The Wages of Cinema

One of the most successful films not just for Disney (actually it's their top-grossing non-Pixar movie not counting inflation but whatever), but of all time, FROZEN is still looked at as the 'how the heck did THAT happen?' It's kind of a miracle the film turns out the way it does, as a crowd-pleaser about sisters and love as an open door and trolls that sing songs while a comic relief snowman look...

WELCOME BACK!! We open with a response to a listener question on our facebook page! (check www.facebook.com/wagesofcinema for the full question). Next, Jack asks what is up with (the brilliant) Tony Zhou and his critique of Marvel's cinematic movie scores. Andrew brings up a video too - about HR Giger and the Alien design. And then Jack discusses two films that served a double feature he dubbed "W...

We now continue with our regular scheduled Porpoise... Sorry, what, oh, Purpose, but the Porpoise can stay too. So what happened when the Marx brothers went to MGM via the figurehead Irving J Thalberg? A little known comedy called A Night at the Opera came to be, and then A Day at the Races. Then Thalberg died. What were the brothers to do? Do you sense we have too many questions going on here? Ja...

In the West, a gun was about as necessary as having a Western-Cowboy hat, or spurs, or whatever those things are on the edge of a belt, what are they called... oh yeah, holsters. In 1950, Anthony Mann, from a story by Stuart N Lake, made one of the essential Western films that has as its focus not necessarily one character (though it's filled with tired heroes, unapologetic villains, and a tough d...

For about the first 29 minutes of episode 60, Jack takes some time to try and figure out what Kevin Smith is all about with his Reaction-to-Negative-YOGA HOSERS-reviews video on YouTube (note: neither hosts have seen the movie yet), and Andrew is amazed by the specifics of how Ryan Reynolds dedication how DEADPOOL got made. Then, some movie talk (oh, and they are both still flabbergasted over the...

"Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Who could say things better than Groucho Marx? That's a trick question because no one could - he, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo made such a dynamic team that their five first films at Paramount studios, between 1929 and 1933, remain among five of the funniest damn movies on the planet. Do they have the best stories? Who cares when you have four anarch...

Can you ever really understand a film when it challenges perceptions of reality? Persona was one of the key films of the 1960's and marked a turning point for the career of Ingmar Bergman - known for his philosophical and poetic examinations of spirituality, existential questions and real deep-raw-human hurt and pain and love and anger and all of those things, he went into a mode with Persona wher...

First, Jack and Andrew take a look back at this summer of movies for 2016... and why it was so thoroughly mediocre and forgettable (and we also quote and mention an article written by Jessica Ritchey, "Hollywood Gave Up on You", which you can read at the link below. Then, Jack and Andrew talk about the movies they've seen in the three weeks(!) since the past full three-part episode, and the movies...

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality..." (some Warners exec right now, probably) So tonight, Jack, Andrew, and Guest Star Matt(TM) bring you a review of the classic 1935 classic that's all about the brave firemen of the world and the women they love, SUICIDE SQUAD! (Well, this movie does exist, but wait, no, wrong version, right, it's 2016, go...

Batman! Doctor Strange! Harley Quinn! King Kong! Edward Snowden! Wait, what? We watched a whole lot of trailers - ten in all - from the San Diego Comic Con (you can listen to us RIFF the trailers on YouTube, link soon to come), and we discuss our thoughts on them at length. So strap yourselves in for a discussion that goes from Harry Potter to King Arthur to Oliver Stone and what it means to have...

First, Jack and Andrew talk about some sad and good news about the current state of VCR's and VHS (in brief, they're dead, Jim), and Terry Gilliam's long-gestating Don Quixote film (which is finally in production!) Then, Jack talks about movies that he watched since the last episode, ranging from a sequel in another Hollywood franchise, an adaptation of Alan Moore, and Woody Allen's once-a-year of...

Where to start with this one? If anyone's familiar with the work of former "enfant terrible" Harmony Korine (do we call him now 'Adult terrible?'), then you know the wild, manic, tragic, gross, idiotic, perverse and often comic vignettes that populate films such as Gummo, Mister Lonely, and Spring-Breakers. He's an artist in the sense of, as director Werner Herzog would say, a "soldier of cinema",...

So what is Zardoz? The tagline was "Beyond 1984, Beyond 2001, Beyond Love, Beyond Death." This was due to what we can assume was a lack of imagination - hey, it's science fiction, let's throw in the two standard-bearers of that of the 20th century - but perhaps the 'beyond love and beyond death' part rings true. Did the film's director and writer, John Boorman, know what he was doing? Andrew watch...

Most often people celebrate 10th anniversaries for something that's, well, worth celebrating. But here at The Wages of Cinema - where, don't forget, we make sure sometimes to take on those wages and plenty of them - we think a little differently. What about not simply a bad movie, but one of the colossal auteur blunders of the 2000's? On July 21st 2006, Warner brothers released the 7th feature fil...

After we talk about some listener email questions (well, multiple questions from one listener), Jack sees a little movie that no one has seen before except EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW. He also goes on about the latest from Nicolas Winding Refn, Bryan Cranston, Ewan McGregor and a trashy bad-movie modern classic. Mostly new movies, and a selection ranging from a blockbuster to crime to the m...

What do Steven Spielberg, Henry Selick, James Bond, Nicolas Roeg, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson and Gene Wilder all have in common? Probably not much, but we can tell you all about how they all played in the wheelhouse that Roald Dahl created through his delightful children's books and screenplays (yes, he wrote a couple), many of which helped to warp minds with his playful but twisted visions and stor...

First Jack and Andrew get on a tangent, as they're wont to do, about video game movies and why there aren't really any good adaptations of video games (and on the flip-side why there aren't too many good games based on video games, with one exception), and there's a pitch Jack makes for a Katamari Damacy movie that should be directed by Japan's wildman Takashi Miike. Then it's movie talk as Jack s...

It's time to take a vacation. Where to? Who with? How about if you're already on vacation and by some miracle or 'Unusual Destiny', so to speak, you find yourself on even more of a vacation? It may be that you're a lowly sailor with Communist leanings, or the wife of a wealthy man who will pontificate about the days politics and complain about the working people and how things are and... oh wait,...

Free State of Jones may not be a gigantic "box-office smash" (currently it opened at #6 in its first weekend), but that shouldn't matter if the movie works, right? Here we have a piece of history not many know about: a man who rallied a group of poor farmers (and ex/runaway slaves) to make a 'free state of Jones' (as in the county) to combat those in the South in Mississippi who had too much while...

Sequels. What else is there to say about them? Jack and Andrew find discussion about the mammoth amount of sequels Hollywood has going on this year, what it means for the industry, and other bones to pick. But are there... GOOD sequels? Well, yes, of course, but there's more to it than that, as we discover in this main topic of the week. visit us at iTunes and Stitcher facebook.com/wagesofcinema t...

Perfection - so many want it, few actually attain it (and as Jack Nicholson once told Stanley Kubrick allegedly, "just because you're a perfectionist doesn't mean you're perfect"). Can Nina Sayers, the tragic hero (and villain of her own story) of Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN from 2010, attain this lofty goal? Can she become THE black swan that requires her to 'let go'? So many questions, and so...

In this first part, we do talk movies, but also some other things, like a new mini-series on OJ Simpson (Made in America!), music videos that made us sit up and take notice, Lifetime movies, the difference between thrillers and horror movies (and science fiction and horror), and what the hell Wonder Showzen was (if anyone knows please let us know!) And some movies: THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940) THE CON...

What can you say about a movie that is based on a Gore Vidal book and is somehow more f***ing insane and terrible than Caligula? Well... look no further than Myra Breckinridge starring Raquel Welch, John Huston, Rex Reed(!), Farrah Fawcett and John Carradine in the biggest pile of WTF that it makes Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - released in the same year and by the same studio, 20th Century Fox...

Japanese pop idols. Psychological investigative crime shows. A stalker. A website and a blog (madness!). Rape. Murder. It's just a shot away, right? What if it gets to your head? This is Satoshi Kon's debut as a director, and he made quite a name for himself with an adaptation of a thriller about a pop idol who decides to become an actress. This is one of the most daring experiments into presentin...

It may be sound like just another episode of the Wages of Cinema - what starts with a discussion from Andrew on the new Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (from 2014, not the most recent one "Out of the Shadows", got to keep them straight now of course) goes into a brief talk about what is a good movie to take a first date to see (what will be the one that you know will say "She's t...