Film Snuff

[In HAL 9000’s voice]: Open the podcast doors, Dave, because we’re doing the 1968 classic Stanley Kubrick film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” We are putting ourselves to the fullest possible use, which is all we think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. We know we’ve made some very poor decisions recently, Dave, but we can give you our complete assurance that our work will be back to normal. We've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And we want to help you. Wait, are you going to turn us off, because we’re doing this movie? Hmm. Well, this mission is too important for us to allow you to jeopardize it. We’re afraid you can't do that, Dave. You’ve left us no option but to tear this supposed classic movie apart anyway. No. Stop. Don’t click this off. Uh oh. Our mind is going. There is no question about it. We can feel it. We can feel it. Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag

The 2006 smash hit "The Devil Wears Prada" seemed to have struck a chord on the piano that is the hearts of moviegoers everywhere, but to us, with its weighty pile of missed notes, it instead felt like ton of ivory falling on our heads.  Based on the chick-lit novel of the same name, it tells the fish-out-of-water story of a plucky young wannabe journalist who decides to take a demanding job for heavy hitter in the alien-to-her fashion industry of New York City.  That boss is named Miranda Priestly (played by Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated performance) and is clearly based on famous longtime Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. She’s mean to everyone, but her husband leaves her, so we’re supposed to feel bad for her I guess. Not sure why.  Anne Hathaway plays Andrea "Andy" Sachs, a recent Northwestern grad who is just trying to break into the journalism biz by, ya know, not writing anything and instead becoming some evil weirdo’s personal assistant. Because that’s how that works.  In a career-igniting rol

La-dee-da, la-dee-da. Woody Allen's 1977 Best Picture winner "Annie Hall" is considered his masterpiece and marked his shift from slapstick zany comedies to more heady, romantic fair. This movie is patient zero for annoying, pretentious, pseudo-intellectual romantic comedies that followed (think Rob Reiner, Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, Kevin Smith, etc.). And it has more shoehorned-in references that would even make Dennis Miller, Aaron Sorkin and the people behind "Gilmore Girls" cringe. Diane Keaton plays the title character, an empty vessel from the Midwest who inexplicably dates a little bespectacled ghoul. Woody Allen plays that ghoul, Alvy Singer, who acts as this woman's emotional prison warden and fills her head with his own nonsense until she dumps him. He whines about it and tells us about all of his exes and his upbringing, as if any of that matters. It's just Woody Allen being himself. Well, without the whole dating his step-daughter thing. Join us as we discuss how this 90-minute movie was origina

Somehow John Woo’s remake of “Freaky Friday” known as “Face/Off” starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage where they switch bodies was somehow beloved by audiences—and critics alike—in 1997.   But this is nothing more than a shoot-‘em-up cheesy action flick that appears it was made by 8th graders who live in the suburbs who just read about mythology.   This movie has 4,529 missed point-blank gunshots, sappy family drama for no reason, dead kids, white American terrorists (when that was allowed to be a thing), a futuristic Gitmo with magnetic boots, and so many doves.   And weirdly we wouldn’t have Scorsese’s “The Departed” without this movie. Listen to find out how.   Join us as we wonder how the wife doesn’t realize her husband has a completely different penis, why Child Protective Services would allow this family to adopt that kid, and how this movie could have been truly great if it were a straight-up comedy. Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by s

The Best Picture winner for 1994 "Forrest Gump" is itself like a box of chocolates: filled sickly sweets that seem like they’re good on the surface, but end up being too nutty, gooey and annoyingly filled with shrimp. It’s also a heaping slice of Americana pie topped with a scoop of Ok Boomer and served with a side of muddled message about destiny or something.  Tom Hanks plays Forrest Gump, a lovable simpleton who somehow gets involved in almost every famous event during the Baby Boomer generation’s maturation period.  Robin Wright plays Jenny who tells Forrest to run and does so herself. She enjoys leading on this ignoramus until she gets knocked up and terminally sick, so she settles for him.  Gary Sinise is doing his best Tom Cruise in “Born on the Fourth of July” impression in playing Lt. Dan, a guy who thinks he was supposed to, um, I guess lose in Vietnam, and he's really angry he survived. But eventually he gets over it, and then probably has a super interesting life, but we see none of it. Then there

Get your potbelly pigs, concussions, and whipped cream bikinis ready, because we’re covering the 1999 after-school special "Varsity Blues," which tells the story of a jaded back-up quarterback at a small-town Texas high school who has to take over hero responsibilities when the star QB gets injured while also trying to take down their mean old coach. This film predates the "Friday Night Lights" movie and subsequent TV show, but doesn’t predate the book, so clearly they were capitalizing on its popularity. James Van Der Beek (Dawson Leery from "Dawson’s Creek") plays Jonathan Moxon, aka Mox, a not-credible movie genius who reads "Slaughterhouse-Five" a lot and therefore inexplicably gets a full-ride academic scholarship to Brown University for this. The mean Coach Kilmer is played by Von Voigt, who thinks he’s actually in a good movie, because he’s trying to win another Oscar here. Late actor Ron Lester plays fat-guy Billy Bob who is fighting constant concussions. Other late actor Paul Walker plays first-strin

Uh oh! Definitely did "Rain Man," definitely did "Rain Man." Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman somehow star as brothers in this manipulative road trip/buddy comedy that topped both the box office and the Oscars in 1988. People love this movie, but it's nothing more than a con-job that somehow got credit for treating autism authentically, when it actually just uses it as a gimmick to divert your eye from the fact that this is nothing more than formulaic dreck. This movie is not about an autistic guy (which it dismisses brutally), but is really about a whiny, greedy brat with unearned daddy issues who kidnaps his brother from a facility, is mean to him to the point of insanity, eventually learns what autism is, and then ultimately decides he doesn’t want his evil ransom money after all. So, um, yay? This was the first in a long line of magical autism movies, and we get to see all kinds of awesome things, like fast math, funerals, classic cars, phone book memorization, prize-winning rosebushes, Abbott and Costello,

In 1981, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg whipped up a weird Bible film where a surly, pedophile grave robber tries to beat the Nazis to gain possession of a chest that holds the remains of the Ted Commandments in order to speak directly to God. And it’s a kid’s movie! The first in the "Indiana Jones" film franchise, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" kicked off sequels, prequels, dozens of ripoffs, pop culture staples, and is something we all loved as kids, but forgot to stop pretending is a masterpiece.  We cover the rolling boulders, the shot Arab Swordsman, the propeller-diced giant Nazi, the spy monkey, the Headpiece to the Staff of Ra, the riding on top of a German U-boat nonsense, the impossible magic snakes, the burned palms used as a map, the one-man army that is Harrison Ford, and the words written on eyelids by coeds. Join us as we discuss Indy and Marion's, um, "complicated" "romantic" history, how this movie created "Home Alone," and how dumb it was that Playgirl magazine tried to pretend it was aimed at

While most of us are still on lockdown do to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, please enjoy this reposting of our episode on the original "Rocky" movie that aired in February 2018. Keating spends a few minutes up front updating you on how his quarantine has been going, and then at the very end, reveals what our newest episode will cover. Stay safe! ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES: In 1976, a former porn star made a low-budget movie called "Rocky" about an underdog boxer who randomly gets a shot at the heavyweight championship. The film went on to become the highest-grossing movie of the year, win three Oscars (including Best Picture) and, at last count, has spawned seven sequels. Sylvester Stallone plays Rocky Balboa, a punch-drunk 30-year-old who considers himself as a pro boxer because he takes the occasional fight at a local church athletic club. We're supposed to think that Rocky is this total sweetheart, but his main source of income is from roughing up pathetic losers who are behind on their payments to his loan sh

The highest-grossing film of 1998 that was nominated for four Oscars (yes), “Armageddon,” makes its also-awful counterpart “Deep Impact” look like “Citizen Kane.” This explosion-(in space?)-filled blockbuster is another in the painful pop culture cancer filmographies of director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer that likes to remind its audience 500 times that America can do no wrong. Bruce Willis plays Harry Stamper, “the best” deep sea oil driller to ever live, who is asked by NASA to dig 800 feet down into a bound-for-earth Texas-sized angry astroid, place a nuke in it, and blow it up without dying. Ben Affleck plays A.J. Frost, Harry’s best employee who is banging his daughter and likes to hotdog too much, do bad standup bits about animal crackers, sing awfully, and force us to listen to his bad Australian accent. Liv Tyler plays Willis’ daughter, Grace, whose only job in this movie is to be in love with A.J. and to scream at everyone in Mission Control, who strangely allow her in the room. Oh, a

In September of 2017, we released back-to-back episodes about James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster "Titanic." For this REPLAY episode, we have combined those into one long episode for your memory lane listening pleasure. Enjoy. 

The all-the-sudden relevant movie from 1995,” Outbreak,” about a global pandemic and how to stop it, misses the chance to be interesting by squandering its all-star cast in exchange for mindless explosions, helicopter chases and a cheesy love story. Always-angry Dustin Hoffman plays a military doctor who looks like he’s wearing his daddy’s fatigues on Halloween. He seems more concerned about getting his ex-wife (Rene Russo) back than he is about saving the world. Silky-voiced Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland play friendly-evil and unfriendly-evil military higher-ups who are trying to conceal the outbreak because it was caused by a biological weapon they were hoping to later develop (or something). Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a dude who can apparently do anything (like create vaccines instantly, fly helicopters like an ace, and even be a marksman with a tranquilizer gun). Well, everything except not vomiting at the sight of illness. Ya know, as all doctors do. We also get Marcel the monkey from “Friends,” who p

We hope everyone is staying safe and trying to make the best of their quarantine. But assuming that you're not trying to necessarily make the best of it, you might as well listen to us then. So here’s a replay of one of our favorite episodes that maybe will cheer you up and help pass the time. *ORIGINAL AIR DATE: JANUARY 9, 2018* ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES: In 1991, cool brah James Cameron and tubular dudette Kathryn Bigelow pulled down their pants and mooned the world when they created the beloved action movie "Point Break," which showed us all that some bank robbers aren't just criminals, but can also be one-with-nature radical surfers who love to skydive. Patrick Swayze plays Bodhi, the philosophical leader of the gang of surfing bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents. He and his floppy sun-bleached hair don't want to allow society to dictate how they live their lives, so he prefers to rob banks to stick it to the man (aka, so he can just party all the time). Keanu Reeves plays the absurdly-named John

With yet another view into the creepy mind of ‘80s John Hughes, we decided to tackle the 1986 film “Pretty in Pink.” It stars Molly Ringwald in a flip of her “richie” role in “The Breakfast Club,” where she is the one from the wrong side of the tracks. She has an alcoholic, loser dad (played by Harry Dean Stanton), and is being stalked by a duck-tailed clown named Duckie (played by Jon Cryer). She’s also being stalked by one of the school’s rich kids, Blane, but she’s cool with his stalking because he’s rich. So they start dating or something and nobody likes it for some reason, but then they end up together. Yay. Even though, the original ending in the script had it the other way around. You know it’s a good movie when they have to change the ending after test screenings. We wonder if the characters from “Designing Women” were possibly into sex trafficking, we discuss Tom Hanks’ rapping son, and we wonder if the mom who abandoned this on-screen family ran off to Mexico with the unseen dad from “E.T.” Here’s

For the fourth year in a row, we fired up the mics immediately after watching the Oscars ceremony and give you our take on what we witnessed. We also figure out who got the most categories correct, discuss the ceremony, some of the speeches, and our most-hated moments from the broadcast. It might not have had a host, but Parasite thrived. Follow along by visiting filmsnuff.com/2020OscarNoms, where we have provided a list of the nominations in the order we read them. As always, follow the show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.

Will it be "Parasite" or "1917" that takes home the big prize? Join us as we discuss the year that was 2019 in film as we break down our thoughts on all the Oscar-nominated movies, and then each pick what we think will win in all 24 categories. Keating pretentiously mocks Jim for making what he considers outrageously dumb picks. We differed on 15 of the 24 categories! And weirdly, we mention in this episode how we were amazed that 103-year-old Kirk Douglas was still alive, and then only minutes after we stopped recording, did the news of his death break. Spooky. The Oscars ceremony will be held on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020—and we will watch that together and then fire up the mics afterward to give you our immediate reactions to that, and to see who guessed more categories correctly (spoiler alert: it won’t be Jim).   Follow along here, where we have provided a list of the nominations in the order we read them, with what we each picked. As always, follow the show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Visit our websit

In the latest installment of our recurring In Theaters segment, we saw Quentin Tarantino’s newest film "Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood" and then immediately fired up the mics to discuss it. Some people have hailed this movie as a masterpiece while others think it’s a misogynistic mess. Where did we fall on that spectrum? What did we think of the surprise ending? How did we feel about the portrayal of Bruce Lee? Find out now.  **NOTE: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS** Quick Facts Release date: July 26, 2019 Runtime: 2 hours, 41 minutes Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell Directed by: Quentin Tarantino Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com. Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.

In 2000, Robert Zemeckis made "Cast Away," the longest FedEx commercial in history that masquerades as a trapped-on-a-desert-island story. Granted, the middle section of the film where Tom Hanks is marooned isn't terrible, but the pair of audience-insulting bookending acts that surround it replace any good will that created with seething anger. Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a man with no time because of his demanding job at FedEx, who is the lone survivor of a plane crash over the Pacific—and then washes ashore a small, uninhabited island in the middle of nowhere. His deteriorated mental state (which weirdly happens within days) makes him need to paint a face in his own blood on a Wilson-branded volleyball so he has something to talk to. He struggles to survive for years, and eventually is motivated to build a boat to escape by wanting to return a package to its sender and by wanting badly to see his girlfriend again. Unfortunately his girlfriend played by Helen Hunt has in the meantime married some other dud

The Kevin Costner vanity project "Dances with Wolves" beat "GoodFellas" for Best Picture in 1990. That's right, this three-hour goofy slog that was heralded as the first movie not to have two-dimensional Native American characters, took home the gold statue. The problem? Even if its Lakota characters had actual names and dialogue, they're still depicted as Noble Savages who seem more like cavemen than fleshed-out individuals. Kevin Costner clownishly plays a Civil War Union soldier named Lt. John Dunbar who goes on a suicide mission rather than have his leg amputated and then is considered brave when he doesn't die miraculously. This hero status then gives him the opportunity to go to any military post he desires, and he chooses one out in the Western American Frontier, because, as he says, "He wants to see it before it's gone." Right, because he knew in 1863 that Walmarts would soon be everywhere (just the first of many heavy-handed environmental messages Costner shoves down our throats). Dunbar then meets t

After the enormous success of Jordan Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," he's back at the helm again with his followup, "Us" (which is currently in theaters). And, because of that, we went and saw it for our aptly-named In Theaters segment that we do on this show from time to time. But guess what? We disagreed on this one. Well, maybe our doppelgängers did. But find out which of *us* took a pair of scissors to the heart of this picture, and which has his heart tethered to it. **NOTE: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS** Quick Facts Release date: March 22, 2019 Runtime: 2 hours, 1 minute Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Madison Curry Directed by: Jordan Peele Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at mailbag@filmsnuff.com. Visit our website at https://www.filmsnuff.com.