lennon? Heck, maybe some of these fake ones are actually seemingly more produceable than some of the real nonsense! Fittingly we also introduce next episode’s drink and unhinged movie musical topic (and boy is it a particularly bizarre one).
Another summer has begun, and with it, another miniseries. This year, we’re kicking off our Summer of Unhinged Musicals with a movie that… might be arguably a musical, but kind of probably isn’t. As you might be able to guess, it’s 2003’s The Singing Detective, a not-very-acclaimed movie adaptation of a very-acclaimed British series. Please know that despite the name, there’s no actual singing, just a lot of lip synching to recordings of 1950s pop standards, which is… a choice that might not fully have a reason behind it here! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the many odd decisions this movie makes, the questionable directorial choices (why, Keith Gordon, why???), and why Robert Downey Jr. might have seemed like a good option for the lead but kind of doesn’t really work. Also accompanying the main feature is a cocktail as bitter and tobacco-tinged as Dan Dark himself.
Look, sometimes it’s very hard to come up with discussion topics and sometimes people are feeling sick so sometimes mini episodes just end up being a round table discussion of “what’s some interesting media you consumed lately?” This is one of those times. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan (partly), and Chris talk about some of these things, ranging from video games to movie adaptations of classic lit to attempts to extend the Sex and the City franchise long after its natural death. And with summer upon us, we also kick off a new summer miniseries featuring genuinely unhinged movie musicals. It’s going to be all-singing, all-dancing, long-suffering!
Could it, though? Could it indeed happen to you? Well, yes, it could, if by “it” you mean “watching a mid-tier 90s romantic comedy that sort of holds up.” If you mean “have a rando split a multi-million dollar lottery ticket with you,” then sadly the answer is no, it’s probably pretty unlikely to happen to you. Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we take in Andrew Bergman’s not-unpleasant 1994 movie It Could Happen to You, starring Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, and fully keyed in operating-at-fever-pitch Rosie Perez. It’s mostly a charming and frivolous little bit of cinema, so why did we feel the need to cover it? Could it be because of the weird “saintly man married to inhuman nagging shrewish wife” plot? The half-hearted attempts at magic realism or fairy tale vibes? The squandering of Stanley Tucci and Ann Dowd? In a word, yes. There’s some stuff to kick around here! There’s also a smoky iced coffee cocktail designed to be a tasty version of a glass of Folgers with cigarette ash in it, so if that doesn’t grab you then we don’t know what will.
We’ve got a movie coming up next week that focuses pretty heavily on a diner, so why not do a food-centric mini episode accordingly? Except it’s not really about diners or coffee shops, it’s about chain restaurants, so things kinda fall apart from there but hey it’s hard coming up with mini topics so pipe down maybe! We do another one of our li’l games where Brendan reads from a list of movie promotional menu items from famous chain restaurants, and Leigh and Chris have to guess which culinary abominations are real and which are (to date) not. Will Denny’s and IHOP ever be jailed for their crimes against humanity? Only one way to find out!
What do you get when America’s sweetheart teams up with Ferris Bueller for a comic revenge scheme against their exes and then end up falling for each other? Well, maybe surprisingly you’d mostly get a black comedy that struggles with its own identity despite the admirable efforts of its cast. In other words, you’d get Griffin Dunne’s 1997 directorial debut, Addicted to Love, starring Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, and some poor dopes who were unlucky enough to have dumped them. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris devote a chunk of time to what went wrong with the execution of this shaky premise, covering issues ranging from “why does this actively feel like a black comedy that can’t commit to its own tone” to “does Kelly Preston even have a character to portray.” We’ve also got a great spring cocktail with some strawberries tossed in, so watch out, Anton!
Our television trilogy of terror miniseries comes to an end (for now, anyway) with this mini episode, in which we finally do what we’re been musing about doing for ages and do that thing we do with movies but with a TV series instead. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris all choose a TV series they find interesting but poorly executed and discuss how it could have been fixed. We run the gamut from science fiction reboot to musical dramedy to Not Applicable (because someone did a video game instead). We also briefly comment on the movie we’ll be talking about next and the spring drink that accompanies it (in a desperate attempt to manifest spring weather).
Your television is a box. Your phone is a box. You listen to podcasts on it. You sit in your home, listening to Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss Richard Kelly’s 2009 movie The Box. The movie erodes your ability to comprehend it, while the box that is your body eventually gets so confused and frustrated by questions like “what’s with the water coffins?” and “why does every human act like a complete weirdo?”… then has to have a hard drink just to feel something again. Whereupon it is placed in the ultimate box (compartmentalization lest you shatter your brain box trying to make sense of all this), to slowly sober up.
Our TV-themed mini episode trilogy spins merrily along as we shift from our favorite couples to our favorite supporting characters- characters who may not show up every week, but once in a season or two they’ll get a fun recurring bit to do or pop up with some quippy zingers. Look, we could all use more of this television archetype in our daily lives, so sit in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we shout out some of the bests. Also, start thinking about boxes because boy you’re going to have boxes on the brain (in fact, your brain is a box!) for our next movie discussion.
It’s always an interesting choice when a movie’s title is a question- indeed, the unspoken contract entered into is “at some point, this question will be answered and the answer will be relevant.” But what happens when your movie title poses a question that is both largely irrelevant and not even really a question that matters? Well, you’d end up with 2001’s Who Is Cletis Tout?, a clumsy half-assed attempt at merging post-modern cinema, pseudo-noir, Tarantino-esque trademarks, and Tim Allen. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris attempt to focus on the issues at play here, such as “What the hell is this convoluted plotting doing here?” and “Why is Tim Allen here?” and “Did Richard Dreyfuss get paid by the word?” It’s a real mess, friends, and we’re all glad to have some smokey cocktail goodness to wash down the scene where Tim Allen goes on a weird patriotic rant to a gang in a subway station.
Valentine’s Day may be several days behind us, but we’ve never been too slavishly faithful to how calendars work before and dammit we’re not about to start now. Celebrate love in all of its forms (albeit mostly romantic) as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about their favorite television pairings and why they work. This also prompts a lot of talk about the perils of the oft-used “will they, won’t they” trope and The Mentalist, apparently. Anyway, don’t worry, with February out of the picture for our next episode we’ll be talking about a movie that couldn’t construct a romantic subplot even if it had seven seasons to suss things out.
What better way to prepare for Valentine’s Day than by watching a romantic comedy that has aged like a fine milk? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they view 1999’s Three to Tango, a stale piece of dated cinematic nonsense covering all of our favorite 1990s hallmarks- television actors from your favorite prime time programming, neurotic straight men being mistaken for being neurotic gay men, questionable aesthetics, and the neo-swing music revival. How could any of this go wrong? Well, I mean… it’s pretty obvious. Just look at all of those descriptors. How could any of this go right? Well, that’s a trickier question, and one we try to answer successfully by the time the episode ends! And as always, we got a cocktail too to make this all mildly less tiresome.
Look, we’re all very tired and we don’t really have a good discussion topic in mind, so it’s a game! Just go with it and have fun! Chris gives us a list of “cozy mystery” television episode titles and Leigh and Brendan have to guess what ones are made up. It’s one of those things! Please try to also feel cozy! And we have our February Month of Love romcom episode coming up next, so… that’s something too! Cozy!
Several years ago, a group of filmmakers gathered together to address a problem: kids today simply don’t want to go to the opera as much as their great-great-great-grandparents possibly did. The solution to this conundrum? The Magic Flute, a 2022 quasi-adaptation of the famed Mozart work that takes about 30% of said opera and then burdens it with a weird isekai-adjacent subplot where some twink in a music school has to go to a magic opera world and pretend he is the main character to help him learn to say his would-be girlfriend’s name out loud. Yup. Anyway, listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss what’s the deal with opera in general, the indescribably scattered plotting of both the movie and the opera, and why Princess Pamina seems to have a fettuccine noodle stuck to her chin for some reason. And to honor the vague and ill-characterized villainous Queen of the Night, we also drink the nocturnal equivalent of a bellini to numb our confusions. Get ready to get cultured, baby!
It’s the end of December and per our usual custom, we are closing that year, baby! Please remember to indicate that you have closed your year by listening to this on your tax forms come January. Anyway, please enjoy our traditional end of year low-key review session where we reminisce about our past movies and drinks and also talk about how there’s MORE of this to come in 2025. Happy holidays, all!
At long last, the prophecy has come true- we’re finally discussing that Christmas white whale, that rotten chestnut, that ho ho holy hell what a piece of crap movie we’ve been threatening to do for years. That’s right, for our annual Holiday Spectacular, listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss Robert Zemeckis’s 2004 motion-capture abomination The Polar Express with equal parts defeat and enthusiasm. Because everyone has already covered the nightmarish character aesthetics, we spend very little time on that in favor of instead discussing the perils of adapting a picture book to a feature film, what is “believe” and how does that even actually apply to this story, and why ill-written half-assed musicals are a particular thorn in the side of one person here. Naturally, we also drink hot chocolate as a cocktail. And of course we didn’t let it cool, lest we provoke the wrath of a weirdly-bald stickler Tom Hanks conductor.
‘Tis the Christmas season (because Thanksgiving is boring and who cares, let’s just skip over that whole bit) and what better way to celebrate it than by a third session of our patented Hallmark Christmas Movie Generator Game (patent not real)? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they spin wheels of prompts to incorporate various holiday phrases into the titles of potential Hallmark movies and then try to create a plot to go along with them. Also, we now have a sixth wheel covering jobs women have in these movies, covering all the bases from “journalist” to “princess.” Naturally, we also talk briefly about our upcoming Holiday Spectacular episode, featuring a Christmas “classic” we have been threatening to cover and putting off doing for literal years. It’s… certainly a holiday movie that pops up a lot for some reason!
One must give credit to Michael Crichton, the man who created works of fiction that asked questions such as “what if Disneyland had dinosaurs” and “what if apes were jerks” and “what if Beowulf was boring and also laced with my historical fanfic.” Then of course, John McTiernan popped up to ask in turn “what if I did your book no favors by directing it without a sense of desperately-needed visual flair.” As you may have inferred, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris are tackling the 1999 would-be historical epic The 13th Warrior, a mostly-forgotten flop that was the financial equivalent of loading $160 million on a boat and setting it on fire so that it may ascend to Valhalla. Join us as we discuss the Beowulfness of it all, the lack of almost any compelling characters, and how almost every action sequence feels like it’s desperately trying to wrap itself up as soon as it starts. Naturally, we also made a hot Norwegian-inspired cocktail to accompany all this Nordic drollery, so at least we had that going for us.
A mini episode in which Leigh, Brendan, and Chris start out discussing original fantasy movies, then muse about why there are so few good original fantasy movies, then play an impromptu and unplanned game of Kevin Degrees of Seven Bacon (an invented game based on something Leigh has dealt with from her parents where you have to determine what movie someone is trying to remember based only on the vague information they can muster up). We really cover a lot of ground here! Naturally we also introduce our next movie and accompanying cocktail, and boy is it… esoteric!
October is back and so is our annual Halloween Spooktacular! We’ve previously dealt with a murder AND a death, so it only makes sense that a haunting should follow suit- and this haunting is in VENICE, baby! Kenneth Branagh returns as his version of Hercule Poirot as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return with the third (and presumably final based on the box office) film in his Agatha Christie adaptations, 2023’s A Haunting in Venice. Lock yourself in your sinking palazzo and listen close as we discuss the truly bizarre source material, Kenny B’s bag of directorial gimmickry, and the advantages of adapting a Christie mystery (Christery?) that no one knows or cares about. Naturally there’s also a fittingly autumnal cocktail full of honey and apples because this movie is all about honey and apples (and vengeful Italian ghost babies).
As we slowly crawl to the end of another excruciating year, the Hallo-Thanks-Mas holiday corridor creeps up along with it. As is often the case with these periods, we sometimes fall back on tried-and-true movies to rewatch (or music to listen, or games to play, or whatever, do what works for you). Leigh, Brendan, and Chris have a short chat about these old standbys and what they get from returning to them and how the hell they ended up being seasonal media in the first place. No, the whole “Lord of the Rings are Christmas movies” really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but we try to address it anyway. One thing that DOES make sense is our impending annual Halloween Spooktacular episode, which we briefly introduce here along with a cocktail recipe that suitably makes use of honey and apples. There’s… a lot of honey and apples coming next episode.
Rita Mae Brown’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. On an unrelated note, in this episode Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to the filmography of Kenneth Branagh just to see how we feel about perhaps his most unusual and unique movie, his 2000 Shakespeare adaptation Love’s Labour’s Lost. Yes, that’s right, that little-performed play that Branagh chopped down to about 80 minutes, reset in pre-World War II Europe, and then added musical numbers from the Great American Songbook. Can such a weirdly specific take work? Is this even a play that can justify having this much done to it in the first place? Does it matter if Kenneth Branagh doesn’t really get how to make a 1930s movie musical or indeed how to make song and dance look interesting? Listen in, won’t you, as we spend a lot of time trying to make sense of all this while enjoying a sparkling cocktail (but sadly no cocaine).
Remember a few weeks ago when the Borderlands movie came out and no one liked it and it flopped and we all agreed that there was no reason to talk about it ever again? Well, we’re talking about it briefly. Or to be more specific, we’re talking broadly about movies adapted from video games, a much-maligned niche that has only rarely ever resulted in a movie that can actually function on some level. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris muse about the innate difficulties of trying to adapt a video game in the first place, the problems that seem to affect most movie versions, and if there have ever been any successful ones in the first place (there’s a few!). Join us again in two weeks when we cover some wildly different territory with a setting-shifted jukebox musical adaptation of a lesser Shakespeare play directed by someone whom we’ve talked about, uh, quite a bit. Hey nonny nonny!
Our Summer of Failed Franchises (mercifully?) comes to an end with perhaps the most flagrant franchise bait yet, Stephen Sommer’s 2004 monster mash up Van Helsing. That’s right, at long last you can be chilled by terrifying imagery such as Dracula cosplaying as Gerard Way, Hugh Jackman with nightmarishly bad extensions, and a Frankenstein’s monster with a plasma globe jammed into his chest. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris try to make sense of these choices, along with topics such as “what the hell is going on with this world building?” and “why do werewolves keeps regenerating tattered modesty pants upon transforming back into humans?” Fittingly, we also enjoy a light summer cocktail as red and bitter as Dracula’s heart. (AHHHHHH if only he had one!)
Obviously we’ve got some general movie spoilers to contend with in this episode, so be forewarned! Stemming from a brief digression in our last episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris kick around some thoughts on the state of modern movie trailers. How much information is too much information to reveal? What should a movie trailer ideally cover? How are modern tastes and viewing methods affecting how trailers are made? We’re casually dipping into all this and a whole lot of additional stream of consciousness chatter (plus a drink recipe for our final Summer of Failed Franchises episode coming up next)!
Our summer miniseries of Failed Franchises continues unabated with a look at an adaptation of a pretty popular children’s book that stagnated for years in development hell, had a wildly troubled production period, was unceremoniously dumped on a streaming service because of a plague, and was then taken off again in exchange for a tax write-off. Almost assuredly, you will not remember that this all describes Kenneth Branagh’s 2020 damp squib, Artemis Fowl! Journey to Ireland (well, mostly just a house) with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the manic attempts to alter this movie in post-production, the vague half-baked world building, and the nightmarish image of Josh Gad unhinging his jaw while devouring dirt and forcefully expelling it from his anus. By necessity, there’s obviously a cocktail involved here too since there’s no way we could sit through this whole drab ordeal while sober.
Whether it’s a husky-voiced puppet master creeping on his unrequited love’s daughter or a charming ’60s romantic comedy that also happens to periodically feature a ghoulish yellow-face caricature of a Japanese man, we’ve all got faves that simultaneously have some deep-seated issues. Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss some of our own, be they characters with their own gross issues or movies that have aspects which have aged like a fine milk. Also, our summer of Failed Franchises continues unabated with our next episode, a long-gestating adaptation of a middle schooler book that surely seemed like a safe bet at one point, and the accompanying drink that will make the whole ordeal go down (mildly) easier.
It’s humid and hot and wildly unpleasant to be outdoors, meaning that summer is thusly upon us and more importantly, that we’re starting yet another mini-series for the summer months. Our theme this year is Failed Franchises, where we focus on movies that were supposed to launch a wildly successful franchise but then just sort of embarrassingly fizzled out. Journey with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris through space and time back to the 1990s, a period where movie studios were actively courting nostalgic baby boomers by translating the TV shows of their youth to the big screen (with wildly inconsistent results), as we discuss 1998’s Lost in Space. Despite being the movie to finally knock Titanic out of the number one spot at the box office, there’s not much that works in this dull and bloated sci-fi adventure (and we’re not just talking about Blawp here, there’s way worse stuff at play). Is there a way to turn this overly-expensive piece of nostalgic excess into a better movie? Well, we think so! Listen in as we cover all of the above and more (along with a quasi-sangria cocktail to keep us all from turning into puddles of sweat).
Remember how back in January we made some resolutions for the new year involving media (movies, books, video games, television) of some kind? Well, we did. Go back and check if you doubt us, you Doubting Thomas, you. Anyways, we’re now halfway through 2024 so we figured we’d check in and see how all those empty promises were going. In addition, we’re doing yet another miniseries / theme for the summer, so listen up to hear more about that and how drunk we’ll need to be to watch our next movie.
What better way to celebrate 100 years of existence as an entertainment corporate entity than by making a film so crammed full of back-patting references to your own history that you forget to actually make a compelling movie? According to The Walt Disney Company, there is apparently no better way. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they watch the 2023 animated movie Wish, a wild misfire of a feature that doesn’t include logic, memorable characters, or good music, but hey, at least there’s seven characters who remind us of the dwarfs, right? We try to break down exactly went awry here, covering topics such as “What the hell is the logic behind wishes in this world?” and “Really, what is anyone’s actual personality?” and “Why did the animated aesthetic break so many brains?” And we actually come up with some (truly, only some) answers here! Also we drink a cool fruity cocktail that’s a perfect drink for the prelude to summer, so hey, it wasn’t all a loss!
It’s been a week or so since The Idea of You has premiered on Prime, and the world has not been the same since (or maybe it has, we do this stuff in advance). But since only one of our hosts has seen it, we didn’t want to spend a whole episode talking about that. Instead, we’re talking about the something related to it- the concept of age gaps in relationships in media. What do we think about them? Do they feel gross? Are they actually fine? Are they, like so many other subjects, something that can done both well and horribly? (Spoiler alert: yes.) Listen up as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go into all of this nonsense and briefly mention our next episode’s movie topic, one you’re probably going to wish was a lot better than it ended up being.
At long last, a movie that seeks to answer the age-old question, “what if doors were towels?” Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we go down under to knock on 2023’s comic fantasy The Portable Door, an Australian adaptation of the first book in a long-running British series about what if magicians used their magical powers for mundane purposes / profit (we guess???). On the bright side, it offers Christoph Waltz and Sam Neill going full ham and cheese as two corporate wizards. On the dark side, boy do we have some story and tone issues to dig into here (along with some very frustrating goblin prosthetics from The Jim Henson Company). On the drink side, we have an effervescent spring-inspired cocktail to make everything better! How many more sides could you want???
It’s a game! Look, we like things with less pressure, so games are fun for us to do. This time, we turn our slightly-drunken eyes to that beloved cinephile website, Letterboxd. Fans as we are of its sometimes intelligent, sometimes glibly entertaining user reviews, Brendan has assembled a list of short, pithy reviews for movies we have covered on this podcast and challenged Leigh and Chris to guess the movie the blurbs refer to. It’s a game! It’s fun! Also we cover our next movie, a fantastical YA-adjacent adaptation about a door that’s portable. No, we hadn’t heard of it, either.
Alors! What do you get when you take the bones of the 1963 comedy / romance / thriller Charade and filter them through a Nouvelle Vague sensibility? Well, you certainly get something worth talking about, one way or another. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris crack open The Truth About Charlie, Jonathan Demme’s 2002 attempt at doing just that. We run the gamut on this one, covering what Demme’s original intent was, why Mark Wahlberg looks like a such a lost dope in his little beret, and if the central conceit of creating a French New Wave adaptation of Charade even makes sense (kind of, but also not)! Naturally, there’s also a drink involved (and truly, a movie of this length with so much to cover really necessitates some kind of liquor).
So a few weeks back we had a brief rumination about if a rom-com has failed if it’s not actually very funny, and so we decided to speak on that for a bit. For example, are there rom-coms that are actually funny? Of our favorites, which ones fall closer to rom than com (or manage to skillfully split the difference)? Is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by definition a rom-com (technically, yes!)? Sure, this might have been better around Valentine’s Day as opposed to St. Patrick’s Day, but planning is hard and shut up! We also introduce the focus of our next episode, which aptly enough, is a remake of a movie that kinda drains much of the rom and com aspects of the original. Get ready for some truths dropping in two weeks!
What happens when you toss Tony Scott, Richard Kelly, the true story of a model-turned-bounty hunter, and an eclectic mess of talent into a blender with a heaping helping of meth? Well… nothing conventional, that’s for sure. Team up with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they are pummeled into submission by 2005’s Domino, starring Keira Knightley and directed by Tony Scott at his most manic. We take a look at the aggressive direction, a defiantly non-linear screenplay, and the vague feeling of unpleasantness that hits you when viewing a movie playing fast and loose with reality that’s also based on a real person who died under tragic circumstances during production. It’s a lot to talk about! Thankfully we also made a spicy (and suitably very yellow) cocktail to keep things rolling.
It’s a game! We play another game! Leigh takes slightly-vague top comments from trailers of recent movies on YouTube and Brendan and Chris try to guess what movie the trailer in question is for. It’s fun! We like games! Also as always, our next movie is mentioned and we share a recipe for an appropriately spicy and yellow cocktail to accompany it. Games!
Ah, the early 2000s! A special time in the history of cinema that spawned a plethora of high-concept romantic comedies. One need only look to Mark Water’s 2005 effort Just Like Heaven, in which Mark Ruffalo must deal with that bane of all apartment subletters, being haunted by the ghost of Reese Witherspoon (except she’s maybe not actually dead, it’s a whole thing). Plop yourself down on a comfortable couch with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the perils of balancing the frivolous with the emotional, the vague rules of the afterlife (or the almost-afterlife), and the question of why Reese’s character seems weirdly racist toward Asian people. All this mess and hot toddy cocktails aplenty, too!
With January 2024 now well underway, we decide to discuss those lies we all tell ourselves we’ll commit to in the new year- that’s right, it’s time for resolution chat, babyyyyyy! But what with this being a podcast ostensibly about movies and other media, we’ve all made some specifically entertainment-related resolutions. Also like, those will probably be more fun than saying you’ll “improve yourself” and all that other crap. Will we read more books? Will we finally finish a particular video game? Will all those Criterion Collection movies bought during Barnes & Noble sales finally get watched? Listen and find out!
As a snowstorm hits the northeastern United States, we prophetically chose to watch a movie that deals with a freak blizzard that keeps two twenty-somethings snowed in after initially looking for a quick hook up. That’s right, as you surely can guess, it’s 2014’s Two Night Stand, a low-stakes sort-of rom-com directed by Mike Nichols’s son. Get snowed in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they remotely watch this movie (thanks, Covid!) and discuss how rom-coms have mutated over the last decade or so, our thoughts on Miles Teller, and the genuinely unhinged act-three-romantic-gesture (truly, it’s nuts). But, uh, at least there’s a cocktail (actually, we didn’t actually get to drink our cocktail, thanks Covid!). Remember, please mask up and stuff!
Look, we’ve done this seven times now, so we don’t need to mince words. We talk about our favorite movie of the year, our least favorite movie of the year, and then do it again but with the drinks we made. Look, it’s the end of the year! We’re trying to relax! Also our first movie of (shudder) 2024 is thrown into the ether along with a hot wintery drink to accompany it. Now please, it’s Christmas, go eat some cookies or something.
If nothing captures the true spirit of the holidays like being stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time, then 2015’s Christmas Eve is sure the holly jolliest piece of bland seasonal ephemera we’ve encountered yet! Sadly, there’s very little of said holiday spirit actually to be found here, unless you count “Patrick Stewart does a one-man Christmas Carol” or “musicians play some Christmas music” or “doctor and nurse snipe about the existence of God while an orderly tries not to piss himself.” For our annual holiday spectacular, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris briefly touch upon religious cinema, the perils of making a movie from the pitch “what if Love Actually but trapped in elevators,” and how New York looks very similar to eastern Europe. We also manage to capture the true spirit of the holidays (inebriation) with a seasonally-appropriate spritzer. Seasons greetings!
What better way to kick off the holiday season than with a mini-episode-in-name-only that involves ranking all the TV Christmas shlock we’ve watched over the last few years? THERE IS NO BETTER WAY. DO NOT SUGGEST OTHERWISE. Anyway, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris spend a long time mulling over a list of festive made-for-TV ephemera to decide once and for all which ones might actually approach something close to “being a good movie” and which ones are more “shit.” And much like the movies we discuss here, we’ll also be covering a Christmas movie that pretty much no one has heard of (don’t worry, you can find it on YouTube!) for our impending Holiday Spectacular (and natch there’s a drink recipe too)!
For our latest episode, we dust off an old chestnut that’s based on an even older chestnut, both of which cumulatively are such moldy old chestnuts that you’ve probably never heard of either. We dug deep, baby! This time, we go way back to 1951’s The Law and the Lady, a very loose adaptation of a 1925 play starring Greer Garson, Fernando Lamas, and Michael Wilding as the biggest simp ever committed to celluloid. Thrill as he spinelessly pines after his partner in crime as they attempt to steal a necklace from a blustering old American lady! Cheer as both he and his partner refuse to ever act upon their emotions for no solid reason! Laugh as the old rich lady bellows loudly at anyone within ear shot! Is there a way to dust off this weirdly-unbalanced and endlessly-retooled bit of theatrical ephemera? Well, sure, probably, but no one involved here really did it. Also we drink a tea cocktail, and those are always fun.
Nothing is more spine-chillingly terrifying than a look back at the past! SPOOOOOOKY!!! To commemorate doing one hundred movies (yeesh) for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris look back on their favorites and least favorites. Everyone has different definitions of these things and some people chose more than one because, you know, we like to shake things up here. Naturally we also briefly cover our next movie that we’ll tackle and we SPILL THAT TEA (or hopefully don’t because that would make a mess) with the tea-based cocktail that will accompany it. To one hundred more (I mean, sure, why not aim big)!
Like a full moon occurring on Halloween, this year our annual Spooktacular episode coincides with our 100th episode. How exhausting to think about! To commemorate this occasion, we dust off a movie we’ve kicked around covering for years, dunked in a vat of eels and amniotic fluid, and brought it to horrible, horrible life. That’s right, it’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh’s turgid adaptation of the classic sci-fi / horror / sin against God novel. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go back in time to discuss Hollywood’s brief infatuation with prestigious horror movies based on literature, the film’s tendency to deliver dialogue as though it’s playing to the last row of the balcony, and Branagh’s inability to keep the damn camera still. We also make a suitably sour cocktail to mimic the sensation of being brought back to life by the jolt of a swarm of electric eels. SHOCKING, isn’t it?
At long last, closure! Our jukebox musical mini-episode miniseries comes to a manic conclusion with the ultimate theatrical cop out- a jukebox musical based on a movie. That’s right, for Brendan’s turn he’s taken the Great American Songbook-esque tunes peppered throughout the 1972 Peter Bogdanovich screwball throwback What’s Up, Doc? and attempted to turn them into the spine of a theatrical adaptation. There’s also some other changes in there, so don’t worry, it’s less lazy than it sounds on paper. We’re also prepping for our annual Halloween spooktacular (and 100th episode), and we can think of no better way to do so than by getting pretty drunk for the occasion so be sure to try out the cocktail we’ll be making for it.
In today’s increasingly fragmented society, one fact is sadly becoming more and more evident: you are either with Lucy or against Lucy. To get to the bottom of this hot-button issue we decided to watch Jon Sherman’s 2002 romantic comedy, I’m with Lucy, a fairly simple movie bogged down by multiple gimmicks designed to make everything more intriguing than it actually is. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we talk about Monica Potter and her coterie of five potential love interests- a sexy douchebag, a misogynist jock, a horny international-type, a nerd, and miscellaneous. We spend a lot of time covering the five dates, but also discuss bogging your plot down with a load of high-concept nonsense and how the blond WASPy Monica Potter was somehow begat by uber-mensch Harold Ramis. And hey, it’s a pretty easy cocktail we made to accompany this one, because we all deserve a lil break.
As our summer miniseries has ended, our mini episode miniseries is still well underway, but this time there’s a lot of ancient drama alongside it. For this episode, we continue our individual jukebox musical pitches with Chris stepping up to bat. Get ready for a lot of 80s alternative / pop / punk mixed in with some ancient Greek drama- a night of theatre with plenty of singing, dancing, and bloodshed! Also we introduce our lower stakes movie for September and an equally simple cocktail to accompany it, because we all know things will get nuttier as the holiday season kicks in so for the love of god can’t we just relax for a bit now???
As with all good mysteries, our murder mystery-themed summer is drawing to its natural conclusion with a not-good mystery. In this episode, we're going back in time to both the 1980s and the 1870s with Barry Levinson's Young Sherlock Holmes, a prequel featuring the famous detective but younger and with a less involved mystery. Enroll in a Victorian boarding school with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the Sherlock Holmes mythos, the Temple of Doom-style vibes the mystery itself gives off, and how every character here is maybe .5 dimensional at best. Also, it turns out the villains are a murderous cult of Egyptians seeking justice because a bunch of British dudes destroyed their homes, which definitely holds up when viewed through a contemporary lens. Naturally, we also drink a tea-based summer cocktail to get ourselves into the mood of "England during a snowy winter," which really helps when it's like 90 degrees and constantly muggy outside. Continue reading →
As summer draws to its unbearably hot closure, we dust off an old mini episode topic chestnut, Pitcher's Mound! That's right, that thing where we pitch a movie, or in this case, a MUUUUUUSICAL! A jukebox musical, point of fact. The first of three (!) mini episodes kicks off with Leigh pitching her very specifically-focused punk rock jukebox musical featuring a lot of music you might remember from the early 2000s and such. Sorry about the air conditioning, to repeat, it was VERY hot. Almost as hot as the ticket sales will be when this baby hits Broadway! Also we announce our final Summer of Murder Mystery movie and the drink that will accompany it, wot wot. Continue reading →
Much like Kenneth Branagh's recently-discovered passion project of making Sad Boi adaptations of Hercule Poirot mysteries, our Summer of Murder Mystery continues unabated with 2022's Death on the Nile, a limp effort starring a cast that couldn't be more cursed if they desecrated a pharaoh's tomb. Hope aboard the S.S. Karnak with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we try to solve the dual mystery of who killed Gal Gadot (honestly, you probably don't need Poirot for this one, it's pretty easy to work out on your own) and why Gal Gadot keeps getting cast in things. Also up for discussion- the weirdly lumpy plot structure, how successful the movie is at updating certain elements, and the lengthy prologue in which the origins of Porot's mustache are at long last revealed. And of course, we drink enough champagne... to fill the Nile! Or at least enough to fill a few champagne flutes, anyway. Listen up and have your immmmmorrrtal longings fulfilled! Continue reading →
Hey, did you hear about how the UK publisher of the Roald Dahl books did some weird overcorrection that no one seems to have asked for and removed words like "fat" or the mystery of why women might wear wigs from their most recent editions? Or how Disney apparently is censoring language from the streaming version of The French Connection, lest you be shocked that New York cops in the 70s tossed around racial slurs? Well, we did and we decided to talk about it, so please Hollywood allow us to record introductions to this sort of material placing it in context, our prices are cheap. Also we introduce the second movie of our Summer of Murder Mystery and the drink we'll be guzzling to make it feel like a well-paced plot. Continue reading →
The sweaty misery of summer is finally upon us, and what better way to forget our reality than the comforting escapism that only murder can provide? (We see you, Albert Camus’s The Stranger!) Our Summer of Murder Mystery kicks off with the forgotten 1994 mystery / slapstick comedy / farce / comedy of remarriage / so much other crap, Radioland Murders, straight from the minds that brought you American Graffiti (and Howard the Duck). Leigh, Brendan, and Chris dive into this exhausting mess of over-the-top shtick and antics, attempting to make some sense of what the hell this movie was supposed to even be. Truly, there’s something for everyone here (provided you are a baby boomer who loves old radio programs and farcical comedy), including an appropriately old-timey cocktail accompaniment, so heck, give it a watch and you’ll probably find SOMEthing that works for you. Continue reading →
In this Why Watch mini episode, we're living in the Land of the Lost! And by that, we mean we live in a world where we were initially promised that streaming content online would allow unimaginable access to movies and television, only to find shockingly that we actually live in a world where exclusive content can be taken down and hidden on a hard drive somewhere to suit the whims of large horrific media conglomerates. While the concept of "lost media" is nothing new, we seem to be entering an entirely different way of classifying things as such. For example, what happens when you spend a bunch of time and money making a Batgirl movie, then your new corporate overlord decides to bury it in a box somewhere for tax purposes? Anyway, we use recent events stemming from these sorts of decisions as a springboard to talk about a variety of topics related to what happens when you can no longer watch something legally (or indeed, if you're not allowed to ever see it at all). As is fitting for such a mysterious topic, we also reveal the theme of our summer block of movies along with an old-timey drink to accompany our next subject, which will surely bring you back to the time when media was mostly considered lost because no one thought to record it or left the film in a shoebox in Argentina or something. Continue reading →
When an amnesiac woman and a hardboiled detective with a very heightened American accent discover through the magic of hypnosis that they were married in a past life (until a grisly murder by scissors cut things short), how long will they be able to maintain a relationship until one of them is dead… AGAIN? The answer, mercifully, is about 90 or so minutes. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they watch the 1991 neo-noir (?) gothic romance (??) mystery thriller (???) Dead Again, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, which affords him the luxury of going over-the-top in two separate roles. What’s the deal with all the lame pop psychology? What the hell is this movie going for in terms of tone or plot? Could anyone have taken this post-modern puree of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles and made it into something consistent and entertaining? Well… we try to! Also our good friend Faith is back AND she brought cookies to accompany our cocktail, so hey, at least this has that going for it!
As the weather starts to heat up, the temperature of our takes go right with it! Gay all warm and toasty with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we present a deeply-held opinion in the form of an absurdly hot take, and then attempt to defend it calmly and rationally. Slip on your oven mitts before you pick up your phone after listening to this, because these takes are… rather hot!* Also as per usual there’s a new drink recipe to accompany our next movie, so be sure to listen to that far more lukewarm bit before you scald yourself on these takes, babyyyyy!
*Editor’s Note: These takes may not be less hot than previously stated.
Fourteen years ago in a city not very far away.…
BRIDE WARS
Episode I
THE FEMININE MENACE
Turmoil has engulfed the nuptials of Emma Allan and Olivia Lerner. After a minor clerical error results in their separate weddings being booked on the same day at the same venue, their friendship is in dispute.
Hoping to resolve the matter with a series of trite and vapid pranks, the two would-be brides have stopped all semblances of judgement and maturity.
While their two-dimensional friends and boring fiancees endlessly debate this humorless chain of events, CHRIS REVELLE has secretly dispatched his fellow Why Did We Watch This? hosts, LEIGH DELAHANTY, and BRENDAN DRISCHLER, to discuss the lamentable 2009 romantic comedy (?) Bride Wars, much to the chagrin of all parties….
It sure seems like video games, the hot new trend among today’s youths, are here to stay! In fact, it seems that these have become so popular, they’ve started to transform motion pictures into video games! It’s true! Granted, some of these adaptations have been… questionable in quality, to say the least. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they think back upon some of the video games we’ve played based on movies, and then have a discussion about what video games based on movies we’ve covered for this podcast might be like. How many of these shitty rom coms could have been mildly more interesting dating sims? Find out! And speaking of shitty rom coms, we kind of have one of those coming up next, and trust us, you’ll want to be drunk for this one.
How do you keep your franchise going when the lead actor has no interest in reprising the main character and you don’t want to recast them? Well, you simply shift focus to another character who has never been shown or mentioned before and has similar abilities to your former main character but got them through science and magic rather than practice and training. Feeling sweaty yet? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we watch 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, a tangent with big hopes and dreams that does all of the above and sadly much more. Perhaps if you watched any of the previous Matt Damon outings and wished that there had been less punching and more middle-aged white men yelling while looking at computers, you’ll find yourself in this movie’s heretofore undiscovered target audience. If not, well, at least we had a pretty good martini to drink while we tried to make sense of everything.
For our latest mini episode, we present part two of a part two mini episode. No, just go with it, it’s okay. Rather than cover all of our second Looking to Score discussion from four weeks ago as one long episode, we decided to do it in two for your listening convenience. This time, we’re ostensibly covering a piece of orchestral dance music by Stephen Sondheim and a ballet piece reconceived in a wildly different context for an animated movie. Also, we bullshit a lot about our next movie without having even seen it and introduce a cocktail that (much like said movie’s protagonist) should undergo a fascinating transformation as you watch it! Please, sip slowly for full effect.
In our latest episode, we return to that fertile well of 1980s fantasy movies and pull out a big sloshy bucket of Willow, George Lucas’s long-gestating story about a little person who wants to be a wizard and some other magic shit as filtered through the generically-competent lens of Ron Howard. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about a movie that we were all dimly aware of but had never seen before, despite being made of a lot familiar tropes that we have, indeed, seen many many times before. Topics for discussion include the ambitious and occasionally confusing world being featured, the sheer amount of acting that’s going on, and why Sorsha is one of the worst female characters we’ve encountered in quite a while (and we’re watched a LOT of terrible rom coms). And of course, despite having to record this episode virtually thanks a to grab bag of illnesses, we enjoy a lovely purple cocktail to temper things slightly. Remember, please don’t drink if you plan to STEAL A BABAAAYYYY.
Our oft-featured discussion on film music (and music from other forms of media) returns with a mighty vengeance in our latest mini. LISTEN, won’t you, as we discuss some scores used in both movies and video games and try to avoid having this episode taken down for copyright infringement by talking over the music. It’s hard! Also, next episode will tackle a movie that seems to be a beloved cult classic in some way but none of us had actually seen until recently. Naturally, we’ll be drinking a themed cocktail to help us get through a potentially-messy 80s fantasy world.
It’s time for our annual Valentine’s Day rom com episode, and nothing says romance like two duplicitous people enacting horrific deceptions upon each other in an attempt to advance their positions at work. This horrific web of deceit is the plot that forms the backbone of 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, starring Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, and a bunch of supporting actors in thankless roles. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they revisit this beloved (?) romantic comedy that’s just slightly heightened enough to be mildly interesting but just unpleasant enough to leave you slightly loathing everyone involved here. Take your shoes off and breathe out as we discuss the state of the rom com in 2003, the cinematic forefathers of a romance built entirely on a horrible foundation of lies, and our continued reevaluation of Kate Hudson’s career. Perhaps fittingly, our themed cocktail this month is almost entirely alcohol, so get ready to frost yourself pretty hard.
Look, Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and we couldn’t think of any rom com con(versation)s to have, so Leigh very kindly whipped up yet another round of our patented (patent pending) game where we have to decide what titles are real and what ones are fake. But THIS time, there’s an eastern Asian twist to it, as all the titles are for K-Dramas (or J, or other countries, there’s fertile ground here). As Brendan and Chris know not a lot about this topic, it becomes a real guessing game and so anyone could win! Not that there’s anything to win here, but still, bragging rights are something. Also, our re-evaluation of the Kate Hudson canon continues with our upcoming February rom com episode.
What if we kissed at the Magnolia at midnight on New Year’s Eve as part of an elaborate lie that was in actuality not a lie because we have been in love for our entire lives ???
What do you do when you’re a pair of radio hosts who are both secretly in love with each other but unable to admit it, despite the fact that everyone else in your life already believes you’re destined to be together someday anyway? If your answer is “create an elaborate charade designed to boost your radio show profile while jointly promoting your family business,” congratulations, you’re qualified to host a morning show on 98.8 BREEZE FM in Chicago. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they (remotely) watch and discuss the 2020 Netflix Lifetime-pastiche Midnight at the Magnolia, a half-hearted attempt to do to New Year’s Eve what Hallmark has done to Christmas. We talk about the perils of the “friends to lovers” trope, the challenges of doing a romcom where everyone already assumes the two characters are together, and the nightmarish world where your families have been champing at the bit for years for you to marry your best friend. And of course, the two of us who aren’t testing positive for the coronavirus drink a cocktail that, much like Jack and Maggie, combines two distinct flavors that might not seem to work together BUT DARN IT, THEY DO!
That’s right, we’re back again with our end-of-the-year lazy finale episode, the Closing of the Year! Listen in as we talk about the previous year, including favorite and least favorite movies and drinks, and discuss a little bit about what the next year will bring. More themed summers! Crazier cocktails! Long lost lovers reappearing during multiple weddings! And a moratorium on made-for-TV holiday romcoms that will go into temporary effect after our first movie of 2023, so don’t worry, we’re not planning some sneaky wild stealth retheming of our podcast or anything.
At long last, our Holiday Spectacular episode focuses on a real piece of made-for-TV Christmas trash with the nebulously named A Date by Christmas Eve! Is it about a young lady attempting to find a date before Christmas only to realize love was in front of her all along? Uh, well, no, that would make a lot more sense, though. Look, so there’s this lady who works for a Christmas dating app and then a sexy cougarish Mrs. Claus makes the app magic so that the lady can warp reality to teach people lessons and stuff and for some reason no one is terrified by the implications of all this. But hey, that’s Christmas, baby. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they try to make sense of this overstuffed piece of mass market holiday nonsense and discuss the genre in general, the horrifying undertones of this ostensibly frivolous romcom, and how all these movies seem to already think apps are magic. Also, mulled wine cocktail, natch. Happy holidays!
In which we play round two of last year's winter party game, the Hallmark Christmas Movie Generator Game! We've got all the same hats and slips of paper, but this time with a NEW category to make our titles even more cumbersome and difficult to find when scanning through a list of vague nonsensical titles on Hulu. Naturally, we also introduce the subject of our 2022 Christmas Spectacular, where we finally dip our toes into the made-for-TV holiday movie cesspool. Truly, it was destined to happen. Unsurprisingly there's still yet another mulled wine cocktail to accompany it, because why wouldn't there be. Continue reading →
Journey with us, won't you, back in time to both medieval times and 1963, a veritable dark ages for the citizens of England and the Walt Disney studios. For this episode, we cover the movie that sits at the center of this Venn diagram, The Sword in the Stone. Is this a charming bit of nostalgic fun, or weak effort built upon an episodic screenplay and boring protagonist? Spoilers, it can be two things. Turn into a fish along with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss what led to the disjointed visual style of this movie, the wet sheet that is young Arthur, and what lessons we were supposed to learn by being turned into squirrels (just that fat old horny lady squirrels are funny???). To adequately do justice to this movie, we also make THREE different cocktails, so like us you should get pretty drunk while watching this, perhaps even drunk enough to not notice that three different actors play Wart at various points throughout this film (jk there's not enough alcohol in the hemisphere to have that slip by unnoticed). Continue reading →
Yes, we're sorry, we know it's Halloween but we have no more ideas for Halloween mini episode topics. We're open to suggestions! Until then, we're going to do another Pitcher's Mound mini where we each pitch an updated modern adaptation of a classic piece of literature / drama. That's right, until Hollywood gets its act together and makes the teen comedy version of Cymbeline that we've all been clamoring for, we'll just have to put our own ideas out into the ether. So please, don't steal our contemporary high school version of The Great Gatsby. It would just be impolite. Also next up, we tackle the oldest movie we've ever covered (and also possibly the shortest) in our return to the Disney animated canon, this time focusing on their middling '60s output. Continue reading →
For our annual Halloween Spooktacular, we chose a movie so terrifying, so unnatural, so deeply unsettling- oh, wait, no, it's just Vamps, a 2012 horror (?) comedy (??) movie (???) about vampires, written and directed by Amy Heckerling. Ah, you might think, at least the idea of vampires filtered through Clueless sounds fun! Well, you'd be wrong, because Amy has left her "good movie" period and become firmly lodged in her "I got a lot of grievances to get out" period. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss what vampires might conceivably be useful for in fiction, who Amy Heckerling has it out for this time, and why the hell the crux of this movie is about a vampire spontaneously deciding she wants to settle down and have a baby. Well, raise a baby, not like "have a baby for dinner" like Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Remember, the only thing scary here is how trite the whole endeavor is. Continue reading →
Part of the Golden Age of Television™ we now find ourselves inundated with is that so many large conglomerates are now spending absurd amounts of money on streaming-friendly television extensions of their media brands. What does this mean for you, the viewer? Well, it means that right now you've got four separate franchises (Marvel, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings) currently screaming for space amongst your literal and figurative bandwidth. And much like the alignment of the planets that portends a seismic shift in Disney's Hercules, all four of them have something launching at about the same time. Join in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the four shows represented by these terrible mega-corporations and what ones they think are worth your eyeballs glazing over for. Also, we announce our upcoming Halloween Spooktacular movie- truly, the only thing more frightening that the capitalist nightmare we find ourselves trapped in. Continue reading →
When you split up with your husband and are faced with the challenge of starting a new life, do you up and move away? Do you try to find yourself? Do you invite three sweet well-mannered boys into your guest house and use them for child care / tech support / sex? Well, if you're Reese Witherspoon in the 2017 Hallie Meyers-Shyer romantic (?) comedy Home Again, you sort of half-heartedly do all of the above at various points but don't really commit to any of them. Pull up a Pottery Barn cushion and join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we hang up a bedsheet in the back yard and dig into what exactly makes this movie tick. Is it the Meyers-lite vibes? Is it the lack of focus on any particular moment in the protagonist's life? Is it that these boys have barely two traits to spread between themselves? In a word, yes. In another word, KITCHENS! Continue reading →
At long last, our horrible secret comes out- it turns out we thought some of the movies we suggested for this podcast were actually good and just used this whole thing as an excuse to force a discussion about a "bad" movie we secretly liked. We air our dirty laundry to each other and confess our deepest truths about movies like The Girl from Monday and Tomorrowland and Bram Stoker's Dracula. As part of our sinful confession, we also reveal our next and final Sweet and Sour Summer of Teen Angst movie and cocktail, so hold on to your gendered clothing for this next episode. Continue reading →
Shakespeare gets a modern makeover complete with low-slung cargo shorts and asymmetrically-cut tops in this teen take on Twelfth Night, 2006's She's the Man. In a category brimming with Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Easy A, is there room for yet another similarly updated YA comedy? The answer, of course, is not really, especially if ends up being as dull and dated as this one. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris cover the weird gender role ideas, Amanda Bynes's straight-out-of-The-Amanda-Show performance, and the general pitfalls of trying to do a modern take on classic lit. We also conclude our Sweet and Sour Summer of Teen Angst with one final lemony cocktail, and a promise that we'll probably move back to more adult fare next time. Well, comparatively speaking. Continue reading →
At long last, our horrible secret comes out- it turns out we thought some of the movies we suggested for this podcast were actually good and just used this whole thing as an excuse to force a discussion about a "bad" movie we secretly liked. We air our dirty laundry to each other and confess our deepest truths about movies like The Girl from Monday and Tomorrowland and Bram Stoker's Dracula. As part of our sinful confession, we also reveal our next and final Sweet and Sour Summer of Teen Angst movie and cocktail, so hold on to your gendered clothing for this next episode. Continue reading →
Our Sweet and Sour Summer of YA Angst marches on like a june bug in a Southern pride parade with 2013’s Beautiful Creatures, a country-fried slice of supernatural teen drama stuffed with a bunch of heavy-hitting actors in turn stuffed with all the scenery they devoured. What might otherwise be a pretty rote YA adaptation becomes considerably more interesting by making the brave choices to swap the expected gender roles and also not really explain anything very well. Come sit a spell on the veranda with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the vague and confusing world of the Casters, a YA story that seems to remove all agency for its female protagonist, and the weird details from the source material were apparently lost in translation. And also there’s yet another lemonade cocktail that’s so sweet and boozy, you’ll think your dining room table has begun to rotate rapidly while two other people rotate outside you in the other direction. Stop it! Lena, stop it. Stop it, Lena! Lena! Continue reading →
As part of our process of determining movies for our Sweet and Sour Summer of YA Angst, we went through several lists of movies based on young adult novels that never quite took off or flopped miserably. Naturally, we ended up watching multiple potential candidates and came across several movies that we found fascinating in some way but didn't merit a full discussion. Maybe they were actually good! Maybe they just sucked so much that no one wanted to talk about them! Anyway, on that note, please enjoy our discussion of three YA novels that were not the hits the studio may have hoped they were- 2014's Vampire Academy, 2016's Fallen, and and 2018's Every Day. Which one of these was the secretly good one? Hint: it's the one we spend the most time talking about! Also our summer of teen angst continues unabated with our next piece of country-fried cinematic supernatural nonsense (and yet another lemonade cocktail to accompany it). Continue reading →
Nothing says "fun and fizzy tween comedy" like one where a baby Jennifer Garner wishes to be "30, flirty, and thriving" and has her consciousness is propelled forward into a multiverse governed by a monkey's paw where she has achieved all her dreams but has destroyed all that is sweet and pure about herself in the process. That's right, our retroactively-themed Sweet and Sour Summer of Teen Angst kicks off with 2004's 13 Going on 30, a 2004 movie nostalgic for 1987 viewed by a bunch of 2022 millennials nostalgic for 2004. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris view a movie considerably better than most of the other ones done on this podcast but still filled with inexplicable and murky moments. What cruel universe would grant a teen girl's wishes but force her to live in an ironic dark timeline? What the hell is Poise about and how will that at all translate to a spur-of-the-moment reworking of the entire magazine? Why would Jennifer Garner throw a shrimp tale on the floor of the bank lobby where her work party is held? All this will be discussed along with a sweet and lemony summer cocktail (and apologies for the weird audio, we had an air conditioner running because it is simply too hot). Continue reading →
Summer is finally here, and with it the exciting promise of traveling to new locales (or just sitting in front of the air conditioner on your phone watching movies, both are good options)! Using that as a starting point, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decided to talk about the fictional worlds of films that they'd most like to live in and why. Will Leigh deign to visit Brendan when he moves to Coruscant? Listen and find out! Also we kick off our summer movie and drink theme, and all the sweet and sour vibes it entails. Continue reading →
Journey with us back to the distant year of 2010, a time when Walt Disney Pictures was wildly desperate to launch another multi-million dollar franchise that would convince teenage boys to give them money. Enter The Sorcerer's Apprentice, an ostensible live-action adaptation of a Fantasia segment that would reteam National Treasure director Jon Turteltaub with National Treasure scenery gnawer Nicolas Cage. Audiences at the time didn't take to the idea of Nic Cage wearing a flowing wig and leather duster casting magic goop at Alfred Molina, but we sure did! Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss aspects of a movie they all mostly liked, from the use of magic to the performances to the locale (you know, it's almost like New York City should be the fourth-billed character in the movie!). Don't worry, we have some bad stuff to talk about as always along with our fixes AND of course there's a really great summery cocktail for you to enjoy as you listen to OneRepublic's "Secrets (Jay Baruchel Tesla Coil Remix)." Continue reading →
For this mini episode of Why Watch, we tackle one of the cultural zeitgeist's most pressing issues- who are your sweetest bois? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss their favorite gentle boys of pop culture, those sweet boys who are defined by their willingness to show kindness and help others rather than immediately punch the shit out of someone (look, some of them also do that too but hey, all gentle behavior must have limits). Also our next full-length episode's subject is brought up along with an accompanying cocktail that will hopefully sort of look like electricity or Tesla coils or magic, I don't know, there's options here! Continue reading →
Our reigning queen of The-Consistently-Great-Thing-in-the-Bad-Movies-We-Watch, Michelle Pfeiffer, once again drifts into the focus of our podcast as the lead of a romcom (!) co-starring Paul Rudd (!!) and directed by Amy Heckerling (!!!) that was buried in the direct-to-DVD pipeline (!V). That's right, on this episode we'll be discussing the 2007 scattershot May-August romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman, a movie that you've probably never heard of and for good reason. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss the weird power imbalance, the shitty gender dynamics, and a heaping helping of Hollywood satire that was dated by the time Amy Heckerling typed it into Final Draft. And this time, we got TWO variations on a themed cocktail to make this whole awkward affair go down a little easier. Trust us, when you see Tracy Ullman monologuing as Mother Nature about how women don't want to have babies anymore, you'll understand the real reason we needed two drinks. Continue reading →
Look at that, a true "mini-episode in name only," clocking in at our normal episode length! With the third movie in the Fantastic Beasts series having just been released to theaters to a resounding "Meh," Leigh, Brendan, and Chris took this opportunity to look back at perhaps the most fascinatingly bungled cursed franchise of our time (no, not Universal's Dark Universe). We begin with Chris trying to guess what Crimes of Grindelwald was about (truly, good luck there, even Wikipedia can't really clarify it) and follow it with an in-depth discussion of how everything fell apart following a fairly promising start. We also introduce the next full-length episode's movie, which surprisingly gave us just as much to talk about as a raging TERF's bizarrely plotted follow-up to a story about a wizard school. Continue reading →
Sorry in advance about the dodgy audio quality, you can blame it on us trying to record from the penthouse of a hotel in Lake Tahoe if that helps make it thematically appropriate. And it should, because for this episode we're tackling Joe Carnahan's 2006 gangster / assassin free-for-all Smokin' Aces, starring Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Chris Pine, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys, and a whole bunch of other talent crammed in like so many murderers into an elevator. A simple and workable premise is smothered in characters, technique, and subplots, but how could this all have been executed (ha ha) better? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss and attempt to fix this hyper piece of early 2000s action nonsense, and as they enjoy perhaps the best cocktail they have ever made for this podcast. Yes, it's just that good. Continue reading →
We return with the third leg of our "guess what's real and what's made up" game, this time focusing on that finest of all American art forms, musical theater! Well, some would certainly argue that, at least. Join Brendan as he quizzes Leigh and Chris with a list of musical titles as they determine which ones are actually professionally-mounted musicals and which ones are titles that Brendan thought sounded vaguely plausible. I mean, can you tell what "Flahooley" is? Who can, right? Also we plan out our next movie and a suitably smoky cocktail to accompany it. Continue reading →
Mentally transport yourself back to the distant, far-flung year of 2010. Somehow Star Wars hadn't returned, we were all still trying to figure out what would come of all these Marvel movies, and Disney was trying to figure out how to make blockbusters that teenagers would see. Enter Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, a desaturated tri-dimensional sequel to a movie that doesn't exist. Audiences desperate for 3-D immersion turned it into one of the most improbably successful movies of all time, and Futterwacken fever swept clubs all over the world. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good then, and it's somehow less good now. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to this relic of a time gone by to try and determine why precisely this movie doesn't work (spoilers, it's mostly the story) and how to make sense of a movie based on a book that famously refuses to make sense. Naturally, we have a tea party of our own to accompany our discussion along with a tea-based cocktail to prevent any of us from having to watch this thing totally sober. Callooh! Callay! Continue reading →
MORE GAMES! The people (by which we mean we) demanded it, and so we delivered. We go now to round two of our guessing game in which Leigh and Brendan try to determine what woman-featured thriller movies Chris has made … Continue reading →
Another Valentine's Day is upon us, and like a shiftless sitcom husband stopping at a gas station for a last minute card, we also turn our thoughts to a lazy half-assed attempt at showing romance. This year's Valentine's Day romcom is 2003's Alex & Emma, one of Rob Reiner's many many middling unsuccessful movies following his dizzying highs in the 80s and early 90s. This shameless rip-off of Paris When It Sizzles stars Luke Wilson as a crummy writer prone to gambling away his advances and Kate Hudson as the stenographer who improbably agrees to transcribe his novel, while also playing four other women in the fictional fantasy world they create together. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris take a look into what happened to Reiner, what in the hell Luke Wilson's novel could actually be, and how works of fiction within works of fiction become more and more underwhelming the greater you focus on them in the plot. We also finish our winter cocktail triad with a frothy snowy spritzer, so get drunk like we did and get ready to continue our dive into middling romcoms. Continue reading →
Have you ever encountered something so directly suited to your desires, something so attuned to your tastes, something that you can't possibly imagine anyone else responding to as passionately as you? If so, you've got some ego, buddy! But still, we're going to discuss this sort of thing anyway. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we talk about some specific forms of media that feels tailor-made to our own preferences. As usual, there's a lot of tangents and we talk about our impending Valentine's Day rom-com phantasmagoria (with the customary winter spritzer cocktail as well). Continue reading →
A new year, a new start! And what better way to celebrate the endless possibilities of a new year than to watch a movie that does very little new with a story that's been around for many centuries? That's right, we're finally doing the weird companions movie to Guy Ritchie's King Arthur and His Lads of the Round Table, 2018's Robin Hood starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, and several Irish people. Don your hood and puffy Primark jacket and listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sift through a bunch of washed out colors and tired plot points to find what works here. Some vague concepts? Weird futuristic costumes straight out of Coruscant? The idea that the Crusades are the same thing as any modern war in the Middle East complete with archers using their bows like SWAT teams use assault rifles? Also we complete our winter cocktail trifecta with a lovely spiced sangria that makes the movie's 114 minute runtime feel more like a lean 112 minutes. Continue reading →
Our beloved (?) annual tradition continues! It is the end of the year and we are all very tired, so for the fifth time we look at the year in review. The movies! The drinks! The movies and drinks yet to come! Also we're doing that Taron Egerton Robin Hood movie next, so maybe consider renting that piece of crap. Continue reading →
What better way to celebrate Christmas than to imagine yourself in a world of dazzling whiteness, inscrutable timelines, and overall excess? That's right, 'tis the season to enjoy a messy Christmas movie, and this year's reason for the season is Nancy Meyer's 2006 vaguely Christmas-y romcom The Holiday. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we all swap houses, cars, everything, and discuss the two dueling plot lines, the general Nancy aesthetics, and how Jude Law can somehow do a tight 15 as Mr. Napkin Head and still be hot as fuck. How do you form this shapeless, treacly mass of Christmas pudding into something a little tighter (and oh god maybe somehow shorter than 136 minutes)? Well, listen in as we try to do that while getting pretty buzzed on mulled white wine (Nancy would approve). Continue reading →
In which we play a new game for the holidays, much like a gang of jolly penniless friends as a Victorian England Christmas party (except it's about Hallmark movies which would have undoubtedly perplexed and befuddled the average citizen of that time period). There's nouns and adjectives and drawing paper from hats and improvising the plots of Hallmark Christmas movies, and truly what more could you want? Also we briefly talk about our annual Christmas traditions (i.e. our upcoming Christmas movie and the mulled wine we will be drinking to accompany it). Continue reading →
Finally, we answer the question that has plagued humanity for like 15 years or so- who watches Watching the Detectives? Also, what is Watching the Detectives and is there a good reason no one has heard of it despite the … Continue reading →
With Halloween in our rearview mirrors and the evil demonic spirits we brought to our mortal realm after spending the night in that haunted house safely turned to statues when the first rays of dawn touched them, we can focus on the future: movies that we thought would suck but then didn't! Now that we have created a Horrible New Normal and studios are starting to put bloated expensive crap back in theaters where it belong, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss movies they saw that they fully expected to not be good but somehow were. You can call this the Paddington Principle. Also we start preparing for our next full-length episode, with a few old friends returning for a movie no one has ever heard and a autumnal update of a hardboiled gumshoe standby to drink along with it. Continue reading →
For our annual Halloween Spooktacular episode, we dredge the the cruddy marshes of early-2000s horror films and pull up 2005's White Noise, a real piece of crap you might be dimly aware of because Michael Keaton was in it. Keaton stars as a widower who believes he can hear his dead wife speaking to him through the static of his phone, prompting him to phone in his performance for the next 70 minutes. Get yourself into a suitably spooky mood (but not too spooky because this isn't really much of a horror movie despite all evidence to the contrary) and listen to Leigh, Brendan, and Chris moan about the movie's weird understanding of electronic voice phenomenon, its steadfast commitment to ensuring no character aside from Michael Keaton have an identity or wants, and how it winds up being a pilot for a CBS procedural for about half of the running time. Also we make a white Russian because of course what else would you make for this, and get slowly drunker as we all pitch our own versions of this that are inevitably more suited to being a "horror movie." Also please don't listen to the silent parts of this podcast at boosted volumes lest you hear a bunch of grumpy ghosts naming streets near you. Continue reading →
In our latest minisode game premise, Leigh combs through the dregs of forgotten early cinema for movie names that seem just implausible enough and combines them with a list of her own fictional titles, then forces Brendan and Chris to wrack their brains in an attempt to determine which ones are real and which ones are fake. Games are fun and they don't require all of us to do preparation for an episode (just Leigh), so we hope you like this frivolous bit of nonsense (and that you still like things similar to it when we try to do it again at some point). Also we try a really bizarre flavor of ice cream from a local ice cream parlor because why not and we introduce our upcoming 2021 Halloween Spooktacular movie! It sounds pretty crummy! Get spooked! Continue reading →
It's September, which means it's back to school season, which means that we get to drink our way through a really crappy movie about high schoolers! In our latest episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris watch sad sack misfit Freddie Highmore mope his through his senior year of high school in 2011's The Art of Getting By. That is to say, he would be moping his way through it if he hadn't neglected to do pretty much any of his school work for the whole year, having I guess not realized that this might somehow negatively affect him or something, whatever. Also there's a whole lot of emotions and Emma Roberts shows up to teach Freddie Highmore that if a blank slate of a girl loves you, I guess it fixes your depression or something. We discuss our own teen angst, the horrible horrible characters, and we throw together a cocktail at the last minute in a manner befitting Freddie's insufferable baby slacker character. Can any amount of alcohol and creative fixes actually improve this movie? Listen and find out! Continue reading →
As the Summer of Weddings closes, we decide to put some fresh eyes on some of the depictions of adulthood from movies and TV we watched and loved as kids versus how we feel about them today (surprise, we hate them!). Mostly, it's a great excuse for Leigh to force Brendan and Chris to watch the truly cringeworthy film Dream for an Insomniac. Perhaps it should have been obvious to 12-year-old Leigh, but any movie that sets you on a beret phase is probably not a movie you should be sourcing any aspirational ideas of adulthood from. Continue reading →
Quick! What would you do if you were secretly in love with your horrible best friend's fiancee for years and never told him, but then he told you he was also in love with you for years and never told you, but he seems to have no real interest in figuring out what he wants to do and his wedding is quickly approaching and also Jim Halpert keeps yelling at you? If your answer was "dither for weeks while indulging in flashbacks and refusing to make any of your own choices," then congratulations, you're as well-equipped as the idiots in this movie are. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we conclude our Summer of Weddings with 2011's Something Borrowed, starring Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski, and a JCPenney Sunday morning men's shirt ad that was struck by lightning and achieved some minimal level of self-awareness. It's a meandering and belabored romcom crawling with a bunch of rich white dummies who are incapable of making even the slightest decisions and a plot so unintentionally ill-conceived that at no point will you ever be sure what trope it's attempting to indulge in. It's a sunny piece of crap, to be sure, but a fascinatingly inept one ripe for discussion and improvement! Dream of your own doomed wedding as we discuss the stupid stupid characters and the various ways this plot could go whilst throwing down frozen margaritas to end our Summer of Margs. PUSH IT! Continue reading →
In which we take nonromcom movies we already watched for this podcast and romcomify them, so there are romcoms where we had naught but noncoms to begin with. Rom! Continue reading →
Our Summer of Weddings and Margs swaggers onward with a rom (?) com (??) that's somehow so shitty it nearly circles back around to having something to say about masculinity and relationships (ALMOST). Listen in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they watch and discuss 2008's My Best Friend's Girl starring Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin and a bunch of other poor bastards. Think back on our nation's brief early-2000s love affair with the comedic stylings of Dane Cook as we cover the woefully unfunny jokes, a plot that somehow unintentionally makes everyone awful, and direction so lacking in nearly any sense of style that the movie seems to have burst forth fully-formed from the nostril of a coke-addled producer. Also, there's the most basic-ass margarita you could ever imagine, one only fitting for a movie that can't even muster the energy to be mediocre. On behalf on the city of Boston, we're very sorry we allowed this movie to be shot here. Continue reading →
Our Summer of Weddings and Margaritas rolls on relentlessly like some fire-breathing atomic bridezilla, but for this episode we take a breather to focus on the subject of subtext in movies and how it relates to the viewer's interpretation of the film and how a fandom can then take that and run manically with it all over fanfiction.net. As the movie Luca provides the starting point for this discussion, please be aware there are obviously spoilers for that movie (but really if you haven't watched it yet, you should just do it, it's very cute). Unsurprisingly, a lot of this ties into queer readings of ostensibly not-queer movies and the thrills and/or perils of shipping characters. In contrast to Luca, our next full-length episode's movie is a real piece of crap, and we've got a suitably basic drink to accompany it (please be sure to take notes when we describe with painstaking clarity the many complex and varied steps necessary to create this craft cocktail). Continue reading →
Mon dieu! Le mariage- elle est trop grand! Alors, une question: que se passe-t-il lorsque les parents adoptifs divorcés d'un jeune homme adopté, sa mère biologique conservatrice et plusieurs autres membres de la famille à peine développés assistent tous à son grand mariage? Eh bien, rien de drôle, c'est sûr. Rejoignez Leigh, Brendan et Chris alors qu'ils regardent The Big Wedding en 2013, un remake Américain d'une comédie Française mettant en vedette un casting de pouvoirs dont personne ne connaît l'existence. Écoutez pendant que nous discutons de la prémisse banale, des styles comiques obsolètes et de la capacité miraculeuse du film à faire tourner ses roues pendant 90 minutes car cela complique et simplifie l'intrigue avec une ineptie éblouissante. Et, bien sûr, la première margarita de notre Été des Mariages et des Margaritas ! Vraiment, ce sera une série de mariages pas comme les autres. Ah, si seulement nous avions tous autant ri que les acteurs sur l'affiche. Continue reading →
Two years ago, in the Before Times, we did this sort-of game thing where we prepared lists of movies that at least one person had seen but at least one other person had not. We then used that list to try to describe what we thought the plots of these movies were to see how close our cage impressions were to the real thing. With the long-awaited adaptation of Dune probably coming to theaters this fall (keep getting them vaccines!), we decided to brush this old chestnut off again and do another round. Also, it's pretty hot out so who wants to plan out an entire discussion topic? Also also, we have a big wedding coming up in our next episode (or so the movie's title would imply) and a classy margarita recipe to accompany it. So listen in and see if you could do a better job trying to distill multiple seasons of Lost into a brief coherent description! Continue reading →
Please, please, don't confuse 1994's I Love Trouble with Nothing But Trouble, though both are equally unpleasant movies (albeit in wildly different ways) and both spend about the same amount of effort on compelling romance. For our nicest episode ever, we watch this aptly-forgotten Charles Shyer / Nancy Meyers romantic (?) crime thriller (??) starring Nick Nolte, Julia Roberts, and a whole lot of intrigue about milk. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss chemistry and miscasting, the specific reasons as to why having two reporters investigate a company making genetically modified cows was a mistake, and in what world there would be a Gap ad campaign featuring an aging unattractive Chicago columnist. Thankfully, there is no milk to be found in the themed cocktail we mixed up for this movie. Also we spend about four minutes talking about musicals, but hey, it's a short episode so don't give us that look. Continue reading →
With vaccines becoming readily available and the CDC spinning out new guidelines at a bizarre rate, it seems like our long international nightmare might finally be nearly over (but just that one). For this mini episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris all take a look back on how they spent their pandemic quarantines. What did we binge? What did we watch that we never thought we'd end up watching under normal circumstances? Can Korea make dramas fast enough for Leigh to watch most of them? Also, check out our upcoming summer prelude movie and the drink we'll be making to ensure it ends up being more tolerable than the two leads' working relationship. Continue reading →
On this episode of Why Did We Watch This, we welcome back both Michelle Pfeiffer and Catherine Zeta-Jones for their fourth (!) appearance in one of our movies (in so much as you can call it an appearance if they never actually show up on screen, but at least they both actually tried unlike the rest of the cast). That's right, we're watching Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, the (mostly) hand-drawn animated flick that was so poorly-received it made Jeffrey Katzenberg decide that DreamWorks should no longer do 2-D animation (and probably somehow indirectly lead to rise of Quibi but that's for some other podcast to work out). Join the Why Watch crew as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris guzzle down a fruity fizzy cocktail and talk about what this movie was originally supposed to be, the original Sinbad mythos, and why in general this movie is such a dull episodic slog. But, on the bright side, Michelle Pfeiffer as the goddess Eris sure has some swell animation! Continue reading →
Going off of our generation's love of 1980s nostalgia, it's a sore spot that we're not getting the glut of weird-ass original fantasy movies we were getting during that decade. In a world where the majority of fantasy movies that are kind of close to original are live-action remakes of Disney fairy tales, there's a lot of fantastical crap to wade through. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris all try to think of more recent original fantasy films that managed to do a good job of creating their universes (along with come discussion of sci-fi world-building for good measure). Also we talk about the animated fantasy movie we'll be covering next along with- you guessed it- another gin cocktail to wash it down. Continue reading →
We can all agree that two people in relationships acting as though they're having some sort of affair is pretty questionable, but what if the universe itself demands that these half-dimensional wisps of character sketches should be together for some inexplicable reason? Well, then you'd have Serendipity, a charmless 2001 romcom starring John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale, and a lot of other wasted talent. Can these two dopes manage to find each other across time and the continental United States, significant others be damned? Spoiler alert, yes, but Leigh, Brendan, and Chris have a lot of problems with how they go about doing it and a couple of ideas as to how this could have been pulled off more successfully. Also, there's a purple fruity cocktail, and what says unmemorable early 2000s romcom more than that? Continue reading →
In an effort to do justice to those characters long shunted to the side for various reasons, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about their favorite side characters in movies and TV shows. Who are these champions of protagonist support, so often doing the heavy lifting of keeping the plot interesting or the jokes a-popping? Why are they often so much more interesting than the leads they're so thanklessly holding up? Why does it not work as well when you try to shove them front and center for their own movie (hello, two inexplicable Pirates of the Caribbean sequels that for some reason focus entirely on Jack Sparrow)? And what will Leigh, Brendan, and Chris be watching and drinking come April? Will it involve John Cusack and luster dust (but probably not together)? Let's hope so! Continue reading →
Imagine, if you will, a world where Disney was so desperate for a franchise that they threw a bunch of cinematic spaghetti at the wall and ended up with "a sort-of prequel to a movie we don't own but not really and it will star James Franco and be directed by Sam Raimi and cost over $200 million." Well, you don't have to imagine it, you just have to struggle to remember that yes, in fact there was a Disney movie in 2013 entitled Oz the Great and Powerful. It exists! Journey somewhere that legally cannot be over the rainbow with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the wild miscasting of the title role, the twin perils of trying to be distinct from the 1929 movie but also cashing in on American nostalgia for it, and why yet another Disney fantasy movie must be slathered in layers of CGI goop and Avatar-reject goblins. Also, we make one of the finest cocktails we have ever made, so it's got that going for it! Continue reading →
WE'RE BACK with consistently better sound quality (comparatively speaking) and a mini episode that mandated we actually put effort into this. That's right, it's the return of the Pitcher's Mound and this time Leigh, Brendan, and Chris are all attempting to pitch feature-length adaptations of fairy tales. FUN FACT, many fairy tales don't follow any sort of story structure and it can be very difficult to attempt to graph that onto them! Anyways, listen, won't you, and we'll also go into the next episode's themed cocktail and movie (also featuring the return of Mila Kunis). Continue reading →
In advance, we apologize for the questionable audio of this podcast and the questionable decision to have a bunch of bros make a movie about how they're suffering in the friend zone. But also it's Christmas (yes, once again, as time isn't real) and we've got Julie Hagerty! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris for 2005's Just Friends, a Ryan Reynolds romcom with the least rom that's ever been in an annual Valentine's Day spectacular. Can the genuine moments of com overcome the underdeveloped rom? Is this whole thing worth it just for Anna Faris as a pop star and the surprisingly entertaining family antics? How could this movie have been less of a lumpy dated attempt at blending actual romance with raunchy comedy? Or could it not have?? Why are questions still being posed when you could just listen to this episode??? Hello, Joyce? Continue reading →
With the entire world on fire and everything going to hell, it can be comforting to take solace in movies (and television) you're familiar with rather than risk feeling new sensations by indulging in the unfamiliar. For this mini, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss their rewatching habits- what movies they liked but will never want to see again, and what they turn to whenever they need the visual equivalent of grandma's warm afghan blanket. Also we finally, finally, finally decide to watch a movie Leigh has wanted to do since we first started this and create a sickeningly-sweet alcoholic milkshake confection to be enjoyed alongside it for our upcoming Valentine's Day Month of Love Rom Com Spectacular episode. Continue reading →
Lace up your hoverboots and strap on your black villain cape complete with voluminous sleeves, it's time for Why Watch Ascending! That's right, we're kicking off 2021 with the Wachowski's 2015 sci-fi-space-opera-which-feels-like-a-fan-fic-but-somehow-isn't, Jupiter Ascending! Join the three Dratpaxus siblings Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss how a movie can have too much plot and yet too little plot, why the titular ascending character is such a fucking dull tabula rasa, and the deal with all them floaty bits sticking off the rich people spaceships. Also we drink a hot tea cocktail while bathing naked in a warm gooey pit of RegeneX. And please, please, please, do not spoil the secret truth of what RegeneX is made of to your friends. Continue reading →
UP ON THE KNEES OF A SERGEANT MAJOR RIDE THROUGH THE WOODS WITH THE WIND IN YOUR HAIR SILVER BELLS ON A STOLEN REINDEER WHILE WE RACE TO THE CASTLE OVER THERE
It's our usual lazy day look back on the year in review, an awful awful year full of awful awful movies and some pretty good drinks. What were our favorites and what should be consigned to the dustbin of oblivion? Look, listen and find out, I'm not going to type the entire episode. Also, a warm drink recipe designed to counteract the coldness of space for our first movie of 2021. Continue reading →
Finally, the prophecy has been fulfilled. No, not the prophecy that a human would become the elf king and lead them all to salvation (hey, not at all played out or uncomfortable!), but the prophecy that we made ages ago when we said we'd do The Christmas Chronicles 2 as a follow-up to the OG Christmas Chronicles episode we did two years ago. So, here it is. And there it lies like a glossy piece of mass-manufactured fruitcake, flavorless and glossy and almost completely without reason to be there. Except for Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, they're fun. How could this slog through the arctic snow have been made more enjoyable? Well, we have some vague ideas. We also have a Secret Santa cocktail exchange which is easily as fun as Santa singing a duet with airport employee Darlene Love. Enjoy the annual Christmas extravaganza and happy holidays to everyone. OH, CHRISTMAS TREE! Continue reading →
December is almost upon us, and with it a plethora of original holiday-related programming. Instead of focusing on of of the ones with a Christmas ghost or some other supernatural hook (next time!), we discuss a Netflix original miniseries we all found ourselves binging very very quickly, Dash & Lily. As another adaptation based off of a jointly-written Rachel Cohn and David Levithan young adult novel, this could have easily been Naomi and Ely's No Kiss Christmas but somehow blessedly it ended up being delightful and charming and fun. A TRUE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Listen to us gush about what we liked, the few things we didn't care for, and plan our annual Christmas spectacular movie (and corresponding elaborate drink exchange). Continue reading →
Back in the Before Times when movies were actually a thing you could go to, it was customary for studios to start dropping Oscar bait movies in late fall and continue throughout the holiday season. It's always fun to look back on which ones never ended up getting the little golden men they were angling for, and for our November episode we look at a recent example, 2013's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty directed by and starring Ben Stiller. Do you remember this? Maybe? There was a vague trailer demanding you feel things while the dulcet tones of Of Monsters and Men played underneath, perhaps reminding you instead of Where the Wild Things Are? Anyway, why did this movie end up sort of fading from public consciousness and not getting the award Paramount believed it justly deserved? What didn't work about it, and what could have made it work better? That's what our podcast is about, remember, so we get into that while enjoying TWO drinks. Reflect on the current lack of awards season by joining our conversation, getting drunk, and feeling some early 2010's brand of forced cinematic hygge. Continue reading →
OOOOOO PRETTY SNARKY, EH? It's been over a year (or maybe like three months time isn't real anymore who knows) since the finale of Game of Thrones aired and disappointed nearly everyone with its rushed plotting, shoddy characterizations, and shots of Dany making it look like she has dragon wings. Since then, we've all entered into a collective pact to not think about it anymore. Well, we're smashing that agreement, and all because Leigh kept reading Jaime/Brienne fics while bored during quarantine. That mild event launched a chain reaction that prompted us to devote an entire mini (in name only) episode to the end of Game of Thrones- what went wrong, what went right (I mean maybe something did???) and what could have made it better. Yes, we know people have had these discussions before, but with gestures to everything all this happening, we needed something to focus our energy on to stop our brains from melting. Continue reading →
Welcome, boys and GHOULS, to our annual Halloween Spooktacular featuring The Haunting! Yes, this is Jan de Bont's 1999 CGI-encrusted remake of Shirley Jackson's classic story of horror and pulsating doors, not the 1961 classic, or the Netflix series based off the same source material, or The House on Haunted Hill, or the remake of The House on Haunted Hill, or The Legend of Hell House. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris curl up with a bloody good cocktail (complete with glass to put over your eye lest you get blood in it) and try to reshape this aimless and incomprehensible attempt at terror into something that might actually be worth watching. Also there's curly tails, tulip mania, and we anoint America's new sweethearts. BLEAHHH!!! Continue reading →
Remember that thing that was going around twitter a while ago where people were listing the top five television shows that explained who they were as a person? Remember? Before all this other stuff that happened? Well, we do and so we're doing it but instead of just saying what the five television shows that define ourselves are, we're making everyone else guess what they would be. It's a game! We loves games! And we love seeing how well we actually know each other (oh does it vary). Also we're preparing ourselves for our impending Halloween spooktacular two weeks from now. It involves a big neat house and a hefty slathering of CGI. Start drinking now. Continue reading →
What do you get when you take Patrick Dempsey, the writers of The Hangover, the director of The Lion King, and a group of esteemed and notable actors and lock them all up together in a bank overnight? Did you guess Flypaper? No? You've never even heard of it? Oh. Well, you get Flypaper, a 2011 crime comedy that opened at Sundance and then everyone forgot about entirely. Everyone but Leigh. So naturally, she, Brendan, and Chris decided to watch this sweaty heist flick and see what the deal was. Listen, won't you, as we discuss what the hell the tone is trying to be, what's Patrick Dempsey's assortment of quirks supposed to amount to, and the answer to the question that was on everyone's lips the summer of 2011- WHO IS VICELLOUS DRUM??? And then we try to fix the movie and drink a cocktail in tribute to the film's unnamed Swiss miss (RIP Swiss Miss). Continue reading →
No, we didn't forget how to count, but we ARE going a bit off schedule this week to feature our final episode of Why Don't We Watch This. This week we talk about Shane Black's The Nice Guys, a rollicking mystery comedy adventure set in the 1970s if your average film reviewer or podcaster named Chris is to be believed! Turns out when you watch a great movie that gives you great laugh per minute mileage, you don't always have a lot to talk about! In two weeks we'll back to semi-normal with our Beauty and the Beast ep, so you'll be treated to two main episodes in a row, you lucky ducks. Continue reading →
No, not that Beauty and the Beast, god forbid! The bad one. The one where all the charm and heart of the original animated classic was replaced with CGI glop and soulless autotune and Stanley Tucci as a harpsichord that shoots keys at people (we didn't say EVERY change was bad). Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss the uncanny valley recreation of your childhood that has no reason to be other than to make over a billion dollars at the box office. Was there a way this movie could have been done well? Well, maybe. Was there ever a reason to do it? Well... no, but we made a drink to go along with it and discussed how we'd do it anyway. Continue reading →
In this continuation of our mini mini-series Why Don't We Watch This, we discuss Strange Days. No, not the prolonged Kafka-esque fever dream that is 2020, the 1995 Kathryn Bigelow directed cyberpunk neo-noir film starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett. Heads up, this movie is Intense with a capital I, as in the optical organs you may want to avert, as we did, during some of the more violent and unpleasant scenes. If you are not okay with graphic depictions of physical and sexual violence, this may not be the episode (or movie!) for you. Otherwise, enjoy our humble addition to the many discussions and think pieces of this ever-timely would-be narrative of a systemically racist militarized police force wreaking on L.A. mired in a confusing virtual reality serial killer whodunnit. Continue reading →
It’s been over four months since we all started working from home, and it’s leaving us nostalgic for the things we used to be able to do, like physically touch our loved ones and ride public transportation to our places of work. Accordingly, we decided to put ourselves back in that state of mind by watching Jaume Collet-Serra‘s 2018 thriller The Commuter, starring an especially haggard-looking Liam Neeson as the titular character and Vera Farmiga as the woman who won’t stop trying to talk to him on the train, the most terrifying threat of all. A good premise is let down by some bad execution and lazy plotting, so we all do that thing we do and try to come up with ways this could have been the fun conspiracy movie it so desperately wants to be. Also, we have a COFFEE cocktail! COFFEE!! LIKE A COMMUTER DRINKS!!! Continue reading →
In which we continue our summer of watching things that are good but we haven't all seen by watching Preston Sturges's 1941 screwball comedy The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda and a cartoon snake. Also we use this movie as a jumping off point to talk about our thoughts on screwball comedies (good!) and the weird way Nancy Meyers structures her movies so that you can't tell where you actually are in the plot (I mean, your mileage may vary!). Also next episode we'll do a complete 180 and talk about a very big and loud action movie, but for now just listen to us all talk about how much we like a movie whose plot twist is predicated on an action being so outlandish that it circles back around and becomes believable again. Good stuff! Continue reading →
What could be more timely than a comedy where a millennial sacrifices her entire identity to fulfil the mad whims of a wildly wealthy older white couple? Don't worry! She's white and kind of well off and doing this voluntarily, so it's fun!!! Yes, it's The Nanny Diaries, a film à clef based on the chick lit beach read where recent college graduate Scarlett Johansson for some flimsy reason chooses to be the live-in nanny to Laura Linney and part of Paul Giamatti while being wooed by privileged hunk Chris Evans. Do we really figure out what these reasons are, or why she won't leave, or if this all is the sort of thing we really want to watch in the present climate? Not really! But we all had a wine spritzer cocktail we made for the occasion and then tried to make this movie into a better version of itself anyway, like the podcast equivalent of so many Donna Murphy guilt trips. Continue reading →
We continue our miniseries of indeterminable length with another movie that we enjoy watching JUST BECAUSE, Carl Reiner's 1993 sex thriller parody, Fatal Instinct. Also we talk about parody movies in general and why some of them work better than others. And this one doesn't always even work all the time! But hey, where else can you get Armand Assante and Sean Young screwing recklessly while spinning plates? Also we're doing a summery chick-lit movie adaptation next, so get ready for that. Continue reading →
As the disgraced knight Bowen says, "Dreams die hard and you hold them in your hands long after they've turned to dust." Similarly, when some of us revisited the 1996 fantasy / CGI test feature Dragonheart, we also found that our memories of a beloved childhood film had also turned to dust. Take away the once-impressive (?) computer-generated costar and you're left with a pretty trite story bogged down with vague world-building and Dennis Quaid's Irish (?) accent work. Can Leigh, Brendan, and Chris break down where exactly Dragonheart goes wrong and make it better again by putting half of their own hearts into the script or some similar strained metaphor? Can they drink the spiciest of all margaritas? Can they manage to talk about this movie without the air conditioner on? Listen and find out! Continue reading →
Look, we really enjoy watching a bad movie but sometimes even we have limits. So while everything in the world is going to hell, we thought maybe we should watch a GOOD movie that not all of us have seen. Ergo this exceedingly wordy minisode miniseries, Why Don't We Watch This. And for our inaugural ep, we got some food and drinks and decided to watch the 1966 Cold War comedy, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. For some reason, a comedy about people panicking over impending doom felt weirdly apt. Also, we appreciate how Alan Arkin is a god-damned smokeshow in it and reveal our first fantastical summer movie episode. Listen, won't you? Continue reading →
Nothing better reflects the state of the world right now than a bunch of ominous and spooky events that have no real relation to each other and keep getting worse and worse, and boy, does The Mothman Prophecies have that in spades! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris try to make sense of the vague supernatural nonsense, piece together what the hell is trying to be accomplished by the weird-for-weird's-sake direction, and like, what's Mothman's deal anyway? Also like who is Indrid Cold? How's he connected to all this? Why does he get off on impersonating Richard Gere and the non-Denzel Washington coach from Remember the Titans? Also, cocktails, cherries, Animal Crossing, etc. etc. Continue reading →
One way to get through your social distancing quarantine to watch a lot of movies, and another way is to wildly speculate about how these movies could have been changed in some way. That's our whole thing! This time, we tweak that whole thing a little bit by speculating about what movies would have been like if they had a different director behind them. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they speculate about what The Death of Stalin, The Country Bears, and Birdman would have looked like with someone possibly more hilarious or possibly better suited overseeing the film. Also we reveal our spooky May movie and an equally spooky cocktail to go along with it. Spooky DELICIOUS, that is (we hope)! Continue reading →
What better way to spend your COVID-19 quarantine than by listening to a podcast about a 1991 Kathleen Turner movie that no one remembers? Join hard-drinking gumshoes Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they dredge up the celluloid carcass of V.I Warshawski from the Chicago River and conduct a post-mortem to determine what killed the whole endeavor. Could it have been the lack of a compelling mystery, the crux of any ostensible detective story? Perhaps it was the movie's constant need to trot out "colorful" supporting characters in order to make the world feel developed and lived in? Or maybe the lumbering pace which manages to somehow be both hard to follow and wildly simplistic? Spoiler alert, it was all of the above. A true Murder on the Orient Express ending. And of course, there's a themed cocktail recipe that's probably V.I. Warshawski-approved and we work through the five stages of stay-at-home grief for your entertainment. Continue reading →
Truly, there is no easier way to shake up a movie industry mired in the safe and predictable AND enrage a certain sector of the Internet than by swapping the gender of one or more of your film's characters. It is, literally, the easiest way to increase the representation of women or make male characters mildly less dull- all you have to do is some simple find+replace in Final Draft. So what movies would have benefitted from such a switcheroo? Leigh, Brendan, and Chris rattle off a few such changes they think would improve their respective movies while also preparing to tackle the next full-length episode, one where a hard-drinking tough-as-nails detective is played by... A WOMAN??? Fetch your smelling salts and join in! Continue reading →
No, no, not that one! The 2008 remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic where an alien shows up and warns us all to knock it off with all the nuclear warfare global warming. Except in this one the alien Klaatu doesn't really warn us so much as he just... scowls and runs arounds. Klaatu is certainly portrayed by Keanu Reeves, who adds another notch next to "emotionless cypher who looks really great in a suit" on his checklist of performances. Also Jennifer Connelly and Jaden Smith are here too. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we get day drunk and discuss how this misbegotten remake got off on the wrong foot almost immediately and then offer some suggestions for how this could have possibly turned out slightly less dull than it did- more like Klaatu BOREada Nikto, amirite? Continue reading →
What better way to celebrate the final days of February the Month of Love than by discussing a rom-com that finally pairs up Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton, the Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks of February 1997? That's right, at long last someone is giving The Beautician and the Beast the attention it shrilly demands. After all, what could be more romantic than traveling to a small formerly-USSR country, falling in love with their oppressive leader, and doing it all in garish stilettos and midriff-bearing tops? Anyways, join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris for this detailed deconstruction of a movie that was somehow against all odd released in theaters, and be sure to listen two weeks from now when we cover a sci-fi movie with a couple that has just as uncomfortable chemistry. Continue reading →
Hold on to your monocles, dear listeners, because this 2008 rom-com is about to flip your preconceived notions of what a bridal party can be like so many mini kilts during the Highland games! Just imagine this- what if maid of honor... but a MAN? If that concept just split your sides, then suture them back up again because you're most assuredly the target audience for this bland and conventional piece of cinematic fluff. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris enjoy a very Scotchy cocktail while covering the movie's bad takes on men and women as a whole, once of the flimsiest preludes to a marriage in modern movie history, and a plot less substantial than mist on the moors of Scotland. All this and dating sim discussions too? It surely is a Valentine's Day episode! Continue reading →
THE WHY WATCH CREW SPEAK! One month after Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker premiered to a resounding critical "Oof," Leigh, Brendan, and Chris finally do what every other podcast did like two weeks ago and gather together to try to make sense of whatever the hell that movie was supposed to be. Spoiler alert: it's not great! There's a lot of J.J. Abrams nonsense to sift through here, like the nebulous time-wasting questing and what the hell the Emperor is doing here alive and why won't the spaceship battles take place in space??? Also next up is our annual Month of Love February Rom-Com so at the very least you'll have a movie that tries to earn its kiss at the ending this time. Continue reading →
Dans notre dernier épisode de Why Did We Watch This, nous tournons notre regard critique vers la France et leur film Le Pacte des Loups de 2001, qui présente de nombreux acteurs français et une monstruosité générée par ordinateur recouverte d'une armure de cuir. Et apparemment, ce n'est pas un film de loup-garou! Quel titre trompeur! Rejoignez Leigh, Brendan et Chris alors qu'ils sirotent du vin chaud (très bien!) tout en discutant du rythme bizarre, de la parodie qui est la perte de Mani et d'un dispositif de cadrage vraiment étrange qui pourrait servir à souligner les thèmes du film mais décide de ne pas vraiment. Ne vous inquiétez pas non plus, cet épisode est en Anglais. Nous ne sommes pas capables de faire fonctionner ce bit sans l'aide de Google Translate. Continue reading →
As always at this time of the year, we are tired and have a bunch of other stuff to worry about, like shopping for presents and the distressingly low box office intake of Cats. So, we present for you all our annual year in review where we talk about our favorite and least favorite movies and drinks. Also since we forgot to mention in the actual episode, we're kicking off 2020 with Brotherhood of the Wolf. Oops. Well, happy new year to you all regardless. Continue reading →
Snow hides a lot. It's like the Spanx of weather. And ironically, no amount of snow (and there ain't much) can hide the problems of Netflix's 2019 holiday ephemera offering, Let It Snow. Yes, friends, it's yet another direct-to-streaming Christmas movie, this time a baby Love Actually set in a midwestern town that seems to shut down in a panic upon receiving two inches of snow. Cozy up with a mulled cider cocktail as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris take an in-depth look at every segment of the movie, the differences between the film and the book (and oh are they many), and a character who may have finally usurped the place in our hearts Prom's Rolo once held. All this and Joan Cusack covered in tinfoil, too! Continue reading →
At what point is a mini episode no longer a mini episode? Probably at this point. This point, when you have what is ostensibly a "mini" episode that's longer than some of our actual episodes. In our defense, there's a lot to cover here! With the Christmas season upon us, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris gather in front of a roaring fire to discuss the glut of direct-to-streaming-service holiday movies available at your fingertips. From the twisting supernatural romantic thriller The Spirit of Christmas to the sack of garbage topped with a festive bow that is Santa Girl to some movie Disney dumped on their new streaming service when it became apparent no one would pay to see it, we run the gamut of these Christmas flicks of questionable quality. Also we talk a lot about Netflix's attempt to horn in on this racket by use of Vanessa Hudgens and movies where everyone is horny AF for the holidays. Aptly, we also announce the movie we'll be doing for our impending 50th episode and wouldn't you know it it's also a Netflix Christmas movie. WE SIMPLY CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF THE HOLIDAYS. Continue reading →
For this episode, we take you back to the halcyon days of 2014, when it seemed like a novel idea to make a live-action adaptation of a Disney animated movie but a slightly more stale idea to make it like Wicked but Sleeping Beauty. That's right, we're talking about Maleficent, Disney's revisionist fairy tale starring Angelina Jolie's prosthetic cheekbones and that guy from District 9 who we were all kinda into for a brief period. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris all find out that despite what they initially thought and believed, it's not that bad of a movie! Well, aside from some of the weird choices made regarding the non-Maleficent parts, and so as usual fixes are offered over a round of Princess Aurora-level sweet cocktails. So you see, the movie is not quite as you remember, and we should know, for we are the ones who are doing this podcast called Why Did We Watch This. Continue reading →
In our latest mini-episode, we we cover the sequel to a movie we'll be doing for our next full-length episode. It's like Memento, but instead of your favorite Christopher Nolan trappings it's got Angelina Jolie and her prosthetic cheekbones. That's right, we paid money to see Maleficent: Mistress of Evil in theaters, which is more than most of America is doing. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss a whole secret island full of Maleficents, Michelle Pfeiffer's underdeveloped and vague motivations, and also how we can pretty much wave away genocide attempts once the person responsible is turned into a goat. Continue reading →
For our Halloween spooktacular this year, we're not going to be a ghost movie podcast, but a podcast with ghost movies in it. And if that means anything to you, you may be familiar with Crimson Peak, Guillermo del Toro's 2015 half-written love letter to gothic fiction that Universal Studios would really rather prefer you to think was a horror movie. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris whip up a tea cocktail that is certainly NOT poison and an accompanying tray of high tea terrors while they discuss the movie's uneven tone, total lack of surprises, and the multiple red flags that Jessica Chastain displays throughout the movie that REALLY should have tipped everyone off much earlier. Also Charlie Hunnam just won't stop being in del Toro movies for some reason. Happy Halloween! Continue reading →
It's finally happened. We've run out of things to say about scary movies for Halloween. It's a real kick to the shins, it is! Anyhow, in lieu of that and springing from a tangent about horror films, we all talk about the things in film that make us not want to see a movie with no further information needed. No matter how open minded we try to be about these things, there's always a genre, director, or actor who will stop us in our tracks and make us cry to the heavens "WILL NOT WATCH!" Also we're planning a creepy high tea for our October episode spooktacular, so check out our latest mini and get ready to be immersed in a movie that has so much atmosphere the gravity eventually crushes the plot and character into a Gothic singularity. Continue reading →
For our extra special forty-seventh episode (sure, why not?), we're trying something no podcast has surely ever tried before- having two special returning guests to total FIVE white people talking over each other about a movie. It's okay, though, since three are women and that's still more than any other podcast has ever had on together at the same time. And what a movie for us all to discuss! We tackle Leigh and special guest Meg's nostalgic fave, Danny Boyle's 1997 romantic (?) screwball (??) dark comedy (?!?), A Life Less Ordinary. There's a lot to chew on here, from Holly Hunter's boundless enthusiasm for a bizarre role, Cameron Diaz's questionable character traits, and Ewan McGregor's, uh, general weird British late 90s mod nonsense. To wash this movie and our suggestions for improving it down, we also made a pretty tart cocktail. And pretty soon, we'll be spooning it down and asking for more like all the other kids. Continue reading →
Friends, nostalgia is the most dangerous drug and none of us can get enough of it! But, for about forty minutes anyway, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris will doff their nostalgia goggles and discuss times they revisited a movie they loved growing up and later revisited. Will it hold up like so many movies broadcasted incessantly on Comedy Central in the early 90s? Or will it be more like rewatching the 1995 classic Mighty Morphing Power Rangers: The Movie, a feat so deeply upsetting that all you can do is call your parents after and apologize for making them take you to see it? Either way, we get another blast from the past next episode where we tackle a movie from Leigh's formative years with some friends from our own yesteryears. Rest assured, the goggles will be off for that one. Continue reading →
Nothing says instant chemistry like the classic pairing of a heterosexual woman and a gay man, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of our modern complicated times. And nothing makes a more compelling case for why this premise alone is not enough to hang a story on than 2015's Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List, a movie that's as wildly unlikable and messy as the millennial burdens at its peanut butter center. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris play an equally juvenile drinking game while discussing the movie's incomprehensible structure, the gaping black holes of charisma that anchor the story, and how odd it is to call your movie Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List and then not really focus too much on Ely or the No Kiss List. Also there's a weird public domain rip-off of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" that truly can't be adequately explained without hearing it. Continue reading →
Finally, an entire episode dedicated to the songs and performances of Tone Loc! Whether it's "Funky Cold Medina" or showing up for one scene in FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Tone Loc has- oh, wait, never mind. It's about tone. Tone in cinema. Like movies feeling "big" or "intimate" and the cultural and critical baggage that entails, that kind of thing. Also our upcoming back-to-school movie and a game we're playing with various nips and mixers to make it a lot more watchable (because boy is it not watchable). Continue reading →
In Hollywood, nothing is a more surefire hit than an adaptation of a book from the 1890s that the majority of your audience probably haven't read but are maybe familiar with just from cultural osmosis. Once you've locked in this successful blockbuster, be sure to alienate fans of the source material by also removing any sort of subtext or metaphor that the original novel had so that no one ends up getting exactly that they want. Mix that all up with some bronze filters and you get 2002's The Time Machine, directed by the great-grandson of H. G. Wells so you know it's going to work out! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris drink some era-appropriate cocktails and discuss the plausibility of the time travel itself, the changes made for the movie, and why the Morlocks look so expensive yet so very mediocre. Remember, if you listen to our podcast, by the time you've finished you'll be in THE FUTURE. Truly, there can be no more exciting hook. Continue reading →
Whether telling an impossible ad intellectually-stimulating tale using the realities available to us through science fiction or wringing jokes from a mom wanting to fuck her son who was sent back in time by his elderly scientist friend using wildly unsafe experiments funded by aiding international terrorists, time travel movies have been an important part of film history for decades. As a prelude to our upcoming episode with deals with a certain MACHINE that can travel through TIME, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss their favorite time travels movies, the different kinds of time travel movies, and what makes a compelling time travel movie. Also, we talk about Primer. Anyhow, join us next TIME for a science-fiction romp through the ages you won't soon forget (not a guarantee). Continue reading →
With all the political turmoil that surrounds us every waking moment of our lives, what better way to forget your troubles than an action movie with Clive Owen and Naomi Watts where, uh, it turns out it's not really an action movie but a windy conspiracy thriller about how a large untouchable bank is making the entire world miserable just for the sake of profits? Yes, it turns out The International is not the gun-shooting cross-country trip we were made to believe it was by the advertisements, but oh well, we're committed to this thing now. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the at-times nebulous plot, the shifting stakes, and whether or not everything would have just ended the same had Clive Owen not done anything at all in the last act. Don't worry, we'll do something dumber next time around. Continue reading →
For this mini episode, we decided to do something a little different and play a game that would lead to discussion. Well, it's kind of a game and kind of a discussion, but not like in the strict sense of either. Well, there are actually aspects of both to it, but- look, we work from a list of capital-I Important Films and ask those amongst us who have NOT seen the movie in question to try their best and guess what the movie is actually about based off what they do know of it. Look, why are you reading this anyway when you could just listen to it? We don't deviate a WHOLE lot because we also do talk about our upcoming conspiracy thriller movie and what we hope is a sufficiently globe-trotting drink to accompany it. But we've never seen this movie, so uh... we'll see how all that goes! Continue reading →
"I'm here to reap souls and eat peanut butter, and I'm all out of peanut butter!" says Brad Pitt as Death as he shows up at Anthony Hopkins's door, shortly before macking on his vacant-eyed daughter and mocking old Jamaican ladies. Or something like that. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris pour some classy cocktails and sit through all three hours of this ponderous meditative slog, then discuss the source material, what exactly the movie is trying to say, and why the hell it's so damned long. At the end of it all, the most important thing to remember is that this podcast is still only about 40% as long as the movie it discusses, and you can't beat a bargain like that. Continue reading →
With the impending summer movie season upon us all, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decide to kick it off with a mini episode about when movies make you cry and scared and feel stuff. Mostly the first one, I think because we were all in a certain mood seeing how the movie we're doing next is a delightful romp about death and life and all that frivolity. Also we prepare a recipe for a classy cocktail that can hopefully get us all through a movie with a three-hour runtime. You can probably all guess what it is without listening to this. No, it's not Endgame. Continue reading →
As the weather becomes more pleasant and your social media timelines are full of endless memes about how it's gonna be May, only one thing is on the mind of America- unquestionably, the prom! Whether you're a high school senior, some sophomore who really shouldn't be involved in all this anyway, or a lumpy and uncompassionate adult, the prom is probably the thing around which your entire life has revolved. And frankly, that's all the reasoning Disney needed to make a movie about it, with very little regard for anything else like plot or compelling characters or stakes. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris gear up for the end of the school year by watching and discussing this 2011 teen comedy and drinking a spiked punch to keep their whole high school dance theme going. Listen, won't you, and relive your own heady prom night (assuming your prom night was a chaste PG affair in your high school's gym and absolutely NO ONE had sex before, during, or after it). Continue reading →
Disney took an old film of great acclaim / Can you imagine that? / And made a sequel that's more of the same / Can you imagine that? / New actors but a similar plot / In some ways charming but sort of not / There's decent choreography but also BMX / What was with those guys biking on the ramps? / When Leigh saw that sequence on a plane she said we had to chat / So we all watched this Poppins pic / Then we recorded this right quick / Can you imagine that? Continue reading →
For this episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss a stirring biopic that tells the story of Ethan Hawke's mother Leslie and the struggles of raising a young child alone while- wait, sorry, it's not that, it's a very 80s medieval movie with all the perils of a fairy tale adaptation despite not actually being based on any existing one. We talk about the rules of the world, the many paper-thin characters, and oh god that score, that score. In keeping with the duality of the movie, we also have two drinks to accompany it. You may need them both to help you swallow the soundtrack. Continue reading →
Whether you're a movie maker, a dungeon master, or just some kid who is haphazardly slapping together some Legos without any sort of regard for the instructions and DAMMIT TEDDY THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE TAJ MAHAL DOES THAT LOOK AT ALL LIKE THE TAJ MAHAL TO YOU???, world building is a big thing to consider. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about world building as it relates to movies, from good ones that do it well, bad ones that do it well, and the different ways to dump loads of exposition on your audience without them tuning out to check their TikTok or whatever it is the kids are doing now. We also reveal our upcoming movie, something that traffics heavily in world building itself, and the TWO drinks we'll make for it because duality is a thing for this movie. Continue reading →
Ladies and gentlemen! We have gathered you all here in the accusing car because there has been a murder! Thankfully, we only lost Johnny Depp, so... don't strain yourselves trying to work out who may have done it. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris don their mustache guards to discuss 2017's Murder on the Orient Express, directed by / starring / production designed within an inch of its life by Kenneth Branaugh. We discuss the bizarrely convoluted mystery (which is dependent upon 13 people from various countries and relations to a criminal case being assembled in the same place at the same time and all ready to get stabby), the generally great performances, and the reconfiguration of Hercule Poirot into a character who could actually run short distances without getting winded. As always, subscribe or review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher, and remember that any potential murders you may want to commit are more fun when you invite a bunch of casual acquaintances to join in. Continue reading →
As a prelude to our Mystery March episode (which is a thing we just made up now), Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about detectives in pop culture, be they Sherlock Holmes or, uh, other. Also there's some stuff about whether or not you should be able to solve a mystery while watching / reading it and a lot of stuff with TV procedurals. Anyway, you've got two weeks to start growing a ridiculous mustache for our next episode's mystery movie. Continue reading →
What could possibly be more charming than having a late 19th century duke show up in your Manhattan apartment, offering you all of that 1870s class with none of that 1870s misogyny / racism / chauvinism? Very little aside from perhaps the scent of warm brioche smothered in marmalade and fresh creamery butter, posits James Mangold's 2001 romcom Kate & Leopold. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris watch their annual Valentine's Day movie with a drink worthy of a mid-tier budget television commercial and discuss the vague logistics of time travel, the challenges of making a romantic comedy where the guy is from an era before civil rights were a thing, and a case when a director's cut makes a movie horribly unsettling. We all hope that you out there have a Valentine's Day less objectionable than this movie, and with 100% less time travel-induced incest. Continue reading →
Because we spent our last mini episode doing our customary new year nothingness, we bumped a discussion about Shakespeare adaptations to this mini episode instead. It still works! Anyway, Leigh leads a group discussion about the various movie versions of Shakespeare plays, be they mostly faithful to the text and setting or something set in a high school with the great sounds of the 90s permeating throughout. We also determine our Valentine's Day romcom and an appropriately dairy-based drink to go with it, and there's a lot of bird noises. Continue reading →
Finally, a film adaptation that combines the quiet contemplations of William Shakespeare's final play with the visual goofiness of Julie Taymor! Taymor brings her trademark sense of "how many effects can you add in post before the screen melts" to this 2010 take on The Tempest, most notable for casting Helen Mirren in the gender-bent role of Prospera and maybe also for covering a naked Ben Whishaw's junk with a flat Ken doll-esque mound. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss the changes that result from the gender swap, the Caliban problem, and what the fuck is the scene where Ariel is enormous and playing with a ship in the sea while setting it on fire and wait now there's like three of him??? As always, you can like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast and rate us on iTunes and Stitcher. HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HEAAAAHHHHH Continue reading →
As is our wont, we were feeling very lazy at the end of the calendar year and just recorded us talking about our favorite and least favorite movies and drinks of 2018. Two weeks from now we’ll be ready to work again, we promise. Happy New Years! Continue reading →
Now that December is well upon us, there's little better to do than make some sort of hot alcoholic drink and watch pleasant Christmas nonsense while your brain goes into a stupor until 2019. Keeping that in mind, we decided to pick some new vague Christmas nonsense to cover for our annual holiday episode, the Netflix original movie The Christmas Chronicles, which has Kurt Russell as Santa and that's about all that's noteworthy here. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sip their piping-hot Santa Daddies (no, it's a drink) and discuss Kurt Russell's admirably entertaining performance, the problems of the Santa mythos in a movie, and those ungodly CGI elves that will forcibly replace the visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads for many a Christmas to come. Anyway, you all might as well relax and drink until Christmas too. Happy holidays! Continue reading →
Now that it's well past Thanksgiving, we're at the glorious time of year where Christmas movies are being thrown at the you like some festive, pleasantly bland spaghetti against a wall. Be they movies about journalists who meet a prince on Christmas or bakers who meet a prince on Christmas or kids who meet a fuckable Santa on Christmas, the options abound and yet for the most part aren't all that good. SO, we said to ourselves, why not try to come up with a pitch for our own Christmas movie and share with the group??? So we did. We've got a contemporary follow-up to The Nutcracker, a story about a magical advent calendar that is certainly NOT the same as that Netflix one, and a bunch of people spending the Christmas holiday at a fancy hotel where hijinks ensue. Join us again in two weeks for our festive Christmas special where we'll tackle one of the aforementioned holiday movies. Start counting down on your magical, life-altering advent calendars! Continue reading →
In a world where supernatural young adult series were flying off the shelves of a Borders near you, your dad's second-favorite airport novelist thought "Hey, why not more money for Dean Koontz?" Then the director of The Mummy and Van Helsing had a similar thought with the name "Stephen Sommers" in place of Koontz's, and that's how we got the underwhelming 2013 supernatural mystery movie Odd Thomas. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris continue their trend of doing semi-spooky movies each November by drinking an Odd Thomas Collins and discussing the movie's use of translucent snot-demons, the worst-written female character yet encountered, and how the deeply-missed Anton Yelchin was even good in this somehow. As always, you can go online to rate us, like us, and validate us. We promise to be less offensive than the dialogue in this movie. STUFFIN'! Continue reading →
It's November, and as all these posters of Keira Knightley topped in cotton candy indicate, the Christmas movie season has well and truly begun! When Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sat through The Nutcracker in 3D two years ago, they mentioned a Disney adaptation of the story currently in pre-production. Now, in 2018, this movie has somehow become The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and boy is it somehow both exactly what you'd expect and also not really at all. Fresh out of a screening, the crew try to gather their thoughts as best as they can to discuss the handful of things that did work (Keira Knightley's bizarre acting choices, the basic idea of the story, the physical production design) and the many things that did not work (uh, most everything else). Join us in two weeks as we dip back into some spooky Autumnal nonsense with a Dean Koontz adaptation and an odd drink. Très chic! Continue reading →
Nothing says “we are in the thick of October, that which is widely considered the spookiest month of the year” like facing your fears, whether they are the loss of a loved one or that one wooden roller coaster you … Continue reading →
As the spookiest month of the year draws over us like a wet musty towel, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decide to talk about their favorite atmospheres in movies. From the vibes that excel at bringing you into the world of the movie to the ones that are tied into a specific emotion or time of year, we toss them all about! We'll be back in two weeks with a more specifically spooky movie (well, sort of spooky sometimes) and a new type of themed cocktail challenge to accompany it. In the meantime as always you can like us on Facebook and rate us on iTunes and Stitcher. Continue reading →
What would you get if you set out to make a sequel to a cult movie that has a tenuous connection to the original movie, a wildly different plot and tone, only half of the same actors, and four or five of the same characters? Well, you'd probably end up with something like 1981's Shock Treatment, the sort-of-not-quite-sequel to the midnight movie favorite The Rocky Horror Picture Show. See, instead of focusing on old horror movies and glam rock and Americana, Shock Treatment sort of focuses on, um, reality TV before it existed and consumerism and Reaganesque Americana. How will Leigh, Brendan, and Chris pitch a version of this movie that lends coherence and clarity to this ambitious but wildly messy and inconsistent musical? Well, it will involve a discussion over a sour cocktail, so, uh, listen and you'll get the rest of the answer. HOOPLA! Continue reading →
Autumn seems to have finally descended on Boston (for the time being), but when we recorded this it was very hot and we had all had a busy few weeks so we're pretty much just telling you what to expect two weeks from now (it's the not-sequel-but-also-a-sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, spoiler alert). Also Leigh tries to remember the Jeff Wayne musical version of The War of the Worlds, which we haven't ever really listened to. OH WELL SEE YOU ALL IN TWO WEEKS! Continue reading →
More than perhaps any other filmmaker, Tarsem Singh has masterfully demonstrated that no matter how bad a movie is, it can at least look visually stunning. With such an embarrassment of riches of gorgeous garbage to choose from, we watched his 2011 live-action adaption of the inside cover of an Everworld novel, Immortals. Starring an at-the-time-less-expensive Henry Cavill and an at-the-time-sensible-casting-choice Mickey Rourke, Immortals throws a bunch of mythic nonsense into into a dark gold filter and narratively throws its hands up in apathy. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss the hunky white gods, the murky-yet-appealing aesthetics, and the cruddy characterization while downing cocktails and offering three ideas on how to make this movie at least mildly dramatically coherent. Remember, you too can witness hell by liking Why Did We Watch This on Facebook and rating us on iTunes or Stitcher! Continue reading →
This past Friday, we decided to partake in an activity our livers would not thank us for and watch the "original" "musical" "classic" Mamma Mia! at home with a Greek sangria and then see the prequel / sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in theaters while also drinking heavily. We had some initial thoughts about the movie a few weeks back and we're all now kinda ashamed to admit that MM!HWGA is kinda... good??? And fun??? And not a complete train wreck??? Anyway, please enjoy our random thoughts about the movie, and forgive us for the end just sort of cutting out due to some technical difficulties, but it was late and we were tipsy and most of what we thought is here! Continue reading →
We're deep in the thick of summer, and there's no better way to beat the heat than watching a movie you've never heard of in a language you don't speak with a lot of cultural references that will be lost on you. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris take things in a very different direction this episode with the 2012 Indian romance musical Teri Meri Kahaani (also known as The Story of You and Me or Two Actors in Search of a Fully-Developed Character Arc). Pour yourself a glass of a questionable-looking tamarind cocktail as we discuss each of the three segments in this movie, the perils of social media-based song and dance, and how to make a more tonally-consistent and less improbable romantic musical. Also, the usual, Facebook, iTunes, Stitcher, burger HAHAHAHA. Continue reading →
Sure, we all know sequels might not be as good as the original, but for this minisode we want to take a look at the least-likely sequels clearly made in a desperate attempt to grab cash. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss ones where the lead(s) refused to returns, movies that had a premise that could not easily allow for a sequel, and the ill-fated attempts to make sequels to a successful adaptation of a stage musical (be sure to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again only in theaters July 20th). We're also doing a very different sort of movie and drink for our next episode, so check in then for our own example of diminishing returns! Continue reading →
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Valerian-FINAL.mp3
It’s the exciting vaguely-European future adventures of two pouty space teens who are apparently in love but look like siblings! That’s right, we’re discussing Luc Besson’s 2017 tax write-off, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets! Join Leigh, Brendan, Chris and a tiny alien that poops out multiple copies of whatever you feed it as they cover the weird tangental structure, the outstanding world building, and the wildly inconsistent characters. We also tried to make a frozen cocktail that melted upon blending, but if nothing else watching this movie has given us plenty of experience with disappointment so it all works out okay. Rather than insisting you marry us for no apparent reason, you can always rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast and visit us at dratpack.com. Our thoughts and prayers go with you. Godspeed, and good luck.
MAGELLAN CURRENT MOJITO
- 2 cups crushed ice
- .5 lbs frozen cherries
- .5 lbs frozen blueberries
- .5 cup packed mint leaves
- 1.5 cups lime simple syrup
- .5 cup lime juice
- 1 cup citrus rum
Make lime simple syrup by combining 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water, and the zest of 3 limes over medium heat. Wait until syrup is cool, then add all ingredients to blender and blend until smoothie consistency. Strain into glasses and serve.
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/30.5-Why-Did-I-Play-This-Take-1.mp3
We once again try something different for a mini episode and tackle a recent video game release in our discussion. That’s right, we’re tackling David Cage’s Detroit: Become Human. Leigh leads Chris and Brendan on an in-depth analysis of Cage’s previous games, the twists of the plot, and the very deep well-conceived themes hidden in the game. For example, did you know the robots are analogous to people of color? Well, they are and it’s a very subtle comparison! As usual we also introduce our upcoming movie, an international flop of historic proportions, and offer you a hard drink to wash it all down with. You know the other stuff: like on Facebook, and rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher.
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Cellular-FINAL.mp3
An anonymous woman calls a sexy twenty-something on his cell phone and tells him unless he can help her, she and her family will be killed. Sound like a solid hook? Sure, as long as you avoid a lot of the other nonsense that gets thrown at you, like backstory, characters, and logistics. For our first summer blockbuster, Leigh, Brendan, Chris and returning guest Meghan Coyne watch the 2004 thriller Cellular starring Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, William H. Macy and a bunch of muscles sculpted into vaguely humanoid shapes. Join us as we sip our refreshing Gin RAZRs and try to punch up a not-so-great movie that we all kinda enjoyed, Dat Phan be damned. As always, you can mysteriously call us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast or download and rate our show on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.
GIN RAZR
- 1.5 parts gin
- 2 parts ginger ale
- .5 parts lime juice
- .5 parts simple syrup
- 6 mint sprigs
- orange Swedish Fish garnish
Mix gin, lime juice, and simple syrup in cocktail shaker. Muddle mint sprigs in shaker and add ice. Shake vigorously and pour over ginger ale.
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/29.5-Meme-Critiques.mp3
As three weirdos who make it a point to watch movies every four weeks for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris naturally have a lot of specific occasions we like to watch other movies on, be it a holiday or that time in everyone’s high school career where some teacher made you watch Remember the Titans. We talk about the times we watch certain movies and the movies we like to watch on those times, and we also get off topic a lot because this was a very loose topic we came up very suddenly. Also we have a lovely summer drink recipe for a lovely dumb summer movie coming up two weeks from now. As with every occasion you listen to us, you can like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast or rate us on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/EarthGirlsAreEasyFINAL.mp3
If you’ve ever wanted to see lovingly-sexualized hairy aliens played by Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and Damon Wayans try to fuck Geena Davis, then wow do you have some oddly specific fantasies. For everyone else, though, there’s Earth Girls Are Easy, a bubbly slice of pop nonsense designed presumably to inform future generations of what living in the 1980s must have been like. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris down several shots and discuss their love of alien quirks, what kind of quasi-musical this is, and how dumb every woman in this movie seems to be. All this, and somehow Jim Carrey is weirdly attractive too! Have a mental margarita and like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast and rate us on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. YEAH YEAH YEAH
MAC
- 1.5 parts vodka
- 1.5 parts Blue Curaçao
- 1.5 parts lime juice
WIPLOC
- 3 parts gin
- 1.5 parts lemon juice
- 1 part club soda
- sugar
- grenadine
ZEEBO
- 1.5 parts vodka
- .5 part gin
- .5 part peach liqueur
- 3 parts pineapple juice
- .5 part Galliano
http://www.dratpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/28.5-Fandon-ts.mp3
Fandoms! They’re the inescapable parasite that our franchise-heavy movie world must support, lest all of the major studios crumble into dust. In this episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about all the horrifying aspects of fandoms that have reared their ugly, shrieking, appeasement-seeking heads. From gatekeeping to temper fits to the mysoginistic dregs that flow through the Internet, we poke them all with pointed sticks and muse on the world they have left in their wake. Also it’s not all gloom and doom, because there’s a whopping three drinks for the frothy inanity of a movie we’ll be tacking next time, so enjoy that part! As always, subscribe and rate on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher and like us at facebook.com/whywatchpodcast. What have you got to lose???