Jean-Claude Van Damme once again graces the podcast in Lionheart (1990), a film that reprises many of the beats of Van Damme’s breakout piece – Bloodsport. While there were compelling elements, too much didn’t work here to win our hosts over.
John Carter is a book adaptation that, like other book adaptations in the big-budget genre, misses on several levels. This week, our host look at this $300M+ piece which flopped at the box office and ended Sci-Fi projects across Hollywood for years.
Click below to listen to the podcast or watch our video review.
This week our hosts visit the still sadly relevant science fiction action film, They Live (1988). The film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.
We also did something new this week. We converted our podcast to a video. We now have a video review for They Live. Check out the video linked below.
Let us know what you think of the new video in the comment section.
We’re doing something a little different this week. We are approaching the first anniversary of our podcast and wanted to celebrate with a mega sized review.
Our hosts watched 61 movies together in 2021 and released most of them on this podcast. Tune in this week for a long-form episode talking through everything we watched this year with behind-the-scenes musings, some enthusiastic Steven Seagal bashing, and another battle over Krull.
Currently streaming on Apple TV, this straight down the line WWII action movie hits the mark for our hosts this week. Tom Hanks, compelling action, and solid historical interpretation combine to put you on the bridge of a destroyer in the North Atlantic in this immersive naval film.
Do you like the holiday polar bears that Coca Cola brings out every year around this time? Would you like to watch them rip each other apart in a cgi armored bear brawl? Me neither.
Based on the popular book series, The Golden Compass (2007) tried to appeal to everyone, and in doing so, made all the classic book adaptation mistakes. Get the full breakdown of the film in this week’s episode.
Sylvester Stallone stars as a rock climber who gets caught up in a life or death struggle with a group of thieves in the peaks of the Western US. Some incredible rock climbing mixed with some overextended plot twists net out to a middling good-bad movie for our hosts
Disaster movies can be escapist entertainment. They can be affirming of the human spirit. They can be technical marvels offering up state of the art effects.
2012 is none of those things. Find out what it actually is by listening to our 3 minute review.
Combining elements of video games, Groundhog Day, and Looney Toons this action, comedy, family drama has a little too much going on for its own good. But does that make it the biggest and best movie ever or just a made by committee mess? Listen to our review to find out…
The original is always the best. We closed out Halloween month with the movie named after the holiday. Does it hold up? Absolutely. It’s the best in the series and a legendary horror movie for a reason.
I watch this one every few years. The story is well known. A mad man escapes an asylum and returns to his hometown where he stalks and kills a group of teenaged babysitters lead by Jamie Lee Curtis. He is pursued by Dr. Loomis, played but Donald Pleasance.
What makes this movie work better than the others in the series or the others in its genre? A couple of reasons, but the most prominent is this films focus on suspense not violence. This movie is about one hour and forty five minutes long. An hour of that time is spent building up the suspense and fear. It is a slow burn. It builds up its tension methodically. It builds up an aura of fear around the masked killer that then explodes in the final minutes. We always know where the killer is. We know he’s outside. We know he’s coming up the stairs. We know he’s under that sheet or behind that door. We know. The characters don’t. They walk in blissful ignorance of the danger surrounding them. This creates suspense. We know the danger is there. They don’t. We feel on edge. This is exquisitely handled throughout the movie. This makes it the scariest of the series.
It doesn’t linger on the violence or the blood. There is nary a drop of blood in this movie. It is all about the buildup and suspense. We aren’t forced to linger in the blood and guts. We aren’t exposed to the horrific gore that the effects department can cook up. It is about the characters, and the dread we feel for them.
On the other hand, it is a slow movie. What struck me this time was how many shots there are of the killer watching the girls. Long takes of long shots of watching and lingering. There’s a lot of long shots in this movie. That will definitely upset those with shorter attention spans. It will be hard to get used to when you are accustomed to the fast pointless cuts of TV and modern films.
This is a fun movie to revisit on Halloween. It feels like home each October 31st. I enjoy the film every year, but I’m ready for the month to be over. It’s been a very messy month. I’m typing this review on November 1st because I fell so far behind on my reviews. It was just too much to try to watch a movie a day, work, and write a review. We’ll see how many more years I’m able to keep up this tradition. I do love it, and I’d be very sad to see it go away. But times change, and the tides seem to be pulling me away from this type of immersive experience. I will for sure be hitting it next year as 2022 will mark my tenth year of this marathon. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’ll try to make it something special.
Happy Halloween to everyone. I hope you all had a good year. I hope you can all join me again next year.
Cup of Tea Reviews 