Bald Move Pulp

Michael was nice enough to commission this podcast in honor of his wife, Susanna. Michael wanted to recognize and celebrate the hundreds of people that collectively make our favorite movies and television shows possible. Using "Star Wars Within A Minute" as a guide, we go department by department to talk about the things they contribute to your average Hollywood blockbuster. Whether you're moved t...

Welcome to Cecily and A.Ron's second annual Cinema Spooktacular! During the month of October, we like to watch scary movies, and then talk about them on a podcast. Perhaps you'd care to join? Stay awhile... stay FOREVER! Muahahahahaha! This year we're going to do multiple Spooktaculars in a (mostly failed) effort to get these out quicker. On this podcast, we discuss... Are We Not Cats? (00:25:30)...

Jim and I checked out the latest episode of HBO's The Deuce, "The Feminism Part", and boy, just a lot happened. There's mob money, murder, attempted murder, betrayals, breakups, Bobby's kid lost his virginity! The stakes can be as low as Vince losing himself for a few days tending bar in sleepy Vermont towns, or as high as a dead prostitute washing up and into Detective Alston's case load. That's...

Jim and I watched an unexpectedly spooky episode of Matthew Weiner's The Romanoffs, "House of Special Purpose". It's a tale that asks us whether we believe in ghosts or if one or perhaps more people are actually losing their minds. Does the spell work, and what is Weiner saying about coercive / abusive directors and set environments? Despite the super serious subject matter, we also find time to p...

A.Ron and Jim blow all the doors down on the latest episode of HBO's The Deuce, "We're All Beasts". It provokes a lot of meta discussion about progressive politics, America's long lost battle against vice, and offensive analogies. We also talk about Eileen's guerrilla film-making campaign for what looks to be the very watchable Red Hot. Finally, A.Ron reacts to a 70s-era porno! Learn more about yo...

It's been three years since Don Draper left our televisions, and now Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is back with something to say? Is it good, is it bad, is it something even worth saying? After seeing 180 minutes of his new series, The Romanoffs, we're still oddly divided on answering those basic questions. It's beautiful, and thoughtful, and at times absorbing, but are the disconnected lives of...

Jim and A.Ron go cruising for the latest episode, "All You'll Be Eating Is Cannibals". The Deuce has always featured duality; Frankie/Vincent being the parade example. But here we see two raids; one on an underground card game by a professional crew of criminals, another by professional law enforcement on an above ground massage parlor. We also see members of the gay community step out of the shad...

A.Ron and Jim are down to talk about the latest episode of HBO's The Deuce, "What Big Ideas". The Deuce drops another couple of bodies, which draws the increasing attention of the Public Morals Task Force. Unfortunately, that attention is incompetent, corrupt, or often both. Bobby and Vincent have trouble dealing with their involvement in the flesh trade, even as Abby and Dorothy beat the streets...

For the first time since The Young Pope, Jim and Cecily come together to record a podcast, this time on season 2 of Netflix's Ozark. We talk about the many things we liked and the few things we didn't. We also christen the deadliest road in all of the Ozarks, squeeze a baby for all of its juice, and find out just how much Cecily knows about poison. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...

HBO's The Deuce moves out the LaLa land in the latest episode, "Seven-Fifty". The title reminds us that even people that we think of as "good" are capable of terrible exploitation in this world, a reminder that Simon and Pecalanos like to give us every 10 minutes or so. Lori gets her time to shine without her pimp clouding her view, Eileen makes some slight headway towards securing the budget for...

Special thanks once again to Sean Ray for commissioning thus podcast for the 1982 John Carpenter sci-fi/horror classic, The Thing. The location, sense of isolation and paranoia, and atmosphere of dread this film is able to generate is incredible. Kurt Russel is iconic in his role as everyman bad*ss. And the gruesome, disturbing practical effects work still effectively sells the horrific alien acti...

A.Ron and Jim check out another funky episode of HBO’s The Deuce. Lori and Eileen’s careers heat up as the pimps are left out in the cold! Vincent gets nostalgic with Abby, while Paul and Bobby do their best to fight off rivals to their trades. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This edition is intended to be the definitive version. The interesting thing is, Jim and I have always been a bit “meh” on the classic Blade Runner experience. Sure, we always saw how influential it is, and could understand why it was highly regarded “for it’s day”. We both felt like we saw the film with fresh eyes on this cut. There are problems with world building and pacing here and there, but...

We’re not upset with the people who like Castle Rock, as it’s charms are evident; it looks great, boasts an incredibly talented cast, and cribs from very highly regarded plots and material by genius of horror Steven King. Ultimately a show either grabs you or it doesn’t, and we flat out slipped through Castle Rock’s creepy grasp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and A.Ron are happy to be back into the swinging 70’s with HBO’s The Deuce, with it’s return episode, “Our Raison D’être”. This time and setting are so colorful, fun, and alive that it’s easy to forget the layer of decay and menace that lurks just beneath each scene. Whether it’s pimps losing their grip on the game or mobsters that have grown fat and lazy from politicians looking the other way...

Jim and A.Ron put on their brown pants tonight to go out and see The Nun, the latest installment in The Conjuring universe, but only one of us needed to. The film’s getting mixed reviews; and Jim worries that co-writer James Wan’s bag of tricks are getting played out and the movie suffers from inconsistent internal logic. Perhaps I’m the biggest wuss alive, but the movie got my hair standing up on...

We’re back to finish up (?) our coverage of HBO’s Sharp Objects, and discuss our thoughts on Hulu’s Castle Rock through S01E08 (00:26:04). Next week we’ll be back to start our coverage of the second season of HBO’s The Deuce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and I had high hopes for The Little Stranger, thinking it would be an ultra atmospheric mash up of The Witch with Downton Abbey. Instead, we got a commentary on upper class angst during the 1940’s as their fortunes crumbled alongside their estates masquerading as a dull, drab little ghost story. At no point does the film ever manage to generate anything but mild disquiet and malaise. Which is...

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching Sharp Objects these past few months. We found the finale to be of a piece with the whole. Maybe there weren’t satisfying answers to every single element or question raised by the series, but isn’t that the way life goes? We feel we got enough through Camille’s point of view to understand what motivated Adora and Amma, and liked that the show left so...

Today we discuss the penultimate episode of HBO’s Sharp Objects, “Falling”, as well as our thoughts on the first six episodes of Hulu’s Castle Rock. Sharp was an especially wild hour, chock full of stomach churning child abuse and problematic sex scenes between damaged and self-destructive people, before promising a truly epic conclusion from the setup of a five way collision between Camille, Amma...

Brian Strader is back to, as he says, “play ‘TV Show Dumpster Fire’ roulette.” Unfortunately we think he may have lost by betting on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. We were suitably impressed with the detail of the animations, certain aspects of world building, and the themes here and there. Unfortunately, other aspects of the world building struck us as silly, the translations on the ver...

We’re back to talk HBO’s Sharp Objects and a preliminary spoiler-free discussion of Hulu’s spooky Castle Rock! Here are some time stamps to help you navigate the podcast… 00:00:52 – Castle Rock 00:12:18 – Sharp Objects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim and A.Ron talk about another hard to watch but impossible to turn away from episode of HBO’s Sharp Objects, “Closer”. The town of Wind Gap celebrates what could charitably be called a a dark and regrettable moment from their past history, while Adora tortures her daughter Camille in ways that would make Ramsay Bolton blush. Not much is advanced in terms of the central murder mystery, but we ge...

Jim and A.Ron continue to focus on HBO’s Sharp Objects, with a deep dive on the fourth episode, “Ripe”. Of course, Adora is just The Worst, but we see hints that the crazy awfulness of her family didn’t start with her. Who knows how many generations of Wind Gap women have been caught in this cycle of rage and shame? Also, Camille and Willis get handsy, suspicion swirls around John Keane and Bob Na...

The plot around the bonkers stunt work is a bit thin, but the stunts themselves fully justify the movie. You can see ever dollar spent and bone broken literally up there on the screen, but it also must be said that these stunts are clinging desperately to the line from believable to unbelievable. And half the time they careen over that line and land in Fast & Furious territory. Unless they find an...