Drinking Night with a Movie Problem

Laura & Matt return to 1982, a time when nerds did *not* rule the cinematic universe, to see what a movie targeting nerd subculture looks like when nerd subculture really wasn't mainstream.  Suffice to say there are reasons it wasn't.

Robin Williams part deux! After Good Morning Vietnam, and a bit of last week's The Lives of Others, we pivot to a poetic masterpiece with 90s special effects that hold up surprisingly well. 

Matt and Laura watch a guy watching a guy. The 2006 Best Foreign Film winner that explores the lives wrecked by the surveillance state of the German Democratic Republic (the eastern one). And spoiler, it's not just the artists who's lives are ruined.  Flagging for explicit because I say the F word a few times and we discuss a scene with quite, QUITE questionable consent.

After last week's animated flik, we sit down to watch Studio Ghibli's 1991 "lost film," Only Yesterday. It's an earlier take on the concept of core memories with gorgeous backgrounds and uncanny smiles. 

Matt shocks Laura with the fact that he, after 24 years, has not seen A Bug's Life. But there's a simple solution! Ultimately a great movie, but does struggle with 2 different conflicts: Flik unable to fit in with the rest of the colony, and the ants of the colony versus the oppressive Hopper.  Spoilers for Seven Samurai. Thanks Matt.

Adapted from Ken Kesey's classic novel, we watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The verdict? It's an exploration of order and chaos through maternal and paternal energies, and distilled through 1960s sex politics. So it's a little dated, but that's history!

Oh la la, we roll back to the 70s with this weirdly, wildly bizarre animated feature film about #coexistance. 

West Side Story. A 1960s perspective of 1950s racial violence remade in the 2020s. Did it work?  Note: this recording discusses the plot of the film which includes an attempted rape, and a sex scene.

Matt and Laura sit down to talk about the classic Robin Williams war flick.

Laura & Matt bounce back from Willow with a Wes Anderson classic.

We sit down to watch the classic 80s film, Willow. It made Matt sad. Laura remains obstinately optimistic. 

Matt and Laura sit down (actually stand up) to talk about Jason Blevins' short documentary, I Never Had Dreams of My Son, published by the New Yorker.