What do Steven Spielberg, Henry Selick, James Bond, Nicolas Roeg, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson and Gene Wilder all have in common? Probably not much, but we can tell you all about how they all played in the wheelhouse that Roald Dahl created through his delightful children's books and screenplays (yes, he wrote a couple), many of which helped to warp minds with his playful but twisted visions and stories. Jack and Andrew explore the adaptations of his works, how they compare with one another, as Jack sees Spielberg's new release while Andrew talks about the musical Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang.

(and Jack has a rather odd question about a hot tub scene that is in You Only Live Twice... or it may be another movie...)

Movies:

1) THE BFG (2016)

2) THE WITCHES (1990)

3) JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1996)

4) FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009)

5) MATILDA (1996)

6) YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967)

7) CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968)

8) WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)

9) CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (2005)

(songs for fair use purposes via Willy Wonka, Charlie, & Mr. Fox soundtracks).

First Jack and Andrew get on a tangent, as they're wont to do, about video game movies and why there aren't really any good adaptations of video games (and on the flip-side why there aren't too many good games based on video games, with one exception), and there's a pitch Jack makes for a Katamari Damacy movie that should be directed by Japan's wildman Takashi Miike.

Then it's movie talk as Jack sees some new movies that involve sand, surf and Daniel Radcliff's private parts, one of the late Anton Yelchin's best performances, and Andrew sees a Powell & Pressburger classic. All in a day's work at THE WAGES OF CINEMA (oh, and Andrew wonders about Colin Farrell's uh Scottish/Greekness?)

Movies discussed:

1) SWISS ARMY MAN (2016)

2) TH SHALLOWS (2016)

3) FRIGHT NIGHT (2011)

4) THE RED SHOES (1948)

5) WIENER-DOG (2016)

6) RISKY BUSINESS (1983)

7) WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964)

8) TASTE OF CHERRY (1997)

9) BORDER RADIO (1987)

10) CHAFED ELBOWS (1965)

11) THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)

(featured Duke Ellington 'Jubilee Stomp' as intro, Swiss Army Man trailer)

It's time to take a vacation. Where to? Who with? How about if you're already on vacation and by some miracle or 'Unusual Destiny', so to speak, you find yourself on even more of a vacation? It may be that you're a lowly sailor with Communist leanings, or the wife of a wealthy man who will pontificate about the days politics and complain about the working people and how things are and... oh wait, what, what if the roles get reversed and the Communist has power over the Capitalist on a deserted island?

And what if it's a man over a woman?

Jack goes into the tank to soak up every last drop he can from Lina Wertmuller's sexy, subversive 1974 cult film SWEPT AWAY.

(clips from Slavoj Zizek in The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012), music from Swept Away, and the Go-Go's 'Vacation' all via fair use)

Free State of Jones may not be a gigantic "box-office smash" (currently it opened at #6 in its first weekend), but that shouldn't matter if the movie works, right? Here we have a piece of history not many know about: a man who rallied a group of poor farmers (and ex/runaway slaves) to make a 'free state of Jones' (as in the county) to combat those in the South in Mississippi who had too much while they were being sucked dry by the Confederacy to pay for the war. Sounds like a backwoods Civil War Robin Hood tale, right? Well, funny thing about that when a story takes place from 1862 to 1876... and then some.

Jack and Andrew watched Matthew McConaughey's latest film for grown-ups in this blockbuster movie season. If you have any thoughts or historical corrections to make you can send all queries and angry emails to [email protected] (but don't be too angry, we're nice enough guys, or at least try to be...)

(SPOILERS at 31:11)

Sequels. What else is there to say about them? Jack and Andrew find discussion about the mammoth amount of sequels Hollywood has going on this year, what it means for the industry, and other bones to pick. But are there... GOOD sequels? Well, yes, of course, but there's more to it than that, as we discover in this main topic of the week.

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Perfection - so many want it, few actually attain it (and as Jack Nicholson once told Stanley Kubrick allegedly, "just because you're a perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect"). Can Nina Sayers, the tragic hero (and villain of her own story) of Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN from 2010, attain this lofty goal? Can she become THE black swan that requires her to 'let go'? So many questions, and so much toe-bleeding to do.

Andrew Birchenough watched Black Swan 5 times in 5 days, won't you listen to what he found?

(clips featured from Black Swan and the score by Clint Mansell)

In this first part, we do talk movies, but also some other things, like a new mini-series on OJ Simpson (Made in America!), music videos that made us sit up and take notice, Lifetime movies, the difference between thrillers and horror movies (and science fiction and horror), and what the hell Wonder Showzen was (if anyone knows please let us know!)

And some movies:

THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940)

THE CONJURING 2 (2016)

THE SKIN I LIVE IN (2011)

A GOOD MARRIAGE (2014)

MOTHER, MAY I SLEEP WITH DANGER? (2016)

FINDING DORY (2016)

WARCRAFT (2016)

What can you say about a movie that is based on a Gore Vidal book and is somehow more f***ing insane and terrible than Caligula? Well... look no further than Myra Breckinridge starring Raquel Welch, John Huston, Rex Reed(!), Farrah Fawcett and John Carradine in the biggest pile of WTF that it makes Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - released in the same year and by the same studio, 20th Century Fox - look like a walk in the satirical park by comparison. But is it ALL bad? Well...

Dr. Jack and Dr. Andrew, trained in the field of medically identifying how train-wrecks got the way they did and how wreck-ish they get, give as their first analysis this colossal nightmare. Look forward for more to come!

Japanese pop idols. Psychological investigative crime shows. A stalker. A website and a blog (madness!). Rape. Murder. It's just a shot away, right? What if it gets to your head?

This is Satoshi Kon's debut as a director, and he made quite a name for himself with an adaptation of a thriller about a pop idol who decides to become an actress. This is one of the most daring experiments into presenting reality, fantasy, dreams and nightmares into one package that includes bouncy Japanese girl-pop music, and two shots copied by Darren Aronofsky(!) Oh, and there may be a quote from Slavoj Zizek.

Listen in as Jack takes a long soak in the bathtub for PERFECT BLUE.

It may be sound like just another episode of the Wages of Cinema - what starts with a discussion from Andrew on the new Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (from 2014, not the most recent one "Out of the Shadows", got to keep them straight now of course) goes into a brief talk about what is a good movie to take a first date to see (what will be the one that you know will say "She's the one for me!") and then it veers off into some new/old movie babble from Jack about movies ranging from an obscure Marvel movie (yes they exist) to new documentary on a sad political scandal - but it's also out FIFTY-SECOND EPISODE! Which is... cool. Have one episode per week for a year on us!

Movies discussed:

1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

2) Man-Thing (2005)

3) Streets of Fire (1984)

4) Akira (1988)

5) Weiner (2016)

Music by Duke Ellington and Vivaldi