Let's Finally Watch This

The year is 1986. Since the Rocky movies, there has been a renewed interest in sports movies. Now Indiana natives David Anspaugh (director) and Angelo Pizzo (screenwriter) bring the quintessentially Indiana sport of basketball to the big screen in the aptly named Hoosiers . Starring Gene Hackman and Dennis Hopper, this classic feel-good movie doesn’t break any new ground but follows the gameplan s...

The year is 1976. Sure, it’s the bicentennial of the United States, but people are still discontent with the ways things are going, right?. That discontent is what the characters in Network , directed by Sidney Lumet, are banking on. Longtime news anchor Howard Beale, threatened with the loss of his job, declares he is going to kill himself on national television. Soon, he is a prophet of the angr...

The year is 1966. The United States is in the midst of cultural upheaval, the Vietnam War, and the development of New Hollywood. Movies are pushing boundaries, soon leading to the creation of a new MPAA rating system. One film that helped necessitate this change is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? directed by Mike Nichols. It stars celebrity power couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in an in...

The year is 1956. And you can’t have the 50’s without SCIENCE FICTION! Amid the plethora of sci-fi films released this year comes Forbidden Planet , which became an inspiration for many future projects and franchises, including Star Trek . The first film set completely on an alien planet, it combines unique visual and audio effects, futuristic gadgetry, and a psychological view of humanity to crea...

The year is 1946. The war is over, and the soldiers are coming home. Director (and veteran) William Wyler uses this moment in history to make The Best Years of Our Lives , a remarkably contemporary and multi-faceted drama featuring three men from different branches of the military and socioeconomic standings adjusting to civilian life. Each struggles with his own reentry into the world he left beh...

The year is 1936. The cinema world is filled with talkies. Sound has revolutionized the industry. But Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times revels in its almost-silent-film genius. The iconic Tramp tries to make an honest living for himself and his street urchin love in a world of machine-filled factories and hard-to-keep jobs, a gentle satire on a world not completely unlike our own modern times. What M...

The year is 1926. The movie industry is a year away from its first big sound film, but another major technological advance is also slowly advancing–COLOR! The Black Pirate is a vital early success of Technicolor, due in part to actor Douglas Fairbanks’s swashbuckling athleticism. With its vibrant use of color and high adventure, The Black Pirate influenced many future pirate movies. What The Black...

The year is 1916. It’s only been a decade since The Story of the Kelly Gang , but director D.W. Griffith has pushed the medium to new heights. With the same vision that created the cinematically groundbreaking (though racist) The Birth of a Nation (see episode 36), Griffith ushers audiences through four separate plotlines in what some have called the only “film fugue.” Intolerance sets out to tell...

Welcome to Season 5 of Let's Finally Watch This , a podcast for casual movie fans who have always meant to watch classic movies. We have another 12 exciting, decades-hopping episodes for you. First up, we're back in 1906, where moving pictures are still very much a technology in its infancy. This time we're in Australia, where the legend of Ned Kelly holds sway in the cultural imagination. Enter C...

It’s time to wrap up our fourth season of  Let’s Finally Watch This . Looking back at our season of heavy-hitters (and a few oddballs), we consider some of the unexpected themes and this season's emphasis on directors. Then we dive into the heart of the episode–our Ranking of Essentialness for this season’s movies! We also share our personal favorites from the season. Thanks for joining us ag...

It's 2015. Franchises rule the box office. Disney, a powerhouse studio for decades, is in the middle of its current run of live-action remakes. This year's movie, Cinderella , is directed by Kenneth Branagh, known for his Shakespearean adaptations and portrayal of Hercule Poirot. The story itself is nothing new, but Branagh presents it with lavishly and directly, making it one of the best-reviewed...

It's 2005. Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, follows that triumph by remaking one of his favorite movies-- King Kong . By taking the original, iconic 1933 film and expanding it with his own knack for special effects and epic-length storytelling, Jackson creates a version that, as critic Roger Ebert says, "is like the flowering of all the possibilities in the original classi...

It's 1995. Combining the blockbuster era with CGI creates the opportunity for all sorts of movies--including ones with jungle creatures rampaging through city streets. Director Joe Johnston, who started his Hollywood career designing spaceships for Star Wars , utilizes computer and practical effects to bring a malevolent board game to life in Jumanji, starring Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, and a yo...

It's 1985. The culture is saturated with youth-targeted science fiction and fantasy films. And then there's Cocoon , directed by Ron Howard, a quirky movie featuring three elderly men as protagonists. Aliens disguised as humans are recovering cocoons from the ocean and storing them in the pool of a rented house when the old men discover that the water of the pool rejuvenates them. It's a fountain...

It's 1975. No one knows it yet, but this is when the Blockbuster Age begins. It starts with a movie called Jaws , directed by an up-and-coming director named Steven Spielberg. If you don't know, Jaws is about a killer shark. It's the reason an entire generation feared going into the water. At the time of its release, it became the highest-grossing film of all time--and also the blueprint for a rev...

It's 1965. Three years previous, director David Lean released his masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia . Now, he returns with another historical epic, exchanging desert vistas for the mountains of Russia and the society of Soviet Revolution-era Moscow. Based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel, Doctor Zhivago follows the titular doctor (and poet) as his life and loves intersect with the violence and utopia...

It's 1955. It's a time we look back at with nostalgia, thinking it a simpler, more peaceful time. But in one of first important "juvenile delinquent" films, Rebel Without a Cause, director Nicholas Ray and actor James Dean explore teen culture and find that the kids are not all right. Following a little over 24 hours of the lives of Dean's Jim Stark, the disturbed "Plato," and Judy, the bully's gi...

It's 1945. VE Day was May 8, but the war continues in the Pacific. Meanwhile, MGM entertains Americans back home with musicals such as Anchors Aweigh , starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as two navy sailors on a four-day shore leave near Hollywood. Hoping to spend time picking up girls, they find themselves involved in the life of aspiring singer "Aunt Susie." An eager boy and a lie are excuse...

It's 1935. One source of escapism during the Great Depression was the big budget spectacle--and Mutiny on the Bounty was one of the most expensive of its time. Based on the books which were inspired by true events, it follows the voyage of the HMS Bounty to Tahiti under the draconian command of Captain Bligh, as the crew, especially executive commander Christian Fletcher, weigh whether such harsh...

It's 1925. The Russian Revolution is over. Vladimir Lenin believes that “the cinema is for us the most important of the arts," leading the Soviet Union to create the world's first professional film school. With a genius for editing that is still discussed today, director Sergei Eisenstein creates a movie that was once considered the greatest movie ever made. Battleship Potemkin tells the inspired-...

It's 1915. Film is innovating, but some companies don't believe that longer features are viable. Enter director D.W. Griffith, who with The Birth of a Nation , pushed the medium forward with a three-plus-hour historical drama that is often considered the first film masterpiece. Featuring white Southerners as the heroes against uneducated, just-freed slaves, it is also undeniably racist and one of...

Welcome to Season 4 of Let's Finally Watch This. It's 1905. Movies are in their infancy, including Dutch film. This silent Dutch comedy, directed by Willy Mullens, begins with a man napping in a beach chair until he is surrounded by the incoming tide. And then he removes his pants to keep them dry. And then...well, the movie is less than 6 minutes long, so I don't want to spoil it. What The Misadv...

Here's a surpise mega-length bonus episode for you! We join forces with Kordell Cabe and Justin Warfle, hosts of The Consensus Movie podcast, to journey through the last century of cinema history and share our favorite movies from each decade. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion of the movies that have impacted us from the 1920s on.

It's time to wrap up our third season of Let's Finally Watch This . We start by making a few observation about this season as a whole before diving into the heart of the episode--our Ranking of Essentialness for this season's movies! We also share our personal favorites from the season. Thanks for joining us for yet another journey through the decades of film! Show Notes

It's 2014. Franchise movies abound, and American blockbusters are making bank around the world. But some directors, like Wes Anderson, are making movies that defy blockbuster conventions and that experiment with film style. The Grand Budapest Hotel , considered by many to be Anderson's magnum opus, follows concierge Monsieur Gustave and his Lobby Boy protege Zero as Gustave inherits a famous paint...