Requiem for a Dream is one of those movies that leaves marks and thanks to Nicholas’s commission, our wounds have been freshly reopened. Join us for our coverage of the movie that left us with a “not even once” attitude toward heroin.
Deep Water is a British documentary about a boat race in the late 1960s so maybe you can understand why I thought this pick from commissioner Aaron might be a little dry. I expected a lot of coxswain this, and bosun that. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing like I expected. Check out the documentary, then join us for a podcast about isolation and the delicate mechanism of the mind.
We went into Killjoy nearly blind but podcast commissioner Doug assured us that it was bad enough to wrap back around to good. Turns out Doug was exactly right. The creators chose the homeopathic approach to budgeting, mixing no more than 1 part money to every 100 parts runtime. Despite that, we enjoyed our time with it. Join us for the podcast to find out exactly why.
We have a new commissioned podcast from bald move fan Sheldon… it’s Jurassic Park! Do the effects hold up? Are the kids annoying? What happened to the shaving cream can full of dino embryos? What would this movie look like with Jim Carrey in the role of Dr. Ian Malcolm? We ponder all these and more as we gaze into the amber orb of nostalgia that is Jurassic Park.
This week we’ve got a special treat thanks to our commissioner, Dena. It’s one of the handful of movies that Quentin Tarantino wrote, but didn’t direct. What do Tarantino’s unique sensibilities look like when filtered through another director? Find out with us on the True Romance podcast. You can get your very own custom commissioned…
The Guest is nothing like the movie I thought it’d be. It’s one of those movies where the name is so generically boring that someone asks you “Have you seen The Guest?” and you respond “Sure”, thinking you’ve seen it but you’re actually thinking of The Others, The Nun, The Grudge, The Delivery, or The . I actually just made up those last two, that’s how boring the title of this movie is. The premise isn’t that exciting either. A man shows up at a house claiming to be a friend of their son who died in war, but he’s weird.
That said, this movie is way more fun than the title or the premise would indicate. When it breaks the sidewalls of its mediocre horror mold and spills messily out into other genres, it becomes a ton of fun. Dan Stevens and Maika Monroe are excellent as well.
Thanks to Maggie for commissioning this unique movie. Join us on the podcast for our full review.
If you’ve seen it, you probably understand why we categorize 2001: A Space Odyssey as a prestige film. Yes, it takes place almost entirely in space. Yes, it has spaceships and aliens and wormholes. But it’s just so dang good that it deserves better than to be lumped in with the likes of pulpier sci-fi, like, say, an Armageddon. Thanks to Dr. John for commissioning this podcast on one of Stanley Kubrick’s most celebrated films. We hope you enjoy.
For an 80’s sci-fi family movie, Flight of the Navigator holds up remarkably well. The child actor is great, the cutting-edge computer effects hardly show their age, and the plot is more well-considered than most movies of the era. That’s probably why we were both so taken with it as children and remain nostalgic about it to this day. Thanks to Kira for commissioning our coverage of this very literal Pee-Wee Herman vehicle.
Thanks to Brian, we’ve got another commission this week. It’s the first and last episodes of Invincible season 1. You might not expect a bookended sampling of a series to work very well, but aside from not knowing a few of the side characters, I apparently missed out on almost nothing by skipping the other 6 episodes. Join us for a discussion of this animated deconstruction of the superhero genre.
A big thank you to Dr. DeVito for commissioning Southpaw, the 2015 boxing movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a Raging Bull-type who just can’t get out of his own way while recovering from a traumatic accident. If you’ve seen any boxing movie ever made, you’ve seen some portion of this movie, as it borrows every trope you can think of. It does manage to deliver the emotional punches though, due mostly to the excellent cast.