Regular or Menthol: Kino Movies Podcast

This week we're shining a light on a film that almost nobody saw and almost everyone who did was completely shattered by.  Snow Angels  (2007) is one of the most devastating, achingly human, and woefully overlooked American dramas of the last 25 years — and it's time the world knew about it. Written and directed by David Gordon Green and based on Stewart O'Nan's 1994 novel, the fil...

Everybody wants Buddy Israel dead. And this week, we want to talk about  Smokin' Aces  (2007) — the gloriously unhinged, hyperkinetic, Tarantino-adjacent crime thriller that critics mostly dismissed and audiences absolutely lost their minds over. This is one of the most chaotically entertaining films of the entire 2000s, and it doesn't get nearly enough credit. Written and directed by Joe...

I love the Power Glove. It's so bad. This week we're plugging in our NES cartridges and heading cross-country for  The Wizard  (1989) — the gloriously shameless, utterly endearing, feature-length Nintendo advertisement that somehow also managed to be one of the most beloved cult films of an entire generation's childhood. Directed by Todd Holland, the film follows three kids on a road t...

Keep the change, ya filthy animal. This week we're heading to Winnetka, Illinois for  Home Alone  (1990) — one of the most beloved, most rewatched, and most endlessly quotable Christmas films in the history of cinema. This is the movie that made Macaulay Culkin a superstar, cemented John Hughes as the king of American family comedy, and somehow became a holiday institution watched by hundreds...

Yippee-ki-yay. This week we're heading to Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve for  Die Hard  (1988) — the film that didn't just launch one of the greatest action franchises of all time, it fundamentally rewrote the rules of what an action movie could be, invented the modern everyman hero, and sparked a holiday debate that is somehow still raging 35 years later. Is  Die Hard  a Christmas movie?...

Wake up, Sam. This week we're orbiting one of the most quietly stunning, deeply human, and criminally underappreciated science fiction films of the 21st century.  Moon  (2009) is a film that does more with less than almost anything else in the genre — and if you haven't seen it, we're about to change your life. The feature film directorial debut of Duncan Jones — yes, David Bowie's...

Hold still. This week we're climbing the hill to the castle at the edge of the pastel suburb for  Edward Scissorhands  (1990) — Tim Burton's most personal, most achingly beautiful, and most enduring film. A Gothic fairy tale about loneliness, belonging, and the cruelty of the ordinary world toward anyone who dares to be different. And one of the most quietly devastating love stories ever p...

When the chimes end — begin. This week we're riding into the Almería desert for  For a Few Dollars More  (1965) — the second film in Sergio Leone's legendary Dollars Trilogy, and the one that gets the least attention despite being, by almost any measure, the most fully realized, most emotionally complex, and most flat-out thrilling of the three. Directed by Sergio Leone, the film stars Cli...

The first rule of this podcast episode is: you absolutely talk about Fight Club. This week we're going deep on  Fight Club  (1999) — David Fincher's savage, visually revolutionary, and endlessly debated psychological thriller that bombed at the box office in 1999, became the defining cult movie of its generation on DVD, and has never stopped being argued about since. Based on Chuck Palahni...

Don't worry if you don't follow the plot. Nobody does. And that's entirely the point. This week we're lighting one up and drifting into  Inherent Vice  (2014) — Paul Thomas Anderson's deliriously funny, achingly melancholy, and deliberately bewildering adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel, and one of the most singular, purely cinematic experiences of the last decade. This i...

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire. This week we're riding into Santa Carla for  The Lost Boys  (1987) — Joel Schumacher's supremely stylish, wickedly funny, endlessly rewatchable 80s horror masterpiece that didn't just make vampires cool, it permanently redefined what vampire movies could look and feel like. Directed by Joel Schumac...

What's your favorite scary movie? This week we're heading to Woodsboro for  Scream  (1996) — Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson's genre-shattering, self-aware, wickedly clever slasher masterpiece that didn't just revive a dying genre, it completely reinvented it and changed the course of horror cinema forever. Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, the film follows hi...

Hello. I served with your son. This week we're unlocking the front door and letting in  The Guest  (2014) — Adam Wingard's neon-soaked, synth-drenched, John Carpenter-worshipping action thriller that is simultaneously one of the most purely entertaining genre films of the decade and one of the most quietly devastating post-9/11 meditations on what America does to its soldiers. Also, Dan St...

No fear. Just like Tom Cruise. This week we're going all in on  One Battle After Another  (2025) — Paul Thomas Anderson's thundering, dizzying, deeply American epic that has critics calling it his masterpiece, awards voters showering it with nominations, and audiences either completely electrified or walking out in the first five minutes. This is the most talked-about film of the year, and...

A vampire isn't a romantic figure in a frilly shirt with a euro-trash accent. This week we're strapping on the crossbow and heading into the New Mexico desert for  John Carpenter's Vampires  (1998) — the wildest, most unapologetically savage, and most criminally underrated vampire film of the entire 90s. This is the anti- Interview with the Vampire . This is what happens when John Carp...

It's not your fault. This week we're heading to South Boston for  Good Will Hunting  (1997) — one of the most beloved, most emotionally devastating, and most enduringly powerful American dramas ever made. The film that launched Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into the stratosphere, gave Robin Williams his Oscar, and made an entire generation feel seen in ways they didn't know they needed. D...

Nobody would come out of their trailer. This week we're shipwrecked on the most chaotic film set in Hollywood history for  The Island of Doctor Moreau  (1996) — a movie so legendarily, spectacularly, cosmically doomed that the story of how it got made is more entertaining than the film itself. And the film itself, in its own deranged way, is absolutely unmissable. Based on H.G. Wells' 1896...

Rule number one: never leave a fellow crasher behind. This week we're suiting up, picking a fake name, and crashing  Wedding Crashers  (2005) — the wildly funny, endlessly rewatchable, R-rated comedy that didn't just dominate the summer of 2005, it permanently changed the economics of adult comedy in Hollywood and gave us one of the greatest big-screen comedic pairings of the entire decade...

Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. If the bus drops below 50 miles per hour, the bomb explodes. What do you do? What do you do? This week we're strapping in for  Speed  (1994) — Jan de Bont's perfectly engineered, relentlessly propulsive, gloriously ridiculous action masterpiece that launched Sandra Bullock into superstardom, cemented Keanu Reeves as one of the great action he...

Vaya con Dios, Brah. This week we're paddling out for  Point Break  (1991) — Kathryn Bigelow's electrifying, sun-drenched, adrenaline-soaked action masterpiece that is simultaneously one of the greatest pure action films ever made and one of the most unexpectedly emotional stories about obsession, identity, and the intoxicating pull of a life lived completely without limits. This movie sho...

Turtle power. This week we're dropping into the sewers of New York City for  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  (1990) — the scrappy, gritty, genuinely surprising independent film that every major Hollywood studio passed on, became the highest-grossing independent film of its time, and defined the childhood of an entire generation. This movie is a bigger deal than people remember. We're making...

I could eat a peach for hours. This week we're going full operatic chaos for  Face/Off  (1997) — John Woo's barnstorming, dove-releasing, slow-motion-shooting, completely unhinged masterpiece that stands as not only the crown jewel of peak Nicolas Cage, not only the greatest film of John Travolta's career, but possibly the single most maximalist, most joyfully excessive, most purely ci...

The Dude abides. This week we're mixing a White Russian, lacing up our bowling shoes, and settling in for  The Big Lebowski  (1998) — the Coen Brothers' gloriously shaggy, endlessly quotable, impossibly warm masterpiece of American absurdist cinema that bombed with critics on release, baffled audiences who expected another  Fargo , and then slowly, inexorably became one of the most beloved...

Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible c*** — me. This week we're deep in the London criminal underworld for  Snatch  (2000) — Guy Ritchie's hyperkinetic, impossibly quotable, perfectly engineered crime comedy that took everything brilliant about  Lock, Stock and Two S...

The horror. The horror. This week we're going upriver for  Apocalypse Now  (1979) — Francis Ford Coppola's hallucinatory, operatic, psychologically devastating Vietnam War epic that is simultaneously one of the greatest films ever made and the product of one of the most chaotic, dangerous, nearly fatal film productions in Hollywood history. This is the movie Coppola said wasn't about V...