Lass Is More With Josh Lasser

The Oscar nominated "Summer of Soul" is now available on DVD and digital.  We happened to watch it the morning of the Oscar nominations and found it to be amazing and powerful.  It is a look at a music festival that took place in 1969, but it's more than that.  It's so much more and it ought to be seen.

Going from "Saturday Night Live" sketch to feature film is not easy and yet, in 1992 Mike Myers' "Wayne's World" showed (again) that it certainly is possible.  With a new Blu-ray out to celebrate the movie's 30th anniversary we take a look back at the Wayne and Garth and see if all those pop culture references still work today.

Here's the thing... nuance exists, shades of grey exist.  It is true that one's film diet shouldn't simply consist of Marvel movies, but it is also true that there are Marvel movies that have a lot to say.  More than that, Marvel movies come in all shapes and sizes and even genres.  One only need look at "Eternals" to see as much.

Imagine taking a bright and colorful animated film, one filled with incredible songs, and making it about something as deeply profound as what it means to put yourself out there, to reveal who you truly are and what scares you.  That is exactly what the filmmakers have done with Disney's "Encanto" and it's marvelous.

This month, the excellent "Juice" was released on 4K.  The new disk celebrates the film's 30th anniversary and even if Josh hadn't seen it before, he has now.  But, unlike with so many other films, watching the movie didn't immediately spark an idea for this podcast episode... why is that?

Here at this podcast we firmly believe that we are witnessing a massive shift in the way movies are watched, a shift away from theaters and into homes.  There will undoubtedly be growing pains and struggles as this shift continues but we need to still find and watch (wherever that might be) movies, like Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel," which deserve our attention.

The horror movie "Antlers" is fine, but what has Josh thinking this week is the question of what happens to the characters in horror movies after the film ends?  Take a listen as we contemplate the future.

Some movies tell the story they want.  They start when they want.  They stop when they want.  Other movies start telling the story that they want to tell and then kind of meander off into something else entirely.  On this week's podcast we're looking at one case of the former and one of the latter.

"The Wolf of Wall Street" is now out on 4K UHD.  It's a great movie, we can all admit this.  The thing of it is though, the man it focuses on, Jordan Belfort, is shown to not be a good human being.  The movie has no obligation to make him good, nor to yell that he's not good, but it is up to us to recognize the truth.  It makes Josh sad that too many of us don't.

A couple of episodes back, we discussed the greatness that is Tom Cruise.  With that (sort of) done, the time has come to set our sights (kind of) on Warren Beatty.  Two movies written by/directed by/and starring the multi-hyphenate just got new blu-ray releases, "Reds" and "Heaven Can Wait."  Let's take a look at both.

There is so much to enjoy in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings."  Simu Liu and Awkwafina are great together and there's one really excellent fight.  But, a perfect movie it is not and a lot of its problems are rooted in issues the MCU has been facing for years, from bland villains to overly CG climactic battles.  This week, we discuss.

Cameron Crowe's "Vanilla Sky" doesn't necessarily need Tom Cruise front and center, the actor is great in it, but the movie would undoubtedly be something special even without Tom Cruise.  But, rather than focusing on that, today we look at just how great Tom Cruise is and how great Tom Cruise has been for 40 years.  How could he not be?  He's Tom Cruise and when there's a Tom Cruise in your movie, it's a Tom Cruise movie.

There is a lot of stuff happening in Nia DaCosta's "Candyman."  The movie takes on a whole bunch of weighty ideas and attempts to explore them via the slasher film.  But it's just possible that by trying to fit into that subgenre, and need to not go over 90 minutes, that it loses too much along the way.

Some biopics simply do not do a good job of offering up insight into the person at their center.  "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" is an excellent example of such a film.  It is a movie that doesn't work for multiple reasons.  But, rather than giving away all our insights here in the description, listen to the episode and hear what we have to say.

Halloween may have been last week, but we're squeezing in one last horror movie discussion, even if it is a tad late.  "Scream" arrived in theaters 25 years ago and a new "Scream" will be in theaters next year.  The new one isn't a remake but rather the fourth sequel.  Let us discuss not just terrible naming conventions but the movie that started it all.

It may have taken him decades to work up the courage, but Josh has finally sat down to watch the first eight "Friday the 13th" movies.  Why did it take so long?  What does he think about them?  Why do so many folks in these movies just happen to have machetes?  We answer some of these questions and more on this week's episode.

Horror movie "The Night House" proves to be a powerful one not because of its story, which starts off well and then never quite succeeds, but rather because of the performance of the actress at its center, Rebecca Hall.  This week, we celebrate what Hall brings to an otherwise mediocre haunted house film, one that requires her to spend a whole lot of time on screen alone, and is perhaps best in those moments.

Out now on digital as well as Blu-ray, Ryan Reynolds' "Free Guy" is one of those movies that actually delivers on the fun of its premise.  We sit there and watch as this video game NPC becomes something more than just a background character.  Most importantly though, it pleased Josh's son, who has been anxiously anticipating the film for two years.

"Hardball" and "Breakdown" both recently hit Blu-ray shelves, and one of the two films works and the other doesn't.  One simply tells its tale and moves on, the other kind of meanders this way and that, never really telling any one story and not telling any portion very successfully.  Let's discuss.

The newest entry in "The Purge" franchise, "The Forever Purge," is now out on blu-ray, and you're kidding yourself if you think it's not the scariest one yet.  The series has always held up a mirror before us so we can see our reality, and the view is getting worse and worse.