Peak Viewing

Martin Scorsese, arguably one of the greatest living filmmakers, is an embarrassingly large blind spot for the both of us. To remedy this, our next miniseries will cover the first half or so of his career, of which we have seen very little! (Like, almost nothing. It’s bad.) While his first film Who’s That Knocking at My Door won’t be one we wholeheartedly recommend, it is interesting groundwork for a lot of the themes and styles we expect to come up. Just don’t ask us to fly to Europe and insert a sex scene into the middle of this podcast.

Settle in and pour yourself a tall glass of milk, it’s time to talk about Guillermo del Toro’s new Frankenstein adaptation! This Netflix original is all peaks and valleys for us; some parts work, many parts do not. Some moments offer interesting twists on the novel, and some story beats unique to this film have us scratching our heads. We get into all of that, including our final ranking of Frankenstein films, and the announcement of our next miniseries!

Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is… kind of amazing? We’re not exactly shocked that culture has spent the past 30 years ignoring this movie, but we’re certainly disappointed. This loud, melodramatic adaptation of the monster story is not only the most faithful in terms of plot, but also in terms of tone. As a result, we’re big fans! Just don’t ask us what was going on with those eels in the leathery sac. Other topics include the prevalence of canine cruelty in our movies this year, Freudian adult film genres, and yet another haunting supernatural event live on the air.

Two years ago, we watched Hammer’s rendition of The Mummy, and we were not impressed. One year ago, we watched Hammer’s rendition of Dracula, and we were blown away! This week, we watched Hammer’s rendition of Frankenstein, and we were, uh, somewhere in the middle? Between the frankly bad monster makeup, the lazy storylines, and the incredible mad scientist lab, it’s safe to say we have mixed feelings. We also get into buying Peter Cushing as a 22-year-old ladies man, the changes with the monster from the novel, and our brilliant idea for a new podcast.

Bride of Frankenstein is a solid contender for the most unhinged sequel of all time. It’s a marvelous blend of humor, horror, whimsy, and sadness that keeps you on your toes every minute. There’s little lab-grown people in jars, interesting reinterpretations of scenes from the novel, a picnic in a tomb, and almost five minutes of screen time for the titular character! We get into it all, including James Whale’s terrific imagination, the censor’s terrible buffoonery, Elsa Lanchester’s towering hairdo, and much more.

Monsters are back on the menu! After we had a grand time covering Dracula and Nosferatu films last year, this year we’re talking about Frankenstein to coincide with Guillermo Del Toro’s new spin on the old classic. We’re starting with 1931’s Frankenstein, the James Whale film that arguably set the standard for what Frankenstein would mean more so than the original novel. You better believe we’ve got everything in this jam-packed episode. Simpsons references! Quotes from passages in the novel! Stories about little girls and hard-boiled eggs! Listen for our hour-long “speed run” recap of Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, and don’t forget: the scientist is named Frankenstein.

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World might be the most underseen movie we’ve covered on this show (well, maybe the most underseen this century). Part of that obscurity is due to the Islamophobic times in which it was created, and part of it is that it’s simply just okay at best. Some of the questions we do our best to answer this week include: Could we write a 500-page report? How well did this movie perform in Romania? Why do we keep bringing up so many Coen brothers movies? Is Tiger Woods the Michael Jordan of golf? And how much of this thing is even shot in India?

Is Albert Brooks losing his edge? It’s the question posited by 1999’s The Muse, in which Brooks plays a screenwriter who feels left behind in a frustrating and absurd Hollywood. As he tells a story that would seem to be inspired by his own life, we find ourselves more disinterested than in previous films. Naturally, we take that feeling and channel it into several off-topic tangents! Mobile games that no one has ever played! Debates over covering Avatar: Fire and Ash! Something about a comedian named James Carr! And also, quite possibly the most diabolical Would You Rather scenario of all time.

Brooks follow-up to Defending Your Life is a smaller, simpler movie about what gets passed on from mother to son. As two sons of two mothers, we have some takes! While this is ultimately perhaps the least-relatable to us of this miniseries, we still discuss Albert Brooks and Debbie Reynolds’ chemistry, the multiple references to movies we’ve covered on this show, off-brand Snickers, document storage, calling your mother, and of course, all the mediocre songs in Mary Poppins.

As Ari Aster put it, Defending Your Life is “the feel-good movie for people who identify as feeling routinely bad.” Albert Brooks vision of the afterlife may be fully realized and wondrous, but it’s what it has to say about our own plane of existence that is really profound. We discuss everything about it, along with what clips would play at our own trials, the one or two poorly aged jokes, and how Henry almost died this week.