Quieter than Tarantino, more charming than Aronofsky

In the penultimate installment of our Hidden Gems mini-series, Lee offers up 2011’s Violet and Daisy for our consideration. A small-budget film with an even smaller box office take, it features Saoirse Ronan, and Alexis Bledel as a pair of teenage assassins trying to make enough money for rent and cool dresses, and James Gandolfini as their target, who proves harder to kill than expected, but not for the reasons you might think. The film is the only directorial credit of Geoffrey Fletcher, more widely known as the Academy Award-winning screenplay writer for Precious. Come along this journey of discovery with us as Lee introduces us to this hidden gem.

• Bugbears
• Violet & Daisy
  • Saoirse Ronan
  • Alexis Bledel (who was 30 years old, at the filming of Violet & Daisy)
  • James Gandolfini
  • Geoffrey Fletcher
• The Man Who Would Be King
• Brotherhood of the Wolf
• The Dreamers
• Danny Trejo
• The Professional
• Quentin Tarantino
  • Django Unchained
  • Hateful Eight
  • Kill Bill Vol. 1, Vol. 2
  • Pulp Fiction
• Guy Ritchie
• Darren Aronofsky
• Metallica
• Black Sabbath
• Rotten Tomatoes
• David Lynch
• Precious
• Thelma & Louise
  • Susan Sarandon
  • Geena Davis
• Fleetwood Mac
• Foo Fighters
• Bugbears Again
• Euthanasia
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl
• The Sopranos
• Ronin
• Grosse Pointe Blank
• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Hanna
• The Boondock Saints
  • The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
  • Willem Dafoe
  • Billy Connolly
  • Norman Reedus
  • Young Indiana Jones
    • (with Sean Patrick Flanery)
• Lucky Number Slevin
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
• Marsellus Wallace
• Goodfellas
• Taxi Driver
• PTSD

Mental illness is an element of a person’s existence; it is not the entirety of it.

In the second half of our discussion of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, we get real with mental health, both personally and regards to its representation in film over the years. We also talk about the power dynamics involved in healthcare and whether Nurse Ratched is truly the monstrous villain she is made out to be, or whether she is an “anti-villain,” if that’s a thing.

• Obsessed With Star Wars trivia book, by Benjamin Harper
• Remaker’s Mark – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Part 1
  • Nurse Ratched
    • Vera Farmiga
  • RP McMurphy
    • Bill Hader
  • Billy Bibbit
    • Rami Malek
• Reign of Fire
  • Christian Bale
  • Matthew McConauhey
  • Gerard Butler
• Megan Mullally
• Kathy Bates
• Electro-convulsive Therapy
• De-escalation
• Movies About Mental Health Topics
  • Rain Man
  • What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
  • Lars and the Real Girl
  • Split
  • What About Bob?
  • Blue Jasmine
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
  • Crazy People
  • The Fisher King
  • Awakenings
  • Patch Adams
  • Silver Linings Playbook
  • Girl, Interrupted
  • The Dream Team
• Almost Off-the-Rails
  • Dog Day Afternoon
  • Taxi Driver
  • Last House on the Left
  • Klute
  • Midnight Cowboy

He’s a…Ne’er Do Well / Scoundrel / Gadabout / Ragamuffin / Scallywag

You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts. We tackled One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of only three films to sweep the major Academy Award categories (Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night in 1934 and Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs in 1991 being the others). We debate who could possibly fill the white orthopedic shoes of Nurse Ratched or the wool cap of R.P. McMurphy. Jer works really hard on his unvoiced fricatives.

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Green Mile
• Ticonderoga Pencils
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Louise Fletcher
  • Jenna Fischer
    • The Office
  • Samantha Morton
    • Minority Report
    • The Walking Dead
  • Vera Farmiga
    • Bates Motel
    • The Departed
    • Up in the Air
    • Godzilla: King of Monsters
    • Source Code
    • The Commuter
  • Tilda Swinton
    • The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
    • Snowpiercer
    • Suspiria
  • Carrie Coon
    • Fargo
    • The Leftovers
    • Avengers: Infinity War
  • Ratched
• Jack Nicholson
  • Leonardo DiCaprio
    • Titanic
    • Shutter Island
    • The Basketball Diaries
  • David Harbour
    • Stranger Things
    • Tide Superbowl Ad
    • Hellboy
  • Bill Hader
    • Train Wreck
    • Barry
    • Superbad
  • Christopher Eccleston
    • Doctor Who
    • The Leftovers
    • Elizabeth
  • Rami Malek
    • Bohemian Rhapsody
    • The Pacific
    • Mr. Robot
• Parks and Recreation
  • Ron Swanson
  • Ben Wyatt
• Doctor Who
• Scott Pilgrim vs The World
• Band of Brothers
• Christopher Lloyd
  • Benicio Del Toro
    • Traffic
    • Sicario
    • The Usual Suspects
    • Adobe Photoshop
• Brad Dourif
  • Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Return of the King
  • Alien Resurrection
  • Rami Malek
    • Bohemian Rhapsody
• William Redfield
  • Cameron Britton
    • Mind Hunter
• Sydney Lassick
  • Danny DeVito
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (film)
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (stage play)
• Will Sampson
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (novel)
  • Danny Trejo

In episode 46, we remade the 1987 classic Predator. And then we remembered that someone made a…not a remake, but a sequel (tri-quel?) to the franchise in 2018, creatively titled The Predator.

We decide to talk about it! Some of us loved it, some of us did not, some of us insisted that “tri-quel” is not a word. All of us agreed that it was a film that featured a Predator. And a mega Predator. And those demon dogs from Ghostbusters.

• Predator (1987)
• Jacob Tremblay
• Keegan-Michael Key
• Yvonne Strahovski
• Shane Black
• Jake Busey
• Gary Busey
• Alien (1979)
• Predator 2 (1990, but set in 1997)
• Predators (2010)
• Alien vs Predator (2004)
• Alien vs Predator: Requiem (2007)
• Paul W.S. Anderson
• Paul Thomas (PT) Anderson
• Sterling K Brown
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
• Thomas Jane
• Keanu Reeves
• Alfie Allen
• Boyd Holbrook
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
• Olivia Munn

They need to access their skills and training, and they don’t…they just shoot at trees…A LOT.

We continue our discussion of 1987’s Predator, wherein we describe our favorite traps, the thought experiment of Schrödinger’s Cat (and whether or not it is, in fact, a trap), and how Jer has said “fantastic” wrong all this time.

• OkGo This Too Shall Pass
• Scooby Doo Classic Traps
• Vantastic
• DC Animated Movies
• Danai Gurira
• Michael Fassbender
• Gwendoline Christie
• Mahershala Ali
• Terry Crews
• Carrot Top
• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
• Channing Tatum
• Nick Offerman
• Donald Glover
• John Cena
• Kevin Hart
• Kristofer Hivju
• Preda-Mom from The Goldbergs
• Bill Murray
• Mos Def
• Jesse Ventura
• Jack Black
• Andy Serkis
• Thomas Jane
• Guy Pearce
• Tom Hardy
• Idris Elba
• Dave Bautista
• Jason Momoa
• Charlize Theron
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Platoon
• The Hurt Locker
• Rambo: First Blood – Part 2
• Attack the Block
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Kathryn Bigelow
• Michael Bay
• Nimród Antal
• Predators
• The Evil Dead
• Ash Williams
• Predator – “stick around”
• Mortal Kombat – spine rip fatality
• Kung Fury
• Doug Jones
• Ray Park
• Alien Horse Costume
• Predator Original Suit with Jean Claude Van Damme

Welcome to our yearly tribute to those actors, actresses, directors, and personalities that we lost during 2018. While it’s sad that they are no longer with us, we always enjoy being able to celebrate them, their work, and what they meant to us.

• Penny Marshall (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Harry Anderson (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Margot Kidder (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Anthony Bourdain (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Burt Reynolds (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Charlotte Rae (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Bernardo Bertolucci (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• R. Lee Ermey (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Stephen Hawking (IMDB | Wikipedia)
• Milos Forman (IMDB | Wikipedia)

They just took a really muscle-y guy and put a bad tie on him

After taking a sabbatical of sorts, this is our first new recording in a good long time, and we come out of the gate strong with our discussion of the 1987 alien action film, ‘Predator’. Here we take on recasting the film, with Andy inexplicably making another ‘Expendables‘ film, try to balance the extremely muscle-y with the just pretty darn muscle-y, try to continue with the largely multi-cultural cast of the original, and at least double the number of women in the movie. (Sadly, it doesn’t take much – there was a grand total of one woman in the original.)

• Gretchen Whitmer
• Game of Thrones
• Mario Cuomo
• Governor/Grand Moff Tarkin
• James Michael Curley
• Jesse Ventura
• Voltron
• She-Ra: Princess of Power
• How to Train Your Dragon
• John McTiernan
• Die Hard
• The Hunt for Red October
• Die Hard With a Vengeance
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
• The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Carl Weathers
• Jordana Brewster
• Elodie Yung
• Olivia Munn
• Danai Gurira
• Salma Hayek
• Elpidia Carillo
• Armie Hammer
• Michael Pena
• Narcos: Mexico
• The Mule
• Ant-Man
• Ant-Man and the Wasp
• Broadchurch
• Jason Statham
• The Expendables
• The Expendables 3
• Dave Bautista
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Michael Fassbender
• Inglorious Basterds
• Prometheus
• Idris Elba
• Pacific Rim
• Michelle Yeoh
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• Chow Yun Fat
• Michael B. Jordan
• Black Panther
• Creed
• Creed 2
• Fruitvale Station
• Dev Patel
• Lion
• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Slumdog Millionaire
• The Last Airbender
• Gwendoline Christie
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens
• Edward Norton
• Richard Chaves
• Shane Black
• Shia LeBeouf
• Ezra Miller
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Justice League
• Mahershala Ali
• Predator (the novel)
• Pedro Pascal
• The Mandolorian
• The Kingsmen
• Will Smith

Should…should I be watching old-person movies now??

Welcome to part 2 of our discussion of Sneakers. In it we discuss the unfortunate casting tropes of women in caper movies, how we (or one of us) have gotten to the age where we say “warmth” wrong, how we (or one of us) have gotten to the age where we enjoy “old guy movies”, and how the magic of good casting can really add up to greater than the sum of its parts. Also, how do you make a movie about hacking interesting when watching someone type is not so interesting? Fear not, listeners, for we have solved these problems for you.

• The wheel
• Unicyclists
• Wireless guitar pack
• Digital photography
• Film photography
• Norm MacDonald on the evolution of photography
• Vacuum tube driven pre-amplification
• How to pronounce “warmth”
• Daffy Duck
• Apple Watch
• No Retreat, No Surrender
• Riff Trax
• Jason Isaacs
• Dan Stevens
• Tony Hale
• Remaker’s Mark Special Episode 2: U Can’t Touch This
• Kevin Costner
• The Postman
• Dances With Wolves
• James Earl Jones
• The Hunt For Red October
• Alec Baldwin
• Predator
• I Ain’t Got Time to Poop
• Jesse Ventura
• Predator TV series
• Carl Weathers
• Arrested Development
• Clue
• Mary McDonnell
• Ben Kingsley
• Sidney Poitier
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Alan Arkin
• Morgan Freeman
• Michael Caine
• Going In Style
• Wild Hogs
• Ocean’s Eleven
• The Matrix
• Hackers
• Swordfish
• Mr. Robot
• Mission: Impossible
• Silicon Valley
• Halt and Catch Fire
• Oceans 11
• Enemy of the State
• The Sting
• Grosse Pointe Blank

Predator (Streaming and purchasing options here)

Editorial Note: As you can tell by the dated references in this episode (“Laura Dern is in the upcoming Star Wars movie”), this was recorded many moons ago, and certainly before the accusations of sexual assault came out against Kevin Spacey. We certainly do not condone or endorse said behavior, and are very much okay with striking that pick from the record. CONSIDER IT STRICKEN.

Welcome to Part 1 of our discussion of the appropriately portmanteau’ed 1992 cape-medy (caper-comedy) ‘Sneakers’. This crew was hackers before it was cool to be hackers…I guess… But for real, this is a definite favorite of the group, and it shows in this first half, where we tackle the unenviable task of recasting this particularly great ensemble.

• Male color blindness
• Edward Snowden
• Batman
• Simon Templar
• Roger Moore
• Colleen Green
• Love
• Phil Alden Robinson
• Field of Dreams
• Robert Redford
• Sir Ben Kingsley
• Sidney Poitier
• Dan Aykroyd
• David Strathairn
• River Phoenix
• Mary McDonnell
• Kevin Spacey
• Swimming With Sharks
• Jason Isaacs
• Lucius Malfoy
• The Patriot
• Armageddon
• The O.A.
• Katherine Waterston
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Alien: Covenant
• Mark Ruffalo
• Avengers: Infinity War
• Thor: Ragnarok
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Iron Man 3
• The Avengers
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Now You See Me
• Now You See Me 2
• Spotlight
• Amy Poehler
• Dan Stevens
• Downton Abbey
• Legion
• Beauty and the Beast
• Laura Dern
• Twin Peaks
• Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
• Big Little Lies
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
• Jeff Goldblum
• Charlize Theron
• Arrested Development
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Fate of the Furious
• Atomic Blonde
• Grace and Frankie
• Lily Tomlin
• Jane Fonda
• Jason Bateman
• Mark Strong
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• The Imitation Game
• Green Lantern
• Andy Garcia
• Brad Pitt
• Allied
• John Malkovich
• Tony Hale
• Jay Baruchel
• Spies Like Us
• Ghostbusters
• Saturday Night Live skit: “Bass-o-matic 76”
• Battlestar Galactica
• Jessica Chastain
• Dances With Wolves
• Independence Day
• Donnie Darko
• Dave Franco
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

It’s two-fer time in this Special Episode, where we tackle two topics in one go, recorded live at our yearly visit to Wicks/Miller Cottage this past August. First, we discuss ‘The Sore Thumb’ – movies where one casting choice sticks out like a, well, sore thumb, and makes you say whaaaaa? Second, we reveal our picks for ‘The Black Stain’, which is a truly terrible movie that sits among many other great movies in a well respected actor’s or actress’ body of work. Some of these are terrible in the best/worst way. Enjoy!