The Kick

From Chance's couch in Portland, your trusty hosts exchanged many looks (but mostly held it together) through three movies about the adult film industry. We begin with the new film KING COBRA, a depiction of rival production teams in the 2000s gay porn business. It's very James Franco. At 17:45, we move on to the porn movie monolith, BOOGIE NIGHTS, except we don't agree on just how great the saga of Dirk Diggler is. At 31:45, we wrap up with ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO, asking whether Kevin Smith had lost his best self by the time of this unsteady spoof. Overall, if you think delivering really explicit dialogue as though you're describing the weather is funny, you're home.

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This week, Noah and Chance saw the artful new alien invasion film "Arrival." Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner as scientists charged with discovering shell-shaped spacecrafts' purpose on Earth. That familiar premise led Noah and Chance to argue whether "Arrival" is a relative of movies we've seen before or something more meditative with stranger designs. Spoilers are broached in the back half of the show; plus, is this a comforting picture of human potential in the wake of the presidential election?

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The boys were together in Portland last week for a category they'd been sitting on for awhile: battling invaders at cruising altitude. First, they revisit "Snakes On A Plane" for its 10th anniversary –- a movie that must be bad-good, but is it? Then it's on to "Air Force One" and conspiracy theories about the president being drunk while literally beating back communism. They wrap up with "Executive Decision," a movie in which Steven Seagal gives a decent performance, Kurt Russell stays calm, and the title makes not one iota of sense.

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On this week's show, we watched a trio of movies about adults returning to the small towns they abruptly left as teenagers. Comprising GROSSE POINTE BLANK, SWEET HOME ALABAMA and THE JUDGE, this genre raises all sorts of questions about self-reflection, the meaning of roots, and forgiving your younger self for handing out judgment. So naturally, we had to have Noah's little brother (a high school freshman) on the podcast. Find timestamps for the different movie discussions below, and find all episodes at bereelguys.com.

3:45 - Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, John Cusack)

18:45 - Sweet Home Alabama (2002, Reese Witherspoon)

29:50 - The Judge (2014, Robert Downey Jr.)

This week, Noah and Chance order up the 1988 Tom Cruise vehicle "Cocktail." Never seen it? Somehow we hadn't either, despite the fact that it features one of the brashest, most encompassing Cruise performances ever. He plays a showman bartender who twirls bottles, gyrates to '80s hits, parties with the clientele, competes poisonously with his mentor, and fancies himself "the world's last barman poet." Hard to believe we found something to talk about in there.

Find all episodes of the show at bereelguys.com. "Cocktail" is streaming now via HBO.

This week, Noah and Chance climb out of hell with three contract killers left for dead. They begin with "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," asking whether this is a turning point in the scope of Tarantino's genre bloodbaths. At 18:10, they analyze Mel Gibson's lost and compromised stardom in "Payback" (1999)and quibble over when this Hollywood noir riff is set. When "John Wick" is approached at 28:15, they ask if you can reverse engineer a good-good movie by starting with Keanu Reeves as a ridiculous sleeping giant and adding enough style and world to make it sing.

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Few instances invite “based on a true story” films like individuals amid massive conspiracies and cover-ups stepping up to the plate and blowing the whistle. Edward Snowden knows it. And Oliver Stone really wants you to know it in his 2016 Snowden biopic.

We begin the show in conversation with GQ culture writer Scott Meslow, discussing his recent piece on Snowden’s ascendance as a blockbuster theme and token, and whether there’s a real conversation about surveillance happening in films like SPECTRE, JASON BOURNE or even Oliver Stone’s SNOWDEN. At 17:00, Chance and Noah turn a watchful eye on SNOWDEN, assessing why and how these whistleblower movies aren’t good at depicting home lives and also, what are you doing here, Nic Cage?

At 31:00, we move to 2000’s ERIN BROCKOVICH (currently on Netflix) and chat about why this is quintessential Julia Roberts and Steven Soderbergh. Then, at 45:00, we wrap up with 1999’s THE INSIDER, which is Al Pacino and Russell Crowe taking on Big Tobacco. Like so many Michael Mann movies, it’s stylish, admirable, and tough on your ideas of how movies should entertain and unfold. (It’s currently on HBO.) Find all episodes of our show at bereelpodcast.com and follow Scott Meslow at twitter.com/scottmeslow.

From the mind that brought you "Boyhood," sit back and enjoy ... "Brohood"?

In this week's mini-episode, Noah and Chance move in with the much-praised 2016 Richard Linklater film "Everybody Wants Some!!" Set in a Texas house of college baseball players in 1980, it's easygoing, it examines every inch of a social group, and it's an idealist's take on just duding around in the days before class starts.

A love so great it spawned a movie and this podcast episode. Thanks, Obamas. We lead off our discussion of romance movies set during a single day with the new film "Southside With You." First, Chance speaks with LA Weekly's lead film critic April Wolfe about the movie's ambitious premise, odd diction and political bubble.

At 27 minutes, Noah and Chance move to "Before Sunrise," discussing what makes Richard Linklater so sneaky great and whether you have to believe love exists to put up with Ethan Hawke's performance. At the 37-minute mark, they conclude with "A Single Man" and whether Tom Ford successfully transformed a voice-driven novella about a man's last day of life into a meaningful clothing and home decor catalog.

Find past episodes of the show at bereelguys.com.

Cinematic Americans cross the border for myriad reasons: to unwittingly liberate a village with their theatrical abilities, to chase down an ornamental pistol with a deep folklore, or to tell a cartel chief what's what. Off the screen, our Noah Ballard went to Mexico for the pools and the margaritas. This week, he calls in with his old pal Brent to discuss ¡Three Amigos! (1986), The Mexican (2001) and Traffic (2000). As goofy as singing shrubbery and as serious as a failed war on drugs, this is "Americans in Mexico."

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