Dark Roots: ‘Blonde’ Is A Bombshell, Not A Biopic

Every awards season has one. A film that becomes a lightning rod for fervent criticism and then passionate defense, hot takes all around. It only makes sense that this year, it’s Blonde, which resurrects Hollywood’s premier poster girl as we’ve never seen her before, while continually luxuriating in the iconography that’s kept her star wattage […]

“Who Is Your Daddy And What Does He Do?” (#110)

If you thought we had just one bun in the oven for our lineup of Arnold Schwarzenegger comedies about birth and child-rearing — surprise! This topic is actually twins! In our previous episode, we cooed over 1988’s Twins, in which Schwarzenegger popped his cherry as a humorous leading man and wowed us with his lack […]

“The Most Fully Developed Human The World Has Ever Seen” (#109)

Arnold Schwarzenegger became world famous in the 80s as the jacked up star of macho blockbusters like Conan The Barbarian, Predator, Commando, and The Terminator. But in the late 80s and early 90s, he teamed up with Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman for a trio of family-friendly comedies, starting with 1988’s Twins. Schwarzenegger’s comic chemistry with […]

“The Big Orange Couch Is In Place, So Hop On!” (#108)

The Midnight Society must be a lot more approving than I am. Clarissa, you have some explaining to do…

“I’ll Be Right Here” (#107)

You know the score. You know the quotes. You know the poster. Forty years ago, a wrinkly alien with a magic touch waddled into moviegoers’ hearts and made E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial one of the most beloved family films ever made. Steven Spielberg’s alien opus surpassed Star Wars as the #1 film of all time and […]

The Best Of The Rest Of Film: 2021

Has it only been a year? The Academy Awards were held on April 25 last year, reducing the eligibility window for 2021 movies to ten months. Many people stayed away from theaters for long stretches of 2021 — I didn’t make it back to cinemas until July — but that didn’t stop a barrage of […]

“Reality Is Very Disappointing” (#102)

Kids don’t always have the greatest taste in entertainment. Some of what we gravitate toward as children ends up aging gracefully and becoming a classic. Take Back To The Future or Beauty And The Beast or E.T., for example. But for every E.T., there are a dozen not-so-classic titles we watched and rewatched with equal […]

Not-Oscars 2021

It’s been another unusually long awards season, though not quite as long as last year’s. The window for Academy Awards eligibility extended out of 2020 into the first couple months of 2021, meaning that some notable 2021 releases, like the Best Picture-nominated Judas And The Black Messiah, have already had their day in the sun, […]

“Would You Please Check My Head For Signs Of Spoiling?” (#101)

As we discussed in our 100th episode, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz delighted generation after generation of children, and MGM’s 1939 musical adaptation became one of the most popular and cherished motion pictures of all time. So it’s only natural that in the 80s, Disney decided to pay tribute to these Oz […]

“Bang On My Chest If You Think I’m Perfect” (#100)

Surrender, Dorothy! For the 100th episode of When We Were Young, Seth, Becky, and Chris have clicked their heels together three times and summoned a twister to whisk them all the way back to 1939, when the ultimate Hollywood classic landed on the big screen in glorious Technicolor. Watching The Wizard Of Oz has been […]

The Tens: Best Of Film 2021

I’m worried. I’m sure you are, too. It’s been a rollercoaster couple of years to be a film fan (along with everything else). 2019 was a stronger-than-average year at the movies, with sprawling, hearty, career-capping epics from major auteurs like Scorsese (The Irishman) and Tarantino (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), ambitious, adult-oriented big screen […]

Oh So Pretty: Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’

There’s a new Steven Spielberg movie in theaters. It’s about Sharks, but it isn’t another Jaws. It’s about Jets, but it isn’t a sequel to Catch Me If You Can. This is something we’ve never seen from Spielberg before — a movie musical. Spielberg’s name is synonymous with cinema in a way that no other living […]