Comfort Films Podcast

This week, Martin from Film vs. Film Podcast joins us as we kick off a month of westerns with the movie that totally changed the genre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the title characters. We talk about the perfectly balanced William Goldman screenplay that is equally hilarious and tragic, the exceptional director-cinematographer team-up of George Roy Hill and Conrad Hall, the iconic pairing of Newman and Redford that makes this film as much a buddy movie as a western, whether the relationship between Butch, Sundance, and Etta is a love triangle or a love circle, the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" musical interlude, metafilm moments, the western as American mythology, and the many things to love about this once-dominant film genre. Saddle up your horses and give us a listen!

For our fifth and final episode of the School's Out for Summer series, we're taking a long summer vacation with The Karate Kid Part II. Snatched from the certain doom of a summer in Fresno, Daniel accompanies his mentor Mr. Miyagi to Okinawa, where they face off with a new set of enemies, Sato and his sharply dressed nephew Chozen. We talk about our memories of seeing this film (and reading the novelization) as kids, the surprisingly deep meditations on family and loss, the 50s mania of the 80s, Back to the Future connections, and the absolute banger of a theme song, Peter Cetera's "Glory of Love." Brush up on your drum technique and your O-Bon dance moves and give us a listen!

It's the fourth week of our School's Out for Summer series, and it's time to stop messing around and get a summer job. In this episode, we discuss Adventureland (2009), starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, and the always pitch-perfect Martin Starr as hapless and occasionally hopeless amusement park employees. We talk about our own summer job experiences as unemployable humanities students, writer/director Greg Mottola's excellent script, the film's amazing indie 80s soundtrack, the perils of nerd love, Ryan Reynolds's uncharacteristic villainy, the hilarious Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the oddball ringmasters of the Adventureland circus, different methods of coping with depression and ennui, and Brennan's bravery in rejecting cynicism for romantic optimism even when his life is falling apart. We love this sweet, nostalgic, and hopeful movie, so cash in your Skee-ball tickets for this episode of Comfort Films and give us a listen!

Holy Schnikes! For the third week in our School’s Out series, we’re celebrating dads and grads as we take to the road with the 1995 Chris Farley/David Spade comedy Tommy Boy, the only movie we can think of where you’re actually rooting for a nepo baby.  Farley’s Tommy is fresh out of college with a D+ in history, and he teams up with Spade’s Richard to launch the Callahan brake pads division and save Tommy’s family business.  We talk favorite SNL alumni, the perfect comedic chemistry between big guys and little guys throughout film history, Tommy Boy’s perfect balance of heartfelt and hilarious, the joy of singing along with the radio, Brian Dennehy as the classic great dad, the art of salesmanship, Rob Lowe’s shift from drama to comedy and the unmatchable talent and heart of the late great Chris Farley.  Put on your little coat and give it a listen!

In this second week of School's Out for Summer month, we're going to summer camp with our guest Etta Goodridge! Directed by David Wain, written by Wain and Michael Showalter, and featuring many other members of MTV's The State sketch comedy series, Wet Hot American Summer has become a cult classic, with a huge cast of actors that have gone on to become major stars, including Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, and Elizabeth Banks. We discuss our own experiences with camp, the hilarious screenplay which employs mounting absurdity as it builds toward the thrillingly improbable climax, how we relate to the dual protagonists Cooper and Beth (played by Showalter and Janeane Garofalo, respectively), the magical alchemy that results in doing comedy with friends, and the importance of a good montage. Grab your bug spray and hike up to Camp Firewood with us!

School's out for summer! That's our theme for this month, and we're kicking it off with the 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused, traveling back to the last day of school in a Texas town in 1976. We discuss the film's incredible soundtrack, which gives the story its structure and mood and opened us up to a whole lot of new old music when the film came out. We also talk about the stacked cast of mostly unknowns who have since become household names (especially Matthew McConaughey, whose portrayal of Wooderson made him an instant icon), the importance of a car to teenage freedom, toxic nostalgia, 70s fashion's resurgence in the 90s (and in Georgia's heart, forever), Richard Linklater's approach to authenticity and character-centered storytelling, and the elusive pursuit of teenage coolness. The party may be shut down at Pickford's house, but come on down to the moon tower and join us for the first beer bust of the summer. And if you haven't followed us on your favorite podcast platform, it'd be much cooler if you did!

For the final week of our ani-MAY-tion month, we spring into the action with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. We discuss the landmark animation, which combines CGI and hand-drawn animation along with color offset, giving the film a totally unique comic book look. We also talk about the enormous comic contributions of Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby, the excitement of meeting a Spider-Man (or several) with a completely new backstory, the genre mashup, the always funky and fabulous Nicolas Cage, and the odd similarities between Kingpin, Daddy Warbucks, and Mr. Freeze. Your spidey senses must be tingling at this point, so shoot your web and swing over to a fantastic talk about your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man!

For the third week of our aniMAYtion month, we take a look at Wes Anderson's stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's book Fantastic Mr. Fox. We discuss Anderson's practical and playful approach to recording dialogue and sound for the film, the script (penned by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, at Dahl's home!) which creatively expands on Dahl's original story by framing Mr. Fox as another version of a vulpine Robin Hood, the crafty and creative use of puppets and miniatures in stop-motion animation, the difficulty of learning that your favorite children's author had some very problematic opinions, and last but not least, Alexandre's Desplat's score and the rockin' Beach Boys-themed soundtrack.

For this second week of our AniMAYtion month, we're taking a look at one of our favorites from Studio Ghibli, Howl's Moving Castle (English dubbed). We talk aesthetics, from steampunk fairy tale to Dark Academia to Steve Martin, Howl as superhero, the freedom of living in disguise, the corrupting power of magic, Hayao Miyazaki's boundlessly creative yet realistically cinematic style, Joe Hisaishi's perfect musical score, and themes of greed, vanity, and the uselessness of war. It's a discussion almost as rich as the film itself, so jump on the steam-powered airship and ride into the sunset with us!

We're back, and for May we'll be tackling ani-MAY-ted movies (and making that joke many times)! In the first episode of this four-part series, we welcome special guest Stewart Boyles, co-host of the unofficial MCU podcast, Welcome to Level 7, who has named 1973 2D hand-drawn Disney classic Robin Hood as his number one comfort pick. We go on a nostalgia trip together, discussing the ways this film shaped our socio-political views, how it's a perfect precursor to the madcap redneck action comedies of the later 70s (Smokey and the Bandit, we're mostly looking at you), the unfair fictional portrayal of Capricorns, Robin Hood as the quintessential folk anti-hero, the importance of voice acting, and good versus bad anthropomorphic animals in fiction. Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a day! Join us to talk cartoons throughout the month of May!