Out Of Sync Podcast

In the first few minutes you may think you have stumbled upon a genre mash-up film, like a Comedy/Horror or a Space/Western. But once you start paying attention you realize that you are deep in to a straight Film Noir, complete with hard-boiled gumshoes and femme fatales. You almost wonder why first-time director Rian Johnson would set such a story in a high school. That’s one of the questions we dive into as we watch 2005’s ‘Brick’.

‘The Grudge’, ‘Dark Water’, ‘Pulse’, ‘Shutter’, and way too many other horror films in the early 2000’s were in fact remakes of Asian films. The ghost story that started it all was a Japanese movie, 1998’s ‘Ring’. When it was redone in America as ‘The Ring’ in 2002, your nightmares were immediately haunted by creepiness of the imagery. Living through the bombardment of these remakes, you may have heard a rumor that the original foreign language films were much more frightening then their American counterparts. Fortunately for audiences, ‘Ring’ was re-branded as ‘Ringu’ and distributed in the United States. With both versions easily available, audiences got to decide for themselves which film was the king of the creepy.

What is best in life? Drinks and a movie sound pretty good! However, the hero of 1982’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’ has a different outlook. This episode we explore the story of a muscle head, who learned to speak better English and became destined to rule as King! Eerily, if you replace King with Governor of California this movie almost predicts the life of its star (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Have you ever fired your gun up in the air and gone “ahhrgh“!?… With apologies for the references to ‘Hot Fuzz’ (2007). It’s hard not to agree with action film loving Danny Butterman (played by Nick Frost), when he expresses his love for the film ‘Point Break’ (1991). While it is true this story of surfing and robbing banks is a great action film, it also crosses in to several other genres. Which helps it break away from the painfully unaware cheesiness of action films of the 1980’s.

A cult film can earn its status in several ways. Usually the ‘cult’ title is given to movies that are considered bad, but have loyal fans who still find joy in it. A harder path to take is for a genuinely good film to fly under the radar when released but find a devoted audience at a later time. The late/great Christopher Lee is on the record as saying 1973’s ‘The Wicker Man’ was one of his favorite films to have worked on. Hearing this leads one to believe that this British produced film is one of these diamonds in the rough. We can trust Lee, right?! After all, things worked out great for the last guy who went seeking council from Saruman the White Wizard…..

Keanu Reeves chose not to to reprise his roll as that cop from speed, who’s name no one can remember. Then again few would blame him after finding out the inspiration for the sequel came from a fever dream the director had. So Jason Patrick takes over opposite a nautical cyber terrorist played by Willem Dafoe. Honestly you may find your self rooting Dafoe’s stereotypical 90’s evil hacker in this one. Chris fills in for Steve this week, and he brought this recommendation with him. ‘There’s a bomb on the bus’ hits the water in this episode with Speed 2.

Taking a quick glance at our drink selection tonight, you may believe we have decided to take on what one might call a ‘Chick Flick’. But these gin-soaked concoctions are the alcoholic representations of the hard boiled detective of this movie based on the Raymond Chandler novel. Plus you seriously feel like James Bond when drinking from a cocktail glass. If you are a fan of whodunit films where the audience works out the solution along with the characters you will likely spend most of this film confused or infuriated, but dammit, you’re going to love every minute of it. It’s a perfectly structured film noir ripped out of the 50’s jammed into the 70’s, and it’s got everything from action, to comedy, and a love story between a man…. and his cat.

Know now that it was the year one thousand nine hundred eighty-four. The film universe is ruled by Star Wars and its most recent installment, Return of the Jedi. The most precious material in the film universe is a science fiction property that film studios could hope to turn into a blockbuster movie, leveraging the popularity of Star Wars into giant piles of money. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you: the film studios were so certain in their plan that they gave one such project to a mercurial director that had passed on Return of the Jedi. A director whose film projects are often akin to an acid trip. The director David Lynch, the film is Dune.

We’ve made it to our first remake!….. Or is it a sequel? Our friend Dave joins us as our first guest-host, and he brought us this gem to watch. Nic Cage is the centerpiece of this cocaine fueled romp through post-Katrina New Orleans, directed by Werner Herzog. This pairing of actor/director/subject lets Cage shine as a moody and perhaps insane Police Lieutenant, in a murder mystery that is equal parts dark, funny, and surreal. It does however leave us asking, was he really all that bad?