280: We Like TV - GAME OF THRONES Wrap-Up
It’s been a long time since we’ve dipped our cinematically-inclined toes into the television pool. But what better reason to do so than the conclusion of the most cinematic show ever to grace the small screen?
Join us for a break-down, wrap-up, and maybe even a defense of the wildly divisive final season of HBO’s beloved and reviled 73 episode experiment in long form storytelling.
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279: Retrospectating 1999 - STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE
On the third Wednesday of May in the year 1999, an unprecedented cinematic event took place in movie theaters around the world. Twenty years later, we’re still trying to answer two questions about the most anticipated / most disappointing film of the 20th Century:
“What the hell happened?”
and
“What does it all mean?”
Join us for another edition of our ongoing series “Retrospectating 1999” in which we masochistically revisit THE PHANTOM MENACE in an effort to uncover the truth behind the infamous fiasco at the center of a legitimate cultural phenomenon.
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277: Oeuvre - Wrapping and Ranking the Films of STEVEN SPIELBERG - 1971 - 2018
What a long, strange trip it’s been. We began our journey through Steven Spielberg’s 32-film oeuvre in August of 2017.
20 months later we’ve finally arrived at our 8th and final podcast in the series- a thorough and passionate reflection and ranking episode.
Join us as we curate our personal hierarchies of the man’s filmography, break down his budgets and box office receipts, rank performances, scores, scenes, shots, and finally reveal which director will be covered in our next Oeuvre series (premiering May 14th)!
Thanks for following us on this epic campaign through Steven Spielberg’s 47-year feature filmmaking odyssey. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster and now it’s time for a new mission.
Viva la Oeuvre!
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276: Oeuvre - The 7th Age of STEVEN SPIELBERG - 2015 - 2018
This installment is affectionately titled "Playing with House Money” and covers one film per year over four years, spanning 2015-2018:
-Bridge of Spies (2015)
-The BFG (2016)
-The Post (2017)
-Ready Player One (2018)
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275: Retrospectating 1999 - GO / ELECTION
Twenty years ago today a film was released that caught director Doug Liman, writer John August, and a cast of hot young upstarts at a moment of perfect aesthetic and artistic unanimity. Go wasn’t a big hit at the time and was even dismissed by Leonard Maltin as a “junior Pulp Fiction.” But the film has aged in a lot of fascinating ways over the last two decades and on this week’s episode we engage in a rare disagreement about many of them.
We also dig deep into an analysis of Alexander Payne’s second (and best?) film Election and its significance in the context of Reese Witherspoon’s unique oeuvre.
Viva la ‘99!
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274: Present Tense - Nominating Our Favorite Baseball Movies, Overthinking US, and Legitimizing THE BEACH BUM
We’re catching it up and breaking it down this week with a veritable smorgasbord of scintillating topics:
-Celebrating the beginning of the season with our favorite baseball movies (00:03:00)
-A SPOILER HEAVY litigation of the various interpretations of Jordan Peele’s US (00:14:20)
-A preemptive defense of Harmony Korine’s latest ode to hedonism, THE BEACH BUM (00:26:56)
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273: Retrospectating 1999 - THE MATRIX
Twenty years ago this week a film came along that not only changed the way that we looked at science fiction, visual effects, and Keanu Reeve’s capacity for star power. It also legitimatized the fetishization of mirrored sunglasses, duster jackets, and leather pants. So pop your red pill, crank up the Rammstein, and dog-ear your copy of “Simulacra and Simulation.” We’re heading down the rabbit hole and back to March of 1999 for our definitive reevaluation of The Matrix. Never forget, there is no spoon!
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272: Present Tense - TRIPLE FRONTIER and the Utter Inevitability of Netflix Ubiquity
Here at We Like Movies we’ve been extremely vocal about our love for filmmaker J.C. Chandor and have always self-identified as loud and proud “Chandorks.” But our dedication to the man’s body of work experienced some strain this past week on the occasion of his newest film premiering on Netflix.
Let’s just say that we have complicated feelings about Triple Frontier that we attempt to work out in a SPOILER heavy breakdown of the film, which develops—as these conversations often do—into a lot of hand-wringing and kvetching about the big red streaming giant that you’re probably watching out of the corner of your eye as you read this.
Zip up your windbreaker, bump the Metallica, and set fire to a stack of Benjamins. We’re heading to South America with J.C. Chandor and Ben Affleck and there may be some casualties along the way…
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270: Our Annual Oscar Postmortem (2019 Edition)
The Oscars came out of the gates with a bang and ended with a whimper. The night’s big winner was vexing but there were some legitimate highlights that we’ll likely be talking about for years to come.
Oscars. We watched ‘em. We’re talkin’ about ‘em. So there.
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269: Retrospectating 1999 - OFFICE SPACE
20 years ago today, a 10 million dollar workplace comedy directed by the 37 year old creator of Beavis and Butthead was released by a major Hollywood studio and audiences ignored it EN MASSE. Today it occupies rarefied air as one of the most beloved cult texts of the 1990s. On the occasion of Office Space‘s 20th anniversary we travel back to 1999 to talk Liquid Television, Cornholio, Generation X, and the enduring legacy of Gary Cole’s matching tie and suspender set. If you don’t listen to this episode expect a strongly-worded memo about TPS reports to land on your desk first thing tomorrow morning.
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268: Retrospectating 1999 - VARSITY BLUES / SHE'S ALL THAT
In honor of the 20th anniversary of one of the all time great movie years, we’re debuting a new feature in which we deep-dive into the most important films of the last year of the 20th century: “Retrospectating 1999!”
Join us for our inaugural episode in which we excavate the “year of the teenager” phenomenon when films like Varsity Blues and She’s All That inadvertently emerged as flagship texts for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it paradigmatic shift.
For a moment in 1999, everyone wanted to be 16. Luckily, your devoted podcast hosts actually were that age at the time. Finally it pays off!
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265: Oeuvre - The 6th Age of STEVEN SPIELBERG - 2008 - 2012
This installment is affectionately titled "The Struggle for Artistic Identity” (AKA “Who Am I?”) and spans 2008-2012:
-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
-The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
-War Horse (2011)
-Lincoln (2012)
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264: Oscar Predictions by Oscar (and Matt)
On a rare episode in which we actually recorded under the same roof (on the same microphone, no less!), we get down to business with Academy Awards talk. We pontificate and prognosticate as we reveal our individual predictions in all of the “major” categories and take the time to curate our “fantasy” scenarios of who we’d personally love to see nominated.
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262: Oscar & Matt's Top 10s of 2018
Dearest WLM family, it’s time for our favorite podcast of the year and, at the risk of being self-congratulatory, we think it’s one of our best episodes ever! It’s epic without being long-winded. There’s list overlap without complete crossover. There’s disagreement without dissent. There’s even a brief detour into our own personal lists of 2018 missed-movie-shame. It’s a good one.
Happy New Year, everybody. We’ve got big plans for 2019 and couldn’t be more excited to have you with us!
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261: AFI #70 - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
“Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures!”