Drat Pack

It's November, and as all these posters of Keira Knightley topped in cotton candy indicate, the Christmas movie season has well and truly begun! When Leigh, Brendan, and Chris sat through The Nutcracker in 3D two years ago, they mentioned a Disney adaptation of the story currently in pre-production. Now, in 2018, this movie has somehow become The Nutcracker and the Four Realms and boy is it someho...

Nothing says “we are in the thick of October, that which is widely considered the spookiest month of the year” like facing your fears, whether they are the loss of a loved one or that one wooden roller coaster you … Continue reading →

As the spookiest month of the year draws over us like a wet musty towel, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris decide to talk about their favorite atmospheres in movies. From the vibes that excel at bringing you into the world of the movie to the ones that are tied into a specific emotion or time of year, we toss them all about! We'll be back in two weeks with a more specifically spooky movie (well, sort of s...

What would you get if you set out to make a sequel to a cult movie that has a tenuous connection to the original movie, a wildly different plot and tone, only half of the same actors, and four or five of the same characters? Well, you'd probably end up with something like 1981's Shock Treatment, the sort-of-not-quite-sequel to the midnight movie favorite The Rocky Horror Picture Show. See, instead...

Autumn seems to have finally descended on Boston (for the time being), but when we recorded this it was very hot and we had all had a busy few weeks so we're pretty much just telling you what to expect two weeks from now (it's the not-sequel-but-also-a-sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, spoiler alert). Also Leigh tries to remember the Jeff Wayne musical version of The War of the Worlds, whic...

More than perhaps any other filmmaker, Tarsem Singh has masterfully demonstrated that no matter how bad a movie is, it can at least look visually stunning. With such an embarrassment of riches of gorgeous garbage to choose from, we watched his 2011 live-action adaption of the inside cover of an Everworld novel, Immortals. Starring an at-the-time-less-expensive Henry Cavill and an at-the-time-sensi...

This past Friday, we decided to partake in an activity our livers would not thank us for and watch the "original" "musical" "classic" Mamma Mia! at home with a Greek sangria and then see the prequel / sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in theaters while also drinking heavily. We had some initial thoughts about the movie a few weeks back and we're all now kinda ashamed to admit that MM!HWGA is kind...

We're deep in the thick of summer, and there's no better way to beat the heat than watching a movie you've never heard of in a language you don't speak with a lot of cultural references that will be lost on you. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris take things in a very different direction this episode with the 2012 Indian romance musical Teri Meri Kahaani (also known as The Story of You and Me or Two Actors...

Sure, we all know sequels might not be as good as the original, but for this minisode we want to take a look at the least-likely sequels clearly made in a desperate attempt to grab cash. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris discuss ones where the lead(s) refused to returns, movies that had a premise that could not easily allow for a sequel, and the ill-fated attempts to make sequels to a successful adaptatio...

It's the exciting vaguely-European future adventures of two pouty space teens who are apparently in love but look like siblings! That's right, we're discussing Luc Besson's 2017 tax write-off, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets! Join Leigh, Brendan, Chris and a tiny alien that poops out multiple copies of whatever you feed it as they cover the weird tangental structure, the outstanding wo...

We once again try something different for a mini episode and tackle a recent video game release in our discussion. That's right, we're tackling David Cage's Detroit: Become Human. Leigh leads Chris and Brendan on an in-depth analysis of Cage's previous games, the twists of the plot, and the very deep well-conceived themes hidden in the game. For example, did you know the robots are analogous to pe...

An anonymous woman calls a sexy twenty-something on his cell phone and tells him unless he can help her, she and her family will be killed. Sound like a solid hook? Sure, as long as you avoid a lot of the other nonsense that gets thrown at you, like backstory, characters, and logistics. For our first summer blockbuster, Leigh, Brendan, Chris and returning guest Meghan Coyne watch the 2004 thriller...

As three weirdos who make it a point to watch movies every four weeks for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris naturally have a lot of specific occasions we like to watch other movies on, be it a holiday or that time in everyone's high school career where some teacher made you watch Remember the Titans. We talk about the times we watch certain movies and the movies we like to watch on those tim...

If you've ever wanted to see lovingly-sexualized hairy aliens played by Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and Damon Wayans try to fuck Geena Davis, then wow do you have some oddly specific fantasies. For everyone else, though, there's Earth Girls Are Easy, a bubbly slice of pop nonsense designed presumably to inform future generations of what living in the 1980s must have been like. Leigh, Brendan, and C...

Fandoms! They're the inescapable parasite that our franchise-heavy movie world must support, lest all of the major studios crumble into dust. In this episode, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about all the horrifying aspects of fandoms that have reared their ugly, shrieking, appeasement-seeking heads. From gatekeeping to temper fits to the mysoginistic dregs that flow through the Internet, we poke t...

We could tell you that the audio for this episode is a reference to our movie's low budget DIY sensibility, but that would be an outright lie, and we respect you too much to do that to you. Instead, we apologize for this episode's iffy audio and blame our microphone settings. Hopefully, none of it will deter too much from the quirky indie sensibilities of Hal Hartley's 2006 sequel, the spy thrille...

What a twist! Instead of doing something else you might have expected, instead we're talking about twist endings. How unexpected maybe! Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we define twist endings, cover the ones we don't like and why, and then very quickly throw out some good ones because we realize we've spoken too long about bad ones. Also there's the next movie we'll be doing and the drink for it...

Gather your lads and get ready to bash some noggins, because this ain't your great^45 grandfather's King Arthur story! Actually, this ain't really anyone's King Arthur story, except maybe Guy Ritchie's. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they get all lagered up and watch Guy Ritchie's bizarrely-handled 2017 notbuster, King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword. Topics for discussion include Ritchie's att...

Look out! In lieu of our more normal subjects, we're doing this first mini episode in a new mini episode series that we're calling Why Do I Like This for lack of a better name. In this, we'll discuss something we like that has a lot of negative connotations of any kind and explain why we like it and offer a defense of it. Join us for the first of however many we end up doing mini episodes as out v...

You loved Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Billy Crystal in, uh, all the stuff they've been in that you might have liked them in. Now see them as you've never seen them before- horribly unlikable, bitchy, and barely two-dimensional! Join America's REAL sweethearts Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we kick back with a fruit cocktail and popcorn and snipe about the questionable satir...

With February on the way, that once-fabled dumping ground of crappy movies that studios don't care about, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris turn their attention to an all-too-relevant topic: what was the worst experience we ever had in a movie theater? The discussion covers both horrible movies and horrible environments, and touches on such diverse topics as trees that jizz, appalling YA rip-off movies, a...

Your third-or-fourth-favorite movie-related podcast is back for 2018, baby! The Why Watch crew welcomes in the new year with a pretty crappy Terry Gilliam jaunt, 2005's The Brothers Grimm starring Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, and a whole bunch of wasted talent. There's a whole magical forest's worth of problems to dissect in this film, from the rambling plot to the sketchy characters to the ill-defin...

The holiday season has wrapped up but we're recording this while still in the thick of it all, so the Why Watch crew just decided to recap our year in terms of the best and the worst for both movies and cocktails. We also throw the first movie of 2018 out there along with a drink recipe and some of what to expect for the next twelve months. Rest assured that no matter how bleak and miserable thing...

Whenever we get gloomy with the state of movies, it's usually because we're bombarded with half-baked concepts, threadbare plots, and shoddy characterization. General opinion makes out that one movie that manages to include all these concepts, 2003's Love Actually, is a cherished Christmas classic, but we don't see that. When we made two wintery cocktails and sat down to watch this very long antho...

The holliest jolliest time of year is upon us, and what better way to get yourself into the holiday spirit than by settling in a hot drink and a beloved Christmas movie? Well, maybe by also watching a movie you really like but still have a few problems with and then coming up with an idea on how to remake it! Leigh, Brendan, and Chris mull some wine and settle our brains for a viewing of the charm...