Pop Culture Pastor

What makes a great Fourth of July movie? We take Cosmopolitan’s Top 15 , load up the full ListBusters arsenal, and proceed to absolutely wreck it. Movies get nuked, sniped, recast, rocketed, and switched as War Horse falls fast, movies you've never heard of somehow reach #1, National Treasure becomes collateral damage, and Rocky IV fights its way into the final rankings. Plus, bonus chaos: mor...

Dave is back from Maine (a.k.a. real-life Fromville) just in time for the Season 4 finale. Dave and Cody break down "If a Tree Falls in the Forest…" AKA the biggest bloodbath the show has served up in ages. Jade confesses he lied about the bones. The bottle tree comes down and the sky goes dark. Smiley walks into the clinic and takes Marielle. Fatima reveals her secret. Can Henry pull th...

SPOILERS!!!! Dave's just back from vacation in Maine, so he and Cody recorded this one as an unedited, free-flowing conversation. They review Supergirl, the second film in James Gunn's rebooted DCU. They dig into Milly Alcock carrying the movie almost single-handedly, the grief and trauma (and Krypto violence) at the story's core, the choices with the ending, the literally-too-dark vis...

Dave's on vacation, so Cody takes the wheel with a very special guest co-host: his wife Leah. Together they break down "The Calm," the penultimate episode of From Season 4. Sophia recruits Clara with a blood pact and a promise of going home. We learn the escape isn't just about getting the bones, it's about the ritual and doing it exactly right. Henry's coma-dream tighten...

Hulk Hogan spent so long being Hulk Hogan that the man underneath, Terry Bollea, may have disappeared entirely. We watched the Netflix documentary "Hulk Hogan: Real American," his final interview before his death, and Dave, Cody, & DJ Dangerfield dig into all of it. What do we sacrifice to be famous? Was anything ever bigger than Hulkamania at its peak? Why did he lie about the stero...

Dave & Cody break down "Heavy Is the Head," the eighth episode of From Season 4... Boyd's tremors and hallucinations are spiraling and he finally confesses the truth to Kristi. Henry sinks deeper into his coma-dream, complete with a doctor telling him to "remove the anchor." Jade realizes the bottle tree grows right on top of the bone chamber and pitches a two-team extraction plan. And in a cl...

Dave & Cody bring back Kiefer, a college debate coach and cinephile, to review Disclosure Day, the new original Spielberg alien movie. The vintage Spielberg machine is back together: John Williams on score, Janusz Kamiński shooting, David Koepp writing, Michael Kahn editing. Dave makes the case that the whole movie is tuned to a frequency Gen X kids hear and millennials might not. The table di...

The truth is finally out, and it goes about as well as you'd expect. Dave and Cody break down "Best Laid Plans," the seventh episode of From Season 4. Boyd and Tabitha tell the town about the reincarnations. Henry, full of Sophia's blood, rejects all of it. Boyd's plan to test the totem spear on the creatures goes catastrophically sideways. And Elgin — sweet, one-eyed, busted...

Dave & Cody bring back 80's kid, Lance Burnett, to review Masters of the Universe, the new live-action He-Man movie 39 years in the making. The three of them split hard on this one. Dave had fun with it, Cody calls it a misfire, and Lance lands somewhere in between. They dig into the camp, the nostalgia, the sword swerve, Jared Leto's hard-to-understand Skeletor, and the thin handling...

The Memorial Day break is over and the band is getting back together. Dave and Cody dig into "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" — the sixth episode of From Season 4. Jade and Boyd argue their way through the entire first act. Donna has a heart attack at the most suspicious possible moment. Sophia cuts open her own hand and slips her blood into Henry's drink. Ethan and Victor draw their m...

By the power of Grayskull, we made a huge mistake. This week on Be Kind Rewind, Dave, Cody, & Paul Walcher revisit 1987's Masters of the Universe — the flop that took down an entire movie studio. We dig into what holds up (Frank Langella performing Shakespeare under a skull mask, Dolph Lundgren as a walking action figure, James Tolkan from Back to the Future as a hardboiled detective who s...

Dave & Cody bring in Star Wars superfan (and middle school choir teacher) Lance Burnett to review The Mandalorian & Grogu Is it a real movie or just a really long episode of the show? Dave makes the case that it's the franchise's "Temple of Doom moment," Cody goes after the critics, and Lance drops deep-cut lore that'll make you want to watch it again. Plus: the music...

Strap in, because Jade is finally going on a trip. Dave & Cody break down "What a Long Strange Trip It's Been," the fifth episode of From Season 4 and the one that finally starts handing over answers. Jade's vision quest takes him through his own past lives and into the tunnels under Fromville, and he comes back convinced he knows how to save the children. Tabitha taps into h...

"No, I am your father." This week on the pod, its a Be Kind Rewind! Dave & Cody revisit The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — the movie that turns 46 this year and might still be the greatest sequel ever made. We dig into what holds up (everything — the tone, Yoda, the carbonite scene, Harrison Ford ad-libbing the most iconic line in film history), what doesn't (Leia kissing Luke is a...

Dave is back from a week off and there is a LOT to catch up on. Dave & Cody do a speed-run recap of episode three "Merrily We Go," then dig into the season's biggest hour yet — episode four, "Of Myths and Monsters." Boyd and Jade continue their mission to find answers. Henry gets the worst news any father has ever received. Sophia trains Sara like a dog using a glass of...

Six guys walk into an Airbnb in the mountains of Tennessee. Phones on airplane mode. Men who say they're with the U.S. government. A warning that what's coming will "shake the foundations of human civilization." A week later, the government drops 162 files. And it's… a triangular smudge over the moon, a football-shaped blob near Japan, and a 1947 weather balloon. Dave and Cod...

Bob Wiley wants you to know there are two kinds of people in this world. People who love Neil Diamond and people who don't. This week on Pop Culture Pastor, Dave & Cody revisit Frank Oz's What About Bob? (1991) in a Be Kind Rewind. The Bill Murray comedy turns 35 this year and might be the most documented on-set nightmare in Hollywood history. We dig into what holds up (the pacing, Dre...

Fromville wakes up to a fresh horror. A bag on the motel sign. A message and discovery in the barn that nobody — least of all the kids who find it — was ready for. Dave & Cody break down "Fray," the second episode of From Season 4. Jade gets validated by a murder. Acosta steals an ambulance and a "doctor." Sophia gasps at a ballerina figurine and forces a Fromspiracy revisi...

Rotten Tomatoes says these movies are trash. Dave, Cody, & Jackson respectfully disagree. This week's Pop Culture Draft features the best movies critics hated. Every pick has to be sub 50% on the Tomatometer. Three rounds of misunderstood gems, guilty pleasures, and films we'll defend to our graves. Plus a bonus round drafting the best movies under 10%...the truly indefensible cinema w...

Welcome back to Fromville. Dave & Cody dig into the season four premiere, "The Arrival." The Man in Yellow dispatches Jim and walks into town wearing a new face. Boyd starts counting bullets. Fatima processes what she just gave birth to. Kristi stitches up Elgin's eye in way too much detail. And Cody drops a Job theory that might reframe everything. Plus the debut of three new se...

Chevy Chase is one of the most naturally gifted comedians who ever lived, and one of the most universally disliked people in Hollywood. The CNN documentary " I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not" presents him unfiltered, and we had a lot to say about it. Dave, Cody, & Minister DJ Dangerfield dig into the generational disconnects that fuel our culture wars, what happens when brillia...

Dave and Cody close out this season of Watch-alongs by discussing the Shrinking Season 3 finale, "And That's Our Time." Alice leaves for Wesleyan. Gabby finds a ring and proposes on her own terms. Jimmy's perfectly planned goodbyes all fall apart. And Paul flies 3,000 miles to say the thing he should have said three seasons ago. They guys dig into transference, Jimmy's patter...

David Bowie stole a baby and we're here to talk about it. This week on Be Kind Rewind, Dave, Cody, & film professor Paul Walcher revisit Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), the cult classic that bombed at the box office, broke its creator's heart, and then became one of the most beloved fantasy films of a generation. We dig into what holds up (the puppetry is better than ever, Bowie is...

Dave & Cody break down Shrinking Season 3, Episode 10, "The Bodyguard of Sadness" — the penultimate episode of the season where everyone leaves and Jimmy implodes. They dig into grieving relationships with people who are still alive, the difference between criticism and observation when you're too wounded to tell, and whether Paul leaving without resolution makes him just as stub...

Plans changed. Our guest couldn't make it, so we did what any reasonable podcasters would do: We threw open the doors to The Lobby for a full-length Hot Takes edition. Listeners brought the heat with questions about books that should've stayed books, movies that deserve a reboot, sequels that ruined the original, and whether Taylor Swift is overrated (Cody had thoughts). We talk Clive Cuss...