Mildly Pleased

Well, we’ve made it to the end of another season of The Pick, and in this finale we’re saying goodbye to one of our own — Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton, who passed away about a month ago. We discuss the indie director’s short-but-prolific career, while also going in-depth on her criminally underseen 2017 drama Outside […]

Everybody rev your engines, because this week we’re soaring off a jump and crashing our mopeds into a discussion of Hot Rod. Is it the most thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating conversation we’ve ever had? Not really. Does it feature us constantly recalling ridiculous jokes from the movie in question and chuckling to ourselves approvingly? You […]

He who controls THE PICK controls the universe! This week Sean, John, Colin, and special guest Matt “Nancy” Carstens are watching David Lynch’s 1984 sci-fi fantasy nightmare Dune! Why? Cause over the past four months we read Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 novel. How did the film compare to the book? Is David Lynch’s Dune an […]

Get out your two-way wristwatches and your banana-colored trenchoats, because this week we’re talking about Dick Tracy. It’s a movie that seemed to be everywhere when it came out in 1990, and now is more or less forgotten. We delve into Warren Beatty’s long road to getting a Dick Tracy movie made, as well as all […]

Here it comes, here comes The Pick! Once again this week we’re reviewing a live-action movie adaptation of a famous cartoon (and there just might be another one around the corner). Are we talking about these colorful films as some sort of way of escaping our current depressing reality? Possibly. Are we going to talk […]

Slip-on those cat ears because this week we’re talking about the 2001 cult classic Josie and the Pussycats. Listen as we delve into the world of Archie Comics and how they’ve shaped teen culture. Also in this episode, we explore some of the more eclectic Archie spinoffs. Ever heard of Jughead’s Time Police? No? Then […]

After talking about Changing Lanes last week, we’re heading back to New York (and thriller territory) as we talk about 2002’s Phone Booth. The film’s long road to production is discussed as well as the careers of its somewhat eccentric writer and director. Phone Booth also becomes the first film in which both the protagonist and antagonist make […]

For a long time, the three of us have had a mild fascination with the movie Changing Lanes. Like, what’s its deal? It stars two actors that have had a surprising amount of longevity in their careers and has a fun/stupid premise, and yet no one ever talks about it. So much so that this might […]

The world may have shut down, but we’re still intent on delivering episodes of The Pick. I mean, what else better do we have to do? This week we dig into a movie that’s sort of about social distancing, but also, not really, since it involves a lot of men being tucked into very close […]

Looking for a respite from thinking about the coronavirus? Well… sorry. This week, we’re indulging the chaotic state of things by talking about Steven Soderbergh’s timely Contagion. In addition to that, we talk a bit about what it’s like for Sean and John to be in the epicenter of COVID-19 in the U.S., as well […]

Capping off our three-part “body horror” series that included The Invisible Man and the skin-crawling 1996 classic The Nutty Professor is John Landis’ 1981 horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London. In this episode, Sean retells the story of the most infamous “werewolf trial” in history. Also, Colin recommends collectible rubber duckies! We’re over the moon […]

Just in time for a new remake hitting theaters today, we’re talking about the original 1933 Universal Monster movie The Invisible Man. Much like the film itself, it’s a bit of a shorter episode, but still one that sees us taking delight in the film’s cackling villainy. John also offers some insights into how it […]

After a long holiday- and list-induced hiatus, The Pick is back! This week we’re practically overflowing with things to say about a movie that just seemed like a fun one to talk about. The Nutty Professor was a big comeback movie for Eddie Murphy in 1996, as well as one that saw him transitioning away […]

2020 is cooking up something in that lab. We got a new Ghostbusters on the way, a new Top Gun, and a live-action Mulan. We’re not talking about any of those movies but we are talking about other better movies (and in the case of Colin worse). So buckle up into your Ecto-1 and crank […]

Now that you’ve seen our individual lists, it’s time for us to put together an overall list of the top ten movies of 2019. This year was undoubtedly a good year for movies, so much so that we didn’t see all of each other’s picks. Fortunately, there were a lot of movies we were able […]

Another year in the books, another year of mildly pleasing pop culture. Though we may be living in a world of extremes, here we take a look each year at the most middling things that the year had to offer. 2019 had no shortage of things that struck our pleasure centers right in the middle, […]

Ever since The Force Awakens came out 4 years ago, we’ve reviewed a Star Wars movie almost every year in podcast form (sorry Solo). And almost every time, our takes have been fairly cold, seeing as these movies often come out around the holidays, when its hardest to coordinate a podcast among Mildly Pleased’s contributors. Alas, here […]

It’s that yule time of year, so we of course had to talk about a Christmas movie on The Pick. What John picked was Love Actually, a “Christmas classic” that he’s long had a beef with. This movie’s many flaws are discussed over the course of a somewhat cranky Christmas conversation, which sees us breaking […]

In this penultimate episode before we go on a little hiatus from The Pick, we bring things full circle by talking about a film we all admitted to not having seen in the very first episode. Yes, we’re talking about crime thriller Training Day, the film that launched director Antoine Fuqua and writer David Ayer […]

If Martin Scorsese’s new film The Irishman was a little too long for your tastes, here we offer a more abbreviated, 95-minute conversation to give you all you need to know about the film. That said, it’s a film well worth seeing and one filled with all kinds of juicy scenes and weighty themes that […]

Hope everyone’s Thanksgiving and Black Friday were pleasant and free of family fighting. This week we’re talking about a different kind of family – a cyber family. Yes, after talking about the original Tron last week, we’re returning to the grid to talk about Sam Flynn’s odyssey to retrieve his long-lost father played by who […]

This week, we’re hackin’ into Master Computer as well as Disney+ by reviewing 1982’s Tron. It’s a film that’s far from perfect, but also far ahead of its time in terms of its visuals and emphasis on the limitless possibilities of computers. It’s not just a fun conversation, but the episode even sees John making a […]

Just in time for the weather to get a little more frigid and a Frozen sequel to blow into theaters, we’re talking this week about the original Frozen. While its popularity is unquestioned, the boys talk about what makes it so appealing and how it stacks up to the other Disney fairy tales it follows in the […]

Roland Emmerich has blown up the White House (twice!), ravaged Earth (twice!), and unleashed a giant lizard on Manhattan (once, that we know of). But Universal Soldier is where his road to action movie immortality started, by making a movie about PTSD-laden super soldiers trying to blow up each other. This all intersects with Emmerich’s […]

After a month of writing about people trapped in spooky houses with Shocktober, on this latest episode of The Pick we talk about the spookiest house of all.  A house that’s a byproduct of capitalism! Parasite has been regarded by many as a film that is best enjoyed if you know as little going into it […]