Drat Pack

In advance, we apologize for the questionable audio of this podcast and the questionable decision to have a bunch of bros make a movie about how they’re suffering in the friend zone. But also it’s Christmas (yes, once again, as time isn’t real) and we’ve got Julie Hagerty! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris for 2005’s Just Friends, a Ryan Reynolds romcom with the least rom that’s ever been in an annual Valentine’s Day spectacular. Can the genuine moments of com overcome the underdeveloped rom? Is this whole thing worth it just for Anna Faris as a pop star and the surprisingly entertaining family antics? How could this movie have been less of a lumpy dated attempt at blending actual romance with raunchy comedy? Or could it not have?? Why are questions still being posed when you could just listen to this episode??? Hello, Joyce?

With the entire world on fire and everything going to hell, it can be comforting to take solace in movies (and television) you’re familiar with rather than risk feeling new sensations by indulging in the unfamiliar. For this mini, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss their rewatching habits- what movies they liked but will never want to see again, and what they turn to whenever they need the visual equivalent of grandma’s warm afghan blanket. Also we finally, finally, finally decide to watch a movie Leigh has wanted to do since we first started this and create a sickeningly-sweet alcoholic milkshake confection to be enjoyed alongside it for our upcoming Valentine’s Day Month of Love Rom Com Spectacular episode.

Lace up your hoverboots and strap on your black villain cape complete with voluminous sleeves, it’s time for Why Watch Ascending! That’s right, we’re kicking off 2021 with the Wachowski’s 2015 sci-fi-space-opera-which-feels-like-a-fan-fic-but-somehow-isn’t, Jupiter Ascending! Join the three Dratpaxus siblings Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we discuss how a movie can have too much plot and yet too little plot, why the titular ascending character is such a fucking dull tabula rasa, and the deal with all them floaty bits sticking off the rich people spaceships. Also we drink a hot tea cocktail while bathing naked in a warm gooey pit of RegeneX. And please, please, please, do not spoil the secret truth of what RegeneX is made of to your friends.

UP ON THE KNEES OF A SERGEANT MAJOR
RIDE THROUGH THE WOODS WITH THE WIND IN YOUR HAIR
SILVER BELLS ON A STOLEN REINDEER
WHILE WE RACE TO THE CASTLE OVER THERE

It’s our usual lazy day look back on the year in review, an awful awful year full of awful awful movies and some pretty good drinks. What were our favorites and what should be consigned to the dustbin of oblivion? Look, listen and find out, I’m not going to type the entire episode. Also, a warm drink recipe designed to counteract the coldness of space for our first movie of 2021.

Finally, the prophecy has been fulfilled. No, not the prophecy that a human would become the elf king and lead them all to salvation (hey, not at all played out or uncomfortable!), but the prophecy that we made ages ago when we said we’d do The Christmas Chronicles 2 as a follow-up to the OG Christmas Chronicles episode we did two years ago. So, here it is. And there it lies like a glossy piece of mass-manufactured fruitcake, flavorless and glossy and almost completely without reason to be there. Except for Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, they’re fun. How could this slog through the arctic snow have been made more enjoyable? Well, we have some vague ideas. We also have a Secret Santa cocktail exchange which is easily as fun as Santa singing a duet with airport employee Darlene Love. Enjoy the annual Christmas extravaganza and happy holidays to everyone. OH, CHRISTMAS TREE!

December is almost upon us, and with it a plethora of original holiday-related programming. Instead of focusing on of of the ones with a Christmas ghost or some other supernatural hook (next time!), we discuss a Netflix original miniseries we all found ourselves binging very very quickly, Dash & Lily. As another adaptation based off of a jointly-written Rachel Cohn and David Levithan young adult novel, this could have easily been Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss Christmas but somehow blessedly it ended up being delightful and charming and fun. A TRUE CHRISTMAS MIRACLE! Listen to us gush about what we liked, the few things we didn’t care for, and plan our annual Christmas spectacular movie (and corresponding elaborate drink exchange).

Back in the Before Times when movies were actually a thing you could go to, it was customary for studios to start dropping Oscar bait movies in late fall and continue throughout the holiday season. It’s always fun to look back on which ones never ended up getting the little golden men they were angling for, and for our November episode we look at a recent example, 2013’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty directed by and starring Ben Stiller. Do you remember this? Maybe? There was a vague trailer demanding you feel things while the dulcet tones of Of Monsters and Men played underneath, perhaps reminding you instead of Where the Wild Things Are? Anyway, why did this movie end up sort of fading from public consciousness and not getting the award Paramount believed it justly deserved? What didn’t work about it, and what could have made it work better? That’s what our podcast is about, remember, so we get into that while enjoying TWO drinks. Reflect on the current lack of awards season by joining our conversation, getting drunk, and feeling some early 2010’s brand of forced cinematic hygge.

OOOOOO PRETTY SNARKY, EH? It’s been over a year (or maybe like three months time isn’t real anymore who knows) since the finale of Game of Thrones aired and disappointed nearly everyone with its rushed plotting, shoddy characterizations, and shots of Dany making it look like she has dragon wings. Since then, we’ve all entered into a collective pact to not think about it anymore. Well, we’re smashing that agreement, and all because Leigh kept reading Jaime/Brienne fics while bored during quarantine. That mild event launched a chain reaction that prompted us to devote an entire mini (in name only) episode to the end of Game of Thrones– what went wrong, what went right (I mean maybe something did???) and what could have made it better. Yes, we know people have had these discussions before, but with *gestures to everything* all this happening, we needed something to focus our energy on to stop our brains from melting.

Welcome, boys and GHOULS, to our annual Halloween Spooktacular featuring The Haunting! Yes, this is Jan de Bont’s 1999 CGI-encrusted remake of Shirley Jackson’s classic story of horror and pulsating doors, not the 1961 classic, or the Netflix series based off the same source material, or The House on Haunted Hill, or the remake of The House on Haunted Hill, or The Legend of Hell House. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris curl up with a bloody good cocktail (complete with glass to put over your eye lest you get blood in it) and try to reshape this aimless and incomprehensible attempt at terror into something that might actually be worth watching. Also there’s curly tails, tulip mania, and we anoint America’s new sweethearts. BLEAHHH!!!

Remember that thing that was going around twitter a while ago where people were listing the top five television shows that explained who they were as a person? Remember? Before all this other stuff that happened? Well, we do and so we’re doing it but instead of just saying what the five television shows that define ourselves are, we’re making everyone else guess what they would be. It’s a game! We loves games! And we love seeing how well we actually know each other (oh does it vary). Also we’re preparing ourselves for our impending Halloween spooktacular two weeks from now. It involves a big neat house and a hefty slathering of CGI. Start drinking now.