Screeners Podcast

Crazy Rich Asians is this summer’s breakout rom-com hit, topping the box office on its opening weekend. There’s not much more a romantic comedy needs to do, and this one wasn’t expected to do quite this well, so what gives? Maybe it’s the story, maybe the cast...we’re sure at least some of the Screeners (plus their guest host) have some opinions.

And since we’re talking romantic comedies, why not bring back a Top 3 segment about them just for fun? I mean, we know Daniel’s top pick is going to be—say it with us, everyone— San Andreas, but maybe some of the others will surprise us.

We know we’re not the only ones with favorite (guilty pleasure?) rom-coms, so once you’re done listening and disagreeing with Chad, let us know why over on Facebook.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

Jaws taught us something we already knew—we’re scared of sharks. The Sharknado movies taught us that shark movies didn’t have to be good to be popular. Now, The Meg wants us to know that they don’t even have to have a good name, that people will buy tickets to a shark movie whose name they can’t even say out loud with a straight face.

You know what? It’s a scary world out there, and we don’t blame you if you’d rather just imagine us all being eaten by an extinct giant shark-like thing for a couple hours. No judgment here. So go to the theater, now that we’ve allayed your fears that The Meg might be a truly terrible Family Guy spinoff. It’s not; it’s something closer to a mix between Deep Blue Sea without Samuel L. Jackson and Armageddon without Bruce Willis. Enjoy.

Oh, and the Academy saw fit to add a new category to the Oscars this year. If you don’t know what it is yet, have we got a treat for you. Once you’ve heard Daniel’s opinion (if you had the time to listen to all of it), let us know what you think by leaving a sardonic comment over on Facebook. Josh may not be on many episodes nowadays, but he still takes great pleasure in reading anti-establishment grumbling on Facebook.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

“Live action remakes of classic Disney children’s movies” sounds like one of those hilariously over-specific Netflix genres, but it seems like Disney’s really trying to fill it out. Add that category to “mediocre Star Wars sequels”, and they may never have to make a truly original movie again.

OK, so Christopher Robin isn’t exactly a remake; it’s a live-action “where are they now?” sort of thing. Sadly, though, Seth MacFarlane has so soiled the idea of “a boy with a favorite teddy bear, but all grown up” that we wish it were a remake. It would save us a lot of awkward conversations.

Chris and Daniel saw it anyway, though, and they did their best to not imagine Pooh Bear making crass jokes and being a general cinematic disappointment. Should you join them in the theater? Listen for their thoughts, then give us your own on Facebook.

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We’ve covered how summer is the season of sequels, but so far this year we’ve avoided mentioning Tom Cruise. Well, no longer, because he’s in a—say it with me—sequel. This sequel’s special, though, because it’s in a franchise that has a colon right in the main title, and you know how much Daniel loves those. Franchises with colons in the title get to use dashes for the installment names, though, so that makes it a bit better. OK, so the movie’s Mission: Impossible—Fallout, but you already knew that. The only way we could say something unexpected about it was to talk about punctuation. We hope you’re happy.

Just so it’s not all Cruise all the time, though, let’s also take a minute to talk about some TV. Err, sort-of TV. Whatever we’re calling all these streaming services that are turning into premium cable networks. Hulu has a new show called Castle Rock that’s produced by JJ Abrams and draws from all over Stephen King’s body of work. It’s a show made for Josh to hate, but sadly he’s not here to talk about it. We’ll let Chris, Melody, and Daniel do that instead; we’re sure they’ll be just as pessimistic about it.

And with that, it’s off to Facebook. How many impossible missions will it take for the word “impossible” to lose all meaning? You decide!

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There are so many of these now that we’re going to have to start coming up with tiers of Marvel movie. Infinity War is on the “almost satirically large cast” end of the spectrum, which puts the first Ant Man closer to “wait; that was a Marvel movie?” OK, fine—we’ll come up with catchier names, but you’ll have to wait for them; you can’t rush genius.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, right; Paul Rudd. We’ve loved him at least since Almost Famous—wait; that wasn’t Paul Rudd? We’ve been living a lie!

Seriously, though. Ant Man’s a real superhero—like, Stan Lee real. He has a nemesis named the Wasp, which is both entomologically sound (depending on the species, of course) and makes for a convenient movie title, Ant Man and the Wasp...What’s that you say? No, the studio is not phoning it in, and we’ll thank you to take your heresy elsewhere.

Superheroes, though, so Chris and Daniel are in. Should you be? Tune in and find out, then hop over to Facebook and suggest your own names for levels of the Marvel movie taxonomy. If yours are good enough, we might use them in a future episode and give up on writing our own. Think about it—your claim to fame could be breaking our creative spirit. Tempting, right?

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Another summer, another slate of franchises. We’ve covered the pre/se/reboot that was Ocean’s 8; now it’s time for a couple movies that are unambiguously sequels: Jurassic World 2 and Incredibles 2.

The first installment of Jurassic World (or fourth installment of Jurassic Park...maybe this sequel thing is more complicated than we thought) has a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing, also known as the very definition of a “mixed reception”. That didn’t stop the franchise train from rolling along, though, and we know at least one critic who’s still bullish on the whole thing. You’ll have to listen to find out who it is; it might not be Chris.

Incredibles 2, on the other hand, has some expectations to live up to. We’ve all been waiting to find out...well, whether the wait was worth it. Has the new installment done right by the original, or is this another Cars 2 scenario?

OK; Facebook time. Is the lack of originality a feature of Hollywood, or a bug? You decide.

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Special Guest: Chad Madden.

Ocean’s 8 isn’t the first time in recent history that a dude-heavy cast has been replaced wholesale in a reboot/sequel-type scenario, but it’s at least the first time that’s been done in the heist genre. The question, of course, is whether it lives up to the pedigree of Ocean’s movies, assuming the series qualifies as having a “pedigree” to begin with. It didn’t place very well in the summer box office wager, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a bonus episode.

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If the buzz about Hereditary is to be believed, it ranks up there with The Exorcist for audience reaction, which is nothing to sneeze at. We won’t say much more here than “it’s not your typical gore fest of a horror movie”; we’ll leave it in the capable hands of Daniel and guest host Tyler to decide how much else you need to know before heading into the theater—maybe with a security blanket or something.

On the shortlist for our next episode: Ocean’s 8 and Incredibles 2. What they lack in originality, they make up for in...not giving you a heart attack. As always, head over to Facebook if you were traumatized by Hereditary and still need a shoulder to grab.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

Star Wars is back! We’re sure that’ll be less exciting to say after maybe year 5 or 10, but for now it’s still fresh and fun, right? Maybe Disney has hit the right stride with one Star Wars movie a year—it keeps the artificial feeling of scarcity alive, kind of like McDonalds and the marketing coup that is the McRib.

Anyway, Solo: A Star Wars Story (yes; that’s the actual full title) is out, and instead of being a new story for fans (and actors) to complain about, it focuses on a beloved character from the original trilogy. This can only end well, we’re sure. Is it worth seeing? Does the lead actor look anything like Harrison Ford? Will Donald Glover save us all? Tune in as Chad, Chris, and Daniel tackle all these questions and more.

And we may be a couple weeks behind on this one, but we recorded a review of Deadpool 2 (with Josh!), so we had to go ahead and release it. If we could time-travel, we'd go back and release it on time, but we're still working on that one.

As always, once the episode’s done, head over to Facebook. We’re sure you have something to add to this one.

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You may not have heard much about Tully, and that’s for the best. The writer, director, and star of Young Adult are working together again, and that’s all we’ll give you. Oh—that, and there’s an outside chance that Chad and Daniel might not be the most...equipped Screeners to review a movie about motherhood, but they’re who you get. Just listen; trust us.

As always, head over to Facebook and tell us if you’d even heard of Tully before this. Is Josh the only one who missed it entirely? We wouldn’t be surprised if he is.

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