1-Week Rental | Behind the Scenes Film Analysis

Have any movie characters ever been more sinister and disgusting than the Addamses? No. But we can't help but love them anyway, gosh darn it. We take a deep dive into the world of the Addams Family, first going through their long history and then talking about Barry Sonnenfeld's Addams Family Values  (1993), the sequel to the original  Addams Family  (1991) that was a financial disappointment but...

Is M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) just a bunch of corny rubbish, or is Matt right when he calls it the scariest movie he's ever seen? We made our longest episode ever to figure it out.  He's seen this movie so many times he can recite every minute detail of it. We talk about weird background characters, the newsworthiness of crop circles, the threat level posed by armadillos, the acute stress o...

For the first time on our show, we're revisiting a movie we already covered. It's Tim Burton's second feature, 1988's Beetlejuice . Matt didn't like this spooky haunted house classic back in 2017, but does he feel any differently all these years later? And how complicated were stereo instructions, anyway? To answer these questions and many more, we devote about three times as much time talking abo...

The fifties, baby. We're taking a look at 1998's  Pleasantville , which takes a look at a 1950s America that never was, and always will be. This movie, marketed as a comedy, is actually a pretty serious look at fascism, oppression, and forced conformity, and would it surprise you to hear its message is still relevant today? We thought we were past all of that! Want to watch this episode on YouTube...

The nineties, baby. We're getting into it over  Romy & Michele's High School Reunion (1997), which sees Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as the attractive women version of  Beavis and Butt-Head trying to persuade their former high school classmates that they invented Post-Its. But beneath this sweet and pleasant comedy lurks something far more sinister. Is this actually a toxic, co-dependant friendshi...

Come on down to our podcast and have yourself a time. Laci and Matt have a long conversation about the 1999 Trey Parker-helmed  South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut . We go step by step through the movie and its history, as well as the larger history of the South Park  TV series and how our relationships with it have changed over time. It's not easy spinning an animated show off into a big screen mo...

Hey folks, we planned on having a new episode out today, but the summer is kicking our asses and we are basically punting on the rest of it. Our tentative plan is to resume a new-episode-every-week schedule once school starts and we get more schedule flexibility. So, August 18. Thanks for sticking with us, we've really enjoyed doing the new episodes this year and want to do more of them. 

We're in the midst of our Summer of Calamities but we only have a month or so left of it. So this is an off week for  Load Bearing Beams , but we'll be back on Friday, July 21, 2023. It'll be a Matt movie episode, and he's currently choosing between two different late-1990s movies based on popular animated television shows:  The Rugrats Movie  and  South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut . Basically t...

Laci and Matt discuss 1996's divorced women picture  The First Wives Club , where Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn rekindle their college-era friendship and then something something get back at all of the world's scummy ex-husbands? We're not sure either, but this is a rollicking good time discussing this really funny '90s hit. A lot of time is spent debating how the closing musical num...

George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who just wants to fly around in big jet airliners and accrue miles, but will his heart get in the way?? Find out with us as we discuss  Up In the Air (2009), director Jason Reitman's follow-up to his massive hit  Juno  (2007). This movie packs a lot of stuff in, and we address it all—how it feels to get fired, why Laci hates George Clooney's stupid face, an...

Join us, dear listeners, at the Whistle Stop Cafe, where Idgy, Ninny, Buddy, Grady, Little Buddy, Smokey, Big George and all your best pals are waiting to cook you up a plate of  Fried Green Tomatoes  (1991), a tale of southern-fried romance and deadly train accidents. In a wide-ranging, free-wheeling, railroad-riding discussion, Laci and Matt unpack this movie and the many questions it raises. Wh...

Hey folks!  Load Bearing Beams  here with an update for you: We'll be back with a brand-new, full-length episode in one week (June 23, 2023). That episode will be on the film  Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), so get ready now by watching it. The schedule through the rest of our season will then be as follows: June 23 — Episode 83:  Fried Green Tomatoes  (1991) June 30 — Episode 84:  Pearl Harbor  (200...

We unpack Matt's lifelong fear of crocodilians by taking a look at 1999's big budget B-movie spectacular,  Lake Placid . Is this schlocky special effects extravaganza just a  Jurassic Park  ripoff, or a sly commentary on the genre with a brilliant cast (Bridget Fonda, Brendan Gleeson, Oliver Platt, Bill Pullman, and Betty White) operating at the top of their game interacting with a killer croc mad...

Laci picked the Howard Stern movie  Private Parts  (1997) for this episode, so we thoroughly discuss this odd but very charming film and try to figure out what it's really trying to say. Laci unpacks her history with Howard Stern, which literally involves her listening to his show in class via large headphones hidden by a hoodie. And Matt goes on a too-long solliloquy about his favorite radio show...

The other members of Matt's band Rural Route Nine join the show for a classic two-movie  Load Bearing Beams  therapy session. Wade Hymel triumphantly returns to the show to convince the gang of the merits of the 2000 Ben Stiller/Robert DeNiro comedy  Meet the Parents , while Patrick Perot presents  The Blair Witch Project (1999) for consideration. We discuss the history of found footage horror mov...

(Do keep in mind that this podcast is rated R for utterly filthy language.) Well hi there, partner. Load Bearing Beams  is back for season 2 with a long and free-wheeling discussion of  Grease 2 (1982). This famously bad (but maybe it's not so bad?) sequel to the 1978 smash was an enormous flop upon release, but it has built quite a cult following over the years. We break it down, plus talk extens...

Is this the most forgotten movie we've ever covered? Probably. But if you don't listen to this episode, we'll make fun of you, dweeb. 

Laci and Matt unpack the movie and music career of Will Smith, the biggest movie star of his generation, and the notorious disaster that is 1999's  Wild Wild West . Is this movie really the calamity everyone says it is? Listen to find out. 

We prepare to enter the tournament that is the 1995 adaptation of  Mortal Kombat .  Time stamps: What are our relationship dealbreakers when it comes to both food and movies? [2:04] Is Homer Simpson the most iconic TV character of all time? [08:43] We react to the Oscars [09:55] Matt returned to the movie theater for the first time in 14 months and immediately regretted buying popcorn [20:08] Laci...

Call in the Insane Clown Posse, because this episode is twisted. Please forgive the audio issues on this one. :(

It's  Roth v. Stokes  in this episode. The gloves are off. Fisticuffs. A brawl for all. A royal rumble. Malice at the Palace. We got a donnybrook on our hand, folks, because Laci thinks the Roland Emmerich-Matthew Broderick Godzilla (1998) is the worst movie  Load Bearing Beams  has ever covered, while Matt thinks it is merely bad. Who will prevail? Matt's brother Elliott and sister Maggie stop by...

Elvis was a hero to Laci, but he never meant s*!@ to Matt. When your two hosts first started dating, Laci asked Matt a fundamental question: "Are you an Elvis person, or a Beatles person?" Matt thought it was a nonsensical question. What kind of person would choose Elvis over the Beatles? His future wife, that's who!  And so. We were going to pick an Elvis Presley movie for this episode and use it...

A very cranky Matt and Laci discuss the 2009 man-playin'-God thriller Splice. Topics covered include: TV vs. movies, bioethics, children, parenting, Koko the gorilla, plus an extensive breakdown of this movie's opening credits.

Celebrate this weekend with your very-much-alive-thank-you pals Laci and Matt, who are discussing the 1989 comedy classic  Weekend At Bernie's (1989). 

Because he saw  Red Dragon  (2002) before he saw  The Silence of the Lambs , a young and idiotic Matt thought it was just plumb terrific, and so he and his bride review it on this episode, which features extension discussion of the entire Hannibal Lecter/Thomas Harris universe (except for the television show  Hannibal ).