Alternate Ending - Movie Review Podcast

October is shaping up to be a big month for Netflix original movies, between Radha Blank's Sundance prizewinner The 40-Year-Old Version (premieres 10/9). Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago 7 (premieres 10/16), Ben Wheatley's Rebecca (premieres 10/21), Glen Keane's Over the Moon (premieres 10/23), and maybe, if the right rumors hold, David Fincher's Mank. To commemorate all of these - as well as the fact that we've all been spending 2020 basically watching nothing but streaming shit, and have thus all become experts on the subject - our next episode will be celebrating Netflix's five-year history as one of the American film industry's most prolific studios. Join us as we discuss our picks for the top five Netflix original movies to date, in the hopes that they will soon be joined by more. In Worth Mentioning, we cover The Personal History of David Copperfield, SCARE ME and Dick Johnson is Dead. Be sure to take 1-minute to complete our SURVEY to help us get podcast sponsorship! If you fill out the survey,

Here's the headline, in our interview with Josh Ruben writer/director/star of the new feature SCARE ME, Rob is 95% sure Josh tells him he's good looking. To be sure, you'll need to listen for yourself.  For added hilarity, you can see the live reaction when Rob *thinks* that Josh tells him he's good looking.  Imagine when Charlie sees that he's found the golden ticket. So SCARE ME... Two writers of varying success, end up holed up in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, after a power outage has thwarted their plans to spend the weekend writing in solitude. To pass the time, the pair decide to have a "scare off" of sorts, to see who reigns as the best storyteller.  Tensions build as feelings of inferiority creep in, for one of the two. What you'll love is the films clever weaving together of both horror and comedy tropes, that have your heart racing one minute and questioning why you're laughing the next. Josh Ruben as Fred SCARE ME is Josh Ruben's first feature film and he has a lot on the line.  For some, that

Our next podcast topic comes to us courtesy of Patreon subscriber Martha, who wants us to help shed some light on one of the film industry's most notorious shortcomings: the challenges facing women who want to direct movies at every level, from thorny little indies to massive blockbusters (such as Wonder Woman 1984, helmed by Patty Jenkins, which was supposed to open next week till it got pandemicked away). As former Ottawa mayor Charlotte Witton once said, "Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult", and we'll proving that with our picks for the best women directors of all time, talented artists who had to make some of the best films ever just to get overlooked and forgotten about only some of the time. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Antebellum, Cuties, Spontaneous and The Conversation, thanks to Patreon Travis Neely.

Spontaneous will have you simultaneously contemplating your own mortality and igniting your need to seize the day [Interview with writer/director Brian Duffield ] Director Brian Duffield talks about how he keeps a positive vibe on set, his experience working with the A-Team cast of Katherine Langford, Piper Perabo, Hayley Law and Charlie Plummer and the difficult balance of keeping a movie about exploding teenagers light and breezy Here's what happened. Rob was like "Ohmigosh... we're going to talk to Brian Duffield next week about his new movie Spontaneous!" **Crickets** "Jane Got a Gun?" **Crickets** "The Babysitter?" **Crickets** "Underwater...Kristen Stewart? Oh c'mon, you're on a movie podcast!" So as you can imagine, I was super psyched to check out this dude's movie, who apparently everybody knows, by the way.  Per usual, I didn't watch the trailer or read a single thing about the film before starting, which I'm convinced really does make for the best viewing experience.  I can't tell how weirdly exc

Our next podcast topic comes to us courtesy of Patreon subscriber Travis, who has given us a prompt as direct as it is merciless: name our picks for the worst films of the 1990s. It was in some ways a magnificent decade for terrible films, perhaps the last time when truly godawful boondoggles could still sneak their way through the studio system, while the rise of the American indie film scene encouraged people who'd never picked up a camera before to find their cinematic voice, with results that could be great, and could be... not. From the biggest to the littlest productions, we'll savage them all, as we turn our attention to the 5 worst films of the '90s. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Mulan, Host and Tread.

It was a very special week in the lives of your humble podcast hosts - Carrie and Rob are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary! So that you can join in the festivities, we've decided to make this episode all about the best, most stable, most loving, and all-around enviable marriages in cinema. We're looking at our Top 5 married couples in the movies, and while there maybe aren't as many candidates as there were when we when we looked at our favorite movies about divorce (whoever would have thought?), we're pretty sure this episode is going to be a lot more uplifting and optimistic. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Tenet, Bill & Ted Face the Music, Scenes From a Marriage (thanks to Patreon Brian Fowler) and 12 Angry Men (thanks to Patreon Julian DeBerry)

Bombardier Blood follows the journey of man with a severe bleeding disorder, determined to summit the world's highest 7 mountains [Interview with Chris Bombardier and documentarian Patrick James Lynch] Chris Bombardier talks about the motivation behind risking his life in the making of Bombardier Blood, how his family supported him and how he continues to redefine his mission. Documentarian  Patrick James Lynch, shares his own life experience that moved him to dedicating his film career to giving a voice to the unheard. Before the Bombardier Blood interview: Rob and I talk a lot about what we admire in people and what we can do to emulate those qualities.  We also spend a lot of time talking about the best way to spend our own short time on this planet (mostly because of my intense anxiety about dying, without having accomplished anything of real value to the world, but I digress). In every conversation, despite the conversational tangents about website content and podcast topics, the root of what brings us

If you're anything like us, the months and months of endless quarantining might have you contemplating taking an axe to the people you've been stuck inside with. If only for a chance to do something new for a change. Fortunately, we have a good way too let off some of that steam: a whole bunch of violent slasher movies. By request of Patreon subscriber Brian Fowler, we're going to be taking a look at director Adam Green's Hatchet series, the over-the-top throwbacks to the most excessive  extremes of '80s slasher movies. None of us have seen any of them, so we're flying blind.

I Used To Go Here is deeply personal for anybody who has struggled with defining and redefining their personal success [Interview with director Kris Rey] Director Kris Rey talks about her own life experiences that inspired the events of her most recent feature film, I Used To Go Here. Kris talks about how she wrangled the all-star cast of Gillian Jacobs and Jemaine Clement and what it's like to promote a film during a pandemic. You know when you watch a movie and you can just tell that the mind behind it is super cool?  I Used To Go Here is smart and funny and relatable, in sort of an unnerving way.  We could tell right out of the gate that Kris Rey was going to be so much hipper than us.  To level the playing field a bit, I took extensive notes titled "Carrie's list of uncool things to not say."  I also wore a dress from my Grandma's funeral last year to add balance my enthusiasm that can sometimes be hard for me to contain. All of these things seem silly now.  Kris was just so pleasant and approachable, a

1BR Probably Shouldn't Have Been Made [Interview with writer/director/cast] Director David Mamor talks about how this edgy horror/cult-thriller was born of his experience moving to LA, Naomi Grossman gushes over the entire cast (totally neglecting her own awesome performance) and Producer Alok Mishra has us all in tears with his super descriptive stories about the rocky road to 1BR being made If we're being honest, Rob and I were really nervous for the 1BR interview.  We've done a few interviews over the years, but this was going to be the first time we sat down using video. What if I had stuff on my face? Or what if Rob accidentally picked his nose, like he sometimes does? Or what if I mispronounced somebodies name (which I did, g-damnit)? So, the good news is, they were really nice, guys... and not scary at all. Rob did the thing that he does where he was all polished and prepared and asked great questions.  Meanwhile, I did the thing that I do where I laugh awkwardly and veer off from talking about the m

Acting is very hard work even for people who've spent their whole lives honing their craft; it must be unimaginably hard when the whole life in question doesn't span an entire decade. That's why we're using our next episode to celebrate our favorite performances by children: the young actors who go on to become great stars, the one who fizzle out once they hit the ugly part of puberty, the ones who just showed up that one time and blew us all away with a talent that never had a chance to develop. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Greyhound, 1BR and Strasbourg 1518!

There are some movies that are so great that you make them treasured friends, revisiting them every now and then to appreciate once again how special they are. There are some movies that you obsessively watch over and over again, trying to absorb them right into your soul. And then there are the movies so great that you simply can't go back: one time is all the more you dare risk watching them - maybe to preserve the surprise, maybe to avoid the heartache, or for any other reason that one time simply had to be enough. We're devoting a whole episode to these last films, the ones that we love so much that there's no chance in hell of our ever revisiting them. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Palm Springs and Bedevil.

We're turning our attention to movie stars for our next episode - specifically, to movie stars right at the beginning of their stardom. We're looking at our all-time favorite acting debuts, the very best performances by new actors who manage to prove in their very first time in front of a camera that they have what it takes to hold our attention, to make us cry, to make us laugh, and to stick around for years to come. In Worth Mentioning we cover Irresistible and Homecoming.

Some movies become big, beloved successes right off the bat, celebrated by one and all. Some movies need to fight for it: they're overlooked, undervalued, and just plain dismissed, treasured only by a tiny audience biding the day that might never come when the object of their affection finally gets its moment in the sun. For this episode, we're celebrating our favorite examples of these wonderful, idiosyncratic little gems, with our picks for the best cult movies of all time, no matter how big or small the cult.  In Worth Mentioning we cover: Da 5 Bloods, You Should Have Left and The King of Staten Island.

We've looked at our favorite movie moms. And we've looked at our favorite example of movies about daddy issues, that most reliable crutch for lazy screenwriters. But with Father's Day coming up, we decided it was long since time that we gave good dads their time in the sun, which is why our next episode is going to be all about our very favorite dads in the movies. Maybe they're kind sources of wisdom, maybe they're fun buddies who teach their children the importance of getting out there and living life, and maybe they're the heads of powerful mafia families manipulating the lifes of dozens of people just to give their sons a good chance at a better future. We love 'em all, and we're excited to share with you our picks for the best movie dads. In Worth Mentioning we cover The Half of It, Barefoot Gen, The Message thank to Patreon, Gavin.

Sometimes - when you're feeling a bit gloomy, for example, or when you've locked your doors against the onslaught of a global pandemic - you just need to have fun. And sometimes, that fun is pretty disreputable and embarrassing, but do you care? No! Well... maybe just a little. And that's what makes a guilty pleasure: a film that you're almost not ashamed to love, and certainly the love more than beats out the shame, though you would, perhaps, not want to admit that love to God, the world, and everybody on a podcast. And yet, that's just exactly what we're going to do on our next episode: reveal the mortifying (but gratifying!) truth about our very favorite guilty pleasure movies, be they corny romances, racist action movies, dumb musicals, or Swedish nudism documentaries. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Scoob!, The Lovebirds and A Separation by request of Patreon, Jaiden Vanmali.

We had such a good time re-watching Back to the Future that we've decided to keep the fun going with a whole episode dedicated to our favorite examples of time travel in the movie. Whether it's killer robots from the future, accidentally screwing up the past, or just going on a tour of whatever costume drama sets the producer could get for cheap, we'll be hopping back and forth across the decades. In Worth Mentioning we cover The Willoughby's, Emma and The Rhythm Section.

It's time for one of our favorite annual traditions, the summer preview episode! We always love to try to predict what upcoming releases we're going to enjoy the most, out of all the big summer tentpoles and smaller counter-programming. Unfortunately, with no movies coming out until July (at best!), it would be a pretty thin episode. But just because summer 2020 is shot to hell, doesn't mean we can't still have fun thinking about summer blockbusters! So instead of looking ahead, we're going to look backwards, to our favorite blockbuster movies of summers past. Butter up some popcorn and throw on the AC, and join us for a celebration of all the best big budget razzle-dazzle that Hollywood has thrown at us for the past few decades. In Worth Mentioning, we cover Extraction, Sonic the Hedgehog, and A Brighter Summer Day.

Looking at the world outside our windows - certainly not visiting it- what could be better than watching a movie about the swirling paranoia of a world that is on the brink of collapse and there's nothing you can do about it? Certainly nothing we can think of which is why this episode is about the 2001 cult classic Donnie Darko, by request of Patreon subscriber Gavin. We look at not just at the original version of Richard Kelly's dreamy and nightmarish fantasy about teenage suburban angst, but also the controversial 2004 director's cut.

There are a lot of ways you can ride out a pandemic. You can gather all of your beautiful rich friends, hole up in a villa outside of Florence, and tell dirty stories to each other for ten straight days. Or you can throw a lavish party with several color-coded rooms that represent the decaying, corrupted soul of the age. Maybe you can keep a diary that will be treasured centuries from now as an irreplaceable historical document. Or maybe you can just masturbate a lot. Here at Alternate Ending, we're going to spend our time watching movies, naturally enough. And since the world is scary out there right now, our next episode is celebrating our favorite pick-me-up movies, the ones we watch when we're tired and achy and just generally feeling crummy, curled up on the couch in a blanket. These are the cinematic equivalent of a big bowl of chicken soup, the movies we watch when we need to feel warm and protected and cozy. Because whether you're sick with a virus or just sick of being stuck in the house, you're prob