Max, Mike; Movies

Ok . . . ok . . . come on, Max . . . you’ve done over three hundred of these . . . it’s not that hard . . . just write. Just write SOMETHING. Oh god, why does a blank white screen look so horrible? Why is my keyboard laughing at me? Come on . . . it’s just another entry in the “Ready When You Are, C.B.”, just another movie about making movies. What the hell is wrong with you? God, writer’s block i...

Ah, Hollywood! The land of glitter and sparkle! The land where dreams are born, struggle, and eventually end up in a miserable job in middle-management . . . I mean dreams come true! Obviously that’s what I meant, and you all know it! Hollywood is the most terribly important industry in all of The United Hollywoods of America; just ask Hollywood! What matters more than making a motion picture? Not...

Order, order! The Committee for “Ready When You Are, C.B.” will come to order! The witness has been sworn in and we are ready to proceed. The witness is reminded that failure to answer any of the committee’s questions will result in the witness being held in contempt . . . even more than they already are. Now then: are you now or have you ever been a member of the Bumpyist Party? Let the record sh...

Welcome to another episode in our continuing stooooooory “Ready When You Are, C.B.!” movies by Hollywood, about Hollywood, smothered in Hollywood gravy! This week’s entry is a film from the late 80’s, forgotten by some but surprisingly influential to others: Robert Townsend’s “Hollywood Shuffle”. Is it a coincidence that a movie with this title came out a mere two years after the legendary musical...

Heeeyyyyyy, listeners! Sweeties, honeys, babies, pussycats, pumpkins! Fabulous to see you, totally mean that, been too long, what’s your latest project, that’s great, how’d the rehab stint go, glad to hear it, have they dropped the charges yet, absolutely terrif to hear that, gotta run, have your service call my service we’ll do breakfast lunch dinner, love ya! God, I hate that individual . . . As...

Great Cesear’s film reference! I know you’re all shocked, waiting as you have been for the start of our next series with a worm on your tongue (baited breath. Thank you! Try the veal!) but we’re delaying our next series a week because here at Max, Mike; Movies we are nothing if not topical! Yes, truly we are the skin disease of movie podcasts. After an absence of many moons (and several asteroids)...

By the Spear of Odin/Wotan/Woden/Veratyr and lots of others! Welcome, most valorous warriors to this, the Twilight Of The Series “Give Me One More Chance.” Today you draw your blades with us as we face the trial of the final movie of our lord Thor/Thunor/Donar/Irving (that last one is a rare translation) and if we fall on the field of cinema, we shall all die gloriously! Quaff some mead (which mea...

Welcome to the next-to-last episode in our “Give Me One More Chance” series. Before we get into this latest installment of the “Mission: Impossible” series (which should be called “Mission: Impossible: Too Many Colons”), we have some unpleasant business to take care of. I’m afraid our top-secret Max, Mike; Movie headquarters has been infiltrated by an enemy agent. Isn’t that right, Bumpy? Or shoul...

Ok, ok, hang on, hold that still . . . so, in honor of this week’s entry in our “Give Me One More Chance” series, the found-footage, shaky-cam opus “Cloverfield,” I’m creating my very own handheld video masterpiece “Thistlemeadow,” complete with terrifying monsters and human drama, so let’s get, wha’ . . . DAMN, I dropped the video camera  . . . hang on . . . crap, it’s under the couch. I can...

Well, good evein’ to you all, ladies and gents, a very good, Ah say, Ah say, a very good evening to all of you. ‘cept, mebbe it ain’t such a good evenin’ for one individual in particular, hear in our “Give Me One More Chance” series. Yes, one individual ain’t gonna get no more chances, Ah say, Ah say, no more chances. Now I ain’t no big city crime solver, I’m just that simple country-boy detective...

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of “Give Me One More Chance” at Max and Mike’s House of Magic *poof* *cough, hack* uh, yes, magic smoke! Stupid, semi-toxic magic smoke . . . I mean, Oooo! Such magic! Now I have here the very magical Dagger of Dennak, which I assure you is very real and very sharp, as I will demonstrate by cutting this . . .OW! Ow, oh Vishanti, that was my finge...

Ok, Indy, ok. Enough. It’s too much, you understand? The candy, the flowers, the cards, the singing gorilla-grams . . . it’s gotta stop. Sure, we’re doing a series called “Give Me One More Chance”, and yes, your last movie didn’t exactly smooth over what you did in the movie before it . . . I’m NOT being unreasonable and I NEVER promised I wouldn’t bring it up again! Stop gaslighting me! Ok, ok, d...

Helloooo, Adventurers! Welcome back to our series “Give Me One More Chance”! Your quest today . . . is to listen to OUR quest today, which is to revisit the most recent attempt to bring the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons (a game that Mike and I MIGHT have some teeny, tiny, very slight connection to and experience with) to the silver screen. Silver? Where? Quickly, loot the bodies f...

Welcome to another new, minty-fresh, sanitized-for-your-convenience series here at “Max, Mike; Movies”! After 300 episodes, we’re in a forgiving mood. Our hearts are filled with love and whipped hydrogenated oil.  We’ve all been hurt in the past, some of us as recently as this morning (sorry Mike! You just looked so flammable!), by friends, by lov-ahs, and, of course, by movies. So, so many m...

Three hundred episodes! Who would have believed it? It seems like only yesterday that people were asking us “why are you bothering?” over and over and over. Then came the genuine incredulity, the open hostility, the petitions begging us to stop, the changes in city zoning laws to try to outlaw us, the angry mobs, the torches, the screaming and wailing, and the violence, the savage, brutal violence...

Welcome to the final Roger Corman episode (no, really, we mean it this time) in our mini-series “Be Adjacent to the Cor-Man.” Super-hero movies: can you believe there was a time when they weren’t being released on a daily basis? This dim and distant era was called “The 1990’s” and we didn’t have any of this fancy CGI crap or compelling stories or talented actors! No! We had to stuff hamsters into...

We thought we were free of the Cor-Man, but we’ve decided to do him true honor, we must honor the films that he may not have directed but that are still covered in his sweaty hand-prints, and this week is no different . . . from this week. We’re taking on 1977’s “Grand Theft Auto,” the directorial debut of one Opie Cunningham . . . I mean, Ron Howard! Yes, before he started winning Oscars and Satu...

We’ve done it! We’ve come to the end of our series “Be Like the Cor-Man”! They all laughed at us, laughed at us, I tell you! They said we were mad! Mad!! Well, now who’s mad?! Ahahahahahaha! We’ve made it through Roger Corman’s final directorial opus “Frankenstein Unbound”! They told us only lunatics would even attempt such an abomination! Fools! Credulous, hidebound fools! Who’s laughing now, eh,...

Log entry, nighttime, July something or other. So, we’re coming to the end of our series “Be Like the Cor-Man” and in preparation for our discussion of “The Trip,” an exploration of the effects of an LSD experience, I’ve decided to really commit to the message of the film, so I’ve eaten half a sheet of blotter acid in preparation. I’m pretty sure that’s a reasonable dose for a beginner; the intern...

Once upon a weekend dreary, while I pondered, drunk and bleary, Over many a scratched and stainéd film, inducing quite a snore – On the toilet I sat crapping, while the weekend I was mapping In my head, my brain foot-tapping, hoping not to be a bore. Surely there is something more! Ah, distinctly I remember! It was May, no, wait, December! Or maybe bleak November, I don’t know, my head is sore. As...

Hey, all you Daddy-os and cool chicks! Get hip to this new scene, man! We got some groovin’ behoovin’ all in the name of that heppest of hepcats Rog Corman and man, is this guy a real gone cat! We’re  diggin’ the scene in our scenario-series “Be Like the Cor-man”, man, and brother, have we got a blast this week with “A Bucket of Blood”. Man, we’re not just copping a bit, we’re not a couple of...

In 1977, a little indie film called “Star Wars” was released, ushering in a new era for science-fiction films. Its budget? Eleven million dollars. To which Roger “Be Like the Cor-Man” Corman replied “hold my beer” and a mere three years later presented the world with the sci-fi epic “Battle Beyond the Stars” for a much more reasonable two million dollars. Clearly, the Cor-Man knew where to trim th...

There’s a new superhero in town, the man they call “X”! He has the power to see through things! Clothing! Human skin! Manila file folders! And how does he use this power to fight crime, you ask? Uh . . . well, I guess he could see criminals naked and mock them about any body image problems they might have until they surrendered out of sheer embarrassment and shame. Wow . . . X is kind of a jerk. L...

Tremble before the rise of the Cor-man! We’re in “Be Like the Cor-man” now, up to our necks! For all his chintzy budgets, churned-out scripts, and lilliputian shooting schedules, Roger Corman hardly ever lost money on any of his pictures. Some of those pictures . . . one finds oneself asking “how?” as is the case of the 1960 now-cult-classic “Little Shop of Horrors” (not the musical, but it’s insp...

Spit fire and save matches, we’ve got us a new series! And it’s a doozy, recognizing one of the greatest most talented highly influential directors of the last hundred years. Who you may ask? Ron Howard? Sure, “Apollo 13” is decent and “A Beautiful Mind” won some minor awards like an Oscar but did he bring us “Dinoshark”? No, he did not! Martin Scorsese? Yeah, yeah, “Raging Bull,” “Mean Streets,”...