Comfort Films Podcast

Join us this week to talk about The Fisher King, a wonderful modern take on the Arthurian myth by director Terry Gilliam, a former member of Monty Python who knows his way around a holy grail tale.  It's a beautiful, underrated movie about love, madness, grief, redemption, and friendship, with unforgettable performances from Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges.

Put on your utility belt and get ready for a new episode of Comfort Films!  In anticipation of next week's release of The Batman, we went back to 1989 to revisit the genre-defining Tim Burton Batman, starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.  Join us for 93 minutes of comics, clowns, and camp as we discuss the movie that took Batman into the dark.

In this episode, we dip our toe into comic book movies and talk about our two favorites from the Marvel universe so far, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. We discuss the amazing soundtrack and visuals of the movies, as well as the important themes around family (which you knew Vin Diesel had to get in on, even if it's just by saying "I am Groot" in 783 different ways).  We also talk about James Gunn's fantastic writing and direction and how he paddles around the same pool quite successfully in the awesome HBO series Peacemaker, which recently wrapped its first season. 

This week for Valentine's Day, we celebrate the great and horrible things about love, with a conversation about one of our favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Join us for a chat about life's big questions, the psychology and persistence of memory, and why Elijah Wood went through a scumbag character period in the mid-aughts.  And as a special bonus hear about John's experience of being directed by Michel Gondry on an episode of the Showtime series Kidding starring Jim Carrey! You'll laugh, you'll cry, it's better than Cats.

In this episode, John and Georgia fully nerd out on Star Trek, discussing the Original Series episode "Space Seed," which introduced superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They talk utopian futures, Spock and Kirk's friendship, technological advances in space travel (and lack thereof), no-win scenarios and how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Join John and Georgia for episode 18 as they dive in to a rewatch of Daniel Craig's first outing as James Bond and discuss the evolution of his character over all five movies from Casino Royale to No Time to Die.  Note: if you haven't seen No Time to Die, major spoilers abound, so please come back after you've watched it!

Also, be sure to mosey on over to Instagram to vote in our James Bond Bracket polls to determine which movie out of the full list of 26 is the very best!

This one may be our favorite episode yet.  For our final Rob Reiner ride we discuss the classic coming of age movie Stand By Me, gun-toting chain-smoking preteens, learning to process grief and loss, and those small moments that you don't realize changed your life until later.  It's a good one, full of laughter, nostalgia, and feels, much like this great movie!

It's episode 3 of the Rob Reiner Run (now the Rob Reiner Rampage, since it feels more metal), and John & Georgia are discussing the movie that put mockumentaries on the map, 1984's This Is Spinal Tap, a fake rockumentary so real it fooled Ozzy Osbourne. Set up a tiny Stonehenge, find some normal-sized bread, and turn this one up to 11. And as the late great Howard Hesseman as Terry Ladd once said, "Yeah, listen, we'd love to stand around and chat, but we've gotta... sit down in the lobby and wait for the limo." See you all at the Enormo-Dome!

For Georgia's birthday, we discuss her number one comfort film of all time, The Princess Bride.  (Eventually.  After 15 minutes of digression into Macho Man Randy Savage, He-Man toys, and somehow, Samuel Beckett.  But William Goldman, the author of both the book and screenplay of The Princess Bride is a master of digression, and we figured he'd be proud of our behavior mirroring.)  

Happy New Year, comfort fans!  John and Georgia ring in 2022 talking about arguably the best romantic comedy of all time, When Harry Met Sally..., starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.  This is the first of a 4-movie Rob Reiner Run, AKA the Meathead Marathon.  We talk about New Year's Day (Georgia's favorite holiday), whether men and women can be friends, and we absolutely DO NOT F*CK with Mr. Zero, under any circumstances.