Recovered

It's part two of the Recovered/Academy Vs Audience crossover! After Keith popped over to AVA to discuss 1961's West Side Story, Claire and Erin hop into Recovered to talk Steven Spielberg's 2021 Oscar nominated remake. What improvements did Spielberg make? What did he sacrifice to make them? Who deserved more Oscar love than they got, and who absolutely deserved all they did/didn&ap...

Get set to get wet, because Dan and Keith are heading into the water for two takes on murder fish! In 1978, king of schlock Roger Corman gives newbie director Joe Dante a break with his Jaws knock-of Piranha, then decades later the self-aware schlock of the 2010s cranked the spicy content to 11 for the oddly star-studded Piranha 3D. Dan and Keith unpack the hedonism, the gore, the inevitable secon...

Grab your Panama hat, warm up the houseboat, and keep a weather eye out for rakes, because Recovered is heading to Cape Fear! Dan and Keith head back to the 1960s, when Gregory Peck produced an adaptation of the novel The Executioners only to get out-acted by Robert Mitchum and end up bankrupting his own production company. Three decades (ish) later, film legend Martin Scorsese takes a crack at th...

Dan and Keith dig into two attempts to make the Mario Bros Movie: one live action flick that's an infamous failure, and one Minion-Motion animated movie that, depending on your take, might be a regrettable success? We've got love for Leguizamo, debates on "quippiness," and questions on how rational it is to expect every animated movie to reach the heights of the Lego Movies. Yo...

Roll for initiative, listeners, because it's time to delve Dungeons for Dragons! Two movies attempted to bring the classic table-top role playing game to the big screen, and one's a true treasure chest while the other is but a vicious mimic. Dan and Keith turn the clock back to 2000 to watch Jeremy Irons savagely, remorselessly overact in Dungeons and Dragons, then pop to just a couple o...

Wax your board, check your chute, and pop a Monster or a Red Bull (not NOS, wrong franchise), because it's time for EXTREME crimes in Point Break! Dan and Keith venture back to then-power-couple Kathryn Bigalow and James Cameron's surfing and bank robbing bromance, as Keanu Reeves pursues Patrick Swayze, and Lori Petty is also here to keep the homoeroticism in the subtext. Then 24 years...

After 18 films of Batmans dark or campy, Supermans classic and infamous, and the two V-ing each other, the journey concludes, and it's time to tackle the Justice Leagues. Dan and Keith unpack all four hours of Zack Snyder's Justice League, examine the new scenes the studio hammered into the theatrical cut, and look at the strengths and weaknesses of each versions (yes, they each have bot...

And so, after 11 movies' worth of eight Batmen, and six movies covering three Supermen, Dan and Keith arrive at their intersection: Zack Snyder's... let's call it divisive opus Batman V Superman. Keith hates, Dan likes it, they're digging into to who's right while admitting that "flawless masterpiece vs worst movie ever" discourse is just, it's just, it&apos...

John Tebbutt, your Video Vulture, is back to walk Dan and Keith through the history of Donald Westlake's Parker novels, and the feature films similar to but legally distinct from his classic anti-hero protagonist. Back in the 1960s, classic Tough Guy Lee Marvin plays "Walker," the Parker-esque crook out to wring his rightful cut of some heist money out of organized crime syndicate T...

With the journey through nearly every cinematic Batman complete, Dan and Keith turn their gaze to the film history of the Man of Tomorrow, the Last Son of Krypton, Superman! From Reeves to Reeve to Routh to... 'Ry Cavill, we take on every theatrically released Superman, and review the legacy of Richard Donner in both this franchise and beyond. Keith picks apart powers and Dan tries to bring u...

In the wake of the 95th Oscars (recorded before they happened), Dan and Keith take on two takes of a classic war story from opposite ends of film history with All Quiet on the Western Front, and how it's evolved from the dawn of the sound era to the age of the Netflix Exclusive. First, a look the 1930 OG, the third film ever to win Best Picture, less of a story than a sketch the-absolute-oppo...

Dan and Keith plunge into forgotten crypts to unearth an examination of the cinematic takes on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider! First, Oscar winner Angelina Jolie takes Lara through two movies, one hyper-dumb but somewhat fun, one that's more competent but less interesting. Then, once the video games reinvent themselves to target a new audience, Oscar winner Alicia Vikander brings this new less hyper...

Round two of Recovered's journey through cinematic Bat-history! We leave behind the aggressive camp of the 90s and plunge into a aggressive realism of the 21st century Bats... with a detour into things animated and block-based along the way. Will we find the Best Batman? Which two wildly different movies are the lead competitors? What makes for a happy or sad ending to a Bat-flick? Dan and Ke...

The time has come, the promised day has arrived: Keith and Dan begin their journey through the entire cinematic history of the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, the goddamn Batman. This instalment takes us from the camp days of Adam West to the camp revival of Joel Schumacher, as our hosts assess each era by the aesthetics, characters, story, action, and Dan's many opinions on music. We may no...

We've talked about what the big superhero franchises should do next, now Dan and Keith dive into 2023's crop of reboots, remakes, and requels to see what's worth getting excited for. Evil Dead is back? Hell yes. Can an Exorcist requel compete with Conjuring spin-offs? Are we sure the Wonka origin movie isn't a joke? Which is the one we're angriest we have to root for? All...

While taking a holiday break, Dan and Keith sat by roaring fires to sip seasonal beverages* and discuss not remakes that have been made, but those yet to come. Some major IPs are barreling towards rebooting; what do they need to do to improve on what's already been done? From the tone of Marvel's First Family to underused villains to criminally neglected characters, Dan and Keith and a s...

Recovered remains festive in our own weird way as Dan and Keith dig into the horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night, and its 2010s remake simply titled Silent Night. Santas are out to punish the guilty in elaborate, gory ways, and Keith and Dan struggle to parse exactly why and to form any sort of connection with the rapidly introduced victims. Which sinister Santa is committing the most holly,...

Recovered gets festive as Dan and Keith dig into three takes on Dr. Seuss' classic heist tale, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. A brief overview of the animated short, then the two big screen Grinches: Jim Carrey in a rubber fursuit, and the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch as what Keith hates to learn is The Grinch Tumblr Got Horny For. Who Grinched the best? Had the least obtrusive backstory? W...

Special guest John Tebbutt, the Video Vulture, joins Dan and Keith through a tour of cinematic Djangos. In the beginning, the spaghetti western Django introduces a mysterious gunfighter with a coffin; decades later, Japan gets into the Django game with the Quentin Tarantino-backed-and-co-starring Sukiyaki Western Django, somehow set in feudal Japan, the old west, and also Tudor England maybe; then...

Recovered eases our way out of spooky season by switching from horror to suspense, with two adaptations of Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca. First up, Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick takes a chance on a rookie British filmmaker named Alfred Hitchcock to bring the novel to live with (future Sir) Laurence Olivier; eight decades later, Netflix takes another crack at it with full...

Dan and Keith have such sights to show you, as Recovered tackles Hellraiser! Travel back to the late 80s, as horror Maestro Clive Barker adapts his own novella about the Cenobites, unearthly beings with no distinction between pleasure and pain, and how they become minor players in one young woman's struggle against her step-mother and abusive, recently undead uncle. Then catch up to... a coup...

Welcome to spooky season! Dan and Keith begin to settle into the Halloween spirit with the brat pack (citation needed) thriller Flatliners and the 2010s remake that see med students attempting to peek beyond the veil to see what waits beyond death, only to learn the answer is varying amounts of murder ghosts. The original assembles an early 90s all star ensemble, with Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Baco...

Three movies, two cities, 30 heisters! Dan and Keith go back to the 60s for Ocean's 11, the Rat Pack's heist flick that gave them an excuse to party in Vegas, then hop to 2001 for the remake that spawned a franchise, and to 2018 for the female led requel Ocean's 8! Who had the best crew? The best heist? Could they maybe have had better female roles sooner? (Hint: yes.) Did people in...

Get set to get wet as Recovered goes to sea for the Poseidon Adventure, one of the highlights of the 70s disaster flick craze, and it's 2000s remake, simply titled Poseidon. The 70s bring a star-studded cast, and the remake is filled with actors Dan knows from things Keith refuses to watch. Ships are flipped, lives are lost, and don't get attached to the actors playing the captain. Which...

Dan and Keith venture back into horror for iconic 80s classic Poltergeist, and the 2010s sequel they needed to be reminded happened. We dig into the big questions: who really directed the original? How can the remake star both Sam Rockwell and Jared Harris yet pass this unmemorably? Who's using the supporting cast better? If practical effects can be this jaw dropping, why keep messing with di...