BACK 2 THE BALCONY

This week we discuss the film Serial! Inspired by the Cyra McFadden novel The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County, Serial is director Bill Persky's (TV's Kate & Allie) satirical look at the lifestyles of California's 1970's hippie culture. Viewed through the eyes of Harvey Holroyd (Martin Mull, TV's Roseanne), a man perplexed by the behavior of his wife Kate (Tuesday Weld, Pretty Poison...

This week we cover the 1979 film YANKS! Matt (Richard Gere) and John (William Devane), U.S. soldiers stationed in England during World War II, are both beginning affairs with British women, but they soon find their romances complicated by moral dilemmas and a clash of cultures. Jean (Lisa Eichhorn), a girl from a working class family, has caught Matt's eye, and John is trying to woo the elegant He...

This week we cover the sci-fi spoof GALAXINA! When an interstellar police cruiser is sent to recover a precious blue crystal in the 31st century, crew member and android Galaxina (Dorothy Stratten) is left alone as the others are put into suspended animation as part of the mission. While bumbling Capt. Cornelius Butt (Avery Schreiber) and the others sleep the years away, Galaxina begins to fall in...

This week we tackle another "discovery" with 1992's BLINK. Blinded at the abusive hands of her mother as a young girl, Emma Brody (Madeleine Stowe) is now a musician in Chicago. After an operation, she partly regains her sight, but sometimes she can remember things only hours after first seeing them. When she thinks she sees the person who murdered her neighbor, the police detective John Hallstrom...

This week we cover THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS! Justin and I wrap up Musical March with this fun film starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton! Miss Mona (Dolly Parton) runs the Chicken Ranch, a brothel with a long history in a small Texas town. The locals have a good relationship with the institution, and Mona is respected in the community. The sheriff, Ed Earl Dodd (Burt Reynolds), also l...

This week Justin and I continue our month of musicals with A CHORUS LINE! Hundreds of hopefuls congregate at a cattle call for Broadway dancers. A sour director, Zach (Michael Douglas), and his brusque assistant (Terrence Mann) whittle down the ranks until they're left with 16 dancers. All tell their life stories -- some tragic, some comic -- and explain their love of dance. Tension mounts when Ca...

This week we are covering NEWSIES!! In this musical, homeless New York City newsboy Jack "Cowboy" Kelly (Christian Bale) befriends two newcomers to his trade, brothers David (David Moscow) and Les Jacobs (Luke Edwards). When publisher Joseph Pulitzer (Robert Duvall) sets new rules that make it harder for the young newspaper salesmen to make a buck, the boys go on strike. Bryan Denton (Bill Pullman...

This week Justin and I tackle the first movie of Musical March - HAIR, directed by Milos Forman! In New York City for the first time while on his way to enlist in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Oklahoma farm hand Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) meets up with a freewheeling group of Central Park hippies led by the irrepressible George Berger (Treat Williams). When the unlikely friends m...

This week we take a break from film reviews to play a little game. I test Justin's brain power by playing clips of Siskel and Ebert reviews where he has to guess the film that they are discussing. Play along! Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod platform and our YOUTUBE channel! Visit thecultworthy.com Visit https://www.themoviewire.com Video: https://www.youtube.com/@back2thebalcony

This week we take on the Siskel and Ebert special dedicated to Bill Murray. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod platform and our YOUTUBE channel! Visit thecultworthy.com Visit https://www.themoviewire.com Video: https://www.youtube.com/@back2thebalcony

This week we do another listener request, but this time with a twist. Since Siskel and Ebert did not review Ernest Goes To Camp (but we love it anyway) - we decided to do a speculation episode on how we think they would have rated the movie! Hear our take on the film and the review of Siskel and Ebert! Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod platform and our YOUTUBE channel! Visit thecultworthy....

This week we tackle the film THE THING. n remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) and the camp doctor (...

This week we are covering the 80's thriller THE HITCHER!! While transporting a car from Chicago to San Diego, Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell) picks up a hitchhiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), who claims to be a serial killer. After a daring escape, Jim hopes to never see Ryder again. But when he witnesses the hitchhiker murdering an entire family, Jim pursues Ryder with the help of truck-stop w...

This week we cover David Cronenberg's adaptation of the William S Burroughs novel - NAKED LUNCH. Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee (Peter Weller) and his dead-eyed wife, Joan (Judy Davis), like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan,...

This week we discuss the 1983 action flick BLUE THUNDER - as well as the Siskel and Ebert review of the film. Frank Murphy is a courageous and honourable Los Angeles police officer who is chosen to test run Blue Thunder, a high-tech experimental attack helicopter. While flying Blue Thunder, Murphy and his partner discover that the government intends to use the helicopter for corrupt crowd control...

This week we discuss the Siskel and Ebert review of the indie darling DOGFIGHT. A young Marine named Eddie Birdlace (River Phoenix) is set to spend his last night in San Francisco with his military friends before they are deployed to Vietnam in 1963. Eddie and his friends plan to attend a cruel bar event called a "dogfight," which requires Marines to bring unattractive dates who will be judged for...

WELCOME TO SEASON 2!! We kick things off with a conversation on one of the most controversial episodes of Siskel and Ebert - their conversation on FULL METAL JACKET and BENJI: THE HUNTED. Gene loved what Kubrick did - Roger did not. Hear us discuss their infamous debate on what it means to be a critic - and how we have discourse on what audiences want. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod pla...

This week we finish off 2024 and season one with an awards show covering the best and worst films, performances and reviews of the films we watched this years - check it out! Link in bio. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod platform and our YOUTUBE channel! Visit thecultworthy.com Visit https://www.themoviewire.com Video: https://www.youtube.com/@back2thebalcony

This week we are discussing the classic NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION! As the holidays approach, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) wants to have a perfect family Christmas, so he pesters his wife, Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), and children, as he tries to make sure everything is in line, including the tree and house decorations. However, things go awry quickly. His hick cousin, Eddie (Randy Quaid),...

This week we are discussing the SISKEL AND EBERT review of THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT! Schoolteacher and single mother Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) lives an average suburban life -- until she begins having strange memories of unexplained violence and discovers that she has physical skills that she never imagined. Hiring private detective Mitch Hennessey (Samuel L. Jackson) to probe into her past, Sam...

This week we discuss SCROOGED! n this modern take on Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," Frank Cross (Bill Murray) is a wildly successful television executive whose cold ambition and curmudgeonly nature has driven away the love of his life, Claire Phillips (Karen Allen). But after firing a staff member, Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait), on Christmas Eve, Frank is visited by a series of ghost...

This week we discuss HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS! When her teenage daughter opts out of Thanksgiving, single mother Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) travels alone to her childhood home for an explosive holiday dinner with her dysfunctional family. Claudia quickly tires of her parents, her long-suffering sister (Cynthia Stevenson), her snobby brother-in-law (Steve Guttenberg) and her nutty aunt (Geraldine C...

This week we discuss the Thanksgiving cult classic - DUTCH!! Working man Dutch (Ed O'Neill) is dating the divorced Natalie (JoBeth Williams), and he offers to drive her stuffy 13-year-old, Doyle (Ethan Randall), from his private school in Atlanta to his mother's home in Chicago for Thanksgiving. Doyle is not interested as he blames Natalie for the divorce and wants nothing to do with Mom's new boy...

This week we discuss 1994's WOLF!! After being bitten by a wolf in rural Vermont, aging book editor Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) finds himself full of youthful vigor. Randall then discovers that he's been fired and replaced by Stewart Swinton (James Spader), a vicious young executive. As Randall struggles to regain his position, he becomes enthralled with Laura Alden (Michelle Pfeiffer), his form...

This week we cover 1994's THE CROW! Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Draven returns to seek bloody revenge against the killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite pod plat...