Despite the stunning lack of consequences for last year’s inaugural contest, the Screeners decided to go ahead with a second annual summer movie wager. You can find the “official” rules here, but the basic idea is that everyone takes wild guesses at which summer sequel will make more money than other summer sequels. Put them in order from 1 to 10 and add 3 dark horse candidates. The more spots you pick correctly, the more points you get, and the winner...well, so far the winner’s gotten nothing, but presumably there’s something at stake.

Chad promised everyone this was a good idea, so we’re doing it, but what would really make it fun is if you headed over to our Facebook page, contributed your own picks, and made fun of Josh’s. That’s entertaining for everyone.

See you next time, when the Screeners will be back to movie reviews as normal, this time of the Alien sequel and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. So many original ideas, we can hardly stand it.

Because once they're on the Internet, no one can ever change them.

Dark Horses:

Dark Horses:

Dark Horses:

Dark Horses:

Dark Horses:

It’s been a few weeks since the last full Screeners episode, and somewhere in there, a new season of TV kicked off. First on the list for this episode is talking about all those new shows and seeing if the Screeners are watching any of them. Who knows; even the cord cutters might have something to say. Or maybe not; knowing Chris, he’ll just be rewatching Hannibal or something.

After that, though, it’s on to the $145 million elephant in the room. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is out, and no lackluster reviews can hold the powerhouse back (OK, so it hasn’t had too many to begin with). The Fast and the Furious “family” jokes almost write themselves, but they don’t entirely write themselves, and we don’t want to spend enough time thinking about Vin Diesel to come up with any, so we’ll spare you. Just know that if we did write one, it would involve praising how much better Vin Diesel’s vocabulary is in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

That’s it for this episode: some TV and one movie. “How could the episode possibly last an hour?”, you might ask. Well, we don’t know; it just does, OK?

Join us next time for the annual Anticlimactic Summer Movie Wager, where consequences are eternally promised but never delivered. Until then, it’s Facebook for us all.

As difficult as it was to type that title up there, we can only imagine how difficult it must be to actually watch the main topic of this bonus episode. Chris and Daniel took one for the rest of the team, though, and voluntarily paid money to subject themselves to nearly three hours of Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, some other people, and a submarine. They may be the only Screeners who saw it, but they almost certainly had company at the theater; Fate of the Furious has had the biggest worldwide box office opening ever. These are trying times indeed.

Oh well; at least there’s a new Star Wars teaser. They’ll have to talk about that at least a little, right? Wrong. Sorry; there’s nobody here but muscle cars and their muscles.

The Screeners have a lot of ground to cover in this episode, even without much of a tentpole to cover in the main event...or anywhere else, to be honest. Stick with us here, though; there are still some surprises in store.

First up, the guys (no Melody this episode, sadly) decided they had to talk about Power Rangers. Why did they decide this? No one’s really sure. Only half of them were even the right age to watch the original series, but somehow three of them made it to the theater for the movie, which has to just be a craven grasp at 90’s nostalgia, right? Right?

OK, enough robot dinosaurs until the next Transformers movie (please let it be Dinobots...please). Next on the list is one of Netflix’s new Sundance acquisitions, The Discovery. This is one of those we-can’t-really-summarize-anything kind of movies except to say that it’s a metaphysical romantic drama. Vague enough? We thought so.

Just in case we haven’t lost you yet, there’s still a main event! Scarlett Johansson was apparently tired of not shooting things, so she signed up to be Major in the live-action Ghost in the Shell reboot. That may or may not have been a good idea, judging from the Google results for the phrase “Ghost in the Shell whitewash”. Anyway, all four hosts saw this one, so they should be able to come up with something other than casting to talk about.

But wait; there’s more! Chris thought it would be fun for everyone to pretend to be time-travelers just back from having seen all this summer’s upcoming blockbusters. Despite the fact that this would require travel through more than mere time for someone like, say, Josh, everyone played along. Behold our foreknowledge of our own opinions! These reviews couldn’t possibly become self-fulfilling prophecies, could they?

Finally. So very many movies. That last segment alone was about 10 episodes worth of main events. What’s up next is anyone’s guess, but until then, we’ll see you on Facebook.

Yeah, so the title up there may have given away the main event, but don’t skip straight there; we’ve got a couple things to get out of the way first. C’mon; there’s a new Marvel show—you knew the Screeners would at least mention it. They make no promises about liking it (or even that they’ve all seen it), but they’ll...mention it.

Next up: Disney’s making money dainty hand over furry CGI fist from its Beauty and the Beast remake, but is it deserved? Most of the Screeners were alive when the cartoon version was released, so they’re almost guaranteed to have biased opinions, but let’s hear them out anyway, shall we?

After that main event, what other topic could there be for the top three than musicals? Er, make that “musical movies”, or whatever weasel term Daniel wanted to use so he could get away with his unconventional picks. We encourage you to listen to this segment and pinpoint the moment where it goes completely off the rails; we think there’s an argument for at least three distinct places, and we’re interested to hear which one you choose.

And where should you let us know that choice? Facebook, of course! What; you thought we were going to let you get away without a link to Facebook? Just for that, here’s a link to our iTunes page too. If you like us, a rating and review are the best present you can get us.

See you next time, when we’ll cringe (or cheer? We hope cheer…) our way through Ghost in the Shell.

Of all the space-and-alien-themed movies in theaters or about to be in theaters, Life is…certainly one of them. It’s debuted to thoroughly mediocre reviews, and its IMDB description includes no fewer than two superfluous commas, so we’re not going to reproduce it here. Chad and Daniel did see the movie, though, so check out this episode to find out if you should see it too, or if you can wait for Ridley Scott to release something else.

Chad told us to just copy IMDB descriptions for these show notes, but we’re pretty sure those are written by a thousand monkeys locked away in a room with typewriters somewhere, so we have an ethical problem using them.

Anyway, Chad and Daniel saw Kong: Skull Island, and they wanted to talk about the experience for some reason. The best we can tell, the movie stars a disgruntled former Charlton Heston employee and a helicopter. Oh, and Loki’s in it, so that’s cool. We’re looking forward to a robust, nuanced point-counterpoint here, fellas.

Also, half of Key & Peele wrote and directed a horror movie, and Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener are in it. We’re not quite sure what to do with that information, but there it is; this is a thing that happened. We don't think we'll need all of the Screeners to spoil the ending and tell you if Keanu the cat makes an appearance.

Marvel went and made another movie, so of course the Screeners had to talk about it. It’s another Wolverine movie, and there is a lot of Wolverine to go around. We can’t let too much info slip here, but let’s just say that Logan earned its R rating. That, and we’re starting to see cracks of light in the previously impenetrable wall of the superhero genre, in more ways than one. You may have already caught Daniel’s review on Facebook, but join him and the rest of the male Screener contingent as they take a deeper dive into Hugh Jackman’s ninth (you heard us) appearance as Wolverine.

If you have a podcast that’s even remotely about movies, it’s a rule that you have to cover the Oscars. They take away your podcasting license if you don’t (or so we’ve heard; we’re too afraid to try it and see). Jimmy Kimmel presided over a...unique ceremony this year, and the Screeners of course have opinions about it. Or at least 4 of them do; Josh forgot to even fill out his scorecard before the show. This is our surprised face.

Speaking of scorecards, though, we had some great responses to our Facebook survey, despite Daniel’s best efforts. Some of our listeners even beat a few of the Screeners—we’re sure Chris has a good excuse, though, and we’re totally not going to fire him.

There’s plenty to talk about in the fancy dress and botched award category, but that’s not all we have for this episode. A lot of TV shows have slipped under the podcast’s radar this year, but that doesn’t mean the Screeners haven’t been discovering some great ones. Our second segment is full of recommendations and mini-reviews of shows both new and semi-new, so prepare to take notes.

And just like that, one more Oscar episode is in the can. That’s, what, 4 of them now? One more and we get a free...nothing?! What a rip-off! Anyway, join us next time for what’s sure to be an uplifting discussion of Logan. Until then, see you on Facebook!

This episode’s Jump Cuts segment was sparked by an innocent tweet from Daniel. He thought he’d post his list of picks for Best Picture for the past few years just to, y’know, put it out there since the Academy Awards were coming up. Chad, however, has never once had the instinct to leave well enough alone. He decided the Screeners should re-re-litigate Daniel’s (and the Academy’s) choices, so here we are.

Oh yeah, and after the fun times are mostly over, there’s a bit where the hosts give their picks for this year’s Oscars, but that’s not really the lead story here.

The main event is a bit more kid-friendly—or at least that’s what Warner Bros. wants you to think; if you take the kids, they make more money. The Lego Batman Movie might not have the melodrama of a Pixar movie sown up, but the jokes are certainly firing on all cylinders, and they run deep in this one. Come for the self-referential humor; stay to see if Chad can somehow make Daniel’s opinion sound wrong in this segment too.

And after that, something something John Wick 2. Chad and Chris saw it, and they thought the Screeners should talk about it, but every time Josh hears Keanu Reeves’ name, he sees that cat from the Key & Peele movie in his head. Also, does anyone remember Equilibrium? Because "gun-fu" just...you know what? Nevermind.

Anyway, that’s all for now. The next episode will be about—what else?—the Academy Awards. There’s also some great TV out there this year, so the Screeners will hit some of the high notes there too. That should give you, our beloved audience, some great fodder for Facebook comments. Bring ‘em on!