Comfort Films Podcast

Week 3 of sword & sorcery movies is here, and this time we're traveling all the way back to ancient Greece for 1981's Clash of the Titans.  We talk about petty god squabbles, Star Wars connections, adventure genre conventions, and Ray Harryhausen's wonderfully creative special effects.  What are you waiting for? Release the Kraken!

For our second week of sword & sorcery films, we went with our vote for one of the best of all time, Conan the Barbarian!  This John Milius classic was released 40 years (and one day) ago, and it put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the path to becoming one of the biggest action stars of all time. We discuss lots of behind-the-scenes trivia, the theme of freedom, and for our second week in a row,...

This week, we're starting a series on sword and sorcery movies, one of our favorite genres, and for the first episode, we decided to get creative with our interpretation and finally take a bite out of the Star Wars franchise, exploring A New Hope as a classic sword and sorcery fantasy film with a sci-fi twist.  Come with us to a galaxy far, far away to discuss knights (of the Jedi variety), a...

This week we welcome a special guest, Kate Duffy, one of our dearest friends, to discuss her favorite comfort film, Moonstruck.  It's totally serendipitous, since The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a meta-film starring Nicolas Cage as a version of himself, came out this week as well, and we all love him awful, like Cher's wonderful Loretta in Moonstruck.  We talk magical realism, S...

This week for episode 29, we celebrate the 15th anniversary of Georgia's #1 favorite movie of all time, Edgar Wright's 2007 buddy cop/folk horror mashup masterpiece Hot Fuzz, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  We discuss Wright and Pegg's perfectly crafted screenplay and mastery of genre conventions, Frost's channeling of Chris Farley's comedy style, and Wright's detailed directing style, a...

This week, we're closing out our month-long series on musicals with an episode on Jesus Christ Superstar.  We explore the film as the passion story from Judas's perspective beginning to end, the perfection of Carl Anderson, the career-defining performance of Ted Neeley, who has played Jesus for decades, and the relative merits of both the film soundtrack and the concept album. Note: this is d...

It's universally acclaimed as one of the best movie musicals of all time, and now it's a Comfort Films episode - #27, Singin' in the Rain!  We talk about Gene Kelly's athleticism, Old Hollywood, and the transition from silent film to talkies.  Put on your dancing shoes and join us!

In honor of John's birthday week, we discuss Streets of Fire, the 1984 Walter Hill film taglined "A rock & roll fable."  This is our second in a series of four music-forward films, and we examine whether Streets of Fire can properly be called a musical, why it doesn't have a broader audience (and why it should), and the many reasons why John counts this film, which he estimates he's seen...

We're celebrating one of our all time favorite musician's birthdays this week with an episode on Rocketman, the 2019 Elton John musical biopic.  We talk music, trauma, costumes, more trauma, and soulmate friendships.  (Note that we did a lot more cursing than usual this time, so it's a headphones episode; we blame Elton John's parents.) This will be the first in a four-week series of mus...

Hey, are we a Shakespeare podcast now?  Don't tempt Georgia!! We're back with a discussion of one of our favorite Shakespeare adaptations, Kenneth Branagh's 1993 Much Ado About Nothing.  Tune in to hear our thoughts on how Shakespeare should be taught (irreverently, aloud, and in whatever accent you choose), Kenneth Branagh's many smart choices (as both actor and director), Denzel Washin...

Join us this week to talk about The Fisher King, a wonderful modern take on the Arthurian myth by director Terry Gilliam, a former member of Monty Python who knows his way around a holy grail tale.  It's a beautiful, underrated movie about love, madness, grief, redemption, and friendship, with unforgettable performances from Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges.

Put on your utility belt and get ready for a new episode of Comfort Films!  In anticipation of next week's release of The Batman, we went back to 1989 to revisit the genre-defining Tim Burton Batman, starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.  Join us for 93 minutes of comics, clowns, and camp as we discuss the movie that took Batman into the dark.

In this episode, we dip our toe into comic book movies and talk about our two favorites from the Marvel universe so far, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. We discuss the amazing soundtrack and visuals of the movies, as well as the important themes around family (which you knew Vin Diesel had to get in on, even if it's just by saying "I am Groot" in 783 different ways).  We also talk about Jame...

This week for Valentine's Day, we celebrate the great and horrible things about love, with a conversation about one of our favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  Join us for a chat about life's big questions, the psychology and persistence of memory, and why Elijah Wood went through a scumbag character period in the mid-aughts.  And as a special bonus hear about John's...

In this episode, John and Georgia fully nerd out on Star Trek, discussing the Original Series episode "Space Seed," which introduced superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They talk utopian futures, Spock and Kirk's friendship, technological advances in space travel (and lack thereof), no-win scenarios and how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Join John and Georgia for episode 18 as they dive in to a rewatch of Daniel Craig's first outing as James Bond and discuss the evolution of his character over all five movies from Casino Royale to No Time to Die.  Note: if you haven't seen No Time to Die, major spoilers abound, so please come back after you've watched it! Also, be sure to mosey on over to Instagram to vote in our James Bond B...

This one may be our favorite episode yet.  For our final Rob Reiner ride we discuss the classic coming of age movie Stand By Me, gun-toting chain-smoking preteens, learning to process grief and loss, and those small moments that you don't realize changed your life until later.  It's a good one, full of laughter, nostalgia, and feels, much like this great movie!

It's episode 3 of the Rob Reiner Run (now the Rob Reiner Rampage, since it feels more metal), and John & Georgia are discussing the movie that put mockumentaries on the map, 1984's This Is Spinal Tap, a fake rockumentary so real it fooled Ozzy Osbourne. Set up a tiny Stonehenge, find some normal-sized bread, and turn this one up to 11. And as the late great Howard Hesseman as Terry Ladd once s...

For Georgia's birthday, we discuss her number one comfort film of all time, The Princess Bride.  (Eventually.  After 15 minutes of digression into Macho Man Randy Savage, He-Man toys, and somehow, Samuel Beckett.  But William Goldman, the author of both the book and screenplay of The Princess Bride is a master of digression, and we figured he'd be proud of our behavior mirroring.) &...

Happy New Year, comfort fans!  John and Georgia ring in 2022 talking about arguably the best romantic comedy of all time, When Harry Met Sally..., starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.  This is the first of a 4-movie Rob Reiner Run, AKA the Meathead Marathon.  We talk about New Year's Day (Georgia's favorite holiday), whether men and women can be friends, and we absolutely DO NOT F*C...

In this last episode of the Christmas season, John and Georgia discuss the 2008 Vince Vaughn/Reese Witherspoon comedy Four Christmases, touching on family-free holidays, the child-free lifestyle, and the futility of trying to keep secrets in a long-term relationship.

In this bonus Christmas episode, Georgia and John discuss Jim Henson's masterful Muppet/hillbilly Gift of the Magi, which is technically not a "film," but a fantastic Christmas special and a Macey family Christmas viewing must.

In this double header of Christmas classics, John & Georgia discuss classic tales adapted to modern settings, the similarities between Victorian England and the America of the 80s, and ponder why all Gen X kids frequently hung out in abandoned buildings.

In this second episode of the Christmas series, John and Georgia talk about Christmas traditions, exalted expectations, eccentric family, and how sometimes a good story about a bad experience is more fun than having a good experience in the first place.

Yippee-ki-yay comfort lovers! In the first of four Christmas-themed episodes, John and Georgia make the case for Die Hard as a definitive Christmas action movie, discuss the perfection of Alan Rickman’s performance as Hans Gruber, philosophize as to what a TV dinner actually feels like, and uncover the many doppelgangers of Huey Lewis. Take off your shoes and join us for a real holiday rager at Na...