From Under The Rock

Happy Halloween, listeners! This week we dug back into old Hollywood to bring back and cover one of the ultimate all-time classics - the Bela Lugosi "Dracula" movie from 1931. By far the oldest film we've covered so far, this one was a real treat to get to cross off of our list and provided an amazing glimpse into the origins of horror, monster movies, and really the evolution of entertainment in...

As spooky season marches on, it was high time that we cover a truly acclaimed horror film, so for this week's movie we watched 1996's "Scream." Starring Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, and Matthew Lillard, this iconic film revitalized the horror genre and launched a slasher franchise that is still going strong today. This one strikes a delightful balance between subverting/poking fun...

This week, as spooky season continues, who better to visit with next than a truly extraordinary menagerie of some of the most iconic characters from gothic literature? Sean Connery stars as Allan Quartermain in a fictional ensemble that includes Dorian Gray, Captain Nemo, Mina Harkness, and Dr. Henry Jekyll (they also wanted THE Invisible Man, but couldn't quite get the rights, so audiences were f...

Continuing our spooky season coverage, this week we checked out the 2009 cult classic "Jennifer's Body." Starring Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, this thoroughly unhinged movie dances along the line between being a monster movie and being almost a parody of teen horror (while all the while seeming to be quite an allegory for the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl - yes, that did go com...

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Then rang the bells, both loud and deep, God is not dead nor doth he sleep." It's spooky season, b****es! (And by b****es, we of course mean our dearly beloved listeners without whom we would be nothing). And in the spirit of the season, it's time for us to cover some movies that fit and/or set the vibe, starting with Ray Bradbury's "...

It's one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard of! This week we're covering the perfectly strange mid-pandemic film "Palm Springs" from 2020. Starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, and JK Simmons, this Sundance-record-breaking movie (^_~) depicts the lonely hilarity of two people who aren't really sure how much they believe in love being stuck reliving...

Outer space can be a tricky thing; trickier still for a couple laymen like ourselves - so this week we were unable to escape from it and found ourselves once again exploring the great unknown beyond our skies, this time around with Alphonso Cuarón's critically acclaimed space flick "Gravity." Starring Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, and very nearly no one else, this pulse-pounding sp...

This week we follow up with another true Hollywood classic. By happy accident we're bringing you a horror movie this Friday the 13th, with the genre-redefining monster movie "Alien" from 1979. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, and Ian Holm, this revolutionary film really was a first of its kind within the horror and sci-fi genres, and launched a massi...

Time for another old Hollywood classic, and what a classic it truly is. This week we watched "12 Angry Men," Sidney Lumet's directorial debut starring Henry Fonda, Ed Begley, and Lee J. Cobb. A courtroom/jury room drama for the ages, this film's incredible writing, pacing, and drama makes for a transcendentally enjoyable hour and a half watch. A timely reminder that every single...

Here at From Under the Rock, we are a podcast of pet lovers, and so that made this week's episode uniquely upsetting and satisfying all at once. We're referring of course to "John Wick," from 2014, starring Keanu Reeves, Willem Dafoe, Michael Nyqvist, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick. One of the greatest and most entertaining action movies of the modern era, join us as we gleefully...

And now for something completely different! In the interest of lightening the mood a bit, this week we turned to the great Robin Williams, just over a week removed from the tenth anniversary of the incomparable actor/comedian's passing. And though there aren't too many Robin movies left that one of us hasn't seen, we found one this week in "Jack," the 1996 film starring Willi...

Who among us is without sin? Not the sort of question we ask often on this show, but certainly one that might concern you more than usual after watching this week's movie - David Fincher's grotesquely-eerie murder mystery/thriller, Se7en. Starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, and an appropriately creepy actor who doesn't warrant mentioning for no reason in particular, th...

About time for another foreign language film! This week Sawyer and Ben dive into the mind-bending dream world of Satoshi Kon's "Paprika." Set in a not-too-distant future, this story centers around technology that allows users to enter their own dreams and the dreams of others, influencing them to do things completely beyond their control at times (much like a particular, popular Amer...

With the 2024 Paris Olympics in full swing, it felt like the perfect time to revisit one of Ben's favorite sports movies - Miracle, the story of the 1980 USA Men's hockey team that so miraculously took down the Soviet Union's hockey team - one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport and also obviously in 1980 a country that most Americans had no difficulty at all casting as t...

This week our intrepid hosts took on what is widely considered one of the great Wes Anderson's most essential works: The Grand Budapest Hotel. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, F. Murray Abraham, Saoirse Ronan, and Adrien Brody among MANY others, this visually stunning, fast-paced romp through the fictional land of Zubrowka and the iconic hotel that once stood proudly within it will leave...

Are you stressed out over current events? Is the state of the world making it hard for you to relax lately? Then join us for an as-promised episode of PURE escapism. Starring The Lonely Island's Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, among many of your favorite SNL legends, "Popstar" is an absolutely rambunctious romp of a mockumentary that pokes fun at the music industry,...

...ANYWAY! This week we found ourselves in need of a palette cleanser and so we found one in the guise of 1993's "The Three Musketeers," starring Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Oliver Platt, Chris O'Donnell, and last but almost certainly most importantly, Tim Curry. Come for the muskets! Stay for the tea enthusiasts!! Hang around in relative confusion once you realize this mov...

Prisoners of the moment? Perhaps. But anyways, happy birthday america, this week we covered one of the biggest films of 2024 so far, Alex Garland's "Civil War." Starring Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura, this dystopian portrayal of a potential worst case not-too-distant-future takes a surprisingly non-partisan look at such a situation, focusing instead on perhaps reminding us that rega...

What can we say, we just liked Ray Liotta so much, we wanted more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Enter, Goodfellas, one of the most iconic mob movies of all time. From master filmmaker Martin Scorsese, this 1990 based-on-a-true-story film portraying every last piece of the nitty-gritty of the organized crime life gave us a real glimpse into all of the glorious excesses of a life lived outside of the law... and all o...

This week we further peel back the curtain on our recording schedule - today's episode was recorded on Father's Day, this past Sunday, so to help celebrate that we covered one of the most iconic sports/daddy issues movies of all time - Field of Dreams. Starring Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, Amy Madigan, and Ray Liotta, this 1989 film takes us on an incredibly intimate, emotional journey...

This week on From Under The Rock we watched District 9, a Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson film from 2009 that takes a pretty unflattering look at mankind's imperialist tendencies and how we've historically treated "othered" groups, in this case - aliens. Starring Sharlto Copley and Jason Cope, this movie paints an uncomfortably realistic picture of what it might look like if ali...

You can take the boys out of Boston, but not the Boston out of the boys, huh? This week we're looking back to our beloved home away from home for a gripping and emotional story that we spent quite a lot of our childhoods hearing about seemingly nonstop - Spotlight, the true story of the Boston Globe investigative team that unmasked one of the most enormous, horrible scandals in history: the sy...

It was never likely to take long for us to make Ben cry, but we finally got there, dear listeners. The subject of this week's deep dive, "A Man Called Otto," is an incredibly poignant and emotional story of a man wrestling with a life he no longer wants to live, but time after time finds himself finding just one more reason to stick around. Until eventually coming to the realization...

What's more fun than a heist movie? If done well, the answer is not a single solitary thing. And so this week we bring you one of the greatest, most quintessential heist films of all time, "Ocean's Eleven." This Rat Pack remake starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Matt Damon, and SO MANY OTHERS is constant fun from start to finish and, if you haven'...

This week we have a look at one of the most iconic films of the 20th century; a film that gave birth to an entire genre of films about lost, lovelorn youths; and the movie that launched the career of one of the most prolific and polarizing actors of the past century: Dustin Hoffman. This week, it's 1967's "The Graduate." Have you ever felt uncertain? Unsure?? Hopelessly crippled...