Have You Seen This?

Tim and Jen weeb out over an overlooked-in-its-time tale of an outsider navigating a closed and unforgiving society, The Yakuza. Tip us at our Ko-Fi! Jen oversimplifies the origins of the yakuza here, plus she just plain doesn’t know a hell of a lot about Japanese culture! A YouTuber going by ANIKI has an entire playlist of deep dives on yakuza and their history that will leave you better informed...

Jen solos for a conversation with gangster expert God’s Own Monster (@scabbyscribe.bsky.social) about a weirdly clammy biopic, Josh Trank’s Capone. Tip us at Ko-Fi! The Hollywood Reporter had some dirt on the Fox/Trank spat, including intel claiming that the filmmaker’s dogs damaged a rental property in Baton Rouge to the tune of $100,000 (Jesus Christ). Trank attempted to smooth things over in an...

Jen and Tim invite comedian Kath Barbadoro back to the show to puzzle over Brady Corbet’s weird stab at pop mythmaking, Vox Lux. Tip us at Ko-Fi! Brady Corbet and Natalie Portman chat about the film on some kind of Yahoo offshoot called Build. Maybe they explain themselves. I dunno, I’m not gonna watch it. The Variety critic actually liked the movie. He’s entitled to his opinion! Hosted on Acast....

Tim and Jen marvel at an overlooked Sean Connery performance in Sidney Lumet’s similarly overlooked police procedural, The Offence. Tip us at Ko-Fi! See some of the existing locations from The Offence, via the BFI. This representative example of a John Hopkins-penned episode of Z Cars features a young and almost unrecognizable Brian Blessed as a uniformed cop. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

Jen and Tim go back to the roots of the New German Cinema and find much that’s still relevant in Volker Schlöndorff’s bleak character study, Young Törless. See video of Schlöndorff introducing a screening of Young Törless at a 2018 conference at Notre Dame. Jen hasn’t finished Klaus Theweleit’s Male Fantasies yet (it’s two volumes, plus she can’t read) but she’s gonna go ahead and recommend it to...

Tim and Jen allow their favorite radio personality Jennifer Miller Hammel to settle her beef with the biggest fan disappointment since The Star Wars Holiday special, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Back in 1998, the MST3k crew riffed the first X-Files movie in their 2nd Summer Blockbuster Review for the Sci-Fi Channel (sorry to deadname). Trace some X-Files history with us by listening to our epis...

Jen and Tim throw a pool party and invite Charles of the No Homework podcast to talk about the enervating suburban world of The Swimmer! Here is a representative sample of the “Hi, Guy!” series of Right Guard ads starring Bill Fiore, aka Mr. Hunsacker in The Swimmer. And here’s Jan Miner , aka Mrs. Hunsacker, as Madge the Palmolive lady. Cheever was indeed only adapted once for the big screen, but...

Tim patiently walks Jen through a compilation of philosophies of art, life, and everything: the Cate Blanchett-starring installation film Manifesto. Manifesto is free with ads on Tubi, but you can also watch each segment at director Julian Rosefeldt’s website. If you don’t know the name Nigel Cheese and you love learning about internet lunatics, watch this video from the Down the Rabbit Hole serie...

Jen and Tim enlist Aftermath’s Chris Person to talk about a strange technical footnote in cinema, the moody and trés European fantasy Julia and Julia. Chris expands on the infuriating quality of IMDb reviews in this piece for Aftermath. Crave more pioneering and historical HD video? Stop by Reely Interesting on YouTube! There’s something for everybody, especially if you’re the kind of person who g...

Jen and Tim receive a remarkable package from returning guest Darren Herczeg, a Breakin’-meets-Porky’s B picture called Delivery Boys! For whatever reason, Darren confidently named “Scorpion Records” as the company that released the blu-ray of Delivery Boys and we ran with it. As you may have guessed, it’s actually “Scorpion Releasing.” They may or may not still exist, as their Facebook page hasn’...

Tim and Jen get WELL ahead of the holiday season with some help from author Ray Newman, who explains the British tradition of A Ghost Story For Christmas. If you like arcane horror stuff (of course you do, you clicked on this episode), be sure to  stop by Ray’s website and read his blog! Wanna see the original run of spooky stories told for the Yuletide season?  The Internet Archive has...

im lets Jen talk him into discussing an unasked-for remake of a noir classic, The Big Sleep. Jen incorrectly described the short film in which Will Hays introduces the Vitaphone sound system as a public deployment of the Hays Code. In his capacity as chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays did introduce a rubric for self-imposed censorship that would deform the f...

Tim coaxes Jen into the pool for a Polish horror musical set in a dark alternate 80s Warsaw, The Lure! Director Agnieska Smocyzynska also made The Silent Twins (2022) about June and Jennifer Gibbons. Jen gave a glib and half-accurate version of their whole deal, but this 90s-era BBC documentary features the real June Gibbons and tells it a little more accurately. It’s a story that has been mined o...

Jen and Tim invite Chris Wade, #1 Music Super Fan, to marvel at the high production values of the dangerously furry Rock & Rule. Hear Chris and wife Molly range far and wide on the subject of music on the And Introducing podcast! Or get your hands on actual physical music magazine Antics! The movie and many fascinating related tidbits may easily be located on the internet, if you know where to...

Tim and Jen host the guys of Guys: A Podcast About Guys for some guy talk about internet movie guys! Sadly, Bryan’s childhood favorite Big Shots is not currently streaming on Tubi, but they’ll email you when it’s available. It’s true, Benjamin Franklin did find farts extremely funny. “A Letter to a Royal Academy” (later published under the title Fart Proudly) is a whole essay about flatulence. You...

Jen and Tim welcome back Gaius of the wonderful Tribunate channel on YouTube to fact-check some prime dadslop called Boudica: Queen of War. The other Boudica movie Tim watched is called Boudica: Rise of the Warrior Queen and is freely available on Tubi, if you’d like to compare and contrast. The University of Toronto has proof: Romans really did practice ancient dentistry! Hosted on Acast. See aca...

Tim and Jen peep at Brian De Palma’s dirty Hitchcockian (heh) thriller, Body Double! De Palma did an interview with TV reporter Bobbie Wygant to promote Body Double at the time of the film’s release. Dont’t miss Bobbie obligingly picking up some insert shots at the end of the tape. If you’re curious about that sick bachelor pad from the movie, this YouTuber has a concise history of the Chemosphere...

Jen hosts Josh and Brian of The Worst of All Possible Worlds to contemplate a version of Othello that, thankfully, features no blackface— Catch My Soul from 1974. The  Sky King  episode of  The Worst of All Possible Worlds  is a slight divergence from their usual material, but it is as worthy as any of their deep dives into popular culture. Also check out the  Ill Conceive...

Jen and Tim finish the leftover eggnog and talk about a darker-than-dark version of Dickens’s classic, A Christmas Carol. The Grauniad’s 5-star review calls this version “rich, clever, funny and courageous,” in contrast to an outright pan from RogerEbert.com . Read an interview with Christmas Carol scribe Steven Knight in…Town and Country magazine? Huh, OK. Why not. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

Tim and Jen atone for their recent choices for episode topics by discussing a good holiday-themed movie: Bob Clark's Black Christmas! Voice of the killer Nick Mancuso speaks extensively about Black Christmas in this archived article from the Telegraph , as well as other aspects of his long career. “You go 10 feet down and it’s black. The scene called for me to swim under the water. I jump off the...

Jen and Tim enlist Bitter Karella to attempt a close read of the un-close-read-able, the inscrutably weird A Karate Christmas Miracle. Errata: Jen identifies Kenneth del Vecchio as the director of the film (he merely wrote the script, produced, and played the pivotal role of Bob Genesis). Also Jen doesn't seem to be clear on the nature of a miracle, but forgive her— she's a slave to empiricism. Wa...

Oh my god, someone watched this? Merely an obscure channel, B-Movie TV. Oh no, someone archived the sexy clown show? No Tim. The Roku. Bitter Karella, no. Well, what is a clown? Is he life? Is he a clown show? Would you enjoy a clown show? Wanna see? Pervy no. Why? Does he make you laugh? Why? Does he bring a lighter smile to your face? Pervy, no. KinkyCandy(s), no one’s harlequin.  Wanna see...

Tim and Jen host Rifftrax writer  Sean Thomason  to watch the unwatchable: an ancient kiddie flick filled with air and B-roll, Fun in Balloon Land. Jen also pitches her idea for a new, horrible subgenre, named after the director of the similarly horrible Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny: Mahoncore! The  Rifftrax version of Fun in Balloon Land  goes down much easier than the unador...

Jen and Tim brave the harsh California desert in search of a truly obscure female-focused vampire chiller, The Velvet Vampire! Watch The Velvet Vampire on Shudder, and accept no substitutes! This is the best version of the film currently available, as the most recent blu-ray release is extremely difficult to find. No joke, if you know where we can get a copy of this exact Shout Factory edition of...

Tim and Jen reach deep into the spooky season remainder bin and pull out one of the better shot-on-video horror movies…but regular listeners know just how low that bar can really go. Video Violence filmmaker Gary P. Cohen has a website! Forbes has the rundown on the guy who got banned for like two seconds for posting one of the worst things you can find online. Want more shot-on-video horror? We’v...