Screeners Podcast

If you haven’t seen Only the Brave, we can’t really blame you; not too many people have, judging by its box office performance. A few of the Screeners watched it anyway, and they thought it was worth at least a quick review, so here it is. Let’s not kid ourselves, though. We know you’re really here because the second season of Stranger Things just dropped on Netflix, and you want to know whether you should binge it in one weekend or spread it out over two or so. Well, Josh wouldn’t know, because he hasn’t even seen the first season. Please, suppress your shock. The rest of the Screeners don’t live under a rock, though, so they’ll help you decide just how much the rest of your life should suffer in service to Netflix’s release model. Listen to the episode, then head over to Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/screenerscast/) and tell us how long it’ll be before you’re ready for a Stranger Things episode with actual spoilers. Subscribe: iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/screeners-podcast/id611609146) |

No, we’re not crazy; we know the Oscars are almost half a year away, but Daniel’s on a mission to make this a respectable movie podcast. To that end, he’s already sat down and figured out who’s going to win most of the major awards, and he’s typed up a very comprehensive set of notes on the subject. He’s been keeping tabs on all the hot film festivals, so you know his picks are legit. Oh, and Chad’s along for the ride and knows a thing or two about a movie or two, but let’s be clear: Daniel knows more about next year’s Oscars than Jimmy Kimmel does at this point. Don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/screenerscast/) if you’ve...heard of any of these movies yet. Subscribe: iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/screeners-podcast/id611609146) | Google Play (https://play.google.com/music/m/Iissyasykzy4aokzsgmcto5xsfe?t=Screeners_Podcast) | Pocket Casts (http://pca.st/TZQF) Web: Home (http://screenerspodcast.com/) | Download (https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/152727

Everyone loves a good Jackie Chan movie, right? Maybe, but can we agree on what constitutes a “good Jackie Chan movie”? There’s a pretty big disparity between the critic and audience ratings for The Foreigner on Rotten Tomatoes (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_foreigner_2017/) right now, but we’re guessing the studio doesn’t care what Roger Ebert thinks if the movie triples its budget at the box office (which it’s almost done already). More importantly, though, what did Chad and Daniel think of it? They’re the only critics who matter anyway...wait, no. What we meant to say was “...they’re the only Screeners who’ll see it anyway”. Yeah; that sounds better. But wait; there’s more! Maybe those of us who didn’t make it to the theater this weekend had some time for Netflix. Maybe to watch David Fincher’s new show Mindhunter? Is it this year’s psychological thriller hit, or should Fincher just rest on his House of Cards laurels for awhile? And while we’re talking about the ever-growing stable of shows Netflix

The parade of sequels and remakes marches on with no end in sight. No property is too forgotten or too beloved to be dusted off and unceremoniously subjected to a rewrite without so much as a second thought as to whether it’s even a good idea. The jury seems to still be out on that question for Blade Runner 2049; it has a respectable 88% on Rotten Tomatoes (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blade_runner_2049) at the time of this writing, but it pulled in an uninspiring $31 million on its opening weekend. Can the Screeners bridge the gap between review and appeal? Speaking of box office returns, though, remember a few months ago when all the hosts cast lots to rank the summer’s biggest hits? After picking The Dark Tower as part of his top 10, Josh was hoping everyone wouldn’t remember, but everyone did. Labor Day has come and gone, so it’s time to tally up the scores. Spoiler alert: The Dark Tower, at $50 million domestic, didn’t make the list. That’s probably enough for one episode. It might not have been Blad

Last episode’s review of mother! has, perhaps unsurprisingly, stirred up some conversation. In fact, it seems to have inspired one of the most thoughtful emails to drop into the Screeners mailbag yet. They couldn’t pass up the chance to respond to it, so more air time for Aronofsky. No publicity is bad publicity, right? Once that’s over with, it’s time for some lighter fare. At least, we hope it is—the ”professional” reviews for Kingsman: The Golden Circle aren’t what you’d call “glowing”. It has a colon in its title, so we already know Daniel’s going into it biased. Melody couldn’t see it in time to compare it to the first one, which was her favorite movie since Mad Max or something, so it’s missing its biggest supporter. Can the nearly two-and-a-half-hour spy action dramedy overcome these handicaps to get a thumbs-up from the Screeners? It’ll be a challenge, but Colin Firth hasn’t shied away from one of those yet. In honor of Kingsman’s genre confusion, this episode’s Top 3 subject is “action comedies”. Fro

So Darren Aronofsky’s new movie is out, and it has a punctuation mark in the title, so it has that going for it. It also has some negative press, to say the least: a Cinemasore rating of F (http://www.slashfilm.com/mother-cinemascore-f/) and enough negative audience reaction that Aronofsky himself apologized to a film festival audience (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/darren-aronofsky-explains-deeply-misunderstood-film-mother-at-deauville-screening-1037084) before screening it (you probably shouldn’t read either of those links before seeing the movie...). Chad, Chris, and Daniel aren’t afraid of a little bad press, though, so they’re more than willing to take on a review of mother! What will happen when a self-proclaimed lover of loving things, his protégé, and...Chad talk about the most polarizing movie in recent memory? After mother!, it seemed like a fitting top 3 theme would be “confusion”, so this episode’s top 3 is informally titled “Movies that make you say...’huh?’” We got a lot of Facebook res

In case you haven’t heard (OK; you’ve probably heard), there’s another Stephen King movie out. It’s...It, and It has already beaten The Dark Tower in profits and critical reception. The pre-release buzz was even better—just kidding; we wouldn’t know, since Chad forbade us from reading Dark Tower’s pre-release buzz since he wanted his misery to be pure and fresh as the driven snow. Anyway, nature conspired against most of the Screeners seeing It in time for an opening weekend review, but Chad and Daniel aren’t about to let you down on this one. The two of them should be more than enough to convince you to be scared of clowns...partially because you should already be scared of clowns. Clowns are horrifying. On top of the whole blockbuster horror movie discussion, other things the other 3 Screeners are missing out on include Emmy talk (the show’s this Sunday, so Josh should probably start trying to remember his Twitter password now) and the inevitable Top 3. This episode’s topic: coming of age movies. Apparentl

We’re in a bit of a lull as far as movie releases go1, so the Screeners haven’t found anything worthy of a main event in a couple weeks. That’s not to say all their screens are dark, though. The dog days of summer are the perfect time for a “what have you been watching” catch-up segment. But wait; there’s more! The Screeners Podcast has been around for about 4 years now with only one major change, so we thought it was about time for another. No, we’re not reverting the first one by firing Daniel (yet...you’re on thin ice, though; stop seeing so many more movies than everyone else). This announcement’s a bit more on the positive side, at least for the sci-fi fans in the crowd. OK; we’ve said enough—you’ll have to listen to find out more. When you’ve done that, be sure to head over to Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/screenerscast/) to tell us what you think—and what great shows and movies we missed during our free-for-all earlier; we know there’s plenty out there. See you next time! 1 Yes, Josh, we know you

We’ve known The Dark Tower was coming since at least the beginning of the year, and the Screeners have been busy doing team-building exercises in preparation for the stress it’s sure to put on their friendships. Well, it’s go time. The Screeners have cleared their schedules; let’s do this. Stephen King is said to have praised the director after seeing the final cut (http://variety.com/2017/film/news/the-dark-tower-making-of-stephen-king-1202511835/) of the film, but will that be enough for true fans like Chad and Melody? Also, what does Josh think about all this—didn’t he do some background research for the episode? OK, so maybe the Screeners didn’t completely clear their schedules. They might just need a palate cleanser after that main event, and their Flickchart list has been sitting neglected, like a puppy they’ve forgotten to feed and walk for...a few months. Wasn’t the top movie on that list The Mighty Ducks or something? Let’s fix that. And that’s plenty for one episode. Everyone take a deep breath, the

The Screeners (or most of them, at least) have another but-those-movies-have-nothing-in-common sort of double feature in store again this episode. Sorry; we don’t get to tell Hollywood what to do; we just report on it. First up, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Daniel’s already had some fairly...blunt things to say about this one on Facebook, but that won’t stop Luc Besson from writing as many of them as he can (http://www.slashfilm.com/luc-besson-valerian-2-and-3/). Can another Screener’s enthusiasm salvage the film’s chances in the court of public opinion? Raise your hand if you expected Cold War-era spy movies to feel timely again. You neither, huh? Well, joke’s on us. Atomic Blonde has all sorts of things that just don’t seem like they belong in the modern world—from unstable geopolitical superpowers, to collusion with Russia, to Charlize Theron talking about how great Mad Max: Fury Road was (http://variety.com/2017/film/news/mad-max-fury-road-prequel-charlize-theron-1202491226/). Chris and Me

The Screeners may be short a host for this episode, but they’re definitely not short of material. The movie and TV trailers released at Comic-Con are all over the YouTubes, so you know Chris is going to have a field day with them. Maybe even Josh watched a couple; who knows? And once they’re done talking about Marvel, DC, and Netflix (because let’s face it; that’s all we’re getting out of Comic-Con), this episode’s main event is a double header of two very different movies: Dunkirk and The Big Sick. Maybe one day we’ll get a romantic comedy set during wartime, but until then we’ll have to settle for episodes like this where Chris “didn’t get to see” one of the movies, and Josh “didn’t get to see” the other. We’re sure it has nothing to do with each movie’s explosion-to-dialogue ratio. In the next episode, we’ll be moving on from World War II to the Cold War with a review of Atomic Blonde, but until then we’ll be hanging out on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/screenerscast/), so come say hi. Subscribe: iTun

The Screeners have a movie review and top three planned, but before they head into the main event, they take a quick look in the ol’ mailbag and actually find something. A listener had a thoughtful question about the meaning of “success”, and Chris misses no chance to wax philosophical, so this seemed like as good a time as any to answer some email. After that, it’s time to join your regularly scheduled main event. It’s been 6 years since the first Planet of the Apes movie, but...wait; what? You say it’s been almost 50 years since the first one? This is another one of those Spider-Man nightmare franchises that’s impossible to track, isn’t it? OK, so this is the third movie in the most recent series, which Tim Burton had nothing to do with. Josh should be happy to hear this, since he thought the 2001 Planet of the Apes was the source material here. That was his excuse for not seeing War, but it turns out he doesn’t even have that. Oh well; we hear the movie’s good, despite Josh’s unwarranted revulsion. Our to

The Screeners have an episode packed with two full movie reviews, a great Top 3, and more than a little interpersonal conflict, so no sense in wasting time with pointless exposition. If only we could teach Josh the same lesson for his reviews… First up is Spider-Man: Homecoming. Not only is it a movie with a colon in the title (more on that later in the episode); it’s the sixth Spidey movie in a franchise that might qualify as the most internally confused in the entire Marvel Cluster of Upchuck (that’s what MCU stands for, right?). Four out of five Screeners agree, though: It could have been worse. Superhero hijinks are followed by...an action musical? A hyperrealist crime comedy? We’re not entirely sure what to call Baby Driver, but it definitely, um, exists. Join the Screeners for a rare spoiler-less recap of the latest brainchild of the director who brought us Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Finally, we promised you a Top 3, and a Top 3 you shall get. Some would call this an “epic insta

It’s happened again. Words we never wanted to have to say after that first fateful release in 2007, but which we’ve had to say over and over since then: Michael Bay has made another Transformers movie. We’re up to five now, but it might as well be five hundred, right? Our culture will never be rid of them now; their gleaming CGI chrome grilles will haunt our era in the annals of film history. Future (current?) seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000, kept on life support by avid proponents of a counterculture all but forgotten, will mock them mercilessly, effortlessly weaving Martin Lawrence lines from Bad Boys in with quips about how the last explosion was disappointingly smaller than the one before it. Where were we? Oh yeah; Chad and Daniel paid money to see Transformers 5, and they’re here to talk about it. Then they’re going to do a top 3 about Michael Bay’s career...although, given the subject matter, “top” might be a little generous. How about “least likely to give you an eye rolling-induced headache”?

We saw the teaser for Cars 3, but we weren’t sure what it’s about. Is it that one where the driver gets his face messed up in a car wreck? No? Talladega Nights meets The Wrestler? Not that either? OK; we’re out of ideas. It’s a good thing we have Chad and Daniel; those two will see anything. So, boys, tell us: Was Cars 3 The Good Dinosaur good, or was it just Cars 2 good? We will be making our theatergoing decisions based on your judgement, so just keep that in mind. Oh, and while they’re talking Pixar, they decided they’d take the opportunity to mix up the standard Top 3 list a bit and go over their Top 3 and Bottom 3 Pixar movies. We can’t wait to hear who liked Toy Story 4 more...what’s that? There’s still only 3 of those? We give up.

Tom Cruise has awakened an ancient evil, and it’s not Xenu...it’s Brendan Fraser’s career! The horror! We kid, we kid. Seriously, though, there’s a new The Mummy movie, in case the 10 The Mummy movies before this one weren’t enough for you. We’re not kidding about that number; we looked it up—and yes, we count shorts as “movies”. Go with it. If you didn’t gather this from the first sentence, Tom Cruise is in this one, in case that makes it in some way more appealing for you. It doesn’t do that for Josh, so he didn’t bother going to the theater, but the other Screeners totally did. They were so excited that they just had to do a bonus episode about it—and while they’re talking about mummies, they figured they’d also throw in a Top 3 about monster-themed media. Again, Josh isn’t here for this episode, but he told us that if he were, he’d take a page out of Chris’s playbook and insist his number 1 pick is Count Chocula.

In this special video game focused episode, Chad and Chris discuss all things E3 2017.

Another piece of the DC comic universe has been released to a thirsty public, and the Screeners are so anxious to review it that they aren’t even going to bother with a Jump Cuts segment. Take that, other entertainment news. They all headed to full theaters to see Wonder Woman (including Daniel, and he’s not even here for this episode), so was it everything they might have expected it to be after the tour de force that was Batman v. Superman? For the sake of Patty Jenkins’ directorial career, we hope not. After that main event, what other Top 3 could there be? It had to be (strong/fierce/unstoppable/amazing) female characters. Some of our listeners got in on this one too, so check out the everyone’s picks and let us know on Facebook who you think should really be hosting the show. See you next time, when the Screeners (or at least a few of them) will be talking about Tom Cruise and an ancient curse—and no; we’re not talking about the painting of himself he has locked in his attic...nevermind; it’s The Mummy.

Frankly, we’re worried about Johnny Depp. We’re afraid he might a gambling problem, or he’s made some terrible investments...or maybe he’s financing third-world revolutions on the down-low. There has to be some terrible reason that he’s in a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. This is Nicolas Cage’s career all over again, and we just can’t watch. Or, most of the Screeners couldn’t watch. Chad and Daniel, however, take some kind of sadistic pleasure in Depp’s downward spiral, and they went to the theater to watch, well, dead men tell some tales. Was this installment any better than the previous four? The 8-ball we get most of our life advice from says “doubtful”, but maybe Daniel’s indefatigable optimism will save us all.

It already feels like the Year of the Ancient Franchise, and the summer movie season’s barely started. There’s a fifth Alien movie out there, and it won the weekend box office, albeit a little unimpressively (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/movies/alien-covenant-is-a-ho-hum-no-1-at-the-box-office.html). The Screeners saw it, though, and Josh isn’t going to miss a chance to gloat about his lack of participation in a mainstay of popular culture. He’s almost as bad as those cord-cutter types.