The Weekly Movie Throwdown

This week we go back to where Dev Patel began his big screen career with Danny Boyle's frenetic and heartwarming story of an Indian underdog, Slumdog Millionaire . It's the beautiful story of a young man who tries his luck on the world's most famous game show to get the attention of the love of his life. But much to the surprise of everybody, he knows all the trivia answers and is suspected of che...

It's a new month and that means a new theme here on the Weekly Movie Throwdown . We thought since Dev Patel's directing debut Monkey Man is out next week this would be a good time to look at the actor's filmography to see the steps that got him into the director's chair. What we'll learn is that he's someone who works with very visual filmmakers, something that comes through in Monkey Man. He's al...

This week we wrap up Elmore Leonard month with a double feature of 1995's Get Shorty and its sequel from 2005, Be Cool . These two are night and day as far as how they handle their respective book adaptations and once again we hear about how studio involvement changes a film into something completely different than it set out to be. Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty nails the Elmore Leonard tone with...

Elmore Leonard month continues on the podcast this week with a sort of middle-of-the-road adaptation: Stick . Steeped in its time—the mid-eighties—this passion project of director/lead actor Burt Reynolds is filled with sub-machine guns, Members Only jackets, and synth music that is super groovy. But while it is a fun ride, reshoots and sub-par editing make it more of a mess than a masterpiece. An...

This week we continue Elmore Leonard month by going from one of the best adaptations of his work last week in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight to one of the worst—a sentiment which might carry over into all of film history. It's 2004's The Big Bounce . Directed by George Armitage, and written by Sebastian Gutierrez (with some help from Leonard himself), this heist film set in Hawaii has a terrific...

It's a new month, which means we're diving into a brand new topic on this week's show. March is Elmore Leonard month here on the podcast, so we're going to check out a few of the dozens of screen adaptations based on the novelist's work. Some are great, some are lukewarm, and one or two are God-awful. But we're gonna have a lot of fun talking about all of them. Up first is Steven Soderbergh's Out...

We wrap up Jason Statham month we go back to the beginning with a double feature from the actor's early days. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch are both great examples of what Statham brought to the table right from the start. In these two collaborations with director Guy Ritchie he has leading man charisma without the throat-punches and dropkicks he'd go on to incorporate later in hi...

If you only think of Jason Statham as a throat-punching, ass-kicking assassin, this film is for you. From 2015, this Paul Fieg action/comedy puts our boy into a whole new role: comic actor. And just like when he's throwing someone through a window, he doesn't disappoint. Melissa McCarthy is the lead in this one, playing a CIA operative who's forced out into the field to help retrieve a missing nuk...

Wow, wow, WOW! We continue Jason Statham month with a truly insane film from the directing duo Neveldine/Taylor. 2006's Crank tells the story of a man who was poisoned and quickly needs to get revenge . . . and find an antidote if there's time left over. In this episode, we discuss where Crank falls in Statham's filmography, the innovative filmmaking used to make it, and lovingly question the plau...

In our inaugural episode, we kick off a month of Jason Statham appreciation with a discussion of his latest film The Beekeeper . Join us as we dip our toe into the star's '80s action hero-style career, the John Wick ness of this film, the thinking around having an assassin codenamed Beekeeper become an actual beekeeper in retirement, and a whole lot more. Send us your thoughts on the show and Jaso...