Sneople At The Movies

Thrilling news, beloved listeners! We have a very special guest this episode - Lys (@daunt_lys on twitter) is on to discuss alien movies with us!

After clarifying that this is, in fact, an episode about the genre of alien movies rather than the Alien franchise and also discussing the horrors of the Borderlands movie, the crew gets into the meat of alien movies. By that, we of course mean that all three of them get deeply distracted by Pennywise lore to the point where Ezra’s side of the call crashes, and Lys desperately tries to remember a very weird Nic Cage alien movie they saw. Eventually, they all talk Alien (the franchise) and alien (the concept) movies enough that, for the first time in Sneople history, Matty and Ezra gleefully receive Pop Culture Homework in the form of some recommendations from Lys, who may or may not be handing out stickers depending on the results of said homework. Yay!

I, the publisher of this episode, am only sort of sorry for the episode picture. If you’re podcasting via a service that doesn’t show the picture, good news! You’re safe from this very bad joke we describe in episode anyway.

Welcome back, beloved listeners! This week, we’re tackling some movies with bizarre plot twists: The Da Vinci Code, Dracula 2000 and (vaguely), our old friend Van Helsing (2004)!

This episode opens with a brief review of the (fascinating? unhinged?) plot of The Da Vinci Code for those who haven’t seen the film or read the book - Matty fell into that category before seeing this movie for the show and boy howdy, they were not ready for the twists this movie had in store. From there, the Sneople dive deep into a discussion on the what, the why, and the what the hell was all that of this movie, before moving onto Dracula 2000, another equally weird film they covered in Episode 62. Lots of crosses and God Talk here folks. Be forewarned.

I know we barely talked about Van Helsing this episode but let’s be honest, we’ve talked about that movie enough to last a lifetime. I think we’re set.

We’re back, beloved listeners, and we’re ringing the imaginary boxing match bell in celebration of this week’s Remake Rumble: 3:10 to Yuma (1957) versus it’s 2007 remake!

Per any good Remake Rumble episode, the Sneople spend a little time explaining the basic premise of the films before diving headfirst into the differences, what they like or dislike about each, and what makes each of these movies like, SO gay. This doesn’t even cover the fact that there is some very serious discussion on how attractive Russell Crowe is in the remake - it didn’t come up in ep, but Glenn Ford as Ben Wade? ALSO distressingly attractive, just saying. Obviously you’ll have to listen to hear the winner of this remake rumble, but we’ll say this - it’s a lot closer than you might think.

On a more serious note, apologies for the delay in releasing this episode! It’ll shift our schedule, but we’ll be back in two weeks with the next Sneople episode, putting us back on our standard biweekly release. I am trying so hard to not make this announcement sound like a corporate email. Yeehaw.

The summer season is in full swing, beloved listeners, heat waves and all! In order to cope, the Sneople are discussing Summer Movies!

Like any good Sneople episode, this one features categories galore, like the difference between a movie that makes you think of summer, a summer blockbuster, and a Summer Movie (with many overlaps in-between). With categories comes lists featuring many of the Sneople’s summer faves, such as Jaws, Twister, and National Treasure, a movie duology they’ve somehow never done an episode on. There’s of course also plenty of discussion of what makes summer movies appealing all year round, and the woes of having to get off a vinyl seat when you’re wearing shorts and it’s hot out.

The Sneople also want to make it clear they’re not joking about the popsicle rec request in the outro, btw. We’re dying out here, popsicles are a must and we’re on the lookout.

IT’S THEIR BIRTHDAY and by they we mean Matty and by it’s their birthday we mean it was their birthday two weeks ago. The important part is it’s their Birthday Episode and they have a doozy of a triple feature this week - Mad Max 2, Max Mad: Fury Road, and Escape from New York!

After their new accidental segment, Concert Talk, Matty gives a brief summary of all three films (more or less), as well as the reasoning behind pairing the three together - spoiler, its mostly how Fury Road and Escape from New York connect to Mad Max 2. From asshole protags to apocalyptic wastelands to Kurt Russell’s marker tattoo and everything in-between (including Bruce Spence, who loves to be in a sequel), the Sneople compare and contrast these three films and why they work well together. There’s also a fair amount of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome affection and Waterworld dunking, if that’s your jam.

Also Matty forgot to mention this in the episode, but they noticed during their most recent Fury Road rewatch that they drive their cars the American Way (with the driver sitting on the left) in that movie vs the previous three movies, where they all drive the Australian Way (ie with the driver sitting on the right). It’s been haunting Matty ever since. Why did it take them so long to notice? Was the change because it was produced by an American company? What does George Miller have to say about this? George please pick up the phone the people need to know.

Happy Pride, beloved listeners! This episode, the Sneople are celebrating with an extremely appropriate topic - Camp Film!

After a hearty What We Sneep, the Sneople get into describing what they think camp even means when it comes to film, a topic that’s more difficult to tackle than they expected. From there, it’s the camp films and directors they love, why they’ve stood the test of time, and why camp is important to them as queer people. There is, of course, a lot of distractions along the way, but you legally can’t get mad about it because it’s Pride.

The Sneople do also spend a lot of time talking about Speed Racer (2008), a movie they decided wasn’t camp, but you have understand - it’s hard not to talk about Speed Racer when you have the chance. They’re not sorry.

No Ezra this week, beloved listeners, so we’re having our dear friend Ben Hamlin of Syndicated with Lesley and Ben and Parascience back to talk with us about something we didn’t realize we were so passionate about: Movie Trailers!

After catching up with Ben on what he’s Sneeped recently, our trio dive in to trailers they’ve recently seen, ones they remember from their childhood, and trends they both like and dislike. There’s also a decent amount of discussion on why trailers are the way they are today (negative), and why they find it hard to care about the trailers when they sit down in the theater these days. There is, shockingly, more than a little bit of getting off topic but to be fair, the group remembered that not everyone knows who Kit Fisto is and that caused a mild ruckus.

If you want more Ben related content, you can listen to him talk TV on Syndicated with Lesley and Ben, run a creeping and crawling tabletop game with Matty and Ezra on Parascience, and find him (and Matty!) on twitch.tv/infinitybreakgaming every Tuesday at 6:30 PST for Chaos in Stereo!

Ring the bells and rush to your stadium seats, beloved listeners, because it’s time for another Remake Rumble! This time, it’s one that’s been a long time coming - a three-way fight between The Thing from Another World (1951) vs The Thing (1982) vs The Thing (2011)!

After a speedrun of What We Sneep, the Sneople dive into the rumble by discussing The Thing from Another World and its spot as the first film adaptation of the 1938 novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell. From there we skip right over to the 2011 movie, a prequel to the 1982 film, which really made us more sad than anything else. From there we kind of lose track of discussing them as separate films and do whatever we want. Losing track of what’s going on and doing whatever we want, as a concept, may not surprise long time listeners.

The result of this Rumble may not surprise you, as it certainly did not surprise us. But who knows? After all……….maybe we got be-thinged and we are not who we seem to be……………

This episode has probably been a long time coming, beloved listeners, but to be fair…it look a long time for SOMEONE (Matty) to do their film homework. Now that they have, the Sneople finally able to discuss the topic of this week’s ep - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead!

Starting off with the 1990 film, the Sneople gush about why it’s an incredible stage to screen adaptation, what makes it a compelling piece of media even if you haven’t read Hamlet a million times (like they have oops), and why Tim Roth is so devastatingly good looking. Beyond that, also talk about the play itself, and why both the play and the movie speak to them in different ways. Unsurprisingly, the episode does spin off a couple times into just talking about absurdist plays and/or Hamlet but that’s to be expected.

Please send in your votes now for which Sneople host you would cast in the main three roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (including The Player), you have until the next ep goes up thank you xoxo

Awards season is finally over, beloved listeners, but that does not mean we will ever be free of movie related drama - with the announcement of a Night of the Hunter remake, it’s time to tackle a topic long coming: Remakes and Reboots!

Starting off with a very angry rant about The Crow (1994) remake and overall thoughts about what makes a good/thoughtful remake, the Sneople shift to talking reboots and why they never seem to stick the landing - how else do you explain the fact that there was a WHOLE GHOSTBUSTERS LEGACY REBOOT and somehow at least one of the Sneople hadn’t even heard about it until the second movie dropped?? From there they wander into getting distracted by Ghostbusters (and jukebox?) lore before returning to the issue at hand - why a Night of the Hunter remake, especially one without clear directorial vision, is unnecessary, even decades later. If you couldn’t tell, there’s a lot of impassioned speeches in this episode.

Matty just so happened to watch the original Road House AFTER this episode was recorded, which is a shame because that discussion easily could have pushed this ep over into 2 hour long territory. Oh well. Next time.