Movie Roulette Tuesday: The Podcast

Send us Fan Mail It’s time for another listener pick and this time the submitter is our special guest host for this episode. Loyal listener and good friend Mike wanted us to watch the 1985 film Runaway Train which helped foster his passion for trains.  The film stars Jon Voight and Eric Roberts where two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a speeding train with...

Send us Fan Mail We go down under to close out our theme of “It’s Magic!” with the 1980 Australian fantasy thriller Harlequin .  The film, a modern day retelling of the story of Rasputin, is about a magical healer who seemingly cures a senator’s son of leukemia, but gets close enough to the family to make the senator’s handlers uncomfortable.  We also talk about the “Ozploitation” film genre, our...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our magical theme this week with a fantasy film from 1988: “Willow.”  Directed by Ron Howard, produced by George Lucas, and starring Val Kilmer, Warwick Davis and Joanne Whalley. You want magic?  This movie delivers.  There’s real magic, illusions, fairies, brownies, good and evil sorceresses, magic wands. . . I could go on.  It’s also a personal film favorite of Karl’...

Send us Fan Mail Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls please step right up, give us a moment of your time and be amazed!  We have for you a new theme so fantastic, so incredible that you won't believe your very ears.  Reaching beyond the bounds of your wildest imagination, of everything you thought possible we bring you "It's Magic!".   First on the stage to overwhelm your sens...

Send us Fan Mail Our next listener pick, chosen by loyal lister and family to the show Michael, is the 1982 John Carpenter classic The Thing !  The film stars Kurt Russell as a member of an Antarctic research team who must do battle with an alien that can take on the form of anyone.   We also discuss the big local news of the week, what locals were calling the “big boom”.  What was the big boom ex...

Send us Fan Mail We close out our theme of “Movies That Couldn’t Be Made Today” with the 2002 forgotten oddity Tiptoes . You can’t make this up. Gary Oldman only did the movie because he had bills to pay. Kate Beckinsale agreed to the SAG minimum as long as she could wear her “lucky hat” during filming. The writer/director tried to get his name completely removed from the movie. Matthew McConaughe...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our theme of "Movies That Couldn't Be Made Today" with one that literally couldn't (for TECH-nical reasons). . .  we are watching something filmed in vibrant, beautiful, and now extinct TECHNICOLOR!!!  Our shining example of this format is 1947's "Black Narcissus."  Directed by the duo of Powell and Pressburger, starring Deborah Kerr...

Send us Fan Mail We've got another new theme this week and this time we will be delving into "movies that could not be made today".  There could be various social, technical, political or other reasons why but regardless, these will be movies that would not see the light of day in our modern times. Up first we have the Arthurian legend fever-dream that is 1981's Excalibur .  Fe...

Send us Fan Mail This week we have another listener pick for the podcast; this time it is a submission from our wonderful, longtime friend and fellow cinephile Andrew, who recommended to us (in a very off-the-cuff fashion), 1976's "Taxi Driver."  Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd and Jodie Foster, this iconic film is about a mentally unstable l...

Send us Fan Mail We finish up our theme of “All Roads Lead to Rome” with Dario Argento’s 1970 directorial debut, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage , a giallo film set in Rome. It’s about an American writer vacationing in Rome who witnesses a brutal attack and decides to investigate the case himself.  We talk about the origins of the giallo film genre, as well as play the newest game out there on t...

Send us Fan Mail Do you ever have that feeling of deja vu?  Of history repeating itself?  Of waking up to Sonny and Cher EVERY morning?  Well if not, no worries!  You can live vicariously through the hapless and cynical weatherman, Phil Connors in 1993's "Groundhog Day."  Directed by Harold Ramis, and starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliot, this film is a classic mus...

Send us Fan Mail ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED (by our podcast)?!  We are starting a new theme this week and this time it's "all roads lead to Rome".  If you're unfamiliar with the phrase it is a proverb that means there are many different ways (or paths, methods, or approaches) to reach the same goal, destination, or conclusion. It emphasizes that the end result is what matters, not...

Send us Fan Mail Our "I can't remember" theme is over and it's time for another listener pick before starting the next round.   ' Strawberry Mansion ' was sent to us in a dream by Kayla where in the year 2035, a dream auditor working for an all-seeing surveillance state meets a lifelong dreamer who remains resolutely analog, protecting her unconscious from corporate o...

Send us Fan Mail It’s time for a field trip as the MRT crew hits the theater for Karl’s pick, Project Hail Mary , starring Ryan Gosling as a school teacher who awakens on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there. Because this was based on a novel of the same name by Andy Weir that Karl bought in an airport, we also discuss whether we like our sci-fi soft or hard, as well as whether we have a...

Send us Fan Mail This episode, we continue our theme of “I Can’t Remember.”  Our pick, “ The Snake Pit, ” a very Deep Track from 1948 starring Olivia de Havilland, is about a woman who wakes up in a mental institution, with no initial memory of how she ended up there.  We also dive into Western Civilization’s approaches to mental illness throughout history and discuss how this film exposed the les...

Send us Fan Mail It's time for a new theme and this time around we have "I can't remember".  This round will involve movies related to memory loss, amnesia, forgotten identity, ummm... loss of memory and maybe some other themes that I can't seem to recall at this time. Up first we have 'Memento', from somewhere around the turn of the century... maybe the year 200...

Send us Fan Mail We have our next listener chosen pick this week, which is 2005’s MirrorMask , suggested by friend of the show Melissa! This film is about a teenager who escapes from her life working at her family’s circus to a fantasy world after her mother has an unexpected health emergency.  We discuss the history of the film, its connections with the Jim Henson company, as well as the unique a...

Send us Fan Mail We close out our theme of “The Ocean Is Vast” this week with 1989’s creature feature Leviathan , about a crew of underwater minors battling a mysterious undersea enemy. Is it a ripoff of Alien and The Thing? Some people think so. Did we?  Tune in to find out! This film was part of what is known in Hollywood as a “trend cluster”, in which multiple films around the same theme are al...

Send us Fan Mail This week, the vastness of the ocean continues; this time we are trapped on a capsized cruise ship, overturned by a rogue wave and climbing our way to freedom in reverse.  That's right, it's 1972's " The Poseidon Adventure, " starring a very "hands-on" Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Roddy McDowell and many, many others. We also d...

Send us Fan Mail Hi Everyone.  Hope everyone is surviving snowpocalypse 2026.  We are buried here and I'm trying to get this episode out at the last minute (as usual) before we lose power. Our new theme this round is 'The Ocean is Vast' and in this episode we will be discussing the 2012 film Kon-Tiki , where in 1947, with five loyal friends in tow, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sails a fr...

Send us Fan Mail Buon Giorno! Welcome to our inaugural listener's choice pick, which is exciting for us.  It is a suggestion from loyal listener, two-time guest host, and very good friend Brian.  He would like us to watch and review " Inglourious Basterds ,"  a 2009 alternate history film set in Nazi occupied France, from one of the MRT crew's most unanimously loved directors,...

Send us Fan Mail We close out our “Criterion” theme with 1973’s Don’t Look Now , spine number 745 in the Criterion Collection. This Nicholas Roeg adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier short story stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as grieving parents who are mourning the accidental drowning of their daughter. While working on restoring a historic church in Venice, they are approached by a pair...

Send us Fan Mail We continue on with our Criterion Collection theme:  this time it's spine number 1156; " Arsenic and Old Lace, " a 1944 screwball comedy classic, directed by Frank Capra and starring Carey Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre. Based on a stage play of the same name, this is the story of a dysfunctional, and mildly insane, family who literally have b...

Send us Fan Mail Hello everyone, and welcome to season 4 of the Movie Roulette Tuesday Podcast! We have a lot in store for this season and to start we are shaking things up by.... dropping shake-ups.  But worry not!  We have something new and exciting to take their place.  We detail the changes in this episode. Kicking off the new season is our new theme, "The Criterion Collection".  Yes...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the end of Season 3!  While we don't watch a movie this episode, we do go back and look at what we have seen over the past year, including our annual tradition of bestowing superlatives, as well as how our little podcast is growing and where people are listening.  We also talk a little bit about we might have in store for Season 4.  It was the best of films; it was...