Pile of Mates

One of us has rewatched Rat Race every year for three years. Another reckons he got oversold.

Sam picked this one, a film his fiancée loved as a kid and he only discovered three years ago. Jerry Zucker's 2001 ensemble comedy is basically The Amazing Race with no rules: John Cleese plants six tokens in his Vegas slot machines, and whoever reaches a locker in Silver City, New Mexico first keeps $2 million.

Along the way Rowan Atkinson falls asleep in the hotel lobby, Jon Lovitz drives Hitler's car through a WWII veterans' parade, a human heart ends up inside a dog, a cow ends up tied to a hot air balloon, Cuba Gooding Jr hijacks a bus full of I Love Lucy impersonators, and Smash Mouth play All Star with a little help from Hitler's harmonica. We also get into what you'd actually do if you lost a human heart, and how the airport scenes play now that you know the film came out a month before 9/11.

The ratings aren't even close, and somehow Avengers: Endgame gets dragged into the argument.

Next week: The Wild Robot, Pacco's pick. Bring tissues. It has ducks in it.

Chapters:

00:00 Warm cola and a pyramid scheme
00:14 Rat Race, the annual rewatch
02:07 Who'd you bet on?
06:19 Those animated opening credits
10:53 Free buffet, no rules
12:58 Would you go to Darwin for $2 million?
15:42 Released one month before 9/11
19:43 Randy's family and the Nazi museum
23:13 Mr. Bean, a human heart and a dog
25:00 A drifter, let's kill him
28:40 The cow and the hot air balloon
31:15 The I Love Lucy bus
34:59 The billionaires' bets
37:59 Smash Mouth and Hitler's harmonica
40:06 What worked, what didn't
44:29 Ratings
47:04 Five stars, half stars and The Emoji Movie
51:50 Next week's pick, and bring tissues

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Sam: https://letterboxd.com/Delorenzo6/
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One of us still thinks The Onion Movie is gold. Another needed three sittings to get through it.

Corey picked this one, a high-school favourite he wanted to put to the test. Shot in 2003 and not released until 2008, The Onion Movie is a pile of fake news stories wrapped around Norm Archer, an anchor trying to keep his integrity while the network sells ads into the bulletin.

Along the way there are neck belts, a woman who calls the news before she calls 911, a Steven Seagal film called Cock Puncher with its own PlayStation 2 game, country star Melissa Cherry's very wholesome love songs, a bloke with his penis stuck in a mailbox, and an armed gunman who negotiates his way into a full-time job with benefits. We also get into how much of it has aged like milk, and why the post-9/11 terrorism jokes land even worse now.

The ratings end up further apart than they've ever been, and someone's wife has already recommended it to a work colleague.

Next week: Rat Race, Sam's pick. Sam would also like you to watch Community. One episode. It's twenty minutes.

Chapters:

00:00 Caught watching The Onion Movie
02:24 Pacco's been dreading this since high school
04:13 Shot in 2003, released in 2008
07:44 Melissa Cherry and a Britney Spears connection
09:02 Neck belts and bad CGI
09:55 Cock Puncher
11:45 We interrupt this program
14:20 What is this film even rated?
17:20 The socks
19:29 The ending
23:23 The armed gunman
25:42 What worked, what didn't
29:38 Ratings
32:07 Would it survive today?
35:11 Next week's pick, and please watch Community

Follow us on Letterboxd to see what else we're watching
Sam: https://letterboxd.com/Delorenzo6/
Corey: https://letterboxd.com/coreymid/
Pacco: https://letterboxd.com/paccothegoose/

One of us has seen Ready or Not four times. Another got genuinely angry about it.

It's Pacco's pick this week, and the second Samara Weaving film in a row, which is starting to look like a pattern. In Ready or Not (2019) she marries into a rich board-game dynasty, then finds out on her wedding night that the family game is hide and seek, and they've brought crossbows.

We get into the roadside assistance bloke who remotely shuts off her getaway car mid-escape, Sam's public safety advice for anyone caught in an active murder zone (keep running), the kid who shoots his new auntie before anyone's told him why, and the fact that nowhere on the card does it actually say murder. Also, one of us has seen it four times and still didn't clock who the auntie was.

One of us enjoys it more than last week's film and still rates it lower. Another saw the poster and expected a different movie. A fiancée who doesn't do horror ends up liking it anyway.

Next week: The Onion Movie. It's Corey's pick, and at least one of us already hates it.

Follow us on Letterboxd to see what else we're watching
Sam: https://letterboxd.com/Delorenzo6/
Corey: https://letterboxd.com/coreymid/
Pacco: https://letterboxd.com/paccothegoose/

One of us had a great time. Another called it torture.

Episode one, and it's Sam's pick. He found it scrolling Amazon, liked that Jason Segel was tied to a chair in the thumbnail, and decided that was enough research. Over Your Dead Body (2026) stars Segel and Aussie treasure Samara Weaving as a miserable married couple who head to a remote cabin, each secretly planning to kill the other. Then escaped convicts come through the roof, Timothy Olyphant turns up, and the romantic weekend goes downhill from there.

We get into Samara Weaving's accent (somewhere between American, Australian and, as the film puts it, the devil), a bloke who walks off a back full of stab wounds, Segel losing fingers and barely mentioning it, and the poor accomplice who just wanted to take everyone out on his boat.

The ratings split three ways on our first go. One of us spends half the episode insisting Samara Weaving did this better in another film. One wife walks out, and another bails half an hour in and comes round two days later.

Next week: Ready or Not, settled by a coin toss.

Follow us on Letterboxd to see what else we're watching
Sam: https://letterboxd.com/Delorenzo6/
Corey: https://letterboxd.com/coreymid/
Pacco: https://letterboxd.com/paccothegoose/