Legends Podcast

On September 13, 1979, animators Don Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy left the feature animation department at Walt Disney Productions to set up their own independent animation studio. Their first feature, directed by Bluth, was based on the 1971 children's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. The book had originally been rejected by their former employer as "too dark" t...

This week, we have a special treat for you, as we are joined by Legendary makeup artist Ve Neill! After being inspired by Planet of the Apes cosplayers at a sci-fi convention, Ve began her career and has worked with makeup and effects artists like Fred Phillips, John Chambers, Rick Baker, Greg Cannom, and Stan Winston. Ve has collaborated with directors like Tim Burton, Chris Columbus, Ron Howard,...

Robin Williams was already a comedy and TV star based on his stand-up and starring role in Mork & Mindy. He'd also ventured into film with the films Popeye, The World According to Garp, and Moscow on the Hudson as modest successes. It wasn't until 1987 when he starred in a Vietnam War-era comedy that propelled him to mega-stardom. Based on the true-life experiences of Armed Forces Radio Service DJ...

Director Christopher Nolan made his mark in the mid-2000s with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, starring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne. But between these two blockbusters, Nolan and Bale teamed up on another project, an adaptation of Christopher Priest's 1995 epistolary novel about two rival magicians in late 1800s England, with Hugh Jackman playing Bale's frenemy. In the mix are Michael Caine,...

We're hitting the road with actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (playing fictionalized versions of themselves) to the North of England. Exploring the immortal poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and ABBA, the film combines gastro-tourism, mid-life crises, impressions, song, and more impressions in a road-trip odd couple buddy comedy that somehow always keeps its foot on the laugh...

Legends Podcast is heading to Korea for Netflix's most successful original release ever! Based on - holy moley - this is an original I.P.?! It's not a comic or video game? Wow! Based on an original idea by co-director Maggie Kang, this 2025 film from Sony Pictures Animation centers on an all-girl trio of K-pop superstars who also happen to be their generation's protectors from an ever-present inva...

Court is in session on this 2001 Reese Witherspoon star vehicle, based on the book by Amanda Brown, who channeled her own real-life experiences as a blonde Stanford law student into a book that sparked a studio bidding war. Reese Witherspoon faced her own struggles landing the lead role after being typecast as Tracy Flick from Election. However, with her turn as Elle Woods, a fashion-forward Harva...

Today on LEGENDS PODCAST, we're diving into a visually driven, dialogue-free sci-fi story set entirely to Daft Punk's Discovery. Directed by Leiji Matsumoto, it's a masterclass in music-led storytelling and stylized world-building. Quick note—our guy Lobster is out this episode, holding it down at South by Southwest. We'll carry on without him. Let's get into Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ec...

We're dropping our first listener pick of 2026, and it comes from twenty-five years ago, courtesy of Listener Bryan. In 2001, actor-turned-director Peter Howitt released his sophomore film (following 1998's Sliding Doors), a techno-thriller with a hot young cast including Ryan Phillippe, Claire Forlani, and Rachael Leigh Cook. In the film, tech mogul Gary Winston (played by Tim Robbins) aims to re...

Aspiring screenwriter Max Frye wrote a spec script in film school about a straitlaced yuppie's "best worst night ever," which his agent later told him would be perfect for either Martin Scorsese or Jonathan Demme to direct. Since Scorsese was busy on another "yuppie's best worst night ever" movie, After Hours, Demme ended up getting the nod. Demme cast Jeff Daniels as the yuppie Charlie Driggs, wi...

Nineteen Seventy-Six. America's bicentennial was a great year for cinema, with films like A Star is Born, King Kong, All the President's Men, Carrie, and The Omen heating up the box office, and instant classics Rocky and Network earning the most accolades. After a six-decade career in the director's chair, Alfred Hitchcock released his last film, Family Plot, around the same time that an up-and-co...

One of the breakout hits of 2016 was this based-on-a-true-story tale of the first manned missions to outer space. Focusing on the black women at NASA - mathematicians, engineers, and computers - who made these early spaceflights a reality through sheer brainpower while often going unrecognized for their contributions, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe star in this adaptation of...

Nineteen Eighty-Three was a great year for cinema. Scarface. The Big Chill. The Outsiders. Risky Business. The Right Stuff. Videodrome. Return of the Jedi. And to represent the year he was born, Lobster picked… this movie. Based on their breakout characters from the sketch comedy show SCTV, Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis star as Canadian brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie in this take (off, eh?) on Haml...

Director Guillermo del Toro has been making movies about monsters his entire career, from Mimic to Hellboy to Pan's Labyrinth to The Shape of Water. His most recent film, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's ultimate monster story from 1818, is the culmination of del Toro's long-held dream to breathe new life into his favorite novel and film subject. Drawing inspiration from John Milton, Bernie Wrights...

In 2017, Hugh Jackman led an ensemble cast in a musical based on the life of circus ringmaster P.T. Barnum, which proved to be a smash hit at the box office. Co-starring Zac Effron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Paul Sparks, and including Zendaya, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Keala Settle, Sam Humphrey, Eric Anderson, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo as members of Barnum's freakshow, with songs by Benji...

Legends Podcast starts the year with another Jim Carrey-led picture. This time, instead of stealing Christmas, Carrey plays Truman Burbank, the most famous actor in the world, and star of his own 24/7 television show, watched and beloved by millions. He just doesn't know it. Directed by Christoff (Ed Harris), this show has been on the air since Truman was born, with a whole cast of characters,  fr...

It's finally time! The Legends Movie Draft is back! We're picking an all-new slate of films to review this year, including classics and new releases, and we're upping the difficulty by adding new categories. We'll be making picks for fan-favorites like Aug-Heist, Legends of Halloween, and Chronovember, along with Movie Mash-Ups and movies from the year our hosts were born. But Legends aren't born,...

Happy New Year! Rum Daddy is on Injured Reserve this week, so we're stalling the 2026 Movie Draft until next week. Get those picks in! Meanwhile, Rita, Beef, and Lobster recap the 2025 Draft, talk winners and losers, and name the MVP - Most Valuable Pick! We also catch up on listener emails and discuss what we're looking forward to in 2026! Finally, we preview next week's draft and set the pick or...

In 1977, Jim Henson, having found success with The Muppet Show, began experimenting with new technology and storytelling styles in the hopes of developing a feature film. Adapting a children's book by Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban, itself an adaptation of the classic O. Henry short story "The Gift of Magi," Henson and his production team created a one-hour Christmas special that premiered in Can...

In the year 2000, the estate of children's author Theodor Geisel, better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, sold the live-action movie rights to one of the writer's most beloved works. Decades earlier, an animated television special brought to life, via the voice of Boris Karloff and the talents of Chuck Jones, the cranky green curmudgeon known simply as The Grinch. With a plot to steal Christmas fr...

In 1984, producer Steven Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus, and director Joe Dante brought a new breed of cuddly creatures to the big screen, hoping to draw in fans of other odd critters like Yoda and E.T. The star of this film is the adorable "mogwai" (Chinese for "devil") named Gizmo, who propagates some very odd offspring that terrorize a small town on Christmas Eve. Released the same weekend as...

In 1946, director Frank Capra brought to the big screen the tale of George Bailey of Bedford Falls, in an inversion of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Instead of teaching a miserly villain the error of his ways by showing him his life's low points, Capra revealed that a good man's good deeds prove one man's life has worth beyond measure. Starring Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Ba...

  Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we're talking about time travel, paradoxes, and if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit! Forty years ago, director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale, partnering with Steven Spielberg as producer, introduced one of the most iconic time machines to ever grace the big screen...

Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we're talking about time travel, paradoxes, and Andre Braugher aging like a fine wine. In the year 2000, Primal Fear and Fallen director Gregory Hoblit and writer Toby Emmerich brought a new twist to the time travel genre: using ham radio to connect two generations of a New York City family. Dennis Quaid plays the father, a firefighter, and J...

Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we're talking about time travel, paradoxes, and deducing that the problem is recursive. In 2004, independent filmmaker Shane Carruth released his first feature, a time travel twister made on a budget of $7,000. Carruth wrote, produced, directed, edited, scored, and starred in this film that won the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic at the 2004 Sund...