As a followup to Alternate Ending’s Top 5 Belated Sequels, Brennan is sitting down with Carrie to discuss a movie both of them just watched for the very first time… ROCKY!

Join us as we discuss the moments in the film that haven’t aged quite so well, Carrie drops a bizarre truth bombs about the biology of empathy pain, and we generally just have a conversation that certainly won’t make anyone mad under any circumstances!

As soon as we hit 4 content feedback survey submissions and with 50% of those saying they were interested in a podcast dedicated to television, Rob deemed it necessary that the Alternate Ending community know our immediate feelings on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Unlike Tim, who after a long, stressful day unwinds with a little Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, sometimes Rob and I just won't make it through a 2-hour-and-something movie, by the time the kids have come down 17 times to tell us their thirsty or remind us that they hate school.  So instead, what usually happens is we have a mini-marital spat about "somebody finding something good" (it's actually not that mini, it's one of our biggest rage-triggers) and one of us ends up wielding the unwanted power of finding something interesting for the next 45 minutes before we drift off.

So we'll just say it in hushed voices.  We love TV.  There. It's out there. We love movies too, but we also love what TV has to offer our fatigued-parent lives.  The other thing is, we love talking about TV too... we bore our friends and neighbors with all of our favorites.  It's fair to say that Rob is desperate for TV community... even my Dad is ghosting him...

All that said, the only way Rob could get me on board with starting a pod spin-off is to call this what it is, this is a podcast pilot.  A 6 episode pilot - A Worthy Binge, where Rob and I will be joined by Brennan Klein to pick our way through the first season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier!

Episodes will be released every Wednesday for the next 6 weeks.

We hope you'll share your thoughts on the episode in the comments or submit your questions our pre-submit your thoughts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode we're covering to [email protected] to get in on the discussion!

In Worth Mentioning, we cover Search Party, Servant and BrainDead.

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With a big thank you to Patreon subscriber Carter, we officially had the most fun we've had in a LONG TIME covering our Top 5 belated sequels.  Despite having more overlap than we've had in awhile, we still manage to find ourselves carefully belittling each others picks.  You know, like real friends do.

We had a lot to catch up on and lots of news to share! In worth mentioning, Rob reviews Flora & Ulysses and Carrie brings her loving feelings for I Care A Lot. Tim shares is not so loving feelings on Cherry but is able to rebound with much admiration for the Across 110th Street, in celebration of the life and many great performances of Yaphet Kotto.  Tim and Rob both commiserate on Zack Snyder's Justice League Parts 2-3, while Carrie briefly naps in her chair.

Thanks to a hilarious "Tim's Sack" submission we all share our most horrifying movie date experience. Ahhhh sweet memories.

Our Amazon movie rental winner this week was Hunter Allen, highly recommend using it to rent Mary Poppins Returns.

Upcoming news:

Thanks to everybody who has already responded to our 2021 Feedback Survey!  We've been overwhelmed by the thoughtful feedback and constructive criticism.  Your thoughts will directly help us decide where to dedicate our time in Alternate Ending over the next year. If you haven't responded, the survey is open until April 5th! 

Movie Club Movie Trivia is Friday, March 26th at 8p cst!

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As a followup to the Spoiler Alert episode discussing Kurosawa’s Kagemusha and Ran, Brennan is sitting down with Tim to discuss the Godzilla franchise, many of which were directed by Kurosawa’s compatriot Honda Ishiro! Join us as we discuss the various horrible forms that baby Godzilla has taken throughout the years, our top (and bottom) 3 Godzilla films, and even get a scoop on next week’s main feed episode!"

I love my kids.  Though, between you and me, I also really loved my life before kids too.  I've definitely sunken into all of the parenting cliches of glueing finger paintings all over my house, seeing my friends almost never and saying things like "because I said so" a million times a day.  The thing is, I swear used to be fun.  I never missed a party (like never ever, actually, I probably should have skipped a few). I traveled, hiked, biked, spiked... I was in a band for Godsakes!  But having kids is like a constant battle, waged on your sense of self, and they usually win.  I said I love my kids, right?

I don't think it's a film for everybody.  In fact, I know Tim is going to want to claw his ear drums out.  But the thing about Yes Day is that I feel seen. Miguel Arteta and the writing team know me.  They know that I used to be fun.  They know that I thought I was going to be the "fun parent." They know I can't be because my husband is made of unset pudding and can't bear to tell the kids "no".  They know that I'm the one that understands the importance of not wasting food.  They know that I'm doing the right thing when I don't help them clean up all of their messes.  They know that most of the time I feel like a terrible Mom, because trying to raise good humans sometimes means "saying no." **Deep inhales**

I know I say this all the time, but gosh, what a nice guy. Miguel Arteta is a Puerto Rican director known for his independent film Chuck & Buck , The Good Girl and Like a Boss. It seems like directors are always so relieved when we love their movies.  There was an audible weight lifted as we shared that our whole family gave Yes Day a big thumbs up.  It's been hard for us to find family films that all of four of us connect with, so lately we've defaulted to some of the classics (DON'T re-watch The Mighty Ducks, DO re-watch Jumanji).

We hope you enjoy hearing more about Yes Day, from Miguel Arteta.

Yes Day is available on streaming March 12, 2021!

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Real talk.  The most common question I get from friends about Alternate Ending is, "how do you juggle it all, on top of jobs and kids and the rest of your life?" The motivational speech answer is, we juggle and take on too much, until one of us feels like we're on the verge of a panic attack and then the other person rises to the occasion, if the other breaks.  Feel free to write that down in your wellness journal.  On this particular occasion, Rob was on day 5 of the same pair of sweatpants and his face was twitching.  And that, is the story of how I ended up going-it-alone on a press interview for Language Lessons with Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales.

Without having participated in a press junket, I over-planned and prepped a million questions, because what if nobody else remembered to join? Or what if there were only two of us and the other interviewer underprepared and I had to carry the conversation? OR what if Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales realized at the exact same moment that we were destined to be best friends and we ended up talking for hours?   As it turns out, real press don't forget about their interviews with movie stars or get confused with time zones and they come prepared with really great questions that make me question everything about my originality.

Few movies focus on true platonic friendship.  There always seems to be an underlying romantic intent, but in the case of Language Lessons it's ends up being so much more about how our need for human connection and how our empathy drives us forward.  I should mention the the film is almost entirely captured on ZOOM, but the screens that separate them do not detract from the characters chemistry.  The film's premise is that Adam (Mark Duplass) has been gifted Spanish lessons from his partner Will (Desean Terry) with a young Cuban woman Cariño (Natalie Morales).  The film takes such unexpected gut-punching turns that make "another ZOOM" movie uniquely fresh.

Read the full Language Lessons review here from Brennan Klein

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Our next podcast topic comes courtesy of Patreon subscriber Andrew, who had a simple request: watch and discuss two of the richest, most exhausting costume dramas ever filmed. It's a Spoiler Alert this time around, as we dive deep into the late epics by the legendary Japanese director Kurosawa Akira: the 1980 Palme d'Or winner Kagemusha, and the monumental King Lear adaptation Ran, from 1985. That's almost six hours of the most sumptuous pageantry Japanese cinema (or world cinema, for that matter) has to offer, and six hours of the most morally complicated anti-war fury as well. It's no small task to undertake both of these movies in one go, but we're up for the challenge!

In Worth Mentioning we're cover Tom & Jerry, Coming 2 America, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, Raya and the Last Dragon, Language Lessons and Yes Day.

At the Ready premiered at Sundance 2021 and I was super excited about it.  It appeared on my most anticipated films of Sundance list, in fact.  The headline reads "a group of seniors train to become border control agents at El Paso's Horizon High School, near the US/Mexico border." I surmised that the film would feature stupid kids that don't have a big-picture view on humanity. Then, over the course of At the Ready I was going to feel all warm and fuzzy as these kids are given an education on empathy and how we treat other humans.  Well, I was wrong.  The the small-minded view on humanity, instead fell on me.

At the Ready is a documentary that aims to show the world "in the gray".  Immigration is such a polarizing topic and the last several years have pushed us into very tightly woven perspectives.  At the Ready focuses on El Paso, Texas because its demographic is predominantly hispanic, so the officers who police the border are largely of Mexican descent.  At the Ready focuses on the lives of a handful of students that are a part of this "border control" training program so that we can better understand the perspectives of why in the world this job would be appealing.  I'll offer a bit about the gray parts (but I encourage you to see At the Ready for yourself). Not to mince words, these jobs are very well-paid and offer solid benefits.  Beyond that, in El Paso, border agents are seen as jobs that actually are a service to not only the US, but also to families coming to the border.  In fact, the perspective is as a border agent you are helping to guide and provide needed services.  The job is respected and valued in the community. Admittedly, with my 2000 mile away view from Madison, WI, I just always pictured a bunch of dudes with buzz cuts, that got picked on in high school and decided they wanted to exert control over people in need.  But see, there's that small-minded view.

I told Crow right out of the gate that I see the world in black and white.  Then she told me she sees the world in the gray (which is the accurate way to see the world, btw).  So what I'm saying is, the interview went well.  Crow shared how her background in reporting enables her to share the origins of perspectives she may not sure.  I asked her if it's difficult to not feel the frustration of documenting the adults and educators who express ideologies incongruous to her own.  She said no, it's not hard. Because she's a documentarian and not an emotionally-charged psychopath like me.  Well, she didn't say that last part, but she thought it for sure.

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Welcome to the inaugural episode of Take 2, a sideshow hosted by AE contributor Brennan Klein, where every other week we will dive deep into a movie mentioned on the previous episode.

As a followup to the Top 5 Love Scenes episode, Brennan is sitting down with Carrie to discuss a movie she had never seen before: 2005’s BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN!

Join us as we discuss our differing opinions on who is the more frustrating partner, Carrie goes to great lengths to make sure she can see every detail of the tent scene, and Brennan teaches her about a LOT of gay sex stuff!

Wild Indian stars Makwa (Michael Greyeyes), a young Anishinaabe boy, is dealing with two pretty terrible parents..  He's abused, he's neglected and all of the trauma pours over into his mental health.  He and his only friend, Ted-O, like to escape by playing in the woods, until the day Makwa murders a schoolmate.  It's a shocking and unexpected moment that leaves you considering whether to blame nature or nurture.  After covering up the crime, the two boys go on to live verydifferent lives. Now, as adult men, we see these two different paths converge and the outcome is once again, unsettling.  Makwa has become professionally powerful but has not shed the ghosts from his past.  Makwa is juggling the married man life with his wife (Kate Bosworth), his executive life where we meet his eager employee (Jesse Eisenberg) and his sociopathic/creeper life.  Talk about a lot going on.

It was a pleasure to sit down with the mind behind the film score of Wild Indian Gavin Brivik.  The candid conversation flowed easily and could have probably continued for a few more hours.  Brivik is a composer best known for his work on the Netflix original series Living Undocumented (2019), the 90th Academy Award Nominated film My Nephew Emmett(2018) and the Blumhouse/Netflix Original film Cam (2018).

We talk about breaking into the industry, hitching your cart the "right horse" and how sometimes you have to place bets on yourself and a film to get your foot in the door into Hollywood.  Albeit for many of these up-and-coming score designers, the cart has no wheels and the the bets are free.

Wild Indian hasn't been picked up for release yet, but in the meantime, enjoy Gavin Brivik's work!

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