We’re joined by returning guest Jared this week to discuss two tales of oppression and resistance: Mel Gibson’s Best Picture winner Braveheart and the mid-2000s Comedy Central staple The Hebrew Hammer.
Tag: movie
#57: Close-Up/Austin Powers
We’re back for the first time in a long time, with a discussion of Abbas Kiarostami’s seminal quasi-documentary Close-Up and Mike Myer’s era-defining comedy Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Also, Rob is pretty sure he mixed up Steven Wright and Steven Weber, but he is too lazy to go back and check. Only one of them was in So I Married an Axe Murderer, and it is not the one who was in that one episode of Party Down.
#56: Tetsuo/Hard Boiled
We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus as we’ve been pursuing our post-grad degrees (Rob to help the nation’s youth, Matt to imprison them) but Rob forgot he had this one sitting on his hard drive for, like, several months. He doesn’t remember if he edited it, but he does remember he did an impression of Matt for WAY too long, but he promises he does eventually drop it. Anyway, it was topsy-turvy month, so the films on the docket are Shinya Tsukamoto’s body-horror cult classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man and John Woo’s operatic action classic Hard Boiled.
#55: In the Mood for Love/Get Carter
The boys get wistful with Wong Kar Wai’s classic In the Mood for Love and then blow some shit up with the dark-as-night Michael Caine revenge flick Get Carter.
#54: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu
We double-dip into existential horror with the German Expressionist masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the VOD cheapie The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu.
#53: The Third Man/Cobra
This month’s picks present two, uh, dissimilar responses to evil in the world. In the first, Carol Reed’s classic postwar noir The Third Man, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles reunite a decade after Citizen Kane to wade into a morass of moral ambiguity from which no one emerges clean. In Sylvester Stallone’s Cannon Films copaganda flick Cobra, all the problems in the world can be solved by a bullet. Also: we debate whether or not Jake Gyllenhaal looks weird.
#52: The Man Who Would Be King/MacGruber
Join us for our April discussion of The Man Who Would Be King, John Huston’s Connery/Caine joint that’s simultaneously a pretty great movie about racism and also pretty racist. We also take a look at the film that killed the SNL movie, MacGruber – Rob’s favorite movie about Will Forte dancing around with a piece of celery in his ass, and Matt’s favorite movie period. (Also, director Jorma Taccone was 33 when he made the movie, not 23, which is significantly less special. Please draw no assumptions about Rob’s ability to do basic math from this.)
#51: Mirror/Blue Streak
We take a turn for the despondent with slow-core Soviet auteur Andrei Tarkovsky’s oddball memoir Mirror and then cool off with the better-than-Black Knight Martin Lawrence crime comedy Blue Streak.
#50: Wake in Fright/Juwanna Mann
Our friend Jared joins us as a guest, because he’s who we could get, as we descend into madness twice over, with the seminal Australian New Wave freakout Wake in Fright and the forgotten NBA cross-dressing comedy Juwanna Mann. We also forget Ben Affleck played Batman, which probably says something about what we thought of his performance. Finally, and it’s weird to have to note this but here we are, this was recorded before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Matt does a little Slavic race science that probably never would’ve played all that well and certainly doesn’t amid a shooting war, but I forgot what the timestamp on it was so I didn’t edit it out. That’s the level of dedication and hard work we strive to bring to you, folks.
#49: The Green Knight/Space Jam: A New Legacy
We take a look back at the highs and lows of 2021 with David Lowery’s ethereal chivalric saga The Green Knight and the LeBron James-led IP-extravaganza Space Jam: A New Legacy.
#48: Transformers/The Last Knight
Join us down for a winter on the Bay as we tackle two entries in perhaps the biggest, dumbest, loudest franchise in Hollywood history, 2007’s Transformers and 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight.
#47: The Thing (1982)/Jason X
Right on time for Halloween, we bring you a horror double feature with John Carpenter’s goretastic all-timer The Thing and the quasi-amateur embarrassment that is somehow still not the worst entry in the Friday the 13th franchise despite inexplicably being set in outer space, Jason X.
#46: Persona/Saint Maud
We’ve got two tales of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown with Ingmar Bergman’s arthouse classic Persona and this year’s religious mind-bender Saint Maud.
#45: Michael Clayton/The Ninth Gate
It’s Evil Patrician Dudes week here on YGHI as we dive into the sad-ass Clooney legal thriller Michael Clayton and the ultra-cancelled Satanist drama The Ninth Gate.
#44: Only Angels Have Wings/Iron Man 3
We conclude our month(s???) of comfort food as Howard Hawks invites us to witness just how bad the early days of flight sucked/ruled with Only Angels Have Wings and Shane Black tries to wedge some personality into the MCU with Iron Man 3.
#43: Broadcast News/Horse Feathers
Comfort food “month” continues with the James L Brooks workplace rom-com Broadcast News and the Marx Brothers college comedy Horse Feathers.
#42: Midnight Run/The Avengers (1998)
We begin a month of nice, easy, comfortable movies with the buddy road movie Midnight Run, starring Robert de Niro and the late, great Charles Grodin (recorded before his passing). Then Matt proves he didn’t understand the assignment with the Ralph Fiennes/Uma Thurman spy-show adaptation The Avengers, a film that proves its legacy as “no, the other one” is well-earned.
#41: Daisies/Me You Madness
Here’s some Original Recipe You’re Gonna Hate It torture, as the duo forces each other through the avant-garde Czech New Wave provocation Daisies and the 98-minute Instagram story Me You Madness.
#40: The Thin Red Line/Rush Hour
I suppose you could call this two different visions of East meets West, but we probably shouldn’t — anyway, this week we’ve got Terrence Malick’s comeback Hell in the Pacific-with-a-slice-of-poetry war drama The Thin Red Line and the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker buddy cop blockbuster Rush Hour.
#39: The Wind Rises/Mystery Men
We’re back with discussions of Hayao Miyazaki’s anti-war career-capper The Wind Rises and the Ben Stiller superhero sendup Mystery Men.
#38: Sound of Metal/True Lies
The duo dives into the Riz Ahmed deafness drama Sound of Metal and the Arnold spy comedy True Lies.
#37: First Cow/Swingers
Join us for our most bromantic episode ever as we discuss dudes rocking across the ages with Kelly Reichardt’s slowcore western First Cow and the swing-revival Favreau/Vaughn launch vehicle Swingers.
#36: Bacurau/Sleepy Hollow
Join us for a discussion of the 2020 Brazilian psych-Western Bacurau and Sleepy Hollow, arguably the last good Tim Burton movie.
#35: Serenity (2019)
Join us for a one-off about one of 2019’s strangest films, Serenity. We discuss Matthew McConaughey’s olfactory method acting, the most advanced and boring video game in the world, and a fish named Justice.
#34: Inception/Tomorrowland
We finish up our December January (no, YOU fell behind!) blockbuster month with Christoper Nolan’s head-trip extravaganza Inception and Brad Bird’s vaguely Randian, Epcot adaptation(?) Tomorrowland.
#33: Mad Max: Fury Road/The Mummy (2017)
Witness us as we ride eternal, shiny and chrome, on the highways of George Miller’s action-punk magnum opus Mad Max: Fury Road and descend into the sour pits of the franchise-ender The Mummy.
#32: Avengers: Endgame/Fantastic Four
We continue our blockbuster December by diving into superhero cinema, contrasting the decade-swallowing behemoth Avengers: Endgame and 2015’s DOA franchise-launcher Fantastic Four.
#31: Avatar/Speed Racer
We begin our blockbuster December by looking at two attempts to “crack” digital filmmaking, James Camerons’ record-breaker Avatar and the Wachowski Sisters’ oddball Matrix follow-up Speed Racer.
#30: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane/The Green Hornet
Our duo takes on a duo of duos both friendly and non as they take a look at the Joan Crawford/Bette Davis psycho-camp-thriller Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and the misbegotten Michel Gondry superhero reboot The Green Hornet.
#29: Amarcord/Constantine
We’ve got two contrasting entries in the wider Catholic Cinematic Universe this week, with Federico Fellini’s Amarcord and the Keanu-starring Hellblazer adaptation Constantine.
#28: A.I./A Knight’s Tale
The boys take a look at the strange Spielberg/Kubrick amalgam A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and the medieval sports comedy A Knight’s Tale.
#27: Playtime/Hubie Halloween
Join us on The Episode That Should Not Be, as a very sick Rob and a very nonchalant Matt cough and stumble their way through a foggy discussion of Jacques Tati’s monumental slapstick epic Playtime and the latest from Adam Sandler, Hubie Halloween.
#26: Compost
Rob done goofed up and failed to get his homework done in time so the boys just had themselves a free-floating discussion off all things Cinematic, plus a little half-assed trivia. Consider yourselves warned.
#25: Alien/Thirteen Ghosts
There’s no way out for the boys as they lock themselves in the claustrophobic confines of the 1979 sci-fi/horror game-changer Alien and the misguided William Castle remake Thirteen Ghosts.
#24: Mulholland Drive/The Haunted Mansion
Silencio: This week the boys take a long, strange trip through David Lynch’s epic nightmare-noir Mulholland Drive and muddle through the Eddie Murphy-starring Disneyland ride adaptation The Haunted Mansion. Remember: He’s the one who’s doing it.
#23: Audition/Zombeavers
We head deeper, deeper, deeper into horror with Takashi Miike’s singular Audition and the ironic boobsploitation flick Zombeavers.
#22: The Wicker Man(1973)/The Wicker Man(2006)
Our monthlong horror-fest begins with dueling looks at the original folk-horror standard-bearer The Wicker Man and the Nicolas Cage he-man-women-hating reboot.
#6: Dogtooth/The Love Guru
Mariska Hargitay, bitches. Lock yourself and your immediate family indoors for this evening’s entertainment as our quarantined comrades dive deep on the Yorgos Lanthimos-directed Greek Weird Wave fav Dogtooth and the Mike Myers career-killer The Love Guru. Plus: Rob goes full Pepe Silvia trying to explain The Phanton Menace.
#4: Bicycle Thieves/Sniper: Special Ops
Madonn! This one’s a spicy meatball. The boys take on Vittorio di Sica’s neorealist masterpiece Bicycle Thieves and the latter-day Steven Seagal vehicle Sniper: Special Ops.
#3: Yojimbo/Hard Ticket to Hawaii
Our two gaijin geek out over Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 samurai film Yojimbo and punch a Hard Ticket to Hawaii with schlockmeister Andy Sidaris’ B-movie boobstravaganza.
#2: The Color of Pomegranates/Black Knight
Rob and Matt force each other to suffer through Sergei Parajanov’s avant-garde biopic The Color of Pomegranates and the historical Martin Lawrence vehicle Black Knight.
#1: The Exterminating Angel/Freddy Got Fingered
In our first episode, Rob and Matt torture each other by discussing Luis Buñuel’s 1962 surrealist arthouse masterpiece The Exterminating Angel and Tom Green’s 2001 gross-out magnum opus Freddy Got Fingered.