2 Dads 1 Movie

This week, the Dads get their asses to Mars with 1990's Total Recall , the second Verhoeven joint on the podcast and a movie that has seared itself into the collective consciousness whether you've seen it or not. Nic's pick here, and he wastes no time pointing out this is peak Arnie at peak powers, a cable descrambler classic, and one of the all-time great films for doing impressions o...

This week, the Dads kick off JanuArnie with 1987's Predator , and it's clear from the jump that Steve would die for this movie. As in, top ten favorite of all time, no notes, completely unhinged levels of love. Nick's right there with him, calling it the ultimate guys' guys movie and the perfect beer-chugging, high-fiving experience. They walk through the testosterone-soaked helico...

This week, the Dads close out the 2025 Dadvent Calendar with Rocky IV (1985), a film they openly question is even a movie at all. Steve's verdict: it's two boxing matches and four music videos loosely tied together with a little bit of dialogue. Nic calls it eight montages in a trench coat. They're both right. The Dads marvel at the sheer audacity of a 91-minute runtime that somehow co...

This week, the Dads crack open another window of the Dadvent Calendar with Die Hard (1988), the action Christmas classic that redefined what an everyman hero looks like when he's barefoot, bleeding, and absolutely not having it. Steve and Nic dig into everything that makes this movie work, from the brilliant "fists with your toes" setup that justifies our hero's shoeless chaos to A...

This week, the dads open another door on the Dadvent calendar with Home Alone (1990), the Christmas classic that feels impossible to skip during the holiday season. Steve and Nic dive headfirst into the beautiful chaos of the McAllister household, marveling at the absolute sociopath behavior of packing for a two-week international trip the night before a morning flight. They wonder aloud why an ei...

This week, the dads continue their Dadvent Calendar with The Ref (1994), a pitch-black Christmas comedy where a cat burglar named Gus hijacks the wrong couple and spends his Christmas Eve playing unwilling marriage counselor to a pair of wealthy Connecticut WASPs who simply will not stop fighting. Steve brought this pick to the table as a movie he's loved since college, one he watches nearly e...

This week, the dads tackle  Trading Places  (1983), the John Landis comedy that asks the age-old question: what if you took a rich guy's entire life and gave it to Eddie Murphy? What follows is the dads marveling at how this movie somehow gets away with everything, from its gleefully un-PC opening minutes to Jamie Lee Curtis in one of her most revealing roles. They're genuinely impressed b...

This week, the dads take on 1997's  Face/Off , and Steve is practically vibrating with excitement because he's been waiting to do this one since before they even started the podcast. The John Woo-directed, Nicolas Cage-starring bonkers masterpiece gets the full breakdown treatment, starting with a delightfully nerdy timeline tracing how Sam Raimi, Quentin Tarantino, and the Oscars accident...

This week, the dads drop into  Raising Arizona  (1987), a madcap pivot in their Cagevember journey, trading military convicts and green flares for baby snatching and pomade-covered jailbreaks. Steve confesses he’s never actually seen the film all the way through—cue Nic’s delight—while both marvel at the Coen brothers’ signature weirdness already in full bloom. They dig into Cage’s charmingly chao...

This week, the dads storm Alcatraz with  The Rock  (1996), continuing Cagevember with a Bay Area blast that hits all their shared sweet spots: peak Nic Cage, unkillable Connery energy, and that VHS-era swagger that begs for popcorn at midnight. They kick off by reveling in the pairing and the setting, swapping personal history about first watches and how wild it felt to see familiar San Francisco...

This week, the dads climb aboard  Con Air  (1997), where Nicolas Cage’s mullet meets maximum security at 30,000 feet. From the first moment, Steve and Nic can’t decide if they’re watching an action classic or a fever dream stitched together from discarded Garth Brooks lyrics. They marvel at Cameron Poe’s mix of chivalry and chaos, debate whether that accent is a war crime, and lose it over the ide...

This week, the dads close out Shocktoberfest with a Halloween movie that dares to ask: “What if we removed the only thing people liked?” Halloween III: Season of the Witch  is the Michael-Myers-less oddball of the franchise, and both dads went into it as first-timers—Steve because he wanted to finally see what the fuss was about, and Nic because, confession time, this is his first Halloween movie....

This week, the dads sink their teeth into  The Silence of the Lambs  (1991), Jonathan Demme’s unnervingly polite horror-thriller that turned dinner conversation into a crime scene. Nic, who picked this one, calls it one of the rare prestige films that’s also straight-up terrifying, while Steve revisits it for the first time in decades and can’t believe how well it still hums. From the opening FBI...

This week, the dads take on  The Thing  (1982), John Carpenter’s icy paranoia-fest that’s equal parts monster movie and trust exercise gone wrong. Steve brought this one to the table as a personal favorite, while Nic admitted he’d somehow gone his whole life thinking he’d seen it — only to realize five minutes in that he hadn’t. What follows is a gleeful descent into suspicion and slime, as the gu...

This week, the dads descend into  Jacob’s Ladder  (1990), the psychological horror that proves sometimes your mind is the scariest place on Earth. Nic, who picked the film, revisits a movie that left him rattled years ago, while Steve watches for the first time—instantly confusing it with  The Lawnmower Man , because of course he did. As part of their Shocktoberfest series, the guys dive headfirst...

This week, the dads dive into  A Nightmare on Elm Street  (1984), Wes Craven's slasher masterpiece that introduced the world to Freddy Krueger and his very particular brand of sleep therapy. Steve—who's been a horror devotee since begging his mom to take him to  Gremlins  at age 4—picked this one to kick off their Shocktoberfest theme month, while Nic admits he stayed away from slashers un...

This week, the dads tackle  Pee-wee's Big Adventure  (1985), Tim Burton's directorial debut that introduced audiences to both his distinctive visual style and Paul Reubens' beloved man-child character on the big screen. Nic picked this one after rediscovering it through his filmmaker friend who always championed the film's creative inventiveness, and both hosts were shocked by how...

This week, the dads tackle  Tommy Boy  (1995), Chris Farley's star vehicle that perfectly captured the sweet-natured physical comedy that made him a legend. Steve picked this one as a core memory from his teenage years, when Farley was at his peak and SNL-spawned comedies ruled the multiplex. Steve and Nic dive deep into what makes Farley such a force of nature on screen. They discuss his uniq...

This week, the dads dive into Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller  Cape Fear , where Robert De Niro trades his usual New York growl for a chilling Southern drawl as Max Cady, an ex-con hellbent on destroying the lawyer who buried evidence during his trial. Steve experiences this psychological nightmare for the first time while Nic revisits a personal favorite that inspired one of the greatest  Sim...

This week, the dads crank it up to 11 with  This Is Spinal Tap , Rob Reiner's 1984 mockumentary about Britain's loudest heavy metal band and their disastrous American comeback tour. Nic gets only his second real taste of Christopher Guest's genre-defining comedy after years of hearing about amps that go to 11 and drummers who spontaneously combust, while Steve revisits a personal favor...

Michael J. Fox could do no wrong in the late 80s, and  The Secret of My Success  proves it, earning $111 million on a $12 million budget despite lukewarm reviews. Nic picked this PG-13 romantic comedy about small-town Brantley Foster's meteoric rise through a Manhattan corporation. Steve admits this is one of those movies he loves "maybe more than it deserves," putting it alongside  Su...

Steve picks the ultimate quotable comedy  Friday  (1995), and the dads dive into Ice Cube and Chris Tucker's hood classic that basically created its own language. From "Bye, Felicia" to "puff, puff, give," this movie spawned more everyday phrases than Shakespeare. Set over one day in South Central LA,  Friday  follows Craig (Ice Cube) after he gets fired and spends the day on h...

This week, the dads tackle John Carpenter's sci-fi cult classic  They Live  (1988), and Steve discovers he's been living a lie. He thought he'd seen this Rowdy Roddy Piper vehicle but absolutely hadn't. While Nic picked this one for his love of Carpenter and childhood wrestling fandom, Steve gets his first taste of what happens when you put on those special sunglasses. This isn&#39...

Would you like to know more? This week, the dads enlist with  Starship Troopers , Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 satirical sci-fi epic that dares to ask: what if fascism looked hot and the future was full of bugs? Rico, Dizzy, Carmen, and the gang may be beautiful, but their war is brutal — and the propaganda machine is always watching. Steve and Nic go all in on what makes this movie so special. From the...

This week, the dads go full slapstick with  The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! , the 1988 Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy where every line is a setup, every gag has a gag, and Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin is the king of oblivious chaos. Steve and Nic break down what makes this one still land after all these years: the rapid-fire jokes, the perfectly straight-faced delivery, and the way...