And the Winner Should Have Been...

We're back, but this time not on our regular nonsense. We have a guest on the podcast for the first time. (We're counting those other two times as guest hosts because Mark wasn't there.) Adam (whom you might know as @galooticus on the social-media-formerly-known-as-Twitter) joins us to discuss his four movie choices. They're all considered to one degree or another Cult Classics, but Adam admits that he mostly chose them in an effort to troll Bob. Joke's on him, though; Bob liked them all well enough.

Do beware for SPOILERS! that lurk throughout. Hail to the king, baby.

00:00 Podcast and guest intro

03:22 Duel

13:35 Strange Brew

19:07 Max von Sydow

25:10 Bob claims Strange Brew is just like Nolan's The Odyssey

25:45 Tremors

31:59 Sequels to Tremors

33:40 Bob is failing to remember Ben Stiller's name

36:52 Army of Darkness

47:06 Bob's an idiot, that's two totally different people (and Bob was mixing up the names) Duke Henry from Army of Darkness is Richard Grove and Airk the Red from Willow is Gavin O'Herlihy. In his defense...well, no, he's just dumb.

52:09 Wrapping up; will Adam return?

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Quicker turnaround for a quicker podcast. Mark wanted to talk about The Odyssey, so Bob went and saw it in the theater and now you get to hear us yammer about it for 30 minutes or so. Obviously it will contain many SPOILERS! , but there is also some desultory conversation at the very end about some other movies worth watching that, oddly for us, we don't spoil. Enjoy!

00:00 Intro

00:36 The Odyssey

01:33 Cinema format digression

04:10 Back to the movie itself

22:41 Other odds and ends we've watched (no spoilers)

25:45 Bob says Spielberg should retire

28:00 Thoughts on voice-acting

29:34 Wrapping up

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Back much quicker with our 75th episode. That's about all the fanfare we had planned. This episode we're discussing the debut features from a variety of directors. Most of the movies are rather older, but if you don't believe in statutes of limitation on such things, beware the fearsome SPOILERS! that lurk in the podcast ahead.

00:00 Intro and topic
01:42 Selecting the films
04:21 Mark's first choice: Eraserhead
07:30 All the Dunes episode
11:42 Bob's first choice: sex, lies, and videotape
20:47 Mark's second choice: Following
26:57 Takeshi's Castle
27:56 Bob's second choice: Violent Cop
34:52 Mark and Bob's third choice: The Duellists
48:32 Other contenders
52:33 Wrapping up

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Recorded months ago, it was a tough edit (as I say near the end of the episode), but I also got a job in the interim and there's been less time for unpaid frivolity. Tardy or no, we hope you enjoy our ramblings on the topic of SF films and, as always

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Listen at your own peril for having plots of the movies mentioned told to you in advance. If you want to just listen to the parts about movies you've seen, we provide this handy set of timecodes. Enjoy!

00:00 Intro and audio woes

01:25 Stalker

17:05 Annihilation

18:56 Blade Runner

31:08 Akira

31:58 Akira slide

38:13 Dark City

43:45 Paprika

54:55 Moon

1:06:18 Robot & Frank (no spoilers; we promise)

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Bob's elder daughter jumped at the chance to rebut what she viewed as the vile slander of a beloved (by her) Christmas film The Holiday. (And talk about Christmas movies in general.) Since she visited Bob for the holidays, they sat down and chewed the fat about Christmas cinema. Enjoy a bonus very specialer episode! Though, to be sure, beware the ever-lurking SPOILERS!

00:10 Intro

02:03 The Holiday

11:38 Elf

14:33 Bob is trying, and failing, to think of Rocky Horror Picture Show

16:31 Swingers

19:45 The Muppet Christmas Carol

27:45 Klaus

32:51 Die Hard

33:44 Bob should be (and is) ashamed. He got this twisted with Lethal Weapon which Black wrote. He did not write Die Hard, but there it is. We'll blame this on an exccess of "Christmas Cheer" in his eggnog. He's gonna do something similar (though perhaps not as bad) a few seconds later when he says Black was responsible for Iron Man 2, when it was Iron Man 3.

35:07 It's a Wonderful Life

37:42 Christmas in Connecticut

39:50 Holiday Inn and White Christmas

40:05 Bob's half-right, it opens on Christmas Eve and ends on New Year's

49:29 Miracle on 34th Street

53:20 Wrapping up

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Back after a longer interlude since the last time we tried to record we had catastrophic technical problems. After Bob's daughter complained to him that she can't listen to most episodes since they spoil movies she hasn't seen. So, this time around, a very special episode that only contains movies which she has already seen.

If you're interested in having your tastes pandered to, reach out. Who knows?

00:10 Introduction

03:15 Three new movies for Mark

08:07 Bob's theme idea that he shoehorned in

09:26 Knives Out

23:10 The Holiday

36:51 The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

43:55 The Lost City

50:56 La La Land

58:19 Wrapping Up

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Trying something new again this episode; Bob and Mark discuss some soundtracks. What kind of musical expertise and knowledge do they bring to the topic? Almost nothing. Is it a list of their favorites? Not necessarily. You might like it anyway. Fewer spoilers than usual, though we disdain caution around such things as always.

00:00 Intro and disclaimer

03:57 First soundtrack

In the Mood for Love (soundtrack)

11:25 Source for theme

Yumeji

16:39 Second soundtrack

Perfect Days (soundtrack)

21:34 The word Bob is failing to remember is "komorebi"

24:51 Third soundtrack

A Clockwork Orange (soundtrack)

25:11 It's been a couple years since we talked about this film

Kubrick/Hitchcock episode

31:50 The greatest piece of music ever written (in Bob's opinion)

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, 4th Movement (This is not the best rendition of it, but it's okay. ~ Bob)

33:26 Music that didn't make the soundtrack

Wendy Carlos additional music (It was at this point in the edit that Bob discovered that Wendy Carlos was born Walter Carlos. Thus the original album title in the link.)

37:20 Fourth soundtrack

Sparrow (soundtrack)

41:00 Clip from the film

Stairs

42:11 Region B disc

Aussie Blu-Ray

44:18 Winding down and wrapping up

44:58 Film scores

Every Frame a Painting

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

This time around Bob and Mark lean right into the pretentiousness and discuss the French cinema they enjoy. (For the title we decided to go for the middle choice of "films;" seems midway between "cinema" and "movies.") We do less spoiling than usual, but you should still beware. The dreaded SPOILER may rear its head at any moment in our podcast.

00:00 Intro

03:45 Le Samourai

07:01 Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

11:26 Disorder (Maryland)

18:39 Au Revoir, Les Enfants

24:28 My Dinner With Andre

26:59 Three Colors: White

33:41 L'Argent

39:04 Wasabi

43:15 Le Cercle Rouge

46:50 Army of Shadows

51:43 Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot

55:21 Odds and Ends

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002), The Count of Monte Cristo (2024), Gankutsuou, The Count of Monte Cristo (Depardieu), Amélie, The Red Turtle, A Prophet

1:02:12 Wrapping up

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

This episode we catch up to 1985 and evaluate the 5 films from 1984 nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. It's been a while since the last episode, but to make up for it, it's a bit longer than usual? Anyway, this will be the last decade in series that we look at for now since we've already done an episode on the Best Picture nominees from 1995, 2005, and 2015. As always, beware of the fearsome spoiler that lurks throughout, and enjoy!

00:00 Introduction

04:27 A Soldier's Story

18:25 Places in the Heart

27:40 A Passage to India

45:39 The Killing Fields

54:26 Interlude about ranking nominees by vote totals (Bob was right in his gut reaction: voting results are not made publicly available)

55:51 Amadeus

01:09:45 Films from this year featured in other episodes of our podcast: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Star Trek III, The Terminator, Dune, Blood Simple

01:14:40 Random odds and ends to conclude

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: ⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

So...there were some challenges with this one. We do apologize for the slow release pace, but in this case the audio required a lot of work to tune up. We're talking Best Picture for the 47th Academy Awards (films from 1974). SPOILERS abound, as always.

00:00 Intro

00:57 A good year?

03:21 The Conversation

12:25 Gene Hackman interlude

13:35 (Yes, yes; we were thinking of A Few Good Men)

18:14 The Godfather Part II

34:53 Chinatown

48:53 Lenny

55:07 The Towering Inferno

1:02:34 Digression about film rights and availability of old films

1:08:00 Quick review of other notable films from 1974

1:12:40 Our picks for Best Picture

1:14:13 (We are moving ahead a decade)

Intro and Outro music excerpted without alteration other than length and volume from AcidJazz by Kevin McLeod under a Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode