Matt's Movie Lodgecast

The anticipation was high for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis biopic! Mostly because of the shots we'd seen of Tom Hanks as Elvis's manager Colonel Tom Parker. Like all Baz Luhrmann movies this film looked bonkers and it is definitely not a conventional music biopic. Austin Butler plays rock and roll icon Elvis Presley, with a supporting cast including Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxbur...

In this urgent Lodgecast a group of adventurous Lodgers attended the Fathom Event on June 14, 2022 of Kirk Cameron Presents: The Homeschool Awakening. This is the latest controversial documentary from actor and Evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron. We discussed our long history with Kirk Cameron and our feelings on homeschooling. Then we proceeded up to the Burbank 16 to witness Kirk Cameron. This s...

Writer/director Alex Garland returns with his new folk horror film called Men. His last film Annihilation (2018) was one of the most hotly debated movies in the Lodge, so we were excited to see and fight about Men. The film stars Jessie Buckley who goes to a small village in the countryside after the death of her husband. Actor Rory Kinnear shows up there in many forms, and the holiday quickly spi...

With widespread critical and audience acclaim, we were excited to see Everything Everywhere All at Once, written and directed by the Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) who previously did Swiss Army Man (2016). Michelle Yeoh leads a great cast including Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film features an intense multiverse mix of b...

The Lodgecast embargo on Marvel movies has been lifted, as Marvel released a film so reviled that we had to see it for ourselves. Jared Leto is Dr. Michael Morbius in this critically panned Marvel vampire movie. The movie cost about $80 million but it looks like it cost about $5 million. It also stars Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson. Hopefully Morbius spreads...

Madea is back! We knew she would be. While Tyler Perry claimed to retire her after A Madea Family Funeral (2019), we knew we hadn't seen the last of the Madea cinematic universe. Writer/director Tyler Perry plays Mabel "Madea" Simmons in this new Netflix film. Actually we watched and talked about this back in early March so our memory is foggy, but there is a big scene at a Red Lobster. The film a...

Some said it would never happen, but we survived to watch the movie Top Gun: Maverick! After waiting three long, arduous years since its initially scheduled release, we finally witnessed Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick. In this episode we express deep nostalgia and love for Top Gun (1986) before heading into the Universal CityWalk. We saw it in IMAX opening night with a rowdy packed house, and we...

We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We'll be heading to tropical areas for a few months, but actually we just need to give the Lodgemaster a much needed editing break after putting together over 200 four bone episodes in the last four years. We'll be covering some of the hawtest films that come out in the next few months, but we won't release these episodes until summertime. The Lodgecast Boyz...

Ti West's new slasher film X was receiving positive reviews so we had to see it. A crew of six Lodgers jumped in a van and drove down to the Burbank 16 to witness this horror movie with a packed audience in the infamous Theater #13. In the film, a pornographic film crew goes on a road trip through Texas to shoot at a farm owned by a creepy elderly couple named Howard and Pearl. Sex and violence en...

Exactly 50 years ago today on March 24, 1972, The Godfather was released in theaters in the United States. To coincide with this 50th anniversary, the Lodgecast has a very special episode we are releasing. In late 2020, Francis Ford Coppola released his recut of The Godfather Part III which he called The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. We watched this recut and talked about it at le...

Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2021 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in a little over 30 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of pick...

Leatherface is back in what is apparently the ninth installment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. This "requel" does away with all the sequels and brings back the legacy characters of Leatherface, Sally Hardesty (the lone survivor from the first one), and the voice of John Larroquette as the narrator. The film didn't feel like Texas and was in fact shot in Bulgaria. While certainly grisly,...

The Master of Disaster director Roland Emmerich has returned with a $140 million sci-fi disaster movie called Moonfall. It was a total bomb at the box office with terrible reviews, so we had to see it in IMAX! The stupid plot involves the Moon as a megastructure built by aliens that is now on a collision course with the Earth. Only Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley flying the Space Shu...

Desktop films meet COVID lockdown films when agoraphobic techie Zoe Kravitz discovers a murder online in Steven Soderbergh's new thriller Kimi. Kimi is a smart speaker much like Siri or Alexa, and Zoe Kravitz's job is to moderate how Kimi is performing. All is well and good until she uses her high tech expertise to pick up the audio of a murder. She is then forced to leave her apartment and confro...

Those Jackass boyz are back for the last time (until the next time)! If you like to hear about boyz getting hit in the nuts, then this is the Lodgecast episode for you! Lots of wieners in the movie. But it's probably a more successful outing than Johnny Knoxville's Action Point (2018), which we covered way back in Episode 11 of the Lodgecast. This movie features Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius,...

Hail Macbeth! It was time for the Lodgecast to take in some theater with Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth. We were tipped off to an IMAX screening and jumped at the chance. We talk all things Shakespeare and Macbeth before we proceeded to this black & white adaptation. While the play is undoubtedly four bones, we had some differing opinions on this version as we hash out what is foul and what is...

Scream 5 AKA Scream came out and we went all-in for the Scream film series. Not only did we see the fifth Scream in theaters, but beforehand we watched all four of Wes Craven's Screams in a row! We were well educated into the world of Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, Dewey Riley, and Ghostface when we entered this one. Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette all return for Scream 5, along...

Tune in for a Royal Rumble Hawt Take as the Lodgecast argues about one of the most viewed Netflix movies of all time! Writer/director Adam McKay's latest film Don't Look Up sparked much divisive debate about whether its contemporary satire worked or was even funny. The bones are up for debate, but the cast is undeniably great, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blan...

A gang of Lodgers traveled to the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood to witness an early screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza in 70mm. We didn't know if we were gonna Lodgecast this one, but after the film we felt compelled to give our first reactions in this hawt take. We briefly discuss our thoughts on writer/director P.T. Anderson before tackling this sprawling film set in the Sa...

Prepare yourself to get blue pilled! At an AMC Theater in Maple Grove, Minnesota three Lodgers swallowed the blue pill of the fourth movie in The Matrix franchise. We went to the IMAX at the AMC Arbor Lakes 16, which we have learned has since permanently closed! After the movie, as a snow storm began, we piled into a minivan and discussed WHAT is The Matrix, and also WHY is The Matrix in 2021. Dir...

Why would Steven Spielberg want to make a straightforward remake of the 1961 Best Picture-winning musical West Side Story? And could such a musical remake be good in the year 2021? The Lodgecast is joined by some magical musical sisters as we try to answer the many questions we had about Spielberg's West Side Story (2021). The Jets face off against the Sharks in Manhattan's West Side, and the movi...

Take the cannoli, toss the pizza pie, and slice the garlic so thin that it liquefies in the pan! The Lodgecast is getting extra spicy and Italian in our new episode on House of Gucci! It's all about the day-to-day operations of the Italian fashion brand Gucci. The film is directed by 84-year-old Ridley Scott and stars Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Jeremy Irons, Salma Hayek, a fat-suited Jared Leto, and...

Merry Christmas! Celebrate the Christmas holiday with a good Christian movie from director Paul Verhoeven! Travel back to 17th century Italy for some blasphemous fun with a lesbian nun who has mystical visions. The movie is based on the real life nun Benedetta Carlini who is played by Virginie Efira, and co-stars Daphne Patakia, Lambert Wilson, and the great Charlotte Rampling. As with all Verhoev...

Let's get nostalgic with Finn Wolfhard and remember everything we loved about Ghostbusters (1984)! Ivan Reitman's son Jason Reitman directs this sequel to Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989). But this time we ain't in New York City. We're in rural Oklahoma! Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) has passed on and his daughter played by Carrie Coon and his grandchildren played by Finn Wolfhard and...

It was time to Do The Dune! For some reason we saw this movie at 10AM on a Saturday, but we all stayed awake for director Denis Villeneuve's envisioning of Dune: Part One. Based on Frank Herbert's 1965 best-selling science fiction novel of all time, with a budget of $165 million, and a star studded cast, the stakes couldn't have been higher. The entire future of cinema rested upon Dune's shoulders...