Cinematic Respect

Jessica introduces Charlie to one of her favorite films, 1981's acting tour-de-force On Golden Pond. They discuss the deliberate casting, knockout performances and the one and only Dabney Coleman. Listen to find out Jessica's least favorite 80's slang term, and the one aspect of the movie Charlie hate hate hated.

Billy and Topher from We Watched a Thing get up bright and early in Australia to talk about the 1972 Andrei Tarkovsky masterpiece Solaris. We wax philosophical about time, space, memory and wedding hangovers. We also get into all of the obstacles Tarkovsky had to hurdle in order to create this film, and whether that's what made him the groundbreaking artist he was. If you're into Alex Garland's new movie Annihilation, this movie is a must watch!

Co-host of the podcasts "Adam Sandler Please Stop" and "Mistakes Were Mad"e Robert Bacon joins us to reminisce about the 1993 Disney film "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey" (1993). Despite some misgivings we all find it IMPOSSIBLE to not like this film. We talk animal actors, and HUMAN actors! Plus, we develop several sequels and spin-offs we'd like to see made.

We continue our abbreviated 2018 Academy Award Best Picture series with The Shape of Water, joined by our guests from our first two episodes, Adam and Ally. We try to interpret the meaning behind the character's behavior, the creature design and the color scheme, but it appears that Guillermo del Toro has already told the whole world all of these things already. We break down all the Academy Award nominated performances. And we ask ourselves the important questions such as "What does it take to establish emotional intelligence?" and "What's the worst thing you can encase in Jell-O"?

In honor of the 2018 Oscar nominations, Jessica and Charlie hit the theater to watch the multiply nominated coming-of-age tale "Lady Bird" (2017). We recount how the film reflects our own high school experience, how Greta Gerwig manages to stuff so much into such a small run time, and why Laurie Metcalf is the best ever. We do stop short of singing Dave Matthews Band lyrics, but just barely.

We're back from our holiday hiatus, and Charlie has brought his mom, Marcy Wallace on the show to talk about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Turns out it's easy to get caught up in the details if you're re-watching this one. But in between Jessica and Charlie's plot quibbles, we get Marcy's opinion on whether this holds up as an action/adventure flick today. Choose wisely, sit back, and take a listen (see what I did there?).

Eric Mackie joins us to visit the 1984 John Hughes film "Sixteen Candles" for the first time. He's a little surprised to find it's not quite like the other John Hughes movies he's familiar with. Jessica finds the good parts in this movie, but Charlie seems unable to look past the parts of the movie that haven't "aged well". But we all agree that the kid brother should have gotten his own movie.

This week Jessica is in the hot seat, since she had never seen the 1975 summer blockbuster “Jaws”, with special contributor Kara Hulce. We talk about whether the slower pacing of the film works, if the animatronics hold up, and we get a little confused about who the shark ate and when. Boy, that shark sure does eat a lot of people...

Your hosts welcome Doug Gobeski to the studio to dig deep on Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014). It won the Oscar for Best Picture, and was co-written and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu. So why doesn't it get traction with half the user reviews on the internet? And what does the movie have to say about art vs entertainment? And, dare I ask, what do we talk about when we talk about love??

We welcome our first sibling to the podcast, Lesley Wallace, to talk about The Shawshank Redemption (1994)! Despite the near constant airing on TNT, Lesley had never managed to watch this, well, except the ending. But it still managed to hold a few surprises, including some of the bushiest eyebrows in cinema. So get busy living, get busy dying, or get busy listening to this episode (the third one sounds the easiest to me)!