The Hell With This

Suddenly rocking a sweet new "The Hell With This" theme song by the amazing Zen Zenith, Chad and Mark are back with some early 80's Halloween fare. It's Mark's choice this week, but neither of the guys have seen "Halloween III - Season of the Witch". The guys also chat about cars, marriage and Star Wars, because why not?

Steve Phelan sits in for an absent Chad on a deep dive back to 1973's "Scarecrow", starring Gene Hackman (aww, we miss him) and Al Pacino. The boys also go on a huge tangent about Star Wars, which seems to be a theme lately.

Dreams do come true. Eventually. We welcome ourselves back from an impromptu holiday vacation, which we don't even refer to in the show, because this episode was recorded before Christmas 2017 (as is the next episode as well).

Ahem. Where do we begin with this week's exploration into 1987's Wings of Desire? Well, for one, it's an awesome film. Arty, stylish, slow, but cool. So cool that it was eventually remade into a Meg Ryan / Nicolas Cage tearjerker. Typical.

Hey, unless you're living under a rock, you might have heard it's Star Wars week. To celebrate the coming-of-age of The Last Jedi's director, Rian Johnson, Mark and Chad are here to celebrate the earliest work of the man, 2005's acclaimed indie Brick.

Performers of note: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Matt O'Leary,

Falling in line with the Zucker Brothers' history of slapstick comedy, "Top Secret!" is no exception to the rule. It's a movie that eluded Chad for the duration of its existence… Yet, somehow, it's one of Mark's treasured favorites (he gives it a 9 out of 10 star rating). The boys sit back, relax and try to figure out if there's an actual story to this thing, or if it's only a ploy for sight gags. Oh, and it's the first movie Val Kilmer ever did (according to imdb).

Performers of note: Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Peter Cushing, Christopher Williers, Michael Gough, Harry Ditson, Jim Carter, Omar Sharif, Eddie Tagoe, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker

The guys deep dive back into the world of European art-house cinema, again looking back to the works of director Krzysztof Kieslowski (we first tackled his "The Double Life of Veronique" in the 4th episode of this podcast!)). "Three Colors: Red" falls within Chad's top-10 favorite films OF ALL TIME, for reasons mostly unknown to even him, but it remains largely unknown from the populist world at large.

Performers of note: Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Pierre Lorit, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Benoît Régent, Zbigniew Zamachowski.

This is as good a week as any to talk about 2004's rendition of "The Punisher", considering Netflix just released their own version of "The Punisher" TV series last week. This week, Mark presents the movie to Chad, whom has never seen ANY of the Punisher installments over the years. The two of them dive deep into the state of comic book movies, and make an effort to introduce everyone to our slight format change.

Performers of note: Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton, Ben Foster, Rebecca Romijn, Roy Scheider (RIP), Samantha Mathis, Kevin Nash, Laura Harring, Eddie Jemison, John Pinette (RIP).

Mark and guest Ashley Long (sans Chad, was out of town) take a look at Ridley Scott's much maligned fantasy epic, "Legend" (The Director's Cut, specifically). Ashley stews of fond memories of the film, while Mark doesn't quite feel it was "directed by a human being".

Performers of note: Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Robert Picardo

Mark finally gets his Halloween wish – he and Chad tackle a movie that at least falls into the horror film genre this time. "One Dark Night" seems to have disappeared from public view since it's release in 1982. How we stumbled across it, only Chad knows (he totally judged the blu-ray by its awesome cover, and bought it without having seen it).

Performers of note: Meg Tilly, Melissa Newman, Robin Evans, Leslie Speights, Elizabeth Daily, Adam West, Tom McLoughlin.

Happy Halloween! Mark wanted to do a movie that actually fit the mold of Halloween for the holiday, but Chad was a grump and they stuck with the original plan. This time we're trying something a little new (for us) – we're doing a podcast for a movie that's still in theaters! Yes, we (mostly) loved it that much. If you hated the new Blade Runner installment… well… go straight to hell and don't pass 'GO'.

Performers of note: Ryan Gosling, Jared Leto, Sylvia Hoeks, Ana de Armas, Carla Juri, Dave Bautista, Edward James Olmos, Harrison Ford, Hiam Abbass, Mackenzie Davis, Robin Wright