This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel reflect on another mediocre genre thriller. It’s pretty sad that I didn’t need to rewrite that first sentence. Ed Skrein and Ed Skrein’s Tough-Guy Voice star in an unnecessary reboot of the Transporter series. (32:42).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 3 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode is the track “How You Like Me Now?” by The Heavy, from the film’s trailer. Again.
As we mentioned, check out the Planet Money podcast explaining why it felt so unrealistic to us to see money transfer quickly in this movie, and why it kinda works in Europe.
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel reflect on another mediocre genre thriller. It’s really been a rough week, for Ryan Reynolds and us alike (31:28).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 2 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode is the track “No Limit (Sencit Remix)” by Wiz Khalifa, from the film’s trailer.
Listen above, or download: Self/less(right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel bid a fast and furious farewell to both Paul Walker and Justin Lin, bid a mostly positive hello to James Wan, and ponder the future of Hollywood’s biggest, dumbest action franchise that we just can’t get enough of (36:25).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 7.5 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode is the film’s opening theme song, “Ride Out” by Kid Ink, Tyga, Wale, YG, and Rich Homie Quan.
CORRECTION (kinda): We referred, slightly critically, to the “artifice” of the cars-dropping-from-planes sequence. To be clear, whenever we actually see the actors in the cars, it’s clearly fake, composited from green-screen footage shot elsewhere. So this critique still seems fair, even if that’s also been true of many of the simpler street racing stunts throughout the franchise. But, as one of our astute listeners pointed out, the stunt team actually did jump cars with skydiving cameramen out of airplanes to get the footage. Check out the (pretty awesome) behind-the-scenes featurette here.
CORRECTION: Not for the first or last time, I mixed up the names of Luke Evans and Lucas Black. I regret nothing.
We referred to a video from The Onion that featured “the 5-year-old screenwriter of ‘Fast Five'” – it’s well worth a look. And Chris Morgan has actually written the last five Fast and Furious scripts – everything from “Tokyo Drift” on.
Um, it seems we didn’t mention Kurt Russell at all on this podcast. Just an observation.
Listen above, or download: Furious 7(right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)
This week, Glenn wishes The Lazarus Effect would’ve just let him rest in peace, while Daniel offers a tepid, contrarian defense, and spoils The Ring for some reason (19:33).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 5.5/10 (Daniel); 2.5/10 (Glenn)
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode is “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham!, which is better than the movie deserves. I also just noticed George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley are wearing a “CHOOSE LIFE” t-shirt in the video, which is apropos.
The horror flick from 2013 that I plugged was indeed Sinister, not Insidious – although they do share a producer. Another fine horror flick I didn’t think of was last year’s Oculus.
We mention one our early podcast review of Frozen (the Adam Green horror film, not the Disney film) – check that out here.
We were actually drinking Four Roses Single Barrel Kentucky bourbon. Solid. They didn’t pay us for the plug; we just like bourbon.
Listen above, or download: The Lazarus Effect(right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)
Tomorrow, our intrepid podcasters Glenn and Daniel venture to an actual theater to check out The Interview. But we don’t expect we’ll have nearly as much to say as we did about two end-of-the-year awards contenders. First, we experience our first Angelina Jolie-directed film, the WWII survival drama, Unbroken. Then we venture into a refreshingly dark and complex take on the sports genre, Foxcatcher, featuring a terrifying and transformative performance from Steve Carell. Strap in and enjoy this holiday double-header – we certainly did! (57:44)
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating (Unbroken): 4 out of 10 FilmWonk rating (Foxcatcher): Daniel – 10/10, Glenn – 9/10
Show notes:
[02:27] Review: Unbroken
[13:31] Spoilers: Unbroken
[26:35] Review: Foxcatcher
[39:45] Spoilers: Foxcatcher
[56:09] Holiday blooper. We’re not proud.
Music for tonight’s episode is the track “Miracles” by Coldplay, from the soundtrack to Unbroken, followed by “Fame” by David Bowie, from the Foxcatcher soundtrack.
We referred to Kate Winslet‘s delightful self-parody on Extras. You can watch her scenes in full here, and the part where she talks about her motivation for making an award-worthy film starts at 03:19.
As Daniel noted, the future of wrestling at the Olympics is somewhat in doubt. Under new cost-cutting rules, the IOC has adopted a system where 25 “core sports” would continue indefinitely at future Olympics – but “non-core” sports would be selected on a year-by-year basis. Wrestling was originally a core sport, but after the 2012 Olympics in London, the IOC voted to make wrestling a non-core sport. In September 2013, wrestling won the bid as a non-core sport, so it will appear in the 2020 Summer Olympics.
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel tackle the latest emotional journey from Oprah‘s Book Club, Wild, featuring the Pacific Crest Trail hike of memoirist Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon), as rendered by the director of last year’s triumphant Dallas Buyers Club. The result is a mixed bag of triumphant trail experiences and an uneven backstory – we liked, but didn’t love it. (26:58)
Minor correction: Nick Hornby wrote the novel for About a Boy, but not the screenplay for the film.
As promised, I fact-checked the Hollywood age shenanigans, and it turns out they were even worse than we thought. We can pardon the film somewhat, given its reliance on flashbacks, but as of this writing, Laura Dern is 47, and Reese Witherspoon is 38. That’s a 9-year age difference between mother and daughter.
As we mentioned, Cheryl Strayed‘s memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, was published in 2012, roughly 17 years after her hike. Interestingly, the book’s publication led to Strayed finding her long-lost half-sister.
Listen above, or download: Wild(right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel witness the reunion of Denzel Washington with Training Day director Antoine Fuqua – as well as a return to general badassdom – in The Equalizer. This will be the second film in as many weeks we end up comparing to Taken, and this time, it may not be to the film’s advantage (28:52).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 5.5 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode is “Sixteen” by The Heavy, from the film’s soundtrack.
The Philadelphia diner painting we referred to is Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper.
We referred to the 2000 John Singleton film Shaft, starring Samuel L. Jackson. Check out a Showtime featurette here – gives a good sense of the film.
We discussed the slow-motion fights in the 2009 Guy Ritchie version of Sherlock Holmes – check that out here (slow-mo begins at about 1:30).
Brace yourself, because we’re about to get our CinemaSins on here. One of the various improvised weapons we see McCall use in the film is a powder-actuated nail gun – i.e. a nail gun that uses gunpowder as its mechanism of propulsion to shoot construction nails. We correctly noted that this is the equivalent of a 22-caliber bullet (in fact, in some cases, actual .22 Short cartridges – minus the bullets – are used to power the mechanism). We found several videos testing the lethality of nail guns at a distance, including one from Mythbusters, and another fairly robust (albeit windy) test from YouTuber pilgrimfarmer. While these videos definitively show that a nail gun powered by compressed air is not an effective distance weapon, we were unable to find a video that demonstrated the same limitation for a powder-actuated tool. And one consistent factor for any type of nail gun is that the safety catch prevents the gun from firing unless it is pressed against a surface – a mechanism that can be easily bypassed by the user, but doesn’t allow for the cool one-handed shooting that McCall pulls off in the film. Don’t try this at home, kids. We’re professional podcasters.
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel take a break from their SIFF coverage to revisit some old cinematic friends from their teenage years, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, who regroup for a zany family rom-com set in South Africa. Sure. Why not?
Several reasons, as it turns out (24:56).
May contain NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 4 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode includes the track “Hasa Diga Eebowai“, from the original cast recording of “Book of Mormon: The Musical”, and “Hakuna Matata” from “The Lion King”.
We speculated about the security arrangements at Sun City, and apparently it does have armed guards (who engaged in a shootout with heavily armed casino robbers in 2010). I’m sure they’re at least as well-armed as Disneyland must be. A 2005 review in The Independent referred to Sun City as “South Africa-lite“, which was pretty much our assessment as well.
Correction: Sandler’s age as of this writing is 47, not 50.
Listen above, or download: Blended(right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel witness the harrowing new film from director Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave, based on a memoir by kidnapped slave Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Featuring one of the most sprawling and talented casts of the year, this film proved to be absolutely essential viewing. Check out our discussion below (53:09).
May contain some NSFW language.
FilmWonk rating: 9.5 out of 10
Show notes:
Music for tonight’s episode includes the tracks “Roll Jordan Roll” and “Solomon” from the soundtrack and score to the film. To hear the other Hans Zimmer track that came to mind during this film, check out “Time” from the original score to Inception.
“The banality of evil” is a historical concept and phrase from Hannah Arendt‘s Eichmann in Jerusalem, and is not without controversy. Curiously, Northup expressed a similar idea near the end of his memoir, which can be read at the end of the NY Times article below.
Eric Herschthal wrote a fascinating article for the NY Times on the veracity of the memoir and real-life story: The Passion of Solomon Northup
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