105.5 – Rom or Com?

So a few weeks back we had a brief rumination about if a rom-com has failed if it’s not actually very funny, and so we decided to speak on that for a bit. For example, are there rom-coms that are actually funny? Of our favorites, which ones fall closer to rom than com (or manage to skillfully split the difference)? Is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World by definition a rom-com (technically, yes!)? Sure, this might have been better around Valentine’s Day as opposed to St. Patrick’s Day, but planning is hard and shut up! We also introduce the focus of our next episode, which aptly enough, is a remake of a movie that kinda drains much of the rom and com aspects of the original. Get ready for some truths dropping in two weeks!

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105 – Domino

What happens when you toss Tony Scott, Richard Kelly, the true story of a model-turned-bounty hunter, and an eclectic mess of talent into a blender with a heaping helping of meth? Well… nothing conventional, that’s for sure. Team up with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they are pummeled into submission by 2005’s Domino, starring Keira Knightley and directed by Tony Scott at his most manic. We take a look at the aggressive direction, a defiantly non-linear screenplay, and the vague feeling of unpleasantness that hits you when viewing a movie playing fast and loose with reality that’s also based on a real person who died under tragic circumstances during production. It’s a lot to talk about! Thankfully we also made a spicy (and suitably very yellow) cocktail to keep things rolling.

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104.5 – You Who Comments

It’s a game! We play another game! Leigh takes slightly-vague top comments from trailers of recent movies on YouTube and Brendan and Chris try to guess what movie the trailer in question is for. It’s fun! We like games! Also as always, our next movie is mentioned and we share a recipe for an appropriately spicy and yellow cocktail to accompany it. Games!

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104 – Just Like Heaven

Ah, the early 2000s! A special time in the history of cinema that spawned a plethora of high-concept romantic comedies. One need only look to Mark Water’s 2005 effort Just Like Heaven, in which Mark Ruffalo must deal with that bane of all apartment subletters, being haunted by the ghost of Reese Witherspoon (except she’s maybe not actually dead, it’s a whole thing). Plop yourself down on a comfortable couch with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the perils of balancing the frivolous with the emotional, the vague rules of the afterlife (or the almost-afterlife), and the question of why Reese’s character seems weirdly racist toward Asian people. All this mess and hot toddy cocktails aplenty, too!

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103.5 – New Media Resolutions

With January 2024 now well underway, we decide to discuss those lies we all tell ourselves we’ll commit to in the new year- that’s right, it’s time for resolution chat, babyyyyyy! But what with this being a podcast ostensibly about movies and other media, we’ve all made some specifically entertainment-related resolutions. Also like, those will probably be more fun than saying you’ll “improve yourself” and all that other crap. Will we read more books? Will we finally finish a particular video game? Will all those Criterion Collection movies bought during Barnes & Noble sales finally get watched? Listen and find out!

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103 – Two Night Stand

As a snowstorm hits the northeastern United States, we prophetically chose to watch a movie that deals with a freak blizzard that keeps two twenty-somethings snowed in after initially looking for a quick hook up. That’s right, as you surely can guess, it’s 2014’s Two Night Stand, a low-stakes sort-of rom-com directed by Mike Nichols’s son. Get snowed in with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they remotely watch this movie (thanks, Covid!) and discuss how rom-coms have mutated over the last decade or so, our thoughts on Miles Teller, and the genuinely unhinged act-three-romantic-gesture (truly, it’s nuts). But, uh, at least there’s a cocktail (actually, we didn’t actually get to drink our cocktail, thanks Covid!). Remember, please mask up and stuff!

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102.5 – The Closing of the Year VII

Look, we’ve done this seven times now, so we don’t need to mince words. We talk about our favorite movie of the year, our least favorite movie of the year, and then do it again but with the drinks we made. Look, it’s the end of the year! We’re trying to relax! Also our first movie of (shudder) 2024 is thrown into the ether along with a hot wintery drink to accompany it. Now please, it’s Christmas, go eat some cookies or something.

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102 – Christmas Eve

If nothing captures the true spirit of the holidays like being stuck in an elevator for an extended period of time, then 2015’s Christmas Eve is sure the holly jolliest piece of bland seasonal ephemera we’ve encountered yet! Sadly, there’s very little of said holiday spirit actually to be found here, unless you count “Patrick Stewart does a one-man Christmas Carol” or “musicians play some Christmas music” or “doctor and nurse snipe about the existence of God while an orderly tries not to piss himself.” For our annual holiday spectacular, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris briefly touch upon religious cinema, the perils of making a movie from the pitch “what if Love Actually but trapped in elevators,” and how New York looks very similar to eastern Europe. We also manage to capture the true spirit of the holidays (inebriation) with a seasonally-appropriate spritzer. Seasons greetings!

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101.5 – The Holiday Trash Movie Tier List

What better way to kick off the holiday season than with a mini-episode-in-name-only that involves ranking all the TV Christmas shlock we’ve watched over the last few years? THERE IS NO BETTER WAY. DO NOT SUGGEST OTHERWISE. Anyway, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris spend a long time mulling over a list of festive made-for-TV ephemera to decide once and for all which ones might actually approach something close to “being a good movie” and which ones are more “shit.” And much like the movies we discuss here, we’ll also be covering a Christmas movie that pretty much no one has heard of (don’t worry, you can find it on YouTube!) for our impending Holiday Spectacular (and natch there’s a drink recipe too)!

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101 – The Law and the Lady

For our latest episode, we dust off an old chestnut that’s based on an even older chestnut, both of which cumulatively are such moldy old chestnuts that you’ve probably never heard of either. We dug deep, baby! This time, we go way back to 1951’s The Law and the Lady, a very loose adaptation of a 1925 play starring Greer Garson, Fernando Lamas, and Michael Wilding as the biggest simp ever committed to celluloid. Thrill as he spinelessly pines after his partner in crime as they attempt to steal a necklace from a blustering old American lady! Cheer as both he and his partner refuse to ever act upon their emotions for no solid reason! Laugh as the old rich lady bellows loudly at anyone within ear shot! Is there a way to dust off this weirdly-unbalanced and endlessly-retooled bit of theatrical ephemera? Well, sure, probably, but no one involved here really did it. Also we drink a tea cocktail, and those are always fun.

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100.5 – A Why Watch Retrospective

Nothing is more spine-chillingly terrifying than a look back at the past! SPOOOOOOKY!!! To commemorate doing one hundred movies (yeesh) for this podcast, Leigh, Brendan, and Chris look back on their favorites and least favorites. Everyone has different definitions of these things and some people chose more than one because, you know, we like to shake things up here. Naturally we also briefly cover our next movie that we’ll tackle and we SPILL THAT TEA (or hopefully don’t because that would make a mess) with the tea-based cocktail that will accompany it. To one hundred more (I mean, sure, why not aim big)!

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100 – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Like a full moon occurring on Halloween, this year our annual Spooktacular episode coincides with our 100th episode. How exhausting to think about! To commemorate this occasion, we dust off a movie we’ve kicked around covering for years, dunked in a vat of eels and amniotic fluid, and brought it to horrible, horrible life. That’s right, it’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh’s turgid adaptation of the classic sci-fi / horror / sin against God novel. Leigh, Brendan, and Chris go back in time to discuss Hollywood’s brief infatuation with prestigious horror movies based on literature, the film’s tendency to deliver dialogue as though it’s playing to the last row of the balcony, and Branagh’s inability to keep the damn camera still. We also make a suitably sour cocktail to mimic the sensation of being brought back to life by the jolt of a swarm of electric eels. SHOCKING, isn’t it?

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99.5 – Pitcher’s Mound – Jukebox Musical: What’s Up, Doc?

At long last, closure! Our jukebox musical mini-episode miniseries comes to a manic conclusion with the ultimate theatrical cop out- a jukebox musical based on a movie. That’s right, for Brendan’s turn he’s taken the Great American Songbook-esque tunes peppered throughout the 1972 Peter Bogdanovich screwball throwback What’s Up, Doc? and attempted to turn them into the spine of a theatrical adaptation. There’s also some other changes in there, so don’t worry, it’s less lazy than it sounds on paper. We’re also prepping for our annual Halloween spooktacular (and 100th episode), and we can think of no better way to do so than by getting pretty drunk for the occasion so be sure to try out the cocktail we’ll be making for it.

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99 – I’m with Lucy

In today’s increasingly fragmented society, one fact is sadly becoming more and more evident: you are either with Lucy or against Lucy. To get to the bottom of this hot-button issue we decided to watch Jon Sherman’s 2002 romantic comedy, I’m with Lucy, a fairly simple movie bogged down by multiple gimmicks designed to make everything more intriguing than it actually is. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we talk about Monica Potter and her coterie of five potential love interests- a sexy douchebag, a misogynist jock, a horny international-type, a nerd, and miscellaneous. We spend a lot of time covering the five dates, but also discuss bogging your plot down with a load of high-concept nonsense and how the blond WASPy Monica Potter was somehow begat by uber-mensch Harold Ramis. And hey, it’s a pretty easy cocktail we made to accompany this one, because we all deserve a lil break.

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98.5 – Pitcher’s Mound – Jukebox Musical: The Bacchae

As our summer murder mystery miniseries has ended, our entirely different mini-episode miniseries is still well underway, and in this episode there’s a lot of ancient drama served up with it. This time, we continue our individual jukebox musical pitches with Chris stepping up to bat. Get ready for a lot of 80s alternative / pop / punk mixed in with some ancient Greek drama- a night of theater with plenty of singing, dancing, and messy dismemberment! Also we introduce our lower stakes movie for September and an equally lower stakes cocktail to accompany it, because we all know things will get more hectic as the holiday season kicks in so for the love of god can’t we just relax for a bit now???

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98 – Young Sherlock Holmes

As with all good mysteries, our murder mystery-themed summer is drawing to its natural conclusion with a not-good mystery. In this episode, we’re going back in time to both the 1980s and the 1870s with Barry Levinson’s Young Sherlock Holmes, a prequel featuring the famous detective but younger and with a less involved mystery. Enroll in a Victorian boarding school with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they discuss the Sherlock Holmes mythos, the Temple of Doom-style vibes the mystery itself gives off, and how every character here is maybe .5 dimensional at best. Also, it turns out the villains are a murderous cult of Egyptians seeking justice because a bunch of British dudes destroyed their homes, which definitely holds up when viewed through a contemporary lens. Naturally, we also drink a tea-based summer cocktail to get ourselves into the mood of “England during a snowy winter,” which really helps when it’s like 90 degrees and constantly muggy outside.

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97.5 – Pitcher’s Mound – Jukebox Musical: Underclass Heroes

As summer draws to its unbearably hot closure, we dust off an old mini episode topic chestnut, Pitcher’s Mound! That’s right, that thing where we pitch a movie, or in this case, a MUUUUUUSICAL! A jukebox musical, point of fact. The first of three (!) mini episodes kicks off with Leigh pitching her very specifically-focused punk rock jukebox musical featuring a lot of music you might remember from the early 2000s and such. Sorry about the air conditioning, to repeat, it was VERY hot. Almost as hot as the ticket sales will be when this baby hits Broadway! Also we announce our final Summer of Murder Mystery movie and the drink that will accompany it, wot wot.

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97 – Death on the Nile

Much like Kenneth Branagh’s recently-discovered passion project of making Sad Boi adaptations of Hercule Poirot mysteries, our Summer of Murder Mystery continues unabated with 2022’s Death on the Nile, a limp effort starring a cast that couldn’t be more cursed if they desecrated a pharaoh’s tomb. Hope aboard the S.S. Karnak with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we try to solve the dual mystery of who killed Gal Gadot (honestly, you probably don’t need Poirot for this one, it’s pretty easy to work out on your own) and why Gal Gadot keeps getting cast in things. Also up for discussion- the weirdly lumpy plot structure, how successful the movie is at updating certain elements, and the lengthy prologue in which the origins of Porot’s mustache are at long last revealed. And of course, we drink enough champagne… to fill the Nile! Or at least enough to fill a few champagne flutes, anyway. Listen up and have your immmmmorrrtal longings fulfilled!

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96.5 – Getting Dahled Up

Hey, did you hear about how the UK publisher of the Roald Dahl books did some weird overcorrections that no one seems to have asked for and removed words like “fat” or the mystery of why women might wear wigs from their most recent editions? Or how Disney apparently is censoring language from the streaming version of The French Connection, lest you be shocked that New York cops in the 70s tossed around racial slurs? Well, we did and we decided to talk about it, so please Hollywood allow us to record introductions to this sort of material placing it in context, our prices are cheap. Also we introduce the second movie of our Summer of Murder Mystery and the drink we’ll be guzzling to make it feel like a well-paced plot.

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96 – Radioland Murders

The sweaty misery of summer is finally upon us, and what better way to forget our reality than the comforting escapism that only murder can provide? (We see you, Albert Camus’s The Stranger!) Our Summer of Murder Mystery kicks off with the forgotten 1994 mystery / slapstick comedy / farce / comedy of remarriage / so much other crap, Radioland Murders, straight from the minds that brought you American Graffiti (and Howard the Duck). Leigh, Brendan, and Chris dive into this exhausting mess of over-the-top shtick and antics, attempting to make some sense of what the hell this movie was supposed to even be. Truly, there’s something for everyone here (provided you are a baby boomer who loves old radio programs and farcical comedy), including an appropriately old-timey cocktail accompaniment, so heck, give it a watch and you’ll probably find SOMEthing that works for you.

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95.5 – Raiders of the Lost Media

In this Why Watch mini episode, we’re living in the Land of the Lost! And by that, we mean we live in a world where we were initially promised that streaming content online would allow unimaginable access to movies and television, only to find shockingly that we actually live in a world where exclusive content can be taken down and hidden on a hard drive somewhere to suit the whims of large horrific media conglomerates. While the concept of “lost media” is nothing new, we seem to be entering an entirely different way of classifying things as such. For example, what happens when you spend a bunch of time and money making a Batgirl movie, then your new corporate overlord decides to bury it in a box somewhere for tax purposes? Anyway, we use recent events stemming from these sorts of decisions as a springboard to talk about a variety of topics related to what happens when you can no longer watch something legally (or indeed, if you’re not allowed to ever see it at all). As is fitting for such a mysterious topic, we also reveal the theme of our summer block of movies along with an old-timey drink to accompany our next subject, which will surely bring you back to the time when media was mostly considered lost because no one thought to record it or left the film in a shoebox in Argentina or something.

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95 – Dead Again

When an amnesiac woman and a hardboiled detective with a very heightened American accent discover through the magic of hypnosis that they were married in a past life (until a grisly murder by scissors cut things short), how long will they be able to maintain a relationship until one of them is dead… AGAIN? The answer, mercifully, is about 90 or so minutes. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they watch the 1991 neo-noir (?) gothic romance (??) mystery thriller (???) Dead Again, directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, which affords him the luxury of going over-the-top in two separate roles. What’s the deal with all the lame pop psychology? What the hell is this movie going for in terms of tone or plot? Could anyone have taken this post-modern puree of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles and made it into something consistent and entertaining? Well… we try to! Also our good friend Faith is back AND she brought cookies to accompany our cocktail, so hey, at least this has that going for it!

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94.5 – Hot Takes for My Real Friends, Real Takes for My Hot Friends

As the weather starts to heat up, the temperature of our takes go right with it! Get all warm and toasty with Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we present a deeply-held opinion in the form of an absurdly hot take, and then attempt to defend it calmly and rationally. Slip on your oven mitts before you pick up your phone after listening to this, because these takes are… rather hot!* Also as per usual there’s a new drink recipe to accompany our next movie, so be sure to listen to that far more lukewarm bit before you scald yourself on these takes, babyyyyy!

*Editor’s Note: These takes may be less hot than previously stated.

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94 – Bride Wars

Fourteen years ago in a city not very far away.…

BRIDE WARS

Episode I
THE FEMININE MENACE

Turmoil has engulfed the nuptials of Emma Allan and Olivia Lerner. After a minor clerical error results in their separate weddings being booked on the same day at the same venue, their friendship is in dispute.

Hoping to resolve the matter with a series of trite and vapid pranks, the two would-be brides have stopped all semblances of judgement and maturity.

While their two-dimensional friends and boring fiancees endlessly debate this humorless chain of events, CHRIS REVELLE has secretly dispatched his fellow Why Did We Watch This? hosts, LEIGH DELAHANTY, and BRENDAN DRISCHLER, to discuss the lamentable 2009 romantic comedy (?) Bride Wars, much to the chagrin of all parties….

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93.5 – The Great Gamification

It sure seems like video games, the hot new trend among today’s youths, are here to stay! In fact, it seems that these have become so popular, they’ve started to transform motion pictures into video games! It’s true! Granted, some of these adaptations have been… questionable in quality, to say the least. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they think back upon some of the video games we’ve played based on movies, and then have a discussion about what video games based on movies we’ve covered for this podcast might be like. How many of these shitty rom coms could have been mildly more interesting dating sims? Find out! And speaking of shitty rom coms, we kind of have one of those coming up next, and trust us, you’ll want to be drunk for this one.

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93 – The Bourne Legacy

How do you keep your franchise going when the lead actor has no interest in reprising the main character and you don’t want to recast them? Well, you simply shift focus to another character who has never been shown or mentioned before and has similar abilities to your former main character but got them through science and magic rather than practice and training. Feeling sweaty yet? Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as we watch 2012’s The Bourne Legacy, a tangent with big hopes and dreams that does all of the above and sadly much more. Perhaps if you watched any of the previous Matt Damon outings and wished that there had been less punching and more middle-aged white men yelling while looking at computers, you’ll find yourself in this movie’s heretofore undiscovered target audience. If not, well, at least we had a pretty good martini to drink while we tried to make sense of everything.

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92.5 – Looking 2.5 Score

For our latest mini episode, we present part two of a part two mini episode. No, just go with it, it’s okay. Rather than cover all of our second Looking to Score discussion from four weeks ago as one long episode, we decided to do it in two for your listening convenience. This time, we’re ostensibly covering a piece of orchestral dance music by Stephen Sondheim and a ballet piece reconceived in a wildly different context for an animated movie. Also, we bullshit a lot about our next movie without having even seen it and introduce a cocktail that (much like said movie’s protagonist) should undergo a fascinating transformation as you watch it! Please, sip slowly for full effect.

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92 – Willow

In our latest episode, we return to that fertile well of 1980s fantasy movies and pull out a big sloshy bucket of Willow, George Lucas’s long-gestating story about a little person who wants to be a wizard and some other magic shit as filtered through the generically-competent lens of Ron Howard. Listen in as Leigh, Brendan, and Chris talk about a movie that we were all dimly aware of but had never seen before, despite being made of a lot familiar tropes that we have, indeed, seen many many times before. Topics for discussion include the ambitious and occasionally confusing world being featured, the sheer amount of acting that’s going on, and why Sorsha is one of the worst female characters we’ve encountered in quite a while (and we’re watched a LOT of terrible rom coms). And of course, despite having to record this episode virtually thanks a to grab bag of illnesses, we enjoy a lovely purple cocktail to temper things slightly. Remember, please don’t drink if you plan to STEAL A BABAAAYYYY.

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91.5 – Looking 2 Score

Our oft-featured discussion on film music (and music from other forms of media) returns with a mighty vengeance in our latest mini. LISTEN, won’t you, as we discuss some scores used in both movies and video games and try to avoid having this episode taken down for copyright infringement by talking over the music. It’s hard! Also, next episode will tackle a movie that seems to be a beloved cult classic in some way but none of us had actually seen until recently. Naturally, we’ll be drinking a themed cocktail to help us get through a potentially-messy 80s fantasy world.

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91 – How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

It’s time for our annual Valentine’s Day rom com episode, and nothing says romance like two duplicitous people enacting horrific deceptions upon each other in an attempt to advance their positions at work. This horrific web of deceit is the plot that forms the backbone of 2003’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, starring Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, and a bunch of supporting actors in thankless roles. Join Leigh, Brendan, and Chris as they revisit this beloved (?) romantic comedy that’s just slightly heightened enough to be mildly interesting but just unpleasant enough to leave you slightly loathing everyone involved here. Take your shoes off and breathe out as we discuss the state of the rom com in 2003, the cinematic forefathers of a romance built entirely on a horrible foundation of lies, and our continued reevaluation of Kate Hudson’s career. Perhaps fittingly, our themed cocktail this month is almost entirely alcohol, so get ready to frost yourself pretty hard.

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