Thanks, Academy!

This movie is authenticity-adjacent. A weirdly world-music-infused score backdrops the story of an all-American road trip with a bad car salesman (played by human-adjacent Tom Cruise) and a quirky superhero (Dustin Hoffman doing an SNL sketch character). At times, the script gestures towards meaning, but for the most part this is "It Happened One Night" with an idiot savant instead of an heiress. Christina Parrish and I tear our hair out trying not to make inappropriate jokes (and, in the end, fail) about this dated movie that's remembered fondly enough that I suspect nobody's rewatched it this millennium.

This episode comes out all sorts of different for some reason (for one thing, I finally figured out how to optimize sound a little bit). Leo and I dive into the most recent winner featured so far on the podcast, Ben Affleck's "I'm going to direct myself being a hero" movie about one interesting side plot of the Iran Hostage Crisis. We dive into some hand-wringing about how you know the good side from the bad side when protests go wild, so that's heavy, but we also talk about jazz funerals and cordless telephones. The main takeaway was that the Academy gave itself 10 choices starting with this year and they somehow still made the wrong one. Sorry, Batman.

Danny and I dive into a winner that was controversial at the time, but honestly looks pretty smart today. (That NEVER happens!) "Chicago" is a stylish, fun, surprisingly deep look at the corrupting power of fame and the desperate violence of proto-feminism America. It's also a movie about imprisoned women in their underwear produced by Harvey Weinstein, so it's far from perfect, but we enjoy delving into its details. Plus we veer off into talking about "I, Tonya" and a few other relatively obscure prestige movies.

We knew what we were getting into, kind of, but neither myself nor Eric Nagurney had seen a single frame of Gone with the Wind in our lives, so it was a fresh assault of whitewashed Confederate history, treacly matte paintings, Broadway-style overacting, and whiplashing tonal shifts that lasted FAR longer than even what "4-hour-movie" implies. We hated it. Listen closely, and you'll hear our sanity leave the room at about the 15-minute mark. This isn't a BAD movie. On a technical level it has all the ingredients of a good movie, even a great one. But it IS a movie that clumsily tells the story of horrible people who do nothing to redeem themselves and are only punished by the inexplicable sacrifices of the few innocent souls surrounding them. So that's not fun to watch. But I hope this is fun to listen to.

A movie that most people know only as a line -- "I coulda been a contender" -- has surprising twists and wrinkles that make it an unusual watch 50+ years later. Fortunately, I have Pat Dean as a co-pilot, and we dig deep into the subtext and meaning of this labor drama while also taking detours to make sure we're okay, we're doing fine, we're not too lonely. It's a surprisingly revealing and tender episode surrounding an even more surprisingly brutal and bleak film. Check it out, and also check out Pat on his daily podcast the Lanalax Corporation (https://thelanalaxcorporation.podbean.com/) or his make-me-sound-dumb podcast I Learned Nothing (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-learned-nothing/id1263958157?mt=2).

This movie goes in fits and starts. The beginning is cartoon-ish and slow, the middle is full of some of the rawest boxing footage I've ever seen in a film, and the last half hour is a torturous drag through depressingville. Pat Sirois and I try to keep our sanity with all the emotional whiplash, and figure out a couple of True Facts about Clint Eastwood's inner life along the way. This episode is narrated by Morgan Freeman. RED ALERT: This movie was written by Paul Haggis of "Crash" fame so that accounts for the sucky bits that suck. (True to form, we did zero research to prejudice ourselves, and in fact that Clint Eastwood wrote the movie for some reason. But no! There's your "Crash" connection!) Find more Pat on Lie, Cheat, and Steal - his weird crime podcast with Kath Barbadoro: http://www.bodytapeintl.com/lie-cheat-steal/

Lisa and I scratch our heads through one of the most complicated con movies I've ever seen, stuffed with ancillary characters and antiquated references. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are both compelling to watch -- and Redford does A LOT of sprinting in this movie if that's your thing -- but the real stars are the women. Eileen Brennan brings a casual vamp's charm to the rogue's gallery of con men, and Dimitra Arliss coyly plays a diner waitress who's much more than she appears. Other than that, it's a confusion of fedoras and jumble of motivations. You have to buy the "I climb the mountain because it's there" reasoning for most of the folks to be in on the scheme, because by the time the take gets chopped up, it's minimum wage. Listen to us ramble around this effective but not fully compelling entry that still has "The Entertainer" playing in the background somewhere to this day.

Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. was still very much a contemporary force in American entertainment when this was made. His late wife Billie Burke even had a hand in the casting of this movie, which was an enormous artistic and financial success for MGM. But what does that all add up to now? This three-hour biopic serves mainly to highlight two things -- that Ziegfeld was a "special effects" genius in his day (costumes and staging) to a degree that still astonishes today, and that his life was a mind-numbing roller coaster of money. There's very little heart in the movie despite the numerous romances, and if it weren't for the dazzling excerpts of his follies, this would rightfully never be remembered today. Join me and Rachel Hall as we try to figure out what kind of drugs people were taking in the 1930s.

Unless you've actually watched it recently, I guarantee this movie is NOT what you think it is. The star-spangled sequels are so ingrained in our minds that it's weird to revisit the grimy impoverished underdog story that kicked off the mega-franchise. Mike MacRae had never seen the movie, and I THOUGHT I had but it was very different from my memories, so who knows? We both "dinged" along as iconic moments came up, then guffawed in bafflement at the weird scenes nobody talks about anymore: Rocky ice skating? Burgess Meredith talking to a lamp? Rocky working for the mob? VERY LITTLE BOXING? The whole experience is familiar but weird, like drinking a glass of raw eggs. Tune in for a dose of old-fashioned gritty patriotism.

This movie is the origin of every trope in romantic comedies, road trip movies, AND Bugs Bunny cartoons. Micheal Foulk and I spend a lot of time delighting in the silliness of the plot, and puzzling over the manic depression of the film's main pixie dream boy, played by Clark Gable. It's one of only three films to ever win all "big five" awards: picture, director, actor, actress, writing. It's pretty good, but that accomplishment is probably more a reflection on the competition. There's no doubt this was hugely influential, and can probably be seen as the ur-romcom.

This is easily the most famous and beloved movie we've tackled so far, and it's great! The songs are amazing, the costumes are beautiful, the dancing is quirky and fun, and the plot is ... well. Half of it is great, and surprisingly timely. Chris Cubas (Canceled) and I really enjoyed the Sharks vs Jets plotline and characters. The other half is a limp and hasty romance that's modeled on the dumber aspects of Romeo & Juliet with none of the redeeming qualities of Shakespeare's irony-laden Twilight Zone twists. The end result is a delightful but frustrating watch that had us both singing and yelling at the screen, alternately. It's just too bad I forgot to hit record during the watch. The before-and-after conversations are still there, though, so tune in as we dissect this American classic.

The only reason this movie is remembered at all is the Disney remake from 2004 starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan -- and that movie was a huge flop. Based on a Jules Verne story, this film is adapted to be 1,000% more British, with a wealthy eccentric and miniature sidekick "racing" around the world at a snail's pace to settle a pointless bet with a drawing room full of loathsome bankers. David Niven and some circus performer named Cantinflas (an enormously popular Mexican film star and mascot) are serviceable in their roles, but the movie's main "attraction" (besides lots of scenery) is a series of cameos, some of which resonate today and some which do not. The more cringe-worthy are Shirley McLaine as an Indian princess, Marlene Dietrich as a madame, Red Skelton as a drunk, Frank Sinatra as a piano player, Peter Lorre as a steward, and Buster Keaton as a train conductor. None of them help the movie feel like anything but a 3-hour slog. It's so slow, even the producers knew they had to insert an intermiss

Every once in a while, the Academy really gets it right. This Frank Capra movie is waaaay less famous than some of his other, schmaltzier efforts like It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Arsenic and Old Lace, but in my opinion it tops them all with a madcap style that will be recognizable to fans of Frasier as "screwball play gets adapted as blunt social commentary plus a little sex." What elevates this above the rest is the performance of -- not Jimmy Stewart or Lionel Barrymore, who are both great -- Jean Arthur in the lead female role, selling a strong, independent woman within the constructs of 1930s America, stronger indeed than most female leads in most 21st century romantic comedies. All this is to say, this is our first bona fide gush fest. Listen in with me and Ralph Hardesty, the co-founder of Greetings from Queer Mountain and my frequent collaborator on "let's break down this movie" shows. And watch this movie!

Ky Krebs and I were all ready to bless the rains down in Africa until this movie bored us nearly to death with its endless picnic sequences and abominably tone-deaf Colonizers. There's simply no way to watch this earnestly in a post-Black Panther world, so we chose to moan and groan and yell at the screen for ... 2 hours and 40 minutes? It was too much. Enjoy the increasingly nasty take-down after the movie and please check out Ky's new album on iTunes (it's self-titled) or his podcast Extra Salty or his many live comedy endeavors in Austin.

I couldn't have asked for a better / worse choice to start the show with. The illustrious Katie Pengra -- who co-hosts a killer Oscar party every year in Austin at Haymaker with her husband -- graciously agrees to sit her pregnant butt down for this trippy and grim journey through a whole lotta nothing. The movie is famous for 1) a Dustin Hoffman line, 2) being an X-rated Best Picture winner ... for a while (it's now officially R), and 3) supposedly lots of sex. There's isn't that much sex. Tune in to hear my 4-year-old daughter manage to wake up and walk in on us recording during one of the rare sex scenes. (She's fine, we talked it out.) Stick around for our frustration with the surreality of it all.

A pilot episode in which I ramble a bit about what the podcast will be about, watch one of my favorite old movies while drinking beer and eating potato chips, then try to explain why I always root for the "bad" guys in this one. A great undiscovered treasure of queer cinema (I think), and full of some truly wicked women (in a good way). This is a half-sized episode and my allergies made me talk weird so ... maybe don't listen?