Matt's Movie Lodgecast

It's time to jump in the pool! Chris Pine's directorial debut was in theaters for two weeks tops, but we were able to dive in and experience it on the big screen. In the film, Chris Pine plays poolman Darren Barrenman. He fights for what is right in Los Angeles, which leads him down a path of corruption & real-estate & water & power. Pine assembled an impressive cast including Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Tobolowsky, Clancy Brown, John Ortiz, Ray Wise, Juliet Mills, and DeWanda Wise. Poolman premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to wretched reviews, so we knew we had to see it! Never watch this film, but do listen to our take on Chris Pine's Poolman!

Take a nostalgic Lodgecast trip with us back to 2018, when, for a brief period, we paid $9.95 per month to see unlimited movies at any time and in any theater. We watched the recently released HBO Original documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash to learn the story behind that crazy time in American moviegoing history. We find out all about the rise and fall of the MoviePass company and the players behind the scenes. And we mostly talk about our personal histories with MoviePass, including the MoviePass-produced film Gotti (2018) that we covered way back in Episode 14. We also talk about when MoviePass officially crashed during our hawt take of Mission: Impossible - Fallout. It's all love and light as we look back at our MoviePass moviegoing experiences. Rest in Peace $9.95 MoviePass! Long Live the AMC A-List!

Happy 4th of July America! For such a time as this, writer/director Alex Garland dropped his latest flick Civil War into theaters. This $50 million A24 film actually made some money bringing in $120 million worldwide. In the film, the United States is engulfed in a Civil War, as President Nick Offerman has taken authoritarian control over the federal government. Meanwhile, various secessionist regional factions are heading for Washington, D.C. to wreak havoc. Journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson are road tripping while capturing the wartime action. What is the purpose of this film at this time, Mr. Garland? We considered it our patriotic duty to try to figure it out. God Bless the USA!

Director Luca Guadagnino returns. After his dark-hearted cannibal film Bones and All starring our boy Chalamet, Guadagnino has made a light-hearted tennis romance starring Zendaya. Challengers features a love triangle between her and Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. We'll let you know if this movie is sexy! The film features plenty of tennis to the pulsing techno beats of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's 15-Love-n-Light and the Lodgecast is ready to serve!

It was time to Do The Dune! Part Two! Yes, we got our Dune-themed sandworm popcorn bucket and we test it out live on the air. Then we snuggled in for another trip to the desert planet Arrakis to watch our boy Chalamet get all spiced up. And this time we got way more than just flashes of Zendaya! We rode this sandworm for 166 minutes and we'll let you know our reactions to this epic science fiction film conclusion. Bring on the Dune Messiah and the Children of Dune and even the God Emperor of Dune and the Heretics of Dune! Dune 2 featured a star-flooded cast including Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Lea Seydoux, and Christopher Walken!

The Lodgecast boys and girls of summer have returned from our extended Spring Break! We've been secretly recording while we were away. And one movie we did not miss was the baffling Marvel superhero movie Madame Web! The Dr. Michael Morbius Memorandum states that any Marvel movie that falls below 20% on Rotten Tomatoes must be covered on the Lodgecast. And Madame Web scored an abysmal 11% on Rotten Tomatoes! By the time we got to theaters, the word was out that this film was a turkey, and audiences were primed to laugh at everything Madame Web threw at us. Dakota Johnson delivers a bewildering performance as Madame Web as she tries to spin drama out of the wretched script and awkward pauses. She's supported by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott. Tune into this episode to find out more about this cinematic bomb!

We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We must give our dear Lodgemaster a much-needed editing break after splicing together over 280 four-bone episodes in the last six years! We'll be recording episodes of notable movies here and there while we rest up, but they won't be released until after our break. Fear not, dear listener; we shall return! Love & Eternal Light!

Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2023 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in under 30 minutes! Then it's onto our special award, where we'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2023 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2023. Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen, and let us know what you think!

This Is J.Lo…NOW! At age 54, Jennifer Lopez has released her ninth studio album, This Is Me... Now, and along with it, she financed a $20 million romantic musical film that dropped onto Amazon Prime last week! This Is Me...Now: A Love Story is loosely based on J.Lo's life as she falls in and out of love over the past decades. This visual album was only 65 minutes long, but we had much to say about it! Even though he's only in it for a few shots, Ben Affleck looms large over the project as Bennifer crashes and burns in the opening scenes, and J.Lo goes through a decades-long search to rediscover herself and her soul mate Ben. The film features many songs from her new album and many therapy scenes with Fat Joe as her therapist. It also features a whole host of cameos, including Jane Fonda, Kim Petras, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Sofia Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sadhguru, Derek Hough, Trevor Noah, Paul Raci, and Ben Affleck as Rex Stone/Biker. Watch it through our eyes if you dare!

Three boys ventured out into a cataclysmic rainstorm to tackle the appropriately waterlogged NIGHT SWIM, starring Kurt Russell’s son Wyatt and Academy Award nominee Kerry Condon. Did it scare our fins off or leave us cold in the shallow end? Dive in and find out!

Jason Statham is The Beekeeper. Requests were pouring in for us to cover this ridiculous action movie so we did. David Ayer directs and Kurt Wimmer writes (he also was one of the credited writers on Expend4bles). The movie features bees and honey and plenty of bee talk. Statham is an actual beekeeper on the property of Phylicia Rashad. When Phylicia Rashad gets fooled into a phishing scam and loses all her money she shoots herself. This sets Statham out on a John Wick-style quest for revenge. It left some Lodgers laughing and other Lodgers screaming, “Not the bees!”. The movie also stars Emmy Raver-Lampman, Josh Hutcherson, Bobby Naderi, Minnie Driver, and Jeremy Irons!

Nicolas Cage recently turned 60! And just when you think he's done it all, he delivers yet another fantastic performance in a movie like Dream Scenario. This dark comedy by Norwegian film director Kristoffer Borgli stars Cage as a biology professor who starts appearing in random people's dreams and becomes famous. It's a wonderful setup for exploring the ins and outs of modern fame. It also stars Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula, and Dylan Baker. Another winner from A24! See it!

Poor Things was one of the most anticipated movies of 2023, and it did not disappoint! It is another unique vision from director Yorgos Lanthimos and is currently nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Emma Stone stars in a bravura performance after she is revitalized by an eccentric surgeon played by Willem Dafoe. The cast is rounded out by Mark Ruffalo, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, and Jerrod Carmichael. It's a must-see!

For this episode, we ventured into new territory. We went to an AMC Screen Unseen mystery movie event. AMC Screen Unseen shows a movie that is coming out soon, but they don't tell you what it is. No one in the audience knows what the movie is until it hits the big screen! A cool idea from AMC, and at a price point of $5, our theater was packed. All we knew was that the mystery movie was R-rated, and that was enough to get us excited. We recorded an intro for this episode where we speculated what this mystery movie might be. Hear our reaction in real-time as we reveal this mystery movie to you and discuss it!

There was a Pet Sematary prequel that came out late last year! A prequel to the Pet Sematary (2019) remake, to be precise, which was a remake of the 1989 film based on the 1983 Stephen King book. So Bloodlines is a prequel of a remake of an adaptation that went straight to Paramount Plus. We covered the Pet Sematary remake way back in Episode 43 of the Lodgecast. Bloodlines scored a woeful 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, which sealed our fate that we had to cover it. This movie is set in 1969 and stars Jackson White as a young Jud Crandall who discovers the secrets of the cemetery. This movie stars some other heavy hitters, including Henry Thomas, David Duchovny, Samantha Mathis, and Pam Grier. The cast is rounded out by Forrest Goodluck, Jack Mulhern, Natalie Alyn Lind, and Isabella Star LaBlanc. While "sometimes dead is better," we're not ruling out future installments of the Pet Sematary franchise!

The Year of the Dragon is upon us! But before we get to dragons, let's get prestigious with Sofia Coppola's new A24 biopic Priscilla about Priscilla Presley. For this 'cast, we got the old Elvis (2022) crew back together to take a new look at The King from his wife's perspective. This movie is an adaptation of Priscilla Presley's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me. It stars Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla and Jacob Elordi as Elvis. We came in with varying degrees of fandom for the films of Sofia Coppola and we left with varying bone counts!

And so we close out the year 2023 with Timothee Chalamet's Wonka. This is a new musical fantasy prequel to Roald Dahl's story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That 1964 book has been adapted twice: the classic version starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in 1971 and the not-so-classic Tim Burton 2005 remake starring Johnny Depp as Mr. Wonka. While this new Wonka movie didn't reach the dizzying heights of Cats (2019), there was still plenty of wacky musical fun to be had. The movie is competently directed by Paul King, who is famous for Paddington and Paddington 2. Wonka co-stars Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Olivia Colman, and Hugh Grant as Lofty the Oompa-Loompa. Join us for this special Minnesota-based Lodgecast as we inject the liquid chocolate deep into our veins! Wishing you all a wild and wonderful wishy-washy New Year!

Sean Hannity produced a Christmas comedy this year called Jingle Smells. The movie premiered on the video site Rumble, which is attempting to be a conservative version of YouTube. The premise involves quirky garbage men and canceled Christmas toys. It features John Schneider, Ben Davies, Eric Roberts, Victoria Jackson, James Storm, Jim Breuer, and, of course, Sean Hannity as himself! This one was bound to hurt even the most battle-hardened Lodgers. But we made it through to deliver this Christmas miracle episode to you! Merry Chongsmas and Happy Chongnukkah!

If you see one movie between now and Christmas Day, make it The Holdovers! We share our love for director Alexander Payne in this episode before snuggling in for a very cozy comedy starring Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa. Set in December of 1970, Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly teacher at a boarding school in New England. He is tasked with looking after the students who have to remain on campus for the holiday break for various reasons. Giamatti is a shoo-in for at least a Best Actor nomination in a hilarious role reminiscent of his great role in Sideways (2004). See this Christmas movie! With the whole family! Before Christmas Day if you can!

Director David Gordon Green returns to ruin another beloved horror franchise. After making three terrible Halloween movies that we covered, this time Gordon Green sets out to destroy The Exorcist franchise. We put off covering this for as long as we could but eventually had to face it. This wretched Exorcist sequel stars Leslie Odom Jr., Lidya Jewett, Olivia O'Neill, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ann Dowd. And Gordon Green even got 90-year-old Ellen Burstyn to reprise her role as Chris MacNeil. And for what, Mr. Gordon Green?! I'm getting angry just thinking about this movie! Hear our devastating takedown of The Exorcist: Believer. It will be followed by another terrible sequel called The Exorcist: Deceiver in 2025, and we will witness that atrocity as well!