Mostly Film

Take 241: Harrison Ford In Review — Episode 2

The Peter Weir years. Jonathan and JP dig into the two-film stretch that makes the strongest case for Harrison Ford as a serious actor — and the one that proves audiences weren't ready to follow him there.

First, Witness. The film every major studio passed on, that John Badham dismissed as "just another cop movie," that Sylvester Stallone turned down and later called one of the worst decisions of his career. The film that got Ford his only Oscar nomination, that Roger Ebert called a thriller Hitchcock would have been proud of, and that Peter Weir shot with the same cinematographer, composer, and editor he'd bring to the very next film. The barn-raising sequence. The dance to Wonderful World. The final porch scene with no dialogue at all. The big question: is this the best performance Ford ever gave?

Then The Mosquito Coast. The film Weir had been trying to make since 1981, the one Jack Nicholson left over salary, the one Paul Schrader wrote, the one River Phoenix made at 15 years old before Stand By Me had even come out. Ford playing Allie Fox — brilliant, volatile, increasingly unhinged, dragging his family into the jungle on the conviction that America is finished and he can build something better from scratch. A character so far from Han Solo and John Book that audiences simply didn't show up. $14.3 million on a $25 million budget. Zero Oscar nominations. A genuine financial disaster.

And underneath both films, the same question: Weir and Ford missed the Witness Oscar ceremony because they were already in Belize shooting Mosquito Coast. The film they skipped the ceremony for then flopped. Ford went back toward safer, more commercial roles. Indiana Jones. Patriot Games. The rest of the career we all know.

Did the failure of Mosquito Coast close a door? And if audiences had embraced it — what kind of actor does Harrison Ford become?

Take 240: What's New

Big week. Jonathan and JP are back and there's a lot to get into.

List It or Nix It kicks things off with seven fresh trailers — Mayday, I Play Rocky, The Uprising, Behemoth, The Other Mommy, Bad Apples, and Doomsday all go through the gauntlet.

In What We've Been Watching, Jonathan saw The Odyssey and then apparently went on a full childhood cinema tour — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Pagemaster, Harriet the Spy, Stuart Little, Shark Tale, and Zathura. JP brings Project Hail Mary, Lawrence of Arabia, After Hours, and The Odyssey to the table, with House of the Dragon and Silo on the TV side.

Then the news, and it's a good one this week.

The Odyssey opened to $124.5 million domestically and $264.1 million globally — Nolan's biggest worldwide opening ever, beating The Dark Knight Rises. The only films that opened bigger this year are Toy Story 5 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Jon Bernthal filmed the Trojan Horse sequence submerged in cold water, Nolan offered to pull him out, and Bernthal's response was essentially: try harder. The film has no real competition until Spider-Man on July 31, which gives it room to run on a $250 million budget that needs the legs.

And then — the Avengers: Doomsday trailer dropped this morning. First proper look at Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom. Thor rallying heroes, closing with "we need a miracle" before turning around stunned at a "hey pal." Channing Tatum as Gambit. Cyclops, Mystique, Ant-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Wakandans. Tickets on sale now. Opens December 18. The SDCC Hall H panel is Saturday — further reveals expected.

It's a good time to love movies.

Mostly Film – Take 239: Harrison Ford In Review — Episode 1

A new series begins. Jonathan and JP are spending six episodes inside the Harrison Ford filmography — not Star Wars, not Indiana Jones, but everything else. The films he made between the blockbusters, against the blockbusters, and long after the world had already decided who he was.

Episode 1 starts with a question: who is Harrison Ford when he isn't playing a hero the whole world already loves?

First up, Hanover Street — the 1979 WWII romance that Ford took because he'd never played a love scene before, hated making from start to finish, and has never seen. A film so thoroughly forgotten that it's not currently streaming anywhere. And yet there's a case to be made for it — Christopher Plummer quietly doing excellent work, a second half that generates real suspense, and Ford visibly more comfortable the moment someone points a gun at him than the moment someone kisses him. Which turns out to be genuinely revealing.

Then Blade Runner. Fifty-plus consecutive nights of artificial rain. A crew so fed up they wore protest T-shirts. A director and star who feuded constantly over the voiceover, the Deckard question, and basically everything else. A film that flopped on release the same day as The Thing — both considered too cold and strange for audiences who just wanted to watch E.T. — and went on to become one of the most influential science fiction films ever made. Ford has called it not one of his favourites. The Final Cut suggests he was wrong.

The big debates: is Deckard a replicant? Which version did you watch? And does Ford's performance hold up, or does Rutger Hauer walk away with the entire film in the last ten minutes?

Up next: the Peter Weir years — Witness and The Mosquito Coast. The argument is that it's the best acting Ford ever did.

Mostly Film – Take 238: What's New

Jonathan and JP are back for List It or Nix It — Digger, Buddy, Soulm8te, and The Wrong Girls go through the gauntlet. And about that Digger trailer: Tom Cruise, a Southern accent, a pot belly, a combover, and Iñárritu calling it the culmination of Cruise's 40-year career. The Dr. Strangelove comparisons are already flying. Is this the one that gets him the Oscar, or is it too strange for its own good?

In What We've Been Watching, Jonathan went deep on the Despicable Me universe (all of it, essentially), plus The Furious, Death of Robin Hood, Kiki's Delivery Service, A Goofy Movie, and Inside Out 2. JP brings Oceans 11, Send Help, The Drama, and The Furious, with House of the Dragon and Silo on the TV side.

In the news: Moana opened to $43 million and it's a disaster on a $250 million budget — potentially the worst live-action Disney remake debut ever. Is that era finally over? Toy Story 5 keeps rolling toward a billion. And The Odyssey opens this Friday in IMAX — tracking for $100-120 million, which would make it Nolan's biggest opening ever. Does it have a shot at being his best film?

Mostly Film – Take 237: Jackass In Review — The .5 Films & Best and Last

The Jackass deep dive continues. This week Jonathan and JP go beyond the main franchise and into the weird, wonderful overflow — the four companion films that asked a different question entirely: what do you do with the material that didn't fit?

They work through all of it. Jackass 2.5, the first major studio film ever released exclusively online and a genuinely revolutionary moment in 2007 that nobody talks about enough. Jackass 3.5, the overflow film that some fans will tell you with a straight face is actually better than 3D. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, the franchise's strangest entry — a narrative prank film starring Knoxville in full prosthetics that somehow earned an Oscar nomination for makeup and pulled $102 million at the box office. And Jackass 4.5, the Netflix companion to Forever that somehow ended up being the most emotionally heavy entry in the .5 canon.

Then they get into Best and Last in full — the opening numbers, the 89% on Rotten Tomatoes (the franchise's highest ever), the archival Bam footage, Ryan Dunn throughout, and the word critics kept using that nobody expected to associate with a Jackass film: poignant. Also on the table: does Best and Last actually function more like a .5 film than a proper finale? And is that a problem, or the most honest way the franchise could have ended?

Plus the big ranking question — all nine films, including the .5s and Bad Grandpa, ordered from top to bottom.

Mostly Film – Take 236: What's New

It's a big one this week. Jonathan and JP are back with a mountain of trailers, an absolutely unhinged watch list, and a news cycle that genuinely did not slow down.

First, List It or Nix It — fifteen trailers go through the gauntlet this week. Werwulf, Angry Birds 3, Not Alone, The Dink, The Debut, Digger, Her Private Hell, Late Fame, The Weight, Jimmy, Union County, The Devil's Mouth, Mum I'm Alien Pregnant, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, and Charlie Harper. Yes, all of them. Yes, Mum, I'm Alien Pregnant is real.

Then it's What We've Been Watching, and Jonathan went absolutely feral this week — Toy Story 5, Backrooms, Obsession, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, The Sheep Detectives, Carolina Caroline, David, and somehow also Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Minions, The Borrowers, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, and Honey We Shrunk Ourselves. JP brings Obsession, Backrooms, and Tuner to the table. Between the two of them, a lot of ground gets covered.

In the news: The Odyssey had its world premiere in London tonight — Nolan, Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Hathaway, and Pattinson all on the red carpet — and the conversation around the film is complicated. 450,000 trailer dislikes, replies turned off on premiere posts, and it opens in 11 days. Does tonight change anything? Minions & Monsters had a rough July 4th opening, becoming a franchise low domestically while Toy Story 5 just kept eating. The Michael Jackson biopic quietly became the highest-grossing biopic in history. The Avengers: Doomsday trailer is reportedly dropping at SDCC on July 25. And Emmy nominations land tomorrow morning — Harrison Ford might finally be getting his flowers.

Mostly Film – Take 235: Jackass In Review

Twenty-five years of stupidity, brotherhood, and somehow nobody died. Jonathan and JP dig into the full Jackass franchise — all four films — just in time for Jackass: Best and Last hitting theaters THIS Friday.

In the spirit of the occasion, the guys trace the franchise from its scrappy MTV origins (Senator Joe Lieberman tried to kill it, which only made it stronger) through to its unlikely status as one of Paramount's most consistent box office performers. From a $5M debut that made its budget back four times over opening weekend to Jackass 3D quietly becoming the biggest fall opening of 2010 — this franchise has absolutely no business being as successful as it is.

They break down all four films: the raw, censorship-free chaos of The Movie, the widely-beloved Number Two (the best cold open in comedy history, full stop), the commercial and creative peak of 3D, and the emotionally complicated comeback of Forever — including the Bam Margera situation, the new generation of cast members, and Knoxville's final bull stunt that reportedly ended his ability to take hits to the head forever.

Plus: franchise rankings, all-time favorite stunts, and the question nobody expected a Jackass episode to ask — what does 25 years of shared pain actually say about male friendship?

Jackass: Best and Last opens Friday. Are you going?

Jonathan and JP are back with another packed week of trailer verdicts, screen time nostalgia, and the kind of movie news that makes you question everything.

First up, List It or Nix It — the guys put Hot Spot, Klara and the Sun, Shrek 5, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dinosaurs of the Wild West, Hexed, and Time of Death through the Letterboxd test. Some earn a spot. Some don't make it out alive.

Then it's What We've Been Watching. Jonathan's been in the jungle with Jumanji, getting morally complicated with Red Rocket, and going full '80s nostalgia with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. JP went deep with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and swung back to the high seas with Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.

And then there's The News. Toy Story 5 just had one of the biggest animated opening weekends in history — is Pixar officially back? Disclosure Day stumbles in week two. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already breaking presale records but has to compete with Nolan for premium screens. The week's wildest story: Luca Guadagnino's nearly-finished film about Sam Altman gets dropped by Amazon — right after their $50 billion OpenAI deal. Totally unrelated, we're sure. Plus: Supergirl early buzz, a new Keanu Reeves Lego movie, Dan Trachtenberg doing kids' horror (yes, really), Austin Powers 4 is happening, and Emmy nominations are officially locked in.

Mostly Film

This week, Jonathan and J.P. continue their Spielberg Series by exploring two films separated by more than four decades but connected by a lifelong fascination with the unknown: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Disclosure Day (2026). From one of the most beloved family films ever made to Spielberg's latest return to extraterrestrial storytelling, we're examining how the director's perspective on aliens, humanity, and wonder has evolved over nearly fifty years.

We dive into the deeply personal heart of E.T., discussing childhood loneliness, empathy, friendship, and why the film remains one of the most emotionally resonant blockbusters ever created. Then we turn to Disclosure Day, a modern sci-fi epic that tackles truth, secrecy, first contact, and humanity's place in a much larger universe. Along the way, we compare Spielberg's approach to fear and wonder across generations, rank his alien films, and ask whether Disclosure Day serves as the final chapter in a story Spielberg has been telling since Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

From bicycles flying across the moon to a world forced to confront the impossible, this episode is all about Spielberg's enduring belief that understanding begins when we're willing to reach out—and listen.

This week on Mostly Film, we're sorting through a fresh batch of trailers in LIST IT or NIX IT, including The Last House, Gatto, Heart of the Beast, Social Reckoning, I Want Your Sex, and Whalefall. Which ones earn a spot on the Letterboxd watchlist, and which ones get left behind?

In What We've Been Watching, Jonathan checks out everything from Masters of the Universe and In the Grey to a nostalgic return to Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2, while JP revisits a pair of beloved franchises with Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Plus, we break down a packed week of movie news, including Chris Evans' reported return in Avengers: Secret Wars, new details on The Batman: Part II, George Miller's plans for more Mad Max, a Hit Man series coming to Netflix, a surprise Fox-Roku merger, and Steven Spielberg's record-breaking success with Disclosure Day. We also discuss honorary Oscars for Ridley Scott and Glenn Close, a possible Jimmy Olsen and Gorilla Grodd series, and why Jesse Eisenberg turned down The Social Reckoning.

All that and more on another episode of Mostly Film—where the takes are hot, the watchlists are growing, and the movie news never stops.