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150. Spice World

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Release Date: 02/21/2025

The Royal Tenenbaums show art The Royal Tenenbaums

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Hey folks, we had to make a programming change this week because one of our bodies did a medical oopsie and we ended up in the emergency room. Everything's fine... but wait till the bill comes, am I right?? Anyway, we had to push back our Death Proof episode, so now, we have unlocked our Royal Tenenbaums episode from behind the Patreon paywall. See you in a week! Love you goodbyeeee.

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157. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (with Jen Walks N2 Walls) show art 157. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (with Jen Walks N2 Walls)

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

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Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Enjoy nine free minutes from our Patreon-exclusive episode about the pilot of the American Office. Hear the full thing by subscribing at for $5/month. Matt and Wade go through the pilot episode of the American Office. They compare their personal fandoms of the show and how deep their knowledge runs, and then briefly discuss how the show was adapted from the British series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, its rocky first season and slow ascent into a megahit, and its lasting cultural legacy. And as for the pilot itself, which is generally not well regarded, Matt is surprised...

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Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Hoppy Easter. We're taking the week off but don't want to leave you hopping. So here's our eggsipode about The Truman Show, in its entirety, previously available only to our Patreon subscribers. We'll be back next week with an all-new episode about Sister Act 2. 

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156. American Psycho (with Red Rose Film Club) show art 156. American Psycho (with Red Rose Film Club)

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

We welcome Hal ( on Letterboxd) and Craig ( on Letterboxd) from the Red Rose Film Club podcast to cover American Psycho (2000), the Wall Street horror/comedy starring Christian Bale as Patrick "Jason" Bateman. This movie’s got a lot going on, folks. And we get to it all—we determine who has the best business card, we explain why you wouldn’t want Christian Bale as your co-worker at Whataburger, we try to figure out what’s going on with Justin Theroux’s hair, and we marvel at Patrick Bateman’s chainsaw math. Also, is American Psycho Jared Leto’s villain origin story? ...

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Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

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Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Enjoy 12 minutes from our Patreon-only bonus episode about The Royal Tenenbaums!  Subscribe to Load Bearing Beams: Collector's Edition for $5/month at  

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154. Heartbreakers (2001) show art 154. Heartbreakers (2001)

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

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153. The Firm show art 153. The Firm

Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

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Load Bearing Beams: A Movie Podcast

Friend of the Show Screen Time Kota () returns to discuss the 1985 sci-fi film Enemy Mine. This hidden gem of an ‘80s sci-fi film has everything you want: practical effects, elaborate sets, miniature spaceships, matte paintings, and incredible makeup. Even more impressive is the performance of Louis Gossett Jr. underneath the intricate alien makeup. He and Dennis Quaid (a human) get stranded on a planet together; their species hate each other more than anything else… but somehow, they’ll need to learn to get along if they want to survive this. (They do.)   Next week: The...

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It only took us eight years but we finally reached 150 episodes. How about that? To celebrate, we squeeze into matching Union Jack dresses and slam our bodies down and wind them all around to discuss Spice World (1997), the notoriously bad (but secretly good?) Spice Girls movie.

 

To elder millennials, this movie’s a big honking deal, folks, and we pull out all the stops to unpack exactly why that is. And to then marvel at how, of all the directions they could have gone with a Spice Girls movie, this is what they made. 

 

Bonus video: We name our favorite movies about bands, real or fictional. Watch it on our Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok.

 

Next week: Our Oscars special, previewing the 2025 Academy Awards with a cavalcade of superstar guests 

 

Subscribe to our Patreon, Load Bearing Beams: Collector's Edition for $5 a month to get two extra episodes! patreon.com/loadbearingbeams 

 

Time stamps:

00:06:13 — Our personal histories with the Spice Girls

00:16:06 — History segment: What is “Cool Britannia”?; a brief history of the Spice Girls; how the Spice Girls made a movie 

00:44:12 — In-depth movie discussion

01:17:53 — Final thoughts and star ratings

 

Sources:

“How the ‘Spice World’ Movie Became a Deranged, Postmodern Masterpiece” by Sirin Kale | Vice, 2018 - https://bit.ly/41qK2nx 

“When the Spice Girls hit Cannes: the inside story of Spice World, 'the worst film ever made'” by Alice Vincent | The Telegraph, 2019 - https://bit.ly/3Qrjdua 

Roger Ebert’s half-star review of Spice World - https://bit.ly/4i0PKTB 

 

Artwork by Laci Roth.

 

Music by Rural Route Nine. Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify (https://bit.ly/48WBtUa), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3Q6kOVC), or YouTube (https://bit.ly/3MbU6tC).

 

Songs by Rural Route Nine in this episode:

“Winston-Salem” - https://youtu.be/-acMutUf8IM

“Snake Drama” - https://youtu.be/xrzz8_2Mqkg

“The Bible Towers of Bluebonnet” - https://youtu.be/k7wlxTGGEIQ

 

Follow the show!

Twitter: @LoadBearingPod | @MattStokes9 | @LRothConcepts

Instagram: @loadbearingbeams

TikTok: @load.bearing.beams | @mattstokes9

Letterboxd: @loadbearinglaci | @mattstokes9

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