#BoyfriendMaterial: The Ryan Gosling Podcast

It’s right there in the title, but it’s still a bit of a surprise that Murder by Numbers is our second “Ryan Gosling as a murderer” movie in a row. It’s clear now that by the time he’d go on to portray Robert Durst, Ryan Gosling had quite the history of cinematic murders under his belt. In this episode, we talk about the film’s astronomical budget (despite its made-for-TV look) and its legendary cinematographer (you’ll never believe who it is!). We also talk about what may be the greatest Ryan Gosling moment in a movie to date, his portrayal as a cool high school kid, and his burgeoning romance with Sandra Bullock. It’s hard to say whether or not Murder by Numbers is a good movie, but after last week’s mixed bag in The United States of Leland, it’s difficult to go anywhere but up.

Several episodes ago (or several years from now, in a normal, non-podcast timeline), Ryan Gosling played a murderer in (essentially) Robert Durst. The United States of Leland shows where murdering Gosling got his start. (Or does it? Is there more murder in Gosling's career? We'll find out together!) In this episode, we discuss the tender side of Gosling as a misunderstood murderer, the sadness of his eyes under that floppy head of hair, and the veritable "who's who" of actors who would go on to become stars. We also reflect back on our guesses for this movie's most and least #BoyfriendMaterial moments and wonder if we came anywhere close to the truth. As we enter the home stretch of #BoyfriendMaterial, there's very little charted waters ahead of us. What will the next nine episodes hold for us? Hopefully, more Gosling as a murderer!

The Notebook has been the White Whale of #BoyfriendMaterial. From the very beginning of the podcast, Joey has been looking forward to finally watching what may be *the* Ryan Gosling movie, while Joe Two counted down the days until they got to talk about it. The time has finally come, after the Joes watched it together and recorded live in-person. Did Joey like it? Did he cry? Was the movie worth the wait? Listen and find out!

We've had a good run on #BoyfriendMaterial so far, but we were bound to hit a clunker sooner or later, which we did with Stay. While it's not a completely terrible movie -- and Joey doesn't regret calling it the worst movie he saw all year -- its smug confidence in how cool it is makes this the worst Ryan Gosling movie to date. In this episode, we talk about the incredibly stacked cast, wonder where it all went wrong, and try to imagine a version of this movie directed by David Fincher. (Spoiler: it's this movie, but good.)

Not only is Half Nelson one of Ryan Gosling's best performances (netting him his first Oscar nom), it's also the feature film debut of the directorial team behind Captain Marvel! While we still have some big movies left to come (here's looking at you, The Notebook), Half Nelson sort of represents a pivot point between the more obscure half of Gosling's career and his vault into superstardom. We discuss the many weird things Gosling has in his hands, his white boy dancing, and our many worries while watching this movie.

Fracture is the most brain mush movie we’ve had so far in #BoyfriendMaterial, which means Joey hates it and Joe Two loves it. This movie is basically two hours of people saying, "Hey! How dumb does Ryan Gosling look? Pretty dumb, right?" In this episode, we talk about the movie’s connections to The Devil’s Advocate, Ryan Gosling’s sudden obsession with this case, the movie’s wild leaps through time and relationships... and wonder if any of that really matters in the end, considering how little this movie adheres to everything we hold so dear on this podcast.

Lars and the Real Girl falls in the heart of a real great run of #BoyfriendMaterial movies, and it's exactly what the doctor ordered after Blue Valentine. Not fully a comedy, not fully a drama, this movie straddles the line between laughter and tears and romance in a way that only a weirdo Ryan Gosling movie can. In this episode, we talk about how this town is the kindest town in history, whether or not this could be a Fight Club situation, and whether or not this movie is a secret prequel to the movie Drive. As always, we recount the movie's most and least #BoyfriendMaterial moments, but this time with a twist: how good of a boyfriend is Ryan Gosling to a Real Doll?

Who’s ready to be emotionally devastated? Blue Valentine is one of Ryan Gosling’s best movies, one of his most beautiful, and one of his most depressing. It’s the first of two team-ups for Gosling and Derek Cianfrance (before The Gos Beyond the Pines), and boy does Cianfrance have a vision for Gosling as a dirtbag! In this episode, we recount the times we cried, talk about the most and least #BoyfriendMaterial moments of the movie, and the crazy behind-the-scenes making-of details from this movie. We also talk about how Derek Cianfrance wants to be Richard Linklater, and how much of a bummer it is that he hasn’t made more movies.

Before Andrew Jarecki made The Jinx, before we all felt in love with Burpin’ Bobby Durst, we saw Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst in All Good Things. Without the aid of resident historian Mike Manzi, we find ourselves thrown all the way back to the 1970s and 1980s, trying to make sense of Robert Durst’s (or, ahem, David Marks’s) murky history. In this episode, we ask, “Hey Gos, what’s in your hands?”, worry about poor sweet Kirsten Dunst, and find ourselves among NBC comedy royalty (via the likes of Nick Offerman, Kristen Wiig, and William Jackson Harper) in a decidedly unfunny story. We hit the trifecta of other versions of Ryan Gosling — Gosling as a child, Gosling as an old man, and Gosling as a woman — and pray for a future in which Ryan Gosling re-enacts The Jinx so that we can hear him say, to everyone and yet no one in particular, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

In August 2015, we released our very first podcast and proceeded to tear through Nicolas Cage’s filmography at a breakneck pace. We had no idea that we'd continue after we finished Cage’s filmography, but we asked, “What’s next?” and went from there. After nearly four years, we are releasing our 1,000th episode.

In this episode, Joey Lewandowski talked many of your favorite CageClub Podcast Network hosts: Mike Manzi of Third Time’s A Charm, Joe Two of 2 Fast 2 Forever, Chris Podcasts of Now and Again, Brian Rodriguez of High School Slumber Party, Kyle Reinfried of Foodie Films, Jordan Polan-Clarke and Cara Gael O’Regan of Wistful Thinking, Aislinn Addington of The Contenders, Lindsay Gibb of Winona Forever, Jonah Rubino of X is for Podcast, and Nico Vasilo and Kevo Risse of .html.

Thank you for listening. Share your favorite episode or memory with us by emailing [email protected]!