Weekly Movie Throwdown

In this episode, Mike and Steven round out Hitman Month with a real gem: Grosse Pointe Blank. This George Armitage-directed rom-com is a beloved story of getting a second chance in life and, well, leaving your career as an assassin behind. It explores regret, existentialism, FOMO, and . . . unions. With great performances from John Cusak, Minnie Driver, Dan Aykroyd, and a whole slate of other acto...

Hitman Month continues this week with David Fincher's Netflix film The Killer. He is a director around whom there is a lot of conversation, primarily because of his meticulousness. Mike and Steven get deep into that in this episode and their different interpretations of the film. They also close out the show with a familiar topic: the state of movie theaters. ______________________________________...

This week Mike and Steven talk in-depth about Richard Linklater's new film Hit Man and how it fits into this month's theme of . . . hitmen. They also discuss Netflix's baffling release strategy of putting these films into a very small number of theaters for a short period of time.__________________________________________And if you’d like to log as you go you can find everything we discuss this mo...

In this episode, we kick off hitman month as we discuss the movie Joel Schumacher's Assassins, a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas that really allows them to show off their acting styles. One is batshit crazy and the other is like a stone statue—guess which is which. Julianne Moore gives a ramped-up performance as well that will serve her well in the films she'd do with Paul Thom...

This week we're wrapping up '80s TV Show Adaptation Month with a doozy: Michael Mann's 2006 Miami Vice. It's a bold swing that ended up being very divisive but is seeing a rise in popularity lately. With quite a lot of on-set drama—including shootings and hurricanes—and diva-like behavior, there's a lot to talk about and we get into all of it. __________________________________________ And if you’...

In this episode, we discuss another beloved '80s TV property, The A-Team. The 2010 film version makes nods to the original, but they don't necessarily all hit the mark. With a bit of a tonal issue and way-too-big CGI swing, the film, directed by Joe Carnahan, is fun but could be a lot more so. We have a lot of love for the TV show, so this was always going to have to work hard to win us over. Ulti...

This week's episode looks at David Leitch's latest film, The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. Much to their surprise, Mike and Steven both enjoyed it for the most part. The discuss its fun tone, the TV show on which it's based, and much more. At the end of the show, prompted by the film's opening weekend box office numbers, they talk about what the rest of the summer—and Hollywood...

In this episode we kick off a month of '80s TV show adaptations with one of the best: Lord and Miller's 21 Jump Street from 2012. The film stays fairly true to the series but the tone is way lighter—something we think might be necessary to successfully bring one of these now-campy shows to the big screen. The R rating helps, too. We discuss all of that, along with a whole lot more. _______________...

In this bonus episode, we deviate from our usual monthly theme to discuss Civil War directed by Alex Garland. It's a disorienting, fence-sitting road movie that stars Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, and Stephen McKinley Henderson. We discuss why Garland, a Brit, took on this story, the technical aspects of making the film, what its budget means for A24, and a lot more._________________...

This week we round out our month of Dev Patel films with 2020's The Personal History of David Copperfield, a delightful contemporary-feeling period piece directed by Armando Iannucci. Like other films the actor was involved in, this one felt the wrath of COVID times and was barely seen in theaters. A shame since it's beautifully made and a lot of fun. But it is streaming (at least for now), so we...

So far this month we've looked at Dev Patel the actor, but this week we're examining his work as a director. Monkey Man is his first film behind the camera and it's clear he's been paying attention while on the sets of people like Danny Boyle and David Lowery. This film, in which Dev also stars, is a visually striking revenge story set in India—something we don't see a lot of in America. It's been...

This week we go back to where Dev Patel began his big screen career with Danny Boyle's frenetic and heartwarming story of an Indian underdog, Slumdog Millionaire. It's the beautiful story of a young man who tries his luck on the world's most famous game show to get the attention of the love of his life. But much to the surprise of everybody, he knows all the trivia answers and is suspected of chea...

It's a new month and that means a new theme here on the Weekly Movie Throwdown. We thought since Dev Patel's directing debut Monkey Man is out next week this would be a good time to look at the actor's filmography to see the steps that got him into the director's chair. What we'll learn is that he's someone who works with very visual filmmakers, something that comes through in Monkey Man. He's als...

This week we wrap up Elmore Leonard month with a double feature of 1995's Get Shorty and its sequel from 2005, Be Cool. These two are night and day as far as how they handle their respective book adaptations and once again we hear about how studio involvement changes a film into something completely different than it set out to be. Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty nails the Elmore Leonard tone with i...

Elmore Leonard month continues on the podcast this week with a sort of middle-of-the-road adaptation: Stick. Steeped in its time—the mid-eighties—this passion project of director/lead actor Burt Reynolds is filled with sub-machine guns, Members Only jackets, and synth music that is super groovy. But while it is a fun ride, reshoots and sub-par editing make it more of a mess than a masterpiece. And...

This week we continue Elmore Leonard month by going from one of the best adaptations of his work last week in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight to one of the worst—a sentiment which might carry over into all of film history. It's 2004's The Big Bounce. Directed by George Armitage, and written by Sebastian Gutierrez (with some help from Leonard himself), this heist film set in Hawaii has a terrific...

It's a new month, which means we're diving into a brand new topic on this week's show. March is Elmore Leonard month here on the podcast, so we're going to check out a few of the dozens of screen adaptations based on the novelist's work. Some are great, some are lukewarm, and one or two are God-awful. But we're gonna have a lot of fun talking about all of them. Up first is Steven Soderbergh's Out...

We wrap up Jason Statham month we go back to the beginning with a double feature from the actor's early days. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch are both great examples of what Statham brought to the table right from the start. In these two collaborations with director Guy Ritchie he has leading man charisma without the throat-punches and dropkicks he'd go on to incorporate later in hi...

If you only think of Jason Statham as a throat-punching, ass-kicking assassin, this film is for you. From 2015, this Paul Fieg action/comedy puts our boy into a whole new role: comic actor. And just like when he's throwing someone through a window, he doesn't disappoint. Melissa McCarthy is the lead in this one, playing a CIA operative who's forced out into the field to help retrieve a missing nuk...

Wow, wow, WOW! We continue Jason Statham month with a truly insane film from the directing duo Neveldine/Taylor. 2006's Crank tells the story of a man who was poisoned and quickly needs to get revenge . . . and find an antidote if there's time left over. In this episode, we discuss where Crank falls in Statham's filmography, the innovative filmmaking used to make it, and lovingly question the plau...

In our inaugural episode, we kick off a month of Jason Statham appreciation with a discussion of his latest film The Beekeeper. Join us as we dip our toe into the star's '80s action hero-style career, the John Wickness of this film, the thinking around having an assassin codenamed Beekeeper become an actual beekeeper in retirement, and a whole lot more. Send us your thoughts on the show and Jason...