Notorious by Chance

When a weird voice in a cornfield tells you to build a baseball field, you listen, and hope it somehow works out. In 1989 America heard the famous words "If you build it, he will come," in Field of Dreams. We're looking at this movie as a tribute to the late great icon James Earl Jones, who stars in this alongside Kevin Costner. This is often cited as one of the great American cinematic tearjerker...

We're ending this year by sweeping the leg. It's odd to think of all the franchises to have 40 years' worth of longevity one of them is The Karate Kid is one of them. A massive hit in 1984 this film spawned 2 sequels, a spinoff, a remake, and TV show, and even an impending sequel in 2025. Often considered one of the most iconic films of the 1980's what made this movie a staple for so many? Let's w...

Every now and then we get to a period where people don't really know what to do with The Muppets (we're currently in one of those periods right now) resulting in some.......odd project choices. That's not to say they're bad, case in point 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol. This was the first Muppet movie to be made without the involvement of creator Jim Henson. Adapting the classic novel by Charle...

PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN NOW!!!!! In 1996 America got another taste of the very rare family friendly Arnold Schwarzenegger with Jingle All the Way. The film which paired Arnold with the only star on his level at the time.........Sinbad..........no seriously..........has gained reputation for being a movie that is bad, but people seem to love anyway for a litany of strange reasons. And we're going to e...

Let's face facts: there aren't many big Thanksgiving movies. You have Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and then........ not much. Well Eli Roth took the opportunity to make a movie that can become a staple of the holiday, and in what many would consider a surprise he kind of did. Based on the fake trailer from the 2007 double feature Grindhouse, Thanksgiving came out to good reviews from both crit...

30 years ago the beloved series of novels by Anne Rice got it's very first adaptation with the 1994 film Interview with a Vampire. The gothic drama gave the world a different look at vampires with a mixture of established talent and rising stars. How does this movie stand up 30 years later? We're here to talk about that

We want to play a game..........20 years ago the world got it's first glimpse into the world of Saw. It's an understatement to say that this changed the genre for a while. For better or for worse? That's for you to decide. But it is still a massive achievement in it's own right. It's also fascinating to see, given where this franchise ended up, how the whole thing got started. Why? That's what we'...

One of our favorite staples of Scare Fest is Stephen King Time. This year we're looking at the 2013 version of Carrie! Trying to go toe to toe with the '76 original is a tall order, does this one pull it off?..........No, but it's a matter of HOW it doesn't pull it off that's interesting

It's hard to believe after all this time we haven't talked about one of our all-time favorite horror icons: Freddy Kruger, and considering this year marks the 40th anniversary of his debut we thought it was fitting to talk about the original Nightmare on Elm Street. A horror staple of the 80's what is it about this film that scared so many? Let's talk about it

One of the most celebrated trilogies of all time is Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" and strangely enough the most celebrated movie in that trilogy is the prequel. Although The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly was the last film released in the trilogy, chronologically it takes place before the first two. Often regarded as not just one of the great westerns but one of the greatest movies ever made, Th...

After a long hiatus we're back and we're already breaking rules. 1999 is regarded as one of the greatest years, if not THE greatest year, of all time for movies. There are many movies we could've looked at from '99 that are considered modern classics, but we were handed David Fincher's Fight Club. An interesting psychological drama, that makes for an interesting conversation ab...

Sometimes a movie comes along that is so bad it transcends being a bad movie into something more, The Room is one of those movies. Released in 2003 as the passion project of director/writer/producer/star Tommy Wiseau, The Room gained a massive following as one of the biggest cult comedies of all time......and at no point is the movie trying to be funny (despite what Tommy may try to tell you). Aft...

We already talked about the sequel in less than stellar regard (well one of us did), but the reason is because of how much we love the first film. 1990's Home Alone takes a story that should never have worked and manages to turn it into a modern Christmas Classic. Why is it we ignore the several leaps in logic you have to take in order to love this film? That's what we're going to disc...

In this long overdue episode we jump into the long overdue world of foreign cinema. It's funny as much as we've talked about our love and respect for foreign films we've never actually reviewed one. Well that stops now as we look at the 2008 Swedish Vampire Smash: Let the Right One In. In terms of contemporary Vampires this film is often regarded as one of the absolute best. How does t...

Fitting It comes out to feed every 27 years because it took almost that long to get this episode out. After a long development process the feature film adaptation of Stephen King's iconic novel finally made it's way to the big screen. The film wasn't just big, it was HUGE bringing in great reviews and and incredible return at the box office. 6 years and one sequel later how does it com...

Our examination of Eastwood's career end fittingly with a film that (at the time) signaled the end of his acting career. 2000 onward feels like the time where Clint Eastwood the actor took a backseat while Clint Eastwood the director stepped into the forefront, thematically that isn't more evident than it is with 2008's Gran Torino, a scaled down personal drama about an old man who fin...

With Pale Rider we talked about how Clint Eastwood was able to modernize certain western tropes for the modern era. That concept is something he perfects in 1992's Unforgiven. The 90's Western is often seen as the Eastwood's Magnum Opus, and it's hard to dispute that. It was released to rave reactions from audiences, lauded by critics, and got Eastwood his first Oscar for both Best...

After a 70's period where Eastwood said "I've arrived" he followed that up with an even more prolific 80's. If we're being frank in this decade the misses do outnumber the hits but at the same time when he got it right, he got it RIGHT. One of his biggest hits involves him going back to the genre that made him great with 1985's Pale Rider. With this film Eastwood took...

Any actor who gets big enough seems to try their hand at directing. Some do it really well, some not so much, but arguably the best to ever do it is the subject of our Direct-ember this year: Clint Eastwood. After spending nearly 2 decades in front of the camera he tried his hand at actually directing and that decision eventually led to him being arguably the greatest Actor/Director of all time. W...

In 1997 well known action director James Cameron decided to try his hand at a historical epic romance. We're not sure what the reaction was when this was announced but we know absolutely nobody is laughing at the results. Titanic is a landmark film when it comes to box office, setting several records including becoming the highest grossing film in history at the time, as well as being the firs...

This week we got something special as for the first time since our first season we got a Copy-Cat Double Feature. This is where we look at 2 movies that had a similar premise that came out around the same time. Our first try at this had us looking at the Asteroid Movies of '98 (Armageddon and Deep Impact) this week we'll be looking at the Magic Movies of '06 The Prestige and The Illusi...

Not long ago we lost an actor who we felt we took for granted for a long time, Alan Arkin. The man had a career that spanned over 70 years with a multitude of different types of performances whether it be lead, supporting, dramatic, comedic, whatever it was he could do it and do it well. So in honor of his life and career we're looking at a film that is often regarded as one of his best works...

Figures that as we have several high profile films underperforming at the box office our subject today is Box Office Bombs. 2008 was a summer known for ton of high profile hits like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and WALL-E, it's also known for having one of the biggest bombs in cinematic history Speed Racer. Based on the manga of the same name Speed Racer was directed by the Wachowskis and was re...

Somehow we've ended up with 3 movies in a row celebrating milestone anniversaries. 30 years ago this year Philadelphia was released in theaters, it was the follow-up to Jonathan Demme's Oscar Darling The Silence of the Lambs, and it helped the emergence of two actors who would become icons of the screen in Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. The film is also regarded as being a landmark of ho...

If we had to describe this episode in one sentence we would say "it really ties the show together." The Big Lebowski came out in 1998 and overtime has achieved not just cult status but a genuine reputation. People have gravitated towards it's memorable lines, scenarios, and (let's be honest here) utter lack of anything resembling a plot. At the center is Jeff Bridges as Jeff &quo...