Matt's Movie Lodgecast

Francis Ford Coppola, you madman! Coppola spent $120 million of his own money to finance his new epic science fiction dramedy Megalopolis, and we just witnessed it in IMAX on Discount Nite! Folks, if you live by a theater that is playing this movie, it does deserve to be seen on the big screen. It is a sight to behold printed on Salad Dragon skin celluloid. An uncompromising, ambitious vision that will certainly draw a wide variety of reactions as it did for us. The cast is stacked with Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, Giancarlo Esposito as Mayor Franklyn Cicero, Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero, Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum, Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III, Laurence Fishburne as Fundi Romaine, Talia Shire as Constance Crassus Catilina, Jason Schwartzman as Jason Zanderz, Grace VanderWaal as Vesta Sweetwater, D.B. Sweeney as Commissioner Stanley Hart, and Dustin Hoffman as Nush "The Fixer" Berman. It was 50 years in the making, and at 85 years young Coppola has taken us to Megalopolis. See it BIG!

Saleka Night Shyamalan makes her film debut in M. Night Shyamalan's Trap! Saleka is M. Night's daughter in real life, but in the movie, she plays fictional popstar Lady Raven. Her concert is attended by serial killer Josh Hartnett and his daughter played by Ariel Donoghue. Hayley Mills of The Parent Trap (1961) fame is trying to track down Hartnett and trap him at the concert. It's another head-scratching psychological thriller from master of suspense M. Night Shyamalan.

We faced the alt right Borat head-on...so youuuuu don't have tooooo!

Director Ti West completes his X trilogy with his new movie MaXXXine. Mia Goth is back as Maxine Minx from the film X (2022). This time she is an aspiring actress in 1980s Hollywood seeking to put her adult film career behind her. Meanwhile, a killer known as the Night Stalker is roaming around Hollywood killing people and threatening Maxine. The film also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon. The film seems like it could be a sleazy 80s slasher slam dunk for Mr. Ti West, but does he succeed? Tune into this hawt take to hear our reaction.

One of the most talked about horror movies of the year is Longlegs. This hyped horror movie is from director Oz Perkins, who directed Gretel & Hansel, which we covered back in Movie Lodgecast Number 84. In Longlegs, Maika Monroe plays an FBI agent who must track down a serial killer, who might be played by Nicolas Cage. The movie also stars Blair Underwood and Alicia Witt. This horror movie has produced much debate, including on this podcast as opinions were decidedly mixed. Join us as we dissect Longlegs!

J.Lo's fascinating year continues! After covering This Is Me...Now: A Love Story, we were curious to see what she was up to in her Netflix sci-fi action movie Atlas. Jennifer Lopez plays Atlas Shepherd, who learns to stop worrying and love artificial intelligence in the year 2071. She takes control of a giant mech robot and befriends the onboard AI named Smith. The movie also stars Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, and Mark Strong.

It's a box office bomb losing over $100 million and scoring an abysmal 10% on Rotten Tomatoes currently. The movie is Borderlands, starring multi-Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett as Lilith and her team of misfits in this sci-fi action comedy based on the video game series. The movie was shot in Hungary during the COVID-19 pandemic by director Eli Roth with reshoots by Tim Miller to give it a PG-13 rating. It finally dropped into theaters here in August and it's a disaster-piece that we had to cover. The impressive cast includes Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black as the obnoxious voice of Claptrap. Don't ever see this movie, but maybe hear what we witnessed. This is Borderlands.

Russell Crowe is back again with his clerical collar fighting demons! A little over a year after The Pope's Exorcist (2023) was released, a new movie called The Exorcism has been released directed by Joshua John Miller. Joshua John Miller is the son of Jason Miller who played Father Damien Karras in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist! Joshua John Miller was also a child actor who starred in movies like River's Edge, Near Dark, Class of 1999, and Teen Witch. In his directorial debut The Exorcism (2024), Joshua John Miller directs Russell Crowe as Anthony Miller, an actor with a deteriorating mental state who melts down as he's working on an exorcism horror movie. The film also stars Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, Adrian Pasdar, and David Hyde Pierce. Will it live up to the dizzying heights of The Pope's Exorcist? We will let you know!

At age 79, Aussie director George Miller has released the lively Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. This film comes out almost a decade after the highly regarded Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). It is a prequel to Fury Road starring Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy as young versions of the character Furiosa. Chris Hemsworth plays the villain Dementus, and there's a whole bunch of other demented characters that inhabit this post-apocalyptic wasteland. The film unfortunately bombed, and we'll discuss why, along with giving our review of this expensive action film!

The movie event of the summer has arrived! We saw Twisters in 4DX with motion-seats, wind, spraying water, vibration, smoke, and strobe lights! On a packed discount night at the Regal North Hollywood, Twisters proved to be the perfect 4DX movie that rocked our worlds for two solid hours. After sharing our recently rediscovered love for Jan de Bont's Twister (1996), we headed into the Pepsi 4DX with large Pepsis in hand. From the opening tornado scene, we knew we were in trouble. Twisters is directed by Lee Isaac Chung and stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, and Sasha Lane. Deadpool & Wolverine unfortunately kicked Twisters out of 4DX, but if you somehow get a chance to see it in 4DX, DO IT! And if you feel it, chase it! We got twins!!

Forty years after the film Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Detroit police detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) returns for the fourth installment in the Beverly Hills Cop film series. After being burned by Eddie's legacy sequel Coming 2 America (2021), we were cautious about Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. We share our love for Eddie in the opening, along with Harold Faltermeyer, who composed the great "Axel F" theme song. This movie was released on Netflix, where it quickly rose to the most-watched film. Many older actors returned for this one, including Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge. The film also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kevin Bacon, and Taylour Paige as Axel's daughter. The film is directed by first-time director Mark Molloy. We tried to bring some love and light to this one!

It's time to jump in the pool! Chris Pine's directorial debut was in theaters for two weeks tops, but we were able to dive in and experience it on the big screen. In the film, Chris Pine plays poolman Darren Barrenman. He fights for what is right in Los Angeles, which leads him down a path of corruption & real-estate & water & power. Pine assembled an impressive cast including Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stephen Tobolowsky, Clancy Brown, John Ortiz, Ray Wise, Juliet Mills, and DeWanda Wise. Poolman premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to wretched reviews, so we knew we had to see it! Never watch this film, but do listen to our take on Chris Pine's Poolman!

Take a nostalgic Lodgecast trip with us back to 2018, when, for a brief period, we paid $9.95 per month to see unlimited movies at any time and in any theater. We watched the recently released HBO Original documentary MoviePass, MovieCrash to learn the story behind that crazy time in American moviegoing history. We find out all about the rise and fall of the MoviePass company and the players behind the scenes. And we mostly talk about our personal histories with MoviePass, including the MoviePass-produced film Gotti (2018) that we covered way back in Episode 14. We also talk about when MoviePass officially crashed during our hawt take of Mission: Impossible - Fallout. It's all love and light as we look back at our MoviePass moviegoing experiences. Rest in Peace $9.95 MoviePass! Long Live the AMC A-List!

Happy 4th of July America! For such a time as this, writer/director Alex Garland dropped his latest flick Civil War into theaters. This $50 million A24 film actually made some money bringing in $120 million worldwide. In the film, the United States is engulfed in a Civil War, as President Nick Offerman has taken authoritarian control over the federal government. Meanwhile, various secessionist regional factions are heading for Washington, D.C. to wreak havoc. Journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and Stephen McKinley Henderson are road tripping while capturing the wartime action. What is the purpose of this film at this time, Mr. Garland? We considered it our patriotic duty to try to figure it out. God Bless the USA!

Director Luca Guadagnino returns. After his dark-hearted cannibal film Bones and All starring our boy Chalamet, Guadagnino has made a light-hearted tennis romance starring Zendaya. Challengers features a love triangle between her and Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. We'll let you know if this movie is sexy! The film features plenty of tennis to the pulsing techno beats of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's 15-Love-n-Light and the Lodgecast is ready to serve!

It was time to Do The Dune! Part Two! Yes, we got our Dune-themed sandworm popcorn bucket and we test it out live on the air. Then we snuggled in for another trip to the desert planet Arrakis to watch our boy Chalamet get all spiced up. And this time we got way more than just flashes of Zendaya! We rode this sandworm for 166 minutes and we'll let you know our reactions to this epic science fiction film conclusion. Bring on the Dune Messiah and the Children of Dune and even the God Emperor of Dune and the Heretics of Dune! Dune 2 featured a star-flooded cast including Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Lea Seydoux, and Christopher Walken!

The Lodgecast boys and girls of summer have returned from our extended Spring Break! We've been secretly recording while we were away. And one movie we did not miss was the baffling Marvel superhero movie Madame Web! The Dr. Michael Morbius Memorandum states that any Marvel movie that falls below 20% on Rotten Tomatoes must be covered on the Lodgecast. And Madame Web scored an abysmal 11% on Rotten Tomatoes! By the time we got to theaters, the word was out that this film was a turkey, and audiences were primed to laugh at everything Madame Web threw at us. Dakota Johnson delivers a bewildering performance as Madame Web as she tries to spin drama out of the wretched script and awkward pauses. She's supported by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott. Tune into this episode to find out more about this cinematic bomb!

We're taking a Lodgecast Spring Break! We must give our dear Lodgemaster a much-needed editing break after splicing together over 280 four-bone episodes in the last six years! We'll be recording episodes of notable movies here and there while we rest up, but they won't be released until after our break. Fear not, dear listener; we shall return! Love & Eternal Light!

Celebrate Hollywood and the movies as the Lodgecast presents our Oscar Extravaganza & 2023 Movie Favorites! Host Brother Bischke leads a hard-charging examination of the Academy Award nominations as five prestigious Lodge members lay down their picks for what should win and what will win in twenty-three Oscar categories in under 30 minutes! Then it's onto our special award, where we'll all give our pick for The Salad Dragon of the Year! Then we charge forward to the very serious business of picking our 2023 movie favorites as we all count down from #10 to #1 of our very favorite films of 2023. 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!

This Is J.Lo…NOW! At age 54, Jennifer Lopez has released her ninth studio album, This Is Me... Now, and along with it, she financed a $20 million romantic musical film that dropped onto Amazon Prime last week! This Is Me...Now: A Love Story is loosely based on J.Lo's life as she falls in and out of love over the past decades. This visual album was only 65 minutes long, but we had much to say about it! Even though he's only in it for a few shots, Ben Affleck looms large over the project as Bennifer crashes and burns in the opening scenes, and J.Lo goes through a decades-long search to rediscover herself and her soul mate Ben. The film features many songs from her new album and many therapy scenes with Fat Joe as her therapist. It also features a whole host of cameos, including Jane Fonda, Kim Petras, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Sofia Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sadhguru, Derek Hough, Trevor Noah, Paul Raci, and Ben Affleck as Rex Stone/Biker. Watch it through our eyes if you dare!