Kiss Your Franchise Goodbye

Get on the bus for the Magical Mystery Tour with your couriers Andy, Brooke and Kitt. We talk a lot about drugs! Because it's really the only way to understand this BBC Boxing Day Special. But also, John is so happy! (Because of drugs?)

PS- We're not covering Yellow Submarine and Andy explains why in a way sure to get him cancelled by Beatles completionists.

Next up we're doing a spooky season franchise!

When we were younger so much younger than today, we never needed anybody's help in any way. Sorry about the long break, but we're back with extra special guests! Elana Levin of Graphic Policy Radio graces us with their encyclopedic knowledge of classic rock and The Beatles as well as Brooke's daughter Pru, who is named after a Beatles song!

We discuss the good and bad of the movie- madcap bits! (good!) racism! (bad!!) Sad boi John Lennon, The Beatles tax haven vacation in the Bahamas, Richard Lester's other movies, and more!

Enjoy-- next up the Magical Mystery Tour is coming to take you away!

It's the Beatles! And we've been working like a dog! We're all George fans. The evolution of The Beatles as artists and where this movie fits in-- the bridge between Beatlemania/boy band and later Beatles. Monty Python. Elvis movies vs. Beatles movies. Paul's grandfather is a great villain.

Next week is HELP! (not to be confused with The Help)

It's JB's birthday pick and he has chosen the 1927 Fritz Lang classic Metropolis, restored and given a new soundtrack in the 80s by the King of 80s Soundtracks, Giorgio Moroder. Felt like homework to Kitt. This is Andy's superhero origin story: the literal zeitgeist of Weimar Germany and what this film was saying. Melissa hated this movie!

What songs would we have picked to put in the movie?

Studio notes for a remake version?

It's a Mark birthday movie-- the very non-franchise-y Crazy Heart which won Jeff Bridges an Oscar. Unlike the Academy, the rest of us hated this movie to various degrees. Andy goes on a 25 minute rant about country music fans and the Fast Car remake. Mark says Andy needs to calm down. Melissa and Kitt still don't like the movie. Alcoholism. Schroedinger's Single Mom. The age difference thing. We do like the music though. JB appears just in time for studio notes. Can we separate art from artist?

Next week is JB's birthday movie, the Moroder version of Metropolis, which you can see here.

It's the final(?! for now!) Clerks movie and boy is Melissa sorry. Having sex with dead people in heaven. Mark's hot take on Cleopatra: Not Hot.

Mark's birthday movie is Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges which is streaming on HBO Max.

JB's birthday movie is Metropolis: The Georgio Moroder version, which is available on YouTube.

Once again-- this episode is even more filthy than normal, because Kevin Smith.

It's mostly just the Andy and Melissa show until BAM a wild JB and Mark appear at the very end. So much wrong with this movie. Mark likes Clerks 2 more than Clerks? Name 5 Soul Asylum songs. ⁠Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams⁠ is the name of the album.

Next up we finish off Clerks with the third (and final?) entry. And Mark and JB will announce their birthday movies!

WARNING: This episode is extra filthy. Just warning you.

Because it's Kevin Smith's debut, Clerks. What is it about this movie? Much of it has not aged well, yet... maybe we shouldn't change a thing about it? Andy's and Kitt's mom introduced Andy to this movie. Perfect time capsule. Dante is a bad person. No, he's worse than a bad person-- he's a neutral person. Dante died! That soundtrack. Berkerzer!!! Handwaving over the Weinsteins. Andy's Kevin Smith phase.

Next up, it's Clerks 2 (featuring Ahsoka Tano). Get Clerkin'!

It's a movie stuck in amber in 1998 - You've Got Mail! How has this aged so well while other 90s movies about the internet have not? Comparisons to Shop Around the Corner. Greg Kinnear. Parker Posey and "Patricia makes coffee nervous." Joe Fox is a bad bad bad bad man. You've Got Product Placement!

Our next franchise is... Clerks! See you then!

It's essentially the template for all other rom coms that came after in the 90's-- Sleepless in Seattle. Somehow everyone has lived in or near Seattle except Andy, and he's a bad brother for not visiting even though Tom Hanks reminds us there's like 26 states between there and here! The Rob Reiner-Nora Ephron connection through When Harry Met Sally and how this went from a spec script by a 9th grade English teacher to being re-written by two different Oscar-winners. Swap genders and this is the Mark Wahlberg / Reese Witherspoon movie Fear. A random tangent about Wonka, The Color Purple, Mean Girls and musicals in general. This soundtrack isn't very Seattle esp in the early 90s-- Grunge, Singles, and if Courtney Love subbed in for Celine Dion. Seattle weather and hoodies.

Next week get out your 10 free hours of AOL CD you got in the mail and watch You've Got Mail.