Have a Good Movie

CONTENT WARNING: occupation, assassination, Israel & Palestine.

We try not to be too political on this show, but sometimes a movie forces our hand. Still, Spielberg’s third labor of love isn’t a mess because of its subject matter. Instead, it’s a messy rush job that has little to no historical value and also fails at being an entertaining movie. Nothing about this story passes the smell test, down to the fact that it looks like a crappy action movie from 2005. We know you can do better, Steven. We’re rounding up a group of assassins and wondering if we’re the baddies as we watch 2005’s Munich on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from "Remembering Munich" from the soundtrack to Munich, written and composed by John Williams. Copyright 2005 Universal Classics Group, a Division of UMG Recordings Inc.

Excerpt taken from "Remembering Munich" from the soundtrack to Spotlight, written and composed by Howard Shore. Copyright 2015 Howard Shore; Entertainment Rights Holdings, EOT Film Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of homophobia, sexual assault, spousal abuse.

This week's movie may not be the gayest movie ever but it's certainly one of the most famous. The star power here is off the charts, with two absolute bona fide movie stars and a perfect up and comer as our three gorgeous, fabulous, out of this world drag queens. Unfortunately the movie seems to think that ultimately we need less time with the queens and more time with a small town looking for help. It's a mistake, and one that keeps the movie from being in the ultimate pantheon. But my, what a magic fairy-dust ride it is. We're headed to Hollywood as we watch 1995's To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from "I Am The Body Beautiful", written by Bernadette Cooper and Cheryl "Salt" James, and performed by Salt-N-Pepa. Copyright 1995 MCA Records.

Excerpt taken from "Remembering Munich" from the soundtrack to Munich, written and composed by John Williams. Copyright 2005 Universal Classics Group, a Division of UMG Recordings Inc.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation. While presented in a lighthearted manner, listener discretion is advised. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, please call or text 988 for help.

Savage Steve Holland probably never contemplated his cartoons and wacky sense of humor would result in him making a true cult teen classic, but that's exactly what happened. John Cusack is just starting to find his path to the ultra-awkward teen of our dreams, and his supporting cast is pretty fun to boot. But mostly, the bits just keep on coming and just when you think a joke is overdone, a new one pops up in its place. We want our two dollars as we watch 1985's Better Off Dead on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from "Better Off Dub (Title Music)" from the soundtrack to Better Off Dead, written and composed by Rupert Hine. Copyright 1985 CBS Inc.

Excerpts taken from the film Better Off Dead, copyright 1985 CBS Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt taken from "I Am The Body Beautiful", written by Bernadette Cooper and Cheryl "Salt" James, and performed by Salt-N-Pepa. Copyright 1995 MCA Records.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of gaslighting, spousal abuse, spousal murder, murder, misogyny.

We're getting a little spooky this week with a slow-burn cult horror classic that dares to make its female characters complex and unique and its male characters thoroughly one-dimensional. Somehow it's the men that are utterly unbelievable for a change. That said, there's a pretty great movie to be found in among the wreckage, a fact that filmmakers 30 years later were utterly and completely unable to reconcile. People in 2004 thought that making a dark, subtle allegory for the horrors of the patriarchy into live-action Looney Tunes was a good idea, and then made it. And since we're completionists, we subjected ourselves to both. Join us as we enjoy 1975's and despair 2004's The Stepford Wives on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

If you like the podcast, please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from the end credits to the film The Stepford Wives, written and composed by Michael Small. Copyright 1975 Palomar Pictures International, Columbia Pictures.

Excerpt taken from the opening titles to the film The Stepford Wives, written and composed by David Arnold. Copyright 2004 Paramount Pictures Corporation and Dreamworks LLC. All Rights Reserved.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of gambling.

One would think that with the steely blue eyes of Steve McQueen and the highest-stakes poker game ever concocted, we'd be cooking with fire with this next film. Instead, we get one of the most boring 100-minute movies committed to celluloid. Nearly an hour of this movie is preamble and exposition and when we finally get to the poker game we might as well have just had the Kid lose in the first few hands. There are many ways to approach a good poker movie, and this movie chooses literally none of them. Join us as we yawn through 1965’s The Cincinnati Kid on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from “The Cincinnati Kid (Instrumental)” from the soundtrack to the film The Cincinnati Kid, written and composed by Lalo Schifrin. Copyright 1965 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt taken from the end credits to the film The Stepford Wives, written and composed by Michael Small. Copyright 1975 Palomar Pictures International, Columbia Pictures.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of death, knife fights, gunfire, murder, sexual misconduct, parental trauma, parental negliect, parental abuse.

We weren’t aware there was such a thing as being a method director, but this legendary film seems to have proven that’s a thing. Because it’s one thing to make a schlocky B-movie for teenagers about juvenile delinquents. It’s another completely to try to reverse engineer that terrible movie into art for a budding movie star and enable his worst tendencies while also having an affair with his 16-year-old co-star, and his other co-star, and possibly him. This movie is a mess, which is actually being kind, because its director might be even more of a disaster. Somehow a bad movie with great acting gives us perhaps some of the greatest trivia of all time. We’re deep in our angsty feels as we watch 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from the main title to the film Rebel Without a Cause, written and composed by Leonard Rosenman. Copyright 1955 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpt taken from “The Cincinnati Kid (Instrumental)” from the soundtrack to the film The Cincinnati Kid, written and composed by Lalo Schifrin. Copyright 1965 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of murder, sex work.

We’ve jumped ahead to 1945 to tackle the question of whether it’s possible for a movie to have only one likeable character but still be compelling. The verdict - still unclear. This is a bizarre movie, down to the doctor who tries to save a dying young child trying to gain sympathy for having to drive all the way out to the house in the first place. Only one main character is likeable, and fortunately Joan Crawford is up to the task with the role. In fact, for a melodrama with more of a premise than a well-rounded plot and wildly uneven acting, Joan Crawford is the glue that holds all of this together. We’re watching the Mother’s Day classic, 1945’s Mildred Pierce on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpts taken from the main title to the film Mildred Pierce, written and composed by Max Steiner. Copyright 1945, 2005 Turner Entertainment Co., Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Excerpt taken from the main title to the film Rebel Without a Cause, written and composed by Leonard Rosenman. Copyright 1955 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of racism, sexual assault, false imprisonment.

We’ve got a new name, a new season, and a new series! First up, we talk about our name change with a tagline you may be familiar with. Then, we kick off a new series with a trip through ALL the decades - if the year ends in 5, we’re watching a movie from it! We kick things off with a frothy, zippy, real humdinger of a musical with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers doing their thing. Remarkably, this movie is incredibly wholesome and unproblematic, its most offensive thing being a wacky Italian accent that angered Mussolini - in short, a net benefit. We kick off our Decades Grab Bag with 1935’s Top Hat on Have a Good Movie

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on BlueSky!

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from the main title to the film Top Hat, written and composed by Irving Berlin. Copyright 1935 RKO Pictures, Inc.

CLICK TO SUBSCRIBE ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCATCHER

We're seen all the movies, we've enjoyed or destroyed them all based on how we feel, and the big night is here at last. We start off with a discussion of the 35th Annual Academy Awards and how unremarkable it was - save for one very uniquely petty acceptance speech. Frank Sinatra may be charming, but he really shouldn't emcee an awards show. Then we dive deep into the 2025 Oscars, are befuddled and disappointed by how much everyone seems to love Anora, declare love for Conan O'Brien's bits and the nation of Latvia, and overall just seem underwhelmed by the year in movies that was. Come along for a final Oscars episode to wrap our season on Macintosh & Maud Haven’t Seen What?!

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Also please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Interstitial music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpts taken from the 35th Academy Awards held on April 8, 1963.

CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of racism, sexual assault, false imprisonment.

1962 contained not one but two books that were thrust upon us as required school reading (or acting), but none loom as large as this story. To be fair, it’s one of the few stories about the pre-Civil Rights Act South that’s presented through the eyes of a child, and that means it’s perfect school fodder. The movie was a huge labor of love from the entire creative team, which is fantastic and reads on screen, but also makes for a truly uneven watching experience. Director Robert Mulligan gets the most out of the cast, but his execution of trying to see things through Jem & Scout’s perspective never translates on screen. In fact, the only moments that truly work are in the courtroom, when the reality of small town Alabama racism come roaring back. It’s a shame it’s not a better movie because Gregory Peck is giving his masterpiece performance and the kids are phenomenal on screen, but acting alone cannot a movie make. We wrap up Oscars ‘62 with To Kill A Mockingbird

You can email us with feedback at [email protected], or you can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Also please subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcatcher, and tell your friends.

Intro and outro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.

Excerpt taken from the main title to the film To Kill A Mockingbird, written and composed by Elmer Bernstein. Copyright 1962 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts taken from the introduction to the 35th Academy Awards held on April 8, 1963.