Episode 531: "Speak No Evil" and "Seeking Mavis Beacon"
Release Date: 09/13/2024
Episode 551: "Dog Man" and "Love Me"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
Evan and Dave are a duo this week. Dave took his children to see the ridiculous animated movie , which he - surprisingly? - liked. And both Evan and Dave took in , a romantic drama in which Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun play a buoy and a satellite falling in love long after every lifeform on Earth has gone extinct. , we discuss the 2006 Tony Scott film with Denzel Washington.
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Episode 550: "Rocky's" and "Inheritance"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
This week we watch two films, the indie comedy-drama (2:26), about five friends in their mid-20s who come together for a funeral, but first regroup in the parking lot of the 24-hour deli they loitered around in high school. Then it’s (23:11), a spy thriller with Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans as an estranged daughter and father caught in a conspiracy. (Please excuse Dave’s room noise when the podcast begins; his space heater ran for a few minutes.) , we talk about the 1989 Nicole Kidman thriller .
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Episode 549: "Wolf Man," "Night Call," and "Back in Action"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
This week Megan saw (2:20), director and co-writer ’s latest trip down the horror highway, starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner. Megan likes this new take on Universal’s legendary Wolf Man…until she doesn’t. A good start, a meh finish. Then Evan and Dave join in when the conversation turns to (16:17), Michiel Blanchart's tense and nimble French-language thriller about a locksmith (Jonathan Feltre) who has the misfortune of opening a door…TO CRIME! (See what we did there?) A seemingly innocent call makes a normal shift turn nightmarish as lead character Mady is conned into...
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Episode 548: "Get Away" and "Red Rooms"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
This week Evan, Megan, and Dave take in the new -written-and-starring horror comedy (2:50), about a family that goes to a remote Swedish island for a holiday weekend, only to be trapped as a killer is on the loose. Zoinks! Blood and guts ensue! But do the laughs follow? DO THEY?!! Two-thirds of us felt one way, and one-third of us felt another way. Then we watch (26:02), the French-Canadian drama about obsession (among other things) about the trial of a man accused of absolutely horrifying, grisley murders - all captured on video as snuff films (thankfully, the visuals of said snuff films...
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Episode 547: "I Saw the TV Glow" and "The Seed of the Sacred Fig"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
Welcome to 2025! Evan is off this week, but Megan and Dave are here to talk about (2:26), writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s horror-fantasy about Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), two teens obsessed with a TV show called “The Pink Opaque,” with airs on Saturday nights past Owen’s bedtime. This was Megan’s top movie of 2024, so she has lots to say, as does Dave, who found its performances excellent, its look great, and its steeped-in’-90s-culture vibe spot-on. But despite picking up on its trans allegory, Dave was pretty confounded, so he and Megan have a lively...
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Episode 546: Our Top 10 Movies of the Year (All Three of Us)
Spoilerpiece Theatre
It's the end of the year, and that means it's time for our top 10 lists. As members of the Boston Online Film Critics Association, we vote for what we consider the best films of the year (ya know, like critics do). Megan (4:28) goes first, followed by Dave (28:45), and finally Evan (51:51). We have some overlap, but not much! And we have a good time breaking down our reasons for liking the films we do. There are some curveballs, too, which is always fun. Over on Patreon, the results of our Hitchcock for the Holidays poll is a discussion of the 1943 thriller . It you're a patron, .
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Episode 545: "The Brutalist" and "Nosferatu"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
Ladies and gentleman, pray forgive Dave in his capacity as host this week: His rhythm was off, as he was interrupted during the Patreon segment by a restless 9-year-old. (Speaking of Patreon, , Geena Davis-starring THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT. It's a fun conversation!) This week we all watched (3:44), Brady Corbet's post-WWII epic featuring Adrien Brody as a talented architect trying to thrive in the United States while dealing with rampant antisemitism (he's a Hungarian Jew), the process of getting his wife and niece to the United States (they're stuck in Budapest), and designing and building a...
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Episode 544: "Chasing Chasing Amy," "Conclave," and "Nickel Boys"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
We start with (1:44), trans filmmaker Sav Rodgers’ documentary about his relationship with Kevin Smith’s , and an exploration of Rodgers’ reverence for Kevin Smith’s at-the-time groundbreaking but now much-more-questioned-about-its-narrative-ideas lesbian-falls-for-a-straight-man rom-com. Over the course of six years, Rodgers’ feelings change as he transitions, and interviews Smith, queer filmmakers and critics, academics, his own fiancée Riley (whom we all love), and Joey Lauren Adams, CHASING AMY’s star, who has *very* different feelings about it than writer-director Smith....
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Episode 543: "Queer," "Flow," and "Nightbitch"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
This week Megan and Dave talk about director Luca Guadagnino’s (2:28), an adaptation of William S. Burroughs 1985 novel (with a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes). Starring Daniel Craig as William Lee (a Burroughs stand-in), this movie left both Megan and Dave a little bewildered, as there were things they liked (the shooting-up scene, the color palette), and things they didn’t like (Drew Starkey’s performance as Lee’s love interest). Then Evan joins in for (22:38) an excellent animated film featuring a very cat-like cat and other animals as they survive a catastrophic flood. Finally...
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Episode 542: "Know Your Place" and "The Black Sea"
Spoilerpiece Theatre
Evan is off this week (doubtless watching PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES), so Megan and Dave take on (2:19) and (35:29) as a duo. And as with many weeks, the movies we choose are linked thematically (often accidentally). In this case, both films tackle characters with feelings of being outsiders. In KNOW YOUR PLACE, Robel (Joseph Smith) balances being a typical American teenager with the familial demands of being the child of Eritrean immigrants, and he navigates the emotional and physical fallout that comes with feeling stuck between two competing sets of demands. And in THE BLACK SEA,...
info_outlineOn this week’s show, Megan and Dave watched SPEAK NO EVIL (2:29), writer-director James Watkins’ remake of the Danish film from 2022. As with many non-American horror films remade for American audiences, the new SPEAK NO EVIL leaves the original’s first two-thirds relatively unchanged and then kicks the last third in the ass, replacing it with a watered down ending that, while not entirely stupid, ain’t exactly aces. (That being said, the Danish original is extreme. Take a listen to our reactions to it here.) So while we weren’t enamored of this new version, we think leads Mackenzie Davis and James McAvoy (at 100 percent) do excellent work, and the changes do have a few good moments sprinkled in. (And Megan likes Aisling Franciosi’s performance, too.) Then we talk about SEEKING MAVIS BEACON, a documentary by director Jazmin Jones about her attempts, along with producer Olivia McKayla Ross, to find Renée L'Esperance, the Haitian (and original) model for the software program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. We had varied reactions, with Dave being more forgiving (!!) than Megan and Evan, who feel the film is dragged down by its pacing and all the problems that can come with uneven editing. Over on Patreon, we watched another movie that has a big twist: PRIMAL FEAR with Richard Gere, Laura Linney, and Edward Norton. It was a first-time watch for Evan, and we have fun talking about how the ending and wheether it holds up 28 years later.