Starship Troopers is the pulpy, sci-fi, satire that tried so hard to be a commentary that it seemed to miss its own point. From Paul Verhoeven, the director behind RoboCop (1987) and Total Recall (1990), comes a movie about bugs and fascism. Between the CGI and blatant metaphors, Jim and A.Ron explore the guts and glory of this weird adaptation.
The Cold War is over and everything is fine…until Gary Oldman stomps in. Check out Harrison Ford riding the high of his box office reign. It’s an unbelievable story, but it’s pretty exciting and currently streaming on Netflix. Ford shines as an action star and gives one of his most emotionally nuanced performances. Grab some cookies and milk and settle in for this wild ride.
Watch Michael Douglas get manipulated, be his classic grouchy self, and get just as confused as you are while watching this movie. Where the soundtrack doesn’t deliver, the visuals sure do. Douglas is joined by Sean Penn and directed by David Fincher, a master of thrillers. A.Ron describes this movie as a “20th century version of ‘A Christmas Carol’”. And Jim describes this movie as…well, I think you better hear it in his own words. Check out The Game!
What has twice the T-Rex and three times more running time than the original movie? That’s right, it’s Lost World where life finds a way and Steven Spielberg finds a way to make an underwhelming sequel. But it’s not all bad CGI! Jim and A.Ron relive their favorite moments, and it’s no surprise many of…
I didn’t know much about “The Troubles” in Ireland going into this movie and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I know any more coming out of it. History lessons aside, The Boxer includes some excellent performances from the entire cast in a movie that is more of a meditation on borrowed resentment than a traditional boxing story.
Multiple viewings and hours of sober reflection have led us both to believe that Con Air is a bad movie. The plot is contrived, the accents are awful, and it’s perhaps the least “Cagey” performance in Cage’s entire career. And yet, maybe based on star-power alone, it remains a classic which simply must be watched.
Premium
A shocking discovery was made as we attempted to rewrite the cheesy classic, Con Air: It’s actually way harder than you think to fix this movie. Does that mean that the plot is actually better thought-out than we first assumed? Or is the fundamental idea so flawed that it’s simply impossible to film if you respect your audience? Or perhaps it’s simply a lack of imagination on our part? Any way you view it, we had to get real silly to make this one work, but we had a lot of fun in the process.
Premium
We kicked off the back half of Season of the Cage with perhaps his most mainstream film of all time, Con Air. Does that mean it’s inoffensive? No. Is it one of Cage’s more impressive acting jobs? Also, no. Is it even a good film? Again, no. But that also doesn’t mean it’s not a fun movie to watch. Jim loves it, A.Ron probably doesn’t, but you should decide for yourself as you listen to us make jokes over it.
Special thanks to all our community commissioners for this podcast; Steven Sprague, Spencer H., Libby Ross, dreduble, Cellmouse, Brooks Rittel, betmarik, cocoa2mc, nobrainsallsadness, Martin Karlsson, Eric Brown, rjjone2, and Keith A. This podcast is for the 1997 Quentin Tarantino movie Jackie Brown, which is based on the classic Elmore Leonard novel, Rum Punch. Awfully good bones to build a movie on, then you add an amazing cast featuring Pam Grier, Robert DeNiro, Sam Jackson, Bridget Fonda, Robert Forster, Michael Keaton, among many others, and filter it through a restrained, grounded Tarantino lens, and you get something pretty magical, that was beyond what Jim and I were expecting. Thanks again for treating us to this movie! We hope you enjoy your podcast!
Special thanks to Tyler Shumway for commissioning a podcast for three of his favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 1997 television adaptation of the movie of the same name, spearheaded by Joss Whedon. Tyler wanted our thoughts on episode 410, “Hush”, 516, “The Body”, and finally the musical episode, 607 “Once More With Feeling”. Are reactions are a bit mixed, but lively and spirited debate ensue, and A.Ron gets choked up thinking about robots having babies.