Thank God For Movies

The Upside called and wants its January counter-programming American remake marketing campaign back. That's right, we're reviewing A Man Called Otto this week, which hits wide release tomorrow through Sony/Columbia. The Pittsburgh-set movie stars Tom Hanks as (you guessed it) Otto, and the Cinemaholics have a wonderful time debating Hanks' performances over the last year. We also discuss (briefly)...

This year's January horror blockbuster isn't child's play. Dollhouse? No, it's from Blumhouse! That's right, this week we're welcoming M3GAN into The Hollywood franchise family. Directed by Gerard Johnstone ( Housebound ) and written by Akela Cooper ( Malignant ), M3GAN stars Allison Williams as a genius toy inventor who tests out a life-size doll with artificial intelligence on her depressed niec...

The Whale stars Brendan Fraser in his triumphant return to the big screen, but it's also a notable return for Darren Aronofsky, whose last film mother! (2017) still has a lot of folks scratching their heads. No matter. Based on the 2012 play by Samuel D. Hunter (who writes the screenplay for his own adaptation), The Whale has emerged as an awards favorite for Brendan Fraser and A24, as well as a n...

Looks like the Shrek franchise still has a few lives left. This week on the show, special guests Matt Serafini and Chris Sheridan of   It Ain’t Ogre ‘Til It’s Ogre return to Cinemaholics yet again to help us review Puss in Boots: The Last Wish , the sequel(?) spinoff(?) to Puss in Boots from 2011. Almost everyone is a huge fan of the DreamWorks movie, which is getting lots of love from fans and cr...

Damien Chazelle is back, and he sure isn't silent. This week on the podcast, we review Babylon , the latest film from the director of La La Land , Whiplash , and yes, First Man , a movie that did come out. Babylon is a super-long ode to the silent film era of Hollywood and making movies in general, which is definitely original. The movie stars Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt, and many more....

We're blue and we're feeling all right. That's right, we're reviewing a James Cameron film for the first time on Cinemaholics! About time. Avatar: The Way of Water (or Avatar 2 ) is the sequel to Cameron's titanic hit that wasn't Titanic . Will it be the highest grossing movie of all time, just like its predecessor? We discuss the film's story and buzzed-about spectacle effects, but we also kick o...

Hollywood has been on a Pinocchio tear lately, but we might've found the good one. This week on Cinemaholics, we're reviewing Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio , a stop-motion animated version of the classic tale set in 1930s and streaming on Netflix. We kick things off with what is most likely our first conversation about football on this podcast (don't worry, it's brief). And we do a short segment...

Special guest Matt Donato joins us this week for a Christmas movie. But not just any Christmas movie. David Harbour plays a butt-kicking Santa Claus in the ultraviolent Violent Night , an action-comedy send-up to classics like Die Hard and Home Alone . Are we on the naughty list when it comes to liking this movie for its sick pleasures? Either way, this movie isn't getting a lump of coal from eith...

We have a double bonus review for you all this week, but with a twist. In addition to reviewing Glass Onion and The Fabelmans , we discuss Hollywood's ongoing box office woes, particularly when it comes to Netflix's business model and Disney's rough rollout of Strange World . First up, we discuss Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery , the spinoff/sequel of Knives Out , also directed of course by Rian...

On our 300th episode of Cinemaholics, we're doing something even weirder than usual! It's time for a crossover with our friends Matt Serafini and Chris Sheridan over at It Ain't Ogre 'Til It's Ogre . We chat about the movies and pop culture we've discussed over the last several years, podcasting in general, and a bunch of other random stuff. It's a fun time. Links : Follow us on Twitter:  Jon Negr...

On a special bonus episode of Cinemaholics, Cory Woodroof and Jon Negroni sit down with Kevin Perjurer, creator of the popular YouTube channel, Defunctland . Perjurer recently released his latest feature-length documentary,  Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery , which uses modern noir storytelling to investigate the origins of a particularly notorious theme song. We also chat about the artis...

Special guest Ema Sasic joins us this week for a feast of a bonus review. That's right, we're discussing The Menu , a dark comedic thriller directed by Mark Mylod ( Succession ) and starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, and plenty more. We kick off the show with a brief appetizer covering some awards season releases we currently have our hungry eyes on. As for the review itself,...

We’ve been counting down the days to this review on our fingers. That’s right, it’s time for our long-awaited, belated review of The Banshees of Inisherin , the latest film from Martin McDonagh ( In Bruges , Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri ). Set on a fictional island off the coast of Ireland circa 1923, The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as best friends who...

Special guest Adonis Gonzalez joins us this week for a review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever , the sequel to Marvel's Black Panther from 2018. Since Chadwick Boseman's tragic death in 2020, many have wondered what the future of this franchise might hold without its main star, even with much of the rest of the cast returning along with Ryan Coogler as director and co-writer. As always, we end th...

Todd Field is back, and so are we. In his first film since Little Children in 2006, the acclaimed director is already taking Oscar season by storm with TÁR , a psychological drama starring Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, one of the most interesting movie characters of the year. We kick off the show this week with some big news, and no not just about pizza wars. We also catch up on some of the films w...

Park Chan-wook is here to stay. That's right, this week we're reviewing Decision to Leave , the latest film from Park Chan-Wook, director of Oldboy , Stoker , and The Handmaiden . We discuss this South Korean neo-noir mystery thriller starring Park Hae-il as a murder-obsessed police detective struggling to control his attraction to a suspect in a murder investigation (Tang Wei). But we of course k...

House of the Dragon just finished its first season, and special guest Julia Teti is here to talk about it! Building off of the massive success of HBO's Game of Thrones (that last season, besides), House of the Dragon returns viewers to the world of Westeros, based on the novels by George R.R. Martin, specifically as a prequel series set nearly 200 years before the adventures of Jon Snow and Daener...

If you say "Shazam," you know us Cinemaholics will show up, albeit as the darker, grittier versions of ourselves. Are we smelling what the Rock is cooking in his cinematic kitchen this time? That's right, Dwayne Johnson is officially a live-action superhero (though when hasn't he, really?), making his DCEU debut in Black Adam . But this isn't your older brother's best friend from college Dwayne Jo...

Give me some good film to eat. Speaking of food, before we get into our review of Halloween Ends — the third in David Gordon Green’s requel trilogy — your two least favorite film review podcasters discuss the Pizza Wars. Which of the big four is the least bad? It’s our contentious and most disgusting debate yet. And then we talk about Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers and Halloween and franchises...

Special guest Mike Zur joins us this week to review Amsterdam , the latest film directed and written (and produced) by David O. Russell. Starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, and many many other familiar faces, the film has been tanking at the box office, marking a true low point for the once celebrated director. But what do the Cinemaholics think? Who cares? Because at th...

Just a couple bros over here, talking about Bros , a new romantic comedy directed by Nicholas Stoller ( Forgetting Sarah Marshall , Neighbors ) and starring and co-written by Billy Eichner (who also serves as executive producer). Eichner plays a depressed podcaster — save the jokes, they're too easy — who reluctantly starts up a relationship with a guy who is seemingly his opposite, played by Luke...

We're smiling though our hearts are aching. That's because this week on the show, we're reviewing Smile , a new horror film from Parker Finn in his feature directorial debut. Starring Sosie Bacon, Kyle Gallner, and Jessie T. Usher, Smile won big at the box office this weekend, right on time for spooky season. We kick off the show with some conversation around the box office results and why we thin...

Harry Styles over substance? Now that's Olivia Wilde. Don't worry, darling, we're almost Florence Pugh with these puns, even though we're on a Nick Kroll. We promise to stay in our Kiki Layne...we know you Chris Pine for them. That's right, this week we're stepping into a strange and dangerous place...the second film directed by Olivia Wilde! Don't Worry Darling is a psychological thriller that ha...

Ain't nothin' in the rulebook says a woman can't be king. That's right, this week we're discussing The Woman King , the latest film from Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of Love and Basketball and The Old Guard . Her latest is an action war epic released through Sony and starring Viola Davis as the seasoned leader of an all-female warrior unit protecting the West African kingdom of Dahomey in 1820....

We're getting three Pinocchio movies this year for some reason, so this week on the show we're talking about the one from Robert Zemeckis. Now streaming on Disney+, Pinocchio is a live-action remake of the 1940 classic that gave the mouse house its theme song. But can we see the corporate strings on this, ahem, wooden straight-to-streaming rehash starring Tom Hanks, Cynthia Erivo, and Luke Evans,...