Weekend At Crombie‘s

It's 1953 and Dr. Seuss writes the tale of a young lad who dreams about escaping the fortress of his tyrannical piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliker. This 'debaculous fiasco' crashed at the box office, gained a cult following, and gave our hosts something to chew over.

It's 1990 and this tale of New York mobsters has a full cast of Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Robin Wright, Ed Harris, John Turturro, and John C. Reilly. As long as no other studio simultaneously releases a stone-cold classic gangster movie about good fellas, the box office should do well.

It's 1985 and Matthew Robbins has taken a break from dragons to direct this teen rebellion movie with Helen Slater, Christian Slater and Helen Slater's pixie cut. This being the 1980s, a chase scene in a shopping mall with Billy Idol on the soundtrack is mandatory.

Kirk Jones' debut film is a sentimental dark comedy of two elderly scamps, played by Ian Bannen and David Kelly, who try to squeeze a few more days of life from deceased fishermen Ned Devine, so they can claim his lottery winnings. Settle in, and enjoy the fruity soaps.

Two unlikely oddballs are thrown together under increasingly stressful circumstances. But enough about us - we review Ryan Gosling's new science fiction buddy movie!

This 1999 David Lynch film has Richard Farnsworth as Alvin Straight, telling the true story of his epic journey on the back of a lawnmower. Not what we would have expected from a David Lynch movie, and certainly gives new meaning to the phrase, 'drive safely, deer'.

It's 1988 and Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham star in a movie that gives us one of the biggest tonal shifts on screen. Join us to discuss final requests, the coolest pigeon ever, and how many times we can say 'helicopter pilot' in one sentence.

It's 1990, and Stephen Frears directs this neo-noir thriller with Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening and John Cusack. And if you must drink a glass of water during your listen, please consider using a plastic sippy-cup.

It's everyone's favourite episode, where James crunches the numbers without mercy. There's some thrills and shocks in the data that has been dredged from the films of this past season. Enjoy!

I just like to smile, smiling's my favorite.

Oh, this is more fun than choking chickens.

I'm Santa Claus, Teddy, not Yoda.

I never thought it was such a bad little tree.

How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's thing? 

Why is there always someone who brings eggs and tomatoes to a speech?

The real Santa was totally different. The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax. 

I'm old enough to know when life is coming at me with its pants down. 

Show me the 'Elf Face'.

I wished for a purple elephant, but now I want a pink elephant! 

Just when you think it can't get any worse, you run out of cigarettes. 

It'll take me at least a week to dig up all my dolls in the cemetery.

It's 1986, and the way you can tell is because it produced this college comedy about a white law student who pretends to be black in order to qualify for a scholarship. Starring C. Thomas Howell and Rae Dawn Chong, who appeared to crash their careers on this one, but at least met each other and got married.

It's 1993 and Steven Zaillian directs the tale of a young prodigy in a brave attempt to make chess cinematic. With a line-up that includes Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen, Joe Mantegna, Robert Stephens, William H. Macy, Dan Hedaya, Laura Linney and Tony Shalhoub, this cast goes deeper than a Sicilian Defense.

It's 1977, and Larisa Shepitko directs her final film about two partisans struggling for both life and soul in World War II Belarus. Naturally, hilarity ensues. A profoundly moving and beautiful film, it would nonetheless take a stronger spirit than either of our hosts possess to watch it more than once.

It's 1983, and this rotoscoped animation unites director Ralph Bakshi with legendary sword n' sorcery artist Frank Frazetta. The 80s were a prime time for low budget dark fantasy, and this reads like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Although, in this case, none of the protagonists ever chose to wear more clothes.