Trylove

In Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s time-traveling teen movie, there’s nothing to be fixed about the past. After staying late at school one day to help clean up, Yoshiyama (Tomoyo Harada) sniffs the wrong lavender potion in the chem lab and gets caught in a time loop. (Whom among us?) As she gains awareness of her new ‘ability’(?), she sometimes helps her friend Goro (Toshinori Omi) stay out of danger; but mos...

Robert Butler’s NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER is not what the title makes it sound like. It sounds like some kind of bizarro New York neo-noir fairytale, like STREETS OF FIRE (1984) or AFTER HOURS (1985), but it’s far more grounded than that: An ex-cop (James Brolin)’s daughter (Abby Bluestone) is kidnapped by a troubled New Yorker with a grudge against the developers who razed the Bronx neighborhood where...

It’s the big kahuna of demonic possession movies, and honestly, a big fish in the pond of horror cinema in general: THE EXORCIST remains an absolute stone-cold classic more than 50 years after its release. Harry even wrote a Perisphere blog about seeing it as a lapsed Catholic! But how does it stay dreadful when nothing scary is happening? Why is it important that Chris MacNeil is an actress by tr...

Wicker Dan the Birthday Man is back to specifically NOT talk about the bees! THE WICKER MAN isn’t the folk horror you’d assume based on the movies it inspired (including the 2006 remake). It’s more about a square who just can’t hang, the free-loving society he invades, and the reveal that maybe that society isn’t so free, after all. Find Dan… On Twitter at @aDapperDanMan On Bluesky at @adapperdanm...

Content warning: This episode contains discussions of sexual violence, including as depicted in ROSEMARY’S BABY and as perpetrated by director Roman Polanski. We’re jazzed to welcome Louis Gagnon, a Trylon volunteer and fellow film fella, to continue our coverage of NixonLand at the Trylon! ROSEMARY’S BABY is rightly considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made, weaving the story of a wo...

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is one of the most important American movies ever made. There, we said it! It’s hot, it’s gross, it’s tense, and it’ll test your patience — Tobe Hooper’s cult classic set the table for literally every slasher movie ever made, but it still holds its own among the horror heavy hitters in any generation since. On this episode, the Boys (each with varying degrees of famili...

Mann boy Tony Wagner returns to discuss another “compromised” movie! Eerie, violent, and hacked to bits by the studio, the supernatural horror mystery THE KEEP would be an oddity in any director’s career. In a remote Romanian village during World War II, Nazis (Jürgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne) occupy a foreboding stone citadel feared and revered by the locals (Robert Prosky, W. Morgan Sheppard). Te...

Robert Aldrich’s iconic ensemble action movie is brimming with testosterone, redemption arcs, and more little gags than you would probably guess. Lee Marvin uses 12 no-hope inmates’ basic distrust of authority as glue to bind them, wind them up, and whips them into Nazi-slaughtering shape on a suicide mission. For some, freedom and redemption hang in the balance; for others, nothing much at all. L...

Hal Ashby’s Navy comedy-drama THE LAST DETAIL is pretty straight on paper: Young seaman Larry Meadows stole from a charity favored by the boss’s wife, and longtimers Billy "Badass" Buddusky and Richard "Mule" Mulhall are his ferrymen to the prison where Meadows will spend the next eight years of his life (or maybe six). Before they get there, Badass and Mule are determined to s...

With special guest Luke Mosher (@TinyPlanetsPod)! TOP SECRET! was the product of creative struggle. Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker’s creative engines were tapped after their breakout hit AIRPLANE! (1980), and its box office performance left something to be desired. But today, its impact is measured in more important ways — like its unmatched commitment to a good bit, how well it set...

In PATTERNS, engineer-turned-executive Fred Staples is excited to start his new job at the big firm that acquired his factory. But before long, he realizes he’s being groomed to replace Bill Briggs, a friendly long-timer who’s lost favor with the cruel CEO, Walter Ramsey. Rather than fire Briggs, Ramsey sabotages and humiliates him in an effort to force his resignation — and make the reticent Stap...

That’s right — three of your favorite boys talkin’ BOY ! A preteen boy living on the streets of Tokyo pulls scams to provide for his dysfunctional family. It takes a toll on his body and his mind: He and his stepmom take turns throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles and extorting innocent motorists by threatening to go to the police. The scores keep getting bigger and the opportunities kee...

With Dan Nagan (@aDapperDanMan)! HEAVENLY BODIES is a 1984 drama film directed by Lawrence Dane and written by Dane and Ron Base. Cynthia Dale plays Samantha, the lead instructor of a dance fitness studio called Heavenly Bodies whose career takes off just as her relationship with football player Steve (Richard Rebiere) starts to take root. She gets her own TV show and her club keeps growing, but S...

Matt Clark steps out of his crime film wheelhouse to chat about… a comic book movie??? THE ROCKETEER failed to stand out from the growing crowd of comic book adaptations and superhero franchises hitting their stride in the early ‘90s. But it had all the pieces of a genuine swashbuckler: Handsome leads, a sense of humor, fun action, and punchable Nazis. The Trylon’s “Nazis… We Hate These Guys” seri...

Robina Rose’s bewitching NIGHTSHIFT invites viewers into the private rooms of a surreal London hotel in the 1980s during the wee hours of the night. An enigmatic receptionist (London artist, model, and counter-culture icon Jordan) is the go-between, performing a nearly wordless ritual of check-ins, sorting, prepping, tidying, and bearing witness to her tenants’ idiosyncrasies. NIGHTSHIFT’s 4K rest...

We don’t often get the chance to cover pre-Hays Code movies on this podcast, but when we do, we make sure that a former Catholic gets at least 30% of the airtime. MERRILY WE GO TO HELL wasn’t the most salacious rule-flouting film of its day — but even its title was enough to raise the hackles of 1930s Hollywood. By putting salacious topics front and center, like non-monogamy (gasp!), hedonism (sca...

Sure, it launched Richard Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal’s careers, but DONNIE DARKO also cemented a cultural touchstone of upper-middle class teen alienation that’s only been burnished by time and rewatches. In a sense, Donnie is the average white suburbanite kid — but against the backdrop of a changing America and an aging boomer generation, basic empathy and self-awareness turn out to be a literal s...

It’s definitely not the best movie starring Indiana Jones, but it’s okay if it’s your favorite. For INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE — a movie on which the boys of the podcast are somewhat split — we’re talking what works and what doesn’t, daddy issues, the shadow self, and how this one stacks up to Indy’s best. References: “History’s Greatest Puzzle Room in which the Prize is Punching Nazis: In...

Anyone else think this guy looks familiar??? Charlie Chaplin’s first non-silent movie, THE GREAT DICTATOR , was both a sidesplitter and a rallying cry for a world at war. It’s best remembered for its closing monologue — a clear-eyed and impassioned call to reject the hatred and moral emptiness of the tide of fascism rising across the world at the time of its release — but it’s full of great bits a...

Seth Zarate is back to help us tackle RETURN OF THE JEDI , the sixth of nine (nice) numbered films in the main STAR WARS canon! This episode, we’re talkin’ about it all: Fathers, sex, spicy teddy bears, how differently this movie hits as an adult, the virtue of landing a plane as big as STAR WARS without crashing, and how the end of the world’s most-watched saga may be to blame for the whole mess...

With special guest and Trylon blog author Luke Mosher! THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is the best STAR WARS movie. I mean, come on. It’s got it all! Everything except a beginning and an ending. Like all the best stories! Lol! Since Cody’s out and we couldn’t find anyone else who prefers STAR WARS to EMPIRE, we’ve welcomed first-time guest Luke Mosher to unload about this series high point! Together, we t...

The fact that STAR WARS is so much more than a movie makes it a little tough to talk about as, like, just a movie. But with Natalie and Abbie, we’re actually strapped in for the best discussion of STAR WARS on the internet. In this wide-ranging discussion, we touch on the balance of intentionality and blind ambition on the part of George Lucas, STAR WARS as a corrective to the New Hollywood wave,...

Shortly before the deluge of Disneyslop, ROGUE ONE tried to give moviegoing audiences a different perspective on the far, far away world of STAR WARS. Series fan and podcaster Tony Wagner joins the podcast to talk about his close personal friend Admiral Raddus the time Star Wars went World War II, the Los Angeles Dodgers, godless CGI, and the guiding power of myth. Find Tony… On Twitter at @tonydw...

Whether you think it’s an ALIEN (1979) ripoff, a HIGH NOON (1952) pastiche, or a pretty fun action flick, you’re probably right about OUTLAND! In a rare turn, Kelly’s back in the guest chair for a movie she’d never seen before. Does she like what she finds? Do we? Do you? Did anybody? In this episode, we’re talking exploding heads, screenwriting 101, the two halves of OUTLAND, ridiculous German na...

This episode is… ALIVE!!! With Bob Buel, creator and host of 99 Questions (and first-time Trylove guest), we’re getting (re)animated about Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s timeless blend of piss-taking, homage-paying parody in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN . It’s a great discussion where people who’ve seen it dozens of times (Bob) help explain what makes it sticky, while new-ish-comers (Jason, Cody) look at it w...