Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

Mike and Dan respond to a listener who urges them to watch and discuss Seconds (1966), John Frankenheimer's thriller about a man who attempts to remake his identity. They talk about what constitutes a person and how we build our identities in ways that defy simple lists of characteristics. Dan brings up Hamlet and Citizen Kane; Mike brings up Hereditary. Finally, the two are joined in a bonus segment by Tim, the very listener who suggested the movie, to see what he thinks of their conversation. So let us know what you'd like us to watch and maybe we'll have you on the show!

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The 50th episode arrives! Everyone remembers Roman Polanski's 1968 Rosemary's Baby as "the devil baby movie," but it's so much more. Mike and Dan talk about how much the film resembles Parasite in terms of "Zillo porn" and its portrayal of people who would do anything for a good breakfast nook. It's also like Vertigo with its midway-through reveal which sets up the viewer for the final, more troubling image. All this and more in an episode where the guys can't stop talking about how every aspect of the film is perfect--even the international Satanists.

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Mike and Dan discuss Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2011) as an antidote to the horror films that Hollywood churns out year after year. Mike talks about how much the film resembles other work by Joss Whedon as well as (thanks to Bradley Whitford) The West Wing; Dan praises the film as something other than a simple parody. Both contend that the viewers are like the Ancient Ones, eager for the same sacrifices and tropes that keep the world turning.

 Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Mike and Dan discuss Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2011) as an antidote to the horror films that Hollywood churns out year after year.  Mike talks about how much the film resembles other work by Joss Whedon as well as (thanks to Bradley Whitford) The West Wing; Dan praises the film as something other than a simple parody.  Both contend that wem the viewers, are the Ancient Ones, eager for the same sacrifices and tropes that keep the world turning.

While the rest of the US spent time cooking and eating with family and friends (quarantine permitting), Mike and Dan recorded this week's episode on An American Werewolf in London (1981), the John Landis horror-comedy that set the standard for transformation scenes. Dan compares the film to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mike talks about why London is the perfect setting for an American Werewolf, and the two talk about pub scenes, British types, and the glories of pre-CGI special effects. Stay off the moors and listen!

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

After the grueling experience of Hereditary, Mike and Dan talk about something lighter: Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). Was Michael Keaton Jim Carrey before Jim Carrey? Does the film stand up on its own and not simply as a "seasonal" TV rerun? And is Tim Burton really like a blind squirrel who found a nut with this project? Give it a listen!

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Mike and Dan gather the courage to talk about Ari Aster's terrifying and deeply unsettling Hereditary (2008). After a conversation about whether or not Aster could be the next Kubrick, the guys get into an argument about the last thirty seconds of the film: are they necessary? Or does the "treehouse scene" undermine the tension and release some of the dread that the film has created over its first two hours? The guys are as split on this as a set of drunken uncles at a Thanksgiving dinner arguing about the 2020 election, but their banter is more entertaining.

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

For years, Mike has been urging Dan to see Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973)--and Dan finally has. Topics of discussion include Deliverance, the blessings of low-budgets, self-immolation, movie marketing, Santa Claus, Hitchcock, Dostoevsky, A Clockwork Orange, how phones work in movies, The Planet of the Apes, the 23rd Psalm, Full Metal Jacket, and the film's brilliant merging of a detective story with existential dread. Dan sings a few bars and Mike offers the sobering thought that all of us need to have our ducks in a row, especially when they are in cages.

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Run away from the light! Go into the light! Whatever you do, check out this episode. Mike arrives demanding an apology from Dan for what he complained about in It Chapter 1 but doesn't mind in Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982). Dan meets him halfway. The guys haven't seen this since they were 10 or 12 and talk about why the film holds up and how it's different to watch it as an adult. Topics of discussion include Spielberg's fingerprints, Jaws with ghosts, the face-melting scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and, again, how characters should behave in horror movies (or monster movies).

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.

Is Andy Muschetti's It: Chapter 1 (2017) a monster movie or a horror movie--and why does that matter? The guys talk about he absence of any good adults in Stephen King's world, the way that the film treats adolescence, the lack of genuine fear in movies, and the analogy Tim Curry: Bill Skarsgard:: Jack Nicholson: Heath Ledger. Dan also mispronounces Hereditary as Heredity, but give him a break: he's still afraid of that one.

Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on YouTube, Twitter and Letterboxd. Please rate and review the show on Apple podcasts and contact us at [email protected]. Incredible bumper music by John Deley.