TDM: Total Dad Movies with Tooky, Dave, & Mike

Dads take a lot of heat, and deservedly so: Life in a patriarchy means that much of this society is a direct reflection of generations of Dads - we have FOUNDING FATHERS for chrissakes - so everything, good and bad (and let's face it, the scales are tipping the wrong way) must be laid at our feet.  And yet: We will do anything for our kids. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.  Especially if it involves driving...

RIP to the magnificent Teri Garr, perhaps one of the patron (matron?) saints of Dad movies. No one was realer, funnier, or more fully and charmingly human. She and Michael Keaton make a pretty good meal out of these ingredients; it's pretty clear why the Oscar noms wait in the offing.  Listen, Michael Keaton is having a moment, and deservedly so; but let's not let this year pass without...

CUE THE VIOLINS! And Happy Halloween from the Dads; enjoy our long shower with Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 slashsterpiece PSYCHO.

Elevator pitch: I'd like to take a 19th century French melodrama and update it, eliminating the graphic violence and changing the famously heartbreaking ending. Also, we should set it in a small town full of horny old ladies. Studio Executive: Ok, here's a ton of money. Only one person can land that pitch: Total Dad favorite and comic dilettante Steve Martin. Fred Schepisi directs Martin...

Confession: at the grocery store with my family, I will often and without warning turn suddenly a full 360 degrees in either direction while exclaiming "Crazy Ivan!" Let no one say this movie doesn't have a lasting impact. Baldwin! Connery! Glenn! Neill! Curry! Vance! Skarsgard! and James Earl Jones (RIP)! Who doesn't love a submarine movie? NOT DADS, that's who! John McTi...

LEEEEEEEEET THE RIVER RUUUUUUUUUUUUN... (NGL, that songs rips) A Dad Movie? About a lady? Yeah, dummy, it's 2024. (OK fine, Harrison Ford was probably our hook at the time, but now... well, he still kicks ass in this flick)  ALSO: Sigourney Weaver! Melanie Griffith! Joan MFing Cusack! Olympia MFing Dukakis! Oliver Platt! (and yeah, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey, too). This movie aged better t...

Before Vince Vaughn was America's doughy best friend and Jon Favreau was launching Iron Man and the Mandalorian (that guy loves armor, huh?), these two babyfaces shot a shoestring comedy that captures the brief moment in America when chain wallets, indoor smoking, and swing dancing were not just tolerated but were emblematic of a lifestyle that can only be called "money". Ask your d...

Get busy Daddin', or get busy podcastin'. Carve your names into the eaves with the Dads as we attempt to break free from Frank Darabont's Steven King adaptation par excellence  (featuring Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, and the voice of Mr. Krabs), 1994's THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION.

Wait, Sidney Poitier directed this? Huh. Ok, then. Pryor. Wilder. Poitier. Every Dad is born having seen this movie. It combines everything Dads know about the criminal justice system with everything Dads know about the rodeo. It's why your Dad is neither a lawyer nor a cowboy. Get your chicken costumes out because we're watching the comedy smash of 1980: STIR CRAZY.

This movie features an all-time complicated Dad (John Mahoney), and is helmed by the wunderkind (Cameron Crowe) that launched a string of Dad movies, so you can- Hang on; just give me a second? (Goes to window; opens it) "It's after 2:00 am; goodnight, Lloyd." (Closes window) Sorry. That kid is out here every night blasting his Peter Gabriel. Which is fine, but sometimes you want to...

An odd companion piece to last week's episode (THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) featuring another aspect of human existence (this week: ASD, last week: trans awareness) that in 2024 we have a vastly more informed cultural relationship to than we did at the time of these movies' respective releases. AND YET, I think it's fair to say that our deepened understanding of these communities owes...

Hannibal Lecter has been in the news recently for reasons both dumb and stupid. But Anthony Hopkins' performance is anything but - the only thing scarier than this film is the prospect of another four years of [REDACTED]. Speaking of presidential trauma, Jodie Foster is equally incredible in this flick. Dads love Jodie Foster, because her movies are always real good but not so good that you c...

America has had a lot of Dads. The good (Michael Landon, Barack Obama), the bad (Bill Cosby, Alec Baldwin), and the confusingly discordant (RIP Bob Saget/Danny Tanner). But we submit here that America's greatest Dad is almost never pictured with an actual son or daughter, yet nonetheless appears in many films as a distant-yet-deeply-caring-dispenser-of-hard-truths-and-earned-wisdom. If that d...

Inside each of us is three Dads... (I've made this joke already, but c'mon) You've got a Guttenberg - sensitive and clueless. You've got a Danson - dashing and egomaniacal. You've got a Selleck - rugged and protective. These Dads are engaged in a relentless battle for dominance within you. When you suddenly have a baby (and I sincerely hope none of you ever receive a baby...

GET TO THE CHOPPAH! (Dads love a good Arnold impression) The Dads turn on their thermal vision to dissect the film that launched the handshake that launched a thousand memes. Schwarzenegger. Weathers. Ventura. Van Damme (in absentia). And a bunch of vaguely problematic Dad stereotypes that somehow age like fine wine. It's John McTiernan's horror-action-war movie mashupsterpiece PREDATOR!

Listen, the Dads make no secret of our political leanings: would we would  prefer this country and its institutions be run by women of color? LIKELY. Is this a topical issue at the moment? PERHAPS. Are we feeling (cautiously) hopeful right now? MAYBE. Did we want to honor this unprecedented time in American history by talking about a film wherein Black women do the near-impossible? YOU BET YOUR BU...

Inside every one of us are two Dads, fighting for supremacy. One looks like Jack Cates. One looks like Reggie Hammond. Do I have to tell you which one to listen to? The Dads carefully dissect the not-at-all problematic and hugely influential "buddy" cop comedy from 1982 (featuring the breakout performance from Eddie Murphy), Walter Hill's 48 HOURS.

Sometimes - maybe most of the time? - we don't fully appreciate our Dads until we've had a chance to reflect on them. Their tiny brilliances, their hidden diamond facets behind their seemingly-workaday veneer...these can sometimes go unremarked upon until one day you look up and realize OH SHIT MY DAD IS THE BEST COMEDY OF THE 80S.  Am I conflating Dads and MIDNIGHT RUN? Possibly. But wi...

True story: My Dad purchased a bunch of tvs from an electronics store. He was informed that he would receive a discount if he signed up for their in-house credit card. So he (of course) proceeded to do so under a fake name because everyone knows that LAWS DO NOT APPLY TO DADS.  When asked for his name for the card he said: "Bond. Fenimore Bond." I think he still has the card, although th...

How rare is it for a movie to serve as a primer on how to both BE and NOT BE a Dad? This film is the "Scared Straight" of Dad movies. Also Ted Kramer is a lousy person who is capable of great things. Or a great person who does a lot of lousy things. Is it any wonder that Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar? Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry all nail everything that can be nailed in...

Perhaps we don't touch on the dark side of Dads often enough. But ask anyone who's even been, had, or known a Dad and they'll tell you it's there. The obsessiveness, the pettiness, the gatekeeping... it's all there. Perhaps (as this podcast occasionally posits) the real merit of a Dad comes from our ability to recognize and (hopefully) evolve into a newer, more supportive...

Forget the podcast, Ricky. Give 'em the heater. Lotsa Dad types in this one: Corbin Bernsen's asshole Dad, Chelcie Ross' Christian Dad (with a hidden stash of Hustlers), Tom Berenger's seemingly- cool-but-oh-wait-actually-kind-of-sad Dad, and James Gammon's tough love Dad. Plus you got a Sheen (Dads LOVE Sheens!) AND a Haysbert (the voice of Allstate - Dads LOVE insurance!...

Happy Upcoming Father's Day! In honor of the holiday, and in the (very Dad) spirit of making amends for mistakes made years prior, we present this VERY Dad-centric original vision of the 1980 sequel to SUPERMAN: THE MOTION PICTURE. For reasons (see: capitalism), the original theatrical release was credited to Richard Lester after Richard Donner (originally hired to shoot 1 & 2 at the same...

Dads love two things: MacGuffins and culturally irrelevant impressions. This film gives our Dads the chance to enjoy the ur-MacGuffin while dusting off our best Bogey (or even our Peter Lorre!) for the eyerolled "amusement" of our progeny. Also, it's one of the greatest movies ever mad yada yada yada. This week: John Huston's 1941 hard-boiled noir-blueprint THE MALTESE FALCON.

Every Dad knows: you gotta take out the trash. What every Dad comes to learn: done correctly, taking out the trash is a vacation. A brief respite from the demands of family interaction, a chance to ever-so-briefly immerse oneself in a larger world.  Trash has value: spiritual and emotional value.  BLOODSPORT is trash.  It is eminently disposable and probably toxic, AND YET... for 85 glorious minut...