Hey, Do You Remember...?

The formula for Teen Wolf was simple: low cost + fast schedule = high profit. Even still, no one could have predicted just how successful it would wind up being. Michael J. Fox's star was already on the rise thanks to Back to the Future  and when this arrived hot on that film's heels, it cemented his status as a super star. It spawned a sequel, an animated series, and a gritty reboot for MTV - but...

It's hard to pick which collaboration between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray is the best, but Groundhog Day certainly stands apart from the rest of the pack for many reasons. Unfortunately, this film is also why these two comedy titans stopped speaking to one another for two decades. They each had their own ideas about what sort of movie they were trying to make and although that's typically a recip...

Tim Burton's original Batman was so influential that the comic book movie genre is still living under its shadow today. But the sequel? This might be the strangest superhero film ever made. There were actually a fair number of critics at the time who appreciated this more esoteric approach to the material. Parents of traumatized children, on the other hand, did not. Batman Returns remains a divisi...

It just wouldn't be Christmas without a bonus Star Wars episode... and WOW - there is a lot to talk about here! The Last Jedi is shaping up to be the most polarizing entry in this series and the HDYR gang does their best to cut through the hyperbole on both sides to try and bring some balance to this whole thing. See what we did there? Topics include: our immediate reactions as we walked out of th...

The HDYR gang returns to a galaxy far, far away for a deep dive on the crown jewel of the Star Wars franchise. It's a follow-up that's so unbelievably strong that other filmmakers have turned it into some sort of Rosetta Stone for how to craft an effective sequel. The superficial elements they grasp onto though (the darker tone, the twist ending, etc.) actually have very little to do with why this...

The more jovial tone of the sequels makes it easy to forget just how dark the original Lethal Weapon is. Even though he was later replaced by another writer, Shane Black's bleak sensibilities and pitch-black sense of humor remain firmly entrenched in this script. Throw in Richard Donner's crafty direction and you've got yourself a hell of a film. This is one of those franchises where our memories...

It's Thanksgiving and you know what means... it's time for this year's cinematic turkey! Few movies are as deserving of the the title as 1997's epic misfire Batman & Robin . Reviled by fans and critics alike, this film did so much damage to Warner Bros' flagship franchise that it would take the better part of a decade for the Caped Crusader to recover. In fact, it's developed such a notorious repu...

HEY YOU GUYS! Can you believe it's taken us nearly five years to get to The Goonies ?! We know it's been a frustratingly long wait for a lot of you, but with a rising premium being placed on this particular brand of Amblin-esque nostalgia these days, it finally felt like the right time to dig out that old treasure map and search for rich stuff. All three of us experienced the film at different poi...

Tim Burton's adaptation of Sleepy Hollow plays pretty fast and loose with Washington Irving's source material and for those of who us who grew up with the more faithful Disney cartoon, that was an aspect of this film that definitely took us by surprise. Going into this, opinions were pretty mixed. Despite this revisionist take on Ichabod Crane and a more complicated lore surrounding the Headless H...

The phrase "nightmare fuel" gets tossed around pretty liberally these days, but back in the 90s there were few kids movies more befitting of that title than The Witches. Based on an already frightening book by Roald Dahl, this adaptation ratchets up the scares even further thanks to Angelica Huston's scenery-chewing performance and the incredible effects work of Jim Henson. Not everyone was a fan...

Critics and general audiences weren't quite sure what to make of Death Becomes Her  when it was released in the summer of 1992, but this ultra-dark comedy has definitely picked up a cult following in the ensuing decades.  The performances are great, the effects still work, and the film's cynical sense of humor plays a lot better now than it did when we were kids. So what happened here? Why wasn't...

You asked for it, so here it is - our thoughts on the brand new adaptation of Stephen King's It . Since this comes on the heels of our look back at the 1990 miniseries, certain comparisons were inevitable - but for the most part, we tried to tackle this one on its own terms. The film is obviously a massive success and a lot of its fans have already labeled it an instant classic, but does the HDYR...

We wrap up our conversation about the 1990 adaptation of It with an in-depth look at the miniseries' second half. Will some of our lingering questions about this creature's mythology finally get answered? Is Pennywise still a credible threat against grown men and women? Is his final form as ridiculous as some of us remember? It's time to reunite the HDYR gang for one last journey into the sewers o...

When it comes to the 1990 miniseries based on Stephen King's IT , there are two types of people: those who maintain it's one of the scariest things they've ever seen... and those who insist a more objective viewing would reveal that it was never that great. With a new film adaptation on the horizon, the HDYR gang thought this was the perfect opportunity to find out where they stood on the matter....

Pop quiz, hot shot - it's the summer of 1994 and there have already been dozens of Die Hard knock-offs in the wake of that franchise's success. How do you get your film to stand out from the rest of that pack? In the case of Speed , the first step was hiring director Jan de Bont and trusting in some of his more unconventional decisions. The next was to bring Joss Whedon aboard for a rewrite of the...

It's hard to believe that the original Men in Black is twenty-years-old this summer. Part of the reason for that might be that the footprint it left in pop-culture is still firmly cemented, but there are also so many aspects of this that feel timeless. Between the retro-futuristic production design, the seamless blend of practical effects & CGI, and an irreverent sense of humor that never gets old...

We've lost count of how many times Blank Check has been requested for this podcast and we're really hoping it's because you guys know realize absolutely bonkers it is. While there were no shortage of Home Alone knock-offs in the wake of that film's success, this is probably the only one that features a romantic subplot involving a grown woman and a child. To say we were surprised by this would be...

It's certainly not the most noteworthy comedy from this era, but Weekend at Bernie's managed to stand strong against some pretty fierce competition in the summer of 1989 and its continued success on home video and cable helped cement its reputation as a cult classic. So while our generation tends to regard this film quite fondly, the HDYR gang wasn't super familiar with it. Chris watched it a coup...

Some of the key players involved with Ghost felt that the film was either going to be something really special or a total disaster. And you know what? When you look at all of the risky decisions that were made here, it really could have gone either way. There were some unexpected casting choices, a director known strictly for slapstick comedy, complicated effects sequences, a barrage of different...

Feel the rhythm, feel the rhyme, get on up... it's podcast time! This week the HDYR gang is separating fact from fiction with their look back at Disney's kinda/sorta/not really "true story" of the first Jamaican bobsled team. Once you get past the fact that 95% of this was made up, however, there's still plenty to love about this movie. Topics include: the shift from straightforward sports drama t...

In space, no one can hear you scream - but on this episode of HDYR , you can hear all of us gushing over Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece. We were introduced to the film at different ages, but we all walked away with the same impression... this is one incredible and terrifying movie. We've seen a lot of talented filmmakers play in this sandbox over the years, but there's something so singular and i...

The major selling point of The Good Son was how dramatically Macaulay Culkin was playing against type. As it turns out, the three of us remembered more about our initial reactions to that than we did anything from the film itself. Unfortunately, once you get past the novelty of seeing Kevin McCallister transformed into Michael Myers, there's just not much going on here. Ideas are presented but not...

It's not about one particular title on this week's episode of HDYR , it's about an experience - Saturday Morning Cartoons. We're going back to the days of waking up early, pouring a bowl of your favorite cereal, and navigating between each network's line-up of shows. A lot of these have come up in passing before and many of them have been requested over the years as well, but we thought this would...

From the mid-90s to the early aughts, there were a slew of contemporary retellings of some of Shakespeare's better known plays. 10 Things I Hate About You , a lighthearted spin on The Taming of the Shrew , remains one of the more beloved. It ditches most of the source material's problematic elements, but we're not sure it ever completely overcomes them. It doesn't matter, though. There's a lot abo...

The early/mid-90s were sort of a golden age for sports comedies aimed at kids, but The Mighty Ducks was initially conceived as something a little bit more grown up. The tone of the original script was more in line with The Bad News Bears than the family-friendly Disney film it morphed into. We had clearer memories of D2 going into this, so it was surprising to see how many traces of that other ver...