theworstbuddhist

Wow. Ordinarily I tune out the Second Opinion songs, especially if they're just skinning some old pop song, but Molly was excellent.

For those who need a visual, here is a shot of Alyssa Milano in her pants from Double Dragon:

I strongly suspect we will be watching this tonight (by which I mean my wife and I, not you and I, though you are more than welcome)

Update: this behind the scenes photo from Bound just showed up in my Twitter feed. Ya gotta do this movie, guys.

...of Evidence.

Not to invite myself, but I would totally do that with you. Or you could basically have a guest each time who picks a different apocalypse movie and then talks about it. I can already think of at least a few.

Not so much a C&O but just some (hopefully) helpful info for Paul vis Michael Bay and whether or not he could be Canadian: one simple way to tell if your DVDs are being shipped from Canada (and if they were ever intended for sale in Canada) is to check the packaging. It would have to have bilingual copy on the case (with the title in both English and French) and it would need the rating from Canada's film classification board. If it doesn't have those things, it's probably an American region 1 disc, or maybe just some kind of bootleg. Speaking of bilingualism and movies, you guys really need to watch Bon Cop Bad Cop sometime.

So my wife has been rewatching MSW since the summer and we are now in season 6. I am way behind on your podcast, I'm sorry if you have already discussed this extensively, but I wonder: does it ever seem to you like every episode of MSW is a backdoor pilot for some other show?

I can't believe that I forgot to mention the Wachowski's Bound! 90s noir with lesbians and Joey Pants!

The TV film classic based on Theodore Sturgeon's short story of the same name, starring Clint Walker and Robert Urich.

Wow, as late as '93? Huh. I should really check that one out again (and a lot of the pictures mentioned in this exchange, many of which I haven't seen in 10-20 years) I did watch Lone Star again not long ago, and it is still one of the best pictures I have ever seen. Sayles is a hell of a talent, I wish he was better known to the general public. It drives me nuts that Lawrence Kasdan was able to rip off Sayles not once but twice and enjoy great commercial success with boomer shitfest The Big Chill (following Sayles' The Return of the Secaucus Seven) and Grand Canyon (after City of Hope). I don't think I have seen that remake of Double Indemnity but it sounds glorious, thanks for the recommendation. I'm sure you are aware of the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice starring Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange from the late 70s. That one has its defenders but it certainly pales in comparison to the original, or in comparison to the likes of Chinatown for that matter.

Insert your own "dream of the 90s" joke here. But yes, wonderful movies all and I would add Romeo Is Bleeding to that list (though I think like Red Rock West, it was made in the 80s). The Last Seduction costars the interesting actor and director Peter Berg and has an amusing and memorable supporting role for Bill Pullman too. Edited to add what I meant to add in the first place: a much better 90s channelling of classic Double Indemnity/Postman Always Rings Twice style noir is the also underrated film of The Hot Spot, based on the pulp novel by Charles Williams (who also wrote Dead Calm), directed by Dennis Hopper, starring Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly. It's not quite Body Heat quality, but it's well worth checking out, especially since it used the same "woman fucks her partner to death" device, albeit in a different way. Edited again to add more information about The Hot Spot and to consistently italicize film titles, because OCD.

This film was shot a couple of hours away in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, much to the bemusement of the locals. It was one of the gala presentations at our local film fest this year and the attendees included Willem DeFoe (he of the confounding penis) and the director. I have yet to see it but hope to in the next week or so.

Agreed, really great film. Got to see it at our local film fest a month or so ago. Apparently it has had a deep impact on Korea, which makes sense.

Sounds like lots of fun for everyone

Huh, I'm sure I must have heard it but I have no memory of the episode.

As long as we are warning people about taking over the boards if/when a certain movie is done, I should warn you that this will happen with me when they do Megaforce, which was the Montreal live show. I have seen this film so many times. The only one I would go harder at is Road House, but I assume they won't ever cover that picture. I would probably also go off on an episode about Torque, but I wonder if they are not doing that because it would offend Adam Scott? I really wish they would do it with him as the (willing) guest.

Has anyone else seen this crazy film yet? I liked it but man, it is bonkers and I was shocked to see it has a high RT rating (though the audience rating is not so hot, which is less surprising). Brad Pitt is amazing in it, the whole cast is good, Max Richter's score is, well, a Max Richter score, but more memorable than usual. It's a bizarre combination of introspection, therapy, daddy issues, Event Horizon, 2010: Odyssey Two, Interstellar, Gravity... As I said, I liked it a lot, but I also really love the Soderbergh version of Solaris, so calibrate your expectations accordingly.

Ha. I was the male lead in Oleanna once. It was, I suppose, a progressive script at the time in that it got people to talk about the issue but it hasn't aged well. The young female student is "manipulated" into pressing charges against an arrogant young professor who feels entitled to the tenure he is expecting. It probably wouldn't go over any better now than Disclosure does, unless someone did it with a fringe-theatre spin (gender-blind casting, fetishwear costuming maybe). Edited to clarify why I put "manipulated" in quotes there: my memory of the script is that Mamet doesn't give the young woman any real agency of her own, she is convinced to press charges by vengeful feminists or something, allowing the audience to have more sympathy for her. These days I hope the story could be done without such a device. There are certainly still things to enjoy about Mamet's work (especially his books about theatre, True or False and Three Uses of the Knife) but that play, enh, not so much.

Movies are personal, like music or anything else. I can explain what I like and don't like about a given movie - my recommendation to anyone who wants to discuss a film with me is be able to say more than just "it sucks, it was the worst." Stuff like that just makes me assume you have hardly seen any other movies, or you don't care enough to be articulate about it. So why would I care about responding? In general terms, I find I enjoy films that show me something I wasn't expecting. Maybe the trailer gives me one set of expectations and then the film itself is a delightful surprise somehow. I also enjoy films that are just fucking strange in one way or another - where I find myself asking, well, "How DID this get made? How did this script get past a Hollywood executive? Who thought this would be a good idea and why were they so invested in it?" I tend to be more impressed with that kind of thing if the film has a big budget and big stars, therefore big stakes but they still do something bizarre because somebody is using their clout to get it done. I will add that with today's home theatres and the blurring of the line between what a movie even is and what television is (eg., Netflix), I appreciate films that give me a reason to go to a movie theatre with a big screen and immersive sound and at least a few other people who also care about that experience. Production companies essentially use the same tools to make everything now, it's just a matter of how big a budget you have to do special effects and hire bigger stars or whatever. So I can certainly understand why Ad Astra is not for everybody, but it's my kind of film in at least those three ways, and probably some others I'm too lazy to talk about now.

I don't think anyone brought it up on the podcast but when my wife and I listened to the episode I remembered that Donald Sutherland, when he was about Michael Douglas' age in this film, was in a film called Don't Look Now that is still regarded as having one of the greatest sex scenes in film history. It is a VERY DIFFERENT film though, and the scene is happening under very different circumstances.

I don't really care how you interpret my post. I wasn't writing about your post, I was writing about the movie, and the point I was making is that a film like this- which made 300 million dollars apparently, and is still discussed decades after it was made - does more harm than good to male victims. Suffering isn't a contest. The patriarchy hurts everyone, and must be destroyed if people of whatever gender are to be truly free.

I don't think anyone denies that sexual harassment can and does happen to men, but horseshit movies like this don't help, and I don't care for the arguments that try to compare the relatively uncommon suffering and exploitation of men under the patriarchy with the extremely common and usually much more severe suffering of women. It's just not equivalent. Unfortunately there are disgusting organizations claiming to fight for "men's rights" who will use these stats and the testimonies of male victims to push their own sexist, homophobic, and often white supremacist agenda. As someone said on the podcast, this film seems like it would be a real favourite with that crowd, pandering to their inflated sense of victimhood and entitlement.

As a Canadian who doesn't live in one of the 3 cities that tours come to, I don't have a lot of sympathy here, bro.

If a movie with moon pirates and rabid space apes isn't bonkers, I don't know what is. But I hear you. I saw it with my son in a regular theatre this past weekend and I just realized that I live in a city with an IMAX theatre, so I may have to go again this weekend.