Drat Pack

Sorry in advance about the dodgy audio quality, you can blame it on us trying to record from the penthouse of a hotel in Lake Tahoe if that helps make it thematically appropriate. And it should, because for this episode we’re tackling Joe Carnahan’s 2006 gangster / assassin free-for-all Smokin’ Aces, starring Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta, Chris Pine, Ben Affleck, Alicia Keys, and a whole bunch of other talent crammed in like so many murderers into an elevator. A simple and workable premise is smothered in characters, technique, and subplots, but how could this all have been executed (ha ha) better? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss and attempt to fix this hyper piece of early 2000s action nonsense, and as they enjoy perhaps the best cocktail they have ever made for this podcast. Yes, it’s just that good.

We return with the third leg of our “guess what’s real and what’s made up” game, this time focusing on that finest of all American art forms, musical theater! Well, some would certainly argue that, at least. Join Brendan as he quizzes Leigh and Chris with a list of musical titles as they determine which ones are actually professionally-mounted musicals and which ones are titles that Brendan thought sounded vaguely plausible. I mean, can you tell what “Flahooley” is? Who can, right? Also we plan out our next movie and a suitably smoky cocktail to accompany it.

Mentally transport yourself back to the distant, far-flung year of 2010. Somehow Star Wars hadn’t returned, we were all still trying to figure out what would come of all these Marvel movies, and Disney was trying to figure out how to make blockbusters that teenagers would see. Enter Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, a desaturated tri-dimensional sequel to a movie that doesn’t exist. Audiences desperate for 3-D immersion turned it into one of the most improbably successful movies of all time, and Futterwacken fever swept clubs all over the world. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very good then, and it’s somehow less good now. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris return to this relic of a time gone by to try and determine why precisely this movie doesn’t work (spoilers, it’s mostly the story) and how to make sense of a movie based on a book that famously refuses to make sense. Naturally, we have a tea party of our own to accompany our discussion along with a tea-based cocktail to prevent any of us from having to watch this thing totally sober. Callooh! Callay!

MORE GAMES! The people (by which we mean we) demanded it, and so we delivered. We go now to round two of our guessing game in which Leigh and Brendan try to determine what woman-featured thriller movies Chris has made up versus which ones are actual films. Also as always we announce next episode’s movie, one of the ugliest and crappiest big-budget movies ever to be committed to some hard drive in California, and the very thematically-appropriate tea-based cocktail that will accompany it (and hopefully numb the pain).

Another Valentine’s Day is upon us, and like a shiftless sitcom husband stopping at a gas station for a last minute card, we also turn our thoughts to a lazy half-assed attempt at showing romance. This year’s Valentine’s Day romcom is 2003’s Alex & Emma, one of Rob Reiner’s many many middling unsuccessful movies following his dizzying highs in the 80s and early 90s. This shameless rip-off of Paris When It Sizzles stars Luke Wilson as a crummy writer prone to gambling away his advances and Kate Hudson as the stenographer who improbably agrees to transcribe his novel, while also playing four other women in the fictional fantasy world they create together. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris take a look into what happened to Reiner, what in the hell Luke Wilson’s novel could actually be, and how works of fiction within works of fiction become more and more underwhelming the greater you focus on them in the plot. We also finish our winter cocktail triad with a frothy snowy spritzer, so get drunk like we did and get ready to continue our dive into middling romcoms.

Have you ever encountered something so directly suited to your desires, something so attuned to your tastes, something that you can’t possibly imagine anyone else responding to as passionately as you? If so, you’ve got some ego, buddy! But still, we’re going to discuss this sort of thing anyway. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we talk about some specific forms of media that feels tailor-made to our own preferences. As usual, there’s a lot of tangents and we talk about our impending Valentine’s Day rom-com phantasmagoria (with the customary winter spritzer cocktail as well).

A new year, a new start! And what better way to celebrate the endless possibilities of a new year than to watch a movie that does very little new with a story that’s been around for many centuries? That’s right, we’re finally doing the weird companions movie to Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur and His Lads of the Round Table, 2018’s Robin Hood starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, and several Irish people. Don your hood and puffy Primark jacket and listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sift through a bunch of washed out colors and tired plot points to find what works here. Some vague concepts? Weird futuristic costumes straight out of Coruscant? The idea that the Crusades are the same thing as any modern war in the Middle East complete with archers using their bows like SWAT teams use assault rifles? Also we complete our winter cocktail trifecta with a lovely spiced sangria that makes the movie’s 114 minute runtime feel more like a lean 112 minutes.

Our beloved (?) annual tradition continues! It is the end of the year and we are all very tired, so for the fifth time we look at the year in review. The movies! The drinks! The movies and drinks yet to come! Also we’re doing that Taron Egerton Robin Hood movie next, so maybe consider renting that piece of crap.

What better way to celebrate Christmas than to imagine yourself in a world of dazzling whiteness, inscrutable timelines, and overall excess? That’s right, ’tis the season to enjoy a messy Christmas movie, and this year’s reason for the season is Nancy Meyer’s 2006 vaguely Christmas-y romcom The Holiday. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we all swap houses, cars, everything, and discuss the two dueling plot lines, the general Nancy aesthetics, and how Jude Law can somehow do a tight 15 as Mr. Napkin Head and still be hot as fuck. How do you form this shapeless, treacly mass of Christmas pudding into something a little tighter (and oh god maybe somehow shorter than 136 minutes)? Well, listen in as we try to do that while getting pretty buzzed on mulled white wine (Nancy would approve).

In which we play a new game for the holidays, much like a gang of jolly penniless friends as a Victorian England Christmas party (except it’s about Hallmark movies which would have undoubtedly perplexed and befuddled the average citizen of that time period). There’s nouns and adjectives and drawing paper from hats and improvising the plots of Hallmark Christmas movies, and truly what more could you want? Also we briefly talk about our annual Christmas traditions (i.e. our upcoming Christmas movie and the mulled wine we will be drinking to accompany it).