Max, Mike; Movies

Good morning, angelic listeners! We’re serving up another tasty tv dinner of “I Made From TV Love You!” And what will you find when you peel back the aluminum foil? Why, right there, next to the tater tots, is “Charlie’s Angels,” from director McG (no, he’s not McDonald’s new Happy Director Meal . . . or is he?) and producer Drew Barrymore, this cinematic adaptation takes on the pioneering tv show...

Don’t touch that dial! We’ve got another episode of “I Made From TV Love You!”, movies spawned by the small screen! Ah, the Cold War.  What riches it provided.  The space race. The arms race.  The Red Scare that turned neighbor against neighbor.  The looming fear of nuclear annihilation. And the good things to come out of it? Ummm . . . well, a whole bunch of 1960’s spy shows!...

Back again for more, are you? Well, we’ll soon fix that! This week, we’re hip-deep in “I Made From TV Love You!”, the series about movies inspired by their small-screen counterparts.  And this week . . .  ah, Jay Ward. You fine animator, you.  You gave us so much.  Rock and Bullwinkle.  Dudley Do-right. Mr. Peabody and Sherman.  Endless Captain Crunch commercials.&nbs...

In the mid-1960’s, a television program appeared that would profoundly change the medium of tv, science fiction, American popular culture, and even scientific exploration.  Its influence is still felt today among its legions of fans, who range from “devoted” to “psychotic.” I’m speaking of course of 1965’s “My Mother The Car,” starring Jerry Van Dyke.  This criminally ignored, ground-bre...

Holy cathode ray tubes! It’s a brand-new series here on “Max, Mike; Movies”! This time we’re checking out creations for the big screen that had their origins on the small screen. No, not on your phone, I’m talking about television . . . although recent technological and social changes really have redefined what the term “small screen” might refer to.  Heck, it might even make people think I’m...

And now we arrive at the end of our series “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel”! Or perhaps we’re just at the beginning . . . no, no, we’re really not.  Mike and I have now remembered just how much we do hate time travel and we’re quite done with it.  But not before we tackle one of the best-known and most beloved time travel movie of modern(ish) times, Robert Zemeckisisisisis’s’s’s origina...

Welcome! Well, we still haven’t forgotten how much we hate time travel but maybe we will forget once the timeline changes! Again! For the first or last time! But this week, we’re checking out another time travel epic from 2014 (a big year for time travel movie, as last week’s entry can support) “Edge of Tomorrow” which, despite its title, is not a long-running daytime soap opera but rather a Tom C...

Hey there, true believers! It’s our pulse-pounding penultimate pulchritudinous package of “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel” limited edition, foil-covered mini-series! And we’re dealing with an entry in that Merry Mutant Marching Society “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” Excelsior! ‘nuff said! Other catch phrases! Why this one, Lissome Listeners? Because this X-Magnum Opus is the one that dea...

Welcome back to another in our non-linear, temporally unfixed series “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel”! This week’s entry is “Looper,” the story of a young commercial airline pilot who refuses to give up his dream of constantly flying his plane in loop-the-loops, to the dismay of the stodgy airline “establishment,” as well as the terror of his passengers.  Well, that’s what this mov...

“Poogaloo, the Singing Pangolin” will not be heard tonight so we can bring you the following special presentation, brought to you commercial free and in living (auditory) color.  We’re interrupting our current time-travel series for this extra-ultra-mega-super-lifesize-retcin-free episode where Mike and I partake in a classic piece of Americana: the Drive-In Movie! What with living in this ti...

We’ve got another episode in our “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel” series.  So far we’ve seen time travel mechanisms in the form of weird rotating portals, self-storage lockers and even phone booths.  So the obvious next phase in this progression is . . . a hot tub? Because sure, why not.  In this cinematic gem, we see a trio of friends (and another guy) travel back from t...

Continuing in our careful study of spatio-temporal mechanics as depicted in popular cinematic culture, we come to one of the more intriguing scholarly examples from the late nineteen-eighties.  We have before us a meticulously researched opus on the fixed-timeline theory as regards the practical uses of temporal adjustment technology vis a vis academic research as opposed to the more radical...

Welcome to this week’s installment of “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel”! Or, if you’re stuck in a causality loop, welcome back to this week’s installment.  Or you will be welcome to this week’s installment when it arrives sometime in your future.  Again.  To paraphrase Calvin, time travel weirds language. This week’s example of time-bending and mind-bending is “Primer,” su...

Welcome to a brand new series here at Max, Mike; Movies.  We’re starting “I’d Forgotten How Much I Hate Time Travel” this week . . . or maybe we started it years into the future and it’s only arriving at this point in the timestream, or timecreek, or timepuddle, right now.  But when is now? What is time? Is it a river? Is it made up of “wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff”? Is it a wreath of pretty fl...

Well it’s been a long, awkward trip but we’ve arrived at the end of our journey through “Whitewashing,” watching Hollywood repeatedly embarrass itself, and us by casting white actors as non-white characters.  And we close with a doozy, the winner of the coveted Golden Turkey Award for “Most Racially Insensitive Portrayal By A White Person Of a Non-White Person, I Mean, Just Wow, What Were You...

From white people playing Chicanos, we wind our way back to white people playing Asian people here in our penultimate “Whitewashing” episode with Tony Randall as the inscrutable, many-faced, many-accented Dr. Lao.  Yes, THAT Tony Randall, of “Odd Couple” fame.  Just the guy to play an aged Chinese gentleman, wouldn’t you say? This movie is a bit of a strange case, a cross-genre film that starts ou...

Wilkomen, meine Freundinnen und Freunde, to another edition of “Hollywood, What Were You Thinking?” also known as “Whitewashing,” where we watch white actors embarrass themselves, and us, as they try to play non-white characters.  This week, we move to an example of the “gang movie” oeuvre of the 70’s, with Robby “Sure, I Can Play That” Benson playing a Chicano gang member from 1970’s East L....

Welcome to another episode of “Whitewashing”! Kind of surprising how many of the movies we’ve discussed are comparatively recent, hm? Might make one question how much progress we’ve made.  But this one is . . . a bit odd.  We’re talking about “Tropic Thunder,” a comedy about how hard it is to make movies.  Sure, that’s something we can all sympathize with.  Much of this movie i...

Welcome to our sesquicentennial episode! We know big words! And for our 150 th , we have a very special episode.  That’s right, this time it’s Mike who’s not wearing any pants! Wait, no, please come back! Kidding! Kidding! No, we really do have something special for our latest episode of “Whitewashing,” we have a super-special-awesome seriously-very-cool guest, Dr. Rebecca Pelky of Clarkson U...

Tighten your shorts, Pilgrim, and get ready for another episode of “Whitewashing” here at Max, Mike; Movies.  Genghis Khan: when you think of him, what do you see? Close your eyes and think of the first Great Khan of the Mongols, a man who created an empire over half the world, a man who is widely acclaimed as one of the most brilliant and brutal masters of war in human history.  When yo...

Just in case you’re feeling too comfortable, we’re hitting you with another episode of “Whitewashing,” the series where two white guys talk about replacing non-white characters with white actors. Sure, we’re qualified for that. But who’s going to stop us? (checks behind door) Oh good, nobody’s here to stop us. So anyway, this week we’re discussing an uncomfortably recent film, the 2017 live-action...

Welcome, welcome to a brand spanking new series (no, no, this isn’t a series about BDSM; the only one getting spanked around here is Bumpy and that’s with a two by four) which we’re calling “Hooray for White People! Yay! They’re The Best! Who Needs Anyone Else?” Man, that’d generate some interesting comments, wouldn’t it? In all seriousness (or as much seriousness as we get to around here), our ne...

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the episodes of “Semi-Real People” and this last grain is “Pollock.”  Note that this movie is NOT about the tasty fish, as many of us, I mean, many of you might think but rather about the turbulent later life of one of the most famous, if not the most famous, American painters, Jackson Pollock (note: not only are no fish involved but this was NOT the origin...

So, our series “Semi-Real People” has been held over by popular demand (meaning Mike and I both demanded it and that’s one hundred percent of our staff, so that’s pretty popular) for a couple more episodes and here is one of them! Guess what’s coming next week? That’s right, the other one! Oh, I guess you think you’re pretty smart, figuring that out. You think you’re better than me, is that it? Co...

Gather round, ladies and gents, gather round! Hear the most amazing podcast ever seen on stage! Thrill to the death defying escapes from logic and narrative flow that Max and Mike will astound you with! Quake with fear as Bumpy the Wonder Pony hangs suspended over a tank filled with truly cranky piranha . . . and then is promptly eaten to the delight of the children! Tremble with ontological doubt...