1-Week Rental | Behind the Scenes Film Analysis

Laci and Matt talk about the 2002 college band-centered classic Drumline , a highly entertaining journey into the world of HBCU marching bands. Nick Cannon is either "great" (Laci) or "perfectly fine" (Matt) as Devon, whose me-first attitude doesn't quite gel with his teammates on the campus of Atlanta A&T. He is especially at odds with the band director Dr. Lee (Orlando Jones) and drum major Sean...

Well, the Summer of Spielberg is over, and we say a tearful goodbye with our friends on YouTube. This is the audio from our livestream on YouTube from August 23, 2024. In the exciting conclusion to the episode, Matt will rank all 34 Steven Spielberg films, and it is sure to annoy you, whoever you are and no matter what you believe. The show returns to its classic format next week, September 6, 202...

The Summer of Spielberg comes to a somber, respectful conclusion as we say goodbye to Mr. Spielberg by prying into his personal affairs and taking a look at his latest film, the autobiographical The Fabelmans (2022).   It's the story of young Sammy Fabelman (but they're not hiding that the Fablemans are the Spielbergs) and his budding love of picturemaking. And we have the perfect guest to help us...

Hey folks, please join us this Friday (August 23) at 9:00 p.m. EST on YouTube Live. We're doing a live wrap-up show—the season finale of the Summer of Spielberg. Movie rankings, lessons learned... other stuff, probably. Talk to us live!  Visit the link below to view the stream live (or, afterward, watch a replay). Or, before it starts, click "Notify Me" and why not give it a Like as well? https://...

What do you get when you combine one precocious wizkid director who's actually not that young, one cocaine-addled producer, one befuddled Frenchman, one Bob Balaban taking notes, and lots and lots of McDonald's? You get what is quite possibly the greatest science fiction film ever made, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).   Our friend Drewbie Doobie's Movies ( @DrewbieDoobieMovies on TikTok...

Tom Hanks chases Leonardo DiCaprio in one of the most fun cat-and-mouse chase thrillers of all time! And it's all "inspired" by a true story! As the tagline says, it's "a true story of a real fraud." Okay. So how true is it? Well, we looked into it and……. Guys, what we found out is depressing.   Frank Abagnale didn't do any of the things he claimed he did in his book. You know, the things that are...

Laci and Matt are off this week, but please enjoy this bonus episode, a recording of our TikTok Live discussion of the Indiana Jones  franchise, a companion piece to our episode about  Raiders of the Lost Ark . The show will be back next week with an episode about  Catch Me If You Can . Thank you for your support of Load Bearing Beams! Get more bonus content from us on our social media channels: T...

Laci and Matt are at war with each other like the gunters are at war with the villainous Nolan Sorrento in the Oasis of Ready Player One . And it's all because they can't agree on this movie! Is this the first BAD Spielberg movie the show has covered this summer? Or is it another classic?   First we get into the history of the movie, starting with the career of novelist Ernist Cline. From his humb...

Is A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) Steven Spielberg's best movie? It's certainly his most misunderstood. A.I. Artificial Intelligence is best remembered as a curious Stanley Kubrick project taken over by Spielberg, and the movie does indeed feel like a strange hybrid of the two filmmakers. But that's part of its magic, because there is no other movie like this.   It's a movie all about the hor...

Unlike lots of people their age, neither Laci nor Matt grew up with the Indiana Jones films. But at least one of them has fallen in love with the franchise as an adult, especially this first film. The two talk about the origins of Raiders of the Lost Ark on a beach in Hawaii in 1977 as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas built sandcastles together. One imagines they were very well-crafted and functi...

The first leg of the Summer of Spielberg is behind us, and we're taking a scheduled week off. But we have another curated clip show for you! This time both Matt  and  Laci are taking you through it. And this clip show actually features like 25 minutes of brand-new audio from Laci and Matt, relitigating the arguments documented in these clips.  We'll be back with a regular episode in one week (July...

Has there ever been a movie better at predicting (hey!) the future? Swiping, pinching to zoom, targeted ads that follow you everywhere, optical identification, and constant facial surveillance? Hey, it's like we're living in some sort of Philip K. Dick nightmare! But it wouldn't be so bad if life could be as fun as the movie Minority Report , Spielberg's first of two collaborations with Tom Cruise...

The Summer of Spielberg continues as Laci and Matt were able to buckle their seatbelts in time for their helicopter to land on Isla Nublar, where they meet up with AJ & Kristie from the In Love With Horror podcast to talk about Jurassic Park (1993). The four team up for a rollicking podcast so good it'll have you shouting "Hello John!" at total strangers.   First of all, this famous action/horror/...

The Summer of Spielberg begins with Spielberg's biggest hit, the classic 1982 alien/divorce family film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial .   Adjusted for inflation, this is the fourth-highest-grossing movie of all time. Beloved by generations, it is a lot of fun, yes… but it's also some dark, dark shit. Laci explains why it's always been so difficult for her to watch, even though she knows how good a mo...

We're taking the week off as we prepare for the Summer of Spielberg, which starts next Friday (June 14) with an episode about  E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial . But to hold you over, we have this episode where Matt will take you through some of our favorite moments from our back catalogue. Thank you for your support of  Load Bearing Beams ! The listenership has really grown in the past few months and w...

Hey folks, here's an audio recording from a TikTok livestream we held to discuss Baz Luhrmann's  Moulin Rouge  (2001) as a companion to our  Romeo + Juliet  episode. Thanks to everyone who attended the stream! You can follow us on TikTok and catch future livestreams at https://www.tiktok.com/@load.bearing.beams  And we have plenty of good stuff in addition to our regular episodes on our YouTube ch...

Love me, love me, fish tank you love me. Load Bearing Beams takes you to Verona Beach, America to talk about Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet . The year is 1996, and two great business families are feuding in the streets, but that won't stop our two child protagonists from falling in big-eyed love with each other and hastily getting married to please the Lord.   Laci, Matt, and...

Matt, Laci, and their unnamed dog are on a quest for as much guzzoline as they can carry in this episode covering one of the all-time great action movies, George Miller's Mad Max 2 (1981) .   In this wonderfully weird film that we yanks tend to call The Road Warrior , Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) is enlisted against his will by a ragtag band of oil refinery folks in their war against the dread Lor...

Matt and Laci are mysteriously missing, so this episode is brought to you by replacement hosts Sister Anastasia Killian and Friar Jacob Aloysius Clement, who have the required expertise to talk you through the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Sister Act . Is it an accurate portrayal of convent life? Do nuns really have this much fun?   Anyway, the show has lots of praise for this frankly delightful nu...

As we face the dawn of the new Planet of the Apes , the podcast takes a look at Tim Burton's ill-fated 2001 "reimagining" of the original classic. Charlton Heston gave one of the most captivating leading man performances in sci-fi history back in 1968, so how does Mark Wahlberg's performance stack up here? And why is Tim Roth doing... that... in this movie?   The ape makeup looks great though, doe...

We held a Listener Choice Lottery, and the winning selection was 1986's Howard the Duck , brought to us courtesy of Smash Trivia John. So we dive in—beak first—to unpack the history of this notorious disaster of a movie. Then we go through the movie itself, excruciatingly thoroughly, to figure out if this movie is too sexy or not sexy enough. Plus, a lot of talk about '80s weirdos and how they're...

NOTE: Boy do we say some stuff in this episode. As always, please keep in mind that the language on this podcast is rated R. For pirates. As adults in their late thirties, Laci and Matt are just the right age to play the "teenager" characters in the sexy cult classic Cruel Intentions (1999). Together, your hosts unpack how differently the movie plays for them as adults (funny) than when they were...

Content warning: We discuss the sexual assault allegations against director Bryan Singer.  As adults in their late thirties all around the world gush about X-Men 97 on Disney Plus, we take a look back at a movie widely considered one of the high points of superhero cinema: 2003's X2 (a.k.a. X-Men 2 , a.k.a. X2: X-Men United ). We begin by unpacking our histories with the X-Men and comic books and...

Look, you shouldn't kidnap a woman who has suffered a traumatic brain injury and then imprison her for months, lying to her about who she is in order to get her to clean your house and raise your kids. It's not an ideal way to start a relationship. That is something we believe. But when you're Kurt Russell and you do it? Well then we're having a different conversation.  We're talking about the rom...

Howdy everybody. We're still exhausted after our epic Easter Egg Hunt earlier this week. That's right, like Parzival and all his Ready Player One friends, we're Gunters. Anyway, we're taking this week off. We'll be back on Friday, April 12, 2024 with an episode about  Overboard  (1987), starring that adorkable couple, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.