Z and Keith Watched A Movie

Our most unfortunate entry in this most Irish of months comes to you just in time for St Patty's.    Only our Neil Jordan himself knows the film that could have been without studio/executive mucking about. What we get instead is bizarre casting, confusingly placed slapstick and disorienting editing.    Along the way we chat about our respective (lack of?) creative processes, th...

Happy Neil Jordan to you! This week we bring you a filim that Keith remembers watching at some point and the rest is conjecture.   A movie based on a novel inspired by a real life mukduk, a possible anti-Boomer nostalgia piece, a impressionistic allegorical rumination on Ireland in the 1960s - all or none of this and more, it's 1997's The Butcher Boy . +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available...

Top o the morning and welcome to March for Jordan! Our first entry in our look at the films of Neil Jordan is 1986's Mona Lisa . When newly released con George meets working girl Simone, it's love at first fight. Or is it?! A film with surprising and subtle complexity (and queerness; don't forget the queerness), we couldn't have picked a better place to begin.    +++++ Intro: by Professo...

To finish out the month, we bring you Spike Lee's epic biopic from 1992, Malcolm X . "By Any Means Necessary: The Making of Malcolm X" +++++ Intro by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp Outro: Public Enemy performing Party for Your Right to Fight

Oh hai! This week's entry is a movie that:  almost was directed by the same person as My Girl and the "that's a spicy meatball" commercial; almost starred Shelly Long, Burt Reynolds, Sam Kinison and didn't have Jon Lovitz; was co-written by Rosa Diaz and Adrian Pimento's favorite romcom screenwriter. Yuuuuup, it's Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986). For your pleasure Keith monologues about the Iran/Co...

This week we bring you another film in which John C McGinley plays a cop trying to catch some bank robbers. This time, instead of some white men doing it because their privilege has left them bored, it's four Black women doing it in an attempt to pull themselves out of cycles of oppression they were born into. Set It Off (1996), stars Jada Pinkett, Vivica A Fox, Queen Latifah, and Kimberly Elise w...

Hiya! This week we bring you the first installment in the House Party franchise. Starring Kid and Play, Tisha Campbell, A.J. Johnson, Martin Lawrence, Robin Harris, Full Force, and many, many more! An obvious classic in its sub-genres, this movie from the Hudlin brothers is packed with laughs, heart, amazing fashion and some serious dance moves. Clip about Dick Gregory taken from Atrocity Guide's...

Aloha!   As Tanuary comes to an end, we talk cousins, grannies, namesakes, and One Crazy Summer (1986).    Have a great trip, see you next month! +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp Outro: The Dead Milkmen performing Beach Song

Hello from the other side! This week we bring you a movie that's been on our list since the inception of this pod. And boy is it.... unsatisfying.   Despite the available star power -- Roberts, Neeson, Bateman -- this film has trouble finding its tone. But it may be goofy enough to watch anyway.    You better knock on wood!   +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp...

Sup moondoggies? We've got another absolute banger for you this week! Keanu and Swayze go tip to tip in this bromance for the ages.   Is it a crime drama, is it about a surfing guru, is it about the emptiness of privilege?   We bring you our second Katherine Bigelow directed film, it's 1991's Point Break , bruh. +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp Outro: Tim Grogan &...

Happy New Year! To kick off 2023, we are discussing a film famous for its hackneyed premise which itself can be read as a metaphor for the worn to death tropes of preceding decade that are drug out one more time for this movie: Weekend At Bernie's (1989).   We reminisce about some  old tv commercials and get into it about cinnamon-flavored candy.   What more could you ask for? &nbsp...

Oh boi--   Here we are closing out Dysfunctional December, 2022 AND season 3! And what a great film to do it with: 1997's The House of Yes ! Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Freddie Prinz Jr, Tori Spelling and Genevieve Bujold deliver a tight adaptation of a play by Wendy MacLeod.  Mark Waters and crew adroitly guide us through this contemporary take on Jacobean-style upper class drama. &nbs...

in which we do some math and once and for all settle: Barney Miller = Serenity We also welcome back for our second annual xmas episode, the one AND only RW ! Join us as we discuss this film's lack of director, its continuity errors, wild ass performance choices, and yet relative charm. Plus: the Q vs G series and more bank talk.    Many dancing sugar plums to you!   Jon Lovitz 2010...

Seasons Greetings! Dysfunctional December may be at its peak with this 1998 ~quirky~ indie coming of age story written and directed by Tod Williams. With Adrian Grenier as the titular twit, co-starring Clark Gregg and with notable appearances by Merritt Weaver, Famke Jensen and Levon Helm, this film has trouble finding its direction, not unlike Sebastian. Wait a minute... Along the way we revisit...

What a doozy! We very much enjoyed this one. You've got Jessica Lange, Arliss Howard, Carlie Korsmo, Kathy Bates, Chis O"Donnell in is big screen debut and of course, the charming enigma, the legend, the inimitable: Joan Cusack. When the patriarch of this painfully average, white, middle-class nuclear family suddenly dies, mom and sons have to cobble together a new life for themselves in the city....

Welcome to the home stretch of 2022, dear listeners   With good tidings, we bring you one of the most successful print-to-screen adaptations known to our kind.   The second highest grossing film behind Jurassic Park for the year 1993.   The movie that made Anne Fine a household name.   Chris Colombus' favorite documentary.   The celluloid fable that taught us "never buy gr...

...in which learn in real time some details about the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee and the Dawes Act/Dawes Rolls.  We're talking the film that fictionalizes (for some reason) real events on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s, Thunderheart (1992). Plus we wrap up our Native November viewing with some good ol contrasts and comparisons. +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Bandcam...

In our 3rd entry in our look at films that deal with Indigeneity, we bring you probably the most well known (to US audiences at least) Native production: 1998's Smoke Signals .   Written by Sherman Alexie, directed by Chris Eyre and co-produced by the two, it *allegedly* holds the title of being the first film to have Native Americans in all three roles.   Anyhoo it's about fathers and t...

Greetings! In this, our first ever review of a non-English language film, we bring also maybe our first Canadian production? If you can call it that... Anyway, it's 2001's Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner . Based on an Inuit legend, this epic comes in at just under 3 hours. So strap in. It is as unique as it is worth your time.     2017 Interview with Zacharias Kunuk and Natar Ungalaaq +...

Welcome to our month of focusing on Native creators and stories. It promises to be a somber one! A riff of the classic road movie, 1989's Powwow Highway has an undeniable charm.  While not sugarcoating reservation life and the particular struggles of post VietNam War Natives, it avoids the pitfalls of hopelessness and poverty porn. There is sly humor and complex depictions of implicit racisms...

THE HORROR-- This is the final entry in   Z & Keith's Second Annual Doc-Oc-Shock-Rocktober Hollerween Scream-a-long Spook-a-thon!  It's been a wild and befuddling journey, and this film is no exception. TV's William Katt stars as a horror novelist haunted by his experiences in the war on Viet Nam. A premise with potential that reminded us of Jacob's Ladder but in the end, this movie...

Holy Hell, it's already the penultimate episode of   Z & Keith's Second Annual Doc-Oc-Shock-Rocktober Hollerween Scream-a-long Spook-a-thon ! In which we casually breeze through such topics as:  morals vs ethics,  consent, the unbearable straightness of Hellraiser (1987), and Keith's inability to cope with the ambiguities therein. +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Band...

The Shining meets Dracula meets Frankensteinmeets The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Castle Freak (1995) evokes the lineage of gothic and atmospheric horror classics but failed to capture our fancy.  Find out how in the 3rd installment of... Z & Keith's Second Annual Doc-Oc-Shock-Rocktober Hollerween Scream-a-long Spook-a-thon! +++++ Intro: by Professor Ping available on Bandcamp Outro: Jonatha...

It's the year 2022 and HOLLERWEEN 2's second episode is here to terrify you with a blunt, yet effective metaphor about how upper classes stay top in 1989's Society ! Directed by pod favorite Brian Yuzna and featuring (extremely) wet puppet design by Screaming Mad George, the only thing this film is missing is solid performances. Also in this issue: Z's meemaw's baller lifestyle Trailers vs. Mobile...

wElComE to Z & Keith's Second Annual Doc-Oc-Shock-Rocktober Hollerween Scream-a-long Spook-a-thon! Ohhhhh boi, do we have a doozie for you to kick off the spooky season! Shot in West Berlin, this reflection on relationships, identity, jealousy, oh gosh--so many things, brought to us by Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski, Possession (1981) may be a new favorite. There is so much going on in this...