The Rewatch Party

Dan claws his way back from the podcast afterlife just in time for 2018's Mission Impossible: Fallout, and the crew wastes zero time catching him up. We cover all the important bases like how to recognize when tapes are self destructing, how to really land the plane with "missionary position impossible," and that as a general rule, thought crimes can actually be considered a war crime in most countries.

Then we're all along for the ride on the Henry Cavill mustache saga. A ruined Justice League, contract clauses, and the tragic tale of earth's hottest flesh-covered caterpillar. By the end you'll need to be the judge on whether the man's lip deserves an apology or a restraining order.

Once the movie actually gets going, "payload" becomes the only word anyone's allowed to use for a giant garlic bulb of plutonium, Wolf Blitzer delivers his own eulogy to a bathroom mirror, and we relish in the insanity of a stall fight so brutal that Dan names his future memoir after it on the spot. Somewhere in there Anthony asks a genuinely pressing theological question about oral sex in Hell. Join us to learn if the devil would go down on Georgia, and whether all 123 pounds of Tom Cruise is really enough to bring down a helicopter.

Elise's birthday finally landed on the schedule, so Rewatch Party is in full party mode. Fire up the orchestra of rain sticks and strap into the amnesia-inducing spaceship of your choice, because the birthday girl cashed in her movie-picking privileges for Project Hail Mary. Nick and Anthony (bump fist, forever) are along for the ride, and Elise already knows exactly what she's gotten them into.

Anthony spends a suspicious amount of time contemplating lead puppeteer James Ortiz's hair, which naturally leads to a broader investigation into what a puppeteer is capable of doing with his hands. We detour through Taco Bell, redefine "tubin'" several increasingly unfortunate times, attempt to pronounce an alien name that defeats everyone who tries it, and establish once and for all that "we eat astrophage in this house."

It's science-y, it's a little horny, and against everyone's better judgment, Grace and Rocky are cute enough to make even this crew go soft for a minute. Turns out Elise picked a damn good birthday movie. So grab a Zenonite container, practice your most awkward fist bumps, and come help us celebrate - merry birthday, Elise.

The Rewatch Party is back in the field for 2015's Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, with Nick joined by Anthony and Elise as the franchise finally seems to have figured out exactly what it wants to be. Tom Cruise is hanging off airplanes, Simon Pegg is getting dragged into Ethan Hunt’s nonsense, and Rebecca Ferguson arrives as Ilsa Faust and proves she can do more than just make a sandwich.

The crew works through the opera assassination, the underwater data-center mission, increasingly questionable automotive physics, and Solomon Lane’s extremely evil-guy name. Ilsa earns plenty of appreciation, we meander into Cracker Barrel, the Rabbit’s Foot, and considerably more discussion of pegging than Simon Pegg probably deserves.

Ultimately, Rogue Nation is basically the Rewatch High Life - the champaign of impossible missions.  It may not be completely airtight, but extremely drinkable and worth another round.  So get comfy, suspend your disbelief, and join us for impossible missions, boss-bitch Ilsa Faust, Tom Cruise death fantasies, Barrel themed nihilism, and a recording session that somehow took six weeks to complete. Next week, Elise finally gets her perfectly punctual birthday episode with Project Hail Mary!

We break radio silence now as Nick has been deep in Romulan space with shields up and unable to transmit.  

With Elise out this week, it's just Nick and Anthony behind the microphones. They celebrate Simon Pegg graduating from "guy in the van" to full IMF field agent, wonder why Jeremy Renner spent a decade auditioning to inherit every major franchise, and ponder how much more effectively we couldsolve international incidents if only we could sprint faster.

The conversation veers through Bruce Springsteen T-shirt trivia, Dean Martin prison break soundtracks, Russian nuclear paranoia, Pixar easter eggs, the increasingly ridiculous Mission: Impossible spy gadgets, and whether the fake hallway projector might secretly be the dumbest brilliant idea ever put on film. Somewhere in there they also discuss Ghost Protocol, arguably the movie that turned Mission: Impossible into Hollywood's gold standard for practical action spectacle.

So grab your self-destructing cassette tape, double-check your climbing gloves, and remember: if your mission goes catastrophically wrong, just run faster.

Saddle up for 1983’s Lone Wolf McQuade, a movie that puts our dearly departed Chuck Norris in situations that modern audiences may not fully appreciate. It may come as a surprise to younger viewers that Chuck stars as a Texas Ranger who solves nearly every problem with roundhouse kicks, excessive firepower, and an unwavering belief that partners are for other people.  Chuck lays the foundation for his brand, proving that if you kick enough people in the face, eventually the plot resolves itself.

Nick, Anthony, and Elise explore this gloriously dusty action flick packed with horse thieves, exploding vehicles, automatic weapons used in ways that would horrify physics, and David Carradine sporting one of the most baffling haircuts in cinematic history.  We discuss whether Chuck’s lifestyle qualifies him as a man, a myth, or a particularly well-armed chinchilla.

The conversation wanders through Bruce Lee trivia, questionable animal-hybrid hypotheticals, angry police captains, impossible gunfights, and the peculiar magic of 1980s action heroes who refuse to work with partners, follow orders, or acknowledge the existence of consequences. It’s a celebration of peak Chuck Norris energy, complete with flying kicks, flying bullets, and enough "Ranger" references to qualify as a hazardous drinking game.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085862

Tom Cruise arrives in NASCAR with a middle tooth, another motorcycle, and starts rubbing.  See, once upon a time Tom Cruise and Paul Newman apparently drove a race car and immediately decided America needed two hours of sweaty pit crews, beer-soaked grandstands, and Michael Rooker looking like he’s about to stuff somebody into a locker. Oh yeah, and: Robert Duvall farming wisdom, Randy Quaid before the full unraveling, and an endless parade of "wait, THEY’RE in this too?" character actors flying past at 180 mph.

Nick, Elise, and Anthony spend an alarming amount of time discussing NASCAR science, accidental homoeroticism, and the absolute menace of early-career Tom Cruise teeth. There’s appreciation for Tony Scott’s ability to make race cars look like fighter jets, disbelief that this thing got an Oscar nomination for sound, and growing realization that Talladega Nights may actually be the more grounded movie. Somewhere in there we also talk about Days of Thunder.

And as we wave the checkered flag for Robert Duvall, we’re glad we got one more ride with Harry Hogge before he disappeared into the great infield garage in the sky.

So grab a six-pack, slap on your sponsor patches, and try not to look like a monkey fucking a football out there. It’s Days of Thunder.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099371/

Nick celebrates a birthday the only reasonable way possible: by forcing everyone to watch Samurai Cop, where every line sounds recently invented and every explosion feels personally insulting to the physics underpinning our reality. Nick, Anthony, and an in person Elise marvel at director Amir Shervan somehow stretching a reported $7,000 budget into helicopters, katana fights, cocaine deals, and the most aggressively fake wig ever committed to film. 

This movie was apparently filmed under conditions normally associated with a hostage negotiation. Actors wore their own clothes. Most scenes were done in a single take because film stock cost money. Entire chunks had to be reshot months later after the lead actor changed his hair, resulting in continuity so broken it becomes performance art. The discussion keeps circling back to baffling production decisions, including a helicopter pilot conducting phone-sex dialogue during a drug bust, stunt performers visibly changing ethnicity mid-fireball, and car chases where everyone politely uses turn signals.  

There’s also an alarming amount of time spent trying to map Samurai Cop onto the Kevin Bacon cinematic universe while determining whether Z’Dar counts as human or geological formation. It’s a celebration of glorious incompetence, impossible continuity, and the kind of filmmaking where nobody involved seems entirely sure what movie they’re making.  So pull the club out of your ass and Samurai Cop a feel on one of the few movies that genuinely earns the phrase "you just have to see it to believe it".

Tom Cruise is at an engagement party pretending to be normal, which mostly involves making drinks, studying "traffic patterns", and quietly alarming everyone in the room. Within minutes, he’s thrown all the ice into the backyard, taken a mysterious call, and disappeared to Berlin before anyone can question the growing puddle on the lawn. His fiancée accepts this without hesitation, which is honestly a great starting point for everyone here.

This is J.J. Abrams’ $150 million debut, handed to him because Tom Cruise watched Alias at 2 a.m. and trusted the vibes. The result is a movie powered less by logic and more by momentum counterbalanced by Philip Seymour Hoffman calmly counting to ten. Around that, we sit back and enjoy the spectacle: Vatican break-ins, exploding highways, helicopter chases, and an aggressively unexplained Rabbit's Foot.

Nick, Elise, and Anthony sort through the chaos, from defribulated brain bombs, to Ving Rhames operating rollerball sniper cannons, to Laurence Fishburne delivering an all-time GOATed Ted Talk on the power of rehetorical questions. We are all Julia today, as we go from trusting fiancée to action-ready medic in about forty-eight hours, and nobody stops to process any of it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not throw the party ice in the yard.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317919/

There’s wind, there’s confusion, there’s whatever the hell "blowing to my mighty wind" was supposed to mean.  Take a tour with us through construction site asbestos anxiety, chicken wing philosophy, and a string of musical puns that should legally qualify as a workplace hazard. By the time anyone remembers we’re here to talk about a movie, we’ve already emotionally prepared ourselves for death via Google notification.

Of course we're here to talk about A Mighty Wind, which is to say we immediately derail into Christopher Guest lore, Second City reverence, and the realization that folk music has apparently existed since cavemen discovered obelisks and started strumming. We latch onto Irving Steinbloom’s legacy as an excuse to meet the parade of deeply strange humans in this movie: painfully awkward folk trios, aggressively wholesome cult-adjacent choir people, and Mitch, who has been chemically sanded down into a human screensaver. The music is legitimately good, which feels unfair given how much of this is people making eye contact while saying the worst possible thing.

We explore porn backstories, model train lore, folk band beefs, and a superhero whose powers should not be spoken aloud in polite society. The movie itself becomes almost secondary to the experience of sitting in prolonged, deliberate discomfort while incredibly talented people commit to the bit harder than anyone reasonably should. By the end, we are left with a deep appreciation for Catherine O’Hara, a lingering fear of hotel neighbors, and the realization that folk music is just emotional damage set to three chords and eye contact you cannot escape.

We sat down for Anthony’s birthday episode and immediately chose violence.

We’re talking about The Punisher (1989), a movie that wastes zero time proving it absolutely does not give a single coherent fuck. A film that opens like a bargain-bin James Bond fever dream, then sprints straight into explosions and foot-stab assassinations.  Our Birthday Boy is riding the host chair; it’s chaos, it’s loud, and honestly, it’s kind of beautiful.

It’s also a very full house at Rewatch Party HQ, with Anthony, Nick, Elise, Manny, AND Dan all trying to keep up with a movie that refuses to explain anything besides repeating apparently legally binding exposition about 125 gangland murders on loop. That doesn't stop us from enthusiastically narrating every insane beat.  [X] Sewer monologue about justice, [X] a naked Punisher living like a damp raccoon philosopher, and [X] a drunken Shakespearean informant who should not, under any circumstances, be this plugged into organized crime.  And that's on top of frog-ninja assassins, exploding mansions, and a dock shootout where Punisher zip-lines off a human body.

By the time we hit Yakuza takeovers, kidnapped kids, and a casino massacre where literally everyone in the building turns out to be an assassin, we’ve fully embraced the insanity. By the end of our time together today, you'll have a full appreciation of wingnut powered torture racks, the appeal(?) of the sewer nudist lifestyle, and a villain plan that boils down to "consolidate, then obliterate." In the end, is it messy and unhinged?  Yes.  But that was $9 million well spent and we had a damn good time.