Matt's Movie Lodgecast

We had no idea what the heck we were getting into when we hit up the AMC Burbank Town Center 8 for a late night screening of Claire Denis' High Life. All we knew was the film stars Robert Pattinson in space. After a slow start the movie kicks into overdrive when we flashback to a full spaceship of prisoners being sexually experimented on by Juliette Binoche. And then we enter the $%#* box for the Salad Dragon of the Year! If this sounds intriguing, then give a listen to our Claire Denis Super Hawt Take of High Life.

You might be wondering, "What happened to Neil Jordan?" The Irish film director, who brought us The Crying Game (1992) and Interview with the Vampire (1994), has been steadily working through the 21st century on movies and TV. When we saw he was joining forces with the great French actress Isabelle Huppert for a thriller movie called Greta, we had to see what the result was. We hit up the AMC Sunset 5 and recorded this podcast Live on the Sunset Strip. One Lodger was unable to complete the entirety of the film, but the rest of us remained for a pretty basic psychological thriller. The movie also stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, and Neil Jordan's muse Stephen Rea.

The Lodgecast reviews the final Marvel Cinematic Universe movie it will be reviewing on this podcast. The 3 Hrs. 2 Min. Avengers: Endgame is a fitting end to a decade-long journey that had us both exhilarated and fatigued. For this final Marvel film we laughed a little, we cried a lot, and we sat in somber reflection at this $356 million spectacle. In this episode we break the movie down for you hour-by-hour as we try to recall all that we witnessed. As you already know, the movie has a large cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Brolin, and Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan. Will this weepy superhero drama become the highest grossing film of all time? Probably. Farewell Marvel movies! Thanks for the memories!

We’re deeply divided in the heart of the Prius over the new movie Under the Silver Lake by director David Robert Mitchell. Is it the ultimate L.A. hipster epic or is it a tale signifying nothing as one Lodger contends? Buried by distributor A24, we hit the Hollywood Arclight for the only theater playing this 2 Hrs. 20 Min. indie saga. Actor Andrew Garfield seeks to unravel the vast Los Angeles conspiracy as he encounters much along the way. This neo-noir film is dividing both audiences and critics and really needs to be contended with. Watch it on VOD today!

The Beach Bum is mandatory viewing for all Lodgers. After dazzling us with the dark depths of Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine shows off his lighter side with the stoner comedy The Beach Bum, starring Matthew McConaughey as Moondog. After dining on Mai Tais at Damon's Steak House, four Lodgers hit the relatively new Laemmle Glendale theater for a late show. We all agreed that the McConaughassaince is back in full force as McConaughey stumbles around the Florida Keys spouting hedonistic poetry as he smokes tons of weed with his friends including Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, Zac Efron, Jimmy Buffett, Martin Lawrence, and Jonah Hill. There are endless surprises jam packed into this 95-minute celebration of having fun and a barrel of laughs too. Smoke as much marijuana and drink as much beer as you are comfortable with and then see The Beach Bum. We did and we are happy to tell you about it. Long live the Moondog!

For the 20th Anniversary of the classic horror film Pet Sematary (1989), Paramount Pictures released a remake of the film called Pet Sematary (2019). Lodgemaster demanded we revisit this classic Stephen King tale. For the most part if follows the original movie with some slight twists and violent turns. Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, and John Lithgow try to bring out the creepiness, but there were some qualms about the inability to carbon copy the horrors of the original. Anyway, we’ll bury you with our knowledge of Pet Sematary!

Trading Paint is the third John Travolta movie in a row to receive 0% on Rotten Tomatoes! The movie played at one theater in the entire Los Angeles metro area and you better believe we drove to it! We cruised down the 110 Freeway at 75 mph to the AMC Rolling Hills 20 in the remote town of Lomita, CA. The movie stars Johnnie T as a Talladega dirt car racer whose arch nemesis is Michael Madsen and whose love interest is Shania Twain. While probably the least interesting film of the Travolta Zero Percent Trilogy, we are proud to have seen it and to have reported back our findings. And we got to eat at Chili's Grill & Bar afterwards!

Three Lodge Dumbos somehow found themselves watching Tim Burton's Dumbo in 4DX at the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 14. The 4DX shenanigans were a bit subdued and we have our theories as to why. As for Disney's Tim Burton's Dumbo, it was rough ride that required some serious self-medicating with alcohol and drugs beforehand. We try our darnedest to stay positive through this review and the cast gets some praise including Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, and Alan Arkin. But the gleam in the eye of CG Dumbo didn't quite have the charm of the animated original Dumbo (1941). Next Disney trip: Aladdin!

The most hyped movie of the year has arrived! After Jordan Peele's breakout horror directorial debut with the acclaimed Get Out (2017), the entire globe stood in hushed anticipation for what would emerge next from the mind of Jordan Peele. Does the film stand among the greatest horror movies of all time, or does Jordan Peele's sophomore effort fall short? Five Lodgers see it opening night in a packed house in Burbank and we will let you know exactly how the film stands in the canon of horror cinema. Exceptional performances are contributed by Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and America's funnyman Tim Heidecker.

When we arrived to see Gaspar Noé's Climax at the Arclight Hollywood, we were already in a weird headspace for reasons which you will find out early on in the podcast. The only possible cure for our sickness was Gaspar Noé's Climax and boy did it deliver. Noé took his time early on before the psychedelic sangria kicked in. Halfway through the movie, the opening credits roll and the bad trip commences and it does not stop. Our minds were wiped clean as we experienced a catharsis of bad trip vibes. Ultimately we walked away into a richer universe thanks to Gaspar. An ensemble cast of dancers is joined by Sofia Boutella who gives one of the greatest drug trip performances of all time.

It's back to the Cinemark Baldwin Hills for another helping of Tyler Perry! While our hero Tyler Perry says A Madea Family Funeral will be his last Madea film, we call B.S. on that. After loving on Tyler Perry during the intro we head into a packed house for a Tyler Perry fiesta platter! Tyler Perry treats us not only to massive helpings of Madea, but also serves us tasty sides of his characters Joe, Brian, and Heathrow. We laughed and cried and hurled and cried and laughed some more. Needless to say, Tyler Perry you are an American hero and we salute you!

The bones are scattered all over the map when it comes to rating Robert Rodriguez & James Cameron's $200 million lovechild Alita: Battle Angel. Did you like the Japanese manga "Battle Angel Alita"? Well we don't discuss that. Instead we discuss Robert Rodriguez extensively and his wild cast of characters including Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, and Keean Johnson. After two hours of this epic cyberpunk saga, some of us had fun and some of us had allergic reactions! We can fundamentally agree that the extras in this movie are phenomenal and that the final reveal at the end of the movie will be one of the greatest things we witness in 2019.

On a cold, wintry L.A. night with temps dropping as low as 45 degrees, we saw Cold Pursuit starring Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, William Forsythe, and Tom Bateman. Unlike we were led to believe, this movie is not a standard Liam Neeson revenge flick. Cold Pursuit is actually a black comedy in the vein of Tarantino knock-off movies such as Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Suicide Kings, and the most atrocious movie ever The Boondock Saints. While the Lodgemaster stands up for this amoral, violent, unfunny oddity, the Prius fights back with a vengeance. See Cold Pursuit directed by the Norwegian Hans Petter Moland and you decide who's right!

Four Lodge Members take a deep psychological dive into the masculine psyche and its archetypal configurations that are manifesting in 2019. They went and saw What Men Want! The movie is a very loose sequel to Mel Gibson's What Women Want (2000) and Mad Mel is neither seen nor heard. This time the woman who hears "men people" is Taraji P. Henson and she leads a cast including Aldis Hodge, Richard Roundtree, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Tracy Morgan. We do hear the innermost thoughts of one of our own male Lodge members in this podcast and you will not want to miss what he is thinking!

M. Night Shyamalan's Glass completes the Unbreakable trilogy I guess. AMC Century City 15 is the place where we accidentally cut ourselves on this sharp cinematic diamond. We've got some expert Lodgers on this 'cast that have seen every single M. Night Shyamalan Joint in theaters! During this hawt take, we discuss Bruce Willis' dead eyes, Samuel L. Jackson's heavy sedation, and James McAvoy dialing it up to eleven for an insane performance that has nothing to do with actual dissociative identity disorder.

Put on your suits and dresses cause it is time to lift our glasses to Tinseltown and exclaim "Hooray for Hollywood" as we toast our love for the Oscars! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging gallop through the Academy Award nominations as the Boyz lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty Oscar categories in a little over 20 minutes! Then it's on to the very serious business of picking our 2018 movie favourites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favourite films of 2018 (well Brother Lucas only liked 5 films this year so he joins us halfway through). Some Lodgecast movies make the cut of our best films, but there are many surprises. Have a listen and let us know what you think!

To kick off the 2019 movie season we locked ourselves in a Burbank movie theater and subjected ourselves to a late night screening of the horror movie Escape Room. We tossed and turned and tried to get out and somehow managed to stay awake for the entirety. A January movie release if there ever was one, it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't too good either. I guess it was shot in South Africa so that's kind of cool. It stars Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, and Nik Dodani. There'll probably be an inescapable sequel with diminishing returns.

This is what we Lodgecast for ladies and gentlemen! We Go Out of Our Way to Watch Weird Movies so You Don't Have To! Ain't no one in the whole wide world gonna see in theaters a little movie Keanu Reeves did called Replicas. We ate at Marie Callender's in Monterey Park and then proceeded directly to the AMC Atlantic Times Square 14 to see the sci-fi techno-thriller Replicas. Some stiff drinks at Marie Callender's knocked one Lodge viewer out, but the rest of us remained alert for a fun-filled biotechnological evening. Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, written by Chad St. John, from a story by Stephen Hamel, Replicas delivers to us a wild adventure tale on human replication. The sequences of Keanu Reeves endlessly hacking through his virtual reality computer interfaces will stay in our hearts and minds forever. No techtards here!

Very dangerous spoilers ahead in our review of the movie Serenity (2019) written and directed by Steven Knight. Matthew McConaughey is at his tanned, bare-bottomed best as Baker Dill trying to catch a big tuna fish. Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, and Djimon Hounsou are there to cheer him on, but then things take a turn as McConaughey suffers a severe existential crisis. Find out why in our in-depth review of Serenity!

Learn about the former US Vice President Dick Cheney in the new movie Vice written and directed by Adam McKay. Christian Bale embodies Dick Cheney in every conceivable way. Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, and Tyler Perry all lend great support. But when McKay gets into the editing room he starts to play Oliver Stone and the result is a mixed bag. Cheney 2020!