In the latest installment of our recurring In Theaters segment, we saw Quentin Tarantino’s newest film "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood" and then immediately fired up the mics to discuss it. Some people have hailed this movie as a masterpiece while others think it’s a misogynistic mess. Where did we fall on that spectrum? What did we think of the surprise ending? How did we feel about the portrayal of Bruce Lee? Find out now.
**NOTE: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Quick Facts
Release date: July 26, 2019
Runtime: 2 hours, 41 minutes
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
In 2000, Robert Zemeckis made "Cast Away," the longest FedEx commercial in history that masquerades as a trapped-on-a-desert-island story. Granted, the middle section of the film where Tom Hanks is marooned isn't terrible, but the pair of audience-insulting bookending acts that surround it replace any good will that created with seething anger.
Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a man with no time because of his demanding job at FedEx, who is the lone survivor of a plane crash over the Pacific—and then washes ashore a small, uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere.
His deteriorated mental state (which weirdly happens within days) makes him need to paint a face in his own blood on a Wilson-branded volleyball so he has something to talk to. He struggles to survive for years, and eventually is motivated to build a boat to escape by wanting to return a package to its sender and by wanting badly to see his girlfriend again.
Unfortunately his girlfriend played by Helen Hunt has in the meantime married some other dude and had a kid with him. So when Hanks does return, it was all for nothing. Her character is hardly developed, so we don't ultimately care. But it is annoying that everyone close to him blames him for getting stuck on a desert island.
Join us as we wonder if Robert Zemeckis secretly bought stock in FedEx while making this movie, Jim recalls a teacher he hates from grade school, and we sing some Springsteen covers.
ALSO: Here's the link to the Wilson's website where you can buy a bloody volleyball.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Busted Nut.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
The Kevin Costner vanity project "Dances with Wolves" beat "GoodFellas" for Best Picture in 1990. That's right, this three-hour goofy slog that was heralded as the first movie not to have two-dimensional Native American characters, took home the gold statue. The problem? Even if its Lakota characters had actual names and dialogue, they're still depicted as Noble Savages who seem more like cavemen than fleshed-out individuals.
Kevin Costner clownishly plays a Civil War Union soldier named Lt. John Dunbar who goes on a suicide mission rather than have his leg amputated and then is considered brave when he doesn't die miraculously. This hero status then gives him the opportunity to go to any military post he desires, and he chooses one out in the Western American Frontier, because, as he says, "He wants to see it before it's gone." Right, because he knew in 1863 that Walmarts would soon be everywhere (just the first of many heavy-handed environmental messages Costner shoves down our throats). Dunbar then meets the Lakota tribe, befriends them, and then eventually becomes one of them, shunning his American identity forever.
Mary McDonnell plays Stands With A Fist, a white woman whose family was killed by the Pawnee, and then was found and adopted by the Lakota. Of course, she acts as a translator and then also the love interest for him. Because she’s white, so what’s not to love. Even though she looks like she was electrocuted.
Graham Greene plays Kicking Bird, the tribe’s holy man, who befriends Dunbar and is also the adopted father of Stands With A Fist (even though in real life she’s older than him). He’s depicted as nice, but also incredibly simple. Just like all the Lakota in this. And all the American soldiers for that matter.
Join us as we tear apart the historical inaccuracies in the film, marvel at its goofiness, and also talk about how one of the actors in this murdered his wife in real life later.
ALSO: Here's the NYT article Keating mentions at the end about Costner being hated by the Lakota.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Jizz to Say I'm Sorry.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
After the enormous success of Jordan Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," he's back at the helm again with his followup, "Us" (which is currently in theaters). And, because of that, we went and saw it for our aptly-named In Theaters segment that we do on this show from time to time.
But guess what? We disagreed on this one. Well, maybe our doppelgängers did. But find out which of *us* took a pair of scissors to the heart of this picture, and which has his heart tethered to it.
**NOTE: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Quick Facts
Release date: March 22, 2019
Runtime: 2 hours, 1 minute
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Madison Curry
Directed by: Jordan Peele
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
If you actually do stop and look around at the 1986 John Hughes classic "Ferris Bueller’s Day Off," there's a lot of stuff you can't miss that doesn't make sense. Are Ferris and his sister twins? Do his parents think he has the mind of the 5-year-old boy? Is Ferris a figment of Cameron's imagination? We will discuss all those and much more as we tear this iconic '80s flick.
Matthew Broderick plays Ferris Bueller, one of the most popular high school students without a social media presence in the history of the world. He acts like a baby around his parents and habitually skips school. He enjoys scheming, using people to do his bidding, grand theft auto, lip-synching on parade floats, computer hacking, changing outfits a lot, and complaining that he doesn't own a car (which, knowing what we know now about Matthew Broderick's driving record—thank god he doesn't).
29-year-old (at the time) Alan Ruck plays Cameron Frye, Ferris' sad-sack best friend who spends the whole movie moping about his daddy issues, and then destroys a priceless automobile because he's a bad son.
Pre-nose-job and pre-"Dirty Dancing" Jennifer Grey plays Ferris' sister Jeannie, who spend the whole movie chasing Ferris. Knowing the two actors dated afterward, this now makes more sense.
Convicted child porn owner Jeffrey Jones plays Principal Ed Rooney, who also spends the whole movie chasing Ferris. Which, knowing what we now know about this actor, makes this very scary.
Mia Sara plays Sloan Peterson, Ferris' younger girlfriend whose main purpose in this movie is to baby and sexually confuse Cameron while also hoping Ferris will marry her (he won't).
And Charlie Sheen basically plays himself.
Join us as we are relieved Ferris doesn't own a car, that Jeffrey Jones never catches him, try to determine which of the cliques the principal’s secretary rattles off we fit into, and as Jim discovers that he *is* Cameron Frye.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Little Farmas.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
The controversial 2018 film "Green Book" that just won the Academy Award for Best Picture has it all: a white-savior narrative, cheesy New York Italian-American accents, and a series of cringeworthy tone-deaf scenes that aim to solve racism, but end up being more racist themselves in the end.
Farrelly brother Peter directed this unfunny Oscar-bait that apparently either warmed the hearts of all the old white Academy members or was just the perfect anti-Netflix movie to pick so "Roma" wouldn't win. Often compared to "Driving Miss Daisy," it's actually more like "The Bodyguard," "The Odd Couple" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."
Very not-Italian-looking Viggo Mortensen plays Frank "Tony Lip" Vallelonga, an almost-illiterate, mobbed-up thug who uses violence to solve all of his problems. This movie paints him as a loving family man who will do anything to support them, when in reality he's an awful racist grifter who would never change his attitudes on a dime just because he hung out with one black person for a few weeks.
Mahershala Ali plays Dr. Don Shirley (in a role he won an Best Supporting Actor Oscar for), a lonely genius pianist who hires Tony Lip as his bodyguard/driver so he doesn't get messed with while on tour in the 1962 Jim Crow American South. Though every time Tony saves him from trouble, he flips out like a baby for no reason.
Linda Cardellini plays Dolores Vallelonga, the doting wife stock character who seems to be the only non-racist member of her entire family.
There’s even supporting characters played by cheesy standup comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and the guy who played Donna's dad on "That '70s Show."
Join us as we wonder how many times Nick Vallelonga (the main character’s real-life son) watched "GoodFellas" while writing this movie, as we make fun of Steven Spielberg's recent anti-streaming services comments, as we talk about how Paul Walker doesn't get enough grief for dating a 15 year old, and as we wonder if Mahershala Ali is secretly embarrassed this movie won him a second Oscar.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Michelob Ultra Pathetic.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
For the third year in a row, we fired up the mics immediately after watching the Oscars ceremony and give you our take on what we witnessed. We also figure out who got the most categories correct (and settle our wager), discuss the ceremony, some of the speeches, and our favorite and most-hated moments from the broadcast.
It might not have had a host, but there still were a lot of parasites.
Follow along by visiting filmsnuff.com/2019OscarNoms, where we have provided a list of the nominations in the order we read them.
As always, follow the show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
We guide you through the Oscar nominations for movies released in 2018 leading up to this Sunday's ceremony (which will take place on Feb. 24).
We discuss the snubs, the surprises, and give you our picks for all 24 categories. We also decide upon a bet for whoever loses, and talk about how bad "Bohemian Rhapsody" is and how it shouldn't have been nominated for anything.
Follow along by visiting filmsnuff.com/2019oscarnoms, where we have provided a list of the nominations in the order we read them.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
Happy Valentine's Day! This time we tore apart the 2009 movie "(500) Days of Summer," an overly-stylized hipster attempt at an anti-romantic comedy. You can't spell parenthetical without pathetic.
This is one of the most pretentious movies in the last ten years. They bounce back and forth between timelines for no reason, make obvious literary, music, art, and film references to try and seem smart, and they even have films-within-the-film to seem clever.
It also hits the annoying montage trifecta: a sadness montage, a redemption montage, and a post-coital-skipping-around-super-happy montage.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hansen, man-boy who works as a writer at a greeting card company, but secretly wants to be an architect, his true passion. Well, he only decides to be one when he's told to become one once by a hot chick.
Zooey Deschanel play Summer Finn, a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl who makes it perfectly clear to this dude that she doesn’t want a serious relationship, and in a sense, is the real victim of this story—even though she’s made to be a pseudo-villain.
Join as we discuss how this movie is weirdly racist against Chinese people for no reason and how it's another modern movie about Los Angeles a la "La La Land" where L.A. is showed in a clean and idealized old-timey way.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Pariah Insurance.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
We decided to curb stomp the 1998 Edward Norton vehicle "American History X" that showed us all neo-Nazis have to do to overcome their vicious deep-seated racism is have one jokey conversation with a funny black guy in prison.
This movie has it all: a "Psycho"-esque black-and-white bloody slow-motion shower scene, a hilariously unrealistic reverse slam dunk by Edward Norton, a giant swastika tattoos, a cheesy villains, a few funny wigs, and even a little kid dressed up as Adolf Hitler.
Edward Norton stars as Derek Vinyard, a leader of a white supremacist gang called the Disciples of Christ, who kills a couple dudes who try to rob his car (one by curb stomping). He then serves three years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, changes his beliefs and tries to prevent his brother from going down the same path. He goes from wearing a backward hat over his mullet (like Poochie from "The Simpsons") when innocent to a shaved-head neo-Nazi with a giant swastika tattooed on his chest two seconds later.
Edward Furlong plays Norton's younger brother who recalls the story and writes it in a paper for school and annoyingly narrates throughout the film.
Beverly D'Angelo (of the "Vacation" movies fame) plays their chain-smoking mom who can't catch a break after her racist firefighter husband dies.
Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") plays Dr. Bob Sweeney, a high school principal who also seems to run the police department and the prison system.
And we also have Ethan Suplee, Fairuza Balk, Elliott Gould, Stacy Keach, and the nice-guy dad from "Boy Meets World" as an N-word spewing fireman dad.
We wonder who would be funny at reading the "Mein Kampf" audiobook, how hard Beverly D'Angelo is trying to win an Oscar in this, and how the paper Edward Furlong's character writes throughout is an F paper.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by MAGA Youth Recovery.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.
The 1984 box office smash "Splash" gave us a lot of things: Tom Hanks as a leading man, Ron Howard as a bankable director, and oddly the name Madison becoming popular. It’s just a shame that's all this pile of fish crap is worth.
It's literally a fish out of water story, and also, frankly, the filmmakers have a lawsuit against the movie "The Shape of Water," which ripped this off almost to the letter.
Tom Hanks plays Allen Bauer, a wholesale fruit and vegetable salesman who apparently is incapable of loving a woman because he saw a mermaid when he was 10 years old. When he meets her much older, he doesn't know she's a mermaid and just assumes she's a hot woman who doesn't speak English and might not be of sound mind, but he decides the best thing to do is have sex with her a bunch.
Daryl Hannah plays "Madison," the aforementioned mermaid, who has six days to spend on land (which is never explained) to find her true love (which is apparently some kid she saw on a boat once). Also, she transforms to a mermaid and back to a human multiple times throughout, so why is there some deadline? Anyway. Oh, and she’s also apparently a genius, because she learns how to speak English and everything about modern society by watching TV for a few hours.
John Candy plays Hanks' older, zany playboy brother who drinks too much, chases women, and smokes cigars. His character is for comic relief. The only problem is he's not funny at all.
Eugene Levy plays the hair-brained scientist who is after the mermaid. He spends the movie trying to spray her with water so people will stop thinking he's crazy, but then he gets a heart and helps her out in the end. What a shock.
Join us as we try to figure out how this was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars that year, how this movie received a PG rating, and how both Cape Cod and New York City's the East River are both somehow tropical paradises.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com.
This episode is sponsored by Liberty and Concrete for All.
Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.