Ticket Stubs

Just when we thought we were out, they pulled us back in...to keep talking about all things Godfather! This week's bonus episode has us exploring the larger Godfather-verse- or whatever- which includes but is not limited to the original 1969 source material from Mario Puzo, the much maligned conclusion of the cinematic trilogy, the ex post facto videogames (which especially hold a place in our collective hearts), and the forthcoming Paramount+ series The Offer that looks every bit as mediocre as most of the aforementioned iterations of the franchise. Nothing may ever touch the original two films but we had a lot of fun dissecting the countless ways in which the Corleone family forcefully assert themselves into the larger pop cultural landscape.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

What better way to follow up last episode's discussion of the greatest film of all time than by subsequently tackling the greatest sequel of all time? The Godfather Part II's successes are myriad but its sheer force of will to act as both a prequel and a sequel to its hallowed predecessor with such taste and confidence make it one of the most unlikely triumphs in the history of cinema. Tune in as we talk through the ways in which the film's arc acts as a rendition if not muted rebuke of the original that forges a genuinely metatextual statement on the very premise of sequels generally, unpack the various historical contexts the film jumps between in exhaustively dramatizing the first half of America in the 20th century, and shriek with joy at each and every scene involving Michael Gazzo.

Feel free to skip to 2:39:55 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

http://people.uncw.edu/berlinert/research/documents/Berliner.GII.pdf

This week's episode, an offer we simply couldn't refuse, has us celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of quite literally the greatest film to ever grace the collective medium of cinema: The Godfather. We do our best to explore the endless number of facets that elevated Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 masterwork as the natural evolution of the gangster genre (one of America's purest artforms), situate its status within the New Hollywood canon, place each and every brilliant performance in their context of coexistence with one another, and weigh its various historical and political contexts to uncover what exactly about it continues to capture the attention of all who interact with it- past, present, and future. Above all else, this is just a podcast of two movie lovers giggling with joy talking about the work that made them fall in love with motion pictures in a deep and fundamental way. We hope it's but a fraction of a delight to listen to as it was for us to produce.

Feel free to skip to 2:36:40 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

Are you searching for that special movie that openly invites you to log on, hack in, go anywhere, and steal everything? Then baby, you're in the right place because our latest episode has us gone in 60 mbps with Swordfish, the slick action thriller that once again challenged our assumptions on the lengths to which John Travolta would go to further embarrass himself. But before we jack into this wannabe Matrix...this week's Blue Plate Special finds us loving John Sayles's 1987 union masterpiece Matewan, waxing nostalgically at the 2000 Disney Channel original movie Phantom of the Megaplex, and taking issue with the very existence of the deeply stupid 2000 mob "comedy" The Crew. Speaking of questionable cinema from the early 00s, our discussion and commentary of Swordfish parses what exactly such a work is attempting to posit on a moral or ethical level, evaluates the extent to which this movie's premise and stylings ape a post-Tarantino cinematic philosophy, and assess the extent to which it's the least bit justifiable to fashion a movie about terrorism on the eve of 9/11 as smugly entertaining as this. Come for the pretentious monologues on the unreality of the opening moments of the 21st century, stay for the latest inductee of Overlapping Dialogue's Hall of Fame (the Immune) and a special announcement at the episode's conclusion about a very brief but special upcoming series of episodes we have in store...

Feel free to skip to 1:58:22 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

https://blockbluster.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/gone-in-60-mbps-notes-on-swordfish-a-breathtaking-disasterpiece/

This may be the beginning of a beautiful podcast... We open up this week's podcast with some thoughts and observations on the NFL Wild Card Weekend before diving into a Blue Plate Special filled with WWII pictures The Longest Day (1962) and Kelly's Heroes (1970). Upon finally ducking into the exotic saloon known as Rick's Cafe, we discuss what exactly about Casablanca makes it among the most legendary creations in the history of cinema, why the movie's aged over the past eighty years like the finest of wines, how it fits into the evolution of Humphrey Bogart's iconic star persona, and delight in the deliciously arch performances of Claude Rains and Conrad Veidt (#FindOne hive unite).

Feel free to skip to 2:18:17 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

We worked overtime and then some, burning every ounce of midnight oil we had, when it came to bringing you our very first episode of 2022 on Into the Night, John Landis's 1985 nocturnal romp. But before we get there...we discussed, for likely far longer than necessary, why exactly Valkyrie, the laughable 2008 historical drama, is perhaps the "greatest middle school movie ever" before diving face first into a Blue Plate Special involving thoughts on last year's Annette, a new segment within a segment called Baggage Claim where we gradually traverse our way through the Airport franchise, and finish off with a celebration of the lives and careers of Hollywood legends Sidney Poitier and Peter Bogdanovich. This week's subject film is every bit as scattershot as the rest of that intro, as it includes but is not limited to an unexpected but terrific pairing of Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, the thrilling comedic aesthetics of 80s Landis, a two scene villain turn from the legendary David Bowie, and more director cameos than a DGA sponsored picnic.

Feel free to skip to 2:41:18 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

Anchors aweigh on 2021 as we deliver our very last episode of the year with Otto Preminger's colossal 1968 "comedic" misfire Skidoo! But before we steer directly into the iceberg, this week's Blue Plate Special has us parsing the Matrix sequels (Reloaded, Revolutions, and the latest Resurrections) for meaning and edification, followed by an outright celebration of Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film Licorice Pizza. Upon finally arriving to the Mad Magazine-esque pastiche that is Skidoo, we critique the ways in which television began altering the stylings and aesthetics of film comedy in the 1960s and beyond, question the decision making of dramatic filmmaker like Preminger endeavoring to direct a comedy as scattershot and misguided as this, and in general mourn the presence of stars (in this case from the 1930s) rapidly approaching their expiration dates.

Feel free to skip to 2:43:21 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

https://thebigwblog.wordpress.com/2021/12/24/hm-upgrades-the-matrix-resurrections-as-a-reflection-of-the-perils-of-the-legasequel/?fbclid=IwAR370jACqmDJ_-av6T2bU_UmKzXAaIHKufbGy6xfVuTKCbX2Jjv7dbEQOo4

https://thebigwblog.wordpress.com/2021/12/27/the-world-doesnt-revolve-around-gary-valentine-licorice-pizza-and-the-perfection-of-the-shaggy-dog-story/

Have yourself a very Spidey Christmas with everyone's friendly neighborhood webhead and his very first cinematic outing from Sam Raimi and company in 2002. But before we dig into the biggest present under the tree, we sort through the Blue Plate Special-themed stocking stuffers, ranging from discussions on the forgotten gem Where the Buffalo Roam and contemporary classic The Matrix, inspired in part by the latter film's recent sequel/reboot The Matrix Resurrections. We finally tear through the Tobey Maguire-adorned wrapping paper to parse the myriad ways in which the character of Peter Parker and his various iterations remains among the greatest creations of comic book storytelling, mull how superhero films have evolved (or arguably devolved) over the past two decades-plus, and in general take multiple trips down memory lane to gloriously relive a childhood favorite. 'Tis the season, right?

Feel free to skip to 2:43:21 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

In honor of the approaching behemoth known as December 25th, we decided to load up the shopping cart and max out the charge card with one of the...Schwarzenegger-est movies in the Christmas canon: 1996's Jingle All the Way! Listen as we discuss the wildly idiosyncratic film career and public life of Ahnuld, delight in the ingeniously specific performance of Phil Hartman, parse the endlessly problematic material supplied to a very funny Sinbad, and in general guffaw at the litany of contradictions in the holiday season and its corrosive relationship to capitalism. We even get into the gutter a bit to discuss our top five favorite books we read in 2021 in this week's Blue Plate Special.

Feel free to skip to 2:18:02 for the beginning of our audio commentary.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

We take a little break from the audio commentating to do a little bit of audio pontificating on a whole host of topics, starting with a Blue Plate Special concerned with re-litigating the holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas before finding a lot to love in Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg. This week's bonus episode finally gets around to the broad and nearly indefinable topic of what exactly happens when history and filmmaking collide. What does the art form of cinema "owe" the people, places, and ideas of the past and what do such interpretations have to tell us about the times in which they were produced? We follow up a parsing of the various modes, highs, lows, and all in the middle when it comes to notable examples of historical films and finally get around to pitching some of our own ideas of past peoples or events ripe for contemporary consideration.

As always, please like, subscribe, rate, and review us on all of our channels, which include Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube! Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, comments, and requests.

https://blockbluster.wordpress.com/2018/12/22/gods-good-humor-forrest-gump-titanic-and-the-historical-ethics-of-hollywood-filmmaking/