Have Josh's prayers for cinematic greatness been answered? Did he find them in Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Aftermath," or is he just going to nitpick away another movie this week?
There is but one way to find out, and that's to click play.
For this week's podcast, we're continuing our conversation on filmic enthusiasm and the search for great movies. However, rather than tackling it from our jaded, adult, eyes, we take a gander at how children (specifically Josh's) see movies. For them, so many movies are great, so many movies open up their eyes to something new and wonderful.
What sort of burden though does that put on those of us who have the responsibility of showing them something new and different (and good)?
"The Space Between Us" is, ostensibly, about a teen who has grown up on Mars wanting to go back to Earth and see what life is like on humanity's home planet. Sadly for Josh, moments of flawed logic made it impossible for him to accept so much of the film well before the teen in question was anything more than an infant.
How does it go so wrong so quickly? Listen and find out!
Every once in a while Josh offers up his thought on just why he goes to the movies. While he espouses sometimes lofty ideals in these pieces, he never feels quite satisfied with his take. It isn't that he's wrong, he just feels like he can do better. And so, again this week, he has graced us with another podcast on why he loves movies.
Apparently they're like his bad golf game. Listen and do with that what you will.
On this week's podcast we launch a brand new giveaway! We have two copies of "Saturday Night Fever" to hand out (two winners, one copy each). Enter at tvandfilmguy.com
Beyond that, we talk about "The Red Turtle," one of Josh's favorites from last year (now available on Blu-ray). It is a movie good enough to have Josh stop worrying about commas and semicolons, and that says something.
Josh doesn't like it when people harp on records superiority to CDs or mp3s. Josh doesn't like it when people explain the advantages to milling their own flour. Josh does, however, appreciate many of the advantages of physical media over their digital counterparts... mostly in terms of decoration. But man, moving them around can be a difficult process.
Regardless of the quality of a movie or television show (or book or song or anything really), sometimes you hear a brief synopsis and say, "wait, it's about what?" We have all been there before and sometimes we're convinced by the movie/TV show/book/etc. and sometimes we aren't.
Today, we're talking about a movie where a monster serves as the engine for a truck.
Go ahead, say it, it's okay.
We love the idea of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" which hits blu-ray today much more than the movie's execution, it is the promise of these side stories that excites us as opposed to the particulars. No, it's not sacrilege to say that, just listen.
And, in case our arguments don't convince, perhaps we can put some salve on those wounds by announcing our latest giveaway -- it's for "Office Christmas Party" which also arrives on blu-ray today!
At one point or another, we have probably all taken an anti-adaptation/reboot/reimagining stance, we have all decided that "x" shouldn't be turned from a movie to a book or book to a movie or movie to a TV show.
It's an easy argument to make. It's also a bad one. The question has to be whether there is something worthwhile to be gleaned from the new version.
Listen as Josh rants about this and reminds you to enter our "Fences" and "Silence" blu-ray giveaways!
"20th Century Women" and "Julieta" provide insightful--at times harrowing--looks at what it means to be a parent, and not just a parent, a single parent who does not have any help from the child's other parent.
Today's episode thinks about what that means, what difficulties might be associated, and whether we (as a people) can and should do better for parents. Hint: we should.
Some movies are easy to describe and others are quite difficult. It isn't that the latter are necessarily better than the former, it's just that they require a paragraph or two or three before you can give an explanation that doesn't feel overly chintzy.
This week's podcast looks at one easy to describe film, "Sing," and one difficult one, "Elle." Over the course of the episode Josh tries, not in terribly deft fashion, to come up with a single sentence to describe each. Can he do it?
Yes, Lass is More is launching its first ever giveaway contest. We have two copies of Denzel Washington's "Fences" to give out and are looking for two different winners (one winner per copy). Enter here.
We are particularly happy to have this be our first giveaway as it's such a good, powerful, movie. So, listen to the podcast, learn why we like it and make sure to enter the contest.
Sometimes there is just too much going on. Such is the case with this week's "Lass is More." While the majority of the episode is devoted to an interview with director Ferne Pearlstein, whose movie "The Last Laugh" is currently showing in NY and will soon expand across the country, we would be remiss if we didn't mention the wonderful "Moana," which is now out on Blu-ray.
In fact though, when you stop and think about it, these two movies might have more in common than it initially appears.
Are we all on a journey in our lives? More specifically, are we all on an internal (or maybe spiritual) journey? Two movies arriving on home video this week offer up different sorts of internal journeys and do so with different results. This week, we're talking the Oscar-winning "Moonlight" and "Doctor Strange."
A significant number of movies use flashbacks, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they should. All too often, flashbacks are used as a crutch; a way to make a boring, or ill-considered, movie that much more interesting.
Today's podcast looks at two different films that utilize flashbacks, one where they prop up a problem film and one where they enhance an already great one.
On today's podcast, Josh learns that a quote is from the Bible. He would have guessed Shakespeare, but that would have been wrong.
The point though is not the quote being biblical, but rather the idea that maybe movies should just strive to be the best version of themselves rather than pretending that they're utterly unique. "The Edge of Seventeen" seems to subscribe to this notion and manages to be stellar coming of age tale.
What causes a movie to be a success. Ah, if we could only answer that question then we could ensure that every film was a success, couldn't we?
Whether or not it is answerable, it is a question worth asking and even if he comes up with no answers, Josh ruminates on it today as it relates to the 2016 movie "Arrival."
Jamal Joseph has done many things with his life from activism to teaching to filmmaking, and his latest movie, "Chapter & Verse" is about to hit theaters. Joseph, the director and co-writer of the movie, stops by the podcast this week to talk to us about how his documentary background helped influence this film and how it might be received differently today, in our post-Presidential election world, from when he initially filmed it.
Chess isn't what instantly springs to mind when one thinks of sports, but Mira Nair's "Queen of Katwe," which focuses on chess, is most definitely a sports film. It features all the expected rhythms of such a movie, with its underdog overcomes adversity tale.
Last Friday, January 20th, "Queen of Katwe" provided Josh with some much needed solace in this country that seems increasingly like an anti-underdog story.
The latest installment in the "Death Race" franchise, "Death Race 2050" is out on Blu-ray this week and we're taking a look at what it means to be that sort of a purposefully silly, intentionally over-the-top, movie. Is it sometimes used as a cover for mistakes, is it used to get a message in, or is it just all pretend?
As zombie apocalypse films go, "Train to Busan" is a solid one, a highly enjoyable gut-muncher but not one without logic flaws. In today's podcast we discuss one of these flaws and try to work out why it's there. Truth be told, we think politics may be involved.