ELMER GANTRY. DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS. Two films bound together by nothing whatsoever. Except the sinister urge of Rob Zombie, who sampled them both on the first track of one of his albums. The Sinister Urge, to be specific. 

You know Darren wouldn't let go of the holidays that quickly. We're kicking off the year with a few faves since our last recording, from Christmas-y musicals to two takes on the future 90s style at the absolute opposite ends of the budget and quality spectrum to, of course Godfrey Ho. We also take a surprisingly soulful detour into the question: if you could watching only 10 more movies before you die, would you choose films you'd seen before or films that were new to you? And finally, we close out with a film that would have made our best of last year had we seen it in time: GODZILLA MINUS ONE. 

Another Christmas, another set of Christmas-adjacent movies. But what *is* Christmas-adjacent, anyway? What makes a Christmas movie? And why does Darren love TV movies so much? All these mysteries - and more - are explored through the lens of two 70s tv movies featuring Sally Field available on YouTube that you've probably never seen: MONGO'S BACK IN TOWN and HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS. Plus, a completely unrelated but highly passionate plug for GODZILLA MINUS ONE, in cinemas now!

Is 2023 over already? No, sorry. But we're over with 2023, and so we're chatting about our best cinema experience, biggest cinematic disappointment, our favourite film of the year, and much more. From Hundreds of Beavers and Rat Race to Stop Making Sense and Oppenheimer, join us for another ramble where we traipse through films that are sublime, films that are ridiculous, and at least one film that is, quite possibly, both. 

In our latest connections episode, it's time to take two charismatic singers, put them on the streets of New York, give them percussion skills, and watch them squirm their way through very stressful situations, in luminous black and white. It's Frank Sinatra in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM and Harry Belafonte - *not* Sidney Poitier - in ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW! Spoiler section at end so listen with (relative) spoiler freedom as we deep dive into directors, musicians, and pretty much anything else we can think of. 

So: it's been a time since adulthood and winter bugs have allowed us to gather And it's only a few moments before the 24th Annual Movie Marathon. So it's a double duty episode: a rave about Auckland's (New Zealand's?) (Australasia's?) (The Universe's?) greatest cinemagoing event that doubles as a chance to shamelessly beg for our dream programming, and the usual onslaught of random things that we've been watching from the sublime to Telly Savalas. 

If it's a secret that one of your hosts loves flying guillotine movies, it's a very badly kept one. So when Steve dug up two flying guillotine movies with what some might call a ludicrously specific connection, it was happy times in podcastland! Come join us as we unpack THE DEADLY SILVER SPEAR and THE HEROIC TRIO - but don't forget to duck and dodge, and also check out S9E17 of MYTHBUSTERS for more info on how you might make your very own flying guillotine!

Agnes Varda, Ronald Reagan and Kinji Fukusaku walk into a podcast. You expect nothing less, right? 

One of the most celebrated films of all time joins one of the least celebrated films of all time. What of the many possible possibilities brings these two films together? Well, of the many options, there's the phrase "of the", but there's another connection between SPECTER OF THE ROSE and THE RULES OF THE GAME: their multi-hyphenated creators!

From Stephen King ripoffs and champagne-drinking birds to art documentaries and dueling werewolf flicks, from Peter Greenaway to Takashi Miike, from Jimmy Stewart to Gong Li, once again, it's a slice of something for everybody as we review another month of viewing in the Ludicrously Specific household! (Note: any resemblance to an actual household is purely coincidental.)