Matinee Manatees

Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays and so forth and so on!  We're staying in the sort of spooky sort of holiday spirit with the 1990 Christmas classic(?) Edward Scissorhands!  The first of a long line of collaborations between Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, and Johnny Depp (Helena Bonham Carter had not joined the gang yet) and also starring Winona Ryder and Matinee Manatees alum Dianne Wies...

We're starting the holiday season early with the famously saccharine Christmas romance, The Mothman Prophecies (alternate title: Mothman Saves Christmas).  Richard Gere plays a grumpy widower from the big city who doesn't want to do anything on Christmas but sit at home and play with his phone, but one day when his car breaks down in the idyllic rural town of Point Pleasant, his life gets tur...

We're revisiting some beloved Matinee Manatee alumni with Leprechaun, the 1993 comedy-horror starring Jennifer Aniston and Warwick Davis, our old friends from Office Space and Willow.  Written and directed by Mark Jones, Leprechaun would go on to spawn seven sequels to date, so it must be doing something right, right?  Float along with us to relive this bizarre little film and also get s...

Just in time for being way too late for labor day, the Manatees are revisiting the 1999 Mike Judge classic Office Space, supposedly starring Ron Livingston and Jennifer Aniston but actually starring Gary Cole and Stephen Root, and also featuring Matinee Manatee alums Orlando Jones and Michale McShane!  While it was a flop at release, Office Space quickly became a cult classic in large part du...

What can we say, we missed Mortal Kombat so much we decided to go after its dad: 1988's cult classic Bloodsport!  Directed by Newt Arnold and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bloodsport is about a guy who goes to Hong Kong and fights a bunch of people.  Somehow, Forest Whitaker is there.  That's about it, that's all you need.   The manatees do a deep dive into the history and tr...

What do you get when you combine the setting from Escape From La, the costumes from Siegfried and Roy, the car from Back To The Future, the half locket from Annie, and the prosthetics from the Garbage Pail Kids?  Why, Double Dragon, of course, the movie based on the game that had none of those things.  Directed by James Yukich and starring Robert Patrick, Mark Dacascos, and Scott Wolf, D...

We're back in the weird 80's genre with 1987's Over The Top, directed by Menahem Golan and starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert Loggia.  We both thought this was a movie about arm wrestling, but it's actually more like two separate movies, one about arm wrestling and one about an awkward father-son road trip.  Also, the son's name is Mike Hawk, and if you think we couldn't possibly ove...

It's a patron request month!  This month we're checking out 1988's Felix The Cat animated feature, aptly described to us as "an acid trip box office flop".  If you haven't heard of it, that's probably because almost nobody saw it.  But why?  We've all heard of Felix The Cat, seen the clocks, might have won a stuffed animal at a carnival once or twice, so how come nobody saw the...

Welcome back Batmanatees!  Anthony drags Sam across the finish line of their Batman journey with 1997's notorious Batman and Robin, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Matinee Manatee alums Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris O'Donnell, Michael Gough, and John Glover, and also newcomers George Clooney, Alicia Silverstone, and Uma Thurman!  Wow, that's a lot of names, you may say.  Tha...

Happy 2022 everybody!  We're still on our 90's kick with 1991's legendary Terminator 2: Judgment Day, directed by James Cameron and starring Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Robert Patrick.  Can you believe it took us this long to get to a Schwarzenegger movie?  The second of what would eventually be six movies and a television show, Terminator 2 retells th...

Happy holidays everybody!  To get in the mood for the season, we're revisiting the famous 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone, directed by Chris Columbus and starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern.  The classic story of a child being able to do whatever he wants in his house and a rich family shocked that they can't buy their way out of problems, it kind of starts as like an a...

Happy turkey day everybody!  In celebration, we went back to one of our favorite movies about dinosaurs which are kind of sort of birds, and then watched the sequel instead: 1997's The Lost World (Jurassic Park 2) directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore!  The Lost World got a lot of flak for not being as good as the first Jurassic Park, but if not for h...

Happy Scary-tober everybody!  This month the manatees checked out 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris!  This one was a patreon poll, and honestly we're pretty glad it turned out the way it did.  The movie that arguably kicked off the zombie resurgence of the early 2000s, 28 Days Later isn't actually a zombie movie according to its cre...

Tom Hanks once said that Jason And The Argonauts was the greatest film ever made.  But was he right?  I mean, yeah, probably.  Directed by Don Chaffey, starring Todd Armstrong and Honor Blackman, and featuring an original score by the fantastic Bernard Herrmann, Jason And The Argonauts is perhaps better known as a showcase of the legendary Ray Harryhausen's visual effects, but even...

This month we're watching another collaboration by the Kevins Reynolds and Costner with 1995's Waterworld!  Also featuring the triumphant return of Dennis Hopper and the podcast's first appearance of Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino.  The most expensive movie ever made at the time of its release, Waterworld was widely considered a flop but actually did make its budget back eventually...

HEEEEERE WE ARE!  It's one of the 80's most notorious cult classics and every mall samurai's fever dream, 1986's Highlander, which made no money but somehow spawned half a dozen sequels and four TV series!  Directed by our old friend Russell Mulcahy and starring Matinee Manatee alumni Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and Clancy Brown, along with newcomer Roxanne Hart, Highlander is jus...

You've definitely heard of this one!  The manatees are back to crushing on Bob Hoskins with 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Bob Hoskins, Charles Fleischer, Christopher Lloyd, and Joanna Cassidy.  Made in the era before CGI, Who Framed Roger Rabbit presents probably the most impressive precedent of pretending between actual actors and animated art...

Good morning Shadaloo!  This month we're returning to our roots and sitting through the notorious video-game-to-movie-adaptation Street Fighter, from 1994!  Directed by by Steven de Souza and starring Jean Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, and about a dozen others, Street Fighter is remembered mostly for being a flop and also for being Julia's final performance, and oh, you guys, it is a mag...

We're back after the holidays with a super-sized three-manatee episode!  This month, in honor of the late great Sean Connery, the manatees are re-watching his last movie, 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!  Directed by Stephen Norrington.  It's not great, but does it deserve as bad a reputation as it has?  Float along with us and find out! 

Season's Greetings, Batmanatees! Anthony is triumphant. Sam finally gives in and watches our favorite Christmas movie, Tim Burton's Batman Returns, starring Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Danny DeVito. Simultaneously, Anthony usurps Ben's place as co-host of the podcast. Everything is falling into place. The manatees beef with Roger Ebert, plot to bring back Ben as a Catwomantee, and y'all...

For this year's Scarytober the manatees are watching one of the most notorious sequels to a horror movie in cinematic history: 1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic! Directed by John Boorman and starring Linda Blair, Richard Burton, and Louise Fletcher, Exorcist 2 takes the franchise in a different direction, replacing demons with grasshoppers, exorcists with investigative journalists, and ritual exorci...

It's a listener request month!  Luckily our patrons have very good taste and have chosen 1987's The Princess Bride, written by William Goldman, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, and Andre the Giant!  This one's an old favorite, so we went an extra step and actually read a whole book about the making of this movie, and guys?  It's just a really fun hang. ...

We're checking out Paul Verhoeven's famous 1997 satire Starship Troopers!  Starring Casper Van Dien (the puppet from Team America), Denise Richards (Tammy from Tammy and the T-Rex), and Dina Meyer (cool lady from Dragonheart), Starship Troopers flopped at the time, but we're convinced a lot of it got missed by audiences.  The manatees discuss propaganda reels, the problem with netflix, bugs and po...

Do you guys remember Point Break?  Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, and Lori Petty, Point Break is an oft-misremembered classic and directly responsible for one of the top-grossing movie franchises still active right now.  (You'll know which one as soon as you see it.)  Ben tries his flippers at puns, Tony proposes a script edit that would fix the entire third...

We're back with an old favorite, 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, directed by Steve Barron and starring Judith Hoag, Elias Koteas, and some very endearing foam-rubber puppet suits.  It's basically an overall silly, nostalgic romp, and we're here for it.  The manatees discuss the logistics of setting up teen cult hideouts, early 2000's fighting games, comic books in general, and the difference...