Myopia Movies

A whole town has vanished. Snowfield, Colorado, is empty except for a few corpses, a ringing phone, and a vibe that says "don't touch anything." Naturally, we touch everything. This week we riff on Phantoms, the 1998 adaptation of Dean Koontz's horror novel. Two sisters (Joanna Going and Rose McGowan) roll into town and find it deserted. Then they find Sheriff Ben Affleck, who is very serious abou...

Six women charges with murder in Cook County and somehow they're the ones putting on the show. This week we're strapping ourselves into fishnets and existential dread for Rob Marshall's musical about murder, media, and the sweet, sweet payoff of celebrity homicide. Renée Zellweger discovers that shooting your boyfriend is basically an open mic night, Catherine Zeta-Jones proves prison is just impr...

Nomi Malone wants to dance. She wants it so bad she'll claw, thrust, and pool-vomit her way from a Vegas diner to the top of the Stardust Casino's marquee show — and we're along for every glitter-caked, oddly joyless step of it. Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas set out to make the ultimate NC-17 spectacle and instead produced one of the most gloriously, bafflingly bad movies ever released by a maj...

A movie about a songwriter who is too shy to sing, solved by putting her on a bar in wet jeans. Violet Sanford flees New Jersey for Manhattan with a demo tape and roughly nine dollars, gets robbed, gets hired at a saloon whose entire business model is "hydrate the patrons against their will," and discovers that the cure for stage fright is a crowd of drunk men chanting. Meanwhile her father drives...

We're digging into the vault for this one. The Plastics are back, Gretchen is still trying to make fetch happen, and so are we. Join us as we revisit our take on the 2004 teen comedy that somehow became both a cultural touchstone and a Broadway musical — because Hollywood ran out of ideas and humility. Does Mean Girls hold up? Is Regina George actually the hero? Why does a grown adult math teacher...

This week on Myopia Movie, we got a full moon coming up! We watched Ginger Snaps, where a Canadian teenager gets bitten by a werewolf on the same night she gets her first period...turns out puberty was always kind of a horror movie, we just needed the claws to make it official. Want to pick a movie we do an episode on and record a special commentary just for you? Purchase something from our wish l...

Two California teens dig a hole in the backyard looking for a swimming pool and instead unearth a frozen Neanderthal, thaw him out with a hair dryer, and enroll him in high school. It works about as well as you'd expect. Brendan Fraser grunts his way through his big-screen debut as "Link," Pauly Shore is somehow the film's moral center, and Sean Astin plays a guy who just wants everyone to respect...

This week on Myopia Movie, we got a candy-coated murder cover-up coming up! We watched Jawbreaker, where three impossibly glamorous high school mean girls accidentally kill their best friend with a birthday prank gone wrong and then spend the rest of the movie handling it with all the grace and subtlety you'd expect from teenagers who peaked in the "Flawless" clique... turns out 1999 had a lot of...

This week on Myopia Movies, we got a yearbook coming up! We watched Can't Hardly Wait, where a lovesick teenager spends an entire graduation party trying to work up the nerve to talk to his crush...turns out 1998 had a lot of feelings about the last day of high school and a surprising number of them involve Jerry Springer references. Want to pick a movie we do an episode on and record a special co...

Before he was terminating cyborgs or governing California, Arnold Schwarzenegger was just a well-oiled Austrian oak with a plan and a truly alarming amount of confidence. This week we strap into George Butler and Robert Fiore's landmark bodybuilding documentary, where men in tiny shorts pursue "aesthetics" with the single-minded devotion usually reserved for religious orders. We'll be riffing on t...

This week on Myopia Movie, we got a value meal coming up! We watched Super Size Me, where a documentarian eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days straight...turns out "would you like to supersize that" was less of a question and more of a warning. Want to pick a movie we do an episode on and record a special commentary just for you? Purchase something from our wish list! We are riffers on Cineprov...

This week on Myopia Movie, we got a kill screen coming up! We watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, where a middle school science teacher sets a record against a hot sauce magnate on a standee arcade machine...millennials, eat your heart out.  Want to pick a movie we do an episode on and record a special commentary just for you? Purchase something from our wish list!  We are riffers on...

This week we start season 13 in earnest as we talk a month of documentaries! We watched American Movie, a film about being creative, the American Dream, and keeping the Surge nice and chilled. RIP to Uncle Billy!  This week on Myopia Movies, we're trading the usual fictional disasters for a documented one. Chris Smith's American Movie follows Mark Borchardt — Wisconsin's answer to Orson Welles, if...

Welcome to Season 13!!!!! This week on Myopia Movies we celebrate the 4th of July and America's 250th Anniversary the only way we know how, by watching most of it be destroyed. That's right, we watched Germany's most Patriotic American Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996), the most badass a President has ever been on film.  How will Independence Day (1996) hold up?  Host: Nic Panel: Matthew,...

This week on Myopia Movies, we return to a world that once united humanity… and immediately wonder if we should have just let the aliens win the first time. It’s Independence Day: Resurgence, the long-awaited sequel that answers the question: “What if we did the same movie again, but louder and with fewer speeches people remember?” Join us as we revisit Earth, now armed with alien tech, global coo...

This week on Myopia Movies, we boldly go… to 1986 San Francisco. Yes, this week's summer rerun is Star Trek IV, the one where the fate of the galaxy depends on two humpback whales and the crew’s ability to not completely blow their cover in the past (they fail immediately). Join us as we explore the most charmingly bizarre entry in the franchise—a sci-fi film with no real villain, a heavy dose of...

This week on Myopia Movies, we put on the mask, stare into the abyss, and then complain about the lighting. We dust off a paywall episode this week as we watch Watchmen—the most philosophical superhero movie ever made, or at least the one most likely to assign you homework afterward. Join us as we unpack a world where superheroes are less “save the day” and more “deeply complicate geopolitics.” We...

This week on Myopia Movies, we finally gamble big on Bond—real Bond. We dust off a previously paywalled episode as we’re talking high-stakes poker, parkour chases that feel like a personal insult to your hamstrings, and a version of 007 who bleeds, broods, and looks like he might actually lose a fistfight (before winning it anyway). Join us as we break down how Casino Royale rebooted the franchise...

This week on Myopia Movies, we're going full existential crisis with A.I. Artificial Intelligence — the 2001 Spielberg film based on the project Stanley Kubrick spent decades developing and wisely never finished. It's got everything you'd expect from a Spielberg joint: a family torn apart by divorce energy, social dynamics that make you want to lie down, and — in what can only be described as a cr...

Welcome to another episode of Myopia Movies, where we dig through the dusty toy chest of childhood nostalgia to explain colonialism to kids and ask the important question: “Was this actually magical… or did we all just really want to own tiny murder-capable action figures?” This week, we’re cracking open The Indian in the Cupboard — the movie that convinced an entire generation that putting living...

This week on Myopia Movies, we head back to military school where the uniforms are crisp, the cadets are angry, and somehow Chucky has access to live ammunition. It’s Child's Play 3 — the movie that asks, “What if summer camp, toxic masculinity, and a killer doll all collided in the least supervised environment imaginable?” Join us as we discuss the rapid-fire sequel production schedule, why every...

Welcome to another episode of Myopia Movies, where we ruin your childhood one VHS tape at a time. This week, we’re stepping into the neon-lit fever dream that is Mannequin — a movie that asks the important question: “What if a department store mannequin came to life… and immediately dated Andrew McCarthy?” That’s right. It’s the ‘80s, where unemployment was quirky, retail workers had unlimited cre...

This week, we head to the crime-ridden dystopia of Detroit where corporations rule, criminals laugh like maniacs, and the solution to urban decay is… a heavily armed cyborg cop with excellent posture. Join Nic, Matthew, Keiko, Nur, and Alex as they revisit RoboCop (1987), Paul Verhoeven’s ultraviolent, razor-sharp satire that somehow convinced an entire generation of kids that this was appropriate...

This week on Myopia Movies, we learn that the only way to win is not to play. We watched War Games,  a delightful romp about the apocalypse. Ally Sheedy is, like, stooping the whole time to make Matthew Broderick look taller than her, right?  🎙️ Thanks for listening, subscribing, and supporting the show—see you next episode. Want to pick a movie we do an episode on and record a special commentary...

This week on Myopia Movies, we watch Marvel's own Jarvis/Vision fight to stop AI by trying to stop Johnny Depp. It's not as fun as that sounds. We watched Transcendence (2014), wow this movie can't event decide if AI or Johnny Depp is a bad guy. You'd think people would have an opinion at this point.  Thanks for listening, subscribing, and supporting the show—see you next episode (assuming this on...