Recovered

Recovered takes a break from iconic mass murderers for... lady assassins? Okay. We head back to the 90s for a young Luc Besson's breakout movie, La Femme Nikita, and its questionably necessary American remake Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda. Video Vulture John Tebbutt returns to walk Dan and Keith through his youthful love for the French original, the moments where he became connected t...

After 10 Fridays the 13th and seven Nightmares on various Elm Streets, Dan and Keith arrive at the penultimate stop of the slasher saga: the title bout of Freddy Vs Jason. The dream terrors of Freddy Krueger collide with the brutal and blunt kills of Jason Vorhees, while Dan and Keith battle over best or worst cast member, casting conspiracy theories, and whether the movie hinges entirely on the l...

Round two of Dan and Keith and Freddy Krueger, as the franchise goes from silly to dumb to... very meta. The slow slide from dread to cartoonish began last time with The Dream Master, and now the slide speeds up through The Dream Child and into the doomed-to-be-broken promise of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Then, three years after Freddy's claw glove was hung up, Wes Craven return...

Dan and Keith's Freddy/Jason deep dive continues as they move from Crystal Lake to Elm Street for the various dream-crimes of Freddy Kreuger. In part one, we look at how the original shaped the franchise Wes Craven never intended, how the second film is essentially the Super Mario Bros. 2 of horror, then debate whether the original or Dream Warriors is the best one and whether Dream Master is...

Time for a deep cut! We jump all the way back to 1940 for the classic comedy The Philadelphia Story, in which Katherine Hepburn is torn between Cary Grant, James Stewart, and the shlub she's actually engaged to who isn't either and thus has no chance. Dan's delighted to present a true classic, Keith is out to get Cary Grant Twitter cancelled, but then it's time to leap forward...

It's part two of our deep dive into the Friday the 13th Franchise, in which hockey-masked killer Jason Vorhees Lives, battles the New Blood, and takes scenic trips to Manhattan, Hell, and Deep Space. Dan and Keith break down the carnage from potentially the best installment to some of the worst, all of the ridiculous new lore lathered into the "Final Friday," and Jason's voyage...

A new multi-franchise crossover breakdown begins as Dan and Keith pack up the van for some fun at scenic Crystal Lake, home of the Vorhees clan! We unpack the Fridays the 13th, from their humble Kevin Bacon-wrapped origins, to the three-film journey to hone Jason Vorhees as a horror icon, to the beginnings of the Tommy Jarvis Triptych, in which the Jason saga got possibly as good and as bad as it...

Short answer yes, long answer, this episode. Before we abandon superheroes for super killers, Dan and Keith take a look at the DC Extended Universe that was, and the DC Universe to come. Did the last three movies deserve to bomb? Why did they? And beyond the movies, what chronic issues were pointing to DC Entertainment needing to get its house in order? And what does the rebooted DC Universe need...

It's part two of the Recovered/Academy Vs Audience crossover! After Keith popped over to AVA to discuss 1961's West Side Story, Claire and Erin hop into Recovered to talk Steven Spielberg's 2021 Oscar nominated remake. What improvements did Spielberg make? What did he sacrifice to make them? Who deserved more Oscar love than they got, and who absolutely deserved all they did/didn&ap...

Get set to get wet, because Dan and Keith are heading into the water for two takes on murder fish! In 1978, king of schlock Roger Corman gives newbie director Joe Dante a break with his Jaws knock-of Piranha, then decades later the self-aware schlock of the 2010s cranked the spicy content to 11 for the oddly star-studded Piranha 3D. Dan and Keith unpack the hedonism, the gore, the inevitable secon...

Grab your Panama hat, warm up the houseboat, and keep a weather eye out for rakes, because Recovered is heading to Cape Fear! Dan and Keith head back to the 1960s, when Gregory Peck produced an adaptation of the novel The Executioners only to get out-acted by Robert Mitchum and end up bankrupting his own production company. Three decades (ish) later, film legend Martin Scorsese takes a crack at th...

Dan and Keith dig into two attempts to make the Mario Bros Movie: one live action flick that's an infamous failure, and one Minion-Motion animated movie that, depending on your take, might be a regrettable success? We've got love for Leguizamo, debates on "quippiness," and questions on how rational it is to expect every animated movie to reach the heights of the Lego Movies. Yo...

Roll for initiative, listeners, because it's time to delve Dungeons for Dragons! Two movies attempted to bring the classic table-top role playing game to the big screen, and one's a true treasure chest while the other is but a vicious mimic. Dan and Keith turn the clock back to 2000 to watch Jeremy Irons savagely, remorselessly overact in Dungeons and Dragons, then pop to just a couple o...

Wax your board, check your chute, and pop a Monster or a Red Bull (not NOS, wrong franchise), because it's time for EXTREME crimes in Point Break! Dan and Keith venture back to then-power-couple Kathryn Bigalow and James Cameron's surfing and bank robbing bromance, as Keanu Reeves pursues Patrick Swayze, and Lori Petty is also here to keep the homoeroticism in the subtext. Then 24 years...

After 18 films of Batmans dark or campy, Supermans classic and infamous, and the two V-ing each other, the journey concludes, and it's time to tackle the Justice Leagues. Dan and Keith unpack all four hours of Zack Snyder's Justice League, examine the new scenes the studio hammered into the theatrical cut, and look at the strengths and weaknesses of each versions (yes, they each have bot...

And so, after 11 movies' worth of eight Batmen, and six movies covering three Supermen, Dan and Keith arrive at their intersection: Zack Snyder's... let's call it divisive opus Batman V Superman. Keith hates, Dan likes it, they're digging into to who's right while admitting that "flawless masterpiece vs worst movie ever" discourse is just, it's just, it&apos...

John Tebbutt, your Video Vulture, is back to walk Dan and Keith through the history of Donald Westlake's Parker novels, and the feature films similar to but legally distinct from his classic anti-hero protagonist. Back in the 1960s, classic Tough Guy Lee Marvin plays "Walker," the Parker-esque crook out to wring his rightful cut of some heist money out of organized crime syndicate T...

With the journey through nearly every cinematic Batman complete, Dan and Keith turn their gaze to the film history of the Man of Tomorrow, the Last Son of Krypton, Superman! From Reeves to Reeve to Routh to... 'Ry Cavill, we take on every theatrically released Superman, and review the legacy of Richard Donner in both this franchise and beyond. Keith picks apart powers and Dan tries to bring u...

In the wake of the 95th Oscars (recorded before they happened), Dan and Keith take on two takes of a classic war story from opposite ends of film history with All Quiet on the Western Front, and how it's evolved from the dawn of the sound era to the age of the Netflix Exclusive. First, a look the 1930 OG, the third film ever to win Best Picture, less of a story than a sketch the-absolute-oppo...

Dan and Keith plunge into forgotten crypts to unearth an examination of the cinematic takes on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider! First, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie takes Lara through two movies, one hyper-dumb but somewhat fun, one that's more competent but less interesting. Then, once the video games reinvent themselves to target a new audience, Oscar winner Alicia Vikander brings this new less hyper...

Round two of Recovered's journey through cinematic Bat-history! We leave behind the aggressive camp of the 90s and plunge into a aggressive realism of the 21st century Bats... with a detour into things animated and block-based along the way. Will we find the Best Batman? Which two wildly different movies are the lead competitors? What makes for a happy or sad ending to a Bat-flick? Dan and Ke...

The time has come, the promised day has arrived: Keith and Dan begin their journey through the entire cinematic history of the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the goddamn Batman. This instalment takes us from the camp days of Adam West to the camp revival of Joel Schumacher, as our hosts assess each era by the aesthetics, characters, story, action, and Dan's many opinions on music. We may no...

We've talked about what the big superhero franchises should do next, now Dan and Keith dive into 2023's crop of reboots, remakes, and requels to see what's worth getting excited for. Evil Dead is back? Hell yes. Can an Exorcist requel compete with Conjuring spin-offs? Are we sure the Wonka origin movie isn't a joke? Which is the one we're angriest we have to root for? All...

While taking a holiday break, Dan and Keith sat by roaring fires to sip seasonal beverages* and discuss not remakes that have been made, but those yet to come. Some major IPs are barreling towards rebooting; what do they need to do to improve on what's already been done? From the tone of Marvel's First Family to underused villains to criminally neglected characters, Dan and Keith and a s...

Recovered remains festive in our own weird way as Dan and Keith dig into the horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night, and its 2010s remake simply titled Silent Night. Santas are out to punish the guilty in elaborate, gory ways, and Keith and Dan struggle to parse exactly why and to form any sort of connection with the rapidly introduced victims. Which sinister Santa is committing the most holly,...