There Will Be Pod

There is a direct line from David Fincher's new movie Mank, about how Upton Sinclair's run for political office inspired the writing of Citizen Kane, and our podcast, as Sinclair wrote Oil! which led PTA to write There Will Be Blood, which led your fave movie podcast hosts to 'write' There Will Be Pod. To unpack the Citizen Kane of 2020 movies, John Gilpatrick (@johnlgilpatrick) joins Av & Sam to tackle director David Fincher's cinematic take on the writing of Citizen Kane, Mank (16:50). Having caught up on Nolan's Tenet (6:30), we also run down the best and worst of celebrated directors' passion projects (40:20). John's film commentary can also be found on his movie podcast Its The Pictures (@Itsthepicpod) and his website, http://www.johnlikesmovies.com/.

Outre: “Charlie Kane,” adapted for Citizen Kane (1941) by Bernard Hermann, lyrics by Herman Ruby, sung by Harry Bailey and a bevy of chorus girls in Citizen Kane (1941). Based on the Mexican folk song 'A Poco No,' by Pepe Guizar.

Aaron Brooks joins Av and Sam for On The Rocks (29:20), the third cinematic marriage of Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola. We also dive into a bevy of recent watches about fathers and daughters, discussing Dick Johnson is Dead, Shithouse, The Kid Detective, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, The Trial of the Chicago Seven, Rebecca, Spontaneous, The 40 Year Old Version, A Call to Spy and Save Yourselves! 

Plus: A Classic Corner (39:00) devoted to a certain 007.

Outre: “Happy Street” ft. Bill Murray, Paul Shaffer and The World’s Most Dangerous Band

Av and Sammy reveal their preference on that most cinematic of dilemmas: popcorn or the picture - but first they tackle the far more forbidding lineup of movies released this September, culminating in a featured review (37:00) of Charlie Kaufman's I'm Thinking of Ending Things -- spoiler free until the 40:30 mark. 

New movies discussed include recommendations: Boys State (8:00); The Devil All The Time (16:00); The Social Dilemma (24:45); Get Duked! (29:15); House of Hummingbird (32:10). And a few we urge you to avoid - Unpregnant, Mulan, I Used to Go Here, She Dies Tomorrow, Misbehaviour, Extra Ordinary (... yup, it was that kind of month). Plus, two genuine classics before the bow.

Outré: Lonely Room, sung by Jesse Plemons, written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II for Oklahoma (1943)

We are celebrating brothers at the movies as Aaron Brooks and Dr. Shai Chester join Sammy, Av and Will to discuss all things July movies. Before the big feature - Palm Springs (57:00 w/spoilers), we cover a gaggle of recent releases, including standouts like Archive, Hamilton, First Cow, as well as Yes God Yes, The Old Guard, Mr Jones, The King of Staten Island, Tommaso, Mucho Mucho Amor and, well, more!

Also: a ground-breaking Classics Corner awaits at the episode's end. 

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is the movie of June 2020, and sets the table (25:30) for Av and Sam to consider the most impactful movies ever made about racist police brutality – starting with 1971's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song all the way through the half-dozen movies released in the last few years. See here for the complete list of 21 movies. 

Also see here the minute-and-a-half short film that Spike Lee released on Twitter called 3 Brothers — Radio Raheem, Eric Garner, and George Floyd.

Outré: What's Going On, Marvin Gaye | Da 5 Bloods OST (1971 and 2020) - For why Spike chose this song, see here.

With Av and Will on summer break, we recruited the celebrated pulp sci-fi horror sleuth Justin Partridge (@j_partridgeIII) and revealed the unabashed romantic that is everyone's favorite silver screen sibling Aaron Brooks (@aaronjaybrooks). Justin, Aaron and Sam unpack The Vast of Night (43:37) and a galaxy of unheralded new releases, plus in celebration of the hindsight that is 20/20, we decide the best movies ever made about hindsight (55:30) and close with Classics Corner (1:10:00).

This episode contains NO Spoilers, save for 90 seconds of spoilers at minute 53:00 on The Vast of Night.

For more on Aaron, check out his Letterboxd (@incubrooks) and his new podcast, Digesting Dark: An Unofficial Dark on Netflix Companion. Justin's writing on pop-culture can be found on Newsarama, DIS/MEMBER, and Rouges Portal.

New movies discussed: The Vast of Night, Porno, The Half of It, Premature, Valley Girl, Possessor, The Gentleman, Underwater, The Trip to Greece, Driveways, La Belle Époque, The Traitor, Capone, Arkansas, Spaceship Earth.

Classic Corner: A Cock and Bull Story (2005); Maniac (1980); Fallen Angels (1995).

Outré: 20/20 Hindsight, Barenaked Ladies (2017) 

If there is a silver lining to losing so many new releases in April, it may be the chance to shine some love on the genre of movies the streaming gods delivered: good old fashioned adult dramas. Bad Education is our obvious feature, as Av brings his Long Island expertise to help Will and Sam unpack the new Hugh Jackman vehicle. For a deeper dive into the true story of Bad Education, check out the New York Magazine source article.

The other new releases we discuss in this episode: The Assistant, Extraction, Tigertail, Sergio, Blow the Man Down, Beastie Boys Story and True History of the Kelly Gang.

Outre: Blow The Man Down, traditional English shanty, sung and instrumentals by David Coffin, Jacek Sulanowski, Daniel Lanier, THomas J. Goux

Sammy, Will and Av are back for the first regular episode of 2020. We break down our favorites (and least favorites) of the year so far, ruminate on the state of movies in the age of Coronavirus and much more.

Movies discussed on the episode: The Invisible Man, The Banker, Bacarau, The Platform, Birds of Prey, Onward, Downhill, The Hunt, The Whistlers, Beanpole, Fantasy Island, Call of the Wild, The Wild Goose Lake, Never Rarely Sometimes Always

The Sports Movies Tournament of Champions finale is here – after watching and bracketing ~300 sports movies over the past ten months, it all comes down to the remaining 16 movies as they contend for the crown of best sports movie of all time.

Here is the tourney bracket updated through Sweet 16. Here is the clean bracket from the start of the 64-movie tourney.

Our guest judges for the finale are two baseball savants and movie experts, Will Leitch (@williamfleitch) and Cliff Corcoran (@CliffCorcoran). Cliff was the overwhelming choice of listeners to return after joining us for the Balboa Region. Make sure to check out his baseball writing at The Athletics, Baseball Prospectus for his upcoming series on baseball movies, as well as his collaboration on the baseball podcast, The Infinite Inning.

The founder of Deadspin, Will’s comments on sports, movies and culture at large can be found at New York Magazine, MLB.com, the Grierson & Leitch Movie Podcast, as well as his personal website. Don't miss Will and Tim Grierson's write-up in Vulture of the 50 best sports movies.

Check out our podcast for episodes covering the earlier rounds in this tourney, as well as the episodes devoted to movies for each sport – baseball, basketball, Olympics, boxing and so much more.

To nerd out, you can see the full movie list here, including the results, rankings and critics grades for all the sports movies we watched over the last year.

Outré: "Dear Basketball" (2017) Kobe Bryant, Glen Keane, John Williams

Bull Durham, Any Given Sunday and the movie that may be your only chance at enjoying the Olympics in Tokyo are three of the sixteen movies of the Miyagi Region facing off in this episode, Part 4 of the Sports Movies Tournament of Champions. Joining us is a true sports movie connoisseur, Kyle Bandujo (@kylebandujo), host of Big Screen Sports (@Big_ScreenSport), a podcast dedicated to sports movies

Check out the complete 64 movie bracket here.  And make sure you do not miss the previous episodes covering the Bombay, Bambino and Balboa regions. We will be back soon to complete the entire tourney with a Sweet 16 finale episode.

To see how these 64 movies were selected and seeded, see here. And check out our podcast for the previous episodes devoted to movies in specific sports, from Boxing and Baseball to Olympics, Hockey and many more.

Outre: "Anthem of Oh Sadaharu" (1985 Tokyo Giants)