48. World War Z
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16, 2018
TGIF, right? Working hard or hardly working? On an all-new episode of the podcast, in an episode Matt calls “Mystic Stirrer” and Laci calls “The Tale of Two Bacons,” the Splendid Spouses discuss Stir Of Echoes, the movie from 1999 about a creepy kid who sees ghosts that isn’t The Sixth Sense. Then, it’s more hardscrabble workin’ folk in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River (2003).
LISTEN
47. Cars Trilogy
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 30, 2018
We may all go a little mad sometimes, but one thing that won’t drive you PSYCHO is listening to this podcast about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 shock-tastic thrills-a-minute slasher joint. Happy Halloween.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16, 2018
TGIF, right? Working hard or hardly working? On an all-new episode of the podcast, in an episode Matt calls “Mystic Stirrer” and Laci calls “The Tale of Two Bacons,” the Splendid Spouses discuss Stir Of Echoes, the movie from 1999 about a creepy kid who sees ghosts that isn’t The Sixth Sense. Then, it’s more hardscrabble workin’ folk in Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River (2003).
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 30, 2018
We may all go a little mad sometimes, but one thing that won’t drive you PSYCHO is listening to this podcast about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 shock-tastic thrills-a-minute slasher joint. Happy Halloween.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 22, 2018
In an extra-scary episode of the show, Laci “R.I.P.” Roth and Matt CHOKES talk about the classic Disney Halloween film Hocus Pocus (1993). But wait… classic? This pile of garbage?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 5, 2018
When Matt was in college, he took a film class where the professor showed Danny DeVito’s The War of the Roses (1989), a movie in which an affluent couple go through a bitter divorce. At the end of the movie the professor asked who in the class sided with Michael Douglas, and who sided with Kathleen Turner. The divide split evenly on gender lines—the women sided with Turner, the men with Douglas. So what now does a man/woman married couple think of this movie? Are they destined to divide like the college students, and head for a War of their own?
Also: They discuss the hype for A Star Is Born and predict how much they’ll like it.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24, 2018
It’s a Steven Spielberg double-header as Laci and Matt pit their cherished, beloved load-bearing beams against one another.
First up: Close Encounters Of the Third Kind (1977) whose title, we all know, refers to a physical interaction with an alien. We all know this.
Then it’s The Color Purple (1985), whose title, as we all know, refers to naturally occurring purple. We all know this.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 8, 2018
Get shibby with us as we discuss Dude, Where’s My Car?, and all its fascinating and devastating implications. What can the continuum transponder tell us about the effects of quantitative easing? How could Jesse and Chester have used Bayesian probability theory to determine where to first look for their car? And wouldn’t this movie be better if these two nice fellas were just boyfriends the whole time? Come on, guys.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: JULY 20, 2018
Synecdoche, New York is a life-affirming romp about how gosh-darn fun it is to make gorgeous works of art! (Maybe we misread it.)
Topics covered include mourning Philip Seymour Hoffman, traveling for work, how buying a house is basically buying a burning building that will smell, whether a nice person can be a great artist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and constructing your own reality on social media.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: JULY 10, 2018
After a month away, Load Bearing Beams returns to talk ‘hood… Parenthood, that is! Ron Howard’s 1989 feature warmed audiences’ hearts everywhere, but how does it hold up today?
Then Laci and Matt give real talk about child rearing, pregnancy, and the perpetual exhaustion that comes with being a parent, as well as the movies and TV shows that accurately show all of this.
Finally, they discuss Terms Of Endearment, James L. Brooks’s 1983 Oscar-winning classic about mothers, daughters, and children of all ages. Laci and Matt agree that it executes everything Parenthood is going for about 10,000 times better.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: JUNE 12, 2018
Brother Of The Show Elliott Stokes hops aboard to discuss all three of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: JUNE 1, 2018
Matt and Laci watched Little Nicky (2000) and Slums Of Beverly Hills (1998) two weeks ago and barely remember them. Still, they bravely trudge ahead and discuss their feelings on revisiting the two films after more than ten years.
PLUS: Thoughts on Solo: A Star Wars Story, more debate about the merits of the Foo Fighters, and an examination of when phone calls became the worst.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MAY 25, 2018
Due to a family emergency, Laci and Matt weren’t able to record a new episode this week, so instead we present seventeen short clips from the podcast that are just plum terrific.
LISTEN
Avengers: Infinity War (a.k.a. The Lost Episode)
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MAY 21, 2018
We lost most of this episode, but we salvaged a debate about whether or not the Foo Fighters are good and included a 20-minute bonus review of Avengers: Infinity War and Matt’s thoughts on the weirdness of how voice-over narration is used in the 1996 film Matilda.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MAY 11, 2018
Friend Of The Show Caleb Hogan joins the show live in studio to discuss his Listener Choice (because he’s a Listener as well!) movie: 2006’s Nacho Libre.
Jack Black plays Ignacio, a friar in rural southwestern Mexico who longs to be a luchador. But that makes this movie sound much more conventional than what it is, because, really, it’s just Napoleon Dynamite, but in Mexico instead of Idaho, and with a monastery instead of a high school, and with lucha wrestling instead of silly dancing.
Is Nacho merely a cucumber to deliver meme-worthy quotes like GET THAT CORN OUT OF MY FACE! that people who don’t get just don’t get? Or is something else going on here?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MAY 4, 2018
In an episode Laci calls “A City Of Their Own” and Matt calls “A Light Of Their Cities,” the Dangerous Dyad discuss 1992’s baseball picture A League Of Their Own and 1931’s alienation picture City Lights.
A League Of Their Own starts right off with the annoying wrap-around modern story that then flashes back to the action you bought your ticket for. Why do so many movies do this? Does League overcome this tiresome trope?
Then, City Lights is for many people a gateway drug into silent films in general and silent comedy in particular. It’s Charlie Chaplin’s tale of an outcast, shunned by society, finding love and connection in some surprising places. Laughter, and a few tears, ensue! Or do they?? What did Laci think watching her very first silent film?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 27, 2018
In 2001, Corky Romano rode a wave of movie vehicles led by Saturday Night Live alumni whose titles were the first and last names of their fictional protagonists. The movie was not a success. It derailed Chris Kattan’s career. It has a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the most poorly reviewed movie covered on the podcast.
But is it actually that bad? Could the critics have been correct? Or is there something more to this movie? Is it, perhaps, what Laci calls a cucumber?
Listen and find out. ALSO: We apologize for the audio quality, which is 12% worse than it normally is.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 20, 2018
In an episode Laci calls, “Ace Soup” and Matt calls, “A Detective, Duck!” the Cromulent Couple once again wade into the uncertain world of comedy. Comedy is hard to discuss. You either find something funny or you don’t.
Case in point: Duck Soup (1933), an 85-year-old movie that Laci, having never before seen a Marx Brothers movie, found utterly hilarious.
And case in counter-point: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), a movie heretofore unseen by Matt that is comparably new, yet seems incredibly dated.
Who is the best Marx? Is Jim Carrey funny? If Jim Carrey had brothers who made movies with him, would he be better? We answer these burning questions once and for all.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 13, 2018
Friday (1995) is a slice-of-life comedy from the mid-nineties that has spawned a million quotes and memes repeated ad infinitum. It’s one of those movies that’s hard to appreciate afresh. But Matt had never seen it, and Laci hadn’t seen it in a long time, so at a listener’s behest, they watched and talk about. To make a long story short: It’s really funny, and actually really deep.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: APRIL 6, 2018
Guys: things used to be weird.
In 1996, Beavis & Butt-Head Do America earned $61 million at the box office. Matt loved it as a teenager, and still loves it as an adult. But it leads to perhaps the biggest divide Laci and Matt have ever had on this podcast, as she is physically repulsed by it. What exactly is going on here?
Then, in The Pick-Up Artist, a film helmed by accused serial sexual predator James Toback, Robert Downey, Jr. is a sexual predator. But he’s charming! So we don’t know what to think. We get into our feelings about this baffling film.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 30, 2018
Listener Polliwogwannabe suggested Luc Besson’s 1994 classic Léon: The Professional, a film Laci mistook for a kids movie about a cartoon mouse. Turns out she had actually seen it before, because it fits right into her mid-nineties canon of thrillers featuring antiheroes in dark clothing who like to talk about pop singers. Matt had never seen it. WHAT DID WE THINK? Only one way to find out: By reading this sentence—we loved it! But you should still listen.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 23, 2018
In an episode Laci calls “The Black Bird Interviews” and that Matt calls “Vampires Of Malta,” the Peerless Pair discuss 1994’s vampire/journalism film Interview With the Vampire and 1941’s detective/raptor movie The Maltese Falcon. Topics covered include Tom Cruise’s career, Kirsten Dunst vs. Natalie Portman, the Twilight Saga, and Humphrey Bogart’s mouthpiece.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 16, 2018
A Listener joins us to talk about his Choice! Friend Of The Show Wade Hymel makes his triumphant return to LBB to discuss 2007’s The Bucket List, a movie about death and the meaning of life. And that’s what this episode is—a mediation on mortality, self-actualization, and the strange arc of human life, from infancy to mature adult to immature elderly person. Wade is technically a listener, so this fits into the whole scheme of Load Bearing Beams. Not gonna lie: This episode goes to some weird places.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 9, 2018
In an episode Laci calls “Rocky House” but that Matt calls “Rockin’ At the Dollhouse,” Laci and Matt discuss the feel-good movie of all time, Rocky (1976) and the feel-bad movie of all time, Welcome To the Dollhouse (1996) .
What follows is weirdly intense discussion about mortality, bullying, and happiness. Also: Matt’s senior class trip to Disney World sucked.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: MARCH 2, 2018
The Goonies (1985) is a movie beloved by many, but not by us. A listener suggested we watch it and reappraise it. We have many thoughts. For one, why do they even need a map when they just seem to fall down a coupla holes and land in a pirate ship? Anyway, just listen.
ALSO: Uninformed Oscar predictions.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: February 23, 2018
In an episode Laci calls “Ever Men” but that Matt calls “X1: X-Men Ever After,” the pair discuss Ever After (1998) and X-Men (2000), two movies that, to everyone’s surprise, are both pure delights!
In Ever After, Drew Barrymore deploys a most unconvincing British accent to play the French commoner Danielle de Barbarac who pulls off a most sinister rouse and pretends to be the Comtesse de Lancret! Love ensues. Good movie.
In X-Men, Hugh Jackman/Jack Hughman finds himself caught up in a war between Magneto, that most dastardly of villains who can create magnetic fields, and Professor X, who can read people’s minds unless they put on a helmet. Slashing ensues. Good movie.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 16, 2018
Jumanji Fever is sweeping America—nay, the world—and Load Bearing Beams catches the fever by viewing Welcome To the Jungle‘s predecessor, 1995’s much more somber, pensive, and scaled-down film, Jumanji .
A listener selected this movie for the show, as neither Laci nor Matt was a big fan of it growing up. But this movie is much beloved by millions of people, so the show sets out to figure out why. It’s a movie in which Robin Williams doesn’t get to Robin Williams, and the plot revolves largely around dead and emotionally unavailable parents… we have a winner?
Also: Laci has some feelings about Toodles, the levitating, tool-dispensing clock from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the newest edition of “Mickey’s Clubhouse Clubhouse.”
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: February 9, 2018
In an episode Laci calls “The Future Of the Empire” and Matt calls “Recording the Future,” Load Bearing Beams examines Back To the Future, Part II (1989) and Empire Records (1995). One a huge hit, the other a giant flop with a long afterlife on home video, and both a large source of internet chatter and memes.
Back To the Future, Part II was one of the first mainstream American movies to explore the implications and potential paradoxes of time travel. How does its depiction of time travel and the future world of 2015 hold up in 2018?
And Empire Records is the tale of a magical kingdom where a record store in the downtown of a small city somehow sells enough CDs and cassettes to pay a huge staff of misfits and transact $9,000 in cash in a single day! Even in 1995, could this possibly have been realistic?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: February 2, 2018
It’s a super-sized Listener’s Choice episode in which we cover THREE MOVIES! That’s right, we watched all three Austin Powers films at the suggestion of a listener, and we dig deep into all three on this podcast.
First up, it’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), a low-budget movie with an unlikely premise that was a moderate hit and somehow spawned an immensely popular and profitable franchise thanks to impressions that are easy to do and a litany of quotable memes. But how is it as a movie?
Then, it’s Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) or, as it’s known in Singapore, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shioked Me (which means, “Austin Powers: The spy who made me feel good.”). We can’t believe there was ever a world without Mini-Me!
And finally, we come to Austin Powers In Goldmember (2000), co-starring Beyoncé Knowles of the religious pop song group Destiny’s Child and Michael Caine of Jaws: The Revenge. Laci watched this movie 50 times as a teenager. What does she think of it now??
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: January 26, 2018
Back before Johnny Depp sucked, he starred in a movie called Blow (2001), the story of a mediocre, uninteresting drug dealer who can do no wrong… until he can do no right! Does this film pack the emotional punch for adult Laci that it did for teen Laci?
Then, LBB examines Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009), a bloated, confused, utterly fascinating adaptation of the classic graphic novel. Laci and Matt debate whether Rorshach is a flawed but admirable hero, or an overgrown male junior high school student who scrawls Nietzsche quotes in his notebook. Matt loved this movie so much that it inspired him to read a comic book for the first (and still only!) time in his life. Could this movie possibly hold up?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: January 19, 2018
A listener suggested The Lost Boys (1987), and LBB watches and reviews it. This movie is kind of delightful and, according to Laci, is a thorough and unrelenting look at the destructiveness of heroin addiction. Matt dislikes Haim, likes Feldman.
ALSO: We debut our new recurring feature, the Mickey’s Clubhouse Clubhouse, in which Laci pokes holes in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, a TV program for toddlers.
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: January 12, 2018
LBB is back for a new year! First up: It’s the first X-Files movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998). Matt loved this television show as a teenager and, by proxy, loved this movie. What does Laci think, having never seen it and being only minimally familiar with the TV series? Also: Much discussion about TV shows turned into movies.
Then, Laci reexamines The Boondock Saints (1999), a movie about which she says, “It’s something that I loved a lot and very intensely for about four years, because I thought it meant I was a certain kind of cool girl who, just, you know, got it.” But how does it hold up now, and what did Matt think, after having preexisting prejudices against this movie despite never having seen it?
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 15, 2017
SPOILERS for this bonus mini-episode! Matt and Laci, fresh from having seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi, share their thoughts with each other. Matt’s a huge Star Wars fan, Laci until recently had never seen the original movies but is a big fan of The Force Awakens… what did they think? Again, please do not listen if you haven’t yet seen this movie. We SPOIL the porg out of this film. SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL Darth Vader is Luke’s father!
LISTEN
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: December 14, 2017
Matt is finding it very difficult to think of anything other than Star Wars two days before The Last Jedi comes out, so the gang revisits the Star Wars saga by looking at The Empire Strikes Back (1980), widely considered the best film in the series.
BUT FIRST it’s Ron Howard’s Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), a movie that takes the Grinchverse and expands it into directions you never knew you wanted… because you didn’t want them. Yeah, this movie’s actually very boring and visually unappealing and largely forgettable, but it at least leads to a long conversation about the merits of Jim Carrey.
THEN: The first episode of Load Bearing Beams started with Laci viewing the original Star Wars film (which, by the way, should only be called Star Wars), and Matt insisted that the flaws she found in the film would be corrected in the sequel. Surely she must love or at least see the masterful merits of The Empire Strikes Back, no?
ALSO: Laci explains why crooners are the worst.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: December 4, 2017
Let’s talk What About Bob: In this Frank Oz picture from 1991, Bill Murray plays Bob, and he is just so silly but you can’t help but love him, the scamp! And Richard Dreyfuss is his cranky therapist who can’t get his family to see how annoying his patient is, because the patient has followed his family on their vacation, see, but even though this is highly inappropriate and predatory behavior, Dreyfuss’s family is charmed out of their very seats by Bob and his antics. We are all Richard Dreyfuss’s Dr. Leo Marvin. We are all Bob. In the words of Robert Frost, “Where I have fallen on the Marvin/Bob spectrum on has made all the difference.”
Then, Laci and Matt discuss Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors (1991). How does this film hold up today, given Allen’s biography and the cultural climate of the current moment? Is this movie a confession? What does it say about you if you still want to enjoy Woody Allen’s movies? Yeah, this was a pretty heavy episode, where even talking about the “friend zone” was weighty and ponderous. Enjoy!
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: November 17, 2017
Laci and Matt return, if not better than ever then at least not diminished, to discuss the films Jurassic Park III (2001) and My Girl (1991).
First up, it’s Jurassic Park III [07:55], a movie selected by Matt because he loves the first Jurassic Park and this one also has dinosaurs on an island, so it’ll do. The Roth-Stokeses assess this movie and its place in the larger Jurassic canon, especially when compared with Jurassic World.
Then it’s My Girl [27:40]. What can you say about My Girl? This is a movie. Originally called Born Jaundiced, this treacly piece of ’70s nostalgia coheres brilliantly with the type of treacly ’90s nostalgia in which this podcast traffics so frequently.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: October 20, 2017
Buffy is a beloved TV show to many, but it doesn’t mean s**t to Laci, who prefers the 1992 film [05:55] of the same name. It’s the tale of a Chosen One cheerleader doing battle against the occult and being courted by 56-year-old Luke Perry. What about this movie so spoke to Laci as a young person, and how does she feel about it now? And how funky is your chicken?
Then: Citizen Kane (1941) [20:30] is generally considered to be the greatest English-language film ever made. Matt has seen it many times, but it’s been a while since the last time, and he’s a little nervous in showing it to Laci for the first time. What do their fresh eyes have to say about this classic? Does Orson Welles age convincingly? Were people really depressed in the 1800s?
I’ll bet you five you’re not alive if you don’t enjoy this ep’.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: October 6, 2017
As an October hurricane heads for their house, Laci and Matt turn their attention to Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Blade Runner (1982), a set of movies about inscrutable men and the women who can’t help but love them.
First, Laci and Matt tackle Napoleon Dynamite [03:10], a movie about which Laci no longer knows how she feels, but which Matt calls “not unenjoyable.” But does this collection of awkward quirks ultimately amount to something more than Mad Libs: The Movie? And is the secret to this film’s enduring legacy merely that Napoleon’s voice is easy to impersonate?
Then there’s Blade Runner [23:27], a film utterly ruined for Laci by how much better its subject was handled in Westworld. This movie inspires one of this podcast’s most heated arguments: Is Harrison Ford intentionally playing against type in Blade Runner, or is it exactly his type?
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: September 23, 2017
We welcome Sara and Steve Jones to discuss A Little Princess (1995) [02:00] and Red Dawn (1984) [29:00]. We ran the gamut of topics in this episode: guerilla warfare, survivalism, what makes us cry in movies, chimney sweeps, the Ramayana, the Cold War, Jeff Goldblum’s daughter from The Lost World: Jurassic Park, amnesia, Harry Potter, and much more. And is that Ser Davos, the Onion Knight, as the titular little princess’s father? It is! Enjoy!
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: September 8, 2017
It (1990) is an annoyingly-titled movie* about the bond among a group of children in the 1950s and their whimsical adventures. In other words, it’s computer engineered to aggravate Matt. In our discussion of this chronicle of the Losers Club and their battles against an evil alien clown-spider, we discuss, among other things, trypophobia, 90s Friday-night sitcoms, Laci’s adolescent desire to be the girl who hangs out with the guys, and what it means for a topic to be Buzzfeed-y. Also, we give our hot take on clowns, which is that they are not scary.
*Not actually a movie.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: September 6, 2017
Like the home video release of 1990’s It, we’re splitting this episode into two VHS tapes. In cassette 1 we discuss Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), one of Matt’s favorite movies ever. Laci knew nothing about it, but was assured by her husband that its many puzzlebox mysteries would pay off in the end. Do they? We also discuss what predictions about the future got wrong and get to the bottom of whether or not we’re all living in a computer simulation.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: August 23, 2017
Your married co-hosts debate Laci’s grand unifying theory of movies. Must the movie have stakes? How big must these stakes be? (Big.) And can the stakes get bigger than they are in All the President’s Men (1976) [05:52], in which the president’s top aids are tied to a burglary operation via reporters’ digging? Together, we dig in.
Then we fall in love with Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette in True Romance (1993) [29:30]. Awwwwww! Also: What’s up with Quentin Tarantino?
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: August 9, 2017
Drop of the Fred with the Sickness in this spooktacular examination of childhood mental illness and mindless consumerism. That’s right, it’s 1991’s Drop Dead Fred (Rotten Tomatoes score: 9%) and 1978’s Dawn Of the Dead!
Again, Drop Dead Fred [02:48] has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 9%. Nine! Its reputation is far worse than any other movie covered on this show. Is it really that bad? Why is Laci is so fond of movies with silly stop motion effects? Is this movie actually a nuanced look at depression, divorce, and loneliness? Maybe!
And then there’s Dawn Of the Dead [19:05], helmed by the recently-deceased George A. Romero. This classic of the zombie apocalypse genre with its commentary on American capitalism in the late 20th century mainly leads to a 30-minute conversation about malls.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2017
What do we really know?
Is the future predetermined?
Are human beings really free?
These questions and more are addressed and resolved in the two movie selections Load Bearing Beams, episode 9: Alex Proyas’s Knowing (2009) [03:30] and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless (1995) [32:10].
Matt argues that even though Knowing is lumped in with the terrible cash-in movies of Nicolas Cage’s later career, it’s actually a thrilling and thought-provoking film. Is he right? And could anything be scarier than a weirdo kid furiously scribbling numbers on a piece of paper?
Also: Laci explains how Clueless is why she’s able to sleep at night.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2017
LBB welcomes its first guests: romantically entangled young power couple Sam Hall and Wade Hymel. Sam and Wade join Matt and Laci to discuss their own load-bearing beam movies.
Sam’s selection is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) [02:13]. But even though she is the guest, Matt seizes the pulpit to go on at length about the Harry Potter books—despite this being a podcast about movies. The gang muddles through Matt’s gasbaggery to get to the bottom of whether or not Prisoner of Azkaban makes any sense to non-book readers, debate whether or not Hermione’s academic career is tainted by her use of the Time Turner, and spend a surprising amount of time wondering whether or not that’s really Gary Oldman (It is.).
Then Wade brings forth his film, 1995’s post-Cold War James Bond spy satellite electrokillray thriller GoldenEye [49:18]. And what is the deal with Pierce Brosnan, anyway? How important was the Nintendo 64 game to the legacy of this movie? Those topics and more—namely, Epcot rides and Spider-Man actors—are addressed in this supersized episode.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2017
More fliffity-floo! Laci presents one of the best comedies ever made about an aging stage actress who takes a de-aging potion and then gets murdered by her husband but she can’t die so she sticks around and continues her feud with a rival who took the same potion: Death Becomes Her (1992) [02:00]. Why were movies like this so appealing back in the early nineties, and why don’t they get made anymore? This is yet another of Laci’s movies to feature bodies doing hilariously bendy things they shouldn’t be doing with the aid of pre-computer special effects… is this her “thing”? Laci also explains what made her recently turn against Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn.
Then, cast your mind back to 2004, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing and Tom Holland was but a romantic thought in his parents’ heads*. Matt’s selection this week is Spider-Man 2 (2004) [26:37], which he says is the best superhero movie ever made. Is it?
*Citation needed.
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2017
It’s our highly-anticipated Ampersand Episode! Laci & Matt take a look at the historical seafaring epic Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) [02:55], and Laci puts aside her prejudice against blondes to embrace Paul Bettany’s performance as Charles Darwin Stephen Maturin, then conducts some in-depth research into the number of Russell Crowe characters whose names begin with the letter J.Next, the pair takes a look at Girl Stand By Me Now & Then (1995) [39:53], a movie that teaches the importance of friendship. Did you know that friendship is important? It is. Matt is yet again subjected to a movie about teenagers… what did he think? Is Laci just as moved now by Christina Ricci’s tears as she was then? And has anybody ever cared about a friendship bracelet as much as Sam (Gaby Hoffmann) does in this film? (No.)
05. Beetlejuice / Films of Tim Burton
About this episode
04B. The Craft
About this episode
About this episode
About this episode
About this episode
About this episode
RELEASE DATE: May 12, 2017
In the debut episode, Laci and Matt discuss the concept of load-bearing-beam movies, and then do a deep dive into their first selections. Matt chooses “Star Wars” (1977) [4:22] and Laci chooses “Dirty Dancing” (1987) [52:50]. Many important issues are tackled, including why the original “Star Wars” movie should only be referred to as “Star Wars”; how the Kellerman Resort is basically a summer camp and Patrick Swayze is a counselor; whether or not Mark Hamill is a good actor; why Baby would be allowed to dance at the Sheldrake; why Luke Skywalker seems untroubled by his family being brutally murdered; and how Patrick Swayze traveled back in time from the 1980s to ruin pop music. Will the Death Star destroy the Rebel Alliance? Will Johnny get his summer bonus? Laci and Matt get to the bottom of these questions and many more.
Some Things About Laci Roth & Matt Stokes
