The Magnificently Huge Podcast

Just because a movie is set at Christmas doesn’t mean it is a “Christmas Movie.” So sayeth us. We drop some hot takes on all the holiday entertainment marketed to us every year as being very Christmas-y… and we say NOPE. Or at least we are confused as to why they are considered part of this Season of Joy. The rules are pretty arbitrary here, but the bottom line is - if it has Santa Claus in it tha...

Imagine a heartfelt, warm, comforting movie about Christmas. Get that idea locked in your head. Now, imagine that same movie, but all of the parts are played by cadavers - and half of those corpses are that of Tom Hanks. If that’s difficult for you to bend your mind around, have no fear, Robert Zemeckis has done all the work for you in Polar Express, our feature of the week! 0:00 - Intros 6:15 - P...

This week, we’re diving headfirst into the icy wilderness with Hundreds of Beavers, the latest indie film that’s equal parts surreal slapstick, silent-era homage, and weird woodland fever dream. This black-and-white oddity defies explanation—so naturally, we spend a half-hour or so trying to explain it anyway. 0:00 - Intros 5:25 - The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh (1979) 13:10 - Eric’s Dune Rabbit Ho...

It’s all neon gloss and kinetic pacing in this peak 80s early outing from writer/direct Luc Besson (Fifth Element)! And it is French! We get a pre-Highlander Christopher Lambert as a lost soul on the run from both the cops and the mob, hiding out in the Paris subway tunnels among a community of social outcasts and petty thieves. There is not much more to it than that. But again, it looks terrific,...

The first in what might be an occasional series on films that deliberately scarred children - and we love them for it! Join us as we explore the dark fantasy classic Coraline (2009). We discuss how its unsettling visuals, eerie storytelling, and masterful animation left an indelible mark on young audiences, and why none of that worked on Chris or Eric who are old and dead inside and hadn't seen it...

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to the Stephen King horror classic, The Shining, and is one of the better King movie adaptations that you probably heard was crap and so you didn’t see it. The truth is, it’s pretty darned good - if you watch the right version (ie, the theatrical cut or Mike Flanagan’s director’s cut). This is a rare occasion where the director’s cut is actually worth it, and not just a...

Likely your parents told you to never pick up hitchhikers. But did C. Thomas Howell follow that advice back in 1986? Of course not! He stopped for Rutger Hauer on an empty desert highway in West Texas, and let’s just say he learned his lesson but good. It’s a B-movie grindhouse game of cat-and-mouse that has managed to gain a cult following over the years, but one that probably wouldn’t work as we...

Another Stephen King adaptation? In a word - yes. Full of vampire lore and 70s fashion, “‘Salem’s Lot” is actually a slightly better than average Stephen King adaptation. Want proof? Listen to the episode! 0:00 - Intros 7:30 - Megalopolis (2024) 18:50 - Surely You Can’t Be Serious (Book) 22:15 - Civil War (2024) 29:38 - Minnie Riperton - Come Into My Garden 31:15 - Salem’s Lot (2024) - SPOILER DIS...

This week, we take a look at the 1991 thriller “Silence of the Lambs.” Aside from having some of the best performances, writing, directing and catering, this Jonathan Demme classic is one of the most eminently quotable films of all time. Look at that - for once we discuss a film that’s good? Are we evolving? We also talk about other pop culture stuff, because that’s how we roll. 0:00 - Intros and...

There is no better way to enjoy all the fun of an election year than by watching a political satire mockumentary film from 1992 called Bob Roberts. Written by, directed by, and starring a young Tim Robbins, this one swings for the fences to skewer American political dysfunction. The film follows a rich, white businessman with no moral compass who is running for the Senate, a man who uses the extre...

Gattaca (1997) is one of those BIG IDEA sci-fi movies that is more interested in making you go hmmmm than it is in much else. So if you are into glacially-paced cautionary tales about the societal dangers of genetically engineering humans as the only way to achieve success in life, then this is the movie for you! Plus, it has identity theft! And a murder mystery! And a vaguely familiar retro-futur...

It’s genre fiction at its most capitalistic! Join us as we discuss the history of Star Trek, Part 2 - the latter half where, like Marvel and Star Wars and Indiana Jones and anything else that was ever geek culture blockbuster fodder, the suits ruined everything. Will we finally get Chris to become a fan of Star Trek? Will Alex Kurtzman learn to create a coherent story? Will we ever learn how to no...

Curious about Star Trek, but don’t know where to start? Have we got a show for you! Because while all of us here at MagHuge know the Original Series stuff, some of us (cough… Chris… cough) never really got into anything else Trek in the last 37 years. So there are many questions for noobs who are maybe Trek-curious, but need some wizened guidance on where to begin in this vast, complicated univers...

This week we discuss one of the greatest films ever made - apparently. It’s not entirely clear why The French Connection is considered one of the greatest movies ever made, but then all we did was watch it. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider star in the filthiest depiction of filthy early-1970s New York City, with the famous car chase that will make you say, “meh.” But it’s us talking about it, so we m...

Hey edgelordz! If U think Crank isn’t the shiznit then ur dum. Quit dl that boy band trash from Napster and get with the kewl kidz. It’s like GTA but it’s a movie, yo! It’s L337! 0:00 - Intros 4:15 - Mythic Quest 5:00 - From 5:22 - Lolita (book) 7:25 - Deadpool & Wolverine 9:15 - Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F 24:00 - Crank and Crank: High Voltage

SNL movies were the entertainment vehicle we didn’t know we wanted, and then we found out why. The 90s were the heyday for movies based on popular characters from the sketch comedy juggernaut Saturday Night Live, so let’s talk about that. It’s the podcast episode you didn’t know you wanted, and then… are we repeating the joke here? Sorry, getting into the SNL mood. It’s a theme. The theme you didn...

Ever see a movie for the first time and feel like you’ve seen it all before? Well that is Doomsday, kids, the 2008 magnum opus of future-dystopia action-adventure from writer/director Neill Marshall (Dog Soldiers, Hellboy 2019). It is allegedly an homage to much better classic genre fare, but really what you get is a lazy story that lifts whole tropes & scenes & characters from those better classi...

In 1981, the creators of the uber midnight-movie classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show decided to press their luck and attempted to bottle lightning one more time…in a musical non-sequel sequel called Shock Treatment. Brad & Janet return in this messy media satire about reality television and our corporate overlords that was about 20 years ahead of its time…but arriving about 5 years too late. Wit...

The Last Starfighter is one of the most fun, mostly forgotten unsung heroes from the stacked roster of summer movies in 1984. A kid who dreams of escaping his dead-end life in a trailer park gets the high score on a video game, which ends up being a recruitment test for a fight against tyranny in a galaxy far, far away. Derivative? Yes. Dated effects? Sure. But fun? Most definitely! With (at the t...

This round we take aim at movie genres that have run their course. They make for cliche, uninteresting slop, where the preview tells you everything you need to know about what’s going to happen: This person will get laid, that person will get killed, that other person will overcome their whatever. Why? Because that’s how things work in this collection of tired movie genres that must end… or at lea...

Roger Corman is dead. Long live Roger Corman! 3:50 - Punk Rock Bowling (Madness, The English Beat, DEVO) 18:25 - The Fall Guy (2024) 24:55 - Furiosa (2024) 32:10 - Roger Corman

Akira (1988) is an undisputed anime classic, that much is true. But it also pretty much ruined all other anime for us by setting the bar so ridiculously high. Akira is a pure adrenaline rush, an epic visual feast about armageddon and rebirth that set the bar way too high. And nothing since (not even Miyazaki) has come close in terms of pure scale, tone and world-building. It is the perfect blend o...

You may not know his name immediately, but you probably know his work. He does movies for teenagers, but he’s only directed one Marvel movie. We’ve been discussing Matty Vaughn for a while now, always impressed with how far he’s gotten on so little. So we decided today we would bless him with our thoughts and rapier wits. ‘Cause that’s how we roll. 0:00 - Intros 11:14 - Totally Killer (2023) 14:40...

In Medias Res means stories that start in the middle of things, or even at the end. It is a very old narrative device created by the Ancient Greeks that many filmmakers have used to varying degrees of success. So naturally we thought that deserved a no-holds-barred, incredibly arbitrary Bracket Challenge Battle to the Death! Behold, our Top 8 movie picks fight it out until they are whittled down t...

Hard to believe that a Cold War satire about Mutually Assured Destruction through a nuclear holocaust could still pack a punch 60 years after its release. But that’s exactly what happened with Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Starring Peter Sellers in a virtuoso 3-role performance as the titular insane scientist, a by-t...