Grumpy Nostalgia: Second Look Cinema

Send us Fan Mail This week's brand new episode features what we call a "thinking man's Sci-Fi" movie.  Generally, that's code for boring. And there's some of that to be fair, but for the most part this one is pretty good. If you can buy McConaughey as a priest, you can pretty much believe anything.  Even the existence of little green men (which there are none here eit...

Send us Fan Mail Resident show punching bag Costner writes, directs, stars, and even sings the ending credits song!  Way to hog the movie, K!  An extended spring break kept the boys out of the studio this week, so we humbly ask our overly patient audience to give this episode another listen.  Not a lot of y'all heard this one the first time and we understand.  This movie is a letter bomb.  We...

Send us Fan Mail After 35 years, most things tend to degrade.  We certainly did.  But this is not the case for one of the greatest psychological horror films of all time.  Join the gang as they revisit the culinary curiosities in this amazing Jonathan Demme classic. Rural Appalachia, oversized panties, homemade Halloween masks, and a well-placed tuck are just the start. Our only regret is that we...

Send us Fan Mail With Silence of The Lambs returning to theaters this week for it's 25th Anniversary, the boys decide to spoil the party by reviewing the film where it all started, Michael Mann's stylish Manhunter from 1986.  Heavy handed and completely free of any levity at all, it's a bit of a chore to sit through, but we knew the risks when we took the job.  Bereft of any other o...

Send us Fan Mail The Artemis crew WISHES they could be as cool as the goofy miners-turned-astronauts in this ridiculous Michael Bay extravaganza from 1998.  Grab your animal crackers and settle in for nearly 3 hours full of space dementia and good old America saving the world yet again.  Oh, spoiler alert: Gruber doesn't make it (whoever the hell he was).

Send us Fan Mail We're going full icky this week by covering a film by the recently deceased Hollywood icon Chuck Norris.  Yes, we tried to avoid memes and jokes and, yes, we failed.  Over 120 gratuitous kills and zero sleeves. Not a bad ratio for a movie in the 80s.  Oh, and an armadillo out-acts most of the cast.

Send us Fan Mail With  The Mummy Returns  returning to theaters for a special 25th-anniversary this weekend, we thought it prudent to dust off our own take on the franchise from several years ago. Though not a well preserved as a mummy, this episode still has some life in it and quite frankly we're too busy getting next Monday's release ready to do our job as podcasters properly.  Until...

Send us Fan Mail This week we go back to a big one, but as we learn, size doesn't matter.  In fact a few minutes we wont even be matter.  Come back to glorious 1997 where movies were bigger, better, and could star Will Smith without the audience wanting to punch him in the face. Speaking of jerks, stick around to the end when the boys explore other celebs that we used to admire, but now not s...

Send us Fan Mail With Studio Ghibli releasing 1989's Kiki's Delivery Service in IMAX this week, the gang decided to dust off this awesome episode featuring a collab with the gals from 2nd Hand Nostalgia. Mucho Manga 

Send us Fan Mail An 80s fantasy adventure with scorpions, gorgons and gratuitous boobs. A recipe for the best Saturday night ever.  Laurence Olivier is here for some credibility and Ursula Andress is here for two more things.  The nostalgia hits harder than the Kraken as the boys end the episode talking about their other favorite early HBO movies that seemed to be on every day, all the time.

Send us Fan Mail Why does everyone forget that this is their favorite movie? The boys get sentimental this week by revisiting this 1986 Rob Reiner masterpiece.  Recent events notwithstanding, this one reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.  A billion dollar CGI Marvel movie is good and all, but these types of movies carry their own magic when they're done right, and this is no...

Send us Fan Mail Grab a diablo sammitch and a Dr. Pepper and join the gang as they go back to the glorious morality-free movies of the 70s by viewing Smokey and the Bandit.  There's CB radio-talk, casual misogyny, and more car crashes than you can shake a stick at.  Bandit's Trans Am overstimulates the hosts to the point where they feel compelled to talk about their favorite movie cars. ...

Send us Fan Mail In a world with no screens, no safety, and no gas mileage, many a family would venture into our great country to explore tourist traps and dirty gas stations.  This is their story. Stop touching me!

Send us Fan Mail This 80s brat pack weren't your standard yuppie romantics, they were hardened killers. Swayze puts his Roadhouse kill count to shame in this cold war thriller that scared the crap out of us, but taught us the only good commie was a dead commie.  Wolverines!

Send us Fan Mail The movie that bravely pooped in its hand and flung it at the audience.  The boys short circuit after their viewing of this Burton remake of one of their favorite childhood movies.  Ape puns, unwarranted cynicism, and nervous breakdowns are only the start in this infamous episode from years ago.

Send us Fan Mail Season Six begins with possibly our least favorite selection in the history of the podcast. We were taught if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. We managed 53 minutes though. Not bad.

Send us Fan Mail Gabe (Stallone) manages to keep the vaguely European terrorists flummoxed but only when he's not making the googly eyes to annoyingly cute 90s girl Janine Turner.  Lots of catch phrases, toxic masculinity and enough quality deaths to keep even the most cynical viewer in a state of guilty pleasure.  Uber dorky head villain John Lithgow steals the show as far as your hosts are...

Send us Fan Mail The gang celebrates their Season 5 finale with a real pisser, Escape From New York from 1981.  Riddled with violence, gratuitous nudity, smoking, and Ernest Borgnine, this beauty is a true product of its time.  The boys can hardly contain their joy as each wonderfully dirty scene is flushed out with pure guilty pleasure confidence.  Inspired the ridiculously cast Donald Pleasence...

Send us Fan Mail New content? A Christmas miracle.  The gang go down memory lane this time to relive Christmas in the 70s.  A time when we put lead tinsel on our tree and added enough hot lights to a dead, dry trees that Prometheus himself was worried.  From barfing at your elementary school Christmas program to debunking the entire Kris Kringle conspiracy, we're covering it all.  Oh and Lite...

Send us Fan Mail OH MY GOD! We know him. We know him.  Our Christmas memories episodes come to a welcome close with the arrival every everybody's favorite holiday movie except for Christmas Vacation and a Christmas Story.  We haven't done those yet so they don't count.  Merry Christmas you filthy animals

Send us Fan Mail Is it or isn't it? Who cares, we say. The boys go back to 1988 to ponder when a man could be the lead in an action movie.  And that man could smoke, swear, kill people, and still be the hero.  This one also features one of our greatest performances ever, Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber.  All other movie villains have paled in comparison since.  The gang attempts to tackle the iss...

Send us Fan Mail Ho ho ho grumpy nation.  We start our xmas adventure with this 1983 tale of excess, betrayal, gorillas, and Jamie Lee's silk blouses.  You know, standard holiday fare. WARNING: This episode is different than others.  

Send us Fan Mail We're going mega-nerd this week reviewing the 1982 dark fantasy film, The Dark Crystal. So nerdy, in fact, that show co-host Mike had to recuse himself.  Actually, Mike is out this week and he asked show superfan, Dr. K @pinotjones to sit in for this odd but beautiful mess of a movie.  K had some big (smelly) shoes to fill, but he knocked it out of the park.  #thedarkcrystal...

Send us Fan Mail It's turkey time again, only our turkeys are the cinematic kind.  We needed some time for reflection this week, so we humbly ask you to revisit this special episode where we chow down on our most reviled holiday turkeys.  We only give thanks in that we don't have to watch these movies ever again.  This episode originally aired a few years ago and the movies we cover in i...

Send us Fan Mail We dangerously test the patience of our audience by reviewing yet another Arnold movie.  This week it's 87's The Running Man, just in time for its unasked for remake in theaters. Arnold was bigger than most movies during this time and it appears that no one ever bothered to tell him that he could actually say "no" in some instances. That said, this is a gloriou...