Gartbage Film

It's a classic switcheroo scenario! Erin is taking over hosting duties this week for a banner episode on one of our favourites and one of the very best Star Trek films: GALAXY QUEST! We're charting how the creative team found their perfect cast, including how Tim Allen learned what Acting was throughout the film, Sigourney Weaver's campaign to be part of the film, Alan Rickman's ne...

This week we're feeling revolutionary as we discuss Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar darling, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER fom 2025! We've officially come down with Oscars fever, so this week's episode does double duty as our coverage of the race itself. From OBAA's 13 nominations and SINNERS record-breaking 16, to the joys of ping pong in MARTY SUPREME and the massive snub of our belo...

Gar(t)bage is back with 2024's airport paperback papal political thriller, Edward Berger's CONCLAVE! We're learning Ralph Fiennes' full name, revisiting 3rd Rock from the Sun, and decide that every character in this film is a Pope, before discussing Catholicism and the Absolute Mysteries, power structures and rotting institutions, and what it means to stand for something instead of...

We're returning after a long unplanned break with the most important awards ceremony in film: the Trashies! Nick and Erin are running down their favourite performances of 2025, talk instrumental & song scores, and our best theatre-going memories of the year before discussing new-to-us discoveries and our top 5 of the year. It all leads up to the key questions of the year: how did they make...

It's beginning to look a lot like Noirvember! This week we're getting steamy with the Wachowski's debut film, BOUND from 1996. Before getting into the film we're discussing the Wachowskis at large, their graphic novel and Hong Kong cinema influences, and how Bound was their Hollywood guarantor. This unique noir takes the Billy Wilder and Hitchcock influences and makes it the Wachow...

Our exploration of the spooky south continues with Neil Jordan's 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE! We love the insane family dynamics of our vampire trio, and so this episode importantly praises Kirsten Dunst, is okay with Brad Pitt, is in awe of whatever Tom Cruise is doing, and is surprised by least erotic Antonio Banderas performance. We are of course finding a...

Hot off SINNERS last week, this week we're tackling a different kind of story about racial tensions in the south: independent filmmaker novelist John Sayles' neo-western mystery, LONE STAR from 1996! We're talking Sayles' career and how his fingerprints cover Hollywood from Roger Corman to ET the Extraterrestrial before diving into thoughts on the Alamo. And in our discussion of th...

Gartbage is back and we're heading south with several Michael B Jordan's for Ryan Coogler's period horror musical SINNERS! As always, we're discussing with full spoilers. We're tracing Sinners' path from conception to theatre, from Coogler's visit to a cotton plantation outside of Atlanta, to discovering Miles Caton and treating Jack O'Connell like Beyonce, to one o...

We're back! It's a mini-sode to catch us up after a long break, and we're breaking format to discuss our recent visit to the Mobile Criterion Closet! We made new movie folk friends, played some movie trivia for fabulous prizes, and, most importantly, made our Official Criterion Closet picks. We're also talking about our recent cinematic obsessions, finally getting French New Wave f...

This week we're getting expended as we wrap up Bong June-ho with Bong Joon-ho's sexy sci-fi farce, MICKEY 17 from this very year of 2025! Full spoilers ahead as we discuss Bong's version of a feel-good love story, Edward Ashton's original novel MICKEY 7, the inherently boring faces of techno-religious fascism, reconciling your morality with your identity in late-stage capitalism, a...

Malkovich to you and welcome to the second set of Bong June-ho! This pair of episodes is all about thinking about the concept of a Guy. What if several guys became one guy? What if one guy was several guys? We're here to answer these questions and more, starting with Spike Jonze's 1999 dark comedy headtrip, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. We get into Spike Jonze's BMX and MTV lifestyle, Charlie...

Bong June-ho enters its second second week, and its first from our mini-series' namesake. It's time to discuss Bong Joon-ho's THE HOST from 2006 to complete our set of screw ups in the backdrop of failed American imperialisms with REPO MAN. One of Bong's trademarks is his depiction of class in his films, and while this isn't the first example in his repertoire, it's his fir...

It's time for another mini-series: it's Bong June-ho! We're taking some of Bong' Joon-ho's favourite films and pairing them with his own and first up: fuck ups trying to survive against the backdrop of failing American imperialism. Today we start things off with Alex Cox's 1984 debut, REPO MAN! We're discussing our journey with this movie as we went from mild haters to...

Grab your sheer wrap and leather kneepads, we're heading to Hong Kong to hang with Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and Anita Mui in Johnnie To's 1993 cult classic THE HEROIC TRIO! How many baby thefts is too many? We're here to answer this, how it fuses Tim Burton and James Cameron with wuxia, the mind-boggling star power on screen, and how Hong Kong's trademark tonal juggling act is...

We're back! After our Guillermo Del Toro mini-series we're returning with the polar opposite of GDT's hopeful, community-driven cinema -- we're going sleazy, conspiratorial, and cynical (but still anti-American)! It's time for Brian De Palma's 1981 thriller, BLOW OUT! It's our first time talking De Palma, so we're breaking down his general cinematic approach and sty...

It's the final instalment of our GDT In The GTA mini-series - hilariously one of the only films he did not shoot in Toronto - it's GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO from 2022! As our favourite of the two 2022 Pinocchio films, we're naturally discussing stop-motion animation in depth and learning how much of a nightmare it can be. We're also taking the opportunity to slag off AI, l...

Week 3 of GDT in the GTA would like to offer you an egg in this trying time. It's the awards-darling moment of Guillermo Del Toro's career, and vindication for monsterf*ckers everywhere: 2017's THE SHAPE OF WATER! We're charting Del Toro's journey from the giant canvas of PACIFIC RIM to the intimately-scaled WATER, the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, and how you create...

Analog. Nuclear. Podcast. Our second week of GDT In The GTA brings us Guillermo del Toro in action blockbuster mode: the rock 'em sock 'em kaiju robot punchfest, PACIFIC RIM from 2013! Join us in canceling the apocalypse! We're diving (lol) deep into how drifting works, what separates this from other mecha anime & monster movies, and what constitutes an analog robot. And we're...

It's the first regular episode of the new year, and a first in our winter series: GDT In The GTA. The next couple of weeks are all about Papa Cinema himself, Guillermo Del Toro, and what better place to start than his self-professed "first" movie, 2001's THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE! (aka EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO) Before getting into the movie proper, we're setting the table for our...

It's cinema's biggest night -- the second annual Trashies! Come with us as we discuss our favourite performances, scores, theatre experiences, and our top 5s of 2024. Who will take home the coveted Trashy for best film of the year? Listen to find out! Movies discussed: The Return Dune Part 2 A Different Man Love Lies Bleeding Perfect Days Nosferatu Challengers The Brutalist The Substance E...

We're podcasters, not action movie stars! That's right, we're finally breaking the seal on one of Nick's favourite directors with our second holiday episode: Satoshi Kon's TOKYO GODFATHERS from 2003. It's probably Kon's most conventional film, but he brings in his reality-blurring style nonetheless. We're discussing John Ford's influence, society's marginali...

Welcome to the Holiday Season. We're here with what has become the Gartbage's annual holiday tradition: a Shane Black film set at Christmastime. This year, it's Black-penned but Renny Harlin-directed THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT from 1996! Our gift this year is getting to respectfully discuss Geena Davis' biceps, our favourite Samuel L Jackson performances, their amazing chemistry, and...

No audio engineering is required for this episode; you are hearing the raw unmanipulated audio of our mega-episode on Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 neo-noir masterpiece THE CONVERSATION. We're here to celebrate its 50th anniversary by recounting our experience seeing this in theatres as a first viewing experience. We're having a serious The Conversation about Gene Hackman's spite, Jo...

We've come down with a case of Limania for this episode -- that's right, we're talking about Doug Liman's 2014 sci-fi time guy, EDGE OF TOMORROW! This is another big one for the household. We're obsessed with the intersection of Tom Cruise's personal vs screen personas, Bill Paxton's intersection with JFK's assassination, and Emily Blunt's intersection of aliens...

It's our second spooky episode of spooky season and we've decided its finally time to cover a Gartbage touchstone, a part of our specific heritage: it's SHAUN OF THE DEAD from 2004. We're talking about the inspirations for the film, zombies in general, synthesizing genre convention vs parodying genre tropes, and the lost art of back-of-DVD writing. This movie hit at a very formativ...