Episode 119 - 2001: A Space Odyssey
Film Snuff
[In HAL 9000’s voice]:
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Episode 118 - The Devil Wears Prada
Film Snuff
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.
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Episode 117 - Annie Hall
Film Snuff
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.).
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Episode 116 - Face/Off
Film Snuff
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. 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.
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Episode 115 - Forrest Gump
Film Snuff
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.
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Episode 114 - Varsity Blues
Film Snuff
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.
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Episode 113 - Rain Man
Film Snuff
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.
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Episode 112 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
Film Snuff
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.
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REPLAY: Rocky
Film Snuff
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!
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Episode 111 - Armageddon
Film Snuff
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.
info_outlineNancy Meyers' most recently helmed vehicle, 2015's "The Intern" once again shows that she is out of touch with society and unable to make a movie that doesn't pander to the lowest common denominator. This cliche fish-out-of water story is just the same lame joke flopping around repeatedly wishing it could swim.
And although this movie is set in modern-day Brooklyn, it pretends like the idea of an Internet company that sells clothes is something new, and it populates its cast of only white characters with people who have incredibly backward ideas about working women and men staying home to raise the kids.
Anne Hathaway plays Jules Ostin, the ultra-hands-on founder and CEO of a fast-growing fashion startup called About the Fit. She is overworked and struggling with deciding whether to hire a CEO to replace her so she can keep her stay-at-home dad of a husband happy. The idea of delegating tasks and hiring a nanny never occurred to these billionaires.
Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a 70-year-old widower who starts to work as an intern at Hathaway's startup company. He is a two-dimensional, sickly sweet character who we feel is actually a weasel in sheep's clothing, because he takes every opportunity to brown-nose Hathaway in order to move up in the company and into her life.
Rene Russo plays the company's in-house massage therapist, but she seems more like an in-house prostitute with the overly-sexualized massages she is constantly giving De Niro, who she of course fall in love with, because they're both not young and near each other.
Andrew Rannells plays Hathaway's right-hand man at the company who appears to actually call all the shots weirdly, because he secretly has meetings with the board without Hathaway being there and is the one who forces her to take on an intern to shadow her. But really Nancy Meyers just wanted her main character to have a gay best friend underling, so it doesn’t matter that his job makes no sense.
And two-thirds of the "Workaholics" main cast are also in this movie—Adam DeVine as a sexually-harassing co-worker of De Niro's, and Anders Holm as Hathaway's unhappy and unfaithful stay-at-home dad husband. Poor Blake.
Join us as we dive into Nancy Meyers' bizarre psyche once again, wonder why she equates carrying a handkerchief with being a "real man," and if she actually is the feminist she so claims to be.
Tell us what you think by chatting with us (@filmsnuff) on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or by shooting us an email over at [email protected].
This episode is sponsored by Dr. SAD's earplugs.
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