The Latecomers

Show Notes We’re going deep on one of the most unsettling movies of all time - Pinocchio. A movie full of horny animals, butts, and human trafficking, we never would have thought we would want to screen a Disney animated film from the 40s before showing it to a kid, but this thing is bonkers and more than a little frightening. From gross Italian stereotypes to the theme song for all of Disney, it’...

Show Notes We enter the vault and go all the way back to the beginning to the Disnification of their first Grimm’s fairy tale with Snow White. Being the fairest in the land is a tough and dangerous gig, as this pale princess finds out when the evil queen and her narc of a mirror come after her. So loveable that she woos 7 grown men in less than 12 hours, she has a heart of gold to go along with th...

Show Notes Welcome back! We are embarking on a new and hopefully more lighthearted and escapist journey with Disney Animation - and Pixar, of course! Here's a little of our Disney history and a sneak peek into what you can expect.

Show Notes In our final episode of the season, we’re talking Train to Busan from 2016. In a film that mashes 28 weeks later and Snow piercer had a baby we follow the adventures of Bad Dad, Bad Ass, and Baseball Boy, along with their respective women, trying simply to survive both zombies and capitalists while hurtling through space on a train. We find out what makes a good person and if your job s...

Show Notes Ready, set, drive! This week we watched Mad Max – Fury Road, a diesel soaked naked prey in an the apocalyptic future vision out of the mind of George Miller. Rictus Erectus, Vuvalini, Immortan Joe, Furiosa, the Doof warrior, Splendid, Capable, Nux, The Dag and … Max, the gang’s all here. Stunts galore – explosions and crashes and motorcycles and sand storms – it’s got everything you cou...

Show Notes This week we’re talking STDs with 2014’s It Follows. It’s not a slasher movie, but it sure looks up to John Carpenter. Girls just want to have fun, and this supernatural buzzkill comes out to keep that from happening unless you want to be ****ed to death by something that looks like your parent’s corpse. It’s slow, but it’s not stupid, and it’s scary!   Recommendations: Companion (In Th...

Show Notes It’s the best modern day action franchise – maybe the best American action franchise – John Wick. Never have so many people died because a dipshit made a dumb decision and killed a dog. We talk all things Keanu, the hubris of waiting for an assassin while nude, the assassin’s code and how cool the underground world they build really is. Join us for the watch – and keep on – make it a wh...

Show Notes This week we go back in time to when AI was a remarkable step forward instead of a feature on all of our devices, whether we like it or not, with Alex Garland’s Ex Machina. Oscar Isaac plays a billionaire that falls into all of the billionaire stereotypes that have proven true with the rise of Elon Musk: a self-proclaimed demi-god. Domhnall Gleeson plays a patsy for every other speaking...

Show Notes It’s a love story this week as we watch Gone Girl directed by fave David Fincher. We extoll the virtues of Ben Affleck and Carrie Coon and spend a lot of time asking about love and romance. What is love? Is this it? Why? What? How? Come to your own conclusions but not until you hear ours.   Recommendations: Wolf Man (in theaters); Self-care   Next up: Ex Machina (2014) (Rentable)     Em...

Show Notes This week we watch Bong Joon-Ho’s dystopian masterpiece – no not that one, the other one – Snowpiercer. Chris Evans doesn’t want to be a hero, and can he truly be if he know what people taste like? We argue yes, when the villain is capitalism, any man can be a hero. Tilda Swinton puts in a grounded and naturalistic performance (her words) and Allison Pill is just a delight while Kang-ho...

Show Notes Lily Taylor is trying very hard to not kill her kids in the first film of the Conjuring Universe – aptly named the Conjuring. Ed and Lorraine Warren – characters we are not going to conflate with their real-world counterparts – are enlisted to help a family of seven with a demon problem. Think Poltergeist but replace a haunted closet with a haunted mom and Zelda Rubenstein with Vera Far...

Show Notes This week, we are on a hunt for the most wanted man in the minds and hearts of Americans lead by the inimitable Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty. Kathryn Bigelow is a master of packing lot of tension in scenes set anywhere from black sites to offices. The fundamental reality of war makes even the most benign seeming activities a possible powder keg leaving us off kilter and at a los...

Show Notes First days on the job don’t get much worse than this one – Iko Uwais stars in the pure action film The Raid: Redemption. Cops go into a tenement building and have to fight their way out facing off against an army of desperate people and unhinged gangsters. Once we get in, the only way out is through. Martial arts you probably have never seen alongside bonkers gunfights leaves us exhaust...

Show Notes Five walk into an elevator and one walks out – this week we talk Devil, a 2010 M. Night Shyamalan production. We’ve got some shady people locked together and a sad cop watching with enough smarts to listen to the Catholic who knows the danger they all face. It’s a mostly real-time horror flick that relies on fears we all have – you know, that you’re going to be stuck in an elevator with...

Show Notes This week we watched Liam Neeson pick up his mantle of action hero in 2008s Taken. It’s surprisingly paced and full of short effective fights that make up a satisfying action movie. Maggie Grace is a believable, if too resilient teen, and Famke Jansen is a terrible co-parent, rounding out a typical American family facing a sex-trafficking threat. Good thing he’s honed those skills.   Re...

Show Notes Home invasion classic The Strangers brings the Masked Man, Dollface and Pin-up Girl to a newly fractured couple, fracturing them even further. Is this a statement about class? Maybe. Is James being a dick because he’s hurt? Probably. How is Kristen’s skin so good while she is smoking like a chimney? That one is easy – it’s because she’s Liv Tyler. And who is Tamra and why are they looki...

Show Notes We watched the best superhero movie – or at least top 3 – this week with the second film in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, The Dark Knight. Incredible cast, unbelievable performances, great writing, and insane effects and set pieces all come together to form a tour-de-force that we could watch over and over again, maybe even just to hear Michael Caine tell us about rubies the size of a ta...

Show Notes Creepy kid alert! Adorable kid alert!   If you like kids, we’ve got ‘em this week in The Orphanage. Sick ones, dead ones, creepy ones, ghost ones. How can a movie that ends with a suicide be uplifting? The magic of storytelling, that’s how.     Recommendations: Gastronauts (Dropout)   Next up: The Dark Knight (2008)     Email us at latecomers@gmail.com Find Amity @ www.amityarmstrong.co...

Show Notes This week we watch a naïve midwife and a cynical gangster, whose mostly cynical because he’s actually a cop, in Eastern Promises. One of the least Cronenbergian David Cronenberg films is best remembered for a naked bathhouse fight, but which has some deep and nuanced characters played by thoughtful actors and interacting in interesting and eminently believable ways. But also, there’s a...

When in an emergency situation, it may be better to do as you are told… if not you might cause an(other) outbreak. We watch a single family take down a whole country (and probably the rest of the world) in 28 Weeks Later from 2007. A dad starts the film in a thrilling sequence as a coward, becomes a liar, makes some terrible choices, and then kills so many people. The kids he raised are uninterest...

Show Notes Daniel Craig makes his Bond debut in 2006’s Casino Royale. Montenegro and Venice are just a couple of expensive places his 00 status takes him. Surrounded by the excellence of Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green and Jeffrey Wright, the rebooted series shines – all under the watchful eye of Dame Judy Dench. How many acts does the film have? About 5. But all of them are full of action, and most con...

Show Notes Free Palestine You know it’s gonna be a rough one when Mark Walhberg is the voice of reason even as he yells every line. We watch the epitome of infiltration this week with Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. DiCaprio is the good guy, Damon is the bad guy, Martin Sheen doesn’t deserve what he gets and Vera Farmiga, unfortunately, gets stuck in the “woman who is criminally terrible at her jo...

Show Notes Free Palestine   This week we marvel at the speed and dexterity of one of the best martial arts actors in Thailand’s Tom Yum Goong, or here in the states, The Protector – Tony Jaa coming for the people that took his elephant. If you want to see a baby elephant, a pangolin, martial arts bmx and roller bladers, a four minute uncut fight scene, a dominatrix with a whip, a giant and a capoe...

Show Notes Free Palestine   This week we watched some Spanish magical realism – maybe – with 2002’s Intacto. An underground world of betting with your luck – and ultimately your life – and the people who are caught up within it. Do you feel lucky?     Recommendations: Ghost Story (Podcast currently available free on Apple Podcast or on Wondery), Bay Curious Podcast (for Bay Area voters)   Next up:...

Show Notes Free Palestine   This week we watch one of the scariest movies of the 2000s, Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Shannon Cochran and Brian Cox make a quartet of terrible parents that damage some already damaged children. We learn that you shouldn’t hide a kid in a barn or a well, nor should you attempt to pet an animal who clearly doesn’t want to be touched. We lea...