Reel Phonies

This week we're diving into Drew Goddard's meta-horror/comedy film The Cabin in the Woods. It's a film that feels very much like an Evil Dead ripoff and a sequel to The Office that spends most of its runtime explaining how those two can go together. It's more comedy than scares which makes it perfect for the cowards who do this podcast.

In our Halloween kickoff episode, we're watching Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man to be frightened by a threatening, unseen presence and by how dang good Elizabeth Moss is at acting. It's an update to a classic movie monster that feels much scarier than it's original iteration. Join us through the month of October as we traumatize our feeble, wimpy brains with a new horror flick each week.

This week we're tackling Netflix's newest, family-friendly detective flick, Enola Holmes. We discuss Henry Cavill's antagonistic relationship to clothing, why Helena Bonham Carter is underrated, and an unexpected amount of Harry Potter.

We're back and catching up on the big news of the last few weeks. We got casting news on Marvel's She-Hulk series, updates to the future of DC streaming, and the first trailers for Denis Villeneuve's Dune, WandaVision, and The Mandalorian: Season 2.

We're catching up with all the notable entertainment news of the past few weeks. We take a moment to reflect on the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman and the legacy he's left behind. We also take a look at all the upcoming DC projects announced during their virtual Comic-Con including Suicide Squad, WW84 and Black Adam. And we just couldn't overlook discussing the little X-Men movie that could, New Mutants. 

After failing to kill a very small, helpless Harry Potter in the first four films, Voldemort returns to kill a slightly more capable but similarly sized Harry 4 more times and just can not get it right. The kids are older, the color palette is darker, and Alan Rickman is sublime all the way through. We're talking the best and most curious bits of the latter half of the Harry Potter films and not even Emma Watson's acting can stifle our enthusiasm.

It must be super embarrassing to be a powerful wizard/dark lord and get thwarted at every turn by a child with bad eyesight. This week we're beginning the first phase of our Harry Potter revisit starting with Sorcerer's Stone through the one where Edward/Batman gets killed by Voldemort. Turns out these movies are a blast no matter how many times you watch them so join us as we hash out the best and worst of the Harry Potter franchise.

With James Mangold's Indy film on the distant horizon, we thought we'd take a crack at the kind of Indiana Jones adventures we'd like to see on the big screen. We each bring our own spin on the franchise while incorporating all the best Indy elements: lost cities, cursed artifacts, punching Nazis, and, of course, Short Round. 

After the unexpected success of the first Pirates film, Disney gave Gore Verbinski the reigns and a sack of cash to make something bigger, better, and more profitable. The two films that followed (Dead Man's Chest and At World's End) left audiences divided and never quite lived up to the original. We're taking a look back to see if maybe history has been a little too unkind to these two films and see if we can find the buried treasure in this franchise based on a 50 year old amusement park ride.

Taylor, I'mma let you finish but 2009 was not the best year for mainstream blockbuster movies. Transformers 2 dominated the domestic box office while Avatar was primed to reintroduce the world to 3D technology and simultaneously re-ruin it. But this year wasn't all bloated, big-budget buffoonery. From some underrated horror flicks to Duncan Jones' sci-fi masterpiece to Black Dynamite, there are plenty of great films from 2009 that deserve a little more attention.