The Wages of Cinema

Please note: SPOILERS start at 39 minutes (well, really at 40, but at 39 we feature a clip from a vintage 1983 Return of the Jedi toy commercial, so maybe tune in to that, but we digress). So... we come to the end. Not THE end, but the end of this cycle, the finale of this series, the 'End Game' if you will... actually, come to think of it, it may not be the best idea to bring that up. But wait, y...

We saw Cats, so you don't have to. Now and Forever at the Wages Garden Theater. Please note, there is no exact spoiler warning (how could we possibly do that now), but we do talk about the film in some depth almost from the jump. Also, we somehow got the illustrious Guest Star Matthew Catania involved, presumably because the title is in his name, but also because he wanted to see it. And.... Meow.

In 1996, a bombing occurred during a musical performance at during the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Luckily, there were only minimal casualties and some other injuries, but the damage to lives and property would have been far greater had it not been for Richard Jewell, a cop-cum-security guard who was working that night and found the backpack that had pipe bombs ready to go off. Unfortunately for...

Jessica from Chicago is gonna be pissed when she finds out about this! Oh, and check out the latest from Bong (Snowpiercer, Mother - no not that one the other one, Okja and The Host) Joon-Ho that asks the age old question: What happens when you can't quite get that smell out of your clothes when you go to work? wagesofcinema@gmail.com

What can be talked about with a movie that is made by a filmmaker (in Todd Phillips, of War Dogs and School for Scoundrels, and some other movies I'm leaving out) who doesn't really give a damn about comic books, that takes (to put it mildly) liberally from Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, and features Joaquin Phoenix so skinny that one may want to reach out to Christian Bale so he c...

Jack drew first blood AND last... so he has to tell Korey about the movie. email is wagesofcinema@gmail.com

Ah, two movies that aren't based on a giant mega-corporate blockbuster (though they are connected to IP's, both being book adaptations as well), and meant for more "grown-up" audiences (not that they are rated R either, but, um... hey, no tights, far as we could tell, and no scenes where Brie Larson flies around the world with her hair on fire or something!) But the other question remains: Are the...

Oh my god you, guys, did you know this is the NINTH Quentin Tarantino film? No? Then no sweat, he'll make sure to remind you of it on the poster, in the trailers, just about everywhere... even though he really may have directed ten. And let's put aside his CSI two-parter that is basically a movie, and Four Rooms, and his student film My Best Friend's Birthday, and... damn it, we're so pedantic! An...

Hey, how about some full blown MOVIE REVIEWS! YEAH! (that may have been just said in an Al Pacino fulseto, but anyway) - Jack and Korey take a look in this episode at three new releases (and some of the other movies associated with them): Danny Boyle's YESTERDAY Josh Cooley's TOY STORY Lars Klevberg's CHILD'S PLAY Spoilers abound; Jack only saw Yesterday, while Jack + Korey saw the others (includi...

Let's go on a vacation everyone! Summer time! And yet... Marvel is still here, serving up food after we already ate till we turned into Mr. Creosotes all over the place (will Far From Home be the final mint?) But wait, this movie has MYSTERIO! Has anyone been waiting for Mysterio to pop up in Spider-Man? Certainly one of our special guests today has - to find out, you need to listen in - and all f...

Hey, I gotta make sure everyobody knows that it's the new one, right? What if some dude or gal decides they want to listen to us take apart Raymond Burr as Steve Martin in the hallowed original? Eh? Alright, no, takers, but the year remains. ANYWAY.... It's time the Wages of Cinema returns to take on some GIANT DAMN MONSTERS! We have done many episodes on this - look back in our archives, especial...

Oh my goodness! As it turns out, we have discovered the Pym particles and can manage to travel to time to before we recorded the Endgame episode, hence number 134! Or.... we messed up and skipped an episode number and are going back now to fill in the gap missing. Don't judge us, we're all human! Whadda we look like, John Wick? (If that indeed is his name, sir!) Although John Wick previously was d...

After the events of Infinity War, we knew we had to come back for part two (well, at any rate, we have this podcast, what else would us four Wagers - Jack, Korey, Andrew and Guest Star Matt - have to do on opening weekend?) How would it turn out after that big fat Thanos snap? How would the characters overcome and have that vengeance part of their name? Could they? And hey, what's Scott Lang doing...

Lou Pearlman, whatever happened to him? Oh (looks at notes) he died in 2016. But why is he suddenly relevant - the Boy Band Manager-Impressario-Svengali who managed to bring together a bunch of kids in Orlando to form two super-mega groups (Backstreet Boys and N'Sync, remember them? Go ask your sister, she'll know, or maybe your brother, too)? Is it only in the midst of a wave of documentaries lik...

SPOILERS at 37 1/2 minutes in. Who is SHAZAM!? Why is SHAZAM?! When is SHAZAM!? But really, why would DC make a movie out of a character who used to be so wholesome and then become somewhat less but still charming in the New 52? Well.... Zack Snyder might be a reason... But anyway, David F Sandberg has delivered the latest comic book offering (which, as chance would have it, some would say is the...

SPOILERS at 40 mins in. The Marvel Cinematic Universe just hit 21 films! Woo! What are they gonna do for the big 21! Go out drinking till they pass out? Um... actually, they're just going to, I dunno, finally have a female-protagonist-led movie that helps to tie in the previous and next Avengers movies with an Academy Award winning actress, and that darn cat who... well, we're getting ahead of our...

This is different for us, and yet it is very much in keeping with the ethos of the Wages of Cinema which involves having long-winded and long-winging discussions about film. What makes this episode especially meaningful, however, where we talk about our favorite films of 2018 (and, frankly, the icon image may give one of them away, woops), is the very special guest this week! Jack has invited his...

Well, is this BEGUILING or what? A new romantic comedy in major release from Hollywood? Whodathunk it that someone would green light (gets a phone call) hold on, we need to get this... 'Uh huh... huh huh... oh I see, right, this is a Meta-textual satire on the romantic comedy genre as a whole and another in a line of films (like I Feel Pretty) deconstructing the image of women on film as empowered...

So... you know how just yesterday we talked about Glass and that had its own particular... ambitions and sense of itself as an auteur-driven work? It turns out, that's not the only star-filled movie out in theaters this January, and the director of the sleeper LOCKE (with Tom Hardy, remember? Sure you do, if not, go watch it, it's really good) Steven Knight managed to bring together Interstellar s...

UNBREAKABLE! Because Females are Strong As He.... Hey, wait a minute, this isn't Kimmy Schmidt! (That comes out later, a different podcast anyway). No, Jack went to go see the new Masterpiece* by M. Night Shyamalan, and it leads to an in-depth (SPOILER-filled, no time-code, it's spoilers on parade, okay) discussion about this trilogy of movies, including Unbreakable, Split and Glass (Korey has onl...

WELCOME TO MARWEN: Start of episode to 53 minutes in VICE: 53 minutes in till End of episode. What do you do with all this Oscar-winning energy? Real life people! Steve Carell? How about Christian Bale submerging himself into one of the most controversial figures in modern history? And what is Leslie Mann doing in... this movie? Robert Zemeckis and Adam McKay have new bio-pics out. How did they fa...

2018 goes to show us once again: Just because it was a gag years ago on the HBO show 'Entourage' doesn't mean it cant come to pass in reality! (What's the other thing you might ask? Look up 'Gotti' and you may see what we mean...) Anyway! AQUAMAN! On this special holiday-time episode, Jack, Guest Star Matt, and (GASP!) Andrew for his first episode since the summer, talk about the new blockbuster e...

How does this sound to you: an animated Spider-Man movie where it involves not just Peter Parker, but a) the new(ish) Spider-Man in the comics, Miles Morales, but also a whole host of other Spider-People (men and women, including an alternate universe Parker, Gwen Stacy, Nicolas Cage voicing Spider-Man *Noir*, and Peter PORKER, yes, you read that right), and the animation is pushing the boundaries...

As you are waiting to make or to eat or on a long drive to get to that Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps the Wages of Cinema can help give your ears and more importantly that place in your soul where cinematic knowledge gets nourished can feed you just a bit - in this case we have a FULL course meal on Sylvester Stallone. Not just him, of course, but also Michael B Jordan and Tessa Thompson as they con...

Episode 122: BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY (and Other Music Biopics) by Jack Gattanella